Chicago's Awful Theater Horror Part 21

But this is a dreary side of the picture, and all productions are by no means doomed to flunk; those that do not go forth upon the road with a flourish of trumpets, the glitter and glamor of carloads of courts and palaces of canvas, tinsel and papier-mache and with everyone looking forward to the rapid acquirement of a fortune. Verily, your actor is a born optimist. Were it not for ambition, hope, egotism and inherent love of publicity, notoriety and admiration, where would the stage get its recruits?

THE SHOW ON THE ROAD.

After the production has taken to the road it may still prove a "frost"--the theatrical term for failure. Then it is the same grim story, with additional discouragements. There are cold, clammy hotelkeepers whose one anxiety is to see their bills paid, and commercially inclined railroads who will transport none, not even actors, without payment in something more tangible than promises. Then comes the benefit performance, the appeal to local lodges of orders the actors may be identified with and the mad scramble to induce the railroad to carry the people home "on their trunks." If they can get their baggage out of the hotels the performers usually find it possible to secure transportation by leaving their trunks with the railroads as a p.a.w.n to be released when they raise money enough to settle the bill. Surely a pleasant prospect--to go "home" penniless and without personal effects, clothing or even prospects.

And all this time where is the manager? He may have fled in desperation with the few dollars that came into his hands the preceding night, or he may be shut up in his room worse off than his employes. It all depends upon circ.u.mstances.

All shows do not meet disaster on the road, however. Yet there is always the distressing possibility to confront the actor. Many go on their glad, successful way, for a time, like "Mr. Bluebeard," piling up profits and bringing joy to the hearts of managers and owners and continued employment to the players. Yet even then all is not as roseate as might be thought from a casual glance taken from the front. There are epidemics, railroad accidents, hotel fires and all manner of emergencies to be considered, not to speak of the one-night stand.

THE ONE-NIGHT STAND.

Of all the terrors the actor faces the one-night stand is the worst. That is the technical name applied to the city or town where the company lights for a single performance as it flits across the continent. It is almost impossible to so route an attraction that its time will be placed exclusively in large cities, so they fall back on the one-night stand.

Imagine the joy of leaving Chicago Sunday morning, playing at South Chicago Sunday afternoon and evening, taking a train after the performance and jogging into Michigan City, Ind., with the early dawn, catching a bit of sleep during the day, playing at night and skipping out for Logansport.

With the same programme at Logansport, Fort Wayne, Richmond, and Lima, Mansfield or Dayton, Ohio, the company is within striking distance of Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville or Indianapolis, as its bookings may elect. And that is precisely what they all do. This is a sample week. It is not an uncommon thing for a big attraction to cover two or three weeks of unbroken one-night stands, and those going to and from the Pacific coast are often compelled to play four and five, without the friendly relief of an engagement covering a week.

Truly life under these circ.u.mstances is a horror. Train-worn, broken in rest, with scarcely opportunity to unpack to change their linen, such weeks mean to the performer an existence not calculated to tempt recruits to the profession. To the princ.i.p.al, stopping at the best hotels and making use of sleeping cars whenever possible, it is wearing enough and a burden. To the chorus girl, it is a hideous nightmare. Out of her meager salary she must pay during such weeks from $1.25 to $1.75 a day for hotel accommodations that are far from tempting. She is driven to resort to sleepers through self-preservation at an average of $2 a night for long night trips, and her laundry and other incidental expenses mount up into startling figures. Her clothing is ruined by almost ceaseless crus.h.i.+ng aboard trains, and unless she be thoroughly broken to such a life she is wrecked physically.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AMBULANCE LOADED WITH FIRE VICTIMS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARCH AT TOP OF STAIRWAY PACKED WITH DEAD.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARRYING OUT SOME DEAD, SOME STILL LIVING.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIREMEN CARRYING OUT THE DEAD CHILDREN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HEROIC RESCUE OF THE LIVING BY CHICAGO FIREMEN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCENE IN DEATH ALLEY--REAR OF THE THEATRE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARRYING OUT BODIES FROM SECOND BALCONY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MISS NELLIE REED, Leader of the Flying Ballet, killed by the fire.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIREMEN HELPING THE CHORUS GIRLS OUT OF THE THEATER.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHOTOGRAPH OF THE STAGE OF THE THEATER IN RUINS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRONT OF THEATER, PILING DEAD IN THE STREET.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE THEATER, DOORS LOCKED, PANIC, FIRE, AND DEATH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: INSIDE THE IROQUOIS THEATER WHILE THE FIRE RAGED.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING FOR HER CHILDREN AMONG THE DEAD.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A LINE OF VICTIMS OF THE FIRE AWAITING IDENTIFICATION.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DIAGRAM SHOWING HOW PEOPLE GOT OUT OF THE GALLERY.]

When she reaches a big city again she can once more creep to bed after her work at midnight and find in unbroken hours of sleep balm for all she has pa.s.sed through. She may secure a decent room at a second or third cla.s.s European hotel for $6 a week and buy her meals where she chooses. If some callow youth buys them for her in consideration of the pleasure of basking in her smiles, she is that much ahead. She can live within her means in the city and save money--if she wants to. But she seldom does, and no one can blame her, for she feels that nothing save the pleasures secured by extravagance can compensate her for what she has lost--comfort, repose, dignity, social recognition, and, most of all, home.

These same conditions are experienced to a varying degree by all players save those within the sacred circle drawn by the finger of phenomenal success. That small handful with private cars, lackies and all the comforts of a portable home, is so insignificant in number that it requires no consideration here.

THE "MR. BLUEBEARD" COMPANY.

In the best and most prosperous organizations, such as "Mr. Bluebeard"

was, life is not all suns.h.i.+ne and roses. To be true, its members escaped the manifold terrors of playing in the barns to be found in many large one-night stands and dressing in their stalls, dignified by the term dressing-rooms. The women were not compelled to dress and undress behind inclosures made of flimsy scenery with a sheet thrown over for additional protection. Nor did they have to live in the barn-like hotels many such towns boast. But they had their own troubles, such as they were. The chorus girls did not escape having to be thrown into involuntary contact with all cla.s.ses and conditions of mankind, nor did they avoid the sharp social distinction drawn by the princ.i.p.als in all organizations.

Only a few weeks before the Iroquois horror they pa.s.sed through a serious fire scare in the theater where they were playing in Cleveland, an experience that for the moment promised to rival the one that finally overtook them. Flames in the scenery endangered their lives, but the fire was extinguished. Therefore the incident "amounted to nothing" and little or nothing was heard about it.

When the dread hour arrived at the Iroquois, the majority lost their all.

It was not to be expected they would leave their jewelry and money about hotels of which they knew little. Quite naturally, they took both to their dressing-rooms. Many were on the stage when the cry of fire came, and were fortunate to escape with their lives, without thought of clothing, money or jewelry, all of which were swept away. With employment, valuables, everything gone save their hotel baggage, they were in a sorry plight, indeed. But with the optimism that only the actor knows they rejoiced in their escape from the fate that overtook little Nellie Reed and from the terrible scars and burns suffered by many of their number.

A score of their number were under arrest, held as witnesses, men and women alike. The management came to their relief to the extent of furnis.h.i.+ng bonds that secured their temporary release. Klaw and Erlanger also furnished transportation back to New York for such as were at liberty to go. Then another obstacle arose. Few had the means to settle their hotel bills, and the proprietors of the places would not release their baggage. At this juncture relief came from outside sources. Mrs. Ogden Armour provided for the chorus girls, contributing $500 to settle their bills. That night over a hundred of the players were headed back to the great metropolis they call home, to seek new engagements, and if unsuccessful, to do the best they could. And the majority started with certain failure staring them in the face.

It was on Sunday, January 3, 1904, four days after the fire, that the members of the "Mr. Bluebeard" company turned their faces homeward, for to all players New York is "home." Just before the train started a plain white box was put on board the baggage car. It contained all that was mortal of Nellie Reed, the sprightly little girl who had delighted scores of thousands by her mid-air flights from the stage at each performance.

It was her last railroad "jump." Poor little thing, still in her early teens, she closed her earthly career with the close of the show, and went back "home" with it! If the future has for her any further flights they will be of celestial character, and not through the agency of an invisible wire such as guided her above the heads of Iroquois theater audiences and which was at first thought to have interfered with the fall of the curtain and to have been directly responsible for the appalling holocaust.

It was a sad departure. Nearly 150 persons comprised the "Mr. Bluebeard"

party, and nearly as many more took the trip from "The Billionaire"

company, also owned by the same management. Only a day or two before the fire that closed the "Bluebeard" show death had laid its hand heavily upon "The Billionaire," playing at the Illinois theater only a few blocks distant. "The Billionaire" himself died--big, rollicking Jerome Sykes, who made famous the part "Foxy Quiller" and the opera of that name and who a few years ago made such a hit as the fat boy in "An American Beauty" that he outshone Lillian Russell, its star. Sykes contracted a cold at a Christmas celebration for the members of the two companies and when he died the production died with him.

So with the Iroquois catastrophe there were two big, obviously successful, companies wiped out of the theatrical world at one blow and without notice. The members of each had half a week's salary due; that was their all. It was promptly paid and with that and their tickets all set forth in the happy possession of their baggage, many through the charity of Mrs.

Armour.

All--not quite! There were two members of "The Billionaire" who did not make the last "jump," two who were in the audience at the Iroquois and perished in the maelstrom of flame and smoke. The curtain had been rung down for them forever. They, at least, would know no more of pitiful quests for engagements, of wearying rehearsal and momentary, superficial conquest. They had played their last stand.

"This is the saddest day of my life," declared one of the chorus members in the presence of the writer. "Here I am, 1,000 miles from home, no prospects of another engagement this season, and only $5 in the world."

"I have less than you," said a frail appearing girl, with tears in her eyes. "I lost my savings, $22, in the fire, and I have only $3 to go home with."

"It is the life of the stage," said a matronly wardrobe woman. "The poor girls are penniless, and if the injured were left hind it would be as charity patients. The responsibility of the managers of the show ceases when the production is closed. I know many of these girls are without sufficient money to pay for a week's lodging, and it is a sad outlook for some of them this winter."

And the wardrobe woman told the truth--it was merely a striking example, a pitiful vicissitude of "the life of the stage."

CHAPTER XIII.

OTHER HOLOCAUSTS.