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: 1901: DECEMBER
NOVEMBER
1903\
DECEMBER
1903 (in preparation)
Brooklyn theatricals for November 1903 continued much in the
usual path, with a stream of combination companies doing mostly familiar
retreads of popular farces, musicals, melodramas, and the like. The Wizard
of OZ, still playing in Manhattan, made a welcome return for a week
across town (at the Amphion) from where it visited recently (at the Montauk),
again with its principal players on board. (Note: in this first adaptation of
Baum’s novel, Dorothy’s companions on the Yellow Brick Road are the Tin Woodman
and the Scarecrow, but do not include the Cowardly Lion.)
A British star named Charles Warner arrived with Drink,
the best-known of several stage adaptations of Emile Zola’s novel L’Assommoir,
which, after over 5,000 performances, he’d become as associated with as Joseph
Jefferson had with Rip Van Winkle or James O’Neill with Monte Cristo.
Also this month, Virginia Earl headed her own company in a new comic opera
called Sergeant Kitty, book by R.H. Burnside and music by A. Baldwin
Sloane, which created a stir because it premiered in Brooklyn (at the Montauk),
which happened only rarely.
Shows with plans to tour usually (but not always) opened in
Manhattan, hoping for the imprimatur of a New York rave before going out on the
road. But there was also the possibility of a New York pan, so opening on
Broadway bore some risk. According to the Daily Standard Union’s
somewhat optimistic report of November 22, “Brooklyn had been too far
away from the Rialto to meet the approval of those who wished the glare of
Manhattan’s Broadway to illuminate success, and too near for those who were
unwilling for various reasons to risk a metropolitan failure. It has features,
however, which are beginning to commend themselves, and the joy of a premier within
easy reach of one’s home, if not repeated before the close of this season, may
be frequent hereafter.”
One of the fixations annoying contemporary observers was the
preponderance of musical shows over straight dramas among the plays being
produced. Such shows, the more elaborate the better, generally proved the best
guarantors of profits, and the public maw showed no signs of losing its
appetite for such theatrical pap. The Citizen of November 1 quoted
the Hartford Post, which declared that too many of the shows in last
season’s deluge “were largely trashy and irrelevant and of no originality.” But
producers kept spending millions on shows combining “plotless story, reminiscent
music and incompetent acting,” relying instead on “gorgeous stage settings,
flashy costumes and noise,” not to mention “’ginger,’ ‘snap,’ or ‘verve.’” Played
at bullet speed, these musicals gave auditors no time “to reflect on how
stupid” they were.
When queried, a manager insisted such shows were the biggest
moneymakers, followed by popular-priced melodramas, with little interest in
“the middle class of dramatic production.” People’s lives are so stressful, he
averred, they want nothing more than to laugh. On the other hand, there was of
late a notable downturn in theatre business, both in New York and other large
cities, but, interestingly, according to Clay Meeker Hamilton of the Eagle,
November 8, not in Brooklyn. In his estimation, it was the “sensational
melodramas” that were raking in the cash over the past few years. He was
pointing not to those examples that formerly came from London, played at
high-priced theatres before gaining a New York endorsement, and moved on. He
meant instead the growing number of home-brewed melodramas intended for
immediate consumption by the cheaper houses, work that never got closer to
Broadway than Brooklyn or Third Avenue in Manhattan. The chief architect cranking
out these recent throwaways was the prolific Theodore Kremer, “the Clyde Fitch
of the popular priced houses.”
While largely ignored by the critical press, these plays
were nonetheless manna for the masses attending Brooklyn’s four playhouses
devoted to such meretricious claptrap, the Columbia, the Gotham, the Novelty,
and the Park, with many weeks at theatres like Phillips’s Lyceum and the Folly devoted
to them. Hamilton was uncomfortable with their sometimes questionable morality
and the lines of hundreds of boys, some of whom should have been home in bed,
outside these theatres waiting to get in, with no signs of adult guardianship
visible to the naked eye.
While these plays, with their emphasis on virtue over
villainy, were often less morally objectionable than those, like Zaza and
Sapho, at the high-priced venues, their language—like the frequent use
of “damn”—was becoming increasingly profane, their sexual references more
explicit, and their tone debased. And a line needed to be drawn, writes
Hamilton, when it came to having child actors in such plays not only use cuss
words but engage in (unexplained) “business” that should have led to arrests
or, at least, revocation of the acting licenses of the minors involved.
Hamilton then lists a selective number of plays with
suggestive or indecent material which he blames for corrupting the “the
dramatic taste” of audiences, especially in small cities lacking other venues
where better plays might act as a corrective. Among titles seen in Brooklyn
recently are A Desperate Chance, A Fight for Millions, A
Thoroughbred Tramp, At Cripple Creek, Deserted at the Altar, For
Her Children’s Sake, From Rags to Riches, Human Hearts, No
Wedding Bells for Her, Queen of the Highway, Searchlights of a
Great City, Rachel Goldstein, Why Women Sin, The Factory
Girl, The Fast Mail, The King of Detectives, Through Fire
and Water, Tracy, the Bandit, and quite a few others.
Moral or immoral, Brooklyn theatre, as suggested above,
seems not to have been much affected by the downturn in business across the
East River. Crowds continued to pack the cheap melodrama houses, as well as
those showing vaudeville and burlesque. “You can see long queues of waiting
patrons at almost any of them any night before the doors open,” reported
Hamilton on November 22. Even the
high-priced Montauk and Amphion were holding the line, each without competition
in its class within its particular Brooklyn district.
November closed on a sad note. Just when it looked like annual
visits to the Brooklyn Academy of Music of the popular and indisputably
wholesome rural drama ‘Way Down East might have become a thing, the
grand old pile on Montague Street burned down. This, happening on November 30,
was far more dramatic than anything happening on local stages during the month.
The Academy of Music, which had opened in theatre-shy Brooklyn in January 1861,
and was focused at first on opera and various educational and social functions,
took nearly a year before giving in to pressure to share its stage with
legitimate drama. It soon became central feature of Brooklyn’s cultural life,
serving as a multipurpose entertainment mecca, with many of the leading
contemporary performing artists gracing its board, often in prestigious
bookings. The great tragedian Edwin Booth made his last performance there in
1891, playing Hamlet, before retiring.
In recent years, its past glory faded as the plethora of theatres
of all types sprang up in Brooklyn, and its service to legitimate theatre
greatly diminished, with only sporadic visits from leading players. Opera,
though, was a frequent visitor, and the Academy had only recently hosted a
lauded four-week season of the Henry W. Savage Grand Opera Company, Yet, its
final week was devoted to a touring production of ‘Way Down East, a
conventional, if overdone, warhorse of a play. Regardless of the sentimental distress
its loss caused Brooklyn audiences, however, the Academy’s stockholders didn’t
care much as they were going to get as good a price for its land as if the
building were still intact. The building’s stock actually rose by 5% the day
after the conflagration.
Negotiations for its sale had been underway for months, its
buyers planning to tear the place down, so its fiery destruction was
practically a gift. Its location on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights nearby
to Borough (formerly City) Hall, was among the most desirable sites for office
purposes. According to the Citizen of November 30, “The report is that
the stockholders were offered seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it,
and were standing out for fifty thousand dollars more, which they will to a
reasonable certainty receive if they care to stick to their figure for a little
longer.” As for insurance, it had none, because the owners had refused to renew
it when it ran out, caring little about its fate. The only ones who seem to
have been discommoded by its loss were the caterers preparing for a huge dinner
that evening for Senator Patrick H. McCarren (it was moved to the St. George
Hotel).
The Academy’s reputation as a firetrap was deserved, its
structure being entirely of wood. Fortunately, it burst into flames during the morning
hours, between 8 and 9 a.m., when few wer around. Its source was likely to have
been faulty electrical wiring that came in contact with the bunting for the
McCarren affair. Several injuries were sustained but only one person died, a
stagehand named William McKeon, who was felled by smoke inhalation or burns
while trying to salvage scenery and equipment. Only two days, later, however, a
far more catastrophic fire made its mark not only in American but international
news when Chicago’s glorious Iroquois Theatre caught fire during a performance,
leading to the loss of over 600 lives, over twice the total of the Brooklyn
Theatre fire of 1876.
Reams could be written on the achievements of the first
Brooklyn Academy of Music, whose successor would open in 1912, a bit less than
a mile away at 30 Lafayette Avenue and Ashland Place, close to both Flatbush
Avenue and Fulton Street. The papers carried very detailed stories of the frightened
citizens at the scene, the efforts to douse the flames, the faulty hoses and weak
water supply, the bravery of the firemen, the efficiency of the police, and so
on.
With the loss of the original BAM, decades before that acronym
was born, went much of the heart of what, even then, folks called “old Brooklyn.”
“It was the art center of the city,” mourned the Citizen of November 30,
“when the social life of the city was thought to be the Heights, when Beecher’s
church was the main attraction for visitors, when Prospect Park was as yet
unopened, when there was no East River Bridge, when the Court House was our most
elaborate piece of architecture, and when there was nothing worthy of notice in
Brooklyn beyond the junction of Flatbush avenue and Fulton street.” The reporter
continued:
It was there that the greatest
orators were heard, that the finest actors appeared, that the occasional
exhibits of good pictures were made, that musicians of the rank of Ole Bull
were listened to, and that operatic singers of leading rank delighted our
people. . . .
It was for two generations, nearly,
the center around which clustered the art activities, the political excitements,
the social amenities, and the benign labors of the community. . . .
Vale, domus musicae; claritate vixisti, flammis persisti (Farewell,
house of music, you lived in brilliance, you perished in flames).
1.
November 2-7, 1903
Amphion: Drink, with Charles Warner
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) The Mysterious Mr. Bugle
Columbia: No Wedding Bells for Her
Folly: Rachel Goldstein; or, The Struggles of a Poor Girl
in New York, with Louise Beaton
Gotham: Deserted at the Altar
Grand Opera House: Our Bridget’s Dream (formerly Mrs.
Dooley’s Dream), with George W. Monroe
Montauk: The Billionaire, with Jerome Sykes
Novelty: The King of Detectives
Park: Human Hearts
Payton’s Fulton Street: (Payton Fulton Street Stock Company)
Mr. Barnes of New York
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Lee Avenue Stock Company) Under
the Gaslight, with Etta Reed Payton
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) The Secret
Dispatch
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star,
Orpheum, Gayety, Unique, Watson’s
1.
November 9-14, 1903
Amphion: The Wizard of Oz, with David C. Montgomery,
Fred Stone
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Janice Meredith
Columbia: Paul Revere, with Richard Buhler
Folly: The Winning Hand
Gotham: The Minister’s Daughter
Grand Opera House: The Volunteer Organist
Montauk: The Rogers Brothers in London, with the
Rogers Brothers
Novelty: The Factory Girl
Park: From Rags to Riches
Payton’s Fulton Street: (Payton Fulton Street Stock Company)
Duchess Du Barry
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Lee Avenue Stock Company) Caprice,
with Etta Reed Payton
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Trilby
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star,
Orpheum, Gayety, Unique, Watson’s
2.
November 16-21, 1903
Amphion: The Sultan of Sulu
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Miss Cleopatra, “The
Captain’s Not a Miss”
Columbia: Happy Hooligan
Folly: The Volunteer Organist
Gotham: Searchlights of a Great City
Grand Opera House: Gulliver’s Travels, with the Royal
Lilliputians
Montauk: Sergeant Kitty, with Virginia Earl Opera
Company
Novelty: Deserted at the Altar
Park: For Her Children’s Sake
Payton’s Fulton Street: (Payton Fulton Street Stock Company)
Sweet Lavendar
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Lee Avenue Stock Company) Land
of the Midnight Sun, with Edna Reed Payton
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Devil’s Island
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star,
Orpheum, Gayety, Unique, Watson’s
3.
November 23-28, 1903
Amphion: The Auctioneer, with David Warfield
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Tennessee’s Pardner
Brooklyn Academy of Music: ‘Way Down East
Columbia: A Working Girl’s Wrongs
Folly: Gulliver’s Travels, with the Lilliputians
Gotham: The Factory Girl
Grand Opera House: Wedded and Parted
Montauk: Captain Dieppe, with John Drew
Novelty: The Price of Honor
Park: Zig-Zag Alley
Payton’s Fulton Street: (Payton Fulton Street Stock Company)
Brown’s in Town, with Corse Payton
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Lee Avenue Stock Company) The
Butterflies, with Etta Reed Payton
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) The Bowery After
Dark
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star,
Orpheum, Gayety, Unique, Watson’s
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