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Show "THE ROUND UP." By Mr. Edmund Day, who neglects the little matter of giving Harry Clay Blaney and Al Woods, "The Virginian," "Heir to the Hoorah," "Arizona," and "Whispering Smith" credit for stage effects, scenes, characters, and most of the lines of the play. Not that we hold Mr. Day entirely responsible, MBBBBBtor&rlBBBBBk fcv'p-jBIHjB BBPBWe -1m TTJBBoMMfiSJEMM BmmBBBBBBki mBBB vyj BBBBBBBJWfeff' ,-imBBB bSmaSbK SS MHBI BflHBBBW t &mwrm Fanny Usher at the Orpheum NextWeek however, for if former Manager Archie Cox of the Grand did not collaborate with him, the two must be among those who occasionally enjoy a set of soul dreams or open soul disclosures, with the result that one plagarizes the thought waves of the other. For it was Archie Cox who, in the halycon days of good old thrillers at the Grand, had a crew of twenty-two huskies with repeating Winchesters as the regular support of his stock companies. Day goes him fifty per cent better, however, in "The Round Up," and supports Mr. Arbuckle with a machine gun and all the repeaters repeat-ers and pistols he can find room for between the footlights and the back drop. "The Round Up" could have been little more in the mind of its creative genius than a sad, sweet dream of dirt, dead things, alkali and the testing room of a gun manufacturing plant, when Mr. Arbuckle was picked for the characterization of Slim Hoover, sheriff. In dexterity of movement, move-ment, despite his embonipoint and his ability to roll a cigarette with one hand, Mr. Arbuckle's artistry ar-tistry is of the highest order. His support from the machine gun and four bucking bronchos is admirable, while several near cowmen and a dozen or two stage cowboys mingle as effectively as oil and water. The story opens with Jack Payson, owner of the Sweetwater ranch, engaged to marry Echo Allen, whom the program vouches for as a girl of the southwest. You can tell by Echo's appearance appear-ance when she first comes in, that cooking for papa's cowmen isn't the only tragedy in her life by a long shot, and already you have guessed that Jack Payson is going to do somebody dirt before the night's over. The store clothes he wears show you right away what a low-down pup i he can be when he sets his course for it. As soon as Echo lets go the information that she was engaged to marry Dick Lane a couple of years before and that nobody has heard from Dick since he went out into the desert to find a gold mine, it begins to look as though there might be trouble. The author seems to realize, however, that it is best to relieve the tension a little at this point and get some of the cowboys onto the stage who have been standing 'around blocking up the wings. You know they are cowboys, because all wear guns and chaps. The boys yell and whoop around for a while and begin to get tanked up, while Jack and Echo do the repressed heavies over in a corner of the ranch yard. It works around until late in the afternoon and the time of the wedding, when there shambles sham-bles in a trampy-looklng fellow with two months' growth of beard on his face, who walks up to Payson and says: "Hello, Jack. Glad to see me, arn't you. Did you give that letter to Echo? Here's the three thousand dollars you loaned me, old man. Now you can pay off the mortgage on your ranch." You have a pretty fair amount of respect for Dick up to this time, knowing that he's put in two years hot-footing it around a desert trying to find a gold mine and then laying up in a hospital hos-pital with a splinter of his skull pressing on his brain in the wrong place; but when Jack hands out the talk about how the shock of Dick's coming com-ing will probably prove fatal to Echo, and that he had better keep out of sight for awhile, you'd think that instead of moping around in a corner ol the garden waiting for Jack to do his missionary mis-sionary work, he'd quit acting like an onion and take a long chance on Echo dying of joy and scratching her face all up on that two months' growth of stubble by seeing her first himself. Meanwhile Jack is going a mile a minute. He gets Echo's papa out in the yard and tells him , that daughter's happiness depends on his standing stand-ing guard at the front door and letting no one pass until the sky pilot has fixed things for Echo and himself. Over in a corner of the garden Dick hears a wedding march twanged on the strings of a couple of guitars, and does the hurdles hur-dles getting around to the front door, where papa lays his hand gently on the butt of his .44 and orders the stranger begone. "Don't you know me, Uncle Jim?" says Dick, through the stubble. "I don't," says Uncle Jim, "and I ain't your Undo Jim." "I'm Dick," says he of the stubby beard. "You're hell," says Uncle Jim. Dick damns everybody every-body and everything and says he'll go back to the- desert. It's really his inning, but he isn't wise, for as soon as he's gone and Jack and Echo are settled, a couple of regular cutthroats cut-throats insist on asking Jack where he got the three thousand dollars to pay off the mortgage on his ranch with, intimating that they'd like to ) know whether or not there is any connection be- tween his sudden possession of that much money and the robbery and killing of- a trader. Then the wicked lio is forced right out of Jack Pay-son; Pay-son; all about how Dick came home and how he deceived Echo and sent poor Dick back to the bad lands. It was terrible the way Echo carried on for a while after that; she sobbed and moaned something awful, and wouldn't let Jack touch her. All she could say between sobs was, "Bring him back to me. Bring him back to me." And Jack got so het up that he grabbed his pistol and rifle, forgot all about promising Sheriff Slim Hoover that if Slim would let him talk to his wife he wouldn't get away, bolts out of the door, flings himself on his trusty bronk and is off for the bad lands. Echo lets up on the sobs long enough for a hasty glance around the room and decides it isn't going to be any fun sticking around there alone, so starts for the door and lets out a yell for Jack to come back and all will be forgiven. Bud Lane, Dick's brother, however, is hiding in the closet and he pokes the greasy muzzle of a big pistol right around towards the crack in the door and tells Echo that she'd better keep Jack on his way because if he comes back through that door he's going to avenge brother with all the lead his shooting iron can turn loose. After that it's a quid; but hard finish. Jack finds Dick digging ,for a water hole in the bad lands, and then the Indians spoil a cracker jack scene, for Dick is starting for home on Jack's poney and Jack is looking into the business end of a forty-four, geting ready to shuffle off his mortal coil, when a redskin plunks Dick in the leg, and in two minutes there are more cowboys. Indians, soldiers and supes on that stage emptying blanks out of repeating rifles as fast as stage hands can hand fresh guns to them up out of - the wings, than Blaney or Al Woods ever dreamed of. A magazine gun adds 'its racket to the roar, and the curtain goes down on a color sergeant waving a United States flag from a ledge of rocks over the heroes below. Did the soldiers get there in time? You can bet your sweet life they got there in time! Dick, however, cashes In, and Jack goes back to Echo. The halfbreed outlaw confesses to killing the trader, trad-er, and the curtain goes down on the last act after af-ter four trained bronchos have bucked across the stage a couple of times. You can't beat it for the yellowest of yellow melodramas, and It would be hard to find a better Slim Hoover than Macklyn Arbuckle. The extensively advertised stage realism is mostly claptrap. There is an excellent stage picture in the third act, and that is the extent of the scenic end of the show as far as anything worthy of consideration. con-sideration. The Orpheum suffered a half week of demoralized demor-alized business with all the other vaudeville houses about town, and until the rai'roads got a few trains through Tuesday and Wednesday, had to get along the best it could with half of the bill intended for the week and the stray acts that could be picked up about town. The Geisha Girls and their kimonos have made a hit, however; Jean Clermont's Burleske circus is a headliner, and Mr. Dooley, Brown, Harris & Brown,- and Jimmy Lucas keep the laughs going. Altogether it is an excellent bill. The hold-overs from last week and those who filled in Sunday and Monday evenings, until the regular Orpheum turns showed up, sent a few disappointed audiences audi-ences away, but this was unavoidable and the regular show has made up for It. "A Bachelor's Romance" comes nearer being a married man's tragedy than anything else at the Bungalow this week. The restraining influences of the combined stage crew at the Bungalow has kept Mack on his feet and out of the orchestra pit at most of the performances he has tried to appear in the past week or so, and for a few nights he hasn't (Continued on Page 15.) (Continued fiom P.igo 13 been in the cast at all. His wife, Maud Leone, who has stood up so bravely under Mack's drunkenness drunk-enness these many months, has almost given way under the strain and she has been unable to appear ap-pear at several performances. W At the Colonial "Brewster's Millions" has stood its third or fourth repetition locally pretty well, considering the mediocrity of the presenting present-ing company. The show is funny enough to carry itself, however, with those who have taken advantage ad-vantage of the opportunity to see it at popular prices. ft V The Mission is straightened around after a week of delayed acts caused by the railroad tie up, and Thursday evening opened one of the best programs they have had for several weeks. Joe Boganny's troupe of lunatic bakers, a clever comedy com-edy sketch, heads the bill and shares honors with L. W. Fremont and company presenting "The Way of the West." Sallie Stembler is heard in vocal novelties and Edgar Berger and Eddie Do-lan, Do-lan, with the pictures and orchestra, complete the show. |
