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SHENANDOAH
_A MILITARY COMEDY_
[Illustration: BRONSON HOWARD]
BRONSON HOWARD
(1842-1908)
The present Editor has just read through some of the vivacious
correspondence of Bronson Howard--a sheaf of letters sent by him to
Brander Matthews during a long intercourse. The time thus spent brings
sharply to mind the salient qualities of the man--his nobility of
character, his soundness of mind, his graciousness of manner, and
his thorough understanding of the dramatic tools of his day and
generation. To know Bronson Howard was to be treated to just that
human quality which he put into even his hastily penned notes--and, as
in conversation with him, so in his letters there are repeated flashes
of sage comment and of good native wit. Not too often can we make the
plea for the gathering and preserving of such material. Autobiography,
after all, is what biography ought to be--it is the live portrait
by the side of which a mere appreciative sketch fades. I have looked
through the "Memorial" volume to Bronson Howard, issued by the
American Dramatists Club (1910), and read the well-tempered estimates,
the random reminiscences. But these do not recall the Bronson Howard
known to me, as to so many others--who gleams so charmingly in this
correspondence. Bronson Howard's plays may not last--"Fantine,"
"Saratoga," "Diamonds," "Moorcraft," "Lillian's Last Love"--these are
mere names in theatre history, and they are very out of date on
the printed page. "The Banker's Daughter," "Old Love Letters" and
"Hurricanes" would scarcely revive, so changed our comedy treatment,
so differently psychologized our emotion. Not many years ago
the managerial expedient was resorted to of re-vamping "The
Henrietta"--but its spirit would not behave in new-fangled style,
and the magic of Robson and Crane was broken. In the American drama's
groping for "society" comedy, one might put "Saratoga," and even
"Aristocracy," in advance of Mrs. Mowatt's "Fashion" and Mrs.
Bateman's "Self;" in the evolution of domestic problems, "Young Mrs.
Winthrop" is interesting as an early breaker of American soil. But
one can hardly say that, either for the theatre or for the library,
Bronson Howard is a permanent factor. Yet his influence on the theatre
is permanent; his moral force is something that should be perpetuated.
Whatever he said on subjects pertaining to his craft--his comments on
play-making most especially,--was illuminating and judicious. I have
been privileged to read the comments sent by him to Professor
Matthews during the period of their collaboration together over "Peter
Stuyvesant;" they are practical suggestions, revealing the peculiar
way in which a dramatist's mind shapes material for a three hours'
traffic of the stage--the willingness to sacrifice situation,
expression--any detail, in fact, that clogs the action. Through the
years of their acquaintance, Howard and Matthews were continually
wrangling good-naturedly about the relation of drama to literature.
Apropos of an article by Matthews in _The Forum_, Howard once wrote:
I note that you regard the 'divorce' of the drama from
literature as unfortunate. I think the divorce should be made
absolute and final; that the Drama should no more be wedded to
literature, on one hand, than it is to the art of painting on
the other, or to music or mechanical science. Rather, perhaps,
I should say, we should recognize poligamy for the Drama; and
all the arts, with literature, its Harem. Literature may be
Chief Sultana--but not too jealous. She is always claiming too
large a share of her master's attention, and turning up her
nose at the rest. I have felt this so strongly, at times, as
to warmly deny that I was a 'literary man', insisting on being
a 'dramatist'.
Then, in the same note, he adds in pencil: "Saw 'Ghosts' last night.
Great work of art! Ibsen a brute, personally, for writing it."
In one of the "Stuyvesant" communications, Howard is calculating
on the cumulative value of interest; and he analyzes it in this
mathematical way:
So far as the important act is concerned, I have felt that
this part of it was the hardest part of the problem before
us. We were certain of a good beginning of the act and a good,
rapid, dramatic end; but the middle and body of it I felt
needed much attention to make the act substantial and
satisfactory. To tell the truth, I was quietly worrying a bit
over this part of the play, while you were expressing your
anxiety about the 2nd act--which never bothered me. There
_must_ be 2nd acts and there _must_ be last acts--audiences
resign themselves to them; but 3rd acts--in 4 and 5 act
plays--they insist on, and _will_ have them good. The only
exception is where you astonish them with a good 2nd act--then
they'll take their siesta in the 3rd--and wake up for the 4th.
This psychological time-table shows how calculating the dramatist
has to be, how precise in his framework, how sparing of his number of
words. In another note, Howard says:
This would leave the acts squeezed "dry", about as
follows:--Act I, 35 minutes; Act 2, 30; Act 3, 45; Act 4,
20--total, 130--2 hrs., 10 min., curtain up: entr'acts, 25
min. Total--2 hrs., 35 min.--8:20 to 10:55.
There are a thousand extraneous considerations bothering a play that
never enter into the evolution of any other form of art. After seeing
W.H. Crane, who played "Peter Stuyvesant" when it was given, Howard
writes Matthews of the wisdom shown by the actor in his criticism of
"points" to be changed and strengthened in the manuscript.
"A good actor," he declares, "whom I always regard as an original
creator in art--beginning at the point where the dramatist's pen
stops--approaches a subject from such a radically different direction
that we writers cannot study his impressions too carefully in revising
our work." Sometimes, conventions seized the humourous side of Howard.
From England, around 1883, he wrote, "Methinks there is danger in the
feeling expressed about 'local colouring.' English managers would put
the Garden of Eden in Devonshire, if you adapted Paradise Lost for
them--and insist on giving Adam an eye-glass and a title."
Howard was above all an American; he was always emphasizing his
nationality; and this largely because the English managers changed
"Saratoga" to "Brighton," and "The Banker's Daughter" to "The Old Love
and the New." I doubt whether he relished William Archer's inclusion
of him in a volume of "English Dramatists of To-day," even though
that critic's excuse was that he "may be said to occupy a place among
English dramatists somewhat similar to that occupied by Mr. Henry
James among English novelists." Howard was quick to assert his
Americanism, and to his home town he wrote a letter from London,
in 1884, disclaiming the accusation that he was hiding his local
inheritance behind a French technique and a protracted stay abroad
on business. He married an English woman--the sister of the late Sir
Charles Wyndham--and it was due to the latter that several of his
plays were transplanted and that Howard planned collaboration with
Sir Charles Young. But Howard was part of American life--born of the
middle West, and shouldering a gun during the Civil War to guard the
Canadian border near Detroit against a possible sympathetic uprising
for the Confederacy. Besides which--a fact which makes the title of
"Dean of the American Drama" a legitimate insignia,--when, in 1870, he
stood firm against the prejudices of A.M. Palmer and Lester Wallack,
shown toward "home industry," he was maintaining the right of the
American dramatist. He was always preaching the American spirit,
always analyzing American character, always watching and encouraging
American thought.
Howard was a scholar, with a sense of the fitness of things, as
a dramatist should have. Evidently, during the collaboration with
Professor Matthews on "Stuyvesant," discussion must have arisen as
to the form of English "New Amsterdamers," under Knickerbocker rule,
would use. For it called forth one of Howard's breezy but exact
comments, as follows:
A few more words about the "English" question: As I said,
it seems to me, academical correctness, among the higher
characters, will give a prim, old-fashioned tone: and _you_
can look after this, as all my own work has been in the
opposite direction in art. I have given it no thought in
writing this piece, so far.
I would suggest the following special points to be on
the alert for, even in the _best_ present-day use of
English:--some words are absolutely correct, now, yet based
on events or movements in history since 1660. An evident
illustration is the word "boulevard" for a wide street or
road; so "avenue," in same sense, is New Yorkese and London
imitation--even imitated from us, I imagine, in Paris: this
would give a nineteenth century tone; while an "avenue lined
with trees in a bowery" would not. Don't understand that I
am telling you things. I'm only illustrating--to let you know
what especial things in language I hope you will keep your eye
on. Of course _Anneke_ couldn't be "electrified"--but you may
find many less evident blunders than that would be. She might
be shocked, but couldn't "receive a shock." We need free
colloquial slang and common expressions; but while "get out"
seems all right from _Stuyvesant_ to _Bogardus_, for _Barry_
to say "Skedadle" would put him in the 87th New York Vols.,
1861-64. Yet I doubt whether we have any more classic and
revered slang than that word.
The evident ease, yet thoroughness, with which Mr. Howard prepared
for his many tasks, is seen in his extended reading among Civil War
records, before writing "Shenandoah." The same "knowledge" sense
must have been a constant incentive to Professor Matthews, in the
preparation of "Peter Stuyvesant."
"The manual of arms," Howard declares, "is simply _great_. I
think we can get the muskets pointed at _Barket_ in about 4 or
5 orders, however; taking the more picturesque ones, so far
as may be possible. I went over the [State] librarian's letter
with a nephew with the most modern of military training: and
as I was at a military school in 1860--just two centuries
after our period--we had fun together. Even with an old
muzzle loader--Scott's Tactics--it was "Load and fire in ten
motions," _now_ antiquated with the breech-loaders of to-day.
The same operation, in 1662, required 28 motions, as
we counted. By the bye, did I tell you that I found the
flint-lock invented (in Spain) in 1625--and it "soon" spread
over Europe? I felt, however, that the intervening 37 years
would hardly have carried it to New Amsterdam; especially as
the colony was neglected in such matters."
From these excerpts it is apparent that Howard had no delusions
regarding the "work" side of the theatre; he was continually insisting
that dramatic art was dependent upon the _artisan_ aspects which
underlay it. This he maintained, especially in contradiction to
fictional theories upheld by the adherents of W.D. Howells.
One often asks why a man, thus so serious and thorough in his approach
toward life, should have been so transitorily mannered in his plays,
and the reason may be in the very _artisan_ character of his work. Mr.
Howard delivered a lecture before the Shakespeare Society of Harvard
University, at Sanders Theatre, in 1886 (later given, 1889, before
the Nineteenth Century Club, in New York), and he called it "The
Autobiography of a Play." In the course of it, he illustrated how, in
his own play, called "Lillian's Last Love," in 1873, which one year
later became "The Banker's Daughter," he had to obey certain unfailing
laws of dramatic construction during the alterations and re-writing.
He never stated a requirement he was not himself willing to abide by.
When he instructed the Harvard students, he was merely elucidating his
own theatre education. "Submit yourselves truly and unconditionally,"
he admonished, "to the laws of dramatic truth, so far as you can
discover them by honest mental exertion and observation. Do not
mistake any mere defiance of these laws for originality. You might
as well show your originality by defying the law of gravitation." Mr.
Howard was not one to pose as the oracle of a new technique; in this
essay he merely stated sincerely his experience in a craft, as
a clinical lecturer demonstrates certain established methods of
treatment.
In his plays, vivacity and quick humour are the distinguishing
characteristics. Like his contemporary workers, he was alive to topics
of the hour, but, unlike them, he looked ahead, and so, as I have
stated in my "The American Dramatist," one can find profit in
contrasting his "Baron Rudolph" with Charles Klein's "Daughters of
Men," his "The Henrietta" with Klein's "The Lion and Mouse," and his
"The Young Mrs. Winthrop" with Alfred Sutro's "The Walls of Jericho."
He was an ardent reader of plays, as his library--bequeathed to the
American Dramatists Club, which he founded--bears witness. The fact
is, he studied Restoration drama as closely as he did the modern
French stage. How often he had to defend himself in the press from
the accusation of plagiarism, merely because he was complying with the
stage conventions of the moment!
It is unfortunate that his note-books are not available. But luckily
he wrote an article at one time which shows his method of thrashing
out the moral matrix of a scenario himself. It is called "Old Dry
Ink." Howard's irony slayed the vulgar, but, because in some quarters
his irony was not liked, he was criticized for his vulgarities.
Archer, for example, early laid this defect to the influence of the
Wyndham policy, in London, of courting blatant immorality in plays for
the stage.
Howard's femininity, in comparison with Fitch's, was equally as
observant; it was not as literarily brilliant in its "small talk." But
though the effervescent chatter, handled with increasing dexterity by
him, is now old-fashioned, "Old Dry Ink" shows that the scenes in his
plays were not merely cleverly arrived at, but were philosophically
digested. How different the dialogue from the notes!
This article was written in 1906; it conveys many impressions of early
feminine struggles for political independence. The fact is, Mr. Howard
often expressed his disappointment over the showing women made in the
creative arts, and that he was not willing to let the bars down in his
own profession is indicated by the fact that, during his life-time,
women dramatists were not admitted as members into the club he
founded.
The reader is referred to two other articles by Mr. Howard--one,
"Trash on the Stage," included in the "Memorial" volume; the other,
on "The American Drama," which is reproduced here, because, written
in 1906, and published in a now obsolete newspaper magazine, it is
difficult of procuring, and stands, possibly, for Mr. Howard's final
perspective of a native drama he did so much to make known as native.
The most national of Howard's plays is "Shenandoah;" it is chosen for
the present volume as representative of the military drama, of which
there are not many examples, considering the Civil War possibilities
for stage effect. Clyde Fitch's "Barbara Frietchie," James A. Herne's
"Griffith Davenport," Fyles and Belasco's "The Girl I Left Behind Me,"
Gillette's "Secret Service," and William DeMille's "The Warrens of
Virginia"--a mere sheaf beside the Revolutionary list which might be
compiled.
According to one authority, "Shenandoah" was built upon the
foundations of a play by Howard, produced at Macauley's Theatre,
Louisville, Kentucky. As stated by Professor Matthews, the facts are
that Howard took a piece, "Drum Taps," to Lester Wallack; who, true
to his English tradition, said that if it was changed in time from
the Civil War to the Crimean, he might consider it. It is certain,
however, that if the cast of characters, as first given under the
management of Montgomery Field, at the old Boston Museum, November
19, 1888, be compared with the program of the New York Star Theatre,
September 13, 1889, it will be found that the manuscript must have
been considerably altered and shifted, before it reached the shape now
offered here as the authentic text. The fact of the matter is, it was
not considered a "go" in Boston; we are informed that such managers
as Palmer and Henry E. Abbey prophesied dire end for the piece. But
Charles Frohman hastened to Boston, on the advice of his brother,
Daniel, and, giving half-interest in the piece to Al Hayman, he
arranged with Field for rights, procured "time" at the Star Theatre
with Burnham, and, as is told in "C.F.'s" biography, hastened to
Stamford, Connecticut, to talk with Howard. According to this source,
he said to the playwright:
"You are a very great dramatist, Mr. Howard, and I am only
a theatrical manager, but I think I can see where a possible
improvement might be made in the play. For one thing, I think
two acts should be merged into one, and I don't think you have
made enough out of Sheridan's ride."
The opening night, with General Sherman in the audience, was a
memorable occasion. It was the beginning of "C.F.'s" rapid rise
to managerial importance, it ushered in the era of numberless road
companies playing the same piece, it met with long "runs," and the
royalty statements mounted steadily in bulk for Howard. It was the
success of the hour.
But "Shenandoah" is undoubtedly conventional; its melodramatic effects
are dependent on stage presentment rather than on the printed page.
In fact, so much an artisan of the theatre was Mr. Howard that he was
always somewhat skeptical of the modern drama in print. When he was
persuaded to issue his last piece, "Kate," in book form, he consented
to the publisher's masking it as a novel in dialogue, hoping thus,
as his prefatory note states, "to carry the imagination directly to
scenes of real life and not to the stage." To the last there was a
distinction in his mind between literature and the drama. It is since
this was written that the play form, nervous and quick, even in its
printed shape, has become widely accepted.
"Shenandoah" is a play of pictorial effects and swiftly changing
sentiment. Were there a national repertory, this would be included
among the plays, not because of its literary quality, but because of
the spirit to be drawn from its situations, framed expressly for
the stage, and because of its pictures, dependent wholly upon stage
accessory. It is an actable play, and most of our prominent actors,
coming out of the period of the late 80's, had training in it.
THE AMERICAN DRAMA
by
BRONSON HOWARD
In considering the present standing of the American drama, compared
with the time when there was little or nothing worthy of the name,
the one significant fact has been the gradual growth of a body of men
engaged in writing plays. Up to the time I started in 1870, American
plays had been written only sporadically here and there by men and
women who never met each other, who had no personal acquaintance of
any kind, no sympathies, no exchange of views; in fact, no means of
building up such a body of thought in connection with their art as is
necessary to form what is called a school.
In what we now style Broadway productions the late Augustin Daly stood
absolutely alone, seeing no other future for his own dramatic works
except by his own presentation of them. Except for Daly, I was
practically alone; but he offered me the same opportunity and promise
for the future that he had given to himself. From him developed a
school of managers willing and eager to produce American plays on
American subjects. Other writers began to drop into the profession;
but still they seldom met, and it was not until about 1890 that they
suddenly discovered themselves as a body of dramatists. This was at
a private supper given at the Lotos Club to the veteran playwright
Charles Gaylor, who far antedated Daly himself. To the astonishment of
those making the list of guests for that supper, upward of fifty men
writing in America who produced plays were professionally entitled to
invitations, and thirty-five were actually present at the supper. A
toast to seven women writers not present was also honoured.
This was the origin of the American Dramatists Club. The moment these
men began to know each other personally, the process of intellectual
attrition began, which will probably result eventually in a strong
school. That supper took place only sixteen years ago; so we are yet
only in the beginning of the great movement. Incidentally, it is also
necessarily the beginning of a school of dramatic criticism of that
art. It is difficult to suppose that a body of critics, merely learned
in the dramatic art of Europe, can be regarded as forming a school of
America.
To go to Paris to finish your education in dramatic art, and return to
New York and make comments on what you see in the theatre, is not to
be an American dramatic critic, nor does it tend in any way to found a
school of American dramatic criticism. The same is true of the man who
remains in New York and gets his knowledge of the drama from reading
foreign newspapers and books.
I stated in a former article in this magazine, "First Nights in London
and New York," that is was only within the last twenty-five or thirty
years that a comparison between the cities and the conditions had
become possible, for the reason that prior to that time there was
really no American drama. There were a few American plays, and their
first productions did not assume the least importance as social
events. As far as any comparison is possible between the early
American dramatists (I mean the first of the dramatists who were the
starting point in the later '60's and early '70's) and those of the
present day, I think of only two important points. There was one
advantage in each case. The earlier dramatists had their choice of
many great typical American characters, such as represented in _Solon
Shingle, Colonel Sellers, Joshua Whitcomb, Bardwell Slote, Mose, Davy
Crockett, Pudd'nhead Wilson,_ and many others.
This advantage was similar in a small way to the tremendous advantage
that the earliest Greek dramatists had in treating the elemental
emotions; on the other hand, we earlier writers in America were
liable to many errors, some of them actually childish, which the
young dramatist of to-day, in constant association with his fellow
playwrights, and placing his work almost in daily comparison with
theirs, could not commit. To do so a man would have to be a much
greater fool than were any of us; and the general improvement in the
technical work of plays by young dramatists now, even plays that
are essentially weak and which fail, is decided encouragement and
satisfaction to one of my age who can look back over the whole
movement.
The American dramatist of to-day, without those great and specially
prominent American characters who stood, as it were, ready to go on
the stage, has come to make a closer study of American society than
his predecessors did. They are keen also in seizing strikingly marked
new types in American life as they developed before the public from
decade to decade.
A notable instance is the exploitation by Charles Klein of the
present-day captain of industry in "The Lion and the Mouse." The
leading character in the play is differentiated on the stage, as in
life, from the Wall Street giant of about 1890, as illustrated in
one of my own plays, "The Henrietta." Mr. Klein's character of the
financial magnate has developed in this country since my active days
of playwriting, and the younger dramatist was lying in wait, ready for
him, and ready to seize his peculiarities for stage purposes.
Another thing is the fact that our dramatists are doing what our
literary men have done, namely, availing themselves of the striking
local peculiarities in various parts of the country. A marked
illustration of this now before the public is Edward Milton Royle's
"Squawman," recently at Wallack's Theatre. The dramatist has caught
his picture just in the nick of time, just before the facts of life
in the Indian Territory are passing away. He has preserved the picture
for us as George W. Cable, the novelist, preserved pictures of Creole
life of old New Orleans, made at the last possible moment.
I could go on mentioning many other plays illustrating phases of life
and society in America, and there could be no better or more positive
proof that a school of American dramatists already exists. This school
will undoubtedly continue to improve in the technical quality of
its work, exactly as it has done in the past, and probably with more
rapidity.
The question has been discussed as to whether we are ever likely to
produce an Ibsen or a Shaw, and under what conditions he would be
received. As far as concerns what may happen in the future in the way
of producing absolutely great dramatists and great plays, using the
word 'great' in the international and historical sense, the opinion of
anyone on that subject is mere guesswork and absolutely valueless.
The greatest drama in history was produced by Greece about four or
five centuries before Christ, and for a few generations afterward.
Since AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Greece has scarcely given us
anything. Aristophanes and Menander are of course remembered, but the
writers who endeavoured to follow in the footsteps of the masters
were of far inferior merit. The Roman Empire existed for nearly two
thousand years without producing any drama of its own worthy of
the name. The Romans were not a dramatic people. The works of the
so-called Latin dramatists, such as those of Plautus and Terence, were
mere imitations of the Greek.
France and England had sudden bursts of greatness followed by general
mediocrity, with occasional great writers whose advent could not
possibly have been predicted by anything in art preceding them. Even
the exception to this in France, in the middle of the nineteenth
century, was apparently a flash of light that disappeared almost as
suddenly as it came. What is the use of posing as a prophet with such
a record of the past? Anyone else is at liberty to do so. I would
as soon act as harlequin. Was there any wise man in England who,
twenty-four hours before that momentous event in April, 1564, could
predict that a baby named William Shakespeare would be born the next
day? To say that an American dramatist is to appear this year or in a
thousand years who will make an epoch is simply ridiculous.
That Ibsen exercised and will exercise great influence on American
dramatists there can be little doubt. His skill was no mere accident.
He was the most finished development of the French school of the
nineteenth century, as well as the most highly artificial individual
dramatist of that school. I call it the strictly logical school
of dramatic construction. I use the word 'artificial' in its more
artistic sense, as opposed to the so-called natural school. His
subjects of course were national, and not French. Whether his
pessimism was national or personal, I have not been able to discover.
It seemed to me that he was a pessimistic man dealing with a nation
inclined to pessimism, but that had nothing to do with the technical
qualities of the man any more than the national peculiarities of
Denmark had to do with Thorvaldsen as a follower of Greek sculpture.
As to the policy of our theatre managers, I confess that they do
follow each other; but it is simply because they think the leader they
happen to be following has discovered a current of temporary popular
taste. The authors have the same interest as the managers, and you
will always find them watching the public taste in the same manner.
Occasionally an individual dramatist, and not always the best from a
technical point of view, will develop such a strong personal bias as
to write on subjects suggested by his own tastes, without any regard
to the current of popular wishes. If he is a strong enough man he will
become a leader of the public in his dramatic tastes. Sometimes in
rare instances he will influence the public so decidedly that he
compels the contemporary school of writers to follow him. This has
been the case in all periods. I need not mention Shakespeare, as
everything said about him is a matter of course.
Take the vile dramatic era of Charles II. Wycherley led the brutes,
but Congreve came up and combatted with his brilliant comedies the
vileness of the Restoration school, and Hallam says of him that he
introduced decency to the stage that afterward drove his own comedies
off it. A little after Congreve, the school, so to speak, for we have
nothing but the school, was so stupid that it brought forth no great
writers, and produced weak, sentimental plays. Then came Goldsmith,
who wrote "She Stoops to Conquer" actually as a protest against the
feeble sentimentality I have referred to. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
was made possible by Goldsmith. We went on after that with a school
of old comedies. When we speak of the "old comedies," I am not talking
about Beaumont and Fletcher, nor Wycherley, nor Vanbrugh, nor even
Congreve, but of the comedy of Goldsmith in the third quarter of the
eighteenth century down to Bulwer Lytton's "Money" and Boucicault's
"London Assurance," bringing us to about 1840. Then there swung a
school of what we call the palmy days of old comedy, and in the '40's
it dwindled to nothing, and England and America waited until the early
'60's. Then came Tom Robertson with his so-called "tea-cup and saucer"
school, which consisted of sententious dialogue, simple situations,
conventional characterizations, and threads of plots, until Pinero and
Jones put a stop to the Robertson fad.
This proves in my judgment that the school always starts by being
shown what the popular taste is, and follows that, until some
individual discovery that the popular taste is changed. The tendency
of the school is always to become academic and fixed in its ideas--it
is the individual who points to the necessary changes. Schools and
these special individuals are interdependent.
As to the present comedies in America: in the first place, it is
impossible as a rule to decide fully what are the tendencies of a
school when one is living in the midst of its activities. There is no
marked tendency now; and as far as I can see it is only the occasional
man who discovers the tendency of the times. Pinero undoubtedly saw
that the public was tired of the "tea-cup and saucer." Probably had he
not thought so, he would have gone on in that school.
Undoubtedly more plays are written to order than are written on the
mere impulse of authors, independently of popular demand. The "order"
play simply represents the popular demand as understood by managers,
and the meeting of that demand in each age produces the great mass
of any nation's drama. So far from lowering the standard of dramatic
writing, it is a necessary impulse in the development of any drama. It
is only when the school goes on blindly without seeing a change in the
popular taste that the occasional man I have spoken of comes on. When
the work of the school is legitimately in line with the public taste,
the merely eccentric dramatist is like _Lord Dundreary's_ bird with a
single feather that goes in a corner and flocks all by itself. He may
be a strong enough man to attract attention to his individuality, and
his plays may be really great in themselves, but his work has
little influence on the development of the art. In fact, there is
no development of the art except in the line of popular taste. The
specially great men mentioned have simply discovered the changes in
the popular taste, and to a certain extent perhaps guided it.[A]
[Footnote A: Originally published in "The Sunday Magazine" (New York)
for October 7, 1906.]
=BOSTON MUSEUM=
1841
FORTY-EIGHTH REGULAR SEASON
MR. R.M. FIELD, MANAGER
=SHENANDOAH=
COMMENCING MONDAY, NOV. 19, 1889.
* * * * *
Evenings at 7:45 and Wednesday and Saturday Afternoon at 2.
* * * * *
FIRST TIME ON ANY STAGE
OF THIS
NEW MILITARY COMEDY
=SHENANDOAH!=
Written Expressly for the Boston Museum by
BRONSON HOWARD, ESQ.
Author of THE HENRIETTA, THE BANKER'S DAUGHTER, YOUNG MRS. WINTHROP,
ONE OF OUR GIRLS, OLD LOVE LETTER, ETC.
WITH ENTIRELY NEW SCENERY BY LA MOSS,
AND THE FOLLOWING CAST:
PEACE
COL. JOHN HAVERILL, Mr. THOS. L. COLEMAN
LIEUT. KERCHIVAL WEST, Mr. JOHN B. MASON [Transcribers note: some unreadable text here]
LIEUT. ROB'T ELLINGHAM, Mr. CHAS. J. BELL
FRANK HAVERILL, Mr. EDGAR L. DAVENPORT
EDW. THORNTON, a Southerner "by choice," Mr. WILLIS GRANGER
MRS. HAVERILL Miss ANNIE M. CLARKE
GERTRUDE ELLINGHAM, a Southern girl, Miss VIOLA ALLEN
MADELINE WEST, a Northern girl, Miss HELEN DAYNE
WAR
MAJ. GEN. FRANCIS BUCKTHORN, Commander of the
Nineteenth Army Corps Mr. C. LESLIE ALLEN
BRIG. GEN. HAVERILL, { Officers } Mr. THOS. L. COLEMAN
COL. KERCHIVAL WEST, { of } Mr. JOHN B. MASON
CAPT. HEARTSEASE, { Sheridan's } Mr. HENRY M. PITT
LIEUT. FRANK BEDLOE, { Cavalry } Mr. EDGAR L. DAVENPORT
SERGEANT BARKET, Mr. GEO. W. WILSON
COL. ROBERT ELLINGHAM, 10th Virginia C.S.A., Mr. CHAS. J. BELL
CAPT. THORNTON, Secret Service, C.S.A., Mr. WILLIS GRANGER
LIEUT. HARDWICK, Surgeon, C.S.A., Mr. GEORGE BLAKE
CORPORAL DUNN, Mr. JAMES NOLAN
CAPT. LOCKWOOD, Signal Officer Mr. HERBERT PATTEE
BENSON, {Cavalrymen } Mr. C.B. ABBE
WILKINS, { } Mr. HENRY MACDONNA
LIEUTENANTS, {Cavalry} MR. H.P. WHITTEMORE
{Infantry} Mr. THOS. FRANCIS
MRS. HAVERILL, Miss ANNIE M. CLARKE
GERTRUDE ELLINGHAM, Miss VIOLA ALLEN
MADELINE WEST, Miss HELEN DAYNE
JENNY BUCKTHORN, U.S.A., Miss MIRIAM O'LEARY
MRS. EDITH HAVERILL, Miss GRACE ATWELL
OLD MARGERY Miss KATE RYAN
JANNETTE Miss HARDING
There will be no intermission between Acts THIRD and FOURTH
[Transcriber's note: Unreadable text.]
ACT FIRST
Charleston Harbor in 1861
After the ball. Residence of the Ellinghams.
The citizens of Charleston knew almost the exact hour at
which the attack on Fort Sumter would begin, and they gathered
in the gray twilight of the morning to view the bombardment
as a spectacle.--NICOLAY, _Campaigns of the Civil War, Vol. I._
"I shall open fire in one hour."--BEAUREGARD'S _last message
to_ MAJOR ANDERSON. _Sent at 3:20 A.M., April 12, 1861_.
ACT SECOND
The Ellingham Homestead in Virginia
When the Union Army under Gen. Sheridan and the Confederate Army
under Gen. Early were encamped at Cedar Creek, almost twenty miles
south of Winchester, there was a Confederate signal station on Three Top
Mountain, overlooking both camps; [Transcriber's note: Unreadable] another, near the summit of
North Mountain, on the opposite side of the valley.--_Official Records and
Maps_.
ACTS THIRD and FOURTH
No Intermission between these Acts.
The Shenandoah Valley. Night and Morning. Three Top mountain.
[Transcriber's note: Unreadable text.]
While the two armies lay opposite each other, General Sheridan was called
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