"In the first place, such exchanges constitute the finest medium for the development of actress or actor and the liberalizing of the public. Face to face with an English audience the American actress finds herself confronted by new tastes, new appreciations, new demands. She must meet them all or fail. What does this result in? Versatility, flexibility, and, in the end, a firmer and more comprehensive hold upon her art."
When Frohman was asked to define success in theatrical management he made this answer:
"The terms of success in the theater seem to me to be the co-operating abilities of playwright and actor with the principal burden on the actor. In other words, the play is not altogether 'the thing.' The right player in the right play is the thing."
The shaping of William Gillette's career is a good example of Frohman's definition of a successful theatrical manager, whose best skill and talents are employed largely in the matter of manipulating a hard-minded person to mutual advantage.
The relationship between stars and audiences is of necessity a very close one. The Frohman philosophy, however, was not the generally accepted theory that audiences make stars.
On one of those very rare occasions in his life when he wrote for publication, he made the following illuminating statement:
No star or manager should feel grateful to any audience for the success of a play in which he has figured. A play succeeds because it is a living, vital thing—and that is why it has got upon the stage at all. There is life in it and it does not, and will not, die. It keeps itself alive until the opportunity comes along. Often a kind of instinct makes the opportunity.
It is instinct also that prompts an audience to applaud when it is pleased, laugh when it is amused, weep when it is moved, hiss when it is dissatisfied. No actor should feel indebted to an audience for the recognition of good work, because that same audience that appears to be so friendly, at another time, when one character or play does not please it, will resent both actor and play. This is as it should be. The loyalty of English audiences to their old favorites is fine, but it is bad for the old favorites. It is stagnating.
The various expressions of approval and disapproval that come from the spectators at a play are involuntary on the part of the spectators. They are hypnotized by the play and the acting. Who ever, on coming out of the theater after seeing a play that has pleased him, has felt a sense of happiness that his pleasure had also pleased the actor, or the author of the play, or the management of the production? Loyalty, generosity, and encouragement, as applied to audiences, are so many empty words. Play-goers who apply them to themselves cheat themselves. Miss Maude Adams is the only stage personage within my experience who has a distinct public following, loyal and encouraging to her in whatever she does.
Audiences interested Frohman immensely. He liked to be a part of them. He had a perfectly definite reason for sitting in the last row of the gallery on the first nights of his productions, which he once explained as follows: