HOW AN ACTRESS LEARNS HER PART.

Otago Witness, Issue 2811, 26 August 1908, Page 69

HOW AN ACTRESS LEARNS HER PART.

It is rather infpro=iintr to learn how wellknown acJr-p^sas make themselves familiar with tho various parts tbev play. Seeing thorp so ready with overv looV. every word, and evorv movement, wo hardly rea.liso how they ba<l to work before they reached that stap;e. Miss Ethel Irving staffs : "I always study mv part? whpn taking long walks. I just go out with all my dogs and wander through the fields never caring which wav I am going. But one thinjr I always do first, and that is to read over the 'book' as many times as I can, so that I not only yet an idea of my own part, but of every other character in che piece. When studying afterwards it corner so much easier if you know the 'peopl-e' you have to meet. I often have a blank come over me, and ecery word leave* me on the sfcaere. T is an awful moment, bur grenerallv eom-erhing comes (lilcp a flash) for you to do. until you r»co\€r +h<* lines a«-ain, sr #er the tip from your friend who may be on with you at the moment, and is fortunate to remember Ibe line for you: but as a rule, when you forget, it so friehfens your brother or sister artist that iverything goes from them as well." Mis* Sybil Arundaie : "I have ways of studying. In the summer I take my parts in thi* park, or lie in the hammock in the garden (which is mv favourite way of studying), and also I find a pood way is to read the .part or sonpt th« last thine at nia-ht. and also the first thing in the morning over an early cup of tea. As for forgetting 1 mv parts, yes, I do eometimes. though I'm triad to say not often. It's a terrible feeling. One's mind becomes a blank, and com© evenings I feel when I'm sin-ring my songs that I shan't be able to remember the next line. I get that feeling quite often. a.nd really it almost takes years off one's life. It's such an appalling sensation, and frequently a week or so before a new production I dreapi my part most of the .light, and nea.rly always arransje my dances in bed ; or. perhaps, I should say, think them out." Miss Marie George eavs : "I never study a part, but learn from reading it at rehearsal. I fincl writing out my songs and playing them over myself at the piano the easiest way to commit the words to memory. I have several times forgotten the words of a song, but I generally manage to recover myself again." Miss Lilian Braifchwaite : "I don't know I have any special method of etudy-

ingf. Given four or five weeks of daily rehearsal, I have very often found that the words of quite a long part have 'come* just through the constant repetition^ ?t rehearsal. Of course, in acquiring a part quickly, one ha-s to learn it as one wculd learn a lesson — reading it over and over again. I dare hardly write it, but I don't think I often lose my words. If I do, it is for an awful second during which my mind is blank; "but the second passes, and the blank with it, and the words return to their rififht place, and please Heaven no one — at any rate no one in the •audience — has known anything about it." Miss Maudi Darrell learns her parts in cab 6 going to the rehearsals, but "really learns" them while she is rehearsing. Everyone, she says, is likely to forget different lines after one has played the same part a long time, as one is liable to get mechanical.