A TALK WITH MR FORBESROBERTSON.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 5832, 24 February 1906, Page 15

A TALK WITH MR FORBESROBERTSON.

(By S. B. L. in London ‘‘Chronicle.’j While all tho little world of the theatres in London is full and flaring with tho zest of Christmas; while Shakesiiearo rivals pantomime, and Barrio and musical comedy alike prank themselves out in new scenes and drosses; when old-fashioned farco crops up halo and hearty, for tho jolly moment. and even melodrama mutt he Christmassy or nothing—when, in short, it is "Merry Christmas” both in theatre and homo, there is no reason why there should not ho a special thought for absent friends in the one as in tho other.

If, then, there is anyone who more than another deserves such loving thoughts from playgoers it is Air Fcrbes-liobortson. As misfortune lias ir, Christmas week finds him an exile from town. Just now, at the very time when it is really worth while being a popular actor-manager, illness lias forced him suddenly to shut up the beautiful Scala Theatre. It has forced him to do so, too, when Mm Lucetto Rylcy’s pretty play of "Airs Grundy” had only just started on its career. At tho present moment Air Forbes-Robertson is in Switzerland, making a health holiday in tho companionship of his charming wife. One may bo certain enough that tho great, dumb public wishes him from its heart nit early as well as a happy return to fog-bound old England and its not unhonourod footlights.

It was in this assurance that I found my way tho other day to tho rambling old house in Bedford Squares, whoro Mr Forbes-Robertson has lived all these years. It was, as it turned out, flic very evo of his journey. None the ices, busy and ill and tirod though ho was, Mr Forbes-Robertson welcomed me with nil his own quiet, almost "oldfashioned” courtesy. So wo sat and talked through the afternoon of all sorts of subjects—“on tho stage and off”—in that leisurely, airy, old study in Bedford Square. It is ono may remark, ono of thosa simple. cosy places where memory and art have long boon at homo together. They havo given an unpurdiasahio tone to everything—to tho plain old oak settle hy the fireside, to tho ample old chairs, to tho beautiful old pictures, to the old book-caso filled with well-read old books, oven to tlio old crucifix over tho mantelpiooo that lends a curiously monastic note where all else is mellow comfort. Ono can hardly boliovo one is in London there. Ono fancies it the library of some scholarly squire, in some ancestral manor, looking out over English fields instead of over tho Bedford Square cab-rank. Above all, it is as ono talks with Mr Forbes-Robertson in this windy of his that ono loams something of tho scholar, tho artist, and most notably tho accomplished gentleman, that go to make up his personality. It is n personality of which tho greater public goto but a most partial glimpse over tho orchestra. Everybody knows, of course—it is tho fashion of those days to know —tho more artistic exploits of Mr Porbos-Robortson in other fields as well as that of tho playor. Evoroybody knows, for instance, that ho is a distinguished painter, too. To this tho walls of tho Royal Academy havo testified. Indeed, son as ho is of a famous art critic, ho may he said to have been cradled in tho paint-box as truly as Airs Kendal was “nursed on roso-pink.”

Thon ho is skilled in music. He is a olnssicnl scholar over whom Charterhouse has every reason to bo oomplac-l ont. Ho has an almost native knowledge of tho real proverbial Franco—its priests and peoples. Ho knows Italy and Germany, their arts, their Inn-1 guages, their literature. i Those things aro common patter. The groat point ia tho extent to which they havo moulded Air Forbcs-Robertson's fortunes and character as an actor. To bo frank, tlioeo who have watched and admired him cannot but foci n senso of injustice in tho thought that this amazingly gifted man, with his beautiful voioo. his keen and cultivated intellect, his intense artistic senso, his passion, his instinct for romance, lii.s engaging personality, his perfectly trained mimicry of tho art of speech, should nowadays find himself devoting the faculties of tho host Hamlet of our time to playing vicar in a conventional domestic comedy. Why is it? Can it be, ono wonders, that just as Hamlet was something too much of a gentleman to bo king; so Mr Forbes-Robertson is in tbo same way too charming and sensible ami many-sided a man to do himself real justice aa an actor. To tell the truth, this docs seem to bo so. At any rate, what Hr Forbes-Robertson seems to lack is just monomania—tho monomania that make® for supremacy. Ono cannot meet him without recognising the same sociablences and sense of humour, the same love of all tho art and beauty in tho world that checked Hamht’s dagger. It is partly this that nude him tho ideal Hamlet—a Hamlet that has boon hailed not in England alone, hut in Germany, where Mr ForbesRobertson made a memorable tour a year or two ago, and in America, whoso actors only recently acclaimed his Prince with sign and seal in a “round robin.”

Ono cannot but think that it is this, too. that has kept Air Forhcs-Robert-son from being in any way a theatrical missionary. There is nothing of the ' man with a about him. Ono could, indeed, hardly find an actor loss consumed with the idea that he was bom to stamp himself upon tho age. In like manner I find that MrForbosRobortson has no very great belief in many of the theories that have so perturbed tho theatrical world in these last few yeare. Ho is. for instance, not by any means a whole-hogger about tho national theatre.

“It will have,” said he, “either to produce popular plays or unpopular plays. If it produces popular plays, why havo a national theatre? Popular plays will pay anywhere. On the ether hand, if the plays are unpopular people will just not go to them, and 1

cannot see that they will do any particular good.” ■'l do not think,” ho added, "yon can make an analogy between Pari? and Loudon. The Comodie Fran cob** n. founded in a different age to thU; it is an institution that we could not imitate very well. After all. Paris :s •aot Loudon; it is a smaller, cheer-knit place altogether, and the Parisian temperament. too. is different.” Altogether I find r.lr Forbes-Hobert-son an upholder mostly of natural methods of progress. He was even not necessarily despondent about things a.s they are. "You must remember.” said he. "that London is growing bigger and bigger every year, and you must expect both the public and the plays to be a very mixed Jot. To take musical comedy and to call it tho drama of the day is as unfair as it is ridiculous. There is any amount of intelligent life going o. in tho London theatres at the same time—a good deal more, indeed, than thoro was when I first became an actor under Phelps of Sadler's Wells. There are comedies and melodramas that are certainly not worse than .some of tho old ones; there are admirable Shakespearian productions—" The Taming of the Shrew” at the Adc'phi i thought pimply excellent—there is Shaw and (IranviUe Parker, and so on. ‘•There is one fact, too. that cannot he denied, and this is that in beauty of scenery and of production generally there is no country in the world that can boast better than can he seen in (lie Knglish theatres. It would be difficult to toll the actual reason of thisPerhaps it Lx the influence of Sir Henry Irving. Perhaps it is that we have in Kngland a group of particularly aide scene painters, who may or may not hand on tho tradition. PcriiajK it is just that moro money is spoilt njron the mounting of plays, and that one can always get good men to do the work if one pays them. In any case, there is the fact. It seems to show at any rate that tho general taste of tho English puhlio is not so utterly debased as some people would have it.”

So Air Forbes-Robertson wont on, viewing things from a purely impersonal standpoint, with Hie cheeriest sanity and discrimination. What then of himself? What of tho poetic drama that has offered his greater talents so little scope in these latter years? Even upon this point of poetry- plays Air Forbes-Robertson spoke quite without prejudice. It wan he, it will bo remembered, who discovered Air John Davidson as dramatist, and got him to adapt "For tho Crown” into blank verso of really magnificent eloquence. None tho less, while Air Davidson nowadays makes his heroes talk oven over tho telephone in blank verso. Air Forbcs-Robcrtson will admit that bo doubts very much tho real value of blank verso to a modern-)y-written play at nil. •Tt firings it instantly,” ho confessed, “into comparison with Shakespeare, and tbo probability is that tho comparison will bo unfavourable. Besides,” bo continued, "people seem to forget what an enormous amount oven of Shakespeare is in prose. A third of Hamlet is prose—the finest prose, somo of it, that was ever written—and the latest French translation, which is in prose from beginning to end, is by far the host that was over made. Xr>,” sail! Jio, “blank vorso is all very well, but tho play’s tho thing 1” Nay, more 1 Ono may find in Mr Forbes-Robertson—wonder of wonders! —an actor who is perfectly willing to confer that the stage altogether, though it may bo and is a beautiful and exalting art. is not everything in the world. Ho has boon known to admit that it is quite jXKisiblo there aro some pooplo who tako it too seriously. Tills is perhaps from ono point of view the worst of Air Forbes-Robert- on. Ho is an enthusiast, but not a fanatic—and tbo world shout® for fanatics.