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| Amelia Bingham in A Modern Magdalen. |
By
Samuel L. Leiter
For comprehensive background on Brooklyn’s pre-20th-century
theatre history please see my book, Brooklyn Takes the
Stage: Nineteenth-Century Theater in the City of Churches (McFarland: 2024) and my
blog, “Annals of the Brooklyn
Stage.” The
latter is a week by week description of theatre activity in Brooklyn;
obviously, it will expand rather slowly because so much must be described and
the present blog will be occupying my attention until live theatre in Brooklyn
begins to fade over the early decades of the 20th century,
dying out by the 1930s.
The entries in this blog began as annual ones, for 1898 and 1899. Because of the large amount of memory used, which made editing them problematic, subsequent entries were shortened so they covered only several months at a time, but these too needed to be shortened. Thus, beginning with 1901: September, all entries cover a single month. The quickest way to find any of these entries is probably to click on the following link, where links to everything prior to its date are provided:
A glance at October 1902’s attractions in Brooklyn shows the familiar assortment of murderous melodramas, like The Stranglers of Paris or Tracy, the Outlaw, merry musicals, like Florodora and The Wild Rose, funny farces, like A Texas Steer, and romantic melodrama, like A Gentleman of France. One play that refused to go away in revival after revival was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, this time in a local stock production. There was a decent lineup of famous stars in their current touring vehicles, including David Warfield in The Auctioneer, Black comedians Walker and Williams in In Dahomey, Amelia Bingham in A Modern Magdalen, Annie Russell in The Girl and the Judge, and most appealingly, handsome British romantic leading man, Kyrle Bellew, back in Brooklyn after a six-year hiatus, swashbuckling his way through A Gentleman of France. And Bingham was accompanied by an outstanding traveling stock company including Wilton Lackaye, Joseph Holland, Henry E. Dixey, Ferdinand Gottschalk, and Madge Carr Cocke.
Rejoining
the ranks of Brooklyn’s theatres this month was the venerable Park Theatre, extensively
renovated at the cost o $20,000, a detailed description of its appearance appearing
in the Citizen on October 4. It would serve as a house for visiting combination
companies of the second tier. Of particular importance were the many improvements
to the building’s fireproofing. The article’s emphasis on this is sadly ironic,
given the venue’s fate in 1908.
Clay Meeker
Hamilton, again bewailing the lack of new American plays, and the need to find
plays elsewhere, pointed out that there was a veritable gold mine waiting to be
exploited from emerging Russian and Polish sources. He alluded to the novels of
Maxim Gorky, and a new play of his that sounded very promising (and was clearly
The Lower Depths, not done in New York until 1923), but doesn’t mention
Chekhov. Mrs. Fiske, Mansfield, Belasco, and Marlowe were advised to look into
these promising developments before the syndicate snatched up their American
rights.
Playwrights
never grew tired of using the word “girl” in their titles; the names of cities,
especially New York, Paris, and London were also titular come-ons. The most controversial
play of the month was Bingham’s A Modern Magdalen, adapted by Haddon
Chambers from a German original, which hinted at the growing interest in plays
that pushed the social problem play envelope, although forced to remain within acceptable
bounds. In it, she gave an excellent performance as an impoverished woman who,
needing to help her family, agrees to live with a man outside the sanctity of
marriage; the plot exposes the hypocritical double standards of the time.
A Modern
Magdalen was just one
of a flurry of “scarlet dramas” about “fallen women”—euphemistically termed “adventuresses”—so
popular among women from the most respectable circumstances, that it prompted the
Eagle’s Clay Meeker Hamilton to ponder (on October 26) the situation.
This was a moment, after all, when Bingham’s play was buttressed by Sudermann’s
Magda, seen this month at the Bijou with Edna May Spooner, while women
from Manhattan’s better classes were attending plays like Iris and Du
Barry (soon to visit Brooklyn), with Mrs. Fiske soon to debut as Mary
Magdalene.
Hamilton was
perplexed by why so many “good women” could not resist plays about “how the other half lives.” “Is there a wide revolt brewing against the social
law under which the woman sinner is punished much more severely than the man?”
He believes social constraints on people’s behavior were weakening. “Public opinion
as to what women, and even young girls, may see and do has relaxed greatly and that
liberty shows in the attendance on this sort of plays.” Thus, the natural curiosity
to learn about such women as these plays present was blossoming and the stage was
“the easiest and safest” place to satisfy such curiosity.
Hamilton examines
various ramifications of the subject, mentioning how modern women were more
likely to be forgiving of “sinners,” as expressed in vaudeville songs with thoughts
like “She’s more to be pitied than censured,” or “I love you whatever you’ve
done.” He also believed that recent plays were not up to the standards of
dealing with the issue he felt were exemplified in Camille, the classic
of the type. At which point he asks, “Isn’t it about time for this flood of
scarlet drama to subside?” Can’t we have
heroines with more variety? “Has honest love become so utterly tame as to be
hopeless?”
At any rate,
such roles gave actresses a field day for displaying their histrionic talents,
and Hamilton uses the Bijou’s leading lady, Edna May Spooner, as his exemplar.
If it had not been for the persistence of that ambitious girl to play ‘Magda,’
she would have remained merely the competent leading lady of a stock company. .
. . But in ‘Magda’ . . . she rose above her other work and played with a
passion and intelligence which won for her the hearty if somewhat amazed
commendation of intelligent people who have been skeptical of good work in
cheap theaters. . . . After that her work began to improve in the little things.
. . . She played small parts with a distinction and finish worthy of the best
companies, and when she came back to ‘Magda’ last week she gave a performance which
would have raised a stir of amazed enthusiasm in any theater in the country.”
Hamilton was certain he saw Broadway stardom in Edna May Spooner’s future, stardom
like that of Henrietta Crosman, who also had labored ardently in a Brooklyn
stock company before being discovered.
Anecdotes about
Brooklyn theatre life will always find a life here, so I repeat this one from
the Eagle of October 12, 1902, which reports that mirrors used on stage
can be a problem, so producers typically used plain glass covered with gauze. However,
a real mirror was used in A Texas Steer at the Columbia the past week.
It reflected a door upon the stage into one part of the audience and
when that door was open it gave glimpses behind the scenes such as outsiders
long for. One actor after another strolled up, glanced at the scene and
disappeared. Finally a woman was revealed. Presently a figure in a coat came
along. There was a greeting and a kiss, not, as far as the limited frame of the
mirror revealed, of the stage variety. It was all the more interesting to the people
in the range of reflection for that reason.
1.
October 6-11, 1902
Amphion: Florodora
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Dr. Bill
Blaney’s: (Blaney’s All-Star Stock Company) A Mormon Wife
Columbia: (Greenwall Stock Company) A Texas Steer
Folly: The Doings of Mrs. Dooley, with George W.
Monroe
Gotham: (Gotham Stock Company) Tracy, the Outlaw
Grand Opera House: In Dahomey, with Williams and
Walker
Montauk: The Wild Rose, with Evelyn Florence Nesbit
Park: A Fight for Millions
Payton’s: (Payton Theatre Company) Faust
Phillips’ Lyceum (Lyceum Stock Company) The Heart of the
Storm
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star, Gayety,
Unique, Orpheum
1.
October 13-18, 1902
Amphion: The Auctioneer, with David Warfield
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) The Man-o’-War’s Man
Blaney’s: (Blaney’s All-Star Stock Company) Tennessee’s
Pardner
Columbia: (Greenwall Stock Company) The Great Diamond
Robbery
Folly: In Dahomey, with Williams and Walker
Gotham: (Gotham Stock Company) For Home and Honor
Grand Opera House: Happy Hooligan
Montauk: A Gentleman of France, with Kyrle Bellew
Park: Kidnapped in New York, with Barney Gilmore
Payton’s: (Payton Theatre Company) Our Boys
Phillips’ Lyceum (Lyceum Stock Company) The Tide of Life
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star, Gayety,
Unique, Orpheum
2.
October 20-25, 1902
Amphion: The Wild Rose
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Magda
Blaney’s: (Blaney’s All-Star Stock Company) The Pledge of
Honor
Columbia: (Greenwall Stock Company) Jim, the Penman
Folly: Happy Hooligan
Gotham: (Gotham Stock Company) Niobe
Grand Opera House: Lovers’ Lane
Montauk: A Modern Magdalen, with Amelia Bingham and
company
Park: Winchester
Payton’s: (Payton Theatre Company) Dangers of a Great
City
Phillips’ Lyceum (Lyceum Stock Company) In the Hands of
the Enemy
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star, Gayety,
Unique, Orpheum
3.
October 27-November 1
Amphion: The Show Girl
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) A Contented Woman
Blaney’s: (Blaney’s All-Star Stock Company) Slaves of
Gold
Columbia: (Greenwall Stock Company) The Stranglers of
Paris
Folly: Lover’s Lane
Gotham: (Gotham Stock Company) Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Grand Opera House: The White Slave
Montauk: The Girl and the Judge, with Annie Russell
Park: Man to Man
Payton’s: (Payton Theatre Company) The Nominee
Phillips’ Lyceum (Lyceum Stock Company) On the Trail
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star, Gayety,
Unique, Orpheum
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