“OLIVIA” AND “PROOF POSITIVE.”
On July 8 a revival was effected at the Baldwin of Boucicault’s “The Octoroon,” “re-touched and re-arranged” by Belasco. This, and a double bill, comprising Byron’s “Dearer Than Life” and “The Post of Honor,”—brought out on August 5,—filled the summer season, and on September 2 Belasco’s play in five acts entitled “Olivia,”—the first dramatization of Goldsmith’s “The Vicar of Wakefield” to be acted in California,—was produced with the following notable cast:
| Dr. Primrose | A. D. Bradley. |
| Squire Thornhill | Lewis Morrison. |
| Mr. Burchell | James O’Neill. |
| Moses | William Seymour. |
| George | Forrest Robinson. |
| Jenkinson | C. B. Bishop. |
| Olivia | Rose Wood. |
| Sophia | Jean Burnside. |
| Mrs. Primrose | Mrs. Farren. |
| Arabella Wilmot | Belle Chapman. |
Belasco’s dramatic epitome adhered to Goldsmith’s story as closely as is feasible for stage purposes; it was an effective play, it was admirably set upon the stage and acted, and it gained substantial success. “Those were strenuous times for me,” he writes; “every one was thrusting duties on me then which, as I was always a glutton for work, I grasped as opportunities. One lesson I learned at the Baldwin which I have never forgotten—that one of the greatest mistakes a man can make is the mistake of permitting anybody else to do his work for him. I wrote ’Olivia’ between times, as it were, and I was genuinely surprised by its success.”
After the run of “Olivia” J. C. Williamson and his wife, “Maggie” Moore, came to the Baldwin,—opening in “Struck Oil,”—and Belasco, while directing the stage for them, completed an alteration of Wills’ “A Woman of the People,”—which was brought forth October 14,—and a play, made at the request of Rose Wood, which he called “Proof Positive,” based on an old melodrama. This was produced on October 28, and in it James O’Neill gained a notable success in the character of an eccentric, semi-comic Jew.
BELASCO’S VERSION OF “NOT GUILTY.”
Clara Morris made her first appearance in San Francisco at the Baldwin, November 4, as Miss Multon, and continued to act there for about eight weeks. During that time Belasco was able to bestow some attention and labor on an original play of his called “The Lone Pine,” in which he had acted at Sacramento and a few other “interior places” during a brief starring venture, and which he desired entirely to rewrite. In December, however, he was compelled to lay aside that work and turn again to hack playwrighting for the Baldwin company. His election fell on Watts Phillips’ old spectacle play of “Not Guilty,” which he altered and adapted in less than one week. It was announced as “The Grand Production of the Magnificent Musical, Military, Dramatic, and Spectacular (sic) Christmas Piece, which has been given for eight successive Christmas seasons in Philadelphia,” and it was produced for the first time at the Baldwin on December 24, 1878. This was the cast:
| Robert Arnold | James O’Neill. |
| Silas Jarrett | Lewis Morrison. |
| Jack Snipe | C. B. Bishop. |
| Isaac Vider | J. W. Jennings. |
| Joe Triggs | James A. Herne. |
| Trumble | A. D. Bradley. |
| St. Clair | Forrest Robinson. |
| Lal Singh | William Seymour. |
| Sergeant Wattles | John N. Long. |
| Polecat | King Hedley. |
| Alice Armitage | Rose Wood. |
| Polly Dobbs | May Hart. |
All the work of adaptation and stage management was done by Belasco—and for it he received the munificent payment of $12.50 a performance. Recalling the production, he writes: “A ’stock dramatist’ at that time was obliged to do his work on short notice, and it was taken as a matter of course that I should get a play ready for rehearsal in less than a week, and put it on in less than another week. ’Not Guilty’ was very spectacular (sic), and with my customary leaning to warfare I introduced a Battle Scene, with several hundred people in an embarkation, as well as horses and cannon. This embarkation alone used to take ten minutes. It has all been done in many plays since—the booming of guns, the padding of the horses’ hoofs on earth and stone, the moving crowds in sight and larger ones suggested, beyond the range of vision,—but this was the original, and it was wonderfully effective, if I do say it myself.” Belasco’s view agrees with that recorded by all competent observers of the time—one of the most conservative of whom wrote, in “The San Francisco Evening Bulletin,” that “the Battle Scene, in the Fourth Act, was about the most realistic ever produced on the stage.” An operatic chorus of more than eighty voices was employed and “The Cameron Cadets”—a local military organization—participated “in full Highland costume.”