Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/296

 278 The Drama, 1860-1918 By the eighties there had been established in New York the nucleus of what was to be known as the modern American theatre. Daniel Frohman was at the Madison Square, his brother Charles was on the road with Wallack successes, and was thus early exhibiting his ability to pick plays and players by corralling Bronson Howard's Shenandoah (9 September, 1889) — ^his first real production in New York. William Gillette began his career as playTvright in 1881 ; while it was 1889 before Augustus Thomas entered the field. The gradual rise of Rich- ard Mansfield was identified with the names of Palmer and Wallack ; and though he cannot be said to have been a patron of the American dramatist, his early appearances were in pieces like Hjalmar Boyesen's Alpine Roses (Madison Square Theatre, 31 January, 1884) and Henry Guy Carleton's Victor Durand (Wallack's Theatre, 1 8 December, 1 884). But these were merely pieces of the theatre, like Cazauran's adaptation of a play by Octave Feuillet, called A Parisian Romance, in which Mans- field first attained prominent recognition (Union Square Theatre, 1 1 January, 1883). It was not until some while after- wards — in 1890, to be exact — that he offered Clyde Fitch the opportunity to collaborate with him in Beau Brummell (Madi- son Square Theatre, 17 May, 1890), and this may be accounted Fitch's beginning, followed directly afterward by a one-act sketch, Frederic Lemaitre (i December, 1890), written for Henry Miller. Up to the time of the appearance of these names in the history of American playwriting, it is difficult to give coherence to the development of American dramatic consciousness. The style in theatre management was "stock, " untU business com- bination began to assert itself. And such names as Bartley Campbell (1843-1888), Henry Guy Carlton (1856-1910), Edgar Fawcett (i 847-1 904) mean nothing in the way of native feeling for drama, however much Campbell's My Partner reflected Western melodrama. Even James A. Heme, who had a career as actor in San Francisco which presaged greater work to come, did not arrive in New York until later, though he had begun his playwriting when Hearts of Oak was given at Baldwin's Theatre, San Francisco, 9 September, 1879. And we are rightly inclined to regard Heme as our first exponent of reality in the sense of getting close to the soil. Edward Harrigan's (1845-1911)