following the close of the American civil conflict by Boucicault’s “Belle Lemar” (which was first acted at Booth’s Theatre August 10, 1874), and, more recently, by Howard’s “Shenandoah” and Gillette’s “Held by the Enemy,”—being much superior to both the latter dramas. The scene of that play is in and near an old Colonial homestead, called “The Lilacs,” inhabited by the Calvert family, at Boonsboro, Maryland, in the Spring of 1863. It is comprised in four acts and six scenes, requiring five sets of scenery for their display. Its action passes within about thirty-six hours and implicates about thirty persons, of whom five are important,—namely General Hugh Kendrick, Colonel Alan Kendrick, his son, Colonel Fulton Thorpe, Lloyd Calvert, and Maryland Calvert. Maryland and Alan Kendrick are lovers and have been betrothed, but she is passionately devoted to the Southern cause, while he ardently supports that of the North,—holding rank as a colonel in the Federal Army,—and their political difference has divided them, though without lessening their love. In the First Act Alan, who has been captured by the Rebels and imprisoned at Dansville, is exchanged and, in passing through Boonsboro on the way to the Union lines, he meets both his sweetheart, Maryland, and Colonel Thorpe. Thorpe, a Northern spy and a double traitor, whom Alan has publicly flogged for blackguardly conduct and then caused to be drummed out of his regiment, holds rank as a colonel in the Rebel Army. In revenge for the humiliation to which he has been subjected Thorpe expedites the transport of Alan and other exchanged Federal prisoners, so that they shall be conveyed immediately to Charlesville,—his purpose being thus to cause their death along with that of the entire garrison at that place, which General Kendrick, in command of an overwhelming Confederate army, purposes to surprise by night and utterly to destroy. Lloyd Calvert, unknown to his family, is a Northern spy. He has learned of General Kendrick’s plan and seeks to warn the Federal forces at Charlesville. Unable to do so, he informs Maryland of the projected assault and she, to save her lover, communicates knowledge of the impending danger to him, thus causing the failure of the surprise attack.
In the Second Act Alan,—supposing that the Confederate Army has moved away—rashly returns to Boonsboro, desiring to effect reconciliation with his sweetheart. Lloyd, trying to bring about a meeting between the lovers, speaks, ambiguously, to Maryland about “a Northern friend” whom he wishes her to meet for him and “detain.” Later, while trying to make his way to the Union lines with important information, Lloyd is shot and, dying, is detected as a spy: Alan is, meantime, recaptured, wearing the hat and overcoat of a Confederate officer, and Maryland, unaware of his identity and thinking to clear her brother’s reputation as a loyal Southerner, denounces the prisoner to General Kendrick as the real spy. Alan, by order of his father, is then tried by court-martial and condemned to death.
In the Third Act Maryland makes her way into the Union lines and obtains from General Hooker, there commanding, a letter to General Kendrick certifying that the presence of his son, Colonel Kendrick, within the Confederate lines, was due to a personal, not a military, motive,—in short, that Alan is not a spy. Returning with this letter to her home, which has become Confederate Headquarters, Maryland finds that General Kendrick has been killed in action and that Colonel Thorpe is in command. Thorpe, whom she visits in his quarters in the old church of Boonsboro,—part of which is also used for confinement of military prisoners,—and to whom she appeals for mercy, perceiving that Hooker’s letter, if it should reach any Confederate officer other than himself, would imperil his own life, not only refuses a reprieve for Alan Kendrick but orders that execution of the death sentence be hastened. Then, half drunken and wholly bestial, he insults the unfortunate Alan, who, pinioned and helpless, is on his way to the gallows and, in his presence, threatens his sweetheart with outrage. Maryland, in desperation, defending herself, stabs Thorpe with a bayonet (a weapon ingeniously introduced for this purpose among the articles accessory to the stage setting, being thrust into a table-top and used as a candlestick), wounding and disabling him. She then liberates Alan, who makes his escape. Thorpe, rallying, orders the church-bell rung, a prearranged signal warning all sentries that a prisoner has broken jail; but Maryland, making her way to the belfry, seizes the clapper of the great bell and, thus enacting the devoted expedient of Bessie, in “Curfew Must Not Ring To-night,” prevents the alarm and enables her lover to make good his escape.
In the Fourth Act Thorpe’s double duplicity has been discovered in the Rebel capital and he is ordered under arrest by General Lee; the Confederate troops, defeated in a general engagement, are forced to evacuate Boonsboro, and the play ends with a prospective reconciliation of the lovers.
“The Heart of Maryland,” though somewhat intricate in its story (only the main thread of which has been followed in the above recital), is compact in construction, fluent and cumulative in dramatic movement and interest, written with profound sincerity and contains passages of tender feeling and afflicting pathos. The “Curfew” expedient, if, in cool retrospect, it seems a little artificial, is, in representation, a thrillingly effective climax to an affecting portrayal of distress and danger. The first picture, exhibiting the ancestral home of the Calvert family, an old Colonial mansion, deep-bowered among ancient, blooming lilac bushes and bathed in the fading glow of late afternoon and sunset light, was one of truly memorable loveliness. Indeed, the scenery investment, throughout, was of exceptional beauty and dramatic appropriateness, and the manifold accessories of military environment, with all “the proud control of fierce and bloody war,”—the suggested presence and movement of large bodies of infantry and cavalry; the denoted passage of heavy artillery; the stirring sounds of martial music and of desperate battle; the red glare and dun smoke-pall of conflagration, and the various employment and manipulation of light and darkness to illustrate and intensify the dramatic theme,—were extraordinarily deft in devisement and felicitous in effect. Belasco was also peculiarly fortunate in selection of the actors who performed the principal parts in his play. The handsome person and picturesque, romantic mien of Maurice Barrymore, who appeared as Alan Kendrick, were perfectly consonant with that character; John E. Kellerd gave an impersonation of remarkable artistic merit—true to life and true to the part—as the despicable yet formidable scoundrel Thorpe, and Mrs. Carter, profiting richly by the zealous schooling of her mentor, embodied Maryland Calvert at first in a mood of piquant playfulness, veiling serious feeling, then with genuine, wild and intense passion. This was the cast in full of the performance at the Herald Square Theatre:
| General Hugh Kendrick | Frank Mordaunt. |
| Colonel Alan Kendrick | Maurice Barrymore. |
| Colonel Fulton Thorpe | John E. Kellerd. |
| Lieutenant Robert Telfair | Cyril Scott. |
| Provost Sergeant Blount | Odell Williams. |
| Tom Boone | Henry Weaver, Jr. |
| Lloyd Calvert | Edward J. Morgan. |
| The Sexton | John W. Jennings. |
| Uncle Dan’l | Scott Cooper |
| Captain Leighton | A. Pearson. |
| Captain Blair | A. C. Mora. |
| Lieutenant Hayne | W. H. Foy. |
| Aides-de-Camp to General Kendrick— | Frank Stanwick. |
| Robert McIntyre. | |
| William Johnson. | |
| Corporal Day | Edwin Meyer. |
| Corporal | H. E. Bostwick. |
| Bludsoe | Edwin F. Mayo. |
| Little True Blue | “Johnny” McKeever. |
| O’Hara | J. H. Hazelton. |
| Ruggles | Thomas Matlock. |
| Forbes | Joseph Maxwell. |
| Phil | Joseph A. Webber. |
| Sentry | E. J. Boyce. |
| Scout | C. H. Robertson. |
| Mrs. Clairborne Gordon | Helen Tracy. |
| Maryland Calvert | Mrs. Leslie Carter. |
| Phœbe Yancey | Georgie Busby. |
| Nanny McNair | Angela McCall. |
Popular approval of the representation was immediate and bounteous and there was little critical cavilling in the press. On the first night in New York, after the Third Act, the audience many times called the entire company before the curtain and, at last, Belasco, in an obviously painful state of nervous excitement, responding to vociferous demands, made a brief and grateful speech, in the course of which he said:
“It is very difficult for me to speak, to thank you. Your kind and generous approval to-night means so very, very much to Mrs. Carter and all the splendid company that has worked so loyally for the success of this play. It means more to me than any words of mine can say. This production to-night is the culmination of twenty-five years of work; of hard, hard work and often bitter disappointment. I have been a supernumerary, a call boy, an actor, a stage manager for others, an adapter of plays: now I am encouraged to hope I have proved myself a dramatist.... It is many long years since I first dreamed of an independent success in New York—a success I might keep in my own hands. If this is at last the turning of the tide that leads on to fortune, I shall never forget my debt to you: I shall strive, as long as I live, to give you, to give the people of this great and wonderful city, not only the best there is in me but the very best the Theatre can give. Thank you from my heart! I thank you—I thank you!”