Any one seeking enlightenment about personality, its perfections or defects should not go to autobiographies of actors: “I guess I am a ham, all right” said Mr. Cohan to himself after he had been mildly echoed by some of his fellow Thespians. I don’t know exactly what a “ham” is but if he is one, he is an amusing one on the stage. In the past twenty years he has written, signed and produced thirty-one plays of his own. It is regrettable that he did not get some one else to tell how he did it.
What Mr. Cohan’s book lacks more than anything else is the revelation of an ideal of life—an ideal other than the ambition to “put Broadway in his pocket.” It may be said in his defence that he was not at a school where such ideals form part of the daily and hourly preoccupations, and that his childhood was spent in an atmosphere not conducive to taking thought of one’s fellow-man’s spiritual needs and welfare. But there is a code of ethics which is particularly that of theatre-people and which is as altruistic in its conception as the Golden Rule; Mr. Cohan may conform his conduct to it, but one would not surmise it from reading his book. I admit he is a dramatist who has set a new style, a popular songwriter with a large following, a clever comedian, a resourceful theatrical technician, and that he knows a lot about the emotional wants of his fellow-citizens; but I am equally sure he knows little about himself, and what he knows he does not know how to tell.
A spiritual biography by one who prefers to withhold his name has recently been published under the title Letters of an Unsuccessful Actor. Although it is replete with shrewd observations, timely comment, and evidence of sound thinking and wide reading, R. M. S., to whom the letters were addressed and who is responsible for their publication, should have interpolated the word “self-satisfied” between the last two words of the title.
There are fifty-six letters, and in one or another of them most of the famous players of the last thirty years are discussed. It would seem to be quite fitting that the first letter is in praise of R. M. S. and the last an attempt to answer the question: Is acting merely interpretative? From them both, and from the others, a comprehensive idea may be gained of the man who wrote them and why he was a failure in his profession. It is likely he would not admit he was a failure. “Unsuccessful” probably means that he did not gain the position his talent deserved, nor recognition similar to that accorded Lawrence Barrett, Henry Irving, Dion Boucicault, Beerbohm Tree, John Hare, Charles Hawtrey and scores of others who reached the top during his lifetime. Self-consciousness undoubtedly was his stumbling block, and over-readiness to sit in judgment with a predilection for the adverse aided it. Possibly he was too original to be imitative; too immobilised by ideas to be plastic and malleable; too assertive to be taught and schooled. That is the impression one gets from reading this unusually interesting gossipy book which should appeal to all actors, divert many theatre-goers, and instruct some historians of the stage.
The writer is a man of opinions, most of them positive and difficult to dislodge, but the reader should keep in mind that they were written for a sympathetic, indulgent eye. This will suggest to him that many of the judgments may be discounted. “The theatre of the early nineties was dull as ditch-water.” That may be, but it was as sparkling and bright as a noisy brook compared with the theatre to-day. “The ideal training for an actor is no longer possible to obtain.” Was it possible ever to obtain? Certainly not since the days of Hellenic supremacy. “Garrick undoubtedly was a man of culture and accomplishment, a master of the social art and full of parlour tricks. His anecdotes, his imitations, his studies of various types of bumpkinhood were cameos of characterisation. As a mimic he was supreme, but he was a charlatan and he mutilated Shakespeare.” Posterity is even more tenacious of her opinions than is the Unsuccessful Actor, and they are better founded.
His pronouncements are not by any means all drastic and destructive. Many are mild, sensible and philosophic. “The greatest artist is he who obtains greatness in his portrayal of the greatest conceptions” is not original but it is felicitously expressed. Those who bemoan the decline of manners and morals will be likely to sympathise with him when he says: “With me manners were ever more important than morals.” I fancy all members of his profession will agree. “It is when immorality flaunts its bad manners that I won’t tolerate it.” Such intolerance would be becoming to nearly every one, and no one will dissent from his statement that “a good play is one in which a credible, an interesting story is unfolded by means of living characters, psychologically developed by incident.” If it were either credible or interesting most of us would vote it good!
The author occasionally indulges in prophecies and some of them have already come true. In 1918 he wrote: “Once let the Germans get the Allies talking around a table, during an armistice and they, not we, will have won this War, and within a few years will start preparing for the next.”
He has something interesting to say about dramatic criticism, about democracy, about Lloyd George and about love. It is one of the most interesting books to pick up and read for a few minutes, that has emanated from the stage in a long time.