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“To Submit and Patiently to Wait”: The Career of Mrs. Stirling
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
Extract
Almost half a century ago, the late Alan S. Downer argued that the work of Alfred Wigan, Leigh Murray, and Fanny Stirling marks the transition to an increasingly colloquial and realistic style of acting on the London Stage usually attributed to the Bancrofts at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Of those three performers, only Mrs. Stirling has not received subsequent scholarly attention. The single detailed twentieth century account of the neglected actress, The Stage Life of Mrs. Stirling, published by her grandson, Percy Allen, in 1922, is useful but suffers from the pitfalls all too common to familial obsequies and lacks both theatrical and social/cultural context.
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References
1 Downer, Alan S., “Players and Painted Stage: Nineteenth Century Acting,” PMLA, 61 [1946], pp. 528 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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14 Ibid., p.43.
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