WOMAN'S WORK ON THE STAGE
Speech written by Julia Marlowe for the Woman's Congress of the Chicago World's Fair, May 17, 1893

This powerful speech delivered by Miss Marlowe deals with the history of the appearance of women on the stage after Shakespeare's day and a discussion of women's right to an exalted position in the art of acting which was won by courage, industry and perseverance.

This speech was timely then and is still relevant now and we thank Julia Marlowe for her research and powerful communication to those who attended the Congress.

Appendix B: Julia Marlowe Her life and Art by Charles Edward Russell. D. Appleton & Co. 1926

     Clearly and fully to show womanʼs relation to, and influence on, dramatic art it would be necessary to treat comprehensively of the whole history of the drama, which it will be impossible for me to do at this time because of the necessary brevity of this paper.

     I do hope to show, however, by a few historical examples and a brief discussion of womanʼs peculiar adaptability to the needs of the drama, not only her special fitness for dramatic expression and her powerful and beneficial influence, but her right by accomplishments to an exalted position in this art which she has won--and won by courage, industry and perseverance and the  pains of martyrdom.

     The struggle that actors have undergone for recognition and for a respectable established position in society since the modern drama first appeared, for religious purposes, in the tableau and spectacles of the early Christian church, is now a matter of history. But it is not generally known how much more fierce has been the strife in regard to women on the stage, and how much more difficult it has been for them to convince the world at large of the importance of their hard-won position, and their beneficial influence in dramatic art. I am speaking now of the past. Happily at the present stage of dramatic development and for many years back, womanʼs standard is and has been as high, and her position (and the right to maintain it) as assured and certain as manʼs.

     Unfortunately, however, it was not always so and looking back to the age of oppression and intolerance, when in 1660 woman first appeared in dramatic representations, we find her entrance marked an era in dramatic advancement. The first record of womanʼs appearance upon the stage is December 6, 1660, when Shakespeareʼs “Othello” was given. Desdemona on this occasion was played by a woman, though there seems to be considerable doubt to whom this honor belongs; some have given it to Anne Marshall, though the general supposition is that it was Margaret Hughes. We have Pepysʼs authority that women appeared in Killigrewʼs company in London on January 3, 1661 in Beaumont and Fletcherʼs “Beggarʼs Bush.”

     It is clearly shown, however, that their earlier appearances were received with great disfavor, for Dr. Doran says that by writers of the time the first actresses were styled unwomanish and graceless, though not meaning them to be ungainly and unfeminine, but that play-acting in itself was below their dignity, and “unbecoming” as he says “woman born in an era of grace.” “Glad am I to say,” remarked Thomas Brand, speaking of these actresses, “that they were hissed, hooted and pippin-pelted from the stage so that I do not think they will soon be ready to try the same again.” He asserts that well-disposed persons were righteously indignant at these women, whom Prynne, a rigorous Puritan of the time, styled “monsters.”

     Yet, notwithstanding the marked disfavor with which they were first received, reasonable-and serious-minded persons could not fail to see the propriety of Juliet and Desdemona being acted by a girl rather than a boy. The need for innovation is well expressed in these lines taken from the prologue written for the introduction of the first actress:

“Our women are defective and so sized, Youʼd think that were some of the guard, disguised, For to speak truth, men act (that are between forty and fifty) wenches of fifteen, With bones so large and nerve so incompliant, When you call Desdemona, enter Giant.”

     The work that should have properly belonged to women, in being given to men, often caused ridiculous incongruities; and the idea in itself is so truly fantastic that I cannot refrain from citing the apology that was made to Charles the Second when during a prolonged wait at one of the theatrical performances at which this sovereign was present, the delay was explained and indulgence begged on the plea that “the Queen was not shaved.” It would appear that immediately upon the important progressive step, the substitution of women for boys in the advancement of dramatic illusion, the importance and artistic need for womanʼs appearance must have been generally felt, for we read that soon after actresses were in great demand; and it was found that they not only increased the popularity of the theaters in which they performed, but that their cooperation was indispensable to the proper presentation of any play. They made possible a fullness and a beauty of interpretation which had not been dreamed of.

     Take for a single example the women of Shakespeare. They stand as vivid types of truth and beauty, so alive, indeed, with the living warmth of femininity that their expression by other than woman is in itself a monstrous sacrilege. A play performed by men only can hardly be conceived today; and the wonder is that such an absurdity ever existed. The feeling of the need of womanʼs cooperation with man for dramatic purposes grew rapidly, for menʼs minds were at this time too highly susceptible to advancement to remain in ignorance of this necessity, and it was not long before actresses were recognized and highly respected.

     

     This was true in the case of Mrs. Betterton, for instance, that when in the year 1674 “Calista” was performed at court, this actress was chosen as instructress to Lady Mary and Lady Anne, and much of the subsequent graceful elocution and dignity of bearing of these princesses, which showed itself at court, was accredited to this lady. We read that in company with her distinguished husband she made her home the abiding place of “charity, hospitality and dignity.”

     What a vast work has been accomplished by women in the drama since then and what a lasting monument of art she has reared for herself in the annals of the stage! To those whose souls are filled with sacred reverence for creative genius, what wealth of delight in looking back upon the dazzling record of the theater when the allurements of Mrs. Betterton, Nell Gwynne, Woffington, Oldfield, Siddons, and more latterly Rachel, Ristori, Fanny Kemble, Ellen Tree, Charlotte Cushman, Helen Faucit, Adelaide Neilson, and a host of others, stand forth as irrefutable proofs of the dignified importance of womanʼs work in the line of true artistic dramatic advancement!

     In evidence of her serious devotion to this art in particular, and that it has absorbed her very being as no other calling has ever done, and that it has not been a fancy, nor in the higher expression even a gratification of vanity, and has been, and is, a life devotion, an art to which she has given her best intellectual and emotional self, the history of the theater will show.

     Courage and perseverance have been womanʼs battle-cry since the year 1660. What greater instance of courageous perseverance in all history than the sad and grim experience of the great Rachel, who, when a wretched child, traveled in poverty, squalor and cold from place to place in the smaller towns of Europe, and who, at the time, in order to possess a volume of the great Racine, was obliged, though trudging through wet and rain, to pawn her umbrella for the pitiful sum of twenty sous to secure this treasure.

     The history of Charlotte Cushman is too well known to make a review of her untiring perseverance necessary, and the heartrending episodes of her life; when poor, the supporters of others, lacking beauty and charm, she strove to influence managers to give her the opportunity of expressing the genius she felt burned within her.

     Consider the life of Mrs. Lander, who, besides her valuable services in the dramatic field, in commemoration of the death of her husband (who died from wounds received in battle) took upon herself, with the assistance of her mother, the entire charge of the hospital department of Port Royal, South Carolina. She lives in memory to us as the blessed name of Florence Nightingale does to the English.

     It is unnecessary to go back to the history of the stage for such examples; we have them about us; the struggle of Mme. Modjeska and her final and lasting artistic victory are well known to all that have watched with interest and sympathy the lives of artists on the stage.

     The executive ability in women of the theater has been quite as remarkable as the courage they have shown. In touching on this point, one at once recalls the experience of Laura Keene, who was a successful manager as well as a delightful comedienne, and particularly one instance when her aptness and nerve were amusingly shown. The play was “Much Ado About Nothing,” and at the last moment it was discovered that the costumes were not ready. Calling before her the stolid and gaping supers whose dresses were in a sad state of incompleteness, with a paint brush hurriedly brought from the paint frame, she finished the decorations on their doublets and trunks with black paint, at the same time exclaiming with the rapid delivery peculiar to her: “Now, keep apart, donʼt sit down; donʼt brush against the ladies,” and immediately was off herself to dress for Beatrice.

     Innumerable instances may be given of women in the profession who have shown rare administrative ability. The history of the English stage affords many examples of women who have been successful managers, and it is true in this country; Mrs. Conway, for instance, and Mrs. John Drew, who aside from her fine ability as comedienne, for years conducted the Arch Street Theater, Philadelphia, with dignity and success. It is often stated that woman is lacking in most walks of life in the faculty of creative genius, and that indeed in this particular, in comparison with man she is decidedly inferior; this is perhaps a reasonable conclusion in view of her history; but not so, emphatically in regard to dramatic work.

    It is by no means a new thought that man is by nature more intellectual and woman by nature more emotional. Of course it is not meant by this that man is never emotional nor woman never intellectual, yet it is surely fair to assume that to man belongs the quality of intellectuality and to woman the emotional quality. Was it not therefore the very possession by nature of this latter quality, which is certainly an absolute necessity in dramatic art, that made her inherently suited for dramatic expression?

     Mr. Ruskin, in speaking of the necessary qualities that go to form great artists, says: first, sensibility and tenderness; second, imagination, and third, industry. Womanʼs nature is peculiarly alive to all of these conditions. It is then no wonder that women on the stage have accomplished great things and will accomplish greater things in future, when such women as Modjeska, Terry, Duse, and the matchless Bernhardt continue through inspiration to show their genius to the world.

Womanʼs work in literature has with few exceptions been denied any claim to greatness. In music and in other arts she is admitted not to have shown any particular creative power. But her place upon the stage is as absolutely unquestioned as manʼs. In having thus secured for herself an eminent position in the drama, the actress has advanced the whole cause of woman, since every individual triumph raises the estimation in which the intellectual achievements of a whole class are held. Woman is better understood because she is faithfully portrayed; she is more highly regarded because of the ability to make that portrayal and that faithful portrayal has, I feel, a powerful moral influence in an educational sense. I thoroughly believe it is the duty of mothers to foster in the hearts of their children, while at a tender age, a serious consideration for the better forms of dramatic literature and dramatic representation, avoiding the unhappy tendency of the present age, which is to regard acting merely as a form of amusement, rather than as it should be regarded, an amusement combining a means for intellectual control and artistic suggestion, presented in an attractive and suggestive manner.

     That woman is capable of arduous effort and untiring devotion has been fully demonstrated upon the stage. She has helped to elevate the drama to its rightful place among the educational forces of life and to make true what Morley says that, “At the playhouse door then we may say to the doubting, enter boldly, for here, too, there are gods.”