The Hanlon Brothers: From Daredevil Acrobatics to Spectacle Pantomime, 1833-1931 (Theater in the Americas)

The HANLON BROTHERS From Daredevil Acrobatics to Spectacle Pantomime, 1833-1931 Mark Cosdon A Series from Southern ...

Author: Associate Professor Mark Cosdon

209 downloads 1379 Views 4MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

The

HANLON BROTHERS From

Daredevil Acrobatics to Spectacle Pantomime, 1833-1931

Mark Cosdon

A Series from Southern Illinois University Press robert a. schanke Series Editor

The Hanlon Brothers

THE HANLON BROTHERS

From

Daredevil Acrobatics to Spectacle Pantomime, 1833–1931

Mark Cosdon

Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale and Edwardsville

Copyright © 2009 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 12 11 10 09

4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cosdon, Mark, 1967– The Hanlon Brothers : from daredevil acrobatics to spectacle pantomime, 1833–1931 / Mark Cosdon. p. cm. — (Theater in the Americas) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8093-2925-0 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8093-2925-5 (alk. paper) 1. Hanlon-Lees (Theatrical troupe) I. Title. PN2599.5.T54C67 2009 791.092'241—dc22 [B] 2009016933 Printed on recycled paper. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1992. ∞

Disclaimer: Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

Contents List of Illustrations ix Note on the Chronology of the Hanlon Brothers Acknowledgments xiii

xi

Introduction 1 1. Prepping for Pantomime: The Hanlon Brothers’ Fame and Tragedy, 1833–1870 5 first interlude: jean-gaspard deburau

35

2. The Macabre Pantomimes of a Fermented Unconscious: 1870–1879 3. Le Voyage en Suisse in Europe, 1879–1881 50 second interlude: the ravels

77

4. The American Premiere of Le Voyage en Suisse

81

third interlude: george l. fox and humpty dumpty 5. The First American Tours of Le Voyage en Suisse 95 6. The Changing Taste in American Theatricals: Fantasma and Superba 112 7. Legacy 133 Notes 141 Bibliography 163 Index 169

91

39

Illustrations 1. “Thomas Hanlon’s l’Échelle Périleuse” 8 2. A gymnastic routine the Hanlons unveiled in Russia 13 3. William Hanlon preparing for his Zampillaerostation 19 4. William Hanlon in a photographer’s studio, circa 1861 21 5. Frederick, Edward, and Thomas Hanlon, circa 1866 26 6. William and Alfred Hanlon in an aerial routine 29 7. Le Voyage en Suisse—The Arrival, Act 1 58 8. Le Voyage en Suisse—The Upset, Act 1 58 9. Le Voyage en Suisse—The Voyage to Switzerland, Act 2 61 10. Le Voyage en Suisse—The Smash Up, Act 2 62 11. Le Voyage en Suisse—Falling through the Ceiling, Act 3 64 12. Le Voyage en Suisse—Finale Rigi-Kulm Hotel, Act 3 65 13. The Hanlon-Lees in Le Voyage en Suisse, circa 1881 90 14. Zamaliel towering over Lena in the Hanlons’ Fantasma 116 15. A family portrait, circa 1886 118 16. Hanlon’s Scenic Studio 119 17. Hanlons’ Superba (1890) 123 18. A drunken clown hallucinates threatening trees 124 19. The Hanlons’ Fantasma 126 20. A poster advertising the Hanlons’ A Lively Legacy 128

ix

Note on the Chronology of the Hanlon Brothers

D

uring the preparation of this book, I repeatedly encountered undated playbills and newspaper clippings in archives. While these provided tantalizing peeks into the history of the Hanlons, at times it was difficult to trace changes in the company’s personnel, the origins of certain routines, and the routes of their annual tours. In addition, some published histories of the stage displayed blatant inaccuracies when it came to the historical record, most notably T. Allston Brown’s A History of the New York Stage, and to a lesser extent George C. D. Odell’s Annals of the New York Stage. Subsequently, the errors in these early works were exported into later studies. Sadly, many of these inaccuracies were fostered by the Hanlon Brothers, attempting to compensate for their advancing years and eager to clean up their occasionally “untidy” past. Hence, I have prepared “A Chronological Outline of the Hanlon Brothers, 1833–1931,” an attempt to arrange the Hanlons’ perambulations from 1833, when Thomas was born, through 1931, when Edward died, nearly a century later, in St. Petersburg, Florida. In constructing this outline I relied primarily on the New York Clipper, whose pages I combed for fleeting references to the family. I’ve supplemented this invaluable resource with dated playbills and clippings I researched over the years. A perusal of the Hanlons’ chronology provides a dizzying glimpse into the itinerant world of popular performance, as experienced by a prominent family of acrobats and pantomimists. Scholars are encouraged to use this resource as appropriate. The complete chronology is available online at http://www.siupress. com/product/Hanlon-Brothers,2874.aspx and at webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/ m/mcosdon/hanlons.htm. I welcome additions, corrections, and emendations. Please write to me at [email protected].

xi

Acknowledgments

I

’ve always been interested in clowning, physical comedy, and acrobatics. As a child, I went to the circus—often! And next to the jugglers, my favorite performers were always the clowns. There was something about their mischief making—coupled with the glee and anarchy they represented—that I found immensely appealing. Years later when I landed in the Ph.D. drama program at Tufts University, I found these interests nurtured and encouraged. This book has its origins in a conversation I had with Laurence Senelick, my adviser at Tufts. Knowing that he was deeply interested in physical comedy, I was naturally drawn to study with him. Laurence has always been a valued mentor and friend. Some of my fondest memories of this project will be the afternoons spent in his (chilly!) house, enthusiastically swapping vignettes about nineteenthcentury pantomime while paging through his lovingly nurtured theatre collection. He supervised my Ph.D. dissertation on the Hanlons, then waited patiently as I expanded and revised that earlier work. My book has been greatly enhanced by Laurence’s enthusiasm, rigor, and significant body of scholarship. Over the years, Bob Schanke has been one of my greatest supporters. A dedicated scholar and editor, Bob is one of my profession’s most revered figures. He and I first met in 1996 when we were paired up by an Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) writer’s workshop. As editor of Theatre History Studies, Bob published my article on the Hanlons’ early career. Then, as careful steward for Southern Illinois University Press’s Theatre in the Americas series, he urged me to submit my manuscript to the Press. I thank him for his many years of encouragement, friendship, nurturing, and unending patience. Steve Gossard, curator of the Circus Collections at Illinois State University, painstakingly photocopied nineteenth-century clippings he had amassed. Sheila

xiii

acknowledgments

Abato, a descendant of Edward Hanlon, shared clippings that she had collected over the years. Barbara W. Grossman, Downing Cless, Thomas Connolly, David Wadsworth, David C. Miller, Heather S. Nathans, Don B. Wilmeth, Arnaud Rykner, Sophie Basch, Laura Reeck, and Felicia Hardison Londré have commented on and supported my work, for which I remain thankful. Constructing this manuscript, I accessed the holdings of numerous archives. The curators and staff at the following institutions were especially helpful: Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division; Circus World Museum; Cohasset Historical Society, Helen Howes Vosoff Memorial Theatre Archives; Free Library of Philadelphia, Theatre Collection; Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University; Illinois State University, Milner Library Special Collections, Circus Collections; Library of Congress, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division; Museum of the City of New York, Theatre Collections; New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Collection; San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum; Shubert Archive; University of Iowa, Special Collections. Colleagues, students, and staff at Allegheny College have been enormously supportive. Monies from the Dean of the College’s office allowed me to conduct archival work and assisted me with reproducing this book’s many illustrations. I particularly thank the faculty and staff members in the Department of Communication Arts and Theatre for making my day-to-day teaching and directing such a pleasure. My current and former student assistants Emily Burr, Ashley Biletnikoff, Dara Levendosky, Vince Donofrio, Jessica Middleton, and Lizzy Pecora have been especially helpful, conducting research, assisting me with course materials, scanning my collections, and keeping me organized. I am very grateful to Southern Illinois University Press. There, Kristine Priddy has been tireless in seeing this manuscript into print. I also wish to thank the Press’s Barb Martin, Kathleen Kageff, and Karl Kageff. I wish to extend a particular thank you to Ann Youmans, copy editor extraordinaire, for helping me clean up the manuscript. Personally, I wish to thank my loving parents May and Paul Cosdon, along with my sisters Amy and Genevieve, and my brother Michael for their unwavering support. My beautiful daughters Nina and Melanie have given so generously and unselfishly in order to see that this manuscript was completed. Finally, my wife Hannah Treitel Cosdon encouraged, cajoled, brow-beat, and loved me throughout this process for which I remain eternally thankful. I look forward to another rousing chorus of “I’m so happy that I’ve got three girls.”

xiv

The Hanlon Brothers

Introduction

T

he six Hanlon Brothers—Thomas, George, William, Alfred, Edward, and Frederick—were a protean family of nineteenth-century performers, renowned for an array of aerial, gymnastic, and theatrical specialties. Hailing from northern England, the brothers spent their early career crisscrossing the globe performing a dizzying series of daredevil routines and introducing audiences to the pleasures of trapeze performance. Following a tragic mishap, in the late 1860s the Hanlons turned to the production of startlingly macabre pantomimes, replete with violent slapstick comedy. Lasting fame came to the Hanlons in 1879 when they unveiled the astonishing Le Voyage en Suisse. Settling in Cohasset, Massachusetts, the three surviving brothers—George, William, and Edward—gradually withdrew from the stage and spent the remainder of their careers managing their long-lived fairy pantomimes Fantasma and Superba. Borrowing heavily from English pantomime and the French féerie, the Hanlons evolved a unique theatrical style that combined breathtaking acrobatics with trick scenery, novel illusions, and wild, often violent, knockabout comedy. The Hanlons’ pantomimes were pure visual spectacle. They were revamped yearly, with new thrills added to loosely concocted plot lines. Each “new” production

1

introduction

was eagerly anticipated by their audiences, as a 1905 writer stated in the New York Times: “The country towns await the Hanlons’ visit like the circus’s, as an annual institution.”1 The influence of the Hanlons cannot be underestimated. In such luminaries as Georges Méliès, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, and even the Three Stooges, one glimpses strands of the family’s continuing inspiration. It is indicative of the Hanlons’ crossover appeal that for a time the Brooklyn baseball team was known as the Superbas, before adopting the now-familiar moniker of the Dodgers. Perhaps most telling is that throughout their careers, the Hanlons saw numerous theatrical knockoff acts, many of which pilfered the brothers’ plotlines, scenic splendor, stage tricks, and technical innovations. Amazingly, the Hanlons’ stage artistry was performed live before nearly seven decades of appreciative audiences, a popularity that makes them truly remarkable in the annals of the popular stage. The twilight of their careers saw vaudeville becoming the preferred popular medium, only to be supplanted by film. The Hanlon Brothers were active in both genres, again influencing the course of popular entertainment. Despite the Hanlons’ fame, there has been a remarkable dearth of writing on the family. To date, just three book-length studies of the Hanlons have been completed. Richard Lesclide’s ghostwritten Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees (1880) was published in 1880, shortly after Le Voyage en Suisse’s triumphant Paris debut.2 With the Hanlons at the height of their fame, audiences were eager to learn more about the theatrical phenomenon that was the Hanlon Brothers. Lesclide’s book helped whet their appetites. Mémoires et Pantomimes features a loving tribute and introduction by Théodore de Banville in which he praised the Hanlons’ supreme talents. The esteemed French poet wrote, “Gentle reader, savor well the book that follows, don’t let a syllable get lost, for it will tell you of the most interesting people that this century has produced, of those admirable mimes and gymnasts, the Hanlon-Lees, who where all of us are bent towards earth saying that to creep is good, do not consent to creep but have flown up into the sky, towards the infinite, towards the stars! Thereby, they have consoled us and redeemed us from our vile resignation, from the eternally unrisen.”3 Lesclide’s ghostwritten book was greeted with popular acclaim upon its publication, and it remained the sole work on the history of the Hanlon Brothers for over a century. Lesclide tells a highly entertaining story that reads a bit like a children’s adventure narrative, replete with alligator attacks, raft trips across the Nile, and excursions to countries that late nineteenth-century European readers would have considered remote and dangerous, culminating in the triumphant 1879 staging of Le Voyage en Suisse. Unfortunately, there are many problems with Lesclide’s book for the historian of the Hanlons. First, Mémoires et Pantomimes

2

introduction

des Frères Hanlon-Lees is nearly bereft of dates, and rarely are places, cities, and playhouses identified. One is left wondering how much of the story is actually true, how much is anecdotal, and how much is complete fabrication. Second, Lesclide tells the early history of the Hanlon Brothers aided by George (who serves as the primary narrator) and William. With their brother Alfred, these three toured the world with John Lees; Thomas, Edward, and Frederick’s early perambulations are largely neglected. Although the six toured together periodically during the 1860s, they were largely apart, in all likelihood due to pecuniary matters. Thus, one gets just “half the story,” almost exclusively that of George, William, and Alfred. Third, Lesclide relies to a fault on the Hanlon Brothers memories, which quite often contradict newspaper reports. Finally, and most troubling, clearly the record has been purged in parts. For example, the Hanlon Midgets, with whom the Hanlons toured through the late 1860s and well into the 1870s, merit hardly a mention in Lesclide’s pages. Ultimately, George and William, with the help of Richard Lesclide, tell us the parts of their history that they want us to hear and believe, leaving the rest uncovered. In 1998, John A. McKinven released his book The Hanlon Brothers.4 Although lavishly illustrated, the book does little to further our understanding of the Hanlon Brothers. Oftentimes, the work simply recounts Lesclide’s errors, further propagating the misinformation. In 1999, Martha Blair Sheppard, a descendant of the Hanlon Brothers, released a study of the family titled Leap for Life.5 However, her privately published manuscript is largely a translation of Lesclide’s Mémoirs et Pantomimes interspersed with an occasional tale she heard from a relative during her childhood. Undocumented substantiations abound, making the work all but useless to the historian. Although the Hanlons make occasional appearances in more recent studies, most are fleeting, incomplete, and not always correct.6 Determined to right the historical record, I began researching the Hanlon Brothers nearly fifteen years ago. Quickly, I learned that much of the misinformation surrounding the Hanlons was propagated by the family themselves. Given the family’s Victorian sense of propriety and privacy, much has been expunged from the historic record. The brothers were relentless in their efforts to tidy up unpleasantries with former colleagues, brush over poor reviews, and underestimate their ages. Throughout their careers they attempted to excise anything that shed less than a desirable light on them. And though they made tantalizing references to diaries and memoirs, the Hanlons apparently preserved little for posterity. For example, William Hanlon—the family’s most renowned member—occasionally remarked to journalists, “Someday I propose to cull from my record of 38 annual diaries a series of reminiscences which may prove of interest to the readers of the future.” 7 Perhaps William Hanlon’s diaries can be

3

introduction

chalked up as yet another apocryphal story surrounding the Hanlon Brothers; none of these journals have been discovered. Hence, I attempted to test nearly every sentence written about the Hanlon Brothers, weighing it against the primary sources I uncovered in a variety of archives, including the Harvard Theatre Collection, the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Boston Public Library, the University of Iowa’s Special Collections, the Museum of the City of New York, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Circus World Museum, and the Library of Congress. Despite the abundance of materials I found, my task has not been an easy one. For example, Edward Hanlon maintained several scrapbooks for a period of years. Yet he was predictably selective in the clippings he elected to preserve. More astonishing, when it came to preserving the Hanlons’ legacy, the Library of Congress committed a mortal sin in the 1980s. The family copyrighted numerous scripts over the course of their careers, including several versions of Le Voyage en Suisse, Fantasma, Superba, A Lively Legacy, and The Nabob’s Fortune; or, The Adventures of a Sealed Packet, along with a number of unperformed works, depositing them at the Library of Congress. According to employees of the Library of Congress’s Manuscript Division, in the early 1980s those scripts that were deemed to be “not of interest” were thrown away! Mysteriously, none of these deaccessioned holdings were even microfilmed by the nation’s repository. Finally, clipping files housed in major archives—while enormously useful—were often undated or left major gaps. I painstakingly combed the entire run of the New York Clipper desperately seeking references to the Hanlons. Although my eyesight was no doubt irrevocably damaged, this endeavor proved invaluable in constructing this book. Returning to the evidence and the historical record, I discovered that oftentimes the truth was much more compelling than fiction. What follows is a narrative account documenting a wildly popular, truly extraordinary family of performers. The Hanlons’ astonishingly long career, one in which they participated in virtually every genre of their era’s popular entertainments, merits an authoritative and exhaustive study. The Hanlon Brothers: From Daredevil Acrobatics to Spectacle Pantomime, 1833–1931 begins the long overdue process of constructing an accurate biographical account.

4

1 Prepping for Pantomime: The Hanlon Brothers’ Fame and Tragedy, 1833–1870

T

Early Peregrinations: Manchester, England, l’Échelle Périleuse, and John Lees

he Hanlon Brothers’ early years are enormously important in trying to understand their later career. The lessons they learned during this formative period until roughly 1870 would have a clear impact on their later pantomime work and career as producers. First, the early part of the Hanlon Brothers’ career was characterized by their daredevil aerial feats. Although oldest brother Thomas Hanlon was a victim of these stunts, they brought the brothers worldwide fame and laid the groundwork for their immediate recognition and acceptance by the American public years later. In 1881, eleven years after their last appearance in the United States, their show Le Voyage en Suisse was an instant success, due largely to the fact that the Hanlon Brothers required no new introduction to American audiences. Also, this three-act sensation was characterized by a series

5

prepping for pantomime

of spectacular acrobatic feats by the Hanlon Brothers, feats that were undoubtedly perfected during their childhood spent learning such stunts. During these formative years, the brothers were almost constantly on the road, entertaining audiences in countries far removed from their native Manchester, England. Before 1870, the Hanlon Brothers had made triumphant appearances all over the European continent in addition to Africa, Asia, Australia, South and North America. In the process, they learned to love travel, or at least to accept its strains as an unavoidable part of their chosen profession. Like most late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American performers, the Hanlon Brothers would spend a great deal of time traveling by train from one engagement to the next following the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. During these early years, the Hanlon Brothers developed a finely honed sense of divide and conquer. Simply put, fraternal togetherness was not always a priority for the family. During these early years, they frequently worked apart from each other, usually in two factions±George, William, and Alfred on one side, Thomas, Edward, and Frederick on the other. Perhaps sibling rivalry and jealousy were at the root of this decision, but much more likely is the simple fact that working apart brought them greater fame and profits. By the early 1860s, the name Hanlon had become synonymous with splendid acrobatics and daring aerial feats. With two Hanlon companies on the road, as there were periodically during the 1880s and 1890s, the family could reap even greater financial rewards. From their earliest days, the Hanlon Brothers were divided. Their parents were struggling provincial actors in Northern England. Thomas Hanlon Sr. was of Irish descent. For a time he trained for the clergy before running away to Wales and becoming a strolling player. In Wales, he met and married Ellen Hughes, a Welsh actress. Within a matter of years, the two had relocated to Manchester. In this northern city, he was employed for a time as manager of the Theatre Royal, Manchester, and the Queen’s Theatre. Besides Thomas (b. 1833), George (b. 1835), William (b. 1839), Alfred (b. 1842), and Edward (b. 1845) who eventually rose to fame, there was a sister and two other brothers, Robert and Henry, who died while still children.1 In all likelihood, money was scarce in the Hanlon household. The parents were, after all, little-known players in a British provincial city. With three sickly children, the parents were most likely kept at home many nights when they could have been playing on the local stages. Also, Thomas Hanlon Sr. had adopted into the family a young boy named Frederick (b. 1848), a child who was apprenticed to him by a fellow impoverished actor.2 Charged with the care of nine children, the parents began looking for creative ways to ease their financial burdens. Naturally, the theatre±the parents’ profession±would be the most likely place to turn. The children’s mother “would take the boys on the stage when they were babies

6


instead of employing a stuffed article.”3 George Hanlon remembered making his debut at the age of two in a production of Rolla at Manchester’s Theatre Royal.4 William Hanlon recalled his inauspicious first role as follows: I was but 6, I think, when I made my first appearance at a Liverpool theatre. The show was that of magician Jacobs, an old-timer in his art, and with other little things like myself, it was planned that I should emerge from between the covers of an enormous book which was located beneath the performer’s table. But alas for human expectations! At this critical point in my artistic career I fell asleep, missed the cue, and when I was eventually dragged from my place of concealment, it was a lustily yelling kid that received the shouts of a laughing audience.5 Year later, the stage illusions that William Hanlon created for Le Voyage en Suisse, Fantasma, and Superba would be infinitely more memorable. These early forays aside, it was in the field of aerial and gymnastic demonstrations that the Hanlon Brothers would gain fame. Thomas, the eldest, was the first to move into the field. His interest in such feats was said to have been kindled when he was four years old. “His father took him one day to Astley’s Circus, where he witnessed the feats of some clever gymnasts. His future career was settled.”6 Thomas began training in the Athenaeum of his native Manchester, developing remarkable muscle tone and gymnastic finesse for so young a boy. Soon, he adopted the bold motto excelsior± “ever upward,” 7 and made his debut at London’s Surrey Theatre with an act he called l’Échelle Périleuse. L’Échelle Périleuse was an aerial act in which a ladder-like device, similar to the monkey bars on a child’s jungle gym, was hung from the proscenium of a theatre. Unlike the trapeze, l’Échelle Périleuse was a fixed device with a series of sturdy bars on which the athlete could throw and turn his body. Here, Thomas Hanlon enthralled audiences, hurtling from end to end of the apparatus in a routine that probably looked something like that of the modern-day gymnast on the uneven bars, performing a series of leaps, catches, swings, and poses±pausing occasionally to hang by the nape of his neck, his toes, and his knees. By the mid-1850s, Thomas was searching for new thrills to tack onto his act. This culminated with the athlete, in one final exertion, hurtling himself some twenty or thirty feet through space towards a waiting rope. Catching the rope, Hanlon descended slowly to the stage, thus concluding the routine. The few moments of free fall, in the absence of a safety net, must have been exhilarating for both the performer and spectator. The finale was eventually called “the leap for life.” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, eerily foreshadowing the catastrophe

7

Fig. 1. “Thomas Hanlon’s l’Échelle Périleuse.” Courtesy of the University of Iowa, Special Collections.


that was to come some years later, wrote, “This appalling act of labor and ingenuity must be seen to be appreciated; the most elaborate description sounds tame after witnessing it, and when seen it takes the breath away from the spectator, since, should he miss his hold nothing could save him from instant destruction. It is undoubtedly the boldest, the most reckless gymnastic feat ever attempted.”8 Gradually, Thomas Hanlon’s Échelle Périleuse became a common device for nineteenth-century aerialists. The apparatus was “copied in 1862 by Ashton and Donovan with the Antonio Brothers’ Circus, by the Lazelle Brothers with the Lake & Company Circus in 1863, and by others though the years.”9 Until his tragic mishap in 1865, Thomas Hanlon was one of the foremost exponents of aerial arts, respectably ranked alongside his brother William and France’s Jules Léotard, inventor of the so-called flying trapeze. While Thomas was gaining justly deserved recognition for his work at Manchester’s Athenaeum, his younger brothers George, William, and Alfred began performing with the gymnast Professor John Lees. Typically, children destined by talent or family necessity for a career in the English circus were sent to a tutor with whom they lived and studied for a number of years.10 Thus, Thomas Hanlon Sr. had the three boys apprenticed to Lees, a teacher of acrobatics and gymnastics. This arrangement may well have been seen as a way of easing the family’s financial burdens. The three were quite young when they began appearing with Lees in 1846 and 1847±George was eleven; William was seven; Alfred was merely four years old. Since acts employing children were quite popular with audiences, the troupe rapidly gained fame. As early as April 14, 1846, “Professor Lees and His Talented Pupil Master George Hanlon” were the headliners at Edinburgh’s Adelphi Theatre, appearing at the conclusion of the romantic drama Don Caesar de Bazan. Lees and George Hanlon had obviously been together for some time, as the evening’s playbill advertised that the two “have had the distinguished honour of appearing before the Queen Dowager, their majesties the king and queen of Belgium . . . and a host of other English nobility.”11 By the summer of 1846, Professor Lees and George Hanlon were again in Edinburgh, returning for a series of appearances at the Adelphi Theatre. On August 15, 1846, Lees and Hanlon took a benefit, with the theatre’s stock company playing Charles XII. This night, “Master Alfred Hanlon, an infant, three years and a half old, will make his first and only appearance here, performing various extraordinary feats for a child of his age, with his brother, Master George Hanlon.”12 During the Christmas season of 1846, the troupe appeared for four weeks at London’s Adelphi Theatre, this time joined by William.13 Here, they were billed as “the celebrated entortilationists,” from the French word entortiller, which translates roughly to twisting or turning. Lees and the Hanlon boys made

9


a second short appearance at this theatre in February 1847, before Lees took the two older boys, George and William, with him to the European continent for a series of appearances in France and Spain. By the fall of 1848, Alfred was reunited with George and William and Professor Lees. Soon, the four were traversing the globe with their highly praised acrobatic act, leaving Thomas and the remainder of the family behind in England. The 1846–1855 perambulations of John Lees and the three Hanlon children— George, William, and Alfred—sound like a lot of stereotypically romantic circus performer hokum, with triumphant engagements in the world’s major cities, undeveloped nations, and before the nobility of every country. Miraculously, much of the Hanlons’ story during these early years can be documented.14 Effectively, John Lees adopted George, William, and Alfred. He oversaw their training and spiritual development while imbuing the young and impressionable boys with his zest for pleasing audiences with thrilling spectacles. Having plucked the boys away from their home at such a young age, he became a father figure to them. Often when traveling, the boys were referred to as his sons±perhaps as a way of avoiding legal entanglements in foreign countries. By doing so, any sense of impropriety could be avoided while also easing the troupe’s passage from place to place. The young Hanlon Brothers were obviously quite fond of Professor John Lees. Years later, George Hanlon declared, "Let me tell you that Lees was not only a teacher for us, but also a devoted protector, a second father. . . . Besides the fact that Lees was a skilled gymnast, he also had a big heart and a beautiful spirit. . . . He was a learned man, whose paternal severities were tempered by the delights of a child. . . . He was sincerely liked by all of us . . . and we considered him not our master, but our friend."15 At first the troupe’s specialty was the Risley, an ages-old acrobatic act first popularized on the European continent by the American performer Richard Risley Carlisle. John Lees lay flat on his back, balancing and juggling the children using only his feet. In another routine, Lees gracefully tossed a child around his body, occasionally halting to allow the boy to do handstands on his forearm or pose angelically in the palm of his hand.16 A Spanish journalist commented on what must have been a particularly tortuous turn in their act, at least for Lees: “The ways of the Lees are horribly beautiful, and on quite a few occasions we have watched breathlessly as those incredible boys are sent flying by their father, stand in the palm of his hand, or hang from his slippery beard while suspended from a great height. It is no wonder that the public of Barcelona is rushing to admire these extraordinary phenomena.”17 As the Hanlons aged and developed strength and agility, ladder routines were gradually introduced, the sort that would inspire those of Buster Keaton some seventy years later in his film Cops. “They more than satisfied all expectations of their audience with a variety of

10


balancing, performed with the greatest of ease and perfection. Some caused astonishment, principally that which used the ladder. The public showed their admiration by means of raucous applause, acclaiming the artists back twice and covering them with bravos. This kind of entertainment is the best thing we have ever seen.”18 By 1855, tumbling, human pyramids, rope walking, juggling, and trapeze acts had also been added to their repertoire. While playing abroad, a recurring “problem” for the Hanlon Brothers was the fact that they were consistently mistaken as being from the United States. Even at this early point in their careers, a journalist erroneously noted, “At the end of the show the town government presented the American family with a brilliant banquet.”19 However, the Hanlon Brothers had yet to set foot in the United States. Perhaps audiences identified the Hanlons as Americans because their pièce de résistance±the Risley±was named after an American. More likely, the young brothers’ agility, grace, inventiveness, and daring±traits that would characterize their careers±must have seemed synonymous with that of the rapidly industrializing country on the North American continent, a country in which the Hanlon Brothers would eventually settle in 1881. Their first visit would not occur until after the death of their mentor John Lees. Until then, Professor Lees and the Hanlon Brothers toured the world, making triumphant appearances in Spain, France, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, India, Java, Australia, New Zealand, Chili, Peru, and Panama. Notices from nobility accompanied them, which were presumably presented to the authorities when requesting permission for a series of performances. In Spain, Queen Isabella II attended an evening benefit for the troupe. William recalled being kissed by the queen in recognition of his handsomeness and refined courtly manners.20 Francisco Paulo Antonio of Borbon, in a proclamation dated March 29, 1849, wrote, “Under the auspices of my beloved kings and princes of foreign lands, let me present to you Mr. John Lees, professor of acrobatics, and his three sons, George, William, and Alfred. I have had the pleasure of admiring their skill and ability for the past five nights. In the kingdom of Spain they have left behind many great memories.” The rajah of Mysore declared in an edict of August 21, 1852, “I have to express myself as much pleased and gratified, with the performances of Professor John Lees and his three sons, George, William, and Alfred, and can strongly recommend them to the notice and patronage of every Native and European Court.”21 In the winter of 1855, John Lees contracted yellow fever in Panama. During the ocean crossing from Panama to Cuba, he died and was buried at sea. Unfortunately, he had left his affairs in relative disorder. The Cuban authorities hastily settled his estate, not taking into account the fact that George, William, and Alfred had helped Lees amass his small fortune. Years later, George remarked, “It was not

11


only cruel, but imprudent for him to die in a foreign country.”22 All but penniless, the three Hanlons joined the Charini and Nicolo Circus. With this organization, the brothers played a series of engagements in Havana, the Cuban capital city. Now performing without their mentor, the Hanlons still managed to entertain their audiences: “The Brothers Lees have had the misfortune of losing their father Mr. John Lees in the crossing of Aspinwall. . . . The Havana public applauds with enthusiasm your difficult and delicate acts of gymnastics and skill.” 23 From Cuba, George, William, and Alfred came to the United States for the first time. William remembered, “Mr. Lees had said to us in almost his last moments, ‘Boys, go to America,’ and we felt his advice should be taken.”24 For one season, the Hanlons toured with George F. Bailey’s Circus. “Their acts while with Mr. Bailey consisted of dancing upon glass globes or standing upon the head on the crystal pyramids.”25 At the close of the season, the Hanlons returned to their native England, where they were reunited with their brothers Thomas, Edward, and Frederick. Much to their surprise, they found the family’s Manchester home had been completely remodeled in their absence. George Hanlon recalled, “Thomas, the eldest, had transformed our house into a gymnasium, where we trained very hard for eighteen months. After this supplement of education, we appeared once again before the public.”26 Thomas, George, William, and Alfred Hanlon returned to the stage in 1858. First came a series of engagements at Paris’s Cirque Napoleon. Thomas Hanlon’s Échelle Périleuse made a tremendous hit. One anonymous writer stated, “You cannot look at him without trembling, without bursting, without feeling your heart beat with extreme violence. Hanlon laughs at danger on his ladder. . . . We have seen many aerial exercises, but we have never yet seen anything to be compared with his.”27 At this point in their careers, Thomas Hanlon’s routines were clearly the troupe’s most popular. However, his fame was soon to be challenged by that of his brother William. Next, the Hanlons played a series of engagements in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia. They unveiled a marvelous acrobatic routine in which William stood on George’s shoulders, who stood on Thomas’s, thus forming a three-man pyramid. The act’s difficulty was increased because each brother kept his arms folded across his chest, rather than using them to support the person on top of his shoulders. William explained, “Suddenly, from the summit where I was perched I threw a somersault and landed standing on Thomas’s shoulders, while George±placed between us, slipped away from the pyramid by simultaneously throwing a dangerous somersault to the side." 28 The family remained in Russia for nearly two years. Before leaving, the Hanlons’ “sincere friend” Czar Nicholas presented them with a drawing of a snowy, pastoral cabin, hand-dated April 29, 1859.29

12

Fig. 2. A gymnastic routine the Hanlons unveiled in Russia. Thomas stands with his arms folded across his chest; George is to the side, caught mid-somersault; William, directly above Thomas, is about to throw his somersault and land on Thomas’s shoulders. Courtesy of the University of Iowa, Special Collections.


When they returned to Manchester, William fell during a training session on the trapeze and broke his arm. This was the family’s first documented injury; in the coming years there would be more. Shortly thereafter, the six brothers— Thomas, George, William, Alfred, Edward, and Frederick—signed a contract with the American producer James M. Nixon to appear at Niblo’s Garden, New York City. This would be one of the few times that the six appeared together. For the Hanlons, who claimed the United States to be “the promised land,” 30 this was an opportunity to go to the country that would become inextricably linked to them.

Cooke’s Royal Amphitheatre, Zampillaerostation, and Tragedy, 1860–1870 James M. Nixon was an inveterate Yankee showman whose forays into the entertainment field were always popular with mid-nineteenth-century audiences. From his humble beginnings working as a groom with a small circus, he gradually rose in stature, serving as equestrian director with several organizations and managing circuses featuring the famous clown Dan Rice.31 In the fall of 1859, Nixon traveled to Europe to engage artists for an engagement at New York City’s Niblo’s Garden, leading circus historian William Slout to state, “The recruiting trip would, within a matter of months, result in the high point of Nixon’s managerial career.”32 Miraculously, in addition to the six Hanlon Brothers, Nixon managed to secure William Cooke, the famed equestrian director of London’s Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre. Cooke came from a famous circus family that dated back three generations. For seven years, he had managed the famed Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre, the first modern circus. Both his name and that of his London circus would serve as instant drawing cards for New York City circus fans. The circus that opened at Niblo’s Garden on January 16, 1860, was a conglomeration of American and British acts performing under the name Cooke’s Royal Amphitheatre. A playbill for the circus capitalized on the Hanlons’ fame in foreign countries: “The Six Hanlon Brothers, These very celebrated Acrobats and Gymnasts, whose reputation in London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Madrid, Vienna, Melbourne, Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Chili, Havana, as well as most other principal European and Asiatic cities is everywhere acknowledged. The indescribable exploits of these great gymnasts, have been pronounced Unparalleled, Unapproachable, and Unequaled, by the press, the public, and the profession generally.”33 Promotional materials stated that six Hanlon Brothers would appear before the public. However, William was not featured during this first stay at Niblo’s Garden, owing to the injury he had suffered back in Manchester. Thomas was the Hanlon brother who was singled out for praise by the press. His Échelle Périleuse, presented for the first time to American audiences, “created

14


an enormous excitement.” The New York Times stated, “The feat is terrible to behold, but beautifully performed.”34 At first, William Cooke and his equestrian demonstrations were the circus’s primary attractions. Gradually, audiences’ attentions were drawn to the young equestrienne Mlle. Ella Zoyara, whose “fine physique, which her ethereal costume fully exhibits, at once attracts the attention of the masculine gender.”35 Nightly she collected floral bouquets at the conclusion of her act; stage-door Johnnies sent her notes of admiration. Then the New York Spirit of the Times speculated that the reticent Mlle. Zoyara was in actuality Omar Samuel Kingsley, a Creole from Louisiana, masquerading as a woman!36 With the press furiously debating the young rider’s gender (eventually it was revealed that Zoyara was in fact a man), audiences packed Niblo’s Garden nightly. A writer advised, “The circus ‘draws like a horse’ at Niblo’s, and . . . if you wish a seat lower than the ceiling, it is necessary to go early.”37 By early February 1860, the Hanlon Brothers had unveiled a new routine that they called “Les Hommes de l’Air.” This was a parterre act, an acrobatic or gymnastic feat performed on the ground, in which George and Thomas hung upside down from a ladder-like device and simultaneously threw themselves from end to end in a thrilling precursor to the casting act that they subsequently developed. Meanwhile, Edward and Frederick were doing a routine that they called “La Perche.” Using a freestanding pole, the two youngest brothers climbed, balanced, and posed in a series of seemingly impossible contortions. 38 Despite the controversy swirling around Mlle. Zoyara, the New York Clipper considered the Hanlon Brothers to be “the trump cards of the troupe.”39 Nixon’s circus departed Niblo’s Garden on March 3, 1860, for a five-week stint at the Boston Theatre in Massachusetts. Before leaving New York, the show received the encomium, “Unquestionably, taken all and all, this thoroughly complete circus is the best that has ever been seen in the United States.”40 In Boston, the brothers still performed without William. Regardless, “The Hanlons were at that time the foremost gymnasts in the world, being bona fide brothers and six in number.”41 The circus opened in Boston under the title Cooke’s Royal Amphitheatre. However, at the end of the run, the name of the company was suddenly changed to Nixon’s Troupe of Equestrians, from Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre, London. William Cooke, disenchanted with James M. Nixon’s management, had elected to return to his native country. Unfazed, Nixon simply dropped Cooke’s name from the bills and continued to promote his circus and its English ties. Nixon’s troupe returned to New York’s Niblo’s Garden on April 9, 1860, where they commenced a short season that would last through May 26. Recovered from his injuries, William Hanlon finally made his debut on May 14, at first limiting himself to the human pyramids that he constructed with his brothers Alfred,

15


Thomas, and George. With the Hanlon Brothers now performing together nightly, T. Allston Brown reported, “They at once took their position at the head of the gymnastic list, and were with one accord admitted to be the best and most accomplished gymnasts before the public. . . . All professional gentlemen of the gymnastic persuasion at once acknowledged their abilities. They performed seeming impossibilities of strength, quickness, and daring that had never before been attempted. As a family of gymnasts they had never been rivaled.”42 His injuries healed, William began to eclipse his older brother Thomas. William’s specialty was the trapeze, a swing-like device that had been introduced in France several years before. In all likelihood, the Hanlons saw a trapeze demonstration in Paris and were intrigued by the apparatus. Subsequently, the Hanlons introduced the trapeze to the American circus under the name “Zampillaerostation.”43 Whereas Thomas’s Échelle Périleuse was a fixed piece of equipment bolted to the theatre’s proscenium, the trapeze swung in graceful arcs, high above the audience. Without the now-familiar safety net, the spectators seated below the athletes became vicarious participants in the thrill and danger of a trapeze demonstration. France’s Jules Léotard is generally credited with inventing the trapeze, in addition to lending his name to the tight-fitting garments that he typically wore. Léotard made his triumphant debut at Paris’s Cirque Napoléon in November 1859, flinging himself back and forth between two freestanding trapezes. William Hanlon greatly admired the French aerialist, stating, “It is necessary to do justice . . . to this excellent gymnast whom we knew particularly well. We have nothing but the best remembrances of him and he must be regarded as one of the gymnastic masters. . . . It is truly Léotard who is the creator of this genre of acrobatics which still fascinates the public.”44 If Léotard was the originator of the trapeze, soon William Hanlon would be its supreme exhibitor in the United States. In addition to his trapeze work, William’s gymnastics were also heralded. T. Allston Brown claimed, “William is the first man who ever did a back somersault on the shoulders.”45 Athletes participating in aerial demonstrations of this nature require utter concentration and bravery. Once their confidence wavers, the results can be devastating. The Hanlons suffered their first stateside accident in late July 1860. Nixon’s organization had returned to Niblo’s Garden for a third engagement, now appearing under the title Nixon’s Royal Equestrian Troupe.46 Once again, the Hanlon Brothers were a featured part of the circus. On the night of July 31, 1860, Thomas Hanlon was nearing the end of his routine on l’Échelle Périleuse. For some time, blisters on his palms had been bothering him. When it came time for him to spring for the awaiting rope, Thomas miscalculated his “leap for life”

16


and fell forty feet. Mrs. Cowell, wife of the British comic singer Sam Cowell, was at Niblo’s Garden the night of the mishap. In her diary, she reported: To my dismay I heard Sam [Cowell] cry in an awestruck voice “Good God, he’s down!”±and so indeed he was. He had missed the rope, and with wonderful presence of mind, straightened himself while falling, so that he fell on his feet. As I looked up, he was gazing wildly, almost unconsciously, at the audience, and was led off the stage. The hush was terrible and presently Mr. Pentland (the clown . . . ) came on, and said "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am happy to say that Mr. Hanlon is not hurt." Then the people shouted, applauded, and cried for some minutes until the poor fellow himself came to the side, and placing his hand on his heart, bowed, but was scarcely able to limp off. A gentleman who sat beside us, went round to see him, and on his return, said that the injuries were internal and very severe.47 Fortunately, Thomas’s injuries proved to not be as dangerous as were at first feared. Several days later he returned to the company. Five years later, Thomas would not be so fortunate when he fell a second time in Cincinnati. Audiences took a perverse pleasure in seeing the daredevil stunts that the Hanlons presented on a nightly basis. They were vicarious thrill seekers, eager to see the latest seemingly foolhardy spectacle that the Hanlons provided. Just two weeks after she had witnessed Thomas Hanlon come crashing to the stage from a great height, Mrs. Cowell returned to Niblo’s Garden. However, there would be no accidents on this visit; instead, she was entertained by a comic stilt-walking routine that Mrs. Cowell remembered as “Alfred Hanlon with sticks.”48 By the time the Hanlons returned to New York in December 1861, the American Civil War had been raging for eight months. The Union’s hopes for a quick resolution to the war had been dashed by a series of humiliating defeats, first at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, then in the Battle of Bull Run in northern Virginia. Although they were English by birth, the Hanlons aspired to assimilate into American society—a process that they would complete by the mid-1880s. Enlisting in the conflict seemed to be an easy way to do so. Thomas Hanlon flirted for a time with entering the war on the side of the North. According to George Hanlon, Thomas was offered the command of an elite corps of 1,500 gymnasts, which were to be equipped by the Federal government. However, this humorous offer—if it was indeed true—was eventually turned down when the Hanlons’ father advised his sons to stay out of a war that the English government opposed.49 The American Civil War brought devastating casualties. Europeans, who had recently been through their own civil wars of 1848, were astounded by the

17


sheer number of Americans, from both the South and the North, being slaughtered. From the outset, Americans had a perverse desire to view the carnage. Washington’s finest families made the pilgrimage to the fields of Manassas, Virginia, site of the first Battle of Bull Run, to watch the struggle unfold. When the Union’s lavishly outfitted troops were forced to beat a hasty retreat, the spectators barely had time to repack their carefully prepared picnics. Later in the war, Mathew Brady would become a sensation with his photographs of the conflict’s bloody battlefields, many of which were posed or altered in order to exaggerate the mounting carnage. Americans purchased thousands of stereopticon slides of Brady’s gory photographs, thus allowing them to view the war’s carnage in their family parlors. 50 A bloodlust not unlike that of the ancient Romans had been whetted. The Hanlons’ death-defying aerial stunts appealed to this perverse, yet human, instinct. Just four Hanlons—Thomas, George, William, and Alfred—returned to New York on 12 December 1861. James W. Lingard, comanager with George L. Fox of the popular Bowery Theatre on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, leased the Academy of Music for a three-week season. Recently returned from a short stint in the Union army, George L. Fox was a beloved pantomime clown and said to be the funniest man in the world. Over the next three weeks, Fox’s company would present a series of knockabout pantomimes at the Academy of Music including Les Quatre Amants (which the Bowery’s denizens called Dem Four Lovers.) Fox’s antics aside, the true focus was on William Hanlon, not the white-faced scheming clown. Interestingly, twenty years later the Hanlons unveiled their Le Voyage en Suisse in New York, a comic pantomime fusing their acrobatics with the high jinks of the great Fox. The fact that the Hanlon Brothers and George L. Fox appeared on this early bill is a tantalizing coincidence.51 Manager Lingard promised that William Hanlon’s new act would be “literally unequaled by any exhibition which has hitherto been given, and may fairly be asserted to be beyond rivalry both in the boldness of its conception, and the unexampled daring of its execution.”52 The feat was called Zampillaerostation. Twenty-three years after its 1861 premiere, a seeming eternity for acrobatic stunts, a writer concluded that Zampillaerostation “gave the Hanlons a fame and popularity which it is doubtful if any other gymnasts have ever enjoyed.”53 At the back of the auditorium, a fifty-foot pillar was erected. Attached to the roof of the building, high above the audience’s heads, were three carefully syncopated swinging trapezes, spaced twenty, fifty, and thirty feet apart. Dressed as a fairy prince, William would leap from the pillar at the back of the theatre onto the first trapeze. A somersault in midair brought him to the second trapeze; another somersault swung him to the third trapeze. Zampillaerostation concluded with William landing successfully on a stage pillar. Surely the excitement

18

Fig. 3. William Hanlon preparing for his Zampillaerostation, widely thought to be the nineteenth century’s most daring aerial feat. Note the three trapezes and the center stage pedestal, William’s landing point. Author’s collection.


and danger of the piece were shared by the audience, for the acrobatics occurred just above their heads. The spectators seated below the athlete became vicarious participants in the thrill and danger of a trapeze demonstration. 54 With Zampillaerostation, the Hanlons became a nationwide sensation and cemented for themselves a lasting American reputation. Their name became synonymous with acrobatic excellence and their feats became the standards by which other performers measured themselves. Detailed descriptions and illustrations of the routine were published in newspapers and journals, seeking to explicate William Hanlon’s great stunt. Lavish praise was bestowed by writers who deemed Zampillaerostation to be the most daring aerial routine ever seen: “It was unquestionably the most surprising, graceful and perfect acrobatic feat ever attempted. At the conclusion of the feat the applause that greeted the daring performer was terrific, and he and his brothers retired in a whirlwind of approbation. This act required more nerve and science combined than any other. The feat was thrilling to behold, and only the grace with which it was done and the apparent ease and certainty with which William caught the different trapeze bars made the feat pleasing.”55 Like Jules Léotard, who inspired “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze,” William too had music composed to underscore his routine. “In his wonderful and rapid movements through the air he is accompanied by the admiration and sympathies of the entire audience and the music of a good orchestra.”56 Alfred Hanlon wrote “The Zampillaerostation Waltz,” the published sheet music containing a handsome colored illustration of the routine. 57 Even Mark Twain, suggesting more than a little acquaintance with the Hanlons, found time to spoof the act’s whimsical title. In The Innocents Abroad, Count Leonardo is presented with a company of mountebanks. The evil count asks the troupe for a list of their specialties. In an obvious nod to Shakespeare’s Polonius (a favorite of Twain), the leader replies, “Good my lord, in acrobatic feats, in practice with the dumbbells, in balancing and ground and lofty tumbling are we versed—and sith your highness asketh me, I venture here to publish that in the truly marvelous and entertaining Zampillaerostation.” Baffled, Count Leonardo angrily interrupts the troupe’s leader, shouting, “Gag him! throttle him! Body of Bacchus! am I a dog that I am to be assailed with polysyllabled blasphemy like to this?”58 With William’s new stunt came morbid audience members who were eager to see him fail. In a perhaps apocryphal story related in a newspaper clipping, William recalled one coffin chaser in an unnamed city who came to the theatre every night and sat in the same prominent seat to watch Zampillaerostation. Growing curious, William had the man summoned to his dressing room. “The old man explained that he knew one day that William would ‘break his neck’ and he intended to be present for the event.” Ironically, on the night that the

20


patron failed to attend, William fell and broke his ankle. The old man visited him in the hospital and was tremendously upset that he had missed the accident. When William asked why he had not been in the theatre that night, the man said that he had missed the performance because he was attending to his wife’s funeral arrangements!59 With the Union and the rebellious Confederate States of America locked in the Civil War, audiences’ attentions were naturally elsewhere, so the Hanlon Brothers opted to leave the East Coast at the height of their fame. Thomas, George, William, and Alfred left New York for a four-year tour that would take them to California, South America, and Western Europe. Meanwhile, Edward and Frederick remained in Manchester, perhaps perfecting their own routines. At San Francisco’s American Theatre, Thomas, George, William, and Alfred appeared nightly in July 1862 over the course of two weeks. They performed Zampillaerostation, treble parterre, l’Échelle Périleuse, and other bits of their repertoire between acts of the theatre’s stock company featuring Mrs. W. H. Leighton and comedian Harry Courtaine.60 Prior to departing San Francisco, an elaborate acrostic spelling out their names was presented to them by a pleased fan.61

Fig. 4. William Hanlon in a photographer’s studio, circa 1861. Note the emphasis on his musculature and the barbell at his feet. Courtesy of the Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library.

21


After California, the four visited Peru, Argentina, and Brazil before leaving for the European continent.62 In January 1865, the six reunited Hanlon Brothers arrived in New York with a loose conglomeration of performers they called the Hanlon-Lees Transcontinental Combination, one of the first times the company hyphenated the name of their one-time trainer onto their own. Essentially this was a variety company of singers, comedians, and trained animals, featuring the Hanlons as the main draw. A hopeful writer stated, “The Hanlon Brothers . . . graceful and extraordinary acrobatic and gymnastic feats created such a sensation in this country a few years ago. . . . Should they appear in public again they will probably introduce some novelty never witnessed in this country before, and which will far surpass all their past performances.”63 Through the spring and summer of 1865, the Hanlons’ company made a series of appearances in New England and the Midwest, rekindling the fame and admiration that had greeted the brothers four years prior. In Cincinnati, Ohio, the troupe performed at Pike’s Opera House±allegedly to the largest audiences ever played by any star or company in that city. On August 14, 1865, Thomas, the oldest brother, was nearing the conclusion of his routine on l’Échelle Périleuse when disaster struck: "Having gone through with his performances on the apparatus, he sprang for the vertical rope which was held by two of his brothers, to lower himself to the stage. He reached the rope, grasped for it, missed it and fell with a confused flash in the air, striking the stage with fearful momentum, and rolling over, unconscious and bleeding, into the parquett [sic].”64 The daredevil acrobatics had claimed their first victim. Miraculously, Thomas survived the fall, although he did suffer a tremendous gash over his left eye where his skull had been pierced by one of the theatre’s footlight burners. On August 25, 1865—eleven days after the accident—the Hanlons reappeared at Cincinnati’s Pike’s Opera House for a benefit in their honor. A second benefit would be held the following night. Thomas did not participate in any of the gymnastic demonstrations, although he did take a bow to an appreciative audience. The blow would have lasting effects on the gymnast. Over the next several years, he tried repeatedly to return to his aerial demonstrations but never really recovered his former abilities, perhaps due to shattered nerves, double vision, or other physical impairments brought on as a result of the fall. A contemporary writer wrote, “It is now stated by the doctors that it was from the injuries received by this fall that he was bereft of his reason, as the bones in the skull had been splintered and caused his trouble.”65 Although Thomas continued touring with his brothers, he reportedly suffered fits of insanity±which would ultimately come to a tragic conclusion in 1868. Shortly after Thomas’s fall, the Hanlons appeared in Chicago, Illinois, where they were introduced to the French juggler Henri Agoust and his wife Rosita Zan-

22


fretta, a famed aerialist who later became known as Azella, “the female Léotard.” Days after the meeting, Agoust and Zanfretta merged their company with that of the Hanlons to form the Hanlon-Zanfretta Combination. This was to prove a significant coupling. Although Agoust was billed as “the world’s greatest juggler,” he also had extensive training in ballet, fencing, magic, and pantomime.66 Agoust is generally credited with pushing the Hanlon Brothers to merge their supreme acrobatics with pantomime comedy. At first, Agoust rehearsed the troupe in two pantomimes of the famed French mime Jean-Gaspard Deburau, Harlequin Statue and Harlequin Skeleton. Gradually, the Hanlons developed new routines that were added to their repertoire. Their future career as pantomimists had been set in motion. In October 1865, the Hanlons devised a striking way to advertise their performances at Baltimore, Maryland’s Front Street Theatre. The middle of the city features an obelisk dedicated to the memory of the nation’s first president, George Washington. George and William Hanlon climbed to the top of the tower and proceeded to do a series of aerial stunts, while the passersby on the street below watched in shocked amusement. William remembered, “George . . . climbed over the balcony and hung upside down. . . . He saluted the crowd. I held him by his feet and he balanced himself in the air. . . . He proceeded to shout out our name to the public below. Some naive folks were expecting us to jump from the balcony, but the truth is that we descended like normal people by the steps.”67 Once safely back down to street level, the two mischievous brothers were arrested by a police officer for attempting suicide!68 The six Hanlon Brothers made their last New York appearances together in early 1866. At the newly opened Wood’s Theatre, they were one of the incidental entertainments in Thomas B. DeWalden’s The Balloon Wedding, which ran from 15–29 January. Besides the Hanlons, the spectacle offered a “Magic Fountain,” complete with dancing waters and a shower of lights. Despite the presence of stage favorite Frank Chanfrau (whose character Mose the fire b’hoy was beloved by New York audiences), the play was a complete disaster. A correspondent for the New York Clipper stated, “Had it not been for the Hanlon Brothers . . . the only redeeming thing in the whole piece . . . the play would have been damned the first night, and would not have seen a third.” In actuality, the Hanlons’ supreme gymnastic demonstrations managed to keep The Balloon Wedding aloft for a two-week run: “The feats of the five brothers Hanlon [Thomas did not perform] were not only remarkable but electrifying. They performed acts that we never before saw attempted, and did them so gracefully as to at once commend for them the title of the greatest of living gymnasts. As we said before, it if had not been for their performance, the play would have been, without any exception, the trashiest affair we ever saw produced on the stage.”69

23


The Hanlons must have been quite taken with the Magic Fountain, because after The Balloon Wedding closed they purchased the device and made it a featured part of the variety combination they subsequently formed. Before leaving New York, the troupe appeared at a February benefit for James W. Lingard, the man who had introduced them four years earlier in Zampillaerostation. Meanwhile, further downtown at Bryant’s Minstrels, the Hanlon Brothers’ popularity was confirmed by the fact that the burnt cork company was producing a burlesque version of the Hanlon Brothers, “which should have been acrobatic and funny in true minstrel style.” 70 By the summer of 1866, the Hanlons had separated into two factions. Thomas, Edward, and Frederick toured together, with George, William, and Alfred comprising the second troupe. The divisions made sense, since George, William, and Alfred had spent their childhood touring with Professor John Lees. More puzzling is the question of why the Hanlons divided themselves at the height of their fame. The brothers had never really been raised together, since at early ages they began their training apart from each other. Now that they had been “forced” to work together under fraternal pretenses, perhaps jealousies and sibling rivalries had arisen. However, if the brothers were squabbling, they did so quietly and away from the public’s gaze, since their differences were never aired in the theatre profession’s trade papers. More likely, the Hanlons had once again reverted to the notion of divide and conquer that had been instilled in them at an early age. By this point in their careers, the Hanlons were considered to be the United States’ preeminent gymnasts, whose acrobatics and daring aerial feats were unrivaled. Although having two separate companies was not conducive to fraternal togetherness, it did allow them to bring their talents to more audiences. With two companies on the road, both using the golden name “Hanlon,” the brothers could realize even greater fame and financial rewards. Thomas, Edward, and Frederick elected to bestow the Hanlon name on three young boys, John Charles Ryan, Patrick Carmody±nicknamed “Little Bob” ±and William O’Mara. The three boys were trained in aerial and gymnastic routines and quickly incorporated into the stage productions. During a sojourn in London, Thomas had been "impressed by the antics of three Irish boys in a Westminster Street. . . . Carmody and O’Mara were cousins.” 71 In Europe, promotional materials touted them as John, Robert, and William Hanlon, perhaps to emphasize their “Americanness.” When touring in the United States, the three were usually referred to as Victor, Julien, and François, perhaps to emphasize their “foreignness.” With his physical abilities declining, Thomas devoted himself to training the three young boys in the stunts that he had learned during his childhood in Manchester. Publicly the three boys were referred to as the Hanlon

24


Midgets. Before they were added to the company’s aerial demonstrations, the boys masqueraded in blackface, singing a number of minstrel songs.72 Years later when the Hanlon Brothers and the Hanlon Midgets split, the three nippers would prove to be true thorns in the Hanlons’ sides, refusing to relinquish the cherished surname. Gradually, Thomas, Edward, and Frederick began to focus on carpet acrobatics rather than aerial demonstrations±most likely because Thomas was no longer able or willing to perform his earlier routines. A writer remarked, “They have dispensed with those dangerous, as well as what were, to the ladies, nervous acts in midair, and have substituted what is known as ‘ground acts.’”73 However, audiences found the Hanlon Brothers’ new tricks as enthralling as their earlier repertoire. A correspondent who saw their performances at the Saratoga, New York, Opera House remarked, “These three young men, Thomas, Edward, and Frederick execute the most wonderful feats, and with much ease. They throw somersaults from the shoulders of one and alight on the shoulders of another, the men standing at least ten feet apart; they execute all kinds of beautiful feats on the horizontal bar, exhibiting a strength of muscle and a grace of movement marvelous to behold.” 74 In late August 1866, the company’s performances began a craze for calisthenics and physical training in New York City. At Irving Hall, the Hanlons sponsored a gymnastic tournament, offering gold medals to the city’s best performers. At the conclusion of the run, the brothers were presented with silver cutlery, personalized goblets, a silver pitcher, and a salver engraved with a trapeze and horizontal bar.75 When Thomas, Edward, and Frederick arrived in the city, there were said to be just two gymnasiums; six months after their departure there were thirty-two.76 In many ways, the Hanlons’ gymnastic demonstrations were a direct challenge to the preexisting Victorian concept of the body—a body that had been codified, prescribed, and occasionally demonized. Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, most ministers, writers, teachers, and businessmen had discouraged exercise and sports on the grounds that they were immoral, useless, and socially improper. However, propagandists for fitness, many of whom drew upon the Hanlons as examples, helped usher in a new approach to physical training, stressing that exercise promoted good physical, mental, and spiritual health, fostered proper moral and social conduct, and drew young men away from more sordid amusements. These reformers also insisted that physical activity instilled character traits, strengthened the bonds of society, and helped to preserve order and advance the future prosperity of a rapidly changing society.77 At first, German immigrants were especially influential in bringing about a change in America’s approach to physical fitness. The Turnvereine, a series of fraternal societies founded by German immigrants, were begun in the late 1840s,

25

prepping for pantomime Fig. 5. Frederick, Edward, and Thomas Hanlon, circa 1866. Courtesy of the Laurence Senelick Collection.

all of which included gymnasiums for training the body. By 1852, twenty-two societies had been organized throughout the northern United States. The aims of the Turnvereine were to promote physical education, intellectual enlightenment, and sociability among the members—all around a gymnasium where classes in the German system of exercises were conducted for men, women, and children. Outdoor games, gymnastic meets, and exhibitions were frequent. When the Civil War began in 1861, the Turnerbund included about 150 societies and 10,000 members.78

26


Perhaps influenced by the Turnerbund movement, the American reformer Dioclesian Lewis dedicated his life’s work to the cause of physical education. After a year of training at Harvard Medical School, Lewis dropped out and began a private practice, absent a degree. Gradually, he realized that most Americans were in deplorable physical condition. In his influential book The New Gymnastics for Men, Women, and Children, Lewis observed, “He who has not seen in the imperfect growth, pale faces, distorted forms and painful nervousness of the American People, enough to justify any and all efforts to elevate our physical tone, would not be awakened by words written or spoken.” 79 In response, Lewis devised a system of “free gymnastics,” exercises without fixed apparatus that stressed repetition and flexibility, rather than strenuous lifting. Like modern-day aerobics, Lewis’s gymnastics were performed with rhythmic musical accompaniment. Interestingly, Lewis paid quite a bit of attention to the Hanlons, observing, “The Hanlon Brothers . . . are, physiologically considered, greatly superior to heavy lifters.”80 According to Lewis, exercise that concentrated solely on heavy lifting would eventually slow the body to the point of stultification. Instead, Lewis urged that in “the Hanlon Brothers is found the model gymnast. They can neither lift great weights nor tie themselves into knots, but they occupy a point between these two extremes. They possess both strength and flexibility, and resemble fine, active, agile, vigorous carriage horses.”81 The Hanlons agreed with Lewis’s advice. Years later, a Philadelphia reporter noted that the Hanlon Brothers “hold that it is a great mistake to use heavy dumbbells, clubs, etc., in exercising. They use very light ones, and carefully avoid all heavy lifting and straining.”82 Ultimately the Civil War demonstrated to all would-be detractors the value of physical fitness. At the conclusion of the war in 1865, tangible evidence of America’s new approach to physical fitness could be seen. More than a few colleges, including Harvard, Bowdoin, and Amherst, built gymnasiums and incorporated physical education into their curricula. 83 By 1869, the Young Men’s Christian Association or YMCA had erected its first gymnasium in Manhattan.84 The Hanlons—with gymnastics and fitness at the center of their variety shows—had played a major role in bringing about a change in America’s approach to physical training. While their brothers Thomas, Edward, and Frederick were moving away from the aerial demonstrations that had established the family’s fame, George, William, and Alfred were continuing to develop even more thrilling stunts. Their company was under the management of Morris Simmonds, who previously had been manager of Pike’s Opera House in Cincinnati, scene of Thomas’s fateful 1865 fall. The partnership was to have lasting ramifications. When the Hanlons returned to America in 1881, they were managed by Simmonds and Brown, the

27


theatrical company that Simmonds founded with Colonel T. Allston Brown. Simmonds could boast to have managed the Hanlons during both phases of their lengthy, lucrative career in the American theatre. George, William, and Alfred toured under the name “Hanlons Grand TransAtlantic Combination.” Their company, not unlike the vaudeville shows of some fifty years later, at various times featured Henri Agoust in a series of juggling routines, Professor Tanner’s trained dogs and monkeys, the “manfish” Harry Gurr with his underwater demonstrations, and the illuminated fountain±a remnant from the long-closed Balloon Wedding. These attractions aside, the Hanlon Brothers were clearly the troupe’s main draw. Their featured routine was unimaginatively titled “Three Flying Men of the Air.” However, it was judged to be “the most astounding and thrilling feat ever attempted” by the New York Clipper’s Dayton, Ohio, correspondent.85 Many other scribes agreed with his appraisal of the Hanlons’ casting act. In this feat of William Hanlon’s devising, George and Alfred hung upside down from trapezes at opposite ends of the performance space. On a cue from the orchestra, William was flung into space “and is caught in the hands by one of the brothers at the end, who, by a powerful impetus, launches him into the air, where the intrepid gymnast turns a complete somersault and is caught again in the hands with the rapidity of lightning by the brother who is waiting at the other end.”86 Other new routines sported colorful names, including aeropatacians, balancing globes, centrifugal tourniquets, and aerial promenades. A writer for the Boston Gazette stated that the Hanlons “have originated and accomplished gymnastic feats that throw the famous Zampillaerostation far in the shade.”87 The company was marvelously successful, playing to sold-out houses throughout the United States and Canada. When their old friend James W. Lingard fell on hard times, George, William, and Alfred sent him a check for 300, which the New York Clipper called “doing the handsome thing. A friend in need is a friend indeed.”88 Obviously, they were quite thankful to the man who had produced their Zampillaerostation at the beginning of the decade. In a gracious display of generosity, the citizens of St. Louis, Missouri, headed by the Civil War heroes William T. Sherman and William S. Hancock, presented the three with a benefit in their honor and medals with the inscription “Presented to George William and Alfred Hanlon by Lieut. Gen. W. T. Sherman and the prominent citizens of St. Louis, Mo., March 15th, 1867.” The reverse side designated them “The Champion Gymnasts of America.”89 The two Hanlon combinations toured apart until a tragedy occurred on 5 April 1868. Oddly enough, just days earlier the two companies played opposite each other in Cincinnati—George, William, and Alfred at Wood’s Theatre;

28

Fig. 6. William (top) and Alfred Hanlon in an aerial routine. Courtesy of the University of Iowa, Special Collections.


Thomas, Edward, and Frederick at the National Theatre. Whether this was a happy reunion for the brothers or fraught with tension remains a mystery. Thomas, Edward, and Frederick had fallen on slack times in recent weeks. First, they were appearing at the National, an older theatre that was situated in a less desirable part of the city, as a Cincinnati correspondent noted: “They are not doing as well as the troupe deserve, which is chiefly owing to the out of the way location of ‘old Drury.’”90 Second, Edward Hanlon had injured himself earlier that month while performing in Louisville, Kentucky, and was unable to appear. While performing on a horizontal bar on 9 March, he fell, dislocating his wrist and badly bruising his arm.91 As a result, his brothers Thomas and Frederick were burdened with devising replacement stunts while he recovered. Perhaps the combination of events proved to be too much for the already fragile Thomas. After Cincinnati, Thomas, Edward, and Frederick’s next stop was Indianapolis, Indiana. Here, Thomas appeared with his brothers at the Monday evening performance. At breakfast the following day, he abruptly declared that he was going to New York. He took the Hanlon Midgets with him. Every indication seems to have been that he was withdrawing from the company. He was not heard from until the following Friday, when the mayor of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, telegraphed Edward and Frederick that their brother was being held in the city’s sanitarium. The previous day, Thomas had hinted to an innkeeper that he was contemplating suicide and was hospitalized. Shortly after his removal, he tried to slice his throat with the fragment of a tin dinner plate and attempted to hang himself from a bar in his cell. After a tremendous struggle, the attendants removed him to a room that was thought to be safer. Here, he committed suicide in what the Philadelphia Times later termed “a most singular manner and one which would be possible for no one save a skilled acrobat.”92 In this second cell there was an iron steam pipe on the floor with a connecting brass bolt. “From twelve to fifteen times did he start from the door of the cell, spring into the air, and, gathering himself turned a half somersault each time and came down full force, driving his head down upon this sharp nut.”93 His brother George sadly noted, “They found him spread out on the floor, his skull entirely broken.”94 Although a doctor tried to mend Thomas’s shattered skull, he was unsuccessful. Thomas Hanlon was thirty-two. The surviving Hanlon Brothers withdrew from the stage for several months and did not reappear before an audience until the summer of 1868, heading a combined variety company. Needless to say, Thomas’s heartrending death had a sobering effect on his brothers. William recalled, “This dreadful event . . . brought about a change in the direction of our work. Our parents especially pushed us to this±particularly our mother who had just barely survived the death of our

30

prepping for pantomime 95

oldest brother.” Their repertoire began to move away from the daring stunts that had characterized their careers up to this point. The Hanlons would develop new, “safer” routines, leaving the more hazardous feats to others in their company’s employ. This would culminate with the Hanlon Brothers retiring altogether from thrill acrobatics by the late 1870s. In the intervening years, the family slowly pulled away from the feats, attempting to push their talents into new genres of popular entertainment. Velocipedes, which the Hanlons had seen in France, were introduced to their variety company. Adding these early bicycles to their stage shows, the Hanlons were exploiting a recent American fascination with the machine. When first unveiled in the mid-1860s, the velocipede was greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm by the American public. To meet the overwhelming demand, manufacturers began producing the two-wheeled vehicles in large quantities. Men and women alike participated in the craze, attempting to master the unstable machine in hastily constructed rinks, halls, and riding schools. For a short time, the Hanlons owned a share in Velocipede Hall, a New York City business where one could purchase and learn to ride the new machine. However, recreational interest in the velocipede waned when the new contraptions were deemed dangerous and difficult to pedal on the unpaved roads that made up the young nation’s infrastructure. As Mark Twain instructed, “Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.”96 The velocipede was relegated to a thrill vehicle, a fad on which the Hanlon Brothers eagerly capitalized.97 To advertise their shows, the Hanlons rode the velocipedes through crowded city streets. The brothers, led by Frederick and Alfred, demonstrated a number of astonishing tricks on these early bicycles. They made a number of changes to the velocipede, attempting to make it more accessible to lay people. On July 7, 1868, the five surviving brothers were awarded U.S. patent 79,654. Their patent included an adjustable seat to accommodate smaller riders and the use of rubber rings on the wheels for a smoother ride. Subsequently, on February 9, 1869, the Hanlons were awarded a second patent (U.S. patent 86,834) for their so-called Improvement in Velocipedes, a more efficient cranking system that could propel the device at greater speeds, as well as a brake for the front wheel.98 Soon the Hanlons were sponsoring races in the towns where they performed, with Frederick Hanlon offering 1,000 to anyone who could beat him. Americans, always obsessed with speed, were fascinated with the Hanlons’ velocipede. The New York Clipper satirized the craze in an article titled “The Velocipede Mania,” stating, “We may imagine the race courses devoted to contests of this description, with hundreds of excited gentlemen beating each other over the head with their whip handles, instead of their horses.” 99 Years later, William Hanlon recalled,

31


“The last time I saw one of our ‘improved velocipedes’ was witnessing George L. Fox, the famous clown in Humpty-Dumpty, go to heaven on it in a transformation scene at the Olympic Theatre, New York.”100 With the brothers pulling away from aerial gymnastics, other performers were recruited to perform the majority of the perilous stunts. Joseph Pfau, a Russian trapeze artist who had trained in the Parisian music halls, was lured away from the New York Circus in the summer of 1868. His act was said to be even more thrilling than that of Jules Léotard.101 However, because of their age and talent, the Hanlon Midgets, in particular Little Bob, were the company’s main draws. On November 1, 1869, the troupe commenced a month-long stay at New York City’s Tammany Hall. Here, Gotham audiences were first introduced to several of the Hanlons’ newest inventions and routines. Their intricate acrobatic apparatus allowed the company to perform a number of aerial stunts without the lengthy set-up and take-down time that had traditionally plagued such demonstrations. In “The Great Act,” a casting routine similar to one that William had debuted several years before, Frederick and Alfred hung upside down by their legs and flung Little Bob back and forth a distance of thirty feet, the young boy completing a somersault between each catch. “One of the brothers seizes a child, “little Bob” who looks about eight years of age. The gymnast . . . flies back and forth . . . like a pendulum holding the child now by the hands now by the legs. Suddenly he hurls the child through the intervening space and the little fellow is safely caught by the other brother.”102 “The Great Act,” concluded with Little Bob executing a series of falls and catches into an apparatus that William Hanlon later patented±the aerial safety net.103 The aerial safety net was inspired by the nets used by French construction workers when erecting tall buildings. William’s invention was a simple adaptation, yet it revolutionized aerial performance. Artists were suddenly able to attempt previously unthinkable feats without the risk of certain death. The New York Evening Post assured the Hanlons’ would-be Tammany Hall patrons, “The danger of the acts, if not their difficulty, is somewhat mitigated by the suspension beneath the performers of a wide expanse of netting, but there is a certainty and apparent self-trust about these Hanlon gymnasts that greatly relieves the mind of the spectator, permitting admiration to overcome nervous terror.”104 The Hanlons felt that their safety net was a service to fellow performers, a lasting legacy that they bestowed upon gymnasts out of the tragedy of their brother Thomas’s death. Years later, Edward Hanlon remarked, “It was after that we invented the net which has ever since been used by all aerial performers, so we felt that his life was given to save many others.”105 The net quickly became required equipment for any aerial demonstration in a New York theatre. The

32


threat of fire being a constant reality, William even attempted to have his safety net adopted by every major city’s fire department. When William patented the device in 1870, the New York Clipper noted that it was “the first granted for gymnastic performances.”106 As managers, the Hanlons understood the tremendous importance of garnering the media’s interest in their company. With favorable press notices, more audiences would turn out for their shows±consequently generating greater profits. An important ally was the New York Clipper, a trade paper covering the theatrical profession, and its drama editor “Colonel” T. Allston Brown. Brown was not a military veteran±he earned the moniker Colonel while employed as treasurer of Gardner and Madigan’s Circus. Performing at Baltimore’s Front Street Theatre, rope walker Charles Blondin was unable to find the man who normally held on to his back while Blondin ascended a rope stretched from the stage to the upper gallery. In a moment of rash judgment, Brown volunteered for the duty. After the successful completion of the stunt, the amazed Baltimore press nicknamed him “Colonel.”107 During the 1860s, the Hanlons corresponded with Brown often, alerting him to their upcoming engagements, reporting their remarkable box office takes, noting their company’s occasional realignments, and reporting any new stunts. On 22 January 1870, William Hanlon wrote to Brown from Baltimore, “My brothers and Little Bob . . . succeeded in doing a Double backward Somersalt [sic]—from hands to hands in mid air. . . . This feat was performed for the first time by any artist by Alfred and Fredk Hanlon and Little Bob in the Great Act at the Front Street Theatre Baltimore Jan 19th 1870. I hope you will try and mention this in the Clipper. We have reengaged for next week here—then go to Boston with [John] Stetson [manager of the Howard Athenaeum] for 2 weeks.”108 These notes were subsequently published in the Clipper’s weekly “Amusements” column, ensuring that the Hanlons maintained a positive public image. The Hanlons’ relationship with Colonel Brown was immensely important. Due to his insistence, the Hanlons returned to the United States in 1881 with Le Voyage en Suisse. Having withdrawn from the New York Clipper and established his own dramatic agency with Morris Simmonds, Colonel Brown managed the subsequent tour. Through the late 1860s, the Hanlons grew more interested in pantomime. William noted, “It seemed possible to us to give pantomime a bigger part in our shows. At the request of my brothers I busied myself with this, assisted by Alfred who is the musical composer of the troupe.”109 Their featured pantomime was called Le Chapeau Magique and closed with the brothers swapping cone-shaped hats with rapid abandon. A Boston correspondent noted, “Their pantomimes are replete with lively and mirth provoking chaos,” a harbinger of things to come.110 Although the troupe’s pantomimes were politely reviewed by the press, they

33


were never taken seriously. The pantos were short and hastily rehearsed, merely interludes between the variety acts of their company members. At this period in their careers, the Hanlons were merely flirting with pantomime, desiring to meld their acrobatic skills with silent clowning but lacking the physical resources and public support to allow them to fully devote their attentions to a new endeavor. Ultimately, this support would come in a foreign country±France±away from the American public’s gaze and demand for the thrilling gymnastic stunts that had characterized the family’s career. On 26 February 1870, the Hanlons sailed for England in what was expected to be an absence of six months.111 In actuality, they were away from the United States, their adopted country, for over eleven years. When they returned in 1881 with the astonishing Le Voyage en Suisse, the Hanlon Brothers would immediately recapture the fame that initially greeted their Zampillaerostation on that cold December night back in 1861.

34

First Interlude: Jean-Gaspard Deburau

I

Pierrot at the Théâtre des Funambules

n the late 1860s, the Hanlon Brothers first began to experiment with a character named Pierrot. Prodded by Henri Agoust, they performed a series of underdeveloped pantomimes. Seemingly staged as an afterthought, these pantomimes prominently featured the beloved French character Pierrot. However, this character was hardly their own creation. And the pantomimes the Hanlons staged were not composed by the family. Rather, most were popularized by the great Parisian mime Jean-Gaspard Deburau. Pierrot and the nineteenth-century French pantomime were the featured attractions of the Théâtre des Funambules. Erected in 1816 on the boulevard du Temple, the Funambules was situated in one of Paris’s working-class neighborhoods. Initially the theatre’s manager, Nicolas Bertrand, intended to produce comedies and tragedies. However, in order to maintain the “integrity” of French theatre, the Ministre de l’Intérieur prohibited the Funambules from producing any play with dialogue. Bertrand’s theatre became home to startling dance and acrobatic routines performed on a high wire (hence the name Funambules,

35

first interlude

meaning “tightrope walkers”). Due to licensing laws, the theatre was not granted permission to venture into any other genre until 1830. The pantomimes first produced at the Théâtre des Funambules were replete with “resounding blows of gross farce [and] nonsense,”1 hung upon the simplest of plots. Typically, the fierce, gallant hero Arlequin wooed the beautiful Colombine. The couple was then pursued by Colombine’s bourgeois papa Cassandre and by Cassandre’s simple-minded, easily distracted valet, Pierrot. Arlequin and Colombine were often assisted in their flight by Cupid and other magical spirits. Still early in the form’s evolution, Pierrot was a secondary character. Typically, he was either beaten by his master, kicked in the nose by Colombine, or hoodwinked by Arlequin when he waved his powerful, magical bat. Marginally involved in the dramatic action, this “dull, yet occasionally sly” 2 Pierrot offered silent, comical commentary on (and diversion from) the principal dramatic action. Pierrot’s secondary status at the Théâtre des Funambules ended with the emergence of the Bohemian-born mime-acrobat Jean-Gaspard Deburau (1796– 1846). Understudying and playing minor roles, in 1819 Deburau made his first appearance as Pierrot in a production of Arlequin Médecin. Keeping with stage traditions, Deburau dressed himself in a comically over-sized costume for the part. For his performance, the mime wore a large buttoned-down white shirt, the sleeves of which extended beyond his hands, and white pants that flowed beyond his ankles. His visage, long and gaunt, was powdered white, emerging comically from the white folds of fabric surrounding his neck. Deburau played Pierrot in subsequent pantomimes, and by the early 1820s he established himself as the resident Pierrot at the Théâtre des Funambules. Gradually Deburau revolutionized the character of Pierrot, usurping the spotlight that previously belonged solely to Arlequin. Deburau’s Pierrot became the main attraction at the Funambules, and it was primarily through him that this minor theatre became the center of Parisian pantomime. Deburau’s Pierrot mystified the audience with his erratic, capricious behavior. Deburau’s famous grimaces embodied “Beaumarchais’s Figaro, the commedia character Pagliaccio, and the street kid of the Temple Quarter.”3 His utter lack of conscience liberated him from all deliberation or regret. Without a second thought, he would stomp on Cassandre’s foot or steal from his master’s pantry. Foolhardy and gluttonous, he quickly spent and consumed any fortune, food, or drink he was lucky enough to encounter.

Pierrot in Action Synopses of Jean-Gaspard Deburau’s pantomimes were written and published in the 1850s by his son Charles and in the 1880s by Émile Goby, who had collaborated with Charles Deburau.4 In many, the predictable intrigue between Arlequin

36

first interlude

and Colombine becomes secondary to Pierrot’s irrelevant and bizarre preoccupations. In Le Boeuf Enragé (The Enraged Ox), performed in 1827, Deburau’s Pierrot and Cassandre chase after Arlequin and Colombine, who have run off together.5 Each time Pierrot discovers Arlequin, the latter waves his magical bat and escapes, much to Pierrot’s bewilderment and frustration. During the course of this impossible pursuit, Pierrot is assailed by many distractions: he steals and devours pastries and swallows a gigantic pill to protect himself against colic; he is beaten by a laundry woman and gored by an ox; and just to amuse himself, he wears a frying pan and a casserole, sticks his arms into a pair of pants and his legs into the sleeves of a shirt. In the pantomime La Baleine (The Whale), a humorous takeoff of the Bible’s Jonah and the whale, the adventures of Deburau’s Pierrot assume nauseating proportions.6 Pierrot is fishing with Cassandre, Colombine, and Arlequin when suddenly he is swallowed by a whale. Unable to control his appetite, Pierrot kindles a fire inside the whale’s belly in order to cook a tiny fish he previously caught. The fire causes the whale to swim erratically. Trapped inside, Pierrot begins to feel seasick. Finally, Pierrot is sneezed out. As he emerges from the sea, he totes a treasure chest found in the whale’s belly. Showing Cassandre his newly discovered riches, Pierrot is granted the old man’s daughter, Colombine, in marriage.7 Oftentimes, Cassandre serves as the victim of Pierrot’s childish deceptions and slapstick abuse. Le Duel de Pierrot, ou Les Vingt-Six Infortunes de Pierrot (Pierrot’s Duel, or The Twenty-Six Mishaps of Pierrot), a pantomime composed by Deburau in 1830, is teeming with fisticuffs between Pierrot and Cassandre.8 As the pantomime opens, the ravenous Pierrot hastily eats the sugar that had previously been destined for Cassandre’s teacup. Still not satiated, he gulps down Cassandre’s cough syrup and finishes off his throat lozenges too. The faithful servant then smacks a powdered wig on Cassandre’s head with such force that the powder flies into Cassandre’s eyes. Pierrot is ordered by Cassandre to fight a duel with Arlequin, Colombine’s suitor. Reluctant to risk his life, Pierrot feigns loading the guns fired in the duel. When he is ordered by Cassandre to draw a second time, Pierrot places a candle in the barrel of his gun, and it is Cassandre who accidentally receives the candle in his eye. Pierrot removes the candle from his boss’s eye and nonchalantly lights it to examine Cassandre’s wound. Meanwhile, Arlequin and Colombine make their escape. While Cassandre pursues the two lovers, Pierrot occupies himself by putting on a dress (assuming the role of the comic dame) and soothing a crying baby. Cassandre then falls in love with the cross-dressed Pierrot. When Cassandre tries to kiss him, Pierrot places a red hot iron before Cassandre’s lips.9 Deburau’s Pierrot fascinated the Funambules’ audience. “As soon as the curtain rose, jibes gave way to silence. . . . Everyone eagerly awaited the magical

37

first interlude

appearance of the great Deburau. . . . They listened to Deburau’s silent language.”10 Deburau’s Pierrot was the hero of the working classes; he made comical all the stresses of urban life, including crime, unemployment, alcoholism, and hunger. Any problem could be easily solved by diversion: a delicious pastry, a bottle of cheap wine, a wink from Colombine, or a swift kick in Cassandre’s derrière. Deburau’s Pierrot offered his spectators comical distraction. They must have also applauded the ascension of this originally hapless valet into the limelight; through Deburau, Pierrot had finally retaliated against the tyranny of Cassandre, archetype of the ruling middle class.11

Inheritors of the Tradition After 1846, Deburau’s son Charles performed as Pierrot at the Théâtre des Funambules. Charles’s was an elegant Pierrot, armed with high-class wit, charm, and refinement. While his father’s Pierrot reflected the proletariat classes at the Théâtre des Funambules, Charles Deburau was responding to an increasingly aristocratic audience comprising artists, dandies, and countesses who desired “to mingle with the lowlife” there.12 The mime Paul Legrand also performed Pierrot at the Théâtre des Funambules until 1853. Legrand turned Jean-Gaspard Deburau’s careless simpleton into an exaggeratedly sentimental, ever-yearning romantic victim—a development aped by Charles Deburau. In Paris, Charles Deburau also performed Pierrot at the Folies-Marigny, a theatre he founded with Émile Goby, and Legrand performed at the Folies-Nouvelles, a small theatre founded by Théodore de Banville (whose career would neatly intersect with the Hanlons some years later). Charles Deburau and Paul Legrand also toured throughout Europe and Egypt, introducing their Pierrots to wider audiences.13 Following Deburau and Legrand, the Théâtre des Funambules could only offer an excessively puerile Pierrot performed by Kalpestri, and thereafter a hyperactive Pierrot performed by the English mime Forrest.14 When the Théâtre des Funambules was demolished by the government in 1862 under the direction of Haussmann, pantomime performance dissipated into various music halls, cafés-concerts, and circuses. In these small arenas, Pierrot, once the hero of pantomime, degenerated into a circus clown or generic comical bouffon. But with the Hanlon Brothers ascendance through the 1870s, the next phase in Pierrot’s development would be composed.

38

2 The Macabre Pantomimes of a Fermented Unconscious: 1870–1879

The Early 1870s Repertoire, Safety Nets, and the Hanlon Midgets

W

hen the Hanlons left the United States in 1870, every indication seems to have been that they intended to be away from America for just a few months. A potentially lucrative engagement at London’s Alhambra Palace was the initial draw, perhaps compounded by the fact that the brothers had not been home to their native Manchester in nearly two years. But clearly the Hanlons intended to settle in America. In Orange, New Jersey, a short carriage ride from New York City, the brothers had purchased a large estate. In the summer’s offseason, George and Alfred Hanlon periodically lived here with their mother during the early 1880s. The Hanlons also owned a home in midtown Manhattan. The house, located on Bloomingdale Road—a now-lost thoroughfare—sat empty while the Hanlons

39

the macabre pantomimes of a fermented unconscious

remained in Europe playing one engagement after another. One writer called the home “a virtual museum of souvenirs,” garnered from their early years’ peregrinations with John Lees. “There they have stored the cashmeres of the Rajah of Mysore, the embroidered gold costume of the Rajah of Singapore, the chess board given by the Queen of Spain, the bag of shells from the Queen of Portugal, and finally, a magnificent gift±but impractical for five brothers to share—a pipe worth 500 given to them by Don Pedro, Emperor of Brazil."1 The Hanlons had established roots in the United States, but it would be nearly eleven years before they returned, bringing with them an entirely new repertoire that had been perfected in Europe’s leading playhouses. With their colleagues Agoust and the Hanlon Midgets, the Hanlons played a series of highly touted engagements at Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet. While France hurtled towards war with Prussia, the Hanlons “were nightly received with enthusiasm and constituted the last Great Sensation of the French capital previous to the advance of the Prussian Armies.” 2 Although they were continuing in the aerial and gymnastic arts that had characterized their careers to this point, they also appeared in a pantomime ballet at the Châtelet called Fiamina. George Hanlon recalled, “Forty-five dancers who weren’t ugly, some clowns, some gymnasts, and a bunch of trick effects and machines were featured in the adventurous Fiamina. It didn’t resemble anything that had come before it. We played a number of agile roles in the production, along with our colleague Agoust.”3 Years later the Hanlon Brothers would eventually offer stateside audiences similar theatrical entertainments. Unfortunately, the Châtelet engagement was cut short by the onset of the Franco-Prussian War in July 1870. Forced to close, the producer Monsieur Strange lost more than 100,000 francs, according to George Hanlon.4 With his country at war, Agoust withdrew from the company and joined the Paris National Guard. Abandoned by their former colleague, the Hanlon Brothers, along with the Hanlon Midgets, departed the war-torn country and returned to England. While the French empire was slowly dismantled by invading armies, the Hanlons played a series of engagements in the music halls of London and the British provinces. Although this was their native land, the Hanlon Brothers were repeatedly mistaken for citizens of the United States. A newspaper advertisement for their return engagement at London’s Alhambra Theatre proclaimed, “The extraordinary engagement of the celebrated Hanlon Brothers, the renowned American Gymnasts. . . . For skill, grace, and daring, the Hanlons far surpass the wonderful feats of Leotard and Blondin.”5 After spending nearly ten years in the United States, the Hanlons were considered Yankees. For their part, the Hanlons did nothing to correct the mistaken citizenship. Perhaps in their minds, they truly were Americans.

40


Having returned to England, the Hanlons found themselves drawn into a public debate over the use of the aerial safety net. A number of performers were offering competing demonstrations in the English music halls, but not all were using the safety nets that the Hanlons had patented. The press was taken with William Hanlon’s invention and went to great lengths to describe the net. A Birmingham journalist remarked, “It consists of a large meshed net, composed of twisted cotton yarn, covered with carpet along its entire length. The net is seventy feet long, and about forty feet wide, fastened by stays and guides, so as to secure the ends, sides, and corners. The carpeted network extends from one side of the building to the other, of course over the stage and orchestra, and about midway between the footlights and the ladder on which the Brothers Hanlon commence their performances.”6 Following several devastating aerial accidents, the British Parliament drew up legislation that would require all performers engaged in dangerous stunts to use safety measures. In a lengthy editorial published in The Era, the Hanlon Brothers commended the legislators’ push, urging: With us it has always been a rule to provide against danger to life or limb in our gymnastic feats. All who have visited the Alhambra lately will have noticed that we have a net of great strength and remarkable elasticity stretched across the entire building. We never perform without one. With the net all is safety. . . . Without the net we would not venture to appear before the public. Nor should any gymnast be allowed to risk his own life or that of his assistants without such precaution. . . . “Little Bob,” who accomplishes his aerial flight with us, has fallen into the net a hundred times, and might fall into it a thousand without the slightest shock or injury being sustained by him. . . . We have performed without accident for the many years during which we have been before the public. How is it we have come off scathless? Simply because we have ever done as we now do at the Alhambra, and shall always do wherever we may be. Where danger is, render safety certain—an acrobatic paradox.7 Clearly, the Hanlons were being less than forthcoming in this matter. To declare brazenly, “We have performed without accident for the many years during which we have been before the public,” was simply not true. Their eldest brother Thomas’s suicide was attributable, at least in part, to a tragic mishap prior to the safety net’s employ. Despite the Hanlons’ misstatement, the legislation eventually was approved. No doubt the Hanlon Brothers’ popularity helped the bill move through the houses of Parliament. While the Hanlons were eager to see their safety net adopted by other performers, they were understandably less enthused when others attempted to plagiarize

41


their act. As demonstrated repeatedly throughout the course of their careers, the brothers were litigious. When some perceived wrong arose, the Hanlons were quick to seek restitution in the courts. By the fall of 1870, they were placing notices in The Era and the New York Clipper warning other acts against stealing their routines. The specialité of the HANLON BROTHERS is the marvelous feat entitled by them THE GREAT ACT OF THE HANLONS. It is their own Invention, and the Apparatus for performing it was designed solely by them. It and all the accessory Apparatus are protected by Letters Patent, obtained both in Great Britain and the United States. Any one infringing these Patents will be proceeded against according to the law. Parties in the Provinces and elsewhere who are not cognisant of the Apparatus being Patented are hereby informed and strictly Cautioned. A Reward will be given for any notice of infringement leading to the discovery of parties offending.8 Over the next several years, the family repeatedly placed similar advertisements in the major trade papers. The Hanlons’ performances in England lasted through May 1871, playing primarily at London’s Alhambra, with a short tour of the provinces too. Spain, a country that had last applauded their feats in the late 1840s, was next on their itinerary. These return engagements were universal triumphs, with laudable appearances in Madrid, Valladolid, Cadiz, and Seville.9 Repeatedly singled out for praise was “El Niño Boby,” Little Bob. This continued a trend first begun in the United States. The Hanlon Brothers were attempting to withdraw from the dangerous stunts, leaving them to others in the company’s employ. “The Hanlon family . . . numbers five persons,” wrote an English journalist, “two, however, of whom, take only a passing part in the performance, merely looking on and giving directions from the stage.”10 The Hanlon Brothers’ protégés, the Hanlon Midgets, were receiving the bulk of the press notices and attendant commendations. Because it was the Hanlon Brothers’ company, however, presumably they were reaping the bulk of the financial rewards. Perhaps inevitably, this division would culminate in a nasty public feud between the one-time collaborators. In particular, Little Bob, né Patrick Carmody, displayed all the youthful vigor and daring of the Hanlon Brothers of some years earlier. As a London writer noted, “The interest of the performance centres mainly in a bright little fellow of eight or nine years of age, with whom the other two [Alfred and Frederick], hanging head downwards from either end of the horizontal bars ‘perched up aloft,’ play as with a shuttlecock.”11 Eventually, Little Bob added a thrilling finale to the act—he would plummet headfirst into William Hanlon’s patented safety

42


net. “At last, with a final fling, he is thrown heels over head into the net. At this all the women scream, but Bob, like a young imp, struggles out of the meshes of the net, and bounds on to the stage. Leotard’s feats were clumsy attempts compared to those performed by these daring acrobats.”12 As George, William, and Alfred had demonstrated years earlier when touring with John Lees, the youngest members of the company were often the audiences’ favorites. Soon, the Hanlon Brothers’ change in repertoire would alter this irrevocably. After the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War in late 1872, the Hanlon Brothers were invited to return to Paris by Léon Sari, manager of Paris’s FoliesBergère. This was to be a momentous engagement for the Hanlon Brothers. At the City of Light’s most fashionable house of popular entertainments, the Hanlons unveiled a series of startlingly macabre, dreamlike pantomimes, replete with slapstick pratfalls, which catapulted the brothers to new national and international fame. The format set the precedent for what would become their stockin-trade for the rest of their careers.13 Robert Storey writes, “Hardly coherent by most dramatic standards, the skits that the Hanlons proceeded to develop seem to have gained their hold by little more than their mad, nightmarish power and sheer physical talents,”14 physical talents no doubt perfected during their childhoods. The Hanlons were beginning to meld their acrobatic stunts onto loosely concocted scenarios. George Hanlon remembered, “We played several pantomimes, among other things Le Frater de Village, which complemented our evening-long performances.”15 Le Frater de Village (The Village Barber) was typical of the Hanlons’ repertoire during this period. In this long-lived pantomime, a thwarted Pierrot-suitor arrives at the home of his beloved Colombine, determined to obtain her hand in marriage. Unfortunately, Colombine’s parents are “as stubborn as a three-day’s beard,”16 wanting her to marry a rich, young gallant. Pierrot dunks them in a bath tub, meticulously lathering up the obstinate parents with shaving cream. Still refusing to bend, the parents are decapitated by Pierrot, the demon barber. During the closing battle, “Colombine and her mamma got their fair share of slaps and kicks—for the Hanlon-Lees pantomimes, like the film farces they foreshadow, showed little respect for the weaker sex.”17 This madcap, farcical style has led one modern writer to call their pantomimes “the fantasias of a fermented unconscious.”18 A Parisian reporter alludes to the inherent violence of the Hanlon Brothers’ pantomimes: All was action: slaps, kicks, boxing of ears, and disheveled runs on and off the stage. The actors fought with red-hot irons, jumped through closed windows, disappeared through walls, thrashed without mercy or pity the unfortunate policeman, and finally disputed with a great deal of slaps and fighting the hand of a Jenny, a Mary, or any pretty girl whatsoever. On

43


the first night they executed a boxing scene with such scrupulous realism that one of the champions received square in his face such a tremendous blow that blood sprang freely from the poor actor’s bruised nose.19 During the run, the Hanlon Midgets continued in their aerial specialties, aided by Alfred and Frederick. In an overtly racist gymnastic routine, the Midgets were featured “as three little Nigger boys,” cavorting about on a trapeze and tight rope as monkeys.20 The Hanlon Brothers remained at Sari’s Folies-Bergère for nearly a year, thrilling audiences with their clever fusion of pantomime and acrobatic stunts. Meanwhile, British and French journalists alike continued to mistake the family’s citizenship, referring to them as “a troupe of American clowns.” 21 The success of the Hanlons’ engagement at the Folies-Bergère demonstrated that with pantomime the brothers could continue to draw audiences, even while playing down the daring gymnastic and aerial stunts upon which they had built their reputation. As William Hanlon explained several years later, “Why continue to risk our lives in the tours, doing the things we had been doing for so long, when we had found a new and triumphant road?” 22 This change in the company’s focus caused a rift that had probably been coming for some time: what to do with the Hanlon Midgets? When the three boys participated in the troupe’s evolving pantomimes, they were usually featured in blackface.23 Mere ancillaries in pantomime, the Hanlon Midgets continued to specialize in aerial and gymnastic stunts. Clearly, the brothers wanted to divorce themselves from these entertainments. Perhaps too, they did not want to continue sharing the box office receipts with the Hanlon Midgets. By December 1874, the Hanlons and their former protégés had gone their separate ways. While the precipitating event remains unclear—if indeed there was one—there were more than a few nasty swipes taken by the opposing factions over the next several years. The first public display of hostility came in December 1874, when a curious notice appeared in London’s Era. In the midst of a lengthy engagement at Moscow’s Cirque Ciniselli, the Hanlon Brothers wrote, “It having come to the knowledge of the Messrs HANLON that other Parties have assumed their name, they beg hereby to notify that legal proceedings will be immediately instituted against all those so doing.” 24 The Hanlon Brothers placed similar notices in the New York Clipper, to little avail. Again, they were manipulating history to suit their own needs. The Hanlon Brothers had in fact bestowed the name “Hanlon” on the Midgets, rather than the Midgets having “assumed” the name. The Hanlon Brothers were demonstrating their evolving ability to be cold and calculating when it fit their purposes. Through the 1870s, the theatrical profession’s two major trade papers on a near-weekly basis con-

44


tinued to run similar advertisements from the Hanlon Brothers, imploring the Hanlon Midgets to drop their adopted last name.25 Although they were no longer in the Hanlon Brothers’ employ, for the rest of their careers the Hanlon Midgets used the cherished surname. They joined the twins Ajax and Edouin Volta—the Volta Brothers—to form the Hanlon-Volta Company. The combination played Europe’s principal music halls for a number of years with a highly touted aerial act.26 For several months, they attempted to ignore the Hanlon Brothers public lamentations to drop the name Hanlon. However, the Hanlon Brothers—perhaps out of spite, perhaps wanting to remove any confusion on the part of audiences and booking agents—continued to force the issue. Pressed by the Hanlon Brothers, the Hanlon Midgets responded, “THE HANLON-VOLTA COMPANY . . . have a perfect right to use the name of Hanlon, and they have not the slightest intention of relinquishing it. They only regret that the Hanlon-Lees by the bad taste they exhibit in advertising as they have done should render this announcement necessary.”27 The Hanlon Brothers countered by attempting to inform the public of their former students’ real names, once again placing advertisements in the pages of the Era and the New York Clipper. “The HANLON BROTHERS . . . take this opportunity of informing Managers and Friends that their former Pupils, designating themselves ‘The Hanlon Midgets’ and ‘Hanlon-Volta Troupe,’ have no right to use the name of Hanlon, their real names being John Charles Ryan, William O’Mara, and Patrick Carmody.”28 In response, Ajax Volta placed an editorial in the two trade papers, alluding to inequitable sharing of box office receipts and that the Hanlon Midgets had been the company’s true stars—charges that were certain to raise the Hanlon Brothers’ collective dander. AJAX VOLTA regrets that the conduct of the HANLON-LEES in advertising in the manner they do concerning the Hanlon-Voltas should render this notice necessary. He regrets it the more because by their behaviour the Hanlon-Lees have forfeited the good opinion he had previously formed of them. He again emphatically states that Robert Hanlon, William Hanlon, and John Hanlon, of the Hanlon-Volta Company, have a perfect right to the name of Hanlon, they having been advertised for upwards of Ten Years by that name, during Seven Years of which time the Hanlon-Lees reaped all the profits accruing from the performances of Robert, William, and John Hanlon. And they were not mean profits either. Inquire all over Europe and America who made the success of the Hanlon-Lees and the answer will be “Little Bob,” the same Little Bob (Robert Hanlon) who is now a member of the Hanlon-Volta Company.

45


Ten years use of a name should certainly give a right to it, and John, William, and Robert Hanlon (Little Bob) for Seven Years members of Hanlon-Lees Troupe, and now members of the Hanlon-Volta Company, have not the slightest intention of relinquishing the name of Hanlon, and Ajax Volta can only again express his sorrow at the selfishness the Hanlon-Lees display in attempting to prevent “their former pupils” reaping a slight advantage gained by ten years of hard, very hard, toil.29 The sniping between the former colleagues continued for the duration of the decade. 30

A Reunion and Change in Repertoire Rid of the Hanlon Midgets, in the mid-1870s the Hanlons spent over two years in Russia, performing at Moscow’s Cirque Ciniselli and on the St. Petersburg fairgrounds, where they erected a “monstrous establishment.” 31 Their variety company was enormously popular with Russian audiences. Edward Hanlon recalled that during particularly busy weeks they were forced sometimes to offer ninety-two performances, about fourteen each day. Attempting to remain in the minds of Western Europe’s managers and audiences, the Hanlons took out weekly advertisements in The Era, boasting of their Russian success. Despite their acclaim, the Hanlons eventually tired of pre-revolution Russia. William Hanlon remarked, “The railroad lines were largely incomplete and the winter was a jailer who kept you imprisoned in the cities just about two-thirds of the year. If you went out you faced numerous risks and perils, with the added chance of having to fight packs of wolves who, during entire months, became veritable masters of the country.”32 When the Hanlons finally attempted to leave Moscow, they found their passports held up a number of times, forcing the company to remain grudgingly for yet another season. They always felt that it was more than a bureaucratic error that kept them in Russia.33 Finally allowed to leave Russia, the Hanlon Brothers contracted to play Berlin’s Walhalla Theatre in May 1877. Here, they were reunited with their former colleague, Henri Agoust, with whom they hadn’t worked since the onset of the Prussian War. Back in 1865, Agoust had first pushed the Hanlons to merge their supreme acrobatics with pantomime comedy. Now that the Hanlons were trying to make pantomime the focus of their careers, the reunion was a significant one. In the midst of rehearsing their next pantomime, Do, Mi, Sol, Do—borrowed from an American minstrel show sketch—the Hanlons were surprised by their old colleague Agoust at Berlin’s Walhalla. “What could you do in the piece,” they asked Agoust.

46


“You haven’t any orchestra leader,” he replied. “I will take my place at the music stand.”34 Hence, the Hanlons and Agoust joined forces once more, performing together until 1880. When they split a second time, the parting shots that were taken some years later were far from amicable. Do, Mi, Sol, Do burlesqued the bourgeoisie’s taste for operatic music, particularly in light of the Wagner revolution. However, Richard Lesclide, ghostwriter of Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, warns, “It would be gratuitous to suppose that the author of Niebelungen had been the inspiration for this piece.”35 With Agoust costumed as the orchestra’s maniacal conductor, the Hanlon Brothers played his recalcitrant musicians. Cello-bow fencing matches, brass-instrument pummelings, and exploding violins characterized the piece, the pandemonium underscored by a rollickingly funny musical score attributed to Alfred Hanlon. Agoust as the poker-faced maestro unsuccessfully attempted to maintain control of his rebellious musicians. The piece concluded with the members of the symphony gang-tackling their leader, tying him up, and dragging him off the stage.36 The company remained in Germany through March 1878. Returning to Paris’s Folies-Bergère in July 1878, the Hanlons’ Do, Mi, Sol, Do, along with such pantomimes as Pierrot Terrible, Les Cascades du Diable, and Une Soirée en Habit Noir, made them the rage of Paris. Apparently, the attendant fiscal rewards were quite handsome, too: “Do, Mi, Sol, Do met with extraordinary success at the Folies-Bergère. The Hanlons had been engaged for one month at a salary of 360, but the first evening after the performance, they signed an agreement for 600 per month, and played their pantomime for thirteen months running.”37 Their triumphant return to Paris allowed the Hanlons to renounce formally their previous career. In 1878 they placed an advertisement in the Era, stating, “The Celebrated Hanlon Brothers, George, William, Alfred, Edward, and Frederick, beg to inform Managers and the Profession that they are no longer in the Arena of Gymnastic and Acrobatic art, having developed a new style of Entertainment, entitled, Nights of Fun with the Hanlons.” 38 Madcap, slapstick pantomime, with scenic wonder and spectacle, would characterize their remaining careers. By the late 1870s the Hanlons were more frequently using the name HanlonLees. Besides signaling a change in their repertoire they may have also wished to distance themselves from others using the last name Hanlon. Perhaps too, George, William, and Alfred wished to keep the memory of their deceased mentor John Lees with them. After all, “the professor became so much a second father to them, and devoted so much assiduity, affection and care to their education and professional training.”39 Hence, the Hanlons adopted the surname “Hanlon-

47


Lees,” in the tradition of the père d’élève. This was an age-old tradition, “found in the European circus, whereby a master without going to any legal trouble, will confer his name on an especially promising pupil and take him or her into his family.”40 The Hanlons hyphenated “Lees” onto their last name and periodically toured as the Hanlon-Lees until later in their careers, when they reverted back to simply the Hanlon Brothers.41 Careful preparation and rehearsal were hallmarks of the Hanlon’s style. “Everyday, except Sunday, they rehearsed from ten in the morning, till two—and from four till six in the afternoons.”42 Due to the risk of physical injury, everything was meticulously planned through painstaking rehearsal. In the Hanlons’ pantomimes, anything and everything was possible; they had a dreamlike quality, carefully nurtured by the brothers. The Hanlons considered this to be a fundamental part of their work. More than a few commentators accused the Hanlons of drinking heavily each night, which George, the troupe’s unofficial leader, did not deny. “We never drink before a performance. . . . After it is over, do whatever you like.”43 With the hallucinogenic absinthe the drink of choice in the Parisian cafés, many commentators attributed the Hanlons’ nightmarish pantomimes to the potent beverage. At their daily morning meetings, the five brothers related their dreams to each other and then attempted to construct new pantomimes or to refine their existing routines. Each brother had a clearly delineated role in creating the family’s work, which was ultimately company-generated. George was the troupe’s manager, signing contracts, keeping the books, and recruiting personnel; William was the primary author of the pantomimes, aided by Frederick; Alfred composed music to underscore their routines; Edward was head of props and, aided by a master machinist attached to the company, created many of their unique stage inventions.44 Ultimately, the Hanlons were fusing their acrobatic talents to France’s beloved Pierrot, as popularized earlier in the century by Jean-Gaspard Deburau at the Théâtre des Funambules. After Deburau’s death in 1846, his Pierrot character continued to captivate a host of French writers, including Théophile Gautier, Théodore de Banville, Gustave Flaubert, Edmond de Goncourt, J.-K. Huysmans, Paul Verlaine, Paul Margueritte, and Émile Zola.45 To Deburau’s conception of Pierrot as a naïve and macabre plebeian, the Hanlons added marvelous acrobatic skills. In doing so, they attracted a host of Paris’s most distinguished literary luminaries. More importantly, the Hanlons were the next evolution in Pierrot’s long history. With their startling acrobatics, violent slapstick comedy, and an innate desire to subvert authority, the Hanlon Brothers were viewed by Parisians as “the cynic

48


philosophers of the fin de siècle, the unconscious prophets of the crash of civilization.”46 Most important among these writers was Émile Zola. Zola was captivated by the Hanlons’ pantomime Pierrots, praising them for their libidinous, cruel, and self-centered natures. In his seminal work Le Naturalisme au Théâtre, Zola marveled that the Hanlons were “reveling in broken limbs and battered bodies, triumphing in the apotheosis of vice and crime in the teeth of outraged morality.” For Zola, the Hanlons represented the quintessence of naturalism. Zola found the Hanlons’ utter truthfulness startling, remarking, “I wonder what outburst of indignation would greet a work by one of us naturalist novelists if we carried our satire of man in conflict with his passions to such an extreme. We certainly do not go so far in our cold-blooded analyses, yet even now we are often violently attacked. Obviously truth may be shown but not spoken. Let us therefore all make pantomimes.”47 Ultimately, Zola was astonished by the dreamlike revelations of savage emotions that characterized the Hanlons’ pantomimes, characteristics that he so desperately wanted to bring to literature. Edmond de Goncourt, a naturalist disciple of Zola, was particularly inspired by the Hanlon Brothers’ madcap pantomimes and childhood travels with John Lees as daredevil acrobats, as well as their circuitous route to fame. Les Frères Zemganno, Goncourt’s novel detailing rival circus performers’ joys and jealousies, was inspired by the Hanlon-Lees, whom Goncourt acknowledged in the preface to his book. In doing so, he was one of the first French authors to correctly identify the Hanlons’ English roots, writing, “It turns out that in the birth-place of Hamlet, the genius of the nation has stamped this completely English creation [clown] with its phlegmatic and darkly bilious character, and that it has fashioned his gaiety—if the expression is permissible—with a kind of irascible comic art.”48 The new version of that “irascible comic art,” a phrase that neatly summarized the Hanlons’ careers, was unveiled in 1879. The Hanlons had been featured in short pantomime pieces. This changed abruptly with Le Voyage en Suisse, their comic masterpiece that premiered at Paris’s Théâtre des Variétés. Unveiled during the city’s International Exposition, Le Voyage en Suisse was the troupe’s first evening-long pantomime. Besides assuring the Hanlons a theatrical triumph, the production enabled them to return to the United States permanently, with a European success and the financial means to continue producing spectacular pantomimes—successes that would entertain audiences for the next thirty years.

49

3 Le Voyage en Suisse in Europe, 1879–1881

Pointing the Way: Les Cascades du Diable

F

or nearly a year, the Hanlon Brothers had been in Paris, thrilling audiences with their macabre version of pantomime. Their unofficial home was the Folies-Bergère, under the much-storied management of Léon Sari. Through 1879, the Hanlons unveiled a series of pantomimes that captivated the French public with their physical prowess, nightmare-like visions, and daringly gruesome comedy. The brothers enjoyed access to the French capital’s finest stage carpenters, allowing them to devise technological innovations that complemented their pantomime. Their three long-lived pantomimes were marked by the Hanlons’ slapstick clowning fused with scenic spectacle. Of course, France had a long tradition of stage wizardry dating back to the pièces à machines that were commonly produced at the Théâtre du Marais in the mid-seventeenth-century. By the nineteenth century, the staples of the so-

50

le voyage en suisse in europe, 1879–1881

called machine play—elaborate machinery and spectacular scenic effects—had been fused with supernatural elements, outlandish costuming, and mythological storylines to form the féerie. Enchanting, yet featuring the sparsest of plots, the féerie’s characteristic transformations, music, and stage magic were gradually incorporated into the pantomime of late-nineteenth-century France, especially in the hands of the English-born Hanlon Brothers.1 Prefacing his summary of Les Cascades du Diable, Richard Lesclide remarked, “The féerie is the preferred field of our gymnasts. They naturally take to it, and as soon as the devil joins in, everything is possible.”2 When the Hanlons finally settled in the United States in the mid-1880s, they brought American audiences their own derivative of the féerie with their two spectacular pantomimes Fantasma and Superba. Finally released from the pressures and attendant physical risks of their signature daring aerial demonstrations, the Hanlons and their style of pantomime were remarkably popular with audiences. “During their 1877–78 seasons at the Folies-Bergère, . . . their violent eccentricity, in such pantomimes as Pierrot Terrible, Les Cascades du Diable, and Une Soirée en Habit Noir, made them the rage of Paris.”3 At the Folies-Bergère, the Hanlons took advantage of the stage technology suddenly at their disposal. Les Cascades du Diable, a pantomime unveiled in November 1878, was perhaps the epitome of the Hanlons’ push to merge scenic splendor with physical prowess and their now-signature grisly antics. Les Cascades du Diable featured a pair of Pierrots in a series of loosely connected vignettes, and like most of the Hanlons’ pantos, it was approximately thirty minutes long. One newspaper reviewer called the pantomime “madness, sheer madness, masked in a series of startling transformations and tableaux where everything is turned upside-down.”4 In the opening of Les Cascades du Diable, the devil, played by Agoust, looks down upon the Saint-Cloud Fair. Repulsed by the merrymakers and carefree lovers gathered on the banks of the Seine, he summons a host of his damned souls, including Colombine, Arlequin, Cassandre, Léandre, and two Pierrots, to disrupt the pleasure seekers. Gleefully the reprieved descend on the fair, determined to turn the festive holiday gathering into chaos. The two Pierrots, played by William and Frederick, are especially eager to try their hands at the games of skill on the fair’s midway. But after a few rounds of skittles, they grow tired of the game. Looking for a new challenge, they aim their balls at a group of the fair-goers, scattering them like the pins in their game. Moving to the shooting gallery, one of the Pierrots trains his bow and arrow at the derrière of one of the fair’s dandies. Stuck by the sharpened missile, the stuffed shirt is more than a little peeved. Pierrot removes the “gone astray” arrow, apologizing profusely. When the bourgeois still doesn’t calm down, Pierrot’s partner sadistically reinserts the

51


arrow into the behind of the now-furious man. Needless to say, the poor man is left howling in comic distortions of pain as the two mischief makers troop off arm in arm in search of other thrills. With its cheerful music, a carousel beckons. Bored by the monotony of the ride, the pair cause it to spin in ever-faster circles, tossing off the other unfortunate riders. In the fair’s central courtyard, an elegantly dressed woman shows off her well-tailored dress to a group of ogling beaux. Sickened by her display of vanity, the two Pierrots exchange a series of slaps with the monied braggart. Her gender underscores the ludicrous nature of the pantomime. As they pass a boutique, two mannequins spring to life and pick a fight. At the conclusion of the fisticuffs, the two clowns descend upon the menagerie. The pranksters laugh at the caged animals, the elephant in particular. Unamused, the pachyderm captures them in her trunk and mercilessly shakes them. On the brink of being crushed, somehow they manage to escape from the beast. 5 As the two Pierrots depart the Saint-Cloud Fair, the devil entertains the crowd with a fireworks display. It is still early in the day, plenty of time for the two lackeys to create more mischief. They duck into a hospital to see if any children in the maternity unit need to be vaccinated. The pair is disappointed when they can’t find any leeches to employ. The ten babies cry like 300,000 men. No problem! The two do-gooders find bibs for all the newborns and a giant bottle. They attach ten tubes to the bottle, string them around the nursery, and deposit one tube into each baby’s mouth. As the infants hungrily drain the bottle, the two Pierrots climb out the nursery’s secondfloor window.6 Leaping out the window, they catch hold of a street lamp. Spiraling slowly down to street level, they realize that the lamp isn’t lit. One of the Pierrots finds a ladder. Each time he props it against the lamp, the ladder mysteriously falls or strands him in an awkward position at the top. This bit of comic genius, inspired by a childhood spent perfecting such stunts, goes on for some time, the poor Pierrot growing ever more incensed. When a street fight erupts around them, the two Pierrots enthusiastically join the fracas. Wooden boards are the weapons of choice, the brawlers sadistically smashing each other with their two-by-fours. One Pierrot brings his board down on the head of an unfortunate Parisian with such force that a house on the opposite side of the town square snaps into a series of delirium tremens. It suddenly collapses, revealing the long-missing Harlequin and Colombine, caught suggestively in each other’s arms. The two lovers dance on the ruins of the town square. At the conclusion of their pas de deux, the devil reappears, pitchfork in hand, and summons his minions back to hell. As Colombine, Arlequin, Cassandre, Léandre, and the two Pierrots return in a fiery blaze of lights, a lone countess swoops across the stage in a gloire. A sharp contrast to the damned souls, she ascends to Paradise.7

52


The Exposition Universelle and a Change in Venue Agoust was credited as coauthor of Les Cascades du Diable. Having trained at the Théâtre du Havre under the direction of the famed Monsieur Blanc, Agoust was an accomplished physical comedian. Most contemporary writers credit Agoust with pushing the Hanlons to explore pantomime, which the Hanlons subsequently denied. In the Hanlons’ productions, he usually played stereotyped authoritarian figures. And when juggling could be introduced to a scenario, Agoust—trumpeted as the world’s best juggler—led the company in displays of wildly tossed objects. He was a vital, contributing member of the troupe, appearing in their pantomimes to great acclaim. Besides Les Cascades du Diable, he was listed as coauthor, alongside the Hanlons, of Le Duel, Une Soirée en Habit Noir, Viande et Farine, and Le Dentiste. Having worked with the Hanlons for nearly fifteen years, Agoust was for all intents and purposes a de facto Hanlon Brother. George Hanlon referred to Agoust as a “rare comrade and an excellent friend.”8 But unforeseen hostilities between Agoust and the Hanlons were on the horizon. Since the early 1870s when the Hanlons elected to make pantomime the focus of their stage productions, they had been associated with Paris and the FoliesBergère. Despite their English roots, occasional tours of the European continent, and ongoing desire to resettle in the United States, in the 1870s the Folies-Bergère was their artistic home. Here, they thrilled Parisian audiences with a repertoire of pantomimes they dubbed “Nights of Fun with the Hanlon-Lees.” Lasting fame came in 1878 when Paris hosted the Exposition Universelle. Determined to shed memories of the devastating Franco-Prussian War, the French government pressed forward with its plans to host an unrivaled international fair showcasing the country’s resurgence on the world’s stage. The buildings of the Paris Exposition of 1878 were erected on the right bank of the Seine, including the famed Palais de Trocadéro. Visitors flocked to the French capital from May through October. Here, they perused technological innovations, viewed foreign cultures, sampled new foods, and purchased fine art. The 1878 exposition hosted nearly 53,000 exhibits on 192 acres, and attracted more than 16 million visitors.9 In the bustling city replete with tourists, the Hanlon Brothers were the main theatrical draw. A contemporary author instructed, “There’s no getting around it. You must go to the Folies-Bergère to look for the biggest success of the theatrical season of the Exposition.”10 Despite the temptations of the ongoing International Exposition, “Spectators arrived from the five parts of the globe to witness these celebrated gymnasts. They stood out from the numerous curiosities of the time.”11 World expositions, state fairs, and the crowds they inevitably drew were consistently exploited across the Hanlons’ career.

53


After the Paris International Exposition closed, the Théâtre des Variétés staged a curious year-end revue in December 1878. Alongside the Folies-Bergère, the Théâtre des Variétés was Paris’s most prestigious house for popular shows. Penned by Ernest Blum and Raoul Toché, the Variétés’ revue was notable because it poked fun at the Hanlons’ success. A company of actors imitated the Hanlons’ gestures, mannerisms, and to a lesser degree, their agility, in a funny send-up of the Hanlons’ pantomime. The brothers were touched by this friendly spoof. Then, one evening between acts at the Folies-Bergère, Monsieur Bertrand, manager of the Théâtre des Variétés, paid the Hanlons a backstage visit. Then, as Lesclide put it, “The director of the Théâtre des Variétés, seeing the success of the imitators, had the natural idea of replacing them with the originals.”12 Accompanying Bertrand was the famed composer Jacques Offenbach. Together, Bertrand and Offenbach invited the Hanlons to come to the Théâtre des Variétés and work with Blum and Toché. In a perhaps apocryphal story, William Hanlon remembered being flattered that Offenbach volunteered to compose music for the brothers.13 By May 1879, the Era reported that the Hanlon-Lees—George, William, Alfred, Edward, and Frederick—were now in residence at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris.14 The brothers had been lured away from their long-time home, the Folies-Bergère. Here they were matched with Blum and Toché, occasional collaborators with Offenbach on pieces that included La Jolie Parfumeuse (1873), Bagatelle (1874), and Belle Lorette (1880). Formerly lampooned at the Théâtre des Variétés, the Hanlon Brothers would now serve as the primary amusement. Through the summer of 1879, the Hanlons rehearsed Ernest Blum and Raoul Toché’s untitled work. The brothers were unaccustomed to working with a team of authors. Most of their pantomimes had either been adapted from preexisting works—those of Jean-Gaspard Deburau and his son Charles in particular—or their pantomimes were constructed by the brothers after a great deal of improvisation, fine-tuning, and experimentation. Likewise, although Blum and Toché were accomplished vaudeville writers with a string of hits to their credit, they had never worked on a pantomime. Many of the preliminary rehearsals were held in Raoul Toché’s home office, a small cramped space in which to work. Here, the five Hanlon Brothers gathered with the two authors, determined to construct a script that best demonstrated their talents. Having never worked with a team of pantomimists, the vaudeville writers Blum and Toché were regaled with a series of improvisations that demonstrated the potentials of the art form. Ernest Blum recalled a particularly comic, salient incident from their rehearsals. The Hanlons decided that they needed to scale a mountain in a scene. George, who spoke the best French of the brothers, told the author, “Imagine that we are on a mountain. Do you have a mountain in your apartment?” Afraid of what lunacy was to come next, Toché

54


timidly responded, “No.” George sprang up and grabbed a table; William placed an armchair on top of the table; Alfred tossed a chair onto the top. “Voilà!” roared George, gesturing to the freshly constructed “mountain.” Moments later, he and William demonstrated how they might scale the newly formed mountain, using pantomimed ropes, billets, and crampons. But when the two brothers reached the top of their freshly constructed “mountain,” the armchair toppled over, bringing the chair and two startled actors with it. An embarrassed George and William lay sprawled about the floor, with a broken table between them. The room erupted into laughter. Blum concluded, “If Le Voyage en Suisse had had one more act, . . . there wouldn’t have been a piece of furniture left in Toché’s apartment!”15 But the Hanlons knew a good gag when they saw one. Being tossed from a great height would be one of the staple routines in their Le Voyage en Suisse, the mountain being replaced by a stagecoach. Le Voyage en Suisse was significantly different from the Hanlons’ earlier repertoire of pantomimes. Previously, the brothers had been acclaimed for the dreamlike fantasias of their artistic world, where anything could and did happen. However, with Le Voyage en Suisse the Hanlons resolved that this new pantomime would be set “in our time.” Everything within this new pantomime must be possible, excluding “all that is not able to appear absolutely plausible.”16 But the Hanlons’ trademark Pierrots would be omnipresent, reacting to and obeying their every perverse desire, regardless of propriety or consequence. Writing in his preface to the Hanlons’ Mémoires, Théodore de Banville remarked, “All things considered, if ever anyone deserved the name of Realist, it would be the Hanlon-Lees alone, for only they have reproduced life with that ravenous and senseless intensity without which it does not resemble itself.”17 De Banville’s point is illustrated by an interesting rehearsal dilemma encountered by the Hanlons and their producers. The last scene of Le Voyage en Suisse, the now-famous drunken chase, was running a bit long. Fearing ennui on the part of the audience, one of the collaborators suggested that rather than emptying two bottles of alcohol, the two Pierrots should imbibe just one. Then, the scene’s running time would be cut in half. Perhaps showing more than a nodding acquaintance with the effects of alcohol, the Hanlons indignantly responded, “One only?! . . . Just one bottle to intoxicate two Pierrots like us?! That’s impossible! There has to be two and then that is just right!”18 The two bottles of alcohol remained. And taking into account Le Voyage en Suisse’s long life on European and American stages, no audience members seem to have been bored. As will become evident, a great deal of litigation surrounded Le Voyage en Suisse during its remarkably long life on the stages of Europe and the United States. Rival managers and theatre companies enviously viewed the financial rewards that the vehicle brought to the Hanlon Brothers. Several competitors

55


went so far as to plagiarize Le Voyage en Suisse, offering clandestine productions seeking to capitalize on the Hanlons’ formula for success. Some borrowed the storyline, others lifted stage devices, and one unapologetically lifted the entire plot. Hence, perhaps the family’s single most important business decision came on March 11, 1879, when the Hanlons purchased sole performing rights for Le Voyage en Suisse in France and all other countries from Blum and Toché, the piece’s original authors.19 The transaction occurred several months before they began rehearsals and long before it was apparent just how lucrative the play would prove. Business acumen aside, as owners of the production, the Hanlon Brothers would enjoy handsome royalties tendered by other companies seeking to stage Le Voyage en Suisse.

Le Voyage en Suisse in Paris The beginning of the 1879 theatre season saw a series of tempting revivals being staged in Paris. The Odéon had Le Voyage de M. Perrichon; the Palais-Royal offered Les Locataires de M. Blondeau; the Théâtre-Historique presented NôtreDame de Paris; the Théâtre des Fantaisies-Parisiennes presented the beloved melodrama Le Droit du Seigneur, with Mlle. Humberta in the role she created. But with the Hanlons premiering their evening-long pantomime Le Voyage en Suisse, a critic unapologetically announced, “Despite this coincidence of revivals, the journalist has no problem in choosing. He goes straight ahead to the Variétés, where the first production of Le Voyage en Suisse is being given. This is the theatrical debut of the Hanlon-Lees, those astonishing mimes who for such a long time have amused audiences of the Folies-Bergère.”20 After nearly four months of rehearsal, Le Voyage en Suisse finally opened on August 30, 1879, at Paris’s Théâtre des Variétés. Quickly, it became what clown historian John Towsen has called “one of the most significant productions in the history of popular entertainment, for in it a wide range of circus techniques, stage music, and dazzling scenic trickwork was incorporated into a dramatic context and performed by a group of the world’s most talented acrobats, jugglers, and clowns.”21 The Hanlons played the production for nearly four months in the French capital before transferring to Brussels. A London engagement was in the offing, tendered by John Hollingshead, manager of the Gaiety.22 The versions of the Le Voyage en Suisse played in France and England varied somewhat. Upon its transfer to London in the spring of 1880, the play was adapted by the popular burlesque author Robert Reece to adhere to British notions of taste and propriety. Naturally, the Hanlon Brothers tinkered with the production over the years, lengthening certain routines, injecting fresh pieces of comic business, inserting new tableaux, and altering character names according to the country where the play was being produced.

56


As the Parisian version of Le Voyage en Suisse opens, the young and vivacious Juliette Taponet has recently married Corgoloin, a retired pharmacist. Despite the fact that she is in love with another man, Juliette has received a missive from Taponet, her uncle and guardian of her affairs, directing her to marry Corgoloin. Corgoloin is blackmailing Taponet for an offense some years prior. The gruesome May-December couple leave her small village, preparing to board a train for a honeymoon passage to Switzerland to visit her uncle’s hotel. Heartbroken, Juliette’s former fiancé Polisot sits weeping in the town square when he is discovered by his old friend Des Eglisottes. Polisot tells Des Eglisottes about his plight. Des Eglisottes remembers that many years before he was affronted by Corgoloin. Perhaps they might persuade Taponet to have the marriage annulled. Formulating a plan, Polisot and Des Eglisottes determine that they will prevent the marriage from being consummated during the newlyweds’ trip to Switzerland. Before the two friends can begin their pursuit, they must wait for the arrival of Des Eglisottes’ nephews Ned, Harry, and Joe, played by Edward, George, and Alfred Hanlon. 23 The three students have journeyed from Bonn to join their uncle. Accompanying Ned, Harry, and Joe is their tutor La Chose, played by Agoust. A horn blast heralds the arrival of the stage coach. A horse trots onto the stage pulling the coach; the travelers are perched precariously around the outside of the carriage, holding onto the railings. A mountain of baggage is lashed to the top of the buggy. Suddenly, the vehicle overturns, scattering its six occupants and their belongings. Relieved of his burden, the horse goes galloping off. As they are thrown from the carriage, the six wayfarers turn somersaults and land unscathed in a perfect row all the way downstage; miraculously, they are situated equidistant from each other. Surprisingly, several of the passengers’ lit cigars continue to burn unperturbed in their mouths. Center stage, George, William, Edward, Alfred, and Frederick Hanlon passively laze alongside their colleague Agoust as the audience marvels at the feat they have just perfectly executed. As the spectators’ astonished laughter subsides, Ned turns to his brothers Joe and Harry, pocket watch in hand. He dryly remarks, “We are all here!” “Yes,” responds the unfazed Harry. “This must be the place.”24 On opposite ends of Ned, Harry, Joe, and La Chose are Corgoloin’s two servants Bob and John, played by Frederick and William. Much of Le Voyage en Suisse’s physical comedy and madcap pantomime will center around these two enfariné mischief makers. They have been sent to fetch Corgoloin’s few remaining belongings before the train’s departure for Switzerland. While the nephews exchange pleasantries with their uncle Des Eglisottes, Bob and John set the tone for much of the duration of the play—they busy themselves by searching for and imbibing alcohol. A local pub satiates for a time, but then the other patrons realize that their glasses are being drained by the two freeloaders. Bob and John

57

Fig. 7. Le Voyage en Suisse—The Arrival, Act 1. As the distraught young lover is consoled, the Hanlon Brothers arrive via stagecoach. Author’s collection.

Fig. 8. Le Voyage en Suisse—The Upset, Act 1. A collection of gags punctuating the end of the act—the overturned stagecoach, the robbing of a Frenchman’s bottle, and gymnastic and ladder routines through a second-story window. Author’s collection.


then find the flask of cognac La Chose has dangling from his belt. In a bit that was singled out by numerous critics, Théodore de Banville remarked that the Pierrots proceeded to drink the contents with “wanton abandon,” sending the flask flying “under the very eye of its owner with such agility and precision that it is physically impossible for him to see movement.”25 The second act commences with one of the more startling scenic devices employed on the late-nineteenth-century stage: a cross-section of a full-sized Pullman train car. The locomotive appears to be rumbling down the tracks on its way to Switzerland. The wheels turn; the coach convulses as the tracks pass underneath; exhaust is emitted from an engine that appears to be just offstage, connected to the visible car. Upon closer inspection, the audience realizes that the car is divided into four compartments, revealing—left to right—a sleeping compartment with twin sets of bunk beds on either side shared by Harry, Ned, Joe, and La Chose; a compartment housing Juliette and Corgoloin; a parlor car occupied by Polisot and Des Eglisottes; and a second-class compartment occupied by the servants Bob and John. Of course, Corgoloin is eager to consummate his marriage to Juliette. It is, after all, a honeymoon trip. Juliette is repelled by the grotesque older man. Polisot, Juliette’s spurned fiancé, is determined to keep Corgoloin from her bed. Throughout the second act, Polisot unleashes a series of schemes aimed at diverting Corgoloin’s desires. Polisot orders his nephews to rehearse scales on their cornet, trombone, and tuba (all conveniently stowed aboard the train), thus preventing Juliette from hearing the wretch’s attempts at sweet-talking his way into her affections. At one point, the nephews extemporize on the popular tune “Don’t Make a Noise,” adding a comic musical irony to the scene. Des Eglisottes remembers that Corgoloin hates the smell of tobacco. Hence, for a time the two chums blow smoke underneath the cabin’s door. Growing ever more desperate, Corgoloin attempts to maneuver Juliette into their marital bed. Surreptitiously, the nephews watch the encounter unfold. In a more racy moment from the French production, “The Parisians rocked with laughter when the newly married lady removes her bodice, modestly requesting her husband to turn his back and little thinking that the rest of the passengers by the car are indulging in sly peeps from the roof.”26 In response, Polisot and Des Eglisottes adapt a number of disguises—waiters, ticket takers, and finally border patrol agents—all with the aim of interrupting the proceedings. Whenever Corgoloin seems finally on the brink of coercing Juliette into bed, Polisot and Des Eglisottes knock on the berth’s door once again. Costumed as train personnel, they repeatedly halt the pathetic love scene. At one point Polisot even “accidentally” knees Corgoloin in the groin. One critic remarked, “When the happy spouse is about to exercise his legitimate rights he is interrupted

59


in a manner that will make him give up the attempt for a long time.”27 When Polisot and Des Eglisottes appear as ticket takers—cigarettes dangling from their mouths—Corgoloin creates such a ruckus that passengers from the neighboring berths crowd into the cramped room to see why he is carrying on.28 In a lastditch effort to thwart Corgoloin, Polisot and Des Eglisottes costume themselves as custom agents. On their way to Corgoloin’s berth, they pass the two lackeys Bob and John, who are quietly engrossed in a game of gin. While playing cards, Bob and John have been drinking—heavily. The train suddenly lurches to a halt. The passengers have arrived at the Swiss border. A trio of border patrol agents pass through the Pullman car. Bob and John assume they are Polisot and Des Eglisottes passing by once again. The agents demand to see their papers; the servants laugh heartily, thinking this is yet another ruse. When the agents attempt to take the two mischief makers into custody, an allout chase ensues. The train begins moving once again as Bob and John steadfastly try to avoid the customs officers. Meanwhile, Polisot and Des Eglisottes continue to plague Corgoloin and Juliette with their unwelcome intrusions. For the duration of the act, the audience’s attention is maniacally pulled in several directions at once. Futilely, the customs house officers attempt to corral the two renegade passengers. By this time, the train has reached its full speed and barrels down the tracks. But the madcap chase continues. At first Bob and John try to elude their pursuers in the train compartments. Bunk beds are scaled and brought crashing down; solid walls are toppled; sliding doors separating the various compartments are slammed in the faces of the authorities; innocent passengers are shoved into the arms of the persistent officers. And still the chase continues! John opens a hatch in the floor of his second-class compartment and falls down onto the tracks. His tracker assumes he will be killed by the passing train or, at the very least, left behind. But the resourceful John manages to hold onto the underside of the Pullman car. Slowly, he manages to shimmy his way down to the end of the train, hoist his body onto the end platform, and return back to his berth.29 Meanwhile, his comrade Bob has managed to climb onto the roof of the speeding car. The two remaining officers awkwardly chase him to the end of the train. Suddenly the third officer makes his way onto the roof. Bob is surrounded; he’s on the verge of capture. While the chase rages on the exterior of the train car, Polisot and Des Eglisottes realize that they are running out of distractions. As further proof, they realize that Corgoloin has bolted shut the door of his berth. Des Eglisottes concludes that their only solution is to destroy the train. He runs ahead to the train’s engineer, who for a large cash settlement is persuaded to run his locomotive off the tracks. Moments later the train jumps the tracks and seemingly self-destructs

60


before the astonished audience, scattering its occupants onto telegraph poles and all about the countryside in awkward positions. As the curtain is brought down on the second act, the audience is shown a startling tableau of the wrecked train. The physical distortions featured in the second act caused one American critic to conclude, “Their bodies are certainly provided with fewer bones and more hinges than most gentlemen of that description have. They do nothing after the manner of ordinary mortals.”30 The third act is set at the Rigi-Kulm Hotel in the Swiss Alps. The wedding party arrives at the inn, and all indications seem to be that the fateful marital night is finally here. But because Juliette and Corgoloin have not consummated their marriage, there is still time for her former fiancé Polisot to intervene and preserve her (and his) honor. A sumptuous wedding feast greets the travelers, hosted by Juliette’s Uncle Taponet. Of course, he would like to not give his

Fig. 9. Le Voyage en Suisse—The Voyage to Switzerland, Act 2. Twenty-five minutes of nonstop belly laughs in, atop, and below a cutaway of a Pullman train car speeding its way through Switzerland. As the lecherous older man attempts to consummate his marriage, the Hanlon Brothers construct increasingly elaborate means to halt the proceedings. When determined Swiss border agents intervene, the clowns’ tussle eventually takes them to the top of the car, after several berths are completely destroyed. One unfortunate lackey is pitched onto the tracks. With the train’s wheels and gears grinding away, he holds on and manages to rejoin the fracas. Author’s collection.

61


Fig. 10. Le Voyage en Suisse—The Smash Up, Act 2. Concluding tableau. The lovers are briefly reunited stage center. Author’s collection.

niece to the villainous Corgoloin, but he feels that he has no choice. Monsieur La Chose, a professor at Bonn, begins the clowning of the third act. Seeking to create a diversion, he begins juggling the contents of the table’s fruit basket. La Chose, played by Henri Agoust, keeps a banana, apple, and orange aloft, much to the amusement of the guests. Corgoloin is highly annoyed, since he is eager for the formalities to be concluded. Hoping to stall until Polisot and Des Eglisottes can arrive, La Chose turns to other objects. Soon he is juggling knives, forks, dishes, crystal, and fowl. His studious pupils Ned, Joe, and Harry join in the dexterous display, spinning china plates on the points of umbrellas. One begins to wonder if La Chose, Ned, Joe, and Harry have been studying books or legerdemain at the University of Bonn! Soon all seated at the banquet table are attempting some feat of juggling. When one of the servants is sent to the attic in pursuit of some mementos, he accidentally falls through the ceiling, traveling thirty feet and landing unscathed in the center of the elaborately arranged dining table. Corgoloin is left fuming amid the merrymaking, and La Chose excuses himself from the proceedings. As the banquet progresses, Bob and John take nips from the two bottles of alcohol they’ve pilfered from the hotel’s stock. Gradually they pass out in awkward positions, stretched out across the travelers’ luggage. Asked to light the inn’s lamps, the two comically stagger about the stage attempting to ignite the hotel’s

62


wall sconces with their candles. An English critic raved over “the fumbling of the two drunkards in their futile endeavours to light a candle, losing successively, the matches, the candle, and the candlestick, and never finding more than one of them at a time.”31 The threat of fire being a very real and omnipresent danger for nineteenth-century theatre audiences, the scene is as horrifying and potentially dangerous as it is funny and enthralling. This precarious fine line between danger and entertainment was perhaps the Hanlon Brothers’ true performance niche, a niche they had been cultivating since their younger days when they thrilled audiences with their astonishing gymnastic and aerial routines. Bob and John reel around the hotel lobby, laughing as they attempt to light the sconces. Suddenly, a gendarme bursts into the Rigi-Kulm Hotel (played by the double-cast Agoust). He declares that he has come to arrest the servants Bob and John on charges that they were responsible for the train’s explosion. (Not true, of course!) Until now they’ve dodged the “long arm of the law” (as promotional materials touted)32—no way are they being taken into custody without a fight. An extraordinary chase commences, which European and American commentators alike considered to be the funniest part of Le Voyage en Suisse, despite the piece’s technological marvels and sophistication. The London Telegraph noted, “The greatest attraction of the third act was . . . the splendid pantomime of Messrs. William and Frederick Hanlon, as two flunkeys, two dumb waiters in fact, who convulsed the house with laughter for perhaps half an hour, without uttering a word.”33 The gendarme chases the highly inebriated Bob and John into closets, baskets, and trunks. Through much of the early pursuit, each of the three carries a candle. One commentator noted, “If one could get rid of the candles that all the people had in their hands during the chase, it would greatly help the nervous audience who feared that in each instant the building or a piece of clothes would catch on fire.”34 Attempting to hide, Bob takes refuge in a closet. When John suddenly pulls open the door, his comrade thrusts his lit candle down his throat, mistaking him for the gendarme. The comic mayhem accelerates as the gendarme resolutely pursues Bob and John. Seemingly impossible pieces of physical comedy dominated the scene. The officer seems to have exceptionally long arms, capable of extending themselves after the two miscreants. Trying to escape, John jumps into a trunk. Not knowing where his quarry has gone, the gendarme sits on top of the trunk—at the very moment that John sticks his head back out to survey the room. “When one of them hides in a trunk and another promptly shuts the lid down upon his neck and sits upon it . . . [this] seems to occasion scarcely any inconvenience to the owner of the neck.”35 Mirrors are smashed, busts of William Tell become skull crackers, walls are traversed, demolished, torn apart. Somehow, the gendarme is unable

63


to apprehend the two clowns. “They roll between the legs of the policeman; they slip through his hands.”36 It was an astonishing scene of skilled dexterity, played by a company of the world’s leading acrobats now staking their claim as the leaders in comic pantomime, too. The sheer madness of the well-lubricated scene caused one British reviewer to remark, “It is so dreadfully true to nature and withal so genuinely diverting, that one gazes on it with an enthralled interest more fittingly applied to some burst of passion at the Lyceum.”37 And not that it mattered to the audience at this point, but Polisot and Des Eglisottes finally arrive at the Rigi-Kulm Hotel. Summoning Juliette’s Uncle Taponet, the two reveal Corgoloin as a true villain—and a bigamist. His marriage to Juliette is successfully annulled. As Le Voyage en Suisse concludes, Juliette is reunited with her Polisot; their wedding will be celebrated the following day. In many ways, the plot of Le Voyage en Suisse is like that of any stereotypical melodrama that held the stage in the late nineteenth century. A young couple is about to be wed when suddenly the ingénue is whisked away under the strict orders of a male guardian. She is destined to be married to a lecherous older man who is owed a “favor” by the male guardian. The spurned male lover steadfastly pursues his fiancée, aided by several loyal friends. After a series of trials and extraneous stage spectacles, order is restored, the villain is revealed, and the

Fig. 11. Le Voyage en Suisse—Falling through the Ceiling, Act 3. A wedding banquet is convened. The party’s guests juggle the contents of the feast. To prevent the married couple from retiring to their bedchamber, the clowns pose as waiters and disrupt the proceedings. Author’s collection.

64


young lovers are left to marry. Derivatives of this plot were played out on stages throughout Western Europe and the United States. But in the hands of the Hanlon Brothers, the plot was secondary. The focus of the play was the Hanlon Brothers and their unique combination of macabre pantomime, sidesplitting comedy, and breathtaking physical dexterity. Le Voyage en Suisse was the first in a succession of Hanlon stage pantomimes dominated by clowning, stage acrobatics, and technological wizardry. The funnymen were the primary performers in these productions, leaving the poor “straights” the unpleasant task of carrying the plot (and the love story, for that matter). Theatre historian Laurence Senelick writes, “On one side stood the ensemble of actors who had the thankless task of playing the simpleminded story, on the other the ensemble of stunt men responsible for evoking laughter through physical buffoonery.”38 It was a successful formula whose derivatives were seen throughout twentieth-century film, the epitome being the Marx Brothers in vehicles like Animal Crackers (1930) and A Night at the Opera (1935). Le Voyage en Suisse held the stage of the Théâtre des Variétés into December 1879. In honor of the show’s 100th performance, the authors Ernest Blum and

Fig. 12. Le Voyage en Suisse—Finale Rigi-Kulm Hotel, Act 3. A compendium of scenes illustrating the extraordinary physical comedy that punctuated Le Voyage en Suisse’s third act. The lackeys have been drinking steadily. A gendarme arrives, determined to arrest the lackeys for the havoc they created on the train. A chase ensues during which the hotel’s contents are completely trashed, in a melee of slapstick comedy. Author’s collection.

65


Raoul Toché held the customary sumptuous feast for the company and their friends at the Hôtel Continental, followed by a costume ball. The highlight of the festive evening was the thunderous applause that was showered upon the Hanlon Brothers. In appreciation, the five brothers presented a short extemporaneous pantomime called Mort et Vivant which spoofed the lavish get-together. 39 A Hamburg promoter attempted to bring the Hanlons’ new production to Germany. In a letter dated 24 November 1879, Theodor Schwarz wrote to George Hanlon (in broken English): “Question with devotion, when you ready to come to Germany i have an engagement at that Theatre Centralhall in Hamburg from January and May 1880, have you the kindness and given my anser how many salary am to send your portrait.”40 The Hanlons opted for Belgium instead. On 6 December 1879, Le Voyage en Suisse opened at Brussels’ Galeries Saint-Hubért. Playing into the early spring of 1880, the show ran over fifty consecutive nights, an unusually long run for the Belgian capital. Midway through the Belgian run, the London Figaro reported, “The HanlonLees . . . have been engaged by Mr. John Hollingshead to appear in a new and special entertainment at the Gaiety Theatre at Easter.”41 Of course, that “special entertainment” would be a revised version of Le Voyage en Suisse produced during the holiday season, a time when British theatres typically offered pantomimes. The Hanlons were returning to their native country.

Le Voyage en Suisse in Britain The production of Le Voyage en Suisse that opened at London’s Gaiety Theatre on 27 March 1880 was a somewhat different version from that which had entertained French-speaking audiences on the European continent. The English adaptation by Robert Reece made a number of alterations to the play, many of which were subsequently carried over to the United States in the fall of 1881. Reece was an accomplished burlesque and pantomime author, with a string of triumphs staged at London’s Gaiety Theatre, including Prometheus (1879), The Forty Thieves (1880), and Aladdin (1881). Beginning in the late 1870s, he began a long association with John Hollingshead’s theatre company. Reece’s first alteration for English-speaking audiences anglicized the names of characters. Juliette became Julia; her lover Polisot was rechristened Finsbury Parker; Des Eglisottes in the French version became Sir George Golightly; Corgoloin was renamed Matthew Popperton; Taponet was retitled Schwindelwitz. The remaining leading characters—the nephews Harry and Ned, their French tutor La Chose, and the servants Bob and John—all retained their names. Interestingly, despite the changes made to the characters’ names, when the Hanlons toured Le Voyage en Suisse in English-speaking countries, they never translated the title. An occasional poster (particularly during the play’s inaugural season

66


in the United States) might include the words “A Trip to Switzerland” below the French title, but the name of the elaborate pantomime resisted tampering. As one newspaper noted, “the title has in the past two years acquired the force of a trademark.”42 Besides anglicizing the names, Reece also localized the setting for his English audience. The opening scene was now set in the picturesque county of Devonshire. Julia lives here with her uncle Bottleby, who also happens to operate the town’s local public house. Julia’s guardian and controller of her affairs is Schwindelwitz, owner of Switzerland’s Rigi-Kulm Hotel. Unlike its French predecessor, the English version of Le Voyage en Suisse cast Schwindelwitz, Julia’s guardian, as a villain. Should he successfully marry off Julia to Matthew Popperton, he will be awarded a handsome sum of money. Despite the adaptations, the play was still considered “one of the most admirably contrived displays of ingenious mechanism combined with agility. . . . Nothing more original or daring could be conceived, from the upset of the omnibus, which appears to fall on the neck of one of the travellers—the extraordinary destruction of furniture, which was smashed and broken up, yet on carefully devised mechanical principles, the whole being carried out with a neatness and finish that was truly remarkable.”43 English notions of propriety dictated that several scenes and subplots would need to be “tidied up.” As translator of the piece, Reece “contrived to get rid of all ‘suggestiveness’ without sacrificing any of the fun,” noted a London critic.44 In order to avoid charges of adultery and bigamy, Julia was no longer married to Popperton at the top of the play. Rather, her Uncle Schwindelwitz orders her via letter to wed Popperton as soon as he “pops the question.” Hence, this keeps the action of the play’s second act from entering the couple’s sleeping berth on their way to Switzerland’s Rigi-Kulm Hotel. The trade-off, naturally enough, is that the sexual titillation of the original Le Voyage en Suisse is lost. No longer is Juliette’s virginity at stake and, to a lesser extent, the honor of her fiancé Polisot. The focus of the piece becomes keeping the newly christened Popperton from speaking with Julia. For if he asks the young woman to marry him, she must immediately acquiesce. Instead of practicing a perverse form of coitus interruptus, the clowns of the piece must practice parlare interruptus. As one reviewer noted, “They [Finsbury Parker, Sir George Golightly, and his nephews Ned and Harry] always contrive to be present when not wanted, their exits being only less startling than their entrances.”45 Funny, but not concurrently arousing like the original. The thrill of peeping has been lost. Reece’s adaptation extended the comic pantomime of the first act. After the now-familiar stage coach collapse ushers onto the stage Sir George Golightly’s nephews, their French tutor La Chose, and Popperton’s servants, the group retires to Bottleby’s pub. A few pints later and more than a little intoxicated, the

67


lackeys Bob and John pilfer the Frenchman La Chose’s bottle. Given the eternal hostilities between the French and English, the scene was expanded to include a pummeling for the unfortunate university professor of Gallic descent. Not yet content (or satiated), the lackeys mistake a garden hose for a pub tap. They “accidentally” douse several innocent bystanders in their eagerness for booze that flows like water. A chase ensues through the balconies of the pub and adjacent buildings. The rewrite meant that ladder gymnastics—an old specialty of the Hanlon Brothers—could be introduced to the mayhem. As they had experienced on the European continent, the Hanlons enjoyed a rousing success playing Le Voyage en Suisse before appreciative English audiences. John Hollingshead, manager of the Gaiety, remembered, “The HanlonLees at the Gaiety revived the taste for pure pantomime mixed with ingenious mechanical tricks that would have opened poor old Grimaldi’s eyes with envy and astonishment. Omnibuses that turn over on the stage, spilling their passengers in every direction; Pullman cars that blow up with a comic explosion; and ceilings that allow footmen to fall through them on to a dinner table were not invented at the opening of the century.”46 The reference to Grimaldi was an interesting one. Whereas French authors attempted to link the Hanlon Brothers to Deburau, the English saw them as the progeny of the great Joseph Grimaldi, the so-called King of Clowns. In reality, the Hanlon Brothers were expanding the territory opened by both Deburau and Grimaldi. To the lithe and supple Deburau, the Hanlons added supreme acrobatics that flew about the stage in their own unique way. Like Grimaldi, the Hanlons’ clown was a greedy and selfish bully living out the audience’s vicarious desire to overthrow their inhibitions. But unlike Grimaldi, who operated largely in the harlequinade of English panto, the Hanlon Brothers’ clown was a “real” figure. The Hanlons’ conception of the clown figure brought Grimaldi’s fisticuffs into the natural world that the nineteenth-century French literati were so eager to investigate. As early as April 1880, American journalists were heralding the fact that the Hanlons’ Le Voyage en Suisse would open in the United States the following theatrical season, under the management of Morris Simmonds and T. Allston Brown. The Spirit of the Times boasted, “As we predicted the Hanlon-Lees have made as great a success in London as in Paris. . . . Simmonds has a fortune in this piece.”47 Simmonds and Brown even filed for an American copyright with the Library of Congress for Le Voyage en Suisse on 10 July 1880 while the Hanlon Brothers made a grueling tour of the English provinces. The “happy” reunion with Simmonds might have been the story planted in the papers serving the dramatic profession, but correspondence from George Hanlon, the brothers’ designated manager, clearly indicates that this was not the case. That Morris Simmonds should serve as manager of the Hanlon Brothers

68


on their subsequent reintroduction to American audiences seemed inevitable. His career was inextricably linked to the Hanlons. Thomas, the Hanlons’ eldest brother, had suffered his fateful fall at Pike’s Opera House, Cincinnati, Ohio in August 1865, a theatre that was then operated by Simmonds. By 1866, Morris Simmonds was serving as manager for George, William, and Alfred. In the late 1870s, he had formed the Simmonds and Brown dramatic agency with T. Allston Brown. Headquartered in New York, the business proved to be one of the late nineteenth century’s most prominent theatrical offices. Simmonds clearly had the foresight to recognize that the Hanlons were a significant theatrical force, regardless of what they undertook. But shortly after Le Voyage en Suisse closed in London, George Hanlon wrote to T. Allston Brown, underlining Simmonds’ name for emphasis: London, August 8th, 1880 Adelphi Hotel, W.C. Dear Mr. Allston Brown: I regret to inform you our performances terminated last night. We now take a holiday. My bros. leave for “Llandudno” in Wales and I am off for France in a day or two. Prior to which I desire the pleasure of an interview I shall there explain the circumstances relative to our differences with Morris Simmonds. Shall be pleased to meet you here if quite agreeable. Awaiting an early reply, believe me Faithfully yours Geo. Hanlon Tuesday at one o’clock would suit me if agreeable to yourself.48 Clearly, some facet of the negotiations with Morris Simmonds had reached an impasse. Colonel Brown, who was either vacationing in London or had journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean to attempt to rescue the failing transactions, would be forced to bargain directly with the Hanlons. Where Simmonds had failed, Brown ultimately proved successful. In the fall of 1880, as the Hanlon Brothers continued to tour the English provinces, George Hanlon wrote to Colonel Brown (with perhaps an allusion to his differences with Simmonds): Princes Theatre Manchester Oct. 26th, 80 Dear Brown[,] I’m up to my neck in “biss,” so kindly excuse brevity. Tomorrow night or the following morning you will receive the contract signed by yours.

69


Fraternally it is very legal in form, but dont get alarmed on that account. It is not yourself, but the other party, you know who I mean! that is the cause of it. I believe it embodies all that was understood between us. If satisfactory sign and return, or bring it with you to Sheffield. Kind remembrances to Mrs. Brown. Faithfully yours Geo. Hanlon49 A contract had been signed; the Hanlon Brothers would be returning to the United States, after all. George’s letter was sent from Manchester, the Hanlons’ birth city. Just days after signing the contract, the Hanlons’ father died in his Manchester home. He was sixty-nine. Shortly thereafter, the Hanlons moved their mother to their long-abandoned home in Orange, New Jersey, just outside Manhattan. The Hanlons never resided in Manchester again; the United States was their newly adopted home. Having successfully hashed out their contractual details, the company elected to remain in Great Britain for a time. When Le Voyage en Suisse closed its inaugural London run in the summer of 1880, the Hanlons embarked on a tour that took them to Bishopsgate, Liverpool, Bradford, and Manchester. John Hollingshead successfully wooed them back to London for the December 1880 holiday season, where they played the Imperial Theatre. In the spring of 1881, the company moved once again to the provinces, playing engagements in Bradford, Nottingham, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. 50 Just prior to their departure for the United States, the Hanlons performed in Plymouth, England, in the summer of 1881. Here, they presented Henry Pettitt’s The Nabob’s Fortune, or the Adventures of a Sealed Packet, their first new production in several years. Pettitt was a prominent English playwright of drawing room comedies. Recently, he had been hired by the Hanlons to compose an adaptation of Le Voyage en Suisse for American audiences. Pettitt’s The Nabob’s Fortune centers around a deceased nabob who has shipped a packet of letters to his London lawyer containing instructions on the disposal of his handsome fortune. The principal characters—all relations of the Nabob—scheme for control of the packet, eager to see who shall inherit his fortune. In a plot similar to Victorien Sardou’s A Scrap of Paper, the New York Clipper reported, “The packet finds its way into the hands of almost every character in the piece, but is never held long enough for its contents to be discovered, until the end, when the heroine finds herself the lucky possessor of the fortune.”51 The Hanlons played comic yachtsmen in the piece, subservient once again to the plot’s machinations. A host of unusual stage devices were used in The Nabob’s Fortune, including balloons, camera obscuras, yachts, echo caves, military encampments, and falling houses, all devised by the

70


Hanlon Brothers. Characteristically, the Hanlons were mute when discussing the motivations for producing the new play. Unsure of how American audiences would respond to Le Voyage en Suisse, in all likelihood the family wished to have a second piece ready. As the New York Clipper suggested, “Their new play will be produced only when ‘Le Voyage en Suisse’ fails to attract, which will scarcely be the case for many weeks after their opening.”52 Regardless, the Hanlons never performed The Nabob’s Fortune in America. However, in 1900 they briefly toured a play called A Lively Legacy whose plot is similar to The Nabob’s Fortune.

The Withdrawal of Henri Agoust The cast of The Nabob’s Fortune was identical to the one that opened Le Voyage en Suisse in New York in the fall of 1881. However, notably absent from the premiere of The Nabob’s Fortune and the upcoming New York debut of Le Voyage en Suisse was Henri Agoust. Agoust, one of the Hanlons’ oldest and dearest colleagues, had quietly withdrawn from the company shortly before the first performance of The Nabob’s Fortune.53 Quickly replacing their long-term collaborator, the Hanlons brought in an actor named Francis G. Wyatt. Just prior to their departure for the United States, the company played a final engagement at London’s Gaiety Theatre, opening on 25 July 1881. Here the Hanlons alternated productions of The Nabob’s Fortune with their signature piece Le Voyage en Suisse.54 The press gave no reason for the departure of Agoust. If there were acrimonious rumblings, they were stifled—for the time being—by both the Hanlons and Agoust. Agoust returned to his native Paris and joined the Nouveau Cirque. By the end of the decade, he rose to the rank of régisseur-général with the prestigious organization. The Hanlon Brothers would not hear from their former colleague again until 1888, nearly seven years after his withdrawal from their employ. The published exchanges between Henri Agoust and his former partners were outright nasty this time around. By 1888, the Hanlons were entrenched in American show business. With two touring productions on the road, Le Voyage en Suisse and their spectacle fairy pantomime Fantasma (1884), the Hanlons were phenomenally successfully. Then a curious note appeared in the pages of the New York Mirror. Like a cannonball shot across the bow of a ship, Henri Agoust leveled a series of fiery contentions. Why Agoust, so many years removed from the Hanlons’ employ, chose to make public his negative impressions remains a mystery. Perhaps he looked across the Atlantic Ocean from his position at Paris’s Nouveau Cirque and enviously viewed the Hanlon Brothers’ continuing fame. In Richard Lesclide’s Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, published in 1880, Agoust’s contributions to the success of the Hanlons were largely overlooked. While George Hanlon referred to Agoust as a “rare comrade and an excellent friend,”55 little else was

71


said about the French juggler and pantomimist who had been associated with the brothers since 1865. Indeed, the only anecdote involving Agoust in Lesclide’s glossed-over history is how the Hanlons once cruelly dealt with his occasional tardiness to performances. 56 Past history aside, the Hanlons were unwilling to ignore Agoust’s public accusations. Agoust’s charges included such petty swipes as claiming the Hanlons exaggerated their physique. “They have always worn two tights,” Agoust noted, “a cheap one under the silk garment. To represent the muscles the undertights were stuffed with long shreds of wool carefully combed.” As an added insult, Agoust recalled, “One of the jokes used to be to stick pins mounted with white flags into these false mollets,” perhaps recalling some backstage shenanigans from the troupe’s early association. As well, he suggested that the brothers drank heavily; the charge of intemperance was lobbed as an affront to the Hanlons’ appeal with well-to-do, fashionable audiences. Perhaps more premeditated was Agoust’s assertion that he had pushed the Hanlon Brothers into pantomime. In the same article, a reporter recounted the variety company’s members, the company’s early days, and its move into pantomime entertainment: “At Chicago the Hanlons did the vaulting while Agoust confined himself to juggling. Tanner was added with his dogs, and there was a female rope-dancer. However the performance was too short and Agoust proposed to the Hanlons to add a pantomime. He taught them two old sketches, Harlequin Statue and Harlequin Skeleton.” The Hanlons, who had constructed their careers out of the dueling ideas of ingenuity and self-reliance, were outraged to read such a charge. Despite the inflammatory nature of Agoust’s assertions, the Hanlons might have overlooked their former colleague’s comments if he had not dredged up some particularly painful memories—the circumstances surrounding the death of their eldest brother Thomas. Reflecting on his second association with the Hanlon Brothers a few years after the conclusion of his service in the FrancoPrussian War, Agoust cruelly claimed: And the five Hanlons admitted this former companion in their fortune to replace their brother Thomas who had died in America. Thomas had fallen at Cincinnati, one evening and cut open his head while making a leap. He had been doctored as well as possible, but he suffered atrocious pains when the brothers jumped upon his mended head. He cried: “I won’t do it. I can’t stand it any longer!” “Coward! lazy devil!” replied George, the terrible man of the band. And he inspired so much fear that the unfortunate Thomas continued to perform and in a few months he became crazy.57

72


Baited into action, the Hanlons published their rebuttal in the following week’s edition of the New York Mirror. Given the nineteenth century’s stigmas associated with mental illness, the Hanlons’ response in particular attempted to counter Agoust’s assertion that Thomas was “crazy” in the years leading up to his suicide in April 1868. Naming a series of respected leaders in the theatrical profession, the Hanlons underscored the fact that for three years their split company was in capable managerial hands. In their retort, the Hanlons claimed that they had no inkling of Thomas’s mental difficulties. “It was during the close of the season [April 1868] that the sudden and appalling disappearance of Thomas from the company gave the family the first intimation of that mental aberration so painful in its results. This unhappy disaster happened three years after the unfortunate calamity in Cincinnati.” Likewise, the Hanlons sought to counter Agoust’s charge that he had been responsible for pushing them into the field of pantomime. With the family perched atop the field of American pantomime production, Agoust’s assertions must have stung. The Hanlons reminded the New York Mirror’s readers that they began performing in pantomimes like Cinderella when they were still children living in Manchester. As if to stoke the flames, the Hanlons called into question Agoust’s acting abilities. They referenced an unspecified pantomime they had produced in the United States, starring Agoust. “It was a serious misfortune for us to mount a pantomime in America at the greedy solicitation of Agoust. We committed the egregious blunder of permitting him to play the part of Pierrot, and his complete and mortifying failure compelled its speedy withdrawal.” However, the Hanlons reserved their most stinging rebuttal to Agoust’s fuzzy memory that “there was a female rope dancer,” employed by the combined company, “to use his unmanly and coarse slur on his own wife, attached to the company.” In an era when divorce and remarriage were highly shunned, the Hanlons reminded the New York Mirror’s readers that “her real name was Mrs. Agoust, the wife of Agoust, whose base insinuations violates the decencies of married as well as professional life.”58 As sordid as Agoust’s initial attack, the Hanlons’ reply (in all likelihood penned by George, who usually served as the troupe’s spokesman) answered Agoust’s charges while also drudging up some dirt of their own—namely that their former colleague was divorced. The “female rope dancer” was Rosita Zanfretta, Agoust’s ex-wife. Prior to their association with the Hanlon Brothers, the couple had been members of the Buislay Family. Featuring gymnasts and antipodean artists, the Buislay family was renowned for its ascents of “Spiral Mountain” on giant rolling globes and Julio Buislay’s “Niagara Leap.” In the mid1860s, Agoust and Zanfretta withdrew from the Buislay company and joined George, William, and Alfred Hanlon’s variety combination.59

73


By the late 1870s, Rosita Zanfretta and Henri Agoust had separated. A British census undertaken in 1881 reports Henri Agoust living at 46 George Street, Sculcoates, York. In this guest house, Agoust (age thirty-nine) lived with his second wife Louise (age thirty-one) and their children Emanuel (age five), Alfred (age four), and Emeli (age two), along with their “general servant” Esther Williamson. With the exception of Williamson, all were reported to be citizens of France.60 By 1888 the Hanlons felt closer to Rosita Zanfretta, Agoust’s first wife. Significantly, her son Alex Zanfretta was a member of the Hanlon’s Fantasma company in the mid-1880s, along with his daughter Amy. Oddly enough, Alex Zanfretta played the Pierrot-like leading role of Pico in Fantasma over several years, a role in which his father Henri Agoust had failed, according to the Hanlon Brothers’ recollection.61 Despite the thoroughness of the Hanlon Brothers’ rebuttal, Agoust’s blasts weren’t finished. Later that spring the New York Mirror published his latest diatribe. The Hanlons claimed they had begun their careers while still children, performing in the panto Cinderella. With a poke at the Hanlons’ masculinity, Agoust reminded readers, “There are in Cinderella really but two parts—the maiden and the prince—both played by young girls.” More substantively: calling on uncertain archival materials in his possession, including playbills and receipts, he countered the Hanlons’ attack. As for the share my professional skill had in the final success of the Hanlons I can cite figures which speak louder than words. When in 1877, I met the Hanlons in Berlin, the entire troupe—comprising eight persons in all—the five brothers, a pupil, and Mmes. Frederic and Alfred Hanlon—had been engaged by M. Dussel for the Walhalla at a total monthly salary of 3,500 francs. The first month of my appearance with the company the salary went up to 5,000 francs. Two months later it touched 6,000 and then progressively rose to 7,000 and 8,000. In Paris we went to the Folies Bergere with an engagement for a month at 9,000 francs and engagement renewed for a year at 15,000 francs a month. When it was proposed to go to the Theatre des Varietes to bring out Le Voyage en Suisse the Hanlons tried to leave me out of their bargain but the director required that I should be present at, should concur in, and sign the contract. As far as the divorce from Rosita Zanfretta, Agoust reminded the Hanlon Brothers that he had been the one granted a divorce in the United States—not Zanfretta. This was perhaps an allusion to marital infidelity by his former wife. However, stung by the charges (all of which were true, after all), Agoust threatened that he had begun “a libel suit against the Hanlons in the French courts, which will at

74


the same render a decision on the fair usage in cases of partnerships dissolved by one of the parties without proper accounting and settlement.”62 The threat of legal action never materialized. If Agoust did indeed serve the Hanlons with a lawsuit for character defamation and back pay, it was never reported in the popular press. Electing to withdraw from the business of providing a platform for former colleagues to air dirty laundry, the New York Mirror elected to bestow on the Hanlons the final salvo in the newspaper war of words. For their response, the Hanlon Brothers adopted a more sober tone. Writing from Manchester, New Hampshire, where the Fantasma company was nearing the end of its season, the Hanlon Brothers reiterated that they had never forced their frail older brother Thomas to perform against his will. Several lengthy paragraphs sought to document the surviving brothers’ efforts on Thomas’s behalf. They concluded by remarking, It is certainly very unpleasant to be called upon to defend ourselves against such outrageous falsities and by a man whom we were compelled to get rid of years ago, and who through the public prints has attempted to obtain some notoriety and to vent an otherwise ineffectual spite. We certainly shall pay no more attention to him and feel that in the minds of those who know us no further notice is required. HANLON BROTHERS63 In the wake of the nasty airing of dirty laundry, in 1889 a lavishly illustrated history of the circus was published in France titled Les Jeux du Cirque et la Vie Foraine. In a section devoted to clowns, Agoust continued his attacks on the Hanlon Brothers, adding the inflammatory charge that “they were of Irish descent and thus drank deeply on occasion.”64 Wisely, the Hanlons ignored the fresh charges of alcohol abuse. Edward Hanlon made a hopelessly translucent attempt to expunge Agoust from the family’s past. In the early 1870s, he began compiling scrapbooks documenting the troupe’s newspaper reviews, their travels, and various ephemera associated with their careers. Of course, Agoust made more than a few appearances within these carefully prepared souvenirs. After the split, Edward went to extraordinary lengths to cross out each reference to his one-time colleague, Henri Agoust.65 But Agoust’s career would oddly intersect with the Hanlons once again. After his tenure at the Nouveau Cirque, he founded a vaudeville juggling act with his children Louise, Emmanuel, and Alfred. Their specialty was a half-hour sketch called “Un Restaurant Parisien,” in which the contents of a sumptuous feast are juggled by the waiters and customers. Set in a posh French restaurant, the scene sounds remarkably similar to that of the wedding banquet in Le Voyage

75


en Suisse. After touring Europe’s musical halls and variety theatres, the Agoust family came to America in 1900 and joined the Star and Garter show. Interestingly, the English version of the scene was composed by John J. McNally. After a stint as dramatic editor at the Boston Herald, McNally composed the premiere version of the Hanlon Brothers’ Superba in 1890, ten years prior to his association with Agoust.66 But in the summer of 1881, the Hanlons were nearing their return to the United States. Le Voyage en Suisse, their first evening-long pantomime, seemingly guaranteed the family lasting fame and economic security. From 1879 to 1881, the family successfully transferred the production from Paris’s Théâtre des Variétés to Brussels’ Galeries Saint-Hubért, and from London’s Gaiety Theatre to the English provinces. Yet the Hanlon Brothers longed to return to the United States, a country whose shores they had last touched in 1870. Le Voyage en Suisse finally allowed the brothers to realize this dream when it was booked for a September 1881 premiere at New York’s Park Street Theatre. The family hoped this production would allow them to settle in the United States permanently. However, a rival American producer nearly torpedoed these well-laid plans with a pirated version of the Hanlons’ signature piece.

76

Second Interlude: The Ravels

I

t was a strange case of happenstance, really. In January 1860, a decades-old theatrical phenomenon preceded James M. Nixon’s presentation of the Hanlon Brothers with Cooke’s Royal Amphitheatre at Niblo’s Garden. That theatrical phenomenon was “the Wonderful Ravels.” This French family of pantomimists and acrobats was a regular fixture on the famed stage of Niblo’s Garden. Making their first New York appearance in 1836, for the next three decades the Ravels entertained generations of appreciative American audiences. Charles Durang, one of the first historians of the American theatre, noted, “This corps of pantomimists, rope dancers and gymnasts, probably was the most extraordinary and universally enduring popular novelty that ever came to this country from the old world.”1 But Durang was writing years before the arrival of the Hanlon Brothers. Until their retirement in 1866, the Ravels were frequently seen in New York, America’s emerging theatrical capital. Concurrent with the nearing conclusion of the Ravels’ dynamic career, the Hanlon Brothers were making the first in a number of highly regarded appearances in New York. Like most popular performers, the Hanlons were parasitic, distilling what they viewed as the best, most comic, and most appealing parts of other artists’ routines, filtering these

77

second interlude

gags through their own sensibilities and unveiling the reinvented bits in their own productions. It is tantalizing to speculate that the Hanlons saw the Ravels in New York during the early 1860s and were inspired by the French family’s comic ingenuity, striking transformations, acrobatics, and, of course, box office success. The productions that the Hanlons evolved some fifteen years later displayed many similarities, as writers were quick to indicate over the course of their careers±or at least while memories still endured. After Le Voyage en Suisse’s American debut in 1881, a New York critic remarked, “There has been nothing since the days of the Ravels to rival the performance now being given by the Hanlons at the Park Theatre.”2 The Ravels hailed from Toulouse, France. The patriarch of the family, Gabriel Ravel, was a distinguished performer on the European continent renowned for his rope-walking routines. However, American audiences were most familiar with his children Gabriel, Jérôme, Angélique, Antoine, and François. Although the five siblings rarely appeared together, their family’s name was synonymous with the finest in pantomimic extravaganzas. The Ravels made their first appearance in the United States at New York’s Park Theatre in 1832, but for the duration of their careers they were intimately linked with Niblo’s Garden in Lower Manhattan. When the Hanlons performed Le Voyage en Suisse at the same house during the 1881 holiday season, the concurrence did not go unnoticed. 3 The theatrical fare of the Ravels was remarkably similar to that which the Hanlons subsequently created. However, the Ravels had an immense repertoire. Besides the daredevil aerial stunts that characterized their early career, the Hanlons were known for just three productions, Le Voyage en Suisse, Fantasma, and Superba. In contrast, the Ravels had a seemingly endless supply of pantomimes that were regularly unveiled before laugh-hungry audiences in the United States. Jérôme Ravel was the author of the troupe, composing “nearly forty Fairy Pieces and Comic Pantomimes,” according to one newspaper advertisement.4 Many were inspired by the antics of the great French acrobatic pantomimist CharlesFrançois Mazurier, who in turn was inspired by many scenarios that had been played before the French public. Among Jérôme’s enduring stage entertainments were included such masterpieces as The Green Monster (1839) and Mazulme, or The Black Raven of the Tombs (1842). Typically, these were fairy-tale-like pieces in which two young lovers overcame a series of obstacles in order to achieve marital bliss. However, “the plot was never too important in such productions, for there were so many tricks, transformations and general tomfoolery mixed with charming dances that the audience merely enjoyed the fun and wonder of it.”5 The theatrical fare of the Hanlons demonstrated many of the same characteristics. If Jérôme was the lead author of the troupe, Gabriel was clearly the company’s main draw. Walter Leman remembered, “In all the mysteries and wonders of

78

second interlude

French pantomime he was a perfect master of his art. He had no rival in his day.”6 Gabriel was a fantastically flexible performer who kept audiences in stitches with his physical comedy. “No india-rubber doll could be bent, twisted, turned, and wriggled as his body could. He seemed made of gutta percha and hung on wires.” 7 Perhaps his talents were best displayed as the capering ape man in Mazurier’s Jocko, or the Brazilian Ape (1825). Gabriel played this role for many years on the North American continent. Costumed as a sympathetic simian, the incredibly resilient Gabriel cavorted about the stage. Audiences adored the good-hearted ape, heartily cheering on his charades, daring escapes, and high jinks. At the end of the play when the primate was accidentally shot after rescuing his drowning owner, one of the most lachrymose death scenes ever staged ensued. “It is likely that more tears were shed in the 19th century European and American theatre over the dying ape-man Jocko and his imitators than over Marguerite Gautier, Eva St. Clare and Little Nell put together.”8 Gabriel’s brother Jérôme subsequently unveiled his own version of the Rousseauian gorilla, which he called Pongo the Intelligent Ape (1836). Although Jérôme’s play was popular, it never matched the success enjoyed by his older sibling Gabriel with Jocko. Across three decades, the Ravels popularized in America what became known as the “Italian style” of pantomime, one which employed no dialogue. With its roots in commedia dell’arte, pantomime in the United States±as played by the Ravels±used stock characters, comic lazzi, and skilled, highly physical clowning. The pantomimes were escapist, conjuring fairylands and distant worlds for audiences eager to escape the hardships of their daily lives. With America teetering on the brink of civil war, one harried, overworked Ravel fan noted, What we want in our busy, bustling, hurried city life is such relaxation as will smooth the brow and lighten the spirit. . . . He who goes to an evening place of entertainment after a day of mental toil, desires not an additional entanglement of brain, but perfect and entire relief. . . . There is so abundant a share of tragedy in daily life that no one cares, we imagine, to sup full of imaginary horrors badly pictured on the stage. For these reasons crowds have flocked to witness the mirth-provoking merriments of the Ravels.9 Years later, the Hanlons’ pantomimes aimed for similar objectives. Le Voyage en Suisse took audiences on a comical trip to Switzerland; Fantasma entertained with “Funny Frolics in Fairyland”; Superba was set in the realm of warring gods and young lovers, replete with allegorical messages and endless tableaux of splendor and beauty. It was a tradition of entertaining world-weary audiences with escapist physical comedy and dazzling effects, one that was inherited from the Ravels. When compiling his Annals of the New York Stage, George C. D. Odell

79

second interlude

rightly stated, “The incomparable Hanlons [were] in a way the successors of the earlier Ravels.”10 When the Hanlons returned to America in September 1881, in effect the proverbial baton of pantomime was passed from the Ravels to the Hanlon Brothers.

80

4 The American Premiere of Le Voyage en Suisse

A

Pour Prendre Congé; or, Seeing Switzerland

n unusual production opened at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre on 28 February 1881. Titled Pour Prendre Congé; or, Seeing Switzerland, the piece was allegedly authored by William A. Mestayer and managed by John P. Smith. Previously, Smith had operated an Uncle Tom’s Cabin company that played primarily on the Eastern seaboard, so his new production was a radical departure from his earlier theatrical offerings. Pour Prendre Congé had the sparsest of plots: A party of tourists travels to Switzerland, including a young artist named Tom and a villain named Titmouse, both of whom are rivals for the hand of a beautiful young woman named Constance. The action is furnished primarily by two servants who play tricks on the travelers. Mestayer hired the Daly Brothers—William and Thomas—a pair of popular low comedians to play the servants, alongside a second-rate company of pantomimists. A publicity blurb published in the Philadelphia Press before the opening promised that the new pantomimic

81

the american premiere of le voyage en suisse

comedy was “replete with novel stage effects, produced by ingenious mechanical devices.”1 However, that evening befuddled audience members watched a train wreck of a production unfold before them. The Philadelphia North American’s critic wrote that Mestayer’s play was: A ridiculous piece with the ridiculous title of Pour Prendre Conge. . . . It proved to be a foolish farrago of nonsense, absurd with out being funny; vulgar and yet not smart; ridiculous, and still dull; boisterous but not enlivening. . . . It is exasperating in its silliness, and people who paid their money to see it must have felt that they had been imposed upon. . . . The first scene is pretty and the lateral view of a parlor car in motion is not badly contrived. Notwithstanding two long waits, during which a miserably feeble orchestra discoursed a melancholy apology for music, the curtain fell before ten o’clock, and judging from the alacrity with which they departed, the spectators were glad of it.2 Underwhelming critical reception aside, Pour Prendre Congé would become an especially important test case for copyright law. In an era without significant copyright protection for dramatic authors, the litigation surrounding Pour Prendre Congé helped usher in protections for foreign artists, particularly those whose stock-in-trade surrounded physical performance, scenic splendor, and technical innovation. This was sparked by the machinations surrounding Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore. Staged in London in 1878, Pinafore spurred pirated versions that appeared soon after in the United States. When Gilbert and Sullivan came to New York in 1879 to stage “the authentic version” of H.M.S. Pinafore, the production had a reasonably short run, Americans’ appetites having been sated by rival knockoff companies. 3 The Hanlons’ stateside manager T. Allston Brown was determined to prevent a similar fate from occurring with Le Voyage en Suisse. Clued to the nature of the piece, Brown attended Pour Prendre Congé’s opening performance. Nearly seven months before the Hanlons’ proposed return to America, Colonel Brown watched the performance, perhaps sharing the horror of the first-night audience. Although the Pour Prendre Congé players lacked the Hanlons’ supreme physical talents, Brown immediately recognized the fact that Mestayer’s “new” play was “identical in business, mechanical effects and characters with that of ‘Le Voyage en Suisse.’ . . . A more deliberate steal I have never heard of.”4 Immediately, Colonel Brown acted to halt the pirated play before it deadened the draw for his upcoming fall attraction. For the Hanlon Brothers, Pour Prendre Congé threatened to derail the family’s return to America. Playing extended engagements in London and the English provinces, the Hanlons were not scheduled to bring Le Voyage en Suisse to America until September 1881,

82


by which time the rival show would have dulled the audience’s appetite for the production and, ironically, made the Hanlons seem like the imitators. With theatrical newspapers in the United States reporting the foreign triumphs of Le Voyage en Suisse in Paris, Brussels, and Great Britain, Brown suspected that John P. Smith had sent his emissary William A. Mestayer to London in order to copy the Hanlon Brothers vehicle. But Mestayer need not have gone any further than Washington, DC, for an account of the play, complete with elaborate illustrations of its workings. An early version of the play was registered with the Library of Congress. Crucially, on 10 July 1880, Colonel Brown and his partner Morris Simmonds had registered a copyright of the pantomime on behalf of the troupe. As part of the process, a version of a newly authored script had to be added to the Library of Congress’s collection. Had he traveled to the Library of Congress, Mestayer could have perused the pantomime script of Le Voyage en Suisse on file at the national library. Curiously, perhaps in a misguided bid to lend his play legitimacy, Mestayer also copyrighted his Pour Prendre Congé, the copyright being issued on 4 February 1881—nearly seven months after Simmonds and Brown’s filing. 5 Although a stray Philadelphia paper praised Pour Prendre Congé,6 the resounding critical response was negative. Several astute critics pointed out that the production pillaged the Hanlons’ Le Voyage en Suisse, which had yet to make its United States premiere. (Perhaps these newspapers had been cued by T. Allston Brown. Early in his career Colonel Brown had been employed as the New York Clipper’s Philadelphia-based dramatic reviewer. In all likelihood, he still had more than a few associates working in the city.) But despite the maelstrom it had created along the banks of the Delaware River, Pour Prendre Congé moved from Philadelphia to Haverly’s Brooklyn Theatre after a week’s engagement. Here, Colonel Brown commenced legal action, with the assistance of attorney Abe Hummel. Brown attempted to have the rogue play enjoined before it could open, appearing before a Brooklyn judge on 11 March. Judge Donohue initially agreed that the play should not be allowed to open. However, a second judge modified the injunction, giving clearance for Smith and his company.7 Under the management of Smith Pour Prendre Congé transferred to the Brooklyn Theatre, where it opened on 14 March. One writer remembered that it was “no glittering host.”8 Meanwhile, in a Brooklyn courtroom Colonel Brown appealed a second time for an injunction against Pour Prendre Congé. Arguing before Judge Lawrence, Brown and Hummel pleaded that Pour Prendre Congé was a plagiarized version of their coming attraction Le Voyage en Suisse. To strengthen his case, Colonel Brown produced copies of both plays, including a fresh version of Le Voyage en Suisse that had been recently copyrighted by George and William Hanlon.9 After perusing the pantomime scripts (no easy task!), Judge

83


Lawrence concluded, “Having examined the papers in this case, I am of the opinion that the injunction should be continued. . . . The resemblance between the plaintiffs’ play and that of the defendants, in cast, incident and character, is too striking to have been the result of accident. . . . I think the plaintiffs are entitled to the relief they seek. Motion to continue injunction granted with costs.”10 The stolen production had been halted, at least temporarily. Smith was ordered to pay damages totaling 1,500, a penalty that he promptly appealed. At the Brooklyn Theatre’s Wednesday matinée, the curtain was brought down midway through the first act of Pour Prendre Congé; or, Seeing Switzerland. Fittingly, the stage coach had just collapsed when the performance was halted. Displaying a great deal of temerity, manager John P. Smith stepped before the drop curtain and announced: Ladies and gentlemen, I regret very much that we have been served with an injunction, preventing our performance this afternoon. It is the most outrageous piece of business ever perpetrated in this country. I feel satisfied that I shall win this case, for right must be successful in the end. The ground upon which we stand is solid. They may try their pettifogging schemes against us, but they will not succeed. They don’t dare to come to Brooklyn. If they do, we will give them more law than they want. You can have your money back, or tickets for a performance, which we shall give you this evening.11 A variety company was hastily assembled to fill out the Brooklyn Theatre’s weekly schedule. Believing that the legal troubles had been put behind them, on 19 March 1881 attorney Abe Hummel sent a telegraph to the Hanlons, who were touring the British provinces. Hummel’s wire stated, “Glorious victory judge Lawrence just granted injunction long decision in our favor—Abe Hummel.”12 Regrettably, Hummel was premature in his assertions. Brazenly disregarding the Brooklyn court’s orders, John P. Smith brought Pour Prendre Congé to Boston, where the company opened at the Boston Theatre on 21 March 1881. The production was originally scheduled to play Boston’s Globe Theatre. However, when the house’s manager John Stetson was notified of the production’s infringement on Le Voyage en Suisse, he withdrew from the engagement. The Boston press was merciless in their reviews of the Boston Theatre production. The Boston Globe’s critic remarked, “To describe the hodge-podge presented at the Boston Theatre last evening as silly nonsense would give it a dignity that it does not possess. It is impossible to convey in terms of intelligible and decorous English any adequate idea of the utter inanity and vacuity of the

84


piece that has acquired a little notoriety on the stage and a great deal in the courts under the high-sounding title of ‘Pour Prendre Conge.’”13 Naturally, Colonel Brown attempted to halt the Boston Theatre production. Regrettably the Massachusetts courts were more slow moving than those in New York; Pour Prendre Congé held the stage through its week-long run, “closing forever on the evening of March 26.”14 However, the subsequent decision by a Boston judge sought to halt all future productions of the pirated play. Explaining his decision, Judge Nelson stated, That which gives the play [Pour Prendre Congé ] its characters, its general plot and scheme, and general effect, I think is so very near the plaintiffs’ play [Le Voyage en Suisse] that it would be rather an outrage upon the rights of these foreign artists [the Hanlon Brothers] when they come over here to find the public in possession of a play so evidently and avowedly written in imitation of it, and written to imitate it as closely as possible. I think the imitation is so near that it is a substantial infringement of the title which the plaintiffs have in this play of “Le Voyage en Suisse,” and an injunction will issue in conformity with the prayer in the plaintiffs’ bill.15 The recalcitrant John P. Smith was smacked with a second fine of 1,500 by the New England judge. Living up to his middle name—Penurious—Smith subsequently pleaded before a second judge that his penalty should be reduced. This time, Smith was successful, having his fine reduced to 700.16 But his legal troubles had not ended. When Smith returned to New York, he was arrested for contempt of court and fined 731. Upon his release, the New York Clipper noted, “Not satisfied yet, the doughty manager took the case to the Court of Appeals at Albany, and once more lost his case.”17 Finally, the court battles were put to rest. Judging from the universal success that the Hanlons enjoyed when they finally brought Le Voyage en Suisse to America, the renegade Pour Prendre Congé; or, Seeing Switzerland had little effect on their box office appeal. Colonel Brown and his attorney Abe Hummel had acted fast enough to curtail any damage to Brown’s treasured piece. One scribe warned, “Those who see ‘Le Voyage en Suisse’ will not fail to observe that certain of its motives and effects have been anticipated within the past year by various local performers, who, no doubt, took a hint from its success abroad.”18 But it seems that audiences were eager to see the true Hanlons in their signature piece, not a company of hacks. Perhaps to reassure audiences, newspaper advertisements in the United States frequently included Le Voyage en Suisse’s tagline, “We are all here,” alongside illustrations of the overturned stagecoach.

85


However, the Hanlons learned a valuable lesson from the experience. From this point forth, they copyrighted scripts they had written or purchased, hoping to discourage would-be plagiarists. In addition, as new theatrical mechanisms and devices were invented, William in particular would file quickly for the attendant rights with the United States Patent Office. Because of their growing popularity with audiences, the Hanlon Brothers frequently found their plays, routines, and technological innovations imitated and copied by rival theatre companies and managers. As a result, the Hanlons became quite litigious, quick to obtain the services of a lawyer when they felt their rights had been infringed upon. Over the next forty years, they would end up in numerous courtroom squabbles.

Fall 1881: The New York Debut In August 1881, the Hanlons returned to the United States. Having been away for over eleven years, there was a great deal of interest in these five brothers who had thrilled European audiences. A radical departure from their previous fields of acrobatic and gymnastic stunts, the Hanlon Brothers and their “Parisian absurdity” Le Voyage en Suisse were awaited most eagerly. Alfred, William, Edward, and Frederick arrived in late August on the steamer Algeria. George followed his brothers ten days later on the Spain, delaying his arrival in order to supervise the loading of the company’s scenery, properties, and costumes. Colonel T. Allston Brown remembered, “The entire outfit—properties, tricks, scenery, and all the mechanical arrangements, were brought from Europe.”19 The New York Clipper, the nineteenth century’s leading theatrical journal, had always been an unwavering ally for the Hanlon Brothers. The paper had published favorable press coverage and detailed listings of the troupe’s acrobatic and aerial routines during the Hanlons’ initial tours of the United States through the 1860s. Now that the family was embarking on a new endeavor—the production of pantomime comedy—the paper would become a primary source of encouragement. Understanding the importance of fostering this relationship, the Hanlon Brothers paid a visit to the Clipper’s office a day after their arrival from Liverpool. It was like old times when, on Thursday of last week these gentlemanly and artistic performers visited THE CLIPPER office to announce their arrival the previous day. . . . Time has dealt gently with the elder members of the troupe, while the younger ones have developed from boyhood into maturity; and all are the same neat and refined artists that they were when their acrobatic and other performances, then new to us, created such an excitement in the new world. . . . When they were last here they were all single; now they are all married and their wives and children

86


accompany them to the United States, and will travel with them in their tour. . . . We bespeak for the Hanlon-Lees a cordial welcome. In their specialties they are unrivaled, and their plays have been written so as to enable them to display their extraordinary agility, etc.20 No doubt the mutual affections between the brothers and the staff of the trade paper were solidified by the fact that the Hanlons’ stateside manager T. Allston Brown had once been employed by the Clipper, first as its Philadelphia correspondent and subsequently as the paper’s dramatic editor, a post he held for nine years. It is little wonder that the Hanlons were featured prominently on the cover of the theatrical profession’s leading newspaper on two separate occasions during the fall of 1881, neatly coinciding with the New York premiere of Le Voyage en Suisse.21 For the duration of the Hanlons’ career, the New York Clipper was a faithful confederate. The company was initially slated to open at New York’s Park Street Theatre on Saturday, 10 September 1881. However, the troupe encountered several unforeseen setbacks, forcing them to push Le Voyage en Suisse’s eagerly awaited premiere to the following Monday, 12 September. The delay ensured a smooth opening night. As the New York Times stated, “The machinery worked smoothly and the entertainment was completely a success, first because of the merit of the performers and secondly because sufficient rehearsals had insured rapid action.”22 First, the properties, costumes, scenery, and mechanical arrangements had to be unpacked and reconstructed. As well, a new backstage crew of fifty Americans needed to be trained before the pantomime could be staged. However, besides worrying about production and technical concerns, the Hanlons were dealing with a minor company shake-up. The English actor H. Reeves Smith had come to the United States with the company, slated to play the role of the spurned lover, Frank Maguire. Unfortunately, as the company approached the opening performance, Smith injured himself and had to be replaced. Scrambling, the Hanlon Brothers cast Nelson Decker. According to Colonel Brown, Decker was the only American in the debut. 23 When Smith returned to the company later in the run, he played Frank Maguire, with his understudy Decker moving into a supernumerary role. Interestingly, Decker remained in the Hanlon Brothers’ employ for fifteen years, continuing to tour with the near-annual productions of Le Voyage en Suisse. Each time the Hanlon Brothers brought Le Voyage en Suisse to a new country, they hired a writer to adapt the production to local tastes and sensibilities. In 1880 when the Hanlons transferred Le Voyage en Suisse from the European continent to England, they brought in the noted burlesque playwright Robert Reece to adapt the pantomime for British audiences. In 1881 when the brothers

87


crossed the Atlantic Ocean to bring Le Voyage en Suisse to the United States, they hired comic playwright Henry Pettitt, author of the Hanlons’ short-lived pantomime The Nabob’s Fortune. In August 1881, Pettitt accompanied the Hanlons’ troupe to the United States.24 Like the previous British production, the “new” version of Le Voyage en Suisse that Henry Pettitt composed for American audiences was not so different from its predecessors. Pettitt’s alterations were mostly cosmetic, changing names, occupations, and nationalities for a few of the characters. In Blum and Toché’s version for French audiences, the pantomime’s villain Corgoloin was a retired apothecary. In England he was renamed Matthew Popperton. For the better part of three decades, American audiences knew the scoundrel as the adventurer Dwindledown. The wronged lover Polisot in the original piece was redubbed Finsbury Parker in England. In America, Juliette’s heartbroken fiancé was Frank Maguire. Polisot’s friend Des Eglisottes was renamed Sir George Golightly in Great Britain. In America, the devoted friend became the young lover’s father, Captain Patrick Maguire. Perhaps hoping to capitalize on national pride, Pettitt’s version made Captain Patrick Maguire a cantankerous Union veteran of the Civil War. Ned, Harry, and Jack, played by Edward, George, and Alfred Hanlon remained Captain Maguire’s nephews, now related by blood to both the Captain and their cousin Frank Maguire. Finally, the nephews’ university tutor La Chose became Henri D’Escargot—perhaps mocking the rise of French culinary traditions in American restaurants. In naming the professor Henri D’Escargot, the Hanlons were perhaps taking a swipe at their former colleague, Henri Agoust, who had played La Chose for nearly two years in Paris, Brussels, London, and the English provinces. Besides adapting the characters’ names, Pettitt tinkered slightly with the plot of Le Voyage en Suisse, returning the play to the roots of its Parisian predecessor. Recently married, the villainous Dwindledown embarks on a train passage with his new wife Juliette, eager to consummate the union and honeymoon in Switzerland. Regardless of name—Corgoloin, Popperton, or Dwindledown—the pantomime’s rogue had always been revealed as a bigamist at the conclusion of the pantomime. This was the case with Pettitt’s American version of Le Voyage en Suisse, too. However, Pettitt actually brought onto the stage Dwindledown’s Parisian wife, Marie La Grange, introducing one last scene of comic mayhem. In the play’s final moments it appears that Dwindledown and Juliette will be ushered upstairs into a private honeymoon suite in the Rigi-Kulm Hotel. Suddenly, Captain Maguire whisks into the inn with Dwindledown’s forgotten wife Marie La Grange. A stock overbearing wife, Marie La Grange is heavyset and panting with rage. Instead of the teary reunion that Dwindledown feigns at the sight of his long-forgotten wife, La Grange slugs her wayward husband. The residents of

88


the Rigi-Kulm Hotel cackle and guffaw as the shunned wife furiously chases her deviant husband around the Rigi-Kulm Hotel, determined to beat the unfaithful Dwindledown. “His marriage with Juliette is declared invalid, and of course the stereotyped happy ending is brought about by her becoming the lawful wife of Frank Maguire.”25 The American debut of the Hanlon Brothers’ Le Voyage en Suisse was staged at Abbey’s Park Street Theatre. Owned by Henry Edwin Abbey, the playhouse was renowned for hosting international stars like the Hanlon Brothers. Because of his success in attracting touring foreign artists, Abbey became known as “The Napoleon of the Managers.” A handsomely appointed auditorium, Abbey’s Park Street Theatre was patronized by well-to-do audiences eager to see premiere attractions.26 The Hanlons’ tenure at the famed theatre lasted for nearly three months. Here, the Hanlons probably made a fortuitous connection in real estate. Abbey’s Park Street Theatre was not known solely for its international stars. Beginning in 1877, the theatre was also the principal home of William H. Crane and Stuart Robson, costars of a number of American domestic comedies. Both Crane and Robson owned homes in the sleepy New England seaside resort of Cohasset, Massachusetts. At the time, Cohasset was populated in the summer by a who’s who of late-nineteenth-century actors, including Crane, Robson, Lawrence Barrett, Charles Thorne, Edwin Booth, Joseph Jefferson, and William Warren.27 Cohasset’s charms eventually lured the Hanlons too, perhaps encouraged by Crane and Robson, cotenants of Abbey’s Park Street Theatre. At the conclusion of Le Voyage en Suisse’s first tour in 1883, the Hanlon Brothers spent the summer in the small idyllic town on Massachusetts’ South Shore. By the late 1880s, the Hanlons were calling Cohasset home. Following the 12 September 1881 United States’ premiere of Le Voyage en Suisse, the Hanlon Brothers were showered with critical praise. For nearly two years, the family’s comic pantomime had been heralded in theatrical newspapers as it played Western Europe’s leading playhouses. Finally, American audiences could view the production. Near-unanimously, they praised this pantomime that would hold the stage for nearly thirty years. The New York Times’ rave was characteristic of the acclaim bestowed on the Hanlon Brothers: “Their contortions were greeted with unstinted applause and laughter.”28 A theatrical legend had been reintroduced. After all, the Hanlon Brothers had been away from the United States for over eleven years. Still, with some gentle prompting from the press, audiences recalled the amazing Hanlon Brothers who once had been the leading progenitors of acrobatic and aerial displays. Now the family had moved into a new field of broadly theatrical specialization. The sensational three acts of Le Voyage en Suisse were characterized by spectacular acrobatic feats by the Hanlon Brothers, feats that were undoubtedly perfected

89


during their childhood spent learning such stunts. As a Philadelphia journalist noted, “The piece as is clear, was constructed simply to display the skill of the agile gymnasts and pantomimists and it serves the purpose amply.”29 Le Voyage en Suisse would continue serving the purpose amply for the next three decades.

Fig. 13. The Hanlon-Lees in Le Voyage en Suisse, circa 1881, following the family’s reintroduction to the United States. After the production’s initial run at a series of New York theatres, the family reverted to calling themselves simply the Hanlon Brothers. Courtesy Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

90

Third Interlude: George L. Fox and Humpty Dumpty

I

n trying to characterize the Hanlons’ Le Voyage en Suisse, more than a few writers referred to the beloved pantomime clown George L. Fox. As one reviewer put it, “Two of them, William and Frederick, recall in their expressive pantomime and the startling mobility of their features the lamented Fox.”1 As the two scheming servants bedecked in whiteface, William and Frederick Hanlon reminded many writers of “Laff” Fox. For nineteenth-century American audiences, George L. Fox’s name was synonymous with pantomime comedy. Fox spent his early career in a variety of theatrical endeavors, working as a caricaturist, pantomimist, and manager. In an interesting bit of happenstance, Fox and his managerial partner James W. Lingard leased the New York Academy of Music in December 1861, where they presented the Hanlons’ Zampillaerostation for the first time. Lasting fame came to Fox in 1868 when he unveiled Humpty Dumpty. Until his untimely death in 1877, Fox racked up over 1,200 performances as the scheming clown Humpty Dumpty.2 Reputedly the funniest performer of his time, George L. Fox took the traditional clown figure of English pantomime and placed him in an urban setting filled with wild, often violent, knockabout comedy. The result was his beloved

91

third interlude

character Humpty Dumpty. In addition to the “normal” fisticuffs of pantomime, Fox’s Humpty Dumpty mixed in brickyard fights, hot metal irons, and anything else that could be hurled at or bashed across a would-be adversary. And like the Hanlons’ servants Bob and John in Le Voyage en Suisse, the targets of Fox’s comeuppance were typically authority figures—police officers being a particular favorite. Sadly, George L. Fox eventually descended into madness, culminating in his forcible removal from a performance in 1875. In his wake, the clown Tony Denier, who had often worked in tandem with the great comedian, toured his own version of Humpty Dumpty after Fox’s death in 1877. A script published by Denier was allegedly arranged in accordance with the way that Fox played the character, and it provides a tantalizing peek into the chaotic pantomime created by Fox. With an armload of bricks pilfered from his wall, Humpty Dumpty terrorizes those unfortunate enough to find themselves within firing range of the miscreant and his missiles. HUMPTY fires third stuffed brick, FOP dodges it and runs off . . . just as OLD ONE TWO comes out of cottage and catches brick in the face, which knocks him down flat on his back in front of cottage. HUMPTY laughs, and ONE TWO gets up apparently stunned—picks up brick, looks at it, rubs his head, studies it a moment, puts finger aside his nose, and walks with a circling motion, the brick in his hand, to front of the pig-pen and looks behind it, supposing someone to be there hiding, when HUMPTY takes all the bricks and lets them fall on ONE TWO, who falls flat on his face from the weight of the bricks—he gets up, takes three bricks, and circles around stage cautiously to R. corner. HUMPTY jumps down, takes three bricks and follows very cautiously—when ONE TWO gets to extreme R., he turns quickly and meets HUMPTY face to face. They both stand still in a picture, each with a brick raised to throw. . . . HUMPTY makes three big steps backward to L. corner—ONE TWO follows, but makes big steps forward in time with HUMPTY—at end of third step picture as before. Repeat back to first position. HUMPTY fires brick at ONE TWO who dodges—ONE TWO fires brick at HUMPTY, who dodges in turn. This is repeated until each has thrown three bricks, when HUMPTY hits ONE TWO with a fourth brick in the head.3 But besides the mayhem of his comic world, Fox (and to a lesser extent his descendant clowns) was particularly renowned for the expressiveness of his face. Because pantomime did not rely upon the spoken word—the substance of most stage shows, the revelation of a character’s intent had to be conveyed through the silent visage. By all accounts, Fox’s chalky-white countenance was

92

third interlude

remarkably mobile, able to move from one emotion to the next in a matter of moments. As Laurence Senelick describes him, “His best piece of business, the assumption of perfect innocence and docile goodness, was copied again and again, forming part of the basic vocabulary of stage comedy. His intense concentration on the accomplishment of a prank and his lightning transition from hilarity to consternation or from mischief to stupefaction entered the lexicon of comic clichés.”4 This “comic cliché,” the swift movement from one emotion to the next, kept nineteenth-century audiences in stitches. This cliché was passed from one performer to the next, and by 1879 it had landed in the hands of the Hanlon Brothers. Numerous writers would comment on the effect of the vastly emotive face, this time embodied by William and Frederick Hanlon. In Paris, Émile Zola heralded the Hanlon-Lees for their “cold-blooded analyses” that “laid bare, with a gesture, a wink, the entire human beast.”5 American audiences made similar connections. With Fox having died just four years prior, the Hanlons became America’s standard bearers for stage pantomime, infusing the form with spectacle, acrobatics, and slapstick the likes of which had not been seen since the heyday of the Ravel family. Unlike these families of performers, Fox was essentially a one-man show, despite the presence of his brother Charles. But for all his comic gifts, Fox was not an acrobat. With the Hanlon Brothers, audiences were presented with a team of performers and true collaborators where the proverbial spotlight was shared. Nineteenth-century theatregoers were accustomed to seeing mediocre stock companies bolstered by the occasional touring star. With the Hanlon Brothers, spectators were presented with an entire company of trained professionals in side-splittingly funny routines, buoyed by awe-inspiring physical stunts. Shortly after the New York debut of Le Voyage en Suisse, a journalist with a long memory recalled: There has been nothing since the days of the Ravels to rival the performance now being given by the Hanlons at the Park Theatre. Poor George L. Fox created a school of pantomime that was unique, but in the performances given by him he was the one feature to which all things else became subsidiary. In the Hanlon-Lees party, on the contrary, the public is shown six performers who are splendid acrobats, bright comedians, and in every way fitted to entertain an audience to the top of its bent. Not only this, but they are great pantomimists of a high order of merit, and have moreover, surrounded themselves by a company of first-class comedians.6 But Fox’s influence on the Hanlons is inestimable. With an allusion to the pantomime’s theme of adultery, a Tennessee scribe wasn’t alone in believing that the Hanlon Brothers’ Le Voyage en Suisse “was something on the Humpty-

93

third interlude

Dumpty order, though much more adapted to a grown-up audience.” 7 Versions of Fox’s signature Humpty Dumpty continued to tour the United States into the early twentieth century. For several years, circus owner Adam Forepaugh managed Humpty Dumpty outfits. However, after an unsuccessful 1881 season Forepaugh withdrew from the business. Into the 1890s, the clown Tony Denier bankrolled a number of Humpty Dumpty companies following his retirement from the boards. Many were presented under canvas during the summer “offseason.” Initially Denier’s managerial efforts were successful, often featuring the clown George H. Adams in the title role. Unfortunately, Denier nearly bankrupted himself after audience interest in Humpty Dumpty’s mischief making began to subside. 8 When the great clown George H. Adams died in 1935, his Variety obituary reminded readers of a nearly forgotten era in American popular entertainment: “Humpty Dumpty troupes were almost as numerous as the later Uncle Tom’s Cabin outfits. It was the standard vehicle for clowning pantomime until the Hanlon Brothers led the way to more ambitious developments with their ‘Voyage en Suisse’ and ‘Fantasma.’”9 Interestingly, when the Hanlons moved into the management of their shows Le Voyage en Suisse, Fantasma, and Superba, they used these road company Humpty Dumpties as a training ground—a minor leagues of sorts. The Hanlons often raided these troupes and pirated away their lead clowns. In the process, they attracted performers like George H. Adams, George L. Melville, and William C. Schrode to play the lead clowns in their own stage spectacles—all of whom were touring a show first popularized by George L. Fox. Each of these performers was renowned for a comic countenance that easily moved from one emotion to the next—disdain, horror, lust, amusement, and back to scorn. It was a routine lifted directly from the great Fox. Hence, the influence of George L. Fox’s performance style continued to be propagated in the Hanlons’ stage spectacles. Years after Fox—perhaps the greatest clown of them all—cracked up, he continued to have an inestimable influence on stage comedy.

94

5

The First American Tours of Le Voyage en Suisse

T

Cut to the Chase

he chase scene was one American film’s quintessential comic elements. In its typical form, a mustachioed, heavyset police officer vainly pursues a smaller, more nimble man. Of course, the smaller man is never irredeemably guilty, nor has he committed a heinous crime of some sort. Rather, the protagonist is simply misunderstood, perhaps blinded by love. Naturally, an audience’s sympathies lie with the pursued man and the police officer becomes a foil, representative of a cold, calculating, and inflexible society attempting to squelch the soul of the individual as he struggles to maintain his dignity in the face of overwhelming odds. Iconic examples include Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops, Buster Keaton in Cops (1922), Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times (1936), Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit (1977), John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in The Blues Brothers (1980), and Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber (1995). 95

the first american tours of le voyage en suisse

The chase scene was a staple, formulaic device that was omnipresent in the Hanlon Brothers’ repertoire. Indeed, each of their three major stage pantomimes—Le Voyage en Suisse, Fantasma, and Superba—can be thought of as extended chases. Lovers are pursued by demons, unwilling would-be brides are pursued by spurned fiancés, benevolent clowns comically plague scheming heavies. But Le Voyage en Suisse contained the most memorable chase—two helpful servants pursued by a relentless cop. It was a timeless bit of physical comedy. And while spectators were thrilled by the technical marvels of Le Voyage en Suisse—the collapsing stagecoach, the exploding Pullman train car, the servant crashing through the ceiling and landing unscathed on a banquet table—the extended chase of act 3 featured extraordinarily funny, ingeniously devised routines of comic timing and physical dexterity. After Émile Zola saw Le Voyage en Suisse’s third-act chase, he raved that it was “a contagious folly that forces one to laugh hard and even raises doubts as to one’s own sanity. . . . Overwhelmed by mad laughter, one almost expects to awake in an insane asylum.”1 Although it would be a mistake to claim that the Hanlons “invented” the chase scene (could such a thing actually be “invented?”), they did perfect the visual thrills, physical dexterity, and pleasures of chase and pursuit. And unlike film with its cuts, reshoots, and special effects, the Hanlons’ chase scenes were performed live, thus adding to the sheer thrills of audience members lucky enough to have viewed such extraordinary comic routines. For their part, the Hanlons felt that Le Voyage en Suisse’s third-act chase was unique. Hoping to deter imitators, they noted, “All of this is original business with the Hanlon Brothers”2 in the manuscript they registered with the Library of Congress. In the initial productions of Le Voyage en Suisse, William and Frederick Hanlon played the two “model” servants John and Bob. In his younger days, William had been the troupe’s premiere acrobat. Now over forty years of age, he remained nearly as limber and daring. The youngest of the brothers, Frederick was a quick man, always looking for a velocipede race where he could demonstrate his speed. It was only natural that these Hanlon Brothers should play the two mischievous Pierrots. William and Frederick had spent the better part of their lives preparing for the rigors of such physically strenuous parts. Philadelphia’s North American neatly linked them to the former progenitors of pantomime, stating, “The principal part of the work falls on the shoulders of the unrivalled athletes, William and Frederick Hanlon, who are the model servants, and execute with admirable finish no end of clever tricks, and are in their way as artistic as the Ravels of old.”3 The Boston Globe’s critic was even more impressed, raving, “We can recall no performers so quick, so agile and so perfectly trained in their line of work.”4

96


In Le Voyage en Suisse’s climactic third act, a gendarme comes to the Rigi-Kulm Hotel. Believing Bob and John were the parties responsible for the explosion of the Switzerland-bound train, the officer is determined to arrest the two mischief makers. But in the quintessential formula of comic chase-and-pursuit, this authority figure is bested repeatedly by the funnymen. He runs after the servants. Cornered and with seemingly no place to go, Bob and John scramble through the gendarme’s legs. As they dart through, the police officer vainly attempts to corral them. Much to his chagrin, he lands on his keister each time he tries to grab them, completing an awkward-looking somersault in the process. Bob dives into a cupboard, followed moments later by Tom. The gendarme suspects his quarry have ducked into the cupboard. However, when he opens the credenza he somehow doesn’t see the two. They cling tenuously to the doors of the furniture unit. Outwitted for the time being, the gendarme futilely digs through the cupboard for some trace of his prey. Drawers are angrily opened and slammed shut on the piece, eventually revealing the servants stretched out in a drawer like folded tablecloths. Bob and John race for the stairs. Bouncing on the steps as though they were on a trampoline, they perch on a landing. The cop speeds after them. However, when he reaches the middle of the stairs, he loses his footing and slides to the foot of the stairs on his chest and chin. Sisyphus-like, he repeatedly attempts to ascend the steps, only to slide down on his belly. Finally, he scales the steps without falling. However as the constable nears the landing, Bob and John bounce over his head, land on a step behind the bewildered man, and with a second bounce land at the foot of the stairs. They dive into several open trunks. Astonished by the feat of athleticism and defeated for the time being, the determined cop races down the steps. Each time the gendarme opens a trunk, one of the clowns leaps out, sending the startled police officer tumbling backwards. The unfortunate John gets into “one trunk and his head protrudes and the Gend’arme steps upon the top of the trunk, shutting the lid down on the neck of the party in the trunk.”5 A torrent of half-stifled screams was uttered by the audience as the gendarme stands on top of the trunk. “At least the ladies of the audience appreciated the peril to which the man on the outside subjects the one on the inside.”6 Surveying the hotel’s lobby, the officer notices Bob crawling out of an adjacent trunk. The cop leaps into the trunk, slamming down the lid. The piece of luggage rattles about the stage as the gendarme attempts to capture Bob. Somehow Bob leaps out of a different trunk than the one he had originally entered, followed by the gendarme. In and out they go, jumping into trunks, only to emerge from different ones. The routine defies all logic! Finally, Bob dashes for the mantel above the fireplace, crawling behind a full-size mirror. When the gendarme looks behind the looking glass, Bob brings

97


it crashing down on his head. John joins his comrade on the mantel. Each time the gendarme approaches, they knock him across the head with urns, a bust of William Tell, and ash trays. Reeling and groggy from too many blows, the gendarme staggers backwards and passes out cold. The audience cheers for the model servants Bob and Tom. The authority figure, charged with maintaining an orderly society, has been defeated; the “guilty” have gotten away. Such a depiction represents a direct affront to the maintenance of a civilized society. Why applaud fugitives pursued by the law? And judging from its unabated reworking in popular film, why the continuing popularity of such a scenario? Discussing the Hanlons’ chase scene, Émile Zola remarked, “They flatter the criminal who lurks in the depths of the most honest of us. The scene scratches our itch for revenge against authority, while playing up to our admiration of skill, of the adroit rogue who triumphs over the slow-witted honest man, embarrassing him with nasty tricks.”7 It was a formula that the Hanlons used over the course of their lengthy stage career. Cops pursuing criminals was surefire funny business, particularly in the hands of gifted physical comedians. Countless generations have seen this truism performed time and again.

Classical Inheritances and Comic Traditions At the heart of Le Voyage en Suisse was a pair of lowly clowns subduing and ultimately overcoming an authoritarian figure. Although the Hanlons invented many stage devices, the triumphant servant was hardly one of their inventions. Like the chase scene, they took the conventions of a time-worn stage device and perfected it. For centuries, the helpful servant has been evolving and delighting audiences. From Greek New Comedy, the Hanlons inherited the tradition of the typical boy-marries-girl-after-overcoming-incalculable-obstacles plot. Perfected by Menander, the plots of New Comedy were ingeniously worked out, with the audience “knowing” the outcome from the beginning, but kept in suspense as to how that outcome possibly could be accomplished. This plot was seen in the Hanlons’ three major stage pantomimes, Le Voyage en Suisse, Fantasma, and Superba. But besides borrowing the typical plot of Greek New Comedy, the Hanlons were influenced particularly by one of New Comedy’s most beloved characters: the helpful servant. A stock character, in the hands of Menander, the helpful servant is a slave who toils feverishly and unselfishly to further the goals of his master, which typically include the twin pursuits of love and wealth.8 The Roman playwright Plautus was immensely influenced by the models of Greek New Comedy. In his twenty extant plays, Plautus borrowed prolifically and unrepentantly from Menander and a host of other playwrights of New Comedy. In Plautine comedy, the stock character of the helpful servant evolved: wily

98


servants began deceiving their upper-class masters and outwitting all authority figures. This was consistent with Plautus’ theatrical vision. According to his stage world, the underdog always ended up triumphant, while status barriers crumbled all around him. At the center of Plautus’ most typical plays, including Epidicus, Pseudolus, and Stichus, is the cunning slave. Forced to hold his tongue (except in asides to the audience, who frequently are taken into his confidence), the cunning slave makes it his business to upend all authority figures.9 Ingenious, sassy, and frequently the “smartest” character in Plautus’ dramaturgy, the cunning servant fueled a seemingly inexhaustible number of Western comedies. Clearly, the Hanlons’ servants Bob and John were influenced by this character. In the centuries leading up to the Hanlon Brothers, the wily, intractable, ever-faithful servant continued to evolve, yet he can be traced through numerous works and theatrical genres. In the largely improvised world of commedia dell’arte, the zanni—easily and willingly distracted by the wanton pleasures of food, drink, and sex—toiled grudgingly for their masters, always looking to usurp an authority figure when possible. The Italian dramatist Carlo Goldoni sought to standardize and script the commedia dell’arte, his most acclaimed work being The Servant of Two Masters with its hero the poor, beleaguered Arlecchino. (Goldoni reworked the play in 1745 for the great Truffaldino, Antonio Sacchi, including his comic business.) Further north, the scheming slave was used by countless other authors, too. William Shakespeare lifted the comic servant, along with the plot for his Comedy of Errors, from Plautus’ Menaechmi. Borrowing equally from Greek New Comedy, Plautus, and the commedia dell’arte, Molière made these conniving servants central to many of his best-loved plays, including Les Fourberies de Scapin. And Beaumarchais’s Figaro may be the best-known of the deviant servants, appearing in such plays as The Barber of Seville (1775), The Marriage of Figaro (1784), and The Guilty Mother (1792). By the nineteenth century, the scheming servant had become the comic centerpiece of both English and French pantomime, as personified in the characters Clown and Pierrot. Although the two stock characters were natives of different countries and reflected the tastes of their respective homelands, the two were linked by their lower-class status as servants. Straddling France and England, the Hanlon Brothers borrowed equally from Clown and Pierrot. Interestingly, while French authors attempted to link the Hanlon Brothers to Jean-Gaspard Deburau, the English saw them as the progeny of the great Joseph Grimaldi, the so-called King of Clowns. The Hanlon Brothers were simply expanding the territory opened by both Deburau and Grimaldi. To the lithe and supple Deburau, the Hanlons added supreme acrobatics that flew about the stage in their own unique way. Like Grimaldi, the Hanlons’ clown could be a greedy and selfish

99


bully living out the audience’s vicarious desire to overthrow their inhibitions. But unlike Grimaldi, who operated largely in the harlequinade of English panto’s fairyland, the Hanlon Brothers’ clown—as played in Le Voyage en Suisse—was a “real” figure.10 The Hanlons’ conception of the clown figure brought Grimaldi’s fisticuffs into the natural world that the nineteenth-century French literati were so eager to investigate. That character would change yet again when exported to America in 1881.

New York Transfers The Hanlon Brothers and their company performed Le Voyage en Suisse at Abbey’s Park Street Theatre from 12 September to 27 November 1881. Besides the troupe’s enthusiastically received pantomime, there were a number of other intriguing attractions in New York that season, including Joseph Jefferson in his seemingly perpetual Rip Van Winkle (Jefferson was entering his sixteenth year in the role), the New York premiere of George Robert Sims’s spectacular melodrama Lights O’ London, and the American debut of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience. Further downtown, the San Francisco Minstrels burlesqued the imported British operetta with their Patients, a spoof on doctors and hospitals. And then in late October, tragedian Edwin Booth returned to the stage, playing Hamlet, Richelieu, Richard III, and King Lear.11 Even with these rival productions, the Hanlons played to excellent houses through late October. By all accounts, it was a profitable engagement. The Spirit of the Times reported that the box office took in over 6,000 during the week of 12–19 September, an extraordinary figure for the period.12 The New York Clipper noted that the Park Street Theatre’s box office was forced to employ the “Standing Room Only” sign often during the first month of performance. To cities outside Manhattan, the Clipper’s scribe teased, “We promise a rare treat for our provincial friends when the Hanlon-Lees start upon their tour of the country.”13 But Le Voyage en Suisse would play two other New York playhouses prior to embarking on an extensive tour of North America. Gradually, interest in the Hanlons’ show began to wane. With the commencement of the opera season, a noticeable absence was felt in the higher-priced portions of the Park Street Theatre. Attempting to counter the inevitable, the Hanlons offered half-price admittance to children at all matinée performances. In addition, the curtain time was pushed back to 8:30, hoping to accommodate fashionable patrons coming from an evening of dining at one of the area’s restaurants. However, these schemes sustained the company only temporarily. Finally, on 26 November 1881 the Hanlons closed their season at Abbey’s Park Street Theatre after seventy-six performances of Le Voyage en Suisse.

100


Three days later, on 29 November the company reopened the production at the recently renovated Metropolitan Casino. (Formerly, the house had been called the Cosmopolitan Theatre.) In just a matter of weeks, the company would be transporting Le Voyage en Suisse overnight on America’s burgeoning rail system, rather than having the luxury of a three-day layover and reopening several blocks away. In transferring to the Metropolitan Casino, the Hanlon Brothers once again found themselves playing one of Manhattan’s leading playhouses. The New York Clipper characterized the reopened theatre as the “new candidate for favor with our theatre-goers, featuring a new spacious and well-appointed stage.”14 Here, the Hanlons unveiled a startling series of transformations to illustrate the burning of the Rigi-Kulm Hotel in the third act. At the conclusion of the highly regarded chase between Bob, John, and the gendarme, Bob goes up into the attic carrying a candle. Inadvertently, he manages to ignite some curtains framing a window frame. A fire breaks out, and in the culminating scene the underdressed guests escape from the burning hotel in the middle of the night: “A portion of the flat at the back falls, and some of the characters are seen surrounded by flames. Finally the rest of the flat falls forward and a view of the ruins of a part of the hotel is presented.”15 Over the course of their lengthy career, the Hanlon Brothers were constantly tinkering with their proven stage vehicles. Hoping to attract new and repeat audience members, they went to extraordinary lengths to keep their stage vehicles “fresh,” introducing new tableaux, physical comedy, scenic elements, music, even plot lines. The “revamped” Le Voyage en Suisse remained at New York’s Metropolitan Casino until 17 December, giving twenty-one performances. Besides adding a new tableau for the third act, when they opened at the Metropolitan Casino the Hanlons also sought to insert variety routines into Le Voyage en Suisse. Novelty dancers were injected, along with a child performer, Little Corinne, who was brought in to sing a series of her “operatic specialties.” In the third act, Little Corinne first appeared as a guest at the wedding banquet. Asked to offer a song to the “happy” couple Dwindledown and Juliette, she obliged. Little Corinne’s interpolated songs did nothing to further the plot’s action; nor did they arise from and comment on situation and character. Rather, her songs were there solely to entertain audiences. In the coming years, the Hanlons frequently added similar variety routines to their stage productions Fantasma and Superba. Unfortunately, the Hanlons never had a great deal of luck with child performers, and they ran into trouble with Little Corinne too. Fearing that she would be corrupted by the stage, a judge ordered her committed to the Society to Prevent Cruelty to Children (SPCC). However, after a night in the group’s care, Corinne’s

101


mother stole her away. For her actions, the well-meaning mother was jailed and fined heavily. However, New York City’s mayor interceded and granted permission for the young girl to sing in the Hanlons’ show. But while he conceded that she could sing on stage, Mayor Grace stipulated that Corinne was not allowed to dance in the Hanlons’ Le Voyage en Suisse, perhaps deeming it too physically exhausting. The New York Clipper noted, “By the law of 1876 children are allowed to sing in public on the written consent of the Mayor of the City, where such concert or entertainment is to take place. This may prevent any further interference by the SPCC. Why not change the name of the SPCC to the Society for the Perpetration of Cruelty to Children?”16 When Le Voyage en Suisse closed at the Metropolitan Casino, the Hanlon Brothers transferred the production to Niblo’s Garden, where they opened for a holiday run beginning 19 December. Although several devastating fires and twenty-one years had intervened, Niblo’s Garden was a house that the Hanlons had played before. In 1860, the six brothers made their first storied United States appearance as members of Cooke’s Royal Amphitheatre. Just beginning their ascendance to the pinnacle of gymnastic and aerial supremacy, the Hanlons were but one act in the crowded circus’s lineup. However, by 1881 the Hanlons were the headliners, not a team of horses or a cross-dressed equestrienne. For nearly thirty years the famed playhouse had been the home of the Ravels, perhaps the family of performers closest to the Hanlon Brothers in spirit and practice. Now, the Hanlons were bringing their signature piece to the same stage that had hosted the beloved Ravels for so many years. The connection between the two leading families of pantomime did not go unrecognized. One critic longingly noted, “The Hanlon-Lees have pleasantly reminded us of the Ravels. How much more vivid is the reminiscence now, when they are playing at Niblo’s, the home of the Ravels, and at the Holiday season, when all New York, young and old, used to go to Niblo’s to see pantomimes.”17 During the run, the Hanlons continued to introduce new bits of business. Freed from her legal entanglements, Little Corinne was reintroduced during the show’s second week at Niblo’s Garden. According to a reporter from the New York Clipper, the Hanlons altered the script a bit, too, ridding it of many of the puns and wordplay that had characterized the English version. Said one critic: “There is fresh dialogue in every act but the second, and the piece has been Americanized by the excision of the wit that was acceptable enough in England, but failed to make any decided mark here. The changes are plentiful in the first act, but more numerous and striking in the third and last.”18 In all likelihood, the changes alluded to in the third act were Little Corinne’s “operatic specialties” and the startling transformation scene featuring the burning of the Rigi-Kulm Hotel. When the show closed on 31 December 1881, the Hanlon

102


Brothers had played fifteen performances at Niblo’s Garden. Apparently that was not enough for one young patron, who at the conclusion of Le Voyage en Suisse was said to remark, “Want more!”19 She would have plenty more opportunities in the coming years.

On the Road In January 1882, the Hanlons’ Le Voyage en Suisse opened across the East River at Brooklyn’s Academy of Music. The resounding audiences that greeted them in New York City were replicated in Brooklyn during the Hanlons’ week-long stay. During their first few months back in the United States, the Hanlons had been billing themselves as the Hanlon-Lees, not the Hanlon Brothers. In the late 1870s, the Hanlon Brothers began appearing under the name the Hanlon-Lees, hoping to distinguish themselves from their former students the Hanlon Midgets. Apparently, the Hanlon Midgets caused European theatre managers a great deal of confusion by insisting on employing the assumed surname Hanlon. Despite a series of pleas and threatened court suits by the Hanlon Brothers, the Hanlon Midgets continued using the treasured “Hanlon” name into the early twentieth century. Hoping to distinguish themselves from their former colleagues, the Hanlons called themselves the Hanlon-Lees in honor of the long-deceased John Lees, former tutor of George, William, and Alfred. However, an entire generation of American audiences had seen them rise to prominence in the 1860s under the Hanlon name. During their initial New York run, the company’s posters, handbills, and newspaper advertisements heralded the troupe as the Hanlon-Lees.20 In promotional materials he released to the press, Colonel Brown attempted to underscore the fact that the family was once known as “The Gymnasts of the World.” But apparently audiences still weren’t making the connection. Hence, a change in the family’s name was made. “The Hanlon-Lees, after leaving Brooklyn and for their tour through the country, have determined to drop the ‘Lees’ from their names, so as to be known simply as the Hanlon Brothers. Since their return to this country there has been a doubt entertained by many as to whether the Hanlon-Lees were the original Hanlon Bros. or not, and, that there may not be any further doubt, they have concluded to make this change.” 21 As promised, following the engagement at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the family reverted to calling itself the Hanlon Brothers. The name Hanlon-Lees became one of the many footnotes in the troupe’s remarkable career. Never again would they use the moniker. 22 Colonel Brown lured the Hanlons to America under the lucrative promise of a New York run, to be followed by a lengthy tour of North America. Eventually the Hanlons became accustomed to life on the road, touring the country for the better part of three decades. Traveling with three railroad cars of scenery and fifty

103


stage hands, Le Voyage en Suisse was a difficult show to move about the United States and Canada. A look at the company’s route from January to July 1882 shows just how grueling touring could be during the early 1880s.23 After Brooklyn, the company played successive engagements in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Toronto, Buffalo, Albany, Springfield, New Haven, Providence, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. Initially, the company had the luxury of playing full-week engagements solely in the United States’ largest cities. However, in the coming years, in order to sustain interest in their productions and always in search of new audiences, the Hanlon Brothers were forced to bring their pantomimes into the smaller cities as well. Unlike North America’s major metropolises, these less-populated cities were unable to support more than a performance or two. Hence, the dreaded one-nighter—despised by virtually every nineteenth-century theatre artist—became part of the Hanlon Brothers’ collective experience too. When the Hanlons brought Le Voyage en Suisse to Philadelphia and Boston in February 1882, critics in both cities remembered the botched Pour Prendre Congé; or, Seeing Switzerland that had been performed nearly a year ago. A Philadelphia writer reminded his readers, “Of the plot and many incidents we had a foretaste, but a very unsatisfactory and deceiving one, in a barefaced and unskillful piracy of the original produced here some months ago . . . when a trio of acrobats [the Daly Brothers] known to the variety stage, attempted to steal the laurels of the Hanlons.”24 The courtroom fiascoes aside, audiences outside New York were especially receptive to the Hanlons’ Le Voyage en Suisse. At Mrs. John Drew’s Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia, “The house shook with almost continuous laughter . . . and the indications are that Le Voyage en Suisse will have a highly successful run.”25 Further north in Boston, audiences felt a little frustrated by the delay in bringing the Hanlon Brothers onto the stage in their now-famous collapsing stagecoach—a ubiquitous routine now gracing the classified section with the caption, “We are all here!” An impatient critic noted of the script, “Previous to the appearance of these clever performers there were, it must be said, moments of tedium, for the dialogue of this piece . . . cannot be said to possess enthralling interest.” But by the end of the production, the same writer was able to state, “Last evening’s audience was so evidently delighted with the performance as a whole that we feel sure that the Hanlons have struck at once the public favor here with their worldsuccessful piece.”26 Apparently the Hanlon Brothers were fond of Boston, too. By the mid-1880s, they had settled just south of the city in Cohasset. Under the careful management of Colonel Brown, the tour of Le Voyage en Suisse progressed smoothly. During the company’s initial year-and-a-half long tour, not a single performance was missed. Years later, Colonel Brown boasted

104


that the production closed in New York, then “made a tour of the country, and with the exception of one week (en route to San Francisco), and the night of the day of President Garfield’s funeral, it did not lose a performance for eighty-two weeks, giving five hundred and seventy-four representations.”27 With advance bookings, the grueling tour kept the company on the road through April 1883. However, in the initial months of the tour, the Hanlons’ company experienced a few significant shake-ups. On 23 January 1882, the troupe’s first night at Ford’s Opera House in Baltimore, Frederick Hanlon severely sprained an ankle during the third-act chase. Although Frederick managed to complete that evening’s performance, the following night he was replaced by his brother Edward.28 While Frederick’s ankle healed, Edward played his brother’s role during the next several weeks in Baltimore and Boston. This was not the first time that the two had switched roles. In the early 1870s when the family was still touring Le Frater de Village, Edward played Léandre, the suitor appointed to Colombine by her father; Frederick played Colombine’s true love Pierrot. At the end of the pantomime, Léandre was always severely beaten by Pierrot. Tired of receiving all the blows, one evening just before the curtain Edward convinced his brother Frederick to switch parts. After all, they had been performing the piece for several years; surely they must have each other’s parts memorized by this time. Although they donned each other’s costumes and Edward appeared enfariné, at the time of the mock fistfight between Léandre and Pierrot, Frederick forgot which part he was performing. Accustomed to playing the bellicose Pierrot, he clocked his unsuspecting brother in the nose, sending Edward reeling offstage. The pantomime had not concluded—but it was over for Edward. Not prepared for the blow, he had been knocked unconscious. As George remembered, “a pantomime without Pierrot has no raison d’être”; the performance had to be stopped.29 This time around, no such mishaps befell Edward when he took over for his brother Frederick. When the family arrived at Philadelphia’s Arch Street Theatre, Frederick was ready to resume his old part. By the summer of 1885, Edward and Frederick were touring Europe as Le Voyage en Suisse’s twin servants. More seriously, Alfred Hanlon was quite ill. According to T. Allston Brown, when Alfred returned to America in August 1881, he had contracted tuberculosis. 30 For a time Alfred remained on the road with his brothers and his name continued to be featured on the evening’s playbills. However, he was not regularly appearing in the family’s productions. When his condition worsened, Alfred retired to the family’s estate in Orange, New Jersey, to live with his mother. In the early spring of 1886, Alfred traveled to Pasadena, California, hoping that the warm weather would aid his condition. There, Alfred died of tuberculosis on 24 June 1886; his brother George was with him at the time of his death. Alfred’s

105


obituaries recalled that he had served as the family’s composer, and that he was an excellent linguist, speaking English, French, German, Spanish, and Russian. He left behind a daughter. 31

San Francisco, July–August 1882 In the early 1880s, San Francisco was just beginning its ascendance as one of the United States’ leading cities. Typically, managers of touring productions tended to avoid the burgeoning city because it was difficult to transport a production so far west. Prior to the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, the furthest west that most road shows would consider traveling was Chicago and St. Louis. Even after 1869 when the railroad connected the West and East Coasts, few managers were in a hurry to haul their companies out to California. There were too few metropolitan areas to sustain a company on its way out to the Pacific Coast. However, by the mid-1870s San Francisco began to establish itself as one of the largest, wealthiest, and most culturally sophisticated of the United States’ cities, a fact that company managers could not overlook. Under the direction of Colonel Brown, the Hanlon Brothers’ Le Voyage en Suisse was one of the earliest major tours to play the city by the bay.32 Since their earliest days, the Hanlons had exhibited a special affection for San Francisco. George, William, Alfred, and Thomas first visited the city in July 1862. With the Civil War raging in the East, the four brothers brought their variety company to San Francisco’s California Theatre. During the two weeks that they leased the playhouse, the Hanlons amazed audiences with their Zampillaerostation and other aerial and gymnastic specialties. Twenty years later, the brothers offered San Francisco audiences their pantomime Le Voyage en Suisse. By all accounts, the four and a half weeks that the Hanlons’ company spent in San Francisco were tumultuous ones. Due to railroad tariffs, traveling to San Francisco was expensive. In addition, the company opened at the Baldwin Theatre, the city’s leading playhouse and home to David Belasco. Hence, when the Hanlon Brothers debuted on July 15, Colonel Brown raised the top price of admission from .75 to 1.50. Regardless, the San Francisco Herald raved, “The Hanlons are as exhilarating as a sleigh ride, as vigorous as a mother-in-law, as piquant as a beauty of seventeen.” 33 Newspaper advertisements in the Wasp boasted, “Theater crowded to suffocation every night. Screams of laughter are heard for two hours. Everybody delighted. Best show ever seen in California.”34 However, Brown also managed to aggravate quite a few members of the San Francisco press. According to the New York Clipper, reporters in the city were accustomed to receiving numerous complimentary seats from the managers of touring productions. Brown halted the practice, limiting reporters to a sole pair of

106


free seats. Apparently, the members of the press were not satisfied. “When Mr. B. refused their orders they held an indignation meeting and resolved to ‘burn him up.’ The greater the burning the larger the audiences and consequently Brown is happy and has invested his spare cash in diamonds for Mrs. Brown.”35 Taking the lead in trying to “burn him up,” the Wasp’s critic declared to its readers that the show was not worth double the usual price of admission. In response, Colonel Brown decided that rather than support the Wasp with the company’s advertising budget, he would withdraw all notices in the newspaper. Rebuffed, the Wasp’s dramatic writer railed, A rather caustic review of the performance which appeared in this journal some two weeks since induced the management to withdraw their advertisements. . . . On behalf of the public this paper has for some time past been waging war against the regime of extortionate prices for poor amusements, and it proposes to continue that war till every theatre charges what its entertainment is worth, and no more. The Hanlon’s exhibition is not worth a dollar and a half. Seventy-five cents for a reserved seat is all that could with decency be charged to see it. It is notably impudent in the management to charge more. If we were disposed to be unkind we should style it a swindle; and we propose to say our say and tell the truth in such cases if our columns are as barren of advertisements as the back of a Mexican dog is of hair. 36 Furthermore, the Wasp’s critic gleefully noted that the Hanlons’ houses at the Baldwin were suffering. However, reports of diminishing houses seem unlikely. The Hanlons remained in San Francisco for over four weeks, an unusually long performance run for any city, particularly if business was poor. Years later, Colonel Brown remembered, It was I who stopped the entire press of San Francisco and made them pay for their tickets of admission to the Baldwin. They attempted to say how I should do my business but I shot them all off. We went there for two weeks and notwithstanding the press without an exception gave a smash. We stopped selling tickets every night at 7:45—turned hundreds away for two weeks and staid five weeks—this in the face of the power of the Wasp and the fact that we doubled the prices of admission to all parts of the house.37 Le Voyage en Suisse remained on the Baldwin’s stage for three consecutive weeks. Within the Hanlon Brothers, there may have been a growing sense of boredom. After all, they had been touring Le Voyage en Suisse for over three years. Prior to coming to San Francisco, George Hanlon had remarked to a journal-

107


ist that the following season the family would unveil an English pantomime “which shall surpass any previous efforts.”38 Their fourth and final week in San Francisco, the Hanlon Brothers seemed to have begun making preparations. Le Voyage en Suisse was withdrawn from the bills and replaced with a comic trick pantomime titled The Mischievous Pierrots, featuring William and Frederick Hanlon in the title roles. The piece was preceded each evening by a short comedy called Milky White, starring the Baldwin stock company’s Fanny Young alongside the Hanlons. 39 Despite the acrimony displayed by the Wasp, the Hanlons immensely enjoyed their return trip to San Francisco. Prior to departing the city, the Hanlons placed the following letter in the San Francisco Herald and the San Francisco Daily Chronicle, two of the city’s major papers: Ere we quit this happy region, this remarkable city, we trust we may be permitted to express our gratitude for the kind welcome and continuous support that the public has been pleased to accord to us. It is twenty-one years since we first had the honor of bowing our acknowledgments to the indulgent inhabitants of the Golden City, and then, as now, we were fortunate in being the recipients of your smiles, and generous approval of our efforts, the memory of which has never been effaced; that added to the kind and numerous friends whom we knew would welcome our return, was apart from all pecuniary inducements, an almost irresistible attraction. We now leave, delighted with our sojourn and regretting the termination of one of the happiest engagements without our professional career. For the kind support that has rendered our enterprise a pecuniary success, as well as a delightful visit, we beg in bidding you farewell, a most sincerely and heartily felt thank you. To the members of the Press, who have so kindly contributed to our success, we must express our gratitude and thanks for their continuous efforts in our behalf. THE HANLON BROTHERS40 Leaving San Francisco, the Hanlon Brothers’ Le Voyage en Suisse continued its tour of North America. Yet with The Mischievous Pierrots, San Francisco audiences had been granted a glimpse into the next evolution of the Hanlons’ artistry.

Confusion In March 1884, the Hanlons’ company settled into New York for a two-week period, first at the city’s People’s Theatre followed by a six-day stay at the Third Avenue Theatre. Simultaneously, an English import by Joseph Derrick was drawing large audiences at Haverly’s Comedy Theatre. A comic melodrama, the piece was called Confusion. Under the management of Thomas Thorne, the play had

108


debuted at London’s Vaudeville Theatre on 17 May 1883. Proving an immediate hit with audiences, Thorne sold the American production rights to John Stetson, manager of the Boston Theatre. The play was not unlike a number of other light comedies that were regularly produced in the late nineteenth century. James and Maria are employed in the same household as servants. However, they obtained their positions by hiding the fact that they were married. Absent adequate childcare, the couple periodically bring their baby to work with them, hiding the child in closets, laundry baskets, and cellars as they go about their day’s work. The “confusion” arises when the servants’ baby is mistaken for the love child of a flirtatious fiancée. After an act’s worth of accusations and rearranged marriage plans, the child’s true parents are identified and order restored to the bourgeois household.41 Because the Hanlons had previously worked with the play’s author Joseph Derrick, George and Edward Hanlon went to see the production. Immediately, they recognized Confusion as a play they had purchased in 1880, when it was titled The Little Stranger. Edward obtained the services of lawyers Howe and Hummell, the same team that had represented the family during the imbroglio over Pour Prendre Congé just three years earlier. Legal proceedings against Confusion’s manager John Stetson and the Samuel French Company were initiated on 14 March 1884. Before Judge Charles Donohue, the Hanlons’ attorneys presented papers indicating that Joseph Derrick had indeed sold the family all performance rights to the production in 1880. The price was three guineas. Because Confusion had been running in London for over a year, the Hanlons were awarded 450 in addition to their legal fees. The Hanlons were awarded handsome performance royalties, too. They were awarded one-tenth of the gross receipts each time the play was produced in New York; for Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago performances, the Hanlons were guaranteed 300 per week; for each performance in Brooklyn, Cleveland, Cincinnati, San Francisco, and New Orleans, the Hanlons were paid 25; for all other performances in the United States and Canada, the Hanlons were to be paid 20.42 Given the play’s popularity, clearly this was a lucrative deal. Later that summer, the Hanlons’ stake in the piece was purchased for an undisclosed sum by Thomas Thorne, manager of London’s Vaudeville Theatre where the purloined play had originated. Confusion continued to be staged through the winter of 1885.

Suggestions of a New Direction Managed by Colonel T. Allston Brown, the Hanlons’ initial tour of Le Voyage en Suisse continued through April 1883. Although the majority of their engagements were week-long stands in the country’s major cities, two- and three-day

109


engagements in smaller cities were added also. As evidence of the production’s continuing popularity, return visits were made to a number of cities, including New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Providence, Washington, DC, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Boston.43 At the end of the 1883 season, Colonel Brown was able to boast that the company had given 574 performances. However, he elected not to return to the troupe’s helm the following season. The New York Clipper reported, “Col. T. Allston Brown retires from the company with the close of the present season, which will terminate during next April, and will once more settle down in New York, as he is tired of traveling. The Hanlons will continue next season, and will produce a spectacular pantomime, for which preparations are already being made.”44 The “preparations” to which the Clipper alluded were the withdrawal of William Hanlon from the company’s continuing tour in the spring of 1883. Edward filled his place in the family’s Le Voyage en Suisse. Accompanied by machinist Robert Cutler and author Clay M. Greene, William went to the Hanlons’ estate in Orange, New Jersey. Here, they worked feverishly on the Hanlon Brothers next project, a lavish pantomime tentatively titled Pico. Finally on 16 May 1883, William Hanlon submitted a completed pantomime to the Library of Congress titled Pico; or the Legend of Castle Malfi.45 After another year of revision, the piece evolved into the Hanlon Brothers’ long-lived fairy pantomime, Fantasma. Meanwhile, the Hanlon Brothers’ Le Voyage en Suisse completed its initial American tour on 21 April 1883, closing in Erie, Pennsylvania. Frederick Hanlon and his wife departed for a European vacation aboard the steamer Queen. George, William, and Edward Hanlon spent their first of many summers in Cohasset, Massachusetts. For the Hanlons, swimming was a favorite pastime, which naturally led them to Cohasset. Here, they could easily partake in the sport, bathing in the gentle inlets. To a reporter they remarked, “Cohasset is the place to settle.” Perhaps weary of the road and the rigors of touring, they spoke of building homes in Cohasset the following summer. This idyllic hamlet abounds with stately homes and country estates, many featuring ocean views along Jerusalem Road, known as the “Golden Mile” to locals. According to the Hanlons, “Jerusalem Road beats the world!” Near the end of the summer, they convened their company in Cohasset. Over the course of two weeks, they rehearsed in an apple orchard. A Boston journalist covering the proceedings remarked, “I could think of nothing but half a dozen boys playing at clowns. . . . The Hanlons under the apple trees were making ready to set their audiences in a roar.”46 Under the management of Edward Hanlon, the company opened the 1883 season in the Midwest. Meanwhile, Edward’s brother George traveled to Cincinnati to continue working with Robert Cutler on stage machinery for the family’s

110


next pantomime. Hence, just two Hanlon Brothers, William and Frederick, were in Le Voyage en Suisse’s tour of 1883/1884. The slim lineup was a precursor for the coming years, when the Hanlons would withdraw from the stage entirely. Regardless, the company continued to play to resounding success as it meandered through the Midwest and made its way into the postwar South. A Tennessee critic stated, “The play, good as it is, is only supplementary to the most laughable antics and blunders of the two servants, who kept the audience in a constant ripple of laughter, which very frequently would burst out in the most hearty applause.”47 Concurrent with the winter holidays, the company opened at New Orleans’ St. Charles Theatre, extending an initial week-long Christmas run to just over three weeks. By the early spring, the company had returned to the Northeast, playing multiweek engagements in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Throughout the tour, the Hanlons continued to suggest that Le Voyage en Suisse would soon be removed from the boards. Of course, this may have been a promotional measure, aimed at boosting attendance. But even the Hanlons’ staff began to drop hints. Company treasurer Percy Meynall remarked, “We shall have a new play next year, something vastly superior to ‘Le Voyage en Suisse.’ Mr. George Hanlon is now in Cincinnati, working on the piece with Robert Cutler, one of the best stage mechanicians [sic] in the country, to get up the mechanical effects. What kind these are to be, I of course cannot say now, but they will astonish the audience, depend upon it.”48 The production in the offing was the Hanlons’ rapidly evolving Fantasma.

111

6 The Changing Taste in American Theatricals: Fantasma and Superba

The Decline of Pantomime?

I

n February 1882, the English drama critic W. Davenport Adams lamented the state of his beloved pantomime. Distressed by the “monotony of the subjects treated,” the writer criticized managers who constantly returned to such familiar nursery stories as “The House that Jack Built,” “Mother Goose,” “Red Riding Hood,” and “Jack and the Beanstalk” for their plotlines. Adams argued that new subjects were needed; new fairylands had to be explored. The critic went on to suggest, “There is a perfect mine of wealth, for instance, in the fairy lore of Germany and Scandinavia,”1 perhaps referring to the Wagnerian revolution. The subject matter of most English pantomimes aside, Adams was especially disturbed by the frequency with which specialty acts and vaudeville turns were introduced to the previously sacrosanct theatrical form. Distracting from the “plot” and interrupting the comic mayhem of silent clowning, the routines

112

the changing taste in american theatricals

threatened the vitality of the genre. With a hint of hand-wringing, he suggested, “It is nevertheless to the music-hall element that we owe the main portion of that impropriety of word, gesture, and ‘business’ which makes so much of our pantomimes.”2 In particular, Adams singled out Robert Reece, chief pantomime author at John Hollingshead’s Gaiety Theatre for tampering with the form and introducing what he deemed to be undesirable elements. Reece had of course also prepared the English version of the Hanlons’ Le Voyage en Suisse. Besides the cross-dressed players, Adams recoiled at the “rows of infinitesimally-clothed damsels who crowd the pantomime stage,” pleading “there can be charming ballets without reducing the coryphées almost to nudity.”3 Although the Hanlons were an ocean away from the London-based author, he seemed to be addressing the direction that the Hanlon Brothers would chart for the rest of their careers. By 1884, the family had moved into the production of spectacle pantomime, replete with burlesque and vaudeville routines, scantily clad chorines, and cross-dressed female leads. While Le Voyage en Suisse continued to entertain North American and European audiences, across the next thirty years the family focused their efforts on two lavish pantomimes—Fantasma and Superba. In the process, they helped lay the terrain for much of the twentieth-century American popular theatre.

Tentative Steps into Management After a lifetime spent crisscrossing the globe, first as daredevil acrobats and then as pantomime artists, the Hanlon Brothers had the financial means, theatrical reputation, and technical know-how to devise a series of highly regarded pantomimes that continued to entertain audiences into the early twentieth century. The remainder of their careers would be spent perfecting a theatrical style replete with acrobatics, trick scenery, slapstick comedy, and technical marvels. Yearly, their pantomimes were revamped with new thrills added to loosely concocted plot lines. Each “new” production was eagerly anticipated by their audiences, as a 1905 writer stated in the New York Times: “The country towns await the Hanlons’ visit like the circus’s, as an annual institution.”4 Attaching their names to a series of highly sophisticated, annually produced pantomimes, they moved into theatrical management. By the mid-1880s, the Hanlons were tiring of Le Voyage en Suisse. After performing the show virtually nonstop since 1879, they were understandably ready for new challenges. With the brothers longing to move into the production of fairy pantomimes, the plot of the piece held little attraction for them. But Le Voyage en Suisse had become a staple entertainment on the American and European continents, with reliable audiences in virtually every major city

113


that were eager for the now-predictable laughs. Hence, George Hanlon began shopping for a buyer. In an 1885 letter to T. Allston Brown, he wrote, “We are willing to sell The Voyage out complete if you can find us a cash purchaser within a fortnight.”5 Apparently none was found, at least initially. Hoping to attract a European manager interested in its purchase, Edward brought the Le Voyage en Suisse company to the European continent in 1885. Here, they played to great acclaim in France, Spain, Germany, and Austria. In September 1885, the company mounted a new pantomime at Paris’s Théâtre des Variétés titled Le Naufrage de M. Godet. A drawing room comedy, Le Naufrage de M. Godet featured a festive gathering aboard a steamship. Leaving port, the boat encountered a storm that tossed its passengers around the cabins and banquet rooms. However, Le Naufrage de M. Godet proved to not be nearly as popular as Le Voyage en Suisse. After a month, the pantomime was withdrawn and replaced with the more familiar Le Voyage en Suisse.6 After Paris, Edward and Frederick remained in Europe with Le Voyage en Suisse. However, the consequences of touring overtook Frederick, who contracted pneumonia.7 The adopted Hanlon brother died in Nice, France, on 28 April 1886; he was thirty-eight.8 Edward placed his brother Frederick’s Gil Blas obituary in his scrapbook of clippings and soldiered on, opting to continue his European tour rather than return to the United States. Under Edward’s management, the company remained on the continent through 1887, another actor filling in for the deceased Frederick. It was the last Hanlon-managed production staged outside of North America. When Edward’s troupe returned to the United States in 1887, they continued to tour Le Voyage en Suisse for the next two years. Meanwhile a second Hanlon company managed by William played Fantasma. However, before Edward left Europe, he sold the lucrative production rights to Le Voyage en Suisse to the Renads, while the Lauri family was granted permission to play the piece in the United Kingdom.9 No doubt the profits from the sale were channeled towards the production of Superba and Fantasma. When the Hanlon Brothers unveiled Superba in 1890, they retired Le Voyage en Suisse altogether. For over a decade, Le Voyage en Suisse went unseen on the United States’ stages as the Hanlons turned their interests to other projects. Then in 1900, the rival Byrne Brothers purchased the long-lived vehicle. Initially, response to the piece was resoundingly positive. At Brooklyn’s Grand Opera House, “applause was liberally bestowed on all of the marvellous features.”10 However, the production failed to sustain interest. By the end of the 1900–1901 season, the troupe was unable to book itself into major playhouses or major cities. Abbreviated stays in the northeast corridor’s smaller towns were all that could be pieced together. Although the revival was billed as “The Hanlon Brothers’ Le Voyage en Suisse,”

114


no member of the family was among the company’s dramatis personae. Lacking one of the skilled acrobatic Hanlon Brothers to anchor the production, fickle audiences seemed to have lost interest. In place of the remarkable gymnastic feats of the original, the Byrne Brothers’ revised script substituted lengthy “comic” wordplay for the frenetic pantomime of the original production. After a second unsuccessful season under the management of Klaw and Erlanger, the Byrne Brothers were forced to retire the piece.11

Fantasma At the conclusion of the 1883–1884 season, the Hanlon Brothers once again withdrew to Cohasset. As George and Edward entered the exclusive club of new fathers,12 the family worked feverishly on their next pantomime. Within a Cohasset barn and several hastily erected work sheds, trick scenery was constructed, new costumes were sewn, and fresh comic routines were rehearsed. Initially the production was titled Pico; or, The Legend of Castle Malfi, after the lead clown. However, by the end of the summer of 1884, the piece was advertised simply as Fantasma. Seemingly always apprised of the Hanlons’ inner gossip, the New York Clipper reported that the family would open the new production in New York later that year on 10 November.13 Leaving Edward and George in Cohasset to attend to the hiring of machinists and the completion of scenery, Edward spent much of the summer off-season in Europe. It was reported that he was abroad “completing arrangements for bringing to this country a troupe of French, Italian, and Roumanian pantomimists.”14 Edward’s greatest coup was in luring Louis Pizzarello to America to play the doltish clown Pico. Pizzarello was advertised as being “the greatest pantomimic clown of Europe” and “the pupil of the celebrated De Burot,” Charles Deburau, son of the celebrated Jean-Gaspard Deburau.15 In all, thirty-eight performers of European descent were advertised when Fantasma made its debut at New York’s Fifth Avenue Theatre on 10 November 1884. Foreshadowing the coming years, not one of the Hanlon Brothers was in the world premiere of Fantasma. Rather, they stood behind the scenes, carefully managing the spectacle pantomime’s success. It was a triumph that would be repeated near nightly over the next thirty years. More so than Le Voyage en Suisse, the Hanlon Brothers’ Fantasma reflected America’s taste in theatricals. Perhaps catering to audience expectations, numerous bouts with slapstick were incorporated, along with breathtaking acrobatics. However, Fantasma, like its successor Superba, is primarily remembered for its lavish scenic effects and stage trickery. The play’s simple plot was really a three-act framework on which to display the company’s technical and physical virtuosity. Two lovers, Arthur and Lena, are courting when they are interrupted

115


by the intrusion of the demonic Zamaliel.16 Zamaliel steals Lena from Arthur, intent on making her his new bride. In desperation, Arthur appeals to the goddess Fantasma for assistance. To help Arthur recover his beloved Lena, Fantasma summons Pico—a stupid but true clown and companion. The duration of the play displays Pico’s doltish efforts while in Arthur’s service.17 Essentially, the Hanlons’ Fantasma was a throwback to mid-nineteenth-century France’s féerie. The new pantomime featured the féerie’s elaborate machinery

Fig. 14. Zamaliel towering over Lena in the Hanlons’ Fantasma. Courtesy of the Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library.

116


and spectacular scenic effects, fused with the company’s signature knockabout comedy. Variety routines were offered between each act of the lavish entertainment. When Richard Lesclide published his Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees in 1879, he prophetically stated, “The féerie is the preferred field of our gymnasts [the Hanlons].”18 The rest of their careers was spent perfecting the féerie’s dreamscape for American audiences. Over the next six years, Fantasma was annually reworked. New comic business was introduced, technical marvels were infused, and scenes were added that reflected the times. Spectacular moments over the years included a stage cyclone—during which shutters, doormats, carts and oxen, lampposts, and most everything else was whisked about the stage; a flood, complete with waves and drenched audience members; a chariot pulled by grasshoppers; stray boots walking about the stage without any assistance; underwater scenes featuring characters swimming and blowing bubbles; and a trip to the Arctic Circle. The New York Times neatly summarized Fantasma’s appeal in its initial 1884 review: “There are tricks and acrobatic feats and practical jokes and pommelings [sic]. . . . The transformations and spectacular effects throughout are well calculated to please and divert, and the mechanical and scenic effects are certainly equal to any ever displayed. . . . It is entirely free from vulgarity or suggestiveness and has many elements calculated to please the young folks and their elders as well.”19 There was no end in curiosity as to how the Hanlons accomplished Fantasma’s startling stage effects. Hence, over the years readers were frequently treated to backstage tours of the show, thanks to the journalists of their local newspapers. One Boston writer explained how an earthquake was achieved: “Every portion of the furniture of the room seemed to have some connection with the outside and the strings and board which extended outside and back were manned by the stage hands, who were well trained in the methods of using them.”20 Ultimately, Fantasma was a profitable show, brilliantly designed to appeal to the largest cross-section of North American audiences. Prior to the 1885 season, the Hanlons split up. As they had demonstrated from their earliest days, fraternal togetherness was not always a priority for the family. For years at a time, they frequently were away from each other under the aegis of the family’s name. Simply put, working apart brought them greater fame and profits. With several “Hanlon” companies on the road, the family could reap even greater financial rewards.

Hanlon’s Scenic Studio and the Two Fantasma Companies George and William retreated to Cohasset in 1888.21 Although Edward spent significant portions of each summer in the town on the Massachusetts coast, he relocated to the oceanside Cos Cob, Connecticut, just north of Manhattan. While the brothers’ business affairs continued to intermingle, Edward often kept

117


his distance from George and William. Perhaps the many years on the road had taken their toll on fraternal bonding. In Cohasset, William purchased a stately home along Jerusalem Road in 1888 and then, with the aid of his brothers George and Edward, began construction of a state-of-the-art studio in the town’s center.22 When completed, the structure proudly announced in boldfaced capital letters emblazoned across the front of the building that this was “HANLON’S SCENIC STUDIO.” 23 Hanlon’s Scenic Studio became William Hanlon’s laboratory for some of the most extraordinary scenic effects produced on the American stage. Although the structure was demolished in 1915, contemporary reviewers provide tantalizing glimpses inside the facility: “From floor to ceiling it is crammed with great folds of scenery and weird looking stage ‘props.’ In one corner you may see a man putting electric eyes in a stage dragon; in another, somebody is constructing a noble pasteboard steed. . . . A ballet rehearses in the open space. . . . The knockabout men try a few fancy tumbles.”24 Another writer provides us with the physical dimensions, remarking that the studio was “perfect in all its appointments, but without any provision for an audience. . . . It is 80 x 100 feet, and has a height of 65 feet. It has a complete stage, the largest paint frame in the United States, dressing rooms, a wardrobe room, wings, flies, etc. Thirty or forty persons can rehearse on the stage easily, and all the elaborate tricks, mechanical changes, and fine scenic

Fig. 15. A family portrait, circa 1886. Left to right: Edward, George, and William Hanlon. Courtesy of the Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library.

118


effects for which the Hanlons’ performances are celebrated, can be tried here as well as in a regularly appointed theatre.”25 Perhaps most significant of all, Hanlon’s Scenic Studio lay just fifty yards away from a railroad stop, thus linking the town with Boston, New York, and the other cities of the Eastern seaboard. The shows they produced here were advertised as traveling with four train cars full of apparatus.26 Surely, the proximity of Hanlon’s Scenic Studio to the railroad helped facilitate this process. The Hanlons’ Fantasma was a large production, requiring a well-apportioned playhouse to accommodate all of its scenic and technical equipment, in addition to an adequate playing space for its company. Manuals like Harry Miner’s American Dramatic Directory, besides listing available actors and suggested tour routes across the North American continent, also provided extensive information on each theatre in operation, including its dimensions and personnel. For example, the directory of 1884–1885 lists Chicago’s McVicker’s Theatre, a highly desired

Fig. 16. Hanlon’s Scenic Studio. In the seaside town of Cohasset, Massachusetts, the Hanlons constructed a studio to perfect their stage wizardry and gags. Featuring a fully functioning trapped stage and fly space, the studio had no seating for an audience. Each summer, the Hanlons’ company would convene for a month of rehearsal before being sent out on the road. The studio was demolished in 1915. Author’s collection.

119


facility frequently visited by the Hanlons: “McVicker’s Theatre, (Chicago). J.H. McVicker manager; seating capacity 1,800; rental, share only. Size of stage, 54x77' size of proscenium opening, 30x32; height from stage to grooves, 20; height from stage to rigging loft, 59; depth under stage, 11; all usual traps; musical directory Henry Doehne; scenic artist, J.H. Rogers; stage carpenter, John Bairstow.”27 With proper preparation and scheduling, a nineteenth-century theatre company could move across the North American continent with some degree of ease. However, due to poor advance planning, misinformation, or a withdrawn booking, on occasion the Hanlons were forced to cancel an engagement or hurriedly alter their production when Fantasma would not “fit” into a booked theatre. For example, in March 1887 they arrived in San Antonio, Texas, only to discover that their intended theatre was too small. Limited by the size of Fantasma, the Hanlons were forced to forego performance dates in cities that lacked an appropriate facility. No doubt the Hanlons wished to generate profits in smaller cities. So for the 1889–1890 season they constructed a second, scaled-down Fantasma capable of being performed in smaller playhouses. 28 From their home in Cohasset, George and William managed the larger Fantasma, dubbed Fantasma A in the routes published weekly in the profession’s papers. Meanwhile, from his new home in Cos Cob, Edward managed the smaller Fantasma B company. Although Fantasma A played a handful of single nights, during the 1889–1890 season the company focused on week-long engagements across North America, its travels including Toronto, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Albany, Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New Orleans, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Portland, and Salt Lake City. Fantasma A’s season ended with a second two-week stand in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, in April 1890 alone Fantasma B played a dizzying series of engagements in Witchita and Fort Scott, Kansas; Memphis, Tennessee; Paducah, Kentucky; Cairo, Illinois; Springfield and Sandusky, Ohio; Franklin, Titusville, and Meadville, Pennsylvania; Lockport, Seneca Falls, Rome, Ogdensburg, Watertown, Oswego, and Troy, New York. With the exception of three evenings in Memphis, most stops lasted just one night before moving on to the next venue.29 April 1890 was hardly atypical. Rather, the frenetic schedule is a testament to the performers’ fortitude, the dedication of the backstage crews, and the extraordinary planning necessary to undertake such an endeavor. And of course, Fantasma remained popular with audiences. In 1907—seventeen years after the pantomime’s premiere—a St. Paul, Minnesota, reporter stated, “To attempt a description of ‘Fantasma’ is like attempting to tell ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ entirely unnecessary, for who has not seen it?” 30

120


Superba The logistics aside, having two simultaneous productions of Fantasma on the road was profitable. Yet for the 1890–1891 season, the Hanlons offered just one version of Fantasma, under the direction of Edward. Meanwhile in Cohasset, William developed a “new” show called Superba whose plotline was remarkably similar to that of Fantasma. Perhaps the Hanlons hoped to tantalize audiences with the idea of a fresh production. Indeed, while the Hanlons’ expected scenic splendor and technical sophistication were demonstrated in Superba, the show featured more variety acts, acts capable of playing in any facility—large or small. Indeed, Superba was conceived in order to offer a Hanlon production capable of being performed anywhere. Superba made its world debut on 1 October 1890 at Albany’s Harmanus’ Bleecker Hall. Like Fantasma, a fairy-tale-like plot was created for Superba on which to hang the company’s technical and physical marvels. Leander and Sylvia, two betrothed lovers, swoon in the company of each other. Wallalia, a female demon, determines that she desires Leander for her eternal companion. She abducts Sylvia, promising to kill the young woman unless Leander marries her. Heartbroken, Leander summons the goddess Superba for assistance. Heeding to his pleas to be reunited with Sylvia, Superba creates Pierrot. Like Fantasma’s beloved Pico, Pierrot is a mischievous lackey. The pantomime follows Pierrot’s misguided attempts to rescue Sylvia from Wallalia’s grasp. 31 Superba reflected the changing taste in American popular entertainment. With scantily clad chorines becoming ever more characteristic of the period’s theatrics, Superba offered choruses of female performers. Their reputations under attack in some quarters, William Hanlon steadfastly defended the profession’s chorus girls: Chorus girls make ideal mothers. The principal reason for this is that the chorus girl has so little home life, being compelled by reason of her business to be on the road almost constantly, that when she does get a home she appreciates it and wants to stay there. There is very little vacation for the chorus girl, as in all big productions she has to rehearse weeks before the company goes out. The popular idea of the life of the chorus girl being one round of pleasure, automobiles, and champagne suppers, is the veriest rot. There may be some cases of riotous living . . . but they are extremely rare. With the chorus girl it is work, work all the time. She has to learn a great deal in the way of songs, marches, and other evolutions. She has to be at rehearsal early in the morning and it is absolutely necessary that she gets

121


her rest, for she would soon lose her job if she wasn’t able to put life and energy into her performance. Therefore, I say we are mainly unjust to the chorus girl. . . . She marries and settles down, or if she has talent she continues in her profession, and advances to the top. If one would make an investigation, he would probably see as many happy marriages among chorus girls as there are in any other realm of life. 32 As well as chorus girls, naturally scenic spectacles and grotesque displays were included in the pantomime’s three acts. Over the years, audiences applauded dismembering devices, a guillotine, a haunted studio with furniture that moved on its own, a trip through the St. Louis World’s Fair, rose chariots pulled by giant lobsters, fire-spewing dragons, and revolving stages. Indeed, Superba was a complex production, built upon a series of visual and comical displays. A note from Edward Hanlon to the great clown George H. Adams is indicative of the show’s intricacy (Adams played Pierrot for several years during the 1890s). My Dear Mr. Adams, I cannot give you the remainder of the Hut business at present (on page No. 9) as I am making some slight changes in the bear business that follows the powder business, but will send it as soon as arranged. 33 Vaudeville and music hall entertainments were genres increasingly favored by audiences of the 1890s. In response, the Hanlons’ Superba offered numerous featured performers. Two of the play’s comic servants, Gretchen and Carl, are Dutch comedians hailing from “Kaiser-Schlitz Lager, by Wiener-Wurst Ham Sandwich.” In addition to lightning fast and furious puns, they trade a series of slaps and kicks throughout the play. Fans of Weber and Fields, the beloved Dutch comedians, would have been amused by the pair. 34 At times, the production went so far as to incorporate singers, trained poodles, ballets, chorus lines, and even circus freaks. 35 Ultimately, Superba appealed to popular taste. Superba, like its predecessor Fantasma, featured a mere framework of plot to hold fun and stage tricks that could be renewed season after season. A writer for the Boston Globe reported on the many wonders of the show: “Fairies, fiends, sea nymphs and sea monsters, domestic animals and wild beasts, whales, mermaids, sea serpents and vistas glowing with jewelled iridescence are summoned upon the stage.”36 In a typical year, the company rehearsed in Cohasset through the summer. The “new” show was usually unveiled at either the Boston Theatre or the Boston Globe—a short train ride up the Massachusetts coast—before touring the country until the following May, when the company returned to Cohasset for an overhaul. A Cohasset historian reflected, “Just as the Ringling Brothers use Sarasota, Florida,

122

Fig. 17. Hanlons’ Superba (1890) played to the developing taste for the display of the female body, devising ways in which to depict the chorines in bathing suits, beauty competitions, and as classical statuary. Courtesy Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

Fig. 18. Like its predecessor Fantasma, Superba was consistently revised. For the 1898 version, a drunken clown hallucinates threatening trees. The routine prefigures L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). Courtesy Library of Congress.


as a place for their actors to recuperate and to revise their show, so did the Hanlon Shows summer in Cohasset for the same purpose.”37 Annually, audiences returned to the Hanlons’ Superba, eager to see the new technical wonders. After 1890, Fantasma and Superba were often on the road simultaneously, bringing the Hanlons’ stage magic to audiences across North America. Patterns in the annual tours emerge. Perhaps they were unwilling to let go of the acclaim that was showered upon them during Paris’s 1878 Universelle Exposition. More likely, the brothers never forgot the economic rewards that could be realized during world fairs and their attendant crowds. During the 1893 Columbian Exposition, they settled into Chicago’s Academy of Music for a month-long engagement, completely outfitting the theatre with electric wiring. Revising Fantasma, the Hanlons inserted a number of patriotic tableaux, including Columbus’s arrival in the “new world” and a celebration of the United States’ continuing polar exploration. Just over a decade later, they performed in St. Louis during the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. In addition, they tended to schedule their seasons to take advantage of state fairs playing in the Midwest. Typically, the larger cities in the nation’s heartland hosted their state fairs in September, shortly before the traditional theatre season’s opening. Hence, the Hanlon Brothers returned repeatedly to Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Milwaukee over the course of their careers, determined to take advantage of the crowds. Not just the theatre crowd was familiar with the Hanlons and their Superba, too. From 1899 to 1910, the Brooklyn baseball team was known as the Superbas. Founded in 1884 as the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers, from 1890 to 1898 the team operated under the moniker of the Bridegrooms because of the large number of recently married players. When Hall-of-Famer Ned Hanlon took over the club in 1899, they became known as the Superbas. Ned Hanlon had no relation to the theatrical family whatsoever. Still, under his management, the Brooklyn Superbas amassed 101 victories in his first season. Although he left the club in 1905, they continued to be known as the Superbas until 1911 when the team’s name was altered to the now-familiar Brooklyn Dodgers.38

A Lively Legacy Although the Hanlons’ pantomime career is most closely associated with just three productions—Le Voyage en Suisse, Fantasma, and Superba—they periodically mounted other shows too, such as the short-lived productions The Nabob’s Fortune, The Mischievous Pierrots, and Le Naufrage de M. Godet. Clearly, William Hanlon was constantly contemplating new work for the family, registering numerous unperformed scripts and scenic devices with the Library of Congress. A decade after Superba’s opening, he returned to The Nabob’s Fortune—last performed in 1881—for the family’s next project.

125


Fig. 19. Revised in 1892, the Hanlons’ Fantasma capitalized on Americans’ interest in the sesquicentennial of Columbus’s arrival in the “new world.” Author’s collection.

The Hanlons’ A Lively Legacy premiered in April 1900, authored by Edward E. Kidder. Playbills for A Lively Legacy trumpeted the fact that “motives, situations, and mechanical effects [were] supplied by the Hanlon Brothers.” Ultimately, the basic plotline was lifted from The Nabob’s Fortune. Set in Florida, the farce centered around the antics of a soon-to-wed couple, determined to collect an inheritance of 300,000. To collect their legacy, the betrothed must overcome a series of ridiculous directives. The play’s scenic effects included a hurricane, a

126


broken dam and flood, a lion tamer and his cage of beasts, and a locomotive that jumped the tracks and crashed into the chambers of a justice of the peace. The Baltimore American pronounced A Lively Legacy a “triumph of mechanical and spectacular art”; a critic for the Washington Post overheard one theatregoer proclaim, “I was actually ashamed to find myself laughing at it.” 39 Newspaper reviews consistently noted that the play would be revised through the summer and restaged the following season. However, this was not to be. A Lively Legacy lasted just three weeks, playing Albany, Washington, DC, and Baltimore.

The Fires of Religion and Theatres George, William, and Edward Hanlon’s longevity, resourcefulness, and sheer determination were extraordinary, a fact that did not go unnoticed in the press. Edward became deeply involved in the Masons; William busied himself with inventions and scenarios for future shows. More surprising, in January 1892 George decided to devote himself to religion. Based largely on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, he ministered to the poor and frail for nearly twelve years.40 Despite his new calling, George remained peripherally involved in the family’s business. Returning to stage in 1904, he managed a Superba company that featured his sons. Yet he remained steadfast in his religious beliefs. A Pittsburgh correspondent noted, “There is one fact about the Superba Company which will probably be a surprise to many. The organization is a little religious colony in itself, and it is fast becoming a Christian Scientist community. . . . George Hanlon is extremely religious and has encouraged the members of his company in their study of Christian Science.”41 In 1907, George hosted a reception and dinner honoring his seventieth year on the stage. Clearly, the years agreed with him. A correspondent for the New York Dramatic Mirror remarked, “Mr. Hanlon is still as hale and hearty as many men less than half his age.”42 Continuing good health aside, at a time when many of their peers were retiring why did the Hanlons return to the road each year? After all, they were aging, they resided in seaside homes, and they sported extended families. More exactingly, they’d been before the public their entire lives. Why not retire? Was retirement an option for them? A series of three devastating fires may have kept the brothers working well into their twilight years, determined to keep themselves fiscally solvent. In 1914, a fourth fire likely decimated any hopes they had of retiring in comfort.The family had little to say about their setbacks, characteristically attempting to smooth over misfortunes and squabbles. Still, the losses suffered by the Hanlons were significant; that they occurred in the twilight of their careers was all the more damaging. Poorly insured, the family’s savings may have quite literally gone up in flames.

127

Fig. 20. A poster advertising the Hanlons’ short-lived A Lively Legacy. Fittingly, the massive poster is incomplete, still needing paint on its lower portion. Courtesy Library of Congress.


Cleveland saw a spate of theatre fires in 1892, leaving many to wonder if an arsonist was at work. The Academy of Music suffered a blaze on 8 September; the Star Theatre was set aflame on 1 November. A fire near the Lyceum was quickly extinguished on 26 October. Yet the fire at Cleveland’s Euclid Avenue Opera House, the city’s most treasured playhouse, was catastrophic. On 29 October 1892, the Hanlons’ Superba was nearing the end of a weeklong stay at the Euclid Avenue Opera House. At 8:30 on a Saturday morning, a fire broke out, claiming the entire theatre and Superba’s costumes and machinery in addition to the performers’ personal effects, valued at 10,000. A glut of other fires plagued Cleveland on that same day—perhaps in imitation of the spectacular blaze at the Euclid Avenue Opera House. Interviewed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, William Hanlon was asked about his losses: “It will not be less than 30,000. It will cost between 20,000 and 30,000 to put the show on the stage again. Insurance, I had none. Yesterday I told the management to telegraph for insurance and it was their intention to do so today. Last week we had our other show, ‘Fantasma,’ insured. . . . The only thing I saw that was saved was one of our mechanical cats. It escaped with one ear, one leg and one tail missing. Its hair was also singed.”43 Although the manager of Cleveland’s Lyceum offered the company’s thirtyfive members a benefit performance, they opted to retreat to Cohasset, Massachusetts. Here, Superba was rebuilt quickly, no doubt pulling from materials and set pieces that the Hanlons had in stock from previous years. Just six weeks later, Superba reopened at Taylor’s Opera House in Trenton, New Jersey, for performances on 8–10 December, followed by holiday engagements in Philadelphia and New York City. Commenting on the shows at Philadelphia’s Empire Theatre, a correspondent for the New York Clipper announced that the pantomime featuring “new and bright scenery and novel tricks, drew good audiences last week.”44 Just over a year later, the Hanlon Brothers suffered another disastrous fire on 2 January 1894, this time in Boston. Having enjoyed a profitable holiday-week engagement at the Boston Globe, the Hanlons’ Superba was destroyed in the early morning hours when an electric wire in a cloakroom overheated—thankfully, hours after the conclusion of a packed evening performance. With a capacity of 2,200, the Boston Globe—one of the city’s most handsome—was razed: “The trusses and supports of the back galleries are down, and the stage is burned through, so that no one can tell now where the front of the stage was or where its sides. It all lies open to the sky, and the roof has descended to the floor, carrying with it the galleries. On all sides huge iron girders and stays are bent and twisted as if they were sticks of solder bent in a blowpipe.”45 Minimally insured, the theatre’s owner John Stetson was estimated to lose 300,000. Following

129


the Cleveland catastrophe, William Hanlon may have learned the benefits of insurance and now held a policy with the German-American and Home Companies. William estimated his loss at 75,000, a figure significantly higher than in Cleveland. Perhaps he was taking into account lost revenues. Following the fire, William disbanded Superba’s company rather than attempt to rebuild midseason. The disaster forced the Hanlons to cancel the second week of their holiday stay at the Boston Globe, always a profitable run.46 The day after the fire, 164 people went to the theatre expecting to see a performance of Superba. With the Globe in ruins, these would-be audiences were chastised by the Boston newspapers. Having decided to forgo the duration of the 1894 winter and spring, William and his company missed promisingly lucrative engagements through the South and West, including Atlanta, New Orleans, Denver, and San Francisco. Seventy members of the troupe were immediately unemployed, including twenty-four backstage personnel. Contortionist Demonio estimated his personal loss at 2,500. In a Boston Globe editorial, Demonio said of him and his partner Carl Pantzer, “All our scenery, trick paraphernalia, and costumers were destroyed. Besides this my trunk containing all I had in the world with 185 in money went up in the flames. I estimate my lost at 2500 and I tell you it is a hard thing for a performer, and means quite an unhappy New Year for me.”47 Nine years later, Superba suffered a third fire on 18 December 1894. Following an engagement at the Richmond Theatre in North Adams, Massachusetts, Superba was awaiting transportation to a Fitchburg, Massachusetts, performance when one of the company’s train cars containing scenery caught fire. As the firefighters doused the blaze, a second car of scenery suffered significant water damage.48 Because of the fire, the Hanlons were forced to cancel a brief run in Fitchburg. More agonizing, the company missed its promising two-week holiday engagement at Boston’s Majestic Theatre. William Hanlon estimated his loss at 15,000, partially insured. The company again retreated to Cohasset. The New York Clipper reported, “The day following the fire work was begun at Cohasset on a new production, which will be even more elaborate than the one lost. A double shift is working night and day to get the production ready in time.”49 For 1903–1904, Superba was the sole Hanlon offering touring North America. No doubt stock scenery and effects were quickly mounted and prepared. The setback kept the company off the road for just over three weeks, reopening in Worcester on 11 January 1904 before moving to Boston for a two-week stay later that month. Meanwhile, the profession turned its attention to the Iroquois Theatre disaster in Chicago, a conflagration that claimed over 600 lives during a 30 December 1903 performance.50 Following the North Adams fire, the Boston Globe admitted, “The Hanlons have had hard luck in regard to fires.”51 While George, William, and Edward were characteristically mute, the lost revenues kept the family working long

130


after many of their peers were retiring from the business. Attempting to save enough money to secure their retirement, the Hanlon Brothers’ Fantasma and Superba continued to tour. Often, two companies were on the road in the same season. Then, on 6 April 1912, Fantasma closed in Toronto. The Hanlons’ annual pantomime tours had come to a halt, thus ending a thirty-year tradition of American popular entertainment. Despite their advanced age, the Hanlons continued to dabble in popular entertainment, branching out to experiment in early film. In 1914, George Hanlon and his son George Jr. prepared a high-profile, cinematic version of Fantasma for Thomas Edison’s Edison Company. Aided by his father, the younger Hanlon composed the screenplay for the five-reel film. 52 The film was shot on “one of the finest estates in Connecticut” in the late summer of 1914, taking advantage of the natural sunlight for the outdoor scenes.53 For this celluloid version of Fantasma, George Jr. played the clown Pico, a part he had played numerous times in the pantomime’s stage versions. The film also featured opera singer William Carleton as the demon Zamaliel and Marie La Manna playing the princess. George Schrode, whose acrobatic family had long been associated with stage versions of Fantasma and Superba, appeared as a demon. Across their careers, the Hanlons booked their pantomimes into the nation’s largest cities during the winter holidays, typically for multiple weeks. For the film version of Fantasma, New York audiences were promised a Christmas 1914 premiere, with a wider release scheduled for early 1915. Promotional materials declared, “’Fantasma,’ the most famous spectacle and the greatest moneymaker ever produced by the celebrated Hanlon Brothers, makes even a better fantasy in the film than on the stage where it has been popular for 30 years.”54 Viewing an early screening of the film, a critic marveled at the scenic detail—an undersea view, a haunted house, cavorting sprites, and “a flower bedecked chariot which careful scrutiny shows to be one of the ubiquitous Fords.”55 Sadly, the Hanlons’ film version of Fantasma was seen by infinitely fewer audiences than anyone had intended. On 9 December 1914, fire broke out at Edison’s West Orange, New Jersey, film factory. Chemicals used in the finishing process were thought to have blown up in an explosion heard throughout the city. The New York Times reported, “The large quantity of film in the building burned with almost the rapidity of gunpowder. Its highly combustible nature made each roll flash like a quick fuse.”56 Edison estimated his loss at seven million dollars. Miraculously, just one person died in the fire, but ten buildings and their contents were burned to the ground. One of those buildings was a storage facility holding reels of the Hanlons’ recently completed Fantasma. While a few complete reels had been shipped earlier in the week, the majority were awaiting transport to the nation’s new movie houses. Those were destroyed in the inferno.

131


Reel one of the five-reel film is on file at the Library of Congress, providing tantalizing glimpses into the Hanlons’ stage magic. The film opens with eight chorus girls in a choreographed dance. After some flirtatious zigzags toward the camera and a series of kicks and poses, the chorines open their arms and reveal cardboard letters. Naturally, they spell out Fantasma. Then the film moves to the garden of a palatial mansion where Arthur and Lena court each other. Surreptitiously, the lovers are watched by two minions in the employ of the villainous Zamaliel. They retreat to Zamaliel’s fiery lair, where imps—costumed in leotards emblazoned with bones—perform somersaults and leaps. The two sprites summon Zamaliel to the garden. Upon his arrival, Zamaliel announces (in the form of an intertitle): Once more I come upon the earth to cast My spell upon this youth, to hold him fast. His promised bride shall vanish from his sight, His day of love shall change to darkest night. He casts a spell over a rosebush, then withdraws behind a tree to watch. There, the Library of Congress’s first reel ends, presumably just moments before Arthur picks a rose for Lena. Unfortunately, the extant film includes no footage of the clown Pico, played by George Hanlon Jr. Fire, which had all but ruined the Hanlons’ hopes for a leisurely retirement, also decimated the family’s film legacy.

132

7 Legacy

I

The End of the Line

n 1915, a year after the fire at Edison’s Film Factory, the Hanlons closed their Scenic Studio in Cohasset. Shortly thereafter, George, William, and Edward relocated from their beloved seaside homes in Cohasset and Cos Cob for more modest lodgings. In their uneasy retirement, the three surviving Hanlons were rarely together. Rather, they continued to trade on their valued surname and the idea of family bonds, a tradition continued by their children. However, in February 1921, George, William, and Edward reunited for a widely reported benefit dubbed the “Hanlon Matinée.” The reunion marked one of the last times that the three were together. Edward’s daughter Alice was appearing in a revival of the comic opera Erminie at New York’s Park Theatre. The Erminie company elected to tender the three stage veterans a benefit, perhaps in an attempt to bolster the

133

legacy

brothers’ sagging bank accounts. George, still flirting with the ministry, journeyed from Detroit to attend; William came from the Staten Island Actor’s Home; Edward took the subway from his West Side apartment. The New York Times took notice of the event, remarking, “The fact that there will be a ‘Hanlon Matinée’ of ‘Erminie’ this week will probably tap a reminiscent chord in practically every playgoer over 25 years of age. ‘Fantasma,’ ‘Superba’ and ‘Le Voyage en Suisse’—these were the most celebrated of the extravaganzas which ‘The Renowned Hanlons’ used to carry over the country.”1 As he left the theatre, Edward remarked, “I have enjoyed every minute of my life, even the falls.”2 Following the performance, the three brothers and their families retired to a rented space in an undisclosed restaurant. When he left Cohasset in 1915, William moved into the Actors’ Home on Staten Island, a retirement home for aging members of the theatrical profession. Until his death on 8 February 1923, he remained active painting the home’s furniture and walls.3 George split time between his ministry in the Upper Midwest and his sons’ homes in New York City, continuing to tour with them in a highly regarded vaudeville act into the early 1920s. He was struck and killed by a Manhattan taxi in 1926. His death was ironic in light of a remark his brother Edward made in 1921. Reflecting on a career built largely on courting danger, Edward stated, “We don’t think we were any more exposed to danger than the fellows who cross Broadway, Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, or Columbus Circle in between the cops’ whistles.”4 Unlike his brothers, Edward left the Northeast United States in 1924 and relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida. Judging from extant letters to his children, he spent most of his last years complaining about the heat.5 He died in 1931. However, the Hanlon family continued its influence on the American stage well into the twentieth century, primarily through George Hanlon’s sons. Beginning in the 1890s, the three took active parts in the management and production of their father and uncles’ stage vehicles. When the production of spectacle pantomime was shelved, the three toured a vaudeville routine titled Just Phor Phun. The show included a number of routines and scenic gags first popularized in the Hanlons’ pantomime productions.6 Joined by their septuagenarian father, the four toured Europe through 1914, when they were forced to return to the United States due to the onset of the Great War. Will and Fred Hanlon continued to play European and American variety stages with a series of highly regarded clown scenes. As late as 1930, the pair could be seen in vaudeville, continuing to stage abbreviated versions of routines first produced in the pantomime spectacles’ Fantasma and Superba. Seeing Will and Fred’s specialty act at New York’s Hippodrome, a Billboard reporter noted,

134

legacy

“The act gets started with gab between a Dutch hotel proprietor and one of the Hanlon boys, who works as a bellhop in clown makeup. The latter follows with a bit which highlights the act. He supposedly works in front of a mirror, but it later turns out that he was doing the stunt with his brother. . . . They manage to get lots of laughs out of it.” 7 The long-lived “Magic Mirror,” as the Hanlon Brothers termed it, was first unveiled in the 1892 version of Superba. But subsequent film comedians borrowed the routine, perhaps most notably Charles Chaplin in The Floorwalker (1916) and the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup (1933). After they left vaudeville, Will and Fred Hanlon continued to work with a series of European and American circuses. By 1950, they could be found in the clown alley of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. 8 With the two performing in the big top’s center ring, circus ballyhoo reported that the two sported the clown makeup first popularized in Superba and Fantasma. Thus the Hanlon Brothers continued to influence the course of popular entertainment through much of the twentieth century. Will and Fred’s brother, George Hanlon Jr., frequently worked apart from his brothers. Shortly after George Jr.’s return to the United States in 1914, he starred in a cinematic version of Fantasma for the Edison Company. Hanlon Jr. composed the screenplay for the five-reel film and played the clown Pico.9 Reviews of the film were quite good, with one critic opining, “There is a number of excellent touches of humor, well calculated to keep the audience laughing. . . . The scenic effects are deserving of special mention.”10 Regrettably, it was the only attempt by a person directly related to the Hanlon Brothers to capture their stage magic on celluloid.11 George Hanlon Jr. remained in vaudeville and burlesque for much of his career. When he teamed up with Ferry Corwey, the pair became highly regarded sketch writers and performers. Perhaps George Jr.’s best-remembered routine was the bubble that seemed to encase a beautiful chorine as she sang “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.”12 In addition, George Jr. wrote gags for Ed Wynn, “the perfect fool.” For Wynn’s 1937 production Hurray for What? George Jr. recreated the “Demon Inn,” a trick hotel set first popularized in his father and uncles’ late-nineteenth-century pantomimes. Featuring an intoxicated traveler, hallucinations, wandering boots, imps, and a madcap chase, the Hanlons’ version of the longlived routine was first presented in the 1884 premiere of Fantasma. Subsequently, Georges Méliès presented his own versions of this routine in his films L’Auberge Ensorcelée (1897) and L’Auberge du Bon Repos (1902). In 1906, J. Stuart Blackton produced a similar film for Vitagraph titled The Haunted House.13 On the variety stage, in the circus ring, and on the big screen, the Hanlon Brothers continued to make their influence felt, long after their deaths.

135

legacy

The Edisons of Pantomime Across seven decades, the Hanlon Brothers entertained audiences around the globe. Their longevity is staggering. In varying and wildly diverse fields of theatrical specialization, they managed to rise to the top of their selected professions. The family was protean in their ability to reinvent themselves at significant moments in their careers. Their capacity to alter their field of specialty as they aged allowed them to remain the theatrical profession’s leading producers for most of their lifetimes. Although the French performer Jules Léotard is inextricably linked to the flying trapeze, the Hanlon-Lees were perhaps the foremost innovators and performers of the aerial arts in the nineteenth century. Their Zampillaerostation, “leap for life,” and gymnastic stunts amazed theatre crowds. The daredevil stunts claimed the life of oldest brother Thomas Hanlon in 1868 due to the effects of a fall three years earlier. Gradually, the brothers turned their attentions to the production of macabre, knockabout pantomimes in the Parisian music halls, fusing their acrobatic talents with the traditions of France’s beloved Pierrot. Lasting fame came in 1879 when the Hanlon-Lees opened Le Voyage en Suisse at the venerated Folies-Bergère. After 400 nights in Europe, the production was brought to London and New York. Seeking new audiences and a permanent home, in 1881 the remaining five brothers settled in the United States, a young country with which they were intimately linked. By the mid-1880s, just George, William, and Edward remained. In the tiny Massachusetts town of Cohasset, they erected a scenic studio to create gags for their final two productions, Fantasma (1884) and Superba (1890). Until the Hanlons retired from the production of pantomime in 1912, an entirely reworked version of either show was sent on the road each year, with all new machinery and technical gags. Borrowing heavily from English pantomime and the French féerie, the Hanlons evolved a unique theatrical style that combined breathtaking acrobatics with trick scenery, novel illusions, and wild, often violent, knockabout comedy. A French journalist called the Hanlons “the Edisons of pantomime,”14 due to the fact that the brothers virtually reinvented pantomime with their melding of panto and féerie. And given their innovative stage machinery, the comment was particularly salient. Although the brothers were not native-born Americans (they were born in Manchester, England), the Hanlons’ careers did have similarities with the American inventor Thomas A. Edison. Theirs was a comedy that relied on precise timing and mechanical ingenuity. Likewise, through much of the nineteenth century, the United States was rapidly mechanizing and placing increasing emphasis on speed and inventiveness. This was an interesting parallel to the Hanlons’

136

legacy

stage entertainments. Many contemporary critics marveled at the mechanical ingenuity of their signature play Le Voyage en Suisse. “All the tricks, traps and surprises harmonize and move as smoothly and correctly as if the entire work was a piece of machinery.”15 In addition, the Hanlons, like Edison, were inventors. The brothers could apparently overcome any obstacle, whether it be a determined police officer, a stage “heavy,” a technological difficulty, or the pull of gravity. They developed and patented a number of ingenious theatrical devices—dismembering machines, beheading blocks, revolves, moveable wings, and the aerial safety net.16 Most were devised by William Hanlon in his Cohasset studio. Fred Hanlon, George Hanlon’s son, remembered his Uncle William as an easily distracted man who would be struck by inspiration without warning: “One of my uncles was an inventive genius. His mind was always bent on discovering new ideas for properties. A friend in conversation with him would see his eye grow first restless, and then vague. Soon he would get up with a muttered apology and inspect some object, perhaps a door. Then he would make a hasty note in his ever-ready book, come to earth again, and make his apologies even more profuse.”17 Over the course of their lengthy careers, the Hanlons innovated and reinvigorated theatrical practice while entertaining generations of theatregoers. The Hanlons’ sheer speed also symbolized the United States. A frenetic pace of action characterized their pantomimes. An 1873 writer noted that their style of pantomime was “feverish, saccaded, and of an almost ferocious gaiety. . . . All was action . . . slaps, kicks, boxing of ears, and dishevelled runs on and off the stage.”18 By 1879, the focal points of their pantomime Le Voyage en Suisse were a stagecoach and train. Ironically, the two transportation devices were incapacitated by the end of the production. However, despite the technical failures, speed was never compromised. By the 1880s, the Hanlons had successfully morphed into Americans. Speed, technical know-how, creativity, humor—all were traits of the U.S. citizen. The Hanlons applied these traits to their long-lived pantomimes Fantasma and Superba. Surveying the dramatic scene in 1889, Brander Matthews debunked the theory of the “decline of the drama.” In perhaps his most interesting statement, he proclaimed, “Invention and ingenuity are recognized characteristics of our nation. A sense of humor is another quality not to be denied to us.”19 The Hanlons, a family of six English-born brothers who had circumnavigated the globe while still children and perfected their craft in Paris before settling in the United States, bore the essence of these desired traits. Their careers and their lasting influence demonstrate those qualities.

137

Notes Bibliography Index

Notes Introduction 1. “The Hanlons: A Family Whom Fun Keeps Young,” New York Times, 3 December 1905. 2. [Richard Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees (Paris: Reverchon et Vollet, 1880). 3. Théodore de Banville, introduction to [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 5. For an English translation of the introduction, see Richard Southern, “Théodore de Banville and the Hanlon-Lees Troupe,” Theatre Notebook 2 (July–September 1948): 70–75. 4. John A. McKinven, The Hanlon Brothers: Their Amazing Acrobatics, Pantomimes, and Stage Spectacles (Glenwood, IL: David Meyer Magic Books, 1998). 5. Martha Blair Sheppard, Leap for Life: The Story of the Incredible Hanlon Brothers (Cohasset, MA: Cohasset Historical Society, 1999). 6. For example, see Richard Southern, “Visions of Leaps,” Life and Letters Today 30 (July 1941): 219–227; Tristan Rémy, Les Clowns (Paris: Éditions Bernard Frasset, 1945); John H. Towsen, Clowns (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1976); Robert Storey, Pierrots on the Stage of Desire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); and Joseph Sokalski, “From Screen to Stage: A Case Study for the Paper Print Collection,” Nineteenth Century Theatre 25 (Winter 1997): 115–30. 7. “Half a Century an Acrobat,” Boston Sunday Globe, 28 November 1909. 1. Prepping for Pantomime: The Hanlon Brothers’ Fame and Tragedy, 1833–1870 1. There has been a great deal of confusion over the Hanlons’ correct birth dates, much of it fueled by the brothers themselves, who tended to exaggerate their youth. The years given here were kindly supplied by the Cathedral of Manchester, England. When their boys were baptized, the Hanlons’ parents supplied dates of birth for each child. These records were in the church’s archives. 2. See “Frederick Hanlon,” New York Clipper, 15 May 1886, 139.

141

notes to pages 7–11 3. “Alfred Hanlon: Another of the Famous Family of Acrobats Gone,” New York Times, 27 June 1886, 3. 4. “Patriarchs of the Stage Will Assemble to Honor Geo. Hanlon,” New York Telegraph, 11 June 1907. 5. “Half a Century an Acrobat,” Boston Sunday Globe, 28 November 1909. 6. Untitled article from the New York Mirror, 8 March 1884. 7. “The Hanlon Brothers,” New York Clipper, 18 August 1866, 146. 8. “The Terrific Leap at Niblo’s Garden, from an Aerial Apparatus,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 28 January 1860, 134. Naturally enough, an illustration of Thomas Hanlon’s routine accompanied the story. 9. Gossard, “A Reckless Era of Aerial Performance,” 39. 10. Antony Hippisley Coxe, A Seat at the Circus (London: Evans Bros., 1951), 78. 11. The playbill is on file in the Hanlons Star File, Harvard Theatre Collection. 12. The playbill is on file in the Hanlon-Lees Star File, Harvard Theatre Collection. 13. The playbill is reprinted in Thomas Walton, “Entortilationists,” Life and Letters Today 29 (April 1941): 27. 14. Two scrapbooks on file at the University of Iowa’s Department of Special Collections contain a trove of primary material on the Hanlon-Lees careers through the early 1860s. In all likelihood, the two volumes were once the property of John Lees, as many of the notices, poems, and proclamations are addressed to him. An anonymous author lovingly transcribed a large collection of newspaper clippings, embellishing them with finely drawn calligraphy. In an introduction to the collection, the writer states his purpose to be “to show all praises that in different times have been attributed to these artists in all newspapers, not just Spanish ones, but rather in the most accredited dailies of all foreign nations. . . . We have freely copied from those newspapers in Europe, which are expressed as follows.” (This and all Spanish translations are by Alexis Greenblatt.) Upon Lees’ death in 1855, the scrapbooks were probably passed to one of the Hanlons, as there are also several pieces on their careers in the early 1860s. Infinitely less reliable information on the Hanlons’ early years abroad with John Lees are their remembrances published in Richard Lesclide’s Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees (Paris: Reverchon et Vollet, 1880) and scattered throughout the later promotional puffery that accompanied their pantomime career in the United States. 15. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 24–25. Except where noted, all French translations are my own. 16. An illustration of this routine is on a playbill for the troupe dated 12 and 13 July 1848, at Edinburgh’s Victoria Temple. The playbill is on file at the Harvard Theatre Collection. 17. El Fomento [Barcelona, Spain], 22 December 1847. Hand-printed transcription on file at the University of Iowa, Special Collections. 18. Undated article which appeared in Dos Pobres [Oporto, Portugal]. Handprinted transcription on file at the University of Iowa, Special Collections. 19. El Diario [Granada, Spain], 13 February 1848. 20. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 29. 21. Both proclamations are contained in scrapbooks on file at the University of Iowa’s Special Collections Department.

142

notes to pages 12–17 22. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 64. 23. La Prensa [Havana, Cuba], 31 December 1855. 24. “Half a Century an Acrobat,” Boston Sunday Globe, 28 November 1909. 25. T. Allston Brown, “The Theatre in America,” New York Clipper, 26 March 1892, 36. Several writers have claimed that the Hanlons made an appearance at New York’s Niblo’s Garden during this period, including Brown in the above-mentioned piece. However, I have not been able to document this visit conclusively. I have examined playbills from Niblo’s Garden and the New York Clipper for this period and found no mention of the family. Furthermore, John Purdy Blair Jr. in “Productions at Niblo’s Garden Theatre, 1849–1862” (Ph.D. diss., University of Georgia, 1982) does not mention the Hanlons until January 1860 with Cooke’s Royal Amphitheatre. 26. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 65. 27. The testimonial is part of a page written in elaborate calligraphy in the scrapbook on file at the University of Iowa’s Department of Special Collections. 28. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 68. This act, and a number of other routines from the Hanlon Brothers’ repertoire, are illustrated in a series of drawings contained in the scrapbooks on file at the University of Iowa’s Department of Special Collections. 29. This remarkable piece is contained in the scrapbooks on file at the University of Iowa’s Department of Special Collections. 30. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 73. 31. See David Carlyon, Dan Rice: The Most Famous Man You’ve Never Heard Of (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001). 32. William L. Slout, “The Adventures of James M. Nixon, Forgotten Impresario,” Bandwagon 41 (July–August 1997): 7. 33. The playbill is on file in the Hanlons Star File, Harvard Theatre Collection. 34. “Niblo’s Garden,” New York Times, 17 January 1860, 5. 35. New York Clipper, 28 January 1860, 326. 36. New York Spirit of the Times, 11 February 1860, 12. 37. New York Spirit of the Times, 25 February 1860, 36. 38. A playbill advertising these routines, dated 4 February 1860, is on file at the Harvard Theatre Collection. 39. New York Clipper, 28 January 1860, 326. 40. New York Spirit of the Times, 3 March 1860, 40. 41. Eugene Tompkins and Quincy Kilby, The History of the Boston Theatre, 1854– 1901 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1908), 80–81. Kilby was treasurer of the Boston Theatre and had a long association with the Hanlon Brothers. He composed several versions of their pantomime Superba and was a close friend of William Hanlon. 42. T. Allston Brown, “The Theatre in America,” New York Clipper, 26 March 1892, 36. 43. Gossard, “A Reckless Era of Aerial Performance,” 49. 44. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 66–67. 45. T. Allston Brown, “The Theatre in America,” New York Clipper, 26 March 1892, 36. 46. A series of playbills are on file at the Harvard Theatre Collection. 47. The Cowells in America: Being the Diary of Mrs. Sam Cowell during Her Husband’s Concert Tour in the Years 1860–1861, ed. M. Willson Disher (London: Oxford

143

notes to pages 17–23 University Press, 1934), 136–37. The journal entry is dated 31 July 1860. Mrs. Cowell mistakenly identified Thomas as “James Hanlon.” For another account of the accident, see New York Clipper, 26 August 1865, 58–59. 48. The Cowells in America, 144. The journal entry is dated 15 August 1860. 49. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 73. 50. See Mary Panzer, Mathew Brady and the Image of History (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997). 51. For a book-length study of Fox, see Laurence Senelick, The Age and Stage of George L. Fox, 1825–1877 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999). 52. Advertisement, New York Times, 8 December 1861. 53. “A Family of Gymnasts,” The Times [Philadelphia], 24 February 24 1884. 54. Descriptions of Zampillaerostation are plentiful. See “Academy of Music,” New York Times, 13 December 1861; T. Allston Brown, “The Theatre in America,” New York Clipper, 26 March 1892, 36; Steve Gossard, “A Reckless Era of Aerial Performance, the Evolution of Trapeze” (unpublished manuscript, Normal, IL); George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), vol. 7; “William Hanlon,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 14 December 1861; and “Zampillaerostation,” New York Clipper, 21 December 1861. 55. New York Clipper, 16 December 1861. 56. “Zampillaerostation,” [New York] Evening Post, 13 December 1861. 57. A copy of the cover illustration and music is in the T-Iconography File, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. A copy of the sheet music’s cover, without the music, is on file at the Harvard Theatre Collection. 58. See Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (Hartford, CT: American Publishing, 1870), 213–14. 59. Unidentified, undated clipping titled “Exit William Hanlon,” on file at the Harvard Theatre Collection. 60. Playbills for this run are on file at the San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum, San Francisco, CA. 61. The acrostic is contained in the scrapbooks on file at the University of Iowa’s Department of Special Collections. 62. I have uncovered few documents chronicling this phase of the Hanlons’ careers. The Iowa scrapbooks contain several flowery tributes from noblemen in Argentina and Brazil. These few sources make clear that just Thomas, George, William, and Alfred were together at this time. T. Allston Brown places the four in Western Europe following their South American tour. 63. New York Clipper, 21 January 1865. 64. “Accident,” New York Clipper, 26 August 1865, 58. 65. “Death of Thomas Hanlon,” New York Clipper, 11 April 1868, 7. 66. Karl-Heinz Ziethen, 4,000 Years of Juggling (Sainte-Genevieve, France: Éditions Michel Poignant, 1981), 1: 103. 67. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 85–86. 68. Completed in 1829, Baltimore’s Washington Monument still stands on Charles Street. Another version of the story is related in Paul Hugounet, Mime et Pierrots (Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 1889), 198–200. 69. “Wood’s New Theatre,” New York Clipper, 27 January 1866, 334.

144

notes to pages 24–31 70. George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), 8: 80. 71. Undated newspaper clipping from the New York Telegraph, on file in the Locke Collection, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 72. See playbills on file at the Harvard Theatre Collection. 73. “The Hanlon Brothers,” New York Clipper, 25 August, 1866, 158. 74. New York Clipper, 21 July 1866, 118. 75. New York Clipper, 1 September 1866, 166. 76. Unidentified clipping on file at the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department, Boston Public Library. 77. George B. Kirsch discusses this phenomenon in his book Sports in North America: A Documentary History. Vol. 4, Sports in War, Revival, and Expansion, 1860–1880 (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1995). 78. For more on the Turnerbund movement, see Emmett Ainsworth Rice, A Brief History of Physical Education (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1926) and Henry Metzner, A Brief History of the American Turnerbund (Pittsburgh: National Executive Committee of the American Turnerbund, 1924). 79. Dioclesian Lewis, The New Gymnastics for Men, Women, and Children (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864), 9. 80. Lewis, The New Gymnastics, 60. 81. Lewis, The New Gymnastics, 62. 82. “A Family of Gymnasts,” [Philadelphia] Times, 24 February, 1884. 83. Previously most colleges had argued that physical education was a waste of time and resources. See Fred Eugene Leonard, A Guide to the History of Physical Education (Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger, 1947). 84. “The Young Men’s Christian Association: Shall It Be a Club?” New York Times, 18 July 1869. 85. New York Clipper, 8 December 1866, 279. 86. New York Clipper, 18 August 1866, 150. 87. The undated blurb appears on a playbill for the company at the Boston Theatre, dated October 21, 1867. The playbill is part of the Hanlons Star File, Harvard Theatre Collection. 88. New York Clipper, 19 January 1867, 326. 89. New York Clipper, 30 March 1867, 407. 90. New York Clipper, 28 March 1868. 91. New York Spirit of the Times, 14 March 1868, 64. 92. “A Family of Gymnasts,” Philadelphia Times, 24 February 1884. 93. “Death of Thomas Hanlon,” New York Clipper, 11 April 1868, 7. 94. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 97. 95. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 97. 96. Mark Twain, “Taming the Bicycle,” The Complete Essays of Mark Twain (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), 557. 97. For more on the development of the velocipede, see George B. Kirsch, ed., Sports in North America: A Documentary History. Vol. 4: Sports in War, Revival, and Expansion, 1860–1880 (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1995), 101–7.

145

notes to pages 31–37 98. Both patents are on file at the Library of Congress. 99. “The Velocipede Mania,” New York Clipper, 26 September 1868. 100. “First Uses of Velocipede,” Pittsburgh Post, 3 January 1911. 101. See New York Clipper, 7 November 1868. By the time of Léotard’s American debut in October 1868, the stunts of the Hanlons, Pfau, and the Gregory Brothers, a rival aerial family, were judged to have far outstripped those of the French acrobat. Making his American debut at New York’s Academy of Music (the same hall where William Hanlon had debuted Zampillaerostation in 1861), Léotard lasted just three nights±a complete bust. The writer for the New York Clipper stated, “A greater failure has seldom been witnessed in this country. . . . Pfau does everything that Leotard performed on his opening night and awakens as much, if not at times more enthusiasm than Leotard. . . . That he is a graceful and daring performer no one can deny, but there are others equally as good as he is in every respect, and one of these is Pfau.” For an equally uncharitable review of the French innovator, see New York Times, 30 October 1868. 102. “The Hanlons at Tammany,” an unidentified newspaper clipping on file at the Harvard Theatre Collection, hand-dated 25 November 1869. 103. See New York Clipper, 5 February 1870. The news was subsequently reported in the Era, 16 October 1870. 104. New York Evening Post, 6 November 1869. See the New York Clipper, 13 November 1869, for a lengthy review of the Hanlons’ performances at Tammany Hall. 105. Fay Stevenson, “Live to Tell Tale after Fifty Years of Daredevil Stunts,” [New York] Evening World Daily Magazine, 24 February 1921. 106. New York Clipper, 5 February 1870. 107. Michael B. Leavitt, Fifty Years in Theatrical Management (New York: Broadway Publishing, 1912), 271–72. Blondin was famous for crossing Niagara Falls on a tightrope and subsequent variations of the stunt. 108. NO ELECTRONIC TEXT RIGHTS FOR THIS NOTE. 109. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 97. 110. New York Clipper, 22 August 1868. 111. New York Clipper, 5 February 1870. First Interlude: Jean-Gaspard Deburau 1. Louisa E. Jones, Pierrot-Watteau: A Nineteenth Century Myth (Paris: Éditions Jean-Michel Place, 1984), 23. 2. Isabelle Baugé, Pantomimes Choisies et Préfacées par Isabelle Baugé Champfleury, Gautier, Nodier et Anonymes (Cahors, France: l’Imprimerie France Quercy, 1995), 8. 3. Paul Hugounet, Mime et Pierrots: Notes et Documents Inédits pour servir à l’histoire de la Pantomime (Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 1889), 90. 4. See Émile Goby, ed., Pantomimes de Gaspard et de Charles Deburau (Paris: E. Dentu, 1889), and Champfleury, Souvenirs des Funambules (Paris: Michel Levy frères, 1859). 5. A version of Le Boeuf Enragé is recounted in Hugounet, Mimes et Pierrots, 84–87.

146

notes to pages 37–43 6. La Baleine is included in Goby’s Pantomimes de Gaspard et de Charles Deburau, 29–33. 7. Interestingly, the Hanlon Brothers seem to have been fascinated by whales too. Although they had resided in Cohasset, Massachusetts, since 1884, in 1889 the Hanlons erected a scenic studio in the South Shore town. Naturally, whaling, boating, and fishing were topical concerns for this idyllic hamlet’s denizens. Underwater scenes populated by mermaids, octopus, lobsters, and whales were frequently featured in the Hanlon Brothers’ subsequent pantomimes Fantasma and Superba. But the 1899 version of Superba actually included a scene set inside a whale. Playbills on file at the Harvard Theatre Collection indicate that the scene was resoundingly similar to that staged by Deburau. In John McKinven’s The Hanlon Brothers: Their Amazing Acrobatics, Pantomimes, and Stage Shows (Glenwood, IL: David Meyer Magic Books, 1998), there is a color plate of the poster from the 1899 version of Superba depicting two clownish sailors playing cards inside a whale. The poster is part of magician Ricky Jay’s personal collection. 8. Le Duel de Pierrot ou Les Vingt-Six Infortunes de Pierrot is anthologized in Goby, Pantomimes de Gaspard et de Charles Deburau, 37–44. 9. Fans of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd will recognize countless similar scenarios featuring romantic embraces between the two adversaries. 10. Baugé, Pantomimes Choisies et Préfacées, 21. 11. Jean-Gaspard Deburau and the boulevard du Temple were immortalized in Marcel Carné’s 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis. 12. Baugé, Pantomimes Choisies et Préfacées, 22. 13. Baugé, Pantomimes Choisies et Préfacées, 11. 14. This succession of Pierrots is chronicled admirably by Robert Storey in Pierrot: A Critical History of a Mask (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978). 2. The Macabre Pantomimes of a Fermented Unconscious: 1870–1879 1. Arnold Mortier, Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1878 par un Monsieur de l’Orchestre (Paris: E. Dentu, 1879), 265. 2. The Era, 16 July 1870. 3. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 87–88. 4. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 88. 5. [London] Times, Jun 4, 1870. 6. “A New Feature in Gymnastic Appliances,” The Era, 18 December 1870. 7. “The Hanlons and Acrobatic Safety,” The Era, 10 July 1870. 8. The Era, 16 October 1870. 9. In May 1871, Edward Hanlon began a scrapbook of newspaper clippings, letters, and various ephemera surrounding his wanderings. A series of newspaper reviews in the scrapbook detail this phase of the family’s career. The scrapbook is on file at the Boston Public Library’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Department. 10. “Alhambra Palace,” The Era, 8 May 1870. 11. “The Hanlon Brothers at the Alhambra,” The Era, 5 June 1870. 12. “The Hanlon Brothers in Paris,” The Era, 15 December 1872. 13. La Vie Parisienne, 9 November 1872, printed a full-page illustration of the Hanlon Brothers’ various routines during this time. The page is included in Han-

147

notes to pages 43–46 lons’ European scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Department. In his lovingly illustrated book The Hanlon Brothers, John McKinven reproduces the image on page 32. 14. Storey, Pierrots on the Stage of Desire, 184. 15. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 93. 16. Thomas Walton, “Entortilationists,” Life and Letters 29 (1941): 28. 17. Walton, “Entortilationists,” 28–29. 18. Storey, Pierrots on the Stage of Desire, 184. 19. Jules Claretie, Le Soir, 3 February 1873. 20. “The Hanlon Brothers in Paris,” The Era, 15 December 1872. 21. Le Temps, 3 November 1872. See also La Vie Parisienne, 9 November 1872 and L’Univers Illustre, 16 November 1872. 22. Mortier, Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1878, 264. 23. L’Entracte, 12 November 1872. 24. The Era, 13 December 1874. 25. By the mid-twentieth century, Fred and Will Hanlon—two of George Hanlon’s sons—were clowning with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. In an interesting letter dated 2 May 1950, Fred Hanlon responded to an author’s inquiry on the history of the flying trapeze. Fred Hanlon was unsure if Jules Léotard or the Hanlons had first invented the aerial device. However, he did recall that “Bob & Will [two of the Hanlon Midgets] . . . were permitted to use the name Hanlon through friendly association after the original Hanlons gave up the flying trapeze.” This is another example of the Hanlons (this time one of the sons!) rewriting history. The letter is on file at the Circus World Museum, Baraboo, Wisconsin. Early in his career, Fred had implored a vaudeville act to stop using the name Hanlon. In 1910, the La Dent Trio of Acrobats rechristened themselves the Three Hanlons, much to Fred Hanlon’s chagrin, particularly since he and his brothers along with his father George Hanlon Sr. were planning to introduce a pantomime specialty that coming summer. See “Editorial,” Variety, 16 April 1910. 26. See Hugues Le Roux and Jules Garnier, Les Jeux du Cirque et la Vie Foraine (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et Compagnie, 1889). Admirably illustrated, but published in a highly truncated form, is the English “translation” Acrobats and Mountebanks, trans. A. P. Morton (London: Chapman and Hall, Limited, 1890). 27. The Era, 25 November 1877. 28. New York Clipper, 1 September 1877, 184. 29. The Era, 27 January 1878. 30. William O’Mara briefly left the Hanlon Midgets during the 1870s and performed under the name Maraz. In a notice placed in the Era, he wrote, “I, WILLIAM HANLON (of the Midget Hanlons), am now known as MARAZ, the ‘Eagle Swoop Diver.’” See Era, 13 April 1879. By the 1880s, the reunited Hanlon Midgets had left Europe and were once again performing in the United States, causing occasional confusion on the part of entertainment journalists. At first, they toured as the “Hanlon-Volter-Martinetti Combination.” When “William Hanlon,” né William O’Mara, fell during an aerial routine at New York’s Academy of Music, the New York Spirit of the Times cautioned, ““The Hanlons have had very few accidents; but they must not forget that age tells and that they are close upon 50 years old,” mistaking the young athlete for the père d’élève. O’Mara was using William Hanlon’s safety net at the

148

notes to pages 46–51 time, but unfortunately he missed it. See New York Spirit of the Times, 30 August 1890. For a detail-heavy account of the accident, see “Hanlon’s Terrible Fall,” New York Times, 24 August 1890. The following year, performing with Adam Forepaugh’s Circus in Clinton, Iowa, O’Mara fell once again, this time fatally breaking his neck. See New York Spirit of the Times, 11 July 1891. 31. “The Hanlons: Rehearsing Pantomime in a Cohasset Apple Orchard,” Boston Herald, 27 August 1883. 32. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 70. 33. Paul A. Davis, “Stage Veteran Now Lives in a Sunshine City Home.” An unknown clipping in Edward Hanlon’s scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. While in St. Petersburg, Edward Hanlon married his wife Frances Kaill. The couple enjoyed over fifty years together. Their wedding certificate is also on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 34. “The History of the Hanlons,” New York Mirror, 3 April 1888. 35. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 128. 36. Do, Mi Sol, Do and a number of other Hanlon pantomimes are detailed in Lesclide’s Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees. 37. Le Roux and Garnier, Acrobats and Mountebank, 294. 38. The Era Almanack Advertiser, 1878. Clipping on file at the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 39. “Hanlon-Lees,” NY Clipper, 5 November 1881, 538. 40. A. H. Saxon, “New Light on the Life of James A. Bailey,” Bandwagon 40 (November-December 1996): 5. 41. Some writers have claimed that George, William, and Alfred toured with Lees under the moniker “Hanlon-Lees.” However, I have not seen a document from the period to support this assertion. Rather, materials that I have examined show them touring as the Hanlons, the Hanlon Brothers, or simply using the surname “Lees” while masquerading as the sons of their tutor. 42. Le Roux and Garnier, Acrobats and Mountebanks, 295. 43. Le Roux and Garnier, Acrobats and Mountebanks, 295. 44. Mortier, Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1878, 264. 45. See Robert Storey’s Pierrots on the Stage of Desire and his earlier book Pierrot: A Critical History of a Mask (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978). See also Louisa E. Jones, Sad Clowns and Pale Pierrots: Literature and the Popular Comic Arts in Nineteenth-Century France (Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1984). 46. David Leslie Murray, Scenes and Silhouettes (London: Jonathan Cape, 1926), 129. 47. Émile Zola, Le Naturalisme au Théâtre (Paris: G. Charpentier, 1881), 327–34. 48. Edmond de Goncourt, Les Frères Zemganno (Paris: Charpentier, 1879), 15. 3. Le Voyage en Suisse in Europe, 1879–1881 1. The machinery and technological sophistication of the French féerie and other nineteenth-century stage shows is detailed admirably in Georges Moynet’s Trucs et Décors (Paris: Librairie Illustrée, 1893). 2. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 135. 3. Thomas Walton, “‘Entortilationists’: The Hanlon-Lees in Literature and Art,” Life and Letters Today 29 (April 1941): 29. These pantos and others are detailed in Lesclide’s Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees.

149

notes to pages 51–56 4. Untitled newspaper clipping from Le Tintamarre, 3 November 1878. The clipping is on file in Edward Hanlon’s European scrapbook, Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 5. A photograph on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts, depicts a costumed Pierrot, identified as Edward Hanlon, riding on the back of an “elephant.” The creature is obviously two unfortunate, hunched-over men with some dyed canvas stretched between them. The photograph of the unidentified pantomime (perhaps an early version of Les Cascades du Diable?) was taken by a St. Petersburg studio, in all likelihood during the Hanlons’ Russian sojourn of the mid-1870s. 6. Of course, clowns comically essaying to feed babies is an old routine, dating back at least to the sixteenth century, as evidenced in the Recueil Fossard. The Hanlons used virtually the same routine in their 1914 film version of Fantasma. 7. My reconstruction of Les Cascades du Diable is drawn from Lesclide’s summary of the pantomime in Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees. Supporting materials include an untitled newspaper review from Le Tintamarre, 3 November 1878, and several unidentified clippings, all on file in Edward Hanlon’s European scrapbook, Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 8. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 88. 9. See Erik Mattie, World’s Fairs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural, 1998). The Palais de Trocadéro was torn down in 1936 to make way for the Paris Exposition of 1937 and its signature edifice, the Palais de Chaillot. 10. Arnold Mortier, Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1878 par un Monsieur de l’Orchestre (Paris: E. Dentu, 1879), 260. 11. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 172. 12. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 172. 13. “The Hanlons: A Family Whom Fun Keeps Young,” New York Times, 3 December 1905. Unfortunately, other than William’s at times stretched memory, there is no corroborating evidence linking the Hanlons to Jacques Offenbach. However, one of Edward Hanlon’s error-filled obituaries noted, “When they were at the Folies Bergere in Paris it was suggested the Hanlons embody their skill into a play. Offenbach, composer, suggested opera and promised to turn it out for them—never completed.” See Variety, 25 March 1931. 14. The Era, 25 May 1879. 15. Mortier, Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1879 par un Monsieur de l’Orchestre (Paris: E. Dentu, 1880), 228–29. 16. Mortier, Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1879, 299. 17. Théodore de Banville, preface to [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 12. In 1948, Richard Southern published a somewhat stilted translation of de Banville’s introduction. See Richard Southern, “Théodore de Banville and the Hanlon-Lees Troupe,” Theatre Notebook 2 (July–September 1948): 70–75. 18. Mortier, Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1879, 229. 19. From an unidentified British newspaper clipping titled “Le Voyage en Suisse: Theatrical Copyright.” The clipping is part of the “Le Voyage en Suisse Programme File” at the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.The article was published in approximately 1891 when the Lauri Family was suing the Renad Brothers over the right to perform The Swiss Express, the newly retitled and updated version of Le Voyage en Suisse, in the British Isles.

150

notes to pages 56–63 20. Mortier, Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1879, 227. 21. John H. Towsen, Clowns (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1976), 181. Throughout his otherwise fine essay on the Hanlon Brothers, Towsen mysteriously renders the title of the play as A Trip to Switzerland. However, in English-speaking countries, the Hanlons always toured the play under its French title, Le Voyage en Suisse. 22. An untitled clipping from the London Figaro, 1 November 1879, 12. The clipping is in Hanlon’s European scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 23. Although Alfred Hanlon was part of the company on opening night, extant newspaper clippings indicate that by mid-October 1879 he was taking occasional extended leaves from the boards. In all likelihood, this was the beginning of the illness that would eventually kill him in 1886. Until his death, Alfred made infrequent appearances with his brothers—usually on opening night in the major cities, before withdrawing for the remainder of the run. When Alfred’s health prevented him from appearing in Le Voyage en Suisse, the show was altered so that Des Eglisottes had only two nephews rather than three. See relevant clippings in Edward Hanlon’s European scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 24. In newspaper advertisements, the Hanlons’ promoters often used Le Voyage en Suisse’s signature line, “We are all here!” alongside an illustration of the overturned coach, as a way of ensuring audiences that they were seeing the true Hanlon Brothers. For example, see Taggarts’ Times [Philadelphia], 5 February 1888, 8. Years later, burlesque artists Joe Weber and Lew Fields popularized the line “This must be the place!” in their show Hurly Burly. Having just arrived in the French capital, Weber remarks, “So this is Paris!” His partner Fields replies, “There is no other place around the place, so this must be the place.” See Felix Isman, Weber and Fields: Their Tribulations, Triumphs and Their Associates (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1924), 243. Isman claims that the line evolved into a stock gag line among American military personnel stationed in France during World War I. 25. Article of 8 September 1879, in Théodore de Banville, Critiques, ed. Victor Barrucand (Paris: Charpentier-Fasquelle, 1917), 389. 26. An untitled clipping from the London Figaro, 1 November 1879, 12. 27. Untitled review from The Parisian, 4 September 1879. The clipping is part of Edward Hanlon’s European scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 28. Of course, the scene is remarkably similar to that of the overcrowded stateroom in the Marx Brothers’ 1935 film A Night at the Opera. However, the Hanlon Brothers’ version didn’t include the now-famous cascade out of the cramped chamber. 29. Contemporary film fans will recognize a similar scene in Steven Spielberg’s film Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the movie’s climactic chase scene, Indiana Jones fights a Nazi soldier on a speeding truck. Thrown through the windshield, Jones falls below the speeding truck. Yet somehow, he manages to hang on, and after being dragged behind the truck, he reboards the vehicle. 30. “The Hanlon-Lees,” New York Times, 13 September 1881, 5. 31. An untitled clipping from The Court Circular, 3 April 1880. The clipping is contained in Edward Hanlon’s European scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts.

151

notes to pages 63–70

32. See for example posters on file at the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 33. Undated clipping in the Hanlon Clipping File, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 34. Arnold Mortier, Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1881 par un Monsieur de l’Orchestre (Paris: E. Dentu, 1882), 344. 35. “The Hanlon-Lees,” New York Times, 13 September 1881, 5. 36. Edouard Nöel and Edmond Stoullig, Les Annales du Théâtre et de la Musique 1879 (Paris: Librairie Paul Ollendorff, 1880), 358. 37. L. Wingfield, “Our Play Box: ‘Voyage en Suisse,’” Theatre 5 (May 1880): 300. Henry Irving was, of course, holding forth on the stage of the Lyceum, alongside Ellen Terry. 38. Laurence Senelick, “Custard’s First Stand: Origins of American Slapstick Comedy,” in Commedia dell’Arte and the Comic Spirit (Louisville, KY: Actors Theatre of Louisville), 28. 39. The gala is recounted in a footnote in Nöel and Stoullig, Les Annales du Théâtre et de la Musique 1879, 359. 40. ALS Theodor Schwarz to George Hanlon, 24 November 1879, Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 41. An unidentified clipping from the London Figaro. The clipping is part of Edward Hanlon’s European scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 42. See New York Clipper, 17 September 1881, 420. Late in their management career when the Hanlons sold production rights to Le Voyage en Suisse, several European companies, including the Lauri Family, toured the play as The Swiss Express in Great Britain. 43. Percy Fitzgerald, The World Behind the Scenes (London: Chatto and Windus, 1881), 59–60. 44. The same critic noted that Reece had “exercised his prerogative as a punster.” An unidentified clipping from the play’s premiere at London’s Gaiety Theatre. The clipping is on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 45. An unidentified clipping from the play’s run at London’s Gaiety Theatre. The review is part of the Hanlon Brothers clipping file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 46. John Hollingshead, My Lifetime (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1895), 2: 168. George Hanlon met his wife Helena while performing at the Gaiety. At the age of fifteen, she was a member of John Hollingshead’s Gaiety Theatre Company. See “Mrs. Hanlon Dies after Operation,” an unidentified newspaper clipping on file at the Harvard Theatre Collection, Cambridge, MA. 47. New York Spirit of the Times, 24 April 1880. In fact, the Spirit of the Times reported that Morris Simmonds had sailed for London to begin negotiations in its issue of 27 March 1880. 48. NO ELECTRONIC TEXT RIGHTS FOR THIS NOTE. 49. NO ELECTRONIC TEXT RIGHTS FOR THIS NOTE.

152

notes to pages 70–74 50. Relevant playbills from the Hanlons’ tour of the English provinces are on file in the “Le Voyage en Suisse Programme File” at the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 51. “Foreign Show News,” New York Clipper, 13 August 1881, 332. 52. New York Clipper, 20 August 1881, 350. 53. Playbills on file at the Billy Rose Theatre Collection evince the fact that Agoust appeared in Le Voyage en Suisse through the company’s 1881 spring tour in the English provinces. Note that John McKinven incorrectly dates Agoust’s departure to just after the first London production of Le Voyage en Suisse in 1880. See The Hanlon Brothers, 54. 54. The unveiling of a new production so shortly before the Hanlons’ scheduled New York opening misled one critic into thinking that The Nabob’s Fortune would be the brothers’ offering to stateside audiences. See New York Clipper, 13 August 1881, 334. A week later, the paper rescinded the false information: New York Clipper, 20 August 1881, 350. 55. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 88. 56. In Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, George recounted a sleepwalking trick learned from John Lees that was “played” on Agoust. While he slept, a small string was tied around Agoust’s toe. Gently, the string was tugged and sleepwalking was induced, during which the unconscious dupe was led through a midnight stroll, culminating in the removal of his sleepwear. 57. “The History of the Hanlons,” New York Mirror, 18 February 1888. 58. “The Hanlons and Agoust,” New York Mirror, 25 February 1888. 59. William L. Slout, Olympians of the Sawdust Circle: A Biographical Dictionary of the Nineteenth Century American Circus (San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press, 1998), 36. In the “Spiral Mountain,” the performer stood on a very large ball and proceeded to “walk” up a specially erected edifice of ramps and hairpin turns that looked somewhat like a giant mountain. The “Niagara Leap,” thought to rival William Hanlon’s Zampillaerostation, was executed against an elaborately painted backdrop of Niagara Falls. The “Niagara Leap” was described in the New York Daily Tribune, 21 June 1866: “A trapeze is suspended a few feet from the roof of the theatre, immediately over the stage. Opposite this on a platform, placed in the corner of the upper tier, stands the performer [Julio Buislay], holding in his hands two ropes, which are attached to the center of the roof of the theatre. To reach the trapeze, he must propel himself forward and in one long magnificent sweep of motion, glide completely across the theatre, seize the trapeze bar with his legs, and drop the ropes. This he does. Then, mounting upward, he fixes his feet in two rings, and hanging head downward, holds a second trapeze for the reception of his brother [Étienne]. The later [sic] arrives by the same remarkable conveyance.” 60. Available online (http://atikokan.lakeheadu.ca/~pgashins/Entertainers.html; accessed 28 October 2000). 61. Relevant playbills on file at the Museum of the City of New York, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Harvard Theatre Collection, and the author’s personal collection show several Zanfrettas in the Hanlons’ Fantasma company during the 1885, 1886, 1887, and 1888 theatre seasons. As far back as the mid-1860s, the two families had been associated.

153

notes to pages 75–83 62. “Henri Agoust Defends Himself,” New York Mirror, 28 April 1888. 63. “Final Words from the Hanlons,” New York Mirror, 12 May 1888. 64. Hugues Le Roux, Les Jeux du Cirque et la Vie Foraine (Paris: E. Plon, Nourritt et Compagnie, 1889), 218. 65. Edward Hanlon’s two extant scrapbooks are on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 66. See New York Clipper, 15 September and 1 December 1900. Agoust died on 5 September 1901. Second Interlude: The Ravels 1. Charles Durang, History of the Philadelphia Stage between the Years 1749 and 1855 (Philadelphia: 1868), 4: 73. 2. “Le Voyage en Suisse,” New York Express, 13 September 1881. 3. “Le Voyage en Suisse,” New York Spirit of the Times, 24 December 1881. 4. Unidentified, undated newspaper advertisement for an upcoming appearance at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre. On file at the Harvard Theatre Collection. 5. Mary Grace Swift, Belles and Beaux on Their Toes: Dancing Stars in Young America (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1980), 231. 6. Walter Leman, Memories of an Old Actor (San Francisco: A. Roman, 1886), 101. 7. Unidentified newspaper clipping on file at the Harvard Theatre Collection. 8. Laurence Senelick, “Custard’s First Stand: Origins of American Slapstick Comedy,” in Commedia dell’Arte and the Comic Spirit (Louisville, KY: Actors Theatre of Louisville), 20. 9. “The Ravel Family,” Boston Courier, 15 March 1858. 10. George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), 7: 251. 4. The American Premiere of Le Voyage en Suisse 1. “Pour Prendre Congé,” Philadelphia Press, 28 February 1881. 2. “Pour Prendre Conge,” [Philadelphia] North American, 1 March 1881. 3. See Michael Ainger, Gilbert and Sullivan: A Dual Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 4. T. Allston Brown, “The Theatre in America,” New York Clipper, 19 March 1892, 20. 5. See Dramatic Compositions Copyrighted in the United States, 1870–1916 (Washington, DC: General Publishing Office, 1918). The version of Le Voyage en Suisse that Simmonds and Brown copyrighted in 1880 is on file at the Library of Congress, complete with illustrations on boards. Regrettably, Pour Prendre Congé; or, Seeing Switzerland is no longer there. In all likelihood it was deaccessioned in the early 1980s. 6. In its review of 1 March 1881, the Philadelphia Inquirer called the production “a clever piece of nonsense and full of capital fun.” 7. “Enjoining a Play,” [Brooklyn] Truth, 12 March 1881. 8. George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), 11: 80.

154

notes to pages 83–90 9. According to Dramatic Compositions Copyrighted in the United States, 1870– 1916, George and William Hanlon were awarded a copyright for Le Voyage en Suisse on 15 March 1881. Regrettably this version is no longer extant, in all likelihood purged in the early 1980s by the space-pressed Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress. A document from the Library of Congress signifying the registration of the script is contained in Edward Hanlon’s scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 10. New York Sun, 15 March 1881. 11. John P. Smith, cited in Brown, “The Theatre in America,” 20. 12. The original telegram, dated 19 March 1881, can be found in Edward Hanlon’s scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library’s Rare Books and Reference Department. 13. “‘Pour Prendre Conge’ at the Boston,” Boston Globe, 22 March 1881. 14. Eugene Tompkins, The History of the Boston Theatre, 1854–1901 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1908), 280. 15. Judge Nelson, cited in Brown, “The Theatre in America,” 20. 16. New York Clipper, 7 January 1882, 795. 17. Brown, “The Theatre in America,” 20. 18. An untitled clipping from the New York Tribune hand-dated 11 April 1881. The article is on file at the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 19. T. Allston Brown, A History of the New York Stage (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1905), 3: 204. 20. New York Clipper, 3 September 1881, 386. 21. The New York Clipper’s edition of 10 September 1881 featured an illustration of Le Voyage en Suisse’s Pullman car, complete with depictions of the rooftop chase and the poor soul caught below the moving car. Interestingly, this is the exact board illustration included in the version of Le Voyage en Suisse registered at the Library of Congress by Morris Simmonds and T. Allston Brown in 1880. Portraits of the Hanlon Brothers were featured on the New York Clipper’s 5 November 5 1881 cover, along with a lengthy biography of the family. 22. “The Hanlon-Lees,” New York Clipper, 13 September 1881, 5. 23. Brown, A History of the New York Stage, 2: 205. 24. New York Clipper, 7 August 1881. After the New York debut, Henry Pettitt remained in North America, composing a series of popular comedies and opera burlesques that played to enthusiastic audiences in both the United States and England, including Faust Up to Date (1889), Carmen Up to Date (1890), the imaginatively titled An Up to Date Sporting Drama, Entitled the Prodigal Daughter (1892), and Blue-Eyed Susan (1892). 25. New York Clipper, 17 September 1881, 420. 26. See Mary C. Henderson, The City and the Theatre: New York Playhouses from Bowling Green to Times Square (Clifton, NJ: James T. White, 1973). 27. Edith B. Williams, “The Actors’ Colony in Cohasset,” Theatre Magazine (November 1909): 162–5. 28. “The Hanlon-Lees,” New York Times, 13 September 1881, 5. 29. [Philadelphia] North American, 21 February 1882, 1.

155

notes to pages 91–99 Third Interlude: George L. Fox and Humpty Dumpty 1. “The Hanlon-Lees,” New York Times, 13 September 1881, 5. 2. For a book-length study of Fox, see Laurence Senelick, The Age and Stage of George L. Fox, 1825–1877 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000). 3. John Denier, Humpty Dumpty: A Pantomime in a Prologue and One Act (New York: De Witt, n.d.), 17. John Denier was Tony Denier’s brother. The script’s title page claims, “By John Denier, esq., as played by him [the role of Humpty Dumpty], and as originally played by George L. Fox.” This was a slight exaggeration. John rarely appeared before the footlights; however, his brother Tony toured for a number of years under the moniker “the American Grimaldi.” 4. Laurence Senelick, “Custard’s First Stand: Origins of American Slapstick Comedy,” in Commedia dell’Arte and The Comic Spirit (Louisville, KY: Actors Theatre of Louisville): 24. 5. Émile Zola, Le Naturalisme au Théâtre (Paris: G. Charpentier, 1881), 328. 6. New York Express, 13 September 1881. The clipping is part of the “Le Voyage en Suisse Programme File” at the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 7. Memphis Appeal, hand-dated 18 December 1883. The clipping is contained in Edward Hanlon’s scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 8. Tony Denier and George H. Adams were quite friendly. Denier was godfather to Adams’ eldest daughter, who was named Tonina in honor of him. When Denier’s wife Emma died in 1899, she left behind property valued at nearly 350,000. However, knowing her husband’s propensity for speculating in losing theatrical prospects, just before her death Emma Denier turned the whole of her estate over to the couple’s lifelong friend Colonel T. Allston Brown. Her will dictated that Brown was to provide her husband with a monthly stipend in order to prevent him from squandering her estate in his advancing years. His hands tied, Denier sold the production rights and scenery to his sole remaining production, The Rise and Fall of Humpty Dumpty, to a manager named Dickson. Denier moved from his Chicago home to New York in order to live with Colonel Brown. See New York Clipper, 8 July 1899, 346. 9. George H. Adams’ obituary, Variety, 29 May 1935. 5. The First American Tours of Le Voyage en Suisse 1. Zola, Le Naturalisme au Théâtre, 330. 2. Le Voyage en Suisse manuscript, 1880, 8. On file at the Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division. 3. [Philadelphia] North American, 12 December 1882, 1. 4. Boston Daily Globe, 7 February 1882, 7. 5. Le Voyage en Suisse manuscript, 1880, 8. On file at the Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division. 6. New York Clipper, 17 September 1881, 420. 7. Zola, Le Naturalisme au Théâtre, 330. 8. For more on New Comedy, see Richard L. Hunter, The New Comedy of Greece and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 9. Plautus and his comic world are the subjects of Erich Segal’s fine book Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968).

156

notes to pages 100–106 10. See David Mayer, Harlequin in His Element: The English Pantomime, 1806–1836 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969). 11. George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), 11: 473, 537, 613. Following the assassination of President James A. Garfield, all New York theatres closed on Monday, 26 September 1881. 12. Spirit of the Times, 24 September 1881. 13. New York Clipper, 15 October 1881, 488. 14. New York Clipper, 15 October 1881, 485. 15. New York Mirror, 3 December 1881. 16. New York Clipper, 31 December 1881. Little Corinne’s plight was first reported in the Clipper’s pages on 10 December 1881. 17. Spirit of the Times, 24 December 1881. 18. New York Clipper, 31 December 1881. 19. Spirit of the Times, 31 December 1881. 20. Many of these colorful, striking early promotional materials are on file at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. 21. New York Clipper, 7 January 1882. 22. An Illinois-based jousting troupe called the Hanlon-Lees Action Theatre has toured under the name since 1979. Popular on the Renaissance faire circuit, “Riders armed with ten-foot lances charge at full gallop, each trying to unhorse his opponent. When lance and shield make contact, the riders experience 50-mile-per-hour impact. The combat culminates in a running dismount and hand-to-hand battle continues on the ground, the opponents defending themselves with broadsword, mace, and morningstar. The rings of steel on steel and the cries of the combatants serve to enliven the spectacle” (from one of the troupe’s promotional brochures). See M. S. Harris, “Magic, Music, and Mayhem: A History of the Hanlon-Lees Action Theatre,” Renaissance 1, no. 3 (1996): 27–30. 23. For a year-by-year accounting of the Hanlon Brothers, see the chronology at http://www.siupress.com/product/Hanlon-Brothers,2874.aspx. 24. Philadelphia Press, 21 February 1882, 2. 25. Philadelphia Inquirer, 21 February 1882, 8. 26. Boston Daily Globe, 7 February 1882, 5. 27. T. Allston Brown, A History of the New York Stage (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1905), 3: 204. 28. New York Clipper, 25 February 1882. 29. [Lesclide], Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 100–102. 30. T. Allston Brown, “The Theatre in America,” New York Clipper, 2 April 1892, 52. 31. Alfred’s worsening condition was reported in the New York Times, 16 June 1886, 4. For tributes to the deceased brother, see “Death of Alfred Hanlon,” New York Times, 27 June 1886, 3; “Deaths in the Profession,” New York Clipper, 3 July 1886, 247. 32. The history of early San Francisco theatre is admirably detailed in Misha Berson, The San Francisco Stage, 1849–1869 (San Francisco: San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum, 1990), and Misha Berson, The San Francisco Stage, 1869–1906 (San Francisco: San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum, 1992). 33. San Francisco Herald, 16 July 1882. 34. [San Francisco] Wasp, 22 July 1882. The clipping is on file at the San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum.

157

notes to pages 107–14 35. New York Clipper, 19 August 1882, 354. Again, it must be remembered that Colonel Brown was employed by the Clipper for a number of years. With that said, his business practice certainly seems reasonable. 36. [San Francisco] Wasp, 5 August 1882. The clipping is on file at the San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum. 37. ALS T. Allston Brown to an unidentified recipient, 24 October 1893, Harvard Theatre Collection. 38. New York Clipper, 17 June 1882, 211. 39. New York Clipper, 19 August 1882, 354. 40. Undated clippings from both the San Francisco Herald and the San Francisco Daily Chronicle are contained in Edward Hanlon’s scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. The Hanlons published the same letter in each newspaper. 41. See Joseph Derrick, Confusion (New York: Samuel French, 1900). 42. Court documents and legal briefs surrounding Confusion are on file at the Shubert Archive, New York. 43. See the chronology at http://www.siupress.com/product/Hanlon-Brothers,2874. aspx. 44. New York Clipper, 2 December 1882, 606. 45. Two copies of the manuscript are on file at the Department of Rare Books, Library of Congress. 46. Boston Herald, 27 August 1883. 47. Hand-dated clipping identified as the Nashville World, 10 December 1883. The clipping is on file in Edward Hanlon’s American scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts Department. 48. “In Two Countries,” New Orleans Evening Chronicle, 2 January 1884. Edward Hanlon’s American scrapbook, Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts Department. 6. The Changing Taste in American Theatricals: Fantasma and Superba 1. W. Davenport Adams, “The Decline of Pantomime,” The Theatre (1 February 1882): 87. 2. Adams, “The Decline of Pantomime,” 88. 3. Adams, “The Decline of Pantomime,” 89. 4. “The Hanlons: A Family Whom Fun Keeps Young,” New York Times, 3 December 1905. 5. NO ELECTRONIC TEXT RIGHTS FOR THIS NOTE. 6. “Le Naufrage de M. Godet,” Figaro, 9 October 1885. In Trucs et Décors, Moynet includes tantalizing illustrations of the Hanlons’ Le Naufrage de M. Godet. 7. The French newspaper Gil Blas published Frederick’s obituary on 12 May 1886, noting that he had been suffering from pneumonia for some time. 8. News of Frederick’s demise was reported in the New York Clipper, 8 May 1886. The following week his obituary was published. See New York Clipper, 15 May 1886. 9. For information on the Renads, see Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 18 April 1896, and Era, 13 May 1899. In the late 1860s, the Hanlon Brothers appeared with the Lauri Family on occasion. See Era Almanack Adviser, 1892. Through the 1890s,

158

notes to pages 114–18 the Renads and the Lauri Family took turns suing each other in English courtrooms over the rights to produce Le Voyage en Suisse in Britain. 10. New York Clipper, 3 November 1900. 11. Although the Byrne Brothers are primarily remembered for their nautical drama Eight Bells, they also produced a short-lived stage pantomime called Going to the Races. When Eight Bells was first produced in 1891, William Hanlon sued the Byrne Brothers. Claiming that the rival family had stolen his patented boat-rocking device, William settled out of court. See Byrne Brothers clipping file, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. A manuscript of the Byrne Brothers’ revised Le Voyage en Suisse is on file at the Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division. 12. The birth of George’s son George Jr. was announced in the New York Clipper, 16 August 1884. The Boston Beacon published news of the birth of Edward’s daughter Frances, on 30 August 1884. 13. New York Clipper, 19 July 1884. 14. Boston Beacon, 9 August 1884. The article is in Edward Hanlon’s scrapbook, on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 15. Undated clipping from the Boston Beacon. The clipping is in Edward Hanlon’s scrapbook, Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 16. For what it is worth, Zamiel is the name of the “arch fiend” in the 1868 spectacle The Black Crook. 17. The text of Fantasma has never been published. However, the Boston Public Library has an undated manuscript of the play on file, the property of George Hanlon Jr. 18. Lesclide, Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees, 135. 19. “Fantasma,” New York Times, 12 November 1884, 4. 20. “Christmas Eve in the Wings: How ‘Fantasma’ Looks behind the Scenes,” Boston Herald, 25 December 1888. 21. The town’s early history and flirtations with the nineteenth-century theatre are related in E. Victor Bigelow, A Narrative History of the Town of Cohasset, Massachusetts (Boston: Samuel Usher, 1898), and Burtram J. Pratt, A Narrative History of the Town of Cohasset, Massachusetts, vol. 2 (Boston: University Press of Cambridge, 1956). A scenic bathing beach, several antique stores, and a few overpriced restaurants comprise the town’s present-day draws for nonresidents. As well, the South Shore Music Circus is located on the outskirts of town. Internationally, Cohasset is recognized by cinema buffs as the quaint New England setting for 1984’s The Witches of Eastwick, starring Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, and the inimitable Jack Nicholson. 22. William Hanlon’s home at 278 Jerusalem Road, the Seth Beal Jr. House, was registered with the Massachusetts Historical Commission in 1984 by the Cohasset Historical Society’s David Wadsworth. Originally a one-story structure, William Hanlon raised the entire first floor and added a new first floor below it. The forms are on file at the Cohasset Historical Society. 23. I’m thankful to Sheila Abato, a descendant of Edward Hanlon, for sharing with me numerous photos of the studio. Abato has been most helpful, sending me many clippings and photocopies of items in her collection. The Cohasset Historical Society also has on file a number of views of the studio. Regrettably, Hanlon’s Scenic Studio

159

notes to pages 118–29 was torn down shortly after the Hanlons departed Cohasset. According to Cohasset lore, many contemporary residents considered the studio an eyesore amidst their lovingly detailed, stately homes. Before its demolition, the studio’s contents were auctioned off. A broadside advertising the sale is on file at the Cohasset Historical Society. Currently occupying the site is Carousel Antiques, who were kind enough to send me a photograph of the studio. 24. “The Hanlons: A Family Whom Fun Keeps Young,” New York Times, 3 December 1905. 25. “A Novel Theatre: The Hanlon Brothers’ New House—No Audience Wanted.” Unidentified clipping on file at the Harvard Theatre Collection. 26. Information garnered from Superba promotional materials on file at the Boston Public Library. Modern-day Cohasset is fighting the redevelopment of its long unused railroad tracks. Trains have been proposed to pull tourists on leisure rides through the town. 27. Harry Miner’s American Dramatic Directory of 1884–1885, 173. 28. New York Clipper, 26 July 1889. 29. For a nearly complete listing of each company’s 1889–1890 season route, see the chronology at http://www.siupress.com/product/Hanlon-Brothers,2874.aspx. 30. “Fantasma at the Grand,” St. Paul Dispatch, 1 April 1907. 31. Like Le Voyage en Suisse and Fantasma, Superba was never published. A manuscript of the play from the 1904–1905 season is on file at the Boston Public Library. 32. Unidentified newspaper clipping in the Hanlons clipping file, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 33. Undated, ALS “Edward Hanlon,” on file in the Boston Public Library’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Department. At one time, perhaps the note was attached to a copy of the evolving script. 34. Book-length studies on Weber and Fields include Felix Isman, Weber and Fields: Their Tribulations, Triumphs and Their Associates (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1924); and Armond Fields and L. Marc Fields, From the Bowery to Broadway: Lew Fields and the Roots of American Popular Theater (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 35. Superba promotional materials, on file at the Boston Public Library, make mention of these and a wide assortment of other performers appearing in the production. 36. “Magnificent Superba,” Boston Globe, 13 September 1892. 37. Pratt, Narrative History of the Town of Cohasset, 65. Pratt states that the problem of housing all of the company members gave rise to another Cohasset institution—that of the guest house. 38. See Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson, The Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodgers Baseball (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004). 39. Baltimore American, 29 April 1900, 34; Washington Post, 29 April 1900, 26. 40. New York Clipper, 30 January 1892. 41. “Study Christian Science,” Pittsburgh Post, 14 November 1904. 42. “George Hanlon Celebrates,” New York Dramatic Mirror, 13 July 1907. 43. “In Ruins!” Cleveland Plain Dealer, 30 October 1892. 44. New York Clipper, 24 December 1892.

160

notes to pages 129–35 45. “Globe Theater Burned,” Boston Globe, 3 January 1894. See also “Globe Theatre Destroyed by Fire,” New York Times, 2 January 1894, and the New York Clipper, 6 January 1894. 46. “Do Not Read the Paper,” Boston Globe, 4 January 1894. 47. “Hard on the Performers,” Boston Globe, 3 January 1894. 48. New York Clipper, 26 December 1903. 49. New York Clipper, 9 January 1904. 50. See Nat Brandt, Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theatre Fire of 1903 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006). 51. “’Superba’ Scenery,” Boston Globe, 19 December 1903. 52. A version of George Hanlon Jr.’s screenplay is on file in the Rare Books Department at the Boston Public Library. 53. Clifford H. Pangburn, “Fantasma,” Motion Picture News, 12 December 1914, 47. Sadly the locale was not identified. George Hanlon Jr.’s uncle Edward Hanlon lived in a fine home in Cos Cob. While I would like to speculate that the film was shot at Edward’s home, I cannot do so with any degree of certainty. Clearly, the writer’s review was submitted before 9 December; he makes no mention of the burning of Edison’s film factory. 54. Advertisement, Motion Picture News, 19 December 1914, 101. The advertisement made no mention of the West Orange blaze. 55. Pangburn, “Fantasma,” Motion Picture News, 12 December 1914, 47. 56. “Edison Sees His Vast Plant Burn,” New York Times, 10 December 1914. 7. Legacy 1. “News and Gossip of Broadway and the Strand,” New York Times, 13 February 1921. 2. “Edward Hanlon, 84, Noted Acrobat, Dies,” New York Times, 16 March 1931. 3. “Exit William Hanlon,” New York Times, 18 February 1923. 4. Fay Stevenson, “Live to Tell Tale after Fifty Years of Daredevil Stunts,” Evening World Daily Magazine, 24 February 1921. 5. A series of Edward’s letters to his children is on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 6. New York Telegraph, 5 August 1914. 7. “Hanlon Brothers and Co.,” Billboard, 11 October 1930, 35. 8. Arthur Kantor, “The Hanlon Story,” Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus Magazine and Program, 1950. Also see Irving Spiegel, “Two Circus Brothers Last of Long Line,” New York Times, 9 April 1950. 9. George Hanlon Jr.’s manuscript screenplay for Fantasma is on file at the Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 10. Clifford H. Pangburn, “Fantasma,” Motion Picture News, 12 December 1914. 11. Reel 1 of the five-reel movie is on file at the Library of Congress. Providing tantalizing glimpses into the Hanlons’ stage production, the incomplete film ends all too soon. The film opens with a number of chorus girls in a choreographed dance; they spell out Fantasma. Then Arthur and Lena court each other around the gardens of a palatial estate, surreptitiously watched by the villain Zamaliel’s minions. “Zamaliel’s Realm” features mock fire, imps costumed in leotards decorated as skeletons, and

161

notes to pages 135–37 poorly performed gymnastic routines. The first reel ends before the introduction of the clown Pico, played by George Hanlon Jr. 12. Undated clipping from the New York Herald Tribune, “First It’s Work Clown, Work! Later, It’s Laugh Town, Laugh!” on file at the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 13. In Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of Georges Méliès (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979), John Frazer acknowledges the influence of the Hanlon Brothers on the French filmmaker. Frazer traces the “probable origin of this stunt and its later elaboration” (63) to The Devil’s Pills, first presented at France’s Châtelet in 1839. The scene’s technical workings are elucidated in Georges Moynet’s Trucs et Décors (Paris: Librairie Illustrée, 1893). Joseph Sokalski’s “From Screen to Stage: A Case Study of the Paper Print Collection,” Nineteenth Century Theatre 25 (Winter 1997): 115–30, also studies the long-lived routine. 14. Jules Claretie, La Vie à Paris 1881 (Paris: Victor Havard, 1882), 358. 15. New York Clipper, 15 October 1881, 488. 16. Many of the patents for these devices are on file at the Library of Congress. 17. Unidentified newspaper clipping titled “The Art of Pantomime: A Chat with Mr. Fred Hanlon.” On file at the Cohasset Historical Society. 18. Le Soir, 3 February 1873. 19. Brander Matthews, “The Dramatic Outlook in America,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 78 (May 1889): 924–25.

162

Bibliography Manuscript and Archival Materials Boston Public Library. Rare Books and Manuscripts. Hanlon Family Papers. Circus World Museum. Baraboo, WI. Cohasset Historical Society. Helen Howes Vosoff Memorial Theatre Archives. Cohasset, MA. Free Library of Philadelphia. Theatre Collection. Harvard Theatre Collection. Cambridge, MA. Library of Congress. Washington, DC. Museum of the City of New York. Theatre Collection. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Billy Rose Theatre Division. San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum. San Francisco. University of Iowa. Special Collections. Iowa City, IA. University of Pittsburgh. Curtis Theatre Collection. Pittsburgh, PA. Printed Materials and Newspaper Reviews Adams, W. Davenport. “The Decline of Pantomime.” The Theatre (1 February 1882): 85–90. Alsman, Jess. “World-Renowned Thespian Pair of Past Generation to Observe Golden Wedding in City Today.” [St. Petersburg, FL] Sunday Morning News, 4 July 1926, 25. Bigelow, E. Victor. A Narrative History of the Town of Cohasset, Massachusetts. Boston: Samuel Usher, 1898. Blair, John Purdy, Jr. “Productions at Niblo’s Garden Theatre, 1849–1862.” Ph.D. diss., University of Georgia, 1982. “Bolossy Kiralfy and His Show.” Dramatic Mirror, 18 May 1901. Booth, Michael R., ed. English Plays of the Nineteenth Century. Vol. 5, Pantomimes, Extravaganzas, and Burlesques. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. ———. Victorian Spectacular Theatre, 1850–1910. London: Rouledge and Kegan Paul, 1981.

163

bibliography Brown, T. Allston. Amphitheatres and Circuses: A History from Their Earliest Date to 1861. Ed. William L. Slout. San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press, 1994. ———. A History of the American Stage. New York: Burt Franklin, 1870. ———. A History of the New York Stage. 3 vols. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1905. Champfleury. Souvenirs des Funambules. Paris: Michel Levy frères, 1859. Chindahl, George L. A History of the Circus in America. Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1959. “Christmas Eve in the Wings: How ‘Fantasma’ Looks behind the Scenes.” Boston Herald, 25 December 1888. Christout, Marie-Françoise. Le Merveilleux et le Théâtre du Silence. Paris: Éditions Mouton, 1965. Claretie, Jules. La Vie à Paris 1881. Paris: Victor Havard, 1882. Cohasset Historical Society. Hanlon Brothers Pantomime Theater in Turn-of-theCentury Cohasset. Cohasset, MA: Cohasset Historical Society, n.d. Congdon, Charles. “Edison’s ‘Fantasma’ a Pleasing Film.” Motography (12 December 1914): 809–10. Cosdon, Mark. “Prepping for Pantomime: The Hanlon Brothers’ Fame and Tragedy, 1833–1870.” Theatre History Studies 20 (2000): 67–104. ———. “‘Serving the Purpose Amply’”: The Hanlon Brothers’ Le Voyage en Suisse.” Journal of American Drama 18, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 71–100. Coxe, Antony Hippisley. A Seat at the Circus. Hamden, CT: 1980. Culhane, John. The American Circus: An Illustrated History. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. Daly, Nicholas. “Blood on the Tracks: Sensation Drama, the Railway, and the Dark Face of Modernity.” Victorian Studies (Autumn 1998–99): 47–76. Deburau, Jean-Gaspard, and Charles Deburau. Pantomimes de Gaspard et Ch. Deburau, comp. Émile Goby. Paris: Dentu, 1889. Derrick, Joseph. Confusion. New York: Samuel French, 1900. Despot, Adriane. “Jean-Gaspard Deburau and the Pantomime at the Théâtre des Funambules.” Educational Theatre Journal 27 (October 1975): 364–76. Disher, Maurce Willson. Clowns and Pantomimes. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1925. “Fantasma.” New York Times, 12 November 1884, 4. Fitzgerald, Percy. The World Behind the Scenes. London: Benjamin Blom, 1972. Fort, Tim. “Three Voyages of Discovery: The Columbus Productions of Imre Kiralfy, E. E. Rice, and Steele MacKaye.” Journal of American Theatre and Drama 5 (Spring 1993): 5–30. Frazer, John. Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of Georges Méliès. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979. Frow, Gerald. “Oh, Yes It Is!” A History of Pantomime. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1985. Goncourt, Edmond de. Les Frères Zemganno. Paris: Charpentier, 1879. Gossard, Steve. “A Reckless Era of Aerial Performance: The Evolution of Trapeze.” Unpublished manuscript, 1994. “The Hanlon Brothers.” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 22 September 1866. “The Hanlon-Lees.” New York Times, 13 September 1881, 5. “The Hanlon-Lees Brothers.” New York Clipper, 5 November 1881, 538.

164

bibliography Hanlon, William. “Half a Century an Acrobat.” Boston Sunday Globe, 28 November 1909. “The Hanlons: A Family Whom Fun Keeps Young.” New York Times, 3 December 1905. “The Hanlons: Rehearsing Pantomime in a Cohasset Apple Orchard.” Boston Herald, 27 August 1883, 2. Hanson, Patricia King. American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Feature Films, 1911–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press. Harris, M. S. “Magic, Music, and Mayhem: A History of the Hanlon-Lees Action Theater.” Renaissance 1, no. 3 (1996): 27–30. Hollingshead, John. My Lifetime. 2 vols. London: Sampson Low, Marston, and Company, 1895. How, Harry. “Pantomime Masks and Properties.” Strand 4 (November 1894): 662– 72. ———. “Transformation Scenes: How They Are Made and Worked.” Strand 3 (November 1893): 705–10. “Idols of Our Fathers and Grandfathers: Famous Six Hanlons.” Boston Sunday Post, 20 March 1921. Jando, Dominique. Histoire Mondiale du Cirque. Paris: Editions Universitaires, JeanPierre Delouge, 1977. Jones, Louisa E. Sad Clowns and Pale Pierrots: Literature and the Popular Comic Arts in Nineteenth-Century France. Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1984. Kiralfy, Bolossy. Bolossy Kiralfy, Creator of Great Musical Spectacles. Ed. Barbara M. Barker. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1988. Kiralfy, Imre. “My Reminiscences.” Strand Magazine 37 (June 1909): 643–49. Kitchen, Robert. “The Hanlon Brothers: Muscle Kings of Christendom.” Bandwagon 46 (November–December 2002): 56–60. Le Roux, Hugues and Jules Garnier. Les Jeux du Cirque et la Vie Foraine. Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et Compagnie, 1889. ———. Acrobats and Mountebanks. Translated by A. P. Morton. London: Chapman and Hall, 1890. Leavitt, Michael B. Fifty Years in Theatrical Management. New York: Broadway Publishing, 1912. Lengyel, Emil. “Where and How the Stage Spectacle Began.” New York Herald, 13 January 1924. [Lesclide, Richard]. Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees. Paris: Reverchon et Vollet, 1880. Matthews, Brander. “The Dramatic Outlook in America.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 78 (May 1889): 924–30. Mattie, Erik. World’s Fairs. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998. Mayer, David. Harlequin in His Element: The English Pantomime, 1806–1836. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969. McKinven, John A. The Hanlon Brothers: Their Amazing Acrobatics, Pantomimes, and Stage Spectacles. Glenwood, IL: David Meyer Magic Books, 1998. Mortier, Arnold. Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1878 par un Monsieur de l’Orchestre. Paris: E. Dentu, 1879.

165

bibliography ———. Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1879 par un Monsieur de l’Orchestre. Paris: E. Dentu, 1880. ———. Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1881 par un Monsieur de l’Orchestre. Paris: E. Dentu, 1882. Moynet, Georges. Trucs et Décors. Paris: Librairie Illustrée, 1893. Murray, David Leslie. Scenes and Silhouettes. London: Jonathan Cape, 1926. “Music and Drama: Return of the Hanlons.” Boston Evening Transcript, 22 December 1904. Nöel, Edouard and Edmond Stoullig. Les Annales du Théâtre et de la Musique 1879. Paris: Librairie Paul Ollendorff, 1880. ———. Les Annales du Théâtre et de la Musique 1885. Paris: Librairie Paul Ollendorff, 1886. Odell, George C. D. Annals of the New York Stage. 15 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1927–49. Pangburn, Clifford H. “Fantasma.” Motion Picture News (12 December 1914): 547. Péricaud, Louis. Le Théâtre des Funambules, ses Mimes, ses Acteurs, et ses Pantomimes depuis sa Fondation, jusquà ses Démolition. Paris: Sapin, 1897. “Play in the Desert.” Chicago Tribune, 16 October 1887. Pratt, Burtram J. A Narrative History of the Town of Cohasset, Massachusetts, vol. 2. Boston: University Press of Cambridge, 1956. “The Ravel Family.” Boston Courier, 15 March 1858. Rémy, Tristan. Les Clowns. Paris: Éditions Bernard Frasset, 1945. ———. Entrées Clownesques. Paris: L’Arche, 1962. Renevey, Monica J. Le Grand Livre du Cirque. 2 vols. Lausanne, France: Bibliothèque des Arts, 1977. Senelick, Laurence. The Age and Stage of George L. Fox, 1825–1877. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999. ———. “Custard’s First Stand: Origins of American Slapstick Comedy.” In Commedia dell’Arte and the Comic Spirit. Louisville: Actors Theatre of Louisville, 1990. ———. “Text and Practice: Performance Practices of the Modernist Avant-Garde.” In Contours of the Theatrical Avant-Garde, Performance and Textuality. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Sheppard, Martha Blair [Hanlon]. Leap for Life: The Story of the Incredible Hanlon Brothers. Cohasset, MA: Cohasset Historical Society, 1999. “The Six Hanlons: Death of the Last Survivor of a Famous Family.” New York Times, 19 March 1931. Slout, William L. “The Adventures of James M. Nixon, Forgotten Impresario.” Bandwagon 41 (July-August 1997): 4–14. ———. Olympians of the Sawdust Circle: A Biographical Dictionary of the Nineteenth Century American Circus. San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press, 1998. Sokalski, Joseph. “From Screen to Stage: A Case Study of the Paper Print Collection.” Nineteenth Century Theatre 25 (Winter 1997): 115–30. Southern, Richard. “Théodore de Banville and the Hanlon-Lees Troupe.” Theatre Notebook 2 (July-September 1948): 70–75. ———. “Trick-Work in the English Nineteenth Century Theatre.” Life and Letters Today 21 (May 1939): 94–101.

166

bibliography ———. The Victorian Theatre: A Pictorial Survey. Devon: David and Charles Publishers, 1970. ———. “Visions of Leaps.” Life and Letters Today 30 (July 1941): 219–27. Speaight, George. A History of the Circus. London: Tantivy Press, 1980. Starobinski, Jean. Portrait de l’Artiste en Saltimbanque. Geneva: Éditions d’Art Albert Skira, 1970. Staveacre, Tony. Slapstick! The Illustrated History of Knockabout Comedy. London: Angus and Robertson, 1987. Stevenson, Fay. “Live to Tell Tale after Fifty Years of Daredevil Stunts.” [Boston] Evening World Magazine (24 February 1921). Stott, R. Toole. Circus and Allied Arts: A World Bibliography. 5 vols. Derby, England: Harpur Distributors, 1958–1992. Storey, Robert. Pierrot: A Critical History of a Mask. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978. ———. Pierrots on the Stage of Desire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985. “Strange Stage Effects Worked Out in a Barn.” Boston Sunday Herald, 9 September 1906. Svehla, Jaroslav. “Jean-Gaspard Deburau, the Immortal Pierrot.” Mime Journal 5 (1977). Swift, Mary Grace. Belles and Beaux on Their Toes: Dancing Stars in Young America. Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1980. Thétard, Henri. La Merveilleuse Histoire du Cirque. Paris: Julliard, 1978. Tompkins, Eugene, and Quincy Kilby. The History of the Boston Theatre, 1854–1901. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1908. Towsen, John H. Clowns. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1976. Walton, Thomas. “‘Entortilationists’: The Hanlon-Lees in Literature and Art.” Life and Letters Today 29 (April 1941): 26–37. Willard, George O. History of the Providence Stage, 1762–1891. Providence: Rhode Island News, 1891. Williams, Edith B. “The Actors’ Colony in Cohasset.” Theatre Magazine (November 1909): 162–65. Wilson, A. E. Christmas Pantomime: The Story of an English Institution. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1934. ———. The Story of Pantomime. London: Home and Van Thal, 1949. Wingfield, L. “Voyage en Suisse.” Theatre 5 (1 May 1880): 295–300. Ziethen, Karl-Heinz. 4,000 Years of Juggling. 2 vols. Sainte-Genevieve, France: Éditions Michel Poignant, 1981. Zola, Émile. Le Naturalisme au Théâtre. Paris: G. Charpentier, 1881.

167

Index Abato, Sheila 159 Abbey, Henry Edwin 89 Abbey’s Park Street Theatre, New York 76, 78, 87, 89, 93, 100, 133 Academy of Music: Chicago 125; Cleveland 129; New York 18, 125, 129, 146, 148 acrobatics 1, 6, 15–16, 20, 23–5, 30, 34, 46, 48, 64, 68, 77–78, 86, 89, 93, 99 Adams, George H. 94, 122, 156 Adams, W. Davenport 112–13 Adelphi Theatre: Edinburgh 9; London 9 adultery 67, 93 aerial demonstrations 1, 7, 9, 16, 18, 22–25, 27–9, 32, 40–41, 44–45, 51, 89, 136, 148 aeropatacians 28 Africa 6 Agoust, Henri 22–23, 28, 35, 40, 46–47, 51, 53, 57, 62–63, 71–76, 88, 153–54 Agoust, Louise 74 Aladdin 66 Albany, New York 85, 104, 120, 127 Alhambra Theatre, London 39–42 American Theatre, San Francisco 21 Animal Crackers 65 Annals of the New York Stage 79 Antonio Brothers’ Circus 9

Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia 104–5 Arctic Circle 117 Argentina 22, 144 Ashton and Donovan 9 Asia 6 Aspinwall 12 Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre, London 7, 14–15 Athenaeum, Manchester, England 7, 9 Atlanta, Georgia 130 Australia 6, 11 Austria 114 Aykroyd, Dan 95 Azella 23 Bagatelle, 54 Bailey, George F. 12 Bairstow, John 120 balancing globes 28, 73 Baldwin Theatre, San Francisco 106–8 Baleine, La 37, 147 Balloon Wedding, The 23–24, 28 Baltimore, Maryland 23, 33, 104–5, 110, 120, 127, 144 Banville, Théodore de 2, 38, 48, 55, 59 Barber of Seville, The 99 Barcelona, Spain 10, 142 Barnum and Bailey Circus 135 Barrett, Lawrence 89

169

index Battle of Bull Run 17–18 Baum, Frank 124 Belasco, David 106 Belgium 9 Belle Lorette 54 Belushi, John 95 benefit 9, 22, 28, 133 Berlin, Germany 74 Bertrand, Nicolas 35, 54 Bishopsgate, England 70 Black Crook, The 159 Black Raven of the Tombs, The 78 Blackton, Stuart 135 Blondin, Charles 33, 40, 146 Bloomingdale Road, New York 39 Blue-Eyed Susan 155 Blues Brothers, The 95 Blum, Ernest 54–56, 65, 88 Boeuf Enragé, Le 37, 146 Bombay, India 14 Bonn, Germany 57, 62 Booth, Edwin 89 Boston 15, 33, 84, 104–5, 109–11, 119–20, 129–30 Boston Theatre 15, 84, 109, 122, 143 Boulevard du Temple, Paris 35, 147 Bowdoin College 27 Bowery Theatre, New York 18 Bradford, England 70 Brady, Mathew 18, 144 Brazil 22, 40, 144 Brooklyn, New York 84, 103–4, 109–10 Brooklyn Superbas 125 Brooklyn Theatre 83–84 Brown, T. Allston 16, 28, 33, 68–70, 82– 83, 85–87, 105–7, 109–10, 114, 143–44, 146, 152, 154–58 Brussels, Belgium 56, 83, 88 Bryant’s Minstrels 24 Buffalo, New York 104 Bugs Bunny 147 Buislay, Julio 73, 153 Buislay Family 73 Byrne Brothers 114–15, 159 Cadiz, Spain 42 Cairo, Illinois 120

Calcutta, India 14 California 21–22, 105–6 calisthenics 25 Canada 28, 109 Carleton, William 131 Carmen Up to Date 155 Carmody, Patrick 24, 42, 45 Carné, Marcel 147 Carousel Antiques, Cohasset, Massachusetts 160 Carrey, Jim 95 Cascades du Diable, Les 47, 50–51, 53, 150 Cathedral of Manchester, Manchester, England 141 centrifugal tourniquets 28 Champion Gymnasts of America 28 Chanfrau, Frank 23 Chapeau Magique, Le 33 Chaplin, Charlie 95, 135 Charini and Nicolo Circus 12 Charles XII 9 chase scene 95–96, 98 Cher 159 Chicago, 22, 72, 104, 106, 120, 130 Chili 11, 14 Christian Science 127 Cincinnati, 17, 22, 28, 30, 69, 72–73, 109– 11, 120 Cinderella 73–74 circus 2, 12, 14, 16, 38, 75, 113, 135 circus freaks 122 Cirque Ciniselli, Moscow, 44, 46 Cirque Napoleon, Paris 12 Civil War, American 17, 21, 26–28, 79, 88, 106 Cleveland, 109, 120, 129–30 Clinton, Iowa 149 Cohasset, Massachusetts 1, 89, 104, 110, 115, 117–22, 125, 129–30, 133–34, 137, 147, 159–60 Cohasset Historical Society, Cohasset, Massachusetts 159–60 coitus interruptus 67 Columbian Exposition 125 Columbus, Christopher 125–26 Columbus Circle 134

170

index Comedy of Errors, The 99 Commedia dell’Arte 79, 99, 152, 154, 156, 166 Confusion 108–9, 158 Connecticut 117, 131 Cooke, William 14–15 Cooke’s Royal Amphitheatre 14, 77, 102, 143 Cops 10, 95 Corwey, Ferry 135 Cos Cob, Connecticut 117, 120, 161 Cosmopolitan Theatre, New York 101 Courtaine, Harry 21 Cowell, Sam 143 Cowells, Mrs. Sam 17, 143–44 Crane, William H. 89 Cuba 11–12, 143 Cutler, Robert 110–11 Czar Nicholas 12 Daly Brothers 81, 104 Deburau, Charles 36, 38, 115, 146–47, 164 Deburau, Jean-Gaspard 23, 35–38, 48, 54, 68, 99, 115, 147 Decker, Nelson 87 “Demon Inn” 135 Demonio, Contortionist 130 Denier, Emma 156 Denier, John 156 Denier, Tonina 156 Denier, Tony 92, 94, 156 Dent Trio, La 148 Dentiste, Le 53 Denver, Colorado 120, 130 Derrick, Joseph 108–9 Devil’s Pills, The 162 DeWalden, Thomas B. 23 Do, Mi, Sol, Do 46–47, 149 Doehne, Henry 120 dogs, trained 28, 72 Don Caesar de Bazan 9 Donohue, Charles 109 Drew, Mrs. John 104 Droit du Seigneur, Le 56 Duel de Pierrot, ou Les Vingt-Six Infortunes de Pierrot, Le 37, 53, 147

Dumb and Dumber 95 Durang, Charles 77 Échelle Périleuse 5, 7–9, 12, 14, 16, 21– 22 Edinburgh, Scotland 9, 70 Edison, Thomas A. 131, 137 Edison’s Film Factory 131, 133, 161 Egypt 11, 38 elephant 52, 150 Empire Theatre, Philadelphia 129 Enfants du Paradis, Les 147 English pantomime 1 entortilationists 9 Epidicus 99 equestrian demonstrations 15 Erie, Pennsylvania 110 Erminie 133–34 Euclid Avenue Opera House, Cleveland 129 excelsior 7 Exposition Universelle 53, 125 Fantasma 1, 4, 7, 71, 74–75, 78–79, 94, 96, 98, 101, 110–17, 120–22, 124–25, 129, 131, 134–36 Fantasma, film 131–32, 135, 161 Faust Up to Date 155 féerie 1, 51, 116–17, 136, 149 Fiamina 40 Fields, Lew 151 Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York 115, 134 fires 102, 127, 129–30, 132, 161 Fitchburg, Massachusetts 130 Flaubert, Gustave 48 Floorwalker, The 135 Florida 122, 126, 134 Folies-Bergère, Paris e 43–44, 47, 50–51, 53–54, 56, 74, 136, 150 Folies-Marigny, Paris 38 Folies-Nouvelles, Paris 38 Ford’s Opera House, Baltimore 105 Forepaugh, Adam 94 Forepaugh’s Circus 149 Fort Scott, Kansas 120 Fort Sumter, South Carolina 17 Fourberies, Les 99

171

index Fox, Charles 93 Fox, George L. 18, 32, 91–94, 156 Franco-Prussian War 40, 43, 46, 53, 72 Franklin, Pennsylvania 120 Frater de Village, Le 43 Frères Zemganno, Les 49 Front Street Theatre, Baltimore 23, 33 Fudd, Elmer 147 Gaiety Theatre, London 56, 66, 68, 71, 76, 113, 152 Galeries Saint-Hubért, Brussels, Beligum 66, 76 Gardner and Madigan’s Circus 33 Garfield, President James A. 105, 157 Gautier, Marguerite 79 Gautier, Théophile 48 Germany 47, 66, 112, 114 Gilbert and Sullivan 82 Glasgow, Scotland 70 Goby, Émile 36, 38 Goldoni, Carlo 99 Goncourt, Edmond de 48–49 Grand Opera House, Brooklyn 114 Great Act 32–33, 42 Greece 11 Green Monster, The 78 Greene, Clay M. 110 Gregory Brothers 146 Grimaldi, Joseph 99 Guilty Mother, The 99 Gurr, Harry 28 gymnasiums 25–27 gymnastic arts 1, 7, 9, 12–13, 15, 22, 24– 26, 33, 40–41, 44, 86, 115 Hamlet 49, 100 Hancock, William S. 28 Hanlon, Alfred 3, 6, 9–12, 14–15, 20–21, 24, 27–29, 31–33, 42–44, 47–48, 54– 55, 57, 73–75, 105–6, 151, 157 Hanlon, Alice 133 Hanlon, Edward 1, 3–4, 6, 14–15, 24–27, 30, 46–38, 57, 75, 105, 109–10, 114–15, 117–18, 120–22, 133–34, 149–50 Hanlon, Frances 159 Hanlon, Frederick 1, 3, 6, 12, 14–15, 21,

24–27, 30–32, 47–48, 57, 91, 96, 105, 110–11, 114, 148 Hanlon, George 1, 3, 6–7, 9–18, 23–24, 27–28, 39–40, 47–48, 53–55, 68–71, 105–7, 109–11, 114–15, 117–18, 127, 133–34 Hanlon, George Jr. 131–2, 135, 159, 161– 62 Hanlon, John 45 Hanlon, Ned 125 Hanlon, Robert 45–46 Hanlon, Thomas 1, 3, 5–10, 12–14, 16–18, 21–27, 30, 32, 41, 69, 72–73, 75, 81, 106, 136, 144 Hanlon, Thomas Sr. 6, 9 Hanlon, William 3, 6–7, 9–16, 18–21, 23–4, 27–33, 42–48, 54–55, 96, 110– 11, 117–18, 120–21, 129–30, 133–34, 148–50, 159 Hanlon-Lees 2, 43, 45–49, 53–56, 66, 68, 87, 90, 93, 102–3, 136, 142, 149 Hanlon-Lees Action Theatre 157 Hanlon-Lees Transcontinental Combination 22 Hanlon Matinée 133–34 Hanlon Midgets 3, 25, 30, 32, 39–40, 42, 44–46, 103, 148 Hanlon-Volta Company 45–46 Hanlon-Volter-Martinetti Combination 148 Hanlon-Zanfretta Combination 23 Hanlons Grand Trans-Atlantic Combination 28 Hanlon’s Scenic Studio, Cohasset, Massachusetts 117–19, 159 Harlequin Skeleton 23 Harlequin Statue 23 harlequinade 68, 100 Harmanus’ Bleecker Hall, Albany, New York 121 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 30 Harry Miner’s American Dramatic Directory 119 Harvard Medical School 27 Harvard University 27 Haverly’s Brooklyn Theatre, Brooklyn, 83

172

index Haverly’s Comedy Theatre, Brooklyn 108 Hippodrome, New York 134 H.M.S. Pinafore 82 Hollingshead, John 56, 66, 68, 70 House that Jack Built, The 112 Howard Athenaeum, Boston 33 Hughes, Ellen 6 human pyramids 11, 15 Hummel, Abe 83–85, 109 Humpty Dumpty 32, 91, 93–94, 156 Hurly Burly 151 Huysmans, J.-K. 48 “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” 135 India 11 Indiana Jones 151 Indianapolis 30 Innocents Abroad, The 20 International Exposition 49, 53 Iroquois Theatre, Chicago 130 Irving, Henry 152 Irving Hall, New York 25 Jack and the Beanstalk 112 Java 11 Jefferson, Joseph 89, 100 Jerusalem Road, Cohasset, Massachusetts 110, 118, 159 Jeux du Cirque et la Vie Foraine, Les 75 Jocko, The Brazilian Ape 79 Jolie Parfumeuse, La 54 juggling 11 Just Phor Phun 134 Kaill, Frances 149 Kalpestri 38 Keaton, Buster 2, 10, 95 Keystone Kops 95 Kidder, Edward E. 126 Kilby, Quincy 143 King Lear 100 Kingsley, Omar Samuel 15 Klaw and Erlanger 115 La Manna, Marie 131 ladder gymnastics 10–12, 41, 52, 58, 68

Lake & Company Circus 9 L’Auberge du Bon Repos 135 L’Auberge Ensorcelée 135 Lauri Family 114, 150, 152, 158–59 Lazelle Brothers 9 Legrand, Paul 38 Léotard, Jules 9, 16, 136 Lingard, James W. 18, 24, 28, 91 “Little Bob” 24, 32–33, 41–43, 45–46 “Little Corinne” 101–2, 157 Little Stranger, The 109 Lively Legacy, A 4, 71, 125–28 Liverpool, England 7, 70, 86 Llandudno, Wales 69 Locataires de M. Blondeau, Les 56 London 14–15, 24, 40, 56, 68–70, 82–83, 88, 109 Los Angeles 120 Louisiana Purchase Exposition 125 Louisville, Kentucky 30 Lyceum Theatre, Cleveland 129 Lyceum Theatre, London 64, 152 Madras, India 14 Madrid, Spain 14, 42 “Magic Fountain” 23–24 “Magic Mirror” 135 Majestic Theatre, Boston 130 Manassas, Virginia 18 Manchester, England 5–7, 9, 12, 14, 21, 24, 39, 69–70, 73, 136, 141 Manchester, New Hampshire 75 Maraz 148 Margueritte, Paul 48 Marriage of Figaro, The 99 Marx Brothers 2, 135 Masons 127 Matthews, Brander 137 Mazulme, or The Black Raider of the Tombs 78 Mazurier, Charles-François 78 McKinven, John 3, 148, 153 McNally, John J. 76 McVicker, J. H. 120 McVicker’s Theatre, Chicago 119–20 Meadville, Pennsylvania 120 Melbourne, Australia 14

173

index Méliès, Georges 2, 162 Melville, George L. 94 Mémoires et Pantomimes des Frères Hanlon-Lees 2, 47, 55, 71, 117 Memphis, Tennessee 120 Menaechmi 99 Menander 98 mermaids 122, 147 Mestayer, William A. 81–83 Metropolitan Casino, New York 101–2 Meynall, Percy 111 Milky White 108 Mischievous Pierrots, The 108, 125 Molière 99 Mort et Vivant 66 Moscow, Russia 12, 44, 46 Mose, the Bowery B’Hoy 23 Mother Goose 112 muscles 21, 25, 72 Nabob’s Fortune, The 4, 70–71, 88, 125– 26, 153 National Theatre, Cincinnati 30 Naturalisme au Théâtre, Le 49 Naufrage de M. Godet, Le 114, 125, 158 New Comedy 98 New Gymnastics for Men, Women, and Children, The 27 New Orleans 109, 120, 130 New York City 18, 25, 27, 39, 70, 100–103, 117, 134 New York Clipper 4, 33, 42, 44–45, 86– 87 New Zealand 11 “Niagara Leap” 73, 146, 153 Niblo’s Garden, New York 14–17, 77–78, 102–3, 143 Nicholson, Jack 159 Niebelungen 47 Night at the Opera, A 65 “Nights of Fun with the Hanlon-Lees” 47, 53 Nixon, James M. 14–16, 77, 143, 166 North Adams, Massachusetts 130 Nôtre-Dame de Paris 56 Nottingham, England 70 Nouveau Cirque, Paris 71, 75

Odell, George C.D. 79 Odéon, Paris 56 Offenbach, Jacques 54, 150 Ogdensburg, New York 120 Olympic Theatre 32 O’Mara, William 24, 45, 148–49 Orange, New Jersey 39 Oswego, New York 120 Paducah, Kentucky 120 Palais-Royal, Paris, 56 Panama 11 pantomime 1, 23, 33–38, 43–44, 46–55, 66, 68, 72–73, 78–79, 92–93, 96, 102, 113, 136–37 Pantzer, Carl 130 Paris, France 12, 14, 16, 35, 38, 43, 47–48, 50, 53–54, 56, 68, 74, 88, 93, 114, 166 Parliament 41 parterre 15 Pasadena, California 105 Patience 100 Pentland 17 People’s Theatre, New York 108 “Perche, La” 15 père d’élève 48, 148 Peru 11, 22 Pettitt, Henry 70, 88, 155 Pfau, Joseph 32, 146 Pfeiffer, Michelle 159 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 27, 83, 87, 90, 104, 109–11, 120 Pierrot Terrible 47, 51 Pike’s Opera House, Cincinnati 22, 27, 69 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 104, 120, 127, 145, 163 Pizzarello, Louis 115 Plautus 98–99, 156 Plymouth, England 70 polar exploration 125 Polonius 20 Pongo, The Intelligent Ape 79 Portland, Oregon 120 Portugal 40 Pour Prendre Congé; or, Seeing Switzerland 81–85, 104, 109, 154

174

index Princes Theatre, Manchester, England 69 Professor Tanner 28, 72 Providence, Rhode Island 104, 110 Prussia 40 Pseudolus 99 Pullman Train Car 59–61, 68, 96 pyramid, three-man 12 Queen Isabella 11 Queen of Portugal 40 Queen of Spain 40 Queen’s Theatre 6 Raiders of the Lost Arc 151 Rajah of Mysore 40 Rajah of Singapore 40 Ravel, Gabriel 78–79 Ravel, Jérôme 78–79 Ravels 77–79 Recueil Fossard 150 Red Riding Hood 112 Reece, Robert 56, 66–67, 87, 113, 152 Renad Brothers 114, 150, 158–59 Restaurant Parisien, Un 75 Reynolds, Burt 95 Rice, Dan 14 Richard III 100 Richelieu 100 Richmond Theatre, North Adams, Massachussets 130 Ringling Brothers 122, 135, 148 Rip Van Winkle 100 Risley Act 10–11 Risley Carlisle, Richard 10 Robson, Stuart 89 Rogers, J. H. 120 Rolla 7 Rome, New York 120 Russia 12–13, 46 Ryan, John Charles 24, 45 Sacchi, Antonio 99 Sacramento, California 120 safety net 32, 41, 137 Salt Lake City, Utah 120 Samuel French Company 109

San Antonio, Texas 120 San Bernardino, California 153, 164, 166 San Francisco, California 21, 104–9, 120, 130 San Francisco Minstrels 100 San Francisco’s California Theatre 106 Sandusky, Ohio 120 Sarandon, Susan 159 Saratoga, New York 25 Sardou, Victorien 70 Sari, Léon 43–44 Scandinavia 112 Schrode, George 131 Schrode, William C. 94 Schwarz, Theodor 66 Scrap of Paper, A 70 Senelick, Laurence 26, 65, 93 Sennet, Mack 95 Seville, Spain 42 Shakespeare, William 99 Sheffield, England 70 Sheppard, Martha Blair 3 Sherman, William T. 28 Simmonds, Morris 27–28, 33, 68–69, 83, 152, 154–55 Sims, George Robert 100 Singapore 40 Slout, William L. 14 Smith, H. Reeves 87 Smith, John P. 81, 83–85 Smokey and the Bandit 95 Society to Prevent Cruelty to Children (SPCC) 101–2 Soirée en Habit Noir, Une 47, 51, 53 somersault 12–13, 16, 18, 25, 28, 30, 32, 57, 97, 132 Spain 10–11, 40, 42, 86, 114 Spielberg, Steven 151 Spiral Mountain 73, 153 St. Charles Theatre, New Orleans 111 St. Louis, Missouri 28, 104, 106, 110, 125 St. Louis World’s Fair 122 St. Paul, Minnesota 120 St. Petersburg, Florida 134 St. Petersburg, Russia 12, 14, 46, 134, 149–50 Star and Garter 76

175

index Star Theatre, Cleveland 129 state fairs 53, 125 Staten Island, New York 134 Staten Island Actor’s Home, New York 134 Stetson, John 33, 84, 109, 129 Stichus 99 stilt-walking routine 17 Storey, Robert 43 Superba 1–2, 4, 7, 51, 78–79, 94, 96, 98, 101, 114–15, 121–25, 127, 129–31, 134– 37, 147 Swiss Express, The 150, 152 Tammany Hall, New York 32, 146 Taylor’s Opera House, Trenton, New Jersey 129 Terry, Ellen 152 Theatre Royal, Manchester, England 6–7 Théâtre des Fantaisies-Parisiennes, Paris 56 Théâtre des Funambules, Paris 35–8, 48 Théâtre des Variétés, Paris 49, 54, 56, 65, 74, 76, 114 Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris 40 Théâtre du Marais, Paris 50 Théâtre-Historique, Paris 56 Third Avenue Theatre, New York 108 Thorne, Charles 89 Thorne, Thomas 108–9 Three Stooges 2 Titusville, Pennsylvania 120 Toché, Raoul 54–56, 66, 88 Toronto, Canada 104, 120, 131 Toulouse, France 78 Towsen, John H. 151 trained animals 22, 122 trapeze 1, 7, 9, 11, 14, 16, 18–20, 25, 28, 44, 136, 148, 153 Troy, New York 120 Turkey 11 Turnvereine 25–27 Twain, Mark 20, 31 Uncle Tom’s Cabin 81, 94, 120 underwater demonstrations 28

Up to Date Sporting Drama, Entitled the Prodigal Daughter, An 155 Valladolid, Spain 42 vaudeville 2, 28, 75, 112, 122, 134–35, 148 Vaudeville Theatre, London 109 Velocipede Hall, New York 31 velocipedes 31–32 Verlaine, Paul 48 Viande et Farine 53 Victoria Temple, Edinburgh, Scotland 142 Vienna, Austria 14 Vitagraph 135 Volta; Ajax 45–46; Edouin 45 Volta Brothers 45 Voyage de M. Perrichon, Le 56 Voyage en Suisse, Le 1–2, 4–5, 7, 18, 33–34, 49–76, 78–79, 81–111, 113–15, 125, 134, 136–37, 150–55, 159 Wagner, Richard 47, 112 Wales 6 Walhalla Theatre, Berlin 46, 74 Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia 81, 154 Warren, William 89 Washington, D.C. 83, 110, 127 Washington, George 23 Watertown, New York 120 “We are all here.” 85 Weber and Fields 122, 151, 160 Williamson, Esther 74 Witches of Eastwick, The 159 Witchita, Kansas 120 Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The 124 Wood’s Theatre, New York 23 Wood’s Theatre, Cincinnati 28 Worcester, Massachusetts 130 World War I 134, 151 World’s Fairs 53, 125 Wyatt, Francis G. 71 Wynn, Ed 135 yellow fever 11 Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) 27, 145

176

index Zamaliel 116, 131–32, 161 Zamiel 159 Zampillaerostation 14, 16, 18–21, 24, 28, 34, 106, 136, 146, 153 Zampillaerostation Waltz 20

Zanfretta, Alex 74 Zanfretta, Rosita 22–23, 73–74 Zola, Émile 48–49, 93, 96, 98 Zoyara, Ella 15

177

Mark Cosdon is an associate professor of theatre and performance studies at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. His articles on theatre history and popular performance have appeared in a number of journals, including Theatre History Studies, Journal of American Drama and Theatre, and Asian Theatre Journal.

theater in the americas The goal of the series is to publish a wide range of scholarship on theater and performance, defining theater in its broadest terms and including subjects that encompass all of the Americas. The series focuses on the performance and production of theater and theater artists and practitioners but welcomes studies of dramatic literature as well. Meant to be inclusive, the series invites studies of traditional, experimental, and ethnic forms of theater; celebrations, festivals, and rituals that perform culture; and acts of civil disobedience that are performative in nature. We publish studies of theater and performance activities of all cultural groups within the Americas, including biographies of individuals, histories of theater companies, studies of cultural traditions, and collections of plays.

Other Books in the Theater in the Americas Series Unfriendly Witnesses: Gender, Theater, and Film in the McCarthy Era Milly S. Barranger The Theatre of Sabina Berman: The Agony of Ecstasy and Other Plays Translated by Adam Versényi With an Essay by Jacqueline E. Bixler Messiah of the New Technique: John Howard Lawson, Communism, and American Theatre, 1923–1937 Jonathan L. Chambers Composing Ourselves: The Little Theatre Movement and the American Audience Dorothy Chansky

Entertaining the Nation: American Drama in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Tice L. Miller Stage, Page, Scandals, and Vandals: William E. Burton and NineteenthCentury American Theatre David L. Rinear Contemporary Latina/o Theater: Wrighting Ethnicity Jon D. Rossini Angels in the American Theater: Patrons, Patronage, and Philanthropy Edited and with an Introduction by Robert A. Schanke

Women in Turmoil: Six Plays by Mercedes de Acosta Edited and with an Introduction by Robert A. Schanke

“That Furious Lesbian”: The Story of Mercedes de Acosta Robert A. Schanke

Rediscovering Mordecai Gorelik: Scene Design and the American Theatre Anne Fletcher

Caffe Cino: The Birthplace of Off-OffBroadway Wendell C. Stone

A Spectacle of Suffering: Clara Morris on the American Stage Barbara Wallace Grossman

Teaching Performance Studies Edited by Nathan Stucky and Cynthia Wimmer With a Foreword by Richard Schechner

Performing Loss: Rebuilding Community through Theater and Writing Jodi Kanter Unfinished Show Business: Broadway Musicals as Works-in-Process Bruce Kirle Staging America: Cornerstone and Community-Based Theater Sonja Kuftinec Words at Play: Creative Writing and Dramaturgy Felicia Hardison Londré

Broadway’s Bravest Woman: Selected Writings of Sophie Treadwell Edited and with Introductions by Jerry Dickey and Miriam López-Rodríguez The Humana Festival: The History of New Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville Jeffrey Ullom Our Land Is Made of Courage and Glory: Nationalist Performance of Nicaragua and Guatemala E. J. Westlake

THEATER HISTORY “Mark Cosdon’s skills as trained scholar and circus performer combine to provide insight into the Hanlons’ techniques and their significance. After this, any account of the nineteenth-century American theatre will have to recognize the entrepreneurial talents and the comic legacy of the Hanlon dynasty.” —Laurence Senelick, author of The Chekhov Theatre: A Century of the Plays in Performance “Meticulously researched and engagingly written, The Hanlon Brothers offers new insights into the history of the performance troupe that pioneered many of the safety practices, physical routines, and comic traditions we recognize today everywhere from tightrope acts at the circus to slapstick gags in Marx Brothers movies.” —Heather S. Nathans, author of Early American Theatre from the Revolution to Thomas Jefferson: Into the Hands of the People As young men, the Hanlons—six brothers from Manchester, England—stunned audiences around the world with their daring acrobatic feats. After a tragic accident severely injured one brother (and indirectly led to his suicide in a manner achievable only by someone with considerable acrobatic talents), they moved into the safer arena of spectacle pantomime, where their uproariously funny and technically astonishing productions proved hugely successful. Their shows, Le Voyage en Suisse, Fantasma, and Superba, toured for more than thirty years, a testament to their popularity and to the Hanlons’ impressive business acumen. In this carefully researched and lavishly illustrated book, Mark Cosdon documents the careers of this talented family and enumerates their many contributions to modern popular entertainment. Mark Cosdon is an associate professor of theatre and performance studies at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. His articles on theatre history and popular performance have appeared in a number of journals, including Theatre History Studies, Journal of American Drama and Theatre, and Asian Theatre Journal. southern illinois university press 1915 university press drive mail code 6806 carbondale, il 62901 www.siupress.com Cover illustration: Hanlon’s Superba—Ever New, lithograph by J. Morgan & Co. Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations. Printed in the United States of America

$28.50 usd isbn 0-8093-2925-5 isbn 978-0-8093-2925-0

The Hanlon Brothers: From Daredevil Acrobatics to Spectacle Pantomime, 1833-1931 (Theater in the Americas)

Teaching Performance Studies (Theater in the Americas)

Teaching Performance Studies (Theater in the Americas)

Contemporary Latina o Theater: Wrighting Ethnicity (Theater in the Americas)

From Daredevil to Devoted Daddy

From Daredevil to Devoted Daddy

Unfriendly Witnesses: Gender, Theater, and Film in the McCarthy Era (Theater in the Americas)

Scragtag - The Pantomime Cat

The Daredevil Tycoon

Scragtag - The Pantomime Cat

Lessons from Pension Reform in the Americas

Lessons from Pension Reform in the Americas

Return of the Daredevil

Interview with the Daredevil

The Dubious Spectacle: Extremities of Theater, 1976-2000

Return of the Daredevil

Interview with the Daredevil

The Daredevil Tycoon

Brothers to the Death

Sculpture: The Assemblage from the Theater (Corinth)

Brothers to the Death

Performing Loss: Rebuilding Community through Theater and Writing (Theater in the Americas)

Economists in the Americas

The Novel in the Americas

Spectacle

Society of the Spectacle

Daredevil Days

The Spectacle of Intimacy

The Society of the Spectacle

The Theatre of Sabina Berman: The Agony of Ecstasy and Other Plays (Theater in the Americas)

The Society of the Spectacle

The Hanlon Brothers: From Daredevil Acrobatics to Spectacle Pantomime, 1833-1931 (Theater in the Americas)

Teaching Performance Studies (Theater in the Americas)

Teaching Performance Studies (Theater in the Americas)

Contemporary Latina o Theater: Wrighting Ethnicity (Theater in the Americas)

From Daredevil to Devoted Daddy

From Daredevil to Devoted Daddy

Unfriendly Witnesses: Gender, Theater, and Film in the McCarthy Era (Theater in the Americas)

Scragtag - The Pantomime Cat

The Daredevil Tycoon

Scragtag - The Pantomime Cat

Lessons from Pension Reform in the Americas

Lessons from Pension Reform in the Americas

Return of the Daredevil

Interview with the Daredevil

The Dubious Spectacle: Extremities of Theater, 1976-2000

Return of the Daredevil

Interview with the Daredevil

The Daredevil Tycoon

Brothers to the Death

Sculpture: The Assemblage from the Theater (Corinth)

Brothers to the Death

Performing Loss: Rebuilding Community through Theater and Writing (Theater in the Americas)

Economists in the Americas

The Novel in the Americas

Spectacle

Society of the Spectacle

Daredevil Days

The Spectacle of Intimacy

The Society of the Spectacle

The Theatre of Sabina Berman: The Agony of Ecstasy and Other Plays (Theater in the Americas)

The Society of the Spectacle

Recommend Documents