hero-worshipper to whom a companion pointed out Charles Klein. The
author of a dozen successful pieces tells the story with great gusto.
"It was on a ferry boat," he relates, "and two young chaps were
standing near the forward doors. As I strolled past, one of them
remarked: 'That's the fellow that wrote "The Gamblers."'"
"My chest had already begun to expand when I caught the rejoinder.
'Him!' exclaimed the other. 'Well, I'll be damned!'"
Augustus Thomas and David Belasco are two dramatists who would rob no
layman of his illusions. Mr. Belasco, whose clerical collar and
spiritual face have been pictured in numberless newspapers and
magazines, looks every inch a poet, and his soft voice and far-away
manner help sustain the impression. Mr. Thomas more evidently belongs
to our own mundane sphere; he is a man of the world, distinguished by
his poise and polish, by the suavity, reserve and equilibrium that
come with confidence and after long experience. The late Clyde Fitch
had these qualities, too. He was an artist to his finger tips, a
thinker of fine thoughts and a dreamer of great dreams. This article
originally began with an account of him, and, since Clyde Fitch was
much more than a transient figure in our theater, I see no reason why
he should be left out of it now.
"Mr. Fitch", I wrote the day he sailed for France, never to return,
"is the son of a former army officer, forty-four years old, graduated
from Amherst College, and has spent much of his life traveling about
Europe. He is quite tall, rather thickly built, and has a heavy, dark
mustache. My acquaintance with him dates from the performance of my
first original comedy, 'The Little Gray Lady', and is due to a
friendly feeling for the new-comers in his profession that is one of
his finest traits.
"'The Little Gray Lady' was being presented in the Garrick Theater,
and I was somewhat excited, the morning after its premiere, at
learning that a box had been secured for Mr. Fitch. That night I
stationed myself across the auditorium, so that I might judge how he
enjoyed the entertainment. My heart almost stopped beating when, soon
after the curtain lifted, the object of my interest arose from his
seat, and manifested every intention of departing. 'Good heaven!' I
exclaimed to myself. 'Is the piece as contemptible as that? And, even
if it is, what an affront; what a rude thing to do!' My mortification
was short-lived. Mr. Fitch and his party did walk out of their box,
but only to take orchestra chairs, from which they had a better view
of the stage. The next morning I received a generous letter. '"The
Little Gray Lady" is a big "Little Lady", I think.' And would I lunch
tomorrow at Mr. Fitch's town house, in East Fortieth Street?
"This house has afforded a wide-open outlet for its owner's
constitutional lavishness, and is, perhaps, as luxuriously appointed
and as exquisitely fitted as any residence of its size in New York.
Mr. Fitch loves beautiful things, and invests in them with a
prodigality that would frighten the heirs of a copper king. 'It
doesn't matter how much money I make,' he said to me one afternoon. 'I
spend a big income as quickly as a little one.' The Fortieth Street
domicile is literally crowded with paintings, carvings, ceramics, and
other objects of art. A gentleman who dined there recently had his
attention attracted by three curiously wrought cigarette cases that
stood on the table, one at each plate. He supposed them to be beaten
brass, set with rhine stones, and was amazed when his wife discovered
that they were of solid gold and diamonds. 'Their intrinsic worth,' he
said, 'could not have been less than ten thousand dollars. Imagine my
horror when I remembered that I had been on the point of inquiring
whether they were meant to be dinner favors!'
"Mr. Fitch maintains two establishments beside the place in New York;
one at Greenwich, called Quiet Corners--a young woman I know insists
upon speaking of it as 'Cozy Corners'--and the other an estate of two
hundred acres at Katohna, in Westchester County. James Forbes, who
wrote 'The Chorus Lady' and 'The Travelling Salesman', relates an
experience of a visit to the former residence. Here he found a stable,
which, in lieu of horses, held hundreds of masterpieces in marble and
bronze which the collector had not been able to resist purchasing,
but for which he had no room in his house!
"Managers who make contracts with Clyde Fitch will tell you that he
appreciates the value of money, but that commodity certainly doesn't
cling long to his fingers. However, a responsible man can afford to be
irresponsible, and an industrious man to be extravagant. Mr. Fitch has
written fifty-four plays in less than twenty years, an average of one
play every four months! When you stop to consider that an ordinary
manuscript consists of about one hundred and thirty typed pages, and
that each piece must be thought out, drafted and re-drafted, rehearsed
and produced you will admit that the labor involved in making such a
record must have been Herculean.
"Nevertheless, Mr. Fitch never seems to be hurried or worried. He
entertains a good deal, goes to the theater frequently, and takes a
boyish interest in trifles. It is this interest that fills his work
with human touches, the small topicalities of the moment. I saw him
one night at 'The Three Twins', and he commented laughingly upon
the catchiness of the song, 'Cuddle Just a Little Closer.' Two months
later I found that air as the motif, almost the Wagnerian theme, of
his comedy, 'The Bachelor.'
[Illustration: "_Clyde Fitch's ability to work under any
circumstances_"]
"The secret of the Fitch productiveness undoubtedly lies in his
ability to work under any circumstances, in odd moments. Austin
Strong, author of 'The Toymaker of Nuremberg', and one or two other
guests were spending a rainy week-end in the living room at Katohna,
when their host excused himself, and, sitting at a desk the other side
of the room, began writing. 'Go on talking', he said; 'you don't
bother me.' He had plunged into the second act scene between Mabel
Barrison and Charles Dickson in 'The Blue Mouse', and he finished it
that afternoon. Mr. Forbes saw him one morning in Venice, gliding
about in a gondola and scribbling as fast as his pencil could cover
the pages. That exquisite bit of 'The Girl Who Has Everything', in
which Eleanor Robson punished little Donald Gallagher by compelling
him to strike her, was indited upon a pocket pad while the chauffeur
was repairing the playwright's car, which had broken down between
Greenwich and New York.
"Mr. Fitch abrogates to himself the task of producing his works,
taking personal charge of everything, from the selection of the
company to the designing of color schemes and the purchase of five and
ten cent articles of bric-a-brac. Most people have heard of his skill
at rehearsal. He and Mr. Thomas are two of the best stage managers in
America. Seated quietly in a corner of the auditorium, or standing
just back of the footlights, Mr. Fitch gives the directions that make
his performances perfect mosaics of marvelously life-like minutae. Of
stories bearing upon his quick perception, his instinct for detail,
and his understanding of cause and effect there are enough to make a
saga, but one anecdote will serve the purpose of this article.
"It was at the dress rehearsal of 'Girls', toward the end of the
first act, when the young women were climbing into their roosts and
saying 'good night.' A property man appeared with a radiator, which
the author had insisted upon having in the setting, 'because I never
saw a flat without one.' The stage hand set down his burden and was
about to tip toe into the wings, when he was stopped by a sharp
command. 'Wait!' exclaimed Mr. Fitch.
"The property man waited. 'Excuse me', he muttered. 'I didn't mean to
interrupt--'
'Never mind that!' the dramatist continued. 'Look here! Miss Maycliffe
says "Goodnight!" You wait two seconds and then hammer like blazes on
a piece of iron behind that radiator. I want the noise that steam
makes in the pipes--'
"'I'm on!' grinned the property man. So were the others. Everybody in
that house had been awakened in the dead of night by the malicious
clanking of the steam pipes, and everybody recognized the bit of
every-day. The audience the next night was not less quick of
perception, and the diversion proved, as you probably know, to be one
of the most effective bits of comedy in 'Girls.'"
All this was written two years ago. Quiet Corners and The Other House
are deserted now, and the beautiful things that filled them, and the
residence in Fortieth Street, have been distributed. A part of the
collection was willed to the Metropolitan Museum. It is pathetic to
reflect that the first Fitch play to win unqualified praise from the
critics was produced after the death of its author. Yet "The City" was
not a better piece than "The Climbers", or "Her Own Way", or "The Girl
With the Green Eyes", or "The Truth." Clyde Fitch was dead; therein
lay the difference. The living Clyde Fitch always was treated by the
journalistic reviewers as a sort of malefactor, as a man whose
deliberate intent was to do bad work. Only his intimates know how
keenly he felt this. "Newspaper praise," he said to me once, "is for
the dramatist on his way up or his way down; never for the dramatist
at the top." Clyde Fitch was the most brilliant man who ever wrote
for the stage in America. Heaven rest his soul!
Augustus Thomas conducts rehearsals from an orchestra stall in the
body of the theater, whence he shouts instructions through a
megaphone. I have often printed the story of the retort courteous
which he is said to have made to J. J. Shubert when that impressario
interrupted a rehearsal of "The Witching Hour", but, in this
connection, perhaps the tale will bear repetition.
According to my informant, the author of "Arizona" was intent upon a
serious scene when Mr. Shubert, who was financially interested in the
production, stopped the players, and, turning to Mr. Thomas, remarked:
"I think this would be a good place for some witty dialogue."
"Yes?" replied Mr. Thomas. "As for instance?"
He is a bold and a foolish man who throws himself upon the point of
the playwright's verbal poignard, for, among those who know him, Mr.
Thomas is as famous for his skill with speech as for his skill with
the pen. He smiles as he thrusts, but the results are none the less
sanguinary. "I thought Thomas was a man", Paul Armstrong is reported
to have said of him, "until I saw him take a handkerchief from his
sleeve. Men have hip pockets for their handkerchiefs."
"_I_ had," quoth Mr. Thomas, when he heard the remark, "until I began
to have my clothes made by a _good_ tailor!"
This ready wit makes the dramatist one of the best, if not the best
post prandial speaker in New York. Never a banquet at which he talks
but the street rings the next day with quips of his making. "The
trouble with amateur carvers", he said at the Friars' dinner to John
Drew, "is that the gravy so rarely matches the wall paper." On another
occasion he characterized a fatuous argument as being "like a chorus
girl's tights, which touch every point and cover nothing."
[Illustration: "_Augustus Thomas shouts instructions through a
megaphone_"]
Mr. Thomas finds time for many activities outside of his profession.
Everyone knows of his energetic work for the cause of William Jennings
Bryan. Throughout the three Bryan campaigns the dramatist made
speeches, organized political meetings, and otherwise labored beneath
the standard of the Commoner. Mr. Thomas' long suit is organizing.
Upon the death of Bronson Howard, he succeeded to the presidency of
the American Dramatists' Club, which he has metamorphosed into the
Society of American Dramatists and Composers. The parent body was deep
in the slough of despond, seeming to have no other purpose than
proving that genius really is an infinite capacity for taking food.
Mr. Thomas awakened the fraternal spirit, got committees to work on
suggestions for plan and scope, benevolently assimilated a club of
women playwrights, and created an association that is likely to be a
power, instead of being merely a pow-wow, in the land.
The greater part of the year, Mr. Thomas lives at New Rochelle, but
during the summer he goes frequently to his cottage, The Dingle, at
East Hampton. He is a man fifty years old, and of particularly
striking appearance. Tall, finely proportioned, smooth-shaven, with
resolute face and hair just beginning to turn white, he would be
observed in any gathering. As I have said, his manner is marked by
complete self-possession, and a good deal of self-satisfaction. To
this he certainly is entitled. A close friend of his believes that Mr.
Thomas dramatized himself when he created the part of the quiet,
masterful gambler, Jack Brookfield, in "The Witching Hour."
Charles Klein is of very small stature--a fact that probably accounts
for the anecdote related earlier in my article. None of his family has
been a sky-scraper. Manuel Klein, the composer, is not above five feet
six, and Alfred Klein, another brother, who originated the role of the
elephant tamer in "Wang", owed much of his success as a comedian to
his brevity--that being, as you know, the soul of wit. Charles is the
embodiment of dignity, and takes himself and his work most seriously.
I think I have never seen a photograph of him that did not show him in
his library, either writing or reading some ponderous tome. He has a
fine head, with a lofty brow that grows to be a little loftier every
year.
No estimate of Mr. Klein could be called complete which did not take
account of his grit and stick-to-it-iveness. Connected with the
theater from his earliest youth--he was call boy in the company with a
relative of mine--he produced his first play when he was hardly more
than twenty. His misses were many, and his hits few and far between,
but he kept on trying, until, with David Warfield's first starring
venture, "The Auctioneer", he struck the bullseye of public approval
squarely in the middle. Today he probably is the wealthiest of our
dramatists, and a couple of years ago it was estimated that his income
could not be less that $3,000 a week. He owns a charming home, called
Shirley Manor after the principal female character in "The Lion and
the Mouse", at Rowayton, Conn. In the same town he operates a hat
factory of which his son until recently was the manager.
In the adamantine quality of his "hard luck story", no one far
surpasses Eugene Walter, whose income used to hover about that quoted
as Mr. Klein's. It is told that this young man was lodging upon a park
bench when Wagenhals & Kemper produced his "Paid in Full", but,
personally, I am inclined to regard this tale as more picturesque than
accurate. In need of money he may have been, but the parental Walters,
who live in Cleveland, were quite able to prevent his lacking real
necessities, and 'Gene himself has always been in the way of earning a
living in the newspaper or the theatrical business. He served an
apprenticeship as press agent of various attractions, and it was while
both of us were acting in this capacity that we met at the Walnut
Street Theater, in Philadelphia.
Mr. Walter's initial effort, "Sergeant James", had just been
produced, and had scored an unquestionable failure. He told me the
story of the piece, and "it listened good", but I could not believe it
possible that the man opposite me was capable of winning a place in a
profession of letters. Eugene Walter is not impressive to the naked
eye. I had him in mind chiefly when I spoke of the ease with which one
might mistake a dramatist for a prosperous tailor. Mr. Walter looks
more like a neat and gentlemanly mechanic. He cannot be above thirty
years of age, and his height and weight--he is five feet five and tips
the scales in the neighborhood of a hundred and forty--make him seem
to be about twenty-four. My recollection of his dress is that he
usually wears a flannel shirt. I may be wrong as to this detail, but,
in any event, his style and general appearance are such as to create
the impression.
[Illustration: "_Eugene Walter was lodging upon a park bench when
Wagenhals & Kemper produced his 'Paid in Full'_"]
His demeanor suggests neither culture nor education, though, as I have
said, he comes of a good family and had excellent schooling. The value
of erudition, even so far as it concerns the technique of the drama,
in the writing of plays he denies absolutely. In fact, I believe that
his horror of being thought what he calls "a high brow" leads Mr.
Walter to assume a contempt of art and letters, though he has it not.
He has an intuitive appreciation of the beautiful, and yet, at a
recent exhibition of the paintings of a great Spaniard, his only
comment was, "Don't let's waste any more time in here!" "Playwrights
are _born_", he has gone on record as observing. "You can't _learn_
anything about playwriting."
If genius is the quality of doing by instinct, without great thought
or labor, obeying the commands of a _something_ outside of one's self,
Eugene Walter is certainly a genius. If it is, as some philosopher has
said, "an infinite capacity for taking pains", he is nothing of the
sort. He works by fits and starts, idling unconscionably for months at
a time, and then completing a play in a fortnight. "The Easiest Way"
was written in ten days. Mr. Walter's method of composition really is
nothing more nor less than improvisation--the method children employ
when they "make things up" as they "go along."
The tools necessary to the process are one large room, one outfit of
furniture, and one exceptionally rapid stenographer. Mr. Walter and
the stenographer enter the room. The door is locked, and work is begun
by placing the furniture as it is to be placed on the stage--in other
words, by setting the scene. Then the young dramatist begins to act.
He is all the characters in his play. He rushes about the apartment,
quarreling with himself, making love to himself, now standing here as
one person and then racing to the opposite end of the apartment to be
another. All the time he is speaking the words that come into his mind
as natural under the circumstances, and the stenographer is taking
them down at top speed. At the end of an hour or two an act is
finished, an invisible curtain is rung down, and, if the amanuensis
hasn't fainted, as two did in one day of labor on "Paid in Full", the
stage is set for the next act.
Of course, you understand that, before the play reaches this point,
the story, the situations, and even some details of dialogue must have
been carefully thought out. In connection with Mr. Walter, I _should_
say that they must have had time to assemble in his mind, having
popped in, like Topsy, already grown. He goes about with what he
himself described to me as "a seething mass of stuff in my head" until
the "seething mass" cries for release, and then--the impromptu
performance before the audience of one. The quickness of Mr. Walter's
conception, the instantaneousness with which drama is formed for him,
is illustrated by an experience of last winter.
We had been to witness a bad play--one doomed to close the following
Saturday. "Hopeless!" I said, as we left the theater.
"Hopeless", repeated Mr. Walter, "but not without possibilities. If
that idea had been mine, I should have commenced with the big
situation of the third act. Then I should have worked backward, using
the story of the--"
In five minutes he had sketched a new play, constructed around the
theme of the old one, and it was a corker!
As everyone knows, Eugene Walter was married recently to Charlotte
Walker, the actress, and it is common knowledge, too, that both were
bitterly disappointed at David Belasco's refusal to assign the
principal role in "The Easiest Way" to Miss Walker. For this
disappointment her husband tried to atone by fitting her with "Just a
Wife", but the piece failed sadly at the Belasco Theater. The Walters
live in the Ansonia Apartments, in upper Broadway, but they are
contemplating the erection of a home near Long Island Sound. The man
who writes plays, or, for that matter, any other man who performs
labor requiring close concentration, finds it impossible to do his
best in New York. "The very air is laden with distraction", says
George Broadhurst, author of "The Man of the Hour." "When I want to
work I get as far as possible from Forty-second street."
A dramatist of a pattern with Eugene Walter's, though drawn in bolder,
blacker lines, is Paul Armstrong, to whom theater-goers owe "Salomy
Jane", "The Heir to the Hoorah" and "Alias Jimmy Valentine". Mr.
Armstrong's contempt for the ordinary amenities, the graces of
every-day, is own big brother to Mr. Walter's. He is a big,
fine-looking fellow, characterized by tremendous vigor and virility,
by what he himself would call "the punch." He is aggressively
self-confident, where Augustus Thomas is only passively so; combative
by disposition and much inclined to talk in superlatives. His
broad-brimmed hat and his black imperial suggest the Westerner, though
most of his life has been spent in New York. He was formerly a
well-known authority on pugilism, writing for the _Evening Journal_
under the nom de plume of "Right Cross."
Mr. Armstrong's hatred of theatrical managers used to be a by-word,
but it has been less so since he himself undertook the production of
his own melo-drama, "Society and the Bulldog." His experience with one
impressario, A. H. Woods, to whom he sold "The Superstitions of Sue",
is as amusing a story as I know.
"The Superstitions of Sue" already had been accepted by the two senior
members of the firm of Sullivan, Harris & Woods, and Mr. Armstrong had
an appointment to read the piece to the junior member at eleven
o'clock one bright Sunday. Promptly at that hour, he appeared at the
Woods residence, in Riverside Drive, accompanied by two friends.
Introductions followed, and the friends sat down, with Mr. and Mrs.
Woods, to hear the new farce.
Mr. Armstrong had hardly begun when the visitors burst into a roar of
laughter. They howled afresh at every line, including descriptions of
characters and "business", and the rendering was concluded with the
pair rolling about in a perfect ecstacy of mirth. Mr. Woods regarded
them with sober suspicion. His risibles hadn't been touched, but, when
Mrs. Woods joined in the merriment, he determined that he didn't know
humor when he met it, and, the seance being over, closed a contract to
present "The Superstitions of Sue."
When the men had gone, Mr. Woods said to Mrs. Woods: "I suppose I'm
dull, but I thought that play duller still. Of course, Armstrong's
friends were _brought_ to laugh, but when you began laughing, too, I
knew the piece _must_ be funny."
"Why", responded Mrs. Woods, "I only laughed because the others did. I
wanted to be civil."
"The Superstitions of Sue" was one of the worst failures of its year.
I have spoken of Eugene Walter's method of work, but that method is
not more remarkable than the faith in a special environment held by
James Forbes. Even while he smiles at his own credulity, Mr. Forbes
believes firmly that he can put forth his best effort only in Room
371 of the Bellevue Hotel, in Boston. Whenever he "feels a play coming
on", he boards a train, journeys to The Hub, and locks himself up in
the apartment which bears that number. There he composed the scenarios
of "The Chorus Lady", "The Travelling Salesman," and "The Commuters."