Our Stage and Its Critics / By "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

by Edward Fordham Spence

Moreover, single adjectives tell very little.

To say that Mr X. acted admirably, Miss Y. gave a capital performance, Mr Z. played in excellent style, gives little information, and when there are half-a-dozen to be named it is almost impossible to ring the changes. Furthermore, perhaps unconsciously, we are moved, fatuously no doubt, by the feeling that the earlier part of the article is intensely interesting to all the world, but that no one save the players and their personal friends and enemies will even glance at these concluding sentences. Yet one knows that they are of serious importance to the persons actually concerned, though some of them say that they never read them.

The fact that so many theatres are in the hands of actor-managers is one reason why these phrases are important, for the actor-manager is compelled very often to choose or refuse a player on the strength of hearsay testimony: ours is hearsay evidence in the most accessible form, and even the managers have some belief in the soundness of the judgment of several of us. They all recognise the fact that we tend to create public opinion, and that an actor or actress much spoken of admiringly in the papers excites the curiosity of playgoers, and is a useful addition to a cast. Consequently we feel that in speaking of or ignoring individual performers we are affecting them to some extent in earning their livelihood.

There is a story concerning a critic upon whose death half the stage went into quarter-mourning. If it be true, it showed that he was very short-sighted in his amiability, for when dealing with an overcrowded profession one must remember that ill-earned praise of A may keep B, who is more worthy, from getting A's place, to which, of course, he has a better title. It is very hard to act upon this proposition, although it involves a duty, for it is much easier to imagine the positive hurt to A than the negative injury to B; the critic in question probably shut his eyes to this, if he ever thought of it, and died comfortably unaware of the fact that his indiscriminating praise had kept many meritorious people out of their rights.

Even supposing one masters the illogical feeling of the lamented critic, difficulties arise. We have grown very velvet-tongued in these days. There was no nonsense about our predecessors; if the leading lady was plain, they said so, whilst if one of us were to suggest that the heroine, whose beauty is talked of tiresomely during the play, in real life might sit in unflattering safety under mistletoe till the berries shrivelled he would be regarded as an ungentle manlike brute. This is rather awkward.

There is an injustice in being forced into a conspiracy of silence about the figure or face of a lady who would catch cold at kiss-in-the-ring, yet is supposed at first sight to set Romeo's pulses throbbing madly, and when the dear creatures whom we loved a quarter of a century ago appear to us unsuitable for ingenue parts we feel that it is a terrible breach of duty not to say so, yet it is painful to be candid.

Now and again the matter becomes ridiculous, and we venture to make oblique suggestions; but even this is a poor accomplishment of our task. Yet it seems appallingly rude and direct to say that Miss X. showed intelligence and technical skill, but is too old or too fat or too ugly for her part; and managers rely upon our reticence and upon pictures in which the sun helps photographers in a game of deception—perhaps that unfortunate victim of the November fogs may resent the suggestion of conspiracy, and complain of fraudulent tricks with negatives—and so the public is deceived. Also, undated photographs are used—fraudulently. This is a very irksome matter, for our friends are candid about our backwardness, and ask indignantly why we fail to mention that Miss —— is ugly enough to stop a clock, or that it is a long day's walk round the jeune premier at the Footlights Theatre.

Something at least might be done by the managers to help us. They ought to cut the references to the heroine's beauty when it is obvious that she has none. It may be suggested that is this hard upon the plain women who possess the mysterious gift of charm. The answer is that no charming woman is ever plain, even if someone—Voltaire, perhaps—spoke of "les laides charmeuses."

The list of difficult points is not exhausted. For the question arises whether one ought to mention at all any acting that is not extraordinarily good or bad. As a rule, mediocrity has to pass unnoticed in this world; in most professions the person whose worth is not above or below the average is rarely mentioned. Why should an exception be made in case of a player? If we know that the performance of Miss X. is no better or worse than would have been that of the average actress, why should we torture our brains to find adjectives concerning her?

Perhaps in dealing with this, attention ought to be drawn to the fact that the point really relates almost exclusively to criticisms of new plays. When Hamlet is given, or any other classic drama, by a queer twist one finds in fact that from a journalistic point of view the performance is of more importance than the piece. We are not expected to add to the intolerable mass of matter already written about the Prince; nobody cares twopence what we write concerning the play, since we have nothing to say that has not been said already, and by more important people; and the curiosity of the public in this case relates only to the acting and the setting.