Mona Limerick (born Mary Charlotte Louise Gadney; 1882–1968) was an Irish stage actress. She was the wife of actor

Ben Iden Payne Ben Iden Payne (5 September 1881 – 6 April 1976), also known as B. Iden Payne, was an English actor, director and teacher. Active in professional theatre for seventy years, he helped the first modern repertory theatre in the United Kingdom, was a ...

Early life

Mona Limerick was born to Irish parents, possibly in South America.''Who's who in the Theatre''
(Pitman 1922): 499. In another version of her story, she mentioned being born in India and raised in Germany, as the daughter of Irish missionaries.

Career

Limerick had her acting debut in 1902, in

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

. She was a member of the Abbey Players in Dublin, and a member of

Annie Horniman Annie Elizabeth Fredericka HornimanHarding, John, Staging Life: The Story of the Manchester Playwrights (Greenwich Exchange 2018) https://greenex.co.uk/ CH (3 October 1860 – 6 August 1937) was an English theatre matron and manager. She establ ...

's repertory company of the Gaiety Theatre in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

. In 1909

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...

chose Limerick for the role of Hypatia in his play ''

Misalliance Misalliance may refer to: * Misalliance (play), a play by Bernard Shaw ** Misalliance (Playhouse 90), a US television play based on Shaw's work * Mésalliance, a marriage to an unsuitable partner {{dab ...

'', but she had to refuse the role to play Beatrice in her husband's production of ''

Much Ado About Nothing ''Much Ado About Nothing'' is a Shakespearean comedy, comedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599.See textual notes to ''Much Ado About Nothing'' in ''The Norton Shakespeare'' (W. W. Norton & Company, 1997 ) p. ...

'' in Manchester. Shaw wrote to her about his disappointment: "I solemnly curse Iden Payne. I curse Miss Horniman. I curse the Gaiety Theatre. I curse Manchester. I curse destiny. I lay a blight on every theatrical enterprise in England until you do your duty and come play for me." In 1910 she appeared in Shaw's ''

The Dark Lady of the Sonnets ''The Dark Lady of the Sonnets'' is a 1910 short comedy by George Bernard Shaw in which William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the g ...

'', and toured in Shaw's ''

Man and Superman ''Man and Superman'' is a four-act drama written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903, in response to a call for Shaw to write a play based on the Don Juan theme. ''Man and Superman'' opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 21 May 1905 as a fou ...

''. Limerick had a reputation for being "strange, haunting, puzzling" in her stage persona. Caricaturist

Max Beerbohm Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (24 August 1872 – 20 May 1956) was an English essayist, Parody, parodist and Caricature, caricaturist under the signature Max. He first became known in the 1890s as a dandy and a humorist. He was the theatre crit ...

drew a severe figure of Limerick in 1909, and described her as having "a barbaric air, and yet an air of being over-civilized."

Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...

described Limerick in a 1917 letter as having "a quality which gets home every time and if she may exasperate her audience I am certain she will never bore it or leave it indifferent." Limerick and Ben Iden Payne left the Manchester troupe in 1911, and toured the United States in 1913. She starred in

Cicely Hamilton Cicely Mary Hamilton (née Hammill; 15 June 1872 – 6 December 1952), was an English actress, writer, journalist, suffragist and feminist, part of the struggle for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. She is now best known for the feminist ...

's play ''Phyl'' and

Harriet Monroe Harriet Monroe (December 23, 1860 – September 26, 1936) was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, poet, and patron of the arts. She was the founding publisher and long-time editor of ''Poetry'' magazine, which she established in 1912 ...

's play ''The Man-Eagle'' in Chicago in 1914. She also acted in

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

's '' Chitra'' in Boston in 1915, and made plans to appear in

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

in ''The Woman in Red''.

Personal life

Mona Limerick married fellow actor Ben Iden Payne in 1906. They had three children, Sara (1907-1993) who became a dancer, Rosalind (1911-1990) who became an actress, and son Paget. Limerick and Payne divorced in 1950. Mona Limerick died in 1968, aged 86 years.Albin Krebst, "B. Iden Payne, Shakespearean, Actor, Director, Teacher, Dies" ''New York Times'' (April 7, 1976): 39.

References

External links

Postcard photograph of Mona Limerick and Ian MacLaren
in ''Much Ado About Nothing'' (1909–1910), in the "Shakespeare & the Players" online exhibit from

Emory University Emory University is a private university, private research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded in 1836 as Emory College by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory. Its main campu ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT: 1882 births 1968 deaths 20th-century Irish actresses