After his engagement with Baker and Farron Belasco went “barnstorming” in various California and Nevada towns and camps, but returned to San Francisco at intervals, sometimes remaining there a few days, while seeking employment,—working, meanwhile, on dramatic versions of various books or stories or on the revision and alteration of old plays,—sometimes acting small parts at any of the theatres or serving as a super when no better occupation was obtainable. On May 4, in that city, he participated in a performance at Maguire’s New Theatre for the benefit of M. A. Kennedy, when the bill included “One Thousand Milliners,” “Robert Macaire,” and the burlesque of “Kenilworth,”—in which latter play he had often acted Queen Elizabeth, as I have reason to think he did on this occasion. He seems, also, to have taken part, in a minor capacity, in at least one of the performances given in May, 1876, at the California Theatre, by Edwin Adams, who played Rover, in “Wild Oats,” and he saw that fine actor as Enoch Arden, if he did not act with him in the play about that character. He also saw, May 29, 1876, at Wade’s Opera House, San Francisco, George Rignold’s first performance in San Francisco of King Henry the Fifth,—a remarkably pictorial, spirited, fervent, and stirring impersonation.

Rignold had been brought to America by Jarrett & Palmer, under an arrangement with Charles Calvert, of Manchester, England, and he made his first appearance in this country, February 6, 1875, at Booth’s Theatre,—then under the direction of those managers,—acting King Henry the Fifth. Shakespeare’s play, which was withdrawn at Booth’s April 24, 1875, was revived there, April 10, 1876, and ran for five weeks. Some dissension arose between Rignold and Jarrett & Palmer, and those managers arranged for the presentment of the Shakespearean historical drama and pageant (Calvert’s setting) in San Francisco, at the California Theatre, where, on June 5, it was brought out, with Lawrence Barrett as King Henry. Jarrett & Palmer conveyed their production and members of the theatrical company across the continent on board a special train, which left Jersey City at 1.30 A. M., June 1, and arrived at the mole, Oakland, California, at 9.22 A. M., June 4,—having made the journey in eighty-three hours, thirty-nine minutes, sixteen seconds. Rignold, when acting in the Western metropolis, preparatory to returning to England by way of Australia, was under the management of Frederick W. Bert. Belasco closely studied both those Shakespeare productions and the acting with which they were illustrated, thereby adding materially to his knowledge of the good traditions of Shakespearean interpretation. No more scrupulous and competent stage director than Lawrence Barrett ever lived, while Rignold had been carefully trained by Calvert, one of the best of stage managers and Shakespearean actors,—and had enjoyed the advantage of seeing Calvert play the part when first he revived the history, at Manchester. Belasco himself never set a finer spectacle on the stage than Calvert’s presentment of “King Henry V.”

During June, like Asmodeus, he flamed in many places, generally appearing for only a single performance. By July 15, 1876, he was at home again, and as prompter and stage manager, and sometimes as super or actor of small parts, was employed at Baldwin’s Academy of Music during an engagement there of George Fawcett Rowe, who, on that date, began, as Waifton Stray, in his play of “Brass,” and acted, in succession, Micawber, in “Little Em’ly,” and Hawkeye, in “Leatherstocking,” also one of his dramas. On July 23, Sunday night, Belasco appeared, as DeWilt, in a performance, for the benefit of E. J. Buckley, given “by John McCullough and members of the Dramatic Profession,” at the California Theatre. The play was Augustin Daly’s “Under the Gas-Light.” McCullough and Barton Hill recited, and McCullough performed as Julian St. Pierre, in the Dagger Scene, from “The Wife.” On August 14 Eleanor Carey made her first appearance in San Francisco, acting Miss Gwilt, in a dramatization of Wilkie Collins’ “Armadale,” and Belasco, then meeting her, formed an acquaintance which, eventually, was valuable to him: he made a play for Miss Carey, on the basis of “Article 47,” calling it “The Creole,” which was acted at the Union Square Theatre, New York, January 17, 1881, and in which she was seen in many cities.

WITH BOOTH AT THE CALIFORNIA.

The period of about two and a half years, from August, 1876, to February, 1879, was one of incessant activity for Belasco: in it he underwent much toil and acquired much knowledge which served to develop his faculties and tended to equip him for the many-sided labor of his later life. At first, his progress in that period was slow; but it is not daily exercise, it is the total effect of long persistence in it, that develops, and scrutiny of the register of Belasco’s experience in those years exhibits various events of signal significance and many incidents of interest which require mention and comment. One of the latter, which he recalls with special pleasure, was his meeting with Edwin Booth. That great actor, whose professional novitiate was served in San Francisco,—chiefly at the old Metropolitan Theatre,—from 1852 to 1856, left there in September, 1856, and did not again visit the West for exactly twenty years. On September 4, 1876, at the California Theatre, acting Hamlet, he began an engagement which lasted for eight weeks, in the course of which he was seen, in succession, as Richelieu, Iago, Othello, King Richard the Second, King Lear, Bertuccio, in “The Fool’s Revenge”; Shylock, Pescara, in “The Apostate”; Marc Antony, Cassius, and Brutus, in “Julius Cæsar”; King Richard the Third, Mr. Haller, in “The Stranger”; Lucius Brutus, in “The Fall of Tarquin,” and Claude Melnotte. Belasco was intensely eager to see and study the acting of Booth—surely the greatest tragic genius that has graced our Stage and a consummate executant in art—and he sought to obtain an engagement at the California Theatre to play the same “line of parts” (as the phrase goes among old stock company actors) which he had performed in the preceding Spring with Barry Sullivan. Though he failed in that effort—and was keenly disappointed thereby—he was not to be balked in his purpose, and got himself employed, during the Booth engagement, as a super. “I could not give every night to such work,” he has told me; “but I ’walked on’ with him, at least once, in every play he did,—and in ’Hamlet,’ ’Richelieu,’ and ’Julius Cæsar’ I think I went on at every performance. In ’Cæsar’ when Booth played Cassius McCullough was the Brutus and Thomas W. Keene the

Antony; when Booth played Brutus McCullough was Cassius; when Booth was Antony Keene was Cassius and McCullough went back to Brutus. We used to wish we had Lawrence Barrett there for Cassius—but ’Tom’ Keene was a fine actor in his way, and I shall never forget those performances of ’Cæesar,’ nor those of ’Othello,’ in which Booth and McCullough alternated as Othello and Iago. Booth was my great idol; the one actor who, for me, could surpass McCullough, Barrett, and Montgomery. I found him very uneven—that is, his performances were not always up to his own standard. But, when he was really ’in the vein,’ there was nobody like him; there never has been, and there never will be! I never heard such a voice,—so full of fire, feeling, and power,—and I never saw such eyes as Booth’s, when he played King Richard the Third, Richelieu, or Iago. At first I used to go to the California to watch his rehearsals, but I soon found out it was little use. The plays were all an old story to him and he wouldn’t rehearse. McCullough had Booth’s prompt books, and Booth left the company pretty much to him and just ’ran through’ the big scenes with the principals. He was very gentle, considerate, and kind to everybody, but he seldom said much unless spoken to. I valued my acquaintance with him greatly; I never missed an opportunity to see him, and I cherish his memory as that of one of the best of men and greatest of actors.”

Belasco’s enthusiasm for Booth has led him, in recent years, to make an extensive collection of precious stage relics associated with that sombre genius: visitors to the reception room on the stage of the Belasco Theatre will find the “star’s” dressing room, which opens off it, indicated by a star of brilliants which was worn, first, by William Charles Macready as Hamlet, and, afterward, by Booth, in the same part. There, also, are displayed Booth’s Brutus sandals and sword, his Macbeth spear, his Bertuccio bauble, the mace carried by him when acting King Richard the Third, the sceptre he used as King Lear, the hat he wore as Petruchio, his Shylock knife and scales, and his make-up box.

During October of 1876 Belasco worked for a short while with James W. Ward and Winnetta Montague (he appeared with them at the Grand Opera House, October 16, in “The Willing Hand”), as stage manager and as adapter and rectifier of several plays. On Sunday, October 22, he participated in a benefit for Katie Mayhew given at Baldwin’s Theatre, appearing as Doctor of the Hospital, in “The Two Orphans.” Soon after that, declining a minor position in a new company, headed by Eleanor Carey and organized for “a grand re-opening of the Grand Opera House” (effected November 13, with “Wanted, a Divorce”), he joined a travelling company, at Olympia, Washington, headed by Fanny Morgan Phelps, and for about three months resumed the precarious life of a strolling player.

BELASCO AND “THE EGYPTIAN MYSTERY.”

By about the beginning of February, 1877, Belasco was once more in San Francisco, and immediately allied himself, as playwright, stage manager, and actor, with Frank Gardner and his wife, Caroline Swain. Gardner,—who afterward turned his attention to gold mining in Australia and acquired great wealth,—had associated with himself a person familiar with the famous “Pepper’s Ghost” illusion, and together they had devised a variant of that contrivance which was utilized in giving theatrical performances. Belasco, describing it, writes: “There was a stage, covered with black velvet, and a sheet of glass, placed obliquely over a space beneath the stage,—which was called the ’oven.’ Gas lamps were ingeniously concealed so as to give the impression of a phosphorescent light from ghostlike bodies. The characters in the play were obliged to enter the ’oven’ under the black velvet, and to lie on their backs, while their misty shadows were thrown like watery impressions upon the glass plate. As these shadows floated across the surface of the glass, the people in the ’oven’ could easily shake tables and move chairs to the hair-raising satisfaction of the audience.”

Belasco appeared with the Gardners, at Egyptian Hall (No. 22 Geary Street, near Kearny), on February 16, as The Destroyer, in “The Haunted House”; Valentine, in an epitome of the “Faust” story (introducing the Duel Scene between Faust and Valentine), and Mr. Trimeo, in “The Mysterious Inn.” On the next night he performed as Avica, Spirit of Avarice, in “A Storm of Thoughts,” and Phil Bouncer, in “The Persecuted Traveller,” as well as in “The Haunted House.” On February 20 he personated Our Guest, in “Our Mysterious Boarding House,” and on April 2, Mark, in “The Prodigal’s Return.” Belasco wrote all those plays, specially for use in Gardner’s “Egyptian Mystery,”—as the entertainment was called,—and at least two others,—“Wine, Women, and Cards,” and “The Christmas Night; or, The Convict’s Return.” I have not found casts of the last named two, or record of the dates on which they were first produced. Belasco, besides playing the parts as above enumerated,

also gave various recitations at Egyptian Hall, with musical accompaniments,—among them his favorite “The Maniac,” “The Maiden’s Prayer,” and “Little Jim, the Collier’s Lad.” Recalling his alliance with Gardner, he writes the following bit of informative reminiscence: “Our ’Mystery’ attracted much attention. ’Egyptian Hall,’ if I remember correctly, had been a shop and was fitted up for our ’show’ by Gardner. I remember that the Faust and Valentine Duel Scene made a great sensation, because my sword seemed to go right through the body of Faust. And the recitations were very effective, too. When I gave ’Little Jim’ spirits seemed to float here and there, illustrating the sentiments of the lines. Our little theatre was packed night after night, and before the end of the engagement I was obliged to write about eight pieces for Gardner. I have often been asked if this was my first endeavor to experiment with stage lights. It was not. Some time before I had been working with locomotive headlights, and I had discovered the ease with which I could get certain effects by placing tin pans before oil lamps. Then it occurred to me that by means of colored silks,—my own forerunner of gelatine slides,—I could add further variations to colored lights, and it was after this experience that I began to pay particular attention to the charm of stage lighting and to the inventions which, since then, have been so wonderfully developed.”

A REMINISCENCE OF HELENA MODJESKA.

The engagement at Egyptian Hall lasted until the middle of April; then Belasco travelled with the Gardners and their “Mystery,” presenting the entertainments above mentioned and variations of them, until the end of July. From August to about October he appears to have been connected with the California Theatre: on August 18 he appeared there, in a performance given for the benefit of A. D. Billings, as John O’Bibs, in Boucicault’s “The Long Strike” (billed on that occasion as “The Great Strike”), and as the Earl of Oxford, in the Fifth Act of “King Richard III.” At this time, also, he witnessed the first appearance (August 20, 1877) on the American Stage of that lovely actress and still more lovely woman,—the gentle, beautiful, and ever lamented Helena Modjeska. She had gone to California, 1876, as one of a party of eight persons, Polish emigrants, who attempted to form a colony there, somewhat on the model of the Brook Farm movement. That attempt failing, Modjeska was compelled to turn again to the Stage,—in Poland she had been among the leaders of the dramatic profession,—and after much difficulty she finally obtained, through the interest of Governor Salomon of California, a trial hearing by Barton Hill, stage manager for McCullough, at the California Theatre.

=====

Hill had little if any knowledge of the foreign Stage, and he knew nothing of Modjeska’s ability and reputation. Her rare personal beauty, distinction, self-confidence, and persistence finally won from him a reluctant promise of a private hearing. That promise, after interposing several delays, he fulfilled, and Modjeska’s story, as she told it to me, of her first rehearsal at the California Theatre was piquant and comic. Hill was a worthy man and a good actor. It was, no doubt, natural and right that, in dealing with a stranger applicant for theatrical employment, he should have exercised the functions of his position, but there will always be something ludicrous in the thought of Barton Hill sitting in judgment on Helena Modjeska. “He was very kind—Meester Hill,” said the actress; “but he was ne-ervous and fussy, and he patronized me as though I were a leetle child. ’Now,’ he said, ’I shall be very criti-cal—ve-ery severe.’ I could be patient no longer: ’Be as criti-cal and severe as you like,’ I burst out, ’only do, please, be quiet, and let us begin!’ He was so surprised he could not speak, and I began at once a scene from ’Adrienne.’ I played it through and then turned to him. He had his handkerchief in his hand and was crying. He came and shook hands with me and tried to seem quite calm. ’Well,’ I asked, ’may I have the evening that I want?’ ’I’ll give you a week, and more, if I can,’ he answered.”

=====

Before Hill’s approval of Modjeska was ratified she was required to give another “trial rehearsal,” at which McCullough and various other persons were present, and it was Belasco’s privilege to be among them. “I don’t believe she was called Modjeska in those days,” he writes [her name was Modrzejewska—she shortened it to Modjeska at the suggestion of McCullough]; “but she had within her all the charm and power that afterward became associated with her name. I was in the auditorium the day she gave her first rehearsal [error—the second], and scattered here and there were a few critics. A mere handful came, for there was no general interest in one who was expected to have a gawky manner and a baffling accent. The unexpected happened; those of us who heard her were literally stunned by the power and pathos of this woman. McCullough promised her a production and not long afterward she played ’Adrienne Lecouvreur.’ When the performance was over, Mr. Barnes, of ’The San Francisco Call,’ the other critics, and all of us knew that we had been listening to one of the world’s great artists. ’It is the greatest piece of work in our day!’ was the general verdict. McCullough was wild with enthusiasm. She played her repertory in San Francisco, and society took her into its arms.”

STROLLING AD INTERIM.—BELASCO AS “THE FIRST OLD WOMAN.”

In September, 1877, during “Fair Week,”—24th to 29th,—Belasco was stage manager of a company from the California Theatre, headed by Thomas W. Keene, which performed at the Petaluma Theatre, in the California town of the same name, in “The Lady of Lyons,” “The Young Widow,” “The Hidden Hand” (Belasco’s version), “Robert Macaire,” “The Wife,” “My Turn Next,” “The Streets of New York,” “The Rough Diamond,” “Deborah,” and “The People’s Lawyer.” Belasco, besides directing the stage, acted in those plays, respectively, as Monsieur Deschapelles, Mandeville, Craven Lenoir, Pierre, Lorenzo, Tom Bolus, Dan, Captain Blenham, Peter, and Lawyer Tripper.

Soon after that he joined a company, under the management of Frank I. Frayne, known as the “Frayne Troupe,” of which M. B. Curtis, “Harry” M. Brown, E. N. Thayer, Mrs. “Harry” Courtaine, Gertrude Granville, and Miss Fletcher were also members. He joined that company at Humboldt, Oregon, where the opening bill was “The Ticket-of-Leave Man.” Belasco was to play Melter Moss, but the actress who was cast for Mrs. Willoughby becoming ill, Belasco (who knew all the other parts as well as his own) volunteered to take her place in that character and did so with such success that Frayne kept him in it: “I was scheduled to play all the first ’old women’ that season,” he writes to me, “and I found it for some time difficult to escape my new ’specialty.’”

A SUBSTANTIAL TRIBUTE.

Oliver Doud Byron, in San Francisco,—and, a little later, back again at the Baldwin Theatre. He labored there, with short intermissions, as actor and stage manager, from March 26, 1878, to the latter part of September, 1879. On the former date the New York Union Square Theatre Company emerged at the Baldwin in “Agnes,” in which Belasco played Rudolphe. During the engagement of the Union Square Company “One Hundred Years Old,” “Saratoga,” “A Celebrated Case,” and Joaquin Miller’s “The Danites” were presented under Belasco’s direction, and, in each of them, he acted a subsidiary part. His services as director proved so valuable that when the engagement was ended and the company made a tour of Pacific Slope towns an arrangement was effected with Maguire whereby Belasco accompanied it. The tour lasted until the end of May, and it was followed by a brief return season in San Francisco. At its close the company, which included O’Neill, Charles B. Bishop, Rose Wood, and F. F. Mackay, presented to Belasco a purse of $200 in gold “as an expression of appreciation of his services and esteem for himself.” The presentation was made, in presence of the assembled company, on the stage of the Baldwin Theatre, by F. F. Mackay, who, in making it, read the following letter:

“OLIVIA” AND “PROOF POSITIVE.”

On July 8 a revival was effected at the Baldwin of Boucicault’s “The Octoroon,” “re-touched and re-arranged” by Belasco. This, and a double bill, comprising Byron’s “Dearer Than Life” and “The Post of Honor,”—brought out on August 5,—filled the summer season, and on September 2 Belasco’s play in five acts entitled “Olivia,”—the first dramatization of Goldsmith’s “The Vicar of Wakefield” to be acted in California,—was produced with the following notable cast:

Belasco’s dramatic epitome adhered to Goldsmith’s story as closely as is feasible for stage purposes; it was an effective play, it was admirably set upon the stage and acted, and it gained substantial success. “Those were strenuous times for me,” he writes; “every one was thrusting duties on me then which, as I was always a glutton for work, I grasped as opportunities. One lesson I learned at the Baldwin which I have never forgotten—that one of the greatest mistakes a man can make is the mistake of permitting anybody else to do his work for him. I wrote ’Olivia’ between times, as it were, and I was genuinely surprised by its success.”

After the run of “Olivia” J. C. Williamson and his wife, “Maggie” Moore, came to the Baldwin,—opening in “Struck Oil,”—and Belasco, while directing the stage for them, completed an alteration of Wills’ “A Woman of the People,”—which was brought forth October 14,—and a play, made at the request of Rose Wood, which he called “Proof Positive,” based on an old melodrama. This was produced on October 28, and in it James O’Neill gained a notable success in the character of an eccentric, semi-comic Jew.

BELASCO’S VERSION OF “NOT GUILTY.”

Clara Morris made her first appearance in San Francisco at the Baldwin, November 4, as Miss Multon, and continued to act there for about eight weeks. During that time Belasco was able to bestow some attention and labor on an original play of his called “The Lone Pine,” in which he had acted at Sacramento and a few other “interior places” during a brief starring venture, and which he desired entirely to rewrite. In December, however, he was compelled to lay aside that work and turn again to hack playwrighting for the Baldwin company. His election fell on Watts Phillips’ old spectacle play of “Not Guilty,” which he altered and adapted in less than one week. It was announced as “The Grand Production of the Magnificent Musical, Military, Dramatic, and Spectacular (sic) Christmas Piece, which has been given for eight successive Christmas seasons in Philadelphia,” and it was produced for the first time at the Baldwin on December 24, 1878. This was the cast:

All the work of adaptation and stage management was done by Belasco—and for it he received the munificent payment of $12.50 a performance. Recalling the production, he writes: “A ’stock dramatist’ at that time was obliged to do his work on short notice, and it was taken as a matter of course that I should get a play ready for rehearsal in less than a week, and put it on in less than another week. ’Not Guilty’ was very spectacular (sic), and with my customary leaning to warfare I introduced a Battle Scene, with several hundred people in an embarkation, as well as horses and cannon. This embarkation alone used to take ten minutes. It has all been done in many plays since—the booming of guns, the padding of the horses’ hoofs on earth and stone, the moving crowds in sight and larger ones suggested, beyond the range of vision,—but this was the original, and it was wonderfully effective, if I do say it myself.” Belasco’s view agrees with that recorded by all competent observers of the time—one of the most conservative of whom wrote, in “The San Francisco Evening Bulletin,” that “the Battle Scene, in the Fourth Act, was about the most realistic ever produced on the stage.” An operatic chorus of more than eighty voices was employed and “The Cameron Cadets”—a local military organization—participated “in full Highland costume.”

WITHDRAWAL FROM THE BALDWIN.—“THE LONE PINE” AND DENMAN THOMPSON.

Belasco withdrew from the Baldwin Theatre company immediately after the “run” of “Not Guilty.” He was in danger of becoming exhausted by over-work and he was resentful of mean treatment to which he had been subjected. Lewis Morrison, who had suggested Phillips’ old spectacle for alteration, and Frederick Lyster, who had caused the introduction in it of music selected from the opera of “Carmen,” by connivance with Maguire, charged a “royalty” of twelve per cent. against the gross receipts from representations of that play, although Belasco was paid for his service only about one per cent. This injustice, coming to the knowledge of Baldwin, greatly incensed him, and in order to remedy it he gave to Belasco $1,000. With that sum added to his savings he felt at liberty to desist for a time from the exacting requirements of employment under Maguire, but in about two months he had resumed his old position, going back at the earnest request of Herne. In his “Story” he gives the following account of his experience in the interim:

“WITHIN AN INCH OF HIS LIFE.”

Belasco was re-employed by Maguire during the first days of February, 1879, and he at once resumed his multiform labor as stage manager, prompter, and playwright. The Baldwin Theatre was profitably occupied by the Wilson, Primrose & West Minstrel Company and his first work was done at the Grand Opera House, which Maguire had leased, and where, February 17, “the legitimate company from Baldwin’s” appeared in Belasco’s dramatization of Gaboriau’s story of “Within an Inch of His Life.” This melodrama, advertised as “the most powerful play ever acted,” was the product of “a week of strenuous days and sleepless nights,” it was produced as a stopgap, and—so Belasco writes—“the makeshift, like so many accidental productions, was an instant success.” That success was, in large part, due to a striking mechanical effect, devised and introduced by Belasco, representative of a conflagration, described in the newspapers of the day as “the terrific fire spectacle,” about which its inventor has given me this information: “The fire was in the First Act. I did away with the lycopodium boxes and made my ’flames’ by a series of red and yellow strips of silk, fanned from beneath by bellows and lit by colored lights. Some complaint was made of danger to the theatre and the authorities came upon the stage to investigate: they were a good deal nonplussed at finding the ’fire’ nothing but pieces of silk!”

“Within an Inch of His Life” was acted at the Grand Opera House until March 1, when it was withdrawn to make way for “The Passion.” This was the cast of its original production:

SALMI MORSE’S “PASSION PLAY.”

At about the beginning of February, 1879, the popular and distinguished actor James O’Neill, now long famous for his performance of Monte Cristo, became enthusiastically interested in a spectacle drama by Salmi Morse (1826-1884), called “The Passion Play,” the presentment of which that author had long been earnestly but vainly endeavoring to effect, in San Francisco. O’Neill was desirous of impersonating Jesus Christ, a part to which he considered himself peculiarly fitted, and he presently succeeded in persuading Maguire, the manager, to produce Morse’s drama. Baldwin was induced to provide financial support for the enterprise. Belasco was engaged as stage manager, after the preliminary rehearsals had been conducted under direction of Henry Brown, who officiated as prompter. Elaborate and handsome scenery was built and painted. Henry Widmer (1845-1895), in after years long associated with Daly’s Theatre in New York, was employed as leader of the orchestra, and illustrative incidental music for the play was composed by him. Belasco rehearsed the company and superintended the stage. The first representation occurred on March 3, 1879, at the Grand Opera House, and it caused much public interest and controversy. O’Neill’s impersonation of Jesus was fervently admired. Belasco, commenting on it and on its effect on “the poor people” whom he “saw on their knees, praying and sobbing,” wrote that the actor, “with his delicacy, refinement, and grandeur, typified the real Prophet, and, I believe, to himself he was the Prophet.”

NOT THE OBERAMMERGAU DRAMA.

Morse’s play was not the fabric customarily offered at Oberammergau, nor was it in any particular an imitation. In the declared opinion of Morse, an apostate Hebrew, that concoction had been devised and performed for the purpose of arousing and stimulating hostility against the Jews, and he profoundly disapproved of it. His purpose, he avowed, was simply to present an epitome of the life of Jesus, as described in the gospels. He had taken the thrifty precaution to read his play before an assemblage of the Roman Catholic clergy of San Francisco (the Protestant ecclesiastics not accepting his liberal invitation to enjoy that luxury), and it had received their approbation. Several of the holy fathers, indeed, had evinced their approval of it by kissing him on both his cheeks, and Archbishop Allemany, of San Francisco, had not only sanctioned the precious composition but had inserted several passages into the text with his own sacerdotal hand. The play was comprised in ten acts (at least, that was its form when, in 1880, in the vestibule of the Park Theatre, Broadway and Twenty-second Street, New York, I heard half of it read by the author and was permitted to inspect the whole manuscript), and it consisted of a long series of dialogues accompanied by pictures and tableaux. I know not whether the whole ten acts were vouchsafed to the San Francisco audience, but, according to contemporaneous records, the play gave much offence to many persons and was incentive to some public disturbances and breaches of the peace: ignorant Irish who witnessed it were so distempered that, on going forth, some of them, from time to time, assaulted peaceable Jews in the public streets—much in the spirit of the irate mariner who chanced to hear first of the Crucifixion nearly 2,000 years after it occurred. Belasco records that a committee of citizens called on Maguire and “worked upon his credulous nature until he believed that he was marked by the devil for sacrifice and would meet with instant death if he did not withdraw the play,” and that “in a fever of fear he closed the theatre,”—March 11. A little later, however, Maguire’s torrid temperature appears to have abated, and the play was again brought forward, April 15, at the Grand Opera House, but this time it was met by an injunction, issued from the Fourth (Municipal) District Court, Judge Robert Francis Morrison presiding, which, being disregarded, was followed by the arrest of O’Neill (who was imprisoned), April 21, and of his professional associates, all of them, subsequently, being convicted of contempt of court and fined for that offence,—O’Neill $50 and each of the other players $5. Belasco escaped arrest through the kindly interference of the local Sheriff, a friend of his, who forcibly kept him away from the theatre when the other participants in the representation were being taken into police custody. The following notice appeared in “The Alta California,” April 22, 1879:

CONSTITUENTS OF MORSE’S PLAY.

There is nothing in Morse’s play that could exert an immoral influence. There is no irreverence in either its spirit or its incidents. It is merely a goody-goody, tiresome composition, full of moral twaddle, and consisting in about equal degree of platitude and bombast. It purports to be written in blank verse, but it is, in fact, written in nondescript lines of unequal length, halting, irregular, formless, weak, and diffuse. Choruses of rhymed doggerel occur in it, at intervals, sometimes uttered by women, sometimes,—on the contrary,—by angels. Stress is laid on the efforts of Pontius Pilate to save Jesus from the fury of the mob. There is a succession of pictures. In the Temple of Jerusalem many females appear, carrying babes, and a ferocious Jew, essaying to kill the infant Jesus, falls back astounded and overwhelmed by the aspect of the sacred infant. Later, Joseph, Mary, and the Holy Child are shown environed and protected by a branching sycamore tree, while, in the mountains all around them, many shrieking women and children are slaughtered by ruffianly soldiers. In a sequent picture King Herod, uttering a multiplicity of aphorisms, wrangles with his wife, Herodias, and the seductive Salomé dances before them and wins for her mother the head of her enemy, John the Baptist, which pleasing trophy, wrapped in a napkin, is brought in on a tray. Jesus and his disciples are then shown at the brook of Kedron. The agony of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane is depicted and the betrayal by Judas, the latter scene being double, to show, on one side, a lighted room in which is reproduced a semblance of “The Last Supper” according to the admired picture by Leonardo da Vinci, and on the other a gloomy range of plains and hills dimly lighted by the stars. In this scene passages from the New Testament are incorporated into Morse’s play, in the part of Jesus. The arraignment of Jesus before Pilate follows, including the wrangle between the furious people and that clement magistrate, and ending with the investiture of Jesus with the Crown of Thorns. The final picture shows Golgotha, under a midnight sky, and the removal of the dead body from the Cross.

AS TO PROPRIETY.

Salmi Morse, in conversation with me and my old comrade Dr. Charles Phelps, at the time of the reading in the vestibule of the Park Theatre, said that he began “The Passion Play” with the intention of writing a poem like Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” but soon discovered that the Byronic style, as evinced in “Cain,” was more consonant than the Miltonic style with his subject and his genius, and accordingly determined to write not like Milton but like Byron; and he added that his drama was really not, at first, intended for the Stage, but for publication in a book. That was a discreet judgment, from which it is a pity that he ever departed. I have not, however, been able at any time to perceive what decisive moral reason there is why “The Passion Play” should not be presented on the stage. Reasons other than moral can readily be assigned: it is a matter of Taste, in which it is a gross injustice to employ the police power as a corrective, and a matter of Public Policy, in which, with due consideration, the police power can properly be invoked. Familiar treatment of things widely considered sacred is, perhaps, likely to lower them, except with very ignorant persons, in sanctity and dignity, and certainly it does lower them with many persons of fine intelligence and taste. In the end of a church in Heidelberg there is, or was, visible, through a long window, a full-length effigy of Christ on the Cross, which swings to and fro as a pendulum to the clock, and in a church at Mayence there is a life-size figure of the Virgin Mary, seated, with the body of the dead Christ, also life-size, lying across her knees. I remember looking on those objects with aversion. To see, in a theatre, a man, impersonating the Christ, washing the feet of another man will, generally, give offence. Religious bigotry is a curse to civilization, and nothing should be conceded to it, but certainly the scruples of religious persons should receive reasonable respect.

“THE PASSION PLAY” IN NEW YORK.

After the suppression of his “Passion Play” in California Morse brought it to New York and offered it to Henry E. Abbey, then a prominent speculative manager, who, for a time, entertained the purpose of producing it at Booth’s Theatre. A drop curtain was painted, showing a flight of angels toward Heaven on Easter morning, and the purpose of Morse was made known to remove the statue of Shakespeare from the top of the proscenium arch and to substitute a large cross in its place. Obstacles intervened,—disapproval, voiced in the newspaper press, being one of them, and the destruction of Abbey’s New Park Theatre by fire (October 30, 1882), in which conflagration all the costumes were destroyed, being another,—and that project was abandoned. Prior to that mishap Morse gave a reading of the play, December 3, 1880, at the Cooper Institute; and later, February-April, 1883, ineffectual efforts were made by the author (which brought him before Judge George C. Barrett, of the New York Supreme Court) to present it in a house which he rented and called Salmi Morse’s Temple (afterward known as Proctor’s Twenty-third Street Theatre). His endeavors were finally blocked by an injunction, and the venture was heard of no more. Belasco was in New York at the time of Morse’s attempt to have his “Passion Play” represented there, and Morse wished him to undertake the stage direction of it, but being otherwise employed, and also clearly perceiving the public antipathy to the project, he discreetly declined to participate in the enterprise. On February 22, 1884, the unfortunate Morse met death by drowning, in the Hudson River, near Harlem, and he was thought to have committed suicide.

BELASCO’S SERVICES TO MORSE’S ENTERPRISE.

The successful presentment of Morse’s play in California was due to the sincerity and ability of O’Neill and to the ardent enthusiasm of Belasco, who revelled in the opportunities which he discovered for pictorial display: he explored every accessible source for paintings to be copied and for suggestions as to costume, color, and “atmosphere,” and, particularly, he made use of every expedient of “realistic” effect. Belasco writes of this: “I had seen ’The Passion Play’ in Europe, but, without prejudice, our little far-western town held the honors.” That statement involves a slip of memory. He had, in March, 1879, been as far east as New York, but his first visit to Europe did not occur till 1884. His view of the Oberammergau performance was obtained long after the presentment of Morse’s play in San Francisco. The following reminiscence by Belasco of the California representation of “The Passion Play” is instructive: