The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Drama, by Henry Irving

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Title: The Drama

Author: Henry Irving

Release Date: September 17, 2004 [eBook #13483]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DRAMA***

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THE DRAMA

Addresses by

HENRY IRVING

With a Frontispiece By Whistler

[Illustration]

CONTENTS

I. The Stage as it is

II. The Art of Acting

III. Four Great Actors

IV. The Art of Acting

LECTURE

SESSIONAL OPENING

PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION

EDINBURGH

8 NOVEMBER 1881

THE STAGE AS IT IS.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

You will not be surprised that, on this interesting occasion, I have
selected as the subject of the few remarks I propose to offer you,
"The Stage as it is." The stage--because to my profession I owe it
that I am here, and every dictate of taste and of fidelity impels me
to honor it; the stage as it is--because it is very cheap and empty
honor that is paid to the drama in the abstract, and withheld from the
theatre as a working institution in our midst. Fortunately there is
less of this than there used to be. It arose partly from intellectual
superciliousness, partly from timidity as to moral contamination. To
boast of being able to appreciate Shakespeare more in reading him than
in seeing him acted used to be a common method of affecting special
intellectuality. I hope this delusion--a gross and pitiful one as to
most of us--has almost absolutely died out. It certainly conferred a
very cheap badge of superiority on those who entertained it. It seemed
to each of them an inexpensive opportunity of worshipping himself on
a pedestal. But what did it amount to? It was little more than a
conceited and feather-headed assumption that an unprepared reader,
whose mind is usually full of far other things, will see on the
instant all that has been developed in hundreds of years by the
members of a studious and enthusiastic profession. My own conviction
is, that there are few characters or passa