JOSEPH JEFFERSON ON THE ACTOR AND THE ORATOR.

IN

N his address at Harvard, May 14th, Joseph Jefferson discussed an important distinction between the speaker and the actor. Actors, he said, failed as orators, and orators as actors. "Many actors have wondered why they have failed on the platform. Orators have complained that they have not met with success on the stage. The two arts go hand in hand so far as magnetism and intelligence are concerned, but there comes a point where they diverge widely. The actor is, or should be, impressionable and The orator, on the other hand, must have the power

sensitive.
of impressing."

All will agree that the fundamental characteristic of an actor is his power to listen. True acting is shown more by the actor's mode of giving attention than by his speaking. Mackaye used to say that by showing intensity of attention the poorest actor can be made to inspire an audience, and to seem great and effective; while, on the other hand, by inattention the most important speech of the greatest actor can be completely vitiated. The true secret of acting, accordingly, consists mainly in the power of giving attention to the ideas which are being uttered by the interlocutor. The action is the response of imagination, feeling, and body, to ideas chiefly expressed by another.

But while the orator is always seemingly a speaker and never a listener, the great secret of true oratoric delivery is the power of receiving impressions from his own ideas. Each successive image, or step, in his thought, must cause a sensitive response from his whole nature. The true speaker does not dominate the attention of his audience by mere force of will; he wins the attention of his audience by showing an intense attention and interest in the successive ideas which seem to come to him extemporaneously and spontaneously. Did not Mr. Jefferson carry his distinction too

far?

Would not his orator be very didactic and dogmatic?

The actor

The secret of both orator and actor is attention. objectively listens; the orator subjectively listens. With an imaginative conception of the point of view and nature of some character, the actor gives his attention to his interlocutor, or to what his interlocutor is saying. He shows by his pantomime the effect of what he sees and hears. The orator shows the effect of the successive discovery of ideas in his own mind. He shows a sensitive response through his whole nature to vivid conceptions, which are also put forth as objects of attention from his audience. Mr. Jefferson's advice is very fine for actors; but if his art of listening is rightly understood and explained, it is also important for speakers. The best speaker wins sympathetic attention, awakens the faculties which are active in his own nature in other minds, by showing the sensitive response to his own ideas.

Again, the actor is both speaker and listener. He speaks as well as the orator, but his expression is more conversational, and it always arises from some objective cause. The occasion of an idea is always shown to the audience. The actor thinks because of the man he meets, or of what he sees and hears. Even in Shakespeare's soliloquies the cause of the burden is usually first shown. Acting, therefore, shows the effect of objects of attention upon the sensitive heart. All good acting reveals the actor as receiving impressions, of which all expression is the response. Acting reveals the cause objectively, as well as the effect.

The orator, however, has a subjective purpose. He has a prepared speech, of which he makes no concealment, and the purpose in view is definitely presented. He directly impresses his audience. A speaker is thus tempted to wholesale his ideas, to feel his general purpose rather than each specific idea, and thus to drift into monotony. He tends also to deal in general and abstract

ideas or thought.

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Here is a most important point in the improvement of the speaker's delivery. The power to individualize ideas must be trained, the power to conceive vividly specific ideas and situations, the power

to create imaginatively such situations as will cause a sensitive response through his whole nature. That is to say, there must be power of attention, specific attention to each of his own ideas, and all the abandon of attentive listening on the part of his feelings. While a speech may be prepared, yet it must be really thought and felt at the time. Everything must be extemporaneous, unless, possibly, the words. Each idea must be given to his audience, not only as something he really thinks, but as something in which he is interested, to which he gives sympathetic attention.

Thus, while Mr. Jefferson's distinction is true and important, it must not be carried too far. The idea that an orator simply expresses, simply dominates other minds by will, has led to a great number of faults. The orator must have something of the actor's power of being impressed, as well as of impressing others.

The lesson to actors is very important, because the young actor always fails just at this point. He prepares everything, and assumes the speaker's attitude, but he is rarely able to listen and to reveal his impression. He can spout, but cannot act. His pantomime must grow out of what he hears as well as out of what he thinks, and even what he thinks must be chiefly governed by his interlocutor.

Mr. Jefferson also gives the art of listening as the secret of preventing the actor from becoming mechanical, from long familiarity with one special part.

Impression must precede expression. The mind must be trained to think after another mind, and to reveal the effect of the ideas of another. There is here, however, also a lesson to speakers. All expression is founded in sympathetic relationship. In all conversation, we adapt our words and emphasis to our hearer.

A great orator feels his audience; he adapts his words; but, more than this, he adapts his inflections, changes of pitch, various vocal modulations, his gesture, and his attitude, unconsciously to his hearers. The true speaker feels this even in the preparation of his speech. Bishop Brooks once said, "People talk a great deal about extemporaneous preaching; but it seems to me that there is such a

thing as extemporaneous writing." He went on to say that he always wrote his sermons with his congregation before him.

The cause of a great many faults in a speaker is due to the fact that the mind gets in a mechanical groove. He speaks into the air; he does not connect sympathetically his mind with the mind of his audience, everything he says sounds like a rehearsal. A great

many so-called ministerial faults are caused by a failure to think one thing at a time. From the ability to receive an impression from specific ideas and situations, all emotion is ecstatic. True feeling always rises from a specific stimulus.

Professor Monroe was once called out of a class by a stranger. He came back and apologized to us. "I have just been called out," said he, "by a clergyman. He wanted me to give him. private lessons. I told him that was impossible. He then wanted to know what he could do for his delivery. Go home,' I said, and read Shakespeare dramatically.' That was the best advice I could give him."

advice was good.

The principles unfolded here explain why the

There is an educational value in acting, especially to preachers and all speakers. The acting of dialogues is one of the chief means of breaking up monotony, of making a man realize that he must not only think, but that he must feel and be dominated by his own ideas, as well as endeavor to dominate other men.

Preachers nearly always act badly; but this only proves they need the medicine. The poorer a man is in delivery, and the more he is afflicted by "ministerial tones," the more difficult it is for him to listen and to receive a passive impression from an idea uttered by another, and to be able to give expression to the feelings. awakened. His mind thinks in a mechanical groove, without a variation of point of view, without sympathetic transition. The giving of a dialogue with some one, or reading himself a dialogue, and feeling the points of view of the different characters, will be found of great service.

There is another practical lesson also here. Pantomime must be

developed by developing the power of responsiveness of the whole man. The speaker has less pantomime than the actor, on account of the difference indicated by Mr. Jefferson. All pantomime is essentially dramatic, and the development of the dramatic instinct will develop pantomime. The power of staying the mind's attention until a feeling is awakened that permeates the whole body makes pantomime an absolute necessity.

Ν

BISHOP BROOKS IN THE RENDERING OF

THE SERVICE.

IN rendering the Service, Bishop Brooks always made an important transition which is overlooked by nearly all. After the commandments, which were given with a noble dignity, when he came to the words, "Hear also what our Lord Jesus Christ saith," he became tender, affectionate, and personal. Most clergymen go right on with the same tone of voice and attitude of mind; but his imagination and great heart seemed to pass from the sublime, impersonal law to the personal Christ,—from the dignified authority of the old dispensation to the intuition, feeling, and love of the new. The key to the law has now been found. "Thou shalt love" has a new and deeper meaning. The longing of all prophecy and the intensity of past hopes have reached their culmination. No one who ever heard the bishop read the quotation from Christ can forget the significant pause and the quiet simplicity and change of rhythm with which he gave the words, "Let us pray."

I have heard the service mouthed by those who prided themselves upon their elocution, and when the attention of the reader seemed to be upon his mode of rendering. How different was the effect of the great-hearted preacher, who gave expression to his grand intellectual comprehension of the spiritual progress of the race, to his imaginative realization of the different points of view in the law and the gospel, and to the warm gratitude of the heart, its reverence and tenderest love in the realization of its meaning.