[64] Her first appearance in New York was in _Adrienne Lecouvreur_.
The other plays of that season and the one following were _Romeo
and Juliet_; _Camille_; _Frou-Frou_; _Peg Woffington_ (in which she
failed); and _East Lynne_ (which she heartily disliked).
_Adrienne Lecouvreur_, _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Camille_ were for many
years retained in her repertoire. Her appearances in other plays
were as follows: _Heartsease_ (adaptation of _Camille_), London,
1880; _Marie Stuart_, London, 1880; _Juana_, (a failure, by W. G.
Wills), London, 1881; _A Doll’s House_, Warsaw, 1882; _Odette_,
London, 1882; _As You Like It_ and _Twelfth Night_, New York, 1882;
_Nadjezda_ (by Maurice Barrymore), 1884; _Two Gentlemen of Verona_,
_Cymbeline_, and _Prince Zillah_, season of 1885–6; _Les Chouans_,
_Measure for Measure_, _Dona Diana_, and _Daniela_, 1886; with Edwin
Booth, _Hamlet_, _Much Ado about Nothing_, _Macbeth_, _Merchant of
Venice_, and _Richelieu_, 1889; _Countess Roudine_ (by Paul Kester
and Minnie Maddern Fiske), and _Henry VIII_, 1892; _The Tragic Mask_,
1893; _Magda_, 1894; _Mistress Betty Singleton_ (by Clyde Fitch),
1895; _Antony and Cleopatra_, 1898; _The Ladies’ Battle_, 1900; _Marie
Antoinette_ (by Clinton Stuart) and _King John_, 1900. In a letter
furnishing some of the above dates, Modjeska’s husband, who died in
Cracow, in March, 1914, wrote from Rzegocin, Posen, July 10, 1913:
“_The Tragic Mask_ was written by Mr. E. Reynolds. It was an original
play, somewhat deficient in construction; but the dialogue was very
clever. _Daniela_ was a translation from a German play by Phillippi.
The translators were Hamilton Bell and Moritz von Sachs. As to _Les
Chouans_: This was an adaptation of Balzac’s novel of the same title,
made in French by the well-known actor and dramatist, Pierre Berton,
and translated by Paul Potter.
“In addition to the abovesaid repertoire it must be mentioned that
Madame Modjeska played _A Doll’s House_ not only in Poland, but also
in America, in Louisville, in the season of 1883–1884. This was, to my
knowledge, the first production of Ibsen on an English-speaking stage.
Though the part of Nora was considered in Poland, I think rightly, one
of Modjeska’s best ones, _A Doll’s House_ did not appeal then to the
American public. According to local critics, and especially to Henry
Watterson, the audiences were not yet ripe for Ibsen.
“Besides the plays you enumerated, Mme. Modjeska appeared yet in a few
others on special occasions. Thus, in the spring of 1884, in Cincinnati
at a dramatic festival, she played Desdemona to Tom Keene’s Othello.
In 1905 in Los Angeles, she took part in a charitable performance and
played Hermione in _The Winter’s Tale_, and in the summer of 1907
appeared equally for charity in a little French comedy entitled _The
Spark_. To be complete, I must yet mention a short proverb by Hamilton
Aide, produced in London in a reception for the Prince of Wales in
1883, the name of which has escaped my memory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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