“BARON RUDOLPH” AND GEORGE S. KNIGHT.

The play of “Baron Rudolph” (or “Rudolph,” as, finally, it was denominated) is not a distinctive or important one, but it contains, chiefly as the result of Belasco’s revision (it was earlier acted in New York, as Howard left it, so this statement rests on direct comparison), effective elements of comedy and some amusing incidents and fluent dialogue. Knight was a competent comedian,—nothing more: he lacked personal magnetism, delicacy, and the rare and precious faculty of taste.

The story of the play is trite and it is artificial; it belongs to the category typified by “Struck Oil,” in which James C. Williamson and his wife, “Maggie” Moore, were widely successful, many years ago, gaining a fortune with it. It depicts the vicissitudes and sufferings of a kind and loving, though weak and imprudent man, Rudolph, and of his wife and child. Rudolph, who has been prosperous, is pitifully poor, and his wife and their child are on the verge of starvation. The husband returns, slightly intoxicated, to their squalid abode, and the wife, stung to bitter resentment, leaves him, taking their child, and intent to earn a living by her own labor. In this purpose she succeeds, and after an interval of about two years she obtains a divorce from Rudolph,—who, meantime, has become a gin-sodden “tramp,” abject and wretched,—and she weds a swindling scoundrel, the secret agent of Rudolph’s ruin. That specious villain is detected, apprehended, and exposed as a forger, in the moment of the wretched Rudolph’s accession to a fortune and a baronetcy, in Germany, and then a scene of recognition and reconciliation ensues,—containing possibilities of pathetic effect,—between the wretched father, “only a tramp,” and his daughter. This story is jumbled with the wooing of a sprightly widow, named Nellie Dashwood, a sort of Mrs. General Gilflory (in “The Mighty Dollar”); an attempted burglary; a secondary story about two very young lovers, and a tedious tangle of literal detail and “outward flourishes.”

Persons who care to observe how disruption wrought by poverty, suffering, and weakness, in the home of an affectionate husband, wife and child, can be treated with poignant dramatic effect should study the old play of “Belphegor; or, The Mountebank,”—in which, as Belphegor, Charles Dillon gave one of the most beautiful and touching performances it has ever been my fortune to see. The triumphant use of such material can also be studied in the late Charles Klein’s “The Music Master,” as augmented, rectified, and produced by Belasco, with David Warfield in its central part, Herr von Barwig. When revived, as altered and amended by Belasco, “Rudolph” was handsomely set on the stage, but Knight’s method of dressing and acting the principal part ruined any chance of success which it might have had.

Knight became infatuated with the part of the Tramp, and he produced “Rudolph,” for the first time, in the Fall of 1886, at the Academy of Music, Cleveland. In 1887 Howard rewrote the play—receiving, as I understood, $3,000 for doing so,—and it was then produced at Hull, England, with Knight and his wife as stars, supported by members of Wilson Barrett’s company, from the Princess’ Theatre, London. In its revised form it was called “Baron Rudolph.” Knight was still dissatisfied with the structure of it, and, returning to America, desired that Howard should again revise it, but this Howard was unable to do, being preoccupied with labor on “The Henrietta,” for Robson and Crane (that play was produced for the first time at the Union Square Theatre, September 26, 1887), but, at his request, Belasco undertook a second revision. “My object,” he said, “was to do the work as nearly as possible in Howard’s way, and I must have succeeded pretty well, because when I took the script to him he said: ’You’ve caught my style, exactly!’ And he would not allow the piece to be produced as ’By Bronson Howard’; he insisted that I should have public credit as a co-author.” In its final form it bore Howard’s second title, “Baron Rudolph,” and, under the direction of Charles Frohman, representing Knight, and the stage management of Belasco, it was produced at the Fourteenth Street Theatre, New York, on October 24, 1887. “There was the chance for an immense popular success and a fortune in the piece,” Belasco said to me, “but Knight threw it all away. He insisted on making-up’ Rudolph, the tramp, in such a literal, dirty, repulsive manner that, in the recognition scene where the girl learns he is her father and has to embrace and kiss him, the audience, instead of being sympathetic, was disgusted. We argued and entreated with Knight: I told him, over and over and over, what would happen. But he couldn’t, or he wouldn’t, see it—and it happened!” The play failed, utterly; it was kept on the stage for four weeks and then withdrawn. Knight, first and last, lost a modest fortune on that play, and its ultimate failure broke him down. He and his wife went on a tour, after ending their engagement at the Fourteenth Street Theatre, in an early success of theirs, a farce called “Over the Garden Wall,” but Knight’s brain was affected; within a few months he suffered a shock of paralysis, and, on July 14, 1892, after much suffering, he died, in Philadelphia. During his illness he was maintained and cared for, with exemplary devotion, by his wife.

This was the cast of “Baron Rudolph,” at the Fourteenth Street Theatre:

“THE WIFE.”

When, in the preceding May, “The Highest Bidder” had been successfully launched, Daniel Frohman, intending the establishment of a permanent stock company at the Lyceum Theatre, began, with Belasco, consideration of plays that might be suitable for production, in the next season, and of actors whom it might prove expedient and feasible to engage for the projected company. No play that seemed to them suitable was found, and Mr. Frohman presently suggested that Belasco should write one. Belasco, somewhat unwillingly,—because of the responsibility involved,—agreed to do so; but while in conference with Mr. Frohman Henry De Mille chanced to enter the office where they were, and the manager, conscious of Belasco’s hesitancy, suggested that he should undertake the new play in collaboration with De Mille. To this Belasco eagerly agreed, and that was the beginning of a long and agreeable association. The co-workers soon repaired to De Mille’s summer home, at Echo Lake, and began work on a play which at first they called “The Marriage Tie,” but which eventually was named “The Wife,”—not a felicitous choice of title, because it had been several times previously used, and, in particular, has long been identified with the excellent comedy of that name by James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862), first produced in 1833, at Covent Garden, London, and throughout many years by various stars or stock companies in our Theatre. Belasco has written the following account of the manner in which their play of “The Wife” was constructed by De Mille and himself:

“A COMMON-SENSE HUSBAND.”

The play of “The Wife” is in five acts and it involves fourteen persons. Its scenes are laid in Newport, New York, and Washington, D. C., about 1887. Its dialogue is written in that strain of commonplace colloquy which is assumed, with justice, to be generally characteristic of “fashionable society” in its superficial mood and ordinary habit. The influence of Bronson Howard’s example is obvious in it,—that writer’s plan, which had been successful, of catching and reflecting the general tone and manner of “everyday life” and often of distressingly “everyday persons”; persons who, nevertheless, are at times constrained to behave in a manner not easily credible, if, indeed, possible, whether in everyday or any other kind of life. To copy commonplaces in a commonplace manner is by some judges deemed the right and sure way to please the public. That method does often succeed, since, generally, people like to see themselves. This, however, was not the method of the great masters of comedy, such as Molière, Congreve, and Sheridan, who taught, by example and with results of great value, that a comedy, while it should be a true reflection of life and a faithful picture of manners, should also be made potent over the mind, the heart, and the imagination, by delicate, judicious exaggeration, should be made entertaining by equivoque, and should be made impressive by the fibre of strong thought, and sympathetic by trenchant, sparkling dialogue. That old method of writing comedy, although it has been exemplified by the best writers and is still attempted, has, to a great extent, been superseded by the far inferior and much easier method of conventional colloquialism and chatter.

The ground plan of “The Wife,” though Belasco may have thought it a novelty, was, even in 1887, mossy with antiquity. A girl, Helen Freeman, parts from her lover, Robert Grey, in a moment of pique, and weds with another man, to whom she gives her hand, but not at first her heart; she subsequently meets her old flame and finds that she is still fond of him; causes social tattle by being seen

too much in his company; admits to her husband that her juvenile partiality for this early suitor still lingers in her feelings, and so causes that worthy man some uneasiness; but she ends by casting her girlish fancy to the winds and avowing herself a fond as well as a faithful wife. “The guests think they have seen him before.” They have! And also they have heard, rather more than twice before, two of the speeches which are uttered: “As a soldier it is my business to make widows,” and “Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.”

This is the story: Helen Freeman loved Robert Grey and by him was beloved. Robert Grey had jilted Lucile Ferrant, of New Orleans. Lucile informed Helen of this fact, and Helen therefore repudiated Robert Grey and wedded with John Rutherford, of the United States Senate. Matthew Culver, a politician, hostile to Robert Grey in politics and at the bar, and wishful to defeat Robert’s attempt to obtain an office, persuaded Lucile to apprise Rutherford that Robert and Helen had been lovers, and by many persons were thought to be so still. Rutherford, investigating this tale, discovered that Culver had maliciously and meanly schemed to make mischief and that the attachment of Robert and Helen was probably one of the sentimental “flames” which are customary in youth; whereupon he rebuked Culver, talked frankly with Robert Grey, advising him to stick to his legal business, and presently procured his appointment to a lucrative office, at the same time assuring Helen of his delicate consideration for her feelings and his intention to take good care of her. Culver then went to South America and stayed there, while Miss Ferrant repaired to the South of France, and Robert Grey greatly distinguished himself by laborious diligence in the public service. This adjustment might have been expected to content all parties concerned, but it did not content Rutherford. His wife actually had “loved another” before she loved him, and on that fact he brooded, stating that his heart contained nothing but “bloodless ashes.” Perhaps Helen’s sentimental fancy had lasted. Juvenile flame was only a phrase. As sagaciously remarked by Emilia in “Othello,”

The distressed Senator, therefore, sat up till a late hour every night, grieving for his wife’s “lost love,” until at last Helen, observing his dejection, was moved to discover and avouch that her juvenile fancy for Robert Grey had been a girlish infatuation and to declare her “calm, peaceful, and eternal love” for her husband. Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford then sailed, aboard the Alaska, for Europe. It appeared, incidentally, that Jack Dexter and Kitty Ives, giddy things, though bright and good, hovering about the story, were lovers, but that Kitty’s mother did not approve of their engagement till after Jack had smirched his face with a bit of smoked glass, and also that all the persons concerned in these momentous affairs once saw an eclipse of the sun, which was visible in Washington.

Almost every person in this play is colorless and insignificant. The proceedings of the characters evince no natural sequence between motive and conduct. Given two young persons who love each other, they could not possibly be alienated by conjuring up the bugbear of a previous attachment. Nothing is so dead as the love that has died, and every lover instinctively knows it. Moreover, the ladies, practically without exception, are more pleased than disquieted by discovering that their lovers have found they could live without others but not without them. The fabric, in short, is one of elaborate trifling with serious things, for the sake of situations and effects. The play should have been called “The Husband” rather than “The Wife,” because it is Rutherford in whom the interest centres. The best scene in it is the one of explanation and reconcilement between the husband and wife, and this was the invention of Belasco, around which and for the sake of which the play was written. It contains a strain of rational, fine manliness that wins and holds attentive sympathy.

In studying the plays written by Belasco and De Mille in collaboration it is essential to bear in mind the apportionment of the labor, in order correctly to estimate Belasco’s share in them. The writing in that co-partnership was largely done by De Mille: the dramatic machinery, the story in action, was supplied almost entirely by Belasco, who acted the scenes, when the plays were in process of construction, the dialogue being beaten out between the co-workers.

This was the original cast of “The Wife”,—November 1, 1887:

“The Wife” was so beautifully set, so perfectly directed, and so well acted that, though at first the dead weight of the play oppressed its representation, the public press, even at the first, inclined to accord it an importance which it did not deserve. Georgia Cayvan’s impersonation of the wife revealed anew the deep feeling and the graceful art that had won her recognition as a favorite actress. Grace Henderson (she was the wife of David Henderson, critical writer and producer of musical extravaganza), who acted the mischief making, jilted woman, Lucile, played with discretion and sincerity,—but it was difficult for the spectator to believe that a woman with a face so beautiful and a voice so delicious would ever have been jilted by any man not blind and deaf. Henry Miller was loud and extravagant as Grey; Herbert Kelcey was dignified, manly, and fine in feeling and elegant in manner and movement as Rutherford, and LeMoyne was delightfully humorous as Major Homer.

“The Wife” received 239 consecutive performances. Yet the fate of that play hung, for some time, in the balance. “I knew, even before the production,” said Belasco to me, “that it was too long and too loosely jointed, but I felt it could make good; and Mr. Frohman had faith. De Mille was pretty well discouraged after a week or ten days, and he told me he expected he’d have to go back to school-teaching [De Mille had been a school-teacher before he joined the Madison Square Theatre, where, in 1884, Belasco first met him]. Brent Good, proprietor of Carter’s Little Liver Pills, and also Stickney protested, in a directors’ meeting, that the play was a failure and was losing money and ordered it withdrawn.” The next morning Daniel Frohman instructed Belasco to put the play of “Featherbrain,” by James Albery, into rehearsal and prepare it for production as rapidly as possible. “I felt certain,” Belasco has told me, “that ’The Wife’ could be made a great money-getter, and I resolved it should have a fair trial: I held back on the preparations of ’Featherbrain’ all I could,—and, meantime, De Mille and I altered and cut, day after day, on our play. This procedure was justified by the result. Writing on this subject, Belasco declares: “It seemed to us that for every word we cut from ’The Wife’ we gained a person in the orchestra.” What a pity the necessary pruning and adjustment could not have been done before the production! Then the prosperity of a theatre and of many persons would not have been endangered. The sum of more than $50,000, owed to the Tiffany Studios, was paid in full, out of the profits of “The Wife,” and the directors of the corporation, as also Daniel Frohman, were so well satisfied with the ultimate result that Belasco and De Mille were commissioned to write the next new play required, for the following season, which was to be one constructed as a starring vehicle for Edward H. Sothern, who had been “inherited” by the Lyceum management under a contract with Helen Dauvray.

REVISION OF “SHE.”

The signal talent of Haggard is not well displayed in “She,”—in which the tone is sensual and the literary art inferior, and in which, indeed, it can fairly be said that the author has collected materials and outlined a plan for a work of fiction, rather than that he has adequately utilized his materials and plan. There is in it little indication of distinctive intellectual character or of scrutinizing artistic revision, and, although contemporary with both Worcester’s and Webster’s “Unabridged,” the writer frequently informs his readers that words are wanting to describe the objects he has undertaken to portray. “She,” therefore, notwithstanding that it contains attributes of merit, is, as Haggard left it, a verbose and chaotic narrative, presenting the apotheosis of woman as a handsome animal. The story, however, presents melodramatic points tributary to situation and several of those points were utilized for stage presentment and invested with picturesque scenery. The play begins with a shipwreck on the coast of Africa. “Set waves” swung on obvious cordage. A “profile” boat went to pieces on a rock. Lightnings flashed. A quantity of real water was projected into the air. And a band of adventurous seekers after the inscrutable and awful female personality known as She were rescued, to pass through manifold adventures, including encounters with African cannibals and terminating with a quest for the Fire of Life, in which, when found, the mystical Princess was destroyed. Particular recital of the incidents of the stage adaptation is not requisite here: the novel, extraordinarily popular in its day, is still accessible to the curious. The form adopted by Gillette in framing his histrionic synopsis of the book is that of genuine, old-fashioned melodrama,—the form of theatrical spectacle interblended with music that was in fashion a century ago. There is an opening chorus. African savages, auxiliary to the proceedings, chant. The heroine woos her favorite in a melodious adjuration, and bursts into song on her lover’s breast. Music is introduced in the most unlikely places. Even the cannibals utter their stomachs in harmonious howls, preparatory to a feast on the flesh of man. “She,” as adapted by Gillette, was in part reconstructed and improved by Belasco, to whom such curious fabrics of more or less ridiculous spectacle had been familiar in his early days and who readily rectified its technical defects. “It was simply a matter of curtailing and readjusting,” he afterward wrote; “when the scenes and situations were rehearsed again it was found that we had a very good play”: the accuracy of the latter statement, of course, depends on the standard of merit applied in determining what constitutes a “good play.” Belasco did not revise “She” until near the end of the New York engagement, that is, about the middle of December, 1887. The play was transferred from New York to the Hollis Street Theatre, Boston, and there, and elsewhere in the country, it was prosperously presented.

“LORD CHUMLEY” AND E. H. SOTHERN.

During the early part of 1888 Belasco did some work as a teacher of acting, bestowing, at the request of Daniel Frohman, special attention on instruction of Mrs. James G. Blaine, Jr. (Mary Nevin), a person of social influence—and therefore potentially valuable to the management of the Lyceum Theatre—whose aspirations for a theatrical career were terminated by serious illness. Toward Spring the necessity of executing the commission to write a new play for the use of Sothern, at the Lyceum, compelled Belasco to lay aside all other labor, and, about March-April, in company with De Mille, he repaired to Echo Lake, and there, after trying and rejecting many dramatic schemes, the co-mates in authorship finally hit upon one to their liking. By about July 1 (1888) they had practically completed a new play, entitled “Lord Chumley,” and they returned to New York in order that Belasco might put it into rehearsal. In doing this he had to confront an unexpected difficulty: Sothern, who had expressed himself as satisfied on reading the scenario of the play, did not like the part of Chumley in the finished work and, as Mr. Frohman informed the disgruntled authors, was averse to undertaking it. Belasco writes of this: “‘But the character’s Sothern,’ I said; ’every look, gesture, and exclamation fits him like a glove!’... Of course, it was the old story all over again; an actor never knows what is best suited to him.” The latter notion is, I think, extravagant: for every instance wherein an actor has made a notable success in playing a part against his judgment and will a dozen could be cited wherein the actor has known his powers and made his distinctive success by following his own judgment in selection of the part to be played. “You are mistaken,” Charles Burke told a friend, who had exclaimed to him, in a burst of admiration, “You don’t know what a good actor you are!”, “I know exactly what a good actor I am, and exactly what I can do on the stage.” Sothern, as his later career has shown, cherished ambition to act parts of a very different character from Chumley, but, fortunately for all concerned, he consented to undertake that part, after Belasco had expounded it to him; the rehearsals were carried on with diligence and, on August 21, 1888, “Lord Chumley” was produced, for the first time anywhere, at the Lyceum Theatre.

The play of “Lord Chumley” is a mosaic of many old dramatic situations, culled from various earlier plays, revamped and intercalated so as to make a sequent story, and it can rightly be designated a comedy, tinged with melodrama and farce. Chumley is a young English lord, a gentleman by nature as well as birth; simple, generous, sincere, intrepid, and acute, but hampered by shyness, an impediment in his speech, and a superficial aspect of inanity. He impoverishes himself in order to serve a friend, Hugh Butterworth, an imprudent young fellow, an officer in the British Army, who is being victimized by a specious French rascal. This malignant person wishes to wed the officer’s sister, Miranda, and by threatening to ruin that young man’s reputation has extorted from her a promise of marriage. The lady is beloved by Chumley, who intervenes and prevents the marriage, incidentally vindicating himself in her opinion: she has at first believed him to be a fool and later a blackguard, but she ends by perceiving his intrinsically fine character and reciprocating his love. In the course of his variegated experience he contrives to make himself misunderstood in attempting to tell his troubles to a sympathetic spinster; he dwells without repining in the squalor of a miserable lodging, to which his generous self-impoverishment has reduced him; he confronts a desperate burglar in the dark and, armed only with a cigarette-holder shaped like a pistol, he fools, cows, and overcomes him; he exhibits astounding physical prowess in conflict with a burly antagonist, and he displays amazing mental acuteness in penetrating and defeating the malevolent purposes of a villain.

Belasco, writing of himself and his co-worker De Mille, says: “For a month we talked over Sothern’s play without a single idea. At this time [1887-’88] pistol cigarette-holders came into fashion. I bought one in the village [near Echo Lake] to amuse the De Mille children, but forgot to take it out of my hip pocket. The next day as De Mille and I were out walking in the snow I leaned against a tree, drew the toy pistol from my pocket, and called out: ’Stand and deliver,’ and in a flash the foolish situation gave us the first idea for what was afterward called ’Chumley.’ We used this serio-comic situation in our Second Act, where Chumley holds a real thief at bay with his cigarette-case.” That, no doubt, is a correct account of the “first idea”; others came from Belasco’s ample store of recollections. Chumley, as a character, is a remote variant of the elder Sothern’s Dundreary, superimposed on H. J. Byron’s Sir Simon Simple, in “Not Such a Fool as He Looks,”—which was written for Charles Mathews. In the development of the plot in which he is implicated and the treatment of the character there is much reminiscence—touches of John Mildmay, in his scene with Captain Hawksley, in “Still Waters Run Deep”; of Harry Jasper, in “A Bachelor of Arts”; of Sir Bashful Constant, Arthur Chilton, Mr. Toots, and, in particular, Eliott Gray, in his scene with Myles McKenna, in “Rosedale.” All the situations indicated have long been used as common property. The merit of the play consists in the effectiveness with which those situations are employed and in the bright, fluent, and generally telling dialogue with which they are interfused. Chumley is an extremely long part. Sothern’s performance was exceptionally good, and it was received by public and press with copious approbation. The success of the play was unequivocal: it held the stage till November 11. On November 13 Pinero’s “Sweet Lavender” succeeded it, but with the production of that excellent drama at the Lyceum Belasco had, practically, nothing to do: “Sweet Lavender” was sent to New York from London and was “put on” in exact accordance with the prompt-copy as prepared by the author when making Edward Terry’s presentment of it.

This was the original cast of “Lord Chumley,” at the Lyceum:

“THE KAFFIR DIAMOND.”

In the period from August 21, 1888, to November 19, 1889, Belasco’s labors were many and various. As soon as “Lord Chumley” had been produced, and while yet he was engaged, as customary with him, in smoothing and improving that new venture, he began work, for Louis Aldrich, on revision of a play by Edward J. Swartz, called “The Kaffir Diamond,” which had been written for Aldrich, as a starring vehicle. That play is a wild and whirling kaleidoscopic melodrama, devised for the pleasure of those theatre-goers who seek entertainment in extravagant situations and violent, tumultuous actions,—a play of the class typified by “The Gambler’s Fate; or, The Doomed House,” “The Lonely Man of the Ocean,” “The King of the Opium Ring,” etc.,—and Belasco’s work on it must have caused him to remember, perhaps with amusement, his fabrication of many similar “shockers,” in his early San Francisco and Virginia City days. The central character of “The Kaffir Diamond,” a person named Shoulders, is a misanthropical drunkard, made so by suffering, who inhabits a miasmatic swamp, in Africa, subsisting largely on liquor and the hope of revenge. This person believes himself to have been robbed, in days of prosperity, of wife and daughter, by a Colonel in the British Army, and, in seeking for revenge, he nearly effects the ruin of a woman who proves to be his long-lost daughter, and he succeeds in confining the detested Colonel in the poisonous swamp, where he intends that he shall miserably perish, only to discover that, instead of being his wronger, that gallant soldier is his best friend. Blended with this plot, or, rather, tangled into it, is a double-barrelled love story, the theft of a diamond of priceless worth, and a medley of incidents incorporative of brawling, lynching, and miscellaneous riot. Aldrich, as Shoulders, personated in a surprisingly simple manner the wretched victim of weak character, strong drink, misfortune, and mistaken enmity, giving a performance which, while devoid of imaginative quality, was nevertheless effective, because of the innate sturdy manliness of the actor and of his artistically rough evincement of strong emotion blended with human weakness. This was the cast:

Belasco participated in the work of placing “The Kaffir Diamond” on the stage, receiving a payment of $300, and on September 11, 1888, it was acted, in a handsome setting, at the Broadway Theatre, New York, but it was unsuccessful and it lasted only till October 13.

LOUIS ALDRICH.

Louis Aldrich (1843-1901) was a good actor. He was a Hebrew, a native of Ohio, and his true name was Lyon. In childhood he was known on the stage as Master Moses, and also as Master McCarthy. His first appearance was made, September, 1855, at Cleveland, Ohio, as Glo’ster, in scenes from “King Richard III.” He performed with the Marsh Juvenile Comedians, beginning in 1858, for about five years. His last professional appearance occurred, March 25, 1899, at the New York Academy of Music, as Colonel Swift, in Anson Pond’s play of “Her Atonement.” His most striking performance was that of Joe Saunders, in Bartley Campbell’s “My Partner,” first produced at the Union Square Theatre, New York, September 16, 1879. Belasco, long afterward (1900-’01), arranged to have Aldrich star in that play, under his management, but the ill-health of the actor compelled abandonment of the plan. The death of Aldrich, caused by apoplexy, occurred at Kennebunkport, Maine, June 17, 1901.

THE SCHOOL OF ACTING.

During most of the time of his association with the Lyceum Theatre (1886-1890) Belasco incidentally labored as an instructor in the School of Acting, founded by Steele Mackaye, and conducted in connection with that theatre, and he achieved some excellent results. Being a teacher, his view of the importance of the school is, I believe, somewhat exaggerated, and also he mistakenly supposes, or seems to suppose, that all instructors can be as successful in their histrionic tuition as he has frequently been. His recollections of this part of his activity, when associated with the Lyceum Theatre School, have been interestingly written by himself, as follows:

THE TRUE SCHOOL IS THE STAGE.

Observation has convinced me that, while the accomplishments of elocution, dancing, fencing, deportment, and the art of making up the face (all of which are highly useful on the stage) can be, and are, well taught in some Schools of Acting, the one true, thoroughly efficient school, the only one in which the art actually can be acquired, is the Stage itself. A master of stage direction, as Belasco is, can direct novices in rehearsals, and, if they possess natural histrionic capability, can, in that way, materially help to prepare them for the Stage; but they cannot, in that way, be taught to act. An indispensable part of any dramatic performance is an audience: without it, a novice cannot learn to act, nor will it suffice to have an occasional audience. The decisive ground for objection to the Schools of Acting, moreover, is that, practically without exception, they are merely commercial enterprises: they accept, regardless of aptitude, every student who applies, because they want the fees. Belasco names nineteen pupils who studied under him, some of whom have become proficient actors. No doubt others could be named. What then? Belasco is a highly exceptional instance of an accomplished, enthusiastic, practical instructor, possessing the exceedingly rare faculty of communicating knowledge. “I’ll not take a cent of your money,” he told Taber. How many other instructors in acting are as scrupulous? Belasco applied the method of actual stage management to the instruction of the stage beginners, and, in some instances, with good effect; but it is to be remembered that every one of his pupils who has since succeeded as an actor (and not by any means all of them have) would have succeeded as well, or better, if employed in the first place in minor capacities in actual companies; and that against the number of graduates from Schools of Acting who have been successful in the Theatre should be set the much larger number of graduates—never mentioned—who, having studied in those schools, paid for tuition and expended time, have never been able to act or even to earn a dollar in the Theatre.

A REVIVAL OF “ELECTRA.”