It was, indeed, “the turning of the tide.” “The Heart of Maryland” was played at the Herald Square Theatre for 229 consecutive performances, and it occupied a large part of Belasco’s time and attention during the period of about two years which followed its New York production.
The season ended at the Herald Square on May 16, 1896. From about that date until June 23 Mrs. Carter and Belasco underwent the painful ordeal incident to trial of his lawsuit against N. K. Fairbank,—which, as already recorded, terminated on the latter date with a verdict in favor of the manager. In the course of the next six weeks Belasco made a revision of Clay M. Greene’s “Under the Polar Star,” which was produced by William A. Brady, August 20, at the New York Academy of Music. On October 5, at the Broad Street, Philadelphia, the first tour of “The Heart of Maryland” was begun, under the personal direction of its author. That tour was everywhere amply successful and it
Photograph by Sarony. Belasco’s Collection.
MRS. LESLIE CARTER AS MARYLAND CALVERT, IN “THE HEART OF MARYLAND”.
lasted without special incident,—except that toward its close Belasco purchased (April, 1897) the interest of Mr. Max Bleiman in the production,—until the following May 1. The season was ended on that date at the Grand Opera House, New York, and Belasco soon afterward visited San Francisco. The third season of “The Heart of Maryland” began at the scene of so much of his early experience, the Baldwin Theatre, in that city, August 17, and continued in unabated prosperity for about seven months.
“THE FIRST BORN.”—A SUCCESS AND A FAILURE.
While Belasco was in San Francisco he witnessed several performances of a play called “The First Born,” written by Francis Powers, which had been produced, May 10, under the management of his brother, Frederick Belasco, at the Alcazar Theatre, and he was so favorably impressed with its merits that he arranged to present that drama,—which ran for ten weeks in San Francisco,—in New York, in association with Charles Frohman. That arrangement was successfully consummated, at the Manhattan (previously the Standard) Theatre, October 5, 1897. “The First Born” is a tragic sketch of character and life in the Chinese quarter of old San Francisco,—a region with which the acquaintance of Belasco was peculiarly intimate and exact and one of which the mingled squalor and romance had always strongly attracted him. The posture of circumstances and experience depicted in that play is simple and direct. Man Low Yek, a rich Chinese merchant, has stolen Chan Lee, the wife of Chan Wang, also a Chinese and a dweller in the Chinatown. That ravagement Wang has borne with equanimity; but when Chan Lee, returning to San Francisco with her paramour, entices Chan Toy, their first born and only son, from him and in her endeavor to steal the child accidentally causes his death, the unfortunate Wang becomes at first an image of agonized paternal love and then an embodiment of implacable vengeance. The play is in two acts. In the first, Chinatown is shown in the bright light and bustle of a busy noonday and against that setting is displayed the sudden bereavement and afflicting anguish of the father. In the second, an alley-end in the same district is shown, with a glimpse of contiguous gambling hells and opium dens, under the darkening shadows of evening. There the inexorable avenger lounges, leaning against a door post,—apparently an idler smoking his evening pipe and talking with a Chinese girl, who leans from a window; in fact, vigilantly observant of Man Low Yek, visible within a shop, and intent on slaying him. The alley grows dark and becomes deserted. The neighboring houses are illumined. The chink of money and the bickering chatter of unseen gamblers are heard. A police officer saunters by and disappears. Man Low Yek comes forth from his shop, closing it after him. Then, suddenly, as he passes, Wang, with fearful celerity, leaps upon him wielding a hatchet, strikes him down, drags the dead body into convenient concealment, and is back again at his former loitering place, outwardly placid, before the fire in his pipe has had time to become extinguished.