the perfect “team-play” which is absolutely necessary,—­the subordination of individual display to the larger advantage of the whole performance.  The reason why the so-called “all-star revivals” of old plays are often sadly disappointing, is to be found in the absence of this team-play, in the exaggerated self-assertion of the individual actors, whom the stage-manager has been unable to control.  Few members of an “all-star” company can be relied upon for the “sacrifice-hits,” which the best team-play may now and then demand.  And this is why a wise dramatist, if he were put to the choice, would prefer to have his piece performed by a company of average merit directed by a stage-manager of skill and authority, than by far better actors under lax and inefficient stage-management.  One of the varied qualifications needed by stage-managers is the insight to estimate the personality of the actors, so that the play may profit by what each of them can do best, while the exuberance of an aggressive individuality is restrained from interfering with the due proportion of the performance.

While it is the duty of the stage-manager to handle all the elements in his control so as to make the performance as perfect as possible, his most important function is to direct the actors themselves, to see that they read their lines intelligently, with just the emphasis requisite at that given moment in the unfolding of the story of the play, and to advise them as to the gestures and movements which should tell this story almost as plainly as the words themselves.  Some actors scarcely ever need a hint at rehearsal, reading their speeches naturally the first time and finding for themselves the appropriate byplay,—­“business,” as technical phrase terms it.  Other actors, in no wise inferior in power of personation, need to be guided and stimulated by advice; even if not inventive themselves, they may be swift to take a hint and to wring from it all its effectiveness.  Rachel, probably the greatest actress of the last century, felt herself lost without the tuition of Samson, a comic actor himself, but a teacher of force, originality and taste.  Mrs. Siddons, again, owed some of her most striking effects to her brother, John Philip Kemble.  It was Kemble who devised for her, and for himself, the new reading and the business now traditional in the trial scene of ‘Henry VIII,’ where the Queen at bay lashes Wolsey with the lines beginning: 

     Lord Cardinal, to you I speak—­

Kemble suggested that the Queen should pause, after the first two words, as tho making up her mind what she should say.  While she hesitates, the other cardinal, Campeius, thinking himself addrest by a lady, steps forward.  The Queen, seeing this, waves him aside with an imperious gesture, which sweeps forward to Wolsey, at whom she hurls the next words,

     To you I speak!

and then the rest of the fiery speech pours forth like scorching lava.