Herbert Whittaker
In recent years it has been possible for an actress to win respect in Canada without leaving the country. Amelia Hall, Denise Pelletier and Martha Henry come to mind. But it is inescapable that many more Canadian actresses of talent have met their greatest success outside this country. In this glorious bevy of talent we can list such personalities as Mary Pickford and Beatrice Lillie, going on to Kate Reid and Kate Nelligan, all of whom met greater fame elsewhere.
But after reading John Le Vay's biography of his grand-aunt Margaret Anglin, I am moved to support my earlier description of her as 'Canada's greatest actress,' made in the columns of The Globe and Mail. Le Vay, poet rather than experienced biographer, has assembled such evidence of Anglin's theatrical accomplishment that any reader is bound to be impressed by her extraordinary energy in the wide range of her career.
For Margaret Anglin (1876-1958) had burst upon the North American scene to play opposite James O'Neill, famous actor-father of the dramatist, Eugene, and to create the role of Roxanne on this continent opposite Richard Mansfield in Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac. 'Miss Anglin flashed upon the scene like a newly-discovered gem,' proclaimed the N.Y. Herald Tribune. She remained with Mansfield and the Empire Theatre four years, during which she also scored in modern drama. Henry Arthur Jones's Mrs. Dane's Defense was especially successful for her, after she had won hearts as Ophelia and Rosalind.
Her range established to include both Shakespeare and the 'moderns,' she was to push it to more extraordinary heights. In 1901, after a grand tour abroad, she began her crusade to bring classic Greek drama to America. This achievement won her the highest distinction. Over the opening years of this century, Anglin was to persevere in her great work. She created lasting impressions playing such roles as Antigone (her first), Electra, Medea, Iphigenia and Clytemnestra. The last-named was played under extraordinary circumstances at the Metropolitan Opera and won her eighteen curtain calls. But the others were staged on an even grander scale, in Greek auditoriums across the country, starting at Berkeley, California.
America was not familiar with the Greeks' great contribution to drama, save in university courses. Anglin made them aware of it, and was, indeed, to be honoured by the King of Greece for her great pioneer work. She had not only essayed the great tragic roles but organized whole productions of astonishing scale. These were, through the years, necessarily one-and two-night events and not calculated to make their instigator rich. But she did achieve what she set out to do: stir America's consciousness of the sublime.
But what Mr. Le Vay's most admirable research reveals to us is the extent to which this great figure of the stage was part of Canada's history. No sooner had she made her name abroad than she led a Shakespearean tour into the Maritimes. But she had already been seen with O'Neill in Toronto and Ottawa in Monte Cristo, Virginius and Hamlet. She had already won the admiration of the Canadian critics, including The Globe's Hector Charlesworth, who remembered her as 'a brilliant young actress who excelled in comedy as well as emotion . . . a girl with beautiful red-gold hair, magnificent grey eyes, striking animated features and the bearing of a princess.'
Nor can this be seen as nationalist pride, any more than S. Morgan-Powell's 'sheer beauty of tragic magnetism.' Critics across the Continent and later as far as Australia saluted her. So did the great Sarah Bernhardt: 'Margaret Anglin is one of the few dramatic geniuses of the day,' pronounced the divine Sarah - high praise from one who had created the role of Roxanne and made Camille her own. So, incidentally, did Anglin, reported to have Chicago 'by the throat' as La Dame aux Camélias.
Canada shared her triumphs in such roles but was not to share her Grecian greatness. However, in 1909, her handsome production of Antony and Cleopatra was given its premiere in Winnipeg. And it was at Toronto's Royal Alexandra theatre that she was to make her last appearance on the stage in 1943, as the dowager Fanny in Lillian Hellman's Broadway hit of the day, Watch on the Rhine. Anglin was to come back to Toronto to end her days in the bosom of her large and distinguished family.
Indeed, Anglin bridges the gap between Canadians who have won stardom here and those who have achieved their fame elsewhere. This is perhaps Mr. Le Vay's most notable contribution, restoring to Canada a talent of extraordinary range and breadth. We are much indebted to him for that.
Perhaps to avoid the sin of family pride (he refers to her as 'M.A.'), he has gone into greater details on her days of decline than we need to know. The justification for his great research is to be found in her notable successes, not in her domestic failures. Married to an amiable but weak man, Howard Hull, her strength and professional aspirations made a domestic partnership impossible. But there were professional partnerships that counted, with O'Neill, with Mansfield and with Henry Miller, with whom she shared a great success in The Great Divide. Many of her later roles were, to be blunt, popular trash; but apart from her Greek and Shakespearean triumphs, she won much praise for her Joan in The Trial of Joan of Arc (another Bernhardt role), in Pinero's The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, in Lady Windermere's Fan and A Woman of No Importance by Wilde. Her comedy playing brought her equal praise in Sheridan and Maugham.
Mr. Le Vay's research is exhaustive. Later biographers will bless him. Canada's theatrical history is enriched by his devotion.