Between Actor and Critic: Selected Letters of Edwin Booth and William Winter
352
Between Actor and Critic: Selected Letters of Edwin Booth and William Winter
352Paperback
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Overview
The 125 letters which Daniel Watermeier has selected and arranged in this volume are fully annotated; each is preceded by a headnote which provides an introduction to its content and narrative continuity from one letter to the next. Mr. Watermeier's introduction includes biographical sketches of Edwin Booth and William Winter and sets the context of their friendship.
With few exceptions, the Booth-Winter letters have not hitherto been made public. They represent a major addition to studies of Edwin Booth and to the history of the American theater.
Originally published in 1971.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691620480 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/08/2015 |
| Series: | Princeton Legacy Library , #1685 |
| Pages: | 352 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Between Actor and Critic
Selected Letters of Edwin Booth and William Winter
By Daniel J. Watermeier
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1971 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-06193-1
CHAPTER 1
Booth's Theatre
1869-1875
When the personal acquaintance of Edwin Booth and William Winter began is uncertain. Winter saw Booth act for the first time on April 20, 1857, at the Boston Theatre as Sir Giles Overreach in Philip Massinger's A New Way to Pay Old Debts. They probably met when Booth returned to Boston the next year. Booth's earliest extant letter to Winter is the following hastily written cryptic note, possibly in reference to a personal dresser and a hotel.
1. Baltimore, July 29, 1859
Thanks for your advice — I have made the first offer — think it reasonable — hope he'll take it — as I must stay at the finest hotels his board would be heavy to have him with me.
Can't you give me some items about the 'Royal'?
Between this letter and the next a decade passed. But Booth and Winter probably met occasionally during this period if they did not correspond. They were undoubtedly acquainted. They shared mutual friends and Mrs. Winter had played Katherine to Booth's Petruchio at the Winter Garden in 1866 (see Letter 3, fn. 7). In a letter to Jervis McEntee, late in 1868, however, Booth mentions that Winter is among the critics "who do not know me personally."
This same letter to McEntee suggests some of the circumstances which may have motivated Booth to write Winter once again. Booth asked McEntee to ask Launt Thompson, who lived in the same studio building, to contact Winter and explain to him the "villainy of that d — d rascal Stuart." This Stuart was William Stuart, Booth's former friend and partner at the Winter Garden, who, after Booth terminated their partnership, had returned to his former career as a "yellow" journalist and was now attacking Booth in the press as he had once attacked Edwin Forrest. To McEntee Booth wrote: "Stuart is black at the core and will kill himself in time, but he can spit venom yet and should be hanged." Booth was afraid that Stuart would damage his reputation with the more respectable New York critics, among whom, he wrote, "Winter ranks first." With his new theatre about to open Booth desperately desired to retain the good opinion of these critics not because, as he wrote, "I fear their ill — but my good will towards them demands it."
In this context of magnanimous good will, Booth wrote to Winter a few days after the opening of Booth's Theatre, February 3, 1869. At first it seems an astonishing letter from an actor to a critic. Booth is offering Winter financial assistance so that he can become a member of the Century Club! Booth was a member of the club and Winter had been elected in 1866, but had been unable to afford the $100 initiation fee and the $36 annual dues, so that he had never been officially installed.
Winter's integrity as a critic and as a man was not to be taken lightly. Only a few weeks before the opening of Booth's Theatre, Winter had been offered by an agent of the powerful and notorious Jim Fisk an annual salary of $2500 if only he would write an occasional line about Fisk — "anything that might do him good." Winter, who valued his freedom above everything, replied that he had "never been carried in anybody's pocket" and that he didn't intend to begin. A few weeks later, Winter met Fisk in the lobby of the Grand Opera House. Fisk extended his hand and Winter promptly turned his back and cut his acquaintance. If Winter had thought that Booth was offering a bribe or attempting to buy his services, he would undoubtedly have cut his acquaintance also. The sincere and unselfish tone of Booth's letter is, however, unmistakable. Nevertheless Winter refused Booth's generosity. At the end of the letter he scribbled: "I did not accept the offer."
2. [New York] February 7, 1869
I am sorry I have not seen you since the 'first night' — I know not how to explain to you my unseemly and crazy excitement of that evening — when we meet I may be able to do so. To the subject I referred to in my last. What I am about to do is in obedience to a heart impulse — if I offend blame the head. You know perhaps, that I am a member of the 'Century,' and what is done and said in that mutual admiration society is generally well known by all its members. I ascertained that you were desirous of joining the Club and were unanimously elected — but that you were obliged to decline on account of pecuniary considerations. Now, bearing a grateful memory of your past services and wishing to refute what Stuart says of actors in general & of myself in particular, I venture even at the risk of wounding your delicacy to offer you assistance knowing you to to be a thorough gentleman, and possessing a keen sense of dignity myself — I would not suggest this if I had any object in view other than that of aiding a deserving fellow being, and testifying in some useful way my obligation to him. "What a damned inequality in the lot of mankind," says [illegible name]. You toil, and wear your life out in vain — while I (a toiler too) reap the reward of your labor as well as my own. True — you do not share the abuse I get with the dollars, but I think you are entitled to at least the thanks of the better paid fellow. Now are you 'out of the dark'? If I have offended you, my dear boy, don't retain any ill feeling toward me beyond the moment, but believe that my action is prompted by the purest motives. I often do foolish, hasty things — without duly considering the result. But for some time past, in reviewing the successful career I have had throughout this country I have felt that much was due to this New York press (not to Stuart — for I paid him well for all he did) — and to no one individual member thereof was I more beholden than to yourself. At such times I have wished for an opportunity to acknowledge the debt I owe you, and a few weeks after the story of the Century reached my ears — Now, said I, if Will Winter will accept this trifling favor in return for the many he has given me, and will acquit me of any designs upon his 'quill,' I will prove to him that I am not unmindful of the past. I touched the matter gently the other day — for I know you are sensitive, and I am clumsy in these affairs of the heart, and, as I have said, have often caused pain where I intended to give pleasure. I hoped you would have seen me at the theatre and demanded an explanation of my 'mystery' — when I would have blustered out my meaning awkwardly. It is better as it is. And I enclose a check which you may light your segar with in disgust, or add to the pleasure you have already so often given me by using for whatever purpose may please you best. I have nothing to gain by this — for you have already said all that you can conscientiously say of the very bad performance on my first night (which, I think, you would like better if seen again); but, I candidly admit, if I should need your aid in order to carry out the intention I have regarding the drama I will not hesitate to ask it, and if you knew my motives I am sure you would not refuse it. Of that hereafter. At present I have reference only to the past; and I have faith enough in man yet to believe that you appreciate me as a man as well as an actor. No one is more conscious of his faults (in both relations) than I, and undeserved praise is distasteful to me, while that I feel I merit affords but little gratification, yet I do not slight it — though I may accept it silently; nor do I forget those who have cheered and encouraged me in my toilsome journey to the goal that I have reached. As for adverse criticism — I think you would be surprised if you could hear how frequently I endorse it — for my sense of justice runs away with me sometimes to the very extreme, and those who know me best have often checked me in doing what my conscience dictates as 'fair play.' I give myself a very good 'Karakter,' you see & know that I deserve it — and in time you will endorse it, by accepting me as a friend.
I have on other occasions offered my 'mite' to those who had no claim beyond our hearts' sympathy without giving offense — and I do not believe that in this instance you will be very angry with me, knowing that you have served me far, very far beyond the trifling acknowledgement I make. There may be others to whom I am likewise indebted, but they are, perhaps, more fortunate in a wordly sense than you — at all events, I do not know them personally and have no sympathy with them. You have a gentle, sensitive, sympathetic nature, and (albeit my tongue wags rudely sometimes) I — from the first — far back — felt in unison with you. Prompted as I am [words cut out] and a sense [words cut out] fellow — now it will pain me beyond expression if I have again permitted my heart to bewilder my head. 'Abuse me like a pickpocket' if you will (as an actor), but don't let this little act of mine lessen your esteem for me as a man. Sensitive souls are apt, you know, to turn from those who bungling offer kindness. As for the future — I shall never ask or expect more than you can in justice do, and the records of the past assure me that you never shrink from that. I have wearied you, I know, but attribute all this verbosity to the delicacy I feel in approaching a subject that may be painful. Again — if I have hurt you, say so gently and forgive; if you have faith in me you will be gentle too, and not wring my hand off when next we meet. In my little 'sanctum' I have a box of cigars, and liesure [sic] during the play to smoke and chat with friends — come in and 'pipe with me.'
During Booth's management of Booth's Theatre he usually made starring tours in the fall and spring while other stars were engaged at his theatre. These tours were designed mainly to raise money, for only thus could Booth hope to present the most attractively mounted legitimate drama in New York and still remain financially solvent. During his tour in the fall of 1869, Booth wrote Winter a casual and affectionate letter on the theme of "friendship." His theme was motivated by an article by Harriet Beecher Stowe, noted author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, entitled "The True Story of Lady Byron's Life." In the article Mrs. Stowe charged that the real cause of Lord Byron's separation from his wife in 1816 after a marriage of only a year was her discovery of his incestuous affair with his half-sister Augusta. The article, based on the testimony of Lady Byron herself, was published simultaneously in the September, 1869 issues of Atlantic Monthly and its British counterpart, Macmillan's Magazine. It created a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic and for months the columns of leading American and British journals screamed with repudiations and defenses of Mrs. Stowe's claim. Mrs. Stowe later expanded her essay to book-length and published it as Lady Byron Vindicated (New York, 1869). Mrs. Stowe's article reminded Booth of Edward John Trelawney's less sensational, but no less uncomplimentary portrait of his supposed friend Byron entitled Recollections of the Last Days of Byron and Shelley (London, 1858). Trelawney was much abused for his sketch of Byron. He was variously accused of duplicity, of deserting Byron in his hour of need at Missolonghi, even of perversion in examining Byron's deformity after his death. To both Winter and Booth such disclosures made by Mrs. Stowe and Trelawney displayed an unforgivable lack of taste and judgment and, in Trelawney's case, a breach of friendship. As Winter, an admirer of Byron, later wrote in his review of Mrs. Stowe's book, they should be better left to "medical hospitals or lunatic asylums" or best to "the mercy of God."
3. Philadelphia, October 24, 1869
Many thanks for yr. kind remembrances — The subject possesses great interest to me, and you treat it feelingly and — with all yr. might. Poor Harriet will be "safely stowed," with that festive beast Trelawney — (who some years ago did little less than she) — among the filthy things in memory's locker to be used as unclean similes when we feel more than ordinarily vindictive. I remember I used the word 'Trelawney' for a long while after I read his lies — as an epithet expressing my profoundest disgust of one who had slobbered me [with] love & adultation & [turned] cold & callous from me [when] I most needed help. —
I am pleased to learn from good authority that your wife made a decided character of the trifle I was obliged to give her in Leah. My compliments to her, and assure her of my sincere regards and good wishes. I've said enough to you in this vein, my boy, and only hope that I may some day have an opportunity to be of real service to you. As a critic — you must know — I do not always agree with you & wd. like to chat with you occassionally on the subject of "play-acting" & its requirements, &c — if ever the time does come for a quiet little "dine", en famille, at my 'flat' in Booth's building. I'm glad you occassionally think of me — for — I tell you, Will — there are so d----d few hearts in the world that I like to cherish 'em when found. I've felt so keenly & so often the falseness of flatterers that — I'll swear — I've grown old before my time. I sincerely believe that I can count with the fingers on one foot the exact number of true men that I have known &, you know, in my capacity of "mummer" I've known many & tried not a few. Eh bien! I'm prematurely grey-bearded about the heart, mayhap, — but I don't think that organ is entirely rusted out — it yet vibrates with a kind & tender yearning for the good old fashioned friendships that you poets sing of. Apropos: can't I get a copy of yr. "heart-throbs" — I like what I've read exceedingly — but I'm not literary, you know, and have no right to say so — I think you as true in poesy as in the principle which activates you in criticism — albeit in the latter you may chance to err, the spirit is "plumb" and "level" — that is always evident. Never let it become warped by prejudice nor yet loosened by indifference.
In 3 weeks I shall — D[eo] V[olente] return to York — there to abide months many. Adieu!
After his fall tour of 1869, Booth reappeared at his theatre in a spectacular revival of Hamlet on January 5, 1870. This production, reportedly fifteen months in preparation, ran continuously through March 19. New York's drama critics greeted the production ecstatically. The critic for the Herald (January 6) reported that "it was a genuine feast of reason, of beauty, of fashion, and of historical intelligence and splendors both as regards actors, scenery and audience." Other critics were less florid but no less enthusiastic.
About the time of the Hamlet revival, Winter was trying with the help of his friends Joseph Jefferson and Lester Wallack, the actor, dramatist, and manager of Wallack's Theatre, to arrange a benefit for the aging and ill comic actor George Holland. He had asked Booth's advice and assistance. As indicated by the following letter, Booth doubted that such a benefit would be productive but was not unwilling to help make it so.
4. Booth's Theatre, New York, Wednesday [February], 1870
Don't trouble yourself about my "phelinks" all is well. I'm trying to hook that queer fish Joe & if he don't take my bait now he's a "Jack" (John Dory). Hope Clarke will do — do all you can to work him up — for I've hopes to run him through the Summer. Drop Joe a line at Balto. & urge him to play a long engagement here before he goes abroad & advise him to begin early in the fall. I don't know whether he listens much to advice in such matters — but it's for his good. For my part — my only (or rather my chief) object is to get away that I may let my ground lie fallow & gather i'the West the harvest waiting there for me. If he don't come here (of course, I know, he won't go to any other theatre in the city) I must pitch in myself or set Fetcher [sic] or Janaushek [sic] at work — to let me off.
My hesitation in regard to the benefit arises from the knowledge of these charity affairs always being such infernal failures. I wish it could transpire on Shakespeare's 23d. (a day that should be always set apart as a holiday & for some good purpose), and be dead sure that all who promise to act will do so — as they invariably always don't. Selah! Jefferson & Clarke, Wallack & your uncle et al &c.
In fact all of any note in the city should 'buckle up' & be doing. Don't be too hasty — but slowly get the thing in trim — then blow away.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Between Actor and Critic by Daniel J. Watermeier. Copyright © 1971 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
- Frontmatter, pg. i
- Contents, pg. v
- Illustrations, pg. vi
- Preface, pg. vii
- Introduction, pg. 1
- Chapter I. Booth's Theatre 1869-1875, pg. 18
- Chapter II. American Tours 1875-1877, pg. 51
- Chapter III. The Prompt Books 1877-1879, pg. 84
- Chapter IV. American Tours 1879-1880, pg. 132
- Chapter V. England 1880-1881, pg. 155
- Chapter VI. The American Tour 1881-1882, pg. 190
- Chapter VII. England 1882, pg. 208
- Chapter VIII. Germany and Austria 1883, pg. 226
- Chapter IX. American Tours 1883-1886, pg. 250
- Chapter X. The Booth-Barrett Tours 1886-1890, pg. 279
- BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE, pg. 307
- SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY, pg. 310
- INDEX, pg. 317