The proficient actor is one who can completely immerse his own personality in the rôle he is playing. The star actor is one who can completely immerse the rôle he is playing in his own personality.
XVIII
Although it may have absolutely nothing to do with the case, I yet believe that, in a romantic stage rôle, no actress can possibly be convincing or persuasive if she is able in private life to eat tripe, chicken livers, calves’ brains or a thick steak.
XIX
Maurice Donnay, the talented gentleman of Gallic dramatic letters, observes, “The French dramatists treat of love because it is the only subject which every member of the audience understands, and a dramatist must, of course, appeal to the masses.” Which, in another way, may account for the great appeal and success in America of crook plays.
XX
When a critic refers to a male actor’s “authority,” the betting odds are generally thirty to one that what he has done is to mistake for that quality the aforesaid actor’s embonpoint.
XXI
Mr. George P. Goodale, a good citizen and an honest taxpayer, was lately accorded a great banquet in honor of his fifty years of continuous service as dramatic critic to the Detroit Free Press. At the banquet, it was said, repeated, and emphasized that, in all his half-century as a critic of the drama, Mr. Goodale had never made a single enemy. Where, than in this banquet and its import, a smarter satire on the American notion of what constitutes dramatic criticism?