Harley Merry secured employment at the renovated Brooklyn Atheneum after being dismissed from the Brooklyn Theatre. Merry painted settings for the venue that included four sets – a parlor, kitchen, wood and garden scene. He also painted a new drop curtain with an Italian scene. The stage carpenter from the Academy of Music (Jonathan Newman) made the alterations to the original space from 1853. One noted improvement in the August 12, 1874, issue of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (page 3) was that Mr. Newman introduced “a sliding beam, or derrick, which can be rolled in and out through the back wall of the building, near the roof, to the end of which a tackle is rigged sufficiently to hoist up from the ground a weight o several tons. This will obviate the necessity of carrying pianos, heavy baggage and other unwieldy objects up the front stairs, as has heretofore been necessary.”
Merry also painted and performed for the Brooklyn Academy of Music (located at 176-194 Montague Street). He participated in a benefit of the Szegedin Fund at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in a production entitled, “Forty-Niners, or the Pioneer’s Daughter; A Tale of the Great Sierras.” Merry performed in the cast with Adelaide Roselle (Mrs. H. Merry), Josey Brittain (Merry’s daughter, Josephine), and T. W. Hanshaw (Merry’s travel companion to London in 1874). An advertisement noted, “The scenery will be entirely new, covering thirty thousand square feet of canvas, painted by Harley Merry (at his Flatbush Studio) and from sketches made by him in the Sierra Mountains.”
He had an extensive career painting for a variety of venues throughout New York and the eastern region. Here are a few highlights from his career during the late nineteenth century. In 1883, Merry primarily worked from his studio in Flatbush. There, he putting the finishing touches on the drop curtain that measured 27’ x 48’ for a Passion Play. The drop curtain composition was titled “Jerusalem is Holy, noted” in Hebrew characters on the frame. Gold-trimmed crimson draperies surrounded the composition. A second layer of blue draperies included a lily pattern to suggest the verse “Judah shall bloom like the lily.” The exotic composition depicted a seated priestess, sphinx, a tall censor of gold and blue marble, clouds of purplish smoke, papyrus, palm trees, and Egyptian harp, a Jewish psalter, Oriental horns, and an Egyptian scroll. Above, the angel of peace and cherubs ringing golden bells floated high above the cross. His painting was noted as a success.
In 1884 Merry created the scenery for a new Romantic spectacle entitled, “The Devil’s Auction” that was described as a “Dramatic Pantomine and Terpsichorean Artists” with the Grand English Ballet from the Alhambra, London. It Music Hall, the production for a cost of $20,000. Merry entered various partnerships over the years, including one with Henry E. Hoyt in 1888 to create scenery for the new comic opera, “The Queen’s Mate” at the Broadway Theatre.
The same year “Getz, Merry & Reid” was formed and were credited with painting the scenery for Wm. J. Gilmore’s “The Twelve Temptations.” This was extensively advertised as “a scenic, ballet, and pantomimic spectacle.” The settings included sixteen full stage pictures with a moving panorama that cost $35,000 to produce.
By 1892 Merry was painting with John H. Young and creating a new scenery installation for the Columbia Theatre. Merry focused on the stock sets while John H. Young primarily the front curtain. An article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted that the 2,000 electric lights illuminated the new stage (Feb 14, 1892, pg. 20). Merry again joined forces again with John H. Young in 1894, for James W. Harkins, Jr.’s “A Man Without a Country” at the American Theatre (New York Tribune, Sept 23, 1894, pg. 19). The creation of the scenery also involved Lafayette W. Seavey and Frank Rafter. In 1895, Harley Merry, Joseph Clare and E. P. Dodge created the settings for Springer & Welty’s revival production of “The Black Crook.”
In 1897 Harley Merry, John H. Young, Walter Burridge, Richard Marston and Homer Emens produced the scenery for Margaret Mather’s production of “Cymbeline.” An article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (September 28, page 7) commented that the group was noted as the “foremost scene painters of their time. They are artists and not mere grabbers after striking effects by cheap and easy means, and that in this instance they have presented a picture of the first century which is well worth seeing.”
In his later years, Merry became a collector of pictures and a “student of art,” residing at 949 Franklin Avenue. He passed away in 1911 and a September 3 issue of the New York Times reported, “Harley Merry, a well-known scenic artist and forty years ago the well-known actor, died yesterday at his home, Avenue Z and Ryder Avenue, Brooklyn, from causes due to old age.”
Merry’s wife passed a mere three years later. Her obituary was published in “The Sacramento Union” (No. 59, February 28, 1914). It noted, “Louise M. R. Brittain, widow of E. J. Brittain, known as Adelaide Roselle to theatre goers of a generation ago, who was the first woman of English birth to take out naturalization papers here died yesterday at the home of her daughter in Flushing, aged seventy years. Mrs. Brittain was leading woman with Edwin Booth, William H. Crane and John McCullough.” Her stage name was noted as Adelle Roselle Merry in The Sun (NY, NY), June 9, 1914 page 9.
To be continued…
