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Show By ELMO SCOTT WATSON 5f- .f !H-!A A Yk 1 1" ST when they wore setting ready to ifviv; ". . .' f I :!5h .WTSSP I ring down the curtain for the last rt ""'--V v. , -' 'Jr&' j' j? vlj-irf : I time on a classic of the stage, out -vlI" 'f -j-? ;rL.y I from the vk.gs came those immortals, ' "t.;?if3i5?Sfc;5i' j'jf j-s115" AA "Topsy"' and '"Simon Legree" to take fej-1- ant,thor how- Which Is by n ay of say- UriClC TOJTl dld. Zz'tfP ISZ By ELMO SCOTT WATSOM "9 I" ST when they wore getting ready to I ring down the curtain for the last 1 time on a classic of the stage, out I from the wit.gs came those immortals, J ' f - 1 "Vnele Tom" and "Little Eva" and AA "Topsy" and "Simon Legree" to take SL-vo another bow. Which Is by way of say-Sfci'Jr' say-Sfci'Jr' Ir.g that early this year The Havers, with such stars as Otis Skinner. Ce- celia Ixftus. Kate Jlayhew. Joanna Jtoos, Fay Bainter. Edward McNamara and Lois Shore, revived "Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly" in one of the leading New York theaters. It meant that this historic drama may be starting on a new lease of life to add to the laurels which It has already won. Chief among those laurels are these: it Is a play which has had the longest continuous run in all stage history; in it have apieared at one time or another a greater number of stage luminaries than in any other play in American theatrical history ; It has been performed before more people and has made more money than any play ver written in modern times and despite the latter fact no one has ever received any royalties from it nor did Harriet P.eecher Stowe. the author, au-thor, ever receive a penny of profit from the dramatization of her book; it is the most representative repre-sentative American folk drama and it bears In the parlance of the American stage the most distinctive name the "Tom show"; it has in It the elements of tragedy, comedy, melodrama, farce, yes. even vaudeville, but it defies classification classifi-cation under any of these heads, for It is itself alone, the "Tom show." "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had a continuous run of 76 years, besides which record the lasting qualities quali-ties of the far-famed "Abie's Irish Rose" pale into insignificance. From 1S."2 to lfi'23 there wasn't a season when at some time day or night or in some place in these United States that the whip of "Simon Legree" wasn't whistling across the back of "Uncle Tom" or "Eliza" wasn't fleeing across the ice, pursued by a baying bay-ing pack of "fierce bloodhounds." Then the depression de-pression came on to give the final blow to those administered by other factors in the decline of this classic In lOoO a Boston newspaper reported : "There Is not now on the road in any section ot the United States or Canada a single company playing play-ing that grand old drama 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' . For the same reason that the minstrel show owners of the country took their shows from the road, Tom managers found it necessary to shut up shop. The talking pictures and the radio have combined to kill both the minstrel and the Tom shows. There is not a single booking book-ing agency in New York City which could furnish a route for any one-night stand company unless It was willing to sacrifice Saturday, the best Eight of the week, for the showing of 'Wild West or talking pictures." The same statement was probably true in 1931 but in 1032 it was discovered that in a small town in the West a home talent company was producing the play as a part of Its repertory of stock plays. And now this year comes the revival in New Tork to prove that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is deathless even if there were not great stage names in the cast to lend it prestige. With the apparent return of some measure of prosperity pros-perity to this country. It Is not Improbable that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" may be off on another continuous con-tinuous run of 76 years! When "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was first printed In book form It sold 10,000 copies the first week and 300,000 in the first year. Half a million copies cop-ies had been distributed in the United States alone in its first five years and it has been translated Into more than a score of foreign languages and dialects. The entire sale of the book In the years since It was written have exceeded ex-ceeded 12,000.000, about 7.000,000 of which never paid any royalties to the author, being sold In foreign countries before the establishment of International In-ternational copyright law. The copyright, under the then existing statute, expired a few years previous to Mrs. Stowe's death In the late eighties, eight-ies, and the last few years of her life, when she was most in need of money, she was deprived of this source of Income. The first dramatization of the book was made by (leorge L. Aiken while the story was running serially In the National Era. On September 2, 1S."i2, Aiken's play had Its premiere In the Museum Mu-seum at Troy, X. Y., and from that time dates the Immense popularity of "Uncle Tom's Cab-In." Cab-In." As a matter of fact this was not the first stage production of the show, but it was the first successful one. A certain Charles W. Taylor had also dramatized drama-tized the book and In August, l."2, a month before be-fore the Troy production, he presented a play running only an hour, as one Item on the evening eve-ning bill at Purdy's National theater In New York City. Hut fatal error! he left both Topsy and Little Eva out of his story so his play was a failure, being withdrawn after a run of only 11 nights. The Troy production was largely a family affair. af-fair. The manager of the Troy museum, George C. Howard, played both "Uncle Tom" and "St. Clare." His wife played both "Topsy" and "Chloe." Mrs. Howard's brother. Charles Fox, played both "Phineas Fletcher" and "Gumption Cute" and Mrs. Fox played "Ophelia." George L. Aiken, the dramatist ami a cousin of Howard, doubled as "Shelby" and "Georue Harris" ami his brother, Frank Aiken, played "Marks." And finally the part of Little Eva was played by Cordelia Howard, the four-year-old daughter of the Howards who thus had the distinction often claimed by others of being "the first Little Eva." She played that role for eight years, then at the age of twelve she left the stage never to return. re-turn. In the year which marks definitely the decline of the Tom shows, she was still living at the age of nearly eighty, a recluse who refused to see anyone or to talk of her career as "the first Little Eva." The Howards' production of the play, with just seven people carrying the eleven roles, was an instantaneous success. It not only carried the country by storm but It crossed the Atlantic. In 1S.13 a curious English version of it, filled with "Waal, I calculate" and similar supposed Yankee-isms, Yankee-isms, was produced at the Theater Royal in Manchester. England. Arthur Ruhl. writing In the New York Herald Tribune, about the current cur-rent revival reviews its early history as follows; " 'La Case de l'Oncle Tom,1 'Onkle Tom's Huette,' 'La Cabana del Tio Tomas' the thing swept like a prairie fire into every language In the western world. It ran down into Africa itself, it-self, was devoured by the Armenians and other Near Easterners, and little Slavs, in a Russia which still had its serfs, wept over 'Hata Djada Toma' or something that sounded more or less like that. Letters from everybody of consequence conse-quence from Macaulay, Dickens, Charles Kings-ley, Kings-ley, statesmen and political leaders, the great George Sand. German pundits, even the mocking Heine was stirred." And Otis Skinner, who plays "Uncle Tom" in the revival, a role which he first played in 1S7S in a stock company at the Philadelphia Museum, writing In the New York Times recently, contributes con-tributes this bit of history: "In August, 1ST8, Jarrett & Palmer, an enterprising enter-prising firm of New York mnnagers, made a small fortune by taking the play overseas to England, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Holland. In the company were Marie Bates, who Is still remembered re-membered as playing long and prominently with David Warfield in The Auctioneer,' and Harry Hawk, who was on the stage of Ford's theater in Washington at the moment that Lincoln was shot in the box above him by John Wilkes Booth. "Another in that company was Harold Fos-burg, Fos-burg, a gorgeous specimen of the old-time heavy man. Harold was of the stage stagy ; he seemed to think in the terms of melodrama and bhitik verse. While the troupe was exhibiting in Germany Ger-many his delight was to parade through the streets of Berlin and ott er cities dressed in the bouts, spurs, planter's hat and coat of Legree, followed by two of the negro singers from the cast, at whom he occasionally cracked bis black-snake black-snake whip to the profound amazement of the passers by. "Noted actors have at times appeared In the play: Joseph Jefferson, William Warren. George K Fox of 'Humpty Dumpty- memory, John Gilbert Gil-bert ami William I.cmoyne, who became favorites favor-ites on the New York stage. Lotta and Mary McVicker, afterward the wife of Edwin Booth, each of whom played both Eva and Topsy on different occasions In short, the leading members mem-bers of every dramatic company of record In the" United States from 1S."2 until William A. Brady's revival of 'Uncle Tom' in lixil with Theodore Roberts and Wilton Lackaye. Among those who have played In 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' one finds such other notable names as Lawrence Barrett, John Mct'ullough, Louis James, John T. Raymond. Ray-mond. David Belasco. Edwin Adams, Annie Russell, Rus-sell, Mary I'ickford. Maude Adams, Fay Temple-ton. Temple-ton. Mrs. Fiske, Henrietta Crosman, Charles Thome. John S. Clarke and Efiie Shnnon. "The part of Topsy was sometimes acted by men : records show that John Drew's uncle, Frank Drew, and Fred Stone appeared In It. Even Little Eva was once played by William Seymour." The "Simon L-egrees" have been legion, but there was perhaps never a more unusual one than John L. Sullivan ! J. W. Goodrich, who had managed a wagon circus through Connecticut and New York state for several years, one fall organized or-ganized an "Uncle Tom's Cabin" company to play theaters throughout the East. lie secured as his big feature John L. Sullivan, Sulli-van, who played Simon Legree and used up In the course of a few weeks half a dozen "Toms," who, no matter how much thoy padded under the red flannel shirt, could not stand the rough usage received from the famous pugilist in the whipping scene. Ern G. Estey of Lynn was playing play-ing "Tom" In the show and he probably lasted longer in the role than any other actor. He wore under his red shirt a vest that was lined an Inch thick with cotton. This oftentimes was inadequate in-adequate to afford sufficient protection from the lashings he received some evenings when John L. had been entertaining friends in his dressing room and desired to give them a good account of himself as an actor later on. John L. remained re-mained with the Goodrich show as long as it was on the road. Mention has been made of the fact that Harriet Beecher Stowe never made a penny of profit from the dramatization of her book. For there was no copyright law In the ISoO's and there was no way for the novelist to collect from the playwright who made use of the material in the book. More than that, Mrs. Stowe knew very little about the theater it wasn't "proper," you see, for the daughter of a New England clergyman clergy-man to have anything to do with such a wicked institution as the stage. She was greatly surprised sur-prised when the play proved to be such a success suc-cess but she does not seem to have resented either the dramatization nor the success. Once she made a dramatization of the book herself but It wasn't "good theater" so it was never staged. The only profit she ever received from the dramatization of her book was in the form of a free box in a theater In Hartford, Conn., where she was living In her old age. A road show playing "Uncle Tom" came to town and she went to see the play for the first time with her friend, Charles Dudley Warner, the essayist and novelist. And Warner, sitting beside her in her free box. had to explain the plot of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to Harriet Beecher Stowe, for she could not understand It as the actors and actresses were presenting her Immortal story I ( by Western Newspaper Union.) |