. Shakespeare on the stage. is interesting to remember, visited America, appear-ing at Burtons Theatre, New York, September 22,1851, as Hermione, in The Winters Tale, but shewas not seen on our stage as Queen Katharine, AMERICAN STAGE.—QUEEN KATHARINE.—CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. Charlotte Cushman as Queen Katharine was theconsummate image of sovereignty and noble woman-hood, austere and yet sweetly patient, in circum-stances of cruel injustice and bitter affliction. Heridentification with the essential nature of the injuredQueen was so complete that it made the spectatorsof her performance forget the
. Shakespeare on the stage. is interesting to remember, visited America, appear-ing at Burtons Theatre, New York, September 22,1851, as Hermione, in The Winters Tale, but shewas not seen on our stage as Queen Katharine, AMERICAN STAGE.—QUEEN KATHARINE.—CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. Charlotte Cushman as Queen Katharine was theconsummate image of sovereignty and noble woman-hood, austere and yet sweetly patient, in circum-stances of cruel injustice and bitter affliction. Heridentification with the essential nature of the injuredQueen was so complete that it made the spectatorsof her performance forget the stage and feel that theywere looking upon a pathetic experience of actuallife. Her portrayal of this character was the im-pressive revealment of a great soul. Only a womanof the loftiest spirit could thus have interpreted andmade actual Shakespeares beautiful conception. Itwas innate grandeur of character that made Char-lotte Cushman so great in this part. There was inher artistic treatment of it a wonderful felicity of. r; 6. to O % I KING HENRY VIII. 555 smoothness,—the blending of womanly tenderness withstately manner, the union of dignity with grace, thedeft conjunction of intellectual power with spiritualhumility: she spontaneously exhibited the naturalfluctuations of emotion, and she spoke the magnificentlanguage with a perfect sense of its meaning andwith splendid effect: her performance was a heart-breaking image of oppressed virtue, dethronedmajesty, and a soul of inflexible goodness that noadversity could shake: but aside from all that she didas an actress there was a singular magnetism in whatshe was as a woman—a strange, wild charm, such assometimes seems to hallow the lonely ocean, in thegloaming and on the eve of tempest—a magic ofgenius which, while it separated her from the race ofusual women, made her the interpreter of all women,the symbol of all their sorrows, the voice of all theirlonging and aspiration. That charm flashed from herluminous eyes and
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectshakespearewilliam15
