CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING
[Mr H.B. Irving on his Art ]
To the reviewer of books fell the task of criticizing Mr H.B. Irving's book, "Occasional Papers," as literature. The dramatic critic has the right of considering the views expressed in it concerning the stage. There are two essays of importance, from reading which one may learn the ideas, admirably expressed, of Mr Irving concerning his art—"The English Stage in the Eighteenth Century" and "The Art and Status of the Actor." The study of them, which they deserve, leads to certain conclusions hardly, it may be, anticipated by the author.
In his defence of the actor's art against its detractors Mr Irving seems to ignore a fact which may be expressed in a phrase taken from the greatest of actor-dramatist-managers, and modified. There is acting and acting: the distinction is not merely in quality but also in kind. It would be difficult to define acting so as not to include the efforts of the music-hall artist, and even of the circus clown; any definition excluding them would be arbitrary, and also historically inaccurate. If, then, acting is to embrace these as well as the admirable performance of Mr Irving in Hamlet, disputes concerning the status of the actor as an artist must often arise.
In fact, until one reaches the actor's performance in dramas sincerely intended to be works of art, it is difficult to treat his art seriously. A step farther: one cannot accept as a work of dramatic art a piece that does not seek to cause an illusion, or any play which formally admits the existence of the audience. A workable distinction may be found in using the terms "drama" and "entertainment," "actor" and "entertainer."
Mr Irving's essays lead to another distinction—artificial, no doubt. He speaks of the sixteenth century as "the century of great drama," of the seventeenth as "a century in which the interest shifts from the drama to its exponents, the players." The nineteenth, according to him, is "noteworthy for the extraordinary advance made in the presentation of plays on the stage." In other words, the seventeenth is great drama, the eighteenth great acting, and the nineteenth great stage-mounting.
The seventeenth, says Mr Irving, "is in theatrical history the century of the actor; he and not the dramatist is the dominating figure, his the achievement that survives, his that finds in this century its highest opportunity for distinction.... For the plays that attracted audiences in the eighteenth century are for the most part dead things." Later on: "There was another and a very strong reason why the actor of the eighteenth century was encouraged—nay, driven—to exert his powers to the utmost. It lay in the conditions under which he was compelled to exercise his art."
These conditions were unsuitability of costume, the conduct of an unruly audience, and the meanness of the mounting. The eighteenth-century players pursued "the pure art of acting, unassisted by the collaboration of other arts," and in them their art received its highest expression.
From this it appears that if you wish for great acting you must have poor plays cheaply mounted. Probably Mr Irving would shun such a conclusion. He would say that the great acting was the result of the conditions, but not an inevitable result, and that whilst modesty of mounting may be a necessary condition, worthlessness of drama is not. Yet we see a distinction and a truth emerging. The actors of the golden age—of acting—had to make silk purses out of sows' ears, and they made them. Their age was less golden when they had great drama to play.
The triumph of a play, so far as the co-operation of author and actor is concerned, may be regarded as one hundred, and the greater the share in it of the one the less that of the other. Since the actor's proportion is higher as the dramatist's is lower, it follows that his work is more brilliant in mediocre plays than in masterpieces. This, however, cannot be accepted without taking into account the fact that many plays have been written very skilfully as mere vehicles for the actor.
It is sometimes a nice question which is the horse and which the cart. How often in the heyday of her fame did we see Bernhardt in any save "built-up" dramas—plays "written round" her and intended to give her an opportunity of showing off her amazing physical gifts? Need it be added that the "star" actresses of other nations were all eager to appear in these pieces? Is, then, the actor's art at its greatest when the player is thrilling the house in a mediocre drama, or when he and the true dramatist are producing a great effect together?
Mr Irving will probably reply that the actors of the golden age had great triumphs in Shakespeare. Now, it may be observed that in most of his tragedies, though not guilty of writing "star" parts, Shakespeare, himself an actor, took very great pains to create "fat" acting parts, and the actor-managers of the eighteenth century were careful that, in the mutilated versions which they presented, these parts did not shrink in relative importance. The great dramatist's action in this respect is not, as a general rule, followed by the serious playwrights of the present.
Whilst speaking of Shakespeare, one may refer to a passage in the essays which has some bearing on the question of the place of acting in the hierarchy of the arts. Garrick clearly was the greatest actor of his century; but in speaking of Barry, Mr Irving says: "He had not Garrick's fire or versatility; he had no gift for comedy; but in such parts as Othello, Romeo and Alexander the Great his superior physique, his stately grace, his charming pathos gave him the victory." His superior physique is a phrase which explains the reluctance of some fully to admit the actor's claim for his art: they think that the purely physical enters too often into the matter. There may even be detractors moved by jealousy, unknown, perhaps, to themselves, of the "superior physique."
Possibly there are more subtle reasons why many writers are unwilling to recognize the highest claims of the actor. They are perhaps, discernible in what Mr Irving calls "the sympathetic reflections of Charles Lamb" and the "impressive nonsense that Doctor Johnson talked" about acting. In one of the essays we find: "There has been at all times a certain resentment on the part of some writers against the player, against his immediate fame.... It is a form of jealousy that has warped many otherwise enlightened minds: an envy that forgets that a capacity to act is a much rarer gift than a capacity to write." What is the meaning of the last sentence. Does it mean that Garricks are rarer than Tuppers?—a sad thought: or that Siddonses are rarer than Shakespeares?—which may be denied confidently.
Does it mean anything? Perhaps not. It merely exhibits a confusion between the relative and the absolute. This warping jealousy—if it exist—really is due to a feeling that the actor becomes great in popularity at the expense of the author. When the actor causes the triumph of the play the author should be grateful; when the play causes the triumph of the actor the playwright may feel a little jealous, and writers may sympathize with him. There are plays and plays, just as there is acting and acting. In subtle modern pieces conscientious actors of fair ability rarely fail, and success (within certain limits) is common in Hamlet.
[Mr Bourchier and "Max" on English Acting ]
Mr Bourchier has written rather bitterly about some remarks of Mr Max Beerbohm concerning English acting. Apparently "Max" has asserted that "the average level of acting is admittedly lower in England than in France, Germany or Italy." Hence Mr Bourchier's wrath, which obviously is unselfish, since remarks about the average level of acting have nothing to do with him, for no country is rich enough in histrionic talent to deny that Mr Bourchier is far above the average.
Is Mr Max Beerbohm's assertion well founded? The "admittedly" inspires distrust. Experience teaches the middle-aged that as a rule people allege that a proposition is admitted when they have no evidence to offer of its truth, and are aware that it will be disputed. Does anyone exist who knows really what is the average level of acting in the four countries named? Such knowledge could only be based upon a first-hand study of acting in all kinds of theatres in many towns of England, France, Germany and Italy. A music-hall agent is the only kind of person likely to have made such a study. Has Mr Max made it?
Probably the clever caricaturist and lively critic is really talking about the so-called West End theatres and the foreigners who come to us, and of occasional visits paid by him to selected pieces in important Continental cities. If so, his observations are based upon quite insufficient materials. Critics are wont to praise foreign acting unfairly at the expense of our own performers, and they receive the support of opinions expressed by some foreigners, notably French and Italians.
Members of gesticulative races are apt to think English players very wooden, because when representing British people our actors and actresses are much restrained in movement. A French or Italian critic can hardly appreciate some of the splendid "Stage Society" or Court Theatre performances, such, for instance, as that of The Voysey Inheritance, which could not have been surpassed in any theatre or country.
The offensive comparisons often, even generally, are based upon performances where our players are at a serious disadvantage. On what may be called neutral ground, such as Ibsen plays, we have held our own very well against any performances in London by Continental players; Miss Janet Achurch was a more characteristic Nora than Duse or Réjane; nor have we seen a Mrs Linden, Hedda Gabler or Hilda Wangle comparable with that of Miss Elizabeth Robins. There is no need to multiply instances.
English players do not represent certain foreign characters as well as do the foreigners. Is this surprising? They are handicapped, obviously. How often have we seen a French, German or Italian performance of an English play concerning English people? Was the great Eleonora as painfully truthful as Mrs Patrick Campbell in The Second Mrs Tanqueray? No one can deny that her companions were almost ludicrous to us. Can one imagine any foreign company able to present His House in Order without entirely destroying the stage illusion and losing the colour? There was a very fine performance at the St James's, with intense soberness of manner in important matters as a keynote.
It is largely a question of geography; the Englishman expresses rapture by the phrase "not half-bad" where the foreigner piles superlative on superlative of gush. It is our quality and our defect that we have a strange shyness, which prevents the exhibition of emotion for fear of ridicule. On our stage, as in our real life, the beloved son comes home from a long voyage, and, meeting his father, shakes hands a little warmly and says, "Hallo, governor!" or something poetic like that; whilst abroad the two men kiss one another and utter highly emotional phrases of rapture. Everyone knows that the feelings are equally deep in the two cases, but our cross-Channel critics doubt the depth of the English feeling, whilst our native players cannot do the kissing and hugging with an air of sincerity.
Now, when taking these facts into account we should be very careful in appraising the efforts of our own players. Not only ought we to avoid comparing select teams of foreign players with our own scratch companies, but also it is our duty to consider whether the strangers are appearing in plays better or worse than the average of our own, and we must take into account the fact that they are gaining from the advantage of novelty. Lastly, there remains the question how far they would appear to be better than ours if appearing on neutral ground.
It would be idle to assert that the average level of our acting is as good as it ought to be. Many theatres suffer severely from the lack of satisfactory stage-management; some from the determination of an actor-manager to be the central figure of every scene. Bitter complaints are uttered by young players about not receiving sufficient suggestions at rehearsal and finding that the stage-manager has so little authority that not only the leading players act as they chose, but even the smaller stars refuse successfully to obey him.
There is another point in Mr Bourchier's letter. He suggests that Mr Max Beerbohm is not competent to criticize actors because he is not a master of any branch of the difficult art of acting. This is a very foolish old fallacy. People who do work essentially ephemeral, such as acting, do it for those who are to witness it; and their merit is in direct proportion to their impression upon the audience, and they can have no effect upon anybody else. Actors, with trifling exceptions, do not form part of the audience. Critics do, and the actor seeks to affect the audience and the critics, and not the brother "pro." occasionally found in the auditorium.
The merit of his work lies entirely in affecting an audience in the way intended by the author. The technical devices adopted have nothing to do with the question. No doubt there is much technical knowledge involved in acting, but it must be remembered that it is all a means to an end. The cult of technique for itself is perilous to an art.
After all, the matter may be reduced to an absurdity. Would Mr Bourchier refuse to say that a man is well dressed, or a dinner ill cooked because he is (presumably) ignorant of the mysteries of the arts of tailoring and cooking? Moreover, some of us, perhaps even Mr Beerbohm, know a good deal about the technique of acting, even if we could not "make-up" Mr Bourchier to look like a costermonger. The actor must be very vain in his conceit who has not had valuable hints concerning his acting from the critics, unless he be one of those who, unlike Mr Bourchier, never read notices—yet often complain of an unfavourable one. The article called "Signor Borza on the English Theatre," which appears on page 252, should be considered in relation to these remarks.
[The Sicilian Players ]
During many years our stage has seen nothing like the success of the Sicilians. They presented themselves at the Shaftesbury Theatre with little in the shape of preliminary paragraphs to "boom" them. Most of their repertoire consisted of works unknown to London playgoers. Several of their plays were performed in a puzzling dialect. Even the judicious step of offering a fairly full synopsis of the plays was neglected. Notwithstanding all this, the theatre was well patronized during two seasons and the audiences have exhibited enthusiasm.
What is the meaning of all this; why should these village folk, playing what in the main seem to be simple peasant melodramas, have troubled the senses of Londoners? The obvious answer is that the affair is a triumph of pure acting. One pauses to inquire whether this is true. In the case of most of their plays the judgment of the audience concerning the acting must be very rough and ready—so far, at least, as the performance is fulfilling its true purpose of presenting in action the ideas of the author.
How are we to know, when watching a play in Sicilian dialect and provided with a printed "argument" comprised in about a couple of hundred words, whether the players are doing anything like their duty to the author? By-the-by the poor Censor had to admit that he passed their plays on the strength of these inadequate synopses! Yet there was absolute conviction in most of us that their work was sincere and at times quite tremendous as a matter of pure acting. The word "tremendous" must be confined to the efforts of Signora Mimi Aguglia Ferrau and Signor Grasso. The others form a very good company, but it is only in respect of these two that one employs the word "genius," which cautious writers use very rarely, though there are journalists who lavish it upon everybody a thumb-nail's thickness above mediocrity.
Concerning the lady there is no doubt at all. She is a little woman, with a rather strongly featured, intelligent face, brilliant teeth and big eyes who has, to begin with, the rare gift of filling the stage. There is a perceptible difference whenever she is present. She may be one of a crowd of twenty, and saying and doing nothing, but her presence is felt. At her command is a delightful roguish comedy and a horrible realistic tragedy. In Malia she is a Phèdre burnt up with unslakable passion, a rustic Phèdre, no doubt, but Bernhardt never gave more strongly the idea of "Vénus toute entière à sa proie attachée."
There are tricks in her work; she is fond of standing her profile parallel with the footlights, and of exhibiting the whites of her large eyes; she is conscious of the extraordinary eloquence of her shoulders and back, and likes to exhibit distress by the play of them. There is often excess in violent contrast of light and shade.
Yet no one can display subsiding emotion more finely than she does. Most of our players turn off emotion as one turns off the gas. In the Sicilian one notices a kind of aftermath; her fury may be succeeded by rapture; her grief by joy; but for a while underneath the rapture or joy one detects signs of the fact that physically she is recovering gradually from the effects of fury or grief. The voice is a little harsh, the gestures are not exactly elegant, she is always somewhat peuple, and always magnificent.
In some respects, Signor Grasso is quite different; his appearance is unpleasant, he is an ugly man, often with a fatuous air, but his grace of movement is quite extraordinary; occasionally he gives snatches of dance so exquisitely rhythmical that one longs for more. His pantomime is larger in movement than hers; his passion less terrible. He too has tricks; he is over-fond of playing with the chairs; in Malia one might say that he plays skittles with them.
There is rather an excess of gesture, of a naturalistic explanatory gesture, apparently borrowed from pantomime; one feels that some of it is deliberately used to aid the ignorant foreigner to understand; he does things which make the Briton squirm; has a habit of kissing the ugly, male members of his troupe with big, resounding smacks on both cheeks, and in a loving fashion pats them like a Graeco-Roman wrestler; but there is always the extraordinarily graceful, lithe movement and, with curious exceptions, a supreme unconsciousness of the audience; whilst the passionate volubility and the almost brutal ferocity thrill the house.
They are a queer lot, these village players; supremely unself-conscious when actually acting, yet guilty of taking "calls" in the middle of a scene. If pressed, they probably would give an encore, and with a little urging Signora Mimi would yield to a cry of "bis" and give a repetition of her abominable, appalling, vastly clever fit in Malia, to please the friendly Britons.
At the end of a scene the players come forward, hand in hand, bobbing and bowing, grinning and smiling, in a way that suggests a troupe of acrobats after a successful turn. It is not difficult to overrate their work as a company, or rather—and this in a sense is the same thing—to underrate that of our own players by comparison.
There is one very noteworthy fact: from the point of view of a London manager the scenery and appointments were contemptible, and this apparently did not matter a rap. An audience, five-sixths of it British, was enthralled by these players, although the scenery and the furniture of the indoor sets had no pretension to magnificence, were sometimes almost absurdly squalid.
The venture at the Shaftesbury showed that if you give what the public deems good acting you need not bother about painted canvas and furniture; and what applies to good acting applies to good plays. The Sicilians taught us this, even if, perhaps, little else; for our players, unless they are to represent Sicilians, or such volcanic creatures, can learn comparatively little from them. Indeed, our delightful visitors could be taught something by our despised stage in the way of reticence, for there is little doubt that they love a horror for horror's sake and revel in the gory joys of the penny gaff. This may be said with full recognition of the fact that, according to their own standard, they are intensely sincere and superbly equipped in consequence of hard work and natural gifts.
[Alleged Dearth of Great Actresses ]
Lately there have appeared some remarks by an unnamed "prominent dramatic author" alleging that "there is a dearth of great actresses just now," and stating that "several serious plays which it was hoped might be produced next autumn are in danger of being indefinitely postponed because of the inability of finding actresses capable of playing strongly emotional parts in drama of deep and complex interest." These dramas of "deep and complex interest" are quite as rare in our theatre as great actresses and we only believe in their existence when we see them.
Of course there is a dearth of great actresses—there always was and always will be: "great" is only a relatively term. Thank goodness for this, seeing that they are sadly injurious to drama. On the other hand, to allege a lack of actresses competent to play strong emotional parts seems quite unjust.
The remarks of the "prominent dramatic author" were followed by a letter to the same effect by Mr George Rollit, known to fame as the author of a fairly good farce produced in 1904 at the Royalty. He appears to have allowed it to get known that a new play of his was to be produced in the West End, but he was unable to find "an adequate exponent for the leading role"—what a pretty phrase!—"which requires an emotional young actress, capable of portraying strong light and shade." He received many offers from actresses, none of whom were suitable.
These two complainants are making a mistake concerning the task of the dramatist, who fails in his labours if his plays cannot adequately be acted without the assistance of great actresses. They are foolishly pandering to the vanity of the players, who as a rule have a tendency to exaggerate their importance in relation to drama. The error is very common, and the idea that plays should be written primarily to exhibit the players and not the ideas of the author is the bane of our theatre.
Until our dramatists act firmly on the view that their duty is to write plays interesting when rendered by a good, starless company, they will only produce as a rule bravura pieces of little artistic value. By all means let them write strongly emotional parts, if they can; but they are not worthy of their royalties if their characters do not generally lie within the range of a fair number of actresses. There is a grotesque mixture of vanity and modesty in the mind of an author who thinks his work worthy of performance by an actress of genius and at the same time believes it to be too weak to succeed without her help.
It will be answered, probably, that Shakespeare's plays demand players of genius and yet certainly are not mere bravura pieces. There is truth und untruth in this—truth that our public will not patronize Shakespeare when acted by average performers; untruth in the proposition that they cannot adequately be represented by players without genius. We have unfortunately got into the very bad habit of going to see his works not for their intrinsic interest but for the sake of the acting and mounting. It is not Hamlet but Mr Smith as the Prince of Denmark; not Romeo and Juliet but Miss Brown and Mr Jones as the lovers of Verona, and so on, which form the attraction; and the works are cut and played out of balance in order to meet the demand.
The author would have resented a suggestion that his characters are so superhuman as to need marvellous performance: these remarks are without prejudice to the question whether even with the aid of great players Shakespeare's dramas reveal a fair proportion of their merits on the stage.
The outcry concerning the alleged dearth of good actresses is very commonly uttered and exceedingly ill-founded. It is wise to avoid the thorny question how far the recognized leading ladies of our first-class theatres are satisfactory—yet it may be said that a successful playwright recently complained that as a body they were not, and that, despite his protests, he was compelled to have his works performed by the ladies in possession—and judicious to shirk the proposition, sometimes put forward, that some of these do not hold their positions by mere force of merit. Putting, then, aside the actresses enjoying grandeur in London, and leaving out of account a still more remarkable group which includes Mrs Kendal, Mrs Patrick Campbell and Miss Olga Nethersole—whom we too rarely see in town—and even ignoring what may be called "recognized leading ladies" who are "resting" reluctantly, there remains a powerful group of young actresses of experience and talent fully competent to satisfy the reasonable requirements of these gentlemen who are complaining of the "dearth." Since this was written a number of young ladies then on the boards but not accepted as leading ladies have made their way to the front.
[Character Actresses ]
Several letters have been written lately, pathetic letters, from actresses unable to get engagements. All of the writers have enjoyed successes, have been referred to by important papers as "promising" or "coming leading ladies," each has had at least one engagement at a very handsome weekly salary, yet every one of them is in doleful dumps.
Here is a passage from one: "In 1904 I did so well that I lived in luxury, and, I fear, somewhat extravagantly, and my performance as heroine in —— was so highly praised that I had no doubt my future was well assured. Last year I earned £40, and I have to live on what I earn, and if I look dowdy when I go seeking an engagement I have little chance of getting it. Yet I am under thirty, and although not one of the little group of alleged beauties whose faces appear monotonously week after week in the illustrated papers, I am well-enough-looking when made up, and have read in criticisms references to my 'charm of presence' and even to my 'beauty.' What is to become of me, I don't know. Of course I am particularly hopeless seeing that nine of the London theatres out of less than three times that number are now devoted to musical comedy and I am unable to sing, nor should I be enthusiastic about taking work sadly in contrast with my once high and hopeful ambition."
The last phrase deserves some consideration. To a great extent the reason why the stage causes so much unhappiness among actresses is that a large proportion enter the profession not in a simple straightforward way in the choice of a career, but because they dream of great triumphs. Probably the career of Ellen Terry, and the exhibition of public affection shown upon the occasion of her jubilee, brought many recruits to the stage.
Putting aside the fact that Ellen Terry is unique, one may remark that very few actresses can hope to get close to the top of the tree, for obvious reasons. In the case of most careers and professions, nine men out of ten who join them know perfectly well that they will never do more than earn a decent living, and they shape their lives accordingly; but nearly every young actress expects to become a leading lady at a West End theatre, though there are few West End theatres devoted to real drama, and in some out of the small number there will always be a manager's wife or friend as an obstacle.
The misfortune is that few young actresses—if any—say to themselves deliberately that they will aim at character parts, or old-woman parts. Nearly all the old-woman and grande-dame characters are played by actresses who have been leading ladies and during some period have had the painful experience of failing, on account of their age, to get the engagements they have sought. The Juliet of one season is not the Nurse or the Lady Capulet of the next; a considerable time passes before there is such a shift of characters, and she acts nothing at all during the interregnum, which is spent in vain attempts to get the Juliet parts, met with cruel rebuffs on the score of age.
Now, some of the old-man actors on the stage are quite young; they have chosen a particular line, conscious of the fact that nature has denied them the privilege of playing parts that will cause the stage-door-keeper to be deluged with amorous letters addressed to them, and aware, too, that the triumphs of the broad comedian will never be theirs. These young old-men are often quite as successful in old-man parts as those who have served most of a lifetime upon the stage.
It is not more difficult for a young woman to play the old-woman character or the grande-dame part than for the young man to tackle the Sir Peter Teazle or the ordinary modern old-man; nor is this the only class of work other than that of lovely heroine which lies open to the actress. When one hears discussion concerning the casting of plays there is often talk about the difficulty of finding an actress for a Fanny Brough part, which, of course, is quite distinct from what may be considered specifically a soubrette character. Complaints are uttered about the difficulty of finding a player to represent the comic mother-in-law; indeed, playwrights are sometimes affected in their work by the fear that if they write broad comedy for feminine parts the difficulty of casting them will be insurmountable.
Handsome salaries are paid to the few ladies who have a well-deserved reputation as actresses in the class of character thus indicated, and there is a demand for them—a demand generally supplied by superannuated leading ladies and aged soubrettes. It may be offensive to a girl's vanity deliberately to choose a path in which her personal charms, or those which she believes herself to possess, must be of little service. On the English stage it may be doubted if such a policy will ever be adopted, though on French there are instances which might be cited of actresses who have played dowager characters during the whole of a profitable, long and respected career.
No doubt there is another side of the matter. Many, most actresses, join the stage with other ideas than of merely gaining a reasonably comfortable living wage. Pure ambition in some cases, vanity in others, are the motive-force, to say nothing of the numbers who may be regarded simply as stagestruck; and to such as these nothing seems worth striving for save to represent the triumphant heroine, the fascinating soubrette, or Lady Macbeth.
Upon all, these prudent counsels will be wasted—indeed, those who know a little of what passes behind the scenes are well aware that young actresses, almost starving, refuse to accept character parts that would help them out of poverty because they are afraid of jeopardising their chance—their one-to-a-hundred chance—of obtaining the perilous position of leading lady.
There is, of course, another class. Some, perhaps many, become actresses simply from a pure love of what they deem a beautiful, noble art, and for them it is only natural to think that nothing is worth representing save the greater characters; it is difficult to gratify such a love by representing a middle-aged comic spinster, or one of the elderly duchesses, without whom a modern comedy is deemed ungenteel. Let us hope that Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's Academy, which already is bearing fruit, will affect this deplorable phenomenon. Those responsible may succeed in convincing a fair number of their charming pupils that it is wise not to aim at glittering triumphs which fall to few, but to qualify for work necessary in most plays, and very often done indifferently.
[Stage Misfits ]
"One of those things no fellah can understand," to quote a phrase of Lord Dundreary, is the way in which players get chosen for their parts. Most cases, no doubt, are not instances of square pegs in round holes; but the number of exceptions is enormous, a fact which has lately been made manifest by one of the short French seasons. An actress of really great talent has appeared as a star in her husband's company, and the obvious judgment upon her first two appearances was that the characters chosen were quite unsuitable to her. The reference is to Madame Suzanne Desprès.
In La Rafale and Le Détour she had to represent a Parisian, a chic Parisienne, a creature of nerves, elegance and, according to Balzac, sound business calculation, Madame Desprès suggested none of these qualities; in physique she seems an agreeable-looking, strong-minded countrywoman with brains; obviously she has no instinct for dress; and, despite remarkable skill and a fine exhibition of acting, she presented a woman quite different from the author's character, one also who would never have behaved like M. Bernstein's heroines.
The play suffered and the player suffered, and probably only the critical could see what an admirable actress she is and guess how perfectly she would represent a higher type of woman. This is no isolated case. We often see the race-horse used in pulling heavy weights and the Suffolk punch employed for speed, and each blamed for the unsatisfactory accomplishment of the absurd task. Many of the disasters in the theatre are due to this.
As a rule the actor-manager or manageress demands the principal character, however unsuitable. Going back a little, one recalls with astonishment the experiment of Irving in representing Romeo, and many have wondered why Ellen Terry in 1888 appeared as Lady Macbeth. Some of the pleasantest memories of the playgoer concern superb performances by Miss Elizabeth Robins, and yet they can recollect two or three appearances in commonplace dramas that were flat failures. Mrs Patrick Campbell has had several checks which would be astounding if one did not recollect that she was constitutionally unsuited for the task she attempted.
The most ardent Bensonian will hardly suggest that his idols are always judicious in their choice of characters. To use the stock stage term, players often "see themselves" in characters in which the public sees only them and not the characters. Are there no kind friends on the stage to give unpalatable advice?
One reason for the extraordinary success of the performances by the Stage Society and the Vedrenne-Barker management and of Pinero plays was the judicious choice of players whose physique and temperament coincided with their parts. Several times we had what seemed brilliant pieces of acting by performers who never did anything before or afterwards worthy of admiration. At almost every fresh production enthusiastic young critics discovered a new actor or actress who, after all, was only an old friend well fitted at last.
The lack of attention by managers to this matter of suitability often leads to very awkward results, chiefly in the case of the ladies. Many times we have listened to ravings about the beauty of the heroine, and when she has appeared there has been a giggle in the house on account of her lack of beauty. We have frequently heard references to the tiny feet of a healthy young woman who would hardly have got three of her toes into the glass slipper, or to the dainty hands of a lady who would split a pair of eights.
The beauty of the men is not so frequently referred to, but we sometimes have an ugly fellow vainly trying to live up to suggestions that he is an Adonis and merely looking ridiculous in consequence. The matter of age, too, enters into the question—at times disastrously. Some actresses are like Cleopatra or Ninon de l'Enclos, but many look twice their reputed age. It is only in the case of Juliet that it is deemed decent to refer to this difficulty, and then merely because Shakespeare has set her so cruelly young that everybody knows nobody can play and look the part.
In this matter a little good sense would work wonders. We critics are much to blame, and blamed, for not trying to force the entry of good sense. Some of our forebrothers never hesitated to talk bluntly about the physical unsuitability of players for their parts, but we have grown so mealy-mouthed that if Miss Florence Haydon were to play Rosalind or Mr Louis Calvert Romeo, we should merely use some obscure phrases about unsuitability of temperament instead of saying something usefully brutal about the folly of these admirable artists. If we go a little further, our editors are pestered with letters to which we have the privilege of replying.
The whole thing is absurd. The public is not deluded, and we hear murmurs in the theatre and outcries in the streets about the fact that Miss So-and-so is far too ugly for her part and Mr So-and-so too old, and the plays fail because the charges are true and the stage illusion has never been created, and the critic's authority—if any—is weakened. There are as many bad performances because the players are physically unsuitable as because they are otherwise incompetent.
If these ideas were acted upon the profession at large would gain, for the players would be put more constantly in circulation; on the other hand it will be suggested that the actors and actresses would grow less skilful, since it may be imagined that their highest achievements are exhibited when overcoming the greatest difficulties, in which proposition there is an obvious fallacy; and also that they would gain less experience, having a smaller variety in parts.
The advocates of the old stock system certainly would howl, because they think it did an actor good to play a great number of vastly different characters. It must, however, be recollected that in the time when the stock system flourished, putting aside the comparatively small classic repertoire, a very large proportion of the pieces were written upon more mechanical lines than the better plays of the present time, and parts tended to become classifiable into distinct well-known categories. To-day popular players are often engaged for long terms at theatres, where they are inevitably given characters for many of which they are unsuited in physique or temperament, to say nothing of age.
Another matter is the question of accent. From time to time we have players on our boards who speak English with a foreign accent in parts where such an accent is an absurdity. No doubt some have grappled with this difficulty very cleverly. Modjeska, for instance, Bandmann, Mlle. Béatrice, Marius, Juliette Nesville and the lady who played here as Madame Simon le Bargy.
The memory of few goes back to Fechter, and it would hardly be tactful to refer on this topic to several American players. The effect, however, necessarily is unfortunate; it is difficult enough on the stage to create illusions, and very important not to multiply difficulties. Opera, with the magic aid of music, may contend successfully against such monstrosities as one singer singing an Italian part in French, whilst the others offer various styles of Italian, Anglo-Italian, German-Italian, Swedish-Italian—almost any Italian save the lingua Toscana. Spoken drama is not so robust in this particular, and the matter in question does not happen often enough to acquire validity by becoming a convention.
[Stars ]
The past season has been comparatively disastrous to the theatres, and many pieces have failed; this state of things is coincident with healthy progress in English drama, and the year has seen several productions that would have startled as well as delighted enthusiasts a few years ago. Putting aside musical comedy and comic opera, one asks why it is that a great deal of money has been lost at the playhouses and a very large proportion of pieces have been failures.
There are outcries about a dearth of good plays and competent players, and the supposed deficiency in these elements is generally offered as an explanation. Is it the true one? Certainly not. The development of the star system is the chief cause of the disaster. In former days we used to blame the actor-manager, but since the time when all were throwing stones at him a good deal has happened for which the ordinary actor-manager is not responsible—directly.
To-day several of the managers who are not actors run their theatres on the star system, and we find the announcement frequently made that Mr X. will present Miss So-and-so, or Mr So-and-so, or Mrs So-and-so, in a new play by Mr XXX. In other words, the manager is really offering his star to the public, and not the play. Moreover, a number of players are run as stars by syndicates. In plain English, most of our theatres are managed, or rather mismanaged, upon the supposition that the principal players are more important than what they represent.
It is the opinion of many disinterested observers that only three or four of our actors and actress in legitimate drama draw an appreciable amount of money in London to the theatre, and sacrifices made for those who do not obviously are futile. The unfortunate result of the system is that the playwright is sacrificed to the stars—most of whom are ineffectual. He is required to fit his drama to the personality of one, or it may be two, in the cast.
Let us tell briefly the story of one failure of the year. A play of some merit was shown to a popular actor, who suggested that if certain changes were made in it he would recommend it to his syndicate. The changes were suggested comprehensively under the phrase "If you can strengthen my part."
The part was strengthened—that is to say, other parts were weakened, speeches were taken from them and given to the hero, scenes for minor characters were excised or shortened, and the star was dragged into the finale of the second act at great sacrifice of plausibility. The play was then recommended.
It happened that the star had just separated from the leading lady who generally appeared with him, so the syndicate was free in choice of a heroine. Three names were suggested. It was admitted that two of the actresses were more suitable than the third, who, however, had a "backer" willing to put money into the venture. The money prevailed and the lady was chosen. She promptly insisted upon having her part strengthened, so the play was remutilated till her wishes were complied with. Is it surprising that when it was produced the critics fell foul of it and denounced the faults due to these transactions, or amazing that it did not run long?
This is by no means an isolated case: there has been one comedy given this year, the last act of which was blamed by everybody. Why? Because the star, who was not the chief figure in it as the play was written, insisted upon his prerogatives, therefore the part of the second actor in the cast was cut down to next to nothing and a big irrelevant scene was introduced for the star, in which he uttered some of the speeches taken from the second actor's part. To think of a work of art being submitted to such treatment! It is difficult to emphasize it by a parallel. One might ask what would be the result if a painter were to attempt to convert a purely imaginative picture into a portrait, and, in addition to altering the face and the lines of the figures, were to put in a number of accessories to please the patron's taste, and also to accept suggestions from the sitter as to changes in the colour-scheme.
Now, it may be asserted confidently that a number of the plays produced this year have undergone the process of being altered to please managers, actor-managers, star players and syndicates. In addition a good many have been written from the start with a view of fitting the stars without alteration, and such works, in most cases, are quite out of balance and proportion, and, moreover, put a burden upon the stars that they are quite unable to bear, or we to endure.
It was bad enough when there were only two or three stars, but now the managers have starred a whole shoal of mediocre players and sacrificed plays and dramatist to them. That there seems to be a dearth of good plays is in part because of the fact that some good ones are ruined by changes made in them, whilst others are refused because they do not contain star parts, and the authors cannot or will not convert them into star plays.
The stars, created by the managers and industriously boomed by their press agents, by the newspapers and by the postcard merchants, have become Frankensteins to their creators. They demand and get extravagant salaries. Yet experience shows that few really draw people to the theatre.
When the manager makes his calculation he can only put a limited sum to the salary list, and since he starts with one or two star salaries there is an insufficient amount left for the rest of the company—that is to say, instead of having the other characters represented by players who would be chosen for them if money were no object, they have to be taken by the cheapest performers who can possibly be deemed competent.
The position of the unstarred actor is peculiarly precarious, for he is often passed over, although the salary expected by him is not very large, in favour of somebody cheaper and less competent. Some casts remind one of the women who think themselves well dressed merely because they have a new hat. They begin with one or two good players—when the stars happen to be good players—and immediately drop below mediocrity.