(Otto H. Kahn to David Belasco.)
“52 William Street, New York,
“November 8, 1915.
“Dear Mr. Belasco:—
“I need not tell you that I have frequently and greatly admired your art and skill, but there are gradations of achievement even in an acknowledged master and, having just seen your latest production, ‘The Boomerang,’ I cannot refrain from sending you a few lines of particularly warm appreciation and congratulation. Nothing is more difficult in art than to produce great effects with simple means, to do a simple thing superlatively well. Nothing is more rare in art than restraint. Nothing is a greater test of the art of the producer than to maintain throughout an entire evening the atmosphere, the illusion and the effect of comedy, unaided as he is by either the stirring incidents of drama or the broad appeal of farce. Your wisdom in picking out one of the very best and most genuine comedies that I have seen in many a day, your judgment in providing an admirable cast, and your skill and art in producing, have combined to bring about the most happy result, and I owe you thanks for that rare treat, a wholly delightful evening at the theatre, unmarred by any jarring note.
“Believe me,
“Very faithfully yours,
“Otto H. Kahn.”
“The Boomerang” was originally produced at The Playhouse, Wilmington, Delaware, April 5, 1915. This was the cast:
| Dr. Gerald Sumner | Arthur Byron. |
| Budd Woodbridge | Wallace Eddinger. |
| Preston de Witt | Gilbert Douglas. |
| Heinrich | Richard Malchien. |
| Hartley | John N. Wheeler. |
| Mr. Stone | John Clements. |
| Virginia Xelva | Martha Hedman. |
| Grace Tyler | Ruth Shepley. |
| Marion Sumner | Josephine Parks. |
| Gertrude Ludlow | Dorothy Megrew. |
| Mrs. Creighton Woodbridge | Ida Waterman. |
“SEVEN CHANCES.”
“Odds life, sir! if you have the estate, you must take it with the live stock on it, as it stands!” exclaims Sir Anthony Absolute, in “The Rivals,” to his son, when mentioning that his proffer of “a noble independence” is “saddled with a wife.” Such arbitrary bestowal of wealth contingent on matrimony—frequent in actual experience—is one of the best established and most respected expedients of comical stage dilemmas, and it recurs, at intervals, in one form or another, with much the inevitability of death and taxes. It is the basis of another entertaining farce, called “Seven Chances,” which Belasco produced at the George M. Cohan Theatre, New York, August 8, 1916, and which also enjoyed a long and prosperous career. That farce was built on a “suggestion” derived from a short story by Mr. Gouverneur Morris, entitled “The Cradle Snatcher,” and, originally, it was called “Shannon’s Millions.” It was several times rebuilt, under Belasco’s supervision,—Mr. Roi Cooper Megrue being the last of his coadjutory playwrights. It was produced, April 17, 1916, at the Apollo Theatre, Atlantic City, New Jersey, under the name of “The Lucky Fellow.” Its comical incidents revolve around Jimmy Shannon, an amiable young bachelor with a vigorous antipathy to matrimony, whose sardonic grandsire, dying, leaves to him by will a fortune of twelve million dollars, conditional upon his being married by the time that he is thirty years old. Shannon is informed of that contingent bequest on the eve of his attainment of the specified age. He is at a Country Club where, also, there are seven young women. “The affair cries haste and speed must answer it.” The impecunious Shannon will propose marriage to each one of those females, if necessary: thus he has “seven chances” of obtaining the impendent fortune,—which, at last, he gets, along with a bride so young and beauteous as to reconcile him to the imposed change in his state. The opportunities for fun in all this are obvious; critically to dilate upon them would be much like breaking a butterfly on the wheel. They were utilized to the full under Belasco’s direction by a good company,—the parts being cast as follows:
| Jimmie Shannon | Frank Craven. |
| Billy Meekin | John Butler. |
| Earl Goddard | Hayward Ginn. |
| Ralph Denby | Charles Brokate. |
| Joe Spence | Frank Morgan. |
| Henry Garrison | Harry Leighton. |
| George | Freeman Wood. |
| Anne Windsor | Carroll McComas. |
| Mrs. Garrison | Marion Abbott. |
| Lilly Trevor | Anne Meredith. |
| Peggy Wood | Emily Callaway. |
| Irene Trevor | Beverly West. |
| Georgiana Garrison | Gladys Knorr. |
| Florence Jones | Florence Deshon. |
| Betty Brown | Alice Carroll. |