p6 35 U ff/o ) PS 3511 . 1235 C3 1910 -ty-third Midsummer High Jinks of the Bohemian Club, Bohemia, Sonoma County, California August 6th, 1910 THE CAVE MAN A Play of the Redwoods Text by Charles K. Field Music by W. J. McCoy INTRODUCTION AND SYNOPSES CHARLES K. FIELD SIRE COPYRIGHT, 1910 BY THE BOHEMIAN CLUB h^ f6 '-ill/. *^ ^L4..,.«^-^X.*A- Foreword The Grove Play of the Bohemian Club is the outgrowth of an illuminated spectacle produced annually among redwood trees in California. In The Man in the Forest, at the Midsummer Jinks of 1902, this spectacle first became a play, the text being the work of one author and the music the work of one composer. Since then, the music drama has been steadily elaborated. Yet it has been the aim, excepting the play of Montezuma (1903), to produce a play inherently of the forest. The Cave Man (1910) has its inspiration in the fact that the sequoia groves of California, one of which the Bohemian Club owns, are the only forests now existing that resemble the forests of the cave man's day. While it has not yet been estab- lished that man of the cave type occupied this region of the earth, migrations here bringing people possibly of a much more ad- vanced culture, it is sufficient for the purposes of the grove dramatist to be able to present characters of the more ancient type in a natural setting startlingly close to the original scenery of the cave man's life. No attempt has been made to reproduce the exact conditions of speech, appearance, or musical expression. Simple language, to set forth such ideas and passions as might make a presentable play, has been employed and has been reinforced by interpre- tative music in the manner of today. Many thousands of years of progress may lie, in reality, between the types exhibited in this drama, yet, in the physical aspects of the life of these people, care has been taken to exclude such anachronisms as the use of the bow and arrow and the making of pictures on rock or in carved bone— accomplishments that post-dated the discovery of fire by tens of thousands of years. The characters have been costumed to suggest men of a primitive type, yet far removed from the creature that was to evolve the gorilla of our day. That creature, also a character in the drama, doubtless resembled the cave man more nearly than his descendant resembles us. His quest of the woman in the play is warranted by the reported anxiety of modern Africans regarding their own women and the gorilla. The episode of the tar pool is based upon the recently reported discoveries in a similar deposit, in California, where remarkably frequent remains of the animals and birds named by Long Arm in his narrative have been brought to light. To Dr. J. C. Merriam, of the University of California, under whose direction these discoveries have been reported, I am indebted for a sympa- thetic editing of the text of this play. I desire to record my gratitude to those members of the Bohemian Club whose co-operation, well in accord with the traditions which have made possible the club's admirable pro- ductions, has carried my dream of the cave man to fulfillment. Mr. W. J. McCoy, already wearing the laurels of the Hamadryads, undertook to express my play in music when the task could be accomplished only by severe sacrifice. That he has contributed to the musical treasures of the club a work which, perhaps, excels his former composition is, I trust, some measure of reward. Mr. Edward J. Duffey, the wizard of the illuminated grove, has rendered service equally important to a play whose action is written round the phenomenon of fire. Mr. George E. Lyon, that rare combination of artist and carpenter, with the assistance of Dr. Harry Carleton, has performed the feat of making the hillside more beautiful, adding stage scenery without sacrilege. To Mr. Frank L. Mathieu, veteran of many battles with amateur talent, I am indebted for untiring super- vision of the production of the play and for valuable suggestions in its arrangement. Mr. Porter Garnett, authority upon grove plays and himself sire imminent, has proved his loyalty by work- ing all night upon the making of this book of the play. Mr. J. de P. Teller has drilled two choirs in the difficult music of the Epilogue. Mr. David Bispham, a new member of the club and an artist of international fame, has shown himself imbued also with the amateur spirit which is one of the important elements in the grove play's charm. To the Board of Directors, and to their immediate predecessors, with their respective Jinks Com- mittees, whose sympathy and aid under unusual circumstances have made possible the Midsummer Jinks of 1910, and to all the brothers in Bohemia who have joined me in the labor and pleasure of that effort, I subscribe myself in sincere acknowledg- ment, CHARLES K. FIELD. The Scene The scene is a forested hillside in the geological period pre- ceding the present, — some tens of thousands of years ago. The landscape is black ivith night, but betiveen the treetops are glimpses of the stars. The orchestral introduction is in keeping with the darkness; it suggests the chill of an era zvhen fire is unknown, and the terror that pervades the prehistoric forest at night. Into the glimpses of sky at the top of the hill comes the Hush of daivn. The red fades into blue and light comes through the forest, progressively dozvn the hillside. The radiance of morning discloses a grove of giant conifers, rich in ferns and in blossoming vines; it is spring in the forest. Rock outcrops from the loiver parts of the hillside and a small stream plashes into a succession of pools; at the base of the hill the rock appears as a great ledge, the upper portion of which overhangs. Small plants cling to the uneven face of the cliff and young trees stand along its rim. Under the overhanging ledge there is a narrow entrance, closed with two boulders, that is high enough to admit a man stooping slightly. The ground immediately before the cave is level, but soon drops in a succession of ledges to a plateau filled with ferns and boidders through zvhich the stream flows. Blossom- ing plants edge the pools and the lower and larger pool has tall reeds, tides, and ferns about it. The stream continues on to a river that runs westzvard to the sea. The Story of The Play Once upon a time, some tens of thousands of years ago, the greater part of the northern hemisphere was covered with a mighty forest of conifers. Its trees rose hundreds of feet in height; their huge trunks, twenty and thirty feet through, were shaggy with a reddish hark; between them grew smaller and gentler trees, thick ferns and blossoming vines. Today, in the sequoia groves of California stands all that is left of that magnificent woodland. On a memorable night, when the moon searched the deep shadows of Bohemia's redwoods for memories of the past and the mystery of night magniiied our trees to the size of their brethren in other groves, I sat with W. J. McCoy before the high jinks stage. Fancy has ever been stimulated by fact and we were aware that we looked upon such a scene as the cave man knew. And so in the moonlight we dreamed that the forest was still growing in the comparative youth of mankind, that no light other than the fires of heaven had ever shone in the grove, that the man of that day wooed his mate and fought great beasts for their raw flesh and made the first fire among those very trees. The prehistoric forest was very dark and as dangerous as it was dark. Therefore the cave men went into their caves when daylight faded among the trees and they blocked the cave door- ways with great boulders and they slept soundly on leaves and rushes until the daylight peeped through the chinks of the boulders. One morning, Broken Foot, a big man with heavy dark hair on his body and an expression that was not amiable even for a cave man's face, rolled back the blocking of his cave and crept cautiously out. It happened that a deer had chosen to drink from a pool by Broken Foot's cave. A great stone broke the neck of the luckless deer and the cave man breakfasted well. As he sat there on the rocks, carving with his flint knife the raw body of the deer, certain neighbors joined him, one by one. They were Scar Face, a prodigious glutton but sharp witted and inventive, Fish Eyes and Short Legs, young hunters with THE CAVE MAN Specialties, and Wolf Skin, the father of Singing Bird, a much- admired maiden just entering womanhood. Then ensued such talk as belonged to that period — stories of hunting, of escape and also of discoveries. Many remarkable things were being put forth in those days by the inquiring spirit of men, shells to hold water, a log that would obey a man with a paddle, even a wolf had been tamed and made a companion of a hunter. So the morning passed in interesting discussion and all would have been harmonious in the little group before Broken Foot's cave had not Short Legs listened eagerly to Wolf Skin's description of his daughter and announced his intention of mating with her. As he rose to seek the girl. Broken Foot knocked him down with a sudden blow and bade him think no more of the cave maiden. At this. Short Legs, although no match for the great bully, burst out with a torrent of abuse, calling Broken Foot many unpleasant names, and Fish Eyes, his inseparable friend, came to his aid with more unflattering words, even accusing Broken Foot of murdering his brother to get his cave and his mate* Broken Foot, making ready to seek the girl, listened indifferently to this tirade until Short Legs called him a coward. Earlier in the day Wolf Skin had told of meeting a stranger in the forest, a young man who carried a singular weapon, made of both wood and stone. This stranger had inquired for the cave of Broken Foot, a man who dragged one foot as he walked. Short Legs accused Broken Foot of running away from this new comer. This was too much. Broken Foot, already part way up the hill on his way to Singing Bird, turned back toward the cave men threateningly. Just then a young man came along a higher path. He looked down on the man who dragged one foot as he walked. With a terrible cry of rage he leaped down the hill. Broken Foot, with his great strength, had been the champion of those woods for years. But Long Arm, the stranger, carried the first stone axe, and under this new weapon Broken Foot went down into the dead leaves. Then, of course, the whole story came out. The young stranger proved to be the son of the man whom Broken Foot had murdered. The boy had been with the two men at the time. The scene of the murder was a small lake into which tar con- tinually oozed, making a sticky trap for all sorts of wild animals. A similar place exists in California today, where animals are caught, and geologists have found in the ground there great quantities of bones of prehistoric animals, the sabretooth tigers and the great wolves of the cave man's day. Here was enacted the tragedy of which Long Arm tells. The boy got away and was reared by the Shell People on their mounds beside the sea. THE CAVE MAN He had invented a new weapon and now he had come back into the forest to kill Broken Foot and to get again the cave of his father. Long Arm was kindly welcomed by the cave men. They had no love for the dead bully and they respected a good fight. So the boy was welcomed home again. Yet the greeting held a note of warning in it. Old One Eye, fleeing through the forest, told them that the terrible man-beast was again roving through the trees. The cave men did not know that this creature was but the ancestor of the gorilla of today. To them he was a man who seemed to be a beast. They could not understand him but they knew that he was larger than any other man and stronger than all of them together, and they gave him a wide berth. Long Arm was left alone in the cave he had regained. He sat on the rocks, in the pleasant shade of the trees, and chipped away at the edge of his flint axe. He was very well satisfied with himself and he sang a kind of exultant song in tribute to the weapon that had served him so well. As he worked and sang the sparks flew from the flint and by one of those chances which have made history from the dawn of time, some dry grass was kindled. No one in the world had made fire before that day. Long Arm saw what he thought was some bright new kind of serpent. He struck it a fatal blow v/ith his axe and picked it up ; it bit him and with a cry he shook it from his hand. Chances go in pairs, sometimes. The burning twig fell into a little pool and was extinguished. Long Arm observed and studied all this, a very much puzzled but interested young man. Then occurred one of those moments that have lifted men above the brutes. Long Arm struck his flints together and made fire again and man has been repeating and improving that process ever since. That was destined to be a red-letter day, if we may use such a calendar term, in the life of that young cave man. He had got his cave again and he had discovered something that would make it the best home in all the world, yet it was not complete. And just then he heard Wolf Skin's daughter singing among the trees. Long Arm dropped his new toy and it burned out on the rock. He hid behind a great tree and watched. Singing Bird came, unsuspecting, down the path. One of the pools near the cave was quiet and the young girl was not proof against the allure- ment of this mirror. She had twined some blossoms in her hair and she was enjoying the reflection when Long Arm stole toward her. But she saw his reflection too, in time to leap away from him. Then Long Arm wooed her instead of following to take her by force, for that was not at all a certainty, since she might easily outrun him. So he told her of himself and his stone axe and his victory and his cave, making it all as attractive as possible and at last he told her of the fire and made it before her eyes THE CAVE MAN with his sparking flints. Singing Bird was deeply impressed by all these things and by the confident manner of Long Arm, and especially by the bright new plaything, and she came gradually nearer to see these wonders. Then suddenly the man-beast came upon the two, and the woman leaped in terror to the arms of the man. The man-beast barred the way to the cave. Then Long Arm braved him, though it meant death, that the girl might flee. The man-beast seized Long Arm's boasted axe and snapped it like a twig. Then he grasped the man and proceeded to crush him in his hairy hold. But the girl, under the spell of her new love, had run but a little way and then, in spite of her terror, turned to look back. She shrieked wildly at Long Arm's peril and the great beast threw the man aside and came after the girl. She tried desperately to evade him and to get to the narrow door of the cave. Mean- while Long Arm had been only stunned. Recovering, he saw the firebrand burning where he had dropped it on the rocks. He seized it, remembering its bite, and again attacked the man-beast. Here was something new, and very terrible. No animal, from that day to this, has stood against fire. The man-beast fled into the forest. Then Long Arm came back in triumph. Wonderful days fol- lowed, with the happy discovery of cooked meat, and the tragedy of a forest fire, but through all their lives Long Arm and Singing Bird remembered this day when, in the joy of their escape from death and under the spell of the woodland in springtime, they began their life together in the cave. 10 T H E C A'V E MAN Plan of the Music 1 Prejludi;. 2 Thd fight be:twi;i;n Long Arm and Brokejn Foot 3 Long Arm's story of the tar pool 4 Thf Song of thf Flint 5 Long Arm's discovfry of firf. 6 Thf Spring Song of thf Cavf Maidfn 7 Long Arm's battlf with thf Man-Bfast 8 Thf Song of Mating 9 Intfrmfzzo — Thf Dancf of thf FirFFlifs 10 Thf Man-Bfast's capturf of Singing Bird 11 Thf rFscuF 12 Thf forfst firf The Epilogue 13 Choir of Spiritual Voicfs 14 Thf Song of thf Star 15 Chorus: Thf March of thf Dawn THE C A V E M AN 11 Synopsis of the Music It has been the effort of the composer, in writing the music of The Cave Man, to parallel, as far as possible advantageously in musical expression, the ideas, occurrences and pictures as they occur in the text and action. The prelude is the result of an effort toward the creation of atmosphere conducive to a full appreciation of the scenes that follow, and may be taken as a tone picture in the life of primitive man. The thematic material upon which it is constructed con- sists of two principal motives : The motive of Broken Foot OJiaaXxr tlil-Lr-f ''F f — 'F ^f- — F ^l • — -r p — 'f-p and the motive of Long Arm These two themes are developed alternately as the night gradually merges into day, and the climax culminates as Broken Foot, emerging from the cave, slays a deer and drags it up the rocks for his morning feast. A development of these themes is also used for the struggle between Long Arm and Broken Foot, resulting in the slaying of the latter. 12 THE CAVE MAN Long Arm, fashioning a new weapon for defense against the Man-Beast, sings a song of the flint: C\X.Qiaj