THE ART OF THE STAGE

How ephemeral is this art of the stage, how evanescent. Words quickened by the voices of the actors tremble for a moment in the sympathetic atmosphere of the theatre and are then engulfed in silence. This in its turn gives way to newly spoken words. Out of the illustrative gestures and actions of the players are pictures formed which each new phase of the unfolding of the play destroys. Joy gives place to grief, and grief to joy, gentleness to rage, and love to hate.

The passions wax and wane. The scenes fade even as the lantern pictures vanish from the white screen. The curtain rustles down, severing those bonds of sympathy that the play has forged. Actors and audience turn away to pick up the links in their own particular chains of destiny.

How ephemeral, how evanescent.

Yet that universal law of compensation yields its recompense: for no art is more enduring in its influence.

Most men are so profoundly impressed by the drama that the recollection of a performance will abide for years; indeed some are so sensitive to its effect that their whole lives are coloured or are even changed by the sensation created by one fine bit of acting.

That the art of the theatre should be so persuasive is in no way strange, for it makes a joint appeal through the portals of two senses simultaneously. The eye and ear alike are charmed.

In this joint appeal lies the very essence of the theatrical. The actor by the heat of his passions fuses picture and poem.

Dumb poetry and petrified graphic art come to life.

Like an electrode the actor stands collecting the currents of dramatic beauty that pervade the world, and discharges them into the tense atmosphere of the theatre.

It is the player's duty not only to lend life to the part that he plays, he should present the character in such a way that the spirit of each member of his audience moves in accord with it. If his appeal is strong it will weld the minds of his individual spectators into a kind of composite intelligence.

I once saw a concave reflector made of small pieces of flat looking glass. These tiny mirrors multiplied the light placed in front a thousandfold.

To the actor a well-crowded theatre should seem just such a reflection. In the mind of each member of his audience, should he, as in a glass, be mirrored.

This unanimity of emotion is brought about by presenting certain physical and mental facts relative to character in such a way that they may be grasped by a number of variously constituted people.

A play is woven of a warp-like plot running from beginning to end of the composition, constituting its chief strength; and woof-like characterisations which wend their way in and out through the plot binding it together and filling in gaps with the subsidiary interest of nicely contrasted types.

The character as it leaves the playwright's hand is a broadly outlined drawing. The subtleties of manner and expression and those slight but significant inflections of voice are the creation of the actor. He vitalises the lines with his spirit.

I have often thought that the appeal to the brain through the sense of seeing is stronger than that through the sense of hearing. I have been brought to this conclusion by the fact that people are deeply moved by the contemplation of a play in a language that they are totally ignorant of, or by the dumb show of a pantomime.

Is not half the battle won when one perfectly physically realises the character to be impersonated?

To assist in this half of the conflict this book was written.