Belasco’s carelessness of statement is again illustrated in a remark made in his “Story” regarding contemporary conditions when Wallack’s career was ending: “New men,” he writes, “were on the horizon, public taste was changing, and lighter forms of entertainment were coming into vogue. Even Daly was meeting reverses and the Madison Square was going downhill.” It is regrettable that such an influential manager should fall into such errors and unintentionally contribute to the generally prevailing ignorance of theatrical history. I am again prompted to quote the old sage, Dr. Johnson, who remarks that “To be ignorant is painful, but it is dangerous to quiet our uneasiness by the delusive opiate of hasty persuasion.” At the time of which Belasco speaks (1886-’87) Daly was, in fact, on the crest of the wave of success, with “A Night Off,” “Nancy & Co.,” and revivals of the Old Comedies. In May, 1886, he took his company on a notably successful tour which, after nine weeks in London, embraced Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Dublin, and soon after his return to America he produced, in New
Photograph by Falk. Courtesy of Arthur Wallack, Esq.
LESTER WALLACK
Taken at about the time he produced Belasco’s “Valerie,”—1886
(The last picture ever made of Wallack)
York, for the first time in our country, “The Taming of the Shrew,” in which Ada Rehan gave her matchless personation of Katharine and which was the most successful of all his ventures in the second half of his great career, ending in 1899. The Madison Square, so far from “going downhill,” was just entering on a period of notable prosperity and influence, with Jones’s “Saints and Sinners,” Mansfield’s presentment of “Prince Karl,” which ran from May 3 to August 14, 1886; “Jim the Penman,” “Heart of Hearts,” etc. Palmer remained in management of the Madison Square till September, 1891.