ACTOR-MANAGER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22743, 2 December 1935, Page 3

ACTOR-MANAGER

SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER OLD THEATRICAL MEMORIES Sir George Alexander was one of the greatest of modern actor-managers, and many good judges consider that in the combination of the two positions he surpassed Henry Irving and Becrbohm Tree, says Public Opinion. Certainly on the business side Sir George achieved great triumphs, for the financial details given by Mr Mason of some of the plays which were produced—it is only fair to say he also quotes the failures—afford abundant testimony as to Sir George Alexander’s successful judgment as to what the serious playgoing public desired. Mr A. E. W. Mason believes that the actormanager, who has practically disappeared, will return, for in a recent book he writes:—

“ The argument that commerce is incompatible with art is false from top to bottom. The very groat artists have never been averse to marketing their work to their best advantage." Groat artists are full-blooded people who want all they can get out of life, and want it with both hands. The more intense their concentration upon their art during ike long days of labour, the more they seek that their reward should be proportionately great. “ Tiicy may squander them or they may hoard them, but they want them first. I never heard that Cellini or Michael Angelo or Shakespeare were indifferent either to their fame or the weight of their pockets. The actormanager is in the same case. The more complete the artist the more certainly hi will want to be master and not man, to do things as he thinks they ought to be done, to control his theatre in the way which suits his mind. The more content he is to be a subordinate, the less likely he is to reach the heights. “ That he may exercise his gifts with that sort of spaciousness which is an attribute of great art he cannot afford to treat commerce with disdain. Indeed, this compulsion of nature, for it is no less, is likely to be more urgent in the actor than in other artists; for merely to act in an age whose a play .nay run a year means too thin a life for any man with the divine fire at his heart. Other artists have their days full. EMPTY DAYS. “ The recently published ‘ Life of Sir Gerald du Mnurier’ by his daughter illustrates with a painful insight the disillusionment which comes from empty days. The film industry is bringing today the actor into a closer line with other artists. But I am none the less sure that in the cycle of times the actormanager will return.” One of the most interesting chapters in the book is that in which Mr Mason describes the production of “Rupert of Hentzau,” Anthony Hope’s own version of his sequel to the “ Prisoner of Zenda.” Mr Mason soys:— “A first night at a theatre, in the year 1000 was an event in the social life of the town. There are too many of them, in 1935 to arouse more than a languid interest, unless something special in the way of a big ()rum is beaten cunningly for a long time ahead. Also there are too few men and women acting in their own theatres.

“The theatre is now accommodation for a play. In 190 Dit was that, and n good deal more. It was definitely associated with someone, an old friend as it were, who for good or ill had chosen the play which the audience was now to see, who would himself or herself shortly appear upon the boards. It was more vital on that account. It was less of a lodging house. “There was a thrill in the air as the auditorium filled. Would the old firm do it again? Was this new playwright going to make his mark? There was expectation, even a trifle of excitement before the lights went out and the overture began. The horse-shoe shape of the auditorium contributed to pr •■duce that rapport between the actors behind the footlights and the spectators in front of them which is essential to the enjoyment of a play. EVENING’S FELLOWSHIP.

‘ There were people everywhere—people and warm colours. A spark passed from one to another and established a sort of fellowship which would last the evening through. . . . “ There would be others who hoped to find their pleasure in the' failure of the play. Captain Robert Marsha 1 !, the author of ‘ His Excellency the Governor.’ entering the supper room of his club late one night amidst a burst of laughter, said, ‘ I see from the general hilarity that yon have all been assisting at the first night of some appalling fiasco.” “ Such eager ill-wishers are still to be found in the stalls of any theatre on a first night. Their race, like the worm, dieth not. And aloof among them all, well-wishers and ill-wishers, sat the formidable phalanx of the critics. Each one solemn as the Doge of Venice and pledged, it seemed, that neither smile nor tear nor any expression of content or discontent should anticipate the judgment which his newspaper would reveal in the morning.’’ At this point Mr Mason breaks off to give a vivid picture of the late Sir Squire Bancroft, and then, concerning this great actor, says: — “ ... It was the day following the first performance of ‘ The Admirable Crichton,’ the fine comedy by Barrie, in which the sentiment is so brilliantly mitigated by a healthful sharp touch of acid. I asked, having scon him at the performance, what he thought of the play. He was drying his hands on his towel in the lavatory of his club just before luncheon. He dried more slowly and shook his head with melancholy. ‘ It deals, my dear Maon, with the juxtaposition of the drawing room and the servants’ hall—always to me a painful subject.’ AN EPITOME. ’ “ It seemed to me that I heard the whole of that era, the Manchester school, as well as the squires of the counties, the merchants of the City of London, as well as the dames of Kensington and Mayfair, all epitomised and defined in that one unexpected sentence. “Apart from Sir Squire and the visitors to the stalls and the dress circle and the patrons of the drama in the upper circle and the pit, there was another element in the fortunes of a play which, if no more powerful, was louder in giving an adverse verdict than it is to-day—the gallery. “The gallery generally waited, as it rightfully should, to the end of the play, before it announced its high decision; and sometimes it was guilefully able to lure an unhappy author on to the stage unaware of the greeting which awaited him. I passed about tliis time the exit from the gallery of a theatre where Henry Arthur Jones had that night had a play produced which bad failed.

“ I heard one youth exclaim to his friends indignantly, ‘ Why didn’t the fellow come out and take his punishment?’ and I marvelled at the odd point of view. The youth had spent a shilling, and I felt sure had enjoyed himself prodigiously. Henry Arthur Jones, on the other hand, had spent the best part of a year toiling over his play, and had seen all his work fritter away to nothing within the compass of three hours.

“Why, in addition, should lie trot forward on the stage and bow to a storm of booing and hissing? There was an epidemic of it at the time. It is quite true, of course, that an audience at a play has no concern in the troubles of authorships, the strain of rehearsals,

the costliness of the setting, the difficulties of the company.’’ There is no compulsion upon the author to write, the producer to rehearse, the managers to stage the play, or the actors to act it. “ The audience is concerned with the result. But also there is no compulsion upon the playgoer to attend the first performance. He can wait, if lie likes, until he learns from the newpapers or his acquaintances whether he is likely to get enjoyment in return for his shilling or whether he is not. The theory of a vociferous punishment is untenable on any grounds of reason and justice; and the theatre to-day is the better for the disuse of it.’’

Sir George Alexander was one of the men who raised the tone of the British troatro. He was not merely a personal ornament to the stage, but an exponent of the drama who was concerned with its message to the world. Many will echo the hope that the actor-manager of his type will return.