“English actors are as successful over here,” he said, “as Americans are in London, and the same may be said of plays, the novelty, I suppose, in each case.”
The close alliance between England and America is becoming more emphasised every day. Why, in the matter of acting alone we give them our best and they send us their best in return. So much is this the case that most of the people mentioned in these pages are as well known in New York as in London; for instance, Sir Henry Irving, Miss Ellen Terry, Mr. and Mrs. Kendal, Mr. Weedon Grossmith, Mr. E. S. Willard, Miss Fay Davis, Madame Sarah Bernhardt, Miss Winifred Emery, Mr. Cyril Maude, Miss Ellaline Terriss, Mr. Seymour Hicks, Mr. and Mrs. Beerbohm Tree, Mr. W. S. Gilbert, Mr. Anthony Hope, Mr. A. W. Pinero, and a host of others. Sir Henry Irving has gone to America, for the eighth time during the last twenty years, with his entire company. That company for the production of Dante consists of eighty-two persons, and no fewer than six hundred and seventy-three packages, comprising scenery, dresses, and properties.
“No author should ever try to dramatise his own books: he nearly always fails,” Mr. Frohman added later during our pleasant little chat, after which he took me round his theatre, probably the most celebrated in the United States, for it was built by the famous Daly, and still maintains its position at the head of affairs. On the whole, American theatres are smaller than our own, the entire floor is composed of stalls which only cost 8s. 4d. each, and there is no pit. In the green-room, halls, and passages Mr. Frohman pointed out with evident delight various pictures of Booth as Hamlet, since whose time no one had been so successful till Edward Sothern junior took up that rôle in 1900. There was also a large portrait of Charlotte Cushman, and several pictures of Irving, Ellen Terry, Jefferson, and others, as well as some photographs of my old friend Mr. Sothern.
I have quoted the Terrys, Kendals, Ellaline Terriss, Ben Webster, Winifred Emery, and the Sotherns as products of the stage, but there are many more, including Dion and Nina Boucicault, whose parents were a well-known theatrical couple, George and Weedon Grossmith, the sons of an entertainer, and George’s son is also on the stage. Both the Irvings are sons of Sir Henry of that ilk, and so on ad infinitum.
From the above list it will be seen that most of our successful actors and actresses were cradled in the profession. They were “mummers” in the blood, if one may be forgiven the use of such a quaint old word to represent the modern exponents of the drama.
CHAPTER IV
PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS
Interview with Ibsen—His Appearance—His Home—Plays Without Plots—His Writing-table—His Fetiches—Old at Seventy—A Real Tragedy and Comedy—Ibsen’s First Book—Winter in Norway—An Epilogue—Arthur Wing Pinero—Educated for the Law—As Caricaturist—An Entertaining Luncheon—How Pinero writes his Plays—A Hard Worker—First Night of Letty.
PROBABLY the man who has had the most far-reaching influence on modern drama is Henrik Ibsen. Half the dramatic world of Europe admire his work as warmly as the other half deplore it.
Ibsen has a strange personality. The Norwegian is not tall, on the contrary, rather short and thick-set—one might almost say stout—in build, broad-shouldered, and with a stooping gait. His head is splendid, the long white hair is a glistening mass of tangled locks. He has an unusually high forehead, and in true Norse fashion wears his plentiful hair brushed straight back, so that, being long, it forms a complete frame for the face. He has whiskers, which, meeting in the middle, beneath his chin, leave the chin and mouth bare. Under the upper lip one sees by the indentation the decision of the mouth, and the determination of those thin lips, which through age are slightly drawn to one side. He has a pleasant smile when talking; but in repose the mouth is so firmly set that the upper lip almost disappears.