by Paul R. Spitzzeri
It was a powerhouse coupling in theatrical circles when, in late 1926, veteran thespian Jane Cowl took the lead in The Road to Rome, the first play by Robert E. Sherwood, best known as an editor and film critic for Life magazine. This historical comedic satire took a story of ancient Rome and the threat of the Carthaginian general Hannibal at its gates and posited a promotion of pacifism—this derived from the playwright’s First World War service when he was gassed and wounded twice in battle. Cowl’s Amytis, the wife of Roman dictator Fabius Maximus, is the vehicle for anti-war sentiment as she convinces Hannibal to abandon the assault on Rome—the truth is that he lacked the ability to successfully complete a siege on the Eternal City.
In any case, the production debuted at the Schubert Belasco Theatre in Washington, D.C. in January 1927 and then headed to Newark, before it premiered on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre at the end of that month. It was an instant hit and largely praised by critics while going through nearly 400 performances through the beginning of the following year. A revival at the same venue was launched towards later May and ran through 16 June and then most of the cast headed to Los Angeles for a three-week engagement at the Belasco Theatre, which opened in 1926 and still stands and operates as a concert venue next to the Mayan Theatre on the east side of Hill Street north of 11th. The Los Angeles Theatres blog has, as usual, a wealth of information about the theater.
Cowl (1883-1950) was born Jane Bailey in Boston, lived in the Big Apple for much of her younger years and made her Broadway debut in 1903. By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, she was a star, including being widely acclaimed for her Shakespearian roles, especially Juliet, which she performed a record 856 consecutive shows. Her “Jane Cowl” hat was sold in Los Angeles stores in 1913 before she first appeared on the stage in the Angel City in March 1915. She returned in October 1917 and then performed her signature role as Juliet on the local stage five years later, while her play Smilin’ Through, written with Jane Murfin and a very significant commercial success, was also mounted in the city in 1922.
Sherwood (1896-1955) was the son of a founder of the Harvard Lampoon and a stockbroker and an illustrator and painter. He left Harvard to fight in the war and, on his return, worked as a movie critic at Vanity Fair before joining Life, while his 6’8″ height, a good foot taller than the average American male, definitely made him stand out in a crowd. The success of The Road to Rome also made Sherwood stand out in the theatrical world as he was widely feted for his efforts.
Monroe Lathrop, a critic for the Los Angeles Express of 18 July 1928 informed readers that “extraordinary interest attaches to the announcement” that Cowl was returning to Los Angeles to perform in The Road to Rome, said to be “the most popular play in which Miss Cowl has appeared in years.” Lathrop noted that “the language spoken by its characters is the coloquial [sic] speech of the present day,” while adding that “the massive settings were designed by Lee Simonson, art director for the New York Theater Guild.”
A 5 August feature in the Los Angeles Times observed that the play offered Cowl “her first full-length comedy role, though in prior works, including 1917’s Lilac Time, also penned in collaboration with Murfin, the actor’s “characterizations have been touched with a lightsome humorous spirit that served as an effective contrast to the deeper notes of her portrayals.” The performer was quoted as remarking,
A characterization that is entirely serious is apt to be lacking in the quality of reality. Life is not like that. Rain and sunshine alternate and so do human emotions.
In a sense comedy acting is more difficult, perhaps, than the conveyance of emotional stress . . . Not in the great tragic roles, of course; there the intellectuality, the dramatic sense, the experience and fervor of the trained artist is essential.
But in general, the acting of light comedy in which humor is not obviously expressed in the lines or situations demands an informed technique . . . such scenes because of what is left unsaid, because what is expressed by facial expression, by delicate nuances and pauses, are the most delightful in comedy. They require finesss, a technical deftness that is often more difficult than a sweeping emotional climax.
In its edition of the 7th, the Times briefly observed that “as a precedent for the use of contemporary colloquial speech in a play of ancient times, [Sherwood] points to Shakespeare who put current Elizabethan wise cracks into the mouths of the Roman citizens in ‘Julius Caesar,” and the playwright averred that if The Bard was to write that classic in the late 1920s “he would doubtlessly have his soldiers say, ‘How do you get that way, big boy?’ instead of “Now, now, sirrah?” It was added that “‘The Road to Rome’ is described as a comedy that contains much of the grandeur that was Rome and much of the spiciness that is Broadway.”
The Los Angeles Record of the following day provided a bit of a spotlight on the third actor to play Hannibal, this being Sir Guy Standing (1873-1937), who had not appeared in America for 14 years, but it was remarked that the British actor was knighted by King George V for his World War I service in the intelligence section of the Admiralty. This included a year-and-a-half in command of a patrol ship in the English Channel and North Sea.
The Express of the 9th recorded that the newly released film version of Cowl’s Lilac Time, which had a World War theme and starred Colleen Moore and a rising star in Gary Cooper, was playing at the Carthay Circle Theatre, a remarkable venue on the Westside that opened in May 1926, and that the theater’s operators were hoping to invite the actor/playwright to a matinee as a guest of honor and have Moore, then on vacation, present to greet Cowl.
Another actor in The Road to Rome was Jessie Ralph, a veteran stage performer who later appeared in matronly roles in several dozen movies in the 1930s and very early Forties and who played the dictator’s mother. In the same edition of the paper, Ralph was paraphrased as suggesting that “the typical mother-in-law was just as annoying in 200 B.C. as she is today” and that “twenty-two centuries have not changed the matron who feels that her son’s wife cannot possibly be good enough for him.” This was Ralph’s fourth play with Cowl, including “Romeo and Juliet.”
The weekend prior to the opening, which was on Monday the 13th, saw some extensive coverage and the Times of the 11th included striking drawings of Cowl and Standing in character, these rendered by Salvador Baguez (1904-1979). A native of Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican border city across from El Paso, Texas, Baguez, who worked in stock theater in his home country, was a staff artist for the Angel City newspaper during the 1920s and 1930s, but went on to work in technical capacities in the movie industry before becoming a character actor in dozens of films and television for two decades from about 1947 to 1966, while also producing fine sculptures. A caricature of Cowl in the Express of the 11th was less impressive, while on in the Record two days later might well have raised her ire!
A review of The Road to Rome by Gilbert Brown in the Record of the 14th remarked that,
Living in an age of post-war disenchantment and oratorical deflation has its enjoyable compensations and even counter-enchantments. One of the most witty, diverting and potent of these is plays, of which there are all too few, like Robert E. Sherwood’s “The Road to Rome.” Particularly if the play has in it an Athenian [?!] lady, whose Attic salt, Grecian loveliness, and eternal womanliness are embodied in the form, voice and personality of a Jane Cowl.
Despite the striking identifying blunder (though Greeks did settle much of southern Italy and Sicily centuries before Hannibal’s invasion of the north), Brown wrote that the work was so good that it would be hard to buy a ticket during its run if readers didn’t rush to do so. He continued that “Sherwood and 1928 stage direction have taken the wind and strut, the rolling eye and the pompous roar out of the representation of heroes of the classical world” as he observed that “the Hannibal of these prohibition days is a quiet-mannered, humorously inclined fellow, who always invites strangers to go down and see the elephants.”
Brown went on to comment,
That Hannibal should turn back from the gates of Rome without fulfilling his purpose of destroying the imperial city, simply because a talkative woman has persuaded him to look at life for a moment in the light of history and eternity, may be open to doubt. But he did turn back; why, history fails to record, so Mr. Sherwood’s guess is entitled to a hearing. It is certainly as delightful a guess as could be contrived.
There are cogent theories as to why the Carthaginian general abandoned his siege and return home, however. The use of modern language, the critic continued, “makes for familiar humanness as well as for high and broad comedy” and for many “delicious moments,” while Cowl’s Amytis injected “a delicately Rabelaisian flavor that stirred last night’s fashionable audience to guffaws, chortles and shrieks of laughter.” The character’s effect on Hannibal “has an exaltation and mystic glory” that invested his abandonment of the invasion as a type of “sublime and worthwhile gesture.”
Brown opined that Cowl’s Amytis was far superior to her Juliet, while Richie Ling, a British actor with extensive American stage experience, was “splendid” as the dictator and received the second laurel to Cowl in the critic’s estimation. Standing, however, didn’t quite have the physicality, polished as his acting was, to be utterly convincing as the invading general. Ralph was highly praised as the “harridan mother-in-law” while two actors playing smaller roles as soldiers were also credited for their performances.
Elena Binckley in the Hollywood Citizen, also of the 14th, called the play “a highly amusing and engaging modern version of a hitherto debated point in Roman history” and offered that Sherwood’s writing and Cowl’s acting “seem both plausible and entertaining” in terms of this version of why Hannibal turned back from the walls of Rome. Binckley continued, however, that “we can see now that it was quite natural that Hannibal should have been a victim of Jane Cowl’s [Amytis’] philosophy and agree to experience the glory of submission.”
The critic, moreover, observed that, while the first two acts were dominated by writing and acting “in a highly comic—almost impudent—vein,” it was in the concluding third act that the playwright “creeps up on the audience—as it were—and drives home his big theme—the utter futility of war, the fact that every sacrifice made in the name of war is wasted.” Binckley went on to note that it wasn’t the voice of gods that urged the general to battle but the merchants of Carthage and she remarked “as the play progresses, we are inclined to believe that if there had been more women in history like Jane Cowl, perhaps the cruel war Lords would have been made to listen to reason!” The critic added,
“The Road to Rome” is one of the few really great plays Los Angeles has seen this, or any other, season. It has a magnificent theme and is treated in such a way that in the end every member of the audience can put his own interpretation on the conclusion. The play is naughty—but in a big way, if you know what I mean. Never does it stoop to anything that even borders on vulgarity for its humor—everything is deliciously subtle . . . [mostly the play] was exquisitely written and brought showers of applause to the star.
Yet, Binckley commented, having seen the play in New York City, Cowl proved to be somewhat careless in her acting and relied too often on “a number of annoying, purely mechanical and utterly useless gestures that rob her work of that necessary display of spontaneity.” What carried her performances was her strong personality, while “fortunately, she has a great sense of humor that saves many a trite situation.” Overall, though, Cowl was judged to be “a little too sure of herself—evidenced in careless diction and mechanical movements,” perhaps a result of hundreds of performances in a year-and-a-half.
As for Standing, the critic preferred the original Hannibal, Philip Merival, and felt, along with Brown, that, while the actor was technically accomplished “in appearance he seemed to lack that certain appealing something” and may have been “too efficient, too matter-of-fact.” Faring the best in Binckley’s estimation was Ling, who took all “real acting honors” in his portrayal of the clueless dictator who thought it was Roman morality that saved the city, rather than his wife’s expostulations. The critic ended with,
All in all “The Road to Rome” is a delightful play—something you can see over and over—but—it certainly cannot be recommended for one’s children or maiden aunt!
The Record of the 18th informed readers that, as the play headed into its last two weeks, “Miss Cowl’s enthusiastic admirers have crowded the Belasco to absolute capacity and joyously acclaimed this modern comedy . . . considered the best of the many plays in which she has appeared.” The same day’s Express featured Standing, remarking that he first performed in America as a teen and reviewing his wartime exploits, though it added that some of his intelligence work was conducted in the Mediterranean.
Three days before the final performance, in its number of the 28th, the Express turned the spotlight on Joyce Carey (1898-1993), who played Amytis’ slave maid, Meta, noting that she was the daughter of noted British actor Lillian Braithwaite, while adding that her stage debut was with her mother in 1913. She also did her fair share of Shakespearian work as well as playing ingenues. Carey’s first work in America was with Cowl in Noël Coward’s 1925 play “Easy Virtue” and she had a long film career, mostly from about 1940 to the mid-1970s, with occasional television appearances through the late 1980s.
Cowl’s theatrical stardom looks to have peaked with “The Road to Rome,” though she continued with major stage work through the early 1940s and then did stock work afterward. The lead in a few mid-Teen silent movies, the actor appeared in a string of character roles at the end of the Forties and into the early Fifties, the last, a Bette Davis picture, Payment on Demand, was released in 1951 after Cowl’s death.
Sherwood, on the other hand, rose to great prominence after the play completed its first run and was a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, with three for dramatic works and the last for his biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, for whom Sherwood wrote speeches, and his key adviser, Harry Hopkins. Though an ardent pacifist, he supported the World War II fight against Nazi Germany and worked for the Office of War Information’s overseas branch during the conflict. His screenplay for the 1946 film The Best Years Of Our Lives garnered him an Academy Award. His last play was staged two years after his death.
This die-cut herald is the exact one created for the original New York run of “The Road to Rome,” with the only change, of course, being the information that the play was to be performed for three weeks at the Los Angeles Belasco, with matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays and no performances on Sundays. It is a striking artifact reflective of a major theatrical event in the Angel City in 1928, a key year of our interpretation at La Casa Nueva, which was then recently completed, so we’ll look to display it in the house in 2028 for the work’s centennial appearance in Los Angeles.