Chapter 22

In the towns of Kent we got on the trail of Dickens with the enthusiasm of a Hopkinson Smith; in London, between Drury Lane and Wardour Street, we hunted for the Old Curiosity Shop; in Yarmouth we discovered the place where Peggotty's boat-hut might have lain on the sands. With William Seymour, who knew every street from his study of "The Rivals," we listened to the abbey bells of Bath. And when "Romeo and Juliet" was to be revived with Sothern and Marlowe, Frohman even proposed that we should visit Verona. He only abandoned the idea on discovering that the Veronese had no long-distance telephones, and that, while wandering among the tombs of the Montagus and Capulets, he would be cut off from his London office.

Having thus steeped himself in the atmosphere of his work, he set forth to learn the rules of the game. I met him in Paris on his return from New York. "How go the rules?" I asked.

"Rotten," said he. "Our American playwrights say there are no rules; with them it is all inspiration. The Englishmen say that rules exist, but what the rules are they either don't know or won't tell."

We went to the Concert Rouge. Those were the happy days when there were no frills; when the price of admission was charged with what you drank; when Saint-Saens accompanied his "Samson and Delilah" with an imaginary flute obligato on a walking-stick; when Massenet, with his librettist, Henri Cain, dozed quietly through the meditation of "Thais"; when the students and their girls forgot frivolity under the spell of "L'Arlesienne."

In a smoky corner sat a group of well-known French playwrights, headed by G. A. Caillavet, afterward famous as author of "Le Roi." They were indulging in a heated but whispered discussion. They welcomed Frohman cordially, then returned to the debate.

"What are they talking about?" asked Frohman.

"The rules of the drama," said I.

"Then there are rules!" cried the manager, eagerly.

"Ask Caillavet," said I.

"Rules?" exclaimed Caillavet, who spoke English. "Are there rules of painting, sculpture, music? Why, the drama is a mass of rules! It is nothing but rules."

"And how long," faltered Frohman, thinking of his play--"how long would it take to learn them?"

"A lifetime at the very least," answered Caillavet. Disconsolate, Frohman led me out into the Rue de Tournon. Heartbroken, he convoyed me into Foyot's, and drowned his sorrows in a grenadine.

From that hour he was a changed man. He apparently put aside all thought of the drama whose name was to be stenciled on the summit of Mont Blanc; yet, nevertheless, he applied himself assiduously to learning the principles on which the theater was based.

Another winter had passed before we sat side by side on the terrace of the Cafe Napolitain.

"I have asked Harry Pettitt, the London melodramatist," Frohman said, "to write me a play. 'I warn you, Frohman,' he replied, 'that I have only one theme--the Persecuted Woman.' Dion Boucicault, who was present, said, 'Add the Persecuted Girl.' Joseph Jefferson was with us, and Jefferson remarked, 'Add the Persecuted Man.' So was Henry Irving, who said: 'Pity is the trump card; but be Aristotelian, my boy; throw in a little Terror; with Pity I can generally go through a season, as with 'Charles the First' or 'Olivia'; with Terror and Pity combined I am liable to have something that will outlast my life." And Irving mentioned "The Bells" and "The Lyons Mail."

"But who will write you your Terror and Pity?" I asked Frohman.

"If Terror means 'thrill,'" said Frohman, "I can count on Belasco and Gillette. If Pity means 'sympathy,' the Englishmen do it pretty well. So does Fitch. So do the French, who used to be masters of the game."

"You don't expect," I said, "to pick up another 'Two Orphans,' a second 'Ticket of Leave Man'?"

"I'm not such a fool," said Frohman. "But I've got hold of something now that will help me to feed my stock company in New York." And off we went with Dillingham to see "The Girl from Maxim's" at the Nouveautes.

When we got home to the Ritz Frohman discussed the play after his manner: "Do you know," he said, "I find the element of pity quite as strongly developed in these French farces as in the Ambigu melodramas. The truant husband leaves home, goes out for a good time, gets buffeted and bastinadoed for his pains, and when the compassionate audience says, 'He has had enough; let up,' he comes humbly home to the bosom of his family and is forgiven. Where can you find a more human theme than that?"

"Then you hold," said I, "that even in a French farce the events should be reasonable?"

"I wouldn't buy one," he replied, "if I didn't consider its basis thoroughly human. Dion Boucicault told me long ago that farce, like tragedy, must be founded on granite. 'Farce, well done,' said he, 'is the most difficult form of dramatic composition. That is why, if successful, it is far the most remunerative.'"

Years went by. The stock company was dead. "Charles Frohman's Comedians" had disappeared. The "stars" had supplanted them. Frohman was at the zenith of his career. American papers called him "the Napoleon of the Drama." Prime Ministers courted him in the grill-room of the London Savoy. The Paris _Figaro_ announced the coming of "the celebrated impresario." I heard him call my name in the crowd at the Gare du Nord and we bundled into a cab.

"So you're a great man now," I said.

"Am I?" he remarked. "There's one thing you can bet on. If they put me on a throne to-day they are liable to yank me off to-morrow."

"And how's your own play getting along?"

"Don't!" he winced. "Let us go to the Snail."

In the cozy recesses of the Escargot d'Or, near the Central Markets, he unraveled the mysteries of the "star system" which had made him famous.

"It's the opposite of all we ever believed," he said, while the mussels and shell-fish were being heaped up before him. "Good-by to Caillavet and his rules. Good-by, Terror and Pity. Good-by, dear French farce. Give me a pretty girl with a smile, an actor with charm, and I will defy our old friend Aristotle."

"Is it as easy as that?" I asked, in amazement.

"No," said he, "it's confoundedly difficult to find the girl with the smile and the actor with charm. It is pure accident. There are players of international reputation who can't draw a dollar. There are chits of chorus-girls who can play a night of sixteen hundred dollars in Youngstown, Ohio."

"And the play doesn't matter?" I inquired.

"There you've got me," said Frohman, as the crepes Suzette arrived in their chafing-dish. "My interest makes me pretend that the play's the thing. I congratulate foreign authors on a week of fourteen thousand dollars in Chicago, and they go away delighted. But I know, all the time, that of this sum the star drew thirteen thousand nine hundred dollars, and the author the rest."

"To what do you attribute such a state of affairs?"

"Feminine curiosity. God bless the women."

"Are there no men in your audiences?" I asked.

"Only those whom the women take," said Frohman. "The others go to musical shows. Have some more crepes Suzette."

"But what do the critics say?" I persisted.

"My dear Paul," said Frohman, solemnly, "they call me a 'commercial manager' because I won't play Ibsen or Maeterlinck. They didn't help me when I tried for higher game. I had years of poverty, years of privation. To-day I take advantage of a general feminine desire to view Miss Tottie Coughdrop; and, to the critics, I'm a mere Bulgarian, a 'commercial manager.' So was Lester Wallack when he admitted 'The World' to his classic theater. So was Augustin Daly when he banished Shakespeare in favor of 'The Great Ruby.' If the critics want to reform the stage, let them begin by reforming the public."

In his cabin on the _Lusitania_ he showed me a mass of yellow manuscript, scribbled over with hieroglyphics in blue pencil.

"That's my play," he said, very simply.

"Shall I take it home and read it?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "I will try it on Barrie and bring it back in better shape."

So he shook hands and sailed with his cherished drama, which reposes to-day, not on the summit of Mont Blanc, but at the bottom of the Irish Sea.

XVI

"C. F." AT REHEARSALS

The real Charles Frohman emerged at rehearsals. The shy, sensitive man who shunned the outside world here stood revealed as a dynamic force. Yet he ruled by personality, because he believed in personality. He did every possible thing to bring out the personal element in the men and women in his companies.

In rehearsing he showed one of the most striking of his traits. It was a method of speech that was little short of extraordinary. It grew out of the fact that his vocabulary could not express his enormous imagination. Instead of words he made motions. It was, as Augustus Thomas expressed it, "an exalted pantomime." Those who worked with him interpreted these gestures, for between him and his stars existed the finest kinship.

Frohman seldom finished a sentence, yet those who knew him always understood the unuttered part. Even when he would give a star the first intimation of a new role he made it a piece of pantomime interspersed with short, jerky sentences.

William Faversham had complained about having two very bad parts. When he went to see Frohman to hear about the third, this is the way the manager expressed it to him:

"New play--see?... Fine part.--First act--_you_ know--romantic--light through the window ... nice deep tones of your voice, you see?... Then, audience say 'Ah!'--then the girl--see?--In the room ... you ... one of those big scenes--then, all subdued--light--coming through window.--See?--And then--curtain--audience say 'Great!' ... Now, second act ... all that tremolo business--you know?--Then you get down to work ... a tremendous scene ... let your voice go.... Great climax ... (Oh, a great play this--a great part!) ... Now, last act--simple--nice--lovable--refined ... sad tones in your voice--and, well, you know--and then you make a big hit.... Well, now we will rehearse this in about a week--and you will be tickled to death.... This is a great play--fine part.... Now, you see Humphreys--he will arrange everything."

Of course Faversham went away feeling that he was about forty-four feet tall, that he was a great actor, and had a wonderful part.

Like the soldier who thrills at the sound of battle, Frohman became galvanized when he began to work in the theater. He forgot time, space, and all other things save the task at hand. To him it was as the breath of life.

One reason was that the theater was his world; the other that Charles was, first and foremost, a director and producer. His sensibility and force, his feeling and authority, his intelligence and comprehension in matters of dramatic artistry were best, almost solely, known to his players and immediate associates. No stage-director of his day was more admired and desired than he.

At rehearsal the announcement, "C. F. is in front," meant for every one in the cast an eager enthusiasm and a desire to do something unusually good to merit his commendation. His enormous energy, aided by his diplomacy and humor, inspired the player to highest performance.

Such expressions as, "But, Mr. Frohman, this is my way of doing it," or "I feel it this way," and like manifestations of actors' conceit or argument would never be met with ridicule or contempt. Sometimes he would say, "Try it my way first," or "Do you like that?" or "Does this give you a better feeling?" He never said, "You _must_ do thus and so." He was alert to every suggestion. As a result he got the very best out of his people. It was part of his policy of developing the personal element.

The genial human side of the man always softened his loudest tones, although he was seldom vehement. So gentle was his speech at rehearsals that the actors often came down to the footlights to hear his friendly yet earnest direction.

Frohman had that first essential of a great dramatic director--a psychologic mind in the study of the various human natures of his actors and of the ideas they attempted to portray.

He was an engaging and fascinating figure, too, as he molded speech and shaped the play. An old friend who saw him in action thus describes the picture:

"Here a comedian laughs aloud with the comic quaintness of the director. There a little lady, new to the stage, is made to feel at home and confident. The proud old-timer is sufficiently ameliorated to approve of the change suggested. The leading lady trembles with the shock of realization imparted by the stout little man with chubby smile who, seated alone in the darkened auditorium, conveys his meaning as with invisible wires, quietly, quaintly, simply, and rationally, so as to stir the actors' souls to new sensibilities, awaken thought, and viviby(?) glow of passion, sentiment, or humor."

At rehearsals Frohman usually sat alone about the tenth row back. He rarely rose from his seat, but by voice and gesture indicated the moves on his dramatic chess-board. When it became necessary for him to go on the stage he did so with alacrity. He suggested, by marvelously simple indications and quick transitions, the significance of the scene or the manner of the presentation.

There was a curious similarity, in one respect, between the rehearsing methods of Charles Frohman and Augustin Daly. This comparison is admirably made by Frohman's life-long friend Franklin H. Sargent, Director of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Empire School of Acting, in which Frohman was greatly interested and which he helped in every possible way. He said:

"Like a great painter with a few stray significant lines of drawing, Frohman revealed the spirit and the idea. In this respect he resembled Augustin Daly, who could furnish much dramatic intuition by a grunt and a thumb-joint. Both men used similar methods and possessed equal keenness of intelligence and sense of humor, except that Frohman was rarely sarcastic. Daly usually was. Frohman's demeanor and relationship to his actors was kindly and considerate. Rules, and all strictly enforced, were in Daly's policy of theater management. Frohman did not resort to rules. He regulated his theaters on broad principles, but with firm decision when necessary. In Daly's theater there was obedience; in Frohman's theater there was a willing co-operation. The chief interest of both managers was comedy--comedy of two opposite kinds. Daly's jest was the artificial German farce and Shakespearian refinement. Frohman's tastes ranged between the French school--Sardou's 'Diplomacy' and the modern realities--and the pure sentiments of Barrie's 'The Little Minister.' Frohman was never traditional in an artificial sense, though careful to retain the fundamental original treatment of imported foreign plays.

"The verities, the humanities, the joys of life always existed and grew with him as with a good landscape architect who keeps in nature's ways. His departures into the classicism of Stephen Phillips, the romanticism of Shakespeare, or the exotic French society drama were never as valuable and delightful as his treatment of modern sentiment and comedy."

In this respect a comparison with the workmanship of another genius of the American theater, David Belasco, is inevitable. Belasco, the great designer and painter of theatrical pictures, holds quite a different point of view and possesses different abilities from those of Charles Frohman. Belasco revels in the technique of the actor. Frohman's _metier_ was the essentials. The two men were in many ways complements of each other and per force admirers of each other and friends. In brief, Belasco is the technicist; Frohman was the humanitarian.

Charles usually left details of scenery, lighting, and minor matters to his stage-manager. "Look after the little things," he would say, in business as in art, for he himself was interested only in the larger themes. The lesser people of the play, the early rehearsing of involved business, was shaped by his subordinates. The smaller faults and the mannerisms of the actor did not trouble him, provided the main thought and feeling were there. He would merely laugh at a suggestion to straighten out the legs and walk, to lengthen the drawl, or to heighten the cockney accent of a prominent member of his company, saying:

"The public likes him for these natural things."

Frohman's ear was musically sensitive. The intonations, inflections, the tone colors of voice, orchestral and incidental music, found him an exacting critic.

To plays he gave thought, study, and preparation. The author received much advice and direction from him. He himself possessed the expert knowledge and abilities of a playwright, as is always true of every good stage-director. Each new play was planned, written, cast, and revised completely under his guidance and supervision. His stage-manager had been instructed in advance in the "plotting" of its treatment. The first rehearsals were usually left in charge of this assistant.

At the first rehearsals Frohman made little or no comments. He watched and studied in silence. Thereafter his master-mind would reveal itself in reconstruction of lines and scenes, re-accentuation of the high and low lights of the story involved, and improvement of the acting and representation. Frohman consulted with his authors, artists, and assistants more in his office than in actual rehearsal. In the theater he was sole auditor and judge. His stage-manager would rarely make suggestions during rehearsals unless beckoned to and asked by his manager. When the office-boy came in at rehearsal on some important business errand, he got a curt dismissal, or at most a brief consideration of the despatch, contract, or message.

Here is a vivid view of Frohman at rehearsal by one who often sat under the magic of his direction:

"In the dim theater he sits alone, the stage-manager being at a respectable distance. If by chance there are one or two others present directly concerned in the production, they all sit discreetly in the extreme rear. The company is grouped in the wings, never in the front. The full stage lights throw into prominence the actors in the scene in rehearsal. Occasionally the voice of Mr. Frohman calls from the auditorium, and the direction is sometimes repeated more loudly by the stage-manager. Everybody is listening and watching.

"The wonderfully responsive and painstaking nature of Maude Adams is fully alive, alert, and interested in Mr. Frohman's directions even in the scenes in which she has no personal part, during which, very likely, she will half recline on the floor near the proscenium--all eyes and ears.

"Or perhaps it is a strong emotional scene in which Margaret Anglin is the central character. At the theatrically most effective point in the acting the voice breaks in, Miss Anglin stops, hastens to the footlights, and listens intently to a few simple, quiet words. Over her face pass shadow and storm, and in her eyes tears form. Again she begins the scene, and yet again, with cumulative passion. Each time, with each new incitement from the sympathetic director, new power, deeper feeling, keener thought develop, until a great glow of meaning and of might fills the stage and the theater with its radiance. Mr. Frohman is at last satisfied, and so the play moves on."

Just as Frohman loved humor in life, so did he have a rare gift for comedy rehearsal. William Faversham pays him this tribute:

"I think Charles Frohman was the greatest comedy stage-manager that I have known. I do not think there was a comedy ever written that he could not rehearse and get more out of than any other stage-director I have ever seen--and I have seen a good many. If he had devoted himself, as director, entirely to one company, I think he would have produced the greatest organization of comedians that Europe or America ever saw. I don't suppose there is a comedy scene that he couldn't rehearse and play better than any of the actors who were engaged to play the parts. The subtle touches that he put into 'Lord and Lady Algy' were extraordinary. The same with 'The Counsellor's Wife,' with 'Bohemia,' and again with a play of H. V. Esmond's called 'Imprudence,' which we did. He seemed to love this play, and I never saw a piece grow so in all my life as it did under his direction. All the successes made by the actors and actresses in that play were entirely through the work of Charles Frohman.

"He had a keen sense of sound, a tremendous ear for tones of comedy. He could get ten or twelve inflections out of a speech of about four lines; he had a wonderful method of getting the actors to accept and project these tones over the footlights. He got what he wanted from them in the most extraordinary way. With his disjointed, pantomimic method of instruction he was able to transfer to them, as if by telepathy, what he wanted.

"For instance, he would say: 'Now, you go over there ... then, just as he is looking at you ... see?--say--then ... that's it! you know?' And simply by this telepathy you _did know_."

His terse summing up of scenes and facts was never better illustrated than when he compressed the instructions of a whole sentimental act into this simple sentence to E. H. Sothern:

"Court--kiss--curtain."

In one detail he differed from all the other great producers of his time. Most managers liked to nurse a play after its production and build it up with new scenes or varied changes. With Frohman it was different. "I am interested in a production until it has been made, and then I don't care for it any more," he said. This is generally true, although some of his productions he could never see often enough.

Frohman's perception about a play was little short of uncanny. An incident that happened during the rehearsal of the Maude Adams all-star revival of "Romeo and Juliet" will illustrate. James K. Hackett was cast for _Mercutio_. He had worked for a month on the Queen Mab speech. He had elaborated and polished it, and thought he had it letter and tone perfect.

Frohman sat down near the front and listened with rapt attention while this fine actor declaimed the speech. When he finished Charles said, in his jerky, epigrammatic way:

"Hackett, that's fine, but just in there somewhere--you know what I mean."

As a matter of fact, Hackett, with all his elaborate preparation, had slipped up on one line, and it was a very essential one. Frohman had never read "Romeo and Juliet" until he cast this production, yet he caught the omission with his extraordinary intuition.

Charles was the most indefatigable of workers. At one time, on arriving in Boston at midnight, he had to stage a new act of "Peter Pan." He worked over it with carpenters, actors, and electricians until three in the morning. Then he made an appointment with the acting manager to take a walk on the Common "in the morning."

The manager took "in the morning" to mean nine o'clock. When he reached the hotel Frohman was just returning from his walk, and handed the man a bunch of cables to send, telegrams to acknowledge, and memoranda of information desired. At ten o'clock Frohman was conducting the rehearsal of a new comedy by Haddon Chambers, which he finished at four. At five he was on a train speeding back to New York, where he probably read manuscripts of plays until two in the morning. This was one of the typical "C. F." days.

* * *

Occasionally a single detail would fascinate him in a play. "The Waltz Dream" that he did at the Hicks Theater in London in 1908 was typical. Miss Gertie Millar, who sang the leading part, had an important song. Frohman did not like the way she sang it, so he worked on it for two weeks until it reached the perfection of expression that he desired. But that song made the play and became the most-talked-of feature in it. This led him to say: