culties such a person must overcome on the stage are, obviously, well-nigh insuperable. On the other hand, I do not regard noticeable physical attractiveness as one of the prime requisites for a successful stage career. I am not even sure that a handsome face and figure are always helpful. There is a natural temptation to depend too much on one's presence, and to disregard the development of other, more enduring, qualities. I think a reasonably healthy and pleasing appearance is all one needs.

I do not mean that one who possesses all of these indispensable primary qualifications, even in a marked degree, has any open road before him. I do not mean that they give him any particular advantage, but simply that they entitle him to enter the struggle-without them he would be foolish to enter it at all. Given, then, these general qualifications one is faced with the vital problem of choosing the door through which he is to enter his profession.

CHAPTER II

ENTERING THE PROFESSION

Competition in Actor's Profession No Keener than in Any Other "Pull" of Little Value-The Road Company-The Evils of Endless Repetition-Staying on Broadway-How One-part Actors Are Developed-Actor and Manager Both Harmed by "Type" Casting The Stock Company-The Varied Experi

It Provides-The Repertoire-No Star, No Squirrel-in-a-Cage Routine, Team-work.

I

FEEL that I should remind anyone who is ambitious to enter the dramatic profes

sion that the purpose of this book is to encourage, not discourage. It is inevitable, as we examine the conditions which prevail in the theater, and especially those which affect the novice-that we should speak first of all of the difficulties he may expect to meet. We should not exaggerate those hardships nor paint too dismaying a picture of them. It is well to know the difficulties are there, and to know something of their nature; but it is a mistake

to be frightened by them. If a man is to succeed in any profession he must be prepared to overcome innumerable obstacles. The competition in the actor's profession is keen, but no keener than in the lawyer's profession or the physician's profession. The secret of success in this profession, as in any other, is hard work properly directed. It is not by any divine dispensation nor any innate strain of unique genius that an actor reaches success; to my mind the successful professional actor is a greater being than the ambitious amateur only by virtue of longer experience and harder work. No matter what the youngster might set his heart on and go after, he would find a lot of others after the same thing; and his chance of getting it would be as good as theirs. The person who succeeds in this profession is the one who sets himself to master the technical phases of his craft, and guides his course unswervingly by the principles which his study proves are sound.

As a matter of fact, I think in the actor's

profession, more perhaps than in any other, the beginner starts on even terms with his competitors. "Pull" and "influence" can have little to do with progress on the stage. The young man or woman who is pushed along prematurely is only harmed. If a young actor makes a failure in a part that is too big for him, his path thereafter is much harder than that of the man who plugs along in unimportant parts, many of which may be unworthy of his ability; but which enable him to rise eventually on his own merits.

I have often been asked for advice on the best way to set about becoming an actor. It is a question about which one hesitates to be arbitrary, although to me there seems but one answer possible. Before I state my opinion, however, it might be profitable to speak of the various possibilities which are open.

Usually the first thing the novice proposes is to go to New York and make the rounds of the managers' offices looking for an engagement. If one does this, he may suc

ceed in getting work in a road company organized to exploit some one particular play, which has already made a success in the metropolis. The majority of actors in this country earn their living in companies of this kind. They engage to play on the road for an average of from thirty to forty weeks in a season, and to give eight performances a week. This means that they repeat their respective parts over two or three hundred times. After a man finds himself and gets some sort of start in his career, such a life is not without its compensations; but while he's a fledgling, with everything to learn, it is, in my opinion, worse than useless.

In

Of course the part which an unknown would get would be very small, containing only a few unimportant lines. One can learn little about the art of acting by repeating the same few lines three hundred times. spite of the best intentions in the world he is likely to fall into the way of parroting his lines, and going through the scanty stage business he may have with scarcely a thought