Acting

Smithson as Ophelia The character of Ophelia is uniquely symbolic: her meanings are coded, and her scene in the play communicates by showing rather than telling. Given the medical community's beliefs about hysteria and women during this era, seeing a female body performing, especially one that relied more on gesture than on speech, was inevitably linked to hysteria. The strong reaction to Smithson's mad scene in 1827 was largely due to the pure visual effect of her entrance, which was met with a "distinct murmur of shock and surprise" (Raby 63). The audience in Paris did not anticipate her running on stage, with long wisps of straw in her hair, or spreading her black veil on the ground and scattering flowers upon it, mistaking it for her father's shroud (see right)- these were not included in Ducis's adaptation of the Shakespearean play.

However, Smithson had supposedly closed herself up in her room before the performance to privately explore the role, and her interpretation of Ophelia's delirium struck the audience profoundly. This kind of complete absorption into a role was foreign to the classical French style of acting. After the performance, several audience members attested to her immense talent for mime. Delecluze said, "The most remarkable feature of her acting is her "pantomime": she adopts fantastic postures; and she uses the "dying fall" in her inflections, without ever ceasing to be natural, to great effect" and Charles Jarrin wrote, "We scarcely heard the words of her mournful songs - but we all heard and understood, in our souls, the heart-rending sobs, the utter despair which they revealed, the shuddering sighs of her impending collapse. There was utter silence amongst the profoundly moved spectators - and then at the first cry of madness, a great burst of cheering, the most enthusiastic that I have ever heard" (Raby 66).

According to Raby, "What was especially appealing about the 'naturalness' of the English theatre's actors was the fact that it was unprecedented to see such extreme realism in a tragedy at the Odeon, instead of in melodrama at the boulevard theatres" (98).

Amédée Pichot, who in his book Historical and Literary Tour describes his impressions of English theatre, writes, "There are better tragic actors in London than in Paris, where, for my part, I generally feel very much inclined to fall asleep during the performance of tragedy. In Paris, tragedy is a literary entertainment, and in London a dramatic treat. This is as much owing to the difference of acting, as to the difference of style in tragic composition" (Raby 37).

The audience of the 1827 performances were not just impressed by the power of Smithson's mime, however. They were also impressed by the professionalism that the English actors displayed by staying in character and not breaking the invisible wall between the audience and the actors. One critic who was in the audience during a performance of Romeo and Juliet noted, "The lovers were at the back of the stage, wholly preoccupied by their roles and paying no attention to the public. Kemble never turned his head once towards the footlights, and although Juliet has frequent asides, she never once glanced at the spectators" (Raby 97).

The French actors and critics recognized the value of the English actors' professionalism and sought to adopt the practice in their own productions. At the beginning of the 1827 season the Courrier Français wrote: