Few respectable shams are to me more distasteful than the affectation
of delight in the performance of an actor who speaks his lines in a
tongue unknown to the audience, as did sometimes the late Signor Rossi
in the rôle of “Otello.” It is of the essence and validity of acting
that it address the understanding through the ear as well as the eye.
The tones of an actor’s voice, however pleasing, do not address the
understanding at all without intelligible words; they are no more
than the notes of a violin—the pleasure they give is purely sensual,
and the speaker might as well articulate no words at all. A play, or
a part in a play, performed in unfamiliar speech is hardly better
than a pantomime, and those who profess to find in it an intellectual
gratification—well, they may be very estimable persons, for aught I
know.
It is not enough, in order to enjoy “Othello” or “Hamlet,” that the
audience have a general familiarity with the part; their knowledge
of it must be minute and precise. They must know of what particular
sentiment a facial expression is the visible exponent; of what
particular word a gesture is the accompaniment. Else how can they know
that the look is natural, the motion impressive? If one had memorized
the part _verbatim_, and the meaning of every word, the accidental
omission of a sentence would break the chain, and all that the eye
should afterward report of the passage would be meaningless. How shall
you know that the actor “suits the action to the word” if you know not
the word? To a mind ignorant of Italian the “Otello” of Signor Rossi
may have been a noble exercise in guessing; as acting it can have had
no value.