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| Opening of Big Loop
House Only Week Away
Source: The Chicago Evening American, 1 May 1926, pg. 13. The gala opening of a great, new and magnificent theater seems to be the high light of next week's amusement calendar. The fact that it is the first new theater in the loop in quite a few years-- in fact, since the Chicago Theater opened, if you except the rebuilt McVickers Theater-- adds to the interest of the premiere. Balaban & Katz in giving to Chicago's loop the capacious Oriental at Randolph near State st. (in the Masonic Temple Building) announce it as "the most unique theater in the world." The Oriental is not the largest Balaban & Katz theater, but a glimpse at it will convince every one it is the most colorful, the most picturesque. In fact, some artists who have viewed the auditorium and decorations declare it to be daring, artistically-- almost barbaric in its splendor of coloring and trappings. Apparently the entertainment policy is to be as unique as the theater itself. The Oriental will be the new home of Paul Ash, recrowned "Rajah of Jazz," who moves over with his whole gang from the McVickers. Incidentally, the extra 1,200 or 1,500 seats will probably save the tired feet of many a Paul Ash fan who has been waiting patiently in line for months to hear and see his or her idol at McVickers. Ash will stage more elaborate syncopation productions on the Oriental's much advertised "magic flying stage"-- a new invention that makes possible lightning changes of settings. On the screen will be a motion picture policy specializing in big comedy features, with a spectacular drama flashing in now and then. Delayed arrival of Oriental draperies and other furnishings of the theater has caused a change in the opening date from next Tuesday to next Saturday. the Oriental will therefore be thrown open to the public at 10:45 a.m. a week from today with paul Ash's gang doing a three scene jazz production called appropriately "Insultin' the Sultan," an Oriental frolic with melody. Milton Watson, Foggy Bernier, and about twenty new Ash personalities including "Paul's Harem-Scarem," a miniature chorus of twelve, will be in the cast. On the screen will be Harry Langdon's first super-comedy, producted by First National Pictures, and entitled "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp!" The new Oriental already is arousing national comment among the theater experts and artists as sounding a new note in theater architecture and decoration. When it was decided to construct a play palace that would charm away workaday worries and make it easy for audiences to forget everything but the entertainment before them, the Oriental idea was conceived. Inseat of copying the somber lines and colorings of mosques and temples, with their Buddahs and grim reminders of lost civilizations, the designers of the Oriental Theater drew their inspiration from the Orient at its gayest. The Durbar, that festive celebration in which rajahs from all the states of India gather and make proud and gawdy display of their fabled wealth, became the pattern of the theater. No description of the new house can be kept matter of fact. It is an exotic play palace that makes the "Arabian Nights" wonders come true. |
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Page authored: 8
August 1998 -
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