“Although its material was undeniably good, I had felt strong doubts about the piece, from the first, but I gave it a ‘try-out,’ anyway,” said Belasco. “Then I saw that it would not do as it stood and took it off, and, at my suggestion and under my supervision, with such assistance as I could give, Mr. Scarborough rewrote ‘The Girl’ and eventually we had a real success with it.”
The rewritten play was first acted, January 20, 1916, at Stamford, Connecticut, under the title of “Oklahoma”; soon after it was called “The Heart of Wetona,” and under that name it was brought forth, February 29, at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, where it held the stage until May 20.
In its definitive form the scene of “The Heart of Wetona” is an Indian Reservation, in the torrid State of Oklahoma; several of its persons are aborigines of the Comanche tribe, and,—though its action and incidents are sometimes arbitrarily directed,—it is a remarkably good melodrama of a long-familiar kind. Belasco’s purpose in directing the revision was to provide an effective play for the exploitation of the young actress whose talents had so favorably impressed him, and that purpose was well accomplished,—the interest centring continuously in the principal female part, a girl named Wetona, the child of a Comanche chieftain and a white mother, deceased. This girl, who has been seduced under a lying promise of marriage by Anthony Wells, a visitor to the Indian Reservation, is chosen as a sort of vestal virgin in ceremonial rites of the Comanches, and thereupon, in the Tribal House, before her father and his assembled warriors, though concealing her lover’s identity, she confesses her transgression. The girl is then subjected to a harrowing inquisition by the Indians, who desire to find and slay her lover. At last, unable to endure longer, she agrees to reveal his name on condition that she first be permitted to warn him of his danger. She seeks him in the home of his friend John Hardin, the Indian Agent on the Reservation (who secretly loves the girl and desires to make her his wife), and is followed by her father, Chief Quannah, who, finding her in conference with Hardin, furiously accuses him of being the wronger of his daughter and demands that he instantly marry her—as an alternative to being instantly slain with her. To save the girl, himself, and her to him unknown lover, Hardin agrees to do so, privately assuring Wetona that the marriage shall be one in name but not in fact, and, a clergyman being conveniently accessible, the wedding is at once performed. Afterward Wetona, collapsing, calls upon the name of her Anthony—thus discovering to her husband her resolutely guarded secret. Later, Wells, ensconced in the home of Hardin and supposing himself unsuspected and secure, seeks to resume his relation with Wetona, but is repulsed by her until a divorce (to which Hardin will connive) shall have been obtained and he shall have fulfilled his promise of marriage. Then the perfidy of Wells is revealed to Wetona and she revolts from him; Quannah discovers the truth; Hardin, though righteously wrathful against Wells, tries to save him from the vengeance of the Indians (providing him with weapons and a steed) but fails,—that rascal being shot and killed as he attempts to ride away in the night,—and the injured, forlorn Indian girl humbly and thankfully confesses to Hardin her contrition, her gratitude for his protective generosity, the affection with which he has inspired her, and her glad willingness to remain with him as his wife.
The ethics of all this will hardly bear scrutiny—but the dramatic effect of it in representation was undeniable; and, perhaps, where virtue is, presumably, intended it is to consider too curiously to consider further. Miss Ulric presented with vigor, skill, simplicity, sustained continuity of identity, and remarkable force a true, pathetic, and alluring ideal of unsophisticated girlhood, confiding feminine ardor and passionate distress, and she gained an auspicious success.—The cast of “The Heart of Wetona,” as acted at the Lyceum under the management of Belasco and a corporation called “Charles Frohman, Inc.,” is appended:
Photograph by Abbe. Belasco’s Collection.
LENORE ULRIC AS WETONNA, IN “THE HEART OF WETONNA”
| Quannah, Chief of the Comanches | William Courtleigh. |
| Wetona | Lenore Ulric. |
| John Hardin | John Miltern. |
| David Wells | Edward L. Snader. |
| Anthony Wells | Lowell Sherman. |
| Mary Greer | Isabel O’Madigan. |
| Comanche Jack | Curtis Cooksey. |
| Nauma | Ethel Benton. |
| Nipo | H. G. Carleton. |
| Pasequa | Langdon West. |
| Eagle | Chief Deer. |