Adventures in the Arts: Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and PoetsHartley, Marsden
History
Adventures in the Arts: Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets
Hartley, Marsden
Art; Literature, Modern -- History and criticism; Vaudeville
From elephants carrying in their trunks chatelaines of Shetland
ponies, curtseying at the close of the charming act like a pretty miss
at her first coming out, to such work as the Four Danubes give you as
the closing number, with Irene as a lead, you are, to say the least,
carried over the dreadful spots, such as the young man who sways out
like a burlesque queen and tells you whom he was with before Keith got
him. His name should be "Pusher," "Advance Man," or something of that
sort, and not artist. What he gives you, you could find just as well
if not better done on Fourteenth Street. He has a ribbon-counter,
adenoid voice production that no really fine artist could afford. He
will "get by," because anything does, apparently.
One turns to the big artist for relief, even though minor artists like
The Brown Sisters charm so surely with their ivory and silver
diamond-studded accordions, giving very pleasing transitions from
grave to gay in arias and tunes we know. Accordions and concertinas
are very beautiful to me, when played by artists like these girls, and
by such as Joe Cawthorne, and Grock.
There are more dancing men of quality this season, it seems to me, who
are obscured by dancing ladies of fame, and not such warrantable
artistry. Perhaps it is because male anatomy allows of greater
eccentricity and playfulness. There are no girls who have just such
laughing legs as the inimitable Frances White. It is the long-legged
American boy who beats the world in this sort of thing.
The lovely bit of hockey which James Barton gives is for me far more
distinguished than all the rest of his work in the Winter Garden
Revue. He is a real artist, but it is work that one sees rather a deal
of this season, whereas the hockey dance is like nothing else to be
found. A lovely moment of rhythmic leg work. We are now thoroughly
familiar with the stage drunk, as we have long been familiarized by
Weber and Fields with the stage Jew, which is fortunately passing out
for lack of artist to present it. Leon Errol is good for once, even
twice. He is quite alone in his very witty falls and runs. They are
full of the struggle of the drunk to regain his character and manhood.
The act lives on a very flat plane otherwise. It has no roundness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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