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diff --git a/13589-0.txt b/13589-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51f8597 --- /dev/null +++ b/13589-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6247 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13589 *** + +_Uniform with This Volume_ + +Studies in Stagecraft + +_By_ CLAYTON HAMILTON + +_Second Printing_ + +CONTENT: The New Art of Making Plays. The Pictorial Stage. The Decorative +Drama. The Drama of Illusion. The Modern Art of Stage Direction. A Plea for +a New Type of Play. The Period of Pragmatism. The Undramatic Drama. The +Value of Stage Conventions. The Supernatural Drama. The Irish National +Theatre. The Personality of the Playwright. Themes and Stories of the +Stage. Plausibility in Plays. Infirmity of Purpose. Where to Begin a Play. +Continuity of Structure. Rhythm and Tempo. The Plays of Yesteryear. A New +Defense of Melodrama. The Art of the Moving-Picture Play. The One-Act Play +in America. Organizing an Audience. The Function of Dramatic Criticism. + +_$1.50 net_ + + +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + +NEW YORK + + + + +THE THEORY OF THE THEATRE + +AND OTHER PRINCIPLES OF DRAMATIC CRITICISM + + +BY + +CLAYTON HAMILTON + +AUTHOR OF "MATERIALS AND METHODS OF FICTION" + + +NEW YORK + +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + + +_Published April, 1910_ + + + + +TO + +BRANDER MATTHEWS + +MENTOR AND FRIEND + +WHO FIRST AWAKENED MY CRITICAL INTEREST IN THE THEORY OF THE THEATRE + + + + +PREFACE + + +Most of the chapters which make up the present volume have already +appeared, in earlier versions, in certain magazines; and to the editors of +_The Forum_, _The North American Review_, _The Smart Set_, and _The +Bookman_, I am indebted for permission to republish such materials as I +have culled from my contributions to their pages. Though these papers were +written at different times and for different immediate circles of +subscribers, they were all designed from the outset to illustrate certain +steady central principles of dramatic criticism; and, thus collected, they +afford, I think, a consistent exposition of the most important points in +the theory of the theatre. The introductory chapter, entitled _What is a +Play?_, has not, in any form, appeared in print before; and all the other +papers have been diligently revised, and in many passages entirely +rewritten. + +C.H. + +NEW YORK CITY: 1910. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE THEORY OF THE THEATRE + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. WHAT IS A PLAY? 3 + II. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THEATRE AUDIENCES 30 + III. THE ACTOR AND THE DRAMATIST 59 + IV. STAGE CONVENTIONS IN MODERN TIMES 73 + V. ECONOMY OF ATTENTION IN THEATRICAL + PERFORMANCES 95 + VI. EMPHASIS IN THE DRAMA 112 + VII. THE FOUR LEADING TYPES OF DRAMA 127 +VIII. THE MODERN SOCIAL DRAMA 133 + + +OTHER PRINCIPLES OF DRAMATIC +CRITICISM + + I. THE PUBLIC AND THE DRAMATIST 153 + II. DRAMATIC ART AND THE THEATRE BUSINESS 161 + III. THE HAPPY ENDING IN THE THEATRE 169 + IV. THE BOUNDARIES OF APPROBATION 175 + V. IMITATION AND SUGGESTION IN THE DRAMA 179 + VI. HOLDING THE MIRROR UP TO NATURE 184 + VII. BLANK VERSE ON THE CONTEMPORARY STAGE 193 +VIII. DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND THEATRIC JOURNALISM 199 + IX. THE INTENTION OF PERMANENCE 207 + X. THE QUALITY OF NEW ENDEAVOR 212 + XI. THE EFFECT OF PLAYS UPON THE PUBLIC 217 + XII. PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT PLAYS 222 +XIII. THEMES IN THE THEATRE 228 + XIV. THE FUNCTION OF IMAGINATION 233 + + INDEX 241 + + + + +THE THEORY OF THE THEATRE + + + + +I + +WHAT IS A PLAY? + + +A play is a story devised to be presented by actors on a stage before an +audience. + +This plain statement of fact affords an exceedingly simple definition of +the drama,--a definition so simple indeed as to seem at the first glance +easily obvious and therefore scarcely worthy of expression. But if we +examine the statement thoroughly, phrase by phrase, we shall see that it +sums up within itself the entire theory of the theatre, and that from this +primary axiom we may deduce the whole practical philosophy of dramatic +criticism. + +It is unnecessary to linger long over an explanation of the word "story." A +story is a representation of a series of events linked together by the law +of cause and effect and marching forward toward a predestined +culmination,--each event exhibiting imagined characters performing imagined +acts in an appropriate imagined setting. This definition applies, of +course, to the epic, the ballad, the novel, the short-story, and all other +forms of narrative art, as well as to the drama. + +But the phrase "devised to be presented" distinguishes the drama sharply +from all other forms of narrative. In particular it must be noted that a +play is not a story that is written to be read. By no means must the drama +be considered primarily as a department of literature,--like the epic or +the novel, for example. Rather, from the standpoint of the theatre, should +literature be considered as only one of a multitude of means which the +dramatist must employ to convey his story effectively to the audience. The +great Greek dramatists needed a sense of sculpture as well as a sense of +poetry; and in the contemporary theatre the playwright must manifest the +imagination of the painter as well as the imagination of the man of +letters. The appeal of a play is primarily visual rather than auditory. On +the contemporary stage, characters properly costumed must be exhibited +within a carefully designed and painted setting illuminated with +appropriate effects of light and shadow; and the art of music is often +called upon to render incidental aid to the general impression. The +dramatist, therefore, must be endowed not only with the literary sense, but +also with a clear eye for the graphic and plastic elements of pictorial +effect, a sense of rhythm and of music, and a thorough knowledge of the +art of acting. Since the dramatist must, at the same time and in the same +work, harness and harmonise the methods of so many of the arts, it would be +uncritical to centre studious consideration solely on his dialogue and to +praise him or condemn him on the literary ground alone. + +It is, of course, true that the very greatest plays have always been great +literature as well as great drama. The purely literary element--the final +touch of style in dialogue--is the only sure antidote against the opium of +time. Now that Aeschylus is no longer performed as a playwright, we read +him as a poet. But, on the other hand, we should remember that the main +reason why he is no longer played is that his dramas do not fit the modern +theatre,--an edifice totally different in size and shape and physical +appointments from that in which his pieces were devised to be presented. In +his own day he was not so much read as a poet as applauded in the theatre +as a playwright; and properly to appreciate his dramatic, rather than his +literary, appeal, we must reconstruct in our imagination the conditions of +the theatre in his day. The point is that his plays, though planned +primarily as drama, have since been shifted over, by many generations of +critics and literary students, into the adjacent province of poetry; and +this shift of the critical point of view, which has insured the +immortality of Aeschylus, has been made possible only by the literary +merit of his dialogue. When a play, owing to altered physical conditions, +is tossed out of the theatre, it will find a haven in the closet only if it +be greatly written. From this fact we may derive the practical maxim that +though a skilful playwright need not write greatly in order to secure the +plaudits of his own generation, he must cultivate a literary excellence if +he wishes to be remembered by posterity. + +This much must be admitted concerning the ultimate importance of the +literary element in the drama. But on the other hand it must be granted +that many plays that stand very high as drama do not fall within the range +of literature. A typical example is the famous melodrama by Dennery +entitled _The Two Orphans_. This play has deservedly held the stage for +nearly a century, and bids fair still to be applauded after the youngest +critic has died. It is undeniably a very good play. It tells a thrilling +story in a series of carefully graded theatric situations. It presents +nearly a dozen acting parts which, though scarcely real as characters, are +yet drawn with sufficient fidelity to fact to allow the performers to +produce a striking illusion of reality during the two hours' traffic of the +stage. It is, to be sure--especially in the standard English +translation--abominably written. One of the two orphans launches wide-eyed +upon a soliloquy beginning, "Am I mad?... Do I dream?"; and such sentences +as the following obtrude themselves upon the astounded ear,--"If you +persist in persecuting me in this heartless manner, I shall inform the +police." Nothing, surely, could be further from literature. Yet thrill +after thrill is conveyed, by visual means, through situations artfully +contrived; and in the sheer excitement of the moment, the audience is made +incapable of noticing the pompous mediocrity of the lines. + +In general, it should be frankly understood by students of the theatre that +an audience is not capable of hearing whether the dialogue of a play is +well or badly written. Such a critical discrimination would require an +extraordinary nicety of ear, and might easily be led astray, in one +direction or the other, by the reading of the actors. The rhetoric of +Massinger must have sounded like poetry to an Elizabethan audience that had +heard the same performers, the afternoon before, speaking lines of +Shakespeare's. If Mr. Forbes-Robertson is reading a poorly-written part, it +is hard to hear that the lines are, in themselves, not musical. Literary +style is, even for accomplished critics, very difficult to judge in the +theatre. Some years ago, Mrs. Fiske presented in New York an English +adaptation of Paul Heyse's _Mary of Magdala_. After the first +performance--at which I did not happen to be present--I asked several +cultivated people who had heard the play whether the English version was +written in verse or in prose; and though these people were themselves +actors and men of letters, not one of them could tell me. Yet, as appeared +later, when the play was published, the English dialogue was written in +blank verse by no less a poet than Mr. William Winter. If such an +elementary distinction as that between verse and prose was in this case +inaudible to cultivated ears, how much harder must it be for the average +audience to distinguish between a good phrase and a bad! The fact is that +literary style is, for the most part, wasted on an audience. The average +auditor is moved mainly by the emotional content of a sentence spoken on +the stage, and pays very little attention to the form of words in which the +meaning is set forth. At Hamlet's line, "Absent thee from felicity a +while"--which Matthew Arnold, with impeccable taste, selected as one of his +touchstones of literary style--the thing that really moves the audience in +the theatre is not the perfectness of the phrase but the pathos of Hamlet's +plea for his best friend to outlive him and explain his motives to a world +grown harsh. + +That the content rather than the literary turn of dialogue is the thing +that counts most in the theatre will be felt emphatically if we compare +the mere writing of Molière with that of his successor and imitator, +Regnard. Molière is certainly a great writer, in the sense that he +expresses clearly and precisely the thing he has to say; his verse, as well +as his prose, is admirably lucid and eminently speakable. But assuredly, in +the sense in which the word is generally used, Molière is not a poet; and +it may fairly be said that, in the usual connotation of the term, he has no +style. Regnard, on the other hand, is more nearly a poet, and, from the +standpoint of style, writes vastly better verse. He has a lilting fluency +that flowers every now and then into a phrase of golden melody. Yet Molière +is so immeasurably his superior as a playwright that most critics +instinctively set Regnard far below him even as a writer. There can be no +question that M. Rostand writes better verse than Emile Augier; but there +can be no question, also, that Augier is the greater dramatist. Oscar Wilde +probably wrote more clever and witty lines than any other author in the +whole history of English comedy; but no one would think of setting him in +the class with Congreve and Sheridan. + +It is by no means my intention to suggest that great writing is not +desirable in the drama; but the point must be emphasised that it is not a +necessary element in the immediate merit of a play _as a play_. In fact, +excellent plays have often been presented without the use of any words at +all. Pantomime has, in every age, been recognised as a legitimate +department of the drama. Only a few years ago, Mme. Charlotte Wiehe acted +in New York a one-act play, entitled _La Main_, which held the attention +enthralled for forty-five minutes during which no word was spoken. The +little piece told a thrilling story with entire clearness and coherence, +and exhibited three characters fully and distinctly drawn; and it secured +this achievement by visual means alone, with no recourse whatever to the +spoken word. Here was a work which by no stretch of terminology could have +been included in the category of literature; and yet it was a very good +play, and _as drama_ was far superior to many a literary masterpiece in +dialogue like Browning's _In a Balcony_. + +Lest this instance seem too exceptional to be taken as representative, let +us remember that throughout an entire important period in the history of +the stage, it was customary for the actors to improvise the lines that they +spoke before the audience. I refer to the period of the so-called _commedia +dell'arte_, which flourished all over Italy throughout the sixteenth +century. A synopsis of the play--partly narrative and partly +expository--was posted up behind the scenes. This account of what was to +happen on the stage was known technically as a _scenario_. The actors +consulted this scenario before they made an entrance, and then in the +acting of the scene spoke whatever words occurred to them. Harlequin made +love to Columbine and quarreled with Pantaloon in new lines every night; +and the drama gained both spontaneity and freshness from the fact that it +was created anew at each performance. Undoubtedly, if an actor scored with +a clever line, he would remember it for use in a subsequent presentation; +and in this way the dialogue of a comedy must have gradually become more or +less fixed and, in a sense, written. But this secondary task of formulating +the dialogue was left to the performers; and the playwright contented +himself with the primary task of planning the plot. + +The case of the _commedia dell'arte_ is, of course, extreme; but it +emphasises the fact that the problem of the dramatist is less a task of +writing than a task of constructing. His primary concern is so to build a +story that it will tell itself to the eye of the audience in a series of +shifting pictures. Any really good play can, to a great extent, be +appreciated even though it be acted in a foreign language. American +students in New York may find in the Yiddish dramas of the Bowery an +emphatic illustration of how closely a piece may be followed by an auditor +who does not understand the words of a single line. The recent +extraordinary development in the art of the moving picture, especially in +France, has taught us that many well-known plays may be presented in +pantomime and reproduced by the kinetoscope, with no essential loss of +intelligibility through the suppression of the dialogue. Sardou, as +represented by the biograph, is no longer a man of letters; but he remains, +scarcely less evidently than in the ordinary theatre, a skilful and +effective playwright. _Hamlet_, that masterpiece of meditative poetry, +would still be a good play if it were shown in moving pictures. Much, of +course, would be sacrificed through the subversion of its literary element; +but its essential interest _as a play_ would yet remain apparent through +the unassisted power of its visual appeal. + +There can be no question that, however important may be the dialogue of a +drama, the scenario is even more important; and from a full scenario alone, +before a line of dialogue is written, it is possible in most cases to +determine whether a prospective play is inherently good or bad. Most +contemporary dramatists, therefore, postpone the actual writing of their +dialogue until they have worked out their scenario in minute detail. They +begin by separating and grouping their narrative materials into not more +than three or four distinct pigeon-holes of time and place,--thereby +dividing their story roughly into acts. They then plan a stage-setting for +each act, employing whatever accessories may be necessary for the action. +If papers are to be burned, they introduce a fireplace; if somebody is to +throw a pistol through a window, they set the window in a convenient and +emphatic place; they determine how many chairs and tables and settees are +demanded for the narrative; if a piano or a bed is needed, they place it +here or there upon the floor-plan of their stage, according to the +prominence they wish to give it; and when all such points as these have +been determined, they draw a detailed map of the stage-setting for the act. +As their next step, most playwrights, with this map before them, and using +a set of chess-men or other convenient concrete objects to represent their +characters, move the pieces about upon the stage through the successive +scenes, determine in detail where every character is to stand or sit at +nearly every moment, and note down what he is to think and feel and talk +about at the time. Only after the entire play has been planned out thus +minutely does the average playwright turn back to the beginning and +commence to write his dialogue. He completes his primary task of +play-making before he begins his secondary task of play-writing. Many of +our established dramatists,--like the late Clyde Fitch, for example--sell +their plays when the scenario is finished, arrange for the production, +select the actors, and afterwards write the dialogue with the chosen actors +constantly in mind. + +This summary statement of the usual process may seem, perhaps, to cast +excessive emphasis on the constructive phase of the playwright's problem; +and allowance must of course be made for the divergent mental habits of +individual authors. But almost any playwright will tell you that he feels +as if his task were practically finished when he arrives at the point when +he finds himself prepared to begin the writing of his dialogue. This +accounts for the otherwise unaccountable rapidity with which many of the +great plays of the world have been written. Dumas _fils_ retired to the +country and wrote _La Dame aux Camélias_--a four-act play--in eight +successive days. But he had previously told the same story in a novel; he +knew everything that was to happen in his play; and the mere writing could +be done in a single headlong dash. Voltaire's best tragedy, _Zaïre_, was +written in three weeks. Victor Hugo composed _Marion Delorme_ between June +1 and June 24, 1829; and when the piece was interdicted by the censor, he +immediately turned to another subject and wrote _Hernani_ in the next three +weeks. The fourth act of _Marion Delorme_ was written in a single day. Here +apparently was a very fever of composition. But again we must remember that +both of these plays had been devised before the author began to write them; +and when he took his pen in hand he had already been working on them in +scenario for probably a year. To write ten acts in Alexandrines, with +feminine rhymes alternating with masculine, was still, to be sure, an +appalling task; but Hugo was a facile and prolific poet, and could write +very quickly after he had determined exactly what it was he had to write. + +It was with all of the foregoing points in mind that, in the opening +sentence of this chapter, I defined a play as a story "devised," rather +than a story "written." We may now consider the significance of the next +phrase of that definition, which states that a play is devised to be +"presented," rather than to be "read." + +The only way in which it is possible to study most of the great plays of +bygone ages is to read the record of their dialogue; and this necessity has +led to the academic fallacy of considering great plays primarily as +compositions to be read. In their own age, however, these very plays which +we now read in the closet were intended primarily to be presented on the +stage. Really to read a play requires a very special and difficult exercise +of visual imagination. It is necessary not only to appreciate the dialogue, +but also to project before the mind's eye a vivid imagined rendition of the +visual aspect of the action. This is the reason why most managers and +stage-directors are unable to judge conclusively the merits and defects of +a new play from reading it in manuscript. One of our most subtle artists +in stage-direction, Mr. Henry Miller, once confessed to the present writer +that he could never decide whether a prospective play was good or bad until +he had seen it rehearsed by actors on a stage. Mr. Augustus Thomas's +unusually successful farce entitled _Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots_ was +considered a failure by its producing managers until the very last +rehearsals, because it depended for its finished effect on many intricate +and rapid intermovements of the actors, which until the last moment were +understood and realised only in the mind of the playwright. The same +author's best and most successful play, _The Witching Hour_, was declined +by several managers before it was ultimately accepted for production; and +the reason was, presumably, that its extraordinary merits were not manifest +from a mere reading of the lines. If professional producers may go so far +astray in their judgment of the merits of a manuscript, how much harder +must it be for the layman to judge a play solely from a reading of the +dialogue! + +This fact should lead the professors and the students in our colleges to +adopt a very tentative attitude toward judging the dramatic merits of the +plays of other ages. Shakespeare, considered as a poet, is so immeasurably +superior to Dryden, that it is difficult for the college student unfamiliar +with the theatre to realise that the former's _Antony and Cleopatra_ is, +considered solely as a play, far inferior to the latter's dramatisation of +the same story, entitled _All for Love, or The World Well Lost_. +Shakespeare's play upon this subject follows closely the chronology of +Plutarch's narrative, and is merely dramatised history; but Dryden's play +is reconstructed with a more practical sense of economy and emphasis, and +deserves to be regarded as historical drama. _Cymbeline_ is, in many +passages, so greatly written that it is hard for the closet-student to +realise that it is a bad play, even when considered from the standpoint of +the Elizabethan theatre,--whereas _Othello_ and _Macbeth_, for instance, +are great plays, not only of their age but for all time. _King Lear_ is +probably a more sublime poem than _Othello_; and it is only by seeing the +two pieces performed equally well in the theatre that we can appreciate by +what a wide margin _Othello_ is the better play. + +This practical point has been felt emphatically by the very greatest +dramatists; and this fact offers, of course, an explanation of the +otherwise inexplicable negligence of such authors as Shakespeare and +Molière in the matter of publishing their plays. These supreme playwrights +wanted people to see their pieces in the theatre rather than to read them +in the closet. In his own lifetime, Shakespeare, who was very scrupulous +about the publication of his sonnets and his narrative poems, printed a +carefully edited text of his plays only when he was forced, in +self-defense, to do so, by the prior appearance of corrupt and pirated +editions; and we owe our present knowledge of several of his dramas merely +to the business acumen of two actors who, seven years after his death, +conceived the practical idea that they might turn an easy penny by printing +and offering for sale the text of several popular plays which the public +had already seen performed. Sardou, who, like most French dramatists, began +by publishing his plays, carefully withheld from print the master-efforts +of his prime; and even such dramatists as habitually print their plays +prefer nearly always to have them seen first and read only afterwards. + +In elucidation of what might otherwise seem perversity on the part of great +dramatic authors like Shakespeare, we must remember that the +master-dramatists have nearly always been men of the theatre rather than +men of letters, and therefore naturally more avid of immediate success with +a contemporary audience than of posthumous success with a posterity of +readers. Shakespeare and Molière were actors and theatre-managers, and +devised their plays primarily for the patrons of the Globe and the Palais +Royal. Ibsen, who is often taken as a type of the literary dramatist, +derived his early training mainly from the profession of the theatre and +hardly at all from the profession of letters. For half a dozen years, +during the formative period of his twenties, he acted as producing manager +of the National Theatre in Bergen, and learned the tricks of his trade from +studying the masterpieces of contemporary drama, mainly of the French +school. In his own work, he began, in such pieces as _Lady Inger of +Ostråt_, by imitating and applying the formulas of Scribe and the earlier +Sardou; and it was only after many years that he marched forward to a +technique entirely his own. Both Sir Arthur Wing Pinero and Mr. Stephen +Phillips began their theatrical career as actors. On the other hand, men of +letters who have written works primarily to be read have almost never +succeeded as dramatists. In England, during the nineteenth century, the +following great poets all tried their hands at plays--Scott, Southey, +Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Browning, Mrs. Browning, +Matthew Arnold, Swinburne, and Tennyson--and not one of them produced a +work of any considerable value from the standpoint of dramatic criticism. +Tennyson, in _Becket_, came nearer to the mark than any of the others; and +it is noteworthy that, in this work, he had the advantage of the advice +and, in a sense, collaboration of Sir Henry Irving. + +The familiar phrase "closet-drama" is a contradiction of terms. The species +of literary composition in dialogue that is ordinarily so designated +occupies a thoroughly legitimate position in the realm of literature, but +no position whatsoever in the realm of dramaturgy. _Atalanta in Calydon_ is +a great poem; but from the standpoint of the theory of the theatre, it +cannot be considered as a play. Like the lyric poems of the same author, it +was written to be read; and it was not devised to be presented by actors on +a stage before an audience. + +We may now consider the significance of the three concluding phrases of the +definition of a play which was offered at the outset of the present +chapter. These phrases indicate the immanence of three influences by which +the work of the playwright is constantly conditioned. + +In the first place, by the fact that the dramatist is devising his story +for the use of actors, he is definitely limited both in respect to the kind +of characters he may create and in respect to the means he may employ in +order to delineate them. In actual life we meet characters of two different +classes, which (borrowing a pair of adjectives from the terminology of +physics) we may denominate dynamic characters and static characters. But +when an actor appears upon the stage, he wants to act; and the dramatist is +therefore obliged to confine his attention to dynamic characters, and to +exclude static characters almost entirely from the range of his creation. +The essential trait of all dynamic characters is the preponderance within +them of the element of will; and the persons of a play must therefore be +people with active wills and emphatic intentions. When such people are +brought into juxtaposition, there necessarily results a clash of contending +desires and purposes; and by this fact we are led logically to the +conclusion that the proper subject-matter of the drama is a struggle +between contrasted human wills. The same conclusion, as we shall notice in +the next chapter, may be reached logically by deduction from the natural +demands of an assembled audience; and the subject will be discussed more +fully during the course of our study of _The Psychology of Theatre +Audiences_. At present it is sufficient for us to note that every great +play that has ever been devised has presented some phase or other of this +single, necessary theme,--a contention of individual human wills. An actor, +moreover, is always more effective in scenes of emotion than in scenes of +cold logic and calm reason; and the dramatist, therefore, is obliged to +select as his leading figures people whose acts are motivated by emotion +rather than by intellect. Aristotle, for example, would make a totally +uninteresting figure if he were presented faithfully upon the stage. Who +could imagine Darwin as the hero of a drama? Othello, on the other hand, is +not at all a reasonable being; from first to last his intellect is +"perplexed in the extreme." His emotions are the motives for his acts; and +in this he may be taken as the type of a dramatic character. + +In the means of delineating the characters he has imagined, the dramatist, +because he is writing for actors, is more narrowly restricted than the +novelist. His people must constantly be doing something, and must therefore +reveal themselves mainly through their acts. They may, of course, also be +delineated through their way of saying things; but in the theatre the +objective action is always more suggestive than the spoken word. We know +Sherlock Holmes, in Mr. William Gillette's admirable melodrama, solely +through the things that we have seen him do; and in this connection we +should remember that in the stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from which +Mr. Gillette derived his narrative material, Holmes is delineated largely +by a very different method,--the method, namely, of expository comment +written from the point of view of Doctor Watson. A leading actor seldom +wants to sit in his dressing-room while he is being talked about by the +other actors on the stage; and therefore the method of drawing character by +comment, which is so useful for the novelist, is rarely employed by the +playwright except in the waste moments which precede the first entrance of +his leading figure. The Chorus Lady, in Mr. James Forbes's amusing study of +that name, is drawn chiefly through her way of saying things; but though +this method of delineation is sometimes very effective for an act or two, +it can seldom be sustained without a faltering of interest through a +full-grown four-act play. The novelist's expedient of delineating character +through mental analysis is of course denied the dramatist, especially in +this modern age when the soliloquy (for reasons which will be noted in a +subsequent chapter) is usually frowned upon. Sometimes, in the theatre, a +character may be exhibited chiefly through his personal effect upon the +other people on the stage, and thereby indirectly on the people in the +audience. It was in this way, of course, that Manson was delineated in Mr. +Charles Rann Kennedy's _The Servant in the House_. But the expedient is a +dangerous one for the dramatist to use; because it makes his work +immediately dependent on the actor chosen for the leading role, and may in +many cases render his play impossible of attaining its full effect except +at the hands of a single great performer. In recent years an expedient long +familiar in the novel has been transferred to the service of the +stage,--the expedient, namely, of suggesting the personality of a character +through a visual presentation of his habitual environment. After the +curtain had been raised upon the first act of _The Music Master_, and the +audience had been given time to look about the room which was represented +on the stage, the main traits of the leading character had already been +suggested before his first appearance on the scene. The pictures and +knickknacks on his mantelpiece told us, before we ever saw him, what manner +of man he was. But such subtle means as this can, after all, be used only +to reinforce the one standard method of conveying the sense of character in +drama; and this one method, owing to the conditions under which the +playwright does his work, must always be the exhibition of objective acts. + +In all these general ways the work of the dramatist is affected by the fact +that he must devise his story to be presented by actors. The specific +influence exerted over the playwright by the individual performer is a +subject too extensive to be covered by a mere summary consideration in the +present context; and we shall therefore discuss it fully in a later +chapter, entitled _The Actor and the Dramatist_. + +At present we must pass on to observe that, in the second place, the work +of the dramatist is conditioned by the fact that he must plan his plays to +fit the sort of theatre that stands ready to receive them. A fundamental +and necessary relation has always existed between theatre-building and +theatric art. The best plays of any period have been fashioned in +accordance with the physical conditions of the best theatres of that +period. Therefore, in order fully to appreciate such a play as _Oedipus +King_, it is necessary to imagine the theatre of Dionysus; and in order to +understand thoroughly the dramaturgy of Shakespeare and Molière, it is +necessary to reconstruct in retrospect the altered inn-yard and the +converted tennis-court for which they planned their plays. It may seriously +be doubted that the works of these earlier masters gain more than they lose +from being produced with the elaborate scenic accessories of the modern +stage; and, on the other hand, a modern play by Ibsen or Pinero would lose +three-fourths of its effect if it were acted in the Elizabethan manner, or +produced without scenery (let us say) in the Roman theatre at Orange. + +Since, in all ages, the size and shape and physical appointments of the +theatre have determined for the playwright the form and structure of his +plays, we may always explain the stock conventions of any period of the +drama by referring to the physical aspect of the theatre in that period. +Let us consider briefly, for purposes of illustration, certain obvious ways +in which the art of the great Greek tragic dramatists was affected by the +nature of the Attic stage. The theatre of Dionysus was an enormous edifice +carved out of a hillside. It was so large that the dramatists were obliged +to deal only with subjects that were traditional,--stories which had long +been familiar to the entire theatre-going public, including the poorer and +less educated spectators who sat farthest from the actors. Since most of +the audience was grouped above the stage and at a considerable distance, +the actors, in order not to appear dwarfed, were obliged to walk on stilted +boots. A performer so accoutred could not move impetuously or enact a scene +of violence; and this practical limitation is sufficient to account for the +measured and majestic movement of Greek tragedy, and the convention that +murders and other violent deeds must always be imagined off the stage and +be merely recounted to the audience by messengers. Facial expression could +not be seen in so large a theatre; and the actors therefore wore masks, +conventionalised to represent the dominant mood of a character during a +scene. This limitation forced the performer to depend for his effect mainly +on his voice; and Greek tragedy was therefore necessarily more lyrical than +later types of drama. + +The few points which we have briefly touched upon are usually explained, by +academic critics, on literary grounds; but it is surely more sane to +explain them on grounds of common sense, in the light of what we know of +the conditions of the Attic stage. Similarly, it would be easy to show how +Terence and Calderon, Shakespeare and Molière, adapted the form of their +plays to the form of their theatres; but enough has already been said to +indicate the principle which underlies this particular phase of the theory +of the theatre. The successive changes in the physical aspect of the +English theatre during the last three centuries have all tended toward +greater naturalness, intimacy, and subtlety, in the drama itself and in the +physical aids to its presentment. This progress, with its constant +illustration of the interdependence of the drama and the stage, may most +conveniently be studied in historical review; and to such a review we shall +devote a special chapter, entitled _Stage Conventions in Modern Times_. + +We may now observe that, in the third place, the essential nature of the +drama is affected greatly by the fact that it is destined to be set before +an audience. The dramatist must appeal at once to a heterogeneous multitude +of people; and the full effect of this condition will be investigated in a +special chapter on _The Psychology of Theatre Audiences_. In an important +sense, the audience is a party to the play, and collaborates with the +actors in the presentation. This fact, which remains often unappreciated by +academic critics, is familiar to everyone who has had any practical +association with the theatre. It is almost never possible, even for trained +dramatic critics, to tell from a final dress-rehearsal in an empty house +which scenes of a new play are fully effective and which are not; and the +reason why, in America, new plays are tried out on the road is not so much +to give the actors practice in their parts, as to determine, from the +effect of the piece upon provincial audiences, whether it is worthy of a +metropolitan presentation. The point is, as we shall notice in the next +chapter, that since a play is devised for a crowd it cannot finally be +judged by individuals. + +The dependence of the dramatist upon his audience may be illustrated by the +history of many important plays, which, though effective in their own age, +have become ineffective for later generations, solely because they were +founded on certain general principles of conduct in which the world has +subsequently ceased to believe. From the point of view of its own period, +_The Maid's Tragedy_ of Beaumont and Fletcher is undoubtedly one of the +very greatest of Elizabethan plays; but it would be ineffective in the +modern theatre, because it presupposes a principle which a contemporary +audience would not accept. It was devised for an audience of aristocrats in +the reign of James I, and the dramatic struggle is founded upon the +doctrine of the divine right of kings. Amintor, in the play, has suffered a +profound personal injury at the hands of his sovereign; but he cannot +avenge this individual disgrace, because he is a subject of the royal +malefactor. The crisis and turning-point of the entire drama is a scene in +which Amintor, with the king at his mercy, lowers his sword with the +words:-- + + But there is + Divinity about you, that strikes dead + My rising passions: as you are my king, + I fall before you, and present my sword + To cut mine own flesh, if it be your will. + +We may imagine the applause of the courtiers of James Stuart, the +Presumptuous; but never since the Cromwellian revolution has that scene +been really effective on the English stage. In order fully to appreciate a +dramatic struggle, an audience must sympathise with the motives that +occasion it. + +It should now be evident, as was suggested at the outset, that all the +leading principles of the theory of the theatre may be deduced logically +from the axiom which was stated in the first sentence of this chapter; and +that axiom should constantly be borne in mind as the basis of all our +subsequent discussions. But in view of several important points which have +already come up for consideration, it may be profitable, before +relinquishing our initial question, to redefine a play more fully in the +following terms:-- + +A play is a representation, by actors, on a stage, before an audience, of a +struggle between individual human wills, motivated by emotion rather than +by intellect, and expressed in terms of objective action. + + + + +II + +THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THEATRE AUDIENCES + + +I + +The drama is the only art, excepting oratory and certain forms of music, +that is designed to appeal to a crowd instead of to an individual. The +lyric poet writes for himself, and for such selected persons here and there +throughout the world as may be wisely sympathetic enough to understand his +musings. The essayist and the novelist write for a reader sitting alone in +his library: whether ten such readers or a hundred thousand ultimately read +a book, the writer speaks to each of them apart from all the others. It is +the same with painting and with sculpture. Though a picture or a statue may +be seen by a limitless succession of observers, its appeal is made always +to the individual mind. But it is different with a play. Since a drama is, +in essence, a story devised to be presented by actors on a stage before an +audience, it must necessarily be designed to appeal at once to a multitude +of people. We have to be alone in order to appreciate the _Venus of Melos_ +or the _Sistine Madonna_ or the _Ode to a Nightingale_ or the _Egoist_ or +the _Religio Medici_; but who could sit alone in a wide theatre and see +_Cyrano de Bergerac_ performed? The sympathetic presence of a multitude of +people would be as necessary to our appreciation of the play as solitude in +all the other cases. And because the drama must be written for a crowd, it +must be fashioned differently from the other, and less popular, forms of +art. + +No writer is really a dramatist unless he recognises this distinction of +appeal; and if an author is not accustomed to writing for the crowd, he can +hardly hope to make a satisfying play. Tennyson, the perfect poet; +Browning, the master of the human mind; Stevenson, the teller of enchanting +tales:--each of them failed when he tried to make a drama, because the +conditions of his proper art had schooled him long in writing for the +individual instead of for the crowd. A literary artist who writes for the +individual may produce a great work of literature that is cast in the +dramatic form; but the work will not be, in the practical sense, a play. +_Samson Agonistes_, _Faust_, _Pippa Passes_, _Peer Gynt_, and the early +dream-dramas of Maurice Maeterlinck, are something else than plays. They +are not devised to be presented by actors on a stage before an audience. As +a work of literature, _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_ is immeasurably greater +than _The Two Orphans_; but as a play, it is immeasurably less. For even +though, in this particular piece, Browning did try to write for the theatre +(at the suggestion of Macready), he employed the same intricately +intellectual method of character analysis that has made many of his poems +the most solitude-compelling of modern literary works. Properly to +appreciate his piece, you must be alone, just as you must be alone to read +_A Woman's Last Word_. It is not written for a crowd; _The Two Orphans_, +less weighty in wisdom, is. The second is a play. + +The mightiest masters of the drama--Sophocles, Shakespeare, and +Molière--have recognised the popular character of its appeal and written +frankly for the multitude. The crowd, therefore, has exercised a potent +influence upon the dramatist in every era of the theatre. One person the +lyric poet has to please,--himself; to a single person only, or an +unlimited succession of single persons, does the novelist address himself, +and he may choose the sort of person he will write for; but the dramatist +must always please the many. His themes, his thoughts, his emotions, are +circumscribed by the limits of popular appreciation. He writes less freely +than any other author; for he cannot pick his auditors. Mr. Henry James +may, if he choose, write novels for the super-civilised; but a crowd is +never super-civilised, and therefore characters like those of Mr. James +could never be successfully presented in the theatre. _Treasure Island_ is +a book for boys, both young and old; but a modern theatre crowd is composed +largely of women, and the theme of such a story could scarcely be +successful on the stage. + +In order, therefore, to understand the limitations of the drama as an art, +and clearly to define its scope, it is necessary to inquire into the +psychology of theatre audiences. This subject presents two phases to the +student. First, a theatre audience exhibits certain psychological traits +that are common to all crowds, of whatever kind,--a political convention, +the spectators at a ball-game, or a church congregation, for example. +Second, it exhibits certain other traits which distinguish it from other +kinds of crowds. These, in turn, will be considered in the present chapter. + + +II + +By the word _crowd_, as it is used in this discussion, is meant a multitude +of people whose ideas and feelings have taken a set in a certain single +direction, and who, because of this, exhibit a tendency to lose their +individual self-consciousness in the general self-consciousness of the +multitude. Any gathering of people for a specific purpose--whether of +action or of worship or of amusement--tends to become, because of this +purpose, a _crowd_, in the scientific sense. Now, a crowd has a mind of +its own, apart from that of any of its individual members. The psychology +of the crowd was little understood until late in the nineteenth century, +when a great deal of attention was turned to it by a group of French +philosophers. The subject has been most fully studied by M. Gustave Le Bon, +who devoted some two hundred pages to his _Psychologie des Foules_. +According to M. Le Bon, a man, by the mere fact that he forms a factor of a +crowd, tends to lose consciousness of those mental qualities in which he +differs from his fellows, and becomes more keenly conscious than before of +those other mental qualities in which he is at one with them. The mental +qualities in which men differ from one another are the acquired qualities +of intellect and character; but the qualities in which they are at one are +the innate basic passions of the race. A crowd, therefore, is less +intellectual and more emotional than the individuals that compose it. It is +less reasonable, less judicious, less disinterested, more credulous, more +primitive, more partisan; and hence, as M. Le Bon cleverly puts it, a man, +by the mere fact that he forms a part of an organised crowd, is likely to +descend several rungs on the ladder of civilisation. Even the most cultured +and intellectual of men, when he forms an atom of a crowd, tends to lose +consciousness of his acquired mental qualities and to revert to his primal +simplicity and sensitiveness of mind. + +The dramatist, therefore, because he writes for a crowd, writes for a +comparatively uncivilised and uncultivated mind, a mind richly human, +vehement in approbation, emphatic in disapproval, easily credulous, eagerly +enthusiastic, boyishly heroic, and somewhat carelessly unthinking. Now, it +has been found in practice that the only thing that will keenly interest a +crowd is a struggle of some sort or other. Speaking empirically, the late +Ferdinand Brunetière, in 1893, stated that the drama has dealt always with +a struggle between human wills; and his statement, formulated in the +catch-phrase, "No struggle, no drama," has since become a commonplace of +dramatic criticism. But, so far as I know, no one has yet realised the main +reason for this, which is, simply, that characters are interesting to a +crowd only in those crises of emotion that bring them to the grapple. A +single individual, like the reader of an essay or a novel, may be +interested intellectually in those gentle influences beneath which a +character unfolds itself as mildly as a water-lily; but to what Thackeray +called "that savage child, the crowd," a character does not appeal except +in moments of contention. There never yet has been a time when the theatre +could compete successfully against the amphitheatre. Plautus and Terence +complained that the Roman public preferred a gladiatorial combat to their +plays; a bear-baiting or a cock-fight used to empty Shakespeare's theatre +on the Bankside; and there is not a matinée in town to-day that can hold +its own against a foot-ball game. Forty thousand people gather annually +from all quarters of the East to see Yale and Harvard meet upon the field, +while such a crowd could not be aggregated from New York alone to see the +greatest play the world has yet produced. For the crowd demands a fight; +and where the actual exists, it will scarcely be contented with the +semblance. + +Hence the drama, to interest at all, must cater to this longing for +contention, which is one of the primordial instincts of the crowd. It must +present its characters in some struggle of the wills, whether it be +flippant, as in the case of Benedick and Beatrice; or delicate, as in that +of Viola and Orsino; or terrible, with Macbeth; or piteous, with Lear. The +crowd is more partisan than the individual; and therefore, in following +this struggle of the drama, it desires always to take sides. There is no +fun in seeing a foot-ball game unless you care about who wins; and there is +very little fun in seeing a play unless the dramatist allows you to throw +your sympathies on one side or the other of the struggle. Hence, although +in actual life both parties to a conflict are often partly right and partly +wrong, and it is hard to choose between them, the dramatist usually +simplifies the struggle in his plays by throwing the balance of right +strongly on one side. Hence, from the ethical standpoint, the simplicity +of theatre characters. Desdemona is all innocence, Iago all deviltry. Hence +also the conventional heroes and villains of melodrama,--these to be hissed +and those to be applauded. Since the crowd is comparatively lacking in the +judicial faculty and cannot look upon a play from a detached and +disinterested point of view, it is either all for or all against a +character; and in either case its judgment is frequently in defiance of the +rules of reason. It will hear no word against Camille, though an individual +would judge her to be wrong, and it has no sympathy with Père Duval. It +idolizes Raffles, who is a liar and a thief; it shuts its ears to Marion +Allardyce, the defender of virtue in _Letty_. It wants its sympathetic +characters, to love; its antipathetic characters, to hate; and it hates and +loves them as unreasonably as a savage or a child. The trouble with _Hedda +Gabler_ as a play is that it contains not a single personage that the +audience can love. The crowd demands those so-called "sympathetic" parts +that every actor, for this reason, longs to represent. And since the crowd +is partisan, it wants its favored characters to win. Hence the convention +of the "happy ending," insisted on by managers who feel the pulse of the +public. The blind Louise, in _The Two Orphans_, will get her sight back, +never fear. Even the wicked Oliver, in _As You Like It_, must turn over a +new leaf and marry a pretty girl. + +Next to this prime instinct of partisanship in watching a contention, one +of the most important traits in the psychology of crowds is their extreme +credulity. A crowd will nearly always believe anything that it sees and +almost anything that it is told. An audience composed entirely of +individuals who have no belief in ghosts will yet accept the Ghost in +_Hamlet_ as a fact. Bless you, they have _seen_ him! The crowd accepts the +disguise of Rosalind, and never wonders why Orlando does not recognise his +love. To this extreme credulity of the crowd is due the long line of plays +that are founded on mistaken identity,--farces like _The Comedy of Errors_ +and melodramas like _The Lyons Mail_, for example. The crowd, too, will +accept without demur any condition precedent to the story of a play, +however impossible it might seem to the mind of the individual. Oedipus +King has been married to his mother many years before the play begins; but +the Greek crowd forbore to ask why, in so long a period, the enormity had +never been discovered. The central situation of _She Stoops to Conquer_ +seems impossible to the individual mind, but is eagerly accepted by the +crowd. Individual critics find fault with Thomas Heywood's lovely old play, +_A Woman Killed with Kindness_, on the ground that though Frankford's noble +forgiveness of his erring wife is beautiful to contemplate, Mrs. +Frankford's infidelity is not sufficiently motivated, and the whole story, +therefore, is untrue. But Heywood, writing for the crowd, said frankly, "If +you will grant that Mrs. Frankford was unfaithful, I can tell you a lovely +story about her husband, who was a gentleman worth knowing: otherwise there +can't be any story"; and the Elizabethan crowd, eager for the story, was +willing to oblige the dramatist with the necessary credulity. + +There is this to be said about the credulity of an audience, however,--that +it will believe what it sees much more readily than what it hears. It might +not believe in the ghost of Hamlet's father if the ghost were merely spoken +of and did not walk upon the stage. If a dramatist would convince his +audience of the generosity or the treachery of one character or another, he +should not waste words either praising or blaming the character, but should +present him to the eye in the performance of a generous or treacherous +action. The audience _hears_ wise words from Polonius when he gives his +parting admonition to his son; but the same audience _sees_ him made a fool +of by Prince Hamlet, and will not think him wise. + +The fact that a crowd's eyes are more keenly receptive than its ears is the +psychologic basis for the maxim that in the theatre action speaks louder +than words. It also affords a reason why plays of which the audience does +not understand a single word are frequently successful. Mme. Sarah +Bernhardt's thrilling performance of _La Tosca_ has always aroused +enthusiasm in London and New York, where the crowd, as a crowd, could not +understand the language of the play. + +Another primal characteristic of the mind of the crowd is its +susceptibility to emotional contagion. A cultivated individual reading _The +School for Scandal_ at home alone will be intelligently appreciative of its +delicious humor; but it is difficult to imagine him laughing over it aloud. +Yet the same individual, when submerged in a theatre crowd, will laugh +heartily over this very play, largely because other people near him are +laughing too. Laughter, tears, enthusiasm, all the basic human emotions, +thrill and tremble through an audience, because each member of the crowd +feels that he is surrounded by other people who are experiencing the same +emotion as his own. In the sad part of a play it is hard to keep from +weeping if the woman next to you is wiping her eyes; and still harder is it +to keep from laughing, even at a sorry jest, if the man on the other side +is roaring in vociferous cachinnation. Successful dramatists play upon the +susceptibility of a crowd by serving up raw morsels of crude humor and +pathos for the unthinking to wheeze and blubber over, knowing that these +members of the audience will excite their more phlegmatic neighbors by +contagion. The practical dictum that every laugh in the first act is worth +money in the box-office is founded on this psychologic truth. Even puns as +bad as Mr. Zangwill's are of value early in a play to set on some quantity +of barren spectators and get the house accustomed to a titter. Scenes like +the foot-ball episodes in _The College Widow_ and _Strongheart_, or the +battle in _The Round Up_, are nearly always sure to raise the roof; for it +is usually sufficient to set everybody on the stage a-cheering in order to +make the audience cheer too by sheer contagion. Another and more classical +example was the speechless triumph of Henry V's return victorious, in +Richard Mansfield's sumptuous production of the play. Here the audience +felt that he was every inch a king; for it had caught the fervor of the +crowd upon the stage. + +This same emotional contagion is, of course, the psychologic basis for the +French system of the _claque_, or band of hired applauders seated in the +centre of the house. The leader of the _claque_ knows his cues as if he +were an actor in the piece, and at the psychologic moment the _claqueurs_ +burst forth with their clatter and start the house applauding. Applause +begets applause in the theatre, as laughter begets laughter and tears beget +tears. + +But not only is the crowd more emotional than the individual; it is also +more sensuous. It has the lust of the eye and of the ear,--the savage's +love of gaudy color, the child's love of soothing sound. It is fond of +flaring flags and blaring trumpets. Hence the rich-costumed processions of +the Elizabethan stage, many years before the use of scenery; and hence, in +our own day, the success of pieces like _The Darling of the Gods_ and _The +Rose of the Rancho_. Color, light, and music, artistically blended, will +hold the crowd better than the most absorbing story. This is the reason for +the vogue of musical comedy, with its pretty girls, and gaudy shifts of +scenery and lights, and tricksy, tripping melodies and dances. + +Both in its sentiments and in its opinions, the crowd is comfortably +commonplace. It is, as a crowd, incapable of original thought and of any +but inherited emotion. It has no speculation in its eyes. What it feels was +felt before the flood; and what it thinks, its fathers thought before it. +The most effective moments in the theatre are those that appeal to basic +and commonplace emotions,--love of woman, love of home, love of country, +love of right, anger, jealousy, revenge, ambition, lust, and treachery. So +great for centuries has been the inherited influence of the Christian +religion that any adequate play whose motive is self-sacrifice is almost +certain to succeed. Even when the self-sacrifice is unwise and ignoble, as +in the first act of _Frou-Frou_, the crowd will give it vehement approval. +Countless plays have been made upon the man who unselfishly assumes +responsibility for another's guilt. The great tragedies have familiar +themes,--ambition in _Macbeth_, jealousy in _Othello_, filial ingratitude +in _Lear_; there is nothing in these motives that the most unthinking +audience could fail to understand. No crowd can resist the fervor of a +patriot who goes down scornful before many spears. Show the audience a flag +to die for, or a stalking ghost to be avenged, or a shred of honor to +maintain against agonizing odds, and it will thrill with an enthusiasm as +ancient as the human race. Few are the plays that can succeed without the +moving force of love, the most familiar of all emotions. These themes do +not require that the audience shall think. + +But for the speculative, the original, the new, the crowd evinces little +favor. If the dramatist holds ideas of religion, or of politics, or of +social law, that are in advance of his time, he must keep them to himself +or else his plays will fail. Nimble wits, like Mr. Shaw, who scorn +tradition, can attain a popular success only through the crowd's inherent +love of fads; they cannot long succeed when they run counter to inherited +ideas. The great successful dramatists, like Molière and Shakespeare, have +always thought with the crowd on all essential questions. Their views of +religion, of morality, of politics, of law, have been the views of the +populace, nothing more. They never raise questions that cannot quickly be +answered by the crowd, through the instinct of inherited experience. No +mind was ever, in the philosophic sense, more commonplace than that of +Shakespeare. He had no new ideas. He was never radical, and seldom even +progressive. He was a careful money-making business man, fond of food and +drink and out-of-doors and laughter, a patriot, a lover, and a gentleman. +Greatly did he know things about people; greatly, also, could he write. But +he accepted the religion, the politics, and the social ethics of his time, +without ever bothering to wonder if these things might be improved. + +The great speculative spirits of the world, those who overturn tradition +and discover new ideas, have had minds far different from this. They have +not written plays. It is to these men,--the philosopher, the essayist, the +novelist, the lyric poet,--that each of us turns for what is new in +thought. But from the dramatist the crowd desires only the old, old +thought. It has no patience for consideration; it will listen only to what +it knows already. If, therefore, a great man has a new doctrine to expound, +let him set it forth in a book of essays; or, if he needs must sugar-coat +it with a story, let him expound it in a novel, whose appeal will be to the +individual mind. Not until a doctrine is old enough to have become +generally accepted is it ripe for exploitation in the theatre. + +This point is admirably illustrated by two of the best and most successful +plays of recent seasons. _The Witching Hour_, by Mr. Augustus Thomas, and +_The Servant in the House_, by Mr. Charles Rann Kennedy, were both praised +by many critics for their "novelty"; but to me one of the most significant +and instructive facts about them is that neither of them was, in any real +respect, novel in the least. Consider for a moment the deliberate and +careful lack of novelty in the ideas which Mr. Thomas so skilfully set +forth. What Mr. Thomas really did was to gather and arrange as many as +possible of the popularly current thoughts concerning telepathy and cognate +subjects, and to tell the public what they themselves had been wondering +about and thinking during the last few years. The timeliness of the play +lay in the fact that it was produced late enough in the history of its +subject to be selectively resumptive, and not nearly so much in the fact +that it was produced early enough to forestall other dramatic presentations +of the same materials. Mr. Thomas has himself explained, in certain +semi-public conversations, that he postponed the composition of this +play--on which his mind had been set for many years--until the general +public had become sufficiently accustomed to the ideas which he intended to +set forth. Ten years before, this play would have been novel, and would +undoubtedly have failed. When it was produced, it was not novel, but +resumptive, in its thought; and therefore it succeeded. For one of the +surest ways of succeeding in the theatre is to sum up and present +dramatically all that the crowd has been thinking for some time concerning +any subject of importance. The dramatist should be the catholic collector +and wise interpreter of those ideas which the crowd, in its conservatism, +feels already to be safely true. + +And if _The Servant In the House_ will--as I believe--outlive _The Witching +Hour_, it will be mainly because, in the author's theme and his ideas, it +is older by many, many centuries. The theme of Mr. Thomas's play--namely, +that thought is in itself a dynamic force and has the virtue and to some +extent the power of action--is, as I have just explained, not novel, but is +at least recent in the history of thinking. It is a theme which dates +itself as belonging to the present generation, and is likely to lose +interest for the next. But Mr. Kennedy's theme--namely, that when +discordant human beings ascend to meet each other in the spirit of +brotherly love, it may truly be said that God is resident among them--is at +least as old as the gentle-hearted Galilean, and, being dateless, belongs +to future generations as well as to the present. Mr. Thomas has been +skilfully resumptive of a passing period of popular thought; but Mr. +Kennedy has been resumptive on a larger scale, and has built his play upon +the wisdom of the centuries. Paradoxical as it may seem, the very reason +why _The Servant in the House_ struck so many critics as being strange and +new is that, in its thesis and its thought, it is as old as the world. + +The truth of this point seems to me indisputable. I know that the best +European playwrights of the present day are striving to use the drama as a +vehicle for the expression of advanced ideas, especially in regard to +social ethics; but in doing this, I think, they are mistaking the scope of +the theatre. They are striving to say in the drama what might be said +better in the essay or the novel. As the exposition of a theory, Mr. Shaw's +_Man and Superman_ is not nearly so effective as the writings of +Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, from whom the playwright borrowed his ideas. +The greatest works of Ibsen can be appreciated only by the cultured +individual and not by the uncultured crowd. That is why the breadth of his +appeal will never equal that of Shakespeare, in spite of his unfathomable +intellect and his perfect mastery of the technique of his art. Only his +more commonplace plays--_A Doll's House_, for example--have attained a wide +success. And a wide success is a thing to be desired for other than +material reasons. Surely it is a good thing for the public that _Hamlet_ +never fails. + +The conservatism of the greatest dramatists asserts itself not only in +their thoughts but even in the mere form of their plays. It is the lesser +men who invent new tricks of technique and startle the public with +innovations. Molière merely perfected the type of Italian comedy that his +public long had known. Shakespeare quietly adopted the forms that lesser +men had made the crowd familiar with. He imitated Lyly in _Love's Labour's +Lost_, Greene in _As You Like It_, Marlowe in _Richard III_, Kyd in +_Hamlet_, and Fletcher in _The Tempest_. He did the old thing better than +the other men had done it,--that is all. + +Yet this is greatly to Shakespeare's credit. He was wise enough to feel +that what the crowd wanted, both in matter and in form, was what was needed +in the greatest drama. In saying that Shakespeare's mind was commonplace, I +meant to tender him the highest praise. In his commonplaceness lies his +sanity. He is so greatly _usual_ that he can understand all men and +sympathise with them. He is above novelty. His wisdom is greater than the +wisdom of the few; he is the heir of all the ages, and draws his wisdom +from the general mind of man. And it is largely because of this that he +represents ever the ideal of the dramatist. He who would write for the +theatre must not despise the crowd. + + +III + +All of the above-mentioned characteristics of theatre audiences, their +instinct for contention and for partisanship, their credulity, their +sensuousness, their susceptibility to emotional contagion, their incapacity +for original thought, their conservatism, and their love of the +commonplace, appear in every sort of crowd, as M. Le Bon has proved with +ample illustration. It remains for us to notice certain traits in which +theatre audiences differ from other kinds of crowds. + +In the first place, a theatre audience is composed of individuals more +heterogeneous than those that make up a political, or social, or sporting, +or religious convocation. The crowd at a foot-ball game, at a church, at a +social or political convention, is by its very purpose selective of its +elements: it is made up entirely of college-folk, or Presbyterians, or +Prohibitionists, or Republicans, as the case may be. But a theatre audience +is composed of all sorts and conditions of men. The same theatre in New +York contains the rich and the poor, the literate and the illiterate, the +old and the young, the native and the naturalised. The same play, +therefore, must appeal to all of these. It follows that the dramatist must +be broader in his appeal than any other artist. He cannot confine his +message to any single caste of society. In the same single work of art he +must incorporate elements that will interest all classes of humankind. + +Those promising dramatic movements that have confined their appeal to a +certain single stratum of society have failed ever, because of this, to +achieve the highest excellence. The trouble with Roman comedy is that it +was written for an audience composed chiefly of freedmen and slaves. The +patrician caste of Rome walked wide of the theatres. Only the dregs of +society gathered to applaud the comedies of Plautus and Terence. Hence the +oversimplicity of their prologues, and their tedious repetition of the +obvious. Hence, also, their vulgarity, their horse-play, their obscenity. +Here was fine dramatic genius led astray, because the time was out of +joint. Similarly, the trouble with French tragedy, in the classicist period +of Corneille and Racine, is that it was written only for the finest caste +of society,--the patrician coterie of a patrician cardinal. Hence its +over-niceness, and its appeal to the ear rather than to the eye. Terence +aimed too low and Racine aimed too high. Each of them, therefore, shot wide +of the mark; while Molière, who wrote at once for patrician and plebeian, +scored a hit. + +The really great dramatic movements of the world--that of Spain in the age +of Calderon and Lope, that of England in the spacious times of great +Elizabeth, that of France from 1830 to the present hour--have broadened +their appeal to every class. The queen and the orange-girl joyed together +in the healthiness of Rosalind; the king and the gamin laughed together at +the rogueries of Scapin. The breadth of Shakespeare's appeal remains one of +the most significant facts in the history of the drama. Tell a filthy-faced +urchin of the gutter that you know about a play that shows a ghost that +stalks and talks at midnight underneath a castle-tower, and a man that +makes believe he is out of his head so that he can get the better of a +wicked king, and a girl that goes mad and drowns herself, and a play within +the play, and a funeral in a churchyard, and a duel with poisoned swords, +and a great scene at the end in which nearly every one gets killed: tell +him this, and watch his eyes grow wide! I have been to a thirty-cent +performance of _Othello_ in a middle-western town, and have felt the +audience thrill with the headlong hurry of the action. Yet these are the +plays that cloistered students study for their wisdom and their style! + +And let us not forget, in this connection, that a similar breadth of appeal +is neither necessary nor greatly to be desired in those forms of literature +that, unlike the drama, are not written for the crowd. The greatest +non-dramatic poet and the greatest novelist in English are appreciated +only by the few; but this is not in the least to the discredit of Milton +and of Meredith. One indication of the greatness of Mr. Kipling's story, +_They_, is that very few have learned to read it. + +Victor Hugo, in his preface to _Ruy Blas_, has discussed this entire +principle from a slightly different point of view. He divides the theatre +audience into three classes--the thinkers, who demand characterisation; the +women, who demand passion; and the mob, who demand action--and insists that +every great play must appeal to all three classes at once. Certainly _Ruy +Blas_ itself fulfils this desideratum, and is great in the breadth of its +appeal. Yet although all three of the necessary elements appear in the +play, it has more action than passion and more passion than +characterisation. And this fact leads us to the theory, omitted by Victor +Hugo from his preface, that the mob is more important than the women and +the women more important than the thinkers, in the average theatre +audience. Indeed, a deeper consideration of the subject almost leads us to +discard the thinkers as a psychologic force and to obliterate the +distinction between the women and the mob. It is to an unthinking and +feminine-minded mob that the dramatist must first of all appeal; and this +leads us to believe that action with passion for its motive is the prime +essential for a play. + +For, nowadays at least, it is most essential that the drama should appeal +to a crowd of women. Practically speaking, our matinée audiences are +composed entirely of women, and our evening audiences are composed chiefly +of women and the men that they have brought with them. Very few men go to +the theatre unattached; and these few are not important enough, from the +theoretic standpoint, to alter the psychologic aspect of the audience. And +it is this that constitutes one of the most important differences between a +modern theatre audience and other kinds of crowds. + +The influence of this fact upon the dramatist is very potent. First of all, +as I have said, it forces him to deal chiefly in action with passion for +its motive. And this necessity accounts for the preponderance of female +characters over male in the large majority of the greatest modern plays. +Notice Nora Helmer, Mrs. Alving, Hedda Gabler; notice Magda and Camille; +notice Mrs. Tanqueray, Mrs. Ebbsmith, Iris, and Letty,--to cite only a few +examples. Furthermore, since women are by nature comparatively inattentive, +the femininity of the modern theatre audience forces the dramatist to +employ the elementary technical tricks of repetition and parallelism, in +order to keep his play clear, though much of it be unattended to. Eugène +Scribe, who knew the theatre, used to say that every important statement in +the exposition of a play must be made at least three times. This, of +course, is seldom necessary in a novel, where things may be said once for +all. + +The prevailing inattentiveness of a theatre audience at the present day is +due also to the fact that it is peculiarly conscious of itself, apart from +the play that it has come to see. Many people "go to the theatre," as the +phrase is, without caring much whether they see one play or another; what +they want chiefly is to immerse themselves in a theatre audience. This is +especially true, in New York, of the large percentage of people from out of +town who "go to the theatre" merely as one phase of their metropolitan +experience. It is true, also, of the many women in the boxes and the +orchestra who go less to see than to be seen. It is one of the great +difficulties of the dramatist that he must capture and enchain the +attention of an audience thus composed. A man does not pick up a novel +unless he cares to read it; but many people go to the theatre chiefly for +the sense of being there. Certainly, therefore, the problem of the +dramatist is, in this respect, more difficult than that of the novelist, +for he must make his audience lose consciousness of itself in the +consciousness of his play. + +One of the most essential differences between a theatre audience and other +kinds of crowds lies in the purpose for which it is convened. This purpose +is always recreation. A theatre audience is therefore less serious than a +church congregation or a political or social convention. It does not come +to be edified or educated; it has no desire to be taught: what it wants is +to have its emotions played upon. It seeks amusement--in the widest sense +of the word--amusement through laughter, sympathy, terror, and tears. And +it is amusement of this sort that the great dramatists have ever given it. + +The trouble with most of the dreamers who league themselves for the +uplifting of the stage is that they consider the theatre with an illogical +solemnity. They base their efforts on the proposition that a theatre +audience ought to want to be edified. As a matter of fact, no audience ever +does. Molière and Shakespeare, who knew the limits of their art, never said +a word about uplifting the stage. They wrote plays to please the crowd; and +if, through their inherent greatness, they became teachers as well as +entertainers, they did so without any tall talk about the solemnity of +their mission. Their audiences learned largely, but they did so +unawares,--God being with them when they knew it not. The demand for an +endowed theatre in America comes chiefly from those who believe that a +great play cannot earn its own living. Yet _Hamlet_ has made more money +than any other play in English; _The School for Scandal_ never fails to +draw; and in our own day we have seen _Cyrano de Bergerac_ coining money +all around the world. There were not any endowed theatres in Elizabethan +London. Give the crowd the sort of plays it wants, and you will not have to +seek beneficence to keep your theatre floating. But, on the other hand, no +endowed theatre will ever lure the crowd to listen to the sort of plays it +does not want. There is a wise maxim appended to one of Mr. George Ade's +_Fables in Slang_: "In uplifting, get underneath." If the theatre in +America is weak, what it needs is not endowment: it needs great and popular +plays. Why should we waste our money and our energy trying to make the +crowd come to see _The Master Builder_, or _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, or +_The Hour Glass_, or _Pélléas and Mélisande_? It is willing enough to come +without urging to see _Othello_ and _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_. Give us +one great dramatist who understands the crowd, and we shall not have to +form societies to propagate his art. Let us cease our prattle of the +theatre for the few. Any play that is really great as drama will interest +the many. + + +IV + +One point remains to be considered. In any theatre audience there are +certain individuals who do not belong to the crowd. They are in it, but not +of it; for they fail to merge their individual self-consciousness in the +general self-consciousness of the multitude. Such are the professional +critics, and other confirmed frequenters of the theatre. It is not for them +primarily that plays are written; and any one who has grown individualised +through the theatre-going habit cannot help looking back regretfully upon +those fresher days when he belonged, unthinking, to the crowd. A +first-night audience is anomalous, in that it is composed largely of +individuals opposed to self-surrender; and for this reason, a first-night +judgment of the merits of a play is rarely final. The dramatist has written +for a crowd, and he is judged by individuals. Most dramatic critics will +tell you that they long to lose themselves in the crowd, and regret the +aloofness from the play that comes of their profession. It is because of +this aloofness of the critic that most dramatic criticism fails. + +Throughout the present discussion, I have insisted on the point that the +great dramatists have always written primarily for the many. Yet now I must +add that when once they have fulfilled this prime necessity, they may also +write secondarily for the few. And the very greatest have always done so. +In so far as he was a dramatist, Shakespeare wrote for the crowd; in so far +as he was a lyric poet, he wrote for himself; and in so far as he was a +sage and a stylist, he wrote for the individual. In making sure of his +appeal to the many, he earned the right to appeal to the few. At the +thirty-cent performance of _Othello_ that I spoke of, I was probably the +only person present who failed to submerge his individuality beneath the +common consciousness of the audience. Shakespeare made a play that could +appeal to the rabble of that middle-western town; but he wrote it in a +verse that none of them could hear:-- + + Not poppy, nor mandragora, + Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, + Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep + Which thou ow'dst yesterday. + +The greatest dramatist of all, in writing for the crowd, did not neglect +the individual. + + + + +III + +THE ACTOR AND THE DRAMATIST + + +We have already agreed that the dramatist works ever under the sway of +three influences which are not felt by exclusively literary artists like +the poet and the novelist. The physical conditions of the theatre in any +age affect to a great extent the form and structure of the drama; the +conscious or unconscious demands of the audience, as we have observed in +the preceding chapter, determine for the dramatist the themes he shall +portray; and the range or restrictions of his actors have an immediate +effect upon the dramatist's great task of character-creation. In fact, so +potent is the influence of the actor upon the dramatist that the latter, in +creating character, goes to work very differently from his literary +fellow-artists,--the novelist, the story-writer, or the poet. Great +characters in non-dramatic fiction have often resulted from abstract +imagining, without direct reference to any actual person: Don Quixote, Tito +Melema, Leatherstocking, sprang full-grown from their creators' minds and +struck the world as strange and new. But the greatest characters in the +drama have almost always taken on the physical, and to a great extent the +mental, characteristics of certain great actors for whom they have been +fashioned. Cyrano is not merely Cyrano, but also Coquelin; Mascarille is +not merely Mascarille, but also Molière; Hamlet is not merely Hamlet, but +also Richard Burbage. Closet-students of the plays of Sophocles may miss a +point or two if they fail to consider that the dramatist prepared the part +of Oedipus in three successive dramas for a certain star-performer on the +stage of Dionysus. The greatest dramatists have built their plays not so +much for reading in the closet as for immediate presentation on the stage; +they have grown to greatness only after having achieved an initial success +that has given them the freedom of the theatre; and their conceptions of +character have therefore crystallised around the actors that they have +found waiting to present their parts. A novelist may conceive his heroine +freely as being tall or short, frail or firmly built; but if a dramatist is +making a play for an actress like Maude Adams, an airy, slight physique is +imposed upon his heroine in advance. + +Shakespeare was, among other things, the director of the Lord Chamberlain's +men, who performed in the Globe, upon the Bankside; and his plays are +replete with evidences of the influence upon him of the actors whom he had +in charge. It is patent, for example, that the same comedian must have +created Launce in _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ and Launcelot Gobbo in the +_Merchant of Venice_; the low comic hit of one production was bodily +repeated in the next. It is almost as obvious that the parts of Mercutio +and Gratiano must have been intrusted to the same performer; both +characters seem made to fit the same histrionic temperament. If Hamlet were +the hero of a novel, we should all, I think, conceive of him as slender, +and the author would agree with us; yet, in the last scene of the play, the +Queen expressly says, "He's fat, and scant of breath." This line has +puzzled many commentators, as seeming out of character; but it merely +indicates that Richard Burbage was fleshy during the season of 1602. + +The Elizabethan expedient of disguising the heroine as a boy, which was +invented by John Lyly, made popular by Robert Greene, and eagerly adopted +by Shakespeare and Fletcher, seems unconvincing on the modern stage. It is +hard for us to imagine how Orlando can fail to recognise his love when he +meets her clad as Ganymede in the forest of Arden, or how Bassanio can be +blinded to the figure of his wife when she enters the court-room in the +almost feminine robes of a doctor of laws. Clothes cannot make a man out of +an actress; we recognize Ada Rehan or Julia Marlowe beneath the trappings +and the suits of their disguises; and it might seem that Shakespeare was +depending over-much upon the proverbial credulity of theatre audiences. But +a glance at histrionic conditions in Shakespeare's day will show us +immediately why he used this expedient of disguise not only for Portia and +Rosalind, but for Viola and Imogen as well. Shakespeare wrote these parts +to be played not by women but by boys. Now, when a boy playing a woman +disguised himself as a woman playing a boy, the disguise must have seemed +baffling, not only to Orlando and Bassanio on the stage, but also to the +audience. It was Shakespeare's boy actors, rather than his narrative +imagination, that made him recur repeatedly in this case to a dramatic +expedient which he would certainly discard if he were writing for actresses +to-day. + +If we turn from the work of Shakespeare to that of Molière, we shall find +many more evidences of the influence of the actor on the dramatist. In +fact, Molière's entire scheme of character-creation cannot be understood +without direct reference to the histrionic capabilities of the various +members of the _Troupe de Monsieur_. Molière's immediate and practical +concern was not so much to create comic characters for all time as to make +effective parts for La Grange and Du Croisy and Magdeleine Béjart, for his +wife and for himself. La Grange seems to have been the Charles Wyndham of +his day,--every inch a gentleman; his part in any of the plays may be +distinguished by its elegant urbanity. In _Les Précieuses Ridicules_ the +gentlemanly characters are actually named La Grange and Du Croisy; the +actors walked on and played themselves; it is as if Augustus Thomas had +called the hero of his best play, not Jack Brookfield, but John Mason. In +the early period of Molière's art, before he broadened as an actor, the +parts that he wrote for himself were often so much alike from play to play +that he called them by the same conventional theatric name of Mascarille or +Sganarelle, and played them, doubtless, with the same costume and make-up. +Later on, when he became more versatile as an actor, he wrote for himself a +wider range of parts and individualised them in name as well as in nature. +His growth in depicting the characters of young women is curiously +coincident with the growth of his wife as an actress for whom to devise +such characters. Molière's best woman--Célimène, in _Le Misanthrope_--was +created for Mlle. Molière at the height of her career, and is endowed with +all her physical and mental traits. + +The reason why so many of the Queen Anne dramatists in England wrote +comedies setting forth a dandified and foppish gentleman is that Colley +Cibber, the foremost actor of the time, could play the fop better than he +could play anything else. The reason why there is no love scene between +Charles Surface and Maria in _The School for Scandal_ is that Sheridan knew +that the actor and the actress who were cast for these respective roles +were incapable of making love gracefully upon the stage. The reason why +Victor Hugo's _Cromwell_ overleaped itself in composition and became +impossible for purposes of stage production is that Talma, for whom the +character of Cromwell was designed, died before the piece was finished, and +Hugo, despairing of having the part adequately acted, completed the play +for the closet instead of for the stage. But it is unnecessary to cull from +the past further instances of the direct dependence of the dramatist upon +his actors. We have only to look about us at the present day to see the +same influence at work. + +For example, the career of one of the very best endowed theatrical +composers of the nineteenth century, the late Victorien Sardou, has been +molded and restricted for all time by the talents of a single star +performer, Mme. Sarah Bernhardt. Under the influence of Eugène Scribe, +Sardou began his career at the Théatre Français with a wide range of +well-made plays, varying in scope from the social satire of _Nos Intimes_ +and the farcical intrigue of _Les Pattes de Mouche_ (known to us in English +as _The Scrap of Paper_) to the tremendous historic panorama of _Patrie_. +When Sarah Bernhardt left the Comédie Française, Sardou followed in her +footsteps, and afterwards devoted most of his energy to preparing a series +of melodramas to serve successively as vehicles for her. Now, Sarah +Bernhardt is an actress of marked abilities, and limitations likewise +marked. In sheer perfection of technique she surpasses all performers of +her time. She is the acme of histrionic dexterity; all that she does upon +the stage is, in sheer effectiveness, superb. But in her work she has no +soul; she lacks the sensitive sweet lure of Duse, the serene and starlit +poetry of Modjeska. Three things she does supremely well. She can be +seductive, with a cooing voice; she can be vindictive, with a cawing voice; +and, voiceless, she can die. Hence the formula of Sardou's melodramas. + +His heroines are almost always Sarah Bernhardts,--luring, tremendous, +doomed to die. Fédora, Gismonda, La Tosca, Zoraya, are but a single woman +who transmigrates from play to play. We find her in different countries and +in different times; but she always lures and fascinates a man, storms +against insuperable circumstance, coos and caws, and in the outcome dies. +One of Sardou's latest efforts, _La Sorcière_, presents the dry bones of +the formula without the flesh and blood of life. Zoraya appears first +shimmering in moonlight upon the hills of Spain,--dovelike in voice, +serpentining in seductiveness. Next, she is allowed to hypnotise the +audience while she is hypnotising the daughter of the governor. She is +loved and she is lost. She curses the high tribunal of the Inquisition,--a +dove no longer now. And she dies upon cathedral steps, to organ music. _The +Sorceress_ is but a lifeless piece of mechanism; and when it was performed +in English by Mrs. Patrick Campbell, it failed to lure or to thrill. But +Sarah Bernhardt, because as an actress she _is_ Zoraya, contrived to lift +it into life. Justly we may say that, in a certain sense, this is Sarah +Bernhardt's drama instead of Victorien Sardou's. With her, it is a play; +without her, it is nothing but a formula. The young author of _Patrie_ +promised better things than this. Had he chosen, he might have climbed to +nobler heights. But he chose instead to write, year after year, a vehicle +for the Muse of Melodrama, and sold his laurel crown for gate-receipts. + +If Sardou suffered through playing the sedulous ape to a histrionic artist, +it is no less true that the same practice has been advantageous to M. +Edmond Rostand. M. Rostand has shrewdly written for the greatest comedian +of the recent generation; and Constant Coquelin was the making of him as a +dramatist. The poet's early pieces, like _Les Romanesques_, disclosed him +as a master of preciosity, exquisitely lyrical, but lacking in the sterner +stuff of drama. He seemed a new de Banville--dainty, dallying, and deft--a +writer of witty and pretty verses--nothing more. Then it fell to his lot to +devise an acting part for Coquelin, which in the compass of a single play +should allow that great performer to sweep through the whole wide range of +his varied and versatile accomplishment. With the figure of Coquelin before +him, M. Rostand set earnestly to work. The result of his endeavor was the +character of Cyrano de Bergerac, which is considered by many critics the +richest acting part, save Hamlet, in the history of the theatre. + +_L'Aiglon_ was also devised under the immediate influence of the same +actor. The genesis of this latter play is, I think, of peculiar interest to +students of the drama; and I shall therefore relate it at some length. The +facts were told by M. Coquelin himself to his friend Professor Brander +Matthews, who has kindly permitted me to state them in this place. One +evening, after the extraordinary success of _Cyrano_, M. Rostand met +Coquelin at the Porte St. Martin and said, "You know, Coq, this is not the +last part I want to write for you. Can't you give me an idea to get me +started--an idea for another character?" The actor thought for a moment, +and then answered, "I've always wanted to play a _vieux grognard du premier +empire--un grenadier à grandes moustaches_."... A grumpy grenadier of +Napoleon's army--a grenadier with sweeping moustaches--with this cue the +dramatist set to work and gradually imagined the character of Flambeau. He +soon saw that if the great Napoleon were to appear in the play he would +dominate the action and steal the centre of the stage from the +soldier-hero. He therefore decided to set the story after the Emperor's +death, in the time of the weak and vacillating Duc de Reichstadt. Flambeau, +who had served the eagle, could now transfer his allegiance to the eaglet, +and stand dominant with the memory of battles that had been. But after the +dramatist had been at work upon the play for some time, he encountered the +old difficulty in a new guise. At last he came in despair to Coquelin and +said, "It isn't your play, Coq; it can't be; the young duke is running away +with it, and I can't stop him; Flambeau is but a secondary figure after +all. What shall I do?" And Coquelin, who understood him, answered, "Take it +to Sarah; she has just played Hamlet, and wants to do another boy." So M. +Rostand "took it to Sarah," and finished up the duke with her in view, +while in the background the figure of Flambeau scowled upon him over +_grandes moustaches_--a true _grognard_ indeed! Thus it happened that +Coquelin never played the part of Flambeau until he came to New York with +Mme. Sarah Bernhardt in the fall of 1900; and the grenadier conceived in +the Porte St. Martin first saw the footlights in the Garden Theatre. + +But the contemporary English-speaking stage furnishes examples just as +striking of the influence of the actor on the dramatist. Sir Arthur Wing +Pinero's greatest heroine, Paula Tanqueray, wore from her inception the +physical aspect of Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Many of the most effective dramas +of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones have been built around the personality of Sir +Charles Wyndham. The Wyndham part in Mr. Jones's plays is always a +gentleman of the world, who understands life because he has lived it, and +is "wise with the quiet memory of old pain." He is moral because he knows +the futility of immorality. He is lonely, lovable, dignified, reliable, and +sound. By serene and unobtrusive understanding he straightens out the +difficulties in which the other people of the play have wilfully become +entangled. He shows them the error of their follies, preaches a +worldly-wise little sermon to each one, and sends them back to their true +places in life, sadder and wiser men and women. In order to give Sir +Charles Wyndham an opportunity to display all phases of his experienced +gentility in such a character as this, Mr. Jones has repeated the part in +drama after drama. Many of the greatest characters of the theatre have been +so essentially imbued with the physical and mental personality of the +actors who created them that they have died with their performers and been +lost forever after from the world of art. In this regard we think at once +of Rip Van Winkle. The little play that Mr. Jefferson, with the aid of Dion +Boucicault, fashioned out of Washington Irving's story is scarcely worth +the reading; and if, a hundred years from now, any student of the drama +happens to look it over, he may wonder in vain why it was so beloved, for +many, many years, by all America; and there will come no answer, since the +actor's art will then be only a tale that is told. So Beau Brummel died +with Mr. Mansfield; and if our children, who never saw his superb +performance, chance in future years to read the lines of Mr. Fitch's play, +they will hardly believe us when we tell them that the character of Brummel +once was great. With such current instances before us, it ought not to be +so difficult as many university professors find it to understand the vogue +of certain plays of the Elizabethan and Restoration eras which seem to us +now, in the reading, lifeless things. When we study the mad dramas of Nat +Lee, we should remember Betterton; and properly to appreciate Thomas Otway, +we must imagine the aspect and the voice of Elizabeth Barry. + +It may truthfully be said that Mrs. Barry created Otway, both as dramatist +and poet; for _The Orphan_ and _Venice Preserved_, the two most pathetic +plays in English, would never have been written but for her. It is often +thus within the power of an actor to create a dramatist; and his surest +means of immortality is to inspire the composition of plays which may +survive his own demise. After Duse is dead, poets may read _La Città +Morta_, and imagine her. The memory of Coquelin is, in this way, likely to +live longer than that of Talma. We can merely guess at Talma's art, because +the plays in which he acted are unreadable to-day. But if M. Rostand's +_Cyrano_ is read a hundred years from now, it will be possible for students +of it to imagine in detail the salient features of the art of Coquelin. It +will be evident to them that the actor made love luringly and died +effectively, that he was capable of lyric reading and staccato gasconade, +that he had a burly humor and that touch of sentiment that trembles into +tears. Similarly we know to-day, from the fact that Shakespeare played the +Ghost in _Hamlet_, that he must have had a voice that was full and resonant +and deep. So from reading the plays of Molière we can imagine the robust +figure of Magdeleine Béjart, the grace of La Grange, the pretty petulance +of the flighty fair Armande. + +Some sense of this must have been in the mind of Sir Henry Irving when he +strove industriously to create a dramatist who might survive him and +immortalise his memory. The facile, uncreative Wills was granted many +chances, and in _Charles I_ lost an opportunity to make a lasting drama. +Lord Tennyson came near the mark in _Becket_; but this play, like those of +Wills, has not proved sturdy enough to survive the actor who inspired it. +For all his striving, Sir Henry left no dramatist as a monument to his art. + + + + +IV + +STAGE CONVENTIONS IN MODERN TIMES + + +I + +In 1581 Sir Philip Sidney praised the tragedy of _Gorboduc_, which he had +seen acted by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple, because it was "full of +stately speeches and well-sounding phrases." A few years later the young +poet, Christopher Marlowe, promised the audience of his initial tragedy +that they should "hear the Scythian Tamburlaine threatening the world with +high astounding terms." These two statements are indicative of the tenor of +Elizabethan plays. _Gorboduc_, to be sure, was a ponderous piece, made +according to the pseudo-classical fashion that soon went out of favor; +while _Tamburlaine the Great_ was triumphant with the drums and tramplings +of romance. The two plays were diametrically opposed in method; but they +had this in common: each was full of stately speeches and of high +astounding terms. + +Nearly a century later, in 1670, John Dryden added to the second part of +his _Conquest of Granada_ an epilogue in which he criticised adversely the +dramatists of the elder age. Speaking of Ben Jonson and his contemporaries, +he said: + + But were they now to write, when critics weigh + Each line, and every word, throughout a play, + None of them, no, not Jonson in his height, + Could pass without allowing grains for weight. + + * * * * * + + Wit's now arrived to a more high degree; + Our native language more refined and free: + Our ladies and our men now speak more wit + In conversation than those poets writ. + +This criticism was characteristic of a new era that was dawning in the +English drama, during which a playwright could hope for no greater glory +than to be praised for the brilliancy of his dialogue or the smartness of +his repartee. + +At the present day, if you ask the average theatre-goer about the merits of +the play that he has lately witnessed, he will praise it not for its +stately speeches nor its clever repartee, but because its presentation was +"so natural." He will tell you that _A Woman's Way_ gave an apt and +admirable reproduction of contemporary manners in New York; he will mention +the make of the automobile that went chug-chugging off the stage at the +second curtain-fall of _Man and Superman_, or he will assure you that +_Lincoln_ made him feel the very presence of the martyred President his +father actually saw. + +These different classes of comments give evidence of three distinct steps +in the evolution of the English drama. During the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries it was essentially a Drama of Rhetoric; throughout the eighteenth +century it was mainly a Drama of Conversation; and during the nineteenth +century it has grown to be a Drama of Illusion. During the first period it +aimed at poetic power, during the second at brilliancy of dialogue, and +during the third at naturalness of representment. Throughout the last three +centuries, the gradual perfecting of the physical conditions of the theatre +has made possible the Drama of Illusion; the conventions of the actor's art +have undergone a similar progression; and at the same time the change in +the taste of the theatre-going public has made a well-sustained illusion a +condition precedent to success upon the modern stage. + + +II + +Mr. Ben Greet, in his sceneless performances of Shakespeare during recent +seasons, has reminded us of some of the main physical features of the +Elizabethan theatre; and the others are so generally known that we need +review them only briefly. A typical Elizabethan play-house, like the Globe +or the Blackfriars, stood roofless in the air. The stage was a projecting +platform surrounded on three sides by the groundlings who had paid +threepence for the privilege of standing in the pit; and around this pit, +or yard, were built boxes for the city madams and the gentlemen of means. +Often the side edges of the stage itself were lined with young gallants +perched on three-legged stools, who twitted the actors when they pleased or +disturbed the play by boisterous interruptions. At the back of the platform +was hung an arras through which the players entered, and which could be +drawn aside to discover a set piece of stage furnishing, like a bed or a +banqueting board. Above the arras was built an upper room, which might +serve as Juliet's balcony or as the speaking-place of a commandant supposed +to stand upon a city's walls. No scenery was employed, except some +elaborate properties that might be drawn on and off before the eyes of the +spectators, like the trellised arbor in _The Spanish Tragedy_ on which the +young Horatio was hanged. Since there was no curtain, the actors could +never be "discovered" on the stage and were forced to make an exit at the +end of every scene. Plays were produced by daylight, under the sun of +afternoon; and the stage could not be darkened, even when it was necessary +for Macbeth to perpetrate a midnight murder. + +In order to succeed in a theatre such as this, the drama was necessarily +forced to be a Drama of Rhetoric. From 1576, when James Burbage built the +first play-house in London, until 1642, when the theatres were formally +closed by act of Parliament, the drama dealt with stately speeches and with +high astounding terms. It was played upon a platform, and had to appeal +more to the ears of the audience than to their eyes. Spectacular elements +it had to some extent,--gaudy, though inappropriate, costumes, and stately +processions across the stage; but no careful imitation of the actual facts +of life, no illusion of reality in the representment, could possibly be +effected. + +The absence of scenery forced the dramatists of the time to introduce +poetic passages to suggest the atmosphere of their scenes. Lorenzo and +Jessica opened the last act of _The Merchant of Venice_ with a pretty +dialogue descriptive of a moonlit evening, and the banished duke in _As You +Like It_ discoursed at length upon the pleasures of life in the forest. The +stage could not be darkened in _Macbeth_; but the hero was made to say, +"Light thickens, and the crew makes wing to the rooky wood." Sometimes, +when the scene was supposed to change from one country to another, a chorus +was sent forth, as in _Henry V_, to ask the audience frankly to transfer +their imaginations overseas. + +The fact that the stage was surrounded on three sides by standing +spectators forced the actor to emulate the platform orator. Set speeches +were introduced bodily into the text of a play, although they impeded the +progress of the action. Jacques reined a comedy to a standstill while he +discoursed at length upon the seven ages of man. Soliloquies were common, +and formal dialogues prevailed. By convention, all characters, regardless +of their education or station in life, were considered capable of talking +not only verse, but poetry. The untutored sea-captain in _Twelfth Night_ +spoke of "Arion on the dolphin's back," and in another play the sapheads +Salanio and Salarino discoursed most eloquent music. + +In New York at the present day a singular similarity to Elizabethan +conventions may be noted in the Chinese theatre in Doyer Street. Here we +have a platform drama in all its nakedness. There is no curtain, and the +stage is bare of scenery. The musicians sit upon the stage, and the actors +enter through an arras at the right or at the left of the rear wall. The +costumes are elaborate, and the players frequently parade around the stage. +Long speeches and set colloquies are common. Only the crudest properties +are used. Two candlesticks and a small image on a table are taken to +represent a temple; a man seated upon an overturned chair is supposed to be +a general on a charger; and when a character is obliged to cross a river, +he walks the length of the stage trailing an oar behind him. The audience +does not seem to notice that these conventions are unnatural,--any more +than did the 'prentices in the pit, when Burbage, with the sun shining full +upon his face, announced that it was then the very witching time of night. + +The Drama of Rhetoric which was demanded by the physical conditions of the +Elizabethan stage survived the Restoration and did not die until the day of +Addison's _Cato_. Imitations of it have even struggled on the stage within +the nineteenth century. The _Virginius_ of Sheridan Knowles and the +_Richelieu_ of Bulwer-Lytton were both framed upon the Elizabethan model, +and carried the platform drama down to recent times. But though traces of +the platform drama still exist, the period of its pristine vigor terminated +with the closing of the theatres in 1642. + +When the drama was resumed in 1660, the physical conditions of the theatre +underwent a material change. At this time two great play-houses were +chartered,--the King's Theatre in Drury Lane, and the Duke of York's +Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Thomas Killigrew, the manager of the +Theatre Royal, was the first to introduce women actors on the stage; and +parts which formerly had been played by boys were soon performed by +actresses as moving as the great Elizabeth Barry. To William Davenant, the +manager of the Duke's Theatre, belongs the credit for a still more +important innovation. During the eighteen years when public dramatic +performances had been prohibited, he had secured permission now and then to +produce an opera upon a private stage. For these musical entertainments he +took as a model the masques, or court celebrations, which had been the most +popular form of private theatricals in the days of Elizabeth and James. It +is well known that masques had been produced with elaborate scenic +appointments even at a time when the professional stage was bare of +scenery. While the theatres had been closed, Davenant had used scenery in +his operas, to keep them out of the forbidden pale of professional plays; +and now in 1660, when he came forth as a regular theatre manager, he +continued to use scenery, and introduced it into the production of comedies +and tragedies. + +But the use of scenery was not the only innovation that carried the +Restoration theatre far beyond its Elizabethan prototype. Play-houses were +now regularly roofed; and the stage was artificially lighted by lamps. The +shifting of scenery demanded the use of a curtain; and it became possible +for the first time to disclose actors upon the stage and to leave them +grouped before the audience at the end of an act. + +All of these improvements rendered possible a closer approach to +naturalness of representment than had ever been made before. Palaces and +flowered meads, drawing-rooms and city streets, could now be suggested by +actual scenery instead of by descriptive passages in the text. Costumes +became appropriate, and properties were more nicely chosen to give a flavor +of actuality to the scene. At the same time the platform receded, and the +groundlings no longer stood about it on the sides. The gallants were +banished from the stage, and the greater part of the audience was gathered +directly in front of the actors. Some traces of the former platform system, +however, still remained. In front of the curtain, the stage projected into +a wide "apron," as it was called, lined on either side by boxes filled with +spectators; and the house was so inadequately lighted that almost all the +acting had to be done within the focus of the footlights. After the curtain +rose, the actors advanced into this projecting "apron" and performed the +main business of the act beyond the range of scenery and furniture. + +With the "apron" stage arose a more natural form of play than had been +produced upon the Elizabethan platform. The Drama of Rhetoric was soon +supplanted by the Drama of Conversation. Oratory gradually disappeared, set +speeches were abolished, and poetic lines gave place to rapid repartee. +The comedy of conversation that began with Sir George Etherege in 1664 +reached its culmination with Sheridan in a little more than a hundred +years; and during this century the drama became more and more natural as +the years progressed. Even in the days of Sheridan, however, the +conventions of the theatre were still essentially unreal. An actor entered +a room by walking through the walls; stage furniture was formally arranged; +and each act terminated with the players grouped in a semicircle and bowing +obeisance to applause. The lines in Sheridan's comedies were +indiscriminately witty. Every character, regardless of his birth or +education, had his clever things to say; and the servant bandied epigrams +with the lord. + +It was not until the nineteenth century was well under way that a decided +improvement was made in the physical conditions of the theatre. When Madame +Vestris assumed the management of the Olympic Theatre in London in 1831 she +inaugurated a new era in stage conventions. Her husband, Charles James +Mathews, says in his autobiography, "There was introduced that reform in +all theatrical matters which has since been adopted in every theatre in the +kingdom. Drawing-rooms were fitted up like drawing-rooms and furnished with +care and taste. Two chairs no longer indicated that two persons were to be +seated, the two chairs being removed indicating that the two persons were +_not_ to be seated." At the first performance of Boucicault's _London +Assurance_, in 1841, a further innovation was marked by the introduction of +the "box set," as it is called. Instead of representing an interior scene +by a series of wings set one behind the other, the scene-shifters now built +the side walls of a room solidly from front to rear; and the actors were +made to enter, not by walking through the wings, but by opening real doors +that turned upon their hinges. At the same time, instead of the formal +stage furniture of former years, appointments were introduced that were +carefully designed to suit the actual conditions of the room to be +portrayed. From this time stage-settings advanced rapidly to greater and +greater degrees of naturalness. Acting, however, was still largely +conventional; for the "apron" stage survived, with its semicircle of +footlights, and every important piece of stage business had to be done +within their focus. + +The greatest revolution of modern times in stage conventions owes its +origin directly to the invention of the electric light. Now that it is +possible to make every corner of the stage clearly visible from all parts +of the house, it is no longer necessary for an actor to hold the centre of +the scene. The introduction of electric lights abolished the necessity of +the "apron" stage and made possible the picture-frame proscenium; and the +removal of the "apron" struck the death-blow to the Drama of Conversation +and led directly to the Drama of Illusion. As soon as the picture-frame +proscenium was adopted, the audience demanded a picture to be placed within +the frame. The stage became essentially pictorial, and began to be used to +represent faithfully the actual facts of life. Now for the first time was +realised the graphic value of the curtain-fall. It became customary to ring +the curtain down upon a picture that summed up in itself the entire +dramatic accomplishment of the scene, instead of terminating an act with a +general exodus of the performers or with a semicircle of bows. + +The most extraordinary advances in natural stage-settings have been made +within the memory of the present generation of theatre-goers. Sunsets and +starlit skies, moonlight rippling over moving waves, fires that really +burn, windows of actual glass, fountains plashing with real water,--all of +the naturalistic devices of the latter-day Drama of Illusion have been +developed in the last few decades. + + +III + +Acting in Elizabethan days was a presentative, rather than a +representative, art. The actor was always an actor, and absorbed his part +in himself rather than submerging himself in his part. Magnificence rather +than appropriateness of costume was desired by the platform actor of the +Drama of Rhetoric. He wished all eyes to be directed to himself, and never +desired to be considered merely as a component part of a great stage +picture. Actors at that time were often robustious, periwig-pated fellows +who sawed the air with their hands and tore a passion to tatters. + +With the rapid development of the theatre after the Restoration, came a +movement toward greater naturalness in the conventions of acting. The +player in the "apron" of a Queen Anne stage resembled a drawing-room +entertainer rather than a platform orator. Fine gentlemen and ladies in the +boxes that lined the "apron" applauded the witticisms of Sir Courtly Nice +or Sir Fopling Flutter, as if they themselves were partakers in the +conversation. Actors like Colley Cibber acquired a great reputation for +their natural representment of the manners of polite society. + +The Drama of Conversation, therefore, was acted with more natural +conventions than the Drama of Rhetoric that had preceded it. And yet we +find that Charles Lamb, in criticising the old actors of the eighteenth +century, praises them for the essential unreality of their presentations. +They carried the spectator far away from the actual world to a region where +society was more splendid and careless and brilliant and lax. They did not +aim to produce an illusion of naturalness as our actors do to-day. If we +compare the old-style acting of _The School for Scandal_, that is described +in the essays of Lamb, with the modern performance of _Sweet Kitty +Bellairs_, which dealt with the same period, we shall see at once how +modern acting has grown less presentative and more representative than it +was in the days of Bensley and Bannister. + +The Drama of Rhetoric and the Drama of Conversation both struggled on in +sporadic survivals throughout the first half of the nineteenth century; and +during this period the methods of the platform actor and the parlor actor +were consistently maintained. The actor of the "old school," as we are now +fond of calling him, was compelled by the physical conditions of the +theatre to keep within the focus of the footlights, and therefore in close +proximity to the spectators. He could take the audience into his confidence +more readily than can the player of the present. Sometimes even now an +actor steps out of the picture in order to talk intimately with the +audience; but usually at the present day it is customary for actors to seem +totally oblivious of the spectators and remain always within the picture on +the stage. The actor of the "old school" was fond of the long speeches of +the Drama of Rhetoric and the brilliant lines of the Drama of +Conversation. It may be remembered that the old actor in _Trelawny of the +Wells_ condemned a new-style play because it didn't contain "what you could +really call a speech." He wanted what the French term a _tirade_ to +exercise his lungs and split the ears of the groundlings. + +But with the growth of the Drama of Illusion, produced within a +picture-frame proscenium, actors have come to recognise and apply the +maxim, "Actions speak louder than words." What an actor _does_ is now +considered more important than what he _says_. The most powerful moment in +Mrs. Fiske's performance of _Hedda Gabler_ was the minute or more in the +last act when she remained absolutely silent. This moment was worth a dozen +of the "real speeches" that were sighed for by the old actor in _Trelawny_. +Few of those who saw James A. Herne in _Shore Acres_ will forget the +impressive close of the play. The stage represented the living-room of a +homely country-house, with a large open fireplace at one side. The night +grew late; and one by one the characters retired, until at last old +Nathaniel Berry was left alone upon the stage. Slowly he locked the doors +and closed the windows and put all things in order for the night. Then he +took a candle and went upstairs to bed, leaving the room empty and dark +except for the flaming of the fire on the hearth. + +Great progress toward naturalness in contemporary acting has been +occasioned by the disappearance of the soliloquy and the aside. The +relinquishment of these two time-honored expedients has been accomplished +only in most recent times. Sir Arthur Pinero's early farces abounded with +asides and even lengthy soliloquies; but his later plays are made entirely +without them. The present prevalence of objection to both is due largely to +the strong influence of Ibsen's rigid dramaturgic structure. Dramatists +have become convinced that the soliloquy and the aside are lazy expedients, +and that with a little extra labor the most complicated plot may be +developed without resort to either. The passing of the aside has had an +important effect on naturalness of acting. In speaking a line audible to +the audience but supposed to be unheard by the other characters on the +stage, an actor was forced by the very nature of the speech to violate the +illusion of the stage picture by stepping out of the frame, as it were, in +order to take the audience into his confidence. Not until the aside was +abolished did it become possible for an actor to follow the modern rule of +seeming totally oblivious of his audience. + +There is less logical objection to the soliloquy, however; and I am +inclined to think that the present avoidance of it is overstrained. Stage +soliloquies are of two kinds, which we may call for convenience the +constructive and the reflective. By a constructive soliloquy we mean one +introduced arbitrarily to explain the progress of the plot, like that at +the beginning of the last act of _Lady Windermere's Fan_, in which the +heroine frankly tells the audience what she has been thinking and doing +between the acts. By a reflective soliloquy we mean one like those of +_Hamlet_, in which the audience is given merely a revelation of a train of +personal thought or emotion, and in which the dramatist makes no +utilitarian reference to the structure of the plot. The constructive +soliloquy is as undesirable as the aside, because it forces the actor out +of the stage picture in exactly the same way; but a good actor may easily +read a reflective soliloquy without seeming in the least unnatural. + +Modern methods of lighting, as we have seen, have carried the actor away +from the centre of the stage, so that now important business is often done +far from the footlights. This tendency has led to further innovations. +Actors now frequently turn their backs to the audience,--a thing unheard of +before the advent of the Drama of Illusion; and frequently, also, they do +their most effective work at moments when they have no lines to speak. + +But the present tendency toward naturalness of representment has, to some +extent, exaggerated the importance of stage-management even at the expense +of acting. A successful play by Clyde Fitch usually owed its popularity, +not so much to the excellence of the acting as to the careful attention of +the author to the most minute details of the stage picture. Fitch could +make an act out of a wedding or a funeral, a Cook's tour or a steamer deck, +a bed or an automobile. The extraordinary cleverness and accuracy of his +observation of those petty details that make life a thing of shreds and +patches were all that distinguished his method from that of the +melodramatist who makes a scene out of a buzz-saw or a waterfall, a +locomotive or a ferryboat. Oftentimes the contemporary playwright follows +the method suggested by Mr. Crummles to Nicholas Nickleby, and builds his +piece around "a real pump and two washing-tubs." At a certain moment in the +second act of _The Girl of the Golden West_ the wind-storm was the real +actor in the scene, and the hero and the heroine were but mutes or audience +to the act. + +This emphasis of stage illusion is fraught with certain dangers to the art +of acting. In the modern picture-play the lines themselves are often of +such minor importance that the success or failure of the piece depends +little on the reading of the words. Many young actors, therefore, cannot +get that rigid training in the art of reading which could be secured in the +stock companies of the generation past. Poor reading is the one great +weakness of contemporary acting. I can think of only one actor on the +American stage to-day whose reading of both prose and verse is always +faultless. I mean Mr. Otis Skinner, who secured his early training playing +minor parts with actors of the "old school." It has become possible, under +present conditions, for young actresses ignorant of elocution and unskilled +in the first principles of impersonation to be exploited as stars merely +because of their personal charm. A beautiful young woman, whether she can +act or not, may easily appear "natural" in a society play, especially +written around her; and the public, lured by a pair of eyes or a head of +hair, is made as blind as love to the absence of histrionic art. When the +great Madame Modjeska last appeared at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, presenting +some of the most wonderful plays that the world has ever seen, she played +to empty houses, while the New York public was flocking to see some new +slip of a girl seem "natural" on the stage and appear pretty behind the +picture-frame proscenium. + + +IV + +A comparison of an Elizabethan audience with a theatre-full of people at +the present day is, in many ways, disadvantageous to the latter. With our +forefathers, theatre-going was an exercise in the lovely art of +"making-believe." They were told that it was night and they forgot the +sunlight; their imaginations swept around England to the trampling of +armored kings, or were whisked away at a word to that Bohemia which is a +desert country by the sea; and while they looked upon a platform of bare +boards, they breathed the sweet air of the Forest of Arden. They needed no +scenery by Alma-Tadema to make them think themselves in Rome. "What +country, friends, is this?", asked Viola. "This is Illyria, lady." And the +boys in the pit scented the keen, salt air and heard the surges crashing on +the rocky shore. + +Nowadays elaborateness of stage illusion has made spoiled children of us +all. We must have a doll with real hair, or else we cannot play at being +mothers. We have been pampered with mechanical toys until we have lost the +art of playing without them. Where have our imaginations gone, that we must +have real rain upon the stage? Shall we clamor for real snow before long, +that must be kept in cold storage against the spring season? A longing for +concreteness has befogged our fantasy. Even so excellent an actor as Mr. +Forbes-Robertson cannot read the great speech beginning, "Look here, upon +this picture and on this," in which Hamlet obviously refers to two +imaginary portraits in his mind's eye, without pointing successively to two +absurd caricatures that are daubed upon the scenery. + +The theatre has grown older since the days when Burbage recited that same +speech upon a bare platform; but I am not entirely sure that it has grown +wiser. We theatre-goers have come to manhood and have put away childish +things; but there was a sweetness about the naïveté of childhood that we +can never quite regain. No longer do we dream ourselves in a garden of +springtide blossoms; we can only look upon canvas trees and paper flowers. +No longer are we charmed away to that imagined spot where journeys end in +lovers' meeting; we can only look upon love in a parlor and notice that the +furniture is natural. No longer do we harken to the rich resonance of the +Drama of Rhetoric; no longer do our minds kindle with the brilliant +epigrams of the Drama of Conversation. Good reading is disappearing from +the stage; and in its place we are left the devices of the stage-carpenter. + +It would be absurd to deny that modern stagecraft has made possible in the +theatre many excellent effects that were not dreamt of in the philosophy of +Shakespeare. Sir Arthur Pinero's plays are better made than those of the +Elizabethans, and in a narrow sense hold the mirror up to nature more +successfully than theirs. But our latter-day fondness for natural +representment has afflicted us with one tendency that the Elizabethans were +luckily without. In our desire to imitate the actual facts of life, we +sometimes become near-sighted and forget the larger truths that underlie +them. We give our plays a definite date by founding them on passing +fashions; we make them of an age, not for all time. We discuss contemporary +social problems on the stage instead of the eternal verities lodged deep in +the general heart of man. We have outgrown our pristine simplicity, but we +have not yet arrived at the age of wisdom. Perhaps when playgoers have +progressed for another century or two, they may discard some of the +trappings and the suits of our present drama, and become again like little +children. + + + + +V + +ECONOMY OF ATTENTION IN THEATRICAL PERFORMANCES + + +I + +According to the late Herbert Spencer, the sole source of force in writing +is an ability to economise the attention of the reader. The word should be +a window to the thought and should transmit it as transparently as +possible. He says, toward the beginning of his _Philosophy of Style_: + + A reader or listener has at each moment but a limited amount of + mental power available. To recognise and interpret the symbols + presented to him requires a part of this power; to arrange and + combine the images suggested requires a further part; and only + that part which remains can be used for realising the thought + conveyed. Hence, the more time and attention it takes to receive + and understand each sentence, the less time and attention can be + given to the contained idea; and the less vividly will that idea + be conveyed. + +Spencer drew his illustrations of this principle mainly from the literature +of the library; but its application is even more important in the +literature of the stage. So many and so diverse are the elements of a +theatrical performance that, unless the attention of the spectator is +attracted at every moment to the main dramatic purpose of the scene, he +will sit wide-eyed, like a child at a three-ring circus, with his mind +fluttering from point to point and his interest dispersed and scattered. A +perfect theatrical performance must harmonise the work of many men. The +dramatist, the actors main and minor, the stage-manager, the scene-painter, +the costumer, the leader of the orchestra, must all contribute their +separate talents to the production of a single work of art. It follows that +a nice adjustment of parts, a discriminating subordination of minor +elements to major, is absolutely necessary in order that the attention of +the audience may be focused at every moment upon the central meaning of the +scene. If the spectator looks at scenery when he should be listening to +lines, if his attention is startled by some unexpected device of +stage-management at a time when he ought to be looking at an actor's face, +or if his mind is kept for a moment uncertain of the most emphatic feature +of a scene, the main effect is lost and that part of the performance is a +failure. + +It may be profitable to notice some of the technical devices by which +attention is economised in the theatre and the interest of the audience is +thereby centred upon the main business of the moment. In particular it is +important to observe how a scattering of attention is avoided; how, when +many things are shown at once upon the stage, it is possible to make an +audience look at one and not observe the others. We shall consider the +subject from the point of view of the dramatist, from that of the actor, +and from that of the stage-manager. + + +II + +The dramatist, in writing, labors under a disadvantage that is not suffered +by the novelist. If a passage in a novel is not perfectly clear at the +first glance, the reader may always turn back the pages and read the scene +again; but on the stage a line once spoken can never be recalled. When, +therefore, an important point is to be set forth, the dramatist cannot +afford to risk his clearness upon a single line. This is particularly true +in the beginning of a play. When the curtain rises, there is always a +fluttering of programs and a buzz of unfinished conversation. Many +spectators come in late and hide the stage from those behind them while +they are taking off their wraps. Consequently, most dramatists, in the +preliminary exposition that must always start a play, contrive to state +every important fact at least three times: first, for the attentive; +second, for the intelligent; and third, for the large mass that may have +missed the first two statements. Of course, the method of presentment must +be very deftly varied, in order that the artifice may not appear; but this +simple rule of three is almost always practised. It was used with rare +effect by Eugène Scribe, who, although he was too clever to be great, +contributed more than any other writer of the nineteenth century to the +science of making a modern play. + +In order that the attention of the audience may not be unduly distracted by +any striking effect, the dramatist must always prepare for such an effect +in advance, and give the spectators an idea of what they may expect. The +extraordinary nose of Cyrano de Bergerac is described at length by +Ragueneau before the hero comes upon the stage. If the ugly-visaged poet +should enter without this preliminary explanation, the whole effect would +be lost. The spectators would nudge each other and whisper half aloud, +"Look at his nose! What is the matter with his face?", and would be less +than half attentive to the lines. Before Lady Macbeth is shown walking in +her sleep and wringing her hands that are sullied with the damned spot that +all great Neptune's ocean could not wash away, her doctor and her waiting +gentlewoman are sent to tell the audience of her "slumbery agitation." +Thus, at the proper moment, the attention is focused on the essential point +instead of being allowed to lose itself in wonder. + +A logical development of this principle leads us to the axiom that a +dramatist must never keep a secret from his audience, although this is one +of the favorite devices of the novelist. Let us suppose for a moment that +the spectators were not let into the secret of Hero's pretty plot, in _Much +Ado_, to bring Beatrice and Benedick together. Suppose that, like the +heroine and the hero, they were led to believe that each was truly in love +with the other. The inevitable revelation of this error would produce a +shock of surprise that would utterly scatter their attention; and while +they were busy making over their former conception of the situation, they +would have no eyes nor ears for what was going on upon the stage. In a +novel, the true character of a hypocrite is often hidden until the book is +nearly through: then, when the revelation comes, the reader has plenty of +time to think back and see how deftly he has been deceived. But in a play, +a rogue must be known to be a rogue at his first entrance. The other +characters in the play may be kept in the dark until the last act, but the +audience must know the secret all the time. In fact, any situation which +shows a character suffering from a lack of such knowledge as the audience +holds secure always produces a telling effect upon the stage. The +spectators are aware of Iago's villainy and know of Desdemona's innocence. +The play would not be nearly so strong if, like Othello, they were kept +ignorant of the truth. + +In order to economise attention, the dramatist must centre his interest in +a few vividly drawn characters and give these a marked preponderance over +the other parts. Many plays have failed because of over-elaborateness of +detail. Ben Jonson's comedy of _Every Man in His Humour_ would at present +be impossible upon the stage, for the simple reason that _all_ the +characters are so carefully drawn that the audience would not know in whom +to be most interested. The play is all background and no foreground. The +dramatist fails to say, "Of all these sixteen characters, you must listen +most attentively to some special two or three"; and, in consequence, the +piece would require a constant effort of attention that no modern audience +would be willing to bestow. Whatever may be said about the disadvantages of +the so-called "star system" in the theatre, the fact remains that the +greatest plays of the world--_Oedipus King_, _Hamlet_, _As You Like It_, +_Tartufe_, _Cyrano de Bergerac_--have almost always been what are called +"star plays." The "star system" has an obvious advantage from the point of +view of the dramatist. When Hamlet enters, the spectators know that they +must look at him; and their attention never wavers to the minor characters +upon the stage. The play is thus an easy one to follow: attention is +economised and no effect is lost. + +It is a wise plan to use familiar and conventional types to fill in the +minor parts of a play. The comic valet, the pretty and witty chambermaid, +the _ingénue_, the pathetic old friend of the family, are so well known +upon the stage that they spare the mental energy of the spectators and +leave them greater vigor of attention to devote to the more original major +characters. What is called "comic relief" has a similar value in resting +the attention of the audience. After the spectators have been harrowed by +Ophelia's madness, they must be diverted by the humor of the grave-diggers +in order that their susceptibilities may be made sufficiently fresh for the +solemn scene of her funeral. + +We have seen that any sudden shock of surprise should be avoided in the +theatre, because such a shock must inevitably cause a scattering of +attention. It often happens that the strongest scenes of a play require the +use of some physical accessory,--a screen in _The School for Scandal_, a +horse in _Shenandoah_, a perfumed letter in _Diplomacy_. In all such cases, +the spectators must be familiarised beforehand with the accessory object, +so that when the climax comes they may devote all of their attention to the +action that is accomplished with the object rather than to the object +itself. In a quarrel scene, an actor could not suddenly draw a concealed +weapon in order to threaten his antagonist. The spectators would stop to +ask themselves how he happened to have the weapon by him without their +knowing it; and this self-muttered question would deaden the effect of the +scene. The _dénouement_ of Ibsen's _Hedda Gabler_ requires that the two +chief characters, Eilert Lövborg and Hedda Tesman, should die of pistol +wounds. The pistols that are to be used in the catastrophe are mentioned +and shown repeatedly throughout the early and middle scenes of the play; so +that when the last act comes, the audience thinks not of pistols, but of +murder and suicide. A striking illustration of the same dramaturgic +principle was shown in Mrs. Fiske's admirable performance of this play. The +climax of the piece comes at the end of the penultimate act, when Hedda +casts into the fire the manuscript of the book into which Eilert has put +the great work of his life. The stove stands ready at the left of the +stage; but when the culminating moment comes, the spectators must be made +to forget the stove in their horror at Hedda's wickedness. They must, +therefore, be made familiar with the stove in the early part of the act. +Ibsen realised this, and arranged that Hedda should call for some wood to +be cast upon the fire at the beginning of the scene. In acting this +incident, Mrs. Fiske kneeled before the stove in the very attitude that she +was to assume later on when she committed the manuscript to the flames. The +climax gained greatly in emphasis because of this device to secure economy +of attention at the crucial moment. + + + +III + +In the _Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson_, that humorous and human and +instructive book, there is a passage that illustrates admirably the bearing +of this same principle of economy of attention upon the actor's art. In +speaking of the joint performances of his half-brother, Charles Burke, and +the famous actor-manager, William E. Burton, Jefferson says: + + It was a rare treat to see Burton and Burke in the same play: + they acted into each other's hands with the most perfect skill; + there was no striving to outdo each other. If the scene required + that for a time one should be prominent, the other would become + the background of the picture, and so strengthen the general + effect; by this method they produced a perfectly harmonious + work. For instance, Burke would remain in repose, attentively + listening while Burton was delivering some humorous speech. This + would naturally act as a spell upon the audience, who became by + this treatment absorbed in what Burton was saying, and having + got the full force of the effect, they would burst forth in + laughter or applause; then, by one accord, they became silent, + intently listening to Burke's reply, which Burton was now + strengthening by the same repose and attention. I have never + seen this element in acting carried so far, or accomplished with + such admirable results, not even upon the French stage, and I am + convinced that the importance of it in reaching the best + dramatic effects cannot be too highly estimated. It was this + characteristic feature of the acting of these two great artists + that always set the audience wondering which was the better. The + truth is there was no "better" about the matter. They were not + horses running a race, but artists painting a picture; it was + not in their minds which should win, but how they could, by + their joint efforts, produce a perfect work. + +I am afraid that this excellent method of team play is more honored in the +breach than in the observance among many of our eminent actors of the +present time. When Richard Mansfield played the part of Brutus, he +destroyed the nice balance of the quarrel scene with Cassius by attracting +all of the attention of the audience to himself, whereas a right reading of +the scene would demand a constant shifting of attention from one hero to +the other. When Joseph Haworth spoke the great speech of Cassius beginning, +"Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come!", he was shrouded in the shadow of +the tent, while the lime-light fell full upon the form of Brutus. This +arrangement so distracted the audience from the true dramatic value of the +scene that neither Mansfield's heroic carriage, nor his eye like Mars to +threaten and command, nor the titanic resonance of his ventriloquial +utterance, could atone for the mischief that was done. + +In an earlier paragraph, we noticed the way in which the "star system" may +be used to advantage by the dramatist to economise the attention of the +audience; but it will be observed, on the other hand, that the same system +is pernicious in its influence on the actor. A performer who is accustomed +to the centre of the stage often finds it difficult to keep himself in the +background at moments when the scene should be dominated by other, and +sometimes lesser, actors. Artistic self-denial is one of the rarest of +virtues. This is the reason why "all-star" performances are almost always +bad. A famous player is cast for a minor part; and in his effort to exploit +his talents, he violates the principle of economy of attention by +attracting undue notice to a subordinate feature of the performance. That's +villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition, as Hamlet truly says. A rare +proof of the genius of the great Coquelin was given by his performances of +Père Duval and the Baron Scarpia in support of the Camille and Tosca of +Mme. Sarah Bernhardt. These parts are both subordinate; and, in playing +them, Coquelin so far succeeded in obliterating his own special talents +that he never once distracted the attention of the audience from the acting +of his fellow star. This was an artistic triumph worthy of ranking with the +same actor's sweeping and enthralling performance of Cyrano de +Bergerac,--perhaps the richest acting part in the history of the theatre. + +A story is told of how Sir Henry Irving, many years ago, played the role of +Joseph Surface at a special revival of _The School for Scandal_ in which +most of the other parts were filled by actors and actresses of the older +generation, who attempted to recall for one performance the triumphs of +their youth. Joseph Surface is a hypocrite and a villain; but the youthful +grace of Mr. Irving so charmed a lady in the stalls that she said she +"could not bear to see those old unlovely people trying to get the better +of that charming young man, Mr. Joseph." Something must have been wrong +with the economy of her attention. + +The chief reason why mannerisms of walk or gesture or vocal intonation are +objectionable in an actor is that they distract the attention of the +audience from the effect he is producing to his method of producing that +effect. Mansfield's peculiar manner of pumping his voice from his diaphragm +and Irving's corresponding system of ejaculating his phrases through his +nose gave to the reading of those great artists a rich metallic resonance +that was vibrant with effect; but a person hearing either of those actors +for the first time was often forced to expend so much of his attention in +adjusting his ears to the novel method of voice production that he was +unable for many minutes to fix his mind upon the more important business of +the play. An actor without mannerisms, like the late Adolf von Sonnenthal, +is able to make a more immediate appeal. + + +IV + +At the first night of Mr. E.H. Sothern's _Hamlet_, in the fall of 1900, I +had just settled back in my chair to listen to the reading of the soliloquy +on suicide, when a woman behind me whispered to her neighbor, "Oh look! +There are two fireplaces in the room!" My attention was distracted, and the +soliloquy was spoiled; but the fault lay with the stage-manager rather than +with the woman who spoke the disconcerting words. If Mr. Sothern was to +recite his soliloquy gazing dreamily into a fire in the centre of the room, +the stage-manager should have known enough to remove the large fireplace on +the right of the stage. + +Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, when she acted _Hamlet_ in London in 1899, introduced +a novel and startling effect in the closet scene between the hero and his +mother. On the wall, as usual, hung the counterfeit presentments of two +brothers; and when the time came for the ghost of buried Denmark to appear, +he was suddenly seen standing luminous in the picture-frame which had +contained his portrait. The effect was so unexpected that the audience +could look at nothing else, and thus Hamlet and the queen failed to get +their proper measure of attention. + +These two instances show that the necessity of economising the attention of +an audience is just as important to the stage-manager as it is to the +dramatist and the actor. In the main, it may be said that any unexpected +innovation, any device of stage-management that is by its nature startling, +should be avoided in the crucial situations of a play. Professor Brander +Matthews has given an interesting illustration of this principle in his +essay on _The Art of the Stage-Manager_, which is included in his volume +entitled _Inquiries and Opinions_. He says: + + The stage-manager must ever be on his guard against the danger + of sacrificing the major to the minor, and of letting some + little effect of slight value in itself interfere with the true + interest of the play as a whole. At the first performance of Mr. + Bronson Howard's _Shenandoah_, the opening act of which ends + with the firing of the shot on Sumter, there was a wide window + at the back of the set, so that the spectators could see the + curving flight of the bomb and its final explosion above the + doomed fort. The scenic marvel had cost time and money to + devise; but it was never visible after the first performance, + because it drew attention to itself, as a mechanical effect, and + so took off the minds of the audience from the Northern lover + and the Southern girl, the Southern lover and the Northern girl, + whose loves were suddenly sundered by the bursting of that fatal + shell. At the second performance, the spectators did not see the + shot, they only heard the dread report; and they were free to + let their sympathy go forth to the young couples. + +Nowadays, perhaps, when the theatre-going public is more used to elaborate +mechanism on the stage, this effect might be attempted without danger. It +was owing to its novelty at the time that the device disrupted the +attention of the spectators. + +But not only novel and startling stage effects should be avoided in the +main dramatic moments of a play. Excessive magnificence and elaborateness +of setting are just as distracting to the attention as the shock of a new +and strange device. When _The Merchant of Venice_ was revived at Daly's +Theatre some years ago, a scenic set of unusual beauty was used for the +final act. The gardens of Portia's palace were shadowy with trees and +dreamy with the dark of evening. Slowly in the distance a round and yellow +moon rose rolling, its beams rippling over the moving waters of a lake. +There was a murmur of approbation in the audience; and that murmur was just +loud enough to deaden the lyric beauty of the lines in which Lorenzo and +Jessica gave expression to the spirit of the night. The audience could not +look and listen at the self-same moment; and Shakespeare was sacrificed for +a lime-light. A wise stage-manager, when he uses a set as magnificent, for +example, as the memorable garden scene in Miss Viola Allen's production of +_Twelfth Night_, will raise his curtain on an empty stage, to let the +audience enjoy and even applaud the scenery before the actors enter. Then, +when the lines are spoken, the spectators are ready and willing to lend +them their ears. + +This point suggests a discussion of the advisability of producing +Shakespeare without scenery, in the very interesting manner that has been +employed in recent seasons by Mr. Ben Greet's company of players. Leaving +aside the argument that with a sceneless stage it is possible to perform +all the incidents of the play in their original order, and thus give the +story a greater narrative continuity, it may also be maintained that with a +bare stage there are far fewer chances of dispersing the attention of the +audience by attracting it to insignificant details of setting. Certainly, +the last act of the _Merchant_ would be better without the mechanical +moonrise than with it. But, unfortunately, the same argument for economy of +attention works also in the contrary direction. We have been so long used +to scenery in our theatres that a sceneless production requires a new +adjustment of our minds to accept the unwonted convention; and it may +readily be asserted that this mental adjustment disperses more attention +than would be scattered by elaborate stage effects. At Mr. Greet's first +production of _Twelfth Night_ in New York without change of scene, many +people in the audience could be heard whispering their opinions of the +experiment,--a fact which shows that their attention was not fixed entirely +upon the play itself. On the whole, it would probably be wisest to produce +Shakespeare with very simple scenery, in order, on the one hand, not to dim +the imagination of the spectators by elaborate magnificence of setting, +and, on the other, not to distract their minds by the unaccustomed +conventions of a sceneless stage. + +What has been said of scenery may be applied also to the use of incidental +music. So soon as such music becomes obtrusive, it distracts the attention +from the business of the play: and it cannot be insisted on too often that +in the theatre the play's the thing. But a running accompaniment of music, +half-heard, half-guessed, that moves to the mood of the play, now swelling +to a climax, now softening to a hush, may do much toward keeping the +audience in tune with the emotional significance of the action. + +A perfect theatrical performance is the rarest of all works of art. I have +seen several perfect statues and perfect pictures; and I have read many +perfect poems: but I have never seen a perfect performance in the theatre. +I doubt if such a performance has ever been given, except, perhaps, in +ancient Greece. But it is easy to imagine what its effect would be. It +would rivet the attention throughout upon the essential purport of the +play; it would proceed from the beginning to the end without the slightest +distraction; and it would convey its message simply and immediately, like +the sky at sunrise or the memorable murmur of the sea. + + + + +VI + +EMPHASIS IN THE DRAMA + + +By applying the negative principle of economy of attention, the dramatist +may, as we have noticed, prevent his auditors at any moment from diverting +their attention to the subsidiary features of the scene; but it is +necessary for him also to apply the positive principle of emphasis in order +to force them to focus their attention on the one most important detail of +the matter in hand. The principle of emphasis, which is applied in all the +arts, is the principle whereby the artist contrives to throw into vivid +relief those features of his work which incorporate the essence of the +thing he has to say, while at the same time he gathers and groups within a +scarcely noticed background those other features which merely contribute in +a minor manner to the central purpose of his plan. This principle is, of +course, especially important in the acted drama; and it may therefore be +profitable to examine in detail some of the methods which dramatists employ +to make their points effectively and bring out the salient features of +their plays. + +It is obviously easy to emphasise by position. The last moments in any act +are of necessity emphatic because they are the last. During the +intermission, the minds of the spectators will naturally dwell upon the +scene that has been presented to them most recently. If they think back +toward the beginning of the act, they must first think through the +concluding dialogue. This lends to curtain-falls a special importance of +which our modern dramatists never fail to take advantage. + +It is interesting to remember that this simple form of emphasis by position +was impossible in the Elizabethan theatre and was quite unknown to +Shakespeare. His plays were produced on a platform without a curtain; his +actors had to make an exit at the end of every scene; and usually his plays +were acted from beginning to end without any intermission. It was therefore +impossible for him to bring his acts to an emphatic close by a clever +curtain-fall. We have gained this advantage only in recent times because of +the improved physical conditions of our theatre. + +A few years ago it was customary for dramatists to end every act with a +bang that would reverberate in the ears of the audience throughout the +_entr'-acte_. Recently our playwrights have shown a tendency toward more +quiet curtain-falls. The exquisite close of the first act of _The Admirable +Crichton_ was merely dreamfully suggestive of the past and future of the +action; and the second act ended pictorially, without a word. But whether +a curtain-fall gains its effect actively or passively, it should, if +possible, sum up the entire dramatic accomplishment of the act that it +concludes and foreshadow the subsequent progress of the play. + +Likewise, the first moments in an act are of necessity emphatic because +they are the first. After an intermission, the audience is prepared to +watch with renewed eagerness the resumption of the action. The close of the +third act of _Beau Brummel_ makes the audience long expectantly for the +opening of the fourth; and whatever the dramatist may do after the raising +of the curtain will be emphasised because he does it first. An exception +must be made of the opening act of a play. A dramatist seldom sets forth +anything of vital importance during the first ten minutes of his piece, +because the action is likely to be interrupted by late-comers in the +audience and other distractions incident to the early hour. But after an +intermission, he is surer of attention, and may thrust important matter +into the openings of his acts. + +The last position, however, is more potent than the first. It is because of +their finality that exit speeches are emphatic. It has become customary in +the theatre to applaud a prominent actor nearly every time he leaves the +stage; and this custom has made it necessary for the dramatist to precede +an exit with some speech or action important enough to justify the +interruption. Though Shakespeare and his contemporaries knew nothing of the +curtain-fall, they at least understood fully the emphasis of exit speeches. +They even tagged them with rhyme to give them greater prominence. An actor +likes to take advantage of his last chance to move an audience. When he +leaves the stage, he wants at least to be remembered. + +In general it may be said that any pause in the action emphasises by +position the speech or business that immediately preceded it. This is true +not only of the long pause at the end of an act: the point is illustrated +just as well by an interruption of the play in mid-career, like Mrs. +Fiske's ominous and oppressive minute of silence in the last act of _Hedda +Gabler_. The employment of pause as an aid to emphasis is of especial +importance in the reading of lines. + +It is also customary in the drama to emphasise by proportion. More time is +given to significant scenes than to dialogues of subsidiary interest. The +strongest characters in a play are given most to say and do; and the extent +of the lines of the others is proportioned to their importance in the +action. Hamlet says more and does more than any other character in the +tragedy in which he figures. This is as it should be; but, on the other +hand, Polonius, in the same play, seems to receive greater emphasis by +proportion than he really deserves. The part is very fully written. +Polonius is often on the stage, and talks incessantly whenever he is +present; but, after all, he is a man of small importance and fulfils a +minor purpose in the plot. He is, therefore, falsely emphasised. That is +why the part of Polonius is what French actors call a _faux bon rôle_,--a +part that seems better than it is. + +In certain special cases, it is advisable to emphasise a character by the +ironical expedient of inverse proportion. Tartufe is so emphasised +throughout the first two acts of the play that bears his name. Although he +is withheld from the stage until the second scene of the third act, so much +is said about him that we are made to feel fully his sinister dominance +over the household of Orgon; and at his first appearance, we already know +him better than we know any of the other characters. In Victor Hugo's +_Marion Delorme_, the indomitable will of Cardinal Richelieu is the +mainspring of the entire action, and the audience is led to feel that he +may at any moment enter upon the stage. But he is withheld until the very +final moment of the drama, and even then is merely carried mute across the +scene in a sedan-chair. Similarly, in Paul Heyse's _Mary of Magdala_, the +supreme person who guides and controls the souls of all the struggling +characters is never introduced upon the scene, but is suggested merely +through his effect on Mary, Judas, and the other visible figures in the +action. + +One of the easiest means of emphasis is the use of repetition; and this is +a favorite device with Henrik Ibsen. Certain catch-words, which incorporate +a recurrent mood of character or situation, are repeated over and over +again throughout the course of his dialogue. The result is often similar to +that attained by Wagner, in his music-dramas, through the iteration of a +_leit-motiv_. Thus in _Rosmersholm_, whenever the action takes a turn that +foreshadows the tragic catastrophe, allusion is made to the weird symbol of +"white horses." Similarly, in _Hedda Gabler_--to take another instance--the +emphasis of repetition is flung on certain leading phrases,--"Fancy that, +Hedda!" "Wavy-haired Thea," "Vine-leaves in his hair," and "People don't do +such things!" + +Another obvious means of emphasis in the drama is the use of +antithesis,--an expedient employed in every art. The design of a play is +not so much to expound characters as to contrast them. People of varied +views and opposing aims come nobly to the grapple in a struggle that +vitally concerns them; and the tensity of the struggle will be augmented if +the difference between the characters is marked. The comedies of Ben +Jonson, which held the stage for two centuries after their author's death, +owed their success largely to the fact that they presented a constant +contrast of mutually foiling personalities. But the expedient of antithesis +is most effectively employed in the balance of scene against scene. What is +known as "comic relief" is introduced in various plays, not only, as the +phrase suggests, to rest the sensibilities of the audience, but also to +emphasise the solemn scenes that come before and after it. It is for this +purpose that Shakespeare, in _Macbeth_, introduces a low-comic soliloquy +into the midst of a murder scene. Hamlet's ranting over the grave of +Ophelia is made more emphatic by antithesis with the foolish banter that +precedes it. + +This contrast of mood between scene and scene was unknown in ancient plays +and in the imitations of them that flourished in the first great period of +the French tragic stage. Although the ancient drama frequently violated the +three unities of action, time, and place, it always preserved a fourth +unity, which we may call unity of mood. It remained for the Spaniards and +the Elizabethan English to grasp the dramatic value of the great antithesis +between the humorous and the serious, the grotesque and the sublime, and to +pass it on through Victor Hugo to the contemporary theatre. + +A further means of emphasis is, of course, the use of climax. This +principle is at the basis of the familiar method of working up an entrance. +My lady's coach is heard clattering behind the scenes. A servant rushes to +the window and tells us that his mistress is alighting. There is a ring at +the entrance; we hear the sound of footsteps in the hall. At last the door +is thrown open, and my lady enters, greeted by a salvo of applause. + +A first entrance unannounced is rarely seen upon the modern stage. +Shakespeare's _King John_ opens very simply. The stage direction reads, +"Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Pembroke, Essex, Salisbury and others, with +Chatillon"; and then the king speaks the opening line of the play. Yet when +Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree revived this drama at Her Majesty's Theatre in +1899, he devised an elaborate opening to give a climacteric effect to the +entrance of the king. The curtain rose upon a vaulted room of state, +impressive in its bare magnificence. A throne was set upon a dais to the +left, and several noblemen in splendid costumes were lingering about the +room. At the back was a Norman corridor approached by a flight of lofty +steps which led upward from the level of the stage. There was a peal of +trumpets from without, and soon to a stately music the royal guards marched +upon the scene. They were followed by ladies with gorgeous dresses sweeping +away in long trains borne by pretty pages, and great lords walking with +dignity to the music of the regal measure. At last Mr. Tree appeared and +stood for a moment at the top of the steps, every inch a king. Then he +strode majestically to the dais, ascended to the throne, and turning about +with measured majesty spoke the first line of the play, some minutes after +the raising of the curtain. + +But not only in the details of a drama is the use of climax necessary. The +whole action should sweep upward in intensity until the highest point is +reached. In the Shakespearean drama the highest point came somewhat early +in the piece, usually in the third act of the five that Shakespeare wrote; +but in contemporary plays the climax is almost always placed at the end of +the penultimate act,--the fourth act if there are five, and the third act +if there are four. Nowadays the four-act form with a strong climax at the +end of the third act seems to be most often used. This is the form, for +instance, of Ibsen's _Hedda Gabler_, of Mr. Jones's _Mrs. Dane's Defense_, +and of Sir Arthur Pinero's _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, _The Notorious Mrs. +Ebbsmith_, and _The Gay Lord Quex_. Each begins with an act of exposition, +followed by an act of rising interest. Then the whole action of the play +rushes upward toward the curtain-fall of the third act, after which an act +is used to bring the play to a terrible or a happy conclusion. + +A less familiar means of emphasis is that which owes its origin to +surprise. This expedient must be used with great delicacy, because a sudden +and startling shock of surprise is likely to diseconomise the attention of +the spectators and flurry them out of a sane conception of the scene. But +if a moment of surprise has been carefully led up to by anticipatory +suggestion, it may be used to throw into sharp and sudden relief an +important point in the play. No one knows that Cyrano de Bergerac is on the +stage until he rises in the midst of the crowd in the Hôtel de Bourgogne +and shakes his cane at Montfleury. When Sir Herbert Tree played D'Artagnan +in _The Musketeers_, he emerged suddenly in the midst of a scene from a +suit of old armor standing monumental at the back of the stage,--a _deus ex +machina_ to dominate the situation. American playgoers will remember the +disguise of Sherlock Holmes in the last act of Mr. Gillette's admirable +melodrama. The appearance of the ghost in the closet scene of _Hamlet_ is +made emphatic by its unexpectedness. + +But perhaps the most effective form of emphasis in the drama is emphasis by +suspense. Wilkie Collins, who with all his faults as a critic of life +remains the most skilful maker of plots in English fiction, used to say +that the secret of holding the attention of one's readers lay in the +ability to do three things: "Make 'em laugh; make 'em weep; make 'em wait." +There is no use in making an audience wait, however, unless you first give +them an inkling of what they are waiting for. The dramatist must play with +his spectators as we play with a kitten when we trail a ball of yarn before +its eyes, only to snatch it away just as the kitten leaps for it. + +This method of emphasising by suspense gives force to what are known +technically as the _scènes à faire_ of a drama. A _scène à faire_--the +phrase was devised by Francisque Sarcey--is a scene late in a play that is +demanded absolutely by the previous progress of the plot. The audience +knows that the scene must come sooner or later, and if the element of +suspense be ably managed, is made to long for it some time before it comes. +In _Hamlet_, for instance, the killing of the king by the hero is of course +a _scène à faire_. The audience knows before the first act is over that +such a scene is surely coming. When the king is caught praying in his +closet and Hamlet stands over him with naked sword, the spectators think at +last that the _scène à faire_ has arrived; but Shakespeare "makes 'em wait" +for two acts more, until the very ending of the play. + +In comedy the commonest _scènes à faire_ are love scenes that the audience +anticipates and longs to see. Perhaps the young folks are frequently on the +stage, but the desired scene is prevented by the presence of other +characters. Only after many movements are the lovers left alone; and when +at last the pretty moment comes, the audience glows with long-awaited +enjoyment. + +It is always dangerous for a dramatist to omit a _scène à faire_,--to raise +in the minds of his audience an expectation that is never satisfied. +Sheridan did this in _The School for Scandal_ when he failed to introduce a +love scene between Charles and Maria, and Mr. Jones did it in _Whitewashing +Julia_ when he made the audience expect throughout the play a revelation of +the truth about the puff-box and then left them disappointed in the end. +But these cases are exceptional. In general it may be said that an +unsatisfied suspense is no suspense at all. + +One of the most effective instances of suspense in the modern drama is +offered in the opening of _John Gabriel Borkman_, one of Ibsen's later +plays. Many years before the drama opens, the hero has been sent to jail +for misusing the funds of a bank of which he was director. After five years +of imprisonment, he has been released, eight years before the opening of +the play. During these eight years, he has lived alone in the great gallery +of his house, never going forth even in the dark of night, and seeing only +two people who come to call upon him. One of these, a young girl, sometimes +plays for him on the piano while he paces moodily up and down the gallery. +These facts are expounded to the audience in a dialogue between Mrs. +Borkman and her sister that takes place in a lower room below Borkman's +quarters; and all the while, in the pauses of the conversation, the hero is +heard walking overhead, pacing incessantly up and down. As the act +advances, the audience expects at any moment that the hero will appear. The +front door is thrown open; two minor characters enter; and still Borkman is +heard walking up and down. There is more talk about him on the stage; the +act is far advanced, and soon it seems that he must show himself. From the +upper room is heard the music of the Dance of Death that his young girl +friend is playing for him. Now to the dismal measures of the dance the +dialogue on the stage swells to a climax. Borkman is still heard pacing in +the gallery. And the curtain falls. Ten minutes later the raising of the +curtain discloses John Gabriel Borkman standing with his hands behind his +back, looking at the girl who has been playing for him. The moment is +trebly emphatic,--by position at the opening of an act, by surprise, and +most of all by suspense. When the hero is at last discovered, the audience +looks at him. + +Of course there are many minor means of emphasis in the theatre, but most +of these are artificial and mechanical. The proverbial lime-light is one of +the most effective. The intensity of the dream scene in Sir Henry Irving's +performance of _The Bells_ was due largely to the way in which the single +figure of Mathias was silhouetted by a ray of light against a shadowy and +inscrutable background ominous with voices. + +In this materialistic age, actors even resort to blandishments of costume +to give their parts a special emphasis. Our leading ladies are more richly +clad than the minor members of their companies. Even the great Mansfield +resorted in his performance of Brutus to the indefensible expedient of +changing his costume act by act and dressing always in exquisite and subtle +colors, while the other Romans, Cassius included, wore the same togas of +unaffected white throughout the play. This was a fault in emphasis. + +A novel and interesting device of emphasis in stage-direction was +introduced by Mr. Forbes-Robertson in his production of _The Passing of the +Third Floor Back_. This dramatic parable by Mr. Jerome K. Jerome deals with +the moral regeneration of eleven people, who are living in a Bloomsbury +boarding-house, through the personal influence of a Passer-by, who is the +Spirit of Love incarnate; and this effect is accomplished in a succession +of dialogues, in which the Stranger talks at length with one boarder after +another. It is necessary, for reasons of reality, that in each of the +dialogues the Passer-by and his interlocutor should be seated at their +ease. It is also necessary, for reasons of effectiveness in presentation, +that the faces of both parties to the conversation should be kept clearly +visible to the audience. In actual life, the two people would most +naturally sit before a fire; but if a fireplace should be set in either the +right or the left wall of the stage and two actors should be seated in +front of it, the face of one of them would be obscured from the audience. +The producer therefore adopted the expedient of imagining a fireplace in +the fourth wall of the room,--the wall that is supposed to stretch across +the stage at the line of the footlights. A red-glow from the central lamps +of the string of footlights was cast up over a brass railing such as +usually bounds a hearth, and behind this, far forward in the direct centre +of the stage, two chairs were drawn up for the use of the actors. The right +wall showed a window opening on the street, the rear wall a door opening on +an entrance hall, and the left wall a door opening on a room adjacent; and +in none of these could the fireplace have been logically set. The unusual +device of stage-direction, therefore, contributed to the verisimilitude of +the set as well as to the convenience of the action. The experiment was +successful for the purposes of this particular piece; it did not seem to +disrupt the attention of the audience; and the question, therefore, is +suggested whether it might not, in many other plays, be advantageous to +make imaginary use of the invisible fourth wall. + + + + +VII + +THE FOUR LEADING TYPES OF DRAMA + + +I. TRAGEDY AND MELODRAMA + +Tragedy and melodrama are alike in this,--that each exhibits a set of +characters struggling vainly to avert a predetermined doom; but in this +essential point they differ,--that whereas the characters in melodrama are +drifted to disaster in spite of themselves, the characters in tragedy go +down to destruction because of themselves. In tragedy the characters +determine and control the plot; in melodrama the plot determines and +controls the characters. The writer of melodrama initially imagines a +stirring train of incidents, interesting and exciting in themselves, and +afterward invents such characters as will readily accept the destiny that +he has foreordained for them. The writer of tragedy, on the other hand, +initially imagines certain characters inherently predestined to destruction +because of what they are, and afterward invents such incidents as will +reasonably result from what is wrong within them. + +It must be recognised at once that each of these is a legitimate method +for planning a serious play, and that by following either the one or the +other, it is possible to make a truthful representation of life. For the +ruinous events of life itself divide themselves into two classes--the +melodramatic and the tragic--according as the element of chance or the +element of character shows the upper hand in them. It would be melodramatic +for a man to slip by accident into the Whirlpool Rapids and be drowned; but +the drowning of Captain Webb in that tossing torrent was tragic, because +his ambition for preëminence as a swimmer bore evermore within itself the +latent possibility of his failing in an uttermost stupendous effort. + +As Stevenson has said, in his _Gossip on Romance_, "The pleasure that we +take in life is of two sorts,--the active and the passive. Now we are +conscious of a great command over our destiny; anon we are lifted up by +circumstance, as by a breaking wave, and dashed we know not how into the +future." A good deal of what happens to us is brought upon us by the fact +of what we are; the rest is drifted to us, uninvited, undeserved, upon the +tides of chance. When disasters overwhelm us, the fault is sometimes in +ourselves, but at other times is merely in our stars. Because so much of +life is casual rather than causal, the theatre (whose purpose is to +represent life truly) must always rely on melodrama as the most natural and +effective type of art for exhibiting some of its most interesting phases. +There is therefore no logical reason whatsoever that melodrama should be +held in disrepute, even by the most fastidious of critics. + +But, on the other hand, it is evident that tragedy is inherently a higher +type of art. The melodramatist exhibits merely what may happen; the +tragedist exhibits what must happen. All that we ask of the author of +melodrama is a momentary plausibility. Provided that his plot be not +impossible, no limits are imposed on his invention of mere incident: even +his characters will not give him pause, since they themselves have been +fashioned to fit the action. But of the author of tragedy we demand an +unquestionable inevitability: nothing may happen in his play which is not a +logical result of the nature of his characters. Of the melodramatist we +require merely the negative virtue that he shall not lie: of the tragedist +we require the positive virtue that he shall reveal some phase of the +absolute, eternal Truth. + +The vast difference between merely saying something that is true and really +saying something that gives a glimpse of the august and all-controlling +Truth may be suggested by a verbal illustration. Suppose that, upon an +evening which at sunset has been threatened with a storm, I observe the sky +at midnight to be cloudless, and say, "The stars are shining still." +Assuredly I shall be telling something that is true; but I shall not be +giving in any way a revelation of the absolute. Consider now the aspect of +this very same remark, as it occurs in the fourth act of John Webster's +tragedy, _The Duchess of Malfi_. The Duchess, overwhelmed with despair, is +talking to Bosola: + +_Duchess._ I'll go pray;-- + No, I'll go curse. + +_Bosola._ O, fie! + +_Duchess._ I could curse the stars. + +_Bosola._ O, fearful. + +_Duchess._ And those three smiling seasons of the year + Into a Russian winter: nay, the world + To its first chaos. + +_Bosola._ Look you, the stars shine still. + +This brief sentence, which in the former instance was comparatively +meaningless, here suddenly flashes on the awed imagination a vista of +irrevocable law. + +A similar difference exists between the august Truth of tragedy and the +less revelatory truthfulness of melodrama. To understand and to expound the +laws of life is a loftier task than merely to avoid misrepresenting them. +For this reason, though melodrama has always abounded, true tragedy has +always been extremely rare. Nearly all the tragic plays in the history of +the theatre have descended at certain moments into melodrama. Shakespeare's +final version of _Hamlet_ stands nearly on the highest level; but here and +there it still exhibits traces of that preëxistent melodrama of the school +of Thomas Kyd from which it was derived. Sophocles is truly tragic, because +he affords a revelation of the absolute; but Euripides is for the most part +melodramatic, because he contents himself with imagining and projecting the +merely possible. In our own age, Ibsen is the only author who, +consistently, from play to play, commands catastrophes which are not only +plausible but unavoidable. It is not strange, however, that the entire +history of the drama should disclose very few masters of the tragic; for to +envisage the inevitable is to look within the very mind of God. + + +II. COMEDY AND FARCE + +If we turn our attention to the merry-mooded drama, we shall discern a +similar distinction between comedy and farce. A comedy is a humorous play +in which the actors dominate the action; a farce is a humorous play in +which the action dominates the actors. Pure comedy is the rarest of all +types of drama; because characters strong enough to determine and control a +humorous plot almost always insist on fighting out their struggle to a +serious issue, and thereby lift the action above the comic level. On the +other hand, unless the characters thus stiffen in their purposes, they +usually allow the play to lapse to farce. Pure comedies, however, have now +and then been fashioned, without admixture either of farce or of serious +drama; and of these _Le Misanthrope_ of Molière may be taken as a standard +example. The work of the same master also affords many examples of pure +farce, which never rises into comedy,--for instance, _Le Medecin Malgré +Lui_. Shakespeare nearly always associated the two types within the compass +of a single humorous play, using comedy for his major plot and farce for +his subsidiary incidents. Farce is decidedly the most irresponsible of all +the types of drama. The plot exists for its own sake, and the dramatist +need fulfil only two requirements in devising it:--first, he must be funny, +and second, he must persuade his audience to accept his situations at least +for the moment while they are being enacted. Beyond this latter requisite, +he suffers no subservience to plausibility. Since he needs to be believed +only for the moment, he is not obliged to limit himself to possibilities. +But to compose a true comedy is a very serious task; for in comedy the +action must be not only possible and plausible, but must be a necessary +result of the nature of the characters. This is the reason why _The School +for Scandal_ is a greater accomplishment than _The Rivals_, though the +latter play is fully as funny as the former. The one is comedy, and the +other merely farce. + + + + +VIII + +THE MODERN SOCIAL DRAMA + + +The modern social drama--or the problem play, as it is popularly +called--did not come into existence till the fourth decade of the +nineteenth century; but in less than eighty years it has shown itself to be +the fittest expression in dramaturgic terms of the spirit of the present +age; and it is therefore being written, to the exclusion of almost every +other type, by nearly all the contemporary dramatists of international +importance. This type of drama, currently prevailing, is being continually +impugned by a certain set of critics, and by another set continually +defended. In especial, the morality of the modern social drama has been a +theme for bitter conflict; and critics have been so busy calling Ibsen a +corrupter of the mind or a great ethical teacher that they have not found +leisure to consider the more general and less contentious questions of what +the modern social drama really is, and of precisely on what ground its +morality should be determined. It may be profitable, therefore, to stand +aloof from such discussion for a moment, in order to inquire calmly what it +is all about. + + + +I + +Although the modern social drama is sometimes comic in its mood--_The Gay +Lord Quex_, for instance--its main development has been upon the serious +side; and it may be criticised most clearly as a modern type of tragedy. In +order, therefore, to understand its essential qualities, we must first +consider somewhat carefully the nature of tragedy in general. The theme of +all drama is, of course, a struggle of human wills; and the special theme +of tragic drama is a struggle necessarily foredoomed to failure because the +individual human will is pitted against opposing forces stronger than +itself. Tragedy presents the spectacle of a human being shattering himself +against insuperable obstacles. Thereby it awakens pity, because the hero +cannot win, and terror, because the forces arrayed against him cannot lose. + +If we rapidly review the history of tragedy, we shall see that three types, +and only three, have thus far been devised; and these types are to be +distinguished according to the nature of the forces set in opposition to +the wills of the characters. In other words, the dramatic imagination of +all humanity has thus far been able to conceive only three types of +struggle which are necessarily foredoomed to failure,--only three different +varieties of forces so strong as to defeat inevitably any individual human +being who comes into conflict with them. The first of these types was +discovered by Aeschylus and perfected by Sophocles; the second was +discovered by Christopher Marlowe and perfected by Shakespeare; and the +third was discovered by Victor Hugo and perfected by Ibsen. + +The first type, which is represented by Greek tragedy, displays the +individual in conflict with Fate, an inscrutable power dominating alike the +actions of men and of gods. It is the God of the gods,--the destiny of +which they are the instruments and ministers. Through irreverence, through +vainglory, through disobedience, through weakness, the tragic hero becomes +entangled in the meshes that Fate sets for the unwary; he struggles and +struggles to get free, but his efforts are necessarily of no avail. He has +transgressed the law of laws, and he is therefore doomed to inevitable +agony. Because of this superhuman aspect of the tragic struggle, the Greek +drama was religious in tone, and stimulated in the spectator the reverent +and lofty mood of awe. + +The second type of tragedy, which is represented by the great Elizabethan +drama, displays the individual foredoomed to failure, no longer because of +the preponderant power of destiny, but because of certain defects inherent +in his own nature. The Fate of the Greeks has become humanised and made +subjective. Christopher Marlowe was the first of the world's dramatists +thus to set the God of all the gods within the soul itself of the man who +suffers and contends and dies. But he imagined only one phase of the new +and epoch-making tragic theme that he discovered. The one thing that he +accomplished was to depict the ruin of an heroic nature through an +insatiable ambition for supremacy, doomed by its own vastitude to defeat +itself,--supremacy of conquest and dominion with Tamburlaine, supremacy of +knowledge with Dr. Faustus, supremacy of wealth with Barabas, the Jew of +Malta. Shakespeare, with his wider mind, presented many other phases of +this new type of tragic theme. Macbeth is destroyed by vaulting ambition +that o'erleaps itself; Hamlet is ruined by irresoluteness and contemplative +procrastination. If Othello were not overtrustful, if Lear were not +decadent in senility, they would not be doomed to die in the conflict that +confronts them. They fall self-ruined, self-destroyed. This second type of +tragedy is less lofty and religious than the first; but it is more human, +and therefore, to the spectator, more poignant. We learn more about God by +watching the annihilation of an individual by Fate; but we learn more about +Man by watching the annihilation of an individual by himself. Greek tragedy +sends our souls through the invisible; but Elizabethan tragedy answers, +"Thou thyself art Heaven and Hell." + +The third type of tragedy is represented by the modern social drama. In +this the individual is displayed in conflict with his environment; and the +drama deals with the mighty war between personal character and social +conditions. The Greek hero struggles with the superhuman; the Elizabethan +hero struggles with himself; the modern hero struggles with the world. Dr. +Stockmann, in Ibsen's _An Enemy of the People_, is perhaps the most +definitive example of the type, although the play in which he appears is +not, strictly speaking, a tragedy. He says that he is the strongest man on +earth because he stands most alone. On the one side are the legions of +society; on the other side a man. This is such stuff as modern plays are +made of. + +Thus, whereas the Greeks religiously ascribed the source of all inevitable +doom to divine foreordination, and the Elizabethans poetically ascribed it +to the weaknesses the human soul is heir to, the moderns prefer to ascribe +it scientifically to the dissidence between the individual and his social +environment. With the Greeks the catastrophe of man was decreed by Fate; +with the Elizabethans it was decreed by his own soul; with us it is decreed +by Mrs. Grundy. Heaven and Hell were once enthroned high above Olympus; +then, as with Marlowe's Mephistophilis, they were seated deep in every +individual soul; now at last they have been located in the prim parlor of +the conventional dame next door. Obviously the modern type of tragedy is +inherently less religious than the Greek, since science has as yet induced +no dwelling-place for God. It is also inherently less poetic than the +Elizabethan, since sociological discussion demands the mood of prose. + + +II + +Such being in general the theme and the aspect of the modern social drama, +we may next consider briefly how it came into being. Like a great deal else +in contemporary art, it could not possibly have been engendered before that +tumultuous upheaval of human thought which produced in history the French +Revolution and in literature the resurgence of romance. During the +eighteenth century, both in England and in France, society was considered +paramount and the individual subservient. Each man was believed to exist +for the sake of the social mechanism of which he formed a part: the chain +was the thing,--not its weakest, nor even its strongest, link. But the +French Revolution and the cognate romantic revival in the arts unsettled +this conservative belief, and made men wonder whether society, after all, +did not exist solely for the sake of the individual. Early eighteenth +century literature is a polite and polished exaltation of society, and +preaches that the majority is always right; early nineteenth century +literature is a clamorous paean of individualism, and preaches that the +majority is always wrong. Considering the modern social drama as a phase of +history, we see at once that it is based upon the struggle between these +two beliefs. It exhibits always a conflict between the individual +revolutionist and the communal conservatives, and expresses the growing +tendency of these opposing forces to adjust themselves to equilibrium. + +Thus considered, the modern social drama is seen to be inherently and +necessarily the product and the expression of the nineteenth century. +Through no other type of drama could the present age reveal itself so +fully; for the relation between the one and the many, in politics, in +religion, in the daily round of life itself, has been, and still remains, +the most important topic of our times. The paramount human problem of the +last hundred years has been the great, as yet unanswered, question whether +the strongest man on earth is he who stands most alone or he who subserves +the greatest good of the greatest number. Upon the struggle implicit in +this question the modern drama necessarily is based, since the dramatist, +in any period when the theatre is really alive, is obliged to tell the +people in the audience what they have themselves been thinking. Those +critics, therefore, have no ground to stand on who belittle the importance +of the modern social drama and regard it as an arbitrary phase of art +devised, for business reasons merely, by a handful of clever playwrights. + +Although the third and modern type of tragedy has grown to be almost +exclusively the property of realistic writers, it is interesting to recall +that it was first introduced into the theatre of the world by the king of +the romantics. It was Victor Hugo's _Hernani_, produced in 1830, which +first exhibited a dramatic struggle between an individual and society at +large. The hero is a bandit and an outlaw, and he is doomed to failure +because of the superior power of organised society arrayed against him. So +many minor victories were won at that famous _première_ of _Hernani_ that +even Hugo's followers were too excited to perceive that he had given the +drama a new subject and the theatre a new theme; but this epoch-making fact +may now be clearly recognised in retrospect. _Hernani_, and all of Victor +Hugo's subsequent dramas, dealt, however, with distant times and lands; and +it was left to another great romantic, Alexander Dumas _père_, to be the +first to give the modern theme a modern setting. In his best play, +_Antony_, which exhibits the struggle of a bastard to establish himself in +the so-called best society, Dumas brought the discussion home to his own +country and his own period. In the hands of that extremely gifted +dramatist, Emile Augier, the new type of serious drama passed over into +the possession of the realists, and so downward to the latter-day realistic +dramatists of France and England, Germany and Scandinavia. The supreme and +the most typical creative figure of the entire period is, of course, the +Norwegian Henrik Ibsen, who--such is the irony of progress--despised the +romantics of 1830, and frequently expressed a bitter scorn for those +predecessors who discovered and developed the type of tragedy which he +perfected. + + +III + +We are now prepared to inquire more closely into the specific sort of +subject which the modern social drama imposes on the dramatist. The +existence of any struggle between an individual and the conventions of +society presupposes that the individual is unconventional. If the hero were +in accord with society, there would be no conflict of contending forces: he +must therefore be one of society's outlaws, or else there can be no play. +In modern times, therefore, the serious drama has been forced to select as +its leading figures men and women outcast and condemned by conventional +society. It has dealt with courtesans (_La Dame Aux Camélias_), +demi-mondaines (_Le Demi-Monde_), erring wives (_Frou-Frou_), women with a +past (_The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_), free lovers (_The Notorious Mrs. +Ebbsmith_), bastards (_Antony_; _Le Fils Naturel_), ex-convicts (_John +Gabriel Borkman_), people with ideas in advance of their time (_Ghosts_), +and a host of other characters that are usually considered dangerous to +society. In order that the dramatic struggle might be tense, the dramatists +have been forced to strengthen the cases of their characters so as to +suggest that, perhaps, in the special situations cited, the outcasts were +right and society was wrong. Of course it would be impossible to base a +play upon the thesis that, in a given conflict between the individual and +society, society was indisputably right and the individual indubitably +wrong; because the essential element of struggle would be absent. Our +modern dramatists, therefore, have been forced to deal with _exceptional_ +outcasts of society,--outcasts with whom the audience might justly +sympathise in their conflict with convention. The task of finding such +justifiable outcasts has of necessity narrowed the subject-matter of the +modern drama. It would be hard, for instance, to make out a good case +against society for the robber, the murderer, the anarchist. But it is +comparatively easy to make out a good case for a man and a woman involved +in some sexual relation which brings upon them the censure of society but +which seems in itself its own excuse for being. Our modern serious +dramatists have been driven, therefore, in the great majority of cases, to +deal almost exclusively with problems of sex. + +This necessity has pushed them upon dangerous ground. Man is, after all, a +social animal. The necessity of maintaining the solidarity of the family--a +necessity (as the late John Fiske luminously pointed out) due to the long +period of infancy in man--has forced mankind to adopt certain social laws +to regulate the interrelations of men and women. Any strong attempt to +subvert these laws is dangerous not only to that tissue of convention +called society but also to the development of the human race. And here we +find our dramatists forced--first by the spirit of the times, which gives +them their theme, and second by the nature of the dramatic art, which +demands a special treatment of that theme--to hold a brief for certain men +and women who have shuffled off the coil of those very social laws that man +has devised, with his best wisdom, for the preservation of his race. And +the question naturally follows: Is a drama that does this moral or immoral? + +But the philosophical basis for this question is usually not understood at +all by those critics who presume to answer the question off-hand in a spasm +of polemics. It is interesting, as an evidence of the shallowness of most +contemporary dramatic criticism, to read over, in the course of Mr. Shaw's +nimble essay on _The Quintessence of Ibsenism_, the collection which the +author has made of the adverse notices of _Ghosts_ which appeared in the +London newspapers on the occasion of the first performance of the play in +England. Unanimously they commit the fallacy of condemning the piece as +immoral because of the subject that it deals with. And, on the other hand, +it must be recognised that most of the critical defenses of the same piece, +and of other modern works of similar nature, have been based upon the +identical fallacy,--that morality or immorality is a question of +subject-matter. But either to condemn or to defend the morality of any work +of art because of its material alone is merely a waste of words. There is +no such thing, _per se_, as an immoral subject for a play: in the treatment +of the subject, and only in the treatment, lies the basis for ethical +judgment of the piece. Critics who condemn _Ghosts_ because of its +subject-matter might as well condemn _Othello_ because the hero kills his +wife--what a suggestion, look you, to carry into our homes! _Macbeth_ is +not immoral, though it makes night hideous with murder. The greatest of all +Greek dramas, _Oedipus King_, is in itself sufficient proof that morality +is a thing apart from subject-matter; and Shelley's _The Cenci_ is another +case in point. The only way in which a play may be immoral is for it to +cloud, in the spectator, the consciousness of those invariable laws of life +which say to man "Thou shalt not" or "Thou shalt"; and the one thing +needful in order that a drama may be moral is that the author shall +maintain throughout the piece a sane and truthful insight into the +soundness or unsoundness of the relations between his characters. He must +know when they are right and know when they are wrong, and must make clear +to the audience the reasons for his judgments. He cannot be immoral unless +he is untrue. To make us pity his characters when they are vile or love +them when they are noxious, to invent excuses for them in situations where +they cannot be excused--in a single word, to lie about his characters--this +is for the dramatist the one unpardonable sin. Consequently, the only sane +course for a critic who wishes to maintain the thesis that _Ghosts_, or any +other modern play, is immoral, is not to hurl mud at it, but to prove by +the sound processes of logic that the play tells lies about life; and the +only sane way to defend such a piece is not to prate about the "moral +lesson" the critic supposes that it teaches, but to prove logically that it +tells the truth. + +The same test of truthfulness by which we distinguish good workmanship from +bad is the only test by which we may conclusively distinguish immoral art +from moral. Yet many of the controversial critics never calm down +sufficiently to apply this test. Instead of arguing whether or not Ibsen +tells the truth about Hedda Gabler, they quarrel with him or defend him for +talking about her at all. It is as if zoölogists who had assembled to +determine the truth or falsity of some scientific theory concerning the +anatomy of a reptile should waste all their time in contending whether or +not the reptile was unclean. + +And even when they do apply the test of truthfulness, many critics are +troubled by a grave misconception that leads them into error. They make the +mistake of applying _generally_ to life certain ethical judgments that the +dramatist means only to apply _particularly_ to the special people in his +play. The danger of this fallacy cannot be too strongly emphasised. It is +not the business of the dramatist to formulate general laws of conduct; he +leaves that to the social scientist, the ethical philosopher, the religious +preacher. His business is merely to tell the truth about certain special +characters involved in certain special situations. If the characters and +the situations be abnormal, the dramatist must recognise that fact in +judging them; and it is not just for the critic to apply to ordinary people +in the ordinary situations of life a judgment thus conditioned. The +question in _La Dame Aux Camélias_ is not whether the class of women which +Marguerite Gautier represents is generally estimable, but whether a +particular woman of that class, set in certain special circumstances, was +not worthy of sympathy. The question in _A Doll's House_ is not whether any +woman should forsake her husband and children when she happens to feel +like it, but whether a particular woman, Nora, living under special +conditions with a certain kind of husband, Torwald, really did deem herself +justified in leaving her doll's home, perhaps forever. The ethics of any +play should be determined, not externally, but within the limits of the +play itself. And yet our modern social dramatists are persistently +misjudged. We hear talk of the moral teaching of Ibsen,--as if, instead of +being a maker of plays, he had been a maker of golden rules. But Mr. Shaw +came nearer to the truth with his famous paradox that the only golden rule +in Ibsen's dramas is that there is no golden rule. + +It must, however, be admitted that the dramatists themselves are not +entirely guiltless of this current critical misconception. Most of them +happen to be realists, and in devising their situations they aim to be +narrowly natural as well as broadly true. The result is that the +circumstances of their plays have an _ordinary_ look which makes them seem +simple transcripts of everyday life instead of special studies of life +under peculiar conditions. Consequently the audience, and even the critic, +is tempted to judge life in terms of the play instead of judging the play +in terms of life. Thus falsely judged, _The Wild Duck_ (to take an emphatic +instance) is outrageously immoral, although it must be judged moral by the +philosophic critic who questions only whether or not Ibsen told the truth +about the particular people involved in its depressing story. The deeper +question remains: Was Ibsen justified in writing a play which was true and +therefore moral, but which necessarily would have an immoral effect on nine +spectators out of every ten, because they would instinctively make a hasty +and false generalisation from the exceptional and very particular ethics +implicit in the story? + +For it must be bravely recognised that any statement of truth which is so +framed as to be falsely understood conveys a lie. If the dramatist says +quite truly, "This particular leaf is sere and yellow," and if the audience +quite falsely understands him to say, "All leaves are sere and yellow," the +gigantic lie has illogically been conveyed that the world is ever windy +with autumn, that spring is but a lyric dream, and summer an illusion. The +modern social drama, even when it is most truthful within its own limits, +is by its very nature liable to just this sort of illogical conveyance of a +lie. It sets forth a struggle between a radical exception and a +conservative rule; and the audience is likely to forget that the exception +is merely an exception, and to infer that it is greater than the rule. Such +an inference, being untrue, is immoral; and in so far as a dramatist aids +and abets it, he must be judged dangerous to the theatre-going public. + +Whenever, then, it becomes important to determine whether a new play of +the modern social type is moral or immoral, the critic should decide first +whether the author tells lies specifically about any of the people in his +story, and second, provided that the playwright passes the first test +successfully, whether he allures the audience to generalise falsely in +regard to life at large from the specific circumstances of his play. These +two questions are the only ones that need to be decided. This is the crux +of the whole matter. And it has been the purpose of the present chapter +merely to establish this one point by historical and philosophic criticism, +and thus to clear the ground for subsequent discussion. + + + + + +OTHER PRINCIPLES OF DRAMATIC CRITICISM + + + + +I + +THE PUBLIC AND THE DRAMATIST + + +No other artist is so little appreciated by the public that enjoys his +work, or is granted so little studious consideration from the critically +minded, as the dramatist. Other artists, like the novelist, the painter, +the sculptor, or the actor, appeal directly to the public and the critics; +nothing stands between their finished work and the minds that contemplate +it. A person reading a novel by Mr. Howells, or looking at a statue by +Saint-Gaudens or a picture by Mr. Sargent, may see exactly what the artist +has done and what he has not, and may appreciate his work accordingly. But +when the dramatist has completed his play, he does not deliver it directly +to the public; he delivers it only indirectly, through the medial +interpretation of many other artists,--the actor, the stage-director, the +scene-painter, and still others of whom the public seldom hears. If any of +these other and medial artists fails to convey the message that the +dramatist intended, the dramatist will fail of his intention, though the +fault is not his own. None of the general public, and few of the critics, +will discern what the dramatist had in mind, so completely may his creative +thought be clouded by inadequate interpretation. + +The dramatist is obviously at the mercy of his actors. His most delicate +love scene may be spoiled irrevocably by an actor incapable of profound +emotion daintily expressed; his most imaginative creation of a hard and +cruel character may be rendered unappreciable by an actor of too persuasive +charm. And, on the other hand, the puppets of a dramatist with very little +gift for characterisation may sometimes be lifted into life by gifted +actors and produce upon the public a greater impression than the characters +of a better dramatist less skilfully portrayed. It is, therefore, very +difficult to determine whether the dramatist has imagined more or less than +the particular semblance of humanity exhibited by the actor on the stage. +Othello, as portrayed by Signor Novelli, is a man devoid of dignity and +majesty, a creature intensely animal and nervously impulsive; and if we had +never read the play, or seen other performances of it, we should probably +deny to Shakespeare the credit due for one of his most grand conceptions. +On the other hand, when we witness Mr. Warfield's beautiful and truthful +performance of _The Music Master_, we are tempted not to notice that the +play itself is faulty in structure, untrue in character, and obnoxiously +sentimental in tone. Because Mr. Warfield, by the sheer power of his +histrionic genius, has lifted sentimentality into sentiment and +conventional theatricism into living truth, we are tempted to give to Mr. +Charles Klein the credit for having written a very good play instead of a +very bad one. + +Only to a slightly less extent is the dramatist at the mercy of his +stage-director. Mrs. Rida Johnson Young's silly play called _Brown of +Harvard_ was made worth seeing by the genius of Mr. Henry Miller as a +producer. By sheer visual imagination in the setting and the handling of +the stage, especially in the first act and the last, Mr. Miller contrived +to endow the author's shallow fabric with the semblance of reality. On the +other hand, Mr. Richard Walton Tully's play, _The Rose of the Rancho_, was +spoiled by the cleverest stage-director of our day. Mr. Tully must, +originally, have had a story in his mind; but what that story was could not +be guessed from witnessing the play. It was utterly buried under an +atmosphere of at least thirty pounds to the square inch, which Mr. Belasco +chose to impose upon it. With the stage-director standing thus, for benefit +or hindrance, between the author and the audience, how is the public to +appreciate what the dramatist himself has, or has not, done? + +An occasion is remembered in theatric circles when, at the tensest moment +in the first-night presentation of a play, the leading actress, entering +down a stairway, tripped and fell sprawling. Thus a moment which the +dramatist intended to be hushed and breathless with suspense was made +overwhelmingly ridiculous. A cat once caused the failure of a play by +appearing unexpectedly upon the stage during the most important scene and +walking foolishly about. A dramatist who has spent many months devising a +melodrama which is dependent for its effect at certain moments on the way +in which the stage is lighted may have his play sent suddenly to failure at +any of those moments if the stage-electrician turns the lights +incongruously high or low. These instances are merely trivial, but they +serve to emphasise the point that so much stands between the dramatist and +the audience that it is sometimes difficult even for a careful critic to +appreciate exactly what the dramatist intended. + +And the general public, at least in present-day America, never makes the +effort to distinguish the intention of the dramatist from the +interpretation it receives from the actors and (to a less extent) the +stage-director. The people who support the theatre see and estimate the +work of the interpretative artists only; they do not see in itself and +estimate for its own sake the work of the creative artist whose imaginings +are being represented well or badly. The public in America goes to see +actors; it seldom goes to see a play. If the average theatre-goer has liked +a leading actor in one piece, he will go to see that actor in the next +piece in which he is advertised to appear. But very, very rarely will he go +to see a new play by a certain author merely because he has liked the last +play by the same author. Indeed, the chances are that he will not even know +that the two plays have been written by the same dramatist. Bronson Howard +once told me that he was very sure that not more than one person in ten out +of all the people who had seen _Shenandoah_ knew who wrote the play. And I +hardly think that a larger proportion of the people who have seen both Mr. +Willard in _The Professor's Love Story_ and Miss Barrymore in +_Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire_ could tell you, if you should ask them, that the +former play was written by the author of the latter. How many people who +remember vividly Sir Henry Irving's performance of _The Story of Waterloo_ +could tell you who wrote the little piece? If you should ask them who wrote +the Sherlock Holmes detective stories, they would answer you at once. Yet +_The Story of Waterloo_ was written by the author of those same detective +stories. + +The general public seldom knows, and almost never cares, who wrote a play. +What it knows, and what it cares about primarily, is who is acting in it. +Shakespearean dramas are the only plays that the public will go to see for +the author's sake alone, regardless of the actors. It will go to see a bad +performance of a play by Shakespeare, because, after all, it is seeing +Shakespeare: it will not go to see a bad performance of a play by Sir +Arthur Pinero, merely because, after all, it is seeing Pinero. The +extraordinary success of _The Master Builder_, when it was presented in New +York by Mme. Nazimova, is an evidence of this. The public that filled the +coffers of the Bijou Theatre was paying its money not so much to see a play +by the author of _A Doll's House_ and _Hedda Gabler_ as to see a +performance by a clever and tricky actress of alluring personality, who was +better advertised and, to the average theatre-goer, better known than +Henrik Ibsen. + +Since the public at large is much more interested in actors than it is in +dramatists, and since the first-night critics of the daily newspapers write +necessarily for the public at large, they usually devote most of their +attention to criticising actors rather than to criticising dramatists. +Hence the general theatre-goer is seldom aided, even by the professional +interpreters of theatric art, to arrive at an understanding and +appreciation, for its own sake, of that share in the entire artistic +production which belongs to the dramatist and the dramatist alone. + +For, in present-day America at least, production in the theatre is the +dramatist's sole means of publication, his only medium for conveying to the +public those truths of life he wishes to express. Very few plays are +printed nowadays, and those few are rarely read: seldom, therefore, do they +receive as careful critical consideration as even third-class novels. The +late Clyde Fitch printed _The Girl with the Green Eyes_. The third act of +that play exhibits a very wonderful and searching study of feminine +jealousy. But who has bothered to read it, and what accredited +book-reviewer has troubled himself to accord it the notice it deserves? It +is safe to say that that remarkable third act is remembered only by people +who saw it acted in the theatre. Since, therefore, speaking broadly, the +dramatist can publish his work only through production, it is only through +attending plays and studying what lies beneath the acting and behind the +presentation that even the most well-intentioned critic of contemporary +drama can discover what our dramatists are driving at. + +The great misfortune of this condition of affairs is that the failure of a +play as a business proposition cuts off suddenly and finally the +dramatist's sole opportunity for publishing his thought, even though the +failure may be due to any one of many causes other than incompetence on the +part of the dramatist. A very good play may fail because of bad acting or +crude production, or merely because it has been brought out at the wrong +time of the year or has opened in the wrong sort of city. Sheridan's +_Rivals_, as everybody knows, failed when it was first presented. But when +once a play has failed at the present day, it is almost impossible for the +dramatist to persuade any manager to undertake a second presentation of it. +Whether good or bad, the play is killed, and the unfortunate dramatist is +silenced until his next play is granted a hearing. + + + + + +II + +DRAMATIC ART AND THE THEATRE BUSINESS + + +Art makes things which need to be distributed; business distributes things +which have been made: and each of the arts is therefore necessarily +accompanied by a business, whose special purpose is to distribute the +products of that art. Thus, a very necessary relation exists between the +painter and the picture-dealer, or between the writer and the publisher of +books. In either case, the business man earns his living by exploiting the +products of the artist, and the artist earns his living by bringing his +goods to the market which has been opened by the industry of the business +man. The relation between the two is one of mutual assistance; yet the +spheres of their labors are quite distinct, and each must work in +accordance with a set of laws which have no immediate bearing upon the +activities of the other. The artist must obey the laws of his art, as they +are revealed by his own impulses and interpreted by constructive criticism; +but of these laws the business man may, without prejudice to his +efficiency, be largely ignorant. On the other hand, the business man must +do his work in accordance with the laws of economics,--a science of which +artists ordinarily know very little. Business is, of necessity, controlled +by the great economic law of supply and demand. Of the practical workings +of this law the business man is in a position to know much more than the +artist; and the latter must always be greatly influenced by the former in +deciding as to what he shall make and how he shall make it. This influence +of the publisher, the dealer, the business manager, is nearly always +beneficial, because it helps the artist to avoid a waste of work and to +conserve and concentrate his energies; yet frequently the mind of the maker +desires to escape from it, and there is scarcely an artist worth his salt +who has not at some moments, with the zest of truant joy, made things which +were not for sale. In nearly all the arts it is possible to secede at will +from all allegiance to the business which is based upon them; and Raphael +may write a century of sonnets, or Dante paint a picture of an angel, +without considering the publisher or picture-dealer. But there is one of +the arts--the art of the drama--which can never be disassociated from its +concomitant business--the business of the theatre. It is impossible to +imagine a man making anything which might justly be called a play merely to +please himself and with no thought whatever of pleasing also an audience +of others by presenting it before them with actors on a stage. But the mere +existence of a theatre, a company of actors, an audience assembled, +necessitates an economic organisation and presupposes a business manager; +and this business manager, who sets the play before the public and attracts +the public to the play, must necessarily exert a potent influence over the +playwright. The only way in which a dramatist may free himself from this +influence is by managing his own company, like Molière, or by conducting +his own theatre, like Shakespeare. Only by assuming himself the functions +of the manager can the dramatist escape from him. In all ages, therefore, +the dramatist has been forced to confront two sets of problems rather than +one. He has been obliged to study and to follow not only the technical laws +of the dramatic art but also the commercial laws of the theatre business. +And whereas, in the case of the other arts, the student may consider the +painter and ignore the picture-dealer, or analyse the mind of the novelist +without analysing that of his publisher, the student of the drama in any +age must always take account of the manager, and cannot avoid consideration +of the economic organisation of the theatre in that age. Those who are most +familiar with the dramatic and poetic art of Christopher Marlowe and the +histrionic art of Edward Alleyn are the least likely to underestimate the +important influence which was exerted on the early Elizabethan drama by +the illiterate but crafty and enterprising manager of these great artists, +Philip Henslowe. Students of the Queen Anne period may read the comedies of +Congreve, but they must also read the autobiography of Colley Cibber, the +actor-manager of the Theatre Royal. And the critic who considers the drama +of to-day must often turn from problems of art to problems of economics, +and seek for the root of certain evils not in the technical methods of the +dramatists but in the business methods of the managers. + +At the present time, for instance, the dramatic art in America is suffering +from a very unusual economic condition, which is unsound from the business +standpoint, and which is likely, in the long run, to weary and to alienate +the more thoughtful class of theatre-goers. This condition may be indicated +by the one word,--_over-production_. Some years ago, when the theatre trust +was organised, its leaders perceived that the surest way to win a monopoly +of the theatre business was to get control of the leading theatre-buildings +throughout the country and then refuse to house in them the productions of +any independent manager who opposed them. By this procedure on the part of +the theatre trust, the few managers who maintained their independence were +forced to build theatres in those cities where they wished their +attractions to appear. When, a few years later, the organised opposition to +the original theatre trust grew to such dimensions as to become in fact a +second trust, it could carry on its campaign only by building a new chain +of theatres to house its productions in those cities whose already existing +theatres were in the hands of the original syndicate. As a result of this +warfare between the two trusts, nearly all the chief cities of the country +are now saddled with more theatre-buildings than they can naturally and +easily support. Two theatres stand side by side in a town whose +theatre-going population warrants only one; and there are three theatres in +a city whose inhabitants desire only two. In New York itself this condition +is even more exaggerated. Nearly every season some of the minor producing +managers shift their allegiance from one trust to the other; and since they +seldom seem to know very far in advance just where they will stand when +they may wish to make their next production in New York, the only way in +which they can assure themselves of a Broadway booking is to build and hold +a theatre of their own. Hence, in the last few years, there has been an +epidemic of theatre building in New York. And this, it should be carefully +observed, has resulted from a false economic condition; for new theatres +have been built, not in order to supply a natural demand from the +theatre-going population, but in defiance of the limits imposed by that +demand. + +A theatre-building is a great expense to its owners. It always occupies +land in one of the most costly sections of a city; and in New York this +consideration is of especial importance. The building itself represents a +large investment. These two items alone make it ruinous for the owners to +let the building stand idle for any lengthy period. They must keep it open +as many weeks as possible throughout the year; and if play after play fails +upon its stage, they must still seek other entertainments to attract +sufficient money to cover the otherwise dead loss of the rent. Hence there +exists at present in America a false demand for plays,--a demand, that is +to say, which is occasioned not by the natural need of the theatre-going +population but by the frantic need on the part of warring managers to keep +their theatres open. It is, of course, impossible to find enough +first-class plays to meet this fictitious demand; and the managers are +therefore obliged to buy up quantities of second-class plays, which they +know to be inferior and which they hardly expect the public to approve, +because it will cost them less to present these inferior attractions to a +small business than it would cost them to shut down some of their +superfluous theatres. + +We are thus confronted with the anomalous condition of a business man +offering for sale, at the regular price, goods which he knows to be +inferior, because he thinks that there are just enough customers available +who are sufficiently uncritical not to detect the cheat. Thereby he hopes +to cover the rent of an edifice which he has built, in defiance of sound +economic principles, in a community that is not prepared to support it +throughout the year. No very deep knowledge of economics is necessary to +perceive that this must become, in the long run, a ruinous business policy. +Too many theatres showing too many plays too many months in the year cannot +finally make money; and this falsity in the economic situation reacts +against the dramatic art itself and against the public's appreciation of +that art. Good work suffers by the constant accompaniment of bad work which +is advertised in exactly the same phrases; and the public, which is forced +to see five bad plays in order to find one good one, grows weary and loses +faith. The way to improve our dramatic art is to reform the economics of +our theatre business. We should produce fewer plays, and better ones. We +should seek by scientific investigation to determine just how many theatres +our cities can support, and how many weeks in the year they may +legitimately be expected to support them. Having thus determined the real +demand for plays that comes from the theatre-going population, the managers +should then bestir themselves to secure sufficient good plays to satisfy +that demand. That, surely, is the limit of sound and legitimate business. +The arbitrary creation of a further, false demand, and the feverish +grasping at a fictitious supply, are evidences of unsound economic methods, +which are certain, in the long run, to fail. + + + + +III + +THE HAPPY ENDING IN THE THEATRE + + +The question whether or not a given play should have a so-called happy +ending is one that requires more thorough consideration than is usually +accorded to it. It is nearly always discussed from one point of view, and +one only,--that of the box-office; but the experience of ages goes to show +that it cannot rightly be decided, even as a matter of business expediency, +without being considered also from two other points of view,--that of art, +and that of human interest. For in the long run, the plays that pay the +best are those in which a self-respecting art is employed to satisfy the +human longing of the audience. + +When we look at the matter from the point of view of art, we notice first +of all that in any question of an ending, whether happy or unhappy, art is +doomed to satisfy itself and is denied the recourse of an appeal to nature. +Life itself presents a continuous sequence of causation, stretching on; and +nature abhors an ending as it abhors a vacuum. If experience teaches us +anything at all, it teaches us that nothing in life is terminal, nothing +is conclusive. Marriage is not an end, as we presume in books; but rather a +beginning. Not even death is final. We find our graves not in the ground +but in the hearts of our survivors, and our slightest actions vibrate in +ever-widening circles through incalculable time. Any end, therefore, to a +novel or a play, must be in the nature of an artifice; and an ending must +be planned not in accordance with life, which is lawless and illogical, but +in accordance with art, whose soul is harmony. It must be a strictly +logical result of all that has preceded it. Having begun with a certain +intention, the true artist must complete his pattern, in accordance with +laws more rigid than those of life; and he must not disrupt his design by +an illogical intervention of the long arm of coincidence. Stevenson has +stated this point in a letter to Mr. Sidney Colvin: "Make another end to +it? Ah, yes, but that's not the way I write; the whole tale is implied; I +never use an effect when I can help it, unless it prepares the effects that +are to follow; that's what a story consists in. To make another end, that +is to make the beginning all wrong." In this passage the whole question is +considered _merely_ from the point of view of art. It is the only point of +view which is valid for the novelist; for him the question is comparatively +simple, and Stevenson's answer, emphatic as it is, may be accepted as +final. But the dramatist has yet another factor to consider,--the factor +of his audience. + +The drama is a more popular art than the novel, in the sense that it makes +its appeal not to the individual but to the populace. It sets a contest of +human wills before a multitude gathered together for the purpose of +witnessing the struggle; and it must rely for its interest largely upon the +crowd's instinctive sense of partisanship. As Marlowe said, in _Hero and +Leander_,-- + + When two are stripped, long e'er the course begin, + We wish that one should lose, the other win. + +The audience takes sides with certain characters against certain others; +and in most cases it is better pleased if the play ends in a victory for +the characters it favors. The question therefore arises whether the +dramatist is not justified in cogging the dice of chance and intervening +arbitrarily to insure a happy outcome to the action, even though that +outcome violate the rigid logic of the art of narrative. This is a very +important question; and it must not be answered dogmatically. It is safest, +without arguing _ex cathedra_, to accept the answer of the very greatest +dramatists. Their practice goes to show that such a violation of the strict +logic of art is justifiable in comedy, but is not justifiable in what we +may broadly call the serious drama. Molière, for instance, nearly always +gave an arbitrary happy ending to his comedies. Frequently, in the last +act, he introduced a long lost uncle, who arrived upon the scene just in +time to endow the hero and heroine with a fortune and to say "Bless you, my +children!" as the curtain fell. Molière evidently took the attitude that +since any ending whatsoever must be in the nature of an artifice, and +contrary to the laws of life, he might as well falsify upon the pleasant +side and send his auditors happy to their homes. Shakespeare took the same +attitude in many comedies, of which _As You Like It_ may be chosen as an +illustration. The sudden reform of Oliver and the tardy repentance of the +usurping duke are both untrue to life and illogical as art; but Shakespeare +decided to throw probability and logic to the winds in order to close his +comedy with a general feeling of good-will. But this easy answer to the +question cannot be accepted in the case of the serious drama; for--and this +is a point that is very often missed--in proportion as the dramatic +struggle becomes more vital and momentous, the audience demands more and +more that it shall be fought out fairly, and that even the characters it +favors shall receive no undeserved assistance from the dramatist. This +instinct of the crowd--the instinct by which its demand for fairness is +proportioned to the importance of the struggle--may be studied by any +follower of professional base-ball. The spectators at a ball-game are +violently partisan and always want the home team to win. In any unimportant +game--if the opposing teams, for instance, have no chance to win the +pennant--the crowd is glad of any questionable decision by the umpires that +favors the home team. But in any game in which the pennant is at stake, a +false or bad decision, even though it be rendered in favor of the home +team, will be received with hoots of disapproval. The crowd feels, in such +a case, that it cannot fully enjoy the sense of victory unless the victory +be fairly won. For the same reason, when any important play which sets out +to end unhappily is given a sudden twist which brings about an arbitrary +happy ending, the audience is likely to be displeased. And there is yet +another reason for this displeasure. An audience may enjoy both farce and +comedy without believing them; but it cannot fully enjoy a serious play +unless it believes the story. In the serious drama, an ending, to be +enjoyable, must be credible; in other words, it must, for the sake of human +interest, satisfy the strict logic of art. We arrive, therefore, at the +paradox that although, in the final act, the comic dramatist may achieve +popularity by renouncing the laws of art, the serious dramatist can achieve +popularity only by adhering rigidly to a pattern of artistic truth. + +This is a point that is rarely understood by people who look at the +general question from the point of view of the box-office; they seldom +appreciate the fact that a serious play which logically demands an unhappy +ending will make more money if it is planned in accordance with the +sternest laws of art than if it is given an arbitrary happy ending in which +the audience cannot easily believe. The public wants to be pleased, but it +wants even more to be satisfied. In the early eighteenth century both _King +Lear_ and _Romeo and Juliet_ were played with fabricated happy endings; but +the history of these plays, before and after, proves that the alteration, +considered solely from the business standpoint, was an error. And yet, +after all these centuries of experience, our modern managers still remain +afraid of serious plays which lead logically to unhappy terminations, and, +because of the power of their position, exercise an influence over writers +for the stage which is detrimental to art and even contrary to the demands +of human interest. + + + + + +IV + +THE BOUNDARIES OF APPROBATION + + +When Hamlet warned the strolling players against making the judicious +grieve, and when he lamented that a certain play had proved caviare to the +general, he fixed for the dramatic critic the lower and the upper bound for +catholicity of approbation. But between these outer boundaries lie many +different precincts of appeal. _The Two Orphans_ of Dennery and _The +Misanthrope_ of Molière aim to interest two different types of audience. To +say that _The Two Orphans_ is a bad play because its appeal is not so +intellectual as that of _The Misanthrope_ would be no less a solecism than +to say that _The Misanthrope_ is a bad play because its appeal is not so +emotional as that of _The Two Orphans_. The truth is that both stand within +the boundaries of approbation. The one makes a primitive appeal to the +emotions, without, however, grieving the judicious; and the other makes a +refined appeal to the intelligence, without, however, subtly bewildering +the mind of the general spectator. + +Since success is to a play the breath of life, it is necessary that the +dramatist should please his public; but in admitting this, we must remember +that in a city so vast and varied as New York there are many different +publics, which are willing to be pleased in many different ways. The +dramatist with a new theme in his head may, before he sets about the task +of building and writing his play, determine imaginatively the degree of +emotional and intellectual equipment necessary to the sort of audience best +fitted to appreciate that theme. Thereafter, if he build and write for that +audience and that alone, and if he do his work sufficiently well, he may be +almost certain that his play will attract the sort of audience he has +demanded; for any good play can create its own public by the natural +process of selecting from the whole vast theatre-going population the kind +of auditors it needs. That problem of the dramatist to please his public +reduces itself, therefore, to two very simple phases: first, to choose the +sort of public that he wants to please, and second, to direct his appeal to +the mental make-up of the audience which he himself has chosen. This task, +instead of hampering the dramatist, should serve really to assist him, +because it requires a certain concentration of purpose and consistency of +mood throughout his work. + +This concentration and consistency of purpose and of mood may be symbolised +by the figure of aiming straight at a predetermined target. In the years +when firearms were less perfected than they are at present, it was +necessary, in shooting with a rifle, to aim lower than the mark, in order +to allow for an upward kick at the discharge; and, on the other hand, it +was necessary, in shooting with heavy ordnance, to aim higher than the +mark, in order to allow for a parabolic droop of the cannon-ball in +transit. Many dramatists, in their endeavor to score a hit, still employ +these compromising tricks of marksmanship: some aim lower than the judgment +of their auditors, others aim higher than their taste. But, in view of the +fact that under present metropolitan conditions the dramatist may pick his +own auditors, this aiming below them or above them seems (to quote Sir +Thomas Browne) "a vanity out of date and superannuated piece of folly." +While granting the dramatist entire liberty to select the level of his +mark, the critic may justly demand that he shall aim directly at it, +without allowing his hand ever to droop down or flutter upward. That he +should not aim below it is self-evident: there can be no possible excuse +for making the judicious grieve. But that he should not aim above it is a +proposition less likely to be accepted off-hand by the fastidious: Hamlet +spoke with a regretful fondness of that particular play which had proved +caviare to the general. It is, of course, nobler to shoot over the mark +than to shoot under it; but it is nobler still to shoot directly at it. +Surely there lies a simple truth beneath this paradox of words:--it is a +higher aim to aim straight than to aim too high. + +If a play be so constituted as to please its consciously selected auditors, +neither grieving their judgment by striking lower than their level of +appreciation, nor leaving them unsatisfied by snobbishly feeding them +caviare when they have asked for bread, it must be judged a good play for +its purpose. The one thing needful is that it shall neither insult their +intelligence nor trifle with their taste. In view of the many different +theatre-going publics and their various demands, the critic, in order to be +just, must be endowed with a sympathetic versatility of approbation. He +should take as his motto those judicious sentences with which the Autocrat +of the Breakfast-Table prefaced his remarks upon the seashore and the +mountains:--"No, I am not going to say which is best. The one where your +place is is the best for you." + + + + + +V + +IMITATION AND SUGGESTION IN THE DRAMA + + +There is an old saying that it takes two to make a bargain or a quarrel; +and, similarly, it takes two groups of people to make a play,--those whose +minds are active behind the footlights, and those whose minds are active in +the auditorium. We go to the theatre to enjoy ourselves, rather than to +enjoy the actors or the author; and though we may be deluded into thinking +that we are interested mainly by the ideas of the dramatist or the imagined +emotions of the people on the stage, we really derive our chief enjoyment +from such ideas and emotions of our own as are called into being by the +observance of the mimic strife behind the footlights. The only thing in +life that is really enjoyable is what takes place within ourselves; it is +our own experience, of thought or of emotion, that constitutes for us the +only fixed and memorable reality amid the shifting shadows of the years; +and the experience of anybody else, either actual or imaginary, touches us +as true and permanent only when it calls forth an answering imagination of +our own. Each of us, in going to the theatre, carries with him, in his own +mind, the real stage on which the two hours' traffic is to be enacted; and +what passes behind the footlights is efficient only in so far as it calls +into activity that immanent potential clash of feelings and ideas within +our brain. It is the proof of a bad play that it permits us to regard it +with no awakening of mind; we sit and stare over the footlights with a +brain that remains blank and unpopulated; we do not create within our souls +that real play for which the actual is only the occasion; and since we +remain empty of imagination, we find it impossible to enjoy _ourselves_. +Our feeling in regard to a bad play might be phrased in the familiar +sentence,--"This is all very well; but what is it _to me_?" The piece +leaves us unresponsive and aloof; we miss that answering and _tallying_ of +mind--to use Whitman's word--which is the soul of all experience of worthy +art. But a good play helps us to enjoy ourselves by making us aware of +ourselves; it forces us to think and feel. We may think differently from +the dramatist, or feel emotions quite dissimilar from those of the imagined +people of the story; but, at any rate, our minds are consciously aroused, +and the period of our attendance at the play becomes for us a period of +real experience. The only thing, then, that counts in theatre-going is not +what the play can give us, but what we can give the play. The enjoyment of +the drama is subjective, and the province of the dramatist is merely to +appeal to the subtle sense of life that is latent in ourselves. + +There are, in the main, two ways in which this appeal may be made +effectively. The first is by imitation of what we have already seen around +us; and the second is by suggestion of what we have already experienced +within us. We have seen people who were like Hedda Gabler; we have been +people who were like Hamlet. The drama of facts stimulates us like our +daily intercourse with the environing world; the drama of ideas stimulates +us like our mystic midnight hours of solitary musing. Of the drama of +imitation we demand that it shall remain appreciably within the limits of +our own actual observation; it must deal with our own country and our own +time, and must remind us of our daily inference from the affairs we see +busy all about us. The drama of facts cannot be transplanted; it cannot be +made in France or Germany and remade in America; it is localised in place +and time, and has no potency beyond the bounds of its locality. But the +drama of suggestion is unlimited in its possibilities of appeal; ideas are +without date, and burst the bonds of locality and language. Americans may +see the ancient Greek drama of _Oedipus King_ played in modern French by +Mounet-Sully, and may experience thereby that inner overwhelming sense of +the sublime which is more real than the recognition of any simulated +actuality. + +The distinction between the two sources of appeal in drama may be made a +little more clear by an illustration from the analogous art of literature. +When Whitman, in his poem on _Crossing Brooklyn Ferry_, writes, "Crowds of +men and women attired in the usual costumes!", he reminds us of the +environment of our daily existence, and may or may not call forth within us +some recollection of experience. In the latter event, his utterance is a +failure; in the former, he has succeeded in stimulating activity of mind by +the process of setting before us a reminiscence of the actual. But when, in +the _Song of Myself_, he writes, "We found our own, O my Soul, in the calm +and cool of the daybreak," he sets before us no imitation of habituated +externality, but in a flash reminds us by suggestion of so much, that to +recount the full experience thereof would necessitate a volume. That second +sentence may well keep us busy for an evening, alive in recollection of +uncounted hours of calm wherein the soul has ascended to recognition of its +universe; the first sentence we may dismiss at once, because it does not +make anything important happen in our consciousness. + +It must be confessed that the majority of the plays now shown in our +theatres do not stimulate us to any responsive activity of mind, and +therefore do not permit us, in any real sense, to enjoy ourselves. But +those that, in a measure, do succeed in this prime endeavor of dramatic art +may readily be grouped into two classes, according as their basis of appeal +is imitation or suggestion. + + + + + +VI + +HOLDING THE MIRROR UP TO NATURE + + +Doubtless no one would dissent from Hamlet's dictum that the purpose of +playing is "to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature"; but this +statement is so exceedingly simple that it is rather difficult to +understand. What special kind of mirror did that wise dramatic critic have +in mind when he coined this memorable phrase? Surely he could not have +intended the sort of flat and clear reflector by the aid of which we comb +our hair; for a mirror such as this would represent life with such sedulous +exactitude that we should gain no advantage from looking at the reflection +rather than at the life itself which was reflected. If I wish to see the +tobacco jar upon my writing table, I look at the tobacco jar: I do not set +a mirror up behind it and look into the mirror. But suppose I had a magic +mirror which would reflect that jar in such a way as to show me not only +its outside but also the amount of tobacco shut within it. In this latter +case, a glance at the represented image would spare me a more laborious +examination of the actual object. + +Now Hamlet must have had in mind some magic mirror such as this, which, by +its manner of reflecting life, would render life more intelligible. Goethe +once remarked that the sole excuse for the existence of works of art is +that they are different from the works of nature. If the theatre showed us +only what we see in life itself, there would be no sense at all in going to +the theatre. Assuredly it must show us more than that; and it is an +interesting paradox that in order to show us more it has to show us less. +The magic mirror must refuse to reflect the irrelevant and non-essential, +and must thereby concentrate attention on the pertinent and essential +phases of nature. That mirror is the best that reflects the least which +does not matter, and, as a consequence, reflects most clearly that which +does. In actual life, truth is buried beneath a bewilderment of facts. Most +of us seek it vainly, as we might seek a needle in a haystack. In this +proverbial search we should derive no assistance from looking at a +reflection of the haystack in an ordinary mirror. But imagine a glass so +endowed with a selective magic that it would not reflect hay but would +reflect steel. Then, assuredly, there would be a valid and practical reason +for holding the mirror up to nature. + +The only real triumph for an artist is not to show us a haystack, but to +make us see the needle buried in it,--not to reflect the trappings and the +suits of life, but to suggest a sense of that within which passeth show. +To praise a play for its exactitude in representing facts would be a +fallacy of criticism. The important question is not how nearly the play +reflects the look of life, but how much it helps the audience to understand +life's meaning. The sceneless stage of the Elizabethan _As You Like It_ +revealed more meanings than our modern scenic forests empty of Rosalind and +Orlando. There is no virtue in reflection unless there be some magic in the +mirror. Certain enterprising modern managers permit their press agents to +pat them on the back because they have set, say, a locomotive on the stage; +but why should we pay two dollars to see a locomotive in the theatre when +we may see a dozen locomotives in the Grand Central Station without paying +anything? Why, indeed!--unless the dramatist contrives to reveal an +imaginable human mystery throbbing in the palpitant heart--no, not of the +locomotive, but of the locomotive-engineer. That is something that we could +not see at all in the Grand Central Station, unless we were endowed with +eyes as penetrant as those of the dramatist himself. + +But not only must the drama render life more comprehensible by discarding +the irrelevant, and attracting attention to the essential; it must also +render us the service of bringing to a focus that phase of life it +represents. The mirror which the dramatist holds up to nature should be a +concave mirror, which concentrates the rays impinging on it to a luminous +focal image. Hamlet was too much a metaphysician to busy his mind about the +simpler science of physics; but surely this figure of the concave mirror, +with its phenomenon of concentration, represents most suggestively his +belief concerning the purpose of playing and of plays. The trouble with +most of our dramas is that they render scattered and incoherent images of +life; they tell us many unimportant things, instead of telling us one +important thing in many ways. They reveal but little, because they +reproduce too much. But it is only by bringing all life to a focus in a +single luminous idea that it is possible, in the two hours' traffic of the +stage, "to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very +age and body of the time his form and pressure." + +An interesting instance of how a dramatist, by holding, as it were, a +concave mirror up to nature, may concentrate all life to a focus in a +single luminous idea is afforded by that justly celebrated drama entitled +_El Gran Galeoto_, by Don José Echegaray. This play was first produced at +the Teatro Español on March 19, 1881, and achieved a triumph that soon +diffused the fame of its author, which till then had been but local, beyond +the Pyrenees. It is now generally recognised as one of the standard +monuments of the modern social drama. It owes its eminence mainly to the +unflinching emphasis which it casts upon a single great idea. This idea is +suggested in its title. + +In the old French romance of Launcelot of the Lake, it was Gallehault who +first prevailed on Queen Guinevere to give a kiss to Launcelot: he was thus +the means of making actual their potential guilty love. His name +thereafter, like that of Pandarus of Troy, became a symbol to designate a +go-between, inciting to illicit love. In the fifth canto of the _Inferno_, +Francesca da Rimini narrates to Dante how she and Paolo read one day, all +unsuspecting, the romance of Launcelot; and after she tells how her lover, +allured by the suggestion of the story, kissed her on the mouth all +trembling, she adds, + + Galeotto fu'l libro e chi lo scrisse, + +which may be translated, "The book and the author of it performed for us +the service of Gallehault." Now Echegaray, desiring to retell in modern +terms the old familiar story of a man and a woman who, at first innocent in +their relationship, are allured by unappreciable degrees to the sudden +realisation of a great passion for each other, asked himself what force it +was, in modern life, which would perform for them most tragically the +sinful service of Gallehault. Then it struck him that the great Gallehault +of modern life--_El Gran Galeoto_--was the impalpable power of gossip, the +suggestive force of whispered opinion, the prurient allurement of evil +tongues. Set all society to glancing slyly at a man and a woman whose +relation to each other is really innocent, start the wicked tongues +a-babbling, and you will stir up a whirlwind which will blow them giddily +into each other's arms. Thus the old theme might be recast for the purposes +of modern tragedy. Echegaray himself, in the critical prose prologue which +he prefixed to his play, comments upon the fact that the chief character +and main motive force of the entire drama can never appear upon the stage, +except in hints and indirections; because the great Gallehault of his story +is not any particular person, but rather all slanderous society at large. +As he expresses it, the villain-hero of his drama is _Todo el +mundo_,--everybody, or all the world. + +This, obviously, is a great idea for a modern social drama, because it +concentrates within itself many of the most important phases of the +perennial struggle between the individual and society; and this great idea +is embodied with direct, unwavering simplicity in the story of the play. +Don Julián, a rich merchant about forty years of age, is ideally married to +Teodora, a beautiful woman in her early twenties, who adores him. He is a +generous and kindly man; and upon the death of an old and honored friend, +to whose assistance in the past he owes his present fortune, he adopts into +his household the son of this friend, Ernesto. Ernesto is twenty-six years +old; he reads poems and writes plays, and is a thoroughly fine fellow. He +feels an almost filial affection for Don Julián and a wholesome brotherly +friendship for Teodora. They, in turn, are beautifully fond of him. +Naturally, he accompanies them everywhere in the social world of Madrid; he +sits in their box at the opera, acting as Teodora's escort when her husband +is detained by business; and he goes walking with Teodora of an afternoon. +Society, with sinister imagination, begins to look askance at the +triangulated household; tongues begin to wag; and gossip grows. Tidings of +the evil talk about town are brought to Don Julián by his brother, Don +Severo, who advises that Ernesto had better be requested to live in +quarters of his own. Don Julián nobly repels this suggestion as insulting; +but Don Severo persists that only by such a course may the family name be +rendered unimpeachable upon the public tongue. + +Ernesto, himself, to still the evil rumors, goes to live in a studio alone. +This simple move on his part suggests to everybody--_todo el mundo_--that +he must have had a real motive for making it. Gossip increases, instead of +diminishing; and the emotions of Teodora, Don Julián, and himself are +stirred to the point of nervous tensity. Don Julián, in spite of his own +sweet reasonableness, begins subtly to wonder if there could be, by any +possibility, any basis for his brother's vehemence. Don Severo's wife, Doña +Mercedes, repeats the talk of the town to Teodora, and turns her +imagination inward, till it falters in self-questionings. Similarly the +great Gallehault,--which is the word of all the world,--whispers +unthinkable and tragic possibilities to the poetic and self-searching mind +of Ernesto. He resolves to seek release in Argentina. But before he can +sail away, he overhears, in a fashionable cafe, a remark which casts a slur +on Teodora, and strikes the speaker of the insult in the face. A duel is +forthwith arranged, to take place in a vacant studio adjacent to Ernesto's. +When Don Julián learns about it, he is troubled by the idea that another +man should be fighting for his wife, and rushes forthwith to wreak +vengeance himself on the traducer. Teodora hears the news; and in order to +prevent both her husband and Ernesto from endangering their lives, she +rushes to Ernesto's rooms to urge him to forestall hostilities. Meanwhile +her husband encounters the slanderer, and is severely wounded. He is +carried to Ernesto's studio. Hearing people coming, Teodora hides herself +in Ernesto's bedroom, where she is discovered by her husband's attendants. +Don Julián, wounded and enfevered, now at last believes the worst. + +Ernesto seeks and slays Don Julián's assailant. But now the whole world +credits what the whole world has been whispering. In vain Ernesto and +Teodora protest their innocence to Don Severo and to Doña Mercedes. In vain +they plead with the kindly and noble man they both revere and love. Don +Julián curses them, and dies believing in their guilt. Then at last, when +they find themselves cast forth isolate by the entire world, their common +tragic loneliness draws them to each other. They are given to each other by +the world. The insidious purpose of the great Gallehault has been +accomplished; and Ernesto takes Teodora for his own. + + + + + +VII + +BLANK VERSE ON THE CONTEMPORARY STAGE + + +It is amazing how many people seem to think that the subsidiary fact that a +certain play is written in verse makes it of necessity dramatic literature. +Whether or not a play is literature depends not upon the medium of +utterance the characters may use, but on whether or not the play sets forth +a truthful view of some momentous theme; and whether or not a play is drama +depends not upon its trappings and its suits, but on whether or not it sets +forth a tense and vital struggle between individual human wills. _The +Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ fulfils both of these conditions and is dramatic +literature, while the poetic plays of Mr. Stephen Phillips stand upon a +lower plane, both as drama and as literature, even though they are written +in the most interesting blank verse that has been developed since Tennyson. +_Shore Acres_, which was written in New England dialect, was, I think, +dramatic literature. Mr. Percy Mackaye's _Jeanne d'Arc_, I think, was not, +even though in merely literary merit it revealed many excellent qualities. + +_Jeanne d'Arc_ was not a play; it was a narrative in verse, with lyric +interludes. It was a thing to be read rather than to be acted. It was a +charming poetic story, but it was not an interesting contribution to the +stage. Most people felt this, I am sure; but most people lacked the courage +of their feeling, and feared to confess that they were wearied by the +piece, lest they should be suspected of lack of taste. I believe thoroughly +in the possibility of poetic drama at the present day; but it must be drama +first and foremost, and poetry only secondarily. Mr. Mackaye, like a great +many other aspirants, began at the wrong end: he made his piece poetry +first and foremost, and drama only incidentally. And I think that the only +way to prepare the public for true poetic drama is to educate the public's +faith in its right to be bored in the theatre by poetry that is not +dramatic. Performances of _Pippa Passes_ and _The Sunken Bell_ exert a very +unpropitious influence upon the mood of the average theatre-goer. These +poems are not plays; and the innocent spectator, being told that they are, +is made to believe that poetic drama must be necessarily a soporific thing. +And when this belief is once lodged in his uncritical mind, it is difficult +to dispel it, even with a long course of _Othello_ and _Hamlet_. _Paolo +and Francesca_ was a good poem, but a bad play; and its weakness as a play +was not excusable by its beauty as a poem. _Cyrano de Bergerac_ was a good +play, first of all, and a good poem also; and even a public that fears to +seem Philistine knew the difference instinctively. + +Mme. Nazimova has been quoted as saying that she would never act a play in +verse, because in speaking verse she could not be natural. But whether an +actor may be natural or not depends entirely upon the kind of verse the +author has given him to speak. Three kinds of blank verse are known in +English literature,--lyric, narrative, and dramatic. By lyric blank verse I +mean verse like that of Tennyson's _Tears, Idle Tears_; by narrative, verse +like that of Mr. Stephen Phillips's _Marpessa_ or Tennyson's _Idylls of the +King_; by dramatic, verse like that of the murder scene in _Macbeth_. The +Elizabethan playwrights wrote all three kinds of blank verse, because their +drama was a platform drama and admitted narrative and lyric as well as +dramatic elements. But because of the development in modern times of the +physical conditions of the theatre, we have grown to exclude from the drama +all non-dramatic elements. Narrative and lyric, for their own sakes, have +no place upon the modern stage; they may be introduced only for a definite +dramatic purpose. Only one of the three kinds of blank verse that the +Elizabethan playwrights used is, therefore, serviceable on the modern +stage. But our poets, because of inexperience in the theatre, insist on +writing the other two. For this reason, and for this reason only, do modern +actors like Mme. Nazimova complain of plays in verse. + +Mr. Percy Mackaye's verse in _Jeanne d'Arc_, for example, was at certain +moments lyric, at most moments narrative, and scarcely ever dramatic in +technical mold and manner. It resembled the verse of Tennyson more nearly +than it resembled that of any other master; and Tennyson was a narrative, +not a dramatic, poet. It set a value on literary expression for its own +sake rather than for the purpose of the play; it was replete with +elaborately lovely phrases; and it admitted the inversions customary in +verse intended for the printed page. But I am firm in the belief that verse +written for the modern theatre should be absolutely simple. It should +incorporate no words, however beautiful, that are not used in the daily +conversation of the average theatre-goer; it should set these words only in +their natural order, and admit no inversions whatever for the sake of the +line; and it should set a value on expression, never for its own sake, but +solely for the sake of the dramatic purpose to be accomplished in the +scene. Verse such as this would permit of every rhythmical variation known +in English prosody, and through the appeal of its rhythm would offer the +dramatist opportunities for emotional effect that prose would not allow +him; but at the same time it could be spoken with entire naturalness by +actors as ultra-modern as Mme. Nazimova. + +Mr. Stephen Phillips has not learned this lesson, and the verse that he has +written in his plays is the same verse that he used in his narratives, +_Marpessa_ and _Christ in Hades_. It is great narrative blank verse, but +for dramatic uses it is too elaborate. Mr. Mackaye has started out on the +same mistaken road: in _Jeanne d'Arc_ his prosody is that of closet-verse, +not theatre-verse. The poetic drama will be doomed to extinction on the +modern stage unless our poets learn the lesson of simplicity. I shall +append some lines of Shakespeare's to illustrate the ideal of directness +toward which our latter-day poetic dramatists should strive. When Lear +holds the dead Cordelia in his arms, he says: + + Her voice was ever soft, + Gentle, and low,--an excellent thing in woman. + +Could any actor be unnatural in speaking words so simple, so familiar, and +so naturally set? Viola says to Orsino: + + My father had a daughter loved a man, + As it might be, perhaps, were I woman, + I should your lordship. + +Here again the words are all colloquial and are set in their accustomed +order; but by sheer mastery of rhythm the poet contrives to express the +tremulous hesitance of Viola's mood as it could not be expressed in prose. +There is a need for verse upon the stage, if the verse be simple and +colloquial; and there is a need for poetry in the drama, provided that the +play remain the thing and the poetry contribute to the play. + + + + + +VIII + +DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND THEATRIC JOURNALISM + + +One reason why journalism is a lesser thing than literature is that it +subserves the tyranny of timeliness. It narrates the events of the day and +discusses the topics of the hour, for the sole reason that they happen for +the moment to float uppermost upon the current of human experience. The +flotsam of this current may occasionally have dived up from the depths and +may give a glimpse of some underlying secret of the sea; but most often it +merely drifts upon the surface, indicative of nothing except which way the +wind lies. Whatever topic is the most timely to-day is doomed to be the +most untimely to-morrow. Where are the journals of yester-year? Dig them +out of dusty files, and all that they say will seem wearisomely old, for +the very reason that when it was written it seemed spiritedly new. Whatever +wears a date upon its forehead will soon be out of date. The main interest +of news is newness; and nothing slips so soon behind the times as novelty. + +With timeliness, as an incentive, literature has absolutely no concern. +Its purpose is to reveal what was and is and evermore shall be. It can +never grow old, for the reason that it has never attempted to be new. Early +in the nineteenth century, the gentle Elia revolted from the tyranny of +timeliness. "Hang the present age!", said he, "I'll write for antiquity." +The timely utterances of his contemporaries have passed away with the times +that called them forth: his essays live perennially new. In the dateless +realm of revelation, antiquity joins hands with futurity. There can be +nothing either new or old in any utterance which is really true or +beautiful or right. + +In considering a given subject, journalism seeks to discover what there is +in it that belongs to the moment, and literature seeks to reveal what there +is in it that belongs to eternity. To journalism facts are important +because they are facts; to literature they are important only in so far as +they are representative of recurrent truths. Literature speaks because it +has something to say: journalism speaks because the public wants to be +talked to. Literature is an emanation from an inward impulse: but the +motive of journalism is external; it is fashioned to supply a demand +outside itself. It is frequently said, and is sometimes believed, that the +province of journalism is to mold public opinion; but a consideration of +actual conditions indicates rather that its province is to find out what +the opinion of some section of the public is, and then to formulate it and +express it. The successful journalist tells his readers what they want to +be told. He becomes their prophet by making clear to them what they +themselves are thinking. He influences people by agreeing with them. In +doing this he may be entirely sincere, for his readers may be right and may +demand from him the statement of his own most serious convictions; but the +fact remains that his motive for expression is centred in them instead of +in himself. It is not thus that literature is motivated. Literature is not +a formulation of public opinion, but an expression of personal and +particular belief. For this reason it is more likely to be true. Public +opinion is seldom so important as private opinion. Socrates was right and +Athens wrong. Very frequently the multitude at the foot of the mountain are +worshiping a golden calf, while the prophet, lonely and aloof upon the +summit, is hearkening to the very voice of God. + +The journalist is limited by the necessity of catering to majorities; he +can never experience the felicity of Dr. Stockmann, who felt himself the +strongest man on earth because he stood most alone. It may sometimes happen +that the majority is right; but in that case the agreement of the +journalist is an unnecessary utterance. The truth was known before he +spoke, and his speaking is superfluous. What is popularly said about the +educative force of journalism is, for the most part, baseless. Education +occurs when a man is confronted with something true and beautiful and good +which stimulates to active life that "bright effluence of bright essence +increate" which dwells within him. The real ministers of education must be, +in Emerson's phrase, "lonely, original, and pure." But journalism is +popular instead of lonely, timely rather than original, and expedient +instead of pure. Even at its best, journalism remains an enterprise; but +literature at its best becomes no less than a religion. + +These considerations are of service in studying what is written for the +theatre. In all periods, certain contributions to the drama have been +journalistic in motive and intention, while certain others have been +literary. There is a good deal of journalism in the comedies of +Aristophanes. He often chooses topics mainly for their timeliness, and +gathers and says what happens to be in the air. Many of the Elizabethan +dramatists, like Dekker and Heywood and Middleton for example, looked at +life with the journalistic eye. They collected and disseminated news. They +were, in their own time, much more "up to date" than Shakespeare, who chose +for his material old stories that nearly every one had read. Ben Jonson's +_Bartholomew Fair_ is glorified journalism. It brims over with +contemporary gossip and timely witticisms. Therefore it is out of date +to-day, and is read only by people who wish to find out certain facts of +London life in Jonson's time. _Hamlet_ in 1602 was not a novelty; but it is +still read and seen by people who wish to find out certain truths of life +in general. + +At the present day, a very large proportion of the contributions to the +theatre must be classed and judged as journalism. Such plays, for instance, +as _The Lion and the Mouse_ and _The Man of the Hour_ are nothing more or +less than dramatised newspapers. A piece of this sort, however effective it +may be at the moment, must soon suffer the fate of all things timely and +slip behind the times. Whenever an author selects a subject because he +thinks the public wants him to talk about it, instead of because he knows +he wants to talk about it to the public, his motive is journalistic rather +than literary. A timely topic may, however, be used to embody a truly +literary intention. In _The Witching Hour_, for example, journalism was +lifted into literature by the sincerity of Mr. Thomas's conviction that he +had something real and significant to say. The play became important +because there was a man behind it. Individual personality is perhaps the +most dateless of all phenomena. The fact of any great individuality once +accomplished and achieved becomes contemporary with the human race and +sloughs off the usual limits of past and future. + +Whatever Mr. J.M. Barrie writes is literature, because he dwells isolate +amidst the world in a wise minority of one. The things that he says are of +importance because nobody else could have said them. He has achieved +individuality, and thereby passed out of hearing of the ticking of clocks +into an ever-ever land where dates are not and consequently epitaphs can +never be. What he utters is of interest to the public, because his motive +for speaking is private and personal. Instead of telling people what they +think that they are thinking, he tells them what they have always known but +think they have forgotten. He performs, for this oblivious generation, the +service of a great reminder. He lures us from the strident and factitious +world of which we read daily in the first pages of the newspapers, back to +the serene eternal world of little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness +and of love. He educates the many, not by any crass endeavor to formulate +or even to mold the opinion of the public, but by setting simply before +them thoughts which do often lie too deep for tears. + +The distinguishing trait of Mr. Barrie's genius is that he looks upon life +with the simplicity of a child and sees it with the wisdom of a woman. He +has a woman's subtlety of insight, a child's concreteness of imagination. +He is endowed (to reverse a famous phrase of Matthew Arnold's) with a sweet +unreasonableness. He understands life not with his intellect but with his +sensibilities. As a consequence, he is familiar with all the tremulous, +delicate intimacies of human nature that every woman knows, but that most +men glimpse only in moments of exalted sympathy with some wise woman whom +they love. His insight has that absoluteness which is beyond the reach of +intellect alone. He knows things for the unutterable woman's +reason,--"because...." + +But with this feminine, intuitive understanding of humanity, Mr. Barrie +combines the distinctively masculine trait of being able to communicate the +things that his emotions know. The greatest poets would, of course, be +women, were it not for the fact that women are in general incapable of +revealing through the medium of articulate art the very things they know +most deeply. Most of the women who have written have said only the lesser +phases of themselves; they have unwittingly withheld their deepest and most +poignant wisdom because of a native reticence of speech. Many a time they +reach a heaven of understanding shut to men; but when they come back, they +cannot tell the world. The rare artists among women, like Sappho and Mrs. +Browning and Christina Rossetti and Laurence Hope, in their several +different ways, have gotten themselves expressed only through a sublime and +glorious unashamedness. As Hawthorne once remarked very wisely, women have +achieved art only when they have stood naked in the market-place. But men +in general are not withheld by a similar hesitance from saying what they +feel most deeply. No woman could have written Mr. Barrie's biography of his +mother; but for a man like him there is a sort of sacredness in revealing +emotion so private as to be expressible only in the purest speech. Mr. +Barrie was apparently born into the world of men to tell us what our +mothers and our wives would have told us if they could,--what in deep +moments they have tried to tell us, trembling exquisitely upon the verge of +the words. The theme of his best work has always been "what every woman +knows." In expressing this, he has added to the permanent recorded +knowledge of humanity; and he has thereby lifted his plays above the level +of theatric journalism to the level of true dramatic literature. + + + + +IX + +THE INTENTION OF PERMANENCE + + +At Coney Island and Atlantic City and many other seaside resorts whither +the multitude drifts to drink oblivion of a day, an artist may be watched +at work modeling images in the sand. These he fashions deftly, to entice +the immediate pennies of the crowd; but when his wage is earned, he leaves +his statues to be washed away by the next high surging of the tide. The +sand-man is often a good artist; let us suppose he were a better one. Let +us imagine him endowed with a brain and a hand on a par with those of +Praxiteles. None the less we should set his seashore images upon a lower +plane of art than the monuments Praxiteles himself hewed out of marble. +This we should do instinctively, with no recourse to critical theory; and +that man in the multitude who knew the least about art would express this +judgment most emphatically. The simple reason would be that the art of the +sand-man is lacking in the Intention of Permanence. + +The Intention of Permanence, whether it be conscious or subconscious with +the artist, is a necessary factor of the noblest art. Many of us remember +the Court of Honor at the World's Columbian Exposition, at Chicago fifteen +years ago. The sculpture was good and the architecture better. In +chasteness and symmetry of general design, in spaciousness fittingly +restrained, in simplicity more decorative than deliberate decoration, those +white buildings blooming into gold and mirrored in a calm lagoon, dazzled +the eye and delighted the aesthetic sense. And yet, merely because they +lacked the Intention of Permanence, they failed to awaken that solemn happy +heartache that we feel in looking upon the tumbled ruins of some ancient +temple. We could never quite forget that the buildings of the Court of +Honor were fabrics of frame and stucco sprayed with whitewash, and that the +statues were kneaded out of plaster: they were set there for a year, not +for all time. But there is at Paestum a crumbled Doric temple to Poseidon, +built in ancient days to remind the reverent of that incalculable vastness +that tosses men we know not whither. It stands forlorn in a malarious +marsh, yet eternally within hearing of the unsubservient surge. Many of its +massive stones have tottered to the earth; and irrelevant little birds sing +in nests among the capitals and mock the solemn silence that the Greeks +ordained. But the sacred Intention of Permanence that filled and thrilled +the souls of those old builders stands triumphant over time; and if only a +single devastated column stood to mark their meaning, it would yet be a +greater thing than the entire Court of Honor, built only to commemorate the +passing of a year. + +In all the arts except the acted drama, it is easy even for the layman to +distinguish work which is immediate and momentary from work which is +permanent and real. It was the turbulent untutored crowd that clamored +loudest in demanding that the Dewey Arch should be rendered permanent in +marble: it was only the artists and the art-critics who were satisfied by +the monument in its ephemeral state of frame and plaster. But in the drama, +the layman often finds it difficult to distinguish between a piece intended +merely for immediate entertainment and a piece that incorporates the +Intention of Permanence. In particular he almost always fails to +distinguish between what is really a character and what is merely an acting +part. When a dramatist really creates a character, he imagines and projects +a human being so truly conceived and so clearly presented that any average +man would receive the impression of a living person if he were to read in +manuscript the bare lines of the play. But when a playwright merely devises +an acting part, he does nothing more than indicate to a capable actor the +possibility of so comporting himself upon the stage as to convince his +audience of humanity in his performance. From the standpoint of criticism, +the main difficulty is that the actor's art may frequently obscure the +dramatist's lack of art, and _vice versa_, so that a mere acting part may +seem, in the hands of a capable actor, a real character, whereas a real +character may seem, in the hands of an incapable actor, an indifferent +acting part. Rip Van Winkle, for example, was a wonderful acting part for +Joseph Jefferson; but it was, from the standpoint of the dramatist, not a +character at all, as any one may see who takes the trouble to read the +play. Beau Brummel, also, was an acting part rather than a character. And +yet the layman, under the immediate spell of the actor's representative +art, is tempted in such cases to ignore that the dramatist has merely +modeled an image in the sand. + +Likewise, on a larger scale, the layman habitually fails to distinguish +between a mere theatric entertainment and a genuine drama. A genuine drama +always reveals through its imagined struggle of contesting wills some +eternal truth of human life, and illuminates some real phases of human +character. But a theatric entertainment may present merely a deftly +fabricated struggle between puppets, wherein the art of the actor is given +momentary exercise. To return to our comparison, a genuine drama is carved +out of marble, and incorporates, consciously or not, the Intention of +Permanence; whereas a mere theatric entertainment may be likened to a group +of figures sculptured in the sand. + +Those of us who ask much of the contemporary theatre may be saddened to +observe that most of the current dramatists seem more akin to the sand-man +than to Praxiteles. They have built Courts of Honor for forty weeks, rather +than temples to Poseidon for eternity. Yet it is futile to condemn an +artist who does a lesser thing quite well because he has not attempted to +do a greater thing which, very probably, he could not do at all. Criticism, +in order to render any practical service, must be tuned in accordance with +the intention of the artist. The important point for the critic of the +sand-man at Coney Island is not to complain because he is not so enduring +an artist as Praxiteles, but to determine why he is, or is not, as the case +may be, a better artist than the sand-man at Atlantic City. + + + + +X + +THE QUALITY OF NEW ENDEAVOR + + +Many critics seem to be of the opinion that the work of a new and unknown +author deserves and requires less serious consideration than the work of an +author of established reputation. There is, however, an important sense in +which the very contrary is true. The function of the critic is to help the +public to discern and to appreciate what is worthy. The fact of an +established reputation affords evidence that the author who enjoys it has +already achieved the appreciation of the public and no longer stands in +need of the intermediary service of the critic. But every new author +advances as an applicant for admission into the ranks of the recognised; +and the critic must, whenever possible, assist the public to determine +whether the newcomer seems destined by inherent right to enter among the +good and faithful servants, or whether he is essentially an outsider +seeking to creep or intrude or climb into the fold. + +Since everybody knows already who Sir Arthur Wing Pinero is and what may be +expected of him, the only question for the critic, in considering a new +play from his practiced pen, is whether or not the author has succeeded in +advancing or maintaining the standard of his earlier and remembered +efforts. If, as in _The Wife Without a Smile_, he falls far below that +standard, the critic may condemn the play, and let the matter go at that. +Although the new piece may be discredited, the author's reputation will +suffer no abiding injury from the deep damnation of its taking off; for the +public will continue to remember the third act of _The Gay Lord Quex_, and +will remain assured that Sir Arthur Pinero is worth while. But when a play +by a new author comes up for consideration, the public needs to be told not +only whether the work itself has been well or badly done, but also whether +or not the unknown author seems to be inherently a person of importance, +from whom more worthy works may be expected in the future. The critic must +not only make clear the playwright's present actual accomplishment, but +must also estimate his promise. An author's first or second play is +important mainly--to use Whitman's phrase--as "an encloser of things to +be." The question is not so much what the author has already done as what +he is likely to do if he is given further hearings. It is in this sense +that the work of an unknown playwright requires and deserves more serious +consideration than the work of an acknowledged master. Accomplishment is +comparatively easy to appraise, but to appreciate promise requires +forward-looking and far-seeing eyes. + +In the real sense, it matters very little whether an author's early plays +succeed or fail. The one point that does matter is whether, in either case, +the merits and defects are of such a nature as to indicate that the man +behind the work is inherently a man worth while. In either failure or +success, the sole significant thing is the quality of the endeavor. A young +author may fail for the shallow reason that he is insincere; but he may +fail even more decisively for the sublime reason that as yet his reach +exceeds his grasp. He may succeed because through earnest effort he has +done almost well something eminently worth the doing; or he may succeed +merely because he has essayed an unimportant and an easy task. Often more +hope for an author's future may be founded upon an initial failure than +upon an initial success. It is better for a young man to fail in a large +and noble effort than to succeed in an effort insignificant and mean. For +in labor, as in life, Stevenson's maxim is very often pertinent:--to travel +hopefully is frequently a better thing than to arrive. + +And in estimating the work of new and unknown authors, it is not nearly so +important for the critic to consider their present technical accomplishment +as it is for him to consider the sincerity with which they have endeavored +to tell the truth about some important phase of human life. Dramatic +criticism of an academic cast is of little value either to those who write +plays or to those who see them. The man who buys his ticket to the theatre +knows little and cares less about the technique of play-making; and for the +dramatist himself there are no ten commandments. I have been gradually +growing to believe that there is only one commandment for the +dramatist,--that he shall tell the truth; and only one fault of which a +play is capable,--that, as a whole or in details, it tells a lie. A play is +irretrievably bad only when the average theatre-goer--a man, I mean, with +no special knowledge of dramatic art--viewing what is done upon the stage +and hearing what is said, revolts instinctively against it with a feeling +that I may best express in that famous sentence of Assessor Brack's, +"People don't do such things." A play that is truthful at all points will +never evoke this instinctive disapproval; a play that tells lies at certain +points will lose attention by jangling those who know. + +The test of truthfulness is the final test of excellence in drama. In +saying this, of course, I do not mean that the best plays are realistic in +method, naturalistic in setting, or close to actuality in subject-matter. +_The Tempest_ is just as true as _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, and _Peter +Pan_ is just as true as _Ghosts_. I mean merely that the people whom the +dramatist has conceived must act and speak at all points consistently with +the laws of their imagined existence, and that these laws must be in +harmony with the laws of actual life. Whenever people on the stage fail of +this consistency with law, a normal theatre-goer will feel instinctively, +"Oh, no, he did _not_ do that," or, "Those are _not_ the words she said." +It may safely be predicated that a play is really bad only when the +audience does not believe it; for a dramatist is not capable of a single +fault, either technical or otherwise, that may not be viewed as one phase +or another of untruthfulness. + + + + +XI + +THE EFFECT OF PLAYS UPON THE PUBLIC + + +In the course of his glorious _Song of the Open Road_, Walt Whitman said, +"I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes; we convince by +our presence"; and it has always seemed to me that this remark is +peculiarly applicable to dramatists and dramas. The primary purpose of a +play is to give a gathered multitude a larger sense of life by evoking its +emotions to a consciousness of terror and pity, laughter and love. Its +purpose is not primarily to rouse the intellect to thought or call the will +to action. In so far as the drama uplifts and edifies the audience, it does +so, not by precept or by syllogism, but by emotional suggestion. It teaches +not by what it says, but rather by what it deeply and mysteriously is. It +convinces not by its arguments, but by its presence. + +It follows that those who think about the drama in relation to society at +large, and consider as a matter of serious importance the effect of the +theatre on the ticket-buying public, should devote profound consideration +to that subtle quality of plays which I may call their _tone_. Since the +drama convinces less by its arguments than by its presence, less by its +intellectual substance than by its emotional suggestion, we have a right to +demand that it shall be not only moral but also sweet and healthful and +inspiriting. + +After witnessing the admirable performance of Mrs. Fiske and the members of +her skilfully selected company in Henrik Ibsen's dreary and depressing +_Rosmersholm_, I went home and sought solace from a reperusal of an old +play, by the buoyant and healthy Thomas Heywood, which is sweetly named +_The Fair Maid of the West_. _Rosmersholm_ is of all the social plays of +Ibsen the least interesting to witness on the stage, because the spectator +is left entirely in the dark concerning the character and the motives of +Rebecca West until her confession at the close of the third act, and can +therefore understand the play only on a second seeing. But except for this +important structural defect the drama is a masterpiece of art; and it is +surely unnecessary to dwell upon its many merits. On the other hand, _The +Fair Maid of the West_ is very far from being masterly in art. In structure +it is loose and careless; in characterisation it is inconsistent and +frequently untrue; in style it is uneven and without distinction. Ibsen, in +sheer mastery of dramaturgic means, stands fourth in rank among the world's +great dramatists. Heywood was merely an actor with a gift for telling +stories, who flung together upward of two hundred and twenty plays during +the course of his casual career. And yet _The Fair Maid of the West_ seemed +to me that evening, and seems to me evermore in retrospect, a nobler work +than _Rosmersholm_; for the Norwegian drama gives a doleful exhibition of +unnecessary misery, while the Elizabethan play is fresh and wholesome, and +fragrant with the breath of joy. + +Of two plays equally true in content and in treatment, equally accomplished +in structure, in characterisation, and in style, that one is finally the +better which evokes from the audience the healthiest and hopefullest +emotional response. This is the reason why _Oedipus King_ is a better play +than _Ghosts_. The two pieces are not dissimilar in subject and are +strikingly alike in art. Each is a terrible presentment of a revolting +theme; each, like an avalanche, crashes to foredoomed catastrophe. But the +Greek tragedy is nobler in tone, because it leaves us a lofty reverence for +the gods, whereas its modern counterpart disgusts us with the inexorable +laws of life,--which are only the old gods divested of imagined +personality. + +Slowly but surely we are growing very tired of dramatists who look upon +life with a wry face instead of with a brave and bracing countenance. In +due time, when (with the help of Mr. Barrie and other healthy-hearted +playmates) we have become again like little children, we shall realise that +plays like _As You Like It_ are better than all the _Magdas_ and the _Hedda +Gablers_ of the contemporary stage. We shall realise that the way to heal +old sores is to let them alone, rather than to rip them open, in the +interest (as we vainly fancy) of medical science. We shall remember that +the way to help the public is to set before it images of faith and hope and +love, rather than images of doubt, despair, and infidelity. + +The queer thing about the morbid-minded specialists in fabricated woe is +that they believe themselves to be telling the whole truth of human life +instead of telling only the worser half of it. They expunge from their +records of humanity the very emotions that make life worth the living, and +then announce momentously, "Behold reality at last; for this is Life." It +is as if, in the midnoon of a god-given day of golden spring, they should +hug a black umbrella down about their heads and cry aloud, "Behold, there +is no sun!" Shakespeare did that only once,--in _Measure for Measure_. In +the deepest of his tragedies, he voiced a grandeur even in obliquity, and +hymned the greatness and the glory of the life of man. + +Suppose that what looks white in a landscape painting be actually bluish +gray. Perhaps it would be best to tell us so; but failing that, it would +certainly be better to tell us that it is white than to tell us that it is +black. If our dramatists must idealise at all in representing life, let +them idealise upon the positive rather than upon the negative side. It is +nobler to tell us that life is better than it actually is than to tell us +that it is worse. It is nobler to remind us of the joy of living than to +remind us of the weariness. "For to miss the joy is to miss all," as +Stevenson remarked; and if the drama is to be of benefit to the public, it +should, by its very presence, convey conviction of the truth thus nobly +phrased by Matthew Arnold: + + Yet the will is free: + Strong is the Soul, and wise, and beautiful: + The seeds of godlike power are in us still: + Gods are we, Bards, Saints, Heroes, if we will.-- + Dumb judges, answer, truth or mockery? + + + + +XII + +PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT PLAYS + + +The clever title, _Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant_, which Mr. Bernard Shaw +selected for the earliest issue of his dramatic writings, suggests a theme +of criticism that Mr. Shaw, in his lengthy prefaces, might profitably have +considered if he had not preferred to devote his entire space to a +discussion of his own abilities. In explanation of his title, the author +stated only that he labeled his first three plays Unpleasant for the reason +that "their dramatic power is used to force the spectator to face +unpleasant facts." This sentence, of course, is not a definition, since it +merely repeats the word to be explained; and therefore, if we wish to find +out whether or not an unpleasant play is of any real service in the +theatre, we shall have to do some thinking of our own. + +It is an axiom that all things in the universe are interesting. The word +_interesting_ means _capable of awakening some activity of human mind_; and +there is no imaginable topic, whether pleasant or unpleasant, which is not, +in one way, or another, capable of this effect. But the activities of the +human mind are various, and there are therefore several different sorts of +interest. The activity of mind awakened by music over waters is very +different from that awakened by the binomial theorem. Some things interest +the intellect, others the emotions; and it is only things of prime +importance that interest them both in equal measure. Now if we compare the +interest of pleasant and unpleasant topics, we shall see at once that the +activity of mind awakened by the former is more complete than that awakened +by the latter. A pleasant topic not only interests the intellect but also +elicits a positive response from the emotions; but most unpleasant topics +are positively interesting to the intellect alone. In so far as the +emotions respond at all to an unpleasant topic, they respond usually with a +negative activity. Regarding a thing which is unpleasant, the healthy mind +will feel aversion--which is a negative emotion--or else will merely think +about it with no feeling whatsoever. But regarding a thing which is +pleasant, the mind may be stirred through the entire gamut of positive +emotions, rising ultimately to that supreme activity which is Love. This +is, of course, the philosophic reason why the thinkers of pleasant thoughts +and dreamers of beautiful dreams stand higher in history than those who +have thought unpleasantness and have imagined woe. + +Returning now to that clever title of Mr. Shaw's, we may define an +unpleasant play as one which interests the intellect without at the same +time awakening a positive response from the emotions; and we may define a +pleasant play as one which not only stimulates thought but also elicits +sympathy. To any one who has thoroughly considered the conditions governing +theatric art, it should be evident _a priori_ that pleasant plays are +better suited for service in the theatre than unpleasant plays. This truth +is clearly illustrated by the facts of Mr. Shaw's career. As a matter of +history, it will be remembered that his vogue in our theatres has been +confined almost entirely to his pleasant plays. All four of them have +enjoyed a profitable run; and it is to _Candida_, the best of his pleasant +plays, that, in America at least, he owes his fame. Of the three unpleasant +plays, _The Philanderer_ has never been produced at all; _Widower's Houses_ +has been given only in a series of special matinées; and _Mrs. Warren's +Profession_, though it was enormously advertised by the fatuous +interference of the police, failed to interest the public when ultimately +it was offered for a run. + +_Mrs. Warren's Profession_ is just as interesting to the thoughtful reader +as _Candida_. It is built with the same technical efficiency, and written +with the same agility and wit; it is just as sound and true, and therefore +just as moral; and as a criticism, not so much of life as of society, it is +indubitably more important. Why, then, is _Candida_ a better work? The +reason is that the unpleasant play is interesting merely to the intellect +and leaves the audience cold, whereas the pleasant play is interesting also +to the emotions and stirs the audience to sympathy. It is possible for the +public to feel sorry for Morell; it is even possible for them to feel sorry +for Marchbanks: but it is absolutely impossible for them to feel sorry for +Mrs. Warren. The multitude instinctively demands an opportunity to +sympathise with the characters presented in the theatre. Since the drama is +a democratic art, and the dramatist is not the monarch but the servant of +the public, the voice of the people should, in this matter of pleasant and +unpleasant plays, be considered the voice of the gods. This thesis seems to +me axiomatic and unsusceptible of argument. Yet since it is continually +denied by the professed "uplifters" of the stage, who persist in looking +down upon the public and decrying the wisdom of the many, it may be +necessary to explain the eternal principle upon which it is based. The +truth must be self-evident that theatre-goers are endowed with a certain +inalienable right--namely, the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of +happiness is the most important thing in the world; because it is nothing +less than an endeavor to understand and to appreciate the true, the +beautiful, and the good. Happiness comes of loving things which are +worthy; a man is happy in proportion to the number of things which he has +learned to love; and he, of all men, is most happy who loveth best all +things both great and small. For happiness is the feeling of harmony +between a man and his surroundings, the sense of being at home in the +universe and brotherly toward all worthy things that are. The pursuit of +happiness is simply a continual endeavor to discover new things that are +worthy, to the end that they may waken love within us and thereby lure us +loftier toward an ultimate absolute awareness of truth and beauty. It is in +this simple, sane pursuit that people go to the theatre. The important +thing about the public is that it has a large and longing heart. That heart +demands that sympathy be awakened in it, and will not be satisfied with +merely intellectual discussion of unsympathetic things. It is therefore the +duty, as well as the privilege, of the dramatist to set before the public +incidents which may awaken sympathy and characters which may be loved. He +is the most important artist in the theatre who gives the public most to +care about. This is the reason why Joseph Jefferson's _Rip Van Winkle_ must +be rated as the greatest creation of the American stage. The play was +shabby as a work of art, and there was nothing even in the character to +think about; but every performance of the part left thousands happier, +because their lives had been enriched with a new memory that made their +hearts grow warm with sympathy and large with love. + + + + +XIII + +THEMES IN THE THEATRE + + +As the final curtain falls upon the majority of the plays that somehow get +themselves presented in the theatres of New York, the critical observer +feels tempted to ask the playwright that simple question of young Peterkin +in Robert Southey's ballad, _After Blenheim_,--"Now tell us what 't was all +about"; and he suffers an uncomfortable feeling that the playwright will be +obliged to answer in the words of old Kaspar, "Why, that I cannot tell." +The critic has viewed a semblance of a dramatic struggle between puppets on +the stage; but what they fought each other for he cannot well make out. And +it is evident, in the majority of cases, that the playwright could not tell +him if he would, for the reason that the playwright does not know. Not even +the author can know what a play is all about when the play isn't about +anything. And this, it must be admitted, is precisely what is wrong with +the majority of the plays that are shown in our theatres, especially with +plays written by American authors. They are not about anything; or, to say +the matter more technically, they haven't any theme. + +By a theme is meant some eternal principle, or truth, of human life--such a +truth as might be stated by a man of philosophic mind in an abstract and +general proposition--which the dramatist contrives to convey to his +auditors concretely by embodying it in the particular details of his play. +These details must be so selected as to represent at every point some phase +of the central and informing truth, and no incidents or characters must be +shown which are not directly or indirectly representative of the one thing +which, in that particular piece, the author has to say. The great plays of +the world have all grown endogenously from a single, central idea; or, to +vary the figure, they have been spun like spider-webs, filament after +filament, out of a central living source. But most of our native +playwrights seem seldom to experience this necessary process of the +imagination which creates. Instead of working from the inside out, they +work from the outside in. They gather up a haphazard handful of theatric +situations and try to string them together into a story; they congregate an +ill-assorted company of characters and try to achieve a play by letting +them talk to each other. Many of our playwrights are endowed with a sense +of situation; several of them have a gift for characterisation, or at least +for caricature; and most of them can write easy and natural dialogue, +especially in slang. But very few of them start out with something to say, +as Mr. Moody started out in _The Great Divide_ and Mr. Thomas in _The +Witching Hour_. + +When a play is really about something, it is always possible for the critic +to state the theme of it in a single sentence. Thus, the theme of _The +Witching Hour_ is that every thought is in itself an act, and that +therefore thinking has the virtue, and to some extent the power, of action. +Every character in the piece was invented to embody some phase of this +central proposition, and every incident was devised to represent this +abstract truth concretely. Similarly, it would be easy to state in a single +sentence the theme of _Le Tartufe_, or of _Othello_, or of _Ghosts_. But +who, after seeing four out of five of the American plays that are produced +upon Broadway, could possibly tell in a single sentence what they were +about? What, for instance--to mention only plays which did not fail--was +_Via Wireless_ about, or _The Fighting Hope_, or even _The Man from Home_? +Each of these was in some ways an interesting entertainment; but each was +valueless as drama, because none of them conveyed to its auditors a theme +which they might remember and weave into the texture of their lives. + +For the only sort of play that permits itself to be remembered is a play +that presents a distinct theme to the mind of the observer. It is ten years +since I have seen _Le Tartufe_ and six years since last I read it; and yet, +since the theme is unforgetable, I could at any moment easily reconstruct +the piece by retrospective imagination and summarise the action clearly in +a paragraph. But on the other hand, I should at any time find it impossible +to recall with sufficient clearness to summarise them, any of a dozen +American plays of the usual type which I had seen within the preceding six +months. Details of incident or of character or of dialogue slip the mind +and melt away like smoke into the air. To have seen a play without a theme +is the same, a month or two later, as not to have seen a play at all. But a +piece like _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, once seen, can never be forgotten; +because the mind clings to the central proposition which the play was built +in order to reveal, and from this ineradicable recollection may at any +moment proceed by psychologic association to recall the salient concrete +features of the action. To develop a play from a central theme is therefore +the sole means by which a dramatist may insure his work against the +iniquity of oblivion. In order that people may afterward remember what he +has said, it is necessary for him to show them clearly and emphatically at +the outset why he has undertaken to talk and precisely what he means to +talk about. + +Most of our American playwrights, like Juliet in the balcony scene, speak, +yet they say nothing. They represent facts, but fail to reveal truths. What +they lack is purpose. They collect, instead of meditating; they invent, +instead of wondering; they are clever, instead of being real. They are avid +of details: they regard the part as greater than the whole. They deal with +outsides and surfaces, not with centralities and profundities. They value +acts more than they value the meanings of acts; they forget that it is in +the motive rather than in the deed that Life is to be looked for. For Life +is a matter of thinking and of feeling; all act is merely Living, and is +significant only in so far as it reveals the Life that prompted it. Give us +less of Living, more of Life, must ever be the cry of earnest criticism. +Enough of these mutitudinous, multifarious facts: tell us single, simple +truths. Give us more themes, and fewer fabrics of shreds and patches. + + + + +XIV + +THE FUNCTION OF IMAGINATION + + +Whenever the spring comes round and everything beneath the sun looks +wonderful and new, the habitual theatre-goer, who has attended every +legitimate performance throughout the winter season in New York, is moved +to lament that there is nothing new behind the footlights. Week after week +he has seen the same old puppets pulled mechanically through the same old +situations, doing conventional deeds and repeating conventional lines, +until at last, as he watches the performance of yet another play, he feels +like saying to the author, "But, my dear sir, I have seen and heard all +this so many, many times already!" For this spring-weariness of the +frequenter of the theatre, the common run of our contemporary playwrights +must be held responsible. The main trouble seems to be that, instead of +telling us what they think life is like, they tell us what they think a +play is like. Their fault is not--to use Hamlet's phrase--that they +"imitate humanity so abominably": it is, rather, that they do not imitate +humanity at all. Most of our playwrights, especially the newcomers to the +craft, imitate each other. They make plays for the sake of making plays, +instead of for the sake of representing life. They draw their inspiration +from the little mimic world behind the footlights, rather than from the +roaring and tremendous world which takes no thought of the theatre. Their +art fails to interpret life, because they care less about life than they +care about their art. They are interested in what they are doing, instead +of being interested in why they are doing it. "Go to!", they say to +themselves, "I will write a play"; and the weary auditor is tempted to +murmur the sentence of the cynic Frenchman, "_Je n'en vois pas la +nécessité_." + +But now, lest we be led into misapprehension, let us understand clearly +that what we desire in the theatre is not new material, but rather a fresh +and vital treatment of such material as the playwright finds made to his +hand. After a certain philosophic critic had announced the startling thesis +that only some thirty odd distinct dramatic situations were conceivable, +Goethe and Schiller set themselves the task of tabulation, and ended by +deciding that the largest conceivable number was less than twenty. It is a +curious paradox of criticism that for new plays old material is best. This +statement is supported historically by the fact that all the great Greek +dramatists, nearly all of the Elizabethans, Corneille, Racine, Molière, +and, to a great extent, the leaders of the drama in the nineteenth century, +made their plays deliberately out of narrative materials already familiar +to the theatre-going public of their times. The drama, by its very nature, +is an art traditional in form and resumptive in its subject-matter. It +would be futile, therefore, for us to ask contemporary playwrights to +invent new narrative materials. Their fault is not that they deal with what +is old, but that they fail to make out of it anything which is new. If, in +the long run, they weary us, the reason is not that they are lacking in +invention, but that they are lacking in imagination. + +That invention and imagination are two very different faculties, that the +second is much higher than the first, that invention has seldom been +displayed by the very greatest authors, whereas imagination has always been +an indispensable characteristic of their work,--these points have all been +made clear in a very suggestive essay by Professor Brander Matthews, which +is included in his volume entitled _Inquiries and Opinions_. It remains for +us to consider somewhat closely what the nature of imagination is. +Imagination is nothing more or less than the faculty for +_realisation_,--the faculty by which the mind makes real unto itself such +materials as are presented to it. The full significance of this definition +may be made clear by a simple illustration. + +Suppose that some morning at breakfast you pick up a newspaper and read +that a great earthquake has overwhelmed Messina, killing countless +thousands and rendering an entire province desolate. You say, "How very +terrible!"--after which you go blithely about your business, untroubled, +undisturbed. But suppose that your little girl's pet pussy-cat happens to +fall out of the fourth-story window. If you chance to be an author and have +an article to write that morning, you will find the task of composition +heavy. Now, the reason why the death of a single pussy-cat affects you more +than the death of a hundred thousand human beings is merely that you +realise the one and do not realise the other. You do not, by the action of +imagination, make real unto yourself the disaster at Messina; but when you +see your little daughter's face, you at once and easily imagine woe. +Similarly, on the largest scale, we go through life realising only a very +little part of all that is presented to our minds. Yet, finally, we know of +life only so much as we have realised. To use the other word for the same +idea,--we know of life only so much as we have imagined. Now, whatever of +life we make real unto ourselves by the action of imagination is for us +fresh and instant and, in a deep sense, new,--even though the same +materials have been realised by millions of human beings before us. It is +new because we have made it, and we are different from all our +predecessors. Landor imagined Italy, realised it, made it instant and +afresh. In the subjective sense, he created Italy, an Italy that had never +existed before,--Landor's Italy. Later Browning came, with a new +imagination, a new realisation, a new creation,--Browning's Italy. The +materials had existed through immemorable centuries; Landor, by +imagination, made of them something real; Browning imagined them again and +made of them something new. But a Cook's tourist hurrying through Italy is +likely, through deficiency of imagination, not to realise an Italy at all. +He reviews the same materials that were presented to Landor and to +Browning, but he makes nothing out of them. Italy for him is tedious, like +a twice-told tale. The trouble is not that the materials are old, but that +he lacks the faculty for realising them and thereby making of them +something new. + +A great many of our contemporary playwrights travel like Cook's tourists +through the traditional subject-matter of the theatre. They stop off here +and there, at this or that eternal situation; but they do not, by +imagination, make it real. Thereby they miss the proper function of the +dramatist, which is to imagine some aspect of the perennial struggle +between human wills so forcibly as to make us realise it, in the full sense +of the word,--realise it as we daily fail to realise the countless +struggles we ourselves engage in. The theatre, rightly considered, is not a +place in which to escape from the realities of life, but a place in which +to seek refuge from the unrealities of actual living in the contemplation +of life realised,--life made real by imagination. + +The trouble with most ineffective plays is that the fabricated life they +set before us is less real than such similar phases of actual life as we +have previously realised for ourselves. We are wearied because we have +already unconsciously imagined more than the playwright professionally +imagines for us. With a great play our experience is the reverse of this. +Incidents, characters, motives which we ourselves have never made +completely real by imagination are realised for us by the dramatist. +Intimations of humanity which in our own minds have lain jumbled +fragmentary, like the multitudinous pieces of a shuffled picture-puzzle, +are there set orderly before us, so that we see at last the perfect +picture. We escape out of chaos into life. + +This is the secret of originality: this it is that we desire in the +theatre:--not new material, for the old is still the best; but familiar +material rendered new by an imagination that informs it with significance +and makes it real. + + + + + +INDEX + + +Adams, Maude, 60. + +Addison, Joseph, 79; + _Cato_, 79. + +Ade, George, 56; + _Fables in Slang_, 56; + _The College Widow_, 41. + +_Admirable Crichton, The_, 113. + +Aeschylus, 5, 6, 135. + +_After Blenheim_, 228. + +_Aiglon, L'_, 67, 68. + +_Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire_, 157. + +Allen, Viola, 109. + +Alleyn, Edward, 163. + +_All for Love_, 17. + +Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence, 92. + +_Antony_, 140, 142. + +_Antony and Cleopatra_, 16. + +Aristophanes, 202. + +Aristotle, 18. + +Arnold, Matthew, 8, 19, 205, 221. + +_As You Like It_, 38, 48, 51, 61, 62, 77, 78, 92, 100, 172, 186, 220. + +_Atalanta in Calydon_, 20. + +Augier, Emile, 9, 141. + +_Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson_, 103. + +_Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The_, 178. + + +Bannister, John, 86. + +Banville, Théodore de, 66. + +Barrie, James Matthew, 204, 205, 206, 219; + _Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire_, 157; + _Peter Pan_, 215; + _The Admirable Crichton_, 113; + _The Professor's Love Story_, 157. + +Barry, Elizabeth, 70, 80. + +Barrymore, Ethel, 157. + +_Bartholomew Fair_, 202. + +_Beau Brummel_, 70, 114, 210. + +Beaumont, Francis, 28; + _The Maid's Tragedy_, 28. + +_Becket_, 19, 72. + +Béjart, Armande, 62, 63, 71. + +Béjart, Magdeleine, 62, 71. + +Belasco, David, 155; + _The Darling of the Gods_, 42; + _The Girl of the Golden West_, 90. + +_Bells, The_, 125. + +Bensley, Robert, 86. + +Bernhardt, Sarah, 40, 64, 65, 66, 68, 105, 107. + +Betterton, Thomas, 70. + +_Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A_, 31, 56. + +Boucicault, Dion, 70, 83; + _London Assurance_, 83; + _Rip Van Winkle_, 70. + +_Brown of Harvard_, 155. + +Browne, Sir Thomas, 177; + _Religio Medici_, 31. + +Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 19, 205. + +Browning, Robert, 10, 19, 31, 32, 237; + _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, 31, 56; + _A Woman's Last Word_, 32; + _In a Balcony_, 10; + _Pippa Passes_, 31, 194. + +Brunetière, Ferdinand, 35. + +Bulwer-Lytton, Sir Edward, 79; + _Richelieu_, 79. + +Burbage, James, 77. + +Burbage, Richard, 60, 61, 79, 93. + +Burke, Charles, 103. + +Burton, William E., 103. + +Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 19. + + +Calderon, Don Pedro C. de la Barca, 26, 50. + +Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, 66, 69. + +_Candida_, 224, 225. + +_Cato_, 79. + +_Cenci, The_, 144. + +_Charles I_, 72. + +Chinese theatre, 78. + +_Chorus Lady, The_, 22. + +_Christ in Hades_, 197. + +Cibber, Colley, 63, 85, 164. + +_Città Morta, La_, 72. + +Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 19. + +_College Widow, The_, 41. + +Collins, Wilkie, 121. + +Colvin, Sidney, 170. + +_Comedy of Errors, The_, 38. + +_Commedia dell'arte_, 10, 11. + +Congreve, William, 9, 164. + +_Conquest of Granada, The_, 74. + +Coquelin, Constant, 60, 66, 67, 68, 71, 105. + +Corneille, Pierre, 50, 235. + +_Cromwell_, 64. + +_Crossing Brooklyn Ferry_, 182. + +_Cymbeline_, 17, 62. + +_Cyrano de Bergerac_, 31, 56, 60, 67, 71, 98, 100, 105, 121, 195. + + +_Dame aux Camélias, La_, 14, 37, 53, 105, 141, 146. + +Dante Alighieri, 162, 188; + _Inferno_, 188. + +_Darling of the Gods, The_, 42. + +Darwin, Charles, 21. + +Davenant, Sir William, 80. + +Dekker, Thomas, 202. + +_Demi-Monde, Le_, 141. + +Dennery, Adolphe, 6, 175; + _The Two Orphans_, 6, 31, 32, 37, 175. + +_Diplomacy_, 101. + +_Doll's House, A_, 47, 53, 146, 158. + +_Don Quixote_, 59. + +Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 22; + _Sherlock Holmes_, 22, 157; + _The Story of Waterloo_, 157. + +_Dr. Faustus_, 136, 137. + +Dryden, John, 16, 17, 73; + _All for Love_, 17; + _The Conquest of Granada_, 74. + +_Duchess of Malfi, The_, 130. + +Du Croisy, 62, 63. + +Dumas, Alexandre, _fils_, 14; + _La Dame aux Camélias_, 14, 37, 53, 105, 141, 146; + _Le Demi-Monde_, 141; + _Le Fils Naturel_, 142. + +Dumas, Alexandre, _père_, 140; + _Antony_, 140, 142. + +Duse, Eleanora, 65, 71. + + +Echegaray, Don José, 187, 188, 189; + _El Gran Galeoto_, 187-192. + +_Egoist, The_, 31. + +Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 202. + +_Enemy of the People, An_, 137, 201. + +Etherege, Sir George, 82. + +Euripides, 131. + +_Every Man in His Humour_, 100. + + +_Fables in Slang_, 56. + +_Fair Maid of the West_, 218, 219. + +_Faust_, 31. + +_Fédora_, 65. + +_Fighting Hope, The_, 230. + +_Fils Naturel, Le_, 142. + +Fiske, John, 143. + +Fiske, Mrs. Minnie Maddern, 7, 87, 102, 115, 218. + +Fitch, Clyde, 13, 70, 89, 90, 159; + _Beau Brummel_, 70, 114, 210; + _The Girl with the Green Eyes_, 159. + +Fletcher, John, 28, 48, 61; + _The Maid's Tragedy_, 28. + +Forbes, James, 22; + _The Chorus Lady_, 22. + +Forbes-Robertson, Johnstone, 7, 92, 125. + +_Fourberies de Scapin, Les_, 51. + +_Frou-Frou_, 43, 141. + + +_Gay Lord Quex, The_, 120, 134, 213. + +_Ghosts_, 53, 142, 144, 145, 215, 219, 230. + +Gillette, William, 22, 121; + _Sherlock Holmes_, 22, 121. + +_Girl of the Golden West, The_, 90. + +_Girl with the Green Eyes, The_, 159. + +_Gismonda_, 65. + +Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 234; + _Faust_, 31. + +_Gorboduc_, 73. + +_Gossip on Romance, A_, 128. + +_Gran Galeoto, El_, 187-192. + +_Great Divide, The_, 230. + +Greene, Robert, 48, 61. + +Greet, Ben, 75, 109, 110. + + +_Hamlet_, 8, 12, 38, 39, 48, 51, 55, 60, 61, 67, 68, 71, 79, 89, 92, 100, + 101, 105, 106, 107, 115, 118, 121, 122, 130, 136, 175, 177, 181, 184, + 185, 187, 194, 203, 233. + +Haworth, Joseph, 104. + +_Hedda Gabler_, 37, 53, 87, 102, 115, 117, 120, 145, 158, 181, 215, 220. + +_Henry V_, 41, 77. + +Henslowe, Philip, 164. + +_Hernani_, 14, 140. + +Herne, James A., 87; + _Shore Acres_, 87, 193. + +_Hero and Leander_, 171. + +Heyse, Paul, 7, 116; + _Mary of Magdala_, 7, 116. + +Heywood, Thomas, 38, 39, 202, 218, 219; + _A Woman Killed with Kindness_, 38; + _The Fair Maid of the West_, 218, 219. + +"Hope, Laurence," 206. + +_Hour Glass, The_, 56. + +Howard, Bronson, 108, 157; + _Shenandoah_, 101, 108, 157. + +Howells, William Dean, 153. + +Hugo, Victor, 14, 15, 52, 64, 116, 118, 135, 140; + _Cromwell_, 64; + _Hernani_, 14, 140; + _Marion Delorme_, 14, 116; + _Ruy Blas_, 52. + + +Ibsen, Henrik, 18, 25, 47, 88, 102, 117, 120, 123, 131, 133, 135, 137, 141, + 145, 147, 148, 158, 218; + _A Doll's House_, 47, 53, 146, 158; + _An Enemy of the People_, 137, 201; + _Ghosts_, 53, 142, 144, 145, 215, 219, 230; + _Hedda Gabler_, 37, 53, 87, 102, 115, 117, 120, 145, 158, 181, 215, 220; + _John Gabriel Borkman_, 123, 142; + _Lady Inger of Ostråt_, 19; + _Peer Gynt_, 31; + _Rosmersholm_, 117, 218, 219; + _The Master Builder_, 56, 158; + _The Wild Duck_, 147. + +_Idylls of the King_, 195. + +_In a Balcony_, 10. + +_Inferno_, 188. + +_Inquiries and Opinions_, 108, 235. + +_Iris_, 53. + +Irving, Sir Henry, 19, 71, 72, 105, 106, 124, 157. + +Irving, Washington, 70; + _Rip Van Winkle_, 70. + + +James, Henry, 32. + +_Jeanne d'Arc_, 193, 194, 196, 197. + +Jefferson, Joseph, 70, 103, 210, 226; + _Autobiography_, 103; + _Rip Van Winkle_, 70, 210, 226. + +Jerome, Jerome K., 125; + _The Passing of the Third Floor Back_, 125. + +_Jew of Malta, The_, 136. + +_John Gabriel Borkman_, 123, 142. + +Jones, Henry Arthur, 69, 120, 123; + _Mrs. Dane's Defense_, 120; + _Whitewashing Julia_, 123. + +Jonson, Ben, 74, 100, 117, 202, 203; + _Bartholomew Fair_, 202; + _Every Man in His Humour_, 100. + +_Julius Caesar_, 104, 125. + + +Keats, John, 19; + _Ode to a Nightingale_, 31. + +Kennedy, Charles Rann, 23, 45, 46, 47; + _The Servant in the House_, 23, 45, 46. + +Killigrew, Thomas, 79. + +_King John_, 119. + +_King Lear_, 17, 36, 43, 136, 174, 197. + +Kipling, Rudyard, 52; + _They_, 52. + +Klein, Charles, 155; + _The Lion and the Mouse_, 203; + _The Music Master_, 23, 154. + +Knowles, Sheridan, 79; + _Virginius_, 79. + +Kyd, Thomas, 48, 131; + _The Spanish Tragedy_, 76. + + +_Lady Inger of Ostråt_, 19. + +_Lady Windermere's Fan_, 89. + +La Grange, 62, 63, 71. + +Lamb, Charles, 85, 200. + +Landor, Walter Savage, 237. + +_Launcelot of the Lake_, 188. + +_Lear_, see _King Lear_. + +_Leatherstocking Tales_, 59. + +Le Bon, Gustave, 34, 49; + _Psychologie des Foules_, 34. + +Lee, Nathaniel, 70. + +_Letty_, 37, 53. + +_Lincoln_, 74. + +_Lion and the Mouse, The_, 203. + +_London Assurance_, 83. + +Lope de Vega, 51. + +Lord Chamberlain's Men, 60. + +_Love's Labour's Lost_, 48. + +Lyly, John, 48, 61. + +_Lyons Mail, The_, 38. + + +_Macbeth_, 17, 36, 43, 76, 77, 98, 118, 136, 144, 195. + +Mackaye, Percy, 193, 196, 197; + _Jeanne d'Arc_, 193, 194, 196, 197. + +Macready, William Charles, 32. + +Maeterlinck, Maurice, 31; + _Pélléas and Mélisande_, 56. + +_Magda_, 53, 220. + +_Maid's Tragedy, The_, 28. + +_Main, La_, 10. + +_Man and Superman_, 47, 74. + +_Man from Home, The_, 230. + +_Man of the Hour, The_, 203. + +Mansfield, Richard, 41, 70, 104, 106, 125. + +_Marion Delorme_, 14, 116. + +Marlowe, Christopher, 48, 73, 135, 137, 163, 171; + _Dr. Faustus_, 136, 137; + _Hero and Leander_, 171; + _The Jew of Malta_, 136; + _Tamburlaine the Great_, 73, 136. + +Marlowe, Julia, 61. + +_Marpessa_, 195. + +_Mary of Magdala_, 7, 116. + +Mason, John, 63. + +Massinger, Philip, 7. + +_Master Builder, The_, 56, 158. + +Mathews, Charles James, 82. + +Matthews, Brander, 67, 108, 235; + _Inquiries and Opinions_, 108, 235. + +_Measure for Measure_, 220. + +_Medecin Malgré Lui, Le_, 132. + +_Merchant of Venice, The_, 61, 62, 77, 78, 109, 110. + +Meredith, George, 52; + _The Egoist_, 31. + +_Merry Wives of Windsor, The_, 215. + +Middleton, Thomas, 202. + +Miller, Henry, 16, 155. + +Milton, John, 52; + _Samson Agonistes_, 31. + +_Misanthrope, Le_, 63, 132, 175. + +Modjeska, Helena, 65, 91. + +Molière, J.-B. Poquelin de, 9, 17, 18, 25, 26, 32, 43, 48, 50, 55, 60, 62, + 63, 71, 132,163, 171, 172, 175, 235; + _Les Fourberies de Scapin_, 51; + _Le Medecin Malgré Lui_, 132; + _Le Misanthrope_, 63, 132, 175; + _Les Précieuses Ridicules_, 60, 63; + _Le Tartufe_, 100, 116, 230, 231. + +Molière, Mlle., see Armande Béjart. + +Moody, William Vaughn, 230; + _The Great Divide_, 230. + +Mounet-Sully, 181. + +_Mrs. Dane's Defense_, 120. + +_Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots_, 16. + +_Mrs. Warren's Profession_, 224, 225. + +_Much Ado About Nothing_, 36, 99. + +_Music Master, The_, 23, 154. + +_Musketeers, The_, 121. + + +Nazimova, Alla, 158, 195, 196, 197. + +_Nicholas Nickleby_, 90. + +Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 47. + +_Nos Intimes_, 64. + +_Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, The_, 53, 120, 142. + +Novelli, Ermete, 154. + + +_Ode to a Nightingale_, 31. + +_Oedipus King_, 25, 38, 60, 100, 144, 181, 219. + +_Orphan, The_, 70. + +_Othello_, 17, 21, 37, 43, 51, 56, 58, 99, 136, 144, 154, 194, 230. + +Otway, Thomas, 70; + _The Orphan_, 70; + _Venice Preserved_, 70. + + +Paestum, Temple at, 208. + +_Paolo and Francesca_, 194. + +_Passing of the Third Floor Back, The_, 125. + +_Patrie_, 64, 66. + +_Pattes de Mouche, Les_, 64. + +_Peer Gynt_, 31. + +_Pélléas and Mélisande_, 56. + +_Peter Pan_, 215. + +_Philanderer, The_, 224. + +Phillips, Stephen, 19, 193, 194, 195, 197; + _Christ in Hades_, 197; + _Marpessa_, 195; + _Paolo and Francesca_, 194. + +_Philosophy of Style_, 95. + +Pinero, Sir Arthur Wing, 19, 25, 69, 88, 93, 120, 158, 212, 213; + _Iris_, 53; + _Letty_, 37, 53; + _The Gay Lord Quex_, 120, 134, 213; + _The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith_, 53, 120, 142; + _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, 53, 56, 69, 120, 141, 193, 231; + _The Wife Without a Smile_, 213; + _Trelawny of the Wells_, 87. + +_Pippa Passes_, 31, 194. + +Plautus, 35, 50. + +_Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant_, 222. + +Plutarch, 17. + +Praxiteles, 207, 211. + +_Précieuses Ridicules, Les_, 60, 63. + +_Professor's Love Story, The_, 157. + +_Psychologie des Foules_, 34. + + +_Quintessence of Ibsenism, The_, 143. + + +Racine, Jean, 50, 235. + +_Raffles_, 37. + +Raphael, 162; + _Sistine Madonna_, 30. + +Regnard, J.-F., 9. + +Rehan, Ada, 61. + +_Religio Medici_, 31. + +_Richard III_, 48. + +_Richelieu_, 79. + +_Rip Van Winkle_, 70, 210, 226. + +_Rivals, The_, 132, 160. + +_Romanesques, Les_, 66. + +_Romeo and Juliet_, 61, 76, 174, 232. + +_Romola_, 59. + +_Rose of the Rancho, The_, 42, 155. + +_Rosmersholm_, 117, 218, 219. + +Rossetti, Christina Georgina, 206. + +Rostand, Edmond, 9, 66, 67, 68, 71; + _Cyrano de Bergerac_, 31, 56, 60, 67, 71, 98, 100, 105, 121, 195; + _L'Aiglon_, 67, 68; + _Les Romanesques_, 66. + +_Round Up, The_, 41. + +_Ruy Blas_, 52. + + +Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, 153. + +_Samson Agonistes_, 31. + +Sappho, 205. + +Sarcey, Francisque, 122. + +Sardou, Victorien, 12, 18, 19, 64, 65, 66; + _Diplomacy_, 101; + _Fédora_, 65; + _Gismonda_, 65; + _Nos Intimes_, 64; + _Patrie_, 64, 66; + _La Sorcière_, 65, 66; + _La Tosca_, 40, 65, 105; + _Les Pattes de Mouche_, 64. + +Sargent, John Singer, 153. + +Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich, 234. + +_School for Scandal, The_, 40, 55, 64, 86, 101, 105, 123, 132. + +Schopenhauer, Arthur, 47. + +Scott, Sir Walter, 19. + +_Scrap of Paper, The_, 64. + +Scribe, Eugène, 19, 53, 64, 98. + +_Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The_, 53, 56, 69, 120, 141, 193, 231. + +_Servant in the House, The_, 23, 45, 46, 47. + +Shakespeare, William, 7, 16, 17, 18, 25, 26, 32, 36, 43, 44, 47, 48, 51, + 55, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 71, 75, 93, 109, 113, 115, 118, 119, 120, 122, + 130, 132, 135, 136, 154, 157, 158, 163, 172, 197, 202, 220; + _Antony and Cleopatra_, 16; + _As You Like It_, 38, 48, 51, 61, 62, 77, 78, 92, 100, 172, 186, 220; + _Cymbeline_, 17, 62; + _Hamlet_, 8, 12, 38, 39, 48, 51, 55, 60, 61, 67, 68, 71, 79, 89, 92, 100, + 101, 105, 106, 107, 115, 118, 121, 122, 130, 136, 175, 177, 181, 184, + 185, 187, 194, 203, 233; + _Henry V_, 41, 77; + _Julius Caesar_, 104, 125; + _King John_, 119; + _King Lear_, 17, 36, 43, 136, 174, 197; + _Love's Labour's Lost_, 48; + _Macbeth_, 17, 36, 43, 76, 77, 98, 118, 136, 144, 195; + _Measure for Measure_, 220; + _Much Ado About Nothing_, 36, 99; + _Othello_, 17, 21, 37, 43, 51, 56, 58, 99, 136, 144, 154, 194, 230; + _Richard III_, 48; + _Romeo and Juliet_, 61, 76, 174, 232; + _The Comedy of Errors_, 38; + _The Merchant of Venice_, 61, 62, 77, 78, 109, 110; + _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, 215; + _The Tempest_, 48, 215; + _Twelfth Night_, 36, 62, 78, 92, 109, 110, 197, 198; + _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, 61. + +Shaw, George Bernard, 43, 47, 143, 147, 222, 223, 224; + _Candida_, 224, 225; + _Man and Superman_, 47, 74; + _Mrs. Warren's Profession_, 224, 225; + _Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant_, 222; + _The Philanderer_, 224; + _The Quintessence of Ibsenism_, 143; + _Widower's Houses_, 224. + +Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 19, 144; + _The Cenci_, 144. + +_Shenandoah_, 101, 108, 157. + +Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 9, 64, 82, 123, 160; + _The Rivals_, 132, 160; + _The School for Scandal_, 40, 55, 64, 86, 101, 105, 123, 132. + +_Sherlock Holmes_, 22, 121, 157. + +_She Stoops to Conquer_, 38. + +_Shore Acres_, 87, 193. + +Sidney, Sir Philip, 73. + +_Sistine Madonna_, 30. + +Skinner, Otis, 91. + +Socrates, 201. + +_Song of Myself_, 182. + +_Song of the Open Road_, 217. + +Sonnenthal, Adolf von, 106. + +Sophocles, 32, 60, 131, 135; + _Oedipus King_, 25, 38, 60, 100, 144, 181, 219. + +_Sorcière, La_, 65, 66. + +Sothern, Edward H., 106, 107. + +Southey, Robert, 19, 228; + _After Blenheim_, 228. + +_Spanish Tragedy, The_, 76. + +Spencer, Herbert, 95; + _Philosophy of Style_, 95. + +Stevenson, Robert Louis, 31, 128, 170, 214, 221; + _A Gossip on Romance_, 128; + _Treasure Island_, 33. + +_Story of Waterloo, The_, 157. + +_Strongheart_, 41. + +_Sunken Bell, The_, 194. + +_Sweet Kitty Bellairs_, 86. + +Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 19; + _Atalanta in Calydon_, 20. + + +Talma, 64, 71. + +_Tamburlaine the Great_, 73, 136. + +_Tartufe, Le_, 100, 116, 230, 231. + +_Tears, Idle Tears_, 195. + +_Tempest, The_, 48, 215. + +Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 19, 31, 72, 193, 195, 196; + _Becket_, 19, 72; + _Idylls of the King_, 195; + _Tears, Idle Tears_, 195. + +Terence, 26, 35, 50. + +Thackeray, William Makepeace, 35. + +_They_, 52. + +Thomas, Augustus, 16, 45, 46, 63, 203, 230; + _Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots_, 16; + _The Witching Hour_, 16, 45, 46, 63, 203, 230. + +_Tosca, La_, 40, 65, 105. + +_Treasure Island_, 33. + +Tree, Sir Herbert Beerbohm, 119, 121. + +_Trelawny of the Wells_, 87. + +_Troupe de Monsieur_, 62. + +Tully, Richard Walton, 155; + _The Rose of the Rancho_, 42, 155. + +_Twelfth Night_, 36, 62, 78, 92, 109, 110, 197, 198. + +_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, 61. + +_Two Orphans, The_, 6, 31, 32, 37, 175. + + +_Venice Preserved_, 70. + +_Venus of Melos_, 30. + +Vestris, Madame, 82. + +_Via Wireless_, 230. + +_Virginius_, 79. + +Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de, 14; + _Zaïre_, 14. + + +Wagner, Richard, 117. + +Warfield, David, 154, 155. + +Webb, Captain, 128. + +Webster, John, 130; + _The Duchess of Malfi_, 130. + +_Whitewashing Julia_, 123. + +Whitman, Walt, 180, 182, 213, 217; + _Crossing Brooklyn Ferry_, 182; + _Song of Myself_, 182; + _Song of the Open Road_, 217. + +_Widower's Houses_, 224. + +Wiehe, Charlotte, 10. + +_Wife Without a Smile, The_, 213. + +_Wild Duck, The_, 147. + +Wilde, Oscar, 9; + _Lady Windermere's Fan_, 89. + +Willard, Edward S., 157. + +Wills, William Gorman, 72. + +Winter, William, 8. + +_Witching Hour, The_, 16, 45, 46, 63, 203, 230. + +_Woman Killed with Kindness, A_, 38. + +_Woman's Last Word, A_, 32. + +_Woman's Way, A_, 74. + +Wordsworth, William, 19. + +Wyndham, Sir Charles, 62, 69. + + +Yiddish drama, 11. + +Young, Mrs. Rida Johnson, 155; + _Brown of Harvard_, 155. + + +_Zaïre_, 14. + +Zangwill, Israel, 41. + + + + + +BEULAH MARIE DIX'S + +ALLISON'S LAD AND OTHER MARTIAL INTERLUDES + + +By the co-author of the play, "The Road to Yesterday," and author of the +novels, "The Making of Christopher Ferringham," "Blount of Breckenlow," +etc. 12mo. $1.35 net; by mail, $1.45. + +_Allison's Lad_, _The Hundredth Trick_, _The Weakest Link_, _The Snare and +the Fowler_, _The Captain of the Gate_, _The Dark of the Dawn._ + +These one-act plays, despite their impressiveness, are perfectly +practicable for performance by clever amateurs; at the same time they make +decidedly interesting reading. + +Six stirring war episodes. Five of them occur at night, and most of them in +the dread pause before some mighty conflict. Three are placed in +Cromwellian days (two in Ireland and one in England), one is at the close +of the French Revolution, another at the time of the Hundred Years' War, +and the last during the Thirty Years' War. The author has most ingeniously +managed to give the feeling of big events, though employing but few +players. The emotional grip is strong, even tragic. + +Courage, vengeance, devotion, and tenderness to the weak, are among the +emotions effectively displayed. + + "The technical mastery of Miss Dix is great, but her spiritual + mastery is greater. For this book lives in memory, and the + spirit of its teachings is, in a most intimate sense, the spirit + of its teacher.... Noble passion holding the balance between + life and death is the motif sharply outlined and vigorously + portrayed. In each interlude the author has seized upon a vital + situation and has massed all her forces so as to enhance its + significance."--_Boston Transcript._ (Entire notice on + application to the publishers.) + + "Highly dramatic episodes, treated with skill and art ... a high + pitch of emotion."--_New York Sun._ + + "Complete and intense tragedies well plotted and well sustained, + in dignified dialogue of persons of the drama distinctly + differentiated."--_Hartford Courant._ + + "It is a pleasure to say, without reservation, that the half + dozen plays before us are finely true, strong, telling examples + of dramatic art.... Sure to find their way speedily to the stage, + justifying themselves there, even as they justify themselves at a + reading as pieces of literature."--_The Bellman._ + + * * * * * + +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + + + +BY BARRETT H. CLARK + +THE CONTINENTAL DRAMA OF TO-DAY + +_Outlines for Its Study_ + +Suggestions, questions, biographies, and bibliographies with outlines, of +half a dozen pages or less each, of the more important plays of twenty-four +Continental dramatists. While intended to be used in connection with a +reading of the plays themselves, the book has an independent interest, +_12mo. $1.50 net_. + + _Prof. William Lyon Phelps, of Yale_: "... One of the most + useful works on the contemporary drama.... Extremely practical, + full of valuable hints and suggestions...." + + +BRITISH & AMERICAN DRAMA OF TO-DAY + +_Outlines for Its Study_ + +Suggestions, biographies and bibliographies, together with historical +sketches, for use in connection with the important plays of Pinero, Jones, +Wilde, Shaw, Barker, Hankin, Chambers, Davies, Galsworthy, Masefield, +Houghton, Bennett, Phillips, Barrie, Yeats, Boyle, Baker, Sowerby, Francis, +Lady Gregory, Synge, Murray, Ervine, Howard, Herne, Thomas, Gillette, +Fitch, Moody, Mackaye, Sheldon, Kenyon, Walters, Cohan, etc. _12mo. $1.60 +net_. + + +THREE MODERN PLAYS FROM THE FRENCH + +Lemaître's _The Pardon_ and Lavedan's _Prince D'Aurec_, translated by +Barrett H. Clark, with Donnay's _The Other Danger_, translated by Charlotte +Tenney David, with an Introduction to each author by Barrett H. Clark and a +Preface by Clayton Hamilton. One volume. _12mo. $1.50 net_. + + _Springfield Republican_: "'The Prince d'Aurec' is one of his + best and most representative plays. It is a fine character + creation.... 'The Pardon' must draw admiration for its + remarkable technical efficiency.... 'The Other Danger' is a work + of remarkable craftsmanship." + + * * * * * + +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + + + + +By GEORGE MIDDLETON + +THE ROAD TOGETHER + +A powerful four-act drama of American life. $1.20 net. (Just published.) + + +POSSESSION + +With THE GROOVE, THE BLACK TIE, A GOOD WOMAN, CIRCLES, and THE UNBORN. +One-act American Plays. $1.35 net. + + _New York Times_: "... Mr. Middleton's outlook on life, his + conceptions of the relations of men and women to each other and + to society is a fine one, generous and tolerant, but not + sentimental.... No one else is doing his kind of work and his + books should not be missed by readers looking for a striking + presentation of the stuff that life is made of." + + +EMBERS + +With THE FAILURES, THE GARGOYLE, IN HIS HOUSE, MADONNA and THE MAN +MASTERFUL. One-act American Plays. $1.35 net. + + PROF. WILLIAM LYON PHELPS, _of Yale_: "The plays are admirable; + the conversations have the true style of human speech, and show + first-rate economy of words, every syllable advancing the plot. + The little dramas are full of cerebration, and I shall recommend + them in my public lectures." + + +TRADITION + +With ON BAIL, MOTHERS, WAITING, THEIR WIFE, and THE CHEAT OF PITY. One-act +American Plays. $1.35 net. + + CLAYTON HAMILTON, in _The Bookman_: "Admirable in technique; + soundly constructed and written in natural and lucid dialogue. + He reveals at every point the aptness of the practiced + playwright. It is most impressive that Mr. Middleton has + successfully broken ground, as a pioneer among us, in the + general cause of the composition of the one-act play." + + +NOWADAYS + +A three-act comedy of American life. $1.20 net. + + _The Nation_: "Without a shock or a thrill in it, but steadily + interesting and entirely human. All the characters are depicted + with fidelity and consistency; the dialogue is good and the plot + logical." + + * * * * * + +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + + + + +NOTEWORTHY RECENT DRAMA BOOKS + +Arthur Edwin Krows' PLAY PRODUCTION IN AMERICA + +A book on The Theater, both "backstage" and "the front of the house." We +follow a play from its acceptance for a big theater to its last nights in +rural "stock." + +The author, recently of the staff of Winthrop Ames, has learned his +subjects thoroughly during ten years' experience in many theatrical +capacities. Many of these subjects are here treated for the first time in a +book, and most of the others for the first time in their American aspect. +His style is clear and vivid. There are many and unusual illustrations and +a full index. Large 12mo. 400 pp. $2.25 net. + + +Richard Burton's BERNARD SHAW: THE MAN AND THE MASK + +Shaw is shown as revealed in his plays, which are all considered in +chronological order with dates of first performances, etc. There are +separate chapters on him as social thinker, poet-mystic, and theater +craftsman, and a concluding one on his place in the modern drama. The +author is a member of The National Institute, and a former President of The +Drama League of America and very widely and favorably known, both as +lecturer and writer. With index 305 pp. $1.60 net. + + +Constance D'Arcy Mackay's THE FOREST PRINCESS, etc. + +A much needed book of masques by a noted producer and author. The other +masques are _The Gift of Time_ and another _Masque of Christmas_, _A Masque +of Conservation_, _The Masque of Pomona_, _The Sun Goddess_ (Old Japan). +There are also chapters on _The Revival of the Masque_, _Masque Costumes_, +and _Masque Music_. 181 pp. $1.35 net. + + +Louise Burleigh and Edward Hale Bierstadt's PUNISHMENT + +Probably the most significant American prison play so far written, but +first of all a human drama, not devoid of humor. Ex-Warden Osborne of Sing +Sing says "It rings true," and Edith Wynne Matthison declares it "one of +the most engrossing plays I have ever read." Four acts. 127 pp. $1.00 net. + + +Percival Wilde's CONFESSIONAL and Other American Plays + +Includes also _According to Darwin_, a grim irony in two scenes. _The +Beautiful Story_ (Santa Claus), and two joyous playlets, _The Villain in +the Piece_ and _A Question of Morality_. _The Independent_ finds them "Well +worth reading ... the treatment is fresh and sincere." 173 pp. $1.25 net. + + +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + + + + +SIXTH EDITION, ENLARGED AND WITH PORTRAITS + +HALE'S DRAMATISTS OF TO-DAY + +ROSTAND, HAUPTMANN, SUDERMANN, PINERO, SHAW, PHILLIPS, MAETERLINCK + +By PROF. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, JR., of Union College. With gilt top, $1.60 +net. + +Since this work first appeared in 1905, Maeterlinck's SISTER BEATRICE, THE +BLUE BIRD and MARY MAGDALENE, Rostand's CHANTECLER and Pinero's MID-CHANNEL +and THE THUNDERBOLT--among the notable plays by some of Dr. Hale's +dramatists--have been acted here. Discussions of them are added to this new +edition, as are considerations of Bernard Shaw's and Stephen Phillips' +latest plays. The author's papers on Hauptmann and Sudermann, with slight +additions, with his "Note on Standards of Criticism," "Our Idea of +Tragedy," and an appendix of all the plays of each author, with dates of +their first performance or publication, complete the volume. + + _Bookman_: "He writes in a pleasant, free-and-easy way.... He + accepts things chiefly at their face value, but he describes + them so accurately and agreeably that he recalls vividly to mind + the plays we have seen and the pleasure we have found in them." + + _New York Evening Post_: "It is not often nowadays that a + theatrical book can be met with so free from gush and mere + eulogy, or so weighted by common sense ... an excellent + chronological appendix and full index ... uncommonly useful for + reference." + + _Dial_: "Noteworthy example of literary criticism in one of the + most Interesting of literary fields.... Provides a varied menu of + the most interesting character.... Prof. Hale establishes + confidential relations with the reader from the start.... Very + definite opinions, clearly reasoned and amply fortified by + example.... Well worth reading a second time." + + _New York Tribune_: "Both instructive and entertaining." + + _Brooklyn Eagle_: "A dramatic critic who is not just 'busting' + himself with Titanic intellectualities, but who is a readable + dramatic critic.... Mr. Hale is a modest and sensible, as well as + an acute and sound critic.... Most people will be surprised and + delighted with Mr. Hale's simplicity, perspicuity and + ingenuousness." + + _The Theatre_: "A pleasing lightness of touch.... Very readable + book." + + * * * * * + +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + + + + +NEW POPULAR EDITION, WITH APPENDIX + +Containing tables, etc., of the Opera Season 1908-11. + + "The most complete and authoritative ... pre-eminently the man + to write the book ... full of the spirit of discerning + criticism.... Delightfully engaging manner, with humor, + allusiveness and an abundance of the personal note."--_Richard + Aldrich in New York Times Review._ (Complete notice on + application.) + +CHAPTERS OF OPERA + +Being historical and critical observations and records concerning the Lyric +Drama in New York from its earliest days down to the present time. + +By HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL, musical critic of the New York _Tribune_, author +of "Music and Manners in the Classical Period," "Studies in the Wagnerian +Drama," "How to Listen to Music," etc. With over 70 portraits and pictures +of Opera Houses. 450 pp. 12mo. $3.00 net. + +This is perhaps Mr. Krehbiel's most important book. The first seven +chapters deal with the earliest operatic performances in New York. Then +follows a brilliant account of the first quarter-century of the +Metropolitan, 1883-1908. He tells how Abbey's first disastrous Italian +season was followed by seven seasons of German Opera under Leopold Damrosch +and Stanton, how this was temporarily eclipsed by French and Italian, and +then returned to dwell with them in harmony, thanks to Walter Damrosch's +brilliant crusade,--also of the burning of the opera house, the +vicissitudes of the American Opera Company, the coming and passing of Grau +and Conried, and finally the opening of Oscar Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera +House and the first two seasons therein, 1906-08. + + "Presented not only in a readable manner but without bias ... + extremely interesting and valuable."--_Nation._ + + "The illustrations are a true embellishment ... Mr. Krehbiel's + style was never more charming. It is a delight."--_Philip Hale in + Boston Herald._ + + "Invaluable for purpose of reference ... rich in critical + passages ... all the great singers of the world have been heard + here. Most of the great conductors have come to our shores.... + Memories of them which serve to humanize, as it were, his + analyses of their work."--_New York Tribune._ + + * * * * * + +*** If the reader will send his name and address, the publishers will send, +from time to time, information regarding their new books. + +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Theory of the Theatre, by Clayton Hamilton + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13589 *** |