the Baldwin Theatre. He labored there, with short intermissions, as
actor and stage manager, from March 26, 1878, to the latter part of
September, 1879. On the former date the New York Union Square Theatre
Company emerged at the Baldwin in “Agnes,” in which Belasco played
_Rudolphe_. During the engagement of the Union Square Company “One
Hundred Years Old,” “Saratoga,” “A Celebrated Case,” and Joaquin
Miller’s “The Danites” were presented under Belasco’s direction, and, in
each of them, he acted a subsidiary part. His services as director
proved so valuable that when the engagement was ended and the company
made a tour of Pacific Slope towns an arrangement was effected with
Maguire whereby Belasco accompanied it. The tour lasted until the end of
May, and it was followed by a brief return season in San Francisco. At
its close the company, which included O’Neill, Charles B. Bishop, Rose
Wood, and F. F. Mackay, presented to Belasco a purse of $200 in gold “as
an expression of appreciation of his services and esteem for himself.”
The presentation was made, in presence of the assembled company, on the
stage of the Baldwin Theatre, by F. F. Mackay, who, in making it, read
the following letter:
(_F. F. Mackay, for the New York Union Square Theatrical
Company, to David Belasco._)
“DEAR MR. DAVID BELASCO:--
“In behalf of the members of the Union Square Company, I extend
sincere thanks for your unvarying courtesy and for your able
direction of our efforts. With our thanks are mingled a large
measure of congratulations for your ability. Your quick
apprehension and remarkable analytical ability in discovering and
describing the mental intentions of an author are so superior to
anything we have heretofore experienced that we feel sure that the
position of master dramatic director of the American Stage must
finally fall on you. Personally, I take great pleasure in thus
expressing the feelings and the wishes of the company, and have the
honor to subscribe myself,
“Yours truly,
“F. F. MACKAY.”
“OLIVIA” AND “PROOF POSITIVE.”
On July 8 a revival was effected at the Baldwin of Boucicault’s “The
Octoroon,” “re-touched and re-arranged” by Belasco. This, and a double
bill, comprising Byron’s “Dearer Than Life” and “The Post of
Honor,”--brought out on August 5,--filled the summer season, and on
September 2 Belasco’s play in five acts entitled “Olivia,”--the first
dramatization of Goldsmith’s “The Vicar of Wakefield” to be acted in
California,--was produced with the following notable cast:
_Dr. Primrose_ A. D. Bradley.
_Squire Thornhill_ Lewis Morrison.
_Mr. Burchell_ James O’Neill.
_Moses_ William Seymour.
_George_ Forrest Robinson.
_Jenkinson_ C. B. Bishop.
_Olivia_ Rose Wood.
_Sophia_ Jean Burnside.
_Mrs. Primrose_ Mrs. Farren.
_Arabella Wilmot_ Belle Chapman.
Belasco’s dramatic epitome adhered to Goldsmith’s story as closely as is
feasible for stage purposes; it was an effective play, it was admirably
set upon the stage and acted, and it gained substantial success. “Those
were strenuous times for me,” he writes; “every one was thrusting duties
on me then which, as I was always a glutton for work, I grasped as
opportunities. One lesson I learned at the Baldwin which I have never
forgotten--that one of the greatest mistakes a man can make is the
mistake of permitting anybody else to do his work for him. I wrote
’Olivia’ between times, as it were, and I was genuinely surprised by its
success.”
After the run of “Olivia” J. C. Williamson and his wife, “Maggie” Moore,
came to the Baldwin,--opening in “Struck Oil,”--and Belasco, while
directing the stage for them, completed an alteration of Wills’ “A Woman
of the People,”--which was brought forth October 14,--and a play, made
at the request of Rose Wood, which he called “Proof Positive,” based on
an old melodrama. This was produced on October 28, and in it James
O’Neill gained a notable success in the character of an eccentric,
semi-comic _Jew_.
BELASCO’S VERSION OF “NOT GUILTY.”
Clara Morris made her first appearance in San Francisco at the Baldwin,
November 4, as _Miss Multon_, and continued to act there for about eight
weeks. During that time Belasco was able to bestow some attention and
labor on an original play of his called “The Lone Pine,” in which he had
acted at Sacramento and a few other “interior places” during a brief
starring venture, and which he desired entirely to rewrite. In December,
however, he was compelled to lay aside that work and turn again to hack
playwrighting for the Baldwin company. His election fell on Watts
Phillips’ old spectacle play of “Not Guilty,” which he altered and
adapted in less than one week. It was announced as “The Grand Production
of the Magnificent Musical, Military, Dramatic, and Spectacular (_sic_)
Christmas Piece, which has been given for eight successive Christmas
seasons in Philadelphia,” and it was produced for the first time at the
Baldwin on December 24, 1878. This was the cast:
_Robert Arnold_ James O’Neill.
_Silas Jarrett_ Lewis Morrison.
_Jack Snipe_ C. B. Bishop.
_Isaac Vider_ J. W. Jennings.
_Joe Triggs_ James A. Herne.
_Trumble_ A. D. Bradley.
_St. Clair_ Forrest Robinson.
_Lal Singh_ William Seymour.
_Sergeant Wattles_ John N. Long.
_Polecat_ King Hedley.
_Alice Armitage_ Rose Wood.
_Polly Dobbs_ May Hart.
All the work of adaptation and stage management was done by Belasco--and
for it he received the munificent payment of $12.50 a performance.
Recalling the production, he writes: “A ’stock dramatist’ at that time
was obliged to do his work on short notice, and it was taken as a matter
of course that I should get a play ready for rehearsal in less than a
week, and put it on in less than another week. ’Not Guilty’ was very
spectacular (_sic_), and with my customary leaning to warfare I
introduced a Battle Scene, with several hundred people in an
embarkation, as well as horses and cannon. This embarkation alone used
to take ten minutes. It has all been done in many plays since--the
booming of guns, the padding of the horses’ hoofs on earth and stone,
the moving crowds in sight and larger ones suggested, beyond the range
of vision,--but this was the original, and it was wonderfully effective,
if I do say it myself.” Belasco’s view agrees with that recorded by all
competent observers of the time--one of the most conservative of whom
wrote, in “The San Francisco Evening Bulletin,” that “the Battle Scene,
in the Fourth Act, was about the most realistic ever produced on the
stage.” An operatic chorus of more than eighty voices was employed and
“The Cameron Cadets”--a local military organization--participated “in
full Highland costume.”
WITHDRAWAL FROM THE BALDWIN.--“THE LONE PINE” AND DENMAN THOMPSON.
Belasco withdrew from the Baldwin Theatre company immediately after the
“run” of “Not Guilty.” He was in danger of becoming exhausted by
over-work and he was resentful of mean treatment to which he had been
subjected. Lewis Morrison, who had suggested Phillips’ old spectacle for
alteration, and Frederick Lyster, who had caused the introduction in it
of music selected from the opera of “Carmen,” by connivance with
Maguire, charged a “royalty” of twelve per cent. against the gross
receipts from representations of that play, although Belasco was paid
for his service only about one per cent. This injustice, coming to the
knowledge of Baldwin, greatly incensed him, and in order to remedy it he
gave to Belasco $1,000. With that sum added to his savings he felt at
liberty to desist for a time from the exacting requirements of
employment under Maguire, but in about two months he had resumed his old
position, going back at the earnest request of Herne. In his “Story” he
gives the following account of his experience in the interim:
“J. M. Hill, the pioneer of page advertising, brought Denman
Thompson to the Bush Street Theatre in ’Joshua Whitcomb,’ startling
San Francisco by a lavish press work, which had never been heard of
before. ’Young man,’ Hill said to me, ’I want you to see Thompson,
and to study him. If you find him a play, there may be a fortune in
it for you.’ When I met Thompson afterwards and he suggested that
we collaborate, I told him that such a proposition was quite
impossible, but that I had been working on a play not yet finished,
[“The Lone Pine”] and that I would send it to him. I told him and
Hill the gist of the story, and then and there the latter drew up a
contract, giving me a retainer of $1,000 and tempting me with the
proposition that were the piece a success I might get eight hundred
a week out of it. In due course of time I completed two acts and
sent them on to him in New York. Soon I received a message: ’We
like your manuscript. Bring acts three and four yourself. Railroad
fares arranged.’ When I reached New York I went to the Union Square
Hotel and there met Hill and Thompson again. It was like giving a
part of myself when I handed over the Third Act of ’The Lone Pine.’
To my dismay, Thompson began to give suggestions, explaining what
he intended to do, making of his part a youthful _Joshua Whitcomb_,
with a fine sprinkling of slang and curses, and although I knew
that if I could give this man a successful play I could make a
fortune--thirty-two hundred a month, perhaps more!--I could not
bring myself to do it. I went to my hotel and wrote Hill a letter,
explaining the conclusion I had come to, and returning the thousand
dollars retaining fee. But Hill would hear none of this and grew
very angry trying to make me see Thompson’s point of view and
sending back the retainer. To avoid any further discussion, I
boarded a train and left New York, having seen very little of the
city. Hill’s parting message was: ’If I don’t produce that play, no
one shall.’ They never returned my manuscript, and years after,
when I was stage-manager at the Madison Square, I thought that it
would be a fitting successor to my ’May Blossom,’ which I had just
produced. So I went to Dr. Mallory and told him of the
Thompson-Hill episode. He had a streak of the fighter in him, and
suggested that I sue Hill for the recovery of the manuscript. After
some preliminary proceedings we were persuaded that Hill had
actually lost the manuscript, even though he still refused to
release me from my contract. So the suit was withdrawn, for there
was nothing to go upon.
“During the days when Hill was manager of the New York Standard
Theatre we met again, and I did some work for him. It was then that
he returned me my contract. Then, a miracle of miracles happened,
at the time of the razing of the Union Square Hotel. The clerk sent
for Mr. Ryan (who afterwards played in ’Naughty Anthony’), and told
him that in one of the back rooms he had found a bundle of papers
behind some old books. My lost manuscript was at last found! Some
day I may finish it for David Warfield.”
“WITHIN AN INCH OF HIS LIFE.”
Belasco was re-employed by Maguire during the first days of February,
1879, and he at once resumed his multiform labor as stage manager,
prompter, and playwright. The Baldwin Theatre was profitably occupied by
the Wilson, Primrose & West Minstrel Company and his first work was done
at the Grand Opera House, which Maguire had leased, and where, February
17, “the legitimate company from Baldwin’s” appeared in Belasco’s
dramatization of Gaboriau’s story of “Within an Inch of His Life.” This
melodrama, advertised as “the most powerful play ever acted,” was the
product of “a week of strenuous days and sleepless nights,” it was
produced as a stopgap, and--so Belasco writes--“the makeshift, like so
many accidental productions, was an instant success.” That success was,
in large part, due to a striking mechanical effect, devised and
introduced by Belasco, representative of a conflagration, described in
the newspapers of the day as “the terrific fire spectacle,” about which
its inventor has given me this information: “The fire was in the First
Act. I did away with the lycopodium boxes and made my ’flames’ by a
series of red and yellow strips of silk, fanned from beneath by bellows
and lit by colored lights. Some complaint was made of danger to the
theatre and the authorities came upon the stage to investigate: they
were a good deal nonplussed at finding the ’fire’ nothing but pieces of
silk!”
“Within an Inch of His Life” was acted at the Grand Opera House until
March 1, when it was withdrawn to make way for “The Passion.” This was
the cast of its original production:
_Jules de Dardeville_ James O’Neill.
_Dr. Seignebos_ J. W. Jennings.
_Count de Clairnot_ James A. Herne.
_Falpin_ A. D. Bradley.
_Reibolt_ William Seymour.
_Gauchey_ John N. Long.
_Cocolean_ Lewis Morrison.
_Countess de Clairnot_ Rose Wood.
_Dionysia Chandore_ Katherine Corcoran.
SALMI MORSE’S “PASSION PLAY.”
At about the beginning of February, 1879, the popular and distinguished
actor James O’Neill, now long famous for his performance of _Monte
Cristo_, became enthusiastically interested in a spectacle drama by
Salmi Morse (1826-1884), called “The Passion Play,” the presentment of
which that author had long been earnestly but vainly endeavoring to
effect, in San Francisco. O’Neill was desirous of impersonating _Jesus
Christ_, a part to which he considered himself peculiarly fitted, and he
presently succeeded in persuading Maguire, the manager, to produce
Morse’s drama. Baldwin was induced to provide financial support for the
enterprise. Belasco was engaged as stage manager, after the preliminary
rehearsals had been conducted under direction of Henry Brown, who
officiated as prompter. Elaborate and handsome scenery was built and
painted. Henry Widmer (1845-1895), in after years long associated with
Daly’s Theatre in New York, was employed as leader of the orchestra, and
illustrative incidental music for the play was composed by him. Belasco
rehearsed the company and superintended the stage. The first
representation occurred on March 3, 1879, at the Grand Opera House, and
it caused much public interest and controversy. O’Neill’s impersonation
of _Jesus_ was fervently admired. Belasco, commenting on it and on its
effect on “the poor people” whom he “saw on their knees, praying and
sobbing,” wrote that the actor, “with his delicacy, refinement, and
grandeur, typified the real Prophet, and, I believe, to himself he _was_
the Prophet.”
NOT THE OBERAMMERGAU DRAMA.
Morse’s play was not the fabric customarily offered at Oberammergau, nor
was it in any particular an imitation. In the declared opinion of Morse,
an apostate Hebrew, that concoction had been devised and performed for
the purpose of arousing and stimulating hostility against the Jews, and
he profoundly disapproved of it. His purpose, he avowed, was simply to
present an epitome of the life of Jesus, as described in the gospels. He
had taken the thrifty precaution to read his play before an assemblage
of the Roman Catholic clergy of San Francisco (the Protestant
ecclesiastics not accepting his liberal invitation to enjoy that
luxury), and it had received their approbation. Several of the holy
fathers, indeed, had evinced their approval of it by kissing him on both
his cheeks, and Archbishop Allemany, of San Francisco, had not only
sanctioned the precious composition but had inserted several passages
into the text with his own sacerdotal hand. The play was comprised in
ten acts (at least, that was its form when, in 1880, in the vestibule of
the Park Theatre, Broadway and Twenty-second Street, New York, I heard
half of it read by the author and was permitted to inspect the whole
manuscript), and it consisted of a long series of dialogues accompanied
by pictures and tableaux. I know not whether the whole ten acts were
vouchsafed to the San Francisco audience, but, according to
contemporaneous records, the play gave much offence to many persons and
was incentive to some public disturbances and breaches of the peace:
ignorant Irish who witnessed it were so distempered that, on going
forth, some of them, from time to time, assaulted peaceable Jews in the
public streets--much in the spirit of the irate mariner who chanced to
hear first of the Crucifixion nearly 2,000 years after it occurred.
Belasco records that a committee of citizens called on Maguire and
“worked upon his credulous nature until he believed that he was marked
by the devil for sacrifice and would meet with instant death if he did
not withdraw the play,” and that “in a fever of fear he closed the
theatre,”--March 11. A little later, however, Maguire’s torrid
temperature appears to have abated, and the play was again brought
forward, April 15, at the Grand Opera House, but this time it was met by
an injunction, issued from the Fourth (Municipal) District Court, Judge
Robert Francis Morrison presiding, which, being disregarded, was
followed by the arrest of O’Neill (who was imprisoned), April 21, and
of his professional associates, all of them, subsequently, being
convicted of contempt of court and fined for that offence,--O’Neill $50
and each of the other players $5. Belasco escaped arrest through the
kindly interference of the local Sheriff, a friend of his, who forcibly
kept him away from the theatre when the other participants in the
representation were being taken into police custody. The following
notice appeared in “The Alta California,” April 22, 1879:
“GRAND OPERA HOUSE.--The management has the honor to announce that
in deference to public opinion ’The Passion’ will no longer be
presented.”
CONSTITUENTS OF MORSE’S PLAY.
There is nothing in Morse’s play that could exert an immoral influence.
There is no irreverence in either its spirit or its incidents. It is
merely a goody-goody, tiresome composition, full of moral twaddle, and
consisting in about equal degree of platitude and bombast. It purports
to be written in blank verse, but it is, in fact, written in nondescript
lines of unequal length, halting, irregular, formless, weak, and
diffuse. Choruses of rhymed doggerel occur in it, at intervals,
sometimes uttered by women, sometimes,--on the contrary,--by angels.
Stress is laid on the efforts of _Pontius Pilate_ to save _Jesus_ from
the fury of the mob. There is a succession of pictures. In the Temple of
Jerusalem many females appear, carrying babes, and a ferocious _Jew_,
essaying to kill the infant _Jesus_, falls back astounded and
overwhelmed by the aspect of the sacred infant. Later, _Joseph_, _Mary_,
and the _Holy Child_ are shown environed and protected by a branching
sycamore tree, while, in the mountains all around them, many shrieking
women and children are slaughtered by ruffianly soldiers. In a sequent
picture _King Herod_, uttering a multiplicity of aphorisms, wrangles
with his wife, _Herodias_, and the seductive _Salomé_ dances before them
and wins for her mother the head of her enemy, _John the Baptist_, which
pleasing trophy, wrapped in a napkin, is brought in on a tray. _Jesus_
and his disciples are then shown at the brook of Kedron. The agony of
_Jesus_ in the Garden of Gethsemane is depicted and the betrayal by
_Judas_, the latter scene being double, to show, on one side, a lighted
room in which is reproduced a semblance of “The Last Supper” according
to the admired picture by Leonardo da Vinci, and on the other a gloomy
range of plains and hills dimly lighted by the stars. In this scene
passages from the New Testament are incorporated into Morse’s play, in
the part of _Jesus_. The arraignment of _Jesus_ before _Pilate_
follows, including the wrangle between the furious people and that
clement magistrate, and ending with the investiture of _Jesus_ with the
Crown of Thorns. The final picture shows Golgotha, under a midnight sky,
and the removal of the dead body from the Cross.
AS TO PROPRIETY.
Salmi Morse, in conversation with me and my old comrade Dr. Charles
Phelps, at the time of the reading in the vestibule of the Park Theatre,
said that he began “The Passion Play” with the intention of writing a
poem like Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” but soon discovered that the Byronic
style, as evinced in “Cain,” was more consonant than the Miltonic style
with his subject and his genius, and accordingly determined to write not
like Milton but like Byron; and he added that his drama was really not,
at first, intended for the Stage, but for publication in a book. That
was a discreet judgment, from which it is a pity that he ever departed.
I have not, however, been able at any time to perceive what decisive
_moral_ reason there is why “The Passion Play” should not be presented
on the stage. Reasons other than moral can readily be assigned: it is a
matter of _Taste_, in which it is a gross injustice to employ the
police power as a corrective, and a matter of _Public Policy_, in
which, with due consideration, the police power can properly be invoked.
Familiar treatment of things widely considered sacred is, perhaps,
likely to lower them, except with very ignorant persons, in sanctity and
dignity, and certainly it does lower them with many persons of fine
intelligence and taste. In the end of a church in Heidelberg there is,
or was, visible, through a long window, a full-length effigy of Christ
on the Cross, which swings to and fro as a pendulum to the clock, and in
a church at Mayence there is a life-size figure of the Virgin Mary,
seated, with the body of the dead Christ, also life-size, lying across
her knees. I remember looking on those objects with aversion. To _see_,
in a theatre, a man, impersonating the _Christ_, washing the feet of
another man will, generally, give offence. Religious bigotry is a curse
to civilization, and nothing should be conceded to it, but certainly the
scruples of religious persons should receive reasonable respect.
“THE PASSION PLAY” IN NEW YORK.
After the suppression of his “Passion Play” in California Morse brought
it to New York and offered it to Henry E. Abbey, then a prominent
speculative manager, who, for a time, entertained the purpose of
producing it at Booth’s Theatre. A drop curtain was painted, showing a
flight of angels toward Heaven on Easter morning, and the purpose of
Morse was made known to remove the statue of Shakespeare from the top of
the proscenium arch and to substitute a large cross in its place.
Obstacles intervened,--disapproval, voiced in the newspaper press, being
one of them, and the destruction of Abbey’s New Park Theatre by fire
(October 30, 1882), in which conflagration all the costumes were
destroyed, being another,--and that project was abandoned. Prior to that
mishap Morse gave a reading of the play, December 3, 1880, at the Cooper
Institute; and later, February-April, 1883, ineffectual efforts were
made by the author (which brought him before Judge George C. Barrett, of
the New York Supreme Court) to present it in a house which he rented and
called Salmi Morse’s Temple (afterward known as Proctor’s Twenty-third
Street Theatre). His endeavors were finally blocked by an injunction,
and the venture was heard of no more. Belasco was in New York at the
time of Morse’s attempt to have his “Passion Play” represented there,
and Morse wished him to undertake the stage direction of it, but being
otherwise employed, and also clearly perceiving the public antipathy to
the project, he discreetly declined to participate in the enterprise.
On February 22, 1884, the unfortunate Morse met death by drowning, in
the Hudson River, near Harlem, and he was thought to have committed
suicide.
BELASCO’S SERVICES TO MORSE’S ENTERPRISE.