The weekly Thibodaux sentinel and journal of the 8th Senatorial District. [volume] (Thibodaux, Lna. [i.e. La.]) 1875-1898, 1884-08-23
Shkspeare Study.

S1akspsars St.ly.
Among the many solemnhumbum1 y
which the worA IS fooled, there IL not
n more shallow than the pretense Of
some tragic actors to be considered
what are called students Of ShAk-
speare.' If this claim means anything,
it presumes that the works Of. this post
are OF such mystic and misty profundity
that deep research and kindred inspt-
ration are required to discover his hid
don meaning, and these actors are Or
dained to expound this bible Of the
stage. Humbug! A tragedy is q great
literary effort designed, not TO be read
or mcditated upon, but to be repre-
sented before o mixed audience. Its
language, therefore, should be clear
and unmistakable as it flows from the
mouths Of the speakers; its action
should be clear and perspicuous. II it
is not SO, then the poet is all at fault.
He is not q prophet; his business is not
to tell lies about what is to be; so he
has no reason to be obscure. There are
no two ways about him; he has no rea-
son for misleading or for mystifying the
people.
The so-called student Of Shakespeare
is q narrow-minded fellow who seeks to
torture the palpable meaning of trivial
passages INTO what are termed new
readings" for the purpose of rendering
himself conspicuous at the expense of
the poet, to whom he imputes obscurity,
the very worst fault a dramatist can
exhibit. II such fellows could arouse
the sleeping spirit of the grand old Imam,
recall him like the ghost in Hamlet
to revisit the glimpses of the moon, and
then submit to him their new readings.
! can imagine his reply.
What on earth does Il matter?
Either Interpretation will serve. Team
not remember which I intended. My
dramas were written under the spur of
necessity to meet the crying needs Of
the theater of which I was one of the
managers. They will be found to con-
tain errors and blemishes. Let them
be so, and do not encourage infatuated
worshipers to turn defects into beau
ties. Nature is full of imperfections,
and if it pleased the great author to
leave this work so to eternity, why seek
perfection in every miserable little heap
of dust? These trivial details YOU
bring to my notice do not affect the
purpose and shape of my play; and if
they concern neither the action nor the
passion nor the characters, why make
so much ado about nothing? am
neither honored nor fattered by the
blind wo1ship bestowed upon my works
by some writer's. If my existence had
depended upon these text srubbers, I
should have been shelved two centuries
ago between Ben johnson and Massin-
ger, or buried with Beaumont and
Fletcher. I owe my existence to the
stage, to the actor. No dramatic poet
has any existence in the closet. Out Of
my thirty-six plays, about a dozed sur
we. The rest are preserved for the
admiration of those who never read
them. Each of the dozen will be found
to afford o conspicuous and all-absorb-
ing character for the great actor or
actress. Whenever a well-written play
affords such an opportunity, it will hold
its life on the stage.
The 1.-Two Gentlemen of Verona
and Loves Labor Lost are read as a
matter Of duty to the author Of Hamlet
and 'Otheilo.' I ow. my existence to
such actors as Edmund Kean and Gar
rick. who joined spirits with me, en-
braced my passion, and embodied my
They changed my language
and reshaped my work to fit their quail
tiles, and they did it well. This is the
way to study Shakespeare"
The actors power to represent q pas
sion is a gift, not a deliberate artistic
effort obtained by study. It is a facul- |
ty, to be developed and improved by
The poet only affords the
actor an opportunity to display his
powers; one is the complement OF the
other in the grand result. The actor
who IS built on q poet-such is the o
called students merely q m~outhpiece,
not an artist, for he should obtain his
o. the poet gets his, out of
his inner gifts. I, who say this, am
both an actor and q poet, and / speak
If what I know.
Then-may I be forgiven for saving
so-there are some young women whose
has stopped short somewhere
between writing and spelling. who are
thrust up into conspicuous positions on
;he stage. and taking refuge behind
heir good looks, profess to be students
II Shakespeare.
o, the humbug Of it all! and how the
lear world is fooled by it!-Dion Bou-
u