Springfield Globe Republic

Severe on the Star.
[Croffut in New York World.]

How many pages must a versatile actor commit to memory for the business of a season? Take Booth with his present round of characters at the Fifth avenue-"Hamlet," "Ruy Blas," "Don Caesar," "The Apostate," "Othello," "The Fool's Revenge," "Richelieu," "The Merchant of Venice," and not less than as many more-say sixteen plays in all. One-third of these, at least, Booth must memorize-not less than 200,000 words for this repertory! Severe on the star, it is even severer on the secondary luminaries who have not before been in classical plays.

Harry Watkins once committed one of the longest parts known to the stage in eleven hours. The elder Booth could do the same thing. "I bolted it whole," he said, "and when I had spit it out I forgot it, every word." Mr. Barrett once told me, speaking on this point, "Actors learn their parts in different ways. Some can commit only by the eye; it is photographed temporarily on the retina of the brain, so to speak, sometimes by a single reading. Some commit only by hearing-the ear serving them as the eye serves others. Some commit a part by writing it out two or three times; the writing fixes it."