destined to be a barren one, when, as the London career of “The Heart of
Maryland” was drawing toward its close, he chanced to read, in a
theatrical newspaper, an outline of the plot of a French play named
“Zaza,” which had been produced, May 12, 1898, at the Vaudeville
Theatre, Paris, and which he thought might be adapted to the use of his
star. On mentioning the play to Charles Frohman and inquiring whether he
knew anything about it Frohman informed him that he did not believe it
would prosper in America and that, therefore, he had permitted an option
on the American right of producing it to lapse. Belasco, nevertheless,
visited Paris, witnessed a performance of “Zaza,” as acted by Mme.
Gabrielle Réjane and her associates at the Vaudeville, and was so
impressed by it that he immediately cabled Frohman, urging him to
purchase the American rights of production,--which Frohman forthwith
did. On June 25 the London season of “The Heart of Maryland” ended, and
on September 1, on the steamship Majestic, Mrs. Carter, the “Maryland”
company, and Belasco sailed for home,--the latter having entered into an
engagement with Charles Frohman whereby that influential speculator in
theatrical wares agreed to produce “Zaza” in partnership with him and to
“present Mrs. Leslie Carter, by arrangement with David Belasco.” Belasco
was much elated at having made that contract. Writing about it, he says:
“Patience and perseverance had won! At last I had not only a star and a
play, but a partner with money, unlimited credit, and vast influence. As
soon as I returned to New York I began preparations for the next season,
and then I went cheerfully into exile to adapt ’Zaza.’”
“ZAZA,” AND THE ETHICAL QUESTION.
Two plays have been produced by Belasco the presentment of which, in my
judgment,--although both of them were received with extravagant favor by
numerous writers in the press and were acted profitably and with much
manifest public approbation for a long time,--should be recorded as a
grievous blot on the fair record of his professional career. One of
those plays is this notorious drama of “Zaza,” adapted and altered by
Belasco from the French original by MM. Pierre Berton (1840-1912) and
Charles Simon (1850-1910); the other is the vulgar and repulsive drama
called “The Easiest Way,” concocted by an American journalist, Mr.
Eugene Walter, containing a long-drawn portrayal expositive of the
immoral character, unchaste conduct, and necessarily wretched
retributive experience, of a courtesan. Both of those plays reflect the
gross aspect of what Carlyle happily designated Demirepdom,--a domain of
licentiousness and bestiality which should never be treated in Drama or
illustrated on the Stage.
Opinion on this point is, I am aware, sharply divided. Shakespeare, we
are continually reminded, speaking for himself (most inappropriately, by
the way) in the character of _Hamlet_, and referring to “the purpose of
playing,” says that its “end both at the first and now was, and is, to
hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to _nature_; to show _virtue_, her own
feature, _scorn_ her own image, and the very age and body of the time
his form and pressure.”
What does that mean? Does it mean that everything existent in Nature is
material suitable to be presented on the Stage? Does it mean that there
should be no restriction as to the choice of subjects, from “the age and
body of the time,” to be illustrated in public, before a mixed audience
of both sexes and of all ages and conditions? No sound, convincing
exposition of that view of the subject has ever been made, and I cannot
accept it. Shakespeare, in his plays, has depicted “people of all
sorts,” and among others he has depicted several sorts of depraved
women, one of them, _Cressida_, being a natural, typical, representative
harlot. It is, however, to be observed that he has not dilated on her
career, has not expatiated on her licentiousness, has not enumerated her
intrigues, has not analyzed her libidinous propensities, has not tinged
his portrayal of her misconduct with any sophistical coloring, has not
entered for her any plea in extenuation; has simply drawn her as a type
of rank carnality and so dismissed her. Such persons have always
existed, they exist now, and they always will exist. That it is
necessary, right, or defensible that they should be exploited in the
Theatre I have never been able to perceive,--whether they be depicted by
Shakespeare or by anybody else. From “Jane Shore” and “The Stranger” to
“Denise” and “Camille,” nothing has ever come of the long, dreary,
speciously sophistical exhibition of sexual vice and consequent misery
but corruption of the moral sense, loose, flabby thinking, cant, and
maudlin sentimentality. No good has come of it to anybody, least of all
to the victims of their evil passions.
Altruism should prevail in the conduct of life, and with all fine
natures it does prevail. The instinctive desire, while not universal nor
perhaps general, is very considerable to help the weak, to shield the
innocent, to liberate the oppressed, to comfort the afflicted, to find
excuses for frailty, to take a charitable view of human infirmity; but
while lovely in itself and beneficent in some of its results, it is, in
vital particulars, ineffectual: it cannot eliminate depravity from a
nature that is innately wicked, and it cannot dispel remorse,--or even
mitigate that agony,--from a mind innately conscientious.
Belasco, by obtruding harlots on the stage,--as he has not scrupled to
do, in presenting to public observance _Zaza_ and _Laura
Murdoch_,--follows many precedents and impliedly approves the
exploitation of such persons,--unfortunate, pitiable, deplorable,
sometimes amiable and gentle, more frequently hard, fierce, treacherous,
and wicked. His published writings avow his views on this subject, and I
have found his private assurances concurrent with his published
writings. Those views do more credit to the kindness of his disposition
than to the clarity of his thought. From his youth onward he has been
deeply interested in aberrant women, studious of their aberrancy,
solicitous for their rescue and reformation, charitable toward them,
wishful to befriend them, and strenuous, when writing about them, to
place them in the best possible light. “Whenever I rehearse a situation
of passion, of crime, of wrongdoing” (so he writes), “I remember _the
heart_. _I make an excuse_--seek out the _motive_, to put the actor in
touch with the culprit’s _point of view_. The _excuse is always there_.”
No form of reasoning could be more sophistical, more delusive, more
mischievous. The _reason_ for sin, for crime, for wrongdoing, _is_
always there: but a broad distinction exists between the _reason_ and
the _excuse_. Some persons, naturally good, nevertheless do wrong,
commit crime, sin against themselves and against both moral law and
social order, because they cannot help it, because they are weak and
cannot resist temptation. Other persons commit crime knowingly,
deliberately, intentionally, because they wish to do so, because they
delight in doing so, and find their greatest possible gratification in
acts of wickedness. Selfishness and greed are, in a vast number of
cases, impervious to anything other than the operation of external
forces painful to themselves: there are persons who possess no moral
sense whatever. The notion that there is a substratum of goodness in
every human being is one of the most flagrant delusions that ever
entered the mind of sensible persons acquainted with the history of the
world and aware of what is passing around them every hour. “I remember
_the heart_” says Belasco: it would not be amiss to remember what was
long ago said of that interesting organ by one of the wise prophets of
his nation: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked.” It is in the highest degree creditable to Belasco as a man that
he possesses a tenderly compassionate, humane spirit and has always
practically acted on the impulse of it; neither wisdom nor justice is
discernible in the “moral teaching” that he has liberated by his
indiscriminate subservience to it in the instances I have named.
PRODUCTION, AND CONTENTS, OF “ZAZA.”
“Zaza” was first produced, December 25, 1898, at the Lafayette Opera
House (now, 1917, the Belasco Theatre), Washington, D. C. The first
presentment of it in New York occurred, January 9, 1899, at the Garrick
Theatre, where it was acted till June 17, receiving 164 performances.
“Zaza” is not so much a play as it is a series of loosely jointed,
sequent episodes. The story is simple and vulgar. _Zaza_ is a French
prostitute. She has passed from the streets to the stage of country
music halls and has become a singer. She is a common, shameless,
termagant wanton, possessed, however, of an animal allurement which
infatuates a man of respectable position and outwardly decent character.
His name is _Dufrène_. By him she is removed from a life of
miscellaneous degradation and,--“purified” by “love”!--she dwells with
him, in contentment, for six months,--remarking, as she pulls on her
stockings, “I do think it’s the most beautiful thing in the world when
two lovers come together.” At the end of that time she discovers that
her paramour is married, and that he maintains his wife and their child
in a respectable rural home and, at intervals, bestows upon them the
boon of his precious company. With the tigerish resentment often
characteristic of her class, she immediately repairs to that home,
intent to “revenge” herself upon _Dufrène’s_ wife by revealing the
husband’s infidelity. Her amiable purpose is diverted by an encounter
with his child, whose prattle so profoundly affects her supersensitive
“better feelings” that she quits the field, returns to her civic bower,
which has been provided by _Dufrène_, there provokes a violent quarrel
with that hypocritical libertine, so enrages him that he threatens to
strike her, and finally elicits from him the assurance that his wife is
much more precious to him than his harlot is. The separation of this
edifying couple ensues. Stimulated by this experience of “purification
by love,” _Zaza_ determines to achieve artistic greatness without
further delay, and this she incontinently does, becoming, within two
years,--“through much misery, much grief, much work, and a little luck,”
as she expresses it,--a great artist, wealthy and (general concomitant
of wealth!) respected, and, most delightful of all, a paragon of virtue,
gently dismissing her recalcitrant paramour, _Dufrène_ (who, unable to
forget the rapturous interlude of his amatory association with her, has
sought to renew it), in the peaceful seclusion of the Champs Elysees!
The play of “Zaza,” in the French original, is even more offensive than
in Belasco’s adaptation, but it possesses more unity as a dramatic
fabric and more authenticity as a portrayal of a revolting phase of
life. Belasco’s version is much the superior as a commercial and
theatrically useful vehicle. His purpose in adapting the play for the
English-speaking Stage is thus stated by himself: “I wanted my audience
to find some _excuse_ for _Zaza’s_ past and to have less pity for the
wife. When the play was produced in America and _Zaza sacrificed her own
feelings for the sake of a child_ the audience was so entirely in her
favor that she won the tears of New York and, later on [_sic_], of
London.” “The tears” of New York, London, or any other residential
locality are not difficult to “win” when an experienced hand at the
theatrical fount pumps hard enough for them. Freed of flummery, what
does this play signify? A woman essentially vile in nature, degraded by
a career of vice, gross in her conduct, vitiated in her principles and
feelings, is sentimentally affected by the babble of a child, and her
holy “sacrifice of her own feelings” consists in abstention from
wrecking the happiness of an innocent and injured woman who has never
done her any harm. As a matter of fact, such a drab as _Zaza_ would not
have denied herself that gratification for the sake of a whole regiment
of children,--but truth was not the goal desired: that object was
profitable effect. Such dramas as “Zaza” defile the public mind and
degrade the Stage, and it would be propitious for the community if they
could be played on from a fire hose and washed into the sewer where they
belong.
MRS. CARTER’S IMPERSONATION OF _ZAZA_.
Mrs. Carter’s performance of the patchouly-scented heroine of this
tainted trash was much admired and extravagantly commended. As a work of
dramatic art it was trivial: as a violent theatrical display of common
surface traits,--a demonstration, in “Ercles’ vein,” of ability to tear
a cat,--it was highly effective. The language of the gutter was spoken
in the tone and with the manner of the gutter. The method of the
execution was direct, broad, swift,--and coarse. The best technical
merit of it was clarity of utterance. In _Zaza’s_ scene with the child
Mrs. Carter was mechanical and monotonous. It was the utter, reckless
abandon, the uncontrolled physical and vocal vehemence, the virago-like
intensity of her abuse of her lover, which, communicating themselves to
the nerves of her auditors and overwhelming them by violence, gained the
actress her success in the part. If to “tear a passion to tatters, to
very rags,” to take up the carpet tacks
[Illustration:
Photograph by Sarony. Belasco’s Collection.
MRS. LESLIE CARTER AS _ZAZA_]
and demolish the furniture, be to act greatly, then Mrs. Carter’s _Zaza_
was a great piece of acting; not otherwise. Her popularity was
unequivocal, and it constituted a triumph for Belasco even more
remarkable than for her.
This was the original cast of “Zaza,” at the Garrick Theatre, New York,
January 9, 1899:
_Bernard Dufrène_ Charles A. Stevenson.
_Duc de Brissac_ Albert Bruning.
_Cascart_ Mark Smith (Jr.).
_Jacques Rigault_ Hugo Toland.
_Chamblay, Jr_ Gilmore Scott.
_Hector_ Lester Gruner.
_Blac_ Harold Howard.
_Brigard_ W. B. Murray.
_Mounet-Pombla_ Gerard Anderson.
_Joly_ Herbert Millward.
_Carvallo Bros._ (_acrobats_) Leona and Master Bimbi.
_Jabowski_ Walter Stuart.
_Adolphe_ Lawrence Reeves.
_Coachman_ Alfred Hollingsworth.
_Criquet_ Edgar Hart.
_Rosa Bonné_ Marie Bates.
_Madame Dufrène_ Mabel Howard.
_Divonne_ Lizzie DuRoy.
_Lizette_ Emma Chase.
_Toto_ Helen Thill.
_Florianne_ Anne Sutherland.
_Alice Morel_ Maude Winter.
_Lolotte_ Marie Thill.
_Juliette_ Eleanor Stuart.
_Niniche_ Elizabeth Belknap.
_Leonie_ Corah Adams.
_Clairette_ Helma Horneman.
_Adele_ Aurelia A. Granville.
_Flower Girl_ Louisa Burnham.
_Nathalie_ Helen Tracy.
_Zaza_ Mrs. Leslie Carter.
(Mem. When “Zaza” was revived, in 1905, a minor character called
_Lisvon_ was added: it was played by Amelia G. Granville.)
DEATH OF BELASCO’S MOTHER.--“CAN THE DEAD COME BACK?”--A STRANGE
EXPERIENCE.
The instant and immense popular success of “Zaza” was embittered for
Belasco by close association with a loss and sorrow that time has not
lightened,--the death of his beloved mother, which befell on January 11,
1899, at No. 174 Clara Street, San Francisco. During rehearsals of his
play and its presentments in Washington Belasco, so he has told me, “had
_felt_ that she was ill,” but had no thought that her condition was
critical. Writing about her death, he gives the following interesting
account of a strange experience:
“Ever since my boyhood I have been interested in the subject of
spiritualism. For many years I have asked myself the question:
’_Can_ the dead come back?’... One morning, after a late
rehearsal, I reached home at three o’clock, completely fagged out.
No sooner had I fallen asleep than I seemed to waken, and there
stood my mother beside my bed. ’Davie, Davie, Davie,’ she said
three times, smiled, and bending over kissed me good-bye. She said
other things--told me she was happy--not to grieve. I could not
stir, but kept my eyes fixed upon her as she moved towards the door
and disappeared. How long I lay staring into the darkness I do not
know, but at last I managed to collect myself, put on my
dressing-gown, and, still dazed, went downstairs to a little
sitting-room. My family heard me. ’What are you doing downstairs?’
my youngest child, Augusta, asked, and she tried to coax me back to
bed. I went to my room, but I could not sleep. When I told my
family of my vision, and that I believed my mother was dead, they
suggested that I was overwrought and tired and had seen my mother
in a dream.
“I went to rehearsal the next morning, and during an interval had
luncheon at Churchill’s--then a small coffeehouse--with a member of
the theatre staff. I sat there, much troubled, thinking of the
figure of my mother as she appeared in the dawn. My companion
noticed my silence, and, when I told him of my experience, tried to
reassure me. As we rose to go he handed me some letters and
telegrams he had found in the box-office. Among the telegrams was
one telling me the sad news of my mother’s death. Later I found
that she died at the exact time she appeared at my bedside. At the
very moment I saw her she was passing out of the world. Several
years after, when I paid a visit to San Francisco, my brothers and
sisters told me my mother smiled and murmured my name three times
before she died.... I do not know that the dead _do_ come back. I
_do_ know that at the time of passing the spirit sends a thought
through space, and this thought is so powerful that the receiver
can see the sender. This was proved by my dear mother. She came to
me no more, however.”
In speaking of his parents Belasco has deeply impressed me by the fervor
and sincerity of his filial affections. “My mother,” he has said, “was
the best loved woman in Victoria and in San Francisco,--and she was the
truest, best friend I ever had or shall have. She was called ’the Good
Angel’ of the poorer quarters. As she grew older, in the latter city,
when going about in streetcars, conductors would, when she wished to
leave, escort her to the sidewalk, or would bring her to the car, if she
wished to board it. When she died she had the greatest funeral a private
person ever had in San Francisco. My brother told me it seemed as though
every vehicle in town was in the line. She was very poetic, romantic,
and keenly imaginative and gentleness itself. Any good I have ever done
I owe to her.”--In a letter to a friend he writes thus about his mother:
“ ... I cannot tell you how close we were--how she seemed always to
understand me without words and often [seemed] to be near me when I
was in trouble and needed help. You know, I believe such feelings
are inspired by something real: ’the realities of the spirit are
more real than anything else.’... Very often we exchanged
messages just by sending flowers, and it was the same way with my
little ’Gussie.’... Flowers have always been a passion with me.
Ever since I was a little boy, in Vancouver, and my mother used to
come and find me dreaming among them on the hillside, I have loved
them all.... But the violets were always my favorites, as they were
hers. She always had them about her, from girlhood, and, indeed, my
father wooed her with them. There was a bunch of them beside her in
the little cellar-room where I was born (so she used to tell me),
and when they brought me to her on a pillow she took some in her
hand and sprinkled them over me. All my clothes, when I was a baby,
had a violet embroidered on them, somewhere. The last gift I ever
received from my mother was a black silk scarf, with violets
embroidered on it,--and long, long hours it must have taken her to
do it, for she could hardly hold a needle. Once, when I was a boy,
I took $20 from a secret little hoard of hers, to pay for an
operation on my throat which I didn’t want her to know about. Of
course she missed it but she never said a word, and when I had
saved up the money I just put it in a bunch of violets and left it
for her. And when at last she went away and I could not be there I
sent violets to cover her grave and say my ’Good-bye.’”
BLANCHE BATES AND “NAUGHTY ANTHONY.”
Much the most interesting person and much the ablest performer who has
appeared under the management of Belasco is Blanche Bates. At the zenith
of her career she exhibited a combination of brilliant beauty,
inspiriting animation and impetuous vigor quite extraordinary and
irresistibly winning. Her lovely dark eyes sparkled with glee. Her
handsome countenance radiated gladness. She seemed incarnate joy. Her
voice was clear, liquid, sweet; her enunciation distinct, her bearing
distinguished, her action free and graceful. I have seldom seen an
actress whose mere presence conveyed such a delightful sense of
abounding vitality and happiness. In the last ten years no actress in
our country has equalled her in brilliancy and power. She might have
grasped the supremacy of the American Stage, alike in Comedy and
Tragedy, personating such representative parts as Shakespeare’s
_Beatrice_ and _Cleopatra_ and taking by right the place once occupied
by Ada Rehan and afterward by Julia Marlowe. While under Belasco’s
management she did give three performances which deservedly are
remembered among the best of her time,--namely, _Cigarette_, in “Under
Two Flags”; _Yo-San_, in “The Darling of the Gods,” and _The Girl_, in
“The Girl of the Golden West.” But, although incontestably she possesses
intellectual character, a strain of capricious levity is also among her
attributes; she has weakly acquiesced to the dictates of vacuous social
taste and sordid commercial spirit, paltered with her great talents,
thrown away high ambition and golden opportunity, and so came at last
to mere failure and obscurity. Her nature and her artistic style require
for their full and free arousal and exercise parts of romantic,
passionate, picturesque character, admitting of large, bold, sparkling
treatment. She acted under Belasco’s direction for about twelve years:
since leaving it, in 1912, she has done nothing in the Theatre of
importance. “The modern, ’drawing-room drama’ in which she aspired to
play,”--so Belasco once remarked to me,--“is not, to my mind, suited to
her, and so we parted.”
Blanche Bates is a native of Portland, Oregon, born August 25, 1872; her
father was manager of the Oro Fino Theatre, Portland, at the time of her
birth. Her youth was passed in San Francisco, where she was well
educated. She went on the stage in 1894, appearing at Stockwell’s
Theatre (later called the Columbia), in that city, in a play called
“This Picture and That.” Her novitiate was served chiefly under the
management of T. Daniel Frawley. For several years she acted in cities
in the Far West, playing all sorts of parts. At one time, in California,
she was professionally associated with that fine comedian Frank Worthing
(Francis George Pentland, 1866-1910), who materially helped to develop
and train her histrionic talents. Belasco first became acquainted with
her while she was yet a child, at the time of his professional alliance
with her mother, Mrs. F. M. Bates. In 1896, during Mrs. Carter’s first
season in “The Heart of Maryland,” Blanche visited New York, witnessed
that performance, and applied to Belasco for employment. At the moment
it was not possible for him to engage her, but he was neither forgetful
of an old promise of his made to Mrs. Bates that he would assist her
daughter, if ever he should be able to do so, nor unmindful of the
beauty, talent, and charming personality of the applicant, and he
assured her that she “should have a chance” at the first opportunity.
That opportunity did not present itself for nearly three years.
Meanwhile, Miss Bates returned to California and acted there, for about
two years more, with the Frawley company. In the Spring of 1898 she was
engaged by Augustin Daly and for a short time she acted under his
management. On February 9, 1899, she made a single brilliantly
successful appearance, at Daly’s Theatre, as the _Countess Mirtza_, on
the occasion of the first presentment in this country of the popular
melodrama of “The Great Ruby.” She disagreed, however, with the
autocratic Daly and immediately retired from his company. On March 13,
1899, acting at the Broadway Theatre, New York, in association with
Belasco’s old friend and comrade
[Illustration:
Photograph by Sarony. Belasco’s Collection.
BELASCO, ABOUT 1899-1900]