1916 Rare Original Bird of Paradise Hand Carved Printing Wood Block & Proofs

Description

Very Rare Original Hand-Engraved Printing Wood Block
of
The Bird of Paradise Stage Play
Circa 1916
I am offering an original hand engraved printing wood block (all wood-no metal) advertising the play "The Birds of Paradise" Hawaiian Stage Play plus several original proofs
pulled from this artifact.  Guaranteed authentic.  Returns accepted for absolutely any reason.  Satisfaction Guaranteed.  Free Shipping
The Bird of Paradise
(play)
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A notice for an
Oliver Morosco
production
of
The Bird of Paradise
, 1916
The Bird of Paradise
is a melodramatic American play of 1912 set in
Hawaii
, the best known work of
Richard Walton Tully
.
The play has been credited with creating an image of Hawaii as a land where native girls “dance the hula, play ukuleles, live in grass huts, and worship volcano gods”.
[1]
Contents
1
Plot
2
Productions
3
Plagiarism dispute
4
Film adaptations
5
Notes
Plot
[
edit
]
Luana, a Hawaiian princess, is in love with a beachcomber who is also a doctor. He dies after saving the people of Hawaii by isolating the
bacterium
which is the cause of
leprosy
. Luana then redeems his soul by sacrificing herself to the volcano goddess
Pele
to save her people again.
[1]
The play includes more-or-less authentic Hawaiian music, dancing, and a simulated volcano in the third act.
[1]
Productions
[
edit
]
Maxine Elliott's Theatre
Even though New York City audiences found
The Bird of Paradise
ridiculous, it was a modest success on Broadway in 1912, running to 114 performances
[1]
at
Maxine Elliott's Theatre
between January 22 and April 13, 1912.
[2]
However, its mixture of exotic and erotic was a big hit on tour, and with several revivals it ran off-Broadway for twelve years.
[1]
Clark Gable
later said he had been inspired to become an actor by seeing the play at the age of seventeen.
[3]
Plagiarism dispute
[
edit
]
The play’s success led to a long-running court case, in which after twelve years a schoolteacher named Grace Fendler persuaded the
New York Supreme Court
that Tully had
plagiarized
her scenario entitled
In Hawaii
. The courts awarded her 0,000 in 1924. The legal fight then went on for another four years, and the judgement was reversed on appeal.
[1]
[4]
Film adaptations
[
edit
]
While the litigation continued, no Hollywood producer wanted to touch a film project based on the play, turning instead to other stories set in the
Pacific islands
. Finally, in 1932,
Bird of Paradise
was filmed, with
Delores del Rio
as Luana and
Joel McCrea
as her lover. It was not a big success.
[1]
The story was filmed again as
Bird of Paradise
(1951), with
Debra Paget
playing a central character renamed as Kalua.
[5]
Notes
[
edit
]
^
Jump up to:
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
Bill Peschel, “Bird of Paradise Gets Plucked (1912)” in 20th Century, Writers Gone Wild way Show, February 17, 2009
^
The Bird of Paradise
, ibdb.com, accessed January 2, 2021
^
Chrystopher J. Spicer,
Clark Gable, in Pictures: Candid Images of the Actor's Life
(
ISBN
978-0786487141
),
p. 25
^
Gerald Bordman, Thomas S. Hischak, "Tully, Richard Walton", in
The Oxford Companion to American Theatre
(2004), p. 234
^
Luis Reyes,
Made in Paradise: Hollywood's Films of Hawai'i and the South Seas
(Mutual Publishing, 1995), p. 1795
Categories
:
1912 plays