Abstract
The end of the century encouraged a millennial hopefulness in the era’s theatrical reporters and critic-experts. In an enthusiastic tribute to the future twentieth-century actor, The New York Dramatic Mirrors “Matinee Lady” wrote in the first issue of 1900, “It would almost seem certain that the twentieth century were going to evolve an entirely new type of actor,” whereas the current male stars seemed only “as dim shadows cast before” (“Matinee Lady” 2). What do the “dim shadows” of the 1890s have to say to us about the period? And how do we know?
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Notes
See also John F. Kasson, Rudeness & Civility: Manners in 19th Century America (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990)
See Gerald Bordman], American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1869–1914 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) 297–
Gillette’s views of acting were very much in keeping with the attitudes and habitus of the era in terms of “personality.” He felt that an actor could not possibly perform in a way approaching realism unless his personality were incorporated: “As no human being exists without personality of one sort or another, an actor who omits it in his impersonation of a human being omits one of the vital elements of existence.” See William Gillette, “The Illusion of the First Time in Acting,” in Actors on Acting. Ed. Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1970) 566.
Also quoted in Cullen and Wilmeth, “Introduction.” In Plays by William Hooker Gillette (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
“In the season of 1900–1901, Clyde Fitch made a sensational breach of the barrier against American playwrights. Four plays written by him were on the stage simultaneously. One commentator said that future generations would never believe that such a thing could happen and would have to turn back to ‘musty records’ to confirm it” (Atkinson 51–52). The plays Atkinson alludes to are The Climbers, Barbara Frietchie, Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, and Lovers’ Lane. See also Montrose Moses and Virginia Gerson, “Introduction,” in Clyde Fitch and His Letters. Ed. Montrose J. Moses and Virginia Gerson (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1924) 177–178.
Fitch was nothing if not pragmatic regarding the Syndicate. As he wrote in one of his letters with regard to accepting a potentially lucrative deal from Frohman: “As Frohman has nearly all the theaters, & nearly all the actors, why not?” (author’s emphasis). See Clyde Fitch, Clyde Fitch and His Letters. Ed. Montrose J. Moses and Virginia Gerson (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1924) 174.
Adams and Fitch shared Charles Frohman as their principal producer. Frohman and Adams, in particular, would achieve great success inverting and complicating the male body, with Adams playing such roles as Peter Pan, Joan of Arc and the rambunctious rooster (or in the parlance of the play, “cock”) Chantecler. See especially Kim Marra, Strange Duets: Impresarios and Actresses in the American Theatre, 1865–1914 (Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2006) 106–141.
Fitch’s sexuality has been mostly a “hinty” subject until fairly recently. There were “whispers” of Fitch having “a hint of lavender” about him during his lifetime (See Peter Andrews, “More Sock and Less Buskin,” American Heritage Magazine [Apr. 1972] 23: 48–57), and there existed what might be called a preponderance of circumstantial evidence, that is, his lifelong bachelorhood, his flamboyant dress, his affinity for acting out the female characters of his plays, and the like. Kim Marra, in her article “Clyde Fitch’s Too Wilde Love,” cites letters exchanged between Oscar Wilde and Fitch as reasonable proof of Fitch’s (secretly) gay orientation. See Kim Marra, “Clyde Fitch’s Too Wilde Love,” in Staging Desire: Queer Readings of American Theater History. Ed. Kim Marra and Robert A. Schanke (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2002).
Fitch would collaborate with Wharton on a dramatization of Wharton’s The House of Mirth, which opened on Broadway in 1906. While the play only enjoyed a brief run, Wharton and Fitch remained friends. See Glenn Loney, “Introduction,” in The House of Mirth: The Play of the Novel (Rutherford, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988).
See Bordman, American Theatre, p. 457; Atkinson, Broadway, p. 6; and John Houchin, Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 40–52
Theatre historians tend to cite the line “You’re a God damn liar!”, which the villain Hannock says in Act II (580), as the ultimate shocker. Nevertheless, in Fitch’s script, Hannock also uses the epithet earlier in Act I when he threatens to reveal Rand, Sr. as “a God damn whited sepulchre” (479). The second “God damn” comes at a much stronger moment in the play, as the hero has just revealed that Hannock has married his half-sister. It is not inconceivable that the first “God damn” was cut before the performance. See Gerald Bordman, The Oxford Companion to American Theatre (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984) 145–146.
See Montrose Moses, The American Dramatist (1925, rpt. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1964) 314
See Tom Lutz, American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991) 14–15
Jackson Lears and Richard Wightman Fox, introduction to Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880–1980 (New York: Pantheon, 1983).
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© 2009 Michael Schwartz
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Schwartz, M. (2009). The Problem of Nerves. In: Broadway and Corporate Capitalism. Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230623323_3
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