Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-09-07
MUSIC AND THE DRAMA.
DOES A COMEDIAN REQUIRE INTELLECT
IN ORDER TO SUCCEED,
The Mental Distress of Actors Caused by
Nervousness-Emms Abbott's Com
pany for this Season-stage Notes.

The Mental Distress of Actors Caused 10y
Nervousness-Emms Abbott's Com
| pany for this Season-Stage Notes.
To NJ. Got, the Justly esteemed and adj
mired "doyen" of the Comedie Francaise,
has been attributed the recent deliverance
of certain opinions on the profession OF
which he has been so long the ornament
which may give rise to controversy even
more animated than that with which the
public has lately been favored-and
notwithstanding actor-managers and
managers who are not actors. In reply to
a question addressed to him as to whether
a comedian required intellect in order to
succeed, NJ Got is said to have remarked
that no intellectual faculty whatever was
needed to insure histrionic success. 81
would go even further" he added, "and
say that the less intellect hehas the better
he will get on. Actors without intellect
and heaven knows there are plenty OF
| them-rush forward without fear, full OF
self-reliance, while IL they were intellect
ual they would be continually afraid that
their Interpretation of such and such a
character was wrong, and, fearful of hav-
ing made mistake, would lose their con-
fdence. Speaking broadly, therefore. it is
sessed of a great intellect" Interpreting
the remarks attributed to M. Got with the
same breadth as that with which he pro-
nounced his judgment, we might infer that
the distinguished comedian of the House
of Moliere, in doubling whether an actor
should be possessed of great intellect,
really meant that a highly intellectual
| player ought to be able to choose and to
| attain renown in some other and higher
vocation than that of acting.
Roscius was the most famous actor of
Roman antiquity. He realized an i'm
mense fortune by the practice of his art;
he was the associate of the proudest patri-
clans of Rome, he was celebrated by
Horace in deathless verse, and he was pre-
sented by the Dictator Sulla with gold
ring, the symbol of equestrian rank; yet
| the highest enconium with Cicero, the fast
est of his friends, could pass upon him was
that "he played so well that he never
ought to leave off acting, but that he had
so much probity and virtue that he should
never have gone on the stage" Why !?
For this reason, perhaps-which was as
valid 1000 years ago as now-that the pur-
suit of the dramatic profession, although
it may bring the artist riches, renown and
the favorable estimation of his cotempo-
raries, practically debars him from the ac-
quisition of the highest employments In
the State. What Generals, Admirals
ambassadors, Judges, Ministers, have there
ever been who gained early celebrity on
the stage? All the splendid encourage
ment and favor shown by the first Napoleon
| to Talma were inadequate to raise that IL
lustrious and undeniably intellectual
tragedian to the highest grades of public
life. The Emperor could bid Talma come
to Erfurt to play before "a pit full of
Kings" but he was practically powerless
| to make the actor SO much as gentleman
usher, merchandising; and Talma
Councillor of State, or Talma Minister at
one of the smallest of German courts would
have been not only derided but denounced
as an impertinent intruder.
1t might be asked whether NJ Got, in
deprecating intellectually among the
members of his calling, cared to bestow a
thought on the case of very noted French
comedian of the seventeenth century
named Jean Baptiste Poquelin. otherwise
called Moliere. OF the intellectual capac-
ity of this comedian there can be, we
should say, no doubt, since as dramatist
his countrymen held him to be only Sec
ond to Shakespeare; but was the author of
"Tartuffe" and the "Misanthrope" a good
actor? With him was the mimetic or the
intellectual quality predominant? In
England there has long been current
tradition that Shakespeare himself, not
withstanding the unsurpassed sagacity and
technical cogeAcy of his advice to the
players, was not frst-rate performer; al
though John Hollingshead has ventured
on the hypothesis that the Poet of All
Time voluntarily effaced himself as an
actor, and never attempted any part more
important than that of the Ghost in
Hamlet" because the long "wait" be-
tween the disappearance of the phantom
from the ramparts of Elsipore and his APP
partition in Queen Gertrude's closet gave
him the opportunity of throwing a cloak
over his armor and slipping down quietly
to the front of the house to see that ne was
not being robbed by his money-takers and
check-takers.
The accomplished NJ Got must likewise
have heard of an English actor-manager
and dramatist called David Garrick. Al
though he was not gifted with the highest
order of intellect, as his friends Burke and
johnson were, Garrick was undeniably an
intellectual man; but his mental faculties
certainly never stood in his way in making
him difiident on the stage. Take again,
Samuel Foote, actor-manager and dra-
matist, and in the last capacity called in
his time the British Aristophanes. Surely
the author of ''The Liar" and "The Com
missary," who was besides one of the
brightest and most pungent wits of his
time, had some claim to be considered
man of intellect: but Foote'S intellectual
ity does not appear to have initiated
against his having been as impudent and
brazen- faced droll as ever faced an audi
ence. AT the same time, it is obvious that
both the intellectual and the unintellect-
ual actor are apt to suffer at the outset of
their career from terrible attacks of nerv-
BUSINESS and timidity-technically known,
we believe, in the profession as stage
fright.
The sensations of the unfortunate de-
butant, standing on tiny raft of wood in
the midst of sea of gas" have often been
dilated upon, but it is only the sufferer
himself who can adequately describe the
misery he has endured Still, for all this
possibly inevitable stage-fright at the be-
ginning Of professional career, there are
comparatively few instances of actors
finally relinquishing the sock and buskin
through absolute despair of being able to
face the house Such martyrs to nervous
ness must be ranked with the poet Cow
per, who, when appointed to lucrative
pest as Reading Clerk of the House of
Lords, was through sheer mental trepida-
tion unable to-stammer through few sem
tences allotted to him to read, and was
forced to resign his position.
There have been, indeed, numerous in
stances of actors who to the end of their
career have never gone upon the stage
without fear and trembling, but whose
state of mental disturbance could not be
detected by the audience, and who are
always recognized as consummate artists
There could scarcely be more striking
illustration of this than in the elder