Thurber Tonight: "No Standing Room Only" -- with a note on the early career of Vincent Price

Ventures Thurber: "I somehow have the idea that Harry Essex, the company manager, didn't really understand what Miss Hayes said." (In this Bernard Hoffman photo for Life magazine, the 37-year-old Helen Hayes works on her makeup during a costume change for a March 1938 tour performance of Victoria Regina.)

"Just how many bewildered people were turned away in all on this sentimental occasion, I don't know, but I'm glad I wasn't the box-office man."

-- James Thurber, in "No Standing Room Only"

"No Standing Room Only" appeared originally in The New Yorker of March 20, 1937, and in book form later that year in Let Your Mind Alone!; and Other More or Less Inspirational Pieces.

A 1937 New Yorker reader would surely have known that playwright Charles MacArthur (1895-1956) -- co-author with his frequent writing partner Ben Hecht of the raucous Chicago-newspaper comedy The Front Page -- was the husband of Helen Hayes (1900-1993). (Their son James, who died just this past October, became the busy actor best known now for playing the busily-booking-'em Danno in the original Hawaii Five-O, and their son John was the "John D. MacArthur" of the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation that gives the genius awards.) -- Ken

No Standing
Room Only

The theatre page of the World-Telegram carried this little note one evening recently:

Saturday afternoon was something of an event at the Broadhurst, for "Victoria Regina" had just rounded out fifty-two weeks on Broadway and Helen Hayes, the sentimentalist, wanted to do something to celebrate the occasion. So she called Harry Essex, the company manager, backstage and suggested that only fifty-two standees be admitted into the matinee. By curtain rise only that number of vertical playgoers were allowed into the playhouse; those turned away got no explanation from the box office.

Robert Browning says somewhere in his poems that Providence often seems to "let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first." Miss Hayes goes Providence thirty-two better and thus is about two and a half times as lenient. She didn't have the fifty-third man stoned, either, or otherwise roughly handled, but he must have been just about as bewildered and sore as if he had been.

To celebrate the anniversary of a popular play by refusing to let certain people in to see it sets a new precedent for celebrations, particularly sentimental celebrations. I somehow have the idea that Harry Essex, the company manager, didn't really understand what Miss Hayes said. I think she probably suggested that the first fifty-two persons who asked for standing room be let in free. That's more along the old established lines of celebration and sentiment, and sounds more like Miss Hayes, somehow. I don't know whether it sounds like Mr. Essex or not, but I imagine it doesn't. I never heard of a company manager who would let fifty-two people in free; on the other hand, I never heard of one who would keep people out when they wanted to pay to get in. Of course, it may be that the box-office man got mixed up on his instructions, but that doesn't sound like a box-office man.

I don't suppose we will ever get to the bottom of it all, but I can't help wondering what happened when the fifty-third person showed up and wanted to pay to get into the show. Let us try to reconstruct his conversation with the box-office man:

MR. FIFTY-THREE: I want a ticket, please.
BOX-OFFICE MAN: Standing room only.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: All right, give me standing room.
BOX-OFFICE MAN: But -- uh -- I just remembered -- there is standing room but I can't sell you any.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: What did you say?
BOX-OFFICE MAN: I say there is standing room but I can't sell you any.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: I don't get it. It sounds as if you keep saying there is standing room but you can't sell me any.
BOX-OFFICE MAN: That's what I said.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: Well, say it again. Some other way.
BOX-OFFICE MAN: All I have is no standing room. No standing room only.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: Huh?
BOX-OFFICE MAN: Look -- if you come back next Saturday, or even tonight, I could let you in even if it were more crowded in there than it is now, but I can't tell you why.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: I want to get in now. I'd rather stand when there are fewer standees.
BOX-OFFICE MAN: I can't let you in.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: Why can't you?
BOX-OFFICE MAN: I just can't, that's all.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: What's the matter with me?
BOX-OFFICE MAN: Nothing's the matter with you.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: Well, something must be the matter with somebody.
BOX-OFFICE MAN: No, nothing's the matter, exactly.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: Well, approximately, what's the matter?
BOX-OFFICE MAN: I can't sell you a ticket to stand.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: You sold the man right ahead of me standing room, because I saw you.
BOX-OFFICE MAN: If he'd been behind you, you could have got in, but he couldn't.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: Are you Charles MacArthur?
BOX-OFFICE MAN: No.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: Why? Why? Why?
BOX-OFFICE MAN: Because I'm not.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: No, no! I mean why can't I get in?
BOX-OFFICE MAN: I can't tell you. I can't give you any explanation.
MR. FIFTY-THREE: Do you know why I can't get in?
BOX-OFFICE MAN: I don't want to talk about it.

By this time, Mrs. Fifty-four and Mrs. Fifty-five, and a lot of other women on up to Mrs. Seventy-two, are pushing, and they finally dislodge Mr. Fifty-three and demand standing room. The box-office man has to get rid of them, which is harder than getting rid of Mr. Fifty-two, lots harder. Just how many bewildered people were turned away in all on this sentimental occasion, I don't know, but I'm glad I wasn't the box-office man.

The American Airlines, now, have the good old-fashioned idea of celebrating a sentimental occasion. They recently decided to give a prize to the millionth person who chanced to show up and ask for passage on one of their planes. Up showed the lucky Mr. Theodore Colcord Baker. He was given a free trip to Europe on the Hindenburg and a hundred thousand dollars in cash. It would take a hundred thousand dollars to get me to ride on the Hindenburg or any other zeppelin, but that is beside the point.

Thurber's apprehensions regarding zeppelin travel were of course well-founded. Less than two months after this piece appeared in The New Yorker, at 7:25 on the morning of May 6, 1937, the airship Hindenburg, finishing its first Atlantic crossing of the season, caught fire attempting to dock at Lakehurst (NJ) Naval Station in one of the 20th century's most dramatic disasters ("Oh, the humanity!"), effectively ending the era of commercial zeppelin travel. -- Ed.

The point is that when Mr. Baker showed up, he wasn't told that American Airlines wouldn't let him ride on one of their planes. The sentiment of that would have been lost on Mr. Baker, even if it had been explained to him. It would have been lost on Miss Hayes and Mr. Essex, too, particularly if they were in a hurry to fly somewhere. Of course, if Mr. Fifty-three were in a hurry to see "Victoria Regina," he probably wouldn't have waited a year, but the sentiment in both cases is the same. I'm not trying to compare a plane ride to a matinée, I'm trying to compare Helen Hayes to American Airlines; even so, I would be the last to say that Miss Hayes should have given anyone a thousand dollars. I just think she should have let Mr. Fifty-three in.

I've brooded about this affair for quite a few days and nights now, and out of it I have hit on a kind of revenge for Mr. Fifty-three, if he still is as mad as I think he is. My plan would be hard to work but it would be a lot of fun. In "Victoria Regina," as you know, Prince Albert dies, halfway through the play. Now my idea is to have Mr. Fifty-three, if he has any spunk at all, don the uniform of a court announcer some Saturday afternoon, put on makeup, slip backstage when nobody is looking, and, in the scene after Albert's death, walk boldly onstage and, with a gesture toward the door, say, loudly, "The Royal Consort, Prince Albert!" They would either have to ring the curtain down or else Mr. Vincent Price, who plays Prince Albert, would have to walk on again, as fit as a fiddle but with nothing to say, except maybe that he was feeling a lot better than he had been. That would put Miss Hayes in a very sentimental spot. But perhaps I have brooded about the whole business too long. I guess I have.

ABOUT VINCENT PRICE'S BROADWAY APPEARANCE
OPPOSITE HELEN HAYES IN VICTORIA REGINA

His Wikipedia bio says merely that the St. Louis-born Price (1911-1993) "became interested in the theatre during the 1930s, appearing professionally on stage from 1935," then jumps to his film debut in 1938. His bio in the Playbill for Victoria Regina fills in this picture.

VINCENT PRICE's appearance as leading man to Helen Hayes marks his professional as well as his American debut on the stage. This extraordinary circumstance is due to the fact that although Mr. Price has had stage aspirations since he was ten years old, he was forced to earn his living as a schoolmaster until mere chance decreed otherwise. He was studying the history of German art at the Courtauld Institute in London when a friend took him to London's Gate Theatre, where casting of Maurine Watkins' "Chicago" was in process. American accents being at a premium, Mr. Price was thrust into the production and found himself doubling as a burly policeman and a venerable judge. His remarkable resemblance to Prince Albert led to his being offered the important role of the Prince Consort in the ensuing production of "Victoria Regina." He received glowing notices and was subsequently signed by Gilbert Miller for the American production.

You don't hardly get stories like that in Playbill these days!


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