Heroines of the Modern Stage

by Forrest Izard

As a superbly alive, radiant personality, Ada Rehan stands out in the memory of any one who has ever seen her. She is of the great line of actresses. She is (or one should say was, for Ada Rehan several years ago passed from the stage) more nearly a Woffington, a Terry, than any actress America has yet produced. Like Ellen Terry, she was a miraculous blend of regal force, charm, and thoroughly grounded ability.

ADA REHAN

Yet “miraculous” is hardly the word, for Ada Rehan labored long and devotedly for the eminence that both America and England accorded her. Hers was no sudden Mary-Anderson-like leap into “stardom,” nor did she gain a prominent place on the stage with the comparative ease that seems possible in these days. As we shall see, her apprenticeship was exceedingly long and arduous. In proportion was her radiance, when once she was placed in the map of “stars,” for Rehan will be at least a tradition, to be placed with those of Woffington and Terry, when her lesser sisters are long since quite forgotten. She was the supreme embodiment for all time, one feels certain, of Katherine, Shakespeare’s Shrew. That part she was born to play. Her Beatrice, her Rosalind, her Viola were all memorable impersonations; and she played the heroines of old English comedy in a way that again recalled the famous actresses of the past.

Ada Rehan[129] was born in Limerick, Ireland. The fact is rich in significance, for though she was brought to the United States while she was a mere child, and received here all of her stage training, there is no denying the strong Celtic strain in her, the Irish buoyancy and geniality.

The family came to America in 1865,[130] when Ada was about ten, and settled in Brooklyn. None of her family had ever been on the stage, and she went to school, as any other girl would, quite as if she were never destined to be an actress. The three Crehan sisters must have been a talented, attractive group of girls, however, for both of Ada’s elder sisters preceded her to the stage, though neither of them gained a tithe of the repute that was to come to the youngest of the three.[131] When Ada first stepped on a stage, Kate, the eldest, had been on the stage half-a-dozen years, and for four years had been the wife of Oliver Doud Byron, the author and star of Across the Continent, a great popular success of the day.[132] One night, when the Byrons were playing Across the Continent, in Newark, New Jersey, the actress who played Clara, a small part, was suddenly taken ill. Ada, who up to now had had no idea, no definite idea at least, of attempting a stage career, was pressed into service, and played the part that one night, and played it with such confidence and success that a family council straightway determined her fate for her. She was to go on the stage.

This date, 1873, is the first one of great importance in Miss Rehan’s stage career. The next came six years later when Augustin Daly engaged her as a member of his company at Daly’s Theatre. Theatre, company, manager and “leading woman” there combined to write one of the most brilliant chapters in America’s theatrical history.

The record of those six early years after her first appearance, and before she went to Daly, is one of the most amazing industry and progress. She played for a time with the Byrons, and made while with them her first appearance in New York (1873) in a small part in The Thoroughbred. Soon she went to Philadelphia for her first regular engagement, as a member of Mrs. John Drew’s company at the Arch Street Theatre. John Drew, the younger, the present actor of that name, made his first appearance at about the same time, also in Mrs. Drew’s company. Here Miss Rehan remained for two seasons (1873–75) receiving much valuable training, though as yet she played only subordinate parts.

Then came several seasons of “stock”—“stock” according to the old-fashioned system, in which the “stars” wandered from city to city, finding in each place a company ready to support them in the standard plays and ready to “get up” in new plays at short notice. As many of the “stars” acted in the same plays, the stock company was less like the present day organization so called, which presents a new play each week and then drops it for good, than like a “repertoire company,” with a number of plays always thoroughly at its command. The system made for thorough training, as it combined with a wide range of material opportunities for many performances of any given play. The later Daly company, often called a stock company, was really such a repertoire company save that it boasted its own fixed and brilliant “star,” Ada Rehan.

After her two years with Mrs. John Drew, Miss Rehan went to Louisville to join the stock company of Macauley’s Theatre, where she remained one season (1875–6). If she had remained a few months longer she would have assisted in the début there of Mary Anderson.