Mrs Abington in the Character of Clarinda
1779, John Thornthwaite after James Roberts II
© University of Illinois, Chicago
This image print of Abington appeared as a frontispiece in Bell’s 1779 edition of British plays. It shows Abington as Clarinda in The Suspicious Husband by Benjamin Hoadley (1676–1761). She is in a nightgown (evening dress) with ornate decorations or robings edging the open front, revealing a decorated petticoat beneath. The dark shade of her gown suggests a silk in a strong colour. The robings would have been trimmed with sequins and spangles to glitter in the candlelight. She also wears a fashionable ‘high head’, but this is quite neat and restrained, with soft curls falling on her shoulders. The feather decoration follows the contours of her hair, which is pulled back from her forehead.
The character Clarinda is an intelligent, free-spoken, serious girl, in love but unwilling to fall at the feet of Frankley, her intended lover. She is quite clear about the nature of relationships between men and women and wishes to make him work for her affections. The rake of the piece, Ranger, a character that Garrick made his own, spars with Clarinda, who is clearly unmoved by his supposed charms. It is the details that suggest Abington’s approach to this character. The triple cuffs, which would have emphasized her gestures, especially in the low light levels of the theatre, were going out of fashion at this point, being replaced with closer, neater ones. Clarinda is elegant and well dressed, but not a slave to fashion, following every new whim.
Clarinda and Ranger engage in several bouts of verbal jousting, and Clarinda holds her fan as if to ward off Ranger’s advances. Abington was particularly known for using props to emphasize her performance. In the hands of some women a fan took on the nature of a weapon. Boaden tells us that he had ‘… never seen a fan in a hand so dextrous as that of Mrs Abington’.
Overall, Boaden felt that Abington ‘took more entire possession of the stage’ than any other actress he had seen.