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Show The Speaking . Voice. (Harper's Bazar.) There is a theory that it is dangerous danger-ous to go beyond the mere freeing of the instrument in either vocal or physical physi-cal training. In accordance with this theory I was advised by a well-known actress to confine my study for the stage, so far as the vocal and pantomimic panto-mimic preparation was concerned, to singing, dancing and fencing. "Get your voice and body under control," she said, "make them free, but don't connect shades of thought and emotion with definite tones of the voice or movements of the body; don't meddle with Delsarte or elocution." This advice ad-vice seemed good at the time. It still seems to me that it ought to be the right method. But I have grown to distrust it. One of the chief sources of my distrust has been the effect of the theory upon the art of the actress who gave the advice. She is perhaps the most graceful woman on the stage today, and her voice Is pure music. But her gestures and ones fail In lucidity; they fail to illumine the text of the part she essays to interpret. One grows suddenly impatient of the meaningless grace of her movements, the meaningless meaning-less music of her voice. |