Fanny Kemble Reads Shakespeare: Her First American Tour, 1849–50

Abstract

The nineteenth-century English speaking stage was the setting for some of the most significant and interesting productions of Shakespeare's plays. It was the age of both Keans, Macready, Phelps, the Booths, Beerbohm Tree, Irving, and Poel, to mention only a few of the innovators and stars. As usual, Shakespeare was the most popular and frequently produced playwright in the language, but performances were not limited to the traditional stage. Hundreds were presented as platform readings in most of the major cities of England and America, where the halls and lecture rooms were frequently filled. The readings were given by stars and neophytes alike: Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, William Charles Macready, Sarah Siddons, Charles Kemble, and others whose names are barely footnotes to the history of the theatre. The most accomplished, popular, and preeminent among these was Frances Anne (Fanny) Kemble, Charles' daughter and second generation to the great acting family. Her career and success as an actress are well documented, but comparatively little has been written about her reading performances of Shakespeare — an activity that occupied her for nearly a quarter of a century. For most of the others, the readings were spinoffs from their stage work, favors to friends, experiments or brief encounters; for Fanny reading was a serious business, indeed her very subsistence.