STRANGE FREAKS OF ACTRESSES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1970, 22 August 1889, Page 31

STRANGE FREAKS OF ACTRESSES.

Actresses, like poets, enjoy a greater license in regard to their actions than is permitted to everj -day mortals. What would be in the highest degree reprehensible in an ordinary member of society is condoned in the actress for the sake of her art and her genius. There are several instances of strangeness of conduct on the part of tragedy and comedy queens that may be worth while recalling. Mrs Barry had a rival, in more senses than one, in Mrs Boutrell, who' towards the close the seventeenth century was a highly popular actreE, and achieved a great reputation for her acting atStatira,in Lee's "Alexander." One night the two actresses were playing in this piece, and before the curtain rose they had a dispute about a lace veil, which both claimed, but which the property man awarded to Mrs Boutrell. This so enraged Mrs Barry that when as Roxana she had to enact the incident of stabbing Statira, she did her part so naturally that her dagger, though ?it was a blunted one, pierced through Mrs Boutrgll's stays, and about a quarter of an inch into the flesh. Few actresses ever gave way to more wilful and extraordinary acts than Mrs Clarke, the youngest daughter of Colley Chibber. True, she had 'the excuse of a cruel husband, but that could not justify her many escapades. On the stage she attracted a good deal cf notice by impersonating male characters, appearing in 1745 at the Haymarket as Captain Macheabh. 02 the stage she was even more daring. At one time she was a puppet-show proprietor, at another a grocer, but failed in both capacities. Then she took to assuming male attire in real life, and hung about the theatres fcr casual hire, " but yet kept up such an appearance that an heiress fell in love with her, and was reduced to despair when Charlotte Charke revealed her story and abanded her place." After that she acted as valet to an Irish nobleman, and later on was a waiter at the King's Head Tavern, Mrrylebone. Then she tried the stage again, but was soon compelled to withdraw from it, and after years of struggle for existence she at last published her autobiography, and realised sufficient profits therefrom to enable her to set up as landlord of a tavern at Islington. 111-fortune pursued her, however, and not long afterwards she occupied a miserable hut in Olerkenwell Fields, where, with a cat, a dog, a monkey, and a magpie for companions, she contrived to write a novel on a pair of bellows, and sold it for £10. Her father disowned her long before his death, and she avenged herself by stopping hisa on the highway, presenting a pistol at him, robbing him, and smearing his face with a pair of soles. This eccentric woman died in 1760. Mrs Verbruggen, in whose honour Gay wrote his "Black-eyed Susan," was an actress of great eccentricity. Her mind became unhinged by the conduct of Mr Barton Booth, the tragedian, upon whom she had placed her affections and for a time she was confined in an asylum. Hearing that " Hamlet " was to be represented, she escaped from her attendants and made her way to the theatre. Concealing herself till the scene in which Ophelia makes her appearance in her insane state, she rushed on to the stage before the actress who was playing the part that night could make her entrance, and displayed a far more perfect impersonation of madness than the utmost exertions of mimic art could have realized. She had in her best days won renown in the part^but on this occasion she was Ophelia's self, to the amazement of both performers and audience.'