Actresses, according to the circumstances of the age and nation in which they appeared, were called in the earlier epochs of the world, counselors or philosophers: an actress essentially comprises and unites both these characters. For she not only delves into the mental processes which drive the behavior of her situationally bound character but she uses that character, and their story to comment on social mores in order to guide her audience to revelatory ways of thinking, and her roles are the beams of awakening morning light of each new day. Not that I assert actresses to be philosophers, in the gross sense of the word, or that they can understand the cause of awesome phenomena of the world as surely as they can translate their affects: such is the pretense of superstition, which would make acting an attribute of philosophy, rather than philosophy an attribute of acting. An actress participates in life, reality, and truth; as far as relates to her conceptions, lies and frivolous emotional reactions are not. The acting forms which make use of over dramatization, and the fane of certain persons, and flashy settings. are convertible with respect to the highest acting techniques without injuring it as acting; and the work of Meryl Streep, Claudius Aesopus, and Araros would afford, more than many other actors, examples of this fact, if the limits of this essay did not forbid citation. The creations of sculpture, painting, and instrumental music are illustrations still ore decisive.
Playing off of the habits and circumstances of a character, lying, being over dramatic are all just the instruments and materials of poetry; they may be called acting by that figure of speech which considers the effect as a synonym of the cause. But acting, in a more restricted sense expresses those arrangements of situation and circumstance, and especially specific situation, which are created by the divine faculty, whose throne is curtained within the realities of man. And this springs from the nature itself of situation, which is a more direct representation of the uncontrollable drives and motivation of our daily lives, and is susceptible of more various and delicate combinations, than color, form, or motion, and is more plastic and obedient to the control of that force of which it is the creation. For situation is subconsciously produced by the realities of the playwright, and has relation to individual experiences alone; but all other materials, instruments, and conditions of art have relations among each other; which limit and interpose between conception and expression. The former is a mirror which reflects, the latter as a cloud which enfeebles, the light of which both are mediums of communication...
Actresses are the hierophants of truthful storytelling; the freight trains between a flat situation to a full life; the actions which express what they, personally, want not; the messengers who bring news of battle, and know not what they stir; the truth which is swayed not, but sways. Actresses are the unacknowledged counselors of the world.
Playing off of the habits and circumstances of a character, lying, being over dramatic are all just the instruments and materials of poetry; they may be called acting by that figure of speech which considers the effect as a synonym of the cause. But acting, in a more restricted sense expresses those arrangements of situation and circumstance, and especially specific situation, which are created by the divine faculty, whose throne is curtained within the realities of man. And this springs from the nature itself of situation, which is a more direct representation of the uncontrollable drives and motivation of our daily lives, and is susceptible of more various and delicate combinations, than color, form, or motion, and is more plastic and obedient to the control of that force of which it is the creation. For situation is subconsciously produced by the realities of the playwright, and has relation to individual experiences alone; but all other materials, instruments, and conditions of art have relations among each other; which limit and interpose between conception and expression. The former is a mirror which reflects, the latter as a cloud which enfeebles, the light of which both are mediums of communication...
Actresses are the hierophants of truthful storytelling; the freight trains between a flat situation to a full life; the actions which express what they, personally, want not; the messengers who bring news of battle, and know not what they stir; the truth which is swayed not, but sways. Actresses are the unacknowledged counselors of the world.
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