Book contents
1 - Playing Deborah
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2014
Summary
[The reporter has] taken several liberties with his knowledge of the facts, the most serious of which is that I embraced the Jewish religion. I was born in that faith and have adhered to it throughout my erratic career.
A. I. [Menken] Heenan to the New York Illustrated News, March 24, 1860… as far as form and birth is concerned, [Mrs. Menken] is no Jewess, although she invariably calls the Hebrews “our people,” and sympathizes altogether with them when she feels like sympathizing.
The Cincinnati Israelite, December 30, 1864On March 1858, Ada Menken sat on a steamer just outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana, writing a letter to her sister-in-law, Rosina, whom she had yet to meet. Her script scrawled thin and skittish across the page. “My dear Sister,” she began, “Do not think our long silence neglect, it cannot be that when we talk of you everyday and love you so dearly.” At the moment she traveled alone, she explained, because “‘our’ dear Alex left Nashville two weeks before I did and has gone to Shreveport and made the arrangements for me to play there a few weeks.” She added, “I was obliged to leave the [New Orleans] Gaiety Theatre in consequence of nonpayment where I am now going we can make more and be far more comfortable.
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- Performing MenkenAdah Isaacs Menken and the Birth of American Celebrity, pp. 22 - 49Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003