by Moss Hart
At the end he received an ovation, and the next morning the notices were glowing for Gilpin and, to my intense surprise, excellent for me as well. The Times commented, “Moss Hart as Smithers is a delight both to the eye and the ear.” And even the World, while complaining bitterly about the general sleaziness of the production, went on to say, “The fault is not Mr. Gilpin’s, who can never lose the laurels he has gained in the part, nor is it the fault of his colleague, Moss Hart, who does the cheap cockney trader to perfection.”
My surprise was genuine. In the hullabaloo of getting the job and opening two days afterward, I had literally had no time to speculate on what the critics would say. It was the first and last time I would be so blissfully oblivious of the critics, but now I was immoderately pleased by the notices—they confirmed my belief that I had nothing to do but to act from now on, and only glory lay ahead. I could hardly wait to get to the theatre that night and have the curtain go up.
Fortunately, I did not see Mr. Gilpin before the performance, for it took me a long time to put on the make-up and I was still quite awkward about it. I expected to see him during the intermission, congratulate him on his fine notices, and no doubt receive a few words of praise from him on my own sterling performance. I did not know, luckily, that Mr. Gilpin was a little less than sober that evening and that the management had decided that rather than refund the money they would get him into his costume, push him out on the stage, and take a chance on what would happen.
No doubt they needed every penny to keep going and no doubt they were right to take the gamble. I suppose, too, they were also correct in not warning me about his condition beforehand. I would have been too downright scared even to set foot on the stage. As it was, I was barely able to finish the first act and I think my very inexperience as an actor saved me at that.
Gilpin made his entrance stumblingly, quite as though he had been pushed out from the wings—which indeed he was—and made directly for the throne, where he sat down heavily and proceeded to go to sleep. The audience sensed nothing strange in this, for it was in keeping with the part that it be played that way. For myself, however, I was openly panic-stricken, and the stage manager, seeing the obvious panic on my face, hissed to me from the wings, “Shake him—go ahead and shake him. Keep playing.”
Too frightened to do anything else, I did as I was told. I walked over to the throne and shook him as hard as I could. He opened his eyes and looked up at me wonderingly—he did not know where he was for a moment or two and looked around the stage and out at the audience in some bewilderment, as if trying to focus on what was going on. Again the stage manager hissed, “Keep shaking him—get him up on his feet.”
And again I did as I was told. I pulled him to his feet, and hanging onto his arm to steady him, I yelled my first line into his ear. Astonishingly, he answered with the correct line. He shook his head a few times, like an old lion at bay, and to my horror thrust my hand roughly away and sat down on the throne again. I stood there frozen, not knowing what to do next and not even able to hear the words the stage manager was hissing at me from the wings.
Haltingly Gilpin began to play. His voice was thick, and he jumbled the cues, but he sat on the throne steadying himself until he regained something like control over his movements, and then he rose and as the act proceeded he even seemed to play with something of his old power, though every so often he would suddenly grab hold of me to stop himself from falling—each time, of course, scaring me out of my wits.
Throughout all this the audience seemed entirely unaware that anything other than the drama on the stage was being acted out before them, and when the curtain of the first act finally came down—a full ten years later, it seemed to me—a very good hand accompanied it. Gilpin left the stage without a word. I stood where I was, trembling. I was too shaken to even wipe away the perspiration, which was running down my face in all the colors of my make-up. The stage manager patted me on the shoulder and said, “I think we’ll make it now—good boy!” and hurried down with a pot of steaming black coffee to Gilpin’s dressing room.
I walked back to my own room and sat limply on a chair, recovering as best I could. I could not even summon up sufficient curiosity or strength to find out if the second act was going on, but apparently Gilpin, with the help of the black coffee, snapped back completely and was fine for the rest of the play. At the end, as we stood taking our bows, he whispered to me, his eyes twinkling, “You’re learning to act fast, Smithers.” And that was all he ever said about it, that night or any other night, for the same thing occurred not too often, but often enough to make the nights when it did happen real horrors. Only once did the management agree to cancel a performance; the rest of the time when they saw the danger signals flying as Gilpin arrived at the theatre, they would get him dressed, push him onto the stage, and take a chance that he would be able to play. How he managed to get through some of those performances I do not know; and he was able to do it, of course, only because the very nature of the part allowed the audience to believe that some of the reeling behavior going on on the stage was part and parcel of the play itself. But it left me terrorized and shaken each time it happened.
Nevertheless, I was learning to “act fast,” as Gilpin so aptly put it. I learned one or two things about the craft of acting and its relation to the other arts of the theatre that I thought sound at the time, and I have seen no reason to change my mind since. There is no arrogance like the arrogance of the beginner, of course, and it almost goes without saying that no one ever knows as much about an art as the most inexperienced practitioner of it. But it seemed to me then, and it still does, that acting is more a fortunate quirk of the personality than it is anything else. Certainly, education, technical training and the finest of Stanislavskian theories have yet to produce the same effect as an actor walking out on the stage with a curious chemistry of his own that fastens every eye in the audience upon him and fades the other actors into the scenery.
All the techniques so painfully acquired, all the passionate dedication to the methods of the various schools of acting, go right down the drain when this happens. And it can happen with so trifling a facet of an actor’s personality as an arresting quality of speech or voice. I have no wish to minimize this gift—it is equally as valid as the ability to write dialogue that actors can speak, a gift which also requires neither education nor technical training, but without which no play can be written, despite dedication, the best motives in the world, or all the courses in play-writing strung together. Yet, like the perennial effusions on the art of the director, more pure nonsense is written about the art of acting through the years than one would believe possible. The very same critical acumen that can be so acute and penetrating in evaluating the merits of a play seems to stop short of an ability to divorce personality from acting, or direction from playing.
I have worked intimately with two or three of the finest actors of our generation, and it seemed to me they achieved their effects with a minimum of help from me, just as I have received critical praise for the directorial touches that belonged more properly to the playwright. The great ones all have one thing in common—it is sometimes called “star quality,” but among the learned it is more often discussed in terms of “level of emotion” or “playing in depth.” To me the fact is inescapable that this magic of personal chemistry occurs at the moment of conception and is, as J. M. Barrie has said, like charm in a woman: “If you have it, you don’t need to have anything else; and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t much matter what else you have.” Certainly, no voodoo of acting method, however high-minded, can bring it about, nor is there any directorial sorcery that I have ever observed that can make it happen.
It was of some importance to me that I dimly perceived some of this early on, for while I do not pretend that I thought it out in any such clear-cut terms, I nevertheless had an inkling of part of it. It saved me from wasting some valuable years and perhaps from the greater misfortune of remaining emotionally tra
pped in a childlike idolatry of actors and acting until it was too late to do anything else. One can witness daily in the theatre the tragedy of those who did not turn away in time.
With my lucky beginning in The Emperor Jones, however, no such depressing thoughts ever crossed my mind. I smugly concluded that I had found my proper niche in life, had received only what was my just due as an actor, and as far as I could foresee after so auspicious a start, there could follow only good parts, good notices, and, in the very nature of things, featured billing and inevitable stardom. The one thing I could not foresee was that Smithers would be the first and last part I would ever play on the stage as a professional actor; it was the only major flaw in the otherwise glittering future I had forecast for myself. So, unknowing and thoroughly complacent, I began to plan the next step in my acting career as The Emperor Jones came to the end of its fifteen-week run.
Although I had received good notices, I knew that almost everyone connected with the theatre had seen the original production, so my performance in the revival would have remained largely unobserved by those who might have done me some good. Still, I was armed now with an answer to that traditional bugaboo of all beginners, “What have you done before?” and that was in itself a great asset. I decided not to be choosy in spite of my own high opinion of myself, but to take whatever came along, even a walk-on. The important thing was to be in back of that proscenium arch when the lights dimmed down, and not in front of it. Once again I turned to my mentor, Irving Morrison, and kindly as ever he obtained a letter of introduction for me signed by George Tyler himself.
Mr. Tyler had placed in rehearsal an English importation called The Constant Nymph, with Claude Rains and Beatrix Thomson, and since the play called for a number of extras in the crowd scene the letter was to the English director, Basil Dean, who like the stars and most of the rest of the company, had been brought over from England for the production.
On the morning after The Emperor Jones closed, I presented myself to the stage manager half an hour before the rehearsal began and waited for Mr. Dean to arrive. I was completely satisfied in my own mind that there would be no difficulty getting the job. Extras were usually hired by the stage manager sight unseen by the director, and with a letter from George Tyler to Basil Dean, I took it for granted I would be told that the job was mine and that meeting Mr. Dean was a formality. It was not much of a job to be sure, but it paid fifteen dollars a week, and I knew how vital it was for me to keep working until something better showed up.
The rehearsal hall was a rather small studio on West 57th Street, so that any exchange between actors, director or stage manager was highlighted by the very proximity of one person to another. Actors as a rule loathe rehearsing in so confined a space, for it makes them unnecessarily self-conscious and usually hamstrings a director from doing anything more than going over lines. I soon gathered that Mr. Dean was using this particular day to polish scenes with some minor members of the company and that the stars themselves would not appear. Mr. Dean himself appeared briskly enough, and with his appearance the atmosphere in the studio changed markedly. The tension that he brought with him and engendered throughout the day did not dissipate from the moment he appeared in the doorway until the rehearsal was over, and it gathered momentum with every look and with every word he uttered.
Mr. Dean was a famous director and undoubtedly a gifted one, but the one thing he did not do in spite of his gifts was to inspire a personal loyalty or liking from his cast. They were virtually frightened to death of him. As he walked to the stage manager’s table all conversation ceased and there was a nervous coughing and clearing of throats all over the room. There was a soft-spoken colloquy between stage manager and director, during which I saw the stage manager hold up my letter of introduction from Mr. Tyler, but Mr. Dean waved the letter impatiently away and did not even glance in my direction.
Quite peremptorily, without a greeting of any kind to anyone, he began to rehearse. He was not rehearsing the play in any chronological sequence of scenes, but jumping from second act to first act, or from first to last, as he saw fit. He was fascinating to watch, though I was silently thankful as the morning wore on that I was going to be a walk-on in the play and not an actor with a speaking part.
I do not think it an unjust assessment of him to say that Mr. Dean may well have been the last of the directorial despots, for despot he was. I imagine there are still directors who indulge in one sort or another of tyranny over actors, but Mr. Dean had refined his own kind into a weapon which he used with surgical skill. He did not tolerate discussion and he was unflinching in his demand to get exactly what he wanted in the way of performance. He spoke quietly, but his words were edged with a marvelous spleen, and his silences were wonderful to watch. They could be withering. His displeasure could be felt like a living thing, and all morning the hapless actors perspired and struggled under that cold appraising eye and the acid tongue.
Shortly after one o’clock he told the stage manager to dismiss the company for lunch, and as he walked to the prompt table, again I saw the stage manager offer him my letter of introduction and point to me off in the corner. Again he glanced neither at the letter nor at myself, but simply walked out of the room. There was nothing to do but wait, the stage manager informed me—perhaps he would take a look at me before the afternoon rehearsal began. I was hungry but I decided I had better not leave, on the chance that I might miss the right moment when he returned. Actors are always coming back to rehearsal with containers of coffee and Hershey bars and I was offered some of both by two early returnees, who were talking over the morning rehearsal as the rest of the company straggled back. Mr. Dean was not mentioned. The actors talked freely of the play and of their parts in it, but no word was spoken of Mr. Dean. It was almost as though by the mere mention of his name the atmosphere of terror he created would come into being and put a stop to the conversation. And suddenly the conversation did stop. Innocent as it was, it stopped abruptly; and though my back was to the door, I knew that Mr. Dean had appeared.
I turned around and watched the stage manager go through the same pantomime of presenting the letter to Mr. Dean and pointing to me, and with the same results. So far as Mr. Dean was concerned, it was as though the stage manager had not spoken at all. Mr. Dean busied himself with the script for a few moments and then plunged headlong into the rehearsal. It was obviously going to be heavy weather, for he seemed to be, if such a thing were possible, even more testy than he had been at the morning rehearsal.
Nothing suited him, from the manner in which the stage manager placed the chairs and tables for the setting of a scene, to the way the actors stood or sat or listened or picked up a prop or entered or left. He was never openly ill-tempered. That was not his method. A healthy outburst of temper would somehow have been easier to bear for everyone concerned. Mr. Dean’s irritation took the form of a savagely accurate appraisal of each actor’s inadequacy at whatever he was being asked to do, and it was uttered in tones of biting contempt. He had a wonderful command of irony and a subtle awareness of the essential weakness in each actor’s armor that enabled him to pierce whatever little self-confidence or security any of them may have had left and adroitly tear it to shreds.
His dislike and displeasure that afternoon seemed to focus especially on the character man. The character man was a fine-looking old fellow of about sixty, but he was not a very able actor and his knowledge that he was somehow the core of Mr. Dean’s annoyance with the company made him less sure-footed than he might have been even with such limited talent as he possessed. He fumbled and stumbled and was obviously incapable of doing the simplest thing correctly, for the good enough reason that he was so frozen with fear that he did not even hear what was being said. What seemed to make matters worse for him was that Mr. Dean seemed to take special pains not to speak to him at all, so that the actor appeared to be waiting constantly for the blow to fall, and until it did, he could do nothing.
Late in the afternoon, just
before the rehearsal ended, it did. Mr. Dean had apparently been saving the character man for dessert. After a particularly spectacular tirade at one of the ladies, Mr. Dean lapsed into one of his long silences, and then suddenly he spoke, quietly, evenly but with a deadly precision. “Would you mind doing that again?” he said, addressing the character man directly for the first time.
“Do what again, Mr. Dean?” asked the character man, flushing a deep red and then going rigid with the awareness that his moment had come at last.
“Why, that splendid bit of acting you were perpetrating just now,” replied Mr. Dean with a sweetness that was almost purring.
The character man moved his tongue over his lips as though to unlock his jaws and then made the hideous mistake of trying a riposte. “I’m pleased you thought so, Mr. Dean,” he said with a hollow little laugh. “I’m rather fond of that bit myself. I wondered if you would notice it.”
“Notice it?” said Mr. Dean. “Indeed, indeed! I have been riveted.” He smiled dangerously at the character man and addressed the rest of the company with a disarming frankness and charm that was only belied by the cruelty of the words he was uttering. “In my many years in the theatre, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I have witnessed and been subjected to many kinds of acting, and, of course, styles in acting change. I do not cherish tradition and I welcome innovation, but I have been greatly puzzled this last few minutes. I’ve never seen anything quite like our colleague’s performance before, and since I think it unlikely that we shall ever see anything like it again, I suggest that you all come here to the front with me and watch it. Baffling as it appears to me to be, we might all learn something.”