The scenic art

the long version

If this is, indeed, the book I read as a young actor back in the early 1960s, I remember it as a number of fascinating theatre reviews of plays and famous actors and actresses of the late 19th century. Fanny Kemble, ( he loved her ) Irving and Booth in Othello, alternating the roles of Othello and Iago ( a contrast in technique ) Sarah Bernhardt ( he hated her ) Elenora Duse ( He worshipped her ) and Thomaso Salvini ( the greatest of artists ) are included along with others I can no longer remember. The insights he had struck me as true. I came away feeling he was committed to the highest accomplishment that the drama and acting could attain, and despised cheap theatricality and the fireworks of personality.