There are reasons for thinking it must have been earlier. It would not
be the only instance in which an actress’ age has been reduced by a
retroactive manipulation of dates. Her first appearances on the stage
were in 1873 and 1874, and by the time she went to Daly, in 1879, she
had had an extended experience that would be simply marvelous for a
girl of nineteen. Her hair began to turn gray about 1894. Mr. Winter
says the streaks of gray came prematurely. Of course, they did, in
any event, but thirty-four is an extraordinarily early age for such
a phenomenon in an actress. An anecdote, not worth repeating, in the
_Boston Record_ for November 24, 1888, is introduced in this way: “Ada
Rehan is forty years old and over. She makes up fairly for girlish
rôles ... but at close sight in the cold light of day she shows her
age.” If worthy of any consideration, this paragraph would place the
birthdate before 1850, obviously going to the other extreme. The
correct date is undoubtedly 1855, or thereabout. Thus she was about
eighteen when, in 1873, she made her first appearance.
[131] The eldest, Kate, “had been a choir singer in Limerick, and while
singing at a concert one day in New York was heard by Harvey Dodworth
and invited to join the chorus for Lester Wallack’s production of the
opera of _Don Cæsar de Bazan_. She accepted, and was also joined by her
younger sister Hattie, that being the début of the Crehan family upon
the stage.”
[132] Arthur Byron, the actor, is their son. Harriet, the second
sister, had a long and comparatively inconspicuous career on the stage
as Hattie Russell. Two brothers, William Crehan and Arthur Rehan, were
more or less definitely identified, after Ada’s success, with the
business side of the theatre.
[133] While in his employ she appeared also in Baltimore.
[134] Garrick’s version of _The Taming of the Shrew_.
[135] In these pre-Daly days Miss Rehan played, besides the
Shakespearean parts named, a host of others that it would be
tedious and useless to name. Most of them would suggest nothing to
a present-day theatregoer. A few that may have some significance
are: Esther Eccles in _Caste_, Hebe in _Pinafore_, Lady Florence in
_Rosedale_, Lady Sarah in _Queen Elizabeth_, Little Em’ly in _David
Copperfield_, Louise in _Frou-Frou_, Marie de Comines in _Louis XI_,
Mary Netley in _Ours_, Pauline in _The Lady of Lyons_, Queen of France
in _Henry V_, Ursula in _Much Ado About Nothing_, and Virginia in
_Virginius_. There were about ninety in all.
[136] On the southwest corner of Thirtieth Street and Broadway.
[137] Arthur Lynch, in _Human Documents_.
[138] Still, in 1888, when the Daly company was playing in Paris,
several of its members were interviewed, (seemingly about particularly
trivial matters) and Miss Rehan was one of the talkers. She was said to
have been pessimistic about the wisdom of marriages among actresses,
particularly to actors. This is an ever fresh subject for debate. A
writer in the New York _Dramatic Mirror_, September 15, 1888, wrote a
column to refute Miss Rehan’s remarks.
[139] “I would go to the theatre any night if only to see him run his
fingers over the invisible keys of the sofa cushion.”--“Brunswick” in
the _Boston Transcript_.
[140] Mary Young, herself a member of Daly’s Company, in a talk to
the Drama League of Boston in 1914, said: “Mr. Daly was a most polite
gentleman, with extraordinary eyes of green, as clear and sharp as they
were kind and laughing; wonderful, all-seeing eyes!... The strictest
discipline reigned everywhere. Every member, with the exception of
Miss Rehan, seemed to be in a state of complete terror. Mr. Daly was
supreme and held his company of distinguished players with a grip of
iron. Rules and regulations were posted everywhere. One or two that I
recall were: ‘The way to succeed--mind your own business,’ and ‘How to
be happy--keep your mouth shut.’ I was amazed to see some of the extra
girls hide behind pieces of scenery rather than face those remarkable
eyes that might be cast their way as Mr. Daly was casually passing
from one part of the stage to another.... However, to my mind he was
a just man, although his temper often caused him to seem to do unjust
things.... His heart was kind and he could not treasure up a wrong
against any one who had once gained his confidence and respect.”
C. M. S. McLellan, who nowadays writes “books” for operettas, (and
who wrote _Leah Kleschna_ for Mrs. Fiske) in 1888 was writing for
the New York _Press_ what passed for amusing comment on theatrical
matters. His chatter about Mr. Daly and Miss Rehan does a little toward
characterizing both: “At the stage door you find a bulldog. Mr. Daly
secluded himself in a padded room at the end of a secret passage. He
comes down to the dog kennel to freeze all reporters. Editors are
invited up to the green room. Henry Irving is supposed to be the only
man who ever penetrated to the padded chamber, and he tells the story
that while he was there Mr. Daly opened a bottle of claret and smiled.
The claret part of the story is generally credited, but unless Mr.
Irving is degenerating in his choice of words we think there was some
mistake about the smile.
“But if any of us ever had doubts concerning the healthfully hilarious
influence exerted by Mr. Daly’s benignity upon a great comedy company
we have only to glance at Miss Rehan and be converted. We have had that
baby pout of hers in opera and in Shakespeare, that imperious, uplifted
nose of hers in Jenny O’Jones and Helena, and as the snows of various
cycles descend on the heads of her worshipers the musical purr of the
Rehan still sings the third sweet song of seven. And when she smiles,
the light of pearls and rubies creeps out and illumines the nooks that
the calcium cannot penetrate.
“So why should not Mr. Daly live in a padded room and manage the
electric buttons that blush all this youth and divine color across a
befogged community? He is entitled to padded rooms, bulldogs and cold
hands. If he does nothing for the next forty years but keep the crack
of doom out of Rehan’s purr he will have earned the right to be made
Sheriff of New York County.”
[141] The list of parts played by Miss Rehan before she began the
acquirement of her more famous repertoire cannot, and need not, be made
complete here. Some of them were: Isabelle in _Wives_; Cherry Monogram
in _The Way We Live_; Donna Antonina in _The Royal Middy_; Psyche in
_Cinderella at School_; Muttra in _Xanina_; Selina in _Needles and
Pins_; Phronie in _Dollars and Sense_; Thisbe in _Quits_; Tekla in
_The Passing Regiment_; Tony and Jenny O’Jones in _Red Letter Nights_;
Barbee in _Our English Friend_; Aphra in _The Wooden Spoon_; Floss in
_Seven-Twenty-Eight_; Nancy Brusher in _Nancy and Company_, and Etna in
_The Great Unknown_.
The more important parts played by Miss Rehan during her twenty years
with Mr. Daly were: Baroness Vera in _The Last Word_; Tilburina in
_The Critic_; Oriana in _The Inconstant_; Julia in _The Hunchback_;
Lady Teazle in _The School for Scandal_; Miss Hayden in _The Relapse_;
Pierrot; The Princess in _Love’s Labours Lost_; Valentine Osprey in
_The Railroad of Love_; Mrs. Ford in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_;
Peggy Thrift in _The Country Girl_; Odette in _Odette_; Rose in _The
Prayer_; Annis Austin in _Love on Crutches_; Doris in _An International
Match_; Thisbe in _A Night Off_; Dina in _A Priceless Paragon_; Mrs.
Jassamine in _A Test Case_; Hippolyta in _She Would and She Would Not_;
Helena in _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_; Katherine in _The Taming of
the Shrew_; Rosalind in _As You Like It_; Viola in _Twelfth Night_;
Beatrice in _Much Ado About Nothing_; Letitia Hardy in _The Belle’s
Stratagem_; Sylvia (and Captain Pinch) in _The Recruiting Officer_;
Xantippe in _La Femme de Socrate_; Kate Verity in _The Squire_.
[142] “Ada Rehan is of a superior race of women. She can be enormously
interesting simply standing looking out of a window, her back to the
audience, immobile, but with a ‘calmness’ that sends off vibrations
that stir the pulses very curiously, and make her always the magnet,
the center. She pauses, but it is the pause of a fine balance of strong
feelings. She is all alive; she whirls round and comes into the action
with a bold ringing stroke that has been adjudged to perfection. She
can stride--not like a man, for she is always a fine woman--but like
the daughter of Fingal, the sister of Ossian. She can bang a door
like a chord of martial music. She can precipitate herself headlong
into a room, and seizing her opponent or her lover, for she is equal
to all occasions, at the critical wavering movement, sweep in with a
wrestler’s power and lift him metaphorically helpless off his feet.
Yet in all these displays Rehan is never violent in a narrow way, or
streaky, or hard, or wiry.... The beauty of repose is delightful in
her, the calm musing meditation, and the deep harmonious passion of
devotion; so also is the quick salient swerve of emotion wherein the
soul is suddenly shaken to its depths by love, by fear, by admiration
... we find life and flesh and blood throughout, and everywhere the
fire of the soul that animates it.” Arthur Lynch, in _Human Documents_,
London, 1896.
[143] “Playing Katherine brought me much satisfaction, but a very bad
reputation for temper,” she once said. “I have often been amused at
seeing the effect that a first performance of the ‘Shrew’ in a strange
place produced on the employers of the stage. They shunned me as
something actually to be feared. During a long run I have heard it said
that I hated my Petruchio. I looked upon this as a compliment.”
[144] For an enlightening exposition of Miss Rehan’s acting in her
various rôles see his _The Wallet of Time_, Vol. II.
[145] On a later visit of the Daly company to London, Mr. Archer chewed
and swallowed these words, thus: “‘Crude and bouncing.’ Ye gods!
this of the swan-like Valentine Osprey of _The Railroad of Love_ and
the divine Katherine of _The Taming of the Shrew_! True, it is six
years since these lines were written, and Miss Rehan’s art may--nay,
must--have ripened in the interval. I try to persuade myself that I may
not have been so far wrong after all, but it won’t do.... There must
have been beauties in the performance of six years ago to which I was
inexcusably blind.”
[146] In spite of Clement Scott’s praise: “Acting of this kind, so
beneath the surface, so distinctly opposed to the commonplace, and so
eloquent with finest touches of woman’s nature, we do not believe has
been seen since the death of Aimée Desclée.”
[147] October 30, 1891.
[148] She began her first “starring” tour at the Hollis Street Theatre,
Boston, (on September 24, 1894) where many interesting events have
taken place. Here Julia Marlowe, six years before, had won her first
really genuine recognition. The Hollis Street Theatre was first
opened in 1885, and is still often referred to as the best-equipped
theatre (on the stage) in the country. It was built in the site of the
old Hollis Street Church, where John Pierpont, grandfather of John
Pierpont Morgan, and Thomas Starr King preached. The walls of the
church building of 1808 were incorporated in the theatre. The opening
attraction was _The Mikado_. In the course of its run of twenty weeks
Richard Mansfield appeared as Ko-Ko.
[149] Mary Anderson was the child of a devout Catholic mother, her
brief period of schooling was in Catholic schools, her beloved Pater
Anton was of course a strong influence for her adherence to that faith,
and, throughout her public life and since, her devotion to her church
has been constant and earnest. One of her friends (Henry Watterson)
expressed the conviction that to her religion she owed much of the
fortitude that carried her through the ordeals and failures of her
career.
[150] “The convent was a large, Italian-looking building, surrounded by
gardens and shut in by high, prison-like walls. That first night in the
long dormitory, with its rows of white beds and their little occupants,
some as sad as myself, my grief seemed more than I could bear. The moon
made a track of light across the floor. A strain of soft music came in
at the open window; it was only an accordion, played by someone sitting
outside the convent wall; but how sweet and soothing it was! The simple
little melody seemed to say: ‘See what a friend I can be! I am music
sent from heaven to cheer and console. Love me, and I will soothe and
calm your heart when it is sad, and double all your joys.’ It kept
saying such sweet things to me that soon I fell asleep, and dreamed I
was at home again. From that moment I felt music a panacea for all my
childhood’s sorrows.”--Mary Anderson, _A Few Memories_.
[151] While a mere girl, Mary learned to ride a horse. Twice a year a
visit was made to an Indiana farm. She learned to ride spirited horses
without saddle or bridle. Riding was always her favorite amusement.
Long afterwards, in London, a riding-master once said to her: “Why,
Miss Handerson, you ’ave missed your vocation. What a hexcellent circus
hactor you would ’ave made! I’d like to see the ’orse as could throw
you now.”
[152] One who was present told William Winter “that notwithstanding
the conditions inseparable from youth and inexperience, it was a
performance of extraordinary fire, feeling and promise. Its paramount
beauty, he said, was its vocalism. Miss Anderson’s voice, indeed, was
always her predominant charm. Certain tones of it--so thrilling, so
full of wild passion and inexpressible melancholy--went straight to the
heart, and brought tears into the eyes.”--_Other Days._
Throughout her career all observers noted the richness and
expressiveness of Mary Anderson’s voice, especially its thrilling lower
tones. After she retired from the stage, indeed, she paid considerable
attention to singing, and once sang in public, in a small way, for
charity.
[153] Henry Watterson, the journalist of Louisville and one of Miss
Anderson’s earliest friends and advisers, tells this story to indicate
the self-reliance that was the cue to her success: “On one occasion,
after a long discussion, the counselor whom she had sought, quite worn
out with his failure to convince her, exclaimed with some irritation:
‘Don’t you know that I am double your age, and have gone over all this
ground, and can’t be mistaken?’ ‘No,’ she coolly replied, ‘I don’t
know anything I have not gone over myself.’ She considered everything
that was relevant, consulted everybody who could give information, and
decided for herself.”
[154] It was during this engagement, that the young actress played for
the first time the character of Meg Merriles, thus, perhaps unwisely,
challenging comparison with Charlotte Cushman, who had made the part
peculiarly her own.
[155] It does Mary Anderson nothing but credit to point out that at
the time she was first claiming the attention of the East she had not
yet grown to be quite the Mary Anderson the world remembers. She was
already beautiful, but she was as yet a comparatively friendless,
inexperienced young girl, ignorant of much of the art of the theatre
and with undeveloped taste in dress; yet self-confident and perhaps
just a bit spoiled. The manager of the theatre at which she played
her first engagement in New York (in November, 1877) long afterward
remembered its details. On the opening night “there was about three
hundred dollars in money and a good paper house. Never was a Pauline
attired in such execrable taste. The ladies of the audience could not
conceal their smiles; but in the cottage scene Miss Anderson’s fine
voice and her beauty captured everybody. Other plays followed. As
Parthenia she looked a picture in her simple costume, and her manner of
saying ‘I go to cleanse the cup’ enchanted the audience. As Bianca in
_Fazio_ she wore modern costumes, and but for her youthful beauty would
have been absurd.
“On the first night, after the performance, I started home for supper,
when it occurred to me that perhaps Miss Anderson would like something
to eat after her hard work. So I called at Dr. Griffin’s rooms in West
Twenty-eighth Street and found the future Queen of Tragedy eating a
cold pork chop as she sat on a trunk. The whole party accepted my
invitation and we went to the nearest restaurant. On our way we passed
a candy store and Mary looked so longingly at the window that I asked
whether she would like some candy. ‘Oh, yes!’ she cried, and jumped
up and down on the pavement with pleasure. She selected a pound of
molasses cream drops and commenced to eat them at once. The supper
began with oysters on the half shell. To see Mary Anderson eat oysters
and candy alternately was terrible; but a handsome girl may do anything
unrebuked.
“The papers were very kind to Miss Anderson during her first
engagement. She made a success of youth and loveliness; but the public
did not rush in to see her.
“After a while, Henry Watterson, who had known her in Louisville, came
to town and took an interest in her. He brought with him ex-Governor
Tilden, who was taken behind the scenes to be introduced to the new
star. He whispered to me, ‘What a remarkably handsome girl! No actress,
but how very handsome!’”
[156] Her repertoire at this time (1879) was: Bianca in _Fazio_;
Juliet in _Romeo and Juliet_; Lady Macbeth (the sleep-walking scene);
Parthenia in _Ingomar_; Berthe in _The Daughter of Roland_; Julia in
_The Hunchback_; Pauline in _The Lady of Lyons_; Meg Merriles in _Guy
Mannering_; Evadne in _Evadne_; Duchess of Torrenucra in _Faint Heart
Never Won Fair Lady_; Ion in _Ion_; soon afterwards she added the
Countess in Knowles’ _Love_, Galatea in _Pygmalion and Galatea_, and
Desdemona in _Othello_ (once only).
[157] Miss Anderson said that during this search she considered W. S.
Gilbert’s _Brantingham Hall_, but, as the chief character was not
adapted to her, she declined it. Gilbert amusingly asked her if this
was because she found anything gross in it. “For,” he said, “I hear
that you hate gross things so much that you can hardly be induced to
take your share of the gross receipts.”
[158] On the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth performance of
_The Winter’s Tale_ at the Lyceum, Miss Anderson was presented with a
large laurel wreath from which were suspended a number of streamers in
blue and gold, and bearing the names--three hundred and ninety-two in
number--of all the members of the company and staff of the theatre,
even to the call boy. In the center of the wreath, and supported by
chains, was a brass tablet with the inscriptions: “_En Souvenir_ of the
One-hundred and Fiftieth performance of _The Winter’s Tale_, presented
to Miss Mary Anderson by the members and employees, Lyceum Theatre,
London, March 2, 1888,” and on the other side:
“‘The hostess of the meeting, pray you, bid the unknown friends to
us welcome....
Come, quench your blushes, and present yourself that which you are,
mistress o’ the feast.’...”
_The Winter’s Tale_, Act IV, Scene 4.
[159] _A Few Memories_--1896.
[160] It would be an impertinence to doubt the good faith of Mary
Anderson’s own statement as to the immediate cause of her retirement
in March, 1889. It is nevertheless interesting to observe that at the
time, and later, the newspapers freely discussed circumstances which
do not enter into her account. One theory was that adverse critical
comment, which was found in many reviews of her acting, disturbed
her seriously, and preyed more and more upon her mind until she lost
faith in her own power, and underwent in consequence a somewhat severe
nervous prostration. There was even a wide-spread report that she
became mildly insane,--which was promptly discredited and which was of
course merely a piece of sensationalism. Particular mention is made of
one Louisville critic who, during Miss Anderson’s early years was one
of her friends and advisers, but who, when she returned at the height
of her career, sincerely believed her spoiled and a much less fine
actress than she had given promise of becoming. He therefore wrote a
frank and fearless analysis of her acting, in which he found much to
dispraise. It is impossible to tell with accuracy how much truth there
is in this story. Miss Anderson herself says that it was never her
habit to read newspaper criticisms of her work, except that someone
kept for her those that might prove helpful and that these were used as
possible hints when she began work another season.
[161] William Winter.
[162] Duse furnished the only previous instance.
[163] At Little Rock, Arkansas.
[164] At different times, and as the exigencies of engagements
permitted, in Montreal, New Orleans, Louisville, the Ursuline Convent
in St. Louis, a French school in Cincinnati, and other private schools.
[165] “A person less given to reminiscence than Mrs. Fiske I cannot
imagine. Upon revisiting in her professional tours the scenes of her
childhood days one would naturally expect a great actress to remark,
‘Here is where I made my first appearance,’ or ‘Here I played the Widow
Melnotte when I was only twelve’; but I do not recall that I ever heard
Mrs. Fiske make the slightest allusion to persons or places, with
one or two exceptions. She was appearing at Robinson’s Opera House,
Cincinnati. As she entered the dressing room on the opening night she
glanced about, and then at me, as if to determine whether or not it
was safe to intrust me with the information. She then remarked that
when a child she was brought into that room to see Mary Anderson in
reference to playing some child character in one of Miss Anderson’s
plays,--_Ingomar_, as she thought.”--Griffith, _Mrs. Fiske_.
[166] The parts she played in this childhood period included: Duke
of York in _Richard III_; Willie Lee in _Hunted Down_; Prince Arthur
in _King John_, and others of Shakespeare’s children; Damon’s son in
_Damon and Pythias_; Little Fritz in _Fritz_; Paul in _The Octoroon_;
Franko in _Guy Mannering_; Sybil in _The Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing_;
Mary Morgan in _Ten Nights in a Barroom_; the child in _Across the
Continent_; the boy in _Bosom Friends_; Alfred in _Divorce_; Lucy
Fairweather in _The Streets of New York_; the gamin and Peachblossom
in _Under the Gaslight_; Marjorie in _The Rough Diamond_; the child
in _The Little Rebel_; Adrienne in _Monsieur Alphonse_; Georgie in
_Frou-Frou_; Heinrich and Minna in _Rip van Winkle_; Eva in _Uncle
Tom’s Cabin_; the child in _The Chicago Fire_; Hilda in _Karl and
Hilda_; Ralph Rackstraw in _Pinafore_; Clip in _A Messenger from Javis
Section_; the sun god in _The Ice Witch_; children and fairies in
_Aladdin_, _The White Fawn_ and other spectacular pieces; François in
_Richelieu_; and Louise in _The Two Orphans_.
[167] “The extraordinary thing about Mrs. Fiske’s early career is
that she should have been even _permitted_ to play the range of
characters that she did.... Frequently a young woman who is physically
well developed easily passes for a much older person, and the eye is
satisfied even if the ear be not, but little Minnie _was_ little,
and held her audiences then by her genius, as she subsequently has
continued to do.”--Griffith.