I had never seen that play since I was a little girl. It had been almost my first theatrical experience; and, as the first act proceeded, the story came back with more force than in any production seen for the second time nowadays, after even only a week or two’s interval. These childish impressions had sunk deep in the memory. In Chicago this inferior drama was well acted, and again I noticed how many English people were upon the boards. More than half the actors and actresses of America are English, or of British parentage.
Clara Morris played the nun. She received a perfect ovation, and needed to bow again and again before she was allowed to proceed with her small part. There was a quiet dignity about her, and when she told the lie to save the girl, she rose to a high level of dramatic power. After that Mr. Davis came and took me to her dressing-room.
We did not get into the wings through an iron door direct from the boxes, as in London, but had to go right to the back of the theatre, down some stairs, under the stalls (there never is a pit), below the stage, and upstairs again to the stage, where Clara Morris had a small dressing-room almost on the footlights, it was so far in front. This was the star dressing-room, but it was certainly smaller than those in our theatres, and one cannot imagine how three or four dresses and a dresser ever squeezed into it.
She welcomed us at the door. “Mam, I am delighted to see you,” she said, with a true American “Mam.” Her hand trembled, for she had just left the stage after her big scene, and she was an elderly woman. I told her how keen had been my wish to see her, and how I had quoted her in my book. She knew that, and thanked me, saying many pretty things, and added:
“No, I never dared play in England, although I have been there, and loved it.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because of my ac-cent. You see, I was born in the West, where from the age of thirteen I toiled at this profession. I starved and cried, worked and struggled, and when success did come and I moved up East the critics always rubbed in two things—my intonation and my accent. My voice was criticised up hill and down dale. ‘A great actress, but——’ Then came down the hail. Mam, if my accent grated in America, among all our awful accents here, what would it have done in Britain, with your soft, beautiful voices? So I refused to go again and again. Then also when success had come I felt, ‘This public likes me, my bed and bread depend upon them; if I go to England and fail they will turn their back upon me, and I shall starve again.’ And so, Mam, regretfully I refused.”
She spoke dramatically, fire shot from those large, wonderful grey eyes. I noticed she was not painted. Only the tiniest amount of make-up I have ever seen on any actress was upon her face, and then I remembered her words of warning upon the subject. In all those years she had not changed her mind.
Her husband, an elderly man with white hair, stood or sat while we talked in the tiny room, and as the last curtain came down I rose to leave.
“Will you give me your photograph, please?”