It was not a commercial manager of the Syndicate type who first urged

the efficient management of the Theatre; it was an idealistic critic and

a great poet. Many years ago that ripe scholar and accomplished

man-of-letters Matthew Arnold exclaimed, in one of his Essays, “The

Theatre is irresistible--_organize_ the Theatre!” Arnold, as a youth,

had been entranced by the acting of Mlle. Rachel, and as a man had

naturally been charmed by the acting and greatly influenced by the

propulsive reformatory and constructive theatrical administration of

that great actor and theatrical manager Henry Irving. It is from such

sources of thought and of intellectual energy as Arnold and Irving, in

England, and as Wallack, Booth, and Daly, in America,[1] that the

impulse properly to organize the Theatre has proceeded; not from the

mere money-grubbing schemes of monopolistic cliques or speculators in

public amusement. Members of such cliques,--of which the Theatrical

Syndicate is one,--are, at times, frank enough to admit that (as they

are fond of expressing it) they are not engaged in theatrical business

“for their health,” and undoubtedly they are within their rights when

they seek, _by fair means_, to make their business profitable. So much

is understood and conceded: who would deny it? Monopolies, however,

frequently pose as public benefactors, and such, as already shown, is

the pose assumed by the Theatrical Syndicate. Many persons have, in one

way or another, been deceived by it, or brought to approve it. In 1898,

beginning to be conscious, in my critical and editorial work on “The New

York Tribune,” of an oppugnant influence emanant, apparently, from that

source, I determined to have a clear understanding with the late Donald

G. Nicholson, then the editor of that paper, and I formally asked him

whether “The Tribune” favored or opposed the Syndicate. In reply I

received from him the assurance that “of course ‘The Tribune’ _opposed_

it,” and also I received a printed list of newspapers which, Mr.

Nicholson informed me, had explicitly declared their opposition to the

Syndicate as being an unjust organization, hurtful to the Theatre and

adverse to the public interest. That list contained the names of most of

the leading journals of our country. But--“There are no birds in last

year’s nest.” Most of the opposers of the Syndicate seem, like the

_Witches_ in “Macbeth,” to have “made themselves air, into which they

vanished.” Active opposition to that incubus in the press is, at

present, conspicuous chiefly by its absence.

The pretensions of the Syndicate are one thing: its proceedings are

quite another. Equitable conduct has not been the spring of its

prosperity. Not by fair means has it become rich and powerful. Aside

from having somewhat facilitated the making possible of economically

practical routes over the country for travelling companies and the

transaction of business between resident theatrical managers and

representatives of travelling companies, it has done, literally, nothing

for the good of the Theatre; but it has done everything for the good of

itself. It is not to be supposed, for example, that because the making

of economical routes is _feasible_ through the booking agency of the

Syndicate, once such routes have been booked they are inviolate. “Dates”

are cancelled and “routes” are changed, when such change is requisite to

the advantage of the Syndicate, with total disregard of any other

consideration. “Where,” exclaimed Gladstone, “can you lay a finger on

the map of Europe and say, ‘Here Austria did good’?” Where can you lay a

finger on the map of progress in the Theatre in America and truthfully

say, “Here the Syndicate did good”?

THE RIGHT PRINCIPLE.

That the Theatre, to exist, must be self-sustaining; that its

administration “must show a profit,” is a proposition so elementary in

its truth and so universally conceded that it would be folly to restate

it, if there were not so much stupidity in the generally attempted

exposition of Commercialism in Art. But as a matter of right and duty

(and this is what, apparently, the Syndicate and congenial managers

_cannot comprehend_), theatrical managers are under distinct obligation

to consider the public good _before_ they consider their individual

prosperity. In other words, when a man assumes to make use of one of the

fine arts as a means of “doing business,” he assumes to wield an

indirect educational power; he undertakes,--whether he knows it or not,

whether he means to do so or not,--to affect the public taste, the

public thought, and the public morals. Therein, accordingly, he assumes

a responsibility much broader and much more important than that which is

incurred in an ordinary “business” pursuit; and, as it happens, he

assumes it under less restriction, by law, as to the possible effect of

his conduct than is imposed on the speculator in almost any other

“business.”

THE OBLIGATION OF INTELLECT.

Obligation of honesty and honor rests with equal force on all workers in

all branches of industry: but it is one thing to sell boots or pickles,

and another thing to disseminate thoughts and emotions. The more a man

ascends in the scale of labor the more exacting becomes his duty to

Society. A writer of novels, for example,--a Scott, a Dickens, a

Thackeray, a Cooper, or a Collins,--might, perhaps, find the largest

amount of personal emolument in writing stories calculated to vitiate

taste, injure public thought and public morals, and thus debase the

community, but, if he wrote such books, he would be a criminal, and it

would be no defence for him to say that he made money by his crime, or

to allege that because he made money the public approved of his actions.

Intellectual men have _no right_ to make money by misusing their powers.

The same sense of rectitude,--but broader, higher, finer,--that bids an

honest tradesman sell nothing that will injure the buyer enjoins upon

the worker in the arts that he should consider not merely the payment he

is to receive for his work, but the effect of that work upon the lives

and destinies of the human beings to whom it is addressed and whom it is

likely to influence. Theatrical managers stand in that position toward

the public. Thoughts and feelings are the wares in which they deal, and,

much as they are bound to consider financial profit (because they have

heavy burdens of expense to carry), they are also solemnly bound, first

and most of all, to consider the taste, the morals, and the intellectual

advancement of the community. The manager who aims at monetary gain as

the first and dominant object of his ambition and endeavor, to the

exclusion of all higher purpose, is a disgrace to his profession and an

enemy to social welfare. To him, as to the _Weird Sisters_, “fair is

foul and foul is fair.”

There are many vocations in which little is to be considered above the

till. No person is _compelled_ to assume the management of a theatre or

the direction,--invariably of potent force,--of an educational,

influential art. If he deliberately chooses such occupation and does

assume it, he assumes it with all its inherent responsibilities,--and

the greatest of these is moral and intellectual duty. No mistake more

foolish or more culpable could be made than to regard this standard of

conduct and responsibility as visionary, impracticable, or what this

deplorably slang-ridden community flippantly mentions as “highbrow

stuff.” No strenuosity of asseveration from theatrical janitors, “Great

Moguls,” “Napoleons of the Theatre,” bullies or gamblers, flatulent with

the wind of self-complacency and conceit, that conduct of the Theatre

justifies itself by mere financial gain can vindicate a theatrical

administration which benefits a few individuals at the expense of the

public good and by the oppression of honest competitors; and that,

practically, is the administration of the Theatre which is provided by

the Theatrical Syndicate.

The covenant made by the six members of the Syndicate contains much of

that verbiage which customarily encumbers legal documents. Some facts,

however, as to the results of its operation are apparent. Under the

contract, covering “different cities of the United States and Canada,”

independent theatrical companies, seeking to compete for public favor

and support, “were not permitted to play against” “other companies of

the same or different class,” owned, operated, controlled, or directed,

by the Syndicate. According to that covenant, “No attraction [_i.e._, no

company presenting a theatrical entertainment or performance] shall be

booked in _any_ of the said theatres or places of amusement [_i.e._,

theatres or places of amusement owned or controlled by the Syndicate]

which will [_sic_] insist on playing _in opposition_ theatres or places

of amusement in any of the cities” named in the Syndicate agreement,

unless by written permission of a Syndicate member, controlling a

theatre or theatres in such or such specific places where an independent

manager desired to present his company in an independent theatre. By

this arrangement the Syndicate, in effect, could say, and has said, to

managers of theatres outside its ownership or direct control: If you

wish to “play” _any_ of our “attractions,” at any time, you must play

_all_ the attractions we book in your theatre when we book them and on

the terms which we specify,--otherwise you _cannot have any_ of the

attractions which we book. To persons, whether star actors or managers

directing theatrical companies on tours through the country, desirous to

secure “bookings” in certain cities in which first-class theatres are

controlled by the Syndicate that organization could say, and has said,

in effect: If you wish to play in _any_ theatre owned or controlled by

us, you must play in every theatre, whenever and wherever we choose to

direct you to play, on whatever terms we choose to make for you. If that

is not, in effect, blackmail and extortion, compelling the transaction

of business under duress, what is it? The theatres owned, leased,

controlled by members of the Syndicate _are_ their theatres, and they

assert the right to conduct those theatres to suit themselves. Owners of

property certainly _are_ entitled to use it for their advantage; but

would any well-informed and fair-minded person maintain that the members

of the Theatrical Syndicate, using their property in the way I have

described, use it according to the dictates of justice? When that

kindred beneficence the Standard Oil Company desires to drive a small,

independent dealer out of business how does it go about the task? It

sets up a contiguous, superbly managed competing oil shop and undersells

the independent dealer, till he, lacking money to maintain a hopeless

struggle for his

[Illustration: THE MEMBERS OF THE THEATRICAL SYNDICATE

Al. Hayman Charles Frohman

Copyright by Charles Frohman, Inc.

Marc Klaw

Abraham L. Erlanger

Copyright, Rockwood

Samuel F. Nixon (Nirdlinger) J. Fred. Zimmermann, Sr.

“It is often true, as old _King Duncan_ declares, that ‘There’s no

art to find the mind’s construction in the face.’ Nevertheless,

study of the faces of the men who compose that sacred institution

of beneficence, The Theatrical Syndicate, is worth making. Such

study renders it easier to understand the condition of the Theatre

in America to-day.”--W. W.

]

livelihood, is forced to sell his business and desist from competition.

Then the benevolent national octopus gradually advances the price of oil

until at last the public in the neighborhood has paid the cost of

driving the small competitor out of business, the field is occupied

solely by the Standard Company, and it sells oil to the people for “all

the traffic will bear.” That method may be as _lawful_ in selling

“theatricals” as in selling oil, but--is it _right_?

If Belasco desired to present one of his “attractions,” in thirty cities

under the Syndicate domination (acceding to the terms imposed upon him),

but could, in one other city, present that “attraction” for ten weeks,

at an independent theatre, receiving eighty per cent. of the gross

receipts, while in the same city the Syndicate would “book” his

“attraction” at one of its theatres and graciously exact fifty per cent,

of the gross receipts, then Belasco would be necessitated to submit to

that predatory dictation, or else lose his “bookings” in the thirty

other cities,--in _all_ other cities,--in which the Syndicate controlled

the “first-class” theatres.

“THOSE SHALL TAKE WHO HAVE THE POWER.”

Perhaps that may seem an extreme case. Yet that is exactly what happened

to him. In 1902 Belasco produced “The Darling of the Gods,” Miss

Blanche Bates appearing in it as a star, in association with an

exceptionally fine and expensive company. That was a very costly

production: after two years of presentation of it Belasco had gained a

net profit of only $5,000,--while, had he chosen to do so, he could have

gained that profit in a fortnight with many an inferior vehicle. He was,

naturally, proud of his achievement. He desired that the play should be

represented within reach of the multitude assembled to view the World’s

Exposition, which was opened at St. Louis, in 1904, and he arranged to

present “The Darling of the Gods” at the Imperial Theatre, in that city.

As soon as this fact became known he was notified by Mr. Erlanger, on

behalf of the Syndicate, that he would not be permitted to do so,--the

reason being that the Syndicate would not tolerate the presentment there

of Belasco’s play in any but a Syndicate house, though the Syndicate

could not, or would not, provide him a theatre there for as long a term

as he could secure the Imperial. Belasco’s reply was that he would

certainly produce “The Darling of the Gods” in St. Louis, whereupon Mr.

Erlanger, in the presence of Belasco’s representative, destroyed and

threw into a waste basket a number of contracts, signed and executed,

providing for the presentation of that and other Belasco “attractions”

in theatres under Syndicate control in various cities of the Union and

Canada. This peremptory repudiative action, accompanied by much violent

expletive, no doubt was one of Mr. Erlanger’s genial ways of

illustrating the conduct of business on those “firm lines” he had

prescribed as so essential to theatrical regeneration, and of

illuminating the Syndicate’s righteous purpose, as stated by the late

Mr. Charles Frohman, to compel the managers of theatrical companies “to

keep faith with managers of theatres.” It clearly was a conclusive

example of the Syndicate’s beneficent methods.

“Thus bad begins and worse remains behind”: if the general policy which

I have specified is iniquitous, how shall certain other proceedings,

conducted by the executive of the Syndicate, in the development of the

business of the Theatre, be characterized? Let the reader assume that he

wishes to bring out a new star or a new play, in New York, and does so:

his venture is successful: he plays for a considerable term in the

capital: he wishes to “book” his “attraction” on the road. The charges

made for such booking service are, I understand, reasonable,--somewhere

from about $250 to $300 for a season’s tour. But does the reader suppose

he can get his play booked and his tour arranged as simply as by paying

an agent’s commission? Let him try: perhaps he will succeed:

“circumstances alter cases”: his play may have proved so popular in New

York that theatre managers throughout the country clamor to have it

exhibited in their theatres, in which case the Syndicate might become

placable; but such good fortune is dubious. It is far more probable

that, in order to obtain a desirable route through the first-class

theatres of the country, he will find it obligatory to make “a free

gift” of an interest of from one-third to one-half of his successful

venture (in which he has done all the original work and borne all the

expense and risk) to the benevolent and protective firm of Messrs. Klaw

& Erlanger,--as, for example, it appears from his sworn testimony (see

_ante_, pp. 18-19) that Belasco was forced to do when presenting David

Warfield in “The Auctioneer.”

DIVERGENT VIEWS OF THE SYNDICATE: GROUNDS FOR REASONABLE BELIEF.

It is not feasible to include in this Memoir a complete History of the

Theatrical Syndicate, examining every detail of its organization,

conduct, influence, and effect,--though such a history is a necessary

part of the annals of our Stage. In the absence of such exhaustive

record the partially informed reader may be confused, perhaps misled, by

dissentaneous views of the Syndicate--about which, be it observed, I

write as an uncompromising opponent. On the one side that Syndicate is

found portrayed by its advocates as an institution of light, leading,

and beneficence. On the other side, it is found represented as an

arrogant, ruthless, grasping monopoly,--exerting an actively injurious

influence on the Drama and the Art of Acting,--and as being composed of

ignorant, avaricious, vulgar men, unfit to dominate any art--and in

particular the _quasi_-educational art of the Theatre,--and regardless

not only of the public welfare as affected by the Stage but, at least in

some instances, regardless even of the public safety. The disparity of

sentiment is diametrical. But though a whole history of the Syndicate is

not here practical, is it not possible briefly to present essential

information bearing on the subject in such a way that the reader may

disregard the discordant and disputatious views of advocates and

opponents and form an independent opinion based merely on facts of

record? I think that it is. First, then, as to disregard of the public

safety by some members of the Theatrical Syndicate:

Soon after the burning of the Iroquois Theatre, in Chicago, December

30, 1903, during a performance there of “Mr. Bluebeard,”--a disaster in

which 602 persons horribly perished,--the New York weekly journal “Life”

published a cartoon portraying the exit of a theatre, with the door

padlocked and with smoke streaming through it, while women and children

were shown struggling to force it open and escape. A symbolic figure of

Death was shown standing beside that portal, and beneath the picture was

a caption reading: “Messrs. Klaw & Erlanger Present Mr. Bluebeard.” The

implication of that cartoon was, unquestionably, an accusation of

wholesale manslaughter. Messrs. Klaw & Erlanger, claiming that the

publication of it was a libel upon them, instituted a suit against

“Life” for $100,000 damages. That suit was tried in the United States

Circuit Court, New York, January 3 to 6, 1905, before Justice William J.

Wallace and a jury. The publication complained of was, in fact, beyond

question a libel. Under the law publication of libellous matter is

justified if it be _true_ and if it be made without malice, in the way

of legitimate comment or criticism. The issue in this case, therefore,

was perfectly clear. The jury decided in favor of “Life” after

deliberating less than five minutes--thus, in effect, certifying to the

truth and legitimacy of comment which amounted to an accusation against

Klaw & Erlanger of wholesale manslaughter through negligence.

Second, as to the characters and reputations of the men composing the

Syndicate and the question of their fitness to dominate the Theatre:

“The New York Dramatic Mirror,” on October 30 and November 13, 1897,

published articles, written by its editor, then Harrison Grey Fiske,

which stigmatized the members of the Theatrical Syndicate as a “_band of

adventurers_, who imagined that they could manipulate the amusement

business _for their sole gain_”; as men actuated by “clannish greed and

selfishness”; as “mercenaries” who threatened “the welfare of the

Stage”; as persons who, in their business, were guilty of maintaining a

“_system of double-dealing_, of _false pretences_, and of

_misrepresentation_”; as “illiterate managers”; as an “insolent and

mischievous clique of theatrical middlemen”; as “insolent jobbers,”

“theatrical throttlers,” “crooked _entrepreneurs_” and “an un-American

and intolerable combination of greedy, narrow-minded tricksters.”

The several members of the Syndicate, resentful of these explicit

strictures, instituted suit against Fiske, asserting that in making and

circulating the statements about them just quoted he had uttered a

“false, defamatory, scandalous, and malicious libel” which had “injured

the complainants in their good name, fame, and reputation,” and

otherwise damaged them, all in the sum total of $100,000. The complaint

in this action was filed on November 19, 1897.

Fiske answered, in effect, that his charges against the Syndicate were

“made in behalf of the public and [of] those engaged in the theatrical

line or profession in the United States” and were set forth as “_a fair

and true statement_ of the object and purpose of the Syndicate”; that

his articles complained of were true and not malicious, denying that

they constitute a “false, defamatory, scandalous, and malicious libel”;

asserted that “Al. Hayman was not a person of good name, fame, and

reputation,” but “that he [Hayman] with his co-complainants did by a

system of double-dealing and false pretences and misrepresentations to

the public and those engaged in the theatrical business unite and band

together by wrongful and improper expedients” to mislead and defraud the

public; “that the said J. Fred Zimmermann is not a person of good name,

fame, and reputation”; that A. L. “Erlanger is not a person of good

name, fame, and reputation, but that, on the contrary, the said A. L.

Erlanger has been arrested and convicted of crime in the State of

Pennsylvania,” and that “the name, fame, and reputation” of the

plaintiffs had been “truly set forth in the said articles mentioned in

the plaintiffs’ complaint.”

Of course, to _make_ such damaging accusations is not to _prove_

them,--whether they be made in a newspaper or in a legal instrument: the

noblest and best men and women the world has ever seen, or ever will

see, all are liable to traduction and attack. But the members of the

Syndicate, after taking cognizance of these accusations, after declaring

under oath that they had been damaged by the making of them in the

amount of $100,000, and after the braggart spokesman for the group had

asserted in print that “we mean to make Mr. Fiske prove his allegations

or publicly acknowledge his mistake,” dallied and delayed in the case

for two and one-half years (during all of which time Mr. Fiske, as he

personally and repeatedly assured me, was not only willing but eager to

go to trial on the facts),--and then, April 18, 1900, _discontinued

their action_. Commenting on this proceeding, Fiske said, in “The

Mirror”:

“No pretence of legal unreadiness and no motion for delay of this

case have ever proceeded from the defence.... ‘The Mirror’ has been

not only ready but eager at all times since the joining of issue in

this case to thoroughly thresh the matter out in open court.... The

case never has been pushed in court, and _it is evident that the

plaintiffs never had any intention to try it_.”

Judicious readers will, I believe, agree that the course of the members

of the Syndicate amounts, practically, to a confession of the truth of

Fiske’s charges; and surely, in the circumstances, they can neither

wonder nor complain because those charges have been generally

believed.--As to the power exerted by A. L. Erlanger over Belasco and

the quality of the Theatrical Syndicate as a monopoly, I consider the

arraignment made by Samuel Untermyer, before the Appellate Division of

the Supreme Court, to be perhaps the best and most entirely just that I

have ever read:

“...Of course Belasco went to Erlanger’s house and was a

suppliant to the tender mercy of Erlanger to permit him to hire

theatres in which to produce his play. He went there because the

Syndicate’s unholy and criminal alliance which controlled the

principal theatres throughout the country had made it impossible

for any man with a play, a company, scenery, costumes, and all the

requirements for a complete production to book his play (which

means to find a roof under which to produce it) except by the grace

of Klaw & Erlanger, who controlled the Syndicate and the theatres.

And they could ask just such proportion of the profits by way of

rent and impose such other conditions as they chose. Of course

Belasco went to Erlanger’s house, and when he confronted ‘the great

man’ he not only agreed to pay the rent, generally _fifty per cent.

or more of the gross receipts_ of every performance, for the

theatres, but he was also forced to agree to give secretly to Klaw

& Erlanger under cover of Brooks’ name fifty per cent. of all the

profits of that production. No wonder Erlanger did not want that

little arrangement known to his Syndicate

[Illustration:

Photograph by Byron. Belasco’s Collection.

THE CROWNING ROOM,--BELASCO’S PRODUCTION OF “ADREA”]

partners! Why should not Belasco go to Erlanger and smilingly

consent to be fleeced? His venture was ruined unless Erlanger would

furnish ‘bookings’ on any terms Erlanger chose to extort. Should

the King go to the Beggar? Or was it meet that Belasco the Beggar

for a chance to pay for the use of theatres in which to produce his

own play with his own company, should go humbly to Erlanger, the

King of the Syndicate that controlled the theatres?

“No such despotism has ever been known or dreamed of in this

country and none so fatal to the development of art as the evidence

discloses this Theatrical Syndicate. Every monopoly that has been

dragged into the court pales into insignificance and seems almost

harmless beside it. Every owner of a theatre contracted with

throughout the country was required to agree not to permit his

theatre to be used for any performance not under the direction [of]

or assented to by the Syndicate even during the times it was not in

use or being paid for by the Syndicate!...”

CONVERTING CONVENTION HALL:--“ADREA” IN WASHINGTON.

Using the despotory power alluded to by Mr. Untermyer, the Syndicate

closed all the theatres of Washington against Belasco when he attempted

to arrange for the presentment of his tragedy. “My _penchant_ for giving

the first performances of my plays before the Washington public, because

I got the real start of my independent career there,” Belasco remarked

to me, “may be, as some unfriendly critics have declared it, a

‘sentimental folly,’ but it pleases me to do so, and it seems to me to

be a matter for _me_ to decide. The less likely it became that I could

get into Washington with ‘Adrea’ the more determined I became to do so.”

The result of his determination was that Belasco suddenly and privately

hired Convention Hall, a vast, barn-like place in Washington,

inconvenient of access, situated over a market, with seating capacity

for more than 5,000 persons. It contained no stage and was in every way

unfit for theatrical use: in brief, what Belasco did was, first, to hire

a roofed space, and then build a theatre beneath it,--incidentally

complying with all the mysteriously sudden and preternaturally exacting

requirements of various administrative departments of the District of

Columbia. “In all my experience,” he remarked to me, “I never knew such

vigilance to be exercised about a theatrical performance, and I should

never have been able to meet the almost incessant and sometimes most

unreasonable demands upon me if it had not been for the kindly advice,

guidance, and assistance of Senator Gallinger and of Speaker Cannon, who

had been interested in my fight by a _protégé_ of his, Mr. Sidney

Bieber; but, one way or another, every demand was met.” About one-third

of the hall was partitioned from the rest of it by a temporary wall and

a proscenium arch. Behind this a commodious stage was erected,--all the

labor of building being performed by a company of mechanics brought by

Belasco from his New York theatre. The iron girders supporting the roof

and also the exposed parts of the ceiling were draped and covered with

fire-proof cloth and gauze, dark green in color. Several carloads of

rich hangings and furniture which Belasco had originally purchased for

use in “Du Barry” and “The Darling of the Gods” were taken to Washington

and used to decorate the interior of this improvised theatre. Seats were

arranged, the aisles were carpeted, “boxes” were built, a gallery was

erected at the rear; a chill and barren loft was converted into a

spacious, warm, and handsome playhouse, and on Christmas Eve all seemed

to be in readiness for the opening--and then the Fire Department

condemned the electric-lighting system. “For a little while,” said

Belasco, in relating the story of this enterprise, “I thought they had

me beaten, and after I had spent thousands of dollars. But I put my case

before the Edison Electric Company--and between Saturday and the

following Monday evening the Edison people tore out the condemned system

of wiring, put in a new one, laid a special main for the supply of

current, got it all inspected and passed, and we opened as advertised

on Monday night! _I_ wanted to get out on the footlights and crow! As to

safety--everything had been done and we had, for an audience of 1,400,

the spaces, exits, and stairways previously considered safe for crowds

of from 5,000 to 6,000.”

Belasco’s conversion of Convention Hall into a theatre, for the

production of “Adrea,” and the difficulties encountered by him in doing

so caused much comment in the newspapers of the capital, and shortly

before the first performance he published the following letter in “The

Washington Post”:

“The editorial in this morning’s ‘Post,’ under the title, ‘Theatre

Regulations in Washington,’ conveys several erroneous impressions,

and I ask this intrusion on your space to state certain facts with

which the Washington public has not hitherto been made familiar.

When I conceived the idea of using Convention Hall for Mrs. Leslie

Carter, my very first step was to come to Washington personally, to

learn directly from the heads of the building, fire, and electrical

engineering departments what changes or safeguards would be

required by each to enable me to use Convention Hall with their

entire approval and in conformity with the law. During a series of

subsequent conferences plans were made and submitted, embodying not

only all the requirements of each department, but several

additional improvements--such as wider aisles, more exits, broader

exit space, etc. These plans were fully approved by the necessary

officials of the District.

“Having thus secured the proper indorsement, and having placed

myself right with the municipal departments, I proceeded at great

expense to make these extensive alterations, seeking, above all, in

the interest of the public, to fulfil not only the letter but also

the spirit of the law. I already have done more than I was asked to

do, and no obstacle was raised until after the work was completed.

The structural changes have been made in strict and ready

compliance with the requirements of the District officials, and

under their supervision. _My one thought, first, last, and all the

time, was to comply with the law and protect the public._ I fully

believe that I have done so.”

The representation of “Adrea” was received with extraordinary enthusiasm

by a large and brilliant audience, not a single member of which left

before the close of the performance, long after midnight. During the

Fourth Act a violent rainfall, beating on the iron roof of the hall,

rendered much of the dialogue inaudible, and soon, the roof leaking in

many places, water poured down through the cloth and gauze hangings,

deluging the audience with green rain. “I saw Admiral Dewey, in one of

the boxes,” said Belasco, “holding an umbrella over a lady whose

beautiful white gown was ruined with green blotches; and in another

Secretary Morton and Admiral Schley with the green water splashing down

on them. But, even though they had to sit under umbrellas or be soaked,

_my audience stayed to the very end_! Is it any wonder I love the

Washington public?”

In the local newspapers, on Christmas Day, Belasco published the

following notice “To the Washington Public”:

“Mr. Belasco begs to state that his occupancy of Convention Hall

for Mrs. Leslie Carter’s initial performances of her new play is

because of the opposition of the Theatrical Trust, through whose

dictation no theatre in Washington is permitted to book his

attractions. Unwilling, however, to surrender his custom of making

his productions first in this city, he has rebuilt the interior of

Convention Hall, in strict observance of the legal requirements of

the District departments, and with every regard for the comfort and

safety of his patrons. He begs also to thank the people of

Washington for the friendship and most liberal support which

already assure the success of his independent enterprise.”

When called upon the stage during the opening performance of “Adrea”

Belasco made a brief speech of thanks, the first sentence of which

brought an outburst of applause that lasted for more than two minutes:

“Well, ladies and gentlemen, they did not prevent my opening in

Washington. And as long as this is a free country and I am able to

fight for independence in theatrical management, I will open my

companies in Washington, or in any other city that I elect to

visit. It is very late: I won’t detain you but a moment, just to

thank you in words that can’t convey my thanks for your approval,

your sympathy and support. Mrs. Carter, Mr. Long, all my company,

my staff--my loyal, splendid staff, carpenters and mechanics who

have worked here, ladies and gentlemen, for as much as forty-eight

hours at a stretch to make this opening possible--they all are

grateful to you, and I thank you, and thank them, again and again.

It would be strange indeed if we were not willing to fight for the

chance to play before you when you are all so kind to us and when

the man who fought the Battle of Manila Bay and the man who fought

the Battle of Santiago are willing to sit in a sort of green

shower-bath to watch us!”

Belasco gave seven performances of “Adrea” during his week in

Washington, the gross receipts from which were more than $15,000. And

when that engagement was over and the accounts had all been made up and

paid he had suffered a loss of a little more than $25,000.--On the first

night in New York he made a significant speech in which he said:

“...Nobody could ask--nobody could wish--for any more splendid

loyalty, support, and encouragement than I have received from you,

from the people of New York, from the people of every place in

America where I have presented my companies, and I am grateful,

very, very deeply and lastingly grateful, ladies and gentlemen. But

conditions in the American Theatre are bad, ladies and

gentlemen,--very bad indeed--and they ought to be remedied. The

institution we all love should not be left at the mercy of

high-handed, brow-beating, un-American hucksters. We are not afraid

of anyone, ladies and gentlemen: we--all of us; my associates, my

business staff, my splendid, loyal mechanical staffs, my

actors--have had a long, a hard and bitter struggle and have

suffered very serious annoyances and loss. I have just paid more

than $25,000 for the privilege of presenting this tragedy for one

week in the City of Washington. We do not ask or expect that life

should be made easy for us; we can fight, just as you can, for our

rights. But I say, ladies and gentlemen, that it is a crying

outrage and a burning shame that men and women who simply want to

go about their own business in their own way should be forced, in

this day and country, to undergo what we (all of us here behind the

curtain and in the offices of my theatre) have to undergo from week

to week. And, ladies and gentlemen, it is you, the public all over

this great country, who are most injured by it all--because we

cannot give you what you are entitled to get from us when you pay

your money to see our plays and what we want to give you,--that is,

the very best there is in us: we cannot give you that, ladies and

gentlemen, when we have to give so much of our time and strength

and energy and enterprise and courage to fighting a criminal

monopoly when we ought to be giving it and want to be giving it to

writing and producing plays and acting in them, for your

entertainment and pleasure.”

EXIT MRS. CARTER.

“Adrea” was the last new play in which Mrs. Leslie Carter appeared under

the direction of Belasco. Her first season in that tragedy closed at the

Belasco Theatre, May 4, 1905; the second (in the course of which she

acted _Du Barry_ and _Zaza_

[Illustration:

Photograph by Byron. Belasco’s Collection.

MRS. LESLIE CARTER AS _ADREA_, IN THE TRAGEDY OF THAT NAME]

as well as _Adrea_) began there, September 20, that year, and lasted

until June 23, 1906, when it was ended at Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Differences of opinion and divergence of interests had been growing for

some time between the manager and the actress who owed so

much,--everything, in fact,--to his sagacity and guidance. On July 13,

1906, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Mrs. Carter was married to William

Louis Payne, and withdrew from the direction of Belasco,--Mr. Payne

assuming the care of her affairs. In _Adrea_ she touched the highest

point of all her greatness and, thereafter, may fairly be said to have

hastened to her setting. At the time of her withdrawal from Belasco’s

management he was at work on a new play for her, dealing with the

experience of an Hungarian immigrant. It was to be called “Repka

Stroon”: although it has been finished it has not yet been acted. Mrs.

Carter has done nothing of lasting importance since her personation of

_Adrea_. Her acting, at its best, was far stronger in the emotions than

it was in the intellect; but, in _Adrea_, she met and endured the test

of tremendous situations involving conflict of various passions, and in

that respect she proved her possession of tragic power. In fact, the

defects of her performance of that part were wholly in the superficial

texture of the method, and it came home to the heart with an exceeding

effect of pathos because of the sad knowledge with which it was

freighted,--the knowledge of affliction and of grief.

SIGNIFICANT MESSAGES.

The following telegrams, sent by Belasco and his general manager,

Roeder, are significantly indicative of the consideration shown by the

former toward the players in his employ, as well as of the character of

his mind, and for that reason they are printed here: the actor referred

to, Mr. Benrimo, who played the _Fool_ in “Adrea,” might properly enough

have been transferred to Mrs. Carter’s company, without discussion:

(_Telegram, David Belasco to Blanche Bates, in St. Louis._)

“New York, October, 1904.

“You know I would not do anything to imperil your cast or to

jeopardize our western tour. Always thought it unadvisable to

double _Prince_ and _Kato_ in San Francisco and always intended

sending another man to play _Prince_.

“If it were not absolutely necessary for me to have Benrimo in my

new play, I would not ask for him. There happens to be no man

disengaged at present to suit this peculiar part, which means so

much to the success of the play. You may not quite understand why

it should be so, but so it really is. At the present moment I am

engaged in the greatest fight of my life and everything depends on

this new production. Its success will leave me free to give all my

attention to your new play for next season and will ensure the

working out of all my plans. It is only with our triumphs that I

can hope to beat the Syndicate. My dear girl, by this time I am

sure you have reconsidered your telegram and will help me out.

Please--please, do! There is nothing within my power that I will

not grant if you ask it, so I beg of you again, please help me out.

“DAVID BELASCO.”

(_Telegram, Benjamin F. Roeder to Blanche Bates in St. Louis._)

“New York, October, 1904.

“In making original cast ‘Darling’ Mr. Belasco requested other of

his stars, who gladly consented. Regret, as one of your best

friends, that you don’t follow dictates your own heart and accord

what is, after all, only a courtesy. Mr. Belasco has been kind and

generous to you always. Money has never stood in way when he could

do anything to make you happy. In consequence Chicago fire we are

still much money behind on original investment ‘Darling’ and Mr.

Belasco has more than fulfilled his contract with you. We paid out

thousands to secure your new play--have been obliged to forfeit all

and Mr. Belasco has been forced to write one himself to give you

‘Blanche Bates part.’ I have not shown him your telegram and don’t

want to. This is the time he needs good soldiers. Be one like the

rest of us. You will lose nothing in the end. Anyway, Benrimo is

not ’Frisco favorite. Under no circumstances could we allow two

such important parts to be played by one man in ’Frisco. Mr.

Belasco is rehearsing the new men. They leave Wednesday and will

strengthen the cast.

“B. F. ROEDER.”

(_Telegram, David Belasco to Blanche Bates, in St. Louis._)

“New York, November, 1904.

“Thanks! Thanks! You’re a dear brick and some day I will do as much

to relieve you of anxiety. Buy the prettiest and finest rider’s

dress, with hat and cloak to match, and send the bill to me. I am

sending you two good actors, one for the _Prince_, the other for

the _Fisherman_. I am rehearsing them myself. After all, it would

have been dangerous for us to permit any one actor to double the

parts in ’Frisco. You must think so too, so instead of weakening

the cast I am strengthening it.

“But never mind that, you have helped me out of a dilemma and

you’re a bully girl. As soon as the play is on I shall join the

company and spend some days with you to talk over your new piece

and the cast. It will be well to begin to get the eight people

under contract. If all goes well,--and it will,--you’ll be in New

York _all next year_! Love to your mother and yourself.

“DAVID BELASCO.”

VARIOUS LETTERS AND INCIDENTS OF 1905.

In June, 1905, Belasco, accompanied by Mr. Roeder, sailed for England,

his purpose being to purchase, if possible, or else to arrange to build,

a theatre for his own use in London,--as Daly had done many years

before. This ambitious project, however, proved impracticable of

execution and, though he has never finally abandoned it, he found

himself forced by circumstances to set it aside and he soon returned to

America. While he was in England the subject of his fight against the

dominion of the Syndicate was discussed in various newspapers: in one of

them I find the following letter:

(_David Belasco to “The London Referee.”_)

“Hotel Russell, Russell Square,

“London, W. C., June 17, 1905.

“To the Editor of ‘The Referee’:

“Sir:

“A sympathetic article in an evening paper, speaking of the methods

of the American Theatre Trust, and their efforts to crush me, also

stated: ‘Let there be no misunderstanding. Mr. [Charles] Frohman

may be entirely exempted from inclusion in this indictment. His

operations in London are in direct competition with those of the

Trust.’

“In order to prevent any ‘misunderstanding’ I would like to ask:

‘_Why_ should Mr. Frohman be exempted from this indictment?’ In my

suit brought against Messrs. Klaw & Erlanger in New York, in April

last, among other things for the purpose of exposing the methods of

the Theatrical Trust, there was produced in court the original

Syndicate agreement, made in August, 1896, and renewed in August,

1901. This agreement was signed by Charles Frohman, Klaw &

Erlanger, Al. Hayman and Nixon & Zimmermann, and according to the

evidence is still in operation. Further comment is, I think,

unnecessary.

“I am,

“Faithfully yours,

“DAVID BELASCO.”

Soon after his return to New York Belasco received a message from the

great singer Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink, who had been much impressed

by his presentment of Warfield in “The Music Master,” who desired to

adventure on the dramatic stage, and who proposed that Belasco should

undertake her management and write a play for her use. This he gladly

agreed to do, and the play, which was to have been a sort of sister

piece to “The Music Master” and was to have been called “The Opera

Singer,” was planned and in part written; but the demands on Belasco’s

energies and time were more than any one person could meet and he was

regretfully forced to relinquish that project. “It hurt me to let go,”

he said: “I had a good story. Mme. Schumann-Heink had great natural

talent for acting, and I believe that if I could have carried it

through, working in a tremendous scene for her, as a singer on the opera

stage, we should have set the country wild. But--there is a limit, and I

was pretty near to mine, so _that_ little scheme went up in smoke!”

The following letters all are characteristic of Belasco in varying

moods:

(_David Belasco to Blanche Bates._)

“Belasco Theatre, New York,

“April 3, 1905.

“My dear Blanche Bates:--

“I have received a note from Mr. William Courtleigh of the Actors’

Society in which he asks if it is possible for you to appear with

Mr. Wm. Gillette at their benefit. I have promptly said ‘No.’ In

the first place, you are not going to support Mr. Gillette. You

would do all the hard work--yelling, shouting and running about

like a maniac,--while he sat calmly smoking his cigar, with a

calcium light upon him. Besides, this would be no novelty, as

Gillette did the same thing at the Holland Benefit and I saw the

poor little -------- girl disgrace herself. There is nothing at all

in these ‘benefits,’ and I hope you are pleased that I got you out

of this one.

“With all good wishes,

“Faithfully yours,

“DAVID BELASCO.”

(_David Belasco to John Luther Long, in Philadelphia._)

“Belasco Theatre, New York,

“April 26, 1905.

“My dear John:--

“I have just received the beautiful Tennysonian verses. I shall

_dramatize_ them, of course, and you were bully to send them to me.

“But really, Jonathan, haven’t we given that gang of grafters a

shake-up? It cost me a lot of money,--but (thank Heaven!) I had it

to spend, and could unmask them. If I have done a wee bit of good

in helping to clear away the rubbish, I am more than rewarded.

“Good luck to you, and my best affection!

“Faithfully,

“DAVID BELASCO.”

(_David Belasco to Mrs. F. M. Bates._)

“Belasco Theatre, New York,

“July 13, 1905.

“My dear, dear Mrs. Bates:--

“I am so sorry I did not see you the other morning when you called

at the theatre, but I have been nearly crazy with neuralgia for the

past week.

“I am a little bit behind on Blanche’s play, and am hurrying off to

Shelter Island to take off my coat and go to work on it. Tell our

Blanche it is a _bully play_, and that the character of ‘_the

girl_’ is sky-high--fits her from her head to her feet! I expect to

have it in shape shortly now, and in her hands to study. I am

getting together a _bully_ cast for it. I really think the new play

_is my very best_, and I know she will be happy. Give her my love.

“Faithfully,

“DAVID BELASCO.”

(_David Belasco to Blanche Bates, in San Francisco._)

“Belasco Theatre, New York,

“July 20, 1905.

“My dear Blanche B.:--

“Your letter received.

“I got a little behind on the play; you know I had to run off to

London to do big things for the future, and when I got back I went

under with my old attacks of neuralgia. You know how I suffer with

them, and really, this time the pain was excruciating. I’m glad to

say that I am all right again and I am working night and day,

hoping that it is the best play I ever wrote. Your part fits you

from your dear little feet up to your pretty head. It’s a _bully

part_, and I know you will like it. If you don’t,--well, you need

never kiss me again! I call the play ‘The Girl of the Golden

[Illustration:

Photograph by William Crooke, Edinburgh. Author’s Collection.

HENRY IRVING IN THE LAST YEAR OF HIS LIFE--1904-’05]

West.’ The characters call you ‘_The Girl_.’ The models of the play

are fine--the last scene of all, ‘In the Wilderness,’ is a gem.

There are some beautiful speeches in the play--very ‘Batesesque’;

the lines just _crackle_ and all the situations are human.

“Yes, send along the photo, and I will have a poster made of you.

“_Entre nous_, we open in Pittsburgh, before coming into New York,

playing there for two weeks at the new Belasco Theatre, as the

stockholders have named it. It will be a great night.

“Just keep well, enjoy your summer, and the moment I have finished

the play,--which will be in about three weeks,--I will rush it into

your hands.

“With love, hugs, kisses and things,

“Faithfully,

“DAVID BELASCO.”

(_David Belasco to Frederick F. Schrader, in Washington, D. C._)

“Belasco Theatre, New York,

“July 22, 1905.

“My dear Mr. Schrader:--

“Many thanks for your letter and for your kindly interest. I am so

glad that the press out West has taken up the question of the

Theatrical Trust so splendidly. It helps us in the big fight. There

is a hard year before us, and if we win I think we shall have

succeeded in breaking the tyrannous ring. The London press was

bully. I was interviewed extensively and succeeded in getting many

leading papers interested. They have taken up the Trust question

seriously over there. I hope you read ‘The Referee.’ They began a

series of Trust articles in the number before the last. The

article was written in a very forcible style.

“Regarding the theatre in Washington, what you write is very

interesting and I shall be most happy to hear more about it.

“Mr. [Fuller] Mellish called to see me, and there is an

understanding that at the first opportunity I shall gather him in.

Then,--he may remain with me for life, if he wants to.

“With kindest regards to yourself and your wife, I am,

“Faithfully,

“DAVID BELASCO.”

TRIBUTE TO IRVING.

While Belasco was in Washington, with his new play “The Girl of the

Golden West,” there befell one of the saddest bereavements and one of

the greatest losses the Stage has ever known,--the sudden, pathetic

death of that great actor and manager and even greater man Henry Irving,

which occurred at Bradford, England, October 13, 1905, immediately after

the close of his performance in “Becket.” Belasco, always one of his

disciples and most ardent admirers, when informed of his death, paid him

this tribute:

“There are no more such masters! The English-speaking, the modern,

Stage has lost its greatest inspiration! The name of Henry Irving

stood for all that was artistic in the highest sense. He was the

loyalest servant of the public; the friend, the champion of the

Stage. He belonged to us almost as much as to England. And what is

saddest of all, he leaves no one behind him to take his place. He

was a great, a marvellous, actor, a dramatic genius; he was the

greatest stage director of modern times; he was the prince of

managers; and, what was best of all, he was the best and kindest of

men and the truest of friends. God rest his great soul! He has died

as he would have wished, but we shall not look upon his like

again.”

BLANCHE BATES AND “THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST.”

Belasco’s stirring play of “The Girl of the Golden West” was first

produced at the new Belasco Theatre, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on

October 3, 1905. It is a fabric of situations contrived for the

advantageous display of that old, familiar, everlasting, always

effective theatrical personage, the Rough Diamond. The Girl was

beautiful, intrepid, passionate, vivacious; the soul of innocence; the

incarnation of virtue; the blooming rose of vigorous health; and she

could swear fluently, play cards, and shoot to kill. She kept a drinking

shop, she was adored by all “the boys”; and the fame of her probity and

her many fascinations filled the countryside of California, in the

halycon days of ’49. That fortunate State, according to the testimony of

novelists and bards, was densely populated at that time by girls of this

enchanting order; but this particular _Girl_ seems to have transcended

all rivals. She was beloved by a picturesque and expeditious outlaw,

_Dick Johnson_, known as _Ramirez_, who had gained brilliant renown by

means of highway robbery, and likewise she was beloved by the local

_Sheriff_, _Jack Rance_, a grim, obnoxious officer, self-dedicated to

the wicked business of causing that outlaw’s arrest and death. Both

those lovers were ardent, and, between those two fires, her situation

was difficult; but she always rose to the occasion, and when her outlaw

was entrapped by his pursuer the ingenuity of her love and the dexterity

of her stratagem delivered him from bondage, and, upon his promise of

reformation and integrity, launched him upon a new and better career.

The most conspicuous display of her passionate devotion and adroit skill

occurred on a night when he was captured in her dwelling. The

circumstances were essentially dramatic,--because the _Girl_ and her

favored swain were storm-bound in a mountain cabin, whither the

_Sheriff_ had tracked his prey; and the robber had been shot and

wounded, so that there seemed to be no method of escape for him, till

the _Girl_ proposed a game of poker with his foe, staking herself

against the liberty of her sweetheart, and won it by successful

emulation of the _Heathen Chinee_,--substituting “an ace full” for an

empty hand, at the decisive moment.

[Illustration:

Photograph by Otto Sarony. Collection of Jefferson Winter.

BLANCHE BATES AS _THE GIRL_, IN “THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST”]

There came a time, however, when even Love could do no more; but at that

crisis Fate interposed, in the shape of Public Opinion,--that is to say,

the friendship of “the boys,”--and the _Girl_ and her lover were united.

The condition of California in 1849 was, to say the least of it,

turbulent. Some parts of that State are in a turbulent condition now.

Groups of “the boys” can still be discovered. They are not paragons,

though, and they never were. The existence of good impulses in uncouth

persons does not make them less uncouth. Fine qualities can, and do,

exist in beings who are unfamiliar with soap and the toothbrush; but it

would seem that the study of human nature can be pursued, more agreeably

than elsewhere, among saponaceous branches of the race. It is more

pleasant to read about “the boys” than it is to see them. But, broadly

speaking, in Belasco’s drama the _Girl_ is the play, and with Miss Bates

as the _Girl_ there was little more to be desired. Shorn of all

extraneous fringes--variously impious, improper, vulgar, and offensive

interjections of profanity and violent expletive--the play is the image

of a lovely, impetuous woman’s devotion to her lover,--a devotion that

is shown in a series of actions by her to save him from danger and ruin

and to make him happy. Feminine heroism is the theme, and the _Girl_

selected to exemplify it is meant to be “a child of nature,” simple,

direct, and true--and Belasco was entirely accurate when he wrote that

the part fitted the actress for whom he made it from her head to her

feet. Given the specified ideal to interpret, Miss Bates placed her

reliance on Acting, and there were moments in her performance,--as, for

example, in the First Act, as the _Girl_ speaks of the protective

instinct in the heart of woman,--when the soul that showed itself in her

face was beatific. She gave, throughout, a personation of extraordinary

variety and strength. In the situations devised for the

heroine,--situations, which, while not radically new, are ingeniously

contrived and are fraught with the dominant spell of suspense,--the

actress had to express the growth of love; the blissful sense of being

loved; the bitter pangs of jealousy; the passionate resentment of a

heart that thinks itself betrayed and wronged by the object of its love;

the conflict of anger with affection; the apprehension of deadly peril,

and the nobility of self-conquest. The exaction of the part is

tremendous, equally upon physical resource and nervous vitality, but, at

every point, it was met and satisfied. The play exemplifies its author’s

remarkable faculty of continuation in the making of characteristic

dialogue, together with ample felicity of invention, and it is overlaid

with profusion of details. The midnight tryst of the _Girl_ and the

_Road Agent_ is not altogether a credible device, but, once assumed and

arranged, that situation,--comprehending the outlaw’s detection, as

such, by the _Girl_, the awakening of furious jealousy, her turning him

out into the storm, her subsequent harboring of him, and the game of

cards with the outlaw’s life and liberty staked against the _Girl’s_

whole future,--is handled with consummate skill and moulded to splendid

results, and there the acting of Miss Bates rose to a magnificent climax

of emotion, fully expressed and yet artistically controlled and

directed,--a triumph of intellectual purpose.

This was the original cast of “The Girl of the Golden West”:

_The Girl_ Blanche Bates.

_Wowkle_, an Indian squaw Harriet Sterling.

_Dick Johnson_ Robert Hilliard.

_Jack Rance_ Frank Keenan.

_Sonora Slim_ John W. Cope.

_Trinidad Joe_ James Kirkwood.

_Nick_ Thomas J. McGrane.

_The Sidney Duck_ Horace James.

_Jim Larkens_ Fred. Maxwell.

_“Happy” Haliday_ Richard Hoyer.

_“Handsome” Charlie_ Clifford Hipple.

_Deputy Sheriff_ T. Hayes Hunter.

_Billy Jackrabbit_, an Indian J. H. Benrimo.

_Ashby_ J. Al. Sawtelle.

_José Castro_ Roberto Deshon.

_Rider of the Pony Express_ Lowell Sherman.

_Jake Wallace_, a travelling camp minstrel Ed. A. Tester.

_Bucking Billy_ A. M. Beattie.

_The Lookout_ Fred. Sidney.

_A Faro Dealer_ William Wild.

_The Ridge Boy_ Ira M. Flick.

_Joe_ H. L. Wilson.

_Concertina Player_ Ignazio Biondi.

_Citizens of the Camp and Boys of the Ridge._

A THRILLING STORY--AND A TRUE ONE.

One of the most tense and effective passages in contemporary drama is

that contrived by Belasco, in this play, when the _Sheriff_ detects the

concealment of the _Road Agent_, _Johnson_, in the _Girl’s_ home.

Through the swirling snow he has caught a glimpse of a man’s figure near

to the cabin of the _Girl_, has shot at it, and has, in fact, hit and

grievously wounded _Johnson_, who has then been given refuge in the

cabin and concealed by the _Girl_ in a low loft. _Rance_, having come to

the cabin and been assured that nobody is concealed there, is about to

leave. He goes toward the door, he is about to open it and step out, but

turns to speak to the _Girl_, holding a white handkerchief with which

he has wiped the snow from his face; as he does so, a drop of blood

falls from the helpless wounded man above him upon the handkerchief,

then another,--and _Rance_, watching the little crimson stain grow,

instantly comprehends. Belasco, referring to this device, which,

obviously, is as simple and as possible as it is effective but which was

somewhat censured by captious fault-finders, writes this interesting

account of its origin:

“It was from my father that I first got the idea which afterwards

so well served me in ‘The Girl of the Golden West,’--the incident

of the Sheriff and the blood dripping on his handkerchief. The

experience occurred during the Cariboo mine period. My father and

his friend, Shannon, with several others, had a hut together. There

had been a heavy snow, so for awhile they had to give up all idea

of prospecting. Food was growing very scarce, until finally the

twenty-four huts that constituted the expedition could boast of but

three or four loaves of bread, one bottle of whisky, a scant supply

of bear meat, and some straggling fish. The miners were apt to be

careless, and the food supply became so low that it was necessary

to form a committee to guard the precious stores. A Sheriff and a

commission of deputies made a law that anyone taking more than was

handed to him should be shot without trial. Thus things went on for

a few weeks. A poor fellow from Philadelphia who was in camp had

had the blues for months before this, and had made every effort to

start for home. In the midst of the famine he was taken with the

hunger fever, and when the boys told him that he was very low he

cried out that he did not want to die. So one night he sneaked over

to the box, and stole a bit of bread and beef and some gold dust.

Then he fled from camp. The next day he was missed, and the loss in

the chest discovered. The Sheriff immediately went after him.

Instinctively the poor fellow must have felt that he was being

followed, for he doubled on his own tracks, and came back to the

hut. My father was playing poker at the time, and presently heard a

shot outside. The missing man staggered into the room and fell at

the feet of the players. ‘Humphrey,’ he gasped, ‘for the sake of my

wife, don’t let them do me up. Save me!’ My father told him to get

out or be plugged, and he pulled his gun from his belt. But at the

same time my father did not say anything when the fellow crawled

upstairs into the loft. Hot upon this came the Sheriff, asking all

sorts of questions, but never a guiding answer did he receive from

the players. Then he joined the game, just as he did in ‘The Girl

of the Golden West,’ my father living an eternity while the man was

above them. They let the Sheriff win so as to make him feel good,

and the game finally broke up. As he held his hand out to my father

for a good-night shake a drop of blood fell upon his arm. A

blanched face looked down through the rafters, a hand clutched

nervously at a shirt, now deep-stained in red. The Sheriff gazed at

the telltale spot on his arm, and smiled cynically as one can

afford to do who is master of such a situation.

“‘Did you fellows know he was up there?’ he asked, taking his gun

from his pocket.

“There was nothing to be said; the facts were against it. The

victim was caught. There was no staying the hand of the law; one

could see this very well as the Sheriff gripped his gun and drew

himself up to his full height. Standing there, his gaunt shadow

thrown against the wall, his white face etched deep with marks of

hardship and of toil, he poked the muzzle of his gun between the

rafters and fired. He had done his job, and so he left without

another word.

“Now, the morning after ‘The Girl of the Golden West’ opened, one

or two critics declared that I did not know the times; they said

that my gambler, so distinctively played by Frank Keenan, was a

caricature, that he was taken from prints rather than from life.

Why, I know the period of ’Forty-nine as I know my alphabet, and

there are things in my ‘The Girl of the Golden West’ truer than

many of the incidents in Bret Harte!”

A MASTERPIECE OF STAGECRAFT: THE STORM IN “THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST.”

Considered technically, Belasco’s production of “The Girl of the Golden

West” was a genuine masterpiece of stagecraft, and it is specially

memorable for the perfect example it exhibited of the right use of

“realism” in the Theatre,--the use, in this instance, of an artfully

created and perfect semblance of Nature in one of her wildest, most

terrible moods as a background,--always felt, yet never obtruded,--for

dramatic action the effect of which it steadily augmented and enforced.

Nothing of the kind which I have ever seen in the Theatre has fully

equalled in verisimilitude the blizzard on Cloudy Mountain as depicted

by Belasco in the Second Act of this fine melodrama--such a bitter and

cruel storm of wind-driven snow and ice as he had often suffered under

in the strolling days of his nomadic youth. When the scene, the interior

of the _Girl’s_ log-cabin, was disclosed the spectators perceived,

dimly, through windows at the back, a far vista of rugged, snow-clad

mountains which gradually faded from vision as the fall of snow

increased and the casements became obscured by sleet. Then, throughout

the progress of the action, intensifying the sense of desolation, dread,

and terror, the audience heard the wild moaning and shrill whistle of

the gale, and at moments, as the tempest rose to a climax of fury, could

see the fine-powdered snow driven in tiny sprays and eddies through

every crevice of the walls and the very fabric of the cabin quiver and

rock beneath the impact of terrific blasts of wind,--long-shrieking down

the mountain sides before they struck,--while in every fitful pause was

audible the sharp click-click-click of freezing snow driving on wall and

window.

The means by which this effect of storm was produced could easily be

specified and described; in themselves they are as simple as those

employed by Belasco to make the almost equally impressive tempest in

“Under Two Flags”: but it is a capital mistake to take the public behind

the scenes of the Theatre and thus uncover the very heart of the

players’ mystery and destroy illusion. In this instance it is enough to

say, as revealing Belasco’s liberality, thoroughness, and care in

placing his plays before the public, that operation of the necessary

mechanical contrivances required a force of thirty-two trained

artisans,--a sort of mechanical orchestra, directed by a centrally

placed conductor who was visible from the special station of every

worker. And it will, perhaps, be usefully suggestive to misguided

exponents of literal “spontaneity” in Acting to mention that the

perfectly harmonious _effect_ of this remarkable imitation of a storm

necessitated that at every performance exactly the same thing should be

done on the stage at, to the second, exactly the prearranged instant.

A pleasing device utilized by Belasco in the investiture of this

melodrama was a variant of the long familiar panorama which, moving from

bottom to top of the stage, instead of across it from one side to the

other, showed, first, a beautiful and romantic view of Cloudy Mountain

and of the _Girl’s_ cabin, perched, like an eyrie, high upon a canyon’s

side; next, a winding mountain path leading down to a settlement and

ending outside her saloon, the Polka: then, in a fleeting instant of

darkness, the scene was changed to the interior of that saloon, where

the action of the play begins. In this production, also, Belasco

banished the usual orchestra and substituted for it a band of homely

instruments,--the concertina, the banjo, and “the bones” of the old-time

minstrels,--which discoursed such old, once familiar but now

long-forgotten, airs as “Coal Oil Tommy,” “Campdown Races,” “Rosalie,

the Prairie Flower,” “Pop Goes the Weasel,” and “Old Dog Tray.”

THE PARTING OF BLANCHE BATES AND BELASCO.--“THE FIGHTING HOPE” AND

“NOBODY’S WIDOW.”

“The Girl of the Golden West” proved to be as successful as its author

had expected: also, greatly to the disadvantage of the public, it proved

to be the last important production in which, down to the present day

(1917), Blanche Bates has appeared,--although she continued to act under

the management of Belasco for about seven years. Three of those years

were devoted to “The Girl,” which was presented throughout the country.

Then, September 7, 1908, at the Belasco Theatre, Washington, Miss Bates

was brought out in a new play by Mr. William J. Hurlbut, entitled “The

Fighting Hope,” which was acted in New York, September 22, at the

Stuyvesant Theatre. It held the stage there until January 16, 1909; was

transferred to the Belasco Theatre, January 18, and remained visible

there until April 10. This was the cast:

_Burton Temple_ Charles Richman.

_Marshfield Craven_ John W. Cope.

_Robert Granger_ Howell Hansel.

_Anna_ Blanche Bates.

_Mrs. Mason_ Loretta Wells.

“The Fighting Hope” served as a professional vehicle for Miss Bates

during two seasons. On October 24, 1910, at the Euclid Avenue Opera

House, Cleveland, Ohio, Belasco presented her in “Nobody’s Widow,” by

Mr. Avery Hopwood: that play was first acted in New York, November 14,

that year, at the Hudson Theatre, with the following cast:

_Roxana Clayton_ Blanche Bates.

_Betty Jackson_ Adelaide Prince.

_Countess Manuela Valencia_ Edith Campbell.

_Fanny Owens_ Dorothy Shoemaker.

_Duke of Moreland_ Bruce McRae.

_Ned Stephens_ Rex McDougall.

_Baron Reuter_ Henry Schumann-Heink.

_Peter_ Westhrop Saunders.

Both those plays, though they enjoyed profitable careers, were, in fact,

stop-gaps: they had never been produced but that “the strong necessity

of the times enforced”: “Blanche wanted to appear in ‘drawing-room’

drama,” Belasco has said to me; “I was hard pressed and I took what I

could get.” Both those plays owed their profitable careers entirely to

Belasco,--to his unremitting and unacknowledged diligence in the labor

of revising them and making them feasible for stage use and to the

perfection of detail with which he invested their production and caused

them to be acted. A whimsical remark which he once made to me, in

conversation about another play, applies with force to both these

ventures: “I have,” he said, “first and last, paid many authors handsome

royalties for the privilege of working like a slave on their plays,

without credit and generally without thanks, and making them into

popular successes. Each time I have solemnly sworn I’ll never do it

again--yet, somehow, I do! But I live in hope that some day somebody

will bring me a _finished play_ that only needs production.”

“The Fighting Hope,” even as rectified and notwithstanding its measure

of popular success, was but a flimsy fabric,--crude in construction and

improbable in plot, though at times theatrically effective. In it is

displayed an experience of a loyal wife, _Anna Granger_, who clings to

“the fighting hope” of vindicating her husband and rescuing him from

the consequences of crime. That husband, a peculiarly contemptible

scoundrel, has been detected in a forgery; has been tried, convicted,

and imprisoned. His wife, believing him to be innocent and the victim of

_Burton Temple_, president of a fiduciary institution, obtains

employment in the service of that person and becomes his confidential

secretary. In that capacity, after discovering and shamefully destroying

a letter which establishes the guilt of her husband, she discovers,

also, that she is beloved by _Temple_ and that a reciprocal sentiment is

developing in her own bosom. And then, having confessed her identity,

her wrong conduct, and her regard, she is relieved from a distressing

dilemma by the convenient taking off of her husband,--who, having

escaped from the State Prison at Sing Sing, is overtaken, shot, and

killed by officers of the law who pursue him. In the hands of any other

manager than Belasco, instead of enduring for two years, this piece--if

it had ever been produced at all--would have been relegated to the

regions of tall timber and high grass within a fortnight.

“Nobody’s Widow” is an ephemeral farce, the central idea of which is

denial of an established relationship in circumstances which might cause

absurd perplexities and ridiculous consequences,--such, in general

character, as ensue when _Charles Courtly_, in “London Assurance,” on

being introduced to his father, _Sir Harcourt_, blandly greets him as a

new acquaintance. The chief female character, _Roxana_, acted by Miss

Bates, has, in Europe, met and married a “_Mr. Clayton_,” who, actually,

is an English nobleman, the _Duke of Moreland_; but having, on their

wedding-day, found him in the embrace of a former mistress, _Roxana_ has

repudiated and left him,--privately instituting proceedings for divorce,

and presently apprising her friends in America that her husband, of whom

they have heard, but only by his assumed name of _Clayton_, is dead, and

that she, accordingly, is a widow. Later she visits some of those

friends at Palm Beach, Florida, and there she is, by chance, confronted

by her husband, then a visitor to the same hostess, but bearing his

right name. _Roxana’s_ husband endeavors to reinstate himself in her

affections, but, persistently and with alternate pleasantry and sarcasm,

he is treated by her as an accidental acquaintance. _Roxana_ assures him

that, as “_Mr. Clayton_” he is “dead”; that she has never seen him

before; that to her he is, as the _Duke of Moreland_, nobody; that she

is nobody’s widow. That attitude she maintains until apprised of her

divorce, when she becomes conscious of a sudden access of tenderness for

him;

[Illustration:

Photograph by Mishkin Studio. Belasco’s Collection.

TO DAVID BELASCO

A souvenir of the production of the opera, “The Girl of the Golden

West,” by Giacomo Puccini

G. Gatti-Casazza David Belasco A. Toscanini Giacomo Puccini

]

and, eventually,--though not until after various trips and stumbles on

the track of reconciliation,--she first allows herself to be again

married to him, and then allows herself to be convinced of his honest

intentions and the sincerity of his love. A farce is well enough in its

way: but to record industry of such a manager as Belasco and such an

actress as Blanche Bates in such stuff as “Nobody’s Widow” is only to

record wasted opportunity and disappointed expectation. In conversation

with me Belasco has once or twice intimated some thought of proposing

the resumption of Miss Bates’ management: it might be greatly to the

public gain if that actress should return to his direction; but, while I

earnestly hope it may come about, I do not believe it ever will:

“The Bird of Time has but a little way

To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.”

A GREAT NIGHT.--BELASCO AT THE METROPOLITAN.--A GENEROUS ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

During the season of 1906-’07 Belasco’s friend the Italian musical

composer Puccini, who desired to write an opera on a characteristically

American subject, made a visit to our country for the purpose of

selecting one. While in New York, in January, 1907, he attended

performances by Miss Frances Starr in “The Rose of the Rancho” and by

Miss Bates in “The Girl,”--at the Academy of Music. After considerable

cogitation his choice fell upon the latter, and while travelling to his

home in Italy he wrote the following letter to Belasco:

(_Giacomo Puccini to David Belasco._)

Hôtel de Londres, Paris [France],

March 7, 1907.

“Dear Mr. Belasco:--

“I was exceedingly sorry to have left New York without seeing you

once more. I have been thinking so much of your play, ‘The Girl of

the Golden West,’ and I cannot help thinking that with certain

modifications it might easily be adapted for the operatic stage.

Would you be good enough to send me a copy of the play, to Torre

del Lago, Pisa, Italia? I could then have it translated, study it

more carefully, and write to you my further impressions.

“I cannot express to you all the admiration I feel for your great

talent, and how much impressed I was at the drama I saw at your

theatre.

“With kindest regards, and hoping to hear from you soon,

“Yours sincerely,

“GIACOMO PUCCINI.”

Puccini’s wish was immediately complied with, and upon the basis of

Belasco’s melodrama he wrote his opera of “La Fanciulla del

West,”--which was sung, in Italian, “for the first time on any stage,”

December 10, 1910, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York: the

libretto was “arranged” by

[Illustration:

IN REMEMBRANCE

PUCCINI’S OPERA “THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST”

Giacomo Puccini Arturo Toscanini

(P. by Dupont) (P. by Dupont)

Belasco

(P. by Abbe)

G. Gatti-Casazza Otto H. Kahn

(P. by Dupont) (P. by Pach)

Emmy Destinn

(P. by White)

Pasquale Amato Enrico Caruso

(P. by White) (P. by White)

]

Signori G. Zangarini and C. Civinni: it is, substantially, a

translation, until the last act, when a scene is introduced showing the

imminent lynching of _Johnson_ by “the boys” in a convenient grove of

redwood trees and his rescue by the _Girl_. This scene, as I understand,

was originally planned by Belasco for use in his play but was by him

discarded. “La Fanciulla del West” was sung for the first time by an

extraordinary cast, which should be recorded. This is it:

_Minnie_ Emmy Destinn.

_Dick Johnson_, (_Ramirez_, the road-agent) Enrico Caruso.

_Jack Rance_ Pasquale Amato.

_Nick_, Bartender at the “Polka” Albert Reiss.

_Ashby_, Wells-Fargo Agent Adamo Didur.

_Sonora_ } { Dinh Gilly.

_Trin_ } { Angelo Bada.

_Sid_ } { Giulio Rossi.

_Bello_ } Miners { Vincenzo Reschiglian.

_Harry_ } { Pietro Audisio.

_Joe_ } { Glenn Hall.

_Happy_ } { Antonio Pini-Corsi.

_Larkens_ } { Bernard Bégué.

_Billy_, an Indian Georges Bourgeois.

_Wowkle_, his Squaw Marie Mattfeld.

_Jake Wallace_, a Minstrel Andrea de Segurola.

_José Castro_ Edoardo Missiano.

_The Pony Express Rider_ Lamberto Belleri.

_Men of the Camp and Boys of the Ridge._

CONDUCTOR ARTURO TOSCANINI.

Belasco felt profound interest in the production of his friend’s opera

and directed many of the rehearsals, intent, as he has declared, “to

make the artists act as well as sing.” That, doubtless, was a laudable

ambition,--but, practically, it is, in the very nature of things,

impossible of fulfilment, whether by Belasco or another. Opera singers

may be, indeed, frequently are, dramatic in temperament: they are not

and can not simultaneously be excellent as actors and as singers.

Sometimes a comparatively poor singer becomes, in opera, a tolerably

good actor,--but that is the limit of achievement in this direction.

True _impersonation_, as made known on the dramatic stage,--in, for

example, Forrest’s _Othello_, Davenport’s _Macbeth_, Jefferson’s _Rip

Van Winkle_, Barrett’s _Cassius_, Irving’s _Mephistopheles_,--never has

been and never can be displayed on the operatic stage.

Talking with me about the first performance of this opera, Belasco said:

“It was a great night for me, and I took unbounded pleasure in it and

felt much honored when I found myself taking curtain calls with the

author, Toscanini, Gatti-Casazza, Caruso, Miss Destinn, and the rest.

Puccini, as always, was simple and frankly demonstrative in his delight.

The singers were all wild with enthusiasm--I was never so much be-kissed

in my life!--but I think I was, perhaps, most interested in that

wonderful man Arturo Toscanini. He seemed to me one of those

self-contained fellows--calm on the surface but burning white-hot

inside. To me it was thrilling to watch him conduct, and he did so at

that first performance without a score, as though the work were a

classic long familiar to him and held in memory.”

Belasco’s labor on the production of “La Fanciulla” was wholly one of

love, as he declined to accept any payment for all his arduous work at

rehearsals. In the programme of the first performance appeared a notice

saying: “The Metropolitan Opera Company desires to make public

acknowledgment of its indebtedness, and to express its cordial thanks,

to Mr. David Belasco for his most valuable and kind assistance in the

stage production of ‘The Girl of the Golden West.’” And among his most

cherished possessions is a sumptuous album containing signed portraits

of all the principal singers who participated in the opera, as well as

of Puccini, Toscanini, and Gatti-Casazza, together with an exquisitely

illuminated copy of the programme on vellum and an appreciative

inscription, also illuminated on vellum. This gracious token was taken

to Belasco’s studio and delivered to him by a committee, representing

the opera company, composed of Messrs. Otto Kahn, Henry Rogers

Winthrop, Robert Goelet, and John Brown.

BELASCO AND THE MESSRS. SHUBERT.

An incident of Belasco’s career in management which can conveniently be

recorded here is his alliance with the Messrs. Shubert. That alliance

was arranged in 1904-’05, when Belasco was in active conflict with the

Theatrical Syndicate, by the late S. S. Shubert, of whom and of their

business association he writes: “I found him an earnest young man, with

the power to make friends and possessed of an irrepressible enthusiasm.”

Shubert, with two brothers, began theatre management (or, rather,

correctly speaking, theatre control) in Syracuse, New York, where they

leased the Bastable Theatre. They subsequently obtained control of the

Herald Square Theatre in New York, and then, directly or indirectly, of

many other theatres in various cities of the country, especially in the

smaller places which are known as “the one-night stands.” “You have

attractions and a reputation,” urged Shubert, addressing Belasco, “but

no theatres out of New York: we have theatres but lack attractions and

reputation. Join us, and all our out-of-town houses shall be at your

disposal.” The arrangement

[Illustration: THE OPERA OF “THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST”--

A Souvenir, to Belasco]

thus proposed was made and it had mutual advantages, but it was more

valuable to the Shubert Brothers than to Belasco. Possessed of contracts

to “book” the latter’s “attractions” the Shuberts were strengthened in

their relations with theatre managers not dominated by the Trust who

desired to have those attractions presented in their houses,--and thus

they were, in turn, strengthened in dealings with managers of other

“attractions.” The Belasco-Shubert alliance lasted for about four years.

The time came when Mr. Lee Shubert (who had become the head of the

Shubert Company) condescendingly intimated in public that he did not

believe that anything could be accomplished by the methods of opposition

to theatrical despotism which were long employed by Belasco and by the

shrewd, indefatigable, vindictive H. G. Fiske and his intrepid,

brilliant, accomplished wife; nevertheless, if it had not been for their

opposition, the subjugation of the American Theatre to injurious

monopoly would, in all human probability, have been so complete that Mr.

Lee Shubert and his associates would never have found an opening through

which to break.

S. S. Shubert died, May 12, 1905, in consequence of injuries sustained

in a train wreck on the Pennsylvania Railroad, near Lochiel,

Pennsylvania, on the 11th. Belasco considers his death “a hard blow”

and is “sure he would have occupied a great place in the history of the

American Theatre. He had keen business instincts, a lovable nature, and

was the soul of honor.” He would have required to possess a more

extensive equipment to entitle him to the eminence Belasco believes he

would have attained. I had no personal acquaintance with Mr. Shubert: he

never _did_ anything of notable importance as a theatrical manager,

properly so called. His brother, Mr. Lee Shubert, through the shifts and

chances of fortune, at one time almost held the destiny of our Theatre

in his hand,--but he is merely a commercial exploiter of the Stage and

consequently made nothing of his opportunity.

Belasco was to have accompanied S. S. Shubert on the journey which

proved his last and, had he done so, might have perished with him. “I

have had three such ‘close calls,’” he has said to me: “Once, when I was

a lad, I gave up an excursion trip on the Sacramento River to please my

mother,--and the excursion boat was blown up soon after she left the

dock. The second was when, at the last minute, I cancelled a trip to

Cincinnati, with Charles Frohman. He took a secretary with him, the

train was wrecked, and the secretary, sitting beside him where I would

have been, was killed. The third was the trip with ‘Sam’ Shubert. We

were to have gone to Pittsburgh together, on business connected with the

Duquesne Theatre there, which, with the Shuberts, I took over and which

was renamed the Belasco. If I had gone I am sure that I should have been

killed in the wreck.” It is probable that he would have been: the train

on which Shubert travelled to his death “side-swiped” a freight train,

loaded with dynamite: many lives were lost.

THE ADVENT OF FRANCES STARR.--BELASCO’S “THE ROSE OF THE RANCHO.”

Frances Starr was born at Albany, New York, June 6, 1880, and made her

first appearance on the stage as _Lucy Dorrison_, in Robertson’s “Home,”

with a stock company, in that city, under the management of the late

Frederic Bond. During the next six years she gained experience in

various stock companies,--at the Murray Hill Theatre, New York; in San

Francisco, in Boston, and at Proctor’s 125th Street Theatre, New

York,--and, February 12, 1906, she appeared, in association with Charles

Richman, as _Nell Colfax_, in “Gallops,”--a weak echo of Boucicault’s

horse-racing plays of “The Flying Scud” and “The Jilt.” Belasco first

saw her when she was acting at the Murray Hill, and his attention was

again called to her by his brother Frederick, who, in 1905, wrote to him

from San Francisco, praising her in high terms. Writing about Miss

Starr, Belasco has given this account of her employment by

him--certainly the most fortunate event of her life:

“When I first saw her play I watched her performance with the

closest attention. Her entrance was greeted by a spontaneous

outburst of applause. She was just a young girl then, a sweet-faced

girl, delicately formed, with a beautiful forehead and fine,

intelligent eyes. I was most favorably impressed by her

performance, but at the time I had no part for her.... Her

opportunity came during the second season of ‘The Music Master.’

Miss Minnie Dupree was to leave the company before the close of the

season and I needed some one to take her place. I remembered Miss

Starr and, with my friend and stage manager, William Dean, I went

to the Garrick to see her in ‘Gallops.’...” In that play “the hero

staked his all on a horse race, and the future happiness of the

young lovers hung in the balance as the race took place. The

heroine and a coaching party were near the track, and Miss Starr

stood on the steps of the coach, facing the audience. As the race

was being described Miss Starr’s facial expression was so

remarkable that she held the audience for several minutes. The

various expressions of hope, despair, and joy came and went

according to the movements of the horse. The tumult of applause was

a tribute not to the play nor to the scene, but to the perfection

of Miss Starr’s art. And as an exhibition of pantomime I have seen

nothing to surpass it.... I decided that I must have her under my

management, and I gave instructions to Mr. Dean to send for her to

ask her to sign a contract as soon as possible. Just before the

final curtain fell the young actress looked at me, and as our eyes

met I fancied I read in them the question: ‘Have I pleased you?’ On

the way back to my theatre I was haunted by the pathetic appeal so

silently thrown across the footlights, and I determined to do what

I could to save one little girl the sleepless night I felt sure was

in store for her. ‘Dean,’ I said, ‘don’t wait until morning.

Telephone Miss Starr to-night and say I wish to see her to-morrow.’

Mr. Dean advised me to wait. He thought it would be poor judgment

on my part to show any eagerness; that Miss Starr would be sure to

take advantage of it and raise her salary, but I insisted and he

telephoned to her. As I expected, she was in her room, anxious,

nervous, and wondering if my visit to the theatre would mean an

engagement for her. Later, she told me of her relief and happiness

when the telephone call came. It did not save her from a sleepless

night after all, but her wakefulness was the result of joyous

anticipation rather than anxiety. The appointment was made for

10.30 in the morning. When I arrived at 9, Mr. Dean came to me,

smiling broadly. ‘Miss Starr is in my office,’ he said; ‘she has

been waiting since 8 o’clock.’ I found her even more attractive

than I had imagined. Her hair was soft and light, her eyes deep

blue, varying into gray, and the changing expressions of her

earnest face were delightful. She was pale and tearful. ‘It has

always been my wish to work for you,’ she said. I learned that her

manager at the Garrick Theatre intended to ‘star’ her in a play,

but she expressed a willingness to come with me if only in a ‘bit’

five lines long. I offered her the leading part of _Helen_ in ‘The

Music Master,’ and she was delighted. I told her to go to Mr. Dean

and make business arrangements. ‘I don’t care what salary I get,’

she exclaimed. ‘The only agreement I want is that you don’t change

your mind.’ I insisted, however, that a contract be signed, and

when Mr. Dean made it out she wanted to put her name to it at once,

but I advised her to take it home and read it over. She took it

away with her, but afterwards confessed that she stopped in a

telegraph office on the way to her hotel and signed it!...”

The first play in which Belasco presented Miss Starr as a leading

performer, heading an important theatrical company--less than six months

after he had seen her in “Gallops”--was “The Rose of the Rancho.” This

piece is based on an earlier one, by Richard Walton Tully, called

“Juanita,” which had been produced in Los Angeles with the excellent

actor John H. Gilmour in the principal male part. Mr. Tully’s play was

verbose, diffuse, and coarse in texture. Belasco, after once rejecting

it, being in urgent need of a vehicle for Miss Starr, read it again and

agreed to “accept it, provided I might have the privilege of rewriting

it.” This “privilege” Belasco has exercised in many instances--to his

loss and the immense advantage of various inconsequential and ingrateful

amateurs of dramatic authorship. His stipulation was acceded to by Mr.

Tully, and Belasco, working as usual under the stress of haste and the

distraction of many projects, revised, curtailed, amended, and

reconstructed “Juanita,” which, in its final form as “The Rose

[Illustration: FRANCES STARR

Inscription:

“_To him who made me what I am and inspired what I hope to be,--with

ever living love and gratitude._”

Photograph by Strauss Payton.

Belasco’s Collection.

]

of the Rancho,” gained abundant success. It was first acted, under that

name, at the Majestic Theatre, Boston, November 12, 1906, and was

brought out in New York, at the Belasco Theatre, November 27: it held

the stage there until June 29, 1907.

There is, in this play, a glance at a disgraceful episode in American

history,--the technically legal, but outrageously unjust and brutally

tyrannical, seizure of the estates of Spaniards in California, after the

Mexican War; but the purpose was not so much to relumine a remote and

half-forgotten rascality as to display the incidents of a romantic love

story associated with the nefarious proceedings of that distressful and

turbulent time and place. That purpose Belasco accomplished in pictorial

settings of uncommon beauty. The scenery of Southern California is

inexpressibly charming, because it combines tranquil loveliness with

awful grandeur and is everywhere invested with poetic mystery. The

stupendous and austere mountains, the boundless, lonely plains, the

balmy orange groves, the graceful palm trees, the fragrant magnolias,

the abundance of wild flowers, the glorious blue skies and the pure,

sweet air,--these and many other beauties unite to make that region a

paradise. It is in Southern California that the _Rose of the Rancho_

blooms, and Belasco, who knows and loves that country well, made his

stage a garden of luxury and a dream of splendor to convey that

charm--presenting a series of pictures which have never been excelled

and seldom equalled. The investiture of this play, indeed, blending old

Spanish architecture with a semi-tropical wealth of natural beauty, was

literally magnificent and considerably excelled the worth of the play

itself. This is a synopsis[2] of that fabric,--from which it will be

seen that the theme is, to some extent, the same as that treated in

Helen Hunt Jackson’s prolix and tedious novel of “Ramona”:

The scene is laid amid the sleepy, picturesque Spanish missions of

Southern California. The plot deals with the great tragedy that

underlies California history--the taking of the Spanish inhabitants’

homes by land-jumping Americans. _The Rose of the Rancho_ is _Juanita_,

the youngest daughter of the _Castro_ family. Through pride and

indolence the _Castros_ have neglected to make their property secure to

them by filing an entry with the American land agent, and things have

come to a serious pass with them. One of the most notorious land-jumpers

in the state, _Kinkaid_, of Beaver, Neb., has come to San Juan, with his

outfit, to take the whole valley. At the same time another American has

appeared on the scene,--_Mr. Kearney_, of Washington,--a government

agent sent to investigate the land disputes.

Previous to the rising of the curtain upon the beautiful mission garden

the latter has met and fallen in love with the fascinating _Juanita_.

Because of enmity toward all gringoes she refuses to treat him civilly,

but she meets him by accident every day, unknown to her mother, who

arranges (according to the custom) that _Juanita_ shall marry a young

Spanish spark, from Monterey--_Don Luis de la Torre_. The girl’s father

was an American, and there begins a struggle between her loyalty to her

mother, her Spanish relatives and friends, on the one side, and the

young American who comes with the offer of his love and aid, on the

other. _Juanita_, given her first kiss, lets the blood of her father

direct her actions. She gives the data necessary for a registration to

_Kearney_, who has no authority to interfere with _Kinkaid_, but who

sends his friend, _Lieutenant Larkin_, to Monterey to make the entry for

the _Castros_. _Kearney_ remains behind to delay _Kinkaid_ as long as he

can. _Larkin_ agrees to bring back the state militia for _Kearney’s_

protection. Meanwhile, the mother has learned that her daughter has

tossed a geranium to a gringo (signifying, “I love you”), and _Juanita_

is locked in her room.

The Second Act takes place in the patio-court of the old _Castro_ ranch

house. In spite of the danger that threatens, the mother is giving the

engagement party she has planned. _Juanita’s_ friends are present. There

are Spanish dances and the throwing of cascarones, and _Don Luis_

appears to claim his bride. _Juanita_ is defiant, and when they are

about to betroth her she declares herself to be a gringo and the

promised wife of a gringo. For this her mother disowns her, and is about

to turn her out of the house, when _Kinkaid_ and his men attack it and

break in, and _Juanita_ is thunderstruck to find the man she has trusted

among them. The crowd of riffraff insult the women, who are protected by

_Kearney_. He, however, must pretend that he is upon _Kinkaid’s_ side.

_Juanita_ appeals to him, and is rebuffed. _Kinkaid_ agrees to wait

until dawn before taking possession--thereby giving _Kearney_ the time

desired. The latter gets away from the land-jumper and finds _Juanita_

to explain. She lashes him with her tongue for his betrayal of her

people, and when he tries to make her listen she strikes him. Nothing

daunted, he forces her to listen to his explanation. She tells him that

she thinks he is a liar, but--she will wait till morning to see if the

militia comes.

The Third Act takes place upon the roof of the ranch house. Dawn is

coming, and no help has arrived. _Kearney_ makes _Kinkaid_ a prisoner as

a hostage to protect the women. Unfortunately, _Don Luis_, jealous of

the American lover of _Juanita_, in an effort to compel him to fight a

duel, lets _Kinkaid_ go. The latter joins his men and an attack is

imminent. The old Franciscan, _Father Antonio_, assembles “his children”

in prayer for delivery, the sunrise hymn of the Californians. This

delivery comes in the shape of the long-awaited militia from Monterey.

The rancho is saved, but the mother will not see her daughter go to an

American. She forces her daughter to choose, and this she does--in favor

of the gringo.

* * * * *

That is a simple, almost trite, story; but Belasco contrived to tell it

in _action_ more than in words, and his telling of it proceeds from one

sensation to another with cumulative effect. Divested of all outward

flourishes, it is seen to be the portrayal of a conflict between virtue,

animated by love, and villany, impelled by cupidity and brutal license.

The vulgarian would seize the estate of the old Spanish family. The

hero, who loves its young mistress, would save it for her; and in order

to accomplish that object he is compelled to pretend fraternity with

her oppressor,--for which reason she temporarily mistrusts him; but his

purpose is accomplished, his fidelity is proved, and his love is

rewarded. In all this, happily, there is no examination of the remote

causes of the universal passion; no philosophic essay on masculine

strength as opposed to feminine weakness; no treatise on elective

affinities. The play, in short, is an old-fashioned melodrama in a

new-fashioned dress; one of those plays that the spectator observes with

an interested desire to ascertain how it will turn out. No new type of

character is presented, nor is a special attempt made to variegate the

old types. _Kearney_, of Washington, is the handsome, gallant,

expeditious young cavalier who has loved and rescued the endangered

maiden in a hundred plays of the past. _Kinkaid_, of Beaver, is the same

old blackguard and bully who seems victorious for a moment, but is

always finally discomfited, in the chronic story of the Far West. _Don

Luis_ is the debonair but disappointed suitor, from whom the _Bride of

Netherby_ always rides away. _Father Antonio_ is the good and gentle

priest who cheers the drooping spirit and bestows ecclesiastical

benediction. The only persons who savor of exceptional quality are

_Señora Kenton_ and her daughter _Juanita_, _the Rose_,--the one a stern

and formidable woman, vital with Spanish hatred of the invading

American; the other, a passionate, capricious, wilful girl, who can be

sweet and tender, but who is customarily piquant, independent, and

resolute in her own course: characters strongly reminiscent of the

matron and the heroine in “Ramona.” But, all the same, the old tale of

strength protecting weakness, stratagem defeating duplicity, and love

triumphant over hate, pleased, as it always has pleased, and as it

always will continue to please--“till all the seas run dry.” Although,

intrinsically, not exceptional as a work of dramatic art, “The Rose of

the Rancho” has positive and abundant felicity of theatrical merit,

imparted by the skilful hand of Belasco, and the production of it was

worthy of his brightest fame. This was the original cast of it:

_Kearney_, of Washington Charles Richman.

_Don Luis de la Torre_ A. Hamilton Revelle.

_Padre Antonio_ Frank Losee.

_Lieutenant Larkin_ William Elliott.

_Kinkaid_ John W. Cope.

_Rigsby_ Wayne Arey.

_Sunol_ J. Harry Benrimo.

_Tomaso_ Frank Westerton.

_Ortega_ Norbert Cills.

_Goya_ Candido Yllera.

_Pico_ Fermin Ruiz.

_Fra Mateo_ Frank de Felice.

_A Gardener_ Richard S. Conover.

_Salvador_ Gilmore Scott.

_Pascual_ Salvatore Zito.

_Benito_ Vincent de Pascale.

_Estudilla_ Julio Grau.

_Yorba_ Francesco Recchio.

_Cadet_ Regino Lopez.

_El Tecolero_ Virgilio Arriaza.

_Bruno_ C. A. Burnett.

_Manuel_ Leonardo Piza Lopez.

_Señora Dona Petrona Castro_ Marta Melean.

_Señora Kenton_ Grace Gayler Clark.

_Juanita_, called _La Rosa del Rancho_ Frances Starr.

_Trinidad_ Jane Cowl.

_Beatriz_ Catherine Tower.

_Carlota_ Atalanta Nicolaides.

_Guadalupe_ Maria Davis.

_Señora Alcantara_ Regina Weil.

_Agrada_ Louise Coleman.

_Kinkaid’s Ranchmen_, _Caballeros_, _Vaqueros_, _Musicos_,

_Servants_, _Etc._

_Señoritas_, _Dueñas_, _the Child of the Dance_, _Etc._

Miss Starr, in her performance of _Juanita_, manifested impetuosity of

temperament combined with charm of personality, and by her arch behavior

as a coquette, together with the vigor and sparkle of her demeanor as a

wounded, doubting, resentful, and angry young woman, gained and merited

general admiration.--A significant thought as to expedition

[Illustration:

Photograph by Byron. Belasco’s Collection.

FRANCES STARR AS _JAUNITA_, IN “THE ROSE OF THE RANCHO”] and indolence

in the fibre of contrasted races is conveyed in two casual remarks in

this play: “Civilization,” says the “land-jumper,” _Kinkaid_, with

blatant vulgarity of manner, when announcing his purpose of legalized

robbery, “must progress”; and when it is found that certain muskets

which have been collected for use in defending the _Castro_ ranch are

useless because of lack of powder, the Spanish cavalier is heard to

murmur: “I meant to have got that powder _to-morrow_.” Charles Richman,

as the intrepid _Kearney_, and John W. Cope, as the sinister _Kinkaid_,

gave performances of sterling merit, because true to life and

symmetrical and fluent in expression,--the one presenting, in a notably

earnest spirit, a sonsy, healthful, interesting, thoroughly good fellow:

the other assuming, in a painfully natural way, the obnoxious

characteristics,--including a repulsive personal appearance,--commonly,

and correctly, ascribed to the Western breed of ruffian.

Belasco has, in drama, made use of the element of natural

accessories,--meaning peculiarities of climate, cloud, sunshine, rain,

storm, calm, the sound of the sea, the ripple of leaves in the wind, the

swirl of dust, the gentle falling of flower petals, the incessant

variations of light according to place and time, whether morning or

evening, noonday or midnight, and so following,--with an unerring skill

akin to that of Wilkie Collins in the writing of fiction. In “The Rose

of the Rancho” he took almost unparalleled pains to render his effects

perfect. Writing of this work, he has recorded:

“To get the strong sunlight of my beloved California and the

wonderful shades and tones of sunset, night, and dawn as they come

out there I had my electrician, Louis Hartman, carry our

experiments to the point of making our own colors for our lamps, as

we could find none on the market that would give me the desired

result. At the present time we mix all our own colors for the

lights used in my productions, but in those days this had not been

done. I took _twenty-five electricians_ with me to Boston, for the

opening of ‘The Rose’: usually, two or three are enough with any

company....”

A NEW PROJECT:--THE SECOND BELASCO THEATRE.

Although Belasco held the Belasco Theatre under a lease with an option

of renewal, he was at all times during the early years of his theatre

management conscious of a certain weakness in his position: an

unforeseen disaster--a fire, for instance,--might leave him with many

theatrical enterprises and no metropolitan theatre to present them in.

“Besides,” he writes to me: “not only was I always confronted by the

fact that the lease of my Forty-second Street house might not be

renewed, but also it was natural that I should desire to have a theatre

_all my own_, in the making of which I could carry out, fully, my ideas

of stage construction, lighting, and seating.” The result of this desire

and of his wary vigilance to maintain managerial freedom is the second

Belasco Theatre (which originally was named David Belasco’s Stuyvesant

Theatre), which was built by Meyer R. Bimberg (18--- 1908), on designs

made by Belasco and under his personal superintendence. The cornerstone

of that theatre was laid on December 5, 1906. David Warfield came from

Philadelphia, where he was acting, to participate; Miss Bates came from

Boston; Miss Starr was at the time filling her first engagement in New

York in “The Rose of the Rancho.” Belasco, those players, his business

associates, and a numerous company of friends gathered round the site of

the new theatre. Miss Starr deposited in a niche beneath the bed of the

cornerstone a copper casket containing various records and programmes of

Belasco’s productions, photographs of himself and of the chief players

then appearing under his direction, and a miscellaneous assortment of

souvenirs, cards, and “good luck pieces” contributed by various friends.

Miss Bates then spread the mortar upon which the stone was to be laid

and uttered this touching sentiment as she did so: “Here’s hoping that

Mr. Belasco will stick to all of us, and we and all his friends will

stick to Mr. Belasco, as this mortar will eternally stick to this

stone.”

The cornerstone was then swung into place, settled, and declared to be

“well and truly laid,” whereupon Belasco’s daughters, Reina and Augusta,

each broke a bottle of champagne against it, saying, in unison, “David

Belasco’s Stuyvesant Theatre.” The dramatist Bronson Howard (who had

risen from a sick-bed to attend this ceremony) then spoke, saying:

“My dear Public and Friends: This is one of the greatest pleasures

of my whole life--to be here to-day to dedicate the theatre that

David Belasco is building. He has always given of his best in the

past and you know what he is doing now. This theatre and the plays

that it will house will live in the Future even as Wallack’s,

Daly’s, and Palmer’s, of the Past, live now in the Present. Here,

where we stand to-day, will stand the future Temple of Dramatic Art

in America. David Belasco has played a great part in the

advancement of the drama in this country and he will play a greater

one. He has never disappointed us and he never will. His heart and

soul will be in every brick of this theatre and in every production

he makes on its stage.

“Belasco and I have been friends and co-workers for many years. We

first met when the gods were favoring me most,--when, long, long

ago, he came, a young man out of the West, with black hair and

eager face, to begin his career here. I was fortunate enough to put

into his hands, in his first position as stage manager, at the

Madison Square Theatre, the manuscript of my play ‘Young Mrs.

Winthrop.’ I want to tell you an anecdote connected with that. I

expected, when I gave it to him, that I should be obliged to do a

lot of work on it; but after he had had it a few days he came to me

and told me of many beautiful things in my play that I did not know

were there! I decided, then, to keep away and did not see the play

until the dress rehearsal. I found I had done well to leave it all

to him. [Turning toward Mr. Belasco and stretching out his hand to

him.] Come here, David! I am proud to clasp your hand, to utter a

word of thanks for all you have done for us, for the workers in the

Theatre; to congratulate you and say ‘God bless you and give you

success!’”

Writing of this occasion and of his new theatre, Belasco says:

“With all my associates gathered round me I felt like the _Vicar of

Wakefield_ when he got out of gaol and once more assembled his

family round his hearth!

“How quickly a theatre grows old-fashioned! Every summer I make

improvements in this house and have already spent enough money to

build another theatre. At the present time of writing I have just

installed a new lighting system, the result of years of

experimenting by Louis Hartman, my valued old friend and

electrician, who is to be found in the theatre from morning until

night, and whose only pleasure is in his work. I think we have

revolutionized stage lights, and I have no doubt that our

innovations will find their way to foreign countries.... As my

whole life is passed in my theatre, I have a studio there of

several rooms devoted to my work and collections. In the latter I

take great pride....

“I have picked up much interesting furniture for my workroom, but,

despite the joy I take in these things, I write with greatest

comfort on a little sewing-table covered with green baize,--a relic

of my attic days.... I really know of no other manager whose

delight in his playhouse is greater than mine.... Here I spend my

life and here I shall, I hope, end my days.”

The second Belasco Theatre (originally called David Belasco’s Stuyvesant

Theatre, by which name it was known until the fall of 1910) stands on

the north side of West Forty-fourth Street, between Broadway and Sixth

Avenue, on lots Nos. 111 to 121, inclusive. The site has a front of 105

feet and a depth of 100 feet. The building is of red brick and white

stone, simple and graceful, in the style of architecture denominated as

Colonial. It was, originally, three stories high, with a rectangular,

tower-like eminence at the southwest corner. The entrance from the

street is into a small lobby, at the right of which are large swinging

doors opening into a clear space which extends, behind the orchestra

seats, parallel with Forty-fourth Street, from side to side of the

auditorium. In this playhouse,

[Illustration:

Photograph by Byron. Author’s Collection.

BELASCO IN HIS WORKSHOP

INSCRIPTION ON BACK:

“Genius _doesn’t burn_ this morning, dear friend!--D. B.”

]

as in the first Belasco Theatre, there is a handsome screen of carved

wood and crystal glass at the rear of the orchestra, which protects the

audience from drafts of air. The orchestra and balcony chairs are of

heavy wood, upholstered in rich, dark brown leather, the back of each

chair being embossed with the emblematic bee. The decoration of the

interior is opulent and dark in tone,--deep browns, blues, and greens

with dull amber and orange being the prevailing colors. There is a large

painting above the proscenium opening and on either side are several

mural paintings, of various sizes, with here and there a rich tapestry

hanging. The groups and figures in these paintings are

symbolical,--Music, Grief, Tranquillity, Allurement, Blind Love, Poetry,

and the like being depicted. The ceiling is raftered into twenty-two

panels, which are set with rich-colored stained glass and illumined from

above. Each panel contains two shields, with heraldic mantling,--among

the coats-of-arms displayed being those of Shakespeare, Goethe,

Schiller, Racine, Molière, Goldsmith, Sheridan, and Tennyson. The

seating capacity of the theatre is now (1917) about 1,000 persons,--430

on the orchestra floor, 320 in the balcony, and 240 in the gallery.

There are no supporting pillars in the auditorium, the balcony and

gallery being constructed on cantilevers, so that an unobstructed view

of the stage is afforded from every part of it.

The stage was carefully designed with the purpose of facilitating in

every possible way the setting and shifting of scenery. It is eighty

feet wide and twenty-seven feet from the curtain-line to the back-wall.

The proscenium opening is thirty-two feet wide and thirty feet high. The

“gridiron” is seventy-six feet above the stage; the fly galleries, of

which there are two, one on each side of the stage and thirty feet above

it, have forty-five feet of clear space between them. In recent years an

adjustable apron, five feet wide, has been constructed in front of the

curtain-line, covering the musicians’ pit. The stage can be opened at

any desired spot, and the centre of it is an elevator-trap, ten feet

from front to back and twenty feet long. Upon this trap the

paraphernalia of an entire scene can be lowered to, or raised from, the

level of a cellar floor, thirty feet below the stage.

The original cost of this theatre, including the land upon which it

stands, was more than $750,000, and various alterations and improvements

made in it down to the present time (1917) have increased the total

investment to nearly $1,000,000. In the summer of 1909 a one-story and

mezzanine addition was built upon the roof of the Stuyvesant, in which

Belasco has made his studio,--a strange, romantic place in which he has

assembled priceless objects of art and antiquarianism. That studio (an

adequate description of which would necessitate weeks of examination and

would, alone, fill a large volume, and which, here, can be given only

passing notice) is entered by a narrow, low, heavy-latticed door from

the business offices of the Belasco Company. The first room is a small,

low-roofed one, in itself somewhat suggestive of an old cathedral crypt.

Along the walls are ranged shelved cases containing a wondrous

collection of specimens of precious glass, the most recently made piece

of which is more than eighty years old. A sort of alcove opens from this

room, at the right side, which is stored with scores of relics

associated with that arch-villain the great Napoleon,--a collection

which includes a lock of his hair, cut from his head after death, and in

which Belasco takes special pride and joy. Beyond the entrance room is a

larger one; beyond that are low, dim passages; a library with stairs to

a gallery; a dining-room; an odd little bedroom, exquisitely furnished

in Japanese style,--with a miniature Japanese garden built outside its

window,--and luxurious facilities for bathing. These passages, rooms,

and stairs,--ceilinged with multi-colored banners, carpeted with soft,

rich rugs, and almost everywhere lined with shelf on shelf of

books,--are somewhat maze-like to a stranger, and in them is gathered a

vast, confusing medley of collectors’ treasures: here, a sinister,

black-steel armor; there, a stand of French halberds; beneath that old

table, an unmatchable set of rapiers; upon this one, nearly twoscore

different styles of dagger; yonder, a huge carved wooden chest,

blackened with age and stuffed with antique velours; against it, a great

two-handed sword,--“such a blade as old Charles Martel might have

wielded, when he drove the Saracen from France”; across that opening, an

antique wooden window-lattice, with heavy shutters, taken from an

English house built more than 700 years ago; beside it, a chair once

used by England’s King Henry the Eighth; against this wall, a stone

mantel brought from Italy, with a hearth made of tiles stolen by slaves

from the Alhambra. In the walls are many odd nooks and hidden cupboards,

which open by the release of secret springs,--in which, when illumined

by small, concealed lamps, are revealed collections of jewelled

rosaries; or of crucifixes wrought in ivory, ebony, and iron; or of

specimens of the potter’s art; or of trinkets once worn or owned by

members of the gentle Borgia Family. The stranger, wandering through

this reclusive domain,--into which few strangers ever are permitted to

penetrate,--opening low Gothic doors, will blunder into angular hutches

or long, low tunnels filled with shelves and cases of rare pamphlets and

old books; will pause with awe before a superb window of purple stained

glass; or gaze with wonder on a massive globe suspended in a well over

which a translucent canopy is so arranged that it takes and intensifies

all the changing colors of the covering heavens; or will come with

startled delight upon a grot in which a small fountain of crystal water

flings its spray over a little pool half-filled with violets, sweetpeas,

and full-blown roses.

Belasco, unlike many other collectors, has an intimate personal

knowledge of every article in his collection; can recall at once where,

when, and how each was acquired; and, notwithstanding the number and

seeming confusion of the different pieces, knows exactly where each one

is placed and instantly perceives and vituperatively denounces any

disarrangement of them such as occasionally is caused by members of that

pestiferous sisterhood which plies the duster and the brush without

sense of the sacredness of an antiquarian’s sweet disorder,--a

sisterhood which has stirred up consternation and wrath since long

before _Mr. Oldbuck’s_ time. His writing is done there among his

treasured collections, now in one corner, now in another, upon a small,

battered, baize-covered cutting-table, such as ladies use for sewing,

which he carries about from place to place as the fancy suits him. And

there, also, his principal recreation is found when, wearied by labor or

oppressed by care, he turns to contemplation and enjoyment of the

heaped-up beauty which he has gathered about him.

IN THE MATTER OF STAGE LIGHTING.

A much needed addition to the technical literature of the Theatre is a

comprehensive, authoritative, and just account of the origin and

development of modern stage mechanism and of the art of stage lighting.

The pioneer achievements of Edwin Booth, at Booth’s Theatre (opened,

February, 1869), and of James Steele Mackaye and Augustin Daly are, as a

rule, blandly ignored in writing on those subjects, and the movement for

“Stage Reform” which began in Austria in 1879-’80 is taken as the

starting-point. If ever such an account is written, laborious

experiments and fine achievements by David Belasco, especially in the

latter field, will, of necessity, occupy a conspicuous place in it. His

active practical interest in the problems of stage lighting began as

early as 1876 and it has not abated. The first attempt in America to

use electric light for stage illumination,--at least, the first attempt

of which I have found a record,--was made at the California Theatre, San

Francisco, February 21 to 28, 1879. Belasco was there at that time and

carefully observed the experiment, which was not notably successful.[3]

From 1879 to 1902 he closely studied all methods of lighting and

experimented much: since 1902, when he opened his first theatre and

obtained satisfactory facilities for the work, his experimentation in

that field has been incessant. The lighting system at the Stuyvesant

Theatre was designed by Belasco in collaboration with his chief

electrician, Mr. Louis Hartman, and was installed under their

supervision. When that theatre was opened, the lamps of the footlights

on the stage, and also those in each of the overhead “border light

strips,” were arranged in seven sections, each section connected upon

separate resistance, in order that any desired part of the stage or any

figure or group of figures might be illumined or shadowed as desired.

There were five sets of the border lights, with 270 lamps in each; there

were eighty-eight connection pockets in the fly galleries and upon the

stage through which large or small “bunch lights” could be connected as

required; the switchboard (one of the largest, if not the largest, then

in use in an American theatre) was equipped with seventy-five dimmers,

in order that the lights should be under perfect control. Since the

opening, in 1907, the lighting system has repeatedly been altered and

improved. The most radical change is one made about two years ago

[1917], whereby footlights are entirely dispensed with. The objection to

footlights is, of course, an upward thrown shadow: this, however, can be

satisfactorily dealt with, and, in my judgment, it is seldom if ever

advantageous wholly to discard them. Belasco, however, thinks otherwise:

his productions are the only ones made without footlights, which I have

seen, in which the absence of those lights is adequately compensated. In

his present theatre there is a contrivance, placed in the front of the

first balcony, which, while the curtain is down, appears to be an

ornamental glass panel about six feet long. When the curtain is raised,

however, shutters in the front of that panel are opened by an electrical

device operated at the switchboard on the stage, and a singular bright

light, which is transmitted without casting perceptible rays, is

diffused upon the stage, bringing the

[Illustration:

Photograph by White. Belasco’s Collection.

SWITCHBOARD OF THE SECOND BELASCO THEATRE, NEW YORK]

actors into clear vision.--It is not practicable to pursue this subject

further in this place; but readers will, perhaps, realize the importance

Belasco attaches to the art of lighting as an adjunct to acting and the

care he lavishes upon it when they are informed that the experimental

workshop in his theatre is operated all the year round and that in many

instances the expense of his _light rehearsals alone_ has exceeded the

total of all other costs of production. Perhaps the most perfect example

of stage lighting ever exhibited was provided in Belasco’s presentment

of “The Return of Peter Grimm,”--and that was the result of nine and a

half months of persistent experimentation. Dilating on this subject,

Belasco has said with justified wrath:

“I think that we may fairly and without vanity claim to have

revolutionized stage lighting. I confess that I have at times felt

some annoyance when I have been informed by young writers in the

press,--who were not born until long after I had made great

improvement in lighting,--that in dispensing with footlights I have

‘imitated’ Mr. Granville Barker, Mr. Max Reinhardt, and various

other so-called ‘innovators.’ Such statements are nonsensical. My

first regular production without ‘foots’ was made in 1879,[4] when

I staged Morse’s ‘Passion Play’ in San Francisco. And I did without

them in several other productions, at the Madison| Square Theatre,

in ‘The Darling of the Gods,’ and in ‘Adrea.’ When I produced

‘Marie-Odile’ there was a lot of newspaper talk on this subject,

but the talkers were such poor observers that they didn’t know I

had been using the _same system of lighting_ I used in

‘Marie-Odile’ for more than three months before, in ‘The Phantam

Rival’! A little of Mr. Barker’s work as a producer has been seen

in this country and he has had success in England. He seems to be a

very talented man and I always admire ability and so I admire him

and am glad to see him succeed. But without unkindness I must say

that I have no need to ‘borrow’ from Mr. Barker; and as he must

know that I never have done so I wonder a little that he has not

rebuked these writers who would push him up by pulling me down.

Many of the appliances we use in my theatre are invented and made

in my own shop; many others are made outside, to specifications we

provide. My new system is, I believe, a great step toward the

perfection of stage illumination. By means of it footlights, in my

opinion, are made unnecessary for any play, and they are no longer

a part of the illumination of my stage. All the light comes from

above, as in nature; but in order to accomplish this I built an

entirely new proscenium arch. A great iron hood, following the

lines of the stage, hangs behind the proscenium. The hood contains

lights of varying power, and by means of reflectors, invented and

manufactured in my own shop, the illumination is diffused without

casting shadows. The glare of the footlights is a thing of the past

so far as I am concerned. My stage was also reconstructed so as to

extend out into the auditorium over the orchestra pit. These

changes bring the audience into more intimate touch with the scene

on the stage.”

OPENING OF BELASCO’S STUYVESANT THEATRE:--“A GRAND ARMY MAN.”

Belasco opened his Stuyvesant Theatre, October 16, 1907, with a play

entitled “A Grand Army Man,” written by himself in collaboration with

Miss Pauline Phelps and Miss Marion Short,--that is, rewritten and made

practical by Belasco, working on the basis of an amateur essay in

dramatic authorship provided by those ladies. That play was first acted

on any stage at the Hyperion Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut, September

23, the same year. It presents neither surprising ingenuity of

construction nor uncommon felicity of style, but it tells a plain story

in a plain way. The chord that is struck in it is that of romantic,

almost paternal, altogether manly and beautiful affection. As a work of

dramatic art it appertains to the class of comedies represented by such

plays as “Grandfather Whitehead,” “The Porter’s Knot,” and “The Chimney

Corner,”--plays in which the theme involves unselfish love and the

sentiments and emotions that cling to the idea of Home. In that respect

it reverts to a style of drama once, fortunately, dominant--at a time

when the American Stage was illumined and adorned by such actors as

Henry Placide, John Gilbert, John Nickinson, Charles W. Couldock,

William Warren, and Mark Smith. The authors of it provided Warfield

with a vehicle of dramatic expression that exactly conformed to the bent

of his mind. The plot is simple, but by reason of being natural and

being fraught with true, as opposed to false, emotion, its simplicity

nowhere declines into insipid commonplace. The chief character, _Wes’

Bigelow_, is a veteran of the Grand Army of the Republic. He has never

married. In youth he has loved a girl, but has not won her, and she has

become the wife of one of his comrades. Years have passed, and the

American Civil War has occurred. That comrade has been slain in battle.

The widow has died: but she has left a child, that comrade’s boy, and

_Bigelow_ has adopted and reared him. The substance of the play is his

experience with the fortunes of that ward.

It happens sometimes that a man whom a girl has rejected, and who

remains unmarried because of his absorbing love for her, will fix his

affection on her child,--she having married a more favored suitor and

produced a family,--and will love that child as if it were his own. That

happens to _Bigelow_. The son of his loved and lost idol is the light of

his eyes and the joy of his heart. There is no labor that he will not do

and no sacrifice that he will not make for the lad, of whom he ardently

prophesies success and honor. The boy, _Robert_, has been intrusted

with money, the property of the Grand Army veterans, and, instead of

placing it in the bank, as directed to do, he has used it in

speculation, and lost it. When the knowledge of that fault comes to the

veteran he is, at first, stunned by it; then enraged; and then broken by

the conflict between the sense of shame and the struggle of affection.

He tries to thrash the boy with a horse-whip, but in that manifestation

of wrath he fails: his cherished pet cannot have done wrong; has only

erred through accident; can surely be redeemed; must, of course, make

amends,--and all will be well. The case comes to trial, before a judge

who, privately, is hostile to _Bigelow_, and measures are taken to

insure conviction. The veteran offers to replace the money that has been

taken by his ward,--supposing that the complaint will then be dismissed.

That money he has obtained by sale of his personal effects, and also by

means of a mortgage imposed on his farm. The old soldier makes an

impassioned, pathetic appeal to the court, but the hostile magistrate

cannot be appeased. _Robert_ is convicted and is sent to prison for one

year. A little time passes, and _Robert’s_ sweetheart, the daughter of

that malicious judge, leaves her father’s abode and seeks refuge with

_Bigelow_ and the kind old woman who keeps house for him. _Robert_ is

pardoned, at the intercession of the veteran’s military comrades, and he

comes back, to his guardian and his love, on New Year’s Day.

Nothing could be more simple than that unpretentious idyl of Home. It is

in situations of simplicity, however, that an actor is subjected to the

most severe tests of his inherent power, his fibre of character, his

knowledge of the human heart, his store of experience, his resources of

feeling, and his artistic faculty of expression. Warfield endured that

test, allowing the torrent of feeling to precipitate itself without

apparent restraint, and, at the same time, controlling and guiding it.

Such artistic growth he had evinced in his impersonation of the _Music

Master_, and he evinced it even more effectively in his assumption of

the _Grand Army Man_,--going to Nature for his impulse and obeying a

right instinct of Art in his direction of it. In the portrayal of the

noble, sweet-tempered, yet fiery old soldier he aimed especially at

self-effacement, at abnegation of every motive or trait of selfishness.

On finding that his boy loves the daughter of his enemy, and is by her

beloved, the veteran is, almost at once, disposed to placate that enemy

and favor those young lovers. There is, to be sure, a little reluctance,

a little struggle in his mind; but that is soon over. The actor denoted

that struggle and that surrender in a lovely spirit. In the tempestuous

scene of _Bigelow’s_ horrified consternation, the agonized conflict

between anger and love, when the misconduct of the boy is exposed and

confessed, and the old man, after trying to beat him as a felon, clasps

him to his heart as only the victim of an unfortunate, venial error, the

anguish and the passionate affection of a strong, even splendid, nature

were expressed with cogent force. The appeal spoken in the

courtroom,--an outburst of honest, simple, rugged eloquence, all the

more fervid and poignant because unskilled and fettered,--had the

authentic note of heartfelt emotion. In circumstances those situations,

which are the pivotal points of the play, recall certain supreme effects

in “Olivia” and “The Heart of Mid-Lothian,” but Warfield’s histrionic

treatment of those situations was fresh and his achievement in them

displayed him as an actor to whom the realm of pathos is widely open and

who can move with a sure step in the labyrinth of the domestic

emotions,--one of the most perplexing fields with which dramatic art is

concerned. All observers know how easy it is, in treatment of themes of

the fireside, the family, the home, to lapse into tameness. An actor

must possess an ardent and beautiful spirit, and must be greatly in

earnest, who can sustain such themes and invest them with the glow of

passionate vitality. Some of the best of the managers and actors of an

earlier, and as I believe in many ways a more fortunate, generation

might well have been proud of placing before the public such a play and

such an impersonation as Belasco and Warfield provided in “A Grand Army

Man,”--a play and an impersonation instinct with fidelity to common life

and yet far removed from commonplace. Warfield, as a player, possesses

in a marked degree the charm ascribed to John Bannistere (one of the

greatest serio-comic actors in theatrical annals), that he wins you

immediately by seeming to care nothing about you. His identification

with the character of _Bigelow_ was absolute and he never, for even a

moment, lapsed out of it. It had been long since such complete

absorption, such living inside of a fancied identity, had been seen on

the stage. The blending of humor and pathos was exceedingly fine, and it

touched the heart even while it brought a smile to the lips.--“A Grand

Army Man,” together with “The Music Master,” was acted at the Stuyvesant

Theatre until May 2, 1908, when Warfield’s season closed. On the opening

night Belasco, called upon the stage by a brilliant and enthusiastic

audience, made a brief speech, saying:

[Illustration: DAVID WARFIELD AS _WES’ BIGELOW_, IN “A GRAND ARMY MAN”

Photograph by Byron. Belasco’s Collection.

]

“I am very grateful, ladies and gentlemen, that you have given me

this opportunity to speak a few words of welcome to you--of welcome

warm as heart can make it, to each and every one of you, the

friends who have been kind enough to honor me by coming to this

little house-warming to-night in our new, and, I hope, our

permanent, home. It is a privilege to come before you; to see you

here; to see and recognize, as I do, so many of the faces of those

who have given me their support ever since I came here from that

dear, far-off city of the West where I was born. It gives me such

great happiness, ladies and gentlemen, to see you here; to know, as

I do know by your generous applause, that you like the play we have

produced for you and that you still love, as I am sure you do, that

splendid actor and loyal and dear friend of yours and mine, Mr.

David Warfield, who is playing here so beautifully to-night. Ladies

and gentlemen, I hardly am able to express myself to you. In one of

the great plays in which I myself used to act, many, many years

ago--and which, before I die, I hope to have the privilege of

placing before you, here, in New York--there is a speech that has

kept coming back into my mind all this evening, as I have listened

to your applause and tried to think what I could say to you:

“‘You have bereft me of all words,

Only my blood speaks to you in my veins.’

“But I think that you must know what I wish to express, that you

must understand without any words what it means to me to have you

here to-night, and to know that all the lies and all the perjuries

that have been printed and spoken against us cannot shake your

approval and support. We need it! Remember, we are only a handful,

fighting against a mighty Trust: but, ladies and gentlemen, this

little theatre flies the flag of independence, and as long as we

have your approval and support and sympathy nobody can dictate to

us and nobody can ‘put us out of business.’ And I am sure that we

shall have you with us just as long as we deserve it, and we shall

strive to deserve it and to serve you and the beautiful Art we all

love just as long as we live. I thank you, again and again, for all

of us,--for Miss Phelps and Miss Short, and for Mr. Warfield and

for my company and all my associates as well as for myself,--and

again and again I bid you heartily welcome to this little new

theatre.”

This is the original cast of “A Grand Army Man”:

_Wes’ Bigelow_ } { David Warfield.

_Judge Andrews_ } { Howard Hall.

_Captain Bestor_ } { Reuben Fax.

_Jim Bishop_ } { George Woodward.

_Cory Kilbert_ } Of the { James Lackaye.

_Let’ Pettingill_ } G. A. R. { Stephen Maley.

_Comrade Potter_ } { Tony Bevan.

_Comrade Tucker_ } { Thomas Gilbert.

_Comrade Tate_ } { Henry F. Stone.

_Robert_, _Wes’ Bigelow’s_ adopted son William Elliot.

_Rogers Wellman_ Taylor Holmes.

_Hickman_ John V. Daly.

_The Drummer-Boy of the Rappahannock_ John Morris.[5]

_Hallie_ Antoinette Perry.

_Letitia_ Marie Bates.

_Mrs. Bestor_ Amy Stone.

_Alida Bestor_ Veda McEvers.

_Mrs. Pettingill_ Jane Cowl.

_Mrs. Kilbert_ Louise Coleman.

A DEFEATED PLAN: “THE PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK.”

Belasco had planned to open his new theatre with a play by the eccentric

Jerome Klapka Jerome, entitled “The Passing of the Third Floor Back.” In

his “Story” he gives the following account of his plan and purposes and

of the way,--surely most unjust,--in which they were defeated. The

actual reason for Mr. Jerome’s “misunderstanding” undoubtedly was that

he preferred to have Forbes-Robertson, instead of Warfield, act the

principal part in his “idle fancy,” as he designated his monotonous but

amazingly popular fabric of insipid colloquy:

“I was about to make a new version of ‘The Lone Pine,’ which I

wrote for Denman Thompson many years ago, when Mr. Jerome K. Jerome

came to see me. He and I had travelled from London on the same

ship, and I found him a most interesting companion. He was the

author of the charming little Christmas story, ‘The Passing of the

Third Floor Back,’ and suggested turning it into a play for

Warfield. I was delighted. The contract was signed and a payment

made in advance. ‘I shall sail for home at once,’ said Mr. Jerome,

‘to go into the country, for I shall need the trees and flowers and

birds about me as I work. I am going to write it with David

Warfield in mind. He shall be the _Stranger_ and I shall dip my pen

into my heart as well as into the ink.’ Mr. Jerome suggested that

the action of the entire play take place in one scene. ‘But I wish

the actors could face the audience as though a wall of the room

were between them and the auditorium,’ he said. ‘You want the

fireplace in front of the footlights,’ I suggested. A sketch of the

scene was made then and there.

“Our contract stated that the play was to be completed in time for

the opening of the present Belasco Theatre, which was being built.

‘I’ll have your play finished,’ said Mr. Jerome; ‘I’ll bring it

over myself.’ With my mind at rest, I turned to other matters. It

was not long before Mr. Jerome wrote for an extension of time. I

readily agreed to this and shortly after Mr. Jerome wrote again to

ask for another postponement. The play depended largely upon the

mood in which it was written and moods are not to be summoned at

will; so once more I agreed to a delay. Mr. Jerome sent me a model

of the scene and costume sketches by Percy Anderson. They bore Mr.

Jerome’s ‘O. K.,’ and I cheerfully paid a fee of $500 for them. I

still have the sketches in my possession. The time for the opening

of the new theatre was drawing near and I engaged the company. Mr.

Warfield was eager to have the script, that he might begin to study

the part. Then came bad news from England. Mr. Jerome could not

finish the play in time. I saw that I could not depend upon it for

the opening of my new theatre and must find something else. I once

heard Mr. Warfield recite James Whitcomb Riley’s ‘The Old Man and

Jim,’ and I knew that a character like the _Old Man’s_ would be

delightful in his hands. I had in my possession a manuscript,

written by Pauline Phelps and Marion Short. It contained the very

idea for the character I wanted, so I made arrangements with the

ladies and rewrote parts of the play. By the time my work was done

and I had engaged a company I received a cable from Mr. Jerome:

‘The manuscript is finished. Am bringing it to you.’ I had been

obliged to disband the company selected for ‘The Passing of the

Third Floor Back,’ and preparations for ‘A Grand Army Man’ were

completed. I doubted if the other play could possibly be made ready

for production in so short a period. When Mr. Jerome arrived, he

read his piece to Mr. Warfield, Mr. Roeder and me, and we found the

idea more and more to our liking. I felt, however, that the play

should be held over until the following season. Before I could

reach a decision Mr. Jerome left unexpectedly for London. It was my

moral, to say nothing of legal, right to postpone the production,

as it was no fault of mine that the script had not been delivered

sooner. I told Miss Marbury, Mr. Jerome’s representative in this

country, to cable to him to that effect. He showed some surprise in

his reply. But in a long communication I explained my dilemma. In

response to this he sent a very satisfactory answer, and I was

about to write another letter to him, enclosing an additional

advance on the contract--so anxious was I to have the piece--when

Miss Marbury abruptly inquired what steps I intended to take in the

matter. She insisted upon another large payment, which displeased

me, since I had so willingly complied with every request Mr. Jerome

had made, and I hastily scribbled an impatient note. To my

astonishment, I received a telegram from her saying: ‘The play is

sold to Forbes-Robertson.’ Three years after, when Mr. Jerome asked

me to read a new piece, we spoke of ‘The Passing of the Third Floor

Back.’ I explained the matter, and he said it was all the result

of a mistake. I was of course very sorry the mistake had occurred.

This mistake was most fortunate for Sir Johnson Forbes-Robertson,

who might have missed the greatest success of his career. The piece

could not add to his fame, but it certainly added to his fortune.”

“THE WARRENS OF VIRGINIA.”