_Danny Mann_ “The Colleen Bawn.”
_Darley_ “Dark Deeds.”
_Dauphin_ “King Louis XI.”
_De Mauprat_ “Richelieu.”
_DeWilt_ “Under the Gas-Light.”
_Dickory_ “The Spectre Bridegroom.”
_Doctor of Hospital_ “The Two Orphans.”
_Dolly Spanker_ “London Assurance.”
_Don Cæsar_ “Donna Diana.”
_Duke of Burgundy_ “King Lear.”
(E)
_Earl of Oxford_ “King Richard III.”
(F)
_Fagin_ “Oliver Twist.”
_First Citizen_ “Julius Cæsar.”
_First Dwarf_ “Rip Van Winkle.”
_First Fury_ “Pluto.”
_First Grave-Digger_ “Hamlet.”
_First Officer_ “Macbeth.”
_First Policeman_ “Little Don Giovanni.”
_Fournechet, Minister of Finance_ “A Life’s Revenge.”
_Francesco_ “Hamlet.”
_Frank Breezly_ “Katy.”
_Friar Lawrence_ “Romeo and Juliet.”
_Furnace, the Cook_ “A New Way to Pay Old Debts.”
(G)
_Galeas_ “The Enchantress.”
_Gaspard_ “The Lady of Lyons.”
_Gaston_ “Camille.”
_Genius of the Ring_ “The Wonderful Scamp, or Aladdin No. 2.”
_George Sheldon_ “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
_Gilbert Gates_ “The Dawn of Freedom.”
_Gringoire_ “The Ballad Monger.”
_Guildenstern_ “Hamlet.”
_Gyp_ “Saratoga.”
(H)
_Hamlet_ “Hamlet.”
_Harvey_ “Out at Sea.”
_Heinrich Vedder_ “Rip Van Winkle.”
_Hon. Bob Penley_ “Fritz in a Madhouse.”
(I)
_Idiot, the_ “The Idiot of the Mountain.”
(J)
_James Callin_ “Across the Continent.” (Prologue.)
_Jasper Pidgeon_ “Meg’s Diversion.”
_Job Armroyd_ “Lost in London.”
_John O’Bibs_ “The Long Strike.”
_Johnson_ “The Lancashire Lass.”
_Joseph Surface_ “The School for Scandal.”
(K)
_King Louis the Eleventh_ “King Louis XI.”
(L)
_Laertes_ “Hamlet.”
_Lawyer Marks_ “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
_Lawyer Tripper_ “Solon Shingle” (“The People’s Lawyer.”)
_Lieutenant_ “Don Cæsar de Bazan.”
_Lieutenant Victor_ “The Lion of Nubia.”
_Le Beau_ “As You Like It.”
_Lorenzo_ “The Wife.”
_Louis_ “One Hundred Years Old.”
(M)
_Maffeo Orsini_ “Lucretia Borgia.”
_Major Hershner_ “Twice Saved.”
_Malcolm_ “Macbeth.”
_Mandeville_ “The Young Widow.”
_Marc Antony_ “Julius Cæsar.”
_Marco_ “The Wife.”
_Mark_ “The Prodigal’s Return.”
_Mark Meddle_ “London Assurance.”
_Marquis_ “The Pearl of Savoy.”
_Master Walter_ “The Hunchback.”
_Mateo, the Landlord_ “The Beauty and the Brigands.”
_Melter Moss_ “The Ticket-of-Leave Man.”
_Mercutio_ “Romeo and Juliet.”
_Mr. Ellingham_ “Hearts of Oak.”
_Mr. Honeyton_ “A Happy Pair.”
_Mr. Trimeo_ “The Mysterious Inn.”
_Mr. Toodle_ “The Toodles.”
_Mrs. Cornelia_ “East Lynne.”
_Mrs. Willoughby_ “The Ticket-of-Leave Man.”
_Modus_ “The Hunchback.”
_Mons. Deschapelles_ “The Lady of Lyons.”
_Moses_ “The School for Scandal.”
_Mother Frochard_ “The Two Orphans.”
(N)
_Nathan_ “Leah the Forsaken.”
_Nick o’ the Woods_
(_the Jibbenainosay_,
_The Avenger_,
_Reginald Ashburn_,
_Bloody Nathan_,
and _The Spirit of The Water_) “The Jibbenainosay.”
_Nick Vedder_ “Rip Van Winkle.”
_Nurse_ “Romeo and Juliet.”
(O)
_Our Guest_ “Our Mysterious Boarding House.”
(P)
_Pablo, the Harpist_ “Across the Continent.”
_Page_ “Mary Stuart.”
_Paris_ “Romeo and Juliet.”
_Pedro_ “A Yankee in Cuba.”
_Peter_ “Deborah.”
_Peter Bowbells_ “The Illustrious Stranger.”
_Peter True_ “The Statue Lover.”
_Peter White_ “Mr. and Mrs. Peter White.”
_Phil Bouncer_ “The Persecuted Traveller.”
_Philip Ray_ “Enoch Arden.”
_Pierre_ “Robert Macaire.”
_Pietre_ “The Enchantress.” (Prologue.)
_Player Queen_ “Hamlet.”
_Polonius_ “Hamlet.”
_Polydor_ “Ingomar.”
_Prince Saucilita_ “The Gold Demon.”
_Pumpernickel_ “The Child of the Regiment.”
(Q)
_Queen Gertrude_ “Hamlet.”
(R)
_Ralph_ “The Lighthouse Cliff.”
_Raphael_ (and _Phidias_) “The Marble Heart.”
_Ratcliff_ “King Richard III.”
_Reuben_ “Schermerhorn’s Boy.”
_Richard Hare_ “East Lynne.”
_Richmond_ “King Richard III.”
_Robert Landry_ “The Dead Heart.”
_Robert Macaire_ “Robert Macaire.”
_Rory O’More_ “Rory O’More.”
_Rosencrantz_ “Hamlet.”
_Ruby Darrell_ “Hearts of Oak.”
_Rudolph_ “Leah the Forsaken.”
_Rudolphe_ “Agnes.”
(S)
_Salanio_ “The Merchant of Venice.”
_Sambo_ “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
_Santo_ “Gaspardo.”
_Secretary_ “Richelieu.”
_Second Player_ “Hamlet.”
_Selim_ “The Forty Thieves.”
_Signor Mateo_ “The Miser’s Daughter.”
_Simon Lullaby_ “A Conjugal Lesson.”
_Simon Legree_ “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
_Simon, the Cobbler_ “Marie Antoinette.”
_Sir Francis Leveson_ “East Lynne.”
_Slave_ “Pygmalion and Galatea.”
_Spada_ “The Woman in Red.”
_Stuttering Tailor_ “Katharine and Petruchio.”
_Strale_ “Checkmate.”
_Sylvius_ “As You Like It.”
(T)
_Terry Dennison_ “Hearts of Oak.”
_The Destroyer_ “The Haunted Man.”
_Tim Bolus_ “My Turn Next.”
_Timothy Tubbs_ “The Millionaire’s Daughter.”
_Tony Lumpkin_ “She Stoops to Conquer.”
_Topsy_ “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
_Trip_ “The School for Scandal.”
_Tubal_ “The Merchant of Venice.”
[Illustration: DAVID BELASCO AS _FAGIN_, IN “OLIVER TWIST”
Photograph by Bradley & Rulofson, San Francisco.
Original loaned by Mrs. David Belasco.]
(U)
_Uncle Tom_ “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
(V)
_Valentine_ “Faust.” (Abridgment of).
_Vasquez_ “The Wonder.”
(W)
_Waiter_ “The Gamester.”
_Waiter_ (_Negro_) “Fritz in a Madhouse.”
(Y)
_Young Marlowe_ “She Stoops to Conquer.”
Other plays in which Belasco has performed,--as I have ascertained
from newspaper advertisements or notices and from miscellaneous
records, without, however, finding specification of the parts in
them which he acted,--include “A Bull in a China Shop,” “Damon and
Pythias,” “The French Spy,” “A Hard Struggle,” “The Lone Pine,”
“Mazeppa,” “Medea,” “Mimi,” “Nobody’s Child,” “Pizarro,” and “The
Red Pocketbook.” I have no doubt that he made unrecorded and now
unremembered appearances in many other plays besides these.
To the catalogue previously given of readings and recitations
frequently employed by Belasco should be added “Tell Me Not in
Mournful Numbers,” “The Maiden’s Prayer,” “Little Jim, the
Collier’s Lad,” “Scenes from ’King Louis XI.,’” “Shamus O’Brien,”
“The Little Hero,” “No One to Love Him,” “The Trial Scene, from
’The Merchant of Venice,’” “Selections from ’Oliver Twist’” (the
scene on London Bridge, scene wherein _Fagin_ causes _Sikes_ to
murder _Nancy_, and _Fagin_ awaiting execution), “The Country
Bumpkin’s Courtship,” “Eliza,” “The Dream of Eugene Aram,” and “Jim
Bludso.”
BELASCO’S “THE STORY OF MY LIFE.”
In making a critical examination of Belasco’s “The Story of My Life,”--a
document which, of course, it has been necessary for me to consult in
writing this Memoir,--I have observed many misstatements of fact in it,
due to defective memory or to haste and heedlessness in composition, and
also the assertion of various erroneous notions and mistaken doctrines
as to the art of acting, and as to the difference in the practice of
that art between the customs of the present and the past. Turning to
that “Story” in the expectation that it would prove helpful, I found
only another specimen of the irresponsible writing which is deemed
permissible relative to the Theatre, and viewing its formidable array of
misstatements I have ruefully recalled the remark of Artemus Ward that
“it is better not to know so many things than to know so many things
that ain’t so.” Some of its errors I have specified and rectified, in
other places, in the course of this narrative. Others of its errors and
some of its errant notions and doctrines require passing reference here.
Belasco records that he early observed and condemned “the incongruity
between the stage way of doing things and the way of life itself,”--the
implication being that, in acting, actual life should be literally
copied. That is an error. There always is, and from the nature of things
always will be, a certain incongruity between actual life and an
artistic transcript of it. A literal copy of actual life shown on the
stage does not usually cause the effect of actual life: it causes the
effect of prolixity and tediousness. Belasco lays much stress on his
early and sedulous practice of making himself acquainted, by
observation, with all sorts of grewsome facts, assuring his readers that
he visited lunatic asylums in order to study madness; talked with
condemned murderers immediately prior to their execution and later
witnessed the hanging of them; observed the effects of surgical
operations performed in hospitals; contemplated deaths occurring there
as the result of violence elsewhere; obtained from a friendly,
communicative physician knowledge of the manner of death which ensues
from the action of several sorts of poison, and was favored, in a
dissecting room, with a view of a human heart which had just been
extracted from a corpse,--his purpose in this line of inquiry having
been to ascertain the multifarious manners in which persons suffer and
die, and thus to qualify himself, as actor and stage manager, to imitate
them himself or instruct others in the imitation of them. His notion,
obviously, is that the actor ought to be acquainted with these things,
and, when depicting death, should correctly and literally simulate the
particular variety of the throes of dissolution which is appropriate as
a climax to the mortal ailment or lethal stroke that destroys him.
All this is well enough in its way, but it is only a little part of the
knowledge required by the actor, and a special objection to Belasco’s
way of introducing it is the implication that such minute preparation
was peculiar and original with him. The doctrine of “realism” is often
oppugnant to dramatic art, and an extreme adherence to it has been a
primary cause of whatever is defective in Belasco’s dramatic work.
“Surely,” he exclaims, “people do not die as quietly as they do upon the
stage.” It all depends on the “people” and the circumstances, whether on
the stage or off. Death, in fact, sometimes comes so gently that its
coming is not perceived. On the other hand, “people” do not always die
quietly on the stage. Edwin Forrest, as the dying _Hamlet_, made a
prodigious pother in his expiration and was a long time about it, and he
maintained that a man of his size and massive physique could not die
from poison without manifestation of extreme agony. I many times saw
that muscular _Hamlet_ die, and the spectacle, while
[Illustration:
From an old photograph. Author’s Collection.
HENRY J. MONTAGUE
(1844-1878)]
it might have been correct (since the nature of the poison which kills
_Hamlet_ is unknown the question is wholly assumptive), was never
affecting. I recollect the death of _Camille_, when that pulmonary
courtesan was impersonated by Matilda Heron: it was protracted, vulgar,
obnoxious, merely distressful, not the least pathetic, whereas the death
of _Camille_ when Modjeska played the part or when Sarah Bernhardt
played it was attended by no spasms, no convulsions, no gurgitations,
was almost instantaneous, and was inexpressibly touching.
Belasco is not the only actor, by many, who has studied madness in
lunatic asylums, or observed the phenomena of death in hospitals, or
sounded the depths of human depravity in slums and bagnios, or looked at
human nature and human life through a microscope. The biographies of
Garrick, Kemble, Cooke, Kean, Macready, Forrest, and Booth, for example,
teem with evidence to the contrary. It is indisputably necessary that
the authentic actor should _know_, but it is equally essential that when
he comes to practise his art he should possess the _judgment to select_
and the skill to use his selected knowledge in such a way as to
accomplish his purpose--not mar or defeat it.
Another of Belasco’s completely mistaken and indeed comically errant
notions is set forth in the following paragraph from his “Story”:
“Coming to New York as a stranger, I knew I had a task before me
_to introduce_ the _new style_ of acting which I felt was destined
to take the place of the melodramatic method.... For a long time I
had promised myself to give the public _a new style of acting and
playwriting, all my own_.... New York audiences had been trained in
_a school of exaggerated stage declamation, accompanied by a stage
strut, and large, classic, sweeping gestures_, so, when _I
introduced_ the _quiet acting_, we were laughed to scorn, and the
papers criticised our ’milk and water’ methods. _It was all new_,
and those who saw went away stunned and puzzled. We were considered
extremists at the Madison Square Theatre, but we persisted, with
the result that _our method_ prevails to-day.” [The italics are
mine.--W. W.]
It is difficult to understand how such emanations of error could have
proceeded from the pen of such an experienced actor, manager, dramatist,
and observer as David Belasco, and it is even more difficult to be
patient with them. New York audiences before his time had never been
“trained in a school of exaggeration,” and there was nothing in the
least new,--unless, perhaps, it were Sunday-school tameness,--in the
style of acting that was exhibited in the Madison Square Theatre. Long
before Belasco’s advent the New York audience had seen, enjoyed,
admired, and accepted Edwin Booth as _Hamlet_ and _Richelieu_, Lester
Wallack as _de Vigny_ and as _Don Felix_, Gilbert as _Old Dornton_,
Blake as _Jesse Rural_, Chippindale as _Grandfather Whitehead_, Henry
Placide as _Lord Ogleby_, Couldock as _Luke Fielding_, Jefferson as _Rip
Van Winkle_, Salvini as _Conrad_ and _Sullivan_, Owens as _Caleb
Plummer_, Walcot as _Touchstone_, Emery as _Bob Tyke_, Davenport as _St.
Marc_, Elizabeth Jefferson (Mrs. Richardson) as _Pauline_, Agnes
Robertson as _Jeanie Deans_, Mrs. Hoey as _Lady Teazle_, Laura Keene as
_Marco_ and as _Peg Woffington_, Julia Bennett (Mrs. Barrow) as
_Hypolita_ and _Cicely Homespun_, Mrs. Vernon as _Lady Franklin_, Mary
Carr as _Temperance_, and Mary Gannon as _Prue_,--all of whom (and many
more might be mentioned) were conspicuously representative of the most
refined, delicate, “natural,” “quiet” style of acting that has been
known anywhere. That the New York audience had seen “barnstormers” and
“soapchewers” is true--but the educated, intelligent part of it had
laughed at them before Belasco’s time just as heartily as it has since.
I recollect evenings of frolic, many years ago, when I repaired, with
gay comrades, to the old Bowery Theatre, with no other intent than to be
merry over the proceedings of posers and spouters, of the _Crummles_ and
_Bingley_ variety, who were sometimes to be found there. That tribe has
always existed. Cicero derided it, in old Rome. In Shakespeare’s
“Hamlet,” written more than three hundred years ago, the _Prince_
condemns the “robustious, periwig-pated fellow,” who tears “a passion to
tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,” and utters
his well-known, wise counsel to actors that they should “acquire and
beget a temperance” that may give “smoothness” to their expression of
even the most tempestuous passion. The movement toward artistic acting
has always, apparently, been going on. Every student of theatrical
history has read about the elocutionary improvement effected by David
Garrick, in 1741. It is a matter of common knowledge that Macready was
famous for the great excellence of his “quiet acting,” his wonderful use
of facial expression, while never speaking a word. Edmund Kean, it has
been authentically recorded, moved his audience to tears, merely by his
_aspect_, while, as the _Stranger_, he sat gazing into vacancy,
listening to the song,--sung for him, when he acted in this country, by
Jefferson’s mother:
“I have a silent sorrow here,
A grief I’ll ne’er impart,
It breathes no sigh, it sheds no tear,
But it consumes my heart.”
I have seen many an audience in tears when the elder Hackett acted
_Monsieur Mallet_ and when Jefferson, as poor old _Rip_, murmured the
forlorn question, “Are we so soon forgot when we are gone?” No modern
manager has invented “natural,”--by which I mean _artistic_,--acting.
Belasco did not invent it, nor did he introduce it at the Madison Square
Theatre. He was affected by what he saw around him in acting, precisely
as he was affected by what he saw around him in playwriting: like other
workers in the Theatre, he sought to better his instruction, and he has
contributed to the development of changes (not all of them beneficial)
in the Theatre. At the Madison Square, both as stage manager and
dramatist, he dissipated the insipidity with which a deference to
clerical management was blighting the prospects of a capital company at
that house, so that from the moment he joined it its fortunes began to
improve.
THE EVIL OF INCOMPETENT CRITICISM.
It is one of the hardships under which actors are compelled to pursue
their vocation that the Theatre and its votaries are continually subject
to the idle comment, indiscriminate praise, and capricious censure of
many incompetent writers in the press. A few capable, well-equipped,
earnest, and thoughtful critics unquestionably there are, in various
parts of the Republic, but every little publication in the country
parades its dramatic “critic,” and most of those scribblers show
themselves ignorant alike of dramatic literature, dramatic art, the
history of the Stage, human nature, and human life. That statement is
proved every day of the year, and it is folly to ascribe it to the
discontent of age or to lack of sympathy with contemporary life. Any
intelligent, educated person can put it to the test as often as desired.
The newspapers, as a rule, do not wish dramatic criticism: theatrical
managers, almost without exception, resent it and oppose it: the
newspapers receive paid advertisements and the theatrical advertisers
assume to be entitled to forbearance and to puffery in the “critical”
columns. This is not true of all newspapers, but it is generally true,
and the writers, whether competent or not, can bear testimony to its
truth. I know of nothing more dreary than the pages of drivel about the
drama which periodically make their appearance in many newspapers and
magazines. A favorite topic of those commentators is the immense
superiority of the plays and the acting of To-day over the plays and the
acting that pleased our forefathers. There was, it appears, nothing
good in the Past: there is nothing but good in the Present. The old
actors were artificial “pumps,” stagey, declamatory, “spouters.”
Shakespeare is archaic. Old Comedy is a bore. The plays of Molière and
Sheridan creak on their hinges. The plays of twenty, fifteen, ten years
ago have “aged”! “Progress” has become of such celerity that the dramas
of yesterday are “out of date”--before the second season begins! The
principles of art have altered, and they alter afresh with the startling
discoveries of each new batch of collegiate criticasters. Human nature
has changed. The forces of the universe are different. The sun rises in
the west and water runs uphill. Acting now is smooth, flexible, natural,
fluent. Behold, we have made a new theatrical Heaven and Earth wherein
dwelleth a NEW STYLE! It is lamentable that these ignorant, frivolous
babblers of folly should be able to cite even one word from such an
authority as David Belasco in support of their ridiculous pretensions:
it is the more deplorable since, if he were brought to a serious
consideration of his heedless assertions, he would certainly recant
them. I am not able to believe, for example, that he would stigmatize
Edwin Booth as a strutting exponent of exaggerated declamation,--an
actor who could speak blank verse as if it were the language of nature,
and always did so: an actor and manager, moreover, who did more than
any other one person of the Theatre to make possible the career of many
who followed him, including David Belasco. Nor can I believe that he
would call Florence a spouter,--Florence, who was one of the most adroit
and delicate of artists,--or deride such performances as John
Nickinson’s _Haversack_, Blake’s _Geoffrey Dale_, and Burton’s _Cap’n
Cuttle_ as specimens of flannel-mouthed melodramatic rant. Yet such were
the actors to whose style the New York audience had been accustomed long
before the time when Belasco declares that he brought an entirely new
and improved style of acting to the Madison Square Theatre and thus,--by
implication at least,--asserts that he reformed the Stage.
Augustin Daly, who began theatrical management in New York, in 1869,
when Belasco was a schoolboy of sixteen, in San Francisco, constrained
the actors whom he employed to respect and emulate the best traditions
of acting, and, while he never sought to establish a school of acting,
insisted on _Hamlet’s_ right doctrine of “temperance” and “smoothness”;
and when he carried his dramatic company to San Francisco, in 1875, at
which time Belasco saw and studied performances that were there given by
it, “The Evening Bulletin,” of that city, displeased by the delicate,
refined, “_quiet_” acting which had charmed New York, thus testified:
“The Fifth Avenue Theatre Company have a style of their own. It is
emasculated of vigor, force in action, and anything like
declamation in reading. It is _quiet_, _elegant_, _languid_; making
its points with a French shrug of the shoulders, little graceful
gestures, and rapid play of features. The voice is soft, the tone
low, and the manner at once subdued and expressive. It pleases a
certain set of fashionables, but to the general public it is acting
with the art of acting left out.”
THE NATURE OF BELASCO’S TALENTS AND SERVICES.
There has always been a desire and endeavor to act truly, and, side by
side with that desire and endeavor, there has always been abuse of the
art by incompetents and vulgarians. If you were to attend rehearsals at
some of our theatres now, you would behold coarse and blatant bullies,
of the _Mr. Dolphin_ order, blaring at the actors “More ginger!” It is
the way of that tribe and the custom in those temples of intellect. But
while Belasco has not invented any new style of acting he has done great
service to the Stage, and his name is written imperishably on the scroll
of theatrical achievement in America. As an actor his experience has
been ample and widely diversified. He possesses a complete mastery of
the technicalities of histrionic art. As a stage manager he is competent
in every particular and has no equal in this country to-day. His
judgment, taste, and expert skill in creating appropriate environment,
background, and atmosphere for a play and the actors in it are
marvellous. His attention to detail is scrupulous; and his decision is
prompt and usually unerring. No theatrical director within my
observation,--which has been vigilant and has extended over many
years,--has surpassed him in the exercise of that genius which consists
in the resolute, tireless capability of taking infinite pains. Many of
the performances which have been given under his direction are worthy to
be remembered as examples of almost perfect histrionic art. As a
dramatist he is essentially the product of that old style of writing
which produced “Venice Preserved,” “Fazio,” “The Apostate,” “The
Clandestine Marriage,” “The Jealous Wife,” etc.,--a style with which his
mind was early and completely saturated,--and of the example and
influence of Dion Boucicault, whose expertness in construction, felicity
in fashioning crisp dialogue, and exceptional skill in creating vivid
dramatic effect he has always much and rightly admired. He has written
many
[Illustration:
Photograph by Sarony. Author’s Collection.
AUGUSTIN DALY, ABOUT 1870-’75]