Chapter II

Few respectable shams are to me more distasteful than the affectation of delight in the performance of an actor who speaks his lines in a tongue unknown to the audience, as did sometimes the late Signor Rossi in the rôle of “Otello.” It is of the essence and validity of acting that it address the understanding through the ear as well as the eye. The tones of an actor’s voice, however pleasing, do not address the understanding at all without intelligible words; they are no more than the notes of a violin—the pleasure they give is purely sensual, and the speaker might as well articulate no words at all. A play, or a part in a play, performed in unfamiliar speech is hardly better than a pantomime, and those who profess to find in it an intellectual gratification—well, they may be very estimable persons, for aught I know.

It is not enough, in order to enjoy “Othello” or “Hamlet,” that the audience have a general familiarity with the part; their knowledge of it must be minute and precise. They must know of what particular sentiment a facial expression is the visible exponent; of what particular word a gesture is the accompaniment. Else how can they know that the look is natural, the motion impressive? If one had memorized the part _verbatim_, and the meaning of every word, the accidental omission of a sentence would break the chain, and all that the eye should afterward report of the passage would be meaningless. How shall you know that the actor “suits the action to the word” if you know not the word? To a mind ignorant of Italian the “Otello” of Signor Rossi may have been a noble exercise in guessing; as acting it can have had no value.