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Saturday, 7 September 2002

The Darling of the Gods
His Majesty’s Theatre, London, 28 December 1903

The Darling of the Gods
The Darling of the Gods, His Majesty’s, London, 1903;
Act I, last scene - The Great State Hall during the night of ‘The Feast of a Thousand Welcomes.’
(photo: Alfred Ellis & Walery, London, 1903)

The Darling of the Gods, a five act drama by David Belasco and John Luther Long, was first produced at the Belasco Theatre, New York, on 3 December 1902, when it ran for 186 performances. Blanche Bates, George Arliss and Robert T. Haines lead the cast.

The play was produced in London by Herbert Beerbohm Tree at His Majesty’s Theatre on 28 December 1903 for a run of 167 performances. With Tree himself in the leading role of Zakkuri, other significant parts were played by Eric Leslie, Lyn Harding, Basil Gill, Lena Ashwell, Sydney Fairbrother and Elaine Inescourt. Mimi St. Cyr played Mme. Asani, a dancing geisha. The scenery was painted by W.T. Hemsley.

* * * * * * * *

‘Mr. Herbert Beerbohm Tree has already proved himself to be the foremost actor-manager in London, and his artistic temperament and instincts qualify him most admirably for the position he has made for himself after many years of honourable labour in the Thespian fields of art. His latest production is perhaps his greatest achievement in the way of scenic display. The gorgeous, brilliant, and marvellously changing pictures, and the lighting effects have never been equalled before, we should say, in any theatre in the world. The story, which is strong and tragic in its working out, is really only of slight material from the point of view of plot. It is just the old tale of a woman and two men over again. It is mystical, almost supernatural, but at the same time the human chord vibrates throughout the whole of the drama after the first semi-symbolical scene in Act I. For the proper understanding of the play a little history is needed. From ages almost unknown [in Japan] the Samurai were the retainers of the great territorial princes, the Daimgos, who in their different provinces were in their way as powerful as the Emperor himself. These Samurai had the privilege, which arose in the sixteenth century, of carrying two swords - one about three feet long, used for offence and defence, and a shorter one with which to commit suicide (seppuku or hara-kiri). "At the time," says the writer of the booklet Japan and the Japanese, "when they were disbanded, and the ancient feudal system of Japan came to an end, these Samurai numbered two millions, and it may be conjectured that in a country where a private quarrel most often grew as a duty into a family feud which could only be extinguished by the deaths of most of those concerned, the wearing of these swords was an ever-present occasion for useless bloodshed. To a Samurai his sword was his soul, his most treasured possession, his constant companion, to be kept unsullied during his life-time, and handed on as an heirloom to his son and successor." These Samurai became a menace to the country, as they believed their ancient rights could not be taken from them. The Government, however, thought otherwise, and after a severe struggle, which lasted from January to September, 1877, the Samurai were completely routed, and surrendered to the superior power of the Emperor, who preferred to establish his own army in preference to an hereditary institution of warriors. It is some such insurrection that is made the pivot of The Darling of the Gods.

Herbert Beerbohm Tree

H. Beerbohm Tree as Zakkuri in The Darling of the Gods;
Act IV, last scene - The Old Sword Room in the Palace of Zakkuri.
(photo: Alfred Ellis & Walery, London, 1903)

‘Briefly, the pot follows the fortunes of Prince Kara, who is the leader of a small band, ten in number, of the last of the Samurai, desperate outlaws who refuse to lay down their swords to Zakkuri, the representative of the Emperor and the Minister of War, who has ruthlessly to capture and exterminate them. Prince Saigon of Tosan, who is celebrating the Feast of a Thousand Welcomes, has invited Prince Kara as his guest, and for the time he is in sanctuary, for he eludes the guards stationed at all the city gates and makes his appearance, wounded. Kara is in love with Princess Yo-San, his host’s beautiful daughter, and this has given him courage to venture from his hiding place in the mountains. Yo-San nurses Kara, and has him taken to her own apartments. And here he stays for forty days in pure delight with his lady-love - as innocent an idyll as could spring from [a] poet’s brain. Zakkuri is puzzled. He knows the Prince went to the palace, but cannot imagine how he could have escaped therefrom. The little love-plan - for the two have resolved to fly and get married - is interrupted by the sudden appearance of Prince Yousan, who at once suspecting wrong things of his daughter orders her to quit the palace, while Prince Kara is secured and held by the enemy.
‘Up to this point the play has been light and full of sweetness and colour. Now sets in the gloom, and in Act. IV. Zakkuri, with malevolent intent, tantalises his victim what time he devises the most horrible kind of torture to extract from the Prince the whereabouts of his warriors. A poor fisherman, Kato, emulating another Cato, refuses to divulge the secret, and as he will not speak he dies under torture - the scene bringing up memories of La Tosca and Scarpia. Zakkuri has determined not to kill the Prince, but to find out where his retinue is hidden, Kara refuses to say, when it suddenly dawns upon him that he has entrusted the secret to Yo-San, and the document which contains the information Zakkuri is resolved to obtain. If she will give up the paper Kara shall go free; if not, Yo-San will be tortured. Yo-San does her best to save her lover, but the fates are against her. She gives up the written knowledge, and the Samurai are doomed to extinction. Kara is for the time free, but the wily War Minister knows he will soon have him in his clutches again, and sends his emissaries to capture the Prince and his followers, to whom, of course, the Prince goes at once. They meet at the Ruined Shrine of the Goddess Kwannon. They are surrounded by the Imperial Guard, and die one by one. Those who are not shot down at once commit suicide in the Red Bamboo Forest; and here Prince Kara and Yo-San meet for the last time on earth. He kills himself, and her death follows immediately.
‘The next scene is a wonderful picture, "Between the Heavens and the Hells," where, after a thousand years are supposed to have elapsed, the lovers are reunited in Paradise.
‘There is plenty of movement, plenty of light and shadow, plenty of fun and frolic in this curiously interesting play. Everything in the piece fascinates; it is something so new and extraordinary that it compels attention, and will certainly attract for many months to come.
‘Mr. Tree, since he played Dimitiri in The Red Lamp [first produced at the Comedy, London, 20 April 1887], has given us nothing so subtle and Mephistophelian. With the brain of a Machiavelli, this resourceful actor was full of the most surprising turns of hate and revenge, masked with an air of suavity that, reading the actor’s face as he smiled or sneered, was completely diabolical. Mr. Tree has added another great portrait to his gallery of creations. Mr. Basil Gill, with a splendid resonant voice and a striking figure, made a handsome Prince Kara, and acted with intense dramatic power; and Mr. Lyn Harding as Yo-San’s dumb slave Inu scored every possible point. Mr. [William] Haviland in his one scene made the most of his opportunities as Kato. As Saigon Mr. S.A. Cookson was exceptionally impressive; and Mr. Cecil Rose as Tanda-Tanuji, Mr. Stuart Graham, and particularly Mr. [J.] Fisher White as Banza the priest, all deserve a hearty word of praise for good results from well-directed efforts.
‘Of Miss Lena Ashwell’s beautiful, tender, and sympathetic conception of Yo-San we have naught by the highest praise. A little too English at first she caught the Japanese manner as the play progressed, and she certainly carried her audience with her. Miss Sydney Farebrother as her maid Setsu was the Japanese girl to the life. Mrs. Stanislaus Calhaem gripped the character of Chidori and made it felt, and Miss Mimi St. Cyr was the most beautiful Geisha possible, and she danced delightfully. One of the most interesting performances of the evening was that of Miss Maud Hildyard, who made her first appearance in the West End as Rosy Sky. She declaimed her lines with vigour, and her passion had the true artistic and natural ring. Miss Hildyard should do well.
‘The Darling of the Gods brings the life of Japan, with its odd manners and customs, its tobacco smoking and saké sipping habits, its salaams and quaint forms of politeness, into the heart of the metropolis. It is a play to see again and again.’
(S.J. Adair Fitz-Gerald, The Playgoer, London, February, 1904, pp.65-69)

Herbert Beerbohm Tree

H. Beerbohm Tree as Zakkuri (centre stage, right)
in The Darling of the Gods; Act 5, last scene - The First Celestial Heaven (in the clouds).
(photo: Alfred Ellis & Walery, London, 1903)

HOW IT STRIKES THE JAPANESE.

‘Mr. Tree’s devotion to realism and the enormous pains he takes to secure the strictest accuracy are so well known that it seems churlish to carp at the details of such a superb production as The Darling of the Gods. It is, therefore, in no spirit of hypercriticism that we give the result of a conversation of Mr. Koike, the Second Secretary of the Japanese Legation, and an authority upon the dramatic art of the England of the East, who was present at the first night performance in the place of the Japanese Minister, unfortunately prevented from being there by stress of affairs of national importance.
‘Mr. Koike said to The Playgoer commissioner: "I must first of all assure you of the intense pleasure which the performances of The Darling of the Gods afforded me. It was a magnificent spectacle, and is sure to be witnessed with delight by all Japanese in London. With the exception of Madame Butterfly [by David Belasco, Duke of York’s, 28 April 1900] it is the only Japanese play of merit that has been produced in London, and it was in may respects perfect. But I observed several things in it which were by no means accurate representations of Japanese life. For instance, there are in Japan two religions - those of Shinto and Buddha - and the devotees of each are as far apart as Christians and Mohammedans. Yet in the play they are, so to speak, mixed up in the most promiscuous fashion, and one character actually invokes the name of a goddess who belong to the opposite religion to that which she herself professes.
‘"Then, again, in the great scene of the Hall of State, the decorations are almost entirely Chinese instead of Japanese, while in the distance is to be seen a pagoda, a building almost exclusively Chinese. There is, moreover, much too great a display of bowing and scraping. In Japan a person bows to another at meeting and parting, but in the play they may be seen performing genuflections at every moment - almost after every word. The same exaggeration is to be seen in the matter of smoking. The Japanese are certainly much addicted to the harmless vice, but not to the extent that Mr. Tree would have us believe.
‘"I observed in one scene that the functionaries all wore black socks. This is a mistake. An official in Japan, on an occasion such as that represented, would never think of wearing other than white socks. Perhaps, however, the change - which is, after all, a trifling one - has been made on the ground of utility. On the whole, however, the dresses are exceedingly well carried out, and are accurate representations of the habiliments formerly in vogue in my country. There is, though, one exception to this rule. There is in the play an elderly lady dressed in a bright-coloured kimono with a pink sash. Such a costume would be considered the height of bad taste in Japan, where elderly dames dress in the quietest manner possible, and would blush to wear anything so frivolous as a pink sash.
‘"The gait, attitude, and gestures of the Japanese have been for the most part faithfully copied, and Mr. Tree is to be congratulated upon the way in which his company have learned the difficult art of deportment as practised in Japan. There are one or two other little mistakes - most of them perhaps attributable to the authors - but it would be ungrateful when so much that is perfect has been provided for our delectation to make more than passing mention of them. It is a delightful play, and in particularl the beautiful idea of the meeting of the souls of the lovers in Paradise is one of the most faithful representations of Japanese ideas, most admirably carried out. Doubtless Mr. Tree will remedy the small faults and increase the debt of gratitude which the Japanese owe him for so faithfully and delightfully representing them to their friends and allies the English."’
(H.W., The Playgoer, London, February, 1904, pp.69 and 70)

‘Mr. Tree has completed all arrangements for sending out this month two provincial companies, one of them with The Darling of the Gods. the other will play Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Herod in turn.’
(The Playgoer, London, February, 1904, p.114)

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© John Culme, 2002