Charles Frohman: Manager and Man Part 47

"Feminine curiosity. G.o.d bless the women."

"Are there no men in your audiences?" I asked.

"Only those whom the women take," said Frohman. "The others go to musical shows. Have some more crepes Suzette."

"But what do the critics say?" I persisted.

"My dear Paul," said Frohman, solemnly, "they call me a 'commercial manager' because I won't play Ibsen or Maeterlinck. They didn't help me when I tried for higher game. I had years of poverty, years of privation. To-day I take advantage of a general feminine desire to view Miss Tottie Coughdrop; and, to the critics, I'm a mere Bulgarian, a 'commercial manager.' So was Lester Wallack when he admitted 'The World'

to his cla.s.sic theater. So was Augustin Daly when he banished Shakespeare in favor of 'The Great Ruby.' If the critics want to reform the stage, let them begin by reforming the public."

In his cabin on the _Lusitania_ he showed me a ma.s.s of yellow ma.n.u.script, scribbled over with hieroglyphics in blue pencil.

"That's my play," he said, very simply.

"Shall I take it home and read it?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "I will try it on Barrie and bring it back in better shape."

So he shook hands and sailed with his cherished drama, which reposes to-day, not on the summit of Mont Blanc, but at the bottom of the Irish Sea.

XVI

"C. F." AT REHEARSALS

The real Charles Frohman emerged at rehearsals. The shy, sensitive man who shunned the outside world here stood revealed as a dynamic force.

Yet he ruled by personality, because he believed in personality. He did every possible thing to bring out the personal element in the men and women in his companies.

In rehearsing he showed one of the most striking of his traits. It was a method of speech that was little short of extraordinary. It grew out of the fact that his vocabulary could not express his enormous imagination.

Instead of words he made motions. It was, as Augustus Thomas expressed it, "an exalted pantomime." Those who worked with him interpreted these gestures, for between him and his stars existed the finest kins.h.i.+p.

Frohman seldom finished a sentence, yet those who knew him always understood the unuttered part. Even when he would give a star the first intimation of a new role he made it a piece of pantomime interspersed with short, jerky sentences.

William Faversham had complained about having two very bad parts. When he went to see Frohman to hear about the third, this is the way the manager expressed it to him:

"New play--see?... Fine part.--First act--_you_ know--romantic--light through the window ... nice deep tones of your voice, you see?... Then, audience say 'Ah!'--then the girl--see?--In the room ... you ... one of those big scenes--then, all subdued--light--coming through window.--See?--And then--curtain--audience say 'Great!' ... Now, second act ... all that tremolo business--you know?--Then you get down to work ... a tremendous scene ... let your voice go.... Great climax ... (Oh, a great play this--a great part!) ... Now, last act--simple--nice--lovable--refined ... sad tones in your voice--and, well, you know--and then you make a big hit.... Well, now we will rehea.r.s.e this in about a week--and you will be tickled to death.... This is a great play--fine part.... Now, you see Humphreys--he will arrange everything."

Of course Faversham went away feeling that he was about forty-four feet tall, that he was a great actor, and had a wonderful part.

Like the soldier who thrills at the sound of battle, Frohman became galvanized when he began to work in the theater. He forgot time, s.p.a.ce, and all other things save the task at hand. To him it was as the breath of life.

One reason was that the theater was his world; the other that Charles was, first and foremost, a director and producer. His sensibility and force, his feeling and authority, his intelligence and comprehension in matters of dramatic artistry were best, almost solely, known to his players and immediate a.s.sociates. No stage-director of his day was more admired and desired than he.

At rehearsal the announcement, "C. F. is in front," meant for every one in the cast an eager enthusiasm and a desire to do something unusually good to merit his commendation. His enormous energy, aided by his diplomacy and humor, inspired the player to highest performance.

Such expressions as, "But, Mr. Frohman, this is my way of doing it," or "I feel it this way," and like manifestations of actors' conceit or argument would never be met with ridicule or contempt. Sometimes he would say, "Try it my way first," or "Do you like that?" or "Does this give you a better feeling?" He never said, "You _must_ do thus and so."

He was alert to every suggestion. As a result he got the very best out of his people. It was part of his policy of developing the personal element.

The genial human side of the man always softened his loudest tones, although he was seldom vehement. So gentle was his speech at rehearsals that the actors often came down to the footlights to hear his friendly yet earnest direction.

Frohman had that first essential of a great dramatic director--a psychologic mind in the study of the various human natures of his actors and of the ideas they attempted to portray.

He was an engaging and fascinating figure, too, as he molded speech and shaped the play. An old friend who saw him in action thus describes the picture:

"Here a comedian laughs aloud with the comic quaintness of the director.

There a little lady, new to the stage, is made to feel at home and confident. The proud old-timer is sufficiently ameliorated to approve of the change suggested. The leading lady trembles with the shock of realization imparted by the stout little man with chubby smile who, seated alone in the darkened auditorium, conveys his meaning as with invisible wires, quietly, quaintly, simply, and rationally, so as to stir the actors' souls to new sensibilities, awaken thought, and viviby(?) glow of pa.s.sion, sentiment, or humor."

At rehearsals Frohman usually sat alone about the tenth row back. He rarely rose from his seat, but by voice and gesture indicated the moves on his dramatic chess-board. When it became necessary for him to go on the stage he did so with alacrity. He suggested, by marvelously simple indications and quick transitions, the significance of the scene or the manner of the presentation.

There was a curious similarity, in one respect, between the rehearsing methods of Charles Frohman and Augustin Daly. This comparison is admirably made by Frohman's life-long friend Franklin H. Sargent, Director of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Empire School of Acting, in which Frohman was greatly interested and which he helped in every possible way. He said:

"Like a great painter with a few stray significant lines of drawing, Frohman revealed the spirit and the idea. In this respect he resembled Augustin Daly, who could furnish much dramatic intuition by a grunt and a thumb-joint. Both men used similar methods and possessed equal keenness of intelligence and sense of humor, except that Frohman was rarely sarcastic. Daly usually was. Frohman's demeanor and relations.h.i.+p to his actors was kindly and considerate. Rules, and all strictly enforced, were in Daly's policy of theater management. Frohman did not resort to rules. He regulated his theaters on broad principles, but with firm decision when necessary. In Daly's theater there was obedience; in Frohman's theater there was a willing co-operation. The chief interest of both managers was comedy--comedy of two opposite kinds. Daly's jest was the artificial German farce and Shakespearian refinement. Frohman's tastes ranged between the French school--Sardou's 'Diplomacy' and the modern realities--and the pure sentiments of Barrie's 'The Little Minister.' Frohman was never traditional in an artificial sense, though careful to retain the fundamental original treatment of imported foreign plays.

"The verities, the humanities, the joys of life always existed and grew with him as with a good landscape architect who keeps in nature's ways.

His departures into the cla.s.sicism of Stephen Phillips, the romanticism of Shakespeare, or the exotic French society drama were never as valuable and delightful as his treatment of modern sentiment and comedy."

In this respect a comparison with the workmans.h.i.+p of another genius of the American theater, David Belasco, is inevitable. Belasco, the great designer and painter of theatrical pictures, holds quite a different point of view and possesses different abilities from those of Charles Frohman. Belasco revels in the technique of the actor. Frohman's _metier_ was the essentials. The two men were in many ways complements of each other and per force admirers of each other and friends. In brief, Belasco is the technicist; Frohman was the humanitarian.

Charles usually left details of scenery, lighting, and minor matters to his stage-manager. "Look after the little things," he would say, in business as in art, for he himself was interested only in the larger themes. The lesser people of the play, the early rehearsing of involved business, was shaped by his subordinates. The smaller faults and the mannerisms of the actor did not trouble him, provided the main thought and feeling were there. He would merely laugh at a suggestion to straighten out the legs and walk, to lengthen the drawl, or to heighten the c.o.c.kney accent of a prominent member of his company, saying:

"The public likes him for these natural things."

Frohman's ear was musically sensitive. The intonations, inflections, the tone colors of voice, orchestral and incidental music, found him an exacting critic.

To plays he gave thought, study, and preparation. The author received much advice and direction from him. He himself possessed the expert knowledge and abilities of a playwright, as is always true of every good stage-director. Each new play was planned, written, cast, and revised completely under his guidance and supervision. His stage-manager had been instructed in advance in the "plotting" of its treatment. The first rehearsals were usually left in charge of this a.s.sistant.

At the first rehearsals Frohman made little or no comments. He watched and studied in silence. Thereafter his master-mind would reveal itself in reconstruction of lines and scenes, re-accentuation of the high and low lights of the story involved, and improvement of the acting and representation. Frohman consulted with his authors, artists, and a.s.sistants more in his office than in actual rehearsal. In the theater he was sole auditor and judge. His stage-manager would rarely make suggestions during rehearsals unless beckoned to and asked by his manager. When the office-boy came in at rehearsal on some important business errand, he got a curt dismissal, or at most a brief consideration of the despatch, contract, or message.

Here is a vivid view of Frohman at rehearsal by one who often sat under the magic of his direction:

"In the dim theater he sits alone, the stage-manager being at a respectable distance. If by chance there are one or two others present directly concerned in the production, they all sit discreetly in the extreme rear. The company is grouped in the wings, never in the front.

The full stage lights throw into prominence the actors in the scene in rehearsal. Occasionally the voice of Mr. Frohman calls from the auditorium, and the direction is sometimes repeated more loudly by the stage-manager. Everybody is listening and watching.

"The wonderfully responsive and painstaking nature of Maude Adams is fully alive, alert, and interested in Mr. Frohman's directions even in the scenes in which she has no personal part, during which, very likely, she will half recline on the floor near the proscenium--all eyes and ears.

"Or perhaps it is a strong emotional scene in which Margaret Anglin is the central character. At the theatrically most effective point in the acting the voice breaks in, Miss Anglin stops, hastens to the footlights, and listens intently to a few simple, quiet words. Over her face pa.s.s shadow and storm, and in her eyes tears form. Again she begins the scene, and yet again, with c.u.mulative pa.s.sion. Each time, with each new incitement from the sympathetic director, new power, deeper feeling, keener thought develop, until a great glow of meaning and of might fills the stage and the theater with its radiance. Mr. Frohman is at last satisfied, and so the play moves on."

Just as Frohman loved humor in life, so did he have a rare gift for comedy rehearsal. William Faversham pays him this tribute:

"I think Charles Frohman was the greatest comedy stage-manager that I have known. I do not think there was a comedy ever written that he could not rehea.r.s.e and get more out of than any other stage-director I have ever seen--and I have seen a good many. If he had devoted himself, as director, entirely to one company, I think he would have produced the greatest organization of comedians that Europe or America ever saw. I don't suppose there is a comedy scene that he couldn't rehea.r.s.e and play better than any of the actors who were engaged to play the parts. The subtle touches that he put into 'Lord and Lady Algy' were extraordinary.

The same with 'The Counsellor's Wife,' with 'Bohemia,' and again with a play of H. V. Esmond's called 'Imprudence,' which we did. He seemed to love this play, and I never saw a piece grow so in all my life as it did under his direction. All the successes made by the actors and actresses in that play were entirely through the work of Charles Frohman.

"He had a keen sense of sound, a tremendous ear for tones of comedy. He could get ten or twelve inflections out of a speech of about four lines; he had a wonderful method of getting the actors to accept and project these tones over the footlights. He got what he wanted from them in the most extraordinary way. With his disjointed, pantomimic method of instruction he was able to transfer to them, as if by telepathy, what he wanted.

"For instance, he would say: 'Now, you go over there ... then, just as he is looking at you ... see?--say--then ... that's it! you know?' And simply by this telepathy you _did know_."