1907: FEBRUARY

Alla Nazimova as Hedda Gabler.

February 1907 was in most ways an ordinary theatre month in Brooklyn. But it did include some historically extraordinary nuggets among the slag. First, though, it’s necessary to note, again, the critical awareness of a rising tide of progressive dramatic literature--including the increasingly present "problem play"--sloshing on these shores from European influences and sources, Ibsen being preeminent. Brooklyn may not have seen all such advanced plays, but it saw a healthy number under the bylines of Sudermann, Shaw, Hauptmann, and Pinero to satisfy that small but growing segment of the theatergoing public demanding something more substantial than the musical, melodramatic, and farcical pabulum that kept its theatres in business.

Still, almost every production of such foreign dramas, no matter the encomiums, was a box office failure, passed off by its stars and producers as a “success d’estime.” What it boiled down to, in fact, was that these important European plays were never intended to be blockbuster hits with long runs as per the American and English systems. Instead, they were produced in the great stock companies of continental Europe, where they appeared perhaps once or twice a week. Even a week’s run would have been exceedingly rare.

Not understanding this, American managers often attempted to prime the plays for their audiences by adapting their foreign qualities to resemble American ones, including transferring the action to this country’s locales. Producers were preoccupied with worries that the American public would not understand the plays if only their language was translated. On the continent, plays from one nation were not so treated when staged in another country, remaining almost literal translations of their originals. We do not need such “Americanization,” insisted W.M.O. in the Citizen. “The public appreciates the tendency to give us the masterpieces of other countries, but let’s have them whole and unchanged” and audiences will promise to read up on the subjects involved to be ready to understand them when presented on the stage.  

As will be seen, Americanizing foreign plays was not always the case, as can be seen from the two Ibsen plays brought to Brooklyn this month by Russian-born star Alla Nazimova (1879-1945) in her local debut. Nazimova was a sensation at the time, said to have mastered English in eight months. Her Nora in A Doll’s House had struck Broadway like a lightning bolt, and her Hedda Gabler, which challenged that of America’s leading actress, Mrs. Fiske, was yet another revelation. In contrast to Mrs. Fiske’s very American Hedda, as noted below, Nazimova’s was imbued with Russian charisma. Here’s a detailed, slightly critical, description of her performance from the Eagle of February 26.

Of the many mighty temperamental women who have come to our stage from Europe, none has brought so exotic a flavor or has so radiated fascination as does Alla Nazimova. . . . Whether Mme. Nazimova gives Ibsen’s idea of Hedda is open to grave questions, but there is no question at all that her embodiment of the character compels interest from the start, even when one disagrees with it, and there is no question that her ideal is embodied with the most subtle, delicate and finished art in its finer shadings, or that it rises to a pitch of commanding tragic power. There is a thrill about the last act which sends the audience into the street with pulses tingling, wondering what sort of creature Ibsen intended to portray and wondering still more vividly what sort of a wonderful creature this Russian actress may be.

The ideal of Hedda commonly accepted . . . heretofore is that set before it by Mrs. Fiske, whose Hedda might have lived in Montclair or the Oranges and been ambitious to enter society on Fifth Avenue. Mme. Nazimova’s Hedda never lived further west than Moscow or Odessa and her ancestors came from the land of serpent worship. The glitter of her eyes suggests the powers of a snake charmer from the first scene and the sinuous and undulating movements of the long and slender body carry out that illusion. There never was a woman who made such subtle and effective use of her body in creating an atmosphere. The devices of costume and the stage accessories, with the upward gestures and the many small movements, with which she produces the illusion of unusual height are a proof of remarkable command over technical resources. The apparent height reinforces the slenderness and creates the serpent-like atmosphere on which much of the effect of this Hedda depends.

Alla Nazimova as Hedda Gabler.

And with the serpent-like quality Mme. Nazimova suggests a much greater physical disturbance than we are accustomed to—or that would thought “nice” were it less subtly done. Beginning with this suggestion of illness she radiates an impression that Hedda’s nerves are so thoroughly on edge that she may explode in a fit of hysteria, or even of insanity, at any moment. The suggestion of mental aberration becomes so strong, indeed, that her Hedda ceases to be a creature to be explained or altogether understood. Instead of an extreme example of the modern highly nervous type of woman who rebels against child bearing, this Hedda becomes an isolated creature to be judged only by the whims of her own overmastering personality.

The critic goes on to praise her third act scene when Hedda burns Eilert Lovborg’s manuscript, a scene that rose to “heights of tragic power, and tragedy is altogether too exalted a word to associate with a character so thoroughly despicable as Hedda.” Other “big moments” also added greatly to the play’s “stirring effect,” even if they were not helpful in interpreting Ibsen. Aside from Mrs. Jacques Martin as Aunt Julia, however, “stood the most grotesque collection of misfits which ever pretended to ‘support’ a great actress.” They were John Findlay as Tesman, Dodson Mitchell as Brack; John Blair as Eilert; and Blanche Stoddard as Mrs. Elvsted.

Other plays of particular interest this month included a return visit of A Millionaire’s Revenge, the first play to exploit the story of the Harry K. Thaw-Stanford White-Evelyn Nesbitt adultery and murder scandal, only months after it was the biggest news. A relatively recent stage treatment was Ragtime (1998). Also returning was Ben-Hur, the spectacular historical melodrama with its famous chariot race; and the latest Rogers Brothers farce, The Rogers Brothers in Ireland, part of a series that began with A Reign of Error in 1898, and was followed by The Rogers Brothers in . . . , those dots replaced in each successive entry by Wall Street, Central Park, Washington, Harvard, London, and Paris, before reaching the Emerald Isle.

Far more significant for serious theatergoers was the highly lauded new society farce about “progressive divorce” among the horsy set, The New York Idea, by Langdon Mitchell, one of the most admired American plays of the decade. Just as important, it starred the great Mrs. Fiske in a production that drew raves for the excellence of its direction and perfectly balanced ensemble, in which John Mason and George Arliss played important roles.

Last month’s blog entry offered examples of melodramatic spectacle that popped people’s peepers with their pre-CGI special effects. Among this month’s more memorable visuals was the blizzard created in Owen Davis’s The Confessions of a Wife at the Columbia. In this scene, hero Oliver Ashmore is traveling cross country in search of his wife via the Western express when it gets stuck in a snow drift in wild country. According to the Daily Times of February 2:

The snow is coming down in streaks. The wind moans and carries every inanimate and living object in its wake. The passengers must make the best of their plight in the warmth of the cars. The engine is literally buried in the snow. It puffs laboriously in an effort to move ahead, but it is of no use. The scene is so realistically constructed and worked out that the audience is carried to the highest pitch of excitement.

As for offstage theatrical news in February there was the crackdown on the posting in public places of show posters considered morally damaging and likely to corrupt innocent youths. Leading the charge in Brooklyn was the Allied Women’s Clubs, backed by various rightminded clergymen, physicians, and other upstanding citizens. Thus was the American Bill Posting Company summoned to court to answer for itself, while the plaintiffs were prepared to against allowing “the public exhibition of posters which depict scenes of crime or immorality.” But this raised the eternally knotty question as to what constitutes immoral influence in a poster. 

February 4-9, 1907

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) The Counterfeiters

Blaney’s Amphion: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with Al W. Martin’s company

Broadway: Checkers

Columbia: The Confessions of a Wife

Folly: Young Buffalo, King of the Wild West

Grand Opera House: Secret Service Sam, with Charles T. Aldrich

Majestic: Metz in the Alps, with Al H. Wilson

New Montauk: George Washington, Jr., with George M. Cohan

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Lee Avenue Stock Company) Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall, with Etta Reed Payton

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) She Dared Do Right

Shubert: The Blue Moon, with James T. Powers

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Imperial, Novelty

February 11-16, 1907

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Mistress Nell

Blaney’s Amphion: Parted on Her Bridal Tour, with Victory Bateman

Broadway: 45 Minutes from Broadway, with Fay Templeton

Columbia: The Avenger

Folly: Secret Service Sam, with Charles T. Aldrich

Grand Opera House: A Millionaire’s Revenge

Majestic: His Last Dollar, with David Higgins

New Montauk: The Daughters of Men, with Dorothy Donnelly

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Lee Avenue Stock Company) The Cowboy and the Lady

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Lost in a Bad City

Shubert: The New York Idea, with Minnie Maddern Fiske

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Imperial, Novelty

February 18-23, 1907

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Death before Dishonor

Blaney’s Amphion: Kidnapped for Revenge

Broadway: Ben-Hur

Columbia: At the World’s Mercy

Folly: Abyssinia, with Williams and Walker

Grand Opera House: Texas

Majestic: Dockstader’s Minstrels

New Montauk: The Aero Club, with Lulu Glaser

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Lee Avenue Stock Company) A Daughter of the South, with Etta Reed Payton

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) The Boy Scout

Shubert: The Earl and the Girl, with Eddie Foy

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Imperial, Novelty

February 25-March 2, 1907

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown

Blaney’s Amphion: The Eyewitness

Broadway: The Squaw Man, with William Faversham, Julie Opp, W.S. Hart

Columbia: Billy the Kid, with Joseph Santley

Folly: His Last Dollar, with David Higgins

Grand Opera House: No Mother to Guide Her, with Lillian Mortimer

Majestic: In Old Kentucky

New Montauk: The Rogers Brothers in Ireland, with the Rogers Brothers

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Lee Avenue Stock Company) Raffles, with Etta Reed Payton, Corse Payton

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) The Waifs of New York, with N.S. Wood

Shubert: Hedda Gabler, A Doll’s House, Alla Nazimova

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Imperial, Novelty