MARY ANDERSON AS AN ACTRESS.
The author approaches this, his concluding chapter, with some degree of
diffidence. Though he has in the foregoing pages essayed something like a
portrait of a very distinguished artist, he is not by profession a
dramatic critic. He does not belong to that noble band at whose nod the
actor is usually supposed to tremble. He is not a "first-nighter," who, by
the light of the midnight oil, dips his mighty pen in the ink which is to
seal on to-morrow's broad-sheet, as he proudly imagines, the professional
fate of the artists who are submitted for his censure or his praise. Not
that he is by any means an implicit believer in the verdict of the
professional critic. An actor who succeeds, should often fail according to
the recognized canons of dramatic criticism, and the reverse. That the
beautiful harmony of nature and the eternal fitness of things dramatic are
not always preserved, is due to that _profanum vulgus_ which sometimes
reverses the decisions of those dramatic divinities who sit enthroned,
like the twelve Cæsars, in the sacred temple of criticism, as the inspired
representatives of the press.
Those who have been at the trouble to read the various and conflicting
notices of the chief London journals upon Mary Anderson's
performances--for those of the great provincial towns she visited present
a singular unanimity in her favor--must have found it difficult, if not
impossible, to decide either on her merits as an artist, or on the true
place to be assigned to her in the temple of the drama. The veriest
misogynist among critics was compelled, in spite of himself, to confess to
the charm of her strange beauty. Hers, as all agreed, was the loveliest
face and the most graceful figure which had appeared on the London boards
within the memory of a generation. According to some she was an
accomplished actress, but she lacked that divine spark which stamps the
true artist. Others attributed her success to nothing but her personal
grace and beauty; while one critic, bolder than his fellows, even went so
far as to declare that whether she wore the attire of a Grecian maid, of a
fine French lady of a century ago, or of the fabled Galatea, only pretty
Miss Anderson, of Louisville, Kentucky, peeped out through every disguise.
Several causes, perhaps, combined to this uncertain sound which went forth
from the trumpet of the dramatic critic. Mary Anderson was an American
artist, who came here, it is true, with a great American reputation; but
so had come others before her, some of whom had wholly failed to stand the
fierce test of the London footlights. Then to "damn her with faint
praise," would not only be a safe course at the outset, but the steps to a
becoming _locus peniteniæ_ would be easy and gradual if the vane should,
in spite of the critics, veer round to the point of popular favor. One of
the most distinguished of English journalists lately observed in the House
of Commons that certain writers in back parlors were in the habit of
palming off their effusions as the voice of the great English public, till
that voice made itself heard. When the voice of the English theater-going
public upon Mary Anderson came to make itself heard in the crowded and
enthusiastic audiences of the Lyceum, in the friendship of all that was
most cultivated and best worth knowing in London society, it failed
altogether to echo the trumpet, we will not say of the back parlor critics
only, but of some critics distinguished in their profession, who can
little have anticipated how quickly the popular verdict would modify, if
not reverse their own.
It may be interesting to quote here some observations very much to the
point, on the dramatic criticism of the day, in an admirable paper read
recently by Mrs. Kendal before the Social Science Congress. It will hardly
be denied that there are few artists competent to speak with more
authority on matters theatrical, or better able to form a judgment on the
true inwardness of that Press criticism to which herself and her fellow
artists are so constantly subject:
"Existing critics generally rush into extremes, and either over-praise or
too cruelly condemn. The public, as a matter of course, turn to the
newspapers for information, but how can any judgment be formed when either
indiscriminate praise or unqualified abuse is given to almost every new
piece and to the actors who interpret it? Criticism, if it is to be worth
anything, should surely be criticism, but nowadays the writing of a
picturesque article, replete with eulogy, or the reverse, seems to be the
aim of the theatrical reviewer. Of course, the influence of the Press upon
the stage is very powerful, but it will cease to be so if playgoers find
that their mentors, the critics, are not trustworthy guides. The public
must, after all, decide the fate of a new play. If it be bad, the
Englishman of to-day will not declare it is good because the newspapers
have told him so. He will be disappointed, he will be bored, he will tell
his friends so, and the bad piece will fail to draw audiences. If, on the
other hand, the play is a good one, which has been condemned by the Press,
it will quicken the pulse and stir the heart of an audience in spite of
adverse criticism. The report that it contains the true ring will go
about, and success must follow. In a word, though the Press can do very
much to further the interests of the stage, it is powerless to kill good
work, and cannot galvanize that which is invertebrate into life."
To determine Mary Anderson's true stage place, and to make a fair and
impartial criticism of her performances is rendered further difficult by
the fact, that the English stage offers in the last generation scarcely
one with whom she can be compared, if we except perhaps Helen Faucit.
Between herself and that great artist, middle-aged play-goers seem to find
a certain resemblance; but to the present generation of playgoers Mary
Anderson is an absolutely new revelation on the London boards. Recalling
the roll of artists who have essayed similar parts for the last five and
twenty years, we can name not one who has given as she did what we may
best describe as a new stage sensation. Never was the pride of a free
maiden of ancient Greece more nobly expressed than in Parthenia: never
were the gradual steps from fear and abhorrence to love more finely
portrayed than in the stages of her rising passion for the savage
chieftain, whose captive hostage she was. Her Pauline was the old
patrician beauty of France living on the stage, a true woman in spite of
the selfish veneer of pride and caste with which the traditions of the
ancient _noblesse_ had covered her; while Galatea found in her certainly
the most poetic and beautiful representation of that fanciful character,
ever seen on any stage. This was the verdict of the public who thronged
the Lyceum to its utmost capacity, during the months of the past winter.
This was the verdict, too, of the largest provincial towns of the kingdom.
The critics, some of them, were willing to concede to Mary Anderson the
possession of every grace which can adorn a woman, and of every
qualification which can make an artist attractive, with a solitary but
fatal reservation--_she was devoid of genius_. But what, indeed, is genius
after all? It is the magic power to touch unerringly a sympathetic chord
in the human breast. The novelist, whose characters seem to be living; the
painter, the figures on whose canvas appear to breathe; the actor who,
while he treads the stage, is forgotten in the character he assumes; all
these possess it. This was the verdict of the public upon Mary Anderson,
and we are fain to believe that--_pace_ the critics--it was the true one.
Her Clarice was perhaps the least successful of her impersonations; and
given as an afterpiece, it taxed unfairly the endurance of an actress, who
had already been some hours upon the stage. But as a striking illustration
of the reality of her performance, we may mention, that, in the scene
where she is supposed by her guests to be acting, her fellow actors, who
should have applauded the tragic outburst which the public divine to be
real, were so disconcerted by the vehemence and seeming reality of her
grief and despair, that on the first representation of "Comedy and
Tragedy" they actually forgot their parts, and had to be called to task by
the author for failing properly to support the star. "No man," it is said,
"is a hero to his _valet de chambre_," and few indeed are the artists who
can make their fellow artists on the stage forget that the mimic passion
which convulses them is but consummate art after all.
Mary Anderson's present Lyceum season will exhibit her in characters which
will give opportunity for displaying powers of a widely different order to
those called forth in the last. A new Juliet and a new Lady Macbeth will
show the capacity she possesses for the true exhibition of the tenderest
as well as the stormiest passions which can agitate the human breast; and
she may perhaps appear in Cushman's famous _role_ of Meg Merrilies. In all
these she invites comparison with great impersonators of these parts who
are familiar to the stage. We will not anticipate the verdict of the
public, but of this much we are assured that rarely can Shakespeare's
favorite heroine have been represented by so much youth, and grace, and
beauty, and genuine artistic ability combined. Juliet was her first part,
and has always been, regarded by Mary Anderson with the affection due to a
first love. But it may not be generally known that she imagines her
_forte_ to lie rather in the exhibition of the stormier passions, and that
she succeeds better in parts like Lady Macbeth or Meg Merrilies. I
remember her once saying to me, as she raised her beautiful figure to its
full height, and stretched her hand to the ceiling, "I am always at my
best when I am uttering maledictions." Thus far, Mary Anderson has shown
herself to us in characters which must give a very incomplete estimate of
her powers. None indeed of the parts she assumed were adapted to bring out
the highest qualities of an artist. That she has succeeded in inspiring
the freshness and glow of life into plays, some of which, at least, were
supposed to be consigned almost to the limbo of disused stage properties,
stamps her as possessing genuine histrionic power. She has earned
distinguished fame all over the Western continent. London as well as the
great cities of the kingdom have hailed her as a Queen of the Stage. Such
an experience as hers is rare indeed, almost solitary, in its annals. A
self-trained girl, born quite out of the circle or influence of stage
associations, she burst, when but sixteen, as a star on the theatrical
horizon; and if her grace, her youth, her beauty, have helped her in the
upward flight, they have helped alone, and could not have atoned for the
want of that divine spark, which is the birthright of the artist who makes
a mark upon his generation and his time. When the more recent history of
the English-speaking stage shall once again be written, we do not doubt
that Mary Anderson will take her fitting place, side by side with the many
great artists who have so adorned it in the last half century; with
Charlotte Cushman, Helen Faucit, and Fanny Stirling, who represent its
earlier glories; with Mrs. Kendal, Mrs. Bancroft, and Ellen Terry, whose
names are interwoven with the triumphs of later years.