15 Mins.; One. “The Girl, the Boy and the Piano.” Brother and sister (Lila Hibbard) who have been entertaining Milwaukee since they were youngsters, with natural talent. Both have stage presence and personality, particularly the young woman. She is vivacious and attractive. Both are of good voice, using original songs. In the next to closing after Lina Abarbanell and other strong acts, they made good outside of native and other strong acts, they made good outside of native element consideration. Considered by management as easily qualified for big time.
12 Mins.; Two. These musical entertainers have some new ideas. Act opens with girl coming on for song and a little dance. Man follows with violin and girl dances more. Then girl goes to piano and man offers some good numbers. Man has solo, playing Irish airs, and girl comes out as boy in green plush for an Irish dance. Next, some Scottish music and girl in kilts, closing with American patrol with girl in brown plush (still as boy) in Colonial regalia. Act needs speeding up. Lacks ginger. Not enough red fire at close.
This sketch was performed for the first time in 1882. It is old-fashioned, artificial at times, and the trick by which tears are wrung from the most hardened is as palpable as the players themselves, and yet it strikes home. It is a domestic tragedy showing how husband and wife, who still love each other, unconsciously drift apart, each one thinking the other careless and callous. Lady Gwendoline Bloomfield (Ethel Barrymore), after the loss of her child, turns to frivolous society for comfort, dawdling about with one Sir Anthony. Sir Geoffrey Bloomfield (Charles Dalton) is following in the wake of some Duchess or other. Husband and Wife seldom meet and a barrier seems to have grown up between them. They bicker and quarrel, when they do meet, and the house divided seems ready to fall. The woman, who has steeled her heart, and is ready to break the marriage tie to free herself from the mockery, is touched when she finds her husband has been sleeping in the nursery, which long since has been deserted by their only child. Coming from the opera, she decides to have a talk with Sir Geoffrey and asks him to get her some needlework that she may work for the Red Cross. By a mistake, while rummaging among parcels, he finds one containing two little silk shoes. And, herein are the tears. In the midst of the high quarrel the woman undoes the parcel, and, there before her eyes, are the shoes worn by the little feet that “have found the path to haven.” In the playing of this scene Miss Barrymore has perhaps never reached a higher mark. It hits the heart a blow that is irresistible. Mr. Dalton is effective as the husband, giving a fine, clean-cut performance.
22 Mins.; Full Stage. “Days of War” Mme. Yorska, protege of Bernhardt, made her first appearance in English in “Days of War” (by Maurice Joy) assisted by Jose Ruben. The scene of the little play is laid in a fashionable hotel in a European seaside resort. The story concerns a spy and how he is caught by a chorus girl from the Casino, a local playhouse. Mme. Yorska is seen as Laura, the Casino girl, who has been courted by Count Dalgo (Jose Ruben). There is a waiter (Theodore Doucet) who is in reality a secret service man on the trail of Count Dalgo, the spy. A maid (Eleanor Grayce) is also more or less concerned. It appears that Laura, who is under an assumed name, had known Count Dalgo in other days under his real name, and at that time had fallen in love with him. She is set to catch him by the secret service man. While waiting to give the signal which will send him to death, she discovers he is her former ideal, and this forms the crux of the playlet. In this big scene Mme. Yorska is given opportunity for some strong emotional acting. The act is talky and discursive and the plot is not always clearly defined. As a picture of what happens in war times, it is fairly effective. Mme. Yorska’s series of plays at the Fine Arts theatre was abandoned because of war conditions.
10 Mins.; One. Stories in dialect, told with considerable unction, Miss Hight is a local product, lacking vaudeville experience. She has a fund of pretty fair stories, beginning with Irish tales and then German, also darky folk stories. Her voice lacks carrying power, and she needs stage training Monday afternoon the house was pretty well filled with friends. As a lyceum attraction who would do much better.
Everest’s humorous and famous monkeys closed, suffering badly through the exodus already begun and reaching the proportions of a stampede before the curtain rose on the final offering. The turn worked neatly and fluently to the ingratitude of receding backs.
Rekoma opened, a gentlemanly athlete in a series of rapid stunts, equilibriums and leaps. This turn did not go by the boards, as most icebreakers do, but went warmly with those who came promptly.
Miss Tucker, the ambitious and aggressive girl who is forging new history in these parts in vaudeville and café work, issued an entirely changed program since last week at the same stand. Her “Kid from Madrid,” which she made a household gag at Reisenweber’s, kicked over a bang with a comedy Spanish tambo dance to close. Her baby-spot ballad was “Rockaby Lullaby” and she eased in a novelty in a “Floradora” sextet number, in which she wore the famous garb of that collection of historic vamps of a generation ago. She was driven to an encore and a speech – two speeches – and a third.
James H. Cullen, the beloved Jim who has played this section since many nowadays fathers were children, ambled on quietly, as always, and got a noisy hello. Cullen is as annual as Winter and a whole lot pleasanter. His boyish, innocent face conceals behind it the subtle mobility of the royal jester, the suave and unctuous wit. Jim said many a deep, wise crack off the tip of his smooth and ready tongue. One about Mary Garden was a classic. He could have remained for supper and keep the guests intact.
This without the next-to-closing turn in the running and Nellie V. Nichols, tried and sterling performer, running below her grade. Miss Nichols followed two singing acts, but since there were six in a row almost every one did. Miss Nichols, however, followed several hundred, using material which in the main was trite and frazzled with wear.
At this day, in Chicago, a routine containing “Portuguese,” Moving Picture Ball,” “Wait Till You See,” and “Rose of Washington Square,” is handing out a lot of vets. In addition she did a special called “Don’t Let the Same Bee Sting You Twice” and a brief one incorporating the old gag about the Sunday school teacher talking about her twenty-one children and the stranger asking what part of Ireland her husband came from. She also did a Wop, in which Tony rhymed with macaroni and was from San Antonio. Miss Nichols holds an honored and established position in vaudeville; like an ambassador to a foreign capital, she should “support the position as befits.” She needs true, honest character songs and is big enough to have her own, with a popular one here and there, perhaps. If she does not want exclusive ones she might keep refreshing the ones she does want. She did not “go” as an artist of her caliber should.
