San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-04-23
HOW TO BECOME AN ACTOR
INITIATIVE FACULTY AND PHYSICAL
FITNESS REQUIRED.

the Popular Errors-A Talk with
Master.
"Acting can be taught as readily as music
or painting" said well known actor and
Skillful stage manager, a man distinguished
by his profound knowledge of everything
pertaining to dramatic art. ITO become an
actor" he continued, 1.-The pupil must be
able TO recognize emotion and must have the
initiative quality to represent it
You think, then, that any one can be
taught TO be an actorE' asked the reporter.
Yes, provided he has the initiative quality
Generally speaking, that is the sine qua non,
Just rs the recognition of tone and time is to
the student of music There are exceptions
to all rules, and know men wholly destitute
of initiative quality who are very acceptable
on the stage, simply because they do not try
to Gct at ALL but appear in their own persons
just as they do i'll private life, being so for
tunate as to have parts which merely EN-
body their own individuality. If a man can
appear gracefully as a gentleman in modern
society he ought to appear to equal advant-
age in the same character on the stage. Men
of this kind sometimes achieve moderate sue
cess in the dramatic profession because they
not strive beyond it,"
HOW TO TEACH ACTING.
''What method do you think the best for
teaching the people to act:"
First of all make them understand def
nitely what we mean by acting. To my mind
it is the representation of human emotion 10y
means of artificial and natural language.
The former consists of the words which we
=,
The latter is made up of facial expression,
geStculation, tone of voice, quality and guam
tity of voice. infiexion and meditation of
voice and rate of movement in speaking.
Natural language is universal, and is the
same yesterday, today and forever among all
the people of the earth. There is a German
proverb which says: Love understands all
languages meaning that the natural Ian
guage Of love is the same among all races
and nationalities, and it is equally true of all
other emotions. Artificial language is of
many different kinds-Frenc German En-
glish. In acting, the natural and artificial
language must be made to harmonic. This
is what Shakespeare meant when he made
Hamlet say to the players: Suit the action
to the word, the word to the action
'When the pupil has been made to analyze
the physical effects of all the various emo
tions, and consequently the natural language
in which they find expression, he should be
taught their various grades and their
mode of passing from one grade to another.
Thus joy subsidies, first into gladneSS, then
into happiness; grief becomes sorrow, sorrow
becomes sadness, etc. Let him then take up
some dramatic author, read passage, and,
having decided what emotion it is meant to
express, let him interpret the authors artif-
cial language with appropriate natural Ian
guage Of ms own. This should be practiced
till he is as familiar with the natural language
of all the emotions of the human mind as he
is with the alphabet, and can represent every
one of them by that language with as much
readiness and facility as he can repeat the
multiplication table.
"Whcn he has mastered the natural forms
Of emotional expression, turn his attention to
the artificial ones. Artificial language should
DO most carefully articulated, that its every
word may be distinctly heard by the most
distant auditor The most powerful voice is
nil without distinct articulation How often
we see actors, clergymen and other public
speakers who, though they have the voices of
StentOrS, fail to make themselves understood
simply because they have never learned to
articulate their words clearly and distinctly
Though all graduates of colleges should un-
derstani how to do this, | am surprised to
find how many Of them are wholly ignorant
with regard to it,