Review of

Anna Cora Mowatt

in Henry Milman's tragedy "Fazio"

published by

Walt Whitman in

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Mrs. Mowatt

Played Bianca in the highly-wrought tragedy of Fazio last night with great power and expressiveness.  The last two acts, in particular, were made almost painful by the intense passion of the distracted wife – her wild struggles to save the husband she herself had condemned – and her deranged appearance in the banquet room of Aldabella ………. We remember well the ‘sensation’ produced by Fanny Kemble in this part.  Mrs. Mowatt give it with more evenness, and, in our opinion, with as much power – barring that she has not the physical force that resided in F.K.’s slight looking frame.  We consider Mrs. Mowatt to be a woman of special endowments – and trust that as time remedies the deficiencies of want of full practice, she will come nearer and nearer to that climax of her noble art, which she evidently aims for, and which she last night showed sever of the important requisite for – assuredly the most important, intellectuality. She has engrafted one good trait on her ‘style,’ too, that deserve the highest commendation:  she entirely avoids the mannerisms which are the curse of most actors and nearly all actresses – the hysterical jerking of the voice, at the end of sentences – the inane smile continued ‘through thick and thin’ – the tragedy strut – the perpetual evidence of mere stage discipline – the stale professional tricks that are as commonplace in theatricals as certain conned phrases are in newspaper reporting.  All these Mrs. Mowatt seems to have reformed altogether in her instance – which makes her acting, on account of that reform alone, refreshing – at least to us.  For our part we always prefer ripe sound plums, with the blue bloom upon them, plucked from nature’s branches, to any plums flummeried in stew-pans.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Sept. 30, 1846, page 2, col. 3.

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