Mr. Lee Shubert, who controlled theatres competing with Syndicate houses in which Belasco productions were presented for a long time after the Syndicate agreed to book for him, made the following comment on the understanding:
“So far as myself and my associates are concerned we cannot disapprove of a development which shows advancement of the policy of the ‘open door,’ for which we have fought. It is gratifying to us to note that the tendency toward a general letting down of the bars, which were up so long and so unjustly against independent producers, is so emphatically in evidence in the change of attitude both on the part of Erlanger and Belasco and Fiske. We have produced and procured our own attractions, and will continue to do so with such measure of success as may be ours. I have contended always that the time would come when the bars must be let down and successful producers welcomed wherever they were willing to play their attractions.... We are independents, and Messrs. Belasco and Fiske are independents. Whatever steps they may take in an independent way we cannot with consistency disapprove. It is really of little moment to the public, which cares little about whose attractions it may pay to see and in what theatre it may see them so long as the attractions are worth the money.”
One immediate result of the Fiske-Belasco arrangement with the Syndicate was the settlement out of court of the lawsuits over “The Auctioneer,” implicating Klaw & Erlanger, Belasco, and Joseph Brooks, and the withdrawal of the appeal by Belasco, in that matter, which had been filed April 13, 1906.
A painful incident of this year (1909) was a bitter attack on Belasco made by his former friend and professional associate Mrs. Leslie Carter. That singular woman, having appeared in John Luther Long’s absurd play of “Kassa” and made a failure, was pleased to ascribe that regrettable result not to a bad play and a tiresome performance but to the malign influence of Belasco! A long and silly “statement” was issued in her behalf to the effect that there was a plan on foot to interfere with “her career” in that play, and it was intimated that Belasco was the instigator of this alleged nefarious scheme. Later Mrs. Carter gave out another screed, which was circulated throughout the press of the country, reflecting in the most gross and unwarranted way upon the man who had made her theatrical career possible, and in which she declared: “If I were going to die and could save my life by playing again for David Belasco, I would not do it!” As nothing could ever have induced him to resume the management of Mrs. Carter this declaration was a trifle superfluous. Belasco’s only comment on this matter was explicit: “It is,” he said, “absolutely false that I have sought, or desired, in any way, to injure Mrs. Carter. It is monstrous that such a thing should be said against me, and monstrous that anybody should dare to ask me if it is true.”
During the summer of 1909 Belasco proposed to his old friend Lotta that she return to the stage under his management (she had retired from it about 1890) and make a farewell tour of the country. “I urged her all I could,” Belasco writes, “because I knew I could make her reappearance and tour a sensational success and that the public would be delighted to see the little Lotta of other days. At first I wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer, and for a while Miss Lotta was inclined to accept my proposal. But, finally, she declined, saying: ‘I’ve seen so many people make the same mistake, when they’ve grown old and outlived their public, of coming back to appear in the parts that were written for them in their youth. “Other days, other ways.” It is better to let my old friends remember me as they saw me many years ago. I shall never act again.’” That was a wise decision. No doubt there would have been much friendly interest in a formal farewell by Lotta; but the elfin charm of her youth was gone and the venture would have inspired sadness: “Yesterday’s smile and yesterday’s frown can never come over again!”
THE SEASON OF 1909-’10: “IS MATRIMONY A FAILURE?”—“THE LILY”—AND “JUST A WIFE.”
Belasco produced three new plays in the season of 1909-’10,—“Is Matrimony a Failure?”, “The Lily,” and “Just a Wife.” “Is Matrimony a Failure?” is a clever farce, adapted by Leo Ditrichstein from a German original, “Die Thür ins Freie,” by Oscar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelberg. It relates to the ancient, evergreen subject of conjugal friction,—which, in this instance, seems intolerable but proves indispensable,—and it implicates ten married couples and one pair of prospective connubialists. The scene is a pleasant country town in New York. A coterie of husbands has grown restive under what is deemed to be an excessive exercise, by their wives, of matrimonial authority. A lawyer named Paul Barton visits the town to settle the estate of an old Justice of the Peace, recently deceased, ascertains that the wedding ceremonies of the various couples implicated were performed by that official’s clerk, in the absence of his employer, and declares them to be illegal. The husbands decline to validate their marriages unless their wives agree to permit them greater freedom than they have enjoyed, and, leaving their homes, establish themselves at a neighboring inn,—where they soon find that, however irksome may have seemed the dominion of their wives, it is immensely preferable to the total lack of their society. More particular rehearsal of the complications, cross-purposes, and conflicts woven about this posture of circumstance would be superfluous: they were not less comic and amusing because the legal quirk upon which the original play was based is inapplicable under the law of the State of New York. The farce was exquisitely set and admirably played,—especially by that excellent light-comedian and lovable man, the late Frank Worthing,—and it enjoyed acceptance bounteous and remunerative. “Is Matrimony a Failure?” was first acted at Atlantic City, New Jersey, August 29, 1909, and, in New York, at the Belasco Theatre, on the 23d of that month,—with the following cast:
THE HUSBANDS.
| Skelton Perry | Frank Worthing. |
| Hugh Wheeler | W. J. Ferguson. |
| Frank Bolt | James Bradbury. |
| Albert Rand | Edward Langford. |
| Jasper Stark | John F. Webber. |
| David Meek | F. Newton Lindo. |
| Dr. Hoyt | Robert Rogers. |
| George Wilson | Marshall Stuart. |
| Lem Borden | Gilmore Scott. |
| Herman Ringler | Frank Manning. |