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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 1897)
THE COURIER. :&tt&?sSii$-s$ 3 THEATRICAL NOTES The Clay Clement Company played to a large home at tho Funkoon Monday the 18th. It was an appreciative and vociferous audience made up of univer sity professors and thcrehoiceand num bers of less distinguished citizens who joined in calling Mr. delimit before the curtain several times. This young man is the heir apparent to the .Toe Jefferson throno an elective monarchy and with held capriciously from claimants who have made money and fame. But such a position as Joe Jefferson occupies is the free gift of a loving people. No one can claim it. Richard Mansfield least of all because, he does not 'love tho lanb you know" but dispises it and Sol Smith Russell has not the ability. Clay Clement's intellect and taste are as jowcrful and exact as Richard Mans field's and he is a modest, gracious gen tleman besides. The lamb loves him and bleats with rapture wherever it sees him. Whin his glossy hair has turned from brown to white Clny Clement will mean what Joe Jefferson means now. His company the other night was about the same in quality and persouelle that we have seen with him before. It might be bet.er. Miss Rolinda Bain bridge who was Flora May Randolph was artiticial though pretty and graceful. Miss Kara Kenwy.i, wh j has made tho part of the widow celebrated, wore fetching gowns and was very bewi'eh ing. Her part is toj axiomatic and didactic. Some of her speeches aro editorials. She speaks of matrimony with too much authority and decision for a wife of two days. Some of the old Nigger Poly's lines could be cut with much relief to tho audience. 1 he black butlers of the south are not allowed so large an onjiortunity to exercise their natural loquacity. Next to Mr. Cloiu ent I thought tho villain Mr. Ch.is. Crag, did the cleverest work. His vil lainy was repulsive, beefy, mercenary vulgarity. For its consistent brutality and attention to detail Mr. Craig is en titled to an appreciation from a review which the villian's work never receives from an audience. Miss Amalia Gardner, as the poor relation, had tho accent and atmosphere of the Tennesson mountain girls in Chas. Egbert Craddock's looks. Sho was not etagicyd at the stagiest of parts the deserted female. Miss Gardner is young and unknown, but I should like to sec her in a leading part. She lus imagination and originality. Members of the audience who were cot familiar with the south were overcome with admiration for the comjmniy's southern accent but the southerners said it was very joor. 'I he play is not remarkable except for the part of the Baron Franz Vic.or Von Hohenstauffen. The plot is not new. the other characters are conventional but the German botinist is something new and delightful to theatre goers. "Maj he lif long und brosper."' The action drags when the old butler has the stage to himse'f. His lines and the widow's dicta could bo cut with benclit to the play. The scenery of the first act is new and very effective. The Woodward at The Lansing has been playing a good business. Emily Bancker at tho Funke on Thursday night played to a fairly well filled house. Thursday followed too hard upon Monday for any company, however excellent, to do a very good business. Emily Bancker is a pretty woman with a good deal of temperament which awakens interest and hoi. Is it. Miss Bancker's ability to express the capriciousnees and volatile essenco of puie femininity recalls Rosina Vokes, tho nppealicg irrelevance of whoso answers to maFculine argument were irresistible, especially when clinched and bolted by a song and dance. Mis Bancksr neither sung nor danced, more's tho pity, but her quick replies and bird liko movements are certainly like tho famous Vokes. Tho company was of indifferent merit, neither very good nor very bad. "A Divorce Curo" wus preceded by a one act drama by W. S. Gilbert called "Comedy and I ragedy" which presented an incident of the time when aetots and actresses had no legal standing and were classed :s vagabonds. In this drama Mies Bancker had tho stage to herself throughout. Such lines as eIio used are dear to tie heart of the elocu tionist. They rango from comedy to tragedy and end with a startling climax and curtain. "A Divorce Curo" is on the "Similia Similibus Curantur' principle. Tho husband destioys tho wish for a divorco by making it very easy to obtain and by apparently giving his wife up with pleas ure. Immediately ho appreciates in value and the object of her previous ad miration becomes "a dirty little monkey.'' The play stabs divorco and attempts to resuscitate tho old fashion ed idea of "once married, forever united" etc., and tho gallery applauds vigorously. The construction of the pliy is very lxse. Perhaps when Harry St. Maur translated it from the French of Sardou he left out the articulations. For cer tainly the body and tho limbs do not hold together. It must be St. Maur for tho articulation in Sardou's creations is perftct. For instance a man named Grover Pursely appears in tho first act, he takes up more than his share of the time and stage, considering that he ap pears only casually again, in discoursing upon the relations between him and his wife. Thereafter no ore knows any thing about him. He wanders about tho stage casually like tho famous rest-Ie-sJew. I suppose he is a warning to the two about to be devorced. Like tho Due D'Orleans in the Curtain Riiscr his fate is unrertain. By the way the parts of the Doc and of Grover Pursely were taken by the same man -Mr. J. P. Cope. His destiny and fate slighted in both plays have still not deprived him of an apparent interest in life. Perhaps tho ribbons and tho magnificent ap pearance he makes as the Due do much to smooth the manner of his passin" But a play with the moral so obvious and insistant as A Divorco Curo would be tirtsomo without Emily Bancker. $100 dollaks kewakdSICO Tho readers of this paper will bo pleased to loarn that thero is at least one dreaded disease that science has been able to curo in all its stages and that is catarrh. Hall's Catarrh Curo is tho only positive euro now known to .he medical fraternity. Catarrh being a constitutional disease, requires a constitutional treatement. Hall's Catarrh Curo is taken internally, acting directly upon the blood and mucous surfaces of the system, thereby destroying the foundation of the disea se, and giving tho patient strengtn by building up tho constitution and assisting nature in doing its work Tho proprietors have so much faith in its curative powers, that they offer One Hundred Dollars for any case that it fails to cure. 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