Thespians, according to the circumstances of the age and nation in which they appeared, were called, in the earlier epochs of the world, imposters, or oracles: an actor essentially comprises and unites both these characters. For he not only transforms himself to convincingly portray circumstances of the human existence, but he conveys messages of absolute truth, and his performances are the eyes of man, the mirrors to the soul that reflect the façade of life and the quintessence of daily struggles that come with the entry of breath into the lungs. Not that I assert thespians to be oracles in the gross sense of the word, or that they lips of divinity, a vehicle of godly communication: such is the pretense of superstition, which would make acting an attribute of celestial utterance, rather than celestial utterance an attribute of acting. An actor participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one: as far as relates to his conceptions, time and place and numbers are not. The words, as well as the body language and facial expression which are a better received form of communication, are convertible with respect to the highest embodiment of acting without injuring it as acting; and the speeches of Moses, Socrates, and Martin Luther King Jr. would afford, more than any other dialogue, examples of this fact, if the limits of this essay did not forbid citation. The creations of dances, sculpture, painting, and music are illustrations still more decisive.
Language, movement, form, and religious and civil habits of action, are all instruments and materials of acting; they may be called acting by that figure of speech which considers the effect as a synonym of the cause. But acting in a more restricted sense expresses those arrangements of communication, even that which is non verbal, which is created by the magical gospel of human nature. And this springs from the very nature of communication, which is something that has always existed even when language did not, and is susceptible of more various and delicate combinations, than color, form, or motion, and is almost more universal than the act of breathing itself. For communication is what forms the relationships that determine whether we are really living or simply existing, and has relations to thought alone, even more so than language; but all other materials, instruments, and conditions of art have relations among each other, which limit and interpose between conception and expression. The former has the depth of the ocean, while the latter is as shallow as a kiddie pool, the water of which both are mediums of communication.
Thespians are the most successful con artist; the role models and deviants of society; the bridges which connect the world when language is a barrier unable to cross; the mirrors which reflect the turmoil of the past, present, and future; the inspiration of great beauty and great reform. Thespians are the underappreciated sustainers of passion in the world.
