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Untitled Article
and sat for characters . They have nothing in common with them , and the proof of it is , that even among Shakspeare ' s plays , those only have retained their hold which embody human passions apart from the considerations of factitious dignity . There is no decline of interest in all that concerns men in reality , and still less in
histrionic fiction , which , after all , frequently contains more truth than much of the reality which passes for truth in the world . Time was that the battle of Waterloo was presented on the stage , and the « drowner of men' was hailed with clamour through his representative . This has passed away ; no audience will now hail with acclamations the shedders of human blood , but it was at the time
a proof of the interest taken by play-goers in the deeds of their fellows , —that they loved the fiction because it represented humanity , i . e . human actions , and thus will it ever be . The living representatives of human life will ever yield pleasure , but the public taste is now more refined , and the art of acting , as well as the matter acted , must make much progress to meet it . The matter acted must be such as will take hold on the sympathies of
the audience , and the actors must be creatures of God ' s making , and not of man ' s marring . They must be trained in no school but that of unerring nature ; they must be the aristocrats , * i . e . the best beings of humanity , possessed of the most perfect physical organization , together with the highest moral and intellectual qualities , and they should be sought wherever they might be found , without paying regard to high or low birth , or any of the externals of art or fashion .
Supposing the stage to be adapted for all that I have endeavoured to indicate , it must at once be clear , that so far from the profession of an actor or an actress being one of dishonour or degradation , it ought to become one of high utility . Let the ban be removed from the profession of acting ; let actors and actresses be acknowledged as teachers of the people , and in that capacity let moral conduct be exacted from them , and the disregard of
public decency punished as is the case in other classes of society , not by the proscription of the whole body , but by the expulsion of the offending individual . Let genius and talent , instead of being an excuse for vice , as is the case at present , be considered only as accompanying circumstances calling for additional severity of punishment . Let the public do this , and they will work a change
which will appear almost miraculous . Under such countervailing motives , theatres would cease to be the haunts of disgusting sensuality , or at worst they would be divided into distinct classes , — the haunts of vice and the schools of virtue . At present , the proprietors , who call themselves ' respectable , ' and who would be much scandalized at the idea of being thought immoral , are in
* The name of aristocrat tias lost its proper meaning . In common parlance , an amtocrut now means merely a person surrounded by factitious dignity , without regard either to mental or corporeal excellence .
Untitled Article
On Theatrical Reform . 557
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1833, page 557, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2620/page/45/
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