The evening world. Newspaper, July 14, 1915, Page 13

Lure of Gay New York In the Vacation Season Greatest City, With Its Endless Attractions for * dts te Sightseers, Is Likewise the Greatest Summer| Theqtrical Season of 1915-16 Resort, Affording, as It Does, Metropolitan Wonders, the Pleasures of the Theatre, Roof Garden and Parks, and the Charms of River, a A alt sia | sti LDS NE W YORK, WEDNE SDAY, JULY 14, 1915. Is Opinion ——_—>+— Bay and Ocean, the Breezes From Which Some Are Doubtful, but Others Keep It Cool, knows. S ‘The wise man, and the equally well informed young woman, Believe War Scare Has Done Its Worst. |UMMERTIME in New York has no terrors for the stay-at-home who ACTIVE ALL ALONG LINE. scanning a map for vacation purposes, ‘invariably looks and lingers ‘At @ spot very much to the east and very close to all that is the real centre of the universe. And there is a reason just as there is a eeason. Lee Shubert Sees Good Times New York is not going to be, but already is, the ideal and greatest eum- mer resort of the world, and it is the inspiration of “seeing America first.” It degan to be this when its unrivalled location for everything that tempted opportunity caused a few courageous souls to turn their sea-tossed wooden ships into the Narrows and the Bay and, pushing back the red man 4m the days of savagery, make a settlement with a spark of civilization that ‘how illumines the world. Geographically, New York, as an ideal summer city, is beyond com- Dare. The broad Atlantic throws its white surf line along a beach that has no rival. Old ocean’s roar is 60 close that it forms part of the great chorus sf activity heard throughout Manhattan. To the northward are the hills and romantic, fertile, flowered lands of AMVestchester; on one side flows the beautiful Hudson beneath the stately Palisades, beyond which are seen the misty mountains of inland New Jersey with their hidden lakes; while on the other side courses the East River, which the eye travels to the ‘Diending with the waters of the Sound, acroi verdant stretches of that garden land, Long Island. In all the wonder works of nature, could any situation be more ideal for summer days? The cooling breezes of the ocean, the fresh winds that come from farm and river, the invigorating breath from distant moun- From the city’s streets or the topmost windows of steel and stone sky-scrapers one may view this glorious | tains—all these are in the air of New York. orama. All that 4s good atmospherically—the wind, the wave, the valley and | the mountain—sends forth across rivers and bay a flood of pure, refreshing | p air, tempering the heat of the day and lending enchantment to the night. The wise stay-at-home of “little old New York” has known this a long And, ‘ike the knowledge of all the good things of the world, the tidings have gone forth until the world knows now what the native has known all the time and has spent many a summer of delight under his own roof, ume. Never in the history of the city has the throng of summer visitors been Jarger, more varied and so representative of every part of the world as it is It is an onward move to New York by every train and steamship that wends its way Manhattanward. Depots and docks are now the centres of @ great incoming throng. There is nothing to run away from in New The “This Way Out” sign has given way to the This is an invitation spoken and understood in every today. York in the summer time. “Come On In” cry. Janguage and responded to from every clime. In all the world is there such an alluring array of things to do as in New York? Not in any other place 1s there so much going on, so many and eo varied opportunities for sightseeing, for pleasure and for learning; nowhere 60 many charming sidetrips, so many satisfying answers to the perplexing question, “What ehall I do?” Nowhere in all the bright vision of vacation time is there 60 much that glitters and which, contrary to the ‘proverb, proves to be gold. New York is the easiest place to reach, no matter where you come from, ‘ané when you errive, with purse large or emall, there is nothing missing fim hotel and other living arrangements. Everybody wants to eee New York. One’s education is not complete ‘until he has seen New York and known the brightness of its Great White Way. No matter where you have spent your holidays in the past, the finish- : 1s right here in ing touch, the post-graduate course of all ‘vacationing,’ New York. Nowhere in all the world ts euch a variety of summer amusement of- fered as here. Roof gardens, theatres, cabaréts and a countless, unending, ever-changing programme of entertainments await the visitor. Hotel and restaurant life is as gay and delightful as at any time of the year. The Dest plays of the year still linger in the theatres, while neighboring beaches present a dazzling list of. amusements. A bus ride on Fifth Avenue, a sightseeing coach journey through the busy part of the city, or along broad avenues of palatial homes, or again through tho picturesque cosmopolitan quarters, alive with every color of Continental life; a trip on its rivers, or down its bay; @ journey across the bridges to green commuting territories; a sail on the Sound; a climb to its Palisades; a view of the ocean; a dash in the most wonderful of underground railways; a night on @ roof garden with its music and lights and gayety—these are some of the things New York has in store for you, “TWIN BEDS” NEAR 400TH MARK, “Twin Beds,” the laugh festival by Salisbury Field and Margaret Mayo with which Selwin and Company have broken the season's record for a long run, will celebrate its 400th perform- ce at the Harris Theatre next week, ‘his amusing little farce is now the gole survivor of the plays, serious or Season's attractions to thorough enjoyment, Mr, Mann's im- | “But the season—the theatrical ise, which began their seasons the coming season. Perhaps it would Oe Cenc ust of last year, It, was one of |Peraonation of Gustave Muller, the| he right to call him ultra-consorva, OMAN right—what about it? I'l four which made the perilous stretch |old delicatessen dealer, is a bit of| tive. bite.” replied Mr, Gray. from August to June, and is now one|character acting that is bound to) “Of course,” sald Mr, Moss, “I hope! yr, Gray, besides being an author, | of the only two which have passed |linger long in the memory, In the|for the best. But I think some of! gances a little now and then and does their 350th performances. “Twin | supporting cast are Mme, Auguste | these managers are whistling a bit to an imitation of Frank Tinney. Beds" is now in its second set of| Burmester, Laura Walker, J. Archer|keep up their courage. I cannot see pil , pcen as well as its second summer.|Curtis and Leonard I An excellent cast of comedians con tinues to give the full humor to the day, with best seats on Wednesday af ituations and dialogue, a _ LOUIS MANN IN “THE BUBBLE.” One of the most enjoyable of the remain throughout the summer months 1s “The Bubble,” in which Louls Mann ie appearing at the Booth Theatre, Its delightful comedy and humorous characterizations offer an evening of are given on Wednesday and Satur- Ahead and “K. & E.” Will Carry Out Plans. By Bide Dudley. ‘What has the new theatrical sea- son in store for the producer? This 1s the one big question at pres- ent being discussed along Broadway. Even with the possibility ahead that the United States will break off diplo- matic relations with Germany, op- timism is to be found on all sides in the Rialto district. Most managers and producers think the 1915-1916 season will be a very profitable one. Worst, A third class declines to ex- Press an opinion, “Nobody knows what's ahead!” these say, Lee Shubert, who, with his brother, has announced a long list of produe- tions for the new season, ts confident food times are ahead and doesn't hesitate to say so. | “The people must have entertain- ment,” he satd in reply to a query concerning the outlook. ‘The motion pictures have created thousands of theatregoers; manufacturing is going on everywhere and the farmers are all prosperous. There 1s no reason why the coming season should not be a big one for the theatrical business. We're going ahead on ¢ scale more extensive than ever before,” “It's almost sure to be a big season for the burlesque interests,” said Fred McCloy of the Columbfa Theatre, “Conditions are improving all time, I believe. Aside from business conditions generally, however, the Columbia Amusement Company has another reason for expecting in- creased returns from its investments, A new twist is to be given burlesque. Every one of the seventy-odd Colum- bia shows is to have a real libretto not the old clap-trap stuff, but con sistent books. It used to be that the average burlesque show was built around gags, afterpleces and songs. The atage director threw a show to- gether and let it go at that. Begin- Mbrettos will be used, Of coume, they won't be deep, but there will be enough of a story to give the action of the show a continuity. “We had to change our shows,” con- tinued Mr, McCloy, “to satisfy the something new. won't hear the same song in show after show and the featured Hebrew or Irish comedians will be so routed that the patrons of a house won't have to stand for two or three of the sume style in succession, is to be entitled to more sertous con- sideration next season than ever be- fore and we expect it to increase in popularity greatly.” 4sked his opinion of the season abead, Marc Klaw of Klaw & not in the “prophet” busines plans,” he said, While B. 8, Moss tsn't by nature a pessimist, he 18 anything but opti- any real reason for their optimism, and yet they may be right. I fail to understand why show ‘conditions uld obange for the better, With A few shake their heads and fear the| the) ning next season, however, regular desire of our regular clientele for Next season you Burlesque Erlanger smilingly replied that ho wi a8. “There will be no change in our mistic concerning the prospects for|furters would”—— Promises to Be Prosperous One, |: of Most Managers this war crisis at hand it's hard to see just where we get off.” ‘Reports seem to indicate that the country at large is in pretty fair condition,” was suggested, ‘True enough,” replied Mr. Moss, “but the people are apprehensive. They aren't spending their money. We have seven theatres in New York and book about thirty others in and out of the city. Our repor show that business for the popular-priced amusements fell off from 25 to 40 per cent. last season, The public mind is in a state of apprehension, If the war ceases confidence will in- crease and things will pick up won- derfully. But a continuation of the war means a dubious outlook for the theatrical business, At least, that's how it appears to me.” “The 10-cent moving picture ts go- ing,” id Joe Harris of Chicago, as he stood in front of the George M. Cohan Theatre. Mr. Harris spends his week-ends in New York. When he isn’t on Broadway or the fast trains, he pursues the motion picture busines# in the city op the Chicago River. “What's taking its place? asked James Jay Brady, referring to the 10-cent film, “The $2 motion picture show,” re- plied Mr. Harris. “The high-priced |feature film will be all the go from now on, This class of entertainment is going to be big opposition for the jlegitimate attractions, Why, ‘The | Birth of a Nation’ did $8,500 the first | week in Milwaukee and more than $9,000 the second there. And for legitimate attractions Milwaukee is seldom anything more than @ three- night stand.” “How will the new season be for the feature films?” “Big, there's no doubt of it." “I presume,” said Mr. Brady, “that the picture business is"— “In its infancy,” came from Mr. Harris, “Guessed it the first time,” said Mr, Brady. George Vivian, who holds the title of general manager for and brother- in-law to Charles Hopkins, proprietor of the Punch and Judy Theatre, is an optimist regarding the outlook for the theatrical business, “I think the effects of the war scare have worn off,” sald Mr. Vivian, “A year ago the war made people very cautious about spending money, but they’re becoming bolder daily. I look for an excellent season.” Mr. Vivian is Vice President of the company which controls the Ben Greet Players, This concern has five open alr acting organizations touring America, Mr. Vivian thinks their business should be @ barometer for general conditions. “Four of our companies have been doing very well,” hesaid. “The other is the one in which Ben Greet him- self was to have appeared. He re- mained in mm and therefore business with this company has not been as good as it might be, The absence of Mr. Greet has been a dl: appointment to patrons of this troupe and has affected its business matert- ally, Taken as whole, the Be Greet open air proposition is a win- ner this season, The war has not affected it in the least.’ Joseph Brooka isn’t making any predictions about the coming season just at this time, | “Are you an optimist?’ | | asked, “Can't say that I am,” he replied. “My wife's a Presbyterian, and the wife usually sets the religious pace for the whole family.” “Is the show business going to got better?” persisted his interviewer, | “I didn't even know it was sick,” returned Mr. Brooks with a smile, 3 he was Tommy Gray, author of “She's In Again” and designer of much other an opinion as to the outlook. “Hully che “I thinic the Get me? Of course, if we go to war with the Germans It's sure to ruin the Limburger cheese trade, But | what of it? I'm game. I won't com- | plain, Now, {t looks as though Fran FOREIGN STARS COMING HERE, “There'll be more foreign vaudeville @tare over bere than ever before next | stage material, was asked to express " replied Author Gray. | jason will be all O. K. | = aid Walter Kingsley of the eatre. asked somebody, f length of the war. performers wouldn't fall because they thought jon would be brief, and they always have plenty of work at home under normal conditions. Now, however, they are convinced that the war is to last a long time, so they're fail,” Palace y we ie Li just the same, but they also work. ennai Experience Has Taught Her That Most People Like Wholesome Plays. GOOD BUSINESS WOMAN But the Real Truth of It Is She Hates “Messy Little Things” Herself. “I write clean farce because I'm @ good business woman, and because I like long runs, and big audiences,” says Margaret Mayo, author, with Salisbury Field, of “Twin Beds,” with which Selwyn and company have made the record run of the season at the Harris Theatre. “And I know that the only way to reach the large public is by giving them something that amuses them, without at the same time making them ashamed of themselves for being amused by It. “When I followed the success of ‘Baby Mino’ with ‘Twin Beds,’ both of which the critics were good enough to call clean and wholesome in spite of the fact that they were built around more or less intimate things, I was at once assailed with questions from all manner and kinds of people. Almost the first question was, ‘If you can make such a huge success with these, why. don't you try your hand at mething a shade more—we'll call it “French"—and have a farce that will run for forty years?’ Almost every- where I have found people holding the theory that wholesomeness in a farce is @ handicap. “The trouble with these people is that they deceive themselves. They theorize cynically, but in practice they iave the same basio love of cleanMness that all the rest of us have. “Naturally enough, I have watched audiences—sometimes with my heart in my mouth, but always as closely aa I could, I was an actress before I turned to writing plays, and when you're behind the footights trying to please them you're even more agi- tated about it than when you're ‘out front.’ “And during these observation ex- periments of mine, I have invariably come to the conclusion about people gathered together in the theatre— they love to laugh #o much they’ll laugh at anything that gives them half a chance, but they laugh more, and longer, and come back oftener, and recommend more whole-hearted- ly, it what they have laughed at has been clean, “A novel act we'll have at the Pai- ace will be a German parrot that will come right out on the stage, nod to the orchestra leader and sing a whole song. We've been trying to get thi act for a long time, but the parrot’s owner preferred to stay/in Germany Now he want got away from the effects of the wa Mr. Kingsley said other songbir to be heard in American vaudeville next season are Mary Garden and Schumann- Hein! Gabrilowitsch, the pianist, is to ter the two-a-day, also, it 1s reported. Margaret Mayo, Clever Author Of ‘Twin Beds’ and ‘Baby Mine,’ Tells Why Shé'Writes Clean Farce “Of course, any playwright knows that the world is divided into cer- tain warring groups, not all of whom can he hope to please, There is a public for off-color farce—we can’t deny it. That particular public would have liked ‘Twin Beds’ much better if I had, as they put it, made the most of my opportunities, “That same public is the one which has given most of the beemirched plays of the past ten years their fugitive vogue, I should imagine that with a thoroughly insinuating and suggestive farce a playwright could count on enthusiastic audiences for at least six or eight weeks. During th six or eight weeks you wouldn't be able to your little finger into the theatre, because whatever else that public is or isn't, it is at least eager to get at ite favorite entertain- ment. “Then the naughty farce is through. It has shot its bolt?” “It hi in passing, done this much damage: it has convinced the super- fictally minded onlookers that a ‘big hit’ Is synonymous with a ‘double meanin, You'll hear them aay sar. donically: ‘Such-and-Such Theatre is jJammed to the doors every night— that’s the way to make money. So- and-So knows the public!’ And eo forth, They quote the placard of the King and the Duke in ‘Huckleberry Finn'—Great entertainment to-night women and children not allowed to enter,’ and append the Duke's, ‘If that don't fetch ‘em, thea I don't know Arkansas,” “I don't know whether to laugh at them or cry over them. They are so pitifully deluded. They are so un- aware of the deadly ‘special public,’ which has wrecked more playwrights than anything else eince the world began. “They never dream of that great, unpretentious, wide-spreading public that stays out of ‘cliques,’ lives and Joves normally, laughs joyously and at clean things—and—makes a long runl “The psychology of all this ts very simple—people resent being made un- comfortable in the theatre, and they always made uncomfortable by @ glib, farcical treatment of things they have always held to be personal, private, and--you might say sacred. “It's @ pretty safe rule, in writ- ing farce or comedy, never to try to make people laugh in the theatre at something that they wouldn't laugh at out of it, “Take the sane-thinking average, wholesome, man or woman, who encounters in real life, @ situation such as many of the unclean farces are built on—what does he do? He takes his embarrassment and bis genuine distress, and goes off with them to a less troublesome spot, and 44th & Broadway. N 2.30 and 8.30 P. M. Prices 10-15-25-50 4 POWERFUL PREACHMENT AGAINST THE DRUG HABIT. AND THREE M COMM IIILILI TTI, Chapter X,—Coleotia prevents, To prereethe Miners THE SCAR eric THE GODDESS nalih" or Barclay from being hung by ERRIST OF MERRY COMEDIES, geta them off his mind aa soon as possible. Certainly be wouldn't Jaugh. “Well—it is true that If he saw the same situation in the theatre, clever- ly done, by expert farceurs, and pointed with witty lines, ‘he would laugh. But down underneath, he would be ashamed—abashed, I sup- pose, is the better word, He wouldn't {like it very much that his wife, or his sister, was getting initiated into that point of view on such matters. He wouldn't be tickled to death to me he had it in him to laugh bhim- self. “So—the wise playwright always keops that sub-conscious viewpoint in mind. “There's one other thing—a man will not mind laughing at something, oven if it's strictly speaking a little vulgar, which he haa been in the habit of laughing at. There are even national habits of laughing, #o that what is offensive in America is not so in France, and the other way around. “As an example, we, in America, do not object to laughing at drunken- ness, I suppose it is true that a ‘drunk’ is pitiable, instead of laugh- able—but it does not strike us that way, as @ people. “If it ie true, as some very wise man, whose name I now forget, nas said, that the supreme essence of comedy is the frustration of human endeavor, then a poor, befuddled drunkard has every right to be con- sidered funny. I frankly confess that I find amusement in their utter idioay, if, at the same time, other emotions are not stirred and the sum total of emotions not complicated. I believe that my tipsy tenor in ‘Twin Beds? is amusing, because he has let himesit get to a point of absolute His colossal clumsiness ‘i, to ma, # unlike that of @ very young ambitions puppy. If he were, on other hand, ruining his career, or tally injuring some other person persons dependent on him, I find him anything but funny. would never have got into my “IT believe that this same view prevails in the great publle. “This brings me to what was in back of my head a few minut when we mentioned French Just as we do not object to int tion on the stage, the French do not object to the sex sl which give them such a bad name this side of the water. The nat habit is to laugh at the sex You can reach the large Fren lic with it and it isn’t unwi because you are not blunting thing that they want to keep I do not say that their point of is either better or worse than. merely maintain that It is dij and that we should only after we know the French pu! enough to see it In its relation their whole outlook on life, “Now, I have told you # lot of reasons for writing clean have shown myself as a good ness woman, as I haven't I? “Well, here is my reason for setting my face the naughty farce: I don’t messy little things myself, and to think I have conscience enough to try to folst them on other SALISBURY FIELD AND MARGARET, \ THIS ] THE LIFE! THE LAUGHING FESTIVAL A Fountain of Fun Beats the Summer Sun PRESENTED BY SELWYN & CO. HARRIS THEATR Mayo 7% ALL SUMMER Mat. Wed. & Sat,