Shenandoah written by Bronson Howard

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SHENANDOAH

_A MILITARY COMEDY_

[Illustration: BRONSON HOWARD]

BRONSON HOWARD

(1842-1908)

The present Editor has just read through some of the vivacious
correspondence of Bronson Howard--a sheaf of letters sent by him to
Brander Matthews during a long intercourse. The time thus spent brings
sharply to mind the salient qualities of the man--his nobility of
character, his soundness of mind, his graciousness of manner, and
his thorough understanding of the dramatic tools of his day and
generation. To know Bronson Howard was to be treated to just that
human quality which he put into even his hastily penned notes--and, as
in conversation with him, so in his letters there are repeated flashes
of sage comment and of good native wit. Not too often can we make the
plea for the gathering and preserving of such material. Autobiography,
after all, is what biography ought to be--it is the live portrait
by the side of which a mere appreciative sketch fades. I have looked
through the "Memorial" volume to Bronson Howard, issued by the
American Dramatists Club (1910), and read the well-tempered estimates,
the random reminiscences. But these do not recall the Bronson Howard
known to me, as to so many others--who gleams so charmingly in this
correspondence. Bronson Howard's plays may not last--"Fantine,"
"Saratoga," "Diamonds," "Moorcraft," "Lillian's Last Love"--these are
mere names in theatre history, and they are very out of date on
the printed page. "The Banker's Daughter," "Old Love Letters" and
"Hurricanes" would scarcely revive, so changed our comedy treatment,
so differently psychologized our emotion. Not many years ago
the managerial expedient was resorted to of re-vamping "The
Henrietta"--but its spirit would not behave in new-fangled style,
and the magic of Robson and Crane was broken. In the American drama's
groping for "society" comedy, one might put "Saratoga," and even
"Aristocracy," in advance of Mrs. Mowatt's "Fashion" and Mrs.
Bateman's "Self;" in the evolution of domestic problems, "Young Mrs.
Winthrop" is interesting as an early breaker of American soil. But
one can hardly say that, either for the theatre or for the library,
Bronson Howard is a permanent factor. Yet his influence on the theatre
is permanent; his moral force is something that should be perpetuated.
Whatever he said on subjects pertaining to his craft--his comments on
play-making most especially,--was illuminating and judicious. I have
been privileged to read the comments sent by him to Professor
Matthews during the period of their collaboration together over "Peter
Stuyvesant;" they are practical suggestions, revealing the peculiar
way in which a dramatist's mind shapes material for a three hours'
traffic of the stage--the willingness to sacrifice situation,
expression--any detail, in fact, that clogs the action. Through the
years of their acquaintance, Howard and Matthews were continually
wrangling good-naturedly about the relation of drama to literature.
Apropos of an article by Matthews in _The Forum_, Howard once wrote:

I note that you regard the 'divorce' of the drama from
literature as unfortunate. I think the divorce should be made
absolute and final; that the Drama should no more be wedded to
literature, on one hand, than it is to the art of painting on
the other, or to music or mechanical science. Rather, perhaps,
I should say, we should recognize poligamy for the Drama; and
all the arts, with literature, its Harem. Literature may be
Chief Sultana--but not too jealous. She is always claiming too
large a share of her master's attention, and turning up her
nose at the rest. I have felt this so strongly, at times, as
to warmly deny that I was a 'literary man', insisting on being
a 'dramatist'.

Then, in the same note, he adds in pencil: "Saw 'Ghosts' last night.
Great work of art! Ibsen a brute, personally, for writing it."

In one of the "Stuyvesant" communications, Howard is calculating
on the cumulative value of interest; and he analyzes it in this
mathematical way:

So far as the important act is concerned, I have felt that
this part of it was the hardest part of the problem before
us. We were certain of a good beginning of the act and a good,
rapid, dramatic end; but the middle and body of it I felt
needed much attention to make the act substantial and
satisfactory. To tell the truth, I was quietly worrying a bit
over this part of the play, while you were expressing your
anxiety about the 2nd act--which never bothered me. There
_must_ be 2nd acts and there _must_ be last acts--audiences
resign themselves to them; but 3rd acts--in 4 and 5 act
plays--they insist on, and _will_ have them good. The only
exception is where you astonish them with a good 2nd act--then
they'll take their siesta in the 3rd--and wake up for the 4th.

This psychological time-table shows how calculating the dramatist
has to be, how precise in his framework, how sparing of his number of
words. In another note, Howard says:

This would leave the acts squeezed "dry", about as
follows:--Act I, 35 minutes; Act 2, 30; Act 3, 45; Act 4,
20--total, 130--2 hrs., 10 min., curtain up: entr'acts, 25
min. Total--2 hrs., 35 min.--8:20 to 10:55.

There are a thousand extraneous considerations bothering a play that
never enter into the evolution of any other form of art. After seeing
W.H. Crane, who played "Peter Stuyvesant" when it was given, Howard
writes Matthews of the wisdom shown by the actor in his criticism of
"points" to be changed and strengthened in the manuscript.

"A good actor," he declares, "whom I always regard as an original
creator in art--beginning at the point where the dramatist's pen
stops--approaches a subject from such a radically different direction
that we writers cannot study his impressions too carefully in revising
our work." Sometimes, conventions seized the humourous side of Howard.
From England, around 1883, he wrote, "Methinks there is danger in the
feeling expressed about 'local colouring.' English managers would put
the Garden of Eden in Devonshire, if you adapted Paradise Lost for
them--and insist on giving Adam an eye-glass and a title."

Howard was above all an American; he was always emphasizing his
nationality; and this largely because the English managers changed
"Saratoga" to "Brighton," and "The Banker's Daughter" to "The Old Love
and the New." I doubt whether he relished William Archer's inclusion
of him in a volume of "English Dramatists of To-day," even though
that critic's excuse was that he "may be said to occupy a place among
English dramatists somewhat similar to that occupied by Mr. Henry
James among English novelists." Howard was quick to assert his
Americanism, and to his home town he wrote a letter from London,
in 1884, disclaiming the accusation that he was hiding his local
inheritance behind a French technique and a protracted stay abroad
on business. He married an English woman--the sister of the late Sir
Charles Wyndham--and it was due to the latter that several of his
plays were transplanted and that Howard planned collaboration with
Sir Charles Young. But Howard was part of American life--born of the
middle West, and shouldering a gun during the Civil War to guard the
Canadian border near Detroit against a possible sympathetic uprising
for the Confederacy. Besides which--a fact which makes the title of
"Dean of the American Drama" a legitimate insignia,--when, in 1870, he
stood firm against the prejudices of A.M. Palmer and Lester Wallack,
shown toward "home industry," he was maintaining the right of the
American dramatist. He was always preaching the American spirit,
always analyzing American character, always watching and encouraging
American thought.

Howard was a scholar, with a sense of the fitness of things, as
a dramatist should have. Evidently, during the collaboration with
Professor Matthews on "Stuyvesant," discussion must have arisen as
to the form of English "New Amsterdamers," under Knickerbocker rule,
would use. For it called forth one of Howard's breezy but exact
comments, as follows:

A few more words about the "English" question: As I said,
it seems to me, academical correctness, among the higher
characters, will give a prim, old-fashioned tone: and _you_
can look after this, as all my own work has been in the
opposite direction in art. I have given it no thought in
writing this piece, so far.

I would suggest the following special points to be on
the alert for, even in the _best_ present-day use of
English:--some words are absolutely correct, now, yet based
on events or movements in history since 1660. An evident
illustration is the word "boulevard" for a wide street or
road; so "avenue," in same sense, is New Yorkese and London
imitation--even imitated from us, I imagine, in Paris: this
would give a nineteenth century tone; while an "avenue lined
with trees in a bowery" would not. Don't understand that I
am telling you things. I'm only illustrating--to let you know
what especial things in language I hope you will keep your eye
on. Of course _Anneke_ couldn't be "electrified"--but you may
find many less evident blunders than that would be. She might
be shocked, but couldn't "receive a shock." We need free
colloquial slang and common expressions; but while "get out"
seems all right from _Stuyvesant_ to _Bogardus_, for _Barry_
to say "Skedadle" would put him in the 87th New York Vols.,
1861-64. Yet I doubt whether we have any more classic and
revered slang than that word.

The evident ease, yet thoroughness, with which Mr. Howard prepared
for his many tasks, is seen in his extended reading among Civil War
records, before writing "Shenandoah." The same "knowledge" sense
must have been a constant incentive to Professor Matthews, in the
preparation of "Peter Stuyvesant."

"The manual of arms," Howard declares, "is simply _great_. I
think we can get the muskets pointed at _Barket_ in about 4 or
5 orders, however; taking the more picturesque ones, so far
as may be possible. I went over the [State] librarian's letter
with a nephew with the most modern of military training: and
as I was at a military school in 1860--just two centuries
after our period--we had fun together. Even with an old
muzzle loader--Scott's Tactics--it was "Load and fire in ten
motions," _now_ antiquated with the breech-loaders of to-day.
The same operation, in 1662, required 28 motions, as
we counted. By the bye, did I tell you that I found the
flint-lock invented (in Spain) in 1625--and it "soon" spread
over Europe? I felt, however, that the intervening 37 years
would hardly have carried it to New Amsterdam; especially as
the colony was neglected in such matters."

From these excerpts it is apparent that Howard had no delusions
regarding the "work" side of the theatre; he was continually insisting
that dramatic art was dependent upon the _artisan_ aspects which
underlay it. This he maintained, especially in contradiction to
fictional theories upheld by the adherents of W.D. Howells.

One often asks why a man, thus so serious and thorough in his approach
toward life, should have been so transitorily mannered in his plays,
and the reason may be in the very _artisan_ character of his work. Mr.
Howard delivered a lecture before the Shakespeare Society of Harvard
University, at Sanders Theatre, in 1886 (later given, 1889, before
the Nineteenth Century Club, in New York), and he called it "The
Autobiography of a Play." In the course of it, he illustrated how, in
his own play, called "Lillian's Last Love," in 1873, which one year
later became "The Banker's Daughter," he had to obey certain unfailing
laws of dramatic construction during the alterations and re-writing.
He never stated a requirement he was not himself willing to abide by.
When he instructed the Harvard students, he was merely elucidating his
own theatre education. "Submit yourselves truly and unconditionally,"
he admonished, "to the laws of dramatic truth, so far as you can
discover them by honest mental exertion and observation. Do not
mistake any mere defiance of these laws for originality. You might
as well show your originality by defying the law of gravitation." Mr.
Howard was not one to pose as the oracle of a new technique; in this
essay he merely stated sincerely his experience in a craft, as
a clinical lecturer demonstrates certain established methods of
treatment.

In his plays, vivacity and quick humour are the distinguishing
characteristics. Like his contemporary workers, he was alive to topics
of the hour, but, unlike them, he looked ahead, and so, as I have
stated in my "The American Dramatist," one can find profit in
contrasting his "Baron Rudolph" with Charles Klein's "Daughters of
Men," his "The Henrietta" with Klein's "The Lion and Mouse," and his
"The Young Mrs. Winthrop" with Alfred Sutro's "The Walls of Jericho."
He was an ardent reader of plays, as his library--bequeathed to the
American Dramatists Club, which he founded--bears witness. The fact
is, he studied Restoration drama as closely as he did the modern
French stage. How often he had to defend himself in the press from
the accusation of plagiarism, merely because he was complying with the
stage conventions of the moment!

It is unfortunate that his note-books are not available. But luckily
he wrote an article at one time which shows his method of thrashing
out the moral matrix of a scenario himself. It is called "Old Dry
Ink." Howard's irony slayed the vulgar, but, because in some quarters
his irony was not liked, he was criticized for his vulgarities.
Archer, for example, early laid this defect to the influence of the
Wyndham policy, in London, of courting blatant immorality in plays for
the stage.

Howard's femininity, in comparison with Fitch's, was equally as
observant; it was not as literarily brilliant in its "small talk." But
though the effervescent chatter, handled with increasing dexterity by
him, is now old-fashioned, "Old Dry Ink" shows that the scenes in his
plays were not merely cleverly arrived at, but were philosophically
digested. How different the dialogue from the notes!

This article was written in 1906; it conveys many impressions of early
feminine struggles for political independence. The fact is, Mr. Howard
often expressed his disappointment over the showing women made in the
creative arts, and that he was not willing to let the bars down in his
own profession is indicated by the fact that, during his life-time,
women dramatists were not admitted as members into the club he
founded.

The reader is referred to two other articles by Mr. Howard--one,
"Trash on the Stage," included in the "Memorial" volume; the other,
on "The American Drama," which is reproduced here, because, written
in 1906, and published in a now obsolete newspaper magazine, it is
difficult of procuring, and stands, possibly, for Mr. Howard's final
perspective of a native drama he did so much to make known as native.

The most national of Howard's plays is "Shenandoah;" it is chosen for
the present volume as representative of the military drama, of which
there are not many examples, considering the Civil War possibilities
for stage effect. Clyde Fitch's "Barbara Frietchie," James A. Herne's
"Griffith Davenport," Fyles and Belasco's "The Girl I Left Behind Me,"
Gillette's "Secret Service," and William DeMille's "The Warrens of
Virginia"--a mere sheaf beside the Revolutionary list which might be
compiled.

According to one authority, "Shenandoah" was built upon the
foundations of a play by Howard, produced at Macauley's Theatre,
Louisville, Kentucky. As stated by Professor Matthews, the facts are
that Howard took a piece, "Drum Taps," to Lester Wallack; who, true
to his English tradition, said that if it was changed in time from
the Civil War to the Crimean, he might consider it. It is certain,
however, that if the cast of characters, as first given under the
management of Montgomery Field, at the old Boston Museum, November
19, 1888, be compared with the program of the New York Star Theatre,
September 13, 1889, it will be found that the manuscript must have
been considerably altered and shifted, before it reached the shape now
offered here as the authentic text. The fact of the matter is, it was
not considered a "go" in Boston; we are informed that such managers
as Palmer and Henry E. Abbey prophesied dire end for the piece. But
Charles Frohman hastened to Boston, on the advice of his brother,
Daniel, and, giving half-interest in the piece to Al Hayman, he
arranged with Field for rights, procured "time" at the Star Theatre
with Burnham, and, as is told in "C.F.'s" biography, hastened to
Stamford, Connecticut, to talk with Howard. According to this source,
he said to the playwright:

"You are a very great dramatist, Mr. Howard, and I am only
a theatrical manager, but I think I can see where a possible
improvement might be made in the play. For one thing, I think
two acts should be merged into one, and I don't think you have
made enough out of Sheridan's ride."

The opening night, with General Sherman in the audience, was a
memorable occasion. It was the beginning of "C.F.'s" rapid rise
to managerial importance, it ushered in the era of numberless road
companies playing the same piece, it met with long "runs," and the
royalty statements mounted steadily in bulk for Howard. It was the
success of the hour.

But "Shenandoah" is undoubtedly conventional; its melodramatic effects
are dependent on stage presentment rather than on the printed page.
In fact, so much an artisan of the theatre was Mr. Howard that he was
always somewhat skeptical of the modern drama in print. When he was
persuaded to issue his last piece, "Kate," in book form, he consented
to the publisher's masking it as a novel in dialogue, hoping thus,
as his prefatory note states, "to carry the imagination directly to
scenes of real life and not to the stage." To the last there was a
distinction in his mind between literature and the drama. It is since
this was written that the play form, nervous and quick, even in its
printed shape, has become widely accepted.

"Shenandoah" is a play of pictorial effects and swiftly changing
sentiment. Were there a national repertory, this would be included
among the plays, not because of its literary quality, but because of
the spirit to be drawn from its situations, framed expressly for
the stage, and because of its pictures, dependent wholly upon stage
accessory. It is an actable play, and most of our prominent actors,
coming out of the period of the late 80's, had training in it.

THE AMERICAN DRAMA

by

BRONSON HOWARD

In considering the present standing of the American drama, compared
with the time when there was little or nothing worthy of the name,
the one significant fact has been the gradual growth of a body of men
engaged in writing plays. Up to the time I started in 1870, American
plays had been written only sporadically here and there by men and
women who never met each other, who had no personal acquaintance of
any kind, no sympathies, no exchange of views; in fact, no means of
building up such a body of thought in connection with their art as is
necessary to form what is called a school.

In what we now style Broadway productions the late Augustin Daly stood
absolutely alone, seeing no other future for his own dramatic works
except by his own presentation of them. Except for Daly, I was
practically alone; but he offered me the same opportunity and promise
for the future that he had given to himself. From him developed a
school of managers willing and eager to produce American plays on
American subjects. Other writers began to drop into the profession;
but still they seldom met, and it was not until about 1890 that they
suddenly discovered themselves as a body of dramatists. This was at
a private supper given at the Lotos Club to the veteran playwright
Charles Gaylor, who far antedated Daly himself. To the astonishment of
those making the list of guests for that supper, upward of fifty men
writing in America who produced plays were professionally entitled to
invitations, and thirty-five were actually present at the supper. A
toast to seven women writers not present was also honoured.

This was the origin of the American Dramatists Club. The moment these
men began to know each other personally, the process of intellectual
attrition began, which will probably result eventually in a strong
school. That supper took place only sixteen years ago; so we are yet
only in the beginning of the great movement. Incidentally, it is also
necessarily the beginning of a school of dramatic criticism of that
art. It is difficult to suppose that a body of critics, merely learned
in the dramatic art of Europe, can be regarded as forming a school of
America.

To go to Paris to finish your education in dramatic art, and return to
New York and make comments on what you see in the theatre, is not to
be an American dramatic critic, nor does it tend in any way to found a
school of American dramatic criticism. The same is true of the man who
remains in New York and gets his knowledge of the drama from reading
foreign newspapers and books.

I stated in a former article in this magazine, "First Nights in London
and New York," that is was only within the last twenty-five or thirty
years that a comparison between the cities and the conditions had
become possible, for the reason that prior to that time there was
really no American drama. There were a few American plays, and their
first productions did not assume the least importance as social
events. As far as any comparison is possible between the early
American dramatists (I mean the first of the dramatists who were the
starting point in the later '60's and early '70's) and those of the
present day, I think of only two important points. There was one
advantage in each case. The earlier dramatists had their choice of
many great typical American characters, such as represented in _Solon
Shingle, Colonel Sellers, Joshua Whitcomb, Bardwell Slote, Mose, Davy
Crockett, Pudd'nhead Wilson,_ and many others.

This advantage was similar in a small way to the tremendous advantage
that the earliest Greek dramatists had in treating the elemental
emotions; on the other hand, we earlier writers in America were
liable to many errors, some of them actually childish, which the
young dramatist of to-day, in constant association with his fellow
playwrights, and placing his work almost in daily comparison with
theirs, could not commit. To do so a man would have to be a much
greater fool than were any of us; and the general improvement in the
technical work of plays by young dramatists now, even plays that
are essentially weak and which fail, is decided encouragement and
satisfaction to one of my age who can look back over the whole
movement.

The American dramatist of to-day, without those great and specially
prominent American characters who stood, as it were, ready to go on
the stage, has come to make a closer study of American society than
his predecessors did. They are keen also in seizing strikingly marked
new types in American life as they developed before the public from
decade to decade.

A notable instance is the exploitation by Charles Klein of the
present-day captain of industry in "The Lion and the Mouse." The
leading character in the play is differentiated on the stage, as in
life, from the Wall Street giant of about 1890, as illustrated in
one of my own plays, "The Henrietta." Mr. Klein's character of the
financial magnate has developed in this country since my active days
of playwriting, and the younger dramatist was lying in wait, ready for
him, and ready to seize his peculiarities for stage purposes.

Another thing is the fact that our dramatists are doing what our
literary men have done, namely, availing themselves of the striking
local peculiarities in various parts of the country. A marked
illustration of this now before the public is Edward Milton Royle's
"Squawman," recently at Wallack's Theatre. The dramatist has caught
his picture just in the nick of time, just before the facts of life
in the Indian Territory are passing away. He has preserved the picture
for us as George W. Cable, the novelist, preserved pictures of Creole
life of old New Orleans, made at the last possible moment.

I could go on mentioning many other plays illustrating phases of life
and society in America, and there could be no better or more positive
proof that a school of American dramatists already exists. This school
will undoubtedly continue to improve in the technical quality of
its work, exactly as it has done in the past, and probably with more
rapidity.

The question has been discussed as to whether we are ever likely to
produce an Ibsen or a Shaw, and under what conditions he would be
received. As far as concerns what may happen in the future in the way
of producing absolutely great dramatists and great plays, using the
word 'great' in the international and historical sense, the opinion of
anyone on that subject is mere guesswork and absolutely valueless.

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