We in the Music & Recorded Sound Division have long admired a photo album in our collection depicting what appears to be the performance of a site-specific work entitled “Cave Man: A Play of the Redwoods.” The album belonged to the operatic baritone David Bispham (1857-1921), who is depicted in the album both singing as well as leisuring with other men in a redwood forest. The album caught our attention with the juxtaposition of odd subject matter and unsettling costumes with stunning photography (the images here, taken with my phone, don't do justice to the originals), as well as with the sight of a Metropolitan Opera star performing al fresco.

The album in fact depicts a range of activities of the Bohemian Club in August 1910 at their campsite called "Bohemian Grove," located in Sonoma County near the Russian River. Most of the album's photos were taken by Gabriel Moulin, the club's official photographer, though there are a handful taken and signed by Arnold Genthe.

Not to be confused with the New York-based Bohemians (a club for musicians), this Bohemian Club was founded in San Francisco in 1872 as a mens-only organization for journalists and writers, intended to provide a feeling of East Coast social clubs on the West Coast. The club’s early members included Mark Twain and Jack London; eventually it came to include politicians and business moguls. Today it is known as a secretive and influential networking venue for the rich and powerful, including numerous U.S. presidents. In 1989, Spy magazine reported that the club had a 33-year-long waiting list. The club continues today and, as of 2018, reportedly had 2,500 members.

For two weeks every summer, the club convenes in Bohemian Grove to celebrate what has been known since the early 20th century as the Midsummer Jinks. During this summer gathering, members live in themed camps (such as Owl’s Nest, Woof Camp, or Jungle Camp), and engage in outdoor activities and music-making. Like other all-male and exclusively white secret societies in the United States, many of the club’s traditions came steeped in stereotypes of Native American, African American, and other marginalized cultures, as evidenced in the camp names, the incorporation of teepees (as seen in the photo below), and in the thematic content of their dramatic performances.

The major, most storied events include what are called the “high jinks” and “low jinks,” which are held on the final weekend. The high jinks feature a newly composed dramatic work, referred to as a “grove play,” a genre unique to the Bohemian Club that includes spoken and sung numbers intermixed with orchestral interludes. It is performed in what David Bispham refers to in his memoir as "an auditorium unequaled in the world": a circular clearing among the trees. (Bispham remarks that "so mysteriously perfect are the acoustics among the trees that even the slightest sound is audible.") The grove play typically concludes with the killing of an antagonist, at which point, in the club’s early years, the play would have segued into a formal ceremony known as “The Cremation of Care.” In this ceremony, an effigy of a mummified human is set on fire, symbolizing the destruction of everyday worries. It seems that at some point, this ceremony was moved earlier in the itinerary, to the opening weekend of the retreat.

Once the effigy has burned, the so-called low jinks follow, which sources describe as a lighthearted variety show.

“Cave Man: A Play of the Redwoods” was the grove play of 1910. It was a collaboration between Charles K. Field, who wrote the text, and W.J. McCoy, who composed the music. The two men believed that early human existence transpired in a landscape similar to the California redwoods and that the Sonoma County forest was one of the last places on earth that closely resembled the natural environment of cave dwellers. They imagined their story to take place at a moment in history when fire and sharp-pointed tools had just been discovered.

These and other milestones of human history are woven into the play, along with stereotypes of Native American culture (evidenced for example in the names of characters). Early in the play, the character Scar Face discovers a fossilized sabre-toothed tiger in a tar pool, which (according to Field's program notes) was inspired by the early 20th century discovery of tar pits in California (likely what are now known as the La Brea Tar Pits). The protagonist Long Arm invents the axe and discovers fire, accomplishments that win him the affections of Singing Bird, his female love interest.

The play’s crisis occurs when the villain, called Man Beast, captures Singing Bird. As was the case in other examples of caveman-themed fiction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a gorilla-like creature was used to characterize the villain. (In her book God—or Gorilla: Images of Evolution in the Jazz Age, author Constance Areson Clark explains that gorillas were used in fiction of this era as racist symbols of non-white humans.)

Long Arm's allies use torches to light their way in apprehending Man Beast and inadvertently start a forest fire. In the ensuing commotion, Long Arm somehow is able to rescue Singing Bird, while Man Beast disappears in the dry underbrush. Luckily, a surprise rainstorm materializes and puts out the fire. Long Arm's allies subsequently express anger and threaten to kill him for introducing fire, which they now perceive as dangerous. (Bispham recalls that the lighting design was so realistic that the audience began jumping from their seats to help put out what they believed was an actual fire).

In addition to a 60-piece orchestra, the music for “Cave Man” also featured a boys choir made up of guests from St. John's Church in Oakland and Christ Church in Alameda, CA

Unfortunately, W. J. McCoy’s score for “Cave Man” doesn’t survive, though the musical leitmotifs for each character were published in the program book, along with the libretto. Additionally, a piano-vocal reduction of one scene from the play, “Dance of the Fireflies,” was published by Sherman, Clay & Co. of San Francisco. (Our copy, shown here, was inscribed to Bispham by the composer).

Additionally, the program book offers verbal descriptions of the music's structure and mood. For example, the program book states that the orchestral introduction “suggests the chill of an era when fire is unknown and the terror that pervades the prehistoric forest at night.” 

A very different assessment appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle a few days later, after the musical portion of “Cave Man” was performed for an audience of women at San Francisco's Van Ness Theater. The critic, Lady Teazle, stated: “The ‘cave man,’ musically interpreted, was neither savage, 'whoopy' nor bloodthirsty...from a feminine viewpoint it failed to create ‘cave atmosphere’ to the extent expected by the assembled ladies, who have lived through scenes of more primitive savagery when electing a club president.”

Full text of the program book, including the script, synopsis, and musical themes, is available through Hathi Trust.

Bispham's memoir is available as *MEC (Bispham)(Bispham, D. S. Quaker Singer’s Recollections. 1921).

Accounts of the Bohemian Club’s culture can be found in G. William Domhoff’s The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats: A Study in Ruling-Class Cohesiveness(JLD 75-453) and John Van der Zee’s The Greatest Men’s Party on Earth: Inside the Bohemian Grove (JFD 74-7025).  

Constance Areson Clark’s book God—or Gorilla: Images of Evolution in the Jazz Age, which discusses the phenomenon of caveman fiction in the late 19th and early 20th century, is available as an e-book with an NYPL card.

To view the complete photo album virtually, click here to schedule a video chat with one of our Music & Recorded Sound librarians.