The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield | Page 6

into the antiquated Abigail of Fletcher ('Scornful Lady') as when triumphing in all the airs and vain graces of a fine lady, a merit that few actresses care for. In a play of D'Urfey's, now forgotten, called the 'Western Lass,' which part she acted, she transformed her whole being, body, shape, voice, language, look, and features, into almost another animal, with a strong Devonshire dialect, a broad, laughing voice, a poking head, round shoulders, an unconceiving eye, and the most bediz'ning, dowdy dress that ever cover'd the untrain'd limbs of a Joan Trot. To have seen her here you would have thought it impossible the same creature could ever have been recover'd to what was as easy to her, the gay, the lively, and the desirable. Nor was her humour limited to her sex; for, while her shape permitted, she was a more adroit pretty fellow than is usually seen upon the stage. Her easy air, action, mien, and gesture quite chang'd, from the quoif to the cock'd hat and cavalier in fashion. People were so fond of seeing her a man, that when the part of Bays in the 'Rehearsal' had for some time lain dormant, she was desired to take it up, which I have seen her act with all the true coxcombly spirit and humour that the sufficiency of the character required."
[Footnote A: Davies, in his "Life of Garrick," says of Peg Woffington that "in Mrs. Day, in the 'Committee,' she made no scruple to disguise her beautiful countenance by drawing on it the lines of deformity and the wrinkles of old age, and to put on the tawdry habilaments and vulgar manners of an old hypocritical city vixen."]
Let us cry peace to her manes and then wander back to Mistress Oldfield, whom we have a very ungallant way of leaving from time to time.
Well, Verbruggen having been taken out of the dramatic lists "most of her parts," as Colley chronicles, "were, of course, to be disposed of, yet so earnest was the female scramble for them, that only one of them fell to the share of Mrs. Oldfield, that of Leonora in 'Sir Courtly Nice'; a character of good plain sense, but not over elegantly written."
A "female scramble" it must have been with a vengeance, as any one who knows aught of theatrical ambition will easily understand. The only really distinguished actress of the Drury Lane coterie _hors de combat_, and a bevy of feminine vultures of no particular pretension, anxiously waiting to dispose of her histrionic remains! Think of it, ye managers who have to subdue the passions and limit the extravagant hopes of your players, and pity poor, unfortunate Mr. Rich. Do you wonder that Nance only contrived to get the plain-spoken Leonora? The wonder of it is that she obtained any r?le whatsoever.
Let Cibber continue the story, while he frankly confesses that even he could form a false estimate of a colleague:
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"It was in this part Mrs. Oldfield surpris'd me into an opinion of her having all the innate powers of a good actress, though they were yet but in the bloom of what they promis'd. Before she had acted this part I had so cold an expectation from her abilities, that she could scarce prevail with me to rehearse with her the scenes she was chiefly concerned in with Sir Courtly, which I then acted. However, we ran them over with a mutual inadvertency of one another. I seem'd careless, as concluding that any assistance I could give her would be to little or no purpose; and she mutter'd out her words in a sort of mifty manner at my low opinion of her. But when the play came to be acted, she had just occasion to triumph over the error of my judgment, by the (almost) amazement that her unexpected performance awak'd me to; so forward and sudden a step into nature I had never seen; and what made her performance more valuable was that I knew it all proceeded from her own understanding, untaught and unassisted by any one more experienced actor."
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In the original text, Cibber, in pursuance of that old-fashioned method of capitalising every third or fourth word without any particular rhyme or reason, has spelled occasion with a big O. Well he might, for it was, perhaps, the most important occasion in all the eventful life of Oldfield. She would win many a more popular triumph in days to come, but what were all of them compared to the honour of having compelled the writer to admit that he had blundered.
"Though this part of Leonora in itself was of so little value, that when she got more into esteem it was one of the several she gave away to inferior