Managers In Distress - The St. Louis Stage 1840-1844

MANAGERS IN DISTRESS The St. Louis Stage, 1840-1844 WILLIAM G. B. CARSON St. Louis St. Louis Historial Documents Foundation 1949 194-9 William C3-. 33. Car-son TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER PREFACE In this book I take up the pen where I laid it down something more than fifteen years ago. In The Theatre on the Frontier I then re corded the humble birth of the drama in St. Louis, and, having done so, followed the first steps of the youngster through its early years until, after a quarter of a century, its grip on life was sure. That work, as I have said, covers twenty-five years. This one is content to deal with only five. For this discrepancy there is more than one reason. The years 1840-1844 constituted a definite period in the history of the St. Louis stage, as indeed in that of the American theatre in toto. During those five seasons or, as they were computed in St. Louis, ten seasons the fortunes of the stage and of those who lived on it and by it sank to their lowest depths. Business depression and political unrest proved to be powerful enemies, and, though the managers here and elsewhere resorted to every device they could think of to attract audiences, they were lucky if they succeeded in escaping complete disaster. By 1845, however, a gradual improve ment had set in, and before very long the theatre was restored to its normal state of health, if indeed there can be said to be such a thing. Then, too, I have attempted a different approach. It seems to me that it is worth while to observe, not alone what happened on our stage approximately a century ago, but also how it happened, and why it happened in the ways it did. Closer scrutiny, I believe, brings out facts about the manner ofthe operation of the theatre in St. Louis - which a more superficial review would inevitably miss. Moreover, these facts are in my opinion significant because the St. Louis theatre was no unique phenomenon, but, on the contrary, a more or less representative institution, and from the details of the one we may learn much of the details of the many. There is also a further reason. In his cogent introduction to The American Theatre as seen by its Critics, 1752-1934., which he edited in conjunction with the late Montrose Moses, John Mason Brown makes some very telling points about stage history as it is usually written. It is, he says, unquestionably a chronicle of the stage, but x PREFACE the theatre which gains admission to the writers pages is seldom, if ever, the same theatre which playgoers know, and which succeeds or fails according to the personal responses it awakens in them. It has lost its flesh and blood, its colors and its shadows, its hazards and its expectancy, its first-run meaning, and the men and women on both sides of the footlights who give it its point and its appeal. It was to recapture some of this lost savor that the two collaborators published, though one did not live to see the task completed, a valuable assortment of critiques and reviews written on the spot. It is in part to achieve something like this for the St. Louis stage of the early 1840 s that the following pages have been written. My inten tion is in no way to belittle the contributions of those who have used the other approach. That is, of course, invaluable it would be impossible to present all the history in slow motion, and, if this were done, no one would have time to read the results. In theintroduction quoted above Mr. Brown points his finger at the sometimes forgotten truth that the theatre is the creation of men and women on both sides of the footlights. Not always do they receive their due. They have, as a rule, been dead a long time. We do not see them as living persons nor do we see their theatres through their eyes while the outcome is still in the balance. When we meet them, their problems have long since been solved. Gone are their anxieties, gone their disappointments and their triumphs. So much is lost. In this book I try to satisfy Mr. Brown...