The evening world. Newspaper, April 26, 1913, Page 9

Spring Feve . Treated by Old Doctor Brady Holds Authore Responsible for the Resurrection of Old Playe and Predicts That Unless They Do Better Work Than They Are Now Turning Out the i 42 ye on 1a | u Only Hope of the Theatre Will Be in the Revival—The Great Need lea STAwOSTiLL HIS BYE ON THE DoLLaR, MrwJZavyeS PLAYWRIGHTS ARE COMING TO A COM PLETE THE AUTHOR MAS By Charles Darnton. EARS from now, when we are old and gray and tottering to our seat in the theatre, we shall probably speak of 1913 as the year of the great revival. knows? And why not? ever seen anything like It? For the past few weeks the cur- tain has been going up on old plays 4 as if ft had nothing else to do, And right here at the beginning we come, perhaps, to the end of the t story. But what has been the result Play With a Big Idea. Who Have you Let's run an eye along Broadway. close its sentimental doors. wrong actors were in it let them go in peace. For that matter an actor | | of this turning backward game? | ‘ } { First of all “Liberty Hall” had to If the bring down on his highly-prised never knows what house he may | head. Very well! To-night “Rose- ! career at the Lyric. fa dale” cuts short its unprofitable Here is an- other sign that we are growing older The good old comic operas that have come back with the youthful charm of their music have nothing to do | and wiser with a vengeance. with the case, as De Wolf Hopper { might say if this scenario included covered play I'm after. a curtain speech. It's the moss- And still it comes! While “Liberty Hall” was revived to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Empire Theatre, “The Amazons” is to be revived, ap- parently, to celebrate Miss Billie Burke. The same evening will carry us back to “Arizona” and the dust American action in uniform. that always rises from the brave It ts too early to sneeze at this sort of thing, yet it is not too late to bring William A. Brady into the discuss: provided we catch him before he lights out for French Lick Springs. As he was packing his medicine case old Doctor Brady paused to treat ] the spring fever of stage revivals in | this way: “Without doubt the revival of olf playe is being very much overdone this { year. The result is that the public has lost ite taste for the play of anelent flavor, But let me y this before I forget it: If the present style of play- writing continues for a year or two longer the only hope of the theatre “Go on,” I urged. = will be in the revival. Do you get me?” “Well, this is the situation,” he start- e4 te explain, ‘Authors are responsible for revivals, When a manager can get i nothing. bug 205 from the moger eu- | thor, why shouldn't he turn to the old ‘1 O1n't KNOW Ow OLD 1 was” wouldn't score when I watched the per formance on the opening night.” There were no sour grapes in Mr. Brady's mouth. In epite of the fact that he may only nod to an offending eritic after a “bad notice” he is 9 good loser. He no longer goes out of his way to alr his imaginary grievances. “After all,” he reflected, “the revival 18 @ poor proposition for a manager, be- cause New York is the only city in the country that will accept it. Take ft to Schenectady, for example, and pud- ; Mo will merely say, ‘Huh; I've seen dramatist?’ 5 that play!’ It doesn’t matter who is in Holding no brief for the “modern author," I weakly shook my head. the cast, But at the same time I think “The tact] 2 eo at least siz racing someon 20* tc] the peta te’ rama ia stad come to a standstill, ‘They're net|™oving forward. The crook play crase writing anything.” 1s, of course, merely @ reflection of the “They seem to be wnusually @usy,” 1] DUbMe mind. But undoubtedly the the- suggested. atre {s broadening and growing more fi “But what are they doing?’ de-|telligent day by day. The newepapers, manded the importunate Bredy. ‘My|!"cMentafly, can cultivate @ teste for wife, for example, is playing ‘Divorcons’|®SY Diay, especially when they discuss because she can't get anything else to] ® subject of interest to women, The play.” reeglt Ayres interest is aroused «py. | OY & oul that subject is of value to But this was another etory. ane the theatre. Gti, there isn't e vorcons” 1s @ brililant comedy, ego fantly played by Grace George as to-Gay—and I think I may include Belas-| rho looks much farther ahead than Cyprienne. The proud husband of that|% ¥' ‘accomplished comedienne was compelled | are reat of Sa=Oans 008 Out be Rane, ‘a to admit that T bad the better of the 210 tomer (ged Be: pel —- playwrights of the world heve come to “I know," he confessed with 8] complete standetil. In the last your pleased grin, “Misa George would rather | gurepe has produced nothing. And no play ‘Divorcons’ than eat. But howl rm going to give you a {De you about the rest of it? Authors have know what the laugh! a tone stopped writing brilliant Unes like those don is? Ite rpg bene ! ‘The of Sardou, Let me tell you one thins: | genered situation here wes eloquently Nobody connected with the theatre to: day 1s s0 commeretal as the author. Ho| sirius ine snore nave we 8 Toman atways has his eye en the dollar, And] jopby—‘Divorcons,’ ne ate yet one playwright has 3 sailed to] Beggar Student,’ ‘The Geisha’—ena make hie home abroad in order, as he| claimed, ‘I didn't know how old I w. announced, to get away from the box-| And yet managers are driven to revive oMfce influence, I'm atill smiling, as} old plays because they can’t get new you notice." ones thet ane worth producing. To spread the news, he grinned from|STeat need of the theatre today is « Pri yet play with a big idea. > Think J e ““Here'a another thing,” he pointed out * Fi year, They should have P, season at the Metropolitan Opera House tal Des had closed, Geventy-five per cent. of the a £08 ert audiences thet patronize Broadway re Did you ever try to mail « vivals come from the opera house | owntown Broadway? Why, my wife has sat in that place| Of course if you are of the sophteti- five thmes this season through ‘Pag’—-|cated, you know the main Post-Offise how do you pronounce it?—yes, that's| is wp at the head of Park Row, that it—just to hear Caruso sing one eong. | there is @ branch station in che Cus- And that's the anewer! That's a revival, tom House ulliing at Bowling Green but It’s brought up to concert pitch by|@nd there's ardly an office duilding & qreat artist. Now, turn to the etage| without @ big box tm ite lobby. But and sce the difference, There are no|many are mot so wise ia city tnow!- great actors to take the places of those a partioulariy trying te it en ‘who made the old plays famous, It is impossible to get an ector who will givo| “Say,” exclaimed @ stranger approach- an illuminating performance, Times| ing the blue-coated maeter of traMc at have changed. Go back, for example, to | Broadway and Cortlandt street the other that wonderful Shakespearfan festival|day, “don't they have any letter boxes in Cincinnati in the eighties, That sort|on the streets here? Or what do you of thing ts no longer possible becaune| fellows do with the letters you writ the country is without actors capable of| The pollooman recalled he had seen playing the parts, To-day peopl @ box at Dey and Broadway and sent at the soliloquies in ‘Rosedale'—and|the inquirer thither. Later he remem- why? Because the actors do not know | bered he had once noted that there was how to speak them. Why, the greatest | snother at the comer of Wall, But that dramatic epeech ever written is ‘Te be| was ail could remember. or not to be!’ Go through Shakespeare| And he wasn't alone in his lack of and find other wonderful speeches—ana| knowledge. In fact, tt wasn’t lack of then try to find actors who know how} knowledge, There may be more than to deliver them! these two south of Fulton street, but Mr, Brady gave himself up to despair} a casual inspection of the Metrict o Wey ): r of Stage Revivals |The Wild West Has Moved East, Says Buffalo Bill;; Its ‘“‘Bad Indians’’ Ride in Autos and Play Brid, I'd Rather Take My Chances in the Wildest of the West Than in the Wild East,’’ Adds Col. Cody, “When It Comes to the Preservation of Life, Limb and the Pursuit of Happiness.” “why, demmit, the ‘wild West’ has moved East,” said Col. Buffalo William’ Frederick Cody. rather by a blamed sight take my chances in the wildest of ‘West’ than in the wild East when it came to preservation of life, limb and the pursuit of bappiness!” Col. Bill suddenly renee vee goatee and gave it a se! [Sisko tug. He remembered he was in New York, talking for a New the ‘wild York audience. and the infinite di- plomacy of the veteran showman nudged his elbow and prompted him, “Of course, I mean to say,” he be gan with a deferential clearing of ‘his throat. “You mean to say that men’ of New York are more wild than the ‘bad men’ you knew on the plains fifty years ago?” queried Col. the ‘bad Cody's interviewer, quick to take ad- vantage of the opening. The old gen- tleman—ol4 by comparison only, of course—felt of his goatee again with a slight gesture of pained embarrass- meat and then levelled his steel-eray somewhat stiffly: eyes—eyes with the little wind wrin- les clustered about the corners—at the impudent questioner and dictated - College boy; he held his head with free, soliierly carriage, ‘You ask me about the bad men I knew in the old days out on the plaina. n, I guess I knew them all, @ or another. I saw them come w them go, watched them living their ewift, full lives and in some cases, when they were my friends, mourned their passing with genuine srief. “The bad men of the romances?’ Col,| Pittaburgh—and writes about the lone Bill answered @ suggestion with juat the| high how! of the bad man, The badder trace of @ amile skipping around the| he makes ‘em, tho vettor the publishers down-dra: cornere of his mouth,| like his stuff, The fellow who makes a ‘Son, trange and terrible peo-| perfect ring-tailed terror is what <hey le aren't they? I never met any of| call # ‘best seller’ and he has his plc- them, tures in ail the bookstore windows.” “You see, some thin little soribbler| The old ecout with the steeldkeen eyes site up in his bedroom over in Brooklyn| chuckled a bit and Ut hie insurgent or up in Harlem—some dish chested | cigar. MMtle chap who's never been west of! “Listen to me, eon. One of the best known baa men that ever lived tn the West was an elegant gentleman. His name was Ben Thompson, and he was killed in San Antone, deck tn ‘8, I think it was, He was no more like the bad man you read about in the cute little books of the Wild West nowadays than-—than you are, and I don’t take it you're @ bad man.” Once more that forgotten cigar was out. Tho strange green ring on the Colonel's finger flashed again as he Dawed for » mateh, “The psychology of the bad man fs Interesting,” he resumed. “Most of t! It’s “Tonsorial Wireless” Now sect mere, Net e at heart, They for New York’s Barber Shops. d forced upon them and then dust seemed AN break loose afd go hunting ‘OU gee, a8 g00n as @ man began to reputation for belng a dangerous customer, why it sort of got to his pride, as it were, and he felt he had o reputation to maintain. I don’t mean thie was the case with Ben Thompson, but with the average run of the bad “Young man, I know nothing ebout the bad men of New York. If you want te learn about them you'll have to go to ecmne other authority—the Poles Com- misstoner, for inetance.”” But the Cotonel’s fancied indiscretion (Now York will “eat up” anything you say, Col. WilMam, without question or comment) evidenty suggested to his mind 8 train of thought and he began to tem stories about oad men he had known in the old days, the roaring days, the days of 49 or ‘WO. He was sitting behind @ broken table, stowed away in the angle of a neglected staircase that led to the gallery of the Garden, A pile of unopened email lay under one hand; with the other he was constantly groping in his walstcoat pockets for a match to light his dead stub of @ cigar. Col. Bill was garbed in the tightly buttoned black frock coat that has, this ‘season, displaced the well known buck- skin and soft shirt of the old familiar Buffalo Bill sombrero on his greater comfort. and monstrous rii that one to ask questions about If one darad| gliinted weird and gold lights from the jindex finger of his right hand He had just come from Hie vagrant curls we knot under the sorcading ead to his would like the arena after driving his little sulky out into low beGan to establish @ reputation for downright cussedness the bad man got lous and went out to keep his record Snag bright by finding more trouble, “L don't think any of the so-called ‘BS, now it 1s the Tonsorial Wire- | will wante one hot towel after another | bad men of the early days on the plains leas. on him. He will depart between iines| really; committed murder for the pure From barber shop to barber | of salaaming artisans and will be made| love of killing, but many of them didn't shop in New York it has spread until|to feel as if her were the sacred ele-| step aside if they eaw murder in the it 1s fast becoming a universal signal! phant oarrying the viceroy to the| trail.” code. Here's th Durbar, Col. Bill closed hy . is eyes and A customer en So much for the shgnals, Now for the| his memory back trom too Garde iy far away from the shooting and the The nose-stroking eign means: “He|clamor that were sp-banging through bay va we, the faded velvet curtains, shutting off @ chin means: “He tips five|the arena, to the thne of open spaces barber or one of t who has had ” hepa UAT. te ana on | ene east of the Rockies when he was a| automobiles and tie squaws An absence of signals means either| #tripling standing in the sunlight, with| auction bridge.” that algnal dependa the kind of shave} ,, eeggtteni-alpre greenery “He always ohelis out a dime" or “He| all life and change atill before him, ¢ ——_—— 5 , in| 18 & new customer. Treat him well on| “Thompson,” he began ti s Let the Wig-Wag man rub his nose in| 3 san 18's voine ud- "Tt the wig-wag man rub hie none in| Dew cugtomer Tra aued vy te press af tromoriee: "remnn |Ratlroad Chesi ket a shave that is liable to litt him| Th® open-fingered sture ways: |iife as @ scout in the Confederate ser-| wingt tt was the 7 vodily from his chair and make his fave | “Twenty-five cent tip, Don't let him get| vice, aa I remember—or maybe it was| road which tesued a special @aGi look Me a fever chart. away fom you,” with the Union forces, I am not eure! the effect that each of ite traaal Let the stxnal man rub his chin, and! For every tp 1s remembered, classified | which. At any rate, with the close of|muat. conatitute himesif @ : tolerably good treatment will be forth-| and rewarded in kind, But don't con-| the war between the States he drifted to Lord Chesterfeld. Now the coming. fuse these signals with wordless orders | the . d tmto Mexico and If no signal is jo the shave in of! of the boas barber to w new man who tal fought with Maximilian for a throne, |ve” joes folewed walt, and so-called bad men of the old West—Wild Bill, my friend Ben Thompson and ci He {# watching fo a uM the best quality sort of “three days | to shave an old customer, The back of| then came back to Texas and became on Saale ee EF po rin mts under the akin” affair, without paia or; the hand laid against the right chook hen the cause of the Aus-| css “later,” and undue haste. j signifies “close shave’ A single up- ost Baeeensere ao “orcther, Aaa But if the lookout half raises one hand,| raised finger says “On b “Later, because of his absolute lack of yeeuees or anything etellage. | ths fingers slightly extended, the cus-| No sign at all means 'wice over,|fear and the record he had established . the New Haven's latest: jj tomer will imagine the barber mis-/ down." And by the way, “twice over,|as a bad man, he was made Marghal of ak takes him for King George or John D. down" Is what most newcomers get) Austin, Tex. He ruled by the fear of Rookefeller or the Man Higher Up, He! when they ask for a “close shave.” For | him, which had spread through all that character, | wil be shaved with a loving care and) a rbor doesn't want to risk losing q! end of Tesas., Nobody was quicker ‘on and his cigar. doeen't reveal them. The Post-OMice|the dazzle of the centre space, there pain ee ait h ee h course with passengers, oe e d a a brillant teohmique that amage him, customer by scraping t »| the a than Ben Thompson; nobody] the most se regard ‘The trouble 1s," he resumed, “to get| Department doubtless intends that all|to make the old, famillar, aweeping | The perfumes of Araby (in Hlest will whose Power of revist swould wade into sudden death with ine pe Ny ee? iMuminating actors capable of giving | downtown Now York letter-writers | bow to the audience Jamming the cir-|be strewn o'er his visage He will be yet know. Wateh for t y smile like that poy did, Even the man whe | BRS Sa6e trom bil ag re not’ shall go to the offices or use the mail |cular tiers of seats, {powdered lke a Merrot. With lavish) are not yet universal, But more shops ‘Once he went to San Antone. There} must be handled with r ‘Bemehoboy ——ainsincerctweetmeeenese , MAO CARA WHO Buddy Oheches aso GMEUEAA faz lmnday Diba Ine Deeber| ase Using Whew every day, wee rivalsy between those eme elties new rule ‘ * y