Hathaway's Vaudeville Program
Hathaway's Theatre / New Bedford / February 25, 1906
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from Variety (1906):
"Billy Barklay's Baby is a comedy sketch and may be new or almost so.
Played by Ethel Clifton and company early in the evening, it failed to arouse
either laughter or applause. The fault does not lie with the players, but it
may be found in the sketch itself. The scene, dialogue and situations are
hackneyed and the theme was rather a risque one for a Keith house, although
Coghlan act is none too dignified. Miss Clifton played in a sincere manner,
worthy of reward, and Thomas Chatterton as a misjudged husband both looked
and acted well, but the plot is shallow, mitigating against substantial
results. Pauline Rona as an Irish cook did the best possible, although
any other nationality for the character would have been preferable."
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Billboard ( Oct. 17, 1905):
The Grafter (Vitagraph)
"Hap Ward's admirers are accustomed to their favorite in an atmosphere of
music and song, pretty girls and bright costumes, so for policy's sake that
is the nature of The Grafter in the Grand Northern Theatre. The piece, however,
has a decidedly dramatic flavor. The story told has to do with the ambition of
a wealthy old lady who has literary aspirations and an intense longing to enter
into the society of the cultured.
She is an enthusiastic admirer of a celebrated writer who has gained much prominence
because of his writings, and at the opening of the play this literary celebrity is
about to become a guest of her household. By a chain of circumstances which her young
daughter, an artist and a friend of the latter control, the visit of the literary light
is deferred and a substitute engaged by the young folks for reasons best known to them-
selves. This substitute is one Grafter. After the Introduction of the spurious writer
it is found necessary to find an Impersonator for Grafter, and by the end of the first
act complications have grown thick and fast. He is kept busy until he is found out to be a
counterfeit and ejected from the house in spite of the efforts of the young folks to protect him.
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(According to Variety, "The Grafter" was a big success in every theatre.)
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