Venue(s):
Wood's Theatre [beginning Jan 15, 1866]
Manager / Director:
George A. F. Wood
Conductor(s):
Harvey D. Beissenherz
Price: $.50; .75 reserved seats; $1.50 orchestra chairs; $1 balcony chairs; $8 private boxes
Event Type:
Variety / Vaudeville
Status:
Published
Last Updated:
14 June 2016
“Mr. George Wood will open his new theater this evening. It is in the building formerly occupied by Wood’s Minstrels, and is to be called and known as Wood’s Theater. (This Wood, we may as well remark, for the sake of clearness, is a different Wood from that Wood.) The opening play, adapted from the French by Mr. T. H. De Walden, will be ‘The Balloon Wedding’ and, as we noted the other day, will introduce Mr. Chanfrau, Miss Olive Logan, the Hanlon Brothers, and a Fairy Fountain. An entertainment so various cannot fail to please somebody. Like a shotgun it scatters the charge—which, therefore, must needs bring down something. Mr. Wood has fitted up his new theater in a tasteful manner, and his enterprise bids fair to succeed. He still retains the management of the Broadway.”
No mention of music. Brief review. Favorable review of the Hanlon Brothers and Balloon Wedding. The play ended with a fireworks display. “This bright little establishment opened last evening, and a few minutes after opening was crowded to its greatest capacity.”
No mention of music. Detailed account of the Hanlon Brothers act. “There was the usual crowded house at Mr. George Wood’s new theatre last evening. . . . The play was much better performed than upon last Monday evening.”
“The piece called the ‘Balloon Wedding’ is another one of those trashy affairs that have lately been produced on the New York stage.” The Hanlon Brothers’ appearance in the second act was “the only redeeming thing in the whole piece—except Chanfrau’s acting.” Davenport has “an excellent voice for singing, and just the style for an Irish comedian. His singing of Pat Molloy was heartily encored, and he divided the honors of the evening with the Hanlon Brothers.”
“Mr. T. S. De Walden has sued Mr. George Wood, manager of Wood’s Theatre and the Broadway Theatre, for the failure of his piece called the ‘Balloon Wedding,’ produced at Wood’s Theatre on the opening night of that theatre. Mr. De Walden complains of the very bad way in which it was mounted, and that it was not put on the stage as it could and ought to have been. Now, in our judgment, Mr. Wood placed it on the stage a great deal better than it deserved, and as to its performance, each and every character, from the leading one to the poorest, received full justice at the hands of Mr. Wood’s company. The character Mr. Chanfrau had could not have been better enacted. The same can be said of the roles entrusted to G. C. Davenport, Mrs. Wright and Miss Osborne. Then, again, what attraction could have been introduced into the piece that would have guaranteed its success more than the Hanlon Brothers. The very fact of having to introduce gymnastic or acrobatic feats to carry a piece through is a proof of its being, in a literary point of view, a very weak affair.”