I have always had an objection to ladies personating Romeo, but I
waived that feeling in favor of Miss Cushman. Her personation of Romeo
was beautiful and even pathetic. The passionate grief of young
Montague in the third act was subdued by a tearful pathos. Nothing
could surpass her reading of the character: it was a triumph, and in a
word it would be difficult to conceive anything more grand than this
impersonation. It is difficult to conceive a character more highly
dramatic or more impassioned than that of Lady Macbeth. The conflicts,
emotions, and power of the ambitious queen were portrayed with a
truth, a grandeur of effect, unequalled since by any actress. Miss
Cushman's impersonation of Meg Merriles was one of the finest
illustrations of originality the stage ever witnessed. There was no
effort to resemble the character. She entered the stage the character
itself, transposed into the situation, excited by hope and fear,
breathing the life and the spirit of the being she represented. In my
opinion, when Charlotte Cushman died, so did Meg Merriles, and it will
be many a day before the old gipsy queen will produce that
indescribable effect upon an audience, as in the days of Cushman. At
the Boston Theatre, June 2, 1858, Miss Cushman as Romeo, her farewell
to the stage. At the same theatre, in 1860, another farewell, Miss
Cushman as Romeo, who with the aid of Mrs. Barrow as Juliet, John
Gilbert as Friar Laurence, and Mrs. John Gilbert as the nurse, made up
a very strong cast. Here, at the Howard Athenaeum in 1861, then under
the management of that talented actor (who, by the way, was the best
Hamlet I ever saw,) Edgar L. Davenport, Miss Cushman was announced
April 11, 1861, positively her last night in Boston, when Romeo and
Juliet was given with a remarkable cast. E. L. Davenport was the
Mercutio, John Gilbert the Friar, John McCullough, Tybalt, Frank
Hardenbergh, Prince Esculus, Dan Setchell, Peter, W. J. Le Moyne,
Capulet, Miss Josephine Orton (a very brilliant actress, and now the
wife of Benj. E. Woolf, of the _Saturday Evening Gazette_), Juliet,
Mrs. John Gilbert as the nurse (she had no superior in this role), and
Charlotte Cushman as Romeo, truly a fine array of talent, all of whom
have passed away with the exception of Miss Orton and Mr. Le Moyne.
This was Miss Cushman's last performance of Romeo in Boston. In the
spring of 1875, Miss Cushman played another farewell engagement, which
proved in truth a reality. It was at the Globe Theatre, and Saturday,
May 15, 1875, was announced as Miss Cushman's farewell to the stage.
Macbeth was the play, with Miss Cushman as Lady Macbeth. As an event
worth remembering, I give the complete cast:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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