Copyright © 2020 by Wendy Waszut-Barrett
In 1920, Thomas G. Moses wrote, “The Madam and I enjoyed Mrs. Fiske in “Nell of New Orleans” at Powers. She was very fine.”
Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske starred as Aunt Nelly in “Nell O’ New Orleans.” Each act of the play was set in the garden of Miss Nell’s home in New Orleans. The second act was the same setting illuminated for the Mardi Gras at a dinner party. The final scene showed the same setting the morning after a violent storm. Some wonderful historic photos of Fiske are available at “Early History of Theatre in Seattle” – here is the link: http://seattletheatrehistory.org/collections/people/minnie-maddern-fiske
The show was quite popular in 1920 and 1921, both in North America and overseas. In England, it was Miss Irene Vanbrugh who played the part of Miss Nelly in this Creole drama.
In 1921, the “London Times” described the “Nell O’ New Orleans plot line (Feb 16, 1921, page 8): “This is a play of atmosphere and the players know it and see that you don’t forget it. They are liquidly and meticulously Creole. Their Creole idioms seem to melt in the mouth. The dishes on the table, they tell you, are carefully prepared à la Créole. They have coloured people to wait on then and coloured people to sing them ‘off.’ The scene is laid in an old garden ‘on’ St. Charles-street in New Orleans. You hear of ‘bayous.’
“So you are fully persuaded to be in Louisiana, where, it appears, anything may happen. For instance Aunt (pronounced ant) Nelly may come back from Paris with a fine stock of swear words to show that she is skittish and a stick to indicate that she is not so young as when Georges Durand broke off his engagement (in 1886), and she may tease the life out of that unhappy Georges Durand by suddenly putting on her old 1886 frock and looking maddeningly bewitching in it. Indeed, she overcomes more than her enemies. She fascinates Durand fils as well as Durand pére, and drived off at midnight with the youngster, giving out that she is going to marry him, although but a minute ago he was engaged to her niece Delphine. But she returns cramped and weary from that trip next morning (after driving into innumerable bayous) to bring the young couple together again and to bestow her own hand upon the sulky Georges Durand. There are many more details in this odd story, but need not trouble about them because in Louisiana is in the atmosphere and the liquid, lisping Creole idiom.
“At least, that would be our main interest, if it were not that Aunt Nelly is played by Miss Irene Vanbrugh, and played with an attraction that far surpasses that of any atmosphere or idiom whatever. Her vivacity, her sparkle, her roguery, her spirit of fun are quite irresistible, Whether she is hobbling with her stick as the mature aunt (and dropping inadvertent damns into her reticule) or reverting to the skittish matron of 1886, or returning from her innocent escapade with aching feet and sides pinched by her corset, or saying, as the mot de la fin ((when Georges Durand has asked is she came back from Paris to marry him), ‘I’m damned if I know him,’ she is the incomparable artist that we know. The house, delighted at the outset to see her back on her old stage, was more than delighted to find that she had come back with all her old art and her old charm. Mr. Hallard and Mr. Faber contribute conscientiously to the Creole atmosphere. Miss Helen Spencer and Mt. Jack Hobbs are pleasant enough as a young couple. But the audience clamoured for their enchantress, Miss Irene, and would not go away until she had made a little speech of thanks.”
To be continued…
