The Man from Home (play)

The play was first produced by Liebler & Company, staged by Hugh Ford, with settings by Gates and Morange, and starring William T. Hodge.After a tryout in Louisville, Kentucky, it opened in Chicago during September 1907, where it played for 36 weeks, setting a record for a dramatic production with 316 performances.Grand Duke Vasili now takes his leave of Ethel and Pike, praising the latter and signaling to the girl he knows where her heart is drifting.Slowly she enters the hotel, and soon the sound of her playing the piano and singing Sweet Genevieve, Pike's favorite song, drifts through the open door.He had been discovered by James Herne as a bit player in a Rogers Brothers' musical comedy, "a thirty-five dollar a week man".[8] However, another motivation was suggested by an article in The New York Times, in which Tarkington contrived to put his Indiana rival George Ade on display in the character of Daniel Pike.[17] The reviewer for The Courier Journal said the play was much more than a vehicle for William Hodge, was sure to be a success, and noted how the character Daniel Voorhees Pike "suggests George Ade types".[19] They identified the reason for the play's domestic popularity as "we have our merits put up against the foreigner's shortcomings and our national pride being tickled, our vanity flattered".[20] Foreseeing this, Liebler & Company bought the managerial lease for the Chicago Opera House from Kohl & Castle, who had used it for vaudeville.[22] Daily newspaper ads for the play now carried the number of each performance with the proclamation "Longest Dramatic Run in Chicago's History".[26] The reviewer for The Standard Union noted "an unusually large audience of first-nighters" despite "oppresive heat" had "heartily endorsed the production and pronounced it a fine success".Both it and the new star made a big audience laugh almost constantly for three hours, display an unusual amount of enthusiasm despite the heat and predict a longer run for the piece here than it had in the Windy City".[28] The New York Times reviewer thought the play a success even if built on an old pattern, of a native type in foreign surroundings.They esteemed the performance of William Hodge, and Henry Jewett as the Grand Duke, while finding Echlin P. Gayer's Almeric "amusing if occasionally unintelligble".Harry Harmon's Ivanoff was "interesting, if occasionally obscuring the plot", while Olive Wyndham, Ida Vernon, and Hassard Short were judged admirable, but "Mr. Glendinning was very noisy".[26] Charles Darnton in The Evening World echoed The New York Times in pointing out that William Hodge "acts from the brain, not the lungs" and advising John Glendinning to take note.[33] Liebler & Company had joined the Shuberts alliance in their battle against the Theatrical Syndicate, so all theaters on The Man from Home tour would be Shubert-owned, with the exception of Boston's Park Theatre, where a separate booking arrangement had been made with Charles Frohman.