THE THEATER IN AMERICA.

BY OTIS SKINNER.

[Otis Skinner, actor; born in 1858, at Cambridge, Mass.; during his early life he was an amateur reader and actor in Hartford, Connecticut, making his professional debut in Philadelphia in November, 1877, as "Jim" in Woodleigh, which was presented in The Philadelphia Museum; afterward he became one of the Walnut Street Theater Stock company in Philadelphia, and two years after his first appearance on the professional stage he made his New York debut in Kiralfy's Enchantment at Niblo's; following this were a succession of important roles at Booth's Theater, the Boston Theater, with Lawrence Barrett, with Augustin Daly in New York, Paris, London, Berlin and other theatrical centers for a period of five years; from 1892 for three years he was leading man with Madame Modjeska and since that time has been starring in romantic plays.]

The art of the American player has probably maintained, since the beginnings of our national existence, more or less of individuality and national character. In this it is unlike its sister art of painting, whose followers have taken largely from European masters and models. Stuart, West, Copley and others of our 18th century portraitists unquestionably owed much to the influence of London and Paris schools. Our earlier sculptors, too, sought their inspiration in the artistic fonts of Italy.

The American actor, however, has until within the past few generations found but few chances for the study of French, English or German theatrical art. I am not unmindful of the fact that foreign players have frequently visited our shores, and that American actors, and audiences as well, have had ample opportunity to observe the methods of Macready, Charles Kean, Fanny Kemble, Barry Sullivan and, later, of Henry Irving, illustrious ones of the English stage, or that Rachel and Fechter gave to our public glimpses of the best of French acting years before the advent of Sara Bernhardt and Constant Coquelin. Of German and Italian stage work comparatively little has been exhibited here until within recent times; Passart, Darnay, Haasi, Salvini, Rossi, Duse, are easily within the memory of the present generation. All of these foreigners met with admiration, and, except in the peculiar case of Macready, whose appearance in New York was the

signal for the Astor Place riots, with considerable financial success. However, until the past quarter of a century the American player saw but little of the work of his European confreres. The very fact that these transatlantic visitors came and appeared at a time of the season when his own duties forbade anything like observation and study, and that their performances and tours were of a tentative nature, leaves the influence of imported theatric art on the native player almost nil.

To be sure there were some importations of a permanent character, especially English importations. The Booths, Wallacks, Jeffersons, Davenports, Drews, were all of stock from the mother country, and generations of these noted families have added dignity and glory to our stage. The stock companies of New York and other eastern cities were well supplied with actors who had come out from England to adopt citizenship of the United States. But after all there was the spirit of the new world to contend with, and the American civilization into which all individualities become merged as readily as the Swede to-day becomes an excellent citizen of Wisconsin or the Irishman a successful New York politician. The Briton on becoming a Yankee did not change in character so completely that he ceased to be a Briton, but he fell easily into new habits and changed in degree. He had burned his bridges of school and traditions, and had joined the rank of artistic free lances, the men and women who had no theatrical aristocracy or lineage in art to uphold. He was freed from the deliberation bred of British beef and beer; his eyes, unclouded by London fogs, looked out on a world where impassivity was not regarded as the most alluring outward sign of manhood, and the repose which stamps the manner of the Vere de Vere not necessarily a desirable asset.

Under these conditions native talent was more of a spontaneous and weed like growth than of a cultivated nature. There was no background of established, recognized position for the theater; no record by which rule and direction could govern the development of art. There had been no patronage of the wealthy class such as had obtained in England, and no royal subsidies had lent encouragement to both actor and

dramatist as was the case in France and Germany. It is remarkable that there could have been any instance whatever of the exhibition of musical talent, but the instinct lay dormant, ready to spring into being at the first call of sympathetic interest. The rewards of the playwright were slight, and the little encouragement given the production of a national drama formed another serious stumbling-block in the path of the American player. Yet his development persisted, and under most discouraging conditions men and women of unusual equipment found their opportunity and left records of honorable achievement.

The American actor played from the standpoint of his intuitive convictions, his emotional strength, and his aggressive spirit. It was the age of the strong and the broad; of Forrest in tragedy and Burton in comedy. The performances of the women of this period were in character with its demands. Charlotte Cushman, whose Lady Macbeth, Queen Katherine and Meg Merrillies were companion pieces to the Lear, Jack Cade and Metamora of Edwin Forrest, was closely followed by the emotional interpretations of Lucille Western, Matilda Heron and Charlotte Crampton. Clara Morris was the legitimate successor to these dramatic idols of the 60's and 70's, and she wore her honors with distinction, but she has lived to see her method unplaced-laid aside in favor of the actress of the new school of suggestion and repression. These two qualities have been largely influential in moulding the work of the younger generation. The introduction of their use was not wholly welcome. Like most reforms they were greeted with frowns from the older ones, who cried out on the emasculation of art. "Repression? "Repression? Bah! They've nothing to repress. Show me an emotion and I'll harness it, but when there's no emotion to harness, what then?" A new variant of an old cry; the cry of the degeneration of the stage which has been heard since the days when Thespis spouted from his

cart.

But repression and suggestion had come to stay. Like some other good things they came from abroad. I'm not sure that if examined they would not exhibit the importation mark, Made in England. The effectiveness of their use was

recognized as long ago as 1870 by Dion Boucicault, surely a past master of stage craft, particularly in that department relating to the natural depiction of feeling. Boucicault bequeathed a boon of lasting value to the stage of America by his precepts and direction. One of the finest of his achievements was in the development of Charles R. Thorne, the talented leading man of the old Union Square theater. Thorne had always been a good actor and a forceful one, and had come to New York when that galaxy of talent had been brought into being under the management of Shook and Palmer at Union Square. How tenderly one's memories go back to that company: Thorne, O'Niel, Stoddart, Coghlan, Robson, Parselle, Rankin, Clara Morris, Rose Eytinge, Fanny Morant, Marie Wilkins! The performances at this theater were golden ones to me in my days of boyish enthusiasm. But I am forgetting Thorne. I have said that he was a man of power. Of a theatrical family, he had early come under the influence of the life of the stage. I can think of no more typically American actor than he was. Handsome, manly, with the great natural gifts of voice, feeling, and expression, he had played many parts to the admiration of hosts of his followers. A few of his critics had pointed out that in all the effectiveness of his work there was much left to be desired; a notable lack of method and finesse. The magnetic charm of Thorne's acting easily bowled down his objectors; his admirers saw in him only perfection.

Here was material for Dion Boucicault. As stage director of the Union Square theater he had Thorne under his immediate eye. He started in on a campaign of general reform in the robust methods of the favorite leading man, and the results soon showed with miraculous effect. The actor's old showy effusiveness fell away and was replaced by simplicity, direct, tender, appealing and full of charm. The personality had not been lost, but was there transformed and glorified by the direction of the master, and the great talent of the man flowed superbly through the channels of nature as a river that had been reclaimed from marshes and stagnant backwaters and made to flow on unimpeded and undiverted. I can think of nothing more convincing in my memory of the brilliancy

of the New York stage than the quiet, natural, but absolutely compelling force of his Daniel Rochat in Sardou's play of that name. The play was not a success with the public, but Thorne's performance will remain a monument to our national theater.

Here was the answer ready for the croakers who exclaimed against the innovation of the natural and repressed school. American art had taken a step forward—a portentous one. It was the association of strong native ability and the shrewd sense and direction of the cosmopolite stage craftsman, the man of genius who had picked the best from many foreign sources.

The transformation in methods once in vogue is not infrequently accomplished by the individual unaided by the stage manager's guidance. The late James A. Herne, who added much excellent characterization and a number of good plays to the American stage, was once a melodramatic, over stressful actor. As years came upon him he began to reason out the meaning of stage effects and to look for their sources. He learned repression and suggestion through the very mental and artistic growth that his widening vision had brought to him. His delivery of the lines of the speech to his crabbed brother in Shore Acres, describing the death of their fisherman father was an example of unforced, colloquial and moving eloquence that never failed to bring tears to the eyes of his audience. It was an unusual effect. The story was a very sad and touching one, but he told it all gently in a slow monotone and with a smile on his lips. This might seem a trivial thing to relate, but for the fact that thirty years before Herne's time hardly an actor could be found who would have dared disobey convention thus far. Like Hamlet's actor he would have drowned the stage in tears.

The trend of our theater has been toward gentler methods. I doubt if the large lunged efforts of Edwin Forrest, though they could be set forth with all of Forrest's undeniably great genius would be received favorably to-day. Had Edwin Forrest lived in our own 20th century he would have seen a genius still, but a different kind of one.