Articles satirizing the merits of the Lydia Thompson Company

“The ‘Shakespeare Scholar’ to the Rescue—Two Goddesses of Burlesque.

From ‘The Age of Burlesque,’ by R. G. White, in the August Galaxy.

These performances are so little to my taste that I found one sitting of ‘La Grande Duchesse’ and one dose of Mlle. Tostee somewhat more than I could bear; and it was not until ‘The Forty Thieves’ were about sinking into their unsavory oil-jars for the last time that I saw Miss Lydia Thompson and her company, at Niblo’s. But going there at a morning’s performance, in search of a needed laugh, which I confess I did not get, I was surprised, not only with the merit of the lady herself, and of some of her companions, but with the character of the audience[.] The latter I expected to find made up of coarse and flashy people; but, on the contrary, it was notable in the main, for simple and almost homely respectability. Comfortable, middle-aged women from the suburbs and from the remoter country, their daughters, groups of children, a few professional men, bearing their quality in their faces, some sober, farmer-looking folk, a clergyman or two, apparently, the usual proportion of nondescripts, among which were not many very young men, composed an audience less fashionable than I had seen in Fourteenth-street, but at least as respectable. And the Lydia Thompson [sic], in whom I had expected to find a coarse, Anglo-Saxon exaggeration of Mlle. Tostee, I found one of the most charming comic actresses it had been my good fortune to see. She played burlesque with a daintiness with which few actresses of note are able to flavor their acting, even in high comedy. She was doing hard work, no doubt, but her heart must have been in it, for she was the embodiment of mirth, and moved others to hilarity by being moved herself. It was as if Venus, in her quality of the goddess of laughter, had come upon the stage. And if there was a likeness to Venus in the costume, as well as in manner, I must confess that I saw in it no chance of harm to myself or to any of my fellow-spectators, old or young, male or female. Indeed, it seems rather to be desired that the points of a fine woman should be somewhat better known, and more thought of among us than they have been. They seem to me quite as important, and I think they are quite as interesting, as those of a fine horse; and I should be sorry to believe that they are more harmful, either to taste or to morals. Some of the outcry that we hear against the costume of which the burlesque actresses wear, in the way of their profession, has in it such a tone of personal injury, that it might come from mammas and papas who, having a very poor article of young woman lying heavy on their hands, are indignant that there should be so good and so easy an opportunity of trying it by a very high standard. As to any impropriety in this costume, in its place, that is, seriously speaking, a matter of individual opinion; but if there is any, it is far less, both in degree and in kind, than that of the ordinary ballet dancer, with her flying petticoat, alternately concealing and revealing the attractions of her figure, which we have looked at ever since we were children, even in this dear old Niblo’s Garden, without a thought of shamefacedness, and very much less than that of the tilting hoops, which lent such peculiar attractions to the ‘German’ in fashionable society only two years ago.

This gayety of heart and overrunning glee, Miss Thompson shows even in a greater degree in ‘Sinbad’ than in its predecessors. What an overflow of mirth and humor breaks from her when she takes the auctioneer’s stand, at the wife-market, to set forth her own qualifications as a ‘Girl of the Period!’ With what a radiant outbreak of fun does she announce ‘we are aware of our own awarishness!’ and how thoroughly she seems to enjoy that queer word ‘thunk,’ which the author has given her for thought! I must confess, with proper contrition, that I liked her performance in this part better than much high tragedy than I have seen—better, for instance, than Mr. Forrest in ‘Hamlet.’ As to thunk, I venture to say that her author probably took that word from a passage in an article on ‘Words and their Uses,’ where I used it some months ago, whimsically, of course. But probably neither he nor one or two of the prim purists who scoffed at me for it, knew how old a word it is, and how good authority there is for its use. [Quotes satirical poem of 1250.]

And this reminds me of one striking excellence in this company of actresses—the beautiful manner in which they speak English. It is noticeable in all, but particularly in two, one of whom is Miss Thompson herself; the other is the second lady of the company, Miss Pauline Markham, she who has found the long-lost arms of the ‘Venus of Milo,’ and whose speech is vocal velvet. It is with a recollection of all the public elocution and private conversation that ever impressed me, that I say that Miss Markham, whose voice and style are not of the heroic or high-tragedy order, speaks the most beautiful colloquial English that I ever heard. More reserved in manner, and less sprightly by nature, I should say, than Miss Thompson, (whose part, nevertheless, she took with great success,) her voice and smile give to her presence a rare attraction, that calls to mind the allurements which Horace immortalized in the closing lines of is famous ode: [quotes Horace].

[Continues praise of Thompson and Markham’s diction.]

On one point these burlesques have transgressed, gravely and without excuse—their dances, some of which, although not to be compared, for voluptuous effect or immodesty with, Gérome’s superb picture, ‘L’Almée,’ which hung unrebuked and admired for months in one of the most fashionable resorts in the city, are vulgar and gross—being made so by the lack of any element of beauty in form or spirit. ‘La Grande Duchesse,’ ‘Genevieve de Brabant,’ and ‘The Forty Thieves,’ sinned gravely in this regard, in which ‘Sinbad’ is without reproach. And I will say, in passing, that the last-named play, the dancing of the member of the Clodoche Troupe, who wears the Normandy head-dress, is really grand. He steps as if he could take in half the earth at a bound, and as if he rose from the ground by volition, rather than by exertion. In this respect he far surpasses any dancer whose performance I remember. [Continues in this manner.]

I have known very few actresses. Although not without opportunities of knowing them, I cannot reckon my acquaintance among the ladies of the stage almost on the fingers of one hand. It has merely happened so—to my great loss, I do not doubt—although my limited observation has confirmed what is said by those who have known many actresses, and known them well, that there is no peculiar charm in their society except a certain freedom from restraint that makes intercourse with them easier than it is with purely domestic women. A clever and successful actress is generally a charming woman, with her womanhood slightly dashed with the open-hearted freedom of a good fellow, and the ease and repose of a man of the world; the womanly weaknesses and graces being, as a counterpoise, a little more pronounced in her than they usually are. But beyond wearing the rue of their sex with this slight difference, actresses are just like other women; as fond of admiration, but no fonder; no more eager to be loved, or covetous of the attentions and the gifts that are tributes to their charms; no more addicted to extravagance in dress or to luxurious living—for which, indeed, they very rarely have the means at their command; no less gifted with all the peculiar virtues—nay, the very domestic virtues of their sex; as true in their friendships as other women are, and as pungent in their hatred; as selfish and as unselfish; and as ready to sacrifice themselves to their love or their duty. They are somewhat more frank and simple in their manner than the women of society, and generally, I believe, more generous; readier, as a rule, to give to others and to work for others who have no claim on them but need their common profession. The services done to each other by actresses, out of pure kindness and good nature, and the help that the successful ones give to the unsuccessful, more than atone for the professional jealousy and envy for which they are noted, but in which they are not peculiar.”

“We have already laid before our readers a characteristic extract from one of the most ingenious pieces of literary handiwork it has been our fortune to encounter—Mr. Richard Grant White’s mock eulogy of the charms of burlesque and of the fascinations of its representatives. A careless reader, or, indeed, a moderately thoughtful one, might well imagine at the first glance that the intention of the essay, which appears at length in the Galaxy for August, was to humanely soothe the expiring moments of an institution doomed to the worst of deaths, public scorn and forgetfulness, and to assuage the griefs of those whose power is falling with it. But a closer scrutiny reveals the subtle meaning that lurks beneath the crust of delicate commiseration. With admirable dexterity, Mr. White vails his purpose in such manner as to beguile the objects of his satire into a false security, while he launches at them the keenest and deadliest shafts they have yet received. In this we recognize the author’s usual skill and the habitual temper of his mind. Disdaining the coarser methods as repugnant to him as those of Cassius Severus to Mr. White’s favorite master, Horace—he chooses the more refined artifice of the great Roman satirist, and clothes with velvet the claws with which he grasps and rends his victims. The art is complete and the result is confounding. A chastisement like this alone was needed to wrest the unclean drama from its last clutch upon public endurance.

Space will not permit us to point out with due critical appreciation the various details of adroit management in language and argument by which Mr. White arrives at his end. But we cannot refrain from calling attention to one or two master-strokes, in which, by force of ingenious contrast, the bitterness of his mockery is most emphatically conveyed. We select them, necessarily, at random. He smilingly leads one young lady, whose name we need not here repeat, through pleasant pastures and glades, as one might say, of seeming adulation, only to plunge her finally over the precipice of opprobrium expressed in the declaration that he likes her ‘better than Mr. Forrest in “Hamlet.”’ To fully estimate the sardonic force of this blow, it must be remembered that Mr. White’s most sacred theatrical aversion is Mr. Forrest in ‘Hamlet,’ a performance which, he has told us, formerly compelled him to flee the play-house in horror and dismay. He humorously affects admiration at ‘an overflow of mirth and humor,’ and ‘a radiant outbreak of fun,’ which, when exposed, turns out to be one of the oldest and dullest jests of the negro-minstrel halls. And in pretending to defend the physical exposure of this lady and her companions, he cunningly remarks that ‘the points of a fine woman should be better known and more thought of among us than they have been,’ since they are ‘quite as important and as interesting as those of a fine horse.’ Nobody but Mr. White could have tossed the burlesque exhibitions down to the level of the circus horse show and negro minstrelsy with such light and airy grace, and, at the same time, such contemptuous irony. In order to illustrate as effectively as possible the pernicious social consequences of these displays, he affects to laugh at ‘mammas and papas who, having a very poor article of young woman lying heavy on their hands, are indignant that there should be so good and easy an opportunity of trying it by a very high standard.’ In no other manner could the shocking fact be so powerfully demonstrated that the forms of innocent girls are hereafter liable to be viciously scrutinized by impure eyes fresh from lascivious practice at our theatres. And we are forced to say that not even a professor’s skill in the uses of words can rob this arrow of its venom.

Turning awhile to less serious branches of his subject, our author facetiously ascribes certain burlesque actions and utterances to a familiarity with his celebrated essays upon the English language, which have appeared from time to time in the Galaxy. Here, again, great art is shown in relieving the somber hues of his picture with a few light touches of mirth. The idea of the ladies of Mr. Henderson’s troupe, or their instructors, devoting themselves to philological study of any kind is indescribably amusing, and it needs only a slight effort of imagination to call up the green-room of Niblo’s Garden, hung round with back numbers of the Galaxy, all bound in brass and confined to the walls by stout chains, ready for constant use in the intervals of professional inanition. Resuming once more the fictitious strain of individual praise, he invokes the wit of past ages to assist his own, and makes direct use of the rare compliments bestowed by Horace upon a certain lady of his acquaintance. [Addresses Horace quotation.]

…[He concludes] with this fatal and portentous observation: ‘I have heard that told, with reckless indifference, of these ministers to the world’s pleasure, for telling which, even if it were true, the teller deserved to be struck dumb.’ Here, with one grand swoop, the whole subject is hugged in what we may be allowed to call a bear-like embrace of ignominy and destruction. We have first the wholesome view of what the actress’ character should and may be, then the suggestion of possible revelations of what it should not be, mingled with wrathful denunciation of those who, with reckless and inhuman cruelty, unfold the secrets of the prison-house. When it is remembered that the first and the chief cause of the hostility to the spread of burlesque in this City,—that the origin of all the agitation that has resulted in its disgraceful extirpation was a speech which Mr. White’s language but too aptly describes, openly and unblushingly made months ago, by the only man who could have spoken with authority on such a shameful subject, and who opened up one of the most revolting views that the imagination can conceive of the inner mysteries of burlesque management, then we perceive with what tremendous hidden energy our author has brought his onslaught to its culmination. The scathing, withering force of satire could no further go.”