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Show Gambling With Plays BY FRED NIBLO, In the stock market you have some chance for your money; in tho theatrical business you have less. A sharo of stock lias a dellnlle value. It may rise or may depreciate, but It still represents something real and definite so much wheat or copper, or whatever the thing is with which you play. On the stage you gamble with the plays, which have no real or dellnlle valuo until after they are produced. You may pay Augustus Thomas, who Is among the host contemporary contem-porary Amerlchn playwrights, a retaining retain-ing feo of $1500 for his next play, and ho may give you a drama which reads wonderfully well, and which you think must undoubtedly be a great success. It may not run a week, because, while technically tech-nically It is absolutely correct. It may, nevertheless, lack the human Interest ncccsssnry to please the public, who are the llnnl arbiters of theatrical destiny. Daniel Frohman. a. man of Infinite experience, ex-perience, of line, trained mind, of splendid splen-did literary ability, who hats an international interna-tional acquaintance with the be3t stock companion of his time, declined The Lion and the Mouse," which he had given Charles Klein a commission to write. Klein refunded the retaining fee and offered the play to a younger and more Inexperienced manager, Henry B. Harris, who took a long chance on Ii and made a fortune, tho foundation of Ills present success; After Harris had produced it. George Tyler, perhaps one of tho ablest dramatic producers of today, to-day, saw the play and said: "Frohman was right. I would havo refused the script If it had been offered to mo." That was the trained judgment of two of the most experienced men In the show business, busi-ness, and yet "The Lion and the Mouse" has been ono of the sensational successes of the last decade. Daniel Frohman also declined "The Witching Hour." which afterward had such a wonderful vogue. Several managers, man-agers, among them Charles Frohman, declined "The. Fortuno Hunter," which two companies played to packed" houses in New York and Chicago for an entire season. Yet ChBrle3 Frohman later produced pro-duced "The Fires of Fate,'' by Conaji Doyle, which only ran two weeks. He gambled on the reputatlonu of the author, au-thor, and lost. Cohan and Harris, who produced "The Fortune Hunter." gambled gam-bled on their judgment of the play, and won. Charles Frohman gambles almost altogether al-together on reputation. An actor has a big naruft; a writer has a world-wide reputation; Mr. Frohman hastens to obtain ob-tain a lien on his services. Practically every well-known . playwright in Europe has a contract whereby Mr. Frohman has firet claim for American productions on everything he writes, ,T. M. Barrle is the most notable example of thlB Frohman Froh-man policy and on everything Mr. Barrle has done. Frohman's gamble has been successful. "Madame X.," one of tho few European Euro-pean successes which has escaped Frohman, Froh-man, was captured by Henry W. Savage. Sav-age. Technically, there are many better bet-ter plays, but. it has one big scene, which reduced every woman, and many men. in the audience to tears, and tho public snoir.n to bo willing to pay 'good money to have what a woman calls "a real good cry," for "Madame X." ran twenty weeks In Chicago and repeated its triumphs in New York. Savage gambled gam-bled on that one scene, and the luck was with lilm. Among the stars. Maude Adamc. Ethel Barryrrore. John Drow. E, H. Sothcrn. Julia Marlowe, Adelaide Thurston and Maxlne Elliott can almost oortalnlv he relied upon to carry evon a bad play to success, ho that tho manager who gambles gam-bles with their services Is usually play. ing a sure thing,' but there arc hosts of caucs where a man may make a big success suc-cess in one rolo and bo an utter failure-In failure-In another, just; as tho playwright who has had one big success may write aomo-thlng aomo-thlng else which falls dismally. Yet managers continue to be imitative rather than creative. "Tho public liked iiuch a show." the manager savs, "therefore "there-fore T'll have one pust like thai." So he orders a play built on the same model, and In nine cases out of ten, the Imitation Imita-tion is a failure, no matter how successful success-ful the original may have been. The actor Is. of necessity, compelled to be as much of a gambler as the manager. mana-ger. He may rehearse for six weeks with a play that .looks like a big thing, and It may close In two weeks. leaving him stranded, with perhaps a long hunt for anothor engagement.' This uncertainty Is worse a great deal for a woman than a man. because a woman's clothes are much more expensive and an actress may spend six hundred dollars on her ward- robe for a play which only ylolds hor two weeks' salary. Thon, perhaps, hcr next engagement demands clothes of an entlroly different character, and she has lost out tWlCOi it seems as if It wero impossible to remove re-move this gambling, element from the theatrical business, for no other business busi-ness in the world is conducted along similar linos. It Is the public, and the public alone, who make' or mar a play's success, and who can keep his finger on the public pulse One thing alono scorns certain: that wholesomencEs Is tho best asset a play or player can have A salacious sa-lacious musical show, tilled with risque Jokes and equivocal situations, may make money whllo It lasts, but It doesn't last long. The really enduring playn arc the ones which are founded on goodness and wholesomencss, plays like "Tho Old Homestead." "Tho Little Minister," and "Shore Acres," which have endured for years and years, and "Tho Fortune Hunter." Hunt-er." which will endure, and the actors who Insist on having cloan plays, like Joseph Jefforson. Dcnman Thompson and Maude Adams these arc the people who have had real and enduring success. With them the atago ceases to be a gambit! gam-bit! and becomes a permanent and suc-ccssful suc-ccssful business. SOENE IN FlitST ACT OF "THE FORTUNE TELLER." At tho Salt Lako Theater, Beginning Tuesday. |