History of Salt Lake City, Part 97

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194

USA > Utah > Salt Lake County > Salt Lake > History of Salt Lake City > Part 97

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Before the opening of the second season, the veteran actor Mr. T. A. Lyne, had been sent for by his former pupil, Manager Clawson ; and he came to Salt Lake City to take the position as tutor of the company. The following is a brief sketch of his life up to that period :

Thomas Ackley Lyne (who is still living in Salt Lake City) was born at Phila- delphia, in August of the year 1806. His youth and early manhood were spent on the "ocean wave." At the age of twenty-three, he appeared at the Walnut Street Theatre, which was then under the management of Blake & Ingsley. He made his appearance in the popular play of " William Tell," which, in those days, was presented to the public in five acts. His second appearance was at the Park Theatre in the same character under the management of Simpson. He at once

took rank as a leading actor ; so it may be seen from the dramatic record that T. A. Lyne was one of America's great actors over fifty years ago. He was a "star"" before Charlotte Cushman had made any mark in the theatrical world, and he sup- ported that lady in her early days. He also played leading parts to the elder Booth, and the principal characters to Miss Ellen Tree before she became Mrs. Charles Kean. He has had a large share of crossings and disappointments in the precarious profession which claims " to hold the mirror up to nature." On look- ing over the old files as far back as the " Old Warren Theatre," under the man- agement of Wm. Pelby, at Boston, (on the site of the Warren was built the Nat- ional) we find on the third night of its first season Lyne as the Stranger in Kot- zebue's play of that name, and Harry Smith as the Francis. So, more than forty years ago, he was a leading serious actor in the Athens of America. We find him also identified with western theatricals as far back as when Chicago's population was about three thousand and Milwaukee's about half that number. He was man- ager and actor and gave to Chicago in Mr. Ogden's theatre, a wooden building, its first " stars"-Dan Marble and Mrs. Silsby-then imported by steamer from Detroit. We find T. A. Lyne playing among the Saints at Nauvoo. At the open- ing of the Salt Lake Theatre he was brought from Denver at the instance of Brigham Young and installed as dramatic teacher and reader. Thus commenced his professional history in our city.

The second season opened with a grand ball at the theatre, which was now receiving the finishing touches in the interior of the house ; and.T. A. Lyne was

746

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

introduced to the public in a poem composed by him-"Our Country's Flag," which was read by John R. Clawson.

On Christmas night, 1862, the fine play " The Honeymoon " was performed by the stock company, with John T. Caine as Duke Aranza, and Phil. Mar- getts in his inimitable Mock Duke. W. C. Dunbar's " Paddy Miles' Boy," of which he made a rare Irish comic type, followed. "Old Phil's Birthday," one of II. B. Clawson's marked character hits, was repeated on two nights ; as was John T. Caine's " Charcoal Burner. " The " Two Polts" (Margetts and Bow- ring) carried off the palm of the farces.

Then came " Virginius" on the night of the 17th of January, 1863, a crown- ing part, and in the hands of our local company. It is Sheridan Knowles' greatest character part, in which Vandernoff found scope to take the laurels of the play even from Macready ; yet our Bernard Snow played Virginius up to a high mark.

On the nights of the 11th, 14th and 18th of February, 1863, " Damon and Pythias " was played with Lyne as Damon. Mrs. L. Gibson played Calanthe, Mrs. M. G. Clawson Hermion, James Ferguson played Pythias. This occasion was his final appearance on the stage. '

" Pizarro " was performed, for the first time on the Salt Lake stage, on the night of March 4th : John T. Caine, Pizarro; Lyne, Rolla; Joseph F. Sim- mons, Alonzo ; George Teasdale took the part of the High Priest, and Mrs. M. Bowring, Elvira; and for the first time Salt Lake City saw stage business which perhaps was not surpassed that season in any theatre in America. "William Tell," Lyne's favorite, followed, and afterwards the " Stranger, " in which latter play Mrs. Fanny Stenhouse sustained the difficult character of Mrs. Haller.

April Ist, Lyne played Virginius; and again came his great Damon, in which he has been acknowledged to have had no equal in America, excepting Forrest himself. "Pizarro" was repeated, with cast as before, and then the " Merchant of Venice, " (for the first time played here) in which Lyne gave a fine exposition of "the Jew that Shakspeare drew," in which Edmund Kean won the sceptre of the London Stage, after Hazlett, the greatest English critic, had fought the adverse London critics in his cause.

In the third season (the fall and winter of 1863-4) the Irwins reigned. They played the "Lady of Lyons," "Ingomar," " Evadne," "Faint Heart never Won Fair Lady," " Warlock of the Glen," " Ireland as it was," "Chimney Corner," ""' Katharine and Petruchio," " Marble Heart," "Octoroon," " The Hunchback," "Green Bushes," "Othello," "Corsican Brothers," " Jessie Brown," " Still Waters Run Deep," " Idiot Witness," " Angel of Midnight," and " Colleen Bawn." Excepting Othello these were a fresh class of plays here of the second order, giving great scope and variety, and keeping up the dignity of the Salt Lake stage. It will be gratifying to the lovers of the legitimate drama to have recalled this spendid exhibit of the early days. And during these per- formances our home company did excellent work not only in the support, but also in their own comedies and farces. In the "Colleen Bawn" David Mckenzie scored a triumph as Danny Mann, and at once raised himself to an equality with Irwin. As Danny Mann he has never met his match on the Salt Lake stage to this day.

747

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

In the fourth season, (June and July, 1864,) Lyne came on again in Damon, Pizzaro, and William Tell.

Mr. George Pauncefort, an accomplished English actor, with Mrs. Florence Bell, appeared in the city at this period, and during the remainder of the season, alternated his light classics against T. A. Lyne's grander, stately parts of the old school. They made to each other a fine variation, illustrating for their audiences the old legitimate and the new legitimate class of plays. Two better types are rarely to be found heading a stock company, during the same season, in any of the principal cities either of America or England, than those which were presented by Lyne and Pauncefort during the unbroken theatrical period from July, 1864, to January 7th, 1865. Lyne, in the imperial hauteur of the Forrest school, scarcely deigned to notice the introduction of the modern school of classical drama, which clothes its character-casts in the naturalness of society of our own times, as against the grand but stagey portraiture of men and women as they were a century or two ago. There was ever something about Lyne's stately acting that kept the audience in remembrance of the dedication of this Mormon Temple of the drama. It seemed to say to Pauncefort and alike to the audience " take off thy shoes for the place whereon thou standeth is holy ground." In Pizzaro and Damon, this was eminently so. He was a martinet over the dignity, virtue and proprieties of the stage, which told you proudly of the days when he played with the chaste and irreproachable Ellen Tree. So strict was he that in his character of the " Stran- ger," he " cut out " the hintings of reconciliation between him and his erring but repentant wife (Mrs. Haller), for which the emotional meeting of the parents and their children is introduced to extort forgiveness from society in its passion of tears, usually produced by the affecting closing scene. T. A. Lyne indeed, above all the actors that have played on the stage (Couldock alone excepted) has come up to the mark given by President Wells in his solemn dedication of the house on the opening night.

George Pauncefort breathed upon the Salt Lake stage a lighter atmosphere. The somewhat Puritanic spirit which had hitherto prevailed in our theatre was dis- pelled, without a shock to the families of apostles, bishops and elders who filled the parquette, for the plays now introduced were still chaste, though of a lighter order.

The English actor opened with " The Romance of a Poor Young Man," in which he wrought out one of the most accomplished and natural works of dram- atic art. Lyne followed on the next night of the theatre in the "Merchant of Venice." Pauncefort came again with his " Romance ;" then in his rare person- ation of William in " Black-eyed Susan." His " Hamlet," (played here for the first time), was not unworthy of Barry Sullivan himself; and his "Don Cæsar De Bazan," we think, surpassed even the Don Cæsar of that most classical Irish actor whom Liverpool challenged against all England. Charles Matthew's favorite high comedy character, " Used up" was a congenial part, and the " Corsican Broth- ers," sustained by David McKenzie, was rendered by Pauncefort in a style excel- lent in the eyes of those who had seen Charles Kean in the part. " The Duke's Motto" came next and this actor's first engagement closed with "Don Cæsar De Bazan."

T48

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

The stock company then held the stage alone for a while, and here may be introduced a review of the first critic of the Salt Lake Theatre-Alpha,* to mark the status of our stock company as they appeared to him in the freshness of daily memory.

" The development of the dramatic art in our midst forms a page of social and popular progress. It could be predicted, a priori, that by its side would spring up musical and literary movements, and in their wake popular movements of every kind would follow.

" When that national theatre of the Mormons first lifted its stately form, as a fact in the social and intellectual unfolding of this people, we said, ' There is a gigantic prophecy materialized to the senses.' The house was large in its external, and magnificent in its internal. So much the better ; for it prophesied the louder, and the people understood its vernacular tongue better than they could its meta- physical speech. It prophesied of popular progress, the birth of the arts and the establishment of the professions. Figuratively speaking, that magnificent theatre of ours was an organ of the people, published for them by President Young. There they select their own favorites ; there they express their own taste ; there they applaud that which they think deserving. The theatre was not a religious house, but a secular public institution-a temple of art ; and art is universalian. Be an audience as varied in their religions and politics as Joseph's coat of many colors ; and, if they possess a cultivated taste, they will express a common ad- miration and pleasure. You shall see a gentile house make a Mormon artist the favorite, and a Mormon public flock to witness good professional performances. The meaning of appearing before the public in the arena of art the management soon appreciated. Much attention and cost were lavished in putting the plays upon the stage, graced with exquisite pictorial illustrations and scenic splendor, for this, with an immense command of means and facilities, was much easier to the management than to fill parts with first class artists. Indeed theatricals, even in our professional-looking house, started with a purely amateur corps, with Mr. John T. Came as its leading member. This gentleman has since given up first parts to Mr. Mckenzie and professional actors, and has made himself very efficient in the more dignified character of manager, playing in the company less to star in a part than for the general effectiveness of the whole. This is a mark of good judgment and correct self-appreciation, for in the long run he would be certain to find many to eclipse his glory, especially after our theatrical heavens shall have been be- spangled with professional stars; he always could hold a first position in the man- agement and not lose caste in the body of a play. Great heaven, how often do even leading men with abilities to rule a nation, and capacity to legislate for an empire put themselves in parts in life where a common laborer could overmatch them, and your veriest vagabond that travels with a show eclipse their glory. All the crowned heads of Europe could not have furnished in their own persons, a company of actors to tread the boards by the side of the dramatic corps of old Richardson's Booth ; nor have shone as stars in the same firmament with those luminaries who perchance first shot out to public gaze in a ' penny gaff' or a coun- try barn. They have been your Edmund Keans !

*E. W. Tullidge.

749

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

" While it would be too partial to say the management has committed no errors, it may without reserve be affirmed that it has displayed on the whole ex- cellent judgment, and not only has the most effectual caste been designed, but the most fitting and laborious members of the association have won the best parts and leading characters. The members of the association stand to-day classified and ranked pretty much in the places where their own talents, study and industry have marked out for them. Once fairly won upon the public stage of art, in any of its branches, and all will most certainly find their level. It is when they cannot reach the public in the fitting place to appeal to the public judgment, that the possessors of excellent gifts and fine artistic finish do not take their proper place. There is nothing in the world more severely just and omnipotent than the public judgment pronouncing itself upon the artist upon the stage, either in opera or the plain drama. The public everywhere choose their own favorites, and managers everywhere accept them. The reasons are too clear to need a pointing out.

" The members of our Deseret Dramatic Association have had the chance of taking their own places and finding their level. £ Let those who think differently take for an example David McKenzie. Now, among regular professionals of the East where the numerous dramatic corps are found organized with much complete- ness and classified with the nicety of managers studying profoundly the condition of their exchequers, we own that it requires much perseverance, artistic training and slow progress, besides natural talent for actors and actresses to find their level. Why, not even by their equals may your Garricks, your Kembles, your Siddonses, your Keans, your Macreadys and your Forrests be displaced. Could their doubles come they would have to wait until their originals were dead before they could find their level and take their places. But, it is very different with our Deseret Dramatic Association, when all were as on probationary examinations before the public, to have pointed out their proper places and receive their diplomas and their due degrees. For instance, it is most evident that had any of the lady can- didates proved equal to fill principal places, not even yet filled, ample opportun- ities have been offered. Indeed the management have necessarily somewhat tres- passed upon the consideration of the public in their good natured trials of lady amateurs. These facts should at once be significant hints aud encouragement to aspiring members of our dramatic association, and they should remember that in every profession much labor and training, as well as talent, are necessary for ex- cellence and eminence.

" Since their debut in our theatre the association has made much improve- ment, and some of its members have written their marks and stamped their indi- vidualities. Our comicalities of the company were the first to classify themselves, and Margetts, Dunbar and others, became decided portraits and distinctive cari- catures. The professional element has also been introduced, and moreover, even the association itself has put on somewhat of a professional character and show features of the professional face. Doubtless this mixing of our home talent with trained and legitimate artists has tended much to the training and accomplishments of our amateur corps, and created both for the theatre and the company, a pro- fessional character. In time both will assume a professional caste, and its amateur

750

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

type be only remembered as forming the first pages in the history of theatricals in Utah.

" The professional element having been once introduced in the persons of Mr. Lyne and the Irwins it was not enough that the plays should be put upon the stage in that solid magnificence and pictorial illustration which has so delighted everybody, but the public looked to see the dramatic corps show the features and style of the profession. It was a mixed house in the first place, and in the second, theatricals here are commercially the same as everywhere else, and the public had paid for admission to a first class looking theatre ; what wonder then that it should almost ignore the fact that an amateur company were on the boards. The management has had to nicely calculate this and make both the theatre and the company as professional in their character as possible. This has been partly ef- fected by the mixing of foreign artistes with home talent, and partly by the style and completeness with which the plays have been put upon the boards.

" Even the most good-natured in a ward meeting become most unmerci- fully critical and sourly inconsiderate in a theatre-aye, even to our very bishops; for the public are in a secular house for artistic exhibition and not in a tabernacle or religious temple. Not even is justice done an amateur corps, and we never ex- pect to be so generally censured for critical severity as we were by the public for too much praise and considerate wording of our criticisms last year. We have a painful sympathy for the writers of the theatrical notices and descriptions found in

the Deseret News and Daily Telegraph. The public ranks them, as of course it will ours, frightfully below the mark ; and doubtless the dramatic association puts them twenty degrees lower still. There is nothing that concerns any one except- ing praise; and that soon gets stale and meaningless, and it would be quite a re- lief to the members to have the public view. It would preserve them from ennui. 'There are only one or two occasionally for whom they possess interest. Sister Marion when her 'cadence' is touched of course is interested, and Brother Hardie who was rather stiltish upon the stage in his first appearance, is also doubtless a good natured subject to offer upon the altar. But great Jupiter, and all the other heathen gods, why select Sister Marion when this same defect of cadence and modulation is one of the most noticeable defects of the association generally.

" The most marked individuality yet offered by the association from its own corps is Mr. David Mckenzie. This gentleman is by natural instincts an artist. In the public judgment he took the laurels from Mr. Irwin, a professional actor, and obtained first parts for himself. Mr. Lyne is an actor of the old school, of great experience and no mean standing. In fact in his role he is a power upon the stage in Salt Lake City, yet Mr. Mckenzie held his ground with him in ' Damon and Pythias.' The most striking personality, however, and the most refined and finished artist that has yet appeared before the theatrical world in Utah, is Geo. Pauncefort."

Lyne opened another engagement in the famous old English play of Massin- ger-"A New Way to Pay Old Debts." Nothwithstanding Lyne's preference for his Damon and William Tell, his Sir Giles Overreach was a superior character ex- ecution to that of either. It was one of those characters to which he was organ- ically fitted. It is of a higher class than either Damon or William Tell. Edmund

751

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

Kean laid Sir Giles Overreach along side of his Richard III. and Shylock, but it is doubtful if he would have condescended to Damon or William Tell. Lyne's Richelieu and Richard III. followed, and scored his greatest dramatic marks.

Pauncefort alternated with him in " Don Cæsar de Bazan ; " " Black-Eyed Susan ;" " The Duke's Motto ;" "Hamlet ;" "Belphegor, the Mountebank ; " and, on January 5th, 1865, he played Macbeth. Locke's music to " Macbeth " was rendered in character by the Tabernacle choir. Phil. Margetts, H. E. Bowring and Wm. C. Dunbar took the parts of the three weird sisters, who lead the witches in their demoniac music, and George Teasdale, as Hecate, led the theme, "We fly by night."

The stock company again held the stage. They were now capable of execut. ing star plays of the second class. Their casts for the season were: "Colleen Bawn," " Rob Roy," " The Octoroon." "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "The Rag-Picker of Paris," and other plays of a similar class, with some good comedies and " roar- ing farces." David McKenzie also played Macbeth ; which was the second time of the performance of Shakspeare's greatest play on the Salt Lake Stage. Mrs. Gibson was Lady Macbeth, the character which she had sustained to Pauncefort's Macbeth. Lyne came in one night of the season as Sir Edward Mortimer in the "Iron Chest ;" and Mckenzie, having scored a triumph in the character, repeated Macbeth. The stock company held the stage from January 14th to to August 11th, excepting one night with Lyne and three nights with Mr. and Mrs. George Chapman. This was a splendid achievement of the stock in contin- uing the season, playing to full houses, with Lyne and Pauncefort fresh in the public mind.

But it was the coming of Julia Dean Hayne, in the Potter troupe, that gave professional caste to the Salt Lake company, for, though she ran her first engage- ment in the Potter troupe, she was so charmed with the feeling of restfulness which came over the painful tumult of her life, that she sought, as it were, sanctuary in the dramatic temple of the Mormon people. Her professional opportunities in Salt Lake City were rare ; her salary $300 a week ; her frequent benefits golden harvests; but it was her pleasant associations on the Salt Lake stage, and in the private circles with the actors and their families, that induced Julia Dean to tarry in Salt Lake City nearly two years, and to condescend to take the sceptre of a local company of Mormon amateur actors and actresses.

Julia Dean Hayne had gone to California in the flower of her youth, but ere she left the east she was famous as Julia Dean, and when, two years after her arrival in Salt Lake City, she returned to New York, it was as Julia Dean that she figured on the play bills in her initial engagement at Winter Gardens Theatre, once famous as Edwin Booth's Theatre. In her maiden days she made her debut in the Old Bowery, New York, in Julia, in the " Hunchback, " and before she came West she had won national fame. But for the matchless dramatic power of Charlotte Cushman, the Siddons of America, Julia Dean would unhesitatingly have been pronounced by the American public the queen of the American stage. As it was, Mr. S. R. Wells in his famous book -- New Physiology-which embodies the types of characters of every class, engraved the likeness of Julia Dean in his group of the greatest actors and actresses that had sprung from the Anglo-Saxon

752

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

race, up to the time of his writing, ranking her in the group with Garrick, John Kemble, Edmund Kean, Junius Brutus Booth, Edwin Forrest, Sarah Siddons, Charlotte Cushman and Mrs. Mowatt Ritchie. After an absence of a number of years in the west, she was returning to the east in the maturity of her woman - hood, to take the sceptre of the American stage left by Charlotte Cushman, who bad entered another life, and which at the time she started from California, the theatrical profession east and west deemed would be fitly swayed in the hand of Julia Dean. There could still be seen, and seen perhaps to this day, in the club houses where actors' resort, the likeness of Julia Dean in costume in her charac- ters played in New York in her maiden days. Perhaps she lost her opportunity in the east, before the advent of Ristori and Mrs. Landor as Queen Elizabeth, by tarrying in Salt Lake City in the autumn of 1865, instead of proceeding at once to New York. But the Salt Lake company paid quick and heartfelt homage to her as their queen, the Salt Lake public worshipped her in their dramatic temple ; and, being a woman of deep feeling, her heart was touched, and in love she took the throne of the Salt Lake stage, where she reigned with peace and comfort.

Julia Dean Hayne made her debut in Salt Lake City in the Potter troupe, on the night of the 11th of August, 1865, in the play of " Camille. " On the 12th she played Mrs. Haller and the Jealous Wife; these were immediately followed with her Griseldis, Julia, in the "Hunchback, " "Leah the Forsaken," " Fazio, " "Katherine and Petruchio, " "Love, " "Romeo and Juliet, " " Women in White, " "East Lynne" and " Camille, " at which we pause for review.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Salt Lake City, Part 97

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company Number of Pages: 1194

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194