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Show PHTBSffiTC ' PLHYS SOKE -: 0!FiT E3 SUCCESS ' Long before George M. Oohtn tb.on.gnt of calling. himself "The Yankee Yan-kee Doodle Comedian" 'and long to-fore to-fore lie found that patriotism, cleverly exploited, results In Immense returns in enthusiasm and money; the flag was wared In American drama. Louis James, wjo Is now playing In "The Merry Wives of Windsor," was one of the actors who discovered, that the-audiences would rather applaud a patriotic sentiment than anything else. He made his discovery when he was leading- man of a stock company that was owned by the late Jacob Lltt The play was "The Ensign," In which James J. Corbett later appeared.' Lou James had his choice of parts. The ordinary leading man would have chosen the heroic lead. James took the part of an old battered sergeant of marines, but he captured the show when he delivered as the sergeant a Una that has become famous: "We ain't got no manners, but we can fight like h ." It was In "The Ensign" that a foreign naval officer was permitted to tear down the Stars and Stripes only to be bitterly rebuked by the American. ' . . The war dramas owe much of their popularity pop-ularity to the patriotism of the audiences. audi-ences. Bronson Howard's "Shenandoah" roused Immense enthusiasm during the Spanish war, and It was afterward taken to England, inhere It was called "Lady-smith." "Lady-smith." and with the characters changed into Englishmen and Boers, and with the locale shifted to South Africa, It was successful there. One of William Gillette's Gil-lette's greatest successes was "Held by the Enemy," In which a realistic .bomb explosion occurred and In which was that effective scene of signaling at night In war time. "Secret Service," another Gillette triumph, tri-umph, waa all. about the war, and there have been few better stage figures created cre-ated than that -of Capt. -Thorne, the Union spy who is In love with the Southern South-ern girl. To have the Union officer in love with the Southern girl is a part of the recipe for making a patriotic war play that is seldom omitted. "For Fair Virginia." In which Russ Whytal used to star, was constructed along these lines, and It was as successful as many of Its competitors. "The Girl I Left Behind Me" had the flag all through It and the siege of the stockade was one of the most skillfully contrived scenes in war drama. "The White Squadron" stirred up Interest Inter-est In the inland towns In the fine new navy of Secretary Whitney's time. In "Lincoln," In which Benjamin Chapln appears, ap-pears, the Civil war President and the members of his Cabinet are -represented with so much fidelity to nature that the audience always becomes enthusiastic. There has never been on- the American stage a song that has ranged with the "Jingo" song which, sung In the English music halls, roused the people to surh heights that war with France was narrowly nar-rowly averted. This Is the song that contains con-tains the satisfying sentiment: "We don't want to fight, but by Jingo If we dp, we've go the men, we've got the ships, we've got the money, too." Still It was "A Hot Time, In the Old Town Tonight" which was first played in vaudeville theaters In this country that was the real tune of the Spanish war. It was used so much that In the Philippines Philip-pines funerals marched to the cemetery to Its strains. George Cohan's song, "The Grand Old Flag," which was originally "The Grand Old Rag," but the title of which he changed when his attention was called to the fact that it didn't sound well, has made such a hit that In the public schools of Brooklyn It Is sung In exercises by the pupils In place of some of the older patriotic songs. But greater than all the other plays in which patriotism is appealed to Is "Arizona." "Ari-zona." Augustus Thomas wrote It a long time ago and the Hamllns of Chicago and Klrke La Salle owned It first. It has made fortune after fortune, and lta characters, char-acters, Can by, the gruff old ranchman: Lieut. Denton, the hero; Sergt. Kellarand his daughter Lena; Tony, the greaser, with hln love song and his profanity, all these things are loved by thousands. On the stage a soldier or a sailor In uniform or the flag Is always sure of applause. Indeed, among the unsentimental the custom cus-tom of dragging in some patriotic device by the heels Is called a "give us your kind applause" method. But that it succeeds la the best recommendation, recom-mendation, and as, many of the actors have proved in battle that they mean a lot that they say on the stage no one Is Justified In thinking that the patriotic drama Is only a shadow and designed simply to surprise people Into applause. For, beginning with Louis James and coming down to Robert Loralne) there have been many soldiers among the actors, ac-tors, and it is by his deeds as well as his words that a man Is Judged. |