THE THEATRE
MISS RUTH DRAPER
TnE phrase on the programme " Original Character Sketches " does not adequately describe Miss Ruth Draper's performance.. Her art is indefinable because she is not one person but, any one of many. She peopled the stage of the Garrick, Theatre with men and women and children to whom she introduced us in turn and whom one would instantly recognize, in the street afterwards. She has an almost uncanny quality which distinguishes her from the average " disease." She takes the part of only one character throughout a " scene," but by a pause, an inflection of the voice, she indicates to the audience the other people, so that they stand out, clear- cut, recognizable ; and we are watching, not a monologue, but the interplay and movement of many human beings.
Probably almost all Miss Draper's effects are derived from the pacing of her performance. The intonations of her voice, the light and shade of her expressions, the balance of her gestures, all combine in an exquisite cadence, a rhythm of personality. There is nothing strained, nothing artificial, nothing exaggerated. She gives her audience new eyes and new ears to see and hear the German governess with her sniffles and snuffles and sudden bursts of nervous anger, whose only exercise of discipline over her unruly pupils is an oft-repeated " Shish, shish ! " ; or the up-to-date New York lady in her boudoir who feels that she is squeezing the fruit of life dry by cramming her day with telephone calls, committees, appointments with cook, manicurist and dress- maker in endless succession, and who in between times finds Dante " too wonderful " ; or the highly-coloured American telephone girl who plays her little tragedy over the switch- board.
In her sketch " Three Breakfasts," Miss Draper sits at an empty table and enacts an entire domestic episode while eating an invisible meal. It is a really great piece of " dramatic conjuring." Watch the way she stirs a phantom cup of coffee with a phantom spoon. It tells us things about the way the human being stirs coffee which we never noticed before, and the discovery interests and fascinates us. It is much more than stage trickery.
Or take " In a Church in Florence." In this sketch Miss Draper does eight characters and it is played without inter- ruption. First of all, we see the English spinster plying her amateur paint-brush in the church. She chats about Art to her companion, but at the back of her mind is the vision not of the Florentine saints, but of the little teashop near the Ponte Vecchio where the cakes taste almost like the ones at home. There we have, perfect and absolute, a character we all recognize. A second after, with no change `save the substitution of a dark shawl for the Liberty hat, we see a poor Italian beggar-woman, crawling through the church muttering blessings and thanks. Perhaps the most satisfying of Miss Draper's church- creations, because most easily recognizable, is the American woman tourist, Baedeker in hand, one eye on the " cute cherubs," the other on her !herd of fellow-tourists. What a familiar figure she is, and how kindly Miss Draper deals with her ! And at the last, we have the solitary black-robed woman who sinks down
■ before the altar in the most rhythmic, perfect attitude of weariness and supplication.
In Miss Draper's presence the paraphernalia of the theatre seems tawdry. The only change of costume she makes is occasionally to exchange a shawl for a hat, but even this seems scarcely necessary. It is the apparent change in her face that is so marvellous. It is almost impossible to believe that one has not seen her face grow long and lean as she acts the American tourist, and wrinkled and brown as she becomes the Italian peasant. Looking at her, I wondered if perhaps I were not witnessing a performance by the actress of the future—of a hundred or of five hundred years hence —when the cinema and the wireless have made scenery and make-up ridiculous, and nothing is left but the personality of the actor and actress who hold the essence of drama
Previous page
