Barnon’s Circus
15 Mins.; Full. Barnon has four cats, a like number of dogs and two ponies. He has enough animals to work out a nice little act for small time. It is an act that will please a kid audience.
Spiegel and Jones
13 Mins.; One. Two boys, in black face, singing and talking. Will do nicely on any small time bill. At the Union Square they were the hit of the bill, through the program being shy on comedy and they being the one act that had any kind of material that got over. One of the boys is a wounded soldier while the other is doing a female impersonation as a Red Cross nurse. Some clever talk at the opening and three songs.
Lang and Coulter
14 Mins.; One. This blackface team is seen in an entirely new vehicle, which, however, follows somewhat in the line of what they have done hitherto in vaudeville. One is short and dapper and the other tall and lanky, with a sort of Bert Williams style of humor, and yet not patterned after him at all. The men come on after the sound of pistol shots back stage. It is explained they have been in a “crap” game, and the dapper little one has made away with all the money, leaving the lanky one to fight it out with the belligerent darkies who remain. A comedy razor is used with laughable effect, and a crap game played in the footlights is another good laugh. The little one has a song and later the tall one ambles on in a woman’s gown, and there follows a travesty on the modern dance. The act closes with a quaint dance, while the men play harmonicas. Both have a rich dialect, redolent of the southern darkey. They offered a lugubrious joke or two about a medical college and a cadaver, which might be eliminated. The act is a fine one for small or middle time, and at the Lincoln Hippodrome it seemed to hit the audience right in their funny bones. The men depend a little too much on realism, and their own native wit, but when they have worked the act out a little more, it will be a sure winner.
“Little Nap.”
12 Mins.; Full Stage. “Little Nap” is another “Educated monk,” titled after his dress, a military uniform, with a Napoleonic hat. “Nap” does most of his work on the stage, alone, riding a bicycle, and also piloting a motorcycle, with a side attachment in which is another monk,
Distinctly new in this sort of turn. The finish is a bedroom suite, made more complete than most of the others, the monk undressing, and the finish arriving when he jumps into bed. Too much time is given to the different bits in the opening. But the act doesn’t overrun, 12 minutes. Had “Little Nap” arrived first, and so on, the same here as with a lot of others who thought of something after it had happened! They may do it better, but they do it too late. The same with plays. Opening the Palace show “Nap” did well, and will be generally liked.
Inas Family
6 Mins.; Full Stage (Gypsy Camp). Six men and two women form this acrobatic group. The “family” is dressed in the familiar grab of foreign nomads. They carry a gypsy camp drop and open with the women doing a tambourine dance. Pyramids, shoulder-to-shoulder leaps and somersaults, with groundwork the piece de resistance, are performed by the men. One of the women also puts in some acrobatic turns. The act has some flashy arabics, spirals and springboard (trampoline effect) somersault revolutions that are well done. The men are inclined to take their time with the work. Good act of its kind and a splendid closer for the pop house.
Feiber Brothers and Adams
17 Mins.; One. Of the trio the tallest wears a plain suit, affects the mannerisms of a simpleton and in addition to singing alone and with the other boys does a bit of Russian legmania that is about the best of the act. One of the trio has a prop smile used overtime. The piano player, who also sings, has pert assurance that gives the wrong impression. The boy sings harmoniously and get plenty of applause.
McConnell and Simpson
22 Mins.; Three. “At Home” McConnell and Simpson, assisted by Laurence Simpson, have a new act, “At Home,” by H.H. Winslow. The action is supposed to occur in the McConnell and Simpson home at Kansas City. Living with them is Grant’s brother Laurence. The men return from a ball game, arguing, and the wife at home has a meal waiting. There’s talk of spending the evening out when the suggestion goes that a rehearsal of the new McConnell-Simpson act take place. In a jiffy the trio enacts a farcical little skit with Miss McConnell playing the role of an insane asylum superintendent, Grant Simpson, a lawyer, who makes real conditions at the institution, and Laurence Simpson, a Chicago drummer, who plays doctor, attendant and patients with the aid of wigs that the “lawyer” may be fooled on the supposed “filled up” business the place is doing. After the act Laurence refuses to reherse it a second time and rushes out, leaving his brother and wife quarreling over him. The ‘phone rings. Grant is informed that his brother has been killed by an auto. Here Grant breaks into tears and a transformation comes over his wife when she realizes the boy she has been berating is dead. It’s. a quick change and very well done. The new act gives Miss McConnell opportunity to use her old laugh mixed in with some hysterical tears, while there’s a mixture of comedy and pathos. The act was well received Monday night.
Eva Tanguay
28 Mins.; One. The same eccentric and erratic tempest of a couple of years ago. Eva, Tanguay, made her return bow to vaudeville Monday afternoon at Keith’s. Her act, as always, is in a class by itself, but as a “Tanguay act” it outshines anything she has previously attempted. Her costumes are, to put it mildly, bizarre, but without offense. Tanguay is carrying her own director and have a trombone player, the orchestration having much trombone work. She has six costumes, but Monday afternoon used only five, the act running 28 minutes. Her shifts are made with startling rapidity and aid much in speeding up an act which travels in the high always. She opened to cordial applause with “That’s Why They Call Me Miss Tobasco,” the costume being a gold cloth creation, knee length, trimmed with fur and a short of a toque made and trimmed with the same materials. The second number was “There’s Method in My Madness,” with another golden costume trimmed with bells that accentuated the Tanguay perpetual motion prancing. The song is another of those infectious lyrics dealing with why she behaves the way she does. Her entire act is now based on this theme, with such lines as “preferring to be a nut to working in a laund-ery.” In this costume Eva brings forth the famous Tanguay legs and these three succeeding changes retain that psychological line made famous by her. Her bodies fit even tighter with more form revelation than ever before, impossible though this may seem. Two fit like a coat of whitewash. Her third number is a little weaker and is entitled “I Wonder What I’ll be When I Come Back to Earth Again.” This had the wildest costume of her entire flock, a velvet anklet from which scores of loose velvet cords extend to her waist and from here in erratic bunches to a Tommy Atkins’ hat. It gives the effect of stanning in an enormous pair of bird cages. Her forth number is “Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones, But Names Will Never Hurt Me.” The bodice of the costume for this is white silk and green triangular strips extending from what should be a skirt to her shoulders and hanging loose. Her fifth song is “There Goes Crazy Eva.” It’s a corker and her costume is appropriately unusual. It has a black bodice with starched lace upstanding in circlets from the top of her head, her neck, armpits and waist. She closed her made-to-order songs with “Father Never Brought Up Any Crazy Children,” using the same costume, and did “Peace! Peace! Let the Cannons Cease!” Miss Tanguay says she wrote it by herself, but it’s nothing to be proud about. Her encore was “I Don’t Care” as always. Miss Tanguay’s reception was the usual one, a jammed house. Monday afternoon she went on a little lat. The new Tanguay act is the best she ever had.
Hugh Herbert and Co.
27 Mins.; Five. “The Sons of Abraham.” Joseph Hart presents Hugh Herbert in this sketch of old fashioned and modernized Hebrews, written by Geo. V. Hobart and Mr. Herbet That Mr. Herbert wrote and inserted most of the typical “Yiddish” lines and actions is as easily believed as it is seen that he wholly holds up the piece, in his character of retired merchant, who left his underwear business to two growing sons. In the father’s absence for three months, the boys, after having incorporated the business, become involved. The “old man” returns in time to save them from a receivership, by an immediate advance of $50,000 and a promised loan of $20,000 more. The sons (the parts are played by Thomas Everett and Arthur Thalasso) are modernized American Jew boys, sharply contrasted in appearance, ways and language with their orthodox Hebrew father and his lifetime companion, Speagle (Gustave Hartzheim). The sons are too loud, too noisy in fact, for their roles, but that may have been a matter of rehersal. The story is not overstrong, has no sympathetic strings, and is made blustery through the introduction of two “women” (Adelaide Folger and Carol Parson). These girls call on the sons at their place of business, today they have sent some goods C.O.D., I unless paid for on deliver, “everything is off” between the two couples. It is while the young women are at the office after the father returns. The presence of the young women begets horseplay that distorts such of the story as then exists, and the entire portion of the sketch that this section discloses could be removed, also removing at the same time the “women” from the piece. Suggestion regarding them would be as effective, if this phase must be dragged in. the elimination would reduce the running time and make the action swifter. The earlier part of the playlet drags. Mr. Herbert is doing a fine bit of playing as the father. Audience’s will like him, Hebrews among them, even if the latter will not particularly relish the act itself, as at present consisted. For one thing, it gives the wrong impression of the American born Hebrew. But as an act, Mr. Herbert will make good in it, and will make it good.
Margaret Iles and Co. (2).
19 Mins.; Full Stage. Will prove a clever comedy sketch for small time providing it is cut down to the real meat in the idea. At present the turn is at last four minutes too long and consequently draggy in spots. Miss Iles is a clever little girl who does nicely with the material she has. Her support is not a strong as it should be. The man is clever enough, but the woman settlement worker is not. The act while a comedy has pathos well turned to laugh at the finish. When in shape, good for small time.