ADA REHAN.
In browsing over the fragrant evergreen pages of Cibber's delightful book about the stage, and especially in reflecting upon the beautiful and brilliant women who, drawn by his magic pencil, dwell there, perpetual, in life, colour, and charm, the reflective reader may perhaps be prompted to remember that the royal line of stage beauties is not extinct, and that stage heroines exist in the present day who are quite as well worthy of commemoration as any that graced the period of Charles the Second or of good Queen Anne. Our age, indeed, has no Cibber to describe their loveliness and celebrate their achievements; but surely if he were living at this hour that courtly, characteristic, and sensuous writer—who saw so clearly and could portray so well the peculiarities of the feminine nature—would not deem the period of Ellen Terry and Marie Wilton, of Ada Rehan and Sarah Bernhardt and Genevieve Ward, of Clara Morris and Jane Hading, unworthy of his pen. As often as fancy ranges over those bright names and others that are kindred with them—a glittering sisterhood of charms and talents—the regret must arise that no literary artist with just the gallant spirit, the chivalry, the sensuous appreciation, the fine insight, and the pictorial touch of old Cibber is extant to perpetuate their glory. The hand that sketched Elizabeth Barry so as to make her live forever in a few brief lines, the hand that drew the fascinating and memorable portrait of Susanna Mountfort ("Down goes her dainty diving body to the ground, as if she were sinking under the conscious load of her own attractions")—what might it not have done to preserve for the knowledge of future generations the queens of the theatre who are crowned and regnant to-day! Cibber could have caught and reflected the elusive charm of such an actress as Ada Rehan. No touch less adroit and felicitous than his can accomplish more than the suggestion of her peculiar allurement, her originality, and her fascinating because sympathetic and piquant mental and physical characteristics.
Ada Rehan, born at Limerick, Ireland, on April 22, 1860, was brought to America when five years old, and at that time she lived and went to school in Brooklyn. No one of her progenitors was ever upon the stage, nor does it appear that she was predisposed to that vocation by early reading or training. Her elder sisters had adopted that pursuit, and perhaps she was impelled toward it by the force of example and domestic association, readily affecting her innate latent faculty for the dramatic art. Her first appearance on the stage was made at Newark, New Jersey, in 1873, in a play entitled Across the Continent, in which she acted a small part, named Clara, for one night only, to fill the place of a performer who had been suddenly disabled by illness. Her readiness and her positive talent were clearly revealed in that effort, and it was thereupon determined in a family council that she should proceed; so she was soon regularly embarked upon the life of an actress. Her first appearance on the New York stage was made a little later, in 1873, at Wood's museum (it became Daly's theatre in 1879), when she played a small part in a piece called Thorough-bred. During the seasons of 1873-74-75 she was associated with the Arch Street theatre, Philadelphia,—that being her first regular professional engagement. (John Drew, with whom, professionally, Ada Rehan has been long associated, made his first appearance in the same season, at the same house.) She then went to Macaulay's theatre, Louisville, where she acted for one season. From Louisville she went to Albany, as a member of John W. Albaugh's company, and with that manager she remained two seasons, acting sometimes in Albany and sometimes in Baltimore. After that she was for a few months with Fanny Davenport. The earlier part of her career involved professional endeavours in company with the wandering stars, and she acted in a variety of plays with Edwin Booth, Adelaide Neilson, John McCullough, Mrs. Bowers, Lawrence Barrett, John Brougham, Edwin Adams, Mrs. Lander, and John T. Raymond. From the first she was devotedly fond of Shakespeare, and all the Shakespearian characters allotted to her were studied and acted by her with eager interest and sympathy. While thus employed in the provincial stock she enacted Ophelia, Cordelia, Desdemona, Celia, Olivia, and Lady Anne, and in each of those parts she was conspicuously good. The attention of Augustin Daly was first attracted to her in December 1877, when she was acting at Albaugh's theatre in Albany, the play being Katharine and Petruchio (Garrick's version of the Taming of the Shrew), and Ada Rehan appearing as Bianca; and subsequently Daly again observed her as an actress of auspicious distinction and marked promise at the Grand Opera House, New York, in April 1879. Fanny Davenport was then acting in that theatre in Daly's strong American play of Pique—one of the few dramas of American origin that aptly reflect the character of American domestic life—and Ada Rehan appeared in the part of Mary Standish. She was immediately engaged under Daly's management, and in May 1879 she came forth at the Olympic theatre, New York, as Big Clemence in that author's version of L'Assommoir. On September 17, 1879, Daly's theatre (which had been suspended for about two years) was opened upon its present site, the southwest corner of Thirtieth Street and Broadway, and Ada Rehan made her first appearance there, enacting the part of Nelly Beers in a play called Love's Young Dream. The opening bill on that occasion comprised that piece, together with a comedy by Olive Logan, entitled Newport. On September 30 a revival of Divorce, one of Daly's most fortunate plays, was effected, and Ada Rehan impersonated Miss Lu Ten Eyck—a part originally acted (1873) by Fanny Davenport. From that time to this (1892) Ada Rehan has remained the leading lady at Daly's theatre; and there she has become one of the most admired figures upon the contemporary stage. In five professional visits to Europe, acting in London, Paris, Edinburgh, Dublin, Berlin, and other cities, she pleased judicious audiences and augmented her renown. Daly took his company of comedians to London for the first time in 1884, where they fulfilled an engagement of six weeks at Toole's theatre, beginning July 19. The second visit to London was made two seasons later, when they acted for nine weeks at the Strand theatre, beginning May 27, 1886. At that time they also played in the English provinces, and they visited Germany—acting at Hamburg and at Berlin, where they were much liked and commended. They likewise made a trip to Paris. Their third season abroad began at the Lyceum theatre, London, May 3, 1888, and it included another expedition to the French capital, which was well rewarded. Ada Rehan at that time impersonated Shakespeare's Shrew. It was in that season also that she appeared at Stratford-upon-Avon, where Daly gave a performance (August 3, 1888) in the Shakespeare Memorial theatre, for the benefit of that institution. The fourth season of Daly's comedians in London began on June 10, 1890, at the Lyceum theatre, and lasted ten weeks; and this was signalised by Ada Rehan's impersonation of Rosalind. The fifth London season extended from September 9 to November 13, 1891.
This is an outline of her professional story; but how little of the real life of an actor can be imparted in a record of the surface facts of a public career! Most expressive, as a comment upon the inadequacy of biographical details, is the exclamation of Dumas, about Aimée Desclée: "Une femme comme celle-là n'a pas de biographie! Elle nous a émus, et elle en est morte. Voilà toute son historie!" Ada Rehan, while she has often and deeply moved the audience of her riper time, is happily very far from having died of it. There is deep feeling beneath the luminous and sparkling surface of her art; but it is chiefly with mirth that she has touched the public heart and affected the public experience. Equally of her, however, as of her pathetic sister artist of the French stage, it may be said that such a woman has no history. In a civilisation and at a period wherein persons are customarily accepted for what they pretend to be, instead of being seen and understood for what they are, she has been content to take an unpretentious course, to be original and simple, and thus to allow her faculties to ripen and her character to develop in their natural manner. She has not assumed the position of a star, and perhaps the American community, although favourable and friendly toward her, may have been somewhat slow to understand her unique personality and her superlative worth. The moment a thoughtful observer's attention is called to the fact, however, he perceives how large a place Ada Rehan fills in the public mind, how conspicuous a figure she is upon the contemporary stage, and how difficult it is to explain and classify her whether as an artist or a woman. That blending of complexity with transparency always imparts to individual life a tinge of piquant interest, because it is one denotement of the temperament of genius.
The poets of the world pour themselves through all subjects by the use of their own words. In what manner they are affected by the forces of nature—its influences of gentleness and peace or its vast pageants of beauty and terror—those words denote; and also those words indicate the action, upon their responsive spirits, of the passions that agitate the human heart. The actors, on the other hand, assuming to be the interpreters of the poets, must pour themselves through all subjects by the use of their own personality. They are to be estimated accordingly by whatever the competent observer is able to perceive of the nature and the faculties they reveal under the stress of emotion, whether tragic or comic. Perhaps it is not possible—mind being limited in its function—for any person to form a full, true, and definite summary of another human creature. To view a dramatic performance with a consciousness of the necessity of forming a judicial opinion of it is often to see one's own thought about it rather than the thing itself. Yet, when all allowance is made for difficulty of theme and for infirmity of judgment, the observer of Ada Rehan may surely conclude that she has a rich, tender, and sparkling nature, in which the dream-like quality of sentiment and the discursive faculty of imagination, intimately blended with deep, broad, and accurate perceptions of the actual, and with a fund of keen and sagacious sense, are reinforced with strong individuality and with affluent and extraordinary vital force. Ada Rehan has followed no traditions. She went to the stage not because of vanity but because of spontaneous impulse; and for the expression of every part that she has played she has gone to nature and not to precept and precedent. The stamp of her personality is upon everything that she has done; yet the thinker who looks back upon her numerous and various impersonations is astonished at their diversity. The romance, the misery, and the fortitude of Kate Verity, the impetuous passion of Katharine, the brilliant raillery of Hippolyta, the enchanting womanhood of Rosalind—how clear-cut, how distinct, how absolutely dramatic was each one of those personifications! and yet how completely characteristic each one was of this individual actress! Our works of art may be subject to the application of our knowledge and skill, but we ourselves are under the dominance of laws which operate out of the inaccessible and indefinable depths of the spirit. Alongside of most players of this period Ada Rehan is a prodigy of original force. Her influence, accordingly, has been felt more than it has been understood, and, being elusive and strange, has prompted wide differences of opinion. The sense that she diffuses of a simple, unselfish, patient nature, and of impulsive tenderness of heart, however, cannot have been missed by anybody with eyes to see. And she crowns all by speaking the English language with a beauty that has seldom been equalled.
XVIII.
TENNYSON'S COMEDY OF THE FORESTERS.
"Besides, the King's name is a tower of strength." Thousands of people all over the world honour, and ought to honour, every word that falls from the pen of Alfred Tennyson. He is a very great man. No poet since the best time of Byron has written the English language so well—that is to say, with such affluent splendour of imagination; such passionate vigour; such nobility of thought; such tenderness of pathos; such pervasive grace, and so much of that distinctive variety, flexibility, and copious and felicitous amplitude which are the characteristics of an original style. No poet of the last fifty years has done so much to stimulate endurance in the human soul and to clarify spiritual vision in the human mind. It does not signify that now, at more than fourscore, his hand sometimes trembles a little on the harp-strings, and his touch falters, and his music dies away. It is still the same harp and the same hand. This fanciful, kindly, visionary, drifting, and altogether romantic comedy of Robin Hood is not to be tried by the standard that is author reared when he wrote Ulysses and Tithonus and The Passing of Arthur—that imperial, unapproachable standard that no other poet has satisfied.