Show The TI Critical BY FRANKLIN FYLES 1 oy New York June J ne 7 Between Memo Memorial rial day and Labor day stretches a tor torrid rid lid Id time in stage amusements but It is Hot an arid waste of space nor scant in fn The three roof gar gardens gardens gardens dens that top off five theatres at the corners cornes of a Broadway triangle mingle their lights and music again in in sum sumnar nar rivalry The Aerial Paradise and Jardin de Paris are aro t open pen ga n this 1 c eek k with outputs considerably novel it was V at the initial performance of ot I The Hone Honeymooners that George M DL Cohan Cohn outdid Richard Mansfield In put putting putting putting ting a chip on his shoulder and daring the audience to knock it off Never does much love go to waste between and in New Nev NewYork York Yok Marie Dressier Dressler hit it off by bye e coining the death ath watch as a phrase for tor those who to judge by their de demeanor demeanor demeanor meanor would rather be present at the funeral of ota a failure than thun the birth of at ofa ofa a n success The professional critics are not conspicuous among these death rs not many of them prefer to tobe tobe tobe be abusive and some of them would rather praise than censure but years and years of usage a newspaper reviewer to ever over applaud and his habit habitt is t to lo never smile when he Is amused or laugh out loud even when inwardly spasmodic m with merriment These Those men and their women mates dont number more than a hundred on an opening rIght nl bt But there are arc three or four times as many man amateur critics all cynics cynics ics irs who occupy the seats scats within clear clearview I view from the stage and whose blase manner and air of ennui are enough to loosen the tension of or all but the th most E actors leaving them scared i limp and out of tune Charles Frohman Once said aid ald to me If it were not that It would be a discourtesy to folks who have no intention to be other than help helpers helpErs ers era to the drama but who really are hinderers I would If I could shut out outon outon on n first nights all habitual ers and let every new play make mako its first appeal to an audience that assume a pose POI nor take on the attitude of critics but sat at with ith their minds and their hearts wide open to conviction Kindly permit a reminiscent para paragraph paragraph paragraph graph Edwin Booths ambition as I once oric heard him say was to be as able ablen V TI n actor a tor as his father had been He desired to play pla with success every ery role in the repertory of his sire So Fo in iii a New York engagement nearly a third of a century ago he revived such dramas as The Apostate A New Way to Pay Old Debts and Iron Chest It tt was In The that the biggest of the Booths to my mind the greatest i actor that ever lived was tor for one night nighta a crushed r tragedian crushed by the unsympathetic cynicism of a New Ne York audience I recall it with the vividness of a recent incident Pescara In that drama Is a human monster of vengeful malice and being foiled in his malign purpose he has a aspell af aspell spell pell f of or paroxysmal rage Now Edwin Booth endeavored to act the part in loyal imitation of his father and so when ferocious malignity was Ivas thwarted he Lobbed up and down with n a face grimacing wry WIT and arms fling tUng ing wild It was a grotesque demon demonstration demonstration demonstration of emotion theres Heres no doubt of that but the till actor had the authority of ot his hili revered reer d parent for tor the extravagance gance gane of manner mann I and he had carefully I prepared himself for it The audience as a whole knew naught na of or the obsolete t play nor of the senior Booths Booth way of personating the apostate Therefore appreciating nothing In the outburst of wrath save sa c grotesquery it laughed out outright outright right So as I said Edwin Booth was Avas f fur JT one IH night g a tragedian He never acted in The Tae Apostate Ap state again f To drop back to George M lI Cohan His complaint Is that New Yorks first night assemblages dont laugh la gh at him himas himas himas as subsequent SUbs quent ones mes do Frappe friends are arc chillier than icy Ic enemies was once his way of describing those whom he looked at across the Hie footlights upon the introduction of or a new now show in Broadway In anticipation of the stony stare from rocky faces at The Honey Honeymooners Honeymooners Honeymooners Cohan put Into his topical song as one of or the things for which i wed thank you very kindly Mr Bing Bingham Bingham Bingham ham meaning our reformatory police commissioner a n wish that hed arrest those who wont smile a smile much less laugh a laugh at an opening per performance performance performance He was mistaken if he lie ex expected expected expected to limber up the grim visages of those who were accustomed to in invisible invisible t 1 visible laughter He was so discon that he remember the next verse of his own song but stuck ast In the middle of it started again at ut its first line with a repetition of lapsed memory memo went off the stage tage had hada a hasty consultation with the prompter and came back to make a third and this time triumphant attempt att to bring the song to a climax i There was a further disturbance of placidity leading lending to the salient I oddity which I have haye been aiming at atHe atHe atHe He Is b firmly opposed and God bless him for that to the first night usage of unreasonable encores Every Ever song dance lance or other thing that is liked at al alfirst first has to be done over and over until It gets to be disliked at last Cohan had made up his mind to run The Honeymooners through with a celerity celer celerity celerity ity not to be halted by repetitions In Inthe Inthe the final fin l act the girl minIc that seems to be deemed essential to a summer roof root garden show how was introduced She was Gertrude Hoffman a follower of 01 Issie Cissie Loftus a long way behind but nearly alongside of f Elsie Janis and a avery ayerY avery very enjoyable impersonator Cohan had so S arranged ed the action that Gertrude Ger Gar Gertrude Gartrude trude instead of giving her imitations ai as an interpolation complete scattered them through a half hour of the play thus gaining time tun to dress and make up for the differing caricatures But the encore idiots catch the idea They raised such su a persistent rowde dow after fter each of at Gertrudes stunts that the other players utterances were lost in the applause Evidently Cohan 1 had llad ordered them not to give way to the clamor The consequence was that thai the third act of his play was panto pantomime pantomime pantomime mime yet lly meaningless It was an easy guess that he got angry over oyer this refusal refus l of the people to be behave behave behave have as he wanted them to and that impulsively ne no dictated a new and resentful re resentful resentful tag to the play pla A rustic rustle con constable constable stable had figured in the evenings fun and not no Cohan as custom pre prescribed prescribed scribed scrib d but the actor t of if t that minor character spoke the concluding line You he said coming right down downto to the footlights and throwing his words like so man mw many at the au nu audience audience are ue the wust lot Jot uv guys I ever seen an Im darned glad this performance Is over Nevertheless The Honeymooners Jg Js Si a a good d G att show show QUI old with Run Running RunnIng Running ning for Office dor libretto 1 ti but new with fresh fre h so some mo Originalities rl y in fn the th exhibition of girls with boys When Wilen Cohan comes home with his schoolmates they look Jook really juvenile ile y 1 f he the dozen boys all aU copying his manner mannerisms mannerisms isms sms and looking like a row of while the dozen smallish girls In short frocks and sunbonnets appear like genuine gen genuine u ne youngsters They rhey frolic ht at once In n a song and saunter which they describe de describe scribe in the th refrain as an walk and an talk with an girl you love When Cohan made his first break into Broadway with Running for Office hIs its sister Josephine Cohan Niblo was his dancing partner In a reproduction of the play pla Ethel Levy Cohan his wife was J Jo successor But Ethel has divorced herself to marry Robert Edeson and there are three successors in the present revival Miss Hoffman to do the talking and a pair of dumb mut agile agUe girls to dance with him im But Papa and Mamma Cohan are there as eer ever je Small young oung women are so numer numerous numerous numerous ous on the summer stages that the Gerry Jerry agents must be overworked looking up birth records to see that they hey the honestly date back of June 1891 Five sets of or girls who dont look 16 with their hair in long braids and their feet in short socks are antic in as many entertainments In Broadway Eight coupled co p d with playmates are at the Paradise Garden Ga in a school romp scene and some one with master masterful masterful ful control c has drilled them in what to todo todo todo do not only but even eyen more carefully In n what not to do The girls have no soubrette tricks of coquetry but frolic with such a manner of or spontaneity that they hey dont seem aware of or the audience The rho White and Thaw who have jave for a year been under restraint anyway inspect these with uncertain eyes and dont seem to know enow exactly how to take them or oret r let et them alone The kiddies Introduced this week in the Jardin de Paris are imports from London and in the make makeup makEup up of mechanical dolls they do old things with new vivacity In Ina a fourth summer show consisting of His Honor the Mayor freshened for fora a re return return turn turn to ter t town the he a b girls compelled by some legal compilation complication cation to tl forswear their name are now the dancing dolls So there is more m re of juvenility in this summers show showgirls showgirls showgirls girls from baby stares star sand and googoo to remarkably natural child childish childIsh childish ish buoyancy that is seasonably blithe and cheerful A skating scene is new in His Honor t the ha th Mayor The stage is darkened d darkened and on a n gauze screen is produced elec electrically electrically electrically the effect of falling snow Then when a light behind is turned on in place of or a summer garden at Buda there is iy a winter scene scenes with a snowy foreground against a 3 massive house that looks like a across cross between the Castle of Elsinore and the George Georg Gould home on Fifth avenue av nue It matter which it Is Mabel bums skates kates into Int view in a gown and furs of af white and Ind sings an indefinite waltz song about my girl For the chorus eight Ight couples of girls similarly dressed skate about the stage forming figures s sand and gracefully race fully accentuating ing the rhythm of o the song The shows at the Paradise and the thi Jardin de Paris are vaudeville some of which is uncommon and rid serves to in introduce intro introduce tro ucc strangers from over sea Celia Galley alley lets us see ce what Paris approves in mimicry by giving impersonations o or of Bornhardt Rejane Otero and Guilbert Daisy Daiy TamEs James comes from London with witha a batch of music m hall songs that in contrast with Galleys Parisian subtle subtlety ty seem rather vulgar In one charac character ter tor ballad she is a Melinda who keeps keep a shop hop that Is a rendezvous for he her admirers in m another she Is a chap who warts wants his girl to tell him why she Ioe pre prefer prefers fers fer a policeman and in a third sh she gets into the prevailing drift of juvenil juvenility ity with the song of or a child who being promised by b her mother a baby brother brothe in the morning expresses her choice o oa or of ofa ora a horse and cart instead And she Ashe she ap appears appears appears pears too as ns a Gibson girl cirl J rf If you ou have nave had enough of the Gibson girland girl girland gIrland and wish to see no more more of her ye yet ct would like UkE to view the schoolgirls in inthe inthe inthe the various roof gardens better bette j buy a seat close to an exit so as to t escape at the first sight of the Gibson creature for she lingers in all these en entertainments entertainments A foreign Vasco who plays twenty eight instruments so expertly eXI ertly and so rapidly from cornet to bagpipes and grand piano to tin Un whistle besides sing singIng singIng singing Ing from deep bass away up to yodeling falsetto that all our musical al teams ought to take to farewell tours before he ha gets around The Barnold company of ot dog and monkey actors give a pan pantomime pantomime with a French noodle Doodle for such sucha a comedian In a n jag pantomime show showing showing ing his expulsion from a cafe his dazed zigzag to a and his ll final jail fall into nto a a gutter gut that it seems as though he must positively have a human sense of humor humorA A point is made at the Paradise of importing every summer a new illusion Last L ast year It was the puzzling production tion of a young oun woman in a glass tank of water and I went to see It several times before I was able to write an ac account account account count of how the trick was worked This year it Is the reduction of a liv Hv living living ing woman to ashes A box long enough to hold her is placed on sup supports supports supports ports precluding the possibility of her exit through a trap She Is Js placed in a drawer of ota a size to completely fill that box and inflammable fluid is poured on her clothes and lighted the drawer containing her is slid into the box smoke issues from it and after two or three minutes there th re is shown to be no other contents than the glowing ashes left by a cremation That was done so simply that the process was clear at atthe atthe atthe the first sight The drawer has no I inner end and so it can be pulled out empty leaving the woman in the box The box has a double front so that I when It is turned on its side with the I lid open toward the spectators to show how that the woman is gone the inner front becomes the ostensible bottom and she is hidden behind it You can easily present this cremation act at your next nest church entertainment but be careful about the blazing liquid unless there is isa Isa isa a girl in your circle to burn burnBy burnBy burnBy By placing palms in pots here and there opening the windows wide lifting a skylight B lIght lid Hd and operating hidden electric fans ians where they make the he foliage sway as with a balmy breeze from outdoors an upstairs cheap chen the theatre theatre theatre atre up Harlem way is turned into a summer roof garden If the stage show shoe were similarly freshened In aspect the enterprise would seem Ee more seasonable i But it Is not so The performers are named the Daisy the Sac Saccharine Saccharine Saccharine charine Sirens the Honey Hellions or something equally indicative of ot out breaking vice beautified The pictorial poster at atthe front doors twirls swirls and an In a delicious delirium of o airy allo And what a bar bargain bargain bargain gain at 50 cents for a close view or 25 fur fox sight sigh from Om a little way off These There I is s as yet no nore law to tom fake kc the contents of a theatrical package keep the he promise of the th label So the person who vho buys this show cant even get his half hal dollar doUar or quarter back much less have lave the showman s fined when the contents con contents tents of or the can turn out to be stale to toa toa toa a rancid degree The company is one of those wretch wretched ed ones that make the rounds of ot the burlesque houses It may have bare had bad vim at the outset last autumn autumn but a hard winter has been followed by bya a still harder harde spring and now at the beginning of at summer these theatrical wayfarers are worn and weary in de demeanor |