Our Stage and Its Critics Part 9

Make-up has comparatively little to do with the capacity of an actor for differentiating his parts. Take Mr Dennis Eadie, who has an extraordinary gift for changing his personality. Those who have seen this admirable actor as Henry Jackson in _The Return of the Prodigal_, as Lord Charles Cantelupe in _Waste_, and Mr Wylder in _Strife_, must admit that changes of voice, of gesture and manner, and general expression of countenance are of greater value than tons of the cleverest make-up.

The service of make-up in its higher branches is merely to render, or, rather, seem to render, actors fit for tasks for which they are physically unsuited. Take for instance, the nose; there is a picture of Mr Morton with flattened nose and enlarged nostrils; he is said to represent Oth.e.l.lo. "The nose is first depressed by crossing it near the tip with a silk thread, which is tied at the back of the head. A small piece of kid is placed under the thread, thus keeping it from coming in contact with the skin. The nostrils are built out until the nose has a Moorish appearance."

Now, n.o.body thinks a whit the worse or less of Mr Forbes Robertson's Oth.e.l.lo because he played no tricks with his striking aquiline nose; and the idea that he would have gained anything by flattening it with a bit of silk thread is absurd. What he would have gained would have been a feeling of physical inconvenience during the quiet pa.s.sages, and terror during the tremendous scenes of pa.s.sion at the thought that the string might snap.

There are photographs of other noses, built up with nose-paste or, preferably, with "toupee" paste; one is of Falstaff, another of Shylock, and there is also one called "the Professor." In each case the whole nose looks wooden; it may be suggested that in an ordinary way movements of the nose do not play much of a part in expressing emotions, yet we have phrases about swelling nostrils and turning up one's nose that possess some foundation in fact. Further, one can hardly render the nose a dead thing without, to some extent, effecting the mobility of other features. Probably the built-up nose of Coquelin as Cyrano de Bergerac will be thrown in my face; it must, however, be remembered, that apart from his large elastic mouth Coquelin's face was rather wooden, and he relied for expression chiefly on voice, mouth, gesture and movement. No doubt in this particular character there is a necessity, and, therefore, a justification for a built-up nose; but more than one actor has failed to fight successfully against the artificial proboscis of Cyrano.

Used as more than a counteracting or embellishing contrivance, "make-up" is curiously ineffective. Many Napoleons have appeared on the stage, only one of them by a writer capable of even suggesting the distinguishing qualities of the man of genius. In most cases there have been advance paragraphs about the pictures, miniatures, statues, statuettes, medallions, bas-reliefs, etc., consulted by the actor, and concerning the contrivances of the wigmaker, even the bootmaker and tailor. What has been the outcome? Merely that for half-a-minute people have said: "What a clever make-up," and for the rest of the time one has been no more content to accept the player as Jupiter Scapin than if he had washed his face, brushed his hair and acted in his dress clothes.

Does Mr Cavendish Morton think players were really worse off before the latest refinements in make-up were invented? Some of the greatest acting triumphs of the world were accomplished when the players dressed their parts absurdly, trusting almost exclusively to their own powers.

One is forced to wonder to what extent covering the face with the ma.s.s of muck hinders the actor in his work. People can be trained to endure it, but it would be interesting to see the difference in the performance of a given part by an actor with an elaborate make-up--false nose, etc.--and by the same actor without. Mr Arthur Bourchier, when growing a beard for the purpose of playing Henry VIII., stated that he would have been embarra.s.sed by a sham beard. Can it be that the triumph that we sometimes see, of the actress over the actor, is partly due to the fact that she reduces make-up to the minimum?

No one denies the necessity for make-up. When young players have to represent old people it is their duty to take advantage of the advice of experts such as Mr Morton, and every one may find valuable hints in his book. The really important fact is that all should be warned against such a proposition as lies in the hideous sentence, "Is not half the battle won when one perfectly physically realizes the character to be impersonated?"

Gesture

Some years ago, at one of the theatrical clubs, the existence of which is one of the many tokens of the great interest at present taken in the drama, Mr Alfred Robbins, a very able, highly esteemed critic, gave a lecture upon "The Value of Ballet in Dramatic Art," which was ill.u.s.trated charmingly. For, in order to show how a story could be interpreted without words, Miss Genee, the brilliant dancer, ably a.s.sisted by Miss D. Craske, represented the ballet scene from _Nicholas Nickleby_, between the infant phenomenon and the Indian.

There was no little discussion afterwards upon the question whether the art of miming, one of the two main elements of the ballet, is or can be serviceable to the ordinary stage. Several seemed to have the opinion that the art of dumb show is almost useless to the player, the argument being that, as far at least as modern comedies are concerned, so little gesture is used on the stage that training in the mode of employing it is superfluous. The introduction of trouser pockets was said to have destroyed the need for gesture. In such views lie certain dangerous fallacies.

The actor who thinks that by mode of speech and facial display, and without carefully calculated gesture, he can carry through a part in a modern comedy probably is misled by the thought that the English are more sober in gesture than the Latin races: and his contempt for the work of the mime is based on a belief that certain purely conventional gestures, inapplicable save in wordless scenes, const.i.tute the whole materials of the mime's art. The mime certainly has a kind of dumb language with a limited vocabulary, understood, unfortunately, by few English people save those connected with the stage; part of his silent speech has never crept into the common language; yet to sneer at it as conventional is wrong, it is merely a case of certain conventional gestures not having been generally adopted, and therefore remaining unintelligible to the world.

For most of our gestures are conventional. Nearly all peoples understand what the European means when he shakes his head and when he nods it; nevertheless, there are races which use these movements in an exactly opposite sense. The offer to rub noses as a sign of welcome employed by some tribes was misunderstood by early explorers, and when, in friendly spirit, certain tribes stroked the waistcoat of the missionary, he guessed that they were cannibals.

Kissing (in one aspect a matter of gesture) is unused by whole nations, and so, too, is handshaking. It has been said by a traveller that the vulgar operation described by Barham in the line "Put his thumb unto his nose and spread his fingers out" is a mark of courtesy and esteem in one remote nation; nor is putting out the tongue a sign of contempt everywhere. Certain of the gestures of ballet still strictly conventional in England are employed outside the theatre in France.

Gesture and facial expression, except so far as mechanically due to emotion, are entirely conventional, though some of the conventions are so old as to have become second nature.

Most people are unaware how largely they adopt the conventions; this unconscious adoption in the end has turned the conventional into the natural. It is the study of this conventional-natural which enables the mime to accomplish remarkable feats; combining it with simple descriptive movements, and a few of the gestures still purely conventional in England, Signor Rossi, in _A Pierrot's Life_, was able to delight our audiences by his dumb-show narration of the complicated tale of the two pigeons, and Signora Litini in the same piece showed with subtlety a whole gamut of emotions. Miss Genee, at the Empire, without uttering a sound, used to be more eloquent than many of our players with whole lengths of dialogue. To a great extent Duse fascinates most playgoers by her plastic art, since they do not understand her speech.

Now, to employ to its full extent the art of the mime in conjunction with spoken speech would be absurd. The light and shade in the speech of the most "natural" actor--say, Mr Charles Hawtrey--is violently exaggerated on account of the peculiar acoustics of the theatre; amongst other things, the player has to address those far off in the galleries as well as those close to in the stalls, and therefore his work requires a series of compromises like that of a piano-tuner anxious to avoid "wolves" or a politician eager to win votes. Moreover, on account of the lack of speech the plastic art of the mime involves great exaggeration in the conventional-natural gestures and also in the movements and facial expression intended to represent those mechanically caused by emotion.

It is therefore necessary for the actor to mime in a modified and restrained fashion, abandoning, of course, all the still purely conventional and showing much moderation in the rest. When he nicely combines expression by the voice with expression by face, gesture and pose the result is very valuable. Few can do this, and the failure is nearly always in respect of gesture, which is misused or insufficiently employed. A study of the great statues and pictures, and such works as those of Sir Charles Bell, Lavater, d.u.c.h.esne, Gratiolet and Darwin has enabled the mime to collect a series of rules for the expression of emotions. How rash of the player to trust entirely to his own ideas, and not avail himself of the knowledge of others! Some may regard such conduct as exhibiting originality: it is, however, a sad waste of time to try to find out for oneself what others are willing and able to teach, and there is a great risk of error.

Moreover, the mime teaches grace of movement and pose, and enables the player to employ usefully the limbs which as a rule seem an enc.u.mbrance to him. The poor ladies have not even trouser-pockets wherein to hide the hands, the existence of which embarra.s.ses them, but they can conceal the legs, which so often are troublesome to the actor.

The restlessness of English acting--one of its worst faults--is, I believe, due to the player feeling half-consciously that he does not know what to do when he is not speaking. In a conversation scene, during which two finely trained artists would not leave their seats, our players generally appear to be having a game of musical chairs; and actors could be named who take their "const.i.tutionals" on the stage.

Moreover, one very rarely sees a player listening effectively, yet I have watched an actor who, though silent during a long speech, has by means of finely studied poses and nicely calculated gestures greatly increased the force of the speech to which he was supposed to be listening. No doubt all actors and actresses seek the aid of pose and gesture and get advice from stage-managers: very often the case is one of the blind leading the blind.

It will be objected that a study of such a system may tend to make the player mechanical, and also to cause all the members of a company to resemble one another too greatly: there is some truth in the objection.

Still, this is an abuse not inseparable from the use. The intelligent mime fully recognizes the fact that the gestures proper to the members of one cla.s.s of people are not necessarily suitable to those of another, and that there are individual differences as well. He distinguishes between the sober, and therefore striking, gesture of the Englishman and the unimpressive gesticulation of the meridional; between the poses of the king and att.i.tudes of the peasant, and so on.

The highly trained artist knows how, upon rare occasions, to produce a great effect by conscious breach of a rule. To argue against a use from a _needless_ abuse is not legitimate, a proposition dear to Jeremy Bentham. There is also a grave fallacy in the idea that gesture is less important in presenting an Englishman than a member of a gesticulative race, for vehement gesture is impressive in direct proportion to its rarity, and effects have been produced by the fine, slight movement of one of our actresses at a critical moment which surpa.s.sed in force anything possible if she had been lavish in gesture throughout. Need it be added that the training of the body insisted upon by the mime would cause some of our players to move more gracefully on the stage? Several of our popular players walk as if they had hired their limbs and not had time to become accustomed to them.

Scenery at the French Plays

One might almost say there is none. A foreign management at the New Royalty Theatre produced a number of works mounted in a fashion that would horrify an ordinary West End London manager, and yet the rather daring season was really successful. So much the better. Probably if the cost of production of each play had been ten times greater n.o.body's pleasure would have been appreciably increased and the receipts would not have advanced perceptibly. It is doubtful whether the scenery for the baker's dozen or so of plays cost as much as is often expended by our managers on a single work.

Is there no lesson in this? Why, if an audience can be attracted, interested, and even delighted in the Soho house, though play and players are not aided by the expenditure of barrelfuls of money on the mounting, should it be deemed necessary to employ a small fortune every time a work is presented by our native managers? As far as I can judge, the French season, although triumphant, was not marked by the appearance of any prodigious star with whom we were not already familiar, nor were the new pieces of astounding quality.

The truth is that the a.s.sistance given by costly mounting is very little. The scene which by its magnificence causes a gasp of surprise loses all its effect after two or three minutes, and unless the play and acting are really meritorious the audience is quite as much bored when the mounting is splendid as when it is merely decent. Possibly it is even more bored; unwittingly it is affected by a sense of disproportion.

We all know that jewellery does not embellish a plain woman; that, on the contrary, after a minute or two, one ceases to gaze on the gewgaws and then the sight of the ugly face comes as something of a shock.

Consider the jarring effect of a n.o.ble pearl necklace upon a scraggy neck, and, changing the figure, think how disappointing is a bad dinner served beautifully. There is a French phrase concerning a scanty meal on a flower-decked table that seems in point: _Il m'a invite a brouter et je l'ai envoye paitre._ Sydney Smith, after a mean dinner served in a gorgeous room, observed that he would prefer "a little less gilding and a little more carving."

Mr H.B. Irving, in a lecture given at the Royal Inst.i.tution, ascribed the alleged pre-eminence of actors during the Garrick period to the weakness of the current drama and the economy in stage-mounting, two matters that forced the players to tremendous exertion in order to hold the house, which, by the way, he believes to have been very finely critical. An audience is more truly observant of plays and playing when its attention is not distracted by considering the cost of the costumes, by wondering if the marble pillars are solid, by curiosity as to how the lighting effects are contrived, and by asking whether the play will run long enough to earn its initial cost.

Whether the large sums of money expended produce an effect agreeable to the trained eye is a little outside the topic. Yet it must be suggested that such beauty as the costly stage pictures present generally belongs to the category of the very obvious. This is not surprising; if a great deal of money is spent in order to produce a gorgeous spectacle, common-sense demands that the result should be to the taste of a vast number of people, otherwise the management must lose money. It would be idle to pretend that there are very many playgoers who possess fine taste, consequently the money must be lavished in order to delight people with a more or less uncultivated taste. No doubt a great deal of money may be spent on quiet details, and sometimes is, without the attention of the ordinary playgoer being drawn to the expenditure, but the case is exceptional. In plain English, it very rarely happens that the extravagant sums employed in mounting plays produce a beauty that appeals successfully to any people save those whose ideas of the pictorial art are bounded by the exhibitions of the Royal Academy.

Moreover, consideration is paid to the fact that there are Philistines who will admire a thing merely because they believe it to be costly.

Certainly there is much to be said on the other side, or at least a great deal is urged by people who believe what they say. It has been pretended that Shakespeare would have been delighted by such productions of his works as we have seen in modern times, and have rejoiced in the pictures contrived by the scene-painter, costumier and others working under the direction of the producer. To this it has been objected that, though the pictures might have pleased him, he would have been disgusted by the fact that a good many of his beautiful lines have to be cut because of the length of _entr'actes_ and occasional pieces of stage business designed in order to draw the attention of the audience to the beauty of the scenery.

The reply is made that a large quant.i.ty of the most famous pa.s.sages in Shakespeare are descriptive of scenery, and would not have been written but for the fact that he had no other means of conveying his ideas to the audience. If there be any truth in this, one may be very thankful for the fact which coerced him into his word-painting. Certainly the world has profited by this compulsion, for millions who have never and will never see the theatre's efforts to represent Shakespeare's pictures have had infinite pleasure from the author's successful endeavours to realize his ideas by the force of words.

As I have already mentioned, Mr H.B. Irving ascribes the alleged superiority of the Garrick-period actors to their lacking the help of the fine scenery of notable contemporary dramas. It would seem to follow that in his opinion the alleged weakness of modern acting is due to the fact that the players rely too much upon the plays and scenery. Upon this aspect of the matter no opinion need be offered, but it may be said confidently that Mr Irving's theory applies to dramatists, and that the existing playwrights unconsciously become somewhat less self-reliant because they have such a.s.sistance from the producers.

The art of the theatre is the art of illusion and also of compromise, and no rule connected with the stage can be pushed quite home to its apparent logical conclusions: therefore one must have some amount of appropriate scenery, and costumes may not be flagrantly incongruous; but when once these modest demands have been satisfied the audience will be well content with mounting in which nothing more is involved if the play be well written and acted, and agreeable in style to its taste; and we know very well that some of the longest runs have been enjoyed by works produced at little cost.

The New Royalty productions would not have pleased people any the more by having money lavished upon scenery. In one or two cases, for a moment or two some of us smiled a little unkindly at the black cloth and wings, and yet after a minute or two we ceased to notice them, with the result that the management has been able to save its money in the individual works and to produce a large number of pieces in a short time. Putting aside plays merely intended for spectacular effect, after a few hundred pounds have been spent managers do not get the benefit to the extent of more than a shilling in the pound or so of the really enormous sums expended upon plays.

Stage Costumes

There is a story concerning an enthusiastic collector who devoted almost a fortune and nearly a lifetime to decorating and furnishing his drawing-room so that it should resemble perfectly a Louis XV. _salon_.

He invited an expert to visit it and express his opinion. The critic came, inspected, left the room, and locked the door; then he said, "It is perfect," and promptly threw the key into the moat. "Why did you do that?" asked the collector. "For fear," replied the expert, "lest anybody should spoil the effect of your _salon_ by entering it in modern costume inharmonious with it." There is another tale about a hostess who wept sorely because the effect of her dinner-table decoration was marred by the appearance of a lady in a costume of pillar-box vermilion. These stories are entirely untrue, and were invented by "G.F.S.": nevertheless, they have a moral when applied to the stage.

Of course it is very rash for a male, unless he happens to be a man milliner, to write about the costumes of actresses; and we leave untouched the clothes of the actor, lest our own and their lack of style should be put forward as a ground for disqualification. Still it is impossible to avoid noticing the dresses of the ladies upon the stage; it would even be bad manners not to do so, seeing how much trouble the dear creatures take to please our eyes, for we are too gallant or vain to believe the cynical idea that they only dress to crush one another.

After noticing them, it is amusing and amazing to read the newspaper articles generally called "Dresses at the * * * Theatre" which appear after a _premiere_. Of course exception is made of the articles written for a paper necessarily nameless. Even with good opera-gla.s.ses one can yet never detect a tenth of the details described in these articles, and at times it appears that the writers suffer from colour-blindness, for they often differ utterly as to the colours of the gowns; perhaps it is more modern to call them "frocks."

There is, however, a simple explanation. The clothes critics have described their subjects from an inspection at the milliner's or modiste's or in dressing-rooms, and thus have noticed the minutiae invisible across the footlights, and recorded colours which have changed when viewed in another light. Moreover, they never suggest that the dresses are ugly, or clash with one another; partly, no doubt, because their ideal of criticism has for foundation the epitaph upon an alleged dramatic critic to the effect that he had never caused an actor's wife to shed a tear, and partly for the reason that they do not see the dresses in relation to one another or from the point of view of an audience on the other side of the orchestra. Even less charitable explanations might be made.

The scene-painter works with a broad brush; he knows that microscopic detail would be wasted, and worse than wasted, for it would cause a muddy effect. Sometimes, but too rarely, he is even a believer in pure colour. The stage _modiste_ has other theories, or perhaps none. Instead of seeing that all demanded or permitted by the optics of the stage lies in line and colour, she breaks up line by ridiculous ribbon, foolish flounces and impertinent bows, and the dresses in colouring often "swear at one another." Even the translated French phrase is not quite strong enough to indicate the discord. Does she ever consider the costumes in relation to the scenery? Sometimes we see frocks in tender hues against richly toned scenes that make them appear mere shades of dirty yellows, blues and pinks. At others a cool, tranquilly pleasing background is degraded to mere dulness in consequence of the gaudy gowns in front of it. Does the word _repoussoir_ mean any thing to her? Perhaps she is unacquainted with the meaning of it although she possesses a jargon of French as staggering as that of a menu in a British hotel.

There are other crimes. It has been said that your fashionable milliner sometimes "tries it on the dog." It is hinted that she makes upon the beautiful ladies of the stage experiments which she dare not risk upon her more exalted patrons. If this be true it will explain the fact that many an actress who is beautiful outside the theatre seems plain on the boards because her costume does not suit her style, because her figure is sacrificed for the sake of the frock, because dainty little features are overwhelmed by gowns of strident colour and overshadowed by terrific headgear. The coiffeur is often to be blamed. Questions of "make-up"

may be concerned with the case.

The question, like all questions, has another side. These remarks may be answered with some force by saying that the illusion of the stage would disappear if all the costumes in a play were harmonious, since no one could pretend that all the characters are likely to have dressed themselves in order to agree with the colouring of the scenery, or to have chosen costumes in order to harmonize with one another.

The cynic would even hint that probably if the dear ladies thought of the matter at all they would try to chose frocks likely to crush those of their friends, and that no one going into society would venture to use subtle shades or tranquil tints for fear of suffering like the painters of delicate pictures at the hands of the waggish Hanging Committee of the Royal Academy, which loves to put a work shrieking with vigorous colour by the side of a placid canvas that appears insipid by reason of the contrast. The reply to this answer is that we have hardly reached a degree of truth to life which renders it pertinent--and probably never will. Certainly there might be a noticeable fault if all the dresses of ladies of different families obviously showed the design and _facture_ of one modiste. This could easily be avoided without prejudice to the point of harmony in colour and congruity of line.

Is it extravagant to hope that some day a dress rehearsal will be a rehearsal of dresses at which some person of taste--everyone would accept Mr Wilhelm--will see all the frocks actually worn by the actresses upon the stage under the ordinary lighting conditions, against the scenery intended to be employed and then point out what is necessary to produce a real harmony of colour and also to take full advantage of, and in some cases enhance, the beauty of face and form possessed by the ladies who are to appear in the play?

One more point may be touched upon. Stage managers should pay more attention to suitability of costume and require actresses to make sacrifices repugnant to their natural and desirable instinct for coquettishness. One often sees a player in a costume utterly inconsistent with the poverty of the character misrepresented by her, particularly if she is acting the part of a peasant or poor shopgirl and the like, when her hair will show that it has been dressed by a coiffeur at a cost that would be unpayable by the character. Things like this destroy the illusion of the stage. It may be noted that in this respect the French and German actresses behave better than ours, and accept, doubtless with reluctance, a sacrifice of personal charm for sake of character too rarely seen upon our stage. A last matter--why is it supposed that almost all the characters in a play are wearing new clothes on a first night?

Colour