Identifier: autobiographyofj00injeff (find matches)
Title: The autobiography of Joseph Jefferson
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Jefferson, Joseph, 1829-1905
Subjects: Jefferson, Joseph, 1829-1905 Actors
Publisher: New York : Century Co.
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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error that has existed through all time, and Ishall make bold just here to call attention to it.Old plays, and particularly old comedies, are filledwith traditional introductions, good and bad. Ifan actor, In exercising his taste and judgment, pre-sumes to leave out any of these respectable antiq-uities, he is, by the conventional critic, consideredsacrilegious in ignoring them. And, on the otherhand, if in amplifying the traditional business heintroduces new material, he is thought to be equallyimpertinent; whereas the question as to the intro-duction should be whether it is good or bad, notwhether it is old or new. If there is any preferenceit should be given to the new, which must neces-sarily be fresh and original, while the old is only acopy. Laura Keenes judgment in selecting plays wassingularly bad ; she invariably allowed herself tobe too much influenced by their literary merit orthe delicacy of their treatment. If these featureswere prominent in any of the plays she read, her
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JOSEPH JEFFERSON AS dR. PANGLOSS. OF JOSEPH JEFFERSON 185 naturally refined taste would cling to them withsuch tenacity that no argument but the potent oneof public neglect could convince her that she hadbeen misled in producing them. I do not say thatpolished dialogue or delicately drawn charactersare detrimental to a play — on the contrary, theyassist it; but if these qualities are not coupled witha sympathetic story, containing human interest, andtold in action rather than in words, they seldomreach beyond the footlights. Perhaps it is well to define here, to the non-pro-fessional reader, what is meant by dramatic action,as sometimes this term is mistaken for pantomime.Pantomime is action, certainly ; but not necessarilydramatic action, which is the most essential elementin the construction of a play. A drama will oftengive one no idea of its strength in the reading ofit; even in rehearsal it will sometimes fail to re-veal its power. I have on several occasions seeneven the autho

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