Mr. Irving on "The Art of the Actor"

Before an audience which completely filled the Living Room of the Union, Mr. H. B. Irving delivered an address last evening on "The Art and Status of the Actor."

There are always occurring sporadic outbreaks against the actor and his art, said Mr. Irving, not unlike the old-fashioned Puritanism, which has been happily termed a "form of barbarism." Such attacks, it is easy to see, result more from the peculiarity of the art itself than from any fundamental reason. The actor does not heed them. That he is merely an exponent of mimicry, requiring no special training, is a monstrous fallacy. The true actor's task is rather to reproduce man in idealized form. This is as imperative to art in drama as it is to art on canvas or in marble.

It is useless to refute the idea that the actor's calling offers more temptations to loafers than any other profession. But it is equally fallacious to think that the actor's life is one sequence of success. There exists in this art the same discouragement known to all professions. The real cause of all the unpleasant publicity concerning the actor and his private life lies not so much in what he may or may not have done but in the insatiable desire of journalism to cater to the public taste. The delusion which exists in many minds that the actors and actresses live the lives they portray is laughably absurd.

To place the drama of the future on the high plane it deserves, we must have a National Academy of Drama which can adequately equip actors to maintain the great dignity of their art.

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