THE ITALIAN THEATRE IN NEW YORK BY GIUSEPPE CAUTELA HE first Italian stage in New York was no better off, for his pay amounted to only the cajfe or coffee-house. Thirty-five seven or eight dollars a week. He remedied Tyears ago the Italian actor or concert- the deficiency somewhat by refusing en- hall singer, landing in this country with cores. The audience understood: the only high hopes of fortune, found himself be- way to make him sing some more was to wildered and stranded until, wandering throw him money on the stage. The Villa into the Italian quarter, he saw in the sign Vittorio Emanuele was crowded to the cajfe a gleam of safety. In the drowsy doors every night. Those were the years of atmosphere of the place, heavy with the fluctuating Italian immigration. Laborers smell of anisette, cognac and coffee, he came here to work by the season; they would sit, unkempt and hungry, and there came like a flock of birds in Spring, and ponder on his fate. Once he had revealed went back home for Christmas. Their first his profession, the proprietor, with tears stop was Mulberry street. Here they found in his eyes, would listen to his reminis- the faesano, who kept either a money cences of the theatre at home, and then exchange or a boarding-house. At night arrange that he give a performance for the they went to the Villa Vittorio Emanuele. patrons. It was thus that the early Italian Competition appeared at last. Another immigrants first heard the songs of their cajfe chantant was opened in Grand street, fatherland in America. The cajfe was the near Mulberry. It was called the Villa only place where an audience could be Giulia. Then came one in Sullivan street: found. It met the same social need that it Ferranto's Hall. The name of this place had met for centuries in the old country. marked a change: it tried to appeal .to the Even today the cajfe and the Italian res- somewhat Americanized element. Soon taurants of downtown New York occa- afterward Little Italy saw its first stage sionally see a singer walk in with a guitar when Dalessio's Concert-hall opened its under his arm, and thrill an audience with doors. It was no more villa now, it was his sentimental songs. hall. But if the Italian psychology had The first cajfe chantant with a regular undergone a little transformation, it was stage was opened about thirty-five years not so with the nature of the entertain- ago in Mulberry street, near Canal; it was ment. It remained typically Italian. Those called the Villa Vittorio Emanuele. It had first years were the golden age of the cajfe tables and chairs, but no admission was chantant. Artists of international reputa- charged. You had to order drinks, and tion, such as La Dumont, Oscar Bianchi after each singer was through with his and La Delle Piere, sang in the four places number he came down into the audience to I have named. make a collection. He received no pay from The material they offered was purely the proprietor. Some time later on the Italian. It had no reference whatsoever to actors rebelled against this system and the the American characteristics that the proprietor was compelled to charge a small immigrant was unconsciously acquiring. fee for admission. However, the actor was Those new traits and modes of speech were 106 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED THE ITALIAN THEATRE IN NEW YORK 107 to be discovered by Edward Migliaccio, for quite a while. Every night it was alias Farfariello, of whom I shall speak crowded to suffocation. Maiori grew ambi- later. tious and began to give Shakespearean To Antonio Maiori goes the honor of plays. "Othello," "Hamlet," "The Mer- having given the first Italian dramatic per- chant of Venice" and "Romeo and Juliet" formance in New York. He started with passed before his hushed and attentive weekly performances at the Germania As- audiences. A beautiful girl by the name of sembly Rooms. The theatre is always an Concetta Arcamone, who had been taught exact reflection of the social condition of a how to act and sing by William Ricciardi, people: the Italian colony would then go to playing Punchinello farces in Mulberry see a dramatic performance only on Sun- street, became Maiori's leading woman. days. The worker was too tired during the She made up in beauty what she lacked in week to go to the theatre. It was also tradi- art. Maiori married her. She died a few tional, and it is today, for the Italian to years ago. Unable to house his audiences look upon Sunday as the one day for any more in Spring street, Maiori took recreation. them over to Miner's Theatre in the Bow- Antonio Maiori made up a r6pertoire of ery. The Italian drama was becoming well plays like "The Iron-Master," by Georges established. Ohnet, "La Iena del Cimitero," and "I Not long after that Maiori and Rapone due Sergenti." After the drama there was invaded the Bowery in real earnest. They always a farce, played in the Neapolitan leased the Windsor Theatre opposite the dialect by Pasquale Rapone. He dressed as Thalia. That theatre does not exist any Punchinello, and in his broad comedy the more now. Like so many other things in people forgot the terrible life of the immi- the Bowery, it went up in flames. At the grant. The Italian went to the theatre then Windsor, Maiori gave a drama concocted as he does today, with his wife and chil- out of the life of Benvenuto Cellini. It had dren. Pasquale Rapone had the gift of a stirring scene: the casting of the statue. improvisation. His farces were never the Cellini was surrounded by his pupils, who, same. He used to be so funny that many fired by the genius of the master, gave a times people had to leave their seats for tremendous movement and action to the fear of laughing too much. Once, being scene. The shouts of approval burst surprised by a rival in the home of his through the vestibule doors of the theatre sweetheart, he was chased from one room and were heard by an American reporter into another; he was so scared that the who happened to be passing by. This was bang of a door made him think he had in the days when reporters could not stay been shot. He fell face downward; told by away from the Bowery. He went into the his rival to get up, he answered, "No I theatre; the next day he revealed to the cannot; I am shot; look, you'll find a hole American public that there was an Italian sure." theatre in the Bowery. The then famous Antonio Maiori and Pasquale Rapone Four Hundred ordered their coachmen to next moved from the Germania Assembly take them down to see Maiori. For a while Rooms to a store in Spring street, between he was the fad of society people, who Mott and Elizabeth streets. It was turned invited him to give performances in their into a theatre, with a small stage and homes. Afterwards, with the other actors ticket-booth near the window overlooking who joined his company, he gave per- the stoop, with its half-dozen steps. It had formances in every old theatre in the the familiar air of the improvised theatres Bowery. that one sees in Italian villages. Situated He, as well as the other famous Italian in the heart of the Italian downtown col- actors and actresses who visited this coun- ony, it was the immigrant's only theatre try later, derived their main support from PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED io8 THE AMERICAN MERCURY the poor laboring class and a few intellec- there was not one individual who knew tuals. The well-to-do Italian bourgeoisie that there existed a Sicilian Theatre, for was content to stay at home and rest on which eminent dramatists like Giovanni their fat pocketbooks. The reason for their Verga, Luigi Capuana and Nino Mar- absence can be explained only by the sad toglio, to name only a few, wrote in the ignorance and lack of culture prevailing vernacular. They were also unaware that among most of them. They complained there existed, too, a Neapolitan Theatre, that they could not take their families to headed by Salvatore Di Giacomo, and dumps like the theatres in the Bowery. Ernesto Murolo, and that Venice heard But that was not all of the truth. Ermete Carlo Goldoni's plays first in the ver- Novelli, the great Italian actor, came here nacular. and gave a classic repertoire in the Lyric Mimi Aguglia and her actors were not Theatre, in Forty-second street. The house only actors, but great actors in the full yawned of emptiness. meaning of the word. You have got to see Up to the age of forty Novelli had been the Russian players to find a comparison. known as the foremost Italian comedian. They also, when they came here, tried the When, suddenly, he announced that he uptown theatres, but had to come down would essay tragic roles, his public did not among the rabble to make a living. Those take him seriously. What he, with that were glorious nights and afternoons; noth- broad grin of his, play tragic parts? ing of the sophisticated! It was plain Imagine the handicap he had to overcome! murder after a quarrel over a woman, just Spectators went to see him play ' 'La Morte as it happens in a Sicilian village.