OCR Text |
Show A TALK WITH DIXEY. He Tell, of Some of nil Karljr Experleneoe i on the Stage. Henory E. Dixey was seen by a re porter at the Cullen this afternoon. He seemed in a reminiscent mood. "Let me see," he said, "it is now twenty-two years since I first made my appearance on a stage. , I was then a little over eight years of age, and I played childrens' parts in a pantomine in the Comique in Boston, What I considered con-sidered my first Important engagement was with Rice's Evangeline company, in which organization I played the quintuple rolls of sailor, headsman, conductor, policeman and the forelegs of the famous heifer. Oh, you need not look surprised; it was the fore legs and not the hind legs of the heifer which I played, the papers to the con-tgary con-tgary notwithstanding. For this I received re-ceived the municent sum of $25 a week. And by the way.the forelegs of that heifer hei-fer was first played by Dick Golden and afterwards by Louis Harrison. I then joined Rice's Surprise Party and that reminds me that there never was a greater company organized anywhere. No company contained so many people whe afterwards became stars. There were Willie Edouin, Alice Atherton. Louis Harrison, W. A. Thestayer and others. "In 1881 1 created the comedy part in 'Romany Rye,' opening in Booth's theater thea-ter and then I drif tod into comic opera. I played the Lord High Chancellor in 'Iolanthe' and also Lorenzo in 'Mas -cot . "After I had played .'Adonis' for a number of years I began to cast around for a worthy successor of this wonderful wonder-ful play. I spent about $8000 In working work-ing out ideas, but nothing quite suited me. I wrote a burlesque which I called Don Quixote; another, Adonis tlm Second, Sec-ond, And still another, a travesty on Faust, treated in an entirely different manner from the burlesques now before thepublio. About a year and a half ago the idea of using Jacques soliloquy upon the seven ages of man as the subject sub-ject for burlesque Hashed upon me. Of course several things worried me when I came to work out my subject. How to impersonate the infant for instance; how to portray all the seven ages in two hours and a half, and bo forth. However, How-ever, I overcame these difficulties and I believe I have now one of the very best of modern burlesques. One, particularly particu-larly happy thought, I think, was the introduction of the charaoter of 'Chorus' between the acts to explain the tableaux. tab-leaux. Not only is the tone pf the 'Seven Ages' higher than is ordinary, but my own work is more ambitious. My impersonation of the old man in the last act has advanced me farther professionally pro-fessionally than anything else I have done." . . ; .. ,.' . |