THE STAGE-CRAZE.*
WE are rather overdone with the literature of " the Profession " just now, in the way of "Memoirs," " Impressions," and volu- minous criticism. Minor novelists have of late taken their heroines from " the boards " freely, usually elevating them to rank and riches with a reckless liberality that is calculated to produce a depressing effect on virtuous poverty remaining be- hind to pick up the purse of Mr. Vortex, and repress the audacity of Dick Dowlas, in the persons of the modern repre- sentatives of those imperishable types. It is not at all sur- prising that actors, whose inverted life naturally tends to obscure their sense of the just proportions of things, and must afford even the exceptionally intelligent and well-informed among them but limited opportunities of apprehending the real business and the solid interests of the world, should be just now taking themselves very seriously indeed, and posing in a variety of ways that are ridiculous to the calm observer. That • they are tempted to exhibit their shallow appreciation of the real constitution of things by behaviour of this kind, is an effect of the exaggeration that has become a national fea- ture, and is a note of the epoch. Society is not satisfied with the juste milieu in anything ; and, having kept the actor un- duly down for a long time, it has now hoisted him up as un- duly, and invested a respectable profession with a sort of priest- hood of art. This is a baseless assumption, and it leads the persons thus put out of their place to assign a preposterous importance to themselves and their concerns.
We know that under the actual foolish and unwholesome conditions of the actor's business, and of his relations with the public—relations which, we must say, we regard as wanting in dignity on both sides—what the French call reelame is even more than a part of a player's stock-in-trade,—it has become his circumambient atmosphere. But that actors resort to the kind of recla»ze that is common at present is much more the fault of their silly " patrons " than their own. When we read, for instance, the statement that Mr. Irving, a successful theatrical manager and a remarkable actor, is consulted, in confidence, on all sorts of subjects by great numbers of people of all classes, we do not laugh at Mr. Irving, —although we wish he could be saved from friends whose deficiency of humour prevents them from perceiving that they make him ridiculous by such a statement, —we remember the " mostly fools " of a departed philosopher. When we read that the Old World and the New are bound together by fresh ties because certain clever players have crossed the Atlantic, and carried on their business with credit and profit over the way, we smile, and allow for the eloquence of the advertising columns, and for "too mach zeal." Bat when Mr. Irving's " Impressions " of subjects on which his opinion is quite as valuable as Mrs. Todgers's notion of a wooden leg are gravely set forth to the world, and quoted by persons other- wise reasonable, and as worthy of the attention of serious men who have to deal with the grave subjects of polity and national business, we cannot fail to perceive that there is a great deal of folly "about" Astheticism (so miscalled); with its lilies, its langnors, and its occasional loathsomeness, is pretty well played out; but there is a " parlous " amount of affected enthusiasm and twaddly jargon in circulation, and it cruelly harms its favourites. A good picture is none the worse because people who go to look at it are told that it is a poem, a dream, a piece of music, and only the Higher Criticism knows what besides ; for the sensible spectator is perfectly aware that it is simply a good
picture. An eminent actor who is seriously propounded to the public as the guide, philosopher, and friend of society, and an Admirable Crichton to boot, must, however, be even a more remarkable man than his trumpeters proclaim him if he does not come to believe some of this.
We have alluded to Mr. Irving because he is the most prominent object and victim of the present foolish social craze, which is turned to unscrupulous account by the manu- facturers of books ; but as a matter of fact, the whole " Pro- fession " is rendered positively ridiculous by the jargon of the day. Bottom was not more effectually " translated " from the peaceful weaver than is the player of the period from the actor whose own business was enough for him to mind, and his own place enough for him to keep. We recall the famous actors of the past, and we find it impossible to imagine Garrick, Philip Kemble, or Edmund 'Kean posing for arbiters of taste, gravely pronouncing on international politics, or seriously disclaiming
Stage-Struck; or, She Would be an Opera Singer, By Blanche Roosevelt. London : Sampson Low and Oo. an intention of going into Parliament. They had their vanity and their follies, and so had the society whose professional amusers they were ; but the pose of the present time was not within the attainment,—and would not, we are convinced, have been to the taste,—of those great players.
The stage-craze is doubly to be regretted for the sake of the actors themselves,—for the reason recently pointed out with per- fect truth by a contemporary, i.e., that the actor produces nothing by which what he claims as his " art " may be judged in the future. With the man, all that he has done dies ; he is a name, per- haps a subject of dispute, when his acting has become hearsay and tradition ; but a great deal of the fulsome flattery, the affected analysis—all tending to prove what uncommonly clever fellows the writers were—and the puerile details which only a passing craze rendered endurable even to the crazy, remain ; to the wonder and contempt of a later time, taken up with some other magot. The tendency of our day is to make all eminent artists ridiculous by the jargon of society and print. But the painter who survives on canvas, the sculptor who lives in marble, has an advantage over the actor, who "is seen no more" when the curtain falls upon his "hour," and on whose memory all this brag and twaddle is a libel. We lay the gilding on our gingerbread of every pattern so lavishly that the underlying substance disappears almost entirely ; and the process of taking off that gilding is neither pleasant nor popular. Believing, as we believe, that the present stage-craze is hurtful to the solid interests of the dramatic pro- fession, and detrimental to its leading members, and productive of a great deal of evil and misery in social life by inspiring silly boys and vain girls with the ambition to become actors and actresses, we welcome a revelation which will reach a portion of the public to whom it may do good, and which strips the gilding off the particular kind of gingerbread most in demand just now deliberately and completely. Miss Roosevelt's novel is a story with a laudable purpose,—the warning of young American ladies, among whom, it seems, the stage craze is frightfully developed—especially in the operatic direction—against indulging their inclination. The social freedom enjoyed by the American girl, and the general publicity of Ameri- can life, probably count for a good deal in the frequency of an occurrence with which we are rapidly growing familiar in our own less emancipated society ; and the " Don't ! " which this story utters, urges, and reiterates, is a timely and charitable counsel given by one who knows. But, as we are bound to examine the execution while we praise the motive of this work, we must point out that the author fails in; consistency. The " stage-struck " Annabel might have, met with almost similar adventures, an equally villainous' lover, an identical misfortune in the death of the rela- tive from whom she had expectations, and as sad a fate, if she had come to Europe for any other purpose than that of becoming a prima donna. A great deal of irrelevant matter blocks and checks the narrative; and the secrecy practised by a girl who is represented as so good as Annabel, while in the constant companionship of her mother, is a bad trait, whose importance the writer, in her care to lead up to the melodramatic conclusion' of the story, fails to estimate. As a novel, Stage-Struck is of
fair average merit,—readable, but not remarkable. It is when the author illustrates her text by forcible, downright descrip- tions ; when she depicts the persons with whom an aspirant to stage-life must be brought into coktact, the schemes which she must either defeat or connive at (not romantic schemes—nothing to do with the young noblemen whose blandishments Mr. Vincent Crummles dreaded for the Phe- nomenon, but sordid calculations and exactions), that her readers appreciate the sense and ability of the book. To all this portion of the narrative, whose scene is laid partly in Milan and partly in England, we can accord hearty praise, and we accept it on the author's assurance as " a relation of actual facts." She tells us. that in this story of how a prima donna is made, she gives us " the truth laid bare in all its nakedness." It is an ugly, un- prepossessing, ignoble nudity, and one from which we hope many- American and English girls will turn away, cured of the stage-' craze.
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