The One I Knew Least of All, Part V

It must always be difficult for an actor to speak of the parts he has played; though he love them as if they were his own children, he must always remember that they are not his own; they are foster-children, but the dearest perhaps that he will ever know. It's a strange life, the life of the theater; in the world, yet out of the world; the craft demands the use of one's inmost thought and inmost feeling to be given in the most public way to a thousand minds. And how is one to be sure that his inmost thought and inmost feeling are worth the time and patience of a thousand minds?

Of all the plays that were trusted in her care, the one I knew least loved Peter Pan best. It was not only that it was the most delightful of all the plays, but it opened a new world to her, the beautiful world of children. Her childhood and girlhood had been spent with older people, and children had been rather terrifying to her; when one met the eyes of the little things, it was like facing the Day of Judgment. Children remained an enigma to her until, when she was a woman grown, Peter gave her open sesame; for whether she understood children or not, they understood Peter.

There are two great gifts in the keeping of the theater. The first, to the great individuals the opportunity is given to show their power, their genius. Creatures apart, they are like other human beings, but in a superlative degree. They seem not to represent life so much as some extraordinary combination of powers fused in one individual. They are the great ones of the theater, and their reward is great. The other gift is one which may fall even to the lesser ones of the craft-the opportunity to interpret a great play. By a great play I mean one which gives a deeper understanding of human nature. And Peter Pan is a great play in that it gives or helps to an understanding of one of the most delightful facets of the human mind; the fun and pathos of the incongruous.

Peter Pan

It was strange that in America Peter did not find his audience first. England took him to her heart at once; but England had been brought up on Christmas pantomimes and knew their meaning; and that Peter was much more real made him that much dearer. But her at home the audiences at first seemed very literal-minded. One old man of forty said; Of course it was Barrie, and of course it was delightful, though he'd like to know what it was all about. But when Peter found his way, young lads of eighty joined their six-year-old brothers, and waved their handkerchiefs in approval of fairies and pirates and all sorts of magical, wholesome things.

Someone had said that the audience plays half of every play; certainly three-fourths of Peter was the audience's doing. And when three-fourths of that audience were below the age of ten, it was an exciting business. In a tense moment, a whispered “Peter!” would float over the footlights, warning of the approach of the wicked Pirate, long before it was time, according to Barrie, for Peter to know; it was hard not to heed that little voice, and let the plot go hang. Again, when it was Peter's turn to pursue the wicked Pirate, there would come wild cries of “Hurry,Peter! Hurry, Peter!” If Peter's heels had been made of lead, the sound of those little voices would have turned them into feathers. And in the enthusiasm born of such encouragement, during the fight with broadswords, an extra swash in honor of the ageless was apt to land on the Pirate's wicked head.

A Happy Group of Players

Oh, the pleasure of that play, and the delightful people who took joy in playing it! The Lion was a tricksy fellow; you never could be quite sure of him; usually he would wait patiently for his tail to be cut off; but every now and then he would gallop off, taking his tail with him, when he knew it should lie supine in Peter's hand. The Wolves were always a delight. They were fearsome animals, but, like all other animals, they met their match in Peter; his infallible way of vanquishing Wolves was, as every boy knows, to turn his back fearlessly, bend way over, and look at the Wolves through his legs. Immediately they would back away and scamper off to safety. There was one littlest Wolf who was very energetic and ambitious. His spirit often carried him beyond himself, and one night it landed him in the footlights. It was totally unexpected; the glare confused the little fellow, and he lost all sense of direction; he backed away, and backed away, and every time he backed into the proscenium arch! After bumping himself half a dozen times, he rose deliberately upon his hind legs and walked off the stage, followed by cheers from the grown-ups in the audience, who had watched his performance intently.

There was great rivalry among the Wolves; and it was understood that among themselves they rated each other as actors, their backing power and their swiftness therein placing them in the front or the second rank.

The grown-ups in the company were quite as much fun as the children; they were so frankly in the secret, and would go to any lengths; and to their great glory it shall be said that in the hundreds of times they played it, they never lost the lilt of poetry in the play, they never lost the joy of playing it.

It was interesting that very few children who saw the play wanted to be Indians, much as they admired the Redskins for their friendly attitude toward Peter and his band; no, the children preferred to remain themselves and kill the Pirates. Of course they liked to play the principal parts and there were a few who liked to play the Lion; but I never heard of any child who volunteered for the Crocodile. The Crocodile didn't mind; he was rather haughty, for in the earliest days Mr. Clemns had seen the play and proclaimed his feeling for the Crocodile, and the Crocodile, knowing that praise could go no higher, was quite content with that.

Peter's unique art in aviation roused great interest and enthusiasm, and many, many letters came to him inclosing little coins and the most plaintive appeals; one little men sent a peremptory request for “ten cents' worth of fairy dust and full instructions for flying.” Who could be afraid of little children after that? But the one I knew least learned that she had to be perfectly sincere with children, and could not pretend unless it was so stated and understood by all parties. Wonderful “touchstones for reality” they are!

A Difficult Problem

But sometimes meeting children who had seen the play was a far from simple matter. One day a very little boy was waiting at the stage door, and when Peter, dressed for the street, appeared in the doorway, it was apparent at once that the little boy had not expected a woman in skirts. One couldn't tell whether it was a sense of personal injury or whether all his faith in human nature was being shaken. Peter never left the theater again after a matinee, if very little people were waiting.

No actor lives by bread alone, and to have been part of that lovely play, to have known that wonderful feeling in an audience is something to refresh one's spirit all of one's life, something to make one always grateful.

Ireland! If one lands in Ireland during a moment of respite with the gallant sun shining down-and how beautiful the sun can be in Ireland!-the women's hats are the things that may seem queer. When the moment's respite is over and the rain pelts down, the stranger hurries to the nearest hat shop and gets something in the way of headgear that is sister to the rest. Ireland is no place for feathers, and gee-gaws not made of rubber find short shrift. It is one of the many things that one accepts as being Ireland; and if the land is dear to one, the lacks seem very small.

Dublin is somber on gray or sunny days, as if it could not forget its tragic history. But in the country and on the sea nothing can be more beautiful than Ireland with the glorious sun shining, the water shimmering and white clouds scudding, and a lovely little island, Ireland's Eye, winking in the distance.

It was said that Trinity College would be very kind to women of other lands who wished to take a course in this or that. They would never be made to feel that they were in the way; oh, no, they would be shown the greatest consideration0-the undergraduates would pretend not to see them. On the whole it seemed fortunate that the strangers could go to Ireland only in the summer when the undergraduates would not be subjected to such a heavy strain. But on arriving in Dublin it was found that Trinity boasted a number of female students, nearly a round hundred. They had been made part of Trinity in a truly Irish fashion; Queen Elizabeth, in granting the charter, had not said that women should be admitted; but the powers of the nineteenth century decided that as she had not said they shouldn't, they could let the ladies in. So Trinity opened her doors, and a glorious day it was for the girls of Ireland.

The one I knew least did not feel a stranger in Ireland; her father's people had ben Irish as well as Scotch; and there had been a tradition that her Belfast grandfather, pacing the shore at the age of eight, had gazed into the interior of a whale. This information had fallen upon a fallow but slightly muddled imagination, and had grown into a firm conviction that Jonah was her grandfather. So in a way she was prepared for Ireland, where nothing strange is denied its little chance.

Discovering Ireland

Of course it was like a descendant of an Irish strain to go to Ireland to study Old English the very time that the great authority on Old English was away off on his sabbatical year. But Trinity is a lovesome place; and the holiday in Ireland ran into two holidays-six weeks the first summer, three months the second.

The first summer Mr. Barrie came over to tell of his wonderful new play and, as might have been expected, said not one word of plays, his own or others, the entire time he was there. So it was decided they would be explorers; Ireland had never been discovered, and they set out to find it.

There was an afternoon in Phoenix Park, and a cricket match was going on. Being a mere American, of course the one I knew least knew next to nothing about cricket. Hour upon hour they watched; an occasional muttering, “Very good play; very good play” was all that showed that life was not extinct in J.M.B.

At home, games are not very important unless one can get excited about them. In the one game of baseball the one I knew least had seen, with a man scraping his nose on Mother Earth to touch the plate just in time, spectators of all ages and conditions jumping upon benches, ruining their voices hallooing and cheering, it was a very thrilling scene.

But it seems that it is “not cricket.” Cricket is when a gentleman strikes a ball and jogs pleasantly to a point midway between two wickets; then glancing in the direction the ball has taken, he ruminates on his future actions; the result of his reflections seems to be that as he has come half the distance in a given time, it is reasonable to suppose that the second half of the distance can be covered in a corresponding time; therefore why bother to demonstrate it? And he ambles the other half of the distance. It is borne in upon an uninitiated spectator that the climax of the gentleman's performance was before he started; that when he took up the bat, perhaps before he hit the ball, was the time for jumping upon benches and shouting. But that is not cricket.

At a certain point a player leaves the field and makes his way through the crowd seated in front of the club house; he is on his way to a cup of tea. As he passes through the crowed, he is applauded, and he raises his cap. A little later another player leaves the field on his way to a cup of tea; as he passes through the crowd, he is applauded, and he doesn't raise his cap. What is the meaning of that? Oh, he has not played well, you see. That is cricket.

But everything is different and unexpected. We are told that the first Irish monks were Egyptians; and we know that in the gorgeous new custom house the front was in the back. We are told that when the bakers decided not to do night work, and there was no fresh bread in the morning, the Irish compromised by eating their breakfast the night before and their supper the morning after. Where could such a solution be found but in Ireland?

And of course it would be the land of the fairies. Ireland's “little people.” There is such a long stretch of bogland on the way to Glendalough which is certainly populated by the “little people”; but they must be naughty little people, for it's a dour place and fills one with concern lest some mischance should leave one on the roadside; and to be afoot would e perilous, for the naughty fairies would surely seize the opportunity to nip the calves of one's legs.

The Charm of Glendalough

“Irish scenery is like the Irish melodies, sweet, wild and sad even in the sunshine.” And as for Glendalough-”only fancy can describe the charms of that delightful place. Directly you see it, it smiles at you as innocent and friendly as a little child, and once seen, it becomes your friend forever, and you aer always happy when you think of it.” It is all that, and a little more. There is sunshine, and something somber in the tight-locked little lake; but there is fun, too, as there must be wherever an Irishman is found. One of the guides undertook to row the explorers across the lake. The legend of St. Kevin and the unspeakably bold Kathleen was dwelt upon at length. The guide recited Moore's entire poem with great feeling and many little quavers. “Why, of course,” said he; “that's where she was drowned.” (St. Kevin, engaged at having his hiding place discovered, had thrown the lady into the lake;); “and every evening at eight o'clock Kathleen stands upon that rock, just there-no, no, a little to the left-combing her beautiful hair.” “Of course,” it as ventured, “they are true, all these stories that you tell us?” And the priceless answer: “Oh, lady, why would I tell a lie when the truth would do as well?”

The haunts of the fairies were discussed. The explorers were assured that at certain hours, not the hours that were then prevailing, a fairy could be found under every bush. “Oh, yes,” said the guide, “the place is full of them.” But when an explorer's voice cried out: “Why, there's one now!” the guide's wholly skeptical yet half hopeful “Where? was something to remember. The entire party was frankly disappointed when the fairy revealed himself as a manly tripper in tweeds hopping down the hillside.

On landing at the far end of the lake the explorers were conducted to a hollowed stone containing belated raindrops which abated agues and fevers. Then on to another rock where now one was invited to perch, one knee resting on the other at a prescribed angle, the foot swinging free in a certain rhythm-and never again would rheumatism or gout invade those protected spots. Then on to St. Kevin's Cave itself, where there were more evidences of the “little people's” work-the Seven Churches of the Fairies, “whereof the clergy must have been the smallest persons, and have had the smallest benefices and the littlest congregations ever known.”

The approach to St. Kevin's Cave puts the declivities of the Pyramids of Egypt in quite a second class. How the guides reconcile their anxiety for relieving travelers of aches and pains and disintegrating diseases, with their total disregard of life itself, is puzzling to a stranger. It would be safer to climb the Pyramids on crutches than St. Kevin's Cave on foot.

On the way home the explorers stopped to admire a rose-covered cottage, and to compliment the owner, a very old woman. A few words led to others, and others to the absorbing topic of the time, unemployment. The explorers asked if it were true that there was so much poverty among the people, and so much unemployment. The old woman answered: “Oh, there's hundreds of them walkin' up an' down, lookin' for work, an' prayin' the Lord not to find it.”

Ireland!

A Tribute to the Alexanders

Apart from her mother's loving advice, and Mr. Frohman's wisdom, which was a bulwark, the greatest help the one I knew least ever had in the theater was given her by John Alexander and Elizabeth Alexander, his wife. John Alexander was a many-sided man, and the theater interested him enormously; it brought so many problems together, and he dearly loved a problem. The people of the theater are mortally afraid of “outsiders.” They dread pet theories, and they are convinced that no outsider realizes that the curtain must go up on the given moment. But there was not a soul in the Empire Theater who hadn't the greatest respect for John Alexander's ideas, and the desire to forward anything he felt important. There was good reason for this. Mr. Alexander had the gift of deciding a question of scenery as a scene painter would decide it; a question of costume as a costumer would decide; he knew the difficulties and how far he could insist, and just when to decide on a compromise.

Such a wealth of knowledge he brought, and such high standards.

The great difficult for young people in the theater is that they are told that they must work very hard, and are not told very definitely what to do. True, they study voice culture and dramatics, but they are not led in the ways that cultivate their imagination.

When the least was very young, there were several queer words going about. Psychology was one; people didn't know what it meant, but they were beginning to know hot to spell it. Imagination was another-all mixed with phantasy and fancy; no one was quite sure of it, and it was held at arm's length for fear at any moment it might turn and bite. And stranger still, imagination was considered a gift that one had or one hadn't, and nothing could be done about it. It was in this that John Alexander was such a great help. He held that imagination was a gift that carried with it responsibility, and something had to be done about it; that it ws a varied thing, but never a will-o'-the-wisp; it was a thing of blood and sinews to be challenged and wrestled with, a thing of fire and flame to be guarded and protected. It is easier to say what imagination does that what it is. Sometimes it seems that imagination is like invention-”little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory.” But in its higher reaches imagination is a great deal more. “Imagination respects the cause. It is the vision of the inspired soul reading arguments and affirmations in all nature of that which it is driven to say.”

Even the great actors must cultivate their imagination and cultivate their taste. Taste! There is another naughty pitfall, for who is not inclined to be rather complacent in that matter of taste? Most of us us lean to the opinion that our taste, our senses and our emotions are probably among the best of their kind; and who is apt to tell us that our taste is worthless, that our senses are blunt, that our emotions are crude?

It was one day in Paris; the one I knew least said rather shamefacedly to Elizabeth Alexander, ”Will Mr. Alexander mind if I run off to the Louvre? “ E.A. answered: “We lived in Paris twelve years, and every morning John was sitting on the steps of the Louvre waiting for the doors to open.”

They were going through the Louvre, all three. The least had not been conscious of appalling lacks; she thought she knew a little about painting; as opportunities offered she had gone to galleries and museums, as most people do, for the pleasure of it, and she had relied upon what appealed to her.

Tuning One's Mind to the Best

At the end of that day in the Louvre, though she had been there many, many days in other years, she realized that something was the matter. She heard herself say “I know nothing at all about all this, and I must know at once. What am I to do?” Elizabeth Alexander laughed, delighted, but John Alexander become suddenly very serious.

He said: “Go with someone who knows, and look only at the best. After a while the mediocrities will drop away; you will not see them.”

John Alexander's insistence upon what he considered the obvious way of cultivating taste was inspiring. It was not to see everything in order to form a standard-life is rather short for that; but to tune one's mind to the best; it was not enough to know what one “liked”; it was imperative that one should learn to like great things, and know why one liked them. After that it would be safe to look at everything-if one had time!

It was great good fortune for the one I knew least that she was with the Alexanders, for several month's motoring through Touraine gave her innumerable reasons for asking questions and being a nuisance-but this last she was never allowed to feel. Cathedrals, museums and chateaux that she had seen many, many times before became a new world of interest. In Tours they found a charming museum, intimate and small, but with many treasures; and Blois was so full of question marks it was difficult to begin. She was allowed to make mistakes as often as she could muster courage.

It was at first amusing, and later very interesting, to see herself adroitly edged away from the pictures that for one reason or another had taken her fancy; she could “like” anything she chose, but for that time at least she was to look only at the great masters, and at the great masters only at their best.

Finding the Quality in Art

Very slowly there came to her the recognition of an alikeness in quality, and with it a curious response, as if certain nerves vibrated in answer to that quality, just as the nerves respond to a note in music.

Two years after, she found herself in one of the large cities at home, with three hours to wait for a train. She drove to the Art Museum. There were extraordinary pictures, but among them was one collection which the benefactor, with doubtful wisdom, had insisted on the museum's holding intact. It filled an entire room, a heterogeneous lot of small and seemingly unimportant paintings. She rain in, and was running out when her eyes rested for a second on a little sketch; she was drawn to it; it was the only Rubens in the room. And that day she blessed the name of John Alexander, for she felt she was beginning to learn.

John Alexander taught her that sensitiveness to color is one measure of the emotions; if they are crude or if they are highly developed, the appreciation of color is sure index.

He taught her that music is another measure; and that “it is the mission of all art to cultivate and refine the senses and the emotions.”

John Alexander's great success in the theater was partly due to his keen sense of the practical. Mr. Frohman had the greatest confidence in his judgment; and without his successful planning, and the extraordinary help that Elizabeth Alexander gave some of the larger productions in Cambridge and California, John of Arc and As You Like It, could never have been attempted.