The Mormons and the Theatre; or, The History of Theatricals in UtahLindsay, John S. (John Shanks)
Religion
The Mormons and the Theatre; or, The History of Theatricals in Utah
Lindsay, John S. (John Shanks)
Latter Day Saints; Theater -- Utah -- History
On the 9th Chaplin and Walters resumed as stock stars and played
continuously up to the 23rd, T. A. Lyne taking a benefit on the 20th
instant and playing "Richelieu." On the 23rd Chaplin dropped out of
the company, closing in "School," and on the 25th the stock company
kept right along with Clara Jean Walters featured through the October
Conference and up to the 12th.
On October 1st W. T. Harris made his initial bow to the Salt Lake
public; he came from one of the Omaha theatres, accompanied by Annie
Ward and Miss Blanche de Bar, a sister of the popular manager and
actor, Ben de Bar. Miss De Bar had already grown old in the
profession, but proved nevertheless a very useful member of the stock
company. She played old women and characters and on more than one
occasion proved her agility in spite of years and gray hairs, by doing
an Irish jig or a "Dolly Varden" lilt. The rag time had not yet come
in vogue or Miss De Bar could have done a cake walk with the best.
"Jimmy" Harris, as he was familiarly called, cut quite a figure in the
future history of the theatre as manager and deserves more than a
passing notice. He was featured on his opening night in an Irish
farce, "That Rascal Pat," and made a very fair impression. Miss Annie
Ward, who accompanied Harris to Salt Lake, and who at first was
supposed to be "Jimmy's" wife or _fiancee_ (from all appearances), was
a young woman who had been beautiful, but her face was now so deeply
pitted with small pox that she invariably in public kept it covered
with a veil, except when on the stage, where she could veil the
blemish under a thick coat of grease paint, and, this artistically
done, she presented as fair a face as one could wish to look at.
"Annie," 'twas said, had been the _fiancee_ of the great African
explorer, Henry Stanley, before he caught the African fever, which
tore him away from her and all his early associations. Annie found
consolation for her bereavement in a close friendship with "Jimmy." So
close was their alliance that on their joining the stock company here
together, everybody judged they were man and wife, or ought to be.
They had taken a room together in old man McDonald's house, just under
the shadow of St. Mark's church, and everything went well for a little
while--but by some inadvertence the good Mr. McDonald discovered that
they had not secured the necessary license for rooming together, and
he very promptly and perhaps rudely gave them notice to vacate. They
thought the old man was a crank and quite unreasonable, to turn them
out of his house for such a slight offense, in a community where many
of the men were living with a plurality of wives. They had an idea it
was a sort of Oneida community here; free love, etc. They secured
another lodging house, but the lady who ran that was a very strict
Mormon also, and so soon as she found out how matters stood she served
them with a notice to quit. "Jimmy" got a "hunch" from some one that
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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