He meditates on these, and clothes the fictitious passions with these real forms. I scarcely know how to confess that, in my own person, in any circumstance of my life, in which I experienced deep sorrow, the passion of the Theatre was so strong in me, that, although oppressed with real sorrow, and in the midst of the tears I shed, I made, in spite of myself, a rapid and fugitive observation on the alteration of my voice, and on a certain spasmodic vibration which it contracted in tears, and, I say it not without some shame, I even thought of making use of it on the stage, and, indeed, this experiment on myself has often been of service to me.* The contrarieties, the sorrows, and melancholy reflections which an actor may apply to the personage he represents, in exciting his sensibility, place him in the degree of agitation necessary for the developement of his faculties. Lekain thus found, in his own passions, display for his talents.-As to the odious characters and * Tears generally force the voice to the upper tones, which are frequently squeaking, and any thing but pathetic; the actor must, therefore, avoid this, and, in his sorrow, adopt only the medium tones, which will produce the effect desired, of awaking all the sympathies of the hearers. vile passions, of which the type was not in him, for no man was more honourable than Lekain, he painted them by analogy. In fact, amongst the irregular passions which disgrace humanity, there are some which possess points of contact with those which ennoble it. Thus, the sentiment of a noble emulation enables us to divine what envy may feel; the just resentment of wrongs shews us in miniature the excess of hatred and vengeance. Reserve and prudence enable us to paint dissimulation. The desires, the torments, and the jealousies of love, enable us to conceive all its frenzies, and initiate us in the secret of its crimes. These combinations, these comparisons, are the result of a rapid and imperceptible labour of sensibility, united with intelligence, which secretly operates on the actor as on the poet, and which reveals to them what is foreign to their own nature,-the viler passions of guilty and corrupted minds. Thus Milton, a man of austere probity, and so full of the divine power, created the personage of Satan. neille, the simplest and the worthiest of men, created Phocas and Felix. Racine, Nero, Narcissus, and Mathan. Voltaire has painted the effects of fanaticism with a frightful truth; and Cor Ducis, whose taste was simple, and whose life was religious, painted, in Albufar, in traits of fire, all the transports of incestuous love. These terminate my hasty reflections on Lekain and our art. I have thrown them together without order, but I hope, in the quietude of silence and repose, to resume the subject, and give, for the use of my successors, the result of a long experience in a career devoted entirely to the advancement of the beautiful art I love so deeply. TALMA. |