Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/176

166 play written with abundance of opportunity to cry and laugh from the rising of the curtain to the going down thereof Everybody exclaims: "What natural crying! What natural laughing!" Miss Maggie Mitchell's Fanchon is a very clever bit of acting; but why call it a representation of the "realistic" school? Why the real Fanchon, no doubt, had soiled fingers, teeth guiltless of Sozodont, and used very bad grammar. Fanchon is just as much an ideal as Juliet or Rosalind. But this method of fitting a character to one's idiosyncracies was not the old idea of the art, and there is no telling what end of geniuses we might have developed had this Yankee trick been discovered a century earlier. An actor, according to the old idea, was one whose art enabled him to create distinct and separate individualities, and was not limited to the reproduction of himself. It was the actor's study to enter into and embody the creations of the dramatist, and not order the author to individualize his character to the measure of the performer.

Modern comedy acting is usually a bright, brisk, touch-and-go affair, suited to modern plays; but to the mellow and artistic style of a former generation, it is as the light claret wines, now so much in use, to crusty old port. Mere facility in off-hand dialogue will not fit an actor for the old comedy. There is no form of dramatic expression so rare to find as genuine gayety.

Mr. Lester Wallack is the best of our light comedians. He has a captivating brilliancy of touch, and supreme elegance of manner. He cannot, however, depict genuine gayety, and is forced to substitute for it a sort of refined antic and humorous grimace. His greatest successes in comedy have been in parts like that of Littleton Coke (in Old Heads and Young Hearts), where a light, blasémanner, keen satire, and brisk dialogue, are required. Like all of his family, Mr. Wallack has profound dramatic perceptions, and consequently great talent for the romantic drama. In Monte Christo, the mysterious Count in Pauline, and in certain portions of Melnotte in the Lady of Lyons, he is the most brilliantly picturesque actor on the stage. Much of this power depends on his resources of dress, in which he exhibits a marvellous talent. His "get-up" is usually superb. In that field he is master almost without a rival. His fondness for the picturesque or romantic drama is very decided, and he is reported to have said that he would take pleasure in acting the Count in Pauline three hundred nights in a year.

But gayety was my text. The want of an actor who can adequately express it excludes from the stage Young Rover, Young Mirabel, and many kindred parts. Who can sustain these delicious rôles where the gay humors sparkle and dance in glorious exhilaration from first to last? I would go far to see Mirabel acted once more. The situation in the last act—it is Farquhar's Inconstant—is one of the most dramatic and thrilling on the stage, and combines a wild