Affectation Reduced to a Science.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 176, 30 October 1886, Page 5 (Supplement)

Affectation Reduced to a Science.

The scheme of Delsarte, like many another philosophic system, ignores alike the sportive tendency in nature and the imperious, and self-contained spirit of genius. It loses the individual in tbe mass. The harmony and expression of dramatic action cannot be taught by any' system built up by tbe patient: observation oi dry facte^ and it is absolutely inaccurate to style the mute and often more? expressive portion of an actor's interpretation a " universal language," communicable^ to all by the gifted elocutionist , The pan-' tomime of gesture employed by' distressed-, tourists or bewildered travellers , is tha. only form of "the " univ9rsal language '*" that may be said to exist, and this comea naturally to the children ot men, aud needa no professors of the art. The well-known story that tells how Cooke, the actor, only experimented on an unsusceptible individual by expressing the whole gamut of human emotion, and how his facial skill was misread, demolishes the Delaartiaa theory. The most that elocutionists can. effect is to correct' errors and to mitigate defects ; they do not possess the secret key to a royal road of ultimate success. They are nothing; or worse than nothing, if they profess to be more than trainers of awkward youth, and only in this limited Benae are their efforts likely to prove of educational value. Genius will ever be. superior to the theories of the schools* Great orators and actors are not to be bound by the petty dogmas of elocutionary drill ; it ia their perogative to laugh at first principles and' to defy the/ Delsartian professor. Tradition, i(j isv true, has exercised considerable influence on the stage, and in all the morQ> prominent Shakespearian parts a cejv tain amount of " business" has becomes stereotyped ; but this very far removed from the results that would follow if nature and art succumbed to the reign of law of the illustrious Delsarte.