The Broadway Première

Article appeared in Vanity Fair, August, 1926

[This article is most likely about Howard's experience in Gladys Unger's The Werewolf (1924) • Spelling and punctuation are Mr. Howard's]

The fact that this is the last lecture in the Special Correspondence Course on Theatrical Production may induce some of my readers to peruse it, in which case they will probably want to turn back to the earlier lectures to find out exactly what caused the present one.

To prevent this rash move I will tell them that it has all to do with the production of a play called Clouds (changed to Heart's Blood and later to Heart's Clouds) which opened at Stamford under the title The Earth Is A Box, went to Baltimore as B.42 — A.M., and is now about to work out its fate in New York under its (more or less) original title of Clouds. The final change was due to Mr William Sox, the famous Motion Picture magnate, who insisted that, as he had bought the movie rights months ago from Mr Samuels, the play's producer, and had already made the film under the title Clouds* (the only thing he liked about it), the play must naturally follow suit. The layman must realise that the theatre and the moving pictures are now very closely related.

As The Earth Is A Box, the play had been a colossal success at Stamford, Connecticut—a pleasant surprise to Mr Samuels—and, after he had recovered from this happy shock, he had produced it successively at Hempstead, Great Nick, Rockville Center, Darien, New Britain and, finally, Baltimore (the latter for an entire week without stopping). He had done this for the purpose of re-writing the play. And here is an important rule for the layman to remember. No play, no matter how brilliant its reception nor how favourable its reviews, can be considered right at its first performance outside New York. Nor, indeed, at any performance before it arrives in New York. Its re-writing must commence at once, and must continue for just so long as it remains outside the metropolis. This is known as 'trying out'. For instance, if a producer has only a three-day try-out before his New York opening, then the play has only three days of re-writing. If he has a three months try-out, then the play has three months of continuous alteration. This rule is invariable, except in the case of Bernard Shaw, Shakespeare, Ibsen and such authors as are foolish enough to imagine a good play can be written right off the reel.

It is not a bad rule in a way. It keeps everyone pleasantly occupied in such distracting spots as New Britain and Rockville Center, and it is excellent practice for the actors to have new lines to learn every night. The only objection to the rule is that sometimes the alteration process has been known slightly to ruin the play, and I regret that something of the sort happened in the present instance.

The author of Clouds, the funereal Mr Roger Blackman, had sat up for many nights in the pleasant little towns mentioned above, re-writing vigorously at the request of the manager and director, though he had been a little surprised at the necessity in view of the play's terrific success at Stamford, Connecticut. Finally, however, on the train going to Baltimore he had pleaded a headache, got off at the next station (Manhattan Transfer), and gone straight to Europe. Thereafter, since it is an unwritten law that anyone may join in the re-writing of a play, the alteration process had been in the diligent hands of the manager, the director, Mr Stilton, and the star, Miss Partridge—with occasional help from the stage-manager, the English juvenile [Leslie Howard], and a very clever bell-boy at one of the Baltimore hotels who, at four o'clock one morning, had supplied Mr Stilton with some liquid refreshment and some ingenious ideas concerning the end of the second act.

By these somewhat uneasy stages our drama reaches its destiny in a New York theatre, a destiny always quickly pronounced. On the morning of the opening the cast have the final alterations handed to them, and they run through them, memorising them rapidly as they have been accustomed to do every day for some weeks. Naturally the play bears very little resemblance to the play that was produced at Stamford, the sixteen scenes having been reduced to six, the characters considerably altered and curtailed. Furthermore, the cast are a little hazy as to the precise meaning of it all. But the manager is a good showman and completely confident. Half an hour before the curtain rises he visits the star in her dressing room. Her doctor is with her and is giving her a large dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia. Her chiropractor is waiting outside, and her maid is just telephoning for her psychiatrist newly arrived from Vienna.

'Well, Flo,' says Mr Samuels in his genial way, "Attagirl!'

'Mr Samuels,' says Miss Partridge, with a trace of uneasiness, 'how do you feel about it?'

'What d'you mean—how do I feel about it? The thing's a wow before it starts. We're selling standing room for tonight.'

'It's next week I'm thinking about,' remarks the star rather petulantly. 'Will we be even selling sitting room then?'

'Hell, Flo, wasn't it a wow at Stamford?'

'Sure, but we played it as it was written then—more or less. It seems a bit muddled now. Maybe that fool author was right after all.'

'Flo, whoever heard of a show being played the way it was written,' says Mr Samuels a trifle sternly. 'I tell you this is a knock-out—or Bert Samuels never produced a play.'

'I guess you're right,' the star replied helping herself to another dash of spirits of ammonia.

So the word goes round the Clouds company that Mr Samuels says the play is a riot and, of course, everyone is very comforted and they all make plans for furs and motor-cars, etc.—and what ship they will sail on next summer. As the curtain has not yet risen, the ignorant layman may think this optimism a trifle premature—but, thank God, actors are buoyant, optimistic souls with the innocent faith of children. How could their manager lie to them?

Just before the curtain goes up the orchestra is playing softly while the distinguished audience (first night audiences are always distinguished) are getting into their seats, and most of the cast are on the stage congratulating each other—naturally a little emotionally. All troubles are forgotten, all unpleasantness forgiven—everyone loves everyone else fervently, even those who were rather rude to each other yesterday. The star and the 'ingenue' embrace several times, the director pats the first heavy man on the shoulder (having fired him for the fifteenth time that morning) and the English juvenile is seen shaking hands with the Irish second heavy man.

The curtain is rising. The play has started. There is no turning back now. Almost half the audience and a few of the critics are already in their seats. There is a great deal of applause as each actor, or actress, enters. For some reason there is no applause at all when they exit. By the end of the first act practically the entire audience has arrived, though some of them seem to be terribly troubled with bronchial afflictions.

Everything seems very quiet during the second act—the silence occasionally punctuated by laughter in places not exactly anticipated by either the cast or Mr Samuels. During the third act some of the critics are seen to leave. It is presumed they are in a hurry to write their reviews for the next morning. Mr Samuels notices some of the audience slipping away and presumes these are the ones who came in too late to know what the play is about. Those who remain are doing so because, naturally, they wish to find out. When the final curtain falls and Mr Samuels comes in front of the footlights to make a small speech on behalf of the cast and the author, there seems to be some sort of commotion in the pit—and his speech about giving the public beautiful plays even though he loses money thereby seems sadly misunderstood in the general hubbub. We need not dwell on further details—except to say that Mr Samuels does not visit the star at the end of the play.

*Not its real name. It was probably Her Cardboard Lover. [This notation, which appeared in Trivial Fond Records, pg. 60, could not be accurate because this article appeared in Vanity Fair in August, 1926, and Leslie Howard did not appear in the first version of The Cardboard Lover until the fall of 1926, thus, he had no experience of The Cardboard Lover to write about in August, 1926. The article is more likely about Howard's experience in Gladys Unger's The Werewolf (1924), the name of which was originally Spanish Nights, although I could not find any reference to a movie having been made of that play by the time the article was written. To see Leslie Howard's experience with The Werewolf as it appeared in his diary of 1924, click here and read from the first reference on Saturday, 19th April.]
Trivial Fond Records, pgs. 59-62


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