Madge Titheradge (1887-1961)
Madge Titheradge (1887-1961)
(The Daily Mail [London, UK]
2nd september, 1922)
EATING ON THE STAGE - MISS MADGE TITHERADGE AND THE GRAPES
It seldom happens that the stage food of an actress rather than her stage frocks arouses comment from women playgoers. In "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife," the witty play now running at the Queen's Theatre, W., the curtain rises for the third act on the last moments of a supper for two. One of the two is Miss Madge Titheradge; as Monna, the eighth wife of the millionaire Bluebeard. And Miss Titheradge, faced with one of the most trying of stage difficulties - to eat - actually selects grapes! Where another would merely have toyed gracefully with the stem of a wineglass or an occasional brave spirit might perhaps have trifled with a morsel of the tractable banana, this Monna, rising superbly above the difficulties of skins and stones, convincingly eats grapes!
She has her reward in the admiration of playgoers who recognise in this incident that which marks the sincerity and intelligence of her acting. "Miss Titheradge is splendid," one woman exclaimed to another. Her grapes ought to rank with the famous breakfast eaten by M. Lucien Guitry in "Le Grand Doc." when he roused an audience to enthusiasm by the feat of enormous mouthfulls of assorted foods, talking and telephoning at the same time.
(The Sydney Morning Herald [Sydney, AUS] - 9th July, 1913)
MADGE TITHERADGE
I once heard a vivid description of Madge Titheradge given by a younger sister. It was Sunday morning, in London - Madge was breakfasting in bed. An elder sister was urging her to hurry, as visitors were ex- pected, but Madge refused to be hurried. Sunday's the only day I've got to be as ugly as I like, and I'm going to be ugly," she de- clined, and then to the elder sister's horror, she fastened back her curls with her break fast fork, made a hideous grimace, and settled down to the joy of being ugly
But, whatever she might feel, it would cer- tainly need more than a Sunday morning in bed to make Madge Titheradge look ugly, for she is as pretty and charming a thing as ever shod a spell across the footlights. Small and slim she is, with big bright eyes, look- ing straight at you beneath a mass of bright brown hair; a clear, warm skin, and red lips, innocent of make-up, but words only dim her image and give no hint of the vivid, fascinat- ing personality of this Australian girl, who has charmed the hearts of two countries and has now come home to conquer a third.
When you talk to Madge Titheradge you quickly realise that it is more than mere personal charm that has carried her to the front of her profession. She has brains, an inherent love of her art, grit, and a capacity for hard work. Although she is a very young leading lady she has served her apprentice- ship, as she went on the stage at the age of 13 and worked her way up.
"And even when I got a chance, it wasn't really a chance. For eight times I made my appearance in revivals, coming after eight well-known actresses in the parts. Lily Han- bury, Evelyn Milliard, Evie Moore, Pauline Chase - I followed them all in characters they had made. It was only when I played "Peggy" In "The Butterfly on the Wheel," that I really had my own chance, and I seized it with both hands."
How much she made of this we have all heard, and will soon have an opportunity of Judging for ourselves.
Although Miss Titheradge has made a suc- cess in England and America, she is really dreading her first appearance in Aus- tralia. "I never can help dreading first nights anywhere, but naturally I am more afraid of my first night in Australia, for I feel that something is expected of me. Still, nothing could over be as dreadful as my first night In New York. You know that after we had been playing the "Butterfly" in London for some months, Mr. Waller left us and went over to America. While he was there, Mr. Frohman, who had bought the American rights from Mr. Waller, put on the "Butterfly" in Chicago, with an American company. Evidently the players did not un- derstand the English setting, but, anyhow, the play was a rank failure, and only ran for a week. Mr. Waller was amazed, but so strong was his belief in the play that he bought back the rights from Mr. Frohman, and announced his intention of producing it in New York. Everyone tried to persuade him against it, saying that it was not the sort of play Americans liked. But he was deter- mined to give it a chance, and sent tor me to come to New York. You can just imagine how I felt, coming to play a piece that their own artists had failed in, and knowing that everybody was laughing at us and saying 'poor, silly things!' Do you wonder that my first night was a real nightmare to me?"
"And what was the result?" as she stopped dramatically.
She laughed. "Well, after the first act we had six curtains, and after my great scene in act III. I had fourteen recalls. And now every city in America has had it, and it is stlll playing to good houses."
But, much as she likes "Peggy," it is to Shakespeare that her ambition turns. "I have been rehearsing Chorus to-day for the first time. Oh, the loveliness of the lines. It is a privilege just to say the beautiful words. 'Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames, each battle sees the other's lim- ber, face; doesn't it thrill you? Can't you see the whole scene?"
Her face glows with the Intensity that only the lover of the beautiful can know, and then drops, as she says, rather pathetically: "But what's the use? I'm too little to play Shakes- peare."
But I, who have had just that glimpse of her quality, feel that, in spite of tradition, her inches would be forgotten if she set her heart on playing Shakespeare. And, after all, we have no assurance that the bard's heroines were tall; indeed, experience tells us that in true life the finest spirits often dwell In the smallest bodies, and Shakespeare was nothing if not true to life. And Madge Titheradge has nothing if not spirit. It bursts out when someone - not I - asks her if she is a suffragist.
"I am at the core," she admits. "Nearly all the women on the stage are. I suppose it is because we have tasted independence and freedom, we have earned our own livings and made our own lives. And we who are free are hitting back for all the slavery and sacrifice of our mothers and grandmothers, and for the dull subservience of the millions of English women to-day. You can't imagine the grey monotony of the life of the middle class Englishwoman. It seems to be just bear- ing children and making flannel petticoats. In America It is quite different - there is a camaraderie, and give and take between hus- band and wife, unknown in England. And I suppose it's the same here. That's what makes it hard for you to understand the militants. I am not a militant myself, but I have a certain sympathy with them, and, oh, I admire their courage. I saw a little band of them in Hyde Park one Sunday just before I left London. A mob of roughs surrounded them and roared like wild beasts at"them; the police had to ride out and protect them, but those women never flinched. It Is only absolute belief in their cause that carries them through. Three or four years ago, when I was a silly little gossoon, I said to Christabel Pankhurst: "But why must you bite policemen. Why don't you ask quietly?" She answered me: "Dear child, for 30 years my father and mother were asking quietly," and no one ever heard of them." And she was right, you know. Even those of us who cannot side with them, know they have made the question live. And, of course, woman suffrage is only a matter of time, and a short time, too - now in England.
Miss Titheradge is full of living interest in the world around her. Somehow the talk turned to Australian defence, and she burst forth with enthusiasm about our navy. "It makes me thrill with pride. Aren't you all overjoyed about It? I know a lot of the Eng- lish officers who have come out, and when I was in Melbourne one of them said to me: "They're splendid fellows, these Australians of yours." I can't tell you how proud and glad I felt, for you know Englishmen don't praise highly. But, of course, you are all just as proud. I know it by the cables that come out every day, about the 'Australia,' 'the Aus- tralia's coaling' 'the Australia has coaled.' It's lovely - so young and keen and enthusi- astic. "
And as she talks you look at her and think that she herself might stand for the Australia she describes - "So young and keen and enthusiastic."
And you notice that there is strength as well as laughter in the pretty mouth and chin - a strength that, with her youth, her keenness, and her enthusiasm, will carry her far - oven perhaps to the beloved world of Shakespeare.