Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-10-05
THE AMERICAN INGEEOE.
SCARCITY oF YOUNG EMOTIONAL AC-
TREssEs OF GREAT ABILITY.
Evils of Farce-Comedy-Dash Soubret,es
Overrun the stage-Managers
and Authors Wall.

A want much felt and not often men
toned by those who write for and about
players is the juvenile leading lady, or, as
some Of the stage managers call her, the
emotional ingenue" If you stop to think
about the stage and the ladies you know
upon it, you will be satisfied that am
right. Yet many will be found to take
exception to my assertion, and immedi-
ately begin to run over lot of ladies'
names to disprove what 1 have claimed
But know l am right, because have
conversed with stage managers and play
wrights on the subject, and have been in
formed by them that there is not half a
dozen young girls on the American stage
to-day fit to play Juliet, King Rene's
Daughter, Cymbeline, Rosahnd, Julia,
Frou-Frou, and many other characters
which call for youth primarily in their
impersonations, and emotional force, nat
ural, but not the product of experience or
age.
do not find it necessary to mention or
discuss the capabilities of the ladies who
are either starring over the continent or are
playing leading business in the few stock
companies to be found thereon. To all
take off my hat and say: "You are charm
ing, talented and beautiful, but"
Well, it is useless to proclaim tie latter
half of the thought, because the actresses
have made their mark and have won their
way to their present positions in the pro-
fession by years of toll and hard work.
They own what they possess; it was their
achievement. Still they leave me as /
was, regretting that we have not half
dozen youthful emotional ingenues in
this country to-day who can look as well
as act the great roles of the young women
of the classical drama
What is worse, l fear that up to date we
have not made any serious attempt to edu-
cate or even too seek those who might be
educated and trained to do the work. As
a rule, most of the ladies who have sought
distinction in or laid their hands upon the
mantles and scepters of dramatic queens
have emulated the Gauls, Goths and Huns,
who overran the empire, and have COM
rlitted a sort Of sacrilege against Art for
these beautiful usurpers have had no other
claim to the eminence they seized than
that which was given them by money,
social standing and ambitious assurance.
There is no tragedy queen upon this con-
tinent now who is native and to the man
nor born. There is no empress of human
nature to control and illustrate its finest
emotions. We have ladies who can look a
part, but cannos play it; We have girls
whose miens and visages suggest passion,
poesy and fervor, but whose actions and
voices ara4powerless to express them. In
short, we seem to have the crude material
in abundance, but investigation shows that
it possesses only the outward seeming of
the soul, and not the soul itself.
We have suffered from an overweening
ambition, which is national, and which
has taught those who desired to act to
plunge right into the middlesof things
theatrical, and to declare themselves mon
archs, if they only had money enough to
hire company and get an opening. In
the United States money will come pretty
nearly doing everything upon the stage for
an insolent beginner, if she be woman.
All she has to do is to signify her purpose
of starring, engage a skilled manager,
place her bank account at his disposal and
await developments. Nobody asks whether
she can act or not. She has money, lots of
it-that is sufficient. She and the business
manager must do the rest. The public
must be compelled to accept her.
Emotional stars are manufactured easily
in America, but they shed a very dim
light upon the stage and are generally de-
void of genuine luster.
There is a sense of dissatisfaction in the
profession on this point, and a growing de-
sire for better state Of things. Play
wrights are tired of having their best
pieces fail because of the incompetency of
the leading ladies, who bought their titles
to the principal roles and murdered them
with their incompetency.
Stage managers are indignant because
they are compelled to train manifestly stu
pid people for parts of which they can
never hope to be able to comprehend
tithe. And the hard-working, experienced
ladies of the profession regard as upstairs
those whose money or social backing alone
gave them the leading part in the play
Mind you, nobody objects to wealthy
woman's theatrical whim Nobody, in the
profession at all events. takes umbrage at
her desire to star in a play, if she only has
the money TO foot the bills Indeed, pro-
fessional people generally hail her as a
welcome arrival, from whom much ad-
vantage and seasons profitable work may
be derived.
The chief source of sorrow Just now to
playwrights, managers and public, how
ever is the scarcity of competent emotional
actresses. Somehow or other the girls of
America take to comedy and farce more
naturally than to tears and tragedy. As
one of the best-known condolences of the
day said to me one evening this week:
There is more money and fame in one
laugh than there is in a shower of tears on
the stage. So there is no use in becoming a
tragedienne."
ventured to suggest that Bernhardt,
Nelson, Cushman, Mary Scott Siddons,
Mary Anderson and one or two more had
not found tears and tragedy improbable.
To this she simply replied; eyes, they
found gold in tears; but only one of them
reigned at time, and l might add that
there was room for only one of them at a
time, whereas the whole world wants the
comedienne and the soubrette"
Here was point which impinged me
painfully, and could not enter into any
discussion of the theory, for l could not
accept or trample beneath my feet the
sordid proposition that all women were ac-
tuated in their devotion TO art by the gold
they should derive from it.
Yet | was and am forced to admit that
there is grave reason to believe that nine
tenths Of the ladies who go on the stage
to-day do so for gain, lucre and wealth,
rather than for honor or fame. This will
account in large measure for the absence
of the emotional ingenue," for it is unde-
niable that the popular taste runs to farce
rather than TO fervor, and that jig or
comic song reaches their souls more read
lily than the finest speech in Shakespeare.
Yes, the soubrette and the song-and-
dance artists have almost driven the emo
tional ingenues and leading juveniles from
the stage, and men and women are more
apt to laugh at the agony OF Hazel Kirke
and the potion scene of Juliet than to be
thrilled or overawed by them.
For the past six years we have been
doing our best to make the American pub
lie laugh, and playwrights of this epoch
have exhausted their cerebral fecundity
and inventive genius by their efforts to
produce laushter-proyokiug situations and