Video: The Amazing Maud Adams: Best Male Actress of the Early 20th Century
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
In the winter of 1910/1911, people stood in line for two days to buy tickets for Chantecler, a Broadway rooster play. It became the most talked about event of the theatrical season. The great success of this philosophical play about the adventures of animals in a barn brought Maud Adams starring. The actress was so famous that one critic called her "the most popular person in the United States."
Young Maude Adams (Maude Adams) became an actress following the example of her mother and at the age of 16 was already performing on Broadway. She played in many productions, but became famous primarily for her image of Peter Pan. Like Peter, she was funny, mischievous, charming, naive and lively. Maud added her own unique touches to the production.
Peter Pan was not the only performance in which Maud Adams played the male role. In 1900 she played the main character in the play "Eaglet" by Edmond Rostand. The eaglet was Napoleon II, the son of Napoleon Bonaparte. Rostand wrote this role especially for a special woman. She was a Frenchwoman Sarah Bernhardt, one of the best actresses of her time.
In 1904, Edmond Rostand, famous for his Cyrano de Bergerac, published a new drama Chauntecleer (Singer of the Dawn). The central image is the pompous Rooster, full of pride in himself. At the beginning of the play, he is sure that it is his song that causes the dawn and the beginning of a new day. But history develops and follows the philosophical and emotional realization that the sun will rise without him, the Rooster, participation. It was a purely male role. Rostand himself described the Rooster as "Cyrano with feathers."
The American production of Chauntecleer could not help but become a blockbuster. The most popular actresses of the country were invited to participate in the production. Money was not spared, Maud Adams and her stellar colleagues were dressed in elaborate costumes that turned the girls into birds. The stage was lined with giant trees and haystacks. Adams, known for many roles, later said that of all her plays, this one is the most memorable and valuable.
At the start of the show, Maud appeared on stage in an evening dress to deliver the prologue. When she disappeared backstage, a curtain opened, representing a huge barn with haystacks. Maud Adams reappeared in a feathered costume.
The sensational production became popular. Maud Adams was ultimately Rooster 320 times in 89 cities. It was a great success for the fragile, feminine actress who played the aggressive, arrogant, domineering Rooster with a powerful, masculine voice. But theater critics who saw the show hated Maud Adams because she was a woman.
Maud herself said that she most of all loved the image of the Rooster, and only then - Peter Pan. This choice of male role may have been associated with her rivalry with Sarah Bernhardt.
Like the Rooster of Chauntecleer, Maud Adams has devoted his entire life to creativity. She never married, having lived the rest of her life alone.
On the stage, Maud Adams had only one competitor - "Divine" Frenchwoman Sarah Bernhardt, who also loved both female and male roles
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