The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1895-07-03
ACTORS BY NATURE.
ALL ARE SUCH. ACCORDING TO An
INSTRUCTOR IN STAGEcRAFT.

ALL ARE SUCH. ACCORDING TO AN
INSTRUCTOR IN sTAGEcRAFT.
Every Child, He saya. IL Born IN Actor, but
the Gift IL In Most Cases Soon Marred by
Self Consciousness-Early Training and
It's Powerful Effect.
"The ability to express, in voice and
lace and motion. the ideal which the
mind conceives is the actors talisman
Ct success, said we'll known instruct
or in n of the dramatic schools when
asked to define the essential qualifica-
ton Of an aspirant for dramatic honors.
mot to represent a character, but to be
it, is what wins the audience. Great
earnestness counts, of course, and deli.
cacy Of conception, careful training, ex-
perience, and all that, but complete
abandon to the emotions of the moment
IL what sways mems minds. That is
genius!
Every child is q born actor" he
went on. land to prove that we have
only to watch the expression and move
ments Of a little child when it is in a
room by itself and is of specta-
tors. 1t 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 q change. Self
consciousness has come in with the
locker on, and the child is constrained
and shy. The grace Of movement, the
bright, animated gesture and inimitable
expression are gon AS the child grows
older this constraint, this repression, in
creases, particularly in America, where,
from babyhood, she is taught to disguise
her real feelings. You must not laugh
aloud, it isn't refined; you must walk
quietly and sedately and not attract at
tention.'
This is a sample of the lesson Of self
repression, inculcated line upon line,
precept upon precept, day after day, un-
til the real nature becomes walled in
within the artificial one. When that
girl gets to be 20 or more, she has q
yearning for the stage. She feels that
she can portray some of the characters
which SO interest and appeal to her. She
enters a 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
interviewer 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, sis a
young Pennsylvania girl who came to
me with her mother last season. MY
daughter has been educated in Paris,
and she is most anxious to go on the
stage. She feels that she can do some
thing in that line and will not be con.
tented until she tries, , said the mother.
l looked at the 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
vas about II. very dark and quite good
looking, l asked her to recite something.
She stood up and began to repeat a poem
about an Indian nurse. The nurse was
foster mother to a kings son, had nurs-
ed him at her breast along with her own
child Of the same age. In o revolution
the mob came to kill the kings son,
and the nurse, in loyalty to her SOW
ereign, substituted her baby for the heir
to the throne. Before the girl was half
through with the story l had to stop
her. The tears were running down her
cheeks, and realized that my own eyes
were moist. That girl is going to make q
name for herself. She seemed to acquire
by intuition what other pupils would
take months to learn. l attribute her ex-
traordinary power Of expression to her
having been brought up in Paris, free
and nnconstrained in IN atmosphere
where every one is enthusiastic and is
not ashamed of it, and where emotion
is expressed naturally.
AFTER q brief interval Of instruction
l placed her on the road where she
would come directly in contact with the
technicalities Of the business and have
the advantage Of being with a good
company. 1t will not be long before the
public hears from her.
lit has been my experience that the
French, italian, Spanish, Mexican, He.
brew-any of ~thesouthern races-possess
this nameless abandonment, this per-
sonal magnetism, as it were, in excess
Of any other 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-
sonate miners, westerners. New Eng
landers, farmers, darkies, any Of the
various phases Of typical American life,
we find ample material right at hand.
1t, however, we wish to depict q draw.
ing room scene with setting complete
and to the life, we must call on a for.
eign country for the actors. 1t is q lam.
entable fact that, SO far as the stage is
concerned, we must 60 to England for
our gentlemen. For some reason the
leisure class in America, the men Of
breeding and culture. when choosing a