Arizona

Arizona (1900), a play by Augustus Thomas. [Herald Square Theatre, 140 perf.] Captain Hodgman (Walter Hale) of the 11th Cavalry, for all his charm and good looks, is an immoral scoundrel. He has fathered an illegitimate child by Lena Kellar (Adora Andrews) and tries to seduce Estrella Bonham (Jane Kennark), his colonel's wife. Lieutenant Denton (Vincent Serrano) discovers that Estrella plans to elope with Hodgman, to whom she has given her jewels. He talks her out of her plan and recovers the jewels, but Col. Bonham (Edwin Holt), discovering Denton with the jewels, accuses him of theft. Denton renounces his commission but remains near at hand to be with his fiancée, Bonita Canby (Eleanor Robson), Estrella's sister. When Hodgman is shot, Denton is suspected. To exculpate the devoted Denton, Estrella must confess her attempted infidelity. She tells Bonham she now truly loves him. At first he is icy, but sensing how much his own rigid behavior had led Estrella to seek affection elsewhere, he picks up a rose that Estrella has dropped on the floor and thrusts it in his shirt. Bernard Sobel, in The Theatre Handbook, described Arizona as “an example par excellence of well constructed melodrama of the type popular at the turn of the century.” The play, produced by Kirk LaShelle and Fred Hamlin, was successfully revived several times, and made into an unsuccessful musical, The Love Call (1927). But its importance lies far more in its direct and indirect influences than in any contemporary excellence. The play is generally credited with starting the rage for “Westerns” in the American theatre. Booked at the failing Herald Square Theatre, which the young Shubert brothers had taken over as their first New York base, its success allowed them to start their climb to theatrical heights.