Photograph by Bradley & Rulofson, San Francisco.
Original loaned by Mrs. David Belasco.
| PART. | PLAY. |
| (A) |
| Alfred Evelyn | “Money.” |
| Antonio | “The Merchant of Venice.” |
| Apothecary | “Romeo and Juliet.” |
| Archibald Carlyle | “East Lynne.” |
| Armand Duval | “Camille.” |
| Avica, the Spirit of Avarice | “A Storm of Thoughts.” |
| (B) |
| Baldwin | “Ireland and America.” |
| Benvolio | “Romeo and Juliet.” |
| Bernardo | “Hamlet.” |
| Biondello | “Katharine and Petruchio.” |
| Black Donald | “The Hidden Hand.” |
| Bleeding Sergeant | “Macbeth.” |
| Bloater | “Maum Cre.” |
| Bob | “The Black Hand.” |
| Bob Brierly | “The Ticket-of-Leave Man.” |
| Bob Rackett | “Help.” |
| Box | “Box and Cox.” |
| Buddicombe | “Our American Cousin.” |
| Butler | “Man and Wife.” |
| (C) |
| Captain Blenham | “The Rough Diamond.” |
| Captain Crosstree | “Black-Ey’d Susan.” |
| Charles Oakley | “The Jealous Wife.” |
| Château-Renaud | “The Corsican Brothers.” |
| Claude Melnotte | “The Lady of Lyons.” |
| Clifford | “The Hunchback.” |
| Colonel Dent | “The Governess.” |
| Conner O’Kennedy | “Green Bushes.” |
| Cool | “London Assurance.” |
| Cox | “Box and Cox.” |
| Craven Lenoir | “The Hidden Hand.” |
| (D) |
| Dan | “The Streets of New York.” |
| Danny Mann | “The Colleen Bawn.” |
| Darley | “Dark Deeds.” |
| Dauphin | “King Louis XI.” |
| De Mauprat | “Richelieu.” |
| DeWilt | “Under the Gas-Light.” |
| Dickory | “The Spectre Bridegroom.” |
| Doctor of Hospital | “The Two Orphans.” |
| Dolly Spanker | “London Assurance.” |
| Don Cæsar | “Donna Diana.” |
| Duke of Burgundy | “King Lear.” |
| (E) |
| Earl of Oxford | “King Richard III.” |
| (F) |
| Fagin | “Oliver Twist.” |
| First Citizen | “Julius Cæsar.” |
| First Dwarf | “Rip Van Winkle.” |
| First Fury | “Pluto.” |
| First Grave-Digger | “Hamlet.” |
| First Officer | “Macbeth.” |
| First Policeman | “Little Don Giovanni.” |
| Fournechet, Minister of Finance | “A Life’s Revenge.” |
| Francesco | “Hamlet.” |
| Frank Breezly | “Katy.” |
| Friar Lawrence | “Romeo and Juliet.” |
| Furnace, the Cook | “A New Way to Pay Old Debts.” |
| (G) |
| Galeas | “The Enchantress.” |
| Gaspard | “The Lady of Lyons.” |
| Gaston | “Camille.” |
| Genius of the Ring | “The Wonderful Scamp, or Aladdin No. 2.” |
| George Sheldon | “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” |
| Gilbert Gates | “The Dawn of Freedom.” |
| Gringoire | “The Ballad Monger.” |
| Guildenstern | “Hamlet.” |
| Gyp | “Saratoga.” |
| (H) |
| Hamlet | “Hamlet.” |
| Harvey | “Out at Sea.” |
| Heinrich Vedder | “Rip Van Winkle.” |
| Hon. Bob Penley | “Fritz in a Madhouse.” |
| (I) |
| Idiot, the | “The Idiot of the Mountain.” |
| (J) |
| James Callin | “Across the Continent.” (Prologue.) |
| Jasper Pidgeon | “Meg’s Diversion.” |
| Job Armroyd | “Lost in London.” |
| John O’Bibs | “The Long Strike.” |
| Johnson | “The Lancashire Lass.” |
| Joseph Surface | “The School for Scandal.” |
| (K) |
| King Louis the Eleventh | “King Louis XI.” |
| (L) |
| Laertes | “Hamlet.” |
| Lawyer Marks | “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” |
| Lawyer Tripper | “Solon Shingle” (“The People’s Lawyer.”) |
| Lieutenant | “Don Cæsar de Bazan.” |
| Lieutenant Victor | “The Lion of Nubia.” |
| Le Beau | “As You Like It.” |
| Lorenzo | “The Wife.” |
| Louis | “One Hundred Years Old.” |
| (M) |
| Maffeo Orsini | “Lucretia Borgia.” |
| Major Hershner | “Twice Saved.” |
| Malcolm | “Macbeth.” |
| Mandeville | “The Young Widow.” |
| Marc Antony | “Julius Cæsar.” |
| Marco | “The Wife.” |
| Mark | “The Prodigal’s Return.” |
| Mark Meddle | “London Assurance.” |
| Marquis | “The Pearl of Savoy.” |
| Master Walter | “The Hunchback.” |
| Mateo, the Landlord | “The Beauty and the Brigands.” |
| Melter Moss | “The Ticket-of-Leave Man.” |
| Mercutio | “Romeo and Juliet.” |
| Mr. Ellingham | “Hearts of Oak.” |
| Mr. Honeyton | “A Happy Pair.” |
| Mr. Trimeo | “The Mysterious Inn.” |
| Mr. Toodle | “The Toodles.” |
| Mrs. Cornelia | “East Lynne.” |
| Mrs. Willoughby | “The Ticket-of-Leave Man.” |
| Modus | “The Hunchback.” |
| Mons. Deschapelles | “The Lady of Lyons.” |
| Moses | “The School for Scandal.” |
| Mother Frochard | “The Two Orphans.” |
| (N) |
| Nathan | “Leah the Forsaken.” |
Nick o’ the Woods(the Jibbenainosay,
The Avenger, Reginald
Ashburn, Bloody Nathan, and The
Spirit of The Water) | “The Jibbenainosay.” |
| Nick Vedder | “Rip Van Winkle.” |
| Nurse | “Romeo and Juliet.” |
| (O) |
| Our Guest | “Our Mysterious Boarding House.” |
| (P) |
| Pablo, the Harpist | “Across the Continent.” |
| Page | “Mary Stuart.” |
| Paris | “Romeo and Juliet.” |
| Pedro | “A Yankee in Cuba.” |
| Peter | “Deborah.” |
| Peter Bowbells | “The Illustrious Stranger.” |
| Peter True | “The Statue Lover.” |
| Peter White | “Mr. and Mrs. Peter White.” |
| Phil Bouncer | “The Persecuted Traveller.” |
| Philip Ray | “Enoch Arden.” |
| Pierre | “Robert Macaire.” |
| Pietre | “The Enchantress.” (Prologue.) |
| Player Queen | “Hamlet.” |
| Polonius | “Hamlet.” |
| Polydor | “Ingomar.” |
| Prince Saucilita | “The Gold Demon.” |
| Pumpernickel | “The Child of the Regiment.” |
| (Q) |
| Queen Gertrude | “Hamlet.” |
| (R) |
| Ralph | “The Lighthouse Cliff.” |
| Raphael (and Phidias) “The Marble Heart.” |
| Ratcliff | “King Richard III.” |
| Reuben | “Schermerhorn’s Boy.” |
| Richard Hare | “East Lynne.” |
| Richmond | “King Richard III.” |
| Robert Landry | “The Dead Heart.” |
| Robert Macaire | “Robert Macaire.” |
| Rory O’More | “Rory O’More.” |
| Rosencrantz | “Hamlet.” |
| Ruby Darrell | “Hearts of Oak.” |
| Rudolph | “Leah the Forsaken.” |
| Rudolphe | “Agnes.” |
| (S) |
| Salanio | “The Merchant of Venice.” |
| Sambo | “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” |
| Santo | “Gaspardo.” |
| Secretary | “Richelieu.” |
| Second Player | “Hamlet.” |
| Selim | “The Forty Thieves.” |
| Signor Mateo | “The Miser’s Daughter.” |
| Simon Lullaby | “A Conjugal Lesson.” |
| Simon Legree | “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” |
| Simon, the Cobbler | “Marie Antoinette.” |
| Sir Francis Leveson | “East Lynne.” |
| Slave | “Pygmalion and Galatea.” |
| Spada | “The Woman in Red.” |
| Stuttering Tailor | “Katharine and Petruchio.” |
| Strale | “Checkmate.” |
| Sylvius | “As You Like It.” |
| (T) |
| Terry Dennison | “Hearts of Oak.” |
| The Destroyer | “The Haunted Man.” |
| Tim Bolus | “My Turn Next.” |
| Timothy Tubbs | “The Millionaire’s Daughter.” |
| Tony Lumpkin | “She Stoops to Conquer.” |
| Topsy | “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” |
| Trip | “The School for Scandal.” |
| Tubal | “The Merchant of Venice.” |
| (U) |
| Uncle Tom | “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” |
| (V) |
| Valentine | “Faust.” (Abridgment of). |
| Vasquez | “The Wonder.” |
| (W) |
| Waiter | “The Gamester.” |
| Waiter (Negro) | “Fritz in a Madhouse.” |
| (Y) |
| Young Marlowe | “She Stoops to Conquer.” |
Other plays in which Belasco has performed,—as I have ascertained from newspaper advertisements or notices and from miscellaneous records, without, however, finding specification of the parts in them which he acted,—include “A Bull in a China Shop,” “Damon and Pythias,” “The French Spy,” “A Hard Struggle,” “The Lone Pine,” “Mazeppa,” “Medea,” “Mimi,” “Nobody’s Child,” “Pizarro,” and “The Red Pocketbook.” I have no doubt that he made unrecorded and now unremembered appearances in many other plays besides these.
To the catalogue previously given of readings and recitations frequently employed by Belasco should be added “Tell Me Not in Mournful Numbers,” “The Maiden’s Prayer,” “Little Jim, the Collier’s Lad,” “Scenes from ’King Louis XI.,’” “Shamus O’Brien,” “The Little Hero,” “No One to Love Him,” “The Trial Scene, from ’The Merchant of Venice,’” “Selections from ’Oliver Twist’” (the scene on London Bridge, scene wherein Fagin causes Sikes to murder Nancy, and Fagin awaiting execution), “The Country Bumpkin’s Courtship,” “Eliza,” “The Dream of Eugene Aram,” and “Jim Bludso.”
BELASCO’S “THE STORY OF MY LIFE.”
In making a critical examination of Belasco’s “The Story of My Life,”—a document which, of course, it has been necessary for me to consult in writing this Memoir,—I have observed many misstatements of fact in it, due to defective memory or to haste and heedlessness in composition, and also the assertion of various erroneous notions and mistaken doctrines as to the art of acting, and as to the difference in the practice of that art between the customs of the present and the past. Turning to that “Story” in the expectation that it would prove helpful, I found only another specimen of the irresponsible writing which is deemed permissible relative to the Theatre, and viewing its formidable array of misstatements I have ruefully recalled the remark of Artemus Ward that “it is better not to know so many things than to know so many things that ain’t so.” Some of its errors I have specified and rectified, in other places, in the course of this narrative. Others of its errors and some of its errant notions and doctrines require passing reference here.
Belasco records that he early observed and condemned “the incongruity between the stage way of doing things and the way of life itself,”—the implication being that, in acting, actual life should be literally copied. That is an error. There always is, and from the nature of things always will be, a certain incongruity between actual life and an artistic transcript of it. A literal copy of actual life shown on the stage does not usually cause the effect of actual life: it causes the effect of prolixity and tediousness. Belasco lays much stress on his early and sedulous practice of making himself acquainted, by observation, with all sorts of grewsome facts, assuring his readers that he visited lunatic asylums in order to study madness; talked with condemned murderers immediately prior to their execution and later witnessed the hanging of them; observed the effects of surgical operations performed in hospitals; contemplated deaths occurring there as the result of violence elsewhere; obtained from a friendly, communicative physician knowledge of the manner of death which ensues from the action of several sorts of poison, and was favored, in a dissecting room, with a view of a human heart which had just been extracted from a corpse,—his purpose in this line of inquiry having been to ascertain the multifarious manners in which persons suffer and die, and thus to qualify himself, as actor and stage manager, to imitate them himself or instruct others in the imitation of them. His notion, obviously, is that the actor ought to be acquainted with these things, and, when depicting death, should correctly and literally simulate the particular variety of the throes of dissolution which is appropriate as a climax to the mortal ailment or lethal stroke that destroys him.
All this is well enough in its way, but it is only a little part of the knowledge required by the actor, and a special objection to Belasco’s way of introducing it is the implication that such minute preparation was peculiar and original with him. The doctrine of “realism” is often oppugnant to dramatic art, and an extreme adherence to it has been a primary cause of whatever is defective in Belasco’s dramatic work. “Surely,” he exclaims, “people do not die as quietly as they do upon the stage.” It all depends on the “people” and the circumstances, whether on the stage or off. Death, in fact, sometimes comes so gently that its coming is not perceived. On the other hand, “people” do not always die quietly on the stage. Edwin Forrest, as the dying Hamlet, made a prodigious pother in his expiration and was a long time about it, and he maintained that a man of his size and massive physique could not die from poison without manifestation of extreme agony. I many times saw that muscular Hamlet die, and the spectacle, while