Alan Dale, the critic who was regarded as the critic of America, under whose pen actors and managers quaked in their shoes, wrote:—“It has the gentle, reluctant English atmosphere of other plays by this actor-author, and it is interesting by reason of its lines and its characterisation. After all the ‘shockers’ of to-day, with their red and lurid types, after the insensate struggle for garish effects and horrors, this play gives us a whiff of repose; it is unstagy, its characters are real human beings who talk like human beings; if they haven’t anything startling to say from the theatrical point of view, they are at least human.”
What a good thing it is we don’t all see things through one pair of glasses!
But I am wandering from my story of the visit to America. I look back on it all now, and remember the series of untoward events and mishaps which occurred before our journey began. The week before we left England, a cable came from “C. F.” (Charles Frohman) to say that he had altered the theatre which was to be the scene of our production. Our theatre had been let to a big film company, and we were to be sent to the Garrick. A wretched little place it was, too; as the stage manager there said frankly: “Only fit for a garage.” As a matter of fact, I believe it now is one. Even before we left Liverpool a wave of depression came over me, when our ship met with an accident as she was leaving port. The sun—a wintry, pale sun—was sinking as we began to move, towed out of the river. The order to release was, I suppose, given too soon; on board we felt nothing—the only sign that anything was wrong was that we saw everyone on the landing-stage running for dear life, like frightened rabbits. Then we realised that our big ship was crashing into the landing-stage, crushing like matchwood a big dredger which was lying alongside, and also the iron gangway. All we felt on board was a slight shiver which seemed to run through the ship. We were delayed seven hours while the screws were examined. I am not a superstitious mortal, but the feeling that all this was a bad omen clung to me—and, be it said, proved true.
On board we were a happy party; many of the company had been with us before, and so were old friends. Jack and Jill (who was nearing her fifth birthday) loved their first experience of travelling a long distance; the Esmond family were out to enjoy the trip—and succeeded. The entrance to New York harbour filled me with interest. I still remember and wonder at those eight or nine tiny tugs, veritable cockle-shells they looked, which “nosed” our huge liner into dock. I remember, too, the ghastly business of the Customs! I am not a good sailor, and the moment I stood on solid earth again it seemed to heave up and down, and continued to do so for several days. The hours which we spent, waiting for our baggage to be examined, were absolute torture to me. Socially, we had a perfect time, kindness and hospitality were shown to us in every possible way; but our poor Eliza was abused up hill and down dale.
The first night was the most horrible I can remember. The theatre was boiling hot, and the hot-water pipes continually went off like great guns. I was as cold as ice. After playing Eliza everywhere in England to the accompaniment of roars of laughter, the coldness of the reception at the Garrick in New York was hard to bear.
For some reason, it was said that Eliza was copied from a play then in New York—Peg o’ My Heart—and which was an enormous success. It was stated, with almost unnecessary frankness, that for us to have presented Eliza in New York was an impertinence. Naturally there was not a word of truth in the statement; as a matter of fact, Eliza had been written some years before Peg, and there had been a suggestion (which had not materialised) that it should have been produced in America soon after it was written. We made no reply to these unjust and utterly untrue statements and suggestions; it would have been useless; but I am glad now to take this opportunity of referring to them. Eliza had been the cause of trouble before: it is a long story, but one which I think is worth recording here, and at this particular point.
When we produced Eliza at the Criterion, Miss Mabel Hackney came to see it, bringing with her Miss Simmons, the authoress of a play called Clothes and The Woman. This play had been sent to me to read some time before, and, having been very busy, I had not done so at once. Miss Simmons wrote to me, asking if I would return it, to which I replied that I should be glad to keep it for a little longer, so that I might read it. In all, I suppose the play was in my house for three months. At the end of that time the MS. was returned to Miss Simmons, with a letter in which I stated that I liked the play very much, “up to a point”, but that at the moment I was not producing anything. I read dozens of plays in the course of a year, and, having returned it, dismissed the matter from my mind. Eliza, as I have said, was produced, and a performance witnessed by Miss Simmons, who at once, without approaching Harry or myself, sent a letter to the Authors’ Society, demanding that they should apply for the immediate withdrawal of Harry’s play, on the grounds that it was plagiarism of her comedy, Clothes and The Woman. Harry, on receipt of the letter from the Authors’ Society, at once communicated with Miss Dickens, that efficient lady who has typed so many of his plays. Miss Dickens was able to prove conclusively to the Authors’ Society that Eliza Comes to Stay had been typed by her at least two and a half years before Clothes and The Woman had been sent to me by Miss Simmons. The Society was satisfied, and laid the facts before Miss Simmons, who, I regret to say, did not feel it necessary to offer an apology to Harry for the injustice she had done him.
To use an old joke, which I find the critics are still willing to use whenever Eliza is performed, “she” did not come to stay in New York, and we put on The Dear Fool. This play was as warmly praised as Eliza had been slated, and we both scored a great personal success. We later renamed the play, as Harry discovered that the title, The Dear Fool, means in America a kind of “silly ass”, which was not at all what he intended to convey. In consequence, he called it The Dangerous Age, and under that title it was produced in London.
I am reminded here of a story which Harry told me once when he came home after a trip to America. He had been to see Maud Adams and William Feversham playing Romeo and Juliet. Miss Adams, so he was told, believed that the love between Romeo and Juliet was strictly platonic, and would therefore have no bed in the famous bedroom scene. The two lovers were discovered, as the curtain rose, seated on a sofa reading a book of poems. Harry, in telling me of the play, said he was certain that the book was Dr. Chavasse’s Advice to a Wife, a book which is well known in this country to all families—at least those of the last generation.
Our visit to America ended, and we went for three weeks to Canada before returning home to begin our own season at the Vaudeville Theatre in London.