Mrs Rousby in 'Marie Stuart'

A cabinet card portrait of the actress Clara Rousby, seen here as she appeared in the five-act drama Marie Stuart; or, the Catholic Queen and the Protestant Reformer by W.G. Wells, in which Mrs Rousby played the Scottish queen and her husband William Wybert Rousby played John Knox.

The play opened on Monday 23 February 1874 at the Princess's Theatre in London and was greeted with mixed reviews. While some critics praised the scenery, the costumes and the text of the play, most found fault with its two central performances.

'It is ever an ungracious task to speak in condemnation of artists who have done their best; but, if truth must be spoken, their best is not good in this instance. Mr and Mrs Rousby are overweighted with the characters of Mary Stuart and John Knox. If to look the part to perfection were all that could fairly be required, Mrs Rousby would be an admirable representative of the Queen of Scots, for the actress looks charming in a variety of picturesque costumes. She well preserves the lovely Stuart's traditional renown for beauty, nor indeed is her acting undistinguished at times by a certain mild and plaintive grace, but it is utterly deficient in strength and dignity. It has no touch of majesty; nay, more, it is sadly wanting even in elocutionary skill, some of the best passages in the text being marred in delivery through the artist's unfortunate habit of allowing her voice to sink to indistinctness at the end of a sentence. Mr Rousby's assumption of the Scottish accent is not very felicitous; still less so his performance of John Knox. He misses altogether the rugged grandeur and fierce earnestness of the man, giving us instead a queer, undignified singularity of look and manner which simply moves to mirth. Indeed, the strongest censure that could be pronounced upon the John Knox of Mr Rousby is conveyed in the statement that he makes people laugh, which is not exactly the sort of achievement in which John Knox of history is believed to have excelled' (Morning Post, 25 February 1874).

'Mrs Rousby looked, in her gorgeous dresses (changed in every act) of pale sea-green silk, and purple velvet, and crimson velvet, and so forth, charming enough for anybody's ideal of Marie Stuart. Her impersonation of the character, however, was if satisfactory as far as it went, cold as a whole, and sketchy' (Illustrated and Sporting Dramatic News, 28 February 1874).

Photographed by the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company.