We Become "Barn-stormers," and Return to Open the New Theatre--Our
Astonishing Misunderstanding of "Alixe," which Proves a Great Triumph.
My first thought on awaking the next morning was one of dismay, on
recalling the destruction of the little "P.H.C."--that being the actors
contraction of Mr. Daly's somewhat grandiloquent "Parlor Home of Comedy."
My grief over the burning of the pretty toy theatre was very real, and I
would have been an astonished young woman had anyone prophesied that for
me, personally, the disaster was to prove a piece of unqualified good
luck.
And, by the way, that expression "good luck" reminds me of one of the
incidents of the fire. That morning, when the firemen went to the ruins
to examine into the state of the standing front wall, they looked upward,
and there, all alone, on the burned and blackened space, smiling down in
friendly fashion upon them, was the picture of Clara Morris--a bit
charred as to frame and smoky as to glass, but the photograph (one taken
by Kurtz), absolutely uninjured, being the one and only thing saved from
the ruins. The firemen very naturally wanted it for their engine-house,
and Mr. Daly said that for it many were claiming, pleading, demanding,
bartering--but all in vain. His superstition was aroused. Not for
anything in the world, he cried, would he part from his "luck," as he
ever after called the rescued picture. So there again appeared the malice
of inanimate things, for how else could one account for the plunging of
that line, the entire length of the staircase, of splendidly framed
pictures of loveliness, into the fiery depths, while the plain and
unimportant one kept its place in calm security?
Mr. Daly had a very expensive company on his hands. He had amazed other
managers by his "corner" on leading men. With three already in his
company he had not hesitated to draw on Boston for Harry Crisp, and on
Philadelphia for Mr. Louis James; and when he added such names as George
Clark, Daniel Harkins, George DeVere, James Lewis, William Lemoyne,
William Davidge, A. Whiting, Owen Fawcett, George Parkes, F. Burnett, H.
Bascombe, J. Beekman, Charles Fisher, George Gilbert, etc., one can
readily understand that the salary of the men alone must have made quite
an item in the week's expenses, and added to the sharp necessity of
getting us to work as quickly as possible. And in actual truth the ruins
of the little theatre were not yet cold when Mr. Daly had, by wire,
secured a week for us, divided between Syracuse and Albany, and we were
scrambling dresses together and buying new toilet articles--rouge,
powders, and pomades, and transforming ourselves into "strolling
players"; though, sooth to say, there was precious little "strolling"
done after we started, for we were all rushing for rooms, for food, for
trains, through a blizzard that was giving us plenty of delaying
snow-drifts. And while the company was cheerfully "barn-storming," Mr.
Daly was doing his best to find shelter for us in New York, engaging the
little one-time church on Broadway. He had painters, paper-hangers,
scrub-women, upholsterers, climbing over one another in their frantic
efforts to do all he desired to have done in about one-half the
regulation time allowed for such work; and while they toiled day and
night with much noise and great demonstration of haste, he sat
statue-still in a far corner, mentally reviewing every manuscript in his
possession, searching eagerly for the one that most nearly answered to
the needs of the moment. Namely, a play that required a strong cast of
characters (he had plenty of men and women), little preparation, and
scanty scenery (since he was short of both time and money). And, finding
"Alixe," then known as "The Countess de Somerive," he stopped short. The
action of the play covered but one day--that was promising. There were
but three acts--good; but two scenes--better! A conventional chateau
garden-terrace for one act, and a simply elegant morning-room or stately
drawing-room, according to managerial taste, could stand for the other
two acts. A strong and dramatic work--requiring the painting of but two
scenes. The play was found! The company was ordered home to rehearse it.
Now at that time, to my own great anxiety, I was by way of standing on
very dangerous ground. The public had favored me almost extravagantly
from the very first performance of _Anne Sylvester_, but the critics, at
least the most important two, seemed to praise my efforts with a certain
unwilling drag of the pen. Nearly all their kind words had the sweetness
squeezed out of them between "buts" and "ifs," and, most wounding of all,
my actual work was less often criticized than were my personal defects.
Occasionally an actress's work may be too good for her own welfare. You
doubt that? Yet I know an actress, still in harness, who in her lovely
prime made so great a hit, in the part of an adventuress, that she has
had nothing else to act since. Whenever a play was produced with such a
character in it, she was sent for. But if she was proposed for a loyal
wife, a gentle sweetheart, a modern heroine, the quick response
invariably was: "Oh, she can't play anything but the adventuress."
There is nothing more fatal to the artistic value, to the future welfare
of a young player, than to be known as "a one-part actress"; yet that was
the very danger that was threatening me at the time of the burning of the
home theatre. Following other parts known as strong, _Jezebel_, the
half-breed East Indian, a velvet-footed treachery and twice would-be
murderess, and _Cora_, the quadroon mad-woman, were in a fair way to
injure me greatly. Already one paper had said: "Miss Morris has a
strange, intuitive comprehension of these creatures of mixed blood."
But worse than that, the most powerful of the two critics I dreaded had
said one morning: "Miss Morris played with care and much feeling. The
audience wept _copiously_" (to anyone who has long read the great critic,
that word "copiously" is tantamount to his full signature, so
persistently does he use it), "but her performance was flecked with those
tigerish gleams that seem to be a part of her method. She will probably
find difficulty in equaling in any other line her success as _Cora_."
No animal had ever a keener sense of approaching danger than I had, when
my professional welfare was threatened, and these small straws told me
plainly which way the wind was beginning to blow, and now, looking back,
I am convinced that just one more "tigerish part" at that time would have
meant artistic ruin to me, for, figuratively speaking, pens were already
dipped to write me down "a one-part actress."
Then, one bitter cold day we returned to New York and Mr. Daly, sending
for me, said he must ask a favor of me. A form of speech that literally
made me "sit up straight"--yes, and gasp, too, with astonishment. With a
regretful sigh he went on: "I suppose you know you are a strong
attraction?"
I smiled broadly at his evident disapproval of such knowledge on my part,
and he continued: "But in this play there is no part for you--yet I
greatly need all my strongest people in this first cast. Of course as far
as ability is concerned you could play the _Countess_ and make a hit, but
she's too old--so you'll not play the mother to marriageable daughters
under my management, even in an emergency. Now I have Miss Morant, Miss
Davenport and Miss Dietz, but--but I must have your name, too."
I nodded vigorously--I understood. And having seen the play in Paris,
where it was one of the three pieces offered for an evening's programme,
I mentally reviewed the cast and presently made answer, cheerfully and
honestly: "Oh, yes! I see--it's that--'er--_Aline?_ _Justine?_ No, no!
_Claudine?_ that's the name of the maid. You want me to go on for that?
All right! anything to help!"