Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-04-08
THE ACTORS ART.
Mr. Henry Irving's Address Before
the Harvard shakespeare Club.

| eApeCteu, lncluue the leaulng lteratl OF
Boston and vicinity. Mr. Irving was in.
vited to address the Harvard Shake.
speare Club upon the dramatic art, and
every one supposed that the assembly
before which he appeared would be in
tellectually one of the most distinguished
that ever gathered at Harvard but the
invitations were extended only to the
faculty and officers of the college and to
the personal friends of the members
of the club. 1t was, of course.
a cultured and a fashionable audience.
When Mr.. Irving appeared upon the
platform he was warmly applauded.
Prof. Henry ID. Jones. the instructor in
elocution, in presenting the distinguished
actor, said simply that the Harvard
Shakespeare Club was devoted to the
study of elocution and the drama, and
that it gave him pleasure to present the
highest exponent of the drama in Eng
land. MIR. Irving at once began reading
his address, which was in part as follows:
naturally supposed that you would
like me to choose as the theme of nv adj
dress the subject in which am most in
terested, and to which my life has been
| devoted, and that if any students here
should ever dele mine to enter the dra-
matte profession, they could not be much
the worse for the information and coun-
sci l could gather for them from toler-
able extensive experience.
This subject will, trust, be welcome
! to all of you who are interested in the
| stage as an institution which appeals to
the sober-minded and intel igent, for l
take it that you have no lingering pre-
JUDGE against the theatre, or else should
not be here. Nor are you disposed, like
certain good people, to object to the thea
tire simply as name. These sticklers
for principle would never enter a play
! house for worlds and l have heard that
in famous city of Massachusetts not a
! hundred miles from here there are per-
sons to whom the theatre is unknown, but
who have no objection to see play in
building which is called museum, es-
pecially if the vestibule leading to the
theatre should be decorated with sound
moral principles in the shape of statues,
pictures, and stuffed objects in glass
cases.
There has always been controversy
as to the province of naturalism in dra-
matte art. In England it has been too
much the custom, / believe, while de-
manding naturalism in comedy, to eX-
pect a false initiation in tragedy. But
there is no reason why an actor should
! be less natural in tragic than in lighter
moods. Passions vary in expression ac-
! cording to moulds of character and man
ners, but their reality should not be lost
when they are expressed in the heroic
! forms Of the drama. To be natural on
the stage is most difficult, and
yet a grain of nature is worth
! a bushel of artiice. Like the prac-
tised orator the actor rises and descends
with his sentiment, and cannot always be
| in fine frenzy. A great difficulty in ell
ocution is the use of sufficient force to be
generally heard without being unnatu-
rally loud, and without acquiring a stilted
delivery. There is a great actor in your
own country to whose elocution one al
WAYS listens with the utmost enjoyment
I mean Edwin Booth. He has inner
tied this gift, believe, from his famous
father.
To what position in the world of intel
! ligence does the actors art entit!e him
[ have no sympathy with people who are
constantly anxious to define the actors
position, for, as a rule, they are not ami
mated by desire to promote his in
terests "'Tis in ourselves that we are
thus ard thus and whatever actors
deserve, socially or artistically, they are
sure to receive as their right. L read the
other day, in a well-circulated little
volume, that the actor is a degraded
being because he has a closely shaven
face. This is, indeed, humiliating, and
wonder how it strikes the Roman Catho-
lie clergy. However, there are actors
who do not shave closely, and though,
alas am not one of them, l wish them
10y of the spiritual grace which cannot
claim.
1t is admittedly unfortunate for the
stage that it has a certain equivocal ele-
ment which, in the eyes of some judges,
is sufficient for its condemnation. The
profession is open to all, and it has to
bear the sins of people who have no real
claim to belong to it. You may open
your newspaper and see a paragraph
headed, assault by an actress" Some
poor creature is dignifed by that title
merely because she has been associated
with some kind of show You look into
a shop window and see photographs of
certain people who are Unfortunately
described as actors and actresses, though
their business has no preference to be art
of any kind.
But in the midst of all this turmoil
about the stage, one fact stands out
clearly: The profession is steadily grow
ing in credit with the educated classes.
It is drawing more recruits from the ed
ucated classes. The enthusiasm for our
calling has never reached higher pitch.
There is quite an extraordinary number
of ladies who want to become actresses,
and the cardinal difficulty in the way is
not the social deterioration which some
people think they would incur, but their
inability to act
There are people who seem to think
that only irresistible genius justities any
one in adopting the stage as vocation.
They make it an argument against the
profession that many enter it from a low
sphere of life, without any particular NJ
ness for acting, but simply to earn 9
livelihood by doing the subordinate ana
mechanical work which Is necessary III
every theatre. And SO men and women
of refinement, especially women, are
warned that they must do themselves IN
iurv bv passing h ough the rank and fle
during their term of probation In the ac'
tors craft.
Now. I need not remind you that on
fine stage everybody cannot be great, any
moro than students of music can all be-
come GREAT musicians, but very many
will do sound artistic work which is O
enormous value. As for any question o.
conduct. heaven forbid that should be
doomatic: but it does not seem&os mt
IogicaI that while genius is its own law
in the pursuit of noble art, all lnielo
- n. onhition to be deferred from the