Khyva St. Albans (born Eleanor[e] Saenger; 1896–1989), also known as Zara Alexeyewa, Ayenara Alexeyeva, was an American actress, dancer, and choreographer. She was a longtime resident of Ajijic, on Lake Chapala in Mexico.
Early life Eleanore SaengerAncestry.com: New York, New York, U.S., Index to Birth Certificates, 1866–1909, Certificate Number 12228. was born in New York City, although she claimed other birthplaces, including France."The Girl Who Has 'Dreamed' Joan of Arc" Courier-Journal (April 9, 1916): 53. via Newspapers.com Her parents were musicians; her mother was organist Charlotte Welles Saenger, and her father was baritone singer and voice coach Oscar Saenger.Bide Dudley, "About Plays and Players" Evening World (November 12, 1915): 24. via Newspapers.com Both parents supported and financed St. Albans' hopes of a theatrical career, until Oscar Saenger died in 1929."The Oscar Saenger House – No. 6 East 81st Street" Daytonian in Manhattan (July 19, 2017)."Oscar Saenger Estate Small" New York Times (May 22, 1929): 21.
Stage career St. Albans appeared in two shows on Broadway; she played Juliet opposite George Relph's Romeo in a 1915 production of Romeo and Juliet,"Hits on the Stage: Romeo and Juliet" Harper's Weekly (December 11, 1915): 563. and she played a dancer in Ruth Sawyer's The Awakening (1918), costarring with Theodore Kosloff.Gerald Bordman, American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama 1914–1930 (OUP USA 1995): 88. Neither show was well-reviewed; the New York Times called The Awakening "a weird and very artificial play" "almost unbelievably crude and old-fashioned.""The Awakening is Crude" New York Times (October 3, 1918): 11. Metcalfe, a writer in Life, mused that "Someday, perhaps, we shall have a Society for the Prevention of Ladies Who Think They Can Act, but Can't, [and] a League for the Suppression of Persons Who Write Plays But Shouldn't. Had either of these organizations been in successful existence we should never have had 'The Awakening' with Khyva St. Albans."Metcalfe, "Two Comedians and a Calamity" Life (October 24, 1918): 601. Of her Juliet, Heywood Broun in the New York Tribune wrote that "there was no passion in the performance of Miss St. Albans. She was a Juliet of the sort who would have suggested a long engagement, deferring marriage until such time as she had finished her schooling and Romeo had a steady job". New York Tribune (November 24, 1915)
St. Albans translated a work by Leonid Andreyev as The Painted Laugh, which she starred in and produced for the London stage in 1921. Basil Rathbone was the male lead.Amnon Kabatchnik, Blood on the Stage: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery, and Detection : an Annotated Repertoire, 1900–1925 (Scarecrow Press 2008): 250. The production became infamous when she and her mother suddenly disappeared after bad reviews for the first matinee,"American Actress 'Blows' As London Critics Bombard" Des Moines Register (November 22, 1921): 8. via Newspapers.com leaving the show's backers and cast unpaid.J. P. Wearing, The London Stage 1920–1929: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel (Rowman & Littlefield 2014): 127. "Theatre Company Left Stranded After Giving One Performance" Barrier Miner (November 21, 1921): 1. via Trove"Missing Actress" The Register (January 9, 1922): 3. via Trove"Creditors Comment on Khyva's Going" Variety (November 25, 1921): 2."Scotland Yard Searches for Miss Khyva St. Albans" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (November 21, 1921): 6. via Newspapers.com She was eventually found in a Paris hotel."Found" Daily News (February 10, 1922): 15. via Newspapers.com
From 1926 to 1927, she was co-director of ballet at the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company, with her partner, dancer Holger Alexeyev-Mehner.Frank Hamilton, Opera in Philadelphia: Performance Chronology, 1925–1949 (2009): 36.Linton Martin, "Themes and Variations" Philadelphia Inquirer (May 15, 1927): 97. via Newspapers.com
Mexico In the 1940s, after several extended visits, St. Albans had moved to Mexico permanently, with Alexeyev-Mehner (who died in 1944). She was known as "La Rusa" in Ajijic on Lake Chapala, where she made her home."Yanks Who Don't Go Home" Life (October 23, 1957): 159."Ajijic in the Old Days: Zara Alexeyewa, aka La Rusa" Lake Chapala Artists (February 15, 2018)."Letter to the Editor: Serenity in Mexico" Chicago Tribune (January 3, 1977): 44. via Newspapers.com An American visitor to Ajijic described her as "a ghostly figure in flowing silks and gossamer. She wore a wide-brimmed hat and held herself erect with a perfectly straight back. A long, thick rope-like braid of hair hung down to her waist."Tobias Schneebaum, Secret Places: My Life in New York and New Guinea (University of Wisconsin Press 2000): 6–7. Late in life, she called attention to the problem of pollution in Lake Chapala.Ed Foster, "A Tale of 2 Lakes and Good-Hearted Women Who Love Them" El Paso Times (December 2, 1984): 26. via Newspapers.comEd Foster, "Flamboyant Actress Devoted Efforts to Saving Lake Chapala" El Paso Times (June 4, 1984): 5. via Newspapers.com She died in Ajijic in 1989, aged 92 years.
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