company at the time], and with a character for me similar to Henry Beauclerc, in ’Diplomacy.’ Another ’Diplomacy’ would carry us over.” Belasco had no original play in mind at that time and Wallack had no definite suggestion to make, beyond his wish for something similar to “Diplomacy,”—which he had produced, for the first time in America and with great success, at Wallack’s Theatre (the Thirteenth Street house), April 1, 1878. The result of several long conferences between manager and playwright was, accordingly, that a new version of Sardou’s “Fernande” (which had been first produced in America, at the Dalys’ Fifth Avenue Theatre, June 7, 1870, with Daniel H. Harkins, George Clarke, and Agnes Ethel in the chief parts) would be the most auspicious venture. On this play, accordingly, Belasco began to work. “I had no home in those days,” he told me, “except a small hall bedroom at No. 43 West Twenty-fourth Street, and no proper place in which to write. I used to do much of my work in the public writing-room of the old Fifth Avenue Hotel [which stood at the northwest corner of Twenty-third Street and Broadway], but I wanted to be near Wallack, because frequent consultations were necessary, in order that I might meet his requirements and fit his company, and so I asked him if he couldn’t give me some place in his theatre where I might work conveniently. He very courteously and greatly to my delight opened his own library to me, in his house ’round the corner [Wallack dwelt in a house on the north side of West Thirtieth Street, No. 13, adjoining his theatre], and there I made my version of ’Fernande’ and, practically, lived till it was done.”
That version, called “Valerie,” was completed within four weeks, and it was produced at Wallack’s Theatre on February 15, 1886. Wallack, instead of buying the refashioned play outright from Belasco, as was the usual custom of the time, agreed to pay him the handsome royalty of $250 a week, as long as it held his stage,—the adapter, moreover, being privileged to present it outside of New York. “Valerie,” while serviceable in a theatrical way, is not a thoroughly good play, and it is distinctly inferior to the earlier version, by Hart Jackson,—as, indeed, could scarcely be otherwise, since Belasco had worked under the disadvantage of being required to make a new play on the basis of an old one, then still current, in which the best possible use of the material implicated had already been made. In the building of “Valerie,” which is comprised in three acts, reliance was placed in whatever of freshness could be imparted to the method of treatment,—and that was not much. The scene of the action was shifted from France to England. The foreground of the life of Fernande, appearing under the name of Valerie, was omitted. The names of the other characters were also changed. The First Act deals largely with preparation and is devoted mainly to a somewhat preposterous scene in which the evil agent of the drama, Helena, allures her lover, Sir Everard Challoner, by a false confession that she is tired of him, to make a true confession not only that he is tired of her but that he loves another woman. Challoner is represented as of a noble English family and of a singularly ingenuous mind. He states that the woman whom he loves is a young stranger whom he has casually encountered, leaning against a post, in the street, in a condition of faintness, and the deceptive Helena thereupon proffers her services to discover the unknown object of his sudden affection. She has rescued a vagrant female from the streets, and it turns out that this waif is the interesting stranger for whom they are to seek. In the Second Act the malignant Helena exults in the marriage of her former lover to a woman whom she believes to be a demirep. That is to consummate her revenge for having been discarded by Challoner, but when she is about to overwhelm him with the declaration that he has wedded an outcast, Walter, the good genius of the story, forcibly compels her sudden retirement behind a velvet curtain. This is the “strong situation” of the drama. In the Third Act this evil woman’s scheme of vengeance, which she endeavors to push to a completion, is finally discomfited by the vindication of the girl, Valerie, and a happy climax crowns an incredible fiction.
The play is long and portions of it are tedious. The dialogue is generally commonplace. Two strikingly original lines, however, attracted my attention: “Love at first sight, you know,” and “this is the happiest day of my life!” The postulate illustrated is kindred with that of Congreve’s well-known (and almost invariably misquoted) couplet,
“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”
That theme may, perhaps, be interesting. It seemed to interest auditors at Wallack’s, but the manifestations of approval were probably due to the manner in which the play was acted rather than to its intrinsic appeal. Annie Robe appeared as Valerie. There was in the personality of that actress a certain muscular vigor incompatible with the ideal of a sweet, fragile girl, intended in the original scheme of Sardou and suggested in its paraphrase, but Miss Robe’s performance evinced a fine, woman-like intuition and it was suffused with touching sincerity. Wallack, as Walter, had to personate a character which, for him, was of trifling moment,—the poised, self-possessed man of the world, at home amid difficulties and always master of the situation. The kindness of his nature shone through his embodiment and the grace of his action made it delightful. In Wallack’s acting there was that delicate suggestion of great knowledge of human nature and of the world which can be expressed only by those who have had ample experience of life, and also there was the denotement of a nature which had been sweetened, not embittered, by the trials through which it had passed. Kyrle Bellew acted with simple dignity in situations which sometimes were of such an irrational character as might well perplex or baffle the art of the most accomplished comedian. His performance was much and justly admired. Sophie Eyre, who assumed the affronted female, pursued her baleful purpose with surpassing energy, much breadth of treatment, and frequently fine theatrical effect: but her performance excelled in force rather than in refinement.
This is the complete cast of the play as acted at Wallack’s Theatre:
| Sir Everard Challoner | Kyrle Bellew. |
| Mons. Xavier | Henry Edwards. |
| Hon. George Alfred Bettly | Ivan Shirley. |
| Dr. Rushton | Daniel Leeson. |
| Roberts | John Germon. |
| Jameson | S. Du Bois. |
| Helena Malcom | Sophie Eyre. |
| Valerie de Brian | Annie Robe. |
| Lady Bettly | Mme. Ponisi. |
| Julia Trevillian | Helen Russell. |
| Agnes | Kate Bartlett. |
| Walter Trevillian | Lester Wallack. |
Such merit as “Valerie” contains was derived from the French original. It is a piece of journeyman work, undertaken as such, and as such well enough done. Wallack seems to have been conscious of its defects: in a letter of his to Belasco, which the latter has carefully preserved, he says:
(Lester Wallack to David Belasco.)
“13, West Thirtieth Street,
“[New York] December 31, [1885.]
“Dear Mr. Belasco:—