St. Landry democrat., 1886-01-16
ACTORS.
How Members of the Sock and Enskin
Memorize Their Lines,

NO man can tell you more about the
Tagarte> of memory than member OF
the sock and b,,Skin. In the tlrst place.
th"iT arc what are called "auick
studies or women who can
memories n part very quickly; but the
very ''1utck study" Il, rule, can not
'retain-t',a is. if he has studied Il part
very quickly and played it. Ii he is
called upon to repeat the same part
after An interval of few months, or
even weeks. he has to rcstudv i, AS
though 1t was an entirely new role.
Then cu:ncs The ''>Iow Study"-,hose
VIII" have to labor at It carefully and
!'atlcut'y. word h., word, line by line.
h"foi" they can ,'trr the word, "trip
,ntngiy on the tongue" hut it is sill
-uiar thct that the slow study is. a4
." ru'r, the best actor. The >.u,1ick
study Is too sure; he can r;sbhlr out
the words with ea>c; in short, he is
rarrut-ltke. Saivini. the great Italian
'sr:'2nf'lab. "ncr Said that "Nothug so
,>rn'lcd dramatic entert ainm as
the diatogue OF the action.' This is
Exactly what the "luicl> study" does.
! he >'"" Que is nervous. TO mem
orize the words Of his part has been
hard work; with him there is an effort
10 retain them. aud 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.
/" commit to memory long part
say, tor instance. ''Hamlet.' and
which, next to ''iago," is the long
'e>1 IN the legitimate DRAMAS no
easy task. A man playing that
character has to recall to mind
many thousands of words s-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. Dit
ferent actors have different methods of
committing their lines to memory: one
will keep i'll clos" >cclu>.on, locking
himself in 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 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 there is 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
memorizc. but there is no dramatic
writer whose works are as hard to
nicrioriZe as those of Knowles-for his
blank verse, beautiful as it is, is so
crampcd that old and experienced
actors dread to study it. Actors have.
hv iii" constant Use of the memory,
accomplished some strange feats. The
comedy Of The Game of Speculation
Was translated from the French,
schearSed and produced at the
Lyceum Theater, in London. in
four days. Mr.. Charles Mathews.
who played the leading part. .'Affabe
Hawk" and who was on the stage
throughout four long acts without
hardly any intermission. committed the
character perfectly to memory in
twent.-four hours. or. to make use of
his own words after the first night II
swallowed the whole dose, and don
think spilled Il drop
When the curtain rose on the first
production of "PiZarro.' the last act
of the drama was not written. and
Brin>lcy Sheridan wrote off the fifth
act in the grecn-rOom. the c:ll-boy
taking it from him and then distribnt-
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
fl,eater> in this city, an actor was
brought to the theater at half-past seven
q clock at night to take the place of a
brother professional who was sick. He
knew nothing of the piece and had never
sen it. for ii was a new one from Lon
don. He arrived at the thcatcr a few
only before the play would be-
gin, and he had to appear in one OF
the leading roles. His only opportn-
nifty to commit the language to mem |
ory 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 \ prompter. A sigma I
motion-from his hand will set them |
fight: but there are other old actors to |
whom the prompter is of little use, /
and it is no infrequent occurrence for
them ito fish for words or substitute
language of their own until they re- |
member the words of the author