| Show I Theatrical Season Starts In Blaze Blaz of Glory BY FRANKLIN FYLES I New York Aug Au 10 lOThe The new theat thoat theatrical theatrical neal season s son started in a blaze of ot glory and a sizzle of distress Hattie Wit Wil Williams liams Iiams made her debut as a star and the ti heat and humidity reached their most unbearable limit on the same evening and It was a battle for tor the complete surrender of ot one or cr orthe or toe the other ot er But It was a merry war and the th mu fun and dances of 01 the new extravaganza conquered The Th question is If It Hattie Hattle Williams can make maIm an audience happy on a night when whon Just to live Is to suffer Buffer how many degrees more joyous will wUl she the malta make us when hen she Is in not handicapped l l The rho Little Cherub which was WS the tho first note of ot the new n w season sounded on Broadway after a preliminary week of at melodramatic shrieks anti and howls east cast and west of ot the Great White Way came catho from London and hue has dropped the names name of or a 0 halt dozen or so 80 of at Its authors somewhere In the deep blue sea Bea With its additions alterations l and nd Interpolations there got to be too many to enumerate I fancy Evon Even the man who Americanized It mentioned l on the tho program although his work Is brought to mind by the introduction in introduction of ot the American verb to twentythree twenty three Over Oyer here The Little Cherub Is la pretending to be he by only Ivan Caryll whom we must thank Tor for some very sprightly music and Owen Hall whose whoso libretto supply so good a reason for tor gratitude He con confesses confesses to having picked up his ills plot In Paris though he have as the there e enough of ot it left for identification tion Jimmie Davis which Is JS s Owen Ow n Halls Hans name everywhere but In n a the tile theatre theatre atre program Is a fashionable London Londoner er who Is ever eer and anon upsetting that worthy town and entertaining it by presenting Its citizens as no better botter than they ought to be He had to change the title of ot his farces to The Girl From Kays because the saleswomen at Jays hat shop maintained that the wicked sirens presented as prototypes of ot themselves were libelous misrepresentations misrepresentations misrepresentations Then Davis put forth The Little Cherub called at one time A Girl on the tho Stage and Its ita Intimation that women of ot the tho stage were general generally ly hy vicious caused London to protest again Over here we are not apt to take the matter eo so seriously Who Vho would become wrathful about a mu musical musical frolic whose plot is so 50 vague and tiny that one cant remember it from act to act We Wo cant take as serious a view of the case case as 08 London did or as ne Davis appears to take of at himself He Ho Heis H HIs Hois is the man who maintains that the writing of musical farce Is just twice as difficult as creating a com coni comedy edy Cd because all the elements of the latter are necessary with ditties and dances in addition It would be a pleasure to meet Mr Davis some time timeto to ask him what he lIe thinks The Little Cherub would be b with the songs left out It would have been heen a dangerous question to have put to the sweltering who gasped and panted their way between the songs that made them happy It was the tile songs and the beauty of the women who sang them and arid the splendor of the gowns they sang them themI in that made The Tile Little Cherub a success and kept the spectators from being peevish about the plot plo The Tile rich richand richand richand and remarkably tasteful Frohman pro production production ro kept the eye dazzled from first to last It weigh on our minds that James Blakeley was supposed to tobe tobe tobe be a professional stage manager re rehearsing rehearsing rehearsing the four daughters of ot an earl earland earland earland and their friends for tor an amateur per liar performance Jor Jort t of ot a popular opera called The Little Cherub because he let the fact hinder him from singing several amusing songs amusingly The Th best was about a lad had named Willie who wh went and Blakeley justified his Ills Importation from London by Illus Illustrating illustrating the boys keen expressions of silent expectation as he held the line Une and of dawning joy pf of the shiny sort when he felt ta a bite The ne Englishman m make us laugh quite so much with his earlier song about an aspiring aspIrIng aspiring ing dramatist taking his act trag tragedy tragedy tragedy edy culled called Tom the Pipers Son on ona ona ona a round of ot New York managers be because because because cause the names of Americans had hind been stuck Into verses descriptive of ot experiences wholly British The line about each manager who refused the manuscript doing It so politely doubtless allowed many pointed hits at the London who are suave and slow and elegant in their manners but applied poorly to our producers who ate aie concise abrupt and businesslike It matter to us either that Hattie Williams was supposed d to be bo an actress who deliberately fascinated the hypocritical earl for the purpose of ot blackmailing him Into giving his con consent consent consent sent to her ber marriage with his son We were more concerned with the fact that thai the latest Frohman star looked extra extraordinarily extraordinarily extraordinarily ordinarily handsome In a series of ot real really really really ly remarkable gowns gown and entertained us with some sprightly songs She divert us enough with her ditty In the first act Its the Girls to get our attention from her ap appearance appearance appearance In a 3 green lace coat and chiffon chiffon fon ton dress that made the feminine f on onlookers onlookers onlookers lookers gasp In admiration But Dut In Inthe Inthe Inthe the second act though her ball gown of gold spangles les was more splendid still she rose above her clothes by giving keen point to a very catchy song called Experience Surrounded by richly costumed show girls she ahe sat on the tho edge of ot a ed supper table and recounted the very Cry rakish experiences experiences of a girl who was vas Indeed ex experienced Its patter about the wiles of wicked sirens stray far tar from the beaten path of 01 that sort of thing tiling I except to go a little further beyond the I usual limits of delicacy and good taste I But the tIle very persons who blushed at atthe atthe atthe I the words help but tap their feet foet in appreciation of ot the insidious of ot the tune and the applause for tor the song was prolonged and gen general general general eral Miss Williams shared her third act success with Marie Doro The beautiful ful little brunette who has been grad graduated graduated from musical comedy to female leadership In Iii William com corn company company pany did not appear on the stage with Miss Williams as she did In The Girl From Kays But she made herself herselt as pleasantly felt by supplying the words worda and music of ot a song about The doggie In the yard Edna May Is it in London but one cannot imagine her voicing it In the mood of gaiety that Miss Williams ex cx expresses expreSSeS presses This particular Towser Is chained In lit the yard as a watch dog but hes hos such ouch a friendly chap that a burglar picks him right up and walks away with him James and und Tom Wise who had flung aside his humored honored Thomas A of ot high comedy corned as with musical farce romped star in Incidental fun tun and folly tolly Wis was supposed to be a 0 sort of Anthony Comstock earl who started by reprimanding the prima donna of ot The Little Cherub opera company for Immortality 01 ty and ended by giving a far tar from tram Puritanical supper tot for her If It we were Inclined to take Mr Davis as seriously as London Lond n and he himself take him we might become annoyed with this unwarrantable rots mis misrepresentation representation of ot worthy and honest efforts to keep the community clean Grace Field May Naudain Winona Winter and Mabel Rollins were the four tour daughters of ot the earl who were rehearsing an amateur production of The Little Cherub and when they went to see the original broke in upon their fathers frisky supper Seeing their parent thus they burst out with the exclamation I should so love to tobe tobe tobe be a boy boyl I QuIto Quite naturally It struck them as a good line Una for tor a song And they and Mr dr Davis made It so The girls straddled chairs and rode them at a clipping cUpping pace they lay on their stomachs on the same chairs and showed what muscular swimmers they the would be bo and tying sweaters around their necks they boxed in lit a right verile verUe fashion But not one of ot them lost her daintiness and ond fascination through It all au from Mabel Hollins Rollins with her blonde and gentle delicacy to Grace GraceField GraceField Field with her strapping date smartness Finally they would have so loved to be bc boys that they got go roughhouse rough house In a game of at football They skirmished and tackled and at last the timid and shrinking Miss Hol Hollins Hollins lins kicked the ball out into injo the audi audience once ence grazing the head of 01 a 0 well welt known racing man In the front row and hit hitting hitting hitting ting a popular prima primo donna In the face taco But they minded that so 80 little and the rest of ot the audience liked it so much that somebody Bom body threw the pigskin back bpck to the stage and everybody In Insisted insisted insisted that th t Miss Hollins Holline should keep on kicking it Two women are trying to make the world orld of midsummer nights and lights as gay as It ft is supposed sup to be by fight fighting fighting ing bIg fiercely for the few fes fe est eat clothes right of way on the stage of ot a root roof garden gaiden where thy they are both appearing Both are vaguely foreign and definitely beautiful and are willing to tell any body who will vIll ask them that they shocked Parts Paris What more does wilt wilting wUtIng wilting ing New York expect by way of ot a thrilling shock But as the able song tells us Its all right in the tho summer Bummer time the trouble nothing seems to tt be bo accepted as wrong In the summer Bummer time With all of us ua mep men women and innocent babes sweltering in the tile thinnest and fewest clothes that the law nw will wUl allow we cant look upon a disrobing act as any anything anything anything thing but a sane and sanitary step to toward toward toward ward comfort Shocking to see the dancing with some of the rest bf lIt her and most of ot hor her back naked I should say not riot wed all gO BO out that way If wo we had the courage of ot our com corn comfort comfort fort Wicked d for the bicycling Lalla Lana to take taka off everything but tights anti and a n sleeveless veless jersey jerse when per performing performing forming violent and heating stunts on her liar wheel Well If it the poor girl exercised so strenuously str with warm clothes on her we ourselves would strip them th m off In sympathy Why if It Charmion were to come back to us this week and repeat her undressing act on onh her h r trapeze trape e the purest amongst us would applaud her as a worthy exam example pie of ot a 0 mind brave enough to be com corn comfortable comfortable In spite of ot cramping tramping conven conventions and to have wisely selected a good high airy place to undress un ress in It Is a right down shame though for to come cone over from tram Paris to Puritanical provincial New York and not startle one blush out of us But the shocking business what it used to be The day llY when whon a Palais Royal could be Imported thoroughly cleaned leaned up on the way and shock Americans just because we knew know It came from Paris has passed came over confident in her ability to tomake tomake make us sit up UD and take notice She told everyone who might publish the th fact tact that she was terribly wicked She had hi brought ought a dance called La that was oh la Ia la Ia la ha laShe laShe haShe She had brought a male assistant and some gowns that were well la la Ia And they were The gowns were certainly bewildering and gor gorgeous from under the armpits down They stopped at that point but herself supplied the beauty from there then up She wriggled too But for all sweltering New York cared she might as well wen have ha e been doing It to swish the pestering flies from off her pretty prett shoulders Dont imagine that Is a bore This latest charmer from the land of chic and aud wriggles Is a duplicate of ot the tha many who have gone before beautiful In a 0 brunette way and artificial l to the very tips of at her eyelashes and the very tilt In iii the tue way she lefts them She starts with a Russian dance which is a matter of 01 many skips and hops and jumps and appears to typify the tile grace that may be employed in sidestepping bombs and pirouetting through a wil wU wilderness of infernal machines Later her dances dancea never noyer at any point wrig trip southward to Hungary These steps and the variously national nationalized nationalIzed nationalized dances that follow seem much like one another to the uninitiated and surely show how the effects of the rag ragtime ragtime ragtime time craze In n Europe Most of ot the dances In fact appear to be cross creeds out of CanCan by CakeWalk I should say sayA sayA sayA A dance oddly located Is Ia that If it an all Imitation Nubian girl encountered l in ina Ina ina a trip to Africa at atCon Coney Coriey y Island Th The tour Is cne of those com corn combinations of gravity railway allway panoramic scenery airship illusion and brief bits of walking walkin through dismal passages At cne lne point in the journey the trav tray travelers elers car Is stopped a minute or so ina in Iii a grotto where the Nubian is dane dancing ing In the light of or a calcium Once In looking from a car window on an on ex cx expanse expanse pause of at Montana prairie dotted with grazing cattle I saw a 0 solitary cowboy on a lonesome spree The man was having a hilarious time all by himself As the train sped past him lie he le waved a bottle flung his ilis arms and legs wildly and yelled what may have been be m a song The Nubian as we came upon her In Inthe Inthe inthe the semblance of a lonely African cave reminded me of that cowboy Robed in ln white with her face arms and bare feet teet contrastingly black she was bend bending bending ing lag wriggling and whirling in black and white snatches t ot oriental grace As At the carloads c of ot halting tourists pass her every overy ten tn t n or minutes she as badly off for tor human company as os the Montana fellow with two un slackening trains each ach lach way per day dayNor dayNor dayNor Nor Is she idie as far away from her bed and board as ha he h was from his Let me not raise a ft doubt however that she is a stranger stronger In a strange land the use of believing she is no Nubian Could Coul an American keep up a a couchee dance for even one minute without lapsing Into a cake cakewalk cakewalk cakewalk walk Cynical Incredulity Is the bane of ot dramatic endeavor A A real reat railway train had passed the I X rock In midstream that marks mark the cornering of New York New Jersey and Pennsylvania and was slowing Into Port JervIs when a B newer thing caught my eye a billboard announcing announcIng ing a performance of Her that evening The Tho title looked serious and a further promise of ot potential drama lay in the star name of ot a ayoung ayoung ayoung young woman who as ns a tL pupil of ot a theatrical school had developed emo emotional emotional emotional ability So I stopped over night to see what It was that ha had been brought quietly out of ot town for tor a trial The signs and tokens of ot translation from the French were very plain and It soon became bec me equally sure that the play would never beget tears in Amer America lea ica The |
