Kansas City's Theatre Tradition: The Early Years
by Kate Egan

In the days before motion pictures and later television, there was one way to fame and fortune as an actor: the stage. Performers were celebrated the world over in the press and around the parlor much the same as they are on Access Hollywood and around the water cooler today. Interestingly enough, a Kansas City Times article from New Year's Day 1924 contained a curious lament: "Kansas City forty years ago was more representative of the national stage than might be supposed – certainly more representative than it now is, though it was then a much smaller city." Kansas City sat on the western edge of the national legitimate and vaudeville touring circuits, frequently the only stop between St. Louis and California. Those touring productions were not only the hottest shows of the day; they featured the biggest stars of the day. At the next curtain call, take a moment to recall the great performers that took a bow before Kansas City audiences and those that took their first bows here.

Stage and screen actress Jeanne Eagels

While her name is not as recognizable today as it was earlier this century, stage actress and silent film star Jeanne Eagels was a Kansas City girl who left quite an impression. Beginning her career with the Woodward Stock Company in 1902 at the age of twelve in the role of Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Eagels left the Midwest and was performing on Broadway by the age of 17. By 1925, she had been cast as Sadie Thompson in the drama Rain, a role that would be portrayed by Kansas Citian Joan Crawford in the 1932 film. Eagels played the lead on Broadway for a year before touring the show for another twenty months. Unfortunately, the role called for being doused with a bucket of water nearly every time she returned to the wings, and spending more than two years in wet clothing greatly affected Eagels' already erratic moods.

Eagels was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the 1929 talkie The Letter, but did not live long enough to find out whether or not she won. After several months of "illness" and long-rumored substance abuse, Eagels died suddenly of unknown causes in her New York apartment on October 3, 1929. Kansas City turned out by the thousands to greet the train from New York bearing her body back home. She is buried in an unobtrusive grave in Calvary Cemetery on Troost.

In another interesting twist of theatrical fate, the reasons for John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Abraham Lincoln have long been speculated upon, and one of the ideas that refuses to go away is the idea that he committed the crime to draw attention for his failing stage career, mainly that he was not as widely embraced as was his brother Edwin. As a testament to the great talent of tragedian Edwin Booth, his career survived and thrived despite the antics of his more notorious brother. Edwin Booth made quite a notable stop in Kansas City.

On a cold snowy night in the winter of 1887, Colonel George W. Warder opened the Warder-Grand Theatre on the corner of 9^th and Grand with a production of Hamlet featuring Edwin Booth in the title role. The theater, later re-named the Auditorium, was not complete and the performance was given under a canvas roof with no heat. The audience huddled around stoves while Booth performed with a sealskin coat wrapped about his shoulders. According to the Kansas City Star, it wasn't much of a performance given the circumstances, but it demonstrates the lengths Kansas Citians would go to in order to witness first-class theater more than a century ago and to celebrate the addition of another venue.

Perhaps the best known early stage actress to make a stop in Kansas City was the legendary Sarah Bernhardt. Born in Paris in 1844, Bernhardt was an international superstar and one of the greatest actresses the stage has ever known. Her friendship with playwright Oscar Wilde led to his penning of Salome for her to premiere. Unfortunately, due to the political climate of Victorian England, the play was banned before the rehearsal process was complete.

The one and only Divine Sarah was scheduled to perform at the Coates Opera House in February of 1901. January 31, 1901, the night before she was due to arrive, the Coates, which had been the premier theatrical venue in Kansas City, burned to the ground. Most of the performances scheduled to appear at the Coates were moved to the Standard Theatre (now the Folly Theater), however Miss Bernhardt was moved to the Auditorium on account of its larger seating capacity. Bernhardt made subsequent stops in Kansas City, most notably during an Orpheum vaudeville tour she accepted in 1912.

In 1915, at the age of 71, one of Bernhardt's legs was amputated. She continued to perform and turned down in good humor an offer by a San Francisco showman to display the amputated leg. Bernhardt again toured America on the legitimate stage through 1917, however her expected return to the vaudeville stage in 1918 was blocked due to her status as a "foreign act" in the wake of the First World War. She continued to perform two shows a day until the time of her death on March 26, 1923 at the age of 79. She is still today considered one of the greatest actresses of all time. Her name is synonymous with remarkable performances of some of the most notable theatrical roles in history.

Kansas City has a much-ignored theatre tradition. Countless legends have made a stop here including: Fanny Brice, Ethel Barrymore, Eva Tanguay, Buster Keaton, Eddie Foy, Lionel Barrymore, Weber and Fields, Lillian Russell, Nazimova, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Humphrey Bogart, Al Jolson, and the 4 Marx Brothers. The next time you take a bow, take the time to recall that you are one of a great tradition of performers to play in this town.

JLJL