PLAYERS OF THE PERIOD.*

THESE volumes, though marred by great defects in literary taste, are worth reading. And it is very necessary to say this at starting, as a reader who opens them casually may easily be so mach irritated by their defects as to close them again promptly. We do not know if the actors of our own day, who are inevitably the sources of much of Mr. Goddard's informa- tion, expect the silly gush and superlative adulation by which his pages are disfigured. We hope it is not so. Neither they nor the author are gainers from it. It gives the book at first sight the character of an indiscriminate and unintellectual perform- ance,—a wholesale administration of butter which leads the reader to approach the author's verdicts with little respect. And nineteen readers out of twenty will perhaps not get beyond this stage. The twentieth, who may read further and more carefully, will find the value of the book to consist precisely in the quality in which it is at first sight de- ficient. As a collection of anecdotes concerning our leading actors, it is not very remarkable. The author's first-hand knowledge of the theatrical world does not appear to be sufficient ; and readers have abundance of reminiscences by those who have been personally mixed up with that world, to which they will turn by preference. But as a work containing careful and discriminating analyses of characteristic roles of our leading actors, it is well worth reading. The want of judgment is only on the surface. If it is taken for granted that all its heroes have to be spoken of as men not only of supremest talent but of supreme genius, that their cynicism is always "superhumanly, superbly cynical," that the position of each, socially and intellectually, is "unique," and so forth; and if the passages conveying these sentiments are set aside, we have in the residuum a book well worth reading. The relative judgments are good and in- structive, and show their author to have been a playgoer of ex- perience and observation. Reduce all superlatives to positives, and cut out many adjectives, and you have statements valuable absolutely as well as relatively. Dean Goulburn has told us that, in his day at Balliol, before the scholarships were awarded, the Fellow who announced the results of the competition began by saying that all had done so well, that they wished all could have scholarships, and then proceeded to say who had actually got them. Mr. Goddard must be understood as having adopted a similar course, and we have to omit that part of his book which corresponds to the Balliol exordium, in order to arrive at its practical results.

Mr. Goddard is probably right in giving Mr. Irving the place of honour in his work. Mr. Irving's age and position, the really intellectual studies and fine conceptions of classical roles which be has been unable adequately to realise in performance, his exceptional gifts as a stage-manager, and still more his influence in raising the character of the English stage, have secured him a precedence which he may yet hold over younger and more powerful players who have come into prominence at • Players of the Poriod. A Series of Anecdotal. Biographical, and Critical Monographs of the Leading Einglish Actors of the Day. By Arthur Goddard. First and Second Series. London : Dean and Co. 1891.

a more recent date. The study of Mr. Irving is, however, not one of the best. It is the most fulsome of all, and the least marked by the subtler qualities of which we have spoken. Mr. Toole is very well done, and conveys both the man and the actor to us much more successfully. The affinity of his half-humorous and simple pathos to that of Charles Dickens had often struck the present writer, and undoubtedly made him an apt representative, as Mr. Goddard says, of such characters as Caleb Plummer and Bob Cratchit. A specimen of Mr. Goddard's suggestive criticism is to be found in his analysis of some elements of Toole's distinctive genius :—

" Whimsicality, quaintness, and a boldness of delineation which sometimes breaks through the boundary which divides character- drawing from caricature, have been the dominant elements in Mr.

Toole's acting His artistic method is to the stage not wholly unlike that associated in the popular mind with the name of George Cruikshaaak in another field of art. In the works of both, especially when Mr. Toole's creations are judged simply as stage figures and estimated for their fictile quality, there is much the same inoffensive grotesquerie, much the same whimsical exaggera- tion of characteristic figures of physique and dress. But exaggera-

tion is not without its value in either The caricaturist on or off the stage, if he be of the first rank, recognises the impera- tive axiom that it is the business of his peculiar method to heighten, not to disfigure or destroy, the individuality of a ject, and it is indisputable that in the case of &George Cruikshank and of a John Lawrence Toole, each has made his creations the more striking and memorable by the artistic and systematic utilisation of exaggeration. Cruikshank's Artful Dodger or Fagin, and Toole's Caleb Plummer, or Dodger, or Dick Dolland, exhibit very much the same degree of exaggeration, and it is un- questionable that all the figures make a far clearer and more enduring impression than would have been possible had the actor permitted himself to have been strictly trammelled by the limits of actuality. But with both, too, there was always one clearly apparent condition,—the original conception upon which they worked was based upon a keen and true insight into human nature."

The best sketch in the book, however, is that of Mr. H. Beerbohm Tree. Mr. Tree is to many playgoers the most interesting figure on the English stage of to-day, and the author of this book has studied his characteristic features as an actor to good purpose. We cannot, indeed, agree with his

estimate of the role which Mr. Tree recently assumed in London with so much success,—that of the Duke of Guise- bury : but we believe that even here the actor has done the best that could be done with unpromising materials. That the author of The Dancing Girl has talent, we do not dispute ; but viewed as a work of dramatic art, the play has such

serious faults, that its success would have been impossible in a country with finer dramatic instincts than England. Mr. Goddard chooses as epithets of praise for the play, somewhat

.happily (if he must praise it), the words " strong " and "daring." We say "somewhat happily," because there is a kind of strength

shown in defying the canons of probability; and there is some- thing daring in depicting characters devoid of consistency.

Turning, however, to rotes which have given Mr. Tree his real opportunities, we are entirely in accord with his panegyrist. We do not at the moment recall any other

English actor within the last twenty years who has attained to the first rank in both of two distinct branches of ilia art,—as a serious exponent of comedy and tragedy, and as a character-actor and master of farcical comedy. As this author expresses it, Mr. Tree can "produce bold effects with a broad brush as easily and as surely as the delicate half-tones which lend such distinction to characters demanding the touch of the miniaturist rather than that of the scene-

painter." The Rev. Robert Spalding, in The Private Secre- tary, was a perfect masterpiece of farcical comedy. Mr. Tree's Hamlet has not been long enough before us for a final judg- ment, but it promises great things. When he has had time to work the part up to its highest possibilities, we fully expect that Londoners will ratify the favourable verdict of Muncher- ter. Mr. Tree has shown in many parts the gifts which go to make up a great tragedian. For tenderness and pathos, Mr. Walter Pollock's adaptation of De Banville'd Grin goire gave

an admirable opportunity. The sombre and sinister side of tragedy brings into play such gifts as were shown in Prince

Borowski or Paolo 3facari ; while the still subtler characteris- tics of a self-searching mental struggle and the agony of indecision were seen conspicuously in The Village Priest, in spite of the misconception of Romanism on which it was based. Some of his roles have been a remarkable combination of

scholarly and careful reading of character from the inner side,

with equally studied effects in the make-up or the external peculiarities. Such was his Chief of Police in The Red Lamp ;

such, in a yet more marked degree, his Sir John Falstaff. His power of getting inside a character, so to speak, struck the present writer in two of his slighter, and in themselvess less remarkable creations,—in the parts of Luversan and Laroque in A Man's Shadow. Many modern plays, as The Corsican Brothers or The Lyons Mail, have called for a similar im- personation of two men exactly resembling each other by the same actor ; but we do not remember to have seen the double personality so exactly indicated by touches quite unconnected with the mere make-up or marked peculiarity of manner. The vulgarity of Luversan, so perfectly yet so unobtrusively given, conveying itself in so many habits of mind and of gesture, each of which is so very slight in itself, seems to us a perfect study of its kind. The very inflection of the voice as Luversan sang a snatch of a French song, "Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie," was one of a hundred instances of the careful study of detail which resulted in so distinct a picture.

Toole and Tree are certainly the best studies. One side of Mr. Toole is (perhaps pardonably) touched on only very slightly,—his peculiar gift for burlesque. Modern burlesque acting is generally such an inferior species of art, that an actor will no doubt value more a reputation won in other depart- ments; and yet the present writer cannot but recall with gratitude to Mr. Toole, the evenings in the past when that actor almost disabled him with laughter, in the days when Miss Nellie Farren's dancing was brightest and most un- flagging, and Lionel Brongh's " business " most quaint and original. Much of the gag in these burlesques is supposed to have been Mr. Toole's own invention, and his mysterious " dissembling " in Guy Fawkes was no doubt one of these additions. " Hark ! I am observed ; I must dissemble. Out, little comb !" and a corkscrew curl of hair was combed down, after which he remarked : "Now I am dissembled on the off- side !" And again, our memory recalls an occasion on which Mr. Toole overheard the object of his passion speak of her love for another, and proceeded in wild distraction to career madly all round the stage, convulsing the house by his gestures as he exclaimed : "I am undone ! I am a wrack ; I am a wrack ! (I don't know a bit what it is, but) I am a wrack !" Such art is not of a very high order, but it was very funny ; and it was true burlesque of a certain kind, and full of the rollicking and mad humour which are peculiarly characteristic of Mr. Toole.