America when five years old, and at that time she lived and went to
school in Brooklyn. No one of her progenitors was ever upon the stage,
nor does it appear that she was predisposed to that vocation by early
reading or training. Her elder sisters had adopted that pursuit, and
perhaps she was impelled toward it by the force of example and domestic
association, readily affecting her innate latent faculty for the
dramatic art. Her first appearance on the stage was made at Newark, New
Jersey, in 1873, in a play entitled _Across the Continent_, in which she
acted a small part, named Clara, for one night only, to fill the place
of a performer who had been suddenly disabled by illness. Her readiness
and her positive talent were clearly revealed in that effort, and it was
thereupon determined in a family council that she should proceed; so she
was soon regularly embarked upon the life of an actress. Her first
appearance on the New York stage was made a little later, in 1873, at
Wood's museum (it became Daly's theatre in 1879), when she played a
small part in a piece called _Thorough-bred_. During the seasons of
1873-74-75 she was associated with the Arch Street theatre,
Philadelphia,--that being her first regular professional engagement.
(John Drew, with whom, professionally, Ada Rehan has been long
associated, made his first appearance in the same season, at the same
house.) She then went to Macaulay's theatre, Louisville, where she acted
for one season. From Louisville she went to Albany, as a member of John
W. Albaugh's company, and with that manager she remained two seasons,
acting sometimes in Albany and sometimes in Baltimore. After that she
was for a few months with Fanny Davenport. The earlier part of her
career involved professional endeavours in company with the wandering
stars, and she acted in a variety of plays with Edwin Booth, Adelaide
Neilson, John McCullough, Mrs. Bowers, Lawrence Barrett, John Brougham,
Edwin Adams, Mrs. Lander, and John T. Raymond. From the first she was
devotedly fond of Shakespeare, and all the Shakespearian characters
allotted to her were studied and acted by her with eager interest and
sympathy. While thus employed in the provincial stock she enacted
Ophelia, Cordelia, Desdemona, Celia, Olivia, and Lady Anne, and in each
of those parts she was conspicuously good. The attention of Augustin
Daly was first attracted to her in December 1877, when she was acting at
Albaugh's theatre in Albany, the play being _Katharine and Petruchio_
(Garrick's version of the _Taming of the Shrew_), and Ada Rehan
appearing as Bianca; and subsequently Daly again observed her as an
actress of auspicious distinction and marked promise at the Grand Opera
House, New York, in April 1879. Fanny Davenport was then acting in that
theatre in Daly's strong American play of _Pique_--one of the few dramas
of American origin that aptly reflect the character of American domestic
life--and Ada Rehan appeared in the part of Mary Standish. She was
immediately engaged under Daly's management, and in May 1879 she came
forth at the Olympic theatre, New York, as Big Clemence in that author's
version of _L'Assommoir_. On September 17, 1879, Daly's theatre (which
had been suspended for about two years) was opened upon its present
site, the southwest corner of Thirtieth Street and Broadway, and Ada
Rehan made her first appearance there, enacting the part of Nelly Beers
in a play called _Love's Young Dream_. The opening bill on that
occasion comprised that piece, together with a comedy by Olive Logan,
entitled _Newport_. On September 30 a revival of _Divorce_, one of
Daly's most fortunate plays, was effected, and Ada Rehan impersonated
Miss Lu Ten Eyck--a part originally acted (1873) by Fanny Davenport.
From that time to this (1892) Ada Rehan has remained the leading lady at
Daly's theatre; and there she has become one of the most admired figures
upon the contemporary stage. In five professional visits to Europe,
acting in London, Paris, Edinburgh, Dublin, Berlin, and other cities,
she pleased judicious audiences and augmented her renown. Daly took his
company of comedians to London for the first time in 1884, where they
fulfilled an engagement of six weeks at Toole's theatre, beginning July
19. The second visit to London was made two seasons later, when they
acted for nine weeks at the Strand theatre, beginning May 27, 1886. At
that time they also played in the English provinces, and they visited
Germany--acting at Hamburg and at Berlin, where they were much liked and
commended. They likewise made a trip to Paris. Their third season abroad
began at the Lyceum theatre, London, May 3, 1888, and it included
another expedition to the French capital, which was well rewarded. Ada
Rehan at that time impersonated Shakespeare's Shrew. It was in that
season also that she appeared at Stratford-upon-Avon, where Daly gave a
performance (August 3, 1888) in the Shakespeare Memorial theatre, for
the benefit of that institution. The fourth season of Daly's comedians
in London began on June 10, 1890, at the Lyceum theatre, and lasted ten
weeks; and this was signalised by Ada Rehan's impersonation of Rosalind.
The fifth London season extended from September 9 to November 13, 1891.
This is an outline of her professional story; but how little of the real
life of an actor can be imparted in a record of the surface facts of a
public career! Most expressive, as a comment upon the inadequacy of
biographical details, is the exclamation of Dumas, about Aimée Desclée:
"Une femme comme celle-là n'a pas de biographie! Elle nous a émus, et
elle en est morte. Voilà toute son historie!" Ada Rehan, while she has
often and deeply moved the audience of her riper time, is happily very
far from having died of it. There is deep feeling beneath the luminous
and sparkling surface of her art; but it is chiefly with mirth that she
has touched the public heart and affected the public experience. Equally
of her, however, as of her pathetic sister artist of the French stage,
it may be said that such a woman has no history. In a civilisation and
at a period wherein persons are customarily accepted for what they
pretend to be, instead of being seen and understood for what they are,
she has been content to take an unpretentious course, to be original and
simple, and thus to allow her faculties to ripen and her character to
develop in their natural manner. She has not assumed the position of a
star, and perhaps the American community, although favourable and
friendly toward her, may have been somewhat slow to understand her
unique personality and her superlative worth. The moment a thoughtful
observer's attention is called to the fact, however, he perceives how
large a place Ada Rehan fills in the public mind, how conspicuous a
figure she is upon the contemporary stage, and how difficult it is to
explain and classify her whether as an artist or a woman. That blending
of complexity with transparency always imparts to individual life a
tinge of piquant interest, because it is one denotement of the
temperament of genius.
The poets of the world pour themselves through all subjects by the use
of their own words. In what manner they are affected by the forces of
nature--its influences of gentleness and peace or its vast pageants of
beauty and terror--those words denote; and also those words indicate the
action, upon their responsive spirits, of the passions that agitate the
human heart. The actors, on the other hand, assuming to be the
interpreters of the poets, must pour themselves through all subjects by
the use of their own personality. They are to be estimated accordingly
by whatever the competent observer is able to perceive of the nature and
the faculties they reveal under the stress of emotion, whether tragic or
comic. Perhaps it is not possible--mind being limited in its
function--for any person to form a full, true, and definite summary of
another human creature. To view a dramatic performance with a
consciousness of the necessity of forming a judicial opinion of it is
often to see one's own thought about it rather than the thing itself.
Yet, when all allowance is made for difficulty of theme and for
infirmity of judgment, the observer of Ada Rehan may surely conclude
that she has a rich, tender, and sparkling nature, in which the
dream-like quality of sentiment and the discursive faculty of
imagination, intimately blended with deep, broad, and accurate
perceptions of the actual, and with a fund of keen and sagacious sense,
are reinforced with strong individuality and with affluent and
extraordinary vital force. Ada Rehan has followed no traditions. She
went to the stage not because of vanity but because of spontaneous
impulse; and for the expression of every part that she has played she
has gone to nature and not to precept and precedent. The stamp of her
personality is upon everything that she has done; yet the thinker who
looks back upon her numerous and various impersonations is astonished at
their diversity. The romance, the misery, and the fortitude of Kate
Verity, the impetuous passion of Katharine, the brilliant raillery of
Hippolyta, the enchanting womanhood of Rosalind--how clear-cut, how
distinct, how absolutely dramatic was each one of those
personifications! and yet how completely characteristic each one was of
this individual actress! Our works of art may be subject to the
application of our knowledge and skill, but we ourselves are under the
dominance of laws which operate out of the inaccessible and indefinable
depths of the spirit. Alongside of most players of this period Ada Rehan
is a prodigy of original force. Her influence, accordingly, has been
felt more than it has been understood, and, being elusive and strange,
has prompted wide differences of opinion. The sense that she diffuses of
a simple, unselfish, patient nature, and of impulsive tenderness of
heart, however, cannot have been missed by anybody with eyes to see. And
she crowns all by speaking the English language with a beauty that has
seldom been equalled.
XVIII.
TENNYSON'S COMEDY OF THE FORESTERS.
"Besides, the King's name is a tower of strength." Thousands of people
all over the world honour, and ought to honour, every word that falls
from the pen of Alfred Tennyson. He is a very great man. No poet since
the best time of Byron has written the English language so well--that is
to say, with such affluent splendour of imagination; such passionate
vigour; such nobility of thought; such tenderness of pathos; such
pervasive grace, and so much of that distinctive variety, flexibility,
and copious and felicitous amplitude which are the characteristics of an
original style. No poet of the last fifty years has done so much to
stimulate endurance in the human soul and to clarify spiritual vision in
the human mind. It does not signify that now, at more than fourscore,
his hand sometimes trembles a little on the harp-strings, and his touch
falters, and his music dies away. It is still the same harp and the
same hand. This fanciful, kindly, visionary, drifting, and altogether
romantic comedy of _Robin Hood_ is not to be tried by the standard that
is author reared when he wrote _Ulysses_ and _Tithonus_ and _The Passing
of Arthur_--that imperial, unapproachable standard that no other poet
has satisfied.
"Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day."
But though the passion be subdued and the splendour faded, the deep
current of feeling flows on and the strong and tender voice can still
touch the heart and charm the ear. That tide of emotion and that tone of
melody blend in this play and make it beautiful. The passion is no
longer that of _Enone_ and _Lucretius_ and _Guinevere_ and _Locksley
Hall_ and _Maud_ and _The Vision of Sin_. The thought is no longer that
of _In Memoriam_, with its solemn majesty and infinite pathos. The music
is no longer that of _The May Queen_ and the _Talking Oak_ and _Idle
Tears_. But why should these be expected? He who struck those notes
strikes now another; and as we listen our wonder grows, and cannot help
but grow, that a bard of fourscore and upward should write in such
absolute sympathy with youth, love, hope, happiness, and all that is
free and wandering and martial and active in the vicissitudes of
adventure, the exploits of chivalry, and the vagabondish spirit of gypsy
frolic. The fact that he does write in that mood points to the one
illuminative truth now essential to be remembered. The voice to which we
are privileged to listen, perhaps for the last time, is the voice of a
great poet--by which is meant a poet who is able, not through the medium
of intellect but through the medium of emotion, to make the total
experience of mankind his own experience, and to express it not only in
the form of art but with the fire of nature. The element of power, in
all the expressions of such a mind, will fluctuate; but every one of its
expressions will be sincere and in a greater or less degree will be
vital with a universal and permanent significance. That virtue is in
Alfred Tennyson's comedy of _Robin Hood_, and that virtue will insure
for it an abiding endurance in affectionate public esteem.
The realm into which this play allures its auditor is the realm of
_Ivanhoe_--the far-off, romantic region of Sherwood forest, in the
ancient days of stout king Richard the First. The poet has gone to the
old legends of Robin Hood and to the ballads that have been made upon
them, and out of those materials--using them freely, according to his
fancy--he has chosen his scene and his characters and has made his
story. It is not the England of the mine and the workshop that he
represents, and neither is it the England of the trim villa and the
formal landscape; it is the England of the feudal times--of gray castle
towers, and armoured knights, and fat priests, and wandering minstrels,
and crusades and tournaments; England in rush-strewn bowers and under
green boughs; the England in which Wamba jested and Blondel sung. To
enter into that realm is to leave the barren world of prose; to feel
again the cool, sweet winds of summer upon the brow of youth; to catch,
in fitful glimpses, the shimmer of the Lincoln green in the sunlit,
golden glades of the forest, and to hear the merry note of the huntsman
commingled, far away, with "horns of Elfland faintly blowing." The
appeal is made to the primitive, elemental, poetical instinct of
mankind; and no detail of realism is obtruded, no question of
probability considered, no agony of the sin-tortured spirit subjected to
analysis, no controversy promoted and no moral lesson enforced. For once
the public is favoured with a serious poetical play, which aims simply
to diffuse happiness by arousing sympathy with pleasurable scenes and
picturesque persons, with virtue that is piquant and humour that is
refined, with the cheerful fortitude that takes adversity with a smile,
and with that final fortunate triumph of good over evil which is neither
ensanguined with gore nor saddened with tears, nor made acrid with
bitterness. The play is pastoral comedy, written partly in blank verse
and partly in prose, and cast almost wholly out of doors--in the open
air and under the greenwood tree--and, in order to stamp its character
beyond doubt or question, one scene of it is frankly devoted to a
convocation of fairies around Titania, their queen.
The impulse that underlies this piece is the old, incessant, undying
aspiration, that men and women of the best order feel, for some avenue
of escape, some relief, some refuge, from the sickening tyranny of
convention and the commonplace, and from the overwhelming mystery with
which all human life is haunted and oppressed. A man who walks about in
a forest is not necessarily free. He may be as great a slave as anybody.
But the exalted imagination dwells upon his way of life as emancipated,
breezy, natural, and right. That way, to the tired thinker, lie peace
and joy. There, if anywhere--as he fancies--he might escape from all the
wrongs of the world, all the problems of society, all the dull business
of recording, and analysing, and ticketing mankind, all the clash of
selfish systems that people call history, and all the babble that they
call literature. In that retreat he would feel the rain upon his face,
and smell the grass and the flowers, and hear the sighing and whispering
of the wind in the green boughs; and there would be no need to trouble
himself any more, whether about the past or the future. Every great
intellect of the world has felt that wild longing, and has recorded
it--the impulse to revert to the vast heart of Nature, that knows no
doubt, and harbours no fear, and keeps no regret, and feels no sorrow,
and troubles itself not at all. Matthew Arnold dreamily and perhaps
austerely expressed it in _The Scholar Gypsy_. Byron more humanly
uttered it in four well-remembered lines, of _Childe Harold_:
"Oh, that the desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating nothing, love but only her."
_Robin Hood_, as technical drama, is frail. Its movement, indeed, is not
more indolent than that of its lovely prototypes in Shakespeare, _As You
Like It_ and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. With all the pastorals Time
ambles. But, on the other hand, Tennyson's piece is not a match for
either of those Shakespearean works, in massiveness of dramatic
signification or in the element of opportunity for the art of acting.
Character, poetry, philosophy, humour, and suggestion it contains; but
it contains no single scene in which its persons can amply put forth
their full histrionic powers with essentially positive dramatic effect.
Its charm resides more in being than in doing, and therefore it is more
a poem than a play, and perhaps more a picture than a poem. It is not
one of those works that arouse, agitate, and impel. It aims only to
create and sustain a pleased condition; and that aim it has
accomplished. No spectator will be deeply moved by it, but no spectator
will look at it without delight. While, however, _Robin Hood_ as a drama
is frail, it is not destitute of the dramatic element. It depicts a
central character in action, and it tells a representative love story--a
story in which the oppressive persecutor of impoverished age is foiled
and discomfited, in which faithful affection survives the test of trial,
and in which days of danger end at last in days of blissful peace.
Traces of the influence of Shakespeare--exerted by his pastoral comedies
and by the _Merry Wives of Windsor_--are obvious in it. There is no
imitation; there is only kinship. The sources that Scott explored for
some of the material used in _Ivanhoe_ also announce themselves. Many
stories could be derived from the old Robin Hood ballads. The poet has
only chosen and rearranged such of their incidents as would suit his
purpose--using those old ballads with perfect freedom, but also using
them with faultless taste.
Robin Hood was born at Locksley, in the county of Nottingham, about
1160, when Henry the Second was king. His true name was Robert
Fitzooth--a name that popular mispronunciation converted into Robin
Hood--and he was of noble lineage. Old records declare him to have been
the Earl of Huntingdon. He was extravagant and adventurous, and for
reasons that are unknown he preferred to live in the woods. His haunts
were chiefly Sherwood Forest, in Nottinghamshire, and Barnsdale, in
Yorkshire. Among his associates were William Scadlock, commonly called
Scarlet; Much, a miller's son; Friar Tuck, a vagabond monk; and Little
John, whose name was Nailor. Robin Hood and his band were kind to the
poor; but they robbed the rich and they were specially hard on the
clergy. There is a tradition that a woman named Maid Marian went with
Robin into the forest, but nothing is known about her. Robin lived till
the age of eighty-seven, and he might have lived longer but that a
treacherous relative, the prioress of Kirkley--to whose care he had
entrusted himself in order that he might be bled--allowed him to bleed
to death. At the time indicated in Tennyson's comedy--the year 1194,
which was the year of King Richard's return from captivity in
Germany--he was thirty-four years old. It is the year of _Ivanhoe_, and
in the play as in the novel, the evil agent is the usurper Prince John.
Fifteen characters take part in this comedy. Act first is called "The
Bond and the Outlawry." The action begins in a garden before Sir Richard
Lea's castle--or rather the dialogue begins there, by which the basis of
the action is revealed. Maid Marian is Marian Lea, the daughter of Sir
Richard. Walter Lea, the son of Sir Richard, has been captured by the
Moors, and in order to pay the boy's ransom Sir Richard has borrowed a
large sum of money from the Abbot of York. That debt must presently be
paid; but Sir Richard does not see his way clear to its payment, and if
he does not pay it he must forfeit his land. The Sheriff of Nottingham,
a wealthy suitor for the hand of Marian, is willing to pay that debt, in
case the girl will favour his suit. But Marian loves the Earl of
Huntingdon and is by him beloved; and all would go well with those
lovers, and with Sir Richard, but that the Earl of Huntingdon is poor.
Poor though he be, however, he makes a feast, to celebrate his birthday,
and to that festival Sir Richard and his daughter are bidden. Act first
displays the joyous proceedings of that good meeting and the posture of
those characters toward each other. The Sheriff of Nottingham intrudes
himself upon the scene, accompanied by Prince John, who is disguised as
a friar. The Prince has cast a covetous eye upon Marian, and, although
he outwardly favours the wish of the Sheriff, he is secretly determined
to seize her for himself. The revellers at Huntingdon's feast, unaware
of the Prince's presence, execrate his name, and at length he retires,
in a silent fury. Robin gives to Marian a remarkable ring that he has
inherited from his mother. Later a herald enters and reads a
proclamation from Prince John, declaring the Earl of Huntingdon to be a
felon, and commanding his banishment. Robin cannot forcibly oppose that
mandate, and he therefore determines to cast in his lot with Scarlet and
Friar Tuck and other "minions of the moon," and thenceforward to live a
free and merry life under the green boughs of Sherwood Forest. A year is
supposed to pass. Act second, called "The Flight of Marian," begins with
a song of the Foresters, in the deep wood--"There is no land like
England." That is a scene of much gentle beauty, enhanced by Robin
Hood's delivery of some of the finest poetry in the play, and also by
the delicious music of Sir Arthur Sullivan. Robin descants upon
freedom, and upon the advantage of dwelling beneath the sky rather than
beneath a groined roof that shuts out all the meaning of heaven. There
is a colloquy between Little John, who is one of Robin's men, and Kate,
who is Marian's maid. Those two are lovers who quarrel and make it up
again, as lovers will. Kate has come to the forest, bringing word of the
flight of her mistress. Prince John has tried to seize Marian, and that
brave girl has repulsed and struck him; and she and her father have
fled--intending to make for France, in which land the old knight expects
to find a friend who will pay his debt and save his estate. While Robin
is considering these things he perceives the approach of Prince John and
the Sheriff of Nottingham, and, thereupon, he takes refuge in the hut of
an old witch and disguises himself in some of her garments. Prince John
and the Sheriff, who are in pursuit of Sir Richard and Marian, find
Robin in this disguise, and for a time they are deceived by him; but
soon they penetrate his masquerade and assail him--whereupon some of his
people come to his assistance, and he is reinforced by Sir Richard Lea.
Prince John and his party are beaten and driven away. Sir Richard is
exhausted, and Robin commits him to the care of the Foresters. Marian,
arrayed as a boy, and pretending to be her brother Walter, has been
present at this combat, as a spectator, and a sparkling scene of
equivoke, mischief, and sentiment ensues between Marian and Robin. That
scene Tennyson wrote and inserted for Ada Rehan, to whose vivacious
temperament it is fitted, and whose action in it expressed with equal
felicity the teasing temper of the coquette and the propitious fondness
of the lover. Robin discovers Marian's identity by means of the ring
that he gave her, and, after due explanation, it is agreed that she and
her father will remain under his protection. Act third is called "The
Crowning of Marian," and is devoted to pictures, colloquies, and
incidents, now serious and now comical, showing the life of the
Foresters and the humorous yet discriminative justice of their gypsy
chief. Sir Richard Lea is ill and he cannot be moved. The outlaws crown
Marian, with an oaken chaplet, and declare her to be their queen. Robin
Hood vindicates his vocation, and in a noble speech on
freedom--deriving his similes from the giant oak tree, as Tennyson has
ever loved to do--declares himself the friend of the poor and the
servant of the king; the absent Richard of the Lion Heart, for whose
return all good men are eager. Various beggars, friars, and other
travellers are halted on the road, in practical illustration of Robin's
doctrine; comic incidents from the old ballads are reproduced; and so
the episode ends merrily of these frolics in the wood. At that point a
delicious fairy pageant is introduced, presenting Queen Titania and her
elves and illustrating at once the grievance of the fairies against the
men whose heavy feet have crushed their toads and bats and flowers and
mystic rings, and Marian's dream of love. Sir Arthur Sullivan's music is
here again used, and again it is felt to be characteristic, melodious,
and uncommonly sweet and tender. Act fourth begins in a forest bower at
sunrise. Marian and Robin meet there and talk of Sir Richard and of his
bond to the Abbot of York--soon to fall due and seemingly to remain
unpaid. Robin has summoned the Abbot and his justiciary to come into the
forest and to bring the bond. King Richard, unrecognised, now arrives,
and in submission to certain laws of the woodland he engages in an
encounter of buffets, and prevails over all his adversaries. At the
approach of the Abbot, however, fearing premature recognition, the
monarch will flit away; but his gypsy friends compel him to accept a
bugle, upon which he is to blow a blast when in danger. The Abbot and
his followers arrive, and Robin Hood offers the money to redeem Sir
Richard's bond; but, upon a legal quibble, the Abbot declines to receive
it--preferring to seize the forfeited land. Prince John and the Sheriff
of Nottingham appear, and Robin and his Foresters form an ambuscade. Sir
Richard Lea has been brought in, upon his litter, and Marian stays
beside him. Prince John attempts to seize her, but this time he is
frustrated by the sudden advent of King Richard--from whose presence he
slinks away. The myrmidons of John, however, attack the King, who would
oppose them single-handed; but Friar Tuck snatches the King's bugle and
blows a blast of summons--whereupon the Foresters swarm into the field
and possess it. John's faction is dispersed, Marian is saved, the absent
Walter Lea reappears, Sir Richard is assured of his estate, the Abbot
and the Sheriff are punished, and Robin Hood and Maid Marian may
wed--for now the good King Richard has come again to his own.