Life — December 9, 1886 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

-LIFE: and instructive to take a little survey of the past year, as clergymen remark when they want an opportunity to say a few secular things of their own, not intended for publication; and in looking back over the dra- matic field of this city, there are many interesting points to be noticed. Above everything, I can’t help being wonderfully impressed with the unique and stupendous unselfishness of American managers and audiences, who, during the past year, have positively done everything they could to foster dramatic talent — foreign dramatic talent. In the laudable hope of extending assistance to less fortu- nate nations of the earth, Americans have seized upon foreign plays, good, bad and indifferent, and produce them; invited over foreign actors, strong and weak, savory and unsavory, and have generously vetoed nearly every native production, so that it could not by any possibility be given a respectable hearing. During the past year, Americans have welcomed at their theatres, Mme. Judic, Miss Rosina Vokes, Mrs. Langtry, Miss Fortescue, Miss Violet Cameron, Wilson Barrett, and opera- tic singers by the score. All that was necessary was for the new comer to have been extensively advertised, either by a parade of immorality or a parade of eccentricity. No other passport to American generosity is required. Whenever I read in the cable dispatches of the newspapers that Miss So-and-So has commenced divorce proceedings against Mr. So-and-So, or has been spicily behaving in a manner in which marriage and divorce have little to do, I know that the lady is coming to America. I know she will soon remark, “ How I love dear America!” I know that she will have suppers given to her. I know that charming M. Depew has peen notified to resurrect one of his old speeches. I know that Thomas H. French—I beg pardon, I mean T. Henry French, is getting his perennial yacht ready to go down the bay. American managers have, as I said before, done all they could during the past year to foster foreign talent. Manager A. M. Palmer's production of “Jim, the Penman,” Lester Wallack and “Sophia,” the Aronsons and “Erminie,” John Stetson and “The Mikado,” and “Princess Ida,” manager J. C. Duff and more “ Mikado,” the Fourteenth Street Theatre and “The Scapegoat,” Niblo’s and “Theodora,” are just a few instances of the eagerness and success with which foreign plays are given. There has been one American comic opera produced during the past year, “The Maid and the Moonshiner.” It was the deadest failure imaginable, and rightly so. No wonder Americans go abroad for their librettos if they have to rely upon Hoyt to write them at home. Some American plays have been revived with success. That chaste little comedy, product of a refined mind, called “ The Rag Baby,” is always acceptable ; “The Bunch of Keys,” equally chaste and refined, is also much appreciated ; “ We, Us, & Co.,” “Oh! What a Night,” “Keep it Dark,” “Fun ina Photograph Gallery,” and so on, always draw certain audi- ences. These plays, we are asked to believe, are typically American. I hope not, though it’s none of my business. Managers produce this wretched, emasculated trash, because it is no trouble or expense to produce. No scenery is required, fools can take the principal parts, while the inanity of the text will always draw a certain class. i And yet if managers could get this kind of stuff abroad, abroad they would go, so that they might put the magic word “imported ” on their programmes. They can’t get it abroad} though. The most dismal concert-hall in London would de- cline to produce some of the “ musical extravaganzas” given in this city. é Then we have had Dixey during the past year. Thank goodness that the year has passed, because it has taken “ Adonis” away from us. Puffed by preposterous advertise- ments, playing during hot summer months when few other theatres were open, Dixey jumped into prominence, which was subsequently very considerably reduced by a miserable failure in England. The good things of the past year have almost all been for- eign. Would that I could truthfully say otherwise, but I can’t. Perhaps next year may be better for American authors. The outlook is not cheerful, but it is not as dark as it has been. Alan Dale. HER ANSWER. N my right at a dinner sat Mollie, On my left there was little May Belle Who is always so sparkling and jolly, ‘And who likes me, I fancy, quite well. The former somehow spoke of ages ; “« Now, what would you take me to be?” Lasked. She replied, ‘ Of life's pages I suppose you have turned twenty-three. Miss Belle, on my left, was abstracted, And did not our words overhear, Nor knew she the answer expected As I whispered quite low in her ear, “ And what would you take me for, Mary?” And then this small maiden perverse, From out of abstraction, quite wary, Responded, — ‘‘ For better or worse.” Samuel Williams Cooper. ATTI calls her visits to this country farewell visits, because she fares so well here. comicbooks.com