Morning journal and courier., 1888-02-23
The Physiology of Theatrical Tears.


 The question of theatrical tears, and whether they be produced by the actor in- dependently of real emotion, has lately been discussed. The question is not without interest, and has been answered in various ways by different actors. some conteading that the highest art in this direction is only seen when the artist s'feeIs" his part; while others state that emotional conditions in the actor are theighest form of theatrical art. To how large an extent our emotions are under control is patent to every body; for much of cur early education is devoted entirely to the formation of habits of control in this direction. Emotions are mainly reflex phenomena, and are produced ass the result of thoughts. sounds or sights. It is happy thing for us that emotions of ioy9are far more easily produced than emotions of sorrow. We all of us know the passage in s'Pickwick" or the particular picture in "Punch" which has made us laugh again and again: but the tears of sorrow or the feelings of dread or terror are not so easily conjured up. Thus it happens that comic actors are met with in profusion, while tragic actors, who are really able to stir the sor- rowful emotions in an educated audience, are comparatively rare. It is very doubtful whether an actor can stir up in his audience the higher emotions, unless he abandons himself to the situation of the play, and himself feels to some extent the sorrows or terrors of the scene. An actor who can only manage to stir the emotions of the most easily meved of his audience, whether to laughter or tears, has gone good way toward success; for emotional states are so infec- tious that the sound or sight of tears or laughter is sure to cause the prevailing emotion to spread. The really great actor, hnp mot hn oG . thing more than merely touch the biggest fool of the audience-he must make his audience absolutely forgetful of itself and be himself the direct, and not the indirect, cause Of the emotional state into which it is thrown. To do this the actor must be him self person of intense feeling, and must for the time experience the emotion he is seeking to portray. Really great acting is matter of feeling rather than of reasoning intelligence, and we doubt that an actor who studies and puzzles too much over the subtleties of the author is not in danger of checking the manifestations of his histri- onic genius. It is a we1l-known fact that Master Betty, the stinfant Roscius," could as boy stir the higher emotions of the audience by his portrayal of Shakespeare's masterpice (the sqbtleties of which he most certainly could not understand), but that this power was, so to say, knocked out of him by university education, which prob ably brought home to him the shortcom- ings of his performances, and, by teaching him to reason about his character, preven- ted the feeling portrayal of the prevailing emotions. Two of the greatest actors of the present age-Salvini and Ristori-both belong to the emotional Italian race, and it is impossible to believe that during the portrayal of their most successful parts they are not entirely forgetful of them selves and engrossed by the emotions of the scene.