Part 24

[94] Who, twenty-eight years later, with Pierre Berton, was to write for her _Zaza_, one of her most successful plays.

[95] Mme. Réjane recalls that her costume on this occasion was the object of much solicitude on the part of Regnier. On the day of the contest he came to her house at nine in the morning to pass judgment on her dress, which was made of white tarlatan at nine _sous_ per metre, and cost in all about ten francs. Mme. Regnier loaned gloves for the occasion.

[96] Aimée Olympe Desclée (1836–1874), of the _Gymnase_, who excelled in modern French emotional plays. She acted with success in London, and also appeared in Belgium and Russia.

[97] The students played also in the suburbs, at Versailles, Mantes, and Chartres. It was at Chartres, where she had a part in _Les Paysans Lorrains_, that the playbills first named her Réjane. Till now she had gone by her own name of Réju. She played also, while still a student, at _matinées-conférences_ at the _Porte-Saint-Martin_, in _Le Depit Amoureux_ and _Les Ménechmes_.

[98] Her first appearance at the _Vaudeville_ was on March 25, 1875. Her first three parts were small rôles in _La Revue des Deux-Mondes_, _Fanny Lear_, and _Vaudeville’s Hotel_. There followed: _Madame Lili_, _Midi à Quatorze Heures_, _Renaudin de Caen_, _La Corde_, 1875; _Le Verglas_, _Le Premier Tapis_, _Les Dominos Roses_, _Perfide comme L’Onde_, _Le Passe_, 1876; _Pierre_, _Les Vivacités du Capitaine Tic_, _Le Club_, 1877; _Le Mari d’Ida_, 1878; _Les Memoires du Diable_, _Les Faux Bonshommes_, _Les Tapageurs_, _Les Lionnes Pauvres_, 1879; _La Vie de Bohème_, _Le Père Prodigue_, 1880; _La Petite Sœur_, _Odette_, 1881; _L’Auréole_, _Un Mariage de Paris_, 1882; all at the _Vaudeville_. At various theatres: _Les Demoiselles Clochart_, _La Princess_, _Les Variétés de Paris_, _La Nuit de Noces de P. L. M._, _La Glu_, 1882; _Ma Camarade_, 1883; _Les Femmes Terribles_, 1884; _Clara Soleil_, 1885; _Allo! Allo!_, _Monsieur de Morat_, 1886–87; _Décoré_, _Germinie Lacerteux_, _Shylock_, 1888; _Marquise_, 1889; _La Famille Benoîton_, _Le Mariage de Figaro_, _La Vie à Deux_, 1889–90; _Ma Cousine_, 1890; _Amoreuse_, _Fantasio_, _La Cigale_, _Brevet Supérieur_, 1891; _Lysistrata_, _Sapho_, 1892; _Madame Sans-Gêne_, 1893; _Villégiature_, _Les Lionnes Pauvres_, _Maison de Poupée_, 1894; _Viveurs_, 1895; _Lolotte_, _La Bonne Hélène_, _Le Partage_, _Divorçons_, 1896; _La Douloureuse_, 1897; _Paméla_, _Le Roi Candaule_, _Zaza_, _Le Calice_, _Georgette Lemeunier_, 1898; _Le Lys Rouge_, _Mme. de Lavalette_, 1899; _Le Faubourg_, _Le Béguin_, _La Robe Rouge_, _Sylvie ou la Curieuse d’Amour_, 1900; _La Pente Douce_, _La Course du Flambeau_, 1901; _La Passerelle_, _Le Masque_, _Le Joug_, 1902; _Heureuse_, _Antoinette Sabrier_, 1903; _La Montansier_, _La Parisienne_, 1904; _L’Age D’Aimer_, 1905; _La Piste_, 1906. At the _Théâtre Réjane_: _La Savelli_, 1906; _Paris-New York_, _Suzeraine_, _Les Deux Madame Delauze_, 1907; _Qui Perd Gagne_, _Israël_, 1908; _Trains de luxe_, _L’Impératrice_, _Le Refuge_, 1909; _Madame Margot_, _La Flamme_, _M’Amour_, 1910; _L’Enfant de l’Amour_ (at the _Porte St. Martin_), _La Revue Sans-Gêne_, 1911; _L’Aigrette_, _Un Coup de Téléphone_, _Aglaïs_ (at _Comédie Royale_), 1912; _Alsace_, _L’Irrégulière_, 1913; _Le Concert_, 1914.

[99] “Her queer little face catches hold of you, by both the good and bad elements in your nature. All the intelligence, the devotion, the pity of a woman are to be read in her wonderful eyes, but below there is the nose and mouth of a sensual little creature, a vicious, almost vulgar, smile, lips pouted for a kiss, but with a lingering, or a dawning, suggestion of irony. Moreover, she is exactly the reigning type, the type that one meets constantly on the Paris pavements when the shop girls are going to lunch. If you happen to be born _marquise_ or _duchesse_ you copy the type, and the result is all the more piquant.”--Augustin Filon, “The Modern French Drama.”

[100] The Boston _Courier_, May 19, 1895.

[101] Her second American season began in New York, Nov. 7, 1904. During this tour she appeared for the first time in America in _Amoureuse_, _La Passerelle_, _Zaza_, _La Petite Marquise_, and _La Hirondelle_.

[102] Originally _Madame Sans-Gêne_ was to have been produced at the _Grand-Théâtre_, of which M. Porel, Réjane’s husband, was manager. He gave up the house, however, before the play could be given. Other managers begged for it, but of each in turn M. Sardou demanded: “Have you Réjane in your company?” and as the answer was always in the negative, he added: “Then there is no use of our talking about it.” Soon M. Carré admitted M. Porel to a co-directorship of the _Vaudeville_, and there the play was produced, with immediately great success. M. Sardou was not the sole author. He had considerable help from M. Moreau.

[103] Correspondence of Frederick Roy Martin in the _Boston Transcript_, November 9, 1904.

[104] Dec. 29, 1906.

[105] In 1906, she attempted, with M. Gaston Mayer, to found a French repertoire theatre in London, but the experiment was not successful and lasted only one season.

[106] It is probably for this comedian that the street _Calle Duse_ in Chioggio, near Venice, is named.

[107] “A curious circumstance attended her baptism at Vigevano. In accordance with the custom of the country the child was carried to the church in a shrine gilded and ornamented with jewels. A detachment of Austrian soldiery marched past the baptismal procession, and mistaking the shrine for the relics of some saint, halted and saluted. When he returned to his wife the father said to her: ‘Forgive me, dear, that I am unable to bring me a present for giving me a daughter, but I can give you a happy omen. Our daughter will be something great some day; already they have shown her military honors.’”

[108] In after years, when she had won fame and name, she used to carry about a little antique coffer in which as a babe she used to lie while her mother was upon the stage.

[109] According to Jean Dornis (_Le Théâtre Italien Contemporaine_) her father said that she contracted a disease known as _Salmara_--or “The Spleen of Venice.” The victim of this ailment is “enveloped, as in a fantastic mist, with the sadness of the past, the bitterness of the present, and the uncertainty of the future.”

[110] Years after the time of which we are speaking, the two met at the home of Dumas, at Marly. When she found herself in the room with the man she had long venerated, she was speechless with emotion, and, the accounts say, burst into tears. When she finally acted in Paris, in 1897, Dumas was dead. She acted there on the occasion of the great testimonial to his memory. See page 188.

[111] In the last edition of his plays Dumas appends a footnote to _La Princesse de Bagdad_: “There is in the last scene a stage direction that is not found in other editions. After having said to her husband: ‘I am innocent, I swear it to you, I swear it to you,’ Leonetta, seeing him incredulous, places her hand on the head of her son and says a third time, ‘I swear it to you!’ This gesture, so noble and convincing, was not used in Paris. Neither Mlle. Croizette nor I thought of it; none the less, it was irrefutable and irresistible. Inflection alone, however powerful, was not enough.” As a matter of fact, until Duse introduced this bit of “business” no one had ever been able to make the scene convincing, and as the success of the whole play hangs on this scene, _La Princesse de Bagdad_ had always been a comparative failure. Dumas goes on to pay tribute to Duse for introducing his work into Italy, and in conclusion says: “It is to be regretted for our art that this extraordinary actress is not French.”

[112] 1885.

[113] Though her first night audience was described as “large and brilliant,” Duse’s audiences during her first American tour were generally not large in numbers. They were, however, drawn from a discriminating part of the public, the part that regards the drama as an art and goes to the theatre only when its own high standards are likely to be met. During the 1896 tour she attracted the same discerning public, but also, this time, that other public which runs to fads. “La Duse” became something of a fad, but happily at no sacrifice of the quality of her acting.

[114] _The Critic_, for January 28, 1893. The story has often been told of Mme. Bartet, the distinguished actress of the _Comèdie Française_, and Duse’s swoon in _La Dame aux Camélias_. So powerful and so natural was Duse at the point where Marguérite swoons, that Bartet, perhaps sensible of Duse’s own bodily weakness, cried out: “Great Heavens! She has really fainted.”

[115] There is much in Mrs. Fiske’s acting to remind one of Duse, different as the two are in many ways. There is in each, in the first place, the same service to an art of an exceptional intellect, the same high minded devotion to ideals. Each has been a mistress of the subtleties, both of conceptions of characters and of means to set those conceptions forth. Each depends on the significant repression of emotion, rather than on expansive exposition of emotion. Each is, in spite of a fundamental seriousness, expert in comedy. Coming to details, each depends largely on rapidity of utterance, with occasional arbitrary pauses. Of the former--in a possible excess--Mrs. Fiske has been sufficiently charged; the latter Duse has been sometimes accused of carrying to undue lengths. Finally each has her wholesome distaste for eccentricities and meritricious publicity. Mrs. Fiske is Duse translated into American.

[116] _The Critic_, February 11, 1893.

[117] During her tour in America in 1893, Duse’s parts were: Marguérite Gauthier in _La Dame aux Camélias_; _Fédora_; Clotilde in _Fernande_; Santuzza in _Cavalleria Rusticana_; Mirandolina in _La Locandiera_; Cyprienne in _Divorçons_; Francine in _Francillon_, and Césarine in _La Femme de Claude_. During her second American tour in 1896, Duse played _Magda_ for the first time in this country, and also some plays from her former repertoire, _La Dame aux Camélias_, _Cavalleria Rusticana_ and _La Locandiera_. On her next visit, in 1902, which was during the d’Annunzio period, she played _La Gioconda_, _La Citta Morta_, and _Francesca da Rimini_, all by d’Annunzio.

[118] She played for London _A Doll’s House_ and _Antony and Cleopatra_, as well as _Camille_, _Fédora_, _Cavalleria Rusticana_ and _La Locandiera_.

[119] When Duse was in the United States for the second time, in 1896, she withstood, as before, all attempts to interview her. This fact did not prevent some enterprising persons from publishing to the world that she had confessed a dislike of America. The report was widely spread, but the fact was that Duse did not make the statement.

Her Magda gave a new revelation of her skill. “In suggesting the social standing of the returned prodigal, Mme. Duse takes a middle course between the frank Bohemianism of Bernhardt and the loftier aristocratic air adopted by Modjeska. It is interesting to note how she emphasizes the theatrical nature of Magda’s past life, by just those little exaggerations of pose and gesture common to nearly all stage performers, but from which she herself, in ordinary conditions is almost ideally free. These manifestations of self-consciousness are confined to the second act, and vanish when the inner self of the woman is brought to the surface by the influence of powerful emotions.”--_The Critic_, March 7, 1896. An instance, this, of Duse’s remarkable subtlety in acting. At the point where Magda drives her former lover from her presence, she “easily reached and maintained herself at a height of emotion which can only be described as tragic, and she wrought the effect without exposing herself, even for an instant, to the charge of exaggeration or rant.” Of this scene William Archer, a little later, said that until he saw it he did not fully realize the dynamic potentialities of human utterance.

[120] Unlike many of her sister actresses, Duse made a practice of reading the criticisms of her acting.

[121] From Victor Mapes’ _Duse and The French_, to which the author is indebted for his account of Duse’s Paris _début_.

[122] In 1898 Mme. Vivanti Chartres, one of Duse’s few intimate friends, said (in the New York _Dramatic Mirror_): “Duse’s hatred of publicity and newspaper interviews has assumed the proportions of a mania.... When we were alone together, talking of the play I was writing for her, or discussing modern art, her youthful struggles with poverty, or the world weariness that came to her finally with her splendid success, Duse was herself--impulsive, eager, passionate, tender, sad. But the mere announcement of a visitor would freeze her into silent hauteur.

“I stayed with her in Turin for some time. We used to go out driving in the _Valentino_ every morning, for Duse said she needed to begin the day by looking at ‘green things.’ She was crowding the _Teatro Carignano_, the receipts averaging 10,000 francs for each performance--a stupendous sum for Italy. Yes, Duse certainly makes a great deal of money, but she spends all that she makes. She is exceedingly generous. One day she gave a magnificent diamond ring to a dressmaker whom Worth had sent to her from Paris with her _Dame aux Camélias_ dresses. And she pays her entire company all the year round, although during the last eighteen months she has given only twenty-two performances.

“At Monte Carlo we stayed at the Victoria, the dullest if most aristocratic hotel in the place. But Duse has a taste for the dismal and the melancholy. She is very sad--the saddest woman I have ever known. She cannot even bear people’s voices. After the strain of her performance she drives home quite alone, and sits down to her supper in solitude and silence. During the days that I was with her we used to sit at opposite ends of the large table, sometimes without exchanging half a dozen words, and she used to laugh her approval across to me when I absolutely refused to answer her if she made any attempts at polite conversation.

“Duse _chez elle_ dresses almost always in white satin. Her gowns are loose and limp, and folded carelessly around her.... She is a charming woman, highly cultured, sincere, brave and good. Her conversation, when she chooses to speak, is startlingly brilliant.”

[123] It was her rule not to play more than four performances a week. When she was in her thirties, the world was told that she was a sufferer from “pulmonary phthisis,” and that her impending doom was one of the causes of her seclusion and sadness. All through her career there were periodic reports of her illness, of canceled engagements and interrupted tours.

[124] “She spends enormous sums on books and photographs, on bonbons and _scissors_--a curious hobby of hers, as she buys pair after pair, which she afterwards loses.... Another of her fads, which in Italy is a decided novelty, is hygiene; for to the average Italian mind, the simplest rules of health and sanitation, even the combination of warmth and good ventilation, are mysteries, to inquire into which would be useless and ridiculous. That Duse should like to have a fire and to sit with the window open at the same time, quite passes their powers of comprehension.” Helen Zimmern in _Fortnightly Review_, 1900.

[125] Her d’Annunzio parts, extending from 1897 to 1902, were: Isabella in _Sogno di Mattino di Primavera_, Anna in _La Citta Morta_, Silvia in _La Gioconda_, Helena in _La Gloria_, and Francesca in _Francesca da Rimini_.

[126] “In _La Gioconda_, the scene in the studio, when the wife, burdened with a sense of intolerable worry, finds herself face to face with the woman who has supplanted her--would to a second rate actress prove an irresistible temptation to frenzied rant; but Duse plays it with a sustained intensity of controlled detestation and scorn which was infinitely more impressive, more artistic and more true. In the horrible climax she leaves details of her destroyed hand to the imagination.” _The Critic._

[127] “Her method does not admit even the possibility of pose. In the quietest and most delicate of her scenes Bernhardt always bears traces of her school and its traditions of _autorité_. Duse on the other hand, goes to the most daring lengths in self-effacement. Her stillness is absolute.

“Even what is exaggerated in Italian gesture has in her a sort of anomalous grace, and preserves the richness and geniality of nature.” _The Athenæum_, 1885.

[128] William Archer.

[129] The name was really Crehan. Why was it changed? Perhaps because in its original form it was too baldly Irish. Yet Ada’s two elder sisters had taken to the stage and both appeared with the name O’Neill. Her mother was Harriet O’Neill, her father William Crehan. There were six children, three boys and three girls. The story used to be current that “Crehan” became “Rehan” through an error of printing; that when Ada first appeared in Philadelphia, with Mrs. Drew, she was named on a playbill “Ada C. Rehan”; and that, in view of the favorable newspaper notices given the new actress, Mrs. Drew advised her to retain the name inadvertently given her,--all interesting surely, and perhaps true. Playbills of the Arch Street Theatre (Philadelphia) of 1874, however, give “Ada Crehan.”

[130] The date of her birth has always been given as April 22, 1860. There are reasons for thinking it must have been earlier. It would not be the only instance in which an actress’ age has been reduced by a retroactive manipulation of dates. Her first appearances on the stage were in 1873 and 1874, and by the time she went to Daly, in 1879, she had had an extended experience that would be simply marvelous for a girl of nineteen. Her hair began to turn gray about 1894. Mr. Winter says the streaks of gray came prematurely. Of course, they did, in any event, but thirty-four is an extraordinarily early age for such a phenomenon in an actress. An anecdote, not worth repeating, in the _Boston Record_ for November 24, 1888, is introduced in this way: “Ada Rehan is forty years old and over. She makes up fairly for girlish rôles ... but at close sight in the cold light of day she shows her age.” If worthy of any consideration, this paragraph would place the birthdate before 1850, obviously going to the other extreme. The correct date is undoubtedly 1855, or thereabout. Thus she was about eighteen when, in 1873, she made her first appearance.

[131] The eldest, Kate, “had been a choir singer in Limerick, and while singing at a concert one day in New York was heard by Harvey Dodworth and invited to join the chorus for Lester Wallack’s production of the opera of _Don Cæsar de Bazan_. She accepted, and was also joined by her younger sister Hattie, that being the début of the Crehan family upon the stage.”

[132] Arthur Byron, the actor, is their son. Harriet, the second sister, had a long and comparatively inconspicuous career on the stage as Hattie Russell. Two brothers, William Crehan and Arthur Rehan, were more or less definitely identified, after Ada’s success, with the business side of the theatre.

[133] While in his employ she appeared also in Baltimore.

[134] Garrick’s version of _The Taming of the Shrew_.

[135] In these pre-Daly days Miss Rehan played, besides the Shakespearean parts named, a host of others that it would be tedious and useless to name. Most of them would suggest nothing to a present-day theatregoer. A few that may have some significance are: Esther Eccles in _Caste_, Hebe in _Pinafore_, Lady Florence in _Rosedale_, Lady Sarah in _Queen Elizabeth_, Little Em’ly in _David Copperfield_, Louise in _Frou-Frou_, Marie de Comines in _Louis XI_, Mary Netley in _Ours_, Pauline in _The Lady of Lyons_, Queen of France in _Henry V_, Ursula in _Much Ado About Nothing_, and Virginia in _Virginius_. There were about ninety in all.

[136] On the southwest corner of Thirtieth Street and Broadway.

[137] Arthur Lynch, in _Human Documents_.

[138] Still, in 1888, when the Daly company was playing in Paris, several of its members were interviewed, (seemingly about particularly trivial matters) and Miss Rehan was one of the talkers. She was said to have been pessimistic about the wisdom of marriages among actresses, particularly to actors. This is an ever fresh subject for debate. A writer in the New York _Dramatic Mirror_, September 15, 1888, wrote a column to refute Miss Rehan’s remarks.

[139] “I would go to the theatre any night if only to see him run his fingers over the invisible keys of the sofa cushion.”--“Brunswick” in the _Boston Transcript_.

[140] Mary Young, herself a member of Daly’s Company, in a talk to the Drama League of Boston in 1914, said: “Mr. Daly was a most polite gentleman, with extraordinary eyes of green, as clear and sharp as they were kind and laughing; wonderful, all-seeing eyes!... The strictest discipline reigned everywhere. Every member, with the exception of Miss Rehan, seemed to be in a state of complete terror. Mr. Daly was supreme and held his company of distinguished players with a grip of iron. Rules and regulations were posted everywhere. One or two that I recall were: ‘The way to succeed--mind your own business,’ and ‘How to be happy--keep your mouth shut.’ I was amazed to see some of the extra girls hide behind pieces of scenery rather than face those remarkable eyes that might be cast their way as Mr. Daly was casually passing from one part of the stage to another.... However, to my mind he was a just man, although his temper often caused him to seem to do unjust things.... His heart was kind and he could not treasure up a wrong against any one who had once gained his confidence and respect.”

C. M. S. McLellan, who nowadays writes “books” for operettas, (and who wrote _Leah Kleschna_ for Mrs. Fiske) in 1888 was writing for the New York _Press_ what passed for amusing comment on theatrical matters. His chatter about Mr. Daly and Miss Rehan does a little toward characterizing both: “At the stage door you find a bulldog. Mr. Daly secluded himself in a padded room at the end of a secret passage. He comes down to the dog kennel to freeze all reporters. Editors are invited up to the green room. Henry Irving is supposed to be the only man who ever penetrated to the padded chamber, and he tells the story that while he was there Mr. Daly opened a bottle of claret and smiled. The claret part of the story is generally credited, but unless Mr. Irving is degenerating in his choice of words we think there was some mistake about the smile.

“But if any of us ever had doubts concerning the healthfully hilarious influence exerted by Mr. Daly’s benignity upon a great comedy company we have only to glance at Miss Rehan and be converted. We have had that baby pout of hers in opera and in Shakespeare, that imperious, uplifted nose of hers in Jenny O’Jones and Helena, and as the snows of various cycles descend on the heads of her worshipers the musical purr of the Rehan still sings the third sweet song of seven. And when she smiles, the light of pearls and rubies creeps out and illumines the nooks that the calcium cannot penetrate.

“So why should not Mr. Daly live in a padded room and manage the electric buttons that blush all this youth and divine color across a befogged community? He is entitled to padded rooms, bulldogs and cold hands. If he does nothing for the next forty years but keep the crack of doom out of Rehan’s purr he will have earned the right to be made Sheriff of New York County.”