USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Romantic days in old Boston : the story of the city and of its people during the nineteenth century > Part 23
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In winter Mr. Dickson's theatre opened at five o'clock, and the performance began at six; in the spring months half an hour later was the time for the curtain to rise. The "guests" on entering were met by a bewigged and bepowdered master of ceremonies and es- corted to their boxes. What matter that they could see the performance but dimly from these boxes, in the feeble light of candles or the more objectionable smoky illumination of whale oil lamps, and that in winter they might freeze for all the effective heating apparatus provided ? Perhaps it was to keep warm that the gallery gods threw things, so obliging the orchestra to
1 An amusing story is told about Cooke in connection with his visit to Boston in 1811. He insisted upon going to Trinity Church, on Summer Street near the theatre, to hear Doctor Gardiner preach on the ground that as Gardiner "was the only one of them (meaning the clergy) who has done me the honor to come and see me play, I'll do him the honor of going to hear him preach." He went - and slept off a debauch during the sermon.
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insert in the newspaper a card requesting the audience to be more restrained in the matter of pelting the musicians with apple cores and oranges. Cooper often acted here ; John How- ard Payne made his début as a youthful prodigy at this house; Joseph G. Holman here played Hamlet, and Forrest, William Augustus Conway, Junius Brutus Booth, Charles Mathews, Sr., and Edmund Kean were other distinguished players who appeared on the stage of the Old Federal.
John Bernard, who afterwards became a mana- ger in Boston, was one of the interesting lesser theatrical lights associated in his acting days with this Federal Street Theatre ; the Poes were here playing an engagement when their son, Edgar Allan Poe, was born (on January 18, 1809), and here Henry J. Finn, one of the most popular actors that ever made Boston his home, long occupied a position very similar to that held later at the old Boston Museum by William War- ren. Finn was a man of great natural wit though an incurable punster. When he met his death on a Sound steamer, January 13, 1840, theatre-goers all over the country mourned his loss. He was most renowned for his Dr. Pan- gloss and his Paul Pry, but he is said to have acted Othello very movingly (in 1822) at the Federal Street Theatre to the Iago of Cooper, George Barrett on this occasion appearing as Cassio and Mrs. Henry as Desdemona.
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To this house came also Incledon, the singer who vied with the tragedian, Pope, in his devo- tion to the pleasures of the table. When Incle- don, after his return from America, met Pope, he replied to the question, "Well, Charles, and how do they feed ?" with the answer, "Immortally, my dear Pope, the very poetry of eating and drinking in all things but one, - they put no oil to their salads."
"No oil to their salads !" echoed his friend. "Why did we make peace with them ?" Which reminds me of a story told of Cooper, who also had an Englishman's reverence for good food. Cooper was so offended on one occasion by the barbarity of a guest of his who insisted on bury- ing his mutton chops in mustard that he threw down his napkin, called the waiter to bring his bill and, with a low bow, left his friend to the pursuit of this strange gastronomic fancy.
The theatre on Federal Street was the scene of the Kean riots, those extraordinary demonstra- tions inspired by perfervid patriotism which some of us have for the first time been able to understand since living through similar occurrences connected with our late war with Germany. "Old Drury," as it came to be called, had a wonderful history during this period, when it enjoyed a monopoly of theatrical business in Boston. It seems not to have needed competition to maintain its high standard, but
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it got it just the same. For soon the first Tremont, under the management of a capable but erratic actor, William Pelby by name, was bidding against it for public favor.
There was a great deal of opposition to the inception of this new house on the part of the ultra-pious folk of Boston, but it finally got under way and soon proved so potent a rival to the Federal Street Theatre - especially during the latter months of 1828, when the elder Booth was its manager - that the old house was, in 1830, forced to capitulate. In the autumn of 1831 Miss Clara Fisher had a very successful engagement here. Concerning her acting of Rosalind in "As You Like It" the following en- thusiastic account may be found (under date of October 24, 1831) in the "Diary" of Christopher Columbus Baldwin, a Worcester librarian with a taste for city pleasures :
"She is delightful ! She looks well, acts well, and is, in truth, a most interesting lady. I have never seen any female, off or on the stage, whose appearance gave me so much pleasure. Gall and Spurzheim would swear her head was cast under the direction of a committee of taste chosen at the court of beauty. She is not, after all, so handsome ; but she looks well, and has decidedly the best-shaped head that I have ever seen upon the shoulders of a female. She is rather short, tho' not too much so, and is just fat enough to
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look delicious. She looks as tho' she might be about 20, yet is about 26 or 7."
In the heyday of the Tremont's success, the National Theatre, familiarly known as the "old Nash," was brought into being, more, it would appear, to satisfy Mr. William Pelby's uncon- querable passion for building new playhouses than to meet any crying need, on Boston's part, for another theatre. Yet, once up, the house found its audience, and there ensued many years of important and colorful dramatic history down near what is now Haymarket Square. John W. Ryan of Dorchester, long critic for the Saturday Evening Gazette, has told me of being taken to see "George Barnwell" here in the middle forties. "We had seats," he said, "in the boxes, which were in the genteel portion of the house. The pit was beneath us, with its bare, backless, wooden benches, where the de- mocracy sat and ate peanuts and oranges as the play progressed and uttered their criticisms in no uncertain tones." Very likely the Boston truckmen, a power in those far-off days, formed a large part of the audience on this occasion, as they appear to have done on the night of the full grown riot which the National soon witnessed because to Miss Louisa Gann (afterwards Mrs. Wulf Fries) had been given a rôle the men thought belonged to Mrs. Charles Thorne. The truckmen accordingly spent a very happy
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evening tearing up the seats of the theatre and throwing them, together with other articles less weighty but more insidious, at the heads of everybody who ventured upon the stage."
"London Assurance" received its first pres- entation in Boston at this theatre, and here, also, George Jones (afterwards known as the Count Johannes) gave the first impersonation of Claude Melnotte this city ever enjoyed. At the time the house was destroyed by fire an engagement was being played by Forrest's divorced wife, Catherine Sinclair. Mrs. Vin- cent, then a bouncing young woman, was a member of the company at the time.
In those far-away days, no less than later, Mrs. Vincent was the warm friend of all who needed friendliness. Among those to whom she extended a helping hand at this stage of her career was Edward Askew Sothern, who had not yet found himself. Manager Leonard, who had brought Sothern out from England, lost a good deal of money at the National and finally lost the theatre itself, which after numerous ups and downs fell into the hands of William B. English, an old newspaper man, who had mar- ried Mrs. Western, mother of Lucille and Helen Western. Mrs. English herself in due time be- came the manager of a theatre in the Studio Building, which until quite recently stood on the corner of Bromfield and Tremont streets,
OLD NATIONAL THEATRE, PORTLAND STREET.
HOWARD ATHENAEUM ABOUT 1865.
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FOYER OF THE BOSTON THEATRE.
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and which was at first known as Jane English's Theatre and later as the New Tremont. At matinées held here during the Civil War whole rows of women were to be seen plying knitting needles "for the soldiers" just as during the Great War they knitted for the boys "over there." In 1866 this theatre was converted to business uses.
That same year the Continental Theatre opened (at the south corner of Washington and Harvard streets) in which house on April 13, 1868, Madame Fanny Janauschek, supported by a German dramatic company, made her first appearance in Boston. This house was later called the Olympic and, later still, the St. James. Its last season was in 1872. On the site of what is now the Bijou Theatre stood for- merly a house which, when it opened January 11, 1836, was known as the Lion Theatre; then it was called the Melodeon ; and, on Octo- ber 15, 1878, Jason Wentworth reopened it once more under the name of the Gaiety Theatre. It was here that Macready and Charlotte Cush- men acted together in 1844.
One of the early managers at the Howard Athenæum1 (which dates back to 1845) was James H. Hackett, father of the present-day star. The elder Hackett is generally acknowl- edged to have been the best Falstaff America
1 See pp. 246 et seq.
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has ever seen. He had a very large experience with theatres on the business side, too, for not only did he conduct the fortunes of the Howard Athenæum in its early days, but he managed, also, the Chatham Garden Theatre, New York, in 1829, the Bowery in 1830, the National (Italian Opera House) in 1837 and the Astor Place Opera House. In addition to which he introduced a company of Italian singers at Castle Garden in 1854 and played at intervals in London. In many ways, indeed, this elder James Hackett was one of the most interesting characters the American stage has ever known.
At the Howard Hackett's first great success, from a money standpoint, was attained, in 1847, by means of the Viennoise Children, a troupe of juvenile dancers brought over from Vienna by Madam Weiss and by her returned safely to their parents after they had made a great deal of money in the various cities of this country. A whole book, and a very interesting one, might be written about the attractions at the Howard Atheneum before it ceased, in 1868, to be the home of "the legitimate," for it was here that genuine Italian opera was presented for the first time in Boston; here that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean appeared - raising the prices from fifty cents to one dollar ; here that Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt, the first American "society" woman to make a success
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not only as an actress but as a "contemporary" American dramatist, used to play ; and here that "The Octoroon" received its first Boston presentation with E. L. Davenport as the In- dian. Davenport was a manager at the How- ard, and it was in his time that Fanny Daven- port, as a little girl, made her "début" here, singing the "Star Spangled Banner."1 Lester Wallack, the elder, and John Stetson were other Howard managers in "the good old days."
The Howard still stands and still does busi- ness though its field is no longer "the legitimate." It shares a history which reaches back to mid- Victorian days only with the Boston Theatre, made possible to an expanding and prosperous city in the middle of the last century by the interest and initiative of leading Boston busi- ness men, among them Gardner Brewer, Oliver Ditson and Davis Sears. The stock in the new corporation was liberally subscribed to by gen- erous playgoers of the day, and the beauty and even magnificence of the building became a matter of much civic pride.
The opening night was a gala occasion in- deed. It fell on Tuesday, September 11, 1854, and the entertainment offered was lengthy and varied. The programme, printed on a single long and narrow page, has now become a rarity much sought by collectors. Preceding the play 1 See The Romance of the American Theatre, p. 338.
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announcement are the names of manager and assistant, musical director, machinist, etc., while the humble but important treasurer brings up the rear. Attention is particularly called to the statement that a corps of ushers "will con- duct Ladies and Gentlemen to their seats."
Theatrical first-nights were like eight-course dinners in those days, particularly when a new and beautiful theatre was to be dedi- cated. The bill for this occasion included not only a play and a musical farce but also a concert and the reading of a prize poem ! Surely a generous evening's entertainment ! No wonder the performance had to begin at seven-thirty. At the foot of the programme the management devoted space to a little gos- sip. "Mrs. Hudson Kirby has recovered from her severe accident and leaves Liverpool on the third. Mr. James Bennett, tragedian, will shortly appear, and Miss Adelaide Biddle is daily expected."
The selection of the prize address had been left to a committee which included Oliver Wen- dell Holmes, James T. Fields and Epes Sar- gent, but the author of the poem selected was not announced until its delivery, when an en- velope containing the name of the lucky contest- ant for fame was opened. The poem was long and of conventional stamp, concluding with these historically inaccurate lines :
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"But write these words on Memory's grateful page, Sons of the Pilgrims !1 You redeemed our stage."
In the stock company that night, and for some time after, were Mr. and Mrs. John Wood, and Mr. and Mrs. John Gilbert. Gilbert stayed with the company for three seasons, and after occupying for many years a front place in the ranks of actors, returned to Boston for his final rest, being buried at Forest Hills.
The first manager here was Thomas Barry, who was also the proprietor. Among his suc- cessors were Wyzeman Marshall and Edwin Booth, each for one year ; H. J. Jarrett ; Edwin Booth's brother, J. B. Booth (a capable actor, though overshadowed by the more brilliant members of his family) ; Thayer and Tompkins in a partnership that lasted a number of years ; and Eugene Tompkins.
Throughout its existence the stock company here was an admirable one, and contained, at one time or another, many actors of more than the average ability ; as, for instance, J. W. Wal- lack, E. L. Davenport, George Vandenhoff, Mrs. Thomas Barry and Kate Reignolds, better known as Mrs. Erving Winslow. Sometimes stock companies from other cities visited here, as when, in 1862, Jarrett brought from New York the Winter Garden Company, contain-
1 Already well-intentioned writers were beginning to confuse the Pilgrims, who settled in Plymouth, with the Puritans, Boston's first settlers.
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ing Wheatley, the Elder Wallack, Davenport, Mrs. Wallack and Mrs. Vincent; and in 1864, when William Warren came at the head of the William Warren Comedy Company.
From the first season until 1905-1906, the Boston Theatre was the stronghold of opera, so far as the Hub was concerned. Its printed pro- gramme promised the first night had, among other treats, "Eminent artists in Italian and English opera," and the promise was loyally kept, with German and French opera added. An important event, now generally forgotten, was the first season of grand opera sung in English, which occurred at the Boston Theatre in 1886, antedating by a number of years Mr. Savage's far-famed "innovation."
It would be hopeless to attempt even to name here the famous actors and actresses who have played at this theatre since its opening. Stars of every degree of magnitude, from Rachel, Booth and Bernhardt, whose light is for all time, to the little stars who twinkle for the brief span of a season or two and then go out, - all have had their turn upon these boards. The first "star" was Julia Dean, a very famous Juliet, now probably forgotten save by students of the drama. Yet in her day Julia Dean was so much the idol of "gilded youth" that all Har- vard was on hand when she played at "the Boston !" The second year in the history of
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the Boston Theatre was a particularly memo- rable one, - Davenport, Mario, J. H. Hackett, Rachel, Adelaide Phillips and Edwin Forrest then playing here.
Here came also, Charles Mathews, inimitable in "Used Up" and "Cool as a Cucumber ;" Charlotte Cushman in all her rôles (an especial event was her performance of Macbeth with Joseph Proctor in a benefit in 1863) ; McCul- lough, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean, Lucille Western, Ristori, Barrett, Janauschek, Clara Morris, Lotta, Jefferson, (first at this theatre in 1869) ; Fechter, Neilson, Salvini, E. A. Soth- ern (a wonderfully brilliant and versatile actor, though the world knows him only as Dun- dreary) ; Mary Anderson, Irving and Terry, - they come to mind faster than the pen can write them down. And to name these few is only to pick and choose from the many.
A noble company of players, surely, these walls have gazed upon, kings and queens of the mimic world, whose names are names to conjure with. About this theatre a book 1 has been com- piled, a very thick and handsomely illustrated volume which gives an accurate account of all the engagements ever played at this house up to the year of the book's publication. Unfortu- nately, it gives little or nothing else. It does not tell, for instance, such a highly interesting
1 History of the Boston Theatre.
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fact as that this house was the first in Boston - except, of course, the righteous Museum - to provide no accommodation for the ladies of the "half-world !" It is one of the anomalies of Boston's social history that, in an era so prudish as the nineteenth century, this particular evil was not only tolerated, but helped to flourish in our theatres. Heretofore it had quite been expected that demi-mondaines should make themselves at home in the "third tier", where there was wont to be a bar !
About two blocks further up Washington street - and on the other side - Selwyn's Theatre came into existence in 1867, and here it was that Fechter, - brilliant, passionate, ill- starred, - was briefly manager, beginning Sep- tember 12, 1870. Associated with this dispenser of "magnetic glamour" was Carlotta Leclercq, who, on February 21, 1872, gave here that im -; personation of Peg Woffington in Tom Taylor's " Masks and Faces" which is still remembered with pleasure by a few old playgoers. Her "Galatea" was also much enjoyed, and a great impression was made by the wonderful optical illusion of the dissolving statue effected by Pro- fessor Tobin of the Royal Polytechnic Institute, London, when given in the December of 1872. (Miss Leclercq, though she had formerly been Fechter's leading woman, was now starring in the various cities of the country, supported by
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the regular stock companies of the houses at which she appeared. Trained under Charles Kean she brought to her parts,- as did Ellen Terry and Agnes Robertson, also early pupils of Kean, - high gifts and rare beauty.) But the "golden days" for the Globe began when in September, 1877, it passed into the hands of John Stetson.1
Under Stetson, many of the most notable "star" engagements Boston has ever known were played on this site. For John Stetson was a man of strong purpose and great natural ability, though possessed of such colossal ig- norance that one wonders how in the world he was ever able to do the work he did. One morning, while a dress rehearsal was going on, he seated himself in the empty auditorium and from his point of vantage observed that one of the instrumentalists, the bass player, was not using his instrument continuously. Assuming that he, as a manager, was being imposed upon, he tapped the musician on the back, saying :
"See here, why don't you play your fiddle ?"
The bass player, pale as a ghost, answered, pointing to the score : "I have sixteen bars rest." "That don't go here," replied Stetson fiercely ; "you play while in the pit, and do your resting at home !"
An equally astonishing story told of Stetson is vouched for by members of the company then 1 See p. 273.
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rehearsing Shakespeare's "As You Like It." The actors were being instructed in the proper enun- ciation of the text, and Stetson, annoyed at what he considered the liberties being taken with the English language, called out to the stage director :
"Why do these actors say thou, thine and thee? Have them say you and yours so that we can comprehend them !"
"My dear Mr. Stetson," said the director, "these are Shakespeare's own instructions."
"I am the manager here," angrily responded Stetson, "and if Shakespeare interferes again send him to me !"
A similar anecdote is connected with a re- hearsal of "Paul Jones" at the Globe. A fel- low manager had called to see Stetson and, find- ing him engaged, watched a rehearsal then in progress of this musical play in which Agnes Huntington took the leading part. At length Stetson came out and asked what he thought of the piece, which had struck the visitor as de- cidedly heavy on the comedy side. "Too much London Punch stuff, John; wake it up," he replied. Shortly afterward the visitor came again, to see the stage manager this time, and asked how things were going. "Not very well," he said. "Stetson didn't like the piece. He came down the other day and told me there was too much Punch and Judy stuff in it. I wonder who put that in his head."
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Still another Stetson story has to do with the late Salmi Morse, a great dreamer, whose most ambitious dream was a version of the "Passion Play," which he had produced in California . without interference, but which the New York authorities prohibited, claiming that it would offend the majority.
Morse was about to submit to this decision when Stetson came on from Boston with the idea of taking over the production if he found, on investigation, that it was worthy. Locating the author in a hall on West Twenty-Third Street, where he was rehearsing, he asked to see the performance in full. All passed off well un- til it came to the scene of "The Last Supper," set with very simple and appropriate costumes.
"What are you trying to do there, Morse, - economize ? You can't do that in my house !" shouted Stetson.
Morse was quick to explain that he was not economizing. He said the costumes were very costly and accurate, the same as the Twelve Apostles wore in their period.
"But you can't come to Boston with only twelve apostles," roared Stetson ; "I must have at least forty apostles. That would be spec- tacular !"
Yet it is not with spectacular things, chiefly, that the history of the Globe Theatre under Stetson is bound up. For it was this manager
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who brought over Salvini and Bernhardt, and the performances given here were, for the most part, of quite as high grade as those of the Bos- ton Museum at the other end of the town.
The Boston Museum was at first rightly and legitimately so called. Like all seaport towns whose merchant princes dealt with far-away countries, Boston, in the old days, received many curious and outlandish things - far more than could conveniently be shown in private homes, however spacious. One by one, therefore, there came into existence exhibition rooms in which these treasures were displayed, for a price, to a curious public. The first of these was the col- lection, made up largely of wax figures, which was exhibited at the American Coffee House, on State Street, opposite Kilby, during the latter part of the eighteenth century; this was re- moved by its proprietor, in 1795, to "the head of the Mall," - which meant the junction of Tremont Street with Bromfield Street. A
famous "Museum" stand ! On this same site Moses Kimball had been conducting an exhibi- tion of curios for some years prior to the date - September 14, 1843 - when he took the decisive step which made him a theatre manager. This
fact it was which assured the success of his en- terprise. For he was able to attract to his play- house a whole section of the public which had never before attended any theatre.
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On the night that the old Tremont Theatre closed its doors John G. Gilbert, it will be remembered, had earnestly defended his profes- sion, pointing out that, though the theatre had its faults, it was also, potentially, an agency of great social value in the community and, if only the prejudices of its critics could be met and over- come, its very detractors would become its friends. From the subsequent acts of Moses Kimball, I am persuaded that Gilbert must have practiced this speech on him. At any rate Kimball appears to have adopted Gilbert's sen- timent for the motto of his life. For very cau- tiously now he went from one step to another, always taking great pains to make no ene- mies, until, before people realized it, they were attending a theatre called the Boston Museum. I am sure I may register for innumerable lovers of the theatre deep gratitude for the adroitness with which this impresario effected his transi- tions. For just when the Tremont finally closed its doors Moses Kimball was ready to make his plunge, and he did this by engaging several members of the Tremont's company to come to his playhouse. Among them was Miss Adelaide Phillips, then a child of ten.
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