LIVING THE PART

Otago Witness, Issue 3888, 18 September 1928, Page 76

LIVING THE PART

Does the actor feel the part which he is playing?.. ,(asks a writer in John o’ London’s Weekly apropos of an article by Mr Sidney Dark). Mr Dark said: “To understand Hamlet the player must have brains and a soul, and must have both fasted and prayed. The actor able to interpret the grave and the gay, be Macbeth on Monday and Dogberry on Tuesday, must possess rare intelligence and a personality that is plastic rather than assertive.” Mr Lane Crauford has recently Written a very thoughtful article on the same theme, with numerous illustrations from the experiences of famous actors and actresses. “ The -whole. question is summed up,” says Mr Cranford, “by saying that-the player should be in ‘ sympathy ’ with the feelings of his part. IT >ay be added that extreme sensibility to emotion is a persistent trap. For if the actor gives way to his feelings he can easily be carried away, so that he loses his sense of the ‘ optique du/theatre.’ —a most vital aspect of acting. This leads us to the question of identification with the part. There is no such thing as complete identification with the part; and the student of acting needs to be learned against this unattainable and undesirable sort of ideal. On this head Dr Johnson once said to Kemble: “Are you, sir, one of those enthusiasts who believe themselves transformed into the very character you represent?’—to which the actor replied that he never could persuade himself to such an extent. ‘To be sure not,’ said Johnson ; ‘ the thing is impossible. And if Garrick really believed himself to be that monster Richard the Third, he deserved to be hanged cvqry time he performed it.” Actors and actresses may be moving an audience to tears and yet themselves be quite indifferent to the emotions they arouse:

“ Concerning Garrick, a medical man once remarked to Tom King, that Garrick must suffer very much from the exertion of his feelings. * Pooh,’ replied King, ‘he suffer from his feelings! Why, sir, I was playing with him one night in Lear, when in, the middle of a most passionate and affecting part, and when the whole house was drowned in tears, he turned his head round to me, and whispered: “Dainme, Tom, it’ll do!”’ Talma, after a powerful scene of passion, is said to have abused his dresser in the wings for not polishing his boots, having noticed the omission whilst on the stage. Robson, broken down with simulated grief, and hanging on the shoulder of a fellow-actor, would whisper that ‘he was going to have a fine shoulder of mutton for supper.’ ” But, suggests Mr Crauford, the great actors and actresses . undoubtedly have their moments of inspiration, when they are carried away by their emotions: “Macready told Lady Pollock that Miss O’Neill ‘ was a remarkable instance of self-abandonment in acting. She forgets everything for the time but her assumed characters. '• She was an entirely modest woman, yet in acting with her I have been nearly smothered with her kisses.’ This suggests a comment that Miss O’Neill may at times have let her feelings run away with her too much. But no actor can-place any reliance on inspiration. Macready, to raise feeling, used to kick the property man, and afterwards reward him with monqy for personal discomfort. Kean, than whom there was a no greater passionate actor, used actually to count his steps to certain positions on the stage. Rachel, an actress who abandoned herself to emotional situations, remained quite conscious of every fold in her robe. In the final consideration of feeling in acting the great point to be kept in mind is, that the art does not lie so much in what the ‘ actor ’ feels, but in what degree he makes the audience feel.”

Another point discussed by Mr Crauford is the influence of personal emotion on acting:-. “ Talma and Rachel used to note their states of feeling in real life, and reproduce them on the stage, which method a writer has remarked corresponds with Wordsworth’s Canon of poetic composition—as being ‘ emotion recollected in tranquillity.’ A classic instance is that of the Greek actor Polus, who, in the character of Electra, mourning for* his son, used an urn containing the ashes of his own dead son. But it is not recorded that this device succeeded in making a special impression on the audience. Macready, some months’ after his daughter died, played the part of Virginius, and his. recent bereavement so affected his feelings that the tears streamed down his cheeks. He felt he had never acted the part better, and the audience was much excited ov_r the performance. Mrs Bancroft has written: ‘ When a circumstance' on the stage strikes home, reminding me of a great grief, a domestic sorrow, or a grievous wrong, it must for the time being cause a feeling of pain which of necessity gives an impetus to my acting,’ and instances a speech in one of her parts: ‘God gave her a little; child, but then, when all was bright and beautiful, God t k His gift away,’ etc., which recalled to her the death of her own child, and the tears came to her eyes. A curiously interesting comment on ‘ feeling ’ in acting was contained in a performance of ‘ Hamlet ’ by Edwin Booth. On this particular occasion he infused much ‘ personal ’ feeling into the part (owing to some experience the- exact nature of which I forget), felt he had never

played so well. He was surprised to hear from his daughter that she had never known him to give so weak a performance.” Which shows that “ living the part ” does not necessarily mean good acting.