Taming of the Shrew (United Artists) (1929)

They Help Swell Your Box-Office Receipts Research Expert' Gives Graphic Account Of Stage Premiere In Shakespeare’s Day Opening in 1600 of “Taming of the Shrew,” Pickford- Fairbanks’ Initial Co-Starring Vehicle, Quaint Event with Author Playing Important Part. With Additions by Charles Blevins Davis, Head of the English Department of the William Chrisman High Schools, Independence, Missouri. (NOTE: In an excellent translation of “A History of Theatrical Art” by Karl Mantzius, the distinguished author describes in a most human way a first performance at "The Globe” Theatre in Shakespeare’s day. (Published by Duckworth, London ) I have quoted most of the passages and added a few thoughts of my own. With the screen premiere of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in "Taming of the Shrew” in the offing, the account of the orig¬ inal "first night” seems timely, as a study in contrasts.) C. B. D. Our modern day usher of the “West Point” school, looking as if he had been poured into a strait-jacket and with every joint in his body working like a rusty hinge, would probably have been tarred and feathered or pelted with old vegetables had he at¬ tempted to herd the merry throng of theatre patrons in the day of William Shakespeare. Present day theatre managers also would lead lives of com¬ parative idleness if they had no more to worry about than the busiest of managers in the days of Queen Bess, when the Bard was writing and acting in plays. There were no lighting difficulties as none of the theatres had such con- viences as roofs. Expensive curtains were unknown and stage properties not even thought of. The stage pro¬ truded like a wedge far out on the ground floor, and was surrounded on three sides by a first and second balcony. The “bald-headed” row was completely eliminated, for those who paid admission to the lower floor had to stand during the entire per¬ formance or sit on stools or boxes which they brought with them for their own personal comfort. The first balcony was the “diamond-horse¬ shoe” and those on the first floor or “the pit” were those who had paid the cheapest price of admission. Vendors filled the streets before a first performance and crowds milled around them purchasing various wares. From the tower of “The Globe” a great flag flapped in the breeze. Posters on trees and posts have announced a play by Shakes¬ peare. It is “Taming of the Shrew.” The trumpeters wind a blast and the crowd files into the playhouse. Here is a first performance and great expectations are entertained with regard to the new play. In the “tiring-house,” the actors are nerv¬ ously putting on their magnificent new clothes and their wigs, and paint¬ ing their cheeks. The boys who play the female parts are pinched into tightening stays and are adorned, painted and perfumed like any lady. The prompter and the stagekeeper runs busily about with their lists in their hands, seeing that such prop¬ erties as might be boasted are ready and that the musicians do not fail to tune their instruments. The prologue is ready and he, be¬ ing an individual selected to an¬ nounce the theme of the play, walks slowly up and down in his black vel¬ vet cloak, mumbling to himself the introductory verses which he has to recite. He is a tall, stately man of distinguished appearance; the black velvet suits him, though it adds to the pallor excitement has given to his face. He is not painted, and he rubs his cheeks to give them a little color. (Note: When Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks first started work their version of “Taming of the Shrew,” they seriously contemplated eluding in their adaptation some prologue, but this was found imprac¬ ticable on the screen.) From the audience we hear the ever-increasing sounds of humming and buzzing, now and then mixed with loud cries of female voices. We distinguish the words, “apples,” “nuts”-“ale” . . . The Prologue enters by one of the large gates at the back of the stage. The draperies which divide it from the stage proper are drawn aside and he looks out upon the house. There they stand, Shakespeare’s judges, yonder in the “yard.” All those apprentices, soldiers and sail¬ ors, mixed with the worst dregs of London. Gamblers, pickpockets, women of low repute. These people are those who, before three hours have passed, will have pronounced their two-penny verdict on the work in which Shakespeare has expressed his fine soul’s best feelings and thoughts. For it is he, the Prolgue himself, who has written the new play. The expensive seats, boxes and galleries, are still empty. Only a few servants sit yawning while occupy¬ ing the places they have taken for their employers. But the upper gal lery, to which the admission is very cheap, is quite full and a lively stream of coarse jokes is kept up between the gallery and the pit. People a|>«#' playing cards. They drink, shout and cry, and a smell of food, ale, tobacco and cheap wine prevails. Burbage, the owner of “The Globe,” calls to Shakespeare. “Now, the great people begin to come! Look, Will, how they begin to pour ini Look, there is young Sir Francis Drake I He has gone into the, ground floor and glances along the galleries 14 —Three Col. Shakespearean Theatre Feature (Mat 20c; Cut 75c) to find a place near the finest girl. 1 hope ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ shall give him something to think about today.” In the house, boxds and galleries e. filling with stately ladies and gentlemen. The gentlemen are in costly silks and velvets, with gold chains on their breasts, stiff Spanish collars, fine lace cuffs, high hats or low caps with flying ostrich feathers. The ladies are even more gorgeous in light-laced long-pointed stays, enormous puffed sleeves, high lace collars, and their towering hair in¬ terwoven with pearls. Their ears and fingers glitter with jewels, their gloves carry gold embroidered initials and their faces are bright with white paint. Not all, however, show their faces, as most of the well bred ladies are masked. It is a peculiar and motley sight to see the boxes filled with all the variegated masks, wax-yellow, reddish-Brown, jet-black, grass- %reen, cherry, or apple-grey, through which the eyes cast their mysterious glances, while the bejewelled hands wave large ostrich-feather fans. High up in the top gallery we see women of doubtful character. They take great pains to conceal the class to which they belong. Some of them appear in gloomy black, like widows. Others appear in grey linsey-woolsey as if they were innocent country maidens. Others are dressed in lapelled bodices and aprons like ladies’ maids, or in the guise of re- pectable matrons. Sometimes they wear the rustling silk and lace of ladies of rank. The house is full—with about 600 people—-and the actors are ready. Only Burbage and the Prologue are in black. Most of the other per¬ formers are as variegated and gor¬ geous as members of the audience in the boxes. Through the tiny "tiring-house” some nobles are still forcing their way to the stage where, because of their rank, they are al¬ lowed to sit in view of the entire audience, They nod all around and greet the actors. “Good afternoon, Dick! Have you something good to show us today?” "Aye, Will, are you afraid we shall hiss your play?” They stroll on deliberately, followed by the stage-keeper who carries their three-legged stools. They sit down, light their pipes, at the same time greeting their acquaintances with grace and elegance. The actors grumble in their beards at these gallants who take up room by sitting on the stage and blow to¬ bacco smoke in their throats. But they dare not complain aloud. The young men are too mighty and pay well. The Prologue arranges his black cloak. He gives the signal and a blast! WHY “TAMING OF THE SHREW? yy A Reporter Seeks an Answer at First Hand. By JULIAN ARTHUR Shakespearean production has al¬ ways been difficult. No stage pro¬ ducer ever faced it without trepida¬ tion. First of all there is the fact that no two major productions have ever used the same version and, secondly, there is always a brave party of academicians to assail or defend, as the case may be, each version—aye, each line of each ver¬ sion. Furthermore, Shakespeare fol¬ lowed a set routine that greys the temples of stage directors; always great numbers of scenes and in¬ variably an interior alternating with an exterior. With these and far more serious difficulties to be faced, why did Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks de¬ cide on ‘Taming of the Shrew,” their first co-starring production which is the current attraction at the.Theatre? When the idea occurred to go di¬ rect to Mary and Doug for the an¬ swer, your reporter was prepared with a long list of questions, but not one of them was asked. Doug’: characteristic greeting ruined a good questionnaire. “Hello, how are you. Don’t ask me why I’m going to make the ^Shrew’ and ‘I’ll tell you. Write: nowadays are not satisfied with facts; they want to know the why of facts. This doesn’t deduce more facts, but merely more theories. You can analyze the beauty out of a rose, if you go far enough. When you heard that Mary and 1 were going to do Shakespeare, you imme¬ diately thought of obstacles. To ad¬ mit obstacles makes them. There are no obstacles in the way of doing ‘The Shrew.’ It has been done be¬ fore many times and will be done many more. Put it on the screen? Why not? “The only serious problem we had to face was the knowledge that we would be suspected in advance of what the half-baked intellectual horrifiedly terms ‘changing Shakes¬ peare'.” Doug laughed as though he was amused mightily. “The other night I was talking to a young fellow who keeps his Shakespeare next to his bible. He was amazed when I told him that only once in the history of the mod¬ ern stage had Shakespeare been produced as written and this was purely an experiment by an English troupe of no great importance. “Every star who has played Shakespeare has used his own ver¬ sion, and we shall use ours. The difference, however, is that we shall not presume to write Shakespearean dialogue. We will delete lines and even characters, since Shakespeare was notorious for allowing the lim of minor characters to establish im¬ portant motivation or plot, and the length of a film is standard and a picture has certain set limits.” Mary Pickford came into the room; she wore the long trailing robe of silver that I later recognized in the Paduan Cathedral scene where Katherine and Petruchio are ...arried. Her much-discussed bob was hidden by an elaborate fifteenth century head-dress. Her eyes were bright, and it was evident that she was not worried over the problems of Shakespeare. Douglas excused himself to look after his make-up, and my chance came to use at least one of my questions. “Everybody expected that your first picture with Mr. Fairbanks would be Hewlett’s Forest Lovers, or Romeo and Juliet, or some ro¬ mance of the sort,” I said. "Why didn’t you?” "Douglas has already answered that question, I think. After all the exaggerated attention given our own romance, it would have been worse than indelicate to play pure ro¬ mance on the screen. The ‘Shrew’ is ideal for us because there is no other story we have ever read that has two parts so exactly suited to us. Douglas is an ideal Petruchio and I certainly like Katherine for myself. “ ‘Taming of the Shrew’ is such a simple, straight-forward story that it really could be played as straight pantomime, but with dialogue, becomes a scintillant comedy. We are going to play it very broadly, just as it has always been played on the Stage, but the camera will give us an opportunity to enlarge our field of action and add a great deal of beauty impossible on the stage. Shakespeare never intended this play as anything but'farce, and we will play it with our tongues in our cheeks. “Also there is another reason why we wanted to be the first to bring Shakespeare to the screen. It somehow seems an advance toward a higher standard in talkie dialogue, and there is something really worth while and constructive in this idea. The great mass of people who are unfamiliar with Shakespeare will be introduced to him in a manner that will make his work attractive. We have spared no pains to preserve authenticity in every detail and we have lost none of the original spirit of the play in the transcription.” It seems quite true that nothing has been spared to make the first co-starring vehicle of the famous pair a very fine presentation. Con¬ stance Collier was engaged as voice coach, John Craig as authority on variant readings, while William Cameron Menzies was active in re¬ taining the fifteenth century flavor in art detail. The cast is wholly recruited from the stage, and includes Joseph Caw- thorn, Clyde Cook, Edwin Maxwell, Geoffrey Wardwell and Dorothy Jordan. from the trumpet rings through the theatre. Everybody looks up. People settle themselves. The card players in the “pit” make haste to finish their game before the play begins. An¬ other blast. The. talk and noise abate. The apple-girls and other hawkers stop crying their wares. One more flourish, the third and last. All is quiet. Every eye is turned toward the stage. Behind, the filmsy curtain stands the Prologue, with dry lips and trembling hands. With a quick move¬ ment he pulls aside the curtain, ad¬ vances with a quie.t smile, and bows to the crowd. “It is Shakespeare! Look, it is Shakespeare!” The name spreads through the house. The great lords nqd kindly in acknpwledgement. The apprentices and sailors in the "Pit” roar out a welcome to their “Will,” and the ladies in both the first and secoYid galleries smile at the honey- sweet poet. With a grace and dignity of his own, Shakespeare recites the intro¬ ductory verses and retires slowly, fol¬ lowed by the applause pf his friends. The play is on. A quick change of costume and the Bard re-enters to play his role. Again the applause bursts forth. The act is ended. Bur¬ bage and Shakespeare, both actors the play, shake hands in silence and both feel that this day they have done something good. There is an entr’acte. The noise and talk is resumed. The apple-girls cry again. Critics discuss the merits and demerits of the play. The ladies flirt, and the mob drinks. Here and there someone sits silently musing on what he has seen and heard. Suddenly a shrill cry pierces the din. A man is seen swinging a bloody ear in one hand and a knife in the other: The original owner of the ear screams, scolds and threatens. The crowd throngs around them. But the first man stands, holding calmly the ear in his hand. “Now, do be quiet,” he says. “I won’t cheat you. Give me back my purse and you shall have your ear. That’s a good fellow. Now take yourself off.” It is a pickpocket, caught red- handed. The thief is seized amid great noise and merry exclamations from the mob and tied to a stake on the stage where he remains during the rest of the performance, the laughing stock of all but scarcely to the advantage of the impression produced by the play. Meanwhile the play pursues its course. The actors do their best. One of them has to endure unpleas¬ ant hissing. Another arouses such discontent that he is hailed with cat¬ calls. A third has difficulty in pro¬ tecting himself from the vegetables and fruit hurled in his direction. But the success of the play is evi¬ dent. All leave the house pleased and voicing their approval of “Taming of the Shrew,” the screen version of which is now playing at the.Theatre. Burbage and Shakespeare are acclaimed on every hand as the throng disperses to ale houses to make merry for long hours.