Broadway

Eileen Cavanagh (Julia Sanderson) gives Peter Doody (Percival Knight) a sprig of "love-lies-bleeding" for luck! 

Having obtained the American rights to the hit London musical comedies The Arcadians and Our Miss Gibbs (with a score by Lionel Monckton and Ivan Caryll), impresario Charles Frohman produced the former in New York at the Liberty Theatre, where it premiered on 17 January 1910 with a principal cast of both American and British performers; the latter including soprano Ethel Cadman as ‘Sombra’, Alan Mudie as 'Jack Meadows', comedienne Connie Ediss as ‘Mrs. Smith’, character actor Lawrence Grant as ‘Sir George Paddock’, and comedian Percival Knight, who ironically became an “overnight sensation” in the role of ‘Peter Doody’ despite having played supporting roles in musical comedies on Broadway for Frohman for the past year. The production was directed by Thomas Reynolds with musical direction by Watty Hydes, while the scenic design was contributed by Homer Emens and the costume design by ‘Wilhelm’ (William John Charles Pitcher), replicating his Arcadian costumes from the London production, and Lord and Taylor for those of the London scenes.

Lawrence Grant

Percival Knight

The production transferred to the Knickerbocker Theatre on 16 May and ran successfully for 25 weeks for a total of 201 performances before taking a break in early July on account of the hot New York Summer weather (a regular occurrence in the years before air-conditioning made theatre-going a year round event in Manhattan). It then returned to the Knickerbocker on the 1 August 1910 for a further four weeks before making way there for the Broadway premiere of Our Miss Gibbs on 29 August, which lasted a mere 57 performances despite starring popular actress Pauline Chase in the title role. In the meantime The Arcadians had gone on tour, playing at Boston’s Colonial Theatre amongst other venues, but it returned to Broadway for a further season at the Grand Opera House from 21 November 1910, where it completed its New York run. The production then continued touring, including a return season in Boston for 15 weeks and 10 weeks in Chicago, however there were no further future appearances of the piece on the Great White Way, as “Time” had passed it by as far as the New Yorkers were concerned.

The Cast:

Julia Sanderson as 'Eileen Cavanagh'

New York Public Library, New York

Audrey Maple

Frank Moulan

The Production Reviewed:

"THE ARCADIANS" CHARM AT LIBERTY

A Musical Comedy Masterpiece Beautifully Staged and Acted

MR. KNIGHT'S DRY HUMOR

Ethel Cadman, Julia Sanderson, and Audrey Maple Leaders in the Feminine Beauty Show.

After seeing "The Arcadians " one comes away with a sort of resident impression of a morning out of doors in a very pleasant sunshiny land peopled by graceful figures, a place where soft airs lull and soothe, and the prose of the workaday world seems very gray and dull beside the charming simple life.

That is probably one of the reasons why "The Arcadians" was such a hit In London. That is probably just the reason why in this tumultuous town of nervous, energetic hustling "The Arcadians" will duplicate its foreign success. It is restful and soothing. And though the ingredients are of the regular musical comedy sort, girls and tunes and tunes and girls, with the comedians to add the spice to the general concoction, there has been some very skillful mixing. Instead of a heavy and indigestible mass there emerges, therefore, a sort of musical comedy culinary triumph. The old things went into the pot—they came out changed. Just, for example, as Mr. James Smith, caterer, of London, England, went into the well of truth and would have come out another man—only he happened to be English, and you never can change that.

To begin with, there is a story—not so much of a story if you analyze it—but enough to hold an idea, and that idea is rigorously maintained to the very end. For the Arcadians, very simple, delightful, carefree people, living in a sort of sylvan glade, where the grass is very green and the flowers very pink and red, and where Old Time has forgotten to intrude, are surprised one morning by the sudden arrival, via a collapsing aeroplane, of Mr. John Smith, who for the first time introduces a lie into their midst, and is transformed in consequence with a sudden disappearance of all the signs of age, the bald pate, the side whiskers, and all the other et ceteras of the middle-class English shopman on the stage. And as it appears that John Smith is only one of a numerous class, and as the Arcadians are particularly desirious of reforming others as they have reformed this visitor, they, the Arcadians, on their part, determine to visit London to see what they can do.

Now, it ought to be easy to see how the contrasts which result may be the means of producing some good fun, but between seeing a thing of this sort mentally and producing it physicially there is a wide difference. Authors, composers, and producers have combined fortunately to bring about a highly pleasing result, so that "The Arcadians" is both lovely, to the eye and pleasing to the ear, and, not infrequently, tickling to the sense of humor.

The fun is seldom of a hilarious sort, to be sure, and most of that part of it comes from the dry, droll humor of Percival Knight, a comedian who is satisfied to leave something to the imagination of his audience, but he has the backing of a situation and good lines, which ought always to make good comedy, but often doesn't, if the actor overdoes or underdoes his share. In this case neither the one fault or the other is present. And so Mr. Knight, as a lugubrious-faced jockey, who never won a race, never hopes to win one, and sadly repines at memory of the other jockeys in the race calling to him to "take a taxi," succeeds in introducing just the element of fun needed to relieve the pretty little love story, give the chorus time to change its clothes, and the singers time to catch their breath between songs, almost every one of which gets many encores.

With the Arcadians in London, the scene changes to the Askwood race track, where, instead of simple bare-legged beauties in graceful, clinging draperies the modish, up-to-date show girls, in high-tilted coiffures, sweeping trains, and blazing jewels, fill the frame with beauty and give variety, color, and dash to the picture.

The two Arcadian maidens, in their guileless way, bestowing kisses with the innocent freedom of their own land of delightful custom, succeed in making trouble for the lovers, but not of a nature so serious that it may not be overcome before the final curtain falls. Also, as is proper, the right horse wins the race, after the Arcadian maiden has talked with him and told him he must win, and sent the transformed John Smith to take the disabled jockey's place. And the effect of the race, with the people on the stage massed down close to the footlights, looking out over the audience and sweeping an imaginary course with their glasses, is worked up with lots of dash and spirit.

But, as may be surmised of John Smith, habit is strong, and having got back to London, his old enterprise interests him, so he must start an Arcadian restaurant, displaying in the last act an exquisitely lovely bower of green and purple, hung with wisteria, and lilacs, and huge bunches of grapes. In and out of this new Arcadia the story and the people make their way to some of the prettiest music of the piece. Incidentally, John Smith must meet his wife Maria, who is smitten with his youthful charms, but who is ready to welcome him home, after he has told another lie, had another dive into the well of truth, and been returned to the bosom of his family, the same be-whiskered, middle-aged Britisher of old. Whereupon the Arcadians presumably go back to their happy land, where those who wish may find them to-night and, no doubt, for many nights to come.

A stranger to Broadway, Ethel Cadman, very pretty and very graceful, and who has a most pleasing voice, with a beautiful bird note, quickly made her way into favor last night, singing delightfully ''The Pipes of Pan," "Arcady Is Ever Young," and "Light Is My Heart." Audrey Maple, a beauty of the most translucent type, as the other chief Arcadian, was very agreeable both in speech and song. And again, Miss Julia Sanderson, never prettier than now, was thoroughly charming and winsome. She danced splendidly and was repeatedly recalled, and deserved to be. Connie Ediss's opportunities were not especially rich, but she made the most of them. Frank Moulan is decidedly not funny. Alan Mudie has a pleasant manner, sings and dances nicely, and Mr. Knight, already referred to, has a capital topical song, "My Motter," which he sings with side-splitting effect.

Either the chorus is exceptionally handsome or the Arcadian dress is particularly becoming. At any rate, the effect is the same.

The New York Times, 18 January 1910, p.11

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Julia Sanderson as 'Eileen Cavanagh' 

SUMMERTIME AMUSEMENTS

“The Arcadians” Again

CHARLES FROHMAN will open his new theatrical season to-morrow night at the Knickerbocker Theatre with "The Arcadians," the musical comedy that had a run of twenty-five weeks last season. Oddly enough, Mr. Frohman will see the piece for the first time tomorrow night. After a stay of four weeks "The Arcadians" will yield the stage to "Our Miss Gibbs," the music of which is by the same authors. Though "The Arcadians" production has been considerably enlarged for its midsummer run, there have been but two important changes in the cast. Mary Mackid, a Canadian girl, will take the part of Chrysea. The part was originally taken by Miss Audrey Maple, Father Time will be played by H. E. Gulliver. Julia Sanderson continues in her role and Ethel Cadman, who returns after a fifteen days’ trip to the home of her parents in London, will sing "The Pipes of Pan." Frank Moulan, Percival Knight, and Connie Ediss remain in the cast. There will be matinees on Saturdays only.

The New York Times, 31 July 1910, p.5

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"THE ARCADIANS" REOPENS.

Large Audience Welcomes Return of Comedy to the Knickerbocker.

The New York run of "The Arcadians" interrupted by the hot weather, was resumed last night at the Knickerbocker Theatre, where a large audience gathered to welcome the English musical comedy. The performance moved with a dash and a swing which bespoke many recent rehearsals, and it is evidently not Mr. Frohman's intention to let the piece grow "stale."

The cast was almost entirely the same as that which had appeared in the play last Spring. Miss Julia Sanderson was the Eileen, Miss Ethel Cadman the Sombra, Miss Connie Ediss was Mrs. Smith, and all these three succeeded in imparting to their characters their proper values, and all three received very warm welcomes when they first appeared.

Frank Moulan, Percival Knight, and Alan Mudie played the principal men's parts. The songs "The Girl with a Brogue," "Charming Weather," "Bring Me a Rose," and several others had to be repeated several times.

The New York Times, 2 August 1910, p.7

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Of People and Events in the Theatre World:

Musical Comedy Difficulties as They Develop During the Performance

A Personally Conducted Tour Behind-the-Scenes to Get the Facts of "Arcadia."

AT a matinee of "The Arcadians" last week the shrill, unconscious voice of the inquiring small boy was heard complaining: "But I want to see how it's done!" Simplicitas was at the bottom of the Well of Truth, losing his whiskers, trousers, sins, and burdens of old age, presently to emerge a blithe and immortal Arcadian. Of the hundred grown-ups within the range of his complaint there was probably not one who did not share the child's curiosity, although they were too grown up and bashful to admit it.

The interest of the Behind-the-Scenes country never dies. Its mystery is never quite cleared away. Even to those who live in it it always exercises a fascination, for it is the place where the wheels are seen going around, and machinery in operation making finished, wonderful things out of raw materials is most interesting.

Of all the great theatrical machines a great musical comedy is the most complicated. Here it is proposed to present you with a personally conducted inspection of it with the man whose hand is at the throttle as guide. After the authors have finished their libretto, and the composers their music, and the scene painters their great backgrounds, and the stage director has once put the thing together as one might assemble the parts of an automobile, and the managers have paid thirty, forty, fifty, or even sixty thousand dollars’ worth of bills, the man who is responsible for running it, the chauffeur, so to speak, is the stage manager. While a hundred young men and women, not especially distinguishable from any other hundred law-abiding citizens, are trickling in, in a thin stream, at the stage door, the stage manager is standing on the empty stage behind the curtain, building the land of Arcady. An army of fifty stage hands is under his command. They are well trained, and, apparently with only an occasional order, great frames covered with heavy papier-maché painted surfaces are passed up from the cellar through a great trap door. The sections are quickly fitted together and bolted into place. Soon the Arcadian hillside and the rocky glen begin to take a crude form. While this is going on, other scene shifters are bringing out movable trees and pieces known as cut-outs and setting them up, building with them the foreground of the forest. Then strange things begin to happen overhead. Other trees grow down from above and a tangle of foliage, in successive strips, known as files are lowered into place. Men appear from the wings with great bales of stage turf, which is spread over the hillside and on the dale. Then the pool, made of heavy papier-maché and painted tin, is set in place. The water connections are coupled up and the stream begins to run real water. Finally the backdrop, the beautiful scene representing the distant Arcadian valley, with the river flowing through it, is let down, and, presto! instead of a bare, barnlike, empty stage we have Arcadia.

The stage manager casts his eye over it, orders this piece hoisted a few inches, or that one lowered. The stage carpenter approaches and complains that the grass is worn out in one spot and gets an order to have the place resodded, so to speak. The light men come in with their strips of electric lights, which are hidden behind every important piece of rock or woods, so that the footlights will throw no shadows against the back drop. The lighting cables are connected and presently the "set" is up, complete. In "The Arcadians" 1,000 32 candle power lights are used on the stage. Then the stage force loafs off into the wings, seats itself on pieces of the second act "set" or on benches, and waits.

At 8 o'clock the report comes from the stage door man that everybody who "comes on" in the first act has reported. One of the troubles always hanging over the stage manager's devoted head is the non-arrival of somebody who is indispensable. Poor man, he never knows when a sudden attack of ptomaine poisoning or a taxicab accident is going to swoop down upon him and rob him of one of his principals or compel a different and extemporized grouping of his chorus. He has to be ready for any emergency. He looks at his watch as he gets the report that his company is on hand, and rings for the overture. The members of the orchestra, who are in the cellar-like room underneath the stage, put away their newspapers or pinochle, begin their bowing and tuning, and file out into the pit for the musicians. They take their places and the overture begins.

A few minutes later, from the little, stateroom-like dressing rooms and down the narrow stairways, the girls and young men who entered the theatre half an hour before, looking like any hundred good-looking, well-dressed young men and women that one might meet at that hour in Forty-second Street, begin to appear in brilliant Arcadian costumes. Their faces are rouged to carry the illusion of healthy, natural pink cheeks over the footlights, their eyebrows are darkened, their arms and necks are powdered, but nevertheless, behind the scenes as in front of the footlights they are still a very attractive bevy of pretty girls and good-looking young Arcadian shepherds.

To a stranger who did not believe in magic and fairies and had no knowledge of the way in which the stage is managed it would seem incomprehensible that out of this disordered mass of men and girls, costumes and painted canvas, that wonderful idyllic picture of Arcady on which the curtain rises could be formed. Looking at the formless paints smeared on the painter's palette it would be as easy to imagine the picture which the painter is to make of them. But these living colors and shapes are all trained. Like the particles of frost on the window pane, they take, by habit or second nature, each the place which builds into the design which the stage director has composed.

With hardly a word except the "on stage" signal of the stage manager they take their places, and the picture has grown into being. Mr. Collins goes out into the middle of the stage with his back to the curtain, glances it over, tells one girl to change her pose a little, rearranges a group which has become a little slack, then goes to the peep-hole for a glance at the audience. Then he looks at his watch again, waits until it is exactly 8:15, and rings the signal to the orchestra—that little buzz which we hear in the audience just before the curtain rises. Everything is all right, and with a last look around him, he orders the curtain up. A powerful stage hand, the curtain man, jumps upon the curtain rope, starting it with his full weight, and the curtain glides noiselessly up. At the same moment the Arcadians begin the opening chorus, and the "show" has begun.

Interesting as all this preparation has been to the stranger watching it "from behind," what begins now is still more absorbing. For from now on till the curtain falls again at the end of the act everything has to go like clockwork to preserve that much-studied, much-worked-over illusion of beautiful smoothness and naturalness. There are nearly a hundred exits and entrances in the first ten minutes of the act, to give the appearance of Arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses strolling about in delightful idleness, through the woodland paths of their charming dale. Every girl whose business it is to come off at one side of the stage must go downstairs, cross the cellar to the other side of the stage, and wait in the wings for the cue which brings her idly sauntering on again. It may be a spoken word, a bar of music, or some piece of business. She and the others with whom she walks must know each one of her own cues, but the stage manager must know them all. It is no wonder that the stage manager's life is apt to be a short one and never very gay, either.

If the girls come off for a considerable period they sit on pieces of scenery in the wings or on the stairs, talking in undertones. Some, who are fashionable racegoers and are not to appear until the next act in the scene at the Askwood Races, come down with books or magazines or fancy work and sit in the wings, too, for the little dressing rooms where the chorus dress are apt to be hot and crowded.

Presently Frank Moulan, who plays Jim Smith, appears in the wings on the stage left, (which is the right-hand side of the stage to the audience), in preparation for his entrance from a wrecked aeroplane. You may have wondered how he starts on this eventful voyage. Well, this is the secret. Two stage hands bring from somewhere an enormously tall stepladder and set it up just out of sight of the audience. Mr. Moulan mounts it and tries the ropes which hang down from the airship over head, like an acrobat in the circus preparing for his act. Then he waits at attention. Suddenly, at his cue, he springs up the rope like a monkey, the signal is given to the stage hands to haul away, the airship starts rapidly across the stage on running pulleys on a taut wire, and the next moment a roar of laughter from the audience tells the stage manager that Smith’s entrance has taken place successfully.

The stepladder is put away and the scene of action changes to the platform built under the trap in the cellar, which is the real bottom of the Well of Truth. When Smith tells his lie and is popped into the well by the irate Arcadians, instead of sinking into fathoms of water which the inquiring small boy believed in but wished to have explained, he slips down a rough ladder hidden behind the papier-maché coping of the well, and lands on the platform. Here his valet is waiting for him with a chair and the wig which he uses as Simplicitas. Before he has reached the chair his whiskers and his Jim Smith wig are off. He throws these down, unbuttons his coat while the valet pulls off his boots, and then the loud-checked trousers. In less than a minute he is attired in pink tights and the conventional shepherd's costume of Arcadia, and is fitting on the beautiful blonde wig.

He mops the perspiration from his face with the towel which every performer who dances and does acrobatic stunts in musical comedy always has waiting for him in the wings, and stands at attention, looking at himself in a hand-glass. Then the question comes from overhead on the stage, "Have you seen Truth at the bottom of the well?'" and he shouts back the answer so that it can be heard by the audience, "Yes, and she's got my trousers!" A moment more and he runs up the ladder. Another burst of laughter from the audience tells that he has climbed out of the well as Simplicitas, the pure and rejuvenated.

In the second act there is another puzzle for the audience. When the sky darkens with the thunder shower at Askwood and the ladies put up their parasols, the darkness lasts but a moment and suddenly Simplicitas, Sombra, and Chrysea are in the midst of the fashionable throng. How did they get there? Did they pop up from below through a trap, or down from above in a basket? Neither. While the audience is watching the action that is going on down stage before the footlights they steal on, partly concealed by the big trees. If any one were watching he could see them doing it, but no one ever watches.

The work of the stage hands and light men behind the curtain is as wonderful in its way as the smoothly running intricate chorus movements. Two minutes after the curtain falls on the first act, Arcadia looks as if a cyclone had struck it. The grass is all taken up, the rocks have disintegrated and are disappearing down the great hole in the floor. One man sweeps out the pool, two more seize it and carry it to the trap. In exactly four minutes Arcadia has disappeared and Askwood is beginning to be assembled from cellar and side spaces. Two minutes later the big tree is lowered from above and its great branches bolted to the trunk. In exactly eight minutes and a half the Askwood race course is complete, and the stage manager is summoning the principals and show girls who sing the opening chorus at the races. It is as wonderful as taking down a circus tent, and yet there is no evidence of hurry or confusion. Each scene shifter and light man knows exactly what to do and does it. Each has the same chairs and properties, the same trees and pieces to take care of' every night, and all works as smoothly as a machine. The few orders given are spoken in low tones, for the stage manager's voice must not be heard before the curtain.

Like all other natural miracles, the conduct of a musical comedy is worked by discipline and intelligence, the subordination of every part of the machine to the mind that is in control, and everything which seems to the audience easy and natural is the result of infinite hard work and painstaking detail.

The New York Times, 22 May 1910, p.8