performance of ’American Born’ at Hamlin’s Opera House, Charles
Frohman and I became fast friends. We instinctively understood each
other as though we had been acquainted for years. When we reached
Chicago we found that Samuel Colville was about to produce Henry
Pettitt’s ’Taken from Life,’ at McVicker’s, and Charles Frohman was
quick to see that there would be great rivalry between Colville’s
production and ours. A point in our favor was that the people at
McVicker’s were no more ready than we. The rival play was to
exploit scenery made from English models, and the advertising
announced from fifteen to twenty big scenes. We saw that our
comparatively modest production would not do, and decided to
improve it, working night and day. We strengthened our company by
engaging George Clarke, who was at odds with Daly; ’Harry’
Courtaine, who was passing through the West, and Ada Warde, who had
just returned from Australia. The race to see which would open
first was closely contested. By a shrewd move on the part of ’C.
F.’ our play was announced for a certain evening; then we worked
like demons to give it three nights sooner. In this way we were
ready first. Though we went through the first night without any
serious mishaps, ’Harry’ Courtaine was taken ill in the Second Act,
and I had to step into his part myself. But we had a great success
and astonished our audience with twenty-one scenes, each a
sensation!
“After our engagement was finished inducements came to me from all
quarters to give up my New York opportunity and continue with
’American Born.’ I knew there was a fortune in the play, but I was
loath to come East with the reputation of a writer and producer of
highly sensational melodrama. I had an uneasy feeling that it would
hurt me with the powers at the Madison Square. Of course I could
have kept my interest in ’American Born’ without letting my name
appear, but I was going to a new land, practically to begin all
over again, and I wanted to enter it free of any possible handicap.
So I took the claptrap manuscript and burned it.”
Soon after making that fiery purgation Belasco left Chicago and came to
New York to confront Daniel Frohman and negotiate concerning employment
under that manager.
THE MADISON SQUARE THEATRE.
The Madison Square Theatre, situated on the south side of Twenty-fourth
Street, a little way westward from Madison Square and adjacent to the
old Fifth Avenue Hotel, stood on the site of what had been Daly’s first
Fifth Avenue Theatre, opened August 17, 1869, and burnt down January 1,
1873. That site had, previous to 1869, been for several years occupied
by a building, erected in the Civil War time, by Amos R. Eno, and
devoted to public amusements. I remember it as once the professional
abode of negro minstrels, and again as a sort of vaudeville theatre
conducted by a journalist, then well-known, Thaddeus W. Meighan
(1821-18--). In 1868 the notorious James Fisk, Jr., acquired control of
it, and, in a much improved condition, it was opened, January 25, 1869,
as Brougham’s Theatre, and such it continued to be until the following
April 3, when Fisk summarily ousted Brougham and presently installed a
company of French performers in opera bouffe, headed by Mlle. Irma. A
few weeks later Augustin Daly obtained a lease of the building from
Fisk, made extensive alterations in it, and opened it as the Fifth
Avenue Theatre. Some time after its destruction by fire, in 1873, it was
rebuilt, and presently it was leased by James Steele Mackaye
(1842-1894), an actor and manager of rare talent and eccentric
character, who named it the Madison Square Theatre, and opened it, April
23, 1879, with a revival (as “Aftermath; or, Won at Last”) of his play
which had originally and successfully been produced, as “Won at Last,”
December 10, 1877, at Wallack’s Theatre. Later, Mackaye formed an
association with the Mallory brothers,--the Rev. Dr. George Mallory,
editor of an ecclesiastical newspaper called “The Churchman,” and
Marshall H. Mallory, a highly energetic and enterprising man of
business,--the Mallorys becoming the proprietors of the theatre and
Mackaye the manager. Under this new control great changes were made in
the building; the auditorium was newly and richly decorated, a double
stage, which could be raised and lowered, thus facilitating changes of
scene, was introduced (the device of Mackaye), on a plan somewhat
similar to that which had been successfully adopted ten years earlier by
Edwin Booth, at Booth’s Theatre; a strong dramatic company was
organized, and on February 4, 1880, the house was opened, with a drama
by Mackaye, called “Hazel Kirke,” a rehash of an earlier play by him,
called “An Iron Will,” which, in turn, had been adapted from a French
drama.
“Hazel Kirke” met with extraordinary success, chiefly because of the
superb impersonation of its central character, _Dunstan Kirke_, by
Charles Walter Couldock (1815-1898). It was acted 486 consecutive times,
at the Madison Square, and subsequently it was performed all over the
country. Couldock withdrew from the cast, temporarily, after the 200th
performance in New York, and Mackaye succeeded him. The run of “Hazel
Kirke” at the Madison Square terminated on May 31, 1881, and on June 1
it was succeeded by William Gillette’s farce of “The Professor,” which
held the stage till October 29, following, when it gave place to a play
called “Esmeralda,” by Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, which had 350
performances. Meanwhile Mackaye had become dissatisfied with his
position and had determined to withdraw from it. His contract with the
Mallorys, as he told me at that time (for I knew him well and he often
talked with me about his affairs), had been heedlessly made and largely
to his disadvantage. Contract or no contract, Mackaye and the Mallorys
could not have long remained in association on amicable terms, because
they were as antagonistic as fire and water. Mackaye was a wayward
genius, of poetic temperament, wildly enthusiastic, impetuous,
capricious, volatile, prone to extravagant fancies and bold experiments,
and completely unsympathetic with regulative, Sunday-school morality.
The Mallorys, on the contrary, were shrewd, practical business men, in
no way visionary, thoroughly conventional in character,--in fact, moral
missionaries, intent on making the Theatre a sort of auxiliary to the
Church, their whole scheme of theatrical management being, originally,
to profit by the patronage of the Christian public. Some persons, like
some things, are incompatible. Mackaye resigned and withdrew while
“Esmeralda” was still current, and thus the office was left vacant to
which David Belasco succeeded.
BELASCO AT THE MADISON SQUARE.
On reaching New York and presenting himself at the Madison Square
Theatre as a candidate for the office of stage manager,--or, as it is
now often and incorrectly designated, “producer,”--Belasco was subjected
to minute interrogation, first by Daniel Frohman, the business manager,
and then by both the Mallorys. This ordeal appears to have been
rigorous, but it was satisfactorily ended and the appointment was duly
made. Belasco remembers that, after a long conversation, the Rev. Dr.
Mallory remarked, “I’m glad you have laid such small stress on the
melodramatic emotions of life, for here we are trying to uphold those
emotions which are common to us in our daily existence.” By what means
the candidate contrived to convey that impression to his clerical
inquisitor must remain a mystery, because in all Belasco’s views of
dramatic composition, and in all his contributions to it, the most
prominent and obvious fact is his propensity to melodrama,--meaning the
drama of startling situation and striking stage effect. Dion Boucicault
was the originator and the denominator of “the sensation drama,” and
David Belasco has been, from the first, and is now, a conspicuously
representative exponent of it. He was approved, however, he entered at
once on the performance of his duties, and thus began his permanent
connection with the New York Stage.
It is doubtful whether Belasco decided wisely when he accepted the
office of stage manager of the Madison Square Theatre, under the Mallory
management. His play of “American Born” having succeeded in Chicago, he
might have accumulated capital from its success and from other
resources, and so happily escaped from an association which imposed on
him a heavy burden of exacting labor, without advantage of public
recognition, and without adequate monetary recompense. He believes,
however, that his acceptance of that office laid the cornerstone of his
success. Conjecture now is useless. He did accept the office, and he
held it, industriously and honorably, for about three years. The terms
of his contract with the Mallorys, as he has stated them to me (the
original document, I understand, perished in the San Francisco
earthquake fire), were, in my judgment, iniquitously unjust to him. As
stage manager he was obligated to render all his services to the Madison
Square Theatre management,--that is, to the Mallorys. His salary was $35
a week for the first season, $45 a week for the second season, and
thereafter to be increased in the same proportion the third, fourth, and
fifth seasons. The contract was to continue in force for five years,
unless the Mallorys should become dissatisfied. The Mallorys further
acquired, by the terms of the agreement, a first option on any play he
might write during the period of his employment by them. If a play of
his were accepted and produced by them he was to be paid $10 a night,
and $5 for each matinée, during its representation,--a possible $70 a
week. Furthermore, if a play, or plays, of his which had been rejected
by the Mallorys should be accepted and produced by another management,
Belasco was to pay to the Mallorys one-half of all royalties he might
receive from such play or plays. In Charles Reade’s powerful novel “It’s
Never Too Late to Mend” one of the persons, expostulating with the
honest old Jew, _Isaac Levi_, who has declared his intention to leave
the Australian goldfields, exclaims: “But, if _you_ go, who is to buy
our gold-dust?” To this inquiry _Levi_ replies, “There are the
_Christian_ merchants”; whereupon the other earnestly rejoins, “Oh, but
they are such damned _Jews_!” Perhaps some such thought as this passed
through the mind of the Jew Belasco as he signed his bond with his
Christian employers. He has been successful and has risen in eminence,
but his experience has been far from tranquil,--has been, on the
contrary, one of much painful vicissitude and many hardships. At the
Madison Square and at several other theatres with which, later, he
became associated his labors were, for a long time, as far as the public
was concerned, conducted almost entirely under the surface. He worked
hard, his industry being incessant, and it was useful to many persons,
but his name was seldom or never mentioned in public or in print. The
managers by whom he was employed, while utilizing his talent, may almost
be said to have been intent on hindering his advancement,--that is,
David Belasco, as stage manager, hack dramatist, and general factotum,
would be far more useful to those persons than David Belasco,
independent and recognized dramatist and theatrical manager, could ever
be, and therefore he was repressed: the terms, above stated, of his
first Madison Square Theatre contract and the conditions of all his
labor during the thirteen years or so succeeding 1882 disclose his
situation. He, nevertheless, made his way, slowly but surely, by
patient, persistent effort, by the repeated manifestation of special
skill in stage management, by felicity as a mender of plays, and by good
judgment in the assembling of companies and the casting of parts. At the
Madison Square Theatre he was materially benefited by Bronson Howard’s
public recognition of his service in having, with the sanction and
approval of that author, made minor emendations of the play of “Young
Mrs. Winthrop,”--the first play presented there under his
direction,--and in having placed it on the stage in a correct, tasteful,
and effective manner,--recognition expressed in terms of cordial
compliment, on the night of its first performance, October 9, 1882.
Among the plays which were produced at the Madison Square Theatre, under
Belasco’s efficient and admirable supervision, subsequent to the
presentment of “Young Mrs. Winthrop,” were Mrs. Burton N. Harrison’s “A
Russian Honeymoon,” April 9, 1883; William Young’s “The Rajah; or,
Wyndcot’s Ward,” June 5, 1883; Henry C. De Mille’s “Delmar’s
Daughter,”--which failed,--December 10, 1883; and Hjalmar Hjorth
Boyesen’s “Alpine Roses,” January 31, 1884. Mrs. Harrison’s “A Russian
Honeymoon,” one of those exotics that bloom in select society, had been
acted, in private, December, 1882, by amateurs, prior to its exposure to
the profane gaze,--the amateur company including Mrs. Bradley Martin,
Mrs. William C. Whitney, Mrs. August Belmont, and Mrs. Cora Urquhart
Potter,--and thus had obtained social patronage which was specially
advantageous to it when shown in the theatre. A revival of “The Rajah”
occurred on December 17, 1883. Boyesen’s “Alpine Roses” ran till April
10, 1884. Belasco’s treatment of all those plays redounded to his
credit, but his first signal personal victory ensued on the production
of his play called “May Blossom,” effected April 12, 1884.
“MAY BLOSSOM.”
The Mallorys, he has told me, did not like this play, because of the
character of its chief male part, did not wish to present it, and did
so, finally, with reluctance, after strong opposition, and only because
another play which they were preparing to produce was not ready. “May
Blossom” pleased the public and kept its place on the Madison Square
stage for nearly five months. The 100th performance of it occurred on
July 21, the 150th on September 9, and, on September 27, 1884, its first
run was ended: it is included in French’s Miscellaneous Drama, being No.
59,--but the version of it there published is not the authentic text of
Belasco’s prompt book as used at the Madison Square Theatre: it is
printed from a manuscript furnished by Gustave Frohman.
That play, which marks the beginning of Belasco’s lasting achievement as
a dramatist, claims particular consideration as representative of the
character of his mind, the peculiarity of his method of dramatic
mechanism, and the quality of his style. He has written better plays
than “May Blossom,”--plays which are more symmetrical because more
deftly constructed and more fluent and rapid in movement, plays which
contain more substantial and interesting character, more knowledge of
human nature, and more stress of feeling,--but he has written no play
that more distinctly manifests his strength and his weakness, his scope
and his limitations,--what, intrinsically, he is as a dramatist.
_May Blossom_ is the daughter of an old fisherman, resident in a village
on the coast of Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, in and some time after the
period of the American Civil War. She is beloved by two young men,
_Richard Ashcroft_ and _Steve Harland_, both estimable and both by her
esteemed. Each of those lovers, on the same day, asks her to become his
wife. She accepts the proposal of _Ashcroft_, whom she loves, and in
rejecting that of _Harland_ apprises him of her betrothal to his rival,
who is also one of his friends. _Harland_, though bitterly wounded,
accepts her decision in a right and manly spirit. Later, _Ashcroft_, who
is sympathetic with the Confederate cause and who has been secretly in
communication with the Confederate Army, is suddenly and privately
arrested, at night, by Federal military authorities, as a Rebel spy. The
arrest is witnessed by _Harland_, whom _Ashcroft_ beseeches to inform
_May Blossom_ of his capture and who solemnly promises to do so.
_Harland_, however, believing, or persuading himself to believe, that
_Ashcroft_ will inevitably be shot as a spy, and being infatuated by
passion, breaks his promise and permits the girl to believe that her
affianced lover has perished in a storm on Chesapeake Bay. After the
lapse of a year _Harland_, still persistent as a lover, persuades _May
Blossom_ to marry him, and for a time they dwell happily together and a
child is born to them. On the second anniversary of their wedding, just
before the occurrence of a domestic festival which their friends have
arranged in their honor, _Ashcroft_, having escaped from prison, arrives
at their home, and, in an interview with _May_, tells her of his arrest
and imprisonment, and of _Harland’s_ promise, and so reveals her
husband’s treachery. _Harland_ is confronted by them and a scene of
painful crimination ensues. _Ashcroft_, maddened by jealousy, declares
his purpose of forcible abduction of _May_, who, thereupon, speaking as
a wife and mother, repels him. _Ashcroft_ departs. _Harland_ can plead
no defence for his perfidy in breaking his promise to _Ashcroft_ except
the overwhelming strength of his great love, and his wife is agonized
and horrified. The domestic festival, nevertheless, is permitted to
proceed. The guests arrive. The miserable husband and wife, masking
their wretchedness in smiles, are constrained to participate in
merrymaking, and finally are caused by the village pastor to kneel
before him, receive his blessing, and embrace and kiss each other, after
which ceremonial their guests depart and they are left alone. Then
_Harland_, condemning himself and feeling that his wife can no longer
love him, leaves her, purposing to join the Rebel Army. Their separation
lasts six years. _Ashcroft_ is heard of no more. _Harland_ survives and
ultimately returns to his Virginia home, where a reconciliation is
effected between him and his wife, partly by the benevolent offices of
the village pastor, but more because _May_ has realized that she truly
loves him, and because the inevitable action of time has dissipated her
resentment of a wrong.
The analyzer of the drama that tells this story perceives in it a
constructive mind that is imaginative, romantic, and eccentric, an
ardently vehement faculty of expression, and a nimble fancy intent on
devising pictorial and pathetic situations, while often heedless of
probability--sometimes even of possibility. Things happen not because
they would, in actual life, so happen, under the pressure of
circumstances, but because the dramatist ordains them to occur, to suit
his necessity. Experience has taught the indiscretion of declaring that
_anything_ is _impossible_, but it is at least highly improbable that a
good man would, in any circumstances, break a promise solemnly made to a
friend whom he believed was about to die. _Harland_ is depicted as a
gentleman and one of deep feeling. _Ashcroft’s_ death, if _Harland_
considers it to be inevitable, would at once relieve him of any need to
break his promise, even if he had been ever so strongly tempted to do
so: doubt of _Ashcroft’s_ death would inspire far more poignant remorse
and fear than _Harland_ actually denotes. _May Blossom_, furthermore,
would not have omitted to inquire, with far more insistence than she is
represented to have shown, into the disappearance of the lover to whom
she is betrothed. _Ashcroft_, though a prisoner, would have been
permitted to communicate with his friends, since at his trial nothing
was proved against him,--yet he was still held in captivity. It is
questionable whether the manly _Harland_, a thoroughly good fellow,
would have married _May Blossom_, however much he might have loved her,
knowing that she loved another man. It is more than questionable whether
_May_, having married _Harland_ and borne a child to him, would have
repudiated her husband, would have acquiesced in his parting from her
and their child, because of the particular wrong that he had done in
breaking his promise to _Ashcroft_. The sin that a man commits out of
the uncontrollable love that he feels for a woman is, of all sins, the
one that she is readiest to forgive. The likelihood that _May Blossom_,
loving _Ashcroft_, betrothed to him and mourning for him, would, after
the lapse of so short a time as one year, have married anybody is,
likewise, open to doubt. Belasco, however, was bent on devising
situations, and he accomplished his purpose: grant his premises (as a
theatrical audience, in the presence of a competent performance of this
play, almost invariably will do), and his dramatic fabric captivates
entire sympathy.
I saw and recorded the first performance of “May Blossom.” The play was
then exceedingly well acted. Georgia Cayvan (1858-1906), personating the
heroine, gained the first decisive success of her career. That actress,
a handsome brunette, was fortunate in person and in temperament. Her
figure was lithe, her face was brilliantly expressive, her voice was
rich and sweet, she possessed uncommon sensibility, and she could be, at
will, ingenuously demure, artlessly girlish, authoritatively stern, or
fervently passionate. She attained distinction among American actresses
of “emotional” drama and was long and rightly a favorite on our Stage.
As _May Blossom_ she was first the lovely, simple, charming girl, and
later the grave, tranquil wife and mother. In the expression of mental
conflict she was, for a time, artificial in method, using the well-worn,
commonplace expedients of reeling, staggering, and clutching at
furniture; but she reformed that altogether, and her capability of
intense passion in repose was clearly indicated: the character was
developed and truly impersonated. Among her associates in the
representation were Joseph Wheelock, Sr. (183[8?]-1908), and William J.
LeMoyne (1831-1905), both actors of signal ability, now forgotten or
only dimly remembered. Wheelock, in his early day, was a favorite
_Romeo_. LeMoyne was an actor of rare talent and remarkable versatility.
His impersonations of eccentric, humorous, peppery old gentlemen were
among the finest and most amusing that our Stage has known. In this play
he personated _Unca Bartlett_, a benevolent, affectionate, whimsical
rural clergyman. I
[Illustration:
Photograph by Sarony. Belasco’s Collection.
GEORGIA CAYVAN
About 1884, when she acted in “May Blossom”] recall a somewhat painful
incident of the first night of “May Blossom,” which should be recorded
as indicative of its author’s peculiar constitution. Belasco had made
arduous efforts in preparing the play for the stage and also during the
performance of it, and when, after the last curtain, he was called and
constrained to thank his enthusiastic audience, he could hardly speak,
and after saying a few words he fainted. This collapse, genuine and, to
a hypersensitive person, natural, was, by some observers, cruelly
derided as affectation. Many persons, fortunately for themselves
superior to trepidation, seem incapable of understanding as genuine the
“fears and scruples” which sometimes overwhelm others: I remember once,
at a banquet, in Boston, to Dr. Holmes, noting with surprise the
impatience with which my table neighbor, Colonel Higginson, gazing at
Holmes,--who was trembling with excitement in view of what he had to
do,--said to me: “What’s he worried about! He has only to read some
verses!” Many years after the first presentment of “May Blossom,” which
it was my privilege to hail, the next morning, in “The New York
Tribune,” as the best new play which had, up to that time, been produced
at the Madison Square Theatre, Belasco said to me: “Your verdict meant
everything to me,--more, during the first week or two, than the public
approval. Bronson Howard’s recognition of my work in improving ’Young
Mrs. Winthrop’ and your support of my ’May Blossom’ did more to help me
break the iron ring I was shut up in in New York than everything else
put together!”