A STAR AT HOME

Otago Witness, Issue 2896, 15 September 1909, Page 68

A STAR AT HOME

MISS NELLIE STEWART. "To reveal art arwl conceal the artist is Art's aim." This we have on authority ; but a great artist, like a city set on a hill, " cannot be hid." Th&re is something mildly thrilling in the idea that by merely opening an ordinary everyday door you can be face to face with one. of whom all are talking. You have heard them. They are talking about her intellect, her voice, her frocks, her looks, and her wonderful acting^. It will be novel to see her away from the limelight. A pleasant voice calls " Come in " ; and behold, the darling of the multitudes, the bright and shining star, Nellie Stewart. A dimpled elbow resting on the mantelpiece ; a little foot warming on tha fender ; sunny curls looped and bowed with blue ribbon, and blue eyes which smile and sparkle. You notice there are daffodils on the table, when she greets you with a gesture. It seems but a slight, quick movement of the hand, but it conveys an immensity; more than you would gather from 20 addresses of welcome. It is as if some one had slapped you on the shoulder saying, " Well, old man, I'm jolly glad to see you." To begin with, one cannot but notice her vivaoity, amounting almost to impulsiveness. There is no ice to break. You become aware of her abilities as a conversationalist and simultaneously of a certain undefinable power, the magnetism that gets hold of a great cross-grained. ill-humoured crowd and makes it laugh, and bo in good conceit with itself. " I went out to the Mosgiel Woollen Mills this morning," she is saying. " I got some stuff there when I was here 15 years ago, and, would you believe it. I have the dress now. It is splendid stuff, quite equal to the Irish frieze. Why they don't send their goods to England to be sold under a New Zealand label I can't understand ; but I have reason to believe that these goods are sold in England as Irish or English spun. Seems a pity, does it not? Why, I went into a shop in Christchurch only the other day, and they showed me some mater ial. ' Haven't you got any from Mosgie-I,' I asked. But they said 'No ' ; they did not stock it. Now, why? And as to England, you would be surprised at the New Zealand and Australian goods that do everlasting credit to English names; especially butter. Why, there must be tons of it going into one end of a warehouse ' Australian,' and appearing at the other prime Devonshire.' Yes. I am warmly interested in Australia. The people have always been most good to me, and so they have in New Zealand. It was here in Dunediii, you know, that I really made a beginning with my father; at the old 'Queen's,' wasn't it? And you see this is the tenth time I have beera here." " No, I can't say I have any favourite plays," said Miss Stewart in reply to a question ; " I don't necessarily like the pky I am the greatest success in the beet; but there is a difference — a great difference. For instance, it is no effort to me to play ' Sweet Nell.' It plays itself if you can understand ; but Kitty Bellairs is a constant tax. I have all the time to t» strung up to high nerve tension, and I feel that if I were to rejapc foj: a single moment

there might be a chance of my getting out of sympathy with the creation and , losing my hold of the public across the footlights. You see, I must hold the public and hold the play. All do their parts, and <k> them exceedingly well; but the play is, as it were, written round me, its centre-piece, so if I broke down what would become of us?" " Belasco, is one of those who believe in hitching his waggon to a star," suggested our reporter. "Yes," smiled Miss Stewart; "it's a curious thing, he always writes his pieces for a star, and always for a woman. Of course, no one but a star, and a lady star, can play them ; and they require playing. You must be the character from the time you enter the stage till you leave it; and that's one of the reasons of my rule never to see anyone between the acts. You have no idea how it would distract me if I did. It is so easy, so dreadfully easy, to lose touch." " But these plays written for stars," asked our representative, " could they not be ' written round ' a man as well as round a woman?" " But," said Miss Stewart, " you see a woman imparts, or can impart, a great deai of personality into a play or a character. After all, a woman is a woman. There are her looks, her figure, her clothes ;< her very femininity, all of which help to make up the personality I have mentioned. Now a man hasn't got these. He couldn't convey such a personality, and it wouldn't do." The interviewer thought of pne or two beauty actors, and was discreetly dumb. Miss Stewart then got to speaking of actresses and accents, the current of thought having been diverted by the mention of Miss Henrietta Crossman, the original Kitty Bellairs. Miss Stewart oommented on the absence of aco&nt in Boston (Massachusetts), on its prevalence in New " York, and, with variations, in Chicago and Colarado. Miss Crossman had no trace of a,n accent; neither had a number of other American actresses of Miss Stewa.rt's acquaintance. How ladies possessing a twang which follows them, into Fifth avenue and Mayfair drawingrooms can discard it on going behind the footlights is a rather nice point. If it is a stasre secret Miss Stewart did not divulge it. For the benefit of those vs-ho have not heard it off the stage, it might not be out of place to mention that Mis? Stewart's voice is that of a cultured young English woman ; but it also has a vigour, a compelling sweetness ; so that sentences sound like symphonies, and were it not for a flow of original ideas a listener might be in danger of harkening only to tho vox humana stop, and coming in with a "yes," or "no," in the wrong place. Miss Nellie Stewart believes heart and soul in concentration. Allow nothing to distract your attention from a piece when it is being played, no matter how brief a time you may be before the audience, and this would seem to be; one of the secrets of her art. To a question : What is your definition of art on the stage? Miss Stewart replied in a flash : " Art on the stage is to conceal art, and make it a reality." It is only to be expected that a lady of Miss Stewart's temperament should be sensitive. She says: "Every day from about 5 o'clock till 8 I am in a high-strung state — well, nervous, perhaps ; wondering how I shall do. This feeling continues on the way to the theatre. It is with me in my dressing room, and then when I step on to the stage " Yes, and then? prompted the interviewer. " And then it all disappears," exclaimed Miss Stewart, extending her fin/rer-tips as though they were the wings of the four winds " Then lam my part and nothing else. No, I have never suffered stage fright, I am thankful to say, and I think that malady can be overcome by pluck. Some people say ' cheek",' but I wouldn't quite say that. As for me, I have confidence in ir.yself in that I know I shall do my best: not that other false confidence which leads some folks to suppose they will score a dazzling success without any effort whatever. It means work." You regard your profession as work, j then? asked our reporter. '■ Well, you cannot exactly call it a pastime." retorted Miss Stewart. Asked if she would say anything about audiences, Miss Stewart said : " Yes, I willAustralasians as a whole are far too intel- , ligent to be treated to the rubbish that is placed before them under the name of theatricals. The stuff they get is far too j often, to put it plainly, an insult to their ] intelligence. The audience is not for a single moment asked, or required, to think. What they see and hear is the shallow, the obvious. There is the tinselled glitter, but it is hollow within. The younger generation will grow up to regard a play entirely as a spectacular show, and when they do go to a clever piece will miss point after point because they have become dulled to such things." While admitting the educative, value pi, a good class of animated pic-

tures. Miss Stewart deprecated a tendency in England and Australia to overdo this, class of entertainment, and spoke scathingly of some of the poorer melodramas with which some of us are so dreadfully familiar. Trash such as this being served up year after year had to an extent set people against going to" theatres, and' she did not wonder at it. What was required was a better kind of play, and then people would come fa3t enough to the play-house. New Zealanders Socked readily enough to theatres if there was anything worth seeing. She could see no .signs of what was known as " the theatrical slump." The fault lay in the performances, not with the people. " We, I think, are a proof of this," said Miss Stewart clinching her argument; "full houses everywhere and every night, and, what is better still, we finish up with better business than when we start." This popular actross does not extend ncr views on New Zealand intelligence to New Zealand theatres, especially the local temples of Thespis, which, together with the melodrama aforesaid, she holds responsible for' the stay-at-home doctrine. " Now, can you really expect ladies in evening dresses to go to such places?" asked Miss Stewart. "The scats are uncomfortable, and often dusty, I believe. I consider the ladies of Dunedin paid me a very great compliment indeed to come in such numbers on Saturday night. "I am only saying what I feel. I don't owe the proprietors anything, and the theatres are bad; the lighting is bad." Those wljo know- Miss Stewart sufficiently well "to be aware ,tkat~ sometimes she spends three hours in a modern theatre getting the correct light tints for a particular scene can imagine what she infuses into the words " the light? ing is bad " ; also " a delay was caused, and the last tableau was spoilt because there were no dimmers." Miss Stewart is also concerned for the properties, saying: "I don't in the least want to boast, but I suppose you know that our ballroom suite is the real Lcuis Quatorze, costing £500, and when not 'on' for the scene" has to be kept in a kind of a stable — in fact, I believe it is a stable. Nice place for it, isn't it?" Not believing in finding fault without finding cure, Miss Stewart strongly recommends a municipal theatre. Office and shop fronts alone, she contends, would pay the city for the enterprise. "Nofc Only that," She said in a characteristic way, " but, star actress or not, I believe in my supporters being just as well pared for as I am, and that's good colonial. But you're from London, aren't you? Oh, isn't it a dear old place? Flower baskets in the twopenny-tube stations now." And .closing the door jou see a shaft of light playing on sunny curls — a last and typical impression of Nellie Stewart.