Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-04-10
ACTORS.
How Members Of the Sock and Buskin
Memorize Their Lines.

How Member Of the Sock and Buskia
Memorize Their Lines.
No man can tell you more about tho
vagaries of memory than a member of
the sock and buskin. In the first place,
there are what are called ''quick
studies''-men or women who can
memorize a part very quickly; but the
very "quick study" as a rule, can not
retain-that is, if he has studied a part
very quickly and played it. If he is
called upon to repeat the same part
after an interval of q few months, or
even weeks, he has to restudy it as
though it was an entirely new role.
Then comes the s'slow study''-those
who have to labor at it carefully and
patiently, word by word, line by line,
before they can utter the words "trip
pingly on the tongue;" but it is a sim
gular fact that the ''slow study" is, as
a rule, the best actor. The stuuick
study is too sure; he can gable ont
the words with ease; in short, he is
parrot-like. Salvini, the great Italian
tragedian, once said that "Nothing so
spoiled a dramatic entertainment as
when the actors appeared to anticipate
the dialogue of the action" This is
exactly what the ''quick study" does.
The slow n is nervous. 10 men,
orize the words of his part has been
hard work; with him there is an effort
to letain them. and this very effort
gives him fire, and he acts his charac-
ter with an impulse which is, after all,
the very essence of the histrionic art.
10 commit to memory a long part
say, for instance, "Hamlet," and
which, next to %''Iago," is the long
est in the legitimate dramas no
easy task. A man playing that
character nas to recall to mind
many thousands of words-not only
what he has To say himself, but the cues
given to him by others, independent of
bearing in mind his own 'advice to the
players" of ''suiting the action to the
word, the word to the action" and the
special observance that follows. Diff
ferent actors have different methods of
committing their lines to memory: one
will keep in close seclusion, locking
himself in q room to study; another
will study his part anywhere and at
any time, and it is not by any means an
uncommon occurrence for a thespian
to be memorizing his lines while he is
talking to a friend. The late Charles
Thorne used to boast of the fact of
having studied some of his best parts
while walking along the street.
There is a general opinion that
Shakespeare is difficult to commit to
memory whereas he is far easier than
many other authors, for thereis a mu-
steal rhythm in his language that is
easily fixed upon the recollection.
Among the comparatively modern
authors Bulwer is far more difficult to
memorize, but there is no dramatic
writer whose works are as hard to
memorize as those of Knowles-for his
blank verse, Beautiful as it is, is SO
cramped that old and experienced
actors dread to study it. Actors have,
by the constant use of the memory,
accomplished some strange feats. The
comedy Of 1.-The Game of Speculation
was translated from the French,
%rehearsed and produced at the
Lyceum Theater, in London, il
four days. M. Charles Mathews
who played the leading part, 'Affablt
N lhl WIZ was OIL UuC hIu0e
throughout four long acts without
hardly any intermission, committed the
character perfectly to memory in
tw%cnty-four hours, or, to make use OF
his w words after the first night: 81
swallowed the whole dose, and don't
think I spilled a drop"
When the curtain rose on the first
production of ''Pizarro," the last act
Of the drama was not written, and
Brinsley Sheridan wrote off the fifth
act in the green-room, the call-boy
taking it from him and then distribute
ing it to the different actors as the first
four acts were being played, to be
studied by them as best they could.
Not long ago, in one of the uptown
theaters in this city, an actor was
brought to the theater athalf-pastseven
o'clock at night to take the place of a
brother professional who was sick. He
knew nothing of the piece and had never
seen it, for it was a new n from Lon
don. He arrived at the theater a few
minutes only before the play would be-
gin, and he had to appear in one of
the leading roles. His only opportu-
nifty to commit the language to men,
DRY was during the intervals he was
off the stage. Yet that night he was
what is professionally known as "dead
letter perfect"
Some actors can take the word
quickly from a prompter. A sigma
motion-from his hand will set them
right; but there are other old actors to
whom the prompter is of little use,
and it is no %infrequent occurrence for
them ''to fish for Words or substitute
language of their own until they re-
member the words of the author
N. 7. Graphic.