feelings of the people, not by attempting to interpret literature but by
being an actor. An actor is a man who acts. He may be an uneducated man,
deficient in learning and in mental discipline, and yet a fine actor.
The people care not at all for literature. They do not read it, and they
know nothing about it until it is brought home to their hearts by some
great interpreter of it. What they do know is action. They can see and
they can feel, and the actor who makes them see and feel can do
anything with them that he pleases. It is his privilege and his
responsibility. Jefferson is one of those artists (and they are few) who
depend for their effects not upon what authors have written but upon
impersonation. He takes liberties with the text. It would not perhaps be
saying too much to say that he does not primarily heed the text at all.
He is an actor; and speaking with reference to him and to others like
him it would perhaps be well if those persons who write criticisms upon
the stage would come to a definite conclusion upon this point and
finally understand that an actor must produce his effects on the instant
by something that he does and is, and not by rhetoric and elocution, and
therefore that he should not be expected to repeat every word of every
part, or to be a translator of somebody else, but that he must be
himself. If we want the full, literal text of Shakespeare we can stop at
home and read it. What we want of the actor is that he should give
himself; and the true actor does give himself. The play is the medium. A
man who acts Romeo must embody, impersonate, express, convey, and make
evident what he knows and feels about love. He need not trouble himself
about Shakespeare. That great poet will survive; while if Romeo, being
ever so correct, bores the house, Romeo will be damned. Jefferson is an
actor who invariably produces effect, and he produces it by
impersonation, and by impersonation that is poetic and human.
Jefferson's performance of Acres conspicuously exemplifies the
principles that have been stated here. He has not hesitated to alter the
comedy of _The Rivals_, and in his alteration of it he has improved it.
Acres has been made a better part for an actor, and a more significant
and sympathetic part for an audience. You could not care particularly
for Acres if he were played exactly as he is written. You might laugh at
him, and probably would, but he would not touch your feelings. Jefferson
embodies him in such a way that he often makes you feel like laughing
and crying at the same moment, and you end with loving the character,
and storing it in your memory with such cherished comrades of the fancy
as Mark Tapley and Uncle Toby. There is but little human nature in Acres
as Sheridan has drawn him, and what there is of human nature is coarse;
but as embodied by Jefferson, while he never ceases to be comically
absurd, he becomes fine and sweet, and wins sympathy and inspires
affection, and every spectator is glad to have seen him and to remember
him. It is not possible to take that sort of liberty with every author.
You can do it but seldom with Shakespeare; never in any but his juvenile
plays. But there are authors who can be improved by that process, and
Sheridan--in _The Rivals_, not in _The School for Scandal_--is one of
them. And anyway, since it ought to be felt, known, understood, and
practically admitted that an actor is something more than a telegraph
wire, that his personal faculty and testimony enter into the matter of
embodiment and expression, Jefferson's rare excellence and great success
as Acres should teach a valuable lesson, correcting that pernicious
habit of the critical mind which measures an actor by the printed text
of a play-book and by the hide-bound traditions of custom on the stage.
Jefferson has had a royal plenitude of success as an actor, chiefly with
the part of Rip Van Winkle, but also with the characters of Caleb
Plummer, Bob Brierly, Dr. Pangloss, Dr. Ollapod, Mr. Golightly, and Hugh
de Brass. The reason of that success cannot be found in conventional
adherence to stage customs and critical standards.
Jefferson has gained his great power over the people--of which his great
fame is the shadow--- by giving himself in his art--his own rich and
splendid nature and the crystallised conclusions of his experience. As
an artist, when it comes to execution, he leaves nothing to chance. The
most seemingly artless of his proceedings is absolutely defined in
advance, and never is what heedless observers call impulsive and
spontaneous. But his temperament is free, fluent, opulent, and
infinitely tender; and when the whole man is aroused, this flows into
the moulds of literary and dramatic art and glorifies them. When you are
looking at Jefferson as Acres in the duel scene in _The Rivals_, you
laugh at him, but almost you laugh through your tears. When you see
Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle confronting the ghosts on the lonely
mountain-top at midnight, you see a display of imaginative personality
quite as high as that of Hamlet in tremulous sensibility to supernatural
influence, although wholly apart from Hamlet in altitude of intellect
and in anguish of experience. The poetry of the impersonation, though,
is entirely consonant with Hamlet, and that is the secret of Jefferson's
exceptional hold upon the heart and the imagination of his time. The
public taste does not ask Jefferson to trifle with his art. Its deep,
spontaneous, natural preference feels that he is a true actor, and so
yields to his power, and enjoys his charm, and is all the time improved
and made fitter to enjoy it. He has reached as great a height as it is
possible to reach in his profession. He could if he chose play greater
parts than he has ever attempted; he could not give a better
exemplification than he gives, in his chose and customary achievement,
of all that is distinctive, beautiful, and beneficent in the art of the
actor.
IX.
JEFFERSON AND FLORENCE IN OLD COMEDY.
A revival of _The Heir at Law_ was accomplished in the New York season
of 1890, with Joseph Jefferson in the character of Dr. Pangloss and
William James Florence in that of Zekiel Homespun. That play dates back
to 1797, a period in which a sedulous deference to conventionality
prevailed in the British theatre, as to the treatment of domestic
subjects; and, although the younger Colman wrote in a more flexible
style than was possessed by any other dramatist of the time, excepting
Sheridan, he was influenced to this extent by contemporary usage, that
often when he became serious he also became artificial and stilted. The
sentimental part of _The Heir at Law_ is trite in plan and hard in
expression. Furthermore that portion of it which, in the character of
Dr. Pangloss, satirises the indigent, mercenary, disreputable private
tutors who constituted a distinct and pernicious class of social
humbugs in Colman's day, has lost its direct point for the present age,
through the disappearance of the peculiar type of imposture against
which its irony was directed. Dr. Pangloss, nevertheless, remains
abstractly a humorous personage; and when he is embodied by an actor
like Jefferson, who can elucidate his buoyant animal spirits, his gay
audacity, his inveterate good-nature, his nimble craft, his jocular
sportiveness, his shrewd knowledge of character and of society, and his
scholar-like quaintness, he becomes a delightful presence; for his
mendacity disappears in the sunshine of his humour; his faults seem
venial; and we entertain him much as we do the infinitely greater and
more disreputable character of Falstaff,--knowing him to be a vagabond,
but finding him a charming companion, for all that. This is one great
relief to the hollow and metallic sentimentality of the piece. Persons
like Henry Moreland, Caroline Dormer, and Mr. Steadfast would be
tiresome in actual life; they belong, with Julia and Falkland and
Peregrine and Glenroy, to the noble army of the bores, and they are
insipid on the stage; but the association of the sprightly and jocose
Pangloss with those drab-tinted and preachy people irradiates even their
constitutional platitude with a sparkle of mirth. They shine, in spite
of themselves.
Colman's humour is infectious and penetrating. In that quality he was
original and affluent. As we look along the line of the British
dramatists for the last hundred years we shall find no parallel to his
felicity in the use of comic inversion and equivoke, till we come to
Gilbert. Though he was tedious while he deferred to that theatrical
sentimentality which was the fashion of his day (and against which
Goldsmith, in _She Stoops to Conquer_, was the first to strike), he
could sometimes escape from it; and when he did escape he was brilliant.
In _The Heir at Law_ he has not only illumined it by the contrast of Dr.
Pangloss but by the unctuous humour and irresistible comic force of the
character of Daniel Dowlas, Lord Duberly. Situations in a play, in order
to be invested with the enduring quality of humour, must result from
such conduct as is the natural and spontaneous expression of comic
character. The idea of the comic parvenue is ancient. It did not
originate with Colman. His application of it, however, was novel and his
treatment of it--taking fast hold of the elemental springs of mirth--is
as fresh to-day as it was a hundred years ago. French minds, indeed, and
such as subscribe to French notions, would object that the means
employed to elicit character and awaken mirth are not scientifically and
photographically correct, and that they are violent. Circumstances, they
would say, do not so fall out that a tallow-chandler is made a lord. The
Christopher Sly expedient, they would add, is a forced expedient.
Perhaps it is. But English art sees with the eyes of the imagination and
in dramatic matters it likes to use colour and emphasis. Daniel Dowlas,
as Lord Duberly, is all the droller for being a retired tallow-chandler,
ignorant, greasy, conventional, blunt, a sturdy, honest, ridiculous
person, who thinks he has observed how lords act and who intends to put
his gained knowledge into practical use. We shall never again see him
acted as he was acted by Burton, or by that fine actor William Rufus
Blake, or even by John Gilbert--who was of rather too choleric a
temperament and too fine a texture for such an oily and stupidly
complacent personage. But whenever and however he is acted he will be
recognised as an elemental type of absurd human nature made ludicrous by
comic circumstances; and he will give rich and deep amusement.
It is to be observed, in the analysis of this comedy, that according to
Colman's intention the essential persons in it are all, at heart, human.
The pervasive spirit of the piece is kindly. Old Dowlas, restricted to
his proper place in life, is a worthy man. Dick Dowlas, intoxicated by
vanity and prosperity, has no harm in him, and he turns out well at
last. Even Dr. Pangloss--although of the species of rogue that subsists
by artfully playing upon the weakness of human vanity--is genial and
amiable; he is a laughing philosopher; he gives good counsel; he hurts
nobody; he is but a mild type of sinner--and the satirical censure that
is bestowed upon him is neither merciless nor bitter. Pangloss, in Milk
Alley, spinning his brains for a subsistence, might be expected to prove
unscrupulous; but the moraliser can imagine Pangloss, if he were only
made secure by permanent good fortune, leading a life of blameless
indolence and piquant eccentricity. From that point of view Jefferson
formed his ideal of the character; and, indeed, his treatment of the
whole piece denoted an active practical sympathy with that gentle view
of the subject. He placed before his audience a truthful picture of old
English manners; telling them, in rapid and cheery action, Colman's
quaint story--in which there is no malice and no bitterness, but in
which simple virtue proves superior to temptation, and integrity is
strong amid vicissitudes--and leaving in their minds, at the last, an
amused conviction that indeed "Nature hath framed strange fellows in her
time." His own performance was full of nervous vitality and mental
sparkle, and of a humour deliciously quaint and droll. Dr. Panglass, as
embodied by Jefferson, is a man who always sees the comical aspect of
things and can make you see it with him, and all the while can be
completely self-possessed and grave without ever once becoming slow or
heavy. There was an air of candour, of ingenuous simplicity, of demure
propriety, about the embodiment, that made it inexpressibly funny. There
was no effort and no distortion. The structure of the impersonation
tingled with life, and the expression of it--in demeanour, movement,
facial play, intonation and business--was clear and crisp, with that
absolute precision and beautiful finish for which the acting of
Jefferson has always been distinguished. He is probably the only
American comedian now left, excepting John S. Clarke, who knows all the
traditional embellishments that have gone to the making of this part
upon the stage--embellishments fitly typified by the bank-note business
with Zekiel Homespun; a device, however, that perhaps suggests a greater
degree of moral obliquity in Dr. Pangloss than was intended by the
author. It was exceedingly comical, though, and it served its purpose.
Jefferson has had the character of Pangloss in his repertory for almost
forty years. He first acted it in New York as long ago as 1857, at Laura
Keene's theatre, when that beautiful woman played Cicely and when
Duberly was represented by the lamented James G. Burnett. It takes the
playgoer a long way back, to be thinking about this old piece and the
casts that it has had upon the American stage. _The Heir at Law_ was a
great favourite in Boston thirty years ago and more, when William Warren
was in his prime and could play Dr. Pangloss with the best of them, and
when Julia Bennett Barrow was living and acting, who could play Cicely
in a way that no later actress has excelled. John E. Owens as Pangloss
will never be forgotten. It was a favourite part with John Brougham. And
the grotesque fun of John S. Clarke in that droll character has been
recognised on both sides of the Atlantic.
In Jefferson's impersonation of Dr. Pangloss the predominant beauty was
spontaneous and perfectly graceful identification with the part. The
felicity of the apt quotations seemed to be accidental. The manner was
buoyant, but the alacrity of the mind was more nimble than the celerity
of the body, and those wise and witty comments that Pangloss makes upon
life, character, and manners flowed naturally from a brain that was in
the vigour and repose of intense animation. The actor was completely
merged in the character, which nevertheless his judgment dominated and
his will directed. No other representative of Pangloss has quite
equalled Jefferson in the element of authoritative and convincing
sincerity. His demure sapience was of the most intense order and it
arose out of great mental excitement. No other actor of the part has
equalled him in softness and winning charm of humour. His embodiment of
Dr. Pangloss has left in the memory of his time an image of eccentric
character not less lovable than ludicrous.
With Zekiel Homespun, an actor who is true to the author's plan will
produce the impression of an affectionate heart, virtuous principles,
and absolute honesty of purpose, combined with rustic simplicity.
Florence easily reached that result. His preservation of a dialect was
admirably exact. The soul of the part is fraternal love, and when Zekiel
finds that his trusted friend has repulsed him and would wrong his
sister, there is a fine flash of noble anger in the pride and scorn with
which he confronts this falsehood and dishonour. Florence in days when
he used to act the Irish Emigrant proved himself the consummate master
of simple pathos. He struck that familiar note again in the lovely
manner of Zekiel toward his sister Cicely, and his denotement of the
struggle between affection and resentment in the heart of the brother
when wounded by the depravity of his friend was not less beautiful in
the grace of art than impressive in simple dignity and touching in
passionate fervour. In point of natural feeling Zekiel Homespun is a
stronger part than Dr. Pangloss, although not nearly so complex nor so
difficult to act. The sentiments by which it is animated awaken instant
sympathy and the principles that impel command universal respect. No
actor who has attempted Zekiel Homespun in this generation on the
American stage has approached the performance that was given by
Florence, in conviction, in artless sweetness, in truth of passion, and
in the heartfelt expression of the heart.
Purists customarily insist that the old comedies are sacred; that no one
of their celestial commas or holy hyphens can be omitted without sin;
and that the alteration of a sentence in them is sacrilege. The truth
stands, however, without regard to hysterics: and it is a truth that the
old comedies owe their vitality mostly to the actors who now and then
resuscitate them. No play of the past is ever acted with scrupulous
fidelity to the original text. The public that saw the _Heir-at-Law_ and
the _Rivals_, when Jefferson and Florence acted in them, saw condensed
versions, animated by a living soul of to-day, and therefore it was
impressed. The one thing indispensable on the stage is the art of the
actor.
X.
ON THE DEATH OF FLORENCE.
The melancholy tidings of the death of Florence came suddenly (he died
in Philadelphia, after a brief illness, November 19, 1891), and struck
the hearts of his friends not simply with affliction but with dismay.
Florence was a man of such vigorous and affluent health that the idea of
illness and death was never associated with him. Whoever else might go,
he at least would remain, and for many cheerful years he would please
our fancy and brighten our lives. His spirit was so buoyant and
brilliant that it seemed not possible it could ever be dimmed. Yet now,
in a moment, his light was quenched and there was darkness on his mirth.
We shall hear his pleasant voice no more and see no more the sunshine of
a face that was never seen without joy and can never be remembered
without sorrow. The loss to the public was great. Few actors within the
last forty years have stood upon a level with Florence in versatility
and charm. His gentleness, his simplicity, his modesty, his affectionate
fidelity, his ready sympathy, his inexhaustibly patience, his fine
talents--all those attributes united with his spontaneous drollery to
enshrine him in tender affection.
William James Florence, whose family name was Conlin, was born in
Albany, July 26, 1831. When a youth he joined the Murdoch Dramatic
Association, and he early gave evidence of extraordinary dramatic
talent. On December 9, 1849 he made his first appearance on the regular
stage, at the Marshall theatre in Richmond, Virginia, where he
impersonated Tobias, in _The Stranger_. After that he met with the usual
vicissitudes of a young player. He was a member of various stock
companies--notably that of W.C. Forbes, of the Providence museum, and
that of the once-popular John Nickinson, of Toronto and Quebec--the
famous Havresack of his period. Later he joined the company at Niblo's
theatre, New York, under the management of Chippendale and John Sefton,
appearing there on May 8, 1850. He also acted at the Broadway, under
Marshall's management, and in 1852 he was a member of the company at
Brougham's Lyceum. On January 1, 1853 he married Malvina Pray, sister of
the wife of Barney Williams; and in that way those two Irish comedians
came to be domestically associated.
At that time Florence wrote several plays, upon Irish and Yankee
subjects, then very popular, and he began to figure as a star--his wife
standing beside him. They appeared at Purdy's National theatre, June 8,
1853, and then, and for a long time afterward, they had much popularity
and success. Florence had composed many songs of a sprightly character
(one of them, called _Bobbing Around_, had a sale of more than 100,000
copies), and those songs were sung by his wife, to the delight of the
public. The Irish drama served his purpose for many years, but he varied
that form of art by occasional resort to burlesque and by incursions
into the realm of melodrama. One of his best performances was that of
O'Bryan, in John Brougham's play of _Temptation, or the Irish Emigrant_,
with which he often graced the stage of the Winter Garden. In that he
touched the extremes of gentle humour and melting pathos. He was
delightfully humorous, also, in Handy Andy, and in all that long line of
Irish characters that came to our stage with Tyrone Power and the elder
John Drew. He had exceptional talent for burlesque, and that was often
manifested in his early days. _Fra Diavolo_, _Beppo_, _Lallah Rookh_,
_The Lady of the Lions_, and _The Colleen Bawn_, were among the
burlesques that he produced, and with those he was the pioneer.
Engagements were filled by Mr. and Mrs. Florence, at the outset of their
starring tour, in many cities of the republic, and everywhere they met
with kindness and honour. Among the plays written by Florence were _The
Irish Princess_, _O'Neil the Great_, _The Sicilian Bride_, _Woman's
Wrongs_, _Eva_, and _The Drunkard's Doom_. On April 2, 1856 Mr. and Mrs.
Florence sailed for England, and presently they appeared at Drury Lane
theatre, where they at once stepped into favour. The performance of the
_Yankee Gal_ by Mrs. Florence aroused positive enthusiasm--for it was
new, and Mrs. Florence was the first American comic actress that had
appeared upon the English stage. More than two hundred representations
of it were given at that time. Florence used to relate that his
fortunes were greatly benefited by his success in London, and he
habitually spoke with earnest gratitude of the kindness that he received
there. From that time onward he enjoyed almost incessant prosperity. A
tour of the English provincial cities followed his London season. He
acted at Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, and Dublin,
and both his wife and himself became favourites--so that their songs
were sung and whistled in the streets, wherever they went.
Returning to the United States Mr. and Mrs. Florence renewed their
triumphs, all over the land. In 1861 Florence played some of Burton's
characters in Wallack's theatre--among them being Toodle and Cuttle. At
a later period he made it a custom to lease Wallack's theatre during the
summer, and there he produced many burlesques. In 1863, at the Winter
Garden, he offered _The Ticket-of-Leave Man_ and acted Bob Brierly,
which was one of the best exploits of his life. In 1867 Wallack's old
theatre being then called the Broadway and managed by Barney Williams,
he brought to that house the comedy of _Caste_ and presented it with a
distribution of the parts that has not been equalled. The actors were
Mrs. Chanfrau, Mrs. Gilbert, Mrs. Florence, William Davidge, Owen
Marlowe, Edward Lamb, and Florence--who played George D'Alroy. In 1868
he presented _No Thoroughfare_ and enacted Obenreizer,--a performance
that established his rank among the leading actors of the time. In 1876
he made a remarkable hit as the Hon. Bardwell Slote in the play of _The
Mighty Dollar_, by Benjamin E. Woolff. That was the last important new
play that he produced. During the last fifteen years of his life he
offered selections from his accepted repertory. For a time he was
associated with Jefferson--to whom he brought a strength that was deeply
valued and appreciated, equally by that famous actor and by the
public--acting Sir Lucius O'Trigger in _The Rivals_ and Zekiel Homespun
in _The Heir-at-Law_.
The power of Florence was that of impersonation. He was imaginative and
sympathetic; his style was flexible; and he had an unerring instinct of
effect. The secret of his success lay in his profound feeling, guided by
perfect taste and perfect self-control. He was an actor of humanity, and
he diffused an irresistible charm of truth and gentleness. His place
was his own and it can never be filled.
* * * * *
An Epitaph.
_Here Rest the Ashes of_
WILLIAM JAMES FLORENCE,
_Comedian_.
_His Copious and Varied Dramatic Powers, together with the Abundant
Graces of his Person, combined with Ample Professional Equipment and a
Temperament of Peculiar Sensibility and Charm, made him one of the Best
and Most Successful Actors of his Time, alike in Comedy and in Serious
Drama. He ranged easily from Handy Andy to Bob Brierly, and from Cuttle
to Obenreizer. In Authorship, alike of Plays, Stories, Music, and Song,
he was Inventive, Versatile, Facile, and Graceful. In Art Admirable; in
Life Gentle; he was widely known, and he was known only to be loved._
HE WAS BORN IN ALBANY, N.Y.,
JULY 26, 1831.
HE DIED IN PHILADELPHIA PENN.,
NOVEMBER 19, 1891.
* * * * *
By Virtue cherished, by Affection mourned,
By Honour hallowed and by Fame adorned,
Here FLORENCE sleeps, and o'er his sacred rest
Each word is tender and each thought is blest.
Long, for his loss, shall pensive Mem'ry show,
Through Humour's mask, the visage of her woe,
Day breathe a darkness that no sun dispels,
And Night be full of whispers and farewells;
While patient Kindness, shadow-like and dim,
Droops in its loneliness, bereft of him,
Feels its sad doom and sure decadence nigh,--
For how should Kindness live, when he could die!