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THE NECESSITY OF STUDY.

CHAPTER IV.

Training for the Stage.-False Notions about "Genius."-The Road to Success a Road of Hard Work.-How Fanny Kemble Studied Walk, Gesture, and Accent for Years before Making a Public Appearance.The Severe Training of Rachel, the Tragedienne.-A Woman's Criticism of Rachel. Her Wonderful Powers, her Serpent-like Movements, her Thrilling Intensity.-Brief Sketch of Her Life.- Kate Bateman's Training. -Anecdote of Julia Dean.- Mrs. Mowatt's Training. Betterton, the Great English Actor.-The Severe Discipline by which He Overcame the Most Extraordinary Disadvantages, an Ugly Face, a Grotesque Figure, a Grumbling Voice, and Great Awkwardness.

I know that many people claim that actors, like poets, are "born, not made;" but so far as my own experience goes, I must say that I never knew an actor or actress to reach distinction without having passed through many long and weary years of study and toil. Of course the natural genius must be there, or all the study and toil would go for nothing; but as well might you expect a painter or a sculptor to bring forth perfect works of art without learning the rudiments, as to expect any man or woman to give, without study, a perfect delineation of a part. On the other hand, all the study in the world will not make a genius,-dramatic or other.

That is a very prevalent error in regard to "genius," which believes it capable of rising superior to the mechanical appliances of art. No more dangerous a fallacy can the mind, gifted by nature, but uncultured by art, labor under, than that of easy reliance on the intangible thing called genius; and there can be no doubt that many great intelligences, in every department of learning, art, and science, have defeated their own noble missions from their very self-sufficiency as regards their native power, and their culpable neglect of the practical methods by which

alone that power can be fostered and developed. This is especially true of the dramatic art, and yet the fact is far from being recognized by the world at large, or even the exponents of Shakspeare themselves.

It is willingly conceded that genius, and that, too, of a very high order, is indispensable to a great actor, but like the gift of the poet, it is expected to be all-sufficient,— indeed, there are many people who would be amazed to learn that there is any regular apprenticeship to be served to the trade of acting. It seems to be tacitly agreed that great actors spring, Minerva-like, into the full possession of their histrionic powers at a single bound.

We often hear the remark, "Oh, what a splendid actress Miss C. would make!" or, "If John would go on the stage he'd make his fortune!"

Now, in nine cases out of ten, the individuals in question, if put to the test, would fail signally. I remember a case in point:

A young married lady, who had two years before, when she was a girl of seventeen, vainly urged her family to allow her to go on the stage, took a sudden resolve to relieve her pecuniary embarrassments by becoming an actress.

She called on an actress for instruction; but so well assured was she that she possessed inherent tragic power that it was out of the question to teach her much. She was a genius,-everybody said it, and if further proof were needed, she felt it!

Mysterious feeling,-it was in her!

She was little, to be sure, but so was Kean. Stagefright had no terrors for her; oh, no, the illusion would carry her far beyond and above the reach of anything like that!

The important night arrived, but, as may be expected, she failed to establish herself as a worthy successor of the

46

A YOUNG LADY EXCITED.

Keans and the Kembles. With the feeling and the assurance as strong as ever, she had no voice, no presence, no power; in other words, she had not the stage-training.

When she gained it, as she afterwards did by accepting, with the martyrdom of a crushed genius, a small situation in a stock-company, it made of her a very good seriocomic and soubrette actress, in the course of some years.

A young lady of good standing in society had from childhood evinced the most ardent liking for the stage, and it is probable she would have adopted it but for the scruples of her family. As it was, she contented herself with committing to memory passages from Shakspeare and the poets, and reciting them for the edification of an admiring circle of friends.

On the occasion of a re-union at her house, an ex-actress of great ability was present. Recitations were the order of the day. The young lady declaimed. Her enthusiasm was perceptible in every vibration of her voice, in every flash of her brilliant eyes; her feeling was genuine; her emotion carried her far away from her every-day surroundings.

Surely, here was a case of self-asserting genius!

Not so; the feeling was all in herself; she had not the art to impart it to her audience of admiring friends, who saw in her merely a pretty girl, with large, luminous eyes, laboring under strong excitement, and reciting in a hurried tone familiar lines.

But when the trained actress arose, how different! She may have differed from the impulsive girl in not feeling herself, but she certainly imparted the feeling to others.

Her practiced, methodical use of her eye alone, held the spectators spell-bound, and her assumption of passion and pathos carried away their feelings as if by some subtle magnetic force.

The voice should be skilled for speaking as it is for

NATURE VS. CULTURE.

47

singing, and it is capable of almost as many fine gradations in one as in the other. A young friend of mine, on the stage, felt the necessity of having a marked course of instruction to pursue, and expressed a wish to learn elocution.

"Elocution!" exclaimed a young and "promising" actor; "Oh, that's all played out; be natural, and let elocution go."

Natural! Look at the people all around you-sensible, educated, and intellectual people, no doubt,- but just fancy every one of them on the stage, acting naturally, each retaining his or her individual peculiarities or deficiencies!

"Be natural! let elocution go!" As well say to an uneducated singer, "You have a voice-be natural-let instruction go."

It is as absurd to assume that innate dramatic force and fire take proper shape unaided, as it would be to assert that a brilliant conversationist is indebted to nature alone for his powers. If Madame de Stael had one of the most striking and original minds of the age, she also had one of the most highly polished.

Unfortunately, nature, does not often bestow upon the votaries of the dramatic art the ready requisites for its highest interpretation, and the history of its great exponents proves this beyond a doubt.

I can recall but few instances of actors having achieved great distinction, who had not previously served an apprenticeship to toilsome drudgery; and the sudden flashes of genius which electrify the world are generally the carefully prepared result of long and arduous endeavor.

Fanny Kemble, who belonged to the greatest dramatic family that ever lived, walked about her house every day, in England, for three years, in the dress of a tragedy queen

48

MRS. KEMBLE-RACHEL.

—the trailing shoulder robe, the crown, the long train,— that she might acquire perfect ease in the management of these unusual garments. The consequence was, the very first moment she stepped on the stage, she looked every inch a queen; and was as unconcerned about her costume as if it had consisted of a calico gown and sunbonnet.

This minute training extended to every part of her performances. Every word, every gesture, every syllable, was carefully studied; and yet so skilfully had this perfection been attained, that every word fell from her lips in what seemed to be a charmingly natural way—in short, the "art which conceals art" was here in its perfection. When she first appeared on the stage, it was said of her, that the mantle of her renowned aunt (Mrs. Siddons) had fallen upon her shoulders, and that she had never trod the boards in any inferior capacity.

One of the most striking examples of the value of training, that the world has ever known, is furnished in the case of the great French actress, Rachel—who certainly could afford to dispense with training if any one ever could for in her case the dramatic ability was so marked, so conspicuous, that there is little doubt she would have. shone as a very bright star even without the aid of training. Her empire as dramatic queen would not, of course, have been the undisputed one it now is, but genius was in that woman's breast, if it ever was in the breast of woman.

Rachel studied with the greatest of French tutors from childhood, and consequently the prevailing supposition that she, an ignorant girl of eighteen, interpreted with original perception the greatest dramatists of her own or any age, and blazed before the astonished world, a selfasserting, an untutored genius, is wholly without foundation.

It is said that she was but an echo of her great master,