The play of “Baron Rudolph” (or “Rudolph,” as, finally, it was denominated) is not a distinctive or important one, but it contains, chiefly as the result of Belasco’s revision (it was earlier acted in New York, as Howard left it, so this statement rests on direct comparison), effective elements of comedy and some amusing incidents and fluent dialogue. Knight was a competent comedian,—nothing more: he lacked personal magnetism, delicacy, and the rare and precious faculty of taste.
The story of the play is trite and it is artificial; it belongs to the category typified by “Struck Oil,” in which James C. Williamson and his wife, “Maggie” Moore, were widely successful, many years ago, gaining a fortune with it. It depicts the vicissitudes and sufferings of a kind and loving, though weak and imprudent man, Rudolph, and of his wife and child. Rudolph, who has been prosperous, is pitifully poor, and his wife and their child are on the verge of starvation. The husband returns, slightly intoxicated, to their squalid abode, and the wife, stung to bitter resentment, leaves him, taking their child, and intent to earn a living by her own labor. In this purpose she succeeds, and after an interval of about two years she obtains a divorce from Rudolph,—who, meantime, has become a gin-sodden “tramp,” abject and wretched,—and she weds a swindling scoundrel, the secret agent of Rudolph’s ruin. That specious villain is detected, apprehended, and exposed as a forger, in the moment of the wretched Rudolph’s accession to a fortune and a baronetcy, in Germany, and then a scene of recognition and reconciliation ensues,—containing possibilities of pathetic effect,—between the wretched father, “only a tramp,” and his daughter. This story is jumbled with the wooing of a sprightly widow, named Nellie Dashwood, a sort of Mrs. General Gilflory (in “The Mighty Dollar”); an attempted burglary; a secondary story about two very young lovers, and a tedious tangle of literal detail and “outward flourishes.”
Persons who care to observe how disruption wrought by poverty, suffering, and weakness, in the home of an affectionate husband, wife and child, can be treated with poignant dramatic effect should study the old play of “Belphegor; or, The Mountebank,”—in which, as Belphegor, Charles Dillon gave one of the most beautiful and touching performances it has ever been my fortune to see. The triumphant use of such material can also be studied in the late Charles Klein’s “The Music Master,” as augmented, rectified, and produced by Belasco, with David Warfield in its central part, Herr von Barwig. When revived, as altered and amended by Belasco, “Rudolph” was handsomely set on the stage, but Knight’s method of dressing and acting the principal part ruined any chance of success which it might have had.
Knight became infatuated with the part of the Tramp, and he produced “Rudolph,” for the first time, in the Fall of 1886, at the Academy of Music, Cleveland. In 1887 Howard rewrote the play—receiving, as I understood, $3,000 for doing so,—and it was then produced at Hull, England, with Knight and his wife as stars, supported by members of Wilson Barrett’s company, from the Princess’ Theatre, London. In its revised form it was called “Baron Rudolph.” Knight was still dissatisfied with the structure of it, and, returning to America, desired that Howard should again revise it, but this Howard was unable to do, being preoccupied with labor on “The Henrietta,” for Robson and Crane (that play was produced for the first time at the Union Square Theatre, September 26, 1887), but, at his request, Belasco undertook a second revision. “My object,” he said, “was to do the work as nearly as possible in Howard’s way, and I must have succeeded pretty well, because when I took the script to him he said: ’You’ve caught my style, exactly!’ And he would not allow the piece to be produced as ’By Bronson Howard’; he insisted that I should have public credit as a co-author.” In its final form it bore Howard’s second title, “Baron Rudolph,” and, under the direction of Charles Frohman, representing Knight, and the stage management of Belasco, it was produced at the Fourteenth Street Theatre, New York, on October 24, 1887. “There was the chance for an immense popular success and a fortune in the piece,” Belasco said to me, “but Knight threw it all away. He insisted on making-up’ Rudolph, the tramp, in such a literal, dirty, repulsive manner that, in the recognition scene where the girl learns he is her father and has to embrace and kiss him, the audience, instead of being sympathetic, was disgusted. We argued and entreated with Knight: I told him, over and over and over, what would happen. But he couldn’t, or he wouldn’t, see it—and it happened!” The play failed, utterly; it was kept on the stage for four weeks and then withdrawn. Knight, first and last, lost a modest fortune on that play, and its ultimate failure broke him down. He and his wife went on a tour, after ending their engagement at the Fourteenth Street Theatre, in an early success of theirs, a farce called “Over the Garden Wall,” but Knight’s brain was affected; within a few months he suffered a shock of paralysis, and, on July 14, 1892, after much suffering, he died, in Philadelphia. During his illness he was maintained and cared for, with exemplary devotion, by his wife.
This was the cast of “Baron Rudolph,” at the Fourteenth Street Theatre:
| Rudolph | George S. Knight. |
| Whetworth | Frank Carlyle. |
| Rhoda | Carrie Turner. |
| Owen | Lin Hurst. |
| Sheriff | Frank Colfax. |
| Ernestine | Jane Stuart. |
| General Metcalf | Charles Bowser. |
| Judge Merrybone | M. A. Kennedy. |
| Geoffrey Brown | Henry Woodruff. |
| Allen | George D. Fawcett. |
| Nellie Dashwood | Mrs. George S. Knight. |
“THE WIFE.”
When, in the preceding May, “The Highest Bidder” had been successfully launched, Daniel Frohman, intending the establishment of a permanent stock company at the Lyceum Theatre, began, with Belasco, consideration of plays that might be suitable for production, in the next season, and of actors whom it might prove expedient and feasible to engage for the projected company. No play that seemed to them suitable was found, and Mr. Frohman presently suggested that Belasco should write one. Belasco, somewhat unwillingly,—because of the responsibility involved,—agreed to do so; but while in conference with Mr. Frohman Henry De Mille chanced to enter the office where they were, and the manager, conscious of Belasco’s hesitancy, suggested that he should undertake the new play in collaboration with De Mille. To this Belasco eagerly agreed, and that was the beginning of a long and agreeable association. The co-workers soon repaired to De Mille’s summer home, at Echo Lake, and began work on a play which at first they called “The Marriage Tie,” but which eventually was named “The Wife,”—not a felicitous choice of title, because it had been several times previously used, and, in particular, has long been identified with the excellent comedy of that name by James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862), first produced in 1833, at Covent Garden, London, and throughout many years by various stars or stock companies in our Theatre. Belasco has written the following account of the manner in which their play of “The Wife” was constructed by De Mille and himself:
“A COMMON-SENSE HUSBAND.”
“At last, after many plots were cast aside, I hit upon an idea. In my varied experience as dramatist and stage manager I had produced many so-called society plays in which the wife was either guilty of unfaithfulness or had committed an indiscretion. In the ’big’ scene it was the conventional thing for the husband to enter the room at midnight, and say to the woman: ’Of course, after all that has happened, I must get a divorce.’ Then he threw legal documents on the desk, and said: ’Here are the deeds to the house. All necessary provisions have been made for you and the child. But for the sake of society, etc., etc., we will continue to dwell under the same roof for a while.’