VII
The stock-company system had its advantages and its disadvantages, both artistic and economic. The actor—sometimes under contract for several years—could settle down and have a home where he could bring up his children; he was not a tramp, ever on the go and not knowing where he might be one week from another. He was informed as to approximate length of the theatrical season, and he was not in dread of being thrown out of an engagement in the middle of the winter or of being stranded on the road with his salary unpaid for a month. There was a certain stability and security in his position, altho there was also always the possibility that the manager might exhaust his often meager resources and so find himself unable to keep the theater open or to meet his obligations to his company.
With its incessant changes of bill and with the unending variety of the plays presented, the actors had far more practise in their art than the performers of to-day. With the frequent production of Shakspere’s comedies and tragedies, even the minor members of the company had at least an opportunity to learn how to read blank verse. The permanence of the organization enabled the inexpert young people to become familiar with the methods of their more skilful elders; and it also tended toward the development of that harmony of effort, that team-play, which is of prime importance. On the other hand, the haste with which the constant succession of pieces had to be prepared interfered with thoroughness and with delicacy of interpretation. When a drama was pitchforked on the stage, so to speak, for only half-a-dozen performances, as was often the case, the actors had neither time nor energy to do their best; and they were tempted to fall into the habit of happy-go-lucky slovenliness.
Then the symmetry of the performance was not infrequently blemished by the fact that there was often in the company no performer really capable of acting a salient part in the play about to be produced; and yet this part had to be undertaken by somebody, however ill at ease he might be. There were round pegs in square holes; and this was unavoidable since it was impossible, more often than not, to engage outside performers, even if the manager had desired to do so,—which he rarely did.
If I may be allowed to call myself as a witness I can depose that I have seen not a few performances of the well chosen company at Wallack’s Theater forty-odd years ago which were far less effective than they might have been because one or two prominent characters had to be assigned to performers who were good actors in their own lines but who were hopelessly unsuited to the parts forced upon them because they alone were available. In the ‘Shaughraun’ of Dion Boucicault, for instance, by the side of Boucicault himself and Harry Beckett, Ada Dyas and H. J. Montague, John Gilbert and Madam Ponisi, who were all admirably adapted to the characters Boucicault had composed for them, there were also Joseph Polk and Ione Burke, who were entirely unsuited to the parts they were forced to play. And there were two equally unfortunate miscastings in ‘Diplomacy.’ If this was the case not infrequently at Wallack’s with its long prestige, how much more frequent and more flagrant must have been the misfits in the performances in theaters of inferior grade?
Professor Phelps tells us that all would go well if there could be established a stock-company in every city and even in every large town; but Professor Phelps—fortunately for him—was not born long enough ago to have seen the artistic inadequacy which is inevitable in the stock-company, inadequacy in the acting, in the stage-management and in the mounting. The productions of the managers of traveling companies have set a standard to which no resident stock-company can hope to attain. And the cost of an ambitious attempt to satisfy the expectations of the playgoing public would be prohibitive to any intending manager of a stock-company. He would not dare to undertake the task unless he was supported by an endowment, by a subsidy, or by a large body of subscribers, who being sharers in the enterprize might be more tolerant of relatively unimportant deficiencies in acting and in mounting.
There is no doubt that a repertory theater is highly desirable. It might be of inestimable service both to the author and to the actor. The actor is very unfortunate if, in the malleable years of his youth, he finds himself appearing in the same part for two or three hundred nights; and the author is unfortunate when his play has had its two or three hundred nights and then drops out of sight forevermore. A repertory theater would provide varied experience for the performers and afford them opportunity to acquire versatility; and it could do a great service to the reputation of the playwrights by reviving and keeping on hand, so to speak, the plays which deserve to be seen again and again.
But under present conditions a repertory theater is economically impossible. The rent of a building and the salaries of actors are now prohibitive. A repertory theater in New York, even if it did not aspire to be a rival of the Théâtre Français, must be described as a luxury,—and like all luxuries it would be expensive. It can come into existence, and it can have a chance to continue to exist, only when a group of lovers of the arts of the drama shall combine to provide the theater itself and to make the path easy for its manager.
(1920)
XIV
MEMORIES OF ACTORS