of the play in question, and almost any auditor in the house would
have declined to take the other side of the wager. "Seven Days" was an
obvious success, an unexpected success, and a success that had arrived
something after schedule time. Mr. Hopwood had shared with your humble
servant the credit for his first work, "Clothes", and his second and
third works, "The Powers That Be" and "This Woman and This Man", had
not called the fire department to the Hudson River. Those watchful
gentlemen, the managers, who measure a dramatist by the line in front
of his box office, were beginning to wonder whether "Hopwood really
can write a play." Here was a vociferous answer to the question--an
answer destined to be repeated, with greater emphasis, a year later in
"Nobody's Widow." "Certainly", I thought, "Hopwood _is_ the happiest
man in town at this moment!"
Subsequently, on my way out of the Astor, I came within an ace of
running into "the happiest man." He was standing on the curb, half a
block north of the theater, and he didn't "look the part" with which
he had been invested. His face was white and set, his brow puckered
into deep wrinkles, and his chief occupation seemed to be the nice one
of nibbling the skin from his knuckles without actually lacerating
them. "Well", he inquired, with agonized anxiety, "how did it go?"
"A knockout!" I replied, in the vernacular.
"On the level?" he asked. "You're not trying to jolly me?"
There was no suggestion of insincerity in the query. It was evident
that Diogenes, if he had returned to look for the happiest, instead of
for an honest man, must needs have gone farther than the author of
"Seven Days."
From contact with other victims and from personal experience, I feel
qualified to say that the most terrible ordeal known since the days of
the inquisition is a theatrical "first night." Dramatist, manager,
actors and even stage hands are tortured by it, and their sufferings
are not to be gauged by the number of times they have undergone the
horror. The "first night", moreover, is a thing unique in art. A
painting may hang for weeks before the painter learns whether he has
succeeded or not; a book may be on the market nearly a year without
its author knowing the result of his effort. In either case,
criticisms are many and varying. The verdict on a play, however, is
given with the suddenness and force of a blow, and sometimes it is
equally conclusive. Failure in any other field leaves something in the
way of assets; theatrical failure sweeps away everything. Realize
this, put yourself in the place of those most concerned, and you will
understand the effect of a "first night." Suppose that all your
possessions, representing the labor of a life-time, were tied together
and suspended by a string over a bottomless abyss. The feeling with
which you would watch that string as it stretched to the breaking
point would be akin to the feeling with which the dramatist watches
the audience come to pass judgment on his work.
Of course, it is not always, or often, true that a single production
either makes or breaks those concerned in it, but even a single
production is so large an element in this making or breaking that it
becomes of vital importance. Sometimes, too, "first night" gatherings
are wrong, and performances which they condemn afterward prove great
artistic and financial hits. This, however, is rare; the say of the
initial audience, made up of professional reviewers and experienced
theater-goers, is likely to be conclusive. Henrietta Crosman, then an
unknown actress from the West, came to New York with "Mistress Nell"
on October 9, 1900, and opened to receipts under two hundred dollars.
A single day later the sums being paid into the box office were
limited only by the seating capacity of the house. Helen Ware, after
years of unrecognized good work in small parts, achieved stellar
honors within the three hours of her first metropolitan appearance as
Annie Jeffries in "The Third Degree." No chronicle short of a
six-volume book could begin to give an account of the playwrights and
players whose stock has soared a hundred points during the course of a
single evening on Broadway.
Failures determined with equal promptitude have been so numerous
during the past few seasons that it seems idle to recapitulate. One
night proved a sufficiently long time in which to guess accurately at
the future of "Septimus", "Drifting", "A Skylark", "Mr. Buttles",
"Miss Patsy", "The Heights", "The Upstart", "The Scandal", "The
Young Turk", "The Foolish Virgin", "The Next of Kin", "The Fires of
Fate", "Children of Destiny", "Welcome to Our City", and "A Little
Brother of the Rich." Two or three of these had been great triumphs in
London and Paris, half a dozen were by famous Englishmen and
Americans, nearly all represented extravagant expenditure on the part
of experienced managers, but neither precedent nor prominence
disturbed the "first night" jury in New York. Augustus Thomas' "The
Ranger" was voted impossible a few years ago at Wallack's with as
little hesitation as though it had been written by John Jones instead
of by the author of "Arizona." Frank McKee cancelled the bookings of
Hoyt's "A Dog in the Manger" while the second act was in progress at
Washington, and "The Narrow Path", offered for a run at the Hackett,
never had another performance there--or anywhere else.
[Illustration: "_A playwright whose stock has soared a hundred points
in a single evening_"]
With such possibilities as these before his eyes, with "Mrs. Dane's
Defence" at one end of the pendulum's reach and "The Evangelist" at
the other, do you wonder that the playwright is nervous on a "first
night"?
Unfortunately, it is not alone the behavior of the "death watch" in
front of the footlights that gives cause for anxiety. Actors and
actresses are uncertain creatures, while inanimate objects seem to
have a perfect genius for going wrong at critical times. No amount of
rehearsing can be depended upon to prevent a moon wobbling as it rises
at an initial performance, or to make the crash of thunder sound
unlike Bridget taking it out of the pots and pans after dinner. A
laugh at a serious moment may decide the fate of a play, the fate of a
play may make a difference of several hundred thousand dollars to its
manager, and, this being true, what the manager says to the property
man or the electrician after a _faux pas_ like either of those
mentioned is a problem you can solve in half the time you once devoted
to discovering the age of Ann.
I remember vividly the primal performance at Hartford of Paul Arthur's
melodrama, "Lost River." One of the mechanical effects in this piece
was a bicycle race, during which the contestants pedaled wildly on
stationary machines. The effect of passing landscape was given by a
panorama and a fence that moved rapidly in the opposite direction. At
least, they were supposed to move in the opposite direction, but on
the occasion of which I speak they didn't. The race became one between
the bicyclists and the surrounding country, and the surrounding
country was far in the lead when an irate stage manager rang down the
curtain. This accident never happened again, but, had the "first
night" been in New York instead of on the road, once would have been
enough.
The late A. M. Palmer used to tell a story illustrative of the fact
that players, under stress of "first night" excitement, often share
"the wickedness of inanimate things." Mr. Palmer produced "Trilby"
when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb, and upon the consequences
of the performance depended his immediate future. Paul Potter's
dramatization opened in Boston, and gave no cause for worry except in
the matter of its extreme length. Half the population of Boston is
also the population of suburban towns, and Sarah Bernhardt, George
Cohan and a Yale lock couldn't keep 'em from leaving a theater at
train time. Consequently, when eleven o'clock came and the last act of
"Trilby" had just begun, a frown settled on the classic brow of the
ordinarily imperturbable Mr. Palmer.
Virginia Harned, neither as experienced nor as clever then as now, was
playing Trilby, and she felt that her portrayal had been more or less
overshadowed by the Svengali of Wilton Lackaye. There is no better
part in the drama than that of the hypnotist, while the opportunities
of the name role are limited. Miss Harned's first chance to make her
talent conspicuous came with the death of the model in the last act.
"Trilby began to die at 11:10", declared Mr. Palmer. "The audience had
already commenced looking at its watches, and a photograph of my
thoughts would have developed into a blue print. Miss Harned, on
the contrary, approached the scene with joy, too wrought up to take
into consideration the fact that the people in front had begun to be
more interested in Newton than in the affairs of Little Billee. Trilby
died in every way known to medical science and the art of acting. She
died of heart disease and consumption and cerebral spinal meningitis.
She died a la Bernhardt and Marlowe and Clara Morris. She died on the
sofa and the piano stool and two of the rugs, and, just when I thought
she had breathed her last against the door R. I. E., she found
strength to take a few steps and do it all over again in the center of
the stage. Little Billee was waiting in the wings, but, as you will
understand if you remember the play, no one could come on until Trilby
had shuffled off her mortal coil. And Trilby, on this occasion, simply
would not shuffle. It was nearly 11:30 when she finally gave up the
ghost on a davenport L. C., in the presence of that portion of the
audience sufficiently Yankee to be determined upon missing nothing it
had paid to see. That death scene, abridged and expurgated, afterward
became a most powerful and effective bit of acting, but I confess that
on the evening in question the quality of it was somewhat obscured by
the quantity."
[Illustration: "_Sarah Bernhardt, George Cohan, and a Yale lock
couldn't keep a Boston audience from leaving at train time_"]
Dramatic authors, likely to be the victims of incidents of this sort,
cannot be blamed for manifesting marked peculiarities as regards
"first nights." When my best and least successful play, "The Secret
Orchard", was given its premiere at the Lyric, I trotted off to see "A
Knight for a Day" at Wallack's. James Forbes spends his evening behind
the scenes. After the opening of "The Commuters", which ran six months
at the Criterion, he locked himself in a dressing room, convinced that
the piece was a dismal failure, and refused to come out, even when
implored to do so in order that the leading woman might get into her
street clothes. Throughout the performance of his maiden effort, "Her
Husband's Wife", "Al" Thomas walked up and down the block in front of
the Garrick. Few men are able even to assume the insouciance of Harry
B. Smith, who, at the primal presentation of his "The Bachellor
Belles", smoked a cigar in the lobby throughout the first act and went
home in the middle of the second.
[Illustration: "_Trilby died in every way known to medical science and
the art of acting_"]
Until constant ridicule broke up the practice, most authors needed
little urging to induce them to address their audiences on "first
nights." As recently as the Fall of 1909, during the performance of
"On the Eve", Martha Morton, its adapter, made a speech from her box
at the Hudson. The man behind the pen has so little chance to get into
the limelight--poor fellow!--that to speak or not to speak will always
be a mooted question with him. Either course is likely to be mistaken
by the critics, who put down the unfortunate scribe as a vainglorious
person if he appears and as a poseur if he does not. Personally, I
feel that the average author is much more favorably represented by
what he writes than by what he says, and that neither he nor the
player has any real justification for mixing his own personality with
those of the puppets he creates. It is disillusioning, after having
spent some time in witnessing stirring deeds and hearing
high-sounding words, to be confronted with a little, stoop-shouldered
man, his face white in the glare of the footlights and his hands
anxiously seeking a refuge in his ill-fiting and pocketless dress
trousers, and to realize that this grotesque figure is that of the
inventor of all the splendid beings you have seen.
New York audiences are almost the only ones in the country that ever
manifest any particular desire to gaze upon the dramatist. I heard a
man cry "Author!" once at a "first night" in Chicago, and the ushers
were about to eject him when the manager explained to them that the
enthusiast was acting with perfect propriety.
I have told you, in another part of this book, of the oratorical
talent of Augustus Thomas, who is the most impressive of
before-the-curtain monologists. He makes a fine appearance on the
stage, self-possessed and well-dressed, and his little talks
invariably are brief and witty and well-rounded. So, too, are those of
Eugene Presbrey. Paul Armstrong's undiplomatic words have been known
to prove a "last straw" on the graves of his failures, and Edith
Wharton and Charlotte Thompson, clever women both but not
prepossessing, almost turned into burlesque the "first night" of "The
Awakening of Helena Richie." Charles Klein is not big enough
physically to fill the eye, and David Belasco, with his trick of being
pushed violently to the front and of fingering his forelock, creates
an impression of insincerity and preparedness. William Gillette has
all an actor's skill in appealing to an audience, and, I am told,
saved the day--or, rather, the night--for his "Sherlock Holmes" in
London. George Ade and Sydney Rosenfeld are amusing on "the apron",
but other brilliant men, like Edwin Milton Royle and Richard Harding
Davis, are not at their best when obliged to say "thank you." Mr.
Davis figured in a neat bit of good humor in New Haven, where, after
the third act of Mr. Thomas' adaptation of his "Soldiers of Fortune",
Mr. Thomas assumed his identity and he pretended to be Mr. Thomas.
[Illustration: "_The author--as you imagine him, and as he proves to
be_"]
English playwrights are much more at ease than are American. Henry
Arthur Jones, A. W. Pinero, Henry V. Esmond, and even young Hubert
Henry Davies look well and talk well when they have occasion to "speak
out in meeting." George Bernard Shaw's witticism when somebody in the
gallery hissed while he was making a curtain speech has become famous.
The Irish Voltaire had just referred to the play of the evening, the
third act of which had been concluded, when this sound of
disapprobation cleft the circumambient atmosphere. "Ah!" said Mr. Shaw
to the disturber, "you and I are quite agreed, but we seem in the
minority."
I cannot pass by the subject of "first night" addresses without
relating to what extent Washington is indebted to me for a chatty five
minutes with Mr. Thomas on the occasion of the production of "The
Hoosier Doctor." At that time, I was dramatic critic of The Washington
Post. I was riding horseback, and, at five in the afternoon, found
myself six or eight miles from town, and in the presence of Mr.
Thomas. He had been bicycling and his machine had broken down. "Lend
me your horse, like a good fellow", he begged, when we came together.
"I want to get back for the performance of 'The Hoosier Doctor.'"
"Can't!" I replied. "I've got to write a review of that same play."
"Well", returned the author, smiling in the midst of his perplexity,
"my claim is the stronger. 'The Hoosier Doctor' can be performed
whether your criticism is written or not, but your criticism cannot be
written unless 'The Hoosier Doctor' is performed."
In the end, the public was obliged to forego neither play nor review,
since Mr. Thomas galloped to the city on my horse and I was picked up
soon after by a farmer in a wagon.
A list of the "first nights" that have gone down into histrionic
history would vie in length with a record of the bits of the true
cross on view in Europe. Primarily, one would be obliged to record
premieres at which riots have occurred, and since, at one time a
century ago, it was easier to hold an Irish election without a fight
than to give an initial dramatic performance without one, this would
take much space and research. The initial representations of great
works, such as those of Shakespeare and Moliere, and the professional
debuts of celebrated actors, like Thomas Betterton and Peg Woffington,
would baffle the descriptive powers of so humble a chronicler as
myself. Assuredly, a whole book might be written about the reception
originally accorded "Hamlet," and I am certain that we should all like
to know precisely what happened at the Boston Theater on the evening
of Monday, September 10, 1849, when Edwin Booth made his first bow to
the public. Nearly everyone remembers the interesting story of the
"first night" of "A Parisian Romance" at the Union Square Theater on
January 10, 1883, when an obscure young man named Richard Mansfield
made the minor role of Baron Chevrial the biggest part in the play and
himself the most-talked-of actor in America.
My own most notable "first night" was at Rome, some time in May,
1890, when, as a youngster, I heard "Cavalleria Rusticana" sung for
the first time on any stage. My recollection of the event is not
vivid, but I recall that the composer, Pietro Mascagni, wept, and that
the audience joined him, having already done every other emotional
thing you could call to mind. This sort of enthusiasm is not
exceptional among the Latins, and "first nights" in Madrid, Naples,
Brussells and Paris always are likely to be extremely spectacular.
Berlin, Vienna and Prague are less excitable, though I witnessed
rather a remarkable demonstration at a performance of an opera called
"Die Hexe" in the metropolis last mentioned, and saw a crowd draw home
Charlotte Wolter's carriage one evening in Vienna.
The stalls in a London playhouse hold men and women as reserved and
conservative as any in the world, but the pit, which signifies
approval by the conventional applause, has made its disapprobation
dreaded at premieres. The "boo!" of the Cockney who has paid "two and
six" for his place and is resolved upon getting his money's worth or
knowing the reason why is a potent damper. Disorder in the pit may not
even have been caused by the poorness of a production; persistent
enthusiasm on the part of a claque or the appearance of a foreign star
often provoke it. I shall never forget how near several patriotic
Americans, myself among them, were to provoking a riot against Nat
Goodwin at the opening of "The Cowboy and the Lady" in the Duke of
York's Theater.
New York, which never commits itself with a "Boo!" or a "Bis!", which
never hisses and somewhat rarely applauds, provides the most terrible
ordeal in the world for author, actor and manager. The "first nighter"
is as much a type here as in London. A small percentage of him are the
tired and idle rich, the majority being made up of wine agents,
bookmakers, professional "dead-heads", ladies of uneasy virtue, and
dramatic critics. Of an opening audience at Weber & Fields' it was
said once that "there wasn't a woman in the house who hadn't changed
her hair and her husband within the year."
These boulevardiers have seen everything produced in town during a
decade, or perhaps two decades, and are absolutely pleasure-proof.
Their attitude expresses the defiance: "I _dare_ you to satisfy me."
One of their number, asked as to the fate of a comedy, is reported to
have replied: "I'm afraid it's a success." If it were only that these
people knew everything, and were hard to please, nobody would have the
right to object to them. The trouble is that they are pleased with the
wrong fare. Witty lines and subtle construction, delicate sentiment
and simple sincerity, except for their appeal to the reviewers, must
wait for recognition until the second night. Legs and lingerie,
_double entendre_ and bald suggestion, the wit of the slap stick and
the melody of the street piano are the chosen diet of this "death
watch", which "sits in solemn silence", with impassive faces and row
after row of masculine shirt bosoms rearing themselves in the darkness
like tombstones in a pauper graveyard.
How to avoid this chilling influence is a puzzle that has agitated
every producer on Broadway. Your New York manager has a list of the
seats regularly occupied by the critics, and these go out first. Then
the wine agents and book-makers aforesaid buy the tickets laid aside
for them. Next the general public has an opportunity, of which it is
slow to take advantage, and then whatever has been left is given away.
Nobody ever saw a small "first night" audience in Manhattan, nor one
in which there were not at least three hundred enthusiastic persons.
This enthusiasm deceives no one--least of all the newspaper men for
whom is it intended--and it rebounds like a ball against the hardness
of the general imperturbability. Many a time, while the gallant three
hundred were splitting their gloves and callousing their hands, I have
seen traveling from critic to critic that glance of understanding and
disapproval which has sealed the fate of so many thousand plays.
The New York critics are about a score in number, and, during the past
few years, there have been many changes in the corps. Its dean,
William Winter, resigned from The Tribune, where his post is filled by
Arthur Warren. Alan Dale, of The American, continues to be the most
widely known of our writers on theatrical topics, and we still have
with us, as stand-bys, Adolph Klauber, of The Times; Louis De Foe, of
The World; Rennold Wolf, of The Telegraph; Acton Davies, of The
Evening Sun; Charles Darnton, of The Evening World; Rankin Towse, of
The Post, and Robert Gilbert Welsh, of The Evening Telegram. The Press
has been carrying on a lively theatrical war, and, perhaps for that
reason, its reviews manifest not only ignorance but the most bumptious
disregard of general and expert opinion. Arthur Brisbane having
declared against "abuse", The Evening Journal finds good in
everything; The Sun has had no regular critic since it lost Walter
Prichard Eaton, and The Herald boasts that it prints only "reports"
of performances. "First nights" are arranged, when that is possible,
on different evenings, so that all the critics may be present at each,
but, when there is a conflict, every man picks out the opening he
considers most important and either lets the others go until later in
the week or sends his assistant.
There are thirty or forty reviewers who represent magazines and
periodicals, but, for the most part, these are _de classe_. They flock
alone in the lobbies during intermissions, when the men from the daily
newspapers congregate in groups to exchange a word or two about the
play and to discuss other matters of common interest. These foyer
gatherings pronounce a verdict that, as we have seen, is
seldom--perhaps too seldom--overruled. Many a manager has leaned
against his box office after the third act of a new piece,
eavesdropping to learn what intelligence, experience, keen judgment
and careful reading and rehearsing have not told him.
For there are two "anxious seats" on a "first night" in New York: One
in the author's box and one in the manager's.
_IN VAUDEVILLE_
Being inside information regarding a kind of entertainment at
which one requires intelligence no more than the kitchen range.
Variety is the spice of life. So is vaudeville. If you doubt it,
consider Gertrude Hoffmann, Valeska Suratt, Eva Tanguay, and other
beauties unadorned of "the two a day."
Time was when "continuous performances" offered the best means of
convincing Aunt Jane that there were harmless theatrical
entertainments besides "The Old Homestead." Variety, of course, had
been a word to excite horror. But vaudeville--well, vaudeville was to
variety what "darn" is to "damn!"