In the autumn of the same year (1903) Miss Illington created the leading part in that distinguished failure, “A Japanese Nightingale,” but during the brief run of the piece she assumed a part attended with more success—that of the wife of her manager, Daniel Frohman. It was announced then that she would leave the stage at the end of the “Nightingale” engagement, but, as so often happens in such cases, the bridegroom proposes and the bride elects to please herself. So the very next spring we found her as Henriette in the all-star cast of “The Two Orphans.” And last season she filled the title rôle in “Mrs. Leffingwell’s Boots.”
For the coming winter Miss Illington is to be entrusted with the most important part that has yet fallen to her—that of the leading lady with John Drew in Pinero’s new play, “His House in Order”—a rôle created in London with great success by Irene Van Brugh, who made such a hit here a few years ago with John Hare in “The Gay Lord Quex.”
WOULDN’T STAY CURED.
Jane Wheatley Celebrated Her Recovery from First Attack of Stage Fever By Falling Victim to a Second.
Although stock company work, with two performances a day and a weekly change of bill, is an awful grind, it is also about the only way nowadays in which the young player can obtain the necessary experience to give him or her that versatility which broadens ability.
Take, for instance, the six weeks last spring when Jane Wheatley filled an engagement in Providence as leading woman of the Albee stock company, at Keith’s. During that period she was Muriel in “The Second in Command,” an English comedy; Lucy in “The Dictator,” an American farce; Katherine in “If I Were King,” a romantic drama; Phyllis in the Goodwin-Elliott play, “When We Were Twenty-One”; Marcelle in “The Gay Parisians,” a lively farce from the French; and Mary of Magdala in the Scriptural play, “The Holy City.”
Of her work in the last-named part, a local critic wrote: “She carried the rôle through from the moment of awakening from the scarlet bondage with a spirit of reverence that was much more than mere acting, and had applause been permitted she would have carried off all honors.”
Spent Allowance for Theater Tickets.
Miss Wheatley is a young woman who went on the stage from pure love of it, starting In 1898 with a very lowly part In “The Christian.” She was with Viola Allen for three seasons, and subsequently she played prominent parts with Sadie Martinot. She followed Grace Filkins as Lady Airish, in the support of Alice Fischer, in “The School for Husbands.” The account she has furnished The Scrap Book of her start in the profession is so very entertainingly written that I am giving it herewith in her own words:
“While studying in Boston some years ago, every penny of my allowance went for theater tickets, and the Hollis Street Theater was my favorite haunt. My chum was an enthusiast on the subject, if ever there was one, and I made a very good second. We had our respective favorites, and mine was Miss Viola Allen. I always had hoped to meet her, and even thought she might advise me or help me to a position on the stage. But how to arrange a meeting?