The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-29
EDITH WHARTON ON
 FISKE'S METHODS
cOMMENDs THE WAY IN WHICH THE ACTRESS HAS SWEPT ASIDE EsUPERANUATED coNVEN- TONS OF THE STAGE.

Edith Wharton, the eminent novelist, has decided views on the subject of act Ing, although she rarely has given them public expression. Not long ago the author of ''The House of Mrth' wrote an essay on Mrs. Fiske and her methods, using that artists interpretation of "Tess of the D DUrbervilles" to illustrate the power and effectiveness of natural act ing.
 The Anglo-Saxon stage has it's accept ed code of signals-its hieroglyphs of speech and gesture said Mrs. Whar- ton. According to these a person who in real life would be likely to sit quietly and speak in restrained tones is required to pace the stage like a panther and bel- low out his sentiments or produce them in slow, chanting drawl. To any one ob1ecting that this tissue of unrealties does not suggest a rendering of real life, managers and critics reply with unan- imous contempt that the stage perspec- tive must be preserved and that natural acung will not carry
 Mrs. Fiske has not, 1t Is true. disre- garded the perspective of the stage: no actress with grain of dramatic feeling coll. do that She has simply had the courage to sweep aside a mass of super annuated conventions. to trust a little to the intelligence of her audience and to give them, in the most direct and simple terms of which dramatic interpretation is capable, a superbly living presentment of HarGy's heroine.
 ITO a theatregoer seeing Mrs. Flske Tor the first time and insenslbly pre- pared for a more or less skillfu use of familiar methods the performance must come with almost startling effect Is 1t possible such d spectator might exclaim that the American stage has at last produced an actress who. without losing for a moment the sense of theatrical linn itations, and without obtaining her eff lects by the use of cheap colloquilsm has managed to express a simple charac- ter in simple terms. without resortng to a single recognizable stage deviee? This is, in fact, what Mrs. F'iske has dons and in celebrating the feat one is tempt ed to rate her courage almost as high as her talent.
 "Where there is so much to praise it is difficult to select; but perhaps Mrs Fiske's chief distinction lies in her so- briety of method, in her marvellous skill in producing effects with the smallest expenditure of voice and gesture. Her extraordinary realism deserves special commendation because it never once oversteps the bounds of stage illusion because in detail 1t Is the produce, not of haphazard divination but of keen sense of stage requrements-the art that conceals art.
 Mrs. Fiske has heroically eschewed the temptation to take her audience by the two effects most certain of success -sentimentalty and coarseness. And the result is a triumph for that much under rated faculty, the intelligence of the the atrical public. The audience vibrates to every one of Mrs. Fiske's touches A breath of fresh air, an unwonted thrill of reality, permeates the stale atmosphere of the theatre. Every gesture, every in- tonatlon of Mrs. F'iske reaches It's mark One feels through the whole packed and breathless house the sweep of that mighty force which burgess the emotions by pity and terror The actress has every heartstring In her grip.
 Such talent united to such art can not be too highly commended in these days of theatrical clap-trap and triviality Let Mrs. Fiske give New York few more of such Representations and she will do more than all the managers and all the dramatic critics to raise the theatrical Ideals of the public, and restore the dig nifty of the drama"