History of Salt Lake City, Part 98

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

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Mrs. Hayne's personation of the character of Camille most affected the theatre-going public of our city. The extraordinary emotion which she put into the part, her perfect imitation of the consumptive cough and the actual consump- tive condition which she threw herself into, it is said so affected by sympathy the constitution of Mrs. Gibson, who had reigned on the stage before Julia Dean Hayne came, that it hastened her decline to the grave; thus exquisitely do the children of genius feel the crossings of human life and enter by sympathy into all the emotions of the human heart. Julia Dean dared not play often the class of parts to which Camille belongs, as they always made her sick, and in six months, repeated every night, the intensities of the part would have taken her also to the grave. Upon her performance of this phy, " Alpha, " who was still the critic of the Salt Lake Theatre, wrote :

"SEPTEMBER 1, 1865.

" Editor Telegraph :

" I said, in a former communication, that an engagement robbed me of the privilege of seeing Mrs. Julia Dean Hayne in her great character of "Camille. "

" Last night I saw " Camille." It was indeed a painful illusion of individu- ality. No person sensible to the subtle sympathies of nature, which communicate feeling from soul to soul, and no one acquainted with the realities of society, but what must have felt that in her very self Camille had come to live, to agonize and die before us. It is true our knowledge, in disregarded undertone, said, it is Mrs. Julia Dean Hayne playing a part on the mimic stage, but the logic of feelings, in its strong emphasis, drowned that undertone of our knowledge and said it is Camille.

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" Fictions ! What are they ? All that we read in books or see upon the stage which the superficial call so much made up lie? No, no ; these are not fictions. Often times in books and upon the stage, we are made to see and feel realities, more than in real life we see and feel them. We meet them in life, but in the buz- zing of the busy world around us, and in the crowd of our own concerns, we are not struck by them in their marked individualisms, nor affected with their experi- ence and their lives. In the practical world, we almost exclusively feel ourselves and our own concerns. Enough, most times are these, to fill our daily page; but in the books and at the theatre, we lay aside ourselves awhile, to see the personal- ities that move around us daily. We live with them in communion there, feel their joys and sorrows, and sympathize in their experience.

" The stage is a great humanizer and a powerful preacher, when properly ful- filling its mission. We are in communion with humanity through it, and callous must be the nature that feels not the brotherhood and sisterhood of mankind, and depraved indeed when it answers not to a noble sentiment, justifies the good and condemns the wrong. Very few are wicked or unjust in their sympathies with a play. The seducer likes not his own character there, the iron-hearted are sensible to more of nature's tenderness, society asks forgiveness of its victims, and weeps for them. It may be somewhat heterodox in expression, but true in fact, that the world is more human, -- sometimes more divine in the theatre, than at the church.

" Camille is no fiction ; and because she is not, she is so affecting. How much sympathy and tears society will give her at the theatre, when it will outcast her in life, and denounce her from the pulpit. She is, on the stage, society's victim, and there we are just enough to own it, and tender enough to weep for her. What a painful lesson does she teach ? It is that the best of human beings often are fallen, and the divinest of God's creatures are sometimes clothed in sin's scarlet robe, when the white one belongs to them. The history, beautiful nature and sad fate of Camille, is too painfully that of thousands of her class. Some of the best of womankind by nature, in some respects, are among them, fallen.

" Camille comes upon the stage to show us the two phases of her character and history, one of which she shows not in every-day life. She has there to conceal it and coquette with a tortured soul and commit her daily suicide, with a hopeful recklessness to reach the end. She comes that society may see its victims, and in her history and sufferings drink deep of reproaches against itself.

" Not only is Camille herself no fiction, but Mrs. Dean Hayne's personation of her, was also no fiction. Of all that she has represented before us, I think this her most perfect character. She made it so replete with consummate touches of na- ture and art, that it would be difficult to conceive anything more perfect.

" The whole company played Camille well. Mrs. Leslie and Miss Douglass are always satisfactory. They have much public favor and several of the gentle- men nightly win upon us. Mr. Mortimer was very good last night. He always is efficient in the company and plays naturally. Mr. Potter is an experienced actor and well suits the parts he takes ; Mr. Leslie and the rest, though not aspiring to be stars, make up, as far as their number, an efficient stock company of profes- sionals. As for Mr. George B. Waldron, I like him better than at first. He is a very promising young man, a careful artist, and what is so necessary to success,

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shows much ambition and enthusiasm in his profession. A softening of a few features and a copy of a few of the examples that he always has in the lady he sus- tains, and Mr. Waldron may hope from his natural abilities to win a high esteem in public favor."

After her second performance of Camille, Mrs. Hayne played " Medea ; " "The Love Chase ; " " Lucretia Borgia ; ' Lady Macbeth; " School for Scan- dal ; " Parthenia, in " Ingomar ; " "Our American Cousin ; " "The Wife ; " " Lady of Lyons ; " " Masks and Faces; " " The Wife's Secret ; "Evadne ; " " The Fatal Mask ; " Portia; Gamea, and other plays of a similar class ; and, strange to say, "Aladdin," during the new year holidays of 1866. She next ap- peared in " Eleanor De Vere," written for her by Edward W. Tullidge, who had won her friendship by his theatrical reviews of her many superb parts, every one of which in her hands were works of the highest dramatic art. In this respect of art work Julia Dean Hayne had, perhaps, no equal, cither in America or England -certainly no superior. Ristori and several others may have surpassed her in genius, but everywhere her exquisite art execution was accounted near perfection ; grace was in all her motions ; she wrote poems in her pictures on the stage, and her imperial presence commanded universal homage.

Manager Caine visited the Eastern States, to recuperate his health and take professional points to place the Salt Lake Theatre on the highest grade of manage- ment. Learning of this intention, our influential citizens, both Gentiles and Mor- mon, united to give Manager Caine a grand testimonial benefit. During the sea- son a similar testimonial had been given Julia Dean Hayne, but this was the first benefit ever given to a member of the Deseret Dramatic Association. It was known that President Young was not favorable to the introduction of the benefit system among the home company, he looking upon " his " theatre very much as a dra- matic Tabernacle, and the giving of a testimonial benefit to the manager was, in his sense, very much like the public extending to himself a testimonial benefit, as the builder of the theatre and the president of the Deseret Dramatic Society. We believe he would very much have preferred to have given Manager Caine a hand- somer benefit out of his private purse, but the public generally had resolved to ex- press its own sincere appreciation of the manager's work, and the President, with his fine diplomatic tact in dealing with a strongly expressed will or pleasure of the public, graciously yielded the point. This is the history of the beginning of benefits in the Salt Lake Theatre.

Immediately thereupon the Salt Lake Daily Telegraph announced

" The original historical play of 'Eleanor De Vere,' written for Julia Dean Hayne, by Mr. E. W. Tullidge, of this city, has been chosen by the management for the complimentary benefit of Mr. John T. Caine."

The night of the performance was on February 5th, 1866. It was said that Julia Dean Hayne made her greatest triumph in Salt Lake City on that night. The applause was great and very prolonged ; the audience clamoring for the ac- tress, the author and the manager, who with his sensitive judgment pressed the first honors of the call on the former ; and, on a renewed insistence for his appearance closed with the following speech, which in itself is quite a suggestive passage of our dramatic history :

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" Ladies and gentlemen .- I am highly gratified with the compliment which your presence here this evening confers upon me, and feel more the deep sense of my obligation than I am able to express ; there is no human nature insen- sible so a compliment of this kind ; there is no human nature that is insensible to expressions of personal regard. If I am permitted to judge from the very flat - tering terms in which my humble abilities and labors in connection with this theatre have been spoken of, since the subject of this testimonial was first sug- gested, I fear they have been over estimated ; but-be this as it may-it is none the less gratifying to realize that my efforts have given some degree of satisfaction to the patrons of the house.

" Isolated as we are in this country- as we used to say 'a thousand miles from everywhere,' it is pardonable to be proud of so noble a structure as this- conceived, designed and executed by a master mind, it stands to-day, a noble tribute to the refining and elevating influence of the drama. Carrying out the de- signs of its founder, it has been the aim of my worthy colleague-Mr. H. B. Claw- son-and myself, never to present anything on this stage that was debasing or de- moralizing in its tendency, or that would cause the blush of shame to crimson the cheek of purity and innocence- If at any time anything has been presented that wonld have such tendency, it has been the result of accident, not design. For while striving to ' hold the mirror up to nature,' we have sought to draw a pall over that which was not calculated to benefit and elevate fallen humanity-so may it ever be -and may the drama, occupying its legitimate sphere, go hand in hand with the sister arts, music, sculpture and painting, on its mission of exaltation to man.

"I contemplate leaving you for a short time, with the purpose of visiting the great eastern cities, to recuperate my somewhat exhausted energies, and to collect, from experience, information and material which may tend to render our theatre still more attractive, interesting and worthy of patronage.

" A feeling of regret steals over me when I think of leaving those with whom I have so long held such pleasant relations, but hoping to meet you on my return, thanking you for your kind patronage to-night, and still more for the kind feeling you have manifested toward me, and thanking those who have contributed to this entertainment I beg to say farewell to one and all, and wish you, ladies and gen- tlemen, a very good night, and all the prosperity your hearts can desire."

During his professional visit to the States, Mr. Caine assisted in the immigra- tion of that year. After his return he resumed his place in the management of the theatre, and in 1867-8-9, Clawson & Caine were its lessees.

After the close of the season, in the latter part of April, 1866, Julia Dean Hayne left for the East; and at the next season, opening in November, the Irwins played two nights, and then the stock company ran alone until March, when Lyne resumed his great characters for a month, and the stock continued with Miss Adams and Miss Alexander starring. George Pauncefort was next en- gaged and his role repeated with some fresh plays of his line. The fine old actor, Couldock, (with his talented daughter) was the next star that held its course for awhile in our firmament. "The Willow Copse," "Louis XI.," " Dot," "Jew of Frankfort," "Richelieu," " Waiting for a Verdict," marked his class of plays

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in some of which he had no equal. Mr. and Mrs. Langrish interspersed the season, and Amy Stone ran the lighter drama for nearly three months, and then Couldock came on again with the " Stranger," " Merchant of Venice," "The Hunchback," " King Henry IV., " " Old Phil's Birthday," " Porter's Knot," "Chimney Cor- ner," and repetitions of his parts. Mr. James Stork from California ran in the opening of the year 1868, with " Brutus," " Money," " Merry Wives of Wind- sor," and " Jack Cade ; " and the stock resumed with Margetts and Lindsay star- ring, the latter in " Hamlet." Mr. and Mrs. Waldron were engaged awhile, and " King Lear" was played for the first time in Salt Lake Theatre. Madame Scheller and Charlotte Compton appeared about this time, Scheller starring for several months in a fine line of parts ; her Ophelia, which she had played to Edwin Booth's Hamlet, was pronounced by him the best on the American stage. Miss Annette Ince (a great actress) followed in a number of plays of Julia Dean Hayne's cast, to which was added Ristori's "Mary Stuart," and " Elizabeth Queen of England." Edward L. Davenport, in his Julian St. Pierre, in " The Wife," gave the most finished piece of acting ever witnessed here ; T. A. Lyne repeated his " Pizzaro, and the stock followed alone, playing during their course " Louis XI.," and " Jack Cade." Parepa Rosa interspersed with a grand concert, and John McCullough came on with his role, with Geo. B. Waldron and Madame Scheller starring with him ; "' Romeo and Juliet " being in the role. Mccullough ran a month and Waldron and Scheller continued. In February, 1859, Miss Annie Lockhart came, and remained the leading lady of the stock till her death, in the fall of 1869. Mr. J. A. Herne and Lucille Western were engaged, and for the first time " Rip Van Winkle" was performed here. Fanny Morgan Phelps was the next star, Annie Lockheart holding the stage with her. Mr. Charles Wheatleigh starred awhile, and the Howsons varied the season with opera. G. G. Chapman, Lotta with her exquisite Little Nell, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, Miss Ger- aldine Wardon, and Murphy & Mack's Minstrels filled up the season. Neil War- ner was engaged the next season, and his " Richard III.," among his Shaks- pearian role, was pronounced the best Plantagenet performed on this stage. After the death of Annie Lockhart, whose remains the Deseret Dramatic Association followed to the grave, Madame Scheller again reigned awhile, but Kate Denin superceded her, and held the stage with John Wilson. Charlotte Thompson played an interval, and Denin and Wilson resumed, bringing up the scasons to May, 1870, when the stock company resumed. Couldock and daughter returned with their parts in December, and Miss Sallie Hinckley and G. W. Thompson ran the opening month of the year 1871, when Milton Nobles relieved them, and the stock resumed their business, followed by a number of minor stars, alternating with the stock company. During this time up to 1871, Waldron played a long engagement, Joseph K. Emmet appeared and W. T. Harris, afterwards manager of the Salt Lake Theatre, made his debut. Couldock and his daughter held an- other engagement, two months, and the Lingard company and others followed, the stock company having been now nearly displaced. The famous and most classical actor, Edwin Adams, reigned awhile, and John McCullough exchanged characters with him, giving to the Salt Lake public the rarest classical treat.

With the retirement of David Mckenzie from the stage, in December, 1869,

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the old Deseret Dramatic Company may be said to have ended its career. There was left now of the founders of the Salt Lake stage Phil. Margetts only, though some of the later members were occasionally mixed in with the new stock. For awhile longer John Lindsay and James M. Hardie remained. Their lines will be sufficiently marked by naming that Lindsay played Iago to Neil Warner's Othello, and Hardie, Cassio.

During the years 1871-2-3-4, the names of the stock casts, changing from time to time, were J. M. Carter, J. M. Dunne, E. B. Marden, H. Haines, Mark Wilton, W. T. Harris, W. J. Coggswell, the leading man, and in 1874, James Vinson, Wm. C. Crosbie and Mr. Frank Rae, a veteran of the eastern stage, as Vinson was of the California stage. These were all actors " from abroad," though now combined as the Salt Lake stock company. The professional ladies were Carrie Coggswell (once the wife of T. A. Lyne), Kate Denin (principal lady), Mrs. Frank Rae and Mrs. Crosbie, and later, Jean Clara Walters. The local names were A. L. Thorne, M. Forster, D. J. Mackintosh, Harry Taylor, Logan Paul, H. Horsley, with the favorites Margetts and Graham returning occasionally; and, on the engagement of Mrs. Landor, Mckenzie returned to support her Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette, in the parts of Leicester and Louis XVI. The lo- cal ladies were Miss Adams, Mrs. M. Bowring, Mrs. Grist, Miss Susie Spencer and Miss Napper, the three former ladies, however, only playing in the early date of the new combination. John Lindsay, having joined the Godbeites, had retired from the company, and James M. Hardie had gone to the States seeking national fame. In 1874, James Vinson was stage manager and practical director of the company, while John T. Caine was still the generalissimo of the institution.

While this stock combination, in a professional sense, may, in some features, be said to resemble more the ever changing stock companies of the large cities of America, it came not up to the old Deseret Dramatic Association in enthusiasm and the endowment of a dramatic mission to our city, for our local members, who played at the onset without " wages," really showed themselves the kin of the poets who " lived and died in garrets," but who created the literature of nations; while at times the old stock company, when running their seasons under a Julia Dean and G. B. Waldron, a Lyne and a Pauncefort together, a Couldock, a Dav- enport, and an Edwin Adams and John McCullough, the Irwins and an Annie Lockhart, surpassed the new combination many degrees. Indeed the " stars " have confessed, admiringly, that there was no stock company in America, that could equal the Salt Lake company at such times, nor would those great actors of na- tional fame have owned themselves the heads of a local company, for the time being, as they did here where the charms of a unique association made them almost for- get for awhile that they were of the national dramatic stars. Perhaps only in the great theatres of London, where the stock companies are the constant "stars of the town," has there been so exact an example of the theatrical origins of the Anglo-Saxon stage as illustrated in the times when Garrick, the Kembles, Macready, the Keans, the Brooks and the Phelps reigned as the kings of the stock, as that shown in the first ten years of the history of the Salt Lake Theatre. True, Wallack's Theatre, Booth's Theatre, and the great theatres of Boston and other eastern cities have, taken together in the round, each sustained almost perfect

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companies, in their several special Shakspearian plays and classical comedies ; but here, in Salt Lake City, with the very stars of these companies fast succeed- ing each other, and sometimes in combinations, supported by the local stock, the plays performed in those theatres from the highest range of the heavy legitimate drama, to the limits of the range of the light legitimate, as seen in the foregoing casts, running through a period of ten years, with the seasons scarcely broken by short intermissions, all have been performed on the Salt Lake stage. It is indeed a most worthy theatrical history, which will be noted in coming generations with admiration.

Here we may pause for personal sketches of leading members of the old home stock, whose achievements will remain in the attached remembrance of the present generation of the Salt Lake public, who traced them in their respective lines, with a personal kinship of fellow citizens, from their first appearance to the close of their professional career. First in rank of that "dear old stock" (for as such they live in the hearts of our people) is David Mckenzie, who fairly by his own talents as an artist, and his perseverance as a student, won his way from the bottom to the top of the ladder of local fame.

David Mckenzie was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, December 27th, 1833. He was bound apprentice to engraving, June, 1845, and served seven years as an apprentice and two years as journeyman. He joined the Mormon Church in Glasgow, February 11th, 1853, and emigrated to Utah, March 6th, 1854, where he arrived October 11th, of the same year.

Two days after his arrival in Salt Lake City, he was voted in a member of the Deseret Dramatic Association ; he made his first appearance on a theatrical stage (in the Social Hall) the same week in a supernumerary part in " All is not Gold that Glitters." At the opening of the Salt Lake Theatre he appeared in a second class part as a gendarme in the "Pride of the Market," itself but a second-class piece of the minor drama ; but it was soon noticed that the tuition of T. A. Lyne was not lost upon upon him. He gradually won his way up, in the ascent playing Pythias to Lyne's Damon; but it was as Colonna in "Evadne," to Irwin's Ludov- ico, that called marked attention of the public to his ability. Alpha, the critic, as seen in his foregoing review, at once pronounced Mckenzie a dramatic artist, and ranked him at the head of the stock. He had seen the great Vandernoff as Colonna to Davenport's Ludovico, in Liverpool a year or two before, and with the character of one of that proud Italian house, that had often made a Pope for Rome, fresh in his memory, he was struck with Mckenzie's conception of the character, which, while it lacked, of course, the mighty weight of Vandernoff, was rendered in its proper type. His Danny Mann in the "Colleen Bawn," was a rare piece of character acting, which has never been excelled to this day on the Salt Lake Stage. Father Jean, in the " Rag-Picker of Paris, was also a rare part. His Jacob McClosky to Irwin's Salem Scudder, in the " Octoroon," fairly held the stage in rivalry with the star, and this was the more marked from the fact that Jacob McClosky is the repellant part, though in the hands of a principal actor it is the character of the play. Irwin seemed not to have measured the steel he was crossing, for he was really playing seconds to the local actor. In the " Hunch- back " Mrs. Irwin was Julia; her husband Sir Thomas Clifford, and Mckenzie

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Master Walter. Mckenzie had now Macready's part (played first to Fanny Kem- ble's Julia) but Master Walter was pre-eminently in Mckenzie's line. Had he failed (speaking exaggeratingly) he would have earned a coffin ; he succeeded and won a laural. He was now head and shoulders above Irwin. Quickly after George Pauncefort's Macbeth, Mckenzie played Macbeth, and it is sufficient praise for a critic to say he did not fall in his leap. His Macduff was pronounced a great part, and his Col. Dumas was a rare piece of character acting. But his Polonius, to a Shakspearian judgment, would place him the highest as a dramatic artist. When he played the part to John McCullough, that prince of the Ameri- can stage remarked " Mr. Mckenzie's Polonius is the best I ever saw." Polonius is not a small part, but a great Shakspearian part ; Horatio is a third class Shaks- pearian part compared with it. It is not a mile of text that constitutes a great character, but some distinctive type. Polonius is not only a type, but a Shaks- pearian creation. His profound self-wisdom, in which he is utterly lost, is inimi- table ; and, like Sir John Falstaff, he utters sentences of common philosophy that will live through all time :

" Though this be madness, yet there's method in it."

There is not half a dozen actors in a nation that can play Polonius. A quar- ter of a century ago, when the Liverpool critics were wont to challenge Barry Sullivan's Hamlet against London, they always added, "Old Baker (Liverpool's favorite) is the best Polonius in England." So when John McCullough made his remark it signified, " Mr. Mckenzie is the best Polonius in America."

Having sustained the leading business for years, David Mckenzie retired from the company in December, 1869, and became President Brigham Young's cor- responding secretary. In June, 1874, he was appointed to the British Mission, where he presided over the Scottish conference, until he was called to the Liver- pool Office to assist in editing the Millennial Star, and in the general business of the office. Returning home in 1876, he resumed his position in President Young's office ; and, at the incorporation of the Salt Lake Dramatic Association, he was appointed its secretary ; and from that time until the present he has also been acting manager of the Salt Lake Theatre. His first appearance for several years was in October, 1880, as Jacob M'Closkey, in " The Octoroon," the occa- sion being a benefit tendered him by the " Home Club," for services as instruc- tor to the Club. The house was "crowded to suffocation."

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History of Salt Lake City, Part 98

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