GERALD DU MAURIER.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 April 1930, Page 26 (Supplement)

GERALD DU MAURIER.

THE TECHNIQUE OF ACTING. The London stage to-day has no leader. There is no Irving, no Tree, no Bancroft, not even a Charles Hawtrey. But if there weye a leader he would probably be Sir Gerald du Maurier, writes a oLndon critic. For du Maurier is the embodiment of the public’s idea of an English gentleman; strong; as silent as one

reasonably -can be when one has more lines and better lines than anyone else in the company; resolute and resourceful, ready to blow a hole through a villain with an automatic, or crush a wo-

man to his bosom without crumpling a dress shirt or disturbing a single hair. Du Maurier has been called England’s most natural actor. No less an authority than the late A. B. Walkley once bestowed on him this high praise, only to ask himself next morning exactly what he meant by it. And, in one sense, Mr. Walkley was Tight. Du Maurier has had hundreds of imitators, but no one can walk through a play with quite the same nonchalance or pull off his theatrical effects with the same superb ease. His art may not go deep, but it is none the less astonishing. To see him stroll through a Barrie comedy, extracting the maximum of humour with the minimum of apparent effort, “throwing a line away” and yet convulsing an audience, is a liberal education in technique. And within certain strictly defined limits he is equally effective in drama. Those who .saw him in “Raffles" still sigh rapturously for the most polished and gentlemanly crook since Robin Hood. , But, alas! . That was in 1906. That decade or so before the war marked the hgh-water mark of du Maurier’s career.,---In addition to his' sensational success ,in “Raffles,” ho made a hit in play after,, play by Barrie. He was the original Captain Hook and Mr. Darling in “Peter Pan” (the play was altered again and again to suit him), and he gave admirable performances in “The Admirable Crichton,” “Little Mary,” “Dear Brutus" (one of the performances of his life) and “What Every Woman Knows.” When one adds that he scored successes, too, in “The Second Mi's. Tapqueray," “Brewster’s Millions” and “Diplomacy" (in the revival in 1913), there is no. need to emphasise the yersatiliity of his talent or the importance of the part he played in theatrical history between 1900 and 1914. I wish I could say as much of his record since the war, but the truth is rather melancholy. Fifteen years ago it seemed obvious that ho would succeed Tree and Hawtrey as the leader of the English stage. But ask any of the younger generation of playgoers what they know .of their Gerald du Maurier, and they will probably make some vague reference to a thick-ear melodrama, “Bulldog Drummond," and ask you rather doubtfully whether he was not in- “The Last of Mrs. Cheyney” and “Interference.”

He was in these two plays, and in each ho had a jolly good part. Yet in' “Mrs. Cheyney" the acting honours went to a rising star, Ronald.. Squire, while in “Interference" he was put-play-ed, so many people thought, by Herbert of the, 'bowed shoulders and sonorous .voice. Still if du Maurier can produce a play in which ho is acting, and still preserve the proportions of the characters and the balance of the play, then he is not necessarily the less, an actor. And he is certainly a pretty rare producer. . Sir Gerald du Maurier once said of himself that he has the face of an hereditary criminal. That is an exaggeration, but even his ador/irs. admit that he is not excessively handsome. He has, however, something much better than a regular profile—a strong, intelligent face, a clear, incisive delivery, and poise and personality like no one else’s. ,

Ho is almost unique/ among actors in that he resolutely refuses all offers to leave, the West End. Martin-Harvey, Hicks,. Nares, Lang and all the rest may tour the provinces and Dominions; not so du Maurier. He is cordially disliked by mariy gallery first-jiighters for his alleged arrogance and such phrases as “Ladies and gentlemen—l am referring to those in the stalls.”

One can sympathise with him. To resent tlie abuse of a greasy alien from Poplar whose opinion on no conceivable subject would, have the slightest attention once he got outside the theatre, is purely natural enough. I have read reports of a du Maurier play being booed when actually two or three cries of “rotten!” came from fellows who probably expected a ■ leg-show 1 and whose opinion on the play, if expressed in a letter to a newspaper, would be tossed automatically into the basket.