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Show MARJORIE RAMBEAU LAUDED; 52 S S 3 TAKES NEW YORK BY STORM Hailed by Critics as "Great American Actress' for Whom Metropolis Has Been Eagerly Awaiting for Years. (Herewith is an appreciation of Mar-jorie Mar-jorie Ramheiui, former member of the Willard Mack stock company in this -y, hy roluate Baker, dramatic reviewer for the Ntw York Review.) WE have been pinin? for a great American actress for years, and we had one right In our midst, but did not know it. Surely it is to laugh. To be sure, some of the wiser critics scented greatness coming to Miss Mar-jorie Mar-jorie Ram beau some day, and intimated It in their reviews of her early work on Broadway, but the vast majority of us did not suspect for a moment that she would really get the opportunity and arrive, ar-rive, as she has In "Eyes of Youth" at AJaxine Elliott's theater. Maybe it would never have happened if Max Mare in and Charles Guernon had not been inspired with the clever idea of giving an actress a chance to act four different characters In one performance, showing what might happen if a girl on the threshold of life choses the Various ways of duty, artistic ambition, social ambition am-bition or love. Is Extraordinary Role. Also it would have been sad indeed if Al H. Wontls, in conjunction with the Messrs. Shubert, had not arranged to present . Miss Rambeau in this extraordinary extraor-dinary role. Anyway the luck is here and ours. We are all thoroughly convinced con-vinced that Miss Rambeau has demonstrated demon-strated histrionic greatness, and glad of it. Right here it is advisable to remark that in this case greatness was not attained at-tained by any easy or quick methods. It is not a case of becoming great over night, jumping from the drawing room to the stage and making a success, or showing show-ing that a heaven-born genius can act without serving a long and arduous apprenticeship. ap-prenticeship. Miss Rambeau has been acting ever since she was 12 years old. and that was I refuse to give exact dates but it was a good many years ago, and she made her debut in "Camilie" at that tender age with a stock company all of her own. She was a strapping big girl for her age; in fact, she looked IS or 20, and was better as the lachrymose heroine of 1 Dumas' s tragedy than most stock leading ladies are. Grateful for Opportunity. I saw her play Cigarette in "Under Two Flags" out west when she was 13 years old. and I have seldom seen the part better acted, t-'he has been acting ever since, and has had all kinds of experiences, ex-periences, but all this is the only way to master the art. When she came to New York, Miss Rambeau was a thoroughly finished and experienced artiste, who had ; forgotten morfc about stage technique than most actresses of her age know, but she never found her big' opportunity until Mr. Woods and the Messrs. Snubert gave it to her in this play. Is she grateful? Her eyes filled with tears when I asked her this and when she spole it was in a voice that broke with a sob: i "Grateful? I should say I am. You don't know what it means to me to have such a role as this. I have waited, and . longed, and hoped, and yearned for this opportunity, at times almost giving up in despair. At last it has come, thanks to Mr. Woods, and Mr. Shubert, and I am I too happy to express my feelings adequately. ade-quately. Straight Roles Easy. "Try as hard as you can, it is impossible im-possible to act a straight leading part so as to convince people you can act anything any-thing else. . I do not care how much of a hit you may make in a straight role, such as I played last year In 'Cheating Cheaters, people say, 'O, well, it is personality, per-sonality, not art.' In fact the better a straight part is played the more convinced con-vinced people are that you are not acting, act-ing, but only playing yourself. 'She is so natural,' they say, 'it must be easy for her to do that.' "Those who have a technical knowledge knowl-edge of acting know better, as a rule, and realize that the subtle characterization of a straight role aijd the e.ffect of naturalness natural-ness which causes the layman to ex- claim, 'Why, how natural she is,' is the camouflage for real artistry. Yet is remains re-mains that many actors and actresses do not get 'the credit that is their due. or enhance their reputations by succeeding in straight parts. You do not have to mention any names to prove this is true. Just think of the eminent actors and actresses who have confined themselves to acting straight leads, or star roles, and reflect on what the average person thinks and says of them that is the answer. Natural Emotions Starved. "I love my work, but T realize that it is only a small part of life, a means to an end. The actress lives every other woman's life in the course of her career, ca-reer, but seldom lives her own, or even trios to, until it is too late. Tou feed upon the emotions of other women, tb:it come and possess you and pass on to fhe audience, but you starve your own natural nat-ural emotions by doing it, that is the sad part of ii. "It does not make any difference how much you may know about life, mentally, men-tally, you have to live it actually to enjoy en-joy it and benefit by it. When I go out into the country, into the woods, down by the seashore for a breath of air, the power and glory of nature almost daze me. We try to simulate nature on the stage, in motion pictures, in painting and art what we reproduce is a hollow sham, a worthless substitute. It is as far away from the real as the wind in the movies, that always blows and bends the bushes, is from the enume ocean breeze with the smell of salt in it. "I think that the power to convince on the stage does not rest so much in scencrv, costumes, lighting and artifice as it does in the mentality of the actress. AuLo-hypnolism on the nar,t of the actress will register immediate effect on an audience." Admits Auto-hypnotism. "Do you practice auto-hypfiotism :n playing Gina Ashling?" "Yes, if I .must divulge my secret, I admit that I do, for the time being, actually think I am what I am. a young girl forced to chose whether she will become be-come a humdrum country school teacher and pine away in maidenly solitude, a grand opera vampire, the wife of a wealthy brute, discarded as soon as he tires of her, to become a dope fiend on the pave of Broadway, or the wife of the poor but worthy young man who loves her." "It is a pity that every young girl has not a crystal to gaze in and read the iture?" "Do you really think so I don't. How i many of us would have the courage to go 1 on living if 'we knew our fate? Very few, I am sure. The only thing tha t keeps most people alive, hope, would be denied us if we knew just what was going to happen all the time. Life would j be very uninteresting, then. I am sure : that there would be no actors or actresses in the world If we could look into a crystal and see what we had to go ; through with before we. amount to anything any-thing on the stage, the years of herd work, suffering and privation that nearly everyone has to endure to win fame." Likes "Eyes of Youth." j "To me one of the big things about I 'Eyes of Youth' is that the play reminds us that our whole future life "frequently depends upon the choice we make of do- ing this or that thing." "Yes, and also that if we do the right j thing we shall never have any regrets. I It also tells us that the right thing is not always what stern duty bids us, but the right thing by ourselves. This may be ancient wisdom, but we are all apt to forget it arid it cannot be drummed into us too much, I think. But the preacn-ment preacn-ment in 'Byes of Youth' is so deftly hidden hid-den that you have to think twice to get it. and this is as it should be; there is a whole lot more in this play than appears on the surface. It was that way with 'Experience,' and 'Eyes of Youth,' to my tli inking, is a modern morality play of the same type, only very much better disguised. Tt ought to please clever people for this reason."' I fold Miss Rambeau that on the opening open-ing night we were all so much dazzled by her histrionic virtuosity we really neglected to think very, much about the play. . Says "Stock" Helped Her. "I will wayer you never suspected that I could play an old woman, a grand opera virago, a sweet young Ingenue, and a drug addict wreck all on the same night, like a liKlitning-ehange artist," she laughed. "That is because I served many weary years in repertoire and stock. There Is not a character which I have not tried to act. with more or less success, from Lady Macbeht to Lady Baboie." "Surely pome of our playwrights will now be inspired to write a big acting part for you, something running the gamut of emotion from laughter to shrieking despair." "Oh, dear, I hope so-if they knew how I can shriek when necessary I am sure they would. "I think that, with all due respect to American dramatists, they have not given enough attention to acting opportunities especially in leading roles. Almost every leading role In our modern plays is a straight part. The character parts are nearly all small ones. We have lots of good character actors and actresses as the acting of these roles in Broadway productions shows, but how few plays there are for a character star! Yet when you look back you cannot help noting that the greatest successes have been plays for character stars, both men and women." Compliments Movies. "How do you like acting in the movies and on Broadway at the same time?" "It is pretty strenuous work, especially rising at 7 and getting to the studio at fl; but I do not mind it. I am not ashamed to admit that I have learned a'great deal about acting in the picture studio One thing that impressed me as never before is the power of facial expression. It Is astonishing what thought can be conveyed con-veyed in this manner without the aid of speech. I am beginning to wonder whether speech is necessary after all, and whether, it is not going to be eliminated elim-inated some day altogether. "I am convinced that about one-third of the lines which we usually speak in a play, the short lines, such as 'I love vou Don't touch me.' 'I would rather "die ' 'Leave me alone,' 'Let me go,' 'Good-bv,' 'How do you do?' etc., are unnecessary. We speak them, of course, when in our parts, and the audience hears them, but they really do not register bv the medium of the voice any more. They get over to the minds of the audience before people peo-ple hear them, by facial expression lip reading and intuition just as they get over in tiie movies. Effect Is Predicted. "This keen intuition which is being developed de-veloped as a result of the motion picture art is bound to have its effect upon spoken drama form, sooner or later. It is going to have an effect upon conversation conversa-tion in the drawing room, the street the office. It is going to affect manners' and customs established ever since numanitv had the gift of speech. But I do not pretend pre-tend to say exactly what the effect will be. and no one can predict that." "There is one place where the power of speech is as potent as ever, and that is in the motion picture studio." "You have sai'd it what would a picture pic-ture director he without a powerful voice and a picturesque vocabularv. I am afraid to even think." "Do you believe that the movies :i'e ging to dominate the drama or will drama retain mastership of the movies?" "They are different ar!s, but it vpp'ms as if the movies had the 'greatest future because it is the newest art. while the spoken drama is as oid as numanitv almost. al-most. The possibilities of drama "as a reflection of lire have been exhausted bv s-:eh great eenluses as Shakespi-aro, Moliere and Ibsen. Hut motion pictures h-ive not had any great genius yet. Some day one will coma and astonish the world." CHIC SALE'S twins, who were born last Christmas time, were christened chris-tened last week Charles Tiish.p and Mary Ola ire Sale. Mrs. 5a le is Marie Bishop, the violinist, who .'i prearcd on the Orpheum Mils with Mr. |