But no one who is not a first-rate actor should attempt “Two can play at that Game,” “A Morning Call,” “A Happy Pair,” or any of those beautiful French trifles which look so easy, and in the hands of good actors are so charming, for they depend upon the most delicate shades of acting to make them even passable.
For those players of a larger growth, who attempt the very interesting business of amateur theatricals on a more ambitious plane, we can illustrate our meaning as to plays which “play themselves” by two instances:
“Ici l’on parle Français” gives the two amusing situations of a man who is trying to speak French with the aid of a phrase-book, and the counterpoise of a Frenchman who is trying to speak English in the same fragmentary manner. Their mutual mistakes keep the house in a roar; and almost any clever pair of young men can assume these two characters to great advantage. They each have an eccentric character mapped out for them, and very little shading is necessary.
Again, for a very much more poetical and entirely different range of part, but yet one which “plays itself,” we would suggest “Pygmalion and Galatea,” Gilbert’s beautiful and poetical play. Here we have the great novelty of a young lady disguised as a marble statue. She can be “made up” with white powder and white merino drapery to look very like a marble statue, and a powerful white lime-light should be thrown on her from above. There is a tableau within a play to begin with, and something novel and interesting. The marble statue, however, at the very start becomes endowed with life, steps down from her pedestal, walks forward to the footlights, talks, and receives the homage of a lover. Now, almost any pretty and intelligent maiden can make this part very interesting. She needs nothing but grace and a good memory to do this Galatea well. The part plays itself.
The same young actress could not do Lady Teazle—that delightful and intricate bit of acting, so dependent upon stage tradition and stage training that old theatre-goers say that in fifty years only five actresses have done it well. Still less could she approach the heroine in the “Morning Call” or the young wife in “Caste.” These parts demand the long, severe stage training of an accomplished artist. The Galatea is assisted by the novelty of the position, by the fact that every young maid is a marble statue, in one sense, until Love makes her a woman, so that each person may give a strikingly individual portrait; and, above all, it is a play which is a new creation, and therefore capable of a new interpretation.
We do not advise amateurs to undertake Shakespeare, unless it be “Katherine and Petruchio,” which is so gay and scolding that it almost plays itself.
The very beautiful comedies of Robertson seem very easy when one sees Mr. Wallack’s company play them; but they are very difficult for amateurs. They depend upon the most delicate shading, the highest art, and the neatest finish.
The sterling old comedies—all excepting “The Rivals”—are almost impossible, even those which are full of incident and full of costume. Their quick movement seems to evade the player; and what is so terrible to the listener as to endure even a second’s suspension in the “give and take” of a comedy? “The Rivals,” strange to say, is a very good play for amateurs.
Boucicault’s farces and society plays run very well on the amateur stage. Lady Gay Spanker is not a difficult part. Bulwer’s “Lady of Lyons” should never be attempted by amateurs. It becomes mawkishly sentimental in their hands. But Charles Reade’s “Still Waters run Deep” is excellent for amateurs; and “Money” runs off rather more easily than one would suppose.