Photograph by White. Belasco’s Collection.

FRANCES STARR AS MARIE ODILE

Father Fisher Edward Donnelly.
Peter Frank Reicher.
Sergeant Otto Beck Henry Vogel.
Corp. Philip Meissner Uhlans Jerome Patrick.
Steinhauser in a Paul Stanley.
Hartmann Prussian Alphonse Ethier.
Horn Regiment. Edward Waldmann.
Mittendorf Charles W. Kaufman.
Schramm Robert Robson.
Sisters—— Margaret Cadman.
Edith King.
Dorothy Turner.
Edythe Maynard.
Madeleine Marshall.
Gertrude Wagner.
Soldiers—— Hugo Schmedes.
August Nelson.
Albert Mack.

RECONCILIATION WITH CHARLES FROHMAN—AND JOINT PRESENTMENT OF “A CELEBRATED CASE.”

The antagonism of Belasco and the Theatrical Syndicate, which he fought for so many years, naturally led to friction between him and Charles Frohman,—a person of extraordinary self-conceit, who loved to have applied to himself the ridiculous designation of “the Napoleon of the Theatre”; who aspired to be thought the greatest of theatrical managers, and who, necessarily, felt himself rebuked under the superior talents of the man with whom, in early years, he had been so closely associated and who had done so much to make his career possible. In 1903 he had a personal quarrel with Belasco (about what I do not know), and for twelve years thereafter they were more or less actively at enmity and treated each other as strangers. Frohman, however, appears to have possessed engaging qualities, which endeared him to many of those who knew him well. Belasco, for example, has assured me that through all the time of their estrangement he “cherished a great affection for ‘Charlie,’” and that he is “grateful beyond words that our misunderstanding was cleared up and our friendship renewed before he sailed away to his death.” Frohman left New York on board the steamship Lusitania, May 1, 1915, and he lost his life, May 7, when, to the eternal infamy of the German nation, that vessel was sunk off Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. “I was alone in my studio, one evening early in 1915,” Belasco has told me, “and by chance I noticed a newspaper paragraph about Charles Frohman being ill, at the Hotel Knickerbocker. It set me thinking about our first meeting so long ago in San Francisco, and of all that followed; of our first venture in Chicago and of all the years when we worked together and had rooms side by side, when ‘Charlie’ used to consult me about everything and I used to read my ‘May Blossom’ to him. As I sat there thinking it all over I realized that the shadows were beginning to slant toward the east—and suddenly I decided that if ‘Charlie’ should die without our being reconciled it should not be my fault. I started to write a little note to him but got no further than ‘Dear Charlie’ when my telephone-bell rang. The caller was Roeder—and the first thing he said was: ‘I’ve just had a telephone message from Charles Frohman. He wants to see you’! We met that night, in his rooms, and forgot that we ever had a disagreement.”

Soon after that reconciliation Belasco held a little festival in honor of Frohman, in his theatre-studio, and there, at first in jest, it was proposed that they should make a joint revival of some notably successful play of earlier days. This proposal led to a serious discussion and eventually to an agreement whereby the two managers covenanted to make a joint production every season during a term of years. At Frohman’s request Belasco agreed to choose the first play to be presented by them, and his election fell upon “A Celebrated Case.”

That play (first produced in America at the Union Square Theatre, New York, January 23, 1878) is a melodrama in six acts, translated, in rough English, from the French of Adolphe D’Ennery (1811-1899) and Eugène Cormon (18—- 18—). It presents the image of a murder which was done in France, on the eve of the Battle of Fontenoy (May 11, 1745), and for which an innocent man was made to suffer years of cruel punishment, till, at last, in a mysterious and circuitous way, it was brought home to its perpetrator. The circumstances of the crime are peculiarly hideous and the circumstances of the belated retribution are peculiarly complex. The innocent man, Jean Renaud, is condemned, for the murder of his wife, on the testimony of their child. Lazare, the guilty man (as in many other fictions on this antiquated pattern), assumes the identity of another person connected with the crime, the Count de Mornay, and, after various escapes from exposure and much suspense, he is baffled in his maintenance of the assumed identity and is brought to justice. The parting of the condemned father with his innocent, prattling child, who has unconsciously convicted him of murder, and their meeting in after years, he a wretched galley-slave and she a young woman, afford a poignantly affecting contrast. Adroit use, likewise, is made of a certain singular jewel as the instrument for discovery of the actual criminal. Although there are no remarkable characters in the piece and nothing extraordinary in its dialogue, it possesses substantial dramatic merit in its occasional scenes of acute agony, relieved by the violent action of natures taxed beyond endurance. Its sentiment, moreover,—that of filial affection,—is pure; and in its complication of the lives and the emotional troubles of two young girls it deals skilfully and tenderly with difficult and lovely themes. Its choice by Belasco (who had several times directed performances of it in the days of his youth and in whom predilection for tense situation and sharp effect is dominant) was a natural one. Affiliated with Frohman, he presented it in a slightly revised form—some of its dialogue being a little “modernized”—but substantially unaltered and in picturesque and rich dress. It was well acted and kindly received. The first performance of this Belasco-Frohman revival occurred at the Hollis Street Theatre, Boston, March 28, 1915, and, April 7, they brought it out at the Empire Theatre, New York. This was the cast: