Los Angeles herald., 1909-07-18
BY w. HERBERT BLAKE

n more to copy life with the pho
IA tographic mnuteness of the
realist, an unconscious internal reac-
tion is seen from the very goal 1t
seems to approach. Shorn OF the
melodramatic theatricism of the elder
school of play writer's, our stage is
initiating the subtler herolcs of every
day. This it achieves by putting men
and women-especially Women-in dra-
matte situations in which they must
act, pose, deceive, to win their ends
The actor is required to act, because
the individual he impersonateS must.
The actress can simulate life, but in
this the woman whose struggle she
Visualizes is an actress Naturallsts
say the drama is becoming natural
Dramatists know that nature is al
ways dramatic"
1t is this play within a play, this
inner circle of feigned emotion, which
is the axis of plot rotation in almost
every virile drama of the period. Shir-
lev Rossmore, in THE Lion and the
Mouse" is a woman compelled to act
by the eXigenCies of her life. To save
her fathers fame, she poses as
newspaper woman, and not until she
dons this mask does the deferred ac-
tion OF the play begin. Its interest
and it's plot terminate together when
she masters Ready Money Ryder
drops the mask of indifference to her
lover and becomes a woman again
The art of impersonating this role Is
the dual one of disclosing the suffer-
ing woman within the enveloping ac-
tress. 1t is essentially an "intellec-
tual" art, and yet it imposes an emo
tional strain upon a sensitive player /
which is incalculable. No wonder
Miss Florence Reed tainted under the
pressure of her task. No wonder MISS
Florence Roberts collapsed in san
Francisco a few days ago after two
successive ordeals of this kind in ''Du
Barry" and "Sapho." Had Miss Ro-
berts let her emotional powers run
riot in these roles, as Mrs. Leslie Car
ter undiscerningly does in her Well
known method with such plays, she
would have suffered no more than does
any woman who enjoys the luxury OF
a "Pood cry" It is because like Miss
Reed in the Klein play, or Miss Neither
sole in her varied repertoire, or most
apt of all, Miss Anglin in 'Zira,' the
San Francisco actress gave the effect /
of restrained emotion that 1t has cost
her a temporary breakdown. 1t is
grief suppressed that destroys on the /
stage as in life.
The pioneer in this kind of acting is
Mrs. Minnie MaddeTn Fiske. First, a
least, of the modern American school, |
to seize upon this solution of emotional
portrayal, she has developed her method
with marvellous pains and study, until
in salvation Nell" we saw its per
fected realism, hiding a Woman's ach-
ing heart from the opening scene in the
bar room until the dawn of a new
light outside the army hall in the last
act. It is Mrs. Fiskes distinction that
her method controls her display of
feeling absolutely to the end, as 1 think
only one other American actress has
succeeded in dOinE-Miss Anglin in
"Zira." 1t is this which has given
Mrs. Fiske her generally accorded su-
premacy as an intellectual" actress
a laurel which her less penetrating and
most enthusiastic admirers resent as a
mild depreciation simply because her
method itself OVerpOWers them by its
consistency and fidelity to fact. Ad-
verse critics have long prophcsied a
peril in Mrs. Fiskes adherence to this
ideal of histriOnism, and with some
show of logical plausiblity, but thus
far, her steady advance into maturity
and splendOr of effectiveness has
laughed them to scorn, even as Mrs.
Carter at the other extreme of emo
tional Interpretation, grows less con-
vincing with each reVel in unrcpreSsed
sensationalism.
Psychology illuminates this mystery
with its confident assertion that the
most lawless sensibility implicitly
obeys some law of its own. The So
called "intelleCtual" actress merely
takes the trouble to discover the proper
statute for the given case, somewhat
as the judge on the bench makes the
punishment fit the crime. She appeals
to authority without apology for hcr
faith, where the older school of hys-
terical riot blindly followed it without
the healthy volitiOnal act of recognize
ing its infallibility.
All of which trenches so sharply on
the domain of philosophy that it is we'll
to halt the exploration at its threshold
This question of emotional stress in
stock acting is such ii practical one
that l asked Miss Helen Holmes, who
comes to the BelasCo as leading woman
during Miss Florence Reeds absence,
how it had appealed to her in an eight
years career judiciOusly divided be-
tween touring and stock. Her reply
was significant of the method of an
actress who viii be much in the local
eye during the next six weeks and
whose views deserve the respect paid
to experience and enthusiasm.
"The strain in playing an emotional
role is greater than any actress dares
let her auC ence See," was Miss Holmes
reply, Especially if the part is one in
which she must maintain her compOs-
ure to the very end of the play, as is
true of the New England heroine of
The Great Divide, a part in which I
appeared recently. And yet to me
there is an eXhilaration about playing
a frankly emotional role which more
than heals the pain of its portrayal 1t
is a positive joy to me to plunge into
such a part and let my personality per-
meate 1t, trusting largely to instinct
to avoid eXaggeration and to expert
ence in the same character night after
night to rid my portraiture of all in
diVidual mannerisms and the constant
peril of putting too much of self inyo
my work.
"Of course, acting is imitation in q
sense, as Coquelin was so tond Of in
sisting, but to me it is much more.
There must be the zest of conquest in
capturing the inner idea Of the part,
and there must be the glow of reality
In bodying it forth. IL one could not