| Show Pocahontas the Goddess of the I Jamestown Fair FairBY j BY FRANKLIN FYLES I Jamestown Pair Fair July I taB tas is the girl ot of the fair You come across her In big Images ana little sou The Tho goddess of liberty is not in the show with the Indian princess Her papa Powhatan seems more im immediately immediately mediately honored than that other Virginia father of his country George Washington The police of the grounds are Powhatan guards and you encounter encounter ter the famous Indian chieftaIn in picture plaster or signboard at every turn If the restaurant you go Into a It ii Is is a Pocahonta And If you enter the Jamestown the theater theater ater on the Warpath you ou may see the thereal thereal real genuine positively true Princess Pocahontas of toda today The survivors of the Virginia IndIans are supported b by the United States on a reservation near Rich Richmond ond They number about three score and I imagine that it needs their quarterly stipend to remind them ordinarily that they are arc Indians at atall atall all allBut But the Jamestown fair gives them thema a chance to loop leap three centuries back backward backward ward into the aboriginal savagery by turning them themselves Into Imitations of what their ancestors were when Poca Pocahontas Pocahontas hontas saved John Smith from having his brain nut cracked on a stone with witha a club b by order of oC Chief Powhatan It seems that ever since the historical Pocahontas S they have named an un unbroken Unbroken broken succession of their squaws af after I ter her So we are warranted In ac r Pocahontas Rolfe called POk Poky b by her friends now about twenty years DId and a comely sort of girl in a very ordinary wa way as their hereditary prin princess cess But truth to thu sincerely and seeing her as she figures In a stage representation of the episode of Cap thin tain Smith and Pocahontas she is a asad asad sad I I The showman who brought the rc rem remnant m nant of Virginia Indians to the War Warpath path should have sent them to a school of acting a year ear ago He has put up a abood good bood temporary theater and next to It a reproduction of the original fort of the English settlers at Jamestown In 0 a sort of a shrine he has placed what he says sas is the veritable stone on Which Captain Smiths head was laId to be smashed The greater share of the space however Is devoted to a restaurant and beer garden Old Vir Virginia ginia fire water and corn cakes are on sale perhaps reverentially but the bulk of is In modern sandwIches and beer Thus Thes you may may be led to suspect that the showman Is sordId Yet as al often as a as assembled In the theater the el of a special pleader outside 1 the precious stone is carried to the I stage The stone is quite Its performance is quiet dignified and suggestive of reserved force But the human the Vir Virginia ginia Historical society if there is such a body with sufficIent authority should put them right out of It is too bad to let them go on destroy ing the romance whIch hIstory has permitted us to weave around Poca hontas saving of John Smiths life and her marriage to John Rolfe Fourteen young men and four girls including days Pocahontas dressed correctly and therefore not very picturesquely like Uke their savage ancestors go through Indian ceremonial dances without spir spirit it or characterization like awkward akward pupils at a school exhIbition An old ish chap explains In a voice that raises above their and droning cries the of the things they do so inertly and a medicine man I strIves to enliven their stupid goings on but they are hopelessly by the audience and their dancing Is so monotonous that It Is hard to believe bellee they know the difference between the celebration of the peaceful corn harvest and the declaration of bloody blood war with witha a hostile tribe And AmI poor little Pocahontas In her gentle bosom she may cherish a high Ideal of her famous ancestress but she i ts utterly unable to make It known When rhen John Smith Is captured he seem slem to mind it in the least nor does doLs he care much that Powhatan in a calm colloquial tone remarks that he will have to be killed but when that relic stone is brought In the lee lec lecturer by direct appeal incites the corn com company party pany to show that they are interested in the proceedings They lift theIr voices to audibIlity in a death chant and shuffle a little livelier around the prostrate prisoner Then too the Poca Pocahontas Pocahontas hontas rouses herself to a supreme ef effort effort fort With a cr cry almost as piercing as a woman emIts at the sight of a mouse she accelerates herself from a walk nearly to a run squats with a careful regard to her skirts by the prostrate Smith lays her hand on hIm wIth much maidenly reserve and begs her father as as though ask askIng lag Ing him for a dIme with which to buy ice cream after the show to spare hIs lift The play lasts about a quarter of an hour and ends with the marrIage of Pocahontas and RoUe Rolfe Itis a guess of mine that Poky and the young fel fellow fellow low who personates Rolfe are spoon spooners ers when at home whIch makes them l shy of showIng any fondness in lie The ceremony has all the of a wedding rite performed by Squire Grass at Holler for Booby Buckwheat and Pinkey Clover V That V completes the V performance says the man who has talked the peo pIe into the theater and who Is now relied upon to talk them out without any unpleasant Incidents of resent resentment resentment ment Without extra charge you OU may pass into our exact reproduction of the old Jamestown fort which we have built at a cost of thousand dollars and there you OU ma the genuine Int origInal and absolutely priceless stone which was used in the interrupted execution ot of John Smith Understand me there is no extra charge beyond t the e trifling dime you ou i have hac paid Think what a good and suitable lea fea feature ture for the might have been provided by training those young In Indians Indiana diana rigidly in a representation representation of the Pocahontas and Smith bile Rolfe episode by tho remnant of Pow tribe In tire the Pine Beach extension of the I Warpath where there is no censorship is a sideshow w of an oriental dance hall hail a flaming canvas says and a loud shouter repeats it that Glen sino famous in Egypt as an Impersonator ator of the beauteous Cleopatra and andin in England as Lady Godiva in a stage spectacle and in New York as Salome Salonie In the dance before Herod may now be ht seln sn In a a and reD ren of Pocahontas savIng the life of Captain Smith But It con comes s rather high Few of the catchpenny shows undertake to catch fitt cents from each spectator But the time of unrestricted indecency at Pine B Beach ach may be cut short If local clergymen prevail against the town officials and the showmen are making all the hay they can while theIr sun shines Alu ha is a swarthy Egyptian dancer such as tourists see in Cairo but Instead of oriental drapery site she wears the dress of an American In Indian Indian dian squaw with her legs bare and the middle section of her body simi imi similarly exposed A man sits on a throne for Powhatan like Herod in Salome and before him the woman wriggles twists and squirms like a Cairo couchee creature yet et unwraps herself in the manner of Salome In the now notorious dance of the seven veils I chatted with the manager Was he ashamed He was proud For lie he devised a posItIve n novelty In this composite Cleopatra Salome and Po Pocahontas Pocahontas And he be taking in more money than any oth r show on that street Ic c Because in honesty to my readers I have had to describe one Pocahontas as amateurishly pitiable and another as outrageously indecent dont take It that there are not excellently respectable table exhibitions on the Warpath there are arc many such but I am devot devoting devoting ing this letter to Pocahontas the god goddess goddess dess of the Jamestown fair and to find plays worthy of the subject I have had to go away from the fair to the nearby city of Norfolk At the best of the theaters is a drama entitled Pocahontas and it illustrates to those who have seen the puerIle efforts of descendants to portray their aboriginal ancestors the necessity necessity sity of traIned skill it If anythIng like Ilke dramatic effects Is to be attained This is a cleverly constructed and ably act acted acted ed pIa play The Pocahontas Js is a Louise Carter who tt the celebrated Mrs V Carters ability with I of 01 ll her r name manic Powhatan has hasan hasan an ideal Indian kings bigness of mien and voice The John Smith is a breez brave adventurer The Rolfe is isa I a romantic lover of the Indian prin I cess ts All those behave perhaps not as the originals did hut but surely as an any I student of history creates them in un im imagination No doubt the music of the early Vir Virginia inia Indians was only the rude noises of medicine mens rattles antI and the merely rhythmic whacking of crude drums but the they arouse no such feeling of and as do the 1 or orchestral elaborations of the thc simple Indian song themes There Is no lie doubt about iL it The Amer Ican Indian has to be fixed up a lot to make hint him an impress e personage on the stage The opening scene of this tart tas is In cam where he is an enthroned monarch for the Eng lish King James had to very formally recognize him and even eyen crown him as the sovereign of Virginia before he I could male maho any treaty with the whites News of the English colonists is I brought with accounts of their death spitting firearms and the chief calls for volunteer scouts scout hut none of his braves dare go 00 and his daughter un the task The ca capture ture and trial of Smith the intercession for him by the Indian maiden the love loye be tween her and Rolfe various plots among the English and their battles with the red men all those and other things are rendered exceedingly plc pic tonal The dances mean something I the tue scenes are glamorously handsome and the point I wIsh to make Is i that I the real thing on the stage becomes worthless when inane while artful ex exaggeration Is to be encouraged I dont say that this Pocahontas is a great play away from Jamestown people take much interest in It hut but here within the atmosphere of the Vir Virginian Virginian ginian fair tair it is the best appropriate thing I have haye seen i Ic I Puzzle No prize for the solution There Is one and only one other Poca Pocahontas hontas play pIny It Is a big and bright spectacle on an enormous stage In a building ordinarily used for or horse shows agricultural faIrs and occasions ot of great concourse but which Is now turned roughly into a namesake and sizeable Imitation of New Yorks Hip Hippodrome Hippodrome It will make your guess easy by giving one more particular This Hippodrome of Norfolk Is owned by a suburban railway company which geln 10 cents in fares for eVer evory visitor and therefOre gives Its r rental free to the manager of the show Query Who Vho Is the manager Answer For wherever has there been a great faIr the whole world over without a Ki Kiralfy Kiralfy spectacle p pertinent to the his historic historic th theme me of the main exhibition Few Fen of us remember so long ago In theatricals that tile the Kiralfy family of Hungarian dancers three brothers and three sisters were brought to America to perform In The Black Crook The girls married away from the stage One cf the bays Arnold thrifty and the last I knew of him he was teaching sInge dames But mine Irme and went Into the production o 0 spectacles for many years together and since then separately They became accomplIshed pUshed ballet masters and It used to tobe tobe be said that given fifty young women and fifty yards of bright cloth they would fill a stage with picturesque commotion The Pocahontas is Bollo ay The portliness of dan dancers rs required more cloth than that for even the slightest c s and I am far from accusing jim him of wrapping In cht cheap fabric without au an adequate use of scissors thread and needle but bul I II do believe that Indians I wear costumes from from former Kiralfy productions I have taken time the liber t ty I says a s in III his program to imagine King surrounded by priests prophets and a court all enveloped cued In barbaric splendor and fantas dres d in costumes worn by Montezuma and his peoples may not ance ancestors tors have hae ted from Mexico o to Virginia Why Vh not in if hud had a lot of Az tee tec outfit lusting lasting over ovel front from a historic spectacle in Mexico City So while man many a showman Is lone reading his palms for good luck lines that ma may lead from threatened bankruptcy to prosperity when the tar dy crowds come to the fair V Kiralfy is it becalmed but not discouraged his show being too In Ingeniously ingeniously economical to lose much mone money and what a fortune it ma may tun in when the boom comes and time the Hippodrome holds persons twice a day a Meanwhile It most of the people who go there are delighted bewIldered entranced They see such sights as never stared and dazed their eyes be fore OT Looking across a lake of real water on err which Indians paddle canoes they beheld time the lOdge of chief man in the wilderness Virginia and Britannia appear as vo luminous spirits with strong voices and sing of the coming of the white men Next we are shown a harbor on the Thames with the Eng lish colonists departure for Virginia a panoramic view or of the ocean voyage ensues with sunshine and moonlight storm and calm and an air invisible cho chorus chorus rus singing to suit tile the varying condi of the time and amI weather and finall finally the ship of adventurers floats Into view on the actually aqueous lake with top tel note buzzas and high C penns of victory It goes on In a trub style with John Smith saved by Pocahontas In front of a palace where processions of nondescript nondescript script gorgeousness bring g gifts to the king and a ballet balIet that looks Egyptian dance with a ceremonial reception of Pocahontas as John bride by King James at Westminster with Ya rIous alIe ori al tableaux and finally with Pocahontas as a modern malden maiden arriving at the Jamestown fair In an automobilE to be welcomed by the eight dancing daisies and other Women What is the daisies do weigh close on to pounds apiece or about the aver average average age or of the entire chorus and ballet Tle They are stalwart athletes far away for critical Inspection and what mat matters mattens tens It how old their faces might show their ages to be The Pocahontas may be a matron for she Is big enough but distance gives enchantment If you will let It and she sings strongly So do dothe dothe the rest of them It is p J Mg bg Kiralfy show and it gives satisfaction that rises to rapture oftener than it drops to critical dIsdain |
