Far be it from me to be a dusty delver into dates! But a word as to the origin of the profession in which so many of us have toiled so many years may not be amiss, especially if it point the moral or adorn the tale I have in mind. And that is not so much a tale as a protest against the customary reverence the public has for the actor who dares essay the classic rôles. It's not only not difficult to play a classic rôle. It's fifty per cent easier than to play a modern part!
But to be historical!
It was almost 350 (or only, as you please) years ago that the first properly licensed theatre was built in London. The exact date was 1570. It was called the Black Friars Theatre.
(And to-day, 1913, there are a dozen or so on one block, on one side of one block in Forty-second street, New York!)
On the other hand it is marvelous to consider the amount of discussion one causes when one announces a forth-coming production of a classic play. By common impulse the critics sharpen their quills and prepare for the onslaught! How dare men and women who have been known to wear modern garments attractively and in style even attempt to enter into competition with past or present "masters"? By what right has the modern actor forsaken his frock coat for the sock and buskin?
But again, the first religious spectacle was probably "St. Catherine," a miracle play mentioned by Mattheu Paris as having been written by Geoffrey, a Norman, afterwards Abbot of St. Albans, and played at Dunstable Abbey in 1110. In the "Description of the most noble city of London" by Fitz Stephen, a monk, in treating of the diversions of the inhabitants of the metropolis in 1174, says that while the plays all dealt with holy subjects the methods of the merchants who "presented" the attractions were anything but that. The gentle art of the ballyhoo was evidently well known even in those days for they used jugglers and buffoons and minstrels to draw the crowds up to the box office window. When the clergy awoke to what was going on they promptly put their sandaled feet down and stopped the money-making! Monks took the place of the unfrocked actors and the box offices and theatres all disappeared. Thereafter the miracle plays were enacted in the cathedrals and there was no way to check the gross receipts!
According to the critics the classic comedy should never be played by an actor who has not arrived at an age that physically incapacitates him from not only looking the part but acting it! It is no different with classic tragedy. And this is based, perhaps, on the absurd fallacy that the classic drama is most difficult to portray. In fact it is the easiest. It is easily proved.
Take any one of the old comedies. In the first place they create their own atmosphere, an atmosphere unknown to nine hundred and ninety-nine out of one thousand. The costumes are of brilliant coloring and in exquisite taste and a novelty in themselves. Nine-tenths of the idioms are not understood by the audience—and that is always most attractive! The methods of provoking laughter are uncommon, hence sure-fire! The play is a classic, therefore beyond criticism! No one is alive to-day who can judge of its accuracy—so it must be perfect! And, best of all, it is guaranteed to be in conformance with all the best standards—by tradition!