Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-03-15
ACTORS BY NATURE.
ALL ARE SUCH. ACCORDING TO AN
 INSTRUCTOR IN STAGECRAFT.

face and motion, tho ideal which the mind eonceives is tho actors talisman of success /" said we'll known instruct or in ono of the dramatic schools when asked to define the essential qualifioa- tion of an aspirant for dramatic honors. Mot to represent q character. but to be it, is what wins the audience. Great earnestness counts, of course, and deli. oacy of conception, careful training, ex- perience. and all that, but complete abandon to the emotions of the moment is what sways mems minds. That is geniusl
 Every child is born actor," he went on, land to prove that we have only to watch tho expression and move- ments of little child when it is i'll a room by itself and Is unaware of speota- tors. It will be initiating in pantomime alternately the persons and animals it knows or has seen. Enter the room and ask the little one to do that over for auntie or uncle, or whoever it may be- and immediately there is change. Self OO4AOO4OAoAlOoo Altto OO11AO III W1Gd bl10 locker on, and tho child is constrained and shy Tho grace of movement, the bright, animated gesture and inimitable expression arc gone. As the child grows older this constraint this repression, in- ereases, particularly in America, where from babyhood, she is taught to disguise her real feelings You must not laugh aloud, it ism refined; you must walk quietly and sedately and not attract at tontion
 This is a sample of the lesson of self repression, ineulcated line upon line preeept upon precept, day after day, un- til the real nature becomes walled in within the artificial one When that girl gets to be 90 or moro, she has yearning for the stage. She feels that she can portray some of the characters which so interest and appeal to her. She enters dramatic school; but, alas, it is too late The desire to act is there, and the accurate conception, but the ar tifcial routine so instilled by precept and practice has become inextricably interwoven with the natural instinct, and it cannot be eradicated. She is in the shackles of self consciousness
 My greatest find in the last year or two, continued the speaker, lis young Pennsylvania girl who came to mo with her mother last season. My daughter has been educated ill Paris and she is most anxious to go on the stage She feels that she can do some thing i'll that line and will not be con. tented until she tries, said the mother looked at tho girl who sat quietly by with rather an indifferent expression on her face, and was not prepared to find in her anything very promising She was about F, very dark and quite good looking. Iasked her to rooite something. She stood up and began to repeat poem about an Indian nurse. The nurse was foster mother to king s son. had nurs- ed him at her breast along with her own child of tho same age. In a revolution the mob came to kill the kings son, and the nurse, in loyalty to her sov- ereign, substituted her baby for the heir to tho throne Before tho girl was half through with tho story l had to stop her The tears were running down her checks and 1 realized that my own eyes were moist That girl Is going to make namo for herself She seemed to acquire by intuition what other pupils would take months to learn. attribute her eX- traordinary power of expression to her having been brought up i'll Paris, free and unoonstrained in an atmosphere where every one is enthusiastic and is not ashamed of it, and where emotion Is expressed naturally
 After a brief interval of instruction placed her OH tho road where she would como directly in contact with the techniCalities of tho business and have the advantage of being with a good company. It will not be long before the public hears from her
 Ut has been my experience that the French, Italian, Spanish. Mexican, He- brew-any of thesouthern raees-possess this namoless abandonment, this per sonal magnetism, as 1t were, i'll excess of any ot&er nation" continued the speaker And where it is found in an eminent degree in Americans they gen. orally have some strain of foreign blood. Americans make unsurpassed character actors-that is, when we wish to per senate miners, westerners. New Eng flanders, farmers, darkies, any of the various phases of typical American life, we find ample material right at hand. If, however, we wish to depict draw ing room scene with setting complete and to the life, we must call on for eign country for the actors. It is lam entable fact that, so far as the stage IS concerned, we must go to England for our gentlemen. For some reason the leisure class in America, the men of breeding and culture when choosing n profession, do not select the stage. It may be that the calling of an actor Is not looked upon, on this side of the wa ter, as sufficiently dignified; but. be that as it may, of all the applicants for histrionio honors in this country only 8 few of them are recruited from the ranks of recognized gentlemen sons. IT., E,1oIop6 if is ii Thara arc