FOREWORD
The central figure of this play is the writer of short stories known to all the world as O. Henry. His name was William Sydney Porter; “Bill” Porter to his intimates in the Ohio State Penitentiary, where, beginning at the age of thirty-six, he served a sentence of three years and three months for embezzlement of national bank funds.
This play follows, as literally as possible, the facts concerning “Bill” Porter’s life and behavior in prison, as revealed in his letters and other published records. The writer of the play has had the advantage of much conversation with Al Jennings, who was Porter’s intimate both in prison and previously in Central America, where they had sought refuge from the law. Mr. Jennings, who appears as a character in this play, has been good enough to go over the manuscript, and the author here pays tribute to the kindness and genial spirit of an ex-train bandit, ex-convict, ex-lawyer, ex-evangelist, and almost successful candidate for governor of Oklahoma. Mr. Jennings has written a book, “Through the Shadows with O. Henry,” published by the H. K. Fly Company, also by the A. L. Burt Company.
This play deals with the soul of a creative artist, working despite ill fortune. Throughout the play there has been employed a convention additional to those customary on our stage. Whenever colored lighting is used, the scenes beheld and the characters appearing are not real, but are the children of “Bill” Porter’s brain. They may be persons who have previously appeared as real, but they are now present in the thoughts of the hero. In this form they change, they assume new personalities and take on new roles, in the magic chemistry of art. Let no one be puzzled because these artist imaginings mix up all times and places, the past and the present, the living and the dead; for that is the way of the imagination. The play tries to show a writer at work; how he takes the experiences of his life, and revises and reshapes them according to his temperament.
The stories of O. Henry alluded to in the play are as follows: Act I, “A Municipal Report,” from the volume “Strictly Business”; Act II, “A Retrieved Reformation,” from the volume “Roads of Destiny”—a story better known by the title of the play which was made from it, “Alias Jimmie Valentine”; Act III, “Holding up a Train,” “Makes the Whole World Kin,” and “The Day We Celebrate,” from “Sixes and Sevens,” and “The Fourth in Salvador,” from “Roads of Destiny”; Act IV, “The Guardian of the Accolade,” from “Roads of Destiny,” and “An Unfinished Story,” from “The Four Million.”
| Biggins | pickpocket |
| Bill Porter | night drug-clerk of the prison hospital |
| Purzon | swindler |
| Joe | Negro trusty |
| Margaret | Porter’s little daughter |
| Athol | Porter’s deceased wife |
| Espiritu de la Vina | Porter’s temptation |
| Dr. Walters | night physician of the prison |
| Al Jennings | train-bandit |
| The Judge | of “Bankers’ Row” |
| Delacour | of the same |
| Jimmie Valentine | cracksman |
| Raidler | the Oklahoma terror |
| General Dingo | of the Salvador revolution |
| Dulcie | the little shop-girl |