Part 14

There followed extensive tours which took her throughout the South and Middle West, to Canada and finally to the goal of American actors, the larger Eastern cities, Philadelphia, Boston, New York. In New York she profited by the expert advice of Dion Boucicault and William Winter, and the friendship of her elders in the profession--Lawrence Barrett, Edwin Booth, Joseph Jefferson and Clara Morris. In Boston she formed another of her invaluable friendships--with Longfellow. The old poet and the young girl-artist delighted in each other’s company and after her engagement was over, they went several times to the opera together. Her professional success in the Eastern cities was such that she could now feel that the ordeal was passed--that she had attained fame. Not that she was by any means universally admired and approved; a part of the public and some of the critics were not won over. Such, while admitting her beauty and her promise, suspected her success. It was, they said, too triumphant, too easy. Yet the undoubted fact was that she had won her public. The Boston engagement was unmistakably successful and in New York she enjoyed a “run” of six weeks.[155]

When she was nineteen Mary Anderson went abroad, not to appear professionally, but for a vacation. In England she went the round of conventional sight-seeing, much like any other tourist, but in Paris she saw something of the French theatre and its actors. Herself accustomed to the broad effects in acting, she was at first disappointed by the restraint and _finesse_ of the French method. Bernhardt, then in her early prime, received her cordially, saw much of her, and even invited her to play Juliet in Paris; but Miss Anderson, commendably conscious of her own as yet imperfect technique, declined. Now a privileged visiting artist behind the scenes of the _Comédie Française_, she recalled the days, not many years before, when she and her small brother felt so privileged when allowed to sit before the curtain of the old theatre in Louisville. Ristori, another great actress, was friendly to Miss Anderson; but her greatest pleasure she found in the treasures of the Louvre.

She returned to America refreshed in spirit and broadened in outlook. She was now in her twentieth year. One of the recognized stars of the day, her name and her acting became increasingly familiar.[156] There came invitations from various English managers to appear in London, but Miss Anderson did not yet feel ready to face such a test of her powers. She contented herself with starring tours which took her here and there in the United States and Canada. The artistic success of these years was a varying quantity. As we shall see, she never succeeded, in some eyes, in attaining great heights. For herself, she felt that her work had accomplished some good, that her dream of early girlhood was to a degree fulfilled. One great satisfaction was that she was often assured in letters from young men and women that her Ion or Evadne or Parthenia had helped them over crises of despondency and temptation. It speaks well for her nobility of nature that in such tributes she found her most gratifying applause. She had no reason to be dissatisfied with her measure of success. Yet stage life had already begun in some ways to be distasteful to her. She disliked the constant travel; she sadly missed the home comforts at the command of the humblest in her audiences; the lack of ideals in those with whom she had to work was often a keen disappointment; and above all she was acquiring a keen distaste for the extreme publicity of stage life--the necessity of constantly submitting herself to the public gaze. She began to long for the quiet of domestic life, but the die was cast; it was too late to alter the tenor of her life, and she bent all her energies toward success in a new opportunity that presented itself.

This was an invitation that came when she was twenty-four, to act in London, at Henry Irving’s own theatre, the Lyceum. Henry E. Abbey had taken the house for eight months and relied upon Miss Anderson to keep it open all that time--a formidable task for an American actress new to London. She was extremely apprehensive as to the outcome. Arriving in England in the summer of 1883, she passed some time quietly in the country before going up to London. Rural England charmed and rested her. At Stratford she studied her Shakespeare in Shakespeare’s own house, and spent many happy hours in the scenes familiar to the poet so long her idol. She arrived in London three months before the date of her first appearance. She faced the greatest trial of her career with a foreboding that was not decreased by seeing the great acting of Irving and Terry. When she chose _Ingomar_ for the opening bill, she heard predictions of failure on every hand--the play had not been seen in London for years and was called old-fashioned and stilted. But Miss Anderson had wisely followed the sound advice of William Winter in choosing Parthenia for her first London part, as she thereby avoided awkward and possibly unfriendly comparison with English favorites.

When the opening night came the thought that almost on the scene of the triumphs of Siddons, Garrick and Kean she was to venture before a strange audience, filled her with dread. She found in her dressing-room flowers from actor friends and telegrams from Booth, McCullough, Lawrence Barrett, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and other cordial well-wishers. When she made her first entrance she was greeted with the longest and heartiest burst of applause that she had ever received. The first scenes past, and her apprehension and despondency somewhat allayed by such encouraging cordiality, her feelings made it difficult for her to speak loudly. A kindly voice from the pit called out, “Mary, please speak up a bit!” Her nervousness then fled, and by the time the play was over it was plain that Mary Anderson had scored a brilliant success. Her youth and beauty, her admirable vigor, and her eight years of patient, hard-working acquirement of her art, had their reward. The Lyceum was crowded nightly, and Mr. Abbey, who was prepared to close the theatre in case the venture was a failure, kept it open for eight months. There were a few weeks of _Ingomar_ and _The Lady of Lyons_ and then for the remaining time _Pygmalion and Galatea_. On one of the first nights the Prince and Princess of Wales asked to be presented to the actress.

During the first months of her stay in London she made her home--with her mother and stepfather, who were with her constantly--in Maida Vale, a secluded spot where she was free from intrusion and noise. She made many quick expeditions to scenes made famous by Dickens, and went again to Stratford. After a while, however, she moved to a larger house in Kensington, and here London society, at its best, began to find her out. As in America, the choicest spirits seemed naturally to gravitate toward her. To her informal Sunday afternoon receptions came artists, literary men, and statesmen. The “little bent figure with its great kind heart” of the novelist Wilkie Collins became familiar; Alma-Tadema, the artist, was another; W. S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan, and author of _Pygmalion and Galatea_, naturally took a personal interest in that play, and wrote for Miss Anderson a new “curtain-raiser” for it, _Comedy and Tragedy_. Browning she frequently met and he seemed to her more like one of the old-school Southern gentlemen than a mystic poet. Either during this first season or the next she numbered among her friends Mrs. Humphrey Ward, James Russell Lowell, then American ambassador, Edmund Gosse, Lord Lytton, the artist Watts, Gladstone, the novelist William Black, Cardinal Newman, and Tennyson. She enjoyed to the full the art galleries of London, the opportunities to hear the best music, and all the various activities and interests which make London the capital of the English-speaking world.

Mary Anderson’s success in London was duplicated when she appeared elsewhere in the British Isles. She was enthusiastically received in Edinburgh and in Manchester. In Dublin, the good-natured crowd every night took the horses from her carriage and dragged it through the streets, while those running alongside shouted “Hurrah for America!” and “God bless our Mary!” It was in Dublin, too, that the ingenious “gallery gods” sent baskets of flowers down to the stage over a rope.

_Romeo and Juliet_ was the play determined upon for the next season in London. A trip to Verona in quest of local data and sketches was to occupy the summer. “What!” exclaimed James Russell Lowell when he heard of this, “going into that glorious country for the first time, and in the flush of youth! I am selfish enough to envy you.” While visiting in Paris Miss Anderson had a charming interview with Victor Hugo, who proposed a reception in her honor. But she pressed on to Verona, and, like many another before and since, found the old city irresistible.

The Mary Anderson production of _Romeo and Juliet_ at the Lyceum in 1884 was lavish. So much of her time indeed was taken by the details of the preparation of scenery and other accessories that she had scant opportunity for re-studying her own part. But her excellent memory helped her immensely. Once, after _Ion_ had been dropped from her repertoire for three or four years, she rehearsed her entire long part without in the meantime reading it, and with hardly a mistake. The circumstances of the dress rehearsal of this production of _Romeo and Juliet_ show how far the stagecraft of the day had departed from the Elizabethan custom. The scenes were so many and so elaborate that though the rehearsal began at seven in the evening, at five in the morning Romeo, Juliet and Friar Laurence were still waiting for the last act to be set. At eight in the evening the public would be there. Discouraged and weary, Miss Anderson could not sleep; when she came to the theatre to face the “first nighters,” she was tired in mind and body and unfit for her work. The strain of that performance was nerve-racking. Yet the audience was unaware that Juliet had all she could do to get through her lines, and the cumbersome scenery was set with amazing rapidity. The play was over at half after eleven, a great success; yet to the actress herself her work that night was more painfully unsatisfactory than any other she ever did. But she was hard to please where her own impersonations were concerned. In her fourteen years before the public, she was satisfied with her acting only once as Bianca, once as Ion, never as Perdita and only once as Hermione. _Romeo and Juliet_ ran, however, for a hundred nights. Mary Anderson became so imbued with the sufferings of Juliet that she continually spoke of them in her sleep. It is typical of her that, profoundly dissatisfied with her impersonation, she constantly restudied and remodeled it until she liked it better. The brother Joe, who used to gaze with Mary on the green curtain of the Louisville Theatre, was the Tybalt of this production.

At this time (1885) it was proposed that Mary Anderson play _As You Like It_ in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford, and she gladly accepted. She had never played Rosalind, and she studied the character carefully. The occasion aroused great interest, and the usually placid village was a gay place. The journalists were there from London, people came from far and near for the play, the stage was decorated with flowers from Shakespeare’s own garden. The audience was distinguished and appreciative. The dean of American critics, William Winter, was present, and, in his words, “It was for her [Miss Anderson] that the audience reserved its enthusiasm, and this, when at length she appeared as Rosalind, burst forth in vociferous plaudits and cheers, so that it was long before the familiar voice, so copious, resonant, and tender, rolled out its music upon the eager throng and her action could proceed. Before the night ended she was continually cheered.” After a provincial tour ending in Dublin, where her admirers gathered in thousands under her window and sang _Come Back to Erin_, Miss Anderson in September, 1885, returned to her own country after an absence of two years.

The accounts that preceded her of the remarkable scene that took place in the Lyceum on her last night in London added interest to her reappearance in America. One who was present that night wrote: “During the evening it was manifest from the fervor of the applause with which she was favored during the performance of _Pygmalion and Galatea_ and _Comedy and Tragedy_ that the audience was exceptionally sympathetic, but no idea of the scenes which followed the descent of the curtain even entered the wildest dreams of any one present. The audience had been all the evening quivering with emotion. As the curtain fell Miss Anderson was loudly called for, and after the storm of applause which greeted her presence had subsided to some extent, the lady, who was transfigured with the excitement of the moment, said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen--the dreaded last night has come--dreaded at least by me. I have to part with you who have been so kind to me. The delight I naturally feel at the prospect of returning to my native country is tempered with a great regret, saddened by the thought that I must leave you. I little imagined when I came before you for the first time, a stranger feeling very helpless, tremblingly wondering what your verdict on my poor efforts would be, how soon I should find friends among you or what pain it would cost me to say, as I must say to-night, “good-bye” to you. You have been very, very good. I have tried hard to deserve your goodness. Please do not quite forget me. I can never forget you or your goodness to me. I hope I am not saying good-bye to you forever. I want to come back to you. [Tumultuous applause and cries of ‘Do! Do!’ ‘Why leave at all?’] Dare I hope you will be a little glad to see me. [Loud cries ‘We will!’ ‘Yes!’ etc.] I shall be very glad to see you. [Immense cheers.] Until I do, good-bye. I thank you again and again.’ At the conclusion of the speech the cheering and applause continued without interruption until Miss Anderson--down whose cheeks tears were pouring--had again come eight times before the curtain. The audience, which by this time was on its feet in every part of the house, and wildly waving handkerchiefs and hats, seemed struck by one thought, and the first strain of _Auld Lang Syne_ seemed to burst simultaneously from stalls and gallery. People who had never met before seized and wrung each other’s hands. Ladies wept and flourished their handkerchiefs hysterically. It is impossible to describe the scene. When I tell you that it lasted for fully half an hour, you will get an idea of what the Englishman, whom you Yankees call phlegmatic, can do in the way of enthusiasm when you touch his heart. It was an ovation which might have affected a monarch.”

The American tour that followed, in the season of 1885–6, took Miss Anderson and her company (the custom by now was that of the traveling organization) not only to New York, Boston, and the other cities in the East and South, but to the Pacific coast. New York did not take to _As You Like It_, but _Romeo and Juliet_ was a brilliant success. A public reception in Sacramento proved the affection for Mary Anderson of the city of her birth, but, strange to say, in the single night she played there, the people of Sacramento provided her with only a meagre audience. In San Francisco the warmth of her reception was very different from the crushing disappointment she experienced there a dozen years before.

Now came an entire year of rest. Offers to play in Spain, Germany, France and Australia were refused. The glamour of stage life was a thing of the past with Mary Anderson. By no means blind to the artistic possibilities of the drama, and with still a high faith in its moral function, a stage life for herself was becoming more and more repugnant. She felt the need of calm, of normal life away from the glare of the footlights. The winter of 1886–7 she spent in Paris, in general study and particularly with her French and music. It is characteristic of her that with a chance for recreation and social life, and with all her triumphs behind her, she still sought to mend an education she knew to be faulty.

The Lyceum in London was engaged for the following year (1887–8). After casting about for some time for a suitable new play,[157] she again fell back on Shakespeare and decided to give _The Winter’s Tale_, “doubling” Perdita and Hermione--that is, playing both parts. It was not an easy task. To Tennyson she mentioned her fear that the critics would not receive the venture well. His reply was: “Thank God the time is past for the _Quarterly_ or the _Times_ to make or mar a poem, play or artist! Few original things are well received at first. People must grow accustomed to what is out of the common before adopting it. Your idea, if carried out as you feel it, will be well received generally--and before long.”

_The Winter’s Tale_ was not enthusiastically received on its first night. But if it was not at once a critical success, it was a popular one, for it ran a hundred and sixty-four nights and could have continued longer. This was the only time that Mary Anderson acted the same play throughout a season. It is worth mentioning that the Leontes of this production was J. Forbes-Robertson.[158]

It was during this London engagement that Miss Anderson saw much of Tennyson. She visited him in his Surrey home, and on the Isle of Wight; she joined him in long walks, rain or shine, in the country; he read and talked to her for hours together at his own fireside. He prepared for her a play _The Foresters_, a version of his pastoral _Robin Hood_, and they visited the New Forest together in search of ideas for scenery; but the play she never produced.

Mary Anderson was to have but one more season, or rather part of a season, before retiring from the stage forever. She has become the classic example of the actor retiring in the midst of a highly successful career. She has herself[159] indicated the chief reason for her choice: “After so much kindness from the public, it seems ungrateful to confess that the _practice_ of my art (not the study of it) had grown, as time went on, more and more distasteful to me. To quote Fanny Kemble on the same subject: ‘Never’ (in my case for the last three years of my public life) ‘have I presented myself before an audience without a feeling of reluctance, or withdrawn from their presence without thinking the excitement I had undergone unwholesome, and the personal exhibition odious.’ To be conscious that one’s person was a target for any one who paid to make it one; to live for months at a time in one groove, with uncongenial surroundings, and in an atmosphere seldom penetrated by the sun and air; and to be continually repeating the same passions and thoughts in the same words--that was the most part of my daily life, and became so like slavery to me that I resolved after one more season’s work to cut myself free from the stage fetters forever.”

There is much in this passage to give pause to the girl who longs for a stage career, for the youthfully ambitious seldom see such a career in its true perspective. Mary Anderson, one in ten thousand in her equipment as an actress, one in a million in the triumphs she won, yet was eager to give it all up. On the audience’s side of the footlights the stage is (and rightfully so) a place of beauty, of inspiration, of revelation of the truth. To the actor or actress it is more often than not a place of stern toil, of uncertainty, of disappointment and disillusionment.

The provincial tour following the London engagement ended at Dublin, where the public was as wildly enthusiastic as before. Some of the last night audience even went so far as to follow in the same train to Queenstown, awakening her at each stop with cheers and greetings.

There followed the final tour in the United States. At Louisville she visited the scenes of her youth and received the congratulatory resolutions of the state senate. She had begun the season with as much zest as she could command, but the strain was beginning to tell on her health. At Cincinnati she acted with difficulty, but completed the engagement. At Washington, in the middle of inauguration week, in 1889, the crisis was reached. “The first scenes of _The Winter’s Tale_ went very smoothly. The theatre was crowded. Perdita danced apparently as gayly as ever, but after the exertion fell fainting from exhaustion and was carried off the stage. I was taken into the dressing-room, which in a few moments was filled with people from the boxes. Recovering consciousness quickly, I begged them to clear the room. Realizing then that I would probably not be able to act any more that season, though there were many weeks yet unfinished, I resolved at any cost to complete that night’s work. Hurriedly putting on some color, I passed the groups of people discussing the incident, and before the doctor or my brother were aware of my purpose, ordered the curtain to be rung up and walked quickly upon the stage. As I did so I heard a loud hum, which I was afterwards told was a great burst of applause from the audience. The pastoral scene came to an end. There was only one more act to go through. Donning the statue-like draperies of Hermione, I mounted the pedestal. My physician, formerly an officer in the army, said that he had never, even in the midst of a battle, felt so nervous as when he saw the figure of Hermione swaying on her pedestal up that long flight of stairs. Every moment there was an hour of torture to me, for I felt myself growing fainter and fainter. All my remaining strength was put into that last effort. I descended from the pedestal, and was able to speak all but the final line. This remained unuttered, and the curtain rang down on my last appearance on the stage.”[160]