Actorviews (1923)

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Alone at Last With Helen Hayes 251 alone together. At any rate I know that I became strangely professional and talked to her earnestly about her acting, which is one of not many things in the theater that appeal to me seriously; and I remember that I asked her who, of all the actors, is to her mind the Master. “Mrs. Fiske,” she said. And I could have hugged her for that — and other things. For I don’t mind saying here to you, as I couldn’t say there to her, that Helen Hayes is about my idea of the American girl and the American actress. She has charm, beauty, personal flavor, humor, heart, imagination, humility and a high technical discretion — everything, within modesty and reason, including great common sense. Anyway, this paragraph — minus its first sentence — will make a cute little catalogue for her scrap-book. “Mrs. Fiske has been more my religion — than my religion,” the darling child went on, and described for me a scene in “Wake Up, Jonathan!” where Mrs. Fiske expressed herself solely by tapping the floor with a nervous slipper. “Her toe,” concluded Miss Hayes, “is more eloquent than the whole body of any other actor. She’s a divine creature, and I’d like to act on the same stage with her, if only as one of the mob.” (Which is a finer compliment than ever I’ve been able to pay you, dear lady, in all these many years — although, you may remember, I once did have the cheek to write, “Dull people do not like Mrs. Fiske’s acting.”) “You’re as unlike her as violets are unlike orchids,” I said, or something equally flowery; “and yet you share with her the precious quality of untheatricality.” “But I like ‘theater’ in the theater!” protested Helen Hayes. “I went to see ‘The Monster’ in New