ART.
MISS TERRY'S RETIREMENT.
AgriNG is, as we believe, one of the Fine Arts most worthy to he studied and practised. It is also the one which in Eng- land is the least understood. A double course of study—or, rather, not a course at all, but 4 habitis reqaisite to enable one to appreciate a good actor or actress. It is necessary to observe men and women pretty closely in real life ; and to observe those who for the most part caricature humanity on the stage.
Very few people undertake this double study. Those who frequent theatres the most are probably those who least of all trouble themselves to observe their associates in daily life. Those who de study their fellow-creatures seriously, are those who generally avoid the theatres ; they have been driven from them by sensation " headers " and the like, and by Shakespeare wretchedly played. The actor who holds the mirror up to Nature will possibly find few to recognize the likeness, whilst he who holds the mirror up to Kemble will probably gain the applause of audiences steeped to the lips in tradition. Of course this cannot be said without some qualification ; for one or two of the greatest theatrical successes of our time have been won by means to which tradition gave no sanc- tion ; by marked individuality or eccentricity. Still, generally speaking, the remark holds good that it is not human nature that our players study ; but only somebody else's representation of human nature. Instead of studying the original, they imitate the ectiq.
This is the general rule. The exceptions are so few that, so far as we know, they could be counted on the fingers of one hand ; and even then there would probably be one or two fingers to spare. The most notable exception is—we need hardly say it—the ad- mirable actress whose name stands at the head of these lines, and whose retirement from the Loadon stage, before the month is over, will cause a blank which there is at present no prospect of filling. It is a satisfaction to know that in these columns, if any- where, justice has been done to an actress who, instead of relying for her saccess upon a pretty face, or upon a liberal display of ankles, or upon the assumption of one or two striking attitudes, or upon the innumerable modes of " puffing " which some people know so well how to use, has won her way to popular favour by the earnest and iatelligent pursuit of what is in reality a noble art. A last word in reeognition of Miss Terry's ability, and of the service she has rendered to the stage and to the public, is assuredly due to her ; thotigh her best reward must be something far other than the praise of the journals—the consciousness that great gifts have not been 111 employed.
The performance of Much Ado About Nothing (for her benefit), on Wednesday week, doubtless revealed to many amongst the audience an almost unsuspected power in Miss Kate Terry. Few people knew, until they saw her in Beatrice, that she was a proficient in high comedy. Two or three passages in her per- formance in Mr. Tom Taylor's clever one-act drama, the Sheep in Wolf's Clothing (we mean the scene with Colonel Kirke), and her acting throughont the whole 0 Friends or Foes 9—a piece in which she appeared for a few evening, five years ago, at the St. James's There--Inight have been enough to convince the beholders how great was her comic force ; but it has been chiefly for her presentment of more or less sorrow-burdened women that the most cultivated portion of play-going society has made her it"reigning favourite " from 1864 to the present hour. It was in 1:16 spring pf 1864 that ber* performance of Ophelia, unique for the quiet harmony and the tender grace of it, made the frequenters of the theatres aware that another name might be added to the scanty het of great actresses. The new
Ophelia had before that been admired for her representation of the heroines of dramas which were produced to display the talents of Mr. Feehter ; and about a dozen years ago a little girl whom the playbills called "Kate Terry" was to be seen at the Princess's Theatre ea Prince Arthur, and afterwards as Arid. But it was not until 1864 that Miss Terry was promoted from the overflowing ranks of attractive young ladies, and was recognized as an artist of very rare powers. In the autumn of the same year she appeared at the Olympic—to which after her performance of Ophelia she had removed—in a melodrama called the Hidden Hand, the translation of a piece whose weird power gave it a pro- longed success at the Ambigu, in Paris. Miss Terry's personation of Lady Penarvon, in this Hidden Hand, was so elaborate and so forcible that at the time one could scarcely wish it to have obtained less acceptance than it did obtain ; and yet the enthusiasm with which it was received is perhaps to be regretted, since it was probably that which kept the actress for too long a period to the representation of characters whose performance could never give to the audiences that intel- lectual pleasure which she was well able to impart. Settling Day, the Serf, Henry Dunbar, Love's Martyr, Ethel, and the Sister's Penance are dramas of various merit, and several of them are indeed very far from contemptible ; but still they are scarcely the most favourable pieces in which Miss Terry might have been seen. A pleasant relief has occasionally been afforded to these dark and highly wrought scenes by her representation of Viola in Twelfth Night, Clara in Money, and Pauline in the Lady of Lyons, which, by the bye, is as highly wrought as any of them. Mr. Reade's Dora is the simplest of English idyls turned into a drama ; and it is not the least charming of recent stage plays.
Miss Terry's acting in it, admirable though it is in many respects, and full as it is of those minute and delicate touches which the true artist—in whatever path—is ever desirous of adding to his work, strikes us as a little too fidgety ; and a little wanting, now and then, in the unconscious simplicity which should characterize Farmer Allen's niece. But then Mr. Reade's Dora is not exactly Mr. Tennyson's, it is true. Still, there may be some truth in the charge of occasional fidgeting,—a fault, if it be a fault, more conspicuous here than in any other piece. For Miss Terry has carried to the furthest point that is possible the habit of acting from head to foot ; and the twitching of a finger has for her a meaning, which people accustomed only to that alternation be- tween violent action and absolute quiescence which so many players are prone to, find it hard to understand. In this respect, so far as Miss Terry's style is to be admired (and only on rare occasions is it not to be admired), it approximates to that of the best French players. Sometimes Miss Terry throws a double meaning into a phrase, with an art which is altogether beyond analysis, as in the passage in which Anne Carew warns her husband while seeming to Colonel Kirke to be speaking only to him ; and as in the words "And he believes it," which in Love's Martyr were made to express both the regret with which the wife recog- nized her husband's belief in some trivial fault of hers, and the intense relief she felt in knowing that, at all events, he now feared nothing worse than the fault that was named. There is one French actress, Mme. Fargueil, who, we think, surpasses even Miss Terry in the emotional force of occasional utterances. We have seen the audience at the Vaudeville absolutely thrilled by her exclama- tion (it was in Les Dear Sceurs of M. Emile de Girarclin), " 3foi, je suis femme—il faut gue faime." But, on the other hand, she has nothing approaching the delicate shades of expression, which pass, like waves of thought, quickly, one after the other, over the face of Miss Terry in her best moments. The facial ex- pression of the English actress is so abundant and so varied that, in times of quietness, it
"Fills the silence, like a speech," as Mrs. Browning beautifully said of the little Effie of her poem.
The natural grace of Miss Terry is, of course, of much assist- ance to her in the embodiment 0 the heroines of Shakespeare ; the care and study she bestows upon each part is of still further ser- vice, and in her great moments the instinctive feeling of the real artist suggests a movement or a tone in harmony with the character assumed. But at the root of Miss Terry's success there lies, we think, something surer than any of these thing, and that is the intellectual capacity to conceive very various characters, and to give a distinct individuality to the representation of each. Mimi Terry's different personations are not repetitions of one character in varied circumstances. The character changes as much as the situation. The gentle, timid kindliness of Dora, and the resolute purpose of Margaret Dunbar, dogging the footsteps of her father's murderer, and the conflicting emotions visible on the face of Pauline, "Where pride demurs, When pity would be softening through ;" and the brilliant wit of Beatrice, with her hearty enjoyment of it, are set forth very distinctly, each with look, tone, and gesture appropriate to the character represented, and to that character alone.
The performance of Beatrice, which has been repeated more than once at the Adelphi Theatre since Miss Terry's benefit, is the most complete and (as we think) the most correct present- ment of the heroine of Much Ado About Nothing which has been seen of late years. It requires great delicacy of treatment to make Beatrice altogether attractive ; for it is not generally brilliancy that is most admired in women. Some actresses of undoubted power have failed to do justice to this character. They have made her like Katherine, whom Petruchio tamed, and have missed the mixture of shrewd wit, playful sarcasm, strong affection, and "right woman's-manliness" which is found in the pages of Shakespeare and in the acting of Miss Terry. The Beatrice of the actress our stage is about to lose is a clever, saucy, but moat good-hearted lady, of whom no man with his wits about him would choose to be afraid. She enjoys her own humour thoroughly, and is glad when she can find its match. Her playful sarcasm falls only on the valiant Benedick, and it falls on him brilliant and harmless as summer lightning. Her stedfast belief in the honour of Hero, her warm defence of her, and her indignant scorn of jlero's accusers, are excellently shown, and they complete the pic- ture of the strong, bright woman who alone would have been worthy to turn Benedick into "the married man."
This performance of Miss Terry's is so very excellent that one cannot but regret that it has been delayed to the last nights of her appearance. If she had had a little more confidence in the public she might have more often essayed the representation of the heroines of Shakespeare, and have added what must have been successful presentments of Rosalind, Portia, and Juliet, to those which London playgoers will not soon forget, of Ophelia, Viola, and Beatrice. She has done great things : it is not alto- gether her own fault (nor perhaps altogether the fault of the public) that she has not done even greater. Regrets are useless ; and complaints against a lady who has done so much would not only be ungracious—they would be unjust. The best actress of our day—the most thorough artist—leaves the stage, in the prime of early womanhood. We are sure the good wishes of very many will follow her into her retirement ; and if the public are scarcely unselfish enough to congratulate her on the retirement itself, they
may at least congratulate her on the cause of it. W.
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