VII.
“RED LETTER DAYS.”
Miss Ellen Terry’s First Appearance in New York—The Press on Charles and the Queen—A Professional Matinée—An Audience of Actors to See Louis XI.—How they Impressed the Actor, and what they Thought of Him—A Visit to Henry Ward Beecher—At Church and at Home—Mrs. Beecher and Miss Terry—Reminiscences—Studies of Death, Physiological and Idealistic—Louis’ Death and Hamlet’s—A Strange Story.
I.
New York received Miss Terry, on her first appearance before an American audience, as cordially as it had welcomed Irving. It was as Henrietta Maria that she spoke her first words on the stage of the New World.[11] There is no more tenderly poetic play in the repertoire of the modern drama than “Charles the First.” The story in Irving’s hands is told with a truthful simplicity that belongs to the highest form of theatrical art. All the leading critics recognized this. The effect of the well-known Hampton Court cloth was so perfect in its way and so new to some of them, that it was regarded as a cut cloth, with “raking” and water pieces. The “Tribune” interpreted the general opinion of the audience, when it said, “what most impressed them was Irving’s extraordinary physical fitness to the accepted ideal of Charles Stuart, combined with the passionate earnestness and personal magnetism that enable him to create and sustain a perfect illusion”; while it may be said to have just as happily expressed the views of another class in the words, “To the student Mr. Irving’s Charles is especially significant, as indicative of the actor’s method in applying what is termed ‘natural’ treatment to the poetic drama.”
“Louis XI.,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “The Lyons Mail,” and “The Belle’s Stratagem,” were the other pieces produced during the four weeks in New York. The theatre was crowded nightly, and on the Saturday matinées. The speculators found it easier to dispose of their tickets, as the weeks wore on, even than during the first five or six days of the engagement. Nothing damped the public ardor. The opera war between Mapleson and Abbey, as representatives of two great parties of wealthy art patrons, had no apparent influence on the receipts at the Star Theatre. One of the greatest nights of the month marked the first appearance of Patti at the Academy of Music. Inclement weather, abnormal charges for seats, strong counterattractions at the other houses, including the two grand Italian Opera Companies, might have been expected to discount the financial success of any rival entertainment. They made no difference to Irving. He was the talk, not of New York, but of America; and after her appearance as Portia, Miss Ellen Terry was almost as much written about as he himself. Unrivalled in the higher walks of comedy, at home or abroad, Miss Terry is as new to the American public in the naturalness of her methods, as Irving himself.
Shylock excited controversy, Louis inspired admiration, Dubosc and his virtuous double commanded respect, and the method of presenting the plays was a theme of praise and delight in and out of the press. Of Louis the “Sun” said “Mr. Irving won his audience to him almost at once. It was impossible to withstand the intensity, the vivid picturesqueness, and imposing reality of his portrayal, and after each great scene of the play he was called again and again before the curtain by hearty and most demonstrative applause. It was a wonderful performance, and the impression that it left is one that can never be laid aside.” The “Times” was struck with his appearance. “His make-up is as perfect in its kind as that of Charles the First, and nobody would imagine the actor to be the same as the actor in either of the other parts which he has presented. But the verisimilitude here goes much deeper than the make-up. There is the senile garrulity and the senile impatience of garrulity, the senile chuckle over successful strokes of business. And this character is deepened as the play advances. The occasional expressions of energy are spasmodic; and after each the patient relapses into a still more listless apathy, and this decay is progressive until the death-scene, which is the strongest and most impressive piece of realism that Mr. Irving has yet given us.” The “Herald” commended Shylock to the Shakespearian student, “as the best exposition of the character that can be seen on the stage”; while the “Tribune” said of Miss Terry, “Her simple manner, always large and adequate, with nothing puny or mincing about it, is one of the greatest beauties of the art which it so deftly conceals. Her embodiment of a woman’s loveliness, such as in Portia should be at once stately and fascinating, and inspire at once respect and passion, was felicitous beyond the reach of descriptive phrases. Her delivery of the Mercy speech was one of the few perfectly modulated and entirely beautiful pieces of eloquence that will dwell forever in memory. Her sweet and sparkling by-play in the ‘business’ about the ring and in her exit can only be called exquisite. Better comedy has not in our time been seen.”[12]