The Mallorys, he has told me, did not like this play, because of the character of its chief male part, did not wish to present it, and did so, finally, with reluctance, after strong opposition, and only because another play which they were preparing to produce was not ready. “May Blossom” pleased the public and kept its place on the Madison Square stage for nearly five months. The 100th performance of it occurred on July 21, the 150th on September 9, and, on September 27, 1884, its first run was ended: it is included in French’s Miscellaneous Drama, being No. 59,—but the version of it there published is not the authentic text of Belasco’s prompt book as used at the Madison Square Theatre: it is printed from a manuscript furnished by Gustave Frohman.

That play, which marks the beginning of Belasco’s lasting achievement as a dramatist, claims particular consideration as representative of the character of his mind, the peculiarity of his method of dramatic mechanism, and the quality of his style. He has written better plays than “May Blossom,”—plays which are more symmetrical because more deftly constructed and more fluent and rapid in movement, plays which contain more substantial and interesting character, more knowledge of human nature, and more stress of feeling,—but he has written no play that more distinctly manifests his strength and his weakness, his scope and his limitations,—what, intrinsically, he is as a dramatist.

May Blossom is the daughter of an old fisherman, resident in a village on the coast of Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, in and some time after the period of the American Civil War. She is beloved by two young men, Richard Ashcroft and Steve Harland, both estimable and both by her esteemed. Each of those lovers, on the same day, asks her to become his wife. She accepts the proposal of Ashcroft, whom she loves, and in rejecting that of Harland apprises him of her betrothal to his rival, who is also one of his friends. Harland, though bitterly wounded, accepts her decision in a right and manly spirit. Later, Ashcroft, who is sympathetic with the Confederate cause and who has been secretly in communication with the Confederate Army, is suddenly and privately arrested, at night, by Federal military authorities, as a Rebel spy. The arrest is witnessed by Harland, whom Ashcroft beseeches to inform May Blossom of his capture and who solemnly promises to do so. Harland, however, believing, or persuading himself to believe, that Ashcroft will inevitably be shot as a spy, and being infatuated by passion, breaks his promise and permits the girl to believe that her affianced lover has perished in a storm on Chesapeake Bay. After the lapse of a year Harland, still persistent as a lover, persuades May Blossom to marry him, and for a time they dwell happily together and a child is born to them. On the second anniversary of their wedding, just before the occurrence of a domestic festival which their friends have arranged in their honor, Ashcroft, having escaped from prison, arrives at their home, and, in an interview with May, tells her of his arrest and imprisonment, and of Harland’s promise, and so reveals her husband’s treachery. Harland is confronted by them and a scene of painful crimination ensues. Ashcroft, maddened by jealousy, declares his purpose of forcible abduction of May, who, thereupon, speaking as a wife and mother, repels him. Ashcroft departs. Harland can plead no defence for his perfidy in breaking his promise to Ashcroft except the overwhelming strength of his great love, and his wife is agonized and horrified. The domestic festival, nevertheless, is permitted to proceed. The guests arrive. The miserable husband and wife, masking their wretchedness in smiles, are constrained to participate in merrymaking, and finally are caused by the village pastor to kneel before him, receive his blessing, and embrace and kiss each other, after which ceremonial their guests depart and they are left alone. Then Harland, condemning himself and feeling that his wife can no longer love him, leaves her, purposing to join the Rebel Army. Their separation lasts six years. Ashcroft is heard of no more. Harland survives and ultimately returns to his Virginia home, where a reconciliation is effected between him and his wife, partly by the benevolent offices of the village pastor, but more because May has realized that she truly loves him, and because the inevitable action of time has dissipated her resentment of a wrong.

The analyzer of the drama that tells this story perceives in it a constructive mind that is imaginative, romantic, and eccentric, an ardently vehement faculty of expression, and a nimble fancy intent on devising pictorial and pathetic situations, while often heedless of probability—sometimes even of possibility. Things happen not because they would, in actual life, so happen, under the pressure of circumstances, but because the dramatist ordains them to occur, to suit his necessity. Experience has taught the indiscretion of declaring that anything is impossible, but it is at least highly improbable that a good man would, in any circumstances, break a promise solemnly made to a friend whom he believed was about to die. Harland is depicted as a gentleman and one of deep feeling. Ashcroft’s death, if Harland considers it to be inevitable, would at once relieve him of any need to break his promise, even if he had been ever so strongly tempted to do so: doubt of Ashcroft’s death would inspire far more poignant remorse and fear than Harland actually denotes. May Blossom, furthermore, would not have omitted to inquire, with far more insistence than she is represented to have shown, into the disappearance of the lover to whom she is betrothed. Ashcroft, though a prisoner, would have been permitted to communicate with his friends, since at his trial nothing was proved against him,—yet he was still held in captivity. It is questionable whether the manly Harland, a thoroughly good fellow, would have married May Blossom, however much he might have loved her, knowing that she loved another man. It is more than questionable whether May, having married Harland and borne a child to him, would have repudiated her husband, would have acquiesced in his parting from her and their child, because of the particular wrong that he had done in breaking his promise to Ashcroft. The sin that a man commits out of the uncontrollable love that he feels for a woman is, of all sins, the one that she is readiest to forgive. The likelihood that May Blossom, loving Ashcroft, betrothed to him and mourning for him, would, after the lapse of so short a time as one year, have married anybody is, likewise, open to doubt. Belasco, however, was bent on devising situations, and he accomplished his purpose: grant his premises (as a theatrical audience, in the presence of a competent performance of this play, almost invariably will do), and his dramatic fabric captivates entire sympathy.

I saw and recorded the first performance of “May Blossom.” The play was then exceedingly well acted. Georgia Cayvan (1858-1906), personating the heroine, gained the first decisive success of her career. That actress, a handsome brunette, was fortunate in person and in temperament. Her figure was lithe, her face was brilliantly expressive, her voice was rich and sweet, she possessed uncommon sensibility, and she could be, at will, ingenuously demure, artlessly girlish, authoritatively stern, or fervently passionate. She attained distinction among American actresses of “emotional” drama and was long and rightly a favorite on our Stage. As May Blossom she was first the lovely, simple, charming girl, and later the grave, tranquil wife and mother. In the expression of mental conflict she was, for a time, artificial in method, using the well-worn, commonplace expedients of reeling, staggering, and clutching at furniture; but she reformed that altogether, and her capability of intense passion in repose was clearly indicated: the character was developed and truly impersonated. Among her associates in the representation were Joseph Wheelock, Sr. (183[8?]-1908), and William J. LeMoyne (1831-1905), both actors of signal ability, now forgotten or only dimly remembered. Wheelock, in his early day, was a favorite Romeo. LeMoyne was an actor of rare talent and remarkable versatility. His impersonations of eccentric, humorous, peppery old gentlemen were among the finest and most amusing that our Stage has known. In this play he personated Unca Bartlett, a benevolent, affectionate, whimsical rural clergyman. I

Photograph by Sarony. Belasco’s Collection.

GEORGIA CAYVAN

About 1884, when she acted in “May Blossom”