The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-09-09

IT HE following extracts are from the
article by William Winter. the dean
of American dramatic critics, in the
Saturday Eevenlng Post:
The stage life of Mary Anderson was
comparatively brief ds75-1ss9). but 1t was
brilliant with achievement, and. in its
honesty, sincerity, simplicity, radical
worth and beneheent influence. It was
beautiful. AS I recall it, through a mist
of years, It seems, in memory, a pleasant
dream. for about the thought of 1t there
is an atmosphere If gentle lovliness, af-
fecting the mind like strain of music
heard at a distance on a moonlit summer
sea. It was not all tranquility; It had its
clouds of care-"the very source and
fount of day" as the poet Tennyson has
told US. is dashed with wandering isles
of night''-but 1t was right in motive, it
was free from contention, 1t was devoid
of reproach, it was guided and governed
by noble ambition and its results were.
good. The remembrance of such career
naturally expresses itself in poetic
imagery.
Mary Anderson made her first appear
ance on the stage when she was only
sixteen year old, at Barney Macauley's
theatre in Louisville, KY, November %,
1875. She came out as Juliet. l did not see
that performance but my old friend
George F. Fuller, artist and theatrical
manager Che died July 4, 1905, aged eighty
hVe), who was present, told me that, not
withstanding the crudity inseperable from
youth and inexperience, 1t was per-
Torrance of extraordinary force, feeling
and nrorniqa IT'S I1aran1Oupf haa11tV he
said, was Its vocalism. Miss Anderson
voice, indeed, was always her predomin-
ant charm; certain tones in it-so thrill
ing. SO full of wild passion and inexpres-
sible acknowledgement straight to the
heart and brought tears into the eyes.
The voice is the exponent of the soul.
You can paint your face; you can pad
your person; you can wear a wig; you
can walk in shoes that augment your
height; you can in various ways, change
your body; but your voice will, sooner or
later, reveal you as you are. Just as the
styles of the writer's discloses his char
acter so the quality of the voice discloses
the actors nature. 1t seems unlikely that
Miss Anderson's melting tones were ut
tered in any of her girlish impartments;
but the copious, lovely voice was there,
and 1t gained her first victory
The time had not yet come when she
could actually and absolutely embody
that part was decisive and unequivocal.
The most romantic and passionate Juliet
Of our epoch was that of Adelaide Nelson;
the most essentially womanlike and SPLEEN
didly tragical Juliet that our stage has
known within the last fifty years was
that of Mary Anderson. No other actress
ever spoke as she did the AFFECT, pit
eous, despairing question, in which
Juliets whole being is expressed:
Is there no pity sitting in the clouds
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
1t always seemed to me that Miss An
derson was exceptionally fortunate in the
splendid amplitude and freedom of her
style Most actors are constrained to
give scrupulous attention to artistic me-
thod In acting. Some of them, in recent
years, have favored the reading public
with treatises on that subject embodying
precepts and rules. Miss Anderson was
unfettered. had the good fortune to see
and study every one of her embodments
She acted, during her thirteen years on
the stage, Parthenia. in "Ingomar:''
Banaca, in ''Fazio;" Julia in ''The
Hunchbaek;" Pauline in The Lady of
Lyons Evadne. in the play of that
name Berthe, in HRoland's Daughter"
the Duchess of Torrenueva, In GIANT
Heart Never Won Fair Lady" Galatea,