“‘Where?’ asked Harris.
“‘I’ve got some lots at Fortieth and Broadway, and it’s a good site, even if it is away up-town.’
“They went back to Frohman’s office, and here was hatched the plan for the Empire Theatre.”
This theatre was built as an investment by Al. Hayman, William Harris, and Frank Sanger. The corner-stone was laid in May, 1892, and the house, leased by Charles Frohman and Messrs. Rich & Harris, was opened under the direction of Frohman eight months later. That enterprising speculator in public amusement, who had long been eager to establish himself in the metropolis, in a fine theatre under his direct control, keenly appreciated Belasco’s abilities, and at the time when the new house was projected was associated with him in the presentment of Mrs. Carter in “Miss Helyett.” Frohman’s main interest, however, was centred in the Empire, and, though aware that Belasco was preoccupied with work on “The Heart of Maryland,” he urgently requested him to write a new play with which to open that theatre. At first Belasco demurred to the undertaking, deeming it essential to restrict himself to the work he had already begun, and to devote all his strength to the establishment of Mrs. Carter. That actress, however, hearing of Frohman’s proposal and appreciating the possible advantage that might accrue to Belasco from his acceptance of it, insisted that he should provide the play for the opening of the Empire, even at the sacrifice of an early appearance for herself. The upshot of the negotiation was Belasco’s agreement to write the desired play, in collaboration with his friend Franklyn Fyles (1847-1911),—then dramatic reviewer for “The New York Sun.” “All through the storm of malicious lies that Mrs. Carter and I had to weather,” said Belasco, “Fyles had been sympathetic and kind to us; writing under the pen-name of ’Clara Belle,’ he had given Mrs. Carter many a lift and helped us a lot. I was grateful and I wanted to help him, if I could; and he was an experienced, good writer, and I was glad to have him to help me, for I wanted ’Charlie’s’ venture to succeed, and I felt the responsibility.”
“THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME.”
The result of that collaboration was the widely known and admired drama of “The Girl I Left Behind Me,”—the title of which was suggested by Daniel Frohman. “We had much difficulty in choosing a title for this play,” writes Belasco; “in fact, we had none as we neared the last rehearsals. A Fourth of July celebration occurs in the First Act, during which a band plays ’The Girl I Left Behind Me.’ Daniel Frohman was in front, at one of the rehearsals, and sent me a slip of paper on which was written ’The Girl I Left Behind Me,’ and that was how our play was named.” Few persons, I believe, hear even the name of that stirring air without a thrill: the associations with it that rise in any sensitive mind,—the agony of solicitude, doubt, hope, grief, and joy,—are irresistibly affecting; it singularly arouses apprehension and exultation, and its association with this play is specially appropriate because of its relevancy to the desperate military enterprise which creates the splendid climax of the drama.
“After I had agreed to write the opening play for Frohman,” Belasco has told me, “I said nothing of my subject, because I had made up my mind to try to bring on the American Stage a phase of American life, on our Western frontiers, involving the American Indian, in a new way; I didn’t want discussion and I dreaded discouragement.” That, surely, was discreet, because it is immeasurably wiser, where works of art are concerned, to execute them rather than to talk about them. Belasco’s interest in the Indian and Indian affairs began in his childhood: one of his stepping-stones into the Theatre was his performance of an Indian Chief, in Hager’s “The Great Republic”: and his determination to undertake depiction, at once dramatic and veritable, of an aspect of actual yet romantic life on our frontiers displayed sound artistic taste in selection of a theme and shrewd judgment in opening a fresh field, thitherto practically untouched.
At that time, early in 1892, the Indian troubles in the West were much in the public mind. The fierce insurrections of 1876, under the leadership of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Spotted Tail, and others, and the lamentable slaughter of the gallant Custer and his intrepid followers in the terrible battle at the Little Bighorn (June 25, that year), had not been forgotten. Indeed, they could not be: the rising under Sitting Bull, in 1890, after his return from Canada; the death of that wily old Medicine Man, who was shot, December 15, that year, with 300 braves, when he sought to escape, during the fight at Wounded Knee; the resistance to disarmament and the frightful massacre at the Pine Ridge Agency, two weeks later; the vigilant and finally successful movements of United States troops under General Nelson A. Miles, against the Indians, especially the Sioux, incident to the “Ghost Dance” furor, which was inspired by Sitting Bull and which extended through 1890-’91; and the massacre at the Rosebud Agency,—all those events made the subject unusually prominent in the public mind. Belasco and Fyles labored zealously at their task and it was duly completed; Frohman enthusiastically expressed himself satisfied; and, on January 25, 1893, the Empire Theatre (thereafter, till the day of his death, that manager’s headquarters) was auspiciously dedicated with a performance of one of the most deservedly popular plays ever produced under his management: it had been acted for a week, beginning January 16, at the New National Theatre, Washington, D. C., in preparation for the New York presentment.
EXCELLENCE OF THAT INDIAN DRAMA.
The play of “The Girl I Left Behind Me” is among the best with which Belasco has been concerned and likewise one of the best that have been contributed to American dramatic literature. Its superiority to all the problematic, polemic, didactic, sociologic disquisitions, pretending to be plays, which have, of late years, so cluttered our Stage, is very great. The story is clear, direct, animated, sympathetic, and thrilling. The persons introduced are various, natural, interesting, discriminated, and finely drawn. The greater part of the dialogue is terse and characteristic. The scene is laid in the country of the Blackfoot Sioux, in Montana, chiefly at a remote and lonely outlying United States Army Post; otherwise at Fort Assiniboine. The chief characters are Scar-Brow, an Indian Chief, who has been educated in civilization and bears the name of John Ledru, but whom education has only made more bitter and revengeful, and who has rejoined his malignant tribe; General Kennion, a veteran of the United States Army, in command of the district in which he is stationed; Lieutenant Edgar Hawksworth, Lieutenant Morton Parlow, and Kate Kennion, the General’s daughter. Hawksworth is a gentleman and a gallant soldier. Parlow is a specious rascal, as yet undetected. Kate Kennion, though she loves Hawksworth, has promised to marry Parlow,—this being an inscrutable incongruity of the plot. Parlow has, much earlier, seduced and abandoned the wife of a brother officer, Major Burleigh by name,—under whose command he is now enrolled,—but who has long vainly sought to ascertain the identity of his wronger.