THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE. APRIL 1909. LET ME ENJOY. SONG: MINOR KEY. I. Let me enjoy the Earth no less II. About my path there flits a Fair III. From manuscripts of tender song IV. And some day hence, toward Paradise THOMAS HARDY. 1 Copyright, 1909, by Thomas Hardy, in the United States of America. VOL. XXVI.-NO. 154, N.S. 28 SOME IMPRESSIONS OF COQUELIN. BY LADY BELL. THOSE who are in real touch with some beloved art, even if they be only onlookers at it, must have known some of those heavensent, privileged moments in which they have not only seen the Best, but have instantly recognised it—and by that recognition have been armoured against the danger that lies in wait for us all, that of contentedly accepting the second-rate. As far as the art of acting is concerned-and those who are not interested in that art need proceed no further with the following pages-there is no reason in these days why we should any of us yield to that deplorable acceptance. We have had, at intervals at any rate, the chance of being shown what acting can be at its highest and those of us whose playgoing experiences coincide with the later decades of the nineteenth century have had the opportunity of seeing one of the greatest examples of all. The art of Coquelin at his best was a standard of acting, a point of comparison to those who saw him, for the rest of their lives. Art it was, there was no doubt: the conscious, highly finished, deliberate art of a man with the great French traditions of the stage behind him, an art which he had perfected through early years of determination and toil, and in the long years of unbounded success that followed. His extraordinary natural gifts were reinforced by consummate knowledge, by deliberate intention. He always had, and always gave, a sense, both on the stage and off, of the absolute certainty with which he handled his resources, never trusting to the inspiration of the moment, never at the mercy of an impulse or a mood. It was by his art he convinced the listener; it was not by simple native sincerity; but the result was the same. Diderot's thesis, that the primary quality of an actor is that he should be able to stand outside his part, observe it dispassionately, and handle it with deliberate control, was an article of faith with Coquelin. He, too, believed that to feel real emotion on the stage was a fatal drawback to the actor; that the man who did so had not all his resources in hand, and did not know whither he might be led. As Diderot has it, The actor should be a cool and calm spectator of human nature; in handling it he should have infinite fineness of perception, but no sentimentality—that is, he should have that art of imitating everything which will give him an equal aptitude for every kind of part. For if an actor surrenders himself to the emotion of the moment, it is impossible for him to play the same part ten times with the same warmth and the same success; fiery and convincing at the first performance, he will be played out and as cold as marble by the time he comes to the third: whereas, if remaining calm himself, his imitation of nature, founded on close observation, is deliberate and intentional. He will compose an imitation of which he will be absolutely certain, and by the tenth time he plays it, far from having exhausted his emotion, his acting will be strengthened by his experience of the part and will be more and more successful. All this was constantly paraphrased in speech by Coquelin off the stage, and put into practice on it. In support of this theory he would tell how on one occasion, in a performance of 'L'Aîné,' at the moment where he had to fall by his brother's bedside in floods of tears with his head in his hands, he was in reality overcome by emotion, and did subside into tears, to the great detriment of the scene. He was thereby entirely thrown off his balance and did not recover himself during the rest of the act. He would also relate the history of another mishapthis time, however, based upon no theory-that might have had dire results. In a play in which he had to feign a drunken sleep in order to overhear what two of the other characters were saying Coquelin actually did, being very tired, go to sleep for a moment. Then he woke with a start-mercifully in time !-but not sure for one instant of bewildered anxiety whether he had missed his cue or not. This incident, of course, is beside the mark in the discussion of Diderot's view, for even the most fanatic partisan of the theory 'qu'il faut jouer d'âme' would not contend that it is desirable to go really to sleep on the stage, even when the part demands it. Coquelin was always ready to descant upon his theories. His friends and acquaintances will never forget how he would take the stage in a drawing-room as effectively as he did in the theatre, pérorant,' as he would himself have said, to the enthralled circle round him, and giving point and effect by his exquisite diction to every syllable that he uttered. Whatever the verbal missile used by Coquelin, it was handled and directed with an unerring skill which sent it straight home to the mark, a skill which made his hearers realise how very little attention we pay in this country to diction and delivery in every-day speech, and how we mostly content ourselves with turning out a few mumbled words into the universe to shift for themselves with no adventitious aids to their effect. To hit the mark in talk, as in everything else, it is not only the missile which is necessary, but the way of directing it which is of importance; and the axiom that it is more effective to say the wrong words in the right way than the right words in the wrong way is true of conversation as well as of the stage. Coquelin was extraordinarily interesting to watch on such occasions as he sat or stood in the midst of a circle, and talked, as the popular saying has it, as if he liked the sound of his own voice. Small wonder if he did, for there were few voices in the world like it, and it was a liking which was shared by his listeners. His appearance was familiar to most playgoers. A man of middle height, with no native nobility of aspect; with keen, rather small eyes; with overhanging eyebrows, of which he made unfailing and most effective use; abundant hair, which by a rapid touch he could make as expressive as the rest of his equipment; a thick, broad nose; a long upper lip; a mouth that shut tightly, with hard, determined lines in it. This was the appearance of the man who seemed to be by nature destined to play comedy parts. But this would not have satisfied him. He compelled his personality to assume not only comedy, but tragedy, sentiment, nobility. I would almost venture to say that a man of Coquelin's personality, given his supreme gift, would be more likely to aim at, and achieve, a wider range than one of more distinguished and romantic aspect. For the latter, although he might play low comedy parts as a 'tour de force,' would probably not be very anxious to identify himself with farce; while the man who could play the buffoon superbly would no doubt be desirous of achieving gallant and romantic parts as well. Coquelin alone was able to play all parts, and did play them all. He could assume the flamboyant dignity of the swashbuckler, and the more discreet dignity of the hero who wears a frock-coat. When Chamillac' was produced in London in 1887—in which he played a man of honour weighed down, dragged back by his former misdoings and finally making a confession of them—one of the newspaper critics said of him, and with truth, that Coquelin had draped himself in distinction as in a garment.' In 'La Dame aux Camélias,' in which he played the small part of the father, making it stand out in the way that a great actor does make a small part stand out beyond the others, he played the scene in which the father persuades Marguerite to give up his son, with a reserve, a dignity, a rectitude which carried the scene and even made sympathetic the somewhat mean-spirited virtue of the father, a personage of whom Coquelin himself said 'Il joue un bien triste rôle, ce monsieur.' Space forbids our even attempting to dwell on the numerous and more important parts in which Coquelin achieved brilliant success, whether in the classical pieces of the repertory or the large number of modern plays, of which the record is a testimony to his wide range and infinite variety of interpretation. But there was no doubt-or so at least it seemed to the spectator —that it was not the black-coated parts that were the most congenial to him. He revelled in the swaggering transfiguration of costume, and his audience revelled with him as they looked on. 6 In Cyrano de Bergerac,' the every apotheosis of splendid swagger, he played as one whose soul was possessed by the spirit of the glorious and untranslateable 'Panache,' the glittering, the copious, the gallant, the absurd. He played 'Cyrano' all over the world, never failing in it, never falling flat. The inevitable danger of repeating a performance too many times is overaccentuation, apt to be still further intensified by playing to foreign audiences who may not understand the language of the actors. There is always a tendency, noticeable in actors on their return from foreign tours, towards trying unduly to eke out their meaning by exaggerated action and emphasis, and even Coquelin was not at times entirely free from it. But Cyrano' was a play that could afford to be accentuated, that could hardly be affected by over-emphasis. And the like impunity attended that other play, the immortal, which Coquelin had acted for still longer than Cyrano,' the play which Molière must surely have taught him himself, Les Précieuses Ridicules,' in which Coquelin's Mascarille stands unrivalled and unapproached in the interpretations of the stage. Here is swagger also, but of another kind: low-born, uproarious swagger with no note of distinction-real, rollicking buffoonery which will remain an indelible memory in the minds of those who were fortunate enough to see it. As one recalls it, one can still hear the sound of that rich, resonant voice before he came on to the stage at the beginning, crying la, la, la' to his |