Other related themes at:
Arts (Non-literary)
Careers
115. Actors/Acting; Ouch!!!
"She no more thought of the play out of which her part was taken,
than a shoemaker thinks of the skin, out of which the piece of
leather, of which he is making a pair of shoes, is cut."
Boswell: Life
Link
243. Actors/Acting
Johnson: "Colley Cibber once
consulted me as to one of
his birth-day Odes, a long time before it was wanted. I objected
very freely to several passages. Cibber lost patience, and would
not read his Ode to an end. When we had done with criticism, we
walked over to Richardson's, the author of Clarissa, and I
wondered to find Richardson displeased that I 'did not treat
Cibber with more respect.' Now, Sir, to talk of
respect for a player!" (smiling disdainfully.)
Boswell: "There, Sir, you are always heretical: you
never will allow merit to a player." Johnson: "Merit,
Sir! what merit? Do you respect a rope-dancer, or a ballad
singer?" Boswell: "No, Sir, but we respect a great
player, as a man who can conceive lofty sentiments, and can
express them gracefully." Johnson: "What, Sir, a fellow
who claps a lump on his back, and a lump on his leg, and cries
'I am Richard the Third'? Nay, Sir, a ballad singer is a
higher man, for he does two things; he repeats and he sings:
there is both recitation and musick in his performance: the
player only recites." Boswell: "My dear, Sir! you may
turn anything into ridicule. I allow, that a player of farce is
not entitled to respect; he does a little thing: but he who can
represent exalted characters, and touch the noblest passions, has
very respectable powers; and mankind have agreed in admiring
great talents for the stage. We must consider, too, that a great
player does what very few are capable to do: his art is a very
rare faculty. Who can repeat Hamlet's soliloquy, 'To be,
or not to be,' as Garrick does it?" Johnson: "Any body
may. Jemmy (a boy about eight years old, who was in the room,)
will do it as well in a week." Boswell: "No, no, Sir:
and as a proof of the merit of great acting, and of the value
which mankind has set upon it, Garrick has got a hundred thousand
pounds." Johnson: "Is getting a hundred thousand pounds
a proof of excellence? That has been done by a scoundrel
commissary."
Boswell: Life
Link
290. Actors and Acting
Johnson, indeed, had thought more upon the subject of acting than
might generally be supposed. Talking of it one day to Mr.
Kemble, he said, "Are you, Sir, one of those enthusiasts who
believe yourself transformed into the very character you
represent?" Upon Mr. Kemble's answering that he had never felt
so strong a persuasion himself; "To be sure not, Sir, (said
Johnson;) the thing is impossible. And if Garrick really
believed himself to be that monster, Richard the Third, he
deserved to be hanged every time he performed it."
Boswell: Life
Link
324. Actors and Acting
When I asked him, "Would not you, sir, start as Mr. Garrick does,
if you saw a ghost?" He answered, "I hope not. If I did, I
should frighten the ghost."
Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
Link
914. Actors/Acting; Diversion
"At all other assemblies, he that comes to receive delight will
be expected to give it; but in the theatre nothing is necessary
to the amusement of two hours, but to sit down and be willing to
be pleased."
Johnson: Idler #25 (October 7, 1758)
Link
915. Actors/Acting
"The appearance and retirement of actors are the great events of
the theatrical world; and their first performances fill the pit
with conjecture and prognostication, as the first actions of a
new monarch agitate nations with hope and fear."
Johnson: Idler #25 (October 7, 1758)
Link
917. Actors/Acting; Criticism
"If in an actor there appears an utter vacancy of meaning, a
frigid equality, a stupid languor, a torpid apathy, the greatest
kindness that can be shown him is a speedy sentence of
expulsion."
Johnson: Idler #25 (October 7, 1758)
Link
919. Actors/Acting; Criticism;
Writing
"The art of the writer, like that of the player, is attained by
slow degrees. The power of distinguishing and discriminating
comick characters, or of filling tragedy with poetical images,
must be the gift of nature, which no instruction nor labour can
supply; but the art of dramatick disposition, the contexture of
the scenes, the involution of the plot, the expedients of
suspension, and the strategems of surprise, are to be learned by
practice; and it is cruel to discourage a poet for ever, because
he has not from genius what only experience can bestow."
Johnson: Idler #25 (October 7, 1758)
Link
