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A History Of The Development Of Professional Theatrical Activity In Los Angeles, 1880-1895

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A History Of The Development Of Professional Theatrical Activity In Los Angeles, 1880-1895

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Content A HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONAL THEATRICAL ACTIVITY IN LOS ANGELES, 1880-1895 by Edward Kenneth Kaufman A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Communication— Drama) September 1972 INFORMATION TO USERS This dissertation was produced from a microfilm copy of the original docum ent. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this docum ent have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon th e quality of the original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "targ et" for pages apparently lacking from th e docum ent photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain th e missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you com plete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that th e copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being p h o to g rap h ed th e photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is custom ary to begin photoing at th e upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again - beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual contjnt is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of th e dissertation. Silver prints of "photographs" may be ordered a t additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced. University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 A Xerox Education Company 73-7254 KAUFMAN, Edward Kenneth, 1928- A HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONAL THEATRICAL ACTIVITY IN LOS ANGELES, 1880-1895. University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1972 Theater University Microfilms, A X ER O X Com pany, Ann Arbor, Michigan Copyright © by EDWARD KENNETH KAUFMAN 1972 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. UNIVERSITY O F SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE 8CHOOL UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 8 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by EDWARD KENNETH KAUFMAN under the direction of A...*?.. Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements of the degree of D O C T O R OF P H IL O S O P H Y ( f D*att _ SEPTEMBER 1972 Date. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DISSERTATION COMMITTEE PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. THE PROBLEM AND DESIGN OF THE STUDY........... 1 Background of the Problem Statement of the Problem Significance of the Study Limits of the Study Definition of Terms Review of the Literature Design of the Study Organization of the Remainder of the Dissertation Source Materials Utilized II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN THEATRE, 1850-1895 ..................................... 16 American Theatre at Mid-Nineteenth Century American Theatre in the Sixties and Seventies The Emergence of the Eastern Regisseurs: The Eighties The Business of the American Theatre: The Nineties The Theatrical Syndicate in the Nineties The American Drama, 1870-1890 The American Drama in the Seventies The American Drama and the School of Realism The American Romantic Tradition ii Chapter Page The American "Downtown" Drama in the Eighties and Nineties The American Drama in the Nineties American Theatrical Stars: Old and New The Emergence of New Dramatic Forms in the Nineties The Theatre in America in the Mid- Nineties III. THREE DECADES OF CHANGE: LOS ANGELES AND ITS THEATRICAL ACTIVITY, 1850-1880 . . . The City of Los Angeles, 1850-1880 Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles, 1850-1880 The Season of 1871 at the Merced Theatre The Season of 1872 at the-Merced Theatre The Season of 1873 at the Merced Theatre The Season of 1874 at the Merced Theatre The Season of 1875 at the Merced Theatre The Season of 1876 at Wood's Opera House (Formerly the Merced Theatre) The Season of 1877 at Wood's Opera House The Season of 1878 at the Turnverein Hall The Season of 1879 at the Turnverein Hall Summary of the Theatrical Years 1850-1880 IV. THE GROWTH OF LOS ANGELES AND ITS FIRST LUXURY PLAYHOUSE, THE GRAND OPERA HOUSE: 1880-1884 ................................ The City of Los Angeles, 1880-1885 Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles, 1880-1883 The Season of 1880 at the Turnverein Hall The Season of 1881 at the Turnverein Hall The Season of 1882 at the Turnverein Hall The Season of 1883 at the Turnverein Hall The Season of 1883 at the Minor Houses 75 123 iii Chapter Page V . VI. Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles, 1884 The City’s First Luxury Playhouse: The Grand Opera House The Season of 1884 at the Grand Opera House The Season of 1884 at the Minor Houses The Season of 1884 at the Los Angeles Tivoli Summary of the Theatrical Years 1880-1884 LOS ANGELES IN IHE BOOM YEARS, 1885-1889: ITS THEATRICAL ACTIVITY IN THE EARLY BOOM YEARS, 1885-1886 ................... The City of Los Angeles, 1885-1889 The Early Boom Years, 1885-1886 The Later Boom Years, 1887-1889 Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles, 1885-1886 The Season of 1885 at the Grand Opera House The Season of 1885 at the Minor Houses Summary of the Season of 1885 Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles in 1886 The Season of 1886 at the Grand Opera House The Season of 1886 at the Minor Houses Summary of the Season of 1886 THE THEATRICAL BOOM: THE THEATRE IN LOS ANGELES IN THE LATER BOOM YEARS, 1887- 1889 ..................................... Theatrical Activity in the Later Boom Years The Season of 1887 at the Grand Opera House The Season of 1887 at the Minor Houses 158 209 iv Chapter Page I VII. The Season of 1887 at Hazard's Pavilion Summary of the Season of 1887 Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles in 1888 The Season of 1888 at the Grand Opera House The City's Second Luxury Playhouse, the Los Angeles Theatre The Season of 1888 at the Los Angeles Theatre The Season of 1888 at Hazard's Pavilion The Season of 1888 at the California Dime Museum Summary of the Season of 1888 Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles in 1889 The Season of 1889 at the Grand Opera House The Season of 1889 at the Los Angeles Theatre The Season of 1889 at the California Dime Museum Summary of the Season of 1889 AFTERMATH OF THE BOOM, 1890-1895: HARD TIMES IN THE CITY AND A THEATRICAL RIVALRY, 1890-1892 ...................... The City of Los Angeles, 1890-1895 Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles, 1890-1892 The Season of 1890 at the Grand Opera House The Season of 1890 at the Los Angeles Theatre Summary of the Season of 1890 The Beginning of the Theatrical Rivalry, 1891 The Season of 1891 at the Grand Opera House 277 v Chapter Page VIII. The Season of 1891 at the Los Angeles Theatre Summary of the Season of 1891 The End of the Theatrical Rivalry, 1892 The Season of 1892 at the Grand Opera House The Season of 1892 at the Los Angeles Theatre Summary of the 1892 Season YEARS OF CRISIS AND CHANGE: THEATRICAL ACTIVITY IN LOS ANGELES FROM THE PANIC OF 1893 TO THE DEMISE OF THE GRAND OPERA HOUSE IN 1895 ...................... Theatrical Activity During the panic of 1893 The Season of 1893 at the Grand Opera House The Season of 1893 at the Los Angeles Theatre The Season of 1893 at the Park Theatre The City's Third Luxury Playhouse, the Burbank Theatre The Season of 1893 at the Burbank Theatre Theatrical Activity from the Depression of 1894 to the End of the Grand Opera House in 1895 The Season of 1894 at the Los Angeles Theatre The Season of 1894 at the Grand Opera House The Season of 1894 at the Burbank Theatre The Season of 1894 at the Imperial Music Hall Summary of the Season of 1894 336 vi Chapter Page IX. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . 385 Summary Conelus ions Recommendations for Further Research BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................405 vii CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM AND DESIGN OF THE STUDY Background of the Problem By the mid-nineteenth century, the professional ! jtheatre in America had expanded almost as vigorously as the jnation itself. With the further extension of the railroad, i jtheatre activity was soon to be carried into new and pre- i viously untouched territories. And when gold was discovered in northern California in 1848, the American theatre ful filled its own sense of Manifest Destiny and finally reached jthe Pacific Coast.^ j However, while the northern California cities, especially San Francisco, were caught up in the sudden rush of theatrical activity, southern California's El Pueblo de 1 I Los Angeles "remained predominantly an unbroken cattle ^Glenn Hughes, A History of American Theatre (Bing hamton, N. Y.: Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., 1951), p. 168. i I ! i 2 2 range." Whatever local attempts were made at theatrical 3 production were, at best, crude and amateurish. As of 1850, the dynamic forces which underlay a phenomenon as complex as "theatre" were yet to be realized in a frontier city whose population was less than 2,000 and which was little more than "a Mexican village of mud walls and dirt istreets— an unsightly thorn in a surrounding patchwork of 4 jorange orchards and grape vineyards." I j Yet despite its rather inauspicious beginnings, El I I I |Pueblo de Los Angeles was destined within the very next generation to shed many vestiges of its mid-century frontier |atmosphere. Spurred on by a series of local and national developments in the 1860s and 1870s, the once-sleepy village began to show some definite signs of awakening. By the time jof its railroad link with northern California in 1876, the I l newly activated city of Los Angeles had already experienced !a decade of almost uninterrupted economic growth. And when i j----------------------- o j Remi A. Nadeau, City-Makers: The Men Who Trans- I formed Los Angeles from Village to Metropolis During the First Great Boom. 1868-76 (Garden City, N. J.: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1948), p. 12. i 3 Boyle Workman, The City That Grew (Los Angeles: Southland Publishing Co., 1936), p. 21. 4 Nadeau, City-Makers. p. 18. 3 it was finally linked to the rest of the nation by direct transcontinental railroad in 1882, Los Angeles began to emerge as an energetic American city. After the early quiet years, Los Angeles literally burst into being under the impetus of a real estate boom and population explosion in the late 1880s."* And despite the bust that followed and the nationwide panic and depres sion of 1893 and 1894, Los Angeles was strong enough to I {shake off these setbacks and continue to grow and develop— I I I albeit at a less sensational rate. Statement of the Problem This study undertook to describe and evaluate the growth and development of professional theatre in Los Ange les from 1880 to 1895 in the context of (1) the over-all growth and development of the city during this period, and (2) the national trends in professional theatre during these times. This general problem was divided into the following constituent questions: (1) What were the local, historical, economic, and sociological conditions which were relevant to ! ^Glenn S. Dumke, The Boom of the Eighties in South ern California (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1944), pp. 9-10. 4 theatre in Los Angeles between 1850 and 1895? (2) What was |the nature of the theatrical climate in America from 1850 ito 1895? (3) What was the status of Los Angeles theatre as of 1880? (4) What was the nature of theatre in Los Angeles from 1880 to 1895? and (5) What was the influence of Eastern [theatrical methods and theories on Los Angeles theatre be tween 1880 and 1895? Significance of the Study ; Although the first local American theatrical pro duction was staged around 1850, theatre in Los Angeles, for almost two decades thereafter, was irregular and insubstan tial. As the city began to show some signs of developing i |in the 1870s, so did its theatre. With the advent of the I local land boom in the late 1880s, local theatrical activity i quite literally exploded, so much so that by 1895 theatre in Los Angeles (by now a "big city") was both "big time" and ;big business, and had begun to reflect the prevailing con ditions in the nation as a whole. Curiously, the nature of theatre in Los Angeles has been overlooked by virtually every important historian of the American theatre, despite the fact that by 1890 Los .Angeles was the second wealthiest and largest city on the 5 West Coast and a full-fledged theatrical city, complete with ja history and tradition of its own. The city in 1893 con tained three luxury playhouses; many makeshift theatres; a i seemingly endless array of top-flight eastern stars and companies; a local resident stock company; a theatre jour- nal; and theatrical publicists, managers, and critics. Whatever accounts of that period exist are generally I ■in the form of checklists of plays, playhouses, and per formers. Although the names of theatres, actors, managers, i jand acting companies in Los Angeles have been fairly well documented, there is still no contextual overview— local as i jwell as national— with which to judge and evaluate the i I 'unique theatrical growth and development of Los Angeles during its formative years, 1880 to 1895. This study provides a suitable and necessary frame work for such an understanding. In order to relate local theatre to national theatre, this study describes the the- i atrical situation in the United States from the year 1850 j : (the year of Los Angeles' incorporation) through 1895. The ! istudy also takes into account the social and economic growth of Los Angeles during the years 1850 to 1895, with special, detailed emphasis upon the years 1880 through 1895. Most 1 important of all, this study provides a much-needed 6 detailed account and evaluation of the interrelationships between city growth and theatrical growth during these ! important years. Limits of the Study This study is limited to professional theatrical activity in Los Angeles between 1880 and 1895. It does not attempt to deal critically with any of the plays mentioned; lit also excludes any attempt to classify by genre any of I jthe plays mentioned: plays are accounted for precisely as i 'given on the playbills. Since evidence relating to local jtechnical production methods is fragmentary and unreliable, i jthis study will not attempt to deal with any technical aspects of locally presented plays. The study excludes the myriad paratheatrical events |which occurred between 1880 and 1895: the circuses, pag- i eants, flower festivals, religious and patriotic observ ances, and individual lectures. Also excluded is consid eration of local amateur theatrical activity. Finally, no attempt is made to compare or contrast the Los Angeles | theatre with that of any other city. 7 Definition of Terms The term "professional theatrical activity" is used (1) to encompass all aspects of commercial theatre as dis tinct from amateur theatre; that is, "stage and scenic rep resentations . . . [and] buildings used to house dramatic g presentations or stage entertainment"; and (2) to include all those specifically involved with the theatre as a source of livelihood, including actors, managers, producers, acting companies, theatre owners and managers, and theatre critics. As amateur theatre had virtually no impact upon the development of the theatre in Los Angeles during the years between 1880 and 1895, the terms "professional theatrical activity" and "theatrical activity" are used interchange ably. Review of the Literature | All dissertations on the theatre written since 1940 were researched in Dissertation Abstracts and in Carl J. 7 Stratman's Bibliography of the American Theatre. The only doctoral study written on nineteenth-century theatre in Los | £ L °The American College Dictionary (New York: Random iHouse, 1966), p. 1255. 7Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1965. 8 g Angeles is the 1947 dissertation by Sue Wolper Earnest. Although excellent in certain aspects, the study suffers from its attempt to account for all theatre, including all amateur and paratheatrical events, within southern Califor nia from 1848 to 1892. As a result of its scope, the study fails to focus in depth on the significance of the Los Angeles theatrical situation. Almost all references to local theatre are from newspaper accounts and are limited to a consideration of only major theatres. Also, the Ear nest study fails to deal with the essential nature of the atre, and includes only fragmentary consideration of those local and national conditions and events from which the theatre in Los Angeles sprang. Aside from Earnest's dissertation, there have been three master's theses written on early Los Angeles theatre. 9 John Aubrey Allen's thesis, written in 1912, con- I tains some contemporary opinions concerning local theatre. After establishing a questionable relationship between the Q "An Historical Study of the Growth of ti^. Theatre in Southern California" (unpub. Ph.D. dissertation, Univer sity of Southern California, 1947), 3 vols. Q "A Study of the Theatre in Relation to the Welfare of Los Angeles" (unpub. Master's thesis, University of Southern California, 1912). 9 city's economics and its theatres, Allen curiously concluded that local vaudeville was immoral, while local melodrama was tasteless. The study offers no appraisal of the inter relationship between the city and its theatre. The 1930 thesis of Martha Barnett^0 incorrectly cites the 1888 opening of the Los Angeles Theatre as 1886. This work concentrates almost solely upon the operation of the Grand Opera House, and provides almost no social or economic "setting" for the development of local theatre. Pamela F. Tyler's 1942 thesis^ is basically a com pilation of Barnett's earlier study with additional personal theatrical reminiscences. In general, the thesis is appre ciative in nature and fails to investigate any of the de tails relating to the city or its theatres. Design of the Study The breakdown of the over-all problem as presented in the Statement of the Problem set up guidelines for gath ering and interpreting the data. However, for the purposes ^■°"A Historical Sketch of the Professional Theatre in the City of Los Angeles to 1911" (unpub. Master's thesis, University of Southern California, 1930). ^"The Los Angeles Theatre 1850-1900" (unpub. Mas ter's thesis, University of Southern California, 1942). 10 of reporting the research, the subdivisions of the problem statement required modifications in the interest of clarity: that is, description and evaluation were developed together and in chronological sequence. A major portion of the material dealing with local theatre from 1850 to 1880, as well as almost all of the data on national theatre from 1850 to 1895, were derived from secondary sources and were used to establish a suitable theatrical background. Starting with the year 1880, most of the materials used were primary source materials such as playbills, newspapers, letters, and clippings. The year 1880 was chosen as a beginning date be cause, in the effusive words of the early California his- 12 torian John McGroarty, "the year 1880 started a new era." As for local theatre, it was still minimal. The year 1895 was chosen as a terminal date for this study for a number of reasons: (1) in that year the Grand Opera House, the first of the city's three luxury playhouses, was changed from a house of drama to a house of vaudeville; (2) in that year the Theatrical Syndicate was to become an important 12 John Steven McGroarty, California of the South: A History (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1933), see especially pp. 211-214. 11 factor in the policies and productions at the city's re maining road show house, the Los Angeles Theatre; and (3) | iin that year the city's resident stock company, the Burbank Theatre, began to undergo a series of important managerial and production policy changes. | In order to establish a basis of comparison between the national and local theatres between the mid-nineteenth century and the years covered in this study, the theatre in jAmerica is first described. Organization of the Remainder of the Dissertation I Material dealing with the growth and development of ^theatrical activity in Los Angeles between 1880 and 1895 is presented chronologically in Chapters III through VIII. 'chapter IX is a summation of the preceding chapters. A description of theatre in America is presented in Chapter II, "The Development of American Theatre, 1850- 1895." This chapter considers (1) the development of the American commercial theatre and (2) the development of Amer ica’s literary drama. The social, economic, and historical conditions in Los Angeles from 1850 to 1895 are covered at the beginning of Chapters III, IV, V, and VII. Chapters III through VIII 12 contain a detailed account of all legitimate theatrical activity in the city during the years specifically covered. I Also, an account and evaluation of each theatrical "season" i is presented both at the end of the season and at the end of jeach chapter. j Chapter III, "Three Decades of Change: Los Angeles and Its Theatrical Activity, 1850-1880," covers the early growth and development of Los Angeles and its theatre until il880. Within this chapter is a description of the process of Americanization as it affected the city and its theatre. Chapter IV, "The Growth of Los Angeles and Its First Luxury Playhouse, the Grand Opera House: 1880-1885" covers the history of the city until 1885. The chapter also pre- I ;sents an account and evaluation of (1) the theatrical sea sons from 1880 to 1885, (2) the beginnings of the city's theatrical "division," and (3) an account and description of the Grand Opera House. Chapter V, "Los Angeles in the Boom Years, 1885- 1890: Its Theatrical Activity in the Early Boom Years, 1885-1886" supplies an historical account of the boom years. The chapter also describes and evaluates the theatrical years 1885 and 1886. Chapter VI, "The Theatrical Boom: The Theatre in 13 Los Angeles in the Later Boom Years, 1887-1889," deals with a description and evaluation of the burst of local theatri- j |cal activity during those years . This chapter also accounts |for the influx of eastern productions and their influence jupon the local theatre. | Chapter VII, "Aftermath of the Boom, 1890-1895: Hard Times in the City and a Theatrical Rivalry, 1890-1892," begins with an account of Los Angeles during the post-boom period. It describes and evaluates (1) the competition be tween the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre, (2) the growing importance of eastern bookings in Los Ange- lles, and (3) the emergence of the makeshift Park Theatre as |a popular-priced theatre. | Chapter VIII, "The Years of Crisis and Change: 'Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles from the Panic of 1893 to the Demise of the Grand Opera House in 1895," covers the local theatrical situation during the bleak years of both national and local economic turbulence. This chapter de scribes and evaluates the theatrical years 1893 and 1894 [and supplies an account of the Burbank Theatre, the city's first stock company house, and the Imperial Music Hall, the city's first makeshift house of continuous vaudeville. Chapter IX presents the summary and principal 14 conclusions and some suggestions for further research. ! Source Materials Utilized | This study utilized both primary and secondary i |source materials. The secondary materials included (1) I ! general and specific theatre histories dealing with nine teenth-century American theatre and (2) social and economic histories, including all the United States Government Census Reports from 1880 to 1900 of the city of Los Angeles. The newspapers most often consulted were; the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Herald, the Los Angeles Daily i Herald. and the Los Angeles Tribune . I Theatre programs for the Grand Opera House, the Los [Angeles, Burbank, and Park Theatres, and Hazard's Pavilion 'and the Imperial Music Hall furnished not only information j about these theatres but also material concerning the period of time covered in this study. Much excellent material was found in private theatre collections. The George A. Dobinson collection at the Los Angeles Public Library provided valuable background for this study. The L. E. Behymer collection at the Huntington Library contained a wealth of information that had never been published. Additional theatre materials were found in 15 the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, the Southwest Museum, and the special collection departments at the Uni versity of Southern California and the University of Cali fornia at Los Angeles. All of these sources made it pos sible to recreate the theatrical period considered in this jstudy. CHAPTER II ! | THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN THEATRE, ! 1850-1895 I While El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles (Town of the Queen of the Angels) remained distant from the rest of the nation, the United States by the mid-nineteenth century I had expanded its frontiers far beyond the Mississippi River. And while the 1,610^" inhabitants of Los Angeles— a curious ■mixture of Spanish, Mexican, native Californian, and Ameri can cultures— were still presenting religious pastorales in 'the Plaza on Main Street and crude, amateurish dramas in the Ihaciendas of the wealthy rancheros, the American theatrical tradition was almost a century old. The arrival of the Hallam Company in 1752 had begun the establishment of real theatre in this country. As Hornblow observed, . . . the manner of their organization, the extent i and quality of their repertoire, the general excellence ~ * ~ Los Angeles Times. January 2, 1880. 16 17 of the company marked the first attempt to put drama in this country on a dignified and permanent footing.2 It was in Philadelphia in 1766, some ten years be fore the Revolutionary War, that the first brick theatre, the Southwark, was erected. This was followed by another such permanent structure in 1771 in Annapolis, Maryland. "As early as 1752, Annapolis had a wooden theatre, probably ; 3 built by or for the Murray-Kean Company." In contrast, the first permanent theatre was not built in Los Angeles until i 1870, and the first luxury playhouse was not constructed until 1884. Los Angeles could measure its theatrical his- jtory only after two real estate land booms, the coming of i {the railroads, a population explosion, and the indefatigable i {work and vision of its city-makers. After 1880, the city's i (unique history and its corresponding theatrical history began to intertwine; as the city became "Americanized" and continued to expand and grow, so did its theatrical activ ity, and by the mid-eighties the theatre in America also meant the theatre in Los Angeles. i ] O Arthur Hornblow, A History of the Theatre in Amer ica. 2 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1919), I, 52. ^Alfred L. Bernheim, The Business of the Theatre (New York: Actors' Equity Association, 1932), p. 6. 18 Yet to appreciate fully the development of Los Angeles theatre after 1880, it is necessary to understand some of the early history of theatre in America. As the American history of Los Angeles is measured from the year 1846, the year that the American forces captured the city after the battles of San Gabriel and La Mesa, it would be well to survey the theatre in America from mid-century on- iward. American Theatre at Mid-Nineteenth Century Although the American Civil War was one of the most jdisruptive and divisive periods in American history, its jactual effect on the existing nineteenth-century theatre i was, in Quinn's words, "at first disturbing, but was not of 4 long continuance." The first impulse was to close the ^theatres, "but by 1862 the theatres in New York, Philadel phia and Boston seemed to have been playing to good business !. . . and the Richmond Theatre, which had burned in 1862, was reopened in February, 1863."'* Hughes agreed, and noted | ^Arthur Hobson Quinn, A History of the American Drama from the Civil War to the Present Day, rev. ed. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1936), I, 3-4. Hereinafter referred to as Present Day. ^Ibid. 19 that despite the four years of bitter civil strife and the ensuing national panics, "the third quarter of the nine teenth century was an era of great theatrical activity and „6 expans ion." This seeming paradox is partially explained if one !considers the significant place of the theatre in mid century America. Bernheim, the theatre economist-historian, jreferred to the growth and development of the American the- jatre as a series of "stages," and concluded that I From being virtually a bootleg, under-cover occupa tion in most sections of the Colonies up to the War of the Revolution, the theatre had, even before the end of the first half of the Nineteenth century, j reached a point at which it was beginning to be re- j garded as an honorable profession and a legitimate j business enterprise; and it had become recognized I as an art worthy of serious attention and as an i amusement which might be indulged in with profit and pleasure.^ The first stage of theatrical growth, according to Bernheim, was the nomadic period, "when acting companies were still strolling players and were without a permanent g theatre for a home." This stage blended into the "pastoral g Hughes, American Theatre, p. 169. 7 'Bernheim, Business of the Theatre, p. 19. ®Ibid., p. 20. 20 period . . . in which established companies settled down to 9 develop and cultivate their own territories," and thus became identified with specific theatres in specific com munities . And although the nomadic companies might move into a certain community for a period of weeks, and some times an entire season, before moving on, the established company--the resident company— was associated with theatri- i i leal activity within its own community. The third and final i jstage saw the gradual breakdown of the resident stock com- jpanies and their replacement by the traveling companies. IThe third stage was virtually completed by 1880 and is, in effect, the basis for today's theatre in America. The factor which eliminated the stock system in America was the "star system." The early nineteenth- century star was attached to no permanent company, but was an independent actor who, for a limited engagement, played with a resident stock company in a repertoire of his own j selection and in acting parts chosen by himself. In effect, the star was unattached, a free-lance artist, a rover who jwas independent of the resident stock company. Up until i 182 0, according to Quinn, the number of stars was relatively ^Ibid., 21 small, but Beginning in 1820, a succession of great actors and actresses visited the American stage— Edmund and Charles Kean, Charles Mathews, Junius Brutus Booth, William Charles Macready, Charles and Fanny Kemble, to mention only the greatest. The first native-born stars were Edwin Forrest, who made his stage debut in 1820, and James H. Hackett, whose stage ca reer started in 1826. The height of the star-stock system was, roughly, I I jbetween 1820 and 1860. Commencing around the late sixties i ■and early seventies, the combination system gained a foot- i hold. Fundamentally the traveling combination system was composed of temporary producing units; each was organized for one play only— none was organ ically connected with any specific theatre . . . and the great majority without control over the theatre in which they happen to be playing. Combination com panies, instead of being localized as were the stock companies, are organized in a producing center, gen erally New York City, where they remain while they can attract profitable audiences, after which they ^ visit the available theatres throughout the country. By the late 1880s, few stars traveled alone; and by the I ] A i Arthur Hobson Quinn, A History of the American Drama from the Beginning to the Civil War (2nd ed.; New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1942), p. 203. Hereinafter referred to as Beginning. •^Bernheim, Business of the Theatre, p. 26. 22 1890s, "... the star traveling alone, unsupported by his 12 own company, was a thing of the past." The American theatre had, in effect, become insti tutionalized and a part of the culture pattern in a number of the larger cities throughout the country by the mid nineteenth century. And along with the dynamic expansion and growth of the nation, the theatre also expanded and grew. One of the chief factors in this expansion— for both jthe nation and the theatre— was the rapid building of rail- i roads, especially those leading into the West. "By 1854 i several lines had crossed the Mississippi, and soon the first transcontinental railway would link the East with the 13 Pacific Ccast." Given the new mobility of rail transpor tation, individual stars and later entire companies found it possible to travel between cities hundreds and even thousands of miles apart: j By 1860 there were 30,635 railroad miles in the country . . . as compared to the less than 6,000 miles in the United States in 1849. In 1850 it was impossible to go by direct railway from New York to either Boston or Albany. In 1860 New York had con- | tinuous lines reaching west of the Mississippi.*4 12Ibid.. p. 27. *2Hughes, American Theatre, p . 169. 14 Quinn, Beginning. p. 388. 23 The theatrical "headquarters" during the middle of the nineteenth century was, as it is today, New York City. By 1850 Boston and Philadelphia had fallen behind in their race for theatrical supremacy, although each could boast of several first-rate theatres: i And although such cities as Providence, Baltimore, Charleston, Savannah and Washington provided good ; audiences for visiting attractions, they were unim- | portant otherwise. Chicago was barely beginning its theatrical career; New Orleans was colorful but lim ited; and San Francisco was a wild^west pandemonium ! of tents and wooden saloons. Los Angeles, it might be added, had no theatres in 1850 and jwas not destined to have one for another two decades . | j While the population of Los Angeles was hardly more I than 1,500, that of Manhattan in 1850 was, in round numbers, 515,000. The Bronx had a population of some 8,000; Brooklyn 16 Inumbered 138,000; Richmond, 15,000; and Queens, 18,000. Manhattan alone had six legitimate theatres: the Broadway, which Odell referred to as the "haven of the stars Burton's, the Bowery, the National, Brougham's Lyceum, and the Olympic, home of the national German theatre. In addi- j tion, New York could boast of having Barnum's American *5Hughes, American Theatre, p. 170. ^Ibid. ^ Ibid. 24 Museum (the home of the "Swedish Nightingale," Jenny Lind), the Astor Place Opera House, Niblo's Gardens, Castle Garden, I jTipler 's large music hall, and several other halls occupied by minstrel groups. By the mid-fifties, New York and some of the larger j jcities in the nation had already witnessed the success of an iauthentic group of American theatrical artists: Edwin jForrest, Charlotte Cushman, "Jim Crow" Rice, Joseph Jeffer- json II, James H. Hackett, E. L. Davenport, and Edwin Booth. All of these artists had made their stage debuts between 1825 and 1850, along with a "new" Broadway star, Francis If. Chanfrau as Mose, the authentic American fireboy who i became, in Quinn's words, a well-known American institution: They [the volunteer fire companies] were not only I fire fighters, they were also rude social and politi cal forces, and their methods of dealing with fires were appalling to say the least. Rivalry was keen between the companies, and the first one to reach the scene had to spend time entrenching its position for a siege before it turned its attention to the fire.18 There was opera and ballet at the Astor Opera House, nearly jevery sort of theatrical activity at Niblo's Gardens, and 1852 saw the opening of Wallack's Theatre (the refurbished 18 Quinn, Beginning, p. 305. 25 Brougham's Lyceum), which Odell appraised thus: "Nothing like Wallack’s Theatre had existed in New York previously i ito 1852; nothing quite like it existed after 1880 . . . its ! care for the minutest detail distinguished the management The 1850s in New York City also saw the launching jat the National Theatre of Uncle Tom's Cabin, "the play I which has been given more performances than any play in the i 20 [world." During this decade was also produced the first of the almost endless stream of Dion Boucicault "adaptations," The Poor of New York, as well as "that lugubrious melodrama" ((Odell's words), Ten Nights in a Bar Room. The new Bowery I |opened in the fifties with a seating capacity of over 4,000, I ja fifty-foot proscenium arch, and a stage nearly 100 feet (deep. It was there for the masses: the New York Herald called it the spot where the working boy could find his Ely sium . . . where, for a few pennies, he could get four hours of knights, heroes, distressed maidens, funny servants, and a terrible plot.2^ | 19George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924-49), VI, 212. 20Ibid.. p. 217. 2^New York Herald. June 19, 1859. 26 Acting styles at mid-century tended to be broad, rhetorical, and elocutionary. The newer "quiet style" of Edwin Booth did not gain popularity until after Booth attained stardom in 1857. Up to that time, the emotional style of acting was in full sway. Aside from the legitimate theatrical artists, some note should be made of the bur lesque artistry of John Brougham and the "notorious" Adah Isaacs Menken, whose exploits in Mazeppa were surpassed only by her off-stage adventures with the English poet Swinburne, | the French novelist Dumas the elder, Charles Dickens, and |Mark Twain. All of these stars were first launched on their illustrious careers in the theatres of New York City during the decade of the 1850s . American Theatre in the Sixties and Seventies The sixties were years of historical— if not com- jpletely artistic— importance for American theatre. The sentimental melodrama East Lynne was given its premiere performance at the Winter Garden in March 1863; John E. I Owens first appeared as the Yankee farmer, Solon Shingle, who was characterized by the New York Herald as a "character who makes absurd and ridiculous remarks, but yet has a fund 27 22 of shrewd sense." The three Booths appeared on one stage in 1864, and Edwin Booth was to begin his hundred-night run 23 of the play at that time. This decade also saw the open ing of the San Francisco Minstrels, as well as the begin nings of variety-vaudeville for "family trade." Prior to 1865, variety was so vulgar that its patrons were almost exclusively men; but with the innovations of Tony Pastor, variety-vaudeville (later merely vaudeville) became an American standby. i Of some importance in the American-New York theatri cal season during the late sixties was the opening of the spectacular extravaganza The Black Crook in 1866 at Niblo’s Gardens. The production offered many thrills, but the greatest of all must have been the corps de ballet, "com posed of a hundred pretty dancers clad in costumes that for j 24 the period were daring." The New York Tribune reported that "The scenery is magnificent; the ballet is beautiful; 25 the drama is rubbish." Odell, in his later years, 9 9 Hughes, American Theatre, p . 183 . 24Ibid.. p. 196. 2^New York Tribune. September 14, 1866. 28 referred to this production as "the first attempt to put on 26 stage the wild delirious joys of a sensualist's fancy." Two years later, in 1868, Augustin Daly, in the New York Theatre, produced Under the Gaslight, the first of a long and honorable list of plays in which the hero or hero ine was tied to the railroad tracks just as the express was arriving. Odell reported that "Despite the fact that, on the first night, the machinery of the great railroad scene failed to work properly, the audience held in tense excite- 27 ment, and the play from the outset was a success." The production ran for an almost unprecedented 110 performances. The most momentous theatrical events of the late sixties were the opening of Booth's own theatre in 1869 and the productions of Augustin Daly at his theatre, Daly's Fifth Avenue. Booth’s Theatre was the latest word in mech anical perfection: j Hydraulic rams made possible the use of elevators, on which entire settings were lifted into place on i the stage from the stage below, while the unusually high and commodious stage buildings permitted the ^g flying of drop scenes, complete, taut, and unwrinkled. 260dell, Annals. VII, 114. ^7Ibid.. Hughes, American Theatre, p. 203. 29 Most of the excitement of the season, however, was reserved for Daly, whose venturesome spirit led him to proclaim on opening night that his theatre would be devoted to the "production of whatever is novel and entertaining and un objectionable, and . . . the revival of whatever is rare 29 and worthy in the legitimate drama." Daly and his tal ented company, which included a balance of older and younger actors, specialized in Shakespeare and the "social and domestic" plays of England's Tom Robertson. Although Quinn could write that "Modern American drama begins with Augus- 30 . tin Daly," it was against Daly's "Anglicanism and classi cism" that William Dean Howells would later launch his attack, thus foreshadowing the coming of the School of Realism in the 1880s. Still, Howells' revolt against the productions of Daly, Wallack, and the others was almost a full decade away. The New York Times summed up the theatrical season of 1869 as a decided success: there were twenty-one oper ating theatres in New York, of which four were in Brooklyn. The box office receipts amounted to a little less than 2^Ibid.. p. 204. i ; 30Quinn, Present Day. II, 1. 30 $3,000,000.^ Of this amount, the government took 2 per cent. While New York flourished as the American theatrical center, theatre continued to expand throughout the country, both in the East and the West. The discovery of gold in [California, coupled with the expansion of the railroad into isan Francisco in 1869, were vital factors. Nor was this i | [theatrical activity limited exclusively to the West Coast: jchicago, by 1870, could claim ten operating theatres; Phil- i I adelphia, despite the 1855 closing of the Chestnut Theatre I [ (the "Old Drury" of Philadelphia), still had three active I iplayhouses; Boston had five theatres; Providence and i i Charleston had two theatres each; St. Louis had two first- rate houses; New Orleans had its theatre; Salt Lake City, under the auspices of the Mormon Church, had an imposing theatre seating some 1,500 persons; San Francisco, by 1870, ihad three luxury playhouses; and Virginia City, where the j Comstock Lode was discovered in 1859, could boast of five legitimate theatres and six variety houses. Until the end of 1870, Los Angeles had no real theatre, and what few com panies came to the Southland had to content themselves with 31 New York Times. January 27, 1869. 31 performing in a series of makeshift halls . The period of the late sixties and early seventies also saw the emergence of another theatrical phenomenon in America: the already referred to combination company, and eventually the all-inclusive combination system. Although its effect was at first only insidious, the combination system eventually weakened and later almost completely de stroyed the many resident stock companies which, at an ear lier date, were identified with a particular theatre. With the development of the transcontinental railroad, the groundwork was laid for the traveling star, complete with company, scenery, and managers. Poggi refers to this period as the "time of the economic revolution in the American 32 theatre." Hundreds of independent stock companies dis appeared and were replaced by a few producing units in New York City that sent their theatrical wares to syndicated theatres throughout the country: In the season of 1871/1872 there were fifty permanent stock companies in the larger cities; in 1880 there were only seven or eight. . . . The great stock com panies in New York (Wallack's, Palmer's, Daly's, 32 Jack Poggi, Theatre in America: The Impact of Economic Forces. 1870-1967 (New York: Cornell University Press, 1967), p. 2. 32 Frohman's) lasted a little longer, but they too were gone by the turn of the century. Nobody knows exactly when the actual practice of the "combinations" began; the prolific Dion Boucicault claimed to have sent out the first combination company in 1860 with combination system was not introduced in the United States until 1872, when he returned from England; however, the Jarrett Combination Company was sent out in 1863, and Joseph Jefferson thought that the first combination company was his. Whatever the correct account, Quinn could observe that "In 1872 Lawrence Barrett took his company but not the scenery of his plays, but in 1876, the scenery accompanied the play."^ By the 1876-77 season, "there were nearly a hundred combinations on the road; the high point was prob- 36 ably reached in 1904, when 420 companies were touring." i Significantly, Hewitt devotes an entire chapter to the the atrical phenomenon of the "Resident Company versus the 37 Traveling Star." Many times more than one company would The Colleen Bawn in London. 34 Boucicault stated that the 33Ibid.. p. 6. 34Ibid.. p. 7. 3^Quinn, Present Day. I, 2. 3®Poggi, Theatre in America, p. 6. 37Barnard Hewitt, Theatre U.S.A.: 1668-1957 (New 33 take to the road with an especially popular play; in fact, during the 1882-83 season, there were a total of fourteen separate "duplicate companies" performing Steele MacKaye's Haze1 Kirke. One of these companies played in Los Angeles, which by 1876 could finally boast of its railroad link with San Francisco and by 1882 had obtained a direct transconti nental railroad link with the eastern United States . The Emergence of the Eastern Regisseurs: The Eighties As the American theatre began to be identified with and localized in the city of New York, there emerged a group of all-powerful New York producer-director-theatre managers: Augustin Daly, Lester Wallack, A. M. Palmer, Steele MacKaye, the brothers Frohman, and later David Belasco. All except Daniel and Charles Frohman were well grounded in some aspect of theatre, as writers, directors, or actors. Even Palmer, although not an actor, director, or playwright, "displayed a natural discrimination . . . and by employing this, was 38 able to assemble an excellent company and staff." Hewitt 39 could well refer to these men as true regisseurs — men York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1959), pp. 161-217. i 3 0 Hughes, American Theatre, p. 207. I 39 j Hewitt, Theatre U.S.A.. p. 187. 34 gifted in every facet of theatrical production. Of all these regisseurs. only Belasco (1854-1931) would survive into the twentieth century. Wallack (1854- 1888), after twenty-three brilliant years as a producing- manager of Wallack's Theatre in New York City, retired in 1887, one year before his death. Daly (1838-1888) ran a series of successful theatres in New York and London before he died. MacKaye (1848-1894), as actor, manager, play wright, director, producer, teacher, and inventor, was associated with both the Madison Square Theatre and the Lyceum Theatre in New York for a period of fourteen years. Belasco alone was destined to carry on the tradition of the regisseur: by 1895 he was an independent producer, and by the turn of the century he had risen to a position in New York which fixed him as the chief rival of the "businessmen in the theatre," the brothers Frohman. The Business of the American Theatre: The Nineties Charles Frohman (1854-1915) and his brother Daniel (1851-1940) were theatrical anomalies. Their entrance into the world of American theatre was via the door of the busi ness world: more specifically, via the box office. They were, in the strictest sense, different from the theatre- 35 oriented regisseurs. and their impact upon American theatre during the eighties and nineties was profound. Both Bern heim and Poggi traced the third and final stage of American theatrical development— that of syndicated centralization— 40 to the Frohmans . Hughes stated that the two brothers brought with them a sort of "newness" in American theatre: . the modern type of theatrical magnate who combines outstanding business ability with a sense of theatrical appeal. Neither was trained for the theatre; they adopted . „41 it as an enterprise." Hornblow traces the rise and fall of the American theatre between the years of the regisseurs and the Froh mans : The early seventies inaugurated a particularly bril liant and interesting era in the history of the Ameri can stage. During the next twenty years— 1870 to 1890— the art of the actor and the company was seen at its best. After that the drama in this country began steadily to decline. Illiterate, sordid traders in the management and the operation of our theatres usurped the place of men of culture and training . . . and gradual deterioration followed as a logical result of rank commercialism.^ ^°Poggi, Theatre in America, p. 27; see also Bern heim, Business of the Theatre, pp. 39, 41, 44. ^Hughes, American Theatre, p. 237. ^Hornblow, History of the Theatre. II, 238. 36 Hornblow's final appeal, a blend of broadside and prophecy, was leveled directly at the newly emerging theatrical businessman: Any art to prosper, must be fostered and practiced by an artist, a person of education and culture— not by a "business" man. Business is business and art is art and "never the twain shall meet." The American theatre awaits a modern Moses to lead the way out of captivity .43 Hewitt, writing some forty years after the despair ing Hornblow, could dismiss the influence of the Frohmans and the Theatrical Syndicate as an episode of only some ten or fifteen years in the over-all development of American 44 stage history. Yet despite Hewitt's rather cursory treat ment of the Frohman phenomenon, both Bernheim and Poggi, in their treatments of the economics of the American theatre, felt that the Frohmans introduced, in Poggi's words, "The 45 industrial revolution of the American theatre." Both of them found a definite pattern of economic theatrical devel opment, a process which they both identified as "decentral ization and centralization," very similar to that of many of 43Ibid. 44Hewitt, Theatre U.S.A.. p. 171. 45Poggi, Theatre in America, p. 27. 37 our larger corporate and social institutions within the United States--General Motors, for example. Bernheim outlined the process of centralization of the American theatre in three steps; the Frohmans were des tined to play a vital role in each of the steps. First, there was the establishment of the theatrical circuit; second, the growth and development of the booking offices throughout the nation; and finally, the actual formation of the Theatrical Syndicate in 1896. Significantly, the brothers Frohman, as early as 1884, had formed theatrical circuits; in 1885 they were booking agents, and by 1896 they were very much involved in the Theatrical Syndicate . All of these steps were in evidence in the Los Angeles theatrical movement between the years 1880 and 1895. The Theatrical Syndicate in the Nineties Created in the theatrical season of 1896 for a period of five years, the Theatrical Syndicate was a part nership agreement among three already existing partnerships — Hayman and Charles Frohman, Nixon and Zimmerman, and Klaw and Erlanger. Actually the creation of the Syndicate was a logical development: "the inevitable next step," in Bern- heim's words, of the process of theatrical centralization: 38 The circuits and the booking agencies that preceded it were its forerunners causally as well as chrono logically. The great Syndicate was nothing more than | a great circuit, a great booking office, formed with | the object of acquiring control of the booking of all the first-class theatres in the country.^6. I The six men who formed the Syndicate were not drawn together iby chance; they gravitated toward each other at a time when trusts were being formed throughout the United States. I Their undertaking offered the promise of financial success and the furthering of the individual interests of its mem- J bers . The "plan" developed by the members of the combine iwas relatively simple: it was to get exclusive booking ^control of all of the important theatres in the country, ; i j " . . . roughly those which could afford a continuous en- 47 igagement of one week or more to a single attraction." To implement their plan, the Syndicate members proceeded to tie up the booking privileges of the major theatres within the larger American cities . The original Syndicate chain in cluded some thirty-three houses, including the Baldwin and the California in San Francisco, which sent productions to the Los Angeles area. The number of Syndicate houses ^6Bernheim, Business of the Theatre, p. 46. ^7Ibid .. p. 47. 39 increased over the years, and could well nave reached the 48 total of 500, as asserted by Belasco. Soon after 1896, the absolute power of the Syndicate was being felt throughout the country, and owners of non- Syndicate theatres were forced to close up or go over to the ! jsyndicate . Despite the efforts of some of the theatrical "Independents," most notably Belasco, the Fiskes, James A. i I IHerne, Richard Mansfield, and James O'Neill, the Syndicate did manage to control the American theatre for almost two decades. Its demise resulted from two factors: the United States courts in 1907 and the formation of a rival booking jagency in 1910 by Lee, Sam, and J. J. Shubert. Soon after, I !the role of the brothers Frohman was usurped by the brothers i I jShubert. I The West Coast representative of the Theatrical Syndicate was A1 Hayman. His role, as it related to the Syndicate in general and to the theatrical activity in Los Angeles in particular, has never been properly evaluated. 49 Most American theatre historians have simply concluded i ^®Ibid., p. 48. 4q Bernheim provides one of the best in-depth ac counts of the Theatrical Syndicate and its members; see especially pp. 46-63. 40 that Charles Frohman was the mastermind behind the Syndi cate, and that Hayman was merely one of the functionaries. i Earnest has rather picturesquely referred to Frohman as ! j"monopolist and dictator" and to Hayman as the "crown i 50 jprince." Yet who actually wore the crown and who was the I iattendant lord has never been fully and definitely estab lished. Bernheim, after an exhaustive study of the Syndi cate and its members, could only conclude that Who actually pressed the button which started the wheels a-turning is somewhat shrouded in mystery. A1 Hayman's fertile brain is generally given credit, and it is not difficult to believe that it was he who approached the others, for Hayman had been for | a number of years in control of a powerful little syndicate of his own in the West, and had a taste of the advantages of monopolistic control. Besides ! he was, from all accounts, a person of the "master j mind" type.51 i | ' It was Hayman who, in 1883, leased the Baldwin The atre in San Francisco, thus laying the cornerstone of his success. By 1893, he either owned or leased some thirteen western theatres, including San Francisco's California The atre. Through his control of this circuit, Hayman could— land did— virtually dictate the bookings in all of the ■^"Growth of Theatre," I, 81. 51Bernheim, Business of the Theatre, p. 47. 41 important theatrical cities between the Missouri River and the West Coast, including Los Angeles during the years covered by this study. Simply put, A1 Hayman was in control of all of the major touring companies leaving Chicago or Kansas City for the Coast, for he controlled almost all of |the intervening theatrical territory. Although the formal Theatrical Syndicate was still i some years away, the San Francisco Examiner, as early as 1 1893, charged Hayman with running some sort of syndicate of his own: Hayman has sought to establish himself as a great manager by controlling the houses along the line of travel to the Coast and forcing a company to accept j his terms at Denver, Portland and Los Angeles. . . . | and is in a position to say to managers of combina tions: "Play with me, or stay at home."^2 I i jThe San Francisco Examiner referred to Hayman's activities as the "Hayman Syndicate"— to which the New York Dramatic Mirror added: "The Pacific Slope is too wide and too valu able a theatrical territory to be held for long in the hol- 53 low of any man's hand." | Hayman's influence upon and domination of the 52San Francisco Examiner. July 28, 1893. 5^New York Dramatic Mirror. August 5, 1893. 42 theatre in Los Angeles were more than casual and, one might safely assume, more than the actions of a "crown prince." At one time or another between the years 1880 and 1895, i Hayman was in a position to dictate managerial and theatri cal policies for either— and sometimes both!— the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre, Los Angeles' only two legitimate theatres until 1893. Contracts were signed i jthrough Hayman; bookings and engagements were made through jHayman, and companies were sent to the city under the aus pices of Hayman. And after Hayman decided in 1893 to book into the Los Angeles Theatre instead of the Grand Opera House, the Grand soon began to flounder until, in 1895, the I once-proud "road show" house was converted into the Los Angeles layover for the San Francisco-based Orpheum vaude ville circuit. The American Drama. 1870-1890 The actual effect upon the development of America's literary drama by first the regisseurs and then the Theatri cal Syndicate is somewhat difficult to assess. As far as production methods and acting principles were concerned, the shows were sometimes brilliant. Quinn could well claim that 43 54 the American theatre had its beginnings with Daly, as could Hornblow, who was to single out the period between 1870 and 1890 as the high point of American theatrical art, 55 as far as acting and directing were concerned. Hewitt could also point to the period as the culmination of the- j jatrical art, concluding that Daly was the "first to stand forth clearly as a regisseur . . . David Belasco and Steele i i j g jMacKaye would soon function in the same way." For these [American theatre historians, it would seem, the theatrical art was defined solely as the art of production methods. The state— and art--of American drama, as drama per se, has [been curiously overlooked. | A much more somber appraisal of both the state of [the American literary drama and the effects of the regis- seurs was voiced by America's leading men of letters of the period. J. Ranken Towse found that "Daly's actual achieve ment has been vastly over-rated": There is little solid foundation for the common be lief that his contributions to the revival, or survival 54 Quinn, Present Day. II, 1. ^5Hornblow, History of the Theatre. II, 238. 56Hewitt, Theatre U.S.A.. p. 219. 44 of literary and poetic drama were of any great or lasting value.57 Towse concluded that "Daly simply would offer attractive 58 spectacle for the substitute of good drama." Henry James, [another nineteenth-century American literary man in search ! of a native American culture, found that I Our drama seems fated, when it repairs to foreign ! parts for its types, to seek them first of all in | the land of "brouge and bulls" . . . there is little real writing in it, but there is an infinite amount of acting and scene-shifting. And William Dean Howells, the relentless pursuer of Realism [in America, stated rather tersely that | | . . . in spite of theatres lavishly complete in stag ing, and with all the sanitary arrangements exemplary— the air changed every fifteen minutes, and artifici ally refrigerated in the summer— we still have no drama.60 All of which leads to the question: What was the status of the American dramatic art and the American ^7Sixty Years in the Theatre (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1916), p. 117. 58Ibid. •^Henry James, "Some Notes on the Theatre," The Na tion. VII (March 11, 1875), 27. 60Wi lliam Dean Howells, "Edward Harrigan's Come dies," The Century Magazine. IX (January, 1887), 41. 45 dramatist in the 1870s and the 1880s? As already stated, the theatre was dominated at first by the managerial per sonalities and "star making" proclivities of the Broadway regisseurs. and then by the economic managerial policies of the Theatrical Syndicate. Neither was particularly inter- jested in cultivating an authentic and/or literary American drama; as a result, the plays presented at both Daly's and jwallack's theatres were predominantly from England, while iPalmer's Union Square Theatre specialized in adaptations of sensational French melodrama. As for the Syndicate, Hewitt i [found that "it had little or no place in its scheme of i 61 jthings for the new and the different." Thus the function of the American playwright in the seventies was reduced to little more than that of an "adaptor." The liberation of the American playwright came about as an adjunct of a larger literary movement in the nation— that of the School of Realism in the eighties. The American Drama in the Seventies As far as the American literary drama was concerned, j the decade of the seventies was dominated by the indefatig able and prolific Irish-Frenchman, Dion Boucicault. No one 6^Theatre U.S.A., p. 257 . 46 seems to know exactly how many plays Boucicault actually wrote or adapted: Moses thought the total was well over 62 400. It was Boucicault who set the Irish models for at least a generation of future American and European melo- j Jdramas, and it was Boucicault who almost single-handedly created the patterns for the artificial comedy of manners 'on the American stage. According to Moses, the total number jof Boucicault performances on the stages of Europe and jAmerica must have been almost 50,000. Estimating that the receipts of each performance averaged five hundred dollars, the public must have paid the enormous sum of twenty-five millions of dollars to witness the plays of one man. J I I It is little wonder that both Moses and Quinn assigned the I j entire decade of the 1870s in the American drama to Bouci- ! !cault. And although both historians might differ as to the range and scope of Boucicault's influence, they could read ily agree upon one thing: that, above all, Boucicault was a consummate stage craftsman who was clever and entertaining in a romantic way rather than original and daring in a i 62 Montrose Moses, The American Dramatist (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1925), p. 167. 63Ibid.. p. 152. 47 realistic American sort of way. Aside from an occasional attempt at native American drama by Daly (Under the Gaslight in 1867 and Horizon in i |1871) , very few dramas were written in America during the jseventies and eighties which dealt with "American issues," i I jwhether on a social or on a personal level. The drama of the day was handled as a commodity, the standard parts com- jing from abroad and fitted— "adapted" was the word most commonly used— for home consumption. Moses called the drama of the 1870s "melodramatic, over-emotional, sensational, !sickeningly sentimental, and written in a dialogue that is jhard to reconcile with one's taste for consistency and 64 truth." Thus the American theatre-going public of the j1870s had to put up with a stage drama that was resplendent j iwith romantic dreams and sentimentalized behavior which, in turn, fostered a certain kind of romantic-stylistic acting, emphasizing emotion over motive, over story, or over "real" human behavior. Yet the fight to depict real people and real human nature on the American stage was gaining momentum. Howells, James, and later Hamlin Garland, James Huneker, and even 64Ibid.. p. 173. Harte Crane, were writing and arguing for an American drama which would attempt to capture the American, and not the i 'European, scene. The cry for realism (Howells insisted that i realism be written with a capital R) had begun and was not |to be denied. The times were changing: soon Ibsen was to ;be heard from, as was Zola, with his violent dislike of sentimentality and romantic heroics . Even Dion Boucicault, in the height of his popularity, saw fit to decry the in fluence of the new realism in America. He deprecated real ism (which he found too "pessimistic"), but somehow or other realized its inevitability: Tragedy and high comedy will always be held in re spect on the future American stage, but it seems i probable that the drama of modern life, the reflex | of the period, will prevail over every kind of enter- | tainment. This drama will present a character, or a group of characters, not a complicated or sensational action, affording a physiological study by way of illustration, not by way of description. As stated, the Stress and Strain period in the American drama was part and parcel of a larger literary "revolution" in America— the sure shift toward realism in |the seventies and eighties . Support for American play wrights came from the American literary establishment, 6^As quoted in Moses, American Dramatist, p. 176. 49 especially Henry James and William Dean Howells. Leon Edel, the foremost authority on James, has argued persuasively that James and Howells between them simply helped America bridge the gap between the Old World and the New: in a word, they introduced modernity to nineteenth-century Amer- | 66 iica. From his editorial chair on the Atlantic Monthly and Ifrom his "Easy Chair" (the name of his column) on Harper's Maqazine. Howells from 1866 to 192 0 preached the doctrine of jtruth to life in all art. It was Howells who encouraged the i t I "newer" American dramatists Howard, Herne, Thomas, and I Fitch; and it was Howells who first saw the peculiar genius |of Harrigan and Hoyt. Upon this relationship, that of the i literary artist and the dramatic artist, Quinn commented: "One of the common errors in the discussion of American drama is to ass time its divorce from the main currents of our literature. The American Drama and the School of Realism The aim of the new literary realists in the 1870s jand after was to focus upon things American in ways which 66 Henry James (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1960), pp. 2, 14, 27. 67Present Day. II, 66. 50 were simple, serious, and above all else real. In short, they wanted to create a new awareness based upon a totally American sensibility, it was little wonder that the Ameri can literary men would condemn the existing drama with its sententious moralizing and its foreign, romantic sensibili ties. The dramatic form which best exemplified the excesses i jof the older romantic tradition was that of American melo- i jdrama, with its easily discernible villains and heroes, its (simplistic system of virtue and vice, and its histrionic I acting style. Yet try as they might, the new realists were j jto discover that melodrama is somehow or other rooted deep i jin the collective psyche of most Americans, and thus they I had to content themselves with a modification of the form rather than its destruction. It was Moses who tried— and ultimately failed— to unravel the complexities of melodrama and its relationship i to the romantic tradition. He concluded that j The student of the theatre will, some day, in deal ing with the melodrama, be forced, therefore, to disentangle its beginnings from the most heightened creations of the Romantic period. He will not dis- ! dain this genre with the Romantic spirit in America.®® Still baffled by the popularity of American melodrama even (LQ American Dramatist, p. 293. 51 in the nineties, Moses could only guess at the relationship of melodrama and the American spirit. As a result, he could ! jfind bits and pieces of the melodramatic spirit in such jdisparate places as the English and French miracle plays, i !the writings of Rousseau, and the eighteenth-century French ! iplays of Pixerecourt and Scribe. Yet as far as American melodrama was concerned, Moses could only hope that it would i !be properly assessed by future theatre historians. Grimsted, a more recent American theatre historian and student of American studies, took up the challenge posed by Moses. Focusing attention upon the great many melodramas jwritten, adapted, and performed in the United States between I I 11800 and 1850, Grimsted concluded that American melodrama— complete with its conventional moralizing, its humanitari- I anism, its optimism, and its stock characters— could, and did, best carry the burden of the burgeoning American 69 Dream. It was no accident that the melodrama was the best vehicle to carry the American Dream to the masses; rather, Grimsted argued, it was part and parcel of a deliberate attempt to educate the masses of nineteenth-century America gQ David Grimsted, Melodrama Unveiled: American Theatre and Culture. 1800-1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 9, 18, 21. 52 in the ideals of the newly-emerging nation. And what way to better display the American Dream, along with its ideal ized types, than on the boards of the American playhouses? Another of the contemporary students of American jmelodrama is Rahill, who extended the investigation of the I jmelodramatic mode and spirit from the middle of the nine teenth century (Grimsted's stopping place) to today's movie ! 70 houses and television studios. It was Rahill who differ entiated between the orthodox, "classical melodrama" (his words) of Pixerecourt and the "romantic drama or melodrama" (again his words) of the nineteenth century, which somehow Imanaged to incorporate a vast assortment of ideas and be- I I jliefs, including those of the American Dream. At first aimed primarily at the "gallery gods" on a broad, popular ilevel, melodrama came of age, so to speak, when its heroes, heroines, and villains began to tread the boards of the uptown two-doliar playhouses: Melodrama spilled over into the theatre at large, especially the theatre of the middle classes. Here, reacting to the audiences of greater sophistication, 70 Frank Rahill, The World of Melodrama (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1967), pp. 27, 91. 53 it underwent a change as the Nineteenth century moved into its second half ! Yet this shift from popular-theatre melodrama to uptown-theatre melodrama was a slow and gradual process. Rahill, with the assistance of Grimsted, was able to iden tify certain earlier prototype plays that were able to pene trate into the collective imaginations of the nineteenth- jCentury American theatre-going public. The plays which j ire late d to the American West, the multitude of Uncle Tom's i ------------ i Cabin plays, and the "delirium tremens" plays (especially The Drunkard) were already well established by the fifties and sixties. It was also during this period that, in Ra- hill's words, the "virtue-in-the country, vice-in-the city" device became a standard element of American melodrama; soon thereafter the American big-city type began to be cast as the villain. And if the uptown houses would not capitalize upon these new types, complete with their realistic scenes iof big-city life, at least the humbler houses, which catered to the broader, popular audiences, were ready to accept the challenge. While the two-dollar houses (the "two-dollar" i and the "twenty-five cent" division is Rahill's) could claim 71 Ibid., p. xv. 54 to attract "better audiences" and "better plays," the twenty-five cent houses sought to appeal to less discrimi nating and more popular tastes. Thus the twenty-five cent houses could produce sensational melodramas, romantic melo dramas, and/or any sort of military, Western, rural, or big- |city melodramas, which were usually associated with America. iRahill found this uptown-downtown theatre separation one of jthe more discernible elements of the American drama during ;the latter part of the nineteenth century. It is also a pattern which developed within the Los Angeles theatre move ment and which, to date, has gone unnoticed. | I | The American Romantic Tradition Although the reformers of American melodrama con tinued their assault, there still existed an American i romantic tradition during the last two decades of the nine teenth century. It was centered about the more universal t themes of the heroic tradition and could trace its begin nings to the greatest period of the romantic tradition on jthe American stage, the years between the 1830s and the j j1860s: These actors turned frequently to Shakespeare or to other English or even to continental drama, but their biographies reveal their constant search for American 55 72 playwrights who could furnish them with materials. The actors whose talents lay in the romantic field included the self-styled "romantic tragedians" Richard Mansfield; Robert Mantell, Otis Skinner, Bandmann, Lawrence Barrett, E. M. Sothern, and Tommaso Salvini. The "emotional actres ses" included Julia Marlowe and Clara Morris. The plays in jwhich they acted were a mixture which included everything j |from the Arthurian romance Pendraqon (1881) to the "psycho- i ;logic" (sic) Dr. jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1887), the blank-verse ipoem Judith (1893), and the novel-turned-stage-play, Little t Lord Fauntleroy (1885). The American "Downtown" Drama in the Eighties and Nineties While the more legitimate— the two-dollar— houses i i |were being confronted by the demands of the new realists, and while the romantic drama was undergoing something of a Irevival, the more popular downtown theatres, less inhibited by literary restrictions, could afford to probe the follies jand foibles of Americana in the comic mode. Whereas critics i jdisagree as to the precise beginnings of realism in the American drama, most of them are in complete agreement as to 72 Quinn, Present Day. I, 200. 56 the impact and the importance of the zany sketches and later full-blown farce comedies of Edward Harrigan (1845-1911) and Charles Hoyt (1859-1900). Hughes referred to Harrigan as the "Farceur of the Melting Pot," the playwright-actor - director who i caught with shrewd realism and sympathetic understand ing the racial values of the New York Irish immigrant, j the German, the Negro, the Italian . . . and played | them off against each other . . . and so created a real, fundamental aspect of American life.7" * Moses saw fit to deal with Harrigan and Hoyt within a larger framework, that of the "Comic Spirit" as a whole. |In this context, Moses related their brand of humor to that I j |of Aristophanes; Howells, who also felt that the humor of Harrigan and Hoyt was traditional in nature, traced it back to the comedies of Goldoni. Wrote Howells: . . . Mr. Harrigan accurately realizes in his scenes what he realizes in his persons; that is, the actual life of his own city . . . his is the art of Goldoni . . . and the true work of true American comedy.7^ In a word, Harrigan and Hoyt utilized the very sinew of lAmerican life; their materials were racy, big-city, first- i 7^American Theatre, p. 286. 74 "Editor's Study," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, V (July, 1888), 29. 57 hand, and almost Dickensian. Harrigan, in his series of American farce comedies from Old Lavender (1877) to The Last of the Hogans (1891), and including the Mulligan Guard series, was able to focus humanely and warmly upon the attitudes and posturings of jthe turn-of-the-century American. And although Hoyt's satire was stronger than that of the gentler Harrigan, Hoyt could still inquire humorously into many national questions: ! . . . he ridiculed American congressmen in A Texas Steer (1894); he played up the suffrage movement in A Contented Woman (1897); he lampooned the temperance movement in A Temperance Town (1894),7^ Hoyt wrote in his prefatory note to A Brass Monkey, one of his most popular farces: j "A Brass Monkey" is a somewhat desultory reference ! to a variety of subjects having no particular rele vancy to what little plot there may be in the play. There is an endeavor to make a little mild fun of the 1001 petty superstitions of the day which everybody derides and secretly believes in, more or less ,7^ While the sketches and farces of Harrigan and Hoyt drew large popular audiences to Harrigan's downtown theatre, jthe uptown theatre audiences were viewing plays based on 75 Moses, American Dramatist, p. 286. 76Ibid. 58 foreign tastes. Hewitt found that while Daly's was the fashionable theatre in the eighties, . . . the repertory represented the tastes and the ideals of the moneyed class, but it did not mirror that class. At the unfashionable theatre at about the same time . . . Edward Harrigan was presenting J plays which were based directly on contemporary j lower-end and middle-class life in New York City.77 I Faced with this sort of theatrical dichotomy, exemplified iin the locales as well as the subject matter of the uptown- jdowntown theatres, Howells and James deliberately went about i ithe task of reshaping and refitting a "new" sort of drama, one which would realistically mirror American life. i | At first, Howells and James thought they could im- i i jprove the quality, and so create a more meaningful American I drama, by simply inducing the American men of letters to write drama. But America's literary men, despite their mastery over other literary forms— especially the novel — met with only limited success when they tried their hand at the drama. Although Howells did write some admirable one- act farces, and although Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and Henry jjames did write plays, ". . . their success in most cases lay rather in the providing of dramatic material than in the 77Theatre U.S.A.. p. 246. 59 78 shaping of it." What was needed in America was a group of theatrical men, rather than purely literary men; both James and Howells came to realize this as the years passed. It was probably as critics and spectators that Howells and James served the American theatre best in the late years of the nineteenth century. Both had a keen sense of theatre; above all, they brought to the stage a strictly i jliterary analysis— albeit, at times, not a theatrical anal- jysis--of what they saw. It was Howells who "recognized in I Herne the pioneer realist of the American stage; it was he who lauded Harrigan for his vaudeville of low life; it was he who gave courage to Clyde Fitch when the critics were i j 79 jhitting him hard." Soon Howells and the rest came to see i that the American drama needed the kind of playwrights who could best reconcile the differences between the old and the new, between the uptown and downtown theatres and, what is even more important, between the literary and dramatic art forms that were soon to be caught up in the tides of the School of Realism. The first of the American dramatists who could 78 Moses, American Dramatist, p. 186. 79Ibid., p. 185. 60 capitalize on those dramatic traditions and institutions from which he sprang, and who could bridge the gap between the playhouses, was the already mentioned Bronson Howard (1842-1908). From Saratoga (1870) to Kate (1906), he tried to bring American drama to the American soil. Although he |was an admirer of Ibsen's deftness in handling plot, he could never quite see the positive intellectual worth of i jlbsen; yet it was Howard who, almost single-handedly, cre- ated a market for his dramatic wares . He was a man who "swung the pendulum across the dial of contemporary life, 80 and reflected the phases of contemporary society." Ironi- i jcally, Howard's greatest success, Shenandoah (1889), was i i Sco-produced by A1 Hayman and Charles Frohman of the Theatri cal Syndicate and brought fame and fortune to all three men. j The American Drama in the Nineties It was Bronson Howard, the dean of the American idrama, who led the way for other dramatists: James A. Herne (1839-1901), Augustus Thomas (1857-1934), and Clyde Fitch (1865-1909). Herne, the advocate of a new sort of stage i realism, represented, in Moses' words, "the most original strain in the American drama of his day": 80Ibid.. p. 204. 61 . . . in the midst of Romantic, melodramatic, and old-fashioned tragic conceptions— which then found favor in the eyes of the American public— [he] put j his ear close to the heart of the common life, and | drew from the most ordinary circumstances the stark | poetry of a simple, fundamental existence.®^- I Herne 's finest drama, the moody and realistic Margaret I Fleming (1890), was considered something of a forerunner of Ibsenian drama in America. Thought of as a "bold" play by Imost of the theatre-going public, it finally "arrived" in ^Chicago some seventeen years after its first private and unadorned performance in Boston's Chickering Hall. Garland reported that the play "clutched the heart. It was common; jit was pitilessly plain; it was ugly, but it was true, and i 82 lit was irresistible." I ! The most significant plays of Thomas and Fitch were written after 1896, during the period of the Theatrical Syndicate. As a result, Hornblow could identify both these playwrights with "the industry of theatre" and as "box 83 office dramatists." Moses also felt that both Thomas and Fitch suffered i |as playwrights because of their association with the 1 81Ibid., p. 179. 82Ibid. 83 ° Hornblow, History of the Theatre, p. 273. 62 Frohmans and the Syndicate: In a period when American drama was possibly at its lowest ebb, Charles and Daniel Frohman occupied commanding, almost dictatorial positions. . . . They looked for the sure-fire thingj if some playwright met with success, he was sought after in the compe titive market.®^ Fitch and Thomas did meet with success as playwrights, al though Moses would grant them only a certain superficial I ingenuity, marked with a brilliant handling of external Sdetail and little else. i Quinn, on the other hand, felt that Thomas and Fitch . . . simply depicted certain forms of American thought, with a sympathy and an art that have won them wide recognition . . . whose plays are con structed with the finest skill and are provided with well-rounded characters who speak that clear straight forward language which is so economical of the hear ers 1 attention.®-* And while Moses could decry Fitch as a mere user of the j techniques of the well-made play, Quinn could overlook this weakness, concluding that: l For while others wrote historical plays and vivid i melodramas at the turn of the century, his contri- | bution to our drama lies primarily in the portraiture [ of American men and women, prevented by their social OA ° Moses, American Dramatist, p. 228. ^ Present pay. I, 263. 63 inhibitions from frank expression of their complete natures, but presenting in the constant struggle a drama quiet, so restrained in power that his own generation mistook its fineness for weakness.®® In a word, the American drama was beginning to come of age, despite the fact that Rahill saw fit to dismiss both Thomas and Fitch as conscientious workers within the larger frame- 87 Jwork of "the melodramatic spirit." It was William Gillette, with an able assist from the earlier Edwin Booth and Steele MacKaye, who welded the Irealism of the new acting style to the realism of the I jemerging native drama during the eighties and nineties. I Gillette was concerned with action which sprang from the playwright as the creative artist, not just from the in dividual interpretation of the actor. He was equally con cerned with on-stage action which revealed character rather ,than with stereotyped "modes" of idealistic behavior: j . . . Gillette saw the decline of the older school j of acting and the rise of the more repressed and delicate art of the theatre. He recognized that an actor cannot be absolutely true to nature, but that he must constantly study, not simply reproduce the words of the text, but rather to place himself in 86Ibid.. p. 296. 8 7 World of Melodrama, p. 269. 64 88 the mental and emotional position of the character. Rahill, too, felt that Gillette was an innovator on the American stage, but still within the ambience of melodrama: i I "Gillette . . . modernized melodrama, making it plausible, 89 adult, and even intellectually honest." i American Theatrical Stars: Old and New As the nineteenth century came to an end, an un- ideniable trend was emerging in American drama: there was a new spirit in the drama, one which was manifesting itself in new subject matter as well as new acting styles. There |was still a formidable array of "older" stars, American and European, that trod the boards of the American playhouses: Lawrence Barrett (1838-1891), Edwin Booth (1833-1893), Dion Boucicault (1822-1890), John Brougham (1814-1880), Charlotte i Cushman (1816-1896), Edwin Forrest (1806-1872), Fanny janauschek (1830-1904), Joseph Jefferson III (1829-1905), I and E. A. Sothern (1826-1881). The foreign stars that visited the American stage— sometimes quite frequently— ^included Tommaso Salvini (1829-1915), Adelaide Neilson (1846-1880), Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), Lillie Langtry 88Quinn, Present Day. I, 237. OQ World of Melodrama, p. 268. 65 (1852-1929), Sir Henry Irving (1835-1905), Ellen Terry (1848-1928), Coquelin (1841-1909), and Eleanora Duse (1859- 1924) . 1 On the other hand, there were those "newer" stars I who were suddenly thrust into the limelight by the extra- iordinary expansion of the American theatre and the remark able ability of the producer-managers to create a "star." i lAmong this new group of stars that shone in the theatrical !firmament before the turn of the century were Fanny Daven port (1850-1898), Lotta (otherwise Charlotte) Crabtree (1847-1924), Clara Morris (1846-1925), Minnie Maddern Fiske 1(1865-1932), Rose Coghlan (1850-1932), Maurice Barrymore (1847-1905), Georgie Drew (1856-1893), Nat Goodwin (1857- 1919), James O'Neill (1847-1920), William Gillette (1855- 1937), Helena Modjeska (1844-1909), Robert Mantell (1854- 1928), Lillian Russell (1861-1922), Ada Rehan (1860-1916), Julia Marlowe (1866-1950), and Maude Adams (1872-1953). Almost all of the stars, the old as well as the new, managed to wend their way to Los Angeles during the period under consideration. After the railroad linked the city with the East, and after the construction of the Grand Opera House, the West Coast meant a short "season" in Los Angeles. 66 The Emergence of New Dramatic Forms in the Nineties Besides the more standard and legitimate forms (comedy, tragedy, and drama) of theatrical presentation in i the late nineteenth century, there also developed a number of substandard, nonlegitimate forms both in New York and I I ^throughout the nation. Although some of these forms origi- I jnated at earlier dates, it was not until the last two dec- i iades of the century that they were to operate on a nation- i i iwide scale. Hughes listed these new forms as the "... I'Tom Shows' . . . variety-vaudeville, burlesque, and the 90 minstrel shows." Of this group, the Tom Shows, which is theatrical jargon for the many touring companies of Uncle Tom's Cabin, were the only legitimate theatrical production; but, concluded Hughes, "they became so numerous and devel oped such a special world of their own that they must be 91 considered an individual type." The popularity of Tom Shows in America was phenom enal. From approximately fifty touring companies in 1879, "there were between four hundred and five hundred companies 92 in operation by the nineties." Birdhoff listed by name 90American Theatre, p. 300. 91Ibid. 92Ibid. 67 over 135 of the better-known Tom troupes of the 1890s and, at the same time, indicated that this was but a fraction of 93 the total number. By 1895, the "double" idea was in vogue, resplendent with two Topsys, two Evas, two Simon Legrees, and two banjo-strumming Uncle Toms. All of these {companies, complete with assorted bloodhounds, trick ponies, jdonkeys, ornate banners, and pickaninny bands, played every I {sort of theatre, tent, church, hall, and opera house above the Mason-Dixon line, and Los Angeles was no exception. Although there were variety houses in New York as early as 1850, "it was not until 1880 that the first chain jof such theatres was established, and it was a year or two later that the word vaudeville came into the American 94 stage." Whereas early variety catered to an all-male audience, Tony Pastor in 1881 offered a "straight, clean, 95 variety show . . . for family trade." Soon thereafter iother managers began to adopt his policy, and vaudeville was born. In 1885, Keith and Albee, both former circus and museum men, joined forces and began operating a chain of i ^Harry Birdhoff, The World's Greatest Hit— Uncle Tom's Cabin (New York: Vanni Press, 1947), p. 42. ^Hughes, American Theatre, p. 302. ^ Ibid., p. 304. 68 variety-vaudeville houses throughout the United States. So successful was this enterprise that by the 1920s "they con- 96 trolled more than 400 houses in the East and the Midwest." The popularity of vaudeville alone rivaled that of the Tom Shows. Until McLean's study of American vaudeville jas a "symbol of American thought," the chief authority on the growth and development of vaudeville in America was iDouglas Gilbert. However, Gilbert only chronicled the his- itory of vaudeville in America and gave little thought to the reasons for its popularity. It remained for McLean to jattempt to define vaudeville within the contextual framework of American thought: j Through its symbolizing, vaudeville sought to allay | those common tensions among city-dwellers brought j about by their crowded lives, by their growing de- I personalization of their occupations, and by the ero- ! sion of their simple moral values. But the symboliz ing process went even further in pointing out contin uously the positive goals of city life to the dream that someday all of these affronts to sanity and dignity would be dissolved. The Myth of Success was both an escape from the moment and a tangible promise for the future.^7 'whether vaudeville was merely good family fare, or whether 96Ibid., p. 305. ^Albert F. McLean, Jr., American Vaudeville as Ritual (Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1965), p. 15. 69 it was a reflection of the social and economic anxieties of the masses, the fact remains that vaudeville circuits began to develop throughout the country in the 1890s. One of the more important of these circuits was the San Francisco-based i lorpheum circuit, which supplied the talent for the Grand jOpera House— by now renamed the Orpheum— in Los Angeles. And in the late nineties, Martin Lehman, the ex-lessee- I imanager of the Grand Opera House and an important figure in iLos Angeles theatre for almost a generation, left the city to become vice-president of the Orpheum circuit, which stretched from Chicago to the Coast and included a total of jseventeen vaudeville houses. S As did variety-vaudeville, burlesque also emerged as |a standard form of American entertainment when it became a i jwidely distributed commodity during the eighties and nine ties. Sobel, in his study of American vaudeville, traced the source of burlesque back to the Greek comedies of Aristophanes. From there, Sobel concluded that burlesque made its way into nineteenth-century England, from which source the American writers of burlesque (Mitchell, Burton, and Brougham) took their cues: Our mid-century burlesque was, like its European proto-type, a light-hearted "ribbing" of classic 70 plays or serious personalities and events .... It was not until the sixties that legs began to replace wit. . . . The Black Crook, a spectacular extrava ganza of 1866, which in its ballet offered a whole parade of legs, thereby arousing startled indignation in some quarters, but stimulating in thousands of theatregoers and many managers an ardent interest in the theatrical potentialities of the female form.®® I ; The Black Crook, despite its bold departures, was not a burlesque show. The first presentation which combined jtraditional parody with legs came with the engagement of "Lydia Thompson and the British Blondes," an importation from London, which offered a melange of songs, dances, gags, sand impersonations set in the framework of a story taken 99 from Greek mythology. Although one reviewer thought of the British Blondes as "an Irish stew . . . a bewilderment of limbs, bella donna and grease paint, another critic found himself in an audience of "simple and homey respecta bility . . . of comfortable middle-aged women from the sub urbs . . . their daughters, groups of children . . . a few Iprofessional men . . . and a clergyman or two." And as for the talents of Miss Thompson, he remarked: op °Bernard Sobel, A Pictorial History of Vaudeville (New York: The Citadel Press, 1961), p. 21. ®®Hughes, American Theatre, p. 308. 100Ibid. 71 She played burlesque with a daintiness with which few actresses of note are able to flavor their act ing, even in high comedy. She was doing hard work, no doubt, but her heart must have been in it, for she was the embodiment of mirth, and moved others to hilarity by being herself moved. It was as if Venus, in her quality of the goddess of laughter, had come upon the stage. And if there was a likeli hood to Venus in the costume, as well as in manner, I must confess that I saw in it no change to myself I or to any of my fellow spectators, young or old, male or female. | i !At any rate, Lydia Thompson and her surprisingly decorous ] jand modest presentations on the American stage triumphed j during the eighties and nineties. It was not long after I the success of Miss Thompson and her Blondes that several other American burlesque troupes were formed: the most successful of these was the Rentz-Santley shows managed by M. B. Leavitt. Burlesque companies toured the United States for many years and came to Los Angeles time and again after ! j1880. The American minstrel show was also established at a much earlier date, but gained in popularity in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Although already popular by the late 1840s, the minstrel show gained real i impetus in the late 1870s, when J. H. (Colonel jack) *01Richard Grant White, "The Age of Burlesque," Galaxy. VII (August, 1869), 14-15. 72 Haverly, "considered the greatest minstrel manager in his tory, first had his company's big bass drum inscribed with 102 the challenging slogan, 'Forty, Count 'Em! Forty!'" There were many great names in nineteenth-century minstrelsy: McIntyre and Heath, the most famous blackface team in history; Harrigan and Hart, who alternated between iblackface and Irish skits and comedies; Primrose and West; jand the thirty-year veteran of minstrelsy, Lew Dockstader. jit was with the Dockstader troupe that A1 Jolson first put i on burnt cork. One of the more curious aspects of the jminstrel show is that it became a white man's show, despite 'the fact that it owed its existence to the Negro, his color, I I |his music, and his mannerisms: There were a few colored troupes— the first of which appeared in the seventies— but none of them attained the prestige or popularity of the best white compa nies . And, so strong was the blackface tradition of the minstrel show that even the colored performers covered their faces with burnt cork whether they 103 needed it or not. Almost all of these minstrel troupes- both black and white — began coming to Los Angeles in the late seventies and early j j eighties. By the nineties, the minstrel show had reached 102 Hughes, American Theatre, p. 310. 103Ibid.. p. 311. 73 the height of its popularity and started to make way for the onrush of vaudeville, in Los Angeles as well as throughout the country. The Theatre in America in the Mid-Nineties i j Several trends in the theatrical situation in the ! ' United States by the mid-nineties should be noted: in the jfirst place, there were signs of a genuinely American the- jatre. The national spirit was manifesting itself in the iAmerican dramatic art form; I | The manifestations were often crude, and in some in- | stances were mingled with influences from abroad, but they were nonetheless admirable and significant. And they laid the foundations for the work of twentieth- century playwrights, who have brought our drama to an impress ive he ight. I®4 i I Also, by the season of 1895, the American theatre was indeed ■ I "big business." The trends toward theatrical economic cen tralization had taken place during the seventies and eight- i ies; the Theatrical Syndicate of 1896 was merely the for malization of circuit booking methods and practices that had jbeen established earlier. And by 1895, America had seen the development of a distinguished group of native actors and an 104Ibid.. p. 299. 74 equally distinguished new style of acting. So healthy was the American theatrical situation by Il895 that several nonlegitimate subtypes of theatrical i i I (activity were developed, put on rails, and sent throughout I {the country, which by now included a layover at the city of | (Los Angeles. And despite the lean economic years of 1893 and 1894, the theatre in America would weather the storm | J jand could look forward to the year 1896 with optimism, giv- ;ing little thought to the first public projection of flick ering pictures on a screen at the Cotton States Exhibition (in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1895— the terminal point of this i i (study. CHAPTER III THREE DECADES OF CHANGE: LOS ANGELES AND ITS THEATRICAL ACTIVITY, 1850-1880 i The City of Los Angeles. 1850-1880 j While the nation was expanding into an empire which, i jby 1850, would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the t icity of Los Angeles remained remote and unaffected by ! jchange. And while the theatre in America was reflecting the j Icountry's growth and development, Los Angeles had to content i itself with theatrical activity which was primitive and in adequate. This condition prevailed until the mid-eighties, when the first real playhouse was built in the city, for the theatre could develop only as the city developed. Yet the thirty-year period between 1850 and 1880 was an impor- j tant formative period for Los Angeles as well as its the atres . Founded in 1781 by a group of retired soldiers from nearby San Gabriel Mission, "El Pueblo de Los Angeles passed 75 76 its first fifty years in insignificance."1 The early cul ture of the city was Spanish-Mexican; its society and econ omy were basically feudal and vested in the great sprawling ranchos and their baronial overseers, the rancheros. Their primary source of wealth was cattle raising, and each rancho, in typical feudal fashion, was virtually self- i 'sufficient. Even when the American invaders waged war in {California in 1846, the southern California area remained jpredominantly one vast cattle ranch. i I , It was not until the 1848 proclamation of Richard B. I Mason, California's first governor, that Los Angeles would first feel the privileges— and the restraints— of American nineteenth-century Manifest Destiny. Declared Mason: From this new order of things there will result to California a new destiny . . . and instead of revo lutions and insurrections, there will be internal tranquility; instead of fickle and vacillating policy, there will be firm and stable government . . . the choked up channels of trade will be opened, and the I poisoned fountains of domestic faction forever dried i 2 up.-6 In a word, Governor Mason simply extended the American Nadeau, City-Makers. p. 2. ^-Robert M. Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles. 1850-1930 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 12. 77 "system" to the then-extant California "system," which was still feudal in nature. As a result, the once self- sufficient ranchos began to give way under the new thrust of American economics, complete with assessments, punitive fines, and taxes. For the United States Government, the practice of i raising revenue by taxing property was already an estab- i jlished practice; but to the rancheros in the Los Angeles jarea, it was something new and different. Assessments on 3 ^pastures "rarely exceeded twenty-five cents an acre"; but when charged against estates of 10,000 and 20,000 acres, whose proprietors had never before been compelled to market i i their produce, they were considered by Californians "burdens 4 which our people are poorly able to bear." This initial American step— that of taxing the ranchos in 1849— might well have been the first step in the breaking up of these ivast holdings, which was virtually completed by 1880. It is this thirty-year period which almost all of the major California historians have seen fit to identify as the |"American period" in the history of southern California.^ 3Ibid.. p. 13. ^Ibid.. p. 14. ^John walton Caughey, California (New York: Pren- tice-Hall Publishing Co., 1940), pp. 407-462; see also The actual dissolution of the great ranchos was brought about by a variety of factors: a series of floods, droughts, land booms, and depressions. And it was during this 1850-1880 period that Los Angeles was transformed from a sleepy, isolated community of 1,610 inhabitants in 1850 to a city of businessmen, merchants, manufacturers, and real estate agents in 1880, with an energetic, striving popula- g jtion of some 11,183. Curiously, the actual effects upon the city of the Gold Rush in the fifties and the Civil War in the sixties were rather slight. Isolated even from its northern Cali- j ifornia neighbors, Los Angeles reacted to these events, in jWillard's words, "as little more than a reflex action."^ jwillard, the early historian who later became secretary of |the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, concluded that "Los Angeles will remain Queen of the cow counties . . . until j Robert Glass Cleland, The Cattle on a Thousand Hills (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1941), pp. 240-248; McGroarty, California of the South, pp. 210-214. 6U.S., Bureau of the Census. Tenth Census of the I * " United States. Vol. XIX: Social Statistics of the Cities (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1887), 779. 7 Charles Dwight Willard, The Herald's History of Los Angeles City (Los Angeles: Kingsley-Barnes and Neumer Co., 1901), p. 270. 79 g it can attract and support a larger population." What the Gold Rush and the Civil war did do for southern California, however, was to create a sudden and mammoth market for cattle and sheep, thus temporarily "saving" the ranchos. Yet economic reverses and flagrantly squandered profits stripped the rancheros of their momentary luxury, and sev eral were forced to sell their ranchos at a fraction of their values. A group of California rancheros wrote to [Congress in 1860: Some, who at the time had been the richest landowners, today find themselves without a foot of ground, liv ing as objects of charity— and right in view of the ! many leagues of land with many a thousand head of cattle they once called their own.^ i I American ranchers and moneylenders, in the sixties, began to purchase these estates at public auction and pri vate sales. Yet these Americans, financed in the main by San Francisco capitalists, also tried to maintain the |ranchos for cattle and sheep raising, while patiently wait ing for a rise in the price of beef. It was at this time that a series of natural catastrophes precipitated the collapse of southern California's rancho economy. 8Ibid., p. 272. ^Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis ^ p. 17. 80 Late in 1861, unusually heavy winter rains flooded the region, damaged much property, and destroyed some stock. Although most of the ranchers remained calm, there followed !in 1862 an abnormally long dry spell which lasted until i i1863-64. The Los Angeles Southern News remarked that "Fam- i i jine has done its work, and nothing can save what few cattle (remain on the desert California ranches, while the Los J I Angeles Star observed: "In passing over the plains, it is jsad to see the number of dead cattle; while those that sur vive present an appearance, such as to produce sympathy for the suffering of the poor dumb animals."11 Once again the I j jmoneylenders foreclosed on delinquent mortgages, "and the sheriff sold estates of nearly 10,000 and 20,000 acres for 12 delinquencies of thirty and forty dollars." Nadeau re ferred to the 1863-64 period as the "Years of the Great Drought . . . when thousands of sun-bleached caracsses lit tered the hills . . . and Los Angeles, having experienced something of a limited growth, was now paralyzed by the natural disaster."1" * ^ Los Angeles Southern News. October 14, 1864. •^Los Angeles Star. September 28, 1864. ■^Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, p. 17. 1 ^ ________ Nadeau, City-Makers , p. 3.____________________________ 81 Possession of the ranchos now passed on to a few prominent Los Angeles and San Francisco capitalists. Some tried to maintain their holdings as residential estates; but most, whether as individuals or in syndicates, began to consider the now-American ranches as the basis of economic jenterprise. As a result, the new owners of the ranchos started to engage vigorously in competitive agriculture: Some ranchers concentrated on goods not susceptible to spoilage and inexpensively shipped by sea. James i Irvine and the Bixby brothers . . . sent their wool I by water to San Francisco, Boston, and New York. . . . ! Others, impressed by the availability of farmland at low prices, resorted to large-scale production. . . . | Still others cultivated crops which flourished nowhere in the United States but in southern California.^ Other American ranchers tried to escape the fate of their predecessors not by more efficient production, but by the subdivision of their lands. Spurred on by the migration to the West after the Civil War, some of the ranchers began ;to offer their land for sale in twenty-, forty-, and eighty- acre plots. One observer noted that . . . they [the ranchers] are beginning to see that men and women are more profitable than cattle . . . j that 500 families on the fourth of a 40,000 acre tract ! it more than doubles the value of the remaining twenty. ^Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, p. 18. ^ Los Angeles Express. June 14, 1877. 82 By 1877, according to the Los Angeles Express, there were "but a few of the old ranches that had not been cut up in Los Angeles and vicinity."16 While the once-sprawling ranchos were being thus fragmented, the "center" of Los Angeles was still little more than an alley extending a block from the Plaza to the head of Los Angeles Street at Arcadia. Nadeau described the central portion of the city in the late sixties as follows: Center of El Pueblo's "Barbary Coast" was an alley extending a block from the Plaza . . . and was re ferred to as Calle de Los Negros, or Nigger Alley. By the late 1860s it had become a continuous line of adobe saloons, brothels, and gambling dens, filled with drunken Indians, Mexicans, Chinese, and Ameri cans .... The pedestrians on the ungraded streets . . . sank ankle deep in summer dust or winter mud. . . . boots and shoes, fruits and vegetables, dead dogs, cats, and chickens littered the streets and burdened the air with their stench. . . . Flocks of sheep and bands of horses, churning up the choking dust, were no uncommon sight in the late sixties . . . while the town was serenaded every night by a distant chorus of dog yowls. On busy Commercial Street the narrow walks were rendered almost impassable by the boxes piled in front of the stores . Along Main and Spring Streets, the future theatre district, a pedes trian could watch a rough-and-tumble combat . . . or a sidewalk cock fight. Thus isolated from the outside world except for the 16Ibid .. July 2, 1877. ^7Nadeau, City-Makers. pp. 4-6. 83 sidewheel steamer Orizaba. which made its uncertain way between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the inland Coast Line Stage Company, Los Angeles remained stagnant until 1868. That year produced another gigantic flood, one of those historic disasters from which Californians measured their early history. A great many of the northern Califor- i inia farms were washed out; and rather than start anew, many jof their proprietors decided to invade the "cow county . . . 18 iwhere water was a blessing instead of a curse." In re- isponse to this influx, many more of the southern California [American ranchers went seriously and diligently into the jbusiness of real estate subdivision. One of the first of the large ranchos to undergo subdivision was that of Don Abel Stearns, who also figured prominently in the theatrical history of Los Angeles . At first Stearns sold parcels of his own land in 1868; then, a few years later and with other owners, he formed the Los Angeles and San Bernardino Land Association, which disposed of some 177,000 acres between jSan Pedro and San Bernardino County. j As the American ranchers began to subdivide their 18Ibid.. p. 10. 84 lands, there developed a new breed of professional men in the Los Angeles area: the real estate "boomer." A mixture ! of almost unbelievable naivete and shrewdness, these men began systematically to advertise the glories of southern California to the rest of the nation, and later the world, lit was from these boomers that Los Angeles took shape, for they alone could bring the city what it needed most— people. Southern agent for the Stearns ranchos and dean of ithe early city boomers and boosters was Robert M. Widney. Arriving almost penniless from Ohio in 1868, Widney began |by publishing the Los Angeles Real Estate Advertiser, a |"two-column, eight-by-thirteen inch paper distributed free I to hotel guests and other newcomers to the city. It was the 19 first of southern California's 'boom' publications." Through the energies of Widney and other boomers, . . . land sales in Los Angeles jumped from $40,000 per month in January 1868 to $200,000 a year later. Land values, too, were soaring at the rate of almost 200 percent a year. One large tract, which originally sold for $10,000 early in 1868, brought $25,000 by J anuary, 186 9.2 0 Under this steady invasion of the Southland, Los Angeles County's cultivated land expanded from less than 19Ibid.. p. 13. 20Ibid.. p. 14. 85 2 0,000 acres in 1868 to more than 35,000 acres in 1869. During the two years in question, the county's voting regis tration and school enrollment indicated an increase of al- 21 most 50 per cent. The newcomers to southern California soon discovered the truth of what the local boomers and 'boosters had claimed: that almost any product of tropical or temperate zones could thrive in the lower counties-- jbarley, corn, oranges, grapes, walnuts, potatoes, anything ;from honeybees to tobacco plants and including silkworms. By the early 1870s, Los Angeles could boast of a wide di versity of crops and a seemingly never-ending series of I jmarket seasons. Announced Widney: j In January the orange season begins, followed by the Spring wool clip; next comes the Summer grain season, I and then the Fall wool clip, and finally the grape harvest to round out the year. It was small wonder that the railroad link between San Francisco and the rest of the nation in May 1869 had little | effect on the citizenry of Los Angeles. Soon, they felt, their day would also come. Although Los Angeles had to wait until 1876 for its 21 Los Angeles Times. January 2, 1884. 22Nadeau, City-Makers. p. 15. railroad link with San Francisco, and until 1882 for its own transcontinental link, the far-sighted Phineas Banning j jpioneered the building of the Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad as early as 1869. From this date on, Los Angeles had a direct railroad line to its only deep-water harbor in jsan Pedro where cargo and passengers could await "Steamer ;Day" to San Francisco. These were the traveling conditions jthat were in store for those sturdier theatrical companies jthat braved a visit to Los Angeles before 1876. And prior to Banning's "Iron Horse," wary performers on their way to Los Angeles had to contemplate a wearisome and often dan- I jgerous overland journey, it was little wonder that few i jperformers would venture south from San Francisco, much less Jwest across the dangerous Arizona territory. j I During the late sixties, "El Pueblo, hub of the Southland's real estate boom, saw its acres of groves and fields expand, saw eucalypti rise in long and stately 23 rows." Its streets took on new life, its stores began to enjoy a certain amount of prosperity, and many of its ear lier boomers and boosters became civic leaders. Soon almost all of the adobe homes and buildings began to make way for 87 American Yankee buildings of wood, brick, and mortar. While early Californian Sarah Bixby-Smith lamented the passing of 24 an era, the Los Angeles News could proudly proclaim: "From every side the sound of the saw and hammer and the 25 clinking of the trowel comes pleasantly to the ear." From a mere handful of 1,610 inhabitants in 1850, Los Angeles had igrown to 4,385 in 1860, a leap of 172 per cent. By 1870, |the city boasted some 5,728 citizens, up another 27 per cent 26 jfrom the 1860 census figures. Fogelson found that the majority of the newcomers were Midwesterners, proud of their 27 Yankee heritage. Soon brick fronts and iron facades had !almost replaced adobe walls. i The character of the American transformation of Los Angeles was best revealed by the occupations of the new comers. Unlike their predecessors, the Americans during the sixties and seventies worked as grocers and druggists, re tail and commission merchants, painters, plumbers, carpen ters, and masons, physicians and attorneys, bankers and 2^Adobe Days (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press, 11925), pp. 21, 72-74. 2 5L o s Angeles News. January 19, 1869. 26 Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis. p. 21. 27Ibid. 88 realtors, manufacturers of brick, millers of flour, and 28 distillers of wine. The expectations of these Americans also differed from those of the early Californians: They were not only accustomed to higher standards of personal comfort and public convenience, but, as most of them had consciously chosen to work and live in Los Angeles, self-interest and civic pride dictated | that their anticipations justify their actions.^9 jit was just this sort of civic pride that foreshadowed the jbuilding of the Grand Opera House in 1884; and it was this isort of pride that caused one visitor to the city to remark: "They believe their city and county to be the choicest part jof the earth, and are determined that no one shall have it ! 30 in his power to point out where it is wanting." Despite the fact that the year 1871 was marred by the tragedy of the Chinese massacre, which resulted in the jwanton murder of nineteen Chinese and one American, the Los Angeles city-makers (the term is Nadeau's) began to open jbanks, establish fire companies, found newspapers, and build schools. It was no coincidence that William Abbott, in a jspirit of optimism and pride, had built the Merced Theatre l 28Ibid. 29lbid. o O ''John Russell McCarthy, California: Land of Homes (San Francisco: Powell Publishing Co., 1929), p. 34. 89 the year before. Although small and with extremely poor acoustics, the Merced— an American-type theatre— managed to attract a few of the better companies from San Francisco. The hotly-contested railroad subsidy election was held in 1872, and the Southern Pacific Railroad was finally jgiven the right to lay track into the city, which it com pleted in 1876. One of the reasons for the delay was the Jdrilling of the 7,000-foot San Fernando Tunnel, which was |not accomplished by Frank Frates and his army of Chinese i I coolies until 1876, a scant two years after the capture of the last of the Mexican banditos, Vasquez, in the house of Greek George. It was on September 5, 1876, that Charles at Lang's Station in Soledad Canyon, thus finally linking jthe northern and southern parts of the state. Spurred on by the announcement of the railroad hookup with northern California, Los Angeles reacted with another of its famous land booms— one which drove the popu lation up to 11,183 in the late seventies and early eight ies. The increase in the rate of city growth was over 95 31 per cent from the 5,728 inhabitants in 1870. This Crocker pounded the last— and golden— spike into the ground 90 particular boom occurred in the early seventies, and among the boomers was the California Immigrant Union, which acted as the general sales agent for railroad land sales . The Union undertook to publicize and sell the almost 11,000,000 subsidy acres--most of them in the southern part of the state— granted to the Southern Pacific Railroad by the United States Government for railroad construction. J Taking its cues from the successful advertising [campaigns of the earlier real estate boomers, especially I Widney, the California Immigrant Union went to work in ear nest in the early 1870s. The Union's first publication was ! a !1 About California and the Inducements to Settle There. which was distributed by the tens of thousands in eastern and midwestern states. Charles Nordhoff, the famed novel- ! |ist, was hired to write California for Health. Pleasure and Residence (1873), while Homes in Los Angeles City and County was published in 1874. Benjamin C. Truman, editor of the | Star. wrote Semi-Tropical California a year later, the same year that James DeLong, a Kansan, proclaimed that he "had 32 inever seen a more contented, prosperous, and happy people" in his Southern California for Climate. Soil. Productions. 91 and Health. "Southern California," announced the Los Angeles Herald Handbook of 1874. "is beyond doubt the farmers' 33 Eden." Its Handbook of 1875 claimed that . .in many families a fire is never kindled except for cooking pur poses, the year round"; while in the same issue appeared the admonition: "Don't Fear the Earthquakes . . . a nice harm- i ! Iless shake is a good thing . . . turns our attention from 34 ithings worldly to things celestial." Yet despite all the printed ballyhoo and the impend- I ;ing railroad link to the northern part of the state, the anticipated economic results failed to materialize, and would not do so until the greatest of all nineteenth-century | los Angeles land booms, that of the late eighties. The year 11875 had been a particularly bleak financial year: "San Franciscans had staged a run on the Bank of California . . . and soon the bottom had dropped from the state's financial 35 security." And even though the Los Angeles banking fra ternity declared the solidity of its institutions, there was ! 33 Dumke, Boom of the Eighties, p. 32. 34Ibid.. p. 33. 33Nadeau, City-Makers. p. 127. 92 a run on local banks and, for all apparent purposes, the boom which had begun with the great Flood of 1868 had reached a crisis . By January 1876 the prestigious Temple Bank had closed its doors: "The city, so recently sprouting in size and bursting with a flourishing trade, was now 36 writhing in hopeless stagnation." Reflecting the times, theatrical activity in Los Angeles virtually came to a halt; in fact, the year 1879 saw only two dramatic performances of any sort whatsoever in Los Angeles. The first Los Angeles boom was over, yet the early city-makers knew that their work would endure: In the scant eight years since the breakup of the ranchos, Los Angeles and its countryside had been completely transformed into an American community. The cattle range had surrendered to cultivation, the ranchos had given way to eager Midwestern farm ers ,37 In the city, the low Spanish adobes had vanished and two- and three-story brick blocks lined the streets. In just a few brief years, Los Angeles had acquired its banking sys tem, its water piping, its fire companies, a public library, horsecar lines, four daily newspapers, and a theatre of sorts. The reign of violence was overthrown, and the city's 36Ibid.. p. 211. 37Ibid.. p. 222. 93 new respectability was evidenced in the rise of churches and schools . Its population had more than doubled, its exports had tripled, and its harbor could finally accommo- 38 date a share of the world's shipping trade. An organized real estate profession had been inaugurated and a Los Ange les Chamber of Commerce established. Whereas in 1868 the !railroad was still some 450 miles to the north, by 1876 Los | Angeles was the hub of five diverging lines of track: two i ilinking it to the sea, and one linking it to the south. I I Above all, a sense of genuine civic pride had been generated ! jwithin its early city-makers, and the bleak depression years would be weathered. And as if closing off the decade and i burying the first Los Angeles boom completely, ". . .an elemental scourge visited southern California . . . and by 1879 the region was suffering under the worst drought since 39 that which wiped out its cattle industry in 1864." Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles, 1850-1880 As Los Angeles began to show signs of coming of age j jin the three decades between 1850 and 1880, so did its the atrical activity. As far as its history was concerned, the 38Ibid.. p. 236. 38Ibid.. p. 94 city underwent a distinct process of Americanization which eventually swept away most vestiges of the earlier Spanish, Mexican, and native California culture. From mid-century on, the uniquely American Midwestern culture inexorably changed the destiny of Los Angeles. A similar pattern can be discerned in the theatrical growth and development within Los Angeles, one which roughly parallels the city's economic and sociological growth. As with the city's growth pattern, the theatre in Los Angeles developed in a series of three stages . First, there was the Spanish-Mexican period, when all theatre in Los Angeles was directly related to the culture of Spain. Performances were in Spanish and were given in and around the Plaza. Occa sionally Spanish-language theatre would be performed in the home of a wealthy Spanish aristocrat. An American-Spanish period followed, one vdiich lasted roughly from 1850 to 1870. During this period the theatre in Los Angeles was closely associated with the for tunes of two American rancheros, Don Abel Stearns and Don Juan Temple. Actual theatrical performances were few and far between; the "theatres" were little more than converted halls. An occasional second-rate company would appear, and some admission was charged. 95 With the building of the Merced Theatre in 1870, the final stage— the American period— began. An occasional I first-rate company would come to the Merced Theatre which, although inadequate by modern standards, could still boast a small auditorium, four boxes, a bit of scenery, and dress ing rooms for the actors. As the Merced Theatre fell into 'disfavor, the Turnverein Hall, a converted social hall and i jgymnasium, carried on the tradition of Americanized theatre, ithe final stage of development. Although makeshift, the Turnverein Hall managed to function as a real theatre: it attracted many more first-rate companies; it employed the- jatrical managers; it had something of a theatrical season, i I and above all, it gave Angelenos their first real sense of theatre. The culmination of the final stage came in 1884, when the Grand Opera House, the first of the elegant play houses, was built. iThe first stage; the Spanish-Mexican period Since the old Los Angeles Plaza (in constant use (from 1774 to 1817) was used as the setting for frequently repeated rituals and processions, the Plaza might well be referred to as the first theatre in Los Angeles. Created by Father Junipero Serra in 1774, the Plaza had a center 96 area which was surrounded by building lots: On three sides of the plaza were the house lots . . . | fronting on the square. One-half of the remaining | side was reserved for public buildings, a guard 1 house, a town house, and a public granary; the other half was an open space .4® After the Flood of 1815, a new Plaza was laid out in i t 1817, the very one which still exists today on North Main iStreet. Soon the Spanish grandees built their haciendas I i i around the square, and "More than the first, this second ! Plaza was the setting for gay fiestas, civic parades, and 41 church processions." Among other rituals was the cele bration of Corpus Christi, complete with a processional jaround the Plaza. There were also the Patroness Day cere- I I monies, and the Los Pastores. or pastoral plays, which were presented yearly at Christmas in the homes facing the Plaza. I There were also military ceremonies in the Plaza: the last military pageant was held when Stockton's army of |600 men entered the town, marched up Calle Principal to the music of "Yankee Doodle" and "Hail Columbia," and then parked in the public square. i A form of native Californian theatre also existed 40Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 22. 41Ibid.. II, 242. 97 before 1848. J. E. Lawrence, in a series of articles for Golden Era in 1855, mentions that "There had been a theatre of some sort in which the Mexicans and the native Califor- 42 nians of the place amused themselves." Earnest later 43 identified this theatre as that of Don Antonio Coronel. j ! The second stage : the American-Spanish period i | It was in 1848 that Don Antonio Coronel built, at a icost of some $5,000, an addition to his home which faced the i Plaza. Actually little more than a hall, the covered stage had a proscenium, a drop curtain, and an auditorium which could accommodate 300 persons. The pit was open to the sky, while a balcony provided privacy for the ladies; the level 44 floor was also used for dances. Given here were a series of performances by the I I officers and men of Colonel Stevenson's regiment of New York ^Volunteers in the spring of 1848, the same year that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, ending the Mexican- American War and ceding California, along with other j ! 42 J. E. Lawrence, Golden Era. April 15, 1855, p. 4; the entire series included articles published on April 15 and 29 and May 13, 1855. ^Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 42. 44Ibid.. I, 51. 98 territory, to the United States. Earnest referred to the Coronel Theatre as "the first American Theatre in Southern 45 California where there were paid performances." Use of the theatre continued through the first few jmonths of 1849. An evening's entertainment might include j some sort of melodrama and afterpiece farce; a sample bill [was The Idiot Witness (melodrama) and Bombastes Furioso | ’(farce). All the performances were in English. Some Spanish drama was given between 1852 and 1854 at the rear of the home of Don Jose Vincente Guerrero, off jthe plaza. On a level floor and with a pit and "corridor," the hall was used on Saturday and Sunday evenings . Plays were directed by Don Guerrero; the "theatre" also advertised ‘ ‘ superior music," and, at times, gave balls I | One of the more interesting structures in the Los Angeles area, although not used as a theatre, was the Round House, or Garden of Paradise, on Third and Main Streets. [ Very much like San Francisco's Russ Gardens, the Round House was, strictly speaking, a beer garden. Its importance to jthe theatre in Los Angeles is that for over twenty years 45Ibid., p. 52. 4^Los Angeles Star. November 21, 1852. 99 (1858-1879) it was the amusement center for the large German settlement in Los Angeles, the Teutonia Society. Originally built by Ramon Alexander during the southern California cattle boom of 1849-1855, the structure served as a residence until purchased by George Lehman. i jLehman spent two years improving the house and grounds: . . . it soon resembled the Garden of Eden. . . . He built a labyrinth of arbors, which were soon covered with a profusion of vines and roses. . . . He also built concrete statues of Adam and Eve, as well as the Serpent ,47 The grounds were so large that they could accommodate 26,000 t j jpersons . The Round House was voted the official headquar- jters of the Teutonia Society in 1859; but by 1860, the Society split and one segment left the Round House. By May !l880, the Round House had become a school, then a lodging i J Ihouse, and then a resort for tramps, finally disappearing completely in 1887. The first of the city's makeshift "theatres" were those of Don Abel Stearns and Don Juan Temple. Obviously engaged in a race as to which would be the first to build a i public hall, Temple and Stearns were to play vital roles as 47J. G. Layne, "Annals of Los Angeles," California Historical Society Quarterly. XIII (September, 1934), 331. 100 "theatrical angels" for the city of Los Angeles. Americans both, Temple and Stearns came to Los Angeles prior to 1830, married into Spanish gentry, and entered into a great many civic and community affairs. It was Stearns who was forced to subdivide his large land holdings in the sixties. Temple j jwent on to become, among other things, president of the Los 'Angeles Library Association. | Actually, the "theatre" of Don Abel Stearns was |little more than one of the two large halls on the second floor of his two-story brick building on the southwest cor- 48 jner of Los Angeles and Arcadia Streets . The larger of the two halls was named Stearns' or Arcadia (after the block in I iwhich it was built) or the Teutonia (for the Teutonia Soci ety, which used it from 1859 to 1872). After splitting from Jthe Round House group in 1859, a smaller group of Turners (the Anglicized name of the Society) began to meet at Stearns' Hall on Tuesdays and Fridays of each week. The competition between Temple and Stearns as to which would build the first large public hall was won by jTemple, but only by a slight margin. The Temple Market was not fitted out as a theatre until February 1860, some eight 48 Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 62. 101 months after Stearns' Hall had gone into the theatrical business, using the Arcadia Block upper floor in July and August of 1859: "Before the second story of the Arcadia Block was completed, a minstrel company, called the Califor nia Minstrels came to town. Everybody was anxious to at- 49 tend." Thus Earnest found that "though the Temple Hall was the first theatre equipped to house American profes- I jsional companies, Stearns' Hall really was the first Ameri- Ican commercial theatre in Southern Calif ornia. From 1860 until the Turnverein Hall was opened in 1872, the German Teutonia Society used Stearns' Hall for business meetings, balls, gymnastic exhibitions, festivals, concerts, and amateur dramatic performances. On other nights it was rented by Catholic, Hebrew, Congregational, Episcopal, and other community benefit groups. In 1860, there were no professional shows at Stearns' Hall; all of the shows were performed at the Temple I Theatre. Through 1866, all of the productions given were of an amateur variety. Then in February 1866 the Tanner Family jtroupe, a kind of stock-and-variety company, played one-act 49 Los Angeles Star. September 22, 1859. SOEarnest, "Growth of Theatre," II, 363. 102 farces at Stearns' for five months, usually twice a week: From this time until December, 1870, a thin trickle of inferior companies stopped there; the Linden Extremes (variety, 1866); Blaisdell and Pixley troupes (variety, 1867); the Wiltons (first dramatic company, 1867); Pixleys, and San Francisco Minstrels (1868); and San Francisco Minstrels and Wizard Morey (1869).51 ! By 1871 Stearns' Hall was playing a minor role in Los Ange- iles theatrical life, for the Merced Theatre opened December i ! 130, 1870. Stearns' became a skating rink, a dancing acad- i jemy, and a lecture hall. By 1883 the Arcadia Block had ■slipped into mercantile use, and the days of Stearns' Hall |as a theatre were over. I \ I j The troupes and performers at the Temple Theatre included the Metropolitan Minstrels (1861), armless Nellis (1862), Courtier the Magician (1863), the Polyorama (1864), I the California Minstrels (1865), and three separate minstrel groups in 1867, the Chatwick Minstrels, the McGinleys, and 'the Gordillos . While Los Angeles had to content itself with this type of entertainment, San Francisco's Tom Maguire, ;some 450 miles to the north, was featuring productions that included Adah Isaac Menken, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean, John McCullough, Frank Mayo, the Booths, Joseph Jefferson, 103 Lawrence Barrett, Madame janauschek, and Madame Helena Modjeska. Los Angeles needed a genuine playhouse— of this there was little doubt. And it was under these conditions that the final stage— that of the American period— began to take shape in El Pueblo. Once a legitimate theatre was 'erected, no matter how small and inadequate its facilities, j jtheatrical activity began to expand. The first of the jsmaller theatres was the Merced Theatre; as for the Temple i jTheatre, the landmark was sold in 1890, and a new building jwas under construction on the site by 1892 . I I t I | The third stage: the American period Still standing today next door to the Pico House Hotel and across from the Plaza, the Merced Theatre was officially opened on December 30, 1870. It was built as a combination home-business-theatre by William Abbott, impor ter, repairer, manufacturer, upholsterer, coffin-maker, undertaker, and dealer in furniture. The theatre was named | jfor his Spanish wife, Mercedes Garcia, who, according to Workman's account, furnished most of the capital for the 104 buxlding. The Abbott family, which included some nine chil dren, lived on the third floor of the structure; the theatre occupied the second floor, and the first floor served as Abbott's business quarters. A sign with "Merced Hall," ^similar to the sign over the Pico House, was placed on a shield near the top of the fa£ade. There was a "drop cur- jtain, on which was painted an Italian landscape . . . de scribed as beautiful. Drapes were of red plush edged with gold fringe."55 Although Earnest and Yaari could agree on the number jof boxes at the Merced Theatre as four, on its level audi torium, and on its dressing rooms, the two could not agree upon the size of the stage. Earnest gives two accounts: "The Merced with a 35 x 25 foot stage, four boxes, two ! 54 dressing rooms, and board benches, could accommodate 400," and later: "The stage (18 x 12), dressing rooms and four boxes were diminutive."55 Yaari resolved this discrepancy by personally measuring the dimensions of the Merced Theatre ’ ®2workman, City That Grew, pp. 189-193. ^Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," II, 369. Ibid. ^ S 3 Ibid. 105 and concluded that "... actual measurements of the build ing are 37 1/2 x 90 feet . . . and it would seem likely that the Merced had a 35 x 25 foot stage. Los Angeles could now boast of its first real the atre, although it was a far cry from the more luxurious houses that would be built a scant decade later. Yet prog ress was being made, and no longer would the occasional I i iitinerant traveling company have to play in the makeshift jarrangements of Stearns' Hall or the Temple Theatre. The Season of 1871 at the Merced Theatre j The flower of Los Angeles ' citizenry appeared for the opening of the Merced Theatre . The ceremonies included a speech by Judge O'Melveny and a concert by the Twenty- First Regimental Quadrille Band from the Drum Barracks at Wilmington. Prices for the occasion were $5.00 and $10.00 for private boxes, $1.50 for orchestra chairs, and $1.00 for the parquet.^ The first professional engagement at the Merced Theatre was the nationally famous McKee Rankin troupe from ■^Moshe Yaari, "The Merced Theatre," Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly. XXXVII (September, 1955), 198. 57Los Angeles Star. January 2, 1871. 106 San Francisco, which included "clever Kitty Blanchard . . . 58 and a company of twenty-four." Direct from Maguire's Opera House, with Maguire listed as "proprietor" of the Merced Theatre, the company played during January and Feb ruary. Admission was "$1. for dress circle and orchestra; I 59 1 75* r for parquette, $5. for the boxes." A reminder that the predominant language in Los Angeles was still Spanish |was the fact that theatre handbills were printed in both lEnglish and Spanish. i The company's offerings were heavy; they included jemotional melodrama, plays of Dion Boucicault, and the usual I Jaf terpieces . The plays included Little Mother. The Field of Cloth of Gold. Little Barefoot. Fanchon. Rip Van Winkle. Nannie. and Colleen Bawn. Los Angeles was enraptured by the Rankin Company: "The house was crowded by a fashionable audience; the music was good, the arrangements complete, the actors well received, the whole affair a pronounced sue- 60 cess." After the sixth scheduled performance, the company switched to farce comedy with Who Killed Cock Robin?. which I i : Ibid., January 3, 1871. 5^Ibid.. January 6, 1871. 6<^Los Angeles Daily News. January 31, 1871. 107 included "lightning changes" on the part of Miss Blanchard. In April the Carter Dramatic Company arrived from Chicago, the first troupe to travel overland by the Central Pacific i and then come south by steamer. Although not in the same class as the earlier McKee Rankin-Kitty Blanchard Company, i I jthe Carters still presented a fair standard of drama: Lady of Lyons. the domestic melodramas East Lynne. Everybody1s i i Friend. Love in a Humble Life, and Delicate Ground, and the I jromantic dramas Lucretia Borgia and Camille. Tom Maguire sent another San Francisco company, the 'Maggie Moore troupe, in a pleasing amalgam of farce, musical i I lolios, and melodrama (Hidden Hand and Kathleen Mavourneen) . I jMatinees were now advertised with admissions at half price. i ;In June the Nathan Children, "child wonders," came with a i I pleasant array of skits and interludes which included Love in a Tub. Paddy Miles. and The Irish Diamond. In August the Cox and Bates Company arrived for a twenty-day season. The plays given included Robertson's Caste. The Hunchback, the romantic dramas Lady of Lyons and The Stranger. Don Caesar de Bazan. Ingomar the Barbarian, and a dramatic hodgepodge including scenes from Romeo and Juliet and Honeymoon. There were the usual afterpieces: Conjugal Lesson. Toodles. The Married Rake, and Happy Pair. 108 In spite of the attractions at the Merced Theatre, audiences remained sparse, except during the appearances of first-class companies, of which there were few. Faced with I I uncertain travel conditions and poor attendance, the better traveling companies avoided a Los Angeles layover. Of the i [companies which played in the city during the 1871 season, jseven were nonlegitimate: two magicians, three minstrel (Companies, a burlesque company, and a Spanish troupe which igave Spanish-language drama. The Season of 1872 at the Merced Theatre Angelenos had optimistically hoped that their new j |theatre would bring about an influx of first-rate drama, I jbut this failed to materialize; throughout most of 1872 the I |Merced Theatre was closed. Only one company of real merit came in 1872: Signorina Adelina and Senor Albert Frenchel in a musical program. The acoustics in the Merced Theatre were poor and the local press was frankly critical: "It would be difficult to find a room with poorer acoustics, and wherein it is so painful, alike for the artist to per form, and the audience to listen."^1 The same thing was repeated in November: "The acoustics of the hall are so 61Ibid., October 12, 1871. 109 defective that the best voice either suffers a pitiable death by strangulation before it passes the footlights, or 62 is to all intents and purposes stillborn." And this was not the only criticism leveled at the Merced Theatre. The entire operation was something of a family affair: i Whenever something was going on in the theatre there was sure to be a crowd of Abbott children stationed | on the upper stairway, and scurrying across the land ing to take in as much of the excitement as they I could get free. Old man Abbott, thin and of rather nervous temperament, always more or less unshorn and ; unshaven, was apt to be in evidence somewhere about the premises, busy about one thing or another, and Mrs. Abbott, a middle-aged Spanish woman, of dominat ing presence, sometimes appeared and took command of the children.^3 I 1 I Whatever the case, and whatever the reasons, the Merced Theatre offered only a couple of minstrel shows, a 'ventriloquist, and a concert in 1872 . The Los Angeles Star j announced in December that the Merced had been closed for 64 nearly a year. In February 1873 Abbott, fearing competi- |tion from the newly-built Turnverein, which announced that it would also feature a season of drama, did what he could 62 I Ibid., November 14, 1871. f k ^ OJWilliam A. Spaulding, History and Reminiscences of Los Angeles City and County (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Printing Co., 1931), p. 185. ^4Los Angeles Star. December 16, 1872. 110 to improve his theatre. He removed the rough seats, sub stituted arm chairs, repainted the scenery, and cleaned the walls and floors so that "ladies need not be afraid of soil- i 65 ing their clothes." One can only assume that the Merced Theatre was, at best, not the cleanest of halls. I The Season of 1873 at the Merced Theatre After the renovation, theatrical activity increased at the Merced Theatre. During the spring of 1873, the Frank I Wilton troupe, which made a specialty of visiting "interior towns," gave regular performances ranging from comedy to tragedy, leaning heavily upon melodrama, and including in i i jevery performance a concluding afterpiece. There was the | usual Dion Boucicault Irish domestic melodrama (Colleen Bawn and Arrah Na Pogue). a spate of sensational melodramas ] (Streets of New York. The Idiot Witness. and Chamber of Death) interspersed with romantic dramas (Camille. Lucretia I Borgia, and Ticket-of-Leave Man), as well as the American domestic melodramas East Lynne and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In September the LeRoy-Duret Troupe arrived for a three-month season of more melodrama mixed with Shakespeare, farce com edy, and the inevitable afterpiece: East Lynne. The 65Ibid., February 18, 1873. Ill Octoroon. Hamlet. Othello. The Honeymoon (farce comedy), Sin (domestic melodrama), Sorrow and Shame. Leah the For saken. Green Bushes (rural melodrama), Lady of Lyons (roman tic drama), and Lucretia Borgia. In October 1873 Abbott raised the dress circle in jorder to give the spectators "... full view of any part 66 of the house." In November of the same year he opened jhis Theatre Saloon downstairs, complete with scenic wall Idecorations and billiard tables . Doors connected directly i with the adjoining Pico House for the use of hotel guests ^ | The most important theatrical news of the 1872-73 j jseason, however, was the announcement that the Teutonia i Society had decided to leave the smaller Stearns' Hall and build its own hall. With their own $7,000, the Turners opened their own theatre-gymnasium, the Turnverein, on September 22, 1872. It was a large, two-story frame build ing on Second and Spring Streets, "with a 50 x 26 foot hall, 68 and a 20 x 50 foot stage." The amateur German dramatic association, which had begun a regular run of scheduled i ---------------------- j ^Ibid., November 21, 1873. 67Ibid.. November 4, 1873. 68Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 54. 112 performances in January at Stearns' Hall, caused the Los Angeles Star to assert proudly: | Were it not for our German fellow citizens, the drama : would be unknown in Los Angeles. The Merced which once held out such hopes to an amusement-loving people, | has remained for nearly a year with closed doors; and i were it not for the dramatic talent turned out in the I * Turnverein Germania, our plodding lives would never ! once be broken by the polite and refined representa tions of the modern stage With the exceptions of the Wiltons during March and April !1873 and Professor Harmen in July 1873, the i would not be used as a professional theatre And, like the Merced Theatre which preceded [ [Turnverein managed to serve as an important i |in Los Angeles for some ten years, or until I jHouse was built. i The Season of 1874 at the Merced Theatre Reacting to the economic conditions of 1874, theat rical activity was sporadic during that season. "Only four troupes of any importance made the southern slope this 70 _ year." The Fanny Morgan Phelps Company stopped at the J Merced Theatre for two weeks in February and March; they 69 Los Angeles Star. December 16, 1872. 70Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 63. Turnverein Hall until 1874. it, the new interim theatre the Grand Opera 113 presented a repertoire of conventional Boucicault, domestic melodrama, and romantic drama (Black-Eyed Susan, Kathleen Mavourneen. Camille, The Poacher. Leah the Forsaken) and the usual afterpieces . The Templeton Troupe followed with a short season of song, dance, farce comedy, and the inevit able melodramas Fanchon. East Lynne. and Rip Van Winkle. The Florence Kent Combination stayed for a full month in November, performing Caste, Uncle Tom's Cabin. Due1 in the | Snow, and the usual afterpieces . The Murphy and Wallace I Troupe remained for a full two weeks; in all, there were three and one-half months of legitimate drama in Los Angeles in 1874, all of it at the Merced Theatre. I The following nonlegitimate troupes performed during j l 8 7 4 : Marshall's Royal Tycoons (Oriental acrobats), Fanny Marston (vocal), and Little Mac and Jake Wallace (variety) performed at the Turnverein Hall; the Merced Theatre pre sented Griffith the Wizard and the Excelsior Combination in January, Vivian (lighter music) in March, and later in the year the Imperial Chinese Troupe (acrobats) and Madame Inez (Fabrini (operatic selections). 114 The Season of 1875 at the Merced Theatre By the 1875 season, troupes could reach the city of Los Angeles by four separate routes: they could come over land via Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and San Bernardino; they could come from the north by stage via Stockton and ! jthe Tehachapi Mountains or via San Jose on the coast route; or they could take the steamer that had been for so long the ionly means of approach. Once arrived, they could rest at jthe Pico House or the newly constructed Nadeau Hotel, the tallest building in Los Angeles. Until June 1875 fairly competent though small-time [companies continued to come to the Merced Theatre . In February the Vivian Troupe appeared for ten days in a com bination of legitimate drama, comic sketches, and olios: Milky White. Rip Van Winkle. Sims. Dora (both farces), plus the olios Cool as a Cucumber. Cinderella. The Omnibus. and Love in a Humble Life . In May Abbott remodeled the stage j ~ ' entrance, improved the lighting and ventilation, and added a balcony from which "the stage is visible at every 71 [point." The capacity of the house was now 400 persons, but the days of the Merced as a first-class theatre were 71Ibid.. II, 373. 115 over. When originally built, the Merced Theatre was not in the "best" part of the city. The business and commercial district by 1875 was moving west to Main and Spring Streets land south to First and Second Streets. Yaari concluded that | The Merced was in the center of the Los Angeles business district when it was constructed . . . and already the neighborhood had been criticized | for its disreputable character. i iThe local press was openly critical: The streets above and about the plaza, in immediate vicinity of the Pico House, are notoriously infested with shameless bawds. Every house occupied on one j side of Bath Street is, we believe, in the hands of these people . . . lewd inmates, often scarcely half- | dressed, sometimes in disgraceful attitudes . . . often using the foulest language. And not unimportant among these reasons was the fact that I the Abbotts and their brood of nine children lived on the third floor of the building. The 1875 season saw only one other dramatic company come to the Merced Theatre: the Denin-Sawtelle Troupe in a short program of melodrama (Camille. Hunted Down. Rip Van "Merced Theatre," p. 207. 73 Letter to the editor, Los Angeles Star. September 11, 1870. 116 Winkle. Lives of Mary Leigh) with afterpieces . Although legitimate drama suffered during the year, there seemed to be some considerable interest shown in music and nonlegiti mate shows: the Turnverein featured the opera of Sig. Marra |Grand Italian Opera Company in Don Pas quale and excerpts ifrom II Trovatore in May, and Inez and Professor Mulder Fabbri in scenes from Norma and Per Freischlitz in June. The i [Alleghanians presented a one-week program of vocal and in strumental music at the Turnverein Hall in April, followed by Professor Fischer and Jennie Reiffarth during the summer. |The Merced Theatre offered the Singing Vieuxtemps Brothers [in January and minstrelsy in both June and July. Acrobats jappeared in October, while the Wizard Herman came in Novem- jber. Thus ended the theatrical season for the year 1875. i The Season of 1876 at Wood's Opera House (Formerly the Merced Theatre) While the railroad link between Los Angeles and San ] Francisco was finally completed in 1876, the economic de pression within the city discouraged any sort of legitimate Idrama for the year. The Turnverein continued to present opera (the Fabbri Troupe in May and November in a series of performances including Martha. The Merry Wives of Windsor. and Act IV of Rigoletto). minstrelsy, instrumental music, 117 variety, and legerdemain. On September 8, 1876, J. H. Wood took over the i Merced Theatre, painted it, renamed it "Wood's Opera House," and, until December, featured sensational melodrama with drinks served during the performance. George F. Moore and ;Company came in September and presented a season of Mazeppa. The Rifle Volunteer. The German Emigrants. The French Spy. Jack Sheppard, and Leah the Forsaken. Also featured at iWood's Opera House were variety and specialty acts, Swiss bell ringers, and puppetry. As hard times settled in at J los Angeles, the theatre virtually disappeared. Gone were i I the occasional dramatic troupes that played Los Angeles; instead, Angelenos had to content themselves with enter tainment of a lighter sort. The Season of 1877 at Wood's Opera House Reacting to the failure of the great silver mines in Nevada in 1877, the stock market in the West collapsed. In January, all three of Maguire's San Francisco theatres, including the Baldwin, closed. A drought brought disaster I I to the sheep industry in the Southland. There were more hard times: the Los Angeles Express wrote that ordinary 118 74 labor was worth only 90$ to $1.00 a day. The depression continued to be reflected in the theatre: again there was no serious drama in Los Angeles. The theatre-going public wanted to laugh and be entertained. Wood's Opera House featured variety and specialty acts in January, including Comanche Indian Dances, Ella LaRue, banjoist, and Professor Samuel and his dogs. The l i iTurnverein Hall had various variety companies, including jGeneral Tom Thumb and his Wife, acts of wizardry, and three I vocal and instrumental groups. As a result of the general [business conditions, Wood was forced to close his theatre I !in 1877 for a period of several months. When he reopened, Wood's Opera House was strictly a variety house until 1878, when Wood, always just one jump ahead of the sheriff, "re- 75 tired" bankrupt. All the pieces (farces) were American products: Woman's Rights. Patchwork. and The Brook. Oddly enough, the only serious drama presented in Los Angeles during 1878 was by the Spanish-speaking DeMolla Company. The economic depression that had struck Los Angeles jcontinued into 1878. In San Francisco, the unemployed 74 Los Angeles Evening Express. August 11, 1877. ^Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 74. 119 marched to the City Hall demanding work; many feared open rebellion. Benevolent societies set up free lunch stands in the Bay City, while Rodecape estimated that the losses of the three theatres in San Francisco for 1878 were between $120,000 and $150,000.76 The Season of 1878 at the Turnverein Hall Conditions in the Southland were no better. Every where was heard the complaint of "hard times": One company from Tony Pastor's in New York, Madame Zanno's Male and Female Minstrel troupe, folded in May. Wood was forced to close his opera house in June, and the company playing at the time, headed j by George Moore and Myra Halloway, had to give sev- j eral benefits in order to get home.77 i i [The Turnverein Hall struggled through a season of uncer- i jtainties; there were only two legitimate dramatic companies Ithat would brave Los Angeles in 1878. Captain Jack Craw ford, "poet scout of the Black Hills," arrived in January in two "realistic plays of the frontier, " On the Trail and The Plains. Here, for the first time in southern Califor nia, were plays written by Americans, about Americans, with | ----------------------- 7^Lois F. Rodecape, "Tom Maguire, Napoleon of the State," California Historical Society Quarterly. XXI (Sep tember, 1942), 249. 77Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 78. 120 the hero of each an American frontiersman. These plays might very well have hinted at things to come: to date, the only strictly "American" characterization and play was Rip Van Winkle. Soon there would come Frank Mayo in Davy Crockett and Denman Thompson in Joshua Whitcomb, the New jEngland rustic. The Irish-American plays of Harrigan and iHoyt were to follow, as well as the purely American plays [of William Gillette, Steele MacKaye, and Bronson Howard. I jAll of these were to develop within the next ten years. I Nellie McHenry and her Salsbury Troubadours re- jappeared in the spring in more farce and afterpieces (Patch- I work and Hamlet on a String) . Then, in December, the Bert i Dramatic Company from San Francisco came to the Turnverein Hall for a season of melodrama, farce comedy, and after- pieces including Oliver Twist. Rip Van Winkle. Under the i Gaslight. Our Boarding House. and Slasher and Crasher. ‘ There were only three musical groups in Los Angeles during the 1878 season, plus the Lew Johnson Minstrels and El L. Montrose, wizard. All things considered, the 1878 theatri- jcal season, as far as Los Angeles was concerned, was indeed bleak. 121 The Season of 1879 at the Turnverein Hall ! As bad as the 1878 season was, that of 1879 was even worse. There were no legitimate dramatic companies in Los Angeles during the year; first-rate drama was nonexistent. The only theatrical offerings were an August insturmental music evening by Madame Jaffa and the Amateurs, and an jacrobatic troupe in November, both at the Turnverein Hall. I I |By 1879, the old Merced Theatre became the armory for the i jLos Angeles Guards. Angelenos, caught in the middle of a I | depression, were unlikely prospects for any sort of enter tainment . Summary of the Theatrical Years 1850-1880 In summing up the three decades from 1850 to 1880, it is evident that the theatre in Los Angeles underwent a decided change, one which coincided with the social and economic growth of the city itself. From its definitely Spanish beginnings, the theatre in Los Angeles began to Americanize just as inexorably as did the other institutions jwithin the city. The theatre merely kept pace with the fortunes of the city. Despite the depression of the late seventies, the theatre in Los Angeles was to flourish and grow within the 122 next decade. From the crude halls of the earlier Dons to the canvas-covered floors of the Turners and the uncomfort able Merced Theatre of coffin-maker Abbott, these early theatres served the needs of the citizens. The elegant playhouses would come later: what these earlier halls and theatres did was to establish a theatrical sense within a Icommunity that was emerging from its earliest period of i :American development. Somehow, later, a sense of civic ipride blended with the theatrical sense, but not before the theatrical appetites of Angelenos had been whetted by a I string of second-rate companies, itinerant players, ill- j jfitted halls, and makeshift theatres. CHAPTER IV THE GROWTH OF LOS ANGELES AND ITS FIRST LUXURY PLAYHOUSE, THE GRAND OPERA HOUSE: 1880-1884 The City of Los Angeles. 1880-1885 Following the boom years of the mid-seventies, Los j Angeles continued in a state of financial depression until almost 1881 when, according to Guinn, "the building of the Southern Pacific Railroad eastward gave us a new and better market for our products in the mining regions of Arizona and New Mexico."^ After that, "The completion of this road gave us a new transcontinental route, and emigrants began 2 to arrive." A more somber view of the condition of things iwithin Los Angeles is given in an article in the Los Angeles ^J. M. Guinn, "The Great Real Estate Boom of 1887," Historical Society of Southern California Annual Publica tion. I (1890), 14. i ^Ibid.. p. 16. 123 124 Daily Herald entitled "Sober Realism": The Herald first saw the light of day in one of the booms for which Los Angeles county has been famous. Shortly after its birth this journal was compelled to chronicle the disasters which followed the fail ure of the bank of California, which was succeeded by that of Temple and Workman in this city for $1,000,000, the drouth and the smallpox epidemic of 1876-77. As a consequence, the scourge raged in the Spanish quarters with a violence and fatality which it is now hard to realize . As a consequence of all these visitations, financial, zimotic, meteorological, the years between 1887 and 1880 were hard indeed. Our | hard lines were reinforced by the fact that at that time we had no railway connection with the East and we were absolutely dependent for our market on San Francisco.^ i The population of Los Angeles had swelled to over 4 11,000 by 1880, yet despite the efforts of the boosters to jpromote an even greater population, the influx of immigra tion to the city still remained little more than a vision. Of the existing population, FogeIson found that Nearly three out of every four inhabitants were born in the United States, and, unlike the northern Cali fornians, many of them were native Californians. The native Americans came principally from New York, Penn sylvania, Massachusetts, and Maine, and Ohio, Indiana, 3 Los Angeles Daily Herald. January 2, 1880; the newspaper became the Los Angeles Herald on March 23, 1890. ^Los Angeles Times. January 3, 1880. 125 Illinois, and Missouri. The European immigrants were largely English, Irish, German, and French, and whereas Chinese predominated among the foreign- born in the north, Mexicans outnumbered the Euro peans in the south. As a result of the moderate pace of growth, moreover, Los Angeles was not trans formed into a typical frontier settlement.5 The fact that Los Angeles was not a "typical frontier set tlement" is of some importance, for from this population of the city as described by Fogelson came, one might reasonably assume, its theatregoers. And its theatregoers were, in the main, Americans and from the great Midwest. In spite of the lean economic years of the early eighties, McGroarty, a California historian, could earmark the beginning of the 1880s as the "dividing years between the old and the new . . . when Los Angeles finally became g Americanized." Caughey, another California historian, identified the period of the early eighties as "The Railroad Age,"7 while Cleland, one of the state's early chroniclers, identified the period as one which saw the complete transi tion of the Los Angeles area from cattle country to a thr iv ing me tr opo1is: ^Fragmented Metropolis. p. 64 . ^California of the South, p. 211. California; see especially pp. 444-467. 126 The railroad connection . . . broke down the long standing wall of the city's cultural and economic isolation. By 1880 southern California's transition from Mexican cattle frontier to American commonwealth was almost completed.® Despite the long-range optimism of its early boost ers, Los Angeles in 1880 was still rather primitive. One of the better accounts of the actual conditions in the city was jthat contained in the United States Census for 1880: There are 200 miles of streets in the city, 20 miles I of which are paved with broken stone. . . . The side- J walks are of brick, asphalt, wood, cement, and gravel, and the gutters are laid with cobblestones . There is no system of tree-planting along the side of the streets. . . . There are 11 miles of horse-railroads in the city, using 10 cars and 40 horses, and giving employment to 15 men. The rate of fare is 5 cents . The question, "What final disposition is made of the overflow of the sewers?" is answered: "Manuring gar dens, vineyards, and orchards." The principal portion of the liquid household wastes of the city are run into the public sewers, some going into cesspools, some being spread upon the ground in the rear of the houses, and scarcely any going into the street gutters. About 20 percent of the houses have water-closets — 90 percent of these delivering into the sewers and 10 percent into cesspools— while the remainder depend on privy-vaults. None of the latter are water-tight, Q Cattle on a Thousand Hills, pp. 241-242. 127 and they are cleaned out when it is ordered by the health officer.9 The police force consisted of a chief of police, whose sal ary was $125.00 per month, and ten patrolmen "at $75 a month each."10 1 By 1881, Angelenos began to show signs of having i jforgotten their earlier period of economic depression, and the local city-makers made ready for another publicity iassault upon an unsuspecting nation. I ! Actual historical accounts of these all-important jearly years of the 1880s vary. Dumke, a contemporary his- ! torian, has seen fit to assess the economic, civic, and cultural growth of Los Angeles during these years only as it related to the boom years of the later eighties,11 whereas Newmark, a lay historian and early city-maker, : i simply saw the emergence of Los Angeles during these early years as a combination of Midwestern foresight, Yankee ! 12 diligence, and plain hard work. Whatever the source, and Q U.S., Bureau of the Census, Tenth Census. pp. 779- 782 . | ' 10Ibid.. p. 780. ^ Boom of the Eighties, pp. ix-x. ^Harris Newmark, Sixty Years in Southern Califor nia; 1853-1913. ed. Maurice H. Newmark and Marco R. Newmark (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1926)._______________________ 128 whatever the historical perspective, there was no denying that Los Angeles was becoming, in McGroarty's words, a fully "Americanized city." | By mid-1880, Los Angeles could boast of having four separate street railways. The business district, which had joriginally settled around the Plaza, had moved southward to First Street, a distance of some four blocks: | And yet some idea of the backwardness of the city, even then, may be obtained in that, in 1880, on the | southwest corner of Spring and Second Streets where the Hollenbeck Hotel was later built, stood a horse | corral; while the old adobe on the lot at the corner of First and Spring streets, which was later torn down to make room for the hotel Nadeau, was also still there.13 The first cement pavement in the city was laid in Main Street in 1880, the same year that the District Court of Los Angeles was abolished and gave way to the Los Angeles County Court. In that same year President Rutherford B. Hayes— the first United States president to do so— visited ! I I the city, and the University of Southern California first opened its doors: . . . on the sixth of October the college was opened. Most of the projectors were Methodists; and the in stitution, since known as the University of Southern California, became a Methodist college. 13Ibid.. p. 518. 14Ibid., p. 516. 129 And although the year 1881 began with an unseason able snowstorm, it could not detract from the city's cele bration of its first century, 1781-1881. As a spectator, Newmark later recalled with some pride: | Main Street was decorated with an arch, bearing the j inclusive figures, 1781-1881; and the variegated I procession . . . was made up of such vehicles, cos tumed passengers and riders as suggested at once the j motley but interesting character of our city's past, j There were old creaking carretas that had seen ser vice in pioneer days; there were richly decorated saddles, on which rode gay and expert horsemen; and | there were also the more up-to-date fashionable car riages which, with the advent of transcontinental railroading, had at last reached the Coast.15 ;it was also in 1881 that S. A. and M. A. Hamburger opened I their first Los Angeles dry goods store, which later was sold to the May Company interests. Helen Hunt Jackson, of Ramona fame, arrived in 1881, the year that the Southern iPacific Railroad finally made transcontinental connections with two westbound railroads, thus opening up the eastern states as a source of population for the city. Soon after— in 1882, to be precise— the first of the great eastern dramatic traveling companies, the Madison Square Company, entered Los Angeles for the first time. On March 14, 1881, the California State Legislature 15Ibid.. p. 528. 130 provided for the establishment of a Los Angeles branch of the State Normal School, now known as the University of California at Los Angeles. The school officially opened its doors in August 1882, the same year that F. H. Howland, representing the Brush Electric Company, introduced electric i jarc lights to unsuspecting Angelenos: On the evening of December 31st, the city was first lighted by electricity when Mayor Toberman touched the button that turned on the mysterious current. Howland was opposed by the gas company and by many | who advanced the most ridiculous objections: elec- | trie light, it was claimed, attracted bugs, contrib uted to blindness and had a bad effect on— ladies' c omplex ions!^ \ \ The Boston Dry Goods Store opened on the corner of Temple and Spring Streets in 1882; later the name of the business was changed to J. W. Robinson's. And by 1882 the telephone had been introduced in Los Angeles, "the old River 17 Station having No. 1." It was also m this year that Colonel Harrison Gray Otis, an ex-Union officer, joined the firm of Yarnell, Caystile, and Mathes as manager of the Los Angeles Times. A year later Yarnell and Mathes retired, and "the Times-Mirror Company was incorporated with a capital 18 stock of forty-thousand dollars." In August 1882 Nathan 16Ibid.. p. 535. 17Ibid.. p. 536. ^Los Angeles Times. January 2, 1886._______ 131 Cole, Jr. started another afternoon daily newspaper, the Los Angeles Evening Telegram. Already available to Ange lenos were the Los Angeles Evening Express (founded 1871) and the Los Angeles Daily Herald, which was started in 1873. Interestingly enough, Los Angeles also had two French weekly newspapers: L ' Union Nouvelle (established 1873) and Le^ | ~ ~ I j progres. a seven-column paper started in 1882. i [ By 1883, new business buildings were elevating the jsomewhat provincial Los Angeles skyline. Selling out his j freighting business in 1882, Remi Nadeau, the historian's I grandfather, . . . began work at the corner of First and Spring streets on the city's first four-story building, and with the first elevator. The Nadeau Hotel, opened in 1883, soon became the fashionable center of Los IQ Angeles society. ^ 'it was also in 1883 that the last company of volunteer fire men was organized, the same year that ! Charles F. Lummis, long a distinguished and always a picturesquely-recognizable resident, walked across the continent "for fun and study," from Cincinnati I to Los Angeles . . . having made an arrangement with ! the Los Angeles Times, to which he contributed breezy ! letters on the way.^0 l^Nadeau, city-Makers. p. 73. y n Newmark, Sixty Years. p. 541. 132 In the fall of the year the Board of Trade was organized to take over the functions of the Chamber of Commerce, which had passed out of existence some six years earlier. I Seemingly forgotten were the lean years which had preceded the year 1884. The economy of Los Angeles was j jsounder than it had been for years. A civic-minded Ange- i leno— more accurately, a transplanted New Englander, Ozro W. i jchilds— came forward and financed the building of the Grand jOpera House, Los Angeles' first elegant playhouse. Netz, an early local historian, attributed the end of the earlier economic depression to two important factors: the discovery and use of artesian well water for irrigation purposes, and the coming of the Southern Pacific Railroad: j The former made the small farmer independent of the | rainy season. . . . The railroad opening made Eastern ! markets available for this fruit by providing easy means of transportation. Lands available for the raising of fruit rose in value to $150 and $200 an acre for a farm of from ten to forty acres . Without i water and a distance from the railroad land could still be had at prices ranging from $1 to $3 an acre. With the development of the fruit industry, especially oranges, there was a sign of real progress .2^ | Thus filled with a new sense of optimism and civic 2^Joseph Netz, "The Great Los Angeles Real Estate Boom of 1887," Historical Society of Southern California Annual Publication. X (1915-1916), 55. 133 pride, the city-makers once again undertook to advertise the glories of Los Angeles. This advertising now began on i an extensive scale: the best of the citrus crop of southern California was sent to the New Orleans Exposition in 1884 and 1885, where it carried off all the premiums. Soon I afterward, the Board of Trade began to exploit the beauties land virtues of the city: i i Many beautiful lithographs were printed and sent j broadcast over the Eastern part of the United States, ! and newspapers printed beautifully illustrated edi tions on various occasions: page after page of ad vertising and descriptive matter was sent to Eastern magazines, which were read all over the country.^ i I (By the mid-1880s, following the completion of the trans- i jcontinental railroads, the region was so well promoted and jthe East so prosperous that "the travel in the Spring of jl885," one booster observed, "instead of falling off, re mained about the same as Winter, and continued so all Sum- 23 mer." All of this activity precipitated another real estate boom— one which completely overshadowed all previous |booms in Los Angeles' colorful history. 22 Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis. p. 66. 134 Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles. 1880-1883 Although Los Angeles showed definite signs of de veloping as a metropolis during the early 1880s, its theat rical activity— when compared to its other achievements — still seemed somewhat primitive and backward. A series of i newspaper articles in the local papers announced the build- i ing of the much needed first-class playhouse: the Los Angeles Daily News reported that "The Opera House of 1870 ! 24 [was] to be built by the Concert Association"; the Los Angeles Daily Herald printed a feature story entitled 25 "F . P. F. Temple's 2-story 1,800 capacity theater"; later the same paper wrote of "Nadeau's three-story, 1,500 seat 26 hall to be erected at First and Spring in 1882"; and again kn 1883 it featured a column entitled "The theater of Max well and Moore, architects, of 1,2 00 capacity, to be built 27 at Spring and Court." Yet in spite of all the optimistic jeditorial ballyhoo, the fortunes of the legitimate theatre in Los Angeles— until Childs' Grand Opera House was erected i ^ Los Angeles Daily News. January 11, 1876. i ^^Los Angeles Daily Herald. February 26, 1878. ^ Ibid.. June 14, 1882. 27Ibid.. March 31, 1883. 135 in 1884— were vitally and inexorably linked with the make shift facilities of the Turnverein Hall. Originally a combined gymnasium and theatre, the Turnverein Hall stressed practicality and versatility rather than elegance: j The floor of the Turnverein Hall was always covered with canvas, stretched taut and waxed to a shining smoothness, that made a wonderful dance floor. . . . I Supper was served at midnight . . . from the kitchens in the rear. The balcony ceiling was twined with evergreen and asparagus fern. Festoons of greenery | were hung from the chandelier in the center of the room to the corners, and to the balconies, and flowers were everywhere.28 I [Always sensitive to public needs and public criticism, the | jTurners in 1875 had already increased the seating capacity I jof their hall to 500, plus adding a new drop curtain repre- | jsenting a scene on the Rhine. The Turnverein Hall now jrented at $25 .00 per evening. Once again the Turners saw fit to remodel the in terior of their hall, and in 1876 added an area of 44 x 60 feet in the rear (an auxiliary dining room), frescoed the proscenium arch, enlarged the stage, and added scenery at a cost of some $2,000. When the Turnverein Hall reopened it was described thus: 2®workman, City That Grew, p. 213. 136 The proscenium arch is a very attractive work of art. . . . The arched top panel contains a portrait of Shakespeare. . . . The side panels contain rep resentations of two private boxes, with heavy crim son velvet and lace curtains. . . . The whole arch is supported by four Corinthian columns . . . and between the columns are busts of Goethe and Schiller . . . with the dressing rooms, formerly contracting the limits of the stage, removed to the cellar below. More changes were made, including improved acoustics and ventilation and the removal of the gymnasium to a building iin the rear. In September 1881 a new floor was laid, j Of course, judging by modern standards, the Turn verein Hall was inadequate: j The floor was flat, and the seats were ordinary i chairs, with their numbers chalked on the back. . . . [ The chairs were more easily moved to clear a space for dancing, which invariably took place after the atrical performances. Later the chairs were fastened together in rows by strips of wood. The stage was very high. The footlight gas was turned on from without, and the super would sweep his torch across the stage above the jets . When he happened to be delayed or missed his "cue," the house was filled with fumes not notably delicate. The orchestra consisted of piano, two or three violins, guitar i and cornet. . . . Visiting troupes usually brought their own scenery.^ Yet despite its problems, the Turnverein Hall man aged to serve as an important "link" for the Los Angeles ^ Los Angeles Evening Express. October 26, 1876. ^°Los Angeles Times. March 28, 1914. 137 theatre-going public. By the time Childs built his play house in 1884, something of a theatrical tradition had been established in the makeshift hall of the Turners: the first of the "big time" traveling companies played there; the first transcontinental company came there; and the first theatre managers in Los Angeles were employed there. J The Season of 1880 at the Turnverein Hall i i The theatrical season for the year 1880 resembled jail previous years in the City of the Angels: a mixture of jlegerdemain (Professor L. Leotard), musicians (violinists (Camilla Urso and Wilhelmj), and a series of variety acts I [including clever Patti Rosa with Frank Roraback, and Two- j Headed Millie Christine and the Midgets. There was a juve nile edition of H.M.S. Pinafore played by a group of local I amateurs, plus one legitimate dramatic company, that of Nellie Boyd. The Boyd Company played for six days in Octo- ;ber, bringing Angelenos such tried and true melodramas as Rose Michel. Caste. The Ticket-of-Leave Man. Camille. and jthe familiar East Lynne. Each of the productions was ac- i i companied by the usual afterpiece. And although it was a rather undistinguished company of players, the Boyd Company at least pleased the gallery gods: 138 It is said that the "gods of the gallery" are in fallible judges of the merits of a performance . . . that they are nearer to nature than are people of ! more culture. If this be true, and if the boys of Los Angeles are of the genuine type, then Miss Boyd is a great actress . . . for the applause was lib eral.^1 Thus ended the somewhat abbreviated theatrical season in Los Angeles for the year 1880. The Season of 1881 at the Turnverein Hall In 1881 Los Angeles celebrated its first centenary with a variety of processions and addresses in English, Spanish, and French. It was also in this year that the jeasing of the economic crisis in the city gave birth to a ! [spirit of optimism and affluence which spilled over into the year's theatrical activity. Until 1881, most of the companies that had ventured I [into Los Angeles had originated in San Francisco. In 1881, five companies visited the Turnverein Hall: three (the Nellie Boyd Company, the Charles Davis Company, and the Robert McWade Company) were from the East. Furthermore, these companies came by stagecoach, which connected with I the southern route in Arizona. The McWade Company brought in a temperance version ^ Los Angeles Evening Express. October 19, 1880. 139 of the hoary Rip Van Winkle. while the Dutch Yakie Company (from San Francisco) performed the comedy Yakie. Yakie, Yakie in July. James Ward, one of the original members of the company, left the company and returned with his own group of players in September, performing the melodramas Inshavocrue. Ten Nights in a Bar Room. The Winning Hand. The Galley Slaves of Lyon, and the venerable Uncle Tom's Cabin. ! December saw an innovation in the form of an eastern jcombination company which concentrated upon a single play: I iCharles L. Davis in the rustic American comedy Alvin Joslin. Although the combination company had originated some years jbefore, this was the first such group to appear in Los I i Angeles . Davis was followed by the reappearance of the Nellie Boyd Company in a melodramatic repertoire which in cluded Hazel Kirke. Bret Harte's border play M'Liss. Forget- I Me-Not. Fanchon. and Leah the Forsaken. Interspersed throughout the theatrical season of 1881 were the usual variety companies, minstrels, legerde main and wizards, and musical groups— a total of twelve (different companies for the year. The Season of 1882 at the Turnverein Hall In many ways, the year 1882 was one of the most 140 important formative years in the development of Los Angeles as a city and as a theatrical center. The year marked the transcontinental entry of the Southern Pacific Railroad as far as Colton. As a result, nine eastern companies came to Los Angeles, while only two companies came from San Fran- jcisco. Two of the companies were indeed "big time": the William Horace Lingard Company and the Madison Square Thea- i itre Company under the managership of brothers Gustave and jcharles Frohman. The Madison Square Company included the nationally famous Miss E. L. Davenport, Kate Denin Wilson, :Effie Ellser, Charles W. Wheatleigh, and E. J. Holden, and i Iwas greeted as the "best troupe seen in Los Angeles so far. I They played quietly . . . not tearing a passion to tat- 32 ters ." The company played four days in June, the same imonth that Charles S. Wood and John Osborne were appointed resident professional managers at the Turnverein Hall. The metropolitan William Horace Lingard Company appeared in a repertoire of "newer" English domestic come dies: Divorcons. The Admiral, and Stolen Kisses. Angelenos ; liked the Lingard troupe: While the "sets" and stage properties which pertain to the hall Turnverein were not such as to admit of 22Los Angeles Daily Herald. March 8, 1882. 141 an artistic mounting of the play, the appearance of a really metropolitan company upon our local boards, and the luscious fun which was dealt out in gobs were things that were heartily enjoyed by all the old theatre-goers . . . the gags and the by-plays were really first-class.33 The Holmes Grover Eastern Dramatic Company appeared in Oliver Twist and East Lynne. plus the usual afterpieces; i |the Milton Nobles Company brought in some original sketches j(Interviews and The Phoenix), and in April Mrs. F. M. Bates i jbrought her company— which included the ten-year-old Maude 'Adams— south for Fair Week. The Bates Company's selections included the domestic melodramas Pink Dominoes. East Lynne. i jand Under the Gaslight. The Frank Mordaunt Troupe performed in Old Shipmates in October, and the Palmer Stock Company from San Francisco's California Theatre appeared in a series of sensational melodramas which included Lights o ' London land Michael Strognoff. In the Palmer troupe were Joseph Grismer and Phoebe Davis, soon to become famous throughout !the nation. Ethel Lynton headed an inferior troupe in November in Whims. The Fairy, and a burlesque version of Romeo and i Juliet. In December Zoe Clayton returned from Europe in her favorite, Mazeppa. in which she rode her trained horse Gypsy 33Ibid.. April 19, 1872. 142 on the stage of the Turnverein Hall. A total of ten nonlegitimate companies performed during the 1882 season, including the burlesque Humpty Dumpty. three variety companies, two musical acts, two sets jof minstrels, and two wizards, Signor Lorenzo Tamburini and izamloch. There was also a brief flurry of light opera at Wood's Opera House (the former Merced Theatre) which in cluded Girofle Girofla. The Chimes of Normandy, and La Mascotte. All considered, the season of 1882 was by far i Los Angeles' best. An advertisement in the August 1883 edition of the i | los Angeles Times announced two luxury hotels in the city, jboth with baths and hot and cold running water: The Pico House . . . is unquestionably the Largest j and Most Elegantly appointed Hotel in Southern Cali- ! fornia. The Hotel contains elegant rooms in suite or single, and hot and cold baths. . . . Elegant billiard parlor and reading room connected with the establishment. Cosmopolitan Hotel on Main Street . . . with Ample Accommodation for over 300 Guests . . . with an un questionable culinary department. Rates $2., $2.50, and $3. per d a y .^4 And along with the Nadeau Hotel, "the tallest and most pre tentious structure in the city" (four stories and with the 34 Los Angeles Times. August 15, 1883. 143 city's first lift elevator), Los Angeles could now attract eastern visitors in earnest. I I i The Season of 1883 at the Turnverein Hall There was another theatrical first in the season of i |1883: the first special palace car carrying a full theatri- l |cal troupe, Rice's Surprise Party, arrived in February from San Francisco and paid transportation costs of $651.00 to I 35 appear for three nights at the Turnverein Hall. i ' The renowned William Horace Lingard Company returned in February, bringing the comedies Stolen Kisses. Pink Dominoes. His Lordship, and The Parvenu. The Bert and Palmer Combination Company, direct from the California The atre in San Francisco, came back in June, complete with Joseph Grismer, Phoebe Davis, and a box-car full of well- advertised scenery. Their plays included the scenic melo dramas The Red Pocketbook. Youth. Pink Dominoes. and the {"nihilistic drama" Michael Strocrnoff. Grismer and Davies returned with their own troupe in October, again in heavy 'melodrama which included the California idyll Chispa. the i rustic Enoch Arden, the scenic melodrama Two Orphans. and the sensational drama Russ ian Slave. ^ Los Angeles Daily Herald. February 14, 1883. 144 Nellie Boyd and company returned during Fair Week in the fall of the year and played a short season in the Rink Theatre, a converted roller-skating rink. A "Card to the Public" in the Los Angeles Times announced: The RinkI Beginning October 8, 1883. . . . The man- j agement has gone to the expense of fitting up the ! Rink with a stage and an entirely new set of scenery, ; which will enable them to give an entertainment with | all the scenic effects required. Notwithstanding the | expense of fitting up the Rink, the prices of admis- ! sion will be reduced to 35 and 50 cents. i i The plays performed by the Boyd Company included Fanchon and |the old stand-bys Solomon Isaacs. Lucretia Borgia, and East | Lvnne. There were a total of ten nonlegitimate companies I booked in the Turnverein Hall for the 1883 season: two musicians, two burlesques (Humpty Dumpty and Surprise Party). |two variety companies, three minstrel troupes, and the usual I acts of legerdemain and wizardry (Tamburini and Zamloch) . I The Season of 1883 at the Minor Houses One of the more interesting aspects of the 1883 jseason was the opening— and later the closing— of a group of second-rate theatres. Earnest identified these theatres 36 Los Angeles Times. October 2, 1883. 145 as ". . . the me lodeon-type hall, in which the blue haze of smoke, hurrying waiters and the odor of malt was as familiar 37 as the kick coryphees." In October the Perry Brothers reopened the old Merced Theatre with a rather erratic season of variety (combined with drinks) at 15C and 25C; a hall on iSpring Street was renamed the Fountain Variety Hall and offered up specialty acts and variety (including H. L. t jLeavitt's Minstrels) at 15C and 25$; and the already men- jtioned Nellie Boyd Company appeared at the Rink Theatre. The beginnings of a certain theatrical pattern, one which i would carry over into all the subsequent years, was now discernible; there was a definite division of theatrical productions and, one might assume, of theatrical audiences as well. The preferred theatre was the respectable Turn verein Hall, while the less fashionable houses--usually : ! converted halls— had to content themselves with somewhat lesser attractions and lower admission prices. Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles. 1884 The days of the Turnverein Hall as the "legitimate" i I itheatrical house in Los Angeles, however, were numbered. Smarting from the fact that smaller San Bernardino had 37"Growth of Theatre," I, 98. 146 already built an elegant opera house while Angelenos still had to attend the Turnverein Hall, a critic noted: i All of the cities of character or note, from Babylon, j Ephesus, or Damascus . . . have some great, well- appointed place of meeting, where it is considered respectable to go, and an honor to be seen and known. . . . It is time the people of Los Angeles had some common rallying ground, some central point where all ! nationalities could come together . . . a place of beauty, a shrine of eloquence, music, art, science and song. . . . Now is the time to lay the foundation of a national reputation in music and drama in the i i p fair and beautiful city of Los Angeles .JO I ! 'What was needed was an affluent backer, one who would under write the financing of the "place of eloquence and beauty." At last, Ozro W. Childs, a former New Englander and a Los Angeles businessman, agreed to finance the building of the jfirst of the elegant Los Angeles theatres— Childs' Grand Opera House at First and Main Streets. The Grand Opera :House served as the city's road show house for almost a decade, featuring performances by the best stars and compa- nies throughout the nation. During the first part of 1884, while the Grand was still under construction and all of the talk and excitement i t ! seemed to be about the coming new opera house, several mediocre companies visited the Turnverein Hall. The J. S. 38Los Angeles Daily Herald. April 1, 1883. 147 Langrishe Troupe appeared in a season of Rich of New York. Man in a Maze. Divorce, and The Gentleman from Ireland. This was followed by the Louise Rial Company in East Lynne and London Assurance, and then, in March, by fighting John L. Sullivan. i i The City's First Luxury Playhouse: The Grand Opera House I | When the new Childs' Opera House was finally cam- jpleted, A1 Hayman, already allied with the brothers Frohman, came down from San Francisco as temporary manager and pro- jnounced the building "brighter and more comfortable, and a i 39 better house than his own San Francisco theatre." Horse- jshoe in shape, with unobstructed view, wide aisles, com fortable chairs, completely equipped stage, and plentiful exits, it was considered unsurpassed in America. The open ing night Souvenir Program described the playhouse as fol lows : The auditorium . . . has been planned with due re gard to the principles of acoustic science. . . . It is 64 x 72 feet and 45 feet high from floor to ceiling, with a gallery that will seat 700 persons. ! The dress circle will assemble about 700, and orches tra seats about 100, making a seating capacity of 1500 without . . . counting standees. The seats are 3 9 Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 103. 148 all opera chairs of the latest design, with hat racks beneath them. The noise from ushers and auditors is deadened by India rubber matting. . . . The seats are so separated that persons can sit at ease without being crowded by their neighbors, while the tiers are so far apart that one can pass between the seats even when an audience is seated therein. There are four proscenium boxes . . . which have en- | trances from the outside. . . . i | There are 300 gas jets, but in a short time it is in tended that an incandescent electric light will be placed in the ceiling. : The stage, 40 x 70, has a proscenium opening of 30 x 31 . . . and is divided into sections with four . . . slides for opening and lowering scenes. . . . Scenery is worked from the left side . . . by means of ropes and pulleys. There are four sets of double pointed grooves for scenery to run in, and each en trance has the latest styles of wing, bunch and float j lights. I The green room is on the right of the stage, just back of the proscenium. On each side of the stage are six commodious dressing rooms. There will be a ball room floor which will extent over the orchestra chairs to the dress circle. ! It could be reported with some honesty that "O. W. Childs has provided Los Angeles with the finest structure jdevoted to amusement on the Pacific Coast." The cost, ac cording to the Souvenir Program notes, was in excess of $100,000.41 ' ^ Los Angeles Daily Herald. May 25, 1884; the Grand Opera House was demolished in 1936. 41"Program Note," Souvenir Program of the Grand Opera House, May 27, 1884 (Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California) . ____________________________ 149 The Season of 1884 at the Grand Opera House The Grand Opera House opened on May 27, 1884, with the famous French star, Mademoiselle Rhea, in a heavily emotional repertoire which included Camille. Adrienne Le- couvreur. Frou-Frou, and The School for Scandal. Ticket prices ranged from 50C in the gallery section to $1.50 in the dress circle and the parquet sections, with boxes rang ing from $8.00 to $15.00, depending on the attraction and i !the number of seats placed within a given box. The Los ' Angeles Daily Herald reported after the opening Rhea per- I i f ormance: Frou-Frou was listened to last night by a large and interested audience . . . and from first to last there was no relaxing of the strictest attention. . . . She [Rhea] was loudly applauded and frequently called out the second time. ^ After Rhea, the nationally famous and much-married jNat Goodwin arrived for a week of comedy in Hobbies. fol lowed by the favorite California Stock Company, including the fading tragedian W. E. Sheridan, in a series of romantic |dramas which included Ingomar the Barbarian. Louis XI. King of France. King Lear, and The Merchant of Venice. October 42 Los Angeles Daily Herald. May 30, 1884. 150 saw the return of the Grismer-Davies troupe in melodrama: Clare and the Forgemaster. Monte Cristo. The Fool1s Revenge. and The Lottery of Life. The Templeton Opera Company con cluded the month of October in a week of comic opera fea turing La Mascotte. Girofle Girofla. La Belle Coquette, and Olivette. James and Carrie Ward brought a repertoire heavily laden with Irish romances, including Boucicault's Arrah Na i j Pogue and Eileen Oqe. The Kendall troupe followed in De- i jcember, complete with band and an eight-play repertoire consisting chiefly of old, reliable melodramas such as Joshua Whitcomb, "the American pastoral idyll" and M'Liss. Harte's border romance, plus Colonel Sellers. Carrots. Faust and Marguerite. Daughter of the Regiment. Rip Van Winkle. i and an adaptation of the German romance Lorelie. There were only seven nonlegitimate companies in Los Angeles during the 1884 season, including a company of The Black Crook, a variety company led by H. L. Leavitt, and Billy Emerson's Minstrels. In September A1 Hayman gave up jthe managership of the Grand Opera House and was succeeded by William Nannary, who also managed the San Bernardino Opera House and the Riverside Pavilion. 151 The Season of 1884 at the Minor Houses As in the preceding year, the minor houses in Los Angeles would sporadically open their doors for business — and just as sporadically close them again. The Club Theatre (the former Merced Theatre) and the Los Angeles Tivoli (the | jformer Rink Theatre) were two such houses. The programs joffered by these two theatres were based upon popular rather j than sophisticated dramatic tastes. The Club Theatre, where Idrinks were served, offered a mixed bag of entertainment at j |reduced rates— usually 15C to 25<:— including the Bobby jGaylor Company in the farce Gillespie's Troubles and a September performance of The Bov Detective, the "Great Sen sational Drama . . . with new decorations . . . with ele vated seats . . . with new scenery . . . and with a first- 43 jclass vaudeville entertainment." At the Los Angeles Tivoli, where prices also ranged from ISC to 25C, melodrama and drinks were the order of the day. t The Season of 1884 at the Los Angeles Tivoli | Although short-lived, the Los Angeles Tivoli was of real importance to the theatrical situation in Los Angeles. ^ Los Angeles Times. October 23, 1884. 152 Located on Third and Spring Streets, it occupied the loca tion of the Rink Theatre which, in turn, had been trans formed from skating rink to theatre by the Nellie Boyd Com pany during Fair Week, 1883. An advertisement in the Los Angeles Times announced: i I Formerly Skating Rink, Third and Spring Streets . Barrett, Buckley & Co., Props. This commodious place will open on Wed., Oct. 1 as a first-class Family-Resort theatre (a la Tivoli of San Francisco) I 9 All dramas, operas and spectacular plays will be pure ! in tone and worthy of the patronage of any lady or gentleman. It will be impossible for the public to stay away when plays of the first order are produced with all the requisite scenery, music, costumes and • general paraphernalia, and all for the small admis sion of 25$ and 15$ .44 i The season of the Los Angeles Tivoli was short, | lasting only through the months of October and November of 11884. Theatrical fare, which featured "our own Stock Com- I pany, " was heavily weighted with melodrama, usually sensa tional or scenic in nature. October opened with a short week of Rip Van Winkle. featuring the Tivoli Stock Company and Edward Parrett as the venerable Rip. This was followed by M'Liss. which ran for a full week plus a Saturday mati nee ; prices for all seats were 25$. The spectacular 44Ibid.. October 12, 1884. 153 extravaganza The Black Crook played in October; for this production the admission was raised to 50$ for adults, 25C for children. So successful was the production of The Black Crook that it was held over for another four days with one admission price for all, 25C. October ended with the "melo- military drama" The French Spy, with "20 veterans of the ilate war in great battle scenes . . . The most notable ! 45 jscenic production ever given." i November opened with seven days of the "Great scenic production" of The Two Orphans. with Holmes Grover, Jr., Darrell Vinton, Fred Russell, and Percy Clifton, all later to become important in Los Angeles theatre. This was fol lowed by Fanchon. the Cricket, the "Great domestic drama," and the production of Pink Dominoes. which ended the rather jabbreviated season of the Los Angeles Tivoli. Although until now completely neglected, these minor houses, especially the Los Angeles Tivoli, played a vital i role in the development of Los Angeles theatre. In the first place, they reflected the pattern of the theatrical 46 ! "division" which Rahill had observed in New York City. 45"Playbill," November 2, 1884 (Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 46World of Melodrama; see especially pp. 127-141. 154 Like their New York counterparts, the minor houses in Los Angeles dealt in productions which were generally scenic or sensational melodramas, and at popular prices ranging from 15$ to 50$. The more respectable Grand Opera House, on the other hand, scaled the house from 50$ in the balcony to $1.00 in the parquet and the dress circle, with boxes at j$8.00 to $15.00. Of course, prices were subject to change jand depended upon the quality of the performer and company | involved. Again— and this was more true of the Los Angeles |Tivoli than of the Club Theatre— productions generally ran |for a week, while the shows at the Grand Opera House lasted i from two to six days. Since the Los Angeles Tivoli featured its own stock company, it could afford to have longer runs, i jwhile the Grand Opera House, by now the road show house, was probably part of the Hayman-Frohman circuit and thus depen dent on circuit bookings . Consequently, the Los Angeles Tivoli was less restricted than the Grand Opera House and freer to cater directly to the popular tastes of the general 1 jpublie. i While the Los Angeles Tivoli and the Club Theatre were unsuccessful as theatrical ventures in 1883, the Bur bank Theatre, some ten years later in 1893, operated in a 155 similar manner, with much of the same personnel and with some degree of success. But whereas the Burbank Theatre was a true playhouse in every sense of the word, the Los Angeles Tivoli was, at best, a reconditioned and remodeled skating rink. The synthesis of a popular-priced playhouse which I jcatered to popular tastes would have to wait another decade; I jyet, as in the case of the earlier Merced Theatre and the i ITurnverein Hall, the Club Theatre and the Los Angeles Ti- i ivoli, despite their erratic operations, paved the way for jinore stable theatrical ventures in the years that followed. Summary of the Theatrical Years 1880-1884 The five-year period between 1880 and 1884 was in deed significant in the theatrical history of Los Angeles. The period started with a paucity of theatrical activity and no genuine playhouse and ended not only with a play house, but with a great many plays being performed in a jseries of converted halls and skating rinks. What is more important, a division of theatrical tastes and productions, jdiscernible in both price range and theatrical offerings, I was developed during these years, resulting in the estab lishment of what Rahill referred to as uptown and downtown theatres, each with its own audience. 156 If the Turnverein Hall served any function whatso ever during the early 1880s, it was that of awakening in Angelenos an important "sense of theatre." Also, it served ! jas a playhouse which accommodated first-class theatrical I ! italent from both New York and San Francisco. When the | Jtheatregoing citizens began to clamor for bigger and better productions, an elegant opera house was finally built to I accommodate both the productions and the Angelenos' sense iof civic pride. j I , This five-year period also saw the emergence in Los jAngeles of a group of theatrical lessee-managers, whose | jvarying abilities were reflected in the hit-or-miss mana- i I gerial policies of Woods and Osbourne at the Turnverein Hall and the astute business policies of McLain and Lehman at the |Grand Opera House and of the energetic Wyatt at the Vienna Gardens. Not only was the Grand Opera House to become known as the road show house, but the minor houses began to serve a vital theatrical function in the city of Los Angeles, [primarily in their choice of plays and in their maintenance of stock companies. Within these resident companies was developed a group of actors who were later to become iden tified with the theatre in Los Angeles. Although 157 unsuccessful at first, stock companies— sometimes with the very same group of actors— continued to form and dissolve until the early nineties, when the Cooper Stock Company would finally move into a genuine playhouse, the still- existing Burbank Theatre. j Thus ended the theatrical season of 1884. In just ! five years Los Angeles had come into national theatrical jprominence— a far cry from the canvas-covered floors and flowered festoons of the Turnverein Hall. | CHAPTER V I LOS ANGELES IN THE BOOM YEARS, 1885-1889: ! ITS THEATRICAL ACTIVITY IN THE EARLY i BOOM YEARS, 1885-1886 I | The City of Los Angeles. 1885-1889 All the previous growth of Los Angeles was over- I shadowed by the events that occurred between the years 1885 and 1889. Quite possibly these were five of the most im- j 'portant years for the city and its theatrical activity. 1 During this time southern California experienced still an other land boom, this one greater than any that had preceded jit, and possibly the most spectacular and significant for I the city, its theatres, and its playgoers. Along with the sudden and astonishing development of Los Angeles came a j corresponding quickening of theatrical activity. Although this activity slackened as the great boom turned into the great bust in 1889, by 1890 the theatrical economy was strong enough to make its own recovery. 158 159 The Early Boom Years. 1885-1886 The year 1885 began quietly enough; Los Angeles was to enjoy another year of sound, steady economic growth, following a pattern established in 1881. The Los Angeles Times reported: From a census taken last year by the Los Angeles City Water Co. it appears that the population is now over 30,000 . . . an increase of one-hundred j and sixty-eight and a half percent in the past five years.^ |The article then proceeded to list the achievements of the |city: i There were 335 telephone connections and nine elec trical masts. The six postal carriers during 1884 handled some 1,040,724 pieces of mail; the library had 4,000 volumes. There were two National Banks, two commercial banks, two savings banks, two first- i class hotels and five second-class hotels, numerous smaller establishments, lodging houses and boarding houses, fifty real estate agents, seventy-two attor- I neys, bet. seventy and eighty physicians, fifteen drug stores . . . about one hundred grocery stores, and about twenty-five dealers in men's clothings and I furnishing goods. Miles of street have been graded, sewers laid, new streets and avenues opened, and within the past three months two handsome iron bridges have been constructed across the Los Angeles River. There are in the city nineteen school buildings con taining sixty-five rooms. Sixty-six teachers and a ^Los Angeles Times. January 2, 1885. 160 superintendent are employed . . . there being about 4,500 pupils registered. First commencement exer cises were held last June at USC . . . with an en rollment of about 200.2 Property valuations in the city had increased almost five million dollars over the previous year, again a sure sign |of steady, solid growth. j | In 1885 Los Angeles had its first electric streetcar j line. Newmark remarked that | Poles— with huge arms stretching out into the middle of the street and often spoken of derisively as gal lows -poles— and wires were strung along Los Angeles | and San Pedro streets .... A company owned much i land not likely to be sold in a hurry, and to exploit j the same rapidly, the owners built the road.^ This was the same year that sewing was introduced into the public schools of Los Angeles, and Sir Arthur Sullivan, "of ! Pinafore and Mikado fame . . . tarried near the ocean in the 4 ;hot days of August." In 1885 the zanjas. the open water ditches which had served the rustic El Pueblo for domestic i I # land irrigation purposes, were condemned and buried; and m 1885 the first medical school in Los Angeles was founded . . in the house once occupied by Vache Freres, the wine 2 Ibid. ^Sixty Years. p. 546. ^Ibid.. p. 547. 161 makers."5 In the fall of the year Dr. M. Dorthea Lummis, a graduate in medicine from Boston University, organized the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. After an unusually heavy rainfall in the first few days of 1886, Angelenos began to brace themselves for an other onslaught from nature: i ; j The great flood of 1886 reached its first serious ! state on January 19th. All of Los Angeles between | Wilmington Street and the hills on the east side was inundated; levees were carried off as if they | were so much loose sand and stubble; and for two | or three weeks railway communication with the out side world was impossible .6 f The Los Angeles Tribune published its initial copy on Octo ber 14, 1886, and so became the first newspaper to appear in Los Angeles seven days a week. The Los Angeles Times was not to become a daily until February 1, 1887. The Tivoli Opera House, on Main between Second and Third Streets, was erected in 1887: | It presented a curious mixture of Egyptian, East Indian and Romanesque styles, and was designed by C. E. Apponyi, an architect who had come to the Coast in 1870. The stage was the largest, except one— that of the San Francisco Grand Opera House — | on the Coast, and there were eight proscenium boxes. ^Ibid.. p. 551. 7Workman, City That Grew, p. 231. 162 Soon afterwards the playhouse burned to the ground and all records were lost in the fire. Also in 1887, Mayor William Workman began a campaign to pave some of the city's streets. It was during the Workman administration that Main, Spring, and Fort— later renamed Broadway— Streets were paved. The Later Boom Years. 1887-1889 While the city continued to develop at a steady, normal rate, there occurred a series of events— some for- i jtuitous, some intentional— which thrust Los Angeles into a rush, and then a frenzy, of wild real estate speculation. jDumke described the excitement and the temper of the times jas follows: i i ! The greatest and most interesting land boom was that | of the 1880's. Men stood excitedly in line for days i at a time in order to get first choice of lots in a new subdivision. Flag-draped trains hauled flatcars ! jammed with enthusiastic prospects to undeveloped tracts far from centers of settlement. Exuberant auction sales, accompanied by brass bands and free lunches, helped sell $1,000,000 of southern California real estate during the boom's peak year. Unscrupulous promoters with empty pockets and frayed trousers bought on margin and found themselves quickly rolling in wealth, while old landowners who scoffed at the excitement were eventually sucked into the maelstrom and reduced to poverty. Empty fields and riverbeds and tracts of worthless desert land were platted sol emnly into twenty-five-foot lots— and sold. More than two-thousand real estate agents paced the streets of Los Angeles, seizing lapels and filling the balmy air with windy verbiage. Business blocks sprang up like 163 toadstools, and residences sprawled far beyond ear lier city limits. Railroads, formerly sluggish, suddenly traced for themselves with lizard-like speed a complex network of trackage . Schools were so crowded that double-session work had to be planned, and no less than four modern colleges owe their ex istence chiefly to a boom foundation. Settlers who bought in good faith found themselves stranded on parched and sterile acres, and, undaunted, they pro- j ceeded to organize dozens of irrigation companies i which squeezed every drop of available water from the j rugged ravines of the Sierra Madre and the cienegas ! of the lowlands and converted the southern valleys into vast luxuriant gardens. It is impossible to tell exactly how many people came to southern Cali fornia during these exciting months, but more than 130,000 remained as permanent settlers, and the city of Los Angeles increased in size 500 per cent.® This last and greatest land boom was far more than just an exciting event in the history of Los Angeles. It abruptly changed the character of the city by greatly accelerating the process of making Los Angeles a thoroughly American metropolis: By bringing in a new population, it forced the region one step farther away from the mellow Spanish-Cali- fornian culture which had so tinged its earlier de velopment, and, as the third and final step in the break-up of the ranchos, completed the transition from range-land to agricultural community.® The boom was significant, not only for its color, pic turesqueness, and uproarious enthusiasm, but also be cause it wiped out forever the last traces of the ®Dumke, Boom of the Eighties, pp. 4 -5. ®Ibid., p. 9.___________________________ 164 Spanish-Mexican pastoral economy which had charac terized California history since 1769. . . . The boom was the final step in the process of making California truly American.10 The tempo of theatrical life in Los Angeles, formerly steady in its growth pattern, suddenly quickened under the influ ence of the increased population and general excitement of Ithis land boom of the late eighties. | Guinn, one of the early southern California his torians, listed four "immediate causes" of the boom of 1887: | j First— The completion of a new transcontinental railroad line, and an era of railroad building and railroad projecting in Southern California. Second— High prices for all our products, an easy money market, and employment at high wages for all i who wished employment. Third— An immense immigration, largely attracted by reports of large profits made by speculating in real estate. Lastly— The arrival among us of a horde of boomers from western cities and towns— patriots, many of them, who left their country for their country's good, fellows who left their consciences— that is if they had any to leave, on the other side of the Rockies.1^- Although the last of Guinn's points seems more editorial 12 13 ,than historical, both Newmark and Van Dyke agreed as to 10Ibid., p. 276. ■ L1"Boom of 1887," p. 15. 12Sixty Years, pp. 312, 317, 419. ^ T . S. Van Dyke, Millionaires for a Day (New York: Fords, Howard and Hubert, 1890); see especially pp. 2-5. 165 the nature of some of the boomers. Dumke, in a more objec tive approach, later developed and elaborated on Guinn's first three points. Another of the boom years authorities, Netz, also attributed the boom to the railroads and the advertisers: This advertising and literature told in glowing ! colors the salubrity of our glorious climate, cli mate, climate, the variety of our productions, the fertility of our soil and the immense profits to be made from the cultivation of Southern California I semi-tropical fruits .... With the establishment | of the Santa Fe . . . Los Angeles had a competing railroad at last, and the Southern Pacific could no longer discriminate against the merchants of Los ! Angeles in favor of the merchants of San Francisco. i t i jNetz concluded that the advertising campaign conducted by the Los Angeles Board of Trade (later the Chamber of Com merce) was uniquely instrumental in attracting people to southern California; the boom years merely intensified the process of luring the potential immigrants. Dumke, whose account of the boom of the eighties was written some two I generations after that of Guinn, and over a full generation after that of Netz, also agreed that I i | Another basic cause of the boom was the extensive advertising and publicity campaign which carried information about southern California to all parts 14"Boom of 1887," p. 55. 166 of the world. During the decades of the seventies and eighties the southern region first developed the publicity consciousness which has characterized it ever since and which has been largely responsible for its phenomenal growth. Neither agricultural development nor railroad competition would have attracted immigrant hordes unless the way had been paved by widespread propaganda. 15 Advertising as a way of attracting prospective emi- jgrants had developed earlier; but by the eighties it had i {achieved the status of an art. One of the perennial themes jwas the climate. The enthusiastic and slightly mocking I I I Warner effused: This is Paradise. And the climate? Perpetual summer (but daily rising in price). . . . The night temperature throughout California is invariably in ; great contrast to that of the daytime\ nearly every where fire is necessary at night the year round, and agreeable nearly all the year, even in Southern California.I® i | 'Another visitor added: "The architecture of this region will remind you that you are in a land where it is never cold. The dwelling is a secondary matter here, and it re sults that many people are satisfied to live in very small iand slight houses."1^ i i ic Boom of the Eighties. p. 29. 16Ibid.. p. 31. l7Van Dyke, Millionaires for a Day, p. 37. 167 Van Dyke, who attempted to abolish the notion in eastern minds that southern California was still a frontier, wrote: The whole number of persons in the southern half of the State (where thousands sleep all summer on the open ground) injured by snakes and poisonous reptiles, animals, etc., in the last ten years is not equal to the.Qumber killed by lightning alone in one year in I <"'^ne cohnty in many Eastern States.1® jNordhoff went so far as to say that There are no dangers to travelers on the beaten track in California; there are no inconveniences which a ' child or a tenderly reared woman would not laugh at . . . when you have spent half a dozen weeks in the j State, you will perhaps return with a notion that New York is the true frontier land, and that you have nowhere in the United States seen so complete a civi lization.19 A most important talking point for southern Cali fornia was the healthfulness of the region and the personal sense of fulfillment enjoyed by its denizens. Bishop re- imarked: | The climate permits him to be almost constantly out- of-doors. The sky is blue, the sun unclouded, nearly j everyday in the year, and he can go into his orchard and concern himself about his Navel or Brazilian oranges, his paper-rind St. Michaels, and his Tahiti seedlings, with little let or hindrance.2® ^®As quoted in Dumke, Boom of the Eighties, p. 30. 19Ibid., p. 32. 20Ibid.. p. 33. 168 Another writer commented on the famous southern California air: "The air, when inhaled, gives to the individual a stimulus and vital force which only an atmosphere so pure 21 can communicate." Lindley and Widney, in a rush of ver biage, proclaimed: In this newer and nobler life which is growing up here upon the shores of the Pacific . . . it seems | to . . . [the writers] he can discern the fair prom- | ise of a civilization which had its only analogue | in that Graeco-Latin race-flowering which came to the eastern slopes of the Mediterranean centuries i 22 ! ago. * I It would seem that the authors were tieing the majesties of the area into the greater and more persuasive notions of self-fulfillment inherent within the American Dream. Besides the travelers' accounts in both books and magazines, there were the publicity accounts financed by railroads, ". . . primarily the Southern Pacific, for two main purposes: to sell their own granted land, and to in- jduce a large population, whose future business and travel 23 would be profitable, to settle along their lines." One |of the more effective methods employed by the railroads was i i _______________________ i 21Ibid.. pp. 33-34. 22 “ Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, p. 79. 23Ibid.. p. 82. 169 the employment of agents, "who wrote, lectured, and planned exhibits in various parts of the world, expounding the 24 glories of the West." One of the more widely circulated 25 efforts of the Big Four was the Southern Pacific Sketch 26 Book, "which attained a circulation of 10,000 copies." | Local newspapers also did their share in publicizing j ithe glories of the Southland. Copy writers seemed to de- j jlight in lengthy, effusive descriptions of various tract jofferings. The Los Angeles Daily Herald advertised the jSouth San Jacinto tract subdivision as The only great valley as yet undeveloped and cheap. The richest of soil, abundance of water, and an ele vation 1600 to 1900 feet above sea level, making a climate delightfully warm, bracing and dry] the per fect climate for all throat and lung troubles. NO FOGS I NO FROST! . . . Brick hotel, brick offices and stores now being erected. $500,000 to be spent in improvements this coming year. Everything that unlimited capital can i do will be done to make a model city.27 Ozro W. Childs, who financed the building of the Grand Opera I House and who eventually went on to make a considerable 24Netz, "Boom of 1887," p. 56. 2 5 The Big Four consisted of Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, and Collis P. Huntington. 2®Dumke, Boom of the Eighties, p. 17. 27Los Angeles Daily Herald. June 22, 1886. 170 fortune in real estate subdivision, offered up his Inglewood Orchard Property with flowery inducements: Inglewood Orchard Property! With its Shaded Avenue! Thriving Orange Trees! Flowing Water! Concrete Pavement! Fertile Lands! Improvements of all Kinds! Advertising, as seen, was one of the more general stimulants to the great boom of the eighties. It was not, however, until the railroad rate war of March 1887 that the boom began to develop in earnest: i [ j The immediate cause of the great boom is generally ! conceded to be the rate war between the Southern ! Pacific and the Santa Fe railroads. . . . The reduc tion of fares to unheard-of levels stimulated the migration of hordes of people who would have other wise confined their interest in California to read ing about it.2® Until the entry of the Santa Fe railroad into Los Angeles in il885, the Southern Pacific and its owners (known as the Big I Four) had a virtual monopoly in the setting and exacting of jtravel and freight tariffs in southern California: ". . . the railroad [the Southern Pacific] exacted excessive rates ias a prerogative of its monopoly . . . the Southern Pacific ^®Ibid., September 22, 1886. 29 Dumke, Boom of the Eighties, p. 17. 171 30 continued to charge 'all the traffic would bear.'" The coming of the Santa Fe, however, changed every thing. Lummis rather picturesquely described the advent of the rival Iron Horse in Los Angeles as follows: In November, 1885, the Santa Fe railroad poked its I nose through the Cajon Pass; and Los Angeles had not ! only a competing railroad, but one on the warpath . . . It woke up not only the newspapers; it inter ested writers whose words carried weight in permanent form. . . . The glamour and the romance were brought forward from a dim past into the full light of day. J The fairy story would come true if you only went out ! to read it.31 ! i I Normal passenger fares from the Mississippi Valley i to southern California had been approximately $125. "By 1885 they were down to $100, and when the Santa Fe drove its golden spike at Cajon Pass on November 9, 1885, they immed- 32 iately dropped to $95." There was thus a precedent for the cutthroat competition which would take place in the I ensuing two years. The rivalry between the two companies I (became so keen that the Santa Fe withdrew from the Trans- I continental Traffic Association in January, 1886, "... and 30Ibid., p. 21. 3Charles F. Lummis, Out West: Los Angeles and Her Makers (Los Angeles: Out West Magazine Co., 1909), p. 248. 3^Netz, "Boom of 1887," p. 58. 172 by the first of May, 1886, hostilities were on in earnest 33 between the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe." Prices began to decline, and on the fifth of March, 1887, the Los Angeles Times reported: Still Cutting The Railroads Get the Knife in a Little Further San Francisco, Mar. 4. All overland roads this morn- I ing made open rates on limited tickets to eastern I points as follows: Boston, $47j New York, $45; Chi cago, $32 . | A Second Cut in Fares i Prices of limited tickets were cut for the second j time to-day to the following figures: Chicago, $25; ! New York, $40; Boston, $42. ^ j The climax of the struggle came on March 6, 1887, when the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe settled down to a finish fight over the fares and rates between Kansas City and Los Angeles: I In the morning the Southern Pacific met the Santa ; Fe at twelve dollars. The latter then dropped to i ten dollars, and the Southern Pacific followed suit. ! The Santa Fe then cut to eight, and was met. Then the Southern Pacific, through some apparent misunder standing, underbid itself, cutting to six dollars and then to four. Finally, shortly after noon, the Southern Pacific announced a rate of one dollar,3^ 33Ibid. 3^Los Angeles Times. March 5, 1887. 3^Guinn, "Boom of 1887," p. 56. 173 And so, for at least one day, it was possible to travel a distance of 2,800 miles for the ridiculous sum of only one dollar! The railroad war lasted six months; at the end of this period prices were raised, and "For approximately a year . . . fares remained below twenty-five dollars to Missouri River points and did not soon regain their former heights . "3^ Suddenly Los Angeles was transformed into a thriv- jing, bustling metropolis. Netz wrote: I I With the beginning of the railroad rate war immi grants came by the hundreds . . . Later the people j arrived by the thousands, so the real estate activity [ increased; yet the increase was steady. Finally as j the rates were lowered, and the news spread abroad j of the fortunes being made in the Los Angeles real i estate market, the immigrants stampeded to Los Ange les by tens of thousands, accompanied by a host of boomers who had been through a school of real estate speculation . . . All values were merely fictitious . . . And so these real estate speculators cut up a large part of the southern section of the State in town lots, additions to existing towns and new towns .37 Newmark also lamented the carnival-like atmosphere of once quiet and sedate Los Angeles: "Wherever there was acreage, : there was room for new towns; and with their inauguration, ithousands of buyers were on hand to absorb lots that were 3^Netz, "Boom of 1887," p. 17. 37Ibid. 174 38 generally sold on the installment plan." As to the vari ous sales methods employed by the real estate boomers, Newmark wrote: If every conceivable trick in advertising was not resorted to, it was probably due to oversight. Bands, announcing new locations, were seen here and there in streetcars, hay and other wagons and carriages (sometimes followed by fantastic parades a block long); and for every new location there was promised the early construction of magnificent hotels, theatres or other attractive buildings that seldom material ized. When processions filled the streets, band music filled the air . . . An endless chain of free lunches, sources of delight to the hobo element in particular, drew not only these chronic idlers but made a victim of many a worthier man.^ Southern Pacific officials predicted that 120,000 people of "high quality" would come to California by rail by the end of 1887, but "persons who are informed by study- 40 ing the statistics say that this estimate is too low." In 1888, "... the San Francisco Call estimated travel to ! ---------------------------------------------------- the coast over all lines but the Santa Fe at 78,437 fares. 41 Of these, 32,392 did not return." The Santa Fe brought in ! 3q Newmark, Sixty Years, p. 571. 39Ibid.. p. 572. 40Dumke, Boom of the Eighties, p. 51. 4^ - San Francisco Call. August 14, 1888, as quoted in Dumke, Boom of the Eighties, p . 52. 175 some 65,000 persons. Willard, the early historian, con cluded by asserting that the Southern Pacific's arrival increased the city's population 100 per cent, and the en- 42 suing arrival of the Santa Fe increased it 500 per cent. At the height of the "booming days" Guinn reported that To have bought a square league of land in the neigh borhood of some of our cities . . . would have taken an amount of money equal to the capital of the na tional bank of France in the days of John Law. Un- I improved lands adjoining the city of Los Angeles sold as high as $2,500 per acre, or at the rate of $14,400,000 a square league. Land that was sold at $100 an acre in 1886, changed hands in 1887 at $1,500 per acre, and city lots bought in 1886 at $500 each, a year later were rated at $5,000.^ The true focus of the boom was Los Angeles: "During 1886-88, there were filed in Los Angeles County alone some 44 1,770 tract maps, subdivisions and replats." In the peak jmonths of the boom— June, July, and August 1887— over $38,000,000 was spent in real estate transfers in Los Ange les County. The Los Angeles post office handled the mail of 200,000 transients between August and December of 1887j | postal receipts rose from $19,000 in 1880 to over $50,000 ^Willard, The Herald's History, p. 311. ^Guinn, "Boom of 1887," p. 57. 44 Dumke, Boom of the Eighties, p. 25. 176 at the boom's peak. A city directory published in 1887 listed 55,488 citizens, but most historians felt that the 45 actual population was much larger. Los Angeles had become a crowded, seething city of promoters, amateur and profes sional: "... hotels bulged with occupants, prices soared to astronomic levels, and everywhere— on the streets, in print, in homes and clubs— the incessant topic was land, 46 the land of southern California." The boom reached its peak in 1887. Although real estate sales and transfers began to lag during 1888, an air of optimism about the potential of land in the southern California area still prevailed. Labor Commissioner Tobin reported in an interview of January 21, 1888 that Real estate, unquestionably is the most flourishing business in Los Angeles. There are more real estate agents to the square yard in Los Angeles than can be found, I believe, in any city of the world. iWhen asked for comparative salaries for the city's workers, Tobin replied: I j Bricklayers, $4.50 to $5.00 per day, nine hours; bakers, $50 to $75 per month, ten hours, and four teen on Saturday; carpenters $3 to $4 per day of nine hours . . . shoemakers, $2.50 to $3.50 per day, nine hours . . . laborers, $1.50 to $2 a day, without board. 45Ibid., p. 42. 46Ibid.. p. 49. 177 As for the cost of living in Los Angeles, Commissioner Tobin found it . . unusually high . . . in consequence of the great influx of population": A small, single room commands from $12 to $15 per month. Small, unfurnished cottages of four to five rooms rent from $35 to $40 per month . . . Milk costs 10 cents per quart. . . . Roast beef retails from 12 1/2 to 15 cents, and steaks from 15 to 20 cents per pound. The commissioner concluded the interview by stating that "Los Angeles deserves to have a boom. Soil, climate and location entitle it to be called the 'Land of the Angels,' 47 and the people who dwell there are angels— without wings." Sales continued to decline during the summer months, however, and the Los Angeles Daily Herald could still edi torialize about the future of the city: . . . Los Angeles has advanced from a population of 11,300 to at least seventy-five thousand. . . . With all these unquestioned facts before us, we feel like again taking up the role of prophet, and have no hesitation in saying that the development of the past, brilliant as it has been, is only as the farthing rushlight to the diamond or electric light, compared to what it will be in the coming lustrum or decade.4® Yet despite the exuberant and prophetic editorials 47Los Angeles Daily Herald. January 21, 1888. 4®Ibid., June 16, 1888. 178 of both the Los Angeles Daily Herald and the Los Angeles Tribune. the boom began to slacken toward the end of 1888, and by 1889 it was over: No precise date can be given for the end of the boom. If the banks had permitted themselves to be swept along with the current, the spring runs of 1888 would have marked financial collapse in the southland] but the banks withstood the runs. . . . As a result, the collapse was milder in its effects than might have been expected. There was no widespread suffering or want. High interest charges, low prices, financial stringency, and a glutted market were the primary results of the finale of the great boom . . . Using statistics compiled by Valentine J. Rowan, local en gineer and surveyor, Davis [supervisor of the Fourth District] described sixty ghost towns, founded after January 1, 1887, which comprised 79,350 lots— and only 2,351 citizens. He told of worthless alkali lands, which boom literature had hailed for their fertility, now deservedly barren of population but assessed at forty to sixty dollars per acre.49 Despite the brazen chicanery of many of the real estate promoters, the great boom of the late eighties was not entirely detrimental. Netz argued: . . . the great real estate boom of 1887 was not built wholly on air. It was run to mania to be sure. It must be remembered that the frontier town of 1885, with its business at the Temple Block, was transformed into a flourishing city in 1889. . . . Our real es tate boomers went a little bit faster than the coun try, that was all. . . . Our intrinsic resources sus tained us through the reaction which followed the 49Dumke, Boom of the Eighties. p. 260. 179 wildest real estate excitement which ever attended the building of an American city. Guinn also looked to the more positive aspects of the boom: Few if any of the inhabitants to the manor born, or those of permanent residence and reputable character, engaged in these doubtful practices and disreputable methods of booming . . . When the boom had become a thing of the past, those who kept aloof from wild speculation, pursued the even tenor of their ways, building up the real cities and improving the country . . . On the whole, with all its faults and failures, with all its reckless waste and wild extravagance, our boom was more productive of good than of evil to Southern California.^1 Van Dyke, in his humorous account of the boom period, con cluded that "... one thing is certain— the Californians want no more booms. A steady and substantial growth they do want, are having now, and will continue to have if East- 52 ern boomers do not again set them crazy." The fact that the great boom of the late eighties affected the calibre of life in the city goes without say ing. In September 1887 the Springfield, Ohio, Republican stated: It will only be a short time until the whole of ^°Netz, "Boom of 1887," p. 59. 51Guinn, "Boom of 1887," p. 21. 52yan Dyke, Millionaires for a Day, p. 276. 180 Southern California will be settled as closely as Ohio or New York. If all the cities of the Union send as large a proportion of their population to California and Florida as Springfield does, it is small wonder that their locality is settling up so fast .^3 The city's population had swelled to over 50,000 permanent residents by the end of the boom; the assessed valuation of 1 ! | |real and personal property advanced from $6,000,000 to al- i 54 |most $60,000,000 during the boom decade. Of all the institutions changed by the boom, the |most dramatic was in the field of education: 1 I I t I Los Angeles County in 1860 had seven schools and an enrollment of 460 students; twenty-five years later the enrollment reached 11,368 students, distributed among 200 school buildings . . . The flurry's height | j brought an unprecedented increase in enrollment, j which reached 12,000 in 1886, nearly 15,000 in 1887, | 19,000 in 1888, and 22,000 in 1889 . . . During 1887 the number of teachers in Los Angeles County increased thirty-two per cent, and nineteen new school districts were created.55 While the public schools profited from the boom, the county 'was also infected by "college fever." Such schools as the University of Southern California, Occidental College, the 53as quoted in Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis. p. 54 Dumke, Boom of the Eighties, p. 226. 55Ibid., pp. 250-251. 181 State Normal School (now the University of California at Los Angeles), Immaculate Heart Academy, Whittier College, Throop Polytechnic Institute (later renamed California Institute of Technology), La Verne College, Pomona College, and Redlands University were all boom schools— and if not built during the boom years, some of the institutions owe jtheir existence to subsequent subdivisions and sale of boom It ^ 56 ilands. Districts in and around the city which were previ- I ously suburban farmland were now residential tracts, and ^former residential tracts were devoted to business: In Los Angeles . . . the river land south of Third | Street was all platted; brick buildings were erected j north of the Plaza in the hope that business would j trend in that direction. . . . Cultural influences were evident, for churches, theatres, and meeting halls became nearly as popular as hotels. In 1892 there were fifty-five Protestant churches in the j city of Los Angeles; three years earlier, a park commission had been organized to beautify municipal recreation centers.^7 Thus Los Angeles grew and developed. Whereas the first stages of the city's development took almost a full genera tion, the second phase was encompassed within the decade j 1876-1886, and the events which completed the development of 56Ibid.. p. 245. 57Ibid.. p. 253. 182 El Pueblo into the thriving metropolis of Los Angeles took place within the great boom years, 1885-1889. "Where once the 'cattle of the plain' had grazed in silence over rich acres, now the American citizen built his trolley lines, 58 founded his banks, and irrigated his orange groves." | Yet despite the extraordinary theatrical activity that would soon take place in the late eighties, the period i [between 1885 and 1886 was, if anything, merely a continua tion of trends of the early eighties. The Grand Opera House I remained the road show house, while the minor houses con tinued to open and close their doors with monotonous regu larity. Like the socioeconomic history of Los Angeles dur ing the same period, the theatrical growth pattern also represented a period of steady development during 1885 and 1886, but expanded remarkably between 1887 and 1889 in a i rush of activity as spectacular as its great land boom counterpart. I Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles. 1885-1886 | The Los Angeles Tivoli was transformed into the Vienna Garden in March 1885. It would now become a ^®Nadeau, City-Makers. p. 212. 183 popular-priced "family theatre" in which drinking and smoking were no longer allowed. Managed first by Frank LaVarnie, by November it was in the hands of Henry Wyatt, and remained under his management until it was destroyed by fire the following year. The Club Theatre once again tried legitimate theatre in the fall, employing such able players as Mr. and Mrs. Holmes Grover, Jr. The Palm Gardens, a beer hall which had added variety shows the year before, con tinued in the same manner throughout most of 1885. Mott's Hall on Main Street, over Mott's Market, was used occasion ally this year for fairs . But it was to the Grand Opera House that all of the important talent came. The year 1885 also saw the emergence of a group of men who would become increasingly important in Los Angeles theatre management for the next two decades. Along with Wyatt, George R. McLain and Martin Lehman became the city's leading theatrical managers. All three men were, at one { time or another, closely connected with the theatrical for tunes of almost all of the theatres within Los Angeles. In ja word, by 1885 the city now had its theatre, its stars, I and its local theatrical managers. 184 The Season of 1885 at the Grand Opera House Katie Putnam and company opened the 1885 season at the Grand Opera House with a week of plays— Little Detec tive . Lena the Madcap. Child of the Regiment, and Little Sunflower— in which Miss Putnam, whose style resembled that of Lotta Crabtree, romped and played, sang and danced. The Union Square Theatre Company from New York, headed by the "brilliant emotional actress" Rose Eytinge, brought a week I jof volatile drama including Leah the Forsaken. Rose Michel. j Still Waters. Led Astray (written for Miss Eytinge by Dion I Boucicault), and Oliver Twist. Of her performance in Led Astray, a local critic reported: The performance of Led Astray . . . is worthy of note as a social as well as a theatrical event. Many leading society people were present in evening dress, the handsome toilets in the dress circle presenting a pleasing appearance. Led Astray was written expressly for Miss Eytinge by Dion Bouci cault, and no role in which she has yet appeared in this city is so well calculated to exhibit the ! grace and refinement of this talented actress W. E. Sheridan and Louise Davenport appeared in a short season of romantic drama at the end of January, including The Marble Heart. Louis XI. The Hunchback. Two Orphans. and 59 Los Angeles Times. January 16, 1885. 185 Tom Taylor's English drama, The Fool's Revenge. February found the world-famous Emma Abbott Grand Opera Company in a full week of grand and light opera. Prices were scaled at $1.50 for the parquet and dress circle and $1.00 for any part of the balcony. The operas included Lucia di Lammermoor. Martha. Faust. Mignon. La Traviata. I King for a Day, and Heart and Hand. Opera was followed by jthe Nellie Boyd Company for a full week of emotional melo- i jdrama; Article 47. Lady of Lyons. Ticket-of-Leave Man. | — — i Lucretia Borgia. Forget-Me-Not. and Solomon Isaacs. The Forgemaster was offered as a "Bon Ton Matinee," at which all children would receive a box of candy. Of Article 47 it was noted: The harrowing business seems to be her [Miss Boyd's] favorite "hold." Her acting in the mad scene was conscientious, at all events, and in some points even creditable .^0 The Arlington, Girard, and Wyatt Minstrels played j three days in March; Henry Wyatt would soon become a theat rical manager at the Vienna Gardens. Ben Cotton, the ex- jminstrel, returned with wife and daughter in April in a I series of rural American sketches (True Devotion. Irma the ®°Ibid., February 28, 1885. 186 Waif. Black Diamonds. and My Bovs) in which father and daughter performed dances, banjo solos, and imitations. April ended with the Baldwin Theatre Company from San Fran- ! I cisco offering a week of the American sensational melodrama Shadows of a Great City. "... along with every scenic and mechanical effect used at the Baldwin." After melodrama icame the Gaiety Burlesque Company from the Bush Street The- ! jatre, San Francisco, in the English operatic burlesques An i Adamless Eden. The Alsatians, and School Fun. After some consideration, the reviewer found the performances "... ' 61 jdevoid of guile as a newborn babe." | The McKee Rankin Troupe brought two Gold Rush border i melodramas by California's own Joaquin Miller in May: The Danites and '49. The Los Angeles Times reported that the "... combination of strong vehicle and talented cast 62 crowded the Grand for the entire week." Kate Castleman ended the month of May with her "own Company of Comedians" l in The Crazy Patch, an American farce comedy, "replete with mus ic and lunacy." | By far the theatrical event of the season, however, j 61Los Angeles Daily Herald. April 14, 1885. 62Los Angeles Times. May 9, 1885. 187 was the appearance of Madame Fanny Janauschek, "the Queen of Tragedy," in October . In the tradition of the heroic tra gediennes, Madame janauschek performed in a repertoire which included the historical tragedy Mary Stuart, the romantic tragedy Countess of Manfred, the Venetian tragedy Lillah. the Fortune -Te Her. and Shakespeare's Macbeth. Towse, the jAmerican theatre critic, found her i I ; . . . strong and expressive, her voice deep, full and vibrant, her fort majestic and her vigor great. ! Of the technique of her art she was a perfect mis tress . . . Neither by temperament nor disposition | was she fitted for the softer, seductive heroines | of modern social comedy ( Janauschek was followed by a week of Haverly's United European-American Minstrels in a week of variety. For this, prices were reduced in the dress circle and parquet to $1.00 and 50t in the gallery. October ended with the appearance of Rose Wood, formerly leading lady at Wallack's New York Theatre, and her company in three old-time domestic melo dramas : Haze 1 Kirke. May Blossom, and The Octoroon. November featured the Blanche Curtisse Company in i j two American tear-jerkers, Only a Farmer's Daughter and Only j a Woman's Heart. Jeffrys Lewis and company followed after a ^ Sixty Years, p. 208. 188 season at the Baldwin Theatre, San Francisco. The plays presented were the oft-repeated domestic dramas Diplomacy. Forget-Me-Not. and Odette. An enraptured critic found her . . . the beautiful woman in the flush of physical vigor and voluptuous loveliness, confident in her power to attract, with the air of a conqueror, non chalant, easy with the assurance of winning. . . . Brilliant in repartee, incisive, keen and wary.6^ j |The month concluded with a four-day run of Comilli's Japa- i j nese Novelty Troupe in variety and specialty acts. ! In December came both the Thompson Opera Company in two comic operas (The Mikado and The Beggar Student) and the Madame Anna Judic Opera Company in the light operas La Perichole and La Grande Duchesse. For the Judic Company, the dress circle and parquet were scaled at $2 .50, the balcony at $1.50 and $1.00. The month, and the theatrical jseason, ended with the Grismer-Davis Troupe, direct from the Baldwin Theatre, in three new American melodramas, The I wages of Sin. Called Back, and the American military comedy The Veteran. Seven nonlegitimate companies performed at the Grand ^Opera House during the 1885 season, including two variety troupes, two burlesque companies, and three minstrel 64 Los Angeles Times. November 16, 1885. 189 companies. Of the legitimate theatrical companies, San Francisco had supplied at least eight. Some of the great names of the theatre came to the city during the season: W. E. Sheridan, McKee Rankin, Rose Eytinge, Jeffrys Lewis, and the immortal Janauschek. Performances were now somewhat longer, averaging between five and six days in length as |compared to the shorter runs (between two and three days) of I Iformer years, especially those before the Grand Opera House i 1 [was built. I j | The Season of 1885 at the Minor Houses The theatrical year was also important as far as the minor houses were concerned. As in previous years, the j I minors were erratic in nature, yet were still able to supply a type of entertainment which must have appealed to the more popular tastes. And if nothing else, "the price was right." Two such theatres were the Club Theatre (formerly the Merced t |Theatre) and the Vienna Garden (formerly the Los Angeles Tivoli, and before that the Rink Theatre) . The Club Theatre, still operated by the Perry i j brothers, offered a hit-or-miss theatrical season for 1885: January saw a continuous month of variety-vaudeville, fol lowed by another month of straight variety billed as "A 190 Laughing Refuge for Despondent Dyspeptics . . . in which everything is clean, bright, and recherche . . . 25$ General Admission." August witnessed the "Grand Opening . . . of the New Club Theatre" in which were featured 10 Comedians 10 10 Beautiful Young Ladies 10 10 Acrobats 10 and . . . the greatest drama of the day. ^Despite all of its earlier claims, the Club Theatre was jforced to close its doors after a short run in early Sep- i tember of the American sensational border drama The James | Boys. ". . . with startling effects, and Holmes Grover, Jr. i I |and May DeLome." i In March 1885 the Los Angeles Tivoli became the Vienna Garden and featured the Arlington, Girard, and Wyatt's Minstrels; the Wyatt part of the trio was the afore- Imentioned Henry Clay Wyatt, soon to become lessee-manager of ,the Vienna Garden and later of both the Grand Opera House j 'and the Los Angeles Theatre. Admission to the Vienna Garden was 25$ (50$ for reserved seats); and for those who had any | jdoubts whatsoever, the Vienna Garden advertised that the I theatre had "The elite of the city in attendance nightly ^ Ibid.. August 4, 1885. 191 66 . . . The coolest place of amusement on the coast.” Minstrelsy, occasionally coupled with a farce comedy of sorts (the Irish comedy Muldoon's Picnic and the American one-act farce On Blue Grass. for example) constituted the bill-of-fare throughout the winter months. During April and (May, the Vienna Garden offered "10 Beautiful Paintings," ; j jwhich were guaranteed to take the viewer "Around the World I 67 iin One Hour and Twenty Minutes." On May 5, 1885, and for lone night only, the Gaiety Burlesque Company performed i Adam less Eden and School Fun at 25£ and 50<:. i j On Thursday, July 16, 1885, the Vienna Garden once again reopened, this time with wyatt and Bradstreet as i proprietor-managers. General admission was 25C for adults and 15$ for children, and an advertisement announced that "The Vienna Garden will operate as a first-class Minstrel 68 and Vaudeville Family Resort." Starting in August, re served seats were reduced from 50C to 35<*, and advertise- I ! ments announced that smoking and drinking were no longer allowed within the Vienna Garden. ! j ii ■ i ■ - ii I 88Ibid., September 12, 1885 . 67Ibid.. April 15, 1885. 68Ibid., July 16, 1885. 192 After its ill-fated attempt at minstrelsy and vaude ville, the Vienna Garden was taken over by a new manager, Frank LaVarnie. He continued to operate it as a family theatre, with an emphasis upon popular-priced sensational melodrama. LaVarnie's "Grand reopening" of the Vienna Gar den took place in October 1885: A Home Theatre for Families! A Public Want Supplied! Among the Pines . . . featuring Georgia Woodthorpe | and a powerful combination. Prices 25$ ! Res. 35$ ! Children 15$ i Among the Pines was billed as "an American five-act comedy- drama of Western life." James and Carrie Ward followed in a short season of Boucicault (The Shaughraun and Colleen Bawn). A benefit was given for Carrie Clark Ward on Novem ber 13, and by December 1885 Wyatt was sole manager of the Vienna Garden, where the Wards (assisted by Gus Leonard) jwere performing in the American border melodrama Buffalo Bill. | Summary of the Season of 1885 l As in the city's earlier theatrical seasons, the pattern of the theatrical division continued. The Grand 69Ibid.. October 7, 1885. 193 Opera House— by now Rahill's version of the uptown house — was the established road show house; as such, it was in a position to attract all of the leading theatrical talent which came to Los Angeles, while the makeshift and minor houses were forced to operate with lesser talent and at prices between 25C and 50C. Also, there continued in 1885 still another previously noted pattern of theatrical devel opment: the erratic openings and closings of the minor houses. As their dramatic appeal was to a less sophisti cated audience, one might safely assume that these houses were constantly trying to find their audiences with every thing from variety-vaudeville to sensational melodrama. Nevertheless, the minor houses failed to hold a permanent type of audience. One might suggest causes: the nature of the production as well as the nature and number of the Los Angeles theatregoers in 1885. When, just two brief years later, the consummate showmen George Webster and William i I Brady produced popular-priced, sensational melodrama at Hazard's Pavilion, the audiences came in droves. But this ] jwas during the height of the great boom, when the citizens of Los Angeles could afford to support two, three, or even four different theatres. Again, as in the preceding theatrical year, a 194 booking at the Grand Opera House usually meant a run of from four to six days, plus the usual Saturday matinee. On the other hand, the theatrical runs for the minors were every bit as erratic as their constantly recurring openings. The season of the Wards at the Vienna Garden, for example, lasted over two months. And while the Grand Opera House continued to claim all the best stars and companies, the minors were forced to employ their actors in some sort of stock company arrangement. Some of these performers (espe- i icially Georgia Woodthorpe, James and Carrie Ward, Holmes jGrover, Jr., and his wife, May DeLome) would soon go on and i jestablish themselves as local actors, and, throughout the i next decade, would be identified with Los Angeles theatre. And, finally, the season of 1885 was important in the matter of plays and their productions. The newer and j more realistic plays of native American playwrights had yet :to arrive in Los Angeles; it can be assumed that the i [ - Howells-James struggle for a School of Realism and a more ;meaningful and authentic American drama was still something |of an eastern phenomenon in 1885. Thus the local theatrical t fare for the year was, generally speaking, somewhat tradi tional; for the most part, it consisted of the usual mixture of romantic and domestic drama of an emotional and 195 melodramatic nature. Added to this were a number of farce comedies and the many sensational melodramas at the minor houses. Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles in 1886 In form as well as in content, the theatrical year |of 1886 closely resembled the preceding years. Although melodrama and farce comedy would prevail as the usual the- latrical genres during the year, there would also appear a handful of great actors new to the Los Angeles area: Law- i Irence Barrett, Madame Modjeska, W. J. Florence, Margaret Mather, and John Raymond, along with such oldtime favorites as jeffrys Lewis and the McKee Rankins. A few of the top eastern companies visited during the year. Generally, the traveling company still involved a star and his own company, usually in repertory. The ac tual makeup of the company would vary, depending on whether [ jthe supporting actors were top-notch or, as was often the case, local pickup talent with less than adequate acting ability. The combination traveling companies— those compa nies later identified with the Theatrical Syndicate— had slight local significance in 1886j their full impact would be felt, however, within the next few years. 196 There were no new theatres built during 1886; the single newsworthy event, as far as theatres were concerned, was the destruction by fire of the old Vienna Theatre (for merly the Vienna Garden) on September 30, 1886. Until that time, the Vienna Theatre had been operated by a succession of managers, including Wyatt. It was not until the fall of I 1887 that a second Los Angeles Tivoli was built, and soon afterwards it too was destroyed by fire. At the Grand Opera House, the management changed hands from McLain and Lehman jto Wyatt, and back again to the former pair. Wyatt remained I at the Vienna Theatre until it was destroyed by fire in September. The Club Theatre, leased by the Perry brothers, now featured only variety on a sporadic basis. Although business conditions were on the upswing during the year, very few could foresee the frantic rush of business activity that would set off the years 1887-1889 i as boom years . Said the Los Angeles Times: The present prosperity of Los Angeles is not a Boom, but a steady, healthful growth . . . and those who come to live here as citizens will engross the atten tion of homeseekers and . . . towards a broader cos- | mopolitan life, towards culture, towards morality, temperance, and intellectual and religious advance ment.70 70Ibid.. January 12, 1886. 197 1116 Season of 1886 at the Grand Opera House Yet despite the editorial comment on the cultural and intellectual advancement of the local citizens, the year's theatrical achievements were rather pedestrian. Alice Harrison and company opened the season at the Grand Opera House with the American farce comedy Hot Water. fol lowed by the Jacques Kruger Company in two rather insub- ! stantial pieces, Dreams and The Skating Rink. The appeal to simple, rural American life was made by comedians Charles I L. Davis and C. B. Bishop in the rustic comedies Alvin Joslin and Widow Bedott. And although the Los Angeles River spilled over its banks and destroyed some bridges on the night of January 20, it was reported that "... the Bishop Company did a tolerable business."7^ January ended with the jreappearance of the Grismer-Davies Troupe in Chispa. "the ;California idyl," and two sensational melodramas, Michae1 Strognoff and The Streets of New York. Grace Hawthorne, "the emotional American actress," appeared in February in two new versions of old standbys, Camille and East Lynne (now renamed Miss Multon) along with Oliver Twist. Heartsease. and the American sensational 71 Ibid., January 22, 1886. 198 melodrama Queena. The latter play, a study in scenic real ism, forced the critic to conclude that The scene in which the crazed wife pours ether over the wounded arm of her anaesthetized husband and sets fire to the man is more than grotesque— it is ghoulish. Yet the "gods" didn't mind . . . a thrill went through them.72 March saw the appearance of the Hanlon Company in the spectacular extravaganza Fantasma. complete with "Two special carloads of magnificent scenery and wonderful mech anical effects . . . including The Demon Cabinet and the Witch's Laboratory." Jeffrys Lewis followed in her favorite roles, Forget-Me-Not. Odette. and Diplomacy. Said the critic of her characterization of Stephanie in Forget-Me- Not ; She was Stephanie, the pariah, the adventuress, the decoy, the gambler, the she-devil of the author's imagination. The real character stood before us in i all its voluptuousness, its cool, calculating devil try, a living, breathing fascinating woman with the face of an angel and the heart of a demon. The Rankin Company came from San Francisco in April for a week of heavy melodrama, Pavements of Paris and Led Astray; next came the Harrison and Gourlay Comedy 79 Los Angeles Daily Herald. February 11, 1886. 73 Los Angeles Times. March 4, 1886. 199 combination "after 250 performances in New York" in the American farce Skipped by the Light of the Moon. One of the more exciting events of the theatrical season was the appearance in April of the Lawrence Barrett Company for seven performances including Richelieu. Fran cesca da Rimini. Julius Caesar. Hernani. Hamlet. and David Garrick. The Grand Opera House 's entire first floor was scaled at $1.50; balcony and gallery prices were 75$. Of Hamlet. the Los Angeles Times reported: Undoubtedly was present on the Hamlet night, which was a token of the popularity of the play. . . . Yet while one listened delightedly to the eloquent music of the lines, it was not Hamlet who spoke, but Lawrence Barrett, the accomplished actor, the fine elocutionist. . . . It is hoped that the success of the season, the crowded houses even at advanced prices, will at once and forever dispose of the idle assertation that the people of Los Angeles are not liberal patrons of the drama.74 May brought Isabel Morris and her own company from the Alcazar Theatre in San Francisco. Billed as an "emo- i tional actress," Miss Morris performed in heavy melodrama: The White Slave. Pygmalion and Galatea, and the dramatiza tion of Wilkie Collins' New Magdalen. The Harry Lacy Com- ;pany came in June with Louise Rial as leading lady in the 74Ibid.. April 17, 1886. 200 "American comedy-drama" The Planter's Wife. June ended with the return of the M. B. Curtis Company in two "Hebrew comedy-dramas, " Sam'l of Posen and Spot Cash. Summer saw the coming of the conjurer Zamloch, whose act included "... the Exposing of Spiritualism and the great gift autocrat of the world." Zamloch, it should be noted, gave away some 130 gifts at each performance. Then followed the appearance of the nationally-famous John T. Raymond Company in a week of repertory. Although Mark Twain's Colonel Mulberry Sellers (an adaptation of The Gilded Age) had been given in Los Angeles before, it had never before been performed by its greatest interpreter, John T. Raymond. The local reviewer commented: In facial expression, gesture, voice and emphasis, and down to the smallest details of costume, he shows the practical ability of the cultivated comedian. Every inflection is the result of study.75 I July also saw the appearance of Miss Bella Moore in the American sensational melodrama Mountain Pink. The critical reception was less than effusive: ". . . the play is really a dime novel, dramatized in five acts, of the melodramatic and intensely Bowery style . . . received especially by the j- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - i 75Ibid., July 6, 1886. 201 large constituency in the gallery."7* ’ August featured the first professional appearance of Madame Helena Modjeska, one of the world's greatest living artists. With a supporting cast that included Maurice Barrymore and Owen Fawcett, Modjeska offered adoring Ange lenos a varied repertoire: As You Like It. Adrienne Le- couvreur. Schiller's Mary Stuart. Camille. Donna Diana, and Twelfth Night. Box seats were sold at $12.00 for the week’s run, with the dress circle and parquet scaled at $1.50. The critic was effusive in his accolades: In her personation of the royal martyr Mary Stuart towers so grandly that every other character on the scene with her is dwarfed into comparative insignifi cance . Yet her Camille, the critic felt, was somewhat austere: Modjeska makes of her creation too cold, too pure and gentle for the half-world in which she moves. . . . She gives instead an idealized picture, crowded with sweetness, very lovable, almost happy.77 I. W. Baird's Mammoth Minstrels came in August for a short four-day run, followed by Carrie Swain "with a first-class San Francisco company" in the American farce 76Ibid.. July 14, 1886. 77Ibid.. August 2, 1886. 202 comedy Cad, the Tomboy. The Los Angeles Daily Herald was singularly critical of the authenticity of the company's home base, concluding that "Actually . . . the company was made up for the trip. At least it attracted the 'gallery 78 gods ' in force ." August ended with the appearance of Margaret Mather and her own Union Square Company from New York in a short season of Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth) and romantic drama (Leah, the Forsaken. The Honey moon. and Lady of Lyons). As Juliet, Miss Mather was the newest rage throughout the country, although the local critic found the production wanting: The play stripped of all the elaborate accessories of Eastern production, and presented as it were last night, with a few tables and chairs and the familiar old scenery belonging to the Opera House had to de pend for its success entirely upon the acting of the performers . . . which was rather tedious.79 The fall began with the Pyke Opera Company in two full weeks of light and comic opera. Long and Mott brought "society drama," including Bronson Howard's Young Mrs. Winthrop. November featured the Ben Cotton Comedy Company in the American rustic drama The Old Home and the 78Los Angeles Daily Herald. August 25, 1886. 79Los Angeles Times. August 30, 1886. 203 sensational melodrama Black Diamonds. followed by Marshall's Japanese Tourists in three days of variety-vaudeville. Osbourne and Stockwell arrived with the inevitable Uncle Tom's Cabin in November, resplendent with bloodhounds and monkeys. Jeffrys Lewis, fresh from "a triumphal 103 nights at San Francisco's Alcazar Theatre," returned in her spe- i |cialties (Forqet-Me-Not. Diplomacy, and Clothilde). followed i jby the Dalys in the farce comedy Vacation— or Harvard vs. j Yale. The entire production was dismissed as "athletic i 80 ; comedy." i In Decenber came the very first opportunity for Angelenos to see the famous comedy team of Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Florence in Our Governor. Dombey and Son, and Ticket- of-Leave Man. As Barnwell Slote, Florence had achieved fame i j as one of the truly American creations, "A personage not unlike certain caricatures delineated by Dickens . . . f i Ql portly, grizzled, slightly bald, red-nosed, bright-eyed." Yet the local press was openly critical of one of their | offerings: 80Ibid.. November 24, 1886. 81Ibid.. December 13, 1886. 204 Last evening the well-worn drama entitled The Ticket- of-Leave Man was presented by the Florence company to a fairly well-filled house. The reason why the piece is retained in their repertoire is not made apparent by anything in their performance.82 The month ended with a four-day stay of the Howard Athenaeum Company (variety-vaudeville) and the Lamb-Jordan-Price Troupe in the American border melodrama On the Rio Grande. j ! "A Romance of the South . . . a play full of knives, revol vers, lynching and horse -stealing . I I The Season of 1886 at the Minor Houses | l While the Grand Opera House continued to attract whatever stars and attractions came to Los Angeles, there was still something of a popular-priced theatre movement in the city. On February 21, 1886, the Vienna Theatre (for merly the Vienna Garden) "reopened . . . as a First Class jFamily Theatre" with prices ranging from 25C to 50<:. The I lessee-managers were Wyatt (until March), Emma Frank (until iApril), and J. L. Walton (until June). In September the Vienna Theatre burned to the ground, and construction did jnot begin on a second Tivoli Theatre until the latter months ;of 1887. 82Ibid.. December 15, 1886. Los Angeles Daily Herald. December 22, 1886. 205 The Vienna Theatre operated six full nights per week and offered Wednesday and Saturday matinees . The Emma Frank Company, a combination of San Francisco and local talent, operated briefly as a local resident stock company, offering its patrons a string of lurid and sensational melodramas: The Convict's Daughter. A Dangerous Woman. Only i a Farmer's Dauqhter, Return of the Soldier, and Our Bovs. i After being closed throughout the month of April, the Vienna Theatre featured Anna Boyle in more melodramas of the lurid I | jvariety: The Banker's Dauqhter. The Lancashire Lass, and Hazel Kirke. Isabel Morris followed in June for a three - day run of The White Slave— and so ended the short season of the only existing theatrical rival of the Grand Opera House in the year 1886. Summary of the Season of 1886 As in the preceding year, the theatrical growth I (pattern for the year 1886 closely approximated the city's over-all pattern of development. The great land boom was istill over a year away; there was only slight indication i | ! during 1886 that theatre business was anything but normal and steady. A total of twenty-seven professional companies 206 stopped in Los Angeles during the year; of these, nine were legitimate companies. The twenty-seven companies repre sented an increase of an even dozen over 1885, and almost double the number that came in the combined years 1883 and 1884. And although the plays presented were predominantly farce comedies and lurid melodramas of the English sensa tional school, there still appeared in Los Angeles during 1886 a handful of great actors— Lawrence Barrett, Madame jModjeska, Margaret Mather, W. J. Florence, Grismer and Davies. With them came some of the better plays, including those of Shakespeare. The newer American plays, those ad vocated by Howells and James, were singularly nonexistent in 1886; these plays would only later reach Los Angeles via the traveling stock companies of the leading eastern the atres. Until that time, dramatic fare in Los Angeles was I rather meagre. Theatrical runs were erratic throughout the year, ^lasting from three days to a full theatrical week (six days and a matinee). Generally, admissions were scaled to the jindividual performer: thus Modjeska could command top box- i office prices. On the other hand, the Vienna Theatre (a makeshift minor house) held a fairly stable price policy, 25$ and 50$. 207 There could be little doubt that in 1886 all of the best theatrical talent to reach Los Angeles played at the Grand Opera House, the city's only genuine playhouse. Yet despite its stellar and seemingly invulnerable position as a theatre, the theatrical division which had characterized jthe preceding years continued to exist in 1886. Until its Idestruction by fire, the Vienna Theatre offered a potpourri j |of popular-priced entertainment by a resident stock company. I jThe productions of the Vienna Theatre exploited the poten- t I I (tials of scenic realism within the melodramatic-romantic jmode, much to the delight, one might assume, of the gallery i igods . j Acting techniques at the more sophisticated Grand Opera House were, generally speaking, of the old school, which stressed an actor's ability to perform the role rather than to identify with the personality of the character he portrayed. The gradual shift toward an understanding of the I new School of Realism as it related to the American dramatic art form did not reach Los Angeles until its proponents came jto the city during the next few years. Thus the intellec- i tual and critical revolution of Howells and James would have to remain an eastern phenomenon until the Hayman-Frohman companies would appear locally. And their companies would 208 not travel to southern California until a real theatregoing audience had been created— an audience which arrived at the height of the boom years in Los Angeles. CHAPTER VI THE THEATRICAL BOOM: THE THEATRE IN LOS ANGELES IN THE LATER BOOM YEARS, 1887-1889 Combining a sense of civic pride with their new [and sudden progress, Angelenos in 1887 voted for a new I I county court house at a cost of $375,000, a new city hall at $2 08,000, and sewer repairs and installation at $1,066,683.^ The new sense of ebullience did not stop with public welfare; the arts— especially the theatrical arts — were not forgotten by the citizens. Said the Los Angeles Tribune: There can be no doubt but that the city can support two and even three theatres. With three first-class places of amusement this included the Grand, the Tivoli and the impending new Turnverein Hall the Los Angeles public will rapidly become habitual theatre goers, and another metropolitan feature will be added ~ ^Los Angeles Tribune. March 1, 1887. 209 210 to the many we have acquired during the past two years Stars now traveled in their own special railroad cars: Clara Morris came in the Chispa in March; Edwin Booth in the David Garrick, with his own cook and servants; and Lily Langtry in The Mayflower where she had even provided apartments for her current interest Freddie Gebhardt. Campanini's car was named after him. To transport the National Opera company required three sections of twenty-nine cars, ten sleepers, three coaches, nineteen baggage cars. On this train rode three hundred people and 200,000 pounds of scenery and costumes j Theatrical Activity in the Later I Boom Years I ----------- Coincidental with the land boom of the late eighties was an upsurge of Los Angeles theatrical activity which also reached its peak during 1887 and 1888. It was during this period that the construction of three new playhouses was begun: of these, the Los Angeles Theatre was completed in late 1888; the Los Angeles Tivoli (which replaced the first |Los Angeles Tivoli) was built in 1887 and destroyed by fire shortly thereafter; and the foundations of the Burbank Theatre were laid in 1888, although the theatre was not 1 actually completed until 1893. ^Ibid.. January 29, 1887. ^Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 142. 211 Along with the genuine playhouses were built a group of halls and other structures which served as temporary theatres. The most important of these was Hazard's Pavilion (built in 1887), which stood on the site of the present-day Philharmonic Auditorium and which housed both the Webster- Brady and Cooper Stock Companies. Another was Mott's Hall, which was used for the Los Angeles appearance of the "divine Patti" in 1887 and then as the Imperial Music Hall in 1893. Also built in 1888 was the Dime Museum of Doyle and Isaac, jwhich later operated for a short season as the Peoples ' I Theatre in 1889. In December 1887 appeared the Panorama j Building, which displayed ". . . twenty thousand square feet 4 of canvas . . . depicting The Siege of Paris." And fin ally there was the new hall of the Germania Teutonia Soci ety (erected in 1887), which, although not as important theatrically as the Turners ' first hall, served as a pro fessional theatre for a short time in 1888 when it was i ! leased by Henry Wyatt while the Grand Opera House was being ! Iremodeled. In 1892 its name was changed to the Music Hall, I and in 1893 it housed the C. W. Whitfield Stock Company for a brief season. On October 22, 1893, the Turners had 4 Los Angeles Times. January 17, 1887. 212 already laid the cornerstone for their new, stone-fronted Turnverein Hall on South Main Street. Their second building i was eventually sold to William perry for $100,000.5 j The years between 1887 and 1889 saw many of the greatest stars on the boards of local playhouses: Edwin Booth, Frederick Warde, Margaret Mather, James O'Neill, I jFrank Mayo, Lawrence Barrett, Lily Langtry, Isabel Morris, !John T. Raymond, Maurice Barrymore, Minnie Maddern, Dion iBoucicault, William Gillette, Louis James, Adelaide Randall, ! ! Agnes Robertson (Mrs. Dion Boucicault), Sol Smith Russell, Denman Thompson, Mademoiselle Rhea, Charles Hoyt, Lillian ! Russell, Fanny Davenport, Mrs. James B. Potter, Effie Ell- ser, Rose Coghlan, E. H. Sothern, Madame Helena Modjeska, Robert Mantell, Madame Janauschek, McKee Rankin, Joseph Grismer, and Phoebe Davis. And along with the name stars came, many times, full traveling companies of national as well as international i j prominence: The Madison Square Theatre Company, the Web ster -Brady Company, the Carleton Opera Company, the Emma jAbbott Grand English Opera Company, the Union Square Company (from New York), the Bostonians (light opera company), the ^Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 389. 213 Baldwin Theatre Company (from San Francisco), the Gaiety Burlesque Company, Haverly's Minstrels, the Boston Howard Athenaeum Specialty Company (variety-vaudeville), I. W. Baird's Mammoth Minstrel Company, the Osbourne-Stockwe11 Company (from San Francisco's Alcazar Theatre), the Emerson (Minstrels (featuring Billy Emerson), the Kiralfy Brothers ((extravaganza), the Pyke Opera Company, Wallack’s Theatre 'Company (from New York), Daniel Frohman's Lyceum Theatre Company, the A. M. Palmer Company (direct from the Madison i (Square Theatre), Rice's Big Burlesque Company, the Hallen ;and Hart Company, several A1 Hayman-supervised companies, Richard and Pringle's Company (var iety-vaudeville), McFad- den's Double Uncle Tom's Cabin Company, the Rentz-Santley 'Novelty and Burlesque Company, William J. Gilmore's Company j (extravaganza), the Royce-Lansing Musical Comedy Company, i ! land last but not least, Lydia Thompson and her Grand English Burlesque Company. A total of seventy companies came to Los Angeles in 1887, forty-three more than in the previous year. During these years the theatrical division continued |to develop within the erratic minor houses: local stock i companies would form, play for an abbreviated season, and then dissolve— only to form all over again and play in one of the city's other minor houses. Above all, it was an 214 extraordinary theatrical boom era— one which developed as rapidly and as erratically as its historical counterpart, the Los Angeles land boom of the late eighties. Once the land boom was over in 1889, Los Angeles’ theatrical activity— as well as its other economic institu tions— declined during the ensuing depression. But, cur- ! iously enough, the theatrical comeback of Los Angeles pre ceded the city's general economic recovery. The theatrical i tradition, one might safely assume, was by 1889 firmly en trenched in Los Angeles and the city's theatres remained relatively stable during the aftermath of the boom. There might have been fewer big-name stars and companies in 1889, but Los Angeles' two real playhouses (the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre) continued to stay open, as did the remodeled Peoples' Theatre. By the end of the eighties, local theatre had become ian integral part of the economic, social, and cultural cli mate of the emerging City of the Angels. And just as the great boom of the eighties brought about, in Dumke's words, "... the final step in the process of making California truly American,"^ it likewise brought about the 6Boom of the Eighties, p. 362. 215 Americanization of things theatrical. Shows and stars in the East now came to the city with regularity; and before the bust of 1889, a Los Angeles stop usually meant a week or longer. Added to this was the fact that the newer stars and plays were now making Los Angeles part of their national booking: few tours were complete without a local layover. I ! Indeed, there could be little doubt that, by the end of the j l 8 8 0 s , theatre in Los Angeles had really become "big time." ! | ! The Season of 1887 at the j | Grand Opera House The 1887 season opened at the Grand Opera House with a nine-performance run by the Emma Abbott English Opera Company in a repertoire including comic, light, and grand opera, all in English. Aimee followed in farce and satire i jembellished with song and dance. It was Aimee who intro- iduced opera bouffe and the tunes of Offenbach in America; it was the same delightful and piquant Aimee who caused the Los Angeles Tribune reporter to write: i Aimee in the farce Mam'zelie is artful, witching and | as exhilarating as the contents of a fisherman's ! flask. With a wink, by the movement of a hand, or the kick of her pretty foot, she can impart a sug gestiveness to a few innocent lines, and the effect is as racy as horse-radish and mustard.^ 7 Los Angeles Tribune. January 6, 1887. 216 Of some interest during the month of January was the long-awaited first appearance in Los Angeles of diva Adelina Patti. After an extended series of negotiations, Patti, assisted by Scalchi, gave a single recital at Mott's Hall and Armory. Although used primarily as an armory for the Seventh Infantry, Mott's Hall housed Patti on January 20, | I 1887, for an operatic concert. Prices were scaled at $5.00 |to $7.50 for the first floor and $4.00 to $7.50 for the t 8 jentire balcony. The single performance grossed $6,200 — by ! far the largest amount for any single performance in the icity's rather brief theatrical history. Mott's Hall never I i again tasted such glory; in 1889 the Chamber of Commerce rented it for its permanent exhibition, and it served this purpose until 1894, when it was temporarily used as a vaude-| ville house and renamed the Imperial Music Hall. Also appearing at the Grand Opera House in January was the San Francisco-based Edwin Thorne Company in the j I English sensational melodrama The Black Flag. This piece of claptrap was severely criticized: | As represented by Edwin Thorne, there is hardly a situation which is not reduced to absurdity, and the action, making all due allowance for the exigencies ^Los Angeles Daily Herald. January 24, 1887. 217 of stage presentation presents a tissue of outra geous impossibilities which ought to excite a shout of derision. . . . The old farmer, with his hirsute I 9 i adornment looks like a broken-down pirate, and Mr. Thorne's blonde mustache is ridiculously inconsistent with the convict's dress.9 After a successful eastern tour, Louis Morrison in January brought back Augustin Daly's Under the Gaslight, a ". . . Spectacular Production with complicated scenic effects." | The Carleton Opera Company appeared in February for |a six-day season of comic and light opera. By far the most I exciting event of the entire theatrical year, however, was the arrival of Edwin Booth and his company in March for a week of Shakespeare (Hamlet. Merchant of Venice. and Othello) . plus the historical romance Richelieu. Prices for the entire run were scaled at $2.50 and $3.00 for the down stairs; the balcony was $1.00 and $1.50, with boxes at an unprecedented $25.00. As expected, the Grand Opera House was crowded at each and every performance: I j The house last night was completely filled and with an attentive audience. . . . Booth the actor is for gotten, the actor is completely absorbed in the char acter . . . in the shades and gradations of the pas sions .10 q Los Angeles Times. January 22, 1887. 10Los Angeles Daily Herald. January 24, 1887. 218 The Los Angeles Tribune reported that Last night Mr. Booth played Hamlet to what was prob ably the largest audience ever gathered in the Opera House. . . . Mr. Booth is as fine an elocutionist as ever interpreted lines upon the boards. There are no obscure points in his reading of Hamlet. All is as clear and intelligible as the light of study and intellect, and the modulation of tone and speech can render the biting philosophy of the poet.1^ i After congratulating the local citizens for their support of jthe immortal Booth, the same newspaper published the total jreceipts of the Booth season: $14,046 for a total of five ! 12 jperformances . | The fall brought the Bijou Opera Company and Ade- I jlaide Randall in a short three-day run of comic opera (The Princess of Trebizonde. Billee Taylor and The Bridal Trap). Then followed the "emotional actress" Clara Morris in rep ertoire: Camille. Renee. Engaged, and Article 47 . Said the I I local critic of her impassioned style of acting: "The peo- iple who want to see her want their feelings harrowed, and I she does her best to harrow them in the most approved man- 13 ner." Yet despite Miss Morris' stardom, it was still felt i 1 1 1 ■ ‘ • Los Ange les Tr ibune . March 4, 1887. ^ Ibid.. March 7, 1887. ^ Los Angeles Times. March 17, 1887. 219 that times had changed, and that the heavily emotional school of acting was, by 1887, a thing of the past: "As a whole the piece may be considered a success of its kind; 14 but it is of an old kind, one that soon grows monotonous." Although Roland Reed advertised crowded houses at San Francisco's Bush Street Theatre, Los Angeles in April expressed its boredom with such lightweight piece§ as Humbugj and Cheek: ! J There is nothing coherent in the piece .... The I plan of their concoction seems to be to take the fun j which used to be considered the proper amount for a I one act farce, to spread this limited amount of jo cosity over three acts by plentiful dilution and then to strengthen the mixture with some variety acts, songs and dances and to call the whole thing a "suc cessful farcical comedy. April ended with the appearance of Frederick Warde in a heavily romantic repertoire: Virginius. Galba. the Gladia- tor, Damon and Pythias, and Richard III. Warde had already i j 'achieved distinction as a first-rank tragedian, one of the i few attempting to carry on the tradition of Booth, McCul lough, and Barrett. Los Angeles greeted him with enthu- i siastic fervor: i _______________________ 14Ibid.. March 19, 1887. 15Ibid.. April 17, 1887. 220 Mr. Warde fully bears out the high encomiums. . . . He has an excellent physique, a square, strong ex pressive face, and a voice . . . of true metal. Rarely had our theatre resounded with so genuine a tribute of admiration as was heard last night, the actor being called out several times after each fall of the curtain.I® Mr. and Mrs. George S . Knight brought farce comedy from the Bush Street Theatre in May, including Rudolph. ' Baron von Hollenstein and Over the Garden Wall. Said the i j Los Angeles Times: "It fOver the Garden Wall] resembles a i jparlor charade, acted by a few people without preparation l iand with complete independence of each other and could not 17 be more incoherent." There followed the German actress Janish (Countess Arco), who was only mildly successful in the melodramas Princess Andrea and Violets. June brought Dan'1 Sully in a week of rural American drama, Daddy Nolan and Corner Grocery. Then came the lOsbourne-Stockwell combination in sensational melodrama, ! Harbor Lights. Commented a reviewer: . . . the show has a romantic quality and wholesome naturalness, combined with startling surprises of dramatic situations, side-splitting comedy and homey pathos . . . sure to attract the "gods."^° 16Ibid.. April 22, 1887. 17Ibid., May 7, 1887. ^ Los Angeles Tribune. June 12, 1887. 221 June concluded with the appearance of Charles Frohman's Madison Square Theatre Company— featuring William Gillette and Henry Miller— in Gillette's own American drama, Held by the Enemy. The troupe played to crowded houses for an entire week. July saw the return of Louis Harrison in two farce [comedies, Skipped by the Light of the Moon and Out of the i j Frying Pan into the Fire. After Harrison came the first | local appearance of the Jersey Lily, Miss Langtry, for a I jweek's engagement at advanced prices: $2.50 and $3.00 for !a downstairs seat. Crowed the Los Angeles Times. "There's 19 nothing too good for Los Angeles now! ” The incomparable Lily brought both classical and modern English plays: A Wife's Peril. Lady of Lyons. She Stoops to Conquer. Lady Clancarty. and Pygmalion and Galatea. Although impressed by her beauty and charm, one critic found her acting lim- jited: "She is a lovely woman, who is not and never will be a real actress. The role of professional beauty should be 20 the limit and goal of her endeavors." Nevertheless, Miss jLangtry filled the Grand Opera House for a full week and i IQ Los Angeles Times. July 5, 1887. 20Ibid.. July 17, 1887. 222 caused a local paper to pay editorial tribute to wyatt: "Under his [wyatt's] intelligent management, theatricals in this city have been brought up to the metropolitan stand- Edwin Thorne and his company played during August and September in standard melodrama. Said a critic: j ! Time cannot wither nor custom stale the infinite ! variety of the melodrama. To be sure, the hero is j always handsome and the virtuous orphan or neglected wife always beautiful] also, the pair, after being oppressed, depressed, and suppressed through four or | five acts by the red-handed villain rise in the might ! of their goodness and virtue at last and we have 1 2 2 them at peace with one another and the world. Apparently melodrama— for the local critic, at least— had become old-fashioned and certainly not up to the "metro politan standards" worthy of the thriving City of the Angels and the patronage of the Grand Opera House. September also brought an all-Boucicault program: ! The Jilt. The Shauqhraun. Phryne and Kerry. Colleen Bawn. and Forbidden Fruit. As an added treat for local playgoers, i Dion Boucicault came with the company. The Grand Opera i i (House's business was excellent for the entire week's run: 21 Los Angeles Daily Herald. July 18, 1877 . 22 Los Angeles Times. September 15, 1887. 223 "The pungent humor kept the house in roars of laughter and the ever-recurring acts of chivalry and pluck called forth 23 continuous applause." The Delano Company followed in the perennial favorite, Uncle Tom's Cabin, "with new and real istic scenery and the famous TRANSFORMATION Scene showing the Gates Ajar and Little Eva in Heaven." Scoffed a local j [critic: j I Eva's mother sang a song just after the little child's death, in which the father, nurses and all attendants ! heartily joined. Topsy's black was not extensive 1 enough for the "high water mark" and was visible at j elbow and neck. . . . We wonder how Mrs. Stowe would i enjoy such a parody from her great book. Yet the play takes just like a circus every season.^ Charlie Reed returned in October in Hoyt's farce comedy A Rag Baby, followed by the first appearance of Frank Mayo in the city. Although already linked with the American border melodrama Davy Crockett for some fifteen years, Mayo I — albeit portly and aging by the time of his visit to the jGrand Opera House— still managed to portray the woodsman as uniquely American: , Shy, sensitive and proud; unable to read or write; | utterly unconscious of his own physical beauty and ^ Ibid.. September 29, 1887. 2 A Los Angeles Tribune. October 9, 1887. 224 of his own heroism; faithful, honest, truthful . . . He is in love with a young lady who is his superior in station and education . . . yet he never dreams of winning the belle of the county. It is his good fortune to save her from Indians, and from wolves at 2 1; some risk to his own scalp. J Along with Davy Crockett. Mayo brought two other border melodramas, his own Nordeck and The Royal Guard. The month of October ended with a week's run of still another American farce comedy, The Rag Baby's Twin Brother. Osbourne and Stockwell, from the Alcazar Theatre in San Francisco, teamed up for a week of sensational melodrama in November. The critic of the Los Angeles Herald com mented: The first appearance of the company last night at the Opera House, in the sensational drama, The Sha- dows of a Great City, drew a tremendous house. . . . About the best that can be said of the play is that it abounds in startling situations, some of which I are forced and improbable. As a piece, it ranks in literary merit and construction with the average yellow-covered novel, so much in vogue among a cer tain class.2® |In the years to come, there would be fewer and fewer sensa tional melodramas at the Grand Opera House which seemed to appeal to a more sophisticated audience. Yet, curiously 2^Los Angeles Tribune. October 20, 1887. 26 Los Angeles Herald. November 1, 1887. 225 enough, in its struggle to survive as a legitimate theatre in 1893 and 1894, the Grand Opera House once again returned to crowd-pleasing sensational melodrama. Only this time the effort came too late; the Burbank Theatre (built in 1893) had already become the city’s house of breath-taking melodrama at popular prices. ! I ! November also saw the arrival of the Neil Burgess Company in Vim and Widow Bedott, both American rural comedy I dramas, in which comedian Burgess played the role of an old i I ispinster Yankee woman. M. B. Curtis returned in the Ameri- I can-Hebrew rural comedy drama Caught in a Corner. in which "... virtue and principle are triumphant." Of some inter est was the fact that the youthful and lovely Maude Adams was in the Curtis Company. Charles L. Davis came back to Los Angeles in November in more American Yankee farmer I drama, Alvin Joslin. Margaret Mather and company ended the jmonth in eight performances of repertory: Romeo and Juliet. The Honeymoon and Leah, the Forsaken. The publicity that attended the arrival of the troupe was effusive: Margaret Mather . . . with the Original Union Square Theatre Production, which cost Mr. Hill the manager $52,000 . . . with 10 Calcium Lights . . . 120 People Whose Ages range from five (5) years to seventy (70) 27 ___________Los Angeles Tribune. November 19, 1887.____________ 226 The Los Angeles Daily Herald reported that the week's run 28 grossed over $8,000, and the season was so successful that the company returned for an additional three-day stay at the end of November. Gilbert-Donnelly-Girard came in December in a week of farce (Natural Gas). followed by Milton and Dollie Nobles in more of the same. James O'Neill appeared in December in a full week of Count of Monte Cristo, with "... Elaborate I [New Scenery and Realistic Stage Pictures." Like Frank Mayo, O'Neill had already become identified with one role, that of jthe romantic Edmund Dantes. A local reviewer commented on O'Neill's reluctance to attempt other roles: "More than once his revelations of gratifying tragic power suggested the thought that he might well continue in greater roles, 29 which he essayed at one time, not without success." The theatrical year for the Grand Opera House ended 'with the appearance of the Rice-Dixey Big Burlesque Company in a three-day run of Adonis, "A Burlesque Combination of | singers, comedians, acrobats . . . witty dialogue and bright 28 Los Angeles Daily Herald, November 27, 1887. 2Q ^Los Angeles Tribune . December 23, 1887. 227 The Season of 1887 at the Minor Houses A series of lesser artists and productions appeared I at the city's other halls and makeshift theatres. Armory Hall in October featured Rosner's Hungarian Electric Or chestra in instrumental music in which "... the artists produce battle scenes with flashes of cannon, loud reports, ; I I i thunder, and lightning." In December 1887 the Panorama (Building on Fourth and Main Streets opened: ] I ! The immense circular Panorama Building, one hundred j ! twenty-five feet in diameter and fifty feet high, | was built in the Fall of 1887 to house a painting I on twenty thousand square feet of canvas, The Siege of Paris. Lighting was by daylight, so the building was not opened evenings. Admission was 25<: .30 On April 27, 1887, the canvas was adorned with the "heroic scenes of the battle of Gettysburg, with dying horses and 31 men, exploding cannons and all the other gory details." Some eighteen months later the Panorama Building was renamed |the People's Theatre, and offered a short season of popular- i ■priced melodrama. The Season of 1887 at Hazard's Pavilion ! By far the most important of the new theatres in 30Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," II, 407. 31Ibid., p. 408. 228 Los Angeles besides the Grand Opera House in 1887 was the cavernous Hazard's Pavilion at Fifth and Olive Streets, now the site of the Philharmonic Auditorium. Originally built to house the Los Angeles Flower Show in April 1887, Hazard's Pavilion at first had no seating accommodations. Seats were added for the nationally famous National Opera Company’s four-day stay in May, and the house was scaled at $1.00 to $4.00. The Los Angeles Tribune reported: I } Los Angeles can present a very brilliant audience | when it wanted. . . . Last evening there were fully 3,000 people present, most, like the animals in the Ark, in pairs. All Los Angeles and his wife, or best girl, was there There followed the Dairy Maid's Festival (May), the G.A.R. Reunion (June), and the First Annual Fair of the Los Angeles County Pomological Society (September) . I In November Hazard's Pavilion began to operate as a ! popular-priced playhouse which was intended to appeal to jaudiences far different from those at the Grand Opera House . George P. Webster and William A. Brady— two former Grismer jassociates— arranged for McLain and Lehman to manage the 33 huge pavilion, which was now converted into a theatre. 32 Los Angeles Tribune. May 17, 1887. 33Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," II, 407. 229 Creditable sensational melodrama was performed nightly at prices ranging from 25£ to 50<:. After a week of After Dark. it was reported: After Dark was presented to an enormous audience last night. The play is highly sensational and made an effectual appeal to the "god" who made the vast building ring. ^ jAgain the editorial commented: I I | . . . the audience last night keenly relished the j strong situations. The railroad scene in the last j act is very vivid, and held the audience enthralled | during the excitement which occurred.33 i I | There followed full-week runs of Hazel Kirke and I Lynwood ("the American spectacular Civil war historical drama . . . with variety acts in Act II"), and the "Splendid scenic production of the English melodrama, Lights O' Lon don ." It was the late December success of She that ac complished the trick of making Brady famous and encouraging him to try his fortune in New York. Rider Haggard's novel i j She had already sold over five million copies . Brady jadapted it for the stage, and She was an instantaneous suc cess : 34 Los Angeles Daily Herald. November 15, 1887. 33Ibid.. November 16, 1887. 230 Last night witnessed the second production of She. The crowd on the lower floor fairly forced the orches tra against the stage. . . . It is safe to estimate the crowd at 5,000.36 So controversial was the play that the Los Angeles Tribune devoted a full editorial column to She: I What is the purpose of She? If Rider Haggard is an ! "Occultist" in material science, and an Agnostic in that of religion, his story is an admirable illustra tion of a mind under the influence of these princi- ! pies. We fail to find any other object illustrated by the story.3? ?And so, on a note of literary ambiguity--but excellent box- j office business, nevertheless— the theatrical season ended for Hazard's Pavilion in the year 1887. Summary of the Season of 1887 The 1887 season was truly extraordinary for a number of reasons; the most remarkable, by all accounts, was the arrival in Los Angeles of some seventy different companies, ! jthirty-eight of which offered legitimate drama. Of these, less than 10 per cent were organized in San Francisco; the ;remaining companies were mostly eastern in origin. The in- i I crease in total number of companies over that of the Los Angeles Times. December 26, 1887. ^^Los Angeles Tribune. December 27, 1887. 231 preceding year was an amazing fifty-four: the number of legitimate companies more than doubled, while the nonlegi timate companies increased almost 500 per cent! There could be no doubt about it: both the land boom and the theatrical boom in the city of Los Angeles were on. Another remarkable aspect of the 1887 theatrical ! i season was the number of halls and buildings which were used to house theatrical performances. Obviously built to at tract and accommodate the hordes of newly-arriving Ange- i lenos, these new "theatres" included Mott's Hall, the second Los Angeles Tivoli, Hazard's Pavilion, the Panorama Build ing, and, occasionally, the second Turnverein Hall and the Club Theatre. Yet despite all the new building activity, only Hazard's Pavilion would challenge the supremacy of the Grand Opera House during the 1887 season. The ill-fated i Isecond Los Angeles Tivoli was destined to burn to the ground j jearly in 1888 before a single artist trod its boards; the I j Panorama Building, lit by daylight only, could not accommo- I 'date evening performances; and aside from the memorable appearance of Adelina Patti and an occasional musical eve ning thereafter, Mott's Hall would not be used profession ally again until 1893, and then as a vaudeville house. Throughout 1887 the Grand Opera House continued to 232 attract almost all of the best stars and traveling companies that arrived in Los Angeles, while Hazard's Pavilion (a 25$ and 50$ house) operated with its own stock company. Whereas the Grand Opera House catered to more sophisticated audi ences, the Pavilion's appeal was to the gallery gods who were content with exciting melodrama. As a result, a defi nite theatrical division (in Rahill's words) could be dis cerned: the Grand Opera House could, at this time, very well be considered the "two-dollar" house, while Hazard's j i Pavilion was very much the "twenty-five cent" house. Along with the stars of legitimate drama that came to the city in 1887 was an impressive list of nationally and internation ally famous troupes in nonlegitimate productions: Patti, the Emma Abbott English Opera Company, the National Opera Company, Billy Emerson’s Minstrels, the Bijou Opera Company, etc. ! Above all, Los Angeles' theatrical destiny was being j 'firmly and inexorably linked to the rest of the nation— especially with the theatrical center of the nation, New | York City. Slowly but surely the School of Realism was making its literary way westward, and the critical attitudes of Howells and James were being transmitted to local crit ics. A certain sense of theatrical awareness was being 233 cultivated: local critics were quick to identify and com ment on the old-fashioned theatricality of an Isabel Morris and a Joseph Grismer, as well as the newer and more realis tic acting styles of Booth, Barrett, and Gillette. It was this increased critical awareness that gave rise to a demand for a higher standard of dramatic performance in staging as well as in acting. i The year 1887 might well be considered a turning t j jpoint for theatrical activity in Los Angeles. As the best of the eastern companies continued to make their way to the coast, the local critical and dramatic sense was further refined. As the city's population expanded and as its the atres and performers grew in number, there was established a vital theatrical link between Los Angeles and the other metropolitan centers, especially New York City, that was as real as any of the railroad lines which connected the East with the West. A definite dramatic and theatrical sensi- l | bility was being formed in Los Angeles, and the Grand Opera House acted as catalyst. i | I Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles in 1888 The theatrical season of 1888 was a replay of the preceding year, but with even more stars and first-rate 234 companies. It was a banner year as far as theatre in Los Angeles was concerned: the rush of stars included Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, Mrs. James B. Potter, Frederick Warde, Fanny Davenport, Denman Thompson, Agnes Robertson, Isabel Morris, Daniel Bandmann, Louis James, and Marie Wainwright. Some of the more important eastern traveling |combination companies— Daniel Frohman's New York Lyceum i jTheatre Company and A. M. Palmer's Stock Company from the j jMadison Square Theatre, New York— came to the city in 1888, I i jbringing with them new stars and new plays. Among the stellar nonlegitimate troupes to play Los Angeles this year were the Carleton Opera Company, Mestayer and Vaughn, Don nelly and Girard, the Rentz-Santley combination, Hoyt and Thomas, Haverly's Minstrels, and both the Conreid and Pyke Opera Companies. Theatre construction kept pace with the eighty com- i panies that came to the city during the height of that boom year: New theatres in Los Angeles included the Tivoli, sub sequently destroyed by fire on Main between Second j and Third, opened by McLain and Lehman; the California Dime Museum on North Main near First managed by Doyle and Isaacs; and the Los Angeles Theatre on Spring be tween Second and Third, opened December 17 under Henry Wyatt. Panoramas continued to be shown at the tent- theatre on Main between Third and Fourth. The Hazard 235 housed many operatic performances in the Spring; became in July a legitimate house under J. W. Okey. Mott's Hall reverted to amateur use, mostly for fairs. The Grand, managed by Wyatt, remained un disputed "first theatre."®® The foundations for the Burbank Theatre were also laid dur ing 1888; the bust, however, delayed its actual construc tion until 1893. The cause of sensational melodrama at reduced rates was served at Hazard's Pavilion, now renamed the Academy of Music. j Despite the first ominous notes of the land boom's termination in late spring, theatrical activity continued unabated throughout the year. Curiously enough, the bust did not really affect the theatrical offerings which, by 1888, were mainly of eastern origin. Of the eighty compa nies that stopped in Los Angeles, forty-four were legitimate and thirty-six were nonlegitimate. The Season of 1888 at the Grand Opera House The Carleton Opera Company began the 1888 season at the Grand Opera House with eight performances of light opera, including Nanon and Ermine. William Redmund and Mrs. Thomas Barry followed in Rene. the French historical drama. ®®Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 176. 236 After a week of the Boston Howard Athenaeum Specialty Com pany in variety-vaudeville came the Kiralfy Brothers' spec tacular, Around the World in Eighty Days, complete with "2 carloads of scenery . . . 100 People on stage . . . and The Live-Trick Elephant 'Parryeu.' . . . with the Wreck of the Henrietta . " Said the delighted critic: j The background alone remained stationary; the bal cony [of the Henrietta set] fell into the lake at intervals and was fished out uninjured. After the | wreck the irons of the ship floated gaily . . . all i to the huge delight of the big crowd present.^9 i i : l i i McFadden brought his Double Uncle Tom's Cabin Com- i pany in February, along with "two Marks, two Topsys and two Irish trick donkeys." The Carleton Opera Company returned for another week in February, followed by the Grismer-Davies Troupe in a week of sensational and domestic melodrama: The j - - Wages of Sin. Chispa. and The Streets of New York. Of , Chispa it was reported: i ! Miss Davies . . . neither strides, swears nor shouts, but is a fearless and attractive child of the mines. Mr. Grismer as Zeke Stephens has as little of the regulation mannerism of the "stage miner" as possible. I After a week of Haverly's Original Mastodons, ^ Los Angeles Times. January 25, 1888. 40Ibid., February 18, 1888. 237 Angelenos had their first opportunity to see Edwin Booth and Lawrence Barrett together in classical Shakespearean reper tory: Othello, Hamlet, and King Lear. The Grand Opera House was scaled at $4.00 for the dress circle, $3.00 for the parquet, and $2.00 for the entire upstairs area, with boxes at $25.00. According to one enthusiastic reporter: I I | The house was crowded of course, for when did Los j Angeles fail to patronize the best talent? . . . ! One gets so accustomed to the ordinary run of "star” companies, where one member is the stellar attraction and the others are carefully subdued and mostly pale their ineffectual fires, that it becomes a duty to thank a manager who is successful in putting before his public such an aggregation of talent that was presented last night. I j I The winter season brought other exceptional artists. Agnes Robertson (Mrs. Dion Boucicault) appeared in My Geraldine. The Los Angeles Times was openly critical of the star's acting style: "This graceful lady 'doth protest too much,' and having begun at too high a pitch of woe, |wearies and has worn herself ere half through the first 42 act." Winter also brought Hoyt and Thomas' Big Comedy |Company in a week of American farce comedy, A Hole in the I i Ground. In the very best tradition of William Dean Howells, ^ Ibid., February 28, 1888. ^2Ibid., March 6, 1888. 238 Hoyt felt obliged to define and defend farce comedy as a genuine dramatic genre: It is intended to make money by amusing, and it serves that purpose. But to the observing mind it is much more than that. It is a photograph of nine teenth century life . . . and it is true to life, indeed fulfilling the highest form of dramatic art j in holding a mirror (only a very slightly convex I one) up to nature.43 j ! |The local press agreed, adding even more tenets of the I 1 {School of Realism: | I I . . . without a plot, without giving a snap of his I fingers for those worn out old bugaboos, the "Uni ties," Mr. Hoyt has produced what is true . . . still as much an art work and as realistic as "The Rise of Silas Lapham" or "The Portrait of a Lady."44 April began with Mademoiselle Rhea in an all-French program (Frou-Frou. Fairy Fingers, and Camille); then came the Annie Pixley Company in a week of musical comedy, The Deacon's Daughter and The Charity Girl. Ex-society belle {Mrs. James B. Potter first appeared in the city and con- i eluded the month of April. In spite of reams of pre- production publicity, the Los Angeles Times concluded that ! We have seen Mrs. James B. Potter and— well— we i 4^"Playbill," March 14, 1888 (Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California). _______ 44Los Angeles^ TjjMg-, March 28, 1888.______________ 239 probably wish that we hadn't. At least I wish most heartily that I hadn't . . . She will keep her self- respect, and the respect of all good people, better so— or, if she must have notoriety, she would make a much more shining success, artistically and in a financial way, as-leading lady in a dime museum. Evans and Hoey came with another American farce comedy, A Parlor Match, in May. The reviewer wrote that "... one would need the thousand eyes of Argus to see the ! 46 play and by-play." Lily Langtry, supported by Charles 'Coghlan, followed in the English domestic drama As in a j ! Looking Glass. Prices for the week were raised to $2.00 for j ithe dress circle and $1.00 for the parquet. Admitting i | readily to her beauty, the critic also felt that the Jersey Lily was now something of an accomplished actress: "... she has added a strength, a power and a refinement . . . which shows conclusively that she is a long way on the royal iroad to honor, and permanently removes her from the ranks of :amate urdom. 7 ! Frederick Warde returned in May in romantic drama: Virginius. Gaston and Cadol. and Damon and Pythias. Forced to play opposite the rival Hazard Pavilion's production of 4~*Ibid.. April 4, 1888. 46Los Angeles Daily Herald. May 2, 1888. __________ 47Los Angeles Times. May 8, 1888._____________________ 240 The Drummer Bov, or the Battlefield at Shiloh. Warde faced a week of slim crowds: . . . yet Mr. Warde has not complained of the Los Angeles theatre-goers, although he has ample cause, for up to last night, when Mr. Wyatt took a benefit, the attendance was anything but large,48 By June, the Los Angeles Daily Herald had linked the city's j ! theatrical prosperity directly with the boom: Los Angeles, California, three years ago, was a two- nights ' stand for companies on the California circuit. Today it is a one week stand. That speaks volumes for the Boom in real estate, which in three years has doubled the population of the sleepy little Spanish - American city on the sunny slope of the Pacific Coast .48 Summer brought Denman Thompson in the American rural melodrama The Old Homestead. Said the reviewer: ". . .Mr. Denman Thompson rejoices the land with his counterfeit pre- 50 sentment, holding his very mirror up to nature." Fanny Davenport, now in her "Sardou period," showed her versatil- ! |ity in impassioned romantic roles, Fedora and La Tosca. dur- iing July. The month ended with two more farce comedies |(The Humming Bird and Three of a Kind) as performed by the 48Ibid.. May 25, 1888. 49Ibid.. June 17, 1888. 50Ibid.. July 10, 1888. 241 Salsbury Troubadours, and the musical comedy A Soap Bubble with the Irish comedian T. J. Farron. James H. Wallick returned in August, bringing with him two border equestrian melodramas: The cattle King and The Bandit King. Scoffed the critic of the Los Angeles Times: . . . J. H. Wallick, whose curls are longer, sombrero broader, spurs sharper, sentiments nobler and ranch bigger than any heretofore known to fiction. This is | the true land of romance . . . where fair-headed j heiresses from "old Hingland" wander about clothed ( in artistic riding habits and their own innocence. ! I August also brought the first visit of Daniel Frohman's esteemed Lyceum Theatre Company in a full week of the new American society drama, Belasco and DeMille's The Wife. Once again the measure of dramatic criticism was Howells and James, and their insistence upon that which was real and authentic in the emerging American drama; I | The main theme of The Wife illustrates the self- sacrifice and manliness of a nineteenth-century husband under trying conditions. "This is not like life, this is life," said Mr. Howells recently . . . and after seeing The Wife. one can quote the sentence in all truth. . . . The Wife is American throughout, in motive, in charac ter, in idea. It is a delicate and refined present ment in the lives of such men and women as we all 51Ibid.. August 7, 1888. 242 would like to be--if we are not. It . . . is a strong, fresh, living fact out of the best of our modern contemporary living. . . . As a result, the house was full to overflowing with the fashion and brains of Los Angeles.52 After the society drama of the Lyceum Company came the romantic drama of Neil Warner in a short run of Geneva Cross and Ingomar the Barbarian. Audiences on the first floor were only fair, and it was reported that "Mr. Warner's chief claim to the name of tragedian seemed to be the pos session of a big voice, a fierce costume, and a very wooly black be ard." ^ i t In September came another of the prestigious eastern traveling companies, the A. M. Palmer Company, direct from the Madison Square Theatre in New York. Under the direction of A1 Hayman, the company brought its latest repertoire of society dramas: Jim. the Penman. Saints and Sinners. Part ners . and Heart of Hearts. Again the local critics echoed i itheir eastern counterparts: j Saints and Sinners is a little like Haze1 Kirke. and a great deal like Olivia, and has much of the virtues of both. It is . . . always touching, always ten- j derly human, always very real.5^ !_______________________ 52Ibid.. August 14, 1888. 55Ibid., August 31, 1888. 54 __________Ibid., September 17, 1888.________________________ 243 October and November brought a rush of farce comedy and English burlesque: the Mestayer-Vaughan combination performed The Kitty (farce comedy), Vernona jarbeau played a week in Starlight (farce comedy), Rice's Big Burlesque Company packed the Grand Opera House with Evangeline (bur lesque extravaganza), and Eugene Canfield and company per- i formed a week in Hoyt's farce A Tin Soldier. October ended with the reappearance of Louis James and Marie Wainwright jfor seven performances of classical and romantic drama, I I iincluding Othello. Hamlet. The School for Scandal, and Vir- I ginius. The Los Angeles Times felt that the arrival of the stars would dispel some of the effects of the more frivolous entertainment offered at the Grand Opera House: . .it will be an acceptable relief after the surfeit of trashy 55 things which has been thrust upon the public." Some three | idays later the same paper found that James' Hamlet was irather mechanical and stiff: "... the lines were well- I j rendered, and the rendition careful, but the dreamer, the 56 man of thought . . . this man is utterly absent." j j Halien and Hart came to Los Angeles during the 55Ibid.. October 28, 1888. ^6Ibid., November 3, 1888. 244 winter in the "original American Musical Farce-Comedy by H. Graton Donnelly," Later On: . . . in reality it is a mixture of improbabilities, accented by the fun made by Messrs. Hart and Hallen, and a very epileptic young woman . . . whose dancing is unique and contorted. 7 More farce comedy arrived in November: Donnelly and Girard (Natural Gas). the Frank Daniels Company (Little Puck). and Dan'l Sully in The Corner Grocery and Daddy Nolan. Of the latter the critic said: The second act degenerates into the roughest kind of horseplay, and is chiefly a setting for the ir reverent actions of the hoodlum son . . . hardly a subject for laughter!^8 December featured more of the same: the Atkinson Comedy Company in the farce Peck's Bad Bov and the Dalys in another farce, Upside Down. So ended the theatrical season for the Grand Opera House during 1888. The City's Second Luxury Playhouse, the Los Angeles Theatre On December 17, 1888, there opened in Los Angeles another luxury theatre, one which would first rival, then ^7Ibid.. November 6, 1888. 58Ibid., November 14, 1888. 245 surpass Los Angeles' first playhouse, the Grand Opera House. This was the Moorish-sty led Los Angeles Theatre, planned and financed by Mrs. Juana Neal and managed, initially, by Henry Clay Wyatt, also the manager of the Grand Opera House. Situated on Spring Street between Second and Third, the Los Angeles Theatre was the city's newest and brightest theatre: In front the stage is 40 x 60 feet in size and is fitted with every modern appliance . . . The boxes are in bronze, white and soft red colors. . . . The dress circle contains twelve loges, seating four persons, arranged in a semi-circle, and upholstered in soft scarlet plush. Bronze columns support the balcony and blue crystal gas lights in imitation of candles are to illuminate the theatre . . . The seat ing capacity, including gallery is 1200. The stage is fitted with twenty-five sets of interior and exterior scenery; has a double fly gallery and a room in the top reached by an elevator for storing scenery . . . There are twelve dressing rooms . . . The stage is supplied with fire hydrants; on either side of each gallery are fire hydrants. The theatre has 14 ex it s. ^ The Season of 1888 at the | Los Angeles Theatre j Jeffrys Lewis opened the brief theatrical season at jthe Los Angeles Theatre with a traditional repertoire of domestic drama: Diplomacy. La Belle Russe, and Clothilde. Prices were scaled at 25£ to $1.00, thus placing Los ^Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," II, 414; the Los Angeles Theatre was demolished in 1941. 246 Angeles' newest theatre somewhere between the Grand Opera House and the 25$ minor houses. The next attraction at the Los Angeles Theatre was J. Z. Little's "six-act Scenic drama," The World. Thus concluded the abbreviated year at the Los Angeles Theatre for the year 1888, and the question of what place the theatre would assume in the development of theatrical activity in the city remained unanswered until jthe following year. The Season of 1888 at Hazard's Pavilion i ! The downtown theatre, Hazard's Pavilion, whose prices were "right" (25$ and 50$) and whose secret lay in ithe fact that it gave its customers exciting, first-rate theatre, capitalized on the newest craze for scenic realism set in a sensational and melodramatic setting by continuing to offer theatre in the best tradition of Webster-Brady. January brought Horace Lewis and company in Monte Cristo. i followed by George Wessells in a week of more lurid melo- drama: Michael Stroqnoff and White Slave. Next came A. R. Wilber in repertoire (Van, the Virginian. Woman against Woman, and Called Back) . Admitted the Los Angeles Times: ", . . popular prices, as in the East, have evidently 247 'caught on* with our amusement-loving people."60 Later the same newspaper added: The popular prices of these performances . . . are a drawing card. The object of the manager is to give a meritorious and attractive performance at a minimum entrance fee, to meet the wants of the masses Temporarily abandoning sensational melodrama, McLain and Lehman, managers at the Pavilion, booked the Pyke Opera Company for a two-month stay during March and April. This represented the longest continuous run of opera in the his- jtory of the city up to that time. Patti Rosa appeared in l May in more melodrama, albeit of a less sensational type. After a week of vaudeville (Reilly and Woods) in May came the American battlefield epic The Drummer Boy, or the Bat tlefield of Shiloh "with 6 tableaux . . . the Perfect Repre sentation of life in camp." June brought Lew Morrison and the California Theatre cast from San Francisco in the sensational English melodrama A Dark Secret. For this production, the floor of the Pa vilion's stage was flooded with water. The play's handbill synopsis, typical of the many sensational melodramas of that i 60Los Angeles Times. February 8, 1888. 6^Ibid., February 9, 1888. 248 time, read as follows: Synopsis: Act I. The Suicide. Scene 1. Garden of Priory House, Lalcham, Surrey. Scene 2. The Poacher's House, Felham Woods. Scene 3. The Tower Chamber, Clavering. Act II. (Five years after) Scene 4. Clavering Woods. Scene 5. The Lane near Whitechurch. Scene 6. Jonas' Room at Clavering Court. Act III. The Danger Signal. Scene 7. A Restaurant at Henley. Scene 8. On the Rowing Path. Scene 9. Henley on the Thames. The Race for the Diamond Sculls. A Lively Day. Act IV. The Old Church at Henley (An Original Act written and arranged by C . B. Jefferson) Act V . The Tower Chamber. 3,000 cubic feet of the stage flooded with 20,000 gallons of real water, varying in depth from 2 1/2 to 7 feet. The boats built for A Dark Secret by J. Greholder. • • • The Steam Launch propelled by the Shipman Automatic Coal Oil Engine Obviously the play was designed for its breath-taking ef fects and little else: As to the play, they [the audience] were disappointed; as to the scenic effects, they were more than de lighted— they went into ecstasies. From a literary point of view, the piece is rubbish. . . . In the un raveling of the story there are horrors upon horrors, including a death by heart disease, a supposed suicide that turns out to be a murder, a writhing, ghastly death by poison, and an attempt at murder by ^ "Playbill," March 2, 1888(Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 249 63 drowning. Another review later laconically concluded that It will be noticed that in the Henley race scene more attention is paid to the scenery and other effects than to the acting. . . . If the Secret has a long run there will be more or less demand for rheumatic remedies among the company.^ Colds and remedies notwithstanding, A Dark Secret ran for two full weeks. The Pyke Opera Company returned for yet another month of comic and light opera. Starting July 15, 1888, the Pavilion was renamed the Academy of Music under the managership of T. W. Okey. Comedian Lizzie Evans played in July in the American rural comedies Fogg's Ferry. Our Angel, and Maud Muller . Then came the Rentz-Santley Novelty and Burlesque Company in the "Parisian burlesque" Adam and Eve, followed by Apple's Congress of Novelties with "the Dale Brothers, the Putnam Sisters, Prince Endadro . . . and Living Pictures." As in its earlier Webster-Brady days, admission to the Acadeny of Music remained at 25$ and 50$. September saw the arrival of Miss Rose Wood, sup ported by the Vinton-Holden Dramatic Company, in more stir ring scenic melodramas, The Galley Slave. The Blackmailer. 63 Los Angeles Daily Herald. March 4, 1888. 6 4 i ________ Los Angeles Tribune, March 6, 1888,_____ 250 Octoroon. East Lynne. and Hazel Kirke . Both Darrell Vinton and E. J. Holden were destined to play important roles in establishing the city's first permanent resident stock com pany at the Burbank Theatre in 1893. October at the Academy brought Mons. Philippe Salvini's Company of Living Wonders, including "the Monkey Comedian 'Petroff ' and the Gorilla Comedian 'Neron.'" On October 29, 1888, a card in the Los Angeles Daily Herald tersely announced the closing of the theatre: "The Acadeny of Music is no longer to be continued as an established theatre. Mr. T. W. Okey, who had been running it since the retirement of Messrs McLain and Lehman, 65 has retired." So ended the brief and sometimes glorious career of Hazard's Pavilion-Academy of Music— the best of the minor "theatres" in Los Angeles— for the theatrical year 1888. Of some importance during the year was the fact that Charles Dickens, Jr. read from his father's works at Armory Hall during the spring and that Wyatt, in June, produced a i month of shows at the New Turner Hall (formerly the Turn- i jverein Hall) while the Grand Opera House was being refur- | bished. Also, the Panorama Building on South Main Street ^5Los Angeles Daily Herald. October 29, 1888. 251 continued to house "The Siege of Paris . . . the Magnificent Painting and Realistic Work of Art for 25C and 50r." The Season of 1888 at the California Dime Museum It was also in 1888 that the California Dime Museum on First and Main Streets first opened its doors to Ange- 66 lenos. Originally intended as a bank, the one-story level-floored structure was covered with a tent. Doyle and Isaac, the California Dime Museum's first proprietors, ad vertised in January 1888: I i | Juggling . . . Startling Magic, Bohemian Glass Blow- | ing . . . A Three Legged Horse . . . Four-Horned Sheep of Buchna, etc., etc.. etc. Open 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Adm. lCfi with Red Hart, the balancer Rave11a, the American Jap ^ Belmont, the Ventriloquist, etc. i In August the California Dime Museum announced "Manallie, jthe tatooed Fiji Island Princess and Sig. Forrestal, the j iGreat Sword Swallower . . . and in the theatre Prof. Schwie- 68 igerling's Theatre Foutoche with 106 Marionettes." ^ E a r n e s t , "Growth of Theatre," II, 408. 67Los Angeles Daily Herald. January 21, 1888. 6®Ibid., August 14, 1888. 252 The appeal of the Museum was almost immediate. The Los Angeles Daily Herald claimed, "The rush of visitors to this popular family resort continues unabated . . . General Cardena, 'the smallest mite of humanity in the world,' is 69 quite a card." And again in October the same newspaper noted that "Despite the immense counter-attractions of the jcircus and large political meetings, this favorite resort j 70 [continues to pack then in." At the year's end, the Cali- jfornia Dime Museum was still doing a brisk business and I i [offering new artists and novelty acts weekly. After oper- I ating their museum-theatre in this manner, Doyle and Isaacs decided in 1889 to change their policy and become a legiti mate theatre, offering the citizens of Los Angeles sensa tional melodrama at popular prices. The California Dime Museum became the People's Theatre in 1889 and operated briefly during the year with a stock company, thus continu ing the tradition of the minor theatres in the city. Summary of the Season of 1888 j Without doubt the boom year of 1888 was, as far as !Los Angeles theatrical activity was concerned, the very best 69Ibid.. September 30, 1888. ?Qlbid.. October 15, 1888. 253 year yet. A total of eighty companies came to the city during the year; of these, forty-four were legitimate and thirty-six were nonlegitimate, a gain of ten over the pre ceding year. Stars galore rushed to the city, and theatri cal runs were now generally a week in length as compared to the haphazard two- to four-day runs which characterized former years. As in other years, the theatrical division contin- ! ued: the Grand Opera House was now firmly entrenched as the more sophisticated road show house, while the Academy of Music carried on the tradition of the popular-priced thea tre. As for the newly-constructed Los Angeles Theatre, little could be concluded; its abbreviated season lasted for only two weeks in December. The year also saw the emergence of the curious California Dime Museum, a combination circus - variety theatre. The Panorama Building continued to display ithousands of square feet of canvas depicting scenes of in terest . : The plays performed in Los Angeles during the year were, for the most part, heavily weighted toward melodrama and farce comedy. There was some classical drama and a great deal of romantic tragedy. As usual, Angelenos showed their proclivity for music: the year was well represented 254 in all sorts of music, from grand opera to musical comedy. Of importance was the fact that some of the very best eastern companies began to visit Los Angeles during 1888. Under the personal direction of A1 Hayman, these companies brought two vital things to the local citizens: the newer eastern plays and the newer style of acting, both of which reflected the School of Realism and were soon adopted by the local theatrical world. Whereas the standard at the minor theatres involved only scenic realism, at the Grand Opera House the concept of realism was extended to a more natural style of acting; one can assume that the re viewers and critics knew that the minor theatres were "put ting on a show" and very little else. As the boom turned to bust, the theatres in Los Angeles began to feel the effects of the new economic situ ation. Coincidental with the first premonitions of the coming depression, the Academy of Music simply and quietly left the theatrical scene. The Burbank Theatre, whose pil- ings and foundations were already laid, would have to wait two full years for completion. Only the Los Angeles Theatre I and the Grand Opera House would survive the bust in Los Angeles. Yet their rivalry was conditioned by one thing: |the all-important contractual arrangements with the 255 ubiquitous A1 Hayman, whose influence in the development of theatre in Los Angeles would grow in importance as the years passed. It was Hayman who directed all of the important eastern touring companies in the city, and it was Hayman who controlled the destinies of the only two genuine theatres in Los Angeles. In the years to come this influence would constitute a virtual monopoly. Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles in 1889 Although no exact date can be given for the end of the boom, there was a noticeable change in and about the city of Los Angeles in the late spring of 1888: We notice with feelings of great concern the steady decadence of the boom. It is with most unbounded sorrow and regret we witness the steady down-fall of the voluble real-estate agent, whose principal stock in trade was an over-abundance of cheek, a i running account with the printer, a large supply of "For Sale" placards and an honorable membership in the Real Estate Exchange.72 ! j As a result, prices fell and the bands, free excursions, |free lunches, auctioneers, and speculators disappeared from i Jthe city. As recalled by Judge Thomas J. Hayes: Then all of a sudden it ended. I remember that one day we had a big rain, and after it was all over I 72 ' Los Angeles Tribune, January 9, 1889. 256 went down town. The streets that had been jammed with people . . . seemed to lack something. The bottom dropped out of the big boom . . . It reversed motion and went down like a chunk of sawed-off wood. Yet despite its effect upon the economy of Los Angeles, the bust only slightly and temporarily affected the theatrical situation in the city during the 1889 season, jstars continued to flock to Los Angeles: Madame janauschek, jprederick Warde, Effie Ellser, Margaret Mather, Helena I jModjeska, Frank Mayo, Sol Smith Russell, Robert Mantell, I |Rose Coghlan, Minnie Maddern, E. H. Sothern, Georgia Cayvan, | land Fanny Davenport. i The acclaimed Frohman companies continued to play the Grand Opera House, while the nonlegitimate traveling companies came to both the Grand Opera House and the rival Los Angeles Theatre. This year brought such companies as The Bostonians, Lydia Thompson and Her British Blondes, the jCarleton Opera Company, and W. J. Gilmore's "grand Spec tacular Triumph, " The Twelve Temptations. I The two most important theatres in Los Angeles in 1889 were the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre. The California Dime Museum continued as a variety and circus palace until May, at which time it became a stock company ^ Ibid.. January 2, 1890. 257 presenting popular dramas for 15C and 25C. In September it reverted again to the status of a museum. Hazard's Pavilion was used infrequently for legitimate drama and housed all of the city's public meetings, such as the series of lectures staged by evangelist Moody. The Panorama Building continued to show painted canvas panoramas. Henry Wyatt still con tracted for talent with A1 Hayman in San Francisco and Jattempted to manage both the Grand Opera House and the Los I ! lAngeles Theatre. In October McLain and Lehman became the new managers of the Los Angeles Theatre. The Season of 1889 at the Grand Opera House Lydia Thompson and her own Grand English Burlesque Company opened the season at the Grand Opera House in a two- week run of English burlesque, Penelope and Columbus. Said Ithe reviewer of the toast of two continents: I Penelope. as was to be expected, filled the Grand last night. The burlesque is very pretty indeed and : the comedy provocative of much laughter. While much j cannot be said for the scenery which might have wit- ! nessed Miss Thompson's first appearance, the costumes were very beautiful, Miss Thompson appeared in sev eral, each one more attractive than the preceding. She has lost none of her old ability to please, and appeared as fresh and charming as ever.74 7 4 Los Angeles Times, January 9, 1889. 258 Grismer and Davies, adding new plays, brought more domestic melodrama: Forgiven and The World Against Her. The latter play was soundly rebuked for its over sententiousness: Imagine a woman who, through a dime-novel notion of self-sacrifice, keeps a paltry secret from her hus band, suffers the imputation of infidelity, and brings disgrace on her child, and then appeals to sensible people to sympathize with her in her mis fortune. A heroine of this kind should be subjected to a treatment of cold baths January ended with a season of The Black Crook, one of the more enduring spectacular extravaganzas. February brought the Carleton Opera Company in nine performances of comic opera, followed by a week of Joseph K. Emmett and "the largest St. Bernard in the world" in the farce comedy Our Fritz . Always a welcome visitor to the city, Frederick Warde returned in February in old favorites: The Mountebank. William Tell, and Virginius . Despite his ;popularity, Warde, a romantic tragedian, was taken to task i I |for his declamatory style of acting: | His stalwart presence and manly style in William Tell j became the role, and although his sustained declama tory force shouted at times the need of relief, its monotony was not so much marked as in parts like I 7^Ibid.. January 14, 1889. 259 Virginius. to which so many artists have brought subtlety as well as strength.7^ Madame Modjeska concluded the month in repertory, which in cluded Schiller's Mary Stuart. Adrienne Lecouvreur. Camille. and the premiere Los Angeles performance of Cymbeline. As usual, the press applauded her performances: She has not the panther-like fierceness and tremen dous force of a Bernhardt. But she has a high, clear and melting pathos, the power to ennoble passages I that would be commonplace in inartistic hands, and j she superadds to these an intelligence, energy and | womanly sweetness that are the height of the histri- I 7 7 ! onic art. ' I i Sol Smith Russell brought American rural comedy in March, the first of a long succession of "B'gosh" plays that would come that year. Featuring a seeming bumpkin with a heart of undefiled innocence, A Poor Relation probed the depths of the unspoiled rustic New England spirit: j The "poor relation" is a seedy genius with an un patented invention and a childlike faith in the hon esty of everything. . . . Mr. Russell's part is that of a sort of American Wilkins Micawber.7® April saw the appearance of Ellie Ellser in Little 76Ibid.. February 4, 1889. 77Ibid.. February 22, 1889. 7®"Playbill," June 14, 1889 (Behymer Collection, 'Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 260 Egypt and Judge Not, followed by "that beautiful story . . . Little Lord Fauntleroy": It can scarcely be called a play, for it has no plot worth speaking of and there is nothing dramatic in it from beginning to end. But the piece imbibes the gentle charm, the irresistible simplicity and the touching innocence of the book from which it was taken J* Spring also brought The Bostonians in eight performances of light and comic opera. Thirty-year-old E. H. Sothern, assisted by winsome iMaude Adams, made his first Los Angeles appearance in May in i |the new American society dramas Lord Chumley and The Highest Bidder. Under the direction of Daniel Frohman, the company came directly from the Lyceum Theatre in New York. The Los Angeles Times effused: "The play is as fine and clear-cut an exhibition of the new high-comedy writing as has been seen on the American stage . . . The dialogue of Lord Chum- 80 ley is especially bright and clever ..." Johnson and Slavin's "Majestic and Matchless Minstrels . . . with Bert Haverly" followed for a week in the end of May. The summer began with the W. H. Powers Company in 79 Los Angeles Times. April 23, 1889. 80Ibid., May 7, 1889. 261 two Irish-American comedy dramas, The Ivy Leaf and The Fairy Well. Then came another of the American rustic dramas: "A New England Narrative in Four Acts . . . A Simple Story of Maine Life," Old Jed Prouty. starring Richard Golden. As in the case of Denman Thompson's The Old Homestead, the play was a mixture of rural life and rural sentiment, the basis for the literary Down East humor movement which was rife in American letters at the close of the nineteenth century: You have heard of "Old Jed," reader— he used to keep, up to ten years ago, that quaint little bit of a tavern down in Bucksport village, Maine, where the cheery old landlord himself was never out of sight, rustling around in snow-white shirtsleeves, with a sly wink or friendly nod for everyone. . . . Old Jed died in '73 . . .He passed away from sight, but the memory of his kindly nature, his rugged honesty, his witty sallies, his love for little children, his re spect for women— all these yet live .81 In a word, these were the very virtues of the American I spirit, simply transplanted to the quaint reaches of a I (realistic New England village. j July saw the coming of W. J. Gilmore's spectacular i The Twelve Temptations. Although usually set in mythology, the spectacular was little more than a series of pretty girls in tights and specialty acts. The playbill read: 81,'Playbill," June 14, 1889 (Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 262 Act I. (Elaborate scenic display) concluding with the First production of the new ballet divertisement, entitled "The Policemen and the Flirts" . . . intro ducing the newly imported ballet troupe and the fun niest of funny novelties, The Brothers Savinella in the Grotesque Quadrille . . . and the magical disap pearance of Felicia and Jack Frost, with an instanta neous change to the realms of despair. General con fusion. Grotesque tableaux.®2 As with all spectaculars, the forces of Good eventually overcame the forces of Evil— but not until after five acts of onstage delight. Said the local critic: Every seat, from parquette to gallery, was taken, and people were turned away. . . . The Twelve Temp- tations is made up of surprising situations and catchy airs that are thrown together regardless of plot or dramatic effect.®2 The Lyceum Theatre Company, under the direction of A1 Hayman, came in July in society drama: The Wife. Arthur Wing Pinero's Sweet Lavender, and the French drama The Mar quise . In the Frohman company were such stellar performers as Henry Miller, Herbert Kelcey, and Nelson Wheatcroft. Although taken with the acting abilities of the troupe, i local critics were untouched by the dramatic potential of I The Wife: If there is to be an American drama worthy of the 82Ibid., July 12, 1889. ®2Los Anqeles Times. July 17. 1889. 263 name it must be made up of something more coherent than a mechanical mosaic of laughter and tears illus trating commonplace life in pretentious society.84 And again: . . . the company did not at first, and of course does not now, rise above the dignity of a collection of character photographs bound together by such lit erary commonplaces as are supposed to represent the mental efforts of good society under given conditions.®^ Whatever the cause, the local critics seemed much more im pressed with the company's performing ability than anything else . July also brought Duncan Harrison in the Anglo-Irish military drama The Paymaster. in which scenic realism was blended with old-fashioned sentimentalism: "The play has many dramatic incidents, and the fact that the motive is 86 strained does not destroy their effectiveness." Scotch- born Robert Mantell ended the month in the romantic Monbars and the classical Othello. The audience was effusive in its acclaim: "Robert B. Mantell last night received an honor unprecedented in Los Angeles, that of three curtain calls 84Ibid., July 20, 1889. 85Ibid.. July 22, 1889. 86Ibid., July 26, 1889. 264 87 at the close of an act." As for the role of the patriot Monbars, Mantell was deemed a fit romantic hero: A noble and gentle character in which dignity and sweetness are actually blended, a presence romanti cally handsome, a temperament perfectly poised in passion and repose. . . . Mantell invested it with the virtues, not the vices, of the French school and sounded in it some of the depths of the human heart.®® Charles McCarthy came in August in One of the Brav est . in which "During the Second Act, Mr. McCarthy in his character of 'Larry Howard, ' the Fireman, will give a realistic exhibition of the uses of all the latest inven tions for saving human lives." Karl Gardner, "the Jolly, German Comedian" performed for a week in farce comedy and sang the show-stoppers "Come Down by Dot Gate" and "Her Father Vas an Auctioneer." August ended with Rose Coghlan in an English program, Jocelyn and Peg Woffington. After a week of more farce comedy with Evans and Hoey (A Parlor Match) came Margaret Mather in a Shakespeare (repertoire, including As You Like It and Romeo and Juliet. It was during the fall that the Russell Farce-Comedy Company performed in The City Directory, in which fifteen *^Los Angeles Daily Herald. July 29, 1889. ®®Los Angeles Times. July 30, 1889. 265 characters were named Smith: . . . the complications arise through the mixing-up of a lot of John Smiths, whose various callings and embarrassments caused a high degree of absurd com plication. As the piece now goes, if anybody can tell anybody else what it is all about, he will be of a discernment equally rare and superfluous.88 The theatrical year for the Grand Opera House ended with the old standby, McFadden's Famous Boston Double Uncle Tom1s Cabin Company, performing for seven nights in December. The Season of 1889 at the Los Angeles Theatre While the Grand Opera House was claiming all the first-rate theatrical talent, the Los Angeles Theatre was feverishly trying to establish its place in the minds and hearts of the Los Angeles theatregoing public. Obviously eschewing the more legitimate dramatic forms, the Los Ange les Theatre featured a mass of farce, minstrelsy, and comic i opera in its first full theatrical year. And although ad missions would occasionally fluctuate, the house held to a ! |fairly established price policy: 25$ to $1.00. January began at the Los Angeles Theatre with a week of Ben and Ida Cotton in American rural melodrama: Black 89Ibid., October 27, 1889. 266 Diamonds. Jessica, and Wild Flowers . Then followed a brief three-day stay of the Carleton Opera Company in light opera, three more days of farce comedy (Fun on the Bristol) by William H. Bray and William Courtright, and a one-day per formance by Modjeska in Mary Stuart. Madame janauschek appeared for three days in the spring in Meg Merrilies and Mary Stuart, which followed the Royce-Lansing Musical Comedy Company in four days of ex travaganza and the Mattie Vickers Company in "the Musical Travesty," A Night Off. The spring also brought Reilly and Woods for a week of vaudeville plus a one-act farce; prices for the entire run were reduced to 15«r to 5 0 $ . The Harry Williams Spec ialty Company came in May with another week of vaudeville; also on the bill were Jack Dempsey and his trainer in a boxing exhibition. Jacquine (musical comedy) and Cherub (musical com edy) played for a week in June, followed by an attempt by manager Wyatt to produce light opera in English with his own resident stock opera company. Each of the operas ran for a full week and included Maritana. Virginia. Iolanthe. H.M.S. Pinafore, and Patience. After this latest attempt, Wyatt was replaced as manager of the Los Angeles Theatre by 267 McLain and Lehman. The new managers opened with Hermann "and his Mar velous Illusions" in October, followed by Nick Roberts, the "Humpty-Dumpty Comic Trick Comedian" in more extravaganza. November saw the appearance of a production of Mr. Barnes of New York, followed by a short run of Frank Mayo in the old- time favorites Nordeck and Davy Crockett. The year ended with a week of Mr. John Slater, "The World's Greatest Psy chological Phenomenon," another week of Uncle Tom's Cabin. and a four-day stay of Richards and Pringles' Georgia Min strels . The Season of 1889 at the California Dime Museum While the Los Angeles Theatre struggled to attract both performers and an audience, Doyle and Isaacs decided to change the format and the policy of the apparently suc cessful California Dime Museum. In May 1889 there came a change of policy: ! Card to the Public. After one year and a half of continuous success with our Museum, which maintained a flattering reputation for merit, respectability and popularity, we have determined to transform our business and premises into a regular theatre, ele gantly appointed and fitted throughout for the com fort and accommodation of our large patronage. with a seating capacity of 2,000, we are enabled to charge very moderate prices and shall present only sterling____ 268 attractions with an excellent Dramatic Stock Co. Our opening is May 11. Thanking the public cordi ally for the liberal patronage accorded us in the past, and trusting to merit a continuance of the same in our new venture, we remain the public's obedient servants, Doyle and Isaacs.9® And true to the tradition of minor theatres in the city of Los Angeles, the People's Theatre featured, in the main, I : lurid, sensational melodrama at prices ranging from 15<: to j35« . May saw American sensational melodrama ( Velvet and Rags) and English sensational melodrama (Lights O' London). June brought more of the same: State's Evidence. The Bank er 's Daughter, and one of the most famous of all the English melodramas, Lights O' London. A combination of scenic realism and heavy moralizing, the play appealed to those playgoers who were less discriminating as far as dramatic structure and acting styles were concerned. The produc tion's playbill read as follows: An Elegant Scenic Production of the Sensational and Thrilling Melo-Drama, in Seven Acts entitled I The Lights of London Act I. House and Grounds of Squire Armatage. The Lodge-Keeper's Daughter. Return of Harold and Bess. Father and Son. The Prodigal Son. Seth the Poacher. The Murder. Harold Accused. "Mark, remember your 90Los Angeles Tribune. May 14, 1889. 269 promise." Act II. The Armatage Arms. The Jarvis Family. Seth and Clifford. The Clue. "I'll keep this bit of paper, it may be useful some day." Act III. Bleak Woods. The Jarvis Caravan. The Escaped Convict. "Thank God, Bess, I shall see you once again, after all." Act VII. Police Station. "The Lights o' London Q I have brightened for us at last.,,:7X i i Lights 0 1 London ran for fourteen straight days and ended the month of June. July began with a performance of The Two Orphans. I followed by The Streets of New York. His Last Legs. Oliver Twist. Boucicault's The Long Strike, and The Red Fox. The latter, an American-Irish comedy drama, featured James M. and Carrie Clarke Ward and the two new managers at the People's Theatre, W. C. Crosbie and C. T. Arper. August saw the end of the managership of Crosbie and Arper— and the end of theatrical performances at the People's Theatre. ! | Summary of the Season of 1889 | Although many institutions in Los Angeles were seri- jously affected by the boom-turned-bust, theatrical activity I i !in the city throughout 1889 was seemingly only temporarily ^"Playbill," May 22, 1889 (Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California) . 270 affected. A total of sixty-nine companies came to the City of the Angels during 1889, only eleven companies fewer than the preceding year, which recorded a record high of some eighty companies. Yet despite this decrease, the number of legitimate companies increased over the previous year: forty-four in 1888, forty-six in 1889. The decrease was mainly in the large and elaborate traveling extravaganza companies . Although a few of these companies managed to reach Los Angeles in 1889, their number dwindled to a mere handful and would continue to decrease in subsequent years in the nation as well as in the city. Of the forty-six recorded legitimate companies that played in Los Angeles in the 1889 season, over half performed serious drama; the remaining companies were fairly evenly divided in their offerings: farce comedy and lurid, sensational melodrama. As in previous years, some trends and attitudes manifested themselves on the local theatrical scene which more firmly aligned it with the rest of the nation, espe cially the dramatic situation in New York. The long-awaited "authentic" American drama championed by Howells and James, in which a true portrait of American character would be realized on the stage, was brought to the local boards by a combination of American rural drama and the society dramas 271 of the traveling Frohman stock companies. The dramatic counterpart of the nineteenth-century Down East literary movement was brought to the city by the productions of Sol Smith Russell, Richard Golden, W. J. Florence, and Mattie Vickers, while the latest farce comedies, also associated with the dramatic criticism of Howells, came with Hallen and Hart, Evans and Hoey, and the Dalys. Society drama, the American version of the comedy of manners, was more and more i exemplified in the productions that bore the stamp of the brothers Frohman, by way of San Francisco's A1 Hayman. Society drama became the stock in trade of the better eastern traveling companiesj and by booking the best of the road show companies, the Grand Opera House became identified as the city's society theatre. With the advent of the Los Angeles Theatre in 1888, it became increasingly important to curry favor with Hayman, who controlled all the West Coast bookings for almost all the important eastern companies. As the demand for the better traveling companies l grew, Hayman's relationship and importance to the theatrical situation in Los Angeles grew correspondingly. Yet despite his virtual monopoly over the theatre in Los Angeles, there was a more positive and practical aspect of this domination: ias Hayman's companies came to Los Angeles, local playgoers 272 and critics began to develop a critical sense of theatre. By 1889, this newly-acquired sense of dramatic taste had developed into a fairly articulate appraisal and appre ciation of contemporary acting styles. Much like their eastern counterparts, local critics began to differentiate between the three distinct modes of acting based upon the plays involved: the classical, the romantic, and the real istic, already associated with the acting styles of Booth, jMacKaye, and Gillette. It was the new realistic style which I l |attempted to probe characterization without bombast and excessive sentimentality. Local critics were beginning to evaluate even the classical and romantic styles by the cri terion of "Nature's mirror," a vital determinant with the School of Realism. Almost all of the better plays and players origi nated outside the city of Los Angeles. If the local area jwas derivative in the makeup of its population and its the atrical sensibility, it was equally so in the matter of its ^dramatic productions. No shows originated in Los Angeles; jas a consequence, theatregoers were dependent upon the i offerings of outside companies. As the years passed, espe cially in the nineties, the traveling road show companies jwould play an even more important role as arbiters of style 273 in the theatrical life of Los Angeles . Until 1892, all of the better eastern companies came to the Grand Opera House. After that, and because of Hay man, all of these companies played the Los Angeles Theatre and the doom of the city's first theatre was sealed. How ever, at the end of 1880s, at least, the Grand Opera House I was still the "first" theatre, catering to the better talent at prices between 50$ and $1.75. When a particularly i jattractive star or company would come to town (Booth or I I Modjeska, for example) the price of seats was raised accord ingly. The theatrical "run" at the Grand Opera House was by now fairly well established and generally meant a full six nights and a Saturday matinee. In short, the Grand Opera House— undeniably the city's version of the "uptown" theatre— managed to provide its sophisticated and well-to-do jaudiences with quality performers and productions. The Los Angeles Theatre, built in the waning days i I of the boom, was certainly less fortunate than its prede cessor. Wyatt struggled through most of 1889 in an erratic j jfashion, featuring a variegated season of opera, lectures, ! chamber music, vaudeville, amateur drama, second-rate farce, and musical comedy at prices from 25$ to $1.00. In October, McLain and Lehman took over the management of the Los 274 Angeles Theatrej their bookings, aside from the now-portly Frank Mayo, were equally undistinguished. Whether Los Angeles could have afforded the luxury of two uptown play houses is problematical; the best evidence points to the conclusion that by 1890, at least, one first-rate house was all that the local traffic could bear. Still another trend became manifest during the five years between 1885 and 1890, that of the emergence of a popular-priced theatre. Easily identified by their choice of dramatic presentations (usually sensational melodrama), by their price policy (generally from 15<r to 50$), and by their troupes (more often than not, local stock companies), these minor houses--although erratic in nature— had become a fixed form in the city's theatrical development. With an audience of their very own, these minor theatres paralleled in form and content the theatrical division which Rahill jtraced in New York City. During the five years under con sideration, makeshift theatres such as the Los Angeles Rink j Theatre (later to become the Los Angeles Tivoli, the Vienna 1 i Garden, and the Vienna Theatre), the Academy of Music (for merly Hazard's Pavilion), and the People's Theatre (by way of the California Dime Museum) laid the foundation for jpopular-priced theatre in Los Angeles. After a lapse of 275 some years, the tradition would crop up once again, this time at the Park Theatre (the old Hazard's Pavilion). In 1893, with the construction of the city's third genuine playhouse, the still-extant Burbank Theatre, a synthesis was created: a combination of a local resident stock company offering popular-priced drama, but within a first-rate play house specifically designed to accommodate theatrical pro ductions . | Coincidental with the development of its theatres was the development of the city's three leading theatrical lessee-managers, Wyatt and the partnership of McLain and Lehman. Although dependent on the Hayman-Frohman sources for local productions, each— to a certain extent— tried to retain some autonomy within his local theatre. The coming years would see the rise and fall (and rise again) of Wyatt, !the complete eclipse of McLain as a theatrical manager, and the emergence of Lehman as the manager of a vaudeville house after the mercurial Hayman withdrew all of his important j jStars from the Grand Opera House in 1892 . j Los Angeles theatre at the beginning of the last I decade of the nineteenth century was substantially locked into the nation's— more specifically, New York's— theatrical activity. Assisted by a spectacular land boom which 276 supplied the city with an almost instant population, the theatre in Los Angeles, very much like Topsy, "just grew." As things settled down after the boom, so did the city's theatre. Yet by the beginning of the next decade, the local theatrical situation began more and more to reflect the rest of the nation. As the boom years wiped away the provin cialism of the City of the Angels, it also served to promote and develop its theatrical enterprise. The next few years would bring about a further alignment with eastern theatre, but not until after a fight that spelled the end of the Grand Opera House as a legitimate theatre. CHAPTER VII AFTERMATH OF THE BOOM, 1890-1895: HARD TIMES IN THE CITY AND A THEATRICAL RIVALRY, 1890-1892 The City of Los Angeles. 1890-1895 j After the land boomers had realized their brief moment of glory, the city of Los Angeles once again returned to the hands of those civic-minded citizens who were content i to measure the city's growth and development in a less sen sational manner. Although many of the newly arrived land boomers--bent upon a quick profit and little else--departed from the City of the Angels, the southern California area icould still lay claim to some undeniable assets: its agri culture, its climate, its railroads, and its never-ending quest for new Angelenos. i These factors were influential in the city's devel- i opment from 1890 to 1895, and had it not been for the na tional Panic of 1893 and the subsequent depression 277 278 throughout the entire nation, Los Angeles might have ex perienced another period of what responsible civic leaders began to refer to as "steady growth." Despite the bust . . . southern California retained its renowned productivity, mild climate, and trans continental railroads. Thus Los Angeles 1 quest for immigrants was so much more promising after than before the boom that by 1890 few disagreed with the Santa Fe vice-president who prophesied in 1888 that "people will continue to come here until the whole county becomes one of the most densely populated sections of the United States." And despite the effects of the bust, Willard, one of the city's early historians, could boast that the year 1890 i saw a new source of power and energy within the city: Los Angeles had now suddenly changed from a very old city to a very young one. . . . People who had come to Los Angeles in the 70's, and had been accustomed to regard themselves as new-comers, suddenly discov ered that they were in the class of old-settlers. Just as the Spaniards had wrenched the country away from the aboriginal tribes . . . so now this over whelming horde of new arrivals took possession of the land, and proceeded to make things over to their own tastes iFor Willard, as for Fogelson, the most important commodity within the city was its population; the object, of course, was to maintain an unimpeded flow of immigrants into the ^Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis. p. 67. ^The Herald's History, p. 386. 279 city. Fogelson ultimately concluded that the city's eco nomic growth in many cases was predicated upon its projected population statistics. By the year 1890, the population of Los Angeles had risen to 50,894, more than quadruple that of 1880. By the end of the nineteenth century, the population figure would once again double: in percentage figures, the rate of pop ulation growth between the years 1880 and 1890 was 351 per cent, while the growth figure between 1890 and 1900 was 103 3 per cent. In any event, the civic-minded leaders of the city were doing their work well: the Los Angeles population growth rate was higher than that of any other city in the nation and almost double the growth rate of Denver, Port land, and Seattle, its nearest rivals. As to the actual composition of the "new" Los Ange les between 1890 and 1895, Fogelson and the United States Census Reports for 1890 and 1900 are the best sources. It was Fogelson who attempted to interpret the mass of facts | *and figures in a meaningful analysis of the city's popula tion— from which, of course, came the "average" Los Angeles playgoer. With a population in excess of 50,000 by 1890, Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, p. 69. 280 Los Angeles now ranked fifty-seventh in population of the major cities in the United States, and was second only to 4 San Francisco as a major metropolis on the Pacific coast. The background of Los Angeles' population during the 1890s was also exceptional: Before 1890, when approximately three of every four residents there were native Americans, it had a lower percentage of foreign-born than most American cities. . . . Unlike the typical American metropolis, Los Angeles did not have at any time in its modern history a vast group of European immigrants. Among the native Americans in Los Angeles in 1890 . . . 32 percent were born in California, a ratio which . . . was not un usual for far western cities. . . . To an unparalleled degree, its population . . . consisted of people new not only to the city but to the state as well.5 Until the mid-1880s, moreover, most of these persons— other than the Californians— came from the northeastern states: But during the late 1880's and early 1890's the move ment of wealthy residents from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois made the east north-central section the prin cipal source of newcomers. Then during the late 1890's . . . the exodus of prosperous farmers from Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan, and Wisconsin lodged the west north-central region in second place.6 j As a result, by 1890 Los Angeles contained so few residents from its own region that of every 100 inhabitants, thirty- ^Ibid.. p. 79. ®Ibid., p. 81. 5Ibid. 281 four were Midwesterners, twenty-three were Easterners, nine were Southerners, and only thirty-three were from the Far West. Whereas nonwhites made up 15 per cent of the total population in Baltimore and almost 10 per cent in San Fran cisco in 1890, they comprised only 6 per cent of the total population in Los Angeles. Moreover, where the nonwhite jminority in Baltimore consisted "entirely of long-settled Negro residents, the minority in Los Angeles included |recently-arrived Mexican and Japanese as well as Negro new comers . Unlike most eastern and midwestern metropolises, which were divided into native Americans and European immi grants, Los Angeles was divided into an overwhelming native white majority and a small nonwhite minority. Los Angeles ' population also differed from that of other far western cities in its balance of sexes and dis tribution of generations: i By contrast with eastern communities in 1890, San Francisco, Denver, Portland, Seattle and Spokane all I had far more men than women and a much heavier con centration of the middle-aged. Afterwards, these cities grew more gradually, and their populations achieved better balances between men and women and broader age distributions. By comparison, Los Angeles, 7Ibid.. p. 83. 282 which was not a typical frontier settlement, had only slightly more males than females and a lighter con centration of the middle-aged in 1890. . . . The life cycle that determined the balance of the sexes and distribution of generations elsewhere in the United States was not as yet operative in Los Angeles. The 1890 population composition of the city— which underwent a dramatic change at the turn of the century— was as fol lows: approximately 35 per cent of the citizens were be tween the ages of one and nineteen; 55 per cent were between ithe ages of twenty and fifty-four, and only 10 per cent were g over the age of fifty-five. Within the determinants supplied by the census re ports and the conclusions drawn by Fogelson, one might safely assume that the typical Los Angeles playgoer in Willard's new era of the 1890s was made up of an even pro portion of white males and females in the middle-aged group. Also, only one out of every three was a native Californian; jthe average theatregoer was most likely to be from the mid- Iwestern or eastern part of the United States . One might assume still another division, one which eventually pro- ! duced two distinct theatrical audiences: one group began to ®Ibid., p. 84. Q U.S., Bureau of the Census, Eleventh Census of the United States. 1890. Vol. I: Population (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1895), pp. 580-583. 283 identify with the society drama of the road show theatres, while the other seemed content with the lurid and sensa tional dramas of the popular-priced theatres. Once again spurred on by challenge to make Los Ange les one of the nation's leading cities, the local civic leaders in 1890 began to sell the beauties of the Southland on an organized basis . The Los Angeles Times reported with some pride that in 1890 the city could boast that As recently as five years ago there were only four banks in Los Angeles City, with a capital surplus of $1,100,000 and deposits of $3,128,000. Today the banks have a capital and surplus of $5,101,814 and deposits of $10,119,486. . . . In 1880, 5,445 chil dren enrolled in county schools. Today there are 19,059, and in the city 8,288. The city's schools included the new high school [Los Angeles High School] with its twenty-five rooms and large and handsome brick edifice . . . and the Cali fornia Branch State Normal School . . . whose judi ciously-selected library numbers over 1,000 volumes. Los Angeles is a quiet city, remarkably free from crime. There is a police force of 1 chief, 1 captain, 4 detectives, 3 police clerks, 1 secretary, 1 court officer, 2 jailers, 2 patrol-wagon drivers, 6 mounted men and 55 patrolmen. Los Angeles was the first city in the United States to entirely abandon gas for street lighting and re place it by electricity. The city is now lighted by 217 electric lamps, aggregating 556,000 candle power. Of these 117 are on thirty-four 150' masts. There are two distinct telegraph systems, the Western Union and the Postal Telegraph Company. There are now 1050 telephones in use in the city, which is a very large number for a city of 50,000 population. 284 In 1880, Los Angeles was 211th in rank as to popu lation among the cities of the country. Today it occupies the 57th spot.^-® Above all, there was the undeniable spirit of optimistic ebullience— by now a familiar Los Angeles trademark. The following year brought a less effusive boast by the same paper as the city began to feel the effects of the earlier bust plus the newly-created problems of its own expansion. One of the chief problems which beset the local city-makers as early as 1890 was that of the city's water (supply, a problem which was not resolved until some years later with the annexation of land surrounding the Owens River. Said the Los Angeles Times: The city should more rightly enforce the ordinances governing the laws . . . of furnishing water to the people . . . and more carefully guard its supply, the Los Angeles River. The different existing water systems are inadequate, inharmonious and unduly ex pensive .H There was also a note for the Los Angeles farmer to practice jthrift: "... when the farmer commences to practice thrift i . . . the owner of a five-acre tract in Los Angeles county will, in truth, be more independent than the man who owns ^ Los Angeles Times. January 1, 1890. 11Ibid. 285 12 and farms a quarter section in Illinois." Along with the admonition to more thrift came the beginnings of a long and bitter struggle for an adequate harbor, one which would handle the needs— or the projected needs— of the city of Los Angeles: I . . . in 1891 a report was submitted to Congress by a band of army engineers appointed to examine the coast from Orange county to Santa Barbara. . . . After a bitter struggle with the Big Four and the Southern Pacific, who favored Santa Monica, and after four years of bitter fighting, digging was begun in San Pedro in 1899.13 Yet by 1892, the population was ". . .at the lowest esti- 14 mate, 60,000." The assessed value of city property had risen to $45,342,020; and the city's nineteen banks had 15 deposits totaling over $10,000,000. Los Angeles could now claim a $500,000 court house and a $200,000 city hall. There was more: Los Angeles has an internal sewer system and an out fall sewer to the ocean voted for. Bonds to the value of $526,000 have also been voted for a complete muni cipal water system. The city is entirely lighted by electricity. 13Willard, The Herald's History, p. 348. 14Los Angeles Times. January 1, 1890. ^-3Ibid. 286 Los Angeles abounds with excellent schools, churches and societies. The public library, with its 25,000 volumes, circulates over 200,000 books annually. One could only assume that the population of Los Angeles is essentially a refined one and fully abreast of modern progress. Twelve lines of railroad center in Los Angeles; there are about 100 miles of street railroad track, mostly cable and electric; 100 miles of graded and graveled streets, and 100 miles of cement sidewalks. There are about two hundred manufacturing establish ments in Los Angeles, small and great, and profitable openings for many more. Epidemic diseases, tornadoes, cyclones and thunder storms are conspicuous by their absence. It is twenty years since there was an earthquake severe enough to break crockery. Los Angeles today offers more attractions to the home- seeker, investor or invalid, than any other city in the United States.^-6 Until 1893, Los Angeles had merely to contend with economic problems of a limited and local nature. Things changed, however, during the national Panic of 1893, a year ;which saw Coxey's Army of the unemployed and a national depression which lasted almost three full years. Coxey, ialong with strike leaders Browne and Jones, was finally arrested in the nation's capital on May 3, 1894, a scant two months before the ill-fated railroad strike at Pullman, Illinois, which was led by the youthful Eugene Debs. A 16Ibid. 287 spirit of discontent swept over the country: a great many of the people began to fear the striking anarchists and their revolutionary stance. Hard times settled over the nation like a pall. The national Depression of 1893-1896 was also felt in Los Angeles: unemployment and the needy in the city were topics of serious concern from 1893 to 1895. One of the Coxey Army contingents was actually from the local area; one can assume that the more affluent times of the boom years seemed remote indeed. Although the Panic of 1893 and the ensuing depres sion severely jolted many of the major cities within the United States, Los Angeles did not feel at first the full impact of the misery of the times, as did Chicago, New York, and Detroit: The wave of hard times which swept over the Union in 1893-6 did not pass by Los Angeles, but its ravages were not serious. One advantage that the city derives from its somewhat isolated position is that of com parative independence in its commercial interests. Hard times affected the market value of some Southern California products and diminished the amount of tour ist travel; four banks in the city closed their doors to business in the Panic of 1893, one of which failed disgracefully; another retired from business with honor and credit, and the other two soon resumed new strength . ^ ■7Willard, The Herald's History, p. 344. 288 The run on the local banks started on the morning of June 23, 1893; by July 15 the Los Angeles Pacific Railway was in receivership, and on July 29 the City Bank of Los Angeles closed its doors forever. On August 1 the city council announced that it did not have sufficient funds to pay fire men's salaries, and by the following week the Los Angeles Times rather ruefully admitted that the depression was uni- i 18 versal. Starting in September 1893 the Los Angeles Times printed a series of almost daily articles on the plight of I the city's unemployed and the necessity of finding work for them. All sorts of schemes were proposed, from the raising of home products by the citizens to the establishment of a cooperative gold mining venture in the San Bernardino Moun tains. Afraid that the unemployed Angelenos would turn into a "howling mob" reminiscent of the Pullman strikers, and still unable to provide the necessary jobs, the more civic- minded members of the city organized the independent Asso- I I ciated Charities in 1893. After unsuccessfully soliciting private contributions for the relief of the unemployed— which included benefit performances at the Grand Opera 18 Los Angeles Times. August 8, 1890. 289 House— the organization finally disbanded with total assets 19 of $108.53. On September 17, 1893, Henry Clay Wyatt was made corresponding secretary for the Actors 1 Fund for Southern California; by December of the same year three traveling companies were stranded in Los Angeles. After enumerating the usual glories of the city in its 1894 Annual Trade Issue, the Los Angeles Times was forced to admit that It is time for Los Angeles to act in the matter of providing work for the unemployed. So large is the number of unemployed that private enterprise cannot provide work for them all, and there will be much suffering unless the city provides ways and means for the employment for some of our enforced idlers • • • The editorial concluded with a formula to bring back good times: . . . the farmers' boys should stay at home and stifle their longing for the life of the metropolis . . . where so much unemployment reigns and idlers swarm. . . . Subdue your soil and plant your crops . . . in stead of joining the city's great struggling army.21 i 'Yet despite the depression, the first of the city's fiestas was held between April 10 and 13, 1893; Mrs. Ozro W. Childs, 19Ibid., January 1, 1893. ^ °Ibid., January 2, 1894. ^ ^Ibid. 290 Jr. was the first queen. In 1894 the Ebell Club was or ganized "for the execution of broad courses of departmental 22 study," some six months after the establishment of the Merchants' Association, which took over for the defunct Chamber of Commerce. On June 15, 1894, the Los Angeles Times ran a small editorial entitled "Have We an Oil Belt?", perhaps the very first article referring to oil in southern California. Before the century ended, the city would under go still another spectacular boom; instead of land, oil would be the chief commodity. During 1894, conditions within Los Angeles seemed to worsen. The nation and the city continued to groan under the effects of the Depression of 1893-1896. When Debs called upon the railroad workers to strike on July 4, 1894, the Los Angeles Times countered with an impassioned editor- 23 ial entitled "Hoist Your Flag . . . Help Defeat Anarchy." i On July 15 there appeared an article linking the Pullman strike in Illinois to the plight of some traveling companies i i 24 |on the West Coast, the implication being that Los Angeles 22 Newmark, Sixty Years. p. 607. 23Los Angeles Times. July 7, 1894. 2^Ibid.. July 15, 1894. 291 need not fear any severe discomfiture from events in the nation's Midwest. On January 1, 1895, however, the Los Angeles Times seemed much more confident of the city's destiny than in preceding years: The petroleum industry in Southern California has received a great impetus through the discovery of oil in pay quantities within the limits of Los Ange les, which was made during the past year. The buildings erected during the twelve months of 1894 will average over five per day . . . the value of which is in the neighborhood of $2,500,000 for over 1,000 structures . . . in a short time, the inside section of the city will be built up almost solid. . . . the increase in the population since 1890 has been remarkably great, especially when it is consid ered that much of this time has been a season of great depression. It is safe to say . . . that the city's population is 70,000, showing an increase of 20,000, or 40 percent, in less than five years. The completion of the outfall sewer to the ocean was an important event of the year. Before long, all the principal streets will be connected with the outfall | sewer. i j The streetcar electric system extends to Vernon and ! the Pico-line has been improved. I And despite the fact that the year 1894 has been, to a large extent, a year of disaster, of suffering, of ! turmoil, the prospects for Los Angeles look good. For j it is only during the past year that many of our citi- i zens, even, have begun to realize that Los Angeles is destined to become not only a large but a very great city . . . a Chicago of the Southwest. ^ Ibid.. January 1, 1895. 292 The worst seemed over . And it was within the turbulence of these economic conditions— national as well as local— that the theatre in Los Angeles would spend its next five years, from 1890 to the beginning of 1895. Theatrical Activity in Los Angeles, 1890-1892 As far as theatrical activity was concerned, the two years between 1890 and 1892 would see some changes which |were for the most part only an extension of earlier theatri cal trends. And, too, the national economic condition was to play havoc with the local theatrical offerings. One thing became clear during the five years under considera tion: the City of the Angels simply could not support two first-class theatres. When the popular-priced Burbank The atre opened its doors in 1893, and when the Imperial Music Hall (formerly Mott's Hall) began to feature continuous vaudeville for 25$ in 1894, the Grand Opera House was forced to close. Later it reopened as the Orpheum and housed | jnothing but vaudeville performers. By far the most important feature of these two years !was the further alignment of the fortunes of the two local higher-priced theatres— later reduced to one— with the vir tual theatrical monopoly of Hayman-Frohman. As the years 293 passed, an increasing number of their companies came to the city; soon it developed that very few of the other eastern companies played Los Angeles. When Hayman withdrew his contracts with McLain and Lehman at the Grand Opera House in 1892 in favor of Wyatt at the Los Angeles Theatre, it was not long before the Grand Opera House began to flounder. Yet even before the demise of the city's "first theatre," there developed a further solidification of the local the atrical scene, along with a certain cosmopolitan relation ship with the eastern seaboard. As the Hayman-Frohman combination altered their contractual position, the managerial stance of the city's three theatrical managers likewise underwent a change. At first, Wyatt was lessee-manager of both the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre. Soon after, McLain and Lehman took over the managership of the Los Angeles Theatre and Wyatt continued at the Grand Opera House. In July 1890 a switch was made, Wyatt going over to the Los Angeles The atre and McLain and Lehman going to the Grand Opera House. By 1892, McLain and Lehman were clearly the rulers of the ! local theatrical situation; Wyatt was in the background. 'But after the Los Angeles Theatre was sold to William B. Perry in 1892, Wyatt's fortunes once again began to rise, 294 and soon he became the ruler of the destinies of Los Ange les ' uptown theatre. All this came about when Wyatt and Perry managed to wrest the bookings of Hayman into the Los Angeles Theatre. From that point on, Wyatt and the Los Angeles Theatre faced little competition as far as "two- dollar" theatre in the city was concerned. Stars continued to come to the city during this per iod, although at a somewhat slower rate. Coming into prom inence were some of the younger artists: Minnie Maddern, Alexander Salvini, Robert Mantell, Frederick warde, Richard Mansfield, Wilson Barrett, Maurice Barrymore, Maude Adams, James A. Herne, Stuart Robson, John Drew, Edward Harrigan, Robert Downing, Fanny Davenport, Theodore Kremer, Jennie Yeamans, Louis James, and Minnie Seligman Cutting. All of these stars played in Los Angeles between 1890 and 1892. Despite the fact that some of the larger traveling companies were experiencing theatrical hard times, Los Angeles still was able to attract some of the nation's best nonlegitimate companies: The Bostonians, Henshaw and Ten- Broek, Leavitt's Spider and Fly. Hoyt and Thomas, the Carle- ton Opera Company, and the shows of the newly-emerging book ing team of Klaw and Erlanger which, during the 1896 season, combined with Hayman and Frohman to form the Theatrical 295 Syndicate. From 1890 to 1892, the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre attracted all of the best theatrical talent that came to the city, and, for a period of three years, these two theatres eliminated the theatrical competition of the minor houses. By February 1893 Hazard's Pavilion was irefurbished and renamed the Park Theatre, offering sensa tional melodrama at 25$ and 50$, thus once again establish ing the pattern of a theatrical division. On November 27, 1893, C. H. Sawyer and Fred Cooper, the managers of the resident stock company that played at the Park Theatre, moved their troupe to the newly-complete Burbank Theatre and offered productions at 15$, 20$, and 30$, with box seats at 50$ and 75$. At long last, Los Angeles could boast of hav ing a popular-priced theatre which was a genuine playhouse, not a converted skating rink or flower pavilion. S The theatrical "week" underwent many changes during the years between 1890 and 1892. As the economic situation I iin the city and the country worsened, the traveling compa nies spent fewer and fewer days as Los Angeles layovers. Soon the average stay was reduced from six full days and a matinee to five days— and then to four, three, and even two days. One can assume that the stars were somewhat uneasy 296 about the conditions in Los Angeles . The theatrical years from 1890 to 1892 also wit nessed a growth of light opera and musical comedy as dis tinguished from the more extravagant spectaculars. It simply cost too much to put an expensive show on the road. Along with musical comedy came an upsurge of variety- vaudeville and just merely vaudeville, with many of the featured vaudeville attractions coming from Europe. While vaudeville was gaining favor, the more old-fashioned min strel show--"refined" or otherwise— was slowly but surely fading in popularity. As in former years, there were a great many farce comedies produced within the years in ques tion; there were also the usual number of lugubrious melo dramas . As for the new society drama, it continued to be performed by the better eastern traveling companies which, by 1892, meant those companies aligned with Hayman-Frohman. The Season of 1890 at the Grand Opera House Vernona Jarbeau opened the 1890 theatrical season at the Grand Opera House in the American farce comedy Strictly Confidential, followed by a week of M. B. Leavitt's produc tion of the "pantomime-burlesque" Spider and Fly. Roland Reed brought more farce with The Woman Hater, which preceded 297 a six-day run of the Emma Juch Grand English Opera Company in seven performances of grand and light opera. Charles Arnold followed in "An original Musical Comedy . . . An Idyl of the Adirondacks," Hans. the Boatman. during the first week of February. Solid, well-done drama was furnished by the Grismer- Davies troupe in February: The Tigress. The Burglar. Fair fax , and the English melodrama The World Against Her. Said a critic: Mr. Grismer may always be depended upon for furnish ing his patrons with the kind of entertainment suited to their trade . . . it is upon melodramatic produc tions that he chiefly relies. He knows that his friends like their drama highly seasoned, and he gives them a dish of that k i n d . 2 ^ Maggie Mitchell returned with more farce (Ray and Little Barefoot). followed by an abbreviated two-day appearance of ! tragedian Frederick Warde in Virginius and The Mountebank. i Obviously reacting to the economic conditions in the city, Warde saw fit to cut his stay short. The theatregoers, how ever, came out in full force for his performances: "From 27 pit to dome there was a sea of faces." 26 Los Angeles Times. February 11, 1890. 27Ibid., March 19, 1890. 298 March ended with more farce comedy— Hoyt's A Hole in the Ground— and spectacle— the Hanlons' production of New Phantasma. The Rial Morris Company, direct from the Grand Opera House in San Francisco, arrived in April for a full week of sensational melodrama, The Great Metropolis. fol lowed by eight performances of The Bostonians in a short i season of light and comic opera. Spring saw the arrival of the original New York cast in Bronson Howard's American drama Shenandoah. "... after 300 Nights at the 23rd St. Theatre, New York." The company was under the management of Charles Frohman; the "proprie tor" of Shenandoah was A1 Hayman. Joseph Haworth followed for a week in Steele MacKaye's romantic drama Paul Kauvar. followed by "The Chicago Company" in the American rural idyl The Old Homestead. Englishman Wilson Barrett, on his second American jtour, brought his London company in a repertoire which in- Lluded Hamlet. The Silver King. Claudian. and Lady of Lyons. I Said the local critic: The classical drama is always the hardest to present with any degree of satisfaction. . . . The lines of action are rigidly laid down, the language is stilted, according to modern ideas .... Yet Barrett overcame 299 these difficulties, for he perfectly affords an ex pressive classical command on stage ,28 June ended with more farce comedy, A Pair of Jacks. July brought "The Acme of American Rustic Realism," A Long Lane. for a five-day stay, followed by Pete Baker in two more rural American dramas, Chris and Lena and The Emi grant . Piquant Nellie McHenry reappeared with domestic melodrama, Lady Peggy and My Best Friend, followed by M. B. Curtis in the "American-Hebrew comedy drama" The Shatchen. The A. M. Palmer Company, along with stars Maurice Barrymore, Frederick Robinson, and E. M. Holland, came in August with society drama: Jim, the Penman, Saints and Sinners. Captain Swift, and Aunt Jack. The entire tour was under the personal direction of A1 Hayman and was "... 29 witnessed by a crowded house for all performances." August concluded with yet another Frohman-Hayman production: Elsie Leslie in Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. On September 1, 1890, Wyatt further strengthened jhis theatrical ties with San Francisco's A1 Hayman by an- i nouncing that I 28Ibid.. June 17, 1890. 28Ibid.. August 11, 1890. 300 'The managers of the Grand have adopted a new rule . . . . They have decided to refuse dates to any "star" or combination that is not in high standing enough to be allowed to play at either the Baldwin, Califor- nia or Bush-Street Theatres in San Francisco. Of the theatres mentioned, only the Bush Street Theatre was not directly controlled by Hayman. There could be little doubt that almost all of the better traveling combination companies that reached the city were under the direct super vision of A1 Hayman. W. J. Scanlon began September with two "Irish love stories," Myles Aroon and Shane-Na-Lawn. That month also brought Hubert Wilkie in the musical comedy romance Peti, the Vagabond. A critic wrote: The piece is obviously described in the bills as "a charming society play” and "a musical comedy-romance." It appears to be constructed for the purpose of show ing Mr. Wilkie passing through a process of evolution in three acts, from the Hungarian gypsy, with his pic turesque costume . . . to the Hungarian soldier . . . ! to the glory of a fashionable baritone. Maude Granger, rival of Jeffrys Lewis and Clara Morris as an i i"emotional" actress, appeared for the first time in Los I Angeles in Inherited for a two-day stay. Reported the re viewer, obviously surfeited with the city's theatrical fare: 3°Ibid.. September 1, 1890. •^Los Angeles Daily Herald. September 15, 1890. 301 It is evident that the Grand does not need to rely upon the classes who best appreciate sensational melodrama and Irish comedy for patronage. On the contrary, the engagement of Miss Granger has devel oped a taste for first-class in the old patrons and has brought many new ones ,32 October brought Henry E. Dixey in the American bur lesques Adonis and The Seven Ages. the latter a rendering of Shakespeare with music and tableaux. Afterwards came the Carleton Opera Company in a week of light opera, including The Brigands and Nanon. Another sensational melodrama came iin November: Harry Lacy in The Still Alarm. "Introducing the beautiful twin Arabian steeds, Bucephalus and Pegasus . . . the 7,000 steam fire engine . . . and Mr. J. M. Wood's double quartette in the Firemen's Chorus." Gus Williams and John T. Kelly arrived with still more farce comedy, U and I. in December, followed by two days of Grismer and Davies in the American sensational melo drama Beacon Lights. The theatrical season for the Grand Opera House ended with two three-day engagements of the Emma jjuch Grand English Opera Company in a repertoire of grand, light, and comic opera. 32Ibid.. September 28, 1890. 302 The Season of 1890 at the Los Angeles Theatre At the rival Los Angeles Theatre, managers McLain and Lehman opened the season of 1890 with the Union Square Theatre Company from New York in the American society drama A Possible Case. Said the pleased Los Angeles Times critic: Sydney Rosenfeld's company can claim the rare merit of being original in plot. The usual traces of French origin in the comedies of today are conspicuously absent. . . . The company, taken altogether, is ex cellently balanced, and the piece is amusing from beginning to e n d . 33 Two full months of farce comedy followed: A Bunch of Keys. A Social Session. Pearl of Pekin. A Night Off. An Arabian Night, and Out of Bondage . Spring brought Katie Emmett in a sensational melo drama, The Waifs of New York, complete with a plethora of mechanical effects: Magnificent special scenery for each act. The great Harlem railroad bridge scene, showing two trains crossing the Harlem railroad bridge in opposite directions; Old Trinity Church, Broadway; New York by moonlight; the Tombs Police Court; Castle Garden at sunset; exterior of the Tombs and the grand fire scene at Five Points, the most realistic and start ling fire scene ever shown on any stage 33los Angeles Times. January 7, 1890. 34"Playbill," January 22, 1890 (Behymer Collection, iHuntington Library, San Marino, California). 303 According to the Los Angeles Times. There was not a vacant seat, and in the upper regions standing room was at a premium. The piece is of the regular melodramatic order, and, of the kind, was well presented and satisfactorily acted.3^ April saw a succession of minstrelsy (Lew Johnson's Refined Minstrels and Hyde's Star Specialty Company) and variety-vaudeville (Professor Hermann's Trans-Atlantique Vaudeville Company) . Wyatt became manager of the Los Ange les Theatre in October and opened with James A. Herne in his own Hearts of Oak. The local reviewer found the play de pressing : The bill last night was of that well-known and, for some occult reason, highly popular morbid hero of melodrama, James A. Herne . . . who is depressing in his monotony of delivery, and dry, hard voice.3® The fall also brought the musical farce comedy The l U.S. Mail; "The subject, a satire on John Wanamaker's ad ministration of the Post Office and the whims and the oddi- 37 ties of the Civil Service." Clara Morris, under the man agement of A1 Hayman, returned in French romantic drama: 35 ! Los Angeles Times. April 7, 1890. 36Ibid., April 22, 1890. 37"Playbill," September 2, 1890 (Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 304 Camille. Renee de Moray, and Miss Moulton. Concluded the critic: With her blackened teeth, suspicion of Moxa, Western intonation and increased adipose, Clara Morris is confessedly the best actress we have in America. . . . There is not a greater actress in the United States than Clara Morris in purely emotional lines . . . and she has no equal; we are afraid to say that she has no successor Equines and Canines, "50 Humanly Educated Ponies and Dogs," began the month of December, followed by Frank Dan iels in Little Puck, still another of the American farce comedies. The season ended with a four-day layover by the Emma Abbott Grand English Opera Company in grand and light opera. Curiously enough, two English opera companies— the Emma Abbott and the Emma Juch troupes--played Los Angeles at the same time during the Christmas season of 1890. Billed in the local newspapers as "the battle of the Emmas," the rival opera companies never did reach a clear-cut de cision as far as local playgoers were concerned. Summary of the Season of 1890 A total of eighty-one companies played in Los Ange les during the year, an increase of eleven over the ®®Los Angeles Times. November 24, 1890. 305 preceding year. Of these companies, forty-two were non legitimate companies, the greatest number to date. And of the better combination traveling companies, the Hayman - Frohman monopoly controlled the major share, a total of six troupes . Wherever Wyatt went, the Hayman-Frohman companies followed after. At first these companies played at the Grand Opera House, and later at the Los Angeles Theatre; the important thing was to have the all-important contacts and contracts, and as of the end of 1890, at least, Wyatt had both. Things would change, however, in the very next year. With the opening of the Los Angeles Theatre in 1888, all signs of a popular-priced theatre almost vanished. The price of admission at the Los Angeles Theatre was scaled low (enough— 25$ for a gallery seat— to attract a less affluent i theatregoer; in addition, the theatre offered a fairly con tinuous stream of sensational melodrama and farce comedy aimed at attracting a less discriminating audience. In effect, the Los Angeles Theatre began to serve the city as its popular-priced theatre. As the Los Angeles Theatre attracted its own kind of iaudience, the Grand Opera House continued to play for the 306 carriage trade. Thus was prolonged the theatrical division in 1890, but this time by the two luxury playhouses. This pattern would continue until 1893, when the Park Theatre began to produce chilling melodrama at popular prices. During this year of gloomy economic conditions, the theatrical fare showed a preponderance of farce comedy, musical comedy, and extravaganza. In all, fourteen musical companies played Los Angeles in 1890, seven burlesque com panies, and nine variety-vaudeville troupes. Minstrelsy was on the way out. The Grand Opera House managed to maintain some semblance of a theatrical run, which was usually from four to six days. Yet this policy was not strictly adhered to: Frederick Warde, for example, played only two nights in March. As for the Los Angeles Theatre, no discernible playing date pattern was established; a run there could last i from two nights to a full six-day week. When Wyatt took over the managership of the Los Angeles Theatre, however, !things began to stabilize and a company could count on at i least a four-day stay. At best, the theatrical activity during the year reflected the depression. As the city gradually resumed a ipattern of economic normalcy, so did its theatres. And as 307 the city sought to shed the dark days of depression, its theatres tended to produce the kind of shows which would dispel the gloom. The Beginning of the Theatrical Rivalry. 1891 During the 1891 theatrical season, very few changes took place aside from managerial changes at both the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre. McLain and Lehman, I now at the Grand Opera House, managed to obtain from A1 Hayman the coveted contract. It appeared that Henry Wyatt, I now the manager of the Los Angeles Theatre, was personally and professionally whipped: A Mr. S. E. Bisbee slapped a judgement for $676.00 against him just as he boarded the train for New York seeking some relief from the constricting the atre monopoly. A trial brought out the fact that he [Wyatt] had little in the world besides a gold headed cane valued at $10., four gold lodge badges and his trunks; this in spite of the fact that he j had been given a benefit the previous night. Small j houses on Tuesday and Wednesday had eaten up the ! small reserve. But of friends he had no lack. They spent the night in jail with him. The next morning he was dismissed on the ground that he had not at- j tempted to flee from his debts. The owner of the Los Angeles Theatre gave him back his gold watch and lent him $200 to get him to New York.^* By fall Wyatt returned triumphantly announcing that ^Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 206. 308 he had made his own contract negotiations in New York, obviously implying that he had personally dealt with the brothers Frohman and that he no longer was dependent upon the whims and moods of A1 Hayman: The only thing I regret is that I did not go to New York before, for this trip has taught me that a man ager on this Coast is not in it unless he comes in contact with the big managers once in a while .... Los Angeles is a city of such importance now that her managers should make contracts independent of the San Francisco men, and that is just what I have done .^0 Yet despite his apparent bravado, Wyatt could attract only the Hayman-Frohman production of Shenandoah and a troupe from the Standard Theatre in New York during 1891. All that he could hope for was an occasional traveling combination company of some merit; all the other stellar companies were locked into the Hayman-controlled San Francisco situation. The Season of 1891 at the Grand Opera House The 1891 theatrical season at the Grand began with a four-day appearance of the original New York cast in the American society drama The Private Secretary with Kate Denin Wilson and R. J. Dustan. Said the reviewer of this first ^ Los Angeles Evening Express. September 1, 1890. 309 Charles Frohman production of the year: . . . it is cleverly written, the dialogue being quite bright in several scenes and the situations so contrived, that as the action progresses, they get more and more mirth-making until the climax of the absurdity is reached in the last act.4^ Patti Rosa followed in Imp and Margery Daw, both farces. William J. Gilmore, direct from Palmer's Theatre in New York, brought a week of comic opera in February, fol lowed by a brief season of Frederick Warde in Shakespeare. A critic felt that "The acting . . . was far above the average of anything heretofore presented on those boards in the difficult line of the ' legitimate March brought the Bolussy Kiralfy production of the "Grand Fantastic Fairy Spectacle" Water Queen for a three- day stay. Charles Frohman sent another one of his companies in March; this one included Henry Miller and Kate Denin jwilson in William Gillette's adaptation of the society com edy All the Comforts of Home. April brought minstrelsy (W. S. Cleveland's Consolidated Minstrels) and magic (Her mann) . The Miller Brothers, from Niblo's Garden, New York, 41 Los Angeles Times. January 6, 1891. 42Ibid., February 12, 1891. 310 arrived in May with the "Magnificent Parisian Spectacle" Kajunka. Said the reviewer: Once in a while it may afford amusement to witness an entertainment that differs from the ordinary run of the so-called legitimate drama, and also from the everlasting farce-comedy chestnut. The fairy spec tacle is not so often produced in these latitudes as to be tiresome to our play-goers, and the strife be tween the elements of good and evil personated re spectively by young ladies in tights with high-pitched voices and erratic motions of elocution, still com mands the admiration of the crowd.43 Vernona jarbeau and company came to the city in May with the musical farce comedy Starlight. followed by little Katie Emmett in June in the American scenic melodrama The Waifs of New York. June also brought another of the Charles Frohman troupes, this one including Frank Mordaunt, William Morris, and Maude Adams. The plays performed during the four-day run included Sardou's society drama Diplomacy and Belasco and DeMille's Men and Women. The latter play was praised: "Men and Women" is a long step in advance of the society drama of to-day. It is strong in plot, situation and action, intense and continuous in action, harmonious throughout and natural in se quence, excellently staged and well-acted. 44 43Los Angeles Herald. May 12, 1891. 44Ibid.. May 22, 1891. 311 In July came the Lilliputians in the "Grand Spec tacular Fairy, Musical, Comedy-Drama, with Chorus and Bal let" The Pupil in Magic. Said the critic of this group of small performers: "The little midgets who are performing at the Opera House are of themselves sufficient to consti tute an immense attraction irrespective of their perform- 45 ance." July also brought the sensational melodrama The Limited Mail: "The Limited Mail" has arrived. . . . The play is full of realistic action and rushed on to the denoue ment with the rapidity of the telegraph's electric flash and the rush of the locomotive. . . . There is the scene of the train crossing the stage at a good rate of speed, with all the realistic noise and light effects of a train passing a station at night Daniel Frohman's Lyceum Theatre Company arrived in August with a repertory of old and new comedies, including Boucicault's Old Heads and Young Hearts and Belasco and jDeMille's The Charity Ball. In the company were such top flight stars as Georgia Cayvan, Herbert Kelcy, and W. J. iLeMoyne. Said the critic of their realistic portrayal: This is a company of "real" people. Today the public wants correct pictures of life as it is lived at the 45 Los Angeles Times. July 11, 1891. 46Ibid., July 27, 1891. 312 present time, with no strut, bluster, or swagger, but with the manners of real men and women. August and September brought more farce comedy: Russell's Comedians in The City Directory and "Bonnie" Kate Castleton in The Dazzler. Although the theatrical year had been rather un spectacular up to this point, the appearance of the divine Sarah Bernhardt in September was enough to set the year japart. Appearing for only one night at the Grand in La Tosca, Bernhardt packed the house: . . . her performance will be recorded in theatrical history of the city as a memorable occasion for the gratification afforded to the large audience assembled to witness one of the great tragediennes in one of her favorite roles . Of all her qualities that bespeak regard it would seem that her apparent spontaneity and perfect natur alness are the foundation stones of her high position AO as an artiste Comedian Nat Goodwin returned in September in two farces, A Gold Mine and The Nominee, followed by Sol Smith 'Russell in the "B'gosh" rural comedy drama Peaceful Valley. j The local theatre critic found Smith's "... 'Hosea Howe' more realistic and far ahead of the much-praised 47Ibid., July 29, 1891. 4®Ibid., September 21, 1891. 313 representations of bucolic heroes who have figured at divers time, and are now figuring in domestic dramas of the rural 49 type." October brought more farces, Dr. Bill and The Hustler. Fanny Davenport returned in November for a five-day stay in Sardou's Cleopatra. followed by the domestic drama Mr. Potter of Texas. performed by the Frank W. Sanger Com pany from the Broadway Theatre in New York. The 1891 season ended at the Grand Opera House with the appearance of the stellar English actor, E. S. Willard, in two English society dramas, The Middleman and Judah. A critic found much to praise in Willard's "natural" acting style: He is free from extravagance of speech and manner, and the absence of eccentricity of style, termed mannerisms, is one of his finest characteristics. All who have seen him have admired his quiet methods, the evenly modulated voice which rarely escapes the evenly conversational style.^0 The Season of 1891 at the Los Angeles Theatre While the Grand Opera House continued to attract a fairly good crop of performers and productions in this somewhat lean theatrical year, the rival Los Angeles Theatre 49 Los Angeles Evening Express. September 27, 1891. ________ 5^Los Angeles Times. November 18, 1891. 314 could do no better than lure an occasional first-rate pro duction. All of the important San Francisco contracts— for the time being, at least— were still in the hands of McLain and Lehman at the Grand Opera House. Wyatt, at the Los Angeles Theatre, simply had to make do with lesser theatri cal talent. January started at the Los Angeles with the Royce- Lansing combination in two days of musical farce comedy, Tom's Vacation, followed by Oake's Swiss Bell Ringers and Steen and Wood's "Mysteries and Novelties" (variety - vaudeville). The Wallenrod and Stockwell Troupe, direct from San Francisco's Alcazar Theatre, brought a week of farce comedy, followed by the Standard Theatre Company's production of Dumas ' The Clemenceau Case. Winter ended with more farce (A Barrel of Money) and a short stay of Goodyear, Elitch, and Schilling's Minstrels. Spring saw the arrival of Dan'1 Sully in the Ameri can rural melodrama The Millionaire. followed by the i McFadden's Double Uncle Tom's Cabin Company for three nights at reduced prices: 25C and 50<:. The Bostonians played a week in April in light and comic opera, followed by "The Greatest of All Yankee Comedy Dramas," Si Plunkard. In May came Shenandoah, complete with "The soldiers representing 315 the two great armies of the Civil War personated by men actually engaged in that struggle."51 May ended with still another farce comedy, The Fakir. by the Hamlin's Farce Com pany . John L. Sullivan, the heavyweight champion, arrived in June for a two-night stay in Honest Hearts and Willing Hands. followed by the musical extravaganza The Grab Bag by the Mestayer-Vaughan Company. It was also in June that Mrs. Juana Neal's name appeared on the delinquent tax rolls for 52 $161.65 back taxes for her Los Angeles Theatre property. Soon thereafter Wyatt went East to try to contract for some of the better companies, and the Los Angeles Theatre re mained closed until the fall of 1891. The first production in September brought Hoyt's "legitimate" four-act farce comedy A Midnight Bell. Re ported the Los Angeles Times critic: The roles are no longer made the subjects for bur lesque, but are treated in a wholly natural manner, the aim being to make them conform as closely as possible to their New England originals. . . . It is almost photogenic in its realism. "A Midnight 51"Playbill," April 22, 1891 (Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 52Los Angeles Times. June 15 and 30, 1891. 316 Bell" is a sort of compromise between a farce-comedy and "The Old Homestead."5- * More farce comedy followed: The President. Marie Heath in A Turkish Bath, and Fowler and Warmington's Skipped by the Light of the Moon. McKee Rankin arrived in November with two standard melodramas, The Canuck and The Runaway Wife. The local critic, obviously an advocate of Howells' School of Realism, lashed out at The Canuck's New England "quaintness": . . . it is beyond all dispute that the whole New England school— so called— has had a good deal more oxen than oxygen. Patient analysis of the Down East sweetness and light has invariably resolved it into the same buttermilk. Looked at with the lens of dis creet judgment, one finds the same mortgage on the old homestead, the attitudinizing old man, who has a child-like heart because he has never come in con tact with any other events than his barn, his wife, his reckless son and his child-like daughter furnish him. If we are to have a New England school of drama, I cannot see why we should not have some of the New England sand in it. I think we could dispense with the oxen if somebody would only furnish us with the men and women.54 John L. Sullivan returned in December in Honest Hearts and Willing Hands and Broderick Agra, a "Romantic 5^Ibid., September 12, 1891. ^4Ibid.. November 4, 1891. 317 Irish comedy." Although the gallery gods were appreciative, the reviewer was less so: There is rather too much of the champion, his voice is too gruff and his hands and feet are too much in the way for him to be funny. . . . Sullivan and Jack Ashton are both too fat to box long, so the contest is a scant three rounds .^5 The season ended with the reappearance of Dan'1 Sully in The Millionaire, a play in which ". . .Mr. Sully shows that the stage Irishmen need not have a flannel mouth, but that he may be a great-hearted, natural gentleman with the cour- 56 age of a lion and the tenderness of a girl." Summary of the Season of 1891 Eighty-three different companies played in Los Angeles during the season of 1891. Of these companies, forty-eight were legitimate, while thirty-five were non- legitimate. The brothers Frohman contributed five traveling companies; two came from Palmer's Theatre, one from Niblo's Garden, and one from New York's Bijou Theatre. Only the Standard Theatre Company, also from New York, would play at the Los Angeles Theatre; all the other companies went to the 5^Ibid., December 19, 1891. ^6Los Angeles Herald. December 22, 1891. 318 Grand Opera House. In many respects, the year was very similar to the other two post-boom years. The theatrical situation in the city had not changed appreciably: the Grand Opera House continued to show all of the best talent, while the Los Angeles Theatre struggled along with whatever productions it could attract. The so-called theatrical "week" was re duced to an average of three to four days at the Grand Opera House and from two to three days at the Los Angeles Theatre. And, as in previous years, the Grand Opera House housed the more modern society dramas. The Los Angeles Theatre, on the other hand, offered a mixture of farce comedy and lurid melodrama, sure crowd pleasers both. Although the number of first-rate stars was less that year, Los Angeles' theatres— primarily the Grand Opera House— were able to offer the local citizens such fine per- j formers as Frederick Warde, Fanny Davenport, McKee Rankin, Grismer and Davies, Sol Smith Russell, Nat Goodwin, E. S. i Willard, Patti Rosa, Kate Castleton, Vernona jarbeau, and, as the greatest attraction of the year, Sarah Bernhardt. Again, as in previous years, the vast majority of plays presented in the city during the 1891 season were jeither farce comedies or sensational melodramas, with rural 319 "B'gosh" dramas a distinct third. With the coming of the top eastern companies— by now this meant the Frohman-Hayman controlled companies--came the newer domestic society dra mas, those plays popularized by Belasco and DeMille. Yet despite the incursion of the eastern companies, the mood of the local citizens in 1891 was directed toward laughter; the overwhelming number of lightweight plays shown locally attests to that fact. And as the gloom of the local depression dissipated by 1892, the city of Los Angeles would experience its best theatrical year to date— a condition which would last a scant year, or until the Panic of 1893. The End of the Theatrical Rivalry. 1892 After the quiet theatrical years following the bust of 1889, the theatre in Los Angeles began to show some signs of renewed life during the 1892 season. And if economic conditions in the city were not up to predepression levels, at least Los Angeles could be proud of the fact that | | It is the second city in wealth and population on the Pacific coast. . . . The railroad system of South ern California, comprising a total of 1600 miles of completed lines, radiates from Los Angeles. . . . The permanent population is estimated at 60,000. There are about 100 miles of graded and graveled 320 streets, 10 miles of paved streets; nearly 80 miles of s idewaIks.^ 7 There were some managerial changes during the year. Until December 12, McLain and Lehman managed to keep their contract with A1 Hayman in San Francisco] but as of January 29, 1893, Hayman suddenly announced that he would be switch ing to wyatt, and that all subsequent Hayman-Frohman attrac tions would play at the Los Angeles Theatre, not at the Grand Opera House. The announcement by the mercurial Hayman came just three short months after Juana Neal sold the Los 58 Angeles Theatre to William B. Perry for $140,000. Sig nificantly, the announcement of the purchase originated in San Francisco, where Perry issued the news release in con junction with Hayman. So ended forever the rivalry for the contracts of A1 Hayman. Although some first-rate drama came to the city in 1892, most of the presentations were rather insubstantial farces, lurid melodramas, and musical farce comedies. The Los Angeles Evening Express reviewer balked at the many lightweight attractions] but the local theatregoers seemed content with the theatrical fare served up by "cheap-John" ^7Los Angeles Evening Express. March 28, 1892. ! 58 ! _________ Los Angeles Times. August 20, 1892.________________ 321 companies: The majority of the amusement attending public pre fer a company of dissolute barnstormers with short skirts and padded legs, going perfunctorily without any animation, through a blood and pistol sensation, which boasts of no other settings than a pasteboard locomotive saved from going over an impossible preci pice, or the tank, the intolerable tank which never contains more than two quarts of water. It is not a complimentary reflection on this coast that this class of entertainment captures their last dollar while the refined productions of artistic playwrights or classic pieces of legitimate drama are sparingly attended or listened to with a yawn.^^ Yet despite the complaints of the local reviewer, there was a bumper crop of theatrical greats in the city during the year: Maude Granger, Joe Jefferson, Mrs. John Drew, Frederick Warde, Sydney Drew, Richard Mansfield, Marie Wainwright, Margaret Mather, Julia Marlowe, Clara Morris, Alexander Salvini, Jeffrys Lewis, Lillian Russell, and Minnie Seligman Cutting. Charles Frohman sent six companies to the coast that year; there was also a new tendency to add curtain raisers to the main productions of several Frohman shows and the Sydney Drew performances . All told, there were ninety-nine separate companies in Los Angeles during the 1892 season, by far the greatest number ever to visit I the city. CQ Los Angeles Evening Express. January 20, 1892. 322 The Season of 1892 at the Grand Opera House The season at the Grand Opera House opened with three days of minstrelsy by W. S. Cleveland's Consolidated Minstrels, followed by John T. Kelly in the American farce comedy U and I. The W. T. Carleton Opera Company arrived for a week of light and comic opera; after that came Miss Gale and "the members of the late Booth and Barrett Co." in Romeo and Juliet. Lady of Lyons. and Inqomar the Bar barian . Charles Frohman's first company of the season ar rived for a three-day stay in Mrs. Wilkinson's Widow, an adaptation of the French farce by William Gillette. Bobby Gaylor brought more farce in February, Sport McAllister! One of the 400. In the same month there was offered perhaps the greatest theatrical treat of the year: Joseph Jefferson, |Louis James, Mrs. John Drew, and Viola Adams in the English classics The Rivals and Heir-at-Law. Wrote the Los Angeles Evening Express: It [The Rivals] was greeted with one of the largest and best audiences that ever assembled here. Every [ seat was occupied. Probably no nearer perfect per formance was ever given in this city. Jefferson's ; entrance as Bob Acres was the signal for a storm of applause which was long and sincere and must have been specially gratifying to even so celebrated an artist 323 as he is. The chief charm of his comedy work is its ease and naturalness.5® Grismer and Davies returned in February in two more soul- stirring melodramas: the American military drama Beacon Lights and the American domestic drama Ferncliff. Frederick Warde came in March with a repertoire including Henry Guy Carleton's The Lion's Mouth and Virgin- ius. A full month of farce comedy followed: Poor Johna than, Wanted, the Earth, and Gus Williams in Keppler's For tunes . On February 18, 1892, the name of A1 Hayman was firmly affixed to all playbills and advertisements emanating from the Grand Opera House. In March the Emma Juch Grand Opera Company arrived for a week of grand and light opera, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Drew in the American adaptation of the French farce comedy That Girl from Mexico plus the one-act farce icurtain raiser In Honor Bound. Commented the Los Angeles Evening Express: Mr. Drew has an individuality as striking as that of Nat Goodwin, and the quieter portions of his fun are best. Mrs. Drew is a striking brunette beauty and acts with much vim, her black snappy eyes adding much emphasis and charm to her words.51 60Ibid.. February 19, 1892. 61Ibid.. March 29, 1892. 324 Appearing for three nights in April was another of the Frohman companies; billed as "Frohman's Company of Actors," the troupe played in William Gillette's new Ameri can domestic farce comedy All the Comforts of Home. Marie Wainwright followed in three days of romantic drama in Amy Robsart. May brought the first Los Angeles visit of thirty-five-year-old Richard Mansfield in the plays he had made famous in the East: Beau Brummell. Prince Karl. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and A Parisian Romance. Although ob jecting to the subject matter of the "psychologic" (sic) Jekyll and Hyde and the "depraved" A Parisian Romance, the Los Angeles Times critic had to admit that Mansfield was a consummate artist: "... acting within the very confines of Nature, Mansfield exhibited a delicacy, irony, and mim etic skill which captured his large and knowledgeable aud- 62 lence." The month ended with lurid melodrama. The Power ^ _ _ _ _ _ _ of the Press and the American The Midnight Alarm. Charles Frohman’s Madison Square Theatre Company j arrived in June for a brief three-day visit in the English farce comedy Jane. preceded by the American one-act comedi etta Chums. There followed more farce comedy: Blue Jeans 62 i Los Angeles Times. May 20, 1892. 325 and Barney Ferguson in McCarthy's Mishaps. Also that month came The Police Patrol, "the American realistic scenic melo drama." Marie Hubert Frohman brought an "original New York company" in The Witch. "A Mirror of Colonial Times," which 63 the reviewer found "... dismal and dreary." July also saw the entry of Francis Wilson and company from the Broad way Theatre in New York in more farce, The Merry Monarch and The Lion Tamer. Haverly's Mastodon Minstrels also played [three days in July. Another of the Frohman companies opened in August in the four-act farce Gloriana, preceded by the one-act farce curtain raiser The Major's Appointment with Henrietta Cros- man and May Robson. Reed and Collier brought still more farce (Hoss and Hoss), followed by another of the Frohman companies in Henry DeMille's adaptation of the French farce comedy The Lost Paradise with James 0. Barrows, Odette Tyler, and Annie and Maude Adams. The Alcaraz Grand Spanish Opera Company stayed a full week with Spanish opera, fol- j lowed by A. M. Palmer's Stock Company in Augustus Thomas' Alabama. "The true drama of American life." Sol Smith Russell came back to the city for two i 63Ibid., June 28, 1892. 326 nights in old-time favorites, A Poor Relation and Peaceful Valley, both American rustic dramas. September also brought the Harrison and Bell's Comedians in Little Tippett (farce comedy) and Howath's "Great American Spectacular Naval Drama" The Ensign. Another of the Charles Frohman companies ended the month in a two-night production of Clyde Fitch's one-act farce Frederic Lemaitre and the three-act farce comedy The junior Partner. The fall also brought back Lillian Russell and her "Opera Comique Company" in La Cigalle and The Mountebanks. followed by a raft of farce comedy supplied by Dan'l Sully, the Lilliputians, and Gus Hegge as Yon Yonson. Only the sensational English melodrama After Dark alleviated almost two full months of farce comedy, which included Abbott and Teale's Niobe. John T. Kelly in McFee of Dublin. George W. Lederer's comedians in Nothing but Money, and DeLange and i jRising in Tangled Up. Margaret Mather performed legitimate drama in No- | vember, including The Honeymoon. Romeo and Juliet, and the dramatic version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, entitled The Egyptian. Julia Marlowe followed in a three-day engage- !ment in As You Like It. Twelfth Night, and Ingomar the Bar- jbarian. Said the critic from the Los Angeles Evening 327 Express: She has a most beautiful face. Her voice is as musical as a sweet toned bell. Her eyes are large and expressive. . . . Her naturalness and simplicity were pronounced throughout. Her artlessness in the love scene made a pleasing picture.^4 Still more farce comedy followed: Milton Nobles in From Sire to Son. Minnie Seligman Cutting in My Official Wife. and Patti Rosa in Dolly Varden and Miss Dixie. December afforded Angelenos some temporary relief from the steady onslaught of farce comedy as Clara Morris brought emotional domestic drama, Claire and Sardou's Odette. Although in poor health, Miss Morris still thrilled her audiences: She was welcomed by a large and intelligent audience, a patronage even better than on her last visit here. They were attracted by her great reputation as an emotional actress .... this talented lady has done so much effective work on the stage that on this her farewell tour, she was remembered more for what she was, and was given a hearty call before the curtain.6^ The theatrical year for the Grand Opera House ended, quite properly, with the H. W. Williams Comedy Company in Bill's Boot. "An Opera Bouffe in Three Acts . . . a potpourri of 64Los Angeles Evening Express. November 23, 1892. ^^Ibid., December 14, 1892. 328 choice musical gems. It embraces the methods of farce- 66 comedy, opera, extravaganza and refined vaudeville." The Season of 1892 at the Los Angeles Theatre While the Grand Opera House claimed the best of the stars and companies that arrived in the city, the Los Ange les Theatre continued to struggle along with whatever talent manager Wyatt could attract. Only occasionally was Wyatt able to offer a first-rate star or company. With the sale of the Los Angeles Theatre in August, Wyatt's theatrical fortunes did a complete about-face] now it would be he— and not McLain and Lehman at the Grand Opera House— who would have the booking rights to the Frohman-Hayman traveling stock companies. But until its sale and the subsequent negotiations, the Los Angeles Theatre (and Henry Clay Wyatt) were active rivals of the Grand Opera House. i The 1892 season at the Los Angeles Theatre began with the Noss Jollities in variety-vaudeville, followed by a three-night performance of Captain Swift, the American farce comedy. January also brought Maude Granger in a re- 'peat of her earlier successes, Inherited. Camille. and The 66"Playbill," December 22, 1892 (Behymer Collection, iHuntington Library, San Marino, California). 329 Creole, all emotional dramas. The month ended with the appearance of Middaugh, Pfaff, and Goodman in Uncle Tom's Cabin. which featured "an all gold band." Hoyt and Thomas from the Madison Square Theatre in New York arrived in February for a five-day run of farce comedy, A Texas Steer, followed in quick succession by Bobby Gaylor in Sport McAllister 1 One of the 400 (farce), Roland Reed in Lend Me Your Wife (farce comedy), and the I "American-Swedish domestic comedy-drama," Ole Olson. April brought James H. Wallick in border melodrama, The Bandit King and The Cattle King, followed by a brief three-day stay of The Bostonians with light opera. After sporadic production weeks in both April and May, the Los Angeles Theatre offered Dan McCarthy in "the Beautiful Irish Dramas" The Cruiskeen Lawn and True Irish Hearts. Again, the theatre was operative only occasionally during June and I I July, featuring Frank Daniels in Little Puck in June and ;Sam T. Jack's Creole Burlesque Company from the Standard I Theatre in New York in July. | The sale of the Los Angeles Theatre was consummated during the summer months. On October 3, fiery Jeffrys Lewis and a company from Stockwell's Theatre in San Francisco re opened the Los Angeles Theatre with her long-standing 330 favorites Forget-Me-Not. La Belle Russe, and Clothilde. Said the somewhat critical reviewer: She has grown a little too embonpoint for a typical adventuress and she moves about with a little more effort than usual. Her voice is as strong and reso nant as of yore, but withal a trifle husky. The popular conception of the lithe, serpentine, willowy cocotte was not exemplified in her physique. However she compensated in action, in mobility, in countenance and fire of expression.®7 October also brought another heavy melodrama, The Stowaway. After another dark period during which the Los Angeles Theatre was being remodeled, Alexander Salvini, son of the great Tommaso Salvini, arrived in time to reopen the playhouse with four romantic dramas: Don Caesar de Bazan, The Three Guardsmen. L'Ami Fritz, and Cavalleria Rusticana. Spirited Salvini, as the rollicking soldier of fortune, tender lover, brave man facing death, and defender of the weak, played to standing room only: The immense audience that assembled last evening was indisputably as select as any that ever greeted a j company in Los Angeles. . . . No expense was spared by the manager to give sufficient eclat to the ini tial performance. The scenery was pre-eminently good, the costumes gorgeous and the stage settings appro priate. Still Salvini was "the whole show."®® ®7Los Angeles Evening Express. October 14, 1892. ®®Ibid.. November 17, 1892. 331 Fowler and Warmington ended the month with farce comedy, Skipped by the Light of the Moon. The season closed for the Los Angeles Theatre with a series of readings by James Whitcomb Riley and Hamlin Garland. As might be expected, the Hoosier poet outdrew the American exponent of Natural- 69 ism. Summary of the 1892 Season Of the ninety-one companies that played in Los Ange les during the 1892 season, sixty-two— the greatest number yet— offered legitimate drama. Six touring Frohman compa nies came during the year, all under the "personal manage ment" of San Francisco's A1 Hayman. Aside from the Frohman companies, only the Broadway Theatre Company and the Stand ard Theatre Company— both from New York— reached the city in 1892. The theatrical week at the Grand Opera House was Itwo to three days; at the rival Los Angeles Theatre, it was i jone to two days. It was clear that Angelenos could not I Isupport two uptown theatres . I Obviously the combined forces of Hayman and Frohman were operating with a virtual monopoly at the Grand Opera i "Receipt Books for the Los Angeles Theatre, 1892" j(Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, Cali fornia) . I 332 Opera House, by now Los Angeles' official road show house. As long as McLain and Lehman could work along with Hayman, the Grand Opera House could be assured of the bookings of some of the best stars in the country. Aside from The Bos tonians, who appeared annually at the Los Angeles Theatre, almost all of the big names played the Grand Opera House. However unsavory the term "theatrical monopoly" may sound, and despite the methods of its members, it did serve Angelenos in one vital, positive manner: it simply and un equivocally brought the best eastern drama to Los Angeles. Generally this meant some form of society drama, which, along with its many variations, might include everything from domestic drama to farce comedy. Society drama was a domesticized American version of the English comedy of man ners and usually included a fixed concept of idealized mor- ! lality. Above all, the Frohman companies gave local theatre goers an opportunity to view the very best plays, actors, and production methods. | Aside from the plays of the Frohman companies and an occasional "classical repertoire" by a Warde, a Mans field, or a Mather, for example, the majority of the plays given in the city during the 1892 season were either farces (one- or two-act plays without a discernible plot) or farce 333 comedies (three- or four-act plays with a plot structure). While farce was "for laughing purposes only," farce comedy could still teach some sort of moral truth within its frame work. Of course, as time went on, this rather simple method of dramatic identification was obfuscated in a maze of four- act farces and two-act farce comedies. Conventional defi nitions of genre became almost impossible to apply during the years under consideration in this study. A great deal of this confusion related directly to the many variations upon the theme of melodrama. Almost all of the plays of this period— including the domestic comedies and society dramas of the "modern" Frohmans— were essen tially melodramatic in nature. At their core was a univer sally accepted external morality based upon a clearly de fined system of right and wrong, good and evil. This sen tentiousness was either overt (as in the old-fashioned melo- I dramas) or covert, as in the newer plays, whatever their dramatic designation. In a word, melodrama could best be considered as a way of thinking more than anything else. Both the older and newer types of melodrama devel oped within this framework, and each was governed by its own style of acting. Curiously enough, Los Angeles critics were able to accommodate themselves to both the newer acting 334 styles of the Frohman companies and the older, "mighty" acting styles of a McKee Rankin or a James H. Wallick, the undisputed king of border melodrama. A tentative conclusion may be offered: the Frohman plays (as well as the plays of Rankin and Wallick) presented an idealized, static, redemp tive view of human nature which was at the very core of Howells' particular brand of realism. Howells' two-sided mirror tended to reflect only some of the truths of external nature while seemingly neglecting the internal truths of human nature. Psychological truths were still subservient to late nineteenth-century American philosophical truths. This created a curious sort of critical yardstick, one which was used more and more by local theatre critics to measure the city's drama. Most of their judgments were concerned with the varieties of external form; the content— which embraced and bred the sentiments of melodrama— was usually fixed. Thus by the end of 1892, with the coming of the many Frohman eastern traveling companies to the city, a genuine dramatic sensibility— albeit derivative from the Atlantic seaboard— began to develop in Los Angeles. As a result, the Grand Opera House, as the uptown house, became the dramatic stylemaker for the city. Theatregoers went to the Grand expecting to see the best productions and to hear 335 the best sentiments. That was why, perhaps, the local critics shuddered at the many zany farces of 1892 which were the stock in trade of Wyatt's Los Angeles Theatre. All of this was destined to change, however, in the very next year, when Wyatt could claim the treasure: the coveted contracts with A1 Hayman. In 1893, the rival Los Angeles Theatre became the uptown theatre, while the Burbank Theatre would become the downtown, popular-priced playhouse. And although the Grand Opera House managed to struggle through an 1893 season, its years as the city's premiere theatre would soon come to an end. CHAPTER VIII YEARS OF CRISIS AND CHANGE: THEATRICAL ACTIVITY IN LOS ANGELES FROM THE PANIC OF 1893 TO THE DEMISE OF THE GRAND OPERA HOUSE IN 1895 Theatrical Activity During the Panic of 1893 During the theatrical season of 1893, financial panic affected all of the nation, and Los Angeles was no exception. Four banks in the city closed, the value of southern California products decreased, construction slowed, and unemployment became a major concern. Legitimate the atrical offerings decreased by almost one-third: the total number of legitimate troupes that visited Los Angeles in 1893 was only forty-seven, a decrease of fifteen from 1892. In San Francisco the California, Alcazar, Bush, and Baldwin theatres were closed. In August the famous New York Dra matic News succumbed to the depressed times. In a single 336 337 week in November, there were sixty-four failures of eastern traveling companies.* Yet Earnest could conclude that "One gain was noted. Companies without merit, of which there 2 were many, tended to be weeded out." Curiously enough, despite the tenor of the times, there was an upsurge of all sorts of theatrical activity within the city. On February 6, 1893, the Park Theatre (the former Hazard's Pavilion) opened its doors. Offering dra matic productions at popular prices (IOC to 30C), the Park Theatre produced a hodgepodge of sensational melodrama, Dion Boucicault, and variety-vaudeville. Under the managership of actor Fred Cooper, the Park Theatre also boasted its own stock company, along with an occasional guest "star" of somewhat lesser magnitude. After some ten months at the Park Theatre, the stock company took up residence at the newly completed Burbank Theatre, on Main between Fifth and Sixth Streets. The A. M. Palmer stock productions from New York did not appear that year. There were three Charles Frohman shows, plus two by the new combination of Klaw and Erlanger, i ^Earnest, "Growth of Theatre," I, 230. 2 Ibid. 338 soon to become part of the greater Theatrical Syndicate. The theatrical "greats" who came to the city despite the economic conditions included Frederick Warde, Robert Man- tell, Jennie Yeamans, Henshaw and TenBroeck, Richard Mans field, Louis James, Maude Granger, Mrs. John Drew, and the brilliant French star Coquelin supported by jane Hading. Although the rivalry between the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre would continue until the summer months, the real test of power still concerned the obtaining of the booking contracts with San Francisco's A1 Hayman. In December 1892 Wyatt had wrested the prized contracts from McLain and Lehman. At first McLain and Lehman waged a spirited war against the new Wyatt-Hayman combine; but by the end of June 1893, McLain and Lehman capitulated to the greater power of Hayman. After being dark for almost six months, the Grand Opera House reopened with Leonard Grover's Comedians in farce comedy at 15$ to 35$; boxes were scaled at 50$ and 75$. There was no doubt about it; the Los Ange les Theatre, in 1893, had become the city's premiere the atre thanks to the machinations of Hayman. 1 In 1893 Los Angeles, which had been consistently a one-week stand, and then a three- to four-day stand, became |a one-night stand. It was also in 1893 that The Play Bill. 339 the city's first theatrical magazine, appeared: An interesting theatrical publication, The Play Bill. was issued in February by the firm of Kitts, Behymer and Wankowski. In it were biographical sketches of the stars, explanation and resumes of current offer ings, society offerings and "personals." The edi torial and distribution department was in the hands of Len Behymer, literary reviewer of the Los Angeles Daily Herald.3 The Season of 1893 at the Grand Opera House The season of 1893 at the Grand Opera House opened with a five-day stay of The Old Homestead and its "New Eng land setting true to Nature." There followed nothing but farce: the Atkinson Company in Peck's Bad Bov. Charles Dickson and "his Company of Comedy Players" in The Salt Cellar and Incog. and "Dainty" Fannie Rice in The Broom- Seller and the one-act curtain raiser A Jolly Surprise. On January 28, 1893 a notice appeared in the New York Dramatic I Mirror announcing Hayman's new contractual arrangements with Wyatt and the Los Angeles Theatre : Much interest is taken in theatrical circles over the announcement of a new deal between the Hayman- Frohman forces and the management of the Los Angeles Theatre. Heretofore all attractions controlled by l Messrs. Hayman and Frohman have been played at the Grand, but after the end of the present season those i 3Ibid.. I, 232 . 340 attractions will be sent to the Los Angeles Theatre instead, in consequence of which, Mr. Wyatt is wear ing the regulation 7x9 smile and receiving congratu lations from all sides.4 On the very next day, January 29, the Los Angeles Times referred to the "war" between the two local playhouses: The air is full of rumors about a theatrical famine hereabouts because of the war that has broken out afresh between the two local playhouses, the occasion of which is the transferring of the Frohman-Hayman attractions to the Los Angeles Theatre.*’ With the so-called theatrical "war" on, the Grand Opera House started the month of February with Alba Heywood, "The Versatile Comedian," in the New England pastoral New Edgewood Folks . Middaugh's Musical Comedy Company played a single night in Our German Ward, a "Four-Act Musical Comedy with a Strong Plot." The Marie Heath Company returned in plotless farce, A Turkish Bath, which the critic found i". . .an absurd title of a farcical piece . . . which is a lively, three-act bit with plenty of music and a good deal 0 of fun in it and little else." Richard and Pringle brought two nights of minstrelsy, followed by the Lilliputians in 4New York Dramatic Mirror, January 28, 1893. ^Los Angeles Times. January 29, 1893. ^Ibid.. February 7, 1893. 341 two musical comedies, Candy and The Dwarf's Wedding. Re ported the critic on the performance of the dwarfs: It fCandy] has the merit of an interesting plot and catchy music, and gives ample opportunity to all the Liliputians, who, despite their small size, are highly-accomplished artists .7 In March came Sutton's Monster Double Company for a two-night layover in Uncle Tom's Cabin, followed by trage dians Frederick Warde and Louis James in a week of romantic and classical drama: Julius Caesar. Othello. The Lion's Mouth, and Francesca da Rimini. The local citizens turned out in full force: The Grand was crowded every night. No more brilliant and enthusiastic audience ever assembled in the Grand Opera House than was the one that last night greeted Frederick Warde and Louis James upon the initial per formance of their engagement, and certainly there was never seen on the stage of this city a more perfect presentation of a Shakespearean play.® March also brought more rustic drama (Uncle Hiram) and still another production of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Spring brought John Stetson's company from the Globe Theatre, Boston, in the society "problem drama" The Crust of Society. The Los Angeles Times critic attacked it for being 7Ibid.. February 28, 1893. 8Ibid.. March 13, 1893. 342 too "Frenchy": The atmosphere of the piece is so absolutely rank it reeks, but beyond that it is so heavy as to give the people who try for the first two acts to find out what it is all about "the snakes." . . . The play's motif and denouement is typical of the utter nasti ness of the French mind when it comes to the matter of the drama, and let us be thankful that there exists nowhere, in America, at least, any such "soci ety" as the author exploits In spring also came the Boston Howard Athenaeum Star Spe cialty Company in vaudeville, which the critic found . is one of the very best of the vaudeville kind ever seen Richard Mansfield returned for a short two nights in May in A Parisian Romance and The Scarlet Letter. The moral of the latter play was praised: . . . the audience was large and representative. The play is tense with interest. It is realistic in suf fering . . . and above and beyond all that, it teaches a lesson of charity and forgiveness that we, of this modern age, stand in need of.*^ The month ended with a one-night stand by Maude Granger, the ! emotional actress, in Dumas' The Fringe of Society. Said ^Ibid.. March 31, 1893. 10Ibid.. May 11, 1893 11Ibid.. May 20, 1893. 343 the Los Angeles Times; "... the play has features that make its presentation little more than an unnecessary expose of certain phases of life that certainly have no counterpart 12 to society on this side of the water." June brought Bobby Gaylor for two nights in farce comedy. June ended the managerial stay of McLain and Lehman at the Grand Opera House, which would remain closed until the following Decem ber . On Christmas Day, 1893 Leonard Grover reopened the Grand Opera House with two of his own farce comedies, Our Private Secretary and Our Boarding House. Prices were scaled at 15$ to 35C, and Grover and his son offered week- long productions by the newly-formed Grover Stock Company. Thus concluded the theatrical season of 1893 at the Grand Opera House, which would never again regain its place as the city's "first" theatre. i The Season of 1893 at the Los Angeles Theatre At the Los Angeles Theatre, newly remodeled and with the Hayman contracts, things were on the upswing. The sea son opened with M. B. Leavitt’s spectacular production of 12Ibid.. June 1, 1893. 344 Spider and Fly, followed by two nights of Ole Olson. John Dillon brought a four-act farce comedy in February (A Model Husband); there followed a week of the Calhoun Opera Company in all comic opera. Then came more farce comedy: Frank Daniels in Dr. Cupid and John F. Sheridan, "The Eccentric Character Comedian," in A Night on the Bristol. The Bostonians came in the spring in a four-day run of light and comic opera. The month also brought Henshaw and TenBroeck in the musical farce comedy The Nabobs. A local reviewer commented: Like most farce-comedies, so-called, The Nabobs. as a play, is beneath criticism, but it is full of clever specialties, and goes with snap and vim from the very outset until the curtain goes down on the last act. ■ * It was also during the spring that the Los Angeles Theatre reduced its prices to 25<: to $1.00. a policy which lasted until August 1893, when prices were once again scaled at 25<: to $1.75. April saw the arrival of the R. E. Graham Company in the farce comedies Larry the Lord and The Prodigal Father. The latter production was managed by Jefferson, Klaw, and Erlanger, and presented, as an added attraction, 13Ibid.. April 20, 1893. 345 Carmencita in Spanish flamenco dances. Mrs. W. J. Florence returned with more farce comedy in The Mighty Dollar. The critic could not help remembering the recently deceased great W. J. Florence: "Without 'Billy Florence' in the role of Bardwell Slote, The Mighty Dollar lags superfluous on the 14 stage." Neil Burgess arrived with The County Fair in May along with ". . .six thoroughbred horses and two carloads of scenery, machinery, etc." Above all else, the produc tion was cheerful and full of warmth: "The play is full of amusement, and brimming over with human nature of the very 15 best type." The first of the Charles Frohman-Al Hayman traveling companies arrived in August in Bronson Howard's original American society drama Aristocracy. Said the critic of Howard's play: Mr. Howard has created a play that is not without interest, but both the European and American types of aristocracy, which he had to do duty for his pur poses, are of a crass kind— of the earth unearthy.^® A few days later an editorial asked: "Is Bronson Howard turning 'Frenchy' in his old age? One who sees the third | 14Ibid.. May 9, 1893. 15Ibid., May 11, 1893. i j_________^6Ibid., August 24, 1893.______________ ______________ 346 act of 'Aristocracy' and the extremely risque scene between 17 Diana Stockton and Prince von Halderwald would think so." August also brought the romantic actor Robert Man- tell in Monbars. The Cors ican Brothers. and Hamlet. As the heroic Monbars. Mantell was impressive: The drama and the player are both cast in heroic mold, and together they serve to present one of the most pleasing performances seen here for many sea sons. . . . He is strong, noble-minded, handsome, a very beau ideal of a man, in the rich costumes of the role, and is a veritable picture.*8 jane. another of the Frohman productions, arrived in Sep tember with Jennie Yeamans in the title role. Although French in its original form, the play had been thoroughly Americanized: . . . its dialogue, which the English had to discard almost in toto, and what the Britons substituted the Americans were forced to thoroughly overhaul and brighten up . . . all of which made the plot of "Jane" j quite absurd.*9 I The Old Comedy Company, under the personal direction of A1 Hayman, arrived in September, and by this time Hayman's name was on all of the Los Angeles Theatre playbills . With a cast which included Mr. and Mrs. John Drew, McKee Rankin, *8Ibid.. August 30, 1893. *9Ibid., September 4, 1893. 347 Sydney Drew, and Owen Fawcett, the company played for four performances in Sheridan's comedy The Rivals: . . . a venerable play, it has lost not a whit of its power to set the laughter going. . . . To be sure, one missed the unctuous humor of Joe Jefferson in the delightful role of fighting Bob Acres, but yet the old comedy was so well dressed and so well presented that it were captious to cavil. Still another of the Frohman companies came to the city, this one from the Empire Theatre in New York in Belasco and Fyles' American border drama The Girl I Left Behind Me. i Said the critic of the Los Angeles Times about this somewhat "restrained" frontier drama: The Indian question is its theme, a distinctively native one, and the authors have undertaken to solve the difficult problem of creating a frontier drama without its usual accompaniment of sensationalism.^^- September ended with a farce comedy, The Nutmeg Match. In October came the second Klaw and Erlanger show, jthe English sensational melodrama The Soudan. The prepro- ! duction announcement boasted that Military pageantry, proud blooded Arabian horses, patriotism, stirring military bands, marching drum corps, eighteen complete changes of sumptuous scenery, 20Ibid.. September 7, 1893. 2^Ibid.. September 11, 1893. 348 . . . all new this season . . . 300 people will engage the unrivaled melo-dramatic production of "The Soudan."22 Also in October came a more somber editorial note regarding the nation's floundering economy: Statistics compiled from official data show that from January to September, this year 560 State and local banks in the United States failed, and that seventy- two have resumed business .23 Katie Emmett played for three days in November in the Irish-American romance Killarnev. followed by a week of the American sensational melodrama The Wolves of New York and the English sensational melodrama The Span of Life. November brought still more farce comedy: Friends and Frank Daniels and his Comedy Company in the farce Little Puck. Some relief from farce comedy was offered with the arrival of the French stars Coquelin and Jane Hading. Prices for the one-night performance were scaled at 50$ to $2.50, and the best of the local society turned out for the all-French performance of L'Aventuriere: . . . the finest part of the city turned out in force last night, doing itself proud. . . . Miss Hading's i —------------------------- I 22"Playbill," October 12, 1893 (Behymer Collection, 'Huntington Library, San Marino, California). I I 23 | Los Angeles Times. October 5, 1893. 349 face is an April day. She is sweet and radiant with womanliness, she is a dream of intelligence . . . Coquelin is a wonderfully clever comedian, a player who leaves no point unfinished.2^ In December came Fanny Davenport in Sardou's Cleo patra . a role in which she had gained acclaim: Fanny Davenport carries out the role of the temptress who twisted the great Caesar and Marc Antony about her finger, with such power, force, fire, abandon and seductive passion, that one may easily forgive those noble Romans for yielding to the blandishments of her flashing eyes and the wooing music of her melodious voice After Fanny Davenport, the Los Angeles Theatre played noth ing but farce comedy: Clara Lipman and Louis Mann in The Laughing Girl. Katie Putnam in The Little Maverick, and Charles Dickson in Admitted to the Bar. Thus concluded the 1893 theatrical season at the Los Angeles Theatre. The Season of 1893 at the Park Theatre On February 6 the Park Theatre— formerly Hazard's Pavilion— began to feature lurid melodrama at prices ranging from IOC to 30$. Featuring actors Darrell Vinton, Fred Cooper (who also doubled as the Park's manager), and Georgia Woodthorpe, the Park gave performances for a full six-day 2^Ibid.. November 22, 1893. 25Ibid.. November 28, 1893. 350 week, including a Saturday matinee. Siberia was the first of its many sensational melodramas, followed by a week's run of Two Orphans and Boucicault's The Streets of New York. The Los Angeles Times thought the latter a fairly good pro duction : . . . The Streets of New York is fitted with new scenery and mechanical effects, including a most realistic fire scene, with real fire, real water, real fire engines and real horses, and a large crop of auxiliaries. The old-time melodrama should go in great fashion.^6 There followed The White Slave. the border melodrama M 1Liss, Oliver Twist, The French Spy. Uncle Tom's Cabin "with our own Little Georgie Cooper as Eva," and Little Lord Fauntleroy "with Georgie Cooper as the young English Lord." April brought the French domestic melodrama A Celebrated Case. followed by James and Carrie Clark Ward in Through by Daylight (American sensational melodrama), Boucicault's The Shaughran. Ranch 10 (border melodrama), and Buffalo Bill— still more border melodrama. | In June came the Excelsior Male Quartette in the jAmerican farce comedy An Actor 's Romance. followed by the rural melodrama Among the Pines. June also brought j I ^6Ibid., February 19, 1893. 351 Cinderella (extravaganza), the New York Comedians in twelve acts of variety-vaudeville, the American domestic drama Fisherman1s Daughter. and Fanchon. the Cricket, "with little Georgie Cooper as the Cricket." The Octoroon (rural melo drama) played in July, as did Twain's The Prince and the Pauper and the "Great California Drama" The Days of Gold. June also brought the wife and daughter of real-life bandits Evans and Sontag in the thriller The Visalia Bandits, which included the dramatization of the bandits' robbery of a train in northern California. With this, the Park Theatre concluded its brief and rather illustrious career as a popular-priced theatre in Los Angeles. The City's Third Luxury Playhouse, the Burbank Theatre Although begun in the boom days of 1888, the Burbank Theatre, built by Los Angeles dentist Dr. Burbank, was not i jcompleted until 1893, the very year that banks were failing in Los Angeles. Advance notices glowingly described the "conservatory for ladies" as the first powder room in southern California, an inner room apart from the toilets. !The stage, 27 by 42 feet, seemed adequate. Other details were as follows; 352 There will be five loges and six proscenium boxes on each side, making a total of 26 private boxes. Both incandescent and gas lighting will be used. The seating capacity is 900 in the gallery and 1027 downstairs, a total of nearly 2,000. Acoustics prom ise to be of the best . . . there are three tiers of dressing-rooms, giving 19 rooms in all. It is 59 feet from the stage to the "gridiron" . . . Opera chairs will be used on the first floor. The seats are wide and comfortable, and the space between the lines of seats is wide. There is no discomfort experienced by persons going out and coming in.^? The low admission (15$, 20$, and 30$, with boxes at 50$ and 75$) was undoubtedly appreciated during the city's hard times . The Burbank Stock Company, managed by Fred Cooper (who had also managed at the park Theatre), included Georgia Woodthorpe, Georgie Cooper, and Lewis Stone. The orchestra consisted of ten pieces, and performances were given nightly with Saturday matinees. The real fame of the Burbank Theatre began in 1899, when Oliver Morosco assumed 2 8 its managership. With the construction of the Burbank Theatre, the city's nineteenth-century building phase was 7 7 Los Angeles Evening Express. October 18, 1893j the Burbank Theatre is still standing. A more detailed account of the Burbank Theatre can be found in Leonard Schoen, "A Historical Study of Oliver Morosco's Long-Run Premiere Pro ductions in Los Angeles, 1905-1922" (unpub. Ph.D. diss., jUniversity of Southern California, 1971), I, 27-31. I OQ | °Schoen, "Oliver Morosco's Premiere Productions," II. 22. 41. 79.__________________________________________________ 353 over. It would be another full decade before Angelenos would once again see a playhouse built in their city. The Season of 1893 at the Burbank Theatre The Burbank Theatre officially opened its doors to the public on November 27, 1893 with Darrell Vinton and the Cooper Stock Company in the sensational melodrama The Shad ows of a Great City and orchestral selections. Said the local reviewer: "The play was well staged and better played than are many of the pieces presented at regulation 29 prices." This first presentation was followed by full- week runs of Richard III. Monte Cristo. Hamlet. and Michae1 Strognoff. which also featured six specialty acts inter spersed between the acts of the scenic Russian melodrama. Darrell Vinton had the lead in all the plays offered, and in each case he was supported by the Cooper Stock Company. So ended the abbreviated 1893 season for Los Angeles' third luxury playhouse, the still-standing Burbank Theatre. Theatrical Activity from the Depression of 1894 to the End of the Grand Opera House in 1895 There could be no doubt that Los Angeles suffered 29 Los Angeles Evening Express. November 28, 1893. 354 along with the rest of the nation during the grim depression year of 1894. Although relatively isolated from the eco nomic conditions that blighted the country, Angelenos still were affected by the railroad strike in Pullman, Illinois, and the march of Coxey's Army on the Unemployed, which ter minated at the very steps of the nation's Capitol. Especi ally hard hit in the local area were the citrus growers, whose fruit rotted in warehouses while the workers struck the railroad owners. Every bit as severe as the railroad problem was the situation of the many unemployed workers in Los Angeles during 1894. Lacking any sort of central, unified method of dealing with the problem of unemployment, the city had to rely upon the wisdom and altruism of its civic-minded leaders. The Associated Charities, an amalgam of civic and religious organizations, was organized in 1893 to alleviate some of the problems of the unemployed which, by 1894, had reacher serious proportions. Within the city, prices continued to fall. A full mutton leg sold for IOC a pound j tomatoes were 1C a pound; sugar was $1.00 for eighteen pounds; potatoes were 2C a ipound, "and a good Chinese servant could be hired from $4.00 355 to $5.00 per week." 30 T. J. Stewart, secretary of the Associated Charities, reported in his annual report that "Our community is now brought to face the unsolved problem of how to deal justly with its large and ever-increasing influx of indigent health-seekers .... We have not seen reported the entire bank balance of the organization as a Yet despite the national uncertainty and unrest, the city showed some signs of coming to life. The Los Angeles Times commented on the fact that things in Los Angeles were, indeed, beginning to look up. The city's population had mushroomed to approximately 70,000 by 1894, "an increase of 33 20,000 or 40 percent, in less than five years." There were now ". . .a dozen miles of paved streets, about 120 miles of graded streets and over 100 miles of cement side- I 34 walks within the city." Moreover, the streetcar electric system extended to Vernon, "and the Pico line has been im proved. . . . Los Angeles had Real Estate transfers of our way clear to effect a remedy." Secretary Stewart also mere $108.55. 32 3^Los Angeles Times. January 1, 1895. 33Ibid.. January 2, 1895. 34 Ibid. 356 $15,000,000. Assessed valuation of property was 35 $77,116,157." And in spite of the nation's general state of depression, "... the banks of Los Angeles have had a 36 prosperous year, with assets close to $17,000,000." As a result, the Los Angeles Times could echo the summation of Dun and Bradstreet regarding business conditions in the city: While general conditions throughout the country have been unfavorable, and many sections in our immediate vicinity have suffered from local causes, there has been a steady and healthy increase in Los Angeles business reported.37 Although plagued with uncertainties, Angelenos en joyed a rather remarkable theatrical year in 1894. A total of ninety-one companies played in Los Angeles during this depression year; of this number, forty-four were legitimate companies. The combined forces of Frohman and Hayman sent eight traveling companies to the Los Angeles Theatre; none of the other important traveling stock companies came to Los Angeles during 1894. There could be no doubt that the Los Angeles Theatre was now the city's number one playhouse; the once-proud Grand Opera House was reduced to an erratic 35Ibid. 36Ibid. 37Ibid.. January 4, 1895. 357 season of second-rate lurid melodrama and comic opera. With its star attractions and with its prices scaled at 25£ to $1.50 (sometimes as high as $2.00 for certain select per formers), the Los Angeles Theatre was now certainly the city's uptown "two dollar" house. Whatever competition the Los Angeles Theatre did encounter in 1894 came from two other sources: Fred Coop- er's popular-priced Burbank Theatre and, starting September 24, from the Imperial Music Hall, the former Mott's Hall and Chamber of Commerce site. Featuring continuous "re fined" vaudeville at 10$, 20$, 25$, and 50$ (all reserved matinee seats were 25$), the Imperial offered the local citizens vaudeville seven nights a week, plus matinees on Saturdays and Sundays. So successful was the Imperial ven ture, in fact, that the Los Angeles Theatre soon began to book full vaudeville companies, and the Burbank Theatre — rather incongruously— started to include specialty acts within its regular dramatic offerings. At the Grand Opera House, it was strictly a matter of too little and too late. The Leonard Grovers (father and son) tried— and failed— iafter a short season of stock company farce at prices rang ing from 15$ to 75$. On June 4 Lawrence Hanley, the new actor, took over the managerial duties at the Grand Opera 358 and offered full six-day runs of sensational melodrama, which also failed after a month's trial. On October 1 A. W. Benson, along with the Benson Opera Comique Company, produced a series of comic operas until December, when he too failed. On December 2 3 the Los Angeles Times carried the following notice which announced the official demise of the city's "first house" as a legitimate theatre: Society Vaudeville Theatre . . . the Orpheum . . . now in conjunction with the San Francisco Orpheum. Walter's Orpheum Co. Prices 10C-50<: Matinees 25C Children 10£ . . . any part of the house. Starting on January 1, 1895 the Orpheum, which became part of the San Francisco Orpheum circuit, offered Angelenos seven full nights and two matinees of "society vaudeville." There were no managerial changes at the city's two leading theatres in 1894j Wyatt remained at the Los Angeles Theatre, while Cooper stayed on at the Burbank Theatre. The ill-fated Grand Opera House was operated by a series of managers until it became the Orpheum in 1895. The Imperial Music Hall was managed by the triumvirate of Lehman, Elling- house, and Gottlob; the first-named was none other than the ! - ---------------------- I ®®Ibid., December 23, 1894. 359 Hayman-deposed Martin Lehman who, along with George McLain, had managed, at intervals, both the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre. Within the next few years, Lehman was destined to become the Chicago-based vice-president of the San Francisco Orpheum circuit, a string of some seven- 39 teen theatres. All of the country's reigning actors now came to the Los Angeles Theatre and the glory that once was the Grand Opera House's was a thing of the distant past. Occasionally the Burbank Theatre would attract a lesser luminary, e.g., Darrell Vinton, Charles McCarthy, Billy Emerson, Percy Hunting, McKee Rankin, Joseph L. Dowling and Myra L. Davis, Charles A. Garner, Kitty Kursale, and the Australian twins Willard and William Newell. As a rule, however, the really "big names" played at the Los Angeles Theatre. In 1894 came James O'Neill, Frederick Warde, Stuart Robson, Clay Clement, Louis James, Effie Ellser, Hallen and Hart, John Drew, Grismer and Davies, Robert Downing, and the farceur-supreme, Edward Harrigan. As to nonlegitimate attractions, Los Angeles still managed to attract its share of outstanding stars and OQ ^Sobel, Pictorial History of Vaudeville, p. 112. 360 companies, despite the pall of depression which hung over the nation's traveling companies. In 1894 some of the very best of the nation's troupes stopped in the city: The Bos tonians, the New Boston Howard Athenaeum Company, the Cal houn Opera Company, Springer and Welty's Extravaganza Com pany, the Pyke Opera Company, Richards and Pringle's Min strels, M. B. Leavitt's English Burlesque Company, the Hopkins Trans-Oceanic Star Specialty Company, the Refined Trocadero Vaudeville Company (featuring Sandow and managed by Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.), the Charles Leonhart Company (European vaudeville), Haverly's Minstrels, and the American Extravaganza Company. The Season of 1894 at the Los Angeles Theatre The Los Angeles Theatre began the 1894 season with three days of the Barlow Brothers in eight acts of min strelsy, concluding with the one-act farce Kellar Outdone. The McKee Rankins followed with emotional melodrama: '49. The Danites. and The Canuck. The local critic especially liked the presentation of '49: The characterization of Mr. Rankin in this play is strong and striking, and Kitty Blanchard, although showing traces of the years that have flown, is 361 still quite as kittenish and chipper in the part of Carrots as ever Joseph Murphy came with Ir ish-American drama, Boucicault's Shaun Rhue and Kerry Gow. On January 18, a combined benefit for the Leonard Grover and McKee Rankin companies was given after both companies were apparently stranded in the city. January also brought Patti Rosa and comedian Bert Coote in old-time favorites, Miss Dixie and Dolly Varden. Fanny Rice ended the month in farce comedies, A Jolly Sur prise and Miss Innocence Abroad. In the latter play she played the ingenue Nancy. The play's playbill announced: As Nancy, she is thoroughly Human and Delightfully droll--Her Humor— Her Pathos and the thousand Little Artistic touches that she gives the part are the work of an Artist. A Clean Wholesome Play of Real Life and Color . . . A Novelty in Construction. So serious and funny that it is Delightful and Refreshing to See.4^ - Obviously the local critic agreed: Fanny Rice is a delicious little body— half sunshine, penetrating like a random ray the cob-webbed, musty groves of life— and half music, dancing like a strain of merry concord across the singing breeze of the dull old world.4^ 40 Los Angeles Times. January 4, 1894 . 4l"Playbill," January 24, 1894 (Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 42 __________ Los Angeles Herald. January 26. 1894._____________ 362 Dan'1 Sully arrived in February with Leander Rich ardson's three-act comedy The Millionaire, followed by the American naval play The Ensign: ". . .a play full of patriotic speeches and heroics that stir the impressionable blood of the average audience as but few plays of the day 43 are capable of doing. Afterwards came the Boston Howard Athenaeum Company— along with Lottie Collins— in A Naughty Substitute. a farce comedy with nine acts of vaudeville. This mixture of vaudeville and drama would soon become a new form of entertainment until, of course, vaudeville would take over as the dominant entertainment mode. With the opening of the Imperial and the Orpheum, the mixing of the two forms was at an end. February ended with farce, Free man's Funmakers in A Railroad Ticket. March brought James McAlpine in the American-Swedish dialect comedy Ole Olson. The Calhoun Opera Company played three nights in light and comic opera, followed by "The Spectacular Romance in 4 Acts and 16 Tableaux," The Black Crook. as performed by Springer and Welty. Clay Clement, one of the nation’s newer actors, played in the "Great Psychologic Romance" The Bells. Although audiences stayed 4^Los Angeles Times. February 6, 1894. 363 away from the theatre, the local critic found the production of The Bells first-rate: Last night's audience was much too small . . . yet The Bells was the artistic treat of the season by all odds. Henry Irving has made this play his own, but it was strongly in evidence last night that America has an artist who has in him the germ of a greater Mathias than has ever yet walked the stage in any land. The play itself is a most powerfully dramatic creation; it is a study in the remorse that auditor and it is as weira as a story or t*oe s. James O'Neill returned in March with the old stand bys Virginius and Monte Cristo. Said the Los Angeles Times critic on Sunday, March 25 about the week's offerings in Los Ange les : . . . Monte Cristo. a dear, old chestnut, presented acceptably; a troupe of Japs doing apparently impos sible things, and a company of colored people— alleged minstrels--attempting the difficult feat of burlesquing their own race, has been the record of events at the theatres for the week just past. It is not a very edifying array of attractions,45 March ended with three days of Lawrence Hanley and Edith Lemmert in Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice. The reviewer commented on Hamlet: Mr. Hanley's Hamlet is of a nervo-sanguineous must touch 44Ibid.. March 18, 1894. 45Los Angeles Herald. March 25, 1894. 364 temperament, quick, impulsive and loud, a distinctly Celtic type and has in it nothing to suggest the dreamy, speculative Scandinavian. . . . I think that his talent belongs to the romantic school of acting rather than the classical school.46 Hanley, in June, had no better luck as actor-manager of the Grand Opera House, where he and Miss Lemmert performed for an abbreviated four-week season in classical and romantic drama. Grismer and Davies brought first-rate drama in April with Grismer's own original four-act American play The New South. Always a good showman, Grismer drew applause from the local reviewer: The New South is a breezy production, as full of action as a movement of a regiment on the double- quick, and replete with an interest that is essen tially human and of the period— today.47 M. B. Leavitt brought Spider and Fly in April, followed by a four-day stopover by Frederick Warde and Louis James in repertory: Julius Caesar. Francesca da Rimini. Othello. The Lion's Mouth, and Damon and Pythias. Warde continued to be a local crowd pleaser: . . . Mr. Warde's acting in the forum scene [of Julius 46Ibid.. March 30, 1894. 47Los Angeles Times. April 2, 1894. 365 Caesar] was one of the greatest bits of dramatic art seen here, and gave such keen pleasure to the house that he was called before the curtain for one of the clever little speeches for which he is fa- 48 mous . Effie Ellser, an actress of some national fame, re turned in April and played to small houses, which caused the critic to remark: Effie Ellser is undeniably one of the most accom plished of America's actresses, but the sweet and wholesome plays fDoris and Hazel Kirkel which she has been presenting to local audiences for the past few nights, containing no skirt dances, acrobats, or buffoons, have been fought shy of by the theatre goers, who, apparently, have a clearly defined idea of what suits them in the amusement line .4® The Los Angeles Theatre was closed from April 21 to May 18, after which C. M. Pyke produced three nights of H.M.S. Pina fore . Vaudeville followed comic opera with a full week of the Hopkins Trans-Oceanic Star Specialty Company. May con cluded with a short three-night run of the romantic actor Stuart Robson in Buckthorn's comedy Leap and Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors . Summer saw the arrival of Sandow, "The Athlete of the Century," along with seven acts of "Refined Vaudeville." 48Ibid.. April 18, 1894. 48Ibid. . April 22, 1894. 366 The manager of the tour was Flo Ziegfeld, who would later achieve fame and fortune as one of Broadway's premiere pro ducers . June also brought a week of Hallen and Hart in the American farce comedy The Idea. in which an audience par ticipation game was incorporated within the stage produc tion: "Along with The Idea, there will be a real game of 'Keno,' or "Lotto.' . . . There are thirty (30) winning cards distributed . . . among the audience all over the 50 theatre." Sandow and company returned for two more days in June; there followed a week of the Los Angeles Opera Soci ety, under the direction of C. M. Pyke, in The Mikado and the romantic opera Maritana. July brought more vaudeville, this time the "Grand American Tour" of Charles Leonhart and company's European troupe, featuring Mrs. Alice J. Shaw, "The Whistling Prima Donna." Said the enraptured critic of the Los Angeles Times: Mrs. Alice J. Shaw, America's whistling nightingale . . . took the house by storm. . . . With no more aid than the pucker of a bewitching mouth set between a pair of enticing dimples, she makes music that is as ' 50 "Playbill," June 5, 1894 (Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 367 sweet as the warbling of birds and as true to the key as the notes of a bugle horn.31 July ended with the Pyke Opera Company performing a full week's performance of The Queen's Lace Handkerchief and Bluff King Hal. The first of the Daniel Frohman companies arrived in August: Mr. John Drew and his American company in Carle- ton's American society comedy The Butterflies and the French society comedy The Masked Ball. The local critic, obviously satiated with the theatrical offerings that preceded Drew's company, concluded: To those of the play-going class who have for many dreary nights been regaled with the beery tomfoolery of farce-comedy . . . the advent of a company like the one headed by John Drew . . . is as refreshing as a whiff of salt air blown across a desert.33 Nor did the critic fail to comment upon the play's adherence to the rules of realism: The latest contribution to this growing list of suc cessful home-brewed plays is The Butterflies. . . . Mr. Carleton has selected his characters from the very extensive portrait gallery open to every man who keeps his eyes peeled, and these people will be recognized as familiar, realistic types.33 31Los Angeles Times. July 11, 1894. 33Ibid., August 12 , 1894 . 53Ibid. 368 Edward Harrigan, the inimitable creator of farce comedy, brought three of his own creations in August: Reilly and the 400. A Leather Patch, and Cordellia's Aspira tions . The Los Angeles Times critic again echoed the tenets of realism as prescribed by William Dean Howells: What such playwrights as Bronson Howard, Sidney Grundy and Henry Guy Carleton have done for the drama of the upper crust of society, Edward Harrigan has done for the lower strata. And it is among the everyday people that really natural types of char acters are to be found, it is in the stage charac ters of Harrigan's that we find much stronger draw ing than in plays of a higher class.^4 August likewise brought Gustave Frohman's company from Pal mer's Theatre in New York in Oscar Wilde's English society comedy Lady Windemere's Fan. Said the charmed critic, "Oscar Wilde probably wrote from experience in real life . . . although it is doubtful whether he realized fully the possibilities of the piece in the hands of a capable com- „55 pany." In the fall came the Charles Frohman Stock Company from the Empire Theatre in New York in a full week of Eng lish society comedy dramas: Sowing the wind. Liberty Hall. ^4Ibid.. August 15, 1894. 5^Ibid.. August 24, 1894. 369 Counci1lor 1s Wife. and Gudgeons. Despite the all-around excellence of the company, attendance was sparse, which prompted the reviewer to blame hard times and President Cleveland: The engagement has been the artistic event of the season, by long odds, and the indifferent patronage the company has received would, under ordinary cir cumstances, be a reflection on the good taste of the local play-goers— as it is, the small houses may be attributed to the Cleveland times Yet despite economic conditions, the city's theatres con tinued to stay open on a fairly regular basis. On September 23, a local editorial read: What with melodrama at the Burbank, vaudeville at the Imperial, the society-drama at the Los Angeles, and comic opera soon to hold the boards at the Grand, he must be an exacting play-goer, indeed, who cannot find something on the players' menu to please his appetite ,^7 October began with still another of the Frohman companies, this one from A1 Hayman's Baldwin Theatre in San Francisco. The play, which ran for eight performances, was the three-act farce comedy Charley's Aunt. The venerable Uncle Tom's Cabin paid its usual visit in October, followed ^ Ibid.. September 9, 1894. ^7Ibid.. September 23, 1894. 370 by "The American romantic comedy-drama of contemporary interest," In Old Kentucky. Although full of trite situa tions, the play was still preferred by the local critic over sensational or domestic melodrama: The play is full of conventional thingsj time-worn situations, trite heroics, and all that, and yet withal, entertaining beyond any melodrama that has been exploited on these boards for a great while.5® Dan'l Sully came back in November in the "American rustic comedy-drama . . . with mechanical effects," O'Neil. Washington. D.C. Katie Emmett followed for a three-day stint in Con T. Murphy's Irish-American drama Killarney. Then came Haverly's Mastodon Minstrels for three nights of minstrelsy. The month concluded with the arrival of the romantic tragedian Robert Downing in the "American virile tragedy" The Gladiator, the English romantic drama Ingomar the Barbarian, and the English "Romantic comedy-drama" David Garrick. Still another of the Frohman companies came to the city in December: Gustave Frohman's The New Bov, a four-act English farce comedy. Aladdin. Jr.. an American extrava ganza, followed for a full week's run by the American 58Ibid.. October 19, 1894. 371 Extravaganza Company. On December 20 came the fine trage dian Thomas Keene with his own company in an all classical repertoire: Hamlet. Merchant of Venice. Othello, and Richard III. After a steady diet of farce comedy and ex travaganza, the local reviewer applauded the efforts of Keene: Thomas Keene is a player of the old school. . . . His readings are true and musical. His delineation of the great roles, while open, mayhap, to criticism, are still vivid with life. 9 The theatrical season for the Los Angeles Theatre ended with the appearance of the "Master of Romantic Drama," Alexander Salvini, in six straight nights of swashbuckling, romantic drama: Hugo's Ruy Bias. Dumas' The Three Guards men. the French "romantic comedy" Don Caesar de Bazan. and the German "romantic comedy-drama" Friend Fritz. As usual, Salvini was an immense success: A sterling performance. . . . One can regret that he cannot go back to the seventeenth century and wear a sword and buckler into the fighting with the other hale fellows who would as soon spit a foe upon a keen blade as to empty a flagon of burgundy.60 " ibid.. December 24, 1894. 60Ibid.. December 26, 1894. 372 The Season of 1894 at the Grand Opera House While the Los Angeles Theatre continued to book the best theatrical talent, the Grand Opera House— fallen from its original glory— continued to limp along throughout 1894 with a hodgepodge of second-rate performers. At best, the Grand Opera House's theatrical "season" was rather erratic. The Grovers (Leonard Jr. and Sr.) lasted only one full week in January as the playhouse's managers. After producing Cad, the Tomboy (scenic melodrama) and Our Boarding House (the elder Grover's farce comedy), the Grovers gave up the managership of the Grand Opera House. By this time, the theatre was scaled at 15 $ to 75£, a far cry from the ad missions charged before the machinations of Hayman. The Grand Opera House remained dark until June, when the romantic actor Lawrence Hanley took over the manager ship. With Hanley as both actor and manager, and with a Grand Opera Stock Company, the Grand Opera House now offered Angelenos successive runs of Saratoga, the American "tragic- comedy" The Player, and the English three-act farce comedy Pink Dominoes (with Lydia Yeamans Titus). Modjeska returned for a two-night stand in As You Like It. a benefit perform ance under the patronage of the Catholic Ladies' Aid Society 373 for Los Angeles' unemployed. After the unsuccessful tenure of Hanley at the Grand Opera House, the managership of the theatre was taken over first by A. W. Benson and then, in November, by Benson and Rickards. Benson experimented with a series of comic operas throughout the months of October and November. Featuring the Benson Opera Comique Company— a local stock company— the Grand Opera House showed such productions as the "Ameri can nautical-farcical opera" Ship Ahoy, the "American comic opera" Tar and Tartar. the operatic burlesque Mister Monte Cristo. the waltz opera The Merry War. the "Romantic comic opera" The Bridal Trap, and the "Military opera" Hermine. Starting in November, Benson— along with partner Rickards— changed the policy of the Grand Opera House from melodious opera to spine-tingling melodrama of the sensa tional variety. Again employing a stock company— the Benson Dramatic Stock Company— the managers offered the local play goers the young actor Theodore Kremer in an assortment of sensational roles: the English spectacle of Russian life The Nihilist: the military comedy drama Through the Shadows of Death, and the American scenic melodrama The Streets of i New York. On December 23, the Grand Opera House was offi cially tied into the San Francisco Orpheum circuit as a 374 vaudeville house; and on January 1, 1895 the Grand Opera House--now rechristened the Orpheum— would commence its second theatrical "life" as a house of continuous vaude ville . The Season of 1894 at the Burbank Theatre As the Los Angeles Theatre moved into the number one spot as the city's road show house, the Burbank Theatre, under the managership of Fred Cooper, began to establish itself as the city's popular-priced theatre. Featuring a combination of good showmanship, a local resident stock company, and reduced prices (15C to 30C, with boxes at 50C and 75C), Cooper managed to steer the Burbank Theatre through its first full year with an assortment of enter tainment: for the most part, good old-fashioned melodrama. The Burbank Theatre's theatrical season for 1894 began with a full week's run of Around the World in 80 Days. featuring Darrell Vinton and the Cooper Stock Company. An addition to the regular presentation were four orchestral selections and "six specialty acts." This was followed by the American "domestic-scenic drama" The False Friend, once again with Darrell Vinton and the Cooper Stock Company. Georgie Cooper was featured in the "American scenic-romantic 375 drama" The Burglar, along with Vinton and the local stock company. Charles McCarthy, who had formerly played both the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre, was featured for a week in One of the Bravest, a production with which he some success at the two theatres. Whereas McCarthy formerly traveled with his own company, he was now supported by the Cooper Stock Company. The same dramatic formula— that of a principal artist supported by a resident stock company— was repeated with the appearance of minstrel Billy Emerson in the Irish-American comedy Muldoon's Picnic. February brought Percy Hunting in Faust. followed by the "English celebrated melodrama . . . with Six Tableaux and musical selections" Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. McKee Rankin, another of the local favorites, followed with a highly emotional version of The New Danites. The Canuck, and the English "scenic melodrama" Lights O' London. As would be the case with almost all of the Burbank Theatre offerings throughout the 1894 season, all of the featured actors were supported by the Cooper Stock Company. Senator McFee. the American-Irish farce comedy, ! (played for a full week in March, aided and abetted by the ever-present Cooper Stock Company and the Charles Comelli 376 Japanese Novelty Company as between-act specialty enter tainment. The Japanese Novelty Company returned for another week in March, this time without support from Cooper and his group. McKee Rankin returned for another week in the "Great California border melodrama" '49 in April, followed by the "Grand Spectacular Production" of Uncle Tom's Cabin with "Little Georgie Cooper as Eva." George Osbourne, another of the local favorites who had played both at the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre, performed at the Burbank Theatre for an entire month beginning in the middle of April. The shows included Steele MacKaye's romantic drama A Noble Roque. the American domestic drama Current Cash, the lurid melodrama Under the Gaslight, the American scenic melodrama The Great Metropolis, and the French realistic melodrama Two Orphans. Spring brought Joseph J. Dowling and Myra L. Davis — also ex-performers at the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre— in three weeks of more melodrama, the American five-act military drama Captain Herne. USA, the 'rural comedy-drama Nobody 1s Claim. and the "American South ern Drama" A Kentucky Girl. The latter production was aug mented by "First-class vaudeville entertainment, " the visual 377 musical selections and the ever-present Cooper Stock Com pany. On June 11 the industrious Cooper, seemingly attuned to the local theatrical situation, offered a two-part pro gram: the first was a "Grand Vaudeville Entertainment," while the second was a full production of the three-act "moral drama" Little Lord Fauntleroy. Charles A. Gardner ("Our Karl") brought his entire company to the Burbank Theatre for a two-week engagement in June. Gardner played in the German-American comedy dramas The Prize Winner and Fatherland, the very same program which he played at the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles The atre in previous years. In July came George P. Webster and Camille Cleveland in a combination of melodrama and vaude ville plus the usual musical selections. Their first pro duction was the spectacular melodrama The Bottom of the Sea. followed bv Boucicault's scenic melodrama After Dark and the ! William Brady adaptation of She. The productions were interspersed with specialty acts. Said the rather dismayed reviewer: ". . .if nothing else, the evening had a lot of 'go.' One of the better things was the scenery, which was a great feature of the performance."^^ 6^Los Angeles Herald. July 18, 1894. 378 August brought another of the artists who once played the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre, George p. Murphy, in the American farce comedy U and I. along with a "Grand Vaudeville Entertainment." Clark and Williams presented a week of American farce comedy (Our Married Men). followed by the DuMont Family and the S. T. Stewart Vaudeville Company in La Dance va Moose plus the one-act farce A Morning with Justice Schwab. George P. Murphy and Kitty Kursale concluded the month with week-long performances of the farce comedy Rudolph's Ambitions and the scenic melodrama Peck's Bad Boy. September brought the D. K. Higgins and Georgia Waldron Company for another month of lurid melodrama: Kid napped (Higgins ' adaptation), The Vendetta. The Plunger, and the "Favorite American domestic comedy-drama . . . along with Living Pictures," Burr Oaks . In October Cooper went back to his original stock company, by now renamed "Cooper's New Stock Company." Their first presentation was the "Mag nificent, Spectacular Production of the English Melo-drama" A Dark Secret. complete with specialty acts, musical selec tions, and living pictures. Then followed the English sen sational melodrama Cynthia, the Romany Queen. Hoodman Blind. i The Silver King, and the "American nautical adventure drama" 379 The Mariner's Compass. In each of the October selections there was included a "High-class vaudeville" attraction. Temporarily abandoning performances that included both vaudeville and drama, Cooper, in November, went back to "straight" undiluted melodrama with the "American his torical drama" Abraham Lincoln, the French romantic tragedy Count di Rimini (with Darrell Vinton), and the "Grand Scenic Production of the Great Nautical Drama" Harbor Lights (also with Darrell Vinton). November ended with a week of Dan'1 Kelly in the American rustic melodrama The Old. Old Story. December brought "The Only Twins in the World," Willard and William Newell, in the American scenic melodrama The Operator and the French romantic drama The Corsican Brothers. Christmas week was given over to spectacular and extravaganza with The Black Crook and Cinderella. So ended the first theatrical season for the Burbank Theatre, the I last theatre to be built in Los Angeles until the Mason Opera House was built in 1903. The Season of 1894 at the Imperial Music Hall On September 2, 1894 there appeared a notice to the I I leffect that the old Chamber of Commerce building would be remodeled into the "Imperial Music Hall . . . Los Angeles' 380 62 only house of 'high class' vaudeville." This prompted the Los Angeles Times critic to observe that "Los Angeles will soon support four separate houses . Now we really are 63 a metropolis with a big M." Coincidental with the local situation, the New York Dramatic Mirror finally announced that it would list the many vaudeville troupes within the 64 country under the heading "Vaudeville Companies." What ever the conditions which underlay its popularity during the mid-1890s, the vaudeville craze certainly captured the fancy of Angelenos during this period. The official opening of the Imperial Music Hall was on October 2 . Prior to that date, a notice appeared in the Los Angeles Times: Vaudeville . . . at the Imperial Music Hall Main Street between First and Second. Prices 10$ 20$ 25$ 50$ Matinees 25$ reserved seats Children 10$ anytime Included among the acts were "Juno, the Frogman, the Shadowgraphist Aldo Martini . . . and Pizzarello, the French Los Angeles Times. September 2, 1894. ^ Ibid.. September 3, 1894. ^ New York Dramatic Mirror. April 23, 1894. 6^Los Angeles Times. September 28, 1894. 381 66 Grotesque Artist." Operating on a seven-night week plus Saturday and Sunday matinees, the Imperial Music Hall, according to the Los Angeles Herald. "... struck the city amidships."67 Later the same paper reported that "Nothing's been the same since the Imperial opened its doors . . . People continue to swarm to the house of Lehman, Ellinghouse 68 and Gottlob [the Imperial's managers] ." And so ended the first season of the Imperial Music Hall. Summary of the Season of 1894 Despite the fact that the city was still feeling many of the aftereffects of both the local bust and the national Panic and Depression, its theatrical activity was seemingly strong and vigorous. In fact, the year 1894 pro duced another "first" for Los Angeles theatre: in that year a total of four different theatres operated and competed. At the end of 1894, the city of Los Angeles could claim three luxury playhouses plus the remodeled former Chamber of Commerce site, the Imperial Music Hall. Starting "Playbill," October 12, 1894 (Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 67Los Angeles Herald, October 19, 1894. 68ibid., October 27, 1894. 382 with the 1895 season, the Orpheum (once the proud Grand Opera House) would become a house of continuous vaudeville, and the makeshift Imperial Music Hall would soon close its doors . As far as the rivalry between the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre was concerned, it was, by the end of the 1894 season, a thing of the past. The Los Ange les Theatre, armed with the previous Hayman-Frohman con tracts, was now the city's "first" theatre, a position held by the Grand Opera House for almost a decade. Of the fifty- six traveling companies that came to the Los Angeles Theatre during the season of 1894, a total of eight were sent di rectly to the West Coast by Charles Frohman— by way, of course, of San Francisco’s A1 Hayman. There could be little doubt that the Los Angeles Theatre, with its big-name stars and "two dollar" price policy, was officially the city's fashionable uptown theatre. At the end of the 1894 season the Burbank Theatre was firmly entrenched as the city's popular-priced theatre. Whereas all previous attempts at downtown theatre in Los Angeles had failed, the Burbank Theatre— an authentic play- i jhouse— seemed to attract its own playgoing audience. Al though its theatrical offerings leaned toward the 383 sensational and the heavily melodramatic, it did offer a season of fairly substantial drama. Whereas the Los Angeles Theatre relied throughout the season on out-of-town bookings as its source of theatri cal talent, the Burbank Theatre operated for almost the entire season of 1894 with its own resident stock company. As a result, the theatrical run at the Burbank Theatre was much more constant: usually six days and a matinee. After the Imperial Music Hall began to feature a seven-day the atrical week, the Burbank Theatre followed suit. The Los Angeles Theatre, on the other hand, was dependent on travel ing stars and companies; as a result, the playing days of a theatrical run had very little consistency. An average playing date at the Los Angeles Theatre was somewhere be tween three and f ive days. The fortunes of the city's first luxury playhouse, the Grand Opera House, were tied to the contracts and the bookings of Hayman-Frohman. Stripped of the eastern book ings, the Grand Opera House languished in semi-obscurity during the 1894 season. All attempts to revitalize the Grand Opera House as a house of drama were doomed to fail ure, and the theatre was unsuccessful even as a popular- priced house of sensational melodrama. By 1894 the Burbank 384 Theatre had laid claim to the city’s downtown audience, while the newer and remodeled Los Angeles Theatre, resplen dent with contracts and eastern bookings, could certainly attract the uptown audiences . Thus the Grand Opera House struggled through an erratic year of openings and closings, only to be resolved in 1895, when the theatre became part of the San Francisco Orpheum vaudeville chain. By far the biggest theatrical event of the 1894 season was the opening of the Imperial Music Hall and its featuring of continuous vaudeville at prices scaled at 10$ to 50$. The impact of the Imperial Music Hall was immed iate; by the end of the 1894 season, the announcement was made that Los Angeles' former "first" theatre was ready to start the year of 1895 as the Orpheum. And so ended the life of the Grand Opera House as a legitimate theatre. L CHAPTER IX SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS Summary While the theatre in America had been extended from the Atlantic to the pacific by the middle of the nineteenth century, El Pueblo de Los Angeles remained isolated on the southern California coast. Whereas northern California, and particularly San Francisco with the Gold Rush of 1849, rap idly developed into a vigorous society and a theatrical city, Los Angeles remained a thinly-populated, semi-lawless cattle frontier for years after the close of the Civil War. With a population of 1,610 in 1850, Los Angeles languished without fame or fortune, a tiny Mexican adobe village surrounded by sprawling ranch lands. With its con centration of lands in large ranchos possessed by a few, its Spanish-Indian population, and its agricultural pursuits centered in grape culture and cattle raising, the Southland resembled a feudal aristocracy. It was within this milieu i I 385 386 that the city's first recorded dramatic presentation took place in 1848. The "actors" were the officers and men of Colonel Stevenson's famed regiment of New York volunteers, and the performances were given in the one-story adobe "American Theatre," a wing of Don Antonio Coronel's home. When the soldiers left in 1850, so did the city's drama. During the early 1850s Los Angeles became one of the toughest frontier towns in America, and its theatre com pletely disappeared. Until 1856, the city had to cope with a period of lawlessness and violence. By 1857, however, the unrest subsided, to be followed by a period of economic hard times. The era of the cattle kings was ending, and the once-sprawling ranchos were cut up into smaller parcels of farming land. After the Great Drought of 1863-1864, the days of the local cattle barons were virtually over. Almost two years before the Great Drought, two American "Dons," Don Abel Stearns and Don Juan Temple, vied with each other to see which one would be the first to build a public hall— later a theatre— in Los Angeles. Although Temple completed his two-story brick building in 1859, its upstairs hall was not outfitted for a theatre until February I I 11860, some eight months after Stearns' Hall presented the first American professional acting company in southern 387 California. As for the Temple Theatre (with its raised seats and two small boxes), it was the first local theatre to accommodate a professional American acting troupe in legitimate drama, the Stark Company from San Francisco. Only a few more minor troupes reached the city during the sixties . For the state of California, 1869 was an important year. Its isolation was ended when the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads met at Promontory Point, Utah on May 10. Now San Francisco was the terminus for a trans continental railroad, and in January 1870 the expensive new California Theatre opened there. Soon afterward, some of the troupes ventured south to Los Angeles, where they could stay at the $50,000 Pico House, luxuriate in its baths (one to a floor), and even read by gaslight. What the city needed, without doubt, was a theatre, one which could accommodate the traveling performers. It was obvious that the Temple Theatre was not adequate. And it was at this time that William Abbott, upholsterer, fur niture dealer, coffin-maker, and undertaker, built the Mer ced Theatre, still standing today next to the Pico House and across from the Plaza. The three-story building included a store downstairs (now the site of a Security-Pacific Bank), 388 and living quarters for the Abbott family upstairs; the Merced Theatre occupied the entire second floor of the structure . Complete with drop curtain, red plush drapes with gold trim, painted scenery, and four small boxes, the Merced Theatre was, by far, the closest thing to a genuine theatre that Los Angeles possessed. After a great deal of fanfare, the Merced Theatre opened on New Year's Eve, 1870 with a concert and a ball; its professional opening was on January 19, 1871 with the farce comedy Laughing Gas . A total of twenty-one companies played at the Merced Theatre in 1871, more than in all of the previous years combined. Yet by 1872 audiences began to desert the theatre of William Abbott, and despite a series of changes by its owner, the days of the Merced The atre as the city's finest were over. Abbott simply could not alter two undeniable facts: his theatre was poorly planned from the outset and the neighborhood around the Plaza was rapidly decaying. While theatre-minded Angelenos were getting their first real taste of theatre, the city of Los Angeles con tinued to reflect some of its earlier frontier lawlessness. The culmination of the violence was the Chinese Massacre of 1871, when nineteen innocent Chinese were wantonly murdered 389 by an unruly mob. After a series of arrests and indictments by the Grand Jury, the city of Los Angeles was fairly free from its criminal element. Sensing a period of prosperity, the city's boomers and boosters (a popular name given to its civic-minded promoters) began once again to subdivide and advertise land. What is even more important, they began the fight to ratify the Railroad Subsidy Bill of 1872, which would connect Los Angeles directly by rail with San Fran cisco . By 1876, Los Angeles finally had its cherished rail road link with San Francisco. The traveling companies began to come, even though the city was still without a first- class theatre. As the fortunes of the Merced Theatre de clined, Angelenos could look to another source: the Turn- verein Hall of the Germania Society, the city's German social club. Located on more fashionable Spring Street between Second and Third Streets, the Turnverein Hall was, in reality, little more than a converted gymnasium and meet ing hall. Yet between the years 1874 and 1884, the Turn verein Hall, with its cross-beams and open rafters (which held the gymnastic equipment) served the city as its "number one" theatre. 390 During the decade that the Turnverein Hall served its city, a number of theatrical "firsts" could be dis cerned: (1) the city's very first professional theatrical managers worked there; (2) the first "big time" traveling company, New York's Madison Square Theatre Company, played there; and (3) the first direct transcontinental company, the Palmer Theatre Company from Palmer's Theatre, New York, played there in 1883, the same year that Los Angeles ob tained its own railroad link with the East. Curiously enough, the inelegant Turnverein Hall acted as a genuine theatrical "link" in the development of nineteenth-century theatre in Los Angeles . During its years of operation, it stabilized the theatrical "week" from some thing haphazard into something more definite and reliable, it served as the all-important first "watering place" for traveling stars and companies, and— just as important— it served the city as its first theatre (albeit makeshift) where a theatregoing audience could be created and nurtured. The Turnverein Hall helped blend the theatrical chemistry of the city of Los Angeles for a full decade. What was needed now was obvious: a luxury playhouse. With it, the theatri cal "triangle" could be completed: performers, an audience, and a first-class playhouse. 391 Smarting from the fact that San Bernardino had al ready built an elegant playhouse, the local citizens began to clamor for their own house of Thespis. What was needed, they argued, was a civic-minded benefactor, one with pride and daring. A number of proposals were made; none were destined to succeed until 1884. When Ozro Childs stepped forward and built his Grand Opera House, Los Angeles finally had its first luxury 1,500 seat playhouse. Soon after, the nation's best stars began to visit the city which, by 1885, numbered close to 30,000 ipermanent residents. For the next four years, the theatre in Los Angeles meant the attractions at the Grand Opera House, which by now was both "big time" and big business. Whatever minor theatre existed in the city was of an erratic nature. Then came the boom years. The city's sudden theatrical "leap" during these years was integrated with the almost unbelievable socio economic growth pattern during the latter 1880s, the boom years in Los Angeles. By 1888, the population had more than tripled, and even after many of the get-rich-quick schemers had left Los Angeles, the city could still claim over 50,000 permanent residents. 392 A combination of crass opportunism and misplaced frontier idealism, the real estate land boom in Los Angeles had one inescapable effect: it welded Los Angeles to the rest of the nation. And as a corollary, one might safely conclude that it did the same for the city's theatrical situation. When the dust finally settled, and after $200,000,000 worth of real estate had changed hands by 1889, the city and its theatres were truly linked to the rest of the nation. By the bust of 1889, the aftermath of the boom, Los Angeles was a metropolis with new schools, churches, banks, 100 miles of paved sidewalks, four daily newspapers, elec tric streetcar lines, tall buildings, and an assessed valua tion of close to $50,000,000 (at the beginning of the boom the figure was set at $6,000,000). The city was also faced with economic hard times and a severe unemployment situa- i tion. During the frantic boom years, theatrical activity in Los Angeles matched the frenzy of the rest of the city. At the height of the boom, Mrs. Juana Neal built the 1,200- seat Los Angeles Theatre, the city's second luxury play house . A third theatre was started, but was not completed until 1893; and a fourth was destroyed by fire before ever 393 opening its doors. Along with the building of playhouses, Los Angeles played host to a steady stream of theatrical stars and com panies; as many as eighty separate companies played in Los Angeles in 1887. Of these, a full dozen came directly from the Frohman brothers in New York by way of A1 Hayman in San Francisco. As the two uptown houses waged theatrical war, there also developed a popular-priced theatre, one which assured its patrons an evening of lurid and sensational melodrama for a dime. With the eastern companies came the new society drama of Belasco and DeMille. Soon the local drama critics began to review the plays and players instead of merely mentioning performances as "taking place." Their criticism, embodying the tenets of William Dean Howells and his School of Realism, was evidence that the theatrical standards and attitudes of the sophisticated East had finally begun to influence the theatre in Los Angeles. Until William Perry purchased the Los Angeles The atre in 1892, the war between the city's two uptown thea tres continued. Actually, tug-of-war would be a better term; the prize was the coveted contracts with San Fran cisco's A1 Hayman, who controlled all of the Frohman 394 bookings west of the Mississippi. To the winner went the theatrical spoils, which meant stars— and box-office re ceipts. And until 1892, Hayman smiled benignly upon the Grand Opera House, and with the smile came the contracts and the bookings. After 1892, Perry somehow wrested the con tracts from Hayman, and soon after there followed the demise of the once-proud Grand Opera House as a legitimate theatre. On January 1, 1895 it became the Orpheum, a house of con tinuous vaudeville, at prices from 10$ to 50$. A great deal may be inferred from the early monopo listic practices of Hayman and Frohman, later known as the Theatrical Syndicate. Although many theatre historians decry the Syndicate, it is reasonable to assume that only through its cooperation with the Hayman-Frohman forces could Los Angeles enjoy the best offerings of eastern theatre. By 1890 the east meant New York City, where the brothers Froh man were virtual theatrical dictators. In a word, A1 Hayman brought the city the kinds of plays and players which were, generally speaking, the very best that could be seen by Angelenos . While the Grand Opera House and the Los Angeles Theatre were courting Hayman for his contracts, Dr. Burbank, a local dentist and valley subdivider, in 1893 completed 395 the structure which still bears his name and which still ■stands at Sixth and Main Streets. Operating with its own resident stock company (the Cooper Stock Company from the Park Theatre, formerly the barn-like Hazard's Pavilion), the Burbank Theatre capitalized on the fact that it was the city's only popular-priced luxury playhouse. Admissions were scaled at 15$ to 30$, with boxes going for 50$. The Burbank Theatre offered Angelenos a steady and lively diet of heavy melodrama and farce comedy. With the downtown Burbank Theatre, the theatrical triangle was once again completed in Los Angeles: a playhouse, an audience, and a proclivity for plays of a sensational nature. With this uptown-downtown theatrical dichotomy, Los Angeles had begun to reflect theatre practices throughout most of the nation's big cities, especially New York City. And despite the fact that the local and national depressions struck hard in the 1890s, the local theatrical situation, when compared to that of the rest of the nation, was fairly solvent. By 1895, Los Angeles had three luxury playhouses, each catering to its own audience: there was an uptown road show house where the eastern stars played; there was a down town resident stock company house; and finally, there was a house of continuous vaudeville. And by 1895, theatrical 396 activity in Los Angeles was considered a natural and ac cepted part of the city's development. Of all the formative years, those between 1880 and 1895 are the most important, for during these years the city and its theatre attained both shape and significance. Conclusions The following findings are relevant to the statement of the research problem: 1. The growth of the theatre in Los Angeles between the years 1850 and 1895 was, in general, parallel to the development of the city as a whole. However, when the city's growth began to accelerate in the early eighties, theatrical activity lagged behind, and only with the advent of the boom years of the late eighties did it suddenly begin to catch up with the city's spectacular economic explosion. Although the city and the nation suffered through years of economic depression and panic in the 1890s, the city's the atres continued to operate. In fact, by 1894 Los Angeles could boast of three playhouses and a converted hall for vaudeville. 2. The theatre in America was already well estab lished by the mid-nineteenth century, so much so that the 397 ravages of the Civil war seemed to have little effect upon the legitimate theatre. The star system caused the eventual disintegration of the resident stock companiesj the star system, in turn, was gradually replaced by the traveling combination companies in the late sixties and seventies. An era of crystallization soon followed. The first step in the process was the theatrical circuit, in which the booking business became the hub of the new system. By the 1880s the circuits changed from cooperative enterprises to miniature trusts . The second step was the emergence of the booking offices and the businessman in the theatre, e.g., A1 Hayman and the Frohman brothers . The third step was the formation of the Theatrical Syndicate in 1896. However, local theatrical bookings were influenced by the Hayman- Frohman combine as early as 1884. American "literary" drama before 1880 was, for the most part, imported from England and France. Although the nation could claim outstanding actors and actresses, it still had no authentically American drama. Under the in fluence of William Dean Howells and Henry James, a group of American playwrights began to emerge. Soon the effects of their School of Realism began to be discerned in an American drama which, if not literary, at least attempted to represent 398 authentically the feelings and attitudes of real people. From this there emerged in the nineties a kind of American society comedy of manners, with its own realistic acting style. All of these eastern plays and attitudes came to Los Angeles, along with the usual amount of romantic drama and he avy melodr ama. 3. At mid-nineteenth century, theatre in Los Ange les was virtually nonexistent. What few performances were presented were those of either military or amateur groups. Los Angeles, a frontier town surrounded by cattle ranges and with a population of less than 2,000, seemed uninterested in theatrical matters. Theatrical activity in the city quickened in the late 1850s, when two makeshift halls were outfitted for dramatic performances. Some lesser traveling companies began to visit Los Angeles, but the productions they offered were amateurish and undistinguished. The construction of the Merced Theatre in 1871 pro vided Los Angeles with its first real theatre. The Merced Theatre attracted some quality troupes, occasionally even a first-rate company. However, the days of this inadequate playhouse were numbered, and the city once again was without a suitable theatre. 399 From 1876 to 1884, the city had to content itself with the rather inelegant accommodations of the Turnverein Hall, a combination gymnasium-meeting hall-theatre. Yet despite its makeshift nature, the Turnverein Hall served the city as a vital theatrical link. By 1880, Angelenos had seen some first-rate theatre and began to demand more of the same, performed in a luxury playhouse, and with a season of s ome regular ity. 4. With the construction of the Grand Opera House in 1884, "big time" theatre was officially launched in Los Angeles. During the boom years, local theatre became one of the principal forms of entertainment for the citizens . The theatre flourished; two other luxury playhouses were built; stars and companies came to Los Angeles; audiences were large and appreciative; and many of the eastern theatrical theories and practices began to surface in the local road show houses. Along with the emergence of its uptown houses, Los Angeles began to witness the rise and fall of many minor, hit-or-miss downtown houses, which featured sensational melodrama at popular prices. By 1890 the city had exper ienced a definite and undeniable theatrical division between the two types of drama and their acting styles. In 1893 400 the Burbank Theatre opened and became the city's official popular-priced theatre. And by 1894 a fourth theatre opened: the makeshift Imperial Music Hall, which featured continuous vaudeville for a dime . By 1895 theatre in Los Angeles was assuredly big business and reflected theatrical attitudes throughout the nation. The city had its road show house, the Los Angeles Theatre; its stock company house, the Burbank Theatre; and its house of continuous vaudeville, the now defunct Grand Opera House. Each theatre had its own audience and offered its own sort of specialized entertainment. There can be little doubt that by 1895 theatre in Los Angeles was a flourishing institution. The theatrical week was an established fact; a Los Angeles layover usually meant a full week or more for a single star or company, a far cry from the one- and two-night stands during the early 1880s. Also, by 1895 the theatre began to attract and de velop its own group of local professional theatre people: actors, managers, stage hands, critics, advertising agencies, and public relations men. Theatre review, in the nineties, was generally a thoughtfully worded and discerning account of a given production, instead of a brief explanatory note announcing an opening, a star, or a departure. 401 5. Acting upon the advice of Horace Greeley, the theatrical East began to come west during the 1880s. At first, there was only a trickle of stars and troupes; later it became a veritable flood. The East brought three basic theatrical elements to Los Angeles: eastern production methods, eastern plays, and an eastern critical sensibility. All of these components were best realized in the companies of Hayman and Frohman. Along with the new re strained school of acting, their troupes brought with them Howells' new School of Realism in dramatic forms. Thus Angelenos witnessed the new, somber, realistic plays of Herne as well as the society manners comedies of Belasco and DeMille. And by 1895 the Los Angeles critics and re viewers were consciously assimilating the concepts of Howells and James in their local theatre columns. As the theatrical division became more sharply de fined by 1895, a greater critical tolerance was accorded the downtown houses. Critics could accept sensational melo drama and its broad acting techniques at the Burbank The atre, although they were not willing to accept them at the uptown road show house, where the phrase "true to life" had become a critical standard. Whatever the negative aspects and implications of 402 the eastern booking monopoly, the fact remains that Los Angeles enjoyed first-rate theatre only because of the monopoly. A1 Hayman and Charles Frohman might have exer cised dictatorial authority, but they did bring their shows to the local citizens. By the season of 1895, as many as ten of their New York traveling companies came to Los Ange les: each troupe played at the Los Angeles Theatre (by now the city's road show house) for a full week or longer. Soon all other uptown productions were judged by the standards of the Hayman and Frohman companies. In addition to their bag and baggage, sets and props, these eastern companies of Hayman and Frohman brought with them the idea of first-class theatre, in method as well as material. While the local Burbank Theatre struggled with its stock company and its season, the Los Angeles Theatre brought the more discriminating local theatregoers some of the very best theatre that America could offer (and by now the "best" simply meant the New York Hayman and Frohman productions). Recommendations for Further Research For future theatre historians, there still remains a great deal of research similar to that of the present 403 study. Other cities and their theatrical activity could be jstudied and evaluated in the same manner; in the southern California area alone there are the theatre cities of Pomona, San Bernardino, Redlands, and Santa Barbara. Each city is significant and each has a theatrical history which has yet to be told. Some of the areas only generally mentioned in this study— the theatrical division in Los Angeles, the develop ment of local theatre criticism, the relationship between Hayman and Frohman and the local road show houses, and the actual relationship between economic conditions and theatre activity— could be investigated in greater depth. A research lesson was learned one day at the Hunt ington Library when the writer suddenly discovered that the city’s depression of the 1890s did not seriously impede the growth of local theatre. Somehow the two elements should have been correlated, or so this writer thought. When this apparent discrepancy was brought to the attention of the chief historian of the Library, he smiled and quietly asked, "Why not?" I B I B L I O G R A P H Y 404 BIBLIOGRAPHY Books The American College Dictionary. New York: Random House, 1966. Bernheim, Alfred L. The Business of the Theatre. New York: Actors' Equity Association, 1932. Birdhoff, Harry. The World's Greatest Hit— Uncle Tom's Cabin. New York: Vanni Press, 1947. Bixby-Smith, Sarah. Adobe Days. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press, 1925. Caughey, John Walton. California. New York: Prentice-Hall Publishing Co., 1940. Cleland, Robert Glass. The Cattle on a Thousand Hills . San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1941. Dumke, Glenn S. The Boom of the Eighties in Southern Cali fornia . San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1944 . Edel, Leon. Henry James. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1960. Fogelson, Robert M. The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Ange les. 1850-1930. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer sity Press, 1967. Grimsted, David. Melodrama Unveiled: American Theatre and Culture. 1800-1850. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. 405 406 Hewitt, Barnard. Theatre U.S.A.: 1668-1957. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1959. Hornblow, Arthur. A History of the Theatre in America. 2 vols. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1919. Hughes, Glenn. A History of American Theatre. Binghamton, N. Y.: Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., 1951. Lummis, Charles F. Out West: Los Angeles and Her Makers. Los Angeles: Out West Magazine Co., 1909. McCarthy, John Russell. California: Land of Homes. San Francisco: Powell Publishing Co., 1929. McGroarty, John Steven. California of the South: A His tory. Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1933. McLean, Albert F., Jr. American Vaudeville as Ritual. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965. Moses, Montrose. The American Dramatist. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1925. Nadeau, Remi. City-Makers: The Men Who Transformed Los Angeles from Village to Metropolis During the First Great Boom. 1868-1876. Garden City, N. J.: Double- day and Co., 1948. Newmark, Harris. Sixty Years in Southern California; 1853- 1913. Edited by Maurice H. Newmark and Marco R. Newmark. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1926. Odell, George C. D. Annals of the New York Stage. New York: Columbia University Press, 1924-1949. Poggi, Jack. Theatre in America: The Impact of Economic Forces. 1870-1967. New York: Cornell University Press, 1967. Quinn, Arthur Hobson. A History of the American Drama from the Beginning to the Civil War. 2nd ed. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1943. 407 Quinn, Arthur Hobson. A History of the American Drama from the Civil War to the Present Day. Rev. ed. New I York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1936. Rahill, Frank. The World of Melodrama. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1967. Sobel, Bernard. A Pictorial History of Vaudeville. New York: The Citadel Press, 1961. Spaulding, William A. History and Reminiscences of Los Angeles City and County. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Printing Co., 1931. Stratman, Carl J. Bibliography of the American Theatre. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1965. Towse, j. Ranken. Sixty Years in the Theatre. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1916. Van Dyke, T. S. Millionaires for a Day. New York: Fords, Howard and Hubert, 1890. Willard, Charles Dwight. The Herald's History of Los Ange les City. Los Angeles: Kings ley-Barnes and Neumer Co., 1901. Workman, Boyle. The City That Grew. Los Angeles: South land Publishing Co., 1936. Articles and Periodicals Guinn, J. M. "The Great Real Estate Boom of 1887." His torical Society of Southern California Annual Pub lication. I (1890), 14. Howells, William Dean. "Editor's Study." Harper's New Monthly Magazine. V (July, 1888), 29. ________ . "Edward Harrington's Comedies." The Century Magazine. IX (January, 1887), 41. James, Henry. "Some Notes on the Theatre." The Nation. VII (March 11, 1875), 27. 408 Lawrence, J. E. [Series of articles]. Golden Era. April 15, April 29, May 13, 1855. Layne, j. G. "Annals of Los Angeles." California Histori cal Society Quarterly, XIII (September, 1934), 331. Netz, Joseph. "The Great Los Angeles Real Estate Boom of 1887 ." Historical Society of Southern California Annual Publication. X (1915-1916), 55. Rodecape, Lois F. "Tom Maguire, Napoleon of the State." California Historical Society Quarterly. XXI (Sep tember, 1942), 249. White, Richard Grant. "The Age of Burlesque." Galaxy. VII | (August, 1869), 14-15. Yaari, Moshe . "The Merced Theatre." Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly. XXXVII (September, 1955), 198. Newspapers Los Angeles Daily Herald. 1878-1890. Los Angeles Daily News. 1871-1876. Los Angeles Evening Express . 1876-1893. Los Angeles Herald. 1891-1894. Los Angeles News. 1869. Los Angeles Southern News . 1864 . Los Angeles Star. 1852-1873. Los Angeles Times. 1880-1914. Los Angeles Tr ibune. 1887-1888. New York Dramatic Mirror. 1893-1894. New York Herald. 1859. 409 New York Times. 1869. New York Tribune. 1866 . San Francisco Call. 1888. San Francisco Examiner. 1893. Government Publications U.S. Bureau of the Census . Eleventh Census of the United States. 1890. Vol. I: Population. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1895. ________ . Tenth Census of the United States. Vol. XIX: Social Statistics of the Cities. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1887. Theatre Publications All material in this classification is to be found in the Behymer Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. "Playbill." California Dime Museum, May 22, 1889. "Playbill." Grand Opera House, March 2, 1888; March 14, 1888; June 14, 1889; December 22, 1892. "Playbill." Hazard's Pavilion, March 2, 1888. "Playbill." Imperial Music Hall, October 12, 1894. "Playbill." Los Angeles Theatre, January 22, 1890; Septem ber 2, 1890; April 22, 1891; October 12, 1893; January 24, 1894; June 5, 1894. "Playbill." Los Angeles Tivoli, November 2, 1884. "Program Note." Souvenir Program of the Grand Opera House, May 27, 1884. "Receipt Book." Los Angeles Theatre, 1892. 410 Unpublished Material Allen, John Aubrey. "A Study of the Theatre in Relation to the Welfare of Los Angeles." Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Southern California, 1912. Barnett, Martha. "A Historical Sketch of the Professional Theatre in the City of Los Angeles to 1911." Un published Master's thesis, University of Southern California, 1930. Earnest, Sue Wolper. "An Historical Study of the Growth of the Theatre in Southern California." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern Califor nia, 1947 . Schoen, Leonard. "A Historical Study of Oliver Morosco's Long-Run Premiere Productions in Los Angeles, 1905- 1922 ." 2 vols. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, 1971. Tyler, Pamela F. "The Los Angeles Theatre 1850-1900." Unpublished Master's thesis, University of Southern California, 1942 .

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Creator Kaufman, Edward Kenneth (author)

Core Title A History Of The Development Of Professional Theatrical Activity In Los Angeles, 1880-1895

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication (Drama)

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,Theater

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Butler, James H. (committee chair), Dickens, Milton (committee member), Stahl, Herbert M. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-782468

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