12 Mins.; Full Stage (Library). A farcical playlet with mistaken identity for the foundation. When you can get four people at a limited price, too much is not to be looked for, and if you don’t look for too much in this “farce,” you won’t be disappointed, either in the playlet or the players. Otherwise it’s a bad boy.
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.
“A $2,500 Bet” 12 Mins., Two. Man loses $2,500 on a horse named “Birdie White.” Usual complications.
22 Mins.; One. George T. Stallings, the miracle man of baseball, came to bat at the Palace Monday night with nothing but a prayer and a few pieces of note paper. The marvellous smile, of which page after page has been written was a very nervous person when he appeared before the Palace audience, so nervous a mere sneeze from the gallery would have sent him right through the roof. But nobody sneezed and nobody wheezed and George went right through his little task of earning that $1,500 like a major, once he wound up, and finished the expected hit amid loving cups, floral pieces, and the usual introductions that go along with the engagement. Stallings formally apologized for his presence and after announcing he was totally unprepared for the ordeal, proceed to tell of his troubles with the Boston Braves and his fun with the Athletics. He delivered his little talk in a nice even tone, continually pacing up and down the stage. A fine looking type of athlete, he is brimful of personality and with a few more shows should overcome the nervousness and proceed to develop into an attraction. Always remaining, of course, in the classification of freak acts. Occasionally he provoked a rousing hand during the little spiel, but threw a damp chill over the assembled fans when he rebuked them for their fickleness. Needless to say the house was packed to the rafters. Johnny Evers, the utility man for vaudevilling baseball players, was introduced, and at the finale, Bozeman Bulger presented Stallings with a loving cup. Stallings makes a good pulling card and while he is a bit wild in control just now he will undoubtedly become accustomed to the glare of the footlights and soon be able to get them over the plate quite as well as Mike Donlin, Rube Marquard or even “King” Cole.
15 Mins.; One. Fred Weber is offering a very ordinary ventriloquial turn that will pass on the small time and that is all. He opens with the boy dummy and runs through usual routine. His best bit is with “the crying baby,” which he thinks so much of that he repeats it until it loses all value, becoming tiresome. With his cry-baby and a good routine he could work out a comedy act that would take him along nicely. An idea is all he needs and this seems to be lacking at present.
Another baseball star shot into vaudeville from the Braves after winning the World’s Series. Maranville played last year and has a little merit. His demonstration of coaching tricks which includes indescribable antics in the limited space that won him the name of “Rabbit” long before he became the Braves’ shortstop brought down the house. Monday afternoon, with Eddie MacHugh as a partner. Maranville scored three hits and one error, the error coming in his forgetting the lines of “Playland,” a ballad that he had done well with in rehersals. It is an act, like all the others, that will have but a short life, but Maranville puts more ginger into his turn than is the custom. Anywhere in New England he will pack a house. Whether he will play New York and Philadelphia depends on how those managers dope the prospects.
14 Mins.; Full Stage (Curtain). New York men haven’t been educated up to classical dancers of the Paul Swan type. He is wholly classical. The women may like him. The older the women the more they will like to see him float about the stage, with his arms moving snakewise, and his body twisting, almost squirming. But the men over here don’t understand it. Art isn’t held very high at Hammerstein’s and Mr. Swan got more snickers than applause, but the horrid men were responsible, the brutes! Mr. Swan danced three times, each time a different costume, but never at any time wearing enough clothes to cover him up. He was almost as naked as some of the women who have danced around for different reasons. Mr. Swan wore some silken drapes for covering. They exposed his bare arms and his bare legs and his bare back and his bare chest. The program said is “The Most Beautiful Man in the World,” but Mr. Swan ducked this way and then ducked that way, and he would never stand still long enough to let the house see his face. Of Mr. Swan’s three dances, the first, second and third seemed to be over the heads pf the audience. He died in the final dance, and it’s tough to die at Hammerstein’s.
14 Mins.; One (6); Full Stage (8). “The Wedding in Old Tomoon” Jack Lorimer returns to this side with what the program says is a “song scena,” “The Wedding in Old Tomoon.” A song scena on the other side is presumed over here to be a “song production.” Mr. Lorimer had the song, singing it in a full bare stage woodland scene, assisted by Stella Sthal, but that was all it amounted to, just a song and dance. His first song in “one” was “Doing the Seaside” with several familiar Scotch melodies intertwined. His next was a Spanish number, costumed. It has a bit of humor in the idea, a Scotch Spanish dancer. Miss Stahl did not appear until the “song scena.” Mr. Lorimer has hardly a turn of strength, as it played Monday at Hammerstein’s.
19 Mins.; Full Stage. “A Turn of the Knob” For Louise Dresser’s return to vaudeville she has selected an entertaining little comedy skit with a splendid idea and a fine line of dialog and one that should keep her continually playing, for Louise Dresser is popular wherever she is known. The story is of a prominent city investigator (Geo W. Howard) who is due to play a principal role in a wedding 15 minutes after the rise of the curtain. The scene is his apartment on the 10th floor of a hotel. His future brother-in-law (Edward Langford) rushes out for the ring and during his absence an insurance solicitor (Miss Dresser) gains entrance through a ruse and proceeds to talk the bridegroom into a policy. Having just completed a searching investigation of the local insurance companies, his name to a policy would be a valuable asset to any firm, and the solicitor is anxious. In his attempt to escape, the door-knob becomes loose and is pried off, leaving them marooned. Immediately afterward, while endeavouring to reach the office via the phone, he breaks the telephone wire. To be brief, the girl finally secures his promise to the application just as the other chap returns. Finding the couple alone in the room the visitor demands an explanation, and although unaware of the promise or its meaning, insists it to be fulfilled. Incidentally the brother-in-law recognizes the girl as his ideal of a wife and upon the men’s exit, locks her in to await his return when he purposes to resume his interrupted business of making love. Langford is a bit weak for his particular role, his enunciation falling short, although as the part is of minor importance he passes muster. Miss Dresser looks better in this role than in any previous vaudeville effort and scored an individual hit. Mr. Howard fills his role nicely. The piece works jerky in sections, but should eventually develop speed and accumulate strength with playing. It pulled one of the hits at the Palace and well deserved to.
