correspondent has_ventured to Inquire whether" the Shanghai audience is exceptionally dimieult move by the flesh-and-blodd performer on the stage. The need for the actor or actress to make an early contact with the emotions on the other side of the footlights will be generally recognized. With some auences the feat is easier than with others, and the blame does not ne-assarily rest with the performer, Every experienced player knows that audiences vary almost inexplicably.
famous French actress has record-ea that, in one of her' great parts, with some audiences, she cried real tears in a certain passage of the play with others she dare not go to such extremes, "The supreme art of siagecraft Is to sense the temperament of the audience as quickly as possible. The orator knows the feeling of having his audience at his merey. It is} the same with the player, assuming of course that the dramatist has supplied reasonably good material, Kipling effectively told of the "coo" which Nellie Farren could command from her subjects, Actresses like Marie 'Tempest, 16, ite only one the same' ability to-day, The Shanghai "audience's international composition cult: problem. bre rare occurrences. here the hands of amateurs, and amateurs are frequently under the handicap of being personally well-known to a Inrge proportion of their audience with the result' that the creation Mlusion is for them all the more dif-cult, That is why the last and Satur~ day night's performance of an A.D.C.
w'ls $0 often the best; the east grown more skilful in getting Aeros the footlights, the audience Jess strongly streaked with members: of the Club and, an important point, Int Ig in a more definitely holiday mood. "Some change in play-going audiences here must be attributed to] the dominance of the firn, Applause ig not normally forthcoming In the cinema, Indeed the display of audible reaction to a film is discouraged. within the audience, although the: Inughter which greets wit and humour: cannot be chained, It matters not to the screen performer whether. the audience is. moved for he cannot adapt himself to its mood. Purther, Ht must "be remembered that the cinema brings to, the smallest town oF village the art of some of the world's greatest entertainers. and artists, No longer can. the "actor comfort himself with the thought, that none better than he has beer soon In Slocum-on-the-Marsh, He is confronted by an audience which, Knows how Garbo, Henry Stephen. son, Joan Paul Munt, Herbert Mai act_and move across the stage, how Fred Astair Eleanor Powell, Jessie Matthews dance and how Gladys Swarthout, Jeannette Macdonald, Nelson Eddy sing. There a disposition to be more critical and hence to be slower in surrender to the would-be magician on, the other side of the footlights. Post-war soldiers know the feeling when they began to appear on parade in public ins the streets. filled with critical civilians who still remembered the ne points of putting on equipment, forming fours and sloping arms.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.