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Show AMUSEMENTS. ' "SI Clunker.!" at tha Theater. Tbnso who did not go to see "Si I'lunkard" at the theater last uight have occasion to congratulate themselves them-selves upon their excellent foresight and discrimination. Those who did go wear a sad, far away expression of we've-all-been-thore-bcforo sorrow today. to-day. And there are lots of the latter the town is full of 'em. It is seldom that such an audience as the one last night greets onoiiightonly productions. As a rule one night stands are to bo avoided. avoid-ed. "Si Pluukard" was no exception to the rule. As the recently deceased showman often said "the American people peo-ple like to be humbugged." Hy humbug hum-bug doubtless wan meant "gulled." If the audience last night was not gulled then never let the word appear in semi-ultra respectable conversation again. The band is what done it. Tho hayseeds. The fellows in shirt sleeves, with long, tawny hair, and overalls and dilapidated musical instruments. There is where the well-worn and ragged-edged ragged-edged tale of woe hingesthere is tho foundation for tho wholu atrocious mass. Long before tirno for the curtain to rise there was a jam of tax-payers and small boys at the divers entrances to the theater, Gray-haired men fell over each other to be tirst at the box otlico; women mussed their clothes in the struggle of the surging crowd and the indefatigable, small boy fought and gouged with a lusty vigor and industrious persistence eipial to the occasion. Tho theater was packed from proscenium box to the loftiest elevation of tho farthest gallery. There is no evasion of the fact that "Si I'lunkard" is a one-night-only production. pro-duction. Even the intrepid soul of Mr. J. C. Lewis could not be nerved to the desperation of producing "Si I'lunkard'' I'lunk-ard'' two nights in succession in the same town. Human endurance and the gallery god could not tolerate it. The hurly-burly construction of the piece, the execrable labyrinth of plot, its abortive wit and costive humor, the flabby situationsaud weather beaten stage stalkers were so iucontestibly wretched that only the more valorous and soul-hardened possessed the ueces-sary ueces-sary "nerve" to remain to the end of the so-called comedy drama. The monotonous flight of time has brought many things of ipiestionable antiquity to Salt Lake. Haiidmann has assaulted Shakespeare, Rice has exposed his conglomeration con-glomeration of broken-down ballets in "The World's Fair," the "Sea ljueen'' has been hero and comedies and farces iu all stages of decomposition have come and gone, but never before has any pieco possessing no little merit, so devoid of sense, humor or moral been perpetrated upon tho theater-going public of Salt Lake as the down east fake sailing under the title of "Si I'lunkard." |