A friend of mine for many years, who lives in the vicinity of Hollywood. An occasional actor, but more interested in teaching acting to youths who somehow journey to California in order to become his pupils. He was born in Wilno, Poland (now Lithuania). Presently, he flourishes an avalanche-of-a-mane which he trims only when it gets under his scat. Otherwise, his pupils use it to hide under during the winter rains. His beard is really very patriarchal.

Whenever we forget the futility of arguments between actors and sculptors about the fundamentals of the Theatre, we argue. Ossetynski insists that it is the actors who make good theatre, while I persist that it is the AUTHORS who make the institution. When I applaud a fine musician at a concert, it is the composer's piece I cheer, not the virtuoso's acrobatics. I regard actors and all performers at concerts as waiters who merely distribute the dishes, prepared by the invisible cook who has no time to collect the applause he earned in the kitchen. If we like a particular restaurant, it is because of the flavor from the sweat of the cook's brow that has dropped in our soup, the salt of the creative man s birth-giving pains.

Performers are innumerable. If any director whistles with crooked fingers at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, within minutes he will be inundated with hordes of the finest pretenders of Othello and Hamlet.

I still think that Theatre, when worthy of the term, depends on fine literature, unless it is a circus, disguised.