New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-11-09

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Of acting is the worst futility
in the world. You will find as much
nourishment in that as in menu
card"
1t was rather pleasant TO find that
the classically imperturbable Mr.. Drew
on c ose view softens to the blur of
everyday human indecsion. 1t was re-
assuring not to find him so overwhelm
lngly adequate to every emergency as
he is in the usual Drew play-rather
like seeing a human being suddenly
emerging from behind long barricade
Of starched shirtfronts.
isn't there something that Is COM
muncable of acting something that
becomes formulated after SO many gen.
erations of act;ng?"
Mr.. Drew shook his head and smiled.
"Acting as something that you can
Notwithstanding right and some
thing wrong! The best commentary
on that lies in kemble's remark on Ed
mund kean's Hamlet. Hezlitt or Lamb.
it is unimportant which, said that Ed
mund Kean played Hamlet as if he
read the lines by flashes of lightning
The story is that Kembl-, seeing kean
playing the role for the first time,
turned to fellow actor ard sad
WHY, if this fellow is right then we
have all been wrong And this is what
occurs over and over again in the his
tory of the stare. Each actors triumph
is in sense a reversal of form.
"By personal force he bends the
symbols of acting-the traditional
grace of voice. gesture and manner
to his will. By an inner creative heat
he subordinates and fuses these elaS
ments, and if he is powerful enough
there energies a new set of values.
They change with each generations
most powerful personalities, and it is
the cooling Of the experience into
something formal and set that makes
the good acting Of one generation the
bad acting Of the next"
"But isn't great acting, like any art,
beyond the touch of fashion"
"Perhaps. But ones pleasure In the
sight of great acting is so personal an
experience that we do not take any
we take SO much for granted and be-
leve so little as the accounts of great
acting Of the past. | have heard my
elders speak Of Macready and Kemble
and Kean, and, while their shades are
TOO august to be doubted, cannot be-
lieve that they we're as great as Booth,
whom | have seen.
at is the limitation and the great
ness of the actors art that he must
spend all he has on his own genera
ton. Any schoolboy may refuse to be-
lieve in the greatness Of Garrick He
has left nothing behind that we can
Judge him by. Of Betterton we only
know that he spent $50 for a wig. They
played Hamlet, you know, in the peri
wig and ruff1es of the period And they
played Othelo in the contemporaneous
military scarlet Which, of course.
seems quaint and ridiculous to US in
the light of q new fashion.
by an invisible scheme of compen-
sation, however, an actors reward IS
concentrated as no other artists Is.
quote from some one, cannot remem'
Der who: He stands in the suffused
light of emotion kindled by the author.
He speaks the great thoughts Of an i'm
passioned mind, and is rewarded as the
bearer of glad tidings is rewarded
though he has had nothing to do with
the facts he narrates.' True, isn't it7'
"But don't you think that tradition
does justify itself. as in your family r
"My tradition IL really that OF all