Gigantic Spectacle of Julius Caesar Thrills 40,000: Receipts $50,000

Theatre site, Beachwood Canyon, Hollywood, Calif., Library of Congress, pan 6a02019. Click here for larger image

Source: Guy Price, ‘Gigantic Spectacle of Julius Caesar Thrills 40,000: Receipts $50,000’, Los Angeles Herald, 20 May 1916, p. 1

Production: William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Beachwood Canyon, Los Angeles, 19 May 1916

Text: GIGANTIC SPECTACLE OF JULIUS CAESAR THRILLS 40,000: RECEIPTS $50,000

Forty thousand persons, the largest gathering in the history of Southern California, saw the production of “Julius Caesar” in the natural amphitheater at Beach wood canyon, Hollywood.

This estimate was made by officers of the Hollywood Carnival association, under whose auspices the production was given, today.

It was estimated that $50,000 was derived from the sale of tickets. After the cost of the production is paid for the remainder of this sum will be turned over to the Actors’ Benefit Fund.

The forty thousand persons reveled in a panorama of Shakespeare : such as probably never was seen in j America outside of the wonderfully beautiful Greek theater which nestles in the sun-rimmed Berkeley hills.

As a spectacle they saw something far more wonderful, far more impressive, far more inspiring than their eyes had ever before been privileged to feast upon. They perceived at one heavenly glance the ultra of dramatic artistry and theatric wonderment.

TRIBUTE TO AVON BARD

Confirmation was lacking, but the imagination necessarily does not have to be over-elastic to believe that the Avon bard, whose tercentennial the world is now celebrating, must have turned over in his flower and tribute bedecked grave and smiled with appreciative satisfaction as he visualized this wondrous triumph of brains and beauty. Had he himself lived to direct “Julius Caesar,” I doubt if the vast realism of it all would have been greater.

Every seat in the huge open-air auditorium available to accommodate a human being was occupied; the hilltops to the east, to the west and to the north, wreathed in Stygean darkness held their quota of avid listeners, and hundreds crowded the entrance, disappointed at not being able to enter the gates.

ANNUAL AFFAIR

It was a notable event, one that will remain glued to the memory as long as Shakespearean drama lives—and that will be for always. The only disturbing regret protruding itself through the splendor of the occasion was the fact that the sponsors are unable to stage the performance another night, or for several nights, in order to make possible that more may witness it.

But then we have the consoling promise of those generous-impulsed gentlemen that steps will be taken to make the festival an annual affair, with Hollywood giving its financial backing and Los Angeles its moral and artistic support.

KEEP FAITH

So much had been said of the plans for the production and the public hopes had been buoyed to so high a pitch that even the slightest flaw might have sent some, at the close of the performance, plodding down the mountain side crestfallen.

But the management, the directors and the players kept faith with us and in place of disappointment we ambled through the myriad of wooden benches fully satisfied and content, yea, happy, that we had the foresight to procure a ticket. Not a flaw – I mean a serious one, for in all tremendous undertakings there are bound to creep little discrepancies—not a discordant note save for a rubble of voices coming from the unseated during the opening act, not an intrusion to mar the beauty injected itself so as to be prominently visible to the naked eye; everything ran as smoothly and perfectly as a freshly-pruned racing motor — the entrances, the exits, the complex lighting apparatus, the mob scenes, and last, but by no means least, the competent symphony orchestra of 75 pieces guided by a baton in the master hand of Wilbur Campbell.

40,000 SURPRISED

A stranger next to me expressed surprise that a thing of so gigantic size and multifarious important angles could be operated with so little confusion. His remark is an epitome of the opinion of 40,000 people.

At no time and in no place since the history of man has a community had opportunity to sit through three hours of such delightful entertainment and view so rare and splendid a picture. To those on the outside its divine loveliness is unbelievable; certainly to us it was as though we were in a trance, or riding through a strange, wonderful land in a fairy chariot. It was an optical intoxication new to us.

Here is what we saw in our fairy dream, only it wasn’t a dream at all. Directly in front of us lay a street of Rome, its beautiful Roman architecture glistening in the rays of powerful spotlights: on the right stood the Roman theater, revered in history and play; in the background to the extreme left and towering above the clouds circling the Capitollne hill, was the Homan capitol, within whose walls the mighty Caesar proclaimed his laws and received the tumultuous homage of his people.

HILLS OF ROME

Winding snake-like from the street to the capitol ran a roadway which the king’s subjects ascended and descended at various junctures in the play. And as walls for the theater were the seven hills of Rome. Not the minutest particle of setting was theatrical in texture —all was the real, home-spun stuff built life-size and as near replicas of the originals as history would permit. No curtain drops with scenery painted thereon interjected themselves to destroy the illusion. Everything was real — and beautiful.

And into this colorful setting paraded the pompous Caesar (Theodora Roberts), the conspirator Brutus (Tyrone Power), Marc Anthony (William Farnum), Cassius (Frank Keenan), Lucilius (Tully Marshall), Casca (De Wolf Hopper), Calpurnia (Constance Crawley), Cato (Douglas Fairbanks), Portia (Sarah Truax), Flavius (Wilbur Highy), Cleopatra (Grace Lord), and other well-known and respected citizens of old Rome, escorted by thousands of prettily costumed women and children and an impressive throng of male onlookers.

COMBINATION OF STARS

Most of you are intimately familiar with the Individual artistry of these players, though personally you may never have witnessed their work. Picture, then, if you can, the effect of their combined histrionic efforts. Mere words become feeble in describing a result so exquisitely charming; the eyes and ears alone can drink of its dramatic fragrance. Numerically, the cast was much too large for individual praise, it being remembered that approximately 5000 participated, though the work of each warrants superlatives, so let one word suffice for the behavior of all. That word is “superb.”

The dancing girls were headed by dainty Mae Murray, Marjorie Riley and Capitola Holmes. This trio occupied the center of a picture that for grace and pulchritude and bewitching costumes is not often equaled.

CREATIVE GENIUS

No small credit for the success of the production is due Raymond Wells and his corps of assistants for the superb handling of the cast and entire production. For one thing the performance revealed Mr. Wells’ extensive knowledge of Shakespearean works and his creative genius for giving expression to the same.

There are many others to whom congratulations are not out of place, such men. for instance, as Charles A. Cooke, director general of the affair, and C.C. Craig, his chief aide, but they have reaped their reward in the appreciation that the production commanded from the spectators and the everlasting good will of the Actors’ Fund, in whose behalf the affair was staged.

CROWD ENTRANCE

It was regrettable, indeed, that the early part of the play was unwarrantedly interrupted by late comers.

They were compelled to crowd the entrance while the first scene was in progress, and, bring unable to procure seats, vented their anger by participating in a demonstration wholly ungentlemanly and unladylike, seriously hindering the performers and making it difficult for those seated to follow the threads of the play’s story.

For this condition the management was equally to blame with the disturbers. Lax attention at the main entrance resulted in hundreds swarming into the amphitheater after the play’s progress had begun whereas had these late arrivals been held in leash until the first Intermission ho disagreeableness would have shown on the surface.

The following telegram was received by the Hollywood Carnival association just prior to the “curtain raising” on “Julius Caesar”;

Hollywood Carnival Ass’n,
Hollywood. Calif.

Deeply grateful for Actors’ Fund and myself for the tremendous and magnificent action of all concerned in the production of Julius Caesar, for such a glowing tribute of affection and great service In the Interest of a worthy professional charity.

DANIEL FROHMAN.
Pres. Actors’ Fund of America.

Comments: Guy Price was dramatic editor at the Los Angeles Herald. The production he describes of Julius Caesar was one of the most spectacular and extraordinary Shakespeare productions ever staged. 1916 was the tercentenary of Shakespeare’s death. Many events marking the tercentenary were held around the world. In Los Angeles, the Hollywood Businessmen’s Club decided to put on a spectacular stage production of Julius Caesar, at Beachwood Canyon, a natural amptitheatre in the Hollywood hills. For the major players in the case they invited members of the film industry, which had only recently started establishing studios in the Hollywood area. the film industry provided technical and production talent (including the director of the production Raymond Wells), stage properties (D.W. Griffith, Jesse Lasky, Thomas Ince, Mack Sennett and the Universal Film Corporation all contributed, while Gelenral Electric provided the lighting), and performers. Among the big name film and stage stars were Theodore Roberts (Julius Caesar), Tyrone Power Sr. (Brutus), Frank Keenan (Marc Antony), William Farnum (Cassius), Constance Crawley (Calpurnia), DeWolf Hopper (Casca), Douglas Fairbanks (Young Cato), Sarah Truax (Portia), Horace B. Carpenter (Decius Brutus), Gibson Gowland (Cinna), Tully Marshall (Lucilius) and Mae Murray (Barbaric Dancer).

The remainder of the reported cast of 5,000 was made up of local residents and school students. The production was seen by 40,000 people, and featured vast visual spectacles including a gladiatorial arena and a re-enactment of the Battle of Philippi which commenced half a mile down the canyon before working its way up to the stage, lit all the way by magnesium flares. Roman sentries guided the audience to their seats. Music was supplied by a 75-piece orchestra. Profits of $2,500 went to the Actors’ Fund of America. Following the demands for a repeat production, a cut-down indoor production was staged at the Majestic Theatre, Los Angeles. Regrettably, only a single photograph of the set seems to survive to show something of the ambition of this one-off extravanganza, and despite the Hollywood involvement, it seems no one thought to film any of it.

Links: Copy at California Digital News Collection
Hope Anderson, ‘When Shakespeare Came to Beachwood Canyon: “Julius Caesar,” 1916‘, Under the Hollywood Sign, 9 February 2010
Luke McKernan, ‘Shakespeare in the Canyon‘, The Bioscope, 26 June 2007
Mary Mallory, ‘Hollywood Heights — ‘Julius Caesar’‘, archive of The Daily Mirror blog

An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber

Thomas Betterton as Hamlet, seeing the Ghost in his mother’s chamber, from Nicholas Rowe’s edition of Shakespeare’s works (1709), via Wikimedia Commons

Source: Colley Cibber (ed. Robert W. Lowe), An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, written by himself (London: John C. Nimmo, 1889 [orig. pub. 1740), vol. 1, pp. 99-105

Text: Betterton was an Actor, as Shakespear was an Author, both without Competitors! form’d for the mutual Assistance and Illustration of each others Genius! How Shakespear wrote, all Men who have a Taste for Nature may read and know — but with what higher Rapture would he still be read could they conceive how Betterton playd him! Then might they know the one was born alone to speak what the other only knew to write! Pity it is that the momentary Beauties flowing from an harmonious Elocution cannot, like those of Poetry, be their own Record! That the animated Graces of the Player can live no longer than the instant Breath and Motion that presents them, or at best can but faintly glimmer through the Memory or imperfect Attestation of a few surviving Spectators. Could how Betterton spoke be as easily known as what he spoke, then might you see the Muse of Shakespear in her Triumph, with all her Beauties in their best Array rising into real Life and charming her Beholders. But alas! since all this is so far out of the reach of Description, how shall I shew you Betterton? Should I therefore tell you that all the Othellos, Hamlets, Hotspurs, Mackbeths, and Brutus‘s whom you may have seen since his Time, have fallen far short of him; this still would give you no Idea of his particular Excellence. Let us see then what a particular Comparison may do! whether that may yet draw him nearer to you?

You have seen a Hamlet perhaps, who, on the first Appearance of his Father’s Spirit, has thrown himself into all the straining Vociferation requisite to express Rage and Fury, and the House has thunder’d with Applause; tho’ the mis-guided Actor was all the while (as Shakespear terms it) tearing a Passion into Rags – I am the more bold to offer you this particular Instance, because the late Mr. Addison, while I sate by him to see this Scene acted, made the same Observation, asking me, with some Surprize, if I thought Hamlet should be in so violent a Passion with the Ghost, which, tho’ it might have astonish’d, it had not provok’d him? for you may observe that in this beautiful Speech the Passion never rises beyond an almost breathless Astonishment, or an Impatience, limited by filial Reverence, to enquire into the suspected Wrongs that may have rais’d him from his peaceful Tomb! and a Desire to know what a Spirit so seemingly distrest might wish or enjoin a sorrowful Son to execute towards his future Quiet in the Grave? This was the Light into which Betterton threw this Scene; which he open’d with a Pause of mute Amazement! then rising slowly to a solemn, trembling Voice, he made the Ghost equally terrible to the Spectator as to himself! and in the descriptive Part of the natural Emotions which the ghastly Vision gave him, the boldness of his Expostulation was still govern’d by Decency, manly, but not braving; his Voice never rising into that seeming Outrage or wild Defiance of what he naturally rever’d. But alas! to preserve this medium, between mouthing and meaning too little, to keep the Attention more pleasingly awake by a temper’d Spirit than by meer Vehemence of Voice, is of all the Master-strokes of an Actor the most difficult to reach. In this none yet have equall’d Betterton. But I am unwilling to shew his Superiority only by recounting the Errors of those who now cannot answer to them, let their farther Failings therefore be forgotten! or rather, shall I in some measure excuse them? For I am not yet sure that they might not be as much owing to the false Judgment of the Spectator as the Actor. While the Million are so apt to be transported when the Drum of their Ear is so roundly rattled; while they take the Life of Elocution to lie in the Strength of the Lungs, it is no wonder the Actor, whose end is Applause, should be also tempted at this easy rate to excite it. Shall I go a little farther? and allow that this Extreme is more pardonable than its opposite Error? I mean that dangerous Affectation of the Monotone, or solemn Sameness of Pronounciation, which, to my Ear, is insupportable; for of all Faults that so frequently pass upon the Vulgar, that of Flatness will have the fewest Admirers. That this is an Error of ancient standing seems evident by what Hamlet says, in his Instructions to the Players, viz.

Be not too tame, neither, &c.

The Actor, doubtless, is as strongly ty’d down to the Rules of Horace as the Writer.

Si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi –

He that feels not himself the Passion he would raise, will talk to a sleeping Audience: But this never was the Fault of Betterton; and it has often amaz’d me to see those who soon came after him throw out, in some Parts of a Character, a just and graceful Spirit which Betterton himself could not but have applauded. And yet in the equally shining Passages of the same Character have heavily dragg’d the Sentiment along like a dead Weight, with a long-ton’d Voice and absent Eye, as if they had fairly forgot what they were about: If you have never made this Observation, I am contented you should not know where to apply it.

A farther Excellence in Betterton was, that he could vary his Spirit to the different Characters he acted. Those wild impatient Starts, that fierce and flashing Fire, which he threw into Hotspur, never came from the unruffled Temper of his Brutus (for I have more than once seen a Brutus as warm as Hotspur): when the Betterton Brutus was provok’d in his Dispute with Cassius, his Spirit flew only to his Eye; his steady Look alone supply’d that Terror which he disdain’d an Intemperance in his Voice should rise to. Thus, with a settled Dignity of Contempt, like an unheeding Rock he repelled upon himself the Foam of Cassius. Perhaps the very Words of Shakespear will better let you into my Meaning:

Must I give way and room to your rash Choler?
Shall I be frighted when a Madman stares?

And a little after,

There is no Terror, Cassius, in your Looks! &c.

Not but in some part of this Scene, where he reproaches Cassius, his Temper is not under this Suppression, but opens into that Warmth which becomes a Man of Virtue; yet this is that Hasty Spark of Anger which Brutus himself endeavours to excuse.

But with whatever strength of Nature we see the Poet shew at once the Philosopher and the Heroe, yet the Image of the Actor’s Excellence will be still imperfect to you unless Language could put Colours in our Words to paint the Voice with.

Et, si vis similem pijigere, pinge sonum, is enjoyning an impossibility. The most that a Vandyke can arrive at, is to make his Portraits of great Persons seem to think; a Shakespear goes farther yet, and tells you what his Pictures thought; a Betterton steps beyond ’em both, and calls them from the Grave to breathe and be themselves again in Feature, Speech, and Motion. When the skilful Actor shews you all these Powers at once united, and gratifies at once your Eye, your Ear, your Understanding: To conceive the Pleasure rising from such Harmony, you must have been present at it! ’tis not to be told you!

Comments: Colley Cibber (1671-1757) was an English actor-manager, playwright and poet laureate, whose engaging memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber is one of the best accounts we have of the theatre of his times. He began his acting career in Thomas Betterton‘s company in 1690, and rose in the profession to become manager of Drury Lane Theatre in 1710. Thomas Betterton (c.1635-1710) was the leading English male actor of his time, who frequently played Shakespearean roles (generally in adaptations by writers of the period, including Betterton himself). Going by the rough chronology of Cibber’s memoir, he is referring to performances of Betterton in Hamlet in the 1690s.

Links: Copy at the Internet Archive

‘Poets are borne not made’

Source: Leonard Digges, untitled poem, in Poems: written by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent. (London: John Benson, 1640)

Text: Poets are borne not made; when I would prove
This truth, the glad rememberance I must love
Of never dying Shakespeare, who alone,
Is argument enough to make that one.
First, that he was a Poet none would doubt, (if only he knew!)
That hard th’ applause of what he sees set out
Imprinted; where thou hast (I will not say)
Reader his Workes (for to contrive a Play:
To him twas none) the patterne of all wit,
Art without Art unparaleld as yet.
Next Nature onely helpt him, for looke thorow
This whole Booke, thou shalt find he doth not borrow,
One phrase from Greekes, nor Latines imitate,
Nor once from vulgar Languages Translate,
Not Plagiari-like from others gleane,
Not begges he from each witty friend a Scene
To peece his Acts withal; all that he doth write,
Is pure his owne, plot, language exquisite.
But oh! what praise more powerfull can we give
The dead, than that by him the Kings men live,
His Players, which should they but have shar’d the Fate,
All else expir’d within the short Termes date;
How could the Globe have prospered since through want
Of change, the Plaies and Poems had growne scant.
But happy Verse thou shalt be sung and heard,
When hungry quills shall be such honour bard.
Then vanish upstart Writers to each Stage,
You needy Poetasters of this Age,
Where Shakespeare liv’d or spake, Vermine forbeare,
Least with your froth you spot them, come not neere;
But if you needs must write, if poverty
So that otherwise you starve and die,
On Gods name may the Bull or Cockpit have
Your lame blancke Verse, to keepe you from the grave:
Or let new Fortunes younger brethren see,
What they can picke from your leane industry.
I doe not wonder when you offer at
Blacke-Friars, that you suffer: Tis the fate
Of richer veines, prime judgements that have far’d
The worse, with this deceased man compar’d.
So have I scene, when Cesar would appeare,
And on the Stage at halfe-sword parley were,
Brutus and Cassius: oh how the Audience,
were ravish’d, with what wonder they went thence,
Whom some new day they would not brooke a line,
Of tedious (though well laboured) Catiline;
Sejanus too was irkesome, they priz’de more
Honest Iago, or the jealous Moore.
And though the Fox and subtill Alchimist,
Long intermitted could not quite be mist,
Though these have sham’d all the Ancients, and might raise
Their Authours merit with a crowne of Bayes.
Yet these sometimes, even at a friend’s desire
Acted, have scarce defrayd the Seacoale fire
And doore-keepers: when let but Falstaff come,
Hal, Poins, the rest you scarce shall have a roome
All is so pester’d: let but Beatrice
And Benedick be seene, loe in a trice
The Cockpit Galleries, Boxes, all are full
To heare Malvolio that crosse garter’d Gull.
Briefe, there is nothing in his wit fraught Booke,
Whose Sound we would not heare, on whose Worth looke
Like old coynd gold, whose lines in every page,
Shall passe true currant to succeeding age.

But why do I dead Shakespeare’s praise recite,
Some second Shakespeare must of Shakespeare write
For me tis needlesse, since an host of men,
Will Pay to clap his praise, to free my Pen.

Comments: Leonard Digges (1588-1635) was a minor poet and translator. It is unclear whether he knew William Shakespeare (his mother’s second husband was named by Shakespeare as one of the overseers of his will) but he certainly saw the plays in performance while Shakespeare was alive. He wrote a tribute poem to Shakespeare for the 1623 First Folio, and this posthumously published, longer poem, from the 1640 edition of Shakespeare’s poems, presumably dates from the same period. The poems refers to several of Shakespeare’s plays in performance, comparing them to the works of Ben Jonson, as well as several London theatres: the Globe, Blackfriars, Cockpit and Red Bull.

Links: Digital facsimile at British Library

Thomas Platter’s Travels in England

Source: Thomas Platter, diary entry for 21 September 1599, translated by Clare Williams, in Thomas Platter’s Travels in England (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937), German original reproduced in E.K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), vol. II, p. 322

Production: William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, London, 21 September 1599

Text: On September 21st after lunch, about two o’clock, I and my party crossed the water, and there in the house with the thatched roof witnessed an excellent performance of the tragedy of the first Emperor Julius Caesar, with a cast of some fifteen people; when the play was over they danced very marvellously and gracefully together as is their wont, two dressed as men and two as women.

On another occasion not far from our inn, in the suburb at Bishopsgate, if I remember, also after lunch, I beheld a play in which they presented diverse nations and an Englishman struggling together for a maiden; he overcame them all except the German who won the girl in a tussle, and then sat down by her side, when he and his servant drank themselves tipsy, so that they were both fuddled and the servant proceeded to hurl his shoe at his master’s head, whereupon they both fell asleep; meanwhile the Englishman stole into the tent and absconded with the German’s prize, thus in his turn outwitting the German; in conclusion they danced very charmingly in English and Irish fashion. Thus daily at two in the afternoon, London has sometimes three plays running in different places, competing with each other, and those which play best obtain most spectators.

The playhouses are so constructed that they play on a raised platform, so that everyone has a good view. There are different galleries and places, however, where the seating is better and more comfortable and therefore more expensive. For whoever cares to stand below only pays one English penny, but if he wishes to sit he enters by another door, and pays another penny, while if he desires to sit in the most comfortable seats which are cushioned, where he not only sees everything well, but can also be seen, then he pays yet another English penny at another door. And during the performance food and drink are carried round the audience, so that for what one cares to pay one may also have refreshment.

The actors are most expensively costumed for it is the English usage for eminent Lords or Knights at their decease to bequeath and leave almost the best of their clothes to their serving men, which it is unseemly for the latter to wear, so that they offer them for sale for a small sum of money to the actors.

How much time then they may merrily spend daily at the play everyone knows who has ever seen them play or act.

Comments: Thomas Platter (c.1574-1628) was a Swiss physician and traveller. A diary that he kept on a visit to England over September-October 1599 includes a visit to the newly-opened Globe theatre in London. The Julius Caesar play that he saw on 21 September 1599 is very likely to be that written by Shakespeare.

Links: English text at The Norton Anthology of English Literature