"N'Yawk's the place," said the child of a Bowery tenement
in New York, on the night of her return from an enforced sojourn in
Arcady. She hated picking daisies, and drinking rich new milk made her
sick. When the kind teacher who had brought her to the country strove to
impress her by taking her to see a cow milked, she remarked witheringly
to the man who was milking: "Gee! You put it in!"
Rachael's sentiments were of the same type, I think. "Back to the
circus!" was his cry, not "Back to the land!"
I hope, when he felt the sawdust under his feet again (I think Charles
Reade sent him back to the ring), he remembered his late master with
gratitude. To how many animals, and not only four-footed ones, was not
Charles Reade generously kind, and to none of them more kind than to
Ellen Terry.
V
THE ACTRESS AND THE PLAYWRIGHT
THE END OF MY APPRENTICESHIP
1874
The relation between author and actor is a very important element in the
life of the stage. It is the way with some dramatists to despise those
who interpret their plays, to accuse us of ruining their creations, to
suffer disappointment and rage because we do not, or cannot, carry out
their ideas.
Other dramatists admit that we players can teach them something; but I
have noticed that it is generally in "the other fellow's" play that we
can teach them, not in their own!
As they are necessary to us, and we to them, the great thing is to
reduce friction by sympathy.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136