Show y MELODRAMA M SUPPLANTS COMEDY O IN NEW EW YORK I l BY FRANKLIN LI FYLES L New York Aug Au 3 Melodrama has broken the new n w theatrical th season open oper hi n 11 the Bowery Buwe ry d Fifth ti if th avenue a week e ek before afore Broadway t reawakens tw v rth th ith mu oleal comedy coined yi The flit Gair oj b tJ t 2 the 11 West W eat t and the Kins tin tl ij b 1 Diamonds tire fere the thet ai hie F boomers too l o T s aH hid crowded t by b the noisiest nc i t bier veis el at ut a alay a ablay flay blay lay A spell of rent front ex cx excitement L LJ has made t eager a er for f r it itt t tet J Vet et their la s t B dile largely argel ly tc to their heir satisfaction with Ith the lh entertain entertainments h ments Therefore the lh pieces l es are wurth it consideration t as ad examined e el of a wha the populace likes in lit h The episode in T b br th the West Nest that agitates agitated Eighth avenue ven especially es eB especially Is practically the th feame that makes for the success of i Th Girl ul of the Golden West Vest in hi Yet Owen Davis copies cople it eloB l Toni Ar Arthur Arthur r thur Jones The ertl while David Belasco although crediting it its originality to ton put tut It into new hew tt d made mado it valuable in inthe inthe Inthe the play which h he ht bought bt front from fl Clay Olay M lI I Greene as os ft n to build on un This Ibis episode is ft tt life Ufe and death game frame of cards Jonen made n a l dissolute noble nobleman man stake staka hid hil tho the wealth cf ff tho the honorable commoner who loves her ber on outs of tho the cards Belas cos game gamo wan wan poker a n girl to loco lOBO her herself self to a 3 sheriff of or Will win her outlaw lover laver from tho the noose nOOH Davis heroine has boon been by a scoundrel drel and is Ia hidden in a 0 gambling house The lover hero of tho the newer play lay an and 3 the tho In v comic Jew Jow como coma to the Tho villain and his assistant do ono one side of ot the tho stage the invaders down theother other and each pur par party ty keeps its antagonists covered with pistols Then the adventuress In the case says BIlYS that ivea may bo be b by gambling for tor the girl Instead of sh t Ing The bad woman is very evidently has traveled much and doubtless has ban seen tio Jones Jonos and Be Belasco Bela Belasco lasco la co plays Belasco permitted his her heroine heroine oine olne to reach nto her ler stocking for a n cold hand but Davis probably realizing realizing realizing ing that while audiences like to see n a Blanche Bates girl of the west win that way they stand for it itin ItIn itin in a man gambler of the west So this hero plays square wins wIng fair and for a climax the stakes chat is s the faints picturesquely The author of The Gambler of the th West Vest meant to do as well with an another another another other transfer that of Ramsay Mor ilor Morris MorrIs rIs forest fire in The Ninety and Nine The villain is determined that the heroine shall not stay lost to him He will steal her back He masks t himself and holds up a stagecoach but 1 robs It of nothing except the girl he covets This time she Is rescued by a aboy aboy aboy boy supposed tobe an Indian but when he lie and the girl talk tall about themselves they find that they are brother and sister sis sister ter he h having tanned coppery in his life Ufe with the savages The villain has been shot before he escaped by the tho boy but has used some sort of sure cure oil on his wound and andIs andIs andis Is able to sneak back to where night lias has fallen on the brother and sister If he cant have hav and hold her he would destroy her and ao so he sets fire to the dry stuff of the forest all around her Unlike the feminine villain he has not made acquainted with date melodrama else he would have seen Been that nowadays stage stase fire must look like blazes The Tho one in The Th Ninety and Nine is made by attaching strips of at cloth to gratings and illuminating illuminating illuminating them th m also from below by the same device that the serpentine dancers use Instead this incendiary merely started a moving I picture machine to throwing flames fiam s on a gauze gamm curtain It was not illusive The hero rode In Inon Inon Inon on an white horse picked his way clear of the reflections r lection on the gauze lifted the heroine now quite j and prettily limp and rode away way a with her beyond b ond the reach rc ch of oft the stereoscope e eThe t 1 The first of the old acquaintances to tobe tobe tobe be welcomed In The King of Diamonds Dia Dla Diamonds monds was the sinful siren fren She was wasas wasas wasas as red as the devil with a satin that shimmered as though she were di directly from the infernal fires firos and her surface forth glints flints from span spangles spangles spangles as though spots of hellish incan incandescence incandescence incandescence were w ro not cooled in the calm atmosphere of the church Into which she dashed herself herne r She strolled down downto to the edge of tho the stage and as I sat sal salIn satIn satin In the front row I could have touched her with a wet finger as a laundress does a flatiron to see if she would sass siss But the audience decided that she was hot stuff so quickly that no test was necessary The people wait for her to tell the gentlemanly vil villain villain villain lain who came with her that than she meant to kill the bride of a marriage ceremony about to be performed 1 but hooted jeered hissed and catcalled her herat herat herat at first sight instead of waiting until sho she should by evil deeds earn such a demonstration Not much attention was given to the th pale pink yellow and white heroine during the ceremony which made her herthe herthe herthe the wife of a rich old man while she loved a poor young one and which In iii some hazy way or other saved her fathers honor It was not until the bad brunette undertook to jab j b a knife e into her that the good blonde threw herself hersel into the activities of ff that wed wedding weddIng wedding ding She pulled out a pin that fastened her bridal veil ven and It was red devil against white angel Finley Fauley the author knew better than to let goodness triumph over badness so early in the tho play so the Bride had to tobe tobe tobe be worsted and then saved raved Peace in this holy place my chil children children children dren said a n priest The white one ono knelt in obedience and piously kissed cd the of her veil yell pin The red one saw a chance for tor foran toran foran an Impiously foul blow of ot the tho knife But aha and nay no not The priest threw off his wig whiskers and robe gripped the hand and his closed himself as the comic man of the play No words need to be wasted to tell how the cowboy hero i a was vas convicted of the gentlemanly vil villains lains murder of the old husband on onan onan onan an Arizona ranch But the tle Tucson prison to which he was sentenced must have a paragraph Yet Tet I hate to write anything that may hinder a territory from becoming a state tate However truth Is truth and congress may ma as well ell know what Is in state peni penitentiary penitentiary Our dark cell said the malevolent warden to the Innocent and rebellious convict Is a no dungeon d deep under underground underground ground bround and antI there are snakes In It to bite you and pythons to crush you i 1 If It a committee shall approve tho the w and his reptilian lo discipline in view i w o of oC the Intractability of Arizona bad iton O in lit pt prison ri hon on I do pro protest protest i test that tho the keeper l l to be bo scolded S i t 1 He Ho Is so se crookbacked that III f would look straight beside him so evil of visage that Dick Deadeye De deye would d seem a bland philanthropist In his presence so wickedly distorted in body that If you OU were wele to meet him in tae woods and Mr Hyde were to come along you would fly trustfully to Dr embodiment of diabolism for protection And If the legislators feel that Arizona needed to be beheld beheld beheld held responsible for tor the ugliness of this keeper keepe I would still sUll maintain that his territorial conduct Is not consistent with statehood III I have a torture cell for such as you was vas what this Richard Deadeye Hyde said to the but I cant show you the nasty way he said It Do you se B e that and he pointed to a dial on the prison wall vall That registers the voltage yoUage of the cur current current current rent that I can send through the occupants occupants occupants pants of my m electric chair thai In the cell It shows whether he is being tortured mildly or terribly and when the needle turns clear around It means meana that the victim is dead dea No lost Jost soul in hell ever suffered the tho agonies that 1 I can in inflict met filet with that machine and ho hR ran out a line of laughter in a fiend fiendish fiendIsh fiendish ish crescendo I see the utility of that out outside outside side sido Indicator of torture inside the cell except for the Information of the audi audience audIence audience ence it would be taken down downIf If a congressional committee were ex expected expected expected and of course the wall would not become transparent to official eyes as it did for theatrical spectators when to kindly kIndl oblige the gentlemanly vil villain villaIn villain lain and make the heroine yield to him the tho keeper put her In the chair and sent some Bome lightning through her But the torturing machine may be found In Inthe Inthe inthe the first cell to the right as you enter the main corridor and I dont think the keeper would attempt any conceal concealment went ment he is too proud of it Furher FUt Flu her along In The King of Dia Diamonds Diamonds Diamonds monds the New York dressmaking establishment of Mrs Osborne is shown Yo may not know that Mrs Osborne is a designer of dress for the smart sot yet et may recall Mrs Os Osbornes Osbornes Osbornes bornes playhouse which was the theatre which wealthy capitalized of which the rich Norma Munro of recent asso association association association with Mrs Leslie Carter In the automobile marriage adventures was openly a backer and which was frisky with such companionships as Evelyn Evel n Nesbit and Stanford White Yet there are three reasons why Mrs Osborne may not regard this exploitation of her i business as good advertising and un undertake undertake undertake to stop it The shop shown is not modish the audiences do not con contain contain contaut tain taut possible buyers of her gowns and the th woman oman who figures as her in the action is a cross creature cruel to the heroine who is a seamstress while cringing to the rich adventuress who is a customer In this scene the playwrights practice practice practice tice of seizing material is illustrated An English pantomime clown named Walton brought over a sketch in which he was made up to look so much like a row of wooden toy soldiers that he be picked out until he moved Then he held a funny conversation with one of them in dumb show This Is Imitated in Mrs Osbornes shop by bya a silent dialogue between a comedian and a dressed and dummy model of The King of Dia Diamonds DIamonds Diamonds monds Is cocksure with things used in previous plays The hero Is told in prison by a dying convict where to find some buried diamonds and after breaking his way to freedom he pos possesses possesses possesses himself of the treasure That is Monte Cristo of course and he lie even remembers The world is mine A murderer Is convicted on the evidence of a lens that accidentally photo photographed photographed photographed graphed the crime as in The odo Octo The hero being caught in a chaste room falsely accuses himself of being a criminal in order to save her from scandal as In Arizona and other pieces A boy of good birth i like Oliver Twist falls into a Bill I Sikes hands and is compelled to steal The adventuress is made to confess by showing her persons whom she believes to have been murdered as In the third degree episodes of several current plays There is a tL sab subway way tunnel scene similar to the one in After Dark but the heroine is rescued from one car by the hero who gives chase and comes alongside in another car like the automobile and locomotive race in Hope The most curious transfer however is from froni Peter Pan In which play Maude Adams runs to the footlights and begs the audience to say that it believes be believes believes in fairies In The King of Dia Diamonds Diamonds Diamonds monds the comic man makes an ap appeal appeal appeal peal for virtue but the characters will only laugh at him Then he runs for forward forward forward ward stretches out his arms to the audience and cries You know Im right dont you The answering yes makes a tremendous noise George M Cohan and Fred Stone played pitcher and catcher at baseball for charity and persons paid a dollar apiece to see the game for fun Other comedians acted too star ones like Louis Mann Nat Wills Tommy Ross and DeWolf Hopper each cos costumed costumed costumed for a character from his stage repertory but Cohan and Stone only were amusing Much was expected of Hopper He wore an evening dress suit a high silk hat and a false beard and when he marched Into the grounds with the two nines beside a dwarf similarly sim simIlarly costumed picked him for forthe forthe the he winner of the antic prize And when he took the strikers place a mighty cry went up of Casey at the bat jat But the disappointment which the he verses tell of when mighty Casey had md struck out ut was equalled when mighty Hopper hit the ball with a ten foot cot bat was caught out our and had missed being funny The explanation to Hoppers discredit as a comedian He a and cant be speechlessly laughable But Cohan s drollery in a continental uniform from George Washington jr and Stones foolery In n the scarecrow tatters from The Wizard of Oz Os as the of their nine gave most of the dollars worth jf ot sport to the multitude There Th re was one me of the opposing nine managers however who had a good spell spen of act actIng acting Ing ng Mr Erlanger of Klaw Erlanger Incited netted perhaps by gratitude for the 3 raised for fol Mrs Home to for or Crippled Children did an all of a sudden udden stunt On colliding with Stone he ie pitched Into him in rage wrestled and md fought with him furiously and threw him down hard So realistic was the he scrap that two policemen ran to stop top it and know they were tooled fooled until Stone made a clear fall tram from rom feet to neck spun round on his head lead lay flat fiat on his back and died In convulsions |