The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 19, 1903, Page 46

i : THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 19, 1903. a big it to s we = a ng my “I hadn’t time er night when Mr. Forbes fore fair spoil,” I contin- uption. re,” Mr. smile d, but h ‘You wouldn't like the know. He turned yet consented to be t you cannot per- ¥ m't like it, Mr. Bingham tells me t done and eaten eve i came here, wi that Miss rican since y € an American's enthusiasm.” ing every moment of the actor owned then e Willie,” as he call oks that way. He has at somehow reminds of Cogq himself face e wide m Jth humorou <ho merrs snapping He has broad, b ve feet ten or so of height self there were nothing hin as if better arry. Everything about him bespeaks ely faculty for en with the robust health and kee . impar- terest in things that go to make the veler. he resumed: comfortably is hands round his knee, “this ardly work at all, I'm fun out of it.” joyment erfu like getting so much wr first visit to America?" from London town, Mr. t all of my acting }ife there he replied. “It would be 1l you, too, the actors 1 have the And theaters but very much London, you see.” me—1 know Gillette's “Sherlock London first? e 1 have. of the Then te Moriarty i over there—why Mr ette “Oh you were the Holmes" was so rude to Gil at that was a few cranks who objected to melodrama the Lyceum, sacred home of the legitimate,” «tc., cheerfully. in Gillette's Moriarty returned There is no truth in that theory of pre- judice 2 st the Ameican actor as such EE R American Frohman has had two of the chief successes of the last season in london in ‘Quality Street,’ and ‘The Admirable Crichton’ And your players. Goodwin, I regard—and he is very generally looked on as such over there—as the best American actor since Booth." “Have you seen his Shylock?" “Perhaps because I haven't,” flashed Mr. Abindgon o, the Anglo-mania cry is a very fool one.” “Jt seems to me that the French own the moment over in London now,” I com- ment, “with Jane Hading doing ““The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,” and Jeanne Granier and Bernhard® holding two other big ho 2 “They're putting up ‘English spoken here’ on the others,” the actor laugh- ingly contributed. “Oh, London is the Mecca for the artist. We get everything there in time. Even your American stars—in spite of the Anglo-mania craze. Miss Bingham, Henrietta Crosman and Margaret Anglin—you seem to have so many more good women players than we—are among the next to invade Lon- don, I hear. Anglo-mania, indeed and the actor flipped a scornful finger. “It is your—er—imaginative—newspapers, that are responsible for the whole illusion. Do you believe in it? You're English yourself.” “And you're not,” I walled, my per- sonal grievance at once swamping the international affair. “I hoped—I hoped— that I was going to find another D'Orsay, snd you don’t even say ‘Bah Jove! " “What D'Orsay!” and Mr. Abingdon's face instantly held as broad a grin as it is bullt for. Then he got up, reached about for his hat, put it on with a lordly tilt, pouted his chest and then solemnly marched up to me with D'Orsay’s own stiff, superb strut, D'Orsay’s own mag- nificent “Haw!” on his lips. He had be- fore convinced me by his virtle and sin- cere effort in “The Climbers” that he could act, but this was precious. The neat Abingdon suit of brown actually seemed 10 meit into the incomparable checks of D'Orsay, the upper to take on the gorgeous D'Orsay mus e. D'Orsay was welcoming Al to the Lamb's Club: *“Deah boy,” his imi- tator haw-hawed, “isn’t this delightful, bah Jove! Here you are in New York 1 | | William L. Abingdon, Once a Ban at lahst. Haw! And they've found me out ovah heah! ‘Found me out'—that sounds, bah Jove! Haw, haw! Gus, deah old Gus, you know, has put me on in a play in which I can be myself, don't cher know?” In propria persona Abingdon queried: “But how are you going to stand being off the stage so long, D'Orsay?” “Oh, I say!” D'Orsay replies. More of this, and I whas/had seen and reveled in all of the new English actor that was vouchsafed is here, forgot the dignity of an interviewer and shrieked. So did the artist, who hadn't. “Oh, D'Orsay’s the sweetest sort of fel- low,” the actor said, sitting down in San Francisco again. “Everybody is quite as delighted at his success as he is. But D’Orsay isn't English any more than Sothern’s Dundreary was English. He is a delicious freak.” “Thank you,” I replied, recovering speech. “And now, won't you, Mr. Eng- lishman, who are not a freak, please give me some of those American impressions you have been so busily acquiring?” “To begin,with?” “Oh, anything—the oddest thing about Mr. Abingdon confl%:g: “I think what most surprised me the similar- ity between Americans and English folk of the same class—always barring wait- ers, porters and Bobbies.” ““Then our spread-eagleism did not offend?” “'Oh, we're just as proud of our coun- try over there as you are here, only” —and the actor waved his busy hands in judiclal gesture—"we don't care what you think, and you do care what we think. We're more spread-eagle than you are, I think, but we're so gorgeously sure we have the best of it. * * * When 1 got to New York an old gentleman asked me how I liked the country. ‘All but the steam heat,’ I replied. ‘What do you think he said then, quite hotly? ‘What about your navy! " recognized “Then I had an Englishman with me the other day out at the CUff House, I the type and smiled, “Go was admiring the glorious, glorious view,” and the actor’s dark, rosy face beamed like a Golden Gate sunset. *The English chap said nothing, and I thought he was too deep in the poetry of the thing to want to talk. But at last I sald: ‘Isn’t it magnificent?” He said: ‘But it wants painting, don’t you know!" He was looking at the dirty white of the Cliff House. It's all in the point of view."” “From yours, what is the most beauti- ful country you have seen so far?” “I give it up,” Mr. Abingdon sald. “At the present moment I think it is the drive from Monterey to Carmel Bay. But there was Pike's Peak in Denver. - Oh, that lovely Garden of the Gods, and the drive from Denver to Victor—most mar- velous atmosphere and rugged, pictur- esque, majestic country. * * * By the way, that little Victor is a staggering sort of place. It is nine years old, a min- ing town and has a perfectly appointed little opera-house that is as comfortable as you'll find anywheye. It was an eye- opener, I assure you." Then he told me of meeting Robert Courtneldge of the Manchester theaters here and of their mutual surprise at find- ing San Francisco so lavishly equipped with theaters, “To me San Francisco is much more like Paris than any other city that I have seen,” the actor decided, with an approving pat for Paris on his knee. “It is the climate, the gayety, the sunshine and the well-dressed women that give the impression, 1 suppose. By Jove! I've never seen S0 many pretty girls in a emall space as I've seen here! They do dress handsomely, too, don’t they?" 1 bowed for them, “And how dainty they are about their footgear!"” For those of other climes it should be explained that our July zephyrs account for Mr. Abingdon’s early connoisseurship in the San Francisco ankle. I tuckedin my small threes before testifying to the beauty of the other girls', and then prompted: “But you don't like our wait- ers and porters—so I judge from your ex- pression as you mentioned them?” “Not wholly,” Mr, Abingdon owned,” “I think they're a vastly discourteous lot. And they're the slowest things on earth. They've got more time than all the rest of America put together.” “They're not such shameless tippees as the English waiters,” I defend. 7 “I think they are just as much open to tips—pardon me—as the English waiter,” the actor disagreed, “‘only here you don't know it you've pleased him. There you do. It's a choice here of being thought mean or a fool.” * “And the porter?—at least our baggage system is best?" ‘Oh, yes, that part of it,”” Mr. Abingdon confessed,” but I don't like to carry my own luggage—the small traps, you Know. And if you ask the porter about it, he ‘will tell you to ‘get out of the way!" But I have no necessities when I'm traveling. I can do without ahything, so everything 1 get is to the good,” which strikes me as a very useful philosophy. ““There was rather a good one on me the other day,” he went on, “a compli- ment to my American accent. I went into a cigar shop, got a cigar and asked how much it was. ‘Two-bits,’ said the man. ‘What is that,’ I asked—it was Greek to me. ‘Oh, you &——d New York- ers don‘t know anything!” he said!” “‘But 1 have met with the greatest kind- ness sinee I came here,” he resumed, still bubbling with the enjoyment of his story. “I see most of the American actors in my little flat in London—next the Savoy— and they have treated me royally here. ‘Why they've made me a member of six clubs in San Francisco.” ‘“‘How do you find the audiences here?” 1 asked. “Not quite so demonstrative as in Eng- land,” he replied, “but they're just as quick to take a joke.” ““What!!!” Mr. Cahill and I cried in uni- son. This was turning the tables with a vengeance. * “Oh, I see.” It may have been acting, but Mr. Abingdon's expression was sim- plicity itself. “Then in England they rather say, ‘Let us go to see “Dante,” “When We Were ‘Twenty-one,” * where you say here, ‘let us %9 £0 scp Icvioy, Soodwin' . ——— R k Clerk, Now of Amelia Bingham's Support, Who Says He Is Fond of America. e “But a name will not carry a bad play here any mqre than London,” 1 suggest. Then, 1 asked, firrelevantly: “Do you have much Ibsen there?" ““Yes, a good deal,” he replied. “It is usually produced by the independent theaters though. There isn't much money in it. I've been in ‘The Doll's House' and ‘The Wild Duck’ myself. ‘Ghosts’ the censor doesn't permit.” “Isn’'t he rather a nuisance?” “No, I think he's quite right,” Abing- don returned simply. ‘“‘But Ibsen is so fascinating to the actor. He is so easy to play. You know more actresses have made reputations on Ibsen than through any other modern playwright.” “Have you done any of Bernard Shaw’s the actor replied. “There are only occasfonal performances of his stuff. They're all very clever plays of their kind, but the public does not want them. ‘Arms and the Man' was a success, but Shaw wrote it seriously, and the public found it was funny. Tha Shaw cult says the plays fall, because tRdy are over the heads of the public. Well —" and the actor lifted doubtful eyebrows, Then he told me that he had been with Mrs. Campbell and Miss Nethersole, with Martin Harvey in a play of Captain Marshall's that just missed greatness, “The Broad Road,” with, this, that and another great English name.. He spoke of Denis O'Sullivan, Stephen Phillips— who used to be an actor—of Davies, the new Sheridan; of W. B. Yeat, the new Irish poet-dramatist. He told how he had graduated from a bank to the foot- lights; of his reason for taking to the stage, “that all the professional compan- ies dissatisfled him,” and he had to show them how it should be done. Of his first experience he recounted that he was told “'to get off the stage” by the manager, and did, as fast as stage fright would permit. Of Forbes Robertson and his ‘wife, Gertrude Elliott, and their new play that comes here this season, “The Light That Falled,” he had pleasant things to say. Of the famous tilt between the “Thunderer’s” critic, A. B. Walkley, and Henry, Arthur Jongs he had the latest i word, and all kinds of gossip from the golden capital. “I hope,I have said nothing discour- teons about America,” he _concluded, looking down seriously at me, as we rose to go, “because I'm jolly fond of it.” Then, smiling over his shoulder as we lbett him: “The interview wasn't half ad."” Pelr A As Told on the Rialto Clyde Fitch is writing a new play based on Dickens’ “Old Curlosity Shop,” in which Mr. Dillingham will star Millie James. Fitch's “Her Own Way" will be used by Maxine Elliott. &e 8 Lillian Coleman, whose delightful voice and winning personality are so pleasantly remembered from her debut at Fischer's Theater last year, will have the leading female role in support of the Rogers Brothers next season. PR Anna Held and her husband, F. Ziegfeld Jr., are in Parls as thé guests of M. Jean Richepin, who is wrl the new musical piece in which Mille. Held is to appear next season. Gustav Luders is writing the music for the new opera, and J ‘W. Herbert will adapt the book f¢ the American stage. Mlle. Held will only play the principal cities of the country, and next year she will spend the entire season abroad. e e, James W. Morrissey, business manager of the Adelina Patti Farewell Concerts for Robert Grau—armed with an edition of 500,000 “Patti Souvenir Books,” starts next week on a preliminary tour of the large cities where the diva is booked. Mr. Morrissey is to meet Mr. Grau's local managers in all the cities as far as San Francisco. The Patti subscription sale of seats in many of these cities is al- l:n sale has or may not it seems, OMPETITION may. be the life of trade; however, rather helpful in the comic opera connection. The musical comedy with which the town is now so well supplied has certain- Iy set the Tivoll management a-thinking. Our little opera shop had things comic operatic rather its own way for a length of days. Mayhap, too long. Perhaps our Tivoll was a little spoiled. Secure in its monopoly of light musical fare, the lo- cal purveyors perhaps became a little careless, a little economical of effort and expenditure, a little dangerously disdain- ful of the necessary novelty. But times changed. Burlesque and musical comedy arrived on the scene, these to the unpar- ticular ear sufficiently resembling the Tivoll menu to constitute a formidable rivaglry. Then came the Tivoll's first move. Caro Roma was engaged. The ex- cellent Gilbert & Sullivan revivals fol- lowed. Mascagni then made history for the old house with a triumphal season. Zelle de Lussan added more luster. Ed- win Stevens gave another lift to things. And now, ‘to-morrow evening, Camille d@’Arvillg, is to reappear. The opera chosen for Miss d'Arville's Tivoll debut had an unfortunate intro- duction here. It descended upon the Co- lumbia a season or two ago for its sins. Its perpetrators were a dull, dusty, fusty set of folk, who seemed to have walked from New York—they looked and sa if they had, poor things. Naturally Highwayman™ did not succeed. However, it kad eisewhere in other hands attained a respectable vogue. and its parentage— Smith and De Koven—warrants a robust hope at any rate, that what can be done for the opera will surely be done for it to-morrow night at the Tivoli. A warm welcome awalts Miss d’Arville. The fair Bostonian's marriage left an aching vold when it took her from the stage. And Miss d'Arville will be sur- rounded—the Tivoll people do more than “support”—by an exceptionally strong company. Stevens stays for the season, and has a good part in the opera as Foxy Quiller, a detective, who doesn’t deteer. Arthur Cunningham, who is coming out strongly by the way; Ferris Hartman, the well known comedian;: Edward Webb, Annie Myers and Bertha Davis are also among those to be present. The manage- ment is spreading itself on the production, and apropos, a look down Mission street way would do no harm to the stage di- rector. & ‘e ‘With comic opera gaining such recruits as Mme. Schumann Heink and Fritsl Scheff it seems possible that this almost lost art will regain something of its an- clent footing. Fritzi Scheff stars next season under the management of C. B. Dillingham and has chosen as her medi- um, so her manager announces, an opera by Hdrry B. Smith and Victor Herbert in preference to the works of several prom- inent foreign composers. 5 Tl T “I1 Mondo Artistico” of Milan has many gocd words to say of the recent debut of Alice Nejlsen as Marguerite hr that clas- sic city. Miss Neilsen has been appearing at the Bellini Opera-house and has won marked favor for her iInterpretation of the role. The papers are fuli of praise for her “pure and charming voice,” her personal beauty and talents. In a recent letter to an acquaintance in this city Miss Neilsen proudly records the high honor bestowed upon her maestro, Henry Rus- sell, with whom she has been studying ¢ince she went to Italy. Russell is an Ernglishman and bas received the unique honor of being appeinted master of sing- ing fn the Royal Academy of Saint Ce- cilia, Rome. It is the first time that such an appointment has been bestowed upon an Englishman and most rarely upon any foreigner. ¥78r 3 Thaugh it is doubtful if Denis O'Sullivan will be heard in his delightful song re- citals this summer, yet all who know this gifted Irishman will be gfad to hear that he will be In town next week. It is most devoutly to be wished that Mr. O'Sulli- van will again favor us thuss The single recital of last year proved all too few for y admirers, 2 [k e Afaong the newer people Herr Conried, director of the Metropolitan Opera Com- pany.’ has added to his list of artists for the coming season are Pol Plancos, Em- ma Calve, Felix Mbttl, the Bayreuth con- ductor, and Francisco Maria Guardbassi, a new barytdne and godson of Pope Leo. @ ittt bttt @ cepting a number of public and private receptions which are being arranged in honor of the distinguished prima donna. Madame Patti would like it thoroughly understood that this is the only time in her artistic career she has ever author- ized a farewell tour, and the fact is made quite clear in a letter to Mr. Grau, which i8 published in the prospectus. o it e The Rosalind spear which Henrietta Crosman will carry in the Forest of Ar- den in her revival of “As You Like It"” next fall has a history. It was the prop- erty of Adelaide Neilson and was used on the state by that eminent artiste. It was obtained in Paris by a friend of Miss Crosman's, who presented it to her. It is a valuable and beautiful plece ¢f work- manship. The haft is of rosewood, the head of burnished brass. On the handle Miss Neilson's autograph is worked in fac simile in lOl:i wl.re. < Rosamond Johnson of .Cole and John- composers of the Bamboo Tree,” “On the Congo,” and many other popular songs, once had the re of playing Paderewski's “Minuet” for th- great planist, and as a result he lost his position, which was that of a bellboy in Young's Hotel, Boston. It seems tha: Paderewski had rung for a bellboy and young Johnson answered the cail. Being so iond of music, he made bold to ask Paderewski to play the “Minuet” for him. Paderewski could not understand English then, and the boy thought from his ges- ticulations that he wanted him to play it. So he sat down at the piano and com- meaced playing. 's manager happened to enter the room, and, indigy nant at the presumption of the bellboy, threw him out bodily and went to the of-