Let those of them who have been playgoers cast their minds back to
their experience of theatres. Can they recall a single play in which
the principal actor was `discovered' sitting or standing on the stage
when the curtain rose? No. The actor, by the very nature of his
calling, does, must, study personal effect. No playwright would dare
to dump down his principal actor at the outset of a play. No sensible
playwright would wish to do so. That actor's personality is a part of
the playwright's material. Playwriting, it has been well said, is an
art of preparing. The principal actor is one of the things for which
we must be artfully prepared. Note Shakespeare's carefulness in this
matter. In his day, the stage had no curtain, so that even the obscure
actor who spoke the first lines (Shakespeare himself sometimes, maybe)
was not ignominiously `discovered.' But an unprepared entry is no
good. The audience must first be wrought on, wrought up. Had
Shakespeare been also Burbage, it is possible that he would have been
even more painstaking than he was in leading up to the leading man.
Assuredly, by far the most tremendous stage entries I ever saw were
those of Mr. Wilson Barrett in his later days, the days when he had
become his own dramatist. I remember particularly a first night of his
at which I happened to be sitting next to a clever but not very
successful and rather sardonic old actor.
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