A Texas Tall Tale Falls Flat on the Olympia Stage
The Tribune's critic takes a traveling company to task for butchering a popular novel into an 'unskillful' play—and even the little Scotch terrier doesn't escape review.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The play of "Mr. Potter of Texas" last night at the Olympia Theater was not greeted with a full house, although better than usual, probably because of the widespread notoriety of the book of that name. It is not as finished a play as Hoyt's "Texas Steer," which deals with a real Texan. Gunter's creation of such a Texan as Mr. Potter is an insult to the Lone Star State and its clever people, and about the only redeeming feature of it is that Sampson Potter was not to the manor born. The dramatist has illy constructed a play out of a book full of fiery dramatic situations and climaxes—an intensely interesting book. The play begins in the middle of Gunter's story and is unskillful throughout. Joseph Wheelock, an acknowledged good actor, is ill at ease as Mr. Potter, while Jeffreys Lewis as Lady Annerly has a horrible voice, bad mannerisms and would apparently feel better at home in a thrilling blood-and-thunder 'scene chewing' play of the Old Bowery stripe. Mr. Frank E. Aiken, who is pleasantly remembered here in the opening play of "Little Lord Fauntleroy" at the Olympia Theater, is by far the best actor in the company. Master Lewis Homes, as Teddie, the young kid, was good. "Snapper," the little Scotch terrier, did about as well as many of the other actors. "Mr. Potter of Texas" is not a smooth play nor is the company up to the average of many really meritorious companies that have been seen here by smaller audiences.
“About the only redeeming feature of it is that Sampson Potter was not to the manor born.”
A century before streaming and touring blockbusters, Olympia's theatregoers judged a traveling troupe on the merits—and the local critic gave no quarter. The same tension between what a small capital city can attract and what bigger Seattle pulls away still shapes Olympia's cultural calendar today.
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