Just about this time Charles, whose interest in French plays had constantly increased through the years, singled out Henri Bernstein as the foremost of the younger French playwrights. He secured his remarkable play "The Thief" for America. He now produced this play at the Lyceum with Miss Illington and Kyrle Bellew as co-stars, and it proved to be an enormous success, continuing there for a whole season, and then duplicating its triumph on the road, where Frohman at one time had four companies playing it in various parts of the country.
XI
THE CONQUEST OF THE LONDON STAGE
G reat as were Charles Frohman's achievements in America, they were more than matched in many respects by his activities in England. He was the one American manager who made an impress on the British drama; he led the so-called "American invasion." As a matter of fact, he was the invasion. No phase of his fascinatingly crowded and adventurous career reflects so much of the genius of the man, or reveals so many of his finer qualities, as his costly attempt to corner the British stage. Here, as in no other work, he showed himself in really Napoleonic proportions.
Behind Charles's tremendous operations in London were three definite motives. First of all, he really loved England. He felt that the theater there had a dignity and a distinction far removed from theatrical production in America. There was no sneer of "commercialism" about it. To be identified with the stage in England was something to be proud of. He often said that he would rather make fifteen pounds in London than fifteen thousand dollars in America. It summed up his whole attitude toward the theater in Great Britain.
In the second place, he knew that a strong footing in England was absolutely necessary to a mastery of the situation in America. Just as important as any of his other reasons was the conviction in his own mind that to produce the best English-speaking plays in the United States he must know English playwrights and English authors on their own ground, and to produce, if possible, their own works on their home stages.
This latter desire led him to the long and brilliant series of productions that he made in London, and which amounted to what later became an almost complete monopoly on British dramatic output for the United States.
The net result was that he became a sort of Colossus of the English-speaking theater. Figuratively, he stood astride the mighty sea in which he was to meet his death, with one foot planted securely in England and the other in New York.
Charles's first visits to England were made in the most unostentatious way, largely to look over the ground and see what he could pick up for America. His first offices in Henrietta Street were very modest rooms. Unpretentious as they were, they represented a somewhat historic step, because Frohman was absolutely the first American manager to set up a business in England. Augustin Daly had taken over a company, but he allied himself in no general way with British theatrical interests.
When Frohman first engaged W. Lestocq as his English manager, as has already been recorded, he made a significant remark: