Kitty Cheatham: an appreciation by Evelyn Nichols Kerr

              Kitty Cheatham

Figure


From a portrait by S. Seymour Thomas.

AN APPRECIATION BY
EVELYN NICHOLS KERR



Article, reprinted by permission, from the November (1914) issue of Book News Monthly.
I HAD often heard of Kitty Cheatham, the greatest entertainer of children in the world, but I had never seen her till one day at the Lyceum Theatre when she gave the first of her annual Christmas matinees.  Then I understood why she is affectionately called a Christmas and an Easter gift to the Children of New York.  Not only must I tell you why she is this regal gift, but something of these Children as well.  They are the hungry children of the world, the unsatisfied, questing children, who, gray-haired and living through long years, trying above all to be men and women, find, on the threshold of half a century, that the supreme end of life is to become as a little child.  These are the Children, besides those unquestioning, luminous-eyed ones, who form over half of Miss Cheatham's audience, and who go again and again to hear her and find inspiration in her art.  So that fine old saying of the Greeks, Whom the gods love die young, would be instantly comprehended in its internal meaning by those who witness the magic transformation which occurs at Miss Cheatham's recitals.  Indeed, one might be tempted to paraphrase a bit and make the no less startling announcement—who love and live the lore of Kitty Cheatham die young—truly a consummation and a transformation devoutly to be wished.

If you would see this transformation, go to the Lyceum on one of Miss Cheatham's matinee days.  Look at the approaching Processional!  There they come!  The Tired Business Man and the Tired Business Woman; the Jaded Opera Goer and the Fagged Bridge Player; the Society Devotee and the Indefatigable Church Worker.  Some are carrying flowers, all are carrying tired minds and hearts, all except the little Lords of the procession, the Children, the Children know, they have been before, and they press forward with a faith and expectancy which defies all weariness.

But, lo, the transformation, when two hours later a laughing Recessional appears!  Less than half were children in that long Processional, and, behold, as they emerge from the Lyceum doors the Recessional is made up entirely of children.  There they go,
 you have but to look to see them with not a tired mind or heart on face or sleeve.  The Magic Piper has been at work.  Where is the T. B. M. and the T. B. W.; the J. O. G. and the F. B. P.; the S. D. and the I. C. W.?  Look, look, there they all go with happy laughing faces, you cannot spot one of them now, for every one is a Child, yes, even to the Press Agent and the Camera Fiend.  And they will all come back again when the Lyceum doors open to the same Piper's call.

Now let me try to give you a simple picture of the woman and artist, Kitty Cheatham, as she stands before her audience.  The charm of a personality makes us forget whether a person is large or small, of light complexion or dark; the more charm the more personality, the more charm the more simplicity.  So simple this seems, yet in reality how difficult.  But Miss Cheatham has achieved the difficult, for her personality is so great that it becomes individuality, and her simplicity makes her the natural woman she always is.  A French writer has drawn this delightful distinction between the woman who poses and the woman who is always natural.  One is a cut flower, the other a flower with roots.  Miss Cheatham is a flower with roots.  So she has no mannerisms; all her delightful little ways are so distinctively individual that we love them for her and love her for them.

There she stands in the soft-colored quaint gown the children love, without a jewel, but we all know the simple little silver bracelet tightly clasped around the left wrist, the tiny handkerchief three inches square, which is so marvelously adaptive, the sky-blue ribbon round her neck with its tight little bow exactly under her chin.  Yes, we know them and we love them.  But when she begins to use those exquisite hands we soon see that they have a language of their own.  Marcel Prevost, the French feminimist, considers Miss Cheatham's hands the most expressive in the world.  He makes this interesting distinction: Sadda Yacho, the distinguished Japanese actress, has the greatest tragedy hands in the world, and Kitty Cheatham has the greatest comedy hands.  Go to see them, they cannot be described.

And now do you ask for that difficult thing—a description of the way Miss Cheatham does her work?  She is so informal and natural that one feels as if one had entered the drawing-room of a delightful hostess, who takes your sympathy for granted in the most friendly way, and tells you, individually, all these wonderful
 and delightful things.  She usually prefaces a song or poem with her own story or adaptation of it; these running comments are individual and illuminating and have a fascination of their own.  She tells these stories in a direct and breathless fashion, just as she would to one individual; you feel that you are the only one to whom she is talking, and she does this with almost pure mentality, using very little color or emotion, with the effect upon her audience that they listen spell-bound, fearing to lose a word.  Then she brings her æsthetic influence into play, and shows you through color and imagination the artistic side.

The general auditor does not always analyze, does not care how the real artist accomplishes his work if only he affords the amusement and entertainment for which the auditor has paid; but the thinker and brother or sister-in-art care mightily and delight to render homage where homage is due, delight to see all artificiality and trick utterly abolished in the real living art of the artist.  There is a wonderful blending of mental vitality, color and imagination in all of Miss Cheatham's work, showing the true master's handling of art, but always she gives you first ideas, a mental concept, before introducing any color or imagination.

Her power to re-create is another artistic triumph.  Whether it be little Miss Muffet with the incorrigible spider, our old friend Tom, the Piper's Son, Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby, or the dearly beloved sentimental Owl and the Pussy Cat, the freshness of their charm is as delightful and as fascinating as on the day they first stepped into song or story.  And who can do this?  The master of technique?  Yes—but even then the false note may sound from time to time, while the artist of sincerity lives for the time being what he portrays.  There is a pseudo-technique, which is trick, and there is a real technique which is Art.  To this Art Miss Cheatham's work belongs, and this places her among the great.  There is a wonderful mission in all Art that is great—it is the mission to heal; all great Art when truly conveyed through the interpreter to the receptive auditor must bless and must heal, and here is the secret of the greatness of Kitty Cheatham's power and art,—she heals us, she gives us back again the faith of other years, and shows us once more (through her own rare attainment) the open mind, the wonder, the dear belief of the Child We Used To Be—and this heals every wound, heals because it sets us free.  The power to do this assures us convincingly that Miss Cheatham lives
 her Art away from the footlights—and this gives her the proud distinction of being both Woman and Artist.

Mr. Lawrence Gilman has expressed in a few words the happy fate of those who know Miss Cheatham personally.  He says: There can be no lovelier fortune for any artist whose function is interpretative, than that which has happily fallen to Miss Cheatham's lot; as there can be no privilege more rare and high than that vouchsafed to whomsoever is neither too wise nor too heedless to sit with humility at her feet.

The first time I talked with Miss Cheatham I spoke of her sincerity and wonderful mental vitality, which had so attracted me to her work.  When Miss Cheatham saw that I understood something of the form of her technique, and most of all the thought back of it, she took me within the keep, and I soon sat face to face with this Child, who has not only seen a new heaven and a new earth, but is also creating the same for others.

You do not know all that is back of my work, she said spontaneously.

It was because I felt that I wished to meet and talk with you, I answered.

Thereupon the Child smiled—and straightway we began to talk, the kind of talk that is too intimate to be repeated word for word, but which, taken as a whole, produces a soul-portrait.  And the soul of Kitty Cheatham is the soul of the Universal and Immortal Child, this child-spirit and beauty even speaks to you from her lips and eyes and the general radiance of her face when engaged in conversation; and it is because of this conquest, this absolute surrender of the soul to be reborn and become as a little child, that she has made a conquest of two continents, and in unconsciously bringing others to the same surrender of re-birth with the fulfilment of heavenly possession.

The story of the evolution of Miss Cheatham's work is full of that fascinating and lasting romance—the romance of character.  Her distinguished Southern lineage, dating back to Generals and Judges of revolutionary times, who influenced both the social and political life of those ante-bellum days, is generally known.  Not so well known, however, is that period of her life (which, by the way, is a vital chapter in the life of every artist) when she experienced the growing time with all the growing pains, and firmly
 held herself to the development of her work amid all the varied and subtle temptations that arise, almost unconsciously, in the artistic atmosphere of Continental Europe.

Not many years ago she was the guest of a French nobleman and his wife, an American woman of distinguished Southern ancestry.  One evening, as they sat before an open fire in this old French chateau, Miss Cheatham began to hum an old negro melody.  When she finished tears were streaming down the faces of her listeners.  Spontaneously her hostess exclaimed:

My dear, you must go to London and sing these songs.  I will give you letters to members of the Royal family who will do much for you; English people have been surfeited with 'coon songs,' but they have never heard a genuine negro song.  We must keep alive this beautiful music of our Southern country, and it occurs to me very forcibly that you are the person to do it.  Promise me now to think up all the old negro songs and stories you ever knew, and sing them as you have always done—just as you have done for me to-night, and promise me always to sing first, 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.'

Miss Cheatham at first demurred—these songs were so simple, they were just a part of her life, but gradually she saw that herein lay the secret of the Gleam she was to follow.  Just two weeks from that eventful evening Miss Cheatham appeared at a large musical party in the home of one of Queen Alexandria's Ladies in Waiting, her fellow-artists being Mme.  Albani, and Johannes Wolf, the great violinist.  Yes, she sang Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, simply and without accompaniment, to the intense interest and enthusiasm of her audience.  From that moment she was enthusiastically received, and her work not only became the vogue of London and Paris, but she was received both as artist and guest in the royal families of England, Russia, Spain, Greece, Bavaria, Roumania, Servia, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Yvette Guilbert, the celebrated French artist, is one of Miss Cheatham's most enthusiastic admirers, always expressing herself grateful for an artist who is creating instead of imitating.  Miss Cheatham gave Puccini his first hearing of negro songs when he paid his first visit to this country, and Humperdinck, during his visit to New York for the premiere of his opera, Koenigskinder, made his only public appearance when he surprised Miss Cheatham's audience at her Christmas matinee in order to play her accompaniments
 to his own songs.  Another admirer and helpful adviser was the celebrated French actor Coquelin, who made his last appearance in London with Miss Cheatham.  He happily described her art as rare miniature painting in song.

But none of this admiration can harm a nature like Miss Cheatham's.  When Henry Burleigh, the negro composer, plays her accompaniments at the Lyceum, there is a picture within a picture, which to many is both beautiful and arresting when this gracious Southern gentlewoman of distinguished ancestry takes the hand of the negro composer and charmingly recognizes the merit of his work before her audience.

The depth of Miss Cheatham's art is not always appreciated by the casual observer.  Not only is she our greatest authority on the literature of childhood, but she is preeminently the one person of to-day who is thoroughly equipped to preserve the negro folklore of America.  This gives her work a rare educational value, which, through her untiring efforts to illustrate in song and story the origin, growth and development of negro folk music, has won for her a hearty recognition from, not only, our universities and philanthropic and educational institutions throughout the country, but in the European universities.  Among these she has recently appeared at Yale, University of Berlin, Cornell, Hotchkiss, the Teachers' Association at Peabody Institute, Baltimore; the Alumnæ Association of the Pennsylvania College for Women, at Carnegie Music Hall, Pittsburgh; the Teachers' Association of Brooklyn; the Young Peoples' Symphony concerts at Carnegie Hall, New York, and also in Carnegie Hall as soloist with the Russian Symphony Orchestra in an entire Tschaikowsky program, Miss Cheatham prefacing each number of the Nut-cracker Suite with her own adaptation of the original Hoffman Fairy Tales.  The success of this program has resulted in several appearances with the New York Philharmonic Society (Young Peoples Concerts) and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra's similar concerts.

Do you ask how it is that Miss Cheatham has so quickly won this wide recognition?  The answer is very simple: she is genuine, genuine in her art and genuine in her life.

Just as I was leaving Miss Cheatham she casually showed me a photograph of a garden party, which had been taken when she was a guest of one of the Royal family of England.  It was
 interesting to recognize in the group the King and Queen of Spain and other royalty personages.  Deeply interested, I asked:

You have given a great deal of your work on the other side before royal children, have you not?

Miss Cheatham assented with charming nonchalance, and then added very earnestly:

We are all Royal Children.  Don't ever forget that!

They were her last words to me at our first interview.  And I did not forget, for as I left her the influence of this Royal Child went with me and stayed with me.  And gradually I knew why this influence lasted—she is a Comrade to all, and by that I mean not only to our human kindred, but that great mysterious life by which we are all surrounded, the great world of nature which speaks to all, who will hear, with that ever-speaking voice of everywhere.

As I went on my way happy and enriched, I could only think of those delightful lines Miss Cheatham gave us at her last Easter Offering, which, slightly paraphrased, tell of the broad Comradeship of lives like hers:


The posies they are good to her,
And bow them as they should to her,
As fareth she upon her Royal way;
The birdlings of the wood do make her music,
Gentle music all the day.
The little stars are kind to her,
The moon she hath a mind to her,
And layeth on her head a golden crown;
And singeth then the wind to her,
The song she loveth best—of Bethle'm town.

The Mugford Ptg. & Eng. Co. New York