sincerity and ability of O’Neill and to the ardent enthusiasm of
Belasco, who revelled in the opportunities which he discovered for
pictorial display: he explored every accessible source for paintings to
be copied and for suggestions as to costume, color, and “atmosphere,”
and, particularly, he made use of every expedient of “realistic” effect.
Belasco writes of this: “I had seen ’The Passion Play’ in Europe, but,
without prejudice, our little far-western town held the honors.” That
statement involves a slip of memory. He had, in March, 1879, been as far
east as New York, but his first visit to Europe did not occur till 1884.
His view of the Oberammergau performance was obtained long after the
presentment of Morse’s play in San Francisco. The following reminiscence
by Belasco of the California representation of “The Passion Play” is
instructive:
“How we scoured San Francisco,--school, church, and theatre,--for
people to put in our cast! Every actor who was out of employment
was sure of finding something to do in our mob scenes. I cannot
conceive, in the history of the Theatre, a more complete or a more
perfect cast.
“We engaged 200 singers; we marshalled 400 men, women, children,
and infants in our _ensembles_. And in the preparation every one
seemed to be inspired.... O’Neill, as the preparations progressed,
grew more and more obsessed. He gave up smoking; all the little
pleasures of life he denied himself. Any man who used a coarse word
during rehearsals was dismissed. He walked the streets of the city
with the expression of a holy man on his face. Whenever he drew
near a hush prevailed such as one does not often find outside a
church. The boards of the stage became Holy Land.
“I also became a veritable monomaniac on the subject; I was never
without a Bible under my arm. I went to the Mercantile Library and
there studied the color effects in the two memorable canvases there
hung, depicting the dance of Salomé and the Lord’s Supper. My life
seemed changed as never before, and once more my thoughts began to
play with monastery life, and I thought of the days spent in
Vancouver with my priest friend.
“The play traced the whole sequence of historical events leading to
the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, and I remember how many
effects we had to evolve for ourselves. In the Massacre of the
Innocents we had a hundred mothers on the stage, with their babes
in their arms. In the scene where _Joseph_ and _Mary_ came down the
mountain side we had a flock of real sheep following in their wake.
The entire performance was given with a simplicity that amounted to
grandeur. All was accomplished by fabrics and stage lighting, and
when O’Neill came up from his dressing room and appeared on the
stage with a halo about him women sank on their knees and prayed,
and when he was stripped and dragged before _Pontius Pilate_,
crowned with a crown of thorns, many fainted.
“I have produced many plays in many parts of the world, but never
have I seen an audience awed as by ’The Passion Play.’ The greatest
performance of a generation was the _Christus_ of James O’Neill.”
“The Passion Play” was succeeded at the Grand Opera House by a melodrama
entitled “The New Babylon,” produced under the stage management of
Belasco; and, on May 5, at the Baldwin, an adaptation by him of Sardou’s
“La Famille Benoiton!” was brought out under the name of “A Fast
Family.” This was performed for a fortnight, during which Belasco wrote
a play which he called “The Millionaire’s Daughter,” and contrived for
its presentment a remarkably handsome and effective scenic investiture.
“THE MILLIONAIRE’S DAUGHTER.”
Bronson Howard’s play of “The Banker’s Daughter” (one act of which was
written by A. R. Cazauran) was produced, for the first time, November
30, 1878, at the Union Square Theatre, New York, where it held the stage
till April 16, 1879, receiving 137 performances. It was regarded as one
of the “sensations” of the time, and Maguire, desiring to secure its
presentment at the Baldwin Theatre, began negotiations to that end with
Palmer early in 1879. Palmer named terms that Maguire would not, or
could not, meet and they were rejected. But a new play was urgently
required for the Baldwin, and Maguire turned to Belasco, asking, “Can’t
you make something for us on similar lines?” Belasco readily agreed to
do this, but presently expressed doubt as to Baldwin’s consent to pay
the heavy price of certain novel expedients of stage-setting which he
wished to use.
“In my principal scene,” he said to me, “I wanted a striking, new
effect,--walls of a delicate pink, hung with rich lace, and I knew it
would cost a lot. I went to Baldwin about it, after talking to Maguire,
who thought it impossible, and told him the story of my play, and what I
wanted to do in the way of settings, and my fear about expenses. Baldwin
said, ’I understand Palmer’s coming out here, to the California, with
“The Banker’s Daughter.” I think he tried to stick us up on that piece,
and I’d like to beat him. We don’t need to go to so much expense as you
think, Davy. You say you want laces: well, I’ll let you have some lace,
such as nobody has ever seen on a stage!’ And he did. It was real
antique stuff, belonging to his daughter and himself, from their home.
I designed the scene as I wanted it, had plain set pieces painted (they
cost us only a few dollars) in delicate shades of pink, and draped
Baldwin’s lace over them. The effect was beautiful,--I’ve never seen
anything of the kind as good,--and it _looked_ like the room of ’a
millionaire’s daughter.’ But I was glad when the run was over and the
stuff safely back in Baldwin’s home: there was over $30,000 worth of it
used in that set, and it kept me anxious all the time.”
Belasco’s play of “The Millionaire’s Daughter” was produced at the
Baldwin Theatre on May 19, 1879, and it was received with much favor. It
tells the story of a woman who marries one man while believing herself
to be in love with another, but who comes, through an ordeal of sorrow
and suffering, to know the value of her husband and to love him. It is
not important, though creditable as a melodramatic specimen of what
Augustin Daly used to describe as “plays of contemporaneous human
interest.” The chief parts in it were cast as follows:
_Mortimer Rushton_ James O’Neill.
_Richard Trevellian_ Lewis Morrison.
_Adam Trueman_ A. D. Bradley.
_Stephen Snarley_ J. W. Jennings.
_Ulysses S. Danripple, N. Y., U. S. A._ James A. Herne.
_Timothy Tubbs_ David Belasco.
_Ethel Trueman_ Rose Wood.
_Mabel St. Everard_ Katherine Corcoran.
_Aunt Sophie_ Kate Denin.
Belasco was at once accused of having stolen his play from “The Banker’s
Daughter,” but on investigation by Palmer’s representative it promptly
appeared that the charge was unwarranted. “The chief real resemblances,”
said Belasco, “are the title and the Duel Scene. We did call my play
’The Millionaire’s Daughter’ because of the success of Howard’s piece:
the Duel Scene, however, I took from ’The Corsican Brothers.’ Howard,
probably, took his from the same source; nobody acquainted with the
theatre could very well help knowing that scene!”
The situation alluded to is an old one and it has been often used. The
scene is a glade in the woods. The duellists, attended by their seconds,
are confronted, each intent on homicide. The time is nightfall. The
ground is thinly covered with snow. Each of the combatants is attired in
a white shirt, open at the neck, without collar; black trousers and
shoes. A faint twilight is diffused over the picture, and the ominous,
grisly effect of it is enhanced by low, minor music. Gleaming rapiers
are engaged and the combat proceeds to its fatal close: few other
situations have been made the occasion of as much ridicule; yet,
fashioned with care and treated with sincerity, this one never fails to
thrill the spectators,--and probably it never will.
Palmer’s production of “The Banker’s Daughter” was announced for
presentment at the California Theatre on June 9, 1879; but the success
of Belasco’s play, at the Baldwin, led to the cancellation by Palmer of
his engagement in San Francisco, and Howard’s play, in its definitive
form, was not acted there until long afterward: it had, however,
previously been performed there under the name of “Lillian’s Lost Love.”
DETRACTION OF BELASCO.--EARLY CALIFORNIA INFLUENCES.
Those persons who intellectually and influentially rise above the level
of mediocrity almost invariably find their attainments denied, their
achievements belittled, their motives impugned, and their characters
besmirched. Belasco has had a liberal experience of detraction. One of
the most insistent disparagements that have followed him is the charge
that, in the course of his long career as a manager in New York, he has
never produced any of the plays of Shakespeare, for the reason that he
does not possess either the knowledge, taste, training, or ability
requisite for their suitable presentment. It is true that Belasco, since
becoming a theatrical manager in New York, has not, as yet, produced any
play of Shakespeare’s or any of the standard old legitimate dramas.
That, doubtless, has been a loss to the public; but deferring, for the
moment, scrutiny of reasons that have restrained him from such ventures,
it will be pertinent and instructive here to consider the question of
his competence to make such revivals,--because such consideration
necessarily concerns itself with the theatrical environment in which he
grew up and in which he received his early training. As bearing on such
an examination a glance at the antecedents of the San Francisco Stage
will be helpful. The Circus preceded the Theatre in California, but only
by a few weeks. Two circus companies were performing in San Francisco
early in 1849. The first dramatic performance given in that city
occurred in the same year, in a building called Washington Hall. In the
same year, also, the first regular theatre built in the State was
opened, in Sacramento: it cost $80,000 and it was called the Eagle.
James H. McCabe,--a good friend to Belasco in later years,--was a member
of its first company. Other theatres built subsequently in Sacramento
were the Tehama, the Pacific, the American, and
[Illustration:
From an old photograph. Belasco’s Collection.
BELASCO AS _ARMAND DUVAL_, IN “CAMILLE”]
the Edwin Forrest. The dramatic movement, once started, became vigorous
and swift. In 1851, in San Francisco, the Jenny Lind and the American
theatres were built, and in 1853 a spacious and handsome playhouse was
erected, called the Metropolitan, and also a theatre called the Adelphi
was opened, in which performances were given in French. Among the
managers who were active and prominent in early California days were
Wesley Venua, John S. Potter, Joseph Rowe, Charles Robert Thorne (the
Elder), Daniel Wilmarth Waller, George Ryer, Charles A. King, McKean
Buchanan, J. B. Booth, Jr., and Samuel Colville,--the latter
subsequently so widely known and so popular in New York. Among actors of
the period who were local favorites were James Stark, James H. Warwick,
William Barry, “Dan” Virgil Gates, John Woodard, Edward N. Thayer, Frank
Lawlor, John Dunn (often jocosely styled “Rascal Jack”), Elizabeth
Jefferson (Mrs. Thoman, afterwards Mrs. Saunders), Mrs. Emanuel Judah
(Marietta Starfield Torrence), Mary Woodard, and Marie Duret,--“the
limpet,” once for some time associated with Gustavus Vaughan Brooke (and
so called because she “stuck to him” till she had accumulated
considerable money and jewelry, and then left him; she seems to have
been a great annoyance). Before Belasco’s birth (1853) the Drama had
become well established in California, and during his boyhood there and
his early professional association with it,--that is, from about 1865 to
1882,--its condition was generally prosperous, often brilliant. Within
that period the San Francisco Stage was illumined by actors of every
description, some of them being of the highest order as well as of the
brightest renown. Belasco’s personal association with the Theatre, as
has been shown, began in infancy; his earliest impressions were imbued
with histrionic and dramatic influence. Charles Kean, Edwin Forrest, and
Julia Dean were figures in his childish mind that he never could forget.
Among the notable actors whom he saw, with many of whom at one time or
another he was actively associated, and among whom are numbered some men
and women whose histrionic genius has not been surpassed, were Catharine
Sinclair, Matilda Heron, James E. Murdoch, James William Wallack, the
Younger; Charles Wheatleigh, William A. Mestayer, John Wilson, Mrs.
Saunders, Kate Denin, John Collins, Mrs. Poole, John E. Owens, Edwin
Adams, Walter Montgomery, James Stark, Edward A. Sothern, Frank Mayo,
Barry Sullivan, Edwin Booth, James O’Neill, Lewis Morrison, Eben
Plympton, John Brougham, James A. Herne, Frank S. Chanfrau, James F.
Cathcart, William H. Crane, (Charles) Barton Hill, W. J. Florence and
Mrs. Florence, Barney Williams and Mrs. Williams, Benedict De Bar,
George Rignold, George Fawcett Rowe, Charles F. Coghlan, W. E. Sheridan,
Mrs. D. P. Bowers, Adelaide Neilson, William Horace Lingard and Mrs.
Lingard (Alice Dunning), Lotta (Charlotte Crabtree), Charlotte Thompson,
Carlotta Leclercq, Neil Warner, Daniel E. Bandmann, Minnie Palmer, Jean
Davenport Lander, Mrs. F. M. Bates, Sallie A. Hinckley, Dion Boucicault,
Katharine Rodgers, Helena Modjeska, and Rose Coghlan. Those, and many
more, were not mere _names_ to Belasco: they were the vital, active
personification of all that he most loved and desired--the Stage. The
environment of his youth, allowing for all the trials and hardships to
which incidentally he was subjected, must, obviously, have been
conducive to the opening and enlightenment of his mind, the direction of
his efforts into the theatrical field, the development of his latent
powers, his education as actor, dramatist, and stage manager, and the
building of his character. He was a sensitive, highly impressionable
youth, possessed of an artistic temperament, romantic disposition,
innate histrionic and dramatic faculties, ardent ambition to excel,
eager interest in life, abundant capability of enjoyment, an almost
abnormal power of observation,--that “clutching eye” which has been well
ascribed to Dickens,--and a kindness of heart that made him instantly
and eagerly sympathetic with every form of human trial and suffering.
Such a youth could not fail to respond to some, at least, of the
improving influences to which he was exposed. In the ministrations of
such men and women as I have named he saw the rapid and splendid growth
of the Theatre in California, the swift accession to the number of fine
playhouses,--the building of Maguire’s Opera House (afterward the Bush
Street Theatre), the California Theatre, Shiels’ Opera House, Maguire’s
New Theatre, and Baldwin’s Academy of Music,--and with all of them, and
with others, he became, at one time or another and in one way or
another, connected. He was given exceptional and invaluable
opportunities of studying the respective styles and learning the
divergent methods of every class of actor and stage manager. He saw the
thorough devotion, the patient endeavor, the astonishing variety, and
the first splendid successes of John McCullough, who went to San
Francisco with Edwin Forrest, in 1866, and there laid the foundation of
his renown. He saw the intensely earnest, highly intellectual,
incessantly laborious, passionately devoted and indomitable Lawrence
Barrett, who made his first appearance in San Francisco, February 13,
1868, at Maguire’s Opera House, as _Hamlet_, and he saw many of the
great plays, finely produced and nobly acted, which were given at the
California Theatre, in the season when it was opened, January 11, 1869,
under the joint management of Barrett and McCullough. Observance of such
a dramatic company as those managers then assembled was in itself an
education for any young enthusiast and student of the art of acting, and
it is reasonable to believe that this youth profited by it. The company,
certainly, was such a one as could not anywhere be assembled now,
because most of the actors of that strain have passed away. Barrett held
the first position, dividing some of the leading business with
McCullough. William H. Sedley-Smith was the stage manager. Other members
of the company were Henry Edwards, John T. Raymond, “Willie” Edouin,
Claude Burroughs, John Torrence, J. E. Marble, John Wilson, Edward J.
Buckley, W. Caldwell, Frederick Franks, W. F. Burroughs, H. King, Henry
Atkinson, E. B. Holmes, Emilie Melville, Annette Ince, Marie Gordon,
Mrs. E. J. Buckley, Mrs. F. Franks, Mrs. Charles R. Saunders, and Mrs.
Judah. The plays presented were of all kinds and generally of the
highest order. Belasco was fortunate in possessing the special favor of
the stage manager, and he was permitted many chances of seeing those
players. The special idols of his boyish admiration were John
McCullough, Walter Montgomery, and Mrs. Bowers. As to Shakespeare--his
mother was a lover of the dramatist and a careful student of him, and
she early began to instruct her boy in the study of his characters and
in the acting of scenes from the plays: one of the first books he ever
owned was a large single volume edition of Shakespeare, which, to
gratify his childish longing, was sent to him, “from New York,” because
he believed nothing could be as fine as what came from that place. “I
read it,” he told me, “from the title-page to the last word, with a
dictionary and a glossary.” He saw many of the plays of Shakespeare set
upon the stage, by some of the most accomplished, conscientious, and
scholarly actors and stage managers that have served the art--men and
women the capabilities and achievements of any one of whom, in the stage
production of Shakespeare, would shame the abilities of all Belasco’s
detractors combined,--and he participated, not only as actor but as
stage manager, in the representation of those plays. The works of
Shakespeare which were thus made
[Illustration: DAVID BELASCO AS _MARK ANTONY_.
IN “JULIUS CAESAR”
“_I will not do them wrong; I rather choose_
_To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,_
_Than I will wrong such honorable men!_”
--Act III, sc. 2
Photograph by Bradley, San Francisco.
Original loaned by Mrs. David Belasco.]
familiar to him, in their technical aspect, are “King Richard III.”
(Cibber’s version), “Hamlet,” “Othello,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Julius
Cæsar,” “Macbeth,” “King John,” “King Lear,” “Coriolanus,” “Cymbeline,”
“Measure for Measure,” “The Comedy of Errors,” “Much Ado About Nothing,”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Katharine and
Petruchio” (Garrick’s version), “Twelfth Night,” and “As You Like It.”
He played all sorts of parts in Shakespeare, from the slightest to some
of the greatest: in San Francisco he would play anything,--the
_Salanios_, _Guildensterns_, _First Messengers_, _Citizens_, etc., and
frequently go on as a super,--merely to gain opportunity to be on the
stage with the leaders of his profession, in order that he might observe
them. Fired with emulous ambition, he would then obtain employment in
any travelling or barnstorming company in which he could play some of
the greater parts, and in that way,--acting, of course, at first in
imitation of various distinguished players whose performances he had
witnessed, but also, more and more as his experience grew, along
experimental lines of his own contrivance,--he played, among other
parts, _Mercutio_, _Marc Antony_, _Friar Lawrence_ and _Hamlet_. He also
sometimes acted women;--in Shakespeare, notably, the _Nurse_, in “Romeo
and Juliet,” and _Queen Gertrude_, in “Hamlet.” In short, the truth,
respecting Belasco and his qualification for producing Shakespeare’s
dramas, is that he is better qualified to present them than any other
stage manager in America. His abstention from that field has been due to
a variety of causes, chief among them being that, at first, while he was
fighting his way to a position in which he could produce _anything_, and
immediately after his achievement of that independence, the field of
Shakespearean acting was almost exclusively occupied by famous, popular,
and prosperous stars, who did not need his services, having their own,
and with whom he must have vainly contended in an unequal rivalry; and,
later, that there was an almost complete dearth of qualified
Shakespearean performers. That dearth might not be so nearly complete
now if Belasco had earlier turned his attention to the production of
Shakespeare: on the other hand, he had to _win_ his place before he
could fill it,--and the carpers who censure him for what he has not done
would, in most instances, have been as vigorous in censure if he had
brought out plays of Shakespeare as they have been because he has not:
what they actually seek for is any ground for fault-finding. Belasco’s
sound sense and good judgment were well shown in a recent conversation
with me, relative to David Warfield’s ambition to play _Shylock_:
“Warfield,” he said, “is wild to play _Shylock_, and is at me every
little while to bring out ’The Merchant.’ I’d like to do it, but it
isn’t practical just now, and so I tell him, ’Wait, wait,’--though he
doesn’t want to _wait_! But it would be foolish at present: to-day
’Dave’ Warfield is one of the most prosperous of actors: he can play
’The Music Master,’ and ’The Auctioneer,’ and make a fortune--just as
Jefferson did with ’Rip’ and ’The Rivals.’ But what will happen if I
bring him out as _Shylock_, at once, in New York, or close to it? A lot
of the paltry scribblers who don’t know anything about ’The Merchant’
will have their knives into him up to the hilt--and the next morning,
whether he’s good, bad, or indifferent, he’ll be the best ’roasted’
actor on the stage--the venture will be no good, and when he goes back
to ’The Music Master’ his standing will have been hurt. _Nobody_ can
give a great performance of _Shylock_ the first time. When we are ready,
I’ll take a modest little company out into the backwoods somewhere, so
far away from New York that nobody here knows there are such places, and
let Warfield play _Shylock_ for three months or so. Then, when he’s
found himself and can show what he can really do, if it’s no good we’ll
drop it, and if (as I expect) it turns out great, I’ll bring him into
New York and give them such a production as they haven’t seen since
Irving played the piece.” That is the clear, right, prescient insight of
an authentic theatrical manager, who understands that a vital part of
the management of the Theatre consists in management of the People.
BELASCO’S REPERTORY AS AN ACTOR.
A complete list of the characters that Belasco assumed, while he
remained an actor, is not obtainable, but the subjoined partial list,
which I have carefully made by consulting newspaper advertisements and
other sources of authentic information, is sufficiently suggestive of
his ample experience in the vocation of acting. The student of his
career should needfully bear in mind, moreover, that he has, first and
last, set on the stage every one of the plays here named (and many
others), besides acting in them:
[Illustration:
Photograph by Falk. The Albert Davis Collection.
BELASCO, ABOUT 1880]
PART. PLAY.
(A)
_Alfred Evelyn_ “Money.”
_Antonio_ “The Merchant of Venice.”
_Apothecary_ “Romeo and Juliet.”
_Archibald Carlyle_ “East Lynne.”
_Armand Duval_ “Camille.”
_Avica, the Spirit of Avarice_ “A Storm of Thoughts.”
(B)
_Baldwin_ “Ireland and America.”
_Benvolio_ “Romeo and Juliet.”
_Bernardo_ “Hamlet.”
_Biondello_ “Katharine and Petruchio.”
_Black Donald_ “The Hidden Hand.”
_Bleeding Sergeant_ “Macbeth.”
_Bloater_ “Maum Cre.”
_Bob_ “The Black Hand.”
_Bob Brierly_ “The Ticket-of-Leave Man.”
_Bob Rackett_ “Help.”
_Box_ “Box and Cox.”
_Buddicombe_ “Our American Cousin.”
_Butler_ “Man and Wife.”
(C)
_Captain Blenham_ “The Rough Diamond.”
_Captain Crosstree_ “Black-Ey’d Susan.”
_Charles Oakley_ “The Jealous Wife.”
_Château-Renaud_ “The Corsican Brothers.”
_Claude Melnotte_ “The Lady of Lyons.”
_Clifford_ “The Hunchback.”
_Colonel Dent_ “The Governess.”
_Conner O’Kennedy_ “Green Bushes.”
_Cool_ “London Assurance.”
_Cox_ “Box and Cox.”
_Craven Lenoir_ “The Hidden Hand.”
(D)