By Tom Collins
Despite the numerous events, Bashford at one point seemed to have given up on the concept of a profitable theatre. After more than a year without performances of any kind, Bashford announced through the Miner that he was having the "old opera house" put in thorough repair, for use solely as a hall. "He will not rebuild the stage again. The south wall has been rebuilt and the interior of the place thoroughly renovated" (Sept. 17, 1890).
Yet, six months later, Bashford booked McFadden's production of Harriet Beecher Stowe's, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (March 1891). While advance notices promised a thrilling experience, the editor of the Miner later criticized the management for "inflicting" McFadden's shabby production on the Prescott public. Even with its "modern improvements," the opera house was scarcely large enough to accommodate the spectacle of Stowe's powerful drama of slavery in the Old South. The Courier complained, "Now, Prescott's chief play house is not as large as it should be. It was, at one time, larger, but fire caused a reduction in its size. It is of brick, and well supplied with chairs. The stage is of the cribbed, cabined and confined order, so there was not much chance for disorder upon it. But for the centrepiece of the drop curtain, with its really handsome representation of Prescott and names of surrounding mining and other districts, painted thereon in well formed letters, a hightoned stranger would be led to think it a little 'loud,' owing to the artist's reckless use, or misuse, of reddish colors" (Feb 13, 1891). Renovations were clearly long overdue.
Accordingly, Bashford turned the theatre over to H.D.Aitken and B.M.Goldwater for one year. These businessmen gutted the Howey building and relocated the theatre to the first floor, enlarging the stage and ordering a complete set of new scenery. The stage was "footlighted by small kerosene lamps in a tin trough...and the blue lights on either side of the proscenium and several big lamps suspended from the ornate ceiling were dimmed by chains or cords." In October of 1891, they installed a new drop curtain representing "Portsmouth harbor in the back ground, with a full rigged ship at anchor in the foreground.
"For the grand re-opening, Professor Ludwig Thomas and director Joseph Dauphin prepared a lavish new production of Gilbert & Sullivan's, "H.M.S. Pinafore." Dauphin himself sang the role of Sir Joseph Porter, while local dentist, F.H.Waite, played Ralph Rackstraw and soprano, Mrs. W.A.Cline played Josephine. The production ran for four nights to packed houses. (This was Joe Dauphin's farewell performance. He moved some time after the closing to San Francisco, where he played an engagement at the Alcazar Theatre in May 1892.)
In November, the Beebe-Barbour Company played a week-long engagement of six different plays, including "SHE, the Queen of Kor," adapted by Edwin Barbour himself from Sir Henry Rider Haggard's seminal, 'lost kingdom' novel (1887). The adaptation, according to Barbour, "created much comment and made a lot of money on the road." Mr. Barbour made a powerful impression as a handsome Englishman whose fascination for the legendary Eternal Flame of Life leads his expedition to the mysterious Kingdom of Kor, ruled by the beautiful queen, Ayesha (Marie Wellsly), who, although she is over 2,300 years old, is kept youthful by the magic flame. The child star, Little Gracie Beebe, wowed audiences with the song-and-dance numbers she performed before each of the plays.
The 1892 season featured the Stuttz Theatre Company in a repertoire of five different plays, including Ouida's, "Under Two Flags," the quintessential Foreign Legion drama. Then came the show that vied with "SHE..." for sheer novelty: Mrs. General Tom Thumb and her variety troupe of little people, performing songs, dances, rope jumping, and magic tricks (Oct 1892). "The performance throughout was refined and entirely free from all objectionable features.." (Miner, Oct 5).
The major highlight of the 1893 season (a sparse one) was the appearance of McCreery & Howell's Companion Players in two spectacular productions: "Monte Cristo" and John A. Stevens' "Passion's Slave" (March 15-16). William Oscar Don starred as Edmond Dantes and as Manuel de Foe. The Miner commented that "notwithstanding their late arrival and the limited time allowed for preparation of the stage, the performance passed off very smoothly. Mr. Don..is really a fine actor and he was supported by a good company" (March 22). "Monte Cristo" could possibly have been pirated, for in the previous decade the play was owned and acted solely by James O'Neill, father of our great American dramatist, Eugene O'Neill. The hero's vengeance upon Fernand Mondego, the 'friend' who had framed him for treason, imprisoned him in the Chateau D'If for fourteen years, and stolen the love of his life, the beautiful Mercedes, enthralled hundreds of thousands of theatergoers all over the country from 1883 to 1907.
By 1894, the so-called Prescott Opera House had fallen into disrepair and was considered "unsafe." In its waning years, it housed primarily lectures by local and visiting dignitaries. One Professor Putnam, in January 1895, delivered a series of lectures on agnosticism, evolution vs. creation, and freethinking. Miss Sharlot Hall held forth, in April 1895, on the subject of "Theocracy or Patriotism in the American Republic." The music and drama were silenced by the erection of a new opera house on Gurley Street by a noted architect, Samuel Eason Patton. Patton's Opera House opened in October 1894. Its impressive size and technical advances eclipsed the relatively tiny stage of the Howey building. Nonetheless, in a few last hurrahs, Bashford's Opera House hosted a minstrel show by the Prescott Lodge of Elks (Feb 1898) and the Andrews Opera Company in a production of Auber's, "Fra Diavolo" (Feb 1899). The Miner regretted on the latter occasion that, "Prescott has not better facilities in the way of an opera house, as our people would have been delighted to have seen this company in other comic operas." No less than three hundred people were crammed into the little auditorium. It is indeed odd that this prestigious opera company did not play its entire repertoire at the more commodious Patton's Opera House, which had recently been remodeled.
Howey's Hall ceased to function as a theatre after 1899 and ultimately was acquired by the Prescott Fire Department (March 1904). It stood until May 1959, when it was finally demolished. W.G.Heisler had written an impassioned letter to the editor just four years earlier (Oct 1955). He described Howey's Hall as an historic landmark and praised its beautiful interior. He claimed that his father had seen such international stars as Fanny Davenport, Lilly Langtry, Helena Modjeska, John Drew, Thomas Keene, and Nat Goodwin perform there. Unfortunately there is not a shred of evidence to corroborate these claims, and Mr. Heisler admits that, "Of course much of this history is from before my time, largely from hearing my father tell of it and from hearing him whistle some of the delightful music of the old operas and concert numbers, glorious music that was poured forth within those walls of our opera house, so decrepit and forlorn looking today." (The Shakespearean actor Thomas Keene did perform "Richard III" at Patton's Opera House in 1896, but there is no record that he or any of these other superstars of the 19th-century stage performed at Howey's Hall. And surely the Miner and the Courier, which routinely reviewed lesser lights, would have jumped at the chance to cover the arrival of such celebrities in Prescott.) We can confirm only a few of Heisler's recollections. It may be that in his father's memory, several different theatres were conflated into one: Howey's Hall.
This fine little opera house, which once rang with the music of Verdi, Donizetti, Offenbach, and Sullivan, and thrilled Prescottonians with the greatest melodramas of the day, vanished into obscurity. Only one programme, that of the 1891 revival of "H.M.S. Pinafore," and one photo, that of the Mrs. General Tom Thumb troupe, remain in the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives to testify to the theatre's lively history. Might there be more in old Prescott family scrapbooks?
(Tom Collins is a retired college professor of theater history and a volunteer of the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives.)
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bub8215p)
Reuse only by permission.
Howey's Hall as seen from the roof of the Courthouse, c.1890s.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(po0871pg)
Reuse only by permission.
Hedrick D. Aitken, shown here c.1890s, along with B.M.Goldwater, took over Howey's Hall for a year (1891-92), gutted the building, moved the theater to the first floor, enlarged the stage and ordered a complete set of new scenery. The stage was "footlighted by small kerosene lamps in a tin trough...and the blue lights on either side of the proscenium and several big lamps suspended from the ornate ceiling were dimmed by chains or cords." In October of 1891, they installed a new drop curtain representing "Portsmouth harbor in the back ground, with a full rigged ship at anchor in the foreground. The theater was back in operation again by November 1891.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(db524f12i) Reuse only by permission.
The Mrs. General Tom Thumb trio (shown here) and her variety troupe of little people played at the Opera House in October of 1892, performing songs, dances, rope jumping and magic tricks. It was a novelty feature, unlike the usual refined performances held at the opera houses in Prescott.