Show OLD JOSH IHITCOMB I Denman Thompson and His Two Famous Plays SUCCESS AFTER MANY STRUGGLES I A Brief History of the Life of the Man Who Has Touched More Hearts Than any Other Actor Ye see thet barn up there pointing to a picturo on the vaL Well thet barn was riz on the same day thefc the battle o Bunker Hill was fit Then Denman Thompson leaned back in his comfortable dressing room chair at the New York Academy of Music and heaved a sigh But it aint there now he continued lightnin struck it The old actor who has probably brought reminiscent tears to more eyes than has any other living man looked back into the past His voice had the quick New Eng 11 i I fiy P I r r xl U fin C n I Q aK L 7 i 1 t i r m HIS DRESSING BOOn rYo see thet barn up tlicreT and jerk and the homely twang which we have all heard Joshua Whitcomb use as he went on Gosh it seems along time sence I uset swap lies with th man who owned tbet barn The quaint New England dialect the homely slang the good natured awkwardness awkward-ness of movement and the ready wit areas are-as much a part of Denman Thompson off ITM I the stage as they are of Uncle Josh Whit I comb when the footlights are shining before I be-fore him and great audiences are laughing with him in his joys and weeping with him in his sorrows When he passes on the street although he has traveled the world over and lived in New York long enough to be known almost as an institution of the metropolis his gait his city made but roughly fitting clothes and most of all his ruddy glowing face make one think of green clad hills and furrowed fields His dressing room at the Academy of Music is the largest and finest of any in New York with one exception and that one opens from his and is used by his daughter For nearly three seasons he has stepped from that dressing room to tho academys stage every weekday night and played the part of Uncle Josh in one of the two plays Joshua Whitcomb or The Old Homestead This great success has come after a life full of motion Lately the movement has been pleasing but in the old days before success and fame rewarded his efforts ef-forts life was a 4 hard struggle For nearly twentyfive years from the day 1 in 1850 when he l first stepped on the i stage it was as a supe in Boston + hard unremitting unremit-ting toil alone h served to keep his head above the waters cf financial disaster Once ort r or-t indeeJ they rose and enyulfed him but he quickly I quick-ly came to the surface s 4 sur-face again The l l J first chord of the + J I melody of success I I lf was sounded when I I r he was playing at Harry Martins flA = Varieties in Pitts burg for then he and acted wrote AS JOSUCA WHITCOMB a sketch which t was afterward developed into Joshua Whitcomb through the agency of J1lL HilL It may be interesting to know that that pyrotechnic manager found in it his first big success Many of the early years of Thompsons professional life were passed in Toronto While there he drew most of the time a fair salary but he never knew the value of money when there were coins jingling in his pocket everybody knew that they would be given for the asking So when he left Toronto he was heavily in debt EFpon his first tisit to that city after having hav-ing achieved his great success with Uncle Josh he advertised in the papers and sent out messengers to find his old creditors credit-ors During his engagement nearly 33000 passed from his hands into those df creditors credit-ors who had mentally given up their claims as valueless Pretty nearly everybody knows by this > J Y l co = tr I d2Fj J i r < r F r 1 f r JAN t f AN v a4xt AT HOME from a photograph on his lawn at Swansea Itime that Joshua Whitcomb and The I Old Homestead which is really a sequel to the first named play are as nearly truthful pictures of a New England village and the life in it as the exigencies of stagecraft stage-craft will permit They are both laid at Swansea where Mr Thompson passed his childhood In painting the scenery artists worked from nature but no more so than did the author painting character That of Uncle Josh is modeled from two residents resi-dents of SwanseaJoshua Holbrook and Capt Otis Whitcomb quaint old New England farmers the latter of whom is still living Wish I cd play the piece in Swanzy said Mr Thompson but a covered cov-ered bridges th only thing there big Dough to act in A moment later he said But I played in Keene once and all Swan zy come on foot to see it t There is somethimz different in The Old It t td 1 q Homestead from ordinary theatrical productions pro-ductions and the public recognizes it People who look askance at theatres generally gen-erally laugh and cry without a qualm of conscience as this plays simple story is unfolded un-folded This fact is illustrated every night at the Academy I stood one night with the doorkeeper and in the long procession pro-cession filing by it was easy to select the ones who had never entered a theatre before be-fore One party of four who were evidently evident-ly visiting New York from the country protested when called upon to give up their tickets They wanted to keep them as souvenirs of this great event I In the interior of tho house funny incidents I inci-dents happen by the score To many who drift in to see TheOld Homestead the swallowtail coated usher who shows them to their seats is the first man they have ever seen in full dress They are invariably inva-riably awed 1 But after the curtain has risen the simple sim-ple country picture dispels all feelings of I diffidence To visitors from the country it is a picture of home To hundreds of hurrying hur-rying rushing city men and women it is a reminder of a purer happier life once I known but long forgotten Eugene Field has written I Why the robins in the maples an tho blackbirds black-birds roun the pond I I Thn crickets nn the InrnKts in tho leaves The brook that chased the trout adown the hillside jest beyond An the swallers their nosts beneath the eaves They all como troopin back with you dear Undo Josh today An they seem to sing with all the joyous zest Of the days when wo wero Yankee boys on1 Yankee girls at play With nary thought of llvin way out west God bless ye Denman Thonpsn for the goody good-y do our hearts With this music and these memories o youth God bless ye for tho faculty that tops all human hu-man arts The good ol1 Yankee faculty of Truthl EDWARD MARSHALL |