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Show lad Borgia Princess on-Stage Again j& & lildred Holland Is tKe Lily Heroine. . : Mce George, as Jealous Wife, Enacts Old But Piquant Character in the New Play oauce for the IFranklyn Fyles aed Wire to The Tribune. YORK April i2. Grace find Mildred Holland are new s in "Sauce for the Goose" he Lilly and the Prlnee." You Mrs. George-Urndy, perhaps, her husbuml. William A. who was a callboy In a San co theater with David Be-hen Be-hen they wero hoys; but sire are of Mrs. Holland -White? is habitually an actress of or their close companions )letc old actress in "Trelaw-he "Trelaw-he Wells." reduced to a Job Irobc woman, said dlsconso-"I dlsconso-"I have plnyed thirteen in my time, and there waa in them."' td has had a plensantcr ex-i ex-i with dramas of monarchy, ough hor mock majesty has been seen in New York, After to us Catherine of Russia Gphlne of Frances from a rep-n rep-n empresses, she now Intro-horsclf Intro-horsclf newly as a sirl in ontention with Lucretia Ror-:aly. Ror-:aly. And she is able to look nough for portrayals of hls-ebrftles hls-ebrftles when they were .still Nor are her outllts nnfii to jht into Eroadway. Realism, 1 the supers in the present Lrama of aristocracy are real Easily enough Tor tlie Italian restaurant waiter manner of a prince of his in hard luck guise, p of a Borgia, d Is the human posy mcn-i mcn-i the title of "The Lily and co " The fellow is her darl-'Oiin?r darl-'Oiin?r Italian nobleman and :hem sweethearllng amid the of one of those Florentine sunken gardens that are now nltated by -wealthy' Amcrl-lt Amcrl-lt Lucretia Borgia has aline al-ine into the conspiracy busl-th busl-th deadly poisons for her f murder: and as the Lily's is been one of her sweet-you sweet-you may guess how and the trouble comes. Lily's father and two broth-) broth-) declined to join In a plot the papal slates, it becomes Tiucrelia to crush the Lily loltshing them. Her lover nr them to Lucretia In vain, j Includes him In her scheme :ancc. and here wc have as complication as any melo-:ould melo-:ould ncca, the poor girl's d kin arc in the grasp of adful woman. Old Tragedy, o a shift to matters of diro nothing less than a session i masked, pious inuulsltors. n the lives and deaths of :r imperiled men depend, i Lily, now broken, but still it. loving Lily, making a des-lea des-lea for them. After seeing lornhardt and Mrs. Patrick I praying for the lives of vers under similar circum-iccs circum-iccs In "The Sorceress," I could H expect Mildred Holland to hold own with them: but she does HBit well; and take it altogether, passage of Impending torture ills the old-tlmo tragedy of "Lu-a "Lu-a .Boi-gia" in which long-ago I not forgotten actresses used to ) and mouth. In that pleasant piece, though, the older among may remember that the gentle etla invited seven of her rccre-Bweethcarts rccre-Bweethcarts to a festal supper, 3 their wine with a deadly drug, then, pulling aside drapery, Dsed seven coffins, neatly let-I let-I with llicir names, thing so unhappy Is the conduct condu-ct . of "The Lily and the Prince." .m Mon't care how. but by a turn jSt he pen of the authoress. Carina tfn Ian, the vengeance of the Bor-J Bor-J is averted and the Li!y marries prince, with her father and broLh--zZ alive and doing very well, thank ejj iiice for the Goose." jiji tie theme of "Sauce for the trl eq" is affinity In marrlrgcs and vsjk Jack of it. Grace George Is the ? i of a man engaged In literary JJ c for which she doesn't care, but jllj feeing that another woman Is ing too close to him through real tii0trctendGd interest In his pur-she pur-she resolves to get back what- Iof his love she may have lost, high time for her to do some-about some-about it, for lie has accepted vltation to dine with the out-voman out-voman on an anniversary of his ng with tho inside woman. The tful wife thereupon hikes to tho with an outside man. and ho on from there to a midnight r. She doesn't do this for ry at all, but to arouse tho ,nd s jealousy. That Is no novel but out of it Is derived a rapid Bslon of clever things for tho ls,, title for this light and bright SBedy might well be "Tho Booni-Em7" Booni-Em7" The advanced woman who fBnext to Grace George's husband iKudaclous theory, but not in per-IBpns per-IBpns practice, advises wives to ?wco for equal freedom with that alcn their husbands are prone to JWy- "Break tho bonds." savs the Mnoter, of laxity. "That moans ry k latchkey," says Grace, sind Bttnakcs an immediate- experiment. supper that hIio lakes with her Btrer artor the opera Isn't a peeni-ViBlt peeni-ViBlt to a public restaurant, but M as to com-isl of lobster and Bnpagnc n'l by ihemselves In his teiur apartment except for a Hpieso valfn. who doesn't look as Hn he saw th.jin and wouldn't Bh on them anyway. Grace Iuib f" her host for his notoriety as BMWko, and naturally ho mlscon-Hs mlscon-Hs ?' Intention, expecting much H6ott(ng nothing, j. you mall Grace. George in grconH. where who has a res- FKANKLYl'T PYLBS. taurant rendezvous with her detaclied husband, lures him back to his love of hor by pretty coquetries and prepares pre-pares him for hl$ second honeymoon? "Well, her encounter with the man of wicked desire Is very like that in dainty tricks and witchery; and just as neatly and gently she ropels his advances when they become demonstrative. demon-strative. An oddity of the situation is that her husband and his pla-tonlc pla-tonlc affinity are at that very time-In time-In an apartment just overhead. The husband learns that her adventure Is underneath his own and he assumes that it is already, or may soon become, be-come, as scandalous as his is Innocuous. Innoc-uous. Thereupon the husband breaks In upon the wife, but not until the roue has broken away from the danger dan-ger point, to iiide on a tire escape In thin clothes on a cold night. And i indeed the husband has a minute or two of fury, but is calmed by his wife's cool account of what she has done. The act ends with the wife locking a door between the two men. This play of .badinage and persiflage by Gcraldine Bonner winds up next morning' In the truant wife's home. Where lias she been all night? Not in her bedroom, as her maid knows; nor anywhere that her husband Is aware ofr as he has been locked In the roue's apartment, while that rogue has shivered In the park with cold and dread. Thus, you see. the little woman has punished both culprits sufficiently. As to her own whereabouts? where-abouts? Why, she simply lot herself Into her home with that latchkey and slept peacefully In hor husband'3 bed. When onough has been said and done for fun's sage she saunters forth in a charming morning gown and makes peaco with hor apousc. Power of Broadway Theaters, "Sauce for the Goose" was performed per-formed at the opening of the fortieth for-tieth theater in Broadway, or just around the corner from it. All those arc dramatic houses only and one-half one-half of them have been built within ton years. Not so many arc needed by successful plays, and so, of course, there Is a reason for putting capital Into the overplus. A slart In New York is desirable for a play. There are several other producing cities, to be sure, and companies hailing from them are well heralded in contiguous con-tiguous territory, but for the greater part of the country New York's indorsement in-dorsement has valuable Influence. Now. a manager without a Broadway Broad-way theater has to wait for open time, to give up half the gross receipts re-ceipts sometimes much more and seldom less and to get out whenever the income falls below a weekly sum yielding a satisfactory profit to the director of the house. Thus it happens hap-pens that within a few years Charles W. Dillingham. George C. Tyler, James K. Hackett. William Collier, Wagcnhals & Kemper. Maxlno Elliott" El-liott" and Alia Na.Imova have acquired ac-quired a theater each, while George M. Cohan. Lew Fields and David Belasco have two apiece. The fortieth theater is William A. Brady's playhouse. It Is beautiful, of course, as all these new theaters thea-ters are, and much alike, too. All are shaped to seat as many people as near tho stage as can be done in a structure of desirable dimensions. The auditoriums are wide In proportion propor-tion to their depth and the cantilever system of sloel framing projects the balconies far forward wlUiout the support of obscuring posts. Thus 1200 lo 1500 persons arc seated In a house that formerly wouldn't hold more than two-thirds as many, and w'lth the best acoustic conditions. Fate of the New Theater. The one drawback to this otherwise admirable layout Is that, to giv? tho portions of an audience at tho sides clear views of plays, the stage has lo be almost as wide as tho parquet. par-quet. That does no harm to out-of-doors sci'nes, bui enlaigos rooms to unreasonable size. A cosy boudoir has to be big enough for a cheap lodging house The Playhouse Is as line a theater as any of these built on the new model. Of course, the Now theater Is far grander than this or any other In New York, hul a ruinous mistake was made In Us extraordinary bigness, bo that both visual and vocal merits are lost in space. As you know, that structure has. been turned oer tb opera and spectacle, and a smaller temple of Ideality in drama will be built. Holy week puts off dramatic disclosures dis-closures of consequence, but let mc tell you about unusual afternoon shows for charily In the biggest two Now York theaters. A hateful syndicate syn-dicate gives one for the sufferers by the recent factory fire, a sordid rival aggregation gives another, each tries to outdo in beneficence, and (ho results re-sults are an antagonistic dlscouple of remarkable matinees. The programmes pro-grammes are mostly . draughts from, current entertainments, of course, with grand opera excerpts mingled with familiar vaudeville stunts; but some of the things are now for mo lo describe to you. New York vaudeville habitually Irles doubtful dramatic compositions on Sundays in what purport lo be concerts permitted by I ho Sabbath law. A brief play may be as hard to prejudge as a long one. So a test before an audience fixes Its fate. "Tho Night Watchman" remains un-dcterinlnate. un-dcterinlnate. however, after such a tentative production. II has three characters. A girl belongs to an old man, but is at liberty nights and profits by it to have good times with a. band of boys and girls. A young painter was sent lo do some decorating deco-rating In hor rooms at S in the morning morn-ing Just as she was about to go to bed. Thev fell in love. The old man found il out. but didn't object. He reasoned that it would keep her from wider disloyalty If she had. In her sweetheart, what he called "a night watchman." The throe playorn argued ar-gued to Ihe manager thai, as the piece was cleverly written, with no impolite speech or action, it wouldn't be offensive. After seeing it. he said it would have to be gross to amuse anyone, and if it wore made so he wouldn't have it on his stage. broil Slapstick Work. A dramatic idea once valuable never becomes worthless. 1 don't doubt that Momus. god of giggles, was introduced for comic relief In tho Grecian tragedies; and if so, f feel sure ho stubbed his toes and rumbled on his nose for laughter. We can't see anything but fun In even a cherished, friend's slip down ever so hard. Clowning comedians resort to the thumpety-bump with perfect confidence In resultant merriment. mer-riment. A sprawling tumble down stairs Is especially provocative of hilarity, but some years of the trick that turned a flight of stops into a smooth incline, down which some one slid Into a heap at the terminus, seemed to reach the climax of stairway stair-way mishaps. Legitimate actors transfer themselves them-selves to vaudeville so frequently that if Booth were alive lie couldn't astonish aston-ish us with a twenty-mlnutc version of "Hamlet." But a circus clown utilizing himself as a speaking actor on the variety stage seems noteworthy. note-worthy. Jacques Gardner Is tho chap. He Is both an idealist and a realist. And he has written his own play, which he calls "Such a Getting Get-ting Down Stairs." It has a sentimental senti-mental plot; he makes a late evening call on a widow who has other suitors, suit-ors, and one of them lodges In tho same aoartment house. The stage Is sot to show an elevator and a stairway, but by tho lime Jacques's visit Is over the curfew midnight bell has rung and the elevator has gono out of service. The rival wooer of the widow Is a villain a deep-dyed, hellish villain. What does he do in his fiendish jealousy but soap the stairway! Iiigh,t hero Ihe dramatic suspense becomes intense. The widow's door Is hoard to open, and at the same time the villain peeps out at his doorway. Jacques doesn't wish to compromise the widow by his prolonged call, so he tiptoes silently lo the stairway. Then you know what happens. He slips anil falls, slides and bumps away down into a heap at tho bottom of the staircase. Tils training as a circus cir-cus tumbler enables him to elaborate the action. Kyrlc Bellow has held a record for a complicated tumble down a stairway In I he act of slaying with his gallant good sword no less than five assassins and then himself falling fall-ing headlong among them. But Jacques outdoes ICyrlc a hundred to nothing: and as he groans with his humps and bruises the fiendish laughter of tho villain rings out. Feminine Freak Roles. Pity tho poor voting actress who has to be a guy. There Is an extreme case at a theater this week. The conventional old maid was a caricature carica-ture in a musical farce. She was two inches under six foot in length, but so very narrow that she looked two Inches longer. -She didn't widen a bit at shoulders or hips, a side view rovcalod not the slightest convexity con-vexity above or below the belt lino in front, and her waist had as much girth as anvwhere else. Her face had small, nice features, hut her un-tintod un-tintod complexion was sallow In tho stagcllght, and her hair twisted plainly In one knot at the back of her head. There's no use naming the actress: yet she might be glad lo be identified; for 1 am going to tell how she looks when not performing as a scarcecrow old maid. That is her specialty. She doesn't scin to be of use In any other dramatic dra-matic line. But when a "rag. and a bone and a wisp of hah" is wauled not for such a vamplro siren as Kipling wrote of. but as a funnv break, this girl Is hired. Between Jobs al acting she works a typcwrltcc in a Wail street office: and It was there she was pointed out to me. Sho came in with a graceful movement utterly unllko her staue awkwardness, awkward-ness, ITndor a modlshly big hat her hair was colffured In tho latest stvlc. A fur-lrlmmod jacket widened hor shoulders and bins. Her corseted waist was symmetrical. Her small hands and foot were neatly gloved and shod. Her faco wasn't, made up. but Its natural color bv daylight was fresh, Shu was a comely girl with a decidedly Jaunty air. |