Location:
Theater:
Date:
Type:
But Mr. Howe comes on the stage as a pawnbroker dressed the same as when he played in the opening piece. The dressing is no great fault, but the continuation of the character is.
Here in the first week and the first Hebrew comedian seen this season in a burlesque show, there is an Italian song, with a semi-pathetic sketch by the Hebrew comedian in the olio.
The' pawnbroker's wife died of a broken heart upon learning her daughter had married. The father (Howe) did not know the cause of his wife's death, and had only his daughter left for consolation. They lived together, the girl taking care of the shop when her father went out. While on his travels, a "rich lady in Fifth avenue" informed him her son had been missing for some time. Rightfully concluding the boy was "broke" she gave the pawnbroker her son's picture for purposes of identification when he wandered in the pawnshop. He wandered, to pawn his vest for fifty cents. The old man "staked the kid" to the vest and the money, but the ungrateful youth caught a flash of a tin box containing a plated gold watch. Conjecturing this was the treasure chest, he walked over to the stove and confidentially imparted to the audience he was going to rob the safe that night.
You did this, Mr. Carr, and you did it so well, you established yourself. There may be others who will attract favorable notice for this class of work, but Sam S. Howe is not one of them. Mr. Howe is a comedian, pure and simple. . Howe was not accepted seriously at any time. His best written and most pathetic line received a laugh, because he is a comedian, pure and simple. "A Broken Heart" fits in the olio where it is, and that lets it out; it can never go beyond.
Source:
Variety 8:4 (08/24/1907)