Cecil Henry Bullivant

A very popular means of amusing a house-party is the impersonation of various characters. It is an entertainment more suitable to the limits of a drawing-room than tableaux or amateur theatricals, which of necessity entail a certain amount of expense, scenery, lighting, and much labor and anxiety in securing and drilling an efficient cast.

Although it is doubtless true that this art needs some natural talent, skill, and mastery of detail, much can be done by practice and self-reliance.

A clever man in the street amuses a long line of patient theater-goers, his only paraphernalia being a soft, pliable disc of black felt.

The metamorphosis that article undergoes in his hands is a marvel. Dexterously he wields it—a mere twist, and it is the three-cornered biretta of a cardinal. Another, and it shades the villainous glare of a brigand, who appears quite capable of cutting the throats of his audience. A deft touch and a strut, and it tops the head of a swaggering dandy. Next it shades the solemn, ascetic features of the priest. Tipped to a different angle, and the cockney grins with happy-go-lucky impertinence. Thus it is used to represent every grade of society from the highest to the lowest of humanity.

But miraculous as that piece of felt seems, it is really the eyes and gestures of the artist plying it that lend it personality, power, and magic of transformation. In the hands of one ignorant of the tricks, it is a futile and clumsy piece of mechanism.

A man may put a tea-cosy on his head and look absurd; another does the same, and behold!—a living Napoleon stands before us. The greater the artist, the simpler the preparations used, for the skilled representative trusts to eyes, gesture, and figure rather than to the material used.

Elasticity of feature is essential. Without this it is impossible to produce a living likeness. One may possess wigs, beards, eyebrows, sham noses, and skulls of every imaginable shape and size, and yet fail through inability to assume the expression peculiar to the study undertaken.

In rehearsing impersonations a mirror is as good and true a friend as in reciting. Observe how faithfully it reflects every change in the human countenance.

Supposing the character studied to be that of King Lear. First read your Shakespeare and memorize the lines which reach the very crisis of the agony and woe of love of that unfortunate monarch, as when, turning to his ungrateful, malignant daughters, Regan and Goneril, he cries—

“I will do such things,—
What they are yet I know not,... but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep;
No, I’ll not weep:
I have full cause for weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool! I shall go mad!”

Understand the breaking, raging, heart-throbbing beneath them. Repeat them aloud before the glass, with wild, burning eyes and quivering lips, with shaking hands upthrown and tensely up-drawn figure, and by-and-by, if not at once, you will see King Lear peering at you distraught.

When you have thoroughly gripped that image you may crown it with snowy hair, pent brows, and ragged beard—but not till then.

And now, supposing, for a change—for there is nothing like variety—you undertake so utterly different a character as that of his faithful fool. Here no jingling bells and jester’s folly are needed to aid you, for these may be, and frequently are, but the danger signals to discerning eyes of incompetent treatment; you want his shrewd, loyal heart in your breast, his pulse beating in your brain, your finger-tips. His cunning grin must be a wavering crack in a wizened face as you memorize such caustic saws as—

“Thou hast pared thy wit o’ both sides, and left nothing i’ the middle; here comes one o’ the parings.”

This method of memorizing and voicing some sentiment characteristic of the figure presented, is only for private use during rehearsals.

Costume performances are dumb, and, this being the case, it is easy to realize how eloquent and exact the physical contour must be for faithful similitude.

Regard the idea as an object being photographed. When you have gripped it, and, as it were, posed it before the camera of your brain, focus, produce, and develop it on your features, which may well be likened to a film.

Knowledge from Nature

In order to master the idiosyncrasies, mannerisms, eccentricities, and habits of characters, study is essential, and for this reason it is probably best to acquire knowledge, not from imaginary heroes of fiction or drama, but from the fount of Nature.

Popular statesmen, musicians, admirals, soldiers, prelates, scientists, novelists, and famous actors walk our streets to-day, and each possesses some anomaly of expression, feature, speech, gesture, or mannerism which is distinctly his own, and distinguishes him from his kind. Just as no two leaves of a tree or petals of a flower are exact duplicates, so in mankind—no matter how subtle the anomaly—it exists, and must be fathomed and included in the portrait; delicately if it is delicate, proportionately broadly and ostentatiously as it is broad and ostentatious.

For example, there are some persons whose peculiarities are as evasive and subtle as the bouquet of a wine, the bloom of a grape. We feel their influence, we realize them to be the essence of their individuality, and yet we fail to catch and master them; while there are other persons we meet whose eccentricities flare out at us in a moment, and illuminate a character more fully and faithfully than any words.

The pouting lip, the flickering eyelid, the shrug, the drumming on the table with the fingers, the stroking of nose or chin, the revolving of thumbs, the pushing or patting of the hair, are eloquent signs that he who runs may read, and make his own. These may be called ostentatious mannerisms.

The subtle peculiarities are far more difficult to catch and convey faithfully. One man suddenly narrows his eyes and looks introspectively at you, or the mouth clinches unexpectedly over the teeth without any apparent reason. A pulse suddenly quivers into sight at the temples, and is gone again. The expression falls into repose, but that very stillness indicates a perplexing and evasive expression of temperament and individuality that you cannot catch to your own satisfaction. You may note coloring of hair, beard, mustache, &c. You may purchase their exact match, and find the likeness only a shell, because the essence that lends delicate fragrance and character has escaped you, and without it your representation, however flawless in coloring and texture, is as unsatisfactory and unreal as the marble statue to the human face and form.

Fundamental to the successful rendition of character impersonation is the cultivation of dexterity and quickness. The dumb representative must have all his regalia of wigs, beards, eyebrows, hats, helmets, cloaks, &c., well arranged, and within easy reach.

In a sense he is a conjuror—a magician. His movements must be swift as lightning. Indecision creates a jar; a pause or bungling spells failure. A small velvet-draped stand or table placed behind him, and within easy reach, with each article ready in the order wished, is essential. In the center of this should be a mirror, with a good electric light over it, but shaded as much as possible from the audience (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.—Character impersonator’s stage table.

The stand must be draped in dark colors, so as to obtrude as little as possible on the audience. While in preparation, all other lights near you should be turned off, and only switched on for a moment or two the instant you are ready. The attitude should be struck in the dark, and this must be sure and swiftly taken, and absolutely in keeping with the character assumed. Avoid grease paints as far as possible.

A pianoforte or small orchestra playing some melody suitable to the impersonation will prove a most valuable adjunct to the imagination of artist and audience.

Avoid such hackneyed characters as Napoleon, the late Sir Henry Irving, the German Emperor, and similar portrayals that may be witnessed any evening at almost any vaudeville hall. An audience is frequently more amused by the imitation of types than of individuals.

The fat saloonkeeper, the costermonger (Fig. 2), the blasÉ gentleman of fashion, the racetrack bookmaker, the ruddy countryman, the lady-killing curate (Fig. 3), and the typical Soap King (Fig. 4), the country rustic (Fig. 5), and many other such types are excellent studies for representation.

Although the character portrayals of the costumed and wigged impersonator depend on wordless demonstrations between the items and in ordinary evening dress, the artist may announce the name of the personality to be represented, or have it worked in almanac fashion and shown to the audience as it appears.

The former method, however, is quite usual, and perhaps more suitable to drawing-room entertainments.

It may be kept in mind that this style of performance should not be unduly long, and should never exceed twelve or fifteen minutes.

Speaking Impersonations

Speaking impersonations are more difficult to achieve successfully, for in them, as a rule, the artist has no regalia to depend upon. His hair, his face, his voice, his limbs, his fingers are his only aids, but these are more than sufficient for the talented and skilled performer. His voice is as elastic as his features in power of mimicry.

He should be clean-shaven, but with a plentiful crop of hair, which he can arrange and manipulate as he wishes with a mere twirl or pat of the hand, and these must be sympathetic and convincing expressions of his every movement. “There is no more expression in the back of the hand than in the back of the head,” yet of what subtle demonstrations is it not capable?

A whole epitome of human emotions may be demonstrated by the gradual unfolding of the flexible, sensitive fingers. The first finger raised, and intelligence and meaning begin to develop. The palms upturned, the shoulders uplifted, and the head slightly bent, and you see the suave helplessness typical of the Frenchman.

The arms flung outward, with the palms parallel, and the fingers falling naturally, indicate sentiments of affection, welcome, and cordial invitation. Stretched farther away, with fingers distended, and you have entreaty, desire, passionate pleading, and supplication. The wrists upturned, the fingers crooked, and grasping, and we see the personification of rage and avarice, while the raising of the open hand, what horror it indicates!

Yet the hand is only a part of the mechanism. Its soul is in the eye, which combines in partnership and signifies calm, candor, liberality, love, gentleness, meditation, resentment, boldness, defiance, wrath, and fear, in complete accord with its dumb component.

The nostrils inflate in scorn, the head is proudly raised in dignity or joy, and meekly bowed in humility; bent forward in shame, squarely upright, with firm compressed features, for determination and will power.

The artist must never be tempted to sacrifice his cultured discretion in a portrayal. For instance, to give the cockney the musician’s hand, or the priest the bookmaker’s wink, the sly housebreaker anxious to escape notice the loud, boisterous guffaw of the countryman, is to be guilty of the most insensate blunders.

Action and gesture should be skilled and practiced handmaidens to the brain that molds the idea, and their service must be winged to respond.

Temperament

The psychological treatment of characters depends and is influenced in no slight degree by temperament. The character the student is about to study has its peculiar atmosphere of mind and body, which unconsciously dictates and regulates its actions from head to foot. The most important temperaments are:—

1. The optimistic temperament, embracing impulsive, warm-hearted, sanguine, easily-pleased, tender, ambitious dispositions.

2. The pessimistic temperament, embracing nervous, timid, sensitive, overwrought, peevish, unstable, irritable, depressed, neurotic, restless, dissatisfied, cynical, morbid, self-conscious dispositions.

3. The artistic temperament, embracing extravagant, sympathetic, imaginative, languid, reckless, turbulent, excitable, hot-tempered, brooding dispositions.

4. The commercial temperament, which embraces the phlegmatic, lymphatic, enigmatic dispositions.

Now, the first way of approaching a new study is to consider what characteristics it possesses, and to what class of temperament it belongs, and, when this is decided, the student asks himself, what gesture will be the most symbolic and eloquent of that temperament?

This method, conscientiously adhered to, will provide a safe and firm groundwork for the beginner.

With judgment and sense, he will soon be able to place his character in its right niche, and to plan his actions in accordance, even if he has never seriously studied gesture. The movements of an open-hearted, liberal man are usually large, free, and liberal. He opens his arms widely for an embrace. He gives you his hand in greeting warmly, and with frank, cordial pressure. His eyes shine clear and steady below a benevolent forehead. His walk, with its free, steady swing, is the index of his generous and kindly disposition.

Now contrast him with the mean man, the usual type of which is pinched in physical delineation, action, expression, and thought. His hair grows sparsely on a skull, screwed as grimly to his face as the upper section of a bicycle bell to the lower. His eye is squeezed in a narrow slit of socket, roves backwards and forwards like a marble in a puzzle-box. His mouth is withered in bitter antagonism for his fellow-men. To catch a generous smile upon his colorless lips is to surprise a sunbeam at midnight.

Of course, there are many shades in the scale between these extremes of the very liberal man and the very mean one, and the artist who is imitating the thrifty soul must remember the infinitesimal points of difference which distinguish him alike from the benevolent and avaricious.

And, in the wide margin of temperaments, an artist must be careful not to label and pigeon-hole his characters as if they were bottles of physic, for in the complex nature of one man there may be vast contradictions, just as in many good medicines there is a minute quantity of poison, so a disposition may be tinted with qualities not at all worthy of admiration.

There are occasions when the most impulsive becomes cold and hesitating, the most affectionate cruel, the most benevolent calculating, and the most patient, hot-tempered and passionate.

Character and Circumstance

The artist must never forget the important crucible of circumstances which molds and forms each character, and sometimes is potent to change the most optimistic temperament to one of pessimism and cynical bitterness. Yet, while remembering this, one must probe beneath the stamped envelope of environment to decipher the hieroglyphics of the fettered soul inclosed.

One does not find the wild, untutored gestures of the stump orator in the refined politician, nor the turbulent raving of the fanatic in the sermon of the cultured ecclesiastic, while the expression natural to the plebeian is such as the aristocrat never indulges.

There are many natures so complex as to defy all classification, and to portray them successfully is an almost impossible matter unless one masters the delicate mechanism of their nature. A grandfather’s clock to outward appearance is a figured circle in a narrow wooden case, with softly regularly-moving pendulum, but get behind that exterior to the revolving wheels, and see what an amount of intricacies are involved. So the man who presents a calm, self-possessed exterior to the world, may in reality seethe with qualities not at all phlegmatic or level-headed.

In conquering the technicalities of character, one must, as far as possible, grip the crisis the personality has reached in his lifetime, and this is one reason why a historic character is easier to grasp than one contemporaneous. For example, he who portrays Napoleon in the flush of success and victory, does not represent him as he who images him at the end of his career—broken-hearted, alone, and in despair, suffering the calumny and scorn of those who exhibited most faith and admiration of his sanguinary achievements.

Correct attitude and pose are extremely important, and should be carefully studied. The old man has tottering bowed knees, but the youth stands firmly.

The reverberation of the interior gestures rules and gives to the torso or trunk the inspiring grace of truth and beauty. It is only when a soldier or sailor on duty is being represented that the artist may stand bolt upright and move automatically. At all other times the torso should be held with flexible ease, ready to combine with eye, face and gesture, in the emotion and force of the impersonation. To portray the child with mature and abandoned gesture is to present a caricature of nature, and, in like manner, to represent the adult with the careless gestures of the child, is to convey the impression of one inane and undeveloped.

In attitude, remember the maxim of Cresollius: “Without the hand, no eloquence.”

To imagine a boy stealing jam with the wild eye and hand-clawing attitude of the miser snatching at gold is to exaggerate grossly and confuse the human emotions, and to paint comedy as the burlesque of tragedy. The hands are capable of such a vast amount of expression that they have been considered “numerous and copious as words themselves.”

While imitating characters, never be bound by the representations of other artists you have seen. See with your own eyes, study with your own brain, avoid that conventionality of fashion and ideas that cripples progress. Let your maxims be your own, and, when they are mastered, be not ashamed to demonstrate them with grand and self-reliant originality.