Oliver Bell Bunce

“ What a fine, green old age is his! Holland can be more intensely funny than any man on the stage. He is scarcely so successful in sustained parts as in eccentric bits; and he has the art to take a character for which the author has done nothing, and render it one of the telling features of the play. There is not an item of dress, nor a gesture, nor an expression, nor an attitude that is not considered and sustained with conscientious care.
When Booth was playing Hamlet for a hundred nights, Mrs. James Wallack acted the Queen. ”

“ An actor, according to the old idea, was one whose art enabled him to create distinct and separate individualities, and was not limited to the reproduction of himself. It was the actor's study to enter into and embody the creations of the dramatist, and not order the author to individualize his character to the measure of the performer. ”

“ The situation in the last act—it is Farquhar's Inconstant—is one of the most dramatic and thrilling on the stage, and combines a wild mirth with passionate intensity that any actor may well shrink from attempting. ”

“ Art is not imitation. If it were merely that, a wax figure in a pea-jacket would be finer than the Greek Slave.
"I have met," said a veteran poet in my hearing once, "a good many actors who could spell, some who could write, but very few who could read." A finished delivery is rare, indeed—that nice and accurate lodgment of emphasis, with the proper inflections, giving each word its due prominence and relation to every other. ”

“ Where are the actors for so many new ventures? Even Wallack, with a prevailing eagerness all through the profession to act under his management, finds it difficult to select a company suitable for his purpose. ”

“ Her Camille was a great success, because she really employed in it a very consummate art—unfortunately, however, it was borrowed. For a hundred nights, she watched a famous Parisian actress in the part, and reproduced every detail of her model's business.
There is trickery enough in many modern reputations. Suppose that I am small, that I am wiry, that my voice is thin and poor but I discover I can beat all the world in laughing and crying. ”

“ His greatest successes in comedy have been in parts like that of Littleton Coke (in Old Heads and Young Hearts) , where a light, blasémanner, keen satire, and brisk dialogue, are required. Like all of his family, Mr. Wallack has profound dramatic perceptions, and consequently great talent for the romantic drama. In Monte Christo, the mysterious Count in Pauline, and in certain portions of Melnotte in the Lady of Lyons, he is the most brilliantly picturesque actor on the stage. Much of this power depends on his resources of dress, in which he exhibits a marvellous talent. ”

“ His "get-up" is usually superb. In that field he is master almost without a rival. His fondness for the picturesque or romantic drama is very decided, and he is reported to have said that he would take pleasure in acting the Count in Pauline three hundred nights in a year.
But gayety was my text. The want of an actor who can adequately express it excludes from the stage Young Rover, Young Mirabel, and many kindred parts. Who can sustain these delicious rôles where the gay humors sparkle and dance in glorious exhilaration from first to last? ”