“The Fighting Hope,” even as rectified and notwithstanding its measure of popular success, was but a flimsy fabric,—crude in construction and improbable in plot, though at times theatrically effective. In it is displayed an experience of a loyal wife, Anna Granger, who clings to “the fighting hope” of vindicating her husband and rescuing him from the consequences of crime. That husband, a peculiarly contemptible scoundrel, has been detected in a forgery; has been tried, convicted, and imprisoned. His wife, believing him to be innocent and the victim of Burton Temple, president of a fiduciary institution, obtains employment in the service of that person and becomes his confidential secretary. In that capacity, after discovering and shamefully destroying a letter which establishes the guilt of her husband, she discovers, also, that she is beloved by Temple and that a reciprocal sentiment is developing in her own bosom. And then, having confessed her identity, her wrong conduct, and her regard, she is relieved from a distressing dilemma by the convenient taking off of her husband,—who, having escaped from the State Prison at Sing Sing, is overtaken, shot, and killed by officers of the law who pursue him. In the hands of any other manager than Belasco, instead of enduring for two years, this piece—if it had ever been produced at all—would have been relegated to the regions of tall timber and high grass within a fortnight.
“Nobody’s Widow” is an ephemeral farce, the central idea of which is denial of an established relationship in circumstances which might cause absurd perplexities and ridiculous consequences,—such, in general character, as ensue when Charles Courtly, in “London Assurance,” on being introduced to his father, Sir Harcourt, blandly greets him as a new acquaintance. The chief female character, Roxana, acted by Miss Bates, has, in Europe, met and married a “Mr. Clayton,” who, actually, is an English nobleman, the Duke of Moreland; but having, on their wedding-day, found him in the embrace of a former mistress, Roxana has repudiated and left him,—privately instituting proceedings for divorce, and presently apprising her friends in America that her husband, of whom they have heard, but only by his assumed name of Clayton, is dead, and that she, accordingly, is a widow. Later she visits some of those friends at Palm Beach, Florida, and there she is, by chance, confronted by her husband, then a visitor to the same hostess, but bearing his right name. Roxana’s husband endeavors to reinstate himself in her affections, but, persistently and with alternate pleasantry and sarcasm, he is treated by her as an accidental acquaintance. Roxana assures him that, as “Mr. Clayton” he is “dead”; that she has never seen him before; that to her he is, as the Duke of Moreland, nobody; that she is nobody’s widow. That attitude she maintains until apprised of her divorce, when she becomes conscious of a sudden access of tenderness for him;
Photograph by Mishkin Studio. Belasco’s Collection.
TO DAVID BELASCO
A souvenir of the production of the opera, “The Girl of the Golden West,” by Giacomo Puccini
G. Gatti-Casazza David Belasco A. Toscanini Giacomo Puccini
and, eventually,—though not until after various trips and stumbles on the track of reconciliation,—she first allows herself to be again married to him, and then allows herself to be convinced of his honest intentions and the sincerity of his love. A farce is well enough in its way: but to record industry of such a manager as Belasco and such an actress as Blanche Bates in such stuff as “Nobody’s Widow” is only to record wasted opportunity and disappointed expectation. In conversation with me Belasco has once or twice intimated some thought of proposing the resumption of Miss Bates’ management: it might be greatly to the public gain if that actress should return to his direction; but, while I earnestly hope it may come about, I do not believe it ever will: