Life and art of Richard Mansfield, with selections from his letters . art ofacting. Charlotte Cushman, Adelaide Neilson,Mary Anderson, Ellen Terry, Helena Modjeska,and Ada Rehan have taught successive periodsthat neither the tragic nor comic muse departedwith Dora Jordan, Sarah Siddons, Mary Duff,Helen Faucit, or Ellen Tree. Edwin Booth, who,about 1857, had, upon the American stage, inaugu-rated a new epoch of dramatic art, died in 1898,and it might then have been supposed that tragedyhad died with him; but the sceptre that droppedfrom the dying hand of that great tragedian wastaken up by Rich
Life and art of Richard Mansfield, with selections from his letters . art ofacting. Charlotte Cushman, Adelaide Neilson,Mary Anderson, Ellen Terry, Helena Modjeska,and Ada Rehan have taught successive periodsthat neither the tragic nor comic muse departedwith Dora Jordan, Sarah Siddons, Mary Duff,Helen Faucit, or Ellen Tree. Edwin Booth, who,about 1857, had, upon the American stage, inaugu-rated a new epoch of dramatic art, died in 1898,and it might then have been supposed that tragedyhad died with him; but the sceptre that droppedfrom the dying hand of that great tragedian wastaken up by Richard Mansfield; and till his death,in 1907, he held that sceptre, in the theatre ofAmerica. Mansfields genius blazed forth suddenly and withastonishing lustre. It was my fortune to be pres-ent on the night when he made his first signal suc-cess on the American stage. It was the night ofJanuary 10, 1883, and the place was the UnionSquare Theatre, New York. The play was AParisian Romance, one of the many literal, andtherefore necessarily vulgar, pictures of profligate. Courtesy of Messrs. Klaic and Erlanyer MANSFIELD AS BARON CHEVRIALFrom the Original Painting by Louis Kronberg CHEVRIAL 29 life in Paris so common in our theatre within thelast thirty years. The part was that of BaronChevrial, a wealthy banker, who lives for sensualpleasure, avows the doctrine of materialism, isradically selfish, rapacious, licentious, epicurean, andcruel; and whose employment, in the dramaticfiction, is the crafty pursuit of a discontented wife,whom he is the means of driving to ruin, and of aballet-girl, by whom he is beguiled, and in whosepresence, and the presence of other votaries ofpleasure, he dies, horribly, stricken with would be difficult to conceive of a character morehateful than that of Baron Chevrial, or of circum-stances more loathsome than those in which he isimplicated. Nothing was expected of the took the town by surprise. His make-up forthe rickety sinner was
Size: 1409px × 1773px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorwinterwi, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1910
