I remember the first performance of “Hearts of Oak” in New York. The play was a patchwork of hackneyed situations and incidents, culled and refurbished from such earlier plays as “Little Em’ly,” “Rip Van Winkle,” “Leah the Forsaken,” and “Enoch Arden.” Some of those situations were theatrically effective, and the quality of the fabric was instinct with tender feeling. The articulation of the parts, meaning the mechanism, indicated, to some extent, an expert hand,—which unquestionably its chief manipulator, Belasco, possessed, and which he has since more amply shown. The element of picture, however, exceeded that of action, and the element of commonplace realism, manifested partly in the drawing of character, partly in the dialogue, and largely in the accessories and stage business, was so excessive as to be tiresome. Real water, real beans, real boiled potatoes, and various other ingredients of a real supper, together with a real cat and a real (and much discontented) baby, were among the real objects employed in the representation. Such things, particularly when profusely used in a play, are injurious to dramatic effect, because they concentrate attention on themselves and distract it from the subject and the action to be considered. Accessories should blend into the investiture of a play and not be excrescences upon it. There is, however, a large public that likes to see on the stage such real objects as it customarily sees in the dwelling or the street,—a real fireplace,

a real washtub, a real dog, a real horse, all the usual trappings of actual life: that is the public which finds its chief artistic pleasure in recognition. It was present on many occasions during the career of “Hearts of Oak,” and with this plethora of real and commonplace objects it was much pleased.

In the story of “Hearts of Oak” a young man, Ruby Darrell, and a young woman, Chrystal (Dennison?), who love each other and wish to wed, privately agree to abnegate themselves in order that the young woman may marry their guardian and benefactor, Terry Dennison, out of gratitude to him. This immoral marriage is accomplished and in time the wife becomes a mother. In time, also, the injured guardian discovers,—what, if he had possessed even ordinary discernment, he would have discovered in the beginning,—that his wife’s affections are fixed on Darrell. The miserable Dennison then goes away, after privately arranging that if he does not return within five years Darrell shall wed with Chrystal. Six years pass; Dennison is reported to have perished at sea in the wreck of a Massachusetts ship, and Chrystal and Ruby erect a churchyard monument to his memory. Then Chrystal, believing herself to be a widow, marries her lover. But the desolate husband is not dead; he reappears, blind, destitute and wretched, on the wedding day, and in a colloquy with his child, outside of the church within which the marriage is being solemnized and seated on the base of his memorial among the graves, he ascertains the existent circumstances and presently expires, while his wife and little daughter pitifully minister to him as to a stranger. The misery and pathos of the experience and situation are obvious. It is also obvious that, in the fulfilment of a central purpose to create a situation and depict a character instinct with misery and pathos, the element of probability was disregarded. The chief part is that of the injured, afflicted, suffering guardian, who, as a dramatic character, is a variant of Enoch Arden and Harebell.

In acting Dennison, Herne, while often heavy and monotonous, gained sympathy and favor by the simplicity of his demeanor, his facile assumption of manliness, and his expert simulation of deep feeling; but he did nothing that had not been done before, and much better done, by other actors,—in particular, by Edwin Adams in Enoch Arden, and by William Rufus Blake and Charles Fisher in Peggotty and kindred parts, of which the fibre is rugged manliness and magnanimity. Katherine Corcoran, playing Chrystal, gave a performance that was interesting more by personality than by art. She had not then been long on the Stage. She was handsome, graceful, and winning, of slender figure, with an animated, eagerly expressive face, blue-gray eyes, silky brown hair, and a sweet voice. In calm moments and level speaking she was efficient. In excitement her vocalism became shrill and her action spasmodic. Scenery of more than common merit, painted by William Voegtlin, was provided to embellish the play, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. One picture, in particular, representing a prospect of a tranquil seacoast, was excellent in composition, true and fine in color, and poetic in quality; another effectively portrayed a broad expanse of troubled sea, darkening ominously under a sombre sky tumultuous with flying scud. Herne somewhat improved the play in the course of his protracted repetitions of it, after he parted from Belasco, but he always retained in it the “real” trappings which Belasco had introduced. Both those actors, as playwrights, were conjunctive in favor of “limbs and outward flourishes,”—the “real tubs” of Mr. Crummles.