Saratoga

This is another of the plays that I have not been able to find anything really specific about Maude Adams herself in the play. One source did have that she performed the play in 1878. The following material is about the play in general, but refers to an earlier version of the play than Maude Adams was in.

=====American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1869-1914 by Gerald Bordman; Oxford University Press, 1994=====

Daly's Horizon, the work many observers considered the most intrinsically worthwhile, was a commercial disappointment. However, the well-written, hugely successful Saratoga earned an honored position in our theatrical history, while two rattlingly effective actor's vehicles, Across the Continent and Kit, the Arkansas Traveller, held the stage as long as their stars remained active. Yet not all theatergoers were pleased by what they saw. In his 1871 pamphlet Democratic Vistas, Walt Whitman complained, "Of what is called drama, or dramatic presentations in the United States, as now put forth at the theatres, I should say it deserves to be treated with the same gravity, and on a par with the questions of ornamental confectionery at public dinners, or the arrangement of curtains and hangings in a ball-room--nor more, nor less." Happily, many others were less censorious. Meanwhile, Daly mounted two more revivals, London Assurance on the 9th and Twelfth Night on the 12th, before turning to a new American play. That play was to give him one of his most fondly remembered successes. Saratoga; or, Pistols for Seven ( 12-21- 70), Fifth Ave.) was the work of Bronson Howard.

Bronson [Crocker] Howard ( 1842-1908) came from old American stock and was born in Detroit, where his father, a successful merchant, served a term as mayor. After eye problems forced him to leave Yale, he became drama critic for the Detroit Free Press . At the same time, he wrote Fantine, a play based on Hugo's Les Misérables, which was produced in Detroit in 1864. Shortly afterward he moved to New York, taking work first with the Tribune and then with the Post . Once he became convinced that he could support himself by playwriting, he abandoned newspaper work. As a result he is sometimes said to have been the first American to earn a living entirely by playwriting, although this palm is often awarded to Bartley Campbell. Later he was called "the dean of American drama."

The central figure of Saratoga is an irrepressible ladies' man, Bob Sackett ( James Lewis), who insists to a friend, "You have never loved as I love!" Indeed, the program forewarned playgoers that he has "loved not wisely but four well." Actually, at the beginning of the play he is only engaged to three women: the progressive-thinking, self-reliant Effie Remington ( Fanny Davenport), the flirtatious Virginia Vanderpool ( Linda Dietz), and the lovely widow Olivia Alston ( Fanny Morant). He has a narrow squeak when he comes across all three in rapid-fire succession at an art opening. The encounters leave him shaken, so he rushes off to the freedom of Saratoga, not knowing all three ladies also have decided to pack off to the spa. Meeting them there proves too much, prompting him to rush off again for a time. When he returns he tells his friend, Jack Benedict ( D. H. Harkins), that a carriage accident flung into his arms the girl to end all girls, "the fairy of my dreams." That dream soon turns out to be Lucy Carter ( Clara Morris), the young bride of an old man. Before long Mr. Carter ( D. Whiting) and the other ladies' suitors have all issued demands for duels. They are cheered on by the elder Vanderpools ( William Davidge and Mrs. Gilbert). Sackett invites them all to Jack's rooms, where he manages to defuse the situation. Virginia and the widow find attractive replacements, while Sackett settles for marrying Effie. The play's humor is exemplified by the opening, where two minor figures are examining a painting of a white cat.