The Broadway Anthology by Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
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Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton >> The Broadway Anthology
GEORGE M. COHAN
Blessed be Providence
That gave us our Cohan;
Irreverent,
Resourceful, prolific, steady-advancing
George M.
Nothing in life
Better becomes him
Than his earliest choice
Of Jerry and Helen
For father and mother;
Bred in the wings and the dressing room,
The theatre alley his playground,
Hotels his home and his schoolhouse,
Blessed with a wonderful sister,
And in love with a violin.
From baby days used to the footlights,
With infrequent teachers of book lore
In the cities of lengthy engagements
Showing him pages of learning
That he turned from to life's open volume,
Acquiring indelible lessons,
Loyalty, candor, clear seeing,
Sincerity, plain speaking, love of his own,
Passion for all things American.
From Jerry, his father,
Came Celtic humor, delight in the dance,
And devotion to things of the theatre;
From Helen, his mother,
Depth, Celtic devotion to things of the spirit,
Fineness of soul.
Early he turned from his fiddle
To write popular songs
And tunes so whistly and catchy
That the music of a child
Enraptured the nation.
Then followed comedy sketches,
Gay little pieces that made public
And player-folk chatter of Cohan.
Later, essaying the musical comedy,
He wrote "Running for Office,"
To be followed by that impudent
Classic of fresh young America,
"Little Johnnie Jones."
One followed another in rapid succession;
His name grew a cherished possession,
And ever his dancing delighted.
His manner of singing and speaking
Provoked to endless imitation.
His personality became better known
Then the President's.
Always he soared in ambition
And, becoming a lord of the theatre,
He ventured on serious drama,
And out of his wisdom and watching
Wrote masterful plays,
Envisaging the types of our natives.
Truly a genius,
Genius in friendship, genius in stagecraft,
Genius in life!
Even in choosing a partner
He fattened his average,
Batting four hundred
By taking a kindred irreverent soul,
Graduated out of the whirlpool
That wrecks all but the strongest,
Born on the eastern edge
Of Manhattan,
Sam H. Harris, man of business,
Who to the skill of the trader
Adds the joy in life
And the sense of humor,
Coupled with pleasure in giving
And helping
That Cohan demands of his pals.
Together they plan wonderful projects,
And the artist soul
And the soul of commerce
Are an unbeatable union.
Best of all about Cohan
Is his congenital manliness.
He sees Americans
As our soil and our air and our water
Have made them;
Types as distinct as the Indian.
He follows no school,
Knows little of movements artistic.
A lonely creator,
His friends are not writing men,
Reformers, uplifters or zealots.
He writes the life he has lived
So fully and zestfully,
And over it all plays like sheet lightning
A beneficent humor.
Growth is his hall-mark,
Hard work his chief recreation;
Not Balzac could toil with labor titanic
More terribly.
George M. Cohan,
Excelling in everything--
Beloved son, brother, father, partner, friend,
Our best-beloved man of the theatre.
DAVID BELASCO
King David of old slew the Philistines;
Our David has made them admirers and patrons;
He has numbered the people
Night after night in his theatres.
Will he ever, I wonder, send forth for the Shunammite?
Many there be who would answer his calling,
For he has shown ambitious fair women
To acting's high places.
As Rodin in marble saw wondrous creations
To be freed by the chisel,
So Belasco in immature genius and beauty
Sees the resplendent star to be kindled
At his own steady beacon.
Too varied a mind for our comprehension,
Too big and too broad and too subtle
To be understood of the bourgeois American
Whom he has led decade after decade
By a nose ring artistic.
Capable of everything, he has worked
With the ease of a master, giving the public
Marvelous detail, unfailing sensation and poses pictorial;
Preferring the certain success to arduous striving
For the more excellent things of the future.
Like David his forebear, a king but no prophet,
Amazingly wise in his own generation.
A wizard in art of the everyday,
Lord of the spotlight and dimmer,
But nursing the unconquerable hope, the inviolable shade
Of what in his dreams Oriental
He fain would do, did not necessity drive him.
His the fascination of a great personality.
Who knoweth not him of the clerical collar?
Hair of the sage and eyes of the poet,
Features perfectly drawn and as mobile
As those of the inspired actor;
With speech so much blander than honey
And insight that maketh his staged stumbling in bargains
Cover the shrewdness of a masterly trader.
None better than he knoweth the crowd and its likings,
As to using the patter of drama artistic,
That's where he lives.
With incense and color and scenery
He refilleth the bottle of art so that the contents
Go twice better than in the original package.
Thanks be to David for joy in the playhouse.
Wizard, magician, necromancer of switchboards,
He hath woven spells from the actual,
Keeping ideals and ideas well in the background.
Like Gautier, these things delight him:
Gold, marble and purple; brilliance, solidity, color.
He can stage Tiffany's jewels but not Maeterlinck's bees.
Deep in his soul there are tempests
Revealed in the storms of his dramas--
Sandstorm and snowstorm, rainstorm and hurricane.
That nature revealed in its subtle reactions
Would show in its deeps the soul of an Angelo
Subdued to success and dyed by democracy.
Opportunism hath made him
An artistic materialist.
One work remains for David Belasco,
And that is to stage with patient precision
A cross section in drama of his own self-surprising,
Making the world sit up and take notice
With what "masterly detail," "unfailing atmosphere,"
"Startling reality" he can star David Belasco.
LO, THE HEADLINER
I was not raised for vaudeville.
Father and mother were veteran legits;
They loved the Bard and the "Lady of Lyons."
I was born on a show boat on the Cumberland;
I was carried on as a child
When the farm girl revealed her shame
On the night of the snowstorm.
The old folks died with grease paint on their faces.
I did a little of everything
Even to staking out a pitch in a street fair.
Hiram Grafter taught me to ballyhoo
And to make openings.
I stole the business of Billy Sunday
And imitated William Jennings Bryan.
I became famous in the small towns.
One day Poli heard me--
He's the head of the New England variety circuit.--
"Cul," he said, "you are a born monologist.
Where you got that stuff I don't know,
But you would be a riot in the two-a-day.
Quit this hanky-panky
And I'll make you a headliner."
Well, I fell for his line of talk
Like the sod busters had fallen for mine.
Aaron Hoffman wrote me a topical monologue;
Max Marx made me a suit of clothes;
And Lew Dockstader wised me up
On how to jockey my laughs.
I opened in Hartford;
Believe me, I was some scream.
I gave them gravy, and hokum,
And when they ate it up I came through
With the old jasbo,
Than which there is nothing so efficacious
In vaudeville, polite or otherwise.
The first thing I did I hollered for more dough,
And Poli says:
"That's what I get for feeding you meat,
But you are a riot all right, all right,
So I guess you are on for more kale."
I kept getting better.
I got so's I could follow any act at all
And get my laughs.
And he who getteth his laughs
Is greater than he who taketh a city.
At last the Palace Theatre sent for me
And I signed up for a week.
They kept me two.
I am a headliner;
I stand at the corner of Forty-seventh Street
And Little Old Broadway;
Throw out my chest,
Call the agents and vaudeville magnates
By their first names.
I am a HEADLINER with a home in Freeport.
MURDOCK PEMBERTON
THE SCREEN
From midnight till the following noon
I stand in shadow,
Just a splotch of white,
Unnoted by the cleaning crew
Who've spent their hours of toil
That I might live again.
Yet they hold no reverence for my charms,
And if they pause amid their work
They do not glance at me;
All their admiration, all their awe,
Is for the gold and scarlet trappings of the home
That's built to house my wonders;
Or for the gorgeous murals all around,
Which really, after all,
Were put in place as most lame substitutes,
Striving to soothe the patron's ire
For those few moments when my face is dark.
Yes, men have built a palace sheltering me,
And as the endless ocean washes on its stretch of beach
The tides of people flow to me.
All things I am to everyone;
The newsboys, shopgirls,
And all starved souls
Who've clutched at life and missed,
See in my magic face,
The lowly rise to fame and palaces,
See virtue triumph every time
And rich and wicked justly flayed.
Old men are tearful
When I show them what they might have been.
And others, not so old,
Bask in the sunshine of my fairy tales.
The lovers see new ways to woo;
And wives see ways to use old brooms.
Some nights I see the jeweled opera crowd
Who seem aloof but inwardly are fond of me
Because I've caught the gracious beauty of their pets.
Then some there are who watch my changing face
To catch new history's shadow
As it falls from day to day.
And at the noiseless tramp of soldier feet,
In time to music of the warring tribes,
The shadow men across my face
Seem living with the hope or dread
Of those who watch them off to wars.
In sordid substance I am but a sheet,
A fabric of some fireproof stuff.
And yet, in every port where ships can ride,
In every nook where there is breath of life,
Intrepid men face death
To catch for me the fleeting phases of the world
Lest I lose some charming facet of my face.
And all the masters of all time
Have thrummed their harps
And bowed their violins
To fashion melodies that might be played
The while I tell my tales.
O you who hold the mirror up to nature,
Behold my cosmic scope:
I am the mirror of the whirling globe.
BROADWAY--NIGHT
I saw the rich in motor cars
Held in long lines
Until cross-streams of cars flowed by;
I saw young boys in service clothes
And flags flung out from tradesmen's doors;
I saw some thousand drifting men
Some thousand aimless women;
I saw some thousand wearied eyes
That caught no sparkle from the myriad lights
Which blazoned everywhere;
I saw a man stop in his walk
To pet an old black cat.
MATINEE
They pass the window
Where I sit at work,
In silks and furs
And boots and hats
All of the latest mode.
They chatter as they pass
Of various things
But hardly hear the words they speak
So tense are they
Upon a life they know begins for them
At 2:15.
Within the theatre
The air is pungent with the mixed perfumes,
More scents than ever blew from Araby.
And there's a rapid hum
Of some six hundred secrets;
Then sudden hush
As tongues and violins cease.
The play is on.
There is a hastening of the beat
Of some six hundred hearts.
There're twitches soon about the lips,
And later copious tears
From waiting eyes;
But all this time
There are six hundred separate souls
The playwright's puppet has to woo,
To win, to humor, or to cajole,
Until, with master stroke
Of Devil knowledge,
Or old Adam's,
He crushes in his manful arms
The languid heroine
And forcing back her golden head
Implants the kiss.
And then against his heaving breast
The hero feels the beatings of six hundred hearts
In mighty unison,
And on his lips there is the pulse
Of that one lingering kiss
Returned six-hundred fold.
PAVLOWA
I was working on _The Daily News_
When I first heard of her,
And from that time
Until the day she came to town
I longed to see her dance.
The night the dancer and her ballet came
The Desk assigned me to my nightly run
Of hotels, clubs, and undertakers' shops;
I was so green
I had not learned
The art of using telephones
To make it seem
That I was hot upon the trail of news
While loafing otherwhere.
How could I do my trick
And also see her dance?
So I left bread and butter flat,
To feast my eyes, which had been prairie-fed,
Upon this vision from another world.
I'd seen the wind
Go rippling over seas of wheat;
I'd stood at night within a wood
And felt the pulse of growing things
Upon the April air;
I'd seen the hawks arise and soar;
And dragon-flies
At sunrise over misty pools--
But all these things had never known a name
Until I saw Pavlowa dance.
Next day the editor explained
That although art was--art,
He'd found a boy to take my place.
The days that followed
When I walked the town
Seeking for some sort of work,
The haze of Indian Summer
Blended with the dream
Of that one night's magic.
And though I needed work to keep alive
My thoughts would go no further
Than Pavlowa as the maid Giselle ...
Then cold days came,
And found the dream a fabric much too thin;
And finally a job,
And I was back to stomach fare.
But through the years
I've nursed the sacrifice,
Counting it a tribute
Unlike all the things
That Kings and Queens have laid before her feet;
And wishing somehow she might know
About the price
The cub reporter paid
To see Pavlowa dance.
And then by trick of time,
We came together at the Hippodrome;
And every day I saw her dance.
One morning in the darkened wings
I saw a big-eyed woman in a filmy thing
Go through the exercises
Athletes use when training for a team;
And from a stage-hand learned
That this Pavlowa, incomparable one,
Out of every day spent hours
On elementary practice steps.
And now somehow
I can not find the heart
To tell Pavlowa of the price I paid
To see her dance.
THE OLD CHORUS MAN
He's played with Booth,
He's shared applause with Jefferson,
He's run the gamut of the soul
Imparting substance to the shadow men
Masters have fashioned with their quills
And set upon the boards.
Great men-of-iron were his favored roles,
(Once he essayed Napoleon).
And now, unknowing, he plays his greatest tragedy:
Dressed in a garb to look like service clothes,
Cheeks lit by fire--of make-up box,
He marches with a squad of sallow youths
And bare-kneed girls,
Keeping step to tattoo of the drums
Beat by some shapely maids in tights,
While close by in the silent streets
There march long files of purposed men
Who go to death, perhaps,
For the same cause he travesties
Within the playhouse walls.
BLUCH LANDOLF'S TALE
When I was old enough to walk
I rode a circus horse;
My first teeth held me swinging from a high trapeze.
About the age young men go out to colleges
I trudged the sanded vasts of Northern Africa,
Top-mounter in a nomad Arab tumbling troupe.
I was Christian, that is white and Infidel,
So old Abdullah took me in his tent
And stripping off my white man's clothes
Painted me with dye made from the chestnut hulls,
Laughing the while about the potency of juice
That would prove armour 'gainst some zealot's scimitar.
Four camels made our caravan
And these we also used for "props."
When we played a Morocco town
The chieftain met us at the hamlet's edge
Asked of Abdullah what his mission there,
Then let us enter
He leading our caravan to the chieftain's hut,
Where we sat upon the sand
The thirty odd of us
Surrounded by as many lesser chiefs.
The hookah solemnly was passed around
And then the hamlet chief would speak;
"Stranger, why have you forsaken home
And drawn believers after you,
You bear no spices, oil, or woven cloth,
No jewels nor any merchantry?"
And then Abdullah:
"True, Allah's precious son,
We trade in naught men feed their bellies on
But we have wares to thrill brave men,
To make your youth see what use bodies are,
To make your women blush
That they have no such men."
"What are these magic wares?"
"Why we have here an Arab youth
Who seems possessed of wings,
Jumping three camels in a row."
"So! In this very village there's a lad
Who jumps four camels
With half the wind it takes you, telling of your boy."
Scoff followed boast and back again
Until the chief arose,
Saying to the lesser chiefs
That they should call the local tribe
To meet beside the caravanserai
Before another sun went down
To see if these vain wandering men
Could do one half the deeds they boasted.
So we met at sundown,
Our brown men stripped
Except for linen clouts.
We tumbled, jumped, made human pyramids,
And whirled as only Dervish whirl.
Then as a climax the village boy essayed
To span the four trained camels
Who at Abdullah's soft-spoke word
Moved just enough apart to make the boy fall short.
And then our sinewed lad would make the leap,
The camels crowding close together
At another soft command.
Our lad making good his jump,
The populace would grant our greater skill;
A goatskin filled with wine,
And honey mixed with melted butter
Was offered us within the caravanserai.
Then we moved out beyond the town
And pitched our tents of camels' hair,
Rising before the sun to face the friendless desert wastes
Until we reached another habitation on the camel trail,
I (who played the dumb boy of the tribe
Lest my Christian tongue betray me)
Trudging behind with all the salary--
Chasing the desert after two new sheep,
Our net receipts for that Moroccan one-night stand.
Now twice each day within the Hippodrome
I, a buffoon in absurd clothes,
Strive to make the thousands laugh;
And when my act is done
There comes the tread of camels' feet,
Followed by Slayman Ali and his Arab troupe,
Who tumble, jump and build pyramids
Before a canvas Sphinx upon a painted desert....
When I saw Slayman last
He was a boy
Chasing the sheep with me
Beneath Morocco's moon.
Tell me, where dwells romance, anyway?
In Manhattan, or Arabian, nights?
PRE-EMINENCE
I once knew a man
Who'd met Duse,
(Or so he said)
And talked with her;
As she came down a windy street
He turned a corner
Headlong into her.
"I am so sorry," Duse said,
"I was looking at the stars."
My envy of that man
Withstood the years
Until one day I met a Dane
Who'd talked with Henrik Ibsen:
This man, with head bowed to the wind,
Was walking up a Stockholm way
When 'round the corner came the seer,
And he plumped into him.
And that great mind
Whose thinking moved the world
Surveyed my friend
Through his big eyes
And slowly spoke:
"Since when have codfish come to land?"
With all the awe
One has for those who've known the great,
These two I've envied
Until the other day
When blundering 'round behind the scenes
I stepped upon Pavlowa's toe.