Book: Actors and the Art of Acting

Overview

George Henry Lewes offers a wide-ranging, analytical portrait of stagecraft that treats acting as a learned art rather than mere trickery or natural gift. The book blends philosophical reflection, psychological insight, and practical observation to map the capacities an actor must cultivate: imagination, sympathy, intellectual understanding, and a disciplined command of voice and gesture. Lewes approaches the stage with the seriousness of a critic and the curiosity of a scientist, insisting that performance can be examined, classified, and improved by careful study.
The tone alternates between appreciative portraiture and constructive criticism. Lewes writes with a 19th-century critic's appetite for historical comparison, tracing continuities in technique and temperament from the great performers of the past to the practitioners of his own day. He pays sustained attention to the relationship between text, performer, and audience, and to how external elements, costume, scenery, and stage business, either support or betray an actor's attempt to embody character.

Central Arguments and Themes

A central claim is that truthfulness of feeling is the actor's primary responsibility; mere declamation or ornamentation will not convince an audience unless it is grounded in a genuine understanding of motive and psychology. Lewes emphasizes the interplay of imagination and intellect: imagination supplies the raw creative energies that allow an actor to inhabit a role, while intellect shapes those energies into coherent choices consistent with a character's inner life. Sympathy, the capacity to enter into another person's experience, stands as the moral and technical foundation of representation.
Lewes also distinguishes types of talent and kinds of excellence. He is attentive to the differences between comic and tragic modes, between performers who are essentially imitators of observable habits and those who are creators of personified ideas. The critic cautions against fetishizing mere "naturalness" as if spontaneity alone sufficed; instead, he argues for cultivated naturalness produced by disciplined technique. He repeatedly stresses the importance of study of human nature, literature, and social contexts for deep characterization.

Practical Techniques and Critiques

Practical topics recur throughout: the management of voice, the economy and appropriateness of gesture, the timing of movement, and the judicious use of facial expression. Lewes rejects exaggerated pantomime and bombastic elocution while warning against the opposite danger of timidity and underpreparation. He examines how costume and stage properties function as extensions of character rather than as mere adornments, and he urges actors to coordinate physical business with psychological truth so that every action onstage grows naturally out of inner motive.
Lewes is equally alert to institutional pressures. He comments on the commercial aspects of theatre, the cult of celebrity, and the ways audiences shape performance styles. His criticism is often diagnostic: when an actor fails to move an audience, he looks beyond superficial technique to consider temperament, training, and the social conventions that condition reception.

Influence and Legacy

The book stands as a significant 19th-century contribution to theatrical criticism and practical theory, bridging earlier declamatory doctrines and later psychologically oriented methods. By insisting that acting is both an art and a disciplined craft, Lewes anticipates aspects of modern acting theory that prize inner justification and methodical preparation. The work remains valuable as a period document and as a reflective, humane guide to the lifelong labor of making characters live on stage.