THE STAGE
The golden age of American acting was not so very long ago. Most
white-haired men remember it, and love to talk of the days of Booth and
Forrest and Charlotte Cushman. Joseph Jefferson, the last survivor of
the old regime, died just the other day, and to the very end showed the
present generation the charm and humor of Bob Acres and Rip Van Winkle.
No doubt that golden age is made to appear more golden than it really
was by the mists of time; but undoubtedly the old actors possessed a
mellowness, a solidity, a sort of high tradition now almost unknown.
These qualities were due in part, perhaps, to the long and arduous stock
company training, where, in the old days, every actor must serve his
apprenticeship, and in part to the study of the classic drama which had
so large a place in stock company repertoire.
Success was infinitely harder to win than it is to-day. There were fewer
theatres, so that the great actors were forced to play together, to
their mutual advantage and improvement. The multiplication of theatres
at the present time, and the vast increase of the theatre-going public,
has led to the "star" system--to the placing of an actor at the head of
a company, as soon as he has won a certain reputation. And, since care
is taken that the "star" shall outshine all his associates, it follows
that he has no one to measure himself with, he is no longer on his
metal, and his growth usually stops then and there.
But let us be frank about it. The attitude of the public toward the
theatre has changed. To-day we would not tolerate the heavy melodramas
which enchained our parents and grandparents. The age of rant and
fustian has passed away, and Edwin Forrest could never gain a second
fortune from such a combination of these qualities as "Metamora." We are
more sophisticated; we refuse to be thrilled by Ingomar, no matter how
loudly he bellows. What we ask for principally is to be amused, and
consequently the great effort of the theatre is to amuse us, for the
theatre must cater to its public. So, if the stage to-day is not what it
was fifty years ago, the fault lies principally in front of the
footlights and not behind them.
* * * * *
[Illustration: BOOTH]
To the student of American acting, one name stands out before all the
rest, the name of Booth. No other actors in this country have ever
equalled the achievements of Junius Brutus Booth and of his son, Edwin
Booth. They possessed the genius of tragedy, if any men ever did, and no
one who saw them in their great moments can forget the impression of
absolute reality which they conveyed.
Junius Brutus Booth was the son of an eccentric silversmith of London,
and was born there in 1796. Let us pause here to remark that, just as
the greatest Frenchman who ever lived was an Italian, and the greatest
Russian woman a German, so most of the early American actors were either
English or Irish. This sounds rather Irish itself; but it is true.
Certainly, in the end Napoleon Bonaparte became as French as any
Frenchman and the Empress Catherine II Russian to the core; and the
English and Irish actors who came to these shores in search of fame and
fortune, and who found them and spent the remainder of their lives here,
have every right to be considered in any account of the American stage
which they did so much to adorn.
Junius Brutus Booth, then, was born in London in 1796. Twenty years
before, his father had been so carried away by Republican principles
that he had sailed for America to join the ranks of the army of
independence, but he was captured and sent back to England. So it will
be seen that he was something more than a mere silversmith; but he was
very successful at his trade, and was able to give his son a careful
classical education, to fit him for the bar. Imagine his chagrin when
the boy, after a short experience in amateur theatricals, announced his
intention of becoming an actor.
He secured some small parts, made a tour of the provinces, and finally,
in London, engaged in a remarkable war with the great tragedian, Edmund
Kean, which divided the town into two factions. But Booth tired of the
struggle, in which the odds were all against him, and in 1821 sailed for
America. He won an instant success, and was a great popular favorite
until the day of his death. He was a short, spare, muscular man, with a
pale countenance, set off by dark hair and lighted by a pair of piercing
blue eyes, and he possessed a voice of wonderful compass and thrilling
power. Upon the stage he was formidable and tremendous, giving an
impression of overwhelming power, in which his son, perhaps, never quite
equalled him.
Shortly after his arrival in America, Booth bought a farm near
Baltimore, and there, on November 13, 1833, Edwin Booth was born. There
was a great shower of meteors that night, which, if they portended
nothing else, may be taken as symbolical of the career of America's
greatest tragedian. He was the seventh of ten children, all of whom
inherited, in some degree, their father's genius. It was not without a
trace of madness, and reached a fearful culmination in John Wilkes
Booth, when he shot down Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in
Washington.
From the first, Edwin Booth felt himself destined for the stage. His
father did not encourage him, but finally, in 1849, consented to his
appearance with him in the unimportant part of Tressel, in "King Richard
the Third." From that time on, he accompanied his father in all his
wanderings, and partook of the strange and sad adventures of that
wayward man of genius. In 1852, he went with his father to California,
and was left there by the elder Booth, who no doubt thought it the best
school for the boy's budding talent. There, in the Sandwich Islands, and
in Australia, among the rough crowds of the mining camps, he had four
years of the most severe training that hardship, discipline, and stern
reality can furnish. Amid it all his genius grew and deepened, and when
he returned again to the east in 1856 he was no longer a novice, but an
accomplished actor.
His last years in California had been shadowed by a great sorrow--the
sudden and pitiful death of his father. The elder Booth had for years
been subject to attacks of insanity, brought on, or at least
intensified, by extreme intemperance. On one occasion he had attempted
to commit suicide. On another, he had had his nose broken, an accident
which so interfered with his voice that he did not regain complete
control of it for nearly two years. On his return from California, where
he had left his son, he stopped at New Orleans, and remained there a
week, performing to crowded houses. He then started north by way of the
Mississippi, and was found dying in his stateroom a few days later. He
had been caught in a severe rain as he left New Orleans, a cold
developed, complications followed, and for forty-eight hours he lay
unattended in his stateroom, without that medical attention which he was
unable or unwilling to summon. He died November 30, 1852, and his body
was interred at Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore, in a grave afterwards
marked by a monument erected by his son Edwin.
This was only one of many tragedies which darkened the life of Edwin
Booth, for, to use the words of William Winter, he was "tried by some of
the most terrible afflictions that ever tested the fortitude of a human
soul. Over his youth, plainly visible, impended the lowering cloud of
insanity. While he was yet a boy, and while literally struggling for
life in the semi-barbarous wilds of old California, he lost his beloved
father, under circumstances of singular misery. In early manhood he laid
in her grave the woman of his first love, the wife who had died in
absence from him, herself scarcely past the threshold of youth, lovely
as an angel and to all who knew her precious beyond expression. A little
later his heart was well nigh broken and his life was well nigh blasted
by the crime of a lunatic brother that for a moment seemed to darken the
hope of the world. Recovering from that blow, he threw all his resources
and powers into the establishment of the grandest theatre in the
metropolis of America, and he saw his fortune of more than a million
dollars, together with the toil of some of the best years of his life
frittered away. Under all trials he bore bravely up, and kept the even,
steadfast tenor of his course; strong, patient, gentle, neither elated
by public homage nor embittered by private grief."
It has been said that Booth returned from California a finished actor.
He had, besides, the prestige of a great name, and he was welcomed with
open arms. He had not yet reached the summit of his skill, but he showed
an extraordinary grace and "a spirit ardent with the fire of genius."
From that time forward, his career was one of lofty endeavor and of
high achievement. In the great characters of Shakespeare, especially in
those of Hamlet, Richard the Third, and Iago, he had no rivals, and no
one who witnessed him in any of these parts ever outlived the deep
impression the performance made. During the last two or three years of
his life his health failed gradually, and he was finally compelled to
leave the stage. On April 19, 1893, he suffered a stroke of paralysis
from which he never rallied, lingering in a semi-conscious state until
June 7th, when he sank rapidly and died.
Of his art no words can give an adequate idea. It was essentially
poetic, full of a strange and compelling charm. His great moments laid
upon his audience the spell of his genius, and rank with the highest
achievements of any actor who ever lived. His countenance--
"That face which no man ever saw
And from his memory banished quite,
The eyes in which are Hamlet's awe
And Cardinal Richelieu's subtle light"--
as Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote of Sargent's portrait, which heads this
chapter--was a strange and moving one, and in range of expression
unsurpassed. His eyes were especially wonderful, dark brown, but seeming
to turn black in moments of passion, and conveying, with electrical
effect, the actor's thought. He was unique. He stood apart. The American
stage has never produced another like him.
Second only to Edwin Booth in sheer glory of achievement stands Edwin
Forrest. He fell far below Booth in grace, in charm, and in poetic
insight, but he surpassed him in physical equipment for the great parts
of tragedy, particularly in his voice, magnificent, vibrating, with an
extraordinary depth and purity of tone.
Unlike Booth, Forrest came from no family of actors, nor inherited a
name famous in the annals of the stage. He was born in Philadelphia in
1806, his father being a Scotchman, employed in Stephen Girard's bank,
and making just enough money to keep his family of six children from
actual want. He died when Edwin was thirteen years old, and his widow,
by opening a little store, managed to support the children. She was a
serious and devout woman and decided that Edwin should enter the
ministry. But meantime, he must earn a living, so he was apprenticed to
a cooper.
How long he stayed with the cooper nobody knows; but it could not have
been long, for already he was fired with an ambition to be an actor, and
after some experience as an amateur, astonished and grieved his mother
by announcing that he was going on the stage. He made his first
appearance on the 27th of November, 1820, as Young Norval, in Home's
tragedy of "Douglas," and was an immediate success. His youth--remember,
he was but fourteen--his handsome face and manly bearing, and, above
all, that wonderful and resonant voice, won the audience at once, and
his career was begun.
But many hardships awaited him. The theatres of New York and
Philadelphia had their companies of well-known and well-trained actors.
There was no hope for him in either of those cities; but at last he
secured an engagement to play juvenile parts at Pittsburgh, Cincinnati,
Lexington, and other towns of the middle west, at a salary of eight
dollars a week. This, of course, was scarcely enough to keep body and
soul together, but all Forrest wanted was a chance, and he did not
murmur at the suffering and hardship which followed.
For business was poor, and Forrest did not always receive even that
eight dollars. The end came at Dayton, Ohio, where the company went to
pieces. Forrest, without money and almost without clothes, walked the
forty miles to Cincinnati, where, after a time, he found another
position. Such was the beginning of his career, and this hard novitiate
lasted for four years, until, in 1826, at the age of twenty, he was able
to return to New York and secure an engagement at the old Bowery
Theatre. He was an instant success, and from year to year his wonderful
powers seemed to increase, until he became easily the most famous actor
of the day.
But his fame was soon to be dulled by unfortunate personalities.
Conceiving a jealousy of Macready, the famous English actor, he hissed
him at a performance in Edinburgh, and when Macready came to America in
1849, Forrest's followers broke in upon a performance at the Astor Place
opera house, and a riot followed in which twenty-two men were killed. A
quarrel with his wife led to the divorce court, and the suit was decided
against him.
The end was pathetic. He had been troubled with gout for a long time,
and in 1865, it took a malignant turn, paralyzing the sciatic nerve, so
that he lost the use of one hand, and could not walk steadily. His power
had left him, and in the five years that followed, he played to empty
houses and an indifferent public, not content to retire, but hoping
against hope that he might in some way regain his lost prestige. A
stroke of paralysis finally ended the hopeless struggle.
Forrest's art was of a cruder and more robust sort than Edwin Booth's
who, by the way, was named after him. He was greatest in characters
demanding a great physique, a commanding presence and--yes, let us say
it!--a loud voice. Coriolanus, Spartacus, Virginius--those were his
roles, and no man ever looked more imposing in a Roman toga.
Forrest, during his English engagement of 1845, and on other occasions,
shared the honors with a remarkable actress, Charlotte Cushman. And
perhaps none ever had a more astonishing career. Born in Boston in 1816,
her youth was one of poverty, for her father died while she was very
young, leaving no property. The girl was remarkably bright, and soon
developed a contralto voice of unusual richness and compass. She sang in
a choir and assisted to support the family from the age of twelve,
securing such musical instruction as she could. In 1834, she made her
first appearance in opera and scored a tremendous success. A splendid
career seemed opening before her, when suddenly, a few months later, her
voice, strained by the soprano parts which had been, assigned her,
failed completely.
Her friends advised her to become an actress, and she went diligently to
work, not allowing herself to despond over that first great
disappointment. For the next seven years, she worked faithfully learning
the new profession from the very bottom. "I became aware," she said,
"that one could never sail a ship by entering at the cabin windows; he
must serve and learn his trade before the mast." In that way she learned
hers, playing minor parts, doing cheerfully the drudgery of her
profession, refusing all offers for more important work until she felt
herself thoroughly capable of undertaking it. One would wish that her
example might be taken to heart by her sisters of the present day.
At last her chance came. In 1842, William C. Macready, the great English
tragedian, visited the United States, and in Charlotte Cushman he found
a splendid support. Indeed, she divided the honors with him. A year
later, she went to London and won immense applause. "Since the first
appearance of Edmund Keane, in 1814," said a London journal, in speaking
of her first night as "Bianca," "never has there been such a debut on
the stage of an English theatre." For eighty-four nights she appeared
with Edwin Forrest. "All my successes put together," she wrote to her
mother, "would not come near my success in London."
In the winter of 1845 she tried one of the most daring experiments ever
made by an actress, appearing as Romeo to her sister, Susan Cushman's,
Juliet. It was a notable success. Her deep contralto voice made it
possible for her to give a complete illusion of the young and handsome
lover. She played other male characters in after years, notably Hamlet,
and created a deep impression in them. Her sister was a lovely girl, and
an accomplished actress, and their "Romeo and Juliet" ran for two
hundred nights. Susan Cushman would no doubt also have won high fame as
an actress, but she soon retired from the stage, marrying the
distinguished chemist and author, James Sheridan Muspratt, of Liverpool.
Charlotte Cushman returned to America in the fall of 1849, and was
received with acclamation. There was never any question, after that, of
her position as the greatest English-speaking actress, and that position
she easily maintained until her death. She gathered wealth as well as
fame, built a villa at Newport, and in 1863 earned nearly nine thousand
dollars for the United States Sanitary Commission by benefit
performances. Energetic, resolute, faithful, impatient of any
achievement but the highest, she seemed the very embodiment of many of
Shakespeare's greatest creations. She possessed a strange, and weird
genius, akin, in some respects, to that of Edwin Booth, and her
delineation of the sublime, the beautiful, the terrible has never been
surpassed. A noble interpreter of noble minds, Charlotte Cushman stands
for the supreme achievement of the actress.
What Booth and Forrest were to tragedy, William J. Florence was to
comedy. Indeed, he may be said to have gone farther than either Booth or
Forrest, for he founded a school and gave to the stage the chivalrous,
light-hearted and lucky Irishman, who has since become so familiar to
the drama, however rare he may be outside the theatre.
Florence was born in Albany, New York, in 1831. His family name was
Conlin, from which it will be seen that he came naturally by his insight
into Irish character; but he changed this name when he went upon the
stage to the more romantic and euphonious one of Florence. He gave
evidence of possessing unusual dramatic talent while still a boy, and
made his debut on the regular stage at the age of eighteen. He had the
usual hardships of the young actor, playing in various stock companies
without attracting especial attention, and finally, in 1853, marrying
Malvina Pray, herself an actress of considerable ability.
It was at this time that Florence began to find his field in the
delineation of Irish and Yankee characters, his wife appearing with him,
and together they won a wide popularity. Florence wrote some plays and a
number of sprightly songs, which his wife sang inimitably. He himself
improved steadily in his acting, and, especially in the gentle humor and
melting pathos with which he clothed his characters, stood quite alone.
A tour through England added to his fame, and his songs were soon being
sung and whistled in the streets pretty generally wherever the English
tongue was spoken. One song in particular, called "Bobbing Around," had
immense popularity.
But Florence was more than a mere song-writer Irish comedian. In his
later years he proved himself to be an actor of high attainments and no
one who ever witnessed a performance of "The Rivals," with Jefferson as
Bob Acres, and Florence as Sir Lucius O'Trigger, will ever forget his
finished and glowing impersonation.
When Edwin Forrest, heart-broken and discredited, died in 1872, he left
his manuscript plays to another great tragedian, whom he regarded as his
legitimate successor, John McCullough. In some respects McCullough was a
greater actor than Forrest, for he possessed that quality of poetic
insight and high imagination which Forrest lacked, while in physical
equipment for the great characters of tragedy he was in no whit his
inferior.
John McCullough was born in Coleraine, Ireland, in 1837, his parents,
who were small farmers, bringing him to this country at the age of
sixteen. They settled at Philadelphia and the boy was apprenticed to a
chair-maker, but he soon broke away from that hum-drum employment, and
in 1855, appeared in a minor part in "The Belle's Strategem." His story,
after that, was the usual one of long years of training in various stock
companies. He gradually worked his way into prominence, and finally in
1866, became associated with Edwin Forrest, taking the second parts in
the latter's plays; and, after Forrest's death, taking his place as the
first impersonator of robust tragedy in America.
For ten years his success was tremendous--then came the sad ending.
McCullough had always been supremely great in characters requiring the
delineation of madness--Virginius, King Lear, Othello. Whether this had
anything to do with the final tragedy cannot be said, but in 1884, while
playing at Chicago, he broke down in the midst of a performance, and had
to be led from the stage. His mind was gone; he never rallied, and ended
his days in an asylum for the insane.
One of the most successful engagements McCullough ever had was in 1869
and for some years thereafter, when, with Lawrence Barrett, he appeared
at the Bush Street theatre in San Francisco. Barrett's name is also
closely associated with that of Edwin Booth, for he played opposite
Booth through many seasons--Othello to Booth's Iago, Cassius to Booth's
Brutus, and so on; and the two formed a combination which for sheer
genius has never been surpassed. But Barrett never commanded the
adoration of the public as Booth did, because he lacked that power of
enchantment which Booth possessed in a supreme degree. His mind was
austere, he could win respect but not affection, and, as a result,
criticism was more captious, honors came grudgingly or not at all, and
the fight for recognition was up-hill all the way.
Lawrence Barrett was born in 1838, and he began his theatrical career at
the age of fifteen. After the usual hard stock-company experience, he
secured a New York engagement, where, for nearly two years, he
supported such actors as Charlotte Cushman and Edwin Booth. From New
York he went to Boston for a similar engagement, but at the outbreak of
the Civil War he left the stage, accepted a captaincy in the
Twenty-eighth Massachusetts Infantry, and served through the war with
distinction. Then he returned to the theatre, gaining an ever-increasing
reputation until his death.
Clara Morris called him "The Man with the Hungry Eyes," and they were
hungry, for life was always a battle to him. From an obscure and humble
position, without fortune, friends, or favoring circumstances he had
fought his way upward in the face of indifference, disparagement and
cold dislike.
Clara Morris has told the story of her own life better than anyone else
could tell it, and has shown in doing it the very qualities which made
most for her success--a wide sympathy, an impetuous heart, and an
invincible optimism. She, too, had a hard struggle at the
first--entering the ballet at the age of fifteen to help her mother
after her father's death, and working her way up until she secured a New
York engagement with Augustin Daly's famous stock company, where she
soon was sharing the honors with Ada Rehan. Ill health shortened her
acting career, and compelled her retirement from the stage when at the
very height of her powers.
Just the other day there died in California another woman who won a
great public a generation ago by a genius and charm seldom equalled.
Helena Modjeska's story was an unusual one. Born in Cracow, Poland, in
1844, the daughter of a great musician, her early years were passed in
an inspiring atmosphere, and almost from the first she felt an impulse
toward the stage. But her family refused to permit her to become an
actress, and it was not until after her marriage that her chance came.
Her husband consented to a few trial appearances, and her success was so
great that she was soon engaged as leading lady for the theatre at
Cracow.
But her husband incurred the ill-will of the authorities by his
political writings, and she herself got into trouble with them by
resisting the Russian censorship of the Polish theatre. It was evident
that arrest and banishment for either or both of them might come at any
moment, and under this incessant and increasing worry, her health began
to fail. So she renounced the theatre, as she thought, forever, came to
America, purchased a ranch in California, and settled down to spend the
remainder of her life in quiet. But Edwin Booth, John McCullough, and
others, encouraged her to study English and appear upon the American
stage. She did so, and four months later appeared at San Francisco as
Adrienne Lecouvreur. She had an instant success, and for more than
thirty years maintained her position as one of the greatest actresses of
the day.
Her personal fascination was of an exceedingly rare kind, her figure
tall and graceful, her face wonderfully attractive in its intellectual
charm and eloquent mobility. Shakespeare was her chief delight, and as
Juliet, Rosalind and Ophelia she enchanted thousands.
* * * * *
On the evening of Thursday, November 25, 1875, an audience assembled at
one of the theatres of Louisville, Kentucky, to witness "the first
appearance upon any stage" of "a young lady of Louisville." The young
lady in question had chosen as her vehicle Shakespeare's Juliet, which
was certainly beginning at the top; she was only sixteen years of age
and had never received any practical stage training; her experience of
life was narrow and provincial--and yet, when the curtain rang down for
the last time, the discerning ones in that audience knew that, despite
the crudity of the performance, a new star had arisen and a great career
begun. For that "young lady of Louisville" was Mary Anderson. Her story
is unique in the history of the American stage.
Born in California in 1859, but taken to Louisville a year later; her
father, Charles Joseph Anderson, dying in 1863, an officer in the
Confederate army, Mary Anderson was reared by her mother in the Roman
Catholic faith and received her education in a parochial school at
Louisville. She left school before she was fourteen, and two years
later, as we have seen, was upon the stage. Her first appearance won her
an engagement at Louisville, and for thirteen years thereafter she was
an actress, never in a stock company, but always a star. Then, at the
very meridian of her career, she married and retired forever from the
stage.
Mary Anderson's charm was not that of a great actress, for a great
actress she never became. She had not the training necessary to finished
and rounded work. Her charm was rather that of a sweet and gracious
personality, of a beautiful nature and a high sincerity. Sumptuously
beautiful, and possessed of a clear and resonant voice, such statuesque
characters as Galatea and Hermione attracted her irresistibly, and in
these she achieved her greatest triumphs.
Scarcely second to her was Ada Rehan, born a year later, appearing on
the stage two years earlier, in other words, at the age of thirteen. Ada
Rehan, appropriately enough, was born at Limerick, Ireland, and the
roguish and perverse Irish spirit was ever uppermost in her acting. She
was brought to America when she was five years old, and lived and went
to school in Brooklyn. Two of her elder sisters were upon the stage, but
she does not seem to have indicated any especial desire to imitate them,
and her first appearance was by accident. An actress playing a small
part in "Across the Continent" was taken suddenly ill, and the child,
who happened to be at the theatre, was hastily dressed for it and taught
her few lines; but she displayed so much readiness and natural talent
that, at a family council which followed the performance, it was decided
that she should proceed with a stage career, and she was soon regularly
embarked.
This meant a long and severe course of training in the stock companies
maintained at the various theatres throughout the country to support
such wandering stars as Booth and McCullough, and Barrett, and Adelaide
Neilson, and she emerged from this training well grounded in all the
business of the actress. In 1879, she attracted Augustin Daly's
attention, and from that time forward until Daly's death, she was the
leading woman at his famous New York house, becoming one of the most
admired figures upon the stage. Her art, luminous and sparkling,
especially fitted her for high comedy, and it was there that she
achieved her greatest distinction.
Ada Rehan's name was closely associated for many years with that of John
Drew, also a member of the Daly company, and a son of the famous "Mr.
and Mrs. John Drew," two of the most versatile, charming and popular
members of the old school. The elder John Drew was born in Ireland in
1825, but came to America at the age of twenty and spent the remainder
of his life here, except for a few absences on tour. He was considered
the best Irish comedian on the American stage. His wife, born in London
in 1820 of a theatrical family, appeared in child's parts at the age of
eight, came to this country at the age of twenty, and made a great
success here in high comedy parts. Their son can scarcely be said to
have fulfilled the promise of his early years, but seems to be content
with an achievement which shows him to be an accomplished and finished,
but by no means inspired or imaginative, actor.
Another family as celebrated in American theatrical annals as that of
John Drew was E. L. Davenport's. Davenport himself had received his
training in the old stock companies, and notably as Junius Brutus
Booth's support in a number of plays. He was equally at home in tragedy
and comedy. Associated with him after their marriage in 1849 was his
wife, Fanny Elizabeth Vining, an actress of considerable ability.
No less than six of their children followed the stage as a career. The
most famous of them was Fanny Davenport, whose stage career began when
she was a mere baby. Her young girlhood was occupied with soubrette
parts, but she soon developed unusual emotional powers, and attracted
Augustin Daly's notice. He added her to his stock company in 1869, and
she soon won a notable success in such parts as Lady Gay Spanker, Lady
Teazle and Rosalind.
Perhaps no American actor ever had a more remarkable career than William
Warren. Born in 1812, the son of a player of considerable reputation,
his first appearance was at the age of twenty. For twelve years his
history was that of most other struggling actors, but in 1846 he became
connected with the Howard Athenaeum at Boston, where he remained for
thirty-five years, retiring permanently from the stage in 1882.
During his career, he had given 13,345 performances and had appeared in
577 characters, a record which has probably never been approached. He
was especially notable in his representations of the "fine old English
gentleman," and he became to Boston a sort of Conservatory of Acting in
himself. That he was appreciated both as man and artist his long
residence in Boston proves.
He was a cousin of one of the best loved actors who ever trod the
American stage--Joseph Jefferson; but their careers were very different,
for Jefferson, in the last quarter century of his life confined himself
to a few parts--practically to four, Bob Acres, Rip Van Winkle, Dr.
Pangloss and Cabel Plummer. In these he was inimitable. Something is
gained and lost, of course, by either of these methods; one is inclined
to think the wiser plan, that making for the greatest achievement, is a
wide diversity of parts, and constant creation of new ones. And yet,
when one looks back upon Jefferson's delicate and cameo-clear
impersonations, one would not have him different.
Joseph Jefferson was the third of his name to challenge American
theatre-goers. His grandfather, born in England, in 1774, came to
America twenty-three years later and spent the remainder of his life
here, gaining some reputation as a comedian. His father is said to have
had little ability, and to have been careless and improvident. The third
of the name was born in Philadelphia in 1829, and began his stage career
at the age of three, appearing as the child in "Pizarro," which must
have frightened him nearly to death.
His father died when he was only fourteen, and the lad joined a company
of strolling players, who made their way through Texas, and during the
war with Mexico, followed the American army into Mexican territory.
American drama was in no great demand, so at Matamoras Jefferson opened
a stall for the sale of coffee and other refreshments, making enough
money to get back to the United States.
For the next ten years he appeared in stock companies in the larger
eastern cities, meeting such players as Edwin Forrest, James E. Murdoch,
and Edwin Adams; but the one who influenced him most was his own
half-brother, Charles Burke, an unusually accomplished serio-comic.
William Warren also ranked high in his affections.
The turning point of his career came in 1857 when he became associated
with Laura Keene at her theatre in New York. Here his first part was one
with which he was afterwards so closely identified, that of Dr.
Pangloss, and then came "Our American Cousin," in which he gained a
notable success as Asa Trenchard, and in which Edward A. Sothern laid
the foundation of the fantastic character of Lord Dundreary, which was
to make him famous. A year later, he created another of his great
characters, Caleb Plummer, in "The Cricket on the Hearth," and soon
afterwards, the most famous of all, Rip Van Winkle, which remained to
the end his supreme impersonation.
After that time, his career was a golden and happy one. He won the
affection of the American public as perhaps no recent player has ever
done. His art had a peculiarly wide appeal because it was fine and
sweet; he won sympathy and inspired affection; and seemed the very
embodiment of the tender, artless and lovable characters it was his joy
to represent.
Jefferson's death marked the passing of the last of the "old
school"--that mellow, fluent, and accomplished circle of players who
seem so different to their successors. But public taste is different
too. We care no longer for the rantings and heroics of Virginius and
Spartacus and all the rest of those toga-clothed gentlemen who differed
from each other only in their names. We demand something more subtle,
more--yes, let us say it!--intellectual. The modern who came nearest to
answering this demand, to showing us the complex thing which we know
human nature to be, was Richard Mansfield. A great artist, whom no
difficulty appalled, he gave the American public, season after season,
the most significant procession of worthy dramas that one man ever
produced.
Mansfield was born in Heligoland in 1857, and studied for the East
Indian civil service, but came to Boston and opened a studio, studied
art, and then suddenly abandoned it for the stage. Curiously enough, he
began with small parts in comic opera, and a few years later, made one
of the funniest Kokos who ever appeared in "The Mikado." But he soon
changed to straight drama, and the first great success of his career was
as Baron Chevrial in "A Parisian Romance," a part which was given him
after other actors had refused to take it, and in which he created a
real sensation. His reputation was secure after that, and grew steadily
until the swift and complete collapse from over-work, which ended his
life at the age of fifty-one.
Are there any great players alive in America to-day? E. H. Sothern,
perhaps, comes nearest to greatness, and has at least won respectful
attention by a sincerity and earnestness which have accomplished much.
He is the son of Edward Askew Sothern, whose career was a most peculiar
one. Intended for the ministry, he chose the stage instead, apparently
with no talent for it, and for six or seven years, only the most
unimportant of minor parts were entrusted to him.
One of these was that of Lord Dundreary in "Our American Cousin." It
consisted of only a few lines and Sothern accepted it under protest, but
he made such a hit in it that it was amplified and became the principal
part of the play. In fact, the play became, in the end, a series of
monologues for Dundreary. It had some remarkable runs, one, for
instance, in London, for four hundred and ninety-six consecutive nights.
Sothern continued playing the part until his death. His son is
undoubtedly a far greater actor, and may achieve a high and lasting
fame.
Associated with him in many of his later and more ambitious productions
has been Julia Marlowe, undoubtedly the most finished and accomplished
actress in America. She had a thorough training, having been on the
stage since her twelfth year, and devoting herself closely to the study
of her art. Her sincerity, too, promises much for the future. After
Sothern, Otis Skinner is perhaps the most noteworthy, and after him,
well, anyone of a dozen, whom it is needless to name here.
It was Joseph Jefferson who remarked that "all the good actors are
dead." He meant, of course, that the present seems always of little
worth when compared with the past; and this is the case not only with
the theatre, but in some degree with all the arts. It is especially true
of the theatre, however, because the player lives only in the memories
of those who saw him, and memory sees things, as it were, through a
golden glow.
SUMMARY
BOOTH, JUNIUS BRUTUS. Born at London, May 1, 1796; first appearance,
1813; came to America, 1821; died on a Mississippi steamboat, November
30, 1852.
BOOTH, EDWIN. Born at Bel Air, Maryland, November 13, 1833; first
appearance, 1849; first appearance as "star," as Sir Giles Overreach,
1857; played under management of Lawrence Barrett, 1886-91, in "Hamlet";
founded "The Players' Club," 1888; died at its club-house, in New York
City, June 7, 1893.
FORREST, EDWIN. Born at Philadelphia, March 9, 1806; first appearance,
1820; first notable success as Othello, 1826; last appearance in March,
1871; died at Philadelphia, December 12, 1872.
CUSHMAN, CHARLOTTE. Born at Boston, July 23, 1816; first appearance,
1835; played with Macready, 1842-44; in London, 1844-48; died at Boston,
February 8, 1876.
FLORENCE, WILLIAM JAMES. Born at Albany, New York, July 26, 1831; first
appearance, 1849; died at Philadelphia, November 19, 1891.
MCCULLOUGH, JOHN. Born at Coleraine, Ireland, November 2, 1837; came to
America, 1853; first appearance, 1855; broke down mentally and
physically, 1884; died in insane asylum at Philadelphia, November 8,
1885.
BARRETT, LAWRENCE. Born at Paterson, New Jersey, April 4, 1838; first
appearance, 1853; enlisted in 28th Massachusetts Volunteers, 1861; from
1887 until his death closely associated with Edwin Booth; died at New
York City, March 21, 1891.
MORRIS, CLARA. Born at Toronto, Canada, 1849; first appearance, 1861;
leading lady, 1869; joined Daly's company, 1870; married Frederick C.
Harriott, 1874.
MODJESKA, HELENA. Born at Cracow, Poland, October 12, 1844; first
appearance, 1861; first appearance in English at San Francisco, 1877;
died in California, April 8, 1909.
ANDERSON, MARY. Born at Sacramento, California, July 28, 1859; first
appearance, 1875; married Antonio de Navarro, 1889, and retired from the
stage.
REHAN, ADA. Born at Limerick, Ireland, April 22, 1860; came to America
in childhood; first appearance, 1874; joined Daly's company, 1879;
leading lady there until his death in 1899.
DREW, JOHN. Born at Philadelphia, in 1853; first appearance, 1873;
leading man in Daly's company, 1879-99.
DREW, JOHN, SR. Born at Dublin, Ireland, September 3, 1825; first
appearance in New York, 1845; died at Philadelphia, May 21, 1862.
DREW, MRS. JOHN, SR. (LOUISA LANE). Born at London, January 10, 1820;
first appearance when mere child; came to America, 1828; married John
Drew, 1850; died at Larchmont, New York, August 31, 1897.
DAVENPORT, EDWARD LOOMIS. Born at Boston, Massachusetts, November 15,
1814; first appearance, 1836; played in England, 1847-54; died at
Canton, Pennsylvania, September 1, 1877.
DAVENPORT, FANNY ELIZABETH VINING. Born at London, July 6, 1829; began
playing baby parts at age of three; made first appearance, 1847, as
Juliet; married E. L. Davenport, January 8, 1849; first appearance in
New York, 1854.
DAVENPORT, FANNY LILY GIPSY. Born in London, April 10, 1850; first
American appearance, 1862; died at Danbury, Massachusetts, September 26,
1898.
WARREN, WILLIAM. Born at Philadelphia, November 17, 1812; first
appearance, 1832; died at Boston, September 21, 1888.
JEFFERSON, JOSEPH. Born at Philadelphia, February 20, 1829; first
appearance on stage as child; first became prominent as Asa Trenchard,
in "Our American Cousin," 1858; died at West Palm Beach, Florida, April
23, 1905.
SOTHERN, EDWARD ASKEW. Born at Liverpool, England, April 1, 1826; first
appearance, 1849; first American appearance, 1852; made his mark as Lord
Dundreary, 1858; died at London, January 20, 1881.
SOTHERN, EDWARD H. Born in London; appeared as child; first took leading
part, 1887.