Violet Vanbrugh
[2] Two of her siblings later pursued theatrical careers – the actress Irene Vanbrugh and the principal of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Kenneth Barnes.
[4] He gave Violet her first chance, at his theatre in the West End, in February 1886 in F. C. Burnand's burlesque Faust and Loose as one of what Terry called "an absurd chorus … dressed in tight black satin coats, who besides dancing and singing had lines in unison, such as 'No, no!'
[n 1] Irene Vanbrugh later credited her elder sister with making both their acting careers possible: "Violet, with both hands outstretched, made the opening wide enough to get through herself and when my time came the door was still ajar.
"[12][13] For two years Vanbrugh rejoined Toole's company, on tour and in London, playing several roles including Lady Anne in The Butler and Kitty Maitland in The Don, both written by H. C. Merivale and his wife.
[3][9] Sir John Gielgud, a grand-nephew of Ellen Terry, later described the two: At the Criterion in December 1888 Vanbrugh played Gertrude in the Deputy Registrar,[3] a farce by Ralph Lumley and Horace Sedger.
[3] In the American tour she played in a variety of other comedies, including Sydney Grundy's A White Lie, and B. C. Stephenson's Impulse, as well as Pinero's drama The Iron Master.
[1] The production, which opened in January 1892, starred Irving as Cardinal Wolsey, Terry as Catherine of Aragon and William Terriss as the King;[16] it ran for more than 200 performances.
[1] During 1893 and 1894 Vanbrugh was in Augustin Daly's company at his London theatre where her roles included Lady Sneerwell in The School for Scandal, Alithea in The Country Girl and Olivia in Twelfth Night.
[21] Other plays at the Royalty were the comedy Mr Versus Mrs, a gory drama, Monsieur de Paris and a Sardou adaptation, The Queen's Proctor.
[3] In 1900 she took a break from acting with him to appear at the Court Theatre as the sporty Georgiana Tidman in a revival of Pinero's farce Dandy Dick, directed by the author.
Over the six years of his management there, Vanbrugh starred in many of his productions, including H. V. Esmond's My Lady Virtue (1902), H. A. Jones's Whitewashing Julia (1903), John Oliver Hobbes's The Bishop's Move (1903), Bernard Miall's, The Arm of the Law (1904), and W. S. Gilbert's The Fairy's Dilemma (1904).
A satire of fashionable bridge-playing society with Bourchier as a rich but down-to-earth sheep farmer and Vanbrugh as his flighty aristocratic wife,[30] it ran for 423 performances.
[34] Later in 1910 Vanbrugh and Bourchier were engaged by Herbert Beerbohm Tree to appear with him in a lavish production of Henry VIII at His Majesty's Theatre, London.
The Stage described the casting of the sisters as "an inspiration … Their roguish merriment in the Clothes basket scene and the subsequent torturings of Falstaff quite infected the first night audience".
[43] In her fiftieth season on stage, Vanbrugh again starred with her sister as the Merry Wives, at the Ring, Blackfriars,[44] and the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park.
[45] The Stage said, "The most exciting feature of the evening was of course the appearance of Irene and Violet Vanbrugh as the Merry Wives … they fairly carried all before them, and gave a brilliant display of the art of comic acting".
[46] During the Battle of Britain, the Vanbrugh sisters carried out what a biographer calls "a characteristic piece of war work" by giving, with Donald Wolfit, lunchtime performances of extracts from The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Strand Theatre.
