Show FLORENCE ROBERTS MAKES SUCCESS IN NEW YORK BY FRANKLIN FYLES New York April 20 Not even an old fellow at the trade no matter how hard he tries to can see all there Is in ina ina 4 a new play unless it is performed ade adequately adequately adequately Easter week besides giving a general arousal to the drama in New NewYork NewYork NewYork York has hag brought a big batch of char charity charity charily ity ily matinees At two of them The Mallets Masterpiece was acted once badly by duffers and once cleverly by b experts exp and the difference showed ii how much authors are dependent on the interpreters of or their ideas This tta by Edward has the whimsical conceit of a statue struck with a mallet by a malevolent enemy of o Its sculptor with the intent to spoil It but with the accidental result of giving gl gling givIng ing it the lacking stroke to make It a masterpiece The marble is the original Venus of Milo Mile holding a babe in the arm that afterward was lost and the altogether is so fanciful that it seemed merely merel foolish in the poor pres presentation presentation and delightfully unique when proficiently set forth H n Mrs Fiske Fisko and Margaret Anglin in renewals of Becky Sharp and the Zira version of The New Magda lagda Magdalen len ana Florence Roberts in the In Introduction Introduction introduction here of The Strength of the Weak are enacting as Miss Mor Mar Morris Morris Marris ris did In her day heroines guilty of some of the vice which agonizes them Miss Roberts and her play are arc known in n the west but new here and maybe her hope of passing Miss Anglin get getting gett getting ting t ng alongside Miss Morris and ap approaching proa Mrs Fiske will be bo realized She is in one way ay or or another r like each of them and the play by Alice M I Smith and Charlotte Thompson is of ofa ofa ofa a kind with those tho e that they have used effectually The reader is already aware most likely that the central girl is an orphan who is misled by her guardian falls faUs in love with his son her own discovers her dreadful plight and escapes from it by suicide to whatever fate may await awalt her at the further side of death The play although it gave a shock to Its first audience made a profoundly so sober sober sober ber serious Impression and Miss Rob Roberts Roberts Robarts erts arts own success was sure and strong S A musical joke by Victor Herbert is isone isono isone one ono of the saliencies saUen les in this Easter spell of special entertainments The bill said that Heinrich Conned Conried was to be beaten by a year In the American production of next seasons operatic novelty n velty Even the title of Thorns Thoms Hute give sive to many in the audience the tip that the thing was a travesty of Un Tin Uncle Uncle Tincle cle Toms Cabin Herbert took the conductors stand waved his baton in conscious pride and started a big or orchestra ort It t chestra into a crashing Wagnerian h overture Had the American composer j descended to Imitation of the greater German No Variants were heard I immediately They were puzzling lapses from the Wagnerian method They sounded like Ike I with breaks they became b came camett tt more impudent and at length were 1 openly insulting with ragtime hunks of f i t negro melody S S S e The curtain went up on a storm i scene with visible stage hands work working working working ing the wind wheel the rain box the lightning pan and nd the thunder gong f The escaping Eliza appeared with her herI I child in a baby carriage and trundled it across the plank water of a river riverA fr A pasteboard bloodhound was pushed 1 after af r her with a pole Dole by Legree But Eva enticed the dog from duty with a achl chicken which Uncle Tom at once stole from both the child and the brute Then Thell plantation negroes gathered in inthe inthe r the garb of or Alpine mountaineers and after yodeling some Wagner stuff they quit him altogether for ragtime finish finishIng finishing Ing lug with an minstrel walk round for The music of this joke was played by a dozen soloists from irom Herberts own orchestra and sung 4 by a chorus of vocalists ordinarily 3 heard on the stage as principals for forthe forthe the performance was given gien by b r Lambs dub club volunteers who have been hired l but did it with gusto for fun funA funA funA A matinee in honor of the late Mrs G H Glbert Gilbert was a church and stage affair as the money mone was to go for a memorial window in the church where the stage woman had been a worship ed l The pastor made an address and then in the course of the thc theatrical en Clara Clard Morris enacted a avery aS S very and variously sinful character Odette a wife who stop at going astray neatly but took to 4 opium and became a sodden outcast It was a bold exploit to introduce such sucha su h ha ha a creature to an audience that was considerably cons like a congregation tion How However However However ever the moral lesson taught by b anguish when her depravity was exposed to her young daughter may have won n the church peoples ap up To the theatrical con It was a satisfaction to see lara Morris though changed sadly by years of wrenching illness can yet Vet re kindle the fire which during the decade of flamed fiercely in a series of heroines She believes with many of the playwrights that tainted women are of more dramatic value than those who are clean cleanA cleanS S S S e SA A wife who pretends to be a widow is the naughty woman In What the Butler Saw but she bad enough to be wicked and her falsity comes to nothing worse than flirtation Besides that she is incited to the deception by t her own husband whom she finds at a resort hotel having haIng a Jolly time in the guise of a bachelor among girls Ho He begs her not to put him into an awk awkward awkward awkward ward predicament by exposing his im imposture imPosture imposture posture and she assents if It he will in introduce introduce Introduce her as his widowed law Jaw Thereafter they are the centers q of two circles his feminine hers mas masculine masculine It culine and both rhapsodic in admira admiration admiration admiration tion The plan of the play calls calIs for attractive of the husband and wife James Neill Nom and Maude Knowlton of ot repute westward but strangers in New York have been brought here for the purpose and they serve servo it pretty well weIl although I fancy that farcicality does not introduce them at their best However they are a change from the sameness of casts made up from Broadway favorites and that of Itself Is a reason why we should t be glad to form their acquaintance acquaintanceS S S S From the opposite direction What f the Butler Saw has been brought It has lived p in London a year and a half at one of Sir Charles hams theatres but in both matter and manner it Is so that until the recent success of similar farces in New York none of our managers would take the risk of ot bringing It over The percentage of Its fun appreciable here is large however for it arises from a quite American style of and that surely Is i a novelty on the stage by the wife as audaciously as asby asby asby by the husband in the course of their flirtatious flirtations The main complication is that the husband turning at length from the maidens to his wife on seeing that the young fellows are getting at ather her is teasingly repulsed Dont forget that you are only my she says and so you a brothers right to kiss me menor menor menor nor should you kiss your brothers widow when the law forbids you to marry her So go away hubby go away aay All AU the same he will go to her room after the guests have gone to bed for forthe forthe forthe the night Before that time she changes quarters with an ugly old maid and nd lets him hh 1 open the wrong door with a skeleton key Then comes a scream and a scandalizing arousal of the whole hotel S S S What are the words that are are sung on the stage to a Sousa march You will never find out by gong g to The Free FreeLance FreeLance FreeLance Lance which contains one of those swinging martial airs that make John JQhn Philip Sousa a popular compoSer The first New York audience its women glittering and glistening in a display of jewels and gorgeous gowns was there to hear a new Sousa march and wanted it right away A peculiarly pretentious and very formal opening ope ing chorus which a of fantastically fantastically cally dressed folk assured us that they were artists of ot the kingdom of Brag and repeated it so many times that we began to believe them Then Nella Bergen ran in handsome handsomely ly and enjoyed the applause that greet greeted greeted ed her De Do Wolf Hoppers wife had kept off oft the fat to burden her and her always beautiful voice attended to by a physician throughout the evening had a chance to be he heard at the outset In a right good song about a maiden who under undertook undertook undertook took to learn what love is She asked a nun and the good womans womas answer anser gave grave Sousa and Miss Bergen an opportunity opportunity opportunity for music of religious dignity that was beautiful The gay coquettes response was hardly so pretty and not nearly so worthy Next the maid ques questioned questioned questioned a soldier and nd it was then that the people shook their spangles to sit up straight and hear what Sousa had done in his own particular field I know to answer my my opening question that the chorus was meant to voice a soldiers understanding of love not be because cruse cause I could distinguish the words above the din and uproar of the music but through noting and remembering the music cue that prefaced the march It was splendidly spirited and roke forth with such terrific force that hard to guess how it could be maintained If they start the act 3 t like that said one man what will they have left to finish with 1 The same thing said his friend with a brass band blind added and that was the right answer 5 5 5 Henry B Smith has written the words of more comic operas than any other American but if It his libretto for forThe forThe forThe The Free Lance had been his first he would not now be rich enough to buy valuable antique art and rare books bools which is a hobby that his suc sue success success cess permits The audience scented staleness s when Nella Bergen explained that she was a princess princes to a whom she lad had never seen be because because because cause her father Emperor of Bragga docia doda was kras vas in debt to the princes dad Duke Dule of And when she changed hanged her clothes with a shepherd shepherdess ess and fell in love with the tenor prince dho had assumed a shepherds disguise for the similar purpose of es escaping escaping caping the th audience made no sign of protest against the inevitable two comic monarchs and their two as comic ministers S S S e SNeed Need I describe those comical cusses You already know them well weIl But Joseph Cawthorne the chief come comedian comedian comedian dian of the play should have h ve a blue ribbon of critical mention pinned on him He was a brigand who had lost his hair and with it his bravery so that he was reduced to tending sheep He had the Jeanette J for a companion in tomfoolery his German dialect stood by him and he came to final victory when with his hair and consequently ons his hi courage re restored stored by a witch he marched against a the armies of both potentates to Sousa music giving them and the audience a aSousa aRousa aSousa Sousa Rousa martial knockout Sousa the Great gazed on the tri tn triumph triumph of his music from the enthrone of a box until re ies the end of the first act then he aro arose aroe e withdrew anti and an reappeared appeared r in a side aisle to which all eyes at once turned firm f em the stage show Applause attended his progress pr gress all the way up that aisle and down the center one drowning the voices on the stage stae and tremendously he had bowed from the conductors plat platform platform platform form Then a brats brass band came out and the new Sousa march nearly blew the roof off the theatre Sousa made mad a speech that stingy with words He told how he long he had been away and how he felt on returning he ex cx explained explained the various mental phenomena ph of oC his gratitude he called caned for Mr Smith who respond and he told of friends at three of his clubs remark remarking remarkIng ing In that while his marches were wore sure things of course what about the other music the libretto tto and the legs of girls He gave an anecdote about stage legs and promised a display of them in inthe inthe inthe the next act However The Free Lance contin continued to the end without slumping rom m comic opera into musical fare fane and nd there Utere was no indecorous of chorus girls They had been engaged enga ed for nothing lower down than their voices which were eX and the composers promise of les le legs s was war kept kert kel t solely by two women who ho put on ra ex ec exhibition EXhibition little more than legitimate ac cc actresses actresses tresses do when they pay Hosa or Gr Viola S 5 5 The showing of girls In the other new beauty play The Social Whirl is so violent that one of df its s is bro bra broken broken braken ken which seems to prove that ballet allet l kicking Is physically if not cot morally as bad as it looks and worse besides There is an of or rainy daisie who are supposed to be bc caught in a shower They carry umbrellas spread and hold their skirts clear of the ground as they stroll stron and sing Eight more girls these dressed as bootblack boys set out a row of high chairs close behind the footlights The first eight take seats eats and place each a foot on a box to have the gaiter brushed There Is a swishing of white petticoats and a of black stockings at every change of feet whereat the boot bootblacks bootblacks bootblacks blacks turn their faces away from the customers and toward the audience to wink knowingly and sing Its a shame to take the money for a cinch like this Then the roguish spring from the chairs ch lr there t e is I a a whirl of black and white hosiery and dimity around their ther heads and they run runaway runaway runaway away as though afraid the Johnnies S 4 Ii A I I Ia a I t kZ I I I 4 J I j an tr J V a S I J 1 I 5 t i a Li c 4 j a ri t i i t e k 4 Lt Scene From The Christian at the Salt Lake Theatre In the front rows will viII catch them if they dont get ge g out z The broken Ur rainy daisy leg le be belongs belongs belongs longs to a girl who slipped and fell Perhaps she was working for a living Jiving and in any case cas she is too be pitied for both what she he was doing and hat be fel her while doing dong it Yet she may have taken the deplorable job solely because it would have been pleasure plea ure able to her but for the accident For Jor Forin Jorin Forin in that same is the daughter of ofa ofa ofa a deceased United States army gen general general general eral and sister of a captain affianced to a great heiress with a mother of social account and herself sufficiently a belle beIle to have been a n toasted guest of pur toppy Seventh regiment at a formal presentation pre of her fathers portrait I give these particulars without the name to show that at least one nur nurtured nurtured nurtured cultured luxuriated young wo woman woman woman man i sa show girl for the sake al e of the t e frolic If I were married she Is quoted to tome tome me as ac saying of course I w do this sort of thing but I dont see seewhy seewhy seewhy I why a he have hert her lier fUng while s free And nd you see Ill al always always i ways be able to say that Ive been an actress gether gether a series seres of incidents that hold the interest as has Jas ms nothing that has come come before b fore it The situations n the mo motives motives tives the characters commingle with without without without out the least jarring or tugging or straining giving a pleasing finesse to tU toa toa tUa a story that is said to be |