was, first and foremost, a director and producer. His sensibility and
force, his feeling and authority, his intelligence and comprehension in
matters of dramatic artistry were best, almost solely, known to his
players and immediate associates. No stage-director of his day was more
admired and desired than he.
At rehearsal the announcement, "C. F. is in front," meant for every one
in the cast an eager enthusiasm and a desire to do something unusually
good to merit his commendation. His enormous energy, aided by his
diplomacy and humor, inspired the player to highest performance.
Such expressions as, "But, Mr. Frohman, this is my way of doing it," or
"I feel it this way," and like manifestations of actors' conceit or
argument would never be met with ridicule or contempt. Sometimes he
would say, "Try it my way first," or "Do you like that?" or "Does this
give you a better feeling?" He never said, "You _must_ do thus and so."
He was alert to every suggestion. As a result he got the very best out
of his people. It was part of his policy of developing the personal
element.
The genial human side of the man always softened his loudest tones,
although he was seldom vehement. So gentle was his speech at rehearsals
that the actors often came down to the footlights to hear his friendly
yet earnest direction.
Frohman had that first essential of a great dramatic director--a
psychologic mind in the study of the various human natures of his actors
and of the ideas they attempted to portray.
He was an engaging and fascinating figure, too, as he molded speech and
shaped the play. An old friend who saw him in action thus describes the
picture:
"Here a comedian laughs aloud with the comic quaintness of the director.
There a little lady, new to the stage, is made to feel at home and
confident. The proud old-timer is sufficiently ameliorated to approve of
the change suggested. The leading lady trembles with the shock of
realization imparted by the stout little man with chubby smile who,
seated alone in the darkened auditorium, conveys his meaning as with
invisible wires, quietly, quaintly, simply, and rationally, so as to
stir the actors' souls to new sensibilities, awaken thought, and
viviby(?) glow of passion, sentiment, or humor."
At rehearsals Frohman usually sat alone about the tenth row back. He
rarely rose from his seat, but by voice and gesture indicated the moves
on his dramatic chess-board. When it became necessary for him to go on
the stage he did so with alacrity. He suggested, by marvelously simple
indications and quick transitions, the significance of the scene or the
manner of the presentation.
There was a curious similarity, in one respect, between the rehearsing
methods of Charles Frohman and Augustin Daly. This comparison is
admirably made by Frohman's life-long friend Franklin H. Sargent,
Director of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Empire School
of Acting, in which Frohman was greatly interested and which he helped
in every possible way. He said:
"Like a great painter with a few stray significant lines of drawing,
Frohman revealed the spirit and the idea. In this respect he resembled
Augustin Daly, who could furnish much dramatic intuition by a grunt and
a thumb-joint. Both men used similar methods and possessed equal
keenness of intelligence and sense of humor, except that Frohman was
rarely sarcastic. Daly usually was. Frohman's demeanor and relationship
to his actors was kindly and considerate. Rules, and all strictly
enforced, were in Daly's policy of theater management. Frohman did not
resort to rules. He regulated his theaters on broad principles, but with
firm decision when necessary. In Daly's theater there was obedience; in
Frohman's theater there was a willing co-operation. The chief interest
of both managers was comedy--comedy of two opposite kinds. Daly's jest
was the artificial German farce and Shakespearian refinement. Frohman's
tastes ranged between the French school--Sardou's 'Diplomacy' and the
modern realities--and the pure sentiments of Barrie's 'The Little
Minister.' Frohman was never traditional in an artificial sense, though
careful to retain the fundamental original treatment of imported foreign
plays.
"The verities, the humanities, the joys of life always existed and grew
with him as with a good landscape architect who keeps in nature's ways.
His departures into the classicism of Stephen Phillips, the romanticism
of Shakespeare, or the exotic French society drama were never as
valuable and delightful as his treatment of modern sentiment and
comedy."
In this respect a comparison with the workmanship of another genius of
the American theater, David Belasco, is inevitable. Belasco, the great
designer and painter of theatrical pictures, holds quite a different
point of view and possesses different abilities from those of Charles
Frohman. Belasco revels in the technique of the actor. Frohman's
_metier_ was the essentials. The two men were in many ways complements
of each other and per force admirers of each other and friends. In
brief, Belasco is the technicist; Frohman was the humanitarian.
Charles usually left details of scenery, lighting, and minor matters to
his stage-manager. "Look after the little things," he would say, in
business as in art, for he himself was interested only in the larger
themes. The lesser people of the play, the early rehearsing of involved
business, was shaped by his subordinates. The smaller faults and the
mannerisms of the actor did not trouble him, provided the main thought
and feeling were there. He would merely laugh at a suggestion to
straighten out the legs and walk, to lengthen the drawl, or to heighten
the cockney accent of a prominent member of his company, saying:
"The public likes him for these natural things."
Frohman's ear was musically sensitive. The intonations, inflections, the
tone colors of voice, orchestral and incidental music, found him an
exacting critic.
To plays he gave thought, study, and preparation. The author received
much advice and direction from him. He himself possessed the expert
knowledge and abilities of a playwright, as is always true of every good
stage-director. Each new play was planned, written, cast, and revised
completely under his guidance and supervision. His stage-manager had
been instructed in advance in the "plotting" of its treatment. The first
rehearsals were usually left in charge of this assistant.
At the first rehearsals Frohman made little or no comments. He watched
and studied in silence. Thereafter his master-mind would reveal itself
in reconstruction of lines and scenes, re-accentuation of the high and
low lights of the story involved, and improvement of the acting and
representation. Frohman consulted with his authors, artists, and
assistants more in his office than in actual rehearsal. In the theater
he was sole auditor and judge. His stage-manager would rarely make
suggestions during rehearsals unless beckoned to and asked by his
manager. When the office-boy came in at rehearsal on some important
business errand, he got a curt dismissal, or at most a brief
consideration of the despatch, contract, or message.
Here is a vivid view of Frohman at rehearsal by one who often sat under
the magic of his direction:
"In the dim theater he sits alone, the stage-manager being at a
respectable distance. If by chance there are one or two others present
directly concerned in the production, they all sit discreetly in the
extreme rear. The company is grouped in the wings, never in the front.
The full stage lights throw into prominence the actors in the scene in
rehearsal. Occasionally the voice of Mr. Frohman calls from the
auditorium, and the direction is sometimes repeated more loudly by the
stage-manager. Everybody is listening and watching.
"The wonderfully responsive and painstaking nature of Maude Adams is
fully alive, alert, and interested in Mr. Frohman's directions even in
the scenes in which she has no personal part, during which, very likely,
she will half recline on the floor near the proscenium--all eyes and
ears.
"Or perhaps it is a strong emotional scene in which Margaret Anglin is
the central character. At the theatrically most effective point in the
acting the voice breaks in, Miss Anglin stops, hastens to the
footlights, and listens intently to a few simple, quiet words. Over her
face pass shadow and storm, and in her eyes tears form. Again she begins
the scene, and yet again, with cumulative passion. Each time, with each
new incitement from the sympathetic director, new power, deeper feeling,
keener thought develop, until a great glow of meaning and of might fills
the stage and the theater with its radiance. Mr. Frohman is at last
satisfied, and so the play moves on."
Just as Frohman loved humor in life, so did he have a rare gift for
comedy rehearsal. William Faversham pays him this tribute:
"I think Charles Frohman was the greatest comedy stage-manager that I
have known. I do not think there was a comedy ever written that he could
not rehearse and get more out of than any other stage-director I have
ever seen--and I have seen a good many. If he had devoted himself, as
director, entirely to one company, I think he would have produced the
greatest organization of comedians that Europe or America ever saw. I
don't suppose there is a comedy scene that he couldn't rehearse and play
better than any of the actors who were engaged to play the parts. The
subtle touches that he put into 'Lord and Lady Algy' were extraordinary.
The same with 'The Counsellor's Wife,' with 'Bohemia,' and again with a
play of H. V. Esmond's called 'Imprudence,' which we did. He seemed to
love this play, and I never saw a piece grow so in all my life as it did
under his direction. All the successes made by the actors and actresses
in that play were entirely through the work of Charles Frohman.
"He had a keen sense of sound, a tremendous ear for tones of comedy. He
could get ten or twelve inflections out of a speech of about four lines;
he had a wonderful method of getting the actors to accept and project
these tones over the footlights. He got what he wanted from them in the
most extraordinary way. With his disjointed, pantomimic method of
instruction he was able to transfer to them, as if by telepathy, what he
wanted.
"For instance, he would say: 'Now, you go over there ... then, just as
he is looking at you ... see?--say--then ... that's it! you know?' And
simply by this telepathy you _did know_."
His terse summing up of scenes and facts was never better illustrated
than when he compressed the instructions of a whole sentimental act into
this simple sentence to E. H. Sothern:
"Court--kiss--curtain."
In one detail he differed from all the other great producers of his
time. Most managers liked to nurse a play after its production and build
it up with new scenes or varied changes. With Frohman it was different.
"I am interested in a production until it has been made, and then I
don't care for it any more," he said. This is generally true, although
some of his productions he could never see often enough.
Frohman's perception about a play was little short of uncanny. An
incident that happened during the rehearsal of the Maude Adams all-star
revival of "Romeo and Juliet" will illustrate. James K. Hackett was cast
for _Mercutio_. He had worked for a month on the Queen Mab speech. He
had elaborated and polished it, and thought he had it letter and tone
perfect.
Frohman sat down near the front and listened with rapt attention while
this fine actor declaimed the speech. When he finished Charles said, in
his jerky, epigrammatic way:
"Hackett, that's fine, but just in there somewhere--you know what I
mean."
As a matter of fact, Hackett, with all his elaborate preparation, had
slipped up on one line, and it was a very essential one. Frohman had
never read "Romeo and Juliet" until he cast this production, yet he
caught the omission with his extraordinary intuition.
Charles was the most indefatigable of workers. At one time, on arriving
in Boston at midnight, he had to stage a new act of "Peter Pan." He
worked over it with carpenters, actors, and electricians until three in
the morning. Then he made an appointment with the acting manager to take
a walk on the Common "in the morning."
The manager took "in the morning" to mean nine o'clock. When he reached
the hotel Frohman was just returning from his walk, and handed the man a
bunch of cables to send, telegrams to acknowledge, and memoranda of
information desired. At ten o'clock Frohman was conducting the rehearsal
of a new comedy by Haddon Chambers, which he finished at four. At five
he was on a train speeding back to New York, where he probably read
manuscripts of plays until two in the morning. This was one of the
typical "C. F." days.
* * *
Occasionally a single detail would fascinate him in a play. "The Waltz
Dream" that he did at the Hicks Theater in London in 1908 was typical.
Miss Gertie Millar, who sang the leading part, had an important song.
Frohman did not like the way she sang it, so he worked on it for two
weeks until it reached the perfection of expression that he desired. But
that song made the play and became the most-talked-of feature in it.
This led him to say:
"I am willing to give as much time to a single song as to the rehearsal
of a whole play."
Frohman had a phrase that he often used with his actors and directors.
It was:
"Never get a 'falling curtain.'"
By this he meant a curtain that did not leave interest or emotion
subdued or declining. He wanted the full sweep of rage, terror, pity,
suspense, or anger alive with the end of the act.
He always said, "A man who sees a play must feel that he is in the
presence of an act." It was his way of putting forth the idea that any
acted effort, no matter how humble, must have the ring of sincerity and
conviction.
Charles had an almost weird instinct for what was right on the stage.
Once at rehearsals he pointed to a heavy candelabrum that stood on a
table.
"I want that thing on the mantelpiece," he said.
"You mean the candelabrum?" asked one of his assistants.
"I don't know what it is, but I know that it belongs on the
mantelpiece." And it did.
* * *
Many of Frohman's rehearsals were held out of town. He was particularly
fond of "pointing up" a production in a strange environment. Then the
stage-director would ask the local manager for an absolutely empty
theater--"a clear auditorium."
"Peter Pan" was to be "finished off" at Washington. The call was issued,
the company assembled--everybody was present except Frohman. "Strange,"
was the thought in all minds, for he was usually so prompt. Ten minutes,
fifteen minutes passed until the stage-manager left the theater in
search of the manager. He was found at the front entrance of the
theater, unsuccessfully arguing with a German door-tender who, not
knowing him and immensely amused at the idea that he was pretending to
be Charles Frohman, refused to admit him until reassured by the company
stage-manager. Later, when the man came to apologize, Frohman's only
comment was:
"Oh! I forgot that an hour ago."
Few people knew the Frohman of rehearsals so well as William Seymour,
for many years his general stage-director. His illuminating picture of
the Little Chief he served so long is as follows:
"At rehearsals Charles Frohman was completely wrapped up in the play and
the players. His mind, however, traveled faster than we did. He often
stopped me to make a change in a line or in the business which to me was
not at all clear. You could not always grasp, at once, just what he was
aiming at. But once understood, the idea became illuminative, and
extended into the next, or even to succeeding acts of the play. He could
detect a weak spot quicker than any one I ever knew, and could remedy or
straighten it out just as quickly.
"After the rehearsal of a new play he would think of it probably all the
evening and night, and the next morning he had the solutions of the
several vague points at his fingers' ends. He was also very positive and
firm in what he wanted done, and how he thought it should be done. But
what he thought was right, he believed to be right, and he soon made you
see it that way.
"I confess to having had many differences of opinion and arguments,
sometimes even disagreements, with him. In some instances he came round
to my way of thinking, but he often said:
"'I believe you are right--I am sure you are right--but I intend doing
it my way.'
"It was his great and wonderful self-confidence, and it was rarely
overestimated.
"To his actors in a new play, after a week's 'roughing out' of the lines
and business, the announcement that 'C. F. will be here to-morrow' would
cause a flutter, some consternation, and to the newer members a great
fear. To those who had been with him before he was like a sheet-anchor
in a storm. They knew him and trusted and loved him. He was all
sympathy, all comfort, all encouragement--if anything, too indulgent and
overkind. But he won the confidence and affection of his people at the
outset, and I have rarely met a player who would not have done his
slightest bidding."
* * *
One of Frohman's characteristic hobbies was that he would never allow
the leading man or the leading woman of his theater, or anybody in the
company, no matter what position he or she held, to presume upon that
position and bully the property man, or the assistant stage-manager, or
any person in a menial position in the theater. He was invariably on the
side of the smaller people.
Very often he would say, "The smallest member of this organization, be
he of the staff or in the company, has as much right to his 'say' in an
argument as the biggest member has."
On one occasion a certain actor, who was rather fond of issuing his
wishes and instructions in a very loud voice, made his exit through a
door up the center of the stage which was very difficult to open and
shut. It had not worked well, and this had happened, quite by accident,
on several occasions during the run of the play. The actor had spoken
rather sharply to the carpenter about it instead of going, as he should
have done, to the stage-manager. He always called the carpenter
"Charley." The carpenter was a rather dignified person named Charles
Heimley.
On the night in question this actor had had the usual trouble with the
door. Heimley was not in sight, for he was evidently down in his
carpenter-shop under the stage. The actor leaned over the balustrade and
called out: "Charley! Charley!"
Frohman, who was just walking through the side door on his way to
William Faversham's dressing-room, turned to the star and said:
"Who is calling? Does he want me?"
"Oh no, he is calling the carpenter," replied Faversham.
Frohman tapped the noisy actor on the shoulder with his stick, and said,
"You mean _Mr. Heimley_, don't you?" He wanted the carpenter's position
to be respected.
XVII
HUMOR AND ANECDOTE
The most distinctive quality in Charles Frohman's make-up was his sense
of humor. He mixed jest with life, and it enabled him to meet crisis and
disaster with unflagging spirit and smiling equanimity. Like Lincoln, he
often resorted to anecdote and story to illustrate his point. He summed
up his whole theory of life one day when he said to Augustus Thomas:
"I am satisfied if the day gives me one good laugh."
He had a brilliancy of retort that suggested Wilde or Whistler. Once he
was asked this question:
"What is the difference between metropolitan and out-of-town audiences?"
"Fifty cents," he replied.
* * *
Haddon Chambers was writing a note in Frohman's rooms at the Savoy.
"Do you spell high-ball with a hyphen?" he asked.
"No, with a siphon," responded Frohman.
* * *
Charles Dillingham, when in Frohman's employ, was ordered to hurry back
to New York. From a small town up New York state he wired:
_Wash-out on line. Will return as soon as possible._
Frohman promptly sent the following reply:
_Never mind your wash. Buy a new shirt and come along at once._
That he could also meet failure with a joke is shown by the following
incident:
He was producing a play at Atlantic City that seemed doomed from the
start. In writing to a member of his family he said:
_I never saw the waves so high and the receipts so low._
Frohman and Pinero were dining in the Carleton grill-room one night when
a noisy person rushed up to them, slapped each on the shoulder, and
said:
"Hello, 'C. F.'! Hello, 'Pin.'! I'm Hopkins."
Frohman looked up gravely and said:
"Ah, Mr. Hopkins, I can't say that I remember your name or your face,
but your manner is familiar."
* * *
When Edna May married Oscar Lewisohn she gave a reception on her return
from the honeymoon. She sent Charles one of the conventional engraved
cards that read:
"_At home Thursday from four to six._"
Frohman immediately sent back the card, on which he had written, "So am
I."
* * *
Once when Frohman and Dillingham were crossing to Europe on the
_Oceanic_ they had as fellow-passenger a mutual friend, Henry Dazian,
the theatrical costumer, on whom Charles delighted to play pranks. On
the first day out Dillingham came rushing back to Frohman with this
exclamation:
"There are a couple of card-sharks on board and Dazian is playing with
them. Don't you think we had better warn him?"
"No," replied Frohman. "Warn the sharks."
* * *
Some years ago Frohman sent a young actor named John Brennan out on the
road in the South in "Too Much Johnson." Brennan was a Southerner, and
he believed that he could do a big business in his home country. Frohman
then went to London, and, when playing hearts at the Savoy one night
with Dillingham, a page brought a cablegram. It was from Brennan,
saying:
_Unless I get two hundred dollars by next Saturday night I can't
close._
Whereupon Frohman wired him:
_Keep going._
Frohman delighted to play jokes on his close friends. In 1900,
Dillingham opened the New Jersey Academy of Music with Julia Marlowe,
and it was a big event. This was before the day of the tubes under the
Hudson connecting New Jersey and New York. When Dillingham went down to
the ferry to cross over for the opening night he found a basket of
flowers from Frohman marked, "Bon voyage."
* * *
Nor could Frohman be lacking in the graceful reply. During a return
engagement of "The Man from Mexico," in the Garrick Theater, William
Collier became very ill with erysipelas and had to go to a hospital.
The day the engagement was resumed happened to be Frohman's birthday,
and Collier sent him the following cablegram:
_Many happy returns from all your box offices._
He received the following answer from Frohman:
_My happiest return is your return to the Garrick._
Behind all of Frohman's jest and humor was a serious outlook on life. It
was mixed with big philosophy, too, as this incident will show:
He was visiting Sir George Alexander at his country house in Kent.
Alexander, who is a great dog fancier, asked Frohman to accompany him
while he chained up his animals. Frohman watched the performance with
great interest. Then he turned to the actor-manager and said:
"I have got a lot of dogs out at my country place in America, but I
never tie them up."
"Why?" asked Alexander.
"Let other people tie up the dogs. You let them out and they will always
like you."
* * *
Frohman was known to his friends as a master of epigram. Some of his
distinctive sayings are these:
"The best seat at a theater is the paid one."
"An ounce of imagination is worth a pound of practicality."
"The man who makes up his mind to corner things generally gets
cornered."
"You cannot monopolize theaters while there are bricks and mortar."
"When I hear of another theater being built I try to build another
author."
"No successful theatrical producer ever died rich. He must make money
for everybody but himself."
"Great stage successes are the plays that take hold of the masses, not
the classes."
* * *
Frohman could always reach the heart of a situation with a pithy phrase
or reply. On one of the rare occasions when he attended a public dinner
he sat at the Metropolitan Club in New York with a group of men
representing a variety of interests. He condemned a certain outrageously
immodest Oriental dancer, who, at the moment, was shocking New York.