Part 454: Thomas G. Moses and “The Night Before Christmas”
In 1903, Thomas G. Moses designed and painted the scenery for “The Night Before Christmas.” This was not a theatrical version of the seasonal poem, but a pastoral-comedy-drama that toured the New York area during 1903. Hal Reid’s show depicted a domestic picture of rural life in the Buckeye State was advertised as “The Laugh Producing and Tear Compelling Story of Real Life! SENTIMENT! LOVE! MIRTH! TEARS!” “The Night Before Christmas” was one of Burt & Nicloai’s productions. They were theatrical managers located at 1495 Broadway in New York. The show first appeared in 1900 and toured the circuit as “The Old Home Drama” that was “a picture of nature” (The Bedford News, 24 October 1901, page 4).
By the beginning of January in 1903, the show was receiving rave reviews in Buffalo, New York. It was performed at the Academy, known as “Buffalo’s Family Theatre,” and was one of five performance venues in the city. This was the production for which Moses created painted settings. The seating capacity at the Academy’s ground-floor theater was 1,586 (624 Orchestra, 352 Balcony, and 600 Gallery). The stage was framed by a proscenium measuring 40’ wide by 41’-6” high. The height to the fly gallery was 25’, with the height to the rigging loft at 52.’ There were 18’ grooves, but only for tormentors, not wing sets.
“The Buffalo Morning Express” reported, “The play is beautifully staged and abounds with realistic situations” (11 Jan 1903, page 25). At the same time, “The Buffalo Evening News” published, “The scenery was fine and the play handsomely staged, the churchyard scene and the court room scene coming in for the greater share of the applause. The plot of the story is very original and the love story is a fresh as the new mown hay. The story is complicated and tells the struggles of Jack Phillips to abstain from liquor for the sake of the girl he loved. The villain, Bud Meade, forces his attentions on the girl after a quarrel with Jack is killed by a tramp, who was at one time wronged by Meade. Jack is accused of the crime, tried, and sentenced to death by the judge, who is Jack’s father, faints upon pronouncing the sentence. The father in time becomes Governor of the State and pardons his son, whereupon the tramp confesses and comes out right in the end” (13 Jan. 1903, page 8).
“Plain homespun characters are introduced, and the unaffected simplicity of scene and incident seems to exert a potent charm over all classes of theatergoers. Great pains have been taken to give the play, and adequate scenic equipment and a fine company, numbering nearly 30 people, will be seen” (Buffalo Enquirer, 3 Jan. 1903, page 9).
By the fall of 1903, the show was playing at the Gotham theatre in Brooklyn from September 7 to 12. Jack Drumier played Judge Phillips, formerly the leading man of the Elite Company. Jack Phillips was played by James B. Marting, with Amanda Hendrix as Marian Williams and Helen Gurney as Mrs. Judge Phillips (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 8 Sept. 1903, page 10). The Gotham Music Hall is also fascinating; it opened in 1903 (some say 1901) and was built solely for plays and vaudeville with a 1,750-seat auditorium and stage house occupying the better part of a city block. In 1904, owners Sullivan & Kraus hired architect Thomas W. Lamb to do some minor alterations; it was his first theatre-related commission. By 1908, the venue was taken over by William Fox and began to include movies. The theater was razed for parking space in 1941. At the time, it was the oldest theater in East New York, originally built by the late Otto Huber, the brewer, as the Brooklyn Music Hall in 1894. It replaced Bennett’s Casino, a venue that had been destroyed by fire in the same decade.
“The Buffalo Morning Express” commented that the most thrilling scene in the show was the court scene, in which the father is sitting in judgment upon his son. “In this scene, a dry and usually uninteresting proceeding is turned into a thrilling act” (The Buffalo Morning Express, 11 Jan 1903, page 25).
To be continued…
