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Show Man And The Actor. In the current Atlantic Monthly is a most interesting in-teresting article on "Man and the Actor, ' by Richard Rich-ard Mansfield. He assumes in the opening that all men and women are every moment acting their several parts and studying all the while how they shall carry themselves, how they shall dress, how they shall pose, how speak. And that from the king to the beggar, as all are acting, the best actor succeeds best. He believes Napoleon sought all his life to imitate Caesar, "for once he had founded an empire, em-pire, everything about him was modeled after the Caesarian regime." He refers to Beaconsfield and Richeleau as perpetual actors. He elaborates on this idea that all the men and women of the earth are actors on this stage, the world. Then he says that most of the players in theaters thea-ters are not actors, but are merely acting acting, and that real acting is when an actor creates an idea of a some one who was once a human being or who was the creation of a Shakespeare's or some other divine author's brain and forgetting self utterly, materializes, as the hero or king or knave, true to life. It is in this that the conscientious actor spends his days and nights to make the creation and then to portray it. Then he explains how necessary discipline is on the stage, and there is a mere suspicion of bitterness in the words, as though in trying, to prepare pre-pare an absolutely unprejudiced article, here and there a memory had cast a shadow on the picture. He says discipline has nearly disappeared from the stage, and thinks editors are In part responsible responsi-ble for this, and says: "Booth, Jefferson and others soon made up their minds that the easiest road was the best for them. Mr. Booth left the stage management entirely to Mr. Lawrence Barrett and others, and Mr. Jefferson praised everybody and everything. But this is not good for the stage." And he adds: "Actors on the stage are scarce. Actors off the stage, as I have demonstrated, are plentiful. Life insurance presidents worthy presidents, directors and trustees have been so busy acting their parts, and are in the present so busy trying to unact them, men are so occupied from their childhood with the mighty dollar, the race for wealth Is so strenuous, and all entrancing that imagination is dying out and imagination is necessary to make a poet or an actor; theact of acting is the crystallization crystal-lization of all arts." His idea of an actor, "if he is to satisfy everyone," every-one," is that "he should possess the commanding power of a Caesar, the wisdom of Solomon, the eloquence of Demosthenes, the patience of Job, the face and form of Antinous and the strength and endurance of Hercules. Of his equipment he says: "The education of a king is barely sufficient for the education of a comprehending and compi'ehensive actor." He believes that the stage is not likely to die of neglect, though he admits that "the ship of the Dancing Pavilion at Saltair , , stage is careering wildly under bare poles, with a man lashed to the helm (and let us hope that, like Ulysses, he has cottonwool in his ears) before a ;H hurricane of comic opera." jH He wants a recognized stage and a recognized school; he wants a national theatre, and says: ll "What could not be done for the people of this land, were we to have a great and recognized theatre? Consider our speech, and our manner of aH speech! Consider our voices and the production IMM of our voices! Consider the pronunciation of mm words and the curious use of vowels!" IH He wants a theater for people to visit, not only for pleasure but for education. Behind it mM he would like to have a board of literary directors of such men as William Winter, Howells, Edward Everett Hale and Aldrich. Ho says that today there is practically no H training for the actor. He believes a national the- 'H atre might be established on a practical and pay-ing pay-ing basis. The cynic in his nature is more and more revealed toward the close of his article. He has been criticised until he is sore in places, and evidently he thinks at times he has been unap- jH predated, but the article is good, his thought of creating a purer English and improved voices, is . jMM a splendid one. Bathing at Saltair. jH |
