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1、【国外英文文学】Autobiographies19th Century Actor Autobiographiesedited by George IlesPREFACEA good play gives us in miniature a cross-section of life, heightened by plot and characterisation, by witty and compact dialogue. Of course we should honour first the playwright, who has given form to each well kni
2、t act and telling scene. But that worthy man, perhaps at this moment sipping his coffee at the Authors Club, gave his drama its form only; its substance is created by the men and women who, with sympathy, intelligence and grace, embody with convincing power the hero and heroine, assassin and accompl
3、ice, lover and jilt. For the success of many a play their writers would be quick to acknowledge a further and initial debt, both in suggestion and criticism, to the artists who know from experience on the boards that deeds should he done, not talked about, that action is cardinal, with no other word
4、s than naturally spring from action. Players, too, not seldom remind authors that every incident should not only be interesting in itself, but take the play a stride forward through the entanglement and unravelling of its plot. It is altogether probable that the heights to which Shakespeare rose as
5、a dramatist were due in a measure to his knowledge of how a comedy, or a tragedy, appears behind as well as in front of the footlights, all in an atmosphere quite other than that surrounding a poet at his desk.This little volume begins with part of the life story of Joseph Jefferson, chief of Americ
6、an comedians. Then we are privileged to read a few personal letters from Edwin Booth, the acknowledged king of the tragic stage. He is followed by the queen in the same dramatic realm, Charlotte Cushman. Next are two chapters by the first emotional actress of her day in America, Clara Morris. When s
7、he bows her adieu, Sir Henry Irving comes upon the platform instead of the stage, and in the course of his thoughtful discourse makes it plain how he won renown both as an actor and a manager. He is followed by his son, Mr. Henry Brodribb Irving, clearly an heir to his fathers talents in art and in
8、observation. Miss Ellen Terry, long Sir Henry Irvings leading lady, now tells us how she came to join his company, and what she thinks of Sir Henry Irving in his principal roles. The succeeding word comes from Richard Mansfield, whose untimely death is mourned by every lover of the drama. The next p
9、ages are from the hand of Tommaso Salvini, admittedly the greatest Othello and Samson that ever trod the boards. A few words, in closing, are from Adelaide Ristori, whose Medea, Myrrha and Phaedra are among the great traditions of the modern stage. From first to last this little book sheds light on
10、the severe toil demanded for excellence on the stage, and reveals that for the highest success of a drama, author and artist must work hand in hand.ContentsJOSEPH JEFFERSON How I came to play Rip Van Winkle. The art of acting. Preparation and inspiration. Should an actor feel his part? Learning to a
11、ct. Playwrights and actors. The Jefferson face.EDWIN BOOTH To his daughter when a little girl. To his daughter on her studies and on ease of manner. On thoroughness of education. On Jeffersons autobiography. On the actors life. Lawrence Barretts death. His theatre in New York in prospect. As to his
12、brother, John Wilkes Booth, the slayer of Lincoln. Advice to a young actor.CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN As a child a mimic and singer. First visits to the theatre. Plays Lady Macbeth, her first part. To a young actress. To a young mother. Early griefs. Art her only spouse. Farewell to New York.CLARA MORRIS Rec
13、ollections of John Wilkes Booth. The murder of President Lincoln. When, in a hunt for a leading man for Mr. Daly, I first saw Coghlan and Irving.SIR HENRY IRVING The stage as an instructor. Inspiration in acting. Acting as an art: how Irving began. Feeling as a reality or a semblance. Gesture: liste
14、ning as an art: team-play on the stage.HENRY BRODRIBB IRVING The calling of the actor. Requirements for the stage. Temptations of the stage. Acting is a great art. Relations to society. The final school is the audience. Failure and success.ELLEN TERRY Hamlet-Irvings greatest part. The entrance scene
15、 in Hamlet. The scene with the players. Irving engages me. Irvings egotism. Irvings simplicity of character.RICHARD MANSFIELD Man and the Actor. All men are actors. Napoleon as an actor. The gift for acting is rare. The creation of a character. Copy life! Self criticism. Discipline imperative. Drama
16、tic vicissitudes. A national theatre. Training the actor.TOMMASO SALVINI First appearance. A fathers advice. How Salvini studied his art. Faults in acting. The desire to excel in everything. A model for Othello. First visit to the United States. In Cuba. Appearance in London. Impressions of Irvings
17、Hamlet. The decline of tragedy. Tragedy in two languages. American critical taste. Impressions of Edwin Booth.ADELAIDE RISTORI First appearances. Salvini and Rossi. Appears as Lady Macbeth. As manager. First visit to America. Begins to play in English.JOSEPH JEFFERSONWilliam Winter, the dramatic cri
18、tic of the New York _Tribune_, in 1894 wrote the Life and Art of Joseph Jefferson, published by the Macmillan Company, London and New York. He gives an account of Jeffersons lineage, and then says:In Joseph Jefferson, fourth of the line, famous as Rip Van Winkle, and destined to be long remembered b
19、y that name in dramatic history, there is an obvious union of the salient qualities of his ancestors. The rustic luxuriance, manly vigour, careless and adventurous disposition of the first Jefferson; the refined intellect, delicate sensibility, dry humour, and gentle tenderness of the second; and th
20、e amiable, philosophic, and drifting temperament of the third, reappear in this descendant. But more than any of his ancestors, and more than most of his contemporaries, the present Jefferson is an originator in the art of acting. Joseph Jefferson is as distinct as Lamb among essayists, or George Da
21、rley among lyrical poets. No actor of the past prefigured him, . and no name, in the teeming annals of modern art, has shone with a more tranquil lustre, or can be more confidently committed to the esteem of posterity.The Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson, copyright, 1889, 1890, by the Century Compa
22、ny, New York, was published 1891. From its chapters, by permission, have been taken these pages.-ED.HOW I CAME TO PLAY RIP VAN WINKLEThe hope of entering the race for dramatic fame as an individual and single attraction never came into my head until, in 1858, I acted Asa Trenchard in Our American Co
23、usin; but as the curtain descended the first night on that remarkably successful play, visions of large type, foreign countries, and increased remuneration floated before me, and I resolved to be a star if I could. A resolution to this effect is easily made; its accomplishment is quite another matte
24、r.Art has always been my sweetheart, and I have loved her for herself alone. I had fancied that our affection was mutual, so that when I failed as a star, which I certainly did, I thought she had jilted me. Not so. I wronged her. She only reminded me that I had taken too great a liberty, and that if
25、 I expected to win her I must press my suit with more patience. Checked, but undaunted in the resolve, my mind dwelt upon my vision, and I still indulged in day-dreams of the future.During these delightful reveries it came up before me that in acting Asa Trenchard I had, for the first time in my lif
26、e on the stage, spoken a pathetic speech; and though I did not look at the audience during the time I was acting-for that is dreadful-I felt that they both laughed and cried. I had before this often made my audience smile, but never until now had I moved them to tears. This to me novel accomplishmen
27、t was delightful, and in casting about for a new character my mind was ever dwelling on reproducing an effect where humour would be so closely allied to pathos that smiles and tears should mingle with each other. Where could I get one? There had been many written, and as I looked back into the drama
28、tic history of the past a long line of lovely ghosts loomed up before me, passing as in a procession: Job Thornberry, Bob Tyke, Frank Ostland, Zekiel Homespun, and a host of departed heroes with martial stalk went by my watch. Charming fellows all, but not for me, I felt I could not do them justice.
29、 Besides, they were too human. I was looking for a myth-something intangible and impossible. But he would not come. Time went on, and still with no result,During the summer of 1859 I arranged to board with my family at a queer old Dutch farmhouse in Paradise Valley, at the foot of Pocono Mountain, i
30、n Pennsylvania. A ridge of hills covered with tall hemlocks surrounds the vale, and numerous trout-streams wind through the meadows and tumble over the rocks. Stray farms are scattered through the valley, and the few old Dutchmen and their families who till the soil were born upon it; there and only
31、 there they have ever lived. The valley harmonised with me and our resources. The scene was wild, the air was fresh, and the board was cheap. What could the light heart and purse of a poor actor ask for more than this?On one of those long rainy days that always render the country so dull I had climb
32、ed to the loft of the barn, and lying upon the hay was reading that delightful book The Life and Letters of Washington Irving. I had gotten well into the volume, and was much interested in it, when to my surprise I came upon a passage which said that he had seen me at Laura Keenes theater as Goldfin
33、ch in Holcrofts comedy of The Road to Ruin, and that I reminded him of my father in look, gesture, size, and make. Till then I was not aware that he had ever seen me. I was comparatively obscure, and to find myself remembered and written of by such a man gave me a thrill of pleasure I can never forg
34、et. I put down the book, and lay there thinking how proud I was, and ought to be, at the revelation of this compliment. What an incentive to a youngster like me to go on.And so I thought to myself, Washington Irving, the author of The Sketch-Book, in which is the quaint story of Rip Van Winkle. Rip
35、Van Winkle! There was to me magic in the sound of the name as I repeated it. Why, was not this the very character I wanted? An Ameri can story by an American author was surely just the theme suited to an American actor.In ten minutes I had gone to the house and returned to the barn with The Sketch-B
36、ook. I had not read the story since I was a boy. I was disappointed with it; not as a story, of course, but the tale was purely a narrative. The theme was interesting, but not dramatic. The silver Hudson stretches out before you as you read, the quaint red roofs and queer gables of the old Dutch cot
37、tages stand out against the mist upon the mountains; but all this is descriptive. The character of Rip does not speak ten lines. What could be done dramatically with so simple a sketch? How could it he turned into an effective play?Three or four bad dramatisations of the story had already been acted
38、, but without marked success, Yates of London had given one in which the hero dies, one had been acted by my father, one by Hackett, and another by Burke. Some of these versions I had remembered when I was a boy, and I should say that Burkes play and performance were the best, but nothing that I rem
39、embered gave me the slightest encouragement that I could get a good play out of any of the existing materials. Still I was so bent upon acting the part that I started for the city, and in less than a week, by industriously ransacking the theatrical wardrobe establishments for old leather and mildewe
40、d cloth and by personally superintending the making of the wigs, each article of my costume was completed; and all this, too, before I had written a line of the play or studied a word of the part.This is working in an opposite direction from all the conventional methods in the study and elaboration
41、of a dramatic character, and certainly not following the course I would advise any one to pursue. I merely mention the out-of-the-way, upside-down manner of going to work as an illustration of the impatience and enthusiasm with which I entered upon the task, I can only account for my getting the dre
42、ss ready before I studied the part to the vain desire I had of witnessing myself in the glass, decked out and equipped as the hero of the Catskills.I got together the three old printed versions of the drama and the story itself. The plays were all in two acts. I thought it would be an improvement in
43、 the drama to arrange it in three, making the scene with the spectre crew an act by itself. This would separate the poetical from the domestic side of the story. But by far the most important alteration was in the interview with the spirits. In the old versions they spoke and sang. I remembered that
44、 the effect of this ghostly dialogue was dreadfully human, so I arranged that no voice but Rips should be heard. This is the only act on the stage in which but one person speaks while all the others merely gesticulate, and I was quite sure that the silence of the crew would give a lonely and desolat
45、e character to the scene and add its to supernatural weirdness. By this means, too, a strong contrast with the single voice of Rip was obtained by the deathlike stillness of the demons as they glided about the stage in solemn silence. It required some thought to hit upon just the best questions that
46、 could be answered by a nod and shake of the head, and to arrange that at times even Rip should propound a query to himself and answer it; but I had availed myself of so much of the old material that in a few days after I had begun my work it was finished.In the seclusion of the barn I studied and r
47、ehearsed the part, and by the end of summer I was prepared to transplant it from the rustic realms of an old farmhouse to a cosmopolitan audience in the city of Washington, where I opened at Carusis Hall under the management of John T. Raymond. I had gone over the play so thoroughly that each situat
48、ion was fairly engraved on my mind. The rehearsals were therefore not tedious to the actors; no one was delayed that I might consider how he or she should be disposed in the scene. I had by repeated experiments so saturated myself with the action of the play that a few days seemed to perfect the reh
49、earsals. I acted on these occasions with all the point and feeling that I could muster. This answered the double purpose of giving me freedom and of observing the effect of what I was doing on the actors. They seemed to be watching me closely, and I could tell by little nods of approval where and when the points hi