The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Life of David Belasco; Vol. 2, by William Winter.

as his child. Balzamo, learning the whereabouts of the girl and desirous of recovering custody of her, in order to utilize her as a subject, visits Emerson and seeks to reëstablish his control over Dorothy, begun when she was a little child. The Doctor is led to suspect the originative facts in “the case of Becky” which are unknown to him; a conflict of wits and powers ensues between him and Balzamo; the latter is, by a trick, subdued and thrown into hypnosis,—in which state he is compelled to confess the truth and is then deprived of his hypnotic power.

Belasco, writing about this singular play—in which he presented Miss Frances Starr for more than two years—has recorded:

“I had begun work on the manuscript of my play for Miss Starr called ‘Jennie’ when I received a letter from Mr. Locke about ‘After Many Years.’... It was rewritten and renamed ‘The Case of Becky,’ and in the writing of it we were guided by Dr. Morton Prince’s ‘The Dissociation of a Personality.’ I felt that in a hypnotic study of this kind I must not resort to the broad theatricalism of ‘Trilby’ or ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’ I was dealing with a dual personality, and I gave Miss Starr the arduous task of slipping from innocence into viciousness, in the presence of an audience, without resorting to any outward trickery. Those hypnotic scenes were written while the company was rehearsing on the stage.”

It is interesting to note that the method prescribed for Miss Starr by Belasco, in acting Dorothy and Becky, is the same which Henry Irving declared should be employed in acting Jekyll and Hyde: Irving bought the English dramatic rights to Stevenson’s story about that dual character, intending to put his theory about impersonating it into practice, but he never did so.—This was the cast of “The Case of Becky”:

“I was as much surprised as I was delighted,” said Belasco, “by the popular success of ‘The Case of Becky,’—which was entirely unexpected.” His delight was considerably moderated by the prompt appearance of a couple of discontented playwrighting amateurs, alleging plagiarism. Their names were Amelia Bachman and George L. McKay; they asserted that “The Case of Becky” was taken from a drama which they had written, called “Etelle”; their suit was brought in June, 1912; it was tried, May 13 and 14, 1913, before Judge Julius M. Mayer, in the United States Circuit Court, and it was decided against them, “upon the merits,” on July 9. That decision was appealed, the appeal was argued before the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, April 6, 1914, and decision in favor of Belasco was affirmed. In rendering the original decision Judge Mayer said:

“...The writing of the play by Mr. Locke was the natural outcome of his interest in themes dealing with hypnotic influence and multiple personality, and when he was attracted by ‘How One Girl Lived Four Lives,’ by John Corbin, and [by] Dr. Prince’s book, he was at work on ‘The Climax,’ a play in which hypnotism or mental suggestion is the predominant feature.

“I am also satisfied, beyond any doubt, that Mr. Belasco never saw, read or heard of ‘Etelle’ prior to his acceptance of Locke’s play and Miss Bachman testified that her play had its foundation in the idea suggested by John Corbin’s article. That being so, and the facts found by me being as stated, it follows that complainants have no case. ‘The Case of Becky’ is, in substantial respects, different from ‘Etelle.’... It is to be expected that two playwrights, working independently from a common source, may develop similarities in their plots, but ‘The Case of Becky’ displays the skill of the experienced playwright in a number of important particulars and details not found in ‘Etelle.’”

“A GOOD LITTLE DEVIL.”

The stage accoutrement in which Belasco presented this fabric of whimsical extravagance was so beautiful, so full of the poetic feeling and allurement conspicuously absent from the piece itself, that it gained and for some time held, and deserved to hold, popular favor: it was played at the Republic Theatre until May 3, 1913,—152 consecutive performances being given.

“THE SECRET.”

“A secret and villanous contriver.”

“When I produced ‘The Secret,’” writes Belasco, in a biographical note made for me, “I was told by most of the writers for the [news]papers, and by many friends, that the principal character in it, Gabrielle, is untrue to life—is impossible! Well, all I have to say is:—It is not impossible. She is very exceptional, no doubt, and morbid; but she is true to life and I know it, because I have seen and known and had to deal with exactly such women as Gabrielle. They are unpleasant, of course,—but they are real, a part of the Comedy of Human Life that I have aimed to show in the Theatre, and that is the reason I produced ‘The Secret,’ notwithstanding much advice against it. I did not expect financial success.”

When Belasco first heard of “The Secret,”—which, written in French by Henri Bernstein, was originally produced, in March, 1913, at the Théâtre Bouffes-Parisiens, in Paris, with Mme. Simone (Mme. Simone Le Bargy) in the principal part,—Charles Frohman had just relinquished the right of producing it in America. He was so much impressed by the published accounts of the plot and of the performance that he went to Paris (sailing, June 18, 1913, on the Campania, via Fishguard) to see it, and there, after witnessing several representations of the drama, he personally arranged with its author for an American production. “Bernstein,” he writes, “wanted me to have Mme. Simone act Gabrielle in America; but, although she is a fine actress and gave a good performance, she did not, in my opinion, make the part credible. I could see nobody for it but little Miss Starr—and Bernstein waived his wishes and left everything to me. I knew from the first that it was impossible to make money with the piece in America; but I was determined to do it, and I did; and I am content, though it cost me $57,000 in order to show the American public a perfect piece of modern play writing and (as I think) acting.”

The qualities in Bernstein’s “The Secret” which won Belasco’s profound admiration are its technical constructive deftness and its cumulative theatrical effectiveness. While repellent in subject, it is, for stage purposes, extraordinarily well made. The principal character in it is Gabrielle Jannelot, a wife, young, accomplished, beautiful, admired, and loved,—apparently a paragon of feminine excellence; in fact, a personification of malignant jealousy and malicious envy. This charming female, blessed with everything that should make her contented, cannot endure the sight of the happiness of others and, while cloaking her wickedness with an assumption of generosity, gentleness, and goodness which for years completely deceives her husband and her

friends, she industriously spreads misery all about her. She has contrived to establish bitter estrangement between her devoted husband and a dearly loved and loving sister; and, ascertaining that another sister-in-law, Henriette Durand,—who is her closest friend and who has confided in her,—is beloved by a high-principled, jealous young man, Denis Le Guern, she schemes to wreck their prospective happiness. The fair Henriette (whose amorous receptivity appears to be comprehensive) has secretly been the mistress of a profligate man of fashion, named Charlie Ponta-Tulli, to whom she would have been wedded had not Gabrielle surreptitiously suppressed missives passing between them and thus caused their intrigue to be ended. Aware of Guern’s jealous disposition and strong preference for early vegetables, Gabrielle counsels Henriette, when he shall formally propose marriage to her, to make a full confession to him of her relation to Ponta-Tulli,—being confident that Guern will then withdraw his proposal. This advice Henriette promises to act upon; but, through fear, she fails to do so, and presently she and Guern are wedded and for a while dwell in bliss. Gabrielle, unable to endure the spectacle of their felicity, plans to destroy it by contriving to have all the persons implicated in the action assembled as guests in a country residence, thus bringing the new-wedded couple into close contact with the ardent though alienated Ponta-Tulli. There the former lover protests to the distressed Henriette his unchangeable passion, and there they are surprised together by the suspicious Guern in the moment when Tulli is demanding her reasons for having broken with him. A violent wrangle ensues, during which Gabrielle, under pretence of attempting reconciliation, neatly manages to make known the former illicit relation of Tulli and Henriette to the latter’s husband. In the passages of bitter recrimination which follow Tulli at last establishes the fact that he had not wilfully abandoned the charming Henriette, and then (with remarkable dramatic dexterity) the spiteful treachery of Gabrielle is little by little elicited and “the secret” of that vicious and contemptible little mischief-maker is finally revealed when she is forced to confess to her wretched husband all her years of wicked intrigue and perverse malice. There, dramatically, the play ends,—where so much of human experience ends, in heartbroken misery and despair. A superfluous “tag” is, however, provided in which Jannelot first induces Guern to forgive Henriette and then himself casts the mantle of indulgence over the sins of Gabrielle—the fervid Ponta-Tulli being left to recede into the dim perspective of Paris, there to comfort himself as best he may.

The performance of this painful play was, in the main, excellent, Miss Marguerite Leslie acting the errant Henriette with deep and sympathetic feeling, and Miss Starr, as Gabrielle, giving perhaps the most completely finished and artistic performance of her career,—because definite and intelligible in ideal, sustained, fluent, precise in expression, and entirely plausible in effect. Mr. Frank Reicher appeared as the excitable and jealous Guern and provided a significant exhibition of the radically artificial, insincere, and finical method so common to the Continental European Stage and so much admired and commended in America for the reason, apparently, that it is European.—“The Secret” was exquisitely set upon the stage, in scenery designed by Ernest Gros, and was presented by Belasco with the following cast:

“MARIE-ODILE.”

“The ‘Marie-Odile’ of Edward Knoblauch, which was presented for the first time in the Belasco Theatre last evening, is in many respects a remarkable play, which would have been still more noteworthy if it did not slip now and then below the highest level of its ideal. For the most part, it is sweet, idyllic romance, with an undercurrent of satirical symbolism and a tincture of somewhat perilous philosophy, and it is told with delicacy and imagination, except for occasional touches of rougher realism, which are unnecessary and inartistic, and have a harsh and jarring effect in a rarefied and sentimental atmosphere. The object of them—one of contrast—is obvious and legitimate, but it might have been attained by less violent methods.

“On the surface, at first, the tale is one for the nursery, but beneath is deep and earnest purpose, the enforcement of the distinction between the essential goodness of loving and unselfish innocence, delighting in service, and the hard and cruel Pharisaism of a narrow, egoistic bigotry. Presently the parable illustrates the savagery which perfect innocence may experience at the hands of arrogant and sophisticated virtue. But a brief outline will most clearly show the motive of Mr. Knoblauch’s story. The scene is laid in a convent in France, during the Franco-German conflict of 1870. Marie-Odile, the embodiment of childish innocence, is virtually the servant of the sisterhood. As an infant she had been found on the door-step. Now she is serving her novitiate and doing the domestic work, until ready for the final vows. She is a bright, affectionate, devout, and indefatigable little creature, who has never been outside the convent walls, has never seen a man—except an old priest and a decrepit, half-witted gardener—and is absolutely ignorant of the world and the ways of life. She has been taught that babies are the rewards which kindly angels bring from heaven to deserving mothers. By the Mother Superior, a martinet and zealot, she is persistently bullied. Even her tenderness for her pet pigeon is accounted a mortal sin, and, by way of spiritual discipline, she is ordered to tell the gardener to kill it for the Mother Superior’s table. At this she revolts. Sooner than obey she hides herself, and is not to be found when the terrible news arrives that the French have been hopelessly beaten, and that the Uhlans are at the convent door. The priests and the nuns flee and Marie-Odile and the old gardener are left behind alone. Soon the first German, a handsome young corporal, arrives, and Marie-Odile, who has never seen a male figure of such splendor before, concludes that he is Saint Michael—the convent’s patron saint—and kneels to him in rapturous worship. Other soldiers come in, led by a rough sergeant, and are disposed to take liberties, but are promptly disarmed by her fearlessness, her simplicity, and her transparent innocence. They even affect to respect the laws of the Mother Superior, which she quotes as paramount. She feeds them, presides at their table, and holds them in subjection—all but one or two—by magic of the ignorance that knows no wrong. The corporal champions her against the advances of his more brutal fellows, and to him she appeals with the confidence of a child. When the troops depart the sergeant, learning that the corporal has never had a love affair of any kind, purposely leaves him behind, bidding him take advantage of his manifest opportunity.

The Corporal, who is not vicious, is so moved by Marie-Odile’s unsuspecting confidence that he resolves not to molest her, but she begs him so earnestly to remain, and so willingly lets him kiss her, that he yields to temptation, and the curtain falls upon the second act as she reposes happily in his arms. The scene is natural and charming, and the sentiment that of pure, youthful romance. In the third and last act, after the lapse of a year, the convent has another tenant. Marie-Odile and the old gardener are no longer alone. There is an infant, which Marie-Odile accounts for as a miraculous gift from Heaven. She is conscious of no ill, has followed unhesitatingly the promptings of nature, and rejoices in her new possession with boundless exultation. But now the war is over and the nuns are returning. Sister Louise, the personification of true Christian charity, is the first to enter, and sorely afflicted is she as she listens to Marie-Odile’s grateful pæans, and thinks of what the Mother Superior will say. That austere judge is inflexible from the first. Straightway she orders the amazed but unrepentant young mother from the sacred precincts, in spite of the protests of Sister Louise, who declares that the true responsibility lay with the sisterhood which had failed to instruct or guard innocence.

“Simple as the play is in external form, it deals with more than one difficult and complex problem. Concerning the particular instance of the heroine—who becomes in Mr. Knoblauch’s sketch a fresh and delightful ideal of ignorant and untainted innocence—there need be no question. Like Haidée, she flew to her love like a young bird. She was guiltless, and her story—with the exceptions hinted at—is told very prettily, with an unaffected naturalism which is rare, and with many charming little poetic interludes. Her love episode is handled with notable tact and fancy, and is an eloquent plea for the sanctity of nature’s own laws. But obviously it is less ingenuous than Marie-Odile in its wilful disregard of certain awkward and wholly incontrovertible facts. The Pharisaism of the Mother Superior is, of course, utterly indefensible upon any count, but may be set down partly to the credit of poetic license. Unfortunately, the innocence of love is not, in the present state of this imperfect world, sufficient to exempt it from the material penalties of unrestricted freedom. And the instruction of ignorance is not altogether so simple a matter as some of our younger social philosophers seem to suppose.

“But in ‘Marie-Odile’ Mr. Knoblauch has produced a work of superior calibre, and has acquitted himself of a difficult task with ingenuity and tact. His first act is too much overladen with (dramatically) trifling details, but the piece acquires strength and impetus as it proceeds. Marie-Odile is one of the most credible examples of complete unsophistication that has been put upon the stage for a long time, and she is admirably impersonated by Miss Frances Starr. The part does not, it is true, present many difficulties, but most actresses would have betrayed in it a self-consciousness of the superfine quality of the innocence which they were portraying, and this Miss Starr did not do. She did really suggest the purity of a completely isolated maidenhood. Her completely natural maternal exultation in the possession of a baby was really excellent acting. Harriet Otis Dellenbaugh showed warm womanly feeling as the kindly Sister Louise, Jerome Patrick did very well as the Corporal, and Frank Reicher furnished a clever character bit as the senile old gardener. The setting in the convent was perfect—a notable specimen of Mr. Belasco’s handiwork.”

RECONCILIATION WITH CHARLES FROHMAN—AND JOINT PRESENTMENT OF “A CELEBRATED CASE.”

The antagonism of Belasco and the Theatrical Syndicate, which he fought for so many years, naturally led to friction between him and Charles Frohman,—a person of extraordinary self-conceit, who loved to have applied to himself the ridiculous designation of “the Napoleon of the Theatre”; who aspired to be thought the greatest of theatrical managers, and who, necessarily, felt himself rebuked under the superior talents of the man with whom, in early years, he had been so closely associated and who had done so much to make his career possible. In 1903 he had a personal quarrel with Belasco (about what I do not know), and for twelve years thereafter they were more or less actively at enmity and treated each other as strangers. Frohman, however, appears to have possessed engaging qualities, which endeared him to many of those who knew him well. Belasco, for example, has assured me that through all the time of their estrangement he “cherished a great affection for ‘Charlie,’” and that he is “grateful beyond words that our misunderstanding was cleared up and our friendship renewed before he sailed away to his death.” Frohman left New York on board the steamship Lusitania, May 1, 1915, and he lost his life, May 7, when, to the eternal infamy of the German nation, that vessel was sunk off Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. “I was alone in my studio, one evening early in 1915,” Belasco has told me, “and by chance I noticed a newspaper paragraph about Charles Frohman being ill, at the Hotel Knickerbocker. It set me thinking about our first meeting so long ago in San Francisco, and of all that followed; of our first venture in Chicago and of all the years when we worked together and had rooms side by side, when ‘Charlie’ used to consult me about everything and I used to read my ‘May Blossom’ to him. As I sat there thinking it all over I realized that the shadows were beginning to slant toward the east—and suddenly I decided that if ‘Charlie’ should die without our being reconciled it should not be my fault. I started to write a little note to him but got no further than ‘Dear Charlie’ when my telephone-bell rang. The caller was Roeder—and the first thing he said was: ‘I’ve just had a telephone message from Charles Frohman. He wants to see you’! We met that night, in his rooms, and forgot that we ever had a disagreement.”

Soon after that reconciliation Belasco held a little festival in honor of Frohman, in his theatre-studio, and there, at first in jest, it was proposed that they should make a joint revival of some notably successful play of earlier days. This proposal led to a serious discussion and eventually to an agreement whereby the two managers covenanted to make a joint production every season during a term of years. At Frohman’s request Belasco agreed to choose the first play to be presented by them, and his election fell upon “A Celebrated Case.”

That play (first produced in America at the Union Square Theatre, New York, January 23, 1878) is a melodrama in six acts, translated, in rough English, from the French of Adolphe D’Ennery (1811-1899) and Eugène Cormon (18—- 18—). It presents the image of a murder which was done in France, on the eve of the Battle of Fontenoy (May 11, 1745), and for which an innocent man was made to suffer years of cruel punishment, till, at last, in a mysterious and circuitous way, it was brought home to its perpetrator. The circumstances of the crime are peculiarly hideous and the circumstances of the belated retribution are peculiarly complex. The innocent man, Jean Renaud, is condemned, for the murder of his wife, on the testimony of their child. Lazare, the guilty man (as in many other fictions on this antiquated pattern), assumes the identity of another person connected with the crime, the Count de Mornay, and, after various escapes from exposure and much suspense, he is baffled in his maintenance of the assumed identity and is brought to justice. The parting of the condemned father with his innocent, prattling child, who has unconsciously convicted him of murder, and their meeting in after years, he a wretched galley-slave and she a young woman, afford a poignantly affecting contrast. Adroit use, likewise, is made of a certain singular jewel as the instrument for discovery of the actual criminal. Although there are no remarkable characters in the piece and nothing extraordinary in its dialogue, it possesses substantial dramatic merit in its occasional scenes of acute agony, relieved by the violent action of natures taxed beyond endurance. Its sentiment, moreover,—that of filial affection,—is pure; and in its complication of the lives and the emotional troubles of two young girls it deals skilfully and tenderly with difficult and lovely themes. Its choice by Belasco (who had several times directed performances of it in the days of his youth and in whom predilection for tense situation and sharp effect is dominant) was a natural one. Affiliated with Frohman, he presented it in a slightly revised form—some of its dialogue being a little “modernized”—but substantially unaltered and in picturesque and rich dress. It was well acted and kindly received. The first performance of this Belasco-Frohman revival occurred at the Hollis Street Theatre, Boston, March 28, 1915, and, April 7, they brought it out at the Empire Theatre, New York. This was the cast:

LENORE ULRIC.—AND “THE HEART OF WETONA.”

Miss Lenore Ulric, to whom Belasco thus referred, was born at New Ulm, Minnesota, July 21, 189—. In childhood she knew the meaning of hardship, and she has studied and learned in the often harsh school of experience. Whether or not she will fulfil Belasco’s high expectation time alone can tell, but one thing about her is certain: she belongs to a class of which there is urgent need on our Stage,—she is “a born actress.” She resorted to the dramatic calling not through mere vanity, the impulse of personal exhibition, or the acquisitive hope of profit,—motives which actuate a majority of the young women who go upon the Stage,—but because her natural vocation is acting. As far as known, no precedent member of her family was ever associated with the Theatre, and for some time her choice of that calling met with severe paternal disapproval. Her novitiate was served in various stock companies in Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Chicago, and Syracuse. In August, 1913, Miss Ulric appeared as Luana, in “The Bird of Paradise,” under the management of Mr. Oliver Morosco: she acted that part for two seasons. In 1914, while playing at the Standard Theatre, New York, she wrote to Belasco asking him to witness her performance of that part and expressing the hope that after having done so he might find a place for her in some one of his companies. “I have long made it a rule,” writes Belasco, “to comply with such requests from young players whenever it is possible for me to do so. I well remember how long I pleaded with dear John McCullough for a hearing before I got it and I know the discouragement of ‘hope deferred.’ Besides—nobody can make a fairer proposition than ‘watch my work and, if you think it is good, engage me.’ But I was extremely busy when I received Miss Ulric’s request and couldn’t give the time,—so I sent my secretary, Mr. Curry. His report was so favorable that I felt I must see her at work—so, since I could not go to her, I had Mr. Roeder bring her to me by making her a tentative offer of an engagement to act in George Scarborough’s play of ‘The Girl.’ She accepted, of course (she has told me, since, that she had set her heart on getting with me and would have accepted almost any offer to do so), and I had my stage manager call a rehearsal. I was not supposed to attend,—but I slipped into the gallery unknown to anybody (a little trick I have) and watched her carefully. After twenty minutes I knew I was watching a very talented and unusual young woman—one who with opportunity and proper training might do great things. Before the rehearsal was over I had told Roeder to close the arrangement with her to play the leading part in ‘The Girl,’ which, afterward, became ‘The Heart of Wetona.’”

In its original form the scene of that play was “A Middle Western Town” (Missouri), its five characters were Caucasian, and its story was one of erring love, deceit, shame, and rescue set in a commonplace rural environment,—a main purpose of its author being, presumably, to exhibit a group of conventional persons impelled by violent passion yet restrained by religious feeling. In that form it received a trial presentment, June 28, 1915, at Atlantic City, New Jersey, with this cast:

“Although its material was undeniably good, I had felt strong doubts about the piece, from the first, but I gave it a ‘try-out,’ anyway,” said Belasco. “Then I saw that it would not do as it stood and took it off, and, at my suggestion and under my supervision, with such assistance as I could give, Mr. Scarborough rewrote ‘The Girl’ and eventually we had a real success with it.”

The rewritten play was first acted, January 20, 1916, at Stamford, Connecticut, under the title of “Oklahoma”; soon after it was called “The Heart of Wetona,” and under that name it was brought forth, February 29, at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, where it held the stage until May 20.

In its definitive form the scene of “The Heart of Wetona” is an Indian Reservation, in the torrid State of Oklahoma; several of its persons are aborigines of the Comanche tribe, and,—though its action and incidents are sometimes arbitrarily directed,—it is a remarkably good melodrama of a long-familiar kind. Belasco’s purpose in directing the revision was to provide an effective play for the exploitation of the young actress whose talents had so favorably impressed him, and that purpose was well accomplished,—the interest centring continuously in the principal female part, a girl named Wetona, the child of a Comanche chieftain and a white mother, deceased. This girl, who has been seduced under a lying promise of marriage by Anthony Wells, a visitor to the Indian Reservation, is chosen as a sort of vestal virgin in ceremonial rites of the Comanches, and thereupon, in the Tribal House, before her father and his assembled warriors, though concealing her lover’s identity, she confesses her transgression. The girl is then subjected to a harrowing inquisition by the Indians, who desire to find and slay her lover. At last, unable to endure longer, she agrees to reveal his name on condition that she first be permitted to warn him of his danger. She seeks him in the home of his friend John Hardin, the Indian Agent on the Reservation (who secretly loves the girl and desires to make her his wife), and is followed by her father, Chief Quannah, who, finding her in conference with Hardin, furiously accuses him of being the wronger of his daughter and demands that he instantly marry her—as an alternative to being instantly slain with her. To save the girl, himself, and her to him unknown lover, Hardin agrees to do so, privately assuring Wetona that the marriage shall be one in name but not in fact, and, a clergyman being conveniently accessible, the wedding is at once performed. Afterward Wetona, collapsing, calls upon the name of her Anthony—thus discovering to her husband her resolutely guarded secret. Later, Wells, ensconced in the home of Hardin and supposing himself unsuspected and secure, seeks to resume his relation with Wetona, but is repulsed by her until a divorce (to which Hardin will connive) shall have been obtained and he shall have fulfilled his promise of marriage. Then the perfidy of Wells is revealed to Wetona and she revolts from him; Quannah discovers the truth; Hardin, though righteously wrathful against Wells, tries to save him from the vengeance of the Indians (providing him with weapons and a steed) but fails,—that rascal being shot and killed as he attempts to ride away in the night,—and the injured, forlorn Indian girl humbly and thankfully confesses to Hardin her contrition, her gratitude for his protective generosity, the affection with which he has inspired her, and her glad willingness to remain with him as his wife.

The ethics of all this will hardly bear scrutiny—but the dramatic effect of it in representation was undeniable; and, perhaps, where virtue is, presumably, intended it is to consider too curiously to consider further. Miss Ulric presented with vigor, skill, simplicity, sustained continuity of identity, and remarkable force a true, pathetic, and alluring ideal of unsophisticated girlhood, confiding feminine ardor and passionate distress, and she gained an auspicious success.—The cast of “The Heart of Wetona,” as acted at the Lyceum under the management of Belasco and a corporation called “Charles Frohman, Inc.,” is appended:

Dr. Emerson	Albert Bruning.
Dr. Peters	Harry C. Browne.
John Arnold	Eugene O’Brien.
Professor Balzamo	Charles Dalton.
Thomas	John P. Brawn.
Miss Pettingill	Mary Lawton.
Dorothy (“Becky”)	Frances Starr.

A Poet	Ernest Lawford.
Betsy	Iva Merlin.
Mrs. MacMiche	William Norris.
Charles MacLance, a Good Little Devil	Ernest Truex.
Old Nick, Sr.	Edward Connelly.
Old Nick, Jr.	Etienne Girardot.
Juliet	Mary Pickford.
Marian	Laura Grant.
Queen Mab	Wilda Bennett.
Viviane	Edna Griffin.
Morganie	Lillian Gish.
Titania	Claire Burke.
Dewbright	Reggie Wallace.
Thought-From-Afar	Georgia Mae Fursman.
Jock	Louis Esposit.
Wally	Gerard Gardner.
Mac	Adrian Morgan.
Tam	Jerome Fernandez.
Sandy	Edward Dolly.
Allan	Norman Taurog.
Neil	Harold Meyer.
Jamie	Carlton Riggs.
Davie	David Ross.
Robert	Roland Wallace.
John	Charles Castner.
Angus	Lauren Pullman.
Huggermunk	Pat Walshe.
Muggerhunk	Sam Goldstein.
The Solicitor from London	Dennis Cleugh.
The Doctor from Inverary	Joseph A. Wilkes.
The Lawyer from Oban	Robert Vivian.
Rab, the dog	Arthur Hill.

Constant Jannelot	Basil Gill.
Charlie Ponta-Tutti	Robert Warwick.
Denis Le Guern	Frank Reicher.
Joseph	John P. Brawn.
Gabrielle Jannelot	Frances Starr.
Henriette Durand	Marguerite Leslie.
Clotilde DeSavageat	Harriet Otis Dellenbaugh.
Marie	Beatrice Reinhardt.

Mother Saint Dominic, Mother Superior of the Convent	Marie Wainwright.
Sister Clotilde	Ada C. Nevil.
Sister Louise	Harriet Otis Dellenbaugh.
Sister Monica	Alice Martin.
Sister Anatole	Sally Williams.
Sister Angela	Mildred Dean.
Sister Cecilia	Amy Fitzpatrick.
Sister Joseph	Mary Green.
Sister Elizabeth	Nona Murray.
Sister Catherine	Alice Carroll.
Marie-Odile, a novice	Frances Starr.

Father Fisher		Edward Donnelly.
Peter		Frank Reicher.
Sergeant Otto Beck		Henry Vogel.
Corp. Philip Meissner	Uhlans	Jerome Patrick.
Steinhauser	in a	Paul Stanley.
Hartmann	Prussian	Alphonse Ethier.
Horn	Regiment.	Edward Waldmann.
Mittendorf		Charles W. Kaufman.
Schramm		Robert Robson.

Sisters——		Margaret Cadman.
		Edith King.
		Dorothy Turner.
		Edythe Maynard.
		Madeleine Marshall.
		Gertrude Wagner.

Soldiers——		Hugo Schmedes.
		August Nelson.
		Albert Mack.

Count d’Aubeterre	Frederic de Belleville.

Lazare	—— Robert Warwick.
Count de Mornay	—— Robert Warwick.

Chanoinesse	Elita Proctor Otis.
Viscount Raoul de Mornay	Eugene O’Brien.
Jean Renaud	Otis Skinner.
Dennis O’Rourke	N. C. Goodwin.
Corporal	Walter F. Scott.
Seneschal	George Allison.
Captain	John Warnick.
Duchess d’Aubeterre	Minna Gale Haynes.
Little Adrienne	Mimi Yvonne.
Martha	Beverly Sitgreaves.
Julia	Ruth Farnum.
Madeleine Renaud	Helen Ware.
Adrienne Renaud	Ann Murdock.
Annette	Esther Cornell.
Valentine de Mornay	Florence Reed.
Julie	Marie Sasse.

David Greer	William H. Thompson.
Elizabeth Greer	Lenore Ulric.

Jonathan Wells, D.D	Arthur Lewis.
Anthony Wells	Lowell Sherman.
The Rev. Frederick Forbes	John Miltern.
Elizabeth Greer	Lenore Ulric.
David Greer	William H. Thompson.

“A GOOD LITTLE DEVIL.”

“THE SECRET.” “A secret and villanous contriver.”

“MARIE-ODILE.”

RECONCILIATION WITH CHARLES FROHMAN—AND JOINT PRESENTMENT OF “A CELEBRATED CASE.”

LENORE ULRIC.—AND “THE HEART OF WETONA.”

“THE SECRET.”

“A secret and villanous contriver.”