Charles Frohman: Manager and ManMarcosson, Isaac Frederick
General
Charles Frohman: Manager and Man
Marcosson, Isaac Frederick
Frohman, Charles, 1860-1915; Theater -- United States
_Repertory companies are usually associated in the public mind with
the revival of old masterpieces, but if you want to know the
character of my repertory project at the Duke of York's, I should
describe it as the production of new plays by living authors.
Whatever it accomplishes, it will represent the combined resources
of actor and playwright working with each other, a combination that
seems to me to represent the most necessary foundation of any
theatrical success._
Frohman stopped at nothing in carrying out the Repertory Theater idea.
He engaged Granville Barker to produce most of the plays. Barker in turn
surrounded himself with a superb group of players. The most brilliant of
the stage scenic artists in England, headed by Norman Wilkinson, were
engaged to design the scenes. Every possible detail that money could buy
was lavished on this project.
The result was a series of plays that set a new mark for English
production, that put stimulus behind the so-called "unappreciated" play,
and gave the English-speaking drama something to talk about--and to
remember. The mere unadorned list of the plays produced is impressive.
They were "Justice," by John Galsworthy; "Misalliance," by Bernard Shaw;
"Old Friends" and the "The Twelve-Pound Look," by James M. Barrie; "The
Sentimentalists," by George Meredith; "Madras House," by Granville
Barker; "Chains," by Elizabeth Baker; "Prunella," by Lawrence Housman
and Granville Barker; "Helena's Path," by Anthony Hope and Cosmo Gordon
Lenox, and a revival of "Trelawney of the Wells," by Sir Arthur Pinero.
The way "The Twelve-Pound Look" came to be produced is interesting. When
the repertory for the theater was being discussed one day by Barrie and
Barker at the former's flat in Adelphi Terrace House, Barker said:
"Haven't you got a one-act play that we could do?"
Barrie thought a moment, scratched his head, and said:
"I think I wrote one about six months ago when I was recovering from
malaria. You might find it somewhere in that desk." He pointed toward
the flat-top table affair on which he had written "The Little Minister"
and "Peter Pan."
Barker rummaged around through the drawers and finally found a
manuscript written in Barrie's hieroglyphic hand. It was "The
Twelve-Pound Look."
[Illustration: _PAULINE CHASE_]
The production of "Justice" was generally regarded in England as the
finest example of stage production that has been made within the last
twenty-five years. Despite the expense, and the fact that Frohman
insisted upon making each play a splendid production, the Repertory
Theater prospered. It ran from February 21, 1910, until the middle of
May. Its run was temporarily terminated by the death of King Edward
VII., and it was impossible to revive the project successfully after
the formal period of mourning closed.
* * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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