Theatre

Somerset Maugham

Description

Julia Lambert is in her prime, the greatest actress in England. Off stage, however, she is bored with her handsome husband, coquettish and undisciplined. She is at first flattered and amused by the attentions of a shy and eager young fan, but before long Julia is amazed to find herself falling wildly, dangerously, in love.

Sujets

• Romance historique
• Fiction
• Romance
• Historical
• 20th Century

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 04 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456636678
• Langue: English

Extrait

Theatre
by W. Somerset Maugham
Subjects: Fiction -- British & Irish; Love Story; Famous Actress

First published in 1937
This edition published by Reading Essentials
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Theatre
W. Somerset Maugham

PREFACE
It is not very difficult to write a preface to a book that youwrote a long time ago, for the hurrying years have made adifferent man of you and you can look upon it with a stranger’seyes. You see its faults, and for the reader’s delectation you canrecall, according to your temperament with toleration or withdismay, the defects in your character as it was then whichaccount for the defects of your book; or you can look back,maybe with the pleasure which distance lends the past, uponthe conditions under which you wrote; you can draw a prettypicture of your garret or dwell with modest complacency onthe stiff upper lip with which you faced neglect. But when, inorder to tempt a reader to buy a book that has no longer themerit of novelty, you set about writing a preface to a work offiction that you composed no more than two or three yearsback, it is none too easy to find anything that you want to say,for you have said in your book all you had to say upon thetheme with which it deals and having done so have never givenit another thought. As nothing is more dead than a love thathas burnt itself out, so no subject is less interesting to an authorthan one upon which he has said his say. Of course you canquarrel with your reviewers, but there is little point in that;what such and such a critic thought of a novel that he read theyear before last can only matter to an author if his susceptibilityis really too tender for the rough and tumble of this queerworld; the critic has long forgotten both the book and his criticism,and the generality of readers never trouble their headswith criticism anyhow.
When first I set up as a professional author I used to pastesuch reviews as I got in great scrap-books, thinking it wouldamuse me some day to read them again, and I would carefullyhead each one with the date and the name of the paper in whichit had appeared. But in course of time these unwieldy volumesgrew very cumbersome, and because for one reason and anotherI have seldom lived for long in the same house, I found itnecessary at last to get the dustman to rid me of them. Sincethen I have contented myself with reading my notices, as timewore on with sufficient equanimity not to be unduly perturbedby those that were unfavourable nor unduly elated by thosethat were laudatory, and throwing them into my wastepaperbasket. My recollection is that on the whole the criticisms of Theatre were pretty good. Some critics, however, complainedthat Julia Lambert, my heroine, was not a creature of highmoral character, great intelligence and nobility of soul, andconcluded from this that she was a mediocre actress. I havebeen given to understand that a number of leading ladies wereof the same opinion. Indeed one old actress, celebrated for heracting when I was a boy, and still remembered by the middle-agedfor the amusingly disagreeable things she so often said,chiefly at the expense of her fellow-players, was quite bitingin her references to me; but I think her acrimony was due toa misapprehension. I took pains in my novel to make it clearthat my heroine, whatever her other faults, was not a snob,and this naturally enough prevented the old person in questionfrom recognizing the fact that my Julia was a fine actress. Weare all inclined to think that others can only have our virtuesif they also have our vices.
Greatness is rare. During the last fifty years I have seen mostof the actresses who have made a name for themselves. I haveseen many who had eminent gifts, many who excelled in adomain they had made their own, many who had charm, beautyand knowledge, but I cannot think of more than one to whomI could without hesitation ascribe greatness. This was EleanoraDuse. It may be that Mrs Siddons had it; it may be that Rachelhad it; I do not know; I never saw Sarah Bernhardt till she waspast her prime; the glory that surrounded her, the extravaganceof her legend, made it difficult to judge her coolly; she was oftenmannered and she could rant at times like any player queen;at her best she may have had greatness, I only saw its appurtenances,the crown, the sceptre and the ermine cloak—theEmperor of China’s new clothes, but no Emperor of China.With the one exception I have mentioned I have only seenactresses who could be good, sometimes very good, in certainparts. I have a notion that one’s opinion in this matter dependsa good deal on how much one is affected by the glamour ofthe stage. There are many people whom the theatre fills withan excitement which no familiarity can stale. It is to them aworld of mystery and delight; it gives them entry into a realmof the imagination which increases their joy in life, and itsillusion colours the ordinariness of their daily round with thegolden shimmer of romance. When they watch the celebratedactress, her beauty enhanced by make-up, her significance emphasizedby spot-lights, uttering her fine phrases as thoughthey came out of her own head, undergoing remarkable experiencesand suffering poignant emotions, they feel that theylive more fully; and it is natural enough that they should makea somewhat excessive use of hyperbole when they seek to describethe sensations which the skilful interpreter has giventhem. It is natural also that they should overlook the fact thatthe performance which has filled them with rapture owes atleast something to the costumier, the scene-painter, the electricianand the author.
Even in my early youth I was never stage-struck; butwhether because I am by nature of a somewhat sceptical dispositionor whether because my mind was filled with privatedreams which satisfied my romantic yearnings, I cannot say;and when I began to have plays acted I lost even the few illusionsI had. When I discovered how much effort was put toachieving the gesture that had such a spontaneous look, whenI realized how often the perfect intonation which moved anaudience to tears was due not to the actress’s sensibility but tothe producer’s experience, when in short I learnt from the insidehow complicated was the process by which a play is madeready to set before an audience, I found it impossible to regardeven the most brilliant members of the profession with the sameawed and admiring wonder as the general public. On the otherhand I learnt that they had qualities with which the public islittle inclined to credit them. I learnt, for example, that withfew exceptions they were hard-working, courageous, patientand conscientious. Though dropping with fatigue after a longday’s work, I saw them consent with cheerfulness to go throughstill once more a difficult scene that they had that very dayrehearsed half a dozen times already; I saw them, in illness,give a performance when they could hardly stand on theirfeet rather than let the company down; and I learnt that forall the frills and airs they might put on, when it came downto the business of getting the best out of the play and themselves,they were as reasonable as anyone could desire. Behindtheir famous ‘temperament’, which is a combination of selfishnessand nerves more or less consciously emphasized under theerroneous impression that it is a proof of artistic sensibility,there is far oftener than the public imagines an abundance ofshrewd, practical sense. I have never known a child that didn’tlike to show off, and in every actor there remains somethingof the child; it is to this that he owes many of his most charminggifts. He has more than the normal exhibitionism which iscommon to all but very few of us, and if he hadn’t he wouldnot be an actor; it is wiser to regard this particular trait withhumour than with disdain. If I had to put in a phrase theimpressions I formed of actors during the long time of myconnexion with the stage, I should say that their virtues aremore solid than they pretend and their failings incidental tothe hazardous and exacting profession they follow.
Thirty years elapsed between the production of my firstplay and the production of my last and in that period I wasthrown into intimate contact with a great number of distinguishedactresses. Julia Lambert is a portrait of none of them.I have taken a trait here and a trait there and sought to createa living person. Because I was not much affected by the glamourof the brilliant creatures I had known in the flesh I drewthe creature of my fancy, I dare say, with a certain coolness. Itis this, perhaps, which has disconcerted those readers who cannotseparate the actress from the limelight that surrounds herand vexed those actresses who have been so dazzled by thelimelight that they honestly think there is no more in themthan that. They do themselves an injustice. The quality ofthe artist depends on the quality of the man and no one canexcel in the arts who has not, besides his special gifts, moralrectitude; I would not deny, however, that this may exhibit itselfin a form that is surprising and fantastic. I think JuliaLambert is true to life. I should like the reader to notice thatthough her admirers ascribe greatness to her, and though sheaccepts the flattery greedily, I, speaking in my own person,have not claimed that she was more than highly successful,very talented, serious and industrious. I should add that for mypart I feel a great affection for her; I am not shocked by hernaughtiness, nor scandalized by her absurdities; I can onlyconsider her, whatever she does, with fond indulgence.
Before I br