ELLEN TERRY-A TRIBUTE

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 172, 23 July 1928, Page 6

ELLEN TERRY-A TRIBUTE

Bernard Shaw said it was impossible to criticise Ellen Terry, because all the critics were in love ( with her, and the saying supplies a key to her character and her hold on the British public. She was more than a great actress; she was a lovable woman. When you think of Bernhardt, or her great predecessor, Rachel, you think of a great actress, but not of a woman who inspired affection. Despite her genius there was something repellent about Bernhardt; and it has been noted that many of the roles in which she excelled were those of—well, shall we say, unpleasant women? Ellen Terry was all charin. She could not be compared with Bernhardt in tragic intensity, though she was described as an ideal Ophelia, and a wonderful portrait of her as Lady«Macbeth hangs in the Tate Gallery, but her comedy was exquisite. The best appreciation of her that I know is that of the late William Winter, for many years the acknowledged head of dramatic criticism in America. Referring to her Portia, he wrote of the melody of her speech, the clarity and sweetness of her articulation,' the fino intelligence and unerring precision with which she gave to every word its exact shade of meaning, and the spontaneity and grace of her action, which made her, in Ben Jonson's felicitous phrase, "Mistress of arts, and hearts, and everything." The observer, said Winter, saw in Ellen Terry's Portia "a woman of fine mind as well as of enchanting beauty; an imperial woman, yet one essentially feminine, possessing a deep heart and a passionate temperament, and, at the same time, possessed of that arch, buoyant, glittering piquancy and playfulness which" are fluent from health. inuocefi<% and kindness towards all the world." Portia, of course, was only one of her many triumphs. In pure comedy perhaps her most dazzling success was as Beatrice. Sho made one-believe that Beatrice was really born under a dancing star.

Her record as an actress was astonishingly long and varied. Her chief claim to fame rest's on her association with Irving in the Lvceum management, hut she left a mark on the" stage outside that partnership. She inspired the two leading dramatists of her time. Mr. Shaw had her in mind when he created Lady Cicely Waynflete in "Captain Brasshound's Conversion," and Sir James Barrie wrote for her "Aliee-Sit-by-the-Fire," in both of which plays she acted charminglv. New Zealand saw and heard her only as a lecturer in middle age. bowed with infirmities, but it did not need much imagination to picture what she had been like in her prime. Her speech was so beautiful that one did not wonder Winter had quoted the lovely lines of Ben Jonson:

The voice so swoot aml words so fnir, .As whip soft r-liimo 1 j 2id stroked the air. And. though the sound wns parted tlieuce Still left an echo in the sense. Tn the history of the English sface there is no figure at once so regal. so richly endowed with the gifts that make great acting, so gracious so sweet, and altogether so lovable. C —CYRANO.