about six years after Belasco met her. On September 6, 1882, at the Standard Theatre, New York, she produced a play called “A Daughter of the Nile,” written by herself, and appeared in it as a star. The principal person in it, a female named Egypt, is supposed to be of Egyptian origin: the subject, however, is American and modern. Miss Don never acted Cleopatra. She died, suddenly, at Greenwich, New York, February 10, 1886.
Sheridan’s engagement at the Baldwin terminated December 28, and the next night the well-known English melodrama of “The World,” by Paul Merritt, Henry Pettitt, and Augustus Harris, was performed there, for the first time in America. (Several years later, after Belasco had become established in New York, he was employed by Charles Frohman to make a revival of this play, which had been introduced to our Stage under his direction, in New Orleans.) On January 10, 1881, a drama called “The Eviction,” depicting some aspects of the landlord and tenant disturbances then rife in Ireland, was brought out and filled one week. On January 17 it was succeeded by a play called “Wedded by Fate,” the joint work of Edward Captain Field and Henry B. McDowell, son of General Irvin McDowell. The younger McDowell, possessed of wealth, proposed, through Belasco, to subsidize a production of their play in order to get it before the public, and Maguire, pressed for money, eagerly assented to that arrangement. Belasco, recalling the incident of bringing forth “Wedded by Fate” and the peculiarities of its principal author, writes thus:
“An instance of the casual devotee of the Theatre was young McDowell, son of the famous Union general. Our first interview was most amusing. I remember how he stutterred: ’I s-s-should l-l-like to b-be an a-a-a-actor,’ he said, with difficulty. He also, in common with many others, believed that he could write a successful play and agreed that if I produced something of his very own he would finance it and would guarantee a certain bonus. His first effort—I forget the name of it—cost him a trifle of a fortune, but inasmuch as it was a local play by a local author people flocked to see it. When I met him years afterwards in New York he was still obsessed by the theatrical bee, from which he never recovered. With Franklin Sargent he opened The Theatre of Arts and Letters and lost a fortune. If I had not been, at the time, under contract to the Lyceum Theatre I should have joined McDowell in that undertaking.”
The period from January to July, 1881, exhibits nothing of particular moment concerning Belasco, though, as usual, he was hard at work throughout it. “Wedded by Fate” gave place to a revival, February 1, of Daly’s version of “Leah the Forsaken,” made to introduce to the Stage a novice, Miss Clara Stuart, who paid for the privilege of appearing and whose money, like that of the extravagant McDowell, was welcome to the distressed Maguire. Beginning on February 9, George Darrell, an actor from Australia,—with whom Belasco had been associated in conjunction with Laura Alberta, at Grey’s Opera House, in 1873,—acted at the Baldwin for several weeks. During McDowell’s season and for several weeks subsequent thereto part of the Baldwin stock company performed in towns of the interior,—Belasco dividing his time between San Francisco, where he assisted Darrell, and the Baldwin company, “on the road.” Darrell opened in “Back from the Grave,” a play dealing with the important, neglected, and often misrepresented subject of spiritualism (that actor was, or, at least, bore the reputation of being, a hypnotist and a student of occult matters). This was followed on the 21st by “Four Fates,” and, on the 25th, by “Transported for Life.” John P. Smith and William A. Mestayer played at the Baldwin for three weeks, beginning April 11, in “The Tourists in a Pullman Palace Car”; Kate Claxton, supported by Charles Stevenson and making her first appearance in San Francisco, presented “The Two Orphans” there for two weeks, opening on May 9; and the company of Jarrett & Rice, in “Fun on the Bristol,” played there from May 30 to June 9, after which date the theatre was closed until July 4. It was then reopened, under the temporary management of J. H. Young, with A. D. Bradley as stage manager, and a few performances of “Emancipation” were given by The Pierreponts. Belasco, however, appears to have been occupied chiefly with his own affairs from April to July.
“LA BELLE RUSSE.”
Even before Belasco had been reinstalled as stage manager at the Baldwin Theatre he had resumed planning another campaign of adventure to gain acceptance and position in New York, and that purpose was ever present in his mind during the year that followed his return from the Eastern venture with the Hernes in “Hearts of Oak.” He had set his heart on a success in the leading theatre of the country, Wallack’s, and he resolutely addressed himself to its achievement. Maguire had come to depend more and more on Belasco, in the labor of keeping the Baldwin Theatre open and solvent, and to him the ambitious dramatist presently turned with his plans for a play to be called “La Belle Russe.” “I felt that I had a play which would suit Wallack’s company,” he said, “and that, if I could get some of his actors to appear in it, Wallack would soon hear of it, and the task of getting a New York hearing would be much simplified. Jeffreys-Lewis
| Photographs by Sarony. | Belasco’s Collection. | |
| MARY JEFFREYS-LEWIS | OSMOND TEARLE |