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diff --git a/old/63287-0.txt b/old/63287-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 39b63fd..0000000 --- a/old/63287-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5095 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of I'd Like to Do it Again, by Owen Davis - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: I'd Like to Do it Again - -Author: Owen Davis - -Release Date: September 24, 2020 [EBook #63287] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I'D LIKE TO DO IT AGAIN *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - I’D LIKE TO DO IT AGAIN - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _PLAYS BY MR. DAVIS_ - - Icebound - The Detour - The Nervous Wreck - and others - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - -[Illustration: - - OWEN DAVIS - (Photograph from White Studio) -] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - I’D LIKE - TO DO IT AGAIN - - - - - by - OWEN DAVIS - - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - - - _FARRAR & RINEHART, INCORPORATED_ - _ON MURRAY HILL - - - - NEW YORK_ - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - - -[Illustration] - - - COPYRIGHT, 1931, BY OWEN DAVIS - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ──────────────── - CONTENTS - ──────────────── - - - I. FALSE STARTS, 3 - - II. SELLING THE FIRST ONE, 22 - - III. THEN AND NOW, 47 - - IV. “HOLD, VILLAIN!” 77 - - V. UP FROM MELODRAMA, 108 - - VI. HOW TO WRITE THREE HUNDRED PLAYS, 146 - - VII. THE DRAMATIST’S PROFESSION, 171 - - VIII. HOLLYWOOD, 206 - - IX. I’D LIKE TO DO IT AGAIN, 231 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ──────────────── - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - ──────────────── - - - Owen Davis Frontis - - When he entered Harvard in 4 - 1889 - - “Aside from being a fair 5 - football player” - - Gus Hill, Champion Club 10 - Swinger - - Maurice Barrymore 11 - - Fanny Janauschek as Medea 14 - - Lawrence Barrett 15 - - Sally Cohen 20 - - John C. Rice 21 - - “O’Neill listened to my 24 - reading of the part” - - Edwin Booth as Richelieu 25 - - “I took one of my first plays 30 - to the Frohman office” - - Harrigan and Hart 31 - - “The B’s were led by the name 38 - of William A. Brady” - - “Henry Miller was the greatest 39 - teacher” - - A. M. Palmer 50 - - “Augustin Daly was a master” 51 - - “William Winter was the 60 - outstanding critic” - - David Belasco 61 - - Elizabeth Dreyer 90 - - Laurette Taylor 91 - - Joseph Jefferson 120 - - “I have always admired 121 - Augustus Thomas” - - Robert H. Davis 140 - - Owen Davis and his two sons 141 - - Owen Davis, Jr., actor 160 - - Donald Davis, playwright 161 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - I’D LIKE TO DO IT AGAIN - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ──────────────── - CHAPTER I ◆ FALSE STARTS - ──────────────── - - -At the time of my mother’s death some fifteen years ago, we found among -her cherished possessions a soiled and tattered old manuscript written -in a scrawling school-boy hand, and inscribed in her neat and graceful -lettering—“Owen’s first play, when he was just nine years old.” This -opus bore the somewhat violent title of DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND OR THE RIVAL -DETECTIVES and upon reading it over I was struck by one marked -originality—toward the end of the first act only one of the characters -remained alive, and as the final curtain fell he committed suicide. I -had reached some degree of success long before my mother’s death, and, -once or twice, when some friend spoke of one of my plays as “the best -thing I ever wrote,” I noticed a somewhat scornful smile on her -sensitive lips. She had all of the reticence of the true Yankee and, -secure in her possession of the only copy of DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND, she -could afford to smile. - -As a matter of truth, she smiled more frequently than one would expect -of the mother of eight children, and her strong and dauntless ambition -saw no limits at all to the future of her brood. To those who knew her -there is no mystery in the fact that a boy of nine, born in a country -town many years before the talking pictures had brought the drama to -every hamlet in the world, should have been born with the trick of -creating dramatic narrative and the fierce longing to create it. - -Bangor, Maine, in the early 80’s knew little of the theater. I may have -seen UNCLE TOM’S CABIN, Edwin Booth, Joe Jefferson and possibly one or -two others, for in those days New York had no monopoly, our great actors -played everywhere—but the theater meant less than nothing to my father -and little more to any member of our community. - -[Illustration: - - Owen Davis when he entered Harvard in 1889 -] - -I had been born, however, with the smell of the stage in my nostrils and -was as stage-struck before I ever saw a stage as I am to-day after -almost thirty-five years, during which I have seen very little else and -have bitterly resented the few hours I have passed in any other -atmosphere. - - -[Illustration: - - “Aside from being a fair football player and a very fast hundred-yard - sprinter, I did little to distinguish myself.” Winning the 100-yard - dash at Harvard in May, 1891. -] - - -This hunger for the glamorous and the romantic surely did not come to me -from the staid New England farmers and lawyers whose lives had been -devoted to the stern necessity of grubbing an existence out of the -rather stubborn soil of Maine and Vermont; but, on my mother’s side -there were certain bold Yanks who had sailed the seas on some of the -clipper ships that in those days were built and manned along the coast -of Maine. To my mother then, and through her to some adventurer of the -deep, I owe the fact that I have never in my life wanted to do, and in -truth I never have done, any of the practical, humdrum work of this -extremely practical world, but have remained perfectly content to make -faces at life and earn my living by drawing pictures on the wall. - -If I am right in my opinion that these bad habits of mine came to me -from my mother, I must absolve her from the blame of not handing me at -the same time some of her own stern pains to repress them. Whatever her -dreams had been, her realities were practical enough and she was one of -the many victims of one of life’s modest ironies—a woman who gave so -much of herself that the future of her eight children should be what she -wanted it to be that she died, still fighting, instead of ever sharing -in the success we owe so greatly to her. - -Success in life is a difficult thing to estimate. My mother, I am -afraid, had little of the thrill of romantic adventure that I knew her -spirit craved. Indeed, so far as I know, she had no time and no desire -to think of herself at all, and she died before she could be sure that -her ambitions for her children would ever be satisfied. Yet I think she -was a successful woman. - -My recollections of these days, stimulated by this message in her faded -handwriting, vaguely recall a long line of literary monstrosities of -about the same date, and when my own boys, at about some such absurd -age, showed symptoms of having been bitten by some wandering bacteria of -the drama, I had an advantage over my father and at once recognized the -symptoms. Like other dread diseases I knew this one to be incurable, the -only treatment being to give the patient plenty of nourishing food, -against the time when he will have difficulty in getting it for himself, -keep him as cheerful as possible, and hope for the worst. - -At the time of my first offense I was a member of a flourishing Dramatic -Society and I have a very distinct memory of my rage when at length the -worms turned and one of my fellow members arose at a meeting and firmly -moved the chair that in future the club devote its energies to -performing plays written by some one besides Owen Davis. This was my -first experience of dramatic criticism; my second came some fifteen -years later, fifteen years during which I am afraid I had drifted away -from the worship of the drama and directed myself with equal enthusiasm -to playing ball with such rare and occasional intervals of study as -seemed necessary to preserve the peace. - -The theater seemed very far away. My father at that time was the -president of the Society of American Iron Manufacturers and had a small -furnace at Kathodin Iron Works, a settlement in the Maine woods about -fifty miles above Bangor; and after considerable conflict I was -persuaded by my father that I had the makings in me of a great mining -engineer. If I had not already stated that my sense of humor came to me -from my mother’s side, this would be a good place to bring it in. - -When I was about fifteen, my father’s business took him to the -Cumberland Mountains in the southern part of Kentucky and he took my -mother and the younger children with him, sending my elder brother to -Massachusetts Tech and me to Harvard. In 1889 there was no School of the -Drama in Harvard, but I can’t recall that there was any great yearning -on my part for one. For some queer reason the memory of the years I -spent there is vague and shadowy. I was not old enough at the time to -get the benefits of a great university, and, aside from the fact of -being a fair football player and a very fast hundred-yard sprinter, I -did little to distinguish myself. - -I was a wretched scholar; neither at that time nor at any other have I -ever been able to do anything unless it happened to be the one thing I -wanted to do, and I can’t recall that a high grade in any of my studies -was at any time one of my ambitions. I went to the Boston theaters -whenever I had money enough to get there and I saw all of the great -plays and all of the actors of the day, but I worshiped them from a -distance and had long ago ceased to hope that my life could in any way -be devoted to anything aside from mining engineering. But as I have -never been able to understand the simplest scientific problem and still -retain a bland uncertainty as to how many times three goes in nine, I -doubt if the engineering profession lost much when I later reverted to -type. - -My only adventure in the theater during these years was as a member of -what was called “The Society of Arts” which was, I think, the very first -art group to undertake to elevate the drama in America. For some reason -I have a perfectly distinct recollection of this weighty and august -group, although I can’t for the life of me remember what I was doing in -it. The society was organized by Harvard professors and the -distinguished group of men of letters who at that time brought glory to -Cambridge and Boston. - -A large sum of money was raised, a fine company of actors engaged, and a -month’s rental of the Hollis Street Theatre, Boston, secured. We -produced four plays, not written by ordinary playwrights but the product -of real literary masters; one by William Dean Howells, one by Frank R. -Stockton and the others by famous writers of equal standing. The company -was headed by Maurice Barrymore and his wife, and everything was done to -attract the “lovers of a better drama” in Boston. But the “lovers of a -better drama” in Boston were as scarce in 1890 as they are to-day, and -the venture was never a success. - - -[Illustration: - - GUS HILL - Champion Club Swinger -] - - -[Illustration: - - MAURICE BARRYMORE - (_Photograph by Sarony. From the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -It was a long time ago and my memory is vague as to the merits of our -performances, but I do recall one passing comment. Toward the end of the -third week the head usher came to me with the news that “all the ushers -have quit, and I don’t know what we’ll do about showing people to their -seats, if there are any people to show to their seats.” I asked him the -reason for this sudden desertion on the part of our ushers and he -informed me curtly that “they couldn’t stand the —— —— shows!” - -I don’t remember that I greatly mourned the passing of America’s first -art group in the theater and I loafed along pleasantly enough during my -years in Cambridge, winning some glory on the running track and trying -to make up for my lack of age and weight, both of which at that time -told heavily against me on the football field. By some odd freak I took -few of the courses in English and wrote nothing at all, my only advance -in any of the fine arts being a training as a draw-poker player, an -accomplishment I have never ceased to be grateful for to the great -university where I secured so solid and lasting a technique. - -I was tremendously influenced at this time by Phillips Brooks, who still -stands in my memory as the greatest American I have ever known, and I -grew so fond of Professor N. S. Shaler, a grand figure both as a man and -a scientist, that I took every one of his courses in paleontology -without ever gaining the most remote idea of what they were all about. - -Quite without ambition and with no definite objective at all I drifted -along until, in the summer of 1903, I found myself working for a coal -mining company in which my father was interested, in the Cumberland -Mountains. I was even a worse mining engineer than I had ever hoped to -be and was extravagantly overpaid by my salary of forty dollars a month. -I am sure that I, at the time, never considered myself worth any more, -but I found it difficult to save out of that forty a month a sum of -money large enough to gratify the first great ambition of my life. It -came to me suddenly, the very day I went to work in the coal business -and consisted of a deep determination to get out of it with the least -possible delay. - -Aside from the fact that the glamorous title of a mining engineer turned -out to be just another name for a guy who dug holes in the ground, I -simply detested the dirty little southern town in which I found myself. -Also, as I happened to start my work on the very day the Debs strike -started, I added fear for my life to my other reason for a prompt -withdrawal. There I had to remain, however, all during the riots and -shootings and murders of the great strike, and the town I lived in was -sometimes held by the strikers, and sometimes by the Kentucky State -Troops. On occasion both sides were forced to withdraw for a time, as -this part of the mountains had long been reserved as a battleground by -the Hatfield and McCoy factions, whose feud, arising out of the fact -that some young lady of the generation before had looked funny in a hoop -skirt, had resulted in the death, with their boots on, of many more -worthy citizens than the entire population of the town in my day. Being -even then of a strictly impersonal nature, I didn’t in the least care -whether the McCoys killed the Hatfields or the strikers killed the state -troops. It didn’t seem to be my party. All I wanted was a ticket to New -York. - -I knew that I could expect no help from my father. He had, for the -moment, lost all of his money. It was his habit to make and lose -considerable fortunes with the rapidity and nonchalance of a Wilkins -Micawber, and this was one of the times when, like Micawber, he was -waiting for something to turn up. My father was, I am sure, the sweetest -and gentlest and one of the ablest men I have ever known—and I am -equally sure he was the worst business man. I don’t know how many months -it took me to save the railroad fare to New York, but I know that I -arrived there in due time with exactly twelve dollars in my pocket and a -firm determination to conquer the theater, either as a writer or as an -actor. - -I was indifferent. Let fate decide. Fate, however, had pretty well -decided as I was never, as we say in Hollywood, “just the type” for -romantic juveniles, having always been about the same distance around as -I was up and down, and so I made a final decision to attack as a -dramatist. And when I say that in the thirty odd years since then I have -had more fun than any man in the world, I am prepared to defend my boast -against doubters either on foot or on horseback. If life has taught me -anything at all, it is that round pegs belong in round holes and that -the one great happiness is to be doing the thing one loves to do. - - -[Illustration: - - Fanny Janauschek as Medea. “The last of the really great actors of the - romantic school.” - (_From the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -[Illustration: - - Lawrence Barrett as Count Lanciotto in Francesca da Rimini - (_From the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -Twelve dollars is not a large capital for an unknown boy, quite without -friends, thrown upon his own resources in New York, and I am willing to -admit that at fifty-six I should scream with terror at what at -twenty-two seemed to me to be a glorious adventure. - -A. M. Palmer was at that time one of the leading New York managers and -after many attempts I succeeded in persuading him to read a play I had -written. Fortunately no copy of this drama remains in existence. It was, -according to my vague memory, a very terrible affair. But Mr. Palmer, -who was a sort of Christopher Columbus of his time, seemed to discover -in it some germ of promise, and as in spite of some months of experience -I still found it difficult to live without eating, he offered to make me -an actor until such time as I was able to live by writing. He put me -with an all-star cast supporting Madame Janauschek, the last of the -really great tragic actors of the romantic school. - -This company contained such well-known artists as Blanche Walsh, W. H. -Thompson, Annie Yeamans, Fred Bond, Orin Johnstone, Joseph Whiting, -George C. Boniface, Sr., and many others, and opened in rather a bad -melodrama called THE GREAT DIAMOND ROBBERY, a vehicle quite unworthy of -the really great talents of Janauschek who was, in some ways, the finest -actress I have ever known. She had been a friend of the very great in -Europe, and had come so near to being an actual queen that much of the -manner of royalty still clung to her. When I knew her she was short and -dumpy and old but in her presence one had the feeling of the latent -power and fire of this remarkable woman and a sense of the pity and -irony of her slow decay. - -My duties as a member of her company had at least the spice of variety, -as I played five parts in the play, was assistant stage manager and had -the added privilege of sitting at the gallery door for an hour before -each performance to count the number of persons who entered, as it was a -playful custom of the day for the owner of the theater to sell about -twice as many gallery tickets as were found in the box when the count -was made. For these duties I was rewarded by the rather small salary of -twelve dollars a week, and although twelve dollars went further in those -days than they do now, they never seemed quite to reach from one -Saturday night to the next one. - -I played with this company for its run in New York and continued with it -for a long road season. The road in those days took in all of the -principal towns of the country and, as Janauschek was an established -favorite, we did a good business everywhere. My twelve dollars a week -that probably wouldn’t pay for a room to-day was with a little -stretching enough for a decent living, although by the end of each week -I was driven to borrowing the morning papers for the want of the two -cents necessary to purchase them. - -At that time one could live for a week at the second best hotel in any -city for ten dollars and a half, room, bath and food. Ten dollars and a -half, however, was far beyond me and I usually found possible enough -accommodations for about eight dollars. The company made many night -journeys, but, as I remember it, the expense of sleeping-car berths -never worried me. I solved that problem by turning up the collar of my -coat, resting my head on my shabby old suit case and stretching myself -out on two seats of a smoking car. I had seen little of the country at -that time and each new town we came to was a fresh adventure. I loved -the life and from the first I never had a doubt but what it was to be -mine for the rest of my life. I was sincere in my ambition to become a -playwright and at the close of the season I struck out boldly toward -that goal. The fact that I was inclined to decide upon play writing -rather than acting may have been partly influenced by a parting scene I -had with Madame Janauschek the last day of our season. - -Janauschek had been extremely kind to me in her rather queeny way and -summoned me to her presence at her apartments in one of the great -Chicago hotels for a word of parting and advice. After a few formal -words in her broken English she presented me with a small photograph of -herself on which she had written a gracious message in her native -German. She then led me to the door, kissed me firmly on the forehead -and said: “Young man—neffer again be an actor,” and pushed me out into -the hall and closed the door. - -The closing of the season and some inward agreement with Madame’s -verdict ended my attempts at acting except for one or two occasions when -I was forced by some great emergency to jump into some part to save a -performance and one dreadful time, of which I will speak later, when -stern necessity seemed to be facing me. Two of the occasions when I had -to become an actor or close a theater are fresh in my memory. - -During its second season my play THROUGH THE BREAKERS was booked to open -in Jersey City with a holiday matinée. Unfortunately the worst blizzard -of twenty years had been raging and at matinée time several of the -company had been unable to cross the river. I was the company manager -and after switching the cast about as much as possible I found that the -only way to give a performance at all was for me to go on and play the -part of the rough and villainous sailor. Reluctantly I decided to go -through with it, and did so to the best of my ability. By evening the -storm was over and the company were all on hand and, during the -extremely melodramatic second act I stood in the rear of the darkened -theater and watched the performance. It was just at the height of the -villainous sailor’s most villainous moment when the head usher, who -happened to be beside me, whispered: “That ain’t the same man who played -the old sailor this afternoon.” “No,” I answered, “it isn’t.” “I thought -it wasn’t,” replied the usher, “seems to me he’s a damned sight better.” - -[Illustration: - - SALLY COHEN, 1898 - With Rice, one of the “favorite entertainers of vaudeville and musical - comedy.” - (_Courtesy of The Players_) -] - - -The other occasion of which I wrote—and, come to think of it, my last -appearance as an actor on any stage—was in a musical comedy I concocted -about twenty-five years ago for John C. Rice and Sally Cohen, then and -for many years afterwards favorite entertainers of vaudeville and -musical comedy. Saturday night of the first week of the play John Rice -came to me and in a hoarse whisper informed me he had completely lost -his voice, a fact that was only too evident to any one who witnessed his -distress in trying to speak above a whisper. The house was sold out and -I owned a third of the show, so it required very little persuasion from -the local theater manager to induce me to take a chance. Sally Cohen -was, I think, the first to propose that I take her famous husband’s -part, and I distinctly recall that the only thing that prevented John -Rice from absolutely forbidding it was the fact that by that time he was -quite incapable of making any sound at all and could only protest by -frantic signs and facial contortions. - - -[Illustration: - - JOHN C. RICE, 1896 - (_Courtesy of The Players_) -] - - -At first the fact that Rice was one of the greatest dancers living and -that he had six songs to sing rather dampened my confidence, not only -because I didn’t know either the songs or the dance steps, but because I -never sang a song or danced a step in my life. Little obstacles, -however, never troubled me in those days, and although I was three -inches shorter and fifty pounds heavier than Rice I calmly arrayed -myself in his opening costume and rang the curtain up. About all I -remember of that night is that we got the money, although for years -afterwards whenever I chanced to meet that local manager he fell into a -violent fit of laughter, the cause of which he was never satisfactorily -able to explain. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ──────────────── - CHAPTER II ◆ SELLING THE FIRST ONE - ──────────────── - - -Although I am rambling about a little ahead of my story the reader will -have observed that by this time I had crossed the Rubicon and had sold -my first play and was steaming ahead at full speed. Very few weeks pass -during which I am not asked “how to sell a first play” and for the -benefit of all would-be dramatists I propose to pause here and answer -this question for all time by giving a brief description of how I sold -mine. - -I had no money at all and absolutely no idea of who the managers were or -how to approach them, but I had a play, or at least I had an amazing -number of perfectly good words neatly set down on paper, and I started -boldly out on my quest. This quest proved as it almost always does an -unbelievably long and difficult one. Luck favored me by bringing about a -chance meeting on Broadway with an old friend, the captain of the -Harvard varsity football team on which I had been a substitute, and -through him I managed to land the job of coaching the football squad of -a New York prep school at a salary of fifty dollars a month. So the food -and shelter problem was solved for the next few months. But all good -things, even football seasons, come to an end, and before I had -discovered, first, that no one would read my play, and, second, that it -was absolutely not worth reading anyway, I had some hard knocks and some -rather dire experiences. At length I made up my mind that possibly the -reason I couldn’t sell my play was because it was a bad one and I -started another, but stern necessity was knocking hard and loud and in a -moment of discouragement I made up my mind to again become an actor. A -kind Providence, however, saved me from this fate, although at the -moment I was tempted to doubt its kindness. - -I wrote a letter to the late James O’Neill, who as usual was rehearsing -his company at his home in New London; some mention of my experience at -Harvard caught O’Neill’s eye and he wrote me to join the company at New -London, but he evidently did not think it necessary to enclose -transportation to a worthy Harvard graduate. I arrived in New London one -beautiful August day in 1898 or thereabouts with a capital of ninety -cents, and was asked by Mr. O’Neill to memorize six parts in the various -plays he was to do that season, and to read one of them, the part of the -juvenile lead in VIRGINIOS to him the following morning. To this day -when things are breaking very badly for me I am haunted by some of these -terrible lines: “Spread the news in every corner of the city, and let no -man who calls himself a son of Rome stand aside when tyranny assails its -fairest daughter.” O’Neill listened to my reading of the part and -swallowed hard and remarked that “I still needed a little work,” and -then made me the princely offer of twenty dollars a week for the season -if I would buy seven hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of costumes for -the parts. At that it was my turn to swallow hard as my ninety cents had -shrunk considerably during the last twenty-four hours, but I managed to -stammer out that I’d think it over and let him know. - - -[Illustration: - - “O’Neill listened to my reading of the part.” - (_A caricature by Fornaro. From the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -[Illustration: - - Edwin Booth as Richelieu - (_From the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -Mr. O’Neill went into town to spend the evening leaving me seated on a -rock busy with a mathematical problem, and as I never was a great -mathematician I sat there on that rock until twelve o’clock that night -trying to figure out how to expand the remains of my ninety cents to -cover seven hundred and fifty dollars for costumes and enough over to -live on for five weeks before my salary was to start. It was a difficult -problem, but I still think if I had been given a little more time I -would have solved it. I was interrupted, however, by the sound of voices -approaching in the night. Mr. O’Neill’s home was in a secluded spot. On -one side of it ran the raised tracks of the New Haven railroad. In the -house at that moment young Eugene O’Neill was sleeping in his crib. At -the sound of voices I looked up, my problem still unsolved. Its solution -came very suddenly. Mr. O’Neill, returning along the raised railroad -tracks, stubbed his toe and fell through an open culvert and landed at -my feet with both his legs broken. I left New London the next day. I -have often been back since that night, but my watch is still there. - -Had I known as much in those days as I now know of the enormous -difficulties ahead of me it is possible that I might have feared them, -but at the time my confidence was more developed than my prudence and I -had no fear at all. This is, of course, the usual attitude of youth. The -obstacles ahead that seem like mountains to the experience of middle age -are only mole hills to a young man of twenty odd who quite expects to -leap over them without a change of stride. - -Yet I doubt if any undertaking in the world is any more difficult than -that of one who elects to make a living as a dramatist. He must win his -place and then he must hold it, and of the two the last is really the -most difficult. The late Charles Kline told me just before his death -that the most pitiful thing in the world was a playwright who had -written a big success and learned enough of the difficulties of doing it -to feel absolutely convinced that there wasn’t the slightest chance of -his ever being able to do it again. Every young playwright must put up -with a number of things that cut deep into a sensitive nature and leave -scars that never quite die away. Many men and women of talent, who might -have developed into fine writers for the theater find themselves too -sensitive for the harsh contacts and give up in despair. The hours of -waiting in managers’ offices, ignored and unwelcome, the contemptuous -acceptance of plays to be read that are ultimately glanced over by an -office boy and scornfully rejected, are all a part of the game. - -I took one of my first plays to the Frohman office. What happened to it -there was, or at least I thought it was, a matter of life or death to -me. I had no money at all and during the five weeks I was waiting for a -verdict I sold what few clothes I had left, piece by piece, to pay my -three dollars a week room rent and spent thirty cents a day for food. At -last I was ushered into the presence of the play reader, later one of -the great men of the theater, who met me with this encouraging speech: -“You are,” he said, “a strong and husky young man, with, so I have -heard, some reputation as an athlete. Why don’t you take this play of -yours and see how far you can throw it?” This was hardly a tactful -rejection, and as it turned out rather a silly one, as the play in -question some years later made a very reasonable success. - -One must be prepared for this sort of thing and resolute enough to -thrive on it, as success very rarely comes upon a young playwright very -suddenly. It doesn’t sneak up behind one and thrust fame and fortune -into one’s lap, fame and fortune being very timid birds, more likely to -fall into the lap of the one who goes out after them with a gun than to -the dreamer who sits at home and waits patiently. In my experience -patient waiting never got anybody anything. All the prizes worth having -are for the daring—the one who sits and waits never got anything—except -fat. - -A dramatist isn’t a dramatist at all until he has had a play produced, -no matter how many plays he may have written, and he must get that first -production at any cost. It is natural enough that the managers should -hesitate before purchasing the play of an untried writer, especially as -there are only a few of them who themselves know enough about a play to -have any real confidence in their own reaction. The successful author, -of course, has a great advantage, and a man with one or two hits to his -credit can get a pretty bad play accepted. Yet Mr. Shaw’s observation -that “If it’s by a good writer it’s a good play” doesn’t mean quite as -much as it used to, since the critic of late has developed a rather -alarming habit of eagerly leaping at the throat of the man who is -obviously trading on an established reputation and trying to get away -with careless and sloppy work. - -In some ways it is, I think, more difficult for a beginner to-day than -it was in my youth. In those days almost any play that got itself -produced made some money for its author and any honest writer of long -experience would own up to considerable sums made from plays that cost -their producers a lot of money. To-day, however, plays die quickly and a -failure means that the writer gets little, if anything, more than the -trifling sum of his advance, which is seldom over five hundred and -almost never, in America, over one thousand dollars. The pleasant old -custom of a manager keeping a young writer’s bad plays running long -enough for the writer to live comfortably until he learned how to write -a better one has passed along with the other nice old romantic notions -and to-day he has to hit it the first time or walk the plank. - - -[Illustration: - - CHARLES FROHMAN - “I took one of my first plays to the Frohman office.” - (_From a caricature in the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -It is, naturally enough, about as difficult for the beginner to learn -how to write without any real chance of slowly and gradually learning -his business as it is for the young actor of to-day to learn how to act -without any real experience in acting; he lacks the training of the good -stock companies of twenty years ago, or of the classic drama where he -had to play many small parts before he was ever trusted with a big one. -He is asked now to play any part he can look, and is given leading parts -to play and fails in them more from lack of experience than from lack of -talent. This doesn’t in the least mean that I think the acting of -twenty-five years ago was better than the acting of to-day, because I -know better. The lack of the training of the old days is unfortunate, -but the change in method more than makes up for it, and although at -present we have few great actors we have a tremendous supply of very -competent ones. Although at this writing too many of them are in -Hollywood, we can still find a good cast far more easily than we can -find a good play, and there are still far too many promising young -actors unable to get a chance to prove their worth. But their problem is -simple compared to the problem of the young playwright, now or twenty -years ago. - - -[Illustration: - - HARRIGAN AND HART - (_From the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -Each generation, I suppose, has its own problems, but the problem of the -one starting out to win a place in a crowded and difficult profession is -never easily solved. It is well, however, to remember that all these -fences built up in front of us to hold us back remain firmly standing -after we have managed to scramble over them and they keep on blocking -the road and give a little breathing time to those who have succeeded in -getting a start. - -It’s a tough game any way you figure it, and it’s a queer, lonely and -depressing existence. A young writer must do it all himself and usually -against the advice and the doubts of his acquaintances. He must run -around New York with that first play under his arm until both his feet -and his heart are sore, and he rarely meets any one who takes the -slightest interest in it. Nobody has any faith or confidence in him; -probably he has very little money—I very distinctly remember that I had -none at all—he will very likely be as hungry and lonely and frightened -as I was. But if the play under that young writer’s arm is a real -play—and every once in a while it is—he is not a half starved lonely -vagrant but a prince on a masquerade. He doesn’t know it; the cold and -half contemptuous clerks and secretaries he meets can’t see through his -disguise, but he is a bigger man than any of these who snub him and -outranks the best of them. Soon his time will come—“The King is dead. -Long live the King.” At the time I started, however, I knew nothing at -all of what was ahead of me, and had, as I recall it, few doubts and no -misgivings. - -Fate having thrust me back into the ranks of the dramatists I have never -again dared to desert and devoted my efforts only to play writing, -although at odd times, driven by financial or business necessity, I have -served in all the branches of the theater, having worked as actor, stage -manager, stage director, treasurer, box-office man, advance agent, play -doctor, dramatist, business manager, partner in plays of my own and of -other writers, as well as in later years serving a rather varied -apprenticeship in the motion picture studios both in New York and in -California. - -Determined to sell this first play of mine I approached at this time the -firm of Davis and Keough and tried to sell them a romantic costume drama -dealing with the Wars of the Roses. When Mr. Keough got through -laughing, he asked me to go that night to see a play he had just -produced called THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY and to call on him the next day. -When I called he asked me if “I thought I could write a play like that.” -I replied that I thought anybody could, but didn’t see why they should. -But when he told me that he would give me five hundred dollars if I -wrote one he liked, I rushed back to my furnished room and went to work. -I am sure the play I wrote was almost as bad as the one he sent me to -see, but for some deep managerial reason he couldn’t see it and told me -to go away and stop bothering him. The Davis and Keough melodrama, -however, had made me think. I had seen that the theater had been crowded -with an audience that responded tremendously to the crude plot and the -rather obvious situations and, as I had told Mr. Keough, it had seemed -to me to be a simple formula to acquire. Later investigation convinced -me that this formula was capable of some expansion without loss to its -effectiveness and I began a rather more scientific study of this form of -play manufacture than had ever before seemed necessary to any of the -writers who had been engaged in it. - -As a result of this study I soon evolved a rather mechanical but really -effective mold that served me in the writing of more than one hundred -and fifty of these melodramas with an average of success that seems -startling to me as I look back upon it. Charles Dickens had beaten me to -the trick and of course many others have used it, but as a labor-saving -device it served me well. It had always seemed to me that Dickens’s -stories fell very readily into three molds: one represented by THE TALE -OF TWO CITIES, one by DAVID COPPERFIELD and one by the strictly humorous -type represented by THE PICKWICK PAPERS. I therefore devised my molds, -in my case represented by such western thrillers as THE GAMBLER OF THE -WEST, the second type the New York comedy-drama represented by CHINATOWN -CHARLIE and BROADWAY AFTER DARK, and the last group of what Hollywood -would call the “sexy” type, illustrated by NELLIE, THE BEAUTIFUL CLOAK -MODEL and a long string of her persecuted and unfortunate sisters. - -It took me some months to figure all this out and to experiment with my -different forms, months of very hard work, as I wrote all day and every -night went to the fifteen-cent gallery of one of the popular-priced -houses, making a real study, not of the plays but of the audiences. When -the very hard-boiled gentleman who sat next to me wept or laughed or -applauded, I wasn’t at first always sure of his reason, my duller mind -not at that time responding to the sentimental dramatic or comedy cue as -quickly as his trained intelligence, and I made a point of falling into -conversation with my neighbors in an effort to share as fully in the -delight of those present as was possible for an unfortunate inhibited by -a Harvard background. - -After a time, trained by my comrades in the packed and poorly ventilated -galleries, I found myself thrilling with delight to the noble if -somewhat banal sentiment of such good old phrases as: “Rags are royal -raiment when worn for virtue’s sake,” and taking the utmost satisfaction -in the retribution that always followed the villain and in the sweet, -and somewhat sticky, rewards of those whose feet had never strayed from -the straight and narrow path. Of course life was never like that, but -just as obviously it ought to be, and to the dull lives of the working -people of thirty-five years ago these absurd dramas of ours brought -almost their only glimpse of romance. - -The old melodramas were practically motion pictures, as one of the first -tricks I learned was that my plays must be written for an audience who, -owing to the huge, uncarpeted, noisy theaters, couldn’t always hear the -words and who, a large percentage of them having only recently landed in -America, couldn’t have understood them in any case. I therefore wrote -for the eye rather than the ear and played out each emotion in action, -depending on my dialogue only for the noble sentiments so dear to -audiences of that class. - -With my mind made up to a conquest of the sensational melodrama field I -worked hard on my first script and in the course of time had it ready. -Curiously enough I had turned out a good play, rather above the usual -specimen of its kind, and as a matter of fact one of the most honest and -complete successes I have ever had. I knew little of its worth at the -time, but I liked the thing, not unusual in a young dramatist, and I -made up my mind to have it produced. To that end I made up a list of -theatrical managers starting with the A’s and ending with the X’s and -set out to call on all of them. - -I don’t remember much about the A’s but the B’s were led by the name of -William A. Brady. For a week I called at his office daily with my play -under my arm. There seemed to be a certain vagueness among Mr. Brady’s -clerks as to when he could be seen and after five or six days I ventured -to ask one of them where Mr. Brady was, to be met with the heart-felt -answer: “I wish to God I knew.” Which goes to prove after all how slight -are the changes the years bring. - -Pursuing my alphabetical course, I came at last to the H’s and found the -name of “Gus Hill.” After diligent inquiry I discovered that Gus Hill -was the manager of “Gus Hill’s Stars,” at that time holding forth in a -burlesque theater in Brooklyn. The day before the D’s having failed me -in the person of the late Augustin Daly, I started for Brooklyn and Gus -Hill. I asked for Mr. Hill at the stage door of the Star Theatre and was -pointed out his dressing room and told that Mr. Hill was “in there.” I -knocked somewhat timidly at this door and a voice called “Come in,” and -I entered to see a slight, blond, pleasant-looking man, quite naked, who -was rubbing himself down with a towel. I later learned that Mr. Gus Hill -was at that time the “Champion Club Swinger of the World” and that he -had just finished his usual stunt of swinging great clubs several times -larger than himself. - - -[Illustration: - - “The B’s were led by the name of William A. Brady” - (_Photo by White Studio_) -] - - -[Illustration: - - “Henry Miller was ... the greatest teacher of acting I have ever - known.” - (_Photo by Arnold Genthe_) -] - - -As this turned out to be the critical moment of my life, pardon me if I -drop into the dialogue form in an attempt to do it justice. Mad as the -following may seem, it is true to the very last word. This is what -actually took place between a very much embarrassed youth and a bland, -blond, smiling and quite naked gentleman named Gus Hill: - - - SCENE - - -Gus Hill’s Dressing Room in Star Theatre, Brooklyn. - - - CHARACTERS - - -GUS HILL, thirty-five, a slight man of extraordinarily powerful frame, -good-natured, smiling, costume absolutely none. - -OWEN DAVIS, twenty-four, stout, a bit shy. Costume—the only one he had. - -[_As the curtain rises_, GUS HILL _is discovered rubbing himself down -with the contents of a bottle on the label of which we read the words -“For Man or Beast.” There is a timid knock on the door and_ GUS HILL -_calls_:] - - HILL - -Come in! [_The knock is repeated and again he calls_:] Come in you —— -fool! [_The door opens and_ DAVIS _enters timidly and looks a bit -impressed as he takes in the scene_.] - -[_Note: At this time_ DAVIS _was not hardened to managers and could -still be impressed_.] - - HILL - [_Pleasantly_] - -Who are you? - - DAVIS - -Er—Er—I’m—er—an author. - - HILL - -The hell you are? Do you know you’re the first one of ’em I ever saw -this close. What do you want? - - DAVIS - -Er—well—I thought I—er—I’d like to have you produce my play. - - HILL - -All right, sit down on the trunk. - - DAVIS - [_On trunk_] - -Well—er—that is—er—What I mean is I’d like to have you produce my play. - - HILL - -What the hell is the matter with you? Didn’t I tell you “all right”? - - DAVIS - -Yes, sir—what I mean is—I—er—I was wondering if—if you’d mind very much -if I was to read you my play? - - HILL - -If I keep on in this game I suppose I may have to come to that, but -right now I wouldn’t know anything about it. I’m looking for a play and -you say you’ve got one—what’s the answer? - - DAVIS - -Yes, sir—er—what I mean is—I came here—that is I’d very much like to -have you produce my play. - - HILL - -——! If you keep on talking long enough I’m ——! ——! sure I won’t, let’s -fix it up quick. How much do you want for it? - - DAVIS - -Well—er—as a matter of fact I don’t quite know. You see, to tell you the -truth, this—er—er—this is the first time I ever sold a play if—if this -is a time. - - HILL - -Don’t you know what they sell for? - - DAVIS - -Er—No, sir. - - HILL - -You’re a hell of an author. - - DAVIS - -Er—yes, sir. - - HILL - -I tell you what, I’ll give you fifty dollars a week and put up all the -money. Then, after I got it back, if and when, I’ll give you one-third -of all the play makes. What do you think of that? - - DAVIS - -I don’t believe it. - - HILL - [_Thoughtfully_] - -I’ve heard it said that some guys could write pretty good plays when to -look at ’em you’d wonder how they did it! When we do our play who’s -going to hire the actors and get the scenery and rehearse it? - - DAVIS - [_Calmly_] - -I am. - - HILL - -Do you know how? - - DAVIS - -Er—er—I—I hope so. - - HILL - [_Sadly_] - -Yes—so do I. - - END OF SCENE - - -This was my introduction to Gus Hill and a true account of how my first -play was placed for production. The play was a melodrama called THROUGH -THE BREAKERS and it ran for five years in the popular-priced theaters of -America and was produced in England, Australia and South Africa with -real success. In spite of Mr. Hill’s quite natural doubts, I did all of -the things I told him I would do, and by some kind of luck or fate, or -by the aid of a really tremendous enthusiasm that has always been my one -claim to anything unusual in the way of talent, I got the play on the -stage and gave a really good performance. - -The first matinée of THROUGH THE BREAKERS was the occasion of the second -dramatic criticism to which I alluded some half mile back in this -rambling narrative. The play was produced in Bridgeport, Conn., and the -morning papers had been very flattering in their account of the first -performance of this first born child of mine. I was standing at the back -of the theater during the matinée listening with rapture to my words, -and in all the world there is no listening to equal a young author’s, -when my bliss was rudely shattered by a low-voiced comment from a -gentleman with a dirty collar who sat in the last row. “I have,” -remarked this gentleman to his companion, “seen a lot of shows in my -time, but this is probably the rottenest —— —— —— —— —— of a show I have -ever seen!” - -Even in those days I was a meek and quiet and extremely reasonable man -so I merely smiled and bent over the railing and touched the gentleman -with the dirty collar on the shoulder and whispered softly: “Excuse me, -but there is a message for you outside.” After some persuasion I -convinced the gentleman that “some one outside” was asking for him and -he followed me willingly enough to the front door. The theater, luckily, -was what used to be called an “upstairs house” and twenty-five or thirty -steps led gently down to the street. As we approached the head of this -stairway, still smiling I drew back my arm and hit the astonished critic -a snappy uppercut that tumbled him all the way to the sidewalk, then -returned to my pleasant duty of listening to my own words. - -This story was noised abroad during the next fifteen or twenty years and -was once used by Alexander Woollcott in an article; used, as I recall -it, by him to explain some favorable notice he had written of one of my -plays. - -In justice to myself, however, I must pause here to say that I have been -called worse things than the man with the dirty collar called me by many -critics who are still alive and healthy. As a matter of fact I honestly -think that critics in the end are rarely unfair, and very seldom wrong. -It is an absurdity to say that they ever make or break a play. A good -play is a very sturdy and very important force in itself, of far more -importance than the opinion of any critic, and in the end it lives or -dies because it’s good or because it isn’t. Critics can, and have, made -a bad play live for a short time, but they never killed a good one—and -what’s more, they never wanted to. I have never been an especial pet of -dramatic critics, my somewhat spectacular career not exactly fitting -with their idea of the proper dignity of a dramatist. Yet whenever I -have written a really fine play they have been quick and generous in -their praise of it. So I have always felt they had a perfect right to go -after me tooth and nail upon the more frequent occasions when I have -stubbed my toe. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ──────────────── - CHAPTER III ◆ THEN AND NOW - ──────────────── - - -Dramatic criticism, like all of the other arts having to do with our -theater, has changed, and like the others the change of the last few -years has been for the better. When I first came to New York, William -Winter was by far the outstanding critic, and his opinions were eagerly -waited for and had great influence. I doubt if any critic of to-day is -his equal in some ways, yet the best men of to-day have, I think, a far -greater influence upon the actual writing of plays. In William Winter’s -time the Shakespearian tradition was strong and the plays of modern -writers were of secondary importance. Acting then was more important -than play writing, while to-day the dramatist is the important figure in -almost every production. - -I do not in the least mean that acting to-day is any less vital than it -used to be, but the standard of acting and of directing is very much -higher. Very few first class producers who are fortunate enough to -secure a good play are bunglers enough not to take full advantage of it -and we have grown to expect adequate performances and take them quite as -a matter of course. Even ten years ago there were a number of stars who -were sure of some business no matter what play they might appear in, but -I think it is a fair statement that to-day no actor alive can do any -business at all unless the play is satisfactory. In any case it was the -dramatist and not the actor who was responsible for the birth of the new -type of drama in America, and when the writer threw into the discard the -romantic, the heroic and the sentimental, the actor was forced to change -his method. Booth and Jefferson could have played in a modern reticent -play, because they were, in their day, outstanding in the quiet and -normal method they used, but most of the great actors of our theater -would have been lost if they had been deprived of their grand passions -and their carefully developed heroics. Of course these men and women -played in the accepted tradition of their time, and their talents would -have been trained to-day in a different direction. We miss the diction -of the good actor of the old school and his beautifully trained voice, -and his thorough grasp of all the details of his business, but the -characterizations of to-day are far nearer to real life and far less set -and conventional than they were under the old system. When I first went -into the theater, an actor would be handed a part and told that it was, -let us say, “a Sir Francis Levinson.” He would play it that way, and -usually play it very well, but frequently in a rather tryingly cut and -dried manner. - -Directing, too, has become very much more important than it used to be, -at least in the sense that there are more good directors, although among -the list of men whom I consider to have been the best directors I have -ever known, several were of the theater of years ago. Augustin Daly was -a master; no man of to-day is any better; for years his company was -quite justly the pride of America. A. M. Palmer was a man of taste and -shrewd knowledge of the theater. He was the first man I ever worked with -and one of the best. Palmer was a man of great cultivation and in his -appearance amazingly different from any of our managers to-day. He was a -very dignified little man who wore a brand of whiskers now quite -obsolete, and his manner always seemed to me to be more suited to the -pulpit than to the stage. He was, I am sure, both a worthy and a deeply -religious man, and it was his custom at the end of the last rehearsal to -stand on the stage, surrounded by his company, and raise his hands in an -attitude of benediction and say: “Ladies and gentlemen—now we are in the -hands of God.” I recall an occasion when he rather spoiled the effect of -this pious observation by turning to the stage electrician and -continuing in the same breath: “And for God’s sake don’t you forget that -first act light cue again.” - - -[Illustration: - - _A. M. Palmer._ - “The first man I ever worked with and one of the best.” - (_From the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -[Illustration: - - “Augustin Daly was a master; no man of to-day is any better.” - (_From the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -Charles Hoyt, probably the best farce writer the world has ever known, -was a fine director. All of his plays were built at rehearsal and on the -road before their first New York engagement. It was his custom to engage -a cast of sure-fire comedians and fashion his play around them. He would -call on Tim Murphy, Otis Harlan, May Irwin and actors of that standing, -and start out with his central idea, always an ironic snapshot of some -social or political absurdity. When his play first opened, it would run -at the most about thirty minutes, and each of the performers would be -called upon to sing two or three songs or do their specialty. Out they -would go, usually into New England, in the early spring, and as the days -passed there would be more and more dialogue and fewer and fewer songs, -until in the end the farce would have been written and ready for its New -York opening. Hoyt built in this way A TEXAS STEER, A TRIP TO CHINATOWN, -A RAG BABY, A TIN SOLDIER and several others, all of them sound farces -and all of them very successful. - -David Belasco then, as now, was a master of the mechanics of the -theater, and is a man who always has amazed me and won my very honest -admiration. His love of the theater as an institution is, I am sure, as -deep and as real as mine, and his skill and patience and perfection of -detail had a great influence upon the growth of our theater. - -Henry Miller was not only a great director, but I think the greatest -teacher of acting I have ever known. Any young actor or actress who -passed through his hands had something behind them. He died as he had -lived, ready for his job—waiting for the curtain to go up—and although I -have never wanted to exchange my own life for any other man’s, I must -admit I am a little envious of Henry Miller’s death. - -Charles Frohman knew what he wanted of his company and how to get it, -and Daniel Frohman’s company was always guided by his good taste and -honesty. Daniel Frohman is no longer active as a producer, but he holds, -I think, the first place in the hearts of all of us who work in the -theater. In saying this I am not thinking alone of his work for the -Actors’ Fund, although his work there has been enormously important. But -aside from that his sympathy and his appreciation of all the good work -done by any of us, actor or dramatist, have given courage and joy to a -lot of hard workers who at times were in sore need of both. I know that -among my treasures I have a letter he wrote me just after the production -of ICEBOUND that I value above the Pulitzer Prize that soon followed it. -We of the theater are a close corporation, and we value the praise of -our own people more than we do any opinion from the outside. - -Erlanger, the business head of the theater for many years, had a lot to -do with the production of his own plays, and although not a director, he -made his influence felt. - -William A. Brady at his best is a truly inspired director, and I have -seen him do work that was fine and true; his ear is almost perfect, and -his sense of the pulse and rhythm of melodrama is absolutely unfailing. -He has faults to offset these virtues, but when he is right, when the -scene he is directing is the kind of scene he knows about, he is a hard -man to beat. - -I could go on writing for hours of the many adventures I had with Mr. -Brady, grave and gay, absurd and thrilling, but in all of them there was -at least the virtue of novelty. In all the years I worked with him he -never by any chance did what I expected him to do, and he never did the -same thing twice. After I was through with the popular-priced drama and -was making an effort to get started as a Broadway writer, he was the -first man who had any confidence in me, and he gave me my first chance. - -Picking in my mind at random for a story in which Mr. Brady figures, I -am suddenly swamped by the recollection of a hundred. I recall, for -instance, how he and John Cranwell and I worked for five days and six -nights at a dress rehearsal of THE WORLD WE LIVE IN without a break, -living on ham sandwiches and milk and sleeping for half an hour at a -time on a pile of discarded drapery. Our first important play together -was THE FAMILY CUPBOARD. The big scene was a conflict between a son and -his father, in which the boy strikes the father, then, overcome by -horror and remorse, falls sobbing at the father’s feet. Forrest Wynant -was the boy and William Morris the father. Neither Mr. Brady nor I was -satisfied with the progress of the scene, and at length Mr. Brady jumped -up on the stage and brushed Mr. Wynant aside and played the long and -very dramatic scene for him, and ended by falling sobbing at William -Morris’s feet, absolutely all in from the terrific effort he had made. -As he ended there was a silence—we were all thrilled—Brady lay there -panting and perspiring. Mr. Wynant alone seemed to be unmoved. He looked -down at Mr. Brady’s heaving figure and said earnestly—“Mr. Brady—would -you mind doing that again?” - -Some years later, at the dress rehearsal of a mystery play of mine, AT -9.45, John Cranwell and I were alone in the front of the theater. Mr. -Brady was ill at home. The rehearsal was dreadful; there was no pace at -all; it was dead and flat, and I knew that unless some miracle happened -we faced a failure. We had been told not to bother Mr. Brady, but I was -desperate, and without a word to John Cranwell I ran out of the theater -and drove to Mr. Brady’s house, where I dragged him out, almost by -force, sick and surly. He arrived at the theater protesting that he was -a dying man and couldn’t possibly be of any help to me even if he wanted -to, and that he was remarkably sure he didn’t, or words to that effect. -Still grumbling, he stepped through the front door and as he did so his -ear caught the flat note in the performance that had so alarmed me. In -ten seconds he was at the footlights with the entire company following -his tone as an orchestra follows the hand of their conductor, and in two -hours he had set the tempo of the play. - -This same AT 9.45 was the only play not closed by the actors’ strike of -eleven years ago; we kept it open—I am sure I don’t know why—and I doubt -if Mr. Brady does. It was, I suppose, because we both of us love a fight -and we had a perfectly grand time in doing a thing that no one else was -able to do. As most of our actors left us at the first demand of their -union, we would have been sunk at once if Mr. Brady had not called for -help, and we built up a cast from some very important actors who were -not in sympathy with the Equity Society. There were, however, very few -of these, and it became necessary for Mr. Brady himself to play the most -difficult part, a butler with a big scene. He played him—big scene and -all—plus the most amazing stage side-whiskers I had seen in many years. -Mr. Brady loved it, whiskers and all, and had the time of his life. I -truly think he was sorry when the strike was ended. - -Winthrop Ames was one of the fine stage directors, and although never -especially active in the theater, every production he made was almost -perfect in its detail. - -Winchell Smith, the best of the dramatist-directors, knows more theater -than any of us, and has been responsible for a lot of fine work. - -James Forbes, Rachel Crothers, George Kelly, Elmer Rice and Frank Craven -are all first rate directors of their own plays. I myself have had a lot -of experience in this work but I am sorry to say that I have one rather -annoying trait as a director. It is so much easier for me to make up a -new play than it is to be bothered by following a manuscript that I am -quite likely to get my company a trifle mixed. - -Among the professional directors, Robert Milton is a first class man and -Sam Forrest has skill and great experience. Hugh Ford, who worked with -George Tyler for many years, had probably the longest unbroken string of -successes. - -George Abbott, both as a writer, actor and director, brings sanity and -good judgment to every job he undertakes and deserves every bit of his -very unusual success. - -Aside from the dramatists who direct their own plays and the free lance -stage directors, there is, of course, Arthur Hopkins, in many ways a -better man than any of us. He does a play because he likes it; it -doesn’t in the least matter to him whether you or I like it or not; he -is absolutely untouched by any man’s opinion but his own, and surely no -one man in our theater has done so much fine work or done it with a -higher motive. He saw beauty in it—no other reason ever did or ever will -make him produce a play. - -George Tyler, John Golden and Sam Harris are managers who are -constructive in their attitude to authors and many of their successes -have been due to their sympathetic attitude toward the authors with whom -they work. - -George Cohan is a great director and a remarkable play-doctor, but of -late his own plays have taken most of his time. - -Jed Harris seems to me to be a truly remarkable editor. I have never -seen him direct a play, but I have talked plays with him, and if I am -any judge of plays he knows a lot about them. He has gone far already -for so young a man, but he will go further. - -Reuben Marmoulain and Chester Erskine are among the new men. Both of -them have something. - -There are other good directors, of course. Just at present I have been -writing only of the men I knew. - -The theater of the nineties, even the first class theater, was very -different from what it is to-day and the difference, of course, was due -to the difference in our audiences. The stage always reflects the times -and one could easily enough get a mental picture of any period or of any -civilization by a careful study of ten or a dozen successful dramas and -comedies of the day. - -America during these years was still dominated by a Puritan tradition -and its drama was based upon a stern Puritan creed and an almost equally -uncomfortable sentimentality. It must be remembered also that at this -time our “melting pot” joke was at its very funniest and every year -hundreds of thousands of foreign born flung themselves upon our -hospitable, if somewhat undiscriminating, shores and each year a good -number of these were joined to our audiences. - -The demand was for good acting also rather than for good plays, just as -it is now in the “talkies.” It is, I think, only when the drama has -grown to maturity that the focus shifts from the player to the play. - -Bronson Howard was the favorite playwright of New York when I arrived -there, although the growing success of young Augustus Thomas threatened -his supremacy. Edward Harrigan was very popular, both as an actor and a -writer, and deservedly so. The spirit of America has always seemed to me -to have been best reflected by three men, who followed one another and -kept alive a true spirit of the folk play, writing of men and women, of -happenings and emotions of the everyday life around them: William -Harrigan, Charles Hoyt and George Cohan. These three have left very deep -footprints and in the case of George Cohan at least much more than that. -The peculiar comedy style of all of our American playwrights of to-day -was directly founded on his droll staccato and even the very modern -wise-crack has descended from his careless impudence. - - -[Illustration: - - “When I first came to New York William Winter was by far the - outstanding critic.” - (_From a photograph taken in 1891. Courtesy of The Players_) -] - - -[Illustration: - - DAVID BELASCO - “His love of the theater as an institution is, I am sure, as deep and - as real as mine.” - (_Photo by the Misses Colby, N. Y. From the Messmore Kendall - Collection_) -] - - -To me it has always been of great interest to watch how the type of -writer, and the type of play changed and progressed with the change in -the character and the standards of our audiences. Only the superficial -observer will claim superiority in the plays of 1890 to the plays of -1910, and since 1910 we have had an almost steady growth in the art of -the serious dramatist, a growth so important that beside it the smudges -of filth spilled by a few unimportant scribblers may very easily be -forgotten. The question of dirt in the theater in any case is no longer -of any real importance. The extreme frankness of modern society, the -freedom with which all sorts of questions are discussed in the home and -in all walks of life, has acted as a complete disinfectant. It was an -extremely easy thing to shock small coins out of a Puritan community but -the man who has skill enough to successfully pander to an -over-sophisticated audience usually has sense enough to use that skill -to better advantage. The censor in the end will disappear, not wholly -because he is no longer needed but because he will be no longer -understood. - -My grandfather and his family walked to church every Sunday because to -drive on the Lord’s Day was a sin. I walk four miles around a golf -course every Sunday, and it is probable that my moral standards are as -high as his were. - -If I am sure of anything at all, I am sure that I am not my brother’s -keeper, and, deeply as I resent dirt for dirt’s sake in the theater, I -know that the way to end it is not by allowing some one person or some -group of persons to set up their own moral or ethical standard and -compel the rest of the world to abide by it. The professional moralist -soon standardizes his own beliefs just as the professional politician -does, and he never has and never can properly represent the shifting -taste of the majority. Just what may properly be discussed on the stage -or in society varies so greatly with the passing moods of the times that -any fixed and rigid rules soon become fixed and rigid absurdities. I -distinctly recall the extraordinary difficulty my mother had some forty -odd years ago in delicately conveying to us the news that our old dog -was soon to have an increase in her family, and in those days a female -dog was called a female dog, economized speech being at that time -considered to be of less importance than elegance. - -I have studied plays all my life and I am sure I don’t know enough about -them to be qualified to act as a censor. I am equally sure that it would -be very difficult to find any man who knows more about them than I do -who would consent to act in that capacity. The temper of our people is -further away to-day than it ever was before from all these laws that try -to compel us all to live according to the beliefs of a handful of -persons who still cling frantically to the old Puritan notion that all -one has to do to abolish sin is to forbid it. The thing that should be -unlawful in the theater is bad taste, and good taste is the result of -education, not of restriction. - -Every tendency of our American drama to-day is toward drawing a more -cultivated and more sophisticated audience. The demand of this audience -is for plays that mean something, and as soon as all the dramatists and -all the managers who still seem to be blind to this fact are snugly -relegated to the poor house we shall have no more talk of censorship. I -have never in my life seen a dirty play that has had one-tenth as much -effect upon an audience as many a fine play I could name has had, partly -because the mass reaction of every audience is always healthy, and -partly because fine plays are written by fine dramatists, and dirty -plays are written by incompetent scribblers. The instinctive feeling -that it is a fine thing to be a gentleman that comes from sitting -through one performance of JOURNEY’S END will go much deeper under any -normal skin than any dirty joke heard in an off-color musical show. If I -for one moment thought that the theater had anything at all to do with -forming the moral tone of a nation, I might have more patience with all -this talk of political and national censorship, but I know better. The -theater reflects that tone, it does not guide it. - -I have the masculine man’s contempt for dirty plays, arising, I suppose, -from the fact that masculine men never write them. Dirty plays are -always written either by women or by effeminate men, and always have -been. There is, of course, a pathological reason for this, but the fact -remains that the normal and healthy male is not especially interested in -the eavesdropping of the servants’ hall, and, although he may offend by -bluntness and lack of taste, he is seldom downright nasty. - -I hope that no one who reads these rather rambling notes of mine will -think that I have any desire to deny the woman playwright any particle -of credit, but I use the word playwright as I use the word actor, to -describe any one who devotes themselves to these arts, either man or -woman. Sex seems rather unimportant to me beside the fact that one can -act or write. Of course some of our fine plays have been written by -women, and many of the greatest actors the world has ever known have -been of the feminine sex. It would be difficult to name three men who -ranked as actors beside Bernhardt, Duse and Charlotte Cushman, and in -the theater of to-day I dare any one to make a list of five men who -could stand comparison with Mrs. Fiske, Jane Cowl, Pauline Lord, Helen -Hayes and Ethel Barrymore. - -Through the nineties Charles Frohman produced a long line of well-made -English dramas, and the Pinero school of expert craftsmen took the place -of the writers of polite melodrama. Charles Kline brought his skill in -bringing forward controversial subjects of timely interest and Clyde -Fitch arrived with his box of parlor tricks. Edward Sheldon came down -from Harvard with about the first authentic message and in him I have -always felt the spark of the true dramatist. Eugene Walter in THE -EASIEST WAY produced the first important American play unless some of -the less widely known of the James A. Hearn plays deserve that rating. -Personally I thought MARGUERITE FLEMING a very fine thing. But THE -EASIEST WAY was a little after the time I have been writing of and my -problem at that moment was to learn a simpler trade. - -As it happens, I have lived my personal life rather away from my fellow -workers of the theater, not because I haven’t always valued the -friendship of actors but because I have been a miser of my time. I have -never been much of a club man and nothing at all of a social butterfly. -I am sure that the sight of me, pushed into evening clothes by a stern -wife and perspiring copiously in an effort to conceal my rage and -rebellion, is enough to cast a pall over any social gathering. Even in -Hollywood, where dinner guests may be more readily hired than anywhere -else on earth, I, if I should lose my credit at my hotel, would -undoubtedly starve to death. I have never even been a member of the -Lambs Club and, for no other reason than that by not allowing myself to -get into the habit of having anything to do but my work, I have -naturally gained a good many hours. - -During my time as a dramatist, during which I have written between two -and three hundred plays, I have had, if we figure twelve characters to a -play, somewhere around three thousand actors to play these parts. -Naturally I have known all these men and women well and, as I have seen -practically every drama, farce and comedy of any importance at all that -has been produced during all these thirty-five years, I may claim fairly -enough an acquaintance with our American players. - -To me there have been a lot of good actors in the world and one mighty -one—unfortunately not an American and more unfortunately already an old -woman when I first saw her—but Sarah Bernhardt had the power to do -something to me that no one else could ever do. I had no critical -judgment of her at all. She spoke, and I listened and believed. Edwin -Booth still seems to me to be the greatest of the others, although a -long way behind the “Divine Sarah.” I saw Booth first as Hamlet during -my second year at Harvard in the winter of 1890. I saw him later with -Modjeska and Otis Skinner in several plays and with Lawrence Barrett the -following year in OTHELLO. He was as simple and as true in his acting as -any of our fine actors of to-day, although the method of his time was -declamatory and artificial. I dimly recall the elder Salvini in some -version of Dr. Bird’s THE GLADIATOR, but I was too young at the time to -carry away any more definite impression than that he had the loudest -voice I had ever heard. Jefferson had great skill and a wonderful -personality and his “Rip,” the model for the Lightnin’ Bills, the Old -Soaks and all of their lovable disreputable brotherhood, remains -towering above them all. - -Richard Mansfield I thought very like the little girl who had a little -curl—when he was bad he was awful. In some of her parts, especially in -THE TAMING OF THE SHREW and in a lightweight, imported comedy called THE -LOVE CHASE, I have never seen Ada Rehan’s equal. Janauschek had a real -tragic power, and at her best Modjeska was superb. Just how to place -Maude Adams I have never known, but I do know that she has charmed and -fascinated me so often that I think it only fair to give her the credit -of listing her with the great. - -If no names in our theater to-day stand quite so high as these, I think -it is the writer’s fault rather than the actors’, or possibly the fault -of the audiences who have turned away from the romantic play to the grim -and reticent drabness of the naturalistic drama. The glamor and the -sweep of the old declamatory school naturally furnished the actor with a -better chance to score than he has to-day. Then, of course, the great -passions of the romances of thirty years ago find no response in our -audiences. Life is quite as amazing as it ever was but by no means as -mysterious. We have dissected and psychoanalyzed ourselves and one -another past the point where we stand in awe of any one’s “darkened -soul” and advise calomel. Then too our audiences are different; even -thirty years ago thousands of our people thought the theater a place of -evil and were convinced that anything that represented romance or the -glamorous was sinful. The death of this notion was a very healthy -symptom and the start toward a sane understanding of life. - -As any man of the world knows, the diversions usually listed as sins -gained their following very largely from the free spirits who searched -for forbidden things, the prescribed pleasures being of rather dubious -enchantment. The fact that these stock sins are usually shabby, ugly and -dull was kept a profound secret. If we could convince our young people -that as a usual thing it is more fun to be decent than it is to go -poking about in dark places we would make as great a step forward in our -morals as we have in our drama. After all in both it’s simply a case of -frankness and honesty. - -These were the years of the complete control of the theater by the -famous syndicate, Klaw and Erlanger, the Frohmans, Rich and Harris, -Hayman, Nixon and Zimmerman. No longer were we vagabonds and strolling -players. The out of town manager who used to spend his summer standing -on a corner on Fourteenth Street, where his shabby silk hat was his only -office, now had his attractions booked for him by the Klaw and Erlanger -Agency. The syndicate, successful from the first, soon secured control -of practically all of the first class houses in the country and a once -careless, slipshod business became regulated. Thanks to the syndicate -and to Lee Shubert, who alone and unaided challenged this great -organization to battle and fought them so stiff a draw that for years -the spoils were divided between them, authors now began to eat as -regularly as ordinary mortals, and the high-powered motor cars so common -to playwrights to-day can trace their being to this source. - -There is no doubt at all that these two great forces in the theater are -responsible for making a business of what had before their time been a -sort of gypsy’s occupation, but unfortunately the fates are rarely -prodigal and the men gifted with the ability to organize an art have -never yet known what to do with it after it is organized. They always -remind me of the cowboy who fought the bear and after getting him down -had to call for help because he was afraid to let go. As a matter of -fact I have wondered of late if there wasn’t such a thing as being too -successful in organization. I have given a lot of time to the welding -together of our Dramatists’ Guild, just as many other playwrights have, -and now we are extremely well organized, with nobody to fight. - -The Actors’ Equity is all powerful after years of honest effort, but -more actors are out of work than ever before. It’s a fine thing for the -actor and the writer to be able to enforce fair conditions of -employment, but unfortunately we can’t force the employment itself. A -good job under fair conditions is a great thing, but no job at all isn’t -so good. It may be worth a thought in passing that if we of the two -creative groups in the theater had been as active in working for the -theater itself as we were in fighting for the power of our individual -groups, we might at this writing be better off. Even yet we might, by a -sacrifice of some of the power we have gained, help to bring back -strength to the business that must flourish if we are to flourish. We -need have no fear of the old tyrannies; they have gone forever. When -actors and authors meet their old antagonists, the managers, to-day, -they meet on equal ground and, as my old comrade Gene Buck puts it: “All -false whiskers are off, and everybody comes out from behind the bushes.” - -The complete control of the drama in America by the business men of the -theater started at about the time I entered the lists and continued for -about twenty years. Under their rule prosperity came to us and lasted up -to the time when the public became tired of a drama that soon became a -factory product, as was the natural result of a system that put the -business man in control of the creative artist. I have seen this happen -so many times, in so many forms of the amusement business, that it has -grown to be an old story to me. - -I am old enough to remember the group of managers who were the leading -producers just before the time of the “syndicate” and I know the -difference in their methods and ideals. Daly, A. M. Palmer, Daniel and -Charles Frohman, and the great stars like Booth, Jefferson, Modjeska, -Fannie Davenport and a few others had a real following both in New York -and on the road; each one of them represented something. The public knew -what to expect if they went to Daly’s Theatre, or to Daniel Frohman’s -Lyceum on Fourth Avenue, just as they knew what to expect of Edwin Booth -or Joe Jefferson. If A. M. Palmer made a production one knew very well -the sort of entertainment that would be offered. From Hoyt or from -Harrigan you knew the type of play that would be presented and took it -or left it as your taste decided. - -After the rise to power of the “syndicate” Charles Frohman kept close to -a definite standard, but Booth, Jefferson, Hoyt, Palmer, Harrigan and -Daly were gone, and in their places rose up a new crop of managers, men -of my time, most of them friends of mine, who were more or less timidly -knocking at the door at about the time I was trying to break in. Sam -Harris, when I first knew him, was Terry McGovern’s manager; Al Woods -was an advance agent ahead of a sensational melodrama and known as the -best man in the show business to draw a big opening to a bad play. -Archie Selwyn was an office boy for a firm of play-brokers. Edgar Selwyn -was trying to get a start as an actor and often reminds me of the fact -that when I was casting my first play he came to me for a job and was -met by a very cold reception. If Mr. Selwyn is telling the truth about -this, as he probably is, although I can’t in the least recall the -incident, it goes to show that I still had a lot to learn, because he -was a very good actor, much better, I am sure, than any one I chose -above him. - -These young men came into the theater and took important places in it -and rode to fortune on the wave of prosperity that was at its height -during these years. They were joined in time by a younger group, the -Theatre Guild, Arthur Hopkins, and later still Jed Harris, all of whom -had as definite a thing to say as the old group of managers a full -generation before them. In saying it they started the change in popular -taste that meant the end of the commercial theater, and the birth of -what before long will be a theater of taste and intelligence. Men like -George Tyler, Dillingham, Winthrop Ames, Ziegfeld and William A. Brady -had gone on producing their particular type of play and keeping a little -apart from the rest. Way back, however, in 1898, all managers were -mighty men in my eyes, and the least of them was sacred. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ──────────────── - CHAPTER IV ◆ “HOLD, VILLAIN” - ──────────────── - - -Gus Hill and I, started so prosperously with THROUGH THE BREAKERS, kept -up a very pleasant association for several seasons, and whenever I meet -him now after the passing of more than twenty-five years I am conscious -of a feeling of good will and something that is almost affection. I -wrote several plays for him and one of them, LOST IN THE DESERT, brought -about my meeting with Elizabeth Breyer, a young actress who had been -playing with E. H. Sothern. I with some difficulty persuaded her to -become a member of the LOST IN THE DESERT company, and a few months -later and with much more difficulty persuaded her to become a member of -the Davis family. The last engagement has lasted some twenty-five years -longer than the first and has been much more successful. - -LOST IN THE DESERT was to have been a challenge thrown by Mr. Hill and -me straight in the face of Augustin Daly, Belasco and Charles Frohman. -We had made a lot of money with THROUGH THE BREAKERS and one or two -other plays and saw no reason why we shouldn’t spend it. We built a -wonderful production, hired a band of Arab acrobats, trained four -horses, engaged a fine cast and worked very hard, but although the play -wasn’t a failure it never made any money and in the end we lost our -investment. - -During the season in which Mr. Hill and I produced LOST IN THE DESERT -which was, I think, my third year as a writer of sensational melodramas, -I had played Syracuse and met Sam, Lee, and Jake Shubert, who had not at -that time invaded New York but were in control of theaters in Syracuse, -Rochester and Utica. They were boys at that time. I was twenty-six and -Lee, the oldest of the Shuberts, was at least two years younger. Sam was -a man of picturesque and colorful personality and had a real taste for -the theater but I always thought the great success of these young men -was due to Lee. He himself gave all the glory to his younger brother -whose tragic death, however, forced him to come out as the head of the -firm. - -Lee Shubert is a strong and absolutely fearless man, not a lover of the -theater as David Belasco is but a business man who plays with theaters -and plays, with authors and actors as pawns in a game of high finance. -His influence in the theater has been very great and no one who knows -the story of his fight against Klaw and Erlanger and their powerful -associates can fairly withhold real admiration for his courage and -energy. - -During the week my play was at the Bastable Theatre in Syracuse, Lee -Shubert persuaded me to sign a contract taking over the Baker Theatre, -Rochester, for a season of summer stock. I eagerly fell for his idea as -I was hungry for the experience and knew that it would be of great -benefit to me. I have always been curious to see the inside workings of -every branch of the theatrical business and in the years since then I -doubt if there is any ramification of the game in which I have not had a -finger, sometimes a burned finger, but always an eager one. - -I signed this contract and engaged a company in New York before I -started on a western tour with LOST IN THE DESERT. Unfortunately, -however, before the date of the Rochester opening came round, my share -of the losses on LOST IN THE DESERT had so eaten up my profits on -THROUGH THE BREAKERS that I arrived in Rochester with no assets beyond a -perfectly good wife and fifty-four dollars in cash to meet fifteen -trusting actors who were to depend upon me for their living for the next -twenty weeks. - -Details are apt to escape one’s mind after twenty-five years, but I have -some hazy recollection of having been rather up against it there in -Rochester. My books, however, prove that I opened the season with THE -FATAL CALL—loss five hundred and two dollars—and followed with THE TWO -ORPHANS—loss three hundred and six dollars. I can’t help wishing those -books of mine told me how I did it. - -One memory, however, is very clear. The play for the third week arrived -from the play brokers, C.O.D., two hundred dollars, and lay in the -express office as safe from me as it is ever possible for any play to -be. I was quite at the end of my string and had no possible avenue of -escape. That day, after the matinée of THE TWO ORPHANS, I said a polite -good day to the deputy sheriff who seemed to have taken a great fancy to -my private chair in the theater’s box office and started walking the -streets trying to think of some possible means of keeping my company -together. In my walk I passed a second hand book store and my eye caught -the title of a ragged old volume in the tray marked “ten cents”—UNDER -TWO FLAGS. This cross marks the spot where I started a trick of high -pressure play writing, a trick which of course I put sternly behind me -long years ago, although I have never been able to convince many people -of my reformation. In any case Owen Davis’ Baker Theatre Stock Company -opened five days later in a dramatization of UNDER TWO FLAGS and played -for four weeks—profit $10,250 (by the book). - -For four years I ran this company in Rochester every summer and during -that time, in partnership with the Shuberts, took over houses in -Syracuse, Utica, Brooklyn and Philadelphia. They were busy years. In -Rochester I was company manager, stage director, press agent, head -box-office boy and whenever business got bad I’d write the next week’s -play to save paying for one. - -During all this time Mrs. Davis was a member of the company and adored -by the Rochester audiences. She might have had a brilliant career in the -theater if she had chosen to stick to it instead of devoting her life to -“her men” as she has always called us, “her men” being myself and our -sons, Donald and Owen, Jr. For a long time I am afraid she found it very -hard to give up the work she loved but I am sure she is well rewarded -for her sacrifice now in the excitement and joy of seeing these two boys -climbing so sturdily ahead on the path she knows so well—an unusual -experience for a mother—not only to have hope and faith in her sons but -to know exactly what each step they take means and where they are going. - -During the following five years we divided our time between these stock -companies in the summer and New York in the winter. In those five years -I wrote thirty-eight melodramas, two farces, a number of vaudeville acts -and burlesque pieces and one big show for the Hippodrome, as well as -picking up any other little job that came to hand. - -It was during this time I wrote my first play for Sam Harris, then a -member of the firm of Sullivan, Harris and Woods, and started a -friendship that has lasted ever since. A little later Al Woods sent for -me and told me he was leaving the firm and was about to set up for -himself. Our interview ended in the drawing of the most remarkable -contract ever made between a manager and an author. By its terms Woods -was to produce not less than four new plays, and after the first year, -four old ones each season for five years. During that time I could not -write for any other manager and he could not produce a play written by -any other author. During the five years Mr. Woods produced fifty odd -plays of mine but we both of us cheated shamefully on the other part of -our agreement. We produced a number of plays by the late Theodore Kramer -and I sneaked a few over with other popular-priced managers of the day. - -Woods was, and is, a remarkable man, a great showman and a man of -humorous and philosophic nature. His outstanding characteristic is, to -me, that if he loves a play he knows how to produce it. If he tries to -do a play he doesn’t love he knows nothing about it and cares less. He -has but two opinions of a play when he reads it, “Swell” or “It don’t -appeal to me,” and when he plays his hunch he’s very apt to succeed. -This instinctive feel for values is one of the greatest assets in the -equipment of the theatrical manager and Al Woods and William A. Brady -have more of it than any other men of my time. It is a pure instinct, -quite apart from any critical faculty and is emotional rather than the -result of any reasoning. - -David Belasco, a great showman, always seemed to me to see in a play -manuscript the thing it would develop into under his guidance, but Woods -and Brady sense an audience’s response to certain sorts of melodramatic -situations and when they play their instinct and not their judgment they -usually are right. - -The first play under my contract with Woods was THE CONFESSIONS OF A -WIFE, which really wasn’t nearly so dreadful as it sounds. The second -was THE GAMBLER OF THE WEST, probably the best popular-priced melodrama -produced during these years. Then came CONVICT 999, CHINATOWN CHARLIE -and the famous NELLIE, THE BEAUTIFUL CLOAK MODEL. - -During my time with Al Woods, one of our most unusual experiences was -with a melodrama called THE MARKED WOMAN and only a day or two ago, when -I dropped into Mr. Woods’ office for a friendly chat, Martin Herman, Mr. -Woods’ brother and general manager, gravely brought us in a contract, -yellow with age, to remind us of an absurd but to us at the time a -perfectly normal activity. In those days everything was fish that came -to our net. If a particularly horrible murder excited the public, we had -it dramatized and on the stage usually before any one knew who had been -guilty of the crime. Frequently I have had a job of hasty re-writing -when it became evident that my chosen culprit from real life was an -innocent and perfectly respectable citizen. - -I went into the Woods office one day about twenty-five years ago and -noticed a well-dressed and well-mannered young Chinaman patiently seated -in a chair in the waiting room. I asked Martin Herman what he wanted and -Martin replied that he was crazy and that Al couldn’t be bothered with -him. Later in the day, however, Oriental patience conquered and as a -result I was called into conference with Mr. Woods and this -well-mannered Chinaman. - -With some difficulty Woods and I were made to understand that our friend -from the Orient was the custodian of a very large sum of real money -which he wanted to devote to the cause of the Liberal Party in China. -These were the days of the old Empress and the Republican Party was just -beginning to be heard from. Part of their activity was to arouse in -America an antagonism toward the late Empress Dowager and I was asked to -write and Mr. Woods to produce a play in which the poor old lady would -be shown up as a sort of composite picture of all the evil characters of -history. Woods and I had never met any Empresses at the time—although at -this writing I understand Mr. Woods is in the habit of hobnobbing with -all the crowned heads of Europe—but as there was no doubt at all of the -money being both real and plentiful we swallowed our scruples, if we had -any, and what I did to the old Empress of China I shudder to recall. - -When I finished the play and took it to Woods, he said it was a whale, -although I myself had some doubts of its merit. Our Chinese angel, by -now reënforced by a committee of his fellow countrymen, said it was -without doubt a mighty drama and their only suggestion was that they -would like to see a scene put in where the Empress poisoned a child. I -sternly refused to surrender the integrity of my script, although I made -some small concessions in the nature of arson and murder and THE MARKED -WOMAN was ready for production. - -The popular-priced circuit never had seen such a lavish display—please -remember that all bills were paid by the Republican Party of -China—costumes had been sent us from Pekin, the duty alone on which was -many times more than any play had ever cost us. To this day my wife has -several gorgeous Chinese robes, her only graft in all these years. - -THE MARKED WOMAN, to my surprise, was a great success from the first, -although Edward E. Rose, who staged it, and I were not quite satisfied -with the last act and determined to improve it. About three weeks after -the opening, Mr. Rose and I jumped out to Elizabeth, New Jersey, where -the company was playing, and watched a matinée performance. As soon as -the final curtain fell we rushed back stage and called the company for -rehearsal. I seated myself at a table with a pad of paper and threw the -sheets at Ed Rose as I filled them while he forced the lines into the -poor actors’ heads and re-grouped and re-staged the scenes. The result -was that we played that night, only three hours later, the last act for -our second act and the second act for our last. This was, I am -confident, about as complete a job of revision as was ever accomplished -between a matinée and a night. - -All went well with THE MARKED WOMAN for some time but one day our -Chinese backers called on Mr. Woods and told him that the play must -close at once. Mr. Woods, who had a hit on his hands, smiled pleasantly -and asked the reason and was told that the most powerful of the Chinese -Tongs had threatened to kill our friends if the play was performed after -one more week. Mr. Woods expressed great sympathy but said he was sorry -but his duty to me, the author, prevented him from doing as they -requested. The next day the gentlemen returned to say that the Tong had -informed them that they had slightly altered their plan and now proposed -if the play continued to kill Mr. Woods. Al said that it was a lousy -play anyway and he had never liked it, but a statement from Pittsburgh -showing a big profit calmed him sufficiently to enable him to defy the -Tongs to do their worst. - -The next day letters with death heads began to arrive and as these -failed to ruffle his majestic calm a voice, speaking broken English, -called him on the telephone and informed him that if the play was -performed even once after the following Saturday night his body would be -found in the East River the following Monday. As Mr. Woods’ body is -still to be found comfortably seated in his office at the Eltinge -Theatre, it is not difficult to deduct his reaction to that voice—we -closed. - -For eight years the Stair and Havlin Circuit, as the string of -popular-priced theaters that extended across the United States was -called, were amazingly prosperous and in their rise, their prosperity -and their decline, I should like to trace an analogy between them and -the motion picture industry of the present day—in the nature of a -warning and a prophecy. - -During the eight years of which I am writing the average business of -these theaters was definitely fixed at about three thousand five hundred -dollars a week. The fluctuations of business were nominal, the people -wanted our shows, just as to-day there is a fixed demand for talking -pictures, not for a good picture, although already one may see evidences -of discrimination on the part of the public which, I fear, the picture -companies are no more prepared to gratify than we of the old -popular-priced theater were in our day. All we had to do was to see that -our weekly running expense came to five hundred dollars less than our -share of the take—then multiply this by forty, as the houses were open -forty weeks a year, and we had a profit of twenty thousand a year from -each show. - -During each of these years we had from seven to thirteen plays of my -writing on this circuit. - - -[Illustration: - - ELIZABETH DREYER - “And a few months later and with much more difficulty persuaded her to - become a member of the Davis family.” -] - - -[Illustration: - - LAURETTE TAYLOR - “One of the best soubrettes I ever saw.” - (_Photograph by Ira L. Hill. From the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -Then one day—and let me call the attention of the rulers of the motion -picture business to this—Mr. Woods and I were struck by a great notion. -“We will,” we said, “increase this average business of $3,500 by putting -out a show so much bigger than any of the others that we can safely -count on over-capacity business to pay our increased expense and yield -us a greater than average profit.” - -No sooner said than done. NELLIE, THE BEAUTIFUL CLOAK MODEL took to the -road and played for a year to an average of four thousand dollars a -week. What could be more natural than to continue the good work? The -next season we put out three more “big shows” and allowed them to cost -us about thirty percent more than our old average of expense. By this -time our rivals, attracted by the reports of our big business with our -“Super-Specials” began to compete for this added revenue and produced a -flock of “Super-Specials” which in a season, since all things are -comparative, educated the public to expect “big shows.” Thus, the -average show now costs a sum of money that could only be drawn by an -extraordinary show, and in three years the popular-priced theater -business was dead. - -Naturally, the advance of the pictures had something to do with our -defeat, but neither then nor now can the decline of the theater be -fairly laid to the fact that the public prefers the motion picture to -the drama. All of the ills of the theater in my time are due directly to -the folly, the ignorance and the greed of the theatrical manager. I have -many life-long friends among these men; among them are men of fine -principle and honest intentions, but the composite manager has always -been the stumbling block in the way of our progress. We tried to fight -the advancing wave of motion pictures with dirty, ill-lighted theaters, -bad-mannered attendants and arrogant box-office men, and we lost, as we -deserved to lose. - -There is a popular idea that the theatrical manager failed at his job -because he allowed his artistic soul to overwhelm his natural business -instincts. In my humble opinion he failed because he usually had no -artistic soul at all and no business instincts. I know of about five -managers of the last decade who were what I would call business men, and -I am prepared to offer a silver cup for the names of any others. - -The arrogance of the old-time manager, to whom actors and authors were -slaves and chattels, has gone, and although I was one of those who -fought for their passing I have not as yet become reconciled to their -substitutes. The best men of to-day are still the men who were the best -of the old order and if some of their old power is gone I can’t help -feeling that with it went much of the old glamour and romance of the -theater. - -This writing rubber stamp stories by formula was the main cause of the -collapse of the Stair and Havlyn Circuit and is the only real reason for -to-day’s depression in the New York theater. There is always an audience -for a good play, but unfortunately there isn’t always a good play for an -audience. Just as every good play produced stimulates theatergoing, so -does every bad play produced discourage it, and when the bad plays -outnumber the good by too great a proportion the public naturally -becomes very cautious. We figure of late in the theater that only one -play out of seven produced is even moderately successful, which when you -come to think of it isn’t so much the public’s lack of interest as it is -the playwright’s lack of skill. - -When a man has spent time and money to see six terrible plays one after -the other it isn’t surprising that his eagerness is somewhat cooled. If -it were possible to bring into New York this season fifteen fine plays -we should hear no more talk about hard times in the theater. -Unfortunately it isn’t possible. - -Under the present conditions the demand for good plays has little effect -upon the supply partly because good plays are hard to write and even -more because we are not in agreement as to what constitutes a good play. - -The novelist often succeeds upon his literary style, a painter by his -drawing and his sense of color, but paradoxically enough a good play is -a bad play unless the writer has been fortunate in the choice of his -subject matter; skill alone won’t save him. Since the only real standard -by which one may judge a play is the rather primitive one of whether one -likes it or not, it is easy to see how dangerous a game this play -writing is. A good workman may work his heart out for many months to be -condemned at last by the same feeling that gave birth to the old -doggerel “I do not like you, Doctor Fell.” - -Few critics are clever enough to make the distinction between a writer’s -skill and his good or evil fortune in the choice of his subject, and I -am often amused to read the praises of the genius of an author who has -been lucky enough to hit upon a theme or story that has tickled the -public’s fancy and the complete damnation of the poor wretch who has -failed to do so, although in every other particular the later play may -be ten times as well built and well written as the former. Naturally we -like to be amused and resent being bored. Yet, as a matter of truth, the -same skill, the same hard work and the same knowledge of life and of -play structure goes into a man’s failures as he puts into his successes. -The writer who knows his trade fails or triumphs the hour he makes his -decision of what he is going to write about. Then, too, the subject -matter of plays is still far too often dictated by the manager and -between us we are still getting ourselves into trouble trying to guess -what the public wants instead of trying to do the best work we know how -to do and letting it go at that. The old notion that the experienced -showman knows more about plays than our present public knows dies hard -and many of our plays are still being written by and for an intelligence -distinctly below the average intelligence of the audience. - -The day of the routine comedy-drama and melodrama is over. The -successful play of to-day is nine times out of ten a good play. In fact -the most encouraging thing about the theater to-day is not that good -plays are sure of success but that bad plays are sure of failure. An -optimist may look happily forward to the time when writers and managers -who remain blind to the change in public taste and persist in producing -routine sugar-coated piffle will all have starved to death or been -driven out of the business. - -This change has come about very gradually, as immigration has been -restricted and the living standards of the American people have -advanced. Life to-day is stimulating where once it was, at least for the -majority, dull and uneventful. Romance, once supplied almost wholly by -the theater, is all about us. Modern thought, modern invention, have -done much to end the bland acceptance of routine fiction, both on the -stage and on the printed page, and to be sure of an audience to-day one -must have something to say and know how to say it. - -Of course, I am writing now of twenty years ago but even then the change -was coming and in a way I was alive to it. I am, at this point, quite -willing to admit that I frequently turn out work far beneath the -standard that my observation tells me is necessary for success, and that -to-morrow I am quite as apt to start frantically at work on an untrue -and obsolete theme as any novice. There are writers who are under the -control of their own critical faculty, but unfortunately for me I have -never been one of them. A story pops into my head. Often I know it has -no importance at all and sternly shut it out. But, as is often the case, -if the story keeps coming back of its own free will I usually end by -forgiving it its obvious faults and gradually working myself up into a -lather of paternal pride.... Who ever saw a young mother whose baby -didn’t seem remarkable to her? These yarns of mine seem good to me -because they are mine. If any one else was to ask my opinion of the same -story I would say it was terrible, but by the time I have lived with it -for a month or so I see beauty in it, because I am looking at it hoping -to see that beauty. - -As a matter of fact, one of the greatest differences between a good play -and a bad one is that a good play says what the writer thinks it says, -while a bad one doesn’t. Play writing is really an extraordinary -difficult art; if all that was necessary for an emotion to reach an -audience was for the writer to feel that emotion, we would have few -failures. It is quite possible for a writer to be honestly affected by -the sorrows of a character without the audience in the least sharing his -feeling. I have often wept as I wrote a scene that never in the least -affected any one besides myself. I have chuckled over many a farce -situation that never got a laugh. A playwright’s words and his -situations must have that strange power that will project them over the -footlights. This projecting force is made up of instinct, experience, -sincerity and a queer sense of rhythm, the timing of the dramatist. - -When I am asked how much play writing may be taught I always hesitate. A -lot may be taught—to the right person—very little to the one without the -instinctive ear—the sense of pace and build that must be there, although -just exactly what it is and where it comes from I find it difficult to -explain. - -I dug up recently, out of my files, one of the first plays I ever wrote, -and was amazed at its crudity, but even more amazed by the lilt of it; -its pace, its timing and its gradual accumulation to its crescendo were -as deft and as sure as anything I could write to-day ... and at the time -I wrote it these things were entirely instinctive. One may learn a lot -about what not to write, may learn much of literary style and taste and -many of the tricks of construction, but I doubt if any one without the -instinctive feel of the born dramatist can learn how to time a speech or -pitch a climax and without this all the rest is useless. - -Many of the greatest novelists, both of the past and the present, have -failed utterly when they tried to write for the theater. Often they were -far better writers than any dramatist I know. They knew as much about -moods and character as any of us—but their words won’t play, no one can -act their scenes. - -Few persons realize how vital this instinctive timing is to a play. -Bartley Campbell, a dramatist of the old school, was a master of it. His -old drama, THE WHITE SLAVE, was quite as lyric as any song. The late -Charles Kline could time a climax so deftly that, although “the big -scene” of THE LION AND THE MOUSE hardly makes sense when you read the -words, it was impossible not to be thrilled by them when you heard them -spoken. - -The writer of the old school was more dependent upon this instinctive -timing than the writer of to-day, but even now the man or woman who -writes for the theater must write “good theater” no matter how sound may -be his philosophy. Instinct and emotion will, I think, always be more -vital to success than literary style or even good sense and logic. - -To-day a writer must avoid the conventions just as yesterday he had to -abide by them, and in this difference lies the distinction between the -old school and the new. In the days of which I am writing, the -characters of our popular-priced plays were as sturdily founded upon a -conventional mold as the most dogmatic creed of the most narrow-minded -religious fanatics of the day, and any stepping aside upon a more -flowery path was sternly frowned upon. The good play maker of the -popular-priced theater was supposed to know what a proper list of -characters for a play must be and any departure from that accepted list -was taken as a sign of the bad workman. - -In my day the list ran as follows: - - -1. HERO. - -The hero was either poor or else very young and very drunk. If sober and -wealthy he automatically became a villain. Wild young men with wealthy -fathers might do in a pinch—they could be reformed by the heroine in the -third act, and in this lady’s company, in the last act, they could -receive the father’s blessing and the keys to the cellar, or whatever -best represented the family fortune. I was, however, never very strong -for the rich young man type of hero, well knowing how much closer to the -hearts of the audience the honest working man type was sure to be. Brave -this hero must always be, and strong and kind, but it was unfortunately -difficult for him to be wise, as the burden of troubles it was necessary -to load upon this poor man’s shoulders, by way of dramatic suspense, -would never have been carried by any one but a terrible sap. - - -2. HEROINE. - -If the hero was extremely poor, it was possible for her to be extremely -wealthy, but by far the safest bet was to make her the daughter of an -honest working man. In these days the young girls who went to the -popular-priced theaters were not themselves employed to any extent as -clerks or stenographers, and they knew more about factory life and the -experience of the day laborer and less about the white collar workers -than they know to-day. Our heroine must be pure at any cost, or else she -must die. There could be no temporizing with the “the wages of sin are -death” slogan. In all my experience I never once saw it successfully -defied. The heroine must, of course, always marry the hero. Our -audiences would not stand for any but a happy ending with love and -wealth bestowed upon the girl. This was bad art, but it always seemed to -me to be pretty good sense, as the theater to them meant not life as it -was but life as they wanted it to be, and the young girl in our -audiences who thrilled for an hour over the wealth and luxury and the -ideal love that always came to the fictitious character she had for a -time exchanged places with had little chance of remaining in this -fairyland for long. - - -3. THE HEAVY MAN. - -Always wealthy; the silk hat was his badge of office. In a good -melodrama he never reformed, he bit the dust. He was the most absurd -thing connected with these old plays. The necessity for his evil -plotting was so great that even the most innocent of audiences must have -frequently wondered why he was not poisoned at an early age by his own -unfortunate disposition. As a matter of fact, one of the principal -causes of the death of this form of entertainment was the “Desperate -Desmond” cartoons that instructed our public in the absurdity of this -stock character. - - -4. THE HEAVY WOMAN. - -There were two of her, the haughty lady of wealth and social position, -quite naturally the instinctive enemy of our audiences, and the “bad -woman” who in these days was spoken of in a hushed whisper. I recall -some successful heavy women who had dark hair, but these were always -cast in the society women parts. The real bad ones had to be blondes and -they averaged a good hundred and sixty pounds. - - -5. THE SOUBRETTE. - -A working girl with bad manners and a good heart. Laurette Taylor was -one of the best of these I ever saw. This type of part, the real -soubrette, has disappeared from our theater, and yet some of the best -actresses I have ever known were soubrettes,—Maggie Mitchell, Minnie -Palmer, Mrs. Fiske (when she was Minnie Maddern) and a host of others. - - -6. THE COMEDIAN. - -Either Jew, Irish or German, the most important member of the company in -the old days and the one who drew the largest salary. We might and, as a -matter of fact, we frequently did get away with a terrible leading man, -but the comedian had to be good. - - -7. THE LIGHT COMEDY BOY. - -This character was always a humble and faithful friend of the lovers and -was always in love with the soubrette. I recall once trying to have this -character in love with some one else—but I had to rewrite the play. The -audience got too bewildered. - - -8. THE SECOND HEAVY. - -He was just a bum, a tool of the villain’s, and as it was usual to kill -him along toward the middle of the second act, we never found it -necessary to engage a very good actor. - - * * * * * - -These eight made up the cast and to them we added two or three utility -actors to play such “walking parts” as the plot demanded, but no matter -what the play these eight characters were always in it. If they hadn’t -been I am sure the audience would have demanded their money back. - -Scenically, these plays of ours were very elaborate. They were always in -four acts and frequently with as many as five scenes in each act. -CHINATOWN CHARLIE had twenty-two scenes. The mechanical dexterity -demanded in writing a play of this kind was very important and an -extremely difficult trick to acquire. Front scenes in the old melodramas -were always flat and stupid, just as they are in the musical comedies of -to-day. The expert workman let his front scenes run the exact time it -took the stage carpenters to set the next scene back of it and not a -moment longer, which took experience and care. It was also necessary to -climax these scenes and these scene climaxes were the forerunners of the -modern “blackout”—some sure-fire “belly-laugh” or bit of heroic bunk -that would be sure to bring a yell of delight from the audience to cover -the moment in the dark necessary to fly the drop and start the next -scene. - -After a time I got to be so expert in this that I could give a cue to -the audience for a laugh or a yell of approval that would last just long -enough to fill in the desired pause. To me the most interesting thing -about these old manuscripts of mine are these “audience cues” that would -be meaningless to any one who should chance to read them but were a very -real and very necessary part of the play. - -Just how I could have been quite serious in building these old plays I -can’t at this moment quite comprehend, but the fact is that I was, just -as every man who is successful in his work must be. Even the priceless -line of Nellie, the well-known cloak model, was quite gravely written. -Nellie was endeavoring to escape from the attentions of a very evil -gentleman who from the start of the play showed signs of paying her -attentions that were far from honorable. In the first act he pushed her -under a descending elevator in the basement of a department store. In -Act II he threw her off Brooklyn Bridge and in the third he bound her to -the tracks of the elevated railroad just as a train came thundering -along. In the fourth act he climbs in her bedroom window at an early -hour of the morning and when both modesty and prudence force her to -shrink away from him he looked at her reproachfully and said: “Why do -you fear me, Nellie?” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ──────────────── - CHAPTER V ◆ UP FROM MELODRAMA - ──────────────── - - -About 1911 I saw the fate of the popular-priced game, and got out of it -before the final crash, as did Sam Harris, Al Woods and a few of the -others. I started to look about for a new way of earning my living. I -had made money at the game and was in no danger from that source, but I -was then, in 1910, only thirty-seven years old and had trained myself to -the habit of almost constant work, a habit I have never as yet been able -to break. - -My name, as the author of literally hundreds of bloodthirsty melodramas, -was a thing of scorn to the highbrows of the theater, used as a horrible -example to young authors and to frighten bad children. The very thought -of my being allowed to produce a play in a Broadway theater was quite -absurd, as my friends all assured me. I kept on writing, however, for -the same reason that keeps me at it now, because I love to write plays, -no matter whom it hurts. For a year or two I had a tough time, but I -managed to find a market among the road stars and the one night stand -companies, and I wrote a few comedies and dramatized several novels. -They were successful enough in the towns where they were played but were -never heard of in New York. At this time, also, I developed a trick of -writing plays directly for stock companies and by good salesmanship -built up quite an income from this by-product. I was absolutely bound to -break into the New York game and in spite of many rebuffs I kept -knocking at the doors of the New York managers. - -The doors of New York managers, however, were closely guarded, even in -the comparatively far-off days of which I am writing, and in the season -of 1910 the best I could manage to do, aside from my usual flock of road -shows and my growing list of plays popular with the stock companies at -that time successfully scattered all over the country, was to secure a -couple of matinée performances. As a matter of fact, a matinée -performance of the play of a new author is simply a public announcement -by the manager of his lack of faith and neither of these efforts of mine -came to much. The first of these, THE WISHING RING, was produced by Lee -Shubert at Daly’s with Marguerite Clark and a supporting company thrown -together from the cast of a musical play at that time current in the -theater. Marguerite Clark was charming in the part and later made use of -the play on the road and produced it for a short run in Chicago. THE -WISHING RING was directed by Cecil De Mille and was, I think, the last -thing he did before he left New York and threw in his lot with the -picture people. - -The second of these half-hearted matinée productions was made for me by -Daniel Frohman at the Lyceum and gave Laurette Taylor one of her first -chances to show her very extraordinary talent. This play, LOLA, was a -queer sort of fish, part crude melodrama and part a very real and very -fine example of good play writing, but it was one of those plays of -which one must say it is either great or absurd. My shady reputation and -the hasty and careless production made only one answer probable. In -fact, it was many years before the name of Owen Davis was much of a help -to a play, and it would probably have taken me at least a thousand to -establish a trade-mark as a serious dramatist had the public known that -aside from the crimes committed under the name of Owen Davis I must also -answer to many others. I had fallen into the playful habit of inventing -other names to hide my evil deeds. At one time I used so many assumed -names that the mere invention of them became a task and Al Woods used to -help me out by calmly borrowing the name of one of his clerks or -stenographers and writing it down as author of my latest thriller. - -When CONVICT 999 was first produced in Pittsburgh, the dramatic critic -of the largest of the morning papers said in his review of the play: -“Here at last is a fine melodrama and heaven be praised. Here, in the -person of John Oliver, a new writer, we have at last found a man who -knows more about how to write a play of this kind than the irrepressible -Owen Davis ever knew.” - -William A. Brady was the first to give me a regular Broadway production -with a first class company and in doing so, although he little knew it -at the time, he started an association that lasted for many years. Mr. -Brady is a strong man and had he been able to foresee what was in store -for him the day on which we signed our first contract, it is highly -probable these confessions would never have been written. With great -confidence, however, Mr. Brady commanded me to write him a big melodrama -and as a result Doris Keane and William Courtney appeared in a direful -thing called MAKING GOOD. The title of this play turned out to be a -god-send to the New York critics and if I had put as much wit into my -play as they put into their slaughter of it, Mr. Brady and I would have -been happier even if they had been deprived of a great pleasure. As a -matter of fact, I should be a very popular man with the critics. Several -of them owe their standing as humorists almost entirely to me and at -least one of the finest of them, Frank O’Malley, won his place in the -ranks of humorists over my dead body. - -In later years Mr. O’Malley confided to me that he often journeyed miles -to get to a play of mine, a compliment that at the time I quite failed -to value at its true worth. - -Twenty-four hours after the first New York production of MAKING GOOD I -was safely hidden in the country with my still loyal wife and two small -sons, luckily at the time too young to know their shame. At once I -started out, quite undismayed, to write another. One old habit that -still clings to me: if I have a failure, to sit down at my desk before I -have so much as slept on it, and write at least part of the next one; as -a matter of fact, most of the good plays I have written have been -started at such a time. Here then, in the wilds of Westchester, I stuck -to it until I finished THE FAMILY CUPBOARD, much the best thing I had -done up to then, and a play that might very well be a success if -produced to-day. The manuscript of this play I sent at once to a -play-broker with instructions to offer it for production with no -author’s name on the manuscript. A few days later the broker called me -up with the startling information that he had sold my play to William A. -Brady—rather dread news as, following what the New York critics had said -about MAKING GOOD, Mr. Brady had thrown me out of his office and -practically forbidden me its sacred ground. - -It seemed, so my broker said, that Mr. Brady had paid good money for an -option on the play and was very curious as to the identity of the modest -author. When he learned it, he had something very like a stroke, but in -time he forgave me. - -All the years I worked with Mr. Brady were punctuated by terrible fights -between us that always ended in a renewal of friendship and affection. -He is by far the most colorful figure in the American theater and even -when one disagrees with him, which is apt to be rather often, his -strength and his complete belief in his own opinion cause his opponents -awful moments of doubt. If Mr. Brady really set out to convince me that -a red apple was a yellow one, I should at once go and order a new pair -of glasses. - -Mr. Brady, David Belasco and Daniel Frohman are the last of the old -guard and, each in his different way, has written his name boldly on the -pages of our drama. Different as these three men are they have one thing -in common: a great and abiding love of the theater and its people. - -Mr. Brady and I together did THE FAMILY CUPBOARD, SINNERS, FOREVER -AFTER, AT 9.45 and many others. FOREVER AFTER was Alice Brady’s first -big part; partly owing to its simple, straightforward love story and -partly to her fine performance, it turned out to be one of the best -money-makers I have ever had. These plays were at the moment my idea of -one step up from the NELLIE, THE BEAUTIFUL CLOAK MODEL of the Al Woods -days. - -At about this time the Actors’ Equity Association was formed and pulled -a real battle for their rights against the absurd and vicious standards -of the business. That they won that battle is well-known and that they -deserved to win it is fully admitted by fair-minded and honest managers -of the Sam Harris type—although, of course, if all managers had been of -his type no fight would have been necessary. - -The actors’ strike at this time closed all the theaters and, as usual, -the author, who wasn’t in the fight at all and had nothing to win -whatever the outcome, lost much more money than any actor and rather -resented the row being pulled in his front yard. Most authors were in -sympathy with the actors but I know that for one I wished they had -chosen to fight with some other weapons than my three plays, the runs of -which were interrupted and from which I had been drawing a very -considerable royalty. - -Hit in the dramatist’s tenderest spot, we met and organized and from -that day to this many of my hours have been given up to service to the -authors’ societies. I was at that time the last president of the old -Society of American Dramatists and Composers and a member of the -Authors’ League. With the help of a handful of ardent spirits, I brought -all the active dramatists of the day into the old society and merged it -with the Authors’ League as the Dramatists’ Guild of the Authors’ League -of America. A group of strong men and women came to the front and served -faithfully on hundreds of committees and through long hours of -conferences. Among the most active of these were Augustus Thomas, James -Forbes, Gene Buck, Rupert Hughes, Channing Pollock, Edward Childs -Carpenter, Percival Wilde, Rachel Crothers, Ann Crawford Flexner, Jules -Goodman and Montague Glass; then later Arthur Richman, George Middleton -and William Cary Duncan and a number of others. - -I remained as president of this group until I resigned to take up the -presidency of the Authors’ League and gave, as all these others gave, a -very considerable part of my life for many years. At present, thanks to -our efforts, the dramatists are as well organized as the actors and like -the actor eager at all times for a battle, but we are unfortunately -quite without an adversary, one of the peculiar things about the manager -being that he is unable to agree to anything whatever that any other -manager thinks would be a good thing. - -At meetings of the managerial society one man will frequently say: “I -don’t know what Mr. Blank wants to do about this problem, but anything -he thinks I think different.” It is a truly tragic thing that the men -who should be the leaders of the great institution that the American -theater should be have been incapable of enough business foresight to -bind themselves firmly together to protect their interests. Always we -have been out-generaled by the motion picture men, bled white by the -ticket speculator and discriminated against by the railroads, the labor -unions, and even the newspapers, who are by rights our natural allies -and our traditional friends. If the theater is the cultural and the -educational force I have always claimed it was, surely it has a right to -public loyalty and support and I must always think that, if we have in -large part lost that support, it is because the dignity and the -importance of the drama has been hidden by the lack of dignity and the -lack of importance of many of our leaders. - -I thought these things in the time of which I am now writing, 1912-1913, -but naturally I had neither the independence of age nor circumstance at -that time to dare to fully express myself. Just before the war I had -begun to be impatient of the machine-made plays I had been writing for -so long and began to listen to my wife’s pleadings to cut down the -quantity and try to improve the quality of my work. She had been begging -me to do this for ten years or more, and like other good husbands I -rather like to do any little thing my wife asks of me—after she has been -asking it for ten years. I really think I wanted to please her, but I -also think that I had by this time outgrown the sentimental comedy-drama -as once before I had outgrown the cheap melodramas. Naturally enough as -soon as I lost my own belief in my form of expression I was no longer -successful in it. - -Let no man go unchallenged who in your presence talks of purposely -“writing down” to an audience, or of “giving them what they want” or any -other fish-bait of that description. I am here to tell you that no man -ever successfully wrote or produced any play, or any novel below his own -mental level at the moment. When I wrote NELLIE, THE BEAUTIFUL CLOAK -MODEL, I was honestly deeply moved by the lady’s many misfortunes or I -couldn’t have put it over, and when I wrote the comedy-dramas that -followed it I truly believed in them or no audience in the world would -have sat through them. This is always true, I think, of writers or of -managers. We are entirely emotional people and our work reflects us. I -know of several supremely successful producers who made great fortunes -selling the piffle they loved and who, as soon as their money brought -them contacts that resulted in an increase in their taste and knowledge -promptly appointed themselves judges of the drama and even more promptly -went broke. - -You may well afford to laugh at the faker who boasts of skill great -enough to assume a mood and color different from his own. The next time -he tells you of how he “wrote down to the boobs” simply tell him he is -either a liar or a fool—probably both. For surely, if he is not a liar, -he must be the greatest fool on earth to use for a cheap success a -genius great enough to have brought him a real one. - - -[Illustration: - - _Faithfully yours, - J. Jefferson_ - (_From the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -[Illustration: - - “I have always admired Augustus Thomas” - (_From the Messmore Kendall Collection_) -] - - -If then, about fifteen years ago, I wanted to write a higher form of -drama it was for no nobler reason than because I had begun to be bored -by the sort of work I was doing and because it bored me it had begun to -bore my audiences. Several times in my life I have been driven to an -advance of this sort and always because of the fact that I found my old -occupation gone. As time goes on, I have come to believe that if I could -live two or three hundred years I might develop into quite a playwright. -In any case I once more threw my box of tricks away and sat down quietly -and tried to study out a new method. In this I was helped by the change -that had begun to come over the drama. I was influenced as all our -writers were at the time by the Russian and Hungarian dramatists who had -discarded the artificial form of the “well-made play” and were writing a -new form of photographic realism that tempted us all to follow in their -footsteps. - -As a result I wrote THE DETOUR, which remains in my mind the example of -the best work I have done for the theater. Of all my plays the DETOUR, -THE GAMBLER OF THE WEST (one of the old melodramas of the Al Woods days) -and THE NERVOUS WRECK are my pets. THE DETOUR was produced by Lee -Shubert at the Astor Theatre in the early fall of 1921 and, although it -was never a money-maker, it gave me what I wanted and made my wife very -happy. As she had stuck around by this time for some fifteen years -waiting for something like this to happen, it was, to say the least, no -more than she deserved. - -In the production of THE DETOUR I was fortunate enough to be able to -secure Augustin Duncan to play the principal part and to stage the play. -He more than justified the confidence I had in him. To me Mr. Duncan is -a great artist and by far the most sincere example of the man who puts -his art above his pocketbook I have ever met. I suppose more rot has -been spilled out by men and women who pose as “devoted to their art” -than by any other set of posing hypocrites since the world began. We all -of us play the tune we know and to rebuke us for that tune is as silly -as it is to praise us for it. To use what talents we may have to earn a -decent living for ourselves and those dependent upon us is, to a man of -any philosophy, a far finer thing than to sit in a Greenwich Village -attic and mouth jealous platitudes about the baseness of commercial art. - -This statement of my opinion is neither a defense nor an alibi. I -myself, as these confessions of mine are describing to you, have always -written for the love of the theater rather than from any art impulse and -I am the first to admit that my love of the theater has always been more -compelling than my love of the drama, if you follow me in the -distinction. - -As a practical man, born of a practical line of hard-headed Yanks, I -have studied my own small talents and developed them and tried to make -up for a lack of the real fires of genius by an honest admission of that -lack and a true enthusiasm for the work that at the moment came nearest -to expressing my attitude. The true genius, the true artist, is very -rare, but Augustin Duncan is distinctly of that number. He is quite as -incapable of doing any work that doesn’t seem fine to him as I am of -writing anything at all unless I am going to be paid for it, and he is -as firm in his refusals as I am. And in my life, during which I have -written several million words, I doubt if I have written five thousand -without practical reward. - -Max Gordon, one of the managers with whom I have been associated, looked -at me in troubled amazement one day lately when I had made some mildly -humorous comment and said: “That’s the first time I ever heard you say -anything funny for less than ten percent.” Max Gordon, like many others -of my acquaintance, assumes this attitude of mine to be founded on a -desire for money, but as a matter of fact I care very little about money -or the things that money stands for. Any man who can make good can -always make money, but the fun is in the making good, in the thrill and -the sense of power that comes from activities sanely thought out and -successfully accomplished. Under Mr. Duncan’s fine direction THE DETOUR -was molded into shape and ready for its first performance. Not one word -of my original manuscript was changed from the day I wrote it, which -fact is most amazingly to his credit rather than to mine. He is so fine -a director that he molded his company to my play, rather than my play to -his company—the true duty of a director, although few of them have the -sense to know it. To the picture director an author’s play is a sort of -clover field in which he loves to kick up his heels and romp about at -his own sweet will, making any changes at all that his fancy may -dictate, most of them being made for the very simple reason that he -doesn’t quite grasp the meaning of what is on the written page in front -of him. Even in the theater there are few managers who realize the value -of one man’s unbroken line of thought. “Plays are not written, they are -re-written” is a motto often repeated to writers and in the old days -these wise words were proudly framed and hung over the desk of one of -our greatest producers. This musty old truism has been used to slaughter -plays during all the years since Dion Boucicault first uttered it, and -like most other truisms its principal fault lies in the fact that it -isn’t true. When I was in Harvard I met Mr. Boucicault in a barroom on -Bowdoin Square in Boston and, as I looked at him in awe and homage, I -had little thought of ever being bold enough to challenge any of his -theories. Dion Boucicault was a great playwright of the eighties, a man -of sound knowledge of his craft, but like the best of us there were -occasions when he talked nonsense. - -Plays are written by their authors. They are good plays or bad plays -depending almost wholly upon the degree of talent of the author plus his -accident of choice of a subject. This goes for pictures as well as for -stage plays. The germ of success is put in only by the original author -in spite of Mr. Boucicault and the combined opinion of the Managers’ -Association and the motion picture industry. I am stating here an -important fact upon which I have a great deal of special information. I -doubt if any man alive has ever been called in as a play doctor more -frequently than I, and for the good of my soul I am willing to admit -that I have very rarely saved a patient. I have often seen plays helped -by careful and skillful revision but I have never once seen a play built -into a real success unless the germ of that success was firmly planted -by the author in his first manuscript. - -Frequently I have seen, so frequently as to have learned to be in dread -and horror of the practice, sensitive and beautiful plays and picture -stories so coarsened and debased by the rough hands of managers, -directors, supervisors and other quacks, that all hope of success has -been dosed and purged out of them. I am stoutly of the opinion that if -no changes at all in original manuscripts were ever made the percentage -of success both in plays and pictures would be infinitely higher. This -does not in the least mean that I think the author is always right. Of -course he isn’t. Play writing is the most difficult form of all the -forms of literary expression, and no man ever wrote a perfect play. But -I think the trained writer knows more about his business than any one -else can hope to know, and I think it is as silly for an outsider to -meddle with his work as it would be for a kind neighbor to write a few -helpful words in the middle of the prescription you have paid a -physician to prescribe for your sick child. - -Every one in the world is, I suppose, a potential story-teller. I am -constantly being asked to read plays written by elevator boys, -maid-servants, policemen and taxi drivers, and it is not surprising that -when a man finds himself in power over a writer he should at once demand -a share of the joy of the creator. But to me play writing is and -scenario writing ought to be a definitely understood and carefully -studied profession; and the outsider without special knowledge or -special talent who undertakes to turn out a masterpiece is in exactly -the same position to do good work as the Irishman who had never tried to -play the violin but had always thought he could do it. - -Even in editorial rooms, where a higher class of intelligence is usually -found in authority over the story departments, one notices this -instinctive urge to get a finger into the pie and the theater is cursed -with it; as the picture business is superlative in all things this very -human failing may be found here in its fullest flowering. Just as Tom -Sawyer’s young friends all wanted a turn at whitewashing the fence so do -the picture executives—supervisors, directors, script-girls, cutters, -film-editors, messenger boys, stage-hands and scrub-women—all yearn to -make just the least little bit of a change in a story to satisfy some -instinctive lech to be an author. I have seen so many plays and screen -stories ruined by this enforced collaboration that I honestly look upon -it as the major evil that threatens a young writer’s success. - -In the first place it’s a silly custom because once the author -surrenders the integrity of his story he is helpless to even be a fair -judge of the hybrid product that takes its place, and as plays and -stories do not succeed on account of their structural perfection but by -virtue of their spiritual and inspirational qualities, it is obvious -that no man without a creative talent has any right to mess about with -them. - -Duncan knew the folly of all this and his skill and instinct resulted in -a fine and sensitive performance. - -Again a play of mine was to have its first performance at a holiday -matinée and again, as had happened to me during the first matinée of -THROUGH THE BREAKERS, I was to be given the benefit of an honest lay -opinion of my talents. We opened in Asbury Park, New Jersey, famous -among people of the theater for drawing the prize boob audiences of -America. An audience at any seashore resort is a terrible thing, but in -Asbury Park for some reason its reactions are amazing. Good plays die -and terrible plays are heralded as great, so that the wise author simply -sits in suffering silence with cotton in his ears. Personally as I sat -with my wife through this first performance of THE DETOUR I had been -very happy, so happy in fact that I neglected the cotton, and on my way -out of the crowded theater I heard the first critical opinion of this, -the first attempt on my part to write of life simply and honestly. “Do -you know,” remarked a very pretty young woman as we passed, “I think I -could write a better play than this one myself.” In spite, however, of -this completely honest expression of opinion THE DETOUR gave me a new -standing as a writer of serious plays. Another rusty old saw of the -trade is the one about all the great plays resting in closets, trunks -and unread in managers’ offices, plays so fine that, were they to be -produced, a new drama would spring full grown into being. I have been -looking for one of those for twenty years, but so far it has escaped me. -In all the hundreds of these neglected manuscripts that it has been my -sad fate to have read I found just one real play. When I demanded a -hearing for it and got one, it turned out to be just fair. There is a -real utility about a great play that sooner or later will bring it to -the stage; some one will see it and rave about it and it will get its -chance. It isn’t so difficult to tell a really great play when one reads -it, or a really bad play, it’s the in-between it is difficult to judge, -the degree of badness or of value that means failure or success. Careful -reading of these supposed masterpieces will usually prove rather a -shock. I’ve read a thousand, and I am not the man I was. - -The Great War was over by this time and the changes it had brought about -in our moods and our standards was being sharply reflected in the -theater. The motion pictures, successful as they had grown to be, had -not as yet challenged our right to existence and we had begun to produce -something in the nature of an American Drama. Eugene O’Neill had written -several fine plays. Arthur Richman’s AMBUSH, Gilbert Emery’s THE HERO -and my THE DETOUR and ICEBOUND were at least a step toward a true folk -play and the rise of the Theatre Guild and of Arthur Hopkins, who to me -has always seemed the great man of the theater in my time, gave fine -promise of fine things. - -The Great War had disturbed and sobered me. I was about forty-two years -old at the time America entered it, fat, near-sighted and cursed with a -gouty constitution. Quite obviously I couldn’t fight, and yet, like all -men who stood just across the border line from heroic action, I had my -moments of longing and resentment; here was a big thing and I couldn’t -be part of it. I had been a sort of adventurer all my life and yet when -the greatest adventure of all time was going on I must stand on the side -lines. - -Fate had decided that I was to have no real connection with the war. I -was too old, and my two boys were too young. The nearest I came to the -feeling of personal participation was when my youngest brother, Colonel, -then Major, Robert P. Davis, sailed with his regiment for France. My -peace of mind received one slight shock, however, when my oldest son, -Donald, then not quite fourteen, slipped away from Yonkers, where we -were living at the time, and enlisted in the Navy. Exactly what might -have come of that I never will know, for when the young man was marched -with a squad of volunteers to the Battery and lined up before the keen -eye of an officer, he was rudely yanked out of line and sent home to me -with a stern warning which frightened me very much but made no dent at -all in the culprit’s armor. He felt no repentance at all but furiously -cursed the United States Navy for not knowing a good man when they saw -one. - -After the war a writer faced a new world. The changes in the form of -play writing speak volumes of the change in our mode of thought and our -standards. When I had written my first plays in the early nineties, -asides were freely spoken. I had frequently written scenes in the old -days in which the lovely heroine sat calmly in a chair, violently -struggling to pretend not to hear the villain and his fellow -conspirators who plotted her undoing in loud voices at a distance of six -feet. The soliloquy was also in good usage, that marvelous aid to the -clumsy craftsman by which all necessity for a carefully reticent -exposition could be laughed aside. I used to start a play, for example, -with a lady alone on the stage as the first curtain rose. She would -perhaps turn sadly away from the window and looking the audience firmly -in its composite eye would exclaim: “Poor John; I wonder if he knows -that I have been untrue to him.” This naturally saved a lot of time and -had a distinct advantage from the audience’s point of view. They had -very little excuse for not knowing what the play was all about. - -Deeper, however, than any change in the shifting methods of play writing -was the change in the point of view of our audiences. The “Prodigal Son” -story, the “Cinderella” story, and the “Magdalen” story seemed to have -lost their power; the old one about, “My son shall never marry a -daughter of the Hoosis’s” no longer bit very deep, and the poor -dramatist had to learn all over again. - -I can best explain the change that twenty years had brought by telling -of an experience I had with a play called DRIFTWOOD. I wrote this play -in 1905 and read it to a famous star of that time; the lady liked the -part and urged her manager to produce the play, but after long -reflection he decided against it on the grounds that the heroine of my -play had made in her youth what the French writers so politely describe -as “a slip,” and in his experience it was out of the question that any -audience could ever be willing for her, no matter how deep her -repentance, to marry a decent man. Twenty years after I dug this old -faded manuscript out of a trunk and was struck by some scenes of what -seemed to me to be of real power and truth, and again I took it to a -great woman star, whose verdict was “It didn’t seem to her to be about -anything worth making such a fuss about.” And she was as right in her -opinion as the manager of the old days had been in his. - -After the production of THE DETOUR I attacked my work from a slightly -different point of view, and my next job was the very pleasant one of -making for my old friend, William A. Brady, the American adaptation of -THE INSECT COMEDY, which was produced as THE WORLD WE LIVE IN. I -followed this with ICEBOUND, which won for me the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 -and caused me to be selected as a member of the National Institute of -Arts and Letters. - -I had some adventures with ICEBOUND before I got it on the stage and got -myself into a terrible mess that grew deeper as its success grew more -assured. David Belasco had seen THE DETOUR and had written me that if I -could write another play as good he would gladly produce it at once. I -sent him the manuscript of ICE BOUND as soon as I completed it, and in a -few days had a telegram from him saying that he liked it very much and -asked me to see Mr. Roder, his manager, and arrange the details of a -contract. The next day I called on Ben Roder, whom I had known for many -years, and he offered me a contract containing a clause giving Mr. -Belasco the right to produce the play at any time during the next two -years. Mr. Belasco was away with David Warfield’s production of THE -MERCHANT OF VENICE and Mr. Roder was a bit impatient of my objection to -the clause I have mentioned. I have always been in a hurry all my life, -and I had caught from Al Woods during my long association with him his -ardent desire to see a play on the stage the very moment he falls in -love with it. Neither yesterday nor to-morrow ever meant very much to -me; to-day has always been the right time to produce any play that I had -faith in. This fact is so well known to the men with whom I do business -that it is no longer necessary for me to tell them that if they want to -do a play of mine at all they must start casting it the very hour after -they have first read it. Mr. Roder, however, was not quite used to my -rather stormy manner, and the result of our talk was an angry outburst -on my part. - -“Mr. Belasco,” I said, “will give me a contract before noon on Monday -for an immediate production or he can’t have the play.” Such language is -all out of line in the Belasco office, and Mr. Roder smiled a kindly and -tolerant smile as I walked out of his office, merely remarking that he -didn’t think I was quite crazy enough to turn down a Belasco production. -I have always been a free lance in the theater and perhaps a bit -militant in my stand for an author’s rights and his prerogatives, and I -made up my mind to go through with my bluff unless Mr. Belasco came to -my terms. On Monday I would sell my play to some one else. With this in -view I took all four of my remaining manuscripts under my arm, and by -noon I had placed three of them with managers of good standing, in each -case saying that the play must be purchased by Monday noon or not at -all, in each case walking out of the office followed by an exact -duplicate of Mr. Roder’s tolerant but unbelieving smile. - -It was noon and I was hungry, so, with my remaining manuscript tucked -into my overcoat pocket, I dropped into the grill room of the old -Knickerbocker Hotel for lunch. During lunch young Max Gordon, whom I had -known since his boyhood, sat down for a moment at my table for a -friendly chat. Max Gordon and Al Lewis had been successful vaudeville -agents and had recently owned interests in several plays, but as yet had -made no productions under their own names. Max was always of an -inquiring turn of mind and very little escapes him. One glance at the -yellow envelope sticking out of my overcoat pocket was enough. - -“How’s your new play?” was his first start. His second was to calmly -stretch out his hand and take my last manuscript out of my pocket and -transfer it to his own. “I’d like to read it,” he blandly observed, and -in spite of some protest on my part he walked out of the room with it in -his pocket. I had already covered the three managers who, aside from Mr. -Belasco, had seemed to me to be best fitted to produce this play and I -went home. The next day being Saturday, I went up to St. Andrews for my -usual week-end game of golf with my golfing partner, Bob Davis, Bob -being no blood kin of mine but a very dear friend of many years’ -standing. Sunday morning the bell of my apartment rang and Mr. Max -Gordon walked calmly in and dropped a thousand dollars on my table and -blandly announced that “we are going to produce ICEBOUND.” Questioned as -to the “we” part of it he replied that Sam Harris and Al Lewis had read -the play and that Mr. Harris had offered to put it out under his trade -mark with Lewis and Gordon as silent but active partners. Sam Harris -could then, as he could now, have anything of mine he wanted, so I -promptly shook hands and called it a trade. - -Then the storm broke. By ‘phone, by letter and by telegram every one of -the managers whom I had given until Monday noon to buy my play sent -messages that they would produce it, and it took me about five years to -square myself. - -As a matter of fact I have never been able to see the justice in the -trade custom of never submitting a play to more than one manager at a -time. If I own a house and want to sell it, I give that house to more -than one agent, and the grocer who displays a particularly fine melon on -his stand doesn’t consider it the property of the first customer who -admires it. Before it’s anybody’s but his some one must pay good money -for it. Experience has taught me that any manager who wants a play never -lets an author out of his office until he has signed a contract, and he -is crazy if he does. I have been roused from my bed at four o’clock in -the morning and forced to promise a play to an excited manager before he -allowed me to crawl back under the bedclothes, and any less ardent -expression of willingness has grown to be very suspicious in my eyes. - - -[Illustration: - - ROBERT H. DAVIS - (_Photo by F. X. Cleary_) -] - - -I first learned of the fact that ICEBOUND had won the Pulitzer Prize -from Al Woods, who called me up and told me the news. He was, I think, -as much excited as I, and perhaps he knew better than any one else what -a far cry it was from our old Bowery melodramas to the winning of the -prize for the best play of 1923. A lot of water had flowed under the -mill in those twenty-five years, and to throw so completely aside a -hard-won method and adopt another so radically different was a very -difficult thing. Since then I have served several times on the committee -to award the prize, and I have never voted to give it to a dramatist -without recalling my own pleasure in listening to Al Woods’ voice over -the ‘phone when he called up and said: “Listen, sweetheart, who do you -think cops the Pulitzer Prize this year?—you’d never guess—neither would -I—a guy told me—it’s you!” - - -[Illustration: - - Owen Davis and his two sons, Donald and Owen, Jr. - (_Photograph by Atlantic Photo Service_) -] - - -During the run of ICEBOUND Bob Davis ruined a golf game by telling me -about a new story he was about to publish. It was, so he told me, -written by E. J. Rath, but, as a matter of fact, it had in all -probability sprung from his own amazing mind, as have literally hundreds -of other stories that have appeared under the names of our most famous -writers. Bob has been for many years the dry nurse of American fiction -and responsible for the present fame of more successful novelists and -short story writers than any one man who has ever lived. This story that -he called _The Wreck_ bored me very much and quite ruined my game, as -Bob usually saves his loudest and most startling statements until I am -at the top of my back swing; so to keep him quiet I told him to shut up -and I’d read the fool thing if he would send it to me. When I read the -proof sheets, all I could find there was a very amusing character, but -urged on by Bob I finally agreed to try my best to make a play out of -it. The play was THE NERVOUS WRECK, probably one of the most successful -farces of the last twenty years. - -As soon as I finished this play I took it to Sam Harris, who read it -promptly and told me it was terrible. As I fully agreed with him, we -decided to have it tried out on the west coast, figuring that the -further we got it from the sight of our friends the better. Mr. Harris -had at that time some business relations with Thomas Wilks of Los -Angeles, and the play was announced for production by him. After the -first rehearsal Mr. Wilks’ stock company went on strike and refused to -play the thing, saying that it was without a doubt the worst play ever -written by mortal man. It was only after a battle that they were forced -to continue. - -Mr. Edward Horton who first played the part has since told me that he -was never in his life so startled as he was by the screams of laughter -that followed his first scene, and he and the leading lady got together -after the first performance and hastily learned their lines, a thing -that up to that time they had not thought it worth while to do. The -farce played in Los Angeles for twelve weeks to enormous business, but -Mr. Harris and I were still a bit doubtful and rather reluctantly -started to put together a cast for an eastern tryout. We put it on in -Atlantic City with Mr. Horton and Miss Frances Howard, now Mrs. Samuel -Goldwyn, in the leading parts. After the first performance Mr. Harris -confided in me that he had always thought it the worst play he had ever -seen and that now he was sure of it. I had very little if any more faith -than he had, and we returned to New York together in disgust. But to our -amazement the fool thing did a big week’s business and we decided to see -it once more during the following week in Long Branch. At Long Branch we -saw it before a half empty house and decided we would close it up, and -that I would work on it at my leisure. - -I re-wrote it completely seven different times, and each time Mr. Harris -liked it just a little bit less. It kicked around the office for a year -before Al Lewis picked it up in an idle moment and insisted on our once -again tempting fate with it. - -The third cast we selected for this outcast of ours was headed by Otto -Kruger and June Walker. Otto said it was terrible and almost walked out -on us, but at last we got it on in Washington, where Mr. Harris said he -would come to see it with an unprejudiced eye. This time he only -remarked that he’d be damned if he knew why he had ever bothered with -the thing, but if it was any fun for me to mess about with such truck he -had no objection to my seeing what I could do. Messing about with a -farce isn’t exactly fun, and I almost killed myself working over it. - -During the next week in Baltimore, Mr. Harris wired me that a failure at -his New York theater was leaving his house dark, and that he had booked -THE NERVOUS WRECK to open there the following Monday. By that time I had -the play in pretty good shape. Al Lewis, Sam Forrest and I had been at -it night and day, but I had no last act at all. A farce without a last -act is a pretty sad affair, and one night in desperation I remembered a -hot comedy scene I had in an unproduced farce called THE HAUNTED HOUSE. -I promptly pulled the scene bodily out of one play and stuck it into -another. - -This scene, the examination of some cowboys on a ranch by a young -eastern highbrow who used the methods of laboratory psychology, made the -play’s success, but left me in an awful mess when the time came to -produce THE HAUNTED HOUSE, which was now without any last act at all. -One act, however, has always been a little thing in my life, and I stuck -something in the hole left by the missing scene, and with the late -Wallace Eddinger in the leading part, THE HAUNTED HOUSE did well enough -for a season. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ──────────────── - CHAPTER VI ◆ HOW TO WRITE THREE HUNDRED PLAYS - ──────────────── - - -I love farce, but of all the forms of dramatic writing it is by all odds -the most difficult and demands more hard work and more technical -dexterity of the writer than any other. - -A good farce, in the first place, must have a plot that could as easily -be told as a tragedy, and a character not only essentially true but -completely familiar to any audience; and it must have at least three -times as much situation in it as any other type of play. - -We hear a lot of late of the technique of play writing, and I have grown -a bit impatient of some of the dogmatic drivel laid before the eyes of -would-be dramatists. In reality the dramatist sails on uncharted seas. -There is no master to whose word he can bow, and no oracle to whom he -can submit his questions. The only way to write a good play is to make -it good. If I were asked to put into one sentence the result of my -experience as a writer, I should say: “Dream out a story about the sort -of persons you know the most about, and tell it as simply as you can.” - -Of course, rules for play writing don’t mean anything, not even that the -writer who lays down the rules ever uses them himself. He may be like -the cook who prefers to go out to lunch, and yet I have picked up one or -two tricks, short cuts, easy ways to do hard things, and I am going to -write a few of them down in the faint hope of their being of some slight -help to a beginner. - -Of course, the usual way to learn to write is by repeated failure, by -doing almost everything so badly that the awful consequences are so -deeply burned into one’s memory that each disaster has resulted in being -so terrified of one particular blunder that it can never be repeated. - -Technique is, as I understand it, simply a facing of certain facts, a -realization of some mistakes, a summing up of some experiences of one’s -self or of others, into an expressed formula. I think I believe in that. -It is a good thing to know thoroughly all the rules of play writing -(only there really aren’t any). These rules, the result of one’s own -experience or the theories of others should be carefully learned, and -then twice as carefully forgotten. Conscious technique in any art is -very painful. The sculptor knows that under his clay are the trusses to -hold up his figure, but he doesn’t let them show. It might be well to -note, however, that if he forgot to put them in, his beautiful figure -would be a shapeless mass on the floor. - -Of course, the man who knows the most about play writing doesn’t write -the best plays, but quite as surely knowing a little about his trade -isn’t going to hurt him. I quarrel sometimes with my friend, M. L. -Malevinsky, over the real value of this special knowledge. To me play -writing is almost entirely an emotional thing, and in the foreword I -wrote for his quite remarkable book on THE TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA I -tried to express my feeling of the limitations of technical knowledge by -writing: “It is probable that the hedge sparrow has quite as much -technique as the meadow lark, but only the song bird can sing.” - -If you care to read the few observations I am about to write down, read -them with the thought that they aren’t meant to be too slavishly -followed; they are not words of wisdom at all, they are simply scars -from the battlefield, and they are only meant as a sort of protective -mechanism to save your fingers from being burned as deeply as my own -have been. - - * * * * * - -1. Don’t write at all until you have something you are sure is worth -writing about. - -2. Don’t make notes. Anything one may possibly forget isn’t worth -remembering. - -3. After your story has shaped itself in your mind, tell it to yourself -over and over and over again—then try it on some one else. Wives are -good; they have to stand for it. Let the first thing you put down on -paper be an outline narrative of your play, written in two hundred -words. If your story won’t go into two hundred words, throw it away. The -next step is to write several more outlines, at first in narrative form. -Later put in a little dialogue, not probably to be used in your final -copy, but to give you a growing acquaintance with your characters. - -4. Modern plays are about how characters react to situations, not about -situations in themselves. - -5. Be absolutely sure of your last scene before you write a word of your -first act. Paul Potter, a master of the form of play writing, was the -first to tell me that the French dramatists always wrote their last act -first. I have never quite done that, but I do try to know exactly what I -am going to do with my characters at the end of the play before I start -out. One of the oldest mechanical rules of play writing is, Act 1 plus -Act 2 equal Act 3. I have altered that a little in my own work, and I -think I could express it as: the characters of Act 1 multiplied by the -emotions of Act 2 equal Act 3. A play really is a character driven by an -emotion along a definite line to a definite end. Mr. Malevinsky states -somewhat the same thing. I fully agree with him that every play -expresses a definite emotion, but I do not think the author is or should -be conscious of the fact. In the end any carefully written play results -in a story line marked out by one character, driven by one dominant -emotion to the definite climax of that emotion—success, failure, love, -death, whatever it may be. But if one wants a successful play, it must -have an ending absolutely made imperative by what has happened in the -first part of your story, plus what has happened in the second part. If -two-thirds of the way through you have a possible choice as to the -outcome, you will have a failure every time. Authors write first acts -and second acts, but the audience writes all good last acts. A modern -audience cares very little whether your play ends happily or not, but -they insist upon its ending along the line you yourself have started it -on, and audiences know a lot more about play writing than any dramatist -ever knew. - -6. Don’t try to tell of the sort of life you don’t know anything about. -If you know the little girl next door, tell a story about her—forget the -King of France. - -7. If, after you have written a speech, and read it over and find it -sounds very beautiful to you, cross it out; beauty in the modern play is -in the thought, not in the words. This is a tough lesson for us -old-timers to learn, and to this day the last thing I do before I send -my manuscript on its first journey is to comb it over for stray -“effective speeches” or bits of bombast, once my specialty and now my -bitterest enemy. - -8. Don’t give a thought as to how big or how little your cast is, or how -much or how little your production is going to cost. If it’s a good play -it can’t cost too much, and if it’s a bad one it can’t help it. - -9. Get yourself in the habit of reading over all you have written -previously before you start each day’s work, and as the manuscript grows -force yourself to be more and more critical of what you have done. A -play should consist of at least a hundred thousand words, twenty -thousand on paper and eighty thousand in the waste basket. - -10. Don’t worry about how long it is going to take you to finish your -task; it doesn’t matter. Some days you won’t be able to write at all, -and other days you can’t stop writing. I have written through hundreds -of lunch and dinner hours and thousands of business and social -appointments. Don’t let any one bother you when you are writing or -anything. If the ‘phone rings, don’t answer it, and if your wife rebels, -divorce her. Nothing and nobody is important when the thoughts are -boiling. Nobody expects a dramatist to be a respectable member of -society, and any crime is justified. If you find yourself bored at your -desk go and play golf, play anything, but stop writing. If you find -yourself in your stride keep at it. I wrote one entire act of THE DETOUR -without getting up from my chair, sixty-five hundred words in longhand -in eight hours. Teach yourself this trick of crawling into your shell -like a mud turtle and letting the world roll by. - -I have developed a habit of concentration until it is an almost idiotic -habit. When I have a play in my head neither time nor space exist for -me. I am forced to keep a car and a man to drive it because I have so -trained my mind to focusing that the moment I sat back in a seat on the -subway it was a foregone conclusion that I would be put off the train at -Van Cortland Park when I lived on East 63rd Street. For a time I tried -driving a car myself, but no sooner did I find myself on a straight road -than my mind clicked back on its job of play making until I drove into a -ditch or ran through a traffic light. At length I was persuaded to give -up driving, not entirely out of respect for the law, but because the -roars of outraged traffic cops disturbed my train of thought. - -Some years ago my wife was taken to the hospital for a critical -operation and I spent the most horrible day of my life awaiting a -verdict that meant life or death. At length I was allowed to see her for -five minutes and told to go home and not to return until late the -following day. Absolutely broken by what I had been through I returned -to our empty rooms; it was ten o’clock at night; sleep was out of the -question. I sat at my desk making marks on a pad of paper. Suddenly I -was struck by, of all things, an idea for a farce, and I started to -write. Sometime later I had a feeling of fatigue, and I sadly said to -myself: “I’m getting old. I’m not the man I was.” Then I noticed that, -although my lights were burning, it was broad daylight outside. I looked -at my watch and discovered that it was two o’clock. I had been writing -for sixteen hours. When Mrs. Davis came back from the hospital two weeks -later I had written, sold, cast and started rehearsals of EASY COME, -EASY GO, and she was rather curious as to where this stranger had come -from. - -I wrote a melodrama called HER MARRIAGE VOW in three days, many years -ago, and it played three years. On the other hand, I worked eleven -months on THE NERVOUS WRECK. Time doesn’t mean a thing. Any good -newspaper man will tell you that if he couldn’t turn out three thousand -words of copy a day he couldn’t hold his job. A play is seldom more than -twenty-one thousand words, seven days’ work if you want it to be, seven -years’ work if it happens to come that way. - -As a matter of fact, I figure that it takes me one hundred hours to -write a play, which, of course, can be one hour a day for one hundred -days, or ten hours a day for ten days; but please note that my trick is -never to start writing until I have solved every problem, drawn every -character and completely laid out my story line. The trick of carrying -all this in your mind with absolutely no notes to fall back upon is -rather a difficult one to master, but it is, I am sure, of great value. -What really happens is that in the course of the weeks you go about with -this junk shifting about in your head, the sub-conscious part of your -mind does most of your work for you, and when you start to write it out -you will be amazed to read what your own hand has written. - -When I am writing, I make it a rule to go over my story fully in my mind -just before I go to sleep and to start writing the next morning before I -have read my mail or even the morning papers. Very often points are -clear to me that were clouded the night before, and I find that the part -of my mind that remained active while I slept has been helping me to pay -the rent. - -There is a great difference between inspiration and imagination, and -although I believe in inspired writing—that is, I believe that some men -and women upon some fortunate occasion write from an emotional prompting -deeper and finer than their conscious mind could inspire—I do not -confuse the mental pictures of an imaginative mind with so exalted a -word. There are and always have been two sorts of writers, the writer -who tells what he sees, or has read or thought or been told, and the -writer whose mind is a sort of old-fashioned kaleidoscope that forms -little mental pictures quite without conscious effort. In other words, -one writer uses trained observation, and the other has the gift of -spontaneous creation. I have on several occasions seen the story line of -an entire play laid out before me in one flash at a time when I, to the -best of my knowledge, was not thinking of any such thing at all. I can, -on a bet, at any time close my eyes and shake my head and look up and -tell a story that, so far as I can discover, I have never for a moment -thought of before. - -As a matter of fact, this very unusual development of the power of -sub-conscious creation is a terrible nuisance to me, as my mind races -along so easily down any path that I am dragged along after it without -stopping long enough to make sure that this path is the one that taste -and prudence dictate. I often envy the writer who is forced to stop and -build his plot brick by brick, but so far as I know I never work out a -story at all. The story comes to me as Topsy came to an unappreciative -world “born growed.” If a story of mine is challenged by a manager in -whom I have confidence it is no trouble at all for me to say, “Well -then, suppose it went like this,” and rattle off a completely different -fiction. I have never been able to harness this trick of mine, and often -when I have made up a story in a flash and sold it to some friendly -manager I have gone home and started to write it to discover that it -insists upon coming out entirely different, and that the manager who -loved the first one has to recall to me the details of the plot I have -quite forgotten. - -Once about ten years ago I read a play that never existed at all to a -famous manager. I had promised him a play, and when the time came to -deliver it I hadn’t had a moment to think of it, so I took with me to -his office an old typed manuscript and gravely read it to him in the -rough, a play that I made up as I went along. The manager liked the play -very much, but when I handed it in a few weeks later he said he had -never in his life seen so many changes made, and that he vastly -preferred the first draft. - -11. Keep in mind that no part of a play, and this is especially true of -farce, is effective when it is not convincing. The more belief you -create in your characters and situations, the greater your success. -Truth in play writing is quite as valuable as it is in life, but, just -as in life, there is a limit to the extent to which simple truth telling -may safely be indulged in. When Hamlet told the players to “hold the -mirror up to nature” he was quite aware that when they looked in that -mirror they would see a reflection, not nature itself. In the arts, -truth is art, but it isn’t always true. We value a play either because -(1) of its truth, (2) of its wide departure from the truth, or (3) -because of a romantic desire excited in us that these related incidents -should be true. - -We, the audience, must follow each step of a play with full belief in -that step, but where the dramatist’s skill comes in is in being able to -make of himself such a glamorous and subtle liar that what he feels to -be true becomes the truth. It is the same with any of the arts of the -theater; our skillfully placed lamps give us a feeling of sunlight, but -they are not the sun. The great actor doesn’t die before your eyes, but -he seems to die, just as he doesn’t live, he only seems to live. For a -while, here in America, we playwrights fell very much under the Russian -influence and rather wandered about in a fog. “Why?” we asked, “should -this play be a failure? Isn’t it true?” The answer was of course that -the probability is that if it had not been quite so laboriously true it -wouldn’t have been quite such a bore. Bad smells are true, rainbows are -lies. No man has ever put wisdom into simple and understandable words -better than Shakespeare did and Hamlet’s advice to the players remains a -marvelous guide both to the actor and the dramatist. “Hold the mirror up -to nature” but show it reflected—a mirage. - - -[Illustration: - - OWEN DAVIS, JR. - Actor - (_Photograph by Underwood & Underwood, Chicago_) -] - - -[Illustration: - - DONALD DAVIS - Playwright - (_Photograph by White Studio_) -] - - -12. I have often been asked what was the most valuable trait in the -equipment of the dramatist and I always answer, “Courage.” I put that -ahead of everything but genius, and genius is to me just an expression, -like “plovers’ eggs.” I’ve often read of “plovers’ eggs,” but up to now -I’ve never eaten any. I think I know personally all of the dramatists of -America and many of the best of England. I am sure that there are more -able and talented men and women writing for the stage to-day than ever -before, but Eugene O’Neill is the only one I know with what I would -admit to be genius. I don’t always like Mr. O’Neill’s plays and I never -like all of any of them, but there is always something under them that -the rest of us don’t get. To me he is a mile above the rest of us. - -Sidney Howard, Max Anderson and, in melodrama, Bayard Veiller know their -business better than he does, but O’Neill’s plays come from deeper down, -not deeper in his brain as some people think, but from the depths of the -particularly sensitive heart of a particularly sensitive man. So, -leaving genius aside, I think courage the quality most valuable to the -man or woman who expects to win a place in the very odd world of the -theater where there are no standards at all, either mental, moral or -ethical, and where the author must of necessity stand alone against -groups with different and antagonistic interests. From the moment an -author signs a contract for the production of a play until that play has -lived its life on the stage, gone through its course of stock company -and foreign productions and been sold “down the river” and turned into a -moving picture, every single hand that comes in contact with that play -is the hand of a potential enemy. The manager and his staff, the actors -in a group, the scenic artists and the technical departments all have -the power and as a rule they desire to put in a little something by way -of change, something usually that will be to their advantage and -destructive to the best quality of the work. - -This of course means fight. An author surely might as well fight and be -licked as to be licked without fighting, and the method adopted by the -experienced street fighter of getting in the first punch is most -earnestly recommended. There is to all these groups but one real hope in -any play—the hope that the author wrote something; if he did, they all, -manager, actor, etc., have a chance for success; if he didn’t they -haven’t. Authors of plays, like dentists, are never popular; nobody -really likes to have them around. - -Writers are so different in their method that I hesitate to advise a -course that has been very useful to me, that is to vary the form of -writing often enough to escape the boredom that follows walking over the -same path too frequently. I like to follow a heavy drama with a farce, -and a light comedy with a melodrama. Of course, one man usually writes -one form of play better than he does another; yet even in an age of -specialists, the good marksman should learn to handle all the tools of -his trade, and no man can write deep drama without a sense of comedy, -and most assuredly can’t write farce without a definite note of tragedy. - -I have always had a lot of fun writing mystery plays, although a -well-built mystery drama represents a staggering amount of hard work. -The formula is a very exact and very exacting one, and in addition to -its mechanical difficulties the author must not only create an interest -in who committed the crime, but, if he hopes for success, he must make -them fear that some one character dear to them is guilty. In other -words, the mystery play in which one hasn’t gone deep enough into the -emotions to make the audience care who committed the murder is never -successful, no matter how mysterious it may be. - -Emile Gaboriau was the master of this form of writing, and to this day -we all more or less faithfully follow his model, although his -complicated plot structure requires more skill and patience than most -modern authors are able to supply. Poe borrowed the formula, as he quite -frankly admitted, and from him it descended to Anna Catherine Green, -whose LEAVENWORTH CASE and HAND AND RING are fine examples of this form -of writing. Jumping again across the Atlantic, we see in the Sherlock -Holmes character, and in Watson’s shrewd “feeding” of that character -strong traces of the Gaboriau style. After these came the deluge: Bayard -Veiller, with his almost perfect THE 13TH CHAIR, several of my own and -many others leading up to the endless stream of mysterious murders, -strange disappearances, midnight crimes, haunted houses, etc., etc., -etc. - -I know hundreds of men who read one at one sitting, but I defy any man -to write one in less than one hundred hours of solid work. When I tackle -a job of this sort, my study looks like an architect’s work room, charts -everywhere, on the wall and tables and even on the floor. I make a chart -for each character, showing exactly where he is, what he says and what -he is thinking of each moment of the play. In this sort of trick -writing, every word one says is extremely likely to be used against him. -Next to rough farce, the writing of a play of this sort calls for more -technical skill and inventive power than any other form of play making. - -The only thing I can add to these scattered notes about play writing is -that no one should allow a failure to beat him. There isn’t anything at -all remarkable about having written a bad play; it’s been done before -and it’s going to be done again. It’s writing a good play that is -unusual as the man who bit the dog; he’s the fellow worth talking about. -No matter how much you may be scorned and derided for having written -what you wrote, no matter how sure you may be that you never again will -dare to look anybody in the face—for a dramatist’s failure in the -theater, for some reason that escapes me, seems to carry with it a moral -disgrace and a social ostracism—in spite of this you will get another -chance when you get another play. I have always demanded that each new -play of mine should be judged exactly as though I had never written one -before, and, as I said earlier in this article, the critic must tell the -truth; he may not want to, but if you really have done a good job he -can’t help himself. Critics, like dramatists, are emotional idiots. - -Although I remain firmly of the opinion that the talent of the -dramatist, like the talent of the great singer, actor, painter and -musician, is a thing born in them and not to be acquired by any other -than the chosen few, I know that love and appreciation of the theater -may be taught and hidden talents discovered and developed. When in my -college days I was running one hundred yards in ten and one-fifth -seconds I often thought that, in spite of the fact that few men alive at -that time had me beaten that time, there were probably plenty of young -fellows in the country towns who could have been trained to beat it. -Every boy in the world doesn’t try to run a hundred yards, and of course -many a doctor and lawyer and business man has been born with the gift of -poetry, music, painting and drama and has neglected those talents or -even been quite unconscious of them. These new classes of Dramatic Arts -in the schools and universities will catch any submerged talent and -bring it to the light and beside this they will make cultured audiences, -and in the end good audiences will make good plays. - -Our present bewilderment in the theater as to what the public wants -would soon vanish if we had a public who themselves knew what they -wanted and when the day comes when we have a large audience ready to -express the growing demand for mature and adult drama even we laggards -of the theater will hasten to furnish it—we are all of us hungry for -success even to the extreme of being willing to do good work for it. - -In November of last year a group of Harvard undergraduates, accompanied -by Professor Parker of the Harvard English Department, called on me, and -at the same time on Winthrop Ames and Lee Simonson and asked us to help -them form a school of the drama in Cambridge. The Harvard faculty seemed -unwilling to provide the desired instruction in the arts of the theater -and since Professor Baker’s withdrawal there had been no Dramatic -Department. Mr. Ames, Mr. Simonson and I called a meeting of Harvard -graduates at the Harvard Club and asked these boys to meet us there and -tell us their troubles and their desires. As a result of that meeting -the Cambridge School of the Drama was organized with a board of -governors whose names read like an all-star cast. At this school -students of Harvard and Radcliffe and a limited number of outsiders may -now take courses in dramatic technique and the arts of the theater. - -The faculty of the school is composed of Albert R. Lovejoy, Walter -Prichard Eaton and H. W. L. Dana. The visiting lecturers and board of -governors, each of whom is to lecture once each term and meet the -students for informal talks, are: - -Lecturers on play production—Winthrop Ames, Vinton Freedley, Kenneth -Macgowan, Gilbert Seldes, Maurice Wertheim. - -Lecturers on drama and criticism—Heywood Broun, J. Brooks Atkinson, J. -W. D. Seymour, H. K. Motherwell, John T. Williams, Isaac Goldberg, -Professor C. T. Copeland, Norman Hapgood, Prof. J. Tucker Murray, Owen -Wister, Robert Littell, H. T. Parker. - -Lecturers on stage lighting, scene designing, etc.—Lee Simonson, Robert -Edmond Jones. - -Lecturers on play construction—Eugene O’Neill, Sidney Howard, David -Carb, Philip Barry, Edward Sheldon, Percy Mackaye, Robert Sherwood, S. -N. Behrman, Owen Davis. - -Lecturers on the art of acting, etc.—John Mason Brown, Walter Hampden, -Elliot Cabot, Robert Middlemass, Osgood Perkins. - -There is a list for you! All Harvard men and all men who have done real -work. I can remember when I was one of three Harvard men in the game. -Now we are getting our new blood from all the great universities. Walter -Eaton told us at one of our meetings that he had listed over five -hundred universities and high schools in the country that were giving -special courses in the Arts of the theater! Does that look like a dying -institution? Five hundred schools turning out each year a flock of boys -and girls who, if they have learned nothing else, have learned to love -the theater. - -To me that doesn’t spell the end of the theater, it means the beginning, -and I am eager to try to teach our own little group all I can before -they get started on their own and get so far ahead of me that I shall -have to turn about and study their methods. - -This school, with its staff of real workers, seems to me to be about the -most practical place of instruction established since the day when the -boy in NICHOLAS NICKLEBY was told to spell w-i-n-d-e-r, and then go and -wash it. I know what meeting and talking to such a list of men would -have meant to me thirty-five years ago. Among the warm spots in my -memory are meetings I had years ago with Dion Boucicault, A. M. Palmer, -Daly and Percy Mackaye’s famous father, and these men weren’t trying to -teach me anything, they were trying to get rid of me as quickly as they -could. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ──────────────── - CHAPTER VII ◆ THE DRAMATIST’S PROFESSION - ──────────────── - - -As time went on I found myself fully versed in all of the troubles that -beset a dramatist and armed against all of them but one. I had learned a -good substitute for patiently waiting for a production by turning out so -many plays that one of them was always on the fire. I had learned, in a -measure, to comfort myself for the present failure with the thought of a -coming success, but no philosophy of mine has ever taught me what could -possibly be done with a dramatist on the opening night of one of his -plays. I have, I think, tried everything, and all that I can be sure of -is that the last way of passing that dreadful ordeal was very much the -worst way I had ever experimented with. - -Twenty years ago it was the custom to drag a terrified author before the -curtain at the end of the performance and entice him into telling the -audience how glad he was that they liked his play, and how grateful he -was to the manager, the director, the actors, stage hands, ushers and -stage-door-keeper. This gracious speech being received with some -applause, the poor author went home thrilled by this assurance of -overwhelming success, and woke up the next morning to read that his play -was probably the worst catastrophe of a direful season. This custom of -writers being part of the first night show has gone out—not, I think, -that the authors wouldn’t still be willing to oblige, but because the -managers learned that most of the shows were bad enough without any -added attraction. - -Some of our more dignified authors a generation ago used to sit in the -stage box in full view of the audience, but they grew strong men in -those days, and I doubt if there is a playwright alive bold enough to -follow their example. I have tried sitting in the gallery, staying at -home, standing at the back of the theater after the house lights were -lowered, hanging around the stage alley, going to a picture show, -drinking too many cocktails, and walking around Central Park, but so far -I haven’t found a way that wasn’t awful. This night is the climax of six -weeks of hard work, to say nothing of all the effort put into the -writing of the play; it means a fortune or nothing, fame or something -that is almost disgrace, and the poor wretch can do nothing. A forgetful -actor, a careless stage hand, or the blowing of an electric fuse can and -has spoiled many a good play, and all that he can do is suffer. - -There is no second chance for a play; if its first night in New York is -a failure it is dead forever. Luckily the first night audience, supposed -to be so hard boiled and over critical, is the easiest audience in the -world to sweep off its feet and the most generous in their real joy in -the discovery of a good play. Tough they are at first, but the moment -they get a feeling that something worth while is happening they go along -with you with a whoop. I have fallen down plenty of times, but the kick -that has come to me when I have put one over is worth a lot. Any way I -figure it I am ahead of the game. - -This first night audience is a very powerful factor in deciding the fate -of a play, and the “thumbs down” of the old Romans was no more final -than the harsh laugh that follows some shabby bit of sentimentality or -some bit of hooey philosophy. Many authors and managers of late are -trying to fill their houses on a first night with a more friendly crowd, -thinking, like the well-known ostrich, that they are putting something -over, but they forget that mass psychology is a very curious thing, and -that if a man puts his doting mother out in front on a first night he is -very likely to hear her voice leading the first cry of “Off with his -head.” - -The whole subject of dramatic criticism, either from a first night -audience or from professional dramatic critics, is a very simple one, -but for some reason it is very little understood. As a matter of fact -neither this audience nor the critics’ notices of the following day have -anything at all to do with the real success or failure of a play. In the -morning you open your paper and on the dramatic page you read that your -favorite critic saw a play the night before and made the remarkable -discovery that it was worth seeing—so did a thousand others at the same -time—the fact being simply that it was a good play. The critics’ praise -did no more toward making it good than did the favorable response of the -audience. - -Of course many plays are in the balance; some persons like them and some -don’t; but there is little doubt in the minds of trained observers about -the really fine plays, and even less about the really bad ones. A play -comes to life for the first time when it is played before a wise -audience, and their verdict is as a rule both just and final. A good -play can take care of itself, and any fool knows a really bad one—when -he sees it. Any of us, when we go out and buy a dozen eggs, is likely -enough to get a bad one, but we are quick enough to gag over it when we -try to eat it. The critic is simply a man who knows a little more, and -usually cares a little more, about the theater than the ordinary man of -cultivated taste, and he has been trained in a proper manner of -expressing himself. - -What he tells his readers about a new play is first the truth. This in -effect you or I could do as well as he does: it was a good play. The -modern critic, however, goes beyond that in his influence upon the -theater by insisting upon an increasingly higher standard both in -writing and in acting, and by pointing out the virtues or the defects in -the performance, instructing his public in what may fairly be expected -of the modern drama. Naturally there are bad critics, just as there are -bad writers and bad actors, and the bad ones do harm, just as the bad -actors and bad writers do. - -The first night audience in itself, although still picturesque, has -changed greatly in the last few years. Twenty years ago opening nights -of any importance at all were naturally far fewer in number than they -are to-day, and an opening at Daly’s, Palmer’s, the Lyceum and later at -the Empire, drew a brilliant audience made up of the real lovers of the -theater and the cream of the “four hundred” that then represented New -York society. To be on the first night list in those days meant -something. The first night audience of to-day is very different. First -nights now are rarely social affairs, and the audience is very much more -of the profession, actors, managers, critics, writers and all the moving -picture crowd. These, together with the dressmakers and play agents and -scouts from the various studios on the lookout for screen material, make -up a colorful gathering and they know a lot about theatrical values even -if they lack a little of the distinction of the old first night crowd. - -During the years I have been going to the theater I have seen some -thrilling first nights, but I have never really been one of the -regulars, as nowadays if one were to try to be present every time a new -play opened there would be very little time for anything else. I recall -distinctly some of the great nights when I have been present, such as -the first performance of THE FORTUNE HUNTER, ON TRIAL, RAIN, WHAT PRICE -GLORY, BROADWAY, BURLESQUE, COQUETTE and many more where a wave of -enthusiastic cheering swept the play into instantaneous success. We of -the theater, I think, when we watch these first nights with an anxious -eye, are apt to forget that the reason a play goes over with a bang is -because it is a good play, or a novel play, or the sort of play that at -that moment is the play the public wants and the play makes the first -night enthusiasm. The first night enthusiasm doesn’t make the play. - -My years of almost frantic application to my work had by now resulted in -a fixed habit and I found myself pounding along at top speed long after -the necessity for such effort had disappeared. It is the literal truth -to say that for more than thirty years there has been no time in which I -have not had a play in some stage of its progress on my desk and in -response to long training, my mind continually drops automatically into -retrospective revery entirely without conscious direction on my part. - -I was not satisfied with the work I was turning out and decided to make -an effort to take life more easily than had been my habit. I remember -getting quite a thrill out of this evidence of my sanity and prudence. I -had not fully realized how fixed the habits of a lifetime may become and -soon discovered how impossible it was for me to hope to reform. - -Before I admitted defeat, however, I made really quite an honest effort -and forced myself to take part in several of the semi-social and -semi-political activities of the theater. I had always refused any -demands upon my time not connected either with my own work or with the -affairs of the Dramatists’ Guild or the Authors’ League, but I now -turned deliberately to these rather remote outlets for my energy. For -the first time in my life I tried to make myself believe that it is as -important to talk about work as it is to do the work itself, an error of -judgment on my part from which my sense of humor rescued me before I had -gone very far. - -The most interesting of these activities was the attempt to establish a -National Theatre as it was called, and although the plan failed, I have -always thought the failure was unnecessary. The committee to organize -this National Theatre was selected from the best men of the theater, the -fine arts departments of the leading eastern universities and the -leading social and financial groups of New York. We were to produce one -play a year with special attention to manners and diction and show this -play at moderate prices in all of the larger cities of the country. - -At the first meeting at the Astor Hotel, Augustus Thomas was selected as -chairman and from the start most of the active work fell upon his broad -shoulders. Augustus Thomas is by far the best presiding officer I have -ever known, and for years it has been my fate to be obliged to follow -him as chairman, president or mouthpiece of countless societies and -committees; but on this occasion I was content to remain in the -background. I seem to be of use only when there is a very practical -issue, and the National Theatre was a rather altruistic, rather -visionary scheme that seemed to me to be a little out of my range. To me -the thing that helps the theater most is a good show, no matter who -writes it or who produces it or where it comes from; and to me a -well-written, well-played play, produced by the commercial theater, is -far more stimulating than an equally fine performance inspired by some -art group. I have always admired Augustus Thomas; when I first came to -New York in the early nineties he was the outstanding dramatist, and in -fact as a writer of the better type of melodrama no man of my time has -equaled him. Aside from his ability as a writer, he is a man of real -eloquence and of commanding presence, and his control of any meeting -over which he presides always makes me blush at the thought of my own -abrupt and rather arbitrary methods. - -Upon this occasion, in spite of the great names on the committee, Mr. -Thomas was given full charge, and it was decided that the first play to -be produced by the National Theatre should be AS YOU LIKE IT, a decision -I heard announced with dire misgivings as I have always thought it a -particularly dull and silly play. I was naturally afraid, however, to -announce any such radical views in that exalted company. A cast was -engaged and the production opened in due time before a brilliant -audience in Washington. - -It is an unfortunate fact that even the plays of Shakespeare that have -retained their vitality can only be efficiently done by players who have -been trained to play them, and in this particular case the performance -was not anything to rave over. In fact the curtain fell on the first -performance with that dull thud that always announces failure, and the -audience was cold and unresponsive. - -Mrs. Thomas, who had been with her husband through many of his own first -nights, and who had been trained, as all wives of playwrights are, to -give help and comfort to the stricken, hurried backstage as the curtain -fell and found her husband sitting sadly amidst the scenery of -Shakespeare’s famous masterpiece with his head bowed and a look of deep -dejection on his face. Her maternal instinct fully aroused by her man’s -agony, she stepped tenderly to his side and putting her arm gently over -his shoulder she murmured bravely: “Never mind, Gus, thank God you -didn’t write it.” - -There was no reason that I could see why the first attempt of the -National Theatre should have ended its existence, but the fact remains -that from that day to this I have heard no more about it and I turned -back to my own work with some feeling of thankfulness. After all, if a -man must be mixed up in a failure, why shouldn’t he have the fun of -being responsible for all of it? and, since a man with a mind trained to -full activity must focus his thoughts on something, isn’t it better -after all that the something should be the activity he knows the most -about? - -I don’t in the least know how long a writer is supposed to last. It may -well be that my thirty odd years have been the greater part of my share -although I am sure I should enjoy making it an even hundred, but I do -know that to keep up with the parade to-day a writing man must keep his -eyes wide open and his fingers on the pulse of the public. This is many -times more true to-day than it was in the years before the war, but even -then the critical sense of the public was growing rapidly. - -In the old days a playwright’s plots and characters were accepted about -as automatically as the church creeds of the time were accepted, and for -about the same reason; the habit of the average citizen of thinking -things out for himself had not yet grown to its present stimulating -proportion. If both the church and the stage of to-day are placed in a -position where they must fight for their life, surely nothing that is -fine in either of them is in danger. With the bunk gone the truth will -be twice as powerful. - -It has always seemed to me to have been Ibsen who sounded the first note -of modern characterization in the drama. Good dramatists have always -drawn good characters, but the accent upon the character and the -character’s propelling force upon the narrative was quite different. -Hamlet, Macbeth, Juliet, Portia, Rip, Caleb Plummer, Duston Kirk and -hundreds of others were finely drawn characters, but Ibsen’s Nora not -only lived and moved but she moved the play with her and her emotional -progress marked the progress of the drama. - -After the production of THE NERVOUS WRECK I tried very hard to write the -play I earnestly wanted to write, but I couldn’t get it. THE DETOUR and -ICEBOUND were true plays from my point of view, honest attempts to do -the best work I knew how to do. But I had a feeling that the American -drama should express a more optimistic note, that it was, or ought to -be, possible to write of life as truly as plays of that class were -trying to write about it, and yet express the fundamental difference -between our lives and the lives of the people of Middle Europe, whose -dramatists had given birth to the new school of naturalistic play -writing. - -I know, as a sane man of middle age, that the lives around me are not -always dull, drab, base or unhappy. I was acquainted with a mother, she -was in fact a member of my own household, who had given up a career for -her children and who was neither heartbroken nor neurotic; her children -weren’t idiots, ungrateful brats or headed either for the gallows or an -early grave. I had seen her make sacrifices for them that were well made -and well worth the making. On the whole in this world I have seen men -and women reap what they have sown, and I have looked closely at life -with a trained eye for a great many years and found it good. - -I wanted to say something like this in a natural, true and unsentimental -way and I couldn’t do it. I don’t in the least know why it can’t be -done, but so far it hasn’t been. I don’t propose to take all the blame -for this. I’ll admit that NELLIE, THE BEAUTIFUL CLOAK MODEL said that -virtue always won out in the end, but before Nellie’s time that -statement had been made in platitude. - -It may be that the sugar-coated play has killed the possibility of -optimistic play writing, but I didn’t want to write about life’s being -worth living just to trick a happy ending. I simply wanted to say that -life was worth living because that is the way I have found it. I have -lived fifty-six years very happily. I have been fortunate in having the -sort of wife and the sort of children that have added very greatly to -that happiness. I love my work and as a result I have never had any -trouble in making all the money necessary for comfort and decency. I am -strong and well and those I love are well—why should I write of a -sorrowful world? Yet for some reason every time I tried to write a true -play the note of futility crept into it. - -I floundered about for the next year or two, turning out a few plays, -most of which I would have described in the far-off days when I had -worked for the Kentucky Coal Company as “run of the mine.” LAZYBONES had -some good points, THE DONOVAN AFFAIR made money, but always I was trying -for that real play that wouldn’t come. - -The best work I did at this time was a dramatization of F. Scott -Fitzgerald’s novel THE GREAT GATSBY. The character of Gatsby made a -strong appeal to me, and here was another chance to do a play with Mr. -Brady, who seemed anxious for me to come in with him once more. The play -was really good, and moderately successful, but here was another time -when the truth was bitter and cruel and hard for the public to take. - -Naturally I knew perfectly well when I read this novel that Mr. -Fitzgerald’s ending absolutely killed any hope of real success, but I -have my own theories about dramatizing a novel, and one of them is that -the dramatist is in honor bound not to cheapen or coarsen the original -author’s story. Gatsby was a great lover; for the sake of the girl he -loved he raised himself from nothing to wealth and power. To do this he -became a thief. She was unworthy of so great a love and he died by one -of those absurd ironic chances that saved him from ever knowing her -complete unworthiness. Mr. Fitzgerald knew that for Gatsby death was a -merciful friend, and I felt that I had no right to manufacture a -conclusion that would satisfy a sentimental audience. - -As a matter of fact, I do not enjoy working on another writer’s story, -but when I make up my mind to do it I deliberately put myself into that -writer’s place and absorb his mind and style so that I write, as far as -I am able, as he would write rather than as I would write a scene -myself. In the case of F. Scott Fitzgerald that was difficult, not only -because I had never seen him, but because he was so much younger than I -that his whole mode of thought and all his reactions to life were -absurdly different from my own. But a faithful dramatist of an author’s -work should, I think, assume that author’s personality and should force -himself into the completely receptive attitude of the believer who, with -his fingers on a ouija board, lets the pencil go where the spirits -direct. The result of this collaboration was a good play, but not a real -success. I have always known that, if I had cared to do it, I could have -made from this material a great box-office hit, but as I have said -before, I think that when one takes another writer’s work, there is an -implied obligation not to alter the mood of it. - -This feeling is the reason, I think, why I have never cared to work on a -play with another author, and why I object so strongly to the “story -conference” and the group writing of Hollywood. To me a play is so -essentially a mood and it is so impossible for two human beings to enter -into the same exact mood that all such collaboration is started under a -very real handicap. I can understand being in full agreement with -another writer upon details of plot and even upon shades of character -but the mood that would compel certain reactions from the characters, -that must of necessity propel them along the narrative line in a certain -way, could not dominate two writers at the same moment. - -I have had little experience in collaboration but in the writing of -screen stories I do know that no matter how many writers are working on -the same job, only one of them is really doing anything, and, as there -is no established technical form to screen story writing, all that -happens at one of these famous story conferences is that the man with -the most authority writes the story and the others sit around and talk -about whatever subject, if any, interests them at the moment. I can see -how two dramatists might work together to advantage if one were a highly -imaginative writer and the other an expert in form and construction, one -to dream out the play and the other to build it. In fact I know of -several cases where this method has been highly successful but to me all -the joy of creating would be gone if I was forced to share it. Good or -bad, I want my play to be mine, and the thrill that has come to me on -the few occasions when I have been able to look at a play and say: “It -is good, and I did it,” has been a rich return for all the hard work I -have ever done. - -At about this time Mr. Winthrop Ames, as Chairman of a Committee of the -Theatrical Managers, offered me the position of political head of their -association, the same sort of job as Judge Landis holds in baseball or -Will Hays in the motion picture field. I had a feeling that my wide -experience in all the branches of the theater gave me some of the -qualifications necessary for this work, and for some time I seriously -considered it. The actors, through Mr. Frank Gilmour, and the Authors’ -League expressed a desire that I should try my luck, but in the end I -refused. Mr. Ames promised me full authority, but I could see no way by -which this authority could be enforced. I know the managers very well, -thank you, and any time I ride hard on those birds I want a big club and -the only gun in the outfit. Also I had a strong feeling that the time -hadn’t quite come. A little later some better man will take that job and -save the day. - -In spite of my knowing that I was not doing all I ought to do as a -playwright, these were happy and prosperous years. I was very active in -the politics of the theater and very happy at home. My boys were growing -up. Donald was at Pomfret and Owen at Choate, and Mrs. Davis and I sold -our house in Yonkers and came to New York. - -Always when I have the least to do I demand the most time in which to do -it, just as when I am not writing at all I insist that I can’t live -without an elaborate writing room, although I know perfectly well that I -have done the best work of my life with a ten-cent pad of paper and the -top of a trunk. In any case, I found the ride to Yonkers too long, and -we once more joined the ranks of apartment dwellers. - -As a matter of fact, I have usually found that about the time a writer -starts in surrounding himself with every luxury in the way of an aid to -his work he never does very much with his swell equipment besides -occasionally showing it off to admiring acquaintances. It is quite -probable that the money he earned to pay for his elaborate study he -earned by writing a play on the top of a barrel. I myself have worked in -all sorts of places, ranging from a three-dollar-a-week hall bedroom to -a studio library in a pent house in the Park Avenue section. During the -most prolific years of my life most of my work was done at a desk in the -living room of an apartment with two small boys playing about on the -floor and crawling between my legs. It is, I suppose, because I have -always had so much fun with my writing that the members of my family -have never stood in any great awe of my labors, and I suppose the boys -saw no good reason why I should try to keep an amusing game all to -myself, and usually insisted on being let in on it. - -Edgar Wallace told me last year that he loved New York and always had a -wonderful rest when he came here. It was, he said, the noisiest city in -the world and the only place on earth where he couldn’t write. -Personally I can write better in New York than I can anywhere else, and -although I am afraid I demand more quiet and privacy as the years go -past, I am still quite untroubled by anything less than a riveting -machine. - -Some rather facetious remarks have been made about the volume of my -production, but this same Edgar Wallace makes me look like a drone. When -I am hard at work I turn out about four thousand words a day, usually in -longhand, written with the softest and dirtiest lead pencil that a -nickel can buy. Mr. Wallace tells me that on a good day he dictates ten -thousand words. I know that twenty-three percent of all the novels sold -in England last year were of his writing, and he calmly threw in three -or four plays by way of good measure. Ever since I dined with him I have -laughed with scorn at any one bold enough to insinuate that I write too -much, and I have been filled with good resolutions. - -I surely must settle down to work. No matter how much a man may enjoy -his job, every writer in the world has times when he thinks he is -through. It’s part of the game. We all of us have hours of profound -depression when we are afraid of the future and in terror of our own -limitations. We are sure that no good story will ever again come to us -and doubtful if we would know what to do with it if it did. This is -natural enough when a writer has just finished a play or a novel, -because, of course, he has put all he had into it and his mind feels -empty. But this mood often comes at other times, and the best cure for -it is to hang around doing nothing until you happen to read a fine novel -that has just been published or see a really good play—the right play -always sends me out of the theater walking on air, and I go to bed -tingling all over to wake up the next morning with a new hope and a new -determination. - -The worst disease, however, that comes to a writer who has been at his -job for a long time is the awful fear of being “dated.” Of course it’s -hard for one of middle age to write of life in any other way than as he -knows it, and equally, of course, our lasting impressions do not come to -us after fifty. I fussed for a while over the fear of getting to be a -back number, and wondered if I could possibly grow to understand what we -were pleased to call “the new generation.” I found, or fancied I found, -a great change in the old world, until I happened to recall that these -changes had been going on since time began. A very careful study of -audiences convinced me that they still reacted to an honest emotion, -just exactly as they always had done, and that the only difference in -the world around me was that the old gods had different names. - -To me, with my conviction that as the world goes on it gets better and -more worth living in, it makes no difference at all whether it is the -custom to say “Hail! Cæsar!” or “Hello, Cæsar,” and I very much doubt if -any of our changes are very much deeper than this. We were a sentimental -people, as every race of adventurers must be. Now we have become a very -practical race, hard boiled, if one prefers to put it that way. A little -while ago we slopped over about our emotions because that was the -custom; to-day for the same reason we pretend we haven’t any. Of course -our emotions weren’t any greater because we made a fuss about them, or -any less because we now cover them up. The relationship between men and -women has changed during the last ten years, so had it changed in the -generation before that, and so on back to the time of Adam, but that -relationship then and now was a thing of enormous interest, and a swell -thing to write a play about. - -It’s the writer’s business to meet the mood of the hour, and all he has -to do to meet this mood is to learn to sympathize with it. Just so long -as I feel myself a part of the life around me there is no reason why I -shouldn’t keep on writing, and at present I most decidedly do feel that. -If the time ever comes when I find myself bewildered and afraid of a -strange world that I no longer understand, I’ll stop—or rather, on -second thought—perhaps I’ll write a play about how hard it is to -understand it! - -At this time I stepped out of my job as President of the Dramatists’ -Guild and took the presidency of the Authors’ League of America. This, -as it happens, is not an honorary position, but comes under the head of -honest labor, and during the long fight between the Dramatists and the -Theatrical Managers’ Association that resulted in the present -Dramatists’ contract, I served on all of the many committees in addition -to my work as President of the League. I loved the work; the friendships -I formed among the members of the fighting committees are among the -pleasant and most helpful contacts of my life. - -There are about a dozen men and women who mean a lot to me with whom I -have worked for sixteen years to bring about decent conditions for -writers. There are many more than a dozen now who are working faithfully -for the Authors’ League, but often, when I attend one of the meetings -and sit at the crowded council table, I catch the eye of one of the old -timers and wink pleasantly—we can remember years when there weren’t -enough authors around to fill the room with cigar smoke. We used to ask -one another if it was worth while to keep on fighting. James Forbes -always said that this was positively his last effort, but he always came -back; so did the rest of us, all busy men, not one of us needing the -help of any one to get decent contracts. We were proud of our calling -and wanted to advance its dignity and importance, and I think that in -the end our many years of hard work justified itself. The American -Theatre is to-day under a temporary cloud. It may be one year or two -years or three years before its old prosperity returns, but the -Dramatists’ Guild is the strongest and most powerful body of writing men -in the world and there are plenty of strong men of half my age who are -able and willing to keep it as powerful and as sane and moderate as it -is to-day. No matter what you hear don’t for a moment believe that the -prosperity of our theater is not going to return,—the theater is safe -and it always has been. Just so long as little boys instinctively pick -up a stick and become brave knights and gallant soldiers, and as long as -a girl child hugs a doll to her breast and becomes a mother, the theater -will live. A combination of circumstance, novel inventions, stupidity -and greed, plus lack of leadership and the arrogance of organized labor, -has resulted in sad days for many of us, but the turn of the wheel is -already bringing about changes and sooner than most of you are yet ready -to believe better days are coming. - -If, when they come, the men who have been the leaders of the commercial -theater have learned their lesson, the temporary setback will have been -worth what it has cost; if they haven’t, they will be forced to step -aside and give up their power to those more worthy to possess it. - -The sane, simple and practical way to govern the theater has been -pointed out. Three times already I have served on committees whose -object was to consolidate the interests of actors, managers and authors, -and hand over the authority to a group of twelve, made up from the men -of proved integrity among the three groups. We who have made a long -study of conditions know that this composite intelligence could find a -way to correct the principal evils that have been the cause of our loss -of public confidence and support. Those of the public who really prefer -to go to the picture houses can of course continue to go to them. Wise -men of the theater know that in the end the picture houses are great -incubators engaged in hatching out new audiences for us and that in a -very short space of time we could have a road circuit beside which the -old Stair and Havlin houses couldn’t cast a shadow. - -There are, however, some very definite evils in the present state of the -theater and every one of them could be corrected or greatly reduced. The -regulation of the sale of tickets has been taken in hand by a -progressive group of managers and will be corrected if the managers can -be controlled, which is a bit like saying we could do away with evil if -there was no more sin. The unfair and unwise demands of the unions of -stage hands and musicians could be regulated by an honest facing of -facts and a fair presentation of present conditions. No organization has -the right, or as a matter of fact the power, to go beyond a clearly -marked line; the moment any group’s demands become unfair there is very -little difficulty in upsetting that group. It doesn’t demand an -Alexander, it simply calls for a little common sense. - -No one of us really wants to kill the goose who lays the golden eggs. -Help from the railroads would follow an intelligent presentation of our -case. Clean theaters would promptly follow in the footsteps of a clean -administration. Box office reform depends upon six words spoken by the -right man with the right authority to back his six words up. Help from -the newspapers does not depend, I am convinced, upon the spending of -millions of dollars, but would follow an honest request for their -assistance based upon the ground of the theater’s cultural and -educational value, always provided that we could show some claim to -cultural and educational importance. - -The revival of the road, until such time as the turn of the tide has -made that revival automatic, could be accomplished under wise leadership -that would work for, say, forty decent plays, decently produced, -underwritten by local subscription lists. Any community of a hundred -thousand population will furnish an audience, once they are assured that -there is a certainty of their getting adult entertainment. These aren’t -day dreams; everybody knows them; several times we have banded together -to fight for them. The last meeting called by John Golden of the -managerial group actually had a real grip on this problem, only dinner -time came around and we all went home. If some one were to call a -meeting of a strong group of actors, authors and managers, all -instructed to sit there until they accomplished something, I am sure we -would at last be under way—provided always that no lawyers be allowed at -the meeting and that it be called at a good restaurant. - -During my two years with the Paramount Company, my contract reserved -half of my time for my own private affairs and I divided this time as -honestly as I knew how between my duties to the Authors’ League and my -writing. By now my son Donald had finished college and gone to Hollywood -as a staff writer, and Owen had walked out on Professor Baker at Yale, -horned into the theater when my back was turned and secured for himself -the part of the son in THE BARKER with Dick Bennett in Chicago. This -action of his, so his mother informed me, was the most dreadful calamity -of modern times and would undoubtedly bring her in sorrow to the grave, -but if you have ever seen her seated in an audience where this boy is a -member of the cast of players, you might possibly read in her deeply -absorbed face a certain smug satisfaction that would not, I am sure, -make you think of either graves or calamities. - -I, being of coarser stuff, never for a moment regretted the fact that -these two boys of ours had insisted upon following in our footsteps; how -could they do anything else? They were born of two stage-struck parents -and had cut their teeth by biting managers who frequented our -establishment. If a child learns anything in the home circle, how could -they help learning about the theater? Their mother knows a little about -things outside its range, but I know nothing else at all, not even -enough to be ashamed of the fact. The great happiness of my life to-day -is that as we grow older, the four of us, we grow closer together, and -that I can talk with my sons of their problems with the authority of one -who knows something about them. - -In the fall of 1928 I wrote a play called CARRY ON with a fine part in -it for young Owen. My intentions were good and I am sure he has quite -forgiven me. Later he played in another of my authorship called TONIGHT -AT 12, which was one of the sort of plays often described by Al Woods as -“all right, but what the hell did you write it for?” In both of these, -however, Owen fared better than I, and I knew that he was fairly -started. - -In 1928 I turned for a change to the writing of musical comedy and -helped a little on WHOOPEE, produced by Ziegfeld with Eddie Cantor in -the old Otto Kruger part, for WHOOPEE is an adaptation of our old friend -THE NERVOUS WRECK, expertly tailored by Wm. Anthony McGuire. - -I also fussed about with LADY FINGERS, a musical version of my old -farce, EASY COME, EASY GO, and wrote a show called SPRING IS HERE for -Aarons and Freedley. SPRING IS HERE, in spite of a good cast and -charming score and lyrics by Rogers and Hart, was only so-so. As a -matter of fact, Bill McGuire and Otto Harbach need not worry; they can -have the musical comedy field so far as I am concerned. Of all the forms -of writing I find it the least interesting and the most difficult; to me -it remains a trick like putting peas up your nostrils, not at all -impossible, but why do it? The mere statement that I soon discovered -that the properly concocted musical show must be dominated by its score -and not by its book is explanation enough as to why a vain old dramatist -can’t rave about this form of expression. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ──────────────── - CHAPTER VIII ◆ HOLLYWOOD - ──────────────── - - -Of late years I have been jumping between the New York theater and the -studios of Hollywood, searching for the old spark of enthusiasm that -made our lives so colorful, and I find Hollywood dull and depressing and -the Broadway theater sad and discouraged. This sounds, I suppose, like -the opinion of advanced age, but as a matter of fact it isn’t. I haven’t -had a minute in the last thirty years in which to grow old and I share -not at all in the pessimism of those who think the theater is doomed or -the optimism of those who think the talking picture is all triumphant. I -am absolutely sure in my own mind that the theater will advance and that -the talking picture will fall back, not to ruin, because it fills a -place in the lives of so many people that nothing can replace. But soon -now both theater and pictures will have a clearly defined audience—a -true drama for an audience that demands a mature form of entertainment -and a fictional entertainment for the millions who demand a -sugar-coating on their pill. - -The picture men need not begrudge us this share of the amusement -business because without a prosperous theater they would be in a bad -fix. They are, and it seems to me they must always be, dependent in -great measure on the theater for their raw material. The good play does -not always make the best picture, but a produced play is easier to judge -than an unproduced manuscript, and the highly successful play is always -welcome on the screen. - -Then, too, the best training school for actors is not the screen but the -stage, although screen and stage acting are very different and the great -actor of the stage is by no means sure of screen success, while a pretty -girl or good-looking boy with no training at all can frequently do -better work than an actor of long training. In the theater the actor -projects his personality, on the screen the camera projects it—a very -different thing. Still, however, the theater is needed by the screen and -there is no reason for a feud between them. In fact, the dangers and the -problems that confront the theater are less complex than those the -screen is called upon to face. We have but one—to do good plays. I have -another silver cup for any one who can persuade me that a really fine -play has ever failed. On the other hand, ahead of the men who control -the destiny of the talking picture there are many problems, almost -staggering in their complexity. Let me try to state the vital one, from -figures I have carefully prepared. - -Twenty percent of the talking picture audience is composed of children. -Another twenty percent consists of persons to whom the English language -is in whole or in part unfamiliar. Sixty percent of the remaining -percentage consists of those with what we may safely call immature -minds, leaving an audience to be thrilled, amused and satisfied in which -persons of a fair degree of culture and taste number some thirty odd -percent. If you care to stop for a moment over these figures, you may -find in them the answer to many of your moments of bewilderment. To -satisfy this thirty odd percent, who do the writing of and the critical -condemnation of talking pictures and at the same time to thrill this -seventy percent who put up the money that makes them possible, is -already a big problem and it grows bigger every day as the novelty of -the mechanical device wears off, and the suitable supply of fiction -becomes exhausted. - -Hollywood to-day demands about four hundred good stories every year, and -my third and last silver cup goes to the one who can list for me four -hundred great stories written since the world began. Just for fun I -tried my hand at making such a list, and from a rather extensive -knowledge of the fiction and the plays of both the past and the present -I was able to get two hundred and eight. After that they began to fall -into squads with the precision of well-drilled soldiers and although -many of them told the same story very charmingly it still remained a -twice-told tale. - -I had, reluctantly, agreed to make a trip to Hollywood the previous -spring for Mr. Sheehan of the Fox Company, and there I had made for Will -Rogers an adaptation of my friend Homer Croy’s novel, THEY HAD TO SEE -PARIS, for the screen. As a result I had signed a six months’ contract -starting in December. My experience with Famous Players Lasky Company -had been unsatisfactory in spite of the real kindness of Mr. Lasky, and -I felt that under the present conditions an author’s position in -Hollywood left much to be desired. But I had the advantage of an unusual -contract and I had two strong reasons for wanting to see more of -Hollywood. The first reason was that both of my boys were there, and my -wife and I are, I am afraid, rather too dependent on them and never -completely satisfied unless they are near at hand. Then, too, I was -greatly troubled by the difficulty of forming a fixed opinion of -conditions out there and determined to at least satisfy myself that I -understood them. I had never been able to see why a writer in Hollywood -should be forced to deliver up his self-respect, and with it his only -chance of being of real value. I saw both sides of the issue but to me -the pressing need of the only men and women who are trained to write -stories was so great that I thought it my duty, as one who has given a -great part of his life to the effort to improve the condition of the men -and women of his craft, to make an effort to find out if it wasn’t -possible to break down the barrier that has always existed between New -York writers and the studio executives in Hollywood. - -Owen was a featured player for Fox and Donald was a staff writer and -stage director. When I left New York I was pledged to a six months’ stay -and had some difficulty in laying out my future plans with the degree of -exactness that has become my habit; we got away at length, however, and -I left behind me only the remains of one “tryout,” a farce called THE -SHOTGUN WEDDING, produced by Wm. Harris, Jr., for a brief tour and never -developed beyond that point, THE SHOTGUN WEDDING was funny, but not -funny enough. Wm. Harris, Jr., is, I think, the best judge of a play of -any man alive, although his critical judgment has been developed to the -same extent that Sherlock Holmes developed his sense of deduction, and -when it comes to discovering a clew to a bad play he could give Sherlock -a stroke a hole. - -Mrs. Davis and I joined the boys on the Coast early in December and we -had a very comfortable and happy winter. I made an adaptation of SO THIS -IS LONDON for Will Rogers, worked with Sam Behrman and wrote and adapted -a number of stories. I like writing for the pictures, or at least I want -to like it. It is not at all a difficult form and I can see no mystery -in it. It is just story writing; the difference in technique is no more -different than the step between farce and drama writing and nowhere near -so different as the dramatic form and the modern method of building -musical comedy. - -The difficulty with picture writing is and always has been to get what -one writes past one’s immediate supervisor and unfortunately this -depends very little upon the value of what is written. Nowhere on earth -are there so many totems, bugaboos and fetishes as there are in a motion -picture studio and all argument is strictly forbidden. “Yes” is the only -word ever spoken in the presence of the great out there, and an -absurdity once perpetrated by executive order becomes a sacred custom -and part of a ritual. - -As a successful dramatist, I had become accustomed to having my opinion -listened to with respect, and my judgment on questions of story -construction was almost always final. I have had many differences with -managers, but never heard of any dramatist who at least wasn’t given a -chance to express his views on the work of his own brain and who was not -consulted upon what was to be written into the story which was to bear -his name. In Hollywood no author is ever considered to be of any -importance at all. He ranks as a clerk to be put at any little job that -comes to hand and after he has written a story, he never can by any -possibility know what will be done to it before it gets to the screen. -This is the outcome of the old days of silent pictures when a director -took a company out on location and shot a story that he made up as he -went along, very much as children who give shows for pins in a barn -invent theirs. The talking picture brought something very like a drama -form but the men in power, who had won their positions by using their -own method, naturally enough prefer to keep on using it, in the first -place because they had been successful with it, and in the second place -because they don’t know any other. - -In any study of the motion picture business it is always well to -remember that it is a very wonderful thing to be able to send a show in -a tin can by mail or express to any location in the world, and that the -marvel of these talking figures was for a long time so great that only -the most exacting worried much about what they talked about. If, -however, the writing of picture stories is ever to offer any attraction -at all to a writer beyond the very generous salary he is offered, it is -quite obvious that some change must be made in the present system. Just -now no writer could possibly find any other reason for writing screen -stories than the money he makes out of it, and quite as obviously any -writer with the skill they sorely need can make plenty of money without -going there. Good writers of to-day are well paid and any man or woman -of the reputation for success that they demand is very likely to be in a -position of financial independence that frees him from any necessity of -surrendering his dignity and his integrity. To be sure, plenty of -writers are there now and plenty of others are probably anxious to go. -But, as the good ones come to realize the absolutely hopeless task that -confronts them, they will return to their former tasks, because they -must, if they are ever going to write anything worth writing, preserve -their originality of thought and style. Once they surrender that they -are lost. Then it doesn’t in the least matter whether they go or stay, -they won’t be worth anything in any case. - -Hollywood is the strangest and the maddest place the world has ever -seen. It is beautiful; its sunshine, its flowers, its bold sea coast -with the blue Pacific challenging any beauty of Southern France or -Italy, are really thrilling. It is a beehive of activity, it is the most -cosmopolitan city in the world—and the dullest. For some reason one -comes away from Hollywood with that impression stamped firmly in the -memory. It’s a bore. Forget this “wild party” stuff. Don’t pay any -attention to stories of the glamour and excitement of Hollywood. It’s -just a dull place, a grand spot for winter golf, but a wash-out for any -mature person who depends in the least upon mental stimulation; there -isn’t any. The picture business is the second, or the third, or the -first or some such silly number among the world’s industries, which is -probably what’s the matter with Hollywood and with the motion pictures. -They are standardized, circumscribed, advertised and circumcised to such -an extent that all they can do is say “Mamma” when you step on them. - -What is easily the best medium by which to gain the ear of the world has -gained it under the splendid leadership of extremely clever and tireless -business men, and, having gained it, doesn’t say anything worth -listening to. The picture business in salesmanship, in organization, in -mechanical and technical development, in direction and in photography is -amazing, and there they stop. They fall down hard on the basic commodity -they are selling; their story product isn’t good enough. They know this, -of course, as well as I do, but they do not know the reason or at least -those of them who do know the reason won’t tell the truth about it -because if they did, it would mean the end of their importance. - -They will tell you that their writers fall down on them and that is in -fact true. I have been fighting authors’ battles all my life, but I have -no defense to offer for the New York writer of big name and bigger -salary who goes to Hollywood with a nose turned up in contempt and takes -their money and makes wise cracks at their expense. I see their side of -the case so clearly that for three years I have been trying to do -something to clarify this situation. The barrier between real writers -and the studios is, I am convinced, the greatest obstacle to the advance -of motion pictures and the real trouble I can sum up in one sentence: -“The picture stories are not written by authors, they are written by -executives!” - -During the winter in Hollywood I was a guest at a dinner given to -Frederic Lonsdale, the English dramatist, by Arthur Richman. Around the -tables in that room were fifty-four very well-known and very successful -dramatists and novelists of New York and London. These men were there -because they were successful and important men asked to meet and welcome -a distinguished English writer to whom Mr. Richman wished to do honor. -These fifty-four men have written many times fifty-four successful -plays. They were not dated, worn out, or exhausted old fellows in their -dotage, but men in their full swing—Sidney Howard, Louis Bromfield, Max -Anderson, Laurence Stallings, A. E. Thomas, John Colton, Martin Flavin, -Sam Behrman, and many more of the same importance, three Pulitzer Prize -winners, three members of The National Institute; surely here was talent -enough to write good stories. These fifty-four men were almost all of -them questioned by me at some time during the winter and not one of them -who had been writing in Hollywood for over a month could tell me that he -had found it possible to do good work or that he could see any hope at -all of ever being allowed to write the sort of thing that he had been -successful enough in writing to cause the heads of the studios to pay -him his large salary. - -I heard stories told not in anger but in honest bewilderment that would -have amazed me had they not been in line with the mass of information I -had been collecting. Thirteen writers of standing had been given the -same story to adapt to the screen, the idea being that bits of each -would be collected by some inspired executive and formed into a -masterpiece. Of course thirteen writers can’t write a story any more -than thirteen cooks can bake a cake. One of the finest dramatists of our -time had been for six weeks working on an adaptation of a novel and at -the end of that time some one discovered that the rights to the novel -belonged to another company. A fine novelist and a really distinguished -dramatist were making over a dated and absurd old melodrama, while a -very famous melodramatic craftsman sat in the next office trying to -dramatize a very light and fluffy novel. The best dialogue writer in -America, who is famous for his brilliant and sophisticated wit, was -writing a Chicago gang war yarn, two very serious men of real literary -taste were working together on a slapstick musical show, while two -famous musical comedy writers were doing their best with an English -drawing-room comedy. - -And so it went. These men were well treated as in my experience all -writers have been out there, contracts are always kept to the letter and -salaries are always paid. The stories these writers were working on will -very few of them ever see the screen, and those few will be made over -time and time again under the eye of some supervisor. The assistance of -trained screen writers will be called for and before any picture results -practically nothing written by any one of the fifty-four men at that -dinner will be left. Now I am going to admit that out of these -fifty-four men it is extremely unlikely that there were five who knew -enough about pictures to be able to write a proper “shooting script,” -but I am not going to admit that in that room that night there weren’t -brains and talent and energy enough to have written ten times more -stories and ten times better ones than they ever were allowed to write. - -If a ball club was formed of the nine best players in the leagues and -that ball club lost every game, the sporting public would say that it -was the result of bad handling, as of course it would be. If fifty-four -men who have written several hundred good plays can’t write more than -ten bad screen stories in six months my opinion is that they have been -badly handled, and I see no other sane deduction from the facts. - -Let me tell you, quite honestly, the usual experience of a writer who -comes to Hollywood for the first time, not my own experience, but that -of practically every man and woman with whom I have talked. The writer -will be pleasantly and kindly received and a meeting will be arranged -with the head of the studio. This gentleman will hand him a play or a -novel and he will be asked to read it over, take a few days to think out -a novel treatment of it, and hold himself ready to be called to a story -conference. - -After a day, or two, or three, or a week, or a month or something like -that, for the studios are busy places and the executives’ time is valued -far above rubies, the author is sent for and enters the presence. He is -naturally ready with a carefully thought out method of treatment for the -play or story he has been asked to study and eager to make a good first -impression. Before he can tell his story, however, the executive will -carelessly remark: “Did I tell you the ideas we had for this story?” The -author will naturally reply that nobody has told him anything at all -since his arrival except that “California is the most wonderful place in -the world, and you don’t really mean to tell me that New York is still -there.” Then the executive will inform him that “they” have some ideas -of treatment of that story and perhaps he had better mention them. It -has been decided not to have the scenes laid in China—“there have been -too damned many of those Chink operas lately”—and anyway New York -background is sure fire; the girl mustn’t be engaged to be married to -the Unitarian missionary, she’s got to be the mistress of a side show -barker, and earning her living as a high diver. “Will Hays can talk as -much as he wants to but everybody knows what’s a proper costume for a -high diver.” - -Aside from that, and a happy ending, nobody wants to make any real -changes in the story. The author, a bit bewildered but still anxious to -make good here, makes the first concession that results in absolutely -killing any hope of his knowledge and experience being of any value, as -by now his creative power has been entirely pushed aside; he has joined -the ranks of “picture writers” in five minutes. - -Armed with the above-mentioned instructions, the author retires to his -office, very probably the first office he ever had in his life, and -starts to work. The studio is always generous in the time allowed, -generous in fact in every way in their treatment of writers, and nobody -rushes our hero who, in the course of time, say, three weeks, during -which he has drawn a salary of from four hundred to six or seven times -four hundred dollars each week, turns in his completed story. - -This story is read and another story conference is called. Here the -author meets the director and the supervisor. Every one of course knows -what a director is. Some persons, however, and I am one of them, do not -know exactly what supervisors are. As Mahomet was the Prophet of God so -supervisors are there to add to the power and the glory, and their -voices are softly tuned to utterance of the sweet word “yes.” At this -first group conference it is stated that the story seems hopeless but -stout hearts never despair and ideas begin to be thrown about the room -with an ease that amazes the writer who, owing to the comparative -poverty of his own powers of invention, is quite unable to keep up. - -The results of this meeting are a complete recasting of the story. Now -it’s back in China, but with a new set of characters and a different -plot. After three weeks of story conferences, the director confides to -the author that the trouble with this yarn is the supervisor is all wet -and the best way out of it is for the author to come to his house at -night and they’ll begin all over again and get a sure-fire knockout. - -In two or three more weeks of hard work the story is ready and, owing to -the great enthusiasm of the director, is “sold” to the studio executive -and his O.K. is put on it. O.K.’s are very important, for without them -no picture can be put into production. At last, however, the story is -ready and the date of production arrives, the author’s story is actually -about to be placed on the screen!—and how! The director, now that the -picture is actually in production, is in absolute power, and he calmly -throws away the story and strings together an entirely different one -that is no more like the script so gravely O.K.’d than it is like the -original one written by the author. Mad as this may seem it is actually -what is being done in every studio. - -Some supervisors are good men; they know better, but standing as they do -between the devil and the deep blue sea they drift along. Many directors -know a story, even if very few can write one, but the heritage of power -is very strong and men who in the days of the silent pictures “shot -their story on the cuff” bitterly resent any authority but their own, -and write and produce only the sort of thing that they have learned by -experience how to handle. The great directors, Frank Borzage, Louis -Milestone, Lubitsch, King Vidor and a few others, know story values when -they read them and have so much pride in their work that they can, like -all strong men, afford to have less vanity. Directors from the theaters, -like the De Milles, and others of the men who learned values in the -library and the university, know of course the folly of such childish -story building, but in the great volume of production their share is -small. In spite of this the big man in Hollywood is the director—they -are strong men, tireless, and creative. - -The ideal screen story will, I think, always be written by the director -or directed by the writer, the only difference here is in the words. The -man who creates the mood of a story is the author of it, no matter by -what name you call him. I have nothing but admiration for the director -who can write a story or for the author who can direct one, but at -present all directors without exception change and re-write every story -they handle and there are one hundred and eight active directors in -Hollywood. I think it fairly obvious that there are not and never have -been and never will be one hundred and eight constructive story experts -alive at any one time. - -In any case, at the present writing the director is king and the writer -is nobody. The opinion of the great of Hollywood as to the importance -and the dignity of a writer was expressed by the head of one of the -large companies who calmly announced during the early spring that he was -about to try a new policy. He was going to discharge all his writers and -engage new ones selected from men who had never written anything in -their lives, to see if he couldn’t get some new ideas. - -Aside from the absurdity of sending for a plumber when the baby is sick, -the gentleman forgot that if his “new writers who had never written -anything” had new ideas they would never in the world be allowed to use -them. At present the motion pictures are an imitative and not a creative -medium and I very much doubt if the gentleman ever met a new idea in all -his life. - -This is the present system and if its results are satisfactory to the -men who have poured their millions into this industry then I am just -another New York writer trying to tell Hollywood how to make pictures. -If, however, there is any feeling that better work could be done, should -be done, and must be done if this wonderful medium is ever to take the -place it ought to take in our national life, if this advance of two -hundred million is to be held and satisfied, then there is one way to do -it, and only one. - -The answer is very simple, so simple as to make it seem silly. Put in -every studio a real editor with full authority. There isn’t one in -Hollywood, and there never has been. Such a man could save each of the -four great studios from half a million to a million a year simply by -killing the impossible junk before it goes into production. Such a man -knows writers and how to make them write. He knows how to make them earn -their salary or how to get rid of them; that’s his business. It’s folly -to say that such men can’t be had. Every great newspaper has one; so -does every big publishing house; and when they die others are found to -take their place. What they don’t know about pictures they could learn. -Every editor learns the taste and wants of the public he serves. Bob -Davis sat in Munsey’s office and picked the fiction for five different -publications with five different classes of readers, and when he -couldn’t find the type of story he wanted, he took a writer to lunch and -in a month he had it. - -That’s just an editor’s job. It is possible that even a fine editor -might make some mistakes until he learned the taste of the picture -public, but are there no mistakes made now? What percentage of pictures -produced to-day is satisfactory, even to the companies who produce them? -Think it over! I am one of the few writers who enjoyed writing for the -screen, partly because of a habit I have of laughing at silly people, -and partly because I love to write anything at all. I am not of the -number who couldn’t catch the trick and retired in anger and contempt. -When I left Hollywood in June it was because I “had a play,” and I have -more offers to return there than one man could by any possibility take -advantage of. I am too old a writer and too deeply devoted to my craft -to hesitate to set down the result of three years of thought. I have -never, in the theater or in Hollywood, sold to any man my right to free -speech or freedom of thought and it is rather late for me to change. - -It is a curious thing how, in the amusement business, history keeps on -repeating itself. In the years I have been a student of conditions in -this field, I have seen the rise and fall of many different forms of -popular entertainment. The great chain of theaters of the Klaw and -Erlanger Syndicate, the Stair and Havlin circuit of cheap theaters, the -once highly popular stock houses—the Keith vaudeville, the old Columbia -burlesque wheel, the circus, the skating rinks, all of these sprang into -popularity under the guidance of shrewd showmanship. Their amazing -profits drew big investors who poured their money in, building new -theaters, consolidating chains of old ones, enlarging, spreading out. -Then, long before the capital engaged could earn any real return, the -boom was over and the investing public held the bag. There has never -been a year when more money hasn’t been lost in theatrical ventures than -has been made. I think the reason is that the men we have called shrewd -showmen are in reality only shrewd business men and the enterprises -started by their energy and ambition have first languished and then died -because these men in every case failed to learn the rules of the game -they were playing. - -To satisfy and hold the interest of any great percentage of the public -is a big job for a catch-penny showman. The reactions of a composite -audience might well be studied by scientific minds. Two Topseys and two -Lawyer Marks’s couldn’t keep the old UNCLE TOM’S CABIN shows alive. The -old minstrel shows died of their own unimaginative elaboration; -three-ring circuses only postponed the evil days for the tent shows -where perhaps something new in one ring might have saved them. You can’t -make a business out of any form of show business that will stand up -beyond the point where the brains are in the business and not in the -show. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ──────────────── - CHAPTER IX ◆ I’D LIKE TO DO IT AGAIN - ──────────────── - - -In June my contract was up and for the moment at least I had had enough -of Hollywood. Some day I am going back, but not until I get some real -assurance of going there as I go into a theater, to practice the trade I -have learned. Owen had returned to New York in May to create a part in a -new play with Richard Bennett. This play, SOLID SOUTH, was running in -Chicago for the spring and summer and was booked to open on Broadway in -September. - -Donald had almost finished his first play, in which I took as deep an -interest and delight as his mother would have taken in his first baby, -had his activities led him in that direction. I knew this play had real -promise and would soon call him to New York and that once more we would -be united. And so in June Mrs. Davis and I returned. As I picked up my -tools and started to work I knew that the round peg had slipped -comfortably back into the round hole. The fact that WHOOPEE was still -running in November saved me from a sad fate. For thirty years I have -had at least one play produced in New York each season. I’m going to -have one produced for as many more seasons as I can, more than one if I -can, and as good plays as I can. - -It may well be that this thing of producing plays isn’t as wonderful a -thing as I think it is, but it’s my trade. I have served the theater -joyfully for a long time and if a good fairy appeared before me to-day -and offered me the famous “one wish” I am sure that I should say, -“Please, good fairy, I’d like to do it again.” - -This doesn’t mean that my life has been all happiness. No man’s has -been. Perhaps it is best that way. We have had our griefs, my wife and -I, our share of sorrow, discouragement and our happiness, but, if I may -for a moment borrow the flamboyant style of my youth, as I look back -over the tapestry of my life, the bright spots do not seem so bright as -I had remembered them, and the dark spots do not seem so dark. The whole -fabric looks rather like one of these old rag carpets of my mother’s -time—woven of bits of crimson and blue, of yellow and black—blending now -in a soft harmony, softened by time. - - - THE END - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ● Transcriber’s Notes: - ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. - ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. - ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only - when a predominant form was found in this book. - ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of I'd Like to Do it Again, by Owen Davis - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I'D LIKE TO DO IT AGAIN *** - -***** This file should be named 63287-0.txt or 63287-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/2/8/63287/ - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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