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

by Edward Fordham Spence

[CHAPTER VIII]

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.