Hails New Oriental as Wonder Theater
Chicago Finds Self Transplanted to Mystic Environment of Far East.
Source: Chicago Daily News, 8 May 1926, pg. 7.
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A new farthest north in theatrical splendor
was revealed today when Balaban & Katz opened their Oriental theater
on the site of the old Iroquois, later the Colonial, in Randolph street.
The builders, famous for a succession of sumptuous theaters, have
outdone their Chicago, their Tivoli, their Uptown movie houses in the
Oriental, the first audience discovered. Richer indulgence in paint and
gilt, more flattering servility in ushers and doormen, more elaborate
mechanical magic put the new house ahead of its predecessors.
The long hair of Paul Ash, an orchestra leader of local renown,
gave a final touch of magnificence to the opening. All in all, the
affair was quite as supersumptuous as the advance notices promised.
Inspriration from India.
The designers of the new theater went to the Indian durbars, they
say, for their inspiration. What they ahve done would knock Delhi for a
row of pagodas, however. No maharaja ever saw anything like the
Oriental.
Beyond a doorman looking like something out of the "Thousand
and One Nights," the first comers beheld a profligacy of paint,
bronze, hangings, lights, sculpture, gilt, plush upholstery and velvet
carpeting, leading up to a curtain (silk, of course) on which elephants,
warriors, slaves, veiled houri and princes of India parade.
When the curtain was drawn aside they saw what electric motors have
done to stagecraft. The whole stage moves up and down and sidewise under
the compulsion of great engines, so that two sets can be prepared out of
sight while an act is in progress.
Ash Presides at Opening.
Paul Ash presided over the opening and made the only response to
demands for curtain speeches. He was assisted by Milton Watson, Peggy
Bernier, Maurice Marseilles, Hazel Kennedy and others. There was a
picture, too, put on with all the ritualistic pomp of the new movie age.
The opening show carried out the spirit of the lavish architecture.
It was more oriental than the orient. And a succession of capacity
crowds, ushered out of the roar of the loop into the Rider Haggard
extravagance of the interior, greeted playhouse, master of ceremonies,
disappearing orchestras and stage hands and even the movie with
undisguised delight.
[End of news article]
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Page compiled: 8 August 1998
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