The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-12-24
ANACONDA news.
ATTRACTIONS OF A WEEK
What the Margaret Theatre
Offers for the Holidays.
AN INTERESTING ACTOR
What James Neill Has to Say of His
Professicn-Movine Pictures OF
the Big Fight Not to
Be Seen.
AN INTERESTING ACTOR

There VIII arrive in Anaconda Tues
day one of the most interesting figures
upon the American stage. A gentle
man whose striking success, has been
attained by years of constant and per-
sistent ambitious endeavor to offer pa
irons of the drama only that which is
wholesome and best, presented in only
The most deserving fashion That gem
tleman is James Neill of the splendid
Neill company that is to present "A
Bachelors Romance" at the Margaret
heater.
Born in Savannah, Ga, and educated
at the Carolina military school and
University of Georgia, never associated
with anything but the best of theatre
cal organizations, his services always
in demand by the leading managers
of the country, even during his early
stage career, a student and stage di-
rector of rare discrimina ton, a lover
of that which is" educating and en-
nobling and polished and refined gem
tleman in private life, Mr.. Neill stands
to-day an ideal example of the Amer
lean actor and one of a class toward
which the American stage can always
look with hope. Mr.. Neill finds in the
instructive popular dread of what is
called theatrical methods in private
me d pIuOl lHdL LIl6 lnIllCllOn results
not from too much dramatic training,
but from too little. He argues that if
all were given some theatrical train
ing we should none of us be ''theatri-
CAL
mo one" said Mr.. Neill recently.
''can look into the methods of the mod
ern schools of acting without feeling
not merely how good a thing this is
for actors, but how good a thing it
would be for everybody"
In his judgment the world would &C
knowledge this more quickly if it could
at all realize that the splendid results
seen upon the stage are really the re-
suit of training.
:. 1t is genius. untaught. unshackled,
soaring to the stars above the petty
lectures of the schools and the stage
manager, exclaims the popular heart, -
said Mr.. Neill ito a representative Of
this paper.
6. Tt is not genius observes the clos
er critic, it is art; art that has pa
tiently studied the finest types of ma
ture, and has succeeded in copying her
as only an artist can copy
1t is not art eXclaims Delsarte
and his modern disciples, it is science:
exact and methodical science, studying
the effects of art as an Interpretation
Of nature, formulating the result into
q, code of laws that can be mastered
by even the dullest of us, and finally
teaching us to improve even upon ma
ture herself.
"Of course to my mind none of these
gentlemen is entirely right: only We
who listen to them ALL and who be-
lieve in golden mean, are right, when
we say that it is undoubtedly a mix
ture of all three. Art in drama, as in
everywhere else, is not merely an in
depreciation of nature, but something
beautiful added to nature.
strangely enough, mere contempla-
ton of artistic models will not help
one ito beautiful dramatic expressions
of your own. You might see the finest
actor or actress of the Neill company
dismiss a servant on the stage once a
week for a year, without it occurring
to you when you go home, to try to
improve upon your own method OF
sending for your morning paper or Or
dering more coal put on the fire. But
once again admittance to the work
shops where the members of our COM
pany study and rehearse, and even be-
fore you begin your own training, mere
contemplation of the methods instead
of the results, of the science instead
of the art of expression, will startle
YOU with the sudden revelation Why,
I too might speak distinctly if I should
try. and learn ito do a simple thing
gracefully"