I received, not very long ago, in a provincial town, a letter from a
young lady, who wished to adopt the stage as a profession but was
troubled in her mind by certain anxieties and uncertainties. These
she desired me to relieve. The questions asked by my correspondent
are rather typical questions-questions that are generally asked by
those who, approaching the stage from the outside, in the light of
prejudice and misrepresentation, believe the calling of the actor to
be one morally dangerous and intellectually contemptible; one in which
it is equally easy to succeed as an artist and degenerate as an
individual. She begins by telling me that she has a "fancy for the
stage," and has "heard a great many things about it." Now, for any
man or woman to become an actor or actress because they have a "fancy
for the stage" is in itself the height of folly. There is no calling,
I would venture to say, which demands on the part of the aspirant
greater searching of heart, thought, deliberation, real assurance of
fitness, reasonable prospect of success before deciding to follow it,
than that of the actor. And not the least advantage of a dramatic
school lies in the fact that some of its pupils may learn to
reconsider their determination to go on the stage, become convinced of
their own unfitness, recognise in time that they will be wise to
abandon a career which must always be hazardous and difficult even to
those who are successful, and cruel to those who fail. Let it be
something far sterner and stronger than mere fancy that decides you to
try your fortunes in the theatre.
My correspondent says she has "heard a great many things about the
stage." If I might presume to offer a piece of advice, it would be
this: Never believe anything you hear about actors and actresses from
those who are not actually familiar with them. The amount of
nonsense, untruth, sometimes mischievous, often silly, talked by
otherwise rational people about the theatre, is inconceivable were it
not for one's own personal experience. It is one of the penalties of
the glamour, the illusion of the actor's art, that the public who see
men and women in fictitious but highly exciting and moving situations
on the stage, cannot believe that when they quit the theatre, they
leave behind them the emotions, the actions they have portrayed there.
And as there is no class of public servants in whom the public they
serve take so keen an interest as actors and actresses, the wildest
inventions about their private lives and domestic behaviour pass as
current, and are eagerly retailed at afternoon teas in suburban
drawing-rooms.