MR. LEWES ON ACTORS AND ACTING.* THE title of this
volume led us to hope for something more than we find in its contents. Mr. Lewes is an admirable critic of the drama, and his general views of the histrionic art are often highly suggestive. He has seen most of the great actors of this century, both at home and abroad, and there are few men living more qualified to write about the art of which for so many years he has been an admirer and a critic. But the work now before us is far from satisfying the expectations that might be fairly raised when an author of Mr. Lewes's solid reputation undertakes to write on such a theme. It is simply a reprint of a number of papers, several of which, although of service as contemporary criticism, have lost much of their interest through the mere duration of time. In a dedicatory epistle, addressed to Mr. Anthony Trollope, the writer expresses his belief that the British Stage, after a considerable period of degeneracy, is awaking to new life, and he observes truly that for the success of this revival there is needed not only accomplished artists, but a more enlightened public:— "The critical pit, filled with playgoers who were familiar with fine acting and had trained judgments, has disappeared. In its place there is a mass of amusement-seekers, not without a nucleus of intelligent spectators, but of this nucleus only a small minority has very accurate ideas of what constitutes good art."
Mr. Lewes considers, therefore, that the republication of these dramatic criticisms may be opportune, and to the old matter, some of which was written long years ago, he has added a brief chapter entitled, " First Impressions of Salvini." Of the Italian actor he writes with considerable enthusiasm, as recalling the fine raptures of bygone years ; considers that his representation of Othello is, as a whole, of more sustained excellence than that of Edmund Kean ; and that of all the Hamlets he has seen, Salvini's is the least dis- appointing, and has the greatest excellencies. Those of us who have found much to delight them in Mr. Irving's powerful repre- sentation of the same character will be surprised and vexed to find that his acting is passed over in silence, and that Mr. Lewes does not even mention his name, although alluding to many representa- tions of Hamlet, and characterising Fechter's as one of the very best. The obvious inference from this omission is that the critic's judgment of Mr. Irving is by no means favourable. Be it so ; but then Mr. Lewes, while undertaking to instruct the public in matters dramatical, and to discriminate the sources of theatrical emotion, could scarcely have done anything more useful and in- structive than in pointing out the defects, if such he deem them, of the most popular Shakespearian actor that has arisen since the days of Macready. Of Macready himself, the critic's judgment, pro- nounced very many years ago, is Confirmed, as he himself points out, by the publication of the Reminiscences and Diaries. He credits this distinguished actor with great ability and conscien- tiousness, but considers that he was only a man of talent, yet of talent so marked and individual that it approached very near to genius. " He was a thorough artist," he writes, " very conscien- tious, very much in earnest, and very careful about all the re- sources of his art." The chapter upon Macready touches with singular felicity upon a topic of permanent interest, namely, the intellectual position of the actor. Mr. Lewes writes :— "It is thought a hardship that great actors in quitting the stage can leave no monument more solid than a name. The painter leaves behind him pictures to attest his power ; the author leaves behind him books; the actor leaves only a tradition. The curtain falls—the artist is annihilated. Succeeding generations may be told of his genius, none can test it. All this I take to be a most misplaced sorrow. With the best wishes in the world, I cannot bring myself to place the actor on a level with the painter or the author. I cannot concede to the actor such a parity of intellectual greatness; while at the same time I am forced to remember that, with inferior abilities, he secures far greater reward both of pudding and praise. It is not difficult to assign the causes of an actor's superior reward, both in noisy reputation and in solid guineas. He amuses. He amuses more than the most amusing author. And our luxuries always cost us more than our necessities. Taglioni or Carlotta were better paid than Edmund Kean or Macready ; Jenny Lind better than both put together The troth is, we exaggerate the talent of an actor because we judge only from the effect be produces, without inquiring too curiously into the means. But while the painter has nothing but his canvas, and the author has nothing but white paper and printer's ink with which to produce his effects, the actor has all other arts as handmaids ; the poet labours for him, creates his part, gives him his eloquence, his music, his imagery, his tenderness, his pathos, his sublimity ; the scene-painter aids him, the costumes, the lights, the music, all the fascination of the stage—all subserve the actor's effect ; these raise him upon a pedestal; remove them, and what is he ? . . . Unless some one will tell me in sober gravity (what is sometimes absurdly said in fulsome dinner speeches and foolish dedications) that the actor has a kindred genius' with the poet, whose creations ho represents, and that in their intellectual calibre Kean and Macready were nearly • On Actors and the Arg of Acting. By George Henry Lewes. London : Smith, Elder, and Co. 18Th. on a par with Shakespeare, I do not see what cause of complaint can exist in the actor's not sharing the posthumous fame of a Shakespeare. His fame while he lives surpasses that of almost all other men, Byron was not so widely worshipped as Kean. Lawrence and Northcote, Wilkie and Mulready, what space did they fill in the public eye, com- pared with Young, Charles Kemble, or Macready ? Surely this renown is ample."
Ample indeed 1 and yet it can scarcely be said to be all the renown awarded to the great actor. His name is handed down by tradition, and gathers bulk as it advances. Old playgoers recall with fond affection the glories of the stage when they were young ; memory aided by imagination gives an exaggerated, although sincere estimate of theatrical achievements, and so the actor's reputation grows in strength 19ng after he has passed away from the scene. Such fame may be only a tradition, but it is one accepted in full faith, and to its widest extent, so that if an actress equal to Mrs. Siddons and an actor surpassing Garrick were to appear upon the boards, the public would still cherish the familiar memories, and take it for granted that the new stars were inferior in brilliancy to the old.
The histrionic art, by the way, has had some of its most brilliant professors amongst women, another proof, some misogynist may say, that the actor does not take rank with the painter or the poet. There has never been a first-rate female musician or sculptor, or painter or poet, but on the boards there have been women of pre-eminent genius, and in recalling the glories of the stage, we think quite as often of actresses as actors. Of Rachel, one of the greatest who has flourished in our time, Mr. Lewes writes with genuine enthusiasm, and the following passage, with which he opens his incisive descriptions of this great actress, is worthy of quotation :—
"Rachel was the panther of the stage ; with a panther's terrible beauty and undulating grace, she moved and stood, glared and sprang. There always seemed something not human about her. She seemed made of different clay from her fellows,—beautiful, but not loveable. Those who never saw Edmund Kean may form a very good conception of him if they have seen Rachel. She was very much as a woman what he was as a man. If he was a lion, she was a panther. Her range, like Kean's, was very limited, but her expression was perfect within that range. Scorn, triumph, rage, lust, and merciless malignity she could represent in symbols of irresistible power ; but she had little tenderness, no womanly caressing softness, no gaiety, no heartiness. She was so graceful and so powerful that her air of dignity was incomparable, but somehow you always felt in her presence an indefinable suggestion of latent wickedness."
Mr. Lewes's criticism on Rachel is written with consummate skill, and he is careful to point out that his eulogistic remarks apply to the actress when she was in her prime. " Later in her career she grew careless ; played her parts as if only in a huriy to get through them, flashing out now and then with tremendous power, just to show what she could do."
There is not much to be said about the chapters on Farren, the two Keeleys, Charles Mathews, or Frederic Lemaltre. The author's criticisms are, it is scarcely needful to say, highly com- petent and satisfactory. They are such criticisms as would, on their first publication, do credit to any first-class journal, and attract the attention of all competent readers ; but time has robbed them not a little of their original flavour, and it may be doubted if their republication is likely to prove of service, as the writer hopes, in the revival of the "once-splendid art of the actor." The reader, however, will find in them a number of epigrammatic sayings and happy illustrations. Thus of Keeley he writes :—
" He was drollery personified, drollery without caricature, drollery without ugliness, drollery that had an arrare pensee of cleverness, and nothing of harshness or extravagance. To define him by a comparison, he was a duodecimo Falstaff."
And the description of the husband and wife is still more felicitous :-
"Keeley was like a fat, happy, self-satisfied puppy, taking life easily, ready to get sniffing and enjoyment out of everything. Mrs. Keeley was like a sprightly kitten, eager to make a mouse of every moving thing."
Of more permanent value are Mr. Lewes's papers on "Shakespeare as Actor and Critic " and " On Natural Acting," and the latter especially gives him an opportunity of expressing his general views of the art. Yet even this article is marked by the temporary character of the rest, and consists in considerable measure of a reply to the objections of an anonymous critic in the Reader, a journal which, after a brief and troubled life, expired many years ago. In the concluding paragraphs, the writer describes briefly and pertinently the aim of the actor :— " The actor has to select. He must be typical. His expressions must be those which, while they belong to the recognised symbols of our common nature, have also the peculiar individual impress of the character represented It is the actor's art to express in well- known symbols what an individual man may be supposed to feel, and we, the spectators, recognising these expressions, are thrown into a state of sympathy. Unless the actor follows nature sufficiently to select symbols that are recognised as natural, he fails to touch us; but as to any minute fidelity in copying the actual manner of murderers, misers, avengers, broken-hearted fathers, Sc., we really have had so little experience of such characters, that we cannot estimate the fidelity, hence the actor is forced to be as typical as the poet is. Neither pretends closely to copy nature, but only to represent nature sublimated into tie ideal."
For years past our theatres have been less and less frequented by men and women of superior culture and refinement. Not that they have ceased to love a noble art, but that since the stage has been taken possession of by half-naked ballet-girls, and the repre- sentation of burlesque and farce has superseded comedy and tragedy, there has been little to attract such spectators. The drama may afford the highest and purest intellectual pleasure, but mere spectacle only pleases children, and the extravagant and grotesque dancing on our stage, which amazed and disgusted Bunsen, can have no attraction for any well-constituted mind. There are signs of a revival, and we may hope, even against hope —for past failures will not readily be forgotten—that the London Stage will arise from its abasement, and become a school of legiti- mate and conscientious art. That Shakespeare, if well acted, will always win an audience, has been proved of late beyond possibility of question.
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