It is difficult to understand how such emanations of error could have proceeded from the pen of such an experienced actor, manager, dramatist, and observer as David Belasco, and it is even more difficult to be patient with them. New York audiences before his time had never been “trained in a school of exaggeration,” and there was nothing in the least new,—unless, perhaps, it were Sunday-school tameness,—in the style of acting that was exhibited in the Madison Square Theatre. Long before Belasco’s advent the New York audience had seen, enjoyed, admired, and accepted Edwin Booth as Hamlet and Richelieu, Lester Wallack as de Vigny and as Don Felix, Gilbert as Old Dornton, Blake as Jesse Rural, Chippindale as Grandfather Whitehead, Henry Placide as Lord Ogleby, Couldock as Luke Fielding, Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle, Salvini as Conrad and Sullivan, Owens as Caleb Plummer, Walcot as Touchstone, Emery as Bob Tyke, Davenport as St. Marc, Elizabeth Jefferson (Mrs. Richardson) as Pauline, Agnes Robertson as Jeanie Deans, Mrs. Hoey as Lady Teazle, Laura Keene as Marco and as Peg Woffington, Julia Bennett (Mrs. Barrow) as Hypolita and Cicely Homespun, Mrs. Vernon as Lady Franklin, Mary Carr as Temperance, and Mary Gannon as Prue,—all of whom (and many more might be mentioned) were conspicuously representative of the most refined, delicate, “natural,” “quiet” style of acting that has been known anywhere. That the New York audience had seen “barnstormers” and “soapchewers” is true—but the educated, intelligent part of it had laughed at them before Belasco’s time just as heartily as it has since. I recollect evenings of frolic, many years ago, when I repaired, with gay comrades, to the old Bowery Theatre, with no other intent than to be merry over the proceedings of posers and spouters, of the Crummles and Bingley variety, who were sometimes to be found there. That tribe has always existed. Cicero derided it, in old Rome. In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” written more than three hundred years ago, the Prince condemns the “robustious, periwig-pated fellow,” who tears “a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,” and utters his well-known, wise counsel to actors that they should “acquire and beget a temperance” that may give “smoothness” to their expression of even the most tempestuous passion. The movement toward artistic acting has always, apparently, been going on. Every student of theatrical history has read about the elocutionary improvement effected by David Garrick, in 1741. It is a matter of common knowledge that Macready was famous for the great excellence of his “quiet acting,” his wonderful use of facial expression, while never speaking a word. Edmund Kean, it has been authentically recorded, moved his audience to tears, merely by his aspect, while, as the Stranger, he sat gazing into vacancy, listening to the song,—sung for him, when he acted in this country, by Jefferson’s mother:
“I have a silent sorrow here,
A grief I’ll ne’er impart,
It breathes no sigh, it sheds no tear,
But it consumes my heart.”
I have seen many an audience in tears when the elder Hackett acted Monsieur Mallet and when Jefferson, as poor old Rip, murmured the forlorn question, “Are we so soon forgot when we are gone?” No modern manager has invented “natural,”—by which I mean artistic,—acting. Belasco did not invent it, nor did he introduce it at the Madison Square Theatre. He was affected by what he saw around him in acting, precisely as he was affected by what he saw around him in playwriting: like other workers in the Theatre, he sought to better his instruction, and he has contributed to the development of changes (not all of them beneficial) in the Theatre. At the Madison Square, both as stage manager and dramatist, he dissipated the insipidity with which a deference to clerical management was blighting the prospects of a capital company at that house, so that from the moment he joined it its fortunes began to improve.
THE EVIL OF INCOMPETENT CRITICISM.
It is one of the hardships under which actors are compelled to pursue their vocation that the Theatre and its votaries are continually subject to the idle comment, indiscriminate praise, and capricious censure of many incompetent writers in the press. A few capable, well-equipped, earnest, and thoughtful critics unquestionably there are, in various parts of the Republic, but every little publication in the country parades its dramatic “critic,” and most of those scribblers show themselves ignorant alike of dramatic literature, dramatic art, the history of the Stage, human nature, and human life. That statement is proved every day of the year, and it is folly to ascribe it to the discontent of age or to lack of sympathy with contemporary life. Any intelligent, educated person can put it to the test as often as desired. The newspapers, as a rule, do not wish dramatic criticism: theatrical managers, almost without exception, resent it and oppose it: the newspapers receive paid advertisements and the theatrical advertisers assume to be entitled to forbearance and to puffery in the “critical” columns. This is not true of all newspapers, but it is generally true, and the writers, whether competent or not, can bear testimony to its truth. I know of nothing more dreary than the pages of drivel about the drama which periodically make their appearance in many newspapers and magazines. A favorite topic of those commentators is the immense superiority of the plays and the acting of To-day over the plays and the acting that pleased our forefathers. There was, it appears, nothing good in the Past: there is nothing but good in the Present. The old actors were artificial “pumps,” stagey, declamatory, “spouters.” Shakespeare is archaic. Old Comedy is a bore. The plays of Molière and Sheridan creak on their hinges. The plays of twenty, fifteen, ten years ago have “aged”! “Progress” has become of such celerity that the dramas of yesterday are “out of date”—before the second season begins! The principles of art have altered, and they alter afresh with the startling discoveries of each new batch of collegiate criticasters. Human nature has changed. The forces of the universe are different. The sun rises in the west and water runs uphill. Acting now is smooth, flexible, natural, fluent. Behold, we have made a new theatrical Heaven and Earth wherein dwelleth a NEW STYLE! It is lamentable that these ignorant, frivolous babblers of folly should be able to cite even one word from such an authority as David Belasco in support of their ridiculous pretensions: it is the more deplorable since, if he were brought to a serious consideration of his heedless assertions, he would certainly recant them. I am not able to believe, for example, that he would stigmatize Edwin Booth as a strutting exponent of exaggerated declamation,—an actor who could speak blank verse as if it were the language of nature, and always did so: an actor and manager, moreover, who did more than any other one person of the Theatre to make possible the career of many who followed him, including David Belasco. Nor can I believe that he would call Florence a spouter,—Florence, who was one of the most adroit and delicate of artists,—or deride such performances as John Nickinson’s Haversack, Blake’s Geoffrey Dale, and Burton’s Cap’n Cuttle as specimens of flannel-mouthed melodramatic rant. Yet such were the actors to whose style the New York audience had been accustomed long before the time when Belasco declares that he brought an entirely new and improved style of acting to the Madison Square Theatre and thus,—by implication at least,—asserts that he reformed the Stage.
Augustin Daly, who began theatrical management in New York, in 1869, when Belasco was a schoolboy of sixteen, in San Francisco, constrained the actors whom he employed to respect and emulate the best traditions of acting, and, while he never sought to establish a school of acting, insisted on Hamlet’s right doctrine of “temperance” and “smoothness”; and when he carried his dramatic company to San Francisco, in 1875, at which time Belasco saw and studied performances that were there given by it, “The Evening Bulletin,” of that city, displeased by the delicate, refined, “quiet” acting which had charmed New York, thus testified:
“The Fifth Avenue Theatre Company have a style of their own. It is emasculated of vigor, force in action, and anything like declamation in reading. It is quiet, elegant, languid; making its points with a French shrug of the shoulders, little graceful gestures, and rapid play of features. The voice is soft, the tone low, and the manner at once subdued and expressive. It pleases a certain set of fashionables, but to the general public it is acting with the art of acting left out.”
THE NATURE OF BELASCO’S TALENTS AND SERVICES.
There has always been a desire and endeavor to act truly, and, side by side with that desire and endeavor, there has always been abuse of the art by incompetents and vulgarians. If you were to attend rehearsals at some of our theatres now, you would behold coarse and blatant bullies, of the Mr. Dolphin order, blaring at the actors “More ginger!” It is the way of that tribe and the custom in those temples of intellect. But while Belasco has not invented any new style of acting he has done great service to the Stage, and his name is written imperishably on the scroll of theatrical achievement in America. As an actor his experience has been ample and widely diversified. He possesses a complete mastery of the technicalities of histrionic art. As a stage manager he is competent in every particular and has no equal in this country to-day. His judgment, taste, and expert skill in creating appropriate environment, background, and atmosphere for a play and the actors in it are marvellous. His attention to detail is scrupulous; and his decision is prompt and usually unerring. No theatrical director within my observation,—which has been vigilant and has extended over many years,—has surpassed him in the exercise of that genius which consists in the resolute, tireless capability of taking infinite pains. Many of the performances which have been given under his direction are worthy to be remembered as examples of almost perfect histrionic art. As a dramatist he is essentially the product of that old style of writing which produced “Venice Preserved,” “Fazio,” “The Apostate,” “The Clandestine Marriage,” “The Jealous Wife,” etc.,—a style with which his mind was early and completely saturated,—and of the example and influence of Dion Boucicault, whose expertness in construction, felicity in fashioning crisp dialogue, and exceptional skill in creating vivid dramatic effect he has always much and rightly admired. He has written many