4. 1898--Week 10: March 7-March 12

By 

Samuel L. Leiter

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Theatre

Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

For an introduction to and explanation of this blog, as well as a list of contemporary Brooklyn theatres, click here.

Weeks 1-6 are covered on this blog's predecessor, STAGES IN BROOKLYN'S PAST, starting with weeks 1-2 here. 

Not much was new and exciting in Brooklyn’s theatre annals this week, which saw the second week in Secret Service’s unusual three-week run, and other shows that were all return visits. Seven legit and four vaudeville/burlesque houses gave locals 11 choices for those who wanted to spend their nights being entertained. Here’s the lineup for the 10^th week of theatre in the newborn Borough of Brooklyn.

Columbia: Never Again

Montauk: Secret Service

Grand Opera House: A Milk White Flag

Bijou: Sweet Inniscarra

Park: The Man in the Iron Mask

Amphion: Under the Red Robe

Gayety; At Gay Coney Island

Charles Frohman’s production of Never Again was a kind of “ladies battle” with wives in conflict with husbands, the result, of course, being submission from the distaff side. It was still 1898. After a season of national touring, and a run at London’s Vaudeville Theatre, it was back at the Columbia, where it was seen the previous September, wilting because of the very hot weather. It proved to be a very funny farce (from a French original called Le Truc de Seraphim), sprinkled with Gallic wit, made more delectable by the adaptation remaining fixed in Paris. Its best-known actor was Ferdinand Gottschalk, returning to the role of Katzenjammer, which he’d created in the New York premiere. Also back was Maggie Holloway-Fisher as Mme. Ribot, the long-silent mother-in-law. Neither had done the play before in Brooklyn. Others in the substantial cast included E.M. Holland, Grace Kimball, Fritz Williams, and Katherine Florence.

Secret Service continued to pack them in at the Montauk, Gillette’s performance being a major draw. Brooklyn Life emoted, “The intense interest created and held to the close, the subdued excitement, the threads of love and quiet humor that are woven into this episode in the life of a Union spy at Richmond easily account for the play’s great popularity—these and the character of the cool-headed, nervy hero.” The play had 29 characters, and not a single supernumerary.

Charles Hoyt’s continually amusing satire on citizen soldiers belonging to the National Guard, A Milk White Flag, had been seen in Brooklyn before at the Montauk and Amphion, but was new to the Grand Opera House, where it performed with an adequate roster of new actors and sets. John W. Dunne played the colonel, John Marble the undertaker, Lansing Rowan the widow, and Mary Marble the orphan. The play included the usual specialty acts, always a part of Hoyt’s plays.

Chauncey Olcott, popular actor-singer specializing in Irish roles, returned to Brooklyn in Sweet Inniscarra, by his manager, Augustus Pitou, in which he’d appeared locally not long before. Wrote the Times Union, “Mr. Olcott makes a delightful stage picture of masculine grace and charm, and his acting I graceful and charming to match the man. . . . He fairly captures his audience by the magnetisms of his personality. He has a fine tenor voice, sympathetic in quality, of sustained power, clear and vibrant in tone, which he manages with great skill and ease.” In one of his new songs, “The Fly Song,” he wrote to his sweetheart while bothered by a fly. Other songs included the sentimental “The Old-Fashioned Mother,” and a love ditty called “Kate O’Donoghue.”

At the Park, a rising young actor with starring aspirations was on tap. His name was W.S. Hart and, as William S. Hart, he would later be one of the biggest silent movie stars, especially in Westerns. His vehicle was a revival of the elder Dumas’s romantic costume drama, The Man in the Iron Mask, set in the time of Louis XIII and XIV and loosely based on historical facts. It was later made into several popular films. It hadn’t been seen in many years and, for most Brooklynites, was as novel as a new play, and thus its summary below.

According to the Times Union:

Those who have read the story . . .  know that the hero of the tale was Gaston, the twin brother of Louis XIV [who, in reality, died in infancy]. At that time the French law did not recognize priority of birth in twins, and as there naturally could not be two Kings, one was taken when a babe and consigned to the care of the Abbe. Shortly before maturity the oy learned of his royal birth and in consequence of this was confined in the Bastile [sic]. Through the efforts of some friends, he made his escape, however, and the same friends abducted the brother who was then the reigning monarch, and who was in turn cast into the prison. The unfortunate king was released and regained his power. As a punishment for his attempt to get his rights, the king ordered that his brother be sent to the island of St. Marguerite and his face covered by an iron mask, that no man might ever look on his face again.

The Eagle was interested enough in Hart, who played Gaston, to write:

He is having the usual hard time of new stars about getting into high-priced houses, but he gets first rate notices when he plays in obscure theaters and that is something unusual enough to bear special mention. Only a few weeks ago Manhattan critics climbed down into the Bowery to see Mr. Hart in this very play and they went back without making fun of him, . . . a visit to the Bowery on any errand whatever being reckoned good for half a column of comic copy in the Manhattan offices.

The writer recalls when Hart was in the company of the great Polish actress, Helena Modjeska, and played Macbeth in Brooklyn for the first time in his life to a crowded Saturday night audience. “And he played it extremely well . . . and he seemed like an actor of most uncommon promise. His recent performances in various cities were consistently approved, and he made a strong impression this past week in The Man in the Iron Mask.

A visit to the Amphion in the Eastern District presents us with Edward Rose’s adaptation of Stanley Weyman’s book, Under the Red Robe, a romantic costume drama set, like The Man in the Iron Mask, in the time of Louis XIV, with Cardinal Richelieu a major figure. It was produced by a touring company managed by Charles Frohman, and starred William Morris (not to be confused with the 20^th-century actors’ agent) as the swashbuckling Gil De Berault. Renee de Cocheforet, his love interest, was taken by Mary Hampton. Under the Red Robe was seen in Brooklyn for three weeks in the fall of 1897. The play had been seen in Brooklyn late in 1897.

Finally, the Eastern District enjoyed a week of Mathews and Bulger’s musical farce, At Gay Coney Island, whose previous week’s performance at the Bijou a week earlier was recorded in these annals’ previous posting.

There was lots happening in the nonlegits, of course, starting with Hyde & Behman’s prominent offering of what could fill in for the week’s lack of a new play, even though it was at a vaudeville house. The piece was a 25-minute one-act called “Comedy and Tragedy,” in which a star actress of Jewish background named Minnie Seligman made her vaudeville debut supported by 15 actors. A popular artist, Seligman had mostly abandoned acting after her marriage to R.L. Cutting, a man of position, and hadn’t been on a Brooklyn stage in four years. Specialty acts on the bill with her included Isabelle Urquhart, assisted by Walter Vincent and Sidney Wilmer in the comedietta, “In Durance Vile”; El Zobedie, doing hand balancing feats; the Three Brothers Fortuni, acrobats; W.H. Windom and “his sweet-voiced colored quartet”; Richard Pitrot, a “facial artist”; Hal Morret, imitator; and others.

Another example of the fad for “animated song sheet” acts was on the bill at the Brooklyn Music Hall, introduced by Lizzie D. Daly. Aided by Master George Mack and 20 Black performers, she provided a lively act. Ad Grant gave a new monologue; Mazuz and Mazett their tramp and brakeman routine; John and Bertha Gleeson danced and sang, etc.

The Star’s program featured Eulalie, the toe dancer; the Fanchonetti Sisters; Frobel and Ruge, midair gymnasts; Pat Ryan, “with his crayons”; the Gardner Brothers, with a musical sketch; the Lane Sisters, “rather warm singers”; and the pretty Six Parisians, among others. C It was produced by a touring company managed by Charles Frohman, and starred William Morris as the swashbuckling Gil De Berault. Renee, his love interest, was taken by Mary Hamptoncluding the show was a burlesque, “Walks of All Nations.”