49. Bernhardt and the Playboy

COPYRIGHT 2023 Peter Schmitz - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

[AITH OPENING THEME]

Welcome to Adventures in Theater History! Here on this show we try to bring you the best stories from the deep and fascinating history of theater in the city of Philadelphia. Hello I’m Peter Schmitz, and I’m supported, as ever, by the music and the sound design of Christopher Mark Colucci. As we like to say around here, this is not just a show about Philadelphia or for Philadelphians. It’s for everybody. We are attempting to tell a larger story about American theater history, and America in general, but we are doing it mainly by looking around and finding the stories that happened right where we are, because as it turns out there was a lot going on here in Philly.

We have two stories for you today, both about prestigious international theater artists coming to Philadelphia, only to be met by some folks who called their work “indecent, profane and objectionable.” In the overall timeline of the show we are now at about 1911/1912. It was an era of revolutions in the world at large; political, social, sexual and cultural. Here in sleepy old Philadelphia some folks were really alarmed about that. And since live theater was a major element of most folks' lives in that time, the battle often started in the Quaker City’s lobbies and audiences and spread right onto its stages.

From the 18th Century onward, as we’ve detailed in the early episodes of this podcast, there was a deep suspicion by many folks in Philadelphia towards the theater in general, though that mostly disappeared by the 1790s. Still, throughout the 19th Century there were still quite a number of attacks on the theater by a few of the city's newspaper editors, clergymen, and politicians. Late 19th Century American musical comedies and burlesque shows, in particular, with their large choruses of beautiful young women in alluring clothing particularly drew fire from pulpits and moral scolds.

But today’s show is about calls for censorship in the theater in the early 20th century, and we'll illustrate it by bringing you these two specific stories. It’s all part of our continuing Season Two, because these stories should be seen as a definite continuation of the episodes about the play The Quaker City, back in the 1840s, The Clansman in 1906 and the opera Salome in 1909.

Censorship is a topic that has sudden relevance in American society once again today here in 2023, as once again there are public campaigns for eliminating so-called offensive books from school libraries, and self-appointed scolds are once again roiling the media with alarming warnings about the end of morality and decency, while many lawmakers scurry to pass legislation protecting children from the supposed dangers of ravenous sex perverts, political ideologues and social revolutionaries. And like many exasperated professional historians, I’m also trying to point out that we’ve seen all of this before, and in the long run this never turns out well.

I’m pretty sure that no one on the side of the censorious is actually listening to me or really, you know, cares what is said on a little podcast like this one. But I’m here to say it anyway. Because, as we’ll see today, in a very real way, the present historical moment makes all the more clear that there are moments in theater history when Drama Is Conflict.

[-“DRAMA IS CONFLICT” Theme]

December 20, 1910: the Rev. Dr. George Chalmers Richmond - the rector of St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church on Brown Street in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties neighborhood - was on his way to New York. Richmond had been sent by his bishop on a specific mission: to gather evidence about Sarah Bernhardt - and her sacrilegious play La Samaritaine - before they got to Philadelphia.

Madame Bernhardt, the most famous actress in the world, was now 66 years old. She was touring America for the eighth time in the last 33 years. And as always she brought along with her company of French actors and her standard repertoire of both classic and modern French plays. Among which was her famous portrayal of the teenage heroine Joan of Arc, in which Bernhardt sent a thrill through the audience every time she defiantly announced her age to her persecutors in the play: “J'ai seize ans!” (I am sixteen).  Though she was in fact now decades older than all the characters she was playing, and though few Americans actually spoke or understood French, audiences flocked to see her, wherever she went. She was a sensation in Kansas City as well as New York, in San Francisco as well Boston - as well as Des Moines. She had played Philadelphia numerous times, over the years, most recently in 1906.

Now, Bernhardt did have a few extra challenges on this tour. First, there was the pain in her bad right leg, which had been bothering her for years. (Eventually it would result in that leg’s amputation, but we weren’t at that point yet.) Second, there was the effort to keep stories out of the press about her love affair with Lou Tellegen, 37 years her junior. Tellegen was a beautiful fellow with no acting talent whatsoever - and had a pronounced Dutch accent when he spoke French - but nonetheless she had made him her leading man in many of her plays, as well as in her private life, and even in public she doted on him when they were out together. Onstage, he would appear with her in such plays as Phedre, La Tosca, La Dame aux Camelias, L’Aiglon, Sapho, La Sorciere, and . . .  La Samaritaine

Now, his last play - its title translates to “The Samaritan Woman” - had attracted the ire of one vigilant American christian - Mr Edward Feeney of New York, the President of the American Federation of Catholic Societies. Mr. Feeney - and here I’m going to note an exception, because most of the bluenoses we’re going to talk about today rarely set a foot inside a theater - had actually seen Bernhardt’s plays, and he was scandalized by almost all her repertoire, as she blithely switched back and forth between holy and profane roles. Why, she would play the blessed St. Joan one night and then the courtesan Camille the next! And then, worst of all, to the mind of Mr. Feeney at least - was La Samaritaine, the Biblical play by Edmond Rostand, she appeared onstage, as a Samaritan woman, offering water from the well of Jacob to another actor playing Jesus Christ. It was outrageous to have Christ personified on stage, said Feeney. He publicly demanded that the Mayor of New York ban the play from being performed in the city. Bernhardt scornfully rebuked Feeney in the New York papers: Why this play had been composed on purpose to be performed in Paris during Easter week! She could assure Mr Feeney that there were just as many good Catholics in Europe as in America. At any rate, said Bernhardt, she refused to pull the play from performance. “The great and noble American people will be the judge,” she declared.

Word of this public dispute reached the ears of prominent clergymen in Philadelphia, where Bernhardt’s tour would be arriving in just two months. This was why George Chalmers Richmond had been despatched by the Bishop Rhinelander, with instructions to bring back details of why the scandalous play should be condemned and banned so he could bring the evidence to the attention of the Mayor of Philadelphia.

Also, up in arms against the play were The Christian League, a multi-denominational organization who, as you may remember, had already led a battle against the production of the opera Salome at the Hammerstein Opera House the previous year. The Christian League now declared its opposition to the French actress’ blasphemy too. But they were a little confused Perhaps because she played a male role in another Rostand drama, L’aiglon, (we talked about it in an earlier episode).  they thought they knew what role she was enacting in this other play.  “No performance of La Samartaine with Sarah Bernhardt in the role of Jesus Christ will be given in this city if the Christian League can prevent it,” they declared. And it just got worse from there, there were articles every day in the papers, and Philadelphia’s pulpits once again rang with denunciations of the wicked stage. In all, over 400 Philadelphia clergymen signed a petition decrying Bernhardt and the Rostand play.

Bernhardt, for her part, when she heard of this new kerfuffle breaking out, pronounced herself completely baffled by the entire affair. “Why should Philadelphia object to so great, so beautiful a play?”  Christ was currently being depicted in these newfangled moving pictures, the cinematograph, and no one has objected, she pointed out. What was so wrong about seeing Him in live theater?

But on January 30th 1911, The Mayor of Philadelphia, James E. Reyburn, bowed to the two-month long pressure campaign. He famously had refused to ban Salome, but now felt he could not hold back the firestorm any longer. The mayor's edict, set forth in a telegram to the city's director of Public Safety, read:

"Withdraw all police protection from the Broad Street Theatre Wednesday and Friday afternoons, during performance of La Samaritaine. Notify owners of theatre that their license for these afternoons is suspended - that is, if these performances are given. It is without the sanction of the law and entirely upon their own responsibility. Signed, James E. Reyburn, Mayor."

[12:03] The Protestant minister Carl E. Grammer, who along with the Reverend Russell H. Conwell, the founder and president of Temple University in Philadelphia, had organized a large public meeting against the play that same day, read the telegram from Mayor Reyburn to the entire meeting. And everyone present pronounced themselves satisfied and joined in on the applause

There were, however, two major dissenters out of all the city of Philadelphia's prominent clergy and politicians joining the crusade against La Samaritaine. One was the Rabbi Emmanuel Schreiber (who was of course not Chrisian) of the Congregation Beth El, who had publicly expressed the opinion that the play perhaps conveyed a great moral lesson about tolerance and forgiveness. He said it was no more objectionable than the famous Passion Play of Oberammergau in Germany, which after all also had a human actor playing Jesus Christ did nit no. But the good rabbi’s opinions were discounted by most in the group condemning the play. (After all, he was Jewish, as was Sarah Bernhardt herself, by birth.)

The only prominent Christian dissenter was Reverend George Chalmers Richmond, who had actually seen Bernhardt's performance in New York. But though he had been explicitly sent on this mission to condemn her, instead as he sat in the theater, the great French actress had worked her magic, and she had converted him to the side of Art. Chalmers now felt the play should not only be allowed by Philadelphia, it should be happily attended by every good Christian in the city!

In his sermon to his parishioners at St. John’s, Richmond said:

"In the days past the Church has always given her blessings to the gifts of consecrated genius . . . In La Samaritaine we see this. It is as good as a sermon . .. . Such demonstrations as the one recently witnessed in our city, condemning the work of a great world genius, even before the play has been seen, is sure to injure the Church in the estimation of men." 

But unfortunately Mayor Reyburn, even if he ever heard this sermon, was unmoved. He had political constituencies to placate after all. And the ban on the plat stood.

Sarah Bernhardt had learned to become accustomed to the odd ways of American moral crusaders. She just shrugged in a proper Gallic manner, and calmly replaced the play in her schedule of Philadelphia performances at the Broad Street Theatre with another one, the conventionally scandalous (but not irreligious) melodrama Madame X.

The Rev. Dr. Richmond's bishop, Bishop Rhinelander, however, never forgave him for this betrayal over La Samaritaine. The two men frequently thereafter were in conflict, and a few years later Richmond actually called Rhinelander a Pharisee, which would never do, and he was brought up on charges with the Episcopal Church council, and dismissed from the ministry.

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But that was not the end of the “crisis in the theaters” story. Because after all this uproar, somebody in power decided to do something even more about the whole problem of immorality on the American stage. There was going to be a new theatrical censorship law in Philadelphia, indeed throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

In February, 1911, Pennsylvania State Senator Joe McNichol introduced a bill in the legislature prohibiting the presentation of “objectionable plays” - and that went for operas, vaudeville, movies or any other type of performance. The penalty for conviction was $1000 or one year in prison, or both. When asked why such a law was necessary, Senator McNichol specifically cited  Salome and La Samaritaine. “If I had my way it would apply to Mary Garden and some of her operas and to every other opera or play, moving pictures or anything that tends to corrupt the morals of our boys and girls and seeks to profane sacred subjects, I am against them all,” said McNichol. 

The law was passed, and by June of that year, much to the alarm and dismay of Philadelphia's theatrical managers, who felt they should be left to run their own businesses as they saw fit. Now anyone who wanted to run a public campaign against any play or show had a real weapon to attack their opponents with, it was no joke. As the law was written, any person could file a complaint about an indecent show, ask for a citizens’ warrant, and get the people running the theater in the city arrested!

I should point out here that Senator McNichol was not a conservative, at least not in the political spectrum of the day - in fact he was a leading reformer, and a vocal opponent of the long-standing Vare/Penrose Republican Party political machine that had been running Philadelphia for decades. McNichol would be an ally of next Mayor of Philadelphia, Rudolf Blankenburg, who for a brief period in the late nineteen-teens ran one of the few really efficient and non-corrupt Philadelphia administrations ever. Now how do we explain Mr. McNichol? Back then it was quite normal for supposedly reform-minded folks to take stands that many of us would consider quite horrific today. Prohibition, forced sterilizations, eugenics, and that sort of thing. Cleaning up immorality in the theater was to them the same as cleaning up corruption in city politics - many reformers thought that risque plays only existed because the producers were paying bribes and working hand in hand with corrupt old-guard politicians. And they often saw their work as a defense of the moral lives of vulnerable women and innocent children, of the very future of the nation. Of course we can see now that what they were really protecting was their idealized image of what childhood and femininity was supposed to be like, but - It’s important to remember that political labels of the past don’t always line up very well with those of the present. 

[MUSIC OUT]

We'll see the evidence of that very clearly in our next story, when another international troupe,  the Irish Players, came to Philadelphia.

[ TRANSITION MUSIC]

January 15, 1912: The Irish Players, from Dublin, Ireland were on an American tour, and had arrived in Philadelphia to perform at the Adelphi Theatre - you remember that the Adelphi was built the Shubert Brothers had built, along with its twin the Lyric Theatre, just north of City Hall at the very heart of the city. This touring group was brought in by a New York theatrical manager, and it was shepherded by Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory herself. Lady Gregory was one of the leading figures of the Irish literary revival that was going on at the time, and at the age of 59 was a major figure in Irish - and even world - theater.

This company was not like all the many Irish comics and comedians that had been coming through Philadelphia for the past 100 years, Tyrone Power, John Drew, Sr, Chauncey Olcott. In this company’s repertoire were a number of very interesting and very serious and quite high-quality literary shows, including The Well of the Saints by the playwright J.M. Synge, who had only recently passed away. There was also an evening of three one-acts, including The Showing Up of Blanco Posnet by George Bernard Shaw, The Building Fund by William Boyle, and The Rising of the Moon by Lady Gregory herself.

But it was when the company performed their most famous two Irish plays, the brief one act Kathleen ni Houlihan by Wiliam Butler Yeats, and the famous three-act The Playboy of the Western World, also by J.M. Synge, that trouble broke out.

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As you may know, J.M. Synge’s Playboy tells the story of a young man, Christy Mahon, who one morning shows up in a remote Western Irish village in County Mayo, boasting that he had just killed his abusive father over in a neighboring town. Rather than turning him in to the authorities, everyone marvels at his pluck, and Christy gains the admiration of the village women including a young woman, called Pegeen Mike, and older woman named the Widow Quin. One line in the play in particular always seemed to upset people, a ‘shift’ - a poor woman’s undergarment -  was mentioned. Despite the lovely and lyrical language in which the play was written, this sort of thing was regarded by certain Irish patriots as an insult to Irish national character, and to the moral purity of Irish women in particular. In the play Christy wins the love Pegeen, who even after learning that Christy’s father was not really dead - the arrival of the bloodied but very much alive old man is one of the most famous entrances in stage history now -  Pegeen persists in her admiration for the plucky Christy, and throws over her hapless former suitor Shawn Keogh. 

The expression of male desire was normalized in the mores of the day, and women were only supposed to, well, defend their virtue, until marriage. If they didn’t they weren’t a nice lady. Admitting that a ‘nice’ young female might have her own erotic life and her own bodily passions, that was something else altogether, and some people were just not having it.

At the play’s world premiere in Dublin in 1907, irate Irish patriots rose from the audience in the middle of the play and began shouting at the players demanding the play stop immediately. A really hooley ensued - that’s a famous story and perhaps you know it already. It was a time of rising nationalist fervor in Ireland for independence from Great Britain, a political movement that would eventually result in the Easter Rising in 1916, just four years on from where we are in our story . .  But it’s less well remembered that when the Irish Players, a touring band made up largely of actors from the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, brought this same play to America, riots similar to those in Dublin in 1907 broke out almost everywhere they went. There was, after all, a huge Irish diaspora in the US, after all, and fraternal Irish American organizations were simply everywhere. And they had heard from the  . . . .  they would not have their heritage, and their women insulted. Audience protests had occurred in Boston and New York in late 1911 - in New York a stink bomb was even set off in the house one night, which rather spoiled the evening.

And it was no good to point out that the cast  of the play were all Irish patriots themselves. Nor was it any use explaining to these protestors some people the deeper cultural relevances and the deep affectionate humor for Irish folkways that the piece contained. They felt that they were protecting something that needed defending.

[FADE OUT MUSIC]

Now this wasn’t the case with everyone, and when the company showed up in Philadelphia, there was much interest in seeing the shows, but authorities had been careful to station policemen - a majority of them, of course, of Irish stock themselves - conspicuously all around the house. The Philadelphia director of Public Safety was determined NOT to have another repeat of the goings on at the Walnut Street Theatre during The Clansman just five years before, after all. But they did not count on the long-held tendency of Philadelphians - documented in many episodes of this podcast - to feel they had the right to express themselves in a theater.

The curtain had hardly been up for ten minutes when Joseph McLaughlin, National Vice President of the Ancient Order of Hibernians rose from his seat in the center of the orchestra section, and yelled “I protest against this play. It is a shame! Why don’t you present the Irish character as it really is?”

Well everybody had been expecting something like that, and even the actors just gamely kept going. But they finally gave up as other men started yelling in support, and kept yelling until the police escorted them out, to the applause of the rest of the audience. The show went on, until the second act when a voice rose from the balcony: "Since time immemorial, no Irishman ever uttered such words as you players have tonight. You and your like are a disgrace to the Irish race!"

In an instant the entire house was in a turmoil. More men rose from elsewhere in the house and also began shouting and hurling insults. The house lights were brought up and fights broke out between protestors and other audience members. Fortunately, Philadelphia police who were stationed in the theater quickly entered and evicted all the rioters. They were arrested and brought to Philadelphia's City Hall - which after all was just a block away from the theater.

They next night, however, as the play began it was even worse. By this point even newspapers from other American cities were present to see what would happen down in Philly. And well, they had plenty to write about. Even during the curtain-raiser, Cathleen ni Houlihan, somebody in the balcony threw a box of snuff into the air, which caused of course the entire audience to cough and sneeze for the next ten minutes, drowning out Yeats’ little folk play. Once the main event Playboy began, from the very beginning of the show the Philly police were wrestling a series of shouting men out of the theater. And they didn’t just yell. The New York Times reported that “in the course of the performance an egg, half a dozen programs, and [in the second act] a section of a very moist pie were hurled at the players . .[the pie] shot over the heads of the thrilled audience, leaving its soft trail behind it. . . More men were ejected [by the police], and when it was over twelve hats, mangled beyond recognition lay in the aisles . . Again in the third act the protest was repeated. A red-faced individual, in the middle of the parquet, rose to his feet. Christy [Mahon] had just reiterated his boast of parricide and Pegeen Mike and the other colleens were standing by, awed and worshipful. The rubicund individual fortified himself with a long pull from a black bottle. In his left hand he had a manuscript. “In the name of Country Down,” he began, reading from the  manuscript, “I hereby . . “ But he got no further. A police detective grabbed the orator’s coat and hauled him without ceremony to the lobby.” Along with all the other ejected men they were locked up while a crowd of sympathizers thronged outside City Hall.

By the next day the Philly newspapers were having a real field day with the next twist on the story - because in the municipal courtroom dock sat not just all the men who had been arrested, but the entire company of the Irish players, including Lady Gregory, as well as L.A. Blumberg, manager of the Adelphi Theatre! It seems that Joseph Garrity, a local liquor dealer, had sworn out a warrant against them, under the act of 1911 that allowed private citizens to prosecute the producers of an immoral play, declaring it was unfit for production in any theater. Furthermore two Catholic priests, Father McGarrity of St. Monica’s in South Philly and Father Higgins of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in West Philly were present to support Garrity. The two clergymen vehemently denounced Playboy of the Western World to the judge as being “disgustingly immoral, blasphemous, and obscene.” A trio of epithets so vivid, that I simply had to use them for the title of this episode - for which I thank them both. They and their attorneys asked for the full thousand dollar fine to be imposed as well as the year’s imprisonment.

Reading over the accounts of the court proceedings in the newspapers, it’s kind of hilarious how much they resemble modern dramaturgy seminars - or spirited talk-back sessions. Father McGarrity insisted the play was degrading, because it advocated parricide. “But Christy didn’t murder his father,” pointed out the Judge, with a barely suppressed smile. “To all intents and purposes he did, up until the end of the first act,” the priest replied. “This is a very indecent and insidious plot.”

I’m happy to report that in the end the arrested Irish and American theater folk were all immediately set free that day, and were able to do the show that night at the Adelphi. In fact they finished up the whole run in Philadelphia without too much more incident, and soon afterwards all formal charges against them were dismissed.Nobody wanted to prosecute anyone under that law, because it wouldn’t stand up to any judicial review. Lady Gregory and the Irish Players received an apology and a farewell from Mayor Blankenburg, and the tour went on to other American cities and the disputes and protests of their local Irish populations.

And our old friend the Reverend George Chalmers Richmond, over at Saint John’s Episcopal Church, who at that point still possessed his pulpit, preached a happy sermon that Sunday on “Racial Sensitiveness’ to his congregation, and although he was perhaps a bit too pleased about the defeat of his Irish Catholic colleagues, we can commend him for his sentiments.

He too had gone to see Playboy of the Western World, Reverend Chalmers told his flock. “I was not disappointed. I spent three happy hours and came away rejoicing. I had had a chance to see real, true, old-fashioned Irish character. The Irish Players are an admirable set of actors. We want them to return to our city when bigots and false zealots will not arrange to offer insults and blasphemies to ladies and gentlemen of a most honorable company. Philadelphia is progressing, we want Mr. George Bernard Shaw to know that we now have a mayor who is really appreciative of dramatic genius.”

Whether that last bit was true or not - and one hopes it was -  it was abundantly clear to everyone that the 1911 McNichol law was unenforceable and likely unconstitutional. And the prospect of the Philadelphia courts being endlessly tied up with lectures and lawsuits brought by various political groups and religious fanatics who disliked a certain play seemed intolerable. A whole city full of potential censors? That was only going to lead to chaos and headaches, as had just been clearly demonstrated in the Adelphi Theater. And yet to many the issue remained, what could be done to protect public decency and order, which again was a burning issue of the time. These moving pictures had the potential, especially to take moral values in a whole new direction. After all, as Sarah Bernhardt wisely pointed out - if Christ could be in a movie, as well as fallen women in flimsy dresses, what else might folks have to expect from the world of the cinema? Think of the children! So it was decided to take it out of the hands of private citizens. What we need is an intervening body, a group of qualified officials, in other words: a professional Board of Censorship.

[- “Drama is Conflict” CLOSING THEME]

So that’s where we’re going to leave it today, ladies and gentlemen. But don’t despair - I have got so many great stories about censorship fights in Philly theater from the 1920s and 30s - stories that are hilarious and charming and some that are ominous and alarming. This next episode will be out in a couple weeks, just in time for our two year anniversary! I won’t say the time has flown - because it’s been a long and fascinating trip and I remember all of the time I’ve spent in libraries, in archives, and at my desk getting this show together. Chris and I are hoping to keep this thing going for a while - but as the saying goes, hey - we need your help.

First, we need feedback! If you’re a new listener or a longtime one, would you write to us? - Tell us why you tuned in, why you’ve kept tuning in, what you’re particularly enjoying about the show or what you’d like to know more about - and that maybe we’ve maybe missed so far. We’d love to hear from you. Our email is aithpodcast@gmail.com. Or you can contact us via our website.

Second, there is also a Patreon account for those of you who want more information and images and special posts that are not available elsewhere, and who want to support our work, and to see it be able to continue. In fact, right now I am working on a special bonus episode - only for Patreon supporters, about how The Clansman returned to Philadelphia as the film Birth of a Nation in 1915, and a brand new fight that broke out in the city about that. So if you don’t want to miss that story - when it’s finally ready - come on board and join the fun! There’s a lot more bonus material already on there you might enjoy, and really the cost is just a few bucks. Look for us on Patreon or find the link in the show notes for this episode, and it will take you right there.  

So long for now - thank you so much for listening today, and for coming along on another Adventure in Theatre History, Philadelphia.

[ITH END MUSIC]