hed from all sides. No one is a silhouette; and
every one is a chameleon, changing color even while we are looking at
it. Every part is a problem to the actors who undertake it, a problem
with many a solution, no one of which can be proved, however assured the
performer may be that he has hit on the right one. To the actor the
privilege of an artistic adventure like this comes but rarely; and it is
prized accordingly. Not often does he find under his hand material at
once fresh and solid. He feels the fascination of this chance and he
lays hold of it firmly, even tho he has a haunting fear of failure,
absent from the easy, daily exercise of his professional skill. He
relishes the opportunity to speak Ibsen's wonderful prose, that dialog
which seems to the mere reader direct and nervous, and which impresses
the actual auditor in the theater as incomparable in its veracity, its
vivacity, its flexibility, its subtlety, and its certainty; but which
only the actor who delivers it on the stage can praise adequately, since
he alone is aware of its full force, of its surcharged meaning, and of
its carrying power.

To act Ibsen is worth while, so the actors themselves think; and it is
significant that it is to the actors, rather than to the regular
managers, that we owe the most of our chances for seeing his plays
presented on the stage. That Ibsen offers opportunities not provided in
the pieces of any other modern dramatist is the belief of many an actor
and of many an actress longing for a chance to rival the great
performers who have gone before, leaving only their fame behind them. So
it is that the 'Pillars of Society' is set up in our theaters now and
_again_, and that 'Ghosts' may revisit our stage from time to time. So
it is that the ambitious leading lady, abandoning the _Camille_ and the
_Pauline_ of a generation or two ago, yearns now to show what she can do
as _Nora_ and as _Hedda Gabler_, unable to resist the temptation to try
her luck also in impersonating these women of the North, essentially
feminine even when they are fatally enigmatic.

VIII

The actors and actresses do get their chance now and again to appear in
an Ibsen part, in spite of the reluctance of the regular managers to
risk the production of Ibsen's plays in their theaters. This reluctance
is not caused solely by an inability to appreciate his real merits; it
is magnified by a healthy distrust for the cranks and the freaks who are
most vocifero