Our Stage and Its Critics / By "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

by Edward Fordham Spence

The outcry concerning the alleged dearth of good actresses is very commonly uttered and exceedingly ill-founded. It is wise to avoid the thorny question how far the recognized leading ladies of our first-class theatres are satisfactory—yet it may be said that a successful playwright recently complained that as a body they were not, and that, despite his protests, he was compelled to have his works performed by the ladies in possession—and judicious to shirk the proposition, sometimes put forward, that some of these do not hold their positions by mere force of merit. Putting, then, aside the actresses enjoying grandeur in London, and leaving out of account a still more remarkable group which includes Mrs Kendal, Mrs Patrick Campbell and Miss Olga Nethersole—whom we too rarely see in town—and even ignoring what may be called "recognized leading ladies" who are "resting" reluctantly, there remains a powerful group of young actresses of experience and talent fully competent to satisfy the reasonable requirements of these gentlemen who are complaining of the "dearth." Since this was written a number of young ladies then on the boards but not accepted as leading ladies have made their way to the front.

[Character Actresses ]

Several letters have been written lately, pathetic letters, from actresses unable to get engagements. All of the writers have enjoyed successes, have been referred to by important papers as "promising" or "coming leading ladies," each has had at least one engagement at a very handsome weekly salary, yet every one of them is in doleful dumps.

Here is a passage from one: "In 1904 I did so well that I lived in luxury, and, I fear, somewhat extravagantly, and my performance as heroine in —— was so highly praised that I had no doubt my future was well assured. Last year I earned £40, and I have to live on what I earn, and if I look dowdy when I go seeking an engagement I have little chance of getting it. Yet I am under thirty, and although not one of the little group of alleged beauties whose faces appear monotonously week after week in the illustrated papers, I am well-enough-looking when made up, and have read in criticisms references to my 'charm of presence' and even to my 'beauty.' What is to become of me, I don't know. Of course I am particularly hopeless seeing that nine of the London theatres out of less than three times that number are now devoted to musical comedy and I am unable to sing, nor should I be enthusiastic about taking work sadly in contrast with my once high and hopeful ambition."

The last phrase deserves some consideration. To a great extent the reason why the stage causes so much unhappiness among actresses is that a large proportion enter the profession not in a simple straightforward way in the choice of a career, but because they dream of great triumphs. Probably the career of Ellen Terry, and the exhibition of public affection shown upon the occasion of her jubilee, brought many recruits to the stage.

Putting aside the fact that Ellen Terry is unique, one may remark that very few actresses can hope to get close to the top of the tree, for obvious reasons. In the case of most careers and professions, nine men out of ten who join them know perfectly well that they will never do more than earn a decent living, and they shape their lives accordingly; but nearly every young actress expects to become a leading lady at a West End theatre, though there are few West End theatres devoted to real drama, and in some out of the small number there will always be a manager's wife or friend as an obstacle.

The misfortune is that few young actresses—if any—say to themselves deliberately that they will aim at character parts, or old-woman parts. Nearly all the old-woman and grande-dame characters are played by actresses who have been leading ladies and during some period have had the painful experience of failing, on account of their age, to get the engagements they have sought. The Juliet of one season is not the Nurse or the Lady Capulet of the next; a considerable time passes before there is such a shift of characters, and she acts nothing at all during the interregnum, which is spent in vain attempts to get the Juliet parts, met with cruel rebuffs on the score of age.

Now, some of the old-man actors on the stage are quite young; they have chosen a particular line, conscious of the fact that nature has denied them the privilege of playing parts that will cause the stage-door-keeper to be deluged with amorous letters addressed to them, and aware, too, that the triumphs of the broad comedian will never be theirs. These young old-men are often quite as successful in old-man parts as those who have served most of a lifetime upon the stage.

It is not more difficult for a young woman to play the old-woman character or the grande-dame part than for the young man to tackle the Sir Peter Teazle or the ordinary modern old-man; nor is this the only class of work other than that of lovely heroine which lies open to the actress. When one hears discussion concerning the casting of plays there is often talk about the difficulty of finding an actress for a Fanny Brough part, which, of course, is quite distinct from what may be considered specifically a soubrette character. Complaints are uttered about the difficulty of finding a player to represent the comic mother-in-law; indeed, playwrights are sometimes affected in their work by the fear that if they write broad comedy for feminine parts the difficulty of casting them will be insurmountable.

Handsome salaries are paid to the few ladies who have a well-deserved reputation as actresses in the class of character thus indicated, and there is a demand for them—a demand generally supplied by superannuated leading ladies and aged soubrettes. It may be offensive to a girl's vanity deliberately to choose a path in which her personal charms, or those which she believes herself to possess, must be of little service. On the English stage it may be doubted if such a policy will ever be adopted, though on French there are instances which might be cited of actresses who have played dowager characters during the whole of a profitable, long and respected career.