Mary Anderson Part 4

"No modern actress has created such a _furore_ in this country as Miss Anderson. Coming to us from America with the reputation of being the foremost exponent of histrionic art in that country, it was but natural that her advent should be regarded with very critical eyes by many who thought that America claimed too much for their charming actress. Thus predisposed to find as many faults as possible in one who boldly challenged their verdict on her own merits alone, it is not surprising that Metropolitan critics were almost unanimous in their opinion that Miss Anderson, although a clever actress and a very beautiful woman, was not by any means a great artist. They did not hesitate to say, moreover, that much of her success as an actress was due to her physical grace and beauty. We have no hesitation in stating a directly contrary opinion."

_Glasgow Herald_, 6th May, 1884.

"MISS ANDERSON AT THE ROYALTY THEATER.

"Since 'Pygmalion and Galatea' was produced at the Haymarket Theater, fully a dozen years ago, when the part of Galatea was created by Mrs.

Kendal, quite a number of actresses have essayed the character. Most of them have succeeded in presenting a carefully thought-out and intelligently-executed picture; few have been able to realize in their intensity, and give adequate embodiment to, the dreamy utterances of the animated statue. It is a character which only consummate skill can appropriately represent. The play is indeed a cunningly-devised fable; but Galatea is the one central figure on which it hangs. Its humor and its satire are so exquisitely keen that they must needs be delicately wielded.

That a statue should be vivified and endowed with speech and reason is a bold conception, and it requires no ordinary artist to depict the emotion of such a mythical being. For this duty Miss Anderson last night proved herself more than capable. Her interpretation of the part is essentially her own; it differs in some respects from previous representations of the character, and to none of them is it inferior. In her conception of the part, the importance of statuesque posing has been studied to the minutest detail, and in this respect art could not well be linked with greater natural advantages than are possessed by Miss Anderson. When, in the opening scene, the curtains of the recess in the sculptor's studio were thrown back from the statue, a perfect wealth of art was displayed in its pose; it seemed indeed to be a realization of the author's conception of a figure which all but breathes, yet still is only cold, dull stone. From beginning to end, Miss Anderson's Galatea is a captivating study in the highest sphere of histrionic art. There is no part of it that can be singled out as better than another. It is a compact whole such as only few actresses may hope to equal."

_Dublin Evening Mail_, 22d March, 1884.

"MARY ANDERSON AT THE GAIETY.

"Notwithstanding all that photography has done for the last few weeks to familiarize Dublin with Miss Anderson's counterfeit presentment, the original took the Gaiety audience last night by surprise. Her beauty outran expectation. It was, moreover, generally different from what the camera had suggested. It required an effort to recall in the brilliant, mobile, speaking countenance before us the cla.s.sic regularity and harmony of the features which we had admired on cardboard. Brilliancy is the single word that best sums up the characteristics of Miss Anderson's face, figure and movements on the stage. But it is a brilliancy that is altogether natural and spontaneous--a natural gift, not acquisition; and it is a brilliancy which, while it is all alive with intelligence and sympathy, is instinct to the core with a virginal sweetness and purity. In 'Ingomar' the heroine comes very early and abruptly on the scene before the audience is interested in her arrival, or has, indeed, got rid of the garish realities of the street. But Miss Anderson's appearance spoke for itself without any aid from the playwright. The house, after a moment's hesitation, broke out into sudden and quickly-growing applause, which was evidently a tribute not to the artist, but to the woman. She understood this herself, and evidently enjoyed her triumph with a frank and girlish pleasure. She had conquered her audience before opening her lips. She is of rather tall stature, a figure slight but perfectly modeled, her well-shaped head dressed Greek fas.h.i.+on with the simple knot behind, her arms, which the Greek costume displayed to the shoulder, long, white, and of a roundness seldom attained so early in life, her walk and all her att.i.tudes consummately graceful and expressive. A more general form of disparagement is that which pretends to account for all Miss Anderson's popularity by her beauty. It is her beauty, these people say, not her acting, that draws the crowd. We suspect the fact to be that Miss Anderson's uncommon beauty is rather a hindrance than a help to the perception of her real dramatic merits. People do not easily believe that one and the same person can be distinguished in the highest degree by different and independent excellences. They find it easier to make one of the excellences do duty for both. Miss Anderson, it may be admitted, is not a Sarah Bernhardt. At the same time we must observe that at twenty-three the incomparable Sarah was not the consummate artist that she is now, and has been for many years. We are not at all inclined to rank Miss Anderson as an actress at a lower level than the very high one of Miss Helen Faucit, of whose Antigone she reminded us in several pa.s.sages last night. Miss Faucit was more statuesque in her poses, more cla.s.sical, and, perhaps, touched occasionally a more profoundly pathetic chord. But the balance is redeemed by other qualities of Miss Anderson's acting, quite apart from all consideration of personal beauty.

"'Ingomar,' it must be said, is a mere melodrama, and as such does not afford the highest test of an actor's capacity. The wonder is that Miss Anderson makes so much of it. In her hands it was really a stirring and very effective play."

_Dublin Daily Express_, 28th March, 1884.

"MISS ANDERSON AS GALATEA.

"Nothing that the sculptor's art could create could be more beautiful than the still figure of Galatea, in cla.s.sic _pose_, with gracefully flowing robes, looking down from her pedestal on the hands that have given her form, and it is not too much to say that nothing could be added to render more perfect the illusion. The whole _pose_--her aspect, the _contour_ of her head, the exquisite turn of the stately throat, the faultless symmetry of shoulder and arms--everything is in keeping with the realization of the most perfect, most beautiful, and most illusive figure that has ever been witnessed on the stage. Miss Anderson indeed is liberally endowed with physical charms, so fascinating that we can understand an audience finding it not a little difficult to refrain from giving the rein to enthusiasm in the presence of this fairest of Galateas. From these remarks, however, it is not intended to be inferred that the young American is merely a graceful creature with a 'pretty face.' Miss Anderson is unquestionably a fine actress, and the high position which she now deservedly occupies amongst her sister artists, we are inclined to think, has been gained perhaps less through her personal attractions than by the sterling characteristics of her art. Each of her scenes bears the stamp of intelligence of an uncommon order, and perhaps not the least remarkable feature in her portraiture of Galatea is that her effects, one and all, are produced without a suspicion of straining. Those who were present in the crowded theater last night, and saw the actress in the _role_--said to be her finest--had, we are sure, no room to qualify the high reputation which preceded the impersonation."

CHAPTER IX.

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 n.o.ble 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 Caesars, 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 a.s.signed 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 "d.a.m.n her with faint praise," would not only be a safe course at the outset, but the steps to a becoming _locus peniteniae_ 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 n.o.bly 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 pa.s.sion 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 _n.o.blesse_ 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 a.s.sumes; 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sions 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 antic.i.p.ate the verdict of the public, but of this much we are a.s.sured 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 pa.s.sions, 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sociations, 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 f.a.n.n.y Stirling, who represent its earlier glories; with Mrs. Kendal, Mrs. Bancroft, and Ellen Terry, whose names are interwoven with the triumphs of later years.