“THE CHARITY BALL.”
With regard to the question as to what subjects are best suited for treatment in the Drama, Belasco, writing (February 9, 1909) to Mr. William Bullock, relative to the plays of the late J. M. Synge, made this significant statement: “I think that domestic life offers more possibilities to the playwright than any other theme.”
Those possibilities (as he understands them), which he has utilized in several plays, are specially exemplified in “The Charity Ball,”—so named because its purpose is to inculcate the virtue of taking a charitable view of human infirmity, and also because one important scene of it occurs at a ball given for charity, in the New York Metropolitan Opera House. It rightfully ranks among the best existent dramas of its didactic and benevolent class.
The principal characters in “The Charity Ball” are the Rev. John van Buren, his brother, Dick van Buren, Ann Cruger, and Phyllis Lee. The Rev. John is Rector of a fashionable church, in New York, while Dick is a Wall Street stock gambler, a person of exceptional ability, naturally amiable, but weak in character, self-indulgent, and wild; he is harassed by business cares and is breaking under the strain of his speculative pursuits. Dick has seduced Phyllis Lee, an orphan, and, though he is represented as being truly fond of her, has discarded her, with the purpose of marrying Ann Cruger, who is an heiress. Ann Cruger, secretly, is enamoured of the Rev. John. The Rector befriends Phyllis, not, however, being aware of her misfortune and miserable plight as the victim of his brother’s duplicity, and the parson soon succumbs to her charms, fancies himself in love with her, and becomes a wooer. His method of courtship is indirect. Being inscrutably,—and impossibly,—blind to the amorous attachment of Ann Cruger, he seeks the aid of that lady to win for him the love of Phyllis. Then occurs the gay scene of the Charity Ball, in the course of which a painful interview happens between Phyllis and Dick van Buren, supplemented by Phyllis’s revelation to Ann Cruger of her relation to Dick, his admission to Ann of his misconduct, and her offer to Phyllis of an asylum in her own home.
The wretched Phyllis, immediately after the ball, distracted by her sense of shame and degradation, speeds through night and storm to her benefactor, the compassionate clergyman, finds him in his study, and, appealing to him as a Christian minister, tells him her sad story and supplicates for any word of comfort. The arrival of Ann Cruger, who has followed her, prevents the disclosure of her seducer’s name. The clergyman, however, surmises the truth, and when his brother Dick returns home denounces his iniquity, implores him to make the only possible reparation, and finally induces that selfish sinner,—whose conduct has been that of a blackguard, soften it how you may,—to wed the girl whom he has wronged. A midnight marriage then ensues, the Rev. John uniting in holy matrimony his dissolute brother and the woman whom, in his blindness, he has himself wished to wed. This scene is crowded with interest, incident, character, feeling, suspense, and dramatic effect. Later, Dick van Buren has died, the Rector has discovered that he loves Ann Cruger and that she loves him (and not another, as for a time he feared), and general felicity prevails.
The surge of deep feeling in this play is sometimes effectively commingled with playful levity: its pivotal scene contains a strong, vital, emotional appeal. Under Belasco’s expert direction it was richly set on the Lyceum stage and it was acted with exceptional felicity and force. Nelson Wheatcroft played the libertine, Dick van Buren, in a way to make him credible and somewhat to redeem the cruel turpitude of his conduct. Herbert Kelcey was duly grave, gentle, manly, and eloquent as the Rector. Effie Shannon, as Bess, the clergyman’s sister, with her sweet face and agile figure, enlivened the representation by her effervescence of girlish frolic. Grace Henderson,—much commended as the Effie Deans of this play,—gave an admirable personation of weak, bewitching womanhood. The persistent choice of a singularly beautiful and engaging woman for assumption of persons to be abandoned was again mysteriously exemplified in the casting of this actress for Phyllis. “The Charity Ball” was first produced at the Lyceum, before a representative and cordial audience, on November 19, 1888, and it had 200 consecutive performances there. As originally produced the play was thus cast:
| Rev. John van Buren | Herbert Kelcey. |
| Dick van Buren | Nelson Wheatcroft. |
| Judge Peter | William J. LeMoyne. |
| Franklin Cruger | Charles Walcot. |
| Mr. Creighton | Harry Allen. |
| Alec Robinson | Fritz Williams. |
| Mr. Betts | R. J. Dustan. |
| Paxton | Walter Clark Bellows. |
| Cain | Ada Terry Madison. |
| Jasper | Percy West. |
| Ann Cruger | Georgia Cayvan. |
| Phyllis Lee | Grace Henderson. |
| Bess van Buren | Effie Shannon. |
| Mrs. Camilla de Peyster | Mrs. Charles Walcot. |
| Mrs. van Buren | Mrs. Thomas Whiffen. |
| Sophie | Millie Dowling. |
MRS. LESLIE CARTER.
Belasco’s association with Mrs. Leslie Carter began in 1889 and continued till 1906. In some ways it proved advantageous, but considerably more so to her than to him. The maiden name of that singularly eccentric woman,—a compound of many opposed qualities, sense and folly, sensibility and hardness, intelligence and dulness, an affectionate disposition and an imperious temper,—was Caroline Louise Dudley. She is, I understood from herself, of Scotch descent. She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, June 10, 186(4?). In youth she was deemed remarkable for something bizarre and alluring in her appearance, one special feature of which was her copious, resplendent hair, of the color that is called Titian red. When very young she became the wife (May 26, 1880) of Mr. Leslie Carter, of Chicago. The marriage proved unhappy, and in 1889 her husband obtained a divorce from her in that city. Comment on this case of domestic infelicity is not essential here. Mr. Carter was legally adjudged to be in the right and Mrs. Carter to be in the wrong. Society, knowing them both, sided with him and was bitterly condemnatory of her. She had few friends and very slight pecuniary resources. She was confronted with the necessity of earning a living, and she determined to adopt the vocation of the Stage. She had participated in private theatricals, as so many other young women in kindred circumstances have done before emerging in the Theatre, but she possessed no training for it. She had heard of Belasco’s repute as an histrionic instructor, and proceeding with better (or perhaps only more fortunate) judgment than she had ever before or has ever since displayed, she sought an introduction to him for the purpose of obtaining his assistance as a teacher. That introduction she procured through Edward G. Gillmore (18—-1905), then manager of the New York Academy of Music, and to Belasco she made known her position and her aspirations. How crude those aspirations were, and how indefinite her plans as to a stage career, can be conjectured from her response to the first inquiry he made,—whether she wished to act in tragedy or comedy. “I am a horsewoman,” she replied, “and I wish to make my first entrance on a horse, leaping over a hurdle.” No practical result attended that interview. Belasco, of course, observed the peculiarities of the impracticable novice and, perhaps, some glimmering indication of a talent in her which might be developed; but he was at that time preoccupied in collaboration with De Mille on “The Charity Ball,” and Mrs. Carter’s application was put aside and, by him, forgotten. She returned to Chicago, but she did not falter in her purpose. A little later, learning that Belasco had again secluded himself at Echo Lake (where, indeed, with De Mille, he had sought a secluded refuge in which to finish “The Charity Ball”), she again presented herself before him and besought him to become her teacher and to embark her on a dramatic career.