`1904: JANUARY

 

By

Samuel L. Leiter

For comprehensive background on Brooklyn’s pre-20^th-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 20^th 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 

Links to all of 1902’s posts can be found here.

Links to all of 1903’s posts can be found here.

January 1903, theatrically speaking, was a rich month for Brooklyn. Among the multiple offerings of its very first week there were three first-class hits and stars competing for local dollars. One was the recent comic opera Red Feather, starring Grace Van Studdiford, another was Cousin Kate, starring Ethel Barrymore, and the third was The Darling of the Gods, starring Blanche Bates; we shall have more to say about this show in particular.

As the listings below reveal, there were plenty of other interesting things available, most notably a melodrama called For His Brother’s Crime starring a good-looking actor so spectacularly muscular that one critic thought he was blazing a path for a new type of dramatic hero. His name was Montgomery Irving and there is precious little information available about him, although he seems to have made a name for himself more as a vaudeville strongman than an actor (I’m not aware of any other plays that cast him). The only two photos I could find are those in the newspaper clippings below, not even mentioned during conventional online searches.

Dubbed “the modern Hercules of the American stage,” he played twins, one evil and one good, and engaged in an exciting combat carried out in a gym, where one of his characters was a blacksmith passing himself off as a physical culture instructor. During the fight, when attacked by ten men and a rival strongman, the “Moorish Giant,” he did battle with a pair of huge broadswords. Among other feats of enormous strength, he “actually supports the weight of a huge wooden bridge while a carriage containing four people and drawn by two horses dashes over it.” A standing offer was made of $1,000 to anyone who could duplicate this feat.

Other stage highlights of the month included Brooklyn’s own Grace George in Pretty Peggy; Richard Buhler as Paul Revere, in which he made his famous midnight ride on a horse running on a treadmill; comic Frank Daniels in The Office Boy; séance-fraud buster Prof. Samri Baldwin, “The White Mahatma,” occupying Corse Payton’s Fulton Street Theatre for three weeks (a sign that Fulton Stock Company was in trouble); a week of grand opera at the Amphion; wannabe star Thomas E. Shea with a three-play in the Henry Irving vein; and everybody’s stage sweetheart, Maude Adams, in The Pretty Sister of Jose, cast in the unlikely role of a spirited Spanish village girl.

Entertaining as these shows may have been (or not), a damper was placed on Brooklyn theatricals because of the attention brought to theatre safety by the recent catastrophe at Chicago’s Iroquois Theatre, which had made theatregoers uneasy around the world. On January 9 it was reported that Martin W. Littleton, borough president, had closed the gallery and balcony sections of six Brooklyn theatres—the Amphion, Novelty, Payton’s Lee Avenue, Unique, Star, and Park—to inspect them for safety violations that could foster a disaster in case of fire. The papers were filled with details of what was involved, which we needn’t repeat here, but numerous dangers were uncovered and had to be remedied before those seats could again be filled. The young boys who often flocked to the cheaper venues on this list were deeply aggrieved. A number of other theatres were found to have flaws that had to be corrected, but were not placed under any restraints for the moment. Naturally, similar inspections and restrictions were occurring in Manhattan and elsewhere in the Greater New York City area.

Of all the shows visiting Brooklyn in January 1903 the one that most beguiles me (those who know my background will understand) is David Belasco’s universally admired The Darling of the Gods, a Japanese tale written by him and John Luther Long, with whom he also wrote Madame Butterfly (1900; the source of Puccini’s opera). The Darling of the Gods mingles historical fact with dramatic fiction and wouldn’t withstand close scrutiny by a Japanologist, but the spectacle of its costumes, makeups, scenery, and the high-quality of its acting and production, with a cast of over 100 (quite common for large-scale shows back then), helped it run for 344 performances in Manhattan. At just about the same time, a duplicate London production starring Herbert Beerbohm Tree was opening.

But because of the war between Belasco and Klaw and Erlanger of the Theatrical Syndicate, he had to avoid their Brooklyn venues. (Interested readers should check Clay Meeker Hamilton’s explanation of the war’s inception and the decision to rent the Lee Avenue in the Eagle, January 3, 1904). Klaw and Erlanger had struck back at Belasco’s intransigence by mounting A Japanese Nightingale, but, forced to close it soon after, they sent it on the road, where it was currently hoping to weaken demand for Belasco’s play when it also began to tour.

The recent loss to fire of the Brooklyn Academy of Music had eliminated a principal outlet. And, because so much Academy time was occupied for split week engagements, it was difficult to book it for a full week. Belasco had therefore contracted with Corse Payton to rent his Lee Avenue Theatre for a week. The local press was fascinated by the arrangement of an elite production opening at a popular-price stock company playhouse and hoped it would provide away for other independents to play at non-syndicate Brooklyn houses, breaking the syndicate’s stranglehold on what local theatres could and could not present. But it was Belasco himself whose commitment to Brooklyn was most devoutly to be wished for because of the power associated with his productions and the stars he managed.

For those unfamiliar with this colorful old play, written in ten scenes, here’s a brief introduction from Brooklyn Life (January 2, 1904).

It is a most absorbing melodrama of the life of old Japan about a generation ago [1876]—in the days when the Samurai were deprived of their swords by the Emperor. The relentless pursuit of the little band of two-sword men, who refuse to obey the sword edict by the crafty war minister, Zakkuri [George Arliss], and their final extermination, is a tragic tale of horror after horror; but what with the undying love of Yo-San [Blanche Bates], the beautiful daughter of Saigon [Charles Walcot], Prince of Tosan, for Prince Kara [Robert T. Haines]—the leader of the outlaws—a love enduring beyond all earthly relations—and the superb appeal to the eye, the unpleasant features resolve themselves into merely the shadows of a gloriously fine panoramic picture.

1.      January 4-9, 1904

 

Amphion: Red Feather, with Grace Van Studdiford

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Will She Divorce Him?

Columbia: For His Brother’s Crime, with Montgomery Irving

Folly: Drink, with Charles Warner

Gotham: The Stain of Guilt

Grand Opera House: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, “The Bells,” Richelieu, with Thomas E. Shea

Montauk: Cousin Kate, with Ethel Barrymore

Novelty: Nobody’s Claim

Park: Trinity Chimes

Payton’s Fulton Street: (Payton Fulton Street Stock Company) Drifted Apart

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Lee Avenue Stock Company) The Darling of the Gods, with Blanche Bates, George Arliss

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) The Dangers of Paris

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star, Gayety, Unique, Watson’s, Orpheum

2.      January 11-16, 1904

Amphion: Pretty Peggy, with Grace George

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Strangers in a Strange Land

Columbia: Paul Revere, with Richard Buhler

Folly: A Desperate Chance

Gotham: Too Proud to Beg

Grand Opera House: The Queen of the White Slaves

Montauk: The Office Boy, with Frank Daniels

Novelty: For His Brother’s Crime, with Montgomery Irving

Payton’s Fulton Street: (Payton Fulton Street Stock Company) The Young Wife, with Corse Payton, Etta Reed Payton

Park: Rachel Goldstein

Payton’s Lee Avenue: Prof. Samri Baldwin, “The White Mahatma”

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Lost in New York

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star, Gayety, Unique, Watson’s, Orpheum

3.      January 18-23, 1904

Amphion: Carmen, Lohengrin, Il Trovatore, Tannhauser, Otello, The Bohemian Girl, with Henry W. Savage English Grand Opera Company

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Lady Betty’s Courtship

Columbia: Zaza, with Eugenie Blair

Folly:  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, “The Bells,” Richelieu, Banished by the King, with Thomas E. Shea

Gotham: Through Fire and Water

Grand Opera House: Arrah-na-Pogue

Montauk: The Pretty Sister of Jose, with Maude Adams

Novelty: Her First False Step

Park: A Working Girl’s Wrongs

Payton’s Fulton Street: Prof. Samri Baldwin, “The White Mahatma”

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

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) A Heart of Stone

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star, Gayety, Unique, Watson’s, Orpheum

4.      January 25-30, 1904

Amphion: The Triumph of an Empress, with Mildred Holland

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Camille

Columbia: McFadden’s Flats

Folly: The Worst Woman in London

Gotham: Driven from Home, with Patrice

Grand Opera House: Soldiers of Fortune

Montauk: The Man from Blankley’s, with Charles Hawtrey

Novelty: The Stain of Guilt

Park: The Game Keeper

Payton’s Fulton Street: (Payton Fulton Street Stock Company) Prof. Sami Baldwin, “The White Mahatma”

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Lee Avenue Stock Company) My Friend from India, with Corse Payton

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Old Sleuth

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star, Gayety, Unique, Watson’s, Orpheum