Screen Guilds Mag (September 1935)

For The Good Of Your Soul * * ^ a WH AT ^ 011 nee( ^ i ,s a change. Go away for a while”. Thus did the old fashioned medical practitioner pre¬ scribe when one’s appetite became jaded and he felt “low.” Now, of course, the family physician pumps serums into the patient’s veins, effects some degree of a cure while reaping a greater profit—and he does all this with the feeling that the old formula was a sound one. With the motion picture player, not only jaded health and poor appetite can be remedied by a change, but something far more important. For the good of his soul, it is a necessity that he get away from the picture manufacturing routine at least one month a year. P AR AD OXIC ALLY, 4 ‘ change ’ 7 in this case does not mean a vacation away from Hollywood-—an escape and a complete disregard for a thing that is a part of the motion picture player’s life. It means, instead, a shift from one phase of the profession to another; a transfer from motion pictures to the theatre. A vacation sometimes is good but work on the stage has the same ef¬ fect, yet it adds to the player’s ability. And in addition, there are a number of reasons why this type of change is of great value to the screen luminary. The stage is not a mechanically perfect instrument that disregards human feel¬ T HERE is much that can be said on the subject of the Little Theatre as a training ground for young players. While the Pasadena Community Play¬ house with its present scope and large equipment is outside the field of what is called the Little Theatre movement, we can speak with some knowledge because we experienced all of its problems in our early days. When Walter Hampden played with us last April, he used these words in speaking of our particular work: “There are now so few places where young persons, ambitious for a dramatic career, can serve an apprenticeship. The question is often raised: from where will our future supply of young actors come ? It would be a serious matter, indeed, for the theatre if it were not for the training and experience afforded by such movements as yours .... As ings, and insists on the playing of a few lines at a time or an action that takes no longer than a minute or two. In¬ stead the stage requires a definite char¬ acterization that must be lived for the complete duration of the play. A change of environment, a change of work, with little doubt is a stimulant both to mind and body. Here in Hoi" lywood, the screen player is only too apt to get into a rut and stay there. M ORE and more players are realiz¬ ing the value of returning to the stage for a period each year. They come back, refreshed, alert in mind, and better able to carry on before the camera. I do not mean to suggest that those who remain in pictures fail to do good work, but it is no more than plausible to be¬ lieve that they would do even better jobs if they took an occasional holiday by playing in the theatre. There is something fine about taking the written words of the author and turning them into a living character, the careful, even meticulous care, with which a character is developed dur¬ ing rehearsals in the theatre is a health¬ ful contrast to the haphazard methods of the screen where a complete charac¬ terization may be changed a few min¬ utes before shooting or even during the shooting itself. Then, too, when a full long as these exist there need be less worry on that score than some appear to feel. ’ ’ In endorsing Mr. Hampden’s words, nothing seems more apparent to us, with the sharp decline in the number of road and stock companies, that the popular participation in the art of act¬ ing through the Little Theatre is sup¬ plying the opportunities thus lost. It is like air rushing into a vacuum. A S now operated, the Professional Theatre and the motion picture studios do not and cannot hope to meet the needs of a future supply. It is true that the studios each contain a quota of youthful talent, but only a minimum of this quota ever gets a real opportunity for training. The Metropolitan Theatres By Ivan Simpson day is devoted to one scene, and the chronological order of events is sacri¬ ficed for the mechanized technique of the screen, the player loses perspective of the character. T HERE are other things that enter into the consideration of the theatre as a vacation. There, one Or two men write the play, and it is put on the stage just as they have written it. On the screen, as many as four or six may write the story, and the result, many times, is a confused, indefinite characteriza¬ tion, which even then may be further confused by the director’s interpreta¬ tion, or the cameraman’s lighting. Particularly for young people, the learning to sustain a part through an entire evening is excellent training. It helps to give them, poise and weight. This does not mean stodginess, but grip, command and repose. And the same is good for the older player who may have become stale. A PART from the helpfulness of it is the joy that may be won from such an experience. On the stage, the free- (Continued on Page 19) Screen Talent By Qillmore Brown have use only for players already train¬ ed and they do not have time to devote to the neophyte. Besides, both of these dominant branches of dramatic expression have unfortunately come under the blight that has afflicted so many activities— the idea that in acting one can begin at the top. We read of types and per¬ sonalities being lifted out of obscurity into important roles because they are box office draws, and of tests being made for pictures not so much for artistic qualifications as for photographic values or those elusive factors known as charm or sex appeal. Now, these conditions will not make for a future supply of good actors. (Continued on Page 20) The Little Theatre - - A Source Of $ 8 The Screen Guilds' Magazine