Show r Broadway Broa Being Tried With Mediocre Plays BY FRANKLIN FYLES PYLES New Kew York March IS Makers of plays with songs dances dandes arid aria antics for forthe forthe forthe the theatres are like sheep heep in following A Jl bellwether over a dra dramatic dramatic ra matic wall George G rge W 1 bf t latest several seer l shows have had bad plots that might have come from Kraemer or Blaney for their crimes of larceny up to murder yet ret are aTe replete with vaudeville sorts of I foolery and outfitted fully rully with chorus ballet b girls At t first it seem to tome tome tome me that the tha inharmonious elements could be mixed to the publics liking hut but I was mistaken and as Cohan has hB no nu patent on the new combination his original model is s being copied The newest of or these Imitative conglomerates ates is The Flower of the Ranch Its serious structure is a cowboy and In Indian Han dian drama of or California with a lost found stolen again and finally recovered recovEred recovered ered land claim young man with lynching as a cattle thief a villainous sheriff with a greaser for an assistant and an Indian chief on the trail of ot his daughters white de despoiler despoiler spoiler Next time I see a composite of at this sort I shall time Ume the various arlous parts As to this one my best guess if I is that hat the melodramatic spells make up of or the whole show The au audience audience audience that I saw was of or a grade and was wall led Jed by the gun play and knife hes as Is usual at performances of ot out outfight outright right fight melodrama In New York The thorough enjoyment though was dur durIng during ing ng Ing the merrily nonsensical and prettily sensuous of or the the evening Could the th principal girl in The Flower of or the Ranch be other than our old young friend Bret Hartes Mliss tile the ward and pet of a community of settlers As the actress of or Little Flow Flower Flo er fr Is Mabel Barrison and as the writer of ot the play pIa music and all aU Is her hus husband husband band b nd John E Howard that human flower buds blossoms and I all aU over Othe the stage If It Mabel were barely sixteen as Little Flower Is de declared flared to be and still growing so fast that cl ile e c cant keep her ber knees under her petticoats the Gerry society would feel bound to rescue her asan as an overworked hUd child She is the one and only prima donna and soubrette pre premiere premiere premiere danseuse and and she has so ouch much talent and vim In drollery that she gets tired without getting tire tiresome tiresome some Howard enacts the he 3 a and doea does all the male sentimental singing but he Tie tolerates a 3 leading comedian In Ike Oliver so Mabel plays to two op opposites as stage folks put It Joe in Inthe Intile tile the pathos and Ike In the fun tun The maker of oC The Flower of the Ranch has endeavored endea ored first of or all to exhibit girls In new aspects There are fourteen of ot them not counting coU ting players of ot parts and all are pretty but not one Is beautiful Too much must not be expected When hen you pay one dollar not two for a parquet chair Wheres your our seat a rounder asked In I the I replied Youve made a mistake said he lIe heIm lIem Im tm m bAck in the sixteenth I get way down front at a Broadway girl show but way a back hack when its in Harlem and aud Ive brought no opera glass along either Thus admonished I T gave gavle attention to the fourteen girls collectively and scrutinize their faces separately separate The spectacles thus viewed were w re satisfactory tory to those who forgot to look upon a 1 of agile agU graceful Jr scantily clad lad girls without Scarcely five fie minutes after the curtain v went up eight of theme dash d Into view v Jew lew as rough riders mounted on them themselves themselves themselves selves as bucking that is they were in horses horse bodies which Instead of oC equine four legs apiece had a human humar pair and these creatures reared plunged and were coquettishly skittish while Little Flower delivered a Lady Gay Spanker Spank sort of account of a e she had bad just won Soon the six sib other oth r girls ar arrived arrived arrived rived in the guise of college colleg chums of or orthe the local jaunty In travel travelIng travelIng Ing ng suits to be received by the cowboys in a song and dance A little later all the girls while ch to the cow cowboys cowboys cowboys boys reminiscent song of or California in 49 9 formed an instantaneous tableau of ofa ofa ofa a stage coach with passengers held up by robbers That was ingenious So was the opening of or the second act with hanging strips of illumined flowers which proved to tot be a chime of bells when pulled to ring out a tune The girls were shown too as Mexican senoritas sen senoritas Indian squaws idealized cow cowpunchers c cowpunchers w punchers and lariat twirlers e The crowning pride and glory glor of ot The Flower of the Ranch though is its girls in Introductorily Introductory Mabel Barrison and Ike Oliver Oli er sing a ab ballad b pf Of The Pajama and the Nightie operating one of or each on a clothesline to illustrate a flirtation by those two garments on a windy night Next six girls appear in pajamas and when the people have inspected them the eight others come forth In nighties Every extravaganza since Florodora must needs have a saunter sauntering sauntering sauntering ing song and chorus to be made much muc of or oti and by putting these girls through a variety of poses and movements ments help helping helping ing them out with the of hulking men similarly unclad and mak makIng mak Ing a climax of Mabel and Ike in comic cuts of oC the usually private raiment of slumber an effort Is made to set folks talks talking about The Flower of the Ranch The newspapers of or Manhattan bor borough borough borough ough pay no attention to new plays in inthe inthe the Brooklyn and Bronx boroughs of New ew York City Edward H Sothern presented presented in Brooklyn The Fool Hath Said S ld There Is no God three months I described it fully but not a word about It was published in Man Ian Manhattan Manhattan hattan This week It Is given at the theatrical center of the city and many columns are devoted to It Sometimes however my excursions across Man Manhattan Manhattan hattan boroughs border fail fall to find what I expect The T e title of The Big Stick lured me last week to the Bronx only to discover that tha the stick but a lIt in a com comedy comedy comedy edy for the Four Mort ens This week I go In hope to see some someone someone someone one or another of oC culprits in Citizens for the theauthor theauthor theauthor author is the iconoclastic Lee Arthur and the trip is noU nob no quite a fools er errand errand errand rand as the them theme of the play Is the kind of that the president pre has assailed Arthur has made a big stick or of his pen and hit Wall street with a puncturing stab and a bruising blow And the newspapers of Manhat Manhattan tan told Wall Vall street that It Is hurt The thesis of The Undesirable Cit Citizens CitIzens Citizens is that the operators in Wall Wallstreet Wallstreet Wallstreet street are not straight gamblers nor square dealers but crooked and Irregular In doctoring the chances for outside players The il illustrative case Is 15 that of a high highbrowed highbrowed highbrowed and bighearted manufacturer er whose business got ot caught in the money panic of last autumn and who to raise cash with which to pay his workmen sells his name to be used as asa asa asa a guaranty that a crooked gambling house is straight His sweethearts brother is caught In the trap thus bait balt baited baited ed ell and loses Josei her fortune Thus it is reasonable for the injured heroine to hate the misunderstood hero for a while The undesirable citizens use her during that time in a political al campaign to defeat the manufacturers canvass for tor congress The particulars dont make an engrossing play jour jour journalism p politics and finance are reck recklessly recKlessly recklessly lessly maligned too many men of those callings are represented as undesirable ble citizens yet it miss fire as a popular show How can It when it contains blithesome things such as the stock bettors in a brokers office stopping the stress of or business to sing and dance with the pretty type typewriters t In Brooklyn b rough three months ago I saw Edward H Sothern offer otter The Fool Hath Said There Is no God to an audience which discerned naught in it as I told iou ou at the time beyond a tediously dull uh U melodrama and not so much as a brief paragraph in a Manhattan borough Journal was given to it This week Manhattans reviewers are filling columns with dis discussion discussion discussion of its introduction into Int Broad Broadway Broadway Broadway way The point impressed on me inthis In Inthis Inthis this second view Ie is that th t the effectual effectuality ity of or a play depends on the audience quite as much as on the matter itself or the manner of its delivery ry This melodrama you will remember was wa made by Henry Irvings son Laurence from famous novel noel Crime and Punishment in which an agnostic anarchistic and neurasthenic student murders and robs a miserly oppressor of oC some orphaned children so as to get the crux cru ones oIes money for forthe forthe forthe the starving victims The murderer believes his deed is Just and is proud of ot it yet et so is he hg h so Im Imaginative and apprehensive that he fancies the police detectives suspect him and through his own fright prow pro I vides the clues for them to convict him himA A dull audience In Brooklyn took no account of or the ethical study and was bored by the discussions of the moral political and religious aspects of or the students crime But an audience In Broadway sat alert alet and thoughtful during the three hours and a a quarter that Sothern indulged his habit of pro prolonging longing his performances It was observable however that the somewhat drowsily appreciative audi audience audience audience ence was roused perceptibly by that one of the six acts in i which what our police call the third degree was worked on the student For a third of an hour the question of ot the murders right or wrong was set aside and merely melodramatic interest was sus sustained sustained sustained by the law officers tricks to extract a confession conCession This portion of the drama would go as well In the Bowery as In Broadway It created the same Interest in people of oC extra cul cui culture culture ture that all grades of detective fiction fic fiction tion from the stories of Sherlock Holmes to those of Old Sleuth do in inthe Inthe inthe the multitude The culprits resolute courage and cowardly terror are ex expressed expressed expressed pressed acutely by Sothern and the sympathy is with him so positively that when the gory corpse of his vic victim victim victim tim Is exposed to him suddenly his agonized cry of confession is followed by b the audiences sigh of pity and re regret regret regret gret I fear that although at the thc end The Thc Fool Hath Said There Is No God converts the student to Christianity Chris Chrls Christianity in the play not in to the book bookis is is also an excuse for black hand murders and an incitement to the as assassination assassination assassination of ot ruler So far faras as I could judge Irvings re religious religious religious twist of or utterly story did not appeal po potently potently potently to Broadway people They gave gae gaethe the gravest attention from S 8 to past 11 to the students stud anarchistic and nihilistic justification of his crime and I think most Of them expected if it they quite hope that he would stay steadfast to his conscientious criminality to the end of ot the the play as ashe ashe ashe he does in the novel but Irving and Sothern at 1110 have his pious sweet sweetheart sweetheart heart kneel and repeat the Lords prayer That Instantly unexpectedly and unreasonably converts him to Christianity The audience hardly seemed to believe It ItA ItA itA A bachelors clergyman Is a difficult lover layer for fora a playwright to handle His piety is expected to impart sanctity to his courtship He surprise us if It he were to begin to woo with a prayer and close the betrothal with a benediction Barrie wrought excellent comedy out of ot some old Scotch dea deacons deacons deacons cons ado over their young pastors In Infatuation Infatuation infatuation In The Th Little Minister ster for fora a girl who pretended to be a wayfaring wayfaring ing fortune teller Thomas popular popularized popularized a young New York preacher in inThe inThe The Other Girl by giving muscular muscularity ity to his Christianity and having h him conduct exercises that Were not re religious religious with a pugilist in boxing b gloves Fitch created a manly not mawkish rural parson in Lovers Lane So it cant be said that the problem of or a holy man being a carnal man cant be solved in a play but an expert Is re required required required If Ir it is to be done well and novices undertake It Iti i Not often orten Is the he success or failure of or a new play with audiences asserted In this correspondence because first are not determinative and qualities of art and literature do not fix the popularity of or a stage composition tion The Rectors Garden how however ho however ever eer was brought out too late last week to be written about for last Sun Sundays Sundays Sundays days Herald and it will be taken away for burial before next Sunday so It Is not a forecast but a record that it Is a fiasco The rector r is a man of at words and not of ot deeds d and his gar garden garden garden den Is full fuU of weeds we ds although his talk is very floral flora He chatters like a nincompoop and only the manly aspect of or Actor Dustin Far Fan nuin nutt saves the Rev Dr William Prince from being a clergyman on whom you would not be surprised to find fin panta lettes instead of trousers under his priestly frock There is a wall wail to this rectors flower garden gardn with a neigh neighborly neighborly neighborly borly stairway on each side of it and by that Blanche gets t play with the rector in his yard time and time again As the actress of or Cin chioni is the softly curvilinear Grace ElUston Elliston she looks like a Cinch for short espe especially especially as the playwright never once compels the rector to climb over the wall wan into her garden IE Like Barries Thomas and sets his parish agog by going for an unsanctified yet good girl to make his wife of her However bachelor clergyman is not quite a conventional doctor of divinity who seeks surcease from his divine doctoring by raising posies and talking poetically in his back yard He used to be a lookout at a faro table in fn Helena and one night with a pal held up a stagecoach yet when he showed that blot on his to a committee which offered d the bishopric of ot Montana to him whether Protest Protestant Protestant Protestant ant Episcopal or Roman Catholic is not told It served as no bar to his high office and as last l st seen In the play he was about to go back to the northwest and be a bishop where he had been a gambler and highwayman I wonder if Author is a member of the Church and Stage society Ie In only one act does the rector get getaway getaway getaway away from his garden and then he goes to his chapel which contains his bachelor apartment for to get caught In Yes being an actor the author think of or anything but a womans visit to a mans private private private vate room for a excitement And it Is so dreadfully devilish this escapade of oC In the Rev Re Dr Princes quarters She comes back to the chapel after Sunday service and finds It empty She is prompted to find out how it feels to preach in a pulpit and mounts the stair to this one hut but before she cap can t try her voice there she hears the rector coming and tears her petticoat in hastening |