Elizabeth Robins: Staging a Life, 1862-1952, and: Elizabeth Robins, 1862-1952: Actress, Novelist, Feminist (review)

Elizabeth Robins was a fascinating woman. Born in the shadow of the American Civil War, she lived through two world wars, had affairs with some of the most famous men of her time and was involved, often simultaneously, with the worlds of theatre, writing, and politics. Associating with such theatrical luminaries as Bernard Shaw, Beerbohm Tree, and Oscar Wilde, she became one of the first New Women actresses to play Ibsen and was actively involved with the suffrage movement through writing plays like Votes for Women! And yet she is a woman about whom little has been known until recently, when she was “discovered” by feminist scholars, even though she wrote several autobiographical pieces and left behind a vast correspondence. As these two biographies suggest, Robins herself colluded in this lack of information, not just by withholding the truth but by constantly hiding behind different identities.

Such a rich, varied and, at times, deliberately obfuscated life is obviously both exciting and daunting for any biographer. The two authors who have risen to the challenge, one English, the other American, choose to concentrate on differing aspects of Elizabeth Robins’s life, as can be ascertained from the subtitles of these books: “Staging a Life”; “Actress, Feminist, Novelist.”

Angela John’s biography concentrates on Robins, the woman. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Robins’s early life was marred by a tragedy that came back to haunt her in later years. Several family members suffered from mental problems, including her mother who was eventually put in an asylum. Her father, to whom she was devoted, held a deep mistrust of the stage, but against family pressure, Robins took up acting. John gives an illuminating account of how, while appearing in her hometown with James O’Neill (father of playwright Eugene), Robins felt deep humiliation when, “Before all the world” her father walked out of the theatre during the second act (quoted on 19). However, supported by her mother and grandmother, Robins continued with her stage career at the prestigious Boston Museum Company, where she met her future husband, George Parks. Marrying secretly, she then entered a period of her life that, John stresses, was both personally and professionally difficult, one that left an indelible mark on her character. Released by the theatre company because she was now a married woman, she and her husband lived in abject poverty for two years. Elizabeth took what roles she could, and George struggled as an actor, then drowned himself; his suicide note implied that he did not wish to hold back his wife’s career.

John astutely connects the difficulties Robins encountered during these early years with the decisions she made later on in her life, particularly those that involved rewriting the past or creating new roles for herself. Johns underscores these changes of identity by structuring her book around the various names by which Robins was known—Bessie, Lisa, C. E. Raimond, Elizabeth Robins, E.R.—each of which corresponded to a different section of her life.

John’s describes quite nicely how, once again, Robins had to rebuild her acting career—and a new identity—when she arrived in London shortly after her husband’s suicide. Watching Janet Achurch as Nora in Ibsen’s pioneering A Doll’s House in 1889 proved a turning point. Robins recalled that it was “less like a play than like a personal meeting—with people and issues that seized us and held us, and wouldn’t let us go” (quoted on 53). Soon after, Robins and another actress, Marian Lea, successfully negotiated for the English rights to Hedda Gabler and used their jewelry as collateral to rent a theatre. Their production opened to great acclaim; a leading newspaper called it “one of the most notable events in the history of the modern stage . . . it marks an epoch and clinches an influence” (quoted...