EDNA WALLACE HOPPER
A captivating atom of femininity was Edna Wallace when she succeeded
Della Fox as the soubrette foil to the DeWolf Hopper's long-leggedness.
What a happy girlish smile she had,--her eyes sparkled and danced so
merrily, the little dimples in her cheeks were so altogether alluring!
Edna Wallace Hopper never was much of a singer, but she was so pretty
and so delicate that one never troubled himself about her voice; he was
chiefly concerned lest she might thoughtlessly break into bits. She was
vivacity itself, vivacity that never seemed noisy nor forced, just the
spontaneous expression of natural blithesomeness; and her magnetism
could not be escaped. Although she could not sing, she could act in
her soubrettish way, for her little experience on the stage had been
spent with plays and not with operas.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1898, by B. J. Falk, Waldorf-Astoria, N. Y.
EDNA WALLACE-HOPPER.]
The art of the soubrette is about the hardest thing in the world to pin
down for examination. In fact, in many cases, the word "art," in
connection with the soubrette, is purely conventional; instinct would
more correctly describe the means employed by her to gain her stage
effects. Dramatic instinct is, of course, the corner-stone of the
actor's mental equipment. Indeed, we all have to a degree that
involuntary notion what to do under certain circumstances--wholly
unexpected circumstances possibly--to create the impression we wish to
make. Preachers have it abundantly, or else their words from the pulpit
would be ineffective; lawyers are also exceptionally endowed with it, or
else their addresses to the jury would be worse than useless; teachers,
family physicians, the man who makes politics a profession, all must
have the dramatic instinct to win any great success.
In the case of the soubrette, dramatic instinct is limited in its field.
She does not, as a general thing, attempt impersonation, and she never
is called upon to do anything more than slightly ruffle the surface of
emotional possibilities by a faint appeal to the sentiments. Her
dramatic instinct is chiefly concerned in presenting to the best
advantage an attractive personality and sparkling temperament backed up
by a pretty face and a pleasing figure. Herein lies the difficulty of
writing about soubrettes. Having called them happy, gay, graceful,
altogether charming, one finds that he has nothing more to say. He
cannot talk about their art, for their art is merely themselves,
indefinable and impossible of description. He cannot talk about the
characters they have played, for they have never played but one, and
that themselves. Edna Wallace Hopper's Paquita in "Panjandrum," for
example, was none other than her Estrelda in "El Capitan." The
environment was different and the raiment was different, but the
character was the same.
Now a personality cannot be put on paper; it cannot be talked over
except in the most superficial and unsatisfactory way. It can only be
felt. When one has declared that a certain actor's personality is
unusually attractive, he has spoken the last word. Edna Wallace Hopper,
in common with all other light opera soubrettes, is a personality. She
is there to be liked or disliked just as the notion happens to strike
one; but whether one likes or dislikes her, there is no possible ground
for an argument about the matter. This person here, who is unmoved by
her presence, may claim that she cannot sing and that she is wholly
artificial. That person there, who finds her altogether delightful, will
declare that he does not care whether she sings or not, and such a
dainty creature is she that her frank artificiality is a positive
delight.
Personally I have always found Edna Wallace Hopper exceptionally
entertaining. I first bowed the knee before her smile and her coaxing
dimples--a great deal of Mrs. Hopper's fascination is smiles and
dimples--when she was very new to the stage, and I have never wholly
escaped from their thraldom since that time. I acknowledge freely all
her shortcomings,--her lack of versatility and resourcefulness, her
narrowness of range,--but as long as she keeps her smile and her
dimples, I am certain that I shall never be absolutely insensible to her
allurements. She is wholly and fixedly a soubrette, a pretty, dancing,
laughing creature without a suggestion of seriousness or the slightest
trace of emotion. She is not to be studied, and she does not pretend to
any depth of illusion. She is an impression, to be admired or scorned
always in the present tense.
Edna Wallace was born in San Francisco and was educated at the Vanness
Seminary there. It was due entirely to Roland Reed, the light comedian,
that the idea of going on the stage ever entered her head. Mr. Reed met
Miss Wallace at a reception while he was playing in San Francisco in
1891. She was then not far from seventeen years old. Impressed with her
vivacity, he laughingly offered her a position in his company, and,
behold! the mischief was done. She accepted quickly; and although her
parents did not approve of the plan in the least, she journeyed east
during the summer, and in August made her appearance at the Boston
Museum with Mr. Reed as Mabel Douglass in "The Club Friend."
Two weeks later she acted in the same play at the Star Theatre in New
York, where six weeks later she was given the leading ingenue role in
"Lend Me Your Wife." She attracted the attention of Charles Frohman, and
was engaged by him, appearing successively as Lucy Mortan in "Jane,"
Mrs. Patterby in "Chums," Margery in "Men and Women" and as Wilbur's
Ann, the boisterous frontier maiden, in "The Girl I Left Behind Me."
It was while she was acting in this play in June, 1893, that she was
married to DeWolf Hopper. A few weeks after this, Della Fox, the Paquita
in "Panjandrum," was taken suddenly ill and journeyed off to Europe.
Mrs. Hopper jumped into the part and played it successfully until the
end of the New York season. The following comment on Mrs. Hopper shortly
after her first appearance in light opera is interesting:--
"A winsome little woman recently bounded into the affectionate regard of
New York audiences at the Broadway Theatre. The severely critical may
take occasion to compare her with her predecessor as Paquita in
'Panjandrum,'--possibly to her disadvantage in some instances,--but the
fact still remains that the audiences like her immensely, because she
is young, pretty, modest, and because she can act. Edna Wallace Hopper,
if not able to sing quite as well as some comic opera performers, is a
capable actress, and in this respect her advancement has been somewhat
remarkable."
In the fall Mrs. Hopper returned to Charles Frohman's management, but
she was not long after released from her contract so that she could
assume the part of Merope Mallow in DeWolf Hopper's production of "Dr.
Syntax." This was a decidedly attractive bit of work natural and
artistic. On the road she also assumed Della Fox's old character of
Mataya in "Wang." When "El Capitan" was produced in Boston in April,
1896, she created the part of Estrelda, the hero-worshipping coquette,
her first original role, by the way, in opera, for her character in "Dr.
Syntax" was taken directly from a similar conception in "Cinderella at
School." This was her last role with the Hopper organization, for while
it was still a popular attraction, domestic difficulties separated her
from Mr. Hopper, and she retired from the company at the expiration of
her contract with Ben Stevens, the manager.
Mrs. Hopper next appeared in "Yankee Doodle Dandy," an extravaganza of
doubtful merit, and with Lillian Russell in a revival of "La Belle
Helene." During the season of 1899-1900, she shared the honors with
Jerome Sykes in the extravaganza, "Chris and the Wonderful Lamp," acting
the part of the sophisticated youth Chris.