VintageMeld

“Greenroom Stories: Some True Tales of Stage Folk” reprinted from the Saturday Evening Post, June 3, 1905, by Charles Bloomingdale, Jr. This is the 1st of 5 parts of uneven length. More on this selection at the bottom of the page.

Part 1: Introduction

Here are some stories of stage folk–tales they’ve told, experiences they’ve had. I’ve picked the materials in trains, in dressing-rooms, at little after-theatre suppers, in hotels–wherever and whenever I found them. There’s the tale of Edwin Booth and a little fly–of Joe Jefferson and his recipe for a farce–of Henry Irving and a railroad train–of Bernhardt, Del Puente, Mrs. John Drew and others. Some of the stories are interesting, some are not–but every blessed one of them is true–which is a very satisfying thought.

So on to our mutton!

Fifteen years ago I attended a little supper party after the opera. Del Puente, Modjeska and her husband, Count Bozenta, Basta Tavery, and one or two others, were present. Talk chanced on strange experiences–and Basta Tavary told this tale:

“We were travelling in Bavaria, and I was a prima donna of the company. We were told that the next night a ‘command’ performance would be given–that the crazy Ludwig of Bavaria wished to hear us in La Somnambula.

King Ludwig II of Bavaria

“Ludwig had a little theatre connected with his palace, and in this theatre La Somnambula was to be sung. The curtain was to rise at nine precisely.

“Promptly at that hour the opera began. Never will I forget the sight that greeted me. I had expected a wonderful picture of royalty–of women superbly gowned and men in full court costume–and the flash of jewels from every part of the house. But there wasn’t a soul in the front with the exception of the orchestra–not even the royal box was occupied.

“But we had been ‘commanded’ to sing, and sing we did. The entire first act was gone through–and I declare I never in all my life had such a feeling of uncanniness come over me. For the performance was being given without a break of any sort–every speech, every song was given just as if the theatre was crowded to the doors. Most terrible, though, and most disconcerting, was the ghostlike silence that would follow a song. We grow to expect applause in our profession–it is meat and drink and life to us. Sometimes it is faint and feeble–sometimes it rolls and volleys like thunder–and lifts us off our feet with its inspiring volume. Substitute for this helpful, noisy tribute a silence so terrible that it gets upon your nerves, and you may imagine how we felt when the curtain dropped on the empty house at the conclusion of the first act.

“The second act began–and still no person had come to see or hear. Then a door opened in the rear of the royal box and Ludwig, King of Bavaria, entered. He was alone. For half a minute he stood, then he crouched into a chair and sat there like some misshapen thing. In five minutes he was gone–just whipped out the door as suddenly as he had come in. Nor did we see him again–although the opera went on to its natural conclusion.

“It was the weirdest, uncanniest experience of my life–and I wouldn’t care to repeat it.”

Mrs. George O. Starr was known, years ago, as “Zazel.” She was the highest-priced artiste with the Barnum circus, and twelve times a week would dive from a tiny platform at the top of the big tent and land in a huge net at in one of the rings. One night she half-turned in her descent, struck the edge of the net with her back, bounded high in the air–and was picked up unconscious. For six months thereafter she lay in a plaster-of-paris mould from her hips up–and she never dived again!

Next: Part 2: A Thespian Crazy Quilt

I deal in a lot of old magazine back issues and from time to time find myself distracted paging through them. When the material provides a peek into the pop culture of yesteryear plus is old enough itself to be in the public domain, I’m going to do my best to transcribe it here, on the VintageMeld.

I’d been hoping to pull some stories of late 19th and early 20th century stars of the stage into the VintageMeld, so “Greenroom Stories,” published in 1905 by the Saturday Evening Post, seemed a natural selection to serialize. Published in one helping by the Post, I’m going to break it into uneven parts on the VintageMeld, basically cutting it off at each major break in the original article. “Greenroom Stories” gives me a chance to share some images of early 20th century stage stars while Mr. Bloomingdale has the opportunity to entertain once again, over 100 years later.