Read Ebook: Mary Anderson by Farrar J Maurice

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 84 lines and 28102 words, and 2 pages

At the Boston Theater occurred an accident which shows the marvelous courage and power of endurance possessed by the young actress. In the play of "Meg Merrilies," she had to appear suddenly in one scene at the top of a cliff, some fifteen feet above the stage. To avoid the danger of falling over, it was necessary to use a staff. Mary Anderson had managed to find one of Cushman's, but the point having become smooth through use, she told one of the people of the theater to put a small nail at the bottom. Instead of this, he affixed a good-sized spike, and one night Mary Anderson, coming out as usual, drove this right through her foot, in her sudden stop on the cliffs brink. Without flinching, or moving a muscle, with Spartan fortitude she played the scene to the end, though almost fainting with pain, till on the fall of the curtain the spiked staff was drawn out, not without force. Longfellow was much concerned at this accident, and on nights she did not play would sit by her side in her box, and wrap the furred overcoat he used to wear carefully round her wounded foot.

FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE.

In the summer of 1879, was paid Mary Anderson's first visit to Europe. It had long been eagerly anticipated. In the lands of the Old World was the cradle of the Art she loved so well, and it was with feelings almost of awe that she entered their portals. She had few if any introductions, and spent a month in London wandering curiously through the conventional scenes usually visited by a stranger. Westminster Abbey was among her favorite haunts; its ancient aisles, its storied windows, its thousand memories of a past which antedated by so many centuries the civilization of her native land, appealed deeply to the ardent imagination of the impassioned girl. Here was a world of which she had read and dreamed, but whose over-mastering, living influence was now for the first time felt. It seemed like the first glimpse of verdant forest, of enameled meadow, of crystal stream, of pure sky to one who had been blind. It was another atmosphere, another life. Brief as was her visit, it gave an impulse to those germs which lie deep in every poetic soul. She saw there was an illimitable world of Art, whose threshold as yet she had hardly trodden--and she went home full of the inspiration caught at the ancient fountains of Poetry and Art. From that time an intellectual change seems to have passed over her. Her studies took new channels, and her impersonations were mellowed and glorified from her personal contact with the associations of a great past.

A visit to Stratford-on-Avon was one of the most delightful events of the trip. It seemed to Mary Anderson the emblem of peace and contentment and quiet; and though as a stranger she did not then enjoy so many of the privileges which were willingly accorded her during the present visit to this country, she still looks back to the day when she knelt by the grave of Shakespeare as one of the most eventful and inspiring of her life.

In the following year, however, there came an offer from the manager of Drury Lane to appear upon its boards. Mary Anderson received it with a pleased surprise. It told that her name had spread beyond her native land, and that thus early had been earned a reputation which commended her as worthy to appear on the stage of a great and famous London theater. But her reply was a refusal. She thought herself hardly finished enough to face such a test of her powers; and the natural ambition of a successful actress to extend the area of her triumph seemed to have found no place in her heart.

SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE.--EXPERIENCES ON THE ENGLISH STAGE.

From that time till Mary Anderson's first Lyceum season closed, the world of London flocked to see her. The house was packed nightly from floor to ceiling, and she is said to have played to more money than the distinguished lessee of the theater himself. Among the visitors with whom Mary Anderson was a special favorite were the prince and princess. They witnessed each of her performances more than once, and both did her the honor to make her personal acquaintance, and compliment her on her success. So many absurd stories have been circulated as to Mary Anderson's alleged unwillingness to meet the Prince of Wales, that the true story may as well be told once for all here. On one of the early performances of "Ingomar," the prince and princess occupied the royal box, and the prince caused it to be intimated to Mary Anderson that he should be glad to be introduced to her after the third act. The little republican naively responded that she never saw any one till after the close of the performance. H.R.H. promptly rejoined that he always left the theater immediately the curtain fell. Meanwhile the manager represented to her the ungraciousness of not complying with a request which half the actresses in London would have sacrificed their diamonds to receive. And so at the close of the third act Mary Anderson presented herself, leaning on her father's arm, in the anteroom of the royal box. Only the prince was there, and "He said to me," relates Mary Anderson, "more charming things than were ever said to me, in a few minutes, in all my life. I was delighted with his kindness, and with his simple pleasant manner, which put me at my ease in a moment; but I was rather surprised that the princess did not see me as well." The piece over, and there came a second message, that the princess also wished to be introduced. With her winning smile she took Mary Anderson's hand in hers, and thanking her for the pleasure she had afforded by her charming impersonation, graciously presented Mary with her own bouquet.

Among those who were constant visitors at the Lyceum was Lord Lytton, or as Mary Anderson loves to call him, "Owen Meredith." Her representation of his father's heroine in "The Lady of Lyons" naturally interested him greatly, and it is possible he may himself write for her a special play. Between them there soon sprung up one of those warm friendships often seen between two artist natures, and Lord Lytton paid Mary Anderson the compliment of lending her an unpublished manuscript play of his father's to read. Tennyson, too, sought the acquaintance of one who in his verse would make a charming picture. He was invited to meet her at dinner at a London house, and was her cavalier on the occasion. The author of "The Princess" did not in truth succeed in supplanting in her regard the bard of her native land, Longfellow; but he so won on Mary's heart that she afterward presented him with the gift--somewhat unpoetic, it must be admitted--of a bottle of priceless Kentucky whisky, of a fabulous age!

If Mary Anderson was a favorite with the public before the curtain, she was no less popular with her fellow artists on the stage. Jealousy and ill-will not seldom reign among the surroundings of a star. It is a trial to human nature to be but a lesser light revolving round some brilliant luminary--but the setting to adorn the jewel. But Mary Anderson won the hearts of every one on the boards, from actors to scene-shifters. And at Christmas, in which she is a great believer, every one, high or low, connected with the Lyceum, was presented with some kind and thoughtful mark of her remembrance. And when the season closed, she was presented in turn, on the stage, with a beautiful diamond suit, the gift of the fellow artists who had shared for so long her triumphs and her toils.

Mary Anderson's success in London was fully indorsed by the verdict of the great provincial towns. Everywhere she was received with enthusiasm, and hundreds were nightly turned from the doors of the theaters where she appeared. In Edinburgh she played to a house of ?450, a larger sum than was ever taken at the doors of the Lyceum. The receipts of the week in Manchester were larger than those of any preceding week in the theatrical history of the great Northern town. Taken as a whole, her success has been without a parallel on the English stage. If she has not altogether escaped hostile criticism in the press, she has won the sympathies of the public in a way which no artist of other than English birth has succeeded in doing before her. They have come and gone, dazzled us for a time, but have left behind them no endearing remembrance. Mary Anderson has found her way to our hearts. It seems almost impossible that she can ever leave us to resume again the old life of a wandering star across the great American continent. It may be rash to venture a prophecy as to what the future may bring forth; but thus much we may say with truth, that, whenever Mary Anderson departs finally from our shores, the name of England will remain graven on her heart.

IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND.

Almost every traveler from either side of the Atlantic, with the faintest pretensions to distinction, bursts forth on his return to his native shores in a volume of "Impressions." Archaeologists and philosophers, novelists and divines, apostles of sweetness and light, and star actors, are accustomed thus to favor the public with volumes which the public could very often be well content to spare. It is but natural that we should wish to know what Mary Anderson thinks of the "fast-anchored isle" and the folk who dwell therein. I wish, indeed, that these "Impressions" could have been given in her own words. The work would have been much better done, and far more interesting; but failing this, I must endeavor, following a recent illustrious example, to give them at second hand. During the earlier months of her stay among us, she lived somewhat the life of a recluse. Shut up in a pretty villa under the shadow of the Hampstead Hills, she saw little society but that of a few fellow artists, who found their way to her on Sunday afternoons. Indeed, she almost shrank from the idea of entering general society. The English world she wished to know was a world of the past, peopled by the creations of genius; not the modern world, which crowds London drawing-rooms. She saw the English people from the stage, and they were to her little more than audiences which vanished from her life when the curtain descended. From her earliest years she had been, in common with many of her countrymen, a passionate admirer of the great English novelist, Dickens. Much of her leisure was spent in pilgrimages to the spots round London which he has made immortal. Now and then, with her brother for a protector, she would go to lunch at an ancient hostelry in the Borough, where one of the scenes of Dickens' stories is laid, but which has degenerated now almost to the rank of a public-house. Here she would try to people the place in fancy with the characters of the novel. "To listen to the talk of the people at such places," she once said to me, "was better than any play I ever saw."

Stratford-on-Avon too, was, of course, revisited, and many days were spent in lingering lovingly over the memorials of her favorite Shakespeare. She soon became well known to the guardians of the spot, and many privileges were granted to her not accorded on her first visit, four years before, when she was regarded but as a unit in the crowd of passing visitors who throng to the shrine of the great master of English dramatic art. On one occasion when she was in the church of Stratford-on-Avon, the ancient clerk asked her if she would mind being locked in while he went home to his tea. Nothing loath she consented, and remained shut up in the still solemnity of the place. Kneeling down by the grave of Shakespeare, she took out a pocket "Romeo and Juliet" and recited Juliet's death scene close to the spot where the great master, who created her, lay in his long sleep. But presently the wind rose to a storm, the branches of the surrounding trees dashed against the windows, darkness spread through the ghostly aisles, and terror-stricken, Mary fled to the door, glad enough to be released by the returning janitor.

"How happy could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away."

One instance of Mary Anderson's kind and womanly sympathy to some of the poorest of London's waifs and strays should not be unrecorded here. It was represented to her at Christmas time that funds were needed for a dinner to a number of poor boys in Seven Dials. She willingly found them, and a good old-fashioned English dinner was given, at her expense, in the Board School Room to some three hundred hungry little fellows, who crowded through the snow of the wintry New Year's Day to its hospitable roof. Though she is not of our faith, Mary Anderson was true to the precepts of that Christian Charity which, at such seasons, knows no distinction of creed; and of all the kind acts which she has done quietly and unostentatiously since she came among us, this is one which commends her perhaps most of all to our affection and regard.

THE VERDICT OF THE CRITICS.

"The opening of the Lyceum on Saturday evening, was signalized by the assembly of a crowded and fashionable audience to witness the first appearance in this country of Miss Mary Anderson as Parthenia in Maria Lovell's four-act play of 'Ingomar.' Though young in years, Miss Anderson is evidently a practiced actress. She knows the business of the stage perfectly, is learned in the art of making points, and, what is more, knows how to bide her opportunity. The wise discretion which imposes restraint upon the performer was somewhat too rigidly observed in the earlier scenes on Saturday night, the consequence being that in one of the most impressive passages of the not very inspired dialogue, the little distance between the sublime and the ridiculous was bridged by a voice from the gallery, which, adopting a tone, ejaculated 'A little louder, Mary.' A less experienced artist might well have been taken aback by this sudden infraction of dramatic proprieties. Miss Anderson, however, did not loose her nerve, but simply took the hint in good part and acted upon it. There is very little reason to dwell at any length upon the piece. Miss Anderson will, doubtless, take a speedy opportunity of appearing in some other work in which her capacity as an actress can be better gauged than in Maria Lovell's bit of tawdry sentiment. A real power of delineating passion was exhibited in the scene where Parthenia repulses the advances of her too venturesome admirer, and in this direction, to our minds, the best efforts of the lady tend. All we can do at present is to chronicle Miss Anderson's complete success, the recalls being so numerous as to defy particularization."

"LYCEUM THEATER.

"LYCEUM THEATER.

"Miss Mary Anderson has won such favor from audiences at the Lyceum, that anything she did would attract interest and curiosity. Galatea, in Mr. W.S. Gilbert's mythological comedy, 'Pygmalion and Galatea,' has, moreover, been spoken of as one of the actress' chief successes, and a crowded house on Saturday evening was the result of the announcement of its revival. An ideal Galatea could scarcely be realized, for there should be in the triumph of the sculptor's art, endowed by the gods with life, a supernatural grace and beauty. The singular picturesqueness of Miss Anderson's poses and gestures, the consequences of careful study of the best sculpture, has been noted in all that she has done, and this quality fits her peculiarly for the part of the vivified statue. In this respect it is little to say that Galatea has never before been represented with so near an approach to perfection."

"The part of Galatea, in which Miss Anderson made her first appearance in England at the Lyceum Theater on Saturday evening, enables this delightful actress to exhibit in her fullest charms the exquisite grace of form and the simple elegance of gesture and movement by virtue of which she stands wholly without a rival on the stage. Whether in the alcove, where she is first discovered motionless upon the pedestal, or when miraculously endued with life, she moves, a beautiful yet discordant element in the Athenian sculptor's household. The statuesque outline and the perfect harmony between the figure of the actress and her surroundings, were striking enough to draw more than once from the crowded theater, otherwise hushed and attentive, an audible expression of pleasure. Rarely, indeed, can an attempt to satisfy by actual bodily presentment the ideal of a poetical legend have approached so nearly to absolute perfection."

"Miss Anderson has the true sense of rhythm and the clearest enunciation; she has a deep and musical voice, which in moments of pathos thrills with a sweet and tender inflection. She has seized, in this instance, upon the touching rather than the harmonious side of Galatea, the pure and innocent girl who is not fit to live upon this world. She is only not human because she is superior to human folly; she cannot understand sin because it is so sweet; she asks to be taught a fault; but the womanly love and devotion, and unselfishness, are all there, writ in clear and uncompromising characters. The first and last acts were decidedly the best; in the latter especially Miss Anderson touched a true pathetic chord, and fairly elicited the pity and sympathy of the audience. With a gentle wonder and true dignity she meets the gradual dropping away of her illusion, the crumbling of her unreasoning faith, the cruel stings when her spiritual nature is misunderstood, and her actions misinterpreted. She is jarred by the rough contact of commonplace facts, and ruffled and wounded by the strange and cynical indifference to her sufferings of the man she loves. At last when she can bear no more, yet uncomplaining to the last, like a flower broken on its stem, shrinking and sensitive, she totters out with one loud cry of woe, the expression of her agony. Miss Anderson is a poet, she brings everything to the level of her own refined and artistic sensibility, and the result is that while she presents us with a picture of ideal womanhood, she must appeal of necessity rather to our imaginations than to our senses, and may by some persons be considered cold. Once or twice she dropped her voice so as to became almost inaudible, and occasionally forced her low tones more than was quite agreeable; but whether in speech, in gesture, or in delicate suggestive byplay, her performance is essentially finished. One or two little actions may be noted, such as the instinctive recoil of alarmed modesty when Pygmalion blames her for saying 'things that others would reprove,' or her expression of troubled wonder to find that it is 'possible to say one thing and mean another.'"

"'PYGMALION AND GALATEA.'

"LYCEUM THEATER.

"MISS ANDERSON AT THE ROYALTY.

"MISS ANDERSON AT THE ROYALTY THEATER.

"Since 'Pygmalion and Galatea' was produced at the Haymarket Theater, fully a dozen years ago, when the part of Galatea was created by Mrs. Kendal, quite a number of actresses have essayed the character. Most of them have succeeded in presenting a carefully thought-out and intelligently-executed picture; few have been able to realize in their intensity, and give adequate embodiment to, the dreamy utterances of the animated statue. It is a character which only consummate skill can appropriately represent. The play is indeed a cunningly-devised fable; but Galatea is the one central figure on which it hangs. Its humor and its satire are so exquisitely keen that they must needs be delicately wielded. That a statue should be vivified and endowed with speech and reason is a bold conception, and it requires no ordinary artist to depict the emotion of such a mythical being. For this duty Miss Anderson last night proved herself more than capable. Her interpretation of the part is essentially her own; it differs in some respects from previous representations of the character, and to none of them is it inferior. In her conception of the part, the importance of statuesque posing has been studied to the minutest detail, and in this respect art could not well be linked with greater natural advantages than are possessed by Miss Anderson. When, in the opening scene, the curtains of the recess in the sculptor's studio were thrown back from the statue, a perfect wealth of art was displayed in its pose; it seemed indeed to be a realization of the author's conception of a figure which all but breathes, yet still is only cold, dull stone. From beginning to end, Miss Anderson's Galatea is a captivating study in the highest sphere of histrionic art. There is no part of it that can be singled out as better than another. It is a compact whole such as only few actresses may hope to equal."

"MARY ANDERSON AT THE GAIETY.

"Notwithstanding all that photography has done for the last few weeks to familiarize Dublin with Miss Anderson's counterfeit presentment, the original took the Gaiety audience last night by surprise. Her beauty outran expectation. It was, moreover, generally different from what the camera had suggested. It required an effort to recall in the brilliant, mobile, speaking countenance before us the classic regularity and harmony of the features which we had admired on cardboard. Brilliancy is the single word that best sums up the characteristics of Miss Anderson's face, figure and movements on the stage. But it is a brilliancy that is altogether natural and spontaneous--a natural gift, not acquisition; and it is a brilliancy which, while it is all alive with intelligence and sympathy, is instinct to the core with a virginal sweetness and purity. In 'Ingomar' the heroine comes very early and abruptly on the scene before the audience is interested in her arrival, or has, indeed, got rid of the garish realities of the street. But Miss Anderson's appearance spoke for itself without any aid from the playwright. The house, after a moment's hesitation, broke out into sudden and quickly-growing applause, which was evidently a tribute not to the artist, but to the woman. She understood this herself, and evidently enjoyed her triumph with a frank and girlish pleasure. She had conquered her audience before opening her lips. She is of rather tall stature, a figure slight but perfectly modeled, her well-shaped head dressed Greek fashion with the simple knot behind, her arms, which the Greek costume displayed to the shoulder, long, white, and of a roundness seldom attained so early in life, her walk and all her attitudes consummately graceful and expressive. A more general form of disparagement is that which pretends to account for all Miss Anderson's popularity by her beauty. It is her beauty, these people say, not her acting, that draws the crowd. We suspect the fact to be that Miss Anderson's uncommon beauty is rather a hindrance than a help to the perception of her real dramatic merits. People do not easily believe that one and the same person can be distinguished in the highest degree by different and independent excellences. They find it easier to make one of the excellences do duty for both. Miss Anderson, it may be admitted, is not a Sarah Bernhardt. At the same time we must observe that at twenty-three the incomparable Sarah was not the consummate artist that she is now, and has been for many years. We are not at all inclined to rank Miss Anderson as an actress at a lower level than the very high one of Miss Helen Faucit, of whose Antigone she reminded us in several passages last night. Miss Faucit was more statuesque in her poses, more classical, and, perhaps, touched occasionally a more profoundly pathetic chord. But the balance is redeemed by other qualities of Miss Anderson's acting, quite apart from all consideration of personal beauty.

"'Ingomar,' it must be said, is a mere melodrama, and as such does not afford the highest test of an actor's capacity. The wonder is that Miss Anderson makes so much of it. In her hands it was really a stirring and very effective play."

"MISS ANDERSON AS GALATEA.

MARY ANDERSON AS AN ACTRESS.

It may be interesting to quote here some observations very much to the point, on the dramatic criticism of the day, in an admirable paper read recently by Mrs. Kendal before the Social Science Congress. It will hardly be denied that there are few artists competent to speak with more authority on matters theatrical, or better able to form a judgment on the true inwardness of that Press criticism to which herself and her fellow artists are so constantly subject:

"Existing critics generally rush into extremes, and either over-praise or too cruelly condemn. The public, as a matter of course, turn to the newspapers for information, but how can any judgment be formed when either indiscriminate praise or unqualified abuse is given to almost every new piece and to the actors who interpret it? Criticism, if it is to be worth anything, should surely be criticism, but nowadays the writing of a picturesque article, replete with eulogy, or the reverse, seems to be the aim of the theatrical reviewer. Of course, the influence of the Press upon the stage is very powerful, but it will cease to be so if playgoers find that their mentors, the critics, are not trustworthy guides. The public must, after all, decide the fate of a new play. If it be bad, the Englishman of to-day will not declare it is good because the newspapers have told him so. He will be disappointed, he will be bored, he will tell his friends so, and the bad piece will fail to draw audiences. If, on the other hand, the play is a good one, which has been condemned by the Press, it will quicken the pulse and stir the heart of an audience in spite of adverse criticism. The report that it contains the true ring will go about, and success must follow. In a word, though the Press can do very much to further the interests of the stage, it is powerless to kill good work, and cannot galvanize that which is invertebrate into life."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet