The Story of My Life: Recollections and ReflectionsTerry, Ellen
General
The Story of My Life: Recollections and Reflections
Terry, Ellen
Actresses -- Great Britain -- Biography; Terry, Ellen, Dame, 1847-1928
This was one of the least successful of Henry's Shakespearean
productions. Terriss looked all wrong as Orsino; many other people were
miscast. Henry said to me a few years later when he thought of doing
"The Tempest," "I can't do it without three great comedians. I ought
never to have attempted 'Twelfth Night' without them."
I don't think that I played Viola nearly as well as my sister Kate. Her
"I am the man" was very delicate and charming. I overdid that. My
daughter says: "Well, you were far better than any Viola that I have
seen since, but you were too simple to make a great hit in it. I think
that if you had played Rosalind the public would have thought you too
simple in that. Somehow people expect these parts to be acted in a
'principal boy' fashion, with sparkle and animation."
We had the curious experience of being "booed" on the first night. It
was not a comedy audience, and I think the rollickings of Toby Belch and
his fellows were thought "low." Then people were put out by Henry's
attempt to reserve the pit. He thought that the public wanted it. When
he found that it was against their wishes he immediately gave in. His
pride was the service of the public.
His speech after the hostile reception of "Twelfth Night" was the only
mistake that I ever knew him make. He was furious, and showed it.
Instead of accepting the verdict, he trounced the first-night audience
for giving it. He simply could not understand it!
My old friend Rose Leclercq, who was in Charles Kean's company at the
Princess's when I made my first appearance upon the stage, joined the
Lyceum company to play Olivia. Strangely enough she had lost the touch
for the kind of part. She, who had made one of her early successes as
the spirit of Astarte in "Manfred," was known to a later generation of
playgoers as the aristocratic dowager of stately presence and incisive
repartee. Her son, Fuller Mellish, was also in the cast as Curio, and
when we played "Twelfth Night" in America was promoted to the part of
Sebastian, my double. In London my brother Fred played it. Directly he
walked on to the stage, looking as like me as possible, yet a _man_ all
over, he was a success. I don't think that I have ever seen anything so
unmistakable and instantaneous.
In America "Twelfth Night" was liked far better than in London, but I
never liked it. I thought our production dull, lumpy and heavy. Henry's
Malvolio was fine and dignified, but not good for the play, and I never
could help associating my Viola with physical pain. On the first night I
had a bad thumb--I thought it was a whitlow--and had to carry my arm in
a sling. It grew worse every night, and I felt so sick and faint from
pain that I played most of my scenes sitting in a chair. One night Dr.
Stoker, Bram Stoker's brother, came round between the scenes, and, after
looking at my thumb, said:
"Oh, that'll be all right. I'll cut it for you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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