GUITRY SACHA: (1885-1957) French Actor & Director. An excellent and very interesting lengthy Manuscript in Guitry´s ...

GUITRY SACHA: (1885-1957) French Actor & Director. An excellent and very interesting lengthy Manuscript in Guitry´s hand, n,p., n.d., eighty pages (80), 4to, in French. Written to front pages, either in pencil, or ink, or even some typed, the draft contains multiple side annotations, amendments, crossed paragraphs, etc.. The manuscript is a vibrant advocacy in favour of Theatre and actors, denigrating the cinema which he considers a threat. To the first page and sentence Guitry states `Ladies and Gentlemen, the Theatre according to me is neither a job nor a profession, not even an art… It is a passion!´ further saying in part `..imagine the anxiety of a man of theater who watches the spectators deserting the theatre halls.. they settle for cinematography, for this dying image, without relief, without colour, plane and which is in fact the reproduction of a travesty… The theatre at this time is only risking one thing, to become again an Art, as it was time ago… Why don´t you applaud a singer who has just sang on your television screen? Because he has not taken the risk to fail his natural G, and he can´t fail… Therefore no interest…And once the film is produced, you cannot change anything anymore… The cinema cannot replace the theatre in the same way the photography could not replace the painting…´ Guitry reproduces a dialogue of a playwright and states `Do you realize the difficulty of playing such an irresistible dialogue scene of Courteline in a film? An actor cannot know at which exact moment and for how long the spectators will be laughing…actors on scene can stop when they want..´ An extremely interesting and lengthy manuscript, full of curious and unexpected comments and comparisons, `..the best two actors who ever existed are Shakespeare and Moliere, both comedians. Because they were not actors playing their playwrights, no, they were comedians who realizing that the existing playwrights were bad, they decided, thanks god, to write them themselves!´, Guitry also refers on several occasions to his father´s comments and thoughts, mentioning playwrights, one of his own that he is about to play `Un homme d´hier et une femme d´aujourd´hui´ (`A man of yesterday time and a woman of today´), also referring to religion and actors `When Adrienne Lecouvreur died, this admirable tragedian passed away on the same week that a famous English actress died, Anna Oldfield. And while the English actress was buried at Westminster, the French tragedian was refused the ecclesiastical burial, and was buried during the night in a wasteland.´ Small overall age wear, otherwise G £2500-3500