PLAYS AND PLAYERS OF THE DAY.
By Morris Bacheller.
FRANCIS WILSON.
Of the two great divisions of the drama, tragedy is today surprisingly similar to what it was in the days of the ancient Greeks, while comedy has in the mean time been the subject of a remarkable evolution. That evolution has proceeded with especial rapidity within recent years. To find the best and noblest exemplifications of tragedy we have to go back two centuries to the master works of Shakespeare. A few exceptional comedies there are of Sheridan’s or Goldsmith’s, whose popularity has not diminished with the lapse of time, though many generations have come and gone since they were penned. But they may be counted upon the fingers of a single hand, and only serve to emphasize the rarity of comedies that can hold the boards for more than a few seasons.
The development of comedy, and especially of its more farcical branches, is, indeed, the chief feature of recent dramatic history. Attribute it to a reaction from the increased tension of modern business life, or assign what sociological cause you will, the fact remains that the general demand is for plays whose aim and object is to amuse. It cannot be maintained that this tendency is restricted to the less educated class of theater goers. On the contrary, it is at houses that are especially frequented by people of wealth and fashion that the supremacy of comedy is most assured. Melodrama is still the most drawing card in the theaters patronized by the lower million.
The advance of comedy has been multiform. Farces of greater ingenuity and more sustained brilliance of workmanship are written by the playwrights of today than by their forerunners. They are interpreted upon the boards by more finished artists, and with a stage setting that constantly becomes more complete and costly. The comedian has a higher professional and even social standing now than a generation ago, and he may secure a much greater degree of renown, with its financial accompaniment of ample earnings. And all this arises from the workings of the old law of supply and demand. Every art that can contribute to the embellishment of its presentation becomes the handmaid of comedy. Music is pressed into its service, and the result is that characteristic phase of latter day theatricals, the burletta.
There was a time, and not so very long ago, when the predecessors of Francis Wilson and De Wolf Hopper were set down as “low comedians,” and relegated to an artistic rank slightly superior to that of the circus clown. Every one knows the contrast in the position of the modern apostles of Momus. Attend the theaters, read the newspapers, listen to the comment of the club rooms, and you will speedily be convinced that they are the theatrical lions of the hour, that among all the constellations of the dramatic firmament their planet is in the ascendant. Nor is there anything in this state of affairs to justify the pessimistic philosopher in an outcry against the alleged decadence of the stage. The popular taste for comedy is neither a degraded nor a perverted one, and the success of its leading exponents has been won upon their merits.
The comic star rises to the zenith by an ascent as difficult and laborious as that which leads to high rank in any other profession. Ars est celare artem, and the apparently easy spontaneity with which he develops the humor of a stage situation is the fruit of conscientious study and persistent practice. There are no more painstaking actors than the two typical burlesquers who as the Regent of Siam and the Merry Monarch have during the recent months reigned successively at the Broadway Theater, New York.
Francis Wilson, who recently succeeded his brother potentate, has worked his way up from the lowest rounds of the theatrical ladder. His first appearance was with Sandford’s minstrel company in a sketch called “The Brians,” which was played in Philadelphia. Young as he was—only a boy in his teens—Wilson made something of a hit. This was enough to secure him plenty of remunerative engagements with minstrel troupes, as a member of which he traveled all over the country. He was ambitious, however, for work of a higher order, and to secure a foothold upon the legitimate stage he undertook a minor part in a company that appeared at the Chestnut Street Theater, in Philadelphia. Here again his talents declined to conceal themselves under a bushel. In the role of Lamp, a broken down actor in “Wild Oats,” he carried with him upon the stage an old foil, the last relic of better days, and from this seemingly unpromising article he managed to extract so much quiet humor that the audience was convulsed and the star of the piece entered a formal complaint at this interference with his supremacy.