The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 23, 1901, Page 12

EmpPorivm PHoTo THE SUNDAY CALL. Zor.aH IRvIN - 7 == G — irld & N tral — N=— cCLARISSA ,’ EUDELLZ, BusHNELL C _—~ = PHero \-J T isn’t all fun, even though they are | pretty. Being a melodramatic sou- brette means having troubles of your own. It has even been proposed in the East that an organization would not be out of order for these young women. Let them hold toget g the promote Jet them strike when the need is. They have rescued enough heroes’ lives at the peril of their own: they have slid with avalanches, they have ridden on fire engines. they have been drowned in canvas oceans. Let them or- ganize. Let them hold together for pro- tection. There won't be any live ones to do the work if things keep on at this sate. These girls up at the Central Theater the audience does. are on the high road to all kinds of ava- Even as young as the Central Theater lanches, fire engines and burning bridges. jis, it has already acquired its traditions That's exactly what they want. There to be handed down to theatrical posterity. is glory in the thing, and glory is what There are many tales told about the they are after. ‘They don’t’ care for hairbreadth escapes of these girls who sprained ankles or dislocated shoulders are being called by the new slang “super- or broken spines. Broken necks, even, ettes.” The truth is, they didn't like to would have the color of heroism. As be called “‘supes” and they were not quite long as they are permitted to take soubrettes, although on the road to that chances on theirs necks, their arms and title, and Marion Nolan it was who pro- their legs, they consider themselves in it. posed that-‘'superette” be the title and So it looks as if they would be the last jthat it has remained. people in the world to organize and go~ The audiences who watch the red-hot on a strike because they are all in dan- melodrama that goes on there week after ger Of losing their lives. Apparently week do not think much about the dan- they enjoy the thrills quite as much as gers that surround the girls who cling ta a rope dangling in mid air, who drop from burning buildings. Usually the curtain goes down in time for them to think that everything comes out as it was expected to come out. It was in “The War of Wealth," Hot as a firecracker, that therc occurred a chap- ter cf accidents that kept arnica, plaster and surgery in demand. First, the bag of money hit Clarissa BEudell. It was thrown vigerously through a window and struck her a blo: like that of a sandbag. Somehow the rest of the people on the stage made be- lieve that she didn’t faint and as soon as she had recovered consciousness she made believe likewise and all was smooth sail- ing. A Until the wagon crashed into Berlena Aldred—she was a black and blue Be lena when the affair was over and she had a task of it to hide her limp for a week. Then one night the safe exploded too explosively. It went off with the usual bang—the ¢ap was an energetic on a the small children present with their mammas were the only ones frightened. But when the stage hands went about picking up the scattered properties they found that Belle Baker was one of those propertie: The explosion had tipped over a scene which had tipped over her and in the general downfall she had struck the edge of a table, which cut her temple. It was no stage blood that she shed, but the real thing. In one play where a tank of water was used there came very near being a real drowning. Sada Willis tripped when she should have passed the tank; it stood in the place of an ocean and there was plenty of real water in it, for the heroine houd have fallen in, in the place of Willis, was intended to. make a good splash. When Sada fell in it was her good fortune that Bob Cummings hap- pened to be looking on. Bob let his own pirt go to wherever .t wanted to go and plunged after her and he pulled out a young lady who was about as near drowning as she ever wants to be. Lorena Atwood, who was playing lead- ing parts at one time, had blood-curdling experiences. She ved the heroine's part in “The Heart of Maryland” and the clapper of the bell was al a trouble- some thing to manage. At last it swung hard against the side of the bell and with one great blow the heroine was knocked genseless. In “Old Glory” she swung by a strand from a cliff to a lighthouse when the dis- obliging Chileans had done something to the bridge. To the glance of the audi- ence she hanging on a strand of rope; e was supported by a good strong wire hanging from the flies As the strand had no strength she depended entirely upon the wire. Well—the wire broke. Down she went, down, down, and down went the curtain. She had the grit to go on with the part, although cvery move was agony. But she would rather play home and mother comedy in the future. She says that tha greatest thrills in those lie in paring po- tatoes and rocking a cradle. Mae Mason has had her troubles with the horse that Georgia Cooper has been ridfng in “A Night at the Circus.” Georgia says the horse is all right, but she really doesn’t know because she is on it. The people standing around are the ones that it chooses for its neatly aimed kicks. Mae Mason has stood near, and she is now wearing bandages. All this comes of realism on the stage, and the Central prides itself upon this kind of realism. So long as there are real explosions, real horses, real rope suspen- sions, the heroines of melodrama and real- istic plays are going to have their bruises. It is said that when Robert Downing ‘‘gets worked up’ it is all your lite is worth to be near him. With his short sword he makes havoe, slaying whomsoever gives him the chance, Helen Harlan knows this. = She remembers it every time she sees a scar. In his produc- tion of the mob scene in “Julius Caesar" he has the clubs wielded so realistically that Marion Nolan was knocked over at one performance. All the theatric world over there are nlenty of such stories told by the peovle Who Fave piayed in this school of drama. “The Bowery After Dark,” as it was played in some of the smaller towns, was a terror for the soubrette, and the part nearly killed one girl. The rescues which Terry McGovern performed himself in his own version were given over to the yo Jady in the company which did not take Terry along, and she was made life-saver to the whole crowd. Ih one scene she had to be let down to the stage by a rope. This worked beau. tifully for a while, but the night cg when the rope gave way and there was a long siege in the hospital as a result. Mo did she cver go back to the part. Vaude. ville was safer, she decided, and she fefe SViicox Dot I I I I Sava I '1 J Trons e ITARION HoramM - 5:¢~°r:no Drioes ’ 3 melodrama ror . A melodrama called ‘“Ihe Tide of Life” had many a thrill. The climax of one thrill was in the soubrette sliding on a rope from the second story of a ware- house. She a well trained athlete, p h 2 matter ¢ to her that she didn’t think of r & them. But the manager was a and these feats v course man and insisted that she try the Lefore the curtai vent up. man the has -ai- de the scapegoat of theatri- to life and limb. So he it blamed in this case, and rved all that he gof. He slight braided bell cora, asters was who was W probably he d had provided a and when the. girl took her slide she reached its goal with all the skin torn from the paims of her hands, owing. to the rope being too small around to be )ss the stage by clinging t might ain tou fainted who stopped h in the hissing As_soon = to consciousness she handed in her two weeks’ notice. She had saved all the lives she wanted to.