Our Stage and Its Critics | Page 8

the acting. For the
criticism of the acting is the most trying part of our work, and though,
as a rule, it does not occupy more than say a fourth of the article--if so
much--it often takes as long to write as the rest. Indeed, the shorter it is
the longer it takes, for the difficulty of nice employment of language is
in direct ratio to the brevity of matter. With half-a-column in which to
move about there is no trouble in finding finely contrasted adjectives
and avoiding repetition of epithets.
We all feel--and correctly--that when the play is new our greatest
energy should be devoted to it. Indeed, there is a strong tendency to
adopt the idea contained in a phrase of Mr Gordon Craig's to the effect
that the players are "performers in an orchestra," and since a play is not
like a piece of chamber-music, where the performers are treated
individually, but rather resembles a work performed by a full band,
there is an almost valid excuse for paying comparatively little attention
to the acting. Sometimes one makes desperate endeavours to avoid
dealing with the company in a lump at the end by referring in the
descriptive account (which is the journalistic contribution to the

criticism) to the individual performers; but it is not easy to do so
without interfering with the course of the description.
There are many difficulties in treating the work of the actors and
actresses briefly, but to handle it at length and in proportion would
require a space which editors are unable to give. No doubt the first of
the difficulties is the one already indicated. Wrongly or rightly, it is felt
(even by journalists who do not accept the traditions of _The Daily
Telegraph_) that there is a poverty-stricken air about the use of the
same adjective in consecutive sentences, and though we try to be
honest in opinion, we have a workman's vanity in our efforts which
asserts itself strongly and causes us, at some sacrifice of accuracy, to
vary the epithets.
Moreover, single adjectives tell very little.
To say that Mr X. acted admirably, Miss Y. gave a capital performance,
Mr Z. played in excellent style, gives little information, and when there
are half-a-dozen to be named it is almost impossible to ring the changes.
Furthermore, perhaps unconsciously, we are moved, fatuously no doubt,
by the feeling that the earlier part of the article is intensely interesting
to all the world, but that no one save the players and their personal
friends and enemies will even glance at these concluding sentences. Yet
one knows that they are of serious importance to the persons actually
concerned, though some of them say that they never read them.
The fact that so many theatres are in the hands of actor-managers is one
reason why these phrases are important, for the actor-manager is
compelled very often to choose or refuse a player on the strength of
hearsay testimony: ours is hearsay evidence in the most accessible form,
and even the managers have some belief in the soundness of the
judgment of several of us. They all recognise the fact that we tend to
create public opinion, and that an actor or actress much spoken of
admiringly in the papers excites the curiosity of playgoers, and is a
useful addition to a cast. Consequently we feel that in speaking of or
ignoring individual performers we are affecting them to some extent in
earning their livelihood.

There is a story concerning a critic upon whose death half the stage
went into quarter-mourning. If it be true, it showed that he was very
short-sighted in his amiability, for when dealing with an overcrowded
profession one must remember that ill-earned praise of A may keep B,
who is more worthy, from getting A's place, to which, of course, he has
a better title. It is very hard to act upon this proposition, although it
involves a duty, for it is much easier to imagine the positive hurt to A
than the negative injury to B; the critic in question probably shut his
eyes to this, if he ever thought of it, and died comfortably unaware of
the fact that his indiscriminating praise had kept many meritorious
people out of their rights.
Even supposing one masters the illogical feeling of the lamented critic,
difficulties arise. We have grown very velvet-tongued in these days.
There was no nonsense about our predecessors; if the leading lady was
plain, they said so, whilst if one of us were to suggest that the heroine,
whose beauty is talked of tiresomely during the play, in real life might
sit in unflattering safety under mistletoe till the berries shrivelled he
would be regarded as an ungentle manlike brute. This is rather
awkward.
There is an injustice