The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 13, 1902, Page 7

THE SUNDAY CALL. 7 ¥Y SARBAN OCOMSTOOK. Onos an amateur, always an smateur—Jo- sepb Jeffersan, E it true? Old Joe Jefferson said so, and he knows as much about the mtage as body in America. Yet everybody ble. Perhaps he made & mis- time. The amateur actor longs ateur performance, the pri- als of soclety, have instilled poison into his velns. herto he has been satisfied with go- ing to college, with studying law, with dsncing cotillons, or—if he be an amateur actress, she has found it interesting to do work, play bridge whist or go But the university farce or the burlesque that “our club” got up has changed all this. Tp to the time of the amateur perform- our homes cherished sons and ers who looked upon themselves as and deughters and were satisfied hat profession. Now they are dif- e discovered that they with a gift. They are going an artist’s mission; they g to elevate the stage. The senior ence jaugt e or club burlesque did it. he story is told of & very pretty bread- miss who took part in some performance. She was not & speaking pert; her opportunity g discovered asleep n the others arrived s was chosen possessed & bewitch- die—the kind demanded scene by a garder on her sleeping, and the most charming appened. Then she But this was not was ever disappeared her. The next day she knocked ger's d chance,” she 1 1 took part Ruse,” and my me my work in 1t was I had better begin as Juliet iffere nce, eve nd the pro- onal expects to be- der and climb eur expects to e result is, usu- to the bottom t the amateur a little fun, turn out so There is hardly ever some member of the theater. He thinks that as been discovered. A by the manager, or a squelch- the public later on, is his unhappy he mes about th got up for often disastrous} piays one takes g gift squelchi ing by reward. Now and then real talent does develop the ranks of the amateurs, but it has to go through a rigid schooling before it is entrusted with responsible parts. his jus & <SROUP STANFORD OF The managers are not enthusiastic when you, ment amateur training to them. In fact, they turn up their noses mightily at the sound of the name. If some of the aspiring amateurs could see them they would think twice before rushing to them A glory of their amateur success. Mr. Gottlob of the Columbla takes on a sarcastic expression that reaches: from the top of his head to his chin. It wrinkles his forehead and elevates his nose and curls his mouth. It is plain at a glance that the amateur has no chance around the office of the Cclumbia. “Experience in amateur theatricals is worse than no training at all,” he sald to me. “I'd rather take a raw recruit any day—that is, one who knows he is raw. The amateur performance has done no good in the way of training, and it has done this in the way of harm: it has filled his head so full of conceit that you can’t do anything with You can’t make him believe -that he has anything left to learn. He considers hir already. him. self a star “Managers mever pay any attention to ameteur performanc It never occurs to them ook there for talent. The professional regards them as child’s play, no more, no le “The one training for an actor is the dramatic school. There he acquires the technicalities that he can never acquire without professional training. And that j& his best chance for advancement now- adays, t00. Managers look to the dra- matic schools for fresh talent. Frohman isits some of them every season to sec vhat there is to be discovered. “But amateur training—it is nothing. 1 don’'t mean that. It is worse than nothing.” AMATEURS I P. Wilson of the Tivoll is less dis- couraging, though. He has coached sev- eral a eur performances for the Ve- rein and the Concordia Club, and he treats the amateur with somewhat more respect that his brother-professionals do. He says he knows some that would make first-class professionals if they choose to go on the boards. “There is Judge Sloss. He played in tha burlesque of ‘The First Barn.’ He took George Osbourne’s part, that of the Doc- tor, and he read his iines as well as George Osbotirne—every bit as well. He has a great diction, anyway. Ever hear him speak? It is as clear-cut as any profes- ional’s. Sig Ackerman took Powers' part, that of the father of the first-born; and he is a gifted He knows it himself and has thought a good many times of trying it: but I guess he is too gocd a business man to try the profession. “Gene Korn is another peach of an amateur actor. He took the Old Colonel's part in the ‘Prisoner of Zenda’ burlesque. lesque. “Any one of these men ‘could go on the actor. THEATRIC ALS S e BUSHNELL PHOoTO stage and succeed; but not because they bave had amateur experlence. They are vaturally gifted, but they would have stage technique all to learn. The experl- ence that they have already had counts for very lttle. It is worth something though; 1t has glven them confidence, it has overcome the worst of their stage fright; that means one:mark to their credit. That's about all. “If their amateur work has spoiled them it’s all up with them for real acting. One little fellow who played the comedian's part in a burlesque told me after his one appearance that he had Teddy Hartman put to sleep. That was all tom-foolish- ness. He didn’t know the first thing about the technical rules of acting. “For my part, I believe that the stage itself is the school for the actor. Serve apprenticeship. That's the road to success. That is, remember, if you've got it in you.” Fred Belasco of the Alcazar is consld- erate of the amateur's feelings, too. He says that he sometimes goes to thelr per- formances in the hope of discovering talent. He himself belonged to an early- an A'S day dramatic club called the Madison Square. “That old club used to give everyt from ‘Hamlet' to ‘The Two Orphans,’" he says. “The training was great. It was like that In a stock company. It was the most all-round kind of work, and al- though the professional technique was lacking, we all taught ourselves a lot of points by experience alone and we rubbed off a deal of awkardness and stage fright. “Five of that bunch turned cut profes- slonals. “Sam Morris was one of them. vaudeville actor now. “Lillian Owen was another. She came to be Sol Smith Russe]l's leading woman. PFred Mayer achieved success, too. “And Theodore Wise—why, he's a Lon- don favorite now. He's that big comedian that everybody knows. “Then there was Fred Belasco, too, but he never made @ great hit, although he tried to for eleven years. At the end of that time I said to him, ‘Fred, old boy, I don't belleve you'll ever act, and you migit as well give up trying right now. I know more about keeping other people acting than about doing it myself. g He's a FTARCE ENIOR AT BUSHMNELL e PHcYo “But as for amateur tralning—T could name a long string of amateurs that have succeeded. Some of them have gone on the stage and others have taken up man- agerial work. George Lask is one of the latter. “Of course, an amateur has to begin at the Lottom of the technical ladder when it comes to going on the professional stage. But he can climb faster if he has been a successful amateur.” Charles Bryant does not appear to agree with the other part of the Alcazar man- agement. He it was who quoted Joseph Jefferson. He belleves that ‘“once an amateur, always an amateur.” ““Whenever an amateur does start out in the profession, he has te go to the very beginning and learn everything like some one who has never seen any kind of a stage. Besides this, he has probably ac- quired all kinds of wrong ideas that have to be swept out of his mind.” Selby Oppenheimer of the California barricades himself behind several walls and outer rooms, up a flight of stairs, past guardians of his peace, behind a tre- mendous desk?that looms threateningly. I was extremely glad that I was not a stage aspirant as I approached the throne. “I belleve in giving an amateur a chance just the samé as anybody else,” he said. But his tone was not warm. I congratulated myself again that I was not the aspirant. It anybody comes here and asks to be tried and I see a possibility in him, I'm willing to try him,” he went on. “That is, it there is any chance to do so.”” But there was something in thé managerial tone that made the trying out process loom ominously. “The amateur work can't do any harm and it may do this much good—it may teach a man how to learn lines. I mean Just plain learn 'em—memorize 'em. That is a part of the work by | “It doesn’t seem to be a matter of art or temperament.” “That's just the trouble. ner thinks it is too trifiing a matter to concern himself with. It isn’t art. Any child can learn lines, is what he thinks. T'd like to know what would become of a performance without letter-perfect Unes.” Mr. Friedlander of Fischer's Theater is most encouraging. “Have you any idea how many of our foremost actors and actresses started out as amateurs?” he says. “Dozens of them. Many who have almost forgotte the fact ncw. There is Charles Richman for one—Frohman’s lead stock theater—the ‘Mrs. The begin- n man who played Dane’s Defense’ and drew down laurels galore upon his head. There is Helen Merrill, know n Franeisco audiences. Robert F one of the foremost leading men in t ast, was another. Willa Feuor is her success who started as an z Ard Dor- othy Tennant, the leading woman in ‘Lovers’ Lane,’ one of the Eastern long run plays, is another of the list. Come around some day when I have time and L can name many more as you want."” The vaudeville stage is the one where amateur talent has Its Lest chance and where amateur lack of talent tries itself most often. The miseries of poor John Morrisey on trying-out Tuesday have reached print so often that there is no use trying to describe them agaln. “And yet it is wonderful what good things we come upon once In a while,” he says. “The case of Etta Butler is the most remarkable one and the best known. There she had been giving little private entertainments with her brother, imitat- ing Modjeska and anybody else that hap- pened to come along, and when I tried her here one Tuesday she was as un- used to the professional stage as any of the rest of them. And there were little Arnold and Hazel, too. And now you'll go and put this into print and Tl be besieged here by so many amateurs that it'll take a special squad of police to pro- tect me. And they’ll be no good—every one of them will be no good.” And the amateur who reads this will judiciously skip such remarks and see only the rosy possibilities mentioned. And if the amateur really has it in him, that is exactly what he ought to do. As for the groups shown on this page —the Stanfordites are now keeping house and attending to offices. The Franklin group has scattered and you don’t recog- nize the faces of any world-famous stars among them. The University of Califor- nia players have had no time yet to show what they will do, but the chances are— Well—what are they? The chronic borrower, like & wood photographer, is an expert retoucher.