Life — October 17, 1889 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

-LIFE-: OVERTURE. ERHAPS it is a good thing for the managers to cater to the 400 and not open their season until the 400 are back in the city. Perhaps it isn’t. It’s only a question of to what extent the 400,000 are guided in matters theatrical by the 4oo. The 4oo do not return to town until October, The 400,000 return early in September. It isn’t altogether a question of the ratio between 400,000 and goo, but in the proverbially dense managerial mind those ~ figures should have something to do with the matter of open- ing. R. DALY’s best friend couldn't hon- Q estly call * The Golden Widow" an. unqualitied success. He has put wit and humor into the dialogue of the first act, and has scattered those desirable adjuncts to comedy through the rest of the play in a moderate de- gree, but after the first act the audience experiences a sensa- tion of goneness. The plot and sit- uations are not enough to help out. Too much depends on the admir- able work of Miss Rehan and Mr. Lewis. No exception can be taken to either of, them. No work is re- quired from the rest of the com- pany, and there is a feeling of disappointment that the reserve powers are not brought into play. Mr. Daly himself is entirely re- sponsible for any disappointment we may feel in the “The Golden Widow.” He has made us hyper- critical when it comes to a question of anything produced at his house. We judge it not by what could or would be done elsewhere, but by what he has done before. “ The Golden Widow,” as a comedy or On the broad ground of amusement only the performance is well worth seeing. It is laughable and well done. Worse entertainments have been very highly commended by the same persons who decry “The Golden Widow.” . . . OSSIBLE dramatic heroes and heroic episodes are not usually brought on the stage in the same generation of their existence’or occurrence. Sheridan and his famous ride would seem to defy the dramatist and stage possibilities in any generation, but in “ Shenandoah” Mr. Bronson Howard has managed to depict graphically the historical occurrence, while there are eye-witnesses yet alive to pick flaws in the faithfulness of the reproduction, This is a hazardous ex- periment, but from the dramatic point of view, at least, it has proved thoroughly successful, particularly as the back- ground is an attractive play located amid scenes and occur- rences interesting to everyone who has the slightest recollec- tion of the War of the Rebellion. . . . [> DWARD HARRIGAN has so many friends among New York play-goers of every class that the success of “McKenna’s Flirtation” bears with it a tinge of regret. Nevertheless, the New York public likes to laugh, and Messrs. Barry and Fay present an irresistibly funny picture of Irish high-life in New York. In dramatic value it does not hold the place achieved by Mr. Harrigan’s complete pro- ductions, owing to the lack of a well-drilled and carefully selected company. But it is very funny, and introduces two clever actors to the metropolis. Metcalfe. an extravaganza, whichever it may be called, and the acting of it, would score an immediate success at any other theatre in New York, Daughter (entirely overcome); OM, BIDDY DARLINT, IXAMINE HIS FRONT TOOTH AN IF IT'S FILLED WID SILVER IT’S MY OWLD FATHER'S CORPSE COME BACK AGIN. comi icbooks.com