“Ah, yes—professionals,” said Professor Vambrace. “But we are spirits of another sort—if I may quote another of the Immortal’s works. Most of us are university people, or professional people. We can accept criticism of a type which would be unacceptable to the more—how shall I put it—the more—well, the more elementary intelligences of professional players.”
Valentine was a little nettled. “Sir Henry Irving said that the best of amateurs were but children in art; one must teach children by kindness, and not expect everything from them which one might demand from adults. Irving also said that the hardest thing for an amateur to do was to get over the habit of stressing personal pronouns. I refuse to minister to the perverse desire of any amateur actor to be abused in public.”
This was hard hitting, for the matter of personal pronouns had been mentioned before, and to the Professor himself. He turned away, and was heard to say to Miss Wildfang that the limitations of the professional stage were easily understood, in the light of his recent experience. A small matter of seven grapes, which could, nevertheless, awaken an echo of As You Like It, had been denied to him. Was a really evocative theatre possible if such lack of perception were to prevail? Yes, he agreed with Miss Wildfang that the sooner a university theatre was established, the better. Then, with long rehearsal and ripe scholarship—not all of it from the Department of English, of course—the essential oneness, the great overall unity of Shakespeare’s plays could be revealed.
Much as they might wish to be abused by Valentine at a dress rehearsal, it was plain that the actors were distressed at the thought of being criticized in print.
“Whatever the papers say,” said Nellie, “I shall always think that we have done the right thing. But I can’t answer for the others. A bad press may hit them very hard.”
“What press will there be?” asked Valentine.
“The local paper, of course, and probably something in the Waverley Review, when it next appears, sometime in November,” said Solly.
“No out-of-town papers?”
“One or two, perhaps. Your name will draw them.”
“Well, what have you to worry about?”
“I’m worried about the out-of-towners; there might even be one of those radio critics, and they are so patronizing, even when they’re favourable. And if other drama groups hear that we’ve been panned, they’ll gloat so.”
“I think you are just worrying because you think you should, Nell,” said Valentine. “Criticism can’t possibly hurt the show; you’ve sold enough tickets already to assure success. Stop fussing.”
“Spoken like a professional,” said Cobbler, who had joined them. “I never pay any attention to criticism. Most critics of anything are frauds. Worse, most of them are bachelors or spinsters. Their opinions of what other people create are firmly hitched to their own sexual cycle. Show me a bachelor critic in whom desire burns like a furnace, and I’ll show you a fellow who will boost your show to the skies or damn it to the pit, according to the way the leading lady strikes his fancy. Show me the same critic at the bottom of his twenty-eight day round, and I’ll show you a fellow who will give you faint praise. Every critic carries a twenty-eight day clock in his gizzard, and what he says about you depends on whether he is ready to strike twelve or one. Rule out the few critics who truly love the arts, and who would be critics even if they weren’t paid for it, and the rest are needy riffraff, laughed at by all serious artists.”
“What is a spinster director supposed to make of that?” said Valentine.
“If you refer to yourself,” said Cobbler, “I am forced to reveal that I do not consider it possible that a lady of your charm can be a spinster in anything except the most technical sense. Furthermore, you are a true artist—a creator. Such people are not twenty-eight day clocks; they are towers in which the carillon peals whenever God chooses to stir it with his mighty breath.”
“Thank you,” said Valentine, who possessed the rarest of female graces, in that she knew how to receive a compliment. She blushed delightfully.
“Don’t thank me; thank God,” said Humphrey. “I said that you spoke like a professional. You and I are two of the three professionals involved with this show. We must stand together.”
“Who is the other?” asked Larry Pye, hoping for a compliment.
“That gardener,” said Humphrey. “I don’t think any of you realize what a wonderful job he has done for you in making his garden look like an enchanted island.”
“Oh, yes; Gawky,” said Larry. “That reminds me, I want a word with him. Hey, Gawky!” He shouted at Tom, who was walking around the lawn with a pointed stick and a bag, picking up bits of paper.
“Not Gawky. The man’s name is Golky,” said Professor Vambrace, who stood nearby, eating a third dish of chow mein in an abstracted manner. He despised food, but he always ate a great deal at affairs of this kind where it was good and plentiful.
Tom, however, was ready to answer to almost any Saxon assault upon his name, and he came near.
“We’ve worn away some grass on the stage already,” said Larry. “Can you do anything about that?”
“I’ll cut the lower lawn tomorrow, sir,” said Tom, “and sprinkle the cuttings about seven o’clock. I’ll do that every night, just to keep the place looking fresh.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr Gwalchmai,” said Valentine.
“Not at all miss. It’s my show, too, in a way. And the cuttings will do no harm. I believe in returning everything to nature that comes from nature. But,” he said, angrily spearing the glass-paper casing of a cigarette box which Larry had just thrown down, “nobody’ll ever convince me that this-here cellophane ever came from nature, and nature’ll never absorb it again. So I’ll thank you, sir, not to throw it on my grass, unless you want your enchanted island to look like a rubbish-tip.” He moved away.
“Let me get you another plate of that stuff,” said Solly to Valentine.
“I’ll come with you,” said she, and they broke away from their group.
“I wanted to get away,” said she; “everybody wants to plague and worry me about nothing. They’ll all be all right tomorrow. What’s worrying them?”
“They are sacrificing to our Canadian God,” said Solly. “We all believe that if we fret and abuse ourselves sufficiently, Providence will take pity and smile upon anything we attempt. A light heart, or a consciousness of desert, attracts ill luck. You have been away from your native land too long. You have forgotten our folkways. Listen to that gang over there; they are scanning the heavens and hoping aloud that it won’t rain tomorrow. That is to placate the Mean Old Man in the Sky, and persuade him to be kind to us. We are devil-worshippers, we Canadians, half in love with easeful Death. We flog ourselves endlessly, as a kind of spiritual purification. Now, what about some chow mein?”
They replenished their plates, and withdrew to a quiet spot where bushes half-screened them from the others.
“There’s one man I must speak to before tomorrow,” said Valentine. “And that’s Mackilwraith. I didn’t want to shame him before the others, but he was quite dreadful. He was never very good, but during this past week he’s been impossible. He comes as near to fading completely into the background, leaving a gaping hole where Gonzalo should be, as any actor I’ve ever seen. His lines mean nothing; if I didn’t know them I doubt if I’d ever distinguish them.”
“Shocking,” agreed Solly. “I wondered what you would do.”
“I suppose I’d better get it over. Will you hunt him up and tell him I’d like to see him here? This is private enough; I’ll just keep out of the way of the others.”
Sated with food, the actors showed no signs of going home. Cobbler and his wife and children were sitting on the lawn, singing for a large audience. The treble voices and the one bass were sweet upon the moonlit air.