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Mary Gladstane

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Mary Gladstane (1830 – ) was an Irish-American actress of the 19th-century who was popular in Australia.

History

According to one researcher, Gladstane was born Mary Jane Carson, eldest of three actress daughters of Peter Carson, an Irish compositor, and his wife Catherine; married William Cockerill Gladstane, an American solicitor, in 1845.[1][a] Another researcher found Mary Gladstane married L. M. Bayless on 1 June 1868; no further details.[4]

She arrived in Australia with L. M.[b] Bayless, her husband and manager, and from 9 July 1870 played Tom Taylor's newly published drama Mary Warner[7] at the Princess's Theatre, Melbourne. That was followed by the first Australian production of Paolo Giacometti's Elizabeth, Queen of England at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne on 23 July 1870 and played the queen.

On 10 August 1875 a full production in Italian was presented at the Opera House, Melbourne with Madame Ristori in the title role and Eduardo Majeroni as Robert, Earl of Sussex.

On 6 August 1870 she opened at the Princess's Theatre, Melbourne, with Frou-Frou, in a translation by F. Williams, stage-manager of the Boston Museum theatre. On 26 September she opened at the Victoria Theatre, Sydney in the same production. That same night, Mrs Bandmann opened at the Prince of Wales Opera House, Sydney, in the "correct translation" of Frou-Frou by Sutherland Edwards of the Pall Mall Gazette, as performed at the Olympic Theatre, London.[8] One critic found Gladstane, not unnaturally, better settled into the part and on the whole gave the better performance but was over-melodramatic in the final (reconciliation and death) scene; both deserved a better vehicle.[9] Neither production was a great success — Bandmann's folded after four nights and Gladstane's little more than a week.

In February 1873 after 233 performances in that Melbourne alone, she left Australia, giving farewell performances of Queen Elizabeth, Frou-Frou, Camille, East Lynne and finally shone in Reade and Taylor's Masks and Faces and Boucicault's London Assurance though comedy was not her forté.[10]

In October 1876 she returned to Melbourne after three years working in Great Britain. A month later she was touring: East Lynne and Camille and Morris Barnett's comedy The Serious Family at the Academy of Music, Ballarat; the Mechanics' Institute, Geelong; Lucretia Borgia and Schiller's Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland at Bendigo.


In 1877 she played the Victoria Theatre, Sydney and the Theatre Royal, Hobart

By 1887 she had returned to America, living at Long Branch, perhaps Long Branch, New Jersey.[11]

The theatre manager Sheridan Corbyn, in a long and informative letter, discussed how top-flight American artists could command much higher fees at home than Australian theatres could afford, hence only those struggling to find work would accept bookings. He mentioned Gladstane as an exception, along with Joseph Jefferson, James Stark, the sisters Zavistowski, Edwin Adams, the Williamsons, and Emmet.[12]

Notes and references

  1. ^ This contention has been corroborated to some extent: her two actress sisters and British origin,[2] and she had earlier played as Mrs W. C. Gladstane, starring opposite James Edward Murdoch in Bulwer-Lytton's Money, Romeo and Juliet and Wild Oats at the Washington Theater in 1860,[3] and opposite Barry Sullivan in Hamlet at the same theatre in 1859.
  2. ^ Possibly Louis Maclain Bayless[5] but there is scarcely less evidence for "Leon" as his given name.[6]
  1. ^ Kurt of Gerolstein. "The West End in the 1860s". Retrieved 3 March 2022.
  2. ^ "The Theatre Royal". The Evening Journal (Adelaide). Vol. III, no. 754. South Australia. 26 June 1871. p. 2. Retrieved 3 March 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ^ "J. E. Murdoch". Library of Congress. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
  4. ^ "Who Married Whom". Retrieved 6 March 2022.
  5. ^ "Police Courts". The Evening Journal (Adelaide). Vol. IV, no. 1053. South Australia. 18 June 1872. p. 2. Retrieved 6 March 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. ^ "Theatrical Dispute". The Herald (Melbourne). No. 2228. Victoria, Australia. 20 June 1879. p. 3. Retrieved 6 March 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. ^ "Mary Warner". The Mercury (Hobart). Vol. XXXI, no. 5324. Tasmania, Australia. 6 November 1877. p. 3. Retrieved 5 March 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ^ "Advertising". The Sydney Morning Herald. Vol. LXII, no. 10, 093. New South Wales, Australia. 26 September 1870. p. 8. Retrieved 5 March 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  9. ^ "Dramatic and Musical Review". Australian Town and Country Journal. Vol. II, no. 39. New South Wales, Australia. 1 October 1870. p. 21. Retrieved 5 March 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  10. ^ "The Prince of Wales Opera House". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 8, 326. Victoria, Australia. 17 February 1873. p. 6. Retrieved 4 March 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  11. ^ "No title". The Lorgnette. Vol. XLVII. Victoria, Australia. 10 November 1887. p. 2. Retrieved 3 March 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  12. ^ "Communicated". The Australasian. Vol. XXII, no. 566. Victoria, Australia. 3 February 1877. p. 19. Retrieved 4 March 2022 – via National Library of Australia.


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