The Contributions of Women to the American TheatreUniversity of Wisconsin--Madison, 1928 - 300 pages |
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acting actor Ada Rehan Adrienne American actresses American stage American Theatre artist audience beautiful Belasco Bernhardt brilliant character Charles Wingate Charlotte Cushman clever comedy Constance D'Arcy Mackay Duse Eleanor Gates Ellen Terry emotion Eva Le Gallienne eyes fascinating feeling Fiske Footlights and Spotlights gave genius heart Helen Henry Austin Clapp human Ibid ideal Imogen inspiration interpretation Jessie Bonstelle Julia Marlow Katharine Cornell Lady Macbeth level of appreciation Little Theatre movement lived Margaret Anglin Mary Caroline Crawford Maude Adams Miss Modjeska nature never noble Norman Hapgood Otis Skinner passion Pauline Lord Phèdre played Juliet Players playwrights poetic drama produced Rachel Crothers Romance Rosalind Sarah Shakespeare's Heroines Shakesperian showed soul spirit Stage in America Stage of Today started a school success suggestion tender Theatre Arts Monthly things thrilling tion tragedy Treasure Box Viola voice Wallet Walter Prichard Eaton William Winter woman womanhood women writes York Zona Gale
Popular passages
Page 47 - The grace of action — the adapted mien Faithful as nature to the varied scene ; The expressive glance— whose subtle comment draws Entranced attention and a mute applause; Gesture that marks, with force and feeling fraught, A sense in silence, and a will in thought ; Harmonious speech, whose pure and liquid tone Gives verse a music scarce confessed its own...
Page 79 - The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face.
Page 13 - Nothing I have ever seen surpassed this picture of a soul torn by the conflicts of incestuous passion and struggling conscience ; the unutterable mournfulness of her look and tone as she recognized the guilt of her desires, yet felt herself so possessed by them that escape was impossible, are things never to be forgotten. What a picture she was as she entered ! You felt that she was wasting away under the fire within, that she was standing on the verge of the grave with pallid face, hot eyes, emaciated...
Page 51 - It seems to me that I am leaving not only friends, but happiness itself; that the skies can never again be as bright as they have been to me here, nor flowers bloom, nor music sound any more.
Page 13 - Scorn, triumph, rage, lust and merciless malignity she could represent in symbols of irresistible power; but she had little tenderness, no womanly caressing softness, no gaiety, no heartiness. She was so graceful and so powerful that her air of dignity was incomparable; but somehow you always felt in her presence an indefinable suggestion of latent wickedness.
Page 52 - Tis but one cast away, And so — come death. the low, thrilling cadences filled the house with such mournful music, such despairing sweetness as were never heard there. The effect upon the audience was almost miraculous, for a stillness fell upon it broken only by some sobbing women in the boxes, who, in the next moment, were startled from their delicious tears by the actress's sudden change to the most jubilant laughter, evoked by her triumphant fooling of her lover.
Page 12 - ... ugly, with a narrow chest, an insignificant appearance, and common speech. Do not ask her who Tancrede, Horace, Hermione are, or about the Trojan war, or Pyrrhus, or Helen. She knows nothing ; but she has that which is better than knowledge. She has that sudden...
Page 24 - ... mind that make human nature sublime. To express the highest passion of which humanity is capable, and to express it as tempered by purity and nobility, is to accomplish the utmost that genius can reach. There are other and different peaks ; but there is no higher one than that. Remembrance, dwelling on the method by which the actress sustained herself at that height, recalls that her intonation, gesture, movement, and play of countenance were spontaneous ; that even her garments, devised and...
Page 3 - Craig sees the need of restoring the theatre to its rightful heritage. The function of the theatre, as he comprehends it, is not to present the superficial semblances of life, but the soul of life ; not Naturalism, but suggestion ; not representation, but interpretation ; not dialogue, but action ; not scenery, but atmosphere ; not ideas, but visions. There has been too much pamphleteering in the theatre, too much " pottering and peddling of psychology.
Page 79 - ... terror, or thrill with the tenderness of their soul-subduing gaze; a voice, deep, clear, resonant, flexible, that can range over the wide compass of emotion and carry its meaning in varying music to every ear and every heart; intellect to shape the purposes and control the means of mimetic art; deep knowledge of human nature; delicate intuitions; the skill to listen as well as the art to speak; imagination to grasp the ideal of a character in all its conditions of experience; the instinct of...