“The Passion Play” was succeeded at the Grand Opera House by a melodrama entitled “The New Babylon,” produced under the stage management of Belasco; and, on May 5, at the Baldwin, an adaptation by him of Sardou’s “La Famille Benoiton!” was brought out under the name of “A Fast Family.” This was performed for a fortnight, during which Belasco wrote a play which he called “The Millionaire’s Daughter,” and contrived for its presentment a remarkably handsome and effective scenic investiture.

“THE MILLIONAIRE’S DAUGHTER.”

Bronson Howard’s play of “The Banker’s Daughter” (one act of which was written by A. R. Cazauran) was produced, for the first time, November 30, 1878, at the Union Square Theatre, New York, where it held the stage till April 16, 1879, receiving 137 performances. It was regarded as one of the “sensations” of the time, and Maguire, desiring to secure its presentment at the Baldwin Theatre, began negotiations to that end with Palmer early in 1879. Palmer named terms that Maguire would not, or could not, meet and they were rejected. But a new play was urgently required for the Baldwin, and Maguire turned to Belasco, asking, “Can’t you make something for us on similar lines?” Belasco readily agreed to do this, but presently expressed doubt as to Baldwin’s consent to pay the heavy price of certain novel expedients of stage-setting which he wished to use.

“In my principal scene,” he said to me, “I wanted a striking, new effect,—walls of a delicate pink, hung with rich lace, and I knew it would cost a lot. I went to Baldwin about it, after talking to Maguire, who thought it impossible, and told him the story of my play, and what I wanted to do in the way of settings, and my fear about expenses. Baldwin said, ’I understand Palmer’s coming out here, to the California, with “The Banker’s Daughter.” I think he tried to stick us up on that piece, and I’d like to beat him. We don’t need to go to so much expense as you think, Davy. You say you want laces: well, I’ll let you have some lace, such as nobody has ever seen on a stage!’ And he did. It was real antique stuff, belonging to his daughter and himself, from their home. I designed the scene as I wanted it, had plain set pieces painted (they cost us only a few dollars) in delicate shades of pink, and draped Baldwin’s lace over them. The effect was beautiful,—I’ve never seen anything of the kind as good,—and it looked like the room of ’a millionaire’s daughter.’ But I was glad when the run was over and the stuff safely back in Baldwin’s home: there was over $30,000 worth of it used in that set, and it kept me anxious all the time.”

Belasco’s play of “The Millionaire’s Daughter” was produced at the Baldwin Theatre on May 19, 1879, and it was received with much favor. It tells the story of a woman who marries one man while believing herself to be in love with another, but who comes, through an ordeal of sorrow and suffering, to know the value of her husband and to love him. It is not important, though creditable as a melodramatic specimen of what Augustin Daly used to describe as “plays of contemporaneous human interest.” The chief parts in it were cast as follows:

Belasco was at once accused of having stolen his play from “The Banker’s Daughter,” but on investigation by Palmer’s representative it promptly appeared that the charge was unwarranted. “The chief real resemblances,” said Belasco, “are the title and the Duel Scene. We did call my play ’The Millionaire’s Daughter’ because of the success of Howard’s piece: the Duel Scene, however, I took from ’The Corsican Brothers.’ Howard, probably, took his from the same source; nobody acquainted with the theatre could very well help knowing that scene!”

The situation alluded to is an old one and it has been often used. The scene is a glade in the woods. The duellists, attended by their seconds, are confronted, each intent on homicide. The time is nightfall. The ground is thinly covered with snow. Each of the combatants is attired in a white shirt, open at the neck, without collar; black trousers and shoes. A faint twilight is diffused over the picture, and the ominous, grisly effect of it is enhanced by low, minor music. Gleaming rapiers are engaged and the combat proceeds to its fatal close: few other situations have been made the occasion of as much ridicule; yet, fashioned with care and treated with sincerity, this one never fails to thrill the spectators,—and probably it never will.

Palmer’s production of “The Banker’s Daughter” was announced for presentment at the California Theatre on June 9, 1879; but the success of Belasco’s play, at the Baldwin, led to the cancellation by Palmer of his engagement in San Francisco, and Howard’s play, in its definitive form, was not acted there until long afterward: it had, however, previously been performed there under the name of “Lillian’s Lost Love.”

DETRACTION OF BELASCO.—EARLY CALIFORNIA INFLUENCES.

Those persons who intellectually and influentially rise above the level of mediocrity almost invariably find their attainments denied, their achievements belittled, their motives impugned, and their characters besmirched. Belasco has had a liberal experience of detraction. One of the most insistent disparagements that have followed him is the charge that, in the course of his long career as a manager in New York, he has never produced any of the plays of Shakespeare, for the reason that he does not possess either the knowledge, taste, training, or ability requisite for their suitable presentment. It is true that Belasco, since becoming a theatrical manager in New York, has not, as yet, produced any play of Shakespeare’s or any of the standard old legitimate dramas. That, doubtless, has been a loss to the public; but deferring, for the moment, scrutiny of reasons that have restrained him from such ventures, it will be pertinent and instructive here to consider the question of his competence to make such revivals,—because such consideration necessarily concerns itself with the theatrical environment in which he grew up and in which he received his early training. As bearing on such an examination a glance at the antecedents of the San Francisco Stage will be helpful. The Circus preceded the Theatre in California, but only by a few weeks. Two circus companies were performing in San Francisco early in 1849. The first dramatic performance given in that city occurred in the same year, in a building called Washington Hall. In the same year, also, the first regular theatre built in the State was opened, in Sacramento: it cost $80,000 and it was called the Eagle. James H. McCabe,—a good friend to Belasco in later years,—was a member of its first company. Other theatres built subsequently in Sacramento were the Tehama, the Pacific, the American, and

the Edwin Forrest. The dramatic movement, once started, became vigorous and swift. In 1851, in San Francisco, the Jenny Lind and the American theatres were built, and in 1853 a spacious and handsome playhouse was erected, called the Metropolitan, and also a theatre called the Adelphi was opened, in which performances were given in French. Among the managers who were active and prominent in early California days were Wesley Venua, John S. Potter, Joseph Rowe, Charles Robert Thorne (the Elder), Daniel Wilmarth Waller, George Ryer, Charles A. King, McKean Buchanan, J. B. Booth, Jr., and Samuel Colville,—the latter subsequently so widely known and so popular in New York. Among actors of the period who were local favorites were James Stark, James H. Warwick, William Barry, “Dan” Virgil Gates, John Woodard, Edward N. Thayer, Frank Lawlor, John Dunn (often jocosely styled “Rascal Jack”), Elizabeth Jefferson (Mrs. Thoman, afterwards Mrs. Saunders), Mrs. Emanuel Judah (Marietta Starfield Torrence), Mary Woodard, and Marie Duret,—“the limpet,” once for some time associated with Gustavus Vaughan Brooke (and so called because she “stuck to him” till she had accumulated considerable money and jewelry, and then left him; she seems to have been a great annoyance). Before Belasco’s birth (1853) the Drama had become well established in California, and during his boyhood there and his early professional association with it,—that is, from about 1865 to 1882,—its condition was generally prosperous, often brilliant. Within that period the San Francisco Stage was illumined by actors of every description, some of them being of the highest order as well as of the brightest renown. Belasco’s personal association with the Theatre, as has been shown, began in infancy; his earliest impressions were imbued with histrionic and dramatic influence. Charles Kean, Edwin Forrest, and Julia Dean were figures in his childish mind that he never could forget. Among the notable actors whom he saw, with many of whom at one time or another he was actively associated, and among whom are numbered some men and women whose histrionic genius has not been surpassed, were Catharine Sinclair, Matilda Heron, James E. Murdoch, James William Wallack, the Younger; Charles Wheatleigh, William A. Mestayer, John Wilson, Mrs. Saunders, Kate Denin, John Collins, Mrs. Poole, John E. Owens, Edwin Adams, Walter Montgomery, James Stark, Edward A. Sothern, Frank Mayo, Barry Sullivan, Edwin Booth, James O’Neill, Lewis Morrison, Eben Plympton, John Brougham, James A. Herne, Frank S. Chanfrau, James F. Cathcart, William H. Crane, (Charles) Barton Hill, W. J. Florence and Mrs. Florence, Barney Williams and Mrs. Williams, Benedict De Bar, George Rignold, George Fawcett Rowe, Charles F. Coghlan, W. E. Sheridan, Mrs. D. P. Bowers, Adelaide Neilson, William Horace Lingard and Mrs. Lingard (Alice Dunning), Lotta (Charlotte Crabtree), Charlotte Thompson, Carlotta Leclercq, Neil Warner, Daniel E. Bandmann, Minnie Palmer, Jean Davenport Lander, Mrs. F. M. Bates, Sallie A. Hinckley, Dion Boucicault, Katharine Rodgers, Helena Modjeska, and Rose Coghlan. Those, and many more, were not mere names to Belasco: they were the vital, active personification of all that he most loved and desired—the Stage. The environment of his youth, allowing for all the trials and hardships to which incidentally he was subjected, must, obviously, have been conducive to the opening and enlightenment of his mind, the direction of his efforts into the theatrical field, the development of his latent powers, his education as actor, dramatist, and stage manager, and the building of his character. He was a sensitive, highly impressionable youth, possessed of an artistic temperament, romantic disposition, innate histrionic and dramatic faculties, ardent ambition to excel, eager interest in life, abundant capability of enjoyment, an almost abnormal power of observation,—that “clutching eye” which has been well ascribed to Dickens,—and a kindness of heart that made him instantly and eagerly sympathetic with every form of human trial and suffering. Such a youth could not fail to respond to some, at least, of the improving influences to which he was exposed. In the ministrations of such men and women as I have named he saw the rapid and splendid growth of the Theatre in California, the swift accession to the number of fine playhouses,—the building of Maguire’s Opera House (afterward the Bush Street Theatre), the California Theatre, Shiels’ Opera House, Maguire’s New Theatre, and Baldwin’s Academy of Music,—and with all of them, and with others, he became, at one time or another and in one way or another, connected. He was given exceptional and invaluable opportunities of studying the respective styles and learning the divergent methods of every class of actor and stage manager. He saw the thorough devotion, the patient endeavor, the astonishing variety, and the first splendid successes of John McCullough, who went to San Francisco with Edwin Forrest, in 1866, and there laid the foundation of his renown. He saw the intensely earnest, highly intellectual, incessantly laborious, passionately devoted and indomitable Lawrence Barrett, who made his first appearance in San Francisco, February 13, 1868, at Maguire’s Opera House, as Hamlet, and he saw many of the great plays, finely produced and nobly acted, which were given at the California Theatre, in the season when it was opened, January 11, 1869, under the joint management of Barrett and McCullough. Observance of such a dramatic company as those managers then assembled was in itself an education for any young enthusiast and student of the art of acting, and it is reasonable to believe that this youth profited by it. The company, certainly, was such a one as could not anywhere be assembled now, because most of the actors of that strain have passed away. Barrett held the first position, dividing some of the leading business with McCullough. William H. Sedley-Smith was the stage manager. Other members of the company were Henry Edwards, John T. Raymond, “Willie” Edouin, Claude Burroughs, John Torrence, J. E. Marble, John Wilson, Edward J. Buckley, W. Caldwell, Frederick Franks, W. F. Burroughs, H. King, Henry Atkinson, E. B. Holmes, Emilie Melville, Annette Ince, Marie Gordon, Mrs. E. J. Buckley, Mrs. F. Franks, Mrs. Charles R. Saunders, and Mrs. Judah. The plays presented were of all kinds and generally of the highest order. Belasco was fortunate in possessing the special favor of the stage manager, and he was permitted many chances of seeing those players. The special idols of his boyish admiration were John McCullough, Walter Montgomery, and Mrs. Bowers. As to Shakespeare—his mother was a lover of the dramatist and a careful student of him, and she early began to instruct her boy in the study of his characters and in the acting of scenes from the plays: one of the first books he ever owned was a large single volume edition of Shakespeare, which, to gratify his childish longing, was sent to him, “from New York,” because he believed nothing could be as fine as what came from that place. “I read it,” he told me, “from the title-page to the last word, with a dictionary and a glossary.” He saw many of the plays of Shakespeare set upon the stage, by some of the most accomplished, conscientious, and scholarly actors and stage managers that have served the art—men and women the capabilities and achievements of any one of whom, in the stage production of Shakespeare, would shame the abilities of all Belasco’s detractors combined,—and he participated, not only as actor but as stage manager, in the representation of those plays. The works of Shakespeare which were thus made

familiar to him, in their technical aspect, are “King Richard III.” (Cibber’s version), “Hamlet,” “Othello,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Julius Cæsar,” “Macbeth,” “King John,” “King Lear,” “Coriolanus,” “Cymbeline,” “Measure for Measure,” “The Comedy of Errors,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Katharine and Petruchio” (Garrick’s version), “Twelfth Night,” and “As You Like It.” He played all sorts of parts in Shakespeare, from the slightest to some of the greatest: in San Francisco he would play anything,—the Salanios, Guildensterns, First Messengers, Citizens, etc., and frequently go on as a super,—merely to gain opportunity to be on the stage with the leaders of his profession, in order that he might observe them. Fired with emulous ambition, he would then obtain employment in any travelling or barnstorming company in which he could play some of the greater parts, and in that way,—acting, of course, at first in imitation of various distinguished players whose performances he had witnessed, but also, more and more as his experience grew, along experimental lines of his own contrivance,—he played, among other parts, Mercutio, Marc Antony, Friar Lawrence and Hamlet. He also sometimes acted women;—in Shakespeare, notably, the Nurse, in “Romeo and Juliet,” and Queen Gertrude, in “Hamlet.” In short, the truth, respecting Belasco and his qualification for producing Shakespeare’s dramas, is that he is better qualified to present them than any other stage manager in America. His abstention from that field has been due to a variety of causes, chief among them being that, at first, while he was fighting his way to a position in which he could produce anything, and immediately after his achievement of that independence, the field of Shakespearean acting was almost exclusively occupied by famous, popular, and prosperous stars, who did not need his services, having their own, and with whom he must have vainly contended in an unequal rivalry; and, later, that there was an almost complete dearth of qualified Shakespearean performers. That dearth might not be so nearly complete now if Belasco had earlier turned his attention to the production of Shakespeare: on the other hand, he had to win his place before he could fill it,—and the carpers who censure him for what he has not done would, in most instances, have been as vigorous in censure if he had brought out plays of Shakespeare as they have been because he has not: what they actually seek for is any ground for fault-finding. Belasco’s sound sense and good judgment were well shown in a recent conversation with me, relative to David Warfield’s ambition to play Shylock: “Warfield,” he said, “is wild to play Shylock, and is at me every little while to bring out ’The Merchant.’ I’d like to do it, but it isn’t practical just now, and so I tell him, ’Wait, wait,’—though he doesn’t want to wait! But it would be foolish at present: to-day ’Dave’ Warfield is one of the most prosperous of actors: he can play ’The Music Master,’ and ’The Auctioneer,’ and make a fortune—just as Jefferson did with ’Rip’ and ’The Rivals.’ But what will happen if I bring him out as Shylock, at once, in New York, or close to it? A lot of the paltry scribblers who don’t know anything about ’The Merchant’ will have their knives into him up to the hilt—and the next morning, whether he’s good, bad, or indifferent, he’ll be the best ’roasted’ actor on the stage—the venture will be no good, and when he goes back to ’The Music Master’ his standing will have been hurt. Nobody can give a great performance of Shylock the first time. When we are ready, I’ll take a modest little company out into the backwoods somewhere, so far away from New York that nobody here knows there are such places, and let Warfield play Shylock for three months or so. Then, when he’s found himself and can show what he can really do, if it’s no good we’ll drop it, and if (as I expect) it turns out great, I’ll bring him into New York and give them such a production as they haven’t seen since Irving played the piece.” That is the clear, right, prescient insight of an authentic theatrical manager, who understands that a vital part of the management of the Theatre consists in management of the People.

BELASCO’S REPERTORY AS AN ACTOR.

BELASCO’S “THE STORY OF MY LIFE.”

Belasco records that he early observed and condemned “the incongruity between the stage way of doing things and the way of life itself,”—the implication being that, in acting, actual life should be literally copied. That is an error. There always is, and from the nature of things always will be, a certain incongruity between actual life and an artistic transcript of it. A literal copy of actual life shown on the stage does not usually cause the effect of actual life: it causes the effect of prolixity and tediousness. Belasco lays much stress on his early and sedulous practice of making himself acquainted, by observation, with all sorts of grewsome facts, assuring his readers that he visited lunatic asylums in order to study madness; talked with condemned murderers immediately prior to their execution and later witnessed the hanging of them; observed the effects of surgical operations performed in hospitals; contemplated deaths occurring there as the result of violence elsewhere; obtained from a friendly, communicative physician knowledge of the manner of death which ensues from the action of several sorts of poison, and was favored, in a dissecting room, with a view of a human heart which had just been extracted from a corpse,—his purpose in this line of inquiry having been to ascertain the multifarious manners in which persons suffer and die, and thus to qualify himself, as actor and stage manager, to imitate them himself or instruct others in the imitation of them. His notion, obviously, is that the actor ought to be acquainted with these things, and, when depicting death, should correctly and literally simulate the particular variety of the throes of dissolution which is appropriate as a climax to the mortal ailment or lethal stroke that destroys him.

All this is well enough in its way, but it is only a little part of the knowledge required by the actor, and a special objection to Belasco’s way of introducing it is the implication that such minute preparation was peculiar and original with him. The doctrine of “realism” is often oppugnant to dramatic art, and an extreme adherence to it has been a primary cause of whatever is defective in Belasco’s dramatic work. “Surely,” he exclaims, “people do not die as quietly as they do upon the stage.” It all depends on the “people” and the circumstances, whether on the stage or off. Death, in fact, sometimes comes so gently that its coming is not perceived. On the other hand, “people” do not always die quietly on the stage. Edwin Forrest, as the dying Hamlet, made a prodigious pother in his expiration and was a long time about it, and he maintained that a man of his size and massive physique could not die from poison without manifestation of extreme agony. I many times saw that muscular Hamlet die, and the spectacle, while