Lena Ashwell (1872-1957)
Lena Ashwell (1872-1957)
(The Daily Mail [London, UK], 12th September, 1907)
MISS LENA ASHWELL'S VENTURE
INTERESTING EXPERIMENT AT THE KINGSWAY THEATRE
Miss Lena Ashwell has so transformed and beautified the Great Queen-street Theatre, the name of which she is changing to that of the Kingsway Theatre, that no one will recognise in the charming playhouse any part of the former interior.
On the afternoon of October 3 Miss Ashwell will be at home to friends, to show them all she has done with the building since she became the lessee, and on the evening of October 9 she will inaugurate her own era of management with the production of a new play entitled "Irene Wycherley," by a new author, whose name is Mr. Anthony P. Wharton.
Miss Ashwell's purpose in management is to do something interesting as well as artistic. New plays, by new authors when possible, will be produced. Special matinees for special plays will be given, and it is proposed to present triple bills of original one-act plays on lines similar to those which have famous the Grand Guignol Theatre, Paris.
Speaking to a representative of the Daily Mail yesterday, Miss Ashwell was enthusiastic about the work that is before her. Constant rehearsals of her new play and endless attention to details seem not to tire her. Her efforts are all directed to establishing a theatre that shall have a distinctive as well as an artistic character. The orchestra at the Kingsway is to be composed of well-known young musicians. It will possess stringed instruments only, and special encouragement is to be given to the new works of young British composers struggling to obtain a hearing.
Later in the season Miss Ashwell hopes to be able to give high-class Sunday concerts, but that scheme must remain in abeyance until the dramatic season has advanced. As the producer of plays and adviser in matters relating to them, Mr. Norman McKinnel is associated with Miss Ashwell in an enterprise that must have great interest for London playgoers. Every seat in the house will be reserved so that there need be no waiting outside for pit or gallery.
(New York Times [USA], 7th October, 1906)
At Rehearsal With Lena Ashwell
I am a representative of the Chamberlain policy," announced Miss Lena Ashwell when she was finally discovered behind the scenes of the Majestic Theatre, where "The Shulamite" is being rehearsed.
"What do you mean?" stammered the newspaper man, who is not an expert on international politics and was greatly taken by surprise.
"I mean," replied the newly arrived English actress "that I am what might be called 'Imperial.' I was born on a training ship on the North Sea. My father was an English-man of the good old type and my mother was a Cornish woman. When I was six years old I was taken to Canada and sent to school in Toronto. Ten years later I returned to the Continent. You see, it is a little difficult to say precisely where I was born and brought up!"
Miss Ashwell was necessarily very busy directing the rehearsal of "The Shulamite," which was progressing under the difficulties of a comparatively bare stage, and "props" gathered simply from what material chanced to be at hand. However, she was not herself obliged to go on the stage for some little while, and this respite furnished the requisite opportunity for a chat behind the scenes in the darkened playhouse.
Though she speaks of her art with the utmost earnestness, she is notably a woman with an active interest in current affairs. She possesses a spontaneity, and her range of thought is not confined to matters of the stage.
It is not an easy task to get at those thoughts, because she humorously puts herself on guard as if in preparation for a duel of words ands questions. She answers all queries tersely, but with a smile: then she sits and waits for the next attack.
"How old were you when you went upon the stage?" asked the interviewer, endeavoring to stimulate a trend of reminiscent details about her early career.
"I made my first professional appearance when I was eighteen," she responded. "I came on as a maid and said 'Did you ring?' The first night I said nothing at all. I was too frightened."
"But what led you to choose the stage as a profession?"
"When I left Canada I went to Switzerland. I had a high soprano voice and I used to sing in a kind of garden with a mandolin. Isn't that romantic?"
"And then?"
"Then, one day a noted vocal teacher heard me sing and thought I ought to be in grand opera. So, when I was about 17 years old I went to the Academy of Music in London and stayed there for a year and a half. In the meantime I lost my voice, as far as the chances of being an operatic prima donna were concerned. You see, I was too young to use my voice in such an ezacting way - for it was a very light soprano and I hadn't the physique to stand the great strain. The trouble was that I tried to do too much in the beginning. After that it was surely natural enough that I should determine to be an actress, as I had always been particularly interested in the stage."
"Did you begin your dramatic training in the provinces, as so many of the noted English actors and actresses have done?"
"No, I never left London till I went out as the leading woman of my company. I played all manner of small parts at first and ultimately managed to work my way ro the fore. The first time I acted as leading woman was in 'Sowing the Wind,' and that was the drama with which I first went on the road."
"You played with Sir Henry Irving, did you not?"
"Oh, yes. In 1893 I appeared with him for the first time as Elaine in 'King Arthur.' Among other roles that I played with him were the little Prince of Wales in 'Richard III.' and the double part of Pia and Gemma in Sardou's 'Dante.'"
Curiously enough, two of Miss Ashwell's greatest successes have been made in American plays.
She played Leah Kleschna and was also Yo San in "The Darling of the Gods." She also created the role of Katusha when Beerbohm Tree produced Tolystoy's "Resurrection" and the English critics were very much pleased with her work in "Mrs. Danes's Defense." The only Shakespearian role she has attempted is that of Emilia in "Othello."
"Your part of Deborah in 'The Shulamite' is essentially an emotional role is it not?"
"Yes, but it is not morbid. At the end I see a glimmering ray of hope - the hope of infinite happiness. The scene is laid in South Africa, but the interest is of the universal sort and the action might equally well be imagined to take place in almost any other locality."
Miss Ashwell had suddenly become earnest. "I beleive that the drama is undergoing a period of active transition," she said. "I think the people have literally been choked with musical comedies. They are all the same, you know. I believe the London season opened with no less than seven of them. I think the fad for that kind of entertainment is soon going to be a thing of the past.
"I am not in a position to make any valuable comparison between English and American offerings, because I have only seen two plays during the few days that I have been in the city. You know that I arrived only last Saturday, and we open in Chicago on the 15th. I have seen 'The Girl of the Golden West' and 'The Hypocrites'; but of course 'The Hypocrites' is an English piece. I liked the Belasco piece very much. I suppose it is melodramatic, but in London some of the critics actually said just that of 'Leah Kleschna.'
"We played 'The Shulamite' all last season at the Savoy Theatre in London and then we went on tour, beginning the first week in September. One Thursday night I made my farewell speech and the following Saturday we sailed for New York."
In spite of the fact that Miss Ashwell appears to be in the best of spirits, she says that she has been suffering from "land-sickness" as the sailors call it. She is always well at sea, so she declares, but has to-pay for that privilege afterward by feeling the motion of the boat for several days after she lands.
Miss Ashwell stood nervously in the wings, glancing from time to time at the other players, who were going ahead with the rehearsal and making ready for her own entrance. "When Bernhardt learned I was coming to America she wrote me some of the most kindly and maternal advice" she continued, laughing silently with her eyes. "She told me what hotels to go to, all about the climate, and how to keep out of draughts. You know, she is really a most lovable old lady - one of the dearest old ladies in the world!"