Representative American Plays/The Witching Hour

by Augustus Thomas

Layout 2

THE WITCHING HOUR
BY
Augustus Thomas

Copyright, 1916, by Augustus Thomas

All Rights Reserved

Reprinted by permission of Mr. Augustus Thomas.

 

THE WITCHING HOUR

The Witching Hour represents the play that reflects a phase of modern interest, in this case telepathy. It also represents Mr. Thomas's work in the most significant period, so far, of his career. Augustus Thomas was born in St. Louis, Missouri, January 8, 1859, the son of Dr. Elihu B. Thomas. His father was associated with the theatre, being director for a time of the St. Charles Theatre in New Orleans. Mr. Thomas tells us, in his brief reminiscences, that after his father returned to St. Louis in 1865, Dr. Thomas told him much concerning the actors with whom he had come in contact. Augustus Thomas was taken to the theatre early in his life and has grown up in its atmosphere. He was educated in the public schools of St. Louis, was a page in the Forty-first Congress and up to his twenty-second year was in the service of the freight department of various railroads, where, he tells us, he learned much about human nature. Later on, he became a special writer on newspapers in St. Louis, Kansas City, and New York, and was for a time editor and proprietor of the Kansas City Mirror.

He began to write plays when he was fourteen years old. By the time he was seventeen he had organized an amateur company which he took on circuit. It was at this time that such early efforts as Alone (1875), or A Big Rise (1875), his earliest plays known by name, were written. In 1882 he dramatized Mrs. Burnett's Editha's Burglar, and organized a professional company which he took around the country playing this and other plays. In 1887 a four-act play by the title of The Burglar became a success in New York and from that time Mr. Thomas has devoted himself to play writing. He is now the Art Director of the Charles Frohman interests.

Mr. Thomas has written fifty-two plays. He stands in our drama for literary craftsmanship combined with practical knowledge of the stage and for a serious interest in the furtherance of dramatic progress. His work is not the result of accidental inspiration, but he has proceeded on a basis of logical deduction from observed facts to an establishment of fundamental principles in dramatic construction. His art is native, too; his first significant play, Alabama, produced April 1, 1891, at the Madison Square Theatre, New York, had as its theme the reunited country. In Mizzoura (1893) pictured in a less significant though amusing manner the customs of that State. Arizona, produced first, June 12, 1899, at Hamlin's Grand Opera House, Chicago, is a better play than any of the ones which preceded it, and Mr. Thomas may be said to have entered into his most significant period with this play. It was laid at the time of the Spanish-American War, but the war itself was of little significance. The play portrayed American life in its picturesque Western form, not the "bad man" type of life, but the real life of the great ranches, with real characters in them. Arizona had a successful London production in 1902. Mr. Thomas produced next some charming comedies, either, like Oliver Goldsmith (1899), an imaginative treatment of literary history, or like The Earl of Pawtucket (1903), or Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots (1905), clever treatments of modern life.

The Witching Hour, produced first in Providence, Rhode Island, November 16, 1907, and at the Hackett Theatre, New York City, November 18, 1907, is probably Mr. Thomas's greatest play. It represents the next phase of his work, the study of modern modes of interest. One would call them "problems," except that the word suggests an element that is absent from Mr. Thomas's plays. The central theme of the play, the influence of human minds through the strength of suggestion, had been with Mr. Thomas for many years. Incidents that had proved to him the possibility of such suggestions had occurred in his early days when he was managing companies in the West, and he waited till the time was ripe and public interest was ready. In As a Man Thinks, he treated the relations of the modern American husband and wife, and put into dramatic form the real reason for the prevalence of the so-called double standard of morality. It is a sane and wholesome play, for it not only deals with this question without morbidity or suggestiveness, but also shows the futility of race antagonism and calls attention to the permanent force of character, through the masterly portrait of "Dr. Seelig."

A list of Mr. Thomas's plays checked as to dates by the playwright for the present editor includes the following, those starred being adaptations of other material: Alone (1875), A Big Rise (1875), Editha's Burglar (1883), A New Year's Call (1884), The Burglar (1887), A Proper Impropriety (1888), A Night's Frolic (1888), The Music Box (1888), A Man of the World (1889), A Woman of the World (1889), Afterthoughts (1890), The Outside Man (1890), Reckless Temple (1890), Alabama (1891), Surrender (1892), For Money (1892), Col. Carter of Cartersville * (1892), In Mizzoura (1893), The Capitol (1894), New Blood (1894), The Man Upstairs (1895), Chimmie Fadden * (1895), The Jucklins * (1896), The Hoosier Doctor (1898), That Overcoat (1896-1898), The Meddler (1898), Arizona (1899), Oliver Goldsmith (1899), Colorado (1901), Soldiers of Fortune * (1902), On the Quiet (1902), The Other Girl (1902), The Earl of Pawtucket (1903), The Education of Mr. Pipp (1903), Delancey (1904), The Embassy Ball (1905), Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots (1905), The Ranger (1907), The Witching Hour (1907), The Harvest Moon (1909), The Matinee Idol (1909), The Memler from Ozark (1910), As a Man Thinks (1911), At Bay (1911), with George Scarborough, Mere Man (1912), The Model (1912), Indian Summer (1913), The Battle Cry * (1914), Rio Grande (1915), The Copperhead (1918), Palmy Days (1919), Speak of the Devil (1920).

Arizona and Alabama have been published by the Dramatic Publishing Company, As a Man Thinks by Duffield. The Witching Hour appeared in The Greatest Contemporary Dramatists, edited by T. H. Dickinson. Samuel French has published The Witching Hour, Oliver Goldsmith, In Mizzoura, Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots, The Other Girl, and The Earl of Pawtucket.

A brief autobiographical sketch appears in The Outlook, Vol. 94, pp. 213-14, January 22, 1910. For a thorough analysis of Mr. Thomas's plays, see William Winter, The Wallet of Time, Vol. 2, pp. 529-557. See also W. P. Eaton, The American Stage of Today (1908), pp. 27-44, which contains an analysis of The Witching Hour. A sketch of the plot is given in Current Literature, Vol. 46, pp. 544-551, May, 1909; and a criticism of the first performance in The Theatre, Vol. 8, p. 2, 1908.

The present text has been revised especially for this edition by Mr. Thomas, to whom the editor is indebted for permission to reprint it.