Maude Adams as an actress

“Everyone knew that Maude Adams was not a great actress .Theatregoers of all descriptions and critics of all persuasions agreed that it was her fascinating and endearing personality, rather than extra-ordinary dramatic talent, which fixed her star in the theatrical heavens. (Maude Adams, an American Idol: True Womanhood Triumphant in the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century Theatre, doctoral thesis, 1984, Eileen Karen Kuehnl)

“The qualifications of this actress, although extremely attractive and valuable, of their kind, are strictly limited in range, and consist largely in the attributes of a piquant personality, which does not readily lend itself to modification or development. In other words she must, to appear at her best, be carefully fitted.” Evening Post, Nov. 12, 1901

“Since her earlier success in light comedy she has gained much in self-confidence, in knowledge of stage business, and in vocal power, but in real artistic culture and development she has made small progress.” Evening Post, Nov. 11, 1903

“She has gained in authority, but otherwise she is but little changed since the day of her signal success in 'The Little Minister.” Her method of acting, if it can be called a method, has the virtue of simplicity, and also it presents the radical defect of obviousness; it shows the wheels. She does the same things over and over again,--not only the same things that she has done in other plays, but, in every play the same things she has done a few moments before.” Tribune, Jan. 16, 1908

“Maude fell into her artistic rut by continually relying upon certain physical and vocal mannerisms, her audience-pleasing “tricks.” (Maude Adams, an American Idol: True Womanhood Triumphant in the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century Theatre, doctoral thesis, 1984, Eileen Karen Kuehnl)

“The critical, while recognizing Miss Adam's charm, will, nevertheless, continue to wish that she would at times divest herself of her mannerisms. There is often an irritating impression of a composite portrait in which the features of a charming young woman are overlaid by those of Peter Pan. That boyish toss of the head, the throaty little gurgles, which are exactly right in peter Pan, fit Lady Babbie scarcely more happily than they fitted Chantecler.” (re: the little minister) The Nation, Jan. 29, 1916

Plays and Players, Walter P. Eaton: “She speaks very badly...and she mispronounces the English language atrociously.” - This may have been due to her western accent.

“Maude's foremost limitation as an actress, a handicap greater than her changlessness, mannerisms, and elocutionary defects combined, was her deficiency in emotional power....This fault automatically barred her from nomination for greatness, according to the standards of her time.” “Though no prominent critic said so in print, some or all may have attributed Maude's lack of passion to her state of maidenhood and childlessness. There were those who advanced the general theory that motherhood significantly improves an actress' emotional power.” (Maude Adams, an American Idol: True Womanhood Triumphant in the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century Theatre, doctoral thesis, 1984, Eileen Karen Kuehnl)

“She reads a new play when her manager has selected one for her and studies it as a whole. Then she goes to her books for information concerning the period, place, architecture, costumes, etc. She devotes a great deal of time to the study of these phase of the play and gives little heed to the actual lines. They come to her seemingly without effort at rehearsal, and before the play is produced she has every work of the piece at her finger-tips. Her researches have placed her thoroughly en rapport with all the subject-matter of the piece, and she is thus enabled to feel and know just what she is doing without blindly or half-aimlessly groping through it, as would be the case if she had not obtained a complete mental grasp of the work.” Ladies Home Journal, Nov. 1903

“What does Miss Adams do wit herself? I once asked Al Hayman, who was a partner of Charles Frohman's. 'Studies,' Al replied. She's played Babbie, in 'The Little Minister,' hundreds of times; yet when I telephone her in Kansas City at two o'clock, I'll ask her, 'What are you up to this afternoon?' and I'll bet you five dollars the answer will be, 'Studying Babbie.' Listen in from the other office and see if I'm right. I did. And he was.” Green Book Magazine, Sept. 1914

“Maude is a student of freshness. She despises the stereotyped. To avoid the mechanical, she changes her play at almost every performance. In this way she keeps herself and the other actors fresh and on the alert, and she perfects her detail.” -Annie Adams. Green Book Magazine, Nov. 1914

“Crowds outside the theatre walls demonstrated their allegience to Maude in a more sedate, but equally fervent, manner. Rain or shine, following every performance, large groups stood around the stage door, waiting to see their idol emerge.” (Maude Adams, an American Idol: True Womanhood Triumphant in the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century Theatre, doctoral thesis, 1984, Eileen Karen Kuehnl)

”They were young girls mostly, which automatically kept the young men away, except when a lucky young man were some girls' escort. There was also a sprinkling of women who no doubt still called each other 'girls.' All this eager knot of people ever saw was the quick crossing of the sidewalk by a much-muffled-up figure who got into its motor and rolled away. ...In the days of Peter Pan there were many children waiting. And then it was different. The figure that came out and was muffled up wore Peter's flying cap and feather. Thus the illusion of the boy who would not grow up was not shattered for the ardent little folk by having Peter come out in the prosaic guise of a woman.” New York Times, Jan. 20, 1929

Nat Goodwin's book, 1914: referring to Maude Adams: “She stands for all that represents true and virtuous womanhood; at the zenith of her fame she has woven her own mantle and placed it about the pedestal upon which she stands, alone.”

“In New York or on the road, those who loved Maude Adams seemed to find a certain spiritual quality that elevated her to wholly special consideration.” New York Times, July 18, 1953

“She has no grasp of the fierce elemental passions of animal sex. To depict those things does not interest her. The fountainhead of her personality is nun-like and virginal.” Hampton's Magazine, June 1911

Second Lights, Arthur Ruhl. “But all sorts of stage people are just as nice as anybody-and just as stupid and uninteresting. The great thing about Miss Adams was that she made niceness exciting. She gave people more thrills, being just as nice as could be, than were given by others when they deliberately set out to be horrid. She took them up into a thin bright ether of her own, where they were put to shame by their own earthiness. She was a skylark, instead of a siren on a rock twanging away on a pastboard harp! Hers was no namby-pamby niceness—an actress playing down to her audience and on her good behavior like a child before strangers—but a militant niceness, a brave, pathetic little spirit, playing up for all it was worth against the brute strength of wicked world.”

“This little woman somehow suggests a garden, in spring-time, with the sun shining bright and the breeze blowing her skirts about her.” Green Book Magazine, March 1917

Her attitude:

“We have with us one actress of long experience, relentless endeavor, splendid achievement, who has never yet been guilty of the unpardonable insolence, the supreme and grotesque impertinence of 'kicking' at her audiences, berating critics and casting slurs at her sisters.

“She has pursued the even tenor of her way with sublime resolve. She has carefully and assiduously studied the intricacies of her part. While sister artists were posing in the limelight off the stage and chatting airily about the infamy of our first nighters, the incompetency of our critics and all that sort of baffling piffle, this one actress was steadily aiming for the top of the trees..I am referring, of course, to Maude Adams. Green Book Magazine, Nov. 1914

Ethel Barrymore remembers her:

“Maude Adams was living at Mrs. Wilson's with her mother and that is how Uncle Jack heard about it and knew it would be a nice place for me to stay. At that time I did not know Maude at all and we saw very little of her at the boardinghouse. Mrs. Wilson was a dressmaker and made the loveliest of clothes. She always made Maude's dresses...”

“One night in Springfield, Massachusetts, we had supper of crackers and milk together after the theater, and sat and talked. I thought this evening was wonderful. I remember how Dick Davis adored her, as all of her friends did, and how later when we were playing New Haven we went to a tea given by an undergraduate in his rooms and she delighted all the boys by singing for them. For two or three years she was perfectly charming and gay, and then she began to be the original “I want-to-be-alone” woman. On long journeys all the way across the country, she would never come out of her beth, and it was very rarely that anybody saw her off the stage. I never knew whether this was Mr. Frohman's idea or her own.”Memories: An Autobiography by Ethel Barrymore, 1955

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