DRAMATIC LITERATURE
PROBLEMS OF THE ACTOR. By Louis Calvert. Simpkin. 7s.
This is a book which can be thoroughly recommended not only to every amateur but to every professional actor and theatre-lover. It is full of the most uncommon sense, and although Mr. Calvert has decided opinions on voice-training, gesture, team-work, scenery, dressing, music, and producing, he does not lay down the law with the evidence of inexperience, but reasons his position from point to point with a quietness that is far more impressive and convincing. Mr. Calvert has also done more than he probably set out to do. The book is, in the first instance, a guide for the young actor or would-be actor, giving him a good deal of wise advice on the technical side of his craft. But in doing this Mr. Calvert has written a book which should be read by every theatre-goer, since it will increase his appreciation of the theatre enormously by opening his mind to detail of which he was, in all probability, completely unaware, although more or less conscious of its cumulative effect. After reading Mr. Calvert's book he will find himself itching to go immediately to the nearest playhouse and regard the drama being enacted there with what he will feel are new eyes; and since the standard of acting and of drama generally is dependent largely upon the level of intelligence of its audience, Mr. Calvert's book will be as beneficial to the theatre when studied by the ordinary public as when studied by the actor. Finally, this book is an attempt to put the actor again in his proper position as the pillar of the drama. On this point I am in absolute agreement with Mr. Calvert. Plays are conceivable in which the actor may be no more than an instrument in the orchestra. I think they will be written, but I have yet to see them. But in the plays of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans the actor is first in importance, and scenery, dressing, music, and everything else must be used simply as a background and a subsidiary to him. Moreover Mr. Calvert makes a claim—which is also made by the late Mr. H. B. Irving in an introduction—to the consideration of the actor in his highest moments as a creative artist. This claim, in my opinion, Mr. Calvert makes good, and if there are any people to-day who still cherish the old superstition that the actor is merely a sort of clever but shallow showman, then unless they are bigoted beyond the reach of intelligence this book will dispel it once for all.
W. J. TURNER