A LOST ART

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11248, 28 June 1922, Page 7

A LOST ART

EMOTION IN ACTING "PLAYS ARE AT FAULT.”

(By

E. A. Baughan.)

To those real lovers of the theatre, the men and women to whom the drop curtain- is as fascinating as a library is to the lover of books, Karl Mantzius' "A History of Theatrical Art” is interesting. Ur Mantzius is not a dry writer on the history of the art- lie loves and practised. While tracing the line of theatrical art through the centuries, he has always viewed the theatre with intense human sympathy. He himself was an actor ot distinction. MRS SIDDONS' FIRST APPEARANCE. A perusal of this volume brings one thing to light. The great figures of tho stage, who we now conceive as being above all criticism, did, as a matter of fact, offer many points for criticism, and they received it. In those days, of course, managers did not think of replying to criticism by inserting a column of denunciatory advertisement. The great Mrs Siddons was an absolute failure when she first appeared. Her voice was large enough fo-r Drury Lane, and sue did not look well in the short, hooped skirt of the jperiod. And hero is a lesson for young, ambitious actrasses. After seven years spent in touring the provinces she made her second debut at Drury Lane, and immediately made a triumph as Isabella in Southern's "The Fatal Marriage.” "She melted the vast critical London audience into floods of tears.” EMOTIONAL ACTING. It must be remembered that this emotional acting was a new thing on tho London sL-ge, which had not expressed feeling at til. It is very interesting to note that Mrs Siddons' conception of Lady Macbeth "differed completely from the conception that her impulsive temperamental genius forced her to carry out on the stage.” In her notes she has left on record that Lady Macbeth was a devoted *vifej a beautiful and intelligent woman, lured to' crime by ambition for her husband, and, after the murder, suffered from the pangs of conscience. That, some playgoers wnl remember, was more or less the Lady Macbeth of Ellen Terry. On the stage, however, Mrs Siddons, according to all contemporary witnesses, "presented with fearful, appalling dearness, a recklessly ambitious, coldy passionate woman, without scruple, without remorse, without feeling for anything but herself, driving her husband relentlessly forward to the goal she has set before him/* A SENTIMENTAL LADY MACBETH. Her conception of the study did get through the immediate inspiration of the stage, however. In her early days, at any rate, she played the part as a beautiful young woman, a delicate blonde. x And she used to insist on showing Lady Macbeth s naturally gentle and loving disposition by charging these lines with a wealth of .tenderness. "Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done't.” The audience was deeply moved, and the critics, strange to say, approved. But, as Dr Mantzius points out, it was an exceedingly forced interpretation.” All -Shakespeare really meant by the lines was to show tnat Lady Macbeth was not a mere unsensitive ©nminal. it is a. touch of genius; for you cannot mako tragedy from the callousness of criminals. A LOST ART. It is evident that the great players of the past aroused their audiences by their intense acting of feeling. That seems to be a lost art. Our modern plays give no scope for it, or hardly any scope. But it even in performances of Shakespeare, Our players give us clever interpretations, based on sound intellectual conceptions, of their parts—at least they do occasionally—but they do not act emotion. How rare it is to hear a modern player who makes you feel in Shakespeare that the verse is the natural expression of feeling? I know of only one actress who can do it at all—Bybil Thorndike. In the past, of course, there was Ellen Terrv, but she was not a tragic actress. In the present there are Irene Vanbrugh and Fay Compton, but both are comedians, or sentimental' comedians. THE FAULT OF OUR FLAYS. It is the fault of our plays. We have become too superficially realistic on the stage, presenting only the manners, or want of them, of modern men and women, and seldom using the power of aotmg as a conventional artistic means of expressing thought and feeling. The technique for a play of modem life must necessarily be different from the technique for Shakespeare. It is really more difficult, for so much has to be done by suggestion. But that gives even greater scope for acting, for in a modern play there is no rhetorical material for the voice. We must get back to plays that demand emotional acting, and our playwrights must find the material. Players can do nothing without material. As an example, every playgoer must have noticed that the standard of acting at the Little Theatre is higher than at most theatres. Some of the Grand Guignol plays may not be fine art, but thev do give scope for emotional acting, and the players of the company have risen to the opportunity .—London "Daily News.”