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| Viola Allen as Viola in Twelfth Night. |
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:
Links to all of 1902’s posts can be
found here.
Links to all of 1903’s posts can be
found here.
APRIL 1904
In April 1904, Brooklyn theatres began shutting down well
before the summer heat would have done the job for them. The first to do so
before the month ended was the Amphion, with more promised in the May. But the
Amphion, which would soon become an additional outlet for the Spooner Stock Company,
was probably closed early as much because of the burden it was becoming to the management
as because of the weather. Corse Payton, another Williamsburg stock manager, also
disbanded his troupe before the month was out although he brought in one of the
stock road companies he managed to do a week of their typical repertory.
There were some superior stars among the luminaries heading local productions, the most luminous being Viola Allen as her namesake in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. She could stay only a week, though, as she had lost time while recovering from an “aural abscess.” The production was well received and her star shone brighter. An actress even more familiar to Brooklyn audiences, Etta Reed Payton, leading lady of her husband, Corse Payton’s, Lee Avenue Theatre, had missed several weeks of work because of illness, but she recovered in time to perform in the last show of the season, The Lady of Lyons, before the Lee Avenue briefly hosted the road company mentioned above.
Other leading players crossing the river into Brooklyn this month included Maxine Elliott, Chauncey Olcott, Cecilia Loftus, and E.H. Sothern, the latter soon to join forces with Julia Marlowe in a historic partnership producing a Shakespearean repertory.
Another theatrical celebrity, Lillian Russell, was
appearing at the new Broadway Theatre in a Joe Weber and Lew Fields show—produced
by the Weberfields Company—when a deputy sheriff tried to close the show down
and attach all its costumes, including Russell’s lavish gowns, as well as the iconic
funnyman costumes worn by Weber and Fields in their farces. He claimed that not
until the creditor—who demanded payment for outstanding bills totaling $524
(for advertisements related to a previous contract with actor Willie Collier)—was
paid would the court release the costumes.
When the deputy attempted to do his duty, the comic duo improvised
the encounter as a mini-farce. It’s too good to skip, so here’s the account
from the Eagle of April 9. Weber, out front, having been informed of
what was happening, went backstage to investigate, only to find his partner
talking the law officer in stage German:
“Joe, we’re arrested,” he said sadly as his partner
appeared.
“Vat. A camsternationigs!” exclaimed Weber.
“Vy is it dot to de chail ve must go?” inquired Fields in
mock misery.
The deputy sheriff saw that he was not taken seriously by
Weber and Fields. He hastened to inform them that it was a very serious matter.
He said he would have to take everything including Miss Russell’s gowns.
“Mein Gott! You’re a awfulness!” shrieked Weber.
The Weberfields attorney convinced the deputy to let the
show continue; the officer kept his eyes glued to the stage so “that Miss
Russell didn’t wear her trousers away from the theater.” The next morning, the
lawyer declared that Weberfields owed the creditor nothing, and wouldn’t pay one
cent. Their claim of nonpayment of such a trifling bill was ridiculous, he insisted,
since the pair were worth $750,000, and owned $500,000 of property. “This is
nothing but a holdup, just same as they hold up stages out West with big
pistols.”
Talk of theatre buildings continued to boil over in the
press, including discussions of the potential demolition of Col. Sinn’s Montauk
Theatre, lying as it did, at Flatbush and Fulton, in the path of the Flatbush
Avenue Extension to the Manhattan Bridge. Many details were inked about the
financing (under the development of William J. Reynolds), size, décor (French
Renaissance), fire prevention methods, and location of its replacement, the New
Montauk. It was said that it would most likely be ready for the season of
1905-1906 at the junction of Livingston Street and Hanover Place, a block south
of Fulton. While the lease held on the old Montauk by Mrs. Isabel Sinn-Hecht
had another year to run, no arrangements had yet been made about whether she
would assume the management of the new venue, which would continue the same
high-price, legitimate theatre policies.
And while buzz about a new Academy of Music continued to
fill Brooklyn’s ears, an elite Brooklynite committee having been created to acquire
its million-dollar capitalization and decide upon its location, much more was
heard about the imminent completion of the Majestic Theatre, eight decades
later to become the BAM Harvey.
The most interesting production of the month was Everyman,
a British production of the old Dutch morality play brought over from England
by impresario Charles Frohman that had just completed a twice extended run in
Manhattan. This adventurous, still famous staging by the Ben Greet Players, starring Edith Wynne Matthison in the
title role, was given at the Y.M.C.A’s Association Hall, 502 Fulton Street,
under slightly cramped conditions, and was noted for its attempt to recreate
medieval staging conventions of the 15th century. Missing was a
curtain, lighting effects, music (apart from a chant), and modern innovations.
There was simply a platform and meager scenic suggestions.
Also artistically ambitious but far less artistically
successful was the Century Players, formed by playwright Sydney Rosenfeld, to
elevate the stage with a high-class, noncommercial, stock company doing only the
finest plays with frequent changes of bill, and with devotion to the plays, not
the actors’ “own personalities.” A moderately successful commercial playwright,
with few claims to intellectual depth, Rosenfeld appeared to be inspired by the
current conversation about an endowed national theatre. His company’s season at
New York’s Princess Theatre included plays like Much Ado About Nothing
and Ibsen’s Rosmersholm. He brought the company to Brooklyn’s Amphion to
do a production of Hermann Sudermann’s 1894 German domestic comedy The
Battle of the Butterflies, popular in Europe but unknown here, despite Sudermann’s
reputation as his nation’s best playwright. It wasn’t done in New York until
1908, and the Brooklyn production, which flopped badly, was, until now, unknown
to the major theatre databases as the first Metropolitan production of the play.
The company promised at least one performance of Rosmersholm, never seen
locally before, and a new American play, but reneged on both.
Much more successful and worthy of recognition was the work
of Mrs. Spooner’s stock company, whose work at the Bijou was truly noteworthy.
Playing at cheap prices, her company did two shows a day, rehearsed their next
one in the mornings, and offered quality productions rather than the sloppy
work one might have expected under the circumstances. Her season was not
restricted to the usual stock standbys, but included eight new American plays
by five playwrights. None were particularly memorable but they did offer new
writers a significant outlet, which, at the time, was an extremely significant contribution.
1.
April 4-9, 1904
Amphion: ‘Way Down East
Association Hall: Everyman, with Ben Greet Players,
Edith Wynne Matthison
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Our Red Riding Hood
Broadway: Week split between vaudeville and Whoop-De-Doo,
with Weber and Fields, Lillian Russell, Louis Mann (Thurs, Friday, two on
Saturday)
Columbia: Cleopatra, with Melbourne MacDowell
Folly: A Midnight Marriage, with Florence Bindley
Gotham: Human Hearts
Grand Opera House: A Son of Rest
Montauk: Twelfth Night, with Viola Allen
Novelty: Queen of the Highway
Park: The Great Train Robbery
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Lee Avenue Stock Company) The
Danites, with Corse Payton
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Theatre) Saved from the
Sea
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star,
Novelty, Watson’s, Unique, Gayety, Feeney’s Fulton Street
2.
April 11-16, 1904
Amphion: Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall, with Bertha
Galland
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Marie Antoinette
Broadway: The Fortune Teller
Columbia: The Village Postmaster
Folly: A Son of Rest, with Nat M. Wills
Gotham: The Man Who Dared, with Howard Hall
Grand Opera House: Sis Hopkins, with Rose Melville
Montauk: Glittering Gloria
Novelty: Across the Pacific, with Harry Clay Blaney
Park: Tracy the Bandit
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Lee Avenue Stock Company) The
Two Orphans
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Theatre) The World Against
Her
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star,
Novelty, Watson’s, Unique, Gayety, Feeney’s Fulton Street
3.
April 18-23, 1904
Amphion: The Battle of the Butterflies, with
the Century Players
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) A Good Fellow
Broadway: Arizona
Columbia: La Tosca, with Melbourne MacDowell
Folly: Queen of the White Slaves
Gotham: The Village Parson
Grand Opera House: An Irish Gentleman, with Andrew
Mack
Montauk: Her Own Way, with Maxine Elliott
Novelty: The Two Sisters
Park: Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Lee Avenue Stock Company) The
Lady of Lyons, with Etta Reed Payton
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Theatre) The Dice of
Death
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde
& Behman’s, Star, Novelty, Watson’s, Unique, Gayety, Feeney’s Fulton Street
4.
April 25-30, 1904
Amphion: closed for the season
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Hearts of the Blue Ridge
Broadway: Sky Farm
Columbia: The Prisoner of Zenda, with Richard Buhler
Folly: Terence, with Chauncey Olcott
Gotham: An Orphan’s Prayer
Grand Opera House: The Awakening of Mr. Pipp, with
Charlie Grapewin
Montauk: The Proud Prince, with E.H. Sothern, Cecilia
Loftus
Novelty: Human Hearts
Park: A Midnight Marriage, with Florence Bindley
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Lee Avenue Stock Company) The
Lost Paradise, Thelma, Michael Strogoff, The Two Colonels,
Over the Hills to the Poorhouse, with a road company managed by Corse
Payton
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Theatre) On the Stroke of
Twelve
Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star,
Novelty, Watson’s, Unique, Gayety, Feeney’s Fulton Street
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