1905: MARCH

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, with Madge Carr Cook (center)

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.

Links to all of 1904's posts can be found here.

1905: JANUARY

1905: FEBRUARY

With an unprecedented 21 theatres in business, nine for vaudeville and/or burlesque, Brooklyn theatre had never been busier. But the burgeoning success of vaudeville theatres in particular, three of them formerly focused on conventional shows and musicals, suggested an insidious threat to the legitimates. And with movies, under one brand name or another, a regular part of many vaudeville shows, it was only a matter of time before they would require theatres of their own. The rush to build nickelodeons was just about to start.

Our main concern here being the legit, we can point to the following titles as the highlights of March 1905 on the borough’s stages: Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, The Pit, Sunday, Mrs. Black Is Back, Merely Mary Ann, Busy Izzy, and Business is Business, each already marked with popular success in New York.

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, adapted from two widely read, even beloved, books by Alice Hegan Rice, was a Dickensian character study, with Madge Carr Cook perfectly capturing the eponymous Mrs. Wiggs. The Pit, a week from its 1,000^th performance, was a massive William A. Brady production based on Frank Norris’s wheat market novel of the same name, mingling romance with business and with Wilton Lackaye as the lead. The famous scene on the floor of the exchange, using over 300 extras, was memorable for its authenticity. Sunday, set in a Western mining camp (like so many others of the day), was the latest hit for Ethel Barrymore, at the height of her youthful beauty and popularity, while Mrs. Black is Back a farcical vehicle for middle-aged comic actress May Irwin in which she got to sing her famous “coon” songs.

Merely Mary Ann was from the pen of noted British author Israel Zangwill, with Eleanor Robson as a poor country girl working as a drudge who turns out to be an heiress. Busy Izzy was an opportunity for George Sidney, portrayer of Jewish types, to do his shtick, and Business is Business was the then much-discussed English version of a French play by Octave Mirbeau about the effect of money on character, a more serious work than light comedian William H. Crane was used to being in. Other well-known actors, like Nat M. Wills and Chauncey Olcott, also graced Brooklyn stages this month. Maurice Barrymore, 56-year-old father of Ethel, John, and Lionel, and once a local favorite, died on March 26 in Amityville, Long Island, from paresis. 

Another Brooklyn performer’s death might also be noted, that being Cig, the thespian horse appearing in Under Two Flags at the Columbia, during the week that ended the month of February and began that of March. I post here the sad details as reported in the Eagle on March 4: “Two buckets of bran, used for the stage storm, had been left near his stall. Cig made a good meal of the stuff. Later he drank two pails of water, and the swelling of the bran caused his death.” A cautionary tale for users of Metamucil, I'd suggest.

Readers of these reports will recall that Brooklyn theatres were sometimes the sites of behavior that could land you in trouble, whether you were a spectator, a performer, or even a theatrical manager. On Saturday, March 6, for example, William B. Watson, manager and proprietor of Watson’s Cozy Corner vaudeville and burlesque house at Pearl and Willoughby Streets discovered this when one of his shows was stopped in mid-performance and he (along with a couple of employees) was arrested for selling liquor during a performance. The issue filled columns for a month until finally resolved by the theatre changing hands to a new management.

Here’s the story as briefly as I can shrink it, since the formal court judgments take up too much space to repeat. Watson’s had a basement saloon, or, as it was called, rathskeller, attached to the theatre and accessible directly from the lobby, making it part of the theatre, where it was illegal to sell spirits during a show. Also, the female dancers in the vaudeville/burlesque shows were seen soliciting male audience members to meet them for drinks during the intermission. The presence in the rathskeller of actresses in their ballet costumes was duly noted. Further, the content of the shows was considered “grossly immoral” in some eyes, especially those of the police.

Watson got an injunction to prevent the law from closing the place down, and weekly reviews show that it remained open as Watson fought the charges. The injunction was discontinued on March 23, but the shows went on. In mid-month, however, he handed in his resignation as manager to the Brooklyn Amusement Company, and a search began for a new manager. The reason proffered was his multiple interests in other theatrical concerns.

On March 29, the theatre announced it would have a new name, the Nassau Theatre, and that its new manager would be Harry Hammerstein, son of the famous Broadway impresario. It was promised that the same mix of vaudeville and burlesque as presently on view would continue, with a popular-priced summer program following on June 1. “The rathskeller . . . will be conducted on a high-class scale,” the public was assured in the Daily Times, with military bands offering concerts during the intermissions. Above all, the attractions would seek to cater to women and children at matinees. Opening day for the new Nassau Theatre was April 3.

In the coming years, this venue would survive under three additional names, closing out its existence in 1922 as Loew’s Royal Theatre, a movie/vaudeville house.

If even a theatre manager could be arrested, what might a misbehaving usher expect? On March 11, 32-year-old Orpheum Theatre usher James Harvey, of 413 Sackett Street, found out when he was paroled in the Myrtle Avenue Court to answer a charge of third-degree assault. Nineteen-year-old bank messenger William D. Edwards accused him of striking him, pushing him down the theatre stairs, and tearing his coat. A former Orpheum usher, Edwards had been warned to stay away from the place, but he showed up anyway, got into a dispute about pay, and somehow this led to the assault described. The case, however, soon vanished from local press reports. 

1.      March 6-11, 1905

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Are You a Mason?

Broadway: Weather-Beaten Benson, with Ezra Kendall

Columbia: (American Stock Company) The Streets of New York

Folly: A Romance of Athlone, with Chauncey Olcott

Gotham: Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Grand Opera House: Kellar, the magician

Majestic: A Son of Rest, with Nat Wills

Montauk: Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, with Madge Carr Cook

Novelty: Queen of the Highway

Park: The Charity Nurse

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton’s Lee Avenue Stock Company) Why Smith Left Home

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Why Women Sin

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde and Behman’s, Gayety, Unique, Orpheum, Watson’s, Star, Keeney’s Fulton Street, Amphion, Garden

 1. March 6-11, 1905  

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Are You a Mason?

Broadway: Weather Beaten Benson, with Ezra Kendall

Columbia: (American Stock Company) The Streets of New York

Folly: A Romance of Athlone, with Chauncey Olcott

Gotham: Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Grand Opera House: Kellar, the magician

Majestic: A Son of Rest, with Nat Wills

Montauk: Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, with Madge Carr Cook

Novelty: Queen of the Highway

Park: The Charity Nurse

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton’s Lee Avenue Stock Company) Why Smith Left Home

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Why Women Sin

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde and Behman’s, Gayety, Unique, Orpheum, Watson’s, Star, Keeney’s Fulton Street, Amphion, Garden

    2. March 13-18, 1905

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Shamus, or The Spy of the Glen

Broadway: Dockstader’s Minstrels

Columbia: (American Stock Company) Sign of the Four

Folly:  Quincy Adams Sawyer

Gotham: The James Boys in Missouri

Grand Opera House: The Watch on the Rhine, with Al H. Wilson

Majestic: The Pit, with Wilton Lackaye

Montauk: Sunday, with Ethel Barrymore

Novelty: His First False Step

Park: Hearts Adrift

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton’s Lee Avenue Stock Company) The School for Scandal, with Corse Payton, Etta Reed Payton

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Slaves of the Mine

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde and Behman’s, Gayety, Unique, Orpheum, Watson’s, Star, Keeney’s Fulton Street, Amphion, Garden

    3. March 20-25, 1905

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Zip

Broadway: Mrs. Black is Back, with May Irwin

Columbia: (American Stock Company) Northern Lights

Folly: A Son of Rest

Gotham: Human Hearts

Grand Opera House: Pals, with James J. Corbett

Majestic: The Pit, with Wilton Lackaye

Montauk: Merely Mary Ann, with Eleanor Robson

Novelty: Hearts Adrift

Park: M’liss, with Nellie McHenry

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton’s Lee Avenue Stock Company) Rip Van Winkle

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Driven from Home

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde and Behman’s, Gayety, Unique, Orpheum, Watson’s, Star, Keeney’s Fulton Street, Amphion, Garden

    4. March 27-April 1, 1905

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) The Lady of Lyons

Broadway: The Girl from Kays, with Sam Bernard, Hattie Williams

Columbia: (American Stock Company) For Her Sake

Folly: In Old Kentucky

Gotham: Alone in the World

Grand Opera House: A Romance at Athlone, with Chauncey Olcott

Majestic: Busy Izzy, with George Sidney

Montauk: Business Is Business, with William H. Crane

Novelty: When Women Love

Park: Wedded but No Wife, with Selma Herman

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton’s Lee Avenue Stock Company) The County Fair, with Neil Burgess

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) A Fight for Millions

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde and Behman’s, Gayety, Unique, Orpheum, Watson’s, Star, Keeney’s Fulton Street, Amphion, Garden