Pauline Frederick : on and off the stage (1940)

174 Pauline Frederick She doted upon playing " mother " parts now that she had reached maturity but it would have seemed that directors could have found some pleasant mothers! There is probably not a successful actor or actress living who does not yearn to direct. Most of them eventually do and Pauline was no exception. With her many years' experience she made a most able director and watching her, one learned the enormous power there is in words. The playwright can give lines only, and for all the cleverness that there may be in the dialogue, whether or not those lines are going to carry weight depends entirely upon their handling by the players. So often in life it is not what is said but how it is said. The same applies to the stage. There was a line in one play that Pauline was directing that was such an apt example of this. It was " The moon is up." In rehearsal the actor said it with practically no feeling and therefore it made no impression whatsoever. One really didn't care whether the moon was up or down. But that same line, said with meaning and emphasis, made one want to rush out and look at it and linger beneath the tender caresses of its rays. Pauline was a tactful director for she understood people so well. She did not rant or storm but got what she wanted by speaking quietly but decisively. They called her a new kind of director on Broadway and wrote columns about it under the heading " Pauline wins 'em by praise," or " Pauline employs flattery as Play Director. Suggests improvements to her cast, prefaced by Dear or Darling." Theatre folk have a habit of peppering their conversation with an ample supply of endearing terms. Pauline maintained that she could get better results from her cast by using kindness, so instead of screaming at them (there was nothing she hated more herself than being screamed at) she would go up to a young actress and say: " Darling, you are doing beautifully