A few weeks subsequent to signing the lease of the Republic Theatre with Hammerstein Belasco met with an accident which came near to putting an end to all his projects by causing his death. On the night of March 16 he witnessed a performance of his “Du Barry,” at the Criterion. While the setting was being placed for the last scene—a cumbrous, intricate setting, in which he took special interest—he left his box in the auditorium and went upon the stage to direct the work. As he did so a large and heavy cornice which was being swung into position high in air broke and fell, striking him full upon the head. Another piece of scenery, thrown out of balance by the falling cornice, collapsed, and in a moment Belasco was buried beneath a mass of tangled wreckage. He was with difficulty extricated, unconscious and profusely bleeding. A physician was called, who, after a quarter of an hour, having stanched the bleeding, succeeded in restoring the injured manager to consciousness. It was at first feared that he had sustained a fracture of the skull, but happily he was found to be suffering only from shock and loss of blood due to a severe scalp wound. He was removed to his home and within a few days he had regained his usual health.
After carefully examining the interior of the Republic Theatre Belasco became convinced that it required to be altered for his use. “The stage was wrong, the house was wrong, and the colors set my teeth on edge,” he has told me. Hammerstein was willing that he should make any changes he desired. Belasco, accordingly, took possession of the theatre at about the end of March and, on April 19, 1902, the work of altering it so as to make it conform to his wishes was begun. He started that work intending to spend from $15,000 to $20,000 on improvements. When it was finished he had expended more than $150,000. The whole interior of the building was torn out, leaving nothing but four walls and part of the roof. Toward the front of the property a space was blasted out of solid rock wherein, beneath the auditorium, were built a retiring-room for women and a smoking-room for men. A sub-stage chamber, more than twenty-five feet deep, was also blasted out of the rock,—incidental to which excavation a perpetual spring of water was tapped. Talking with me about his experience in remodelling the Republic Theatre, Belasco, in his characteristically cheery and philosophical way, said: “I remember your telling me about the trouble Edwin Booth got into, blasting out a ledge of rock when he was building his theatre [Booth’s Theatre, Twenty-third Street and Sixth Avenue, 1868-’69], but I don’t believe he had half as bad a time as we did when that spring broke loose! I was so crazy about having my own theatre I wanted to have a hand in everything and I used to go down and fire some of the blasts, in spite of the protests of my family and staff, who expected I’d blow myself to Kingdom Come. And it was I who fired the charge that started that spring! My boys in the theatre used to call me ‘Moses’ after that, for that I did smite the rock and there came water out of it. We damned it, heartily, I can tell you, but it was a long time before we could get it dammed, and it cost me a small fortune to have the stage cavity cemented in.”
Photograph by Byron. Belasco’s Collection.
BELASCO’S “STUDIO” IN THE FIRST BELASCO THEATRE
One day, during the work of alteration, a stranger presented himself to Belasco, demanding that he be permitted to inspect the property and explaining that he held a mortgage on it. “I had nothing to do with the mortgage,” Belasco told me; “that was Mr. Hammerstein’s business; but I let him come in. He surveyed the scene of devastation with horror, standing on a scaffold, high up, and gazing into the black pit. ‘God above me!’ he exclaimed, after a little while, ‘I’ve got a mortgage on four walls and a hole in the ground!’—and he fled. I never saw him again.”
THE FIRST BELASCO THEATRE.
The work of demolishing and rebuilding the Republic for Belasco was performed in five months. When it was completed he possessed one of the handsomest and best equipped playhouses in the world. “The theatre,” Belasco has often said, “is, first of all, a place for the acting of plays.” That simple statement might be deemed a platitude, were it not for the striking fact that its maker is the only theatrical manager of the present day who practically recognizes its truth: to the majority of other managers the theatre, it seems, is, primarily, a place for almost anything rather than acting,—is, in fact, first of all, a place for the exploitation of their tedious conceit and the making of money by any means. The stage of the Belasco Theatre was designed and built with the purpose of obviating the disadvantages of restricted space and of affording every possible mechanical aid to the acting of plays. The entire “acting surface” of that stage—the entire surface, that is, which could be revealed to the view of the spectators,—was a mosaic of close-fitting trapdoors, so that on occasion it might be opened at any place desired. In the centre of the stage was “an elevator,”—that is, in fact, a movable platform,—fifteen feet wide and thirty feet long. Upon this platform, when it had been lowered into the cellar cavity, were placed the paraphernalia required in the setting of the scenes,—articles technically designated as “properties” (furniture, etc.), and “set pieces” (solid, heavy parts of scenic rooms, houses, etc.)—which were then raised to the stage level for use: when done with, these paraphernalia were sunk again into the cellarage, where the platform bearing them was shifted aside and another similar one, loaded with material for the next setting, replaced it and was in turn raised to the stage.