Maude Lambert and Ernest R. Ball were a riot opening the second half after the “Topics of the Day.” There is nothing like the singing of one time popular songs by the writer to stir the listless palms of a vaudeville crowd. This pair make their act a family party, in perfect good taste and done in a spirit of agreeable intimate badinage that communicates itself to any audience. They somehow seem to convey across the footlights the atmosphere of “regular folks.” Stage women of ample figure might do well to study Miss Lambert’s scheme of dressing. In the last gown she wears she is a picture of stateliness where a single wrong line might easily have given the impression of bulk.
Flo Lewis, assisted by the colored lady’s maid, “Dardanella,” was a bit of a let-down, although there was much in her flash kidding that hit the “wise” Palace audience. Miss Lewis occupied an amusing quarter of an hour, in spite of a little too much of a colored maid. The personal talk of Miss Lewis’ about getting her new vehicle was plenty of the “just among ourselves” sort of thing. The interjection of the colored girl, however, somehow take away the atmosphere of “class” that one expects at the Times Square Keith house. The hoke is rather obvious.
Eduardo and Elisa Cansino did a fast 15 minutes of real dancing. Their grace and activity not to mention the perfect good taste of their costuming and simple presentation, are calculated to show up a lot of “society dancers,” who make a lot more pretense in billing and parade in stage work. Their colorful specialty likewise fitted in nicely as programmed. Indeed the bill ran off just as printed and the original layout came through 100 per cent.
Mignonette, Kokin and Fred Galetti made a great opener. The turn is an odd frameup and catches attention from the entrance of the three players in the costume of Italian street musicians wheeling what looks like a hand organ. Their routine, aside from the work of the monkeys is varied and keeps the speed up, and the monks themselves are screams with burlesque barber shop scene. They had the house laughing uproariously and put the early comers in an agreeable frame of mind.
Eddy and Howard came next and proved the laughing and applause hit of the bill. Eddy, an excellent tumbler, and Howard, a contortionist of the first water, accomplished some interesting feats, but monkeyed too much.
Billy Earle, single woman, followed in “one,” before a special black and white dilapidated, wrinkled drop with a cut-out in the center of it. She chirps one ditty, walks off and returns in bell-boy attire for another songs, walks around the rostrum paging a Mrs. Smith, then into cut-out of the drop, where she makes a quick change, and finishes singing “Sweet Sweeties.”
Adams and Burkino, two-man comedy novelty turn, open the bill and have almost a show of their own. They juggle clubs and hats, do some pretty fair hoop-rolling, a comedy ventriloquial bit and some laughs conjuring, with a lot of comedy paraphernalia and pantomime intermixed, getting scattered laughs throughout.
The Three Melvins held them in to be a man, and with a spot on the bill could easily stopped proceedings. The three men exhibit some extraordinary hand-to-hand tricks with a display of showmanship par excellence. They finish with a flying hand-to-hand catch, one standing on a high pedestal and without any rebound going clear across the stage for his catch. Took six curtains and could have taken as many more “bends.”
Samuel Leonard and Co. (late week appearing at the Hippodrome under the name of Pete, Pinto and Boyle). This is an audience act, two of the men working from the audience, both taking to the stage later on. They work with Italian dialect and mopped up. The finish of the act has a straight man singing while one of the two character men plays a steel guitar and the other plays a tam-tab.
Browning and Davis, two men in blackface, next with well routine comedy crossfire material. Though their talk is bright and snappy, it runs a little long before they go into their singing. A ballad by Browning and a comedy version of the same number by David sent this pair off to big returns.
