Ohio History Journal

THE EARLY THEATER IN COLUMBUS, OHIO,

1820-1840

 

by LUCILE CLIFTON

Associate Professor of English, Ball State Teachers College, Muncie, Indiana

The citizens of Columbus, Ohio, which was founded one

hundred and forty some years ago, have attended plays for at least

one hundred and thirty of those years and had a flourishing theater

as early as the mid-1830's. The first western theatrical circuits

followed the natural trade routes down the Ohio and Mississippi

rivers. As competition grew some struggling companies ventured

into the backwoods, so that strolling players visited some towns

such as Columbus almost as soon as they were founded. By the

1830's, after the Great Lakes region was sufficiently settled to

make playhouses profitable, a lake circuit was opened. Therefore,

when the Ohio Canal joined the northern and southern theatrical

circuits in 1833, Columbus was on the main route of the players

and ready for a thriving theatrical life. Actually the opportunities

in the 1830's were greater for the Columbus playgoer than they are

now. Although the actors were less skilled, the stage and properties

less lavish, and the productions less finished, more plays were

produced.

Still the position of the early theater was precarious, for it

had more than geography to contend with. Although some settlers

enjoyed the theater and defended it as an art form superior to any

other produced in Columbus, the keepers of community morality

attacked it as worldly, wicked, and associated with undesirable prac-

tices. The quarrel first started in nearby Worthington, where literary

endeavors had been fostered even before the founding of Columbus

and where the Protestant Episcopal Church kept a wary eye on

its youths' morality. When a convention of the church, meeting

in Worthington in 1821, supported a resolution passed by the

house of bishops of the United States forbidding the frequenting

of theaters and places of licentious amusement by members of the

church, it laid a heavy hand on the Worthington Literary Society,

which had been presenting plays in its own little theater.

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The Early Theater in Columbus          235

The censure was apparently not without reason. A correspondent

to the Worthington newspaper in 1821 complained that a big

whiskered gentleman "cultivated the morals" by card playing in

the exhibition room, while some "inebriated chaps from Columbus

heightened the scene by their bawdy and filthy expressions."

Although the members, a group of earnest young men, lamented

the situation and found it difficult to control--for the card playing

had been without their knowledge or consent--they defended them-

selves by pointing out that they had suppressed the gambling as

soon as it was discovered and by asserting that they gave instructing

and entertaining performances which should not be condemned for

external reasons. The quarrel, however, did not resolve itself, for

the society continued to produce plays and the church to oppose

them.

The Columbus theater, too, shared in the quarrel. The earliest

plays in Columbus were produced in the Market House and in

Eagle's Coffee House, where they received the stigma of the gaming

table and the bar. Yet the objections to the drama did not become

open until the establishment of a permanent theater in 1835. A

young schoolmaster, J. W. Ward, summed up clearly in a Columbus

newspaper the main objections to the new theater: the selection of

improper plays, the presence of a bar in the theater, noisy and

rabblesome boys in the galleries and pit, the late hours, cheap

performances, and the immorality of many of the actors. The plays

which this critic singled out as contributing nothing to "the in-

tellectual and moral improvement" of the audience and "the taste

and modesty of the female character," nevertheless particularly

appealed to the audience. Others objected to the profane songs

and coarse and vulgar farces which were used as interludes or after-

pieces and to the extravagant Negro singing and dancing. The

managers constantly assured the citizens through the columns of

the newspapers that nothing would take place within the walls of

the theater "to annoy even the most fastidious." Finally, Edwin

Dean, the manager of the first permanent theater, stated bluntly

that he was willing to make any changes suggested or to correct

any errors silently, but he would not stand by and let those who

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admittedly knew nothing about the theater create a false im-

pression and ruin the means of livelihood for a large group of

people. A Mr. Kent, the next manager, employed police to guard

the lobbies, carpeted the stairs to lessen the noise, and dismissed a

star for drunkenness. Both men appealed to the social leaders for

patronage by inviting them to enjoy "an intellectual treat" and to

help maintain "the moral dignity of the legitimate theatre." But

in spite of the managers' efforts, the disapproval increased. The

Female Benevolent Society in 1837 refused to accept the proceeds

of an evening's performance for charitable purposes. The next

year the Rev. Dr. Macaulay condemned the theater in a lecture

entitled "Fashionable Amusements," which drew such a crowd that

the meeting had to be held in a larger place than the one originally

scheduled. Gradually this theater fell into such disrepute that it

was closed in 1841, and several years elapsed before a new one

was built.

In spite of its struggles the theater as an institution was one of

the earliest cultural ventures in Columbus. Apparently a theater

existed as early as 1821, for the Ohio Register for that year lists a

theater among the Columbus buildings. Exactly where this theater

was is hard to say. A writer for Atkinson's Saturday Evening Post,

in an account of a visit to the courts in Columbus in 1827, de-

scribed a merry evening which he passed with his friends attending

a play in the upper room of the Market House. This may have

been the first theater. Although the Worthington Literary Society

had bought some cheap scenery, representing an apartment, a grove,

and a prison, the Market House theater was more primitive. It

had no stage and no curtain, but only some blankets hung in the

rear of the room to form a green room. When the Market House

was rebuilt, John Young moved the theater to the back room of

his coffee house, where plays were put on by professional companies

in the early thirties.

Practically nothing is known of the first professional companies

to have performed in Columbus. Strolling companies and circus

troupes appeared in late spring and in summer after travel became

possible in the backwoods. When the visitor to the courts described

the performance he had seen in Columbus in the summer of 1827,

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The Early Theater in Columbus           237

he had forgotten the play but remembered that the poor creatures

had mouthed it so horribly that the audience soon tired of it and

the entertainment was taken over by a little Negro dancer who

pleased the audience so much that the actors were hissed off the

stage in his favor. Only a few of these early companies are known

by name and they only by letters to the newspapers. Mr. Harper's

Thespian Corps, an undistinguished provincial company, played for

a week in the spring of 1828; Smith's Circus produced a popular

farce in the fall of 1830; and a Miss Lane was featured the same

year. In the winter of 1831-32 Gilbert and Trowbridge brought a

regular theatrical season to Columbus. Not until 1835, however,

after transportation had become easier and the lake circuit was

developed, did companies stay for regular winter seasons.

The Columbus Theatre opened December 21, 1835. It had been

built by Dean and McKinney of the Buffalo Theatre with John

Young as the Columbus business agent. A gold cup was presented

to Otway Curry, Ohio poet, for his prize-winning address delivered

at the theater's opening. The building itself had been so hastily

constructed that it had to be remodeled the next summer, but after

it was completely equipped, it was described with great pride in

the newspapers as "only second in size, and not inferior in style,

convenience, and decoration to any Theatre in the Union." This

magnificent structure, fifty by one hundred and twenty feet, stood

on the corner of Broad and High streets and accommodated 1,500

persons at a time when the population of Columbus was around

4,000. Three tiers of boxes, private saloons for ladies and for

gentlemen, and a large and commodious punch room attracted

the public. The pit, which had a recess for refreshments, could be

removed to form an arena for equestrian performances. Besides

these accommodations other luxuries were added: a colonnade saved

"the pale kid slippers of the Columbus fair from the mud"; a

splendid drop curtain depicted a Grecian armament, marching troops,

and a river winding off into the rising sun; the walls were decorated

by portraits of Shakespeare and of Columbus; and on the ceiling

were painted symbolic, highly colored, female figures. The boxes had

private drawing rooms and contained cushioned seats with backs.

In spite of this luxury the first theater was not without its dis-

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comforts. The lights were dim and the heat was low. The part of

the building behind the drop curtain was simply weatherboarded

without plastering or sealing. Consequently, according to a news-

paper complaint, the moment the curtain rose a flood of cold air

rushed like a river from the stage into the pit and boxes, while

the poor actors shivered until their teeth chattered and their breath

was visible two feet from their nostrils. Under these conditions it

is small wonder that patrons criticized the actors for want of spirit

and animation and for lagging, cold, and feelingless recitations.

Also, the stage hands were unskilled. In one scene a critic could

identify parts of three different sets; the talking behind the curtain

was. so loud that it interfered with the play; and the actors had to

wear the same costumes for different plays even in the same evening.

Companies playing for short runs in the summer used no scenery.

In spite of these shortcomings the Columbus Theatre offered un-

usually fine accommodations for the time.

From 1835 to 1841 companies played in this theater every year

from around the last of November to the first or second week in

March, the period of the legislative sessions. The winter was the

best season for Columbus. The legislators and visitors on legislative

business had free time in the evenings and fewer restrictions than

the townsmen. The performances usually lasted from about seven

to twelve and included a five-act play, an interlude, and an after-

piece. Admittance ranged from twenty-five cents in the gallery

to seventy-five cents for boxes. Sometimes for special occasions

prices were raised, at one time as high as ten dollars for a private

box. As could be expected, for these occasions the audience was

small but select.

Edwin Dean's company, the first and most important as far as

the Columbus Theatre was concerned, performed the first four

seasons. Dean was not unknown to Columbus citizens and visitors,

for many had seen his productions in Cincinnati and the lake

regions. In the 1820's Dean had produced plays in the Ohio River

towns, but at the time he came to Columbus, he was connected

with the lake circuit. He had helped open theaters in Detroit and

Buffalo and was one of the company which built the Columbus

Theatre. Although an actor and a theater manager, Dean is now

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The Early Theater in Columbus             239

chiefly distinguished as the father of the famous Julia Dean. Her

mother, the actress Julia Drake, daughter of the Samuel Drake

who brought the first important professional company into the

West, had been dead for three years at the time Dean came to

Columbus, and young Julia was with her paternal grandparents in

Pennsylvania. Dean had remarried and his wife appeared with

him on the Columbus stage. Although the Columbus newspaper

comments indicate that the public praised the first season, thought

the performances improved each succeeding season, and approved

the choice of plays, casts, and novelties, the proceeds did not meet

Dean's expectations, and he left Columbus for Cincinnati, where

the company broke up. Dean returned with his wife and daughter

to the southern circuit.

He was followed as manager by Mr. Kent, who had a reputation

in the West of being an excellent actor. However, he had little

success as manager although he tried to please his audience. He

kept the theater only one season, ended it early, and did not return.

After one more poor season, Parker and Leslie closed the Columbus

Theatre.

The first Columbus theater, therefore, did not prove to be a

profitable venture. The denunciation of the theater undoubtedly

cut down on the receipts, but what probably finally broke it was

the ruinous system of benefits and stars which the patronage could

not support. Although benefits often brought out larger audiences

than other performances, the manager derived little help from

them. The total receipt for a benefit performance on March 1, 1839,

amounted to $166.75, which was not sufficient to maintain a large

theater, pay an adequate cast, hire stars, give benefits, and pay

license fees. During the first two seasons the company gave only

a few benefits, but in the last two years the managers arranged at

least thirteen or fourteen. In a short season these financial drains

were serious. Stars, too, were expensive because they had to be

more highly paid than members of the stock companies. As the

number of stars on the western circuit increased, the cost of pro-

duction grew. The cost of licenses also rose. The attendance,

although good for some performances, was not sufficient to cover

all these expenses. When the theater was finally closed in 1841,

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the building was used first as a city hall and later for private

dwellings. Thus passed out of existence the first Columbus Theatre.

Although Columbus citizens had unusually good theatrical oppor-

tunities, they did not pay for them.

In spite of its financial difficulties the Columbus Theatre did

afford its patrons a rich bill. Although the provincial theater casts

included a great many names of actors and actresses now forgotten,

a surprising number of players well known in all parts of the

country trod the western boards. Some of these played to early

Columbus audiences. Although the theatrical records are skimpy

and the newspapers had no drama critics, the editors and volunteer

correspondents have left some pictures of the first players to delight

Columbus audiences. The best known were members of the regular

stock companies, especially Edwin Dean's troupe.

Mrs. Trowbridge, apparently an excellent example of the leading

lady of the provincial stock company, won "universal acclaim" from

the Columbus audiences. Gilbert and Trowbridge (her husband)

had brought the first regular season to Eagle's Coffee House, but

she became known during the existence of the Columbus Theatre.

Born in England, Mrs. Trowbridge was just getting started on her

career at the time she played in Columbus; later, in 1846, she ap-

peared at the National Theatre in Philadelphia and became known

on the eastern stage. After settling in the East, she married the

well-known Yankee comedian, Josh Silsbee, and after his death,

William A. Chapman, the low comedian.1 During the first three

seasons in the Columbus Theatre she played the leading lady parts

and took a wide variety of roles, often a different one every night.

She was versatile, playing tragic roles, such as Lady Macbeth, and

light farcical parts, such as Mrs. Turtle in Hunting a Turtle. Besides

filling these roles she gave recitations and sang popular songs. It

was she who spoke the prize address at the opening of the theater.

After her first husband's death in 1838 she stayed in Cincinnati, to

return for six nights only in 1838-39, but she joined Kent's corps

the next year. He relied heavily on her talent and appeal and billed

her four times oftener than any other player. The papers gave

notice of 105 different performances that year.

1 T. Allston Brown, History of the American Stage (New York, 1870), 69.

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The Early Theater in Columbus            241

Although Mrs. Trowbridge was always admired for her acting,

newspaper critics felt she increased her speaking power during

her stay in Columbus. Although Columbus audiences praised her

for a great variety of parts, they particularly enjoyed the tears

wrung from them by her portrayal of Marianna in Knowles' The

Wife. They also commended her romantic and passionate Elvira in

Pizarro and her stern and solemn Lady Macbeth, but they equally

admired her gay, rattling Cherry in Cherry and Fair Star and her

emotional Adine in Faustus. But the patrons did more than praise

her verbally: they packed the house for her benefit in 1837 and

flung a beautiful wreath containing one hundred dollars onto the

stage. They also subscribed one hundred dollars to have a New

York artist paint her portrait as Marianna, which was hung with

appropriate ceremony at the front of the theater. Her followers

acclaimed her the best stock actress in the country.

No other actor met the approval accorded Mrs. Trowbridge.

Dean assigned himself the principal male leads during the first

season, engaged a Mr. Webb the next year, and divided the honors

thereafter. The Columbus audiences liked Dean especially for the

melting appeal of his Virginius, as tear-jerking roles particularly

delighted them. However, his round, pert figure seemed better suited

to comedy, to which he devoted himself almost entirely after the

first season.

Another important male role, that of first low comedian, was

unusually well filled in the Columbus Theatre by William Forrest,

at one time Dean's partner. He had played the lake circuit and had

helped manage a Cincinnati theater. After his stay of three years

in Columbus, he continued on the western circuits until his death

in 1868.2 Although he did not play tragic roles successfully and

sometimes "gagged" and used "clap trap" in his comic parts, the

Columbus audience found him irresistibly funny because of his

whimsical manner.

Other actors who had been or were to be known elsewhere

appeared in Columbus stock: a Mr. Kelsey had been admired in

Cincinnati; Mr. Lennox had played in New York and returned later

to Philadelphia; Mr. and Mrs. J. K. Altemus also performed later

2 Ibid., 133.

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in Philadelphia. Jack Winans, a favorite comic actor in Kent's com-

pany, apparently was the Winans who later became the great

favorite of the Bowery Theatre in New York.³ Although many of

the actors cannot be identified and the Columbus criticism is too

skimpy to be reliable, some of the early players must have used

the western stage for a proving ground.

Two other types of entertainers were particularly popular with

the audience, the singer and the dancer, whom Dean added to his

company in 1836. A Mr. Parker recited popular satiric verses on

local events and sang comic songs which were greatly appreciated

by the listeners but which brought some of the disapproval to the

theater. It was he who formed the last company to play in the

Columbus. Theatre. Miss Honey was equally important as "danseuse,"

described by an admirer as "poetry of motion." Young girls fre-

quently started their careers on the stage by dancing, and apparently

Miss Honey had such ambition, for she played more and more

roles and finally joined Parker's company as a leading lady. Her

acting, however, was not only not greatly appreciated, it was called

by some preposterous. Another entertainer, the "Jim Crow" singer

and dancer, drew a large audience, but the town attitude that such

ridicule was unchristian deprived the theater of that source of

appeal.

Not all actors, therefore, met with approval on the Columbus

boards. Lennox's popularity dwindled after it was rumored that

he would not play second to Webb in a benefit. A Mr. Marsh was

admired until the patrons began to feel that he had an over-

weening opinion of himself. Columbus itself contributed one actor

to the company in a Mr. Mills, but found him boisterous and

awkward in the extreme with an odd way of throwing out his arm

as if he would detach it from his body. Several other actors made

unsuccessful theatrical attempts in Columbus. The audience must

have expected some standard of excellence from its players.

Besides the winter stock companies, players on summer tour

sometimes stopped in Columbus after the theater was built. Samuel

Dyke with a troupe of nineteen played for at least a week in the

summer of 1837; and Potter and Waters, prominent men in the

3 Ibid., 397.

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The Early Theater in Columbus           243

western theater, performed for a few nights the same summer.

Stars occasionally gave a few performances on their way through.

Mrs. Pritchard, an English actress, played briefly, and Miss Jean

Davenport, aged twelve, returning in the summer of 1839 to

Niagara Falls and New York from a southern tour, amazed

Columbus editors with her portrayals of Richard III and Douglas.

Besides the regular company members and touring companies,

twelve stars appeared during the existence of the Columbus Theatre.

These the managers engaged, hoping thereby to increase their

dwindling profits, but only succeeding in hastening their financial

failure. Two of these stars, Charles Webb and Augustus A. Addams,

had great ability and were widely known, but they brought on their

own downfall and disapproval upon the theater by intemperance.

Webb was particularly popular in Columbus. He played with the

regular company during the 1836-37 winter season, plus short runs

in the role of star every season thereafter and in the summers as

well. He had performed in the East, and N. M. Ludlow of the

southern circuit praised his ability as a tragedian. But drink, which

caused his temporary dismissal from the Columbus Theatre, led

to his suicide some years later. The Columbus audience enjoyed

his performances of many roles, but his Damon in Damon and

Pythias had the greatest popular appeal. Perhaps this appeal lay

in his "fine form and elegantly turned limb," which showed to

advantage in the Roman costume, but more likely it came from

his ability to leave "not a dry eye in the house."

Another equally popular actor of different stamp was Dan Marble,

the celebrated Yankee caricaturist. Marble made himself famous in

the western theater because although he had already played in

New York, it was in the West that he established himself as Sam

Patch. Dean and McKinney in 1836 presented him in that part

written especially for him by E. H. Thompson, and its tremendous

popularity caused them to repeat the play in Cleveland and

Columbus. His tours of the Mississippi Valley were so successful that

he received $40,000 there in ten years.⁴ The character caught on

immediately in Columbus when it was presented in January 1838,

and the sayings of Sam Patch became part of the slang of the day.

4 Dictionary of American Biography, XII, 266.

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244    Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

 

Marble returned to Columbus several times in other famous roles,

but he was always best loved for Sam Patch.

Mrs. Alexander Drake was probably the most famous actress to

appear in Columbus during the thirties. She had come as the

novice Miss Denny into the West with Samuel Drake's company,

had quickly risen in the profession, and had returned to New

York. She had come back to the West, however, to marry Alexander

Drake, one of Samuel's sons. Although she had become a star

in New York, she remained in the West and managed a theater

in Cincinnati with her husband until his death in 1830. By 1836

her powers had begun to fail, so that Columbus patrons did not

see her at her height. Although the commentators realized that

she was no longer the queen of the American stage, they felt that

much of her original luster was still retained in her Lady Macbeth,

Elvira, and Widow Cheerly.

Two well-known actors appeared in the Columbus Theatre in

1839. C. B. Parsons spent a week in Columbus just before he turned

Methodist minister. He crowded the house with his Roaring Ralph

Stackpole in Nick of the Woods and was well received in Brutus,

King Lear, and an Indian tragedy. Charles Kemble Mason, already

popular in Cincinnati as a tragedian and "puffed" as the nephew

of the great Siddons and John Kemble, played in Hamlet and

A New Way to Pay Old Debts for two nights in Columbus. He

received so much encouragement that he stayed on a third night

to play Richard III.

Although Charles Eaton had played in Boston and New York

and had appeared with the Kembles, he was not liked by the

Columbus audience when he appeared for a week in 1840. He

played to a meager house even in his famed role of Richard III.

On the other hand, Augustus A. Addams, also from Boston, who

had performed in Philadelphia and New York and who followed

Eaton on the Columbus stage, met with immediate recognition.

He seems to have been the most popular of the visiting artists. He

packed the house for Hamlet and enjoyed equally enthusiastic praise

for his portrayals of such roles as Lear, Virginius, and Macbeth.

The stage historian T. Allston Brown believed Addams would have

become one of the great actors had he been able to quit drinking.

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The Early Theater in Columbus           245

A few others, less well known but billed as stars, also appeared

in Columbus.

The companies produced a much larger number of plays than

are now afforded an audience of a single theater. Within a period

of just a few years, Columbus companies presented at least 192

different plays. The usual program began with a tragedy, comedy,

or melodrama; continued with a comic song and a fancy dance; and

concluded with a farce. The afterpiece, as the farce was called,

often served as the main attraction to the patrons. Sometimes when

a play proved popular, it became the afterpiece for the next per-

formance.

The early actor must have had remarkable powers of memory to

keep so many parts in mind, for he seldom played a role more than

two nights in a row and usually performed a different part each

night. During one week in Columbus, Eaton played eight different

major roles; and stock companies in places as small as Columbus

had to furnish fresh material constantly. Of the 145 plays advertised

during Dean's third season, 88 had not been advertised before

nor were they given again, 13 had been produced in other seasons,

and only 44 were repeated during the season. A company undertook

a great deal to produce one hundred different plays in about three

months. Although the productions could not have been finished, the

theater-goer had a wide range from which to choose and an oppor-

tunity to gain a rather thorough knowledge of the popular plays.

Several plays remained general favorites, especially Shiel's Damon

and Pythias because it was the favorite part of Charles Webb, who

played in eight of the ten recorded productions. The companies

also presented Payne's Therese, Bulwer's Lady of Lyons, Knowles'

Wife and Virginius, Kotzebue's Stranger, and two farces, Perfection

and Swiss Cottage, several times. All of these plays except Lady of

Lyons, a stock favorite, owed several performances to engagements

of stars. Stock companies repeated mainly farces and melodramas,

while visiting artists liked also Pizarro and Shakespearian tragedies.

The Columbus audiences saw plays of at least forty-three different

authors, a great many of them contemporary English and Irish

dramatists. James Sheridan Knowles' plays enjoyed the greatest

popularity, six of them totaling twenty-four productions. Shakespeare

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shared this popularity, as seven of his plays were presented, reaching

a total of twenty-three performances. John Howard Payne was

third in popularity. However, the Columbus audience seems to have

responded best to the comic and the sentimental, for Sam Patch,

Stranger, and George Barnwell packed the house, while Macbeth,

Lear, and A New Way to Pay Old Debts drew thin crowds. The

patrons felt that they ought to be instructed, but they wanted to

be entertained, if not by laughter, at least by tears. A newspaper

comment in 1838 typifies the general attitude:

 

The last and closing scene [of the Lady of Lyons] was one continued

chain of enchantment. The broken-hearted daughter, offering herself as a

sacrifice to sustain the failing fortune of her father; his solemn appeal to

her worthless lover and her message to Claude, and the burst of wild and

almost delirious joy which tells her recognizance of her husband made us,

although of sterner stuff than most men, turn our cheek to hide the tear

which would have way.

It is no wonder that the early companies produced mainly light

pieces--farces and melodramas.

The early theater presented a much greater opportunity to the

hinterland than is often realized. Within twenty-five years of the

time when its confines lay in virgin timber, Columbus had a flourish-

ing theatrical season. The drama did not enjoy good repute, the

theater was drafty and poorly lighted, the actors often roared and

overacted, and the taste of the audience was unrefined, but none-

theless the Columbus Theatre offered the patrons of drama in and

out of the city a remarkably full selection of plays and actors.

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