ART AND ARTIFICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 115, 16 May 1936, Page 25

ART AND ARTIFICE

INFLUENCE IN WRITING

WHAT IMITATORS CAN DO

THICKS AND EFFECTS

Sitting in a theatre ►not long ago while Miss Renee Houston was having some fun with the mannerisms of her most exalted colleagues;. I reflected that this brilliance' of mimicry; and mockery was reducing to a'series of i tricks the whole art of acting, a matter about which people, become augustly theoretical and philosophically'solemn, writes Ivor Brown in the "Manchester Guardian." There are; after . all,. half-1 a-dozen music hall artists who , give imitations of "stars" and do them beyond possibility of complaint, so accurate are they in the seizure; and reproduction of. moves, expressions, gastures, intonations; and eccentricities.-If these people can achieve'this feat of perfect- similitude.'for two minutes, why not for ten, pr~ even for two hours? Is it not possible that one of these gifted imitators could' render a whole part just as well as the imitated ever did1? Could not" Nelson Keys have played a Dv Maurier part as well as Dv Maurier himself? Is there not some talented mimic who could reproduce the entirety of Gielgud's Hamlet? ; He might not have "the brain to create it; 'but he; cou.ld, ; with his technical equipment, carry; on. v ' ■■-.: :■'■ : -y : the xecessities.- . '' :-".- ---•■■ I' believe that .if Miss -Ren^o TT OU -JI ton. could suppress, her o.wri sense of humour and refrain ' liroin gu;>;-iy : nl/, linesshe could;act a ; complete role in one of the; grander or "more fashionable manners with perfect success. The more sees ;of -the stage : .the'' more one \ realises how v much the ', achieve-' rnent of eflfect depends on certain tech-nical-devices \vhich experience; and a sharp 'wit -will -either;inherit of dis-cover;-ito' .think acutely' or' to feel":deep.-_ ply about;-a part ;sriay help,', but" certain physical qualities plus expertness in the tricks of the trade are the first essentials. Tremendous personality, the'utterance of fervid sincerity, maywin without technique, but not, 011 the stage, for long, because the effort- is too exhausting. Technique consists in part of labour-saving devices; there is no need to pour your whoie soul into a line if there are ways and means of getting the same emotional result without the same emotional ■ expenditure. Indeed, it is foolish to do .so; a long part, like a long innings at cricket, demands the player who knows how.to .spare himself; it is, a foolish batsman who keeps scoring by hits for three runs, and it is an unwise player who pours out temperament on a secondary point where a trick of the trade would do. as well. Your- good Othellos, like your, wise batsmen,, will know how to score' .easy boundaries!

This brings ir* to a point of considerable importance in the .practice of t/; arts—that .is,, {he. extent to-which mere application to dodges can carry a-^moderately ' competent performer. That is only, in the method of expressipn.iiie-. matter yto- .-;■ be '.'. 'expressed > raises different' problems.., It, must be 'said at once'that no amount of what may be called, artful dodging will carry, either, an executant or a creative artist to the authentic heights where move the uriapproachables. Buj; the unapproachables, when, you come to think it over, are not'so'many. The test of greatness, in-writing is that it defies pastiche, which my dictionary defines as. exact-.imitation. (I select writing as the art of,which I have most acquaintance; I imagine, however, thisjudgment would apply equally to the composition of music or to painting.) You cannot-imitate the bes\, without disaster. Almost anybody could mimic or parody. Shakespeare's wont, the mechanical bombast or punning droll- . cry of the Tudor stage which oci asionally sufficed him when tired: nobody, could make pastiche of his Dest. Nor, I imagine, could the most cunning musician who had made a special study of Beethoven's technique compose a satisfactory, pastiche of Wagner's, or Beethoven's supreme 'style, though he could easily make you laugh by a burlesque of those composers at their lower level.' ..." . -;■"*.};■; 'the second rate. : ' ' ■ :':Soit comes to this. An intelligent student can, by concentration on the tricks of the trade, turn out the good, .second-rate artists' stuff (or. the firstgrate artists' second-fate stuff) without . much trouble; The classical education, tp which so many-Englishmen ' have been submitted for generations, specialised in. this kind of pasticne,, and thousands of immature but ingenious boys have been accustomed to turn out ■, Latin . elegiacs 'which .were j. indistinguishable . from Ovid's, in;' their1 dingdong nattiness. They could hardly, hope to touch Virgil at his. best,- but1' their sets of verses have often been as good as.-Virgil's ordinary■: run of narrative ;6r,.pf battle-scene;;the job; offers no great difficulties to pupils .rich in Aha.l mimetic talent which "a first-class Eng-. iish education" has so eagerly and so actively . .developed.. .This. .cancentra- ': tlon upon other people's rhythms and vocabularies- has been dangerously overdone; ths accepted, type of British ■ scholar has very rarely been a creative force because he was so long and so assiduously taught to. lisp in other people's numbers. But, whether you-, like it or, not, the snaring of art's sem-.'| blance \vith anoose of.artifice is by no means difficult, provided, always that the-hunter (or -poacher; if you prefer j to call him so) does; not pursue' thebiggest game of all. ■ . ■•' j Each period develops its own'set.'of j tricks in ;its various; forms of expression, and it is interesting .to watch the -same process continually occurring in the history of the' arts. There is.a grand period when.the idea or the emotion consumes -with its own fire the technical apparatus and burns clear; th.en>the idea and the emotion begin to' weaken; the technique, the

tricks remain and for a while suffice. Then there comes a rebellion" against' the mechanical; iteration of : special rhythms or a special lingo. The new school cries out that" artifice-has ruined art and that we must bring back our poetry, for example, to the things of use and wont, rescue it from stale rhetoric and^ tired: prettiness. NOT NEW. j The argument, which Euripides used against ZEschylus; (or was made to use by Aristophanes) is fundamentally, the same- argument.that Wordsworth ad- , vanced in the' preface to "Lyrical Ballads" and; which is now advanced by the poets of the Eighth Edward against i those-of the Seventh., The charge is that a mode,: good enough; in its time, had become; a-linguistic ritual which anybody could pick 'up: and repeat by mere;. classwork." To; the new . arrival who wanted to speak for himself and his time this mode, was not | a medium but a barrier.':'.. On thi3 matter of art reduced to a ' bag of tricks or a phraseological knack let me quote'from A.-'.E. Housman's just, and ' admirable lecture on "The Name and/Nature of Poetry":— "It is now customary t& say that the. nineteenth century had a.similar' lingo of its own. A lingo it had, or came to Have, and in the'seventies and eighties the minor poets and poetasters were aI.L usingj the same supposedly poetic diction. It was imitative and sapless, but not preposterous; its leading characteristic was a stale and faded prettiness. ■~■.';' •■■:;■■■■■, ■_ ■ s°r| e'll' at: for a wean'spacehas 'lain Lull.d by, the song of Circe.and her wine '• In- garcens Year the. pale -of Prosarnme. Where that -Egaen isle forgets the main. And. only, the low lutes, of .lore complain, And onljy shadows of wan' lovers pineAs such an one.were glad to know the brine Salt on his lips, and the large j air again . . . The atmosphere of. the eighteenth century> made much better '.poets write much: worse. -■ ■■■■'■■• . =' ■: . I/O! where the'• ■ rp"sr-bps6in'd-; Hours Fair Venus' train,, appear, . Disclose the long-expecting flowers. '■. AJ d- waks the purple-rear!:,/ ' ' ■ The Attic warbler pours',"her- throat And so.-forth: i.'..;.;V?.. v.>. ;. \. ' , That passage-vand . those ■■ quotations help to sum up. an argumenbwhich be- ; gan with the raid of a music-hall comedienne, on. the: sanctuary of great acting. Could not.anybody who possesses a- literary -training" but "not artistic impulse whatsoever knock out verses of similar, quality—verses, that- is to say, which the ..eighteenth or. nineteenth century would - have accepted as eleIgant or fine? 'The extent to which artifice can, in cold blood,-simulate'the warm pulse of art,: or rather of what has ! been taken 'for. art by the people of any one period,: is really very great. One does not need to be a genius to i carry, the deception a- certain w» :