Educated in deception from the cradle, they learn the art of masking falsehood with an air of candour so completely, that it requires great gifts of penetration to arrive at their true heart and character. Journeyings from place to place, affairs of business, accidents of all sorts, experience of common life, examples furnished by their commerce with the world, the constant exercise of wit and intellect in rivalry, wake their brains up, and subtilise their comedians' nature.
In another chapter I intend to paint a special picture of Sacchi's company, with whom I fraternised, and whom I helped for about a quarter of a century. At present I shall confine my remarks to Italian players in general, who are, I think, in no essential points of moral quality different from those of other nations.
It may be laid down as an axiom, to be accepted with closed eyes, that the chief idol of all actors is their venal interest. Expressions of politeness, acknowledgments of obligation, terms of praise, humanity, sympathy, courteous welcome, and so forth, have no value among actors, except as parts of a fixed system of deception which they consider necessary in the worship of this idol. If that idol of pecuniary interest is attacked (with justice it may be and the best reasons), you will not find in them a shadow of these fine sentiments. The merest scent of coming profit makes them disregard and blindly{139} sacrifice the persons who have done them good; the reputation of the whole world is as nothing to them then; they take no thought of the damage they may have to suffer in the future, blinded by greediness, lulled into security for the time being, and hoping to avoid impending disasters by address and ingenuity. The present moment is all that actors think of.
Hot and choleric temperaments reveal their true selves more readily among this class of people. The cool-headed are more difficult to fathom. Their system of cozenage is not only applied to persons outside the profession, from whom they expect material gains; it is always at work to take in and delude the members of the guild. Of course they find it less easy to checkmate the initiated in their own devices. But if they have attained to the position of being necessary to their comrades in the trade, there is no sort of impropriety, pretence, injustice, swindling, tyranny, which they do not deem it lawful to employ.
These arts, which the progress of our century has extended to many kinds of persons who are not of the profession, have a certain marked character among the tribe of actors. Other people, when detected, show some sense of shame and self-abasement. The unmasked comedian, after all his turns and twists have been employed in vain, is so unprejudiced and candid that he laughs good-humouredly in the face of his detective, and seems to exclaim{140} with indescribable effrontery: "You are a great fool if you flatter yourself that you have made a notable discovery."
Such is my experience. But of course it is possible that among the innumerable actors, male and female, whom I have known, conversed with, and studied, some phœnix of the one or the other sex may have escaped my observation.
In what concerns the practice of their art, all that these people know is how to read and write; one better, and one worse. Indeed, I have been acquainted with both actors and actresses who have not even had that minimum of education, and yet they carried on their business without flinching. They got their lines read out to them by some friend or some associate, whenever a new part had to be impressed in outline on their memory. Keeping their ears open to the prompter, they entered boldly on the stage, and played a hero or a heroine without a touch of truth. The presentation of such characters by actors of the sort I have described abounds in blunders, stops and stays, and harkings back upon the leading motive, which would put to shame the player in his common walk of life.
Barefaced boldness is the prime quality, the chief stock-in-trade, the ground-element of education in these artists. Assiduous use of this one talent makes not a few of them both passable and even able actors.{141}
These are the reasons why a civil war is always raging in our companies about the first parts in new pieces. The conflict does not start from an honest desire to acquire or to manifest theatrical ability. The players are actuated wholly by ambition, by the hope of attracting favourable notice through the merit of their rôle, by the wish to keep themselves continually before the public, performing ill or well as their blind rashness prompts them.
Notwithstanding all these disadvantages, Italy would be able to make a good show in comparison with other nations if our theatres were better supported and remunerated. There are not wanting persons of fine presence, of talent, sensibility, and animation. What we do want are the refinements of education, solid protection, and emoluments sufficient to encourage the actor in his profession.