our Sixteen Greatest Actors
It was within the privacy of his own library that we obtained—need we say with infinite difficulty—our interview with the Great Actor. He was sitting in a deep arm-chair, so buried in his own thoughts that he was oblivious1 of our approach. On his knee before him lay a cabinet photograph of himself. His eyes seemed to be peering into it, as if seeking to fathom2 its unfathomable mystery. We had time to note that a beautiful carbon photogravure of himself stood on a table at his elbow, while a magnificent half-tone pastel of himself was suspended on a string from the ceiling. It was only when we had seated ourself in a chair and taken out our notebook that the Great Actor looked up.
We bowed.
“Publicity4!” he murmured rather to himself than to us. “Publicity! Why must one always be forced into publicity?”
It was not our intention, we explained apologetically, to publish or to print a single word—
“Eh, what?” exclaimed the Great Actor. “Not print it? Not publish it? Then what in—”
Not, we explained, without his consent.
“Ah,” he murmured wearily, “my consent. Yes, yes, I must give it. The world demands it. Print, publish anything you like. I am indifferent to praise, careless of fame. Posterity5 will judge me. But,” he added more briskly, “let me see a proof of it in time to make any changes I might care to.”
“And now,” we began, “may we be permitted to ask a few questions about your art? And first, in which branch of the drama do you consider that your genius chiefly lies, in tragedy or in comedy?”
“In both,” said the Great Actor.
“You excel then,” we continued, “in neither the one nor the other?”
“Not at all,” he answered, “I excel in each of them.”
“Excuse us,” we said, “we haven’t made our meaning quite clear. What we meant to say is, stated very simply, that you do not consider yourself better in either of them than in the other?”
“Not at all,” said the Actor, as he put out his arm with that splendid gesture that we have known and admired for years, at the same time throwing back his leonine head so that his leonine hair fell back from his leonine forehead. “Not at all. I do better in both of them. My genius demands both tragedy and comedy at the same time.”
“Ah,” we said, as a light broke in upon us, “then that, we presume, is the reason why you are about to appear in Shakespeare?”
The Great Actor frowned.
“I would rather put it,” he said, “that Shakespeare is about to appear in me.”
“Of course, of course,” we murmured, ashamed of our own stupidity.
“I appear,” went on the Great Actor, “in Hamlet. I expect to present, I may say, an entirely7 new Hamlet.”
“A new Hamlet!” we exclaimed, fascinated. “A new Hamlet! Is such a thing possible?”
“Entirely,” said the Great Actor, throwing his leonine head forward again. “I have devoted8 years of study to the part. The whole conception of the part of Hamlet has been wrong.”
“All actors hitherto,” continued the Great Actor, “or rather, I should say, all so-called actors—I mean all those who tried to act before me—have been entirely mistaken in their presentation. They have presented Hamlet as dressed in black velvet10.”
“Yes, yes,” we interjected, “in black velvet, yes!”
“Very good. The thing is absurd,” continued the Great Actor, as he reached down two or three heavy volumes from the shelf beside him. “Have you ever studied the Elizabethan era?”
“The which?” we asked modestly.
“The Elizabethan era?”
We were silent.
“Or the pre-Shakespearean tragedy?”
We hung our head.
“If you had, you would know that a Hamlet in black velvet is perfectly11 ridiculous. In Shakespeare’s day—as I could prove in a moment if you had the intelligence to understand it—there was no such thing as black velvet. It didn’t exist.”
“In brown velvet,” said the Great Actor.
“Great Heavens,” we exclaimed, “this is a revolution.”
“It is. But that is only one part of my conception. The main thing will be my presentation of what I may call the psychology13 of Hamlet.”
“The psychology!” we said.
“Yes,” resumed the Great Actor, “the psychology. To make Hamlet understood, I want to show him as a man bowed down by a great burden. He is overwhelmed with Weltschmerz. He carries in him the whole weight of the Zeitgeist; in fact, everlasting14 negation15 lies on him—”
“You mean,” we said, trying to speak as cheerfully as we could, “that things are a little bit too much for him.”
“His will,” went on the Great Actor, disregarding our interruption, “is paralysed. He seeks to move in one direction and is hurled16 in another. One moment he sinks into the abyss. The next, he rises above the clouds. His feet seek the ground, but find only the air—”
“Machinery!” exclaimed the Great Actor, with a leonine laugh. “The machinery of thought, the mechanism18 of power, of magnetism—”
“Ah,” we said, “electricity.”
“Not at all,” said the Great Actor. “You fail to understand. It is all done by my rendering19. Take, for example, the famous soliloquy on death. You know it?”
“‘To be or not to be,’” we began.
“Stop,” said the Great Actor. “Now observe. It is a soliloquy. Precisely20. That is the key to it. It is something that Hamlet says to himself. Not a word of it, in my interpretation21, is actually spoken. All is done in absolute, unbroken silence.”
“How on earth,” we began, “can you do that?”
Good heavens! Was it possible? We looked again, this time very closely, at the Great Actor’s face. We realized with a thrill that it might be done.
“I come before the audience so,” he went on, “and soliloquize—thus—follow my face, please—”
As the Great Actor spoke22, he threw himself into a characteristic pose with folded arms, while gust24 after gust of emotion, of expression, of alternate hope, doubt and despair, swept—we might say chased themselves across his features.
“Shakespeare’s lines,” said the Great Actor, as his face subsided26 to its habitual27 calm, “are not necessary; not, at least, with my acting28. The lines, indeed, are mere29 stage directions, nothing more. I leave them out. This happens again and again in the play. Take, for instance, the familiar scene where Hamlet holds the skull30 in his hand: Shakespeare here suggests the words ‘Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well—‘”
“Yes, yes!” we interrupted, in spite of ourself, “‘a fellow of infinite jest—‘”
“Your intonation31 is awful,” said the Actor. “But listen. In my interpretation I use no words at all. I merely carry the skull quietly in my hand, very slowly, across the stage. There I lean against a pillar at the side, with the skull in the palm of my hand, and look at it in silence.”
“Wonderful!” we said.
“I then cross over to the right of the stage, very impressively, and seat myself on a plain wooden bench, and remain for some time, looking at the skull.”
“Marvellous!”
“I then pass to the back of the stage and lie down on my stomach, still holding the skull before my eyes. After holding this posture32 for some time, I crawl slowly forward, portraying33 by the movement of my legs and stomach the whole sad history of Yorick. Finally I turn my back on the audience, still holding the skull, and convey through the spasmodic movements of my back Hamlet’s passionate34 grief at the loss of his friend.”
“Why!” we exclaimed, beside ourself with excitement, “this is not merely a revolution, it is a revelation.”
“Call it both,” said the Great Actor.
“The meaning of it is,” we went on, “that you practically don’t need Shakespeare at all.”
“Exactly, I do not. I could do better without him. Shakespeare cramps35 me. What I really mean to convey is not Shakespeare, but something greater, larger—how shall I express it—bigger.” The Great Actor paused and we waited, our pencil poised36 in the air. Then he murmured, as his eyes lifted in an expression of something like rapture37. “In fact—ME.”
He remained thus, motionless, without moving. We slipped gently to our hands and knees and crawled quietly to the door, and so down the stairs, our notebook in our teeth.
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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intrigued
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| adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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portraying
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| v.画像( portray的现在分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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cramps
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| n. 抽筋, 腹部绞痛, 铁箍 adj. 狭窄的, 难解的 v. 使...抽筋, 以铁箍扣紧, 束缚 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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