However it may be with woman's inhumanity to man, there can be no question about her inhumanity to woman. It does "make countless thousands mourn." And this not alone in the familiar sense in which
Every fault a tear may claim,
Except an erring sister's shame.
Whatever male has assisted at a function at which males are not supposed to assist, and at which the admixture of males is so small as to be negligible, has seen sights as astonishing in their way as the sights witnessed by the rash males who, at the peril of their lives, smuggled themselves into those antique mysteries from which they were expressly excluded. Nowhere in the gatherings of men does shameless selfishness find so crude an expression as, say, at a crowded matinée. It could not be exhibited at a prize-fight, for the exhibitor would subject himself to prompt personal assault. But the female bully is without fear as without shame. She elbows her way through and past her timid sisters, takes tranquil possession of the standing-places they have reserved by occupation, and scatters them to flight as the fierce hawk the pavid doves. Of course the bullies are a small minority, but one hawk suffices to flutter the most populous dove-cote, and to characterize the assemblage which it dominates. The young man who excuses his own bad manners by blaming "the woman" only emphasizes his want of chivalry; but the validity of his plea is more deniable than its accuracy.
The English Voice on the American Stage
In the play of "Pudd'nhead Wilson," made out of Mark Twain's book by Frank Mayo, the evil genius combines in his veins the bad blood and craven instincts of two races. The rôle was given, when first presented, a remarkable impersonation in which there was a subtle mingling of a white man's presumption and a negro's animalism. But the creator of the part was the brother of a leading English poet! An American actor essayed the rôle in the second season with decidedly less success. In "The Heart of Maryland," a strenuous developing of Civil War emotions and events, the fate of the hero, a soldier whose devotion to the North alienates him from father and sweetheart, was given in both its first two seasons to actors of good schooling indeed, but distinctly English. The "leading juvenile," supposedly a Confederate officer with all a Southron's manner of speech, was also most pronouncedly a Briton in tongue, build, and carriage. In that exciting coil about a lovable spy—"Secret Service"—not exactly the villain, but the chief meddler with the hero's plans, was on the programme a Virginia gentleman, but on the stage entirely British.
Multiplying examples is unnecessary; there is enough food for reflection in these three recent plays. They are all marked with particular Americanism, and a prominent share of that Americanism is entrusted to actors foreign-born and foreign-bred.
We are so used here to accepting certain mannerisms of speech as indigenous to, and proper to, the theatre, and so many of our actors follow British pronunciation and inflection, that we hardly see the extent to which the natively English voice prevails on our stage. Once the thing gets on one's nerves, however, it is most noticeable. Indeed, the presence of English actors on the American stage is so pervasive of everything, from farce-comedy to society-tragedy, that they fairly invest our national drama.
Now of all insularities the most abominable, the one most to be shunned by this country is artistic insularity. It is an excellent cosmopolitanism that gives our patronage so generously to the greatest foreign stars, although it is bald snobbery that often leads us to favor mediocre importations over native genius. But it is surely carrying our worldliness too far when we accept and approve the hopeless incapacity of foreigners to enact rôles demanding American local color. This may substantiate our proverbial patience, but it deals hard with our boasted sense of the incongruous. So much have unlike environments in a hundred years differentiated the two races that an English impersonation of an American character can never be acceptable to real criticism.
The reason for the sway of English actors over our stage is not far to seek. It is not that the best of them can act better than our best, for we have in our little day produced a very few of the greatest actors, tragic and comic. And we still have an excellent array of the plebs of the stage. It is the middle class—which is ever the grand average and backbone of any organization—that is not satisfactory and must draw on foreign aid. The average middle-class actor in England supplies the demand, for he is far above our similar caste in training and finish, and for good reason. In England the stage is taken more seriously than here, at least by the players. There an actor enters upon his career with the same desire for the thoroughness that comes from humble beginnings and complete experience as anyone entering upon any other profession. He may cherish vague hopes of greatness—as every American lawyer hopes to be President—but he is content if his lot is cast in respectable places, where the labor is agreeable and the compensation decent. The result is an army of thoroughly drilled actors that can do almost anything well, though they may do nothing brilliantly.