The attitude of these gifted players is as an oasis in the desert of incompetency and convinces me that irrespective of the type that spells inadequacy and commercial success for a few of the ephemeral stars there are some self-respecting actors left who refuse to accompany these unworthy disciples down the narrow path that must lead to an eventual eclipse.
What an unthinking person is the average front-of-the-curtain speech maker! Fancy thanking an audience for the privilege of entertaining it! It has always struck me as being ludicrous. But I can sympathize with an actor thanking an audience for sitting out a failure!
I believe it was Charles Lamb or someone equally clever who remarked, "Apprentices are required for every trade, save that of critic; he is ready-made."
How true!
Critics—what a queer lot!—are generally foes to art—from Dr. Johnson down to those of the present day. Seldom sponsors, always antagonistic, jealous and even venomous, they are eager to tear down citadels of honest thought and houses of worthy purpose! They remain hostile until the continued success of their victim compels a truce. And how cravenly they acknowledge defeat! Like the shot coyote they will only fight when wounded.
The reviewer of a prize fight will comment upon a picture; criticize sculpture, literature, acting!
Why should the average critic know anything about acting when his horizon does not extend beyond the ill-ventilated room containing his trunk filled with the manuscripts which he has not succeeded in having produced? Conscious of the revenues of the successful playwrights of the day he criticizes with venom in his drab heart and vitriol in his ink-bottle! No wonder he enjoys storming the forts of prosperity!
But what gets on my nerves is the attention given some of these penny-a-liners by the average American manager-producer who cull the complimentary expressions of these incompetents and print them conspicuously upon their posters. To add further insult to the honest player most of the yellow journals photograph these critics, heading the columns of their uninstructive matter with their faces!
Shades of Lamb, Hazlitt, and George Henry Lewes!
I wonder how many readers cut out the pictures of those little cherubs, "Alan Dale" and "Vance" Thompson, and paste them in their scrap books? I utilized their pictures beautifying (!) two cuspidors in my home—and they are always in constant use!