The Life of David Belasco

The London engagement of “Zaza” ended, Belasco, Mrs. Carter, and the members of the “Zaza” company returned to America, sailing from Southampton, on board the steamship New York, August 18, 1900. Mrs. Carter’s tour in that play began at the Criterion Theatre, New York, on October 1, and Belasco turned his attention to launching Blanche Bates as a star. The histrionic vehicle which he selected for this purpose was a revamped dramatization of Ouida’s “Under Two Flags.” He had hoped to obtain a drama on a fresh subject for her use and he had asked Charles Frohman to assist in finding such a one. But, after waiting a considerable time without any suitable play coming to light and it being essential to bring her forward in something, Belasco determined to turn to an old subject and revivify it. “I decided, in desperation,” he writes, “to revive ‘Under Two Flags,’ which I had long been familiar with, of which I had made at least two versions, and which, in the old days, I had directed for Lotta. Her version of it, however, seemed very old-fashioned, and I employed Mr. Paul M. Potter to make a new adaptation of the book. I introduced a novel effect in that production in the sand-storm in the Fourth Act; it was simple in its mechanism, but it required much work to perfect it: it has since come into general use.”

Ouida’s novel is so well known to the public of the Library and, in one form or another, histrionic adaptations of it are so well known to the public of the Theatre, that the subject is, in every point of view, familiar, and minutely detailed consideration of it in this place would, therefore, be superfluous. The new theatrical epitome of that novel was made known, for the first time, at the Garden Theatre, New York, February 5, 1901. It was, in every detail, supervised and made practical by Belasco, and it owed its success to his ingenious and expert manipulation and to the embodiment of Cigarettegiven in it under his direction by Miss Bates. The story of that ardent, picturesque, adventurous girl is a story of amatory infatuation, brave exploits, and pathetic self-sacrifice, under romantic circumstances.