Part 451: Thomas G. Moses and “Reaping the Whirlwind”
In 1903, Thomas G. Moses created the scenery for two shows written by Owen Davis – “Lost in the Desert” and “Reaping the Whirlwind.” The Broadway opening for each show was in the Star Theatre, located at 844 Broadway. The venue opened in 1861 and was previously known as Wallack’s Theatre and the Germania Theatre. It was renamed the Star Theatre on March 26, 1883.
The playwright, Owen Gould Davis (1874-1956), wrote hundreds of melodramas during the first two decades of the twentieth century. He also used a variety of pseudonyms, including Ike Swift, Martin Hurley, Arthur J. Lamb, Walter Lawrence, John Oliver and Robert Wayne. Between 1897 and 1907, he wrote 100 melodramas. By the 1910s, he began writing comedies. He later wrote scripts for both film and radio. Davis became the first elected president of the Dramatists Guild of America and received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his 1923 “Icebound.” Davis then joined the staff of Paramount Pictures as a screenwriter from 1927-1930. He married the actress Elizabeth Drury Bryer. This was around the time he wrote “Reaping the Whirlwind,” how ironic. Davis eventually penned two autobiographies: “I’d Like to Do It Again” and “My First Fifty Years in the Theatre.” The latter focused on the period of his life from 1897-1947. I could not help think of Moses’ desire to have his own memoirs published – “60 Years Behind the Curtain Line.”
Owen Davis was featured a 1911 issue of American Magazine under the section title “Interesting People” (Vol. 71, No. 5, page 609). The article called Davis “the Abou ben Adhem of American playwrights – quantitatively, at any rate.” It then reported: “And so Mr. Davis, who used to write ‘em so fast that he was what smokers would call a chain-writer – that is, he’d write FINIS to one play and, without resharpening his pencil, begin with the title of the next and go right ahead – Mr. Davis is thorugh with lines like “Have courage, girl, I’ll save you!” and “Rather than do what you say, Remington Hallowell, I would starve in the gutter!” Anybody who has seen one of Mr. Davis’s shows might not picture the author as a soft-spoken, mild-mannered, book-loving, modest-bearing (Note to Editor: Do compounds count as two words?) gentleman. That is where anybody might have erred. See him in his tastefully furnished West One Hundred and Sixteenth Street apartment, reading “Joseph Vance” aloud to Mrs. Davis, and you would hardly think he was the author of “The Opium Smugglers of Frisco” and kindred pastorals.” Here is a wonderful dissertation on the theatrical career of Owen Davis: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=4300&context=gradschool_disstheses
Davis’ first Broadway play was “Reaping the Whirlwind,” opening 17 September 1900. It was one of the touring productions for the Maude Hillman company and based on the proverbial phrase, “They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind.” The Maude Hillman Co. advertised “a repertoire of scenic productions” with “new and bright specialties” (Pittston Gazette, 27 Oct. 1903, page 3). The show was set during the Franco-Prussian War.
The Wilkes-Barre Record reported on the production, “A thrilling incident in a varied spectacle which the melodrama “Reaping the Whirlwind” affords is a sensational escape from the military prison at Metz. There are also other thrilling climaxes in this latest and victorious four-act drama. It is not a mess of lines built about a display of scenery, but it is a play with excellent characters interpreted by Maud Hillman and a strong supporting company. Hilarious mirth alternated with deep pathos.” (16 March 1903, page 5).
I had to chuckle as I read: “It is not mess of lines built about a display of scenery.”
To be continued…
