Volume 1 — “THE LITTLE LADY IN BLUE”: THE LAST PLAY EVER SEEN BY WILLIAM WINTER.
Reading edition
[The last play ever seen by my father was “The Little Lady in Blue,” which Belasco produced on October 16, 1916, in Washington, and, on December 22, at the Belasco Theatre, in New York. It is a very agreeable piece, with a somewhat trite but expertly handled story. The period of it is 1820. The scene of it is England. The principal character in it is named Anne Churchill. She is an impoverished little governess who sets out to be an adventuress. She wins the affection of a wild young naval officer named Anthony Addenbrooke., incidentally rescuing him from the clutches of a much bepainted Circe of the Portsmouth waterfront. Next she helps him to meet the conditions under which he will inherit £60,000, intending to marry him for the sake of that money. Then she discovers that she really loves him, she is ashamed of her conduct, and she cannot go through with the part of a mercenary adventuress. She confesses to Addenbrooke the real origin of her interest in his affairs and releases him from his engagement to marry her. Being recognized as an earthly paragon she is not permitted to retire into indigence but is wedded to her lover, who has gained a lieutenant’s commission through her assistance and is about to sail away to fight for King and country.—The piece was written by Messrs. Horace Hodges and T. Wigney Percyval.
My father was unable to attend the first New York performance of that play, and his work on this Memoir prevented his seeing it until several weeks later. In his “Journal” he wrote:
[1917] “February 8. More damnable peace blather!—Belasco kindly invited us to visit his Theatre and sent his automobile for us, and ‘Willy’ and I went and saw performance of ‘The Little Lady in Blue,’—a pleasing entertainment.”
Two days afterward Mr. Winter wrote the following letter, which records his critical views of the production.
—J. W.]
(William Winter to David Belasco.)
“New Brighton, Staten Island, “February 10, 1917.
“Dear Belasco:—
“It was indeed a pleasure to see, at your theatre, the play of ‘The Little Lady in Blue.’ It is long since I have so much enjoyed anything. The rightly conducted Theatre still remains to me what it always was—the home of that magic art which cheers the loneliness of life and opens the portal into an ideal world. Alas, that it is not more generally conducted for such a purpose! ‘The Little Lady’ can hardly be considered a play; but, as you have presented it, it is a charming entertainment—a whimsical, almost grotesque, portrayal of eccentric characters and incredible incidents, which are made to seem real, for the moment by the glamour of the Stage. Since the plot is so frail, I was all the more surprised and delighted that so much interest could be excited and sustained and so much pleasure diffused by the histrionic treatment of a theme so slender. You have set the play on the stage in an exquisite manner, and it is acted throughout with a scrupulous care and zeal that, in recent years, I have seldom seen equalled. It is easy to ridicule such quaint, fantastic, almost dream-like pieces. As Frederick Locker wrote:
‘We love the rare old days and rich That poetry has painted; We mourn that sacred age with which We never were acquainted!’
“But they have a potent charm, a sort of mignonette and wild-thyme fragrance, a power to touch the gentler feelings and soothe the mind, and so they are precious.
“There is one blemish that should be removed—namely, the character of A Girl of Portsmouth Town: it adds nothing to the situation, and it is only a blot on the delicacy of the play.
“I am glad to know the production is prosperous: it deserves to be—and it ought to fill your theatre for months, and I hope it will.
“With kind regards, “Faithfully yours, “William Winter.”
The cast of “The Little Lady in Blue appended:
Admiral Sir Anthony AddenbrookeA. G. Andrews.
Anthony AddenbrookeJerome Patrick.
Captain Kent, R. N.Frederick Graham.
Joe PortenHorace Braham.
Baron von LoeweCarl Sauerman.
John SpeedwellCharles Garry.
CobbledickGeorge Giddens.
A WaiterAdrian H. Rosley.
A Process ServerHarry Holiday.
Landlord of the Portsmouth InnRoland Rushton.
Anne ChurchillFrances Starr.
Miss QuickLucy Beaumont.
A Girl of Portsmouth TownEleanor Pendleton.