The Dominion. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1907. AN, ACTRESS ON HER ART

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 45, 16 November 1907, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1907. AN, ACTRESS ON HER ART

Disraeli's often quoted saying that the " critics are those who have failed in literature and art," has certainly no application to the lady who contributed to the " Nineteenth Century " an interesting article, on "Some First Night Fallacies." Both in literature and in art the lady who writes and acts undsr the name of Gertrude Kingston has attained a considerable degree of success, and her achievements are not confined to a single branch of ' art, for she has done good work as an illustrator of children's books as well as an actress. It is in the latter capacity that she is probably best known, •though her literary activity, which has taken the form for.-the most part of short stories and magazine articles, has been incessant; and in an occasional experiment as playwright her two main spheres of action have found, as it were, common ground. Miss Kingston should, therefore, have exceptional qualifications as a critic of the actor's calling, and an exponent of the causes in actor, author, or public, which make or mar a play. Tet her article opens with a frank confession that such an exposition in any scientific sense is impossible. " In the matter of stage-playe," she says, " things have come to this! We do not know what the public want, wo can only know what they go to see. And there is none who can tell us, none who can taste plays as one who tastfes wine; nono who can tell us ' This is Bound; that is full of body; the other will bo popular. , " Dramatic criticism is thus unable to satisfy the crucial test of scientific knowledge—the power to predict. In this sphere the wiso critio will not prophesy until'ho knows, for oven when supported by the verdict of tho first-night audienco, his estimate may be ludicrously wido of tho mark. Vociferous applause and excited calls for author, actor, and scene-painter on the first night are no guarantee of a similar reception, oven on the second and third. " I havo seea*! J aaifl.Misa.Kiftffptoiv "the moat

enthusiastically received play performed to empty benches after its debut." On the other hand a firstnight audience may receive in stony silence what may shake the building with laughter on the morrow. There is clearly an individuality about a first-night audience as about a single auditor, and its judgment may be as remote as his from the general opinion by which, when pronounced, the play must stand or fall.

'• In attempting to apportion the* blame for this uncertainty between author, actor, and critic, Miss Kingston deals first with the grievance of the author, "that the actor-manager or actress-manageress will not entertain a clever stage-play that has not an effective and sympathetic leading part for himself or herself." According to tho saying " the better the part, the better the actor," a part is naturally preferred in which it is easy to win the laughter, the applause, and the sympathy of the audience; and' though it is easy for those behind the footlights to distinguish between what is due to the actor's merits, and what to those of his part, or to some special accident such as his mere physical fitness for the part, the critic, according to Miss Kingston, is as rarely able to make the distinction as the audience itself. Thus ■by a common error of Press and public a performer may be lauded to tlie skies for qualities which are purely adventitious; " the salary of this new genius is run up from 30s. to £30 in three days by the competition of manager.s to outbid one another"; and, in due course, those who have been thus accidentally elevated, are as suddenly dropped, " because they have been allowed to Tun before they have been taught to walk." But during their short-lived triumph the actor who has been slowly and laboriously climbing the ladder by devotion to his art is kept down, and some who have not the faith or the patience to hold on are crowded out altogether. Connected with this danger is " this eustom of fitting a player to a part that has crept into the theatre of _ late years," and is mainly, in Miss Kingston's opinion, to be attributed to the initiative of the_ playwright. But stage .managers, critics, and the public tumble to the delusion very ■, readily. The belief that a player can only act one type of part, and that the one specially adapted to his personal peculiarities and mannerisms,is a natural corollary which goes far to limit the scope of genuine art. In the Continental theaves great actresses have continued to play Juliet to the very end of their careers on the stage, but the English demand for one who naturally looks the part inevitably ten.ds to lower the standard of acting. " The appearance of fourteen with the knowledge of forty cannot be hoped for." On the other hand

Boauty with its thousand graces, Hair and tints that will not fado, You may gut from many places Practically ready-made, The judicious application of rouge and white may better supply for stage purposes the lack of youthful looks, than ignorance can fill the place of brains; and it is surely a sound contention that, subject to the necessity for maintaining the necessary degree of illusion, " there is no reason why an actor who can ' act' should not be allowed to play any part." Miss Kingston's argument wanders far from the troubles of a first night, and she has not any remedy to suggest for them * beyond a general plea for the dignity of the actor's calling, and for an intelligent disregard of barren convention on the part of all concerned in the production of a play. " The stage but echoes back the publick voice," says Johnson in the famous prologue which Garrick declaimed, but this is not the whole .truth. The stage is as the public makes it, and yet, in turn, it helps to make the public. Great, indeed, would be its dignity, and noble its influence if Miss. Gertrude Kingston's ideal could be realised.