|
September 23, 1900. Women were clad in ankle-length dresses
and high button shoes, even in the Indian summer heat. Men sported
top hats and spats.
It was the Age of Innocence. Queen Victoria still reigned in
England, and her influence was felt in upper classes throughout
the Western World including the Midwestern United States. Gentlemen
used calling cards, and a woman’s virtue was of the utmost
importance. Nonetheless, the hold of Victoria’s strict etiquette
and staunch morality was waning in the dawn of a new age.
In Kansas City, a new entertainment venue arose, nearly seven stories high
with arched glass windows ensconced with electric light bulbs, majestic columns
and Palladian windows. Her name was embossed five stories in the air: Standard
Theatre.
An advertisement in the Kansas City Star on September 16, 1900, read, “The
theater will be illuminated and open to the free inspection of the public on
Saturday night, September 22, from 8:00 to 10:30 p.m.” The same paper
reported on the morning of the 23rd of September, 1900: “The Standard
Theater, only partly finished, was inspected by hundreds of people last night.
Many who went to the manufacturers’ display at the Convention Hall were
turned away and these, seeing the brilliant lights of the new theater, availed
themselves of the opportunity to look through the building and speculate on
its final appearance. The truth is, the Standard Theater, although it is to
be opened this afternoon, is not finished. Those who visited there last night
were in danger every minute of having a pot of paint dumped on their heads.”
The Standard’s interior was a marvel with alternating
colors of carmine, ivory-white, and green, and artificial lighting
to accent each of her features. The Kansas City Journal anticipated
her opening by describing her in detail for the public two days
before. “The balcony and gallery circles are beautifully
curved and ornamentally designed, and the ceiling is on two separate
levels, the front and lower level being the sounding board...The
architectural design in general is very handsome, the detail
being on Grecian lines. This detail is exceedingly artistic and
ornamental without being the least ostentatious… The dropcurtain
consists of a beautiful reproduction of Burne-Jones’ famous
picture, “The Disarmament of Cupid” set in a frame
of purely architectural invention.” (September 21, 1900)
The opening day performance of “The Jolly Grass Widows” was
challenged by the arrival by train of Buffalo Bill Cody’s
Wild West Show reenacting the charge up San Juan Hill for a performance
the following day, yet all of her 2,400 seats were filled. “The
Jolly Grass Widows” had been a hit on the vaudeville circuit
along the East Coast and arrived by a special train with 35 company
members and two car loads of scenery and electrical effects.
The production was considered a vaudeville and burlesque show,
and most of the audience arrived expecting the character of the
show to be naughtier than it actually was.
Dismayed that there were only about 20 women in attendance
at the opening matinee, the theater’s owner, Colonel Ed
Butler of St. Louis, made a curtain speech on opening day stating
that “he had not spent 1/4 million dollars to insult the
people of Kansas City. He declared that the Standard welcomed
the wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts of all the men and promised
not to insult them…No one was insulted.” (Kansas City
Star, September 24, 1900)
Designed by renowned architect Louis Curtiss, the Standard was the latest showplace
in downtown Kansas City. She was a vaudeville house: baggy-pants comedians,
polite burlesque, comedy sketches, and physical feats of daring. Her proscenium
arch was 32 feet high and designed to be sufficiently elevated that patrons
seated in the top of the upper balcony could see a trapeze act.
Across the nation productions were becoming grander in scale and more ostentatious
in content. The Standard was no exception.
The Standard’s audiences cheered for chorus lines of dancing girls, acrobatics,
comedy, jugglers, songs, and vaudeville acts. They marveled at the beauty of
the building and the blatant use of electric light bulbs, which were introduced
to Kansas City only the year before. And they celebrated this new addition
to Kansas City’s culture that remained an integral part of downtown for
the next hundred years.
Back to top
–> Next Folly Era
|
