Life — February 8, 1906 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

An Elephant on His Neck. (Ate: “ An Elephant on His Hands HERE once was a King, so the wild-cats sing, And Theodore was his name, And a pet had he called the G. O. P., And he kept that elephant tam: At least un And a card from the Phili Made the elephant mad—then T An elep) For— That el a Statehood Bill ine deck pdore had nt on his neck. phant kicked all night, And that elephant bucked all day— His hide was tough, and the riding rough Made Theodore’s hair turn grey. He was resolute and he beat the brute Till the Big Stick was a wreck— It’s a wild, wild thing to see a King With an elephant on his neck ! Though the King loved strife and the strenuous life And war to his blood was win Still he couldn't forget that ponderous p Was waltzing on his spine. So he anaged to say in his tactful way, * My collarbone hurts like heck— Ob, Il temporize or UM compromise, If you'll please get off my neck 1” For ‘That elephant tramped all night And that elephant stamped all d And he waved his trunk with insur; nt spunk To the President's dism. So the latter said as he raised his head nthe insurrectional wreck, “It’s hard for Pride to look dignified When an elephant’s on on A Really Enjoyable Comic Opera. CHRISTIE MACDONALD. together were worse than either. HE growing distaste for comic opera (so- called) and for musical comedy is not so uch an objection to this form of entertainment as tis a tired feeling arising from the fact that it has been over-done, Every person who can pick out a tune scems impelled to compose a score, and there is no scribbler so little humorous that he has not been moved some time with the idea of writ ng a libretto, Fortunately for the public very of these compositions never get further than the outer office of some producing manager, Un- fortunately, however, very few producing managers are possessed of the discernment to judge a com- bination of music and humorous text and a number of the attempts find their way to the stage, the result being that the public has had to endure a long succession of these productions, in which either the score was bad or the book was stupid, or both Add to this that there is rarely Tax “Grave! TRIO IN CANA. born a true comic-opera comedian and We have some explanation of the public's increasing weariness of the numerous monotonous enter- tainments produced undet the various names which have been in- vented to disguise the same old dose. Even the rural districts are beginning to wake up to the fact that the words ‘comic opera,” ** musical comedy” and ‘ Broadway suc- cess” do not very often mean either fun or real music, no matter how strongly they may be heralded by pictures of unheard-of singers and comedians in the Sunday newspapers, nor how many yards of bill-board may be taken up with pictures of pink-tighted chorus girls. In fact, the chorus girl has been the main attraction in most of these entertainments, but she is no longer the magnet she was except to over-susceptible youths in New York and to new million- More discerning citizens have awak- ened to the fact that in comic opera, under recent theatrical con- ditions, the pink tights of to-day’s chotus girl cover up of expose only the charms of yesterday's chambermaid, aires in interior metropolises, Tt comic opera in itself is still an agreeable form of stage amusement is sown by the power to please demonstrated, even in this period of surfeit, by “Mexi- cana,” the latest offering at the Lyric. The reason is that all its component parts are of good quality and that it gets away a little from the stereotyped form, In choosing Mexico for the scene, the librettist, Clara Driscoll, gives us an atmosphere that has not been entirely exhausted. Her plot loses itself at moments, but plot is the least essential in comic opera, and the combina- tion of the Wall-street broker with this locale gives her humor a more credible basis. More than that, it gives the com- poser, Mr, Raymond Hubbell, inspiration for music with a local color of which he has very successfully availed himself, ‘The char- acteristic airs are among the best in the opera and are a refreshing variation from the hackneyed musical forms, The whole piece abounds in tuneful bits, a strikingly original one being a swinging march chorus at the close of the first act. The Shuberts have given the piece an unusually strong cast and the artists seem to gain zest from the better quality of the material provided for them. As comedians both Mr, Thomas Q. Seabrooke and Mr. Joseph Herbert are in excellent form and are good foils one to the other. Christie MacDonald's looks make another requisition on MR, YOM SEABROOK: comicbooks.com