Maria Madeline Taylor
Maria Madeline Taylor née Hill, also known as Madame Dhermainville, was an Australian stage actress. She was a star attraction of the Australian stage in Sydney during the 1830s, dubbed ‘the Queen of the Sydney stage’, and became known to the audience of Calcutta in India under the stage name Madame Dhermainville.
Life
Maria Taylor was born to the actors Eliza Atkins and James Hill, and was educated in acting by a ‘Drury Lane education’ on the London stage. She arrived in Hobart in Van Diemen's Land in 1833. She made a success when she sang at a concert at the Hobart Courthouse, and was engaged at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, later the same year.Career in Sydney
During her nine year's long career in Sydney, Taylor became known as ‘the Queen of the Sydney stage’, and played most of the most prestigious roles performed in Sydney at that time at both the Theatre Royal and Royal Victoria Theatre, among them being Romeo to Eliza Winstanley’s Juliet in 1835.Sydney critics described her as ‘a pleasing lively little brunette, with a sparkling and expressive black eye, not particularly pretty, but far from plain', in possession of a ‘desirable stature of person, neither diminutive nor masculine – the graceful air of step – and the clear, distinct enunciation of voice’ and ‘One so lady like in her manner is indeed a rarity in this part of the world’; as an artist she was called elastic, versatile and natural in her performance style:
Alongside Ellen Douglass Hatch whose career was parallel with hers and who was described by the Sydney Gazette of November 1834 as an actress of 'superior theatrical attainments', Taylor was arguably the most noted actress in Sydney in the 1830s.