34. "Good Night Sweet Prince: John Barrymore Comes Home" - Special Episode

[INTRO MUSIC]

[Orson Welles speaking about John Barrymore ]

INTERVIEWER: “Who’s the best Hamlet you’ve ever seen? Is there such a thing?”

ORSON WELLES: “Yes, Barrymore. Barrymore”

INTERVIEWER: “He must have been a very princely Hamlet, Barrymore.”

ORSON WELLES: “Not so much princely, he was a man of genius, who happened to be a prince. And he was tender, and virile. And witty. And dangerous.”

PETER: Hello and welcome back to a special summer edition of Adventures in Theater History!

The voice you just heard was the great actor and director Orson Welles in 1963, speaking about the greatest Hamlet he himself had ever seen, the Philadelphia-born actor John Barrymore.

As Chris and I take a little time off to relax and recharge over the summer, we’re doing our best not to neglect our regular listeners. We’ve been recording and sharing some interviews we’ve done with theater historians and important Philadelphia theater artists about various topics, and we hope you’ve been enjoying them. And we’ve been finding a lot of great historic audio material like the clip you just heard, and sharing some of them with you too.

Earlier this year, we also made a special episode entitled THE MISCHIANZA, using “Oh, It’s a Lovely War”, a chapter from the book Wicked Philadelphia, by Philadelphia historian Thomas H. Keels. Tom wrote about the Mischianza, that party/pageant/theatrical cosplay staged by British soldiers occupying Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War - and also about how Philadelphia’s wealthy elite families, many of them direct descendants of those who likely collaborated with the British occupiers, later fetishized and re-enacted the Mischianza in the 19th Century.

Well that turned out so well, that I’ve asked Tom if during this summer we might use another chapter from his book, one that was even more directly connected to the world of the theater - and is in fact about one of Philadelphia’s biggest claims to theatrical fame - the Barrymore Family of actors. Although since Tom, like my friend Joe Lex of the All Bones Considered podcast, is a tour guide at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, this chapter again takes us into the world of bodies, graves, and grisly details - it’s still about theater, you know? I’m very happy to report that Tom kindly gave his permission for us to use it.

So the text I’m about to read is entirely the work of Thomas H. Keels. The book Wicked Philadelphia: Sin in the City of Brotherly Love, is available on Amazon.com. Please visit Tom's website, www.thomaskeels.com, for more information on his other books and his upcoming talks and lectures. I’ll put a link in the show notes.

But before we begin Tom’s chapter, let’s play another historic YouTube clip, this one in the voice of John Barrymore himself, from a Hollywood screen text he made in 1933, from Act One of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as the prince stands on the battlements of Elsinore, confronting his father’s ghost, to the concern of his friend Horatio. As you’ll see, it’s very apt to the story that follows.

[John  Barrymore as HAMLET:] 

What may this mean

That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,

Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous? Say, why is this? 

Wherefore? What should we do?

HORATIO 

It beckons you to go away with it.

HAMLET 

It will not speak. Then I will follow it.

HORATIO 

Do not, my lord.

HAMLET Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin’s fee.

And for my soul, what can it do to that,

Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again. Go on. I’ll follow thee

[Transition music]

PETER: ‘Good Night, Sweet Prince: John Barrymore Comes Home’

[TEXT OF CHAPTER NOT TRANSCRIBED. COPYRIGHT OF ALL TEXT THOMAS H. KEELS. USED BY PERMISSION]

27:37 PETER: So that was “Good Night, Sweet Prince” from the book Wicked Philadelphia by Thomas H. Keels, published by the History Press in 2010, the text is copyrighted by Thomas H. Keels, all rights reserved.

I might add that a few of the minor details about the life and career of Louisa Lane Drew in Tom’s account differ slightly from our own Episodes about the Duchess of Arch Street. All I can say is that the work of every single historian is an ongoing project, and when I was doing my own research I was able to benefit from the additional work that others had done and that had been published since Tom’s book was printed in 2010.

And you know, we’re not frozen in time here in Philly, either. Things move along, Tom Keels wrote to tell me recently, that those final notes about the derelict state of Mount Vernon Cemetery are no longer strictly true, I’m happy to report. ​​Tom tells a group of volunteers that were recently granted control of Mount Vernon, after many years of its being in the clutches of an absentee landlord. Their web address is https://www.mountvernoncemetery.org/.  They have been working to restore the cemetery and the graves of the Barrymore and Drew family are high up on their list. There’s no longer talk of relocating them. But the group needs some funds, so help them out, if you can.

As to where Tom got the story about the Philly cops who busted John Barrymore Jr. when he was banging on the door of the Archbishop's mansion on City Line Avenue  back in 1980 - you won’t find those published anywhere else. Tom says he heard the story first hand, from the cop himself, who is now a retired member of the Philadelphia Police Department when he went on one of Tom's tours of Laurel Hill Cemetery. The guy was very nice, and provided the details used to set the scene at the start of the chapter. Tom got the man’s name, at the time - but unfortunately managed to lose it, and hasn’t been able to get in touch with him since the book came out.  So if you or anyone you know knows who this gentleman is, please contact us here and we’ll let Tom know. 

[ MUSIC UNDER ]

Anyway, that’s our special summer episode, I’m Peter Schmitz, and the sound engineering is by Christopher Mark Colucci. We’ll be back again in August, or maybe before, we’ll see. Check out our website AITHpodcast.com to find blog posts and all our previous episodes, and if you like to write to us our email is AITHpodcast@gmail.com. If you’re enjoying the show, please please please leave some stars and a brief review on Apple podcasts. (Please leave some stars and a brief review on Apple podcasts.) We’ve opened up our Patreon page again, so that’s another way to support our work, help get us some funds to keep the website and the podcast feed going, and generally lift our spirits. Follow us on Twitter or on Facebook, where we do daily posts about theater history. Be part of the Philly theater history community!

Thanks so much for coming along on another adventure in Theater history. But instead of giving me the last word, give the final words to the greatest Hamlet Broadway has ever seen, John Blythe Barrymore: 

[31:23 - RECORDING OF JOHN BARRYMORE, AS HAMLET:]

HAMLET: Now I am alone.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here,

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

Could force his soul so to his own conceit

That from her working all his visage wann'd,

Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit—and all for nothing!

For Hecuba!

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What would he do

Had he the motive and the cue for passion

That I have?

[PODCAST END MUSIC]