Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IIL JAMES T. POWERS. James T. Powers has never presented a more finished specimen of the actor's art than his impersonation of Flipper, the comical little jockey in "A Runaway Girl." So much has he made the part his own, that one feels quite safe in declaring that he is far more responsible for the character than the author of the play. When one has seen only a single actor in a r6le, and when that actor has filled it so completely that there is no room left even for a mental image of some one else, it is difficult to trace the process of evolution backward and figure out what the part would be without the actor. The feat is accomplished by a proc- JAMES T. POWERS as Flipper in " A Runaway Girl.1 ess of elimination, by cutting out business, extra bits of pantomime, and everything of that kind, and then sizing up, as fairly as possible, what is left. I acknowledge that there is nothing especially enjoyable in thus analysing one's self into a state of disillusionment, — it is not unlike a child examining the sawdust interior of his favourite doll, — but it is really the only way to get a notion of what Mr. Powers did for Flipper. While thinking of Flipper, I recalled a number of comic creations that will always live in the history of the stage. E. A. Sothern's Lord Dundreary was one. Joseph Jefferson's Salem Scudder was another. William Warren's Sir Peter Teazle was a third. I am not going to put Powers in the list, — not just yet, at any rate. Besides, Flipper's surroundings are not conducive to a venerable age. Musical comedy lives too fast to live long. Mr. Powers's method, however, does parallel the methods of theactors that have given us the great comedy impersonations of the stage. Powers built up his part gradually from none too much nor none too worthy... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.