Part 3 (2/2)
It is a profession made up of traditions and precedents and technicalities. Mere oral advice, or training in elocution or gesture, counts for very little. They are, in fact, too often obstacles which have to be eventually and with difficulty surmounted. In some instances I have known 'instruction'--of this sort--to bring about as prejudicial effects as if the victim had tried to learn the art of swimming at a dancing academy, and then put the knowledge thus gained into practice. The modulations of the voice and the language of ill.u.s.trative gesture ought to be either taught by example or insensibly acquired by experience. To learn them by precept and rule has for a result, usually, that woodenness and jerkiness which one cannot help noticing in the 'youthful prodigies' of the stage. To be an actress one has to learn other things than merely how to act, and that is why n.o.body ever succeeded in the profession who tried to enter it at the top. * * *
”The early bent of her studies and reading should be precisely the same as that of any other woman aspiring to be liberally educated. She should, if possible, speak French, at all events read it. She should be familiar with English literature. She should cultivate an acquaintance, through books and otherwise, with the highest as well as the lowest forms of human society. Refinement and general information ought to be the characteristics of every actress. * * *
”It would be bold for me to pretend to descry the chances of success for the actress of the future. It is a lottery, this profession of ours, in which even the prizes are, after all, not very considerable.
My own days, spent most of them far from my children and the comforts and delights of my home, are full of exhausting labor. Rehearsals and other business occupy me from early morning to the hour of performance, with brief intervals for rest and food and a little sleep. In the best hotels my time is so invaded that I can scarcely live comfortably, much less luxuriously. At the worst, existence becomes a torment and a burden. I am the eager, yet weary, slave of my profession, and the best it can do for me--who am fortunate enough to be included among its successful members--is to barely palliate the suffering of a forty-weeks' exile from my own house and my family.
”For those of our calling who have to make this weary round, year after year, with disappointed ambitions and defeated hopes as their inseparable company, I can feel from the bottom of my heart. Each season makes the life harder and drearier; each year robs it of one more prospect, one more chance, one more opportunity to try and catch the fleeting bubble in another field.”
Madame Modjeska writes:
”* * * It would be a great mistake to choose the profession with the idea that money comes easier and work is less hard in this than in any other. There is little hope for the advancement of such aspirants.
”There is no greater mistake than to suppose that mere professional training is the only necessary education. The general cultivation of the mind, the development of all the intellectual faculties, the knowledge how to think, are more essential to the actor than mere professional instruction. In no case should he neglect the other branches of art; all of them being so nearly akin, he cannot attain to a fine artistic taste if he is entirely unacquainted with music, the plastic arts, and poetry.
”The best school of acting seems to me to be the stage itself--when one begins by playing small parts, and slowly, step by step, reaches the more important ones. There is a probability that if you play well a minor character, you will play greater ones well by and by; while if you begin with the latter, you may prove deficient in them, and afterward be both unwilling and unable to play small parts. It was my ill-fortune to be put, soon after my entrance on the stage, in the position of a star in a travelling company. I think it was the greatest danger I encountered in my career, and the consequence was that when I afterward entered a regular stock company, I had not only a great deal to learn, but much more to unlearn.
”The training by acting, in order to be useful, requires a certain combination of circ.u.mstances. It is good in the stock companies of Europe, because with them the play-bill is constantly changed, and the young actor is required to appear in a great variety of characters during a short period. But it may prove the reverse of good in a theatre where the beginner may be compelled for a year or so to play one insignificant part. Such a course would be likely to kill in him all the love of his art, render him a mechanical automaton, and teach him but very little.
”Private instruction can be given either by professors of elocution or by experienced actors. I know nothing of the first, as there are no professors of elocution, to my knowledge, outside of America and of England, and I never knew one personally. But speaking of private lessons given by experienced actors, there are certainly a great many arguments and instances in favor of that mode of instruction. Of course, a great deal depends upon the choice of the teacher. But, supposing he is capable, he can devote more time to a private pupil than he can to one in a public school. Some of the greatest actresses that ever lived owed, in great part, their success to the instructions of an experienced actor, of less genius than themselves. Take, for instance, Rachel and Samson. Strange to say, it happens often that very good actors make but poor professors, while the best private teacher I ever met was, like Michonnet, but an indifferent actor himself. The danger is that the pupil in this kind of instruction may become a mere imitator of his model. Imitation is the worst mode of learning, and the worst method in art, as it kills the individual creative power, and in most cases, the imitators only follow the peculiar failings of their model.
”There are many objections to dramatic schools, some of which are very forcible. There is in them, as in private teaching, the danger of imitation, and of getting into a purely mechanical habit, which produces conventional, artificial acting. Yet it is not to be denied that a great number of the best French and German actresses and actors have been pupils of dramatic schools, and that two of the schools--those of Paris and Vienna--have justly enjoyed a great celebrity. Of the schools I have known personally I cannot speak very favorably. One point must be borne in mind; a dramatic school ought to have an independent financial basis, and not rely for its support on the number of its pupils, because in such a case the managers might be induced to receive candidates not in the least qualified for the dramatic profession.
”Of the three elements that, in my opinion, go to make up a good dramatic artist, the first one, technique, must be acquired by professional training; the second and higher one, which is art itself, originates in a natural genius, but can and ought to be improved by the general cultivation of the mind. But there is yet something beyond these two: it is inspiration. This cannot be acquired or improved, but it can be lost by neglect. Inspiration, which Jefferson calls his demon, and which I would call my angel, does not depend upon us.
Happy the moments when it responds to our appeal. It is only at such moments that an artist can feel satisfaction in his work--pride in his creation; and this feeling is the only real and true success which ought to be the object of his ambition.”
There is but very little chance for women to succeed as lecturers at the present time. Some few years ago the country seemed to be overrun with orators, both male and female. Probably the woman-suffrage excitement had a great deal to do with this; at all events, there is not much demand now for female eloquence. Twelve years ago a number of distinguished women were before the public. Anna d.i.c.kinson spoke on politics; since then she entered the dramatic profession. Susan B.
Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, spoke about woman-suffrage, a subject which seems for the time to have died out. Olive Logan talked on social topics; now she is in Europe. Mrs. Livermore is the only female orator of that time who is now before the public, and she is as successful now as she was then.
As public readers, women who have a talent in that direction have an excellent chance at the present time. ”Readings” are getting to be a very popular form of entertainment. The theatres are offering such poor and trashy attractions that many educated people who want to be amused, are forced to seek diversion in this way. The general spread of culture is also, probably, creating a taste in this direction.
The lady who would succeed as a public reader must, like the actress, be good-looking. The most successful lady readers now before the public are physically attractive. Some of them are large, fine-looking women, while others are pet.i.te; but no matter what the particular style of beauty may be, they are all pleasing in their personal appearance.
The woman who wants to make public reading a profession will do all she can to get her name and profession before the public. At first she will give free readings before church societies. In this way she will gradually become known, and, after a while, she will be able to appear before some lyceum in the small outlying towns. If she is favorably received she will be invited to come again, and so, gradually, her name and fame will become known, and if she has the necessary talent she will eventually command very good pay.
At first she will give free readings. Her readings for pay will, in the beginning, bring her from $10 to $25 a reading. After that the compensation will increase, according to her reputation as a reader.
The very best female readers, or ”elocutionists,” as they prefer to term themselves, receive as much as $500 for one entertainment.
The social position which a lady occupies will have much to do with her success. If she has a large circle of influential friends in good social standing, provided, of course, she is talented, she will find the road to success much easier than it otherwise would be.
BOOK-AGENTS.
Canva.s.sing for books is a business in which some men have been known to make $10,000 a year, and a large number of other men have earned $2,000 and $3,000 in the same length of time. This is an occupation which, under certain conditions, is admitted to be just as suitable for a woman as a man.
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