AT THE PLAY IN LONDON

Charles Aubrey Fenwick

IMAGINE yourself a young American actress of more or less experience, crossing the water to try your fortunes in London. You are, of course, a young woman of considerable charm and beauty. You land with a certain amount of confidence in yourself, and then you meet the international equation.

The international equation is a dreadful thing to meet for the first time. It is like meeting something in the dark, because you don't know what it is. Of course your allurements have been from time to time fervently explained to you in more than one discreet interval in this life's dance; and you really are better endowed by nature than the majority of your sisters. But that may not help you when you have to meet the international equation plus the English theatrical manager.

The English manager will judge you for points of beauty as if you were on exhibition in the slave market. He will judge you for beauty first, rather than try to detect the dramatic genius which you have so carefully smuggled past the customs officer.

He has given up the search for dramatic genius. He knows that such a thing exists, but he has ceased to hunt for it and he only hopes that it may drop upon him some day as a gift from the gods.

THE thing he will hope for in you, plus mere beauty, is magnetism. People do not agree as to what magnetism is, as exploited over the footlights; though probably it us the expression of an optimistic vitality which tends to make an audience feel that life is_ worth living. It is very hard to make anyone feel that life is worth living when you have just encountered the English; manager and have communicated with him in terms of the international equation.

The international equation amounts to this: "Have we any use for you, notwithstanding your atrocious American accent and your uncomfortable American restlessness?" Of course, you yourself had always looked upon your speech as careful and distinct and free from English affectation; and you had suspected that there was some charm in your natural vivacity and responsiveness.

That is where the internationial, equation arises. You may have cultivated in your speech the "stage English" common to the foot-lights of America, but the chances are that your impressions and intonations will remain foreign to the English ear, although your pronunciations may be the same as those of Albion.

IT REALLY wouldn't very much matter to you about this, if you were not bent upon exploiting your personality before an English audience; but it is of extreme importance to the English manager that nothing in the speech of any one of the English characters in the play should betray a foreign nationality.

There is equal prejudice in the matter of person. The English type or fancied type which is most favored in England is fairly well represented by Miss Gladys Cooper. It is the slim, golden haired type with blue eyes and rosy color. The temperament it suggests is not an artistic one, nor an impassioned one. It is, instead, that calm, unruffled, unimaginative temperament which is perhaps as fine as any other material for the backbone of a nation. Contrasted to this the American type, in so far as any set American type can be said to exist, is noticeably different. The American woman is slightly heavier about the hips and notably finer at the extremities. She has a shorter face and a somewhat fuller nose. Her mouth and teeth average superior to the English type, while her eyes and skin are generally not so clear in tone.

IT IS not the English habit of mind to enter all these points into the account and to strike a balance; the one matter patent to the English manager is that the young American aspirant is foreign in person and in speech. This may explain why, outside of the music hall stage, very few American actresses establish themselves in London unless they have lived here so long and so responsively to their surroundings as to have taken on English color.

A few years ago it would have been almost entirely the actor-manager to whom the young aspirant would have had to appeal. But for the actor-manager in England the sun appears to be setting; it is the producer-manager who bids fair to drive him from the field. Sir George Alexander remains alone to fill the classic definition of an actor-manager. He is permanently ensconced in one theatre and he regularly produces plays in which he enacts the leading parts. Sir Herbert Tree is primarily an exploiter of spectacles in which he appears sometimes as a hero and sometimes in minor character parts. The same is true more or less of Denis Eadie and Gerald du Maurier. The other actor-managements are sporadic and nomadic. The public is distinctly the gainer when the theatre is managed from off-stage; for almost invariably the producer-manager, by better casting and better rehearsing, arrives at superior results.

EVERYONE knows Granville Barker. It is his producing of "The Great Adventure" which has brought about the enormous success of a play which might easily have been ruined by the old-fashioned handling, if indeed any actormanager could have been found to take it up.

Kenelm Foss, on the other hand, is as yet but little known outside of London. He is the manager who produced Gilbert Chesterton's "Magic" at the Little Theatre and gave it the subtle, artistic touch which is all the difference between the commonplace and the rare. No manager had been found who would look at the play in manuscript. It was one of those stories in which the possible atmospheric effects could not be discerned by the ordinary mind. But Foss knew how to endow the supernatural episode in the play with those weird effects upon the senses which are the special flavor of the performance of this play. Foss is a young man of much imagination and courage, who has passed through more or less vicissitude in his way up the ladder. He comes from a very orthodox family, which I understand regarded as a calamity his love for the theatre. His considerable apprenticeship dates back to the memorable Barker season at the Court Theatre, during which he was Barker's most trusted lieutenant, to whom Barker would indicate the character of any given stage setting with the confidence that Foss would produce it true to type.

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Afterwards, Foss became the producer for the first three seasons of the Glasgow Repertory Theatre. He then returned to London and produced "Rutherford & Son." Now he has The Little Theatre; and in addition to "Magic," he presents Shaw's latest knockabout "The Music Cure." Foss has plenty of individuality, and this will be instilled into his next production, whenever that shall be, "Love's Labour Lost." In this, as compared to the somewhat absinthine fancies of Barker's "Midsummer Night's Dream," we shall probably find a very direct and sane presentation of this rarely produced play. Foss has also a farcical skit by Hillaire Belloc which will be more or less of the intellectual slap-stick variety set in vogue by Shaw. The theme will be political; and in the satirical allusions to the political methods and figurants of the day, doubtless even some of the political women of England will discover themselves. Miss Grace Croft, a new actress of much power and character, will continue to enact some of the leading parts.

THERE is a new play at the Royalty in which Miss Gladys Cooper may be seen in her boudoir and more or less undressed. The play, which is amateurish in workmanship and often vulgar in tone, seems destined to a short life. It contrasts strongly with the "Pursuit of Pamela" which played for four months to the most fashionable audience in London and which stood out for its clean charm and romantic color. Denis Eadie was not so happily suited as Miss Cooper, and the play was withdrawn while still going strong. Miss Cooper is not a great actress, but she is beautiful and full of life and grace, the part of Pamela provided the finest opportunity for the making of a young actress which has fallen to anyone's lot for many years. As it is impossible to make an actress by putting fine clothes on her, so is it impossible to make an actress by undressing her, and "Peggy and Her Husband" subsists for the moment only on the prestige the Royalty has built up on "Milestones" and "Pamela."

There are at present in London two plays which have run over 400 performances, one which has run over 350 and eight which have run over 100 performances. But the new plays of the month have made no great stir. Mr. Sutro's "Two Virtues" is too subtle for the common taste. Zangwill's "The Melting Pot" is too serious and too thoughtful for the great public, although Walker Whiteside has made a hit in the piece and the press gave it a warm reception. "Helen with the High Hand" is a fair success, but probably owes much to the author's prestige. A great many wise men are now eager to go to sea in Mr. Bennett's bowl. Let us hope that the bowl will prove strong enough to provide some long stories.