by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Continuing with our look at the program issued by the Burbank Theatre, situated on the east side of Main Street between 5th and 6th streets in Los Angeles, for the week of 16 August 1914, we note that the venue had then been operated for fifteen years by Oliver Morosco (born Oliver Mitchell), but adopted and raised by theater owner Walter Morosco in San Francisco.
As prior posts here have noted, came to the Angel City from San Francisco in 1899 and took over management of the Burbank, owned by the family of its builder and owner Dr. David Burbank (founder of the city of that name) in conjunction with his adoptive father (who died two years later), and extensively renovated. He then went on to build the Majestic, which was on Broadway, the emerging center of the city’s expanding theater district, and which, after years of planning and a move to another spot on that thoroughfare, opened in November 1908.
After taking over the Los Angeles Theater and renaming it the Lyceum, the impresario built the Morosco Theatre, another Broadway venue, and which premiered in January 1913 before branching out into play production in New York City, with his Morosco Theatre there existing from 1917 to 1982. After a quarter-century in the Angel City, Morosco fell prey to overreaching ambition with the proposed Moroscotown, which has been covered here before, and went bankrupt in 1926.
In summer 1914, however, Morosco was riding high with his various projects and the featured presentation from the program inaugurated a new season as noted by the Los Angeles Express, of 12 August:
When the first of the important premieres of the season is given at the Burbank theater next Sunday afternoon, opening what probably will be the most active producing campaign in Oliver Morosco’s career, the Burbank cast will be strengthened by the return of Frances Slosson, one of the most competent leading women who have graced the local boards.
Slosson has been long forgotten as have her husband and director, Franklyn Underwood, and Louis K. Anspacher, the writer of the play, “His Son,” which was receiving its first performance anywhere. Anspacher, who had several degrees, including in law, was a well-known lecturer and poet as well as a dramatist, with quite a few of his plays performed through much of the early 20th century.
Better known was lead actor Henry Kolker, who started his theatrical career in the mid-1890s and began acting in films in 1915, with dozens of credits until his death in 1947 while also directing eighteen pictures in the silent era. The trio of performers were recently in a Morosco production in Chicago, as well.
The next day’s Express provided a brief synopsis of the play, observing that,
His Son is the story of an old German who under American conditions insists that his son must have all the advantages and refinements that the parent failed to receive. In looking so closely after the interests of his son he overlooks the best interests of his daughter. The son turns out to be a lovable scapegrace [rascal]. The play is announced as having a broad element of comedy and romance with big situations and a remarkably entertaining story.
In a review on the 17th, the paper added that the result of the father’s favoring of his son led to his financial ruin and Anspacher was praised for his employment of “technical art and deep feeling,” while it opined that “the pathos of the piece . . . is sound and true” and the “humor is gentle and spontaneous.” Moreover, the plot was singled out for “admirable directness” that continued from start to finish and embodied a “vigorous idealism” that did not become prey to “didacticism,” presumably over lecturing of the audience.
Kolker was deemed “one of the most capable actors in the country” and lauded for his portrayal of the patriarch and shoe manufacturer, Willibald Engel, while Slosson playing the daughter Bertha, Donald Bowles (whose mother, Ada, was a noted woman suffrage advocate and temperance leader) as the son, Theodore, and another actor were also given kudos for their work. Lastly, the piece noted that “the piece was handsomely staged by Oliver Morosco.”
The Los Angeles Times offered a lengthier analysis by Henry Christeen Warnack, who was the paper’s drama editor as well as a novelist, poet and scenario and script writer in Hollywood, and he had a mixed impression of the piece, commenting that there were “two acts so big they hurt—acts wonderfully written and wonderfully played—and then a fall; two great, soaring flights right to the skies and then the earth again; two acts that go toward a dizzying pinnacle of art and then the crash.”
Taking on the role of a jury, Warnack declared that Anspacher was both innocent and guilty, convicted of “writing two of the finest acts I have ever witnessed in a drama and one of the most disappointing.” He added that there were several curtain calls after the first act, while, when the second closed, the audience continued its ovation “until it wrung a speech from Mr. Kolker,” but, when the performance ended, the crowd acted “as if the happening was unexpectedly unpleasant” as a plot device used not long before proved to be more than underwhelming.
The problem seemed to have to do with an inconsistency in the plot line regarding Underwood’s character, Richard Hellman, foreman in the shoe business, who insists that his wife, Bertha Engel, not see her father until Hellman is able to intercede for her in lieu of the support not given to her because of the favoritism to her brother. Bertha, however, already had visited the family house, so this ruined what was considered a poor ending by the critic, as Hellman forgets his demand when Willibald Engel sizes him for a new pair of shoes.
Warnack insisted that, not only could the work be salvaged by a reworking of the last half of the final act, but “His Son” could become “one of the glory plays of the day” because the first two acts “are so superb that I would advise everybody seeing them, even if they save themselves by leaving the show at that point, or soon after.” This might have led to a partial rewrite and the name change, as well. Kolker was cheered for the “piquant flavor” and strong characterization, reflecting “tremendous energy” that left the audience “astounded at his overwhelming vitality.”
As to rest of the case, the critic gushed that “better support a leading man seldom has the luck to command,” as Slosson was deemed “an exquisite pleasure every moment of her presence” and “she brings depth and power to the point of dramatic finality” at the conclusion of the first act. Praised for both being herself and her character and “the woman who lives in the lines and scenes of the play,” Slosson was said to be “gloriously adequate,” which is certainly an interesting phrase.
Bowles was given “a good part” for which the audience was “grateful,” while veteran Harry S. Duffield, said to have acted with the legendary Edwin Booth back in the 1870s, was highly credited for his role as a banker and, in another strange expression, “clinches the argument against chloroform at 60.” As for Underwood, the critic suggested that, if he wooed Slosson as effective in real life as on stage, “it is no wonder that he was the best man at his own wedding.”
An interesting sidelight to the performances of “His Son,” which ran two weeks at the Burbank is that one of the theatre parties was under the auspices of the Holy Cross Court of the Catholic Order of Foresters, a fraternal benefit society, of which there were so many at the time, established in Chicago in 1883 to provide life insurance and annuities to members. The Los Angeles-based Catholic newspaper, The Tidings, reported, in its 7 August issue, that,
A special play will be put on for this evening [the 17th] by the stock company of the Burbank. Directly after the theatre party there will be an elaborate banquet served to the members of the Order and their friends, at Harlow’s Cafe, here provisions have been made for the entire Cafe for this particular event. The unique feature for the evening will be a program which will be given to all the patrons of the party, bearing pictures of the candidates for office who are members of the Catholic Order of Foresters or friends of the Order. They will be given the opportunity to meet the audience, and at the banquet the best speakers that Los Angeles has will address the attendance [sic.]
Proceeds from the evening were to go to the sick and benefit fund run by the Order and to a parochial school, while it was requested that children be encouraged to attend as “provisions have been made for the entire gallery” for them. As for Harlow’s Café, a recent post on this blog featured this short-lived, but notable, restaurant, which opened in September 1913.
The Express of the 18th reported briefly that between 1,000 and 1,500 guests were part of this massive event, with those running for office being guests of honor, while “a splendid banquet was enjoyed” and “many speeches and toasts being happily made.” In addition, attorney Elmer McDowell gave a talk on “Woman’s Place in Politics” and it would be interesting to know the substance of his presentation as women received the right to vote in local and state elections in 1911 and would be given national suffrage on the passage of the 19th Amendment at the end of the decade.
With respect to the program, it contained theater staff, pricing and basic information, including a fire notice; information about “His Son,” including the characters and actors and synopses of scenes, with a note that “stage decorations of Oriental goods furnished by Sing Fat Company, the leading Chinese bazaar” along with other providers of materiel used in the performances; and the musical program by the theater’s orchestra led by Joseph N. Laraia, a violinist who played in a hotel band in Catalina Island as a young man and later became a dentist.
As to expected wealth of advertisements, there are those that would be expected in a theater program, such as for musical instruments; banks; cafes and confectioners like the Royal Spanish Grill and Cafe Bristol for the former and The Chocolate Shop and Pin Ton for the latter; the Southern Pacific Railroad; and the Los Angeles Brewing Company, the local purveyor of Eastside Beer.
More surprising are ones for Professor M.C. Martinez, a divine healer; for guns and ammunition for the onset of deer season by the William H. Hoegee sporting goods company; and for the Motograph, a roof-mounted electrical sign which “contains a long roll of paper exactly like a player piano” and “will fling out twenty advertisements” with words five feet high “and of a dazzling whiteness” that might be considered an antecedent to the neon sign.
Hearkening back to the Order of Foresters theatre party, the program, unlike any playbill you’ll see today, displayed ads for political office-seekers, including many for police judge or justice of the peace; Superior Court judge, gubernatorial candidate Charles M. Belshaw (whose father opened the Cerro Gordo mining district in which F.P.F. Temple was heavily invested in the 1870s); Joseph Knowland, running for United States Senator (his son, William, did serve in the Senate); successful candidate for District Attorney, Thomas Lee Woolwine; and Antonio Orfila, a lawyer running for a Superior Court judgeship and who was connected to the Temple family as a previous post here discusses. One wonders how many of these were Catholics and attended the party.
We have a few other Morosco-related artifacts in the Museum’s holdings, including from this theatre, the Majestic and others, such as a piece of sheet music for a song co-written by him, so look for future posts featuring some of these as part of our “Treading the Boards” series on this blog. For more on the Burbank Theatre, check out the page on the Los Angeles Theatres blog.