Charles Frohman: Manager and Man

by Isaac Frederick Marcosson; Daniel Frohman

In February, 1913, Frohman made frequent trips to Baltimore to rehearse and superintend the production of his plays in that city. He has this to say of Baltimore in a letter to Tunis F. Dean, manager of a theater there:

I was glad to have an opportunity of seeing your fine theater, for I have decided on a very important production with one of our leading stars there next season. So that I shall spend a week in Baltimore. I like that. There is no one living in Baltimore that has a greater regard for that fine, dignified city. I have had it for years, and with the beautiful theater and my feeling for Baltimore and you at the head of that theater, I am looking forward with pleasure to coming to you next season.

Frohman was simple, direct, and forcible in his criticism of plays. In rejecting a French play, he wrote to Michael Morton in defense of his judgment, New York, February, 1913:

I was awfully glad you made arrangements for the play, the one I don't like, and I hope the other fellow is right. These three-cornered French plays are going to have a hard time over here in the future unless they contain something that is pretty big, novel, or human. The guilty wife is a joke here now, and they have lots of fun when they play these scenes in these plays. The American and English play is different. They get there quicker in a different manner instead of the old-fashioned scheme. Of course, French plays, as you say, may be laid in England and in America. I understand that. But even then it seems to be about the same as if they were in France.

His brief, epigrammatic style of criticism is evident in a letter to Charles B. Dillingham, wherein he speaks of a certain play under consideration:

I think the end of the play is not good. It is that old-time stand-around-with-a-glass-of-wine-in-your-hand and wish success to the happy people.

Extracts from an interview with Frohman which he wrote for the London papers, March, 1913:

There will be no change in my work of producing for the London stage. I shall continue to do so at my own theaters or with other London managers just as long as I am producing on any stage, and I fear that will be for a long time yet, as I am younger now than I was twenty years ago.

Prior to his departure for England he wrote the following to John Drew in March, 1913:

Thanks for your fine letter. It is like this, John: I hope to get off next week, but I don't seem to be able to get the accommodations I want on either one of the steamers that I should like to travel on, and that sail next week. I need a little special accommodation on account of my leg, which still refuses to answer my call and requires the big stick.