During the past fifteen or twenty years there have appeared upon the New York stage, generally unheralded, several little actors and actresses who have shown decided ability for the profession, while claiming no phenomenal talent, and in whom certainly there seemed to be fair promise of a brilliant future. Among these have been little Minnie Maddern, who appeared at the French Theatre on Fourteenth Street, May 30, 1870, as Sibyl Carew, in Tom Taylor’s Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing, supporting Miss Carlotta Leclercq as Anne. Her knowledge of stage business, her general carriage, and the careful delivery of her lines throughout the play were remarkable for a child of her years; and hers was considered one of the most satisfactory representations in the piece. The pleasant reputation she made there was sustained at Booth’s Theatre in the month of May, 1874, when she played Arthur in King John, with Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., in the titular part, Mrs. Agnes Booth as Constance, and John McCullough as the Bastard—a good cast. A more pretentious Arthur—an older, not a better one—was that of Master Percy Roselle, who played it in one act of King John at a matinée benefit given to Miss Matilda Heron, January 17, 1872.
Miss Jennie Yeamans was almost a Phenomenon, although, fortunately for herself, she was never subjected by her managers to the forcing process. As Joseph in a burlesque of Richelieu, at the Olympic, in February, 1871, she was very good, second only to George Fox as the Cardinal-Duke, whom, with a piece of chalk, she assisted in drawing the awful circle of the Tammany Ring around the form of Miss Lillie Eldridge as Julie. The solemnity of the entire performance on the child’s part, her wonderful command of her features, and her display of a dry, apparently unconscious humor, all in the true spirit of burlesque, were delightful to contemplate. She was equally good and amusing in a part of an entirely different nature, Notah, the Little Pappoose, in Augustin Daly’s Horizon, a little later in the same season at the same house. Representing an Indian child who had no knowledge of the English tongue, and who united to the natural mischievousness of childhood all of the untamed viciousness of the Indian nature, she was captured on the plains by the Hon. Sundown Bowse (G. L. Fox), and she made that gentleman’s stage existence more than a burden to him through several acts. When Charles Fisher played Falstaff at the Fifth Avenue Theatre she was an excellent William Page.
Miss Mabel Leonard, apparently some five years old, supported H. J. Montague at Wallack’s Theatre in the month of October, 1874, when the Romance of a Poor Young Man was produced, playing with a good deal of skill a little Breton peasant girl. The same young lady and Bijou Heron were the children in Miss Morris’s version of East Lynne, called Miss Multon, at the Union Square Theatre in November, 1876. Their judicious training, and the careful acting of their not unimportant parts, added much to the general completeness of the drama, and will be still vividly remembered by all now living who were play-goers years ago.
Of all the children who have appeared upon the stage during the past twenty years, Bijou Heron was one of the brightest and most promising. In face refined, intelligent, and attractive, in voice pleasant and sympathetic, in figure neat, graceful, and petite even for her years, she had all the personal requirements of success in her profession, combined with careful training, quick comprehension, tact, intelligence, and love for her art. As the only child, and as the hope and idol of a once favorite actress, whose popularity was of so comparatively recent a date that she had not passed out of the memory of the theatre-goers of her daughter’s time, she was kindly and affectionately received in New York for Matilda Heron’s sake, even before she had won for herself, and by her own exertions, so many friends here.
After long preparation she made her first appearance on any stage at Daly’s Fifth Avenue Theatre, Twenty-eighth Street, on April 14, 1874, in a play entitled Monsieur Alphonse, from the French of the younger Dumas, by Mr. Daly, and first presented that evening in this country. It was probably one of the most thoroughly successful débuts witnessed here in many years. Aside from the shyness and constraint so natural to the débutante, and without which no true actor ever stepped for the first time before a critical public, she bore herself naturally, simply, and with charming grace. The part is long and difficult, not one of the commonplace, childish rôles usually intrusted to infant players, nor one of the high tragedy star rôles sometimes inflicted upon juvenile prodigies, but a bit of leading juvenile business requiring more than ordinary intelligence and skill upon the part of its representative. Many actresses who have been years upon the stage, and who are considered beyond the average in their playing, would have played it with less appreciation and success.
Of the juvenile actors of the present time something has already been said. As a rule they belong to the legitimate branches of the profession, and they are as rational, perhaps, as is the drummer-boy of the army, the elevator-boy of society, or the cash-boy of trade. Alice in Wonderland adorns a charming tale, Prince and Pauper and Little Lord Fauntleroy point a pretty moral, even Editha’s Burglar may have his uses; but, take them as a whole, it is a difficult matter to determine the exact position of the Infant Phenomena upon the stage. They occupy, perhaps, the neutral ground between the amateurs and the monstrosities, without belonging to either class, or to art. As professional performers, although in embryo, they cannot share exemption from the severe tests of criticism with those who only play at being players; and as human beings, although undeveloped, they cannot be judged as leniently as are the learnèd pigs and the trained monkeys from whom some of Mr. Darwin’s disciples might believe them to be evolved. The public demands them, however, and dramatists make them; therefore let them pass for stars!