American Women Theatre Critics: Biographies and Selected Writings of Twelve Reviewers, 1753-1919

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American Women Theatre Critics

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American Women Theatre Critics Biographies and Selected Writings of Twelve Reviewers, 1753 –1919 ALMA J. BENNETT

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London

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CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Bennett, Alma. American women theatre critics : biographies and selected writings of twelve reviewers, 1753–1919 / Alma J. Bennett. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-4979-8 softcover : 50# alkaline paper 1. Women theatre critics — United States — Biography. 2. Dramatic criticism — United States — History. 3. Theater — United States — History. 4. Drama — History and criticism. I. Title. PN1707.9B46 2010 791.43092' 2 — dc22 2010017962 British Library cataloguing data are available ©2010 Alma J. Bennett. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Front cover: Annie Nathan Meyer (Barnard College Archives); background images ©2010 Shutterstock Manufactured in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com

Acknowledgments I would like to thank my husband, Paul, for his patience and encouragement during the long months of my intermittent spells of research and writing. My thanks go also to Rosemarie Bank of Kent State University for igniting my interest in women drama critics. Especially, I would like to thank Ms. Kelly Bracey, the entire interlibrary loan staff of Alderson-Broaddus College, for her assistance in locating obscure books, newspapers and journals needed for my research. Finally, my thanks go my colleagues and good friends, Bud Kelley and Gary Schubert, who came to my aid when the computer wouldn’t do what I thought it should. My heartfelt gratitude to you all!

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Table of Contents Acknowledgments

vii

Preface

1

Introduction

3

18th-Century Critics 1 • Charlotte Ramsey Lennox [1720–1804]

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2 • Judith Sargent Murray [1751–1820]

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19th-Century Critics 3 • Kate Field [1838–1896]

43

4 • Olive Logan [1839–1909]

61

5 • Mildred Aldrich [1853–1928]

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6 • Dorothy Lundt [1855–1908] and Emma V. Sheridan [1864–1936]

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7 • Amy Leslie [1855–1939]

103

8 • Lucy Monroe [1865–1950]

120

20th-Century Critics 9 • Ada Patterson [1867–1939]

131

10 • Annie Nathan Meyer [1867–1951]

144

11 • Dorothy Rothschild Parker [1898–1967]

157

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Table of Contents

Chapter Notes

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Bibliography

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Index

185

Preface An examination of anthologies of drama criticism reveals a glaring absence of women critics. This work is one attempt to give recognition to several American women who worked and wrote alongside male critics but have been ignored in canonical texts of American dramatic criticism. The women included here represent primarily the northeastern part of the country, but women were writing play reviews and dramatic criticism wherever theatre was being produced. These women were chosen because they represent several large theatrical centers during the development of the country — cities like Chicago, New York, and Boston. The only other text that I know of which addresses women critics exclusively is the Folger Collective’s Women Critics: 1660 –1820. The subjects in this book are mostly European, and the samples collected are from plays, novels, letters, diaries, introductions, prefaces, poetry and anonymous publications. The samples are accompanied by short biographical descriptions of the critics. In American Women Theatre Critics, I have collected samples of reviews and articles representing women critics from the Shakespeare criticism of Charlotte Ramsey Lennox in the 18th century to the acerbic theatre reviews of Dorothy Parker in the early 20th century. My aim is not strictly biographical, but to mix biography with some analysis of each woman’s writing style and motivations. This work may be especially helpful to theatre historians and women’s studies scholars, but I hope it is of interest to those in literature and journalism as well. Scholars in all these fields of study recognize that critics and criticism have received less attention than other areas of study. My desire is that this text will encourage more research into women drama critics across the nation. The research is difficult; it involves searching for and reading many lengthy reels of microfilm of now-defunct daily newspapers, journals, and magazines, as well as some unpublished manuscripts when available. Unsigned 1

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Preface

articles and reviews and the use of male pseudonyms further complicate the research process. In spite of these problems, the research can be exhilarating and rewarding. My thanks go to the many generous librarians and archivists who helped make this book possible.

Introduction In his introduction to Bohemians and Critics, Tice Miller argues that “an important area of the American theatre ... has been neglected in historical studies.” This area is identified as “the critic and theatrical criticism.”1 It is, indeed, true that critics and criticism have received less attention from theatre scholars than other areas of theatre research. Jurgen Wolter cites the lack of standards and intellectual depth of both plays and criticism as justification for the paucity of information on early American drama criticism. Within these limited studies, even less actual and extensive research has considered women and dramatic criticism. Of the books dealing with criticism, the following deserve mention. In Women in American Theatre (1987), Carolyn Latta’s essay, “The Lady Is a Critic,” explores the critical practices of ten of the “best and most representative women in the critical profession today,”2 beginning with Rosamond Gilder (Theatre Arts, 1937–1948) and ending with Sylvie Drake (Los Angeles Times, 1969–). In three other books on American dramatic criticism, Charles Meister’s Dramatic Criticism, Tice Miller’s Bohemians and Critics, and Moses and Brown’s The American Theatre as Seen by Its Critics, 1752 –1934, women critics before 1920 are conspicuously absent. A more recent book of American criticism and critics is Jurgen C. Wolter’s The Dawning of American Drama: American Dramatic Criticism, 1746 –1915, which provides very thorough coverage of theatre criticism and includes some women critics, when identifiable. However, the earliest mentioned woman critic is Olive Logan, 1867. The Folger Collective on Early Women Critics provides more information on women writing literary criticism in Women Critics, 1660 –1800. This volume concentrates on women writing literary criticism in England, but includes some writers from France, Germany, and the United States. In most of the books about criticism, no explanation is given for the neglect of women drama critics, even though several women were writing and publishing their reactions to theatre practices alongside the published opinions of male reviewers. An obvious problem complicating the historian’s efforts 3

4

Introduction

to identify early critics was the practice of publishing unsigned articles and the use of pseudonyms, especially by women.3 Perhaps another contributing factor to the neglect of women critics may be accounted for by the existing expectations and definitions of gender roles in public life at the time the women were writing. Until the late 19th century, critical writing was not considered to be a suitable occupation for women, or one that could be handled adequately by them. Social considerations affected the presence — or absence — of women among theatre critics in America, for, while writing a sentimental novel was respectable, a career in journalism (outside of “society” news or “women’s columns”) was not. Stanley Walker, former city editor of the New York Herald Tribune, observed in his foreword to Ladies of the Press (1936), “From the first, the woman who sought to make a place for herself in newspaper work has found editors prejudiced against her,”4 an attitude that was slow to change despite the rapid growth of newspapers and of newspaper dramatic criticism. As Carolyn Latta puts it, “Women critics, ... have had to combat the stereotypes in order to practice the ‘masculine’ intellectual skill of judging.”5 Given these circumstances, many women journalists disguised their identities by assuming male pseudonyms or by signing their articles with initials only. Slowly, the feminist demand for freedom to choose a career consistent with interests and abilities instead of traditional domestic roles made room for women in newspaper offices. By the late 19th century, women were signing their columns, but the women writing theatre criticism before the growth of the newspaper industry in the early 19th century are harder to identify. The availability of early magazines and newspapers now on microfilm makes possible a more thorough study of American women drama critics. Even before the first fully equipped theatre was established in America, American women were writing responses to plays and playwrights. Latta cites the published comments of one “Arabella Sly” on a 1756 production of The Beaux Stratagem and “Clarinda” on an “offensive” production of Hamlet.6 These reviews may not be considered great criticism, but they do reflect the cultural climate of the age in which they were written. Comments by women are particularly important to historians, given the fact that during the 18th and 19th centuries and, indeed, well into the 20th century, women were considered the arbiters of cultural taste and morals. In light of this, their public statements offer valuable insights into theatre and drama, and into the role of each in American society. Arranged chronologically, the writers included in this study create a vivid picture of the American stage through years of controversy over religion, morality, politics, the social value of theatre, the decline of romanticism and

Introduction

5

melodrama, and the establishment of realism as the dominant mode of theatre. By including only women writers, I hope to also document the female experience in public life in America and present a more valid picture of critical responses to American theatre — a picture that includes the female subject. Historians of criticism have privileged the male view. This book is intended to provide some gender balance to the patriarchal attitudes toward American dramatic theory and practices, and toward the position of women in public discourse and in society. While it does not offer an in-depth analysis of each critic’s work, I hope that by providing a small list of representative American women critics from the 18th to the 20th century, with samples of their writings, other scholars will be inspired to conduct further, perhaps more in-depth, studies of these women as well as others not included here and their contributions to American dramatic criticism. The first woman critic to be considered is Charlotte Ramsey Lennox. Excerpts from her Shakespear [sic] Illustrated reveal an intelligent, well-educated 18th-century woman doing revolutionary critical work at a time when women were supposed to be capable of writing only poetry and sentimental, romantic novels. Lennox did write poetry and romantic novels as well as plays and a three-volume set of Shakespearean criticism. Next to be considered is Judith Sargent Murray, who wrote plays and essays on theatre in Boston during the 1780s and 1790s, a time when legal restrictions against theatre were being enforced. Kate Field and Olive Logan were contemporaries who came to theatre criticism from somewhat different directions. Field’s financial situation provided a lifestyle of European travel and socializing with famous literary and theatre figures of the day, which allowed her to try her hand at singing, acting, and writing before settling on a self-supporting career. Logan seems to have had a tougher time in coming to her writing career from a quasi-successful acting career. Both women made a name for themselves on the lecture circuit, but Field’s theatre criticism was based more on reviewing productions, while Logan’s criticism was included in her speeches about the business of theatre as she saw it. Mildred Aldrich began her career in theatre criticism at the Boston Home Journal. Her earlier style of criticism was brutally harsh, but as she became more familiar with (and friends with) some of the well-known actors of the day, she became more forgiving and flattering in her criticism. By the 1890s Aldrich’s critical eye was more astute, and she combined performance criticism with assessment of the talents of the actors involved. Dorothy Lundt and Emma V. Sheridan were also Boston journalists writing for newspapers and magazines during the 1880s and 1890s. Their contri-

6

Introduction

butions included regular columns as well as performance reviews. In 1890, Lundt was recognized as the “dramatic critic” of the Boston Commonwealth. Her style was direct as she covered the quality of the play as well as the acting and staging of each production reviewed. In 1894, Sheridan was added to the drama desk of the Commonwealth. The two women were friends and shared common themes with each other as well as other women critics of the day; all believed in a higher purpose for theatre in American society. Amy Leslie was one of the most prolific women critics of all time by virtue of her 40-year career as the drama critic for the Chicago Daily News. Her many theatre reviews and columns offer the richest glimpse of the life of a public woman during the so-called “progressive” era. Leslie’s career spans the transition from romanticism and melodrama to realism at a time when Chicago rivaled New York as the cultural center of America. She saw the number of live theatre reviews each week replaced with reviews of the new “moving pictures.” More importantly, Leslie’s writings give a broad and deep look at how women’s lives were changing in the early 20th century. Lucy Monroe also covered Chicago theatre in the 1890s as a correspondent for a New York magazine, The Critic. Her “Chicago Letter” was a weekly column devoted to all aspects of theatre, including current productions. Monroe constantly reminded her New York readers of the attributes of Chicago’s cultural life, which, at times, outshone that of New York. Monroe’s contemporary, Ada Patterson, wrote a theatre column titled “The Lady with the Lorgnette” for Theatre magazine during the 1920s. Patterson also wrote a column called “Gravities and Gaieties” under her real name. Annie Nathan Meyer is better known as a journalist and playwright than as a drama critic. However, her numerous articles on Henrik Ibsen and her theories of realism in art add to the theories of drama and theatre in the early 20th century, thus earning her a place among American women drama critics. Meyer is well known for her efforts to establish Barnard College and for her anti-suffrage sentiments. In spite of her feelings that women did not need the vote, she was very much a feminist ahead of her time, as her articles on Ibsen reveal. Dorothy Parker is perhaps the most well-known personality included in this book. Her career encompassed various forms of writing from poetry to dramatic criticism in New York to screenwriting in Hollywood. Her acerbic wit, ever-present in her writing, reveals a streak of self-doubt reminiscent of an earlier critic, Kate Field. Both women seem to have had doubts about their writing talents, but both succeeded in male-dominated professions. Taken together, these 12 women drama critics reveal a rich history of the American theatre, journalism, and American society during over 150 years of

Introduction

7

explosive and radical growth. They weren’t just concerned with pursuits considered “proper” for women; they became involved in areas of national interest and America’s place in the world. Each woman demanded a place in society; they refused to be considered “subordinate” in their private as well as public lives. Their voices deserve to be heard. These women were by no means the only female drama critics making a living in the man’s world of journalism during these years. This work profiles a few of the women critics, almost entirely from the northeastern part of the nation, but other writers and scholars interested in this topic have only to look at cities such as Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans in the South, or to the West in cities such as St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, and San Francisco. As the country moved west, so also did the theatre. Any city with a newspaper covered theatrical events, and women were often assigned to write about these productions. The task before researchers is to uncover the identity of these women and the richness of their writings.


18th-Century Critics


z1å Charlotte Ramsey Lennox [1720–1804] It may be argued that Charlotte Ramsey Lennox should not be included in a book of American critics since her volumes of Shakespearean criticism were written and published in England. I believe her views of theatre and society were sufficiently influenced by her early life in the province of New York to warrant her inclusion. Although the various accounts of Ramsey’s biography differ widely, other writers seem to agree with this view. Westfall calls her “the first American born Shakespearean critic,”1 citing her birthplace as New York, while Mullane and Wilson report that she was born “possibly in Gibraltar.”2 Maynadier calls her “the first American novelist,”3 and Spender cites “her boisterous and boyish American manners”4 (emphasis added). The strongest piece of evidence regarding her birth is found in Small’s biography of Lennox, which quotes documents obtained from the Royal Literary Fund, established in 1790, lists information apparently supplied by Lennox herself, and gives her birthplace and date as New York, 1720.5 On one point there is no argument; she spent much of her early life in and around the then “western frontier” outpost of Albany, New York. Her experiences and education in America proved to be influential in her writing, especially in matters of descriptions of scenery, imagery, and dramatic aesthetic as they are expressed in her novels and criticism of Shakespeare. She moved to England after the death of her father, James Ramsey, sometime between 1743 and 1746. By 1747 Lennox had begun to establish herself in London’s literary circles, becoming friends with Samuel Johnson and, later, Richardson. Although best known for her novels, particularly The Female Quixote; or, The Adventures of Arabella (1752), her innovative criticism, Shakespear Illustrated (1753–1754), received critical interest. This work, a three-volume set under the lengthy title of Shakespear Illustrated; or, The Novels and Histories on Which the Plays of Shakespear Are Founded, Collected, and Translated, 11

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has been acknowledged as a ground-breaking work, not so much for the thorough examination of sources but for Lennox’s critical observations on Shakespeare’s use of these sources. Lennox knew several languages, and her translation of the original novels and histories used by Shakespeare made direct comparisons possible. She concludes that Shakespeare could not read Italian and knew some of his sources only in translations. Her books include the original source material, followed by a summary of Shakespeare’s versions, calling attention to the changes he made. Lennox came to dramatic criticism not as an outsider; she knew theatre as an actor and as a playwright. Between 1748 and 1750 she had tried her hand as an actress, and her drama, Old City Manners, produced by David Garrick at Drury Lane, had a very respectable run of seven nights during November 1775 and January 1776. Nineteenth and early–twentieth century views of Shakespear Illustrated have been largely negative, charging Lennox with being outdated for relying on classical principles, romantic sentimentality, and 17thcentury neoclassical ideals of decorum and poetic justice. However, later 20thcentury scholars have approached her novels via newer methods of analysis such as deconstruction and feminist analysis, exposing a complexity in Lennox’s work heretofore ignored. Lennox’s novels were criticized as old-fashioned, depending as they did on the demands of romanticism, when current taste was turning to Augustan modes of criticism. Margaret A. Doody has applied a feminist lens to Shakespear Illustrated, which makes the work fresh and relevant to 20th-century readers. Doody’s appraisal sees in Lennox a criticism of Shakespeare as also influenced by romances, but misreading them; as not interested in doing women justice; as choosing to deprive female characters of power and authority. Lennox’s criticism of Othello reinforces current stereotypes of Italians as cruel, jealous, and revengeful, and women as subject to irregular passions. These views are suggested as justification for the actions of Iago, and for Desdemona’s marriage to a Moor. Lennox points out, however, that mixed marriages were not unknown in England and should not be attributed to a woman’s “irregular passions.” In this volume, the original sources used in Shakespear Illustrated are not included, only Lennox’s summaries of Shakespeare and her analysis of his versions of two plays. Lennox also occasionally responds to other critics of Shakespeare in her analysis, as in her comments on Othello, included here. Her comments on The Winter’s Tale accuse it of being full of ridiculous, inconsistent and contrived situations.

1 • Charlotte Ramsey Lennox [1720 –1804]

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From volume I of Shakespear Illustrated. Observations on the Use Shakespear has made of the foregoing Novel in his Tragedy of Othello, or the Moor of Venice. Othello, or the Moor of Venice, the Plot of which is drawn from the foregoing Novel of Giraldi Cinthio, has always been esteemed one of the best of Shakespear’s Tragedies. ’Tis confessed the Fable is more regular, the Incidents less numerous and closer connected, and the Subject more of a Piece than any other of his Plays, except Romeo and Juliet. The Fable Shakespear found already formed to his Hands, some few Alterations he has made in it, and generally for the better. Thus it stands in the Poet. Othello, a Moor descended of Royal Blood, eminent for his great Valour, and the Services he had done the Venetians in their Wars, is preferred by the Senate to the Government of the Island of Cyprus, which was threatened with an Invasion by the Turks. Othello, being commanded to go immediately to his Government, takes with him, at her earnest Request, his Bride Desdemona, a young lady of great Beauty, Daughter to a Senator of Venice, who had married him unknown to her father. Iago, Ancient to Othello, being jealous that the Moor had an Intrigue with his Wife, and desirous of procuring the Post of Lieutenant for himself, which was possessed by Cassio, a young Officer very dear to the Moor, to gratify his Revenge and Ambition at once, he entertains a Design of making Othello jealous of Desdemona and Cassio, so to bring about her Death, and the Removal of Cassio. To effect this, by various Arts he raises Suspicions in the Mind of Othello, and to confirm them prevails on his Wife, who attended Desdemona, to steal a Handkerchief which the Moor had given her. This Handkerchief he drops in Cassio’s Apartment, and Othello accidentally seeing it in his Hand, is convinced of his Wife’s Infidelity, orders Iago to kill his Rival, promising to make him his Lieutenant in his stead, and himself smothers Desdemona in her Bed. Cassio escapes only with a slight Wound. Emilia, the Wife of Iago, finding her Mistress murdered, and hearing Othello declare he had killed her through her Husband’s Informations that she had wronged him with Cassio, in whose Possession he had seen the Handkerchief he had given her; she confesses she had stolen the Handkerchief at her Husband’s Request.

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Iago, finding himself discovered, stabs his Wife, and in Part confesses his Villainy. Othello, in Despair, falls upon his Sword and dies, and the Punishment of Iago is left to Cassio, who before Othello’s Death was ordered by the Senate to take upon him the Government of Cyprus. In Cinthio the moor is mentioned without any Mark of Distinction; Shakespear makes him descended from a Race of Kings, his Person is therefore made more considerable in the Play than in the Novel, and the Dignity which the Venetian Senate bestows upon him is less to be wondered at. In the Play, Cassio, the Person of whom Othello is jealous, is represented to be a young amiable Officer, remarkable for the Agreeableness of his Person, and the Sweetness of his Manners, and therefore likely enough to inspire Desdemona with a Passion for him. In the Novel, these Qualities are all ascribed to the Villain who betrays the Moor to the Murder of his Wife; and the suspected Rival is no more than an ordinary Person. Cinthio might perhaps think it necessary to give his Villain a pleasing Person and insinuating Address, in order to make his Artifices less suspected; but to give Probability to the Jealousy of the Moor, was it not also as necessary to make the suspected Rival possess some of those Qualities with which the Minds of young Ladies are soonest captivated. Shakespear therefore paints Cassio young, handsome, and brave; and Othello, who feeds his Jealousy, by reflecting that he himself is neither young or handsome, by the same Train of Thought falls naturally into a Suspicion, that what he loses, for want of those Qualities, will be gained by another who possesses them. But on the other Hand Shakespear has made a very ill Use of the Lieutenant’s Wife. Cinthio shews this Woman privy, much against her Will, to the Design on Desdemona; and though she dares not discover it to her, for fear of her Husband’s Resentment, yet she endeavors to put her upon her Guard, and gives her such Advice, as she thinks will render all his Schemes ineffectual. Shakespear calls this Woman Emilia, and makes her the Attendant and Friend of Desdemona, yet shews her stealing a Handkerchief from her, which she gives to her Husband, telling him at the same Time that the Lady will run mad when she misses it; therefore, if it is not for some Purpose of Importance that he wants it, desires him to return it to her again. If her Husband wants it for any Purpose of Importance, that Purpose


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cannot be very good; this Suspicion however never enters her Mind, but she gives it him only upon that very Condition, which ought to have made her refuse it. Yet this Woman is the first who perceives Othello to be jealous, and repeats this Observation to her Mistress, upon hearing him so often demand the Handkerchief she had stolen, and fly into a Rage when he finds his Wife cannot produce it. Emilia pronounces him jealous, perceives the Loss of that fatal Handkerchief, confirms Some Suspicions he had entertained, and though she loves her Mistress to Excess, chuses rather to let her suffer all the bad Consequences of his Jealousy, than confess she had taken the Handkerchief, which might have set all right again; and yet this same Woman, who could act so base and cruel a Part against her Mistress, has no greater Care in dying, than to be laid by her Side. Mr. Rymer, in his Criticisms on this Play, severely censures the Characters as well as the Fable, and Conduct of the Incidents. That of Emilia though more inconsistent than any, he has taken no notice of; and most of the Charges he brings against the others have little or no Foundation. The Character of Iago, says this Critic, is against common Sense and Nature. “Shakespear would pass upon us a close, dissembling, false, insinuating Rascal, instead of an open-hearted, frank plain dealing Soldier; a Character constantly worn by them for some Thousands of Years in the World.” The Soldiers are indeed greatly obliged to Mr. Rymer for this Assertion, but though it may in general be true, yet surely it is not absurd to suppose that some few Individuals amongst them may be close dissembling Villains. Iago was a Soldier, it is true, but he was also an Italian; he was born in a Country remarkable for the deep Art, Cruelty, and revengeful Temper of its Inhabitants. To have painted an Italian injured, or under a Suspicion of being injured, and not to have shewn him revengeful, would have been mistaking his Character. It is with Justice indeed that Mr. Rymer condemns Shakespear for that unnecessary and diabolical Cruelty he makes Iago guilty of in urging Othello to the Murder of the innocent Lady who had never offended him; his Point was gained by making Othello jealous, and procuring his Consent to the Death of Cassio, who stood in his Way to Preferment: But the Murder of Desdemona was such an Excess of wanton Cruelty, that one can hardly conceive it possible a Man could be so transcendently wicked.

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Cinthio indeed makes Iago not only urge Othello to the Murder of his Wife, but is himself the Perpetrator of it; this seems still more absurd; but he tells us, that he had been violently in love with Desdemona, and the Indifference she had discovered towards him converted his Love into a settled Hatred. Shakespear injudiciously copies Cinthio in making Iago confess a Passion for Desdemona, as it rendered his urging on her Murder less probable; since in the Play Iago had no Opportunity of declaring that Love to her, and consequently could not be stimulated by her Contempt of him to act so cruel a Part against her. But he has greatly improved on the Novelist by making him jealous of the Moor with his own Wife; this Circumstance being sufficient, in an Italian especially, to account for the Revenge he takes on Othello, though his Barbarity to Desdemona is still unnatural. Upon the whole, there is very little Difference between the Character of the Lieutenant as it is drawn in the Novel, and Iago as managed in the Play; his ambiguous Questions, dark Hints, and villainous Arts to raise suspicions in the Mind of Othello are the same in the Novel as in the Play; and the Scene where Othello is made to observe the Gestures of Cassio while he is talking to Iago, is exactly copied from Cinthio; as is likewise a preceding one, where Othello, tormented with Doubts about his Wife, threatens Iago with Destruction, unless he gives him ocular Proof of her Dishonesty. This Demand, with Iago’s Expostulations, Arguments, and satisfactory Replies, are also the same with those in the Novel. The Character of Desdemona fares no better in Mr. Rymer’s Hands, than that of Iago; her Love for the Moor, he says, is out of Nature. Such Affections are not very common indeed; but a very few Instances of them prove that they are not impossible; and even in England we see some very handsome Women married to Blacks, where their Colour is less familiar than at Venice; besides the Italian Ladies are remarkable for such Sallies of Irregular Passions. Cinthio, it is true, says, that Desdemona was not overcome by a womanish Appetite, but represents her, as Shakespear does likewise, subdued by the great Qualities of the Moor. Courage in Men has always had an invincible Charm for the Ladies; Desdemona admired the Moor for his Valour, and the Transition from extreme Admiration to Love is very easy in a female Mind. Mr. Rymer alledges, that Shakespear makes Desdemona a Senator’s Daughter instead of a simple Citizen; and this he imputes to him as a Fault, which is perhaps a great Instance of his Judgment.


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There is less Improbability in supposing a noble Lady, educated in Sentiments superior to the Vulgar, should fall in love with a Man merely for the Qualities of his Mind, than that a mean Citizen should be possessed of such exalted Ideas, as to overlook the Disparity of Years and Complexion, and be enamoured of Virtue in the Person of a Moor. However, it is not true, that Shakespear has changed a simple Citizen into a Lady of Quality, since Desdemona in the Novel is mentioned as a Woman of high Birth. Cinthio calls her Cittadina, which Mr. Rymer translates a simple Citizen; but the Italians by that Phrase mean a Woman of Quality. If they were, for Example, to speak of a Woman of the middle Rank in Rome, they would say, Una Romana; if of a noble Lady, Una Cittadina Romana; So in Venice they call a simple Citizen Una Venitiana; but a Woman of Quality, Una Cittadina Venitiana. That Simplicity in the Manners of Desdemona, which Mr. Rymer calls Folly and Meanness of Spirit, is the Characteristic of Virtue and Innocence. Desdemona was conscious of no Guilt, and therefore suspected no Blame: She had so lately given the Moor an incontestable Proof of her Affection, that it was not unnatural for her to impute his sudden Starts of Passion to some other Cause than Jealousy. The whole Stress of the Proof against Desdemona is laid upon the handkerchief, as well in the Novel as the Play; though I think in the Novel it is more artfully managed; there the Moor insists upon seeing it in the Captain’s Possession e’er he will resolve any Thing against his Wife, and the Lieutenant contrives to give him this Satisfaction. Othello, in the Play, has not the least Appearance of Proof against his Wife, but seeing the Handkerchief in the Lieutenant’s Possession; yet this is brought about by mere Accident. Bianca, to whom Cassio had given it to have the Work copied, (which, by the way, was an odd Whim for a Soldier) comes to him while he is engaged in a private Discourse with Iago; and Othello observing them concealed, and in a Fit of Jealousy, throws the Handkerchief at his Head. This happens well for Iago’s Plot; but as he did not, and indeed could not foresee, this lucky Accident, methinks it would have been more natural, since every Thing depended upon that, to have made it the Effect of some Contrivance of his. The Outlines of Iago, Desdemona, and Cassio’s Characters are taken from the Novel; but that of Othello is entirely the Poet’s own. In Cinthio we have a Moor, valiant indeed, as we are told, but Suspicious, sullen, cunning, obstinate and Cruel.

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Such a Character married to the fair Desdemona must have given Disgust on the Stage; the Audience would have been his Enemies, and Desdemona herself would have sunk into Contempt for chusing him. With that Judgment then has Shakespear changed the horrid Moor of Cinthio into the amiable Othello, and made the same Actions which we detest in one, excite our Compassion in the other! The Virtues of Shakespear’s Moor are no less characteristic than the Vices of Cinthio’s; they are the wild Growth of an uncultivated Mind, barbarous and rude as the Clime he is born in; thus, his Love is almost Phrensy; his Friendship Simplicity; his Justice cruel; and his Remorse Self-Murder. From volume II of Shakespear Illustrated Observations on the Use Shakespear has made of the foregoing Novel in his Play called The Winter’s Tale. [Lennox’s summary of plot omitted] It has been mentioned as a great Praise to Shakespear that the old paltry Story of Dorastus and Fawnia served him for a Winter’s Tale, but if we compare the Conduct of the Incidents in the Play with the paltry Story on which it is founded, we shall find the Original much less absurd and ridiculous. If Shakespear had even improved the Story, and cleared it of great Part of its Inconsistencies, yet he would still have been accountable for what remained, for why indeed did he chuse a Subject so faulty for the story of a Play; his Claim to Praise would have been very small, by making what was bad better, since he was free in the Choice of his Subject; but certainly he can have no Pretensions to it at all by changing bad to worse; that he has done so will be easily proved by examining some of the principal Incidents, as they are differently managed by the Novelist and the Poet. The King’s Jealousy is the Foundation of all the Adventures that followed, but extravagant as its Consequences are in both, yet the Rise and Progress of this terrible Passion is better accounted for in the Novel than the Play: In the first we are told that Pandosto, charmed with the friendly Visit Egistus paid him in his Dominions, desired the Queen to treat her royal Guest with the Respect and Esteem that was due to his Merit and the Friendship he had for him; the Queen, like an obedient Wife, complies with her Husband’s Directions, and perhaps over-acts her Part. The King begins to think he has been too officious; the innocent Familiarity between his Wife and Friend creates Suspicions, which meeting with a Mind prepared by a natural Distrustfulness to receive them, produces those Sparks of Jealousy which his interested Observations on all their Looks, Words, and Actions, afterwards blew into a Flame.


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This Account of the King’s Jealousy does not absolutely clash with Probability. But let us see how Shakespear manages it in the Play; the two Kings make their first Appearance in the second Scene in high Friendship and Confidence; Polixenes reminding his Friend of the Length of his Visit, tells him he is now resolved to be gone. Leontes, not able to part with him, presses him earnestly to stay longer, Polixenes urges the Necessity of his speedy Departure, and truly, as he observes, nine Months is a great while for a good King to be out of his own Dominions. Leontes, after many fruitless Intreaties, reproaches his Queen for not endeavouring to detain Polixenes, She, in obedience to his Commands, presses him to gratify her Lord by a little longer Stay; Polixenes complies at her Request, and certainly he must be a very ill bred Monarch had he done otherwise. All this Conversation passes in the Presence of Leontes, who from hence takes Occasion to be jealous, and passes in an Instant from the greatest Confidence, Security, and Friendship imaginable, to the last Extremity of Jealousy and Rage. What wonderful Contrivance is here? The Legerdemain, who shews you a Tree that buds, Blossoms and bears ripe Fruit in the Space of five Minutes, does not put so great a Cheat on the Senses, as Shakespear does on the Understanding; for this Jealousy of one Minute’s Growth we see take Root before our Eyes, and so far from there being the smallest Progression in the several Actions of budding, blossoming, and bearing ripe Fruit, that we have the first and the last at one and the same Instant. The extravagant Effects of the King’s Rage and Jealousy are carried far enough in all Conscience in the Novel, and Shakespear is not a Whit more moderate; only he has altered a Circumstance which entirely destroys the little Probability the Novelist had preserved in the Relation. In the Story, the King being in his own Mind firmly persuaded of the Queen’s Guilt, orders her to be imprisoned, and the Daughter that she was delivered on in Prison to be burnt; at the Intreaties of his Courtiers he reverses the Sentence past on the Child, and commands it to be exposed in a Boat, but declares that his Queen shall die. She insists upon being confronted with her Accusers, whereupon she is brought to a Tryal; but finding she was likely to meet with no Justice in a Court over-ruled by the Power of her Husband, she on her Knees protests her Innocence, and intreats the King to consult the Oracle of Apollo concerning the Crimes of which she is accused. This so reasonable a Request being made in open Court, the King could not refuse it, and therefore sends

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Ambassadors to Delphos; who return with the Answer of the God; which being read, declares her Innocence, and the King is satisfied. Shakespear makes the King in the Heighth of his Frenzy of Jealousy send himself to the oracle of Apollo, and in the mean Time commit the most barbarous Cruelties on his Queen and Child. How inconsistent is this! why does he consult the Oracle if he is resolved to proceed to Extremities before the Answer arrives? The Request comes very naturally from the Queen in the Novel, and the King’s Compliance with it is very well accounted for, but in the Play nothing can be more absurd than that the King should be reasonable enough to consult voluntarily the Gods concerning the Infidelity of his Wife; and while the Answer was expected, and her Guilt yet doubtful, punish her with as much Rigour as if the Oracle had declared her an Adultress. Here again the paltry Story has the Advantage of the Play. Let us go on to examine a few more of the Incidents. In the Novel, the Persons who perform the hateful Office of exposing the Infant Princess are some of the King’s Guards. In the Play, it is a Nobleman of high Rank, who had Courage enough to reprove the King for his violent and unjust Jealousy, yet basely submits to take an Oath to perform his Commands, though he had Reason to think they would not be very mild, and still more basely keeps that Oath, though it enjoins him to carry the innocent Babe to a Desert, and there leave it to the Mercy of the wild Beasts. In the Novel, the Accidents that happen to the exposed Infant are governed by Chance; the Boat into which it was put being left in the midst of the Ocean, is driven by the Winds to the Coast of Bohemia, and being spied by a Shepherd is drawn to Land. In the Play, Antigonous, who is bound by Oath to leave the Child in some desert Place quite out of its Father’s Dominions, is warned in a Dream by its unhappy Mother to call the Infant Perdita, and carry it to Bohemia, and there leave it. Antigonous obeys, and this is done, it is absolutely necessary he should never return to Sicily, otherwise it may be discovered where the Princess is left, and all the future Adventures would fall to the Ground, therefore a Bear rushes out of the Woods and devours him; the good-natured Bear, as it should seem, resolved not to spoil the Story, passes by the little Princess, who is to make so great a Figure hereafter, and a convenient Storm arising, splits the Ship in which she was brought thither, so that all the sailors perishing, though they were near enough the Shore to have saved themselves, no one is left to carry back any Account of the Affair in Sicily, and thereby prevent the Adventures which are to follow.


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All this is very wonderful: Shakespear multiplies Miracle upon Miracle to bring about the same Events in the Play, Which Chance, with much more Propriety, performs in the Novel. The Loves of the young Prince of Bohemia and the royal Shepherdess are carried on much in the same Manner by the Poet as the Novelist; Shakespear has even borrowed some of the Thoughts from the latter in this Speech of Florizel to Perdita. “The Gods themselves, Humbling their Deities to Love, have taken the Shapes of Beasts upon them. Jupiter Became a Bull, and bellow’d the Green, Neptune A Ram and bleated; and the fire-rob’d God, Golden Apollo, a poor humble Swain, As I seem now. Their Transformations Were never for a Piece of Beauty rarer, Nor in a Way so chaste. Since my Desires Run not before my Honour, nor my Lusts Burn hotter than my Faith.” Dorastus speaks almost the same Words in the Novel, “The Gods themselves have not disdained to love: Jupiter was enamoured of Danae, and the bright Apollo woo’d the inexorable Daphne; these were mortal Beauties, and they were Deities; why then, though a Prince, may not I love a Shepherdess, but their Passions were dishonourable, mine is pure and chaste, ’tis true, and herein I surpass the Gods; be still then, O my Soul, for ’tis decreed, Fawnia, the adorable Fawnia, shall be mine.” The Escape of the two Lovers is very differently managed in the Novel and Play; in the first, the Prince being pressed by his Father to marry, resolves to leave Sicily with Fawnia, and fly to Italy, where he intended to live concealed till his Father’s Death, or that he could reconcile him to his Marriage with the beautiful Shepherdess; having procured a Ship, and sufficient Quantity of Money and Jewels, he meets Fawnia early in the Morning and carries her to the Port, they embark, and steer their Course for Italy, but are driven by contrary Winds to Bohemia, where they are obliged to land. In the Play, Florizel disguised in the Habit of a Shepherd for the Sake of Perdita, assists at the Sheepshearing Feast. The King, his Father, being informed of his Son’s Resort to the House of a Shepherd, goes there disguised with his Confidant, Camillo, and comes very opportunely to hear the Prince, his Son declare his Passion for the Fair Shepherdess publicly, and his Intentions of marrying her; nay he carries his Indiscretion so far as to join Hands with her before all the Country People who are present; can any Thing be more absurd? The King, sufficiently informed of his Son’s Designs, discovers himself, and forbids the Bans: this is indeed a terrible Stroke; one would be puzzled to think how the Lovers will escape; for it is not natural to sup-

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pose that the enraged King will keep his Son in a strict Confinement to prevent this unequal Match; but it happens quite otherwise; for the King, after some severe Menaces, goes back to his Palace, and leaves his Son at Liberty to run away with the Country Girl, which he accordingly does. The Part Camillo acts in this Affair is not more consistent; he longs to see again his old Master Leontes and his native Country Sicilia, which he had quitted to preserve Polixenes, and because this Monarch loved him so well that he could not bear his Absence, and gently denied him Permission to go, Camillo betrays the Confidence he Reposed in him, consents to the Prince’s Flight, and advises him to take refuge in Sicilia, in Hopes that Polixenes, to whom he intended to discover where the Prince was gone, would follow him, and thus he might again return to his own Country. This double Treachery and self-interested Views are very inconsistent with the Character of so honest a Man as Camillo is represented to be; besides the Contrivance is absolutely ridiculous; for what Reason had the Prince to suppose that Leontes, who passionately desired to be reconciled to the King his Father, whom he had so greatly injured, would offend him anew by protecting his Son, who had fled from him in order to marry a poor Shepherdess, for he could not expect the Story, however he disguised it, would be long concealed from him; and why should Camillo suppose that Polixenes, when he was informed of his Son’s Flight, would quit his Dominions to follow him: was it not more likely that he would send Ambassadors to demand the Prince of Leontes, who would then have an Opportunity of shewing if his Penitence was sincere by sending him back again; but Shakespear has fallen into all these Absurdities in order to bring the chief Characters in his Play together at Sicilia, tho’ for some of them there was not the least Occasion. The several Incidents that lead to the Discovery of Fawnia are conducted with some Shadow of Probability in the Novel, but are much the worse for Shakespear’s Alterations. In the Novel Capnio, the Prince’s Confidant, as he is hastening after him to the Port, meets the Father of Fawnia going to Court, and suspecting his Design, he artfully persuades him to follow him, and, partly by Stratagem, and partly by Force, carries him on board the Vessel in which the Prince and Fawnia were embarked; the old Man had taken with him when he left his House the Chain and Jewels he found with Fawnia in order to shew them to the King and relate the Manner in which he found her; but being prevented in this Design by Capnio, who obliged him to be the Companion of their Flight, he very prudently continues to conceal from Fawnia the Circumstances of her Birth; and, to secure to himself a respectful


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Treatment from the Prince and her, suffers her still to believe him her Father; but when at Bohemia the King of Sicilia’s Ambassadors discover who they are, and the old Shepherd and Fawnia are by the King of Bohemia ordered to be put to Death for deluding the Prince of Sicily, he then declares that Fawnia is not his daughter, and produces the Chain and Jewels he found with her as Proofs that her Birth was not mean; the King at the Sight of these Tokens knows and acknowledges his Daughter. Thus these Circumstances are altered by Shakespear.— The Prince having changed Cloaths with a cheating Pedlar, escapes with his Mistress to the Ship; the Pedlar immediately over-hears a Conversation between the reputed Father of Perdita and his Son, in which it is resolved that he shall carry the Jewels to the King and declare how he found Perdita; the Pedlar supposing it would be an Advantage to the Prince to know this, decoys the old Shepherd and his Son aboard; now one would imagine that all must come out; but see what strange Accidents conspire to hinder it. The Pedlar, though he over-heard the old Shepherd say that Perdita was a Foundling and not his Daughter, neglects to tell the Prince this important Circumstance, though it was with that very Design he came and forced the two Clowns along with him. Perdita, though her Father and Brother are in the same Vessel with her, never sees or speaks to them: the old Shepherd and his Son make no Attempts to speak to her; and the Prince has so little Consideration for the Father and Brother of his Beloved that he takes no Notice of them; how wonderful is all this! the most unlikely Things imaginable fall out to postpone the Discovery of Perdita till their Arrival at Sicily. The Novel makes the Wife of the jealous King die through Affliction for the Loss of her Son; Shakespear seems to have preserved her alive for the sake of her representing her own Statue in the last Scene; a mean and absurd Contrivance; for how can it be imagined that Hermione, a virtuous and affectionate Wife, would conceal herself during sixteen Years in a solitary House, though she was sensible that her repentant Husband was all that time consuming away with Grief and Remorse for her Death; and what Reason could she have for chusing to live in such a miserable Confinement, when she might have been happy in the Possession of her Husband’s Affection and have shared his Throne: how ridiculous also in a great Queen, on so interesting an Occasion, to submit such Buffoonery as standing on a Pedestal, motionless, her Eyes fixed, and at last be conjured down by this magical Command of Paulina. “Music, awake her; strike; ’Tis Time, descend; be Stone no more; approach; Strike all that look upon with Marvel; Come I’ll fill your Grave;

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up stir; nay, come away; Bequeath to Death your Numbness, for from him Dear Life redeems you.” After this solemn Incantation, her Majesty comes down from the Pedestal and embraces her Husband, and her new found Daughter, for whose Sake she declares she had preserved her Life. To bring about this Scene, ridiculous as it is, Shakespear has been guilty of many Absurdities, which would be too tedious to mention, and which are too glaring to escape the Observation of the most careless Reader. The Novel has nothing in it half so low and improbable as this Contrivance of the Statue; and indeed wherever Shakespear has altered or invented, his Winter’s Tale is greatly inferior to the old paltry Story that furnished him with the Subject of it. Sir Thomas Hammer, in his Edition of Shakespear, has this Note at the Beginning of the Winter’s Tale. This Country, here called Bithynia, hath in all former Editions been printed Bohemia, Center of Europe; whereas many of the great Incidents of the Play turn upon its being a maritime Country, of which Polixenes was the King. This is a Blunder and an Absurdity, of which Shakespear in Justice ought not to be thought capable, and as he hath turned quite anew the Story contained in the old paltry Book of Dorastus and Fawnia, changing most of the main Circumstances, and all the Names of the Persons; it is probable he removed this Impropriety, and placed the Scene in Bithynia, which the Ignorance and Negligence of the first Transcribers, or Printers, might corrupt and bring back again to Bohemia, by a less Variation in the Letters than they have been guilty of in numberless other Places of this Work. Shakespear, in his Two Gentlemen of Verona, makes Protheus travel from Verona to Milan by Sea. Yet both those Cities are inland, and both more than eighty Miles distant from the Sea. Unless this Blunder can be also charged upon the Transcribers, or Printers, ’tis reasonable to suppose that Shakespear, who was guilty of the one, might be so of the other.

z2å Judith Sargent Murray [1751–1820] Born in an age when women were “voiceless” in public life, Judith Sargent was destined to find a public voice. Born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on May 1, 1751, Judith was the eldest of eight children of Winthrop Sargent, a successful ship’s captain and sea merchant, and Judith Saunders Sargent, also from a successful seafaring family. Judith’s family name and social position gave her many advantages denied to other females of the day. As was the custom, Judith’s brother, Winthrop, was given an extensive education at Boston Latin School and at Harvard, while she was provided with what was thought more than adequate for a female. She was allowed to sit in on Winthrop’s home lessons given by a Congregationalist minister, John Rogers. Judith’s parents provided her with a reading teacher and, for a short time, sent her to a local writing school, typical studies for a young girl. Her education also included instruction in sewing, the Bible, a general idea of financial matters, and the Congregational catechism, but young Judith was not satisfied. From an early age, she sought a more thorough education in spite of the prohibition against serious schooling for girls. She begged for an introduction to the classics, and when her parents did not comply, Judith began her own education, reading voraciously everything from the ancient Greeks to Shakespeare to contemporary romance novels. In a letter to Winthrop, in September 1803, she wrote her feelings about the importance of an education. “I was robbed of the aids of education — I shall feel the effects of this irrational deprivation, as long as I shall continue an inhabitant of this world.”1 At the age of 18, on October 3, 1769, Judith married John Stevens, also a sea captain and merchant. This marriage, more to satisfy social convention than for love, was unhappy and childless. Not adept at financial matters, John Stevens by 1786 sailed for the West Indies in an attempt to escape debtor’s prison. Shortly thereafter, Stevens died at St. Eustatius, leaving his young 25

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Judith Sargent as she appeared at the age of 18, after her marriage to Captain John Stevens. John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Mrs. John Stevens ( Judith Sargent, later Mrs. John Murray), 1770 –1772, oil on canvas, 50 × 40 inches, Terra Foundation for the Arts, Daniel J. Terra Art Acquisition Endowment Fund, 2000.6 (courtesy Terra Foundation for the Arts, Chicago).


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widow with debts, a condition which fed her unfulfilled desire to write for profit, at the risk of damaging her public reputation. Knowing the value of her family name, she reverted to using the name of Sargent after the death of John Stevens. She drew encouragement to write from the success of certain English women writers and from the writings of her American contemporaries, Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, and Susanna Rowson. These women had achieved a public voice and retained their social standing and reputations, proving that a woman speaking in public did not necessarily sacrifice her femininity. Murray was a writer from an early age; before she was nine years old, she had written a “history” and numerous poems, which were shared with family members and friends. Gradually, she desired to share her writing with the public, a move which, she hoped, would lead to a certain degree of fame (a goal she mentions frequently in her writings) and financial security. According to her biographer, Vena B. Field, to be remembered by posterity was “Judith’s most frequently expressed ambition.”2 In Murray’s essay on fame, published November 20, 1794, in The Federal Orrary, she states her belief that the desire for fame “seems interwoven with our existence.”3 On November 3, 1774, John Murray, a Universalist minister, arrived in Gloucester; he was to change the lives of Judith Stevens and her family, the Sargents. Murray was a charismatic, dynamic and fervent speaker, and by 1776 the Stevenses and the Sargents along with a few friends left the First Parish Church to attend Universalist services conducted by Murray. In 1777, John Murray became the minister of the first Universalist church in America, the Independent Church of Christ. As an itinerant preacher, Murray traveled all over New England, and as he traveled, he shared Judith’s letters and poems, adding more encouragement to her desire to write for public consumption. The Universalist views of tolerance supported Judith’s views of gender equality. The Universalist doctrine upholds the idea that men and women are spiritual equals; therefore, interpreted Murray, men and women are equal in intellectual (not physical) capacities. In 1782, Judith wrote a summary of the Universalist doctrine meant to instruct youth in the faith. Friends, including John Murray, urged her to have it published, which she did with a apology for being so presumptuous. This marked the first step in her public writing career. Today, Murray and her writings have become a popular subject for studies, particularly as a result of the increased interest in feminism and women’s studies programs. She is known mostly for her staunch support of an education for women and for equality of the sexes, especially in marriage. These

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themes can be seen in her early poetry and in her later essays. After the success of her catechism in 1782, she began submitting her verses and essays to various magazines in New England. Her first published essay, titled “Desultory Thoughts Upon the Utility of Encouraging a Degree of Self-Complacency, Especially in Female Bosoms,” was published in Boston’s Gentleman and Ladies Town and Country Magazine in 1784, under the pen name “Constantia.” In this essay, Murray introduced themes that would appear in her later writings — namely the rights of women to a better education and to more equal rights in the political and social arenas. Her essay “On the Equality of the Sexes” appeared in Massachusetts Magazine in two installments in March and April 1790. The introduction to this essay is a poem (actually a miniessay) that supports the themes of the essay. Murray wrote: “Yet nature to equality imparts, And noble passions, swell e’en female hearts.” Just as Murray’s writing career was becoming successful, her personal life was becoming more stressful. On the death of her husband, John Stevens, in 1787, her financial problems reinforced her views that women needed to be prepared to take care of themselves, whether single or widowed. She believed education was the way to do this. In 1788, Judith Stevens married the Universalist minister John Murray. Although this marriage also contained financial worries, it seemed a happier union and led to the birth of two children, a son, George, stillborn in August 1789, and a daughter, Julia Maria, born in August 1791. Murray was determined that her daughter, Julia Maria, not be deprived of a good education. To secure for her an education equal to that afforded male children, Murray hired special tutors when Julia was not allowed to attend classes with male students. In spite of all Murray’s efforts to make sure her daughter was prepared for an independent life (should the need arise), Julia never took advantage of her education. She wished to be only a wife and mother; consequently, in 1812, she married Adam Bingamon after his graduation from Harvard and moved with him to his family estate in Natchez, Mississippi. The 1790s were the most prolific writing years for Judith Sargent Murray. Under the pen name “Constantia,” Murray began publishing poetry in the Massachusetts Magazine. In March and April of 1790, her two-part essay, “On the Equality of the Sexes,” appeared, two years before Mary Wollstonecraft’s “Vindication of the Rights of Women” was published. In this essay Murray questions the idea that women are by nature mentally inferior to men. She asks, “Is it indeed a fact, that [nature] hath yielded to one half of the human species so unquestionable a mental superiority? ... But suffer me to ask, in what the minds of females are so notoriously deficient, or


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unequal.”4 She reminds her readers of the four headings of intellectual powers — imagination, reason, memory, and judgment — and explains how women are just as intellectually capable as men. She argues that “the province of imagination hath long since been surrendered up to us.” In memory men and women were equal, but in reason and judgment, women were thought inferior. Murray argues that lack of a proper education was to blame for this perception; with the proper schooling, women could be just as reasonable, rational, and logical as men. It was “nurture” and not “nature” that was to blame for women’s inferior status. Murray’s essays continued to appear in the Massachusetts Magazine until August 1794. Her most important work consisted of a series of essays written between February 1792 and August 1794 published in a column titled “The Gleaner” and signed by “Mr. Virgilius.” Adopting a male persona allowed Murray to express her opinions on politics and social customs of the day as well as on education and religion, confident her ideas would be accepted more readily since they were expressed by a man rather than a woman. Many of these essays, comprising what is actually a novel, tell the life story of Margaretta, the adopted daughter of Mr. Virgilius and his wife. The story covers Margaretta’s education, courtship, and marriage — events that allow Murray to advance her ideas on each of these and many other subjects that touch a woman’s life. Even though dramatic productions had been banned in New England, except for Boston, various amateur productions were staged in Gloucester. Between 1790 and 1792, under the name “Constantia,” Murray wrote several prologues and epilogues for these productions. In 1793, the Murrays moved from Gloucester to Boston in time to see the repeal of the ban on plays. The next year, the Federal Street Theatre opened and issued a call for original plays by Americans. Always a supporter of the theatre and of native American artists in general, Murray submitted her first play, The Medium; or, The Happy Tea Party. The play, which opened March 2, 1795, was Boston’s first professional production by an American author. The play was not successful and was withdrawn after the first performance. Murray defended her play, saying it was not given an adequate airing; the cast contained two replacement actresses, one of whom forgot her lines in the second act. She submitted the play under an new title, Virtue Triumphant, to the Massachusetts Magazine, which published it as part of “The Gleaner” essays. Murray’s second attempt at playwriting was The Traveller Returned, a comedy that opened on March 9, 1796, and ran for two nights to mixed reviews. This play was published also as part of “The Gleaner” essays. In 1804, Murray attempted a third play, The African, which she submitted anony-

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mously to the Federal Street Theatre. Again there were problems with the actors, and Murray, unwilling to endure more negative criticism, demanded the return of the scripts, which she destroyed. No known copy of this play remains. This was the end of her career as a playwright, but she continued to support theatre and continued to call for the production of native American works. Murray’s comments on the state of the theatre and drama in America have not been explored as thoroughly as her feminist ideas. She is an important part of theatre criticism because of the picture she gives not only of the Colonial theatre but also of the theatre after the American Revolution. At a time when theatre was not politically approved, she spoke out against the licensure restrictions on plays as public entertainment. In essay XXIV in “The Gleaner” series, Murray calls the restrictions futile and “not substantiated by reason.” She lists the major objections to theatre and answers each one. “If I mistake not, waste of time, imprudent expenditures, encouragement of idleness, and relaxation of morals, stand foremost in the catalogue of objections.” To the charge of waste of time, she says evenings spent at the theatre, “an entertainment so incontrovertibly rational,” is much better than time spent in drinking in taverns, in gossiping, cards, scandal, and “the numerous vagaries of fashion.” To those who say that money spent on going to the theatre would be better spent to relieve the suffering of the poor, Murray agrees, if the person can show that the six shillings was not spent on “any as expensive and more superfluous gratification,” but on the “aforesaid purpose.” Murray gave no weight to the charge of encouraging idleness; she asked, “Who are the idlers? Perhaps there is no mode of life which requires more assiduous and laborious application, than that of a good and consistent actor.” She felt that actors should be afforded more respect, encouragement, and patronage since a “virtuous theatre is highly influential in regulating the opinions, manners, and morals of the populace.” To the fourth charge that theatre would lead to a relaxation of morals, Murray argued that “the Drama, pointing every excellence, will imprint upon the heart the sentiment of worth; [and] by exalting virtue, and adoring religion, rendering vice disgusting, and stigmatizing infidelity, [it] will most effectively second the endeavors of that revered body, professedly engaged to beautify morality, and elevate religion.” In other words, Murray believed that attending theatre would, like church attendance, help instill moral values in the youth of the day.5 Although Murray opposed the prohibitions against theatre, she did recognize a need for some censorship on the content of dramatic productions. Apparently the ancient Greek comedies were not suitable for American audiences. In essay XXIV, she wrote, “the buffoonery of an Aristophanes will not


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be tolerated,” although the works of “Socrates, Cicero, and even Cato” were appropriate. She referred to the “many attendant advantages” that would result from a “chaste and discreetly regulated theatre.” Foremost among the advantages are those pertaining to young theatergoers — namely, “a refinement of taste and manners,” the ability “to think, speak, and act, with propriety,” and “a thirst for knowledge.”6 Murray saw the attitude of theatre managers and the public in general as the reason theatres in America were not growing stronger. In essay XCVI, she expressed her opinion that since winning independence America had become “removed from the elder world” and the nation contained “every essential article of life.” She asked, “Why then do we not radically throw off every foreign yoke” and give up the “taste for all things English or French.” She wrote: Perhaps our deficiency in national partiality is in nothing more apparent than in the little taste we discover for American literature. Indigenous productions are received with cold neglect, if not contempt, or they are condemned to an ordeal, the severity of which is sufficient to terrify the most daring adventurers. Mortifying indifference, or invidious criticism — these in their respective operations, chill the opening bud, or blast its expansive leaves, and the apathy with which we regard the toils of intellect, is truly astonishing.7

In addition to the current taste for all things European, Murray blamed the state of American theatre criticism also for the lack of a vigorous native American drama. She expressed definite ideas about how criticism of the fledgling theatre should be handled. She felt that a critic should be “a man of feeling” and “an artist, who, possessing the abilities to discriminate, will be governed by the admonitions of decency. An informed, judicious, and well disposed critic, will not wholly reject the influence of sympathy.” The newly “opening bud” of American drama should be given the benefit of the doubt by critics. She wrote: When a work is to be analyzed, if the plot is deficient in conception, and in adjustment — if the ideas are extravagant, the events tragical, and catastrophe improbable — the critic, if he is not a usurper, if he is legally invested with the robes of office, will, however, find something to admire in the style; and if it abounds with just sentiments, and classical allusions, he will produce them, not only with marks of decided approbation, but with triumph.8

She felt that American writers, “especially dramatic writers,” were not properly encouraged; if American productions were received with “manifest partiality,” this would “stimulate more polished efforts, and the Columbian drama might at length boast the most finished productions.” She claimed that even “decidedly meritorious” productions of Tyler and Mrs. Warren were

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“strangely neglected.... Was the American taste decidedly in favor of native worth, the superintendents of the Drama would find it for their interest to cherish indigenous abilities, and the influence of patronage would invigorate and rear to maturity the now drooping plant.”9 In the persona of “the Gleaner,” in essay XXIV, Murray disclaimed her abilities as a critic, calling herself “comparatively new to observations” of performers particularly. She felt she could not “be supposed a competent judge,” while she expressed displeasure over the negative comments of others, claiming “their expectations were too high raised to admit of gratification in the present infancy of our Drama.” These early dramas could not “obtain, in the representation, the perfection of which [they are] doubtless susceptible.” In spite of her disclaimer to be unqualified to criticize performers, she praises every actor in the play currently at the new Federal Street Theatre. Each character was presented with “admirable skill” and “persuasively delineated” exhibiting “distinct pronunciation, proper emphasis,” and “naturally expressive gestures.”10 Murray ends essay XXIV by expressing her idea of the certain progress the American theatre will make in the coming years. I look for improvement; gradually we shall progress; the performers will think more of the audience, and they will, by consequence, appear to think less; in other words, they will seem to forget the circles that attend them. Their frequent appeals by eye and hand will insensibly subside; and, through the whole of the representation, they will see the propriety of addressing the person, or persons, to whom they are supposed particularly to speak. In one word — the audience will refine the players, and the players will refine the audience.11

From 1796 to 1803, Murray seems to have written nothing for publication. The poor health of her husband, John Murray, and the harsh criticism of her plays led to her turning to other labors. By 1809, her husband’s health was broken, so Judith set to work finishing the collection of his sermons and letters and had them published as Letters and Sketches of Sermons. John Murray died on September 3, 1815, and, as a tribute to him, Judith completed the biography he had begun in 1773 but never finished. In 1816, The Life of John Murray, Written by Himself, With a Continuation by Mrs. Judith Sargent Murray was published. This tribute to her husband was Murray’s last major writing project, and she left Boston to live with her daughter and son-in-law, the Bingamons, in Mississippi. She died in Natchez on July 6, 1820. Judith Sargent Murray was one of a group of Revolutionary Era women who aspired to have public voices and a place in the life of the new Republic. Long before the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention of 1848, Murray was among a small number of women who were demanding a change in


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the traditional views of women. Although her feminist views are the basis for her fame as a writer, her views on theatre should not be overlooked. She defended theatre at a time when it was not popular to do so, especially for a woman. In part, due to her encouragement, native drama, the “opening bud,” did not wither, but blossomed. From The Gleaner, vol. 1, essay no. XXIV, page 224. Leaning on morals when the Drama moves, Friendly to virtue when the vision proves — Lessons adopting form’d to mend the heart, Truths meliorated, potent to impart; Her splendid fictions wisdom will embrace, And all her scenic paths enraptur’d trace.

The various parterres, not putting forth their promising buds, in many sections, in this our country, looks with a very favorable aspect upon a man of my profession; and I cannot but hope, that in the occupation of a Gleaner, I shall be able to cull many a fragrant flower, wherewith to compose a bouquet, that may throw an agreeable perfume over the leisure hours of the sentimental speculator. To express myself less technically. The progress of the Drama, in this new world, must assuredly interest the feelings of every observer; and, being under the pleasing necessity, in the routine of my excursions, of visiting many parts of the United States, and thus, having frequent opportunities of presenting myself in our several theatres, from the elegant house in Philadelphia to the temporary resorts of itinerant companies, in those little country towns, which will invariably copy the examples they receive from the metropolis, I naturally, in the course of my perambulations, pick up many observations, that may possibly serve for the amusement of my readers. The great question which does, and ought to occupy the mind of every patriotic moralist, is the utility of licensed stage-playing. Perhaps I may as well withdraw the word licensed; for, in the present enlightened era and administration of liberty, the citizen would hardly consent to an abridgment of those amusements, the evil tendency of which could not be unequivocally demonstrated to his understanding; and the late struggle in the State of Massachusetts, evinces the futility of erecting barriers, not substantiated by reason. The law in that State was outraged in its very face: the flimsy subterfuge of moral lectures deceived no one; and though, as I am informed, the theatrical prohibition is but partially repealed respecting the Bostoni-

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ans, and remains in full force upon the rest of the State, yet it is notorious, that itinerant players are constantly marching and counter-marching from town to town, to the no small diversion of the good people of this very respectable member of the Union. But, without presuming to intermeddle with the policy of the legislature, my design is, to hazard a few remarks upon the subject in general.... The objections to theatrical amusements are many and plausible. I pretend not to decide for others; I would only investigate. If I mistake not — Waste of time — Imprudent expenditures — Encouragement of idleness — and, Relaxation of morals, stand foremost in the catalogue of objections. Prodigality of time, is indeed an irremediable evil; and if it can be proved, that an hour devoted to the theatre would certainly have been appropriated to any beneficial employment, for which no moment of leisure will in future present, I, for one, shall be impelled to allow the validity of the allegation; and, I do hereby invest such plea with full authority to detain every such person from all dramatical representations whatever: But, with the same breath I contend, that those evenings which are immolated at the Shrine of Bacchus, which are loitered in a tavern, in unnecessary gossiping, cards, scandal, and the numerous vagaries of fashion, will be comparatively redeemed, if marked by an entertainment so incontrovertibly rational. The complaint of exorbitant expenditures, is of a similar description. A friend of mine, who resided for some time abroad, once informed me, that he had frequently been stopped, when in full career to the play-house, by a consideration that the indulgence he was about to procure himself, would supply some tearful sufferer with bread, for at least one whole week. Now, all such persons, provided they can make it appear, they are not in the use of any as expensive and more superfluous gratification, shall be released, upon their parole given, that they will absolutely and bona fide employ their six shillings to the aforesaid purpose. To the third objection I cannot allow the smallest weight: Who, I would ask, are the Idlers? Perhaps there is no mode of life which requires more assiduous and laborious application, than that of a good and consistent actor. School exercises are certainly not the most pleasurable employments of adolescence; and every adult can tell, how much more easily he could imprint the memory of his early years, than that retention which is the accompaniment of his matured life. But the ambitious and principled actor hath past the age of flexibility, and still his days are, almost unceasingly, devoted to study: By frequent repetitions, such is the constitution of


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the mind, finest sentiments too often pall; and the well informed, ingenious and meritorious performer is in danger of losing his taste for the highest mental enjoyments; while the entertainment which he produces for others, is the result of unremitted and painful labour to himself. Why they, permit me to ask, if he is solicitous to blend, with our amusements, the highest possible improvement; if he professedly pursues the means of living; if his manners and his morals are unblemished; and if, by becoming stationary, he in effect takes rank with our citizens — why, I ask, is he so lightly esteemed? Surely, if, under the influence of reason, of gratitude and impartiality, I must unhesitatingly acknowledge, persons ardently engaged in procuring for us a rational entertainment, are entitled to a degree of genuine respect, to encouragement, and even to patronage. It is asserted, and the assertion does not appear unfounded, that a virtuous theatre is highly influential in regulating the opinions, manners, and morals of the populace. Here we are naturally led to the fourth and last division of our subject. Relaxation of morals — And I ask, Doth not a virtuous theatre exemplify the lessons which the ethic preacher labours to inculcate? I take it for granted, that none but a virtuous and well regulated theatre will be tolerated. In the southern and middle States, Philadelphia particularly, no performance can make its appearance upon the Stage, without passing under the previous examination of the governor and two other respectable magistrates, who, by their avowed approbation, become responsible to the public for the merit of the piece. Similar restrictions will, perhaps, be adopted, wherever the Drama shall progress; and my confidence in the trustees of the Boston theatre, represents to my view every apprehension, not only as superfluous, but absolutely injurious. * * * * * Religious worship, it is said, gave birth to the Drama; and under proper regulations, it may still conduce to acts of devotional piety. To Athens and to Rome, the theatre became a source of information, refined perception, and genuine morality; and we have only to avoid the causes which finally produced its degeneracy in the elder world, to continue it among us, in these States, an excellent exemplar and preservative of rectitude. The theatre opens a wide field for literary exertions; and we anticipate a rich harvest of intellectual pleasure and improvement. The sons and daughters of fancy, the sentimentalist, and the moralist; these will engage in the interesting competition. They will consider that their productions

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are not intended barely for the amusement of a solitary hour; that the Drama, pointing every excellence, will imprint upon the heart the sentiment of worth; that it may be in their power to fashion, and to lead, a national taste; that by exalting virtue, and adorning religion, rendering vice disgusting, and stigmatizing infidelity, they will most effectively second the endeavors of that revered body, professedly engaged to beautify morality, and elevate religion. * * * * * If it may be presumed, that the stated objections, thus considered, are obviated. I conceive it will not be denied that, from a chaste and discretely regulated theatre, many attendant advantages will indisputably result. Young persons will acquire a refinement of taste and manners; they will learn to think, speak, and act, with propriety; a thirst for knowledge will be originated; and from attentions, at first, perhaps, constituting only the amusement of the hour, they will gradually proceed to more important inquiries. * * * * * The Gleaner confesses that his expectations were more than answered; but the Gleaner hath never witnessed the theatrical abilities of a Garrick, or a Siddons; nor is he certain he ought to regard this as a misfortune. It is always invidious to point out faults; at least it is to me an unpleasing task. From an infant stage, I look for improvement. The time will arrive when the performers will in no instance “O’erstep the modesty of Nature.” Even tragedy may deal too much in starts: It should be energetic; it should be pathetic; but the pompous swell and strut, make no part of its excellence. Ease and elegance are the naivette [sic] of comedy, and its features are the features of polished and corrected nature. But I repeat, I look for improvement; gradually we shall progress; the performers will think more of the audience, and they will, by consequence, appear to think less; in other words, they will seem to forget the circles that attend them. Their frequent appeals by eye and hand will insensibly subside; and, through the whole of representation, they will see the propriety of addressing the person, or persons, to whom they are supposed particularly to speak. In one work — the audience will refine the players, and the players will refine the audience. From The Gleaner, vol. III, essay no. XCVI, page 260. Were I at liberty my plans to choose, My politics, my fashions, and my muse


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Should be American — Columbia’s fame Hath to Columbia’s meed a righteous claim: Her laws, her magistrates I would revere, Holding this younger world supremely dear.

Hardly a day passes that does not furnish some new instance of the paucity of national attachment in our country. We regret much the frequent occasions which impel us to reiterate expressions of concern, on account of an evil so truly alarming. The real patriot must necessarily lament the present aspect of affairs. French men and measures — English men and measures. These do in fact divide the majority of the people; while those who rally round the standard of America are reduced to a very inconsiderable party. We are far removed from the elder world; the wide Atlantic is our barrier. Persons of information affirm, that we possess within ourselves the sources of independence; and it is certainly true, that the interior of our country, reduced to a state of cultivation, would become amply productive, largely supplying every essential article of life. Necessity is pronounced the mother of invention — Improvement follows; and those elegancies, or superfluities, to which we are attached, would, by a natural process, become the growth of America. Why then do we not radically throw off every foreign yoke — assert ourselves, and no longer delay to fill our rank as free, sovereign, and independent States? While I am writing, a circle of ladies in the next room are discussing this very subject, and a respectable female, in an elevated tone of voice, declares, she had rather take the fashion of her garments from an American presidenttress, than from any princess in Europe. We wish this idea was adopted, from the State of New Hampshire, to those far distant and extensive banks, whose verdant borders are washed by the waters of the Ohio; and that American habiliments, politics, and sentiments of every description, might henceforward receive an American stamp. Perhaps our deficiency in national partiality is in nothing more apparent than in the little taste we discover for American literature. Indigenous productions are received with cold neglect, if not contempt, or they are condemned to an ordeal, the severity of which is sufficient to terrify the most daring adventurer. Mortifying indifference, or invidious criticism — these, in their respective operations, chill the opening bud, or blast its expansive leaves, and the apathy with which we regard the toils of intellect, is truly astonishing. An original genius hath produced a sentiment of the following nature: If the first rate abilities, cloathed in the habiliments of mortality, were passing through the streets of our metropolis, they would

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be elbowed by the crowd, knocked down by a truckster, or rode over by a hackney coach. And we add — better so, than if they were condemned to suffer death under the axe of a mangling and barbarous executioner. We do not say that the office of a candid critic is not beneficial, and even essential: But when an author, or his productions are to be dissected, in the name of every principle of humanity let a man of feeling preside — let the operation be conducted by an artist, who, possessing the abilities to discriminate, will be governed by the admonitions of decency. An informed, judicious, and well disposed critic, will not wholly reject the influence of sympathy; and his feelings will induce him, when calling into view a glaring absurdity, to produce, if possible, some pleasing selection, which may soothe the bosom he is thus necessitated to lacerate. When a work is to be analyzed, if the plot is deficient in conception, and in adjustment — if the ideas are extravagant, the critic, if he is not a usurper, if he is legally invested with the robes of office, will, however, find something to admire in the style; and if it abounds with just sentiments, and classical allusions, he will produce them, not only with marks of decided approbation, but with triumph. The stage is undoubtedly a very powerful engine in forming the opinions and manners of a people. Is it not then of importance to supply the American stage with American scenes? I am aware that very few productions in this line have appeared, and I think the reason is obvious. Writers, especially dramatic writers, are not properly encouraged. Applause, that powerful spring of action, (if we except the ebullitions of the moment) is withheld, or sparingly administered. No incentives are furnished, and indignant genius, conscious of its own resources, retires to the intellectual banquet, disdaining to spread the feast for malevolence and ingratitude. If productions, confessedly indifferent, were, from the ascendancy of local preferences, endured in their turn, and received with manifest partiality, it would, perhaps, stimulate to more polished efforts, and the Columbian Drama might at length boast the most finished productions. But so far are we from evincing this predilection that even performances, decidedly meritorious, are almost forgotten. Tyler’s plays are strangely neglected; and the finished scenes of the correct and elegant Mrs. Warren, have never yet passed in review before an American audience. Was the American taste decidedly in favour of native worth, the superintendents of the Drama would find it for their interest to cherish indigenous abilities, and the influence of patronage would invigorate and rear to maturity the now drooping plant. To the celebrity of Mrs. Warren, it is beyond the power of the Gleaner


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to add: Yet, accustoming himself to join issue with those who yield the palm to genius, he is constrained to say, that her excellent tragedies abound with the pathetic, the beautiful, and the sublime, and that they apparently possess sufficient scenic merit and variety of situation to bestow those artificial advantages which are necessary to insure their stage effect. Camps, palaces, cities — a view of the orb of day, just emerging from the shades of night — assembled senators — citizens passing up and down — a procession of priests, senators, and nobles, addressing, in the attitude of supplication, a Vandal tyrant — gardens, grottos — a wilderness, an alcove — shouts of victory — a prison, a battle — repeated acts of suicide. A succession of these objects, would, it is presumed, completely gratify the wishes, even of the most visionary audience; and we should assuredly attend with heightened and inexpressible pleasure to that energetic, beautiful, and soul affecting actress, Mrs. S. Powell, while in the characters of Edoxia, or Eudocia in The Sack of Rome, and of Donna Louisa in the Ladies of Castile, she delivered sentiments truly interesting, highly wrought, and tenderly pathetic: We have often in imagination listened to the language of Louisa, from our favorite performer, and most admirably has she pointed every sentence. We conceive that Mrs. Warren, while delineating Donna Maria, traced in her own strong and luminous intellect the animated original which she presented; and, making up a judgment from information, which we presume accurate, we have not hesitated to pronounce our celebrated countrywoman the Roland of America. The address of Donna Maria to Louisa, in page 119, is truly beautiful. The character of Gaudentius in the Sack of Rome is finely conceived, strongly interesting, and well supported; his reflections on discovering his murdered father, are natural and highly finished; and it is impossible to read without a degree of pensive solemnity his soliloquy in the grotto. Maximus mourning his Aredelia dead, must command the sympathetic gush; and while the story of the empress is replete with instruction, her accumulated woes pierce the bosom of sensibility. Don Juan, in the Ladies of Castile, exhibits virtues which announce him the kindred spirit of his Maria; and his native independence, his valour and his magnanimity are uniformly exemplified. The virtues of Conde Haro we spontaneously revere; and we listen, with peculiar satisfaction, to sentiments resulting from benevolence and a just idea of the rights of man, as they are delivered by the adverse chief, while the woes of Don Francis and Donna Louisa excite our tenderest feelings. Contemplating these specimens of our drama, confessedly excellent, a very natural inference presents — If compositions of this description find no place on the American stage, what can the more humble adventurer

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expect? Are not the present arrangements highly impolitic? Is it not probable that talents, now dormant, might by proper encouragement be called into action? Is it not possible that paths, yet untrodden in the regions of nature and of fancy, remain to be explored? And that under the fostering smiles of a liberal and enlightened public, Columbian Shakespeares may yet elevate to adorn humanity? The efforts of one of the most celebrated dramatic writers of the present century are said to have originated in accident. If our information is correct, Mrs. Cowley was both a wife and mother before she had attempted even a paragraph for a magazine or newspaper; her pen, appropriated to the claims of kindred or friendship, had produced only private letters, and to the toils of genius she was a stranger. But being present at the theatre, during the representation of a very indifferent play, which from caprice or partiality was, however, received with uncommon marks of applause, she was forcibly struck with the insignificancy of many of the dialogues; and, conceiving that a mediocrity of talents, with the requisite application, would be fully adequate to similar productions, she retired from the playhouse with an irresistible desire to enter a career, at once lucrative and honorary.



z3å Kate Field [1838–1896] Kate Field (Mary Katherine Keemle Field) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on October 1, 1836, to Joseph M. Field, an actor, journalist, and theatre manager, and Eliza Riddle Field, “one of the most beautiful and accomplished actresses of the American stage.”1 Through her parents Kate was introduced to the theatrical community. Her mother acted opposite such stars as Forrest, Macready, and Junius Brutus Booth and traveled with her husband as he managed and/or acted in various theatres throughout the East and South. Kate’s parents were not her only connection to theatre. Her father, Joseph, traced his lineage back to Nathaniel Field, an Elizabethan dramatist and actor in Shakespeare’s company. Her maternal grandmother, Mary Lapsley Riddle, was an actress and friend of Edwin Forrest. While the family remained active in theatre after the birth of the children (a son, “Little Joe,” was born in 1843 but died of cholera before his seventh birthday), home base was St. Louis, although the Fields accepted engagements from New York to New Orleans. When younger, the children traveled with Mrs. Field, but by 1850, she and the children stayed in St. Louis while Mr. Field played in Mobile. The family was together again in St. Louis in the summer of 1851, when Joseph Field organized a stock company, and built and managed the Varieties Theatre, where Kate and her friends would often watch her parents perform. In March 1853, Lola Montez appeared in Field’s theatre. During this engagement, Kate revealed in a letter to her aunt that “father has adopted the starring system this season.”2 This was rather late, since the “star system” had been common practice for several years, to the detriment of stock companies, but more profitable for managers such as Joseph Field. Kate Field’s formal education began at Mrs. Smith’s Seminary in St. Louis, which she attended from 1851 to 1853. Her father’s theatre, the Vari43

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eties, burned in the spring of 1854, so Mr. and Mrs. Field accepted engagements for the season in Mobile. Kate was sent to visit her Aunt Cordelia (her mother’s younger sister) and Uncle Milton Sanford in Auburndale, Massachusetts, where Kate was enrolled in the Lasell Female Seminary in the winter of 1855. Here she studied languages, including French and Italian, music, singing, rhetoric, English, some algebra, and astronomy in preparation for becoming a teacher, an occupation never to be realized. Kate Field’s letters to her father in Mobile preview her penchant for criticism. In one such letter, written after accompanying her Aunt Corda to the theatre, she writes of the performances of Edwin Forrest and Adelaide Phillips, saying Forrest was “very successful in his characters,” but she finds it “very sad that the strength of Miss Phillips is unequal to the tax of her great mind.”3 Like some of the other women writers discussed in this volume, Kate Field had to deal with the suffrage issue and with the “woman question.” Although she never considered herself a feminist, her feelings about equality of the sexes are apparent in various letters to friends. These concerns surfaced at a time when Field was feeling particularly vulnerable to the economic forces of her society as a result of her father’s death on January 28, 1856. She wanted to be independent and able to take care of her mother without relying on the support of her uncle, Milton Sanford. In a journal entry dated August 24, 1857, she writes, “I sometimes think it is a great misfortune that I was not born a boy, for This image of Kate Field accompanied the then any and every employ- printed version of her address to the Congress of Women during the 1893 World’s Columbian ment would be open to me, Exposition in Chicago (photograph used by and I could gain sufficient to permission of the West Virginia State Archives, support my mother and self.”4 Boyd B. Statler Collection).

3 • Kate Field [1838 –1896]

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In the summer of 1857, Field visited her mother and found that her eyesight was failing and she could no longer work. Soon after this, in another journal entry she writes: Oh, if I were a man! I pity myself, indeed, I do. There is not an ambition, a desire, a feeling, a thought, an impulse, an instinct that I am not obliged to crush. And why? Because I am a woman, and a woman must content herself with indoor life, with sewing and babies. Well, they pretend to say that God intended women to be just what they are. I say He did not, that men have made women what they are, and if they attribute their doings to the Almighty, they lie [69].

In this same journal entry, Field’s longings seem to foreshadow those of Virginia Wolfe when she writes, “It seems to me that one of the greatest delights of life to a thinking mind must be a study — a room religiously your own, ... a sanctuary [where] no one will dare intrude”(69). Although Field did not become an active participant in the Equal Rights Movement, she did attend some of the meetings and supported the ideas express by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Surprisingly, Field did not support Olive Logan in her efforts to reform the theatre because she was “unwomanly.” In a letter to a friend dated May 21, 1869, Field writes, “Olive Logan is the only disgusting woman as a woman that I have ever seen on the Women’s platform.... She is a disgrace to the ranks she has joined.”5 Faye E. Dudden explains such animosity to Logan as a result of her feminism being “decidedly economic” and “[t]o activists nurtured in the non–market values of domesticity and ... obligation, Logan’s concerns probably came across as selfish, worldly, and materialistic.”6 During the months following her father’s death and her mother’s growing dependence, Field worried over her lack of a profession. She vacillated between becoming an actress or a writer, but worried that she had not the talent for writing, and she feared it would take too long to become a success even if she had what she called “the material within.” Like many children born into theatrical families, Field considered making a career on the stage, but the same lack of confidence plagued her. She writes in the same journal entry, “I have sometimes thought of the stage, I love it dearly; it is a great profession for making money where an actor’s efforts are crowned with success. But have I any talent? I fear not”(67). About this same time, Field became friends with the actress Charlotte Cushman, which led to her choosing a career as a writer rather than as an actress. This unexpected outcome of choosing writing over acting was the result of “some verses” regarded as “very clever” which she had written in praise of Cushman, and were published in the Gazette.7 The small success of

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the verses honoring Cushman led Field to dream of a career as a writer. She states, “I should be perfectly miserable if I thought that I could never write.” She admits to preferring the lasting fame of an author over the fame of a singer or actor, which dies with them. At the advanced age of eighteen, Field revealed that “it worries me that I cannot decide upon any one thing as a profession”(78). Kate Field’s career in journalism got its start when she was engaged to write travel letters for the Boston Courier as she accompanied her aunt and uncle on a trip to Europe early in 1859. Her letters to the Courier describe her visits to various theatres in Paris and Rome. As yet, Field had no standards by which to judge performances except her own exuberance; however, her comments about Salvini as Othello hint at her preferences. She reports Salvini “is superb, ... very tall, handsome, and a superior tragedian”(91). But what makes an actor a superior tragedian she does not say. In the winter of 1860, Field was no longer writing for the Courier. She was now providing two columns a month to the New Orleans Picayune at five dollars per column, and letters to the Transcript under the name of “Fie.” These letters, plus her reviews of novels and poetry read while in Europe, contain the seeds of Field’s later, more mature criticism. Whiting identifies what she calls the keynotes of Field’s criticism to be “art for humanities’ sake; art for truth’s sake; art never limited by mere actualities, but uplifting them to the noble plane of spiritual realities.”8 Like other women critics of this period, Field seems to believe in a higher social purpose for theatre than mere entertainment. In August of 1860, Field met the Italian actress Adelaide Ristori, a meeting which Whiting calls the “unconscious initiation” of Kate Field into dramatic criticism.9 The bulk of Field’s criticism, papers and monographs on Ristori, various Hamlets, Charles Fechter, and dialogues on the stage were published in the Atlantic Monthly between September 1861 and December 1870. Field’s criticism of Ristori continued when she was engaged by the New York Tribune to cover Ristori’s performances in New York in 1866. Field reviewed Ristori’s presentations of Medea, Maria Stuart, Elizabeth of England, Judith, Phaedra, and Macbeth. As Ristori toured Philadelphia and Boston, newspapers in each city hired Field to cover the performance. By now, Field was established as a dramatic critic, and continued writing numerous columns until the winter of 1873–1874. Field expressed her views of criticism in an article for Aldine Press in February 1870. Apparently, she thought most newspaper critics were guilty of “puffery” rather than thoughtful or truthful criticism. This state of affairs was

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due to the attitude of editors who considered “any likely young man” as competent to undertake criticism. Truth in art is no consideration; the critic need only know how to write English. Her own critical standards had changed since her earlier comments on Salvini’s looks. She now decried the current “reign of arms and legs, and occasional fine head of hair and ... pretty face” over genius. Field writes: Disgusted with the present condition of the stage, occasioned by the peculiar market called for by the public, [genius] will bury itself in private life rather than bow to the powers that be.... When the country grows up to the requirements of positive dramatic genius, actors will be forthcoming. Until then, the arms and legs will have it all their own way.10

In this same article, Kate Field offers advice, along with a heavy dose of sarcasm, to aspiring actors. She suggests that they “first consult your looking glass” and then acquire an “extensive and expensive wardrobe.” At this point the young actor should obtain a translation of a European play (preferably French) in which to star, then secure an agent who will make sure of good reviews. Now the young actor is ready to travel abroad, appearing in various European productions, which will be touted as successes in the American press. Upon returning the actor will be hailed as a gifted star, “for America is a great flunkey in art, and is ready to applaud European reputation.” But Field goes on to remind readers that Americans “are not generally aware that the English are no better judges of acting than ourselves.”11 Even though Field criticized the state of theatre in America, she was quick to come to its defense when it was attacked. In response to a volume of sermons denouncing theatre, she wrote a lengthy article for the New York Daily Tribune in March 1875. She called the sermons “lapses into ... ignorance and prejudices.” She wrote a two-column rebuttal to the charges against people who attend theatres, the neighborhoods containing theatres, managers, actors, costuming, and the green room, all of which had been attacked as offensive to public morals. Field attributes such views to total ignorance of the theatre and its potential benefits to society: If the clerical critic knew what he was talking about, would he be quite so illogical? ... Yet this gentleman dares to proclaim the theatre beyond the pale of reform, and its followers given over to the devil! Because he denounces gambling-houses and houses of shame without ever having visited any, therefore he is at liberty to assail the theatre, of which he is personally ignorant. The cases are not parallel.... The drama is as much an art as literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, music. It has done noble work according to this critic’s own statements, and therefore is most foully insulted by being ranged beside the most insidious of vices. What has brought forth good fruit may bring forth good fruit again.12

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Field ends this column by suggesting that if theatres were endowed as colleges were, they might be free from popular tastes and whims; therefore, the theatre’s benefit to public morals and art would be beyond measure. Similar views were expressed by Field as early as 1868 in her article, “A Conversation on the Stage.” This article, published in the Atlantic Monthly, took the form of a conversation between two characters, both of whom express Field’s views on theatre and criticism. The stage, and its attendant arts, were in such a disreputable state because they catered to the “low taste of the spectator.” The article ends with much the same plea Field later voiced in 1875. Then the shortest road to reform would be for every State to take one theatre under its protection, granting it a sufficient subsidy to secure the employees against loss for the production of good art, insisting upon a faithful performance of duties, and bringing all possible force to bear against the starring system, which is as disastrous to the drama’s real interests as rotation in office is to American politics.... All this will come with culture.13

This undated photograph of Kate Field may have been taken during the 1870s to advertise her lecture tours (photograph used by permission of the West Virginia State Archives, Boyd B. Statler Collection).

Dramatic criticism was only one part of Kate Field’s public endeavors. Like many actresses, she found the lecture circuit to be an acceptable way to earn support for herself and her mother. In addition to her columns, the public lectures would give her ample opportunity to be a part of public life. As Faye Dudden states, “The public realm was where economic resources were divided and decisions about social policy were made; the penalty for failure to present oneself in public

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was powerlessness, poverty or dependency.”14 Beginning in 1869 and continuing for 25 years, Field lectured across the United States and in England. Her lecture career began on May 3, 1869, in Chickering Hall, Boston, with a lecture entitled “Woman in the Lyceum.”15 This met with critical success and led to other lectures based on Field’s travels and interests.16 While enjoying the recognition afforded by her lectures, Field objected to being referred to as a “female lecturer”; she preferred the term “woman.” In a letter to Mary Anthony, Field wrote, “That word ‘female’ always gives me a spasm and to be called a ‘female’ where ‘woman’ would do vastly better, makes me indignant.”17 Whiting claims that Field’s lectures “contributed materially to the breaking down of prevailing prejudices regarding women’s part in the affairs of life.”18 One of the public “affairs of life” in which Field became interested was the manufacturing of women’s clothing, which led to her involvement in the Co-Operative Dress Association (1882–1883), a dressmaking firm promoting simpler, low-cost women’s clothing. Other special interests led Field to be a publicist for the newly invented telephone, glassmaking, temperance (while also supporting California wine over imported wine), Mormonism, the preservation of John Brown’s fort, and by 1890 to publishing her own magazine, Kate Field’s Washington (1890–1895). After the failure of the magazine, Field experienced health problems, so she traveled to Hawaii where she hoped to recuperate, lecture and write travel letters. Kate Field died of pneumonia while in Hawaii, and her ashes were returned to Massachusetts, where they were buried in the family plot in Mount Auburn Cemetery. From “Church and Theatre: A Reply to Pulpit Criticism,” The New York Daily Tribune, March 29, 1875, page 7. The Stage on a Level With the Audiences — Richard III and the Black Crook — A Libel on the Dramatic Profession — The Associations of the Green-Room Not Vile — The Theatre as the Church’s Helping Hand. To the Editor of the Tribune. Sir: A distinguished publishing house has recently issued a small volume of sermons devoted principally to denunciation of the theatre, its actors and its audiences, which, for inaccuracy, rivals the most popular of Muhlbach’s historic novels. It seems marvelous that, standing as we do on the borders of the 20th century, when the world ought to have cut its wisdom teeth, there should be lapses into such ignorance and prejudices as stagger even the enthusiast in a belief in progress. The sermons will undoubtedly be widely read, and do some little harm by confirming many

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good people in the faith of their Puritan fathers, who, thinking all pleasure sin, regarded the drama as the sum total of iniquity. To repay denunciation with denunciation is hardly the province of reason. Whoever descends to it convinces no one of anything but his own hot-headed folly. But, as THE TRIBUNE [sic] is widely read by professed Christians, a minority of whom look askance at the theatres, it seems fitting that some one not entirely ignorant of the subject should refute exaggeration and untruth. The author of these sensational sermons declares that “a Christian man cannot countenance the theatre as it now is, because of the character of the majority of the people who regularly attend it.” As well say that a Christian shall not countenance the world because of the character of the majority of the people who live in it. Most people are not bad; on the contrary, there is infinitely more good than evil in humanity, or there could be no improvement, but the general average is not given to the utmost delicacy and refinement, however kindly at heart. It is the general average that keeps trade, art, religious sects alive, and it is the general average that devotes $2,000,000 annually to the theaters of New York. To assail the moral character of well-to-do men and women whose almost only relaxation from the grind of existence is the theater, is most unjust. Times have changed since the “third tier” was the acknowledged resort of vice. Society has improved in public deference to virtue; consequently the theater, the reflex of society is as decorous in its gallery as in its boxes — infinitely more so at times — and the triumph of goodness over villainy finds most enthusiastic support from unwashed gods, whose souls are cleaner than their linen. That abandoned, desperate characters can be found at theaters is, of course, true, but they are rarely known, except to the police, and are not more dangerous to morals than when encountered in the street. We do not cease to walk or travel abroad because our pockets may be picked, and our ears offended. Churches are often the resort of light fingers and light characters. Does this fact militate against religion? The majority of the people who regularly attend the theater are respectable citizens whose lives will bear as close scrutiny as the lives of their assailants. Saloons dedicated to rum, bad singing and dancing are no more theaters than they are classical concert halls. “Find a theater, and not many steps off you find the haunts of drunkenness and impurity,” asserts the author of the sermons. Are the vicinities of Niblo’s, Wallack’s, Union Square, Booth’s, the Park, and Fifth Avenue Theaters, more demoralized than the vicinities of other great centers? Wherever multitudes congregate there will be harpies to seek whom they may

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devour. Every theater has its adjacent bar-room; so has every hotel. Shall hotels be abolished because their guests will drink liquor, and consequently are provided with facilities for making beasts of themselves if they so desire? It is not the theater that causes drinking. Men persist in drinking wherever they may be — in Wall-st. [sic] when plying their trade; at hotels when visiting friends; at theaters between the acts. It is the custom. The average masculine stomach in this country craves liquor, and society must be revolutionized before a better state of things can exist. When society treats drunkenness as a crime against good manners there will be a change; not before. Until then whisky will be sold in theaters and out of them. Theaters dependent upon the public for support will rise no higher than the public. “If Richard III were being enacted in one theatre, and the Black Crook in another, which would have the larger audience?” asked the authority I quote, expecting the answer to be “Black Crook.” If this were so, where would the blame lie? With theater or public? As a rule managers prefer legitimate plays acted by ladies and gentlemen. If such do not pay they spread the viands in demand. Many a time I have heard managers deplore the uneducated taste of their audiences, and regret the necessity of acting down to their level. But it is a mistake to suppose the public depraved; it is a mistake to declare that, under all circumstances, the Black Crook will draw better than Richard III. Let Richard III be as well acted throughout as the Black Crook was illustrated, and Shakespeare will win a decisive victory. It is the absence of dramatic ability that renders Shakespeare unattractive. The most cultivated public had rather see beautiful dancing and scenery than a great dramatist murdered. The Black Crook was complete in its way. It was not intellectual. It is sensuous; but unless people are vile at heart, and seek in such spectacles food for vice, even the greatly-abused Black Crook needs do no harm. There are those who are shocked at marble Venuses and Greek Slaves. Others see in them perfect form, and thank the Creator for the existence of so much beauty. The attire of a ballet girl will not compare in immodesty with the suggestive dressing of many fashionable women. It is intention that makes indecency. The Black Crook had a great success because of its novelty. Humanity dashes wildly after what is new. To-day the Black Crook fails because it is a thrice-told tale. When John McCullough plays Richard III the theatre is crowded. Reading on, I am told that “the American theater has debauched the nation, ... that the American theater has filled the land with an army of invalids. We see them dying with neuralgia, dyspepsia, with liver complaints, and consumptions, and there is congratulations in hell that the the-

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ater killed them.” A great war, with its terrible upheaval, quickly acquired gains, $1,483,000,000 yearly devoted to rum, intense application to moneymaking, bad food, a trying climate are not the cause of political and social corruption — have nothing to do with breaking down the American physique! This accusation is simply amusing, and can only be answered by a smile. Said a distinguished physician recently to an overworked journalist, “You need distraction, amusement. Is there any theater in your town?” “Yes,” replied the journalist, “but we rarely have good acting in it.” “That’s bad, very bad,” muttered the physician. “Then I must put ice on the back of your neck!” Doctors disagree. The reverend critic is quite sure that actors and actresses are vile. A more atrocious libel never was perpetrated. More generous-hearted beings never lived. They are human; having great temptations, sometimes yield to them, and, being before the public, are found out in their weaknesses. But no profession is freer from brutality and cold-blooded vice. The murderer of Abraham Lincoln is proclaimed an actor. Too true! but does the reverend critic know this murder is the only one that can be traced to the theater! What other professions can cay as much? The errors of actors are the errors of artists, literary men, journalists, and professional men of impulsive temperaments; they are as exempt from frailty as other artists; no more, nor less. “How can you expect a man,” continues the critic, “who is night after night personating a miser, a highwayman, a libertine, a knave, or a murderer, to remain content, or pure, or honest? The man who so often assumes a bad character, after a while becomes that which he represents. The associations of the green-room are blasting. It is a terrific ordeal through which but few pass unsinged.... The most prominent actors in the country have not suffered or lost their popularity by the discovery of their licentiousness. The crimes which wither other men, seem to excite no astonishment when performed by these so-called educators of public taste.” “Who paints fat oxen must himself be fat,” once roared Dr. Johnson at similar reasoning. Novelists, dramatists, poets must become knaves, thieves, libertines, if their intellects imagine such characters! Did ever man create greater rascals than Dickens? Yet the clerical critic sings his praises, and most justly. Is the author who conceives Fagin, Bill Sikes, Squeers, Quilp to be extolled, and the actor who portrays these monstrosities to be condemned? Logic, where are you? It is the artist, not the man, that throws himself into character, and when people talk about men and women being too good and pure properly to delineate depravity, they make a fatal mistake. A great actor, like a great writer or painter, will be able to portray

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any role however vile. If an actor fails, it is not because of the absence of good art. A better woman never lived than Adelaide Ristori, yet never was there a finer piece of acting than her Myrrah, and never was there a more repulsive part. To assert that the associations of the “green-room” are blasting is merely to assert that association of actors with one another is blasting. Formerly in Europe the “green-room” of a theater was the resort of fast men of quality. If the reverend critic knew anything about American theaters, he would be aware that in no well-regulated theater is any one not engaged upon the stage allowed behind the scenes, and that the “green-room” is as dull as a hotel parlor. It is false to maintain that actors do not lose their popularity on the discovery of their licentiousness. The public forgives vagaries in genius more readily than in ordinary human beings, whatever the profession, but an actor can more poorly afford to disgrace himself than any other man. First, because his disgrace becomes known; secondly, because licentiousness injures his art. He nightly faces the public, and must have a clear head. Let him be frequently drunk, or otherwise incapacitated from doing his best, and he loses caste. However, for the sake of argument, let us assume that the public expect no virtue from actors. Is this not a good reason for getting none? Has public opinion more to do with most people’s behavior than they will ever admit? Won’t men and women abroad commit follies they dare not attempt at home? In one sense morals have nothing to do with art; but, were actors dreadful sinners, the way to reform them would be to frown upon their misdemeanors. If actors offend against morals and the public countenances them, then the public is at fault. But the public is not indifferent to private character, and the actor endures longest in reputation and popularity who, given ability, shows the cleanest record. “At this hour,” avers the clerical critic, “the drama wields a mighty influence in this country; it comes down to us unexhausted by the march of many hundred years, and wearing garlands than many hands have entwined.” This certainly is a very important admission. “You say,” he continues, “that dramatic writings of the world contain some of the best poetry, the finest sentiment, the most elevated morality.... I admit it. You say that the theater has marshaled in its service some of the best poetry, music, eloquence, and painting. I admit it. You say that some of the purest of men have catered for the dramatic tastes of the world. I admit it.... You say that some of the dramatic writings of the world have had decidedly a religious tendency. I admit it. You say that some of the most astonishing talent that the world has ever seen has made its chief exhibition in the play-house. I

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admit it.... You say that theatres have done many noble charities. I know it. Witness hospitals that have been founded, the destitute families that have received their benefits, and the wonderful charities that flowed from them just after the Chicago fire.... You say that vast multitudes of people have, through the theater, become acquainted with literature that otherwise they would never have had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with. I admit it. You ask, would not a theater, with virtuous actors, and an audience of perfect correctness in behavior, and where everything was conducted in a Christian manner be highly beneficial to a Christian community? No doubt of it. Such an institution would be an auxiliary to the Church. You say you know theaters which answer exactly this description. Then I exclude such from anything that I shall say tonight, for I come not for wholesale denunciation, but to do justice. A lie told against a theater is just as bad as any other lie.” Really the clerical critic allows all that his opponents wish. The theater is a tremendous power, endowed with great vitality, has done good, does do good in certain instances, and properly conducted, would be an auxiliary to the Church. The critic depreciated whole denunciation, and then adds, “They say the way to do is to reform the theater. I say it can never be reformed.” And this after excluding some theaters from abuse. “A lie told against a theater is as bad as any other lie.” After telling us of the horrors of unseemly literature, of the harm done by disgraceful journalism, this same critic wisely asserts that “the only way to fight a bad book is by printing a good one. The only way to overcome unclean newspaper literature is by scattering abroad that which is healthful.... The longest railway train that ever ran over the Erie or Hudson tracks was not long enough or large enough to carry the beastliness and the putrefaction which have gathered up in the bad books and newspapers of this land in the last 20 years.” Would it not be quite as sensible to talk about abolishing literature as the drama? Is not one as feasible as the other? If the clerical critic knew what he was talking about, would he be quite so illogical? “I confess that I have been but three times in my life in a theater for the purpose of witnessing a play, and that in very early manhood.” Yet this gentleman dares to proclaim the theater beyond the pale of reform, and its followers given over to the devil! Because he denounces gambling-houses and houses of shame without ever having visited any, therefore he is at liberty to assail the theater, of which he is personally equally ignorant. The cases are not parallel. No one ever heard of good coming out of gambling or prostitution. Both means more or less ruin to body and mind. Their own votaries confess it. The drama is as much an art as literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, music. It has done noble work according to

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this critic’s own statements, and therefore is most foully insulted by being ranged beside the most insidious of vices. What has brought forth good fruit may bring forth good fruit again. * * * * * Mr. Editor, is it not almost time for clergymen to be franker, and to make the theater better by superintending its performances? Would noble books be published if noble souls, disgusted with foul literature, refused to read at all? Are not American politics rotten because the best men refuse to do their duty to their country? According to Dr. Holland, “the time is rapidly coming — provided, of course, that those who have the theater in charge stand, as good men and women, by their obligations to the public, and uphold the dignity of their art — when Christians will seek amusement in their presence, from their performances; when they will discriminate between theaters as they do between novels, and when the premium of their presence and patronage will be offered to those who serve them conscientiously.” What actor of any intelligence, what manager of any pretensions to respectability does not heartily wish that good time come? When the highest morals, the finest culture, the most exquisite taste dictate to the theater, the stage will be the school of manners, grace, oratory, and honor. From “Ristori’s Second Appearance in Medea,” The New York Tribune, September 24, 1866, page 4. Ristori’s second performance of Medea was greatly superior to her first, and the audience, which was by no means so large as it should have been, showed in every possible way its appreciation of her noble, passionate and natural acting. She was called before the curtain at the close of the first and second acts, and, at the end of the third and last, the whole house rose in a furor of enthusiasm which needed only such an audience as would have been assembled in the Academy to spread into a genuine triumph. But it is in vain to look for any such result in a mere band-box of a house like the French Theatre. To feel the magnetism of a nature like Ristori’s needs a large and crowded house, and it is a serious misfortune that we have not such a one to offer her. Even when the French Theatre is full, the audience looks slender, and the stage is so small that all the action of the play is hindered, and scenic effect is rendered impossible. This is painfully illustrated when Medea makes her first appearance, descending the hill with her children in her arms. What with the heap of rocks at the side and at the back of the stage, and the statue of Diana at the left, there remains so little room that it seems as if the actors must be under a continual restraint

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lest they should knock their elbows against the multitudinous projections. Of course Medea’s entrance is deprived of all dignity of effect. At first, nothing is seen of her but her head and shoulders, and she remains a long time standing on the rocks which prevents her figure from making its majestic impression at once. What should be the effect if Medea should enter at the back of the stage and advance to the footlights, instead of making this apparently unnecessary descent from the hill, was shown by the burst of applause that followed when, releasing the children from her arms, she led them one in each hand rapidly down the hill, with her large and stately gait, and gave the audience its first fair glimpse of her from head to foot. Once fairly seen, we wonder that a comparison should ever have been suggested between Ristori and Rachel. There is no likeness between them. Ristori is a Roman, Rachel was pure Greek. Ristori is “Niobe,” “Clytie,” and “the Ariadne,” Rachel was a virgin of the Panathenaic Frieze. Ristori is a grand, large hearted, passionate, beautiful being. Rachel was intellectual and cold, with passions slowly roused but creeping with intense earnestness to their aim. The pure still beauty of the Jewess, her lithe grace, her unconscious attitudes that filled the memory with statues, her voice that rang all the changes of passion, hatred, scorn, fury, contempt, despair, but seldom trembled to the breath of love; her eye that froze or fascinated or made the heart grow small with fear, that could burn like a burning coal with hate, but never melted to a tender ray; her frame, so frail so shadowlike, that would have moved our pity if the soul that lived and burned in every fiber of it had not seemed so mighty to hold its throne; what had this woman in common with Ristori? and yet Ristori’s greatness is no way touched by the unlikeness. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon, and we are glad that these two women of genius are so different that while we are in the presence of the one we are not forced to contrast nor to compare her with the other. And if originality be a proof of genius, then it is not possible to deny that Ristori has genius. She recalls no artist that living eyes have beheld. Least of all is she to be compared with Rachel, so long misnamed her rival. She can do much that Rachel never did, much that Rachel never would have attempted; and, for our own part, we frankly confess that when the tumult of emotion in which we left the theatre had, in a measure, passed away, there had passed with it a mist of prejudices and misconceptions that had veiled this woman from our fair judgment; but, thanks to her genius, it passed, and henceforth her majestic figure stands in the memory as separate splendor, an individual glory. The play, “Medea,” is one we should we should judge peculiarly suited to the power of Ristori. The story can hardly be true that Rachel rejected

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it on account of the horrible nature of the plot, for she was never greater than in Phedra, the story of which is indeed horrible — almost as horrible as that of Shelly’s “Cenci” which the manager of the theatre refused even to offer to Miss O’Neill. The truth is that Rachel never could have done justice to the part of Medea, and she had, no doubt, penetration enough to perceive it. A devouring passion consumes the whole being of this barbarian enchantress, it has make her wade deep in crime; it has made her desert her country, her parents, her home; it has made her the murderer of her brother who stood between her and her desire, and now it leads her over seas and deserts, through wastes and wildernesses, braving hunger and cold, fatigue and pain, that she may leap to her revenge. If this were all, Rachel might have added this new leaf to the laurel crown that overtopped her brows. But the play is so much more than this, that through all her crimes, her fierceness, her implacable thirst for revenge, we hear the loud beatings of her mighty heart which goes crying through the world for love, for the love of husband, and children, and home. With what ineffable tenderness she sobs, and sighs, and trembles to Creusa the story of her flight from home. Whoever heard such tears in Rachel’s voice? But Ristori’s magnificent organ, now flute, now harp, now clanging trumpet, can melt to the lowest sob, or rouse the tiger in the blood. In this speech her voice sinks lower and lower, grows tenderer and tenderer, it dies, and swells, and shatters in a mist of tears, until our eyes are wet and our hearts flow out to with Creusa’s. Once Rachel came near this in the last act of “Adrienne Lecouver;” but even there it was more our hearts than hers that failed. Ristori is not to be judged by her photographs, excellent likenesses as they are, no doubt, of her face in its ordinary moods. She has a noble figure, cast in a large, Roman mold, her full face finer that her profile, more grand and statue-like. Her walk is free and swinging; and her arms which are large and strongly modeled are flung about with a passionate play that is strikingly unconventional. There is much in her acting that resembles Charlotte Cushman whose gestures were often distinguished by a noble freedom from the conventions of the stage. But Ristori has a native elegance in her grandeur to which Cushman never attained. The pure naturalness of her gestures often carries our assent captive when their strangeness has at first blush made us doubt. When she is pleading with Jason for her children, and is trying to win them to her side, she half kneels, stretches her body imploringly, yearning toward them, and with a plaintive, cooing, tender note invites them to come. Creusa holds them and they do not move; then Medea speaks more strongly, and, stretching out her large white arms

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at full length, she drops the hands downward, loose from the wrist, and as she cries “Come! Come! Come!” strikes them strongly toward her. Very beautiful, too, and full of maternal love is her acting with the children. Children on the stage are usually dull, inanimate dolls, mere bits of machinery; but the children here add greatly to the interest of the scene. Little N.W., nameless bambino that he is, can only run about, or nestle at his mother’s knees, and look at us with his Italian eyes; but the small Lycaon speaks his brave or plaintive speeches like a stout Colchian of seven years or thereabouts, and helps the play as much as his elders. He grasps Medea’s knees and clings to her neck and bosom as if she were really his mother, and the mother’s heart in her goes freely out to the little manikins as if they were her own. We have spoken of Ristori’s personal appearance. Her dress, designed, we have heard, by Ary Scheffer, is of a dark but glowing crimson wool, with a black border of primitive Greek design, and sprinkled over with small black spots in a pattern. In the first act she wears with this a mantle of light blue, and her heaped-up ebony hair, arranged in great masses of short curls on either side her head and face, is bound about with a crimson fillet that, passing under these curls, is fastened with long ends at the back of the head. The dress is not meant to be in the pure Greek taste for Medea is a barbarian from far-away Colchis, and the dress is native to her rude country. But we doubt if Ristori could wear the Greek dress as Rachel wore it, she would always seem more like a sumptuous Roman, or splendid Barbarian, and she could hardly tutor herself to move with the slow pace that belonged to the younger tragic muse. Her grace, her beauty, her air, are her own. Proudly she wears her own imperial crown. Long may its shining leaf, its ruddy berry adorn her living brows. Welcome, welcome, great Italian! Welcome, Ristori. From “Ristori in Maria Stuarda,” The New York Tribune, September 25, 1866, page 4. We were not enthusiastic over Madame Ristori’s debut, for the reason that we could not be. It was not the Ristori of former days; there were shortcomings, and, measuring her by the loftiest standard, we were disappointed. That disappointment has now fled. Her second representation of “Medea” was all her first was not. From beginning to end Ristori was an inspiration, and those subscribers who gave away their tickets or allowed their boxes to remain empty, lost what may never be regained. Ristori’s reception was a disgrace to an intelligent community; it was such as New York accords to a second-rate ballet-dancer — a by no means hearty round

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of applause succeeded by a few hands, the last effort reminding one of the sudden and feeble revival of an aggravating shower-bath. Nevertheless, the applause of Saturday, independently of this reception, was more spontaneous and discriminating than that of Thursday night. The audience was less fashionable but more intelligent, evidently more en rapport with Ristori, and to-night’s brilliant assembly showed how quickly an American audience can learn the proper etiquette of great occasions. Madame Ristori has won her laurels, and henceforth will be sure of her applause, that great incentive to mimic art. To-night New York experienced a second sensation in the tragedy of Maria Stuarda. Ever since Elizabeth lived and Mary died, the world has been much exercised on the subject of the ill-fated Queen of Scots. Historians and readers of history have bothered themselves not a little to get at the real character of one of the most interesting women that ever wore a crown — interesting because of her beauty and her misfortune. Whether she were weak or wicked has not yet been decided to our satisfaction, nor does the confession of complicity in the murder of her husband which Schiller puts into Mary’s mouth, light us on the road to truth. Whatever facts may be, the world will ever detest Elizabeth for her treachery toward her royal prisoner, and will pardon the victim of her vindictive jealousy. “Woman is not frail” exclaims Schiller’s Elizabeth. “Excelse, invitte alme si danno nel femmineo sesso. Non comporto parole al mio cospetto di femminea fralezza.” If ever a woman proved her frailty it was Elizabeth, when her miserable vanity petrified her heart, instigating her to sign the death warrant of a fallen foe. Quite ready are we to believe in the words of the German poet’s Mary, when she says, “the worst I ever did is known, and I may boast myself far better than my reputation.” But our present concern is not with history, nor with the liberties of the dramatist. Interest entirely lies with Andreo Maffei’s translation of Schiller, and to that alone we turn. We cannot become enraptured with Maria Stuarda. It fails in situation. Out of five acts, three end without point, leaving the audience in a state of indifference. Coming, too, immediately after so melo-dramatic a tragedy as Medea, this great tameness is the more apparent. The speeches, likewise, are too long. The play might be cut down to one-third to advantage. Italy’s great national defect is too much volubility. Nothing in the way of explanation is ever left to the imagination, and this defect is very naturally carried on to the stage, to the great discomfort of foreign audiences. Were there such a thing in the world as a star company, the length of subordinate characters might be endured, but it is almost unnecessary to state that the two acts of Maria Stuarda, wherein Ristori did not appear,

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were not made interesting by her company. The Elizabeth of Antonietta Cottin was respectable — nothing more. The part itself is very good, and in the hands of Sarah Felix became prominent. Ristori has no such sister; her brother, however, made up well for Talbot and did his little acceptably. Signor Gloch looked far more like his Sovereign Victor Emanuele than like the ambitious favorite of Elizabeth, yet appeared to somewhat better advantage than in Jason. The interesting character of Mortimer suffered terribly in the hands of Signor Carboni — a gentleman well named, whose qualities as an actor consist in squinting, frowning, and strutting. His soliloquy in scene third of act second was highly suggestive of the Bowery. Equally funny was his death. The pas executed excited admiration from the impossibility of its execution — to other than Signor Carboni. Of Cecil, little need be said. Virginia Casati was good in the small part of Mary’s nurse. With all kindness of spirit we ask why the entr’actes are so long when no scenes are to be set and no dresses are to be changed? Moreover is it necessary that, prior to raising the curtain upon each act a vigorous conversazione should be held behind it. There seems to be a want of proper stage management. To-night no less than two acts were materially injured by an ill-timed descent of the curtain; one was no less than the third act, wherein Ristori is the greatest. And now Ristori. Little can be said of the first act. An angel from heaven — provided angels are blessed with dramatic genius — could not do more than she did with it. There is no scope for great acting. She was every inch a queen — she was calm and colloquial. Her dignity was supreme when she exclaimed, “I recognize no equals but such as wear a crown!” Her indignation upon her exit was heroic. It was in the third act that the actress showed her power. Her tenderness with Talbot, her magnificent pose when the “internal furies” took possession of her, her transition to joy when she is told that Leicester comes with the Queen, the struggle in bending her proud knee to the infuriate Elizabeth, the working up of all her pent-up passion, until goaded on by her tormentor, she bursts forth with her revenge upon the daughter of Anna Golena, upon the bastard! were nothing more nor less than superb. This was indeed un ora di vendetta e di trionfo! The fifth act admits of much less action. Ristori was Maria Stuarda, and more we cannot say. Her confession was feelingly made, she was beautiful in her grief, she was a picture in her despair, she was still a grand woman in her short interview with the recreant Leicester. The curtain fell upon a fine tableau and a most delighted audience. It was acting.

z4å Olive Logan [1839–1909] Most students of theatre recognize the name Olive Logan as a 19th-century American actress, but she was also an outspoken commentator on theatre conditions at the time. She was the product of a theatre family; her father, Cornelius Ambrosius Logan, was an actor, manager, and dramatist, and two of her sisters (Eliza and Celia) were actresses. Of the three sisters, Eliza was considered the most talented. She played with stock and in touring companies, often as the leading lady, throughout the East and South. Her husband, George Wood, managed theatres in St. Louis and New York. Celia Logan was a successful actress in Philadelphia and New York, but became better known as a journalist, novelist, and playwright. Olive Logan’s formal education apparently was limited to schools in Cincinnati, where she spent most of her childhood. Her schooling included one year in a preparatory program at Wesleyan Female College and some time at the Academy of the Sacred Heart. In her writing, Olive Logan referred to herself as “bred to the stage” and “of a dramatic family.” However, her lectures and writings created more interest than her apparently mediocre acting abilities. In spite of her somewhat successful acting career, which began as a child in the arms of Booth and Forrest and continued as an adult in starring roles in Philadelphia and New York, Logan confessed to never having liked performing. “I never liked the life of an actress. I had not the sacred fire for dramatic art.”1 To Logan the life of an actor was not easy. She believed that good actors needed “many long and weary years of study and toil,” and could not depend on genius for their success. She felt that actors and actresses on stage at this time had no concept of the “artistic requirements” and called them “stagestruck barbers” and “sticks” with no idea of character; they occupied the bottom of the “ladder of excellence.”2 61

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In the 1850s and 1860s, Logan suffered several disappointments, including a failed marriage and several failed attempts at acting and playwriting. Early in 1868, she launched her career as an essayist and lecturer, which proved to be much more successful than her earlier attempts at acting. In fact, her income from lecturing was reported to be $15,000 in 1868. Her experiences in theatre provided a rich source of information for her printed views on society and theatre, especially as they affected women. In the contents of her three published collections of commentaries on and criticisms of various problems assailing women and theatre in general, she reveals a quick wit and an astute understanding of social issues. In her writing and lectures, Logan was quite outspoken and not afraid to risk public or religious censure. Never one to back down from a controversy, Logan stated, “I have a sincere respect for genuine convictions, and a sincere contempt for narrow prejudice.”3 Logan’s contempt is vividly revealed in her essay titled “About the Leg Business,” which appeared in Apropos of Women and Theatres in 1869, and had been the topic of various speaking engagements. In this essay, she identifies two classes of female performers associated with the “naked drama, [as she called it] ballet dancers and these involved in the leg business.” To Logan, ballet-girls were not of equal rank with an “intellectual player” but were a “legitimate branch of the theatrical profession.” Although the costume of Olive Logan turned to a full-time writing career in the ballet dancer was re- 1868, sometimes using the pen name “Chroniqueuse” (photography collection, Miriam and Ira vealing, unlike the dress D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photoof those in the leg busi- graphs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox ness, it was “conventional and Tilden Foundations).

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and the only practicable one.” The woman in the leg business, of whom Logan was very critical, should not be considered a part of legitimate theatre at all. Logan resented the fact that these women enjoyed “a celebrity more widely spread than many legitimate artists could hope to attain” because of their “shameless and unworthy” public exhibitions. She felt that their clothes, or lack thereof, were the only reason for their success. “They habit themselves in a way which is attractive to an indelicate taste, and their inefficiency in other regards overlooked.” These women were hurting other women who aspired to be legitimate actresses. Logan felt that theatre “in its present condition — overrun as it is by troops of immodest women — there is, alas! but little encouragement to any woman who respects herself to turn to the stage for support.”4 In Logan’s speech at the Equal Rights Meeting at Steinway Hall in 1869, she vividly described the situation for women in theatre. A woman, who has not the ability enough to rank as a passable “walking lady” in a good theatre, on a salary of twenty-five dollars a week, can strip herself almost naked, and be thus qualified to go upon the stage of two-thirds of our theatres at a salary of one hundred dollars and upwards.5

According to Logan, the only abilities the nude performer needed to get a job were first, the ability to sing songs “vulgar, senseless ... and capable of indecent constructions, and accompanied by the wink, the wiggle, the grimace.” Second, the nude performer should be able to jig, not to be confused with real dancing. Jigging was “an accomplishment any of these ... creatures can pick up in a few weeks.” The third talent necessary for the leg business is to play a musical instrument that would “look queer in a woman’s hands — such instruments as the banjo and the bugle.”6 Logan felt it was an insult to “members of the dramatic profession” that nude performers were classed as actresses and were being hired by managers over the more legitimate actresses. She wrote, “Actresses, who love virtue better than money, are driven into the streets by her.”7 After her speech at the Women’s Suffrage Convention in 1869, Logan was criticized for attacking her own profession. In her own defense, in future lectures and essays, she pointed out that her words were distorted by the press and certain “religious” people. In response to various anonymous letters, she defended her family, saying, “Never was there a Logan who sought any connection with the stage save in the capacity of a legitimate player.” Logan felt that the current trend of nude drama degraded the stage and disgraced the drama. She wrote, “I respect the theatre in its purity. I respect the actor who is an artist. That I love so many good and lovely women who are its actresses

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is my chief reason for deploring the reign of a class of women who are neither good nor lovely — but coarse, indecent, painted, padded, and dyed.”8 Logan is referring to the padded tights some performers used to make their legs appear more shapely. According to Logan, some legs needed help to “enlarge and beautify the calf, to correct little inadequacies as knock knees and bow legs.” This practice led to a new industry primarily located in Philadelphia, which Logan called “the padding mecca.” Managers who hired “nude” performers did not escape Logan’s ire. In her essay titled “About Nudity in Theatres,” she accused managers of bypassing respectable actresses and hiring only those who have dyed yellow hair and symmetrically formed legs, arms, and bosoms and are willing to expose them, can sing brassy songs, wink at men, say disgusting half-words that mean whole actions, and are willing to appear nightly in satin breeches 10 inches long.9 She also lists the New York theatres guilty of housing such drama. She quotes one manager as saying, “Devil take your legitimate drama! I tell you if I can’t draw the crowd otherwise, I’ll put a woman on my stage without a rag on her.”10 Logan ends the essay with a promise to continue her campaign in spite of “the sneers of low-class newspapers, [and] the threats of anonymous correspondents,” and issues a challenge to “all honorable souls, both in and out of the profession, to stand by my side and strike hard blows.” She promises to give “thrust for thrust.” In Logan’s book, Before the Footlights and Behind the Scenes, she offers her opinions about playwriting, and suggests that women playwrights could change the theatre for the better. “It is not too much to believe that if women wrote more frequently for the theatre they would impart to its exhibitions something of their own grace, purity, and elegance.” Women would not “cater to the coarse and unthinking” or to the licentious baits of applause which men are not ashamed to use.”11 Logan argues that “by dignifying the drama [a woman] would dignify that vocation which so many of her sisters follow.” Logan felt that the financial rewards of authoring an even moderately successful play were larger than those of “book-writers.” The problem was with American managers who showed a “reluctance to produce plays by home authors.” Those managers took their cue from the public, which “insists on filling the pockets of foreign dramatists rather than encourage its own,” causing managers to not risk their money on “home-made” plays.12 Logan’s contempt was obvious, but her respect for legitimate performers and theatre practices never wavered. She deserves the respect of the theatre community for giving us vivid accounts of her experiences as a touring player during the Civil War era. After an unsuccessful week’s run of her play, Eveleen, in August 1864, Logan began a tour of the West (then Ohio, Indi-

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ana, and Kentucky) and the South. Her record of the tour contains colorful descriptions of travel by steamboat on the Ohio, during which she observed “a soldier audience” whose bayonets were “pointing directly at the performer.”13 No women were in the house except in boxes. Logan’s next stop was in Louisville, where she unexpectedly ran into her cousin, Major General John A. Logan. She records her impressions of the effects of the war on the displaced streaming into Louisville. “It positively rained, hailed and snowed refugees” who came up river from the southern states “in droves; hungry shoeless, hatless and almost garmentless.”14 While there, she gave a benefit matinee performance for the refugees. Because the Confederates had closed communication between Louisville and Nashville, Logan was two nights late for her engagement. The bridges had been burnt, trains were stopped and passengers robbed, but Logan traveled by train as far as she could and arrived in time to play Juliet on the third night of her engagement. Her descriptions of conditions at the train station in Louisville are heart-rending. A painful scene — a scene of misery, of despair, of mental and physical anguish. Poor mothers, who had wounded sons lying low in Nashville; unhappy wives, holding in their hands letters written by their husbands, dead before the letters came to hand; white-faced daughters, pleading piteously to be allowed to go down on the train to their wounded fathers — all supplicating, and all refused. These women had no military passes, could not obtain any, and were therefore not permitted to leave Louisville.15

During Logan’s tour, which took her from Cincinnati south to Nashville, then north to Chicago (“the gamest place in the whole western country,”) Logan had occasion to comment on the job of critics versus reporters. She called herself “in some degree a dramatic critic” and resented dramatic critics being called reporters. The man who goes to a fire, and tells how many houses were burnt down, is a reporter. Shall we, then, bestow the same title on the person who is able to write a clear and exhaustive criticism of a scholarly play, comparing the actor or actress before him with others who in years gone have essayed the same roles, thus showing that his knowledge is not of today or yesterday, but is of the careful study of time?16

However, the sting of being on the receiving end of unfavorable criticism can be seen in her comments about the reliability of critics. “Two-thirds of the men who, in our large cities, presume to sit in judgment on theatrical art and artists are uneducated, vulgar, dishonorable and dissipated.”17 She felt that these critics wrote only to please the public. During her tour through the West and South, Logan received favorable

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reactions to her performances, especially in Chicago. Her views of critics and criticism at this time are much more respectful. “Western criticism often has a rollicking independence of tone about it which would horrify staid Eastern readers.” Her good opinion of “Western” theatre extended to the audience as well. “Of all audiences in the world, I think, the Western audience is keenest alive to humbug.... As a rule, New York audiences are far less difficult to please that those of the West, when the performance is of an intellectual character.”18 Obviously, she considered herself to be among the intellectual performers. Perhaps she was. All in all, it seems that Logan’s contemporary critics, her own writing, and various theatre historians since attest that Logan did, indeed, have a sincere respect for theatre, and a sincere contempt for all things that, in her opinion, damaged the American theatre. The records she left in the form of plays, essays, and books provide vivid pictures of 19th-century theatre, but their worth was not recognized in her lifetime. At the end of her life, the world showed little respect for Olive Logan. She died penniless in a mental institution in Banstead, England — far from the American theatre that she had so passionately defended. From The Galaxy, January 5, 1868, pages 22–27. “American and Foreign Theatres” Until late years, the stage decorations of American theatres have been of so poor a description that my first entrance into a prominent London theatre, about ten years ago, struck me with speechless astonishment at the beauty of the mise en scene, which was far above anything I had ever seen in America — of whose theatres I had been a habitué, both “in front” and “behind the scenes,” since my earliest childhood. The play, I remember, was one in which Miss Amy Sedgwick appeared, and the whole performance was so good that it was to me like a revelation in histrionic art. Passing my time about equally between Paris and London for the six years following this event, I was able to form a pretty correct idea of theatrical matters in these two centers of civilization, and to compare their theatres with those of America when I returned to my native country in ’62. Then I found that American managers had discovered the great fact that comfortable seats in the auditorium, plenty of chandeliers, and the tabooing of babies in arms, were not all that was required to make a play attractive, and had consequently begun to adopt the European plan of “mounting” every piece which they thought destined for a “run.” This needed reform soon bore its fruits; and now it is not too much to say that New York can safely compete in almost every respect with any London the-

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atre, whatever its grade. I dare not extend the boastful comparison to the theatres of Paris, for the trail of the Gymnase is over me still, and the halo of the Comedie Francaise is as bright a numbus in memory’s heaven as though five years, headed by a rebellion, punctured with a war, closed with a peace, had not passed since I sat in that classic temple and listened to “Britannicus.” Many pieces which have been brought out in London and considered well mounted there, have been transferred to New York and placed upon the stage in such a way as quite to throw their original decking into the shade. As an instance, I may cite the comedy of “Ours,” which an English officer who had seen the piece in London and had taken a great interest in it on account of having served in the Crimean war, told me was placed on the stage at Wallack’s Theatre so much better than in London as almost to be unrecognizable. This was not due, however, to the superiority of the scenic artists — for in this direction the American are not yet to be compared to the English — but to the extreme care bestowed upon other details by the management: the reckless extravagance in furniture, pianos, painting, etc, of whose richness I can give no better idea than by saying they looked as though transplanted from a Fifth Avenue drawing-room. It seemed to me during my different visits to London, and in course of conversation about theatres with English people, that an idea prevailed that, in American theaters, were invariably presented entertainments of a low order, and that American audiences were composed in great part of Pike’s Peak miners sitting in the best boxes in their shirt-sleeves and with their legs up. To visit one of those American theatres, and to observe the elegance of the ladies toilets, the “stunning” get-up of the jeunesse greenbacked of New York, the wild extravagance of outlay in both sexes, is to correct this idea at once. As for the entertainment itself, it is usually as near the European model as three times the money expended on it there can make it. * * * * * In regard to the comparative excellence of the acting at American and foreign theatres, I may quote Mr. Boucicault, who says it is better here than in England; and in the better class of our theaters I think it is. The only branch in which we are immeasurably distanced is in the field of broad burlesque, which American actors and actresses as a class are thoroughly incapable of portraying. In America the actresses who aspire to this line break into clog-dancing and banjo-playing, and, as they draw crowds and provoke laughter, they erroneously fancy they have reached the summit of burlesque excellence. Where American histrionic talent shines most brightly is in time sentiment or tragedy, and were it not that the American accent is so distaste-

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ful to English ears, I think such an actress as Mrs. Chanfrau, and one or two beautiful and sympathetic young women now charming American audiences, would scarcely have the mood of praise withheld from them by that London public which every player naturally holds in such high esteem. * * * * * The dress of American actresses is more luxurious than any one who has not seen it would believe; as far above that of the English actresses as a pound is above a dollar; so extravagant, indeed, that, in spite of the large salaries given, actresses are almost invariably required to do so much in the way of toilet, that it is no unusual thing for them to be largely in debt at the box office; the yearly benefit only sets them “square” again with the world, leaving them in the unpleasant predicament of having worked the whole season for nothing but a livelihood. Nor can they ever be said to reach that point where what is technically known as a “wardrobe” has been purchased, and will now serve them the rest of their days. The American actress must vary her dress with every varying fashion. Modern comedies require modern toilets, and that these are expensive, every married man can testify. It is related of Miss Madeline Henriques, the last leading lady of Wallack’s, that she said her salary was not much more sufficient to keep her in boots and gloves. Her father being a successful merchant, and her benefit receipts being always enormous, enabled her to hold the position with éclat. This extravagant system of stage toilet was “inaugurated” by a leading actress known to every visitor of New York theatres during the last ten years — Mrs. John Hoey, a fortunate lady who made one of these splendid matrimonial parties which actresses are reputed to be in the habit of making so frequently. This lady, whose husband unselfishly permitted her to remain on the stage merely because she was fond of it, had a merchantprincely income at her disposal and spent it in a regally artistic manner of habiting herself. Lady Teazle— who would “rather be out of the world than out of the fashion”— was less elegantly attired than her American impersonator. Julia in the “Hunchback” was going to have “not brooches, rings, and earrings only, but the whole necklaces and stomachers of gems.” Mrs. Hoey had purchased it long ago. Nor has this extravagant system gone out with the retirement of Mrs. Hoey. It is true other actresses cannot boast of such diamonds and laces as hers; but for silks, velvets, satins, moirés, and the countless paraphernalia of a fashionable woman’s toilet, whose who succeed her dare not be far behind. An item copied from Paris papers informs us that Adelina Patti recently wore a dress that cost two thousand francs. I do not know why American newspapers should copy this as an

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extraordinary bit of information, for it was a frequent thing to see Mrs. Hoey on the stage with a dress which cost twice that amount, and even now it is a quite common matter for actresses to wear dresses which cost two and even three hundred dollars. English actresses coming to America and bringing the thin satins and well-worn velvets which have served them for years are frequently surprised to see subordinates of the company walk on the stage so finely dressed as quite to overshadow themselves. Strolling, behind the scenes, we find pretty much the same set of rules in vogue in American theatres as in those of England. We have no national anthem to be sung, which necessitates the assistance of every member of the company; the dirge in “Romeo and Juliet” is now “cut out,” and the masquerade scene of the same piece is generally filled up by supernumerary aid, or not filled up at all; but the choruses of “Macbeth” and “Pizarro” still call for the grumbling lyrical efforts of every individual, from the leading lady down to the call-boy, in American as in English theaters. The halcyon days of comfort for players, both in England and America, are over, it appears. No longer are succulent viands prepared for stage eating; no longer are bottles of porter provided for stage drinking; indeed, nothing is provided for stage drinking now a-days, and actors sigh as they drink it out of golden pasteboard goblets and solid wooden jugs. Perhaps this is the reason why the festive bowl is so often drained by professions in private. Except in a few theatres which cling to the old customs, the luxury of a call-boy has been dispensed with, and players are now obliged to hang wearily around the wings till one cue is given and they may “go on.” Formerly, they were permitted to remain in the greenroom until within about five minutes of their appearance, and thus much fatigue was saved. Now, in many cases, the greenroom itself has been dispensed with, and the call-boy’s occupation is, like Othello’s, gone. The disappearance of the greenroom was caused by the new fashion of building “stores,” warehouses and the like, on the ground story of theatres, which reduced the temples of histrionism to the smallest possible space, scarcely providing for dressingrooms, much less for the luxury of the green-room. This system prevails principally in the West, for in New York, Boston and Philadelphia theatres are conducted with more liberality than anywhere else in the United States. From “About the Leg Business,” chapter IX in Apropos of Women and Theatre, pages 110–21. Two classes of female performers are associated with the “naked drama,” as it has been called. The first are a legitimate branch of the theatrical profession, and in their way may be, and often are, artists. They are the ballet-dancers.

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The theatre as legitimately deals in music and dancing as it does in tragedy or comedy. Hence, the ballet is, and always has been, as freely recognized by the most cultured people (when they approve of the theatre at all) as any other feature of the mimic world. For the dancers of the legitimate ballet, I — who know them as a class well — have some respect. They are for the most part a hard-working, illpaid body of women, not infrequently the sole support of entire families, and their moral characters are not one whit affected by their line of business. The admiring public which sees the pretty picture they make on the stage little knows the physical fatigue which these poor girls encounter in return for a few dollars a week salary from the manager, and an illiberal judgment at the hands of the audience. Few men work so hard as the ballet-girl — the coryphée, who, by halfpast eight in the morning is at the theatre, clad in gauze and silk webbing, practicing pirouettes, entrechats, the toe-torture, and other inquisitorial exercises. I have seen these girls practice from nine o’clock in the morning until half-past twelve, almost without cessation; then take a hurried lunch, sometimes eating it while standing shivering in their thin clothing in a draughty space behind the “flats,” only to begin their labor again at half-past one, and so continue till five. This is for the matinee performance; at half-past seven that of the night commences, finishing perhaps at eleven. Then comes undressing, re-dressing, folding and laying away their stage paraphernalia; for, even if not naturally tidy (and tidiness is the rule with them, the exceptions rare) these girls must, for economy’s sake, be careful of their clothing. And so, long after midnight, the tired creatures, often laden with heavy bundles, creep listlessly into street cars, to be stared at by rude men, or, still worse, drag home through the deserted streets, alone and unprotected, at risk of being mistaken for traviatas of the lowest grade. With the dancer who has passed the chrysalis ballet-girl stage, and is now a full-fledged butterfly premiere, with her name large-lettered in the bills, and her engagement-papers stamped and signed at the lawyer’s, the road is not so stony. I am far from placing the ballet-girl in the same rank with the intellectual player; but there are grades of quality in all fields. She is a dancer, and loves dancing as an art. That pose into which she now throws herself with such abandon is not a vile pandering to the taste of those giggling

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men in the orchestra-stalls, but is an effort which, to her idea, is as loving a tribute to a beloved art as a painter’s dearest pencil-touch is to him. I have seen these women burst into tears on leaving the stage because they had observed men laughing among themselves, rolling their eyes about, and evidently making unworthy comments on the pretty creature before them, whose whole heart was for the hour lovingly given over to Terpsichore. “It is they who are bad,” said Mademoiselle B. to me the other night; “it is not we.” Those men who have impure thoughts are the persons on whom censure should fall, not upon the devotees of an art which the dancers love, and embody to the best of their ability, and without any more idea of impurity because of the dress, which is both the conventional and the only practicable one, than sculptors or painters have when they use the female figure as a medium to convey their ideas of poetry to the outside world. But there is one set of exponents of the “naked drama” on whom I am for launching every possible invective of censure and reproach. I mean those women who are “neither fish, flesh, nor fowl” of the theatrical creation,— who are neither actresses, pantomimists, nor ballet-girls, but who enjoy a celebrity more widely spread than many legitimate artists could hope to attain. It is unpleasant to mention names; it is disagreeable and even dangerous to do so; but when such women as Cora Pearl, Vestvali, Menken, and their like were insolent enough to invade the stage, and involve in the obloquy which falls on them hundreds of good and pure women, it was time for even the most tolerant critic to express disapprobation. Whatever the private character of these women might be,— however good, however bad,— we were justified, from their public exhibitions, in denouncing them as shameless and unworthy. It is true, they made more money than any other class of “performers;” more money than the poetic Edwin Booth, infinitely more that the intellectual E. L. Davenport. Stifle conscience, honor, and decency, and mere money-making is easy work, as these women and others who have come later fully illustrate. In this chapter, whose main facts were set down before the fever for “blonde burlesque” raged in our theatres, I treat principally of a style of performance which the above-named women illustrate, and which is already fluttering in the last agonies of death. But so long as it lives, however sickly, my denunciation of the women who illustrate it has “excuse for being.” These women are not devotees of any art. With the exception of Vestvali —

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a failure on every lyric stage, both in Europe and “America,— they do not either act, dance, sing, or mime; but they habit themselves in a way which is attractive to an indelicate taste, and their inefficiency in other regards is overlooked. Some of these women, strange as it may seem, have occasional aspirations for higher things. A play which I prepared for the stage in the year 186– had for its heroine a woman of tender feelings, holy passions, such as every author loves to paint. After its production at one of the theatres in Broadway, I had many applicants for the purchase of copies. Among these applicants was a person whose name is thoroughly associated with the Mazeppa, Dick Turpin, Jack Sheppard school, and none other. I was astonished that such a woman could covet such a part. What sympathy had the “French spy” with a heroine, tearful, suffering, and selfdenying? What was the chastening influence of anguish and repentance to Jack Sheppard and his jolly pals who “fake away” so obstreperously in the burden of the chorus, and the pockets of the unwary? I could not help expressing my astonishment at this seeming inconsistency to a person who was acquainted with my applicant, for I was not. “Well, you see,” he replied, referring to her familiarly, by her petit nom, “Leo hates the leg business as much as anybody; but, bless you, nothing else pays nowadays,— so what can she do?” The leg business is a business which requires legs. That these should be naturally symmetrical is desirable, but not indispensable; for the art of padding has reached such perfection, that nature has been almost distanced and stands, blushing at her own incompetency, in the background. New York can boast some artistic “padders;” and if you are curious to know where they dwell, what their prices are, etc., you can go to almost any green-room of this period, and find their business cards stuck about in the frames of the looking-glasses, in the joints of the gas-burners, and sometimes lying on the top of the sacred cast-case itself. Strange to say, however, that Holy of Holies, the city of Philadelphia, bears off the palm in the pad-making art. Thus the New Jersey railroads are frequently enriched by the precious freight of penitential Mazeppas, going on pilgrimages to the padding Mecca. It is generally supposed — by those who suppose anything at all on the subject — that padding is employed only in the enlarging and beautifying of the calf of the leg, but this is a mistake.

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Such little inaccuracies as knock-knees, and bow-legs — trifling errata in Nature’s original edition, remarkable for their frequency in the human family, and especially in those misguided members of it who have rashly chosen the stage as a profession — are nimbly rectified by the pad-professor. I saw a letter from one of these the other day, which may be worth producing here for the sake of its ludicrousness. That it is a genuine document, I pledge my word. It ran thus,— “Philadelphia, MAM:— Them tites is finished your nees will be all OK when you get them on. Bad figgers is all plaid out now they will caust 9 dollers.” It would seem that the nine dollars capital, a couple of yards of white muslin, and the outer “tites,” are all that is required of the followers of the Mazeppa school. Of personal beauty, they have often little; of intellectuality, of comprehension, of grace, genius, poetry, less; and of talent, none. When the part they portray calls for the speaking of words, we lift our hands in blank astonishment that any creature with audacity enough to assume such a position can have so little ability to fill it. The money the Mazeppas make is something quite astonishing. Ten thousand dollars “share” for a month’s engagement was paid but a short time ago to one of the most attractive of the “French spies.” In less than two months after, she was obliged to borrow money to pay her hotel bill. “Easy come, easy go,” is a proverb which must have been made for these women. It is not strange, perhaps, that they should have implicit faith in the potency of King Greenback, and offer him with little delicacy, to gain that always-desired end,—flattering comments in the newspapers. I have an editorial friend, of an extremely conscientious turn of mind, who was coolly asked by a Mazeppa if he would not take up the cudgels of criticism for her, as against another local paper, at the same time drawing from her pocket an immense roll of bills, and asking him to “take what he wanted.” He complied with her request; for he wanted nothing that savored of bribery, and he took “what he wanted.” There are those who understand rather better the delicate art of administering the critic-douceur. One such, on coming to New York for the first time, hearing that to mollify Muggins was indispensable to her success, sat down, after much deliberation, and mailed him a black letter, or blackmailed him a white letter, inclosing [sic] a fifty-dollar bill, and a transparent cloak for bribery

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in the shape of a request that he would send her one stanza of a song of his own brilliant composition (he having never written a line of verse in his life), leaving the subject, air, metre and sentiment open to his discriminating judgment. The fifty-dollar bill was never heard of more; but the four lines of tender thought which follow were sent to her address,— Air:—“I know a bank” (note) Come, love, come, where the roses blow, And the angels tune their radiant hair, Where the zephyrs sigh to the far-off zones, And the sleeping seas swell on the air.

How’s that? If the stage could but be rid of the “leg business” scourge, there is no reason why it should not form a worthy channel for gifted, intelligent, and virtuous young women to gain a livelihood through. But in its present condition — overrun as it is by troops of immodest women — there is, alas! but little encouragement to any woman who respects herself to turn to the stage for support. Openings for women are few enough, as governesses, and schoolmistresses, and shirtmakers, and hoopskirt drudges, generally, will testify. But worse slavery than any or all of these is the thralldom of waiting to be married to have one’s board and lodging paid. A woman should have her destiny in her own hands as completely as a man has his, and the first boon that should be vouchsafed her is the happy knowledge that, before she lies down at night, she may really thank her Maker, and not her husband, for having given her this day her daily bread.

z5å Mildred Aldrich [1853–1928] The end of the 19th century saw the emergence of several women drama critics in cities considered to be theatrical centers such as New York, Chicago, and Boston. Some of these women include Amy Leslie, Emma V. SheridanFry, and Lucy Monroe, who covered productions in Chicago and New York; Ada Patterson, who covered the New York theatre; and Mildred Aldrich, who became one of the voices of the theatre in Boston. Aldrich, the eldest of four children including one brother and two sisters, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, to Edwin and Lucy Ayres (Baker) Aldrich. In her autobiography, Confessions of a Breadwinner,1 Aldrich reports that Providence became her birthplace by accident; her mother had gone to visit a sister-in-law, became ill, and had to remain in Providence until after Mildred’s birth. Since her family moved to Massachusetts when she was two months old, Aldrich always considered Boston her hometown. Apparently, Aldrich was a very bright child and was attracted to a literary career at an early age. According to her account, she was talking at nine months, reading when she was three years old, and was never without a novel or book of poetry in her hands. When she was approximately ten years old, her family moved to a section of Boston that was closer to Everett School so Mildred could attend a “good” school. Upon being awarded a grammar school certificate, Aldrich was admitted to high school after successfully completing two days of examinations. Aldrich entered Everett (High) School in 1869 and graduated in 1872. While at Everett, she showed an inclination to write, and, at the age of 14, she and some classmates produced a newspaper to which Aldrich contributed essays and verse. While in high school, Aldrich also wrote a “girl’s story” to be read for the school’s monthly literary hour, but she was too shy to read it in public. She reports that she also wrote a novel during her school days, but the manuscript of this has been lost. 75

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“Accidental” is a word that can describe many parts of Aldrich’s life in Boston, from her birth to her future career opportunities. For instance, because she could not sing, she refused to take the required music classes at Everett, and, with her father’s intervention, was exempted during the “singing hours.”2 She chose to attend a chemistry class instead. Her success in chemistry led to her taking a post-graduation course in chemistry at the Institute of Technology — a course designed for teachers. Aldrich did well enough to be awarded a certificate to teach, although she had no desire to be a teacher. This “accidental” certificate later led to a disastrous two years as a teacher when she needed employment to help support her family. It was in her second year of high school that Aldrich became a “chronic theatre-goer” at the Boston Museum. “At that time, in accordance with the puritanical habit of the founders of New England, for whom the Sabbath began at sundown, Saturday, there were no evening performances on that day. The first Saturday performances were not given until 1871,”3 but Aldrich attended as many matinees as she could. Aldrich refers to herself as a “model audience” from 1869 to 1898. It was during these years as an audience member and as a journalist that she developed and honed her skills as a critic. Although women were agitating for more rights during her school years, the Women’s Movement was not yet widespread and Susan B. Anthony was publicly ridiculed. Aldrich never considered herself a feminist; in fact, she admits, “I was always antisuffragette.” She thought she had all the rights and privileges she needed, although she had “not the smallest objection to women who want to vote, doing it.”4 This medallion of Mildred Aldrich was creAfter her graduation from ated by Theodore Spicer-Simson in 1912, Everett, at the age of 20, probably while Aldrich was living in Paris. Aldrich considered becoming a She used the image as the frontispiece of her book, Hilltop on the Marne, published in novelist, but, at her mother’s 1915. urging, she attended a few

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months at the Commercial College, where she learned bookkeeping and accounting. These skills helped her find employment when a family crisis demanded she look for more lucrative work than writing novels. She states in her autobiography, “The time was already dawning when the majority of women were not only to be allowed to go out into the world to compete side by side with men in the struggle for life, but when conditions were to be such that a majority were to be forced into the struggle.”5 She was “forced into the struggle” when her father had a cerebral hemorrhage, and then a second stroke a few years later, which left him unable to financially care for the family. For 13 years, Aldrich cared for her younger siblings and her mother, whom she calls “a fragile woman.” Aldrich first used money that had been put aside for her while at school to be used for a trip to Europe. When her funds ran out, she began seeking a means of earning money and was advised by friends to use her teaching certificate to secure a position. Her two years at two different teaching posts were not successful. The financial strain forced her to move her family to a smaller, more affordable house. But, even during the hardest times, she never gave up her dream of being a writer. Then, by what Aldrich terms, “the merest accident,” she heard of a position that led to her career as a journalist. A member of her church informed Aldrich that an acquaintance needed a private secretary. This person was William Wallace Waugh, who had taken a small, four-page weekly, once known as the Suffolk County Journal, and renamed it the Boston Home Journal. Sometime in the early 1880s, Aldrich was hired as a private secretary and bookkeeper for six dollars a week. Soon after she was hired, Waugh and the other employees of the paper moved their offices from Roxbury to Boston, leaving Aldrich the Roxbury office to herself. She was not immediately given any writing responsibilities, for as Frances E. Willard reminds us in Occupations for Women, at that time the prevailing attitude in newspaper offices was that “women could never make good paragraphers ... [since] the usual training of women upon a newspaper is not such as to develop the power of pithy paragraph writing.”6 Another happy “accident” led to the expansion of Aldrich’s duties from office work to writing. One month after she began working for Waugh, an older employee quit and his work fell to Aldrich; in this way she began to write for an additional 50 dollars a year. Soon Waugh moved the entire enterprise into Boston, and Aldrich assumed more responsibility for the paper’s publication. By now the paper had been enlarged to 16 pages, and, in addition to secretarial and bookkeeping work, she “did part of the editorials, some of the theatre criticism, ... edited all of the theatre news” and created a “Society Department.”7 Unfortunately, the theatre reviews, under the heading of

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“Drama,” were unsigned, so it is not possible to determine which were written by Aldrich, although, undoubtedly, some were. However, while at the Home Journal, Aldrich did write a column headed “A Harlequin,” which she signed “H. Quinn.” Willard called the Harlequin column “a column of paragraphs, short, pithy, and scintillant. Such work has never been equaled.”8 As H. Quinn, Aldrich frequently filled the column with theatre comments and news, many of which read like theatre reviews since the theatre was, admittedly, her “pet subject.” During her 12 years with the Boston Home Journal, Aldrich spent her days in the office and four nights per week in the theatre. In describing her approach to criticism, she says: I started our with very severe principles.... I imagined that I knew a great deal about the theatre. I had devoured plays.... I fancied that I had a delicate finger for the pulse of the public taste.... I began my career on an unimportant paper determined to be a free lance — to hitch my car to no theatrical star. I was going to speak my mind without fear or favor.9

Of these early attempts at criticism, she calls herself “a brute” and a “pitiless slasher” who could not handle a scalpel so she used a hatchet. For example, in the November 9, 1889, Harlequin column, she criticizes Richard Mansfield’s portrayal of Richard III. “As a spectacle it can be loudly commended, and as a spectacle it ought to draw, but as a performance of Richard III it is nowhere.” Later in the same column she says, “I am not in the least belittling Mr. Mansfield’s cleverness. He is one of the best of all the superficial actors that I ever saw.”10 Actually, Aldrich’s criticism was not always that harsh. In the Harlequin column on January 23, 1886, she praises Lawrence Barrett for bringing something new to the American stage. She writes, “To Mr. Barrett we are more indebted than to any other actor before the public for some of the finest presentations of plays and characters that this generation has enjoyed. Without him our theatre-going public would have been almost absolutely without artistic or literary novelty.”11 When Minnie Maddern was given bad reviews by some New York critics, Aldrich defended her, saying, “Miss Maddern is really one of the most gifted young actresses on the stage. She has an interesting personality, a sweet voice, a grace of carriage ... but her experience has given her none of the polish of refined society. She has no concept of it, because she has never seen that side of life.” Aldrich attributed Maddern’s lack of polish not to a lack of talent, but to her youth. “She is too young — younger than her twenty-one years — to understand or use her poses to the best purpose.” The real fault, according to Aldrich, lies with Miss Maddern’s managers. “She has never had judicious management.” She continues prais-


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ing Maddern’s talents, and asserting that “her lacks are those that experience will remedy.”12 In addition to including theatre criticism in her Harlequin column, Aldrich also revealed her feelings about the mission of theatre in general. In the December 25, 1886, column, she writes: To me the theatre presents great possibilities. It grows yearly more and more important in the lives of that great majority, the middle classes, and I hope yet to see it on that account an authority on manners and speech, a corrector of taste, a mighty teacher. This is the mission in the world of drama; but alas, it is a mission which, by those in power over the stage in this country, with three or four exceptions, is neglected in every sense of the word.13

Again it is managers who get in the way of the theatre’s mission. Aldrich feels managers should be something more than “financial speculators,” and the country’s newspapers should take up this cause, for “then and only then, will drama in America become an art.”14 In her autobiography, finished in 1926, Aldrich reiterates her convictions about the function of theatre. “As an inspiration to thought, as a teacher of beauty, as an instructor of culture and manners, as an awakener of emotion it is one of the most important, if not the most important element in every day life.”15 She proposes that a person who attends the theatre regularly is “always better informed, more cultivated, less narrow-minded” than the non–theatre goer [sic].” She believes the theatre to be a “great aid to civilization” because it “pulls the world together.”16 In 1892, Aldrich had what she calls in her autobiography “my first breakdown,” which took her out of the office for about two months. Her relationship with Waugh deteriorated, and she left the Home Journal never to return. Before she found employment with another newspaper, she tried her hand at publishing a weekly paper on her own. This was a 16-page paper called The Mahogany Tree, the first volume of which came out in September, 1892. The paper was a failure; however, Aldrich did not give up her career in journalism. Between 1892 and 1893, she wrote biographical sketches on various stage stars for Arena magazine. Her article about the early career of Julia Marlowe appeared in the June 1892 edition of Arena, and was followed by an October article on E. H. Sothern, and in January 1893 an article on Alexander Salvini. Aldrich’s biographical articles in Arena combined criticism of past performances of her subjects as well as an assessment of their talents in general. She reports that Julia Marlowe declined a role in Paul Kauvar, saying, “I have worked to play Shakespeare. I will play Shakespeare or nothing.”17 Marlowe did play several of Shakespeare’s leading ladies, including Rosalind, Imogen,

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Juliet, and Beatrice, a portrayal Aldrich commented on at length. For instance, in the Arena article, she writes, “It is not difficult for those who were bitterly disappointed in her Beatrice to account for its failure. There were those who in their disappointment rashly set the limits to her upward career.”18 Aldrich attributed Marlowe’s failure to the fact that Beatrice was an older woman whom Marlowe lacked the maturity to play, and to the fact that the role had been studied for a shorter time than the other roles. She wrote: Miss Marlowe has not lived as long with Beatrice as with the other women she has played; her naturally poetic temperament does not so naturally incline her to the part as it does to Juliet, the youth of passion; Viola, the virginity of sentiment; Rosalind, in her promissory womanhood, and Imogen, the perfection of wifehood. In attempting the part, she issued a draft on the future.19

In 1894, Aldrich was employed by the Boston Journal, under Charles Wingate, to “do a theatre page in the Sunday edition — everything and anything regarding the theatre and the world of actors, except criticism.”20 Of this time she wrote, “The sins of my early attitude in the theatre, in the days when I dreamed that the theatre should be a home of art, flew home to roost with a vengeance.”21 Frank Stanwood, who represented the owners of the Journal, and was a friend of Montgomery Field, the manager of the Boston Museum, protested her hiring. He said Aldrich was “a dangerous person” to the paper’s policy because she had “cursed a certain play and ruined its run.” She admitted to giving the play a bad review, which it deserved, and accounted for its failure in a “very different manner.” 22 The play in question could have been Phyllis by Mrs. Burnett, which played at the Boston Museum in January 1890. The review in the Saturday, January 4, 1890, edition of the Boston Home Journal stated: It is many a day since so poor a play has been seen in this city, or a more decided fiasco introduced in a playhouse.... The star, Miss Sheridan, on whom the burden of the play rested, has developed a hopeless method of acting. She seemed possessed of intelligence enough of a certain lurid sort; a wish to be natural, which it is a pity is less interesting than Delsartian. Miss Sheridan is able enough to act, only her acting is not pleasant, and her personality seems to lack the charm of a gracious individuality. She is theatrical rather than rational, and her work savors of great effort, much of which brings forth no good result. In fact, Miss Sheridan acts too much, and has not yet learned to conceal the fact that she is acting.23

Aldrich got the job with the Boston Journal in spite of Stanwood’s opposition, but she stayed there only one year. In 1895, she was offered a position as a freelance writer under John Holmes with the Boston Herald. Here, again, she could write anything on theatre topics “but was only supposed to ven-


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ture into criticism when especially invited by the dramatic editor, or Holmes himself.”24 Her absence from the Journal was sorely felt, since the Sunday page she had created there was a significant factor in their circulation, and soon the owners of the Journal asked her to come back as an editor. She refused the offer. At the Herald, Aldrich contributed “a couple of columns every morning ... and three or four columns for every Sunday.”25 These columns were unsigned, but the theatre news was, undoubtedly, Aldrich’s and contained what amounted to reviews of plays and actors who caught her attention. One such star was Julia Marlowe, who had been a favorite of Aldrich’s since she began appearing in Boston. In the “Plays and Players” column in the Sunday, April 11, 1897, edition, among news of what was playing at various theatres that week were Aldrich’s comments on the Marlowe-Tabor production of Romeo and Juliet at the Hollis Street Theatre. She wrote: Julia Marlowe’s portrayal of the passion-tossed maid of Verona has grown in breadth, insight and intensity till it is now worthy to be ranked among the really great impersonations of that much-abused, but always interesting roles. She is surely gifted with the youth, beauty and poetic temperament essential to the interpretation of the earlier scenes of the play, and it is claimed by many that her powers have reached that development requisite to giving the tragic events of Juliet’s life adequate and convincing embodiment.26

The Marlowe-Tabor Shakespeare productions were mentioned in the Tuesday and Sunday “Plays and Players” columns until the end of the run. Often, the same sentiments were expressed, which leads one to understand why Aldrich admits, in her autobiography, to being irritated by her columns being “used as topics for further development” by other contributors in the next morning’s edition.27 Aldrich’s newspaper career in Boston ended in 1898. When John Holmes, her steadfast supporter on the editorial staff of the Herald, was forced to leave his position, Aldrich decided to leave the paper also. Charles Wingate suggested she come back to the Journal, but Aldrich refused. She writes, “I had had all that Boston had, at that time, to give.”28 Finally, Aldrich got her longdelayed trip to Europe. She eventually settled in Paris, where she became friends with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. In 1914, Aldrich purchased a home, which she named “La Creste,” in the countryside outside Paris. Here she published four collections of her letters: Hilltop on the Marne (1915), On the Edge of the War Zone (1917), The Peak of the Load (1918), and When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1919), and one novel, Told in a French Garden (1916). Aldrich died at La Creste on February 19, 1928.

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From “A Harlequin,” Boston Home Journal, November 2, 1889, page 4. The New York critics raved so over Mansfield as Richard III that probably before this Mansfield must have wished that he had taken the Crookback King to the “metrolopus” instead of giving the Hub-ites the first go at it. In the meantime his champions have girded on their rhetorical armor and ridden tilt at the Boston critics. Judging by what has been said by these champions they find it impossible to see any difference between criticism and abuse. Because critics have not praised Mansfield without stint, what credit they have given him is returned “with thanks,” as not being at all the article desired. In the meantime a second seeing of the play does not enable one to think better of Mr. Mansfield’s conception of the role. As a spectacle it can be loudly commended, and as a spectacle it ought to draw, but as a performance of Richard III it is nowhere. Of course one can get much sport out of seeing a Richard go about doing the crimes which are set down in a book for him to do, and apologizing out of the corner of his eye for each of them, as one who should say, “I must do these things. Bill Shakespeare went and set them down — but, by Jove, I had rather not, don’t you know!” It is absurd to say that just because his work has been compared to that of other Richards, he has not been justly criticized. When that is said it is not his critics who wrong him, but his friends. When his friends assume that a young actor like Mansfield has a conception of one of Shakespeare’s characters which is superior to all those which several generations of able writers and gifted actors have contributed to the world, they make Mr. Mansfield absurd. It is too late a day to make discoveries about the Richard III of Shakespeare, and if Mr. Mansfield wants to play an historical Richard he must write a new play. In the meantime, his friends would do him more honor if they stopped holding tournaments in his favor, and said as little as possible about the clever fellow who is made by their injudicious talk to seem to say, “All you great actors of the last two hundred years, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, Macready, Forrest, and all the Booths, come down off your pedestals, and I will show you how Richard should be played. Behold!” I am not in the least belittling Mr. Mansfield’s cleverness. He is one of the best of all the superficial actors that I ever saw. He pulls the skin of a part all around him, but somehow he always shows through. Perhaps he wants to. He is vain; and so are most actors, but his vanity assumes a modesty


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which I mistrust. One Wednesday afternoon lately — before he opened his engagement — he wanted to speak to Miss Cameron, who was in a box at one of the theatres. The curtain was up, and the attention of the audience was on the stage, yet so modest was Mansfield, that as he made a dash from the entrance to the box, he diffidently held the side of his coat collar up to his face that he might not be recognized. I have been assured that it was modesty — that virtue so rare in his sex — which prompted the act, but there are those who believe that he was not willing to give any of the public a free night of the face which he proposed to get $1.50 per head for showing the very next week. The most amusing part of it is that so differently does Mansfield look on and off the stage that very few would recognize him if they met him on the street by any knowledge that they have acquired of him in the theater. I was surprised not to find a larger audience at the Globe Theater Wednesday afternoon to see the first performance of an Ibsen play, and those who failed to see it missed one of the most remarkable performances that has been seen in this city for a great while. It probably seems all the more remarkable because it was so unexpected. Well, the Ibsen performance has started the talk. Men who can never be urged into reading plays stood about the lobby of the theatre that afternoon and even the next evening discussing it. It had many elements to appeal to the masculine mind, and its treatment of a big subject admits of a deal of difference of opinion. One of the most notable characteristics of the play, and one which will be found in almost all of Ibsen’s dramas which relate to social questions, is their cosmopolitan spirit. They might take place in almost any spot on the civilized globe as well as in Norway. Those who had gotten an idea, because so many clever men have been analyzing Ibsen, that the works were too deep to be interesting were agreeably surprised at “A Doll’s Home,” and I have rarely seen a house more attentive, or — after the first half of the first act — more interested in a play. I think that a second performance of the play would be a more popular success, though I — who never saw much virtue in Miss Cameron’s acting — confess that I should hesitate to see any one else play Nora after her remarkable assumption of Wednesday. Nothing about the performance was more interesting to me than to watch its effect on the house after it was over. More than half of the audience expected another act. They could not realize that the play was ended, and when they did, alas for poor Nora — the abuse she got was something appalling. There seemed to be a universal feeling that Nora should have forgiven

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Thorwald and begun over again. No one seemed at all to feel the dreadful, but absolute, fact that her love for him was dead. There is an odd obstinacy about the world which will not confess out loud that love can die, but the person who has lived through such a moment, who knows the utter and irredeemable condition of a soul so shocked, will confess that there was nothing for Nora to do but that — since she is the Nora of Ibsen’s problem. The thirty-one hours of suspense and the shock of her husband’s rage had completely cut her off from all the past. One critic claimed that she deserted her husband because he was a man with a man’s ordinary faults and selfishness. That may be so, but it is not pleasant to believe that the average man believes the first accusation brought against his wife, and without once asking her if it be true, treats her as if she were the veriest drab in the world, taunting her with her father’s failings and thinking only of his own feelings. The sustained interest of the story, and its admirable construction, were hardly less surprising to the audience than was the artistic acting. The Ibsen fad may be said to be fairly afoot. By the way, when this play was given at a German town, they simply would not have the end. So it was altered. When Nora had just turned away to leave the house, the child cried in another room, and she paused with her hand on the door, but could not go. A moment, I suppose, and they looked into one another’s eyes, then another, and they rushed into one another’s arms. That is the general thing, but when that is done, Ibsen has had no cause to write this play. The course of events which has torn the man and woman apart, has been too clearly marked for such a denouement, however welcome to the theatrically inclined mind. The one reason which prevents people from being willing to see the necessity of Nora’s move lies in the fact that they will not see that that element in love which makes marriage decent — or perhaps it is more decent to say necessary — has died. A very odd thing about this, too, is that women seem more willing to understand Nora’s position than men do, or is it more able? From “Edward Hugh Sothern,” Arena, October, 1892, pages 517–531. On May 1, 1887, at the Lyceum Theater, New York [Sothern] was launched as a “star.” “The Highest Bidder,” his first play, had, in a way, a parental godspeed, for it was founded on a play found in the trunkful of manuscripts which the elder Sothern had left. It was originally entitled “Trade,” and was by Madison Morton, the author of “Box and Cox.” Its success even outran Mr. Frohman’s hopes. The play partook largely of the caliber of the actor. It aimed to amuse rather than to photograph life; and


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it amused so well that the reformers who were shocked at its conventional, theatrical tone could not make their protest heard for the laughter it excited. Sept. 19, 1887, Mr. Sothern played Bill in “Editha’s Burglar,” which launched into popularity Elsie Leslie, and Anthony Sheen in “The Great Pink Pearl.” Like all Mr. Sothern’s productions, this bill was given at the Lyceum Theater. Aug. 21, 1888, “Lord Chumley” was produced. Aug. 26, 1890, Jerome’s “Maister of Woodbarrow” had its first American hearing before it was done in London. Aug. 31, 1891, Henry Arthur Jones’ London success, “The Dancing Girl” was produced. Mr. Sothern’s four star parts are equally divided between the comedy which caught public favor for him and the serious work in which he is ambitious to be remembered. His “Jack Hammerton” and “Lord Chumley” owed their success to the actor’s personality, and after that to his humorous faculty, although each character had moments suggestive of an emotional ability. Each, too, was indicative of an incipient manliness that was winning. Much of this result was won by a truly fine nature, and a temperament much more serious than is usual in young actors. In each play the hero had moments of deep feeling, so sympathetically expressed as to shed a glamour of sentiment over one’s recollection of the performance, and effective enough to eclipse the incongruities in which the author and actor had joined to raise a laugh. In “The Maister of Woodbarrow” Mr. Sothern parted from his eccentric comedy, but only to take a step in eccentric drama, for the hero of that undoubted melodrama gave full scope to all the actor’s oddities. The last of his creations, which has been seen outside of New York, was the Duke of Guisebury in the “Dancing Girl,” three acts of which were an admirable study of a fine nature gone wrong. This performance is hardly to be judged by the standard of his previous work. He stepped quite outside his peculiar equipment to do a bit of straight acting, and it is to his credit that he took no liberties with the role. What his temperament could lend the character it lent it effectively. He was well bred, suggested always the ineffectual struggle between a right impulse and a weak going under to circumstances, an exact reproduction of the man who might never do his duty, but yielded to no one in knowing it. But with all that he lent the role to make it lovable, he failed to make it convincing. He evinced no inability to conceive the character, but the performance showed a definite limit in his faculty to express himself. In such a performance certain peculiarities of manner which have become a part of the actor’s reputation were in the way. For instance, a quaint dragging gait, a peculiar movement of the head,— oddities not fatal, but which the temperament of the actor is not yet strong enough to make convincing, became blemishes. It is true

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that great actors have risen above such peculiarities. Henry Irving, for example, when he played “Hamlet” much underscored his performance by his mannerisms; but they served to hold one’s attention, so that after seeing it several times one was inclined to believe “thus walked, thus spoke Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” Sothern has not that power. He is essentially a character actor, and I say it in no spirit of derogation of a man whose style is quite his own, and who can excite laughter without ridicule, and bring tears to eyes above lips that still smile. During the run of the “Dancing Girl” in New York, at a special matinee, on Oct. 22, 1891, Mr. Sothern gave his first performance of “Lettarblair,” which is now running in New York. The play is by Miss Margaret Merrington, a Boston school teacher, and the hero has a delightful brogue. On Nov. 11, 1891, he produced a monologue entitled, “I Love, Thou Lovest, He Loves,” written by himself, which made a great hit. Personally Mr. Sothern is a charming study. With his father’s sense of humor, he lacks his high spirits, being inclined rather to morbidness and sensitive shyness. Possessed of magnetism and that charm which binds his friends to him, he has none of that good fellowship which made his father a famous diner-out and a man popular with every one. He is keenly alive to the affection of his best friend, the public, that a poor house is a matter of personal grievance to him. He fancies it is his own fault, and suffers all the jealous pain of one fearful of having lost the affection of a dear friend. He is as nervous as he is conscientious, and no actor is more easily upset: a chair out of place, a fellow actor failing to look him in the face at the right moment, and a rehearsal is called for the next morning. In the monologue which he wrote, he displays not only his skill as an actor, but also an intuitive knowledge of the complexity of human nature and a decided gift for analyzing the human heart. In it he plays the Honorable George Wingford, a young fellow of some charm, much conceit, selfish as such men are sure to be, but not without sincerity. He is in love, but if he marries her he will forfeit his fortune. What is more vital to his sense of honor is the conviction that he has won a woman’s love. He could stand loving her after a fashion; but if she loves him, there is nothing to do but marry her. He does not want to marry; he does not want to lose the girl. The action of the piece takes place in the evening in the Honorable George’s rooms, and consists of his self-argument and self-examination. The business is amusing, the action constant, and a glimpse of feeling is discernible under all the selfishness and absurdity. When he has argued himself into a marrying frame of mind, he turns to his mail, which has all the time lain on the table. There is a letter from the woman in question.


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She tells him that she loves another man. All his misery has been for nothing. Natural consequence, the Honorable George is stunned and miserable; the woman accepted with such a struggle becomes the only thing worth having. Sothern has never done anything which better proves that in his personality is the root of his success. Nor did he ever work harder rehearsing a whole company than he did rehearsing himself and his “props.” He insisted on having real engravings on the wall, where the audience could hardly see them; he wanted half a dozen cigars, at twenty-five cents each, for each performance, that the Honorable George might bite them in his irritability and fling them away,— for the stage hands to pick up; and when his manager objected, he said, testily, “Very well, I’ll buy them myself ”; and he did. He would have a real lamp-post outside the window to shed real street lamplight through the Honorable George’s unhappy self-examination. Finally he capped the climax by preferring a piano organ to a barrel organ to play a street air under the window and be a target for the Honorable George’s bootjack. When Mr. Frohman arrived at the theatre one morning, he discovered the stage doorway completely blocked with the big organ which Sothern, with his hat on the back of his head, and the perspiration streaming down his face, was assisting into the building in order “to rehearse it.” From this it may be imagined that Sothern is a very bad first-nighter; but success does everything for him, and after the success of his monologues he forgot all the work it had been, and seriously suggested writing it into three acts and dispensing with the company. He has, in fact, done the three acts, but they are three very short acts, no longer than an ordinary curtain raiser. It is not very difficult to predict the future of E. H. Sothern. It will be to the end concerned with his personality. That fact limits, of course, his range of parts, but even then it leaves him more latitude than most actors take, for there is a long line of characters now waiting him, in which his personal charm may be found to stand well in the place, so far as the favor of the public is concerned, of naturalism or a mastery of Diderot’s ethics. It may never be safe for the actor to dare a close comparison with artists of more pliant physiques and less obtrusive personalities, nor is it likely that his acting will ever teach any great lesson in either art or nature; but it will always a little sweeten the hour, and help one to think better of human nature and the world. Though the minority still prefers to have sentiment in the playhouse a bit idealized.

z6å Dorothy Lundt [1855–1908] and Emma V. Sheridan [1864–1936] Dorothy Lundt is the pseudonym for Mrs. Evelyn Greenleaf Baker Sutherland, a newspaper and magazine writer and a playwright. She was married to John Preston Sutherland, M.D., in 1879.1 In addition to writing theatre criticism and commentary for the Boston Commonwealth, Lundt wrote theatre columns for the Boston Transcript from 1888 to 1896, and for the Boston Journal from 1888 to 1898. She also wrote one-act and full-length plays, such as Po White Trash and Fort Frayne, adapted plays from novels, and co-authored several plays with Beulah Marie Dix. A prolific writer, she also authored vaudeville sketches, contributed stories, poems, and essays to various magazines, and won a prize in McLure’s short story competition in 1894. Apparently before writing theatre commentary, or while writing unsigned theatre columns, Dorothy Lundt also wrote a medical advice column titled “The Doctor’s Visit” for the Commonwealth, in which she assumes the persona of a physician. In one particular column dated February 23, 1889, she cautions her readers against serving hot bread and bread made with baking powder, and reminds the readers of “one of the many advantages of having your family physician a woman, [is] that she can not only tell you what not to do, in domestic matters but also what to do, and how to do it.” Later in the same column, after recommending a fried dish to her readers, she refers to herself as a doctor. “I can see you looking amazed that a doctor should recommend anything fried,” and, again, later she writes, “As a doctor, I distinctly commend the use of fried foods” to be fried according to her suggestions. 2 In “The Doctor’s Visit” for March 16, 1889, Lundt writes, “I advise 88

6 • Lundt [1855–1908] and Sheridan [1864 –1936]

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my patients,” reinforcing the idea that she is a physician. Undoubtedly, much of what she writes in these columns actually came from her husband, Dr. John Preston Sutherland, Dean of the Boston University Medical School. More germane to theatre, also in 1889, Lundt was writing a column titled “Fleeting Shows.” In this column she wrote on a variety of theatre topics from her own reviews to comments on other critics, often admonishing them for what she saw as their weaknesses. For instance, in “Fleeting Shows” from January 11, 1890, she refers to her January 4 unfavorable review of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s play, Phyllis, and writes, “The curiosity I expressed last week regarding the fate of Phyllis has been very promptly gratified. Never was a more candid admission of unsuccess than its withdrawal after but a fortnights essay.” In the same column, she chides other critics for their “singularly youthful and indiscriminating” criticism of Duval, the hero of the play.3 “Through an Opera Glass,” another column appearing in the Commonwealth in 1889, but unsigned, bears enough strong similarities to later signed columns of the same title to be attributed to Lundt. This conjecture is supported by an announcement on January 4, 1890, an important date in Lundt’s career, for on this day, at the head of the “Through an Opera Glass” column appeared this notice : “With our present issue, Mrs. E.G. Sutherland (“Dorothy Lundt”) assumes the editorship of our dramatic columns [plural] and is recognized as the dramatic critic of the Commonwealth.”4 During this time, to be the editor usually meant that you were the writer, or “critic.” This column, which was and remained a regular feature, begins with a review of a particular production at a major theatre, then continues with a shorter discussion of another show at another theatre, then devotes short segments to various productions at other theatres. Every kind of performance from straight plays to musical and variety entertainments were covered. “Through an Opera Glass” was never signed after this first announcement of Lundt as the drama critic, while she always signed the column “Fleeting Shows.” Lundt’s style in both columns was direct and to the point, but not terse. She could arrange words with the best of them. She tried to cover the quality of the drama as well as the acting and the scenic elements, while often offering professional advice to the players. For instance, in her January 11, 1890, review of Gold Mine starring Nat Goodwin, she writes: The play is a pretty and smashing one, and Mr. Goodwin’s choosing to identify himself with it, and thus with high and genuine comedy, is such an immense step forward and upward that it ought to be crowned with immediate and thorough success. We have often taken occasion to deplore Mr. Goodwin’s waste and prostitution of fine and natural gifts, by using them to interpret only coarse and shallow farces.... Mr. Goodwin is not yet at home in his new sphere. There are

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moments when he suggests the discomfort of a Bohemian in a dress coat, when he evidently resents the forbiddance laid by his new art, on the old, easy, false, familiar ways of the farceur on which he has so long relied to win from his audience tribute of unceasing laughter.5

By 1893, a column titled “The Dramatic Week” seems to have replaced “Through an Opera Glass” and “Fleeting Shows.” This column at first appeared (during 1893 and 1894) followed by the initials “E.G.S.”; then in 1895 the column took on a new look. A fancy border headed two column spaces and surrounded the title “The Dramatic Week,” under which was the by-line “By E.G. Sutherland,” indicating that she was no longer using the pseudonym “Dorothy Lundt” for her theatre criticism. Also in 1895 appeared a curious little column titled “The Office Cat: Her Mewsings,” which was signed, “Dorothy Lundt.” Here she discussed many subjects and events of interest at the time, including politics and theatre. On Saturday, December 8, 1894, an “Announcement” appeared on page three of the Commonwealth that stated that “considerable additions have been made to the working staff of the paper.” Among the additions identified were the securing of “the services of a larger corps of reviewers,” among whom were “in the drama Mrs. Emma V. Sheridan Fry.”6 It is uncertain why the announcement of her addition to the staff came so late, because her column, signed “Sheridan” (her maiden name, which she continued to use, even though it is apparent from this announcement that she was married by this time), and titled “Wednesday Afternoon,” had been running since October 13, 1894. A trial period, perhaps? At any rate, the column ran until at least March 30, 1895. Emma Sheridan and Dorothy Lundt knew each other and were familiar with the work each did. At the end of her “Wednesday Afternoon” column for February 9, 1895, Sheridan reports “good news” about her fellow writer. “The writer lately and sadly missed from Commonwealth grows much better as the days pass. We may look forward to the time when “Dorothy Lundt” will again be a welcome signature here.”7 The writings of Lundt and Sheridan share common themes with other women drama critics of the time. One persistent theme is the acceptance of most women writers of the responsibility of being the bearers of the moral standard in that they instruct their readers on proper behavior. A second theme is the giving of professional advice to theatre artists. Another common bond is the view of women writers as chroniclers of social/cultural history. Emma V. Sheridan-Fry has been neglected by biographers and theatre historians. Little is known of her career except what is revealed in her columns


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for the Commonwealth. In the January 19, 1895, column, Sheridan writes of her first meeting with Julia Marlowe “in her first starring season,” and reveals some of her own background as a performer. She writes: We were playing under the same management. While playing Syracuse, a theatre of ours burned down at the “next stand,” giving us, to our mingled delight and despair a whole week’s vacation at Syracuse. I was not in the bill Friday and Saturday evenings. Miss Marlowe was playing at another theatre in Syracuse. I went to see her.8

Sheridan’s style, while sharing characteristics with Lundt’s, does differ slightly from Lundt’s, in that she often includes an apology for her criticism. For instance, in her review of January 26, 1895, after finding faults with Mr. Haworth’s performance as Hamlet, she writes: “Do not mistake that I presume to question the view Mr. Haworth gives of the character,” but she does, indeed, question it. Later in the same review she again apologizes for her views: “All this is said in no spirit of criticism or fault finding.”9 The second way in which Sheridan differs from Lundt is that Sheridan does not include herself in the group of writers known as “critics.” This exclusion is evident when she writes of “the critics” and what they may say. In this same review of Hamlet she writes: “I wonder if the critics will not decide that Mr. Haworth brings to the part a certain mental and physical equipment that may give us hope of a Hamlet to perhaps fill the eye and heart in time.”10 She explicitly denies being a critic in the January 5 column in which she admits to coming away from a Lillian Russell performance “with my head in a whirl. That is one advantage of not being a critic. Critics never get their heads in a whirl. And they miss such a lot thereby.”11 If the function of criticism is, according to commonly held criteria, to assess (1) what the playwright or production was trying to do, (2) how well was it done, and (3) was it worth doing, then Sheridan is, indeed, a theatre critic. Edwin Wilson describes a theatre critic as one “who attempts to go into greater detail in describing and analyzing a theatre event.”12 Sheridan’s columns also fit this definition. Her comments often included judgments on the form and function of various plays, the effectiveness of the players and production techniques used in mounting the plays, and the worth of the endeavor itself. On October 12, 1894, Sheridan writes: “It is a pity that in Sowing the Wind the dramatist has been unable to adjust the ... dramatic materials of his subject in a form that will more satisfactorily meet dramatic requirements.” She goes on to analyze the play’s content and the production elements for her readers. In all her reviews, she comments on the acting abilities and effectiveness

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of the actors’ interpretations of their roles. Her own theatrical background is revealed as she comments on source material of various plays, connections and common themes among plays (current and past), playwrights’ intentions and changing public tastes. Her February 2 and 9, 1895, reviews of Mrs. Kendall’s performances as Lady Clancarty and as Paula Tanqueray illustrate these points. In the earlier review she goes on at length about Kendall’s interpretation of Lady Clancarty for which she is unable to overcome a “completeness of selfpoise that robs any character she may play entirely of sympathetic appeal.... No matter how she suffers, the woman Mrs. Kendall plays seems always vastly able to take care of herself, though the play may not give her a chance.”13 In the later review of Kendall as Paula Tanqueray, Sheridan writes, “The very qualities that interfere with Mrs. Kendall’s sympathetic rendering of other roles make her a startlingly consistent Paula.”14 At the beginning of this same review she comments on changing audience tastes and reactions. So, my dear public, you are learning to accept the play — Mrs. Tanqueray. Do you remember how you all rushed to see it last year that you might rush away again and protest yourself shocked? Do you remember how, in the marvelous artistic and temperamental delineation of the character Mrs. Kendall gives, you found only offense to conventional taste? Of course you don’t!15

Sheridan goes on to defend the play as “noble” because “it shows you life stripped to its elements.... It is just this merciless truth of the play that makes it a noble play.”16 Both Lundt and Sheridan were very perceptive of and knowledgeable about theatre, and as able to write about it critically as were the respected and canonized male critics of the day. Women were writing about theatre in all the major theatre centers of the day, but have been overlooked as subjects of scholarly research. Reading the comments of these neglected gems of theatre criticism from the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century reveals a time in our theatre history both colorful and exciting, and gives a more complete picture of the theatre and our cultural history. From “Through an Opera Glass,” Boston Commonwealth, January 4, 1890, page 8. [With our present issue, Mrs. E.G. Sutherland (“Dorothy Lundt”) assumes the editorship of our dramatic columns and is recognized as the dramatic critic of the Commonwealth.] The past week has been signalized at the Boston Museum by the longanticipated production of Mre. Frances Hodgson Burnett’s new play, “Phyllis.” It must, at the outset of any discussion of the production, be not only


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mentioned but emphasized that the play was presented, and especially on Monday, at a marked disadvantage, and critical judgment of it, to be just, must be somewhat leisurely, not say its final word too soon. It is a familiar misfortune of the Museum’s “first nights”—“Hands Across the Sea” is an instance in point — that they are apt to be unduly prolonged; the play presented calling aloud for the pruning knife, and after-application of which makes it much more comely and praiseworthy. Add to this, that Mr. Mason’s illness, and even more the ill-advised rumor of his death, cast a shadow over both players and audience which must have been especially chilling to Mr. Errol Dunbar, called at so late a moment to fill the role of Barrington, and it will be admitted that no final verdict could be passed on the merits of “Phyllis” from a first night’s seeing. It is a sincere pleasure to note that seen later in the week, the play is found to be vastly better than its first impression. Judicious pruning has brought it quite within conventional limits, in point of time, and delivered it from not a little vain repetition; though there is still something too much of this, certain facts being stated and re-stated until one wearies of them. In this, and in several other points, “Phyllis” bears unmistakable evidence of being the work of a ‘prentice hand. It lacks quickness of movement, dramatic force, nervous energy; there is too much conversation for the amount of action; the spectator is allowed no surprises; being prepared, something elaborately, for all that comes. In a word, it is an acted narration rather than a drama. But by way of compensating beauties, it offers much; deeply poetical fancies, for instance, and delicate drawing of very human character, and speech which is — rare boon to the stage today!—“English undefiled.” It has no power to excite, to arouse;— a Schumann symphony is not more simply sweet and tranquil; but if there are among us still, playgoers who are content to be simply charmed, “Phyllis” will not be set down a failure. It is emphatically a play for the cultivated eye and ear, the sensitive mind; the gallery gods will find nothing congenial in its atmosphere. From “Fleeting Shows,” Boston Commonwealth, March 15, 1890. Between the acts of “The Arrant Knave,” on Monday evening, I scarcely knew which most to wonder at, as regards Mr. Steele Mackaye: his amazingly bad judgment in supposing that such a play as this could be made to “take” with a modern audience, or his courage in perilling his reputation as a practical playwright, in making the trial. He offers us his little glass of mild Tuscan wine, as confidently as if he had not discovered that such gentle, old-fashioned stimulant was out of fashion, long ago. It would be difficult, indeed, to find a single point in which “The Arrant

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Knave” appeals to the modern theatre-goer. It is open to condemnation on every side, as the critics have united, for once, in their internecine history to chorus him warning. It is coarsely sensational and melodramatic, and that offence our educated modern taste cannot tolerate, as the crowds which flock to La Tosca sufficiently evidence. Its humor is too rough and primitive, for us whom Hoyt’s dramas have trained to better things, and who have but to wait for the “Henrietta” next week, to see the subtle modern notions of humor, embodied in such incidents as the heavy fall of the lady whose lover rushes away from his expected support of her, to hear what news the ticker is bringing. It is even slightly indelicate at moments, and we, the bounds to which modesty are set by such theatrical acquaintances as Ibsen’s Dr. Rank, “with a blush retire.” Above all it deals with an epoch, to put one’s self within touch of which, requires some slight preliminary taste for and acquaintance with matters which — dear knows!— bore us quite sufficiently when Shakespeare, and unavoidable afflictions of his sort, call us to contact with them. Unpardonable offences, all of these, and from the just severity with which judgment has been passed upon them, it is to be hoped that Mr. MacKaye has been taught how not to do it, in future. I could not help thinking what a pity it was that Mr. MacKaye could not have been born early enough to set “An Arrant Knave” before that simple-minded class of theatre-goers who, a score of years ago, used to flock to enjoy such primitive, old-fashioned, romantic plays as “The Veteran,” “Hilda,” and a dozen others whose names, looking out at us from yellowing play-bills, move our now educated tastes to wholesome mortification, with the memory of what worthless trash they must have been, and what an uncommonly good time we used to have in seeing them. In those benighted old days, I could fancy an audience following even “An Arrant Knave” with genuine and innocent interest. From “Through an Opera Glass,” Boston Commonwealth, March 8, 1890, page 8. “The event of the week at the Boston Museum has been the production of Gillette’s new farce-comedy “All the Comforts of Home.” It must be admitted at the outset, that “comedy” may well be omitted from the descriptive phrase; the play being frankly and wildly farcical from rise to fall of curtain. In a note, upon the programme, Mr. Gillette acknowledges his indebtedness, for certain situations, to a recent German play; but he is, though without acknowledgement, yet more deeply in debt to that vast theatrical scrap-bag of stock incidents, from which playwrights in all ages have


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drawn bits to be dyed, restaged, and utilized in new combinations. The play is not wanting in originalities, of which its central motif is one; but as a whole it is a tissue of reminiscences rather than a creation. In particular we deplore the introduction of that damaged and shopworn joke of the would-be-unfaithful husband guarded by the ferociously jealous wife; a situation never very droll, and always very shady; the possibilities of which were exhausted long ago by French playwrights who have the courage of their immoralities, and whose resurrection by any theatrical humorist is usually a hint of approaching intellectual bankruptcy. The fun of the play springs from the tangled mutual relations of a heterogeneous lot of lodgers whom a young fellow, much in need of immediate money, gathers into the hitherto sacred precincts of his uncle’s elegant mansion of which he is left temporarily in charge. Among these curiosities are an opera singer of luxurious tastes and marked powers of fascination; an old musician in the last stages of nervous prostration; a retired produce dealer whose light minded reachings for forbidden fruit are baffled by his omnipresent and Zantippe-like wife; their charming little daughter, with whom the youthful landlord pro tem, falls in love at sight; and so on down the eccentric list. Flavor is added to the fun by a “protege”— how or why a protege and apparently on such terms of intimacy with his superior is one of the most baffling points in the whole medley,— of the nephew landlord; one Tom, a street Arab turned man-of-all-work; who by his antics, soliloquies and disasters fills up all pauses and keeps laughter in full chorus. It can readily be inferred that such a play forces the excellent company of the Museum to what they must feel a wearisome stooping to work far below the level of their powers. As was to be expected, they give the piece for all its value; and make it, indeed, more valuable than would be believed possible by the amusement-seeker cloyed with such productions. In their hands there are moments when the situation is so madly funny that melancholia itself would smile; and such moments are numerous enough to make “All the Comforts of Home” fairly certain of a run. Such a moment is that in which the injured wife sternly poses as a widow, tenderly counselling her children to think sometimes of their “former father,” while that erring and blighted individual is pleading, unheard and ignored, at her very elbow. Throughout, the acting is all that could be asked, and much more than is deserved by the play. Miss Clarke as the modern Zantippe, turns farce into comedy by the exquisite lightness of her touch; Mr. Mason, as the impetuous and afflicted young landlord is admirably easy and sprightly, with

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a hint of something much better in the pretty bit of arm’s length wooing of his little sweetheart, and in the hurling of the intrusive bailiff from the door behind which she has rashly concealed herself. Miss Sheridan, as the opera singer, makes a part which in less skilled and delicate hands would be disagreeable enough, brightly funny and safely discreet; Mr. Abbe adds a triumphantly good character sketch to this season’s gallery of his successes; Mr. Boniface is, so to say, conspicuously underweighted with an uncongenial role; and, each in his degree, the other members of the cast do work fine beyond the demands upon it. “All the Comforts of Home” will hold the stage until further notice. * * * * * If, at the Globe Theatre this week, one cannot say that those who came to scoff remained for devotional purposes, at least it is true that those who came merely to laugh, remained to be moved to admiration by many unlooked for and delicate touches of comedy, whose appreciation lies deep beneath laughter. The “Seven Ages” is of course in some sense a burlesque; but it is much more; it is a quaint production, elusive of classification, which gives opportunity for unlimited drollery, for changeful shows of scenic art, and withal for acting of a genuine, high, human sort, whose impression is instant and profound, and whose memory may justly claim more than the immortality of an hour. The thread which is the warp of this brilliant tissue, is Jacques’ famous soliloquy; the plot, if one may call it so, shows how a bright young college lad falls into a doze before his home fire, and dreams the “seven ages” of his own might-have-been life drama. Of course, Mr. Dixey is the dreamer; and in many of the “ages” through which he passes, Mr. Dixey does work of so sterling a sort as to rouse lamentation that the public gives him such princely bribes to bury his exceptional and fine talents under seas of frothy burlesque. This is especially true of the last act, where, as the “lean and slippered pantaloon,” warming himself at the ash-strewn glint of his fading fire, drinking with old companions a lear souvenir, fondling the grandchild whose face is his age’s sunshine, Mr. Dixey roused an emotion far foreign to laughter, and won tribute of silence more eloquent than applause. The supporting company is altogether excellent. In the unique character of the chorus, who, in lovely draperies, speaks the verses that bind the acts together, Miss Ellison won great favor, her elocution being most sweet and pleasing. The singing was tuneful and effective; the play beautifully staged. “Standing room only” will without doubt confront the procrastinating ticket buyer, during the remainder of Mr. Dixey’s stay.


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From “Wednesday Afternoon,” Boston Commonwealth, October 27, 1894, page 8. It is a pity that in Sowing the Wind the dramatist has been unable to adjust the magnificent ethical and dramatic materials of his subject in a form that will more satisfactorily meet the dramatic requirements. The lesson the play teaches is so enormously bigger than the play itself, and the situations in the play drive home the lessons with such electrical effect, that after all the play itself becomes a secondary and almost lost sight of consideration. In one way this is a big compliment to the author. On the other hand, one would like to have seen a play, great in absolute conformation to the requirements of dramatic construction, teaching a so really great lesson. Every time I go to the theatre I thank my fortune that mine is the happiness to take delight in what I see, uncramped by instinct to pick out what is wrong. The critical faculty so often degenerates into an inability to submit the mind to the emotional influence of the play, because the mind is not to be satisfied unless critically some fault can be found to offset all. But even one with the happy blessing of enjoying everything at the theatre cannot escape chagrin when a play so electrical ethically balks dramatically. The end of the first act, for instance. The curtain is brought down by a “situation” that is really a humbug, because the value of the situation is gained by the suggestion it gives that perhaps the father is dead as he lies on the stage; and as the second act progresses it transpires that such a suggestion is not one of the dramatic links of the play at all. There, too, is the end of the play. Rosamund has just said, out of her sad conviction, that the objection made to her marriage with Ned Annesley is as insurmountable and as undeniable, now that the father consents to the marriage, as it was while the father forbade the marriage therefore. She knows with a woman’s sad conviction that though the father and son condone — nay, even respect her — she is none the less the fatherless child of a woman whose career cannot be adjusted to the standards of society, and that these facts will subject her as the wife of Annesley to comment that she has no right to inflict upon her husband. One cannot spare the speech out of the play; it has its great value in the moral aspect of the play; but, dramatically, since Rosamund has thus expressed herself, she is stultified by withdrawing her refusal when Mr. Brabazon confesses her his own daughter. Potent, significant, all-sufficient as this may be to the three concerned, it in no way affects the situation as Rosamund had just stated it; she is still a child with no

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legal father; her mother is still the unfortunate and notorious woman; the world has as much to talk of as before, and the more fun doing it, because the Brabazon scandal will be revived. If the world’s talking was, as Rosamund had said, an insurmountable and inevitable barrier to her marriage, the barrier is still there, and should still insurmountable and inevitable. But, after all, this is only chagrin that so magnificent a lesson as the play teaches should have a balky mount. The rider, however, outruns the steed — and much honor to Mr. Grundy. Sweet Mary Hampton has the rare faculty of endowing her heroines with virtue without making them either mawkish or aggressive. She puts a gentle, human woman heart into the woman she plays, always. She has the faculty of never allowing her role to seem to assert a right for herself. I know of no one but Modjeska who has this faculty of suggesting an individuality so securely poised in its own gentle dignity that assertion is never either necessary or possible. I know of absolutely no young actress who could meet the tremendous third act of Sowing the Wind, and rise to the speech that almost brought even a matinee house off its feet, and do it by driving home the terrible truth of the words she utters and their wrenching of her own soul, without the faintest tracer of bitterness or of attack upon the man before her. This is the side of acting that most of you really do not know how to see, much less appreciate. But, believe me, though no actress with any degree of experience could make this magnificent speech ineffective, I know of no young actress except the gentle Mary Hampton who could attain the full dramatic and ethical effect of the scene, and yet present Rosamund in aspect so true to the high standard of womanly power and gentleness. She gave us this same suggestion of high womanhood in her Agatha at the Museum; hers is a greater triumph now, because Rosamund wakes to the power of passion and despair that Agatha never knew, and her poise of womanhood never wavers. Do you know — across the aisle from me there were two people, simply dressed as sanely bred looking folk, who to look at you would call ladies; and they were consumed with what seemed to be genuine and, almost irrepressible amusement all during the great scene. They laughed so that their well-bred sense of the impropriety of making themselves conspicuous was really in alarm. It was not hysterical laughter — one would understand that perhaps — but genuine appreciation of some comic aspect the situation or the acting presented them. When you realize that it is sometimes in the power of even one person of that sort in an audience to put a high-strung house into a disorganized hysterical condition, and that thereby


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the scene may be ruined and the players put to acute mental and physical anguish of humiliation and terror, then you will realize that there ought to be a law about who is admitted to a play. Oh, there ought, indeed! There are laws about people who would go into the Art Museum and fling low-bred peanut-shells at the pictures! Well, there are people who go to the theatre who have nothing in their heads or hearts but — peanut shells; and there ought to be a law about them too — and policemen. Sheridan. From “Wednesday Afternoon,” Boston Commonwealth, February 9, 1895, page 13. So my dear public, you are learning to accept the play — Mrs. Tanqueray. Do you remember how you all rushed to see it last year that you might rush away again and protest yourself shocked? Do you remember how, in the marvelous artistic and temperamental delineation of the character Mrs. Kendall gives, you found only offence to conventional taste? Of course you don’t! And neither will I; since at the Afternoon I beheld the many of you with handkerchiefs wet, and with faces sobered and terrified, as the terrible lesson of the play ought to wet and terrify them. It is one of the enormous levers the stage uses to lift the time, that in the pictures it sets before you, in the life it gives you, you may see and understand the values of things your own life cannot test for you. This play — Mrs. Tanqueray — is a noble play, because it shows you life stripped to its elements. Essential good and essential bad are laid bare. No one in the play is to blame for the tragedy that develops. Each character lives out its own law; and, because these laws can only exist in conflict that must destroy, the tragedy comes. In proportion to the violence done the original good in Paula, by her fall, is that fall terrible and irrevocable. Development of moral poise may be possible; recovery of it hopeless. Sentiment such as Tanqueray’s may undertake the task of restoring this poise, and the result can only be the ruin of all concerned. You are taught the terrible piteousness of the position of the woman who has left herself “no resource.” Who with the coming of age loses her only hold on such good as her life brings. Who when left without one little remainder even of prettiness to protect herself with has nothing in heart or soul or mind to set up between herself and hopelessness. To see and understand such a play is to hear read a creed of virtue high, merciless and unflinching. As to the characterization by Mrs. Kendall, it is dazzling in brilliancy,

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heartrending in truth. The woman no longer mistress of her mind or tongue, the creature of unrest (something of the same unrest Duse puts into her Camille) the soul sick of hopeless disease, all are set before you with unescapable completeness. The lack of mental and physical restraint that has followed lack of moral restraint, the brutalizing of soul and instinct that has followed the brutalizing of body, the essential difference this woman’s life has made in her, and piteousness of her own growing understanding of the difference are all made clear by a thousand details of expression. The emotions Mrs. Kendall arouses for Mrs. Tanqueray are as complex as the nature she delineates. The humanity of the woman, her swift merciless humor, her sick need of human love, her pride, her humiliation, her triumphant ill-breeding and unquenchable femininity combine to make a character that never for an instant misses our sympathy, yet never for an instant appears in other than its true light. It is just this merciless truth of the play that makes it a noble play. In our sympathy for Camille we forget the quality of the woman; but never for an instant do we forget the quality of Paula, forgive it, or condone it. The very qualities that interfere with Mrs. Kendall’s sympathetic rendering of other roles make her a startlingly consistent Paula. To consider her interpretation except as a whole is to become dazzled with the brilliancy of its detail. The Ellean of Miss Lea is, now and then, as startlingly a personality as Mrs. Kendall’s Paula. So consistent to its own laws has she made the character, that, even while repellant it makes an unerring appeal of humanity. Mr. Kendall seems to me faultless as Tanqueray. And whom have we of our own who is so completely poised in the bearing of the thoroughbred gentleman as is this English player? To see the Wilson Barrett production of Othello is to see the play hang upon Iago, and to wonder if that is not the way it should do. You will wake to the fact that Iago tells us every time just what the next thing is going to be, and that our interest in it is our interest in him and in how he will do what he proposes and how he will succeed. I have seen most of the later Othellos, and this was never made clear or ever suggested in the acted play. Also, I never saw Roderigo before. Oh, he was there, of course, as a sort of side issue to the plot. But Mr. Manning’s Roderigo is not there that way. He is there, very much a personality. Upon my word, I felt myself for the first time in the presence of the two characters during the scenes between Iago and Roderigo as rendered by Mr. McCleary and Mr. Manning. Mr.


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Barrett was a splendid picture of the Moor; and often, in the business of the part, Mr. Garrett was very much the Moor; but, oh dear! such a noisy Othello when the lines came. And alas for the noble blank verse! Even where one knew the lines they were unintelligible often. Miss Jeffries seems to let much escape her in the rendering of Desdemona. Especially in the later scenes, where she makes her only a very weak woman, almost ignobly afraid, and misses all the dignity and heartwounded terror of the wife. Miss Hoffman is a stately and beautiful Emilia. But, after it all, Mr. McCleary’s Iago is the center of the production, and the next remembered is Roderigo. And by the same token, I think Mr. Manning has yet to give us a characterization that is not to be remembered. Sheridan From “Wednesday Afternoon,” Boston Commonwealth, March 30, 1895, page 13. Miss Nethersole’s Camille was a personality to think about, discuss and remember. Having seen the lady’s Juliette and her Frou-Frou, there is still a personality to be thought over, discussed and remembered. But it is neither Juliette nor Frou-Frou; it is Miss Nethersole. In justice to the player’s gifts we must not judge her by either of these parts. A record of bewildering excellences and of almost equally evident faults is not significant as criticism. Miss Nethersole’s resources, as tested by these roles, are what must be considered. Her supreme gift is a quality of passion. This is the one gift that confers royalty. Two other women possess it — Bernhardt and Duse. Because of it they are supreme. Bernhardt is controlled by it. Duse masters it, coercing it to the absolute service of her art. Others show trace of it. Calve dominates Carmen by force of it. The exquisite sensitiveness of Miss Adams (Mr. John Drew’s Company) almost vibrates with the quality. Julia Arthur has now and then come under its sway. When Mary Hampton gets the chance we shall see it in her. Passion is the high light of dramatic power. Beside it, emotion, the quality which floats many a player, is a mere facility, mental and physical, for assuming the forms and signs of feeling. Passion is the exalted power to surrender, the very nature of the human being is transformed before us, riveting the attention. The one supreme concern of humanity is humanity itself. The one spectacle which to the end of time can shake us to the centre is that of contest between the forces of humanity and external forces. This is the intoxication of battle; the triumph of martyrs. This it is that gives the strange terror of interest to the mad-man, the suicide, the crea-

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ture who faces death. Show us a man’s soul in the grip of a great natural force, and, be the soul a very clown’s, we hold our breath to see, and our heart halts. The player endowed with passion sets at will this supreme spectacle before us. The outward form of expression will vary. But the riveting power will hold. If th e fusing quality be that of Bernhardt, we shall see it as a flame of nerve, a quiver of fibre, a supreme command of will. And in this form, if you will reduce her art to its vital elements, her power will display itself, no matter what the character she plays. Hence Bernhardt, irresistible always, in effect, is at highest value artistically when she plays the woman of tiger instinct, of barbaric luxury, of insatiable will. In Duse — and when I face trying to see anything of her, I feel as helpless as any rightminded ordinary person does at saying something of Shakespeare — in Duse this quality is as varied, in form and potency, as it is in human nature itself. It not only transforms the woman in the situation, but in each case passion operates according to the laws of the character assumed. And so the last miracle is performed, and one of her characters shows no trace of another. Like Shakespeare, she creates human beings. And Miss Nethersole is distinctly possessed of this gift. In its quality is set the limit of her power. It is neither the creative magic of Duse nor the barbaric flame of Bernhardt. It is not a thing of nerve and blood, as in Bernhardt, or of marvelous brain, as with Duse. It is essentially a gift of heart. And it is essentially of modern color. It is just this that makes her Juliette impossible, considered as Juliette. It is just this that makes her Frou-Frou a convincing, compelling, living creature, of beating heart, whether she is Frou-Frou or not. It is just this that makes Miss Nethersole the only woman on the stage, today, at all likely to meet fully the demands of the present and the coming drama. Miss Nethersole has by no means mastered her power to the point of coercing it to manifestation according to the laws of the character she assumes. Perhaps it must be questioned if ever she will do so. Meanwhile her characterizations show exhaustive research in the conception, unending effort in preparation, and tireless devotion in the rendering. For which, my friends, hats off! And for her royal gift besides, I lift my hand in salute. Sheridan

z7å Amy Leslie [1855–1939] Amy Leslie (Lillie West Brown Buck) enjoyed remarkable success as drama critic for the Chicago Daily News from 1890 until her retirement in 1930. Ben Hecht included her among “the finest group of drama critics I have ever seen.”1 Educated at St. Mary’s Academy in St. Joseph, Missouri, with additional training at the Chicago Conservatory of Music, Lillie West became a popular singer with the Grayson Comic Opera Company during the 1870s and 1880s. After the death of her only child, West moved to Chicago and, adopting the pseudonym of Amy Leslie, began her career in journalism. Her reviews and feature articles on theatre averaged two to three per week, making Leslie one of the most prolific women critics of all time. As the first important woman critic to hold a prestigious position with a major newspaper, Leslie was a model for other women with similar ambitions. Writing during a time when “the woman question” was a topic of daily conversation, Leslie can be seen as a transitional figure — a woman entering a new field while trying to maintain her “respectability” or image as a woman. Indeed, her writing reflects a traditional style, partly that of the woman writer of sentimental novels of the nineteenth century — descriptive, subjective and emotional — and partly that of the “new” twentieth-century woman —“masculine,” vigorous, and hardhitting, in the manner of the new drama then being written. Virginia Woolf could have had Leslie in mind when she observed that the female writer of the nineteenth century wrote with “a mind which was slightly pulled from the straight, and made to alter its clear vision in deference to external authority.”2 Leslie’s work provides a rich source for discovering one woman’s experience as she “veered from the straight” in deference to the traditionally male-defined profession of drama criticism. At a time when the dual impulses of progressivism and realism were affecting theatre and criticism, Leslie often reveals conflicting attitudes in her 103

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writing. For instance, she exhibits an ambivalence toward the changing style of acting, admiring the “old style” and at the same time praising “scientific acting” which called for an intense study combined with inspiration on the part of the actor. The theatre’s increasing shift to realism in form and content also brought out feelings of ambivalence, contradiction, or outright conflict in Leslie’s reviews. Part of her inner turmoil can be explained by her belief that “there is a vast difference between truth and realism.”3 Her review of an Ibsen play offered opportunity to explain the distinction. The Ibsen idea of truth is only its absolute denial, for truth is lovely and full of sun and glory. Realism is physical, material and might as well be kept in the dark where it can breed better thoughts than itself. Ibsen is not a truth teller at all.4

An important and unique character to emerge in drama during this era was the “New Woman,” a result of the women’s movement, the new status of women in business and the professions, and Freud. As an early “new woman” herself, Amy Leslie projects in her reviews the tensions professional women experienced caught up in the changes occurring in American culture at this time. Her written comments, on the surface, do not seem to be much different from those of male critics, but her motivations were different, influenced as they were by her class and gender. Her views are those of a woman struggling (as both object and subject) under the cultural influence of a maledefined profession.5 Through her support of fictional women characters who also challenged social conventions, Leslie’s reviews validate lives not wholly dependent on or defined by males. Her favorable evaluation of Maggie Pepper, for example, concerns a central character who is a sales clerk Amy Leslie as a young performer with the in a large department store, an Norcross, Grau and other light opera compaindependent young woman nies during the 1880s (photograph by the Chicago Daily News, used by permission of who maintains her own apartthe Chicago Historical Society). ment. During the action of the

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play, Maggie supports and reforms a wayward niece and sister-in-law, overcomes a threatened scandal, thwarts a criminal, saves a failing business in which she earns a position of authority, and wins the love of the young boss. Leslie describes Maggie as “a hard working, honest, wage earner,” a “person of discretion and honor,” and a “splendid type all through.”6 Of the play, Leslie says it has “the pleasant sting of absolute realism.”7 Through her admiration for such a character and situation, she legitimates a similar lifestyle. Read from this perspective, Leslie’s columns gave a platform from which to reject or reinforce conditions germane to the lives of women, working or not. Although Leslie’s comments must be interpreted in terms of a nineteenth-century sensibility, instruction on a conscious or unconscious level as well as entertainment was her goal. She expected her readers (sometimes a general public and sometimes predominately female) to take something from their reading that would be helpful. She often interpreted for and instructed her readers on how to behave and what to think regarding contemporary issues, much as the women “sage” writers (Austin, Eliot, and Allcott) did through their novels. Sage discourse offered a safe avenue through which she could publicly and respectably exercise power. Her reviews reveal a desire for a life — a reality — less offensive than that which women had experienced to date. Such a reality would include more equal treatment of wives, giving them a measure of autonomy and financial security instead of forcing them to remain dependant upon the desires of men. Three cases that come to mind immediately are her reviews of Buchanan’s A Woman’s Way, Broadhurst’s Bought and Paid For, and Barrie’s The Twelve Pound Look in which Leslie’s sympathies clearly lie with the women fighting against male injustice and oppression. Leslie functioned as an arbiter of cultural/social/sexual conduct for women during the Progressive Era. Her position as a “speaking subject” in a prestigious position gave her a certain power to influence behavior both on and off the stage. Her reviews serve as a platform from which she could attempt to impose unofficial rules and values upon her women readers as well as upon the American theatre. By choosing a male-dominated career, Leslie placed herself in the position of simultaneously occupying opposing positions. Her need to maintain a reputation as a “proper lady” as she worked for a living in the man’s world of journalism is revealed explicitly in the wording of her reviews and implicitly by what is not written. Her discussion of Ibsen’s characters, Nora and Hedda, for example, reveals Leslie’s liberal attitude toward separation and divorce, and her traditional attitude toward adultery. She supports Nora’s independent action of leaving her husband, indicating that, for Leslie, women

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do have a choice to not remain in an unsatisfying marriages. On the other hand, Hedda’s choice of an adulterous involvement is not an acceptable solution to unhappiness. By castigating Ibsen for creating plays in which “he reviles a man for being passionately attached to his wife,”8 Leslie reveals her own attitudes toward sexuality and a wife’s position within marriage. To Leslie, Nora’s only fault was to borrow three hundred pounds to save “a complete and objectionable prig” of a husband who should have cherished and protected a wife trying so hard to completely “fill his heart, his eyes, his senses.”9 The subtext of Leslie’s comments suggest that Helmer, or any man, should not place business or public appearances above the caretaking motives of a wife who is supposed to be an equal partner in marriage. Could not Nora and Helmer work things out together instead of forcing either to engage in deception for the sake of appearances and socially dictated gender roles? Leslie’s review shows that this question surely must have occurred to her and to her women readers as well. While struggling with the double standard in her own life, Leslie also struggled with the double standard as represented in popular dramas. Reformation of a sullied character became a popular theme in many plays of the period, but the reformation is accepted and allowed only if the character is male. When a woman tries to live down a “shady” past the results are very different. In contemporaneous society, a woman must uphold the ideals of purity and chastity; a youthful mistake even hinted at means “soiled goods” undeserving of the love of a good man. In Leslie’s reviews of Pinero’s The Second Mrs. Tanqueray and The Gay Lord Quex, she indicates that the lifestyles and characters depicted do not provide proper models for the theatre-going public, the larger portion of which was young and female. Whereas Paula Tanqueray killed herself (an acceptable solution for one in her position), Lord Quex is allowed to reform and find happiness with no further social stigma, thanks to the love of a good woman. Leslie must have wanted the same freedom from social stigma for women who wished to remarry after what some would call “past indiscretions.” Leslie’s reactions to the plays of Clyde Fitch, an American playwright who occupied more of Leslie’s attention than did Pinero, constitute another example of her playing social arbiter as well as critic. Between 1895 and 1909 she reviewed fourteen different Fitch plays in addition to numerous revivals of his work.10 Many of Fitch’s women characters could be called “new women” in that they are educated, witty, and accept responsibility for decisions made regarding the course of their lives as well as the lives of their families. On the whole,

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Leslie admired Fitch’s women characters because they did not often challenge traditional views; accordingly, she seldom criticized him for presenting an unflattering image of women on stage. Olga Nethersole’s interpretation of Fanny in Sapho (a Fitch adaptation) did draw negative comments from Leslie. She called Nethersole’s Fanny “intolerable, vulgar, and an erotomaniac of the most impudent and unmerciful sort.”11 Fanny is an erotomaniac because she, not the male involved, does the chasing, and is carried upstairs by a man with dishonorable intentions — in full view of the audience. Fanny sets a bad example for audience members because she does not behave as proper ladies are supposed to behave. In this instance, Leslie’s critical response to characters presented on stage legitimates the dou- Frank Buck and Amy Leslie, ca. 1901. This ble standard by supporting the picture probably announced the wedding of Leslie to Frank (Bring ’Em Back Alive) Buck, norms of behavior viewed as who was over 25 years her junior. They were natural. Because of her rela- divorced in 1916. tion to theatre and as a member of the press, Leslie is part of a “dominant bloc” that, by exerting intellectual and moral leadership, helps to shape the viewing audiences’ and her readers’ “way[s] of feeling and seeing reality.”12 Thus she perpetuates what is accepted as natural, in this case the sexually passive woman. She sees through the eyes of the “ideal white, middle-class, heterosexual male spectator.”13 In The Woman in the Case (1905) Margaret Rolfe is unmistakably the central character, and this time Leslie openly supports non-traditional behav-

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ior. Margaret upholds all that a wife should be — pure, sacrificing —“a perfectly womanly woman.”14 However traditional Margaret sounds, she is also non-traditional in that she takes the initiative and saves her husband’s life and reputation, something the males in the play seem unable to do. Leslie’s displaced, traditional male gaze shifts and her woman’s view takes over, indicating that traditional values are old-fashioned. She says the new ideas are being expressed by the villain in the play. “Claire, the chorus girl, said more brand-new things than she could have sung for a year in musical comedy so between the lines there is a private moral to observe.”15 Reading between the lines Leslie’s “private moral” becomes apparent; she agrees with Claire’s “brand-new things,” among which is the philosophy that a woman may willingly deceive herself if she tries to enjoy the same social privileges as a man. By sympathizing with Claire, even in such a slight way as attributing “brand-new” ideas to her, Leslie points up the inequality of the contemporary social codes concerning men and women. Leslie implicitly supports the idea that a woman’s past should be forgiven as is a man’s. By directing attention to the character who strains social propriety, Leslie is covertly rebelling against the confining definition of women.16 Amy Leslie continued her career as drama critic for the Chicago Daily News until 1930. After retirement, she continued to be a valued and colorful presence in the city she loved until her death in 1939. It is not possible in the space allotted in a book such as this to include more than just a hint of the richness of Leslie’s 40 years of critical writing. Amy Leslie was for many years the only The reviews included are intended woman drama critic in Chicago. This to offer the reader a sample of photograph is from around 1925 (phoLeslie’s traditional, yet progressive, tograph by the Chicago Daily News, used by permission of the Chicago Historical thinking about theatre and society, Society). and a woman’s place in both.

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From the Chicago Daily News, June 6, 1899, page 3. MAUDE ADAMS AS JULIET Shakespeare Amiably Denuded of Classicism To Suit the Thrifty Disposition Of the Times. A MOST INTERESTING STUDY Audience as Distinguished as the Typical Gatherings Which Applaud Mansfield, Irving or Bernhardt. It has come to be understood that nobody upon this busy cheek of earth’s wrinkled face wants Shakespeare and certainly nobody fortunate enough to be of the curiously enthusiastic throng convened at Powers’ last night, to enjoy Miss Adams in Mr. Frohman’s exposition of “Romeo and Juliet,” could complain in any measure of being afflicted with Shakespeare in his oppressively gigantic beauty. Attenuated to the exigencies of the hour this “Romeo and Juliet” is no intricate tragic poem in the stateliest verse ever penned not is it the glorified outburst of passion resplendent with tropical youth and the philosophy of race so vivid in classic interpretations of the same marvelous play; but it is a plentifully inviting study of the drift of taste and the possibilities of point of view uninterrupted by awe and veneration. All the literary sculpture in William Shakespeare’s art is reduced to warmly colored pastel, yet it is kept full of charm and slenderly accentuated force.

Miss Adams’ Great Success Maude Adams is the one modern consolation for the eclipse of the gothic in dramatic art, the entombment of lofty classicism and confounding of poetic ideals. She has the grace of intense devotion to her work, fine beliefs and a sparkling intelligence. She is sane and beautifully well balanced in endowments and she has that quality of temper and heart which approaches the possession of soul, and her negative elements are all the complaints to lodge against her. She has much in her favor, but likewise she is devoid of many necessities to an organization constituted to achieve the triumphs allotted to genius. She is one of the amazing financial successes of the stage who neither offends by sensationalism nor acquires by chicanery. She is an idol grown out of sweetness and mental purity and the wonder is how she ever clasped hands with the fretful, ridiculous American mob tagging around after baleful plays and morbid actresses; but she has and she fills the best moments of her worshiping hosts completely and

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unaffectedly. Of course Maude Adams could no more play Shakespeare’s Juliet than she could sing Wagner’s Brunhilde, but the heroine she lends to Mr. Frohman’s Shakespeare is a creature lovely as a flower, a trembling, temperamental child of the west, not Italy, of moods and hysterics, not poetic flights and passionate tempests, still adorable and stripped of the mysterious sufficiently to reach the understanding of this prosaic, material epoch. Her comedy is beyond expression captivating, and though there are no dazzling moments of illumination nor instants of pitch-dark tragic gloom in her Juliet there are lights and shades of the most engaging qualities and a power which, distant as it is from poetic imagination, is irresistible. She has been denied le fue sacre, but she is gifted with so tactful a sincerity of mind and so bewitching a talent and personality that her Juliet suffers only in comparison, which has nothing whatever to do with success. She has that magnetic “visible expression of joy” in her own work which is the tonic chord of all art, and her genuineness and brainy conclusions substituted for the usual igneous surprises of genius and dramatic intuition are rather the healthful requirements most Juliets lack.

An Episode A keynote to the entire scheme of Mr. Frohman’s extraordinary faith in Shakespeare properly court-martialed and regulated may be found in an episode occurring during the rehearsals of “Romeo and Juliet.” Miss Adams tried the potion scene and tried it over and over, directing her choicest powers to the end of intoning Juliet’s abandon to affrightening emotions, but each time Miss Adams was more out of tune with the entire magnificent scene and frankly despaired of depicting it. Suddenly Mr. Frohman spoke up and swept away tradition and difficulty with one delightful wave of his wand. “Cut it out,” said Mr. Frohman; “the piece is too long, anyhow!” After Miss Adams’ distressing exhibition of rant in this scene last evening it seemed rather regrettable that enforcement of Mr. Frohman’s intelligent vandalism had not spared Miss Adams the chief blot upon her performance.

Her Balcony Scene In the balcony scene Miss Adams was so exquisite and sympathetic that a predisposition to dismiss the rest of Juliet in a blaze of triumph brought the audience into an amusing state of indecision. The two episodes

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with the friar, even the chamber interview with the Capulet parents, the goodby [sic] to Romeo and all preceding the potion trial were charmingly enough done to warrant at least good taste, which for the first time in her career Miss Adams broadly offended by obvious, useless and despoiling rant. However, though without anything more than emotional fervor of a sensitive and appealing quality, Miss Adams partially redeems her Juliet’s tragic impotence by a very artistic and delicate handling of the scene in the tomb. There is enough in her slim American looking little Capulet to command intense admiration and sympathy, and some of her scenes were more beautifully executed than ever America knew them to be done until now.

Men in the Cast Mr. Faversham was about the worst Romeo I ever saw, and I have shared my nation’s calamity of beholding all the rest of them, dating from Barrymore back a decade and forward through all the queer Montagues to be reckoned in Barry’s class. Mr. Faversham twangs lonesomely away upon one shivery, colorless monotone, without ever changing or reading well or touching Shakespeare or depicting Romeo. Mr. Hackett as Mercutio read better than anybody else in the cast except Jepson, who was excellent. Mr. Hackett’s very clear utterance of the delightful young Veronese jester was the single survival of Shakespeare in this effacement of oratory by agreeable but iconoclastic modernity. Mr. Hackett was handsome and elegant, and except for the metallic, difficult method in his acting he came nearer entertaining after the old Shakespearean fashion than anybody in the cast. He overwrought the Mab speech and lost the dramatic values in “A plague on both your houses,” but nevertheless he was delightful. W. H. Thompson gave one of the most conclusively modern and interesting pictures of the friar ever dared. He was not Shakespeare at all, but exploited what splendid results might come of Shakespeare evicted from his own premises and preserved intact. His friar was a departure, a revelation in some respects, and a lovable, innocent old savant of picturesque mellowness. Carter made a diverting Peter and Campbell the oldest apothecary ever exhumed, with the youngest, strongest voice in Mr. Frohman’s “Romeo and Juliet.” Mr. Gollan quite out–Tybalted all the grewsome [sic] Tybalts of all time; Orrin Johnson read Paris tolerably, except the tomb address, and the retainers, followers and musicians were at least not in the way of the scenery, which is much to attribute to a Shakespearean production.


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What the Rest Did Miss Morgan came very near being funny as the lady mother of the frail little Juliet. Miss Morgan is candid and Italy blessed with her waxed amusing. Mrs. Jones was excellent as the nurse and such ladies as danced at Capulet’s minuet party wore pretty gowns and disported winningly. Of course, magnificently staged with a sense of fitness and many advantageous overturnings of the rules for setting the scenes and erudite elisions rendered the Frohman Shakespeare considerable of a hero with the fashionable audience. Miss Adams was cheered and petted all through the play, called before the curtain, welcomed royally and rewarded for her faithful labors in a stormy, devouring tragedy quite out of her compass, but amenable to her coaxing personality and her blithe, ardent intellect. From the Chicago Daily News, September 21, 1901, page 3. AT AN IBSEN MATINEE Blanche Bates Appeals to Chicago Culture and It Responds Handsomely. “HEDDA GABLER” GIVEN Superb Impersonation of the Reactious Heroine — A Bitter, Unwholesome Tragedy. Ibsen, in the very gloom of nihilistic philosophy, of realism studiously microscopic and shocking, of blunt truthfulness acrid with sincere literary art, is the Ibsen of the class, of the mental delver and the frenzied enthusiast, and Miss Bates, bearing the magnificent weight of Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” at Powers’ yesterday afternoon, came as one sent to these thirsty pilgrims. Many of them plowed their scowling ways to Powers’ with bucketfuls of ideas of their own and heads full of other people’s notions, and some came gaping solemnly without any ideas to speak of and each one left in beatific admiration of Miss Blanche Bates, in spite of the bitter splendor of Ibsen’s work of art.

A Study of Femininity Ibsen has two sorts of woman; one lies and would steal and kill only if she is afraid. This pleasant lady Mr. Ibsen owes to Schopenhauer, but elaborates her until she is perfectly bewitching in many of her more picturesque idiocies and her degeneracy. The other is so plain and commonplace nothing on earth would be likely to disturb her virtue or widen her

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sphere of endeavor. In “Hedda Gabler” there is a kind of maudlin approach to an appealing young person whose chief claim to admiration and pity is that she cannot live with her husband and wants to reform a drunken young gentleman who writes things and lets love get on his nerves. There are three women in “Hedda Gabler,” and it is a study of femininity as the Ibsen mental plunges always mean to be. Hedda being the dynamo furnishing the several volts for the brutal truths, psychological phenomena, tantrums and superb technical audacity and polish in the play. Hedda is of the abominable, fidgety, erratic, fascinating species of human cat who stalks capriciously in every community. She marries “because,” and there is no use wondering whether it is that the other men did not hurry up and ask her or that she was tired fluffing about without a man to have and to hold, or spite, or why, and she is full of venom for the good gentleman who has given her his name and a lot of money he had to get. That is not an especially new kind of woman. She is a moral coward. Ibsen’s women are always that, and the wisest, bravest, most unselfish thing she does is to shoot herself. It wouldn’t in the least matter who Hedda might have married; she would have given herself over to conniptions of one sort or the other, so it was just as well that dear, honest, blind Mr. Tesman happened to be “It” in Hedda’s game of social tag. She never touches Jorgen, who is too busy being agreeable to his relations and beaming upon earth in general and books in particular to notice that Hedda is not the soul of calm joy and wifely sympathy.

Characters in the Play There is the sturdy Scandinavian villain, persistent and glowering; there is the wild-eyed cynic poet, with his lady friends, bad habits, fierce passion and an awful thirst. Hedda loads him up and sends him to a literary party and hangs around till daylight expecting to behold him return “with vine leaves in his hair.” He arrives with police station scruffle dust in it instead, and Hedda presents him with a gun and chases the poet, dreamily believing that he will be good enough to kill himself and help her out in her hysterics. With these and germane threads of realistic deviltry Ibsen weaves a drama of absorbing mental interest. His dialogue is so precise and colloquial that is has a charm in its own simplicity and frankness. Uncomfortably domestic in the main and touching upon family secrets usually confined to evening prayers and connubial duets, Mr. Ibsen becomes physical and candid only to accentuate his social attitude, his spiritual convictions and

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deductions. Every scene, every act is concise and a living, breathing picture of argumentative virtue and deep philosophy. A brawling, shrieking undercurrent of human emotion does not stir the surface of this pellucid, cream-skimmed commonplace view of matrimony. There are no direct sermons, no special moral taught or judgment delivered; only this sullen, scarlet pit of unspeakable misery, with no warning to the actors near it, but a skillfully emblazoned edict thrust at the audience, all of which is intrinsically artistic and attractive as a structural perfection.

Miss Bates as Hedda Out of this maelstrom of passive, undeveloped sin and hysterics reels the character of Hedda abloom with emotions as unbridled as the steeds of the Valkyrie, altogether misunderstood and champing with unsolved frenzies, badly organized nerves and brain cells with no ballast, mental or moral. Miss Blanche Bates has made so deep and true a study of this Ibsen woman that she is almost wonderful in its subtle, clearly defined delivery. She is in perfect tune with Ibsen and the atmosphere she brings into the play pervades it like a perfume which glitters and has something of discordant music in its sweetness. The Ibsen woman repels all sympathy, all search for beauty or moral comeliness. Miss Bates fearlessly gives Hedda all these imperative attributes and by her grace, her art and sense of humor lends the unhappy creature a note of feathery gravity which in one point does Miss Bates strike a false tone, and that is, strange to say, in the climax of the drama as a study in emotions, where she burns the manuscript of her poet, who ought to have turned up with the vine leaves, etc. With the lightest, most charming touch Miss Bates opens her symphony of moods and she drifts beautifully about among the Ibsen mysteries clarifying, emphasizing and completely expressing the character; and except for that moment her entire performance was an achievement of brilliant mental tactics, of deep dramatic feeling and superb emotional power.

Other Players Good and Bad Mrs. Bates gave a motherly, complete delineation of the good aunt and was a relief in comparison to Miss Mabel Howard, who was as much out of the picture and atmosphere as if she had stepped in from a State street store and read the part from a book. She has neither force nor sweetness, neither sympathy, personal magnetism nor brains enough to see through the small rakish charm Ibsen has given to this singular little char-

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acter, with its frailties and its obstinate feminine strength. Miss Howard, in a pink hat embowered in roses lightly pinned on her trim hair and talking in a machine-like fashion, was enough to raise a riot among the Ibsenaniacs. She ought never to be allowed to play the part again. Albert Bruning did the smiling, unsuspicious scholar Tesman in a perfectly adorable manner. All the tender simplicity and gentleness, the faith, quiet temperance and beauty of the man Mr. Bruning brought out irresistibly, and Miss Bates shared her round of applause with him. Campbell Gollan played Assessor Brack finely. His depressing, barbaric personality, with its singular attractive ugliness and strength, happens to fit the Ibsen polite villain, and his reading of the lines was not only brilliantly intelligent but put Ibsen under obligations for a steady uncanny dazzle of cynicisms owed entirely to the reader. Eugene Ormonde pitched his distracted look rather in too high and sharp a key, though he played the part with fierce emotional speed and a feverish uncertainty.

Careful Work of Art In every detail the setting of the stage and the moving of the players the hand of a student and enthusiast was visible, Miss Bates herself being responsible for everything — except, it may be hoped, the offensive pink hat worn by the ingenue, which cried out to be removed for cause every time it bobbed into the picture. A debt of gratitude to Miss Bates for her courage, her brilliant talents and her ambition was amply repaid by sincere applause, and the big, earnest intelligent gathering which greeted her Hedda and reveled in so excellent a presentation of Ibsen. Of course “Under Two Flags” will be resumed tonight, there being only the single performance of “Hedda Gabler.” From the Chicago Daily News, February 7, 1906, page 4. GREAT PLAY BY KLEIN “The Lion and the Mouse” at Powers’ Proves to Be a Wonderful Success. MONEY POWER THE THEME Margaret Illington and Arthur Byron in Cast Presenting Typical American Work. Ten times the curtain rose and fell on the third act of Klein’s play at Powers’ last night.

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After as perfect a work of dramatic literature and art as the third act of “The Lion and the Mouse” a nation might lift its hat to the author, and Charles Klein’s beautiful, virile, irresistibly intellectual play is ours. American to the core and a classic in dialogue, a sermon in modernity and a spirited, brilliant example of structural distinctness and elegance the like of which no play of this decade can approach. Klein seldom addresses the public or approaches literature unless he has something to say. He is not a pot-boiling rusher into a dozen failures covering one success, but he always scores.

One of Best Plays Ever Written “The Lion and the Mouse” is not only the greatest American play, but plays ever written in any language. Every desirable sense is thoroughly roused by the charm, the delicious humor, the pretty sentiment, the truth, the moral, the tincture of academic teaching in finance, the law, actualities of humane obligation and the sounding of new melodies in the blunter symphony of existence. It is fresh, untrammeled, in faultless English and of such vitality and sturdy ethics that just listening to the story, following the epigrammatic exchange, of valuable ideas, lending an eager mind to the varied delight, in “The Lion and the Mouse” is a lesson for youth and a guide, a rebuke, to sordid experience.

Tarbell Episode the Foundation Mr. Klein is the only one of the playwrights chewing their pencil ends and railing at the paucity of subjects who had the sense to seize upon the episode of Miss Tarbell and her financier victim of publicity, as foundation of a national, modern and timely dramatic essay. He has done it courteously and with a sympathetic grace which almost amounts to an explanation of the trying position of both the participants in the courageous sensational encounter. It is only vaguely hinted as the fountain from which the genius of Klein has quaffed prolifically and intelligently. It is a model of capital playwriting. There are four acts and the rich, absorbingly interesting and witty dialogue in never thrown in to be smart or excite argument or offend or inveigle theatrically. It is actual, perfectly legitimate, natural talking done by men and women who are flesh and blood and of the pulsing hour new. Its dexterous speed gives it a rational logic and charm aside from its literary elegance which is not only convincing but an endowment to modern drama.

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Wonderful Character Building Such a steady hand has the author governed in sketching his characters that each one is a breathing, living individual not a photograph type and the beautiful truths he spins one after the other like the quoit pitcher’s discs into the wonderful atmosphere of his play, act like a tonic on the mental excitement of admiration. Applause, laughter, intense interest and feeling of one evening well passed literally shout the pleasure of the audience at the author and when cheery little Klein came out to bow when enthusiasm shouldered him before the curtain he bowed under quite the most sincere applause and approval any author has received on this side of the water.

Capable Company Provided Harry B. Harris provides Mr. Klein with a company capable of passing his splendidly arranged sequences over the footlights as he is of building them. It is a venture somebody should have dared before now. Mr. Harris gives us at Powers’ a play which otherwise would not be delivered here perhaps for several years. Margaret Illington fairly scintillates in the role of Shirley, the sagacious young person who outwits the indomitable emperor of finance. Could a flaw be picked in the whole theme of the play it might be the bestowal upon this inexperienced though brainy girl not long from school a development of the sixth sense as well as knowledge of humankind, which could hardly come to a child in her teens who had been raised on a bed of roses. However, Mr. Klein enlightens her through perfectly feminine instincts, intuition, American shrewdness, sympathy and a captivating, polite courage. Miss Illington grows ruddily and in buoyant mental and emotional strength. She plays this part with delicious humor, fine power and deepest sympathy. The first scene with the financier Shirley cleverly sharpens her little daggers, sheathes them and prepares for lightning conflict. Her wit is purling and chic, girlish and prettily evanescent. Her bright repartee, sage answers and penetrating logic are normal and immensely educational. Miss Illington handles these varied shafts with arch delicacy and force, and, as in the first tamer act, she bubbles over attractively with suppressed emotion and threatening tears. Her greatest work came with Klein’s greatest tour de force, the third act, when, with daggers drawn, Shirley proceeds to drive her splendid antagonist into quarry and leave him no quarter.

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Arthur Byron’s Strong Part Miss Illington shone resplendently in her youth and evenly balanced talent and Arthur Byron as John Burkett Ryder was superb every instant he occupied the stage. The financier’s conquering glance, before which they all quail, his fine, keen, sanity, his czarlike expectation of submission before his authority, his open mind to recognition of equal power and his rather optional justice, Mr. Byron expressed vividly and brilliantly with serious humor, with rare manliness. The thirsty, ravenous, crushing rapacity of the man of money lurks in ambush in Byron’s eyes, his pale, serious countenance and the swift leonine impatience of a conqueror expressed in every lineament, beating in every work, Mr. Byron emphasized with splendid art. It is by far the greatest work Arthur Byron has ever done.

George Parsons and Others George Parsons plays the son of this monumental gold machine with great charm and youth and intelligence. It is a gracious part to play and has all the true Americanism in its heart without any spread-eagle screech or star-spangled buncombe. Its wit, sentiment and boyish daring were quite in Mr. Parson’s way, which is the best way. Joseph Kilgour, very handsome and amusing, was delightful in the role of a sort of elegant bouncer who kept the rabble from cornering the financier from his lair to his livery and all over his own house. Kilgour’s neat London accent and humorous lights upon the Klein wit were irresistible, and though real things were happening all the time in the play and nobody was missed, it seems a pity and a little more of Kilgour’s British drawler might not be cultivated.

Others Excellent and Fleeting Among others excellent and fleeting in the plot were A.S. Lipman, W.H. Burton, P.S. Barrett, Florence Gerald, Miss Bowley, Grace Thorne and Edith Shayne. The delightful play is set tastefully and is worth all the time amusement seekers care to lend to remarkably intelligent and brilliant plotting, but money is not especially productive of literary or dramatic interest unless it is swathed in villainies or romance. It is seldom funny and never pretty. About the only way to make plain, unadulterated, sure money picturesque enough to put in a plot is to put it in full sight and

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everybody be allowed to kick it all over the stage except the man who made it. This is what they all do in “The Lion and the Mouse” and it is a regular copybook stuff for advice, for correct influence and genuine candor. It has none of the obvious clowning of “The Henrietta” nor any of its bitter dregs. It is sweet, royally energetic and radiant with truth pleasant to hear.

z8å Lucy Monroe [1865–1950] Lucy Monroe was the daughter of Chicago lawyer Henry Stanton Monroe, who became U.S. Minister to China, and Martha Mitchell Monroe. In 1893, she became Chicago’s first correspondent for the New York journal, The Critic, a magazine devoted to literature and art. In the column announcing her new position, the editor, Jeanette Leonard Gilder, stated: “With its issue of this week, The Critic makes a new departure by recognizing the claims of Chicago to consideration as a literary center.”1 Through her weekly column entitled “Chicago Letter,” Monroe did her best to prove to their “big sister city” in the east that Chicago was every bit as culturally advanced as New York. According to Sidney Bremer, her biographer in American Women Writers, her columns were “unified by an implicit theme — the coherence of Chicago’s cultural development.”2 From March 1893, her “Chicago Letter” appeared regularly for 125 weeks, then nine more were published after September 1895. Her earlier columns were, of course, devoted to the biggest event taking place in Chicago at this time — the Columbian Exposition. Monroe traces the preparation of the major structures and exhibitions, the varied and lively celebrations, and the final destruction by fire of some of the major buildings of the World’s Fair Columbian Exposition. Mixed with these comments, Monroe also reported on art exhibits, symphony performances, library openings, novels, little theatre, activities at Hull House, and various lecture series called “academic congresses,” many of which included theatre people. Often interspersed within these commentaries were Monroe‘s opinions on the biases of art juries, the argument between government and art, and the suffrage movement in Chicago; all the while she was being fiercely defensive of Chicago’s position as a cultural center. Monroe’s first column was devoted primarily to the new novel by Henry 120

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Blake Fuller described as “a realistic novel of Chicago life,” The Cliff Dwellers. She writes that “Mr. Fuller has discovered a country practically unknown in fiction.” She goes on to remind her New York readers that “there is material enough in Chicago for novelist and poet — material worthy of the highest aspirations of realist or idealist; it is only waiting for the selective, vivifying touch of the artist.”3 Although intended for readers in New York to counter the “uncivilized” image they had of Chicago, one can also find comments aimed at Chicago readers as well. In this first “Chicago Letter” Monroe seems to be aiming a good bit of advice toward the “hometown crowd.” She writes: The social and intellectual energies of the city are curiously commingled, and there is no stratum of society which can afford to be contemptuous of the pursuit of culture or to ignore the aristocracy of brains. This fact is responsible for curious anomalies at times, for the juxtaposition of irreconcilable characters and the harnessing of singular temperaments, but it is a wholesome influence nevertheless, a stimulus which will have an important effect upon the mental growth of the city. No new problem is attacked half-heartedly here, and the energy which might be expended on nobler objects is sometimes thrown away upon a fad of merely transitory interest. But at this end of the century any enthusiasm is welcome.4

Although the subject matter of her letters ranged far and wide over Chicago cultural events, more pertinent to this study of American women drama critics are Monroe’s comments on theatre in Chicago in the 1890s. She frequently included short remarks about theatre happenings and theatre people in her columns devoted to other subjects, but sometimes devoted entire letters to a particular play or theatre personage. How to classify her in the theatre world is a problem. Obviously writing for readers removed from the event by both time and distance, she cannot be called a “reviewer,” and the brevity and paucity of her comments on theatre argue against calling her a “critic.” However, I am siding with those who consider her a “theatre critic,” for her comments do reflect thought and analysis of the art form, rather than an immediate response in order to build an audience. She had an understanding of theatre as an art form, and was quite capable of analyzing the drama, the production techniques, and the performers. In her column devoted to the first performance in America of Sudermann’s Magda, she called this event one “of more than ordinary moment” because of the “quality of the work” and because Sudermann was virtually “unknown on this side of the water.”5 These comments are a mild reminder to her readers that not all premieres are in New York. Of the play itself, Monroe thought it “one of the most virile dramas that have been written for

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the modern stage ... and “a study of character as affected by peculiar conditions.”6 Monroe also challenges other Chicago critics if she disagrees with their assessment of the play. In the review of Magda she chastises one unnamed critic this way: “The play is very far from being, as one of our critics called it, an exaltation of sin. Such a view of it is worse than superficial.” She names one critic with whom she agrees, Elwyn A. Barron, drama critic of the InterOcean, who “sees far more clearly” the power of Sudermann’s play. In contrasting the play with A Doll’s House and Camille, she agrees with Barron when he says that “Ibsen ... is a pessimist and morbid; Dumas is a sensualist and ideal; Sudermann is a vitalist and true.”7 While this may seem to indicate a dislike of Ibsen, Monroe spoke supportively of two of his plays that were given in Chicago for the first time. To her, plays of this nature were good theatre in spite of her feeling that Ibsen was “morbid and pessimistic.” Of Beerbohm Tree’s production of An Enemy of the People, she writes: It was life, condensed and concentrated — one of those small, piteous episodes that became colossal in their appeal to humanity. The characters are types, possibly not alone to Norway, but to any section of the civilized modern world. They are evolved through natural processes and express elemental emotions, yet they are moderns every inch of them. It is of the civilization of the latter end of the nineteenth century that they speak in terse, trenchant, sombre eloquence.8

Again we see her willingness to embrace the new as she attempts to convince New York readers of Chicago’s cultural maturity. The second Ibsen production of which Monroe writes, The Master Builder, which she calls the first American production of the play, was given by students in the classical department of Beloit College. After commenting on the successes and failures of the young cast members, she says of the play itself: It was curiously interesting to see it on the stage, this phantasy with so much of the earth about it, this god with feet in the mire.... There is something here of the influence of mind upon mind, something that eludes us as we think to grasp it. But the dominant idea is the development of this strenuous, ambitious character, crushing everything that comes in its way, fortunate, successful, yet morbid and miserable.9

In her review of Ibsen, Monroe also comments on the Chicago audience and Chicago theatre managers who complain that “good work is not appreciated.” Her feeling is that “if great dramas are brought to the people, they are ready to receive them,” and she reminds her readers of an earlier “letter” in which she proclaimed that “we may be on the eve of a great dramatic epoch” and the “twentieth century may find its voice upon the stage.”

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Further in the review she indicates her feelings for work like Ibsen’s versus the common fare at the theatres in Chicago: “It was an inexpressible relief to see a play of this kind upon the stage after the unnatural atrocities that usually degrade the sacred name of art.”10 Monroe did review productions of lighter fare, also. On October 6, 1894, she devotes her “Chicago Letter” to two productions: His Grace De Grammont, by Clyde Fitch, in which Otis Skinner “made his debut as a star,” and Tom Taylor’s Lady Clancarty starring the Kendals.11 In addition to assessing each play, she also reminds her readers of Chicago’s energy and modernity. Mr. Kendal’s acting is praised as “eminently satisfactory,” but Mrs. Kendal does not fare as well. Monroe reports that “Mrs. Kendal is also handsomely adequate, except in her transports of grief, which are always rather childish.”12 Monroe mentions her fellow critic, Elwyn Barron, again in a November, 1894, column in which she discusseshis talents as a playwright. According to Monroe, Barron had written the play titled When Bess Was Queen for Mme. Rhea, who was to perform it in Toronto. Based on her reading of the play, Monroe calls it “a daring experiment,” and says its “construction is skillful,” although to her the play is “assuredly unreal and improbable,” with “adequate setting and actors it could be made a charming idyllic performance.”13 In her discussions of Ibsen’s realistic dramas and the traditional melodramas, we can see conflicting forces at work in Monroe — her praise and yearning for the new (indicated by her many references to “modern” and “in touch with our own restless civilization”) and her longing for the older, simpler way of life (as indicated by her liking of “old-fashioned melodrama”). According to Werner Berthoff in The Ferment of Realism, this bifurcation of desires affected all women at this time. In his book, Berthoff calls women at the turn of the century “hostages to social propriety” who, for relief from the betrayal of “the official creed for equal opportunity,” turned to “a network of reserve loyalties and counterattachments surrounding and constraining ... realism.”14 Monroe had very little to say about realism in the theatre, although she admired the “new” plays that played Chicago. Her comments on realism were more often concentrated on novels and lectures. In May of 1894, she reports on the lecture given by Brander Matthews on “The Conventions of the Drama” in which “he took occasion to plead for imagination in art,” a faculty that is “quite necessary to the realist as to the idealist.” Monroe agrees with him, and adds: “But it is just this that the professed realists seldom appreciate. It is only the greatest of them who have learned the art of selection, or even think it necessary to study it.”15 One month later, in her discussion of Hamlin Garland’s new book, Crumbling Idols, she states that Garland prefers the

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term “veritism” over realism, but she has “yet to discover that he means by it anything essentially different from realism. He does not believe, apparently, in selection.” From these remarks, one can gather that she preferred a selective realism to the delineations of the “ugliness and warfare of the present.”16 (Apparently, Monroe had not yet seen a production of Ibsen’s Ghosts.) This brief study leads one to conclude that the cultural reputation of Chicago in all the arts owes a great deal to Lucy Monroe. Her weekly letters to The Critic comprise an account of the cultural scene at the turn of the century which must be accredited with having spread the word about the blossoming of theatre and all the arts in Chicago at a time that did, indeed, rival New York City. Lucy Monroe’s motto, as she enthusiastically encouraged American art and artists in the town she loved, could well be “any enthusiasm is welcome.” From “Chicago Letter,” The Critic, December 9, 1893, page 184. The first performance in America of a drama by Hermann Sudermann is an event of more than an ordinary moment, not only because of the quality of the work itself, but also because the writer’s name is almost unknown on this side of the water. In producing “Heimaath” (or “Magda,” as it is called in English) Mme. Modjeska has added a character full of dramatic possibilities to her repertoire, and at the same time done us an invaluable service. The play is one of the most virile dramas that have been written for the modern stage — so well constructed that it holds one’s interest from start to finish, so admirably conceived and executed that it epitomizes the contest between the old regime and the new. Eminently a study of character, it is also a study of character as affected and developed by peculiar conditions. The contrast between the quiet, plodding village life, with the narrowness it begets, and the meteor-like brilliancy, the warmth and sympathy of an artistic temperament, which has battled with the world, is well brought out; and one of the most effective points in the play is the way in which the father’s will is reproduced, to thwart him, in the daughter. His will, given full sway in his tyranny over his household, has hardened and narrowed him, intensifying his passions. Magda, on the contrary, tried by fire, experiencing the extremes of misery and revolt, knowing the generosity and the cruelty of the world, develops through her suffering and her sin. She makes “her stumbling-block a stepping-stone” to a nobility of which her virtuous father cannot understand the first principles. His perverted sense of honor, true as it is to his character and environment, seems like madness beside her calm reason, her integrity, her superb scorn of base motives. “It is only through sin we can grow,” she says to the great-hearted

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rector, adding immediately:—“To become greater than our sin is worth more than all the purity you can preach.” Nevertheless, the play is very far from being, as one of our critics called it, an exaltation of sin. Such a view of it is worse than superficial. “Magda” does not for a moment show the beauty of sin, only the misery resulting from it; but it does show the chastening and uplifting influence it may have upon a fine, strong, willful nature. Another critic, Mr. Elwyn A. Barron of the Inter-Ocean, sees far more clearly when he says:—“After all, he that subdues and re-creates himself is greater than he that takes a walled city. Sin is not necessarily death; it may be the gateway to a greater life if the power of the soul be genuine enough.” The same critic contrasts this play with “A Doll’s House” and “Camille.” “Ibsen,” he says, “is a pessimist and morbid; Dumas is a sensualist and ideal; Sudermann is a vitalist and true.” The first deals with emotions minus moral sensibility; the second deals with passions plus moral sensibility; the third deals with principles that pervade but survive passion and morals. The first affects a desire to reform that which is beyond the reach and comprehension of the reformer; the second plays with the contrarieties and inconsistencies of man’s nature, for the artistic entertainment it affords him; the third submits to us certain well-understood conditions and shows us how possible it is to make them the inspiration of high resolves and noble achievement, instead of permitting them to become the forerunners of perdition. The first of these is a preacher not divinely ordained; the second and third are historians, the one of the superficial, the frivolous, the vain; the other of the substantial, the serious, the significant.” Though she does not rise to great heights and cannot illuminate the magnificent role of Magda, Mme. Modjeska interprets it sympathetically and with a fine sense of dramatic fitness. With the exception of the man who plays the rector, her company is good, and Mr. Otis Skinner makes an excellent Major Schubert. From “Chicago Letter,” The Critic, October 6, 1894, page 230. In “His Grace De Grammont,” in which Mr. Otis Skinner made his debut as a star last week, Mr. Clyde Fitch has made use of the fascinating Count who bewitched the decadent court of Charles II. He has attempted to reproduce the period, with some modifications, undoubtedly, of its liberty of speech and its vulgarity, and he succeeds in giving us a delicate and graceful picture. It is toned in a higher key, the shadows are less ominously dark, the lights less bewilderingly vivid. So that the sketch of the frivolous, pleasure-loving court is a rather engaging one, with the charm of it concentrated and epitomized in the dashing figure of Grammont. Mr. Fitch

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has evolved the spirit of his play from the famous “Memoirs,” but not the action. That turns upon the rivalry between the irresistible Count and his lord the King for the love of the fair Mistress Hamilton. The first act follows the “Memoirs” closely, and nothing could be prettier than the meeting between the Chevalier de Grammont and the Hamilton. By the King’s request he dances the stately gavotte with her, and, as the chronicle has it, “he soon found that he had seen nothing at court before this instant; he asked her some questions, to which she replied; and as long as she was dancing, his eyes were fixed upon her.” In the play he forgets the dance in his absorption in the lady, until recalled to himself by the laughter of the courtiers. The scene was gracefully handled and the dance most effective. But the dramatist soon leaves the chronicler behind. Grammont becomes furiously jealous of the King, and, in a fit of rage over his presents to Miss Hamilton, utters numerous treasonable sentiments. Charles, meanwhile, is concealed in the shrubbery and appears as the angry Count concludes his flattering remarks. This is Mr. Skinner’s most telling situation, and he treats it with a truly imaginative appreciation of its dramatic significance. His first impulse of rage, as from man to man, gradually subsides into a reluctant recognition of the Sovereign, which calls forth his elaborate and graceful salute in removing his hat. His politeness is exaggerated a trifle to emphasize the irony of his remark, “His Majesty has done me the honor of eavesdropping.” The situation is most dramatic, though its effect depends more upon the acting than upon the play itself. The last two acts contain nothing so good as this. One grows weary of the two women who form the low comedy element, and the arguments which at the end induce Charles to forgive the Count and permit his marriage, make an amusing anti-climax; they are a little too true to the spirit of the time and the character of the tainted King. Mr. Fitch has built his play out of flimsy material: its plot is slight and improbable; but he has handled it so deftly that the result has some of the stately grace of the time he depicts. Its atmosphere is quite foreign to us, its manners are the manners of other days; and yet the point of view, at least, is modern, and something about the play puts it in touch with our own restless civilization. It is well staged, and the carefully designed costumes are especially beautiful in color. The company is moderately good, though lacking in the requisite distinction. It contains, however, two interesting women. Mr. Otis Skinner, himself, is well known in New York. His acting is careful and scholarly, and, though it has not the fire of genius, it has sincerity and indicates that he will win for himself a bright place among our romantic actors. It is pleasant, too, to find a young actor who has courage enough to produce American plays.

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At Hooley’s Mr. and Mrs. Kendal have been giving a performance that is also new to this country. They have revived Tom Taylor’s delightful melodrama, “Lady Clancarty,” and given it a sumptuous setting. The period is that of William III, and the action is an intricate medley of plots and counter-plots, betrayals and arrests, dangers and escapes. In fact, it is a fine old-fashioned melodrama, where the villain is uncompromisingly horrid, the heroine always faithful and devoted, and the hero noble and magnanimous. It is delightful to be under its spell, to lose oneself in a world where fate is just and righteous, where loyalty is rewarded, and courage and honor are exalted. Mr. Kendal never appeared to better advantage than in this picturesque role: he makes it less dashing and more stately, perhaps, than the author intended, but his dignity and distiction (sic) are eminently satisfactory. Mrs. Kendal is also handsomely adequate, except in her transports of grief, which are always rather childish. The love-story, however, is particularly charming, dealing as it does with the reunion of husband and wife, who were married as children and then separated. The beautiful mounting and costuming given to the play have helped much in bringing it success. From “Chicago Letter,” Critic, September 15, 1894, pages 174–75. Mr. J.H. McVicker, who has been for 37 years the honored manager of the theatre which bears his name, has again failed in an attempt to establish a stock-company in this city. To select good material and weld it together into an effective organization, which should have its permanent home here, has long been his chief ambition; and it is melancholy to record the fact that he will probably make no further effort in that direction. He has had many a mischance in there attempts, and the heat and dullness of the present summer were sorely against him. The name of no other manager here, except, perhaps, that of the late Mr. R.M. Hooley, would have given a company the same prestige as his; so it must be that the city is not yet metropolitan enough to support a permanent troupe of players. This year the organization was an exceedingly strong one, and the play selected, which ran about six weeks, was worthy of warm reception. Written by Augustus Thomas, who made himself famous with “Alabama,” it has spirit and vitality enough to animate several ordinary comedies. Its title, “New Blood,” suggests the schism between father and son upon which the main plot of the play is based. The characters of the two are subtly indicated and sharply contrasted, but different as they are, they have much in common. Both warm-hearted and affectionate, they are, also, both high-strung, determined and strenuous; but while the father’s mind is centered on the

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success of his business, the son’s is touched with modern ideas, radical, generous, socialistic. Our of this difference grow the pivotal scenes of the play, and those in which Van asserts his independence to the capitalists who wish to form a trust, and that in which the dying father yields to his influence, are particularly fine and dramatic. Mr. Thomas has a strong situation here, but he cheapens it, and somewhat confuses the issue, by introducing a millionaire, who, in a fashion truly romantic, straightens things out and enables Van to elaborate his plans. The character of the millionaire, however, is cleverly drawn, and, in the hands of Mr. Barrymore, it becomes most seductive. The breakfast scene is a charming bit of pure comedy, and love-making is as pretty a thing as one would care to see. Indeed, the dialogue is good throughout the play, and now and then it is positively brilliant. Mr. Thomas is too definite, however, to be poetic, and the chief quarrel one has with him is that he winds everything up too neatly in the last act. The play is practically finished at the end of the third act, and the fourth is merely a kind of “So they lived happily ever after.” The dramatist sacrifices his are, unfortunately, to a mistaken idea of popularity. His play was well handled by the company that Mr. McVicker had brought together. Mr. E.M. Holland’s interpretation of the character of the father was admirable — a fine, consistent and thorough piece of work. Mr. Wilton Lackaye played the son and did it capitally, with reserve and distinction. Mr. Barrymore made a decidedly presentable Chicagoan, and Miss Anne O’Neill was thoroughly charming as Gertrude. The other characters, also, were so well taken that it is a pity that the troupe cannot be held together for the city certainly needs a stockcompany of its own, and it would seem as though it were large enough to support one.



z9å Ada Patterson [1867–1939] Ada Patterson was born in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, the daughter of John M. and Elizabeth E. McDannel Patterson. She was educated at the Franklin Academy in Franklin, Nebraska. Her career in journalism included writing for the Salt Lake Herald, the San Francisco Call, the St. Louis Republic, and the New York American. She is the author of By the Stage Door, a biography of Maude Adams, and co-author of a play, Love’s Lightning, and a playlet for Bertha Kalich called “How to Manage a Man.” Patterson did not begin her career in journalism writing as “The Lady with the Lorgnette,” as her columns in Theatre magazine were signed during the 1920s. In fact, her first New York newspaper job came as a result of her sensational reporting of the hanging of a murderer in St. Louis in 1897. While in a drunken frenzy a Dr. Arthur Duestrow killed his wife and child. Miss Patterson, then working as a reporter for the St. Louis Republic, was assigned to the case in place of a fellow worker who had “gone on a bender,” according to Ishbel Ross in Ladies of the Press.1 Because of the crowd present, she actually stood on the platform as the man was hanged. This story drew the attention of Bradford Merrill, editor of the World and later the American, and he summoned Patterson to New York. Her first story for the American was about the building of the bridge across the East River. The editor wanted someone to go down in the caisson for first-hand information in spite of the fact that the men who worked in the caisson were suffering bends. Patterson took the job, wrote the story, and, except for the editor’s decision to hold on to it for a few days, would have had an exclusive. (A rival paper came out with the story on the same day.) A succession of famous trials became the subject of some of Patterson’s best work. In 1904, Patterson secured an interview with Nan Patterson (no relation), the Floradora girl accused of murdering Caesar Young, a book131

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maker. As a result of the story and the interview, she had to testify at the trial. In 1906, Patterson covered the trial of Annie M. Bradley, charged with murdering Sen. Arthur M. Brown of Utah because he threw her over to marry Mrs. Annie Adams, mother of actress Maude Adams. During several interviews conducted in jail, Patterson learned that the murder was premeditated, but she felt such pity for the accused that she did not reveal this information in her articles. Mrs. Bradley was acquitted in 1907. Patterson was one of four women at the press table in the Harry K. Thaw trial in 1906. Patterson, along with Dorothy Dix, Nixola Greely-Smith and Mrs. Winifred Black, made up the original “sob sisters,” a title bestowed upon them by a male colleague also covering the story. In 1912 she covered the trial of Charles Becker, accused of murdering Herman Rosenthal. She had been the first to interview Mrs. Lillian Rosenthal after the murder, thus forming a relationship that led to a later exclusive article. On the night of the execution, Patterson invited Mrs. Rosenthal to hide from reporters in her apartment. For two days and nights they kept vigil together until the execution took place. Patterson was the only reporter to interview Claudia Libbey Hains, the wife of Major Peter C. Hains, who shot and killed W.E. Annis, the wife’s lover. Patterson’s accounts of this case were “a startling human document,” according to Ishbel Ross, who ranks Paterson among “the better interviewers” who brought a “vigorous intellect to bear on what she was doing, and was adept at all the skullduggery of the profession.”2 Patterson was never afraid to try the untried to get her stories. She went into a lion’s den at Dreamland, Coney Island, for a story. She drove a locomotive from St. Louis to Chicago, went down in a submarine, and walked 90 feet on a plank above City Hall in St. Louis while it was being built. A while after her move to New York, Patterson did dramatic criticism and made a wide acquaintance among theatre people. In 1923 she resigned to devote her time to magazine work. This began her career at Theatre magazine, where she wrote various columns, including “Mirrors of Stageland: Intimate Glimpses into the Character and Personality of Broadway’s Famous Figures,” which she signed as “The Lady with the Lorgnette,” and “Graveties and Gaieties,” under her name. In addition to these columns, various opinion and gossip pieces about theatre people and topics by Patterson were also published in Theatre magazine. As “The Lady with the Lorgnette,” she seldom revealed the cynicism and sensationalism that had won her fame as a reporter on the trail of violence and scandal. Her columns in Theatre magazine are written mostly as conversations with her readers. For instance, she begins her August 1924 col-

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umn with “As I live, there’s Eddie Sothern.” And half way through, when changing subjects, she writes, “Look. That stylish stout at the left, going down the aisle is Alison Skipworth.” Her August 1925 column began with “See that tall, slim, well-dressed man?” and halfway through she changes the subject with “The small woman with a little blond head that she turns, birdlike, while she talks is Minnie Dupree.” In these “intimate glimpses” Patterson tells of the latest comings and goings of various stars, describing their personalities, their private lives, their charitable activities, their homes. These columns reveal a wealth of historical minutiae about the New York theatre world of the 1920s. Patterson’s columns that carried her by-line were more critical in nature; she usually had a point to make about conditions in the theatre. One such column was the February, 1925, article entitled “When ‘The Sticks’ Blossom,” in praise of touring stars. She obviously did not share the opinion of Broadway, which she called the slant Highway of Amusement, that anything good could not come from “the road.” She names Lillian Foster, Nydia Westman, and Catherine Willard as coming “out of what New York smugly terms ‘the Road’ and London correspondingly calls ‘The Provinces’ ... the best raw star material of the new season.” In defending stock companies as training grounds for actors against the usual attitude as “ruinous to talent,” she states, “The three young women who have surprised the most exacting audiences in America brought no crudities to their performances. No burrs of speech adhered to their vocabularies, no thistles to their skirts ... [and] no nasal twang nor western drawl.” The trait that each woman had brought from her “long, severe, painful training” was, according to Patterson, a sense of the natural, the real.3 This is understandable in light of the stranglehold realism was getting on the theatre at this time. Patterson’s columns offer other bits of information to researchers looking for now-obscure names, as in the May 1925 column entitled “Where Are the Stars of Yesteryear?” One can sense her feelings of regret in the opening of the column, included at the end of this chapter. In addition to gossipy conversations with and about various stars, Patterson also occasionally took on some cause in her columns, such as the one on the fate of unemployed actresses and the founding of the National Stage Woman’s Exchange. In a March 1924 column, Patterson tells how Margaret Allen, a young out-of-work actress, created a place in the front room of her flat where out-of-work actresses could exchange work for lodging and/or financial help. The women were also cooks, housekeepers, linguists, musicians, seamstresses — all talents used to their benefit while waiting for the next acting job. Soon Allen was joined by other famous personalities, and funds were

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raised to buy the former home of Governor Charles L. Whitman, to become the home of the National Stage Women’s Exchange. Patterson ends the column by relating instances of successful people who were helped by the Exchange.4 In January 1926, Patterson devoted a column to the stage doorman, whom she calls the “gruff Cerberus on guard.” For this article, she interviewed seven different doormen at various New York theatres. In August 1930 she devoted a column to the Actor’s Fund and the formation of the Actor’s Fund Matinee Club, in which she lists the names of all the founders, the classes of membership, the Executive Committee, and the men’s honorary committee. As “The Lady with the Lorgnette,” Ada Patterson reveals a colorful picture of the Broadway stage and many of the people backstage as well during the 1920s. From “The Mirrors of Stageland,” Theatre Magazine, November 1922, beginning on page 295.

David Belasco He sees everything, and misses nothing. His fine brown eyes give the impression of near-sightedness. But they are spiritual X-rays. He told me that he can tell at sight whether a woman has ever been loved. Er–m–ah, well! Shy without question. Any large affair save a Belasco first night is a torment to him. Artistry aside, I do not believe he enjoys the premieres at his own theatre. He wishes he might flee those eyes, might take the automatic elevator to ascend to his million dollar studio on the top floor of his theatre, and dream of beautiful things. It is so much pleasanter to dream of beautiful things into existence than to contemplate them when finished. The most beloved figure on Broadway? Yes, without doubt. For his kindness. “When I came here a frightened, ambitious waif from San Francisco, everybody was too busy to see me and too preoccupied to say a kind word,” he has told me. “A kind word would have been like water to a man dying of thirst but it was denied me. I determined then that if ever I were established in New York no one would be turned from me without a kind word.” No one has. If one were disposed to criticize the great D. B. he would say that he promises too much. But he makes the promises in good faith. He means to keep them. It is his intent to develop all the actresses and playwrights who go to him. He becomes aware that there are not enough hours in his brief life nor theatres enough in this broad land to do all that he would do. He retires to his high studio, ignores all its expensive beauty, and grieves at the restrictions of time and space.


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He is an amiable wastrel. He spends money riotously, buying gifts for his friends. His stars receive princely gifts from him. They whom he counts as friends are liberally remembered on Christmas and at Easter. He spends his money so lavishly that he seldom has any about his person. He pauses at the box office, blinks in the fashion that has caused the impression that he is nearsighted, and humbly craves a ten dollar bill from the treasurer. He goes forth, buys something that catches his magpie eye for color or sparkle, and boards a street car for the Marie Antoinette. If he has spent all his ten the recognizing conductors smile at his frantic pocket searches and say, “It’ll be all right next time, Mr. Belasco.” Or if any money remains he pins a dollar on his wife’s door. When his daughter Renee Belasco Gest, lived beneath his roof she received the same daily remembrance in the same manner. And at rehearsals actors who have done well are frequently rewarded with a dime!

Blanche Bates Do you see that woman, tall and dark, that has a sparkling effect like a black diamond? Yes, the one with the man smaller than herself, following her down the aisle? Blanche Bates. The escort is her husband. Wonderful woman, Blanche Bates! Her friends call her the Indomitable. When she went her way, from David Belasco’s management, there were many who predicted disaster. Broadway annals give the names of more than one who has left their pleasant fold and wandered into divers miseries, including bankruptcy. To wander forth from the charmed circle called “being with Belasco” requires the highest courage. But Blanche Bates went. She even went as far as to marry a police commissioner of Denver, who was eyebrows deep in a municipal quarrel in the Rockies girded city. George Creel is a first-class fighter. That is one reason why Blanche Bates married him. With tongue and typewriter, half way across the continent, from New York via Kansas City to Denever [sic] he has fought. He fought in newspapers and, while he was press agent for the United States government, during the war, he fought with the newspapers. I heard him fighting with whiplash tongue when the lights had been turned out on him at a “movie” opening. They’ve two children, a quaint, precocious girl, a replica of her grandmother, named Frances Virginia, and a delicate, sensitive boy who received his mother’s family name, Bates.

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The late Lillian Russell, who in her memoirs said that Miss Bates was her best friend, outside of her own family, asked her: “Are you happy, Blanche?” To which Miss Bates responded: “Very. My husband and I are usually across a continent from each other. Of course we are happy.” Which, taken in conjunction with the twinkle that dances continuously in her eye, marks the dark star as a humorist. For a time after leaving the Belasco fold she wandered about what actors irreverently term “The Sticks.” For two years she wandered thus, trying plays, even appearing in a photoplay, which she had sworn not to do. Midseason while she was weighing the dubious merits of the last play she had tried in the timbers, for a metropolitan return, she received a telephone from Henry Miller. “If only I could get you to play with me in Moliere,” Mr. Miller besought her. “It isn’t a big part but you can make it big.” “If I am to be in all the acts, I will,” she answered; “If only in two, I would have to be coaxed.” She must have been “coaxed” for she only appeared in two acts. But she glowed, vibrated, fairly radioed in the role of Moliere’s rebuffed Countess. “And not a word about salary till the end of the week,” recalls Mr. Miller with managerial wonder. Her reward was the co-starring role with him in “The Famous Mrs. Fair,” and their present close association. From Theatre Magazine, February 1925, page 22. “When ‘The Sticks’ Blossom” The Much Scorned “Road” Sends to the Metropolis Some of the Best Talent of the New Season It is the fashion of Broadway to sneer at the “Tall Sticks.” That out of that vague region loosely bounded, according to supercilious geography, by the Hudson River on one side, the Pacific on the other, the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, it was unthinkable to the slant High Way of Amusement that anything good should proceed. Yet out of what New York smugly terms “The Road,” and London correspondingly calls “The Provinces,” has come the best raw star material of the new season. Female star dust in each instance. Lillian Foster arrived by slow stages from Ponco in Oklahoma, backgrounded by a crude tapestry of claim rushes, oil spurts and cattle herds, to be saluted by the critics as one of new


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and admirable histrionic quality and by the most venerable of them as “A New Duse.” Nydia Westman played big time and small on the vaudeville circuits in a classic of the twenty minutes, styled “In Haying Time,” on the Pacific coast. Catherine Willard evolved from precocious infancy in directing a needy Shakespearian company at fifteen. Verily the “Sticks” have yielded abundant foliage and fine fruitage. Another dose of unpleasing medicine to the all-wise street. It has been its fixed habit to deplore stock companies, to sneer at repertory experience, to smile at vaudeville as preparation for the subtleties it asks but does not always receive. It has been accustomed to assert that more than two years of stock experience are “ruinous to talent” and that “repertory makes for loud and empty declamation,” that “vaudeville teaches performers to scream and to speed.” But “The New Duse” wove shuttle-like, across the country, and up and down its length, to play stock in its stock companies, for eight years. Catherine Willard has played in stock and repertoire since definite memory began for her. Nydia Westman wilted in linens in southern California and wore two cloaks and acquired a frozen nose at fifty-two degrees below zero in Winnepeg, Canada, “making hay” in vaudeville sketches.

Engaged for her Diction Broadway, that has taken the three young persons into a bearlike hug of approval, shakes its head at rumors of humble dramatic origin, or when some grinning Solomon insists, “It is so, I knew them when,” Broadway responds, “Every rule has its exception.” The three young women who have surprised the most exacting audiences in America brought no crudities to their performances. No burrs of speech adhered to their vocabularies, no thistles to their skirts. Catherine Willard, especially, has a voice of such rich roundness, such softness of modulation, that she might have been engaged by some other astute manager as Henry Miller engaged Ruth Chatterton, by telephone, for her manner of speech. “But don’t you want to see me?” asked Miss Chatterton. “No,” said Mr. Miller. “Your diction is enough.”

In the School of Adversity Lillian Foster has proven to the satisfaction of the most captious that “The Road” does not ruin the voice. For in all the fine shadings of her per-

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formances as a waitress, evolved into a more ornate but more menacing factor of society, no moment is greater than when she utters the low-toned, insistent call from the storm, the call that the husband who has killed her goes forth to his death to obey. Nydia Westman brings with her from the companionship of acrobats and highly educated animals no nasal twang nor Western drawl. She has a Billie Burkish tone pitch, as — were they not playing in New York at the same hours — we might suspect her of having borrowed from Billie Burke’s red hirsute crown. Each has brought from her long, severe, painful training a trait which is their common denominator. Which you, dear readers, being so clever, will discover as we proceed. Lillian Foster is a petite person. Of the height and the lack weight of the dancer. Five feet four she claims in height, but five feet two in her heelless sandals, I am sure, and weight less than one hundred pounds. A face curiously wide with the sign of the Slav in her high cheek bones. Blue, lakelike eyes, set far apart. A large, mobile mouth. Even the bridge of her nose has, instead of knife-like thinness, a generous breadth. A wide, prowlike jaw, adequate foundation for her face. “I hesitate to say this.” Her eyes had the blue depths of unfathomableness. “It may shock the shockable. But I could not be called upon to play a part that I have not known in life itself. There is not a hardship that a girl can live through that I have not known. Hunger? Yes. Cold? Yes. Pennilessness? Yes. I have done every kind of work. My parents died when I was ten. My sister had enough to do to take care of herself. At fourteen I worked in a candy store in Kansas City. I made candy and sold it. But everything I have seen and suffered has helped me to act. One should never regret privations. The only really unfortunate persons are those who have not had them. “I have not seen many of the greatest actresses. I did not see Duse.” Miss Foster turned her eyes from the mirror above her make-up table at the theatre, across her shoulder, to look at me. “Once I had a chance to see her and I let it go. I have seen Mrs. Fiske. I think she is superb. I never saw Ethel Barrymore. But —“ A long pause. The “New Duse” weighs her statements in the scales of their probable reactions. “Yes, I shall say it. It has seemed to me that so many of them let us know they are acting. They do not let us forget it. I have always tried to be as nearly like life as the stage will permit. What has pleased me most in what the reviewers have said of my work is that it is natural. They say it has reality. “That is what I have tried to work out in the eight years I have been on the stage. Those years have always been in stock except in a tryout of


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a play that did not reach New York. I had developed a method that satisfied my own demand for the real, the natural. But I did not know whether New York would accept it. I am glad it has.” “Glad” was the strongest word she had for the experience of a small, deep-eyed, hitherto unknown-to-Manhattan, having been acclaimed one of the greatest discoveries of the modern stage. There were no rhapsodies. No ecstasies. There was the attitude of calm waiting. “I haven’t unpacked my things and decorated the dressing-room.” She looked about the chill, cell-like container of humanity at the Belmont Theatre. “Every time I have dressed up my room with chintzes the public didn’t like a play and I have had to move on.” Something stirred me to stop in the doorway and preface my goodbye with, “To what do you ascribe your success?” Something moved her to answer, with truth in her deep eyes: “A power outside of myself and stronger that I am. I cannot name it, but It is.”

The Trooping Westmans Nydia Westman talked to me of the simplicities of the trooping Westmans. She told me she would rather be called a “trooper” than an actress. There are six of the Wandering Westmans, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore, Lolita, Theodore, Jr., Nydia and Neville. “Father and mother have both been ill,” she said. “Both are still in hospitals. We have always made a point of having a home whenever we stayed long enough in one place. We are moving from our home at Scarborough to one at White Plains. We have always been home-makers and home-keepers. Since mother has been ill Lolita has been the mistress of the kitchen. I have had charge of the sewing. I can make most of our clothes. I made that dress.” She nodded toward a blue evening gown that hung on the curtainless white wall. A minute inspection revealed no flaws in the work of Nydia Westman, seamstress. “My first recollection is of being at the theatre when I was two years old and of laughing so noisily at a comedian that I had to be taken out of the house. Another was of having a birthday party. It was a family affair. The Westermans always seemed to be satisfied with the family group. We didn’t make many friends. The birthday party was at the old Barrington House. Do you remember it, a theatrical boarding-house on Broadway and Forty-third street? It was torn down to make room for an office building. “I went on the stage soon after that outburst of laughter at the come-

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dian. I have been in vaudeville with the family until I went out last year, playing the daughter in ‘Lightnin.’’ “No, I wasn’t much excited over a first night in New York. Maybe it’s because I am too young to realize my good luck. I tried to make all my points as well as I could. I was glad I didn’t have to play a flapper. Of course she makes love to the young man all through the play, but it isn’t the flapper kind of love. Mother says the part is a sign of the return to the stage of the old-time ingenue. “Yes, I liked what the critics said about me. I was glad they agreed upon the word real. That is what I have always tried to be.” Catherine Willard called on William A. Brady and in five minutes signed a contract for five years. She had read the role of Julie in “Simon Called Peter,” stopped to make a suggestion about the nurse’s mental attitude in the last act, and was interrupted by Mr. Brady’s pressing of the buzzer in his desk and a request to his secretary for a blank contract. Pending rehearsals of “Simon Called Peter,” he lent her services for the role of the devoted wife who “played dead” to humor her husband’s vanity in “The Mask and the Face.” The critics and public recognized in her sincerity and a sure technique. “My father was a newspaper man and my mother was a newspaper woman,” she told me between a long rehearsal and catching the train for a small town opening of the play from the novel that sold 85,000. “I lived in England and France from the time I was six. Mother took me to see the plays at the Comedie Francaise. I made my debut in a child’s part in a Drury Lane melodrama. I joined the Benson repertoire companies. When I came back to the United States I was with the Jewett players in stock in Boston. “My life has been of the theatre and naturally I have thought a great deal about it. Spontaneity seems to me to be the soul of acting. But form is its body. One must have both. I have in my mind the image of a crystal. Right acting is like that crystal. It has a high reflective power, and unquestioned clearness.” From Theatre Magazine, May 1925, page 12. “Where Are the Stars of Yesteryear?” Stage Favorites Who Have Deserted the Theatre for Other Walks of Life No quarter century since life was reflected as in a mirror by players, has witnessed the setting of so many theatrical stars as that which ends with the season of 1925.


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Consider the brilliant procession that, in the recollection of this generation of playgoers, has crossed the firmament and been lost in voluntary or involuntary obscurity. Stars that have sunk out of sight in a grave. Stars that have flickered out in the shadows of poverty. Stars that have wearied of shining or stars of whose sheen the public has wearied. Stars that have shone gloriously and stars that have piteously flickered and died down as a candle flames for the last time through the darkness. Shooting stars. Stars that have determined to wait a while, unnoted in the twilight, before a new play affords them an opportunity to resume shining under favorable auspices. Stars that shone but briefly and have accepted second or third place or none in the high heavens of the drama. Maude Adams. Nine of every ten playgoers will name her first as the most beloved and the most missed of the lost stars. No one ever made the claim for Maude Adams that she was a great actress. But none denied that she was the most popular and the most beloved. She was the Ariel of the American stage. Alluring but aloof. Winsome as a rose. Shy as a violet. The actress who hid behind a tree-trunk on her Long Island farm lest a party of curious ones see her; whom I have seen sitting in the gallery to witness a performance of a play lest she be recognized in the more searching light of the orchestra. Maude Adams of few but deep friendships. Maude Adams, the student, who, when temporary ill health forced her from the stage, studied the problems of lighting in the application to motion pictures. Maude Adams who has twice announced that she would return to the stage if a suitable play under a congenial management could be found, but whose chief concern at this time is the putting of “Kim” in cinema form. Julia Marlowe may be said to have half left the stage. There was flare of press and stage trumpets when she and her husband E. H. Sothern, had wearied of the stage and said they would have no more of it. Then the war and the deflation of the dollar, which occasioned a semivacuum in the pockets of even the most prosperous of retired players. Miss Marlowe and Sothern returned for special engagements and for short tours. Their determination to live quietly in the England that is dear to both has merely been postponed for reasons denominated as pecuniary. High Mount, Miss Marlowe’s home in the Catskills, is for sale. Within the twenty-five years measured by the life of this magazine Joseph Jefferson died as gently as Rip Van Winkle, his most famed character, closed his eyes for his twenty-year’s nap in Washington Irving’s idyll. Within three years the man of twin-likeness to him in the gentle qual-

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ity of this art, Frank Bacon, began to die in a performance of “Lightnin’” in Chicago and finished his dying in an hotel one week later. Mr. Bacon, whose starring was of shorter duration, enjoyed spectacular honors never bestowed upon the soft-voiced Rip and Bob Acres. When he departed the metropolis for what was his death run of a year in Chicago, his three years’ continuous playing of the lovable old vagabond, “Lightnin,’” was celebrated by a parade from the theatre to the station in which dignitaries of the stage and society joined. It was the greatest honor ever tendered by the metropolis to a living actor. The greatest honors it had tendered to a dead one were like a procession at Lester Wallack’s funeral more than a score of years before. Milton Nobles, veteran actor who had starred in another company of “Lightnin’,” followed its author and first star before twelve months had passed. Janauschek, the majestic, and Modjeska, the gracile, both contributions of Central Europe to the American stage, died in the land that had accorded them welcome. At the Metropolitan Opera House a testimonial, garlanded name for a benefit that hid the thorns of truth beneath wreathing flowers, was given for Mme. Modjeska, while Janauschek, last exponent of the grand manner, died a guest of the Actors’ Fund Home at New Brighton, Staten Island. A star of lesser magnitude, but one that twinkled with dazzling dalliance, went out in the shadows of a madhouse. Sadie Martinot, a beauty and prima donna, sister-in-law of Olga Nethersole, was one of the incurable patients at the hospital for the insane at Ogdensburgh, N.Y. Her clouded mind was irradiated, now and then, by memories of a splendid house on West End Avenue, of a coach-and-four, with liveried coachman and footman, that had been hers, of hearts that had paved her pathway in the years of her youth. In her madness she exclaimed as in her sanity I have heard her exclaim: “Many men have said they loved me, but I never really loved in my life.” Her funeral services at Campbell’s Funeral Church were attended by a few dozen folk who had memories of the high brilliance that preceded her decline. A contrary setting is that of Irene Castle. When she and her lightfooted husband, who afterward died heroically in the World War, returned from Paris, the last work in the vogue, and she was a trifle dazed by it, she said to me: “How long do you suppose the craze for dancing will last? Not more than two or three years, will it? I hope not, for when I am twentyfive I want to live in the country and have babies.” Widowhood, through the fall of Captain Vernon Castle from an aeroplane in a training camp in


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Texas; divorce from her subsequent husband, Robert Tremaine, deferred the fulfillment of her purpose. As Mrs. McLaughlin, of Chicago, it is being fulfilled, for in January her daughter was born. She declares that she has danced her last step and spoken her last word on the stage. Maurice Barrymore, the dashing, the handsome, the witty, the fascinating father of the brilliant trio of present Barrymores, went out of life obscured in mind and fortune in an institution at Amityville, New York. So passed at Flushing, Long Island, Georgia Cayvan, long and leading woman of the old Lyceum stock company, that graduated many stars. Miss Cayvan had starred in “Squire Kate” and other comedies when a scandal that she declared was undeserved overtook her. Brooding upon the unfortunate event shortened her days and darkened her mind.

z 10 å Annie Nathan Meyer [1867–1951] In her autobiography, It’s Been Fun, Annie Nathan Meyer wrote that it is no good to be ahead of your time if the world is not ready to understand. This is a lesson she learned through her own experiences. Her novel about artificial insemination (written around 1916) went unpublished, but a few years later the topic was discussed openly in the newspapers. She stated her theory of advocating new ideas another way regarding her successful efforts to get Barnard College established. She was successful not only because of her hard work but also because of her “shrewd theory that to put any radical scheme across, it must be done in the most conservative manner possible.”1 Her novels and plays, which dealt with controversial topics, or the “woman question” as it was called, met with only moderate success. Meyer’s first novel, Helen Brent, M.D. (1892), was about a woman faced with choosing between a career and marriage. Meyer calls The Advertising of Kate (1921), “the first play to suggest the delicate adjustment of the claims of sex to the work of the business woman.”2 Her play, The Dominant Sex (1911), written during the height of the suffrage movement, was timely, but met with such disfavor among feminist groups that it was never produced. Although a staunch proponent of women’s rights, Meyer never called herself a feminist; in fact, she adamantly proclaimed her position as an anti-suffragist. She thought that the claims of great social change benefiting the entire nation were unrealistic because women would not vote as a group. She wrote, “I was disgusted by the fantastic claims that were made as to the results that were certain to happen”3 if women were given the vote. Her position was that women already exerted influence on political and social decisions through the influence they had with the way their husbands voted. In the article, “Woman’s Assumption of Sex Superiority,” she argues that women voters would not purif y and ennoble American public life, because the “development of 144


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woman’s character has by no means kept step with that of her intellect.”4 She proclaimed that women should do women’s work better, rather than “appeal on the platform to the highest, purest motives, ... [while] in the home to shrink from the most elementary duties, not only of motherhood, but of wifehood.”5 These ideas were later given voice in Meyer’s play The Dominant Sex, published in 1911. The main character, Mrs. Cora Mason, a wife and mother, is a very active clubwoman who is running for president of the Federation of Women’s Clubs while leaving the care of her children in the hands of family servants. During the course of the action, Cora is advoAnnie Nathan Meyer remained a vocal supcating for the release of a woman porter of women’s rights throughout her accused of killing a man while de- lifetime despite her denial of being a femfending her honor. Mr. Mason, inist (courtesy Barnard College Archives). described as an “important financier,” informs Cora of the woman’s criminal record (which he obtained from the police department) and the innocence of the young man who was actually resisting the unwanted advances of the accused woman. In a lengthy exchange between Cora and John Mason, it seems that John is the mouthpiece for Meyer. In Mason’s view, when men stray it is the woman’s fault. Mason. (Angrily) You women always are wrong when you judge men — we are sorry enough devils in your eyes — and yet you tolerate us. You assail, you revile us — but you marry us! Do you think there would be so many rakes if they didn’t always find you ready to give them your daughters! You say we men have low standards — on the contrary it is you women who hold us to none. You countenance low men, we refuse to countenance low women. We hold you to the highest ideal of chastity. And what do you women hold us to? Nothing! What do you demand of us? Worldly success — that is all — and you know it. If we attain that, you are willing to overlook everything else.6

Meyer’s inclination to place the blame on women for the weaknesses of men may be the result of the break-up of her parent’s marriage. In her auto-

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biography, she describes her father’s good looks and appeal to women. She recounts the times women, supposedly her mother’s friends, visited their home in Green Bay actually to see her father, a situation that caused arguments between her parents. Mr. Nathan returned to New York while Mrs. Nathan and the three youngest children moved to Chicago. When Mrs. Nathan was hospitalized, the three children were sent to New York to live with their grandfather. In her autobiography, Annie Meyer reveals that her mother wanted to try the professional stage, but her father forbade it. She admits that “secretly I sympathized with Mama, for I, too, since before I was ten years old was badly stage-struck.”7 She gave up the idea of becoming an actress, but states, “The theatre remained very close all my life.”8 Meyer had opportunities to meet various theatre personalities through her mother’s acquaintance with several actresses. Among those that Meyer comments on are Clara Morris, whom she calls the American Sarah Bernhardt, and Lily Langtree “at the zenith as a professional beauty” who “fully justified her reputation.”9 After becoming a playwright, Meyer had the opportunity to interact with other actresses and managers such as Minnie Maddern Fiske, who was to appear in Meyer’s play, Fifth Avenue, but died before beginning production.10 Like many other feminists of the period, and the other writers included in this book, Meyer was an admirer of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In spite of the prevailing criticism after the premieres of Ibsen’s plays as unfit for public viewing, Meyer defended the plays as supportive of women. In a letter to the editor of The Critic, she refutes the charges made in a previous article by a Mr. Harding, in which he called Ibsen an iconoclast with a despairing view of life. Meyer claims Ibsen’s dramas show “the possibility of a society free from all the lies and shams,” and a “strong, sympathetic belief in the future of woman.” She continues, “I know no more important lessons for women than those contained in the ‘Doll’s House’ and ‘Ghosts.’ They are full of the beautiful truth that Woman is a responsible being, as complete in herself, as capable of exercising self-government as Man.”11 Meyer compares the marriages in A Doll House, Ghosts, and Pillars of Society as showing “failure on the part of the husband to really unite his wife to him,” and a message to women to divest themselves of the “conventional ideas of what is Woman’s duty.”12 Although Meyer’s actual theatre criticism seems limited to her articles on Ibsen, she did write extensively on the arts in general and the novel in particular. In one of her few articles on acting and drama, she states that all art is interrelated,13 so one can assume her ideas about art and fiction also reveal her attitudes toward the theatre.


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Meyer was a proponent of realism and disliked romanticism for its appeal to sentimentalism, or what she called “false emotion.” She believed emotion should be “tempered and controlled,”14 not just a realism of details. But that is a realism which, after all, has not penetrated very deep, if indeed it may be said to have penetrated at all. The most fantastic deeds take place in these wonderfully real rooms. Any impossible action is accepted if the electrolier is lighted by a real switch turned on by the trembling fingers of an unreal heroine. I am not concerned with the realism of setting, but with the realism of sentiment. What we really have been enjoying is a drama of sincere doors and insincere doers — or real teacups and conventional feelings. It is beginning to be brought home to us that ... the imaginative drama has become stifled in the commonplace atmosphere of minute detail.15

Meyer also believed that drama should not avoid controversial subjects; to her the term “problem plays” or plays about the “woman question” should not be considered pejorative terms when applied to contemporary dramas. Plays should confront the problems in contemporary life, not with a sentimentalized view of life. Meyer thought that theatre criticism lagged behind art criticism because most theatre critics deemed that plays about contemporary life were below artistic consideration and that “realistic” acting required very little talent. She is discouraged by critics and actors “who declared that the Irish players did not act but ‘simply walked through their parts’.... It is astonishing to hear people of fair intelligence ... assuring us that these players do not act at all.”16 Meyer’s theory of acting itself is unclear; however, she felt that all artists must master sufficient technique. Her ideas of technique were further refined when she began writing plays herself. Her playwriting instructor, Algernon Tassin, a young professor from Columbia, reinforced the importance of technique when he rejected her bulky first scene of a play. From this experience, and from her experiences with respected actors of the day, Meyer seems to have formulated her theory of technique as it applies to effective stage presentations. The art of playwriting is at once the most extravagant and the most economical art. The experience of an entire lifetime may lie behind a single sentence, and, contrariwise, one must watch with a miser’s eyes each word that is put between the lips of a character. Not one word must be without meaning. Either it must reveal character or carry the action of the play.17

Meyer was a prolific writer, always with the support and encouragement of her husband, Dr. Alfred Meyer. She wrote two novels, twenty plays (three were staged on Broadway), and several short stories for such magazines as Harper’s and Bookman, most of which concerned the conflicts between career

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and marriage for professional women. Although not known for her dramatic criticism, she deserves recognition for her contributions to the development of theatrical theory in an age when women were given almost no recognition for theoretical or critical writing. From “Ibsen’s Attitude Toward Woman,” The Critic, March 22, 1890. TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:— In his article entitled, “Henrik Ibsen, Iconoclast,” in the last number of THE CRITIC, Mr. Harding remarks:— He looks at the world with a jaundiced eye; “man delights not him, no, nor woman neither.” His dramas have scarcely more of a conscious purpose than the cry of a wounded animal; like a lyric poem, they are the expression of a mood, the fierce and impassioned utterance of a moment of rage and despair. It seems to me, on the contrary, Ibsen looks on the world with an eye full of hope. He is not content merely to scold the world, as so many of his readers believe, but in the midst of all the powerful denunciations of society, the bitter expose of the hollowness of conventional morality, that he thunders forth in his plays, he yet never ceases to hold up before us a possibility of a society free from all the “lies and shams.” When “the old time, with its tinsel, its hollowness, its hypocrisy, its lying propriety, and its pitiful cowardice, shall lie behind us like a museum, open for instruction” (“The Pillars of Society”). His is not the cry of a wounded animal, but rather the cry of a wounded soul; a soul wounded by the ignobleness and hypocrisy of society, but a soul that, although wounded, is yet capable of rising to the defence of society, of pointing out to it the road to salvation. There is nothing that shows more clearly that the “illusions of life” have not left Ibsen, as Mr. Harding would have it, than his strong, sympathetic belief in the future of woman. I feel bound to protest, therefore, when Mr. Harding applies to him Hamlet’s misanthropic words, “Man delights not me, no, nor woman neither.” Like Mr. Harding, my knowledge of Ibsen is restricted to the “four prose dramas which have appeared under the tutelary wing of Mr. Gosse”; but even from these alone I glean a wonderful, tender love for woman — a love that may be termed a “delight”; a love full of honest blame (but then we know that “blame of love is sweeter than all praise of those that love not”), but a love holding up to women the highest ideal of nobility and truth. I know no more important lessons for women than those contained in the “Doll’s House” and “Ghosts.” They are full of the beautiful truth that Woman is a responsible being, as com-


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plete in herself, as capable of exercising self-government as Man. The sound a clarion call to women to throw off the yoke of the Past, to arise, to put aside their worn out ideal and to boldly assume the duties of the Present Age. In the “Doll’s House,” there is shadowed forth the perfect marriage of the future. Nora reviews her past married life:— When I look back on it now, I seem to have been living here like a beggar, from hand to mouth. I lived by performing tricks for you.... You and father have done a great wrong.... You have been always kind to me. But our house has been nothing but a playroom. Here I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I used to be papa’s doll-child.... In that moment it burst upon me that I had been living here these eight years with a strange man, and had borne him three children. Oh! I can’t bear to think of it.

This failure on the part of the husband to really unite his wife to him is brought out again in “The Pillars of Society.” Lona says to her brotherin-law:—“‘And do you never think what your wife might have been to you?’ BERNICK. ‘I know, at any rate, that she has been nothing of what I require.’ LONA. ‘Because you never placed her in a free and true relation to you.’” The Undine of the future cannot win her soul simply in the act of marriage: she must gain it by securing the whole soul of her husband; by a marriage of more than the body. Her soul will enter into her when Nora’s “miracle of miracles” will happen — the perfect communion of husband and wife. Who, on laying down the “Doll’s House,” doubts that Ibsen firmly believes that the “miracle of miracles” will come to pass? Painful as “Ghosts” is, it proves to Woman the necessity of a new life, as the “Doll’s House” does — a way of life divested of the conventional ideas of what is Woman’s duty. Mrs. Alving says:— I think we are all of us ghosts. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that walks in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can’t get rid of them.

Ibsen urges women to rid themselves of these Ghosts. It is time that they make a code of Right and Wrong for themselves out of the living Present, not the dead Past. Nora says:— I must try to educate myself.... I must set about it alone. I must stand quite alone to know myself and my surroundings.... I think that I am a human being, just as much as you are one — or at least, I will try to become one. I know that most people agree with you, and that they say so in books. But henceforth I can’t be satisfied with what people say, and what is in books. I must think things out for myself and try to get clear about them.... I must make up my mind which is right — society or I.

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There is little doubt in Ibsen’s mind which is right. I have only touched upon one out of so many so-called “conscious purposes” that we can find in Ibsen, and yet from this one alone is he not cleared of the accusation that “One might extract from these plays a whole baffling philosophy of despair, a gospel of perdition?” Is it just to say: “It would be fallacious to assume that Ibsen has anywhere formulated a theory of life, pessimistic or other.... Still less is Ibsen entitled to the name of Moralist or reformer?” From “A Prophet of the New Womanhood,” Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, March 1894, page 375. I remember seeing a couple of years ago a full-page illustration in Life; in it Henrik Ibsen, his arms and legs entwined about him like an Eastern idol, rests in solemn state upon an altar, while a reverent woman stirs the flaming incense that mounts before him. Below her, in careless confusion, are scattered the cast-off gods that have fallen from grace, each in its turn, among them the figures of Browning, Madame Blavatsky, and Tolstoï [sic]. A broom that was evidently used in sweeping aside the cast-off gods lies near at hand, suggestive of the moment — in the eyes of the cartoonist an inevitable one — when the glory of Ibsen will also be a thing of the past. Two years have gone by since then, and yet I do not think the broom has been lifted from the rubbish-heap. The woman still worships at the same shrine. It seems a little strange that the adoring figure should be a woman, when it was through the enthusiastic efforts of two critics, men both of them, that the dramas of Ibsen were brought before the English reading public. However, it is not for me to find fault with the cartoonist, for I am going to try to show that there is peculiar fitness in a woman being where he has placed her, although possibly there is a shade of regret in my mind that it should have been deemed necessary to draw the woman long, lean, and lank, of uncertain age, and wearing the inevitable eyeglasses. The raison d’etre of woman’s adoration for Ibsen has been ascribed to various causes. Some say it is merely woman’s natural penchant for strength that is touched with brutality, while there are vague notions abroad that it is his having advocated the desertion of husbands and babes at midnight at woman’s own sweet will. To me it seems fitting that woman should sit at the feet of Ibsen, because I believe that no writer of any century has said so much to her that is so vital and stimulating, that never falls into sentimentality or false praise, but always holds up the highest standard of thought and action. Indeed,


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the standard is so high, so daring, that, his meaning taken rightly to heart, woman may find in the commonly styled somber pessimist the hopeful Prophet singing of the dawn. Just as through the writings of Rousseau was voiced the social awakening that culminated in the Revolution, and in the writings of the young Goethe the unrest that produced the period of “Sturm und Drang,” so in the dramas of Ibsen are voiced the awakening and unrest which are called the Woman’s Movement, but are only a part of the larger movement of the close of the nineteenth century, the effort to attain the right growth and liberty of the individual. In having so much to say as he does on the unrest of woman to-day, Ibsen is not holding up to us an isolated phase of society; he is not interested in woman as a sex merely, but as a part of humanity, for he cannot believe that humanity can be emancipated unless all its component parts are freed. He is too deep a student of social problems to believe in one panacea for men and another for women, and, notwithstanding Mr. William Watson, he is too profound a humorist to fall into the common error of handling the most grandiloquent and universal phrases and then duly limiting them by a purely masculine interpretation. Bernick, the hero of one of his dramas, says, “It is you women that are the Pillars of Society”; but his sister-in-law replies (and here Ibsen speaks with her), “That is poor wisdom: the spirits of Truth and Freedom, there are the Pillars of Society.” Not only does Ibsen tell us that it is not in woman that we find the Pillars of Society, but he shows that in the past the influences surrounding her education and social life have been such as to systematically make for the undermining of their foundations. Can we say — can the most romantic flatterer say — that Truth and Freedom have been the watchword of woman’s development in the past? Is it not to come nearer the truth to say it has been Deception and Restriction? Hedda Gabler’s rebuke to her old lover, “You may think it, but you mustn’t say it,” is typical of the kind of surface morality which Ibsen certainly does not ascribe to any one sex, but which he believes is fostered largely by an artificial respect for appearances above reality, which is forced upon women by the autocracy of public opinion. That painful but terrible real tragedy, “Ghosts,” paints the hideous consequences of living that kind of life which meets with the applause and encouragement of Society to the utter crushing of woman’s self-respect. I mean the condoning of demoralization in a husband. Ibsen does not shrink from showing this kind of complaisance in its proper light. In the career of Mrs. Alving, the hollow hypocrisy of Society’s approbation is revealed

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with a terrible directness and force. What is usually called courage he does not hesitate to call ignoble cowardice. As to the other Pillar of Society, Freedom, if it had to depend upon women to uphold it, what a toppling, sorry support Society would rest upon! The whole long history of the Woman’s Movement has been nothing else but a determined struggle against restrictions of every kind, restrictions and limitations that have been eating their way into the very core of woman’s soul. What are nothing more than the cruel effects of centuries of such retarding and cramping influences are often brought forward as proof that the victims are incapable of rising above them. The strangest part of it all perhaps is that so many women themselves believe this. Ibsen has given us no one drama to show the injustice of shutting out women from any special profession or industry. He has done more, since others have done that, but no one like him has shown the terrible ruin that has been wrought by the subtle forces of Conventionalism and Repression. We are familiar with Armgart’s passionate scorn of women’s lot: To feel my life Beating upon the world without response, Beating with passion through an insect’s horn That moves a millet-seed laboriously.

We find in Ibsen a profound respect for that glowing life of the new womanhood which refuses to beat itself out in moving millet-seeds. He recognizes in woman a gigantic force, which, directed into proper channels, will move not millet-seeds but dynasties; which, dammed up with fatal lack of thrift and wisdom, will become a menace to progress, instead of its chiefest highway. He well knows that in this bitter, restless dissatisfaction that comes over so many women, almost any change will be welcome, even an ignoble one, so long as it is change. He has painted this woman’s spirit beating against its bars again and again. In his “Lady from the Sea” we hear Boletta complain, “What is it to us that the great world passes our doors? we cannot join the stream. I don’t see much difference between our life and that of the carp in the pond there.” The same note is struck in Dina Dorf ’s readiness to marry Rector Rorlund, although she does not love him: “If I could only get far away!” and in Hedda’s explanation of her marriage with the commonplace Tesman: “I had positively danced myself tired.” The danger of letting the passionate life of woman beat itself out in vain is epitomized in Hedda Gabler. She says of herself, “There is only one thing in the world I have any turn for,— boring myself to death.” I have


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heard “Hedda Gabler” spoken of as a nightmare without rhyme or reason. Mr. William Watson, the poet, says, “Its fundamental conception is altogether worthless.” Doubtless to many besides Mr. Watson Hedda is a mere “extravagant personification of gratuitous hate and rage.” To me it is the most profoundly impressive, the most profoundly real, tragedy that has ever pictured the character of woman. There is something almost uncanny in the fact that any man could probe so remorselessly into the depths of a woman’s consciousness, although I am not ready to go quite so far as the well-known English litterateur who shocked Society by remarking that out of every half-dozen girls he met, four or five were Heddas. Of the conditions under which women have been reared in the past, Hedda is the perfect fruit. Impulsive, totally unaccustomed to self-control, infinitely weary of the humdrum existence about her, and yet incapable of rising to a higher level herself, pretending to despise the petty conventionalities of her small social circle, yet bound hand and foot by them, and with its dictates ever upon her tongue, we may feel that Hedda Gabler is worthy of scorn, but more worthy are the sentimental prejudices that have made such women possible. Give a woman the freedom to follow out the dictates of her own soul, let her have access to the paths where her bent would lead her, and Hedda would be an impossible creature. The two most prominent notes in Hedda’s character are, first, “a craving for life,” as she expresses it, and, second, a passionate desire to influence the destiny of others. When Hedda’s old lover, Lovborg, reviews the nature of their early companionship, she says, “A girl is glad to have a peep now and then into a world which she is forbidden to know anything about.” She always longed intensely for a dash of the picturesque and romantic to enter into her life, and clung fondly, childishly, to the belief that it would come even after bitter experience had shown her that self-indulgence does not always lend the couleur de rose to life’s dull tones. In “Hedda Gabler” Ibsen makes a strong plea against the unhealthful half-ignorance in which we bring up our girls. We fondly tell ourselves that this half-ignorance is beautiful innocence. When our daughters develop into young women, their curiosity, instead of being satisfied by the careful frankness of a parent, is stimulated by the fanciful and ever-excited imagination of their young companions. All this leads to throwing a glamour over certain phases of life. When Hedda pictures Lovborg returning to her after his carousal, it is with “flushed cheeks and vine-leaves in his hair.” This expression, so inexplicable to her audience, though used in a joking and symbolic way, reveals that to her there are a certain beauty and bold freedom in vice that appeal to her imagination. In reality Lovborg’s reckless

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orgy and his death at the end have something hideous and vulgar about them; and Hedda, when she learns the truth, Hedda with her love of the picturesque and the free and the bold, is shocked and disgusted. It savors so much of the police court. She cries out, “Oh, what curse is it that makes everything I touch turn ludicrous and mean?” I am certain that Hedda would have kept away from a great deal that fascinated her if when a girl the true nature of vice had been revealed to her in a healthy and unsentimental fashion. She says, “I want the power to mould a human destiny.” In the past she had tried to influence the career of the young author, Eilert Lovborg. The thought that her friend Mrs. Elvsted has succeeded where she has failed, maddens her; she exclaims half scornfully and half enviously, “So that pretty little fool has had her fingers in a man’s destiny!” Hedda is clever enough — and the cleverness of such women is so sad — to see at once the way in which to destroy Mrs. Elvsted’s power. Here we find a note that recurs again and again in the dramas of Ibsen,— the power of faith and trust in moulding [sic] character. We find it in the “Pillars of Society,” when Dina Dorf tells the rector that she is sure that she could be a good girl if she were only away from the people who seem to be watching for her mother’s influence to break out in her: “They all handle me as carefully as though I would fall to pieces.” Again we find it in the “Lady from the Sea,” when Ellida chooses to right path the moment she is really free to choose. She says to her husband, “I may go, and I may leave you in freedom, on my own responsibility? That transforms everything.” Once trusted, once unfettered by binding ties, she is able to resist temptation. Indeed, it ceases to be temptation. In the same way, we see that the secret of Mrs. Elvsted’s power over Lovborg is her trust in him. “We have absolute faith in each other,” he says. The moment Hedda reveals that Mrs. Elvsted distrusts his power to resistance, fears that his reform will not endure, her influence is at an end, and he hastens to his ruin with his courage broken and his will destroyed. It is very easy to shudder at all this, and complain that Hedda is an impossible creation; it is like her friend Brack, crying out when he hears that Hedda has shot herself, “People don’t do such things.” The way in which Society holds up its hands in holy horror at Hedda reminds me of George Eliot’s saying, that “mortals have a great power of being astonished at the presence of an effect towards which they have done everything.” Since women have been given so little power to mould their own lives, to shape their careers, I see nothing strange in their being possessed with a morbid desire to mould the destiny of others. Has not the voice of con-


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servatism been saying for centuries, “Woman is not the creator, she is the inspirer”? “Woman is not born to do great things, but to stimulate, to suggest them”? “Woman in directing, in influencing, in molding the lives of others, has a noble sphere; it is only an unsuccessful or morbid woman that wishes for a different position in life”? I could go on for a long time quoting such familiar, canting phrases. This dictum that women should rest content with being the inspirers of men is deliciously satirized in the “Lady from the Sea.” Boletta and Lyngstrand the artist are discussing marriage. She says, “Do you think it right for an artist to marry? It seems to me that he should rather live for his art alone.” Lyngstrand answers, “Of course he must; but he can do that quite well, even if he marries.” “What about the woman, then?” “The woman? Which woman?” “The woman he marries; what is she to live for?” “She too must live for his art. I should think that must be such happiness for a woman. She can help him create, be ever at his side tending him. It must be perfect bliss for a woman.” This is the usual kind of bliss that is meted out by the world for the wife,— a complete surrender, negation of self. Of course I should not call Ibsen a prophet of the New Womanhood if he had not something vital to say on the necessity of reconstructing our ideas on the demands of married life. With him the true foundations of conjugal happiness are the same pillars upon which Society rests,— Truth and Freedom. He believes that in the true marriage the wife must hold fast to her own individuality. Nora puts her duty to herself even higher that her duty to her husband or her children. God puts our souls into our own keeping. True marriage must be union, not fusion. In the “Pillars of Society” Bernick complains, “My wife has never been anything to me that I required,” and Lona replies, “Because you have never shared your life-work with her; because you never placed her in a free and true relation to you.” Nora’s husband, Helmar, has had the same idea of a wife’s position, not a participant of a husband’s life, but merely of certain phases or moments of his life. She realizes this: “I was your lark, your doll, your dollwife. We never exchanged one serious word about serious things.” There may be those who fancy the new ideas will rob love of its poetry, who think with Helmar that “womanly helplessness makes a wife doubly dear,” who fear for the future of marriage if the old regime gives place to

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the new. I can only say to such, read your Ibsen a little further, and you will see that the same man who has given us Nora and Mrs. Alving and Hedda has also given us Agnes, the wife of Brand, and Solveig, the sweet guiding star of Peer Gynt,— two women the beauty and strength of whose love have not been excelled by the pen of any poet, not even the romantic age of Elizabeth. And this man who has painted the mistakes and horrors of the old regime, who bids us enter into a new era when “the old, with its tinsel, its hypocrisy, its lying propriety, and its pitiful cowardice, shall lie behind us like a museum open for instruction,” is called a morbid and unwholesome pessimist, a cruel misanthrope, an author to whom it is ludicrous to ascribe any conscious purpose!

z 11 å Dorothy Rothschild Parker [1898–1967] Dorothy Rothschild married Edwin Pond Parker II merely to change her last name, so she wouldn’t sound Jewish — or so the story goes according to her biographer, Marion Meade. Meade reports that Parker admitted to friends after her divorce “that she had wanted to marry Eddie because he had a nice, clean name.”1 Another biographer, Leslie Frewin, quotes her as saying, “I married to change my name from Rothschild to Parker, that is all there was to it.”2 The marriage, which took place in June, 1917, was doomed from the first year. Eddie’s military division was sent to Europe in June 1918 — the same year Dorothy began her career as a theatre critic for Vanity Fair. Eddie returned from Europe for a brief time in 1919, during which time his heavy drinking contributed to further ruptures in the relationship, and the marriage was headed for dissolution. As a couple, the Parkers were never together for more than short periods of time. When they were together, Dorothy often ignored Eddie and preferred the company of her Round Table friends, with whom she often made jokes at Eddie’s expense. To all appearances, the marriage ended in 1919, but they were not legally divorced until March 31, 1928. The desire to hide her Jewishness is indicative of other psychological and emotional problems experienced by Parker. Although she became one of the most celebrated American writers of the 1920s, Parker never felt worthy of acclaim. Her stories, poems, and theatre writings are full of autobiographical references that reveal her insecurities. Some say her caustic wit was a cover for her vulnerability; others say she was just naturally nasty. Parker’s reputation as a writer is based more on her short stories and her tenure as a member of the legendary “Round Table at the Algonquin,” also referred to as the “vicious circle.” In spite of their reputation for wit, most of this group engaged in self-deprecation and self-mockery, and, according to Frewin, “not the least Mrs. Parker, who believed that most of her writing was 157

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worthless; an attitude she was to hold throughout her life.”3 Parker’s training to be a member of this circle of writers goes back to her schooling at Miss Dana’s School for Young Ladies in Morristown, New Jersey, a finishing and college preparatory school. It was here that she developed a liking for classical and contemporary writers, especially Edna St. Vincent Millay. Parker’s career as a writer took various directions, always keeping her close to the world of theatre and movies. In 1920, she was removed from her position as drama critic for Vanity Fair, but went on to write poetry and prose pieces for various magazines. Now at the height of her career, she was the author of approximately 130 prose pieces, 70 poems for Life, a monthly column in Ainslee’s, various features in Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, and Everybody’s. She collaborated with Elmer Rice on a play called Soft Music, later changed to Close Harmony, or the Lady Next Door. This play opened as Close Harmony on November 22, 1924, in Wilmington, Delaware, and moved to Broadway in December, only to close after 24 performances. In 1924, Parker’s career changed directions again. George Kaufman invited her to collaborate in writing a movie short for Paramount Pictures called Business Is Business. This was not very successful, but gave her a taste of writing for movies. In 1929, MGM hired her as a screenwriter, but she didn’t like living in Hollywood, so she returned to New York after three months. Parker’s personal life during the late 1920s and early 1930s was filled with short affairs, miscarriages, A pensive Dorothy Parker in the 1920s. When and suicide attempts. Her writing for The New Yorker (1927–1933), she second marriage in 1934 to used the pen name “Constant Reader” (photograph used by permission of the Billy Rose TheAlan Campbell lasted until atre Division, The New York Public Library for 1947. Campbell’s job as an the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden aspiring actor and Dorothy’s Foundations).

11 • Dorothy Rothschild Parker [1898 –1967]

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reputation as a screenwriter led the couple to return to Hollywood for a while. After a few unhappy years in California, Dorothy convinced Campbell to try farm living in Pennsylvania. This experiment was unsuccessful, so the couple moved back to Hollywood, where, again, Parker was employed as a screenwriter. She died June 7, 1967, still a part of the life she claimed to hate. Her theatre reviews for Vanity Fair (April 1918 to March 1920) were more often about herself than about the shows she reviewed. They include many overt and covert instances of self-debasement, even self-loathing, while also revealing her desire to be liked. Such emotions may stem from her feelings for her father. She seems to have hated him and “never forgave him for her Jewish parentage and name, and regarded him as a bully, a hypocrite, and an enemy.”4 When he died in 1913, Dorothy did not attend his funeral. From the beginning of her reviews for Vanity Fair, Parker seems not to trust her own judgment. In her first review in April 1918, she refers to herself as a “tired business woman” simply reporting on “innocent diversions.” In this first review, she covers five shows, but her comments reveal personal peeves rather than any quality of the play in question. For example, she liked Oh, Lady, Lady!!, suggesting that Bolton, Wodehouse, and Kern wrote out of a feeling of nothing else to do, and goes on to sarcastically comment on the high price of tickets (comparable to buying a seat on the Stock Exchange), and the smallness of the theatre (about the size of a good-sized grain elevator). She expected greatness from Going Up because of all the “hype” it had received, but didn’t like it because the lady to her left searched for her lost gloves throughout the performance, or because her seat was too far to the right of the theatre, “practically out on Tenth Avenue.” She compares the show to The Aviator, another show “nobody remembers.” Even when Parker does comment favorably on some part of a show, the compliments always come with a caveat. For example, she did say Going Up had more plot than most musical comedies, but she would trade a connected story for a “few good lines” of dialogue. Another show covered in her first review was Girl O’ Mine, which she didn’t like and referred to as a show to attend if you wanted to “get a lot of knitting done.” Parker reveals she “turned a complete heel without once having my attention distracted by anything that happened on the stage.” She didn’t give much space to The Love Mill, except to comment on the 250pound comedienne, and to say the play would “probably be a horrid memory by the time this organ of enlightenment sells out on the newsstands.” Sinbad is dismissed with the comment that “nothing succeeds like undress.” She reports that the “sailor right in back of me thought it was all perfectly great. So there you are.”5

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These comic or sarcastic comments on the ability of the audience members to recognize good plays as being greater than her ability to do so cannot be dismissed. Their frequent occurrence in her writing indicate a lack of selfconfidence or unease with herself, which she tries to mask with witty repartee. She seems to think newspaper critics are far more qualified than she is to judge productions. For instance, in a November 1918 review she indicates she liked the production of The Woman in the Index until the newspaper critics expressed disapproval; then she “subsided into a meek silence, fearful that I had betrayed my hideous ignorance,” and in the same column reviewing The Riddle: Woman she says newspaper critics liked it, so she concluded, “I’m all wrong, for I could hardly bear it.”6 In March 1919 Parker refers to newspaper critics as “the real critics.”7 Another dimension of her love/hate relationship with the theatre was directed toward audiences. Under the name of Henriette Rousseau, Parker devoted one entire column to audiences in the July 1918 issue of Vanity Fair. In this column she laments never being able to “go to the theatre like other people,” particularly because of the people who sit behind her. She writes, “No matter where I sit, there is always some fiend in more or less human form sitting behind me, put there for the sole purpose of removing whatever joy there may be in my evening.” She categorizes these “fiends” into six basic groups. The first group, “the conversationalists” are always in pairs and use the theatre as “a splendid opportunity for a good chat” in “loud, clear voices, enunciating carefully, stopping for rest only during the intermissions.” In another category are those who are in the wrong seats. These people show up early with “umbrellas, canes, handbags, commutation tickets, time-tables, operaglasses, muffs, rubbers.” These persons find their own seats and spend time before the curtain by “helping each other off with rubbers, arranging wraps in tasteful festoons over the seats in front, getting drinks of water, ... picking up umbrellas as they drop, and stowing hats neatly under seats” until the real owners of the seats show up just as the play is getting interesting. A third “blight” that ruins her evening is the “person who can’t quite hear,” who needs an interpreter to repeat all the good lines. “Other vicious pests are the chronic applauders,” who “applaud almost incessantly” while raising their hands in the air so “their applause is visible, as well as audible.” A fifth group of fiends, according to Parker, are the lovers, who “always behave in the theatres as if they are the only ones in the house. I do wish they could be segregated until after marriage.” She concludes her column with the following: “The most entertaining of all those who sit behind me are the people who know all the inside information about the actors and actresses” and spend the evening telling their companions of “the most intimate details about the private lives


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of stage people.” In her final paragraph she admits that the “fiends who infest my evening do have their bright side.” As she looks back over the season, she finds she owes them a great debt because “they took my mind off the play.”8 Parker also took jabs at the audience under her own name in her theatre reviews. For instance, in her November 1918 review of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, she admits to being “more absorbed in the audience than in the drama” because they have a conscious exquisiteness, a deep appreciation of their own culture.... “Look at us,” they seem to say. We are the cognoscenti. We have come because we can appreciate this thing — we are not as you, poor bonehead, who are here because you couldn’t get tickets for the Winter Garden.9

In the same review she castigates the latecomers at a performance of The Unknown Purple for “charging for their seats in a flying wedge.”10 In a June 1918 review, she expressed annoyance (with good reason, it seems) with an “exuberant theatre party” sitting just behind her for their mistaking a serious play, A Night at the Inn for a French farce. “When they found that it wasn’t, they weren’t in the least daunted.”11 In November 1919 again her annoyance is expressed toward what she calls the National Bronchial Association and The Nose and Throat Brigade, who coughed and sneezed throughout a performance.12 Like audiences, actors were not spared Parker’s barbed wit as a result of her love/hate relationship with the theatre. In a poem, “Actors, a Hate Song,” published in July 1919, she begins and ends with the line, “I hate actors. They spoil my evenings.” She lumps them into four groups: “the Juveniles, the male Ingenues; the Movie Heroes, the ones who drove the Wild West Wild; the Tragedians, the ones who made Shakespeare famous; and the Drawing-Room Stars, the ones that swing a mean tea-cup.”13 The descriptions of each category are vitriolic, but funny, and too long to include here. On the other hand, she often praised actors in spite of claiming to hate them. For instance, she particularly liked the Barrymores. In her December 1918 review of Tolstoy’s Redemption, she says, “Of John Barrymore’s performance of the chief role, I can only say that, to me, it was flawless.... I thought Mr. Barrymore consistently fine; ... his death scene was simply remarkable.”14 In the June 1919 review of The Jest, she says: Once again, the Barrymore brothers have shown what they can do when they try. They have easily outclassed all comers in this season’s histrionic marathon.... Their roles — John plays Gianetto, the sensitive young artist, and Lionel, Neri, the great, swashbuckling mercenary — afford a brilliantly effective study in contrasts.... It is a bit rough on the other actors in The Jest, for the Barrymores’ acting makes one forget all about the other people concerned.15

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20th-Century Critics In December 1919 Parker writes:

Of Ethel Barrymore’s performance in Declasse it is difficult to write — hosannahs are heavy going for even the doggedest reader. If, during my theatre-going lifetime, there has been any other performance so perfect as the one she gives in the role of Lady Helen Haden — if there has been any other bit of acting like that, I can only say that I had the hideous ill luck to miss it.... Perhaps the safest way is to say that Miss Barrymore is at her best in Declasse, and leave it at that.16

In the spring of 1919, Parker also praised the acting of Helen Hayes, William Gillette, and Mrs. Fiske. Of Blanche Bates’ performance in Philip Moeller’s Moliere, she says: “As soon as Blanche Bates comes on, the evening is made. Her performance of the role of Mme. de Montespan is an amazing one, utterly free from affectation, smooth, subtle, and startlingly natural.”17 Dorothy Parker does seem to have had a love/hate relationship with herself and with theatre. At times she wanted out of both but always came back. Nevertheless, her reviews for Vanity Fair remain some of the most entertaining and enlightening reading on the conditions of the American theatre scene as ever were written. She hated it; she loved it. From Vanity Fair, April 1918, page 69. “A Succession of Musical Comedies” (The Innocent Diversions of a Tired Business Woman) Well, Wodehouse and Bolton and Kern have done it again. Every time these three are gathered together, the Princess Theatre is sold out for months in advance. This thing of writing successes is just getting to be a perfect bore with them. They get up in the morning, look out of the window, and remark wearily, stifling a yawn, “Oh, Lord — nothing to do outdoors on a day like this. I suppose we might as well put over another “Oh, Boy!” From all present indications, “Oh, Lady! Lady!!”— they do love to work off their superfluous punctuation on their titles — is going to run for the duration of the war, anyway. You can get a seat at the Princess, somewhere along around the middle of August, for just about the price of one on the Stock Exchange. Only moving picture artists and food profiteers will be able to attend for the first six months; after that, owners of munitions plants may, by trading in their Thrift Stamps, be able to get a couple of standing rooms. Of course, if you want to be mean about it, you can talk about the capacity of the theatre, which is nearly that of a goodsized grain elevator. But I still insist that Tyson would be exacting staggering rentals for seats for “Oh, Lady! Lady!!” if it were playing in Madison Square Garden.


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If you ask me, I will look you fearlessly in the eye and tell you, in low, throbbing tones, that it has it all over any other musical comedy in town. I was completely sold on it. Not even the presence in the first-night audience of Mr. William Randolph Hearst, wearing an American flag on his conventional black lapel, could spoil my evening. But then Wodehouse and Bolton and Kern are my favorite indoor sport, anyway. I like the way they go about a musical comedy. I love the soothing quiet — the absence of revolver shots, and jazz orchestration, and “scenic” effects, and patriotic songs with the members of the chorus draped in the flags of the Allies, and jokes about matrimony and Camembert cheese. I like the way the action slides casually into the songs without any of the usual “Just think, Harry is coming home again! I wonder if he’ll remember that little song we used to sing together? It went something like this.” I like the deft rhyming of the song that is always sung in the last act, by two comedians and one comedienne. And oh, how I do like Jerome Kern’s music — those nice, soft, polite little tunes that always make me wish I’d been a better girl. And all these things are even more so in “Oh, Lady! Lady!!” than they were in “Oh, Boy!”(at least one reference to “Oh Boy!” must be made in any mention of any other Wodehouse, Bolton, and Kern musical comedy. Now I’ve done mine — twice). The cast of “Oh, Lady! Lady!!” Certainly does the right thing by it. Carl Randall, who dances like a clothed member of the Ballet Russe, is the Boy Wonder of the occasion. He does practically everything except double in brass, and he has that worried look which is the greatest asset of a comedian. He is the only musical comedy hero in captivity who can dance his way down the stage, while the line-up chorus girls hold their arms in an arch above him, and still look like a human being. And, besides all that, he gets through the entire evening without once appearing in a Norfolk coat. Vivienne Segal, who escaped uninjured from the wreck of the Century show, sings and dances charmingly. But won’t some one who knows her awfully well please tell her, all for her own good, that her dresses really should be just a little bit longer? When the critics pull off their annual Spring festival, the famous nonprize contest for the twelve best individual performances of the season, I should like to nominate Reginald Mason, as the English detective, for a rating among the first six. People like Carroll McComas, Margaret Dale, Edward Abeles, and Harry Fisher are scattered casually through the rest of the cast, while the chorus is composed of good, kind, motherly-looking women.

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I was deeply disappointed and grieved in “Going Up.” Maybe it was because I had heard such paeans of praise about the thing that I rather got the impression that people who once saw it never wanted to see anything else, but just pined away and died if they weren’t allowed to go to it every night. Maybe it was because my seat was so far over at the right of the Liberty Theatre that I was practically out in Tenth Avenue. Or maybe it was because of the lady on my left, who discovered the loss of one of her gloves shortly after the curtain rose, and searched for it ceaselessly throughout the evening. She was one of the most thoroughly conscientious women I have ever encountered; the glove was evidently the dying bequest of some departed dear one, and life was as nothing to her without it. She went over every inch of floor space within a radius of twenty feet; she not only rose and made everybody around her rise and shake themselves, also. The pleasant knowledge that I was under strong suspicion added much to the general thinness of my evening. Be that as it may, I wasn’t wild about “Going Up.” However, the piece is bearing up bravely under the blow; according to those who have tried to get seats, the house is sold out until some time in 1924. “Going up” is a musical version of “The Aviator.” Do you remember “The Aviator?” No, you wouldn’t — nobody did. Well, anyhow, “Going Up” has been made over by Otto Harbach, and supplied with music by Louis Hirsh. It has far more plot and a much more connected story; you don’t get away from it for a minute. Large segments of connected story are always lying around the stage, getting in the way of the chorus. Personally, I would willingly swap any amount of connected story for a few good lines, but every one else seems to enjoy it, and who am I to crab their innocent fun? It’s one of those exuberant things — the chorus constantly bursts on, singing violently and dashing through maneuvers, and everybody rushes about back, and bets people thousands of stage dollars, and grasps people fervently by the hand, loudly shouting “It’s a go!” I will say one thing for it, though — there wasn’t a single song based on heatless, meatless, or wheatless days, and no one used the word “camouflage” in my hearing. It’s come to the point where if I have to hear or see that word just once more, I’m going to make a separate peace. “Going Up” is strictly a one-man show. Frank Craven is the entire evening. He rises above the need of clever lines — he can bring down the house with an agonized look or a single groan of anguish. With sublime good-humor and superhuman endurance, Edith Day sings and dances “Tickle Toe” (which the orchestras about town have made almost as popular as the Star-Spangled Banner), as many times as the howling audience


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demands — I think it was a hundred and thirty-seven on the night I was there. “Girl O’ Mine” is one of those shows at which you can get a lot of knitting done. I turned a complete heel without once having my attention distracted by anything that happened on the stage. The comedy part is as harmless as a vanilla ice-cream soda and equally stimulating, and Frank Tours’ music is as reminiscent and as easily forgotten as a story in Ainslee’s. Even the song that they want you to go out whistling doesn’t stick with you. The cast does its utmost. Frank Fay, in particular, does all that mortal man can do for musical comedy. Dorothy Dickson dances as gracefully as ever, and she sings, too,— but that, as Mr. Kipling has so often been quoted as saying, is another story. By all means go to “Girl O’ Mine” if you want a couple of hours’ undisturbed rest. If you don’t knit, bring a book. “The Love Mill” grind but slowly and it grinds exceedingly small. Andreas Dippel, who produced it, really should go to Lakewood for a few weeks. He can’t be quite well. From the opening chorus, which consists of exempted young men in white flannels, wielding tennis racquets as if they were butterfly nets, to the final discouraged drop of the curtain, it is All Wrong. I’m a tired business woman, and I do love my bit of vulgarity of an evening, but when the chief divertissement consists of two hundred and fifty pounds of comedienne throwing herself into a man’s arms, felling him to the earth, and falling heavily upon him,— when the most delicate jests are those which refer to the perfume of onions — well, it’s just too much, that’s all. Occasionally, the efforts of the company are greeted with a patter of applause from a sympathetic usher, and now and then someone in the audience laughs uneasily — probably from nervousness. But in the main, it is one of those shows in which all the laughter comes from the stage. There are countless sallies about marriage and innumerable songs about love — love being compared to various things it in no wise resembles, a bridle path and a mill, among others. The mill song contains the exquisite rhyme —“as I think of the time when your lips met mine.” Another gem is the patriotic duet beginning “Now the country is calling, calling you and I.” I know who wrote those lyrics and I know the names of the people in the cast, but I’m not going to tell on them. “The Love Mill” will probably be but a horrid memory by the time this organ of enlightenment sells out on the news-stands. The poor thing had a bad start, anyway. It couldn’t hope to get right. It was produced at the Forty-eighth Street Theatre — the stop just before Cain’s store-house.

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If you like the Winter Garden brand of entertainment, you simply won’t be able to contain yourself over “Sinbad,” the newest Winter Garden orgy. It is billed as an extravaganza, and it’s all of that. It looks just like the advertisements for “Chu Chin Chow” sound. If you like great masses of trick scenery, and involved ballets, and glittering properties, and a shipwreck scene so realistic that everyone around looks rather green, you’ll hardly manage to hold yourself in your seat. The show runs true to from, from Al Jolson’s song about the Albany night boat to the customary girl dressed in man’s clothes. There is never a Winter Garden show without a girl dressed in male habiliments. It’s never the same girl for any two shows, but one of those parts is always written in. Any male ingénue could play it perfectly well, but having a girl do it makes it more intricate. The only surprise in the evening is the absence of the customary song in which the poor, lonesome little chorus girls trip through the audience lisping their pathetic need of a Daddy. In fact, the runway gets only one try-out, late in the last act. “Sinbad” is produced in accordance with the fine old Shubert precept that nothing succeeds like undress. Somehow, the Winter Garden chorus always irresistibly reminds me of that popular nightmare in which the dreamer finds himself unaccountably walking down a crowded thoroughfare, in broad daylight, clad only in a guest towel. The style of costuming begins to pall on me after a while. Of course, I take a certain civic pride in the fact that there is probably more nudity in our own Winter Garden than there is in any other place in the world, nevertheless there are times during the evening’s entertainment when I pine for 11:15, so that I can go out in the street and see a lot of women with clothes on. But the sailor right in the back of me thought it was all perfectly great. So there you are. From Vanity Fair, October 1918, beginning on page 69. “The Fall Crop of War Plays” Shows Us That the Front Is Not the Only Place to Get Shell-Shock The new theatrical season has sneaked up on us without even the creaking of a board. One week the theatres were dark and dreary, and the next, new shows had burst out all over the place. There was no leading up to it, no marking off of the days on the calendar. No,— there it was, and that was irrevocably that. The producers seem to be more or less divided, just now, in their opinion of what the dear old public wants. Some, with irreproachable logic,


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have argued that, since there is a war going on, the thing to do is to put on war plays; others, with equally faultless reasoning, insist that, as there is a war going on, the thing to do is not to put on war plays. So far, however, the ayes indisputably have it. I have been through so many war plays that I feel like a veteran. I have had so much propaganda poured into me that I couldn’t hold another drop. I have witnesses so many German spies that I have begun to distrust my own family. I have seen an endless succession of class 5-B young men, clad in over-impeccable uniforms, bid good-bye to their stage mothers and stride resolutely off into the wings,— and I have never yet failed to break down at the spectacle. I have been through an air-raid so realistic that I am still suffering from shellshock, and I have seen so many drawn revolvers that I am almost cured of being gun-shy. I strive, of course, to be open-minded about the thing, but it is certainly going to be difficult to convince me that I will ever see a better war play than “Under Orders,” Berte Thomas’ drama at the Eltinge, of which Shelly Hull and Effie Shannon form the entire cast. When a trick play can be so intensely absorbing that you forget all about the trick part and think only of the play itself, I would like to suggest that that is indeed something. It’s one of those plays that could be make ridiculous without a struggle; you know yourself that when you heard that Miss Shannon plays a German mother and an American mother, alternately; and that Mr. Hull takes the part of a German son and an American son, one after the other, you really felt that you would just as soon go to the movies. It’s only perfect acting that could make the piece what it is today. I can think of no actor — other than Mr. Hull — who could rush out of the door, as an American, and come back through the window, as a German, and not make the entire audience dash out to the box office and demand their money back. There isn’t, so far as I can remember, a single moment of comedy to lighten the entire play, yet never once does it become oppressive. The American soldier’s leave-taking of his mother is done so simply that there isn’t a dry handkerchief in the house, and Mr. Hull never permits even the most ardently patriotic speeches that were wished on him by the author to slip over into hysteria. The only thing that upset me, during the whole evening, was the last act. It is one of those acts in which Mother’s hair has turned white in a single intermission. She has lost her mind because she believes her son to be dead, and she plays a wistful little mad scene in which she toys with a pink paper rose. (Artificial roses, it would seem, were the son’s favorite flowers.) It is an act that you know all about before it even gets started.

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You have positive inside information, somehow, that the returning son is going to restore the mother’s reason. I could have gone out into the night a different woman, if they hadn’t had that last act. And yet I suppose it had to be done; it’s much better propaganda to have it all end happily. And, besides, you know that if the author had to let Shelly Hull get killed, not a woman in the audience would ever have smiled again. Yes, I suppose that last act really comes under the head of a war-time necessity. I do wish, though, that they could have kept Effie Shannon from going insane. The only other suggestion that I have to offer is that, in the third act, which is supposed to take place a year after the first, it would help the illusion along a bit is the same flowers that made their debut in Act I were not still blooming gaily in the vases. Otherwise, I never saw anything more flawlessly done. The one thing that depresses me about the play is the horrid fear that it may bring on an epidemic of other plays containing only two actors. Even the one-man show may not be far off. Our playwrights are so quick to see a play like “Under Orders,” and then go home and write one. Who knows where this thing may lead us? “Friendly Enemies,” the Aaron Hoffman, Samuel Shipman opus, in which Louis Mann and Sam Bernard are starring, is simply driving them wild over at the Hudson Theatre. The audience just can’t contain itself. The propaganda is so coated with humor that you’ve taken it before you can stop to think about it. Every time you begin to feel that it would be rather considerate if they’d turn off the war talk for just a moment, please, and talk about something else, the authors put in a line that gets a laugh, and so the audience has the time of its life. Personally, though, I was a little disappointed in it,— I feel as though I were going to be arrested for saying that. It didn’t seem quite all I heard it was going to be. Mr. Mann and Mr. Bernard, seem to me less to interpret the roles of German-Americans than to give skillful impersonations of Mr. Mann and Mr. Bernard,— which is probably why they are making such a hit. I have moved but little in Hyphenated circles, yet I cannot feel that German-Americans speak pure Weber and Fields in the privacy of their homes. But no one else seems to get wrought up over that, so it must all be due to my naturally crabbed nature. Then, too, I don’t always think that the propaganda itself was above reproach; it certainly doesn’t seem to me that such lines as, “If it weren’t for America, the Allies would be licked now,” are in the right key. But the audiences simply can’t get enough of it, and it will have its S.R.O. sign out long after the roses bloom again, so please don’t mind me.


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Mathilde Cottrelly was, I thought, the best thing in the comedy — but, then, I always do think Mathilde Cottrelly the best thing in whatever she happens to be appearing. Richard Barbee, with the requisite Springlike boyishness, plays the role of the American soldier, who explains why we are at war and how we are going to win. All stage soldiers do this. I don’t mean to deny that it is splendid propaganda, but I just wish that some of the authors of war plays would let someone other that the soldier say it. It doesn’t seem to me to give a realistic picture of the American soldier. He doesn’t sit around getting himself all rhetorical about Belgium and the Lusitania; he’s too busy getting into the fight. So far as I can gather, the great moral lesson to be derived from “Three Faces East,” at the Cohan and Harris, is: Never report any suspected German spy; he is sure to turn out to be a member of the Secret Service. It is a play that would make you suspect your own mother of Teutonic tendencies. You don’t dare turn your back on any member of the cast, for a single moment during the entire evening. As soon as you begin to warm towards someone you discover he’s a Hun of the most virulent type, and just as you are absolutely certain that someone else is a German spy, he turns out to be a member of the British secret service. You never know where to put your trust. There was one thing they couldn’t catch me on, though. Of course, I may be preternaturally quick that way, but they couldn’t fool me on that. I knew Violet Heming wasn’t really a German spy. I don’t know whether Anthony Paul Kelly, the author, meant his audience to take the play seriously, but they certainly don’t. Some of the complications are too involved; if you try to figure them all out, in your head, you go quite mad. The only thing to do is to laugh helplessly, and give it up. After you leave and begin to think the thing over, you would like a few moment’s private conversation with the author just to get him to explain a few things that never are quite cleared up in the course of the evening. But while you are in the theatre, you really haven’t time to worry about mere probabilities. You’re too busy trying to keep track of who’s spying on whom. I don’t see how it would be humanly possible for anyone to be better than Emmett Corrigan in a part which requires him to seem to be a German spy one minute and a secret service agent the next, just to make it more intricate for the audience, and Violet Heming is charming in the leading feminine role. There is a property air-raid, done off-stage, that is so startlingly life-like that I would have made straight for the cellar if I hadn’t been forewarned — I had read all about it in the dramatic criticisms that morning.

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Propaganda is the entire plot of “Allegiance,” from the pens of Prince and Princess Troubetzkoy, at Maxine Elliott’s Theatre. It has to do with a German-American family, of which the grandfather (you know him for a German immediately because he’s made up to look like David Warfield) and the grandson are the only ones who are for our side. Loyalty seems to skip a generation, like twins. There is much conversation and unlimited argument during the first acts, but truth compels me to state that it couldn’t even inspire me to go out and buy another Thrift Stamp. No one says anything that you haven’t known all about for the last four years. The last act, though, broke me up. In it Charles Meredith, who plays the role of the loyal grandson, comes back from the war, blind. I wouldn’t have taken it so hard if he hadn’t been so good. I tried to bear up; I said to myself, “Now don’t let him take you in, this way. You know yourself that he hasn’t been to any war — he’s just been out in the wings smoking a cigarette! He’s perfectly strong and well, and he probably hasn’t even got astigmatism. He’s only making believe.” But it was no use. He did it so well that he completely broke my heart. I thought Blanche Yurka, who plays the boy’s mother, was wonderfully good, but the rest of the cast seemed to leave no impression. Even Harrison Hunter didn’t do a thing with his role of a German spy. And now let us pass on, as Burton Holmes so aptly puts it, to the plays of peace. “A Very Good Young Man,” at the Plymouth, is the first play of a new author, Martin Brown — remember when he used to dance with the Dolly Sisters? At first I thought it was going to be a big evening, but it seemed to die on me along about the middle of the first act. There’s a good idea,— that of showing a slice of life of the natives of Greenpoint,— but it is smothered by over-emphasis. Every good line or amusing incident is stressed and repeated and brought up again until you’re weary unto death of it. Most of the humor, too, consists in the mispronunciation and misuse of words, and that is always a form of wit which goes completely over my head. Wallace Eddinger and Ruth Findley do nobly, playing with a charmingly restful quiet, although it seemed to me that their clothes were far too conservative for the youth of Greenpoint. Mr. Eddinger really should have had one of those belted coats, which are the national costume of that country. The rest of the cast seem over-anxious to impress upon you that they are just playing characters in a comedy; that they don’t really say “ain’t” and “I says” and “he done,” when they’re at home. So they over-act their respective roles, to show you that it’s only in fun. I do hope that Ada Lewis


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is remembering her German dialect a little better; it was extremely sporadic on the first night. “The Blue Pearl,” Anne Crawford Flexner’s play, at the Longacre, is one of those dramas that center about the delightfully informal little dinner party during the course of which the lights go out and one of those present whiles away the time, until the switch is turned on again, by committing either a murder or a robbery. It happens to be a robbery in “The Blue Pearl.” The property necklace, which plays the title role, is lifted from the throat of the adventuress — and there you are. Of course, if they will write and produce a play like this, they must expect it to be compared with “The Thirteenth Chair” and “The Blue Pearl” doesn’t approach “The Thirteenth Chair”— possibly because, no matter how thrilling a robbery may be, it can never have the fresh, wholesome appeal of a good, red-blooded murder. One’s suspicions, in “The Blue Pearl,” are pretty well distributed, I will say that for it. Everyone in the play is given a perfectly good motive for wanting to annex the necklace. In fact, so thoroughly was I baffled as to the real identity of the thief that, at the end of the first act, I regarded all the members of the cast, the leader of the orchestra, the hat-room boy, and the ordnance officer in the right-hand stage box, with equal suspicion. The play rather pines away later on, however; there are long stretches when the only thing that rivets your attention to the stage is wondering at what moment the shoulder straps of Julia Bruns’ green gown are going to give up the unequal struggle and succumb to the strain. Mrs. Flexner has striven to combine a society comedy with her mystery drama. You know that you’re witnessing life in the very highest society circles buy all the conversation about divorce, and by the table laden with cocktail shakers and bottles of whiskey, which occupies a corner of the drawing-room. The dialogue, too, aims at a brilliant sophistication. But the epigrams weren’t doing so well the night I was there; they seemed a little limp. George Nash plays the part of a Police Commissioner — you know that he’d do it well — and Julia Bruns, as the rapid lady, thoroughly convinced me. It may be that a life of toil has blunted my perception of the humorous, but I couldn’t get a single laugh out of “She Walked in Her Sleep,” Mark Swan’s farce now holding forth at the Playhouse. Perhaps it will linger in our midst, yet I feel that very shortly it will hear the call of the open road. It seemed to leave me colder and colder as it progresses, and only the fact that Mrs. Castle sat several rows ahead of me and I was trying to see what she had on, kept me from choosing my exit long before the final cur-

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tain. The plot concerns a young lady, evidently suffering from inhibitions, who has a habit of walking in her sleep and embracing any male whom she chances to encounter in her somnambulatory wanderings. Of course, she strays into the apartment of a married man, and there you have it. All the dear old farce tricks are assiduously worked into the play — the inevitable sneaking towards the door, and invariable calling of a halt just before the door is reached; the inescapable bad-tempered man, who rushes in and out with a revolver; the eternal married man’s answer that runs: “How did she get into my room? Why — why you explain how she got into my room;” the usual slammed door; the customary Madge Kennedy type of wife; and the conventional bringing down the house by the uses of the monosyllable, “Hell.” Alberta Burton, in the role of the somnambulist, looks charming and does it without self-consciousness. All the other members of the cast overacted their parts with an enthusiasm worthy of a better cause — all, that is, except a small, slightly soiled white puppy named Imogene, who played her scenes with admirable repression. Another mirthless farce, “Keep Her Smiling,” brings Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Drew from the films — where they were doing so nicely — back to the stage — where I fear that evil days are in store for them. The play is the work of John Hunter Booth, who founded it on some “Saturday Evening Post” stories, and it proves the truth of what I have always held to be the loftiest doctrine on earth — that there is nothing quite so beautiful as a wife’s extravagance; it inspires her husband to go out and make a tremendous fortune. I wish that every married man could see “Keep Her Smiling”— although it would be pretty rough on the poor souls, at that, for, try as I may, I can’t recall a good line or an amusing situation in the entire evening. The piece is produced with all the delicacy and good taste which usually characterize a drama on the screen. The inhabitants of the smart suburb, for instance, in which the scene is set, for the most part look, speak, and act like the guests at an outing of the Daniel J. Grogan Association. And the rest of the production is carried out in the same spirit. But then, as the optimistic woman who left the theatre just a little way in front of me, observed, “Well, it’s a clean show, anyway.” From Vanity Fair, July 1919, page 33. “A Close of a Perfect Season” (Reviews of Four Comedies —Two of Them with Music, Two of Them Without)


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Open to reason though I am on the Irish question, I can’t help being appalled at the thought of what a rough day it will be for the drama when Ireland is freed. What are the playwrights ever going to do about it? How could an Irish drama make a hit without references to the oppressed Emerald Isle, spoken with a sob in the voice, to bring storms of emotion from the shrieking Sinn Feiners in the gallery? How will they ever hang the S.R.O. sign out unless the play contains quotations from Robert Emmet, to drive wild the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in the balcony? How can Chauncey Olcott and Fiske O’Hara and Andrew Mack ever make a living without the wrongs of the Old Country to break into song about? When Ireland at length emerges from the bush league and joins the League of Nations, what will there be left for the Irish to get themselves all worked up about? Home Rule may be a perfectly corking thing — but when it comes in, the Irish drama will immediately cease to make any more money. The most ardent Home Rule enthusiasts must face that fact. Mr. David Belasco, the producer of “Dark Rosaleen,” and the Messrs. Whitford Kane and W. D. Hepenstall, its authors, ought to get together at least once a day and give three rousing cheers for England. If Ireland were on its own, their little Sinn Fein drama wouldn’t be doing anywhere near so well. It would be just a mild and soothing musical comedy without music,— with the usual picturesque peasantry, the cruel mortgageholder, the blind fiddler, the trio of comedians, the old apple-woman, and the conversation about the moonlight. As it is, the house is jammed to the roof, nightly, with Home Rule rooters. The Belasco Theatre rocks with wild, free, Gaelic shouts of appreciation at every broken utterance about the sufferings of Erin. A picture of Robert Emmet causes the entire audience to break down utterly and sob on one another’s shoulders; and when Eileen Huban waves the green, white, and orange of the Irish Republic, there is grave apprehension that the pillars which support the balcony will not bear up under the terrific strain. The action of the drama is stopped every few moments by the hysterical appreciation of the audience; after each patriotic sentiment is uttered, at least ten minutes has to be allowed for the shouting to die away. And, as there is a patriotic sentiment about every eight lines, every evening, in the Belasco Theatre, sounds like Peace Night. There are times, in fact, when the orgy of patriotism grows a bit wearisome to undemonstrative souls in the audience; as the evening advances, one seems to care less and less about whether or not Ireland ever gets her wish; and, at the final curtain, one leaves the theatre appreciatively humming “God Save the King.”

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But that, of course, is neither here nor there. “Dark Rosaleen” was neither written nor produced for undemonstrative souls. Its production was based, one can’t help thinking, on the great truth that nothing crowds the box-office like patriotism. And there you are. Mr. Belasco, Mr. Hepenstall, and Mr. Kane won’t have to worry about their garage bills as long as the Irish population in our city holds out. Aside from the heart-throbs about the verdant isle, “Dark Rosaleen” concerns itself with the story of a horse race. It is the same horse race that has provided the plot to so many dramas — at the last moment, the jockey who was to ride the heroine’s entry, defaults; so the hero rides the little mare to victory, thus winning the money to lift the mortgage. There are three radical innovations in the plot of “Dark Rosaleen,” however; the jockey is not drugged, but is bought over by the rival horse owner; the mortgage is not on the old farm, but on a public house; and the odds on the little mare are only twenty to one. This is the first known drama based on a horse race in which the winner was not at least a hundred to one shot. However, the little mare wins by the conventional ten lengths, so the plot is not too daring to distress the more conservative among the audience. The production of the play is, of course, a perfect one, with brilliant splashes of local color, and there are many bright spots of comedy between the dense masses of patriotism. Also, there are some exceptionally clever performances — notably those of Eileen Huban and Beryl Mercer. Henry Duffey, who plays the hero, seems a bit to overdo the dreaminess of the Irish lad; he rather gives the impression of playing the role in his sleep. It is restful, after an evening at “Dark Rosaleen,” to venture into a theatre and listen to brogueless English; it is quieting to the nerves not to hear the actors ejaculating “arrah” and telling one other to “whist, now!” It is pleasant, too, to see the audience keeping its seats and abstaining from hysterics. Therefore, “I Love You,” William Le Baron’s farce at the Booth, proved a delightfully soothing two hours and a half. It isn’t exactly a thing to get up and cheer about, but, worn and weak from the excitement of the Belasco pyrotechnical display, one is only too grateful that is isn’t. Mr. Le Baron has achieved what has seemed, so far in the season, to be an impossibility; he has written a successful farce without a bed, a pair of pajamas, a newly married couple, or a line in it that you couldn’t repeat to your own mother. It is about the only farce running in the Borough of Manhattan to which an honorable young man can take an innocent young girl without feeling that he has to marry her afterwards. “I Love You” is not extraordinary for its killing lines nor its screaming situations, but there is a good-humored ease about it that is decidedly


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grateful. There are moments, it must be admitted, when one rather wishes one had brought the Ouiga-board along, to while the time away, but the rather dull stretches are not of great length nor frequency. The farce is extremely well done, particularly by Gilbert Douglas and Richard Dix, with John Westley in one of his accepted roles, and Diantha Pattison in the leading feminine part. The musical comedies of the month are “She’s a Good Fellow” and “The Lady in Red,” both of which owe their book and lyrics to Anne Caldwell — evidently a native of New York, judging by the casualness with which she rhymes “teacher” and “reach a.” “She’s a Good Fellow” will keep the Globe Theatre crowded to the exits all through the Summer. Its plot is a pitiful little thing about the young man who, in feminine clothes, gets into the girls’ school — you know the style of thing. But what’s a plot to a musical comedy? “She’s a Good Fellow” relies principally on a series of specialties — really, it’s an extremely good vaudeville show, which is perhaps the best thing for a Summer show to be. Plots mean nothing in the lives of the visiting buyers. The show has enormous assets in the person of Olin Howland, Ann Orr, the Duncan Sisters, Ivy Sawyer, and Joseph Santley,— who can dress up in woman’s clothes without making you yearn to scale your programme at him — and an extraordinarily pretty chorus. And then it has Jerome Kern’s music. But “The Lady in Red,” at the Lyric — oh, that’s a sad blow. Except for the always entertaining Adele Rowland, one or two of Robert Winterberg’s tunes, and an occasional dance, it all but drives you out to the movies. One must say for it that the last two acts are better than the first; they had to be — no one could keep up that average. But it’s a musical comedy, and you know how people are, at the time of year. They will go to anything, just so long as its’ a musical comedy. “The Lady in Red” will doubtless be with us for months.


Chapter Notes Introduction

5. Miriam Rossiter Small, Charlotte Ramsey Lennox: An Eighteenth Century Lady of Letters (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935), 57.

1. Tice L. Miller, Bohemians and Critics: American Theatre Criticism in the Nineteenth Century (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1981), vii. 2. Carolyn Latta, “The Lady Is a Critic,” in Women in American Theatre, rev. ed., ed. Helen K. Chinoy and Linda W. Jenkins (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1987), 228. 3. For example, Mildred Aldrich wrote for the Boston Home Journal under the name H. Quinn; in Baltimore Louise Malloy wrote under the name Josh Wink. 4. Stanley Walker, foreword to Ladies of the Press by Ishbel Ross (New York: Harper, 1936). 5. Latta, 233. 6. Ibid., 227.

Chapter 2 1. Sheila L. Skemp, Judith Sargent Murray: A Brief Biography with Documentation (Boston: Bedford, 1998), 172. 2. Vena B. Field, Constantia: A Study of the Life and Works of Judith Sargent Murray, 1751 –1820 (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1931), 51. 3. Judith Sargent Murray, “The Reaper, No. V,” The Federal Orrary, November 20, 1794, n.p. 4. Ibid., 132ff. 5. Judith Sargent Murray, “Essay No. XXIV: Panegyric on the Drama,” The Gleaner (pp. 225–60) (Boston: Isaiah Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1798). 6. Ibid. 7. Judith Sargent Murray, “Essay No. XCVI: Observations on the Tragedies of Mrs. Warren,” The Gleaner (Boston: Isaiah Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1789), 261. 8. Ibid., 262. 9. Ibid., 262–63. 10. Murray, “Essay XXIV,” 239. 11. Ibid., 240.

Chapter 1 1. Alfred Van Rensselaer Westfall, American Shakespearean Criticism, 1607–1865 (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1939), 63. 2. Janet Mullane and Robert T. Wilson, eds., “Charlotte Ramsey Lennox,” in Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism (Detroit: Gale Research, 1989), 224. 3. Gustavus H. Maynadier, The First American Novelist? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940). 4. Dale Spender, “Charlotte Lennox and North America,” in Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers before Jane Austen (Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press, 1986), 204.

Chapter 3 1. James E. Murdoch, The Stage, or Recollections of Actors and Acting from an Expe-

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Chapter Notes

rience of Fifty Years (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969 [1880]), 124. 2. Kate Field in Lilian Whiting, Kate Field: A Record (Boston: Little, Brown, 1899), 34. 3. Field in Whiting, 49. 4. This and subsequent journal references are from Whiting, with page numbers after each. 5. Kate Field, letter to Mary Aurelia Anthony, May 21, 1869, in Kate Field: Selected Letters, ed. Carolyn J. Moss (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), 45. 6. Faye E. Dudden, Women in the American Theatre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 175. 7. Whiting, 77. 8. Whiting, 108. 9. Whiting, 116. 10. Kate Field, “Dramatic Criticism,” Aldine Press (February 1870): 20. 11. Field, “Dramatic,” 20. 12. Kate Field, “Church and Theatre,” New York Daily Tribune, March 29, 1875, 7. 13. Kate Field, “A Conversation on the Stage,” Atlantic Monthly (March 1868): 170. 14. Faye E. Dudden, Women in the American Theatre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 3. 15. There is some confusion as to the place and date of the first lecture. Gary Scharnhorst, in “Kate Field and the New York Tribune,” American Periodicals, vol. 14, no. 2 (2004): 161, reports that the May 3 lecture was at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, while Whiting claims the Brooklyn lecture was on May 4, 1869. 16. Field’s seven lectures, in order, are “Women in the Lyceum,” “In and Out of the Woods” (also known as “Among the Adirondacks”), “Charles Dickens,” “Mormonism,” “Alaska,” “The Intemperance of Prohibition,” and “America for Americans.” 17. Field in Whiting, 44. 18. Whiting, 223.

Chapter 4 1. Olive Logan, Before the Footlights and Behind the Scenes (Philadelphia: Parmalee, 1870), 32.

2. Ibid., 112. 3. Olive Logan, Apropos of Women and Theatre (New York: Carlton, 1869), 91. 4. Ibid., 110–12. 5. Ibid., 120. 6. Ibid., 130–32. 7. Ibid., 136. 8. Ibid., 151 –52. 9. Ibid., 102–3. 10. Ibid., 147. 11. Logan, Before the Footlights, 411. 12. Ibid., 411. 13. Ibid., 202. 14. Ibid., 203. 15. Ibid., 208. 16. Ibid., 245. 17. Ibid., 420. 18. Ibid., 477–78.

Chapter 5 1. Mildred Aldrich, “Confessions of a Breadwinner,” 1926, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, M-114, 57–2. 2. Ibid., 89. 3. Ibid., 122. 4. Ibid., 99. 5. Ibid., 148. 6. Frances E. Willard, Occupations for Women (Cooper Union, NY: Success, 1897), 294. 7. Aldrich, “Confessions,” 176. 8. Willard, 294. 9. Aldrich, “Confessions,” 180. 10. Mildred Aldrich, “A Harlequin,” Boston Home Journal, November 9, 1889, 4. 11. Mildred Aldrich, “A Harlequin,” Boston Home Journal, January 23, 1886, 2. 12. Mildred Aldrich, “A Harlequin,” Boston Home Journal, September 23, 1885, 3. 13. Mildred Aldrich, “A Harlequin,” Boston Home Journal, December 25, 1886, 2. 14. Ibid., 2. 15. Aldrich, “Confessions,” 241. 16. Aldrich, “Confessions,” 242. 17. Mildred Aldrich, “Julia Marlowe,” Arena ( June 1892): 155. 18. Ibid., 158. 19. Ibid., 159. 20. Aldrich, “Confessions,” 190.

Chapter Notes 21. Ibid., 191. 22. Ibid., 191. 23. Mildred Aldrich, “Drama,” Boston Home Journal, January 4, 1890, 8–9. 24. Aldrich, “Confessions,” 200. 25. Ibid., 205. 26. Mildred Aldrich, “Plays and Players,” The Boston Herald, April 11, 1897, 10. 27. Aldrich, “Confessions,” 205. 28. Ibid., 207.

Chapter 6 1. I mention her marriage to a physician because this fact plays a part in her writing later on. 2. Dorothy Lundt, “The Doctor’s Visit,” Boston Commonwealth, February 23, 1889, 12. 3. Dorothy Lundt, “Fleeting Shows,” Boston Commonwealth, January 11, 1890, 5. 4. Editor, “Through an Opera Glass,” Boston Commonwealth, January 4, 1890, 8. 5. Dorothy Lundt, “Through an Opera Glass,” Boston Commonwealth, January 11, 1890, 8. 6. “Announcement,” The Boston Commonwealth, December 8, 1894, 3. 7. Emma V. Sheridan Fry, “Wednesday Afternoon,” Boston Commonwealth, February 9, 1895, 13. 8. Emma V. Sheridan, “Wednesday Afternoon,” Boston Commonwealth, January 19, 1895, 13. 9. Emma V. Sheridan “Wednesday Afternoon,” Boston Commonwealth, January 26, 1895, 13. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., 13. 12. Edwin Wilson, The Theatre Experience (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 76. 13. Emma V. Sheridan, “Wednesday Afternoon” Boston Commonwealth, February 2, 1895, 13. 14. Emma V. Sheridan, “Wednesday Afternoon” Boston Commonwealth, February 9, 1895, 13. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid.

Chapter 7 1. Ben Hecht, “Wistfully Yours,” Theatre Arts ( July 1951): 13.

179

2. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (New York: Harcourt, 1929), 93. 3. Leslie, “The Master Builder,” Chicago Daily News, November 6, 1908, 20. 4. Ibid. 5. For a feminist analysis of Leslie’s criticism, see Alma J. Bennett, Traces of Resistance: Displacement, Contradiction, and Appropriation in the Criticism of Amy Leslie, 1895 –1915, Ph.D. diss., Kent State University, 1993. 6. Leslie, “Rose Stahl Lands Hit,” Chicago Daily News, March 6, 1911, 14. 7. Ibid. 8. Amy Leslie, “Ibsen and His Morals,” Chicago Daily News, November 1, 1895, 4. 9. Ibid. 10. In the 1900-1901 season Fitch had four plays running simultaneously on Broadway, and in the 1901-1902 season, three more. 11. Leslie, “Frenchy Play by Fitch,” Chicago Daily News, November 1, 1899, 3. 12. Bruce McConachie and Thomas Postlewait, eds. Interpreting the Theatrical Past (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989), 41. 13. Jill Dolan, The Feminist Spectator as Critic (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Research Press, 1988), 18. 14. Leslie, “The Woman in the Case,” Chicago Daily News, October 9, 1905, 4. 15. Ibid. 16. This is what Elizabeth Meese calls “crossing the double-cross of difference” in Crossing the Double-Cross: The Practice of Feminist Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 83.

Chapter 8 1. Jeanette L. Gilder, “Our New Correspondents,” The Critic, March 18, 1893, 168. 2. Sidney Bremer, “Lucy Monroe,” American Women Writers, 5 vols. (New York: Continuum, 1979), 208. 3. Lucy Monroe, “Chicago Letter,” The Critic, March 18, 1893, 168. 4. Ibid. 5. Lucy Monroe, “Chicago Letter,” The Critic, December 9, 1893, 384.

180

Chapter Notes

6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Lucy Monroe, “Chicago Letter,” The Critic, March 16, 1895, 209. 9. Lucy Monroe, “Chicago Letter,” The Critic, March 30, 1985, 250. 10. Lucy Monroe, “Chicago Letter,” The Critic, March 16, 1895. 11. Lucy Monroe, “Chicago Letter,” The Critic, October 6, 1894, 659. 12. Ibid. 13. Lucy Monroe, “Chicago Letter,” The Critic, November 17, 1894, 337. 14. Werner Berthoff, The Ferment of Realism (New York: Free Press, 1965), 27. 15. Lucy Monroe, “Chicago Letter,” The Critic, May 19, 1894, 640. 16. Lucy Monroe, “Chicago Letter,” The Critic, June 9, 1894, 400.

Chapter 9 1. Ishbel Ross, Ladies of the Press (New York: Harper, 1936), 68. 2. Ibid., 72. 3. Ada Patterson, “When ‘The Sticks’ Blossom,” Theatre (February 1925): 22. 4. Ada Patterson, “No Professional Jealousy at the Stage Door Inn,” Theatre (March 1924): 24.

Chapter 10 1. Annie Nathan Meyer, It’s Been Fun (New York: Henry Schuman, 1951), 5. 2. Ibid., 3. 3. Ibid., 203. 4. Annie Nathan Meyer, “Woman’s Assumption of Sex Superiority,” North American Review 178 ( January 1904): 105–6. 5. Ibid., 108. 6. Annie Nathan Meyer, The Dominant Sex (New York: Brandu’s, 1911), 96. 7. Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 231. 8. Ibid., 233. 9. Ibid., 163. 10. Ibid., 256. 11. Annie Nathan Meyer, “Ibsen’s Attitude Toward Women,” The Critic, March 22, 1890, 147.

12. Ibid., 148. 13. Annie Nathan Meyer, “The Vanishing Actor: And After,” Atlantic Monthly 113 ( January 1914): 87. 14. Meyer, “Comparative Exhibit of American and Foreign Art,” Harper’s Weekly, December 3, 1904, 1857. 15. Meyer, “The Vanishing Actor,” 93. 16. Ibid., 90–91. 17. Meyer, It’s Been Fun, 241.

Chapter 11 1. Marion Meade, Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? (New York: Villard Books, 1988), 40. 2. Leslie Frewin, The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker (New York: Macmillan, 1986), 54. 3. Frewin, The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker, 46. 4. Ibid., 6. 5. Dorothy Parker, “A Succession of Musical Comedies,” Vanity Fair (April 1918): 69. 6. Dorothy Parker, “The New Plays,” Vanity Fair (November 1918): 100. 7. Dorothy Parker, “All Quiet Along the Rialto,” Vanity Fair (March 1919): 36. 8. Henriette Rousseau, “The People Who Sit in Back of Me,” Vanity Fair ( July 1918): 46. 9. Dorothy Parker, “The New Plays,” Vanity Fair (November 1918): 53. 10. Ibid. 11. Dorothy Parker, “The Dramas That Gloom in the Spring,” Vanity Fair ( June 1918): 37. 12. Dorothy Parker, “The Union Forever,” Vanity Fair (November 1919): 37. 13. Dorothy Parker, “Actors: A Hate Song,” Vanity Fair ( July 1919): 37. 14. Dorothy Parker, “The New Plays,” Vanity Fair (December 1918): 39. 15. Dorothy Parker, “The New Plays,” Vanity Fair ( June 1919): 41. 16. Dorothy Parker, “The First Hundred Play Are the Hardest,” New Yorker (December 1919): 37. 17. Dorothy Parker, “Signs of Spring in the Theatre,” Vanity Fair (May 1919): 41.

Bibliography Aldrich, Mildred. “Confessions of a Breadwinner.” 1926. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. M-114, 57-2. _____. “Drama.” Boston Home Journal, January 4, 1890, 8–9. _____. “A Harlequin.” Boston Home Journal, September 23, 1885, 3. _____. “A Harlequin.” Boston Home Journal, January 23, 1886, 2. _____. “A Harlequin.” Boston Home Journal, December 25, 1886, 2. _____. “A Harlequin.” Boston Home Journal, November 9, 1889, 4. _____. “Julia Marlowe.” Arena, June 1892, 155. _____. “Plays and Players.” Boston Herald, April 11, 1897, 10. Angotti, Vincent L. American Dramatic Criticism, 1800 –1930. Ph.D. diss., University of Kansas, 1967. “Announcement.” Boston Commonwealth, December 8, 1894, 3. Arnquist, James D. “Amy Leslie.” In Notable American Women, edited by Edward T. Ames and Janet W. Ames. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1971. Auster, Albert. Actresses and Suffragists: Women in the American Theatre 1890 –1920. New York: Praeger, 1984. Bennett, Alma J. Traces of Resistance: Displacement, Contradiction, and Appropriation in the Criticism of Amy Leslie, 1895 –1915. Ph.D. diss., Kent State University, 1993. Bertoff, Warner. The Ferment of Realism: American Literature 1884 –1919. New York: Free Press, 1965. Booth, Michael R. Theatre in the Victorian Age. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Bowles, Dorothy. “Women in Newsrooms: Pink-Collar Ghetto or Brave New World.” In Seeing Female, edited by Sharon Brehm. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988. Bremer, Sidney. “Lucy Monroe.” American Women Writers. 5 vols. New York: Continuum, 1979. Chinoy, Helen Kirch. “Women Backstage and Out Front.” In Women in American Theatre, edited by Helen K. Chinoy and Linda Walsh Jenkins. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1987. Cogan, Frances B. All-American Girl: The Ideal of Real Womanhood in Mid-Nineteenth Century America. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989. Davis, Estelle. “The New Woman: Changing Views.” Journal of American History 61 (September 1974): 372–93. Dolan, Jill. The Feminist Spectator as Critic. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1988. Dowdy, Margaret A. “Shakespeare’s Novels: Charlotte Ramsey Lennox Illustrated.” Studies in the Novel 19, no. 3 (Fall 1987): 296–310. Dudden, Faye E. Women in the American Theatre. New York: Yale University Press, 1994.

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Field, Kate. “Church and Theatre.” New York Daily Tribune, March 29, 1875, 7. _____. “A Conversation on the Stage.” Atlantic Monthly (March 1898): 170. _____. “Dramatic Criticism.” Aldine Press (February 1870): 20. Field, Vena Bernadette. Constantia: A Study of the Life and Works of Judith Sargent Murray, 1751 –1820. Orono: University of Maine Press, 1931. Folger Collective on Early Women Critics, ed. Women Critics: 1660 –1820. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. Frewin, Leslie. The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker. New York: Macmillan, 1986. Gilder, Jeanette L. “Our New Correspondents.” The Critic, March 18, 1893, 168. Harris, Sharon M. “Judith Sargent Murray.” Legacy, vol. II, no. 2. University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1994. _____. Selected Writings of Judith Sargent Murray. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Hecht, Ben. “Wistfully Yours.” Theatre Arts ( July 1951): 12–13. James, Edward T., ed. Notable American Women 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary. 3 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971. Johnson, Albert E., and W.H. Crain, Jr. “A Dictionary of American Drama Critics: 1850–1920.” Theatre Journal (1955): 63–89. Kolb, Deborah S. “The Rise of the New Woman in American Drama.” Educational Theatre Journal 27 (1975): 149–60. Leslie, Amy. “The Master Builder.” Chicago Daily News, November 6, 1908, 20. _____. “Rose Stahl Lands Hit.” Chicago Daily News, March 6, 1911, 14. Logan, Olive. “American and Foreign Theatres.” Galaxy, January 5, 1868, 22–27. _____. Apropos of Women and Theatres. New York: Carlton, 1869. _____. Before the Footlights and Behind the Scenes. Philadelphia: Parmalee, 1870. Lundt, Dorothy. “The Doctor’s Visit.” Boston Commonwealth, February 23, 1889, 12. _____. “Fleeting Shows.” Boston Commonwealth, January 11, 1890, 5. _____. “Through an Opera Glass.” Boston Commonwealth, January 11, 1890, 8. Lynes, Russell. The Lively Audience: A Social History of the Visual and Performing Arts in America 1890 –1950. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. Mainiero, Lina, ed. American Women Writers. 4 vols. New York: Frederick Unger, 1979– 1982. Marks, Patricia. Bicycles, Bangs, and Bloomers: The New Woman in the Popular Press. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1990. Maynadier, Gustavis H. The First American Novelist? Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940. Meade, Marion. Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? New York: Villard Books, 1988. Meese, Elizabeth. Crossing the Double-Cross: The Practice of Feminist Criticism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986. Meyer, Annie Nathan. “Ibsen the Champion.” The Critic, March 3, 1894, 150. _____. “Ibsen’s Attitude Toward Woman.” The Critic, March 22, 1890, 147. _____. It’s Been Fun. New York: Henry Schuman, 1951. _____. “A Prophet of the New Womanhood.” Lippincott’s (March 1894): 375. _____. “The Vanishing Actor: And After.” Atlantic Monthly ( January 1914): 87–96. Monroe, Lucy. “Chicago Letter.” The Critic, May 19, 1864, 64. _____. “Chicago Letter.” The Critic, June 9, 1864, 400. _____. “Chicago Letter.” The Critic, March 18, 1893, 168. _____. “Chicago Letter.” The Critic, December 9, 1893, 384. _____. “Chicago Letter.” The Critic, October 6, 1894, 659. _____. “Chicago Letter.” The Critic, November 17, 1894, 337. _____. “Chicago Letter.” The Critic, March 16, 1895, 209. _____. “Chicago Letter.” The Critic, March 30, 1895, 250.

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Moss, Carolyn J., ed. Kate Field: Selected Letters. Boston: Little, Brown, 1899. Mullane, Janet, and Robert T. Wilson, eds. Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research, 1989. Murdoch, James E. The Stage, or Recollections of Actors and Acting from an Experience of Fifty Years. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969 [1880]. Murray, Judith Sargent. “Essay No. XCVI: Observation on the Tragedies of Mrs. Warren.” The Gleaner (pp. 260–66). Boston: Isaiah Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1789. _____. “Essay No. XXIV: Panegyric on the Drama.” The Gleaner (pp. 225–29). Boston: Isaiah Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1789. _____. “On the Equality of the Sexes.” Massachusetts Magazine (March-April 1790): 132– 35, 223–26. _____. “The Reaper, No. V.” The Federal Orrery (November 1794): n.p. Norton, Elliot. “Puffers, Pundits, and Other Play Reviewers: A Short History of American Dramatic Criticism.” The American Theatre: A Sum of Its Parts. New York: French, 1971. Parker, Dorothy. “Actors: A Hate Song.” Vanity Fair ( July 1919): 37. _____. “All Quiet Along the Rialto.” Vanity Fair (March 1919): 36. _____. “The Dramas That Gloom in the Spring.” Vanity Fair ( June 1918): 39. _____. “The First Hundred Plays Are the Hardest.” New Yorker (December 1919): 37. _____. “The New Plays.” Vanity Fair ( July 1918): 41. _____. “The New Plays.” Vanity Fair (November 1918): 100. _____. “The New Plays.” Vanity Fair (December 1918): 39. _____. “Signs of Spring in the Theatre.” Vanity Fair (May 1919): 41. _____. “A Succession of Musical Comedies.” Vanity Fair (April 1918): 69. _____. “The Union Forever.” Vanity Fair (November 1919): 37. Patterson, Ada. “Mirrors of Stageland.” Theatre (August 1924): 40. _____. “Mirrors of Stageland.” Theatre (August 1925): 20. _____. “When the Sticks Blossom.” Theatre (February 1925): 22. _____. “Where Are the Stars of Yesteryear?” Theatre (May 1925): 12. Ross, Ishbel. Ladies of the Press. New York: Harper, 1936. Rousseau, Henrietta [Dorothy Parker]. “The People Who Sit in Back of Me.” Vanity Fair ( July 1918): 46. Scharnhorst, Gary. “Kate Field and the New York Tribune.” American Periodicals, vol. 14, no. 2 (n.p.). Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004. Schofield, Mary Anne. “Quitting the Loom and Distaff: Eighteenth Century American Women Dramatists.” In Curtain Calls: British and American Women and the Theatre 1620 –1820, edited by Mary A. Schofield and Cecilia Macheski (pp. 260–73). Athens: Ohio University Press, 1991. Sheridan, Emma V. “Wednesday Afternoon.” Boston Commonwealth, January 19, 1895, 13. _____. “Wednesday Afternoon.” Boston Commonwealth, January 26, 1895, 13. _____. “Wednesday Afternoon.” Boston Commonwealth, February 2, 1895, 13. _____. “Wednesday Afternoon.” Boston Commonwealth, February 9, 1895, 13. Showalter, Elaine. “Looking Forward: American Feminists, Victorian Sages.” Victorian Newsletter (Spring 1984): 6–9. Skemp, Sheila L. Judith Sargent Murray: A Brief Biography with Documents. Boston: Bedford, 1998. Small, Miriam Rossiter. Charlotte Ramsey Lennox: An Eighteenth Century Lady of Letters. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935. Spender, Dale. Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen. London and New York: Pandora, 1986. Westfall, Alfred Van Rensselaer. American Shakespearean Criticism, 1607–1865. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1939.

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Whiting, Lilian. Kate Field: A Record. Boston: Little, Brown, 1899. Willard, Frances E. Occupations for Women. Cooper Union, New York: Success, 1897. Wilson, Edwin. The Theatre Experience. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. New York: Harcourt, 1929.

Index acting technique 147 Actor’s Fund 134 Actor’s Fund Home 142 Adams, Maude 109–112, 131, 132, 141 Algonquin Round Table 157 All the Comforts of Home 94–96 Allen, Margaret 133 American vs. English theatres 66–69 Anthony, Susan B. 45, 76 anti-suffrage 144 Apropos of Women and Theatres 62 The Arrant Knave 93–94 Bacon, Frank 142 Barrett, Lawrence 78 Barrie, J.M. 105 Barron, Elwyn A. 122, 123, 125 Barrymore, Ethel 162 Barrymore, John 161 Barrymore, Lionel 161 Barrymore, Maurice 143 Bates, Blanche 112, 114, 135–136, 162 The Beaux Stratagem 4 Before the Footlights and Behind the Scenes 64 Belasco, David 134–135, 173, 174 Berthoff, Werner 123 Bingamon, Adam 28 Black Crook 51 Bohemians and Critics 3 Boston Museum 76, 80, 92, 94

Bought and Paid For 105 Broadhurst, William 105 Buchanan, Thompson 105 Byron, Arthur 118 Camille 101, 122, 125 Campbell, Alan 158 Castle, Irene 142 Castle, Vernon 142 Cayvan, Georgia 143 Clarinda 4 Columbian Exposition 120 “The Conventions of the Drama” 123 Co-Operative Dress Association 49 Creel, George 135 Crumbling Idols 123 Cushman, Charlotte 45, 57 Dark Rosaleen 173–174 The Dawning of American Drama 3 A Doll’s Home 83–84 A Doll’s House 122, 125, 146, 149–150 The Dominant Sex 144, 145 Doody, Margaret 12 double standard 106, 107 Dramatic Criticism 3 Drury Lane 12 Dudden, Faye E. 45, 48 Eliot, George 154 An Enemy of the People 122 equal rights 45, 63 The Federal Orrary 27 Federal Street Theatre 29, 30, 32

185

The Ferment of Realism 123 Field, Montgomery 80 Fitch, Clyde 106–107, 123, 125, 126 Forrest, Edwin 43, 44, 61 Foster, Lillian 137, 138–139 Garland, Hamlin 123 Garrick, David 12 The Gay Lord Quex 106 Ghosts 146, 148, 151 Gilder, Jeanette Leonard 120 Gillette, William 94 Godwin, Nate 89 Going Up 164 greenroom 52,53, 69, 72 Hamlet 4, 91 Hampton, Mary 98 Hedda Gabler 112–115, 153 Helen Brent, M.D. 144 Helmer, Nora 105–106 His Grace DeGrammont 123, 125–126 Holmes, John 80, 81 Hooey, Mrs. John 68–69 Hooley, R.M. 127 Hull, Shelly 167, 168 I Love You 174–175 Ibsen, Henrik 83, 94, 105–106, 112, 122, 123, 125, 146, 148–156 Illington, Margaret 117 Irving, Henry 86 Janauschek 142 Jefferson, Joseph 141

186 Kate Field’s Washington 49 Kendal, Mrs. 92, 99–100 Klein, Charles 115–116 Ladies of the Press 4 Lady Clancarty 127 Lady from the Sea 152, 154, 155 “The Lady Is a Critic” 3 “The Lady with the Lorgnette” 131, 132, 134 Langtree, Lily 146 Latta, Carolyn 3, 4 leg business 62, 63, 69–74 Lightnin’ 140, 142 The Lion and the Mouse 115–119 Logan, John A. 65 Logan, Olive 3, 45 The Love Mill 165 Mackaye, Steele 93 Maddern, Minnie 78, 146 Magda 121–122, 124–125 Maggie Pepper 104 Mansfield, Richard 82, 83 Maria Stuarda 58–60 Marlowe, Julia 79, 81, 91, 141 Martinot, Sadie 142 Massachusetts Magazine 28, 29 The Master Builder 122 Matthews, Brander 123 McCullough, John 51 McVicker, J.H. 127 Medea 55–58 Meister, Charles 3 Miller, Henry 136, 137 Miller, Tice 3 Modjeska, Mme. 124, 125, 142 Morris, Clara 146 Murray, John 27, 28, 32 Murray, Julia Marie 28

Index National Stage Woman’s Exchange 133, 134 Nethersole, Olga 101, 107, 142 New Blood 127–128 new woman 104, 106 nude drama 62–64 Oh, Lady! Lady!! 162–163 Old City Manners 12 Othello 12, 46, 100–101 Parker, Edwin Pond II 157 Phillips, Adelaide 44 Phyllis 92,93 Pillars of Society 146, 148– 149, 151, 154, 155 Pinero, Arthur Wing 106 Rachel 56, 57 realism 147 Rice, Elmer 158 Richard III 51, 78, 82–83 Ristori, Adelaide 46, 53, 55 Rogers, John 25 Rolfe, Margaret 107–108 Romeo and Juliet 109 Ross, Ishbel 131, 132 Russell, Lillian 136 Salvini 46, 47 Salvini, Alexander 79, 80 Sanford, Cordelia 44 Sanford, Milton 44 Sapho 107 Sargent, Winthrop 25 The Second Mrs. Tanqueray 92, 99–100, 106 Seven Ages 96 Shannon, Effie 167, 168 Skinner, Otis 123, 125, 126 Sly, Arabella 4 sob sisters 132 Sothern, E.H. 79, 84–87, 141

Sowing the Wind 91, 97–98 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady 45 Stanwood, Frank 80 star system 43, 48 Stein, Gertrude 81 Steinway Hall 63 Stevens, John 25 “the sticks” 133, 136–137 stock company 127, 128, 133, 137 Sudermann, Hermann 121, 124 suffrage 44 Thaw, Harry K. 132 Thomas, Augustus 127, 128 Toklas, Alice B. 81 Tree, Beerbohm 122 The Twelve Pound Look 105 Under Orders 167–168 Walker, Stanley 4 Warren, Mercy Otis 27, 31, 38, 39 Waugh, William Wallace 77, 79 Westman, Nydia 137, 138, 139–140 Willard, Catherine 137, 140 Willard, Frances E. 77 Wingate, Charles 80, 81 Winter Garden 166 The Winter’s Tale 12 Wolfe, Virginia 45, 103 Wolter, Jurgen 3 The Woman in the Case 107 woman’s movement 151, 152 A Woman’s Way 105 Women Critics, 1660 –1800 3 Women in American Theatre 3 Women’s Suffrage Convention 63

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