1906: JANUARY

E.H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe in Romeo and Juliet.

The New Year of 1906 began with good news for Brooklyn lovers of the performing arts—actually, it was reported at the very end 1905—when John D. Rockefeller, titan of Standard Oil, became the first major donor to the fund for building the new Brooklyn Academy of Music. Rockefeller was known for his philanthropy to education and the church; his gift of $20,000 was appreciated for its recognition of the theatre’s educational and ethical power. It was hoped his contribution would kickstart a fund-raising effort that had been creeping at a snail’s pace. It would, in fact, be nearly three years, 1908, before the new building opened,

On the ever-changing local theatre front, where last year’s Columbia Theatre was this year’s Alcazar Theatre, and the like, the recently dubbed Shubert-Park, which used that name after gaining control of the old Park Theatre, had quietly changed to the Shubert, like others in the Shuberts’ growing chain. Its managers were listed in the ads as Sam S. and Lee Shubert, even though Sam had died, at 26, the year before. The third Shubert brother, Jacob (or J.J.), was not so honored in the theatre’s formal announcements, although he would be a major player in the Shuberts' history.

January showed a sharp improvement in the quality of the Shubert’s offerings. Looked to as a solution to the difficulty of getting independent stars and productions to Brooklyn in the face of their rivalry with the Theatrical Syndicate, the Shuberts delivered the goods this month, most memorably with Mrs. Fiske in Leah Kleschna and Margaret Anglin in Zira, each a major star in a significant hit play.

Minnie Maddern Fiske, widely considered the greatest American actress of the day, and an intellectually progressive activist for theatrical art, had been blocked by the syndicate from Brooklyn stages for six years, so her return was a true cause for celebration. She arrived with the permanent company she had founded the year before at the Manhattan Theatre, owned by her husband, Harrison Grey Fiske. The Manhattan Theatre Company was deeply admired for the naturalistic perfection of its acting, “by which the strongest effects are gained by repression and suggestion,” as noted in the Eagle of December 31, 1905. Further, each actor was ideally cast for their roles, unlike the usual stock company unevenness.

So idealistic were the company’s goals that Mrs. Fiske sometimes chose not to appear in a play, focusing instead on directing; she even declared that were she to retire, it would be so she could concentrate on direction. Over a period of nine months, the Manhattan Theatre Company had risen to the position of America’s finest resident company, an “art theatre” to which others were encouraged to aspire. An essay in the Citizen of December 31, 1905, outlines the company’s background, leading actors, and modus operandi. And another, in the Eagle of that date, cites passages from a widely lauded speech on drama she gave in December 1905 at Harvard to a crowd of 1,600, an honor accorded previously only to Henry Irving, Benoit-Constant Coquelin, and Eleanora Duse.

The complexly plotted play presented Mrs. Fiske, who directed, in the eponymous role of an Austrian thief in Paris who finds redemption through the intervention of a wealthy Frenchman, Paul Sylvaine, and returns to her native land to live a better life. Obviously dated today, it was considered a powerful “problem” play, but much of its success was attributed to the performances of Mrs. Fiske, John Mason, Frederic de Belleville, George Arliss, and William B. Mack.

Not listed below, because they were not part of the season at the regular theatres, were ten performances of Ben Greet’s British company doing unadorned productions of six Shakespeare plays in the Elizabethan mode at the Brooklyn Baptist Temple and the YMCA’s Association Hall. This blog has discussed Greet’s earlier performances, which had raised considerable controversy between admirers of the ultra-scenic, heavily costumed methods of the turn-of-the-20th century, and the scenery-less approach intended to recapture the way the plays were done in Shakespeare’s time. Although much of the acting was considered not of the highest quality, the productions were appreciated for providing the texts uncut (apart from a minor bit here or there) presented in the scenic order Shakespeare was believed to have created.

Greet’s approach was like other attempts to revise traditional methods being undertaken in Europe, especially Germany, and to escape the overburdening of productions with sumptuous visuals or to “improve” them, often radically, to show off some star performer’s talents. The modern stage, with its access to advanced lighting technology, had made visual impressions of the plays more impressive than dreamed of previously, but often at the expense of the plays themselves.

Archaeological correctness in period design also brought with it negative results because of the time it required to shift the complex scenery, thereby leading to heavy cuts. However, eliminating sets and rushing the scenes together without visual clarity as to locale was deemed by some to be bewildering, creating “a hodge podge of incidents.” However, the recent adaptation of a revolving stage to German productions of The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream proved you could combine scenery with a fast-moving production running no longer than a modern play. It was an exciting time in the modern history of Shakespearean production, as directors and designers developed new means for producing the old plays, although the old methods continued for years.

Brooklyn in 1905 was learning much about such matters, as would be further emphasized this month when Julia Marlowe and E.H. Sothern brought their Shakespearean repertory to the New Montauk, a repertory that depended heavily on the beauty of luscious sets and costumes, all at considerable expense. At the time, these were considered the finest Shakespeare revivals on the American stage since the 1880s, when Edwin Booth toured with Lawrence Barrett. Unfortunately, Marlowe and Sothern, despite the widely acknowledged beauty of their acting and productions, failed to fill seats, and critics worried that it would discourage the team’s future efforts. 

Whatever was the cause for such local apathy, no one could figure it out, especially since Brooklyn had been seriously deprived lately of classic drama. “We have had musical shows, vaudeville and burlesque in abundance, quite enough of melodrama, and an occasional farce,” wrote H. Delmore French in the Citizen on January 14, “but the scarcity of high-class legitimate dramatic offerings has been conspicuous.” 

Was it the high price of seats, going for as much as $3 in the orchestra? Perhaps, but the writer pointed out that when something prestigious was done at the old Brooklyn Academy of Music, “brilliant audiences” filled it for prices as high as $5. The only possible answer, then, was “the fickleness of the public taste,” which makes the theatre business so hazardous. 

Happily, the Sothern-Marlowe tours kept going until 1924, by which time they were fusty and old-fashioned. Marlowe and Sothern, for example, were still playing Romeo and Juliet in 1924, when he was 64 and she was 59.

Other interesting theatre articles of the month in the Brooklyn press included one on January 6 in the Eagle about the recent rise in the publication of plays, something people had not been used to reading, with thoughts on how reading a play differed from seeing one. George Bernard Shaw’s attempt to make plays more readable with extensive stage directions played a valuable role in these developments.

A brief note in the Eagle on January 23 informed that Louis E. Hamburg, manager of the Bon Ton Theatre at 126 Rockaway Avenue and Somers Street in East New York had been arrested by agents of the Children’s Society for allowing children to attend his theatre without accompanying adult guardians. More interesting than his arrest is the mention of a theatre about which little is known other than its name, the Bon Ton Theatre (or Bon Ton Family Theatre), which did mainly vaudeville, and for which I can find—thus far—only two or three small ads, such as one in the Eagle "on November 12, 1905, announcing "light opera, vaudeville, farce comedy." I have not encountered even a single review. 

It is not to be confused with another fly-by-night resort, the Bon Ton Music Hall at 139 Grand Street in Williamsburg, which was one of several "concert halls" catering to a lower class of customers and often under pressure from the authorities as disreputable. This other Bon Ton was around in 1900 when the vice squad investigated it and others, partly because they employed several "lady singers," according to the Eagle of November 21, 1900. Such places are not considered "theatres" in this blog.

An interesting piece under the byline Katherine Glover in the Eagle of January 7 discusses the flood of stage-struck girls wishing to become actresses, a fairly common subject, and the difficulties posed by such ambitions; it includes a valuable interview with Mrs. Spooner, redoubtable manager of the Spooner Stock Company at the Bijou, about how the best acting training is in stock.

And finally, a story in the Eagle of January 6, about a group of four young women, all high society Brooklynites, who were returning via the Brooklyn Bridge on a horse-drawn opera bus from a Broadway matinee at the Criterion Theatre when, around 6:00 PM, the animals bolted; the driver lost control as they raced across the span, and they had a wild, half-mile adventure before they were saved, without injury, by bridge policemen at the Brooklyn end. Opera buses were large coaches (a.k.a. omnibuses) that carried groups of well-off theatregoers from Brooklyn to Manhattan, and back. 

As reported, the story had much drama, with its four maidens in distress (two of them said, falsely, to have fainted), its heroic and able bus driver, sawing at the reins, the horses champing at their bits, and the brave officers leaping into action, twice, to prevent a possible disaster.

Brooklyn did love its melodrama!

January 1-6, 1906

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) True Irish Hearts

Broadway: The Woman in the Case, with Blanche Walsh

Folly: Down the Pike, with Johnny and Emma Ray

Grand Opera House: Confessions of a Wife

Imperial: (Imperial Theatre Company and vaudeville) Secret Service

Majestic: His Last Dollar, with David Higgins

New Montauk: The Catch of the Season, with Edna May

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Lee Avenue Stock Company) Mrs. Dane’s Defense, with Etta Reed Payton

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) The Shop Girl

Shubert: Leah Kleschna, with Mrs. Fiske

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Unique, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Nassau, Alcazar, Amphion

January 8-13, 1905

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Woman Against Woman

Broadway: Mrs. Leffingwell’s Boots

Folly: His Last Dollar, with David Higgins

Grand Opera House: Secret Service Sam

Imperial: (Imperial Theatre Company and vaudeville) Blue Jeans

Majestic: The County Chairman, with Maclyn Arbuckle

New Montauk: The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, with Julia Marlowe, E.H. Sothern

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Lee Avenue Stock Company) Toll Gate Inn, with Etta Reed Payton

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) New York By Night

Shubert: Lady Teazle, with Elizabeth Brice

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Unique, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Nassau, Alcazar, Amphion

January 15-20, 1906

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) A Temperance Town

Broadway: The Heir to the Hoorah, with Guy Bates Post

Folly: The Belle of Avenue A, with Effie Fay

Grand Opera House: Young Buffalo, King of the Wild West

Imperial: (ends stock company; now all vaudeville)

Majestic: The German Gypsy, with Al H. Wilson

New Montauk: Sergeant Brue, with Frank Daniels

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Lee Avenue Stock Company) The Heir of the Wallabout, with Etta Reed Payton, Corse Payton

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) No Wedding Bells for Her

Shubert: Fantana, with Jefferson De Angelis

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Unique, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Nassau, Alcazar, Amphion, Imperial

January 22-27, 1906

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) The Last Word

Broadway: Way Down East

Folly: Tom, Dick and Harry, with Watson, Bickel, and Wrothe

Grand Opera House: Mr. Blarney from Ireland

Majestic: Rufus Rastus, all-Black company, with Ernest Hogan

New Montauk: Her Great Match, with Maxine Elliott

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

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Sergeant James

Shubert: Zira, with Margaret Anglin

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Unique, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Nassau, Alcazar, Amphion, Imperial

January 29-February 3, 1906

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) The Pretty Sister of San José

Broadway: Dockstader’s Minstrels

Folly: Mr. Blarney from Ireland, with Fiske O’Hara

Grand Opera House: Queen of the White Slaves

Majestic: Kellar, the magician, in “The Witch, the Sailor and the Enchanted Monkey”

New Montauk: On the Quiet, with William Collier

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Lee Avenue Stock Company) Down By the Sea

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) The Bowery Newsgirl

Shubert-Park: The Press Agent, with Peter F. Dailey

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Unique, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Nassau, Alcazar, Amphion