Most actors depend on climax—they save themselves for the supreme explosion. The scene opens with a slow match and ends when the spark reaches the dynamite. So, most authors fill the first act with contradictions and the last with explanations. Plots and counter-plots, violence and vehemence, perfect saints and perfect villains—that is to say, monsters, impelled by improbable motives, meet upon the stage, where they are pushed and pulled for the sake of the situation, and where everything is so managed that the fire reaches the powder and the explosion is the climax.
There is neither time, nor climate, nor soil, in which the emotions and intentions may grow. No land is plowed, no seed is sowed, no rain falls, no light glows—the events are all orphans.
No one would enjoy a sudden sunset—we want the clouds of gold that float in the azure sea. No one would enjoy a sudden sunrise—we are in love with the morning star, with the dawn that modestly heralds the day and draws aside, with timid hands, the curtains of the night. In other words, we want sequence, proportion, logic, beauty.
There are several actors in this country who are in perfect accord with nature—who appear to make no effort—whose acting seems to give them joy and rest. We do well what we do easily. It is a great mistake to exhaust yourself, instead of the subject. All great actors "fill the stage" because they hold the situation. You see them and nothing else.
Question. Speaking of American actors, Colonel, I believe you are greatly interested in the playing of Miss Marlowe, and have given your opinion of her as Parthenia; what do you think of her Julia and Viola?
Answer. A little while ago I saw Miss Marlowe as Julia, in "The Hunchback." We must remember the limitations of the play. Nothing can excel the simplicity, the joyous content of the first scene. Nothing could be more natural than the excitement produced by the idea of leaving what you feel to be simple and yet good, for what you think is magnificent, brilliant and intoxicating. It is only in youth that we are willing to make this exchange. One does not see so clearly in the morning of life when the sun shines in his eyes. In the afternoon, when the sun is behind him, he sees better —he is no longer dazzled. In old age we are not only willing, but anxious, to exchange wealth and fame and glory and magnificence, for simplicity. All the palaces are nothing compared with our little cabin, and all the flowers of the world are naught to the wild rose that climbs and blossoms by the lowly window of content.
Happiness dwells in the valleys with the shadows.
The moment Julia is brought in contact with wealth, she longs for the simple—for the true love of one true man. Wealth and station are mockeries. These feelings, these emotions, Miss Marlowe rendered not only with look and voice and gesture, but with every pose of her body; and when assured that her nuptials with the Earl could be avoided, the only question in her mind was as to the absolute preservation of her honor—not simply in fact, but in appearance, so that even hatred could not see a speck upon the shining shield of her perfect truth. In this scene she was perfect—everything was forgotten except the desire to be absolutely true.
So in the scene with Master Walter, when he upbraids her for forgetting that she is about to meet her father, when excusing her forgetfulness on the ground that he has been to her a father. Nothing could exceed the delicacy and tenderness of this passage. Every attitude expressed love, gentleness, and a devotion even unto death. One felt that there could be no love left for the father she expected to meet—Master Walter had it all.
A greater Julia was never on the stage—one in whom so much passion mingled with so much purity. Miss Marlowe never "o'ersteps the modesty of nature." She maintains proportion. The river of her art flows even with the banks.