Actresses -- Great Britain -- Biography; Siddons, Sarah, 1755-1831
After her appearance as Lady Macbeth on February 2nd, she chose to
act Desdemona to her brother’s Othello, and, to everyone’s surprise,
acted it with a tenderness, playfulness, and simplicity hardly to be
expected of the majestic actress, who had terrified her audience by
her representation of the Thane of Cawdor’s wife. Campbell tells us
that even years after, when he saw her play this part at Edinburgh, not
recognising at first who was acting, he was spellbound by her “exquisite
gracefulness,” and thought it impossible “this soft, sweet creature could
be the Siddons,” until by the emotion and applause of the audience he
knew it could be no other.
Unfortunately, in her first representation of this part, she was
carelessly given a damp bed to lie on in the death scene, and caught so
severe a cold as almost to threaten rheumatic fever. From this time her
delicacy seems to date, for we now find her continually complaining and
incapacitated from appearing by ill-health.
After Desdemona she appeared in Rosalind, which we can dismiss with the
criticism of Young, the actor: “Her Rosalind wanted neither playfulness
nor feminine softness, but it was totally without archness—not because
she did not properly conceive it; but how could such a countenance be
arch?” Her dress, too, excited great amusement—“mysterious nondescript
garments.” We have a letter of hers to Hamilton the artist, asking “if
he would be so good as to make her a slight sketch for a boy’s dress to
conceal the person as much as possible.” The woman who was capable of
taking this view of the representation of Rosalind was not capable of
acting the part.
Imogen, Ophelia, Catherine in the _Taming of the Shrew_, and Cordelia,
all acted with her brother, followed in quick succession. This hard work
entitled her to a salary of twenty-four pounds ten shillings weekly,
while her brother drew ten pounds. Not contented with this, however, she
made a tour in the provinces, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, &c.
These country tours were not only fatiguing in consequence of the amount
of travelling to be done, but also in consequence of the unsympathetic
audiences to be faced, and the discomfort of country theatres. The
system, also, of absorbing all the profits of provincial actors made her
very unpopular in the profession. Some ridiculous stories are related of
these tours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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