1. JANUARY 1898: Weeks 1 and 2

This blog trawls through Brooklyn’s contemporary newspapers to see, microcosmically, what happened to its theatre life after consolidation on January 1, 1898. For the background, see my book, Brooklyn Takes the Stage: Nineteenth-Century Theater in the City of Churches (McFarland: 2024), which ends on December 31, 1897. The road will be long and bumpy, and how far we’ll get can’t be determined (it’s 2025 and I’m in my mid-80s). As they always say, though, buckle up and come along for what, to theatre lovers, should be a fascinating ride.

(Note: to read these entries in chronological order see the archive list on the right side of the page.)

Week 1: Monday, January 3-Saturday January 8, 1898

January, of course, was smack in the middle of a lively theatre season that had begun at the end of August 1897. Eight legitimate theatres were offering week-long runs alongside similar runs at the five bigtime vaudeville/variety and burlesque houses. There actually were two additional theatres, one legit and one vaudeville, but they didn’t advertise nor were they reviewed, so we’ll consider them invisible and focus on the others, which will keep us busy enough.

Three of the legits, the Gayety, American, and Amphion, were in the Eastern District (Williamsburgh, soon to drop the “h”). The others—the Columbia, the Park, the Bijou, the Grand Opera House, the Montauk, and the American—were in the Western District, mostly in what came to be known as Downtown Brooklyn, in the general vicinity of what was now called Borough Hall.

Brooklyn’s first stage attractions of the new year showed promise, what with three productions never seen there before, and one significant revival. Be aware that the sole Brooklyn theatre in that period producing its own plays—all of them revivals—was the Park, a stock company; the others were all road shows, some just having closed across the river, others arriving while touring the region or country, The dominant form of straight play was melodrama, seconded by farce.

The Montauk Theatre, one of the borough’s finest venues, was run by the dean of Brooklyn managers, Col. William E. Sinn. It was built in 1895 on the north side of Fulton Street, near Flatbush. Its newest offering, a comedy called An American Citizen, was by one of the few successful female playwrights, Madeline Lucette Ryley, and it starred the very popular comedy actor Nat C. Goodwin, who had not appeared in Brooklyn the previous year and was warmly welcomed. The play itself, with Goodwin, had just closed at Manhattan’s Knickerbocker Theatre, and earlier had toured from Chicago to San Francisco.

Like so many plays of the time, it was built around a will. This one requires that its money will only be paid if a certain young American lawyer and his British cousin marry. They agree to wed as a purely business transaction, on the grounds that each will be allowed to pursue an independent romantic life. After three acts set in Europe, the couple fall in love, of course, and the marriage becomes real. Goodwin played the husband, Maxine Elliott, just then rising to the recognition that would eventually see a Broadway theatre named for her, was the wife. The Brooklyn Eagle called her “probably the most photographed woman in the country.”

Maxine Elliott

At the Grand Opera House, on Elm Place off Fulton, was A Ward of France, by Franklin Fyles, one of the most effective melodrama playwrights of the day, and Eugene W. Presbury. Only a week before, it had graced the stage of Wallack’s Theatre, one of Manhattan’s most venerable. The star of this period costume drama was the popular romantic leading man, Maurice Barrymore, father of Lionel, John, and Ethel, playing the role of French pirate, Lafitte, with Elita Proctor as the Creole fortune teller. The story takes place in 1803 Louisiana, when it was still in French hands, among an assortment of pirates, smugglers, crafty courtiers, nuns, and soldiers from Spain, France, and America.

 

A poor young woman, Flower Moyne, supposedly orphaned by the French Revolution, is shipped by the villain, Laussat, who eyes her inheritance, to America, along with various unfortunate women. Rivals for her love are the pirate Lafitte and the villain's son. Lafitte himself turns out to be the villain's illegitimate offspring. Ultimately, after difficult circumstances in New Orleans, Flower's father, a missing marquis serving as an American secret agent, is found, her inheritance is saved, and she ends up in Lafitte's arms. Barrymore, naturally, was the swashbuckling pirate,

Over at the Columbia Theatre, on Adams Street near Tillary, a rare two-week run began for master farce writer Charles Hoyt’s A Stranger in New York, which just ended its long Manhattan run at Hoyt’s Theatre on 24^th Street. A Chicago fellow shows a letter of introduction to a New York man-about-town, hoping to be taken to the French ball. The wrong man, played by Hoyt favorite Harry Conor, who gives us the play’s title, accepts the letter, but the Chicagoan doesn’t realize it. The “stranger” gets swept into the gaieties, the authentic club man sets out to rescue the Midwesterner, and the action, set at the Hoffman House and a room in Madison Square Garden, piles up in complications. 

Sadie Martinot, who played the leading woman’s role of a frisky grass widow, played it throughout the New York run. Dances and songs were conventional adjuncts to the plot, the numbers including “The Broadway Beauty Show” and “Love’s Serenade,” by Richard Stahl, with additional songs by A.B. Sloan, including “Father, Won’t You Speak to Sister Mary?”

Leading man Henry Miller, also one day to have a Broadway theatre named for him, starred at the Amphion in Heartsease, a romantic play seen the previous season and just recently in Brooklyn’s Western District. It tells of a young, 18^th-century composer who must deal with a rascal who’s stolen both his opera and his girlfriend.

Things over at the Park, Brooklyn’s stock company theatre, located across from Borough Hall, grew a bit complicated when their revival of Little Lord Fauntleroy was presented and was set to be replaced the week before with a revival of The Lights o’ London. The former proved such a draw for young audiences that the company, which offers matinees daily, turned them over to that play, while doing London at night for the grown-ups. But the sets for the latter were problematic for the children’s play, so, for this week, the Park manager, Jack C. Huffman, replaced London with an old Charles Dickson farce, Incog, and the company switched to doing it for the evening crowd, continuing Fauntleroy during the afternoons. The Park actors were quick studies, skilled at learning new plays at a moment’s notice.

The Bijou, at Smith and Livingston, did Arthur D, Hall’s five-act, 10-scene English melodrama, A Guilty Mother, this week. Written by the author of the hit melodrama, When London Sleeps, known for what was thought its considerable frankness, the new import was cited for the realism of its every scene. Although not considered a hair-raiser, it served its purpose of being pathetic and humorous in turn. Its complicated plot dealt with an abandonment and a gem robbery. Mme. Charles (Henrietta Vader) leaves her husband, taking her child, when she believes the insinuations of a Frenchman (Carlton Wells). But the Frenchman, who accompanies her is not to be trusted, and she loses her daughter (Eleanor Merron). We follow the separate lives of daughter and mother for 20 years, during which the daughter is also deserted by her husband (Harry L. Baker), and her jewelry is robbed. Finally, the women are reunited, with their husbands. The Frenchman, being the jewel thief, is shot by the guilty mother. A scene in which a mirror played a major role was often cited.

The Gayety, in the Eastern District, at Throop and DeKalb Avenues, presented a farce, Who Is Who?, replete with a number of variety acts, as common in such plays, although this one had a plot that moved it closer to legitimate theatre than many of its kind. Starring was the comedy team of Kelly and Mason. Nemo, a young lawyer beginning his career, but with no clients, invents a senior partner, creates the firm of Nemo and Howland, and embroils himself in various twists and turns, including being accused of murdering Howland, whom no one has ever seen. Joe Kelly was Nemo and Charles Mason a German businessman whose suspicions create all the havoc. As usual, a bevy of “pretty girls” was around to add to the enjoyment.

Another Williamsburg theatre, the American, at Driggs Avenue and South Fourth Street, was best known for thrillers, as represented by this week’s The Fast Mail, by Chicago’s Lincoln A. Carter, whose plays always featured a spectacular effect. In this one the audience thrilled to the sight of a Mississippi steamboat blowing up before their eyes.

In 1898, the four chief nonlegitimate houses, which specialized in vaudeville (a.k.a. variety) and burlesque, were Hyde & Behman’s, the Brooklyn Music Hall, the Empire Theatre, and the Star Theatre. Among the chief attractions were Helene Mora, singer of descriptive and sentimental ballads; the great Bert Williams and George Walker, “the funniest genuine negroes on the stage,” said the Eagle about this pair, who themselves played in blackface; McIntyre and Heath, perhaps the most successful white blackface comics of the day; variety entertainers Haines and Pettingill; singer Minnie Schult; European opera diva Ekmilka Schubrinka, making her vaudeville debut; comedian Sam Devere; Johnson and Dean, cakewalkers and buck dancers; Mildred Howard De Gray, “who performed without such conventionalities as stockings”; and many others, boomerang throwers included. 

The Star featured Rush’s Bon Ton Burlesquers, whose sketches included “The Bachelor’s Matrimonial Bureau” and “Vassar Girls in Camp.”

 Week 2: Monday, January 10-Saturday, January 16, 1898

Before we get to the week’s attractions, it’s necessary to note that Brooklyn’s Park Theatre, owned by vaudeville bigwigs Hyde and Behman, which had gained esteem as a quality stock theatre in the past few years, was on the brink of giving up the ghost. The Park was one of a number of theatres attempting to restore the old way of presenting plays prior to the combination system, whereby entire shows, not just their actors, traveled from town to town, eliminating the need for resident companies. Manager Jack C. Huffman declared that the overworked actors, who were contracted to play both matinee and evenings every day, had finally had enough and needed a change.

Over the previous 20 weeks, the company had done 15 different plays, all well supported by Brooklyn’s theatregoers. But the workload was finally getting to the actors, who now decided to strike. The week before was especially trying, with Little Lord Fauntleroy during the day, Incog at night, and rehearsals for this week’s The Lights o’ London in the mornings. An actor told an Eagle reporter (January 9, 1898), “It was more than we could stand. . . . It was necessary for us to get down to the theater at 10 o’clock in the morning and rehearse ‘Lights o’ London’ until 12:30 or 12:45, and then we were allowed until 1:30 in which to get lunch. At 2 o’clock we had go on with the matinee, ‘Fauntleroy,’ and it was 5:30 o’clock before we could get away from the theater. We were due back at the theater at 7:30, and didn’t leave until shortly before midnight. Some people may think it’s fun being on the stage, but I wish those who are pining for histrionic distinction could have been in our places during the last week.”

One of the first complainers was leading man Howell Hansel, who had only a couple of days to memorize 100 pages of closely typed dialogue, while Henrietta Crosman, soon to be a major star, announced that her similarly arduous task was more than she could bear. The actors, said Huffman, were often so confused they didn’t know if they were playing Hamlet or Uncle Tom’s Cabin. He, too, had no rest, getting to the theater at 9 o’clock and not leaving till midnight. “I had to rehearse the stagehands, the musicians, the calcium light men and then the company. Sunday has been no exception to the general rule and every Sunday afternoon since we opened we have rehearsed one of the plays scheduled for the following week.” Thus worked up, Huffman marched into his bosses’ office and announced the ultimatum, which demanded that the number of matinees be cut back to two or three. “We positively refuse to give a matinee every day in the week.”

This ignited a fiery argument between him and Mr. Behman, the latter demanding to know why Huffman had waited so long to report the company’s unhappiness. Huffman’s response isn’t known, but he quickly had messengers going around to all the newspapers telling them there would be a strike. Behman’s public response was that he never allowed any company to dictate to him, and wasn’t going to begin doing so now. He invited Huffman and associates to leave, and said there were plenty of other companies he could hire. For now, the present group would be expected to fulfill their contract for the next two weeks. He added that the Park had been earning a profit and that everyone was well paid, Miss Crosman earning $250 a week.

The outcome of this brouhaha will be reported on this blog when the smoke clears and more is known. Now back to the week’s productions.

Brooklyn’s theatre managers were leaning toward a comedy track in their selections, believing the public was looking to have some good laughs. For example, a recent farce, The Governors, was notably deficient as art but successful enough in inciting laughs that it had to turn people away later in its run at the Grand Opera House, and then became a moneymaker at higher prices in Manhattan at Hoyt’s Theatre, despite its awful reviews. A Stranger in New York, now in the second week of its run at the Columbia, was also raking in the dough; people were having fun at it, regardless of the critics. It was, to date, the most profitable Brooklyn appearance it’s first-class star, Nat C. Goodwin, had ever had.

This desire to profit from the current rage for comedy—straight or musical—prompted Col. William E. Sinn at the Montauk to present The Girl from Paris, a popular bit of British-originated nonsense, “Americanized” for our consumption, which he booked for a two-week run following its New York run at the Herald Square Theatre. The Eagle said the show would never go over in Paris, where “they have a prejudice in favor of art.” The silly work, a borderline comic opera, was coming from a good run in Manhattan, which lauded its words by George Dance and music by Ivan Caryll (husband of the great American Gilbert and Sullivan soprano, Geraldine Ulmar). Three companies were currently showing it hither and yon.

As for its plot, the heroine is the beauteous French coquette, Julie Bon Bon (Olive Redpath, who grew up in the Eastern District, in the role that boosted Clara Lipman’s acclaim), and what happens concerns the efforts of her various beaus to escape her clutches. Among those still in the show was Josie Hall, as the “slavey,” whose funny rendition of “Sister Mary Jane’s Top Note” was a highlight. In addition to “spectacular” sets, the show had “a chorus of girls who are said by the veracious press agent to been practicing aesthetics to make them more fit for [the producer’s] beauty show,” according to the Eagle.

Those not in need of musical merriment could choose something equally mindless in straight plays like The Heart of the Klondike, a melodrama by Scott Marble, at the Bijou, with its spectacular views of the titular locale. Arriving in Brooklyn after a run at Manhattan’s Star Theatre, its themes of love and gains were combined in a tale about the search for gold in the Arctic Circle. The fact that several ships were then being fitted out for a trip to the Klondike at Brooklyn's nearby Erie Basin made the production especially pertinent for locals. Concerned with a struggle for possession of the eponymous old mine, on the Yukon River, the play included murder, villainy, and, as usual, heroism. A demonstration of placer mining and the presence of some beautiful women were also draws to this unexceptional piece, which did, at least, give the scene designer a chance of showing his conception of a place not yet well represented in photographs.

Meanwhile, the Park Stock Company returned to its revival of The Lights o’ London, a thriller in five acts and 14 scenes dating to 1881, when it ran for a year in New York before gaining fans across the country by touring for some years. The Park’s leading man, Howell Hansel, portrayed Howard Armitage, Daisy Lovering undertook the boy part of Jarvis, and leading lady and future star Henrietta Crosman was Bess. Set in London 25 years earlier it was about an innocent man accused of a crime, and of the guilty party’s eventual punishment.

Franklin Fyles’s stirring Civil War romantic melodrama about a Kentucky family feud, Cumberland ’61, seen at the Montauk at the end of 1897, was now at the Amphion, in Williamsburg, with Frank Losee as the villainous colonel, Charles Craig as the mountain man father, and Edgar L. Davenport as the hero, with John E. Kellerd as an Indian half-breed. Allow me to save space by noting merely that, as per its genre, it had a heroine in distress, a hissable villain, a reckless hero, and a comical supporting character.

Farce-comedy, as such things were called, was also available at the Grand Opera House, with the return of McSorley’s Twins, seen here the year before. As usual in these loosely conceived works, songs, dances, and jokes were interpolated into what passed as a plot—the campaign of McSorley, a rich candidate for alderman, and his attempt to win a pretty widow, who also is the love interest of his nephew. However, the presence of McSorley’s blooming twin girls, just back from Europe, whose obvious maturity is a giveaway about McSorley’s age, is an obstacle he must somehow hide if his wooing is to succeed. Mark Murphy made much of the title part.

Williamsburg’s American Theatre stayed true to its mission of melodrama, with The Captain’s Mate. About all that was revealed about it by the press, though, is that it had good mechanical effects and included a circus donkey act. 

Williamsburg’s Gayety turned to straight vaudeville for the week, with a fun bill headed by Hyde’s Comedians, with star singer Helen Mora, in a program much like that of the week before at Hyde & Behman’s. McIntyre and Heath, were on the bill, as were Willims and Walker, who joked that “they are not colored, they were born that way.”

Vaudeville "fantasist" and mimic, Lafayette.

Recently, despite theatre per se being absent on Sundays, the Gayety had begun getting around restrictions by doing “concerts” on Sunday evenings, these being more or less standard vaudeville bills. Sunday, January 9, saw a show headlined by popular singer Maggie Cline. Nonlegitimate performance, of course, was active during the rest of the week at the theatres where one expected to find it, Hyde & Behman’s, the Empire, and the Star, this week’s stages accommodating such rising comic artists as Bert Coote, who, the previous season made a splash in the comedy, The New Boy, although it was across the river. Here he shared the Hyde & Behman's stage with Julia Kingsley in a sketch called "A Supper for Two."

And then there were the endless acts of typical vaudeville, like Leonida’s dogs and cats, Al Leach and the Three Songbirds in the musical skit, “Their First Lessons,” comedy acrobats, a mimic and “fantasist” called Lafayette, Irish dialect comics, blackface entertainers, knockabout routines, Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Neuville and their burlesque of The Lady of Lyons, silent comics Burke and Andrus, with their broncho mule, and, among many others, Charles T. Ellis, with his sketch, “Mrs. Morgan’s Music Teacher,” in which he sang several of his familiar songs. The Star, known for burlesque, featured a new troupe called the Gay Masqueraders, which did sketches titled “The Sporty Widow” and “A Jay at Coney Island,” among typical variety acts. The Coney Island piece featured bathing beauties. 

One performer might be singled out from those doing vaudeville at the Empire. Her name was Karina, and she was part of Sam T. Jack's Tenderloin Company, known for its risqué edge. "She is a French singer," scolded the Brooklyn Daily Times, "and while her performance may be within the limits of the law, it is beyond the bounds of decency. Her dress is a daring conception and the bodice is so low cut that last night there was an apparently accidental exposure."