Katherine Grey and the Theatre.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 9, 1 March 1911, Page 16

Katherine Grey and the Theatre.

An Interview Without a Frock in it.

By

FRANK MORTON.

Y dear Miss Grey,” I found my--111 sa J’* n 8> talk of eduiI r eating audiences is all very well. But how would you do it?” “I don’t pretend that I could do it at all. Why should I? It’s not my business. But 1 know what I mean—what I want —what we all want. The thing has been said a thousand times before; but I mean it—l love my audiences. It is for their sake that I should like to have them see things a trifle differently ®t times. The average audience needs education in sensibility, in imagination, jn perception. It needs to have a better Appreciation of the true function of the drama: which is to demonstrate, and not to preach. Oh, I know quite well that I am getting on to dangerous ground. But I can’t help that—you brought me here. I can understand some simple, serious people liking preachy drama; but I don’t like it. It is so difficult to express just what one means, isn’t it? The moral lesson of any play should be essential, and not deliberate. Perhaps you see what I mean now.” ‘‘Perhaps I do; but hadn’t you better say a little more? How shall the drama demonstrate, as you call it? What are the limits?” “I’m afraid I always become somewhat impatient when good people talk about the limits of the drama. If it is the function of the theatre to lay bare the facts of life, holding virtue up to admiration, and vice to contempt, what limits should there be? Nobody seems to be anxious to set limits where the pulpit is concerned. A preacher may thunder hgainst the vices of society' as furiously as he chooses. By way of illustration, he may adduce facts that go right to~the heart of the matter he is discussing. But immediately a dramatist approaches the infamous nearly enough to prove it utterly execrable, somebody gets up and makes a fearful noise of protest in the ilame of morality. In the South, a Newspaper, talking of some little performance of mine, thanked all its.chubby gods that I was appearing in really moral plays, and not in an awful thing like ‘Thd Easiest Way.’ Now, I look back to that play as one of the finest and most wholesome I ever plaved in. It is true that it is what you call a ‘strong’ play; but it only bares the ulcer to apply the knife to it. It shows how hideous is the life of the woman of a frequent type: the woman who is morally rile chiefly because she is absolutely unmoral, the woman who sins sordidly, without compulsion or excuse. The play does not preach, but it is a terrific sermon. none the less. Now you will understand better what I meant just now when I said that it was the province of drama to demonstrate. That is from what we call the moral side. From the side of art. the aspect is somewhat different. I admit at once that a play may be artistically good, and morally hateful. I would not dream of defending such a play, but I can easily understand that it might be interesting enough from the viewpoint of dramatic art. Only. I am convinced that the people don’t want that sort of play; and I am perfectly sure that the people of America don’t. A play of that sort has something in common with the horrid, neurotic Parisian women we heard of a while ago: the woman who underwent a serious operation, and had the whole proceeding cinema tographed for the delectation of her unspeakable friends. The •pm-ation was doubtless an excellent thing, but the picture-machine was an insult to the surgeon. But even if such a picture had served the purpose of arousing the public mind to the imminent deadly peril of some crawling disease, it might have Wen wholesome in effect, however nauseating. Tire provling people who raise Outcries against the impropriety of Strong play- arc chiefly dangerous lie♦a u»e they pervert the mind of the sans average umi, and lead him to imagine

evil where otherwise he would see none —where, in point of fact, no evil exists. We all want a clean theatre, we players; but we want the people to help us to it, and we do not want them led away into all sorts of error by earnest mistaken people who suffer from unclean imaginations. Many good people in New Zealand are apt to form wrong impressions of plays, 1 am told. One should not blame them too readily or too harshly for that, because it may be that they can’t help it. In fifty years’ time, or less, their children will probably see things much as earnest Americans see things now.” “I’m not going to ask you what you think of the stage as a career,” I said, “ because every ” “Why on earth not? It is a perfectly reasonable question. I think that one should be more or less certain of one’s aptitude before seeking the career; but ■that would apply equally to aspirants to any other profession. Most of the grumbling players are people that all-seeing mature never meant to play. Of couise you may tell me that prizes are few. Are the prizes in other professions so many? Even in surgery and music, and painting, and journalism, behind every striking success there stand hundreds •of the hard-working, reputable, undistinguished rank and file. Viewed in that light, the stage is almost as good a profession as any. Good average actresses and actors have a pleasant enough life, on the whole; and good people who are merely average have no right to expect more, and in other professions seldom get as much. Quite often intelligent young people who have failed in some othe r profession, bright souls for whom the world seems to have no place, embrace a- stage career and find comfort and happiness in it. I know that there are spoiled lives among us, but in those cases the profession itself is seldom or never to blame. Lives are generally spoiled, as it were, from within. Many unfortunate people would fail in any profession, were it even as simple as beating a tin pan or dropping stones down a well. The • people who fail on the stage are the people who fail in any calling; people who have not within themselves the elements of success. I'm not going to tell you what I think of this audience, or of that, because I have at least lived long enough to know’ the danger and the folly of generalities. To say that a Melbourne audience has this quality, and an Auckland audience that, is much as if one should say that one didn’t like weather. Every audience is a collection of infinitely varying units. I admit gladly that 1 have received unstinted kindness in these (to me) rather remote countries. But I meet with kindness everywhere. I do like people, and they do deserve it so!” Miss Grey says these things with quiet conviction, and somehow I feel that she means them all. There is compelling quality in this little woman. She is of the stage, but not in the least stagey. She dresses with admirable taste, but as quietly as a Puritan. She wears pince-nez. and looks rather like a student on her travels. Three very striking features, if you watch her—the eyes, the mouth, the hands. The eyes are alert, quizzical, and wonderfully kind. They look like open sunlight or troubled water, as her mood changes. Resolute eyes, withal; the eyes -of a woman who easily wins respect, because she respects herself. Purely personal topics do not interest her in the least. She makes no disclosure of her private affairs. Her conversation is of things, rather than of persons. She has no tattle. The mouth goes well with the eyes. I didn’t notice whether it was beautiful or no, and I’m no judge in any case. I have known women before now with the mouths of angels, and hearts a very Caliban might have shuddered at. But Miss Grey has nn exnressive mouth. It colours her talk, and takes the colour of her emotion*, And the hands flicker an eloquent stress.

The hands of a woman with convictions, philosophic hands, the well-kept fingers ever so slightly spatulate. I have been told that I am somewhat of a crank about hands, and I cheerfully admit that if my life depended on the hazard of my opinion of a woman I would rather judge her by her hands than by her face. Not that I know anything much about women, but they are the only handed animals I take any special interest in. They are, as a class, so adroit and agile, so exquisitely unwise and sly ; they are always rather interesting. Miss Grey’s charm lies partly in the fact that she is an absolutely feminine woman, with the instincts of a good fellow’. I can talk with her. and promptly forget that she is an actress; and an all-wise Providence doesn’t make actresses of that type often. After the Brunes, and the Humphreys, and the Elbertortons and the other pigmy thingummies, Mr. Williamson has been (I’m sure regretfully) exporting to these secluded shores for years back, Miss Grey is refreshing as a mint-julep might be in that place you dream of on those rare occasions when you’ve been so bad that you know it. She doesn’t rant, or gasp, or yearn, or twitter. She has such artistic restraint that the average audience almost overlooks the fact that she is an artist. I am justified in my opinion of her by the fact that the two or three irremediably b’ind people I know can’t see much in her. If they did see anything, I should be fain to knock my head against a wall till I had no definable head left; and that would be a horrid grief to everybody. I e uld almost have hugged Miss Grey (though Heaven knows I never would have dared), because she didn’t tell me she had read all my work, and she didn’t say that I could make millions in America. I do like sensible people. She never even mentioned Mr. Frohmann. She didn’t tell me that my old-time friend Kyrle Bellew was a dear. She didn’t say that Mrs. Leslie Carter enjoyed an exaggerated reputation. One way and another, she was a sort of gladsome rest. I have not the slightest intention of writing a sonnet to her eyebrow. But I penned my friend Harold Ashton into a corner of his office, and 1 gazed at him so seriously that at first he thought I was going to borrow a pony

from' Mm, and so was visibly perturbed. I said: “You’ve done remarkably well ■this time. When next you go to America engage another woman like Miss Grey, and we will anoint you some more with the oil of our gratitude. I know, and you know—even though you may not be immediately willing to admit that you know wliat I know—l know that this people does not want a glib-faked leading wioman with red hair, fine clothes, no temperament, and a lack of intelligence that would be disgraceful in a mule.” “But Miss Greys don’t grow on every bush,” he said plaintively. “This was a stroke of luck. Why, when I told follows at the Lambs’ Club that Miss Grey was coming to Australasia, they wouldn’t believe me.” “Never mind that,” said I, vastly superior. “You know now that New Zealanders will support and admire a woman with brains and wit. Bring us more of that sort.” “AH right, old man,” said Harold,