The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 17, 1901, Page 14

14 THE SUNDAY CALL. A0895,8058 DAY LAYBR folk must need be owls. Our social system requires that they fly by night and turn day into slumber hours. Because of the de- mands which we of the audiences make upon their time their day’'s work is done at 11 o'clock, and when they have time for something soclal it can’t begin until then. Mrs. Fred Belasco (Juliet Crosby on‘the programme) was telling about a lark of a bean party that all the Alcazar and Cen- tral Theater people were on the other night. It began at 11:30 and lasted until 3 the next morning. The invitations were in verse, written by the hostess, Mrs. Ba- con, who is the wife of Frank Bacon, pk r of character parts. These invitations stated that Marie Howe would cook the beans, and that set- tled it. Nobody refused, for Marie’'s beans are famous. They were hot and Spanish and served in brown clay frijoles dishes thst would hold plenty. Marion Convere has a rich contralto volee which she served up in generous guantities. Operatic work is to be her profession when she conquers a throat trouble which has driven her to the dra- matic stage,pro tem. Miss Conklin, too, sang, and Howard Scott made the punch. He always does. They say he has a magic mixture of champagne, rum and whisky which is his especial pride. >, Sam Thall is to take Mark Thall's place in the Alcazar management. S A Joseph Jefferson is playing “Rip Van Winkle” once more. Chicago says that his production is bad as to support and scenery, but Jefferson is the same old Rip. His short fall season closes Novem- ber 25 and he will play another season, be- ginning in April. He is too feeble to keep up reguiar work and too devoted to the stage to drop it entirely, so he has kept up this system of compromise for several years now. & Modjeska and Louls James have joined forces and have begun a tour. They will reach this coast later on. £ Blanche Walsh has had hard luck in choosing plays. Last season the one that she had picked and bought to star in had to be withdrawn and she finished out the season in “More Than Queen,” which was a second-hand garment that Julia Arthur had almost worn out. This season her Ry i CLARISSA EUDEL L CENTRAL A Bit of and Qurrgnt Talk Rbolt People and DoinGs in the Players® Realm Generally. history has repeated ftself. “Joan of the Sword Hand,” new and much advertised, falled and she has fallen back upon the now old ‘Janice Meredith.” She will bring it West, but not to our coast. Mary Mannering will play the part here. “‘Sherlock Holmes,” having been a sen- sation in both England and America, will be produced in Australia, Belgium, Aus- tria, Russla, Germany and Norway. Charles Frohman may own theatrical Eu- rope if he keeps on. Edna Wallace Hopper, the new-made helress, is agaln singing in “Florodora.” “Don Caesar’ the role which is hav- Ing a vogue this season. Several New York actors are starring in the part. Faversham seems to be in the lead, with Hackett a close second. John Drew is making money with “The Second in Command.” Ida Conquest is now his leading woman. Isabel Irving, having left John Drew, is playing Cigarette during Blanche Bfiites' {llness. E. M. Holland is to tour the country with “Eben Holden,” the latest of the rustic plays. It is said to be very much like all the rest of the same school— “Way Down East,”” for instance, and “David Harum.” The play depends for its success ' upon Holland's character sketch of old Uncle Eb. It is built for Hollard. Overproduction of plays and cpmpanies seems to be responsible for a deal of trouble. Over one hundred companies have already returned to New York this season stranded. That Holbrook Blinn of ours whom London likes so well is now appearing as the ghost of Jacob Marley in a Dickens production. James K. Hackett says that stock com- pany work is good as a foundation for an actor's training, but nothing more, as it gives no chance for fine speclallza$lor|. Cissy Loftus is no longer Cissy, but Cecelia. She has become very serious and is playing opposite Sothern in his new plece, “If I Were King.” “The Little Duchess” part for Anna Held. Guy Standing, who used to be popular out here when he was with Henry Mil- ler, has made a-hit in John Drew’s sup- port. ‘A Message From Mars” is one of the new successes and as much talked about as anything in New York. Charles Haw- trey is responsible for its hit. Hackett is trying the role of an inde- pendent star. He has renounced the syn- didate and gone over to the few. It Is said that he needs a more suitable part than that of Don Caesar in which to win out. Eleanora Duse will appear in this coun- try. Robert Marshall, who is endeared to San Franciscans as the author of “His Excellency the Governor” and ‘“A Royal * has written a delightful curtain- raiser for Faversham. It is a fifty-min- ute piece said to be worth a whole even- ing. ‘“Prince Charlie” it is called, and it is a fictitious incident of the bonny Prince’s life. Papinta is being consumed by calcium fires and_congealed by calcium snows at Keith's, New York. It is said that Blanche Bates’ successor as Cigarette has trouble with the song and dance specialty which Blanche made a hit with. This one doesn’t like to sing and dance, and she wanted that part of the play cut out, but it couldn't be. Julia Marlowe made such a tremendous success of “When Knighthood Was in Flower” that she is playing it for a sec- ond season and that to crowded houses. An American’s play has been produced by an English star. “The Last of the Dandies,” by Clyde Fitch, is Beerbohm Tree's new production. Marie Tempest s Sharpe” in Longon, furnishes a star playing “Becky Howard Hall, who had trouble in plac- ing his den of live lions with one San Francisco manager and afterward took them to another, is now curdling Chicago blood with the same act. He has changed the name of the play to “The Man Who Dared.” He is the man. ritic with a gallery god's soul says that ‘the husband determines to devote the remainder of his life to vengeance. That he does this Is proved by a serles of scenes, situations and incidents as thrill- ing and truly sensational as have been exploited in any play seen on the Ameri- can stage.” Henry Miller is traveling In the East with “D’Arcy of the Guards.” Richard Mansfield is playing ‘“Monsieur Beaucaire,” a dramatization of Booth Tarkington's little gem of a French and English historical novel. The high-bred, keen-witted, courageous and repressed character of Beaucaire is a part worth a good actor’s pains. Charles Frohman’s stock company at the Empire is once more playing “Mrs. Dane's Defense” to good houses. It is a cozy satisfaction to San Franecisco to think that the play’s success is due to the work of Margaret Anglin, whom San Francisco discovered before. New York daid. The report that Weber & Field are to send Lillian Russell and De Wolte Hop- per on a joint starring expedition is de- nied. This is a season of revivals. The cause must lie in a lack of new material, for no manager with an eye to business revives When he can get a new thing that is good The public wants n g it. But in the dearth of novelty several old things are being served up like the remnants of the Thanksgiving Robson brought “The Henrletta' and now a tour of “A Trip to Chinatown”™ turkey. is promised with almost the original cast. May Irwin is said to be getting ready to retire at the close of the present sea- son. She has gathered a neat little for- A Chicago ovelty and pays for out here tune of her own, and she says she wants time to enjoy it. “A Gentleman of France,™ one of the few really worth while novels of the his- torical fad, is dramatized and will be brought to this city by Kyrle Bellew. He is said to have a first class support and a good stage version of Stanley Wey- man’s novel. L |STRANGE MISTAKES OF GREAT AUTHORS. SR SMALL volume might be compiied of the anachronisms and other | slips made by great authors. | Shakespeare had a peculiar faculty for making the impossible happen in his plays and he scattered anachronisms with a prodigal hand. One of his most remark- able feats Is making Desdemona, after she has been smothered properly by the Moor, regain her breath and enter into & rational conversation, even inventing a generous falsehood to shield her jealous husband before she finally decides to dle. The im- possibility of a ‘person who has been smothered regaining gomsciousness and speech and then dying after having done so scarcely needs pointing out. - The immortal bard calmly introduces a Gossip From the Logal Theatrical World printing press long before the days of Gut tenburg, makes a clock strike in ancient Rome a thousand years before clocks were invented, makes cannon familiar to King John and his barons and transports Bo- hemia to the seaside. He also, In “Henry V,” speaks of a turkey cock, a bird un- known in Henry’s time. Thackeray had a most confusing man- ner of mixing up the names of his char- acters, and in the Newcomes, after killing ———poff old Lady Glenlivat and dismissing her from the story, he brings her to life again to help out the plot. Creasy, in his “Fi teen Decisive Battles of the World," makes Theodoric commander of the | wing, of the allies at the battle of Chalon: althdugh that battle took place four years before Theodoric was born. Anthony Trol- lope pictures one of his characters, Andy Scott, as “coming whistling up the street with| a cigar in his mouth,” which shows that Andy was a versatile genius. Dick- ens, in “Hard Times,” speaks of the Great Bear and Charles’ Wain as if they were different constellations, and Zola, in his “Lourdes,” states that the deaf and dum received their sight and hearing. Wilkie Collins, on one occasion, makes the moon rise in the west, and Rider Haggard, | “King Selomon’s Mines,” contrives a eclipse of the new moon for the benefit of his readers and the facilitation of the workings of his plot. In “The Battle of Naseby” Macaulay makes a Puritan soldier say of the Royai- ists, “Their coward heads predestined to rot on Temple Bar.” Traitors’ heads were not o exposed until thirty-five years af Naseby, and no Royalist head was ever so displayed. Campbell says, “On Ene's banks, where tigers steal along,” and msey, in his “Reminiscences,” declares jDat the wild birds of America are song- ss. A mest glaring historical error occurs in the beautiful and much-quoted lines of Keat's “On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer.” He says: Then feit I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or, like stout Cortez, when with eagle syes He stared at the Pacific—all his men Stlent upon 3 peak in Darien. Every schoolboy knows that it was Bal- boa and not Cortez who stood “silent upon a peak in Darien.” In Burke's Peerage are many marvelous things written. Not least among them are feferences to St. Louis, Massachusetts, and the statement that one of the Fair- faxes was “Clerk of the Supreme Court of California and Speaker of the House of Representatives. of the State of Ai- caldL” 5