Part 45

"Some people prefer mediocrity in the lime-light to greatness in the dark."

Herein he summed up the reason why Miss Adams has been an elusive and almost mysterious figure. By tremendous reading, solitary thinking, and extraordinary personal application she rose to her great eminence. With her it has always been a creed of career first. Like Charles Frohman, she has hidden behind her activities, and they form a worthy rampart.

The history of the stage records no more interesting parallel than the one afforded by these two people--each a recluse, yet each known to the multitudes.

THE BIRTH OF THE SYNDICATE

Charles Frohman's talents and energies were very much like those of E. H. Harriman in that they found their largest and best expression when dedicated to a multitude of enterprises. Like Harriman, too, he did things in a wholesale way, for he had a contempt for small sums and small ventures.

Going back a little in point of time from the close of the preceding chapter, the final years of the last century found Frohman geared up to a myriad of activities. He had already assumed the rôle of Star-Maker, for Drew and Gillette were on his roster, and Maude Adams was about to be launched; the Empire Stock Company was an accredited institution with a national influence; he had started a chain of theaters; his booking interests in the West had assumed the proportions of an immense business; he had begun to make his presence felt in London. Yet no event of these middle 'nineties was more momentous in its relation to the future of the whole American theater than one which was about to transpire--one in which Charles Frohman had an important hand.

Despite the efforts made by the booking offices conducted by Charles Frohman and Klaw & Erlanger, the making of routes for theatrical attractions in the United States was in a most disorganized and economically unsound condition. The local manager was still more or less at the mercy of the booking free-lance in New York. The booking agent himself only represented a comparatively few theaters and could not book a complete season for a traveling attraction.

In New York the manager was an autocrat who frequently dictated unbelievable terms to the traveling companies. Immense losses resulted from small traveling companies being pitted against one another in provincial towns that could only support one first-class attraction. Most theatrical contracts were not worth the paper they were written on.

Charles Frohman had first counted the cost of this theatrical demoralization when his great "Shenandoah" run at the old Star Theater had to be interrupted while playing to capacity because another attraction had been booked into that theater. He and all his representative colleagues in the business realized that some steps must be taken to rectify the situation. Piled on this was the general business depression that had followed the panic of 1893.

One day in 1896 a notable group of theatrical magnates met by chance at a luncheon at the Holland House in New York. They included Charles Frohman, whose offices booked attractions for a chain of Western theaters extending to the coast; A. L. Erlanger and Marc Klaw, who, as Klaw & Erlanger, controlled attractions for practically the entire South; Nixon & Zimmerman, of Philadelphia, who were conducting a group of the leading theaters of that city, and Al Hayman, one of the owners of the Empire Theater.

These men naturally discussed the chaos in the theatrical business. They decided that its only economic hope was in a centralization of booking interests, and they acted immediately on this decision. Within a few weeks they had organized all the theaters they controlled or represented into one national chain, and the open time was placed on file in the offices of Klaw & Erlanger. It now became possible for the manager of a traveling company to book a consecutive tour at the least possible expense. In a word, booking suddenly became standardized.

This was the beginning of the famous Theatrical Syndicate which, in a brief time, dominated the theatrical business of the whole country. It marked a real epoch in the history of the American theater because within a year a complete revolution had been effected in the business. The booking of attractions was emancipated from curb and café; a theatrical contract became an accredited and licensed instrument. The Syndicate became a clearing-house for the theatrical manager and the play-producer, and the medium through which they did business with each other. Charles Frohman contributed his growing chain of theaters to the organization and secured a one-sixth interest in it which he retained up to the time of his death.

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Once launched, the Syndicate proceeded to ride the tempest, for the biggest storm in all American theatrical history soon began to develop. Out of the long turmoil came a whole new line-up in the business. It affected Charles Frohman less than any of his immediate associates in the big combination because, first of all, he was a passive member, and, second, he had a kingdom all his own. Yet the story of these turbulent years is so inseparably linked up with the development of the drama in this country that it is well worth rehearsing.

Although the Syndicate standardized the theatrical contract and made efficient and economical booking possible, it did not immediately secure the willing co-operation of some of the best-known traveling stars of the day. They included Mrs. Fiske, Richard Mansfield, Joseph Jefferson, Nat C. Goodwin, Francis Wilson (then in comic opera), and James A. Herne. They were great popular favorites and had been accustomed to appear at stated intervals in certain theaters in various parts of the country. They booked their own "time" and had a more or less personal relation with the lessees and managers of the theaters in which they appeared.

The Syndicate began to book these stars as it saw fit and as they could be best fitted into the country-wide scheme. A scale of terms was arranged that was regarded as equitable both to the attraction and the local manager.

These stars, however, refused to be booked in this way. They denied the right of the new organization to say when and where they should play. Out of this denial came the famous revolt against the Syndicate which blazed intermittently for more than two decades.

Chief among the insurgents was Mrs. Fiske, who had returned to the stage in "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," a dramatization of Thomas Hardy's great novel. Her husband and manager, Harrison Gray Fiske, was editor and publisher of The Dramatic Mirror, which became the voice of protest. Mrs. Fiske refused to appear in Syndicate theaters, and she hired independent houses all over the country. Such places were few and far between in those days, and she was forced to play in public halls, even skating-rinks.

Mansfield became one of the leaders of the opposition to the Syndicate. He made speeches before the curtain, denouncing its methods. His lead was followed by Francis Wilson, and subsequently by James K. Hackett, David Belasco, and Henry W. Savage. The fight on the huge combination became a matter of nation-wide interest.

All the while the Syndicate was growing in power and authority. Gradually the revolutionists returned to the fold because desirable terms were made for them. Only Mrs. Fiske remained outside the ranks. In order to secure a New York City stage for her Mr. Fiske leased the Manhattan Theater for a long term.

It was during these strenuous years, and as one indirect result of the Syndicate fight, that a whole new theatrical dynasty sprang up. It took shape and centered in the growing importance of three then obscure brothers, Lee, Sam, and Jacob J. Shubert by name, who lived in Syracuse, New York. They were born in humble circumstances, and early in life had been forced to become breadwinners. The first to get into the theatrical business was Sam, the second son, who, as a youngster barely in his teens, became program boy and later on assistant in the box-office of the Grand Opera House in his native town. At seventeen he was treasurer of the Weiting Opera House there, and from that time until his death in a railroad accident in 1905 he was an increasingly powerful figure in the business.

Before Sam Shubert was twenty he controlled a chain of theaters with stock companies in up-state New York cities and had taken his two brothers into partnership with him. In 1900 he subleased the Herald Square Theater in New York City and thus laid the corner-stone of what came to be known as the "Independent Movement" throughout the country. He had initiative and enterprise. Gradually he and his brothers and their associates controlled a line of theaters from coast to coast. In these theaters they offered attractive bookings to the managers who were outside the Syndicate. The Shuberts also became producers and encouragers of productions on a large scale.

For the first time the Syndicate now had real opposition. A warfare developed that was almost as bitter and costly in its way as was the old disorganized method in vogue before the business was put on a commercial basis. It naturally led to over-production and to a surplus of theaters. Towns that in reality could only support one first-class playhouse were compelled to have a "regular" and an "independent" theater. Attractions of a similar nature, such as two musical comedies, were pitted against each other. In dividing the local patronage both sides suffered loss.

During the last year of Charles Frohman's life the Syndicate and the Shuberts, wisely realizing that such an uneconomic procedure could only spell disaster in a large way for the whole theatrical business, buried their differences. A harmonious working agreement was entered into that put an end to the destructive strife. Theatrical booking became an open field, and the producer can now play his attractions in both Syndicate and Shubert theaters.

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Charles Frohman's activities were now nation-wide. Just as Harriman built up a transcontinental railroad system, so did the rotund little manager now set up an empire all his own. The building of the Empire Theater had given him a closer link with Rich and Harris. Through them he acquired an interest in the Columbia Theater, in Boston, and subsequently he became part owner of the Hollis Street Theater in that city. His third theater in Boston was the Park. By this time the firm name for Boston operation was Rich, Harris, and Charles Frohman. Their next venture was the construction of the magnificent Colonial Theater, on the site of the old Boston Public Library, which was opened with "Ben-Hur." With the acquisition of the Boston and Tremont playhouses, the firm controlled the situation at Boston.

Up to this time Frohman had controlled only one theater in New York--the Empire. In 1896 he saw an opportunity to acquire control of the Garrick in Thirty-fifth Street. He wrote to William Harris, saying, "I will take it if you will come on and run it." Harris assented, and the Garrick passed under the banner of Charles Frohman, who inaugurated his régime with John Drew in "The Squire of Dames." He put some of his biggest successes into this theater and some of his favorite stars, among them Maude Adams and William Gillette. To the chain of Charles Frohman controlled theaters in New York were added in quick order the Criterion, the Savoy, the Garden, and a part interest in the Knickerbocker.

During his early tenancy of the Garrick occurred an incident which showed Frohman's resource. He produced a play called "The Liars," by Henry Arthur Jones, in which he was very much interested. In the out-of-town try-out up-state Frohman heard that the critic of one of the most important New York newspapers had expressed great disapproval of the piece on account of some personal prejudice. He did not want this prejudice to interfere with the New York verdict, so he went to Charles Dillingham one day shortly before the opening and said: