FLASHES OF LIGHTNING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

FLASHES OF LIGHTNING.

KEAN AND SHAKESPEARE. THE ROMANTIC TRADITION.

(By CYRANO.)

In these days of gramophone records and reproduction of form and voice 011 the screen, it is not so true as it was to say that the actor's art is writ in water. Yet how evanescent may be his fame! It is sometimes pathetic to see a middleaged father trying to describe to his children the charm of some actor or actress that lie admired as a young man. Tho flash of the eye, the roguish smile, the charm of the voice—was it not said that Sarah Bernhardt had a voice of gold? —have vanished into the night and arc huddled away with the properties of yesterday. Moreover, there is another side to the perpetuation of the actor's art that the screen has given us. There must be millions of theatre-goers who rarely, if ever, see a flesh and blood play. The actor speaks to them, not as man .to man, but through a medium. They miss the electric thrill of sympathy that passes between the actor and his audience; they will never, one supposes, be moved as were the audiences that sat spell-bound before Garrick and Mrs. Siddons, Kean and Irving.

Genius From the Gutter. Yet the great figures of the old theatrical order are too important to be neglected bv this cinema-going age. The centenary of the death of Edmund Kean, the greatest tragic actor of the English was celebrated in England last month, and the extraordinary features of his career have been recalled. Kean's life is interesting from many points of view. His was an authentic case of "-cuius, and it makes one wonder afresh whether the world will ever penetrate the secret of Nature's provision in this respect. What do tae eufenists make of this cropping out ot crcnius? His mother was a strolling actress, "comely but worthless," and his reputed father was a stage carpenter. His rough up-bringing must be considered in judging the vices that brought him to a premature grave. Before he was fourteen ho tramped the country with his vagabonding mother, she hawking goods, he reciting in fairs and at gentlemen's houses. At the age twenty he played leading parts with Mrs. Siddons, and all the tiine_ he_ was illustrating the saying that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. He mastered everv department of his art. Then in the niiddlo of a grinding life of many parts and few pence (see the life" of an actor as Dickens depicted it in the wonderful Crummies chapters of "Nicholas Nickleby"), lie made a love marriage. There followed years of bitter adversity in which lie worked with intense'energy. "After a tragedy lie

would give a display of tiglit-rope dancing, would spar with a professional pugilist, or portray a chimpanzee in a melodramatic pantomime, moving his audience to tears in depicting its death." "If I could only get to London and succeed," he cried. "If I succeed, I shall go mad!"

He went to London, and succeeded, and though he did not go mad, his fate was almost as tragic. How he won London as Shylock is an oft-told tale. "Mary," he cried, whenvlie had dashed home from Dru.;y Lane, "you shall ride in your carriage. Charles shall go to Eton." Money poured in and lie was the lion of the day. The foremost men of the time met in his dressing room and asked him to their tables. But tho money flowed out as quickly as it poured in. It is stilted that between 1814 and 1827 his earnings amounted to £200,000, and yet in the later year he had barely .€IOO to his credit. Drink mastered him and a liaison with an alderman's wife separated liini from his wife and aroused public animosity. In March, 1533, a shadow of himself, he acted Othello to his soil's lago, collapsed in the middle of the play, and died two months later, nursed by his forgiving wife.

Tremendous Acting. Jt is impossible to convey the effect of Kcan'ri tremendous acting, but there are notable tributes and descriptions of his triumphs. It is interesting to contrast the decorous detached atmosphere of a cinema theatre to-day with the tumult of feelings that Kean awakened in his audiences. Coleridge said of him that to see him act was to read Shakespeare by flashes of lightning. But his most wonderful effort was achieved not as Othello, Richard or Sliylock, Tiut as Sir Giles Overreach in Massingcr's "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," a play that to-day is only for the student. Kean's presentation of this monster of moral iniquity was so appalling that, in the words of a centenary article in the current "Cornhill": "The pit leapt up as one nym at the magician; women in the boxes went into hysterics; seasoned actresses fainted on the stage; Lord Byron had a convulsive fit; tumult and cheers reigned for many minutes." "And what did Lord Essex say?" Kean was asked afterwards. "Damn Lord Esses!" ho replied. "The pit, the pit rose at me!" No such demonstration had been witnessed in a theatre, and nothing like it was seen until Henry Irving evoked similar outbursts at the Lyceum.

If another Ivean were to arise to-day, would lie create tlie same amount of excitement? Not quite. This is a less primitive, more sophisticated age. The ideal of good form is with many Britons a brake upon display of emotion. As civilisation advances men become more self-conscious. It was a New Zealand writer who remarked that if a modern Oedipus ruslied along the corridors of his palace to blind himself in his agony he would be frozen into silence bv the si"lit of a footman. Besides, the romantic tradition on tlie stage is not nearly

so strong as it was. A quieter, more "natural" style of acting has become the rule, and the full-blooded presentation of an actor's personality is not encouraged.

In this change there has been gain and loss. A lot of fustian has been thrown on to the scrap heap. To the "star" actor the part—in defiance of Euclid—was often greater than the whole. A greater value is now placed upon the play and upon uniformity in production. Absurd stage traditions of inflation and pomposity and unnaturalness have been abandoned. Edmund Kean, moreover, so the "Times" says in a centenary article, represented the old vicious connection between romanticism and disorder. In players of this typo "drunkenness was paraded as a virtue. It was a sign of genius. In other words, it was one feature of the general arrogance of these Romantics. Their sorrows, their their powers, were so much greater than those of the mob that they might do as they pleased. . '. . The underlying assumption is always that he (Kean), being a genius, is finer than human. Ho is inspired, 'daemonic.'"

A good deal of this nonsense lias been dropped in the last hundred years. The profession of acting has become much more respectable and respected. But may it not be reasonably argued that the acceptance of more subdued methods in the theatre, and the damping down of actors' personalities, have cost the world something in tho reception of drama? All dratna is an illusion, and the illusion will be made more complete if the actor can take tho spectator completely out of himself —sweep him off his feet. In short, the "grand thrill" is lacking to-day. As for the cinema, there is no such thing as an audience there rising at anyone or anything save to go home. There is a veil between the audience and its entertainers, and even Edmund Kean, so handicapped, might not be able to lift up the house as he lifted Drury Lane more than a century ago.