The Deep Purple | |
---|---|
Written by | Paul Armstrong and Wilson Mizner |
Directed by | Hugh Ford |
Date premiered | December 20, 1911 |
Place premiered | Lyric Theatre |
Original language | English |
Subject | Badger game |
Genre | Melodrama |
The Deep Purple is a 1910 play written by Paul Armstrong and Wilson Mizner. It is a melodrama with four acts, a large cast, three settings, and fast pacing. The story concerns an attempted badger game broken up by the intended victim who rescues the unwitting female lure from a gang. The title refers to the nobility of the protagonist's character, that he was "bred in the deep purple".
The play was first produced by Liebler & Company, staged by Hugh Ford, and starred Richard Bennett. It had a short tryout in Rochester, New York, during September 1910, followed by a fourteen-week run in Chicago, before premiering on Broadway in January 1911. Its first season on Broadway ended in May 1911, after 152 performances.
The play was later adapted for silent films of the same title in 1915 and 1920.
The play was never published, so characters are described as depicted in 1910-1911 reviews.
Lead
Supporting
Featured
Bit Players
The play was never published, so the following is compiled from contemporaneous newspaper reviews.
Act I (Basement parlor of Frisco Kate's boarding house in the West Forties of Manhattan.) Harry Leland has enticed Doris Moore to Manhattan with a promise of marriage. Harry and his partner Pops Clark have inserted their gang into Frisco Kate's boarding house by threatening to expose her past crimes to police. When Doris arrives, Kate determines to protect her from Leland. Also staying at Kate's is Gordon Laylock, a western train robber with four notches on his gun. He and Kate are both trying to go straight. They overhear Harry and Pops coaching Doris on how to lure a wealthy man to the boarding house. Realizing Gordon is a danger, the gang has him arrested by Connolly and taken to Riker's Island. (Curtain)
Act II (Scene 1: A parlor in a Manhattan hotel.) William Lake, just returned from the west, greets his mother and sister at the hotel. Doris contrives to run into William and solicits his help valuing some mining stock. He agrees to go with Doris to visit her mother at their apartment. However, Kate has followed Doris and now warns William that its a trap. When his own mother and sister return, William sends them off to the Broadway theatres. He then arms himself and escorts Doris out.
(Scene 2: Same as Act I.) When Doris and William return to the boarding house, Harry and Pop Clark are waiting. They threaten William's life unless he coughs up a large sum of money. But William draws his gun and promises to kill Harry right there. Doris, still under Harry's charms, begs for his life. William relents, and takes Doris away with him.(Curtain)
Act III (Mrs. Lake's apartment.) William brings Doris to his mother's apartment. He summons his friend Captain George Bruce and tells him the story of the gang's plot. George warns his friend that the girl is likely to be a bad one. William tests her by leaving her alone with a large sum of money. Meanwhile, Harry has traced Doris to the Lake apartment. Spying the money, he makes a grab for it, but Doris blocks his attempt at it. William then comes out of hiding to chase off Harry. Later, while waiting alone at the apartment, Doris receives a telephone call saying her father has come to town and will meet her at the boarding house. (Curtain)
Act IV (Same as Act I.) Frisco Kate has managed to get Gordon set loose from Riker's.They return to the boarding house. Doris arrives, thinking to find her father, but it was a trick. William enters, in search of Doris. He and Gordon denounce Harry and Pop Clark as conmen, which Doris in a last spasm of feeling tries to refute. Harry threatens to shop Kate and Gordon, then turns on Doris. He will tell her family that she is a criminal, too. Incensed by the threats, Gordon pulls out a pistol and kills Harry. When Capt. Bruce and the police arrive, William persuades them to treat it as suicide. William then gives Gordon and Kate money for travel to Algiers, where a job in William's company awaits. Doris will return to her family, her honor intact. As he takes leave of William, Gordon says "I've met many game men in my time, but you-- you were bred in the deep purple". [2] (Curtain)
Armstrong and Mizner sold the play, originally entitled In the Deep Purple, during March 1910 to Liebler & Company. [3] This was a partnership between investor T. A. Liebler and producer-manager George C. Tyler. Though not a member of the Theatrical Syndicate, Tyler had a good working relationship with its leaders, including Charles Frohman. [4] He convinced Frohman to let him sign away Richard Bennett for The Deep Purple and future productions. [5]
Armstrong had previously written Salomy Jane (1907) and Alias Jimmy Valentine (1909), both of which Tyler had successfully produced for Liebler & Company. Their streak of collaboration would end with The Deep Purple, when Armstrong filed for an injunction to halt performances of The Deep Purple, then in its third week at Chicago. [6] He asserted the play was being hurt by unauthorized changes to lines. The temporary injunction was granted, but performances continued. [fn 1] Armstrong stopped speaking with Tyler directly, communicating through intermediaries. [7] A newspaper reported that Armstrong left Chicago in November 1910, having apparently dropped the litigation. [8] When a reporter later asked whether Tyler's casting was responsible for the success of The Deep Purple, Armstrong replied: "Any village quartet can sing The Larboard Watch". [fn 2] [9]
Role | Actor | Dates | Notes and sources |
---|---|---|---|
William Lake | Richard Bennett | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | Despite being recruited by Tyler, [5] Bennett did not get star billing in ads. |
Gordon Laylock | Emmett Corrigan | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | |
Harry Leland | Jameson Lee Finney | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | |
Kate Fallon | Ada Dwyer | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | Dwyer had been managed by Liebler & Company for eleven years. [10] |
Doris Moore | Catherine Calvert | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | Calvert was Armstrong's discovery, [11] and would eventually become his second wife. [12] |
Pop Clark | W. J. Ferguson | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | |
Flynn | George M. Fee | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | |
Connolly | George T. Meech | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | |
Mrs. Lake | Isabel Waldron | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | |
Ruth Lake | Mabel Morrison | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | Morrison was the wife of Richard Bennett, who played Walter Lake, and mother of his three daughters. [fn 3] [13] |
George Bruce | William A. Norton | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | |
Christine | Rosamond O'Kane | Sep 24, 1910 - May 20, 1911 | |
The Deep Purple opened at the Shubert Theatre in Rochester, New York on September 26, 1910. [14] It was a limited run of three days, a tryout before the production went to an open engagement in Chicago. The local reviewer said: "As a play, The Deep Purple is a sample of excellent melodramatic construction. It introduces its characters with descriptive clarity and it proceeds to unfold its action and plot with directness and coherence". [14] They also remarked on the "refreshing excellence" of the cast, in which even the bit players exhibit aptitude. [14]
The production then moved to the Princess Theater in Chicago, opening there on October 3, 1910. [15] Percy Hammond of the Chicago Tribune echoed the Rochester reviewer in praising Armstrong's [fn 4] construction of the play: "But in The Deep Purple he does little for which there is no excuse, and the play, therefore, is the most reasonable of his interesting output". [15] Hammond also praised Hugh Ford's staging, Tyler's casting, and gave credit for interesting performances to the six principals [fn 5] [15]
Eric DeLamarter, writing for The Inter Ocean , was a little more critical about two plot points, and while praising Emmett Corrigan, seemed to slight the lead: "In the role of William Lake was Richard Bennett, pleased with his part and his own interpretation". He concluded that while the play was melodrama, it was also "mighty fascinating". [16]
After its run in Chicago was twice extended, Percy Hammond offered a fourteenth-week ode to The Deep Purple for "idol-smashing achievements". Hammond reflected "We now know that a man may be turned from the duty of living a man's life, in Mr. Pinero's phrase, without getting maudlin about it; that a woman may reform because she feels like it... that one man may kill another who needs killing without explaining that he was animated by other than motives of personal vengeance". [17]
The play had its Broadway premiere on January 9, 1911, at the Lyric Theatre. [18] Where Chicago reviewers had been positive, the trend of Broadway criticism was negative. The New York Times review sub-heading called it a "Crudely Contrived Melodrama Without Plausibility to Create Much Illusion". [18] The reviewer did compliment the acting of Richard Bennett, Ada Dwyer, and Emmett Corrigan, and thought whatever merit the production had was due to the cast, with the exception of Catherine Calvert. [18]
The Times review was generous compared to that of The Sun , which blasted the play as "stupid", "amateurish and tiresome", and which decried in separate paragraphs "vulgarity", "crude vulgarity", and "crass vulgarity". [19] But the reviewer did admit that "Some of the actors helped the play along", particularly Jameson Lee Finney and Ada Dwyer. [19] The critic for The Brooklyn Daily Eagle knocked the play for being a weak version of a melodrama, and said if it did attract audiences it would mean Manhattan playgoers are "gullible". [20] They ascribed the play's failings to the writers, and expressed sympathy for the "capable players" who "waste their efforts" in the production.
A contrary opinion came from Charles Darnton of The Evening World , who said: "It is rough, but seldom crude, and weak only when it grows sentimental. The truth of its type cannot be questioned, and its dialogue rings equally true... Moreover, the acting is the best I've seen in many a night." [21] Darnton was most impressed with Ada Dwyer's performance, and just as underwhelmed by another: "Miss Catherine Calvert is so bad she is funny. She is ridiculously amateurish." [21]
The Deep Purple closed at the Lyric Theatre on April 22, 1911, and moved to Maxine Elliott's Theatre on April 24, 1911. [22] It then closed at Maxine Elliott's Theatre on May 20, 1911, after 152 [fn 6] performances. [23]
Anna Alice Chapin was an American author and playwright. She wrote novels, short stories, fairy tales and books on music, but is perhaps best remembered for her 1904 collaboration with Glen MacDonough on the child's book adaptation of the Babes in Toyland operetta.
Sag Harbor, sub-titled An Old Story, is an 1899 comedy, the last play written by American author James Herne. It has four acts and three settings, all within Sag Harbor, New York, while the action covers a two-year time span. The play is a rural comedy, with two brothers competing for the same girl, and an older widower wooing a shy spinster. The play avoids melodrama, emphasising the realistic nature of its characters, though as one critic pointed out they occasionally do unreal things.
The Merle Reskin Theatre is a performing arts venue located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Originally named the Blackstone Theatre it was built in 1910. Renamed the Merle Reskin Theatre in 1992, it is now part of DePaul University, and is also used for events and performances of other groups. It serves as the home of the Chicago Playworks for Families and Young Audiences series produced by The Theatre School of DePaul.
Catherine Calvert was an American actress.
Harold Robertson Heaton was a newspaper artist whose work focused on cartoons. His prodigious body of work contributed to the development of political cartoons. He also illustrated books and produced sketches and paintings. He left newspaper work in 1899 to begin acting on the stage, and later wrote plays as well. He returned to cartooning for six years beginning in 1908, but continued acting while doing so. He appeared in many Broadway productions through 1932. A brief retrospective on his employment with the Chicago Tribune, from October 1942, mentioned his obituary had been printed "a few years ago".
Disraeli is a play by the British writer Louis N. Parker. The comedy with dramatic overtones has four acts and four settings, with a large cast, and moderate pacing. It is a fictional depiction of Benjamin Disraeli's life around 1875, when he arranged the purchase of the Suez Canal. It also contains dual love stories: Disraeli and his wife, and a young couple.
The Deep Purple is a 1920 American silent crime drama film directed by Raoul Walsh from a 1910 play, The Deep Purple, co-written by Paul Armstrong and Wilson Mizner. The picture stars Miriam Cooper and Helen Ware and is a remake of the 1915 lost film The Deep Purple. It is not known whether the 1920 film currently survives.
The Deep Purple is a lost 1915 film directed by James Young. The film stars Clara Kimball Young and Milton Sills, and was remade in 1920 again titled The Deep Purple by director Raoul Walsh.
Martha Louise Rayne (1836–1911) was an American who was an early woman journalist. In addition to writing and editing several journals, she serialized short stories and poems in newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, and the Los Angeles Herald. In addition to newspaper work, she published a guidebook of Chicago, etiquette books, and several novels. In 1886, she founded what may have been the first women's journalism school in the United States and four years later became a founding member and first vice president of the Michigan Woman's Press Association. Rayne was posthumously inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2002.
The 1925 Big Ten Conference football season was the 30th season of college football played by the member schools of the Big Ten Conference and was a part of the 1925 college football season. Over the course of the season, Big Ten teams played 36 non-conference games, compiling a 27–9 record (.750) in those games.
Pomander Walk is a 1910 historical comedy by the British writer Louis N. Parker. Sub-titled "A Comedy of Happiness", it has three acts, a single setting, and according to its author, neither plot nor villain. The place is a semi-circular row of houses facing the river Thames in Chiswick. The story concerns the bumpy road to bliss for two young lovers and the romantic awakening of three other couples. The play's action spans nine days during late May and early June 1805.
José Ruben was a French-born actor whose career from 1910 on was in the United States. He first rose to prominence in 1916-1917 with the Washington Square Players, and for the next ten years was a highly regarded lead player. He acted in over twenty silent films and was a fixture on Broadway stages, as both performer and director, for over forty years. He also taught drama at Barnard College and was a stage director for the New York City Opera.
The Garden of Allah is a play written by Robert Hichens and Mary Anderson. It was based on Hichens 1904 novel of the same name. It consists of four acts and an epilogue, with a medium-sized speaking cast and slow pacing. The play is concerned with the romance between a wealthy young Englishwoman and a half-Russian, half-English man of mysterious background. The settings are various locales in French Algeria and French Tunis around 1900, particularly the oasis town of Beni-Mora, a fictional name for Biskra. The title stems from an Arabic saying that the desert is the Garden of Allah.
Alias Jimmy Valentine is a 1909 play written by Paul Armstrong, based on the 1903 short story A Retrieved Reformation by O. Henry. It has four acts, a large cast, four settings, and fast pacing. The story follows a former safecracker's attempt to go straight, and the choice he must make between saving a child's life and exposing himself to arrest.
The Greyhound is a 1911 play written by Paul Armstrong and Wilson Mizner. It is a melodrama with four acts, six settings, a large cast and fast pacing. The story is episodic, following four criminals working likely victims on an ocean liner, and showing how they are thwarted. Although containing elements of a thriller, comedy dominates, as a glance at names of featured characters suggests. The title comes from the contemporary description of fast transatlantic passenger ships as "ocean greyhounds".
Paul Armstrong was an American playwright, whose melodramas provided thrills and comedy to audiences in the first fifteen years of the 20th century. Originally a steamship captain, he went into journalism, became a press agent, then a full time playwright. His period of greatest success was from 1907 through 1911, when his four-act melodramas Salomy Jane (1907), Via Wireless (1908), Going Some (1909), Alias Jimmy Valentine (1909), The Deep Purple (1910), and The Greyhound (1911), had long runs on Broadway and in touring companies. Many of his plays were adapted for silent films between 1914 and 1928.
The Man from Home is a 1907 play written by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson. It is a comedy with four acts, three settings, and moderate pacing. The story concerns an Indiana lawyer who has travelled to Italy to save his ward from an ill-conceived marriage. The action of the play all takes place within 24 hours.
Clarence is a 1919 play by Booth Tarkington. It is a four-act comedy with two settings and eleven characters. The story concerns an ailing recently discharged soldier who is given a handyman job by a financial tycoon because he has overheard family gossip in the tycoon's waiting room. Tarkington wrote the play with Alfred Lunt in mind, after having seen him perform in his earlier work, The Country Cousin.
Gregory Kelly was an American stage actor, who began performing as a child. He was a Broadway attraction, starring in such long-running productions as Seventeen and The Butter and Egg Man. His early death precluded him from appearing in more than two films. He is remembered today as the first husband of Ruth Gordon, who credited him with teaching her acting.
Dulcy is a 1920 play by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. It is a fast-paced three-act comedy with one setting and eleven characters. The story concerns a warm-hearted and wrong-headed woman who is a compulsive meddler and bromide; she cheerfully arranges other people's lives to their dismay. The action takes place within the living room of a house in Westchester County, New York, from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning. The authors based the play on the character Dulcinea, created by Franklin P. Adams for his newspaper column The Conning Tower.