The evening world. Newspaper, March 15, 1913, Page 9

Meg Villars at an “Amateur Night?’ Calls the Gallery Gods Fiendish >. The Two Extremes on the Programme Con- sist of a Woman o Sixiy and a Girl o. Fourteen—The Atti- tude of Men in the Gallery Cruel— Prize Fighting a Gentle Sport Compared to the Bait- ing of Amateurs, By MEG VILLARS. EAR New York: I don't think I have ever } laughed quite so much in all my life, neither have I been A so near crying in public, as I Was last night. You see, I had never seen an “amateur ni before, and, although I roared at some of the ailly Uttle girls thought themselves actresses, and were only escaped luna. ties, I wanted to cry lke a great silly, @nd would have given ten years off my who ANOTHER SINGER CPATHETIc AND SUFFERING FRom STAGE Mfe to have twenty fists with which to krmock down the tough fellows in the gallery who wouldn't give some of the Poor amateurs a fair chance All this happened at Miner’ Theatre out in the wilds of the Bronx, Perhaps it sounds rather rude to al- Jude thus to that district. If so I ajop- ollse (my own word that!) to the Bronxites and tell them that I am very much in love with thelr lovely theatre with sts nice, uniformed attendants, its nice hall with the funny caricature: hanging around, its dainty chorus girls with real silk stockings (in Parts they’d have only cotton in the suburbs) and nice frocks that a n and tdy, And nicest of all nicenesses in this nice theatre ts the nice manager, who Was so courteous to Stranger me! A fot of little girls were hanging anx- fously about the doors of the theatre Those children are Point of doing thetr hair #0 as to have as many untidily flonting wisps as pos- sible straying into their eyes; as for shirt waists, well, you are really in- clined to wonder if the little silites haven't forgotten that garment alto- gether! The ones I saw were cut 80 low in the neck that you can very well mistake them for underbodices! I thought Miss New York up Fifth avenue way was painted a good deal too much, but she is just a pale lily slightly tinted compared to Miss Third Avenue! When I first got into the theatre 1 was rather worried. By “amateur night’ I had understood that amateurs carried out the whole programme! “If these are they,” thought 1 as 1[a@gainst so many. It’ saw the well-drilled chorus and spright ly principals, “this is going to be pleas- ant, but not funny!” At least not funny in the way I had hoped. (Queer, tan't it, how we enjoy sceing other peo- ple make fools of themselves?) When, later on, the jolly-looking, partly bald and altogether nice (li the theatre) manager came on and an- nounced the amateurs he was greeted by a chorus of shrill whistles! I got scared, I did really. Yoo I didn't know that whistling was a distinct mark of approdation! ‘A small frightened boy of fifteen was hustled on the stage as first victim— the bleating of the lamb excites the tiger! He was a succrss however, for, promptd by the first-violin-orchestra- leader he began to sing about his harem! Only fifteen years old, too Shame on you, New York, for allowing such Eastern customs! In my Harem—my Harem" piped the lad, the girls in the gallery giggled the boys “Haw-hawed A rancoui yolce remarked “ e's aw-right! Indeed he was so “aw-right” that he won the second prize, Bless him, poor kid, Others were not so lucky! Girls, women, men and boys must be rather terribie:| they slouch with their hands in their coat pockets and the round felt hat, Pulled down well over the ears, seems to be a sort of uniform; they make a badly off for money or else badly stage. | struck, and I don't know which is worse, to face what they face at these | amateur shows for prizes of five, three and two dollars! The men in the galleries are—flendisn! Yes positively flendish and unfair, as} I could never have imagined American men to be, even of the very lowest «8s, a8 I suppose these a To the professionals they are atten- tive and appreciative. They laugh at the poorest joke, they encore a girl who sings like a sheep baa-ing, and the acme of delight is reached when the vulgar funny man runs after a short-skirted dancer making her exit, and counts a roll of bills so! As for the amateur: well may their evidently expecting their beaux, lucky star help them, the louts in the MAx RITTER ANP HID PLUMP PeratTnaem, @roresns) | | he does | couldn't understand the pathos of such of her, sheer madness must have in- For Realism Given Full Sway in Brieux’s Dramatiza- tion of a Disease, While Shocks of Another Sort Are Felt at the New Princess Theatre, Where the Audience Js Smoked Out. BY CHARLES DARNTON. ine realisn has brought about a curious mixture of sensations and symptoms. Two rather dis turbing {deas from the French are gallery won't. An unfortunate girl who looked as !f she had hurriedly left the dishes and only half dried her red arms before Tushing straight from the kitchen to the stage was greeted with derisive howls, Poor, awkward thing, she got no mercy, only a shower of "chicken food" from the millionaire people in the orchestra se: the gallery unan- imously requested the manager to “open de windah and frow ‘er out!” To the rough workman who, as he ap- Peared, wiped his nose on his cuff, they were, to say the least of it, “short” and when he refused to take the emphatic hint to quit that they hurled at him he was gently but forcibly removed with the hook. Although you can't help laughing at some of the performers you get a ter- rible heartache when you see them standing up, one after the other, alone sport to the au- dience but maybe it's @ small tragedy of shattered hopes to those who “pay for the breakage’ they say in France. The men in the galleries who seem 80 caddish perhaps don't mean to be unkind, they just don't think, but it seems more cruel than prize-fignt- ing to me. Anyway, even thoughtless- ness cannot excuse them for the way they behaved to an old, old woman. Yes, an old creature of sixty, worn as hes shaking: with Bray hair and tooth ttorced upon us in rapid succession. For Of course it was crazily ridiculous} Wiet week-end a theatre of thrills opens with a bang and clouds of smoke spired the poor thing; but in her cla} trough which highly tmaginative per- sons may eee the Grand Guignal of Paris, while almost in the same breath & “sociological” crowd rushes off to another house to inspect Brteux's “Damaged Goods." One hardly knows which way to turn on Broadway to get the horrors. Yesterday afternoon an eager throng turned into Forty-sixth street and Jammed the lobby of the Fulton The- atre, where Richard Bennett wan ready to deliver the goods thht mean so much to the Soctological Fund of the Medical Review of Reviews. The scene suggested & bargain sale, but this illusion was dispelled by a furtive speculator “| asked $10 for a Ucket buried nvercoat pocket. In his Although notice had been given that Ta my ence) no one would be seated after 2.20 and 274 epare!! AWARDED UNaNimousty BY TH cadies, 9 jthe chivalry of tough young New York! Well, it's true that if they were chivalrous they wouldn't be tous but where's the gentleman of nature we hear so much about fn the maga- zine stories? It's no good for tanm to argue that the eurs know what they are up against and needn't come unless they like; that argument 3 singer,” Stage and you think ted the en if they black gown, announced as she made her way down struck up waveringly! Do the gentleman upstairs resp age of the poor old thing, e craginess? No, they howled and yelled |shows how badly those poor amateurs at her; several real men cried “quiet, /want a chance to get out of the rut boys, be quiet,” but no attention didjof their daily grind and how hard they want to succeed; otherwise would they face such a mob? But, dear me—I'm positively preach- | ine? During an interval Io was) much amused at the men who made to advertise their wares! candy yelled one, “try it and if you don't like it pit it out,” cried a volce from upstairs, while the fellow fended his tence with dignity, sa ing: “L refund yout” Another man sold packets of post- irds:—"Round the clock with a chorus] girl....for a nickel," rap at th | price,” remarked the wag in the gal- lery | The local Blood bought a packet. He | was a very gay dog in a five Inc ale Jlar and a « pimples that must! [have taken weeks to bring to sneh | perfection! |The epilogue took place in the ele- vated going home, One of the lit | minxs who had been “amateuring | arrived de ed out in all her waur-| paint! | | “such a noorance, T hadn't time to she confided to father, he looked so sick of Jif | wash it off | Poor old man and angry With his ailly little daughter |That kid attracted about as much at- tention a8 a woman in a man's bart would, and of an equally questionable | kind! i} | She was perfectly happy, but he father was on hot coaly—it was so | Jobvious that the Httle hussy had man-| aged to get the whip hand, and the poor old man had nothing to say, he couldn't even resent the glances his Pretty wilful ttle daugiter received, that be in @ hurry. were women, ai when it was pi the ed, THE END OF. FEAR’ the performance would begin at 2.30 only the ticket-holders seemed to | Three-fourths of those house revealed After considerable delay the Rever- end John Haynes Holmes caused till more reading what Bernard Shaw had to say about Brieux's play, There was Those who had read the Preface could only sit and reflect upon no escape. Shaw's greatest failing. But there's aw end to everything—even a Shaw pro- face. And so finally Brieux was given a hearing—a very long one, You know, perhaps, that his play docs not deal with a pleasant subject, Treating frankly of disease that is usually mentioned behind closed doors, it is and it acts. urageous rather than dramatic It is really a dramatization of a di 59, ads more interestingly than it Yet the long discussion between the patlent and the doctor that con- | Dr werorrww ewww ewe c ewww e wwe owoooooooococecocecccce.. | they pay. It gives one a poor idea of; for her knew that she deserved them! | py Well, dear New York, I'll tell you one thing, when things get to such a pa that’a man has to escort his daugicer about looking lke a burlesque queen, there's something wrong somewhere and that wrong won't be righted till you make your children do as you want! Wallop ‘em!" as the old aehool marm used to say, “wallop ‘em! good and strong!"* It will do them good....and \when they grown up they always get It back on thelr own children you needn't worry lest they feel sore! Honestly, now, don't you think [tm right? f) A SINGER GN) i 1913. Quiet Week-End Theatre ot Thrills Opens With a Bang || And “Sociological” Crowd Rushes to See “Damaged Goods”; THE [AUDIENCE COUGHS ITS WAY aut. tutes the opening act, !n spite of Its] be performed again on Friday of next] lates himself by cutting his hand repetitions, held the audience. Mr, Ben- | week. While examining blood cultures he nett betrayed the strain he had been} NOW FOR SHOCKS ee en ee vpn PR i nies] under in producing the play, but his | O| ’ atic effe thin incident is weaken alesis ad P_ANGTHIER KIND! by @ pistol that goes off like @ paper worn and anxious look only served to add to thp effectiveness of hie perform: ance. On the other hand, the sincerity of the doctor was marred by a tone of self-satisfaction until Wilton Lackaye mado that plea for children, which sounds the dix note tn the play, This moment was Mr, Lackaye's beat. Coughing and groping its way out of new experience for the lence at the new Princess in Thirty-ninth street. Realism was carried too far tn the burning of a Raines law hotel that served ay the avene of “Any Night,” a crude, ugly “life study" by Edward Hits, An attempt to sentimentalize this utterly vicious and hopelessly inartistic cap. The climax is reached after a sanitary officer has learned the truth of Skipton’s death. When a plague- stricken native who is being stoned rushes into the bungalow and, throwing his arms about the terrified Beverly, begs the coward to save him, soldiers appear at the window and the com- mand 1s given to fire. “Both Beverly and the native go down before the vol- ley. That's the end of “Fea There was no drama unt! the end of the second act, when the youth who has married against the advice of his play at the end only made It worse.| qe tense ittle play has the atmo- doctor learns of the Infection of his! tts one merit lay in the stage manage-| sphere of a burning sun, and in depict- baby, Miss Amelia Gardner succeeded | ment, The clanging of fire engines and] ing the feverish temper, low brutality in showing the devotion of the «rand- the sound mother, though her emotion threatened | ¢ to carry her beyond the more Import- ant point of the callous selfishness of in ip her willingness to sac- riflce the nurse. I am forgetting, how- and abject terror of the doomed wretch, Mr. Rilnn does ® remarkably fine plec: of acting, The opening Switchboard,” 1a cheap and vul, girl site at a telephone board, volces that come from behind a curtain of volces seemed realy to me from the street, and when a win- dow was opened and smoke came pour- ing in there was a genulne thrill, Two rescues by a fireman left nothing more to be desired since the author was de- sketoh, called “The A and ever, @ request not to Judge the per-| termined ¢ two of his char- view, Let mo ay, then, that aMinw)*™mot fo me wey lover the footllghta| a. teen done almost as badly in vaudi Laura Burt as the nuran, enabied te { itil Me Rad diMcuity'in finding our} ban bane doe fimons edly Om vane young mother to overhear what ane [trey cewiaatiat Willette Kersha gc ag ee the most of it as the telephone operator. had to way about the child, and that] pathetle ketch of a girl of the atreets,| “Fancy Free" written by Stanley when the mother fell to the floor andyand Holbrook Blinn got away with his| Houghton in the paradoxtcal style of tr husband bent over her, Miss Grace| petty graft ay a policeman who de-| Shaw, ts clever fun, The pretty Fancy Hillston brought the painful scene to a) served to be roasted to death, elopes with a callow youth to a hotel clowe by crying “Don't touch m I've no intention, however, of roast-{!0 Brighton, and on finding her husband Altbaigh Seba ing Mr. Blinn, He Is the Princess ‘The. | there with a lady not nearly as charm- ot is more] atre's icreatest asset—an actor who can | {nm as herself promptly takes possession (han propaganda—it might almost hel turn to any part and play it well, Intof him. Mr, Bilan shows his versatility the fact remains that was splendid by playing the goat and Miss Kershaw t applause war ¢ forth | noug, this play of Engitah {Js charming enough to make the hus- ¥ the doctor's declaration to the law In Indie te the work of two | DARA'® 198 Seek'® BAPDY fhm Making father of the wife that a man \ and comes from the Grand! As you may guess, the moral tone of asking for a girl's bh in mares om beginning to end it] “Fancy Fre “The Switchboard” and pion ye Ma ieee| ea hand of Iron, and it is ad-|"Any Night tan't anything to harp | mirably acted by Mr. Blinn, ward|upon, But “Fear’ {s good, The Princess yt Atness, But 3] ania « Night’ ds his only ,of-|can bank on It-df it's going to do any t" Wyeherly, as » John Stokes, Vaug Trevor) banking, And there's every reason to nan that comes ind Harrison Fowl It is the fear of; believe tt will, for 1t 1s @ theatre of who brought th Jord that makes Beverly a coward, thrills, But {t might easily set itself a won of the play home to sudie when his com Kipton inocu: higher standard, is no one had d In alting word eiln ehind them, she story It was a t vent was th nunt one fal the play. ‘The last word of praise elongs to Miss Wyeherly | Damaged Goods" 1s a warning! gainst ixnorunce. It Is with a xravely Nerloum question, but i is pro able that the sensationalism rathe lousness of the ed the present extri theme has at inary atten- | | | | trac i tion, It would be futile, as well as to discuss here whether this | 18 A Bultable one for the stage loam [Interest Brieux—stories interest | ‘ pu und he has the cour-| xe allenge his audience Re SAMA on ee oan SHOT IN fue BACK tainly do no harm. | In the hope that it may dv gucd, it wil sked Goods" can ¢ j { i } ' | |