Miss Ida Benfey: the American story teller

              Miss Ida Benfey

Figure

The American Story Teller.


MISS IDA BENFEY

The term 'recital' receives a new meaning when considered in connection with the dramatic power brought to it by Miss Benfey.—
Ann Arbor Courier.

IF well informed people in the department of Public Readers, were asked whom they would name as the foremost in ability, it is probable that the large majority would speak the name of Miss Benfey.  She is called for repeatedly on the largest courses and in the places of best culture in this country.  Miss Benfey gives the story of great novels in one evening.  This is an original field of her own, for few artists have her peculiar ability of carrying an audience through the entire thread of a story, and placing before them living scenes.

At colleges, chautauquas, and on the lecture platform, in the drawing-room, and on the stage, her work is equally successful.

Miss Benfey has done much to make American stories popular in London, where she appeared before the literary and social nobility.

We do not need to commend her; she has done that herself; but we are happy to announce ourselves as her managers.

THE CENTRAL LYCEUM BUREAU.



Bishop Vincent's Letter to Miss Benfey:
Dear Miss Benfey: Your reading at Chautauqua was wonderful.  It permitted to breath of adverse criticism.  You feel what you read.  You are what you read.  You are possessed by your theme.  Come to Chautauqua again.  Bring your voice, your pathos, your power, and your self-forgetfulness.

Truly yours,
JOHN H. VINCENT.

Chautauqua, 1895.



Repertory.

LES MISERABLES
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
CHISTMAS CAROL
ADAM BEDE
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.



Ida Benfey Reads Fugo's Les Miserables.

For two hours and a half last evening Ida Benfey held a large audience's closest attention in the First Baptist Church.  The occasion was the complimentary entertainment which the Teachers' Club gave to the holders of the season's tickets.  The choice which the managers made in asking IDA BENFEY to come to Minneapolis was well justified by her work as well as by her reception.—
Minneapolis Times, January 20, 1899.




Programmes

LES MISERABLES.
BY VICTOR HUGO.

SYNOPSIS OF THE READING: —Jean Valjean's Interview with the Bishop.  The Champmathieu Affair: Is it right to allow an ignoble person to suffer your punishment that you may go free to accomplish a great good?  Jean Valjean's Decision.  Cosette.  The Escape to the Convent.  The Gamin Gavroche and His Fatherly Care of the Two Children.  Jean Valjean Discovers Cosette's Love for Marius.  The Barricade and the Sewer.  Javert Commits Suicide—is it Because it Seems to him the Only Honorable Course of Action?  Jean Valjean's Last Humiliation.  The End.

Miss Benfey impersonates eight characters in telling this wonderful story.



ADAM BEDE.
BY GEORGE ELIOT.

SYNOPSIS OF THE READING: —Adam's Love for Hettie and Her Acquaintance and Relation with Arthur Donnithorn.  The Birthday Feast.  Adam and Arthur Meet in the Chase; the Quarrel.  Arthur's Letter to Hettie and Her Engagement to Adam.  The Interview Between Mr. Irwin and Adam; Adam Learns the Truth.  Diana Morris Visits Hettie in Her Cell After the Trial.  Adam and Arthur Meet for the Last Time in the Chase; the Reconciliation.

Miss Benfey impersonates the English characters to the life; her Midland dialect is perfect.



Miss Benfey's Method is Direct and Absolutely without Affectation.



THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
BY GEORGE ELIOT.

SYNOPSIS OF THE READING: —Maggie Tulliver's Home Environment When a Child.  Her Love for Tom: I Wouldn't Mind What You Did—I'd Forgive You and Love You.  Mr. Tulliver's Failure in Business and His Curse on Lawyer Wakem, Whom He Considers the Cause; Maggie's Poverty and Loneliness; Her Hunger for Companionship, Until She is Not Capable of Understanding the Sympathy of Love Which May Come to a Girl of Seventeen.  Philip Wakem, the Friend and Lover.  Stephen Guest—the Only Tangible Part of the Glad, Beautiful World Which Maggie Ever Knew.  Maggie's Temptation; Her Great Struggle; the Decision to Cling to the Right.



A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.

SYNOPSIS OF THE READING: —The Shoemaker of the Garret in Paris.  Gracious Creator of Day!  To Be Buried Alive for Eighteen Years!  Dr. Manette is Restored to Life and Love; the Three Guests in His House.  Monseigneur's Relation to the People—Life on the Lowest Terms That Could Sustain it or Captivity and Death in the Prison Saint Antoine.  He That Had Had Neither Food Nor Clothes Drew Strength at Last from Very Weakness.  Fall of the Bastile and '96.  The Story of Dr. Manette's Captivity.  Sidney Carton.  Twenty-three I Am the Resurrection and the Life!



Miss Benfey's Voice is Flexible and Enunciation Delightfully Clear.



Samples of Thousands.

When rendering the terrible scene dealing with the craving of the blood-thirsty French populace for the life of the nobility, the voice of the reader was cold and hard.  The coarse shouts, cries and shrieks of the desperate men and half-crazed women were reproduced with perfect naturalness.—
San Francisco Chronicle.


MISS IDA BENFEY, the talented young reader, delighted a large audience at the Grand last night with a number of the most dramatic selections from Victor Hugo's masterpiece, Les Miserables.  The term delighted is expressing but mildly the effect MISS BENFEY produced.  For two hours her clever delineation of the varying characters, Jean Valjean, Javert, Cozette and Marius held in rapt attentiveness an audience that was not only unusually large but cultured in a rare degree.—
Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution.



For Open Dates apply to Nearest Agent of the Central Lyceum Bureau.





MISS BENFEY has just given a season in London, reciting at Stafford House, Grosvenor House, and having in her audience the Princes Christian, the Duchess of York, the Duchess of Teck, Mrs. Ronalds, etc.




Steele Mackaye. 
You displayed a repose very rarely seen.


Morning Patriot. 
Miss Benfey is a genius with subtle power.


Daily Examiner, San Francisco.
Miss Benfey is a reader of rare ability, with a matchless voice, and graceful, realistic action.

Leland Stanford, Jr., University, California.

The rendering of 'Les Miserables' was perfect in its light and shade.—Wm. H. Hudson. Dept. of English Literature.

Yale University.

Your recitals are unique and well-nigh ideal.—Mark Bailey, Chair of Elocution.


The Queen, London. 
A great favorite with the audience was Miss Benfey who told American stories with great feeling and dramatic force.


The Era. 
Miss Benfey impresses us as a large-hearted womanly woman.  She depends not on stage tricks, but shows us that culture finds beauties in English literature which are otherwise unseen.


Robert Collyer. 
Your reading is well worth the remembering long after you cease to speak, which is a great thing in a reader.


Dion Boucicault.
The public need not know that you brought into my school a ready-made artist, and we could add little to your sum of sweet qualities.

Bowdoin College.

Her conception of the meaning and spirit of a composition is truthful and profound.—Joseph Chamberlain, Late President.



The Children's Matinees are made up wholly of Interesting Children's Stories by well-known Authors.




The New York Tribune. 
Miss Benfey knows how to be dramatic without being theatrical, is happily original, and her evenings are novel and attractive.


Miss Mary E. Wilkins. 
I esteem Miss Ida Benfey's work very highly, and feel deeply grateful to her for her marvelously faithful interpretation of my New England characters.

Rutgers College.

The audience have the heart of a book given them rather than its sentences.—Wm. Rankin Duryee, Chair of English Literature.


Boston: Courier. 
Miss Benfey recited a condensed story of Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables' at Wellesley College.  Her facial expressions are wonderful and the performance was most artistic.


New York Times. 
Miss Benfey's method is to suggest rather than to delineate the traits of her personages; nevertheless there were passages with which she created a positive dramatic illusion.  Her pronunciation is delightful to listen to.


Musical Courier (London Edition.) 
Miss Benfey pleased by her quaint selections from Mary E. Wilkins which were evidently enjoyed by the Princess Christian.


The Brooklyn Times. 
The awakening and development of the convict's soul is the motif.  Her impersonation of the Bishop, Jean Valjean, Gavroche and Javert showed great versatility and moved her audience to tears and laughter.  Miss Benfey adds to a strong magnetic personalty superb dramatic power.  Her method is direct and absolutely without affection.  Her voice is flexible and enunciation delightfully clear.

Miss Benfey is spoken of generally as a reader possessing unusual artistic and literary merit.



Under Exclusive Control of The Central Lyceum Bureau,
Management:

H. H. RICH, Rochester, N. Y.
S. B. HERSHEY, Cleveland, O.
FRED. PELHAM, Western Department, Chicago, Ill.


A. E. PALMER, So.  Western Department, Kansas City, Mo.


Representatives:


New York,
K. M. WHITE, Rochester, N. Y.


New England,
E. W. REW, Springfield, Mass.


Penna., Del., N. J., Maryland, and Virginia,
J. S. ARNOLD, Harrisburg, Pa.


Eastern Ohio and West Virginia,
C. M. PARKER, Cleveland, O.


Western Ohio and Indiana,
G. W. HENNEBERGER, Indianapolis, Ind.


Michigan,
CHAS. T. MAINES, Flint, Mich.


Ontario, Canada,
C. W. HARTMAN, Toronto, Ont.





CENTRAL BUREAU PRESS, ROCHESTER, N. Y.