Famous Prima Donnas Part 7

"What is the most enjoyable part I ever had?" said Miss Celeste, repeating my question. "That's easily answered: Mataya in 'w.a.n.g,' which I played during a summer engagement, just before DeWolf Hopper went to England. He's such a dear boy,--Mataya, I mean,--thinks he is so very sporty when he isn't at all, and then he's so very much in love. I was very fond of that boy.

"I think there is a fascination about boys' parts, anyway. It is something of a study to do them just right, to be feminine and still not to be effeminate. An old stage manager once said to me, 'Be sure you please the women. That will bring them to the theatre, and they will bring the men.' The difficulty in playing boys is to please the women, and at the same time to keep your boy from being a poor, weak, colorless creature. One must never overstep the line of womanliness in seeking masculinity, and she must still make the character a real boy and not a girl disguised as a boy."

CHAPTER XV

CHRISTIE MACDONALD

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright, 1896, by Aime Dupont, N. Y.

CHRISTIE MACDONALD.]

After eight years of soubrette experience Christie MacDonald unexpectedly came into prima donnaship in February, 1900. A light opera called "The Princess Chic," book by Kirke LaSh.e.l.le and music by Julian Edwards, had been living a quiet life at the Columbia Theatre, Boston, for several weeks. For some reason or other it did not seem to go just as it should. It was a good opera at that--much better than the average.

Mr. LaSh.e.l.le's book told a story with a genuine dramatic climax, and Mr.

Edwards's music was charming,--simple but melodious. There was action enough apparently, but the performance dragged. It lacked snap and vigor.

The prima donna role in this opera was one of great difficulty. It demanded an actress as well as a singer,--a woman who could be swaggering, audacious, and masculinely incisive as the Princess, masquerading as her own envoy, timid, modest, and shrinkingly feminine as the make-believe peasant girl, and finally queenly and royal as the Princess in her proper person. The plot of "The Princess Chic," by the way, paralleled history in a curious manner, and the story of how it was written was told me by Mr. LaSh.e.l.le:--

"To begin with," said he, "'The Princess Chic' was not taken from the French, though there was a French vaudeville with the same t.i.tle. I got the idea of the opera fixed in my mind after seeing Henry Irving play 'Louis XI.' during one of his visits to this country. You remember in that drama where the envoy from the Duke of Burgundy and his clanking guard march into Louis's presence. The envoy throws his mailed gauntlet at Louis's feet and exclaims, 'That is the answer of Charles the Bold!'

or words to that effect, at any rate.

"That kindled my admiration for Charles the Bold, and I have been admiring him ever since. Consequently when I wanted a comic opera and couldn't get any one to write it for me, I said to myself, 'Here's a chance for Charles the Bold.' I forthwith started in on what is now the second act of 'The Princess Chic,' and wrote backward and forward.

"Now comes the odd part of the whole business. I had to have a woman for my opera, so I invented the Princess Chic. I had to have a plot,--I'm a bit old-fashioned, I know,--so I invented the intrigue of Louis XI.

plotting to cause a revolt among the subjects of the Duke of Burgundy. I seemed to be getting along first-rate when it occurred to me that it wouldn't do any harm to delve a bit into history. So I delved.

"You can imagine my astonishment when I found that I had unwittingly been duplicating to a startling extent historical fact. I discovered that there actually had been a Princess Chic. I learned that Louis XI.

had thought to cause trouble in Charles's domain, and by this means to open a way for the seizure of that province for France. The Duke's bold move in arresting the King and holding him captive until the King agreed to a treaty that suited Charles was new to me, however, and I grabbed it quick.

"Now you have the whole story of 'The Princess Chic.' Somebody has accused me of coquetting with history. I deny all coquetry. 'The Princess Chic' is to all intents and purposes genuine history, much nearer fact than many a historical drama that makes more pretences of sticking closely to the truth."

However, history or no history, the opera did not act as it should, and Mr. LaSh.e.l.le decided to try what the effect of a new prima donna would be. He wanted Camille D'Arville, but she was not available; and by some marvellous stroke of good fortune he hit upon Christie MacDonald. How he happened to do it is a mystery. Christie MacDonald was, of course, well known as a very amiable little lady with a decided fancy for short skirts and for frisky and vivacious characters, that sang prettily and danced nimbly. Never for a moment had she been a.s.sociated with the dignified prima donna. Nor had she ever been guilty of seriousness.

Moreover, if the whole truth were to be told, her voice--though sweet, delicate, musical, and skilfully controlled--was by no means strong.

Decidedly Christie MacDonald had other things besides a voice to make her attractive. There was her personality, magnetically feminine, her temperament, so sunshiny and happy, and her face, not exactly pretty, but immensely attractive when fun lighted it up with smiles.

Therefore Christie MacDonald's Princess Chic came as a great surprise.

At first, she was apparently feeling her way in the role. She was, in fact, a model of discretion, but save in one particular her acting lacked force and conviction. As the peasant girl, in this three-sided impersonation, she was from the first exquisite. Never was the subtle attack of a modest maiden upon a susceptible man's heart more daintily or more fascinatingly exhibited. Under every circ.u.mstance Miss MacDonald was simple and straightforward in her methods, and absolutely free from affectation and self-consciousness. How thoroughly delightful that is!

Singers, in particular, are the victims of conventional mannerisms, smiles that are meaningless and as a result expressionless, curious contortions with the eyes, and strange movements of the hands. How much they would gain by mastering the difficult art of artistically doing nothing!

With so much that was good in evidence during her earliest presentations of the Princess Chic, with her faults those of omission rather than commission, it was only natural that Miss MacDonald should improve greatly as she became thoroughly familiar with the requirements of the part, and as she gained experience in acting it. Especially did she seem to catch the spirit of the Princess Chic masquerading as the handsome young envoy. She developed a most entrancing swagger and the most captivating nonchalance. Her voice, too, which at first seemed almost too light for Mr. Edwards's trying music, was heard to a much better advantage later; and in spite of its want of volume, it had a strange insistency, a peculiar penetrating quality, which enabled it to balance admirably the full chorus in the ensemble climaxes.

Before she adopted the stage professionally, Christie MacDonald gained a little experience by taking small parts in several summer "snap"

companies in her home city of Boston. Her parents were not altogether pleased at her theatrical aspirations, and even after she had been enrolled in 1892 as a member of Pauline Hall's company, she was persuaded to give up the engagement in deference to their wishes. Just at this critical point in her career, however, she chanced to meet Francis Wilson, who had "The Lion Tamer" in rehearsal. He heard her sing and liked her voice so well that he offered her a place in his company.

The temptation was too strong to be resisted, and Miss MacDonald established herself under the Wilson banner. At first she was given only a small part in "The Lion Tamer," and at the same time understudied Lulu Glaser in both "The Lion Tamer" and "The Merry Monarch." The next season she played Marie, the peasant girl, in "Erminie," and during Miss Glaser's illness, Javotte. When "The Devil's Deputy" was brought out for the season of 1894-95, she created the role of Bob, the valet. She was a capital Mrs. Griggs in the pretty Sullivan opera, "The Chieftain,"

her singing of the topical song, "I Think there is Something in That,"

being especially popular. During the summer of 1896 she appeared in Boston in "The Sphinx," making a pleasing impression as Shafra. The following fall found her again with the Francis Wilson forces, playing Lucinde in "Half a King." That summer she filled another engagement in Boston as the j.a.panese maiden Woo Me, in the not-too-successful opera, "The Walking Delegate." It was a dainty part and charmingly done.

The next season Miss MacDonald was engaged by Klaw and Erlanger for the Sousa opera, "The Bride Elect," with which she remained two seasons, and this was followed by her appearance in "The Princess Chic."

CHAPTER XVI

MARIE DRESSLER

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARIE DRESSLER.]

One cannot see Marie Dressler on the stage without being convinced that she is acting no one in the world but herself. Such, I believe, is the actual condition of affairs, although there are sometimes strange paradoxes in theatrical life. It would not be altogether extraordinary for the rollicking tomboy of the stage to be in private life the most retired and the most dignified person imaginable, a woman with spinster written all over her face and reeking in domesticity, with a decided fondness for tea, toast, and tidies.

However, that is not the case with Marie Dressler. She has a mental quirk that keeps the incongruous side of life in her view practically all the time. She cannot help p.r.i.c.king constantly the bubble of mirth any more than she can help breathing. Her humor is just the kind that one would naturally expect to find as a companion to her overflowing physique,--ponderous, weighty, and a bit crude, perhaps, but spontaneous, real, and thoroughly good-natured. She never stabs with the keen shaft of cynical wit, and she does no business in the epigram market. Her specialty is incongruity, for Marie Dressler is a burlesquer in thought, word, and deed, and being a burlesquer she is of necessity absolutely without illusions. When one is so susceptible to the oddities, the inconsistencies, and the tragic pettiness of human affairs as she is, it is a toss-up whether or not his settled condition of mind, after a fair experience with the world, be one of gloomy pessimism or irresponsible optimism. Had Miss Dressler been by nature cold, suspicious, and inherently selfish, had she been unsympathetic and without the milk of human kindness, her instinct for incongruity would surely have turned her toward misanthropy. Her disposition, however, was rollicking, jovial, and fun-loving. She was naturally impulsive, generous, and warm-hearted. Consequently, life, even in its smallnesses and its meannesses, made her laugh. With the humorist's whimsical temperament she united also the happy faculty of being able to communicate to others by means of the theatre her comical view of things. Choosing to do this through the force of her own personality rather than by infusing her personality into a dramatist's conception, she became a droll, a professional jester.

Miss Dressler's best-known and most characteristic work on the stage was done in the role of the boisterous music-hall singer, Flo Honeydew, in "The Lady Slavey." It was hardly a case of acting,--better call it a case of letting herself go. Marie Dressler without subterfuge presented herself in the guise of the unconventional Miss Honeydew. She seemed a big, overgrown girl and a thoroughly mischievous romp with the agility of a circus performer and the physical elasticity of a professional contortionist.

To call her graceful would be an unpardonable accusation. Possibly she might have been graceful had she chosen to be; but what she was after princ.i.p.ally was energy, and she got it,--whole car-loads of it. Her comic resource was inexhaustible, her animal spirits were irrepressible, and her audacity approached the sublime.

Yet, amid all her amazing unconventionality and her astonishing athletic feats, one found, if he met her on her own plane of impersonal jollity, neither vulgarity nor suggestiveness. Her mental att.i.tude toward her audience was absolutely clean and straightforward. She was not a woman cutting up antics and indulging in unseemly pranks, but a royal good fellow with an infinite variety of jest.

With nothing especially tangible to offer as evidence, I have a suspicion that Marie Dressler, if she could escape from her reputation as a burlesquer, might act a "straight" part not at all badly. It is only a fine line between burlesque and legitimate acting, only a triflingly different mental att.i.tude, which results in travesty instead of seriousness. Of course, the burlesque must be set forth with the proper amount of exaggeration to give point to the take-off, but that is only a matter of technique. Artificiality in actors and insincerity in dramatists very often result in unconscious burlesque. The melodramatic school is particularly p.r.o.ne to this most inartistic of blunders, and many a good laugh has followed lines that were supposed to be charged with the most highly colored sentiments and situations that were intended to be dramatically strong and impressive. One at all familiar with Miss Dressler's methods cannot have failed to notice her trick of beginning a speech with profound and even convincing seriousness and ending it in ridiculous contrast with a sudden drop from the dramatic to the commonplace. In spite of the fact that one knows for a certainty that she is fooling him, she succeeds invariably in making the first part of her sentence seem honest and sincere.

Now, I do not believe that she could hit just the right key every time in these startling and laughter-provoking contrasts, if she did not have to an unusual extent the instinct for dramatic effect, which is so large a part of the equipment of the legitimate actor. However, I hope that she will never make the experiment. There are already enough serious actors of ordinary calibre, while the genuine burlesquer of Marie Dressler quality is rare indeed.

Miss Dressler's versatility as a single entertainer was splendidly ill.u.s.trated in a curious variety act, which was called "Twenty Minutes in Shirt Waists." It was devised for the sole purpose of showing off to the best advantage Miss Dressler's native talent for fun-making and travesty. It was mere hodge-podge, of course, with neither rhyme nor reason, but it did afford Miss Dressler every chance that she could desire to display her marvellous resource as a comic entertainer. The t.i.tle of the sketch, "Twenty Minutes in Shirt Waists," suggested some sort of a disrobing act, but in that it was deceptive. Indeed, the t.i.tle--and possibly it was all the better for that--had no connection at all with the act beyond the fact that Miss Dressler and her a.s.sistant, Adele Farrington, both wore shirt waists of spotless white. It was a very intimate and unstagy affair. The two entertainers called each other Marie and Adele, and they kept up the illusion of spontaneous comradeship by appearing, or seeming to appear, in the Eleanora Duse fashion, without facial make-up. The turn itself was a continuous "jolly," and Miss Dressler introduced before it was over about everything funny that she ever did in the theatre, including the amusing revolving hat of "The Lady Slavey" fame.

Miss Dressler was born in Canada, and went on the stage when she was sixteen years old; and in spite of the fact that she was without experience,--in fact, before she had ever seen a comic opera,--she rather inverted the ordinary method of procedure, and started at once to play old women. Her first character was Katisha in "The Mikado" in a company managed by Jules Grau. The reason, so she claims, that she made a try at "old women" was because she was too big and healthy ever to meet with success as a soubrette. Her Katisha was sufficiently liked to convince her that light opera was just the place for her, and thus her theatrical career began.

"I might state," remarked Miss Dressler, navely, in speaking of her early experiences, "that we members of the Grau Company were promised and were supposed to receive very good salaries. All we got, however, was the promises, and they came early and often. No, that is not altogether true: we got besides the promises twenty-five cents which was handed to each member of the company every night. It was supposed to be squandered in the purchase of beer. I forgot this little circ.u.mstance, for I did not drink beer, and consequently in my case the aforesaid quarter of a dollar was not forthcoming. This omission hurt me so much that I resigned from this enterprising organization, and wandered to Philadelphia. The exchequer was about as low as it well could be, and I was glad enough to take a place in the chorus of a summer company at eight dollars a week,--not a great deal, to be sure, but I got it, such as it was."

Miss Dressler's next engagement was with the Bennett and Moulton Opera Company, from which Della Fox was also graduated. This organization played week stands in small cities and large towns, giving two performances a day and changing the bill every day. This may be said to have been Miss Dressler's school, for while under the Bennett and Moulton management she appeared in thirty-eight different operas and played every variety of part, from prima donna roles to old women.

Following this arduous experience on the road came her first appearance in New York at the Fifth Avenue Theatre as Cunigonde in "The Robber of the Rhine," an opera of which Maurice Barrymore, who wrote the book, and Charles Puerner, who composed the music, never had reason to feel proud.

Her first New York success of any consequence, therefore, was not made until she appeared with Camille D'Arville in "Madeleine, or the Magic Kiss." Her next venture was as the Queen in "1492," the part which brought fame to that most accomplished woman impersonator, Richard Harlow. After the termination of this engagement she appeared for a time at the Garden Theatre, New York, under the management of A. M. Palmer, and then joined Lillian Russell in "Princess Nicotine." Her remarkable success in "The Lady Slavey" came next, and since then she has been seen in "Hotel Topsy Turvy," "The Man in the Moon," and vaudeville.

CHAPTER XVII

DELLA FOX

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright, 1894, by J. B. Falk, Waldorf-Astoria, N. Y.

DELLA FOX.]

It was a dozen or fifteen years ago that the hard-working organization known as the Bennett and Moulton Opera Company was a frequent visitor to the small cities and large towns of New England. It played week stands with daily matinees, and it was, more than likely, the pioneer to flaunt in the theatrical field the conquering banner of "ten, twenty, thirty."

I have every feeling of grat.i.tude toward the Bennett and Moulton Opera Company, for it introduced me, at the modest rate of ten cents per introduction, which small sum purchased the right to sit aloft in the gallery, to all the famous old-time operettas,--"Olivette," "The Mascotte," "The Chimes of Normandy," and others.