dead, _Lady Elizabeth Calthorpe_, his mother, experiences a change of
heart, and advertises for information about his widow. _Beatrice, la
belle Russe_, poor and resident in Italy, hears of this inquiry and,
believing her twin sister to be dead, determines to present herself in
the assumed person of _Geraldine_, as the widow of _Calthorpe_, and thus
to obtain for herself and her young daughter (of whom _Brand_ is the
father) a luxurious home and an enviable social station. In this fraud
she partially succeeds, being accepted as _Calthorpe’s_ widow by both
_Lady Elizabeth_ and her family lawyer, _Monroe Quilton_, who evince a
confiding acquiescence singularly characteristic of proud old English
aristocrats and their astute legal advisers. Almost in the moment of her
success, however, _Sir Philip_ having come from Australia, she finds
herself installed not as his widow but as his wife,--and also she finds
that _Sir Philip_ is accompanied by her former companion, _Captain
Brand_, those wanderers having met in Australian wilds and become close
friends. _Philip_ is sure she is his wife and gladly accepts her as
such. _Brand_, on the contrary, promptly identifies the spurious
_Geraldine_ as _Beatrice_, and, privately, demands that she abandon her
fraudulent position. This she refuses to do, defying _Brand_ to oust her
from the newly acquired affections of _Calthorpe_ and his mother,--and
thus, practically, the situation is created wherein _Stéphanie de
Mohrivart_ defies _Sir Horace Welby_, in the play of “Forget Me Not.”
_Beatrice_, having made an unsuccessful attempt to poison _Brand_, in
order to remove all obstacles and maintain her place, is finally
defeated and driven to confession and surrender when that inexorable
antagonist reveals to her not an avenging Corsican (the dread
apparition which overwhelms _Stéphanie_), but the approaching figure of
her twin sister, the true _Geraldine_ and the actual wife of
_Calthorpe_,--who, also, is conveniently resurrected for the family
reunion.
Aside from the impossibility of most of these occurrences,--a defect
which is measurably lessened by Belasco’s deft treatment of them,--and
also from the blemish of intricacy in the substructure of the plot, “La
Belle Russe” is an effective play, of the society-melodrama order,--the
action of it being free and cumulative, the characters well drawn, and
the interest sustained. It contains an interesting exposition of
monstrous feminine wickedness, and stimulates thought upon the
infatuation that can be caused by seductive physical beauty, and it
suggests the singular spectacle of baffled depravity stumbling among its
attempted self-justifications,--_Beatrice_, of course, entering various
verbal pleas in extenuation which, accepted, would establish her as a
victim of ruthless society instead of her own unbridled tendencies. The
play possesses, likewise, the practical advantages of a small cast,
implicating only nine persons and requiring for its display only three
simple sets of scenery. The San Francisco production of it was
abundantly successful, Miss Jeffreys-Lewis, who had previously won high
praise by performances of _Stéphanie de Mohrivart_, and also of the
_Countess Zicka_, in “Diplomacy,” being specially commended, one
observer declaring that, though her performances of those parts were
good examples of the acting required in the tense dramatic situations of
a duel of keen wits, “her _Geraldine_ [_Beatrice_] _Glandore_ is more
varied, more vivid, more intense, and generally powerful. Her mobile
face took on every shade of expression that the human face can wear, and
perhaps not the least natural was the open, artless, sunny countenance
which quickly won _Sir Philip’s_ love.” Tearle as _Captain Brand_ and
Gerald Eyre as _Calthorpe_ were almost equally admired, and the play had
a prosperous career of two weeks,--which, in San Francisco at that time,
was substantial testimony to its popularity. Belasco writes this account
of the production:
“San Francisco, like all other cities, was not over-anxious to
welcome the product of one of her sons. There was much more drawing
power in something of foreign authorship.... Knowing that the
critics would welcome anything from France, and knowing how
hypercritical some of the writers of the press were becoming of my
own efforts, ’La Belle Russe’ was announced as being by a French
author. The programme for the opening announced that the drama was
from the French. However, Maguire had posters ready to placard the
town, were ’La Belle Russe’ a success. This time the name of David
Belasco was blazoned forth in the blackest type. And it all worked
as I had devised. The play met with instant success, and on the
morning after, when the critics had come out in columns of praise
for such technique as the French usually showed, on their downward
travel to the offices they were faced with the startling
announcement that the anonymous author was none other than David
Belasco.”
The first presentment of “La Belle Russe” was made at the Baldwin
Theatre, to mark “the inauguration of the regular dramatic season”
there, on July 18, 1881. During the rehearsals of it Tearle had several
times spoken to Belasco, signifying doubt about the “French origin” of
the play and, finally, remarking that Belasco showed an astonishing
familiarity with every word and detail of the drama. “Well, whatever you
may think,” Belasco assured him, “please believe _you are mistaken_ and
say nothing about it--just now.” His wishes were observed: one
contemporary comment on the day before its production remarks that “of
the play little seems to be known. It is said to resemble ’Forget Me
Not.’ The actors say it is strong.” The first announcement I have been
able to find of the actual authorship is in a newspaper of July 26,
1881, where it is advertised as “The strongest play of modern times, ’La
Belle Russe,’ by D. Belasco, author of ’Hearts of Oak.’” After all
question of the acceptance of his play was ended and his authorship
acknowledged Belasco asked Tearle to inform Lester Wallack about it, “if
he thought well enough of the play to feel justified in doing so.” “Oh,”
answered Tearle, “I’ve done that long ago; I telegraphed to him after
the first performance: it will be just the thing for Rose Coghlan.” Thus
Belasco felt he was in a fair way to accomplish his purpose of securing
a New York opening. This was the original cast of “La Belle Russe”:
_Captain Dudley Brand_ Osmond Tearle.
_Sir Philip Calthorpe_ Gerald Eyre.
_Monroe Quilton, Esq._ John W. Jennings.
_Rignold Henderson_ (Supt. of Police) E. H. Holden.
_Roberts_ J. McCormack.
_Barton_ Edgar Wilton.
_Beatrice Glandore_ (_Geraldine_) Jeffreys-Lewis.
_Lady Elizabeth Calthorpe_ Jean Clara Walters.
_Elise_ Edith Livingston.
_Little Beatrice_ Maude Adams.
“THE STRANGLERS OF PARIS.”
“La Belle Russe” received its final performance at the Baldwin Theatre
on Saturday evening, July 30. On August 1 “Adolph Challet” was produced
there, under Belasco’s direction, and on August 8 a revival of
“Diplomacy” was effected, Tearle acting _Henry Beauclerc_, Gerald Eyre
_Julian_, and Miss Jeffreys-Lewis the _Countess Zicka_. It had been
intended to divide the week between “Diplomacy” and “Camille,” but “to
my delight,” Belasco said, “the former was strong enough to fill the
whole week and I could give all the time to final preparation of my new
play.” That new play was a dramatic epitome of “The Stranglers of Paris”
(“Les Étrangleurs de Paris”), by Adolphe Belot, for the production of
which much effort had already been made. It was modestly announced by
Maguire (who, I surmise, did not thereby greatly distress Belasco) as
“The great dramatic event of the nineteenth century,” and it was brought
out on August 15. Belasco’s name was not made known as that of the
adapter. This play is, in fact, an extravagant and, in some respects, a
repulsive sensation melodrama. The story relates some of the experiences
of an intellectual pervert named _Jagon_, a huge hunchback, of
remarkable muscular strength, especially in the digits, resident in
Paris, and gaining a livelihood for himself and a cherished daughter
(whom he keeps in ignorance of her actual relationship to himself) by
the gentle art of strangling persons in order to rob them. A specially
barbarous murder is committed by _Jagon_ and an accomplice named
_Lorenz_,--an ex-convict who has ingratiated himself with the daughter,
_Mathilde_, and who marries her. _Jagon_ and an innocent man,
_Blanchard_, are arrested, tried for this crime, and sentenced to
transportation to New Caledonia. The convict-ship bearing them to that
destination is wrecked and they escape together upon a raft and return
to Paris. _Mathilde_, having discovered the criminality of her husband,
frees her mind on that subject with such pungency that _Lorenz_ is moved
to practise upon her the professional dexterity learned from her revered
father and promptly chokes her to death. _Jagon_ arrives at this
juncture, attended by police officers, denounces _Lorenz_ to them as his
actual accomplice in the crime for which _Blanchard_ has been convicted
with him, and then, in the manner of _Robert Macaire_ in somewhat
similar circumstances, being determined to escape the guillotine, leaps
through a convenient window, thus giving the police an opportunity,
which they improve, of shooting him to death. The play is immensely
inferior to the story upon parts of which it is based, but it serves its
purpose as a “shocker.” The escape of the two convicts on the raft at
sea provides an effective scene, not the less so because of its
resemblance to a similar scene in the earlier melodrama of “The World”:
the expedient, however, was an old one long before “The World” was
produced: it is employed with great skill and effect in Reade’s fine
novel of “The Simpleton.” Belasco’s mature opinion of this play of his
has been recorded in four words which cover the case: “What buncombe it
was!” A notably good performance was given in it by Osmond Tearle as
_Jagon_--a part which he expressed himself to the dramatist as delighted
to undertake as a relief from acting the repressed “leads” to which he
had for some time been restricted. It ran for two weeks. This was the
original cast:
_Jagon_ Osmond Tearle.
_Joseph Blanchard_ Gerald Eyre.
_Robert de Meillant_ Joseph R. Grismer.
_Lorenz_ Max Freeman.
_Captain Jules Guérin_ Walter Leman.
_Mons. Claude_ A. D. Bradley.
_Bontout_ John W. Jennings.
_Papin_ Charles Norris.
_Dr. Fordien_ J. P. Wade.
_Mons. Vitel_ George McCormack.
_Mons. Xavier_ E. N. Thayer.
_Governor of Prison_ George Galloway.
_Longstalot_ } { R. G. Marsh.
_Grégoire_ } { Logan Paul.
_Jacquot_ } { G. L. May.
_Cabassa_ } { John Torrence.
_Pierre_ } Convicts { G. McCord.
_Zalabut_ } { J. Higgins.
_Lamazon_ } { Charles Robertson.
_Zorges_ } { G. Holden.
_Jacques_ } { S. Chapman.
_Commander of Prison Ship_ W. T. Day.
_First Lieutenant_ E. N. Neuman.
_Second Lieutenant_ E. Webster.
_First Marine_ J. Sherwood.
_Mathilde_ Jeffreys Lewis.
_Jeanne Guerin_ Ethel Arden.
_Sophie Blanchard_ Jean Clara Walters.
_Zoé Lacassade_ Mrs. Elizabeth Saunders.
_La Grande Florine_ Eva West.
“The Stranglers” was superbly mounted, it delighted the public for which
it was intended, and was played for two weeks, attracting large and
enthusiastically demonstrative audiences.
NEW YORK AGAIN.--“LA BELLE RUSSE” AT WALLACK’S.
Maguire, because he had produced Belasco’s play of “La Belle Russe” at
the Baldwin and had thereby profited, appears to have considered that
also he had thereby acquired a property in it. To this claim the
necessitous dramatist assented (making, I suppose, a virtue of
necessity), giving Maguire a half-interest. Maguire then decreed that
they should go to New York together, in order to place the play with
Wallack, if that should prove the most expedient arrangement, or to
place it with any other manager from whom it might be possible to exact
higher payment. Belasco consented to negotiate with other managers and
ascertain what terms might be offered, “even though,” he said, “I had
determined that none but Wallack should produce it.” On September 25,
1881, they left San Francisco together and came to New York.
According to Belasco’s statement to me, Augustin Daly wanted the play of
“La Belle Russe” for Ada Rehan (to whom the central part would have been
peculiarly unfitted), while A. M. Palmer wanted it for Miss
Jeffreys-Lewis, at the Union Square, and John Stetson wanted it for
Marie Prescott. Belasco had interviews with all of them, and with
Wallack. His determination that Wallack should produce his play, if he
possibly could arrange to have him do so, was intensified by the
kindness of Wallack’s manner toward the young author and by the strong
impression made upon him by that actor’s pictorial and winning
personality. Maguire, meantime, consorted with Stetson, a person
naturally congenial to him, and presently became insistent that the play
should be intrusted to that manager. “After I had read the play to
Stetson in his office (which I did very unwillingly),” Belasco told me,
“the two of them threatened me with all sorts of consequences if I did
not turn the manuscript over to Stetson, and I really believe they would
have taken it from me by force if I had not buttoned it under my coat
and bolted out of the office!” This pair of pilgrims had then been for
some time in New York, and Maguire, by agreement, had been paying
Belasco’s living expenses; now, by way of practical intimation that his
will must prevail and the play be relinquished to Stetson, he stopped
doing so. This left Belasco in a familiar but not the less painful
plight--stranded--and it also incensed him against Maguire.
At this juncture, when unfortunately he was impecunious, indignant, and
excited, he received a visit from Maguire’s nephew, Mr. Frank L.
Goodwin, with whom he had already negotiated relative to “La Belle
Russe,” and whom he now supposed to have come to him as Wallack’s
representative. To this person he imprudently made known his quarrel
with Maguire, and hastily inquired, “What will you give me for the
play?” “Fifteen hundred dollars, cash,” Goodwin answered, and then,
observing that he hesitated, “and a return ticket to San Francisco, and
$100 more for your expenses.” “How soon can I have the money?” Belasco
rejoined. “In half an hour.” “Then I’ll take it”--and he did, selling
his play, outright, not, as he supposed, to Wallack, but to Goodwin, for
$1,600 cash and a railroad ticket home! He received the money the same
afternoon and left that night for San Francisco. When the play was
produced at Wallack’s it was announced as “By arrangement with Mr. F. L.
Goodwin, the production of a new and powerful drama by David Belasco,
Esq.” Wallack paid Goodwin a high price for the play, which, since then,
has been successfully acted throughout the English-speaking world, and,
later, when told of the facts of the sale, expressed his profound regret
and dissatisfaction that Belasco had not dealt directly with him. Fifty
times the amount of money that Belasco received for “La Belle Russe”
would have been more like a fair payment for it than the sum he actually
received. “I did not particularly care what Maguire might do,” Belasco
told me, “when he heard about the matter. I felt that I could get along
much better without him than he could without me (I always did for
Maguire far more than ever I got paid for!), but he cooled off after he
got home, and I resumed work, for a little while, at the Baldwin.”
AN OPINION BY BRONSON HOWARD.--WALLACK IN THE THIRTIETH STREET HOUSE.
Belasco’s published recollections of the circumstances of Wallack’s
removal from the Thirteenth Street house and of the importance to that
manager of his presentation of “La Belle Russe” require revision to make
them accurate. He says:
“The stage history of ’La Belle Russe’ is interesting. Wallack had
opened his theatre with ’Money,’ which had been followed by a play
by Pinero. He had met with failure all along the road, and his
heart began to question whether he was right in forsaking his old
ground on Thirteenth Street and in moving so far up-town. ’La Belle
Russe,’ put on hurriedly, as a last forlorn hope, retrieved his
fortunes. It called a spade a spade and did not show any reticence,
the papers declared, and they flayed it as hard as ever they could.
There was one exception, and that was Edward A. Dithmar, of ’The
New York Times.’ He said it was a new era among plays, and,
although he was not a prophet, he put his finger on the elements
that achieved success, and this was long before the day of ’The
Second Mrs. Tanqueray.’ Bronson Howard, at the height of his
success, declared, in a public lecture, that it was a model of
construction, and confessed that he had already seen it seventeen
times, each evening discovering some new technical excellence in
it. I do not want to appear boastful; the facts of the theatre are
no longer personal after they have been made known to the public.”
Bronson Howard was a man of talent, though his plays conclusively show
that it was not of a high order and that his command of technical
resource in dramatic construction was not remarkable: he may have
required seventeen inspections of the drama in order to perceive its
many practical merits as an histrionic vehicle: most experienced
observers could, and did, discern them at one view. Belasco’s statements
with regard to Wallack, above quoted, are not correct. Wallack did not
open his Thirtieth Street theatre with “Money”: he opened it, January
4, 1882, with “The School for Scandal”: “Money” was not acted at that
theatre till March 23, 1888,--though a play by A. W. Pinero, entitled
“The Money Spinner,” was the second acted there, January 21, 1882.
Wallack had not “met with failure all along the road.” He closed his
theatre at Thirteenth Street with a presentation, under the management
of Samuel Colville, of the English melodrama of “The World,” which ran
there from April 11 to July 2, 1881, receiving eighty-four performances,
and which gained gross receipts to the extent of about $65,000 (at the
time, when prices were about half what they are now, an extraordinary
profit): he produced another English melodrama, called “Youth,” at his
new theatre, February 20, 1882, and this play ran till May 6: “La Belle
Russe” was produced by Wallack on May 8, and it ran till the close of
the season, June 28. The presentment of it there was a notably handsome
one and was distinctly successful. Rose Coghlan was specially excellent
in her evincement of agonizing apprehension beneath a forced assumption
of calm, and by the denoted prevalence of an indomitable will over
mental terror. This was the cast at Wallack’s:
_Captain Dudley Brand_ Osmond Tearle.
_Sir Philip Calthorpe_ Gerald Eyre.
_Monroe Quilton, Esq._ John Gilbert.
_Roberts_ C. E. Edwin.
_Barton_ H. Holliday.
_Beatrice_ (_Geraldine_) Rose Coghlan.
_Lady Elizabeth Calthorpe_ Mme. Ponisi.
_Little Beatrice_ Mabel Stephenson.
_Agnes_ Celia Edgerton.
Belasco left New York in the latter part of December, 1881, and he
arrived in San Francisco on Christmas Day. “Chispa,” by Clay M. Greene
and Slason Thompson, was produced at the Baldwin Theatre on December 26
and it ran there for two weeks,--in the course of which Maguire returned
home; the differences between him and Belasco were composed, and the
latter was presently reinstalled in his familiar place at the Baldwin.
On January 16, 1882, acting _Matthias_, in “The Bells,” W. E. Sheridan
began a season there which lasted for seven weeks, during which he
revived “Richelieu,” “Othello,” “Hamlet,” and other plays of the
legitimate repertory which he had previously presented in San Francisco
(November-December, 1800), and also “King John” and “The Fool’s
Revenge.” The last-named tragedy was brought out on March 3, the first
performance of it being given for the benefit of Belasco’s old friend
and teacher, Mrs. “Nelly” Holbrook.
BELASCO AND HIS “THE CURSE OF CAIN.”
Sheridan’s season terminated on March 5, and, on the 7th, occurred the
first performance of a new play constructed, while that season lasted,
by Belasco in collaboration with the excellent and much respected Peter
Robertson (1847-1911), long dramatic critic of “The San Francisco
Chronicle.” It was called “The Curse of Cain,” and its more active
author has written of it as follows:
“Strange as it may appear, _Cain_ was my hero. _Abel_ had never
appealed to me, any more than his forebears, in the garden of the
bright flaming sword, whence the apple-eating Eve had been so
forcibly, ejected. ’The Curse of Cain’ in embryo was a simple
trifle of an allegory, which afterwards developed into a four-act
drama with prologue and epilogue. And now that I look back upon it
I think it was somewhat remarkable for strange innovations to the
stage of that day. For the first time realistic thunderstorms and
lightning effects were introduced, more naturally than anything
that had gone before. I do not wish to pooh-pooh modern inventions,
double stages, and all the paraphernalia of the latter-day drama,
but I do contend that we could not have been outdone.”
It will not, I think, appear “strange” to most persons that to Belasco,
as a dramatist, the character of Cain should be more attractive than
that of Abel. It is, I know, sometimes asserted that evil is merely the
absence of good and a passive state. But that assertion is untrue.
_Why_ evil should exist at all is a mystery. But that it does exist and
that, existing, it is a positive, active force which supplies the
propulsive dramatic movement of most great representative plays,--of
“Othello,” “Hamlet,” “King Richard III.,” and “Macbeth,” for
example,--is obvious. Many of the great poets have felt this and
exhibited it in their poetry. _Mephistopheles_ is the dominant figure
and the animating impulse of Goethe’s “Faust” and of Bailey’s “Festus,”
and that is true, likewise, of _Satan_, in Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”
Cain is the exponent of evil in the Bible narrative, the active,
dramatic figure--and Cain, not Abel, accordingly engaged the attention
of Byron, in one of his greatest poems, and of Coleridge, in a fragment
on the same subject. Belasco’s declared preference, as a dramatist,
seems to me to be an inevitable one. There is not, however, much
relevancy in the expression of it as regards his play of “The Curse of
Cain.” That fabric does not relate to the Bible narrative: it is a
melodrama, of the period in which it was written, which tells, in an
artificial but momentarily effective and diverting manner, a
conventional tale of good and evil in conflict,--of crime long
unpunished and honor much abused; of prosperous villainy and persecuted
innocence borne down under a false accusation of murder; of harsh
suffering in gypsy camps and prison cells, and, finally, of the
vindication of virtue and retributive justice overtaking the
transgressor. It was avowedly fashioned on the model of such earlier
plays as “The World” (which Belasco had successfully set upon the stage
fourteen months before), “The Lights o’ London,” “Mankind” and “Youth,”
and it was devised for the purpose of making lavish scenic display and
startling theatrical effects, in the hope of winning back public support
for the Baldwin. That purpose though not that hope was fulfilled, all
contemporary commentators, in effect, agreeing with the published
declaration that “never before in San Francisco has there been such a
liberal and beautiful display of scenery as that provided for this
play.” “The Curse of Cain” was divided into seven acts, all of which
were richly framed, and four of which,--Waterloo Bridge, London, during
a snowstorm; a Gypsy Camp, in rural England; a Ruined Abbey, and “the
Whirlpool Lighthouse,”--were affirmed “marvels of stage painting and
effect.” In the scene of the Gypsy Camp Belasco indulged to the full his
liking for literalism,--providing for the public edification a braying
donkey, neighing horses, cackling hens, crowing cocks, quacking ducks,
and a rooting, grunting pig. In the Lighthouse Scene, as one account
relates, having assembled his _dramatis personæ_ for the final curtain
by the novel yet simple expedient of “washing them all up from the
ocean,” after a shipwreck, like flotsam, he introduced a frantic
struggle between the villain and the hero, beginning on the wave-beaten
rocks, conducted up a spiral stairway within the lighthouse and
intermittently visible through the windows thereof, and terminating in
the fall of the villain from the pinnacle of that edifice to a watery
grave,--with which fitting demise, and the union of lovers, the
spectacle drew sweetly to a close. “The critics,” writes Belasco, “had
plenty of fun with the absurdities of the piece (which hardly needed to
be pointed out), and I had many a good laugh at it myself; but, for all
that, it was the most elaborate scenic production of the kind ever made
in the West, and the people who came to see it went wild over it. The
only trouble was not enough of ’em could be induced to come!”
“The Curse of Cain” was acted from March 7 to 18, except on the evenings
of the 8th and 15th, when Frederick Haase acted at the Baldwin. J. B.
Dickson, of Brooks & Dickson, who saw the play there, purchased the
right to produce it in the East, in English, and Gustav Amberg (then in
San Francisco as manager of the Geistinger Opera Company) arranged to
bring out a German version of it at the Thalia Theater, New York,--but
I have not found that either of those managers ever presented it. A
fragmentary record of the original cast, which is all that diligent
research has discovered, shows Mrs. Saunders and Ada D’Aves as members
of the company and signifies that the chief characters were allotted
thus: