It was at the Cort Theatre, on the evening of April 15, that “Uncle Vanya” opened in New York City.
It was the event of the Spring season. A first-night audience in New York is a different matter from one in New Haven. New Haven being a university town, a Chekhov first-night audience would be largely intellectual, with a good sprinkling of picture fans who had “adored Lillian on the screen.” In New York, there would be all the typical first-nighters, who get a thrill out of any first night, and especially where it is the first appearance of a comely lady, famous in a different, even if kindred, field. Also, there would be the professionals of stage and screen, each with a very special interest; and all the Chekhovians, some of them doubtful and critical, resolved not to be carried off their feet by any trick of beauty and spotlight, but to stand firm for art only; after these, an army of fans, who all the years had longed to see Lillian perform in the flesh, and, of course, there would be intellectuals, too—and critics—on the whole, I submit, except for the fans, a rather hard-boiled audience, one calculated to put fear into the troubled heart....
But then the curtain went up ... on a Russian garden scene, and presently, across the stage, floated a vision of loveliness, and all the fans broke loose. And all the Chekhovians, and first-nighters, and professionals, and critics of high and low degree, forgot they were hard-boiled, and broke loose, too, and pounded their hands together long after the vision had passed, as if they hoped it might return, if only to bow.
The Times next morning spoke of “the storminess of the greeting at her entrance,” and Charles Darnton, in his afternoon column, had this to say of it, and of the play as a whole:
The applause that greeted her at her appearance not only followed her every step of the way but into the wings. Even then it kept up warmly, strongly, insistently. For a moment I was seized with the sickening fear she might pop into view again, like a grand opera singer after an aria, to bow to the tribute. Evidently, the audience expected no less of her. But it might just as well have expected to call back the Ghost in “Hamlet.”
The event had its peculiar phase. Walter Connolly was playing the principal character, and playing it finely, whereas Lillian Gish was appearing in a minor rôle, or what would have been a minor rôle in the hands of an ordinary actress. Yet throughout the whole performance interest centered in Miss Gish.
This is said with every consideration for Mr. Connolly. He could not help himself. He was as powerless, and blameless, in the matter as though he had been playing with Duse. But I couldn’t help wondering how he felt about it. Not that I suspected him of professional jealousy. It was just that the gods, or Jed Harris, had set down an artist touched by genius, and there was nothing to be done about it. When Miss Gish again appeared, this time to stay and let us hear as well as see her, when the presence of her filled the stage like light flooding through a window into a room, she was so luminous that the others, including Mr. Connolly, faded into the background. Never before had I seen quite the same thing done in quite the same way.
Certainly, she is not a pushing person. Instead of crowding into the limelight, she seems always to be withdrawing from it. Yet wherever she goes her own radiance follows her and lights her up. Try as you may, you cannot get her out of your eye. Just what this rare thing is I hesitate to say. But a first-nighter did say to me, “She is sublime.”
Whatever it may be, it is there in the eyes, the face, the hair, the voice, the form of Lillian Gish.
True enough, but it was a qualification that in future would make it difficult for her to get a part in any play having more than one major rôle.