sport, sparkling raillery, and sprightly banter. Kitty’s attitude, during most of the comedy, is that of a maker of innocent mischief,—with a spice of wickedness in it,—and she complicates everything from pure love of drollery. This Miss Crosman made perfectly and delightfully clear. The dilemma in Act Second, when Kitty and Lady Betty are surprised in the bedroom at Verney’s, and the exaction of an hysterical outburst at the end of Act Third a little overtaxed the strength of the actress; but her impersonation of Kitty Bellairs lives in memory and is treasured for unity of purpose and consistency of method, blithe spirit and buoyant action, sentiment sweetly denoted beneath arch pleasantry and many winning graces of manner, inflection, and playful prettiness. Belasco gained a new and lasting laurel of success with this production, in which all points had been well considered and nothing left to chance. The first performance in New York was given in the presence of a brilliant and delighted multitude. The final curtain did not fall till after midnight,—but

This is the original cast of “Sweet Kitty Bellairs”:

IN THE PROLOGUE.

IN THE PLAY.

SIDE-LIGHT AND COMMENTARY ON “SWEET KITTY.”

“Sweet Kitty Bellairs” was acted at the Belasco Theatre until June 4, 1904, when the season ended and that house was closed. It was revived there in the fall, September 3, and, with Miss Crosman in its chief part, was subsequently acted in many other cities. In the season of 1905-’06, Miss Crosman having retired from Belasco’s management, it was again revived, with Miss Bertha Galland as Kitty, and on October 5, 1907, with Miss Eva Moore in that part, it was played at the Haymarket Theatre, London. On February 3, 1904, while this comedy was in the full tide of its first success, one of the many groundless suits against Belasco, accusing him of plagiarism, was brought by Grace B. Hughes, otherwise known as Mary Montagu, who asserted that Belasco’s play was an infringement of one by her, entitled “Sweet Jasmine,” and applied for an injunction to stop him from further presentment of it. Her application was argued before Justice E. Henry Lacombe, March 18, and on March 26 was denied. One of the most vicious propensities of newspaper journalism was sharply illustrated in connection with Miss Montagu’s wanton aspersion on Belasco’s honesty: when it was made, her charge of plagiarism was generally and conspicuously published by the press; when it was disproved, it ceased to be “live news” and merely curt and, in general, obscure record was made of the issue. Minor “resemblances” between the two plays, adduced by the complainant in this action by way of substantiating her charge of literary theft, were such as the facts that in both a military band played music; in both “green” is mentioned as the color of grass, and in both a lover states the nature of his feeling toward the woman he loves. Yet, without any possibility of redress, Belasco was compelled to expend energy, time, and money on making a serious defence against the preposterous accusations of irresponsible frivolity! To oppose and defeat the suit of Miss Montagu cost him a large sum. There is no reasonable doubt that, in the majority of cases, such accusations of plagiarism as those which have been brought against Belasco are made in hope that the person accused will buy off the accuser as the quickest and cheapest way of ending annoyance. Belasco, however, has never gratified such hope; and he assured me: “I never will—for I prefer to lose a thousand dollars in money and ten thousand in time and trouble rather than to submit to blackmail.” In denying the writ applied for by this impudent defamer the court declared that “No direct evidence of copying, either of language or dramatic situation, is shown. A comparison of the two plays shows that they are wholly dissimilar in plot, in characters, in text, and in dramatic situations. The climax of one act in each piece was principally relied upon in argument—where the unexpected discovery of the leading character in a place where she should not be makes a dramatic situation.... This is an old device; it was common property to all playwrights since Sheridan used it in ‘The School for Scandal’ [And since long before that time!—W. W.]. Analyzing the details of the situations as presented in these two plays, the points of essential difference so far outnumber the points of similarity that it is difficult to understand how anyone could persuade himself that one was taken from the other.”—The following letters provide an interesting side-light and commentary on the history of “Bellairs”:

(David Belasco to Egerton Castle, in London.)

“THE DARLING” IN LONDON.—A HEARTY TRIBUTE.

On December 28, 1903, the English actor and manager Herbert Beerbohm-Tree produced “The Darling of the Gods,” with notable success, at His Majesty’s Theatre, London,—himself appearing in it as Zakkuri, with Miss Marie Löhr as Yo-San and George Relph as Kara. A characteristic instance of journalistic meanness was then provided by “The London Times,” which ascribed the beauty and perfection of Japanese detail in the production to the influence of Mme. Sada Yaco,—a Japanese eccentricity who had appeared on the stage in London and profoundly agitated the esthetic circle of “souls” resident in that city. As Tree’s presentment of the tragedy of Japan was made in faithful adherence to Belasco’s prompt book thereof and as Belasco never saw the Japanese actress, either on the stage or off, it would be interesting to learn in what manner her “influence” was exerted on him or his work. It is pleasant to turn from such paltry carping to read the hearty tribute paid by Tree, speaking from the stage of his theatre, in grateful acknowledgment of public approval:

“Tree was always most generous to me,” Belasco has said; “and his ‘Darling’ speech made me very happy. I like appreciation and encouragement when I have worked hard and tried to deserve it. Always after doing my ‘Darling’ Tree used to address me as ‘Sir David,’ and several times in public speeches he said that if they had me in England they would knight me—which was very kind and lovely, but plain ‘Mister Dave’ is good enough for me!”

[Just before leaving this country for the last time Tree read Belasco’s striking play about the spiritual survival of man, “The Return of Peter Grimm,” and arranged to produce it in London,—an arrangement which was abrogated by his sudden and untimely death, July 2, 1917.—J. W.]

A STRENUOUS YEAR.

The year 1904 was one of peculiar perplexity and vexation for Belasco—of incessant strenuous labor and (as I deem) of most malicious harassment which might well have broken both his health and his spirit had he not been sustained by vital enthusiasm and a steadfast, invincible will. In that year he had not only to bear the heavy expense of producing “Sweet Kitty Bellairs,” together with the loss and anxieties incident to theatrical management amid generally disturbed business conditions and the distraction and annoyance of Miss Montagu’s monstrous lawsuit, but, also, he had to provide new plays and new productions for Mrs. Carter and for Warfield, to make his plans for the future of Blanche Bates, and to encounter at last the open and unrestricted animosity of the Theatrical Syndicate. “I am,” Belasco has truly said about himself (1903), “a patient and peaceful man: I don’t want to fight with anybody. I want to attend to my business in my own way—to do my work unmolested and to interfere with nobody. But neither will I permit anybody to interfere with me, or to dictate to me, if I am able to resist.” And speaking of Belasco’s course in theatrical management, his general representative, B. F. Roeder, publicly declared at about the same time (June, 1903): “Mr. Belasco’s policy will remain exactly what it has always been. He will be independent of all factions and [will] place his companies wherever he can get the best terms and time.” Such a policy, indisputably right as it is, was not one which the Theatrical Syndicate would brook, and it soon brought that oppressive monopoly into direct and open conflict with Belasco in the conduct of his business. Foreseeing an immense popular interest in the World’s Fair (Louisiana Purchase Exposition) at St. Louis, in 1904, Belasco resolved that his superb production of “The Darling of the Gods” should concurrently be presented there. He felt great and wholly natural and frank pride in that production: he knew that he could not much longer hold together the company acting in it, and he desired that as many persons as possible should see his tragedy to the best advantage. When, however, he applied to the Syndicate booking agency, presided over by Mr. A. L. Erlanger, to arrange for an engagement in St. Louis, during “the Fair,” he was informed that it could not be done. He thereupon instructed his own booking agent, an experienced manager, William G. Smyth, to arrange for presentment of “The Darling of the Gods” at an independent theatre there, the Imperial, and his order was at once obeyed. It is not worth while to relate in detail the story of the attempt to coerce Belasco into cancelling that engagement: it is enough to state that (as he told me at the time) when it had proved impossible to intimidate him the uncouth Erlanger destroyed the contracts previously executed through his agency, between Belasco and theatre managers in various cities,—and, in profane and insulting language, sent him notice that he could not thereafter present his productions in any Syndicate theatre.

WARFIELD IN “THE MUSIC MASTER.”—AN ANIMATED SPEECH.

first time at the Young’s Pier Theatre, Atlantic City, New Jersey, on September 12, 1904. “The Music Master” is not remarkable for either originality of design or felicity of construction, but it is pure in spirit, interesting in story, picturesque in setting, and healthful in influence, and it was apparent from the first that it would have a long and abundantly prosperous career. There has been on our Stage such excessive exposition of vice and degradation, of the possible depravity of human conduct and wickedness of human motive, that it was an active benefaction to place such a play before the public, a positive blessing to receive the privilege of mental contact with its pure and noble ideal of humanity. It was announced, without qualification, as having been written by Charles Klein: that was an injustice. It is, in fact, a patchwork,—in the form in which Klein first shaped it being based to some extent on a play by Felix Morris (1847-1900) called “The Old Musician,” and then made over by Belasco, with a distinctively perceptible interfusion of dramatic expedients from that fine old drama “Belphégor; or, The Mountebank.” The central person, Herr Anton von Barwig, the Music Master, is a German musician, of a familiar type,—peculiar but attractive; impassioned but gentle; droll but piteous; fervid but patient: an image of moral dignity and self-sacrifice,—and the posture of situations and incidents that have been utilized for his presentment shows him as a loving father, occupied, under conditions of almost sordid adversity, in a quest for his daughter, whom an unworthy wife and mother has taken from him, flying, with a paramour, from Germany to the United States, whither he has followed them. That daughter, at last, he finds and, in circumstances cruel to himself, practically befriends by keeping the secret of her paternity. The conspicuous attributes of this person,—attributes blended and interwoven beneath a serio-comic surface of foreign manner and broken English,—are, intrinsically (of course with variant investiture), those that have long endeared such characters as Michonnet, Triplet, Mr. Peggotty, Caleb Plummer, and Doctor Primrose: attributes, namely, of love, charity, fidelity, fortitude, patience, humor, simplicity, spontaneous goodness, and an unconscious grace equally of conduct, manner, and thought. The purpose, manifestly, was to place an eccentric, gentle, affectionate, humorous, and somewhat forlorn elderly man in a predicament of sad circumstance, and in that way to arouse pity and stimulate the promptings of charitable impulse. That purpose was accomplished; and therefore, aside from all consideration of its inspiration and while the play is neither novel with invention, potent with strong dramatic effect, nor brilliant with polished dialogue, it possesses the solid worth of fidelity to simple life, the charm of diversified character, and the beauty of deep, tender, human feeling.

It was a wise choice to combine those attributes into a stage figure, and David Warfield,—finding himself liberated, mind and heart, into a congenial character,—gained in embodying it the most substantial success of his professional career,—making of that figure a vital emblem of heroism that is never flamboyant and virtue that is never insipid; an image of paternal affection that typifies innate dignity of character and the sweet, gentle, lovely patience of pure self-abnegation. In earlier performances this comedian was almost exclusively photographic; but time, thought, and practice,—the forces that constitute experience,—gradually expanded and ripened his art, and in his performance of this part (when repetition had eliminated excessive nervous trepidation and made it “a property of easiness” to him) he showed intuitive insight and was deeply pathetic. That is true success; because the higher purpose of acting a play is not proclamation of the talents of an actor, but liberation and enforcement of the utmost of beneficial influence upon an audience that a play contains. Warfield in “The Music Master” conquered by the two great virtues of simplicity and sincerity. The principal artistic defects in the personation—defects conspicuous in all Warfield’s acting and to the elimination of which he seems to be curiously indifferent—were a hard, metallic voice and a poor method of elocution. The best dramatic expedient in the play is that by which the father’s dubious, inchoate recognition of the daughter is confirmed. At that point and in the sequent situation (“lifted” from “Belphégor”) the actor evinced sympathetic delicacy and tempestuous fervor. The closing scenes of the play are marred by episodes of irrelevant incident and by prolixity, obscurity and artifice, in the long-drawn passage of parental and filial recognition,—which, indeed, requires but a glance.

Belasco has written the following reminiscence of the production of “The Music Master,” in which he shows just appreciation of the destructive result of those excessive expedients of stage “realism” which, in some of his earlier productions, impaired precisely the effect they were designed to create:

“The Music Master,” when first acted in New York,—at the original Belasco Theatre, September 26, 1904,—was cast as follows:

After the Second Act Belasco was many times called before the curtain and finally, responding to insistent requests, addressed the audience in an exceptionally animated way, saying:

The appended letter, written by Belasco during the toil and strain of preparing his “Music Master” and “Adrea” productions, indicates his strenuous labor to make the former a success and his almost diffident estimate of his practically invaluable contributions to it as a playwright:

(David Belasco to Charles Klein, at Merriewold Park, N. Y.)

CONCERNING WARFIELD, JEFFERSON, THE ELDER SOTHERN, AND THE “ONE-PART”
CUSTOM.—AN AMAZING RECORD.

In commenting on Warfield’s great, indeed phenomenal, success and popularity in “The Music Master,” Belasco writes: “I have no doubt that he could become a one-part actor and appear as von Barwig perennially, just as Jefferson played Rip Van Winkle and Sothern Lord Dundreary. However, neither he nor I approve of this plan.” It is singular, indeed, what a strange, delusive, ineradicable effect the parrot-like repetition of words sometimes creates. Belasco,—like the majority of other persons who mention the subject,—has got it firmly established in his mind that Jefferson and Sothern were what he designates as “one-part actors” (actors who, as he expressly states, follow a professional course of which he does not approve), and he will, I suppose, go to his grave serene in the conviction that such was the case and unconscious of the injustice he does both those great actors. Yet Sothern gave hundreds of performances in “Sam,” “David Garrick,” “The Crushed Tragedian,” “Home,” and “An English Gentleman” after his great success in “Lord Dundreary”; while Jefferson’s repertory embraced well over 100 parts; for every five performances he gave of Rip he gave about three of Bob Acres, in “The Rivals,” and,—to the delight of audiences throughout our country,—he acted, hundreds of times, as Dr. Pangloss, in “The Heir-at-Law”; Caleb Plummer, in “The Cricket on the Hearth”; Mr. Golightly, in “Lend Me Five Shillings” (which, by the way, was the last part he ever played); Dr. Ollapod, in “The Poor Gentleman”; Hugh de Brass, in “A Regular Fix,” and Mr. Woodcock, in “Woodcock’s Little Game.” Every exceptionally successful actor is more popular in some one part than he is in any other, and as it was with Jefferson in Rip Van Winkle and Sothern in Dundreary so also is it with Warfield in von Barwig. Yet Warfield certainly is not a one-part actor,—though for every part he has played in the regular Theatre, aside from that one (exactly four, that is), Jefferson and Sothern each played anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five parts. Warfield, since his initial triumph as von Barwig, thirteen years ago [1917], has acted in a revival of “The Auctioneer,” and in “A Grand Army Man,” “The Return of Peter Grimm,” and “Van Der Decken.” Yet, time and again, wisely and rightly, Belasco has revived for him “The Music Master,” and always the public,—whether in the greatest cities of the country or the smallest “one-night stand” which he has visited,—has hailed him in that piece with joy and flocked in crowds to witness his touching and lovely performance. During the season of 1906-’07, when he fulfilled engagements in that play, of four weeks each, at the Majestic Theatre, Boston, and the Academy of Music, New York, the respective managers of those houses caused to be prepared, attested under oath, and delivered as souvenirs to Belasco statements which show that in eight weeks $171,179.25 was paid for the privilege of seeing Warfield’s impersonation of von Barwig. That is an amazing record, surpassing any similar and fairly comparable one known to me, and, therefore, I here transcribe the items of receipt:

MAJESTIC THEATRE, BOSTON.

ACADEMY OF MUSIC, NEW YORK.

During the engagement at the Academy of Music, in 1907, the highest price charged for a seat was $1.50.

[Perhaps nothing more conclusively manifests the unbreakable hold of Warfield on the affections of the American public, in this play, than the facts that in the present season (1917-’18), notwithstanding the stress of war and that the character he portrays is a German, his audiences everywhere have, seemingly, been limited only by the capacity of the theatres in which he has appeared and that, as Mr. Belasco kindly informs me, his average gross receipts have been well over $14,000 a week.—J.W.]

The first engagement of “The Music Master” at the Belasco Theatre lasted until January 7, 1905, when it was withdrawn to make way for Mrs. Carter in “Adrea.” On January 9 it was acted at the old Bijou Theatre, and remained there until June 3.

Belasco was subjected to a peculiarly impudent and contemptible persecution when Joseph Brooks (the factotum of Klaw & Erlanger and, as asserted by Belasco, a mere “dummy” for that firm) attempted to maintain a claim of partnership with him in the production and presentment of “The Music Master.” The contract signed by Brooks and by Belasco, in 1901, providing for professional exploitation of David Warfield, assigned the contract made in November, 1900, between Belasco and Warfield, to the Belasco-Brooks “partnership”; and

the Belasco-Warfield contract, which covered the seasons of 1901-’02-’03, provided for a renewal at the end of that term. Brooks, accordingly, after “The Music Master” had been written on Belasco’s instigation and in large part by him and after it had been produced solely at his expense and risk, claimed a one-half interest in that prosperous venture and sought an injunction to prevent the play from being presented except under management of “Brooks & Belasco.” His claim was flatly disallowed in a decision of the New York Supreme Court, rendered by Justice Leventritt on October 31, 1904, in the course of which the court said: