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[Illustration: JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH.]
CURIOSITIES OF THE AMERICAN STAGE
by
LAURENCE HUTTON
Author of "Plays and Players" etc., etc.
Illustrated
New York
Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square
1891
Copyright, 1890, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.
TO
BRANDER MATTHEWS
_THESE_
_THE ARGUMENT._
This book, as its name implies, is a series of chapters from the annals of
the American Theatre; and it considers Plays and Players more particularly
in their less familiar aspects. It does not pretend to be critical; and
the greatest care has been taken to verify all the facts it contains (many
of them here presented for the first time), in order that it may appeal to
the small but select band of specialists known as Dramatic Collectors, as
well as to those influential members of the community who are glad to call
themselves Old Play-goers.
The chapters upon "The American Stage Negro," upon "The American
Burlesque," and upon a "A Century of American Hamlets," appeared
originally in HARPER'S MAGAZINE; the others have been printed, in part, in
other periodicals, but as now published they have all been rewritten,
elaborated, and extended.
The portraits with which the volume is enriched are in many instances
very rare, and some of them, never engraved before, have been prepared
especially for this work. They are from the collections of Mr. J. H. V.
Arnold, Dr. B. E. Martin, Mr. Thomas J. McKee, Mr. C. C. Moreau, Mr. Evart
Jansen Wendell, and The Players, to all of whom the author here expresses
his sincere thanks.
A double Index--personal as well as local--makes the book easily available
for reference; and it will lend itself readily to extra illustration. It
is intended to instruct as well as to entertain.
LAURENCE HUTTON.
THE PLAYERS, 1890.
_DRAMATIS PERSONAE._
PAGE
Junius Brutus Booth _Frontispiece_
G. W. P. Custis 9
Edwin Forrest 11
John McCullough 15
Major Andre 21
J. H. Hackett 27
Frank Mayo as Davy Crockett 33
William J. Florence as Bardwell Slote 37
John T. Raymond 41
Neil Burgess as the Widow Bedott 45
F. S. Chanfrau as Mose 49
Epes Sargent 55
Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie 61
Edgar Fawcett 73
Brander Matthews 77
Bronson Howard 81
Charles Dibdin as Mungo 91
Ira Aldridge as Othello 95
Old Play-bill 97
Andrew Jackson Allen 103
Barney Williams in _Dandy Jim_ 105
Ralph Keeler 107
P. T. Barnum 109
John B. Gough 113
Thomas D. Rice as Jim Crow 116
Thomas D. Rice 118
James Roberts 120
George Washington Dixon 121
Mr. Dixon as Zip Coon 123
Daniel Emmett 125
Charles White 127
Edwin P. Christy 131
George Christy 133
George Swayne Buckley 137
Eph Horn 139
Jerry Bryant 140
Nelse Seymour 140
Dan Bryant 141
Stephen C. Foster 143
Mrs. Hallam (Mrs. Douglas) 156
Mark Smith as Mrs. Normer 159
William Mitchell as Richard Number Three 161
John Brougham and Georgiana Hodson in _Pocahontas_ 163
Harry Beckett as the Widow Twankey, in _Aladdin_ 167
James Lewis as Syntax, in _Cinderella at School_ 171
George L. Fox as Hamlet 175
Lydia Thompson as Sindbad 179
William H. Crane as Le Blanc, in _Evangeline_ 183
Stuart Robson as Captain Crosstree 186
Harry Hunter as the Lone Fisherman 189
Francis Wilson in the _Oolah_ 193
Mr. Jefferson and Mrs. Wood in _Ivanhoe_ 196
James T. Powers as Briolet, in _The Marquis_ 197
Charles Burke as Kazrac, in _Aladdin_ 200
N. C. Goodwin in _Little Jack Sheppard_ 201
De Wolf Hopper as Juliet, and Marshall P. Wilder as Romeo 203
Henry E. Dixey as the Country Girl in _Adonis_ 205
Munrico Dengremont 211
Josef Hofman 215
Otto Hegner 219
Elsie Leslie 223
Charles Stratton ("Tom Thumb") 227
Lavinia Warren 231
John Howard Payne 233
Blind Tom 235
Master Burke as Hamlet 237
May Haines and Isa Bowman as the two Princes in _King
Richard III._ 239
Edmund Kean 259
William Augustus Conway 263
James William Wallack 267
William C. Macready 271
Charles Kemble 275
Charles Kean 279
Edwin Forrest 283
Edward L. Davenport 287
James Stark 291
Edwin Booth 295
Lawrence Barrett 299
James E. Murdoch 303
Charles Fechter 307
Henry E. Johnstone 311
John Vandenhoff 315
George Jones 319
Augustus A. Addams 323
William Pelby 327
ACT I.
THE NATIVE AMERICAN DRAMA.
SCENE I.
THE INDIAN DRAMA.
"Do you put tricks upon 's with savages and men of Inde?"
_The Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
The American play is yet to be written. Such is the unanimous verdict of
the guild of dramatic critics of America, the gentlemen whom Mr. Phoebus,
in _Lothair_, would describe as having failed to write the American play
themselves. Unanimity of any kind among critics is remarkable, but in this
instance the critics are probably right. In all of its forms, except the
dramatic form, we have a literature which is American, distinctive, and a
credit to us. The histories of Motley and of Parkman are standard works
throughout the literary world. Washington Irving and Hawthorne are as well
known to all English readers, and as dearly loved, as are Thackeray and
Charles Lamb. Poems like Longfellow's _Hiawatha_, Whittier's _Snow-Bound_,
Lowell's _The Courtin'_, and Bret Harte's _Cicely_ belong as decidedly to
America as do Gray's _Elegy_ to England, _The Cotter's Saturday Night_ to
Scotland, or the songs of the Minnesingers to the German Fatherland, and
they are perhaps to be as enduring as any of these. Mr. Emerson, Mr.
Lowell, and Professor John Fiske are essayists and philosophers who reason
as well and as clearly, and with as much originality, as do any of the
sages of other lands. In our negro melodies we have a national music that
has charms to soothe the savage and the civilized breast in both
hemispheres. American humor and American humorists are so peculiarly
American that they are _sui generis_, and belong to a distinct school of
their own; while in fiction Cooper's Indian novels, Holmes's _Elsie
Venner_, Mrs. Stowe's _Oldtown Folk_, Howells's _Silas Lapham_, and
Cable's _Old Creole Days_ are purely characteristic of the land in which
they were written, and of the people and manners and customs of which they
treat, and are as charming in their way as are any of the romances of the
Old World. Freely acknowledging all this, the dramatic critics are still
unable to explain the absence of anything like a standard American drama
and the non-existence of a single immortal American play.
The Americans are a theatre-going people. More journals devoted to
dramatic affairs are published in New York than in any European capital.
Our native actors in many instances are unexcelled on any stage of the
world; we have sent to England, to meet with unqualified favor from
English audiences, J. H. Hackett, Miss Charlotte Cushman, Joseph
Jefferson, Edwin Booth, John S. Clarke, Lawrence Barrett, Edwin Forrest,
Miss Mary Anderson, Miss Kate Bateman, Augustin Daly's entire company of
comedians, Mr. and Mrs. Florence, Richard Mansfield, and many more; while,
with the exception of certain of Bronson Howard's comedies, "localized"
and renamed, how many original American plays are known favorably, or at
all, to our British cousins? _Rip Van Winkle_, although its scenes are
American, is not an original American play by any means; it is an
adaptation of Irving's familiar legend; its central figure is a Dutchman
whose English is broken, and its adapter is an Irishman. Yet _Rip Van
Winkle_, Joseph K. Emmett's _Fritz_, and _The Danites_ are the most
popular of the American plays in England, and are considered, no doubt,
correct pictures of American life.
That the American dramatists are trying very hard to produce American
dramas all theatrical managers on this side of the Atlantic know too well,
for shelves and waste-paper baskets are full of them to overflowing.
Frequent rejection and evident want of demand have no effect whatever
upon the continuous supply. How few of these are successful, or are likely
to live beyond one week or one season, all habitual theatre-goers can say.
During the single century of the American stage not twoscore plays of any
description have appeared which have been truly American, and which at the
same time are of any value to dramatic literature or of any credit to the
American name.
By an original American play is here meant one which is the original work
of an American author, the incidents and scenes and characters of which
are purely and entirely American. In this category cannot be included
dramas like Mr. Daly's _Pique_, or _The Big Bonanza_, for the one is from
an English novel and the other from a German play; nor Mr. Boucicault's
_Belle Lamar_, or _The Octoroon_, which are native here, but from the pen
of an alien; nor plays like _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, which are not original,
but are drawn largely, if not wholly, from American tales; nor plays like
_A Brass Monkey_ or _A Bunch of Keys_, which are not plays at all.
The first purely American play ever put upon a regular stage by a
professional company of actors was _The Contrast_, performed at the
theatre in John Street, New York, on the 16th of April, 1787. It was, as
recorded by William Dunlap in his _History of the American Theatre_, a
comedy in five acts, by Royall Tyler, Esq., a Boston gentleman of no great
literary pretensions, but in his later life prominent in the history of
Vermont, to which State he moved shortly after its admission into the
Federal Union in 1791. Mr. Ireland and Mr. Seilhamer preserve the original
cast of _The Contrast_, which, however, as containing no names prominent
in histrionic history, is of no particular interest here. Not a very
brilliant comedy--it was weak in plot, incident, and dialogue--it is
worthy of notice not only because of its distinction as the first-born of
American plays, but because of its creation and introduction of the now so
familiar stage-Yankee, Jonathan, played by Thomas Wignell, an Englishman
who came to this country the preceding year. He was a clever actor, and
later, a successful manager in Philadelphia, dying in 1803. Jonathan, no
doubt, wore a long tailed blue coat, striped trousers, and short
waistcoats, or the costume of the period that nearest approached this;
certainly he whittled sticks, and said "Tarnation!" and "I vum," and
called himself "a true-born son of liberty" through his nose, as have the
hundreds of stage-Yankees, from Asa Trenchard down, who have come after
him, and for whom he and Mr. Wignell and Royall Tyler, Esq., were
originally responsible. Jonathan was the chief character in the piece,
which was almost a one-part play. Its representations were few.
This Jonathan is not to be confounded with another and a better Jonathan,
who figured in _The Forest Rose_, a domestic opera, by Samuel Woodworth,
music by John Davies, produced in 1825, when Tyler's Jonathan had been
dead and buried for many years. Woodworth's Jonathan was originally played
by Alexander Simpson, and later by Henry Placide. It was long a favorite
part of the gentleman known as "Yankee Hill."
The American Drama--such as it is--may be divided into several classes,
including the Indian Drama, and the plays of Frontier Life, which are
often identical; the Revolutionary and war plays; the Yankee, or character
plays, like _The Gilded Age_, or _The Old Homestead_; the plays of local
life and character, like _Mose_, or _Squatter Sovereignty_; and the
society plays, of which Mrs. Mowatt's _Fashion_, and Bronson Howard's
_Saratoga_ are fair examples. Of these the Indian drama, as aboriginal,
should receive, perhaps, the first attention here.
The earliest Indian play of which there is any record on the American
stage was from the pen of an Englishwoman, Anne Kemble (Mrs. Hatton), a
member of the great Kemble family, and a sister of John Kemble and of Mrs.
Siddons. It is described as an operatic spectacle, and was entitled
_Tammany_. Dedicated to, and brought out under the patronage of, the
Tammany Society, it was first presented at the John Street Theatre, New
York, on the 3d of March, 1794. Columbus and St. Tammany himself were
among the characters represented. The Indians who figured upon the stage
were not very favorably received by the braves of that day, a large party
of whom witnessed the initial performance of the piece; and _Tammany_ was
not a success, notwithstanding the power of the Kemble name, the good-will
of the sachems of the Society, and the additional attraction of the
stage-settings, which were the first attempts at anything like correct and
elaborate scenic effects in this country.
[Illustration: G. W. P. CUSTIS.]
At the Park Theatre, June 14, 1808, was presented the next Indian play of
any importance, and, as written by a native American, James N. Barker, of
Philadelphia, it should take precedence of _Tammany_, perhaps, in the
history of the Indian drama. It was entitled _The Indian Princess_, was
founded on the story of Pocahontas, and, like _Tammany_, was musical in
its character. It was printed in 1808 or 1809; the versification is smooth
and clear, the dialogue bright, and the plot well sustained throughout.
Pocahontas has ever been a favorite character in our Indian plays. George
Washington Parke Custis wrote a drama of that name, presented at the Park
Theatre, New York, December 28, 1830, Mrs. Barnes playing the titular
part. James Thorne, an English singer, who died a few years later, was
Captain John Smith; Thomas Placide was Lieutenant Percy; Peter Richings,
Powhatan; and Edmund Simpson, the manager of the Park for so many years,
played Master Rolf. Robert Dale Owen's _Pocahontas_ was produced at the
same house seven years later (February 8, 1838), with Miss Emma Wheatley
as Pocahontas; John H. Clarke, the father of Constantia Clarke, the
Olympic favorite in later years, as Powhatan; Peter Richings, an Indian
character, Maccomac; John A. Fisher, Hans Krabbins; his sister, Jane M.
Fisher (Mrs. Vernon), Ann; and Miss Charlotte Cushman, at that time
fond of appearing in male parts, Rolf. As these several versions of the
story of the Indian maiden are preserved to us, that of Mr. Owen is
decidedly the best in a literary point of view. It has not been seen upon
the stage in many years. The _Pocahontas_ of John Brougham cannot be
claimed as a purely American production, and it must be reserved for
future discussion and under a very different head.
[Illustration: EDWIN FORREST.]
Unquestionably, Mr. Forrest's great success with _Metamora_, a prize drama
for which he paid its author, John Augustus Stone, five hundred dollars--a
large sum of money for such an effort half a century ago--was the secret
of the remarkable run upon Indian plays from which theatre-goers
throughout the country suffered between the years 1830 and 1840. Forrest,
even at that early period in his career, was the recognized leader of the
American stage, the founder of a peculiar school of acting, with a host of
imitators and followers. Metamora was one of his strongest and most
popular parts; its great effect upon his admirers is still vividly
remembered, and, naturally, other actors sought like glory and profit in
similar roles.
_Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags_, was produced for the first
time on any stage at the Park Theatre, New York, December 15, 1829. Mr.
Forrest, Peter Richings, Thomas Placide, John Povey, Thomas Barry, Mrs.
Hilson (Ellen Augusta Johnson), and Mrs. Sharpe were in the original cast.
As Metamora Mr. Forrest appeared many hundreds of nights, and in almost
every city of the American Union. Wemyss, at the time of the first
production of the play in Philadelphia (January 22, 1830), wrote of him
and of _Metamora_ as follows: "The anxiety to see him crowded the theatre
[Arch Street] on each night of the performance, adding to his reputation
as an actor as well as to his private fortune as a man. It is a very
indifferent play, devoid of interest; but the character of Metamora is
beautifully conceived, and will continue to attract so long as Mr. E.
Forrest is its representative. It was written for him, and will in all
probability die with him." Mr. Wemyss's prophecy was certainly fulfilled.
No one after Mr. Forrest's death, with the single exception of John
McCullough, and he but seldom, had the hardihood to risk his reputation in
a part so well known as one of the best performances of the greatest of
American actors; and Metamora and Mr. Forrest have passed away together.
[Illustration: JOHN McCULOUGH.]
_Metamora_ owed everything to the playing of Forrest; if it had fallen
into the hands of any other actor it would no doubt have been as
short-lived as the rest of the Indian dramas generally--a night or two,
or a week or two at most, and then oblivion. As a literary production it
was inferior to others of its class; not equal to _The Ancient Briton_,
for which Mr. Forrest is said to have paid the same author one thousand
dollars; or to _Fauntleroy_ or _Tancred_, dramas of Mr. Stone's, which met
with but indifferent success. John Augustus Stone's history is a very sad
one; in a fit of insanity he threw himself into the Schuykill, in the
summer of 1834, when barely thirty years of age; after life's fitful fever
sleeping quietly now under a neat monument containing the simple
inscription that it was "Erected to the Memory of the Author of _Metamora_
by his friend, Edwin Forrest." With all of his faults and failings, the
great tragedian was ever faithful to the men he called his friends.
The Indian of Fenimore Cooper is the father of the stage Indian; and both
have been described by Mr. Mark Twain as belonging to "an extinct tribe
which never existed." A full list of the Indian plays more or less
successful, known in other days and now quite forgotten, would be one of
the curiosities of American dramatic literature. A few of them are here
preserved:
_Sassacus; or, The Indian Wife_, said to have been written by William
Wheatley, then a leading young man at the Park Theatre, New York, where
_Sassacus_ was produced on the 8th of July, 1836, Wheatley playing an
Indian part, Pokota; his sister, Miss Emma Wheatley, then at the height of
her popularity, playing Unca, and John R. Scott _Sassacus_. This latter
gentleman, as a "red man of the woods," was always a great favorite with
the gallery, and he created the titular roles in _Kairrissah_, _Oroloosa_,
_Outalassie_, and other aboriginal dramas with decided credit to himself.
In the course of a few years, while the stage-Indian was still the
fashion, were seen in different American theatres _The Pawnee Chief_;
_Onylda; or, The Pequot Maid_; _Ontiata; or, The Indian Heroine_;
_Osceola_; _Oroonoka_; _Tuscalomba_; _Carabasset_; _Hiawatha_;
_Narramattah_; _Miautoumah_; _Outalissi_; _Wacousta_; _Tutoona_;
_Yemassie_; _Wissahickon_; _Lamorah_; _The Wigwam_; _The Manhattoes_;
_Eagle Eye_; and many more, not one of which lives to tell its own tale
to-day.
The reaction against the Indian drama began to become apparent as early as
1846, when James Rees, a dramatist, author of _Charlotte Temple_, _The
Invisible Man_, _Washington at Valley Forge_, but of no Indian plays,
wrote that the Indian drama, in his opinion, "had of late become a
_perfect nuisance_," the italics being his own.