The Theater: A Fiery Particle

(9 of 9)

Julie nevertheless has the vices of her virtues, and she knows it. "An actress," she says, "needs all the emotionality she can get." And Julie, though she has plenty of a high and special kind, has less of the more everyday varieties. "What she needs now, if she is going to grow," a friend says, "is to have a woman's life, and to suffer a woman's portion, and to wait for a woman's strength to come to her out of the dark." Director Clurman agrees: 'Julie hasn't developed what I call genius -an out-of-bounds personality. And there s no way you can go out and get it. Tragedy can develop it, but you just can't go out and have a tragedy."

You can't go out and get it, but you can go in and find it. If Julie dares to find it, there can be little doubt that the theater will be the richer for her experience, and she herself may one day be able to cry with Eleonora Duse: "There are a thousand women within me, and each one makes me suffer in turn . . . How I have loved life!"