University of Virginia Library

And then the changes! Here on earth we live
One single life,—and that too often dull
And sable-winged and dreary: on the Stage
We live through countless fiery lives, and blend
Our sober proper personality
With endless modes of being,—passing through
Each passionate human phase of mind in turn.
And that is rapture,—rapture absolute
To those who finding one life all too short
Would blend their fiery souls with other souls
And know the passions of the universe
As God discerns them all, ideally;
Passing from Faust to Mephistopheles,
And Romeo to Macbeth,—and knowing in each
The very inmost sacred spirit of each,
And speaking as each separate being prompts.

And this is “acting”: not to mouth a part,
But with keen grip of mind to apprehend
The innermost essence of each character
And then to be that woman or that man,—
Becoming him or her so veritably
That all the sense of petty self is lost,
Absorbed, transfused, and swallowed up in each
Creature whom you would faithfully portray.

This is “creation”—word so much misused.—
For when some sorry actor takes a part,
Rampages through it, fills it out with “gag,”
Imprints his soul upon it (such a soul!)
Winks at the gallery, and reveals himself
(And such a self to exhibit!) to the gods,
We call it a “creation”: blasphemy!

The true “creation” is to recreate
Some soul long dead: to bring it back to earth
And make it walk the earth, alive indeed.
Yes: not to manifest one's live small soul
But to create again some dead great soul
And bring the audience face to face with him.

And this being real “creation” is the cause
Why actors and true poets are akin:
Aye, far more closely akin than any yet
Has fancied: here remains a work to do
For the far future—to bestow the gift
Of acting on all poets, and the true
Poetic inspiration on the Stage.
Ah! then will come the Stage's golden day;
When actors act as highest poets write,
And poets do not only write at home
Locked in the silent study, but, besides,
Speak forth with resonant voice their great ideas
And gather stimulus to further toil
From the rapt faces of their fellow men.

Poets reach only half their height as yet,
And actors not a quarter of their height,
Because they think and speak and write and act
As separate, not as mingled, entities.
Does any man for instance dream or think
That even the greatest actors we have seen
Could play Hernani as the author could?
That is to say if he from early youth
Had but been trained—as poets will be trained—
To use not only his heart and brain and soul,
But also voice and eye and hand and limb.
Till author also is actor, we shall fail
In all its rounded fulness to be 'ware
Of what a giant work of art might be.
Shakespeare as Romeo!—think of that, my friends!
Sheridan as Joseph Surface,—or as Charles!
“She stoops to Conquer,” with the author cast
For some one of the leading characters!
The very thought is dazzling,—but it's true.
Barring infirmity, or want of strength,
The author must be ever most of all
The man to indicate the subtle charm,
The nuances, and the dainty various traits,
Of his creations: take that as assured.

No acting yet has equalled, nor come near,
The acting of the future: heights undreamed
Yet tarry in front, and will be scaled at last.
The one thing wanting yet is earnestness,—
Religious earnestness,—upon the Stage.
In France they have it; have it more than we.
To see a Frenchman act the simplest part
Often puts us to shame; our slovenly style
Of getting through the thing in the least time,
Then off to supper,—or to catch the train!
'Tis the old story; nothing can be done
Without religion, or at any rate
The spirit of religion—earnestness.
If we were thrilled and held and quite inspired
By a due sense of Art, should we start up
Before the Play is over—seek for wraps
And shawls and opera cloaks and comforters
While Irving's drawing out his weird last groan
Or Sarah Bernhardt's dying on the stage?
Never: we should sit still,—as we in Church
Sit still a moment at the sermon's end,—
Out of pure reverence; or if not for that
Just out of common formal courtesy
To the performer struggling to attain
For our sakes and his own a passionate goal.
Better it is to miss the train, or miss
The festive supper, than to dull our brains
And scar our hearts by hurling out of each
Emotion ere 'tis finished: passion needs,
Like music, gradually to die away,
Not to be choked out in a search for wraps!

But when we're more in earnest, all these things
Will be amended. Then the Stage will seem
Worthy of e'en the first ability,
And men who now seek honour at the Bar
Or in the Church, will seek it on the Stage.
Then women who now dread to “act” for fear
Of coarse companionship and vulgar tongues
Will seek the Stage by instinct: for thereon
And there alone can passion, otherwise
Pent up and tight-imprisoned, burst its chains.
There only can one quite forget oneself
And pass into the measureless great joy
Of so forgetting self:—I saw one day,
Watching some Amateur Theatricals,
A lady whom it was delight to watch;
Full of that special nerve-force which implies
An actress-nature: full of fun and wit
And silvery ready laughter; able too
To hold and magnetise the hearer's heart.
Well, there are thousands such: it cannot be
But that in England there are numberless
Bright girls who would, on an Ideal Stage,
If trained and cultured, more than quite surpass
The Terrys and the Bernhardts of the world,—
Bringing their lady-like and tender power
To bear upon the crude unpolished Stage
And adding grace and beauty by their touch.
It cannot but be so: but now they shrink,
Shrink (and no wonder!) from the ordeal set
Before them,—knowing that, even the ordeal passed,
Night after night they'll have to act their part
Unchanged, however weary they may be;
Night after night, for months and months and months.

This kills all genius: this blind selfishness
Upon our parts. The public ought to see
That delicate genius be not choked like this.
O public, if you had seen—as I have seen—
Real fresh glad acting full of grace and charm
And life and infinite variety,—
If you could realise how sweet a thing
Is the real pure life-acting of a girl
Who acts because she really loves to act
And not because she's paid by the night to act,—
You'd see that there's a difference as great
'Tween real fresh vivid acting and the stale
Poor tawdry tinselly stuff we christen so
As the eternal difference between
The rouged pearl-powdered kiss of harlotry
And the moss-rose-like kiss of pure young love.

But acting of this sort you'll never see
Upon your modern Stage,—or see it but
By faintest briefest glimpses,—and the cause
Is plain: if you take up your genius-girls
And set them on the stage and treat them like
Mere bloodless heartless puppets, soulless dolls,
And make them act for several hundred nights
Not like live women but like dead machines,
Why the result is certain: either you
Subtract the genius by this constant strain
Or else, the genius being left, the girl
Herself succumbs, and 'ill have no more of it.
There's not a nervous system that will stand
Acting eight times in six successive days
(As the great Paris actress just has done)
Without deterioration, falling off,
Ruin of tissue, lessening of its force
And tender sweet suggestive subtlety.

Even the greatest actress—all her art
Taken for granted—would be distanced quite
By the fresh acting of an untired mind,
If we had eyes to see what acting is.
For acting is enjoyment; and no laugh
Not merry itself can make another laugh,
And all the ripples of delight must flow
Outward and onward from the actor's soul
Firstly, before they can impinge upon
The spirits of his hearers: and you mar,
Yea, mar for ever and most hopelessly,
The actor's rich enjoyment of his part
(And, worse than all, the actress's of hers)
If you set him or her the dreary task
Of acting Romeo or Juliet
Straight off for say a couple of hundred nights.

Actors and actresses should take more change:
Should learn from Nature and from movement more:
Think more; talk less; and win more pleasure in life.
The slaves they are of the gaslights, as it is
To-day; the slaves of the ring, or sharp short “ping”
That lifts the curtain,—and once more they “act”.