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 ■ (iliiiBiiitfe 
 IMMiiiiiliics
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UK' 
 
 C^ii 

 
 OUR STAGE AND ITS CRITICS
 
 OUR STAGE AND ITS 
 CRITICS 
 
 BY 
 
 "E. F. S." 
 
 The Westminster Gazette 
 
 METHUfiN & Ca LTD. 
 
 36 ESSE^X STREET 
 IDO] 
 
 W.G.
 
 First Published in igio
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TT WHILST reading the proof-sheets of these articles 
 ^ ^ I have been oppressed by the thought that they 
 give a gloomy idea about the state of our Stage. Yet I 
 am naturally sanguine. Indeed, no one taking a deep 
 interest in our drama could have written for a score 
 or so of years about it unless of a naturally sanguine 
 temperament. There has been great progress during 
 my time, yet we still are far from possessing a modern 
 national drama creditable to us. Some imagine that 
 the British have no inborn genius for \vriting drama, 
 or acting it, and look upon those dramatists and 
 players whose greatness cannot be denied as mere 
 exceptions to a rule. Without alleging that at the 
 moment we have a Shakespeare, a Garrick or a Siddons, 
 I assert confidently that we own dramatists and 
 players able, if rightly used, to make our theatre worthy 
 of our country and also that the misuse of them is 
 appalling. For very many years the history of the 
 English stage has been chiefly a record of waste, of 
 gross commercialism and of honest efforts ruined by 
 adherence to mischievous traditions : the Scottish and 
 Irish stage have been mere reflections of our own. 
 At the moment Ireland is making a brave and
 
 vi OUR STAGE AND ITS CRITICS 
 
 remarkably successful effort at emancipation, and 
 during the last few 3^ears has laid the foundations of 
 a National Theatre and built a good deal upon them. 
 Scotland lags a little, yet the energy and enthusiasm 
 of Mr Alfred Wareing and the citizens of Glasgow 
 have enabled them to create an institution not unlikely 
 to serve as the home of a real Scots drama. They 
 offer to the native playwright an opportunity of 
 showing that a national drama — not a drama merely 
 echoing the drama of other lands — lies inherent in the 
 race. Who knows that they may not induce that 
 wa^^^ard man of genius, J. M. Barrie, to become the 
 parent of Scots drama by honestly and sincerely using 
 his rare gifts as dramatist in an effort to express the 
 pathos and the humour, the courage and the shyness, 
 the shrewdness and the imagination, and also the less 
 agreeable qualities and characteristics of our brothers 
 across the border. 
 
 And England ? I have little first-hand knowledge 
 of the provinces, but with such as I possess, and the aid 
 of the Era Annual and the Stage Year Book, can state 
 unhesitatingly that the position is very unsatisfactory. 
 Admirable, valuable work is being done bravely by 
 Miss Horniman at Manchester ; Mr F. R. Benson and his 
 company devotedly carry the banner of Shakespeare 
 through the land ; but in the main the playhouses of 
 the provinces and great cities of England offer little
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 more than echoes of the London theatres, and such ori- 
 ginal works as are produced in them generally are mere 
 experiments made on the dog before a piece is presented 
 in London. In this respect, the suburbs resemble the 
 provinces, although Mr J. B. Mulholland courageously 
 makes efforts to give Hammersmith something new 
 and good. The Coronet has seen some valuable ventures 
 — perhaps Notting Hill is not a suburb — and at the 
 moment is devoted to the production of real novelties. 
 In the West End theatres of London the position 
 at first sight seems desperate. During the last twenty 
 years, in consequence of the intervention of middle- 
 men, rents have risen loo per cent. ; owing to the folly 
 of managers the salaries of the company have increased 
 to a similar extent ; whilst the cost of scenery, cos- 
 tumes and the like also has grown enormously. Indeed, 
 it is probably an under-statement to allege that the 
 money spent in running a theatre on the customary 
 commercial lines is twice as great as it was in i8go. 
 Yet the price of seats has not been raised. Consequently 
 theatre management has become a huge gamble, in 
 which there are few prizes, and the amount of money 
 lost annually is great. Naturally, under such circum- 
 stances the principal, almost the only, aim of the 
 ordinary manager is to please the masses. Man}^ con- 
 cessions are made to the wishes of the crowd, and by 
 way of excuse the phrase " the drama's laws the
 
 viii OUR STAGE AND ITS CRITICS 
 
 drama's patrons give " is quoted. It is painful to 
 think that people can quote Johnson's line without 
 a feeling of scorn, 3^et it necessarily contains an awful 
 amount of truth when theatres are managed under 
 the present mad conditions. What art has ever made 
 progress under laws dictated by the great half-washed ? 
 Half-a-dozen of the West End theatres are de- 
 voted to musico - dramatic works which, whatever 
 their merits in other respects, have none as drama, 
 and certainly have done little for the development of 
 English music. As a rule several houses are under 
 the management of American managers and they, 
 putting Mr Frohman aside, rarely prove anything 
 but the sterility of America drama or their contempt 
 for the taste of our playgoers who, however, as a rule 
 prefer native to imported rubbish — hence grumbles 
 in the United States about prejudice and unfair 
 play. Mr Frohman, as part of his repertory 
 scheme, and otherwise as well, has done something 
 to help the modern English dramatist. Putting 
 Shakespeare out of the question, for of course he 
 has nothing to do with English modern drama, we 
 have little in the ordinary London theatre that is 
 not the natural result of bad traditions, and the only 
 progress made is in the direction of increased dexterity 
 in play writing — unfortunately increased dexterity as 
 a rule in handling old subjects according to the old
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 traditions, which leave the stage curiously outside the 
 world of literature and also of ordinary human life. 
 
 On the other hand, thanks to the efforts of many 
 enthusiasts working by means of societies and clubs, 
 such as the Independent Theatre — the first of all — 
 the Century Theatre, the (Incorporated) Stage Society, 
 the Pioneers, the Play Actors and others, and the Play- 
 goers' Club, the O. P. Club and the Gallery First 
 Nighters, and also thanks to the efforts of Messrs 
 Vedrenne and Barker, at the Court Theatre, real pro- 
 gress has been made in London towards the creation 
 of an English modern theatre, and we now possess a 
 valuable body of dramatists, some to a great extent, 
 others altogether, neglected by the ordinary theatre. 
 Speaking of these dramatists collectively, it may fairly 
 be said that their gifts are greater, their ambitions 
 higher and their theories of drama sounder than those 
 of their rivals who work for the ordinary theatre ; and 
 I should add that the ordinary theatre is far richer in 
 dramatists of quality than it was twenty years ago. 
 So we have the playwrights. 
 
 Also we have the plays. The publication in book 
 form of the best native pieces presented by the 
 enthusiasts of whom I have spoken, but not offered 
 to the general public for a run, would satisfy any 
 critic that the English modern drama exists although 
 we are still waiting for the English modern theatre.
 
 X OUR STAGE AND ITS CRITICS 
 
 Moreover, we have the players. Some, though not 
 many, of the fashionable stars would serve, whilst 
 there are numbers of really able actresses and actors 
 who have proved their ability to represent modern 
 comedy, but owing to the strange policy of managers are 
 rarely employed by the ordinary theatre — in London. 
 In several cases the policy may be sound, since the 
 regular fare of the fashionable houses as a rule demands 
 a showy, but insincere, style out of the range, or at 
 least the demonstrated range, of the neglected players. 
 Does the public for such a theatre exist ? I think 
 so. The number of plaj^goers is very large, and 
 although only a comparatively small proportion goes 
 out of its way to patronise the non-commercial drama 
 a very large proportion has grown weary of the ordinary 
 drama — a fact shown by the recent failure of pla^^s 
 which not many years ago would have been successful. 
 Do the critics exist ? They are an important ele- 
 ment in the matter. The question is a delicate one for 
 me to answer. Certainly some of our dramatic critics 
 are men of culture and courage, able to appreciate new 
 ideas. The difficulty is more with the newspapers than 
 their representatives. For a sad aspect of the present 
 state of affairs lies in the fact that the desire to obtain 
 tittle-tattle and gossip concerning the players often out- 
 weighs the desire to obtain sincere, intelligent criticism, 
 and the result is obvious. There is ten times more
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 " copy " published about the persons and personal 
 affairs of the author of a play and of its players than 
 concerning its merits and faults. 
 
 However, after taking all the elements into account, 
 it may confidently be asserted that within the lifetime of 
 the present generation of playgoers radical changes will 
 have taken place, and even if we may not possess tragedy 
 of the highest quality we shall have a theatre of modern 
 English drama — serious comedy and also light comedy 
 and farce — really expressive of current life and thought 
 and fine enough in style to render the most critical 
 Englishman proud of his country's drama. 
 
 E. F. S. 
 
 October igio 
 
 The thanks of the author are due to the Proprietors 
 and the Editor of The Westminster Gazette for kindly 
 consenting to the republication of articles which have 
 already appeared in that journal.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 The Dramatic Critic 
 
 PAGE 
 
 His Qualifications— His Knowledge of Fashionable Society 
 —His Duties and Difficulties —His Stock Phrases— The 
 Circumstances under which he writes — His Fear of Libel 
 Actions ........ I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Dramatic Critic 
 
 His Duty to be tolerant — His Sympathies when young — 
 The Jaded Critic— His Unpaid Labours and his Letter 
 Bag ; : I . : ; ; s 28 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Dramatic Critic 
 
 An Attack upon him — Why he is disliked — His Honesty 
 — His Abolition — The Threatened Theatrical Trust i 49 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Plays of Particular Types 
 
 The Pseudo-Historical — The Horrible in Drama — The 
 Immorality Play— Scripture Plays — Anecdotal Plays— The 
 Supernatural ....... 72
 
 xiv OUR STAGE AND ITS CRITICS 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Plays of Particular Types 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Unsentimental Drama — The Second-hand Drama — Plays 
 with a Purpose— Drama and Social Reform . . 99 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Phenomena of the Stage 
 
 The Optics — Make-up — Gesture — Scenery at the French 
 Plays — Stage Costumes — Colour — Stage Meals : . 118 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Morality of Our Drama 
 
 Mr Harry Lauder on the Morals of Our Drama — Double 
 Entente — Moral Effect on Audience — An Advantage of 
 French Dramatists ; . . . . ; 149 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Casual Notes on Acting 
 
 Mr H. B. Irving on his Art — Mr Bourchier and "Max" 
 on English Acting — The Sicilian Players — Alleged Dearth 
 of Great Actresses — Character Actresses — Stage Misfits 
 — Stars ;-.;:.... 167 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Stage Dancing 
 The Skirts of the Drama — Isadora Duncan . . 195 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Things in the Theatre 
 
 A Defence of the Matinee Hat — A Justification of certain 
 Deadheads — Theatrical Advertisements— Music ■. . 205
 
 CONTENTS XV 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 In the Playhouse 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Laughter — Smoking in the Auditorium — Conduct of the 
 Audience — Concerning the Pit — Why do we go to the 
 Theatre? !?..... 229 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Miscellaneous 
 
 Signor Borsa on the English Theatre — G. B. S. and the 
 Amateurs — Cant about Shakespeare — Yvette Guilbert 
 on Dramatists : : . . . . .252 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 Miscellaneous 
 
 Finance in Plays — Some Unsuccessful Dramatists — The 
 Ending of the Play — Preposterous Stage Types — The 
 Professions of the Dramatis Personae : . .271
 
 OUR STAGE AND ITS CRITICS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 His Qualifications 
 
 THE production of a play in the Russian tongue 
 renders topical a phrase once used, not unhappily, 
 by Mr Cecil Raleigh concerning the qualifications of the 
 dramatic critic. After listening to a somewhat ex- 
 travagant speech about the duties of the critic, he said 
 that the dramatic critic ought, apparently, to be a 
 "polyglot archangel." During the last few years we 
 have had plays in Russian, Japanese, Bavarian patois, 
 Dutch, German, French and Italian, to say nothing of 
 East End performances in Hebrew and Yiddish, which 
 we neglect. Latin drama we hear at Westminster ; 
 a Greek company came to the Court but did not act. 
 A Chinese has been promised, and a Turkish drama 
 threatened ; Danish has been given ; there are awful 
 hopes of Gaelic and Erse ; and goodness knows why 
 we have escaped Echegaray, Lope di Vega and Calderon 
 in the original. A Mezzofanti would be at a premium 
 in the craft if knowledge of languages alone were suffi- 
 cient ; but one may know many tongues and possess no 
 judgment. 
 
 We have to accept great responsibilities. Some 
 
 A I
 
 2 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 people measure the greatness of the responsibilities by 
 the amount of money involved in theatrical enterprises; 
 it is hardly necessary to discuss seriously this point of 
 view. Nevertheless the fact remains that the voice of 
 the critics has some effect upon the fortunes of ventures 
 involving large sums of money and the employment of 
 many people. It is rather curious to see how lightly 
 as a rule the influence of the critics is regarded ; for 
 instance, from some remarks uttered by Sir John Hare 
 it appears that he thinks they are not influential. Here 
 are his words taken from an intervdew published in a 
 newspaper. 
 
 The Interviewer : " How is public taste formed ? 
 Do newspaper criticisms affect it ? " 
 
 Mr Hare: " Very little." 
 
 This view is rarely pressed upon a jury by the plaintiff 
 in a libel action, and it may be remarked that although, 
 when a play is running well, some managers almost 
 ignore us, as soon as business drops they become 
 delightfully amiable and long for our presence. More- 
 over, at considerable expense, they quote our opinions 
 if favourable — even with judicious modifications when 
 unfavourable. 
 
 Perhaps the matter of languages is not of very great 
 importance, seeing that most of the critic's work con- 
 cerns English Drama, or drama in what is supposed to 
 be English, which, too often, is quite a different thing. 
 What, then, are the necessary qualifications of the 
 critic who takes his work and himself seriously ? 
 
 He should have some knowledge of music — enough, 
 at least, to know whether incidental or " melodrama " 
 music is congruous with the time, place and occasion 
 of the play, and to be able to identify well-known works. 
 At a time when money is spent very lavishly upon
 
 HIS QUALIFICATIONS 3 
 
 scenery and costumes, he ought to possess some theories, 
 or at least ideas, concerning pictorial art, the history of 
 modem painting and the like, and be capable of guessing 
 what a daring experimentalist like Mr Gordon Craig 
 is aiming at and what relation his scene-pictures bear to 
 the current cant of the art critic. It is deplorable when 
 one finds serious critics gushing about the beauty of 
 costly, stage effects belonging to the standard of 
 taste exhibited by wedding-cakes, Christmas crackers, 
 old-fashioned valentines and Royal Academicians. 
 Dancing must mean something more to him than a 
 whirhng and twirling of human beings — he should at the 
 least know the distinctive styles and figures of different 
 countries, and not confuse an entrechat with a pirouette, 
 should be aware of the meaning of the terms arabesque 
 and rond de jamhe, and understand to some extent the 
 conventional language and history of grand ballet. No 
 one wiU deny that his study of history must be sub- 
 stantial and, to put the matter compendiously, he must 
 have a good general education, which, however, will 
 not carry him very far, since he must own a special 
 knowledge of the history of drama and of literature 
 and modern literary movements. 
 
 Then comes the question of theories of criticism — 
 can he do with less than, say, an acquaintance with 
 Aristotle, and Lessing's " Lao coon," or even with so 
 little ? With Shakespeare and some of his commenta- 
 tors he ought to be at home ; the '* Paradoxe sur le 
 Comedien " he can hardly escape, and the works of 
 some of the modern English and latest French critics 
 may not be overlooked. Of course he must have read 
 and considered a large number of plays, and the 
 theories on which they are based. Politics he may 
 almost neglect unless there be successors to John
 
 4 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 Bull's Other Island, though he will have to keep 
 abreast of the facts and fancies of modem life, in- 
 cluding, to some extent, political matters. How he 
 is to study the customs, usage and manners of polite 
 society among the upper ten thousand it is hard to say. 
 Not a few of us are weak on this point, and feel ill at 
 ease when dealing with the nuances of the customs of 
 Mayfair. The study of books on Savoir Faire and the 
 Manners of Pohte Society certainly will give very little 
 assistance. 
 
 Lastly, in this catalogue, which is far from exhaustive, 
 he must study the art of writing, so that he may at 
 least be able to keep clear of the vulgar faults. No one 
 expects him to show any absolute merit in style — space 
 and circumstances of time and place are against him, and 
 to accomplish the negative is quite a positive triumph. 
 Correct grammar, avoidance of hackneyed cliches, 
 clearness of phrase, reasonably scholar-like use of 
 words, abstinence from alliteration unless there be due 
 cause, and escape from uncouthness of expression and 
 monotony of sound are all he can hope to exhibit in the 
 way of virtue. Of course a little wit or humour does no 
 harm, provided that no sacrifice of truth is made for 
 the sake of it. Of the moral qualities nothing need be 
 said ; he will be exposed to a few great temptations 
 and many little ones : to some of the latter he is certain 
 to yield. 
 
 If and when he has acquired all this knowledge, it 
 will be his duty almost to conceal it. It is to be 
 employed as apparatus for the formation of judgments 
 rather than the embellishment of them, though, of 
 course, it may be used reticently by way of illustration, 
 explanation and the like. Yet it may be useful and 
 not illegitimate for him sometimes to try to convince
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF FASHIONABLE SOCIETY 5 
 
 the reader that his criticism is from the pen of one who 
 knows more about the subject than hes within the 
 range of the Man in the Street. 
 
 The critic is not superior to the amateur judge by 
 reason of a greater natural aptitude for judging, but 
 because he has a larger stock of knowledge on which to 
 base his judgments, possesses a wider basis for com- 
 parison — ^the foundation of all opinion — ^and has trained 
 his natural aptitudes ; consequently, whilst his criticism 
 necessarily, like that of the Man in the Street, is relative, 
 not absolute, is after all merely an ipse dixit, it is the 
 personal view of the better-trained person. 
 
 The pessimist may suggest that it is hardly worth 
 while to endeavour to become such an Admirable 
 Crichton, that the labour will not be sufficiently re- 
 munerated, that the existing British Drama does not 
 demand or deserve criticism by such cultured experts. 
 
 There are few of us fully qualified, according to the 
 standard put forward in these lines, and it maybe added, 
 without anything in the nature of mock-modesty, 
 that the author is well aware of the fact that he cannot 
 be reckoned among the few. 
 
 His Knowledge of Fashionable Society 
 
 A passage in Lady Huntworth's Experiment did not 
 earn the laugh deserved by it. Captain Dorvaston was 
 supposed to read a passage from The Special Monthly 
 Journal, to this effect : " The shield bore for device a 
 bar sinister, with fleur-de-lys rampant " ; then he said, 
 " That ain't heraldry." Lady Huntworth repHed, 
 " Yes, it is ; Family Heraldry," and he laughed. The 
 passage in the play brought forward vividly the thought 
 that those who really live in the aristocratic world may 
 smile at our high-life dramas just as they do at the stories
 
 6 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 that appear concerning the nobility in obscure " family" 
 papers. There is, and during a long time has been, a 
 mania among playwrights for putting aristocratic 
 characters upon the stage. It may be that this is due 
 to the snobbishness of players, who, in comedy, love 
 to represent a lord : they can be kings and queens only 
 in tragedies ; or to that of the audience, which likes to 
 see the representation of the nobility ; or, again, it 
 may be caused by the snobbishness of the dramatist and 
 his ^^ish to suggest that he knows all about the " upper 
 succles." 
 
 It need not be assumed that we are much worse in 
 this respect than our neighbours across that Channel 
 w^hich some desire to have destroyed and so nullify the 
 famous John of Gaunt speech. In books and plays the 
 Gallicwriters are almost as fond of presenting the French 
 aristocracy as are our dramatists and novelists of 
 writing works concerning the British Peerage. Even 
 putting the actual peerage aside, the question is im- 
 portant, whether the pictures in fiction — ^particularly 
 in drama — of what one may caU Belgravia or Mayfair 
 are correct. We critics hardly know ; and it may be a 
 solecism to suggest that the same applies to the studies 
 of the Faubourg St Germain. Perhaps that famous 
 faubourg has lost its distinction. 
 
 The question may seem a little difficult yet must be 
 asked : How do our dramatists and the French manage 
 to get a first-hand study of the real aristocracy ? Of 
 course, nowadays, there are a large number of houses 
 owned by people with titles, and sometimes very noble 
 titles, which can easily be penetrated. Speaking quite 
 apart from politics, one may say that the British aristo- 
 cracy year by year makes itself cheaper and cheaper, 
 losing thereby its title to existence. The city clerk can
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF FASHIONABLE SOCIETY 7 
 
 do better than Dick SwiveUer, and decorate his bed- 
 sitting room with a photographic gallery of decolletees 
 duchesses, and bare-legged ladies of noble family, and 
 he is able to obtain a vast amount of information, part 
 of it quite accurate, concerning their doings. 
 
 Yet, even when we get far higher than the city clerk, 
 and reach the fashionable playwright, to say nothing 
 of the dramatic critic, there are mysteries unexplorable. 
 There is a Lhassa in Mayfair, our efforts to attain which 
 are Burked. 
 
 A big Bohemian, sporting '' smart-set," Anglo- 
 American, South African millionaire society exists 
 which has in it a good many people acknowledged 
 by Debrett, and this it is quite easy to enter. There 
 are a score or so of peers, and twice the number 
 of peeresses, as well as smaller fry, possessing titles 
 by birth or marriage, with whom it is not difficult, 
 and not always desirable, to become acquainted. The 
 real aristocracy looks askance at them. When we see 
 pictures of these, or studies on the French stage of the 
 titled faiseurs, or rastaquoueres, we know that they may 
 be correct, and indeed the figures in them have become 
 to such an extent despecialised that we can judge of the 
 truthfulness of the study by the simple process of assum- 
 ing that they do not possess any titles at aU. 
 
 Still, there remains a world beyond, where, to some 
 extent at least, manners and ideas are different from 
 those of the upper-middle-class, or the middle-middle- 
 class, to whichever it may be that our craft belongs. 
 People will recollect Thackeray's remarks concerning 
 the impossibility of getting to know the real domestic 
 life of your French friends ; whether his words are well 
 founded or not, they illustrate the essential unknowa- 
 bility to the outsider of some of the great noble and even
 
 8 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 untitled county families of the land. It is said that 
 there still exist some great ladies who have not 
 cheapened themselves by allowing their photographs 
 to be published in the sixpenny papers. Yet our 
 dramatists, or some at least, seem to think that a play 
 is vulgar unless amongst the dramatis personce one can 
 find a lord or two. 
 
 Perhaps indolence is their excuse. You call a charac- 
 ter the Duke of Smithfield, and thereby save yourself 
 much trouble ; you need not explain that he is rich, or 
 how he came to be rich, or why he has no work to do. 
 You have ready-made for you the supposition of a 
 mass of details as to manner and prejudices. If the 
 heroine's father is an earl and the hero a commoner, 
 such as a barrister or a doctor, the mere statement of 
 these facts is useful matter for your story. If the 
 dramatist writes about the kind of earl who belongs to 
 that inner set of the aristocracy, in the existence of 
 which some of us innocently believe, how does he set 
 about his task ? 
 
 Even when the ordinary playwright handles the 
 ruck-and-run of the " nobs," his acquaintance with them 
 can hardly justify him in regarding his studies as founded 
 upon observation. To see people in the stalls and meet 
 them at public " functions," or the large entertainments 
 of a semi-private character which it is easy to penetrate, 
 gives poor opportunity for close scrutiny. Is there 
 amongst the dramatists — and novehsts too — something 
 akin to the system of the islanders who earned a living 
 by taking in one another's washing ? Is there a \dcious 
 circle, in which each and all accept as true what others 
 have wTitten ? Do they merely help themselves out of 
 the common fund of ignorance ? 
 
 Possibly this is based upon a delusion. The whole
 
 HIS DUTY AND DIFFICULTIES 9 
 
 anstocracy may have become so democratic that it is 
 quite easy to study the most exclusive at iirst hand, if 
 you happen to be a successful dramatist, but very few 
 of the dramatic critics are successful dramatists. 
 
 The opportunities for the critic are hmited except 
 when a peeress happens to have written a play, and 
 even then a candid critic does not get very far. Perhaps, 
 too, if some inner circle exists there is no need to study 
 it ; for a knowledge of the titled folk floating in the 
 great three-quarter world that is taking the place of 
 Society may sufhce, and to have met a countess at a 
 musical reception, of five hundred or so, given by some 
 millionaire amateur, or to have been on the board of 
 a catchpenny company with a baron, or to have suffered 
 long at a charity ball and obtained introductions from a 
 ducal steward, or to have bought a cup of bad tea at an 
 Albert Hall bazaar from a marchioness whose manners 
 would shock a cook, is a sufficient acquaintance with 
 the customs, thoughts and ideals of all the inhabitants 
 of Debrett, and entitles one to present or to criticize 
 the shyest member of the august House that is now 
 beginning to wonder what is going to happen next. 
 
 His Duty and Difficulties 
 
 The title is the Duty — not the duties — of a dramatic 
 critic — the latter would be too large a subject. Obvi- 
 ously his duty is to tell the truth. How easy it sounds ! 
 How difficult it is to tell even the relative truth ; the 
 absolute is out of the question. Suppose that the critic 
 has come to the conclusion that he knows the truth 
 about a play, with what is he to tell it ? With language, 
 of course — an appallingly bad piece of machinery, which 
 grows worse and worse every day. When a number of
 
 10 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 critics have formed the same opinion about a piece, and 
 all wish to say that it is good — a very bad term to em- 
 ploy — one will call it good, another very good ; a third, 
 exceedingly good ; a fourth, great ; a fifth, splendid, 
 a sixth, superb ; and so on till some reckless language- 
 monger uses the state-occasion term — a " work of 
 genius/' How is the reader to guess that they all 
 mean the same thing ? Moreover, if they were to use 
 identical words every reader would put a somewhat 
 different meaning upon them. 
 
 " One of my greatest difficulties," a famous physician 
 once said, " lies in the fact that to a great extent I have 
 to rely upon a patient's description of the nature and 
 quantity of pain he or she has suffered from. One will 
 speak of pain where another employs the word agony ; 
 the third complains of intense torture ; a fourth de- 
 scribes it as intolerable anguish ; and a fifth says it 
 hurts a httle. Yet they all refer to the same thing. 
 No wonder we are often at sea." 
 
 The difficulty increases. Many new words are coined, 
 but old ones are rarely demonetised ; they remain in 
 circulation, defaced and worn, till the precise image and 
 superscription are barely recognizable. We multiply 
 negatives in order to get fine shades. If, then, the 
 critic knows the truth he is aware that he has no means 
 of conveying it to the reader. Wherefore some make 
 little effort and indulge merely in fine writing. Hence, 
 too, some excuse for the common incivility of our 
 friends when they say to us, " Well, old man, I read 
 
 your notice on the ; tell me, is it worth going to 
 
 see ? " 
 
 The difficulty of expressing an opinion is hardly less 
 than that of forming it ; assume that the critic possesses 
 all the qualifications, so far as knowledge and the natural
 
 HIS DUTY AND DIFFICULTIES ii 
 
 gift for criticising are concerned — and, alas ! knowledge 
 and the gift are very often far apart — and then think 
 of the obstacles to the proper employment of them. 
 
 The play may belong to a class which the critic does 
 not Hke, although it is legitimate ; he may not flout it 
 on that account. You should not blame a bream 
 because it is not a barbel, or a chub for not being a 
 trout, yet the angler grumbles if he catches the humbler 
 fish when aiming at the noble ; we are all agreed that 
 the gardener was not justified in " laming " with a 
 spade the squalid batrachians to be toads ; even musical 
 comedies ought not to be criticized with spade strokes, 
 although in connection with them it is a pity that a 
 spade so rarely has been called by its proper name. 
 Moreover, one may have an entirely unreasonable pre- 
 judice against the works of the particular dramatist. 
 We all suffer from strange aversions in Uterary matters. 
 There are readers of culture who find no pleasure in 
 Borrow, and some nearly shriek at the mere name of 
 Peacock and so on. In fact we have dislikes founded, 
 or rather unfounded, upon the basis of Bussy Rabutin's 
 hues : 
 
 " Je ne vous aime point, Hylas ; 
 Je n'en saurois dire la cause. 
 Je sais seulement une chose. 
 C'est que je ne vous aime pas." 
 
 Next comes an even more intimate personal element — 
 the critic's condition. The day may have been vexing. 
 The present indecent haste of the income-tax collector 
 may have worried him. His dinner may have been bad. 
 Perhaps he had to rush off without his coffee''; new 
 boots are a conceivable element; a bad seat 'in the 
 theatre may annoy him ; many managers give better
 
 12 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 places to their friends in the profession than to the 
 critics. Before now critics have sat out a boisterous 
 farce when suffering from an excruciating tooth- 
 ache. 
 
 Moreover, some of the principal players may not be to 
 his taste. There are artists of indisputable merit who 
 are no more palatable to some of us than an un travelled 
 cigar or wines from across the ocean. Think, then, of 
 the unfortunate critic honestly endeavouring to make 
 reasonable allowances for all the matters which may 
 have affected him when forming his judgment. 
 
 Such elements are wickedly insidious ; it is difficult to 
 believe when one is bored that one would not be bored 
 but for some such adventitious matter. The conscienti- 
 ous critic makes a great effort to be just under such 
 circumstances, and there is great danger that he may 
 out-Brutus Brutus — in the opposite direction. It is 
 very gaUing, after writing a favourable notice on what 
 seemed to be a tedious play, to have your fellow- workers 
 ask why on earth you treated it so favourabl}^ Con- 
 sequently, it will be seen that is it often difficult even 
 for the quaUfied to form a true judgment. 
 
 Assuming that the critic has formed what he considers 
 a true judgment, and flatters himself that he is able to 
 find language in which to express it accurately, the 
 question arises how far he ought to tell the whole 
 truth and nothing but the truth. " Praise, praise, 
 praise," said Mr Pinero ; and there is a fine maxim of 
 Vauvenargues — " C'est un grand signe de mediocrite 
 de louer toujours moderement." 
 
 However, the question whether we are or, worse still, 
 seem mere mediocrities does not greatly trouble most of 
 us poor " brushers of noblemen's clothes " ; by-the-by 
 the expression quoted by Bacon might serv^e as an
 
 HIS STOCK PHRASES 13 
 
 argument in a certain great controversy, if it be assumed 
 that it was applied to the dramatic critics of his day. 
 Yet unmerited praise on the whole does more harm 
 than undeserved blame. 
 
 On the other hand, truth is wisely kept at the bottom 
 of a well, for the world cannot stand much of it. Perhaps 
 it is judicious in the critic sometimes to be a little more 
 amiable than the truth, in order to encourage the be- 
 ginner and the manager who has given him a chance, 
 and also sometimes to insist disproportionately upon 
 defects, so as to stir up a too complacent dramatist of 
 reputation. Moreover, whilst the point is immaterial 
 to the audience, the critic's expression of a judgment 
 upon a particular piece must vary with the author, since, 
 for instance, to censure without allowances the work of 
 the tyro for faults of inexperience is obviously unreason- 
 able, whilst one may easily praise with excess the mere 
 dexterities of the trained pack. Taking all these 
 matters into account, it will be seen that it is very 
 difficult for the critic to do his duty, and yet truth will 
 out sometimes in a criticism. 
 
 His Stock Phrases 
 
 There are moments when the critics think that it 
 might almost be wise to begin their notices on a new 
 play by dealing with the acting. For the criticism of 
 the acting is the most trying part of our work, and 
 though, as a rule, it does not occupy more than say a 
 fourth of the article — if so much — it often takes as 
 long to write as the rest. Indeed, the shorter it is 
 the longer it takes, for the difficulty of nice employment 
 of language is in direct ratio to the brevity of matter. 
 With half-a-column in which to move about there is no
 
 14 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 trouble in finding finely contrasted adjectives and avoid- 
 ing repetition of epithets. 
 
 We all feel — and correctly — that when the play is new 
 our greatest energy should be devoted to it. Indeed, 
 there is a strong tendency to adopt the idea contained 
 in a phrase of Mr Gordon Craig's to the effect that the 
 players are "performers in an orchestra," and since a 
 play is not Hke a piece of chamber-music, where the per- 
 formers are treated individually, but rather resembles 
 a work performed by a full band, there is an almost 
 vahd excuse for paying comparatively little atten- 
 tion to the acting. Sometimes one makes desperate 
 endeavours to avoid deahng with the company in 
 a lump at the end by referring in the descriptive 
 account (which is the journahstic contribution to the 
 criticism) to the individual performers ; but it is not 
 easy to do so without interfering wdth the course of the 
 description. 
 
 There are many difficulties in treating the work of the 
 actors and actresses briefly, but to handle it at length 
 and in proportion would require a space which editors 
 are unable to give. No doubt the first of the difficulties 
 is the one already indicated. Wrongly or rightly, it is 
 felt (even by journalists who do not accept the traditions 
 of The Daily Telegraph) that there is a poverty-stricken 
 air about the use of the same adjective in consecutive 
 sentences, and though we try to be honest in opinion, 
 we have a workman's vanity in our efforts which 
 asserts itself strongly and causes us, at some sacrifice 
 of accuracy, to vary the epithets. 
 
 Moreover, single adjectives tell very little. 
 
 To say that Mr X. acted admirably, Miss Y. gave a 
 capital performance, Mr Z. played in excellent style, 
 gives little information, and when there are half-a-dozen
 
 HIS STOCK PHRASES 15 
 
 to be named it is almost impossible to ring the changes. 
 Furthermore, perhaps unconsciously, we are moved, 
 fatuously no doubt, by the feeling that the earlier part 
 of the article is intensely interesting to all the world, 
 but that no one save the players and their personal 
 friends and enemies will even glance at these con- 
 cluding sentences. Yet one knows that they are 
 of serious importance to the persons actually con- 
 cerned, though some of them say that they never read 
 them. 
 
 The fact that so many theatres are in the hands of 
 actor-managers is one reason why these phrases are 
 important, for the actor-manager is compelled very 
 often to choose or refuse a player on the strength of 
 hearsay testimony : ours is hearsay evidence in the 
 most accessible form, and even the managers have some 
 beUef in the soundness of the judgment of several of 
 us. They all recognise the fact that we tend to create 
 pubhc opinion, and that an actor or actress much spoken 
 of admiringly in the papers excites the curiosity of 
 playgoers, and is a useful addition to a cast. Conse- 
 quently we feel that in speaking of or ignoring individual 
 performers we are afecting them to some extent in 
 earning their hvelihood. 
 
 There is a story concerning a critic upon whose death 
 half the stage went into quarter-mourning. If it be 
 true, it showed that he was very short-sighted in his 
 amiability, for when deahng with an overcrowded pro- 
 fession one must remember that iU-earned praise of A 
 may keep B, who is more worthy, from getting A's 
 place, to which, of course, he has a better title. It is 
 very hard to act upon this proposition, although it 
 involves a duty, for it is much easier to imagine the 
 positive hurt to A than the negative injury to B ; the
 
 i6 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 critic in question probably shut his eyes to this, if he 
 ever thought of it, and died comfortably unaware of the 
 fact that his indiscriminating praise had kept many 
 meritorious people out of their rights. 
 
 Even supposing one masters the illogical feeling of 
 the lamented critic, difficulties arise. We have grown 
 very velvet-tongue d in these da^'s. There was no 
 nonsense about our predecessors ; if the leading lady 
 was plain, they said so, whilst if one of us were to 
 suggest that the heroine, whose beauty is talked of 
 tiresome ly during the play, in real hfe might sit in un- 
 flattering safety under mistletoe till the berries shrivelled 
 he would be regarded as an ungentle manhke brute. 
 This is rather awkward. 
 
 There is an injustice in being forced into a conspiracy 
 of silence about the figure or face of a lady who would 
 catch cold at kiss-in-the-ring, yet is supposed at 
 first sight to set Romeo's pulses throbbing madly, and 
 when the dear creatures whom we loved a quarter of a 
 century ago appear to us unsuitable for ingenue parts 
 we feel that it is a terrible breach of dut}/ not to say 
 so, yet it is painful to be candid. 
 
 Now and again the matter becomes ridiculous, and 
 we venture to make oblique suggestions ; but even 
 this is a poor accomplishment of our task. Yet it seems 
 appallingly rude and direct to say that Miss X. showed 
 intelligence and technical skill, but is too old or too fat 
 or too ugly for her part ; and managers rely upon our 
 reticence and upon pictures in which the sun helps 
 photographers in a game of deception — perhaps that 
 unfortunate victim of the November fogs may resent 
 the suggestion of conspiracy, and complain of fraudulent 
 tricks with negatives — and so the pubhc is deceived. 
 Also, undated photographs are used — fraudulently.
 
 HIS STOCK PHRASES 17 
 
 This is a very irksome matter, for our friends are candid 
 about our backwardness, and ask indignantly why we 
 
 fail to mention that Miss is ugly enough to stop a 
 
 clock, or that it is a long day's walk round the jeune 
 premier at the Foothghts Theatre. 
 
 Something at least might be done by the managers 
 to help us. They ought to cut the references to the 
 heroine's beauty when it is obvious that she has none. 
 It may be suggested that is this hard upon the plain 
 women who possess the mysterious gift of charm. The 
 answer is that no charming woman is ever plain, even if 
 someone— Voltaire, perhaps — spoke of " les laides char- 
 menses." 
 
 The list of difficult points is not exhausted. For the 
 question arises whether one ought to mention at all any 
 acting that is not extraordinarily good or bad. As a 
 rule, mediocrity has to pass unnoticed in this world ; 
 in most professions the person whose worth is not above 
 or below the average is rarely mentioned. Why should 
 an exception be made in case of a player ? If we know 
 that the performance of Miss X. is no better or worse 
 than would have been that of the average actress, why 
 should we torture our brains to find adjectives concern- 
 ing her ? 
 
 Perhaps in deahng with this, attention ought to be 
 drawn to the fact that the point really relates almost 
 exclusively to criticisms of new plays. When Hamlet is 
 given, or any other classic drama, by a queer twist one 
 finds in fact that from a journalistic point of view the 
 performance is of more importance than the piece. We 
 are not expected to add to the intolerable mass of 
 matter already written about the Prince ; nobody 
 cares twopence what we write concerning the play, since 
 we have nothing to say that has not been said already,
 
 i8 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 and by more important people ; and the curiosity of 
 the pubhc in this case relates only to the acting and the 
 setting. 
 
 The Circumstances under which he Writes 
 
 A Httle while ago the critic of an evening paper 
 received a letter partly in the following words : — " I 
 am deeply grateful to you, but for you, I should not 
 have known that Rejane made a speech at the end of 
 La Souris. Such morning papers as I saw said nothing 
 about it. Things have changed sadly, you see. I write 
 slowly, and I hate last acts ; they always spoil a play. 
 I noticed that a little while ago you suggested that it 
 might be a good idea to begin a play with the last act ; 
 the idea is a mere hysteron-proteron, absolutely pre- 
 posterous, prae-post-erous." This sounds as if the 
 writer were the ghost of De Quince y. 
 
 " In the past I got my morning paper early enough to 
 be able to send down to the office a correction of any 
 error in my conjectural notice of the last act, and re- 
 ception of the play, or even a report of the speech at the 
 end ; and if the theatre had been burnt down, or the 
 leading player had fallen in a fit, I would have sent an 
 account of it, so as not to lose my berth for apparent in- 
 attention to business. There are editors who think 
 that they can get critics strong enough to sit out the 
 whole of a play. Now, alas ! the morning papers do 
 not help me." 
 
 Certainly there was a curious and pathetic humour 
 about his position, for one of the features of the modem 
 journal is that the more " up-to-date " the paper the 
 staler the news. Once upon a time the ordinary daily 
 went to press at about half-past one ; but now the
 
 HOW HE WRITES 19 
 
 printer's devil is at rest after midnight in some of these 
 offices, and several terrifically modern morning papers, 
 a copy of which you can read with your breakfast at 
 Timbuctoo, are completely printed before the extra- 
 special edition of the evening paper of the (nominal) 
 day before is sold out. The last statement may only be 
 apphcable to the country editions, by which the yokels 
 are deceived. 
 
 The result is strange so far as the theatre is concerned, 
 for on an important occasion even a writer with such a 
 rapid pen as that of Clement Scott needed the full time- 
 allowance of the old system. The consequence is seen 
 in two sets of announcements. According to one, there 
 is to be a repetition generale of several forthcoming plays, 
 which, in plain EngHsh, means an anticipatory per- 
 formance to a private audience, given in order to assist 
 the critics — or some of them — in carrying out their 
 duties and fighting the clock, and perhaps also for the 
 purpose of giving seats to some of the swagger " dead- 
 heads " who crowd the stalls on a first night. 
 
 The other announcement was by Sir Herbert Tree, 
 that his coming first night was to begin at seven o'clock, 
 in order that we might have leisure on the same evening 
 for the performance of our tasks. The representatives 
 of the morning papers have a melancholy choice between 
 having no time to dine and no time to write. 
 
 Perhaps the repetition generale system will come into 
 vogue, but it has disadvantages. For years it was 
 worked at the Savoy during the days of that theatre's 
 vitaUty ; but the pubhc rehearsal was a real rehearsal, 
 with three rows of stalls left empty for the to-and-fro 
 of people directing the performance, and scenes were 
 acted over again and songs resung. A procession in 
 Utopia Limited was sent back half-a-dozen times
 
 20 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 because it did not reach a particular position on the 
 stage at the right moment. 
 
 Repetitions of this character — and, it may be, of any 
 character — are not wholly satisfactory to the critic. 
 There is a sham-fight air about them — a good many of 
 the players cannot work themselves up to the full fury 
 of real combat ; they are affected by the fact that the 
 affair is not exactly genuine. One can even imagine 
 that some of them say to themselves, " It will be all 
 right on the night," and justice is by no means restored 
 even if the critic afterwards sees the first pubUc per- 
 formance. The dress rehearsal has left him somewhat 
 unfairly cold, because the circumstances were hostile, 
 and in most cases a second dose of the affair within 
 twenty-four hours makes him colder still, since, unless 
 the work is the rare masterpiece, he does not wish to see 
 it twice within a space of less than fort^^-eight hours, or 
 years. No doubt the public will get the benefit of the 
 critic's views as to the nature of the reception, since, 
 having already written his notice, wliich he is not likely 
 to alter in the least degree so far as impressions of the 
 piece and acting are concerned, he will have plenty of 
 time for a last paragraph about the "boos " or cheers 
 and the non-appearance of the author or the speech. 
 
 There was even a third announcement, for the critic 
 of the paper lovingly called The Tizer by the members 
 of the industry whose interests it protects with the 
 utmost vehemence of laborious alHteration stated that 
 in the future his first - night notices would only 
 contain an account of the plot and reception, to which 
 presumably were to be added the words Cur adv. vuU — 
 let us hope there was no misunderstanding as to the 
 middle word — whilst a day later his considered judg- 
 ment was to be given.
 
 HOW HE WRITES 21 
 
 Certainly this method is not quite a novelty, and has 
 often been recommended. Probably the reason why 
 it has not hitherto been adopted has been the repug- 
 nance to it of the critics, based on a sneaking belief that 
 the pubhc does not take enough interest in criticism 
 of the drama to read the second notice, on which, of 
 course, the writer would have bestowed the greater 
 labour. 
 
 There is something very human in the belief ; few 
 of us have sufficient self-confidence to fancy that the 
 public does more than glance at a notice to discover what 
 sort of piece it deals with, and whether it was well 
 received, and is the sort of thing the reader wants to 
 see ; and we fear there is only a very small percentage 
 that pays any attention to our finest phrases, aptest 
 quotations, and subtlest evidence of acquaintance with 
 the easy aids to universal knowledge. 
 
 Indeed, we have a humihating certainty that our 
 friends would never get beyond the account of the plot 
 and the reception and remarks about individual per- 
 formers in whom they happen to take particular interest, 
 friendly or otherwise. Moreover, it is to be noted that 
 the public has come to doubt the value of the first-night 
 receptions which we record, the fact being incontestable 
 that a good deal of the applause is quite unreal. 
 
 Perhaps an advantage of the repetition generale 
 system will be that if the managements can only persuade 
 their friends that it is more chic to be at the repetition 
 than the first performance we shall have genuine 
 audiences at premieres, whose verdict will be of real 
 weight. 
 
 There are certain difficulties about the new system. 
 The invitation performance is an admirable means 
 for the manufacture of enmities ; to classify one's
 
 22 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 friends into boxes, stalls, dress circle, etc., is no doubt 
 to have a delightful opportunity of snubbing people, 
 but it is sure to breed bitter quarrels ; whilst on the 
 other hand, to let the guests shift for themselves creates 
 no httle trouble and imposes a very difficult task upon 
 the attendants. It sounds easy under such circum- 
 stances to reser\^e places for the critics, but unless they 
 come a long time in advance they are not hkely to get 
 them. 
 
 His Fear of Libel Actions 
 
 Some while ago — it was in 1902- 1903 — the critics 
 were aghast — editors, too, perhaps. Mr Justice Ridley 
 had permitted a jury to give £100 as damages for libel 
 in respect of a dramatic criticism less severe than dozens 
 that most of us have written : it was said that some 
 critics consulted their soHcitors as to the best means of 
 rendering their property " judgment proof " — a pictur- 
 esque term that comes from America. 
 
 Later on the Court of Appeal interfered effectively, 
 though possibly many actions were begun and settled 
 before the appeal was heard ; and it was held that in a 
 libel action founded upon a criticism written concerning 
 a work of art, unless there is some evidence of mahce it 
 is the judge's duty to consider whether the criticism 
 can fairly be construed as being outside the range of fair 
 comment, and if he thinks that the comments lie within 
 the range of criticism he should decide the case in 
 favour of the defendant, and not let it go to the jury. 
 Then the critics breathed again, and the story goes 
 that Fleet Street laid in a large stock of vitriol. 
 
 The next, and at present last, act in the matter was 
 the recovery by Mr Frederick Moy Thomas of £300
 
 HIS FEAR OF LIBEL ACTIONS 23 
 
 damages for a libel which appeared in Punch upon his 
 book called " Fifty Years of Fleet Street." Although 
 the matter related to a book, and not to a play, the 
 dramatic critics felt anxious again, because no distinc- 
 tion could be drawn between criticisms upon the two 
 kinds of work. The case was pecuharly interesting to 
 the dramatic critics because the plaintiff, who had been 
 one of our craft for some length of time, enjoyed the 
 reputation of being very learned in matters connected 
 with the drama, as well as sound and conscientious. 
 
 Moreover, his father, WiUiam Moy Thomas, whose 
 name was introduced into the case, was for many years 
 past one of the most esteemed and admired of our pro- 
 fession, owing to his knowledge, fairness, judgment and 
 excellence of style. The Court of Appeal upheld the 
 verdict, and Punch's record of long existence without 
 a verdict against it for Hbel is spoilt. Its Hcence, the 
 licence of a nation's jester, has been endorsed. 
 
 It may be asked whether this is not a mere matter 
 for the craft : in reaUty the pubHc is concerned. The 
 letter written by one friend to another, gossiping about 
 a play or a book or a picture, exposes the writer to an 
 action for Hbel unless it can be protected on the ground 
 of truth, privilege or fair comment ; and casually 
 written remarks concerning any matter of public interest 
 may result in damages and costs. Indeed, to put the 
 matter simply, the professional critics have no greater 
 rights or privileges of criticism than any member of the 
 pubhc. It is therefore very important to all of us to 
 know how the matter stands, and since the judgment of 
 the Master of the Rolls is rather technical, it seems worth 
 while briefly to state the law in unscientific phrases. 
 
 The written opinion upon any matter of public 
 interest — a play, a book, a piece of music, a picture, the
 
 24 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 speech of a politician, the sermon of a parson, the be- 
 haviour of a general, the conduct of an admiral, the 
 methods of a judge, etc. — must fulfil two conditions. 
 It must be honest and it must be expressed fairly in 
 the point of form. In the " Ridley " action the honesty 
 of the opinion was admitted, and the question arose 
 whether the opinion was fair in form. In the famous 
 Whistler v. Ruskin cause there was no doubt about the 
 critic's honesty — fancy doubting Ruskin 's honesty ! 
 However, the jury thought that he went too far in his 
 phrase " nearly approached the aspect of wilful im- 
 posture," and probably the word " coxcomb " was fatal, 
 for it was irrelevant. 
 
 It might almost be said that relevancy is the test of 
 fairness in the form of a criticism. It was irrelevant 
 as well as inaccurate to speak of a "naughty wife " 
 in a criticism upon The Whip Hand, because there was 
 " no naughty wife " in the play, and therefore the jury 
 gave one shilling damages and the Court of Appeal 
 upheld the verdict. 
 
 In criticism of a book, play, picture, etc., the private 
 life and character of the author are irrelevant ; even his 
 character as author, except in relation to the particular 
 work or works criticized, is irrelevant. If you think that 
 a book or play is immoral or indecent, say so, say so 
 strongly, and if the criticism, though unsound, repre- 
 sents your honest opinion you will escape ; but it is 
 irrelevant to say that the author caused it to be im- 
 moral or indecent in order to obtain a succes de scandale, 
 and you must prove that charge to be true or be punished. 
 There is a distinction between alleging that vSmith's 
 book, " The Biography of Brown," is dull, and that 
 Smith is a writer of dull books — ex pede Herculeni would 
 not be a vahd plea.
 
 HIS FEAR OF LIBEL ACTIONS 25 
 
 If honest and discreet in language you may be 
 abominally incorrect in opinion. You are at liberty to 
 say that a composition by Strauss is a mess of hideous 
 sounds, that one of Sargent's pictures is ridiculous, that 
 a novel by Meredith is tiresome, but you must be very 
 careful, when criticizing a particular work, if you make 
 general allegations concerning the author. Nevertheless, 
 it is permissible to criticize the works of a dramatist 
 generally upon a reasonable opportunity ; yet there is 
 a danger of your getting into trouble on the point of 
 honesty, for it is not honest to comment upon his works 
 generally unless you are well acquainted with them. 
 
 To sum up : if the opinion expressed is honest and 
 relevant, then mere unsoundness of judgment will not 
 hurt you. The opinion of the jury, or even of the judge, 
 is not to be substituted for yours, otherwise we should 
 have to burn our pens. There is sense in this. The 
 butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, and even 
 the learned judge, may have less knowledge of art, or less 
 taste in music, than the starving critic of Fleet Street. 
 
 Honesty is the other element. Yet it has been 
 suggested, though unsuccessfully, that honesty is not 
 a necessary ingredient in the defence of " fair comment." 
 It was argued that a criticism, defensible if written by 
 an honest critic, could not be indefensible because 
 written by one whose motive was malicious — in other 
 words, that the matter was objective, not subjective. 
 Certainly, at first sight, it seems strange that A can say 
 with impunity that Smith's book is dull and B may 
 have to pay damages for saying the same thing in the 
 same words. Clearly the injury to the author may 
 be the same in each case, might be greater in A 's if he 
 wrote for a paper of larger circulation than the one 
 which published " B's " criticism.
 
 26 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 On the other hand, few acts can be regarded in law 
 from the point of view of their consequences only. 
 Smith may be killed by " A " or " B," and the former, 
 on account of the circumstances, may commit non- 
 culpable homicide, the latter murder. 
 
 To eliminate the ingredient of malice or, and it is 
 the same thing, to say that a criticism need not be 
 honest might lead to shocking consequences. The 
 skilful craftsman would be able to write a fiendish 
 criticism with impunity and boast of the gratification 
 of his hatred. There is no half-way house. A plaintiff 
 must be entitled to offer evidence to a jury that the 
 so-called critic has stated that, although he called the 
 plaintiff's book dull and clumsy, he really thought it a 
 dehghtful masterpiece ; or he must be Hmited to in- 
 viting judge and jury to study the defendant's article. 
 Who would be satisfied that justice had not slept if such 
 evidence were excluded ? 
 
 If, then, you dishke the author, dip your pen in honey 
 rather than in vinegar or, wiser still, leave his work alone. 
 You must be more than human not to be biassed and 
 if, to contradict the bias, you praise the book against 
 your judgment, you act wrongly as a critic. What is 
 honesty ? There is the crux. Courts of law are but 
 man-made machinery and very imperfect, juries are 
 often very stupid, even judges — but perhaps we ought 
 to pause here. Consequently, if the author has any 
 grounds for suggesting that you are ill-disposed towards 
 him, and yet you must act as critic (amateur or pro- 
 fessional), be scrupulously relevant and decidedly 
 colourless. At present the honesty has not been 
 analysed by the courts ; some day the question will be 
 raised whether competence is not a necessary ingredient. 
 Could a Gautier who hated music honestly criticize a
 
 HIS FEAR OF LIBEL ACTIONS 27 
 
 symphony ; could a blind man honestly criticize a 
 picture ? These are extreme cases, and a hne must 
 be drawn somewhere. Still, some day the courts may 
 require the defendant to give evidence of his fitness to 
 act as a critic if his fitness be challenged. To these 
 remarks one obvious matter should be added. All 
 statements of fact in a criticism must be accurate. 
 The line between matters of fact and matters of opinion 
 is sometimes fine, but the law is clear. An allegation 
 of fact is not comment, and all such allegations, if 
 injurious, must be justified — that is — proved to be true, 
 if the defence of fair comment is pleaded.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE DRAIMATIC CRITIC 
 
 His Duty to be Tolerant 
 
 SOME remarks which appeared in a popular weekly 
 paper concerning Mrs Patrick Campbell's Deirdre 
 and Electra deserv^e a little consideration. One of 
 the critics attached to the paper spoke of the affair 
 as being an ** indifferent performance of indifferent 
 tragedies," and then said it was " a simple affectation 
 to profess to enjoy it," and that it was not, ** as some 
 people seem to think, a mark of culture, but only of 
 insufficient culture not to acknowledge that one is 
 bored by this kind of thing." 
 
 An affronted critic wrote to the paper, complaining 
 of the charge of affectation and insufficient culture, 
 and was promptly rebuked as a "bumptious correspond- 
 ent," and told that his letter convinced the critic that 
 he was one of those affected persons whose misdirected 
 zeal the writer deplored. This attitude is not a novelty. 
 Many of the critics, at one period, charged the professed 
 admirers of Wagner with being impostors or imbeciles ; 
 later on, anyone who professed to like the pictures of 
 Whistler or Rossetti or Bume-Jones, or of any of the 
 Impressionists, was accused of affectation. When Ibsen 
 was introduced to England the conservative critics 
 raved, and alleged that the Ibsenites (or " Obscenites " 
 — the word was considered very witty) were humbugs ; 
 
 28
 
 HIS DUTY TO BE TOLERANT 29 
 
 this was one of the least offensive charges. The same 
 kind of thing happened in the case of Maeterhnck. 
 Many other instances might be cited. 
 
 It is a curious form of attack. Why should a critic 
 who alleged that he had much pleasure and certainly 
 no boredom from Mr Yeats' play and Mrs Campbell's 
 beautiful acting, be charged with affectation and 
 also with insufficient culture ? Of course^ the critics 
 are insufficiently cultured. There are thousands of 
 plays and books that they ought to have read, of 
 dramas they ought to have witnessed, of pictures 
 they ought to have seen, masses of music they 
 ought to have heard — and have not — and, therefore, 
 they are persons of very insufficient culture. But the 
 writer in question should offer some evidence of his own 
 sufficiency of culture before alleging that the critic's 
 opinion concerning the play and the performance was 
 due to a lack of culture. 
 
 After all, one would seem entitled to express an opinion 
 on a question of art or pleasure without being called a 
 liar by someone who takes a different view. The matter 
 is one of some importance because the attack is insidious 
 and dangerous. The deadliest weapon in the hands of 
 the critic is the allegation of boredom. You can say 
 that a piece is vulgar, indelicate, inartistic, indecent, 
 full of " chestnuts," old-fashioned, " melodramatic," 
 ill-constructed or unoriginal, without doing fatal injury, 
 but if you allege that you and everybody else suffered 
 from boredom your attack may be fatal. This is the 
 reason why the charge is so often made by people with 
 strong prejudices. 
 
 There is something to be said on both sides. No 
 doubt the lovers of the severer form of drama, the 
 worshippers of Shaw, the playgoers who supported the
 
 30 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 societies of which the Independent Theatre was the 
 first and regarded the Court Theatre for a while as a 
 kind of Mecca, are not always judicious when talking 
 about musical comedy and comic opera, and some of 
 them have been very narrow-minded. They have re- 
 fused to admit the merit of any comic operas, except 
 those of Gilbert and Sullivan, they have lavished 
 in discriminating abuse upon almost all others, have 
 looked upon Daly's Theatre and the Gaiety and the 
 Prince of Wales' as so many Nazareths. This, of course, 
 has caused a great deal of annoyance to the lovers of 
 musico-dramatic work. 
 
 Moreover, some of the austere folk have denounced 
 melodrama and farce, and the so-called romantic 
 comedy, without drawdng nice distinctions. This in- 
 discriminate denunciation has naturally caused annoy- 
 ance and reprisals. Because some critics disliked 
 A Chifiese Honeymoon enormously, because wild motor 
 'buses could not drag them to see The Scarlet Pimpernel, 
 they do not doubt, or pretend to doubt, that hundreds 
 of thousands, perhaps millions, of people have enjoyed 
 these pieces. Without for one moment believing in the 
 phrase "Degustibus nonest disputandum " as ordinarily 
 interpreted, one must fully recognise that palates differ. 
 If M. Steinheil chose to dine upon cold pork-pie, sausage, 
 cold veal and lobster as the papers allege, it is not sur- 
 prising that he died, only a little amazing that the 
 French police w^ere puzzled as to the cause of his death, 
 but there was no reason for charging him with affecta- 
 tion in eating such a meal or insufhcient culture, though 
 it was hardly the banquet of a gourmet. One may pull 
 a wry face at a costly Bouillabaisse chez Roubillon at 
 Marseilles without doubting that poor old " G. A. S.," 
 and Thackeray too, loved the dish. Some prefer homely
 
 HIS DUTY TO BE TOLERANT 31 
 
 beer to any of the white wines of the Rhine, yet many 
 people honestly enjoy those high-priced varieties of 
 weak-minded venegar ; and no doubt it is not affecta- 
 tion which causes some people to allege that they like 
 black pudding and tripe and onions. 
 
 The matter has its serious aspect. The attacks 
 made, very unfairly, upon the novel forms of drama by 
 conservative critics, when they take this form of alleging 
 that not only the critic but the audience was bored, 
 and that professed admirers are insincere, undoubtedly 
 are very effective, and certainly are sometimes made in 
 good faith. 
 
 There are people so foolish as to think that nobody 
 can like what they do not ; also so fatuous as to con- 
 sider that no one ought to like what they do not ; but 
 to jump from this to alleging that the professed ad- 
 mirers of ambitious works are humbugs is outrageous. 
 The butcher boy enjoys Sweeney Todd, the Barber of 
 Fleet Street : why should he disbelieve my statement 
 that others get pleasure from a performance of a 
 Hedda Gabler, which would hardly appeal to 
 him ? 
 
 Large numbers of playgoers have been kept away from 
 able and ambitious dramas, written by dramatists with 
 a true artistic aim, because of the oft-repeated allega- 
 tions by newspaper writers, who did not like them, that 
 everybody was bored ; also the wholesale denunciation 
 of the lighter forms of dramatic and musico-dramatic 
 forms of entertainment by some of the critics has 
 weakened their influence, has led the man in the street 
 to think that if Mr X. or Y. or Z. can find no pleasure 
 in what he likes that he will get no entertainment from 
 what they admire. One supposes, at least hopes, that 
 dramatic critics of all kinds and grades have an honest
 
 32 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 desire for the advance and success of British Drama. 
 They will hardly be successful in their wishes unless on 
 each side a little more tolerance is shown for the opinions 
 professed by members of the other. 
 
 His Sympathies when Young 
 
 In some criticisms on certain demi-semi-private 
 performances given in London by a well-known French 
 actress and her company there seemed to be a note not 
 often discoverable in English articles dealing with the 
 theatre. It appeared as if several of the writers had a 
 kind of fierce exultation in the thought that the play 
 represented was likely to shock a good many people — 
 people presumably entitled to have their feelings con- 
 sidered seriously. In the annals of English art there 
 has been rather a scanty exhibition of the desire to 
 do what may be most easily described by two French 
 phrases, " epater le bourgeois " or " ehouriffer le bour- 
 geois.'" 
 
 It is, in fact, noticeable that we possess no recognised 
 Enghsh set phrase, such as "to startle the Philistine " 
 or " to ruffle the hair of the Philistine." Indeed, before 
 Matthew Arnold imported the term Philistine from 
 Germany, as equivalent in art matters to the French 
 " le bourgeois " or the later expression " r Spicier,'' we 
 really had nothing at all to correspond with these terms. 
 For to shock " Mrs Grundy " is quite off the point. This 
 is the more remarkable because the bourgeois feeling — 
 treated, by the way, admirably in Balzac's short story 
 " Pierre Grassou " — has long been the curse of English 
 art, and, as represented by the Royal Academy, still 
 remains a paramount power for evil. 
 
 It cannot be said that the desire to " ebouriffer le
 
 HIS SYMPATHIES WHEN YOUNG 33 
 
 bourgeois " often leads to valuable results so far as the 
 works intended to accomplish the feat are concerned, 
 although it is possible that some of them have otherwise 
 had a beneficial result. Another French phrase, " pour 
 activer la digestion, ^^ contains a hint that such an attempt 
 may indirectly render service to art. Our popular 
 ideas of medical treatment have never adopted the 
 theory suggested by the foreign phrase, which is that 
 when the digestive apparatus is sluggish it is advisable 
 to eat something violently indigestible so that the 
 stomach, summoning all its forces to deal with the in- 
 truder, may be aroused to a state of activity. This is 
 a kind of theory to be tried on the dog — not your own 
 dog, of course. 
 
 Yet it may be that an occasional slap in the face of the 
 public in respect of artistic matters awakens it from the 
 complacent state of lethargy in which it lies with re- 
 gard to most questions of art. 
 
 The young EngHsh dramatist has very few opportuni- 
 ties of making the hair of the Philistine stand on end or 
 activating his digestion ; he is worse off than the youth- 
 ful British painter who, as those that have haunted the 
 English studios and the ateliers on the Surrey side of the 
 Seine well know, can give a kind of birth to his insults to 
 the taste of the churchwarden. Once down upon canvas 
 a picture is at least half-alive, whilst nothing is more 
 pitifully dead than the audacious play in manuscript. 
 
 The Theatre de I'QEuvre gave to French revolu- 
 tionaries in dramatic art the chance of setting the 
 Seine on fire, but the Censor has allowed our playwrights 
 little scope. The evasion of his authority by means of 
 nominally private performances has brought into brief 
 Ufe on the boards very few pieces in my time in which 
 one can really see evidence of the youthful desire to 
 c
 
 34 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 shock the Phihstine. In Ghosts, Les Trois Filles de 
 M. Dupont, and Monna Vanna, though all three were 
 prohibited by the authority, there is no sign of the 
 particular element in question. The first two are 
 serious, sober studies of social problems, not intended 
 to shock or startle but to educate the orthodox. The 
 prohibition of the third was simply an official blunder 
 in relation to a dignified work of art. 
 
 On the other hand there is a trace of the spirit in 
 Mrs Warrants Profession, and Salome seems full of it. 
 Curiously enough, in some of the permitted dramas by 
 Mr Bernard Shaw there is evidence of this desire. Mr 
 Shaw often seems to be saying, "I'm going to make 
 your flesh creep." He is a brilliant dramatist, and 
 also, desperately in earnest, and it may weU be that 
 they are right who think that his plays w^ll live along 
 after the death of most English works produced since 
 the public and critics were bewildered at the first 
 performance of Widowers' Houses, and he certainly 
 appears to adopt as a policy the theory of stirring up 
 into activity the lethargic stomach of the British play- 
 goer by devices carefully calculated to make him howl. 
 
 Salome stands in another category : the author had 
 no lesson to teach. As a work of art his play would 
 not be invalidated or even weakened if, instead of the 
 bibhcal characters and phrases, he had invented his 
 prophet, slightly altered time and place, and left out 
 the quotations ; but to have done this would have been 
 to avoid shockmg people. Of course it is not always 
 easy to be certain whether an audacity is employed 
 with the desire to " ebouriffer le bourgeois " that may be 
 excusable, or with the object of beating the big drum 
 and caUing attention, ignobly, to the existence of a 
 work which, but for such means of publicity, might have
 
 HIS SYMPATHIES WHEN YOUNG 35 
 
 remained unnoticed. In the case of Salome it is hard to 
 guess to which of these two motives one ought to ascribe 
 the choice of treatment made by the lamentable man of 
 genius who illustrated the truth of the th&oxy advocated 
 by the late dramatic critic of The Times in his work 
 " The Insanity of Genius." 
 
 Such audacities often deceive the youthful critic, 
 and, in some of the notices referred to, the signs of 
 youth are manifest in the ill-balanced enthusiasm, as 
 well as in the employment of phrases of praise which 
 the old hand shirks with a curious kind of bashfulness. 
 
 In criticism there is a difficulty analogous to that 
 which is supposed to beset the performance of the part 
 of Juhet ; it is rather nicely put in the title of one of 
 Beranger's poems- — and also of a rather dreary, once 
 popular, novel, " Si Jeunesse Savait, si Vieillesse 
 Pouvait." In youth one has intense sympathy with 
 the lost causes, or, rather, with those that have not 
 yet been found, and superb contempt for the conven- 
 tional, without possessing the judgment to distinguish 
 the tares from the wheat ; every novelty attracts, every 
 audacity appeals, and we introduce obscure artists 
 of alleged genius by the dozen to an unsympathetic 
 world ; as age and judgment come enthusiasm w^anes, 
 till at last the inevitable crystallization begins and new 
 ideas beat vainly at the doors of our minds. 
 
 Even before the crystaUization has become serious 
 it is very hard to appreciate the rare novelties of idea 
 offered in our theatres ; weariness of stale conventions 
 which affects the young critic in a less degree than the 
 old, does not easily induce one to accept mere outrages 
 upon them. Salome, indeed, has some outrages upon 
 stale conventions, but they are rather stale outrages. 
 
 Certain French comedies have reduced unconvention-
 
 36 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 ality in morals to a kind of spurious conventionality ; 
 in some of them the idea of marriage as a prehminary 
 to connubial relations is regarded as rather shocking. 
 Some day Madame Granier will hide her face in her 
 hands, shameful at the insult of " married woman '* 
 hurled at her ; and our youthful critic wall admire the 
 audacity. Caution requires the statement that it was 
 not Madame Granier who gave the semi-demi-private 
 performances : honesty compels one to admit that 
 these remarks constitute a moan about lost youth, 
 and are full of envy, hatred and malice towards those 
 blessed with splendidly indiscreet enthusiasm for 
 flaunting audacity in artistic matters. 
 
 The Jaded Critic 
 
 At this, the season of the country cousin, the gift and 
 sometimes receipt of game, the abandonment of autumn 
 underclothing and the overhauling of pike tackle, a ques- 
 tion is often put to the critic. It comes from the country 
 cousin, and is generally in these words or thereabouts : 
 " WTiat piece ought we to take tickets for ? " which 
 generally has an under-surface suggestion, and might 
 be translated into : " For what theatre are you going 
 to get us seats ? " Of course we are dense enough not to 
 notice that the inquiry is more than skin-deep ; the 
 question of " paper " for the critics is not one concerning 
 which it is necessary or desirable to write. The answer 
 to the surface inquiry generally provokes a discussion. 
 In a guarded way the critic makes a reply containing the 
 
 formula " I think you would like " which does not 
 
 altogether please the inquirer. For the country cousin 
 suspects the existence of a lurking insult to him upon 
 the point of taste or intelligence.
 
 THE JADED CRITIC 37 
 
 The end of it is always, or nearly, the same, and to 
 the effect that of course we " jaded critics " do not really 
 care about any pieces at all, and only visit the theatre 
 because we are paid to go, and that it is awfully unfair 
 that such " jaded " — one cannot help insisting upon the 
 word " jaded " — people should be allowed to act as 
 critics. It has been suggested bluntly that we ought 
 to be dismissed after fifteen years' labour, and of course, 
 if there were a pension — but then we are no better off 
 in that respect than county-court judges. 
 
 Yet even the cleverest country cousin cannot suggest 
 any useful employment for superannuated, middle-aged 
 dramatic critics. 
 
 No doubt we have been advising our cousins quite 
 wisely as to what is likely to please them, for if we learn 
 nothing else by our labour we certainly get to know 
 what kind of play and performance is to the taste 
 of other people. 
 
 Sometimes one asks oneself what truth there is in the 
 jaded critic theory. It cannot be pretended that a 
 man who goes to the theatre three times or so a week 
 pays each visit in the hopeful state of mind or with 
 the expectation of intense enjoyment possible to those 
 who only patronize the playhouse now and then and 
 pick their pieces. Indeed, he very often sets out with 
 the knowledge that he is going to pass a duU evening. 
 If he is unable to guess that, his experience will have 
 told him little and his capacity is smaU. Moreover, 
 he cannot be expected to take such pleasure in the 
 average play as if his visits w^ere rare, and what has 
 been said about the play necessarily applies to the 
 acting. 
 
 Sometimes when watching a work of common quality, 
 a painful idea comes into one's mind, and we wonder
 
 38 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 how people, compelled to see it night after night 
 perhaps for half-a-year, can endure the strain. What, 
 for instance, must be the sufferings of the conductor or 
 of a member of the orchestra at a successful second-rate 
 musical comedy ; of a stage manager compelled for 
 months, one after another, to direct a brainless farce ? 
 Of course the people lumped together in the technical 
 term as " the front of the house " have a remedy, and 
 after the first night or two only appear in the auditorium 
 when the curtain i^ down, or, to be more accurate, just 
 before it descends, when all hands are expected to be 
 on deck. 
 
 There are critics that resemble the person who denied 
 that any beer could be bad, and would sooner pass an 
 evening in a theatre watching a mediocre play acted 
 in a style no better than it deserv^es than at home in a 
 well-stocked library. They resemble the journalist in 
 a story by Balzac who, when blind, haunted a news- 
 paper office and revelled in the smell of printers' ink, 
 and they have been known for their own pleasure to 
 pay a second visit to a piece on which they wrote a 
 condemnatory criticism. In fact, they have the curious 
 mania for the theatre which induces many people with no 
 talent for acting to abandon comfortable careers and 
 starve on the stage — or at the stage door. 
 
 That the critic's sufferings in the playhouse are con- 
 siderable is incontestable, and they are keener at the 
 performance of works of mediocrity than when watching 
 very bad plays. Fortunately there are two sides to 
 every hedge. When the play has any touch of origin- 
 ahty, or even novelty, our pleasure is far keener than 
 that of the unsophisticated, and we often perceive origin- 
 ality or novelty where the public notices none. A whole 
 field of enjoyment is open to us in the triumphs of
 
 THE JADED CRITIC 39 
 
 technique which is almost untrodden by the general 
 public. Our poles of pain and pleasure are farther apart 
 than those of the Man in the Street. There have been 
 pieces and performances concerning which the praise 
 of the critics, or some of them, has seemed mere raving 
 to the ordinary playgoer. Several actors and actresses 
 whom we prefer to some of the popular favourites have 
 been banished from London by the indifference of 
 Londoners, and there are " stars " beloved in the 
 theatres who irritate the observant because they have 
 never learnt their art, and nevertheless triumph by 
 mere force of personality. 
 
 No doubt the critics, so far as acting is concerned, 
 often — very often — fall into an error and censure acting 
 which does not move them yet impresses the audience, 
 forgetting that it is the advantage and disadvantage 
 of the actor that he need only affect, and must affect, 
 those before him, and that to move only a minority of a 
 normal audience is to act badly. One may write but 
 cannot act for posterity, and therefore the actor, the 
 pianist, the violinist, and the like should not be grudged 
 their noisy, obvious demonstrations of admiration. 
 
 Does the critic really get jaded ? Is it unfair that 
 the " jaded " critic should deal with the average play ? 
 In answering the latter question one should consider 
 whether the notices of the younger critics, too fresh to 
 have become jaded, are more valuable than those 
 of the veterans. Perhaps the two questions should be 
 treated together. 
 
 Most critics do get jaded. The critic is jaded when 
 he is saturated with theatrical impressions and cannot 
 take up any more, when new pieces merely recall 
 memories of old pieces or are disliked and distrusted 
 because they do not. After a certain age, varying with
 
 40 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 the individual, aD, or almost all, of us gradually move 
 towards a condition of repugnance to new ideas — a 
 repugnance that becomes hatred when they are in- 
 consistent with the old theories that have grown to be 
 part of ourselves as well as of our stock-in-trade ; and 
 when this movement has gone far we are " jaded," are 
 unfit to estimate the value of new ideas ; we are still 
 competent to apply the old theories to plays and acting 
 based on them, but of course cumber the ground and 
 retard progress. In youth, having few theories of our 
 own or that have cost us enough labour in acquirement 
 to seem very precious, we tend to be over-hospitable to 
 new ideas and accept dangerous guests. 
 
 The notices of the veterans, even of the jaded, upon 
 the average work are sounder, as a rule, than those of 
 the young hands, because the latter very often mistake 
 things merely new to them for things actually new, and 
 they are kinder for the reason that the writers know 
 how great are the difficulties in the way of writing plays 
 from a novel standpoint and of getting them produced 
 when written. There is less violence in their views. 
 
 Happy the critic during the years when he is old 
 enough to be cautious about accepting new ideas and 
 young enough to be enthusiastic concerning them after 
 careful consideration, when he is so mature as not to 
 desire to stagger the orthodox by the impudence of his 
 opinions, and sufficiently youthful to be willing to shock 
 the conser\^ative by the audacity of his views. He 
 may then seem jaded because he is not easily moved, 
 but will be quicker to give encouragement to sincere 
 effort, to perceive talent imperfectly manifested, and to 
 appreciate technical triumphs than when he was younger 
 and yet able to welcome novel ideas even if they assail 
 cherished theories.
 
 HIS UNPAID LABOURS 41 
 
 His Unpaid Labours 
 
 Probably many of the craft have wasted a good deal 
 of the last few first-nightless weeks in the trying task of 
 reading plays, not the printed plays by dramatists 
 of reputation, but the manuscripts with which we, or 
 some of us, are flooded. It is hard to guess why strangers 
 should assume that we are willing to spend our time in 
 reading their plays, but they do. Some apparently deem 
 it to be part of our duties, and even believe that there 
 exists a Government fund which pays our expenses of 
 postages and stationery, for many of the amateur 
 authors make no provision for the return of their 
 work. Occasionally there comes a suggestion that we 
 are really conferring no favour because the pleasure 
 of reading the play will pay for our pains. Some imagine 
 us to be agents for the managers. Even the proposal 
 to pay a commission if we place the piece is not rare ; 
 now and then it is wrapped up gracefully, but frequently 
 is expressed in the bluntest fashion. 
 
 Upon consideration of the batch lately waded through 
 several things stand out, Firstly, most of them exhibit 
 no trace of cleverness ; so far as one can see the writers 
 are people without any gift at all for writing — for writ- 
 ing anything — but are ordinary commonplace people 
 who, unless their conversation is more brilliant than their 
 written matter, would not be considered clever by their 
 friends in everyday life. 
 
 They write farces or comedies, in an orthodox form, 
 which contain a surprisingly small number of jokes 
 or efforts at wit and humour. Their works have the air 
 of being mere preliminary plays — ^the playwrights ap- 
 parently have set out scenes and written dialogue in- 
 tended to indicate the nature of the proposed piece with
 
 42 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 the view afterwards not, indeed of polishing, for there 
 is nothing to poHsh, but of rewriting, putting in the 
 vital passages during the process. One cannot offer any 
 useful advice to these people, save that of suggesting 
 they should turn their attention to gardening or golf. 
 They have only one fault, and it is that they have 
 no quality. Such writers, as a rule, have at least 
 one small quite useless \drtue — their pieces are 
 not ridiculously unsuitable in point of form for the 
 stage. 
 
 A more interesting class consists of authors who pos- 
 sess some talent and no idea how to use it. They write 
 comedies which have some clever passages, some lines 
 witty enough to deserve a laugh, and exhibit capacity 
 in character-drawing, but are not at all in an accept- 
 able form. A comedy in six acts, with twenty scenes, 
 would not be considered for a moment by a modem 
 manager. 
 
 We have returned in a curious way to something like 
 the ideas underlying " the unities " ; perhaps that 
 statement is incorrect, but, at least, we have put upon 
 our dramatists certain working laws almost as em- 
 barrassing as the unities. The average playgoer has 
 no idea of the skill involved in writing the ordinary 
 successful comedy of the present time. 
 
 The modem dramatist has nothing approaching the 
 licence of his predecessors. Construction was compara- 
 tively easy in the time of a Sheridan or a Goldsmith ; 
 not only were they allowed to use explanatory dialogue, 
 in which A told B a number of things which B knew 
 already, because the author desired the audience to 
 learn them ; but they were permitted to give direct 
 statements of fact in soliloquies. Such licence 
 has gone : asides are dead, statements of fact in
 
 HIS UNPAID LABOURS 43 
 
 soliloquies are only permitted in formal tragedies. 
 Moreover, having the right to make almost an un- 
 limited number of changes of scenery, they were enabled 
 to present in action the facts which in our days have to 
 be told to the audience in dialogue — dialogue written 
 under severe limitations. In consequence, the mechani- 
 cal difficulties of construction were then very small. 
 Nowadays, except in the case of melodrama, complicated 
 stories have to be told in three or four acts, with no 
 change of scenery during an act. 
 
 Let anyone who doubts whether this creates a diffi- 
 culty take an ordinary famous old comedy and rewrite 
 it in a form in which it would be accepted as a new play 
 by a London manager, and he will find the difficulty 
 enormous. To the youthful dramatist this exercise is 
 very valuable means of studying the art of construction. 
 When, unassisted by the work of former adapters, he 
 has succeeded in converting half-a-dozen eighteenth- 
 century comedies into three or four act comedies, 
 without any changes of scenery during an act, and has 
 used aU the matter of the old comedies in his versions 
 and yet avoided the employment of the soliloquy, or 
 the aside, or the explanatory dialogue in which A tells 
 B what B knows already, he will have learnt a great 
 deal of his craft. This explanatory dialogue is the sort 
 of passage in which a son reminds his mother of the date 
 of his birth, and the profession of his father, and of the 
 period when she sent him to school and so on. 
 
 It may be doubted confidently whether a change of 
 style, which has increased so enormously the practical 
 difficulties of writing acceptable plays, has been bene- 
 ficial to drama. There are writers with wit and a sense 
 of character who under the freer system of old days 
 might have produced successful plays, but are never
 
 44 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 able to acquire the mechanical skill now demanded, 
 and are kept off the stage by artificial regulations, 
 some of them not based upon essential ideas of drama 
 but in reality upon questions connected with scenery. 
 One cannot have many changes of the elaborate 
 scenery nowadays employed in comedy, and the illusion 
 sought and to some extent obtained by these costly, 
 complicated sets makes the very useful carpenter's 
 scene impossible. It often happens that incongruities 
 and absurdities in modem plays are due to desperate 
 efforts to overcome these difficulties. Scenes take place 
 in the drawing-room that ought to have been out of 
 doors ; things are said that should have been done ; 
 and there are long passages of dialogue where short 
 scenes of action would be preferable. 
 
 In a large number of cases the manuscripts we read 
 are unacceptable because the authors have not complied 
 with these requirements of the modem stage ; and it is 
 impossible for us, with the best will in the world, to 
 reconstruct the works. We can only point out, re- 
 gretfully, that they do not comply with these modem 
 regulations, and we know quite well that the dramatists 
 will be unable to make the necessary changes. The 
 modem system has had the great disadvantage of putting 
 out of the range of the average writer of comedy a good 
 many subjects that deserve treatment, but can only be 
 handled with success by writers of great experience or 
 those who possess remarkable gifts for the semi- 
 mechanical work of construction, which are not neces- 
 sarily allied to the higher quahties needed by the 
 dramatist. 
 
 Of course, some of the manuscripts are ridiculous : 
 five-act plays that would not last an hour and a half 
 upon the stage and three-act comedies which would
 
 HIS LETTER BAG 45 
 
 require an evening per act ; tragedies in rhymed verse 
 not up to the standard of cracker poetry. It is difficult 
 to understand how such things come to be written. 
 The authors must sometimes go to the theatre or read 
 plays, and therefore ought to know that their works 
 are unsuitable, and that they are wasting money in 
 getting their stuff typewritten. Presumably the pheno- 
 menon is somehow connected with the curious glamour 
 of the stage. The person who would not dream of 
 trying to cook a chop without some little study of the 
 methods of the kitchen will try to write facre or comedy 
 or tragedy and not deem it necessary seriously to con- 
 sider the elementary laws governing such works. 
 
 His Letter Bag 
 
 Possibly the editor sometimes looks with curiosity 
 at the envelopes of letters addressed to a dramatic 
 critic at the editorial office. Let us trust that in the 
 case of those envelopes obviously bearing a lady's hand- 
 writing curiosity is not tinged with suspicion. Letters 
 directed to "The Dramatic Editor" are generally 
 American, and contain statements of tremendous im- 
 portance concerning, as a rule, people of whom one has 
 never heard and requesting the critic to publish them 
 in the next issue of " his " paper. 
 
 The documents forwarded by the office are only a 
 tithe of those which come to the critic officially, there 
 being several ways of ascertaining addresses. Many 
 consist of requests to read plays, and exhibit pitifully 
 the strange bhndness of parents. A number are almost 
 according to a pattern and run about thus : " Dear 
 Sir, — Having been a constant reader of your admirable 
 criticisms and sharing sincerely your views about the
 
 46 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 drama, now, alas ! in such a deplorable condition, I 
 feel that there is sufficient sympathy between us for 
 you to be anxious to read the MS. that I enclose and 
 give me your candid opinion about it ["candid" is 
 generally underlined], and if you share the opinion that 
 my friends entertain concerning its merits you will 
 perhaps be of assistance to me in getting it brought to 
 the attention of the managers." With this there 
 arrives, unaccompanied by stamps for its return, some 
 work of a hopeless character, often an indifferent 
 specimen of the sort of mechanical farce which, even 
 when good, amuses us little. 
 
 Occasionally a romantic drama is received. Once 
 there came a really touching letter from a lady in great 
 trouble on account of want of money, such trouble that 
 she not only failed to enclose stamps for return of her 
 MS. but did not use half enough to frank the heavy 
 packet. She felt sure that the novelty of her plot 
 would make up for any triffing defects due to inex- 
 perience. The drama, which was full of " Gadzooks ! " 
 and the like, and Roundheads and Cavaliers, concerned 
 Oliver Cromwell and Charles I., and included a plot to 
 rescue the unhappy monarch on the scaffold, which was 
 only frustrated by the direct intervention of " Old Noll," 
 who, after a struggle, used the axe with his own hands. 
 It had seven acts and thirty-three scenes. 
 
 We read scores of these pieces, and in most cases our 
 " candid " criticism is not well received. Ere now the 
 reward for the unpaid labour of five or six hours has 
 been a postcard explaining that the author can well 
 understand the deplorable condition of our drama, 
 seeing how incompetent the critics are. There is, of 
 course, another side to the matter. A few pieces — a 
 very small proportion, alas ! — have merit, and a few
 
 HIS LETTER BAG 47 
 
 of the authors of the few pieces accept the unpaid 
 critic's remarks reasonably. 
 
 Another crop consists of letters from indignant 
 authors or players, which contain argument or abuse, 
 or both. The epistles from authors in some cases are 
 so interesting that it is sad to think we are too obscure 
 to have a biographer who might use them. Those of 
 the players have their humours, particularly when 
 from the aggrieved actresses. One deserves to be 
 mentioned ; it stated that, reading between the lines, 
 the lady understood the critic to suggest she was too old 
 for the part of Juliet, and therefore sent a copy of her 
 birth certificate. 
 
 It was only a copy — there was only her word to show 
 that it was a copy of her certificate ; in the law courts 
 they will not accept your own evidence that you are a 
 minor, even if you bring a certificate issued by Somerset 
 House ; they want proof of your being the person 
 named in the certificate. If the letter had contained 
 a photograph it would have shown that, although 
 alleged to be only twenty-two years old, the lady 
 weighed about 200 lbs., and had a large, fiat face, 
 with an inadequate pug-nose. 
 
 In a number of cases one is implored to come to the 
 Pier Concert Hall at Flushington-on-Sea, or the like, 
 because, " owing to your appreciative remarks about 
 my performance as the Second Gravedigger in Hamlet, 
 I am sure you would like to see my King Lear." These 
 give a good deal of trouble, because it is difficult to 
 decline without hurting feehngs. Another branch lies 
 in the simple request from people with whom one is 
 unacquainted for introduction to managers whom one 
 does not know. 
 
 Fortunately there is another and a pleasanter side.
 
 48 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 There are letters that we prize, and unfortunately 
 cannot quote, from authors, generally young authors, 
 with thanks for words of encouragement, particularly 
 in relation to unsuccessful work that seemed to have 
 been unlucky ; and there are letters from actors and 
 actresses, speaking with gratitude — gratitude un- 
 earned, since only duty has been done — for words of 
 praise which have helped to get an engagement or at 
 least to give courage where hope had grown faint. They 
 must be difficult letters to write, since it is clear that 
 the writers generally feel doubtful whether they ought 
 to be written. An ingenious phrase from one of them 
 may be quoted : "I can hardly be taking a liberty in 
 giving a harmless pleasure to a stranger, and I am sure 
 from what I have read of your criticisms that it will be 
 a pleasure to you to know that you have given great 
 comfort and encouragement to one whom you deem 
 worthy of praise." 
 
 Last of all are letters from persons who are or profess 
 to be impartial critics of our criticisms, and desire to 
 cause us to change our opinions. An unimportant 
 article — a second-hand article borrowed from Charles 
 Lamb — concerning the effect, on the stage, of Shake- 
 speare's dramas has brought in a respectable revenue to 
 the Post Ofhce, whilst correspondence concerning the 
 wickedness of praising problem plays, however interest- 
 ing, must have substantially helped some stationers to 
 pay their rent. Fewer but far more exasperating are 
 the epistles in which people express their hearty agree- 
 ment with opinions which we have never expressed, 
 and give praise and encouragement to us for attacking 
 institutions that we do not think undesirable or defend- 
 ing conduct really deplored by us. Even the obscure 
 are often misunderstood.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE DRAIVIATIC CRITIC 
 
 An Attack upon him 
 
 AFTER careful consideration, and almost taking 
 the trouble of rereading some of my little 
 essa3^s, we have failed to discover exactly why the 
 letter set out hereafter was written. Apparently the 
 articles have been a little bitter concerning what some 
 of us call commercial drama, even rather ferocious 
 about a recent crop of plays. 
 
 Certainly it seems well that the other side should be 
 heard, that the middle-class sensualist — perhaps " the 
 average hedonist " is a better translation of " Vhomme 
 moyen sensual " — should be allowed to express his 
 views ; for one is disinclined to attach importance to 
 the Philistine observations in the theatrical trade 
 papers or in the interviews with managers. At the 
 same time, some doubts are possible concerning the 
 letter ; it seems to contain some impHcit evidence 
 that it was concocted by somebody holding a brief, by 
 a person accustomed to controversy ; it is written on 
 the Sports Club notepaper, and merely signed " A 
 Middle- Aged Pleasure-Seeker." 
 
 " Dear Sir, — I have read a great deal about the 
 
 theatres in The Westminster Gazette, signed by * E. F. S.' 
 
 I take in the paper because I disagree with its views 
 
 on all topics — particularly the drama — and I like to 
 
 D 49
 
 50 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 hear the other side. Why have you not got a sense of 
 humour ? Why do you not cease flogging that dead 
 horse, the British Drama ? Do you think you can flog 
 it into hfe ? Do you beheve that British Drama, as 
 you understand it, ever did hve, or ever will ? I don't. 
 There is too much common sense in London. 
 
 " Why do you persist in girding at Mr Tree because 
 he gives beautiful scenery instead of what you think 
 fine plays ? Lots of people enjoy his entertainments. 
 I don't myself, for I agree with you that Shakespeare 
 and Phillips are tiresome. I notice, by the way, that 
 you even begin to gibe at the scenery and suggest that 
 it is not beautiful because it is too pretty, which is a 
 mere paradox, and of course absurd. Why do you 
 keep howling against melodrama and musical comedy ? 
 
 " Above all, what grounds have you for supposing 
 that we can have, or ought to have, a drama based 
 upon true observation of life ? Every one of us, every 
 day of his existence, is the hero of a drama based upon 
 the true observation of life, and a very tiresome drama 
 too, as a rule, and we all want to see dramas in the 
 theatre that take us out of ourselves. You seem to 
 think that we can and ought to have a drama like the 
 novels of Meredith, which I believe nobody ever reads, 
 or the pictures of Whistler, that are simply ridiculous, 
 or the ugly music of Strauss — I don't mean the one 
 who writes waltzes. 
 
 " Even assuming that there are people who like such 
 novels, or pictures, or music, your case is none the better, 
 for ordinary people don't get trapped into being bored 
 by them, and such works can live without general 
 support, whilst drama has to appeal to the bulk of us, 
 and you cannot stick over the proscenium-arch some 
 phrase such as ' Philistines will be irritated.'
 
 AN ATTACK UPON HIM 51 
 
 " Of course there arc people who think drama ought 
 to be educational, and preach moral lessons, and so on. 
 Well, the popular drama is pretty moral, except, per- 
 haps, musical comedy, which does seem a little topsy- 
 turvy in its lessons ; and the Censor prevents politics 
 being introduced or religion being attacked. Every 
 attempt to teach what you would call moral lessons 
 must fall because we know that after all the play is not 
 real. I confess that the romantic and the sentimental 
 rather bore me ; but you cannot expect a fifty-year-old 
 stockbroker to be sentimental or romantic. My wife 
 and daughters enjoy that sort of thing, and they simply 
 worship Mr Lewis Waller, of whom I get a bit jealous 
 at times. 
 
 '' I hke the exciting pieces and the funny farces, 
 and all the pretty dresses and pretty undresses and 
 the pretty girls and pretty music of the musical 
 comedies. 
 
 " You appear to imagine that the business of the 
 theatre is to make the audience think ; perhaps that 
 would be all right if it appealed merely to idle people, 
 but ninety-nine folk out of a hundred who go to a 
 theatre in the evening have already done a day's work ; 
 even those who don't earn their living are pretty tired 
 after dinner. So it is clear that there are not people 
 enough to support a drama which it is difficult to under- 
 stand. Moreover, you forget that when we have to 
 read, as sometimes happens, the high-class books, we 
 can skip the dull parts ; indeed, I get to know all that 
 I need about the important books by reading the 
 reviews that tear the guts out of them and merely 
 leave the padding behind ; but, unfortunately, you 
 cannot skip the dull parts of a play unless it is a very 
 well-known work, like Hamlet or Macbeth, when,
 
 52 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 if a man has a good seat, he can escape quite a lot of 
 the philosophising passages. 
 
 "The sohd truth is that we EngHsh, like the 
 Americans, have too much good sense to worry about 
 drama. There are a certain number of cranks and 
 faddists who get an unholy delight out of eccentric plays, 
 but they are few in the Anglo-Saxon countries, where 
 good sense reigns. We only take fairy tales seriously 
 when we are children ; we never get intoxicated by 
 ideas ; this is where we differ from the Continentals. 
 Art is all very well in its way and in its proper place. 
 I like a good picture, or a good song, or a rattling story 
 as well as anybody ; but art ought not to be shoved 
 down our throats. You will observe that the Americans, 
 really a great people, are like us in this respect, and none 
 of their plays — at least those that come over here — 
 belong to the intellectual drama about which you 
 rave. When they want to be intellectual they play 
 Shakespeare, not giving us more of the Bard than is 
 absolutely necessary, but letting us have full measure 
 of pretty music, scenery and dresses. Augustin Daly 
 used to do it perfectly. 
 
 " By aU means have a little theatre of your own and 
 enjoy dull plays in it, but don't denounce our cakes and 
 ale, or think yourself any better than people with 
 healthy tastes who can enjoy such works as Mrs Dot, 
 or The Explorer, or The Duke's Motto. And what does 
 it matter where the plays come from any more than 
 where the nuts come from ? Anyone would think you 
 were a rabid Protectionist who reads your howls about 
 imported plays. Art is universal, not local — I read 
 that in some real high-toned book — and if a play is 
 good, don't worry whether its author is French or 
 German or American. You don't grumble if he is
 
 WHY HE IS DISLIKED 53 
 
 Norwegian. Why not ? Do be consistent even if 
 you cannot be broad-minded. And, lastly, let the 
 Censor alone ; you have flung enough mud at him ; 
 I am tired of reading energetic attacks which you know 
 quite well are mere beating of the wind. Your un- 
 fortunate reader, 
 
 " A Middle-Aged Pleasure-Seeker " 
 
 It is fair to add that the amiable correspondent is 
 inaccurate in some of his allegations. We have never 
 said that the plays of Shakespeare or Phillips are tire- 
 some, or that Mr Tree's scenery is not beautiful because 
 it is too pretty, but have hinted that it is sometimes 
 too academically or conventionally pretty. And we 
 have not protested against the importation of plays, 
 but against the importation of rubbish no better than 
 our rubbish of a similar character. We have not 
 demanded that all drama should be intellectual, but 
 merely that the intellectual should be given a fair 
 hearing. 
 
 Why he is Disliked 
 
 It is to be feared that the dramatic critics are not 
 really popular ; people have even spoken of them as 
 parasites, without displaying a nice acquaintance with 
 language. On this side of the footlights most people 
 regard us as mere beefeaters, but taste the fare approved 
 by us suspiciously. There is a lurking doubt in the 
 general mind as to our honesty. 
 
 The people on the other side know that the " cham- 
 pagne and chicken " idea is ill-founded : perhaps they 
 even regret this occasionally, but they love us none 
 the better. Clement Scott used to be very bitter in
 
 54 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 print about the ingratitude of players ; there was an 
 article by him complaining that those who loved him 
 on account of half-a-dozen laudatory notices turned 
 round and reviled him because of an unflattering phrase 
 in a seventh, and the topic was one upon which he had 
 a means of knowledge quite unequalled. Services weigh 
 less than disservices. 
 
 Under such circumstances, mindful of the fact that 
 our remarks are read very closely by people whom they 
 affect deeply, it is most important that our censure 
 should appear just — to others. We ought to be ex- 
 tremely careful that those whom we blame cannot point 
 out that upon their face our remarks are unfair. It is 
 not always easy to remember this, particularly when one 
 is young, and sometimes it is difficult to sacrifice the 
 pleasure of a neat phrase because it may do a little 
 injustice. When looking at such a neat, crushing 
 sentence as "A better company would have been 
 wasted upon such a play, a better play upon such a 
 company," one wonders anxiously whether, in order 
 to write it, the critic may not have been unjust to 
 somebody. 
 
 There are dangerous phrases such as this one from 
 a notice upon a play given a little while ago — it runs as 
 follows : — *' Mr X. did everything that mortal actor 
 could do for this indifferent comedy. Whenever he 
 had a chance to be funny he was very funny. More than 
 that, he almost made a live figure of a dummy, and that 
 means that Mr X. did more for his author than his 
 author had done for him." How on earth could the 
 critic know whether his suggestions were true ? The 
 play was new ; the part taken by Mr X. had never 
 been acted by anybody else ; there was no basis for 
 comparison. Obviously there was no foundation for
 
 WHY HE IS DISLIKED 55 
 
 suggesting that from the performance it could be seen 
 that the actor did anything not intended by the author. 
 He spoke the author's text, and nothing indicates that 
 he introduced any "business'* unsuggested by him. 
 The piece happens to have been printed for private 
 circulation, so that one can make the assertion con- 
 fidently. 
 
 What means, then, could the writer have of coming 
 to the conclusion that the part, as acted, was any better 
 than the part as written, or that the actor had done 
 more or less than carry out admirably the ideas of the 
 dramatist ? 
 
 There are instances, of course, where a playwright 
 does owe more to the actor than the actor to him. In 
 L'Auberge des Adrets, known in England as Robert 
 Macaire, Frederic Lemaitre put the author under an 
 immense debt, perhaps without earning his gratitude, 
 by deliberately converting a turgid, inept, hopeless 
 melodrama into an almost immortal lucrative burlesque. 
 In Our American Cousin Sothern worked up a minor 
 part, that of Dundreary, into something like the whole 
 play, with the result that a piece which might have 
 died in a month lived many years. 
 
 It is well known that in certain classes of musico- 
 dramatic pieces the so-called authors expect the leading 
 low comedian to find his own jokes, or most of them, 
 and certainly Mr Arthur Roberts and others have con- 
 tributed a bigger share of the effective dialogue than 
 that of the persons supposed to have written the book. 
 In such cases the critic has grounds for suggesting that 
 Mr X. ** made a live figure of a dummy," and that 
 means that "Mr X. did more for his author than his 
 author had done for him." The case under discussion 
 is quite different. There was nothing to indicate that
 
 56 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 the actor did more than carry out admirably the very 
 clever ideas of the author — an author, by-the-by, who 
 happens to be very meticulous about having his ideas 
 carried out, and therefore is in the habit of attending 
 rehearsals and expressing his opinion at them. It is 
 regrettable that criticism should be written in this 
 fashion, since it causes a feeling of distrust. Probably 
 the writer had no desire to be unjust, or even unfair in 
 the comparatively venial way of doing rather less than 
 justice to the author in his desire to do rather more to 
 the actor. 
 
 It may be urged, by way of answer, that all of us at 
 times are in peril of undervaluing the efforts of the player 
 by suggesting that he has not got full measure out of his 
 part. Perhaps we do occasionally some injustice in this 
 respect ; we may imagine that a character ought to act 
 better than it is acted when in fact the author has failed 
 to carry out his intentions, and it is impossible for the 
 player to make the part seem other than that of a 
 dummy. Even in cases where we make such a mistake 
 there may be grounds for the opinion expressed. It 
 cannot be shown a priori that our opinion is unjust, 
 though a failure afterwards by several actors of incon- 
 testable excellence to give life to the part might prove 
 that we were wrong. In other words, the criticism 
 upon the face of it is fair, and here is its distinction 
 from what is being blamed. Possibly it looks as if 
 the whole matter were one of form ; even if this be so, 
 the fact is no answer. In some aspects of life it is more 
 important to seem just than to be just. It is of real 
 moment that nothing should be done to diminish the 
 by no means extravagant weight of dramatic criticism 
 either in the opinion of the public or that of authors and 
 players.
 
 HIS HONESTY 57 
 
 His Honesty 
 
 A little while ago there was a meeting of creditors. 
 The debtor was a dramatic critic. There was a great 
 deal of talking. The assets were in inverse ratio to the 
 debts and one creditor, registered under the Money- 
 lenders Act, was very wrathful. Time after time he 
 kept making his suggestion that the debtor was able 
 to get something from his friends wherewith to pay his 
 enemies ; and at last, under some pressure, he spoke 
 clearly. 
 
 He suggested that as the debtor was still the dramatic 
 critic of an important paper he ought to go and see 
 some of the leading managers and get assistance from 
 them. The speaker was confident that they would gladly 
 advance a substantial sum to a man in the debtor's 
 position without any expectation of direct repayment. 
 What happened after this, of course, was a matter of 
 no importance ; but it was interesting and surprising 
 to find a man of business beheving that the dramatic 
 critics are easily corruptible, corrupt and corrupted. 
 We are very honest, without being entitled to boast of 
 our honesty ; we are like the ladies who from time to 
 time on the stage are bitterly attacked by a heroine with 
 a past. We are ferociously virtuous because we have 
 not been sufficiently charming to be tempted. The 
 phrase "chicken and champagne" still lingers, and 
 I have heard it suggested, in the country, that after the 
 play is over we are regaled by a banquet behind the 
 scenes: "regaled" was the word actually used. It 
 is not difficult to answer that suggestion since most of 
 the critics who count are busily consuming midnight oil, 
 not champagne, as soon as the play is over, and then go 
 to bed tired, Mr Archer, in feigned indignation, once
 
 58 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 complained that he had never been insulted by the offer 
 of a bribe, and, if my memory is accurate, he even sug- 
 gested a doubt whether there existed a manager who 
 would lend him half-a-crown ! He certainly underrated 
 his weight as well as his value. Yet there is a memor- 
 able utterance of a manager to the effect that those of 
 the critics worth bribing could not be bribed, and those 
 willing to be bribed were not worth bribing. StiU, 
 there have been instances of efforts. A manager, now 
 no more, once sent an expensive trifle at Christmas to 
 one of us, who, embarrassed by it, indulged in a graceful 
 but rather costly victory by sending a still more ex- 
 pensive trifle to the manager on his birthday, and this 
 closed the incident. Into the nice question whether 
 and how far, apart from anything so vulgar as bribery, 
 we are always strictl3nmpartial I do not care to venture; 
 it may be that even Brutus was sometimes "influenced " 
 without knowing it. ^ 
 
 It is painful to be honest and yet suspected. The 
 other day it was brutally suggested that the formation 
 of the Society of Dramatic Critics had some connexion 
 with the coming into force of the Act for the suppression 
 of bribery. Foreigners always presume that we have 
 itching palms, salved in due course by the managers 
 or by the pla^^ers. Not long ago one of us received a 
 letter from a Continental artist sa}dng that she was 
 about to appear in London ; that for a long time past 
 she had received much pleasure and profit from his 
 
 articles in The : that she was very anxious that an 
 
 article concerning her should appear in The ; and 
 
 that if he would be so charming as to arrange it, she 
 would be glad to pay any price — the word " any" 
 was underlined. 
 
 No photograph accompanied the letter. No answer
 
 HIS HONESTY 59 
 
 came to his reply ; probably she was surprised at the 
 attitude adopted by him in referring her to the adver- 
 tisement manager. 
 
 It used to be — perhaps is still — the custom in France 
 for players and dramatists to call upon the critics before 
 or immediately after the premieres ; and not long ago 
 some of the French actresses in London sent their cards 
 to the representatives of the leading English newspapers. 
 The most charitable would guess that these visits to 
 the dramatic critic sometimes influence his notice to an 
 undesirable extent. 
 
 It has been said, no doubt untruly, that the rate of 
 pay of the critics of Paris is based in part upon the 
 supposition that their post gives them collateral ad- 
 vantages. In England the popular idea is that the 
 critics are paid vast sums by their editors and also enjoy 
 these little extras. 
 
 This idea is possibly the explanation of the fact that 
 editors sometimes get letters from people offering to act 
 as dramatic critics without any salary at all. Appar- 
 ently the writers of such letters think that the work 
 would be well enough paid for otherwise. Of course 
 they may be merely sufferers from the curious first-night 
 mania which induces a great many people to go to what, 
 as a rule, is the worst but one of the performances of a 
 play. The second, we know, is absolutely the worst, 
 since the performers are suffering from a reaction and 
 fatigue, and there has been no time for improvements 
 to be made in consequence of criticism, amateur and 
 professional. Undoubtedly, in the case of many 
 people, the desire to be present on the first night is 
 merely a snobbish wish to take part in what journalists 
 call " a function," and a large number of first-nighters 
 would attend certain premieres even if absolutely sure
 
 6o THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 that the performance would be tedious to them. They 
 are present to be seen, and not to see, although nine out 
 of ten of them are of no importance. 
 
 The topic is one of delicacy, since everyone is anxious, 
 naturally, not to write anything which could enable 
 his friends to suggest that he is vexed because nobody 
 has attempted to bribe him. The supreme humiliation is 
 for the person who is willing to sin and never gets 
 tempted. It is a little curious, seeing what large sums 
 are at stake, that the new Bribery Act may be regarded 
 as needless so far as we are concerned. In the past there 
 may have been dishonesty ; indeed, there was in the 
 case of one or two very well-known critics. The best 
 story in connection with this attempted briber relates to 
 one of the most esteemed of our craft, a writer who has 
 lately retired from the active service of life. A manager 
 sent to him a present of game, and the critic, feeling 
 embarrassed, applied to his editor. Sir John Robinson, 
 for advice. Sir John, who was rich enough in sense of 
 humour, told him that he had better eat the birds 
 promptly in order that corruption might not be added 
 to bribery. 
 
 In the fact that, except in rare cases, no efforts are 
 made to bribe London critics there is an agreeable 
 tribute to their honesty. A good many thousands of 
 pounds are at stake ; there are not a dozen critics worth 
 bribing ; the production budget would only require 
 a small proportionate increase to provide quite a hand- 
 some sum to the dozen, yet the offer is not made. 
 
 The uncharitable will say that there are not a dozen, 
 or even two or three, worth bribing ; yet, although from 
 time to time managers, or rather actor-managers, allege 
 that the critics have little influence, nearly all the 
 managers, actor-managers included, occasionally admit
 
 HIS HONESTY 6i 
 
 that even if the critics cannot make plays succeed they 
 may be able to kill some. 
 
 After all, a failure may be more or less disastrous : 
 the receipts of a piece which runs only three weeks 
 may amount to a thousand pounds more or less ; and, 
 using a shghtly Irish phrase, the three weeks may be 
 either a fortnight or a month, during which there are 
 gross takings greater or less, while the disbursements 
 are a constant figure. Probably the critics could not 
 kiU a production — the word ** production " is ugly, but 
 needed to cover both play and performance — which has 
 real elements of popularity in it, assuming that the 
 management has the bold wisdom to run it against bad 
 notices. Moreover, the most amiable criticisms in the 
 world could do no more than mitigate the disaster of an 
 essentially unpopular production. 
 
 Some managers place a rather extravagant reliance 
 upon our fairness. Not onl}^ do they dissemble their 
 love for some of us, but they even kick us upstairs, 
 and some of us are compelled to pretend that we can 
 see a play better from the dress circle than the stalls. 
 On a first night in certain theatres there are unim- 
 portant deadheads in the best seats of the stalls, and the 
 representatives of great English newspapers are hidden 
 behind pillars or put in what, after the first night, will be 
 fourth or fifth rows of the pit, or sent to Coventry in the 
 dress circle — sometimes back rows of it — and one may 
 well feel proud to belong to a craft in the honesty of 
 which the managers have such profound confidence. 
 
 There are moments when the thought comes that 
 managers put some of us into very bad seats because 
 they feel that, conscious of unmerited ill-treatment, we 
 will write opinions more favourable than we really 
 hold, for fear lest what we think our true opinions have
 
 62 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 been unjustly affected by our ill-treatment. Since this 
 was written, one of us heard something quaint about the 
 craft. He was in the torture chair of the dentist, who 
 was talking of the theatres, ignorant of the fact that his 
 victim was a dramatic critic — such is fame — and he 
 spoke about the difficulty of getting tickets for a first- 
 night, and said that most of the seats are given to the 
 press and the only way is to go to the box office on the 
 evening of the first night, since some tickets are generally 
 sold back to the management by the poor hacks anxious 
 to earn a dishonest penny. The sufferer did not con- 
 tradict him or tell him that most of us get only one ticket 
 and have to use it. You see, no wise man disputes 
 with his " gum architect," who has too many methods 
 of avenging himself if defeated in a controversy. 
 No man is a hero to his dentist. 
 
 His Abolition 
 
 The sun was on and the fish were off. Strenuous 
 efforts had failed to put the angler in the position of the 
 gentleman qui pent brdmer ses amis. Dr Tench, the 
 fresh-water physician, whose medical powers have been 
 somewhat overrated, though he can keep himself alive 
 for an astonishing length of time out of the water, 
 dechned the most abominably tempting baits. The 
 pike were only represented by baby jacklets : the rudd 
 and the roach were rare and almost microscopic ; as 
 for the carp, of course one did not expect to catch the 
 sly, shy creatures. The friend who had been lured to 
 fish in the big lake, modestly called a pond, put down 
 his rod, and, after a few remarks about the fish, which 
 ought not to be set out in print, said in a meditative 
 way, " I wonder what would happen if there were no
 
 HIS ABOLITION 63 
 
 dramatic critics." To which came the reply, that there 
 would be no performances, since performances without 
 an audience are almost unimaginable, and every 
 spectator acts to some extent as a dramatic critic. 
 
 By the way, it is a curious distinction of the actor's 
 art that he needs an audience more than any other 
 artist. The singer, viohnist, and other executants of 
 music, if they really love music, can to almost the full 
 extent of such love enjoy performing to themselves 
 alone as much as before a crowd. The painter and 
 sculptor have a keen pleasure in doing their work and 
 seek no spectator save a model ; it is true they desire 
 the world to see the child of their efforts, but that is 
 partly because they are creators, as well as executants. 
 Certainly, the singer would sing for pure pleasure in 
 singing if stranded alone upon a desert island, and 
 marooned men would write books or music if they could, 
 and stranded painters would paint. Would an actor 
 in the position of Robinson Crusoe act to amuse him- 
 self — at least, would he do so before he had his man 
 Friday as an involuntary and perhaps ungratified 
 spectator ? 
 
 The hapless piscator — the word ceased to be pre- 
 tentious after Walton's use of it — refused to bait his 
 hook again, and said, " I mean, what would happen 
 if there were none of you professional chaps who write 
 criticisms that nobody reads except the other dramatic 
 critics ? " To remark that if only the critics read 
 criticisms the suppression of criticism obviously would 
 be needless was an easy triumph, so he continued in a 
 grumbhng way, 
 
 " What I mean is — suppose that after a play you 
 merely gave some sort of account of the plot and did 
 not say whether the piece was good or bad, or proper
 
 64 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 or shocking, or how it was acted, and so on, would it 
 make any difference ? I mean," he added, hastily 
 anticipating a question, " would people go more or less 
 to the theatre, or would the kind of plays and acting 
 change ? I suppose it would make a little difference ; 
 would the difference be great ? " 
 
 The answer was " Yes." 
 
 After all, the public may award the farthings, but 
 the critics are of weight upon the question of fame ; the 
 crowd to some extent acts as jury, the critics are judges ; 
 and to pursue the figure, whilst the verdicts are of im- 
 mediate influence, the judgments remain on record. 
 In the future it will often be difficult to find out what 
 were the verdicts ; but there will be no doubt about 
 the judgments. Moreover, whilst, as in the law courts, 
 the verdicts are often due to prejudice and to mere 
 temporary causes, the reasoned judgments, when and 
 so far as reasonable, are based on a firmer foundation. 
 
 Probably the theatres would suffer, since there would 
 be less talk about them. For the average Englishman 
 is timid in opinion, and, unless fortified by ideas 
 gleaned from the papers, scamps his conversation on 
 topics concerning which opinions may be expressed. 
 When he has exhausted such subjects as the weather, 
 his health, his private affairs and those of his neigh- 
 bours, he is accustomed to bestow upon his hsteners, 
 in a distorted form, the opinions concerning books, 
 plays, pictures, etc., that he has read in the papers 
 and understood imperfectly ; and he certainly would 
 talk far less about plays if he had not the aid of the 
 critic's views. 
 
 Of course he would be able to call a piece " awfully 
 good," " simply ripping," " sweetly pretty," *' beastly 
 rot," " awfully dull," and to use ill-assorted adjectives
 
 HIS ABOLITION 65 
 
 concerning the players ; but beyond this he would 
 hardly venture for fear of uttering absurdities. A 
 curious humour is that people who have read the 
 opinions which he is misrepresenting, in the papers 
 from which he got them, will hsten without patent 
 signs of boredom, and in their turn utter second-hand 
 opinions on similar subjects. 
 
 Clearly, then, talk on the topic would languish but for 
 our promptings ; and if the theatres were less talked 
 of there would be fewer visitors to them. Further- 
 more, if there were to be no newspaper criticisms of plays 
 or players, the gossip about them would be diminished 
 even in the papers, for the thrilling personal paragraphs 
 would lose their point if given without adjectives, and 
 adjectives involve criticism of one kind or another. 
 
 Would the pieces and performances be affected by 
 the suppression of criticism ? Certainly, to some 
 extent. For even if the professional critics tell little 
 more than the amateurs who offer friendly advice, their 
 remarks have a greater weight — partly, indeed, because 
 in a sense they are not gratuitous. All observers have 
 noticed the fact that we rarely act on the opinion of 
 mere friends, however sound. Moreover, no one can 
 deny that when the critics, belonging as they do to 
 many schools of thought and thoughtlessness, agree, 
 they are likely to be correct. 
 
 Even putting them on a humbler level, and assuming 
 that some merely express the views of the pubhc, they 
 are serviceable, since the opinions of the world at large 
 are almost wordless, and the author or player unguided 
 save by those immediately around him, and unable to 
 learn more of the pubhc ideas concerning a play or 
 performance than is shown by inarticulate noises and 
 by good or bad houses, would remain curiously ignorant
 
 66 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 of errors against art and mistakes as to the desires of 
 playgoers. 
 
 No doubt, to voice the pubHc's thoughts is not our 
 loftiest task, but it is useful to do so, and there can be 
 no denial of the fact that we know very well what the 
 pubhc likes. It has often been said that we make re- 
 markably bad prophecies as to the fate of plays, but 
 some of the instances quoted are not in point, since 
 they concern works ultimately hcked into shape, which, 
 but for the adverse notices, would have remained 
 unchanged till early death ended them. 
 
 Real mistakes are made by us in this respect, but 
 generally the mistake is in beheving that a piece wiU 
 be successful which, however, proves to be a failure ; 
 we overrate the public taste, or fail to take into account 
 matters quite foreign to the qualities of an entertain- 
 ment which nevertheless determine its fate. 
 
 Of the more important aspect of the critic's mission, 
 his duty in trying to aid in the development of art, the 
 luckless angler was not thinking. Certainly, few, even 
 of those who denounce the critics, will, if they think 
 the matter over, refuse to admit that to the public, the 
 players, and even authors, the humble craftsmen render 
 useful services, quite apart from the value of the work 
 they do for art, by their power of giving voice to the 
 public, whom they study carefully and under favourable 
 circumstances, and by exercising to some extent the 
 function of censor in addition to those of beefeater and 
 guide. 
 
 The Threatened Theatrical Trust 
 
 Somebody has forwarded from America a newspaper 
 article called " The Theatrical Syndicate's Reply to 
 Its Critics," to which is given the signature of Mr
 
 THE THREATENED THEATRICAL TRUST 67 
 
 Marc Klaw, partner of Messrs Klaw & Erlanger, well- 
 known American managers. During the last few 
 years The Referee has been uttering a note of warning 
 about the danger of the establishment in London 
 or England of a theatrical trust. Other papers have 
 handled the subject, and in particular an interview 
 with Mr David Belasco has appeared, in which he 
 explained and vehemently defended his attitude 
 towards the theatrical trust in the United States. 
 
 Mr Klaw's article is amusing in its unconscious 
 humour. In one part he denies the existence of certain 
 facts, whilst in another he attempts to show that their 
 existence is beneficial to everybody. The important 
 feature of it is a candid admission that the aims of 
 the syndicate are entirely commercial and that he, one 
 of its principal members, looks upon the theatre from 
 no other point of view than that of business. 
 
 " The theatre," he says, " is governed by the rules 
 and observances of all other commercial enterprises* 
 It is not out to dictate to public taste. It is out to 
 satisfy the public demand. While even such a purely 
 business undertaking must be hedged about with 
 essential suggestions of artistic refinement, I do not 
 believe that the public demands of us that we should 
 give over our commercialism. Moreover, the public 
 would have no such right." 
 
 There is no need to criticise Mr Klaw's style : still 
 it is rather amusing to think that he sometimes discusses 
 the literary quahty of his wares. 
 
 If there be any chance of our theatres becoming 
 subject to a syndicate which replies officially to its 
 critics in such a fashion there is serious danger to be 
 considered. Now, according to certain statements by 
 Mr Belasco and by writers in and to The Referee, the
 
 68 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 Theatrical Syndicate does, in fact, control to a very 
 great extent the drama in America, and there is no 
 real doubt about the accuracy of the proposition that 
 the drama in the States is in a worse plight than the 
 drama in London. If, judging by the ordinary picked 
 American productions over here, the evidence were 
 otherwise insufficient, the tone of Mr Klaw's article 
 would render it satisfying. 
 
 According to Mr Klaw, the S3^ndicate has conferred 
 certain advantages upon all persons connected with the 
 theatre — except the critics and the public. He does 
 not venture to put his case any higher than that of a 
 trade combination, and it is clear that he at least does 
 not consider the theatre from the point of view of 
 dramatic art. It is difficult to accept this with equani- 
 mity. A phrase of his — '' the theatre itself is a busi- 
 ness house, exhibiting the pictures of the dramatist 
 and composer under the proper hght and most attrac- 
 tive auspices, just as the picture-dealer has a picture- 
 house in which he displays the best efforts of the 
 painters and illustrators " — is based on a curious 
 fallacy. 
 
 The picture-dealer will not hurt his business if, in 
 addition to stocking the Royal Academy w^orks, upon 
 which he relies for his bread-and-butter, in the front 
 window, he devotes a little space at the back to the 
 unconventional efforts of the true artists. To do this 
 costs him nothing, and he may even make money by 
 such a polic3\ 
 
 The manager of the strictly commercial theatre 
 cannot follow the picture-dealer's example ; he must 
 risk serious loss every time that he produces a non- 
 commercial piece. In one respect Mr Klaw is in agree- 
 ment with some of the EngHsh antagonists of the
 
 THE THREATENED THEATRICAL TRUST 69 
 
 trust system ; like them, he is almost indignant at the 
 idea that the theatre should attempt to educate or 
 dictate to the public. As a corollary, he and they 
 must be opposed to the idea that the dramatist or player 
 should have an educational value. Do they think 
 that the public needs no education in theatrical art ? 
 Are they content that the great half-washed should 
 remain in their present condition, which exhibits pain- 
 fully a great lack of education ? Presumably. 
 
 Mr Klaw deals with the dramatic critic. Here, of 
 course, our withers are wrung and we write with a bias. 
 He is indignant because the Syndicate is accused of an 
 attempt to " stifle and muzzle " dramatic criticism. 
 He thinks that it is " to his best interests to have it 
 [dramatic criticism] absolutely impartial, absolutely 
 just, and always on the most dignified plane." Then he 
 explains that it is because certain American dramatic 
 critics have fallen from this high standard, or never 
 reached it, that they have been driven from the Syndi- 
 cate's paradises. Who is to decide whether the critic 
 in a particular case is " absolutely impartial, abso- 
 lutely just, and on the most dignified plane " ? Mr 
 Klaw and his colleagues, of course. 
 
 There is a certain fable in which a wolf set itself up 
 to judge the conduct of the relatives of an appetising 
 lamb, and executed a vicarious injustice. From time 
 to time London dramatic critics of the highest standard 
 and most respected character have been excluded by 
 particular managers for a while from their houses, 
 because the managers thought they had not been 
 *' absolutely impartial, absolutely just, and on the most 
 dignified plane." Time and their friends ; 4 have 
 convinced the managers that they had blundered, and 
 peace was made.
 
 70 THE DRAMATIC CRITIC 
 
 Suppose, however, that those individual managers, 
 who really are people taking a far more dignified view 
 of their calhng than that of putting it on the level of 
 the dry-goods store, had been part of a syndicate of 
 Klaws, would those critics have been readmitted ? 
 Would the fact have been recognized that the unfavour- 
 able notices were really honest dignified criticisms, even 
 if disputable upon the point of justice ? Of course not. 
 If the newspapers had combined against the theatres, 
 the Syndicate mianagers would have climbed down. 
 Would they have combined ? I think not. Here, 
 indeed, is the peril. 
 
 It appears that the Syndicate has already laid its 
 claws on some of the London theatres. What com- 
 bination is hkely to be formed to fight it ; and if there 
 be none, what is the inevitable result ? In this land, 
 many centuries ago, even before the famous statute of 
 James I. that regulates our Patent Law, the British 
 feeling has been hostile to monopolies. Apparently 
 this spirit was thrown overboard during the famous 
 passage of The Mayflower, or when Boston Bay was 
 turned into a teapot, and certainly the American takes 
 everything on trust, except, indeed, the honesty of his 
 rulers and judges. Unfortunately one of the things 
 we are importing from America — would that there 
 were a real prohibitive tariff against it ! — is the mono- 
 polistic spirit ; and this being the case, it is very rash 
 to hope that we shall band ourselves adequately to 
 resist the attacks of the theatre syndicates. 
 
 It is easy to see how such a thing would be worked : 
 at the beginning quietly, pleasantly, until the hold 
 became so strong that the gloves could be taken off 
 and players might be warned not to accept engagements 
 from outsiders on pain of getting none from the trust ;
 
 THE THREATENED THEATRICAL TRUST 71 
 
 and dramatists informed that unless they kept all their 
 wares for the Syndicate they must look to the few out- 
 siders for a living. The American managers, in their 
 big way, would buy up some of the irreconcilable 
 newspapers, would acquire a preponderating influence 
 in the neutral, and discover that the critics representing 
 the independent journals were not " absolutely im- 
 partial, absolutely just, and always on the most 
 dignified plane." Truly, if we are to be judged by 
 such a method, few, if any, of us will escape a whipping. 
 Does the Syndicate regard any critic who expresses 
 an unfavourable opinion about its wares as " absolutely 
 impartial," etc. ? Surely no one who is not " absolutely 
 impartial," etc., is entitled to apply such a standard 
 to the critics : would this consideration prevent Mr 
 Klaw from judging them and carrying out his sentences ? 
 It is to be feared that he would do Jedburgh justice 
 on some of us, and the out-of-work critics would join 
 the crowd at Poverty Corner.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 The Pseudo-Historical 
 
 A PLAY running at the Savoy in March 1905, 
 concerning Madame du Barri, called forth the 
 usual complaints about inaccuracy in detail and un- 
 desirability of subject. The latter point is not our 
 theme, and may be dismissed with the remark that there 
 was nothing in the life of the creature as presented upon 
 the stage to serve as an excuse for requiring us to spend 
 an evening with such a worthless baggage. 
 
 At an early stage of his career the critic welcomes 
 this class of pseudo-historical drama — but his welcome 
 takes an unamiable form. He likes to have it produced 
 on a Saturday evening, so that he may pass a happ}/ 
 Sunday. The inaccuracies fascinate him. They offer 
 such a splendid chance of showing the knowledge 
 possessed by him — and his library. When very 3^oung 
 he deals with the matter in a straightforward fashion, 
 and trounces the author for every unwitting solecism 
 and willing falsification that is discovered. 
 
 He writes a learned little disquisition headed by a 
 remark, in the Macaulay vein, as to matters of common 
 knowledge, and shows from direct authority that the 
 dramatist is quite wrong in mixing up the Du Barri who 
 married the heroine with the Du Barri who took her 
 away from the milliner's shop, and gives a facetious 
 
 72
 
 THE PSEUDO-HISTORICAL 73 
 
 touch of lightness to his remarks by pointing out that 
 neither of the scoundrels was connected with a certain 
 much-advertised proprietary food. 
 
 The more obscure the blunder the greater the writer's 
 joy in it, for he will be able to introduce observations 
 beginning '* That little known but elegant author," etc., 
 and if the subject is earlier than the Du Barri period he 
 v/ill present some quotations in the uneconomically 
 spelt old French. 
 
 A little later in his career his method changes : he 
 relies upon his batterie de cuisine as much as ever, but 
 uses some art to conceal the employment of his appara- 
 tus. There will be mere hints about the errors ; an 
 adjective between two commas will sometimes represent 
 a severe correction. The books are not referred to, 
 the corrections are made in a fashion which suggests 
 that no greater authority is needed than that of the 
 critic. 
 
 A time arrives when he comes to the conclusion that 
 it is no part of his duties to deal with the historical 
 aspect of the matter ; but, of course, the habit is upon 
 him, and he excuses himself by saying, after he has 
 pointed out all the errors which he has noticed, that 
 they would not matter in the least if the play were 
 meritorious in other respects. 
 
 It is difficult to defend his attitude, which, however, 
 is due to his appreciation of the fact that nowadays a 
 little knowledge is a well-paid thing. Moreover, he 
 does not wish it to be thought that his knowledge of 
 history — and books — is less than that of his rivals. Of 
 course the inaccuracies do not matter very much 
 unless they are so gross as to shock the great half- 
 literate. 
 
 There is, however, a more valid objection to the
 
 74 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 historical play than that it is certain to be inaccurate ; 
 the historical drama is rarely a good drama. 
 
 The author is compelled by his matter to present it in 
 a conventional fashion, for to give a Du Barri or a 
 Napoleon, a Nelson or a Wellington, not in accordance 
 with the popular concept of such personages would be 
 to seek failure. Moreover, the writer is necessarily 
 forced to belittle the subject if not bold enough to 
 take a simple episode in the life of his hero or heroine, 
 and even then, unless the miracle-working power of 
 genius is employed, the great figure comes out as a small 
 puppet. 
 
 The player may be made to look up like Napoleon, 
 may follow traditions as to his gestures and mode of 
 speech, but in none of the vast number of plays concern- 
 ing the wonderful monster has he ever appeared to be 
 a person of genius : whether handled facetiously, as in 
 Mr Shaw's ingenious play The Man of Destiny, or 
 Madame Sans-Gene, pathetically as in the play presented 
 by Mr Martin Harvey, or formidably as in most works, 
 he never seems at all different from any commonplace 
 man put into the like circumstances. Exactly that in 
 which he differed from all others is exactly what cannot 
 be put upon the stage. We have had Nelson, and of 
 course it was quite impssible to get any suggestion of 
 the qualities that made him Nelson. 
 
 The modern tendency in the matter seems to be to 
 choose the reprehensible — such, for instance, as Mile. 
 Mars, Madame de Pompadour, Madame du Barri, and 
 La Montansier, women in the career of whom no doubt 
 there were many dramas, similar, however, to the dramas 
 in the lives of other women of their class less famous 
 and infamous. When, however, they are put upon the 
 stage they cease to be remarkable, and the characters
 
 THE PSEUDO-HISTORICAL 75 
 
 introduced to support them have the same fate ; for 
 instance, the Louis XV. at the Savoy does not give the 
 faintest idea of the ineffably vile monarch, whilst no 
 glimpse is shown of the quality which enabled a Du 
 Barri to obtain her tremendous power. 
 
 It is always a case of mountain and mouse in these 
 plays ; take as an example the Sardou Dante play 
 produced with prodigious drum-beating a while ago at 
 Drury Lane. Who, if names had been altered, would 
 have guessed that the hero of the piece was the author 
 of the immortal poems ? There has been hardly a 
 historical play in modern times in which the identity of 
 the famous personages could be guessed except from 
 the names, the make-up, the costumes, and the specific 
 facts ; at the best the pieces are tableaux vivants. 
 
 Perhaps there is nothing illegitimate in the ambition 
 of the player to pose as one of the mighty dead, and 
 it is rather humility in the author which urges him to 
 seek adventitious interest than vanity that causes him 
 to believe himself really able to give a true idea of a 
 Napoleon. Into such delicate questions it is needless 
 to inquire. The point is that the lives of the great are 
 not more dramatic than the lives of the small. Napoleon 
 at St Helena was not more unhappy than were millions of 
 people of his day. There is a drama as poignant in the 
 history of Cesar Birotteau as in that of Marie Antoin- 
 ette, as big a tragedy in the career of Whitaker Wright 
 as in that of Napoleon III. 
 
 There was a reason, which exists no longer, why the 
 authors of the Middle Ages chose characters of great 
 social status for their principal parts, and even this 
 reason was not altogether well founded. It would be 
 wrong to assert that historical plays ought not to be 
 written, for, whilst not recommending the use of the
 
 76 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 stage instead of history classes, one can see that a 
 historical play may illustrate ideas that could hardly 
 be presented otherwise. 
 
 There is a noteworthy instance in the work of the 
 much-abused Ibsen. The Pretenders is a historical 
 drama amazingly rich in idea ; whether the idea of 
 kingship superbly handled in it is an anachronism it is 
 hard to say, or to tell whether the dramatist chose his 
 subject to illustrate his idea or the idea to embellish 
 his subject ; but in it, though obviously there is scope 
 for magnificent mounting and interesting detail, one 
 feels that the genius of the author has prevented him 
 from making any sacrifice of the dramatic aspect. He 
 has not chosen a popular historical personage and made 
 him into the hero of the melodrama, as happens in the 
 case of nine out of ten of the so-called historical plays, 
 but has written a drama that demands a royal atmo- 
 sphere, which he handles admirably. 
 
 What a pity that the money lavished upon the Du 
 Barri play — and lavished very cleverly, it must be 
 admitted, so far as the production of beautiful stage- 
 pictures is concerned — was not spent in the mounting 
 of a great drama like The Pretenders, rich in strong 
 acting parts, magnificent in presentation of character, 
 and really illuminated by ideas ! 
 
 The Horrible In Drama 
 
 It has been alleged that The Monkey's Paw, a clever 
 one-act play by Messrs Jacobs and Barker, formerly 
 presented at the Haymarket Theatre, is too horrible for 
 the stage. The part complained of is confined to the 
 last scene of three. 
 
 A young man has been killed in a factory, and his
 
 THE HORRIBLE IN DRAMA 77 
 
 body was so mangled by the fatal wheels that even 
 his father was not allowed to see it. Late at night the 
 father, by means of a diabolical talisman — the Monkey's 
 Paw — succeeds in recalling his son to life, and the audi- 
 ence hears a knocking at the door. What is knocking ? 
 The mother is making frantic efforts to pull back the 
 bolts. Her son is there, returned from the grave. 
 The father, aware that the talisman, which promised the 
 fulfilment of three wishes, is of a fiendish malignity, 
 guesses that if the door be opened his son will stand 
 before them alive, but fearfully mangled and mutilated, 
 so he is groping upon the floor for the Monkey's Paw, 
 and the audience feels that on the other side of the door 
 is an obscene horror fresh from the grave. There was 
 a sigh of relief in the theatre when the father found 
 the talisman, and, using the last wish, prayed success- 
 fully that his son might be dead and at peace. 
 
 The knock, knock, was decidedly impressive, Hke 
 the knocking at the door in Macbeth, which greatly 
 affected Charles Lamb. Is this matter too horrible 
 for the stage ? One may compare it with another 
 horror given not long ago, The Soothing System, which 
 Mr Bourchier adapted cleverly from a story by Edgar 
 Poe and produced at the Garrick, showing the terrible 
 adventures of two visitors to a lunatic asylum, the in- 
 mates of which had overpowered their keepers. This 
 was very powerful and horrible, and perhaps would 
 have given a shiver to the hero of a famous tale in the 
 collection of goblin stories by the Brothers Grimm. 
 
 Nevertheless it was not legitimate, partly because 
 the circumstances are rare when it is permissible to 
 present madness on the stage, partly because some of 
 the mad people were repulsive to the eye, and partly 
 because horror was the sole means and end of the piece.
 
 y^ PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 Many condemned The Monkey's Paw, yet a line can be 
 drawn between it and The Soothing System — not a nice 
 sharp line, but one of those blurred lines so faint and so 
 uncertain, that even if their existence be admitted, 
 there is always room for a fight on the question 
 whether a work lies on this or that side of it. 
 
 Speaking roughly, one may say that The Monkey's 
 Paw is legitimate because there is nothing in it repulsive 
 to the eye, and for the reason that horror is not the 
 sole means and end of it : the story, hke its prototype 
 folk-lore tale, " The Three Wishes," has an obvious 
 moral. It belongs to art because the emotion caused 
 is due to a stimulus to our imagination by the force of an 
 idea and not of a thing exhibited. If an effort were 
 made to show us any ghastly creature knocking, the 
 work would be out of court. 
 
 To illustrate the line of definition already indicated, 
 a few instances of the horrible presented on the stage in 
 our time may be given usefully ; it must be added that 
 most appear to lie on the wrong side. 
 
 Shakespeare's adventures in the horrible are legiti- 
 mate, with an exception in the case of one play of 
 doubtful authenticity, Titus Andronicus. On the other 
 hand, Sweeney Todd; or, The Barber of Fleet Street, 
 would probably find no defender ; whilst a historical 
 drama I once saw in the South of France, where the 
 hero was put upon the rack in front of the footlights 
 and squirmed and screamed, was quite unendurable; 
 and this is rather a pity, since there is a very power- 
 ful dramatic scene in Balzac's Notes sur Catherine de 
 Medicis, which in consequence of this objection should 
 not be used. There is a mitigated form of the torture 
 business in La Tosca that caused great discussion. 
 Perhaps those who deem it illegitimate are somewhat
 
 THE HORRIBLE IN DRAMA 79 
 
 supersensitive ; it would be more polite, and perhaps 
 accurate, to caU them hyper-modern. 
 
 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde presented a very difficult 
 case. I can remember nothing so " creepy " and 
 *' shuddery " as the first appearance of Mr Mansfield at 
 the Lyceum in the character of the evil doctor ; the 
 house gasped at the half-seen image of a sort of 
 obscene beast at the conservatory window, and there 
 was the silence of breathless horror when it bounded 
 into the room and seized its victim. Until the im- 
 pression wore off the Mansfield Hyde was almost as 
 horrible as the fantastic things born of the cruel imagina- 
 tion and brilliant pencil of Mr S. H. Sime, whose work 
 is sometimes so richly embellished by imagination as 
 well as by superb technique that one cannot deny its 
 claim to be regarded as art. 
 
 Something of the distinction here discussed can be 
 seen by comparing Mr Sime's drawings with the pictures 
 of the mad painter Wirtz, whose abominable gallery 
 at Brussels is a chamber of unimaginative horrors. It 
 ma}^ be remembered that Mr Mansfield had a competitor 
 in Mr Bandman Palmer, who, however, missed horror 
 by the simple vulgarity of his horrors, and, though he 
 may have impressed the simple-minded, was ludicrous to 
 the thoughtful. 
 
 Returning for a moment to the clearly unpermissible, 
 one might take a book like " Frankenstein.'' Certainly 
 any presentation on the stage of the man-monster as 
 described by the talented authoress would fall under 
 the censure of being disgusting. This term may be 
 used concerning several needless exhibitions of blood on 
 the stage, and of such a matter as Nana, once presented 
 in Paris. When the hapless heroine appeared in the 
 last act with wax spots to indicate the pustules of small-
 
 So PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 pox, she very nearly " took a lot out of us," if one may 
 borrow a phrase from '' Mr Hopkinson." Obviously 
 anything that reminds one of the ghastly horrors at 
 the Royal College of Surgeons or the Polyclinic Institute 
 is quite unforgivable. 
 
 This brings us not unnaturally to a matter in which 
 there has been some change of taste. A fearful ex- 
 hibition of a man in a fit, given with horrible power by 
 that admirable actor Mr Pateman in a melodrama 
 called Master and Man, would perhaps not be condemned 
 in our days, but probably we would not endure, and 
 certainly there would be little praise for, some of the 
 death scenes once famous in drama. The critics now- 
 adays would apply to the actress the phrase of the 
 auctioneer to his wife, and implore her to " get on with 
 her dying." 
 
 There was the famous Mile Croizette in Le Sphinx, by 
 that detestable dramatist Octave Feuillet ; she squirmed 
 horribly after taking poison from a ring ; and it was 
 alleged that she had studied the death of patients in 
 hospitals — a brutal, horrible thing to do. There is a 
 good deal too much dying in Frou-Frou, La Dame aux 
 Camellias and Adrienne Lecouvrer. Without going 
 back to the traditions of the Greek theatre, one may say 
 confidently that, if death on the stage is permissible, 
 dying is almost illegitimate, and trick falls, exhibitions 
 of agony, and the like are mere pandering to a very 
 vulgar taste. Occasionally the dying is so handled 
 that, though somewhat prolonged, such a vigorous 
 phrase ought not to be applied to it. For instance, one 
 may refer to In the Hospital, once presented at the 
 Court, where iSlv Beveridge, in an admirable perform- 
 ance, gave a very tactful, restrained exhibition of ap- 
 proaching death and actual decease. Another objection
 
 THE IMMORALITY PLAY 8i 
 
 exists to any exhibition upon the stage of dying as com- 
 pared with death. The symptoms often call up terrible 
 memories to some members of the audience which are 
 not evoked by the simple fact of death itself. It cannot 
 be pretended that these references to instances of the 
 horrible and the trifling comments upon them establish 
 the existence of the distinction indicated, but they may 
 be of some assistance to those who endeavour to explore 
 the matter. It is at least pleasant to note that there is 
 a modern tendency to obtain effects of the horrible by 
 appeals to the imagination rather than to the senses. 
 
 It should be added that Mr F. R. Benson presented 
 a Frankenstein play written by Mr Stephen Phillips, 
 but the question of the horrible appearance was dis- 
 creetly avoided. 
 
 The Immorality Play 
 
 The summer visit to London of foreign players gener- 
 ally gives birth to discussions upon several topics. Of 
 course the question as to the relative merits of French 
 and English acting is raised. Upon this, one may give 
 a warning to the thoughtless not to accept as universal 
 the vague proposition that the French are a nation of 
 born actors. Of course everybody each year points 
 out that it is absurd there should be several foreign 
 companies at a time in London cutting the throats of one 
 another, as to which one may say that the matter is 
 far more comphcated than most people suppose. 
 
 The point worth nothing is the choice of plays by our 
 visitors. Some of them no doubt are wise ; Bernhardt, 
 for instance, recognizes the fact that a showy piece with 
 a big part for her is exactly the right thing provided 
 that it is easily understood by the Berlitzians and
 
 82 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 Ollendorffians. There are others, however, such as 
 Madame Rejane, more ambitious, who in their selection 
 of plays do some disservice to their country. 
 
 The humour of Mr Gilbert's line " The not too French 
 French bean " appeals irresistibly to the English. 
 
 There has long been a vague idea in British bosoms 
 that our neighbours in sexual matters are far more 
 immoral than ourselves. This is not the occasion upon 
 which to examine the causes and origin of such a de- 
 cidedly erroneous view. One may, however, single out 
 one of them. It is largely the fault of writers of fiction 
 that we remain in ignorance, or rather — and this is 
 worse — in error concerning the character of our amiable 
 neighbours. 
 
 In former days, putting aside the naughty farces not 
 supposed to present a picture of actual life, most French 
 dramas were quite sound in conventional morality. 
 Augier presented some wicked people, such as Olympe, 
 concerning whom he invented the phrase la nostalgic 
 de la boue ; but he was unequivocably moral in his aims, 
 and preached the sanctity of marriage and maternity. 
 Dumas fils, putting aside one indiscretion, was equally 
 vigorous in his desire to support accepted views of 
 morality. His illustrious father, it may be admitted, 
 occasionally propounded startling propositions, but 
 without prejudice, I fancy, to a sound behef in the idea 
 that exceptional cases must be regarded as exceptions. 
 None, however, of these writers, however artificial 
 their views of life, ever offered pictures of society based 
 upon the proposition that the chastit}^ of woman is of 
 no importance. 
 
 Many of the present school of French dramatists 
 write plays — unfortunately chosen for presentation in 
 England — which assume the existence in society of a
 
 THE IMMORALITY PLAY 83 
 
 large class of people, otherwise amiable, who act upon 
 the proposition that in Paris as in heaven there is 
 neither marr3dng nor giving in marriage. Unmarried 
 men and women live together, the males paying for the 
 board and lodging, etc., of the females without there 
 being any pretence that the intimacy of their relations 
 is radically immoral under normal circumstances. 
 They do not even indulge in fireworks in such plays. 
 You do not have parodies of the famous phrase 
 " Property is theft " ; for the heroines fail to justify 
 themselves by remarking that marriage is immorality. 
 There is simply a business of union and disunion, 
 collage and decollage, coupled with what one may call 
 cross-unions, all of them apparently free from the em- 
 barrassment of children and none of them involving 
 any of the more dignified of the human emotions. One 
 of the worst of the number was L'Age d' Aimer, by 
 M. Pierre Wolff, a piece so cynically immoral, and written 
 with such an air of truth, that it might well cause some 
 of us to shrink in horror from the idea of an entente 
 cordiale with a people which, if truly represented by its 
 fashionable dramatists, has no concept of cleanliness 
 of hfe. Without posing as a champion of orthodox 
 morahty,and certainly without taking objection to the 
 study of sex questions on the stage, one may protest 
 against works in which it is assumed there is no sex 
 question, because every form of union, on any basis, 
 except perhaps that of marriage, is permissible. 
 
 By-the-by, why was the press that was so indignant 
 about the so-called problem play almost silent con- 
 cerning these French dramas ? Where were the phrases, 
 such as miasmatic putrescence or putrescent miasma — 
 I forget which it was — that used to greet the dramas of 
 Ibsen ? Where are the splendid Puritans who howled
 
 84 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 about A Wife without a Smile " ? Could it be — the 
 thought is painful — that they did not quite understand 
 L'Age d' Aimer and imagined that all the people were 
 married ? This idea is simply humiliating to one of 
 the craft. "Ne rien comprendre, c'est tout pardonner" 
 is a very novel view of a famous phrase. 
 
 Madame Re jane, it was stated in the papers, has ex- 
 pressed herself shocked by A Wife without a Smile, 
 and alleged that she would never act in such a piece ; 
 but it may well be that her horror lay in the fact that 
 the parties concerned in the farce had been through a 
 ceremony of marriage, and that she would have ac- 
 cepted it as permissible if it were correctly entitled A 
 Cocotte without a Leer. The point is, not that those who 
 understand these plays or those who do not are affected 
 in their moral ideas by them, but that they give a de- 
 plorable picture of French life and in such a guise as to 
 suggest that it is a picture of normal French life ; 
 unfortunately L'Age d' Aimer is only one of many. 
 
 It is a great pity to use such a powerful vehicle as 
 the stage for slandering a nation. That there is a 
 certain amount of truth in works of the Zaza, Sapho, 
 Les Demi-Vierges and L'Age d'Ai^ner type is incontest- 
 able ; yet so far as they are true to general life one can 
 find their parallel in this holy island. Unfortunately, 
 whilst the fast society of Paris is no bigger than that of 
 London, and whilst Paris is infinitely less in relation to 
 France than London in relation to England, the great 
 French nation is generally judged over here by flashy 
 pictures of the fast section of Paris society, drawn, 
 very often, if not always, from the outside, by clever 
 people too indolent to know that the psychology of 
 decent people is quite as interesting and dramatic as 
 that of the gutter-creatures of mere passion who
 
 SCRIPTURE PLAYS 85 
 
 dignify their cynical desires with noble names, and, so 
 far as the latest school is concerned, fail even to reach 
 the humblest concept of free love. 
 
 Scripture Plays 
 
 There have been some complaints about the attitude 
 of several of the dramatic critics concerning Mr Jerome's 
 drama The Passing of the Third Floor Back J* It has 
 been suggested that they^have not welcomed with 
 sufficient warmth a sincere attempt " to broaden the 
 basis," a phrase apparently borrowed from the Tariff 
 Reformers, to enlarge the boundaries of the British 
 drama, but have treated the production of the piece as 
 an everyday affair, confining their remarks to criticism 
 concerning the workmanship. 
 
 In The Third Floor Back a character is introduced who 
 is called *' The Stranger," but known by everybody in 
 the theatre to represent Jesus Christ ; and " The 
 Stranger " visits a somewhat remarkable boarding- 
 house in which all the boarders and the landlady are 
 vile, and after his visit all of them are fit for immediate 
 translation to heaven. 
 
 Certainly, many of us are anxious to broaden the 
 basis of our drama. A little while ago an important 
 foreign paper contained a article saying that the object 
 of the London stage is "to introduce living pictures to 
 say pretty things for young girls," and that " of the 
 social, religious, economic or intellectual struggles 
 which agitate our time no trace is observable in the 
 English stage literature of the day," and that English 
 stage hterature " has become nothing more than an 
 insipid and dying study of the doings of the aristocratic 
 and the rich." How sickening to know that in the
 
 86 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 main the charges are true, and that our drama, with, 
 fortunately some exceptions, is merely a kind of Pap 
 and Puppet affair. 
 
 On the other hand, the broadening effect of a play such 
 as Mr Jerome's is not obvious. The Censor has been 
 dodged, just as he was dodged many years ago, when 
 Verdi's opera Nebuchadonozor was called Ninus or when 
 Ben Hur was presented or The Daughters of Babylon. 
 That official has already permitted the performance of 
 Everyman and Hannele. Consequent^, it is not easy 
 to see that the suggested broadening of the basis has 
 taken place. 
 
 Moreover, there are many who doubt whether 
 broadening, so as to admit a free trade in what could be 
 called religious or Scripture drama, is desirable. We do 
 not pretend that the office of Censor ought to be main- 
 tained merely to keep back a flood of plays introducing 
 Scriptural characters. The office, no doubt, does good 
 as well as harm, but the harm far outweighs the good. 
 Would it be beneficial if this particular restriction — this 
 working rule that characters bearing the names of 
 personages of the Old and New Testament are not to 
 be presented on the stage — were relaxed. There are 
 enthusiastic persons who desire a closer union between 
 Church and the Stage, and wish to have the theatre 
 employed as a kind of pulpit, who believe that Scripture 
 plays would be beneficial. It is conceivable that under 
 certain circumstances the attitude of these persons would 
 be sound, but not under the present circumstances. 
 
 Most of our theatres are run as a mere commercial 
 speculation by people who care little enough about art, 
 and probably nothing about religion. We have had one 
 instance of the sort of thing that might be expected, 
 The Sign of the Cross, in which a commonplace melo-
 
 SCRIPTURE PLAYS Sj 
 
 drama was mixed up with hymns and pseudo-rehgious 
 talk and miracles, and a ballet as immodest, as pulse- 
 disturbing, as any given in the theatres or the halls. 
 Many visited the play who had never been to a theatre 
 before, since they believed that it was really a religious 
 drama outside their ban. Some were horrified, and 
 from being potential playgoers became rapidly adverse 
 to the stage and all its works ; others were shocked and 
 disturbed and delighted by the exhibition of female flesh 
 in the ballet, with a result which can easily be guessed. 
 No doubt a number of persons believed that the piece 
 did good to them and other folk — some people will 
 believe anything. 
 
 The people of taste and sensibility, who, whatever their 
 state of religious belief, would regard with abhorrence 
 the exhibition on the ordinary commercial stage of the 
 Christ whom they were brought up to regard as Divine, 
 have a title to consideration. The traffic in blasphemy 
 that would immediately follow the suggested enlarge- 
 ment of the boundary of the theatre is horrible to con- 
 template. Such abominations as a combination of 
 Christ and semi-naked women doing more or less 
 mitigated danses du ventre, would be justified as giving 
 an Oriental colour. 
 
 There is another side. It may be taken that our 
 laws against blasphemy have moved a good deal since 
 Lord Coleridge's famous summing-up concerning the 
 essential mutability of the Common Law about 
 blasphemy which he gave in Regina v. Ramsey and 
 Foote ; iif the restriction were removed what power 
 would prevent the atheists from producing distinctly 
 anti-Christian plays which might very well cause riots, 
 which certainly would prove a serious counterblast, 
 if discreetly handled, to the efforts of the Church
 
 88 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 and Stage enthusiasts. One can conceive every kind of 
 crank with money producing a play to advocate his 
 particular brand of religion. 
 
 We could not expect all the actors chosen to represent 
 Christ to be gentlemen of fine sensibility, high character, 
 and sincere feeling for art, like Mr Forbes Robertson ; it 
 is hardly pleasant to think of the character in the hands 
 of some members of the profession. One can imagine a 
 feeling of revulsion if any of the actresses who have 
 made history — in the Divorce Court — were chosen for 
 the part of the Virgin Mary. 
 
 This is said without for one moment suggesting that 
 the pla3^ers are one whit the worse in their way of living 
 than the rest of us, or that managers of theatres are 
 wickeder or more unscrupulously commercial than 
 anyone else. Yet, speaking of the managers, one is 
 forced to admit that the majority consult the taste of 
 the majority, that many are willing enough to pander 
 to vulgar cravings, and it is not imaginable that, unless 
 our stage can be put upon a new basis, a freedom to 
 produce religious or Scriptural drama would fail to 
 cause great scandals. 
 
 As the matter stands, the attitude of the Censor, 
 though not logical, is not wholly unsatisfactory ; it is 
 ludicrous enough that he should have adopted an 
 ostrich policy towards Mr Jerome's piece, yet no harm 
 has been done by the production of this sincere and 
 respectful drama. Indeed, some good may have come 
 from it. In an ideal world, no doubt, we should all be 
 severely logical ; in England we are radically illogical, 
 and we carry out most of our affairs on a basis of com- 
 promises. 
 
 If you do not call your leading character Christ in the 
 theatre you may call him Christ outside, seems the pro-
 
 ANECDOTAL PLAYS 89 
 
 position implied in the licence for The Passing of the 
 Third Floor Back," but the very basis of the authority of 
 the Lord Chamberlain is such that one cannot apply 
 logic to his decrees and say that because he has per- 
 mitted this he must sanction that. Some of these 
 remarks may seem to suggest that it is advisable the 
 office should be retained, which is not the case. We pay 
 too high a price for it since it tends to paralyse the 
 drama ; on the other hand it is to be hoped that so long 
 as the office exists the holders of it will be very careful 
 concerning any efforts to exploit the Scriptures for the 
 profit of the theatres. 
 
 The success of the St James's play will cause a rush 
 of people, anxious to go " one better "—or worse— 
 than Mr Jerome. No harm— possibly some good- 
 may come from the present piece, but the circumstances 
 should be regarded as exceptional. We have few play- 
 wrights so earnest as Mr Jerome, few actors or managers 
 with such high ideals as those of Mr Forbes Robertson. 
 It seems permissible and advisable to add that this 
 article is not written from the point of view of one who 
 professes to be " on the side of the angels," but merely 
 as a protest against what in the long run would be one 
 more blow to our staggering stage. 
 
 Anecdotal Plays 
 It appears that " Percival " of The Referee has made 
 a great discovery. He has found out the reason why 
 French plays are better than Enghsh, is able to put his 
 " finger on the real difference which exists between 
 French plays and Enghsh," he now knows why " many 
 more plays are succssfully adapted from French into 
 English than vice versa." This sounded thrilling, but after 
 finishing his article the reader was about in the humour
 
 90 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 of a person who has been promised " an awfully rippin* 
 new story " and receives a feeble " chestnut." 
 
 Mr *' Percival " is really like the American who dis- 
 covered on going home very late at night the fact that 
 the sun rises in the east, and cackled as much about 
 his discovery as a hen over her first egg. His explana- 
 tion is that, " with one exception — Pinero — the English 
 playwright invents a plot and then writes in characters 
 to carry that plot out. Your French playwright does 
 not do this. ... He takes an idea and works it out 
 with dramatic action instead of taking a dramatic 
 action and working it out with such incident ideas as 
 may happen along. And sometimes your French 
 dramatist just takes people with characteristics and 
 lets them work their own play out for him." 
 
 There is no need to seek deeply to find out why 
 " many more pla^^s are successfully adopted from French 
 into English than vice versa." The explanation is that 
 owing to Parisian prejudice hardly any English pla3^s 
 of any merit, Shakespeare's excepted, have been 
 adapted, and there is a ferocious hostility in France 
 to foreign drama. 
 
 The modern French drama may be better than the 
 English ; perhaps " Percival " hardly asserts that it is, 
 unless in the passage already quoted and in this phrase : 
 " There is something about three plays in four in France 
 which is lacking at home, and that something is some- 
 thing good." No doubt, if we take the past fifty years 
 as a basis for comparison of the two dramas, the French 
 is the better ; but during the last fifteen there has been 
 a change, and one could not make any sweeping 
 assertion upon the subject as regards the plays of this 
 period, unless it be limited to the plays produced in 
 the ordinary way of theatrical commerce.
 
 ANECDOTAL PLAYS 91 
 
 If the alleged superiority exists, one can offer two 
 reasons for it without relying upon the brilliant dis- 
 covery of " Percival." The first is the greater freedom 
 of the French dramatist in choice of subject, and also 
 in treatment ; this gives him an enormous advantage. 
 
 The second is that, whilst there are almost as many 
 people in Paris who will welcome rubbish as there are in 
 London, there can also be found a large number of 
 playgoers with a good deal of intellectual curiosity, 
 whilst the intelligent amateur — using the phrase in 
 its French sense — is comparatively rare in London. 
 Consequently, the French dramatist has not only more 
 freedom in subject and treatment than the English, but 
 in addition a greater public of playgoers who bring their 
 intellect into the auditorium. Probably " Percival " 
 will claim that this second ground of explanation enters 
 into his, and there is some truth in this. 
 
 On the other hand, his statement of fact that our 
 dramatists, with the exception of Pinero, are mere 
 story-tellers, and that the French authors write plays 
 based upon ideas, is quite inaccurate. 
 
 Roughly, one may put dramas into three categories 
 — the play of anecdote, the play of idea, and the play 
 of character. " Percival " recognises the third category 
 by his remark that ** sometimes your French dramatist 
 just takes people with characteristics and lets them 
 work out their own play for him." As a matter of 
 fact, few plays belong exclusively to any one of these 
 categories. In which would " Percival " place Shake- 
 speare's ? He began to write a play by borrowing the 
 plot from somebody, and primarily all his pieces may 
 be regarded as anecdotal, but, in the passage of the 
 story through his mind to the pen, in some cases it 
 became the vehicle for an idea, and, in all, the story
 
 92 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 grew to be of infinitely less importance than the 
 characters. 
 
 Take Othello. You may give an account of it as a 
 story in which it is merely an adaptation of another 
 man's work. You may treat it as a study of the idea 
 of jealousy, and be uncertain whether suspicion is not 
 more correct as a definition than jealousy, or you may 
 consider it as an amazing gallery of pictiures of character. 
 It may be put into each category, and belongs to all. 
 
 Probably the question whether a drama belongs 
 primarih^ to this, that, or the other of the categories is 
 as otiose as the discussion whether the hen or the eg^ 
 came first. No play lives that does not belong to the 
 second and third category, and it cannot be put upon 
 the boards without some reliance upon the first. On 
 the other hand, whatever may be the belief of individual 
 dramatists, it is doubtful whether any dramas are 
 produced primarily based upon " taking people with 
 characteristics and letting them work out their own 
 play." It is ob\aous that people, even people with 
 strongly marked characteristics, can live for 3^ears in 
 juxtaposition without their relation to one another 
 resulting in anything dramatic, or even theatrical. 
 Paula Tanqueray and her husband might have lived 
 and died unhappily together without offering any 
 materials to the pla}^\Tight, and so indeed might any 
 of the characters in any of the plays by the briUiant 
 author. Only when facts exterior to them begin to 
 play upon the characters dramatically is there room 
 for drama. There is an enormous amount of plot, 
 psychological or physical, in every play. 
 
 Next to the first, the second category produces the 
 plays most clearly defined. One might take the plays 
 of Brieux, and some of the dead-and-gone dramas of
 
 ANECDOTAL PLAYS 93 
 
 Charles Reade. Here we have dramas of idea, more 
 accurately of subject, still more accurately of problem. 
 They are works in which the dramatist tries to prove 
 something, or, at least, present some problem of social 
 life, leaving to the audience the task of coming to a 
 conclusion. 
 
 However, even M. Brieux cannot get on without 
 category number one, whilst he puts as much of cate- 
 gory number three in his work as he can. He invents 
 a story, and he chooses and endeavours to display 
 characters as a vehicle for exhibiting his subject. 
 Sometimes, to be just, he gets along — in a fashion — 
 with a surprisingly small amount of plot, as in Les 
 Bienfaiteurs. Even then the necessity of having some 
 sort of form makes a good deal of story necessary. 
 Jean Jullien, the inventor of the phrase " Une tranche 
 de la vie," endeavoured to give plays without formal 
 beginning or end, unconsciously, perhaps, tried to 
 carry out a desire of Merimee's to write a play in respect 
 of which the audience needs no knowledge of ante- 
 cedent facts ; but his success — in more senses than one 
 — was only partial. 
 
 The Enghsh dramatists of what one might call the 
 Independent Theatre, Stage Society, and Court Theatre 
 management have struggled to avoid the anecdotal 
 play, sometimes with a brilliant result, as in The Voysey 
 Inheritance, John Bull's Other Island, or Strife ; Mr 
 J. M. Barrie in several successful works has minimised 
 the story as much as possible. 
 
 Why does " Percival " ignore them ? Has he over- 
 looked the fact that most of the French dramas success- 
 fully adapted belong primarily to the category he con- 
 deipns, and nearly all the rest to a subdivision ot 
 number three, ignored by him. This subdivision con-
 
 94 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 sists of star plays — that is, of dramas of theatrical 
 character — in the manufacture of which the French 
 dramatists excel. Many of the dramas by Dumas fUs 
 show an ingenious combination of this subdivision 
 with the anecdotal play. And Pinero — om* exception — 
 how would " Percival " classify His House in Order, 
 which has a strong story ? In reality it is a very 
 adroit mixture of story, idea, and comedy of character, 
 this is the case with the other works of our leading 
 dramatist. 
 
 The fact is that *' Percival " has mistaken treatment 
 for conception. All dramatists try to combine the 
 three categories, but the worst class attaches too much 
 importance to the mere story ; unfortunately our 
 audiences are like the bad dramatist in this respect : 
 hence the almost purely anecdotal play, like the anec- 
 dotal picture, is the most popular. 
 
 The Supernatural 
 
 That the forbidden is attractive is a commonplace 
 and true. The third party in the divorce case is often 
 less beautiful than the petitioner, the length of water 
 beyond our own always promises better sport, the 
 mushrooms seem to grow more thickly in the fields of 
 others. In drama w^e see the same law in operation. 
 No canon of art makes the " supernatural " unlawful 
 to the dramatist, but it is generally looked upon as 
 illegitimate in serious drama. The word " super- 
 natural " is used in its popular sense, which is well 
 enough understood, but indefinable. Naturally the 
 dramatist is tempted the more when he sees the 
 novelist using the supernatural effectively. 
 
 No wonder the playwTight has tried to adapt Franken-
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 95 
 
 stein ; he has merely succeeded in presenting a grotesque 
 unterrible figure where Mrs Shelley gave a thrill of 
 horror. We have had several plays on the boards 
 which overstep bounds. One can read Mr Jerome's tale 
 " The Passing of the Third Floor Back " without being 
 oppressed by a sense of the inadequacy of his machinery, 
 but when Mr Forbes Robertson is supposed on the stage 
 to " blarney " eight or nine people who have ugly souls 
 into righteousness we are not only unconvinced but 
 actively incredulous. Possibly to simple minds the 
 affair would be more impressive if the lodger wore a 
 halo supposed to be invisible to the people on the stage, 
 or produced an occasional flash of lightning or growl of 
 thunder. 
 
 Take that dear old crusted melodrama The Corsican 
 Brothers. The story was thrilling enough when merely 
 read ; it was easy to believe that the Dei Franchi had 
 a special brand of constitution which enabled them to 
 see the family ghost whilst the more sceptical could 
 talk of brain waves and suggestions and of subjective 
 phenomena. That is where the modern novelist gets 
 out of all hobbles ; if you will not accept his spook as 
 a genuine, old-fashioned spook, you can hardly refuse 
 to swallow it as a subjective phenomenon. The blessed 
 word " subjective " extricates him from all troubles. 
 
 The poor dramatist has no such refuge. Occasionally 
 he can work his plot by means of a vision ; and the 
 hypnotic trance has served, as in the case of The 
 Polish Jew ; but his ghosts have to be strictly objective. 
 In fact, using a technical term frivolously, his ghosts 
 expect the ghost to walk regularly on Fridays. There 
 is no humbug about them ; no " Pepper " — but they 
 have to be taken with a ton of salt ! 
 
 This difficulty was, perhaps, of no great importance
 
 96 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 at a time when most people had faith in ghosts ; when 
 the most sceptical did not go further than Madame de 
 Stael, who alleged that she did not believe in them but 
 was afraid of them. It is not recorded what Benjamin 
 Constant, her unhappy lover, thought about them. 
 Nowadays things have changed and ghosts and the 
 personal devil have joined the ranks of the unemployed, 
 or only obtain employment with Mr Stead and his 
 Juha. 
 
 There is, of course, the spook of the spiritualist, who 
 demands serious consideration ; but plays dealing with 
 spiritualism are not common. Perhaps because such 
 playgoers as will accept the more or less material ghost 
 are even more sceptical than the scientific as to the 
 objective phenomena of the spiritualist. No doubt 
 managers try to rise to the occasion and to make a 
 steady advance in ghosts, devils and angels, but the 
 mechanical improvements seem small. Indeed, in a 
 sense there has been no advance since the days when 
 Pepper's ghost terrified us at the poor old Polytechnic, 
 and unfortunately the S3^stem of Pepper can only be 
 used to a limited extent. There were moments of 
 thrill in Ulysses at His Majesty's. 
 
 The stage angels are the worst of the supematurals. 
 Because angels are supposed to dwell off the earth it is 
 assumed that they must fly. Furthermore, it is imagined 
 that as fliers they belong to the heavier-than-air order, 
 the monoplane variety, and so must have gigantic 
 wings ; no one makes provision for the working of the 
 wings, which would involve tremendous muscular 
 energy. You may answer that they have miraculous 
 energy wherewith to flap them. If, however, the 
 miraculous enters into the matter, why not imagine a 
 miraculous method of flying which does not demand
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL 97 
 
 wings — by so doing you would avoid the necessity of 
 making the angels look like ill-constructed birds. 
 Something " smart " might be done in the way of a 
 " dirigible balloon " species of angel ! Fiends are 
 modelled as flying-machines on the lines of the bat — 
 this may be taken from the latest Mephisto. The con- 
 trivers of stage effects are not to be blamed because 
 they cannot overcome the difficulties offered by the 
 playwrights. Yet they have not exhausted their 
 means. They seem to be working on wrong hues, 
 and so, too, are our scene-painters generally ; but that 
 is raising a very large question demanding separate 
 treatment. 
 
 Certainly some years ago Mr Gordon Craig experi- 
 mentally, in a curious piece called Sword or Song, pre- 
 sented at the Shaftesbury, gave suggestions in the 
 supernatural that deserved attention, and in a broad 
 way showed the possibility of arriving at striking stage 
 effects by suggestion rather than actual depiction. It 
 is, indeed, the fault of our play-mounters that they are 
 too precise about dotting " i's " and crossing "t's," 
 and like the pet photographers of amateurs they show 
 too much detail. 
 
 Years ago, on the first night of Hansel tmd Gretel at 
 Daly's — what a delightful first night ! — for a while the 
 effect of the troops of angels on the stairs was quite 
 charming — for a while — but, alas ! the stage grew 
 lighter, gauzes were raised, and then we saw plainly 
 the young women of the chorus, with big wings, and 
 could identify face after face, recollecting this young 
 lady as formerly a peasant boy in one comic opera, and 
 that as a village maiden in another, and so on. What 
 a " give away," to use a common effective phrase ! 
 
 The last prodigious production of Faust ? Well, 
 
 G
 
 98 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 what thinking person can swallow the devil and the 
 electric sparks from the sword, the wine drawn from 
 the table, the comicalities of the witches' kitchen, or 
 be moved by the Brocken scenes ? It is very well to 
 say that Goethe intended and expected his drama to 
 be put on the stage, though this can hardly apply to the 
 second part. Even if he did he cannot have expected 
 such material matters to be treated as of serious im- 
 portance — of such importance that, as represented, his 
 great drama seems chiefly contrived to lead up to 
 spectacular effects, plus a seduction story occasionally 
 hurt by needlessly plain phrases. 
 
 It may be said that this is the jam used to induce us 
 to swallow the powder ; but really there is so much 
 jam and so little powder that the benefit of the dose is 
 doubtful. To be just to Sir Herbert Tree — his Faust 
 sinned no more in the matter than did the Lyceum 
 setting ; perhaps even a little less. Certainly there is 
 rather more Goethe in the matter than Wills introduced. 
 It may be said that Shakespeare's plays were in- 
 tended for the stage, and that he introduced " ghosts." 
 as in Hamlet, Macbeth and Richard III. ; possibly he 
 believed in them. Yet, so far as one can judge from 
 such knowledge as we have of the stage as he knew it 
 and its resources, the treatment of his ghosts must have 
 been really quite conventional and scenically unim- 
 pressive. There was some gain in this, for the more 
 directly the ghost business is effective the more the 
 attention of the audience is drawn to it ; though the 
 interest of the scene is not in the ghost but the effect 
 it, produces on the other characters ; the case is one 
 that may be summed up in the phrase quoted for us by 
 Bacon — the better the worse.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 Unsentimental Drama 
 
 IT was suggested long ago that all the conceivable 
 tunes would soon have been written, and possibly, 
 if for " conceivable " one substitutes the word 
 " obvious/' there was truth in the suggestion. On the 
 other hand experience breeds in us the belief that com- 
 posers of genius could go on inventing novel melodies 
 for centuries to come. Things have been happening 
 lately, and threaten soon to occur again, which appear to 
 show that our popular dramatists imagine that there 
 are no new plots or subjects open to them. It is said 
 that one playwright is busily engaged upon a novel 
 version of La Dame aux Camellias which is to be dis- 
 tinguished from Dumas' novel and drama by the fact 
 that the heroine is chaste and does nothing worse than 
 " a bit of flirting." It is to be hoped that Dumas will 
 never hear of this astounding impudent perversion of 
 his play. Perhaps ere now he has become hardened 
 by the fact that the Duse has represented Marguerite as 
 a creature of exquisite purity. 
 
 Moreover, it is alleged that somebody is going to 
 write another version of Faust — presumably the panto- 
 mine edition by Wills is copyright. In addition, it 
 appears that Mr Stephen Phillips has concocted an 
 adaptation of The Bride of Lammermoor in which the 
 
 99
 
 100 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 story and characters are vastly improved. Alas, poor 
 Scott ! On top of all this we hear of countless adapta- 
 tions on the market, so that the ignorant wonder 
 whether our dramatists are played out. 
 
 Perhaps the secret is to be discovered in some passages 
 that occurred during the trial of an action a little while 
 ago, between two pubhshers, in which there was 
 evidence to the effect that a book could not be a novel 
 unless it had a love-story. 
 
 Of course, if upon our playwrights is imposed the 
 limitation that all their plays must contain a love-story, 
 the difficulty of the position is very great, and the greater 
 still because they are not allowed to tell naughty love- 
 stories unless they force upon them a moral ending, and 
 they are very rarely permitted to indulge in a love-story 
 which does not end in a wedding or the reconciliation of 
 respectably wedded citizens. No wonder that as a body 
 they seem to be getting bankrupt in imagination ; they 
 appear to be in the position of a cook who is never 
 allowed to handle an^^thing but sweets. 
 
 The state of things is rather curious. It may be often 
 asserted truthfully of the West End theatres that there 
 are as many love-stories as playhouses. Of late years, 
 notwithstanding the evidence referred to, some of our 
 novelists have shown a tendency to break away from 
 the tradition ; also some of the unfashionable play- 
 wrights exhibit signs of revolt ; but the managers are 
 timid, very timid, in the matter, and this is curious, 
 because one has only to turn to Shakespeare to see that 
 we have had modern successes with plays in which the 
 love-story is trifling when it exists at aU — Hamlet, 
 for instance, and Macbeth, Julius Ccesar, King Lear, 
 Henry VIII., and other historical pieces. Indeed, 
 as soon as one begins to enumerate it appears that
 
 UNSENTIMENTAL DRAMA loi 
 
 in most of the Shakespearean plays presented of late 
 years the love interest, if any, has been a minor matter. 
 Our managers might learn something from this. 
 
 There is mighty little sentimental love in the plays 
 of " G. B. S." that have, or have had, a perilously 
 disturbing vogue. And, indeed, when that ferocious 
 dramatist does handle love it is in an intensely unsenti- 
 mental fashion. 
 
 Moreover, love in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas is 
 treated with cruel levity. Turn, by the way, to another 
 great social satirist, MoHere ; one finds again that love 
 sometimes is ignored, and when handled at all often 
 treated dryly, or as a matter of little moment. Our 
 most popular comedy, The School for Scandal, though it 
 has a reconcihation business, is quite independent of any 
 sentimental matter of importance. In several of the 
 works of Mr Barrie, our most original popular dramatist, 
 the sentimental interest is slight where it exists at all. 
 
 It seems needless to multiply instances ; enough 
 has been said to show that it is quite possible to make 
 money with plays that are not at all sentimental. 
 What a pity, then, that the dramatists who aim at 
 general popularity should feel themselves constrained 
 to be more or less sentimental, and also that managers 
 should fight shy of the works of those dramatists, other 
 than Mr Barrie, who have the courage to write un- 
 sentimental plays ! For it is to be noticed that in the 
 last ten years a great many unsentimental EngHsh plays 
 have been written and produced by non-commercial 
 managements. It does not from this follow that all 
 of them ignore love and the relation of the sexes, or 
 even avoid actual love-stories; but as a class they eschew 
 the sentimental treatment which is and for a long time 
 has been the distinguishing feature of British Drama.
 
 102 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 A particular instance of the effect of the modern 
 tradition may be mentioned. The Beloved Vagabond 
 had a great success as a novel ; it enjoyed a London run 
 as a play of about two months only. In the book the 
 love-story is a minor matter, treated mainly with a 
 sub-acid humour, and the author wisely avoids an absurd 
 happy-ever-after conclusion. The play was super- 
 saturated with sentiment, with a sentiment which drove 
 out nearly all the humour and, roughly speaking, all the 
 plausibility. Is it easy to doubt that it is the sentimental 
 treatment which has caused the history of the play 
 to be so different from that of the novel ? 
 
 There are signs that the pubhc is growing rather tired 
 of molasses, which in fact is ceasing to be " golden " 
 syrup. The main effect, apart from purely technical 
 matters, of the new drama, that practically speaking 
 began with the production of The Doll's House at the 
 Great Queen Street Theatre, has been destructive ; 
 the outcome has included some brilliant plays, the 
 drawing power of which has never been fairly and fully 
 tested ; but the most important result has been the 
 discontentment of the ordinary playgoer with the fare 
 which once would have delighted him. Many bubbles 
 have been pricked ; many conventions killed ; many 
 plaj^s ridiculed by houses that once would have accepted 
 them eagerly. 
 
 Numerous causes have contributed to the fact that 
 during the last few years the total sum lost in the 
 London playhouses has been enormous, despite some 
 big successes, several of which have been of unsenti- 
 mental plays — such as Little Mary — and it seems to be 
 time for the managers and playwrights to begin to 
 consider the question whether they cannot go farther 
 afield and handle themes from which they have held
 
 THE SECOND-HAND DRAMA 103 
 
 aloof hitherto. Gorgeousness of mounting has ceased 
 to help managers ; even the maidens in their teens have 
 grown sophisticated, and jeer at the bread-and-butter 
 love-stories ; and successful modern French drama offers 
 a much smaller proportion of adaptable plays than used 
 to be the case. There must be a bottom to the deepest 
 purse, and things can hardly go on in the legitimate 
 playhouses as they have during the last few years ; 
 so it seems to be almost time for the managers to try to 
 get out of a groove and look about for the unsentimental 
 drama. 
 
 Since this was written the Phillips-Comyns Carr 
 version of Faust was produced and not accepted by 
 the critical, whilst the Phillips version of The Bride of 
 Lammermoor, called The Lost Heir, was a failure and 
 deserved its fate. Also it may be added Mr Frohman 
 has produced Strife, Justice, Misalliance and The 
 Madras House. 
 
 The Second-hand Drama 
 
 For some time past people have been seeking an 
 explanation of the weakness of our modern drama, of 
 the fact that except in the byways of the theatre, and 
 withrare instances on the highwaj^s, it is sadly unoriginal. 
 Numerous causes have been suggested, and probably 
 many have played their part. There is one element in 
 the matter the importance of which has been over- 
 looked — it is the mania for making adaptations. No 
 one will deny that most of the adaptations make bad 
 plays, and that a large proportion prove unsuccessful ; 
 and the making of them has an evil effect upon the 
 makers. The matter under discussion is not adapta- 
 tions for the English stage of foreign plays — a topic of
 
 104 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 great importance, for the lack of protection to the 
 foreign dramatists during a long period was a great cause 
 of the sterility of British drama ; and the habit of 
 importing has not ceased merely because the foreigner 
 acquired the right to payment. Many a pla^^viight 
 who might have become an original dramatist had all his 
 power of imagination and invention atrophied through 
 disuse. 
 
 Nowadays we import less than formerly, but our 
 playwrights still produce the second-hand drama, 
 getting their material ready-made from novels, and they 
 suffer in the same wa}^ as their predecessors, and injure 
 their natural gifts. This is not an entirely new thing. 
 It may be suggested that Shakespeare was one of the 
 most persistent of adapters. He may very well be left 
 out of the question. Such genius as his has its own 
 laws and privileges, and cannot very well be brought in 
 as an element when discussing the procedure of much 
 lesser men, and yet few critics will den}^ that in some 
 instances his plays were injured by his following too 
 closel}^ the course of his original. Perhaps in his case 
 the gifts of imagination and invention were sometimes 
 dulled because he was to such a great extent an adapter. 
 
 The idea of the novelist may inspire a dramatist with 
 an idea for a play, but the novelist's treatment of his 
 idea hardly ever supplies the dramatist with useful 
 materials. We have had scores of radically bad plays 
 adapted by clever men from good novels. At first 
 sight it looks as if the playwright w^ould gain an ad- 
 vantage from using ready-made materials, but careful 
 consideration and experience show that this is not the 
 case ; he is overw^helmed by excess of material, and his 
 task of selection is appallingly difficult. 
 
 Moreover, his material is all in the WTong form, and has
 
 THE SECOND-HAND DRAMA 105 
 
 to be transformed — and the process of transformation 
 requires great skill. 
 
 For it must be remembered that the methods of the 
 dramatist and the novelist as a broad proposition are 
 entirely different ; and when the pla3Avright is dealing 
 with a long, finely-written, complex novel he can 
 hardly expect his adaptation to bear a greater resem- 
 blance to the original than that of an easy pianoforte 
 transcription to one of the later operas of Wagner. 
 
 One need only consider any of the novels of Dickens 
 and the stage version that impudently bears its name to 
 see how entirely crushed the dramatist has been by 
 excess of material — like a Tarpeia by the gifts of the 
 enemy — by difficulty in selection, and in transformation, 
 and recollect that the product has almost always been 
 an inconsecutive story, unintelligible to those unac- 
 quainted with the book, destitute of the peculiar at- 
 mosphere of Dickens, irritating to lovers of the novel 
 because pet characters have been entirely suppressed 
 or cut down nearly to nothing, and only recognisable 
 in many cases as a version of the original on account 
 of costumes, names, make-up, scraps of eccentric dia- 
 logue, and general trend of the mutilated story. 
 
 Now, seeing that there are upon record a vast number 
 of adaptations that have failed, a number that bears a 
 proportion to the successful far higher than the pro- 
 portion of failures in original works, it seems worth 
 while to consider for a little what is at the bottom of the 
 matter, since to do so may prevent some playwiights 
 from wasting their time and other people's money. 
 
 First, one may ask why so many dramatists indulge 
 in the rather inglorious work of adaptation. No doubt 
 there is one great advantage in producing an adaptation 
 of a successful novel. A large mass of ready-made
 
 io6 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 advertisement exists : of the thousands or tens or 
 hundreds of thousands who read a popular novel, a 
 very large proportion feel curious to see it upon the 
 stage. Consequently the adaptation starts with the 
 enormous aid of having been advertised very effectively 
 on a big scale. This element alone is not sufficient to 
 command success ; for if the piece is indifferent, if the 
 critics condemn it, if the reception is unfavourable and 
 the unofficial opinion of pla3^goers is hostile, it can do 
 little to save the work, since the readers of the book get 
 the idea that the dramatist has made a mess of it and 
 they keep awa}^ and so of course does the general public. 
 It is, however, commonly believed that it is 
 easier to manufacture a play from a book than 
 to write an original drama. People imagine that the 
 playwright, finding characters, plot and incidents 
 ready-made in the novel, can produce the piece with less 
 trouble and difficulty than if he has to look for them at 
 large. This is a delusion founded upon the failure 
 to perceive the radical difference between the technique 
 of the novelist and the dramatist. It is true that in 
 some cases adaptations have had enormous success : 
 one might take two modern instances. The Little 
 Minister and Sherlock Holmes. The latter really con- 
 firms these remarks. The general public would fancy 
 that in the stories of " Sherlock Holmes " there are 
 plenty of effective plots. The ingenious authors of the 
 play were shrewd enough to perceive this was not the 
 case ; consequently they merely used certain characters 
 from the tales and invented an entirely new story. 
 Later on Sir Arthur did find one story suitable, and The 
 Speckled Band has been successful as a lurid melodrama 
 at the Adelphi and the Globe. 
 c in The Little Minister success was achieved bv en-
 
 THE SECOND-HAND DRAMA 107 
 
 tirely vulgarising a charming book, by throwing away 
 all that distinguished it, and converting what might 
 be called a delicately sentimental comedy into a farce. 
 We are not, however, dealing \vith the question from 
 the point of view of the noveHst's credit ; incidentally 
 it must be observed that there are few modern cases on 
 record where the play has not borne to the novel the 
 relation of a crude black-and-white copy to a picture. 
 
 The difficulties are two : objective and subjective. 
 The second is the subtler, therefore the more dangerous. 
 The adapter, being well acquainted with the novel, 
 rarely succeeds in forgetting that the general public is 
 not, and he almost invariably assumes that the audience 
 will supply from memory matters that he has left out. 
 In the case of most adapted plays events that appear 
 utterly improbable to those ignorant of the novel seem 
 quite likely to the people who have read it and can 
 supply the missing facts which explain the improbable 
 matters. To the adapter, particularly when he is also 
 the novelist, the characters and events have a real 
 existence, and his task, unlike that of the original 
 playwright, does not seem to be that of bringing them 
 into existence but merely of exhibiting them. Natur- 
 ally, then, he takes comparatively little pains to prove 
 what to him is axiomatic. 
 
 The main objective difficulty is due to the fact that a 
 play is a very short thing — though, alas ! this does not 
 alwa^^s seem to be the case — and a novel is relatively 
 long and often has many characters. In some cases, 
 the playwright attempts to deal with this difficulty by 
 ignoring the existence of half the people who figure in 
 the original. Even then, a mass of explanations has 
 to be jettisoned. There is worse trouble than this : 
 the characters built up in the novel by hundreds of fine
 
 io8 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 touches have to be presented in the pla}^ by a few bold 
 strokes. An extraordinary art is necessary in what is 
 not a work of mere transcription, but almost a work of 
 reconception. 
 
 There is the further vast difficulty that whilst in 
 most cases the novelist's procedure is to work on a system 
 of exciting curiosity, it is an unwTitten law of drama, 
 almost universally true, that there must be no surprises 
 for the audience, except, it may be, in farcical plays 
 that do not pretend to represent life truly and in matters 
 of detail. No doubt, unconscientious readers often 
 commit an act of treason to the author, and cheat him 
 by beginning at the end. One may urge that no one 
 expects a play to do full justice to the novel, and that 
 it is permissible to leave out much. The important 
 fact, however, is that the much necessarily left out in 
 the case of good novels as a rule is exactly that which 
 distinguishes them from the bad. The atmosphere 
 vanishes ; secondary characters, often the most pleas- 
 ing, have to be eliminated or rendered shadowy ; 
 thrilling incidents must be cut for want of space, and 
 the remainder is almost inevitably the bare bones of the 
 book, which never, however, realh' constitute an3^thing 
 like a complete skeleton. 
 
 Plays with a Purpose 
 
 During one season we had a comparatively large 
 number of plays with a purpose — for instance, A71 
 Englishynan s Home, The Head of the Firm, Strife, and 
 The House of Bondage. 
 
 For the sake of convenience let us refer to them and 
 works of a similar character as " problem pla3-s " 
 although that useful term got spoilt some years ago by
 
 PLAYS WITH A PURPOSE 109 
 
 acquiring a secondar}^ meaning, and became applied 
 almost exclusively to pieces concerning fallen women. 
 
 In respect of this rather rare branch of drama there 
 is one matter worthy of notice which has not been quite 
 sufficiently discussed. Yet the point is one referred to 
 several times in criticisms contained in these articles. 
 This is the author's duty to write in such a fashion as 
 to seem impartial. It is needless to suggest that he 
 ought to be impartial, since no one ever takes a real 
 interest in any debatable matter without ceasing to be 
 impartial, and nobody will ever write a play worth 
 seeing unless he takes a deep interest in his subject. 
 
 Now, looking at the four plays already mentioned, 
 one may see to some extent how this impartiality 
 operates. There is a difficulty connected with An 
 Englishman s Home, for it was alleged — and also denied 
 — that the author had no intention when writing it of 
 dealing seriously with the question of national defence 
 and invasion, and it must be recollected that some 
 alterations were made without his knowledge, which 
 included the addition of a vulgar clap-trap ending, that 
 may do him real injustice. It has generally been 
 regarded as a problem play, as intended to exhibit to 
 us dramatically the fact that we live fondly in fancied 
 security. As drama, it was seriously injured by the 
 obvious bias, by the want of impartiality ; it was taken 
 by some to be a warning that we must not trust to the 
 Territorials ; but, although the conscriptionist party 
 has welcomed it as establishing their view, its manifest 
 injustice to the citizen soldier has actually caused it to 
 be used as an argument the other way. Moreover, the 
 feeling of insincerity caused by the bias seriously 
 diminished its acting value in the eyes of the critical. 
 The fact of its use as an argument by people of almost
 
 no PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 opposite views does not prove its impartiality^ but 
 rather that its injustice has bred a reaction. 
 
 The next of the four is The House of Bondage, which 
 had less success than it deserved. The piece mani- 
 festly was intended to prove that a woman ought to 
 be entitled at law to a dissolution of marriage on the 
 single ground of her husband's infidelity ; the proposi- 
 tion was put in the form of a claim to equality of 
 rights in the sexes to divorce. The question has more 
 than one side, and there is a good deal to be said against 
 Mr Obermer's contention ; unfortunately, the author 
 did not attempt to put forward the other view, or even 
 to suggest that there is one. The result was that only 
 those who share the opinion of the author were in 
 sympathy with the piece ; to others it seemed mani- 
 festly unfair ; in fact, the author appeared anxious 
 to convince those who favour his own views, and not 
 those opposed to them. 
 
 In The Head of the Firm and Strife one had quite a 
 different state of things. The dramatist played the 
 advocatiis diaholi very cleverly, and the other side felt 
 that its case had been stated faii'ly. The best way to 
 convince people of anything is to present their own 
 views to them in a fashion which they deem just, and 
 then offer them reasons for doubting the truth of their 
 opinions. Both works obviously are anti-capitalist in 
 tendency, and yet, in different degrees and different 
 ways, the capitalist view was stated so fairly, whilst the 
 evil consequences of it were shown so vigorously, that 
 many people who were on the side of the capitalist were 
 forced to think, and therefore to doubt. 
 
 Mr Galsworthy bravely went so far as to hint, without 
 stating the proposition, that what seems bad in the 
 labour point of view is really an evil consequence of
 
 PLAYS WITH A PURPOSE iii 
 
 the capitalist attitude. In this respect he has followed, 
 legitimately, the treatment of the greatest " problem 
 play " yet written. The Doll's House, a work that in 
 hundreds of thousands of households has caused some- 
 thing like a revolution in the relations between husband 
 and wife. Ibsen used the appearance of impartiality 
 so finely, stated the husband's case so fairly, that there 
 were terrific quarrels as to what was his point of view, 
 and the result of the quarrels and discussions was the 
 serious consideration by people of the question dealt 
 with in the drama. It is this discussion that the 
 reformer desires, being confident that the discussion of 
 things long deemed right without discussion is the 
 surest road to reform. 
 
 From the point of view of dramatic art this imparti- 
 ality is essential, because without it the necessary im- 
 personal element cannot be given to a play. In such 
 a work as the prison drama It's never too Late to Mend, 
 by Charles Reade, one seems to see all the time the hand 
 of the perfervid, almost frantic, reformer, and the same 
 remark applies to several of his novels. Of course, one 
 does not ask the playwright to be, but only to seem, 
 impartial. To demand real impartiality would be to 
 ask that reality which is out of place upon the stage, 
 the function of which is, not to present themselves, 
 but, to borrow Hamlet's idea, reflections of them, and, 
 it would be more accurate to say, to give ideas of them 
 by presenting images intentionally distorted. 
 
 For that fourth wall, the existence of which Mr 
 Jerome K. Jerome rather quaintly and childishly sug- 
 gested by the fender and fireirons laid in front of the 
 footlights in The Passing of the Third Floor Back, 
 really operates as a distorting glass, although it is not 
 there. This sounds a little paradoxical, yet is clear
 
 112 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 enough. Things upon the stage have not the same 
 effect if regarded from the farther side of the footlights 
 as when considered from the nearer. This does not 
 apply merely to things seen, but also to things heard. 
 In this respect there is a resemblance to the work of the 
 impressionist painter. Speaking more closely, one 
 may say that the scene-painter's canvas, with what, 
 when seen at a few feet, are coarse splashes and daubs 
 of colour, is typical of the whole theatrical production. 
 It is imperative, then, that even the impartiality 
 should not be real impartiality. Moreover, absolute 
 impartiality would involve in man}^ cases the sup- 
 pression of the criticism of life which is the essence of 
 comed}'. 
 
 *' Problem plays/* works endeavouring truly to 
 represent to the audience real life, and involving a 
 criticism of life, are so rare that it is worth drawing 
 attention to a danger to dramatists. There is no need 
 to point it out to Mr Galsworthy, who in The Silver Box 
 and in Strife shows that he fully appreciates the point ; 
 nor to Mr Granville Barker, who produced Strife, for in 
 Waste, which is in most respects the greatest English 
 drama of our times, he exhibited it with extraordinary 
 intensity, and also in The Voysey Inheritance, an admir- 
 able play, which it is to be hoped we shall soon see 
 again. It is to the beginners that one would like to 
 insist on the proposition that you must not push your 
 views down the throats of the audience, but leave 
 spectators to draw their own conclusions, taking pains 
 to see that the conclusions which they fancy are drawn 
 voluntarily by them in reality are forced upon them. 
 Indeed, you must imitate the skilful professor of 
 legerdemain, and " palm " yoiu: views upon the audience 
 as he *' palms " a card upon his victim.
 
 DRAMA AND SOCIAL REFORM 113 
 
 Drama and Social Reform 
 
 Probably at no time and in no country has there been 
 so much fuss about the stage as nowadays in England, 
 and the annual budget of our theatre involves millions* 
 Moreover, people often talk about it as a great educa- 
 tional force, a great instrument for progress, a great 
 vehicle for the dissemination of ideas and so on. Yet 
 the theatre in England remains almost entirel}^ aloof 
 from real life. To the majority of playgoers, an im- 
 mense majority, it is merely a place of entertainment, 
 except so far as the plays of Shakespeare are con- 
 cerned ; they are supposed to have some educational 
 value, of what nature goodness knows. 
 
 Perhaps this phenomenon is not surprising, if one 
 regards the matter historically. The theatre has never 
 forgotten that the Puritans suppressed it for a time and 
 have always been hostile, and it identifies them with 
 the Whig, the Liberal, the Radical, and the Socialist. 
 It recollects that the Royalists revived it, and have 
 always been friendly, and they are represented by the 
 Tory, the Conservative, the Unionists and the Tariff 
 Reformers. So the stage does not lend itself readily 
 to ideas of reform, or sober study of life, or sober any- 
 thing — indeed, it has long been a little too closely con- 
 nected with the trade. 
 
 There must be players, managers, and some play- 
 goers belonging to the Liberals or Radicals, but they 
 are much in the minority : rarely, if ever, is a suggestion 
 of Liberalism uttered in a theatre except by way of 
 well-welcomed scorn. We are almost all pro-Bungs, 
 House-of-Lords men, and ardent Tariff Reformers. 
 
 There is another important element in the matter — 
 the theatre appears to be peculiarly engrossing to those
 
 114 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 connected with it. Persons entitled to speak have 
 often said that to most of the people attached to the 
 stage the theatre is a little world apart, in which they 
 are content to live almost oblivious of the greater world 
 around. It has been asserted that during the last siege 
 of Paris, whilst some of the players went out and fought 
 bravely, the majority were more concerned at the fate 
 of the stage than than of the city, and an actor of some 
 eminence once bitterly declared that the majority of 
 his confreres had no interest outside the " shop " and 
 never talked anything but '' shop." 
 
 It may be that all classes of stage-folk are tarred with 
 the same brush ; that these remarks concerning the 
 actors apply to the managers, the dramatists, and the 
 critics. Moreover, there are certainly exceptions ; 
 indeed, it is well known that several players of dis- 
 tinction take an active part in civic life. At any rate, 
 the fact remains that the stage seems to concern itself 
 very little with the improvements of social life. 
 
 In a nebulous way the theatre plays with certain 
 aspects of the relations between the two sexes, but 
 without seriously considering any question of feasible 
 reform. Upon one aspect which seemed to promise 
 matter for powerful drama we had only one important 
 work — I refer to the Deceased Wife's Sister question, 
 which was handled in an able play by a Mr Gatti, and 
 presented at the Court Theatre. Miss Olga Nethersole 
 acted very powerfully in it. One w^ould have thought 
 that this and other questions of legislation would have 
 attracted the attention of dramatists ; they did at one 
 time. The strenuous Charles Reade was prodigious in 
 his stage attacks upon bad laws, and effective as well. 
 At the present moment MM. Brieux and Paul Hervieux 
 are flogging some of the laws of France, and the German
 
 DRAMA AND SOCIAL REFORM 115 
 
 stage has seen a good many pieces which before the 
 word became demonetised one would have called 
 Problem plays. 
 
 Looking back upon the English drama of the last 
 twenty years one notices as a curiosity that it is the 
 woman rather than the man dramatist who appre- 
 ciates the utility of the stage as a means for seeking 
 reform. Uncle Toms Cabin, one of the most tremend- 
 ous law-changing influences ever exercised by fiction, 
 came from the pen of a woman, though it may be 
 that Mrs Beecher Stowe was not the author of any of 
 the stage versions presented over here. Taking a long 
 jump from the sixties, one finds that in modern times — 
 indeed, within the last few years — four women drama- 
 tists have tackled political or politico-social problems. 
 There was the Hon. Mrs Alfred Lyttleton, and her able, 
 interesting play called Warp and Woof, dealing with the 
 question of shop-girls and the Factory Act. Next in 
 order of date came Votes for Women, by Miss Elizabeth 
 Robins, a brilliant novelist and admirable actress, a 
 little too much carried away by her subject to do more 
 than write one big living scene in a conventional pla}/. 
 Mrs Alfred Mond (now Lady Alfred Mond) is the author 
 of a short piece dealing with Tariff Reform. Not long 
 ago we had a revival of Diana of Dobson's, Miss 
 Cicely Hamilton's valuable comedy, in which the 
 " living-in " system of shopgirls and the question of 
 the cruel fines imposed upon them was vividly exhibited. 
 Lady Bell gave us a very able drama concerning a social 
 question in The Way the Money Goes. 
 
 What native plays have we had by men during the 
 period covered by these four ladies dealing with similar 
 questions ? Mr Bernard Shaw has been running amok 
 during this time and before in a kind of " down- with-
 
 ii6 PLAYS OF PARTICULAR TYPES 
 
 everything " way, but his philosophy of the stage is 
 as terribly destructive as that of Ibsen, and except in 
 Widowers' Houses, and perhaps Mrs Warren's Profession, 
 few of his works handle directly matters capable of 
 being dealt with b}^ legislation. Years earlier, in The 
 Middleman and Jiidah, Mr Henry Arthur Jones tackled 
 two questions and strikes have been treated more than 
 once — notably in George Moore's clever, interesting, 
 uneven w^ork. The Strike at Arlingford. Much further 
 back there was Man and Wife, an attack upon the 
 system of irregular marriages still existing in Scotland 
 and some of the States of the Union. Probably there 
 have been some other native works touching more or 
 less directly upon questions of legislative reform within 
 my time, but it is difficult to remember all of them ; 
 yet there are many burning matters to-day with ample 
 elements of drama in them. 
 
 Probably the Censor is almost blameless in this affair. 
 Since the days of The Happy Land he has not allowed 
 politicians to be presented upon the stage ; but this 
 has little bearing upon the question. There has been 
 interference with some scenes concerning '' ragging " 
 in the arm^^ The office bearer has always been very 
 fidgety as far as the army is concerned,; but, in all 
 likelihood, would not prevent the reasonable treatment 
 upon the stage of any of the matters already referred 
 to, though perhaps an Education Bill play would have 
 difficulties in his hands, owing to the introduction of 
 religious topics. It seems curious that the women are 
 keener in seeking to use the stage, a tremendous 
 weapon for the purposes of reform, than men, and the 
 explanation is by no means obvious or necessarily 
 flattering to men. 
 
 Some day those whom one may generally designate
 
 DRAMA AND SOCIAL REFORM 117 
 
 as Puritans will become sensible of the vast potential- 
 ities of drama, and will see that it is foolish to leave 
 all the good tunes to the devil. As a result, no doubt, 
 we shall suffer for a while from a lot of bad plays with 
 a good purpose. Yet there will be a useful infusion of 
 new blood and new ideas, and our drama, instead of 
 running round and round after its tail, will get out of 
 its present little vicious circle and become a living force 
 in the country, instead of a mere medium of entertain- 
 ment, and of entertainment which rarely has any 
 substantial value from an artistic point of view. 
 
 In connexion with these remarks the section " Plays 
 with a Purpose " should be read — if possible. It 
 should be added that Mr Galsworthy's admirable play. 
 Justice, has had some effect upon the treatment of 
 prisoners.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 The Optics 
 
 THICK-AND-THIN admirers of Duse, an actress 
 of indisputable genius, used to praise her because 
 she dispensed with the " make-up " that other players 
 deem necessary. They saw in this a glorious fidelity 
 to nature. Their position became a little ridiculous 
 when, somewhat later, the actress — possibl}^ in com- 
 pliance with the advice of critical worshippers — 
 adopted the ordinarj^ devices of the stage and pressed 
 into service the make-up box and even the aid of the 
 wig-maker. 
 
 Presumably the change in policy was due to a more 
 careful consideration of the optics of the stage. For it 
 may be assumed that she " made up " in order to 
 counteract the privative effects of the stage lights and 
 appear neither more nor less beautiful and expressive 
 to the public in the playhouse than to her friends in her 
 drawing-room. This leads to the important paradox 
 that in the theatre you must be artificial if you wish to 
 appear natural ; that on the stage, verisimilitude is 
 greater truth than truth itself ; or, to use the popular 
 oxymoron, you must be " falsely true." In this respect 
 the matter of " make-up " is only an instance of a 
 general law prevailing in all matters theatrical. 
 
 Let no one think less of the players on account of it, 
 
 ii8
 
 THE OPTICS 119 
 
 for it is this fact that entitles the actor to speak of his 
 art and not merely of his craft. It is because the 
 player must select, eliminate, exaggerate, diminish and, 
 in a word, modify his matter but may not be photo- 
 graphic, that he is entitled to call himself an artist. 
 
 The term '* photographic " used in this sense is 
 rather unfair, for the photographer has become an 
 artist by recognizing the fact that he too must select, 
 etc. No doubt " make-up " renders other services, 
 and belongs to the artifices as well as the arts of the 
 stage, since it has the advantage in some cases of render- 
 ing the plain beautiful — to the discomfiture of stage- 
 door loafers, and, indeed, possesses an abominable 
 democratic effect. Of course, too, it has legitimate 
 value in effecting disguises, in changing young into old 
 — its efforts in the contrary direction, as a rule, are 
 ghastly failures — and in effecting transformations of the 
 exterior of persons. However, " make-up," despite its 
 mysteries, is but a small element in " the optics of the 
 theatre," which term is here used largely — and in- 
 accurately — in relation to all the phenomena covered by 
 the paradox already mentioned. 
 
 The player, having counterbalanced with " make-up " 
 the robbery effected by the stage illumination and also 
 by the disadvantage of distance, has to turn himself to 
 the adjustment of other matters. One is this — he must 
 recognize that his author labours under similar condi- 
 tions, and should not be " photographic." 
 
 When the dramatist in the dialogue has exaggerated 
 the play of light and shade, bringing, indeed, legitimately 
 for the sake of effect to his speeches, that energy of 
 chiaroscuro which gives us a pleasure, somewhat dis- 
 trustful in the pictures of Joseph Wright of Derby, the 
 player must attune his manner in order to make it
 
 120 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 congruous with the highly seasoned conversation so 
 that there being no clash of methods, no jarring v^ill 
 result. 
 
 Every change of convention on the part of the author 
 demands a corresponding change in the actor. Clearly, 
 he must speak verse differently from prose, though there 
 are foes to poetry who beg him to break up the lines and 
 defeat the efforts of the poet ; and he must adopt a 
 manner in a blank-verse tragedy unsuitable to a play 
 by Mr Barrie. Moreover, he ought to aim at seeming 
 natural in both. Here is the rub ; he must aim at 
 seeming, not being, natural. Obviously, one cannot 
 deliver blank verse naturally ; such, however, is the 
 power of make-believe in the audience that if the 
 dramatist and his company can engage the sympathy 
 of the spectators, a fairy tale in rh^oned lines, a tragedy 
 in unrhymed verse, a melodrama with flatulent phrases, 
 and a comedy seeking the most exact reproduction of 
 modern life permissible may seem equally plausible, 
 credible, natural. 
 
 It is to be noted, too, that the form of artificiality of 
 truth varies not only with the type and quality of the 
 drama but with the nature of the audience. Speaking 
 of our times, one may say that a little greater vigour 
 of contrast is desirable in the provinces than in town, and 
 in the *' B " towns than the " A," in the " C " than the 
 " B," and goodness knows what violence is not needed 
 in the " fit-up " shows. There are reasons for believing 
 that our ancestors demanded a more full-blooded style 
 of acting than is relished by their anaemic descendants, 
 and it is possible that such a performance as convinced 
 the eighteenth century of the genius of some of its 
 players might cause laughter nowadays, though neither 
 audience nor actors would deserve censure.
 
 THE OPTICS 121 
 
 Within the time of even our younger critics there 
 have been at least two tragedians who enjoyed 
 an immense reputation save in town, but failed 
 to win success in the West End of the Metropolis, 
 though outside they held their own against the 
 greatest favourites ; and the London critics levelled at 
 them the dreadful charge of *' barn-storming" — a charge 
 which some of us no doubt would make against several 
 of the greatest tragedians in our proud records were 
 they to appear to-day and act as in their own times. 
 
 It is a feature of the actor's art that its excellence is 
 never absolute. x\n audience is entitled to say, " What 
 care I how good he be if he seem not good to me ? " 
 A performance that does not move the spectators is 
 not only a failure but to some extent a culpable failure, 
 since the actor's art is more utterly ephemeral than 
 any other — possibly by aid of gramophone, biograph, 
 and the like some fairly effective records will be made 
 in the future — but, this consideration apart, he may not 
 even take heed for the morrow. At the moment his 
 mission is to move the particular collection of people 
 before him, and though they may be culpable for not 
 being moved he will not be wholly blameless. 
 
 Possibly this is putting the matter a little too harshly, 
 and the observations should be considered as applicable 
 only to a particular " run " and not to an individual 
 night. Doubtless, even thus restricted, it suggests 
 that the player should make a remarkable series of 
 modifications in his methods which are not within the 
 practical politics of the stage ; and, indeed, these 
 remarks are pushed purposely too far in order to draw 
 attention to the fact that the actors are prone to con- 
 sider their own " reading " of a part without reference 
 to the audience, and even, in some cases, to the author.
 
 122 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 In other words, they are misled by the delusive term 
 " create/' so often applied to acting as well as to 
 millinery. The word is inappropriate to the rapidly 
 evanescent. " Original interpreters " is the highest 
 phrase that can be justified. 
 
 These observations would be incomplete without 
 some reference to more material aspects of the " optics." 
 For instance, one ma}^ comment on the fact that, re- 
 gardless of seating arrangements, which in almost every 
 theatre cause a considerable number of people to be 
 unable to see the exits on one side or the other, important 
 business is often transacted in the wings, to the intense 
 annoyance of would-be spectators, who are left out in 
 the cold, and of course imagine that what they miss is 
 the plum of the play ; also valuable scenes are some- 
 times played so far back that people in the higher parts 
 of the house are unable to see them properly. This 
 sounds perilously like an invitation to players to take 
 the centre of the stage close to the footlights, but of 
 course the matter is one of degree. 
 
 Yet, at the least, it must be urged that nothing, the 
 exact understanding of which is necessary to the audi- 
 ence, should happen much on one side or very far back ; 
 to this may be added the suggestion, hardly novel, 
 that the first few minutes of each act should be confined 
 to immaterial affiairs ; blame the unpunctual — even if 
 you blame unfairly, since, as a rule, the entr'acte warning 
 bell is inaudible in most parts of the theatre — but do not 
 make the guiltless suffer by presenting important 
 matters during the time when the stage is half hidden 
 by the people struggling (through a passage as a rule 
 shamefully narrow) to get to their seats. Sardou's 
 precepts may be pushed too far, and we do not need 
 a whole first act of nothing in particular, but facts should
 
 MAKE-UP 123 
 
 be recognized and simple common-sense considered. 
 There is always some trouble during the first few minutes 
 of each act. 
 
 Make-up 
 
 The word " make-up " is very ugly, but seems irre- 
 placeable, and therefore is employed in the book called 
 " The Art of Theatrical Make-up," by Mr Cavendish 
 Morton, the object of which is to tell players — amateurs 
 as well as professionals — how to make-up. No doubt 
 it will render useful service to the actor — to the actor, 
 since nothing is said in it about the actress and make-up 
 in relation to her. 
 
 Thereby hangs something of importance. The 
 actress has held her own against the actor : even the 
 most unkind critic of the fair sex cannot deny that the 
 achievements of women on the stage are as great as the 
 achievements of men, although they have been a shorter 
 time at the game, and have not had so many splendid 
 parts written for them. Yet make-up has been of little 
 assistance to actresses. 
 
 Eleanora Duse at the present moment is probably 
 accepted as the greatest living player of the world. Of 
 late years she has, to some extent, used make-up, but 
 with great moderation. One can imagine her tossing 
 aside a book such as Mr Morton's, and asking what on 
 earth it has to do with the art of acting, and I fancy 
 that tremendously rapid speech of hers would be used 
 effectively if she were to read such a sentence as this : 
 " Is not half the battle won when one perfectly physic- 
 ally realizes the character to be impersonated ? " By 
 which the author clearly means that half the battle is 
 won when, by the aid of nose-paste or " toupee " paste
 
 124 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 and grease-paint, powder, crepe hair, spirit-gum, wig and 
 the like, one has arrived at looking like the character. 
 
 Instead of this being half the battle, it does not amount 
 to a tenth. Of course something must be done to 
 counteract the effect of the lighting on the stage, and 
 no one can complain if the players use the well-known 
 devices to heighten their charms ; and wigs and false 
 beards and moustaches and whiskers ma}^ be service- 
 able at times ; but to take such matters seriously seems 
 an egregious mistake. Indeed, when looking at the 
 result, one is inclined, unconsciously, to use a criticism 
 by employing the phrase, " \Miat a capital make-up." 
 Mr So-and-so enters as Caliban, or Napoleon Bonaparte, 
 or Charles II., or Falstaff. In a few seconds, or it may 
 be minutes, we can identify him without the aid of the 
 programme; and, of course, we say, "what a capital 
 make-up," but the whole thing is merely a Madame 
 Tussaud aspect of drama. 
 
 Make-up has comparatively little to do with the 
 capacity of an actor for differentiating his parts. Take 
 Mr Dennis Eadie, who has an extraordinary gift for 
 changing his personality. Those who have seen this 
 admirable actor as Henry Jackson in The Return of the 
 Prodigal, as Lord Charles Cantelupe in Waste, and 
 Mr Wylder in Strife, must admit that changes of voice, 
 of gesture and manner, and general expression of 
 countenance are of greater value than tons of the 
 cleverest make-up. 
 
 The service of make-up in its higher branches is merely 
 to render, or, rather, seem to render, actors fit for 
 tasks for which they are physically unsuited. Take for 
 instance, the nose ; there is a picture of Mr Morton 
 with flattened nose and enlarged nostrils ; he is said 
 to represent Othello. *' The nose is first depressed by
 
 MAKE-UP 125 
 
 crossing it near the tip with a silk thread, which is tied 
 at the back of the head. A small piece of kid is placed 
 under the thread, thus keeping it from coming in con- 
 tact with the skin. The nostrils are built out until the 
 nose has a Moorish appearance." 
 
 Now, nobody thinks a whit the worse or less of Mr 
 Forbes Robertson's Othello because he played no 
 tricks with his striking aquiline nose ; and the idea 
 that he would have gained anything by flattening it with 
 a bit of silk thread is absurd. What he would have 
 gained would have been a feeling of physical incon- 
 venience during the quiet passages, and terror during 
 the tremendous scenes of passion at the thought that the 
 string might snap. 
 
 There are photographs of other noses, built up with 
 nose-paste or, preferably, with " toupee " paste ; one 
 is of Falstaff, another of Shylock, and there is also one 
 called " the Professor." In each case the whole nose 
 looks wooden ; it may be suggested that in an ordinary 
 way movements of the nose do not play much of a part 
 in expressing emotions, yet we have phrases about 
 swelling nostrils and turning up one's nose that possess 
 some foundation in fact. Further, one can hardly 
 render the nose a dead thing without, to some extent, 
 effecting the mobility of other features. Probably the 
 built-up nose of Coquelin as Cyrano de Bergerac will 
 be thrown in my face ; it must, however, be remembered, 
 that apart from his large elastic mouth Coquelin's face 
 was rather wooden, and he relied for expression chiefly 
 on voice, mouth, gesture and movement. No doubt 
 in this particular character there is a necessity, and, 
 therefore, a justification for a built-up nose ; but more 
 than one actor has failed to fight successfully against 
 the artificial proboscis of Cyrano.
 
 126 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 Used as more than a counteracting or embellishing 
 contrivance, " make-up^' is curiously ineffective. Many 
 Napoleons have appeared on the stage, only one of them 
 by a writer capable of even suggesting the distinguishing 
 qualities of the man of genius. In most cases there 
 have been advance paragraphs about the pictures, 
 miniatures, statues, statuettes, medallions, bas-reliefs, 
 etc., consulted by the actor, and concerning the con- 
 trivances of the wigmaker, even the bootmaker and 
 tailor. What has been the outcome ? Merely that 
 for half-a-minute people have said : " What a clever 
 make-up," and for the rest of the time one has been no 
 more content to accept the player as Jupiter Scapin 
 than if he had washed his face, brushed his hair and 
 acted in his dress clothes. 
 
 Does Mr Cavendish Morton think players were really 
 worse off before the latest refinements in make-up were 
 invented ? Some of the greatest acting triumphs of 
 the world were accomplished when the players dressed 
 their parts absurdly, trusting almost exclusively to their 
 own powers. 
 
 One is forced to wonder to what extent covering the 
 face with the mass of muck hinders the actor in his work. 
 People can be trained to endure it, but it would be 
 interesting to see the difference in the performance of 
 a given part by an actor with an elaborate make-up — 
 false nose, etc. — and by the same actor without. Mr 
 Arthur Bourchier, when growing a beard for the 
 purpose of playing Henry VUL, stated that he 
 would have been embarrassed by a sham beard. Can 
 it be that the triumph that we sometimes see, of the 
 actress over the actor, is partly due to the fact that she 
 reduces make-up to the minimum ? 
 No one denies the necessit}^ for make-up. When young
 
 GESTURE 127 
 
 players have to represent old people it is their duty to take 
 advantage of the advice of experts such as Mr Morton, 
 and every one may find valuable hints in his book. 
 The really important fact is that all should be warned 
 against such a proposition as lies in the hideous sen- 
 tence, " Is not half the battle won when one perfectly 
 physically realizes the character to be impersonated ? " 
 
 Gesture 
 
 Some years ago, at one of the theatrical clubs, the 
 existence of which is one of the many tokens of the 
 great interest at present taken in the drama, Mr Alfred 
 Robbins, a very able, highly esteemed critic, gave a 
 lecture upon " The Value of Ballet in Dramatic Art," 
 which was illustrated charmingly. For, in order to 
 show how a stor^^ could be interpreted without words, 
 Miss Genee, the brilliant dancer, ably assisted by 
 Miss D. Craske, represented the ballet scene from 
 Nicholas Ntckleby, between the infant phenomenon 
 and the Indian. 
 
 There was no little discussion afterwards upon the 
 question whether the art of miming, one of the two 
 main elements of the ballet, is or can be serviceable 
 to the ordinary stage. Several seemed to have the 
 opinion that the art of dumb show is almost useless to 
 the player, the argument being that, as far at least as 
 modern comedies are concerned, so little gesture is 
 used on the stage that training in the mode of employing 
 it is superfluous. The introduction of trouser pockets 
 was said to have destroyed the need for gesture. In 
 such views lie certain dangerous fallacies. 
 
 The actor who thinks that by mode of speech and 
 facial display, and without carefully calculated gesture,
 
 128 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 he can carry through a part in a modern comedy prob- 
 ably is misled by the thought that the English are 
 more sober in gesture than the Latin races : and his 
 contempt for the work of the mime is based on a belief 
 that certain purely conventional gestures, inapplicable 
 save in wordless scenes, constitute the whole materials of 
 the mime's art. The mime certainly has a kind of dumb 
 language with a limited vocabulary, understood, un- 
 fortunately, by few English people save those connected 
 with the stage ; part of his silent speech has never 
 crept into the common language ; 3'et to sneer at it as 
 conventional is wrong, it is merely a case of certain con- 
 ventional gestures not having been generally adopted, 
 and therefore remaining unintelligible to the world. 
 
 For most of our gestures are conventional. Nearly 
 all peoples understand what the European means 
 when he shakes his head and when he nods it ; never- 
 theless, there are races which use these movements in an 
 exactly opposite sense. The offer to rub noses as a 
 sign of welcome employed b}^ some tribes was mis- 
 understood by early explorers, and when, in friendly 
 spirit, certain tribes stroked the waistcoat of the 
 missionary, he guessed that they were cannibals. 
 
 Kissing (in one aspect a matter of gesture) is unused 
 by whole nations, and so, too, is handshaking. It has 
 been said by a traveller that the vulgar operation 
 described by Barham in the line " Put his thumb unto 
 his nose and spread his fingers out " is a mark of 
 courtesy and esteem in one remote nation ; nor is 
 putting out the tongue a sign of contempt everywhere. 
 Certain of the gestures of ballet still strictly conven- 
 tional in England are emplo3'ed outside the theatre 
 in France. Gesture and facial expression, except 
 so far as mechanically due to emotion, are entirely
 
 GESTURE 129 
 
 conventional, though some of the conventions are so 
 old as to have become second nature. 
 
 Most people are unaware how largely they adopt the 
 conventions ; this unconscious adoption in the end has 
 turned the conventional into the natural. It is the 
 study of this conventional-natural which enables the 
 mime to accomplish remarkable feats ; combining it with 
 simple descriptive movements, and a few of the gestures 
 still purely conventional in England, Signor Rossi, 
 in A Pierrot's Life, was able to delight our audiences 
 by his dumb-show narration of the complicated tale 
 of the two pigeons, and Signora Litini in the same 
 piece showed with subtlety a whole gamut of emotions. 
 Miss Genee, at the Empire, without uttering a sound, 
 used to be more eloquent than many of our players 
 with whole lengths of dialogue. To a great extent Duse 
 fascinates most playgoers by her plastic art, since they 
 do not understand her speech. 
 
 Now, to employ to its full extent the art of the mime 
 in conjunction with spoken speech would be absurd. 
 The light and shade in the speech of the most *' natural " 
 actor — say, Mr Charles Hawtrey — is violently ex- 
 aggerated on account of the peculiar acoustics of the 
 theatre ; amongst other things, the player has to 
 address those far off in the galleries as well as those 
 close to in the stalls, and therefore his work requires a 
 series of compromises like that of a piano-tuner anxious 
 to avoid " wolves " or a politician eager to win votesi 
 Moreover, on account of the lack of speech the plastic 
 art of the mime involves great exaggeration in the 
 conventional-natural gestures and also in the move- 
 ment-: and facial expression intended to represent those 
 mechanically caused by emotion. 
 
 It is therefore necessary for the actor to mime in a 
 I
 
 130 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 modified and restrained fashion, abandoning, of course, 
 all the still purely conventional and showing much 
 moderation in the rest. When he nicely combines ex- 
 pression by the voice with expression by face, gesture 
 and pose the result is very valuable. Few can do this, 
 and the failure is nearly always in respect of gesture, 
 which is misused or insufficiently employed. A study 
 of the great statues and pictures, and such works as 
 those of Sir Charles Bell, Lavater, Duchesne, Gratiolet 
 and Darwin has enabled the mime to collect a series of 
 rules for the expression of emotions. How rash of 
 the player to trust entirely to his own ideas, and not 
 avail himself of the knowledge of others ! Some may 
 regard such conduct as exhibiting originality : it is, 
 however, a sad waste of time to try to find out for one- 
 self what others are willing and able to teach, and there 
 is a great risk of error. 
 
 Moreover, the mime teaches grace of movement and 
 pose, and enables the player to employ usefully the 
 limbs which as a rule seem an encumbrance to him. 
 The poor ladies have not even trouser-pockets wherein 
 to hide the hands, the existence of which embarrasses 
 them, but they can conceal the legs, which so often are 
 troublesome to the actor. 
 
 The restlessness of English acting — one of its worst 
 faults — is, I believe, due to the player feeling half- 
 consciously that he does not know what to do when he 
 is not speaking. In a conversation scene, during which 
 two finely trained artists would not leave their seats, 
 our players generally appear to be having a game of 
 musical chairs ; and actors could be named who take 
 their *' constitutionals " on the stage. Moreover, one 
 very rarely sees a player listening effectively, yet I 
 have watched an actor who, though silent during a long
 
 GESTURE 131 
 
 speech, has by means of finely studied poses and nicely 
 calculated gestures greatly increased the force of the 
 speech to which he was supposed to be listening. No 
 doubt all actors and actresses seek the aid of pose and 
 gesture and get advice from stage-managers : very 
 often the case is one of the blind leading the blind. 
 
 It will be objected that a study of such a system may 
 tend to make the player mechanical, and also to cause 
 all the members of a company to resemble one another 
 too greatly : there is some truth in the objection. Still, 
 this is an abuse not inseparable from the use. The 
 intelligent mime fully recognizes the fact that the 
 gestures proper to the members of one class of people 
 are not necessarily suitable to those of another, and 
 that there are individual differences as well. He dis- 
 tinguishes between the sober, and therefore striking, 
 gesture of the Englishman and the unimpressive 
 gesticulation of the meridional ; between the poses of 
 the king and attitudes of the peasant, and so on. 
 
 The highly trained artist knows how, upon rare 
 occasions, to produce a great effect by conscious breach 
 of a rule. To argue against a use from a needless abuse 
 is not legitimate, a proposition dear to Jeremy Bentham. 
 There is also a grave fallacy in the idea that gesture is 
 less important in presenting an Englishman than a 
 member of a gesticulative race, for vehement gesture 
 is impressive in direct proportion to its rarity, and 
 effects have been produced by the fine, slight movement 
 of one of our actresses at a critical moment which sur- 
 passed in force anything possible if she had been lavish 
 in gesture throughout. Need it be added that the 
 training of the body insisted upon by the mime would 
 cause some of our players to move more gracefully on 
 the stage ? Several of our popular players walk as if
 
 132 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 they had hired their limbs and not had time to become 
 accustomed to them. 
 
 Scenery at the French Plays 
 
 One might almost say there is none. A foreign 
 management at the New Royalty Theatre produced a 
 number of works mounted in a fashion that would 
 horrify an ordinary West End London manager, and 
 yet the rather daring season was really successful. So 
 much the better. Probably if the cost of production 
 of each play had been ten times greater nobody's 
 pleasure would have been appreciably increased and 
 the receipts would not have advanced perceptibly. It 
 is doubtful whether the scenery for the baker's dozen 
 or so of plays cost as much as is often expended by our 
 managers on a single work. 
 
 Is there no lesson in this ? Why, if an audience can 
 be attracted, interested, and even delighted in the Soho 
 house, though play and players are not aided by the 
 expenditure of barrelfuls of money on the mounting, 
 should it be deemed necessary to employ a small 
 fortune every time a work is presented by our native 
 managers ? As far as I can judge, the French season, 
 although triumphant, was not marked by the appear- 
 ance of any prodigious star with whom we were not 
 already familiar, nor were the new pieces of astounding 
 quality. 
 
 The truth is that the assistance given by costly 
 mounting is very little. The scene which by its 
 magnificence causes a gasp of surprise loses all its effect 
 after two or three minutes, and unless the play and 
 acting are really meritorious the audience is quite as 
 much bored when the mounting is splendid as when it
 
 SCENERY AT THE FRENCH PLAYS 133 
 
 is merely decent. Possibly it is even more bored ; 
 unwittingly it is affected by a sense of disproportion. 
 
 We all know that jewellery does not embellish a plain 
 woman ; that, on the contrary, after a minute or two, 
 one ceases to gaze on the gewgaws and then the sight 
 of the ugly face comes as something of a shock. Con- 
 sider the jarring effect of a noble pearl necklace upon a 
 scraggy neck, and, changing the figure, think how dis- 
 appointing is a bad dinner served beautifully. There 
 is a French phrase concerning a scanty meal on a flower- 
 decked table that seems in point : II ma invite a brouter 
 et je Vai envoye paltre. Sydney Smith, after a mean 
 dinner served in a gorgeous room, observed that he 
 would prefer '' a little less gilding and a little more 
 carving." 
 
 Mr H. B. Irving, in a lecture given at the Royal 
 Institution, ascribed the alleged pre-eminence of 
 actors during the Garrick period to the weakness of 
 the current drama and the economy in stage-mounting, 
 two matters that forced the players to tremendous 
 exertion in order to hold the house, which, by the way, 
 he believes to have been very finely critical. An 
 audience is more truly observant of plays and playing 
 when its attention is not distracted by considering the 
 cost of the costumes, by wondering if the marble pillars 
 are solid, by curiosity as to how the lighting effects are 
 contrived, and by asking whether the play will run long 
 enough to earn its initial cost. 
 
 Whether the large sums of money expended produce 
 an effect agreeable to the trained eye is a little outside 
 the topic. Yet it must be suggested that such beauty 
 as the costly stage pictures present generally belongs 
 to the category of the very obvious. This is not sur- 
 prising ; if a great deal of money is spent in order to
 
 134 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 produce a gorgeous spectacle, common-sense demands 
 that the result should be to the taste of a vast number 
 of people, otherwise the management must lose money. 
 It would be idle to pretend that there are very many 
 playgoers who possess fine taste, consequently the 
 money must be lavished in order to delight people with 
 a more or less uncultivated taste. No doubt a great 
 deal of money may be spent on quiet details, and some- 
 times is, without the attention of the ordinary play- 
 goer being drawn to the expenditure, but the case is 
 exceptional. In plain English, it very rarely happens 
 that the extravagant sums employed in mounting plays 
 produce a beauty that appeals successfully to any 
 people save those whose ideas of the pictorial art are 
 bounded by the exhibitions of the Royal Academy. 
 Moreover, consideration is paid to the fact that there 
 are Philistines who will admire a thing mereh^ because 
 they believe it to be costly. 
 
 Certainly there is much to be said on the other side, 
 or at least a great deal is urged by people who believe 
 what they say. It has been pretended that Shake- 
 speare would have been delighted by such productions 
 of his works as we have seen in modem times, and have 
 rejoiced in the pictures contrived by the scene-painter, 
 costumier and others working under the direction of 
 the producer. To this it has been objected that, though 
 the pictures might have pleased him, he would have been 
 disgusted by the fact that a good many of his beautiful 
 lines have to be cut because of the length of entr'actes 
 and occasional pieces of stage business designed in 
 order to draw the attention of the audience to the beauty 
 of the scenery. 
 
 The reply is made that a large quantity of the most 
 famous passages in Shakespeare are descriptive of
 
 SCENERY AT THE FRENCH PLAYS 135 
 
 scenery, and would not have been written but for the 
 fact that he had no other means of conveying his ideas 
 to the audience. If there be any truth in this, one may 
 be very thankful for the fact which coerced him into 
 his word-painting. Certainly the world has profited by 
 this compulsion, for millions who have never and will 
 never see the theatre's efforts to represent Shakespeare's 
 pictures have had infinite pleasure from the author's 
 successful endeavours to realize his ideas by the force 
 of words. 
 
 As I have already mentioned, Mr H. B. Irving 
 ascribes the alleged superiority of the Garrick-period 
 actors to their lacking the help of the fine scenery of 
 notable contemporary dramas. It would seem to 
 follow that in his opinion the alleged weakness of modem 
 acting is due to the fact that the players rely too much 
 upon the plays and scenery. Upon this aspect of the 
 matter no opinion need be offered, but it may be said 
 confidently that Mr Irving' s theory applies to drama- 
 tists, and that the existing playwrights unconsciously 
 become somewhat less self-reliant because they have 
 such assistance from the producers. 
 
 The art of the theatre is the art of illusion and also 
 of compromise, and no rule connected with the stage 
 can be pushed quite home to its apparent logical con- 
 clusions : therefore one must have some amount of 
 appropriate scenery, and costumes may not be flag- 
 rantly incongruous ; but when once these modest 
 demands have been satisfied the audience will be well 
 content with mounting in which nothing more is in- 
 volved if the play be well written and acted, and agree- 
 able in style to its taste ; and we know very well that 
 some of the longest runs have been enjoyed by works 
 produced at little cost.
 
 136 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 The New Royalty productions would not have 
 pleased people any the more by having money 
 lavished upon scenery. In one or two cases, for 
 a moment or two some of us smiled a little un- 
 kindly at the black cloth and wings, and yet after a 
 minute or two we ceased to notice them, with the result 
 that the management has been able to save its money 
 in the individual works and to produce a large number 
 of pieces in a short time. Putting aside pla3-s merely 
 intended for spectacular effect, after a few hundred 
 pounds have been spent managers do not get the benefit 
 to the extent of more than a shilling in the pound or so 
 of the really enormous sums expended upon plays. 
 
 Stage Costumes 
 
 There is a story concerning an enthusiastic collector 
 who devoted almost a fortune and nearly a lifetime to 
 decorating and furnishing his dra\rag-room so that it 
 should resemble perfectly a Louis XV. salon. He 
 invited an expert to visit it and express his opinion. 
 The critic came, inspected, left the room, and locked 
 the door ; then he said, '' It is perfect," and promptly 
 threw the key into the moat. " Why did you do that ? " 
 asked the collector. " For fear," replied the expert, 
 " lest anybody should spoil the effect of 3'our salon 
 by entering it in modern costume inharmonious with 
 it." There is another tale about a hostess who wept 
 sorely because the effect of her dinner-table deco- 
 ration was marred by the appearance of a lady 
 in a costume of pillar-box vermilion. These stories 
 are entirely untrue, and were invented b}^ " G.F.S." : 
 nevertheless, they have a moral when applied to the 
 stage.
 
 STAGE COSTUMES 137 
 
 Of course it is very rash for a male, unless he happens 
 to be a man milliner, to write about the costumes of 
 actresses ; and we leave untouched the clothes of the 
 actor, lest our own and their lack of style should be put 
 forward as a ground for disqualification. Still it is 
 impossible to avoid noticing the dresses of the ladies 
 upon the stage ; it would even be bad manners not to 
 do so, seeing how much trouble the dear creatures take 
 to please our eyes, for we are too gallant or vain to 
 believe the cynical idea that they only dress to crush 
 one another. 
 
 After noticing them, it is amusing and amazing to 
 read the newspaper articles generally called " Dresses 
 at the * * * Theatre " which appear after a 'premiere. 
 Of course exception is made of the articles written for a 
 paper necessarily nameless. Even with good opera- 
 glasses one can yet never detect a tenth of the details 
 described in these articles, and at times it appears that 
 the writers suffer from colour-blindness, for they often 
 differ utterly as to the colours of the gowns ; perhaps 
 it is more modern to call them " frocks." 
 
 There is, however, a simple explanation. The clothes 
 critics have described their subjects from an inspection 
 at the milliner's or modiste's or in dressing-rooms, and 
 thus have noticed the minutiae invisible across the 
 footlights, and recorded colours which have changed 
 when viewed in another light. Moveover, they never 
 suggest that the dresses are ugly, or clash with one 
 another ; partly, no doubt, because their ideal of 
 criticism has for foundation the epitaph upon an alleged 
 dramatic critic to the effect that he had never caused an 
 actor's wife to shed a tear, and partly for the reason 
 that they do not see the dresses in relation to one another 
 or from the point of view of an audience on the other
 
 138 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 side of the orchestra. Even less charitable explanations 
 might be made. 
 
 The scene-painter works with a broad brush ; he 
 knows that microscopic detail would be wasted, and 
 worse than wasted, for it would cause a muddy effect. 
 Sometimes, but too rarel}^ he is even a believer in pure 
 colour. The stage modiste has other theories, or per- 
 haps none. Instead of seeing that all demanded or 
 permitted by the optics of the stage lies in line and 
 colour, she breaks up line by ridiculous ribbon, foolish 
 flounces and impertinent bows, and the dresses in 
 colouring often " swear at one another." Even the 
 translated French phrase is not quite strong enough to 
 indicate the discord. Does she ever consider the cos- 
 tumes in relation to the scenery ? Sometimes we see 
 frocks in tender hues against richly toned scenes that 
 make them appear mere shades of dirty yellows, blues 
 and pinks. At others a cool, tranquilly pleasing back- 
 ground is degraded to mere dulness in consequence of 
 the gaudy gowns in front of it. Does the word repoussoir 
 mean anything to her ? Perhaps she is unacquainted with 
 the meaning of it although she possesses a jargon of 
 French as staggering as that of a menu in a British hotel. 
 
 There are other crimes. It has been said that your 
 fashionable milliner sometimes " tries it on the dog." It 
 is hinted that she makes upon the beautiful ladies of 
 the stage experiments which she dare not risk upon her 
 more exalted patrons. If this be true it will explain the 
 fact that many an actress who is beautiful outside the 
 theatre seems plain on the boards because her costume 
 does not suit her style, because her figure is sacrificed 
 for the sake of the frock, because dainty little features 
 are overwhelmed by gowns of strident colour and over- 
 shadowed by terrific headgear. The coiffeur is often
 
 STAGE COSTUMES 139 
 
 to be blamed. Questions of " make-up " may be con- 
 cerned with the case. 
 
 The question, like all questions, has another side. 
 These remarks may be answered with some force by 
 saying that the illusion of the stage would disappear if 
 all the costumes in a play were harmonious, since no one 
 could pretend that all the characters are likely to have 
 dressed themselves in order to agree with the colouring 
 of the scenery, or to have chosen costumes in order to 
 harmonize with one another. 
 
 The cynic would even hint that probably if the dear 
 ladies thought of the matter at all they would try to 
 chose frocks likely to crush those of their friends, and 
 that no one going into society would venture to use 
 subtle shades or tranquil tints for fear of suffering like 
 the painters of delicate pictures at the hands of the 
 waggish Hanging Committee of the Royal Academy, 
 which loves to put a work shrieking with vigorous colour 
 by the side of a placid canvas that appears insipid by 
 reason of the contrast. The reply to this answer is that 
 we have hardly reached a degree of truth to life which 
 renders it pertinent — and probably never will. Cer- 
 tainly there might be a noticeable fault if all the dresses 
 of ladies of different families obviously showed the 
 design and facture of one modiste. This could easily 
 be avoided without prejudice to the point of harmony 
 in colour and congruity of line. 
 
 Is it extravagant to hope that some day a dress 
 rehearsal will be a rehearsal of dresses at which some 
 person of taste — everyone would accept Mr Wilhelm — 
 will see all the frocks actually worn by the actresses 
 upon the stage under the ordinary lighting conditions, 
 against the scenery intended to be employed and then 
 point out what is necessary to produce a real harmony
 
 140 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 of colour and also to take full advantage of, and in some 
 cases enhance, the beauty of face and form possessed 
 by the ladies who are to appear in the play ? 
 
 One more point may be touched upon. Stage 
 managers should pay more attention to suitability 
 of costume and require actresses to make sacrifices 
 repugnant to their natural and desirable instinct for 
 coquettishness. One often sees a player in a costume 
 utterly inconsistent with the poverty of the character 
 misrepresented by her, particularly if she is acting 
 the part of a peasant or poor shopgirl and the like, 
 when her hair will show that it has been dressed by 
 a coiffeur at a cost that would be unpayable b}^ the 
 character. Things like this destroy the illusion of the 
 stage. It may be noted that in this respect the French 
 and German actresses behave better than ours, and 
 accept, doubtless with reluctance, a sacrifice of personal 
 charm for sake of character too rarely seen upon our 
 stage. A last matter — wh}^ is it supposed that almost 
 all the characters in a play are wearing new clothes on 
 a first night ? 
 
 Colour 
 
 Some time ago a musical comedy was produced the 
 notices upon which were a little amazing. Several were 
 impolite about the book, others unfriendly to the music ; 
 but almost all agreed that the scenery and costumes were 
 of remarkable beauty. Now, in the first act an excellent 
 opportunity for picturesque mounting had been wasted, 
 and the setting of the second act was deplorable. It 
 was a great blaze of gold and yellow, which endured for 
 about an hour and a half, with, of course, some little 
 relief here and there, and it fatigued some ej'es and
 
 COLOUR 141 
 
 caused some headaches. No doubt we were in the 
 minority. 
 
 It may be that most people are not sensitive to 
 colour ; any of our senses may be irresponsive. A 
 friend of mine puts a lot of cayenne pepper and mustard 
 and Worcester sauce on toasted cheese ; obviously he 
 has a dull palate. There are people to whom nothing 
 in the way of music appeals except violent tunes. We 
 know that colour-blindness in different degrees is the 
 common lot ; very possibly what to the sensitive seems 
 a picture rich in tender colour, to the mass appears 
 dull drab ; and the scene whose shrieking gorgeousness 
 oppresses the eye and brain of the artist is subtle to 
 the Philistine — it is difficult to know. X-VTio can 
 imagine a picture gallery as seen by the person who 
 suffers even mildly from colour-blindness ? There are 
 those who have a dull sense of smell, and the case has 
 happened of a gii'l only stopped by accident from going 
 to a ball decked in flowers that looked pretty and smelt 
 abominably. 
 
 This raises rather a large question about stage- 
 mounting ; if the majority are not sensitive, then 
 business instinct demands that the colour-scheme should 
 be crude. Some time ago much admiration was ex- 
 pressed in the press at the beauty of a ballet designed 
 by Mr Wilhelm, a real colourist, who is able not only 
 to produce lovely delicate effects but to present pictures 
 of vivid gorgeous colour so strong and subtle as to 
 delight the artist and the Philistine. The same phrases 
 that had been bestowed upon the Empire ballet were 
 lavished by the same writers upon an entertainment at 
 another house at which, in fact, there was a horrible 
 debauch of crude, yelping, clashing colours. 
 
 The matter is difficult for the managers, or at least
 
 142 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 for those of them who have a sense of colour. In one 
 way their position is easy enough ; if they spend a lot 
 of mone}^ on the dress and scener}^ the press, with rare 
 exceptions, will gush about the beauty of the setting, 
 however vicious it may be. The Englishman who uses 
 violent bottled sauces to destroy the delicate flavour 
 of a sole or to add taste to toasted cheese rules the 
 roast. People often proclaim that they like '' colour " 
 — by '* colour " they mean bright, showy colours. 
 Their taste is that of the negro ; give him plenty of 
 gaudy red and yellow and he is happy. 
 
 In modem comedies the difficulty might be avoided, 
 since as a rule modern people in society do not employ 
 violent colours, and the modern interiors in most in- 
 stances exhibit agreeably the influence of the so-called 
 aesthetic craze. Yet we have plenty of horrors. Ellen 
 Terry in her interesting biography sa3^s that she never 
 settled on her dresses without seeing whether they would 
 harmonize with the scenery. This wisdom, alas ! is 
 rarely shown, and we very often see a charming interior 
 ruined by gowns hostile to it in colour. 
 
 The question of form in the costumes is somicwhat 
 different ; yet one cannot pass from it without express- 
 ing regret that the stage is so weak-minded as to permit 
 itself to be the subject of the maddest experiments of 
 milliners, and to accept tamely their rossignols. A few 
 of our actresses know how to dress and to wear their 
 gowns ; nobody except the milliners seems to look 
 after the others, and they form the majority. In many 
 instances, no doubt, the ladies in the cast ought not 
 to be blamed : they have a very restricted choice, if 
 any. Lately there was a case where a handsome sum 
 of money was put up by a syndicate for the ladies' 
 costumes in a play, and nine-tenths of it was appro-
 
 COLOUR 143 
 
 priated by the powerful leading lady, leaving for the 
 others a ridiculous amount. 
 
 It is in romantic comedy we suffer most. To begin 
 with, one may assert the general proposition that the 
 sense of pictorial art on the stage is entirely conventional 
 and academic ; of course there are exceptional cases — 
 rare, alas ! The ideal seems to be to reach chromo- 
 lithographic effects and the beauties of the old-fashioned 
 valentine ; for the suggestive, the mysterious, the im- 
 aginative little affection is shown. The real tub has 
 developed into the real tree with real blossoms and real 
 leaves wired on, not a thing regarded as a matter of 
 form and colour, but as a realistic imitation of a natural 
 object. Broad effects are frittered away by masses 
 of irritating detail, the production of which costs a 
 a great deal of money. 
 
 Scenes and costumes are designed without due con- 
 sideration of the fact that they are to be before our 
 eyes for a long time. Occasionally we are pleased by 
 a striking picture for five minutes, during which the 
 play is forgotten ; then the play asserts itself and the 
 money spent on the mounting ceases to bear fruit, and a 
 little later on the vivid spectacular effect, charming for 
 five minutes, becomes trying by reason of its quality, 
 and it reasserts itself aggressively, to the hurt of the 
 play. We have gorgeous costumes which, when first 
 presented and grouped, produce beautiful effects ; after- 
 wards costumes inharmonious with them are introduced, 
 the grouping is altered, and the colour-scheme destroyed; 
 then the question comes into mind. How is it that all 
 these characters have brand-new costumes, although 
 the circumstances of the drama show that most of the 
 dresses would be torn or dirty or faded ? It may be 
 an answer that this convention is so firmly established
 
 144 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 as not to be absurd ; but the convention is constantly 
 violated where it would be too blatantly ridiculous by 
 somebody presenting himself with torn or dirtied or 
 faded costume. How much more beautiful as a rule 
 the costumes become after the play has run a while ! 
 
 From the colour point of view, it was the blessing of 
 the romantic period that the ruck and run of people 
 had to wear their velvets and silks and satins till time 
 and wear and tear had toned down and harmonized 
 the colours. It must be remembered, too, that in the 
 evening they were seen under favourable circumstances, 
 for the lights and shades must have been strong, 
 although the lighting was feeble before the use of gas 
 was discovered and before the oil-wells were found that 
 have made half the population of the United States 
 slaves to a few plutocrats. 
 
 Also, " shoddy " had not been invented, nor had 
 coal-tar dyes been discovered by the English and ex- 
 ploited by the Germans now groaning over the wise 
 tyranny of the provisions of the new Patent Act, to 
 which ignorant people have applied the offensive term 
 " Protectionist." Shoddy treated with aniline dyes can 
 produce effects that overwhelm the colours of the honest 
 old materials which owed their hues to the efforts of the 
 vegetable and the insect. A modern manufacturer is 
 proud when his scarlet shoddy shrieks like a steam 
 siren. Unfortunately some of the managers seem to 
 like the shriek. 
 
 Stage Meals 
 
 An undistinguished foreigner from France was talking 
 the other day about the English stage, of which ap- 
 parently he had seen a good deal. After being asked 
 many searching questions put in the hopes of eliciting
 
 STAGE MEALS 145 
 
 material for *' copy " it was discovered that what he 
 most admired in our theatre is the way in which stage 
 meals are treated. In the first place, he was astonished 
 at the " exquisite distinction " displayed by the players 
 in eating them. The " perfect elegance " which one 
 actress exhibited in consuming an eg^ had fascinated 
 him and he stated with conviction that he could have 
 spent a happy evening simply watching her eat these 
 ill-starred hopes of chickens. It was pointed out that 
 the management could hardly afford to pay her a suffi- 
 cient salary for the strain on her digestive faculties, and 
 also that the eggs — real Boat Race eggs, not election 
 missiles — cost something. 
 
 He is quite an undistinguished person and utterly 
 bourgeois, though he has written some successful funn}^ 
 farces which as yet have not suffered the dishonour of 
 adaptation, and during his many visits to London has 
 acquired an even more perfect ignorance of the English 
 and their ways than if he had never paid tribute to 
 Neptune ; for he always stays at a little French hotel 
 where there is absolutely nothing British, not even 
 the meat or the matches or the washing arrangements. 
 
 Now, if there is one matter of manners in which we 
 are better than the people of the Continent it is in our 
 mode of eating. How this has come about it is difhcult 
 to say. One knows that good French families some- 
 times engage English nursery governesses in order that 
 the children may be brought up to feed themselves 
 daintily, and that people in good society on the other 
 side of the streak certainly commit acts at dinner 
 which are rather ugly. Goodness knows what is the 
 reason. Possibly the cynic would discover in our 
 greater refinement a curious form of snobbishness, the 
 sort of timidity about accomplishing before other people 
 
 K
 
 146 THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 a natural function which in other aspects of life is 
 certainly carried too far by us. 
 
 We have an extraordinary amount of eating nowa- 
 days upon the stage, managed very badly. In the old 
 days, when people got through a banquet, consisting 
 chiefi}^ of a special brand of cardboard chicken, a real 
 diner a la carte at the present time only used in panto- 
 mine, washed down by copious draughts of nothing 
 from gilded papier-mache goblets which refuse to make 
 the chink of metal, and spent no more than five minutes 
 over the whole affair, it was recognized that the banquet 
 was a mere convention ; nobody pretended to believe 
 in any aspect of it, and therefore no one questioned its 
 verisimilitude. 
 
 In the twentieth century real food is consumed, the 
 diet being chiefly vegetarian, and damp decoctions are 
 drunk with gusto. Occasionally, it is said, Persian 
 sherbet, or lemon kali, once joys of our youth, give a 
 theatrical fizziness to toast and water in bottles with 
 deceitful lordly labels. Unfortunately, except in The 
 Man from Blankley's, these real things are consumed 
 as fast as a midday meal at an American boarding- 
 house, with the result that they are a mixture of realism 
 and convention profoundly unconvincing. Art would 
 be better served by the old-fashioned method, for the 
 playgoer is more willing to concede a whole than a half 
 " make-belief." 
 
 One amusing result of the fact that we have so many 
 adaptations from the French is that not only are the 
 names abominably mispronounced — which can hardly 
 be avoided — but that the efforts at representing the 
 foreign feeding as a rule are all wrong. Simili-cham- 
 pagne is consumed where no Frenchman would dream of 
 drinking "fizz," for across the Channel the detestable
 
 STAGE MEALS 147 
 
 snobbishness of the English in relation to champagne 
 is imitated chiefly by the modern plutocracy and by 
 the prosperous members of what is alleged to be the 
 most ancient, if hardly the most honourable, of pro- 
 fessions. When we see a French company in a play, 
 the leading lady solemnly wipes the inside of her glass 
 with her napkin, occasionally goes a little further and 
 breathes into it — breathes rather dampishly. In the 
 subsequent English version the leading actress is far 
 too much of a lady to do anything of the kind. The 
 foreigners cut up everything on their plates, clean their 
 knives upon the bread, sometimes before and sometimes 
 afterwards scooping out the salt with them, and then 
 lay them by for the next dish. Of course the English 
 company is not guilty of such solecisms. 
 
 The original troupe stuffs a napkin, half-way in size 
 between a bath-towel and a tablecloth, inside its neck- 
 band so as to protect its clothes against the little taches 
 concerning which, as a rule, it is more anxious in relation 
 to its costume than its character — in the play ; but 
 our better-bred players ignore this, and merely spread 
 their " serviettes " upon their unimperilled knees. 
 Has anyone ever seen a British player, even when he 
 called himself " Ongri " or " Gontrang," wipe his 
 plate with a piece of bread and swallow the latter 
 rapturously ? 
 
 It may be contended that the English players are 
 wise, perhaps without knowing it. Unadulterated 
 truth sometimes comes off second best in the theatre, as 
 is proved by the ancient story of the actor who was hissed 
 because instead of imitating the squeaks of a pig he 
 pinched the tail of a real porker in a poke ; upon the 
 stage a little truth is sometimes dangerous, a great deal 
 often fatal. As a last word, in these as in all other
 
 14B THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE 
 
 germane matters our British productions are vastl}^ more 
 accurate than those that come from the other side of the 
 Atlantic. It may be the fact that the good Americans, 
 when they die, go to Paris ; they do not take the trouble 
 to learn anything beforehand concerning the French. 
 This, however, is not remarkable ; there are very few 
 really French people in Paris.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE MORALITY OF OUR DRAMA 
 
 Mr Harry Lauder on the Morals of our Drama 
 
 A LITTLE while ago Mr Harry Lauder made some 
 statements to a representative of The Daily 
 Chronicle concerning the relations between music-halls 
 and theatres. Some readers may be aware that Mi! 
 Harry Lauder is a popular music-hall singer, and by 
 many people regarded as the chief of his calling. Conse- 
 quently his utterances have a little importance. 
 
 According to Mr Lauder a gulf exists between the 
 theatres and the music-halls, and it is due to the fact 
 that the playhouses traffic in immorality and the halls 
 are pure. The variety theatres shudder at the thought 
 of presenting plays that introduce people who are or 
 have been unduly intimate without marriage. Let us 
 use the words of the stern moralist : " Now, take certain 
 plays produced in certain theatres. The curtain rises, 
 and you ask yourself the question, ' Will they marry ?'" 
 The attitude reminds one a little of the dear ladies at 
 the seaside who use prism field-glasses in order to be 
 sure whether the costumes of the bathers are really 
 indecent. " Sometimes you think, 'Are they married ? ' 
 In that play there is throughout a suggestiveness which 
 would not be allowed in a music-hall." 
 
 Ye gods and little Lauder, how beautiful and simple 
 is the morality of the music-hall ! "Be married and 
 149
 
 150 THE MORALITY OF OUR DRAMA 
 
 you will be virtuous " seems to sum it up. From the 
 Lauder point of view there are no difficult questions of 
 morality ; there are sheep and there are goats, but no 
 hybrids, and we ought never to refer to the goats in 
 public. There are no problem plays, for there are no 
 problems ; everything is plain and easy. Intimate 
 relations between people not married to one another 
 are beyond discussion, and it is vulgar to present such 
 law-breakers upon the stage. 
 
 The great Lauder attacks Mr Barrie ; he complains 
 of What Every Woman Knows. It has one fault, for 
 " there is a touch of immorality in it which does not 
 exist, as he must know, in the true character of a Scots- 
 man. The man going away with another woman is the 
 only part of the play which I did not like ; and it was 
 quite unnecessary. Jimmy Barrie is a far cleverer man 
 than he thinks he is, but I am sorry for this piece." 
 Poor Mr Barrie, the great Lauder is sorry for you. 
 Still, it must be some comfort for you to know that the 
 great illustrious immortal Lauder calls you " Jimmy." 
 
 Let us dig a little deeper into the gold-mine. It is 
 very touching to see the confidence of Mr Lauder in the 
 virtue of his fellow-countrymen. According to him, 
 *' no touch of immorality exists in the true character 
 of a Scotsman." Yet it is said that the streets of 
 bonnie Glasgow and other great towns of virtuous 
 Scotland are not free from the presence of the hapless 
 followers of Rahab, but perhaps they are only there 
 for the entertainment of English visitors. 
 
 According to the last edition of Chambers's Encyclo- 
 fcedia, the proportion of illegitimate births in Scotland 
 to legitimate is nearly twice the proportion in England, 
 and almost three times as great as that in Ireland. No 
 doubt this, again, is due to the foul Saxon. It is
 
 MR HARRY LAUDER'S VIEWS 151 
 
 wonderful that the Scots do not prevent us from 
 coming into their virtuous country. Yet an idea comes 
 to mind — uncharitable, no doubt. Some people have 
 thought it an ugly touch in Mr Barrie's play when one 
 of Maggie's brothers hissed the term of reproach 
 '* Englishman " to John Shand on discovering his 
 faithlessness to his wife. It seemed a brutal charge 
 of Pharisaism to the minds of us benighted Southerners. 
 Was the author making an anticipatory hit at Mr 
 Lauder ? 
 
 Somewhat later in the interview are these words : 
 " Now, when you go to the theatre you get the good and 
 the bad characters, and I contend that there is no 
 necessity to show the bad." Alas ! poor Shakespeare, 
 Lauder obliterates you with a sentence, and under his 
 severe censure your warmest admirers should try to 
 save your reputation by accepting the view that Bacon 
 wrote the plays — and the poems as well. It would be 
 thrilling to have a drama in which all the characters 
 were good, but how would the dramatists construct 
 their plots without the use of a villain ? 
 . However, to be just to Mr Lauder, by badness of char- 
 acter he means lack of reverence for chastity. It is 
 a curious point of view that involves the banishment 
 from the stage of all questions concerning right and 
 wrong in the traffic between man and woman, which 
 condemns What Every Woman Knows as immoral. 
 People used to think that the music-hall stage might 
 be a kind of feeding-ground for drama, might breed 
 playgoers capable of taking the view that drama has 
 other functions than merely that of amusing ; but, if 
 the illustrious Lauder is correct, the music-halls stand 
 aloof. Even the ladies of the promenade would be 
 shocked by The Second Mrs Tanqueray, fly blushingly
 
 152 THE MORALITY OF OUR DRAMA 
 
 from The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith, and put ashes on 
 their dyed hair if Iris were offered to them. WHiat a 
 topsy-turvydom the entertainment world seems when 
 a popular star ventures to censure in a great daily 
 paper the modern drama of the countr^^ and takes him- 
 self quite seriously in urging the superiority of the 
 music-halls in taste and morality to the theatres ! 
 
 Mr Lauder, in addition to his curious ideas about 
 drama from a moral point of view, seems to have strange 
 opinions concerning the nature of plays. He says : 
 " Moreover, in a theatre only one or two stars appear, 
 and they appear only now and again ; otherwise they 
 would not shine ! If they were alwa3^s on the stage 
 there would be a sameness in the performance. And the 
 other members of the company are only playing up to 
 these stars, giving so much padding to the entertain- 
 ment. Little wonder that the public is not satisfied with 
 the play of to-day." If we understand this correctly, 
 and we have honestly tried to do so, it involves a com- 
 plete misunderstanding as to the nature of drama, 
 and means that Mr Lauder thinks that its whole purpose 
 is to provide star acting parts, and that, since plays 
 cannot be \vritten in which all the characters are star 
 parts, drama is a poor sort of stuff of no great interest. 
 In his calling, of course, all are stars, though, perhaps, 
 he would hardly admit that all are of equal brilliance ; 
 and one fancies that he regards as inacceptable any 
 entertainment during which part of the stage is occupied 
 by persons receiving no greater salary than that of a 
 county court judge. 
 
 Of course, every man is entitled to his own point of 
 view, and if Mr Lauder considers that his turns are 
 preferable to drama, he is quite right to say so. There 
 are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of persons
 
 DOUBLE ENTENTE 153 
 
 to whom his performances represent the summit of art ; 
 they, of course, are entitled to their opinions. 
 
 There is no reason for supposing that his remarks are 
 not uttered in good faith. Indeed, it is their obviously 
 complacent sincerity which renders them so exquisitely 
 comic. If he were half as funny on the stage as he is in 
 cold print, the whole world would be at his feet. From 
 one point of view his utterances are quite unimportant : 
 to the world outside the music-hall they only represent 
 the unintentional humours of a man without weight, 
 save in his branch of his calling ; but, so far as they are 
 the opinions of the variety stage, the matter is serious, 
 since it suggests that the modern drama has an enemy, 
 not a friend, in the music-halls, and an enemy which 
 works under such unfair conditions of advantage and is 
 so powerfully organised that it may become the duty 
 of the theatre to wage a fierce war upon it. 
 
 No great change would be needed in the conduct of the 
 play-houses in London to enable them to cut into the 
 music-halls. The sympathy with the music-halls of 
 those who have been advocating free trade in drama 
 may become exhausted, and, on the other hand, a 
 system may be devised under which the theatres take 
 music-hall licences, and then the inflated salaries which 
 have led to swollen heads will soon shrink. 
 
 Double Entente 
 
 The correspondence provoked concerning Mr Harry 
 Lauder and his views about the drama and the music- 
 halls was a little disappointing owing to its onesidedness. 
 The music-hall performer in one respect resembled St 
 Athanasius. A passage in a letter on the topic was 
 surprising. Miss Violet Vanbrugh said : " The English
 
 154 THE MORALITY OF OUR DRAMA 
 
 language, too, is so difficult ; it leaves so little to the 
 imagination. It seems to come down definitely, in a 
 fearfully flat-footed fashion. The French dramatist 
 finds his task made easy, as his language can suggest 
 simply without definitely stating, more easily than can 
 be done in English.'' 
 
 This opinion is surprising. It would be amazing 
 if it were correct, seeing the enormous wealth of our 
 language in words and forms of expression, and the 
 fact that for the best part of a century our dramatists 
 lived chiefly on " hints," upon suggesting more than 
 they durst say. The very word " hint " is significant. 
 We use it frequently ; who can find a word in the French 
 language that exactly represents it ? One may add 
 that we have English equivalents for most, perhaps all, 
 of the French phrases that have to serve for our handy 
 word " hint." When one recollects the hundreds of 
 adaptations of more or less indelicate or indecent 
 French plays seen on our boards, the idea that it is 
 difficult for the English expert to say nasty things 
 nicely seems absurd. Our journalists have used more 
 often the incorrect phrase double entendre than the 
 French critics the phrase double entente, which is the 
 term that our writers intend to employ. 
 
 Were it otherwise, one would be amazed. The 
 French always have been, and still are, very candid in 
 the use of language ; whilst we for a long time past 
 have been prudish to an extent sometimes comic. 
 Readers of Laurence Sterne can hardly deny that the 
 English tongue enables one to be indelicate in idea 
 whilst decent in expression, and it is noteworthy that 
 this writer, so often censured for the immodest salt 
 of his wit, is one of those who comment with surprise 
 upon the simple frankness of the French of his time.
 
 DOUBLE ENTENTE 155 
 
 There is an episode in "Tristram Shandy," or "The 
 Sentimental Journey " concerning a lady, the author 
 and a carriage drive, which shows this very well ; 
 but the printers would strike if asked to set it up in 
 these chaste pages. 
 
 Our own native prudery, enriched oy a quantity im- 
 ported from the United States, has led to an immense 
 hypocrisy of language, and consequently to an extra- 
 ordinary facility in hinting unseemly ideas which on 
 the French stage would be expressed bluntly. It is 
 true that, so far as love is concerned, the French have 
 invented a funny little language of prudery for the 
 benefit of schoolgirls, and countless books have been 
 printed, and received the benediction of Monseigneur 
 I'Archeveque de Tours, in which the word tambour is 
 printed instead of the word amour, and so on. By- 
 the-by, it is rather quaint that the Archbishop of Tours 
 should be chosen as godfather of these superchaste 
 books, seeing that Touraine has a rather famous reputa- 
 tion for naughty stories, and Balzac alleges that his 
 naughty "Contes Drolatiques" are ** Colliges ez Abbayes 
 de Touraine." It would be remarkable if the French 
 tongue lent itself as easily as ours to the double entente. 
 
 We have a far larger vocabulary available and in 
 common use, and we possess slang not only of the 
 different nations constituting the United Kingdom, but 
 also slang from the United States, and from our Colonies, 
 whilst we have a lawlessness in the use of our language 
 not permitted to the French. There are disadvantages 
 as well as advantages from this, for as a result our tongue 
 is abominably rich in ambiguities, and it is a common 
 observation that French scientific works are clearer 
 than ours, not only because the nation is more logicalj 
 but also on account of the fact that the language is more
 
 156 THE MORALITY OF OUR DRAMA 
 
 precise. Some people, no doubt, fancy that the French 
 dramatists are conveying indelicate ideas delicately, be- 
 cause they do not exactly understand what is being 
 said or sung. Remarks have been made about the 
 subtlety of French after speeches and songs which, if 
 literally translated, would have cleared the house. 
 *' Ne Hen comprendre c'esl tout gober " is a convenient 
 twist of language. Did not Yvette Guilbert sing 
 publicly in London the song with the refrain *' Hors du 
 manage "... we must stop there. 
 
 Our stage has suffered because our dramatists have 
 been able to get much of the indelicate fun out of 
 French farces by using, hypocritically, decent phrases 
 which all parties understand in a bad sense whilst 
 pretending to see nothing shocking in them ; for with- 
 out this elasticity of our tongue British playwrights 
 would have been thrown upon their own resources. 
 Nowadays our playwrights have to some extent aban- 
 doned their subservience to France, and it is noticeable 
 that those who take their work seriously, and deal with 
 the difficult questions of life sincerely, are showing a 
 tendency to abandon the language of suggestion, to 
 give up hinting, and to avoid the double entente. The 
 result is that many prudes are shocked, and people 
 who have no real objection to certain subjects or ideas 
 denounce plays embodying them because this hypocrisy 
 of language has been abandoned. 
 
 The Censor, of course, is one obstacle to plain speak- 
 ing. He and his office are the superb representatives 
 of English cant, hypocrisy and prudery, and one 
 advantage that must follow from the abolition, if it 
 comes, will be the ousting of the comedy of indecent 
 guggestion by the drama of honest candour. He pos- 
 sesses his little vocabulary in which tambour passes for
 
 DOUBLE ENTENTE 157 
 
 amour, and in fact his office has been worked on 
 the ostrich head-in-the-sand system for many years 
 past. The chief duty of the official has been 
 to prevent people from calling a spade a spade, 
 and most, though not all, of. the pieces banned 
 would have obtained ahcence if in place of straight- 
 forward phrase the author had employed some 
 hypocritical, prudish suggestion. 
 
 Who doubts that a licensed English version of 
 Monna Vanna could have been prepared, although 
 fully giving to the audience the meaning of the awful 
 line, " Nue sous son manteau " ? One may doubt the 
 comic story that Mr Redford mistook the sous for sans. 
 The motto for the office, if it has a crest, should be the 
 famous line from a music-hall song : ** It ain't exac'ly 
 wot 's sez, it's the narst}^ way 'e sez it." 
 
 No wonder foreigners are puzzled by our theatre. The 
 Parisian sees a Palais Royal farce played before an 
 audience of which many members are girls in the bread- 
 and-butter stage. In his great city maidens are — or, at 
 least, were — not allowed to enter the theatre so long 
 famous for its naughty farces. He gasps ; he wonders 
 whether the English mees is as innocent as she looks — 
 or used to look — and does not know the perfide tongue 
 of the perfide Albion well enough to be aware that 
 nothing shocking is said, and that it is pretended that 
 the cocotte is a mere kindly friend, the collage a trifling 
 flirtation, the debauche a viceless lark, and that the 
 foulest conduct of husband or wife does not reach a 
 real breach of the commandment more often broken 
 in England than the rest of the sacred ten. 
 
 The real sin of the Censor's office lies as much in what 
 it permits as in what it forbids ; and a growing sense 
 of decency in the public is displacing prudery so that
 
 158 THE MORALTIY OT OUR DRAMA 
 
 the abolition of the office will not cause the ill-results 
 announced by the managers, who regard the existence 
 of the Censor as valuable to them, because it frees them 
 from responsibility and enables them to gratify the 
 taste of the prurient prude, the person who revels in 
 and blushes at the indelicacy of his own thoughts. 
 
 Moral Effect on Audience 
 
 There was quite a pretty hubbub in theatredom caused 
 by a circular letter of " The Church Pastoral Aid 
 Society," calling upon incumbents and curates to regard 
 theatrical performances as " a serious menace to the 
 spiritual influence of the Church," and suggesting that 
 in future they should refuse to take monej^ raised by 
 means of theatrical performances, or by bazaars or 
 whist-drives or dances. Of course, all people connected 
 with the theatres were very indignant at the insult 
 implied ; whilst, on the other hand, many parsons and 
 Nonconformist ministers rushed into print and said 
 very unflattering things about the stage. 
 
 The matter certainly had considerable public im- 
 portance, and deserved to be considered in cold blood ; 
 and one may well raise, and attempt to answer, the 
 plain question whether the Church is right or wrong in 
 adopting an attitude of hostility towards the stage. 
 The question of gratitude has been put forward, but is 
 not really relevant : no doubt players and managers in 
 the past have been very liberal with their services for 
 charitable purposes, including matters specifically con- 
 nected with churches, and although very often the 
 actual motive of the liberality has been the desire for 
 advertisement and notoriety — and the desire is natural 
 and blameless — yet it is fair to assume that in many
 
 MORAL EFFECT ON AUDIENCE 159 
 
 instances the real motive has been truly charitable. It 
 is, however, obvious that a person might steal with the 
 object of giving the money to a church restoration 
 fund, and clearly his intention would not excuse his 
 act nor enable the Church to endorse it. The plain 
 question is whether the stage " makes for righteous- 
 ness." 
 
 Into the very thorny question raised some years ago 
 by Clement Scott with disastrous consequences to 
 himself as to whether the stage is demoralizing to the 
 actors and actresses we do not now propose to venture. 
 Much has been said and written on the topic, but it is 
 largely one of fact, which demands the examination of 
 a great deal of evidence. For the moment, then, 
 let us merely discuss the question whether the effect 
 of the stage on the audience is good or bad : in many 
 cases there is no appreciable effect at all, and they may 
 be eliminated. 
 
 Now, it must be admitted by all, save the extreme 
 Puritans, that not only are there a great number of 
 harmless pieces, but also many entirely moral in scope 
 and aim, and likely to produce some good effect upon 
 playgoers ; but there are others. No doubt the famous 
 George Barnwell has gone out of date, and the Dick 
 Turpin and Jack Sheppard plays, which did a great deal 
 of harm, are not presented often in our days. Never- 
 theless there are so many pieces still produced which 
 in one way or another are injurious to playgoers as to 
 render it fairly arguable that the effect of the stage as a 
 whole is bad. 
 
 So long as religion enjoins the virtue of chastity, its 
 professors must look with hostility upon the very 
 numerous pieces in which women, young and beautiful, 
 are presented in dresses radically immodest. It seems
 
 i6o THE MORALITY OF OUR DRAMA 
 
 impossible to deny that the sexual instincts of young 
 men are often provoked to an extreme degree by the 
 sight upon the stage of beautiful, half-nude young 
 women ; and it must be remembered that the spectacle 
 is frequently accompanied by music of an erotic 
 character. There is not the least doubt that the 
 lighter musico-dramatic works and the pantomimes, 
 in consequence of these matters, are the direct and im- 
 mediate cause of many acts which religious people 
 regard as acts of sexual immorality. The degree of 
 nudity, of display of the human form in our theatres, 
 and, of course, music-halls as well, to those unaccus- 
 tomed to such matters is certainly quite startling, and 
 by many people such displays are regarded as being 
 entirely demoralizing to hot-blooded young men. It 
 is, therefore, not surprising that there are religious 
 people who have no objection to innocent amusements 
 or to drama as drama, yet regard the theatre as caus- 
 ing a great deal of immorality in the way already 
 indicated. 
 
 The Censor, not the present occupant of the post, at 
 one time interfered and dealt with the question of 
 costume at the Lyceum in the pre-Irving days, but his 
 efforts were a failure, and, as far as is publicly known, 
 have not been renewed since. Lately the degree of 
 nudity considered permissible has been largely in- 
 creased. The Salome dancers built a bridge of beads 
 across what was regarded as a fixed gulf : it is difficult 
 for stern moralists to stomach the danse du ventre. 
 
 The next aspect of the matter is that the tendency of 
 the stage, broadly speaking, is to preach a kind of conven- 
 tional morality somewhat below the standard considered 
 admissible by serious people ; one may go further, and 
 say that plays have been produced, particulairly French
 
 MORAL EFFECT ON AUDIENCE i6i 
 
 plays, such as the clever works of M. Capus, in which 
 the accepted ideas of the sanctity of marriage are 
 treated with contempt. Some works of this char- 
 acter have been translated and played at first-class 
 theatres, and in popular dramas of the Zaza and Sapho 
 type we were invited to grieve over the disappoint- 
 ments in lawless love of women quite shameless in 
 character. 
 
 For years past a large proportion of plays have con- 
 cerned themselves with the question of the seventh 
 commandment ; and whilst, as a rule, in order to dodge 
 the Censor, it is pretended that no actual breach has 
 occurred, the audience know that this is merely a pre- 
 tence. In a large number of these plays the question 
 of adultery is handled so facetiously as to tend to cause 
 people to regard it as a trivial matter ; whilst in 
 numbers of the others, where the matter is handled 
 more seriously, the actual consequences of sin are of 
 such little inconvenience to the sinners that, although 
 theoretically the plays preach a moral, the actual lesson 
 is of no weight at all. 
 
 A curious aspect of the matter is that theatredom, as 
 appears from the bulk of the evidence before the Censor- 
 ship Commission, is opposed to the class of play in which 
 the proposition is preached that " the wages of sin is 
 death." Plays like Ghosts and A Doll's House — as far as 
 the episode of Nora's hopeless lover is concerned — and 
 the works of that fierce moralist M. Brieux are banned 
 by most of official theatredom, and some of them are 
 censored. In fact, the whole note of the theatre is 
 that gloomy or painful matters should be excluded. It 
 is not too much to say that the theatre insists strongly 
 upon being regarded simply as a place of entertainment, 
 and objects almost savagely to dramas which really
 
 i62 THE MORALITY OF OUR DRAMA 
 
 show sin as ugly and vice as harmful, both to the 
 vicious and innocent ; it refuses to be a moralizing 
 institution, and those who seek to justify such an 
 attitude do so by claiming that it is a branch of art and 
 not morals. 
 
 No doubt there are exceptions. V/e have had Every- 
 man upon the stage, and The Passing of the Third Floor 
 Back, in which the highest morality is preached, and in 
 The Fires of Fate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made a sincere 
 effort to use the stage for noble purposes ; nor would 
 it be difficult to multiply instances. Moreover, it may 
 be claimed that the dramas of Shakespeare, on the 
 whole, have a high standard of morality which might 
 satisfy the Church, and they play a considerable part 
 on our modern stage ; yet, speaking with a really 
 substantial knowledge of the subject, one may say 
 confidently that, despite much that is good and 
 admirable, the balance is seriously to the bad. Our 
 theatre does a little good and a great deal of harm. 
 
 It is possible that views such as these may be 
 in the minds of those who wrote the circular of 
 the Church Pastoral Aid Society, and if so they 
 were justified in writing. If, on the other hand, 
 they were merely actuated by the Puritanic idea 
 that drama and the theatre are necessarily im- 
 moral, we strongly dissent, for the drama might be 
 made a very powerful influence for good, and this 
 renders the more regrettable the fact that, although in 
 some respects there is a little advance towards the good, 
 it is very slow, and it is doubtful whether the balance 
 will be turned in our time. There is a greater advance 
 in art than in morality as far as the theatre is con- 
 cerned, but even in art the progress is very dis- 
 appointing.
 
 ADVANTAGE OF FRENCH DRAMATISTS 163 
 
 An Advantage of French Dramatists 
 
 There are many people who entertain the idea that 
 modem French drama is better than modem EngHsh 
 drama ; and from this it seems a natural deduction 
 that the French playwrights of to-day are abler than 
 their contemporary English dramatists. A study of the 
 large collection of French plays produced at the New 
 Royalty Theatre by M. Gaston Mayer, as well as those 
 presented under other managements during the last 
 few years, and some knowledge of those which have not 
 crossed the unamiable Channel, causes me to wonder. 
 The careless may make the mistake of comparing the 
 imported French pieces with the average English plays ; 
 this, of course, is absurd, since only the successful 
 foreign works are played over here ; consequently, for 
 purposes of fair comparison, one must eliminate not 
 only our failures but our plays of average merit. Even 
 after the process of elimination has been made there 
 lurks the danger of error, for when comparing the efforts 
 of our playwrights with those of Paris one is making a 
 comparison between men working under a heavy handi- 
 cap and men unburdened by it. There is a whole world, 
 or at least a whole half- world, open freely to the French 
 writer into which the English dramatist is only permitted 
 to crawl furtively. A large proportion of the foreign 
 works in question, if faithfully translated and presented 
 in London, would cause a howl of horror, based on the 
 proposition that some of them are immoral and some are 
 indelicate, and many both. 
 
 No sane people pretend to agree with the observation 
 of some celebrated person, to the effect that anybody 
 can be witty who is willing to be indecent ; it is not 
 more universally true than the proposition that no one
 
 i64 THE MORALITY OF OUR DRAMA 
 
 can be witty unless he condescends to be indecent. 
 Nevertheless there is something in it. Many real 
 witticisms are indecent ; some profoundly immoral 
 plays are brilliant, and it is doubtful whether the 
 authors of them would have been as successful if for- 
 bidden to be indecent or immoral. 
 
 Let us contrast fairly the positions of the French and 
 the English dramatist. The former has at his disposal 
 all the material for drama available to the latter, 
 except perhaps a limited particular branch of local 
 humour, whilst the Englishman not only would be 
 unwise to employ the foreign local humour, but is for- 
 bidden to use a very large number of subjects and ideas 
 open to his competitor. In other words, the English- 
 man's stock may be regarded as x, and the Frenchman's 
 as a; -1- y, for the local humour on one side may be set off 
 against the local humour on the other. 
 
 Now y, far from being unimportant, is the chief 
 material employed by many of the Parisian playwrights. 
 They and their audiences have grown tired of x, whilst 
 our unhappy writers are almost bound to confine them- 
 selves to this far from unknown quantity. Thackeray 
 is said to have regretted that he did not enjoy the free- 
 dom of a Fielding. Which of our playwrights does not 
 envy the licence of a Capus ? Think of our poor 
 British dramatist compelled to write for a public that 
 likes anecdotal plays, demands happy-ever-after endings 
 and is easily shocked. Really his position is pitiful. 
 The peculiar laws of the theatre require such brutal 
 directness of method that although our novelists are 
 able, by means of delicate treatment, to handle almost 
 any subject, the playwright is condemned to something 
 like a gin-horse revolution, round a little track of con- 
 ventional morality.
 
 ADVANTAGE OF FRENCH DRAMATISTS 165 
 
 It is a rather curious fact that two different schools 
 of French dramatists approach the forbidden half-world 
 from opposite poles — but they get there. Emile Augier 
 and Dumas fils were sincere moralists according to their 
 points of view, though the methods of their moralizing 
 some times seem quaint to us. Both of them preached 
 the importance of chastity and the beaut}^ of conjugal 
 love and parental and filial affection, and each admired 
 fervently the idea of family — an idea deemed compara- 
 tively unimportant in our colonizing country. 
 
 On the whole their ideals are ours, though sometimes 
 there seems to us a queer twist in their expression of 
 them. In order to support their ideas of social and 
 family life and their view of the sanctity of true marriage 
 they were forced to exhibit the perils caused by lawless 
 passion, and frequently their works, as in such extreme 
 instances as Le Manage d'Olympe and La Femnie de 
 Claude, which has the memorable preface with the Tne la 
 phrase, deal candidly with very ugly matters. 
 
 Their successors, putting aside such men as Brieux 
 and Hervieu — whose intentions are strictly honourable 
 — may pretend to be moralists, but they adopt an 
 impudently unconventional attitude. The}^ seem to 
 modify the phrase that " property is theft " into the 
 proposition that " marriage is a selfish monopoly." 
 We have had play after play apparently based upon a 
 merely sensual idea of free love. Like their prede- 
 cessors they handle mud, and they handle it as Walton 
 bade the angler handle the frog when using it as bait. 
 Some of them seem to have no prejudice in favour of 
 people who try to exercise decent self-restraint. With- 
 out pleading their cause, one must point out that in 
 the domain of lawless passion there are hundreds of 
 thrilling or vastly comic situations at the command of
 
 i66 THE MORALITY OF OUR DRAMA 
 
 the dramatist, whether he be morahst or simply boule- 
 vardier. No wonder then that there seem to be far more 
 original plays in France than in England. 
 
 The advantage of the foreigners is even greater in 
 the matter of dialogue than subject. With the aid of 
 tact and certain elaborate conventions the English 
 dramatist is able to handle many of his competitor's 
 themes and has contrived to adapt some of his for- 
 ward, if hardly advanced, plays and by ridiculous 
 changes decidedly emasculating them, has succeeded in 
 presenting a sort of version of a number of the saucy 
 farces. The dialogue baffles him. 
 
 It cannot be denied that a great deal of the dialogue 
 of French plays is very funny, rather shocking, and not 
 exactly gross. As a rule the more distinguished writers 
 avoid the tone of the joyeusetes of an Armand Sylvestre, 
 a writer capable of using bluntly without acknowledge- 
 ment the crudest of Chaucer's tales and also of writing 
 beautiful poetry quite free from offence ; but even when 
 the humbler gauloiseries are neglected the finer indeli- 
 cacy is employed, and the men laugh and ladies pretend 
 to put up their fans. Nobody, perhaps, is at all worse, 
 for the jeune fille is only taken to carefully selected 
 plays, except at the seaside, where in the casino she 
 attends performances of works that in Paris she would 
 not be allowed to see ; and, moreover, there is truth 
 in what a French manager once shrewdly observed — 
 " Those who can't understand the jokes won't be hurt, 
 and those who can, can't."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 Mr H. B. Irving on his Art 
 
 TO the reviewer of books fell the task of criti- 
 cizing Mr H. B. Irving's book, " Occasional 
 Papers," as literature. The dramatic critic has the 
 right of considering the views expressed in it concerning 
 the stage. There are two essays of importance, from 
 reading which one may learn the ideas, admirably ex- 
 pressed, of Mr Irving concerning his art — '* The English 
 Stage in the Eighteenth Century " and '* The Art and 
 Status of the Actor." The study of them, which they 
 deserve, leads to certain conclusions hardly, it maj^ 
 be, anticipated by the author. 
 
 In his defence of the actor's art against its detractors 
 Mr Irving seems to ignore a fact which may be expressed 
 in a phrase taken from the greatest of actor-dramatist- 
 managers, and modified. There is acting and acting : 
 the distinction is not merely in quality but also in kind. 
 It would be difficult to define acting so as not to include 
 the efforts of the music-hall artist, and even of the 
 circus clown ; any definition excluding them would be 
 arbitrary, and also historically inaccurate. If, then, 
 acting is to embrace these as well as the admirable per- 
 formance of Mr Irving in Hamlet, disputes con- 
 cerning the status of the actor as an artist must often 
 arise. 
 
 167
 
 i68 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 In fact, until one reaches the actor's performance in 
 dramas sincerely intended to be works of art, it is diffi- 
 cult to treat his art seriously. A step farther : one 
 cannot accept as a work of dramatic art a piece that 
 does not seek to cause an illusion, or an}^ play which 
 formally admits the existence of the audience. A 
 workable distinction may be found in using the terms 
 " drama " and " entertainment," " actor " and " enter- 
 tainer." 
 
 Mr Irving' s essays lead to another distinction — arti- 
 ficial, no doubt. He speaks of the sixteenth century as 
 " the century of great drama," of the seventeenth as 
 " a centur}' in which the interest shifts from the drama 
 to its exponents, the plaj^ers." The nineteenth, accord- 
 ing to him, is " noteworthy for the extraordinary 
 advance made in the presentation of plays on the stage." 
 In other words, the seventeenth is great drama, the 
 eighteenth great acting, and the nineteenth great stage- 
 mounting. 
 
 The seventeenth, says Mr Irving, "is in theatrical 
 history the century of the actor ; he and not the dramat- 
 ist is the dominating figure, his the achievement that 
 survives, his that finds in this century its highest 
 opportunity for distinction. . . . For the plays that 
 attracted audiences in the eighteenth century are for 
 the most part dead things." Later on : " There was 
 another and a very strong reason why the actor of the 
 eighteenth century was encouraged — nay, driven — 
 to exert his powers to the utmost. It la}' in the 
 conditions under which he was compelled to exercise 
 his art." 
 
 These conditions were unsuitability of costume, the 
 conduct of an unruly audience, and the meanness of the 
 mounting. The eighteenth-century players pursued
 
 MR H. B. IRVING 169 
 
 " the pure art of acting, unassisted by the collaboration 
 of other arts," and in them their art received its highest 
 expression. 
 
 From this it appears that if you wish for great acting 
 you must have poor plays cheaply mounted. Probably 
 Mr Irving would shun such a conclusion. He would say 
 that the great acting was the result of the conditions, 
 but not an inevitable result, and that whilst modesty 
 of mounting may be a necessary condition, worthless- 
 ness of drama is not. Yet we see a distinction and a 
 truth emerging. The actors of the golden age — of 
 acting — had to make silk purses out of sows' ears, and 
 they made them. Their age was less golden when they 
 had great drama to play. 
 
 The triumph of a play, so far as the co-operation of 
 author and actor is concerned, may be regarded as 
 one hundred, and the greater the share in it of the one 
 the less that of the other. Since the actor's proportion 
 is higher as the dramatist's is lower, it follows that his 
 work is more brilliant in mediocre plays than in master- 
 pieces. This, however, cannot be accepted without 
 taking into account the fact that many plays have been 
 written very skilfully as mere vehicles for the actor. 
 
 It is sometimes a nice question which is the horse 
 and which the cart. How often in the heyday of her 
 fame did we see Bernhardt in any save " built-up " 
 dramas — plays " written round " her and intended to 
 give her an opportunity of showing off her amazing 
 physical gifts ? Need it be added that the " star " 
 actresses of other nations were all eager to appear in 
 these pieces ? Is, then, the actor's art at its greatest 
 when the player is thrilling the house in a mediocre 
 drama, or when he and the true dramatist are producing 
 a great effect together ?
 
 170 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 Mr Irving will probably reply that the actors of the 
 golden age had great triumphs in Shakespeare. Now, 
 it may be observed that in most of his tragedies, though 
 not guilty of writing " star " parts, Shakespeare, himself 
 an actor, took very great pains to create " fat " acting 
 parts, and the actor-managers of the eighteenth century 
 were careful that, in the mutilated versions which they 
 presented, these parts did not shrink in relative im- 
 portance. The great dramatist's action in this respect 
 is not, as a general rule, followed by the serious play- 
 wrights of the present. 
 
 Whilst speaking of Shakespeare, one may refer to a 
 passage in the essays which has some bearing on the 
 question of the place of acting in the hierarchy of the 
 arts. Garrick clearly was the greatest actor of his 
 century ; but in speaking of Barry, Mr Irving says : 
 '* He had not Garrick' s fire or versatility ; he had no 
 gift for comedy ; but in such parts as Othello, Romeo 
 and Alexander the Great his superior physique, his 
 stately grace, his charming pathos gave him the victory.' 
 His superior physique is a phrase which explains the 
 reluctance of some fully to admit the actor's claim for 
 his art : they think that the purely physical enters too 
 often into the matter. There may even be detractors 
 moved by jealousy, unknowTi, perhaps, to themselves, 
 of the " superior physique." 
 
 Possibly there are more subtle reasons why many 
 writers are unwilling to recognize the highest claims of 
 the actor. They are perhaps, discernible in what Mr 
 Irving calls " the sympathetic reflections of Charles 
 Lamb " and the " impressive nonsense that Doctor 
 Johnson talked " about acting. In one of the essays we 
 find : " There has been at all times a certain resentment 
 on the part of some wTiters against the player, against
 
 MR BOURCHIER AND MAX BEERBOHM 171 
 
 his immediate fame. ... It is a form of jealousy that 
 has warped many otherwise enlightened minds : an 
 envy that forgets that a capacity to act is a much rarer 
 gift than a capacity to write." What is the meaning 
 of the last sentence. Does it mean that Garricks are 
 rarer than Tuppers ? — a sad thought : or that Sid- 
 donses are rarer than Shakespeares ? — which may be 
 denied confidently. 
 
 Does it mean anything ? Perhaps not. It merely 
 exhibits a confusion between the relative and the abso- 
 lute. This warping jealousy — if it exist — really is due 
 to a feeling that the actor becomes great in popularity 
 at the expense of the author. When the actor causes 
 the triumph of the play the author should be grateful ; 
 when the play causes the triumph of the actor the play- 
 wright^may feel a little jealous, and writers may sym- 
 pathize with him. There are plays and plays, just as 
 there is acting and acting. In subtle modern pieces 
 conscientious actors of fair ability rarely fail, and 
 success (within certain limits) is common in Hamlet. 
 
 Mr Bourchier and ''Max" on English Acting 
 
 Mr Bourchier has written rather bitterly about some 
 remarks of Mr Max Beerbohm concerning English 
 acting. Apparently " Max " has asserted that " the 
 average level of acting is admittedly lower in England 
 than in France, Germany or Italy." Hence Mr Bour- 
 chier' s wrath, which obviously is unselfish, since 
 remarks about the average level of acting have nothing 
 to do with him, for no country is rich enough in his- 
 trionic talent to deny that Mr Bourchier is far above the 
 average. 
 
 It Mr Max Beerbohm' s assertion well founded ?
 
 172 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 The " admittedly " inspires distrust. Experience 
 teaches the middle-aged that as a rule people allege 
 that a proposition is admitted when they have no 
 evidence to offer of its truth, and are aware that it will 
 be disputed. Does anyone exist who knows really 
 what is the average level of acting in the four countries 
 named ? Such knowledge could only be based upon a 
 first-hand study of acting in all kinds of theatres in 
 many towns of England, France, Germany and Italy. 
 A music-hall agent is the only kind of person likely to 
 have made such a study. Has Mr Max made it ? 
 
 Probably the clever caricaturist and lively critic is 
 really talking about the so-called West End theatres 
 and the foreigners who come to us, and of occasional 
 visits paid by him to selected pieces in important 
 Continental cities. If so, his observations are based 
 upon quite insufficient materials. Critics are wont to 
 praise foreign acting unfairly at the expense of our own 
 performers, and they receive the support of opinions 
 expressed by some foreigners, notably French and 
 Italians. 
 
 Members of gesticulative races are apt to think 
 English players very wooden, because when represent- 
 ing British people our actors and actresses are much 
 restrained in movement. A French or Italian critic 
 can hardly appreciate some of the splendid " Stage 
 Society " or Court Theatre performances, such, for 
 instance, as that of The Voysey Inheritance, which could 
 not have been surpassed in any theatre or country. 
 
 The offensive comparisons often, even generally, 
 
 are based upon performances where our players are at 
 
 a serious disadvantage. On what may be called neutral 
 
 ground, such as Ibsen plays, we have held our own very 
 
 well against any performances in London by Continental
 
 MR BOURCHTER AND MAX BEERBOHM 173 
 
 players ; Miss Janet Achurch was a more characteristic 
 Nora than Duse or Re jane ; nor have we seen a ]\Irs 
 Linden, Hedda Gabler or Hilda Wangle comparable with 
 that of Miss Elizabeth Robins. There is no need to 
 multiply instances. 
 
 English players do not represent certain foreign char- 
 acters as well as do the foreigners. Is this surprising ? 
 They are handicapped, obviously. How often have 
 we seen a French, German or Italian performance of an 
 English play concerning English people ? Was the great 
 Eleonora as painfully truthful as Mrs Patrick Campbell 
 in The Second Mrs Tanqueray ? No one can deny that 
 her companions were almost ludicrous to us. Can one 
 imagine any foreign company able to present His 
 House in Order without entirely destroying the stage 
 illusion and losing the colour ? There was a very fine 
 perform.ance at the St James's, with intense soberness 
 of manner in important matters as a keynote. 
 
 It is largely a question of geography ; the English- 
 man expresses rapture by the phrase " not half-bad " 
 where the foreigner piles superlative on superlative of 
 gush. It is our quality and our defect that we have 
 a strange shyness, which prevents the exhibition of 
 emotion for fear of ridicule. On our stage, as in our 
 real life, the beloved son comes home from a long 
 voyage, and, meeting his father, shakes hands a little 
 warmly and says, " Hallo, governor ! " or something 
 poetic like that ; whilst abroad the two men kiss one 
 another and utter highly emotional phrases of rapture. 
 Everyone knows that the feelings are equally deep in 
 the two cases, but our cross-Channel critics doubt the 
 depth of the English feeling, whilst our native players 
 cannot do the kissing and hugging with an air of 
 sincerity.
 
 174 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 Now, when taking these facts into account we 
 should be very careful in appraising the efforts of our 
 own pla3^ers. Not only ought we to avoid comparing 
 select teams of foreign players with our own scratch 
 companies, but also it is our duty to consider whether 
 the strangers are appearing in plays better or worse 
 than the average of our own, and we must take into 
 account the fact that they are gaining from the advan- 
 tage of novelty. Lastly, there remains the question 
 how far they would appear to be better than ours if 
 appearing on neutral ground. 
 
 It would be idle to assert that the average level of 
 our acting is as good as it ought to be. Many theatres 
 suffer severely from the lack of satisfactory stage- 
 management ; some from the determination of an 
 actor-manager to be the central figure of every scene. 
 Bitter complaints are uttered by young players about 
 not receiving sufficient suggestions at rehearsal and 
 finding that the stage-manager has so little authority 
 that not only the leading players act as they chose, 
 but even the smaller stars refuse successfully to obey 
 him. 
 
 There is another point in Mr Bourchier's letter. He 
 suggests that Mr Max Beerbohm is not competent to 
 criticize actors because he is not a master of any branch 
 of the difficult art of acting. This is a very foolish 
 old fallacy. People who do work essentially ephemeral, 
 such as acting, do it for those who are to witness it ; 
 and their merit is in direct proportion to their impression 
 upon the audience, and they can have no effect upon 
 anybody else. Actors, with trifling exceptions, do not 
 form part of the audience. Critics do, and the actor 
 seeks to affect the audience and the critics, and not the 
 brother " pro." occasionally found in the auditorium.
 
 THE SICILIAN PLAYERS 175 
 
 The merit of his work lies entirely in affecting an 
 audience in the way intended by the author. The 
 technical devices adopted have nothing to do with the 
 question. No doubt there is much technical knowledge 
 involved in acting, but it must be remembered that it is 
 all a means to an end. The cult of technique for itself 
 is perilous to an art. 
 
 After all, the matter may be reduced to an absurdity. 
 Would Mr Bourchier refuse to say that a man is well 
 dressed, or a dinner ill cooked because he is (presumably) 
 ignorant of the mysteries of the arts of tailoring and 
 cooking ? Moreover, some of us, perhaps even Mr 
 Beerbohm, know a good deal about the technique of 
 acting, even if we could not " make-up " Mr Bourchier 
 to look like a costermonger. The actor must be very 
 vain in his conceit who has not had valuable hints con- 
 cerning his acting from the critics, unless he be one of 
 those who, unlike Mr Bourchier, never read notices — yet 
 often complain of an unfavourable one. The article called 
 *' Signor Borza on the English Theatre," which appears 
 on page 252, should be considered in relation to these 
 remarks. 
 
 The Sicilian Players 
 
 During many years our stage has seen nothing like 
 the success of the Sicilians. They presented them- 
 selves at the Shaftesbury Theatre with little in the shape 
 of preliminary paragraphs to " boom " them. Most 
 of their repertoire consisted of works unknown to 
 London playgoers. Several of their plays were per- 
 formed in a puzzling dialect. Even the judicious step 
 of offering a fairly full synopsis of the plays was 
 neglected. Notwithstanding all this, the theatre was
 
 176 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 well patronized during two seasons and the audiences 
 have exhibited enthusiasm. 
 
 What is the meaning of all this ; why should these 
 village folk, playing what in the main seem to be simple 
 peasant melodramas, have troubled the senses of 
 Londoners ? The obvious answer is that the affair 
 is a triumph of pure acting. One pauses to inquire 
 whether this is true. In the case of most of their plays 
 the judgment of the audience concerning the acting 
 must be very rough and ready — so far, at least, as the 
 performance is fulfilling its true purpose of presenting in 
 action the ideas of the author. 
 
 How are we to know, when watching a play in 
 Sicilian dialect and provided with a printed " argu- 
 ment " comprised in about a couple of hundred words, 
 whether the players are doing anything like their duty 
 to the author ? By-the-by the poor Censor had to 
 admit that he passed their plays on the strength of 
 these inadequate synopses ! Yet there was absolute con- 
 viction in most of us that their work was sincere and 
 at times quite tremendous as a matter of pure acting. 
 The word " tremendous " must be confined to the efforts 
 of Signora Mimi Aguglia Ferrau and Signor Grasso. 
 The others form a very good company, but it is only in 
 respect of these two that one employs the word 
 " genius," which cautious writers use very rarely, 
 though there are journalists who lavish it upon every- 
 body a thumb-nail's thickness above mediocrity. 
 
 Concerning the lady there is no doubt at all. She is 
 a little woman, with a rather strongly featured, intel- 
 ligent face, brilliant teeth and big eyes who has, to 
 begin with, the rare gift of filling the stage. There is a 
 perceptible difference whenever she is present. She 
 may be one of a crowd of twenty, and saying and doing
 
 THE SICILIAN PLAYERS 177 
 
 nothing, but her presence is felt. At her command is 
 a dehghtful roguish comedy and a horrible realistic 
 tragedy. In Malia she is a Phedre burnt up with un- 
 slakable passion, a rustic Phedre, no doubt, but Bern- 
 hardt never gave more strongly the idea of " Venus 
 toute entiere a sa proie attachee." 
 
 There are tricks in her work ; she is fond of standing 
 her profile parallel with the footlights, and of exhibiting 
 the whites of her large eyes ; she is conscious of the 
 extraordinary eloquence of her shoulders and back, and 
 likes to exhibit distress by the play of them. There is 
 often excess in violent contrast of light and shade. 
 
 Yet no one can display subsiding emotion more finely 
 than she does. Most of our players turn off emotion 
 as one turns off the gas. In the Sicilian one notices a 
 kind of aftermath ; her fury may be succeeded by 
 rapture ; her grief by joy ; but for a while underneath 
 the rapture or joy one detects signs of the fact that 
 physically she is recovering gradually from the effects 
 of fury or grief. The voice is a little harsh, the gestures 
 are not exactly elegant, she is always somewhat peuple, 
 and always magnificent. 
 
 In some respects, Signor Grasso is quite different ; 
 his appearance is unpleasant, he is an ugly man, often 
 with a fatuous air, but his grace of movement is quite 
 extraordinary ; occasionally he gives snatches of dance 
 so exquisitely rhythmical that one longs for more. 
 His pantomime is larger in movement than hers ; his 
 passion less terrible. He too has tricks ; he is over- 
 fond of playing with the chairs ; in Malia one might 
 say that he plays skittles with them. 
 
 There is rather an excess of gesture, of a naturalistic 
 explanatory gesture, apparently borrowed from panto- 
 mime ; one feels that some of it is deliberately used to 
 
 M
 
 178 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 aid the ignorant foreigner to understand ; he does 
 things which make the Briton squirm ; has a habit of 
 kissing the ugly, male members of his troupe with big, 
 resounding smacks on both cheeks, and in a loving 
 fashion pats them like a Grseco-Roman wrestler ; but 
 there is always the extraordinaril}^ graceful, lithe 
 movement and, with curious exceptions, a supreme 
 unconsciousness of the audience ; whilst the passionate 
 volubility and the almost brutal ferocity thrill the 
 house. 
 
 They are a queer lot, these village players ; supremely 
 unself-conscious when actually acting, yet guilty of 
 taking " calls " in the middle of a scene. If pressed, 
 they probably would give an encore, and with a little 
 urging Signora ]\Iimi would ^deld to a cry of " bis," and 
 give a repetition of her abominable, appalling, vastly 
 clever fit in Malta, to please the friendl}' Britons. 
 
 At the end of a scene the players come forward, 
 hand in hand, bobbing and bowing, grinning and 
 smiling, in a way that suggests a troupe of acrobats 
 after a successful turn. It is not difficult to overrate 
 their work as a company, or rather — and this in a sense 
 is the same thing — to underrate that of our own players 
 by comparison. 
 
 There is one very noteworthy fact : from the point 
 of view of a London manager the scenery and appoint- 
 ments were contemptible, and this apparently did not 
 matter a rap. An audience, five-sixths of it British, 
 was enthralled by these players, although the scenery 
 and the furniture of the indoor sets had no pretension 
 to magnificence, were sometimes almost absurdly 
 squalid. 
 
 The venture at the Shaftesbury showed that if you 
 give what the public deems good acting \'ou need not
 
 DEARTH OF GREAT ACTRESSES 179 
 
 bother about painted canvas and furniture ; and what 
 applies to good acting applies to good plays. The 
 Sicilians taught us this, even if, perhaps, little else ; 
 for our players, unless they are to represent Sicilians, or 
 such volcanic creatures, can learn comparatively little 
 from them. Indeed, our delightful visitors could be 
 taught something by our despised stage in the way of 
 reticence, for there is little doubt that they love a horror 
 for horror's sake and revel in the gory joys of the penny 
 gaff. This may be said with full recognition of the fact 
 that, according to their own standard, they are intensely 
 sincere and superbly equipped in consequence of hard 
 work and natural gifts. 
 
 Alleged Dearth of Great Actresses 
 
 Lately there have appeared some remarks by an 
 unnamed " prominent dramatic author " alleging that 
 " there is a dearth of great actresses just now," and 
 stating that " several serious plays which it was hoped 
 might be produced next autumn are in danger of being 
 indefinitely postponed because of the inability of finding 
 actresses capable of playing strongly emotional parts 
 in drama of deep and complex interest." These dramas 
 of " deep and complex interest " are quite as rare in our 
 theatre as great actresses and we only believe in their 
 existence when we see them. 
 
 Of course there is a dearth of great actresses — there 
 always was and always will be : " great " is only a 
 relatively term. Thank goodness for this, seeing that 
 they are sadly injurious to drama. On the other hand, 
 to allege a lack of actresses competent to play strong 
 emotional parts seems quite unjust. 
 
 The remarks of the " prominent dramatic author ''
 
 i8o CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 were followed by a letter to the same effect by Mr George 
 Rollit, known to fame as the author of a fairly good 
 farce produced in 1904 at the Royalty. He appears to 
 have allowed it to get known that a new play of his 
 was to be produced in the West End, but he was unable 
 to find " an adequate exponent for the leading role " — 
 what a pretty phrase ! — " which requires an emotional 
 young actress, capable of portraying strong light and 
 shade." He received many offers from actresses, none 
 of whom were suitable. 
 
 These two complainants are making a mistake con- 
 cerning the task of the dramatist, who fails in his labours 
 if his plays cannot adequately be acted without the 
 assistance of great actresses. They are foolishly 
 pandering to the vanity of the players, who as a rule 
 have a tendency to exaggerate their importance in re- 
 lation to drama. The error is very common, and the 
 idea that plays should be written primarily to exhibit 
 the players and not the ideas of the author is the bane 
 of our theatre. 
 
 Until our dramatists act firmly on the view that their 
 duty is to write pla3's interesting when rendered by a 
 good, starless company, they will only produce as a rule 
 bravura pieces of little artistic value. By all means 
 let them write strongly emotional parts, if they can ; 
 but they are not worthy of their royalties if their 
 characters do not generally lie within the range of a 
 fair number of actresses. There is a grotesque mixture 
 of vanity and modesty in the mind of an author who 
 thinks his work worthy of performance by an actress of 
 genius and at the same time believes it to be too weak 
 to succeed without her help. 
 
 It will be answered, probably, that Shakespeare's 
 plays demand players of genius and yet certainly are
 
 DEARTH OF GREAT ACTRESSES i8i 
 
 not mere bravura pieces. There is truth und untruth 
 in this — truth that our pubhc will not patronize 
 Shakespeare when acted by average performers ; 
 untruth in the proposition that they cannot adequately 
 be represented by players without genius. We have 
 unfortunately got into the very bad habit of going to 
 see his works not for their intrinsic interest but for the 
 sake of the acting and mounting. It is not Hamlet but 
 Mr Smith as the Prince of Denmark ; not Romeo and 
 Juliet but Miss Brown and Mr Jones as the lovers of 
 Verona, and so on, which form the attraction ; and the 
 works are cut and played out of balance in order to 
 meet the demand. 
 
 The author would have resented a suggestion that 
 his characters are so superhuman as to need marvellous 
 performance : these remarks are without prejudice to 
 the question whether even with the aid of great players 
 Shakespeare's dramas reveal a fair proportion of their 
 merits on the stage. 
 
 The outcry concerning the alleged dearth of good 
 actresses is very commonly uttered and exceedingly 
 ill-founded. It is wise to avoid the thorny question 
 how far the recognized leading ladies of our first-class 
 theatres are satisfactory — yet it may be said that a 
 successful playwright recently complained that as a 
 body they were not, and that, despite his protests, he 
 was compelled to have his works performed by the ladies 
 in possession — and judicious to shirk the proposition, 
 sometimes put forward, that some of these do not hold 
 their positions by mere force of merit. Putting, then, 
 aside the actresses enjoying grandeur in London, and 
 leaving out of account a still more remarkable group 
 which includes Mrs Kendal, Mrs Patrick Campbell and 
 Miss Olga Nethersole — whom we too rarely see in town
 
 i82 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 — and even ignoring what may be called " recognized 
 leading ladies " who are " resting " reluctantly, there re- 
 mains a powerful group of young actresses of experience 
 and talent fully competent to satisfy the reasonable 
 requirements of these gentlemen who are complaining 
 of the " dearth." Since this was written a number of 
 young ladies then on the boards but not accepted as 
 leading ladies have made their way to the front. 
 
 Character Actresses 
 
 Several letters have been written lately, pathetic 
 letters, from actresses unable to get engagements. All 
 of the writers have enjoyed successes, have been referred 
 to by important papers as " promising " or " coming 
 leading ladies," each has had at least one engagement 
 at a very handsome weekly salary, yet every one of them 
 is in doleful dumps. 
 
 Here is a passage from one : " In 1904 I did so 
 well that I lived in luxury, and, I fear, somewhat 
 
 extravagantly, and my performance as heroine in 
 
 was so highly praised that I had no doubt my future 
 was well assured. Last year I earned ;f40, and I have 
 to live on what I earn, and if I look dowdy when I go 
 seeking an engagement I have little chance of getting 
 it. Yet I am under thirty, and although not one of the 
 little group of alleged beauties whose faces appear 
 monotonously week after week in the illustrated papers, 
 I am well-enough-looking when made up, and have 
 read in criticisms references to my ' charm of presence ' 
 and even to my ' beauty.' WTiat is to become of me, I 
 don't know. Of course I am particularly hopeless 
 seeing that nine of the London theatres out of less than 
 three times that number are now devoted to musical
 
 CHARACTER ACTRESSES 183 
 
 comedy and I am unable to sing, nor should I be enthu- 
 siastic about taking work sadly in contrast with my 
 once high and hopeful ambition." 
 
 The last phrase deserves some consideration. To a 
 great extent the reason why the stage causes so much 
 unhappiness among actresses is that a large proportion 
 enter the profession not in a simple straightforward 
 way in the choice of a career, but because they dream 
 of great triumphs. Probably the career of Ellen Terry, 
 and the exhibition of public affection shown upon the 
 occasion of her jubilee, brought many recruits to the 
 stage. 
 
 Putting aside the fact that Ellen Terry is unique, 
 one may remark that very few actresses can hope to 
 get close to the top of the tree, for obvious reasons. 
 In the case of most careers and professions, nine men 
 out of ten who join them know perfectly well that they 
 will never do more than earn a decent living, and they 
 shape their lives accordingly ; but nearly every young 
 actress expects to become a leading lady at a West 
 End theatre, though there are few West End theatres 
 devoted to real drama, and in some out of the small 
 number there will always be a manager's wife or friend 
 as an obstacle. 
 
 The misfortune is that few young actresses — if any — 
 say to themselves deliberately that they will aim at 
 character parts, or old-woman parts. Nearly all the 
 old-woman and grande-dame characters are played by 
 actresses who have been leading ladies and during some 
 period have had the painful experience of failing, on 
 account of their age, to get the engagements they have 
 sought. The Juliet of one season is not the Nurse or 
 the Lady Capulet of the next ; a considerable time 
 passes before there is such a shift of characters, and she
 
 i84 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 acts nothing at all during the interregnum, which is 
 spent in vain attempts to get the Juliet parts, met with 
 cruel rebuffs on the score of age. 
 
 Now, some of the old-man actors on the stage are 
 quite young ; they have chosen a particular line, con- 
 scious of the fact that nature has denied them the privi- 
 lege of playing parts that will cause the stage-door- 
 keeper to be deluged with amorous letters addressed 
 to them, and aware, too, that the triumphs of the broad 
 comedian will never be theirs. These young old-men 
 are often quite as successful in old-man parts as those 
 who have served most of a lifetime upon the stage. 
 
 It is not more difficult for a young woman to play 
 the old-woman character or the grande-dame part than 
 for the young man to tackle the Sir Peter Teazle or the 
 ordinary modern old-man ; nor is this the only class 
 of work other than that of lovely heroine which lies 
 open to the actress. When one hears discussion con- 
 cerning the casting of plays there is often talk about 
 the difiaculty of finding an actress for a Fanny Brough 
 part, which, of course, is quite distinct from what may 
 be considered specifically a souhrette character. Com- 
 plaints are uttered about the difficulty of finding a player 
 to represent the comic mother-in-law; indeed, play- 
 wrights are sometimes affected in their work by the 
 fear that if they write broad comedy for feminine parts 
 the difficulty of casting them will be insurmountable. 
 
 Handsome salaries are paid to the few ladies who have 
 a well-deserved reputation as actresses in the class of 
 character thus indicated, and there is a demand for 
 them— a demand generally supplied by superannuated 
 leading ladies and aged soubrettes. It may be offensive 
 to a girl's vanity deliberately to choose a path in which 
 her personal charms, or those which she believes herself
 
 CHARACTER ACTRESSES 185 
 
 to possess, must be of little service. On the English 
 stage it may be doubted if such a policy will ever be 
 adopted, though on French there are instances which 
 might be cited of actresses who have played dowager 
 characters during the whole of a profitable, long and 
 respected career. 
 
 No doubt there is another side of the matter. Many, 
 most actresses, join the stage with other ideas than of 
 merely gaining a reasonably comfortable living wage. 
 Pure ambition in some cases, vanity in others, are the 
 motive-force, to say nothing of the numbers who may 
 be regarded simply as stage-struck ; and to such as 
 these nothing seems worth striving for save to repre- 
 sent the triumphant heroine, the fascinating soubrette, 
 or Lady Macbeth. 
 
 Upon all, these prudent counsels will be wasted — 
 indeed, those who know a little of what passes behind 
 the scenes are well aware that young actresses, almost 
 starving, refuse to accept character parts that would 
 help them out of poverty because they are afraid of 
 jeopardising their chance — their one-to-a-hundred 
 chance — of obtaining the perilous position of leading 
 lady. 
 
 There is, of course, another class. Some, perhaps 
 many, become actresses simply from a pure love of 
 what they deem a beautiful, noble art, and for them it 
 is only natural to think that nothing is worth repre- 
 senting save the greater characters ; it is difhcult to 
 gratify such a love by representing a middle-aged comic 
 spinster, or one of the elderly duchesses, without whom 
 a modern comedy is deemed ungenteel. Let us hope 
 that Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's Academy, which 
 already is bearing fruit, will affect this deplorable 
 phenomenon. Those responsible may succeed in con-
 
 i86 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 vincing a fair number of their charming pupils that it is 
 wise not to aim at gUttering triumphs which fall to few, 
 but to qualify for work necessary in most plays, and 
 very often done indifferently. 
 
 Stage Misfits 
 
 " One of those thing no fellah can understand," to 
 quote a phrase of Lord Dundrear}^ is the way in which 
 players get chosen for their parts. Most cases, no 
 doubt, are not instances of square pegs in round holes ; 
 but the number of exceptions is enormous, a fact which 
 has lately been made manifest by one of the short French 
 seasons. An actress of really great talent has appeared 
 as a star in her husband's company, and the obvious 
 judgment upon her first two appearances was that the 
 characters chosen were quite unsuitable to her. The 
 reference is to Madame Suzanne Despres. 
 
 In La Rafale and Le Detour she had to represent a 
 Parisian, a chic Parisienne, a creature of nerves, elegance 
 and, according to Balzac, sound business calculation, 
 Madame Despres suggested none of these qualities ; in 
 physique she seems an agreeable-looking, strong- 
 minded countrywoman with brains ; obviously she 
 has no instinct for dress ; and, despite remarkable 
 skill and a fine exhibition of acting, she presented a 
 woman quite different from the author's character, one 
 also who would never have behaved like M. Bernstein's 
 heroines. 
 
 The play suffered and the player suffered, and prob- 
 ably only the critical could see what an admirable 
 actress she is and guess how perfectly she would re- 
 present a higher type of woman. This is no isolated 
 case. We often see the race-horse used in pulling heavy
 
 STAGE MISFITS 187 
 
 weights and the Suffolk punch employed for speed, and 
 each blamed for the unsatisfactory accomplishment 
 of the absurd task. Many of the disasters in the theatre 
 are due to this. 
 
 As a rule the actor-manager or manageress demands 
 the principal character, however unsuitable. Going 
 back a little, one recalls with astonishment the experi- 
 ment of Irving in representing Romeo, and many have 
 wondered why Ellen Terry in 1888 appeared as Lady 
 Macbeth. Some of the pleasantest memories of the 
 playgoer concern superb performances by Miss Eliza- 
 beth Robins, and yet they can recollect two or three 
 appearances in commonplace dramas that were flat 
 failures. Mrs Patrick Campbell has had several checks 
 which would be astounding if one did not recollect 
 that she was constitutionall}^ unsuited for the task she 
 attempted. 
 
 The most ardent Bensonian will hardly suggest that 
 his idols are always judicious in their choice of char- 
 acters. To use the stock stage term, players often 
 *' see themselves " in characters in which the public 
 sees onl}^ them and not the characters. Are there 
 no kind friends on the stage to give unpalatable 
 advice ? 
 
 One reason for the extraordinary success of the per- 
 formances by the Stage Society and the Vedrenne- 
 Barker management and of Pinero plays was the 
 judicious choice of players whose physique and tempera- 
 ment coincided with their parts. Several times we 
 had what seemed brilliant pieces of acting by performers 
 who never did anything before or afterwards worthy of 
 admiration. At almost every fresh production enthusi- 
 astic young critics discovered a new actor or actress 
 who, after all, was only an old friend well fitted at last.
 
 i88 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 The lack of attention by managers to this matter of 
 suitabiHty often leads to very awkward results, chiefly 
 in the case of the ladies. Many times we have listened 
 to ravings about the beauty of the heroine, and when 
 she has appeared there has been a giggle in the house 
 on account of her lack of beauty. We have frequently 
 heard references to the tiny feet of a healthy young 
 woman who would hardly have got three of her toes 
 into the glass slipper, or to the dainty hands of a lady 
 who would split a pair of eights. 
 
 The beauty of the men is not so frequently referred 
 to, but we sometimes have an ugly fellow vainly trying 
 to live up to suggestions that he is an Adonis and merely 
 looking ridiculous in consequence. The matter of age, 
 too, enters into the question — at times disastrously. 
 Some actresses are like Cleopatra or Ninon de I'Enclos, 
 but many look twice their reputed age. It is onlj^ in the 
 case of Juliet that it is deemed decent to refer to this 
 difficulty, and then merely because Shakespeare has 
 set her so cruelly young that everybody knows nobody 
 can play and look the part. 
 
 In this matter a little good sense would work wonders. 
 We critics are much to blame, and blamed, for not tr\dng 
 to force the entry of good sense. Some of our fore- 
 brothers never hesitated to talk bluntly about the 
 physical unsuitability of players for their parts, but we 
 have grown so mealy-mouthed that if Miss Florence 
 Ha^^don were to play Rosalind or Mr Louis Calvert 
 Romeo, we should merely use some obscure phrases 
 about unsuitability of temperament instead of saying 
 something usefully brutal about the folly of these ad- 
 mirable artists. If we go a little further, our editors 
 are pestered with letters to which we have the privilege of 
 replying.
 
 STAGE MISFITS 189 
 
 The whole thing is absurd. The pubHc is not deluded, 
 and we hear murmurs in the theatre and outcries in the 
 streets about the fact that Miss So-and-so is far too 
 ugly for her part and Mr So-and-so too old, and the 
 plays fail because the charges are true and the stage 
 illusion has never been created, and the critic's author- 
 ity — if any — is weakened. There are as many bad 
 performances because the players are physically un- 
 suitable as because they are otherwise incompetent. 
 
 If these ideas were acted upon the profession at large 
 would gain, for the players would be put more constantly 
 in circulation ; on the other hand it will be suggested 
 that the actors and actresses would grow less skilful, 
 since it may be imagined that their highest achieve- 
 ments are exhibited when overcoming the greatest 
 difficulties, in which proposition there is an obvious 
 fallacy ; and also that they would gain less experience, 
 having a smaller variety in parts. 
 
 The advocates of the old stock system certainly would 
 howl, because they think it did an actor good to play a 
 great number of vastly different characters. It must, 
 however, be recollected that in the time when the stock 
 system flourished, putting aside the comparatively 
 small classic repertoire, a very large proportion of the 
 pieces were written upon more mechanical lines than 
 the better plays of the present time, and parts tended 
 to become classifiable into distinct weU-known cate- 
 gories. To-day popular players are often engaged for 
 long terms at theatres, where they are inevitably given 
 characters for many of which they are unsuited in 
 physique or temperament, to say nothing of age. 
 
 Another matter is the question of accent. From 
 time to time we have players on our boards who speak 
 English with a foreign accent in parts where such an
 
 190 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 accent is an absurdity. No doubt some have grappled 
 with this difficulty very cleverly. Modjeska, for 
 instance, Bandmann, Mile Beatrice, Marius, Juliette 
 Nesville and the lady who played here as Madame Simon 
 le Bargy. 
 
 The memory of few goes back to Fechter, and it 
 would hardly be tactful to refer on this topic to several 
 American players. The effect, however, necessarily is 
 unfortunate ; it is difficult enough on the stage to create 
 illusions, and very important not to multiply difficulties. 
 Opera, with the magic aid of music, may contend suc- 
 cessfully against such monstrosities as one singer singing 
 an Italian part in French, whilst the others offer various 
 styles of Italian, Anglo-Italian, German-Italian, 
 Swedish-Italian — almost any Italian save the lingua 
 Toscana. Spoken drama is not so robust in this par- 
 ticular, and the matter in question does not happen often 
 enough to acquire validity by becoming a convention. 
 
 Stars 
 
 The past season has been comparatively disastrous 
 to the theatres, and many pieces have failed ; this 
 state of things is coincident with healthy progress in 
 English drama, and the year has seen several pro- 
 ductions that would have startled as well as delighted 
 enthusiasts a few years ago. Putting aside musical 
 comedy and comic opera, one asks why it is that a great 
 deal of money has been lost at the playhouses and a very 
 large proportion of pieces have been failures. 
 
 There are outcries about a dearth of good plays and 
 competent players, and the supposed deficiency in these 
 elements is generally offered as an explanation. Is it the 
 true one ? Certainly not. The development of the
 
 STARS 191 
 
 star system is the chief cause of the disaster. In 
 former days we used to blame the actor-manager, but 
 since the time when all were throwing stones at him 
 a good deal has happened for which the ordinary actor- 
 manager is not responsible — directly. 
 
 To-day several of the managers who are not actors 
 run their theatres on the star system, and we find the 
 announcement frequently made that Mr X. will present 
 Miss So-and-so, or Mr So-and-so, or Mrs So-and-so, in 
 a new play by Mr XXX. In other words, the manager 
 is reaUy offering his star to the public, and not the play. 
 Moreover, a number of players are run as stars by 
 syndicates. In plain English, most of our theatres are 
 managed, or rather mismanaged, upon the supposition 
 that the principal players are more important than 
 what they represent. 
 
 It is the opinion of many disinterested observers that 
 only three or four of our actors and actress in legitimate 
 drama draw an appreciable amount of money in London 
 to the theatre, and sacrifices made for those who do not 
 obviously are futile. The unfortunate result of the 
 system is that the playwright is sacrificed to the stars — 
 most of whom are ineffectual. He is required to fit his 
 drama to the personality of one, or it may be two, in 
 the cast. 
 
 Let us tell briefly the story of one failure of the jear. 
 A play of some merit was shown to a popular actor, 
 who suggested that if certain changes were made in it 
 he would recommend it to his syndicate. The changes 
 were suggested comprehensively under the phrase " If 
 you can strengthen my part." 
 
 The part was strengthened — that is to say, other 
 parts were weakened, speeches w^ere taken from them 
 and given to the hero, scenes for minor characters were
 
 192 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 excised or shortened, and the star was dragged into the 
 finale of the second act at great sacrifice of plausibility. 
 The play was then recommended. 
 
 It happened that the star had just separated from 
 the leading lady who generally appeared with him, so 
 the syndicate was free in choice of a heroine. Three 
 names were suggested. It was admitted that two of the 
 actresses were more suitable than the third, who, how- 
 ever, had a " backer " willing to put money into the 
 venture. The money prevailed and the lady was 
 chosen. She promptly insisted upon having her part 
 strengthened, so the play was remutilated till her 
 wishes were complied with. Is it surprising that when 
 it was produced the critics fell foul of it and denounced 
 the faults due to these transactions, or amazing that it 
 did not run long ? 
 
 This is by no means an isolated case : there has been 
 one comedy given this year, the last act of which was 
 blamed by everybody. Why ? Because the star, 
 who was not the chief figure in it as the play was written, 
 insisted upon his prerogatives, therefore the part of the 
 second actor in the cast was cut down to next to nothing 
 and a big irrelevant scene was introduced for the star, 
 in which he uttered some of the speeches taken from 
 the second actor's part. To think of a work of art being 
 submitted to such treatment ! It is difficult to em- 
 phasize it by a parallel. One might ask what would be 
 the result if a painter were to attempt to convert a 
 purely imaginative picture into a portrait, and, in 
 addition to altering the face and the lines of the figures, 
 were to put in a number of accessories to please the 
 patron's taste, and also to accept suggestions from the 
 sitter as to changes in the colour-scheme. 
 
 Now, it may be asserted confidently that a number
 
 STARS 193 
 
 of the plays produced this year have undergone the 
 process of being altered to please managers, actor- 
 managers, star players and syndicates. In addition 
 a good many have been written from the start with a 
 view of fitting the stars without alteration, and such 
 works, in most cases, are quite out of balance and 
 proportion, and, moreover, put a burden upon the stars 
 that they are quite unable to bear, or we to endure. 
 
 It was bad enough when there were only two or three 
 stars, but now the managers have starred a whole shoal 
 of mediocre players and sacrificed plays and dramatist 
 to them. That there seems to be a dearth of good plays 
 is in part because of the fact that some good ones are 
 ruined by changes made in them, whilst others are 
 refused because they do not contain star parts, and the 
 authors cannot or wiU not convert them into star plays. 
 
 The stars, created by the managers and industriously 
 boomed by their press agents, by the newspapers and 
 by the postcard merchants, have become Frankensteins 
 to their creators. They demand and get extravagant 
 salaries. Yet experience shows that few really draw 
 people to the theatre. 
 
 When the manager makes his calculation he can only 
 put a limited sum to the salary list, and since he starts 
 with one or two star salaries there is an insufficient 
 amount left for the rest of the company — that is to say, 
 instead of having the other characters represented by 
 players who would be chosen for them if money were 
 no object, they have to be taken by the cheapest per- 
 formers who can possibly be deemed competent. 
 
 The position of the unstarred actor is peculiarly 
 precarious, for he is often passed over, although the 
 salary expected by him is not very large, in favour of 
 somebody cheaper and less competent. Some casts
 
 194 CASUAL NOTES ON ACTING 
 
 remind one of the women who think themselves well 
 dressed merely because they have a new hat. They 
 begin with one or two good players— when the stars 
 happen to be good players— and immediately drop 
 below mediocrity.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 STAGE DANCING 
 
 The Skirts of the Drama 
 
 A CASE lately came on for trial in Paris relating to 
 a quarrel that arose a long time ago. Incidentally, 
 it may be observed that" the law's delay "is even greater 
 in France than over here, where, indeed, until the most 
 august regions of the courts are reached procedure is 
 comparatively rapid, and on the Chancery side cases 
 are tried as hats are ironed, '* while you wait." The 
 question in Paris raises one of importance, but in itself 
 is mere matter for merriment. 
 
 Mademoiselle Sarcysued her manager because he tried 
 to make her depart from traditions ; and, although she 
 is a prima ballerina, required her to wear flowing petti- 
 coats in the ballet of Herodiade. The matter stirred 
 Paris prodigiously. 
 
 With us, of course, the ballet has ceased to be of 
 importance. In Mademoiselle Genee we had a dancer 
 as well entitled to immortality as those about whom 
 our fathers raved, and Russian dancers of brilliance 
 have appeared, but opera and the legitimate theatre 
 pay no attention to ballet except at pantomime season ; 
 and whilst probably the average keen playgoer of Paris 
 is acquainted with the names of the orthodox steps, and 
 is aware that in the ballet one begins as petit rat, then 
 becomes a quadrille ballerina, develops into a coryphee, 
 blossoms into a minor subject, grows into a subject, and 
 
 195
 
 196 STAGE DANCING 
 
 eventually emerges and reaches the stars as a prima 
 ballerina, few of us know anything about the subject. 
 
 The whole fight in Paris raged rotmd the question 
 whether, regardless of period or nation or style of 
 music, the prima ballerina is entitled to wear the scanty 
 parasol skirt and petticoats in which she delights. The 
 ladies of the ballet, with modern tradition on their side, 
 resent any alteration in costume. The matter is not 
 one of propriety in the ordinary sense of the word ; 
 the propriety of ballet costumes is out of the range of 
 rational discussion. No one can doubt that if we had 
 never seen anything but ordinary society drama and a 
 ballet were launched at us in customary costume the 
 police courts would take up the matter. 
 
 It is even known that there was a time (not Sir 
 Henry's) when the Lord Chamberlain interfered at the 
 Lyceum and was defeated by ridicule. Custom has 
 settled the question of propriety, and it may be con- 
 fidently asserted that it never occurs to the mind of the 
 prima ballerina that any human being could regard her 
 costume as indelicate. The trouble in Paris was that, 
 despite the wish of the other persons concerned in the 
 ballet, the star insisted upon proving lavishly to the 
 public that she did not resemble the traditional 
 Queen of Spain. She went further : she demanded her 
 pound of flesh — or padding — she wished to exhibit what 
 in technical slang is called le tutu, a term descriptive of 
 the abbreviated costume and possessed also of a 
 secondary meaning, which may be imagined by taking 
 the ordinary tourist's pronunciation of the words and 
 translating it. Trilby's " the altogether " in connexion 
 with tights explains the matter. 
 
 The question is one of art, and here lies' its humour. 
 It is not physical vanity on the part of the ladies, for
 
 THE SKIRTS OF THE DRAMA 197 
 
 they know that sculptors would hardly choose as 
 subjects the lower portion of women whose legs have 
 been over-developed by a training so arduous that it is 
 found almost impossible to get English girls to go 
 through with it. But— and here's the rub— the dancer 
 has a respect for her craft, which, like the actor's 
 devotion to his art, tends to produce erroneous ideas, 
 and this is why the fight has taken place. 
 
 At the bottom, it becomes a question of virtuosity. 
 Art has suffered appallingly in every branch from 
 the mania for cultivation of dexterity in accom- 
 plishment. To the prima ballerina the dancing is 
 more important than the dance, to the actors the play- 
 ing than the play, to many painters the facture than 
 the picture, and so on. Music has been the main 
 sufferer, particularly on the vocal side, and certain 
 kinds of opera have been buried under the vocal 
 acrobatics of the singers. One sees occasionally in 
 shop windows, and, it may be, in human habitations, a 
 species of abominable clock that has no kind of casing 
 to conceal the works ; it suggests the image of a prima 
 ballerina. With the perfectly modest immodesty of 
 the little boy cited in discussion by Laurence Sterne, she 
 delights in exhibiting the works ; more truthfully than 
 a once famous conjuror, she insists upon showing us 
 *' how it is done " ; and that really is quite the last 
 thing a person of any taste wishes to know, or, rather, 
 desires to have forced upon him. 
 
 Obviously, it is the duty of everyone who pretends 
 to be educated to have some acquaintance with the 
 mechanics of the different branches of art, but he 
 does not want to be taught in public. Unfortunately 
 the performer displays a natural desire to show 
 his own cleverness rather than that of the dramatist.
 
 198 STAGE DANCING 
 
 He treats himself as the cart when he is only the 
 — horse. 
 
 Drama has suffered severely from this ; indeed, in 
 our theatres we have reached the topsy-turvydom of 
 having the dramatist write for the players instead of 
 having the players act for the dramatist. Sterile art 
 is the general outcome. A great form of architecture 
 perished with the architect who, forgetful of noble 
 design, indulged in desperate tours de force and offered 
 to the stonemason the opportunity of executing 
 miracles in stone lacework. 
 
 Dancing has stood still since the dancers have gyrated 
 frantically in order to prove their mechanical dexterity, 
 and drama is in the doldrums because the players, with 
 the assistance of the press, have induced the public to 
 regard their performance as more important than the 
 work which it is their duty to represent. The last 
 statement is becoming inaccurate. It is hardly extra- 
 vagant to say that when a play is written at the dicta- 
 tion of an actor the acting will be more important than 
 the piece, for but little good work comes out of drama 
 concocted under such circumstances. 
 
 The dancers are really dancing on the ruins of their 
 art. They have lessened their skirts and their popu- 
 larity at the same time. Old pictures show (and I 
 believe that old measurements are preserved to indicate 
 the fact) that in the days of the famous pas de quatre — 
 not, of course, the one at the Gaiety — skirts were worn 
 far longer than the modern tutu. 
 
 The costume of the prima ballerina assoluta in our 
 grandfather's days was something like an umbrella 
 and a pair of braces : the umbrella shrank to the en- 
 tout-cas, and the en-tout-cas to the open parasol ; unless 
 the movement is arrested, in the course of time a lamp- m
 
 THE SKIRTS OF THE DRAMA 199 
 
 shade will be reached, and ultimately, say, fifty years 
 hence, the Genee of the period will have nothing more 
 of skirt and petticoat than some kind of fringe round 
 the waist, indicating, like our coccygeal vertebrae, or 
 the rudimentary limbs of the whale, a mere useless 
 atrophied apparatus. 
 
 It was once possible for the poses and movements 
 of the dancer to be graceful — the phrase " the poetry 
 of motion " had a meaning. With the stiff tutu 
 sticking out almost at right angles, elegance is quite 
 impossible. The present " star " resembles in outline 
 one of the grotesques used by Hogarth to illustrate 
 his theories in his " Analysis of Beauty," and one is 
 inclined to laugh at her awkwardness when she 
 walks ; nor is it easy to admire when she whirls round 
 like a dancing dervish, the tutu mounting higher and 
 becoming more and more rectangular the faster she 
 goes. 
 
 Mile. Genee, delicious and graceful, in some flowing 
 character-costume, and then ridiculous in the tutu that 
 she adores, proved this more than any amount of written 
 explanation. She was such a great performer, so 
 perfect in mechanism, so harmonious from little foot 
 to dainty head, so brilliant in her miming, that one was 
 forced to say sorrowfully " Et tu-tu, Genee." Un- 
 fortunately the virtuoso mania is irresistible, and, so 
 far as graceful dancing is concerned, there is no hope 
 that we may see such a pas de quatre as won fame in 
 the palmy days of the ballet ; we have reached the 
 reign of the fas du tutu, and, almost wish we had arrived 
 at the pas du tout. 
 
 During the last few years there has been a great 
 stir in the dancing world. Some time ago Isadora 
 Duncan gave a private exhibition at the New Gallery
 
 200 STAGE DANCING 
 
 of certain dances in' a style intended to be a 
 revival of old Greek dancing. 
 
 A little later Miss Ruth St Denis presented in public 
 some strange, quite beautiful, performances consisting 
 of dancing, miming and posturing supposed to suggest 
 ideas of Indian life, and her finely restrained, truly artistic 
 work deeply impressed both the critics and audiences. 
 
 Afterwards came Miss Maud Allan, alleged — no 
 matter with what degree of truth — to be an imitator 
 of Isadora Duncan, and she made a great " hit," her 
 most popular performance being a " Salome " dance, 
 which was considered by some people to be indecent. 
 Certainly of her costume the French phrase " qui 
 commence trop tard et finit trop tot " might justly 
 be used, for she carried nudity on the stage to a 
 startling degree. In a good many other dances her 
 work was rather pretty and quite unobjectionable, 
 but vastly inferior to the art of Isadora Duncan or 
 Ruth St Denis. 
 
 Isadora Duncan 
 
 The theatrical season of 1908 ended in a blaze of 
 — dancing. At what is generally deemed about the 
 dullest moment in the year Isadora Duncan appeared 
 at the Duke of York's Theatre, and kept it open and 
 weU attended for almost a month. The affair is unique 
 in the history of our theatre. One can imagine a play- 
 house running on the basis of a big ballet, with a story, 
 popular music, magnificent scenery, gorgeous costumes, 
 huge corps de ballet, half - a - dozen principals and 
 immense advertisement. In this case we have had 
 more or less isolated dances to music generally severe ; 
 for scenery only a background of subtle yellow, taking 
 strange tones under the influence of different lights ;
 
 ISADORA DUNCAN 201 
 
 for costumes only some beautiful, tranquil, simple 
 Greek drapery ; for corps de ballet a few children ; 
 for principals one woman, with an intelligent face, but 
 certainly no great beauty ; and in the way of adver- 
 tisement very little, except some honestly enthusiastic 
 press notices, and fortunately nothing in the form of 
 photographs of nudities or half-nudities. 
 
 There has been a triumph of pure art under austere 
 conditions, such as can hardly be recollected on our 
 stage, unless in the case of Everyman — pure art akin 
 to the theatrical, indeed parent of the drama. The 
 word histrionic is derived through the Latin from an 
 Etruscan word which means " to leap " and was ori- 
 ginally applied to dancers. 
 
 Historically, the matter is interesting. Drama began 
 in dance and developed from it, dance and drama going 
 hand-in-hand for a long while ; then a separation came, 
 and dance has tended more and more to become 
 meaningless and conventional, and, in the chief school 
 of dancing, purely technical. The Spanish school is 
 still alive, reinforced by the North African, and in the 
 main showing some tendency, often perfectly restrained, 
 towards the indecent. Our own step-dancing remains 
 popular, and for a while the hybrid skirt-dancing 
 triumphed, chiefly because of the genius of Kate 
 Vaughan and talent of her successors, one of whom, 
 Katie Seymour, worked out a clever individual com- 
 pound of styles. 
 
 The ** Classic " school, classic in quite a secondary 
 sense, which has been represented by what one can 
 conveniently call the ballet, year after year has worked 
 towards its extinction by the over-cultivation of mere 
 technique, of execution rather than imagination. 
 
 The greatest artist of this school in our times is
 
 202 STAGE DANCING 
 
 Genee ; natural grace, a piquant individualit}', and a 
 fine power of miming, have lent charm to work the 
 foundation of which is really acrobatic, and consists 
 of remarkable feats made too manifest by an abomin- 
 ably ugly costume. 
 
 Isadora Duncan goes back in style to the early 
 Greek ; dancing, however, necessarily to more modern 
 music, for the reason that we do not know how to 
 reproduce much of the old, and possibly would not like 
 it if we could. To her work one may apply the phrase 
 of Simonides, that " dancing is silent poetry." Prefer- 
 able is the term that has been used concerning architec- 
 ture: Schelling, in his " Philosophic der Kunst," calls 
 it " frozen music," a term ridiculed by Madame de 
 Stael. Peter Legh wrote a book on the topic, published 
 in 183 1, with the title " The Music of the Eye." The 
 book is poor, pretentious stuff, but the title seems 
 nicely applicable to the dancing of Isadora Duncan. 
 To a deaf man her work would be entirely musical 
 — to a Beethoven or Robert Franz, deaf after, for 
 a while, full enjoyment of sound, her dances would, 
 I believe, represent complete, delightful, musical 
 impressions. 
 
 It may be that sometimes in her work she attempts 
 impossible subtleties, endeavouring to express ideas 
 beyond the range of melody — for it is difficult to imagine 
 that any dancing can be more than expressive of 
 melody, though no doubt to make this true " melody " 
 must be understood in a large sense. How far away 
 this is from dancing which consists in the main of 
 executing more or less complicated steps " in time " 
 with the music, or such appalling vulgarities as a cake- 
 walk. It must be admitted that one of the Tanagra 
 figurines is sadly suggestive of a characteristic pose in
 
 ISADORA DUNCAN 203 
 
 the cake-walk — though it may well be that it is a mere 
 pose which led to none of the abominations with which 
 our stage has been deluged ! 
 
 In the case of Isadora Duncan we have seen poses 
 and movements of extraordinary beauty, exquisitely 
 sympathetic with fine music. No doubt occasionally 
 she has made a concession, as on her first night, when 
 she danced to '* The Blue Danube " waltz by way of an 
 encore, putting, however, her own interpretation on 
 the music and her sense of it. Those who are acquainted 
 with Greek sculpture and with some of the classic draw- 
 ings of the old masters will see that to a very large extent 
 her work is a revival rather than an invention ; but 
 this fact — which she acknowledges — in no degree 
 diminishes the merit of her performances, for the 
 execution is of wonderful beauty and the application 
 of the old ideas to music of a different type is very 
 clever. 
 
 Her work alone has well repaid the audiences, many 
 members of which have made several visits to the 
 theatre ; it has, however, been supplemented by 
 dances in which young children were the performers, 
 dances so pretty in conception and delightful in execu- 
 tion that one has felt the whole house thrilling with 
 pleasure. Nothing like these children dances, nothing 
 of the kind half as charming, has been given on the 
 stage in our day. 
 
 The one complaint possible against Isadora Duncan 
 is that she has rendered us immoderately dissatisfied 
 with what had once moderately contented us ; and 
 the fear is that we shall promptly have a host of half- 
 baked imitators, who will copy the mere accidentals 
 of her system without understanding the essentials, 
 and will fancy that the whole matter is one of clothes and
 
 204 STAGE DANCING 
 
 music, and prance about bare-legged, meaninglessly. 
 It is hard to see how this is to be avoided until there has 
 been time for her pupils to grow up ; it is certain, how- 
 ever, that if the new idea, the new-old idea, takes root, 
 there will be a revolution in dancing, which may have 
 far-reaching effects. 
 
 Drama of the strictly intellectual type will remain 
 unaffected ; possibly there will be a new development 
 of the musico-dramatic. It has been suggested that 
 musical comedy is waning, and the period has been 
 reached when the average piece of this class spells 
 failure. There is, of course, nothing in the work of 
 Isadora Duncan which limits it to one principal, and 
 naught to prevent the combination of singing and 
 dancing. Off-hand it seems rash to suggest that 
 spoken dialogue could be harmonized with these. It 
 is imaginable that the authors of Prunella could see 
 their way to combine with work somewhat on the lines 
 of their charming piece such ideas of dancing as have 
 been suggested by Isadora Duncan. The result should 
 be a novel, delightful form of art, not necessarily hybrid. 
 
 After Isadora Duncan's public performances came the 
 deluge and the country was flooded with women in- 
 decently unclad, who flapped about on the stage dis- 
 playing their persons and their incompetence lavishly. 
 The authorities have been very lax as regards such 
 performances, many of which were so obviously crude 
 and clumsy that it was clear that a succes de scandale 
 was sought deliberately. Of course some of the per- 
 formers may have had merit. Later on (in 1910) there 
 arrived some brilliant Russian dancers whose work is 
 of too great value and importance to be dealt with in a 
 single paragraph.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 A Defence of the Matinee Hat 
 
 THE number of matinees at Christmas-time has 
 caused the usual outcry against the matinee 
 hat, and wrathful or sarcastic letters on the subject ; 
 and it is said that some French managers are taking 
 the strong step of excluding from the front rows those 
 ladies who, to use the queer Gallic term, are not " en 
 cheveux," It seems surprising that an evil denounced 
 so universally should be permitted to exist, and that 
 loud complaints made during many years should have 
 had little or no effect. 
 
 The average man regards the matter as quite simple, 
 and wonders why women are so selfish as to keep on 
 their hats, and thinks that there is no reasonable ex- 
 planation of their conduct or excuse for it. It seemed 
 clear that there must be greater difficulties than 
 are obvious. So questions were put to an ardent 
 playgoer, who spends appalling sums of money on 
 her dress, as to why she makes a fuss about taking 
 off her hat in the theatre. 
 
 " My good man," she said to the questioner, " you 
 are talking ' through your hat ' as well as about mine. 
 
 If my hair was as simple a matter as yours " this hit 
 
 at his unprotected pate seemed rather a blow below the 
 belt — " there would be no difficulty. Unfortunately, 
 205
 
 2o6 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 it is a very complex matter." He hid all but the smallest 
 conceivable fraction of a smile. " I am not referring 
 to colour," she continued with some asperity, " but to 
 the fact that, at present, fashion requires me to wear a 
 prodigious number of little curls. My native crop is 
 ample in quantity, but I should hardly be in time for 
 a matinee or even an evening performance if I had it 
 turned into all these little necessary curls. So, like 
 most of my friends, in order to save time and trouble, 
 I have a number which are pinned on. Do you think 
 I care to run the risk of removing my hat without even 
 a looking-glass to guide me ? Heaven knows what 
 might happen. The case is a little better, though far 
 from satisfactory, with those who wear nothing but 
 their own crop." 
 
 This view of the subject seemed to have something in 
 it, a fact which, of course, could not be admitted. There 
 were, not long before, in The Westminster Gazette some 
 remarks by "Madame Qui Vive" to the effect that 
 even a female Absalom or a Melisande could not do 
 without what she called the " clever devices of the 
 coiffeur," and claims were made of woman's right to 
 adopt the fashion of the days when both men and women 
 wore wigs, on the ground that the coiffeur's " little 
 devices " — English for sham curls — save time, and 
 also remain " trimmer and neater " than natural 
 curls. 
 
 " Do you think," she said, " that it is pleasant to 
 hold an eight or ten guinea hat on your knees, to say 
 nothing of a boa and muff and veil ? And what about 
 the damage to a delicate hat caused by people who 
 shove in front of you and brush against it and crush the 
 tulle and break the feathers ? A lot of style it possesses 
 after being treated in that fashion ! "
 
 THE MATINEE HAT 207 
 
 " Don't you think you might have special hats for 
 matinees — something undamageable. ' ' 
 
 " Perhaps you would like to see me in a tam-o'- 
 shanter, or a yachting cap, or one of those nice 'sensible' 
 straw hats you men admire ; and suppose I want to go 
 to a lunch en route for the play, or tea afterwards, or to 
 drive in the Park, or to go anywhere except to my 
 cabinet de toilette ? " 
 
 " They might make you something extra small and 
 low that would serve for all these purposes." 
 
 ** Indeed ; don't you think half-a-guinea is enough 
 to pay for a stall without buying a special hat into the 
 bargain ? A nice fuss my husband would make about 
 my extravagance. Besides, people want us to wear no 
 hat at all. What does your wife do ? " 
 
 The interviewer replied that his wife thought it her 
 duty to take off her hat. 
 
 " She behaves better than many ladies of the theatri- 
 cal world. The other day I could not see a bit because 
 
 of the enormous hat worn by Miss , and Miss 
 
 and Miss were just as bad." 
 
 It would be pleasant to give the names which would 
 identify popular actresses who are great sinners in this 
 matter. 
 
 " Moreover," she continued, " there is the difficulty 
 of putting it on again. You men wear your hats on 
 your heads, and can easily get them straight ; we don't, 
 we wear them on our hair, or our scalpettes, or our 
 transformations, or on any postiche that may be fashion- 
 able or necessary, and can only tell whether they are 
 straight, or even the right way round, by means of a 
 looking-glass. A pretty thing if I were to sail out of a 
 theatre with my hat really askew, or before behind ; 
 people might fail to take a charitable view of the
 
 2o8 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 situation, and suspect I had had a glass too much 
 instead of a glass too little." 
 
 '' All this is irrelevant/' said the interviewer, " and 
 the whole difficulty is — you are too mean to go to the 
 ladies' room and pay or give sixpence to the attendant." 
 
 She smiled pityingly. 
 
 ** My dear man, you grumble about our being late at 
 the theatre. What would happen if fifty of us were to 
 take off our hats and touch up our hair in a room too 
 small for fifteen, before taking our seats ? I know one 
 ladies' room where there is only one looking-glass, and 
 there are only a few horrid little hooks on which to 
 hang hats and veils. I would gladly patronize the 
 waiting-room if there were ample accommodation, 
 but that would be out of the question in most theatres, 
 and one would have to come much too early and get 
 away needlessly late ; and there might be little mistakes 
 about the hats and furs unless half-a-dozen attendants 
 were provided, for it can't be a simple question of 
 handing hats and coats over the counter as it is with 
 you men." 
 
 It is undeniable that in some cases the ladies' cloak- 
 rooms have not been designed so as to deal with the 
 question under discussion, because, of course, theatres 
 are primarily built for the evening performances, and 
 matinees are only a little extra as a rule. 
 
 " The matter," said the lady thoughtfully, " is more 
 important than you think. I consider that the matinee 
 hat has settled the fate of many new enterprises. If 
 the lady is asked to take off her hat and does not, she 
 is uncomfortable during the afternoon, because she 
 knows the people are hating her, not quite unjustly, 
 and also because they sometimes whisper at her offen- 
 sively. If she does take it off she is worried lest she
 
 DEADHEADS 209 
 
 has made a guy of herself ; she is often upset because 
 her hat has been crushed, and her mind is distracted by 
 wonder if she will get it on right at the end. The 
 result is that she is in a bad mood for the play and 
 judges it unfairly. 
 
 " I think something could be done. The seats 
 might be so arranged as to have an open box under- 
 neath each stall for the hat and muff of the lady immedi- 
 ately behind. I do not say it would be easy to get at 
 them ; but even in the case of the narrowest stalls — 
 and many are an outrage — if would be possible. Some- 
 thing of the sort indeed exists at one or two theatres, 
 such as the Haymarket. Of course the cartwheel hats 
 would not go into them, but ladies don't wear such things, 
 only women who want to advertize themselves. Next," 
 she continued, " comes the question of the looking-glass. 
 I have made efforts to use a small miroir de poche, but 
 it is far from adequate. In cases where the backs of the 
 stalls are of a good height, a fair-sized mirror might be 
 fixed high up on the back, with some little contrivance 
 in the way of a curtain which could be drawn over it ; 
 and aided by these we might be able to grapple with 
 our difficulties." 
 
 A penny-in-the-slot mirror might pay. 
 
 A Justification of certain Deadheads 
 
 In efforts, certainly justifiable, to discover the reason 
 for the failure of the theatrical season, some people 
 have made quite a ferocious attack upon the " dead- 
 head," who really has nothing to do with the case. 
 He has been spoken of as an incubus. Some people 
 regard the free entry of the caput mortuum with 
 a hostility like that shown by our ancestors (and
 
 210 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 to some extent ourselves) to the mortmain of the 
 Church. 
 
 Let us consider the deadhead for a while. First, it 
 is necessary to point out that there are several species. 
 The genus includes all members of the audience who 
 do not pay for their seats. Of course the species of 
 deadhead critic is not attacked on this particular point ; 
 yet indirectly some members of it affect the situation, 
 for it is said that there are critics who demand a good 
 deal of " paper " for their friends from managers, even 
 when the tickets are really saleable. 
 
 London critics are not treated like their brethren in 
 Paris — the great city in which drama flourishes — where 
 a reverence is exhibited for our craft not manifested in 
 London. On a first night over here you will find that 
 in many theatres the representatives of iirst-class 
 papers are in back rows of the stalls or in the dress 
 circle, whilst deadheads of another species are occupying 
 most of the better places. Moreover, there are very, 
 very few journals to which more than one ticket is sent. 
 
 The next kind of deadhead is the unprofessional first- 
 night deadhead, a mixture of personal friends of the 
 manager, the author, the principal players and of *' the 
 backers," if any. It is said that they are the most 
 troublesome of all to handle, being utterly unreasonable 
 as a body, and refusing contemptuously seats accepted 
 without a murmur by newspapers that have a million 
 or so of readers. Many are only willing to lend the 
 support of their presence on the first night ; seats for 
 the second or a later night are scorned; In this class 
 may be reckoned members of the profession, who, with 
 a strange disregard for the convenience of the manage- 
 ment, demand a couple of stalls for the premiere, though 
 they are in the habit of complaining that a first per-
 
 DEADHEADS 211 
 
 formance does justice neither to the piece nor to the 
 players. Lastly, in the group of first-night deadheads 
 come the members of the unrecognised, ill-organised, 
 generally tactless claque. 
 
 The species that lately has been attacked is divisible 
 into two groups. The first consists of the people who 
 will not go to the theatre without an order, but do not 
 expect first-night tickets — one may call them the 
 " cadgers." The second species might be entitled the 
 *' window-dressers." Volumes have been written about 
 the " cadgers," and countless stories told. No doubt 
 they cause trouble and some expense in stamps, 
 stationery and clerical work. Probably they do not 
 really affect the fate of a piece, for there seems no reason 
 to doubt the truth of the general assertion, that nearly 
 all of them would stay away if they could not get a 
 ticket for nothing. 
 
 Now we come to the really lamentable class, people 
 who have to be brought into a theatre " with a lassoo," 
 to use an American term. Let us look at the position 
 — the melancholy position. The play is not quite a 
 hopeless failure ; it is in a Mahomet's coffin position. 
 If it can last a little longer the season may improve and 
 money be made ; or it is neither making nor losing on 
 ordinary nights and does paying business on Saturdays. 
 There is a third state of affairs — perhaps the commonest : 
 it is necessary to keep the piece running for a certain 
 number of weeks, even at a loss, in order that it may 
 visit the provinces and the colonies or the States as a 
 big London success that has enjoyed a long run. Yet 
 paying playgoers keep aloof. 
 
 What is the manager to do ? If his house is but half 
 full the applause will be faint, the players are likely to 
 act without spirit, and, worse still, the audience may
 
 212 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 be chilled, and the members of it will teU their friends 
 that the house was almost empty, thereby causing them 
 to think that the entertainment is poor. So half full 
 might become quite empty. What method does the 
 manager adopt ? He knows that the general public is 
 as uncritical of an audience as of a play or of acting, so 
 he fills his house as well as he can with the very deadest 
 of deadheads ; " orders " are distributed lavishly to 
 people whose presence in the theatre is actually a 
 favour to the management. 
 
 It is said that these playgoers are peculiarly severe 
 in their judgments and remarkably apathetic ! To the 
 truth of part of this we can testify, since we study such 
 deadheads with great curiosity on the occasions, rather 
 rare, when we see them, for sometimes a dramatic critic 
 gets taken to the theatre by a friend. We think our- 
 selves very famous, yet most of us have friends ignorant 
 of the fact that our trade is to criticize plays. The posi- 
 tion is a little quaint ; one is asked to dine at about 
 the time that is customary to take afternoon tea ; the 
 dinner is short though, if at a fashionable restaurant, the 
 waits are long; and there comes an awful moment 
 when the host mentions that he has got six stalls for 
 
 the . Generally there is some friend present who 
 
 knows the true position, and exhibits a smile of fiendish 
 mirth. 
 
 Wlien this happens we examine the professional 
 deadhead with interest. He reminds one of the hired 
 mourner at the Hebrew funeral. Fantastic clothes, 
 strange devices for keeping shirt-fronts clean, queer 
 contrivances for protecting the throat during the 'bus- 
 ride home, furtive umbrellas, ample reticules (in which 
 perhaps goloshes are hidden), and a genteel reticence 
 in applause or laughter, are marks of the stranger in the
 
 DEADHEADS 213 
 
 stalls — the harmless, necessary deadhead. He may not 
 be ornamental, nor even she, despite her sex ; perhaps 
 they give little encouragement to the players ; they 
 bring nothing directly to the exchequer, but they fill a 
 a place. 
 
 Few of us do more ; some of us merely fill a column, 
 and wish we did that duty as conscientiously as most 
 of these poor creatures do theirs, for, though obviously 
 determined not to enjoy themselves, they come punctu- 
 ally, do not cause inconvenience by going out between 
 the acts to waste money on high-priced refreshments, 
 and remain in their places to the bitter end — unlike the 
 cash patrons, so many of whom bustle away brutally 
 towards the close of the entertainment for fear lest they 
 should miss the chance of earning a nightmare at a 
 fashionable restaurant. Seeing what service they 
 render to the managers the deadheads are perhaps 
 entitled to the protection of the phrase " de mortuis." 
 
 The foregoing article brought several letters, amongst 
 them one that deserves a little consideration. All 
 responsibility is disclaimed for the letter that is pub- 
 lished verbatim : 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have lately read an article by you on 
 the subject of the matinee hat, with almost every word 
 of which I have the honour of expressing my entire 
 disagreement. Although your views on the topic may 
 be absurd, they show that you have a mind capable of 
 appreciating more than one side of a case ; so I venture 
 to write to you about the great question of the day, the 
 proposed suppression of the deadhead. " Ingratitude, 
 thou marble-hearted fiend," to use the words of the 
 bard ; to think that after all our services to them, the 
 managers, too blind to see the obvious causes of their
 
 214 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 distress, should dream of abolishing the " harmless 
 necessary " deadhead, who often has rendered to them 
 assistance like that of the mouse '' i' the fable " to the 
 lion. 
 
 Permit me to discuss the matter seriously. Let me 
 begin by employing, with trifling modification, a famous 
 phrase by one of the dramatists of the land from which 
 most of our English drama comes : " There are dead- 
 heads and deadheads ! " They may be put into two 
 main groups — the first-night deadheads and the other- 
 nights deadheads — and there are subdivisions. Few 
 save those immediately concerned would mourn if the 
 first group were abolished — you can guess that I do 
 not belong to it. Yet I am well acquainted with 
 the group, since a cousin of mine, long time a 
 popular actor, has been of late a too-frequent attendant 
 at these functions. 
 
 Of first-night deadheads there are four varieties : 
 Friends of the management, including their brother 
 pros. ; friends of the author ; friends of principal 
 players in the cast ; and the critics. It is a source of 
 great joy to my cousin to see that on these occasion 
 the managers know how to put the critics in their proper 
 places, grouping them, for instance, in rows of stalls 
 bearing the more remote letters of the alphabet, whilst 
 between them and the footlights come the deadheads of 
 the other varieties. 
 
 Personally, I wonder whether it is wise to put the 
 gentry of the pen in seats from which they often hear 
 with difficulty, and see without accuracy, in rows of 
 seats normally belonging to the pit, and merely posing, 
 fro hoc vice, as stalls, and situate in the headachy region 
 underneath the dress circle. 
 
 According to my cousin, the first-night deadheads.
 
 DEADHEADS 215 
 
 as a body, are unpunctual and unappreciative. They 
 chatter a good deal and seem more interested in the 
 audience than the play, and might well be replaced by 
 the many people who would be glad to plank down their 
 money for a seat. Let them go ; and I warrant the 
 managers will be none the worse — I should, indeed, 
 except the gentlemen of the Fomrth Estate. 
 
 The case of myself and the deadheads of other nights 
 is quite different. The managers will find it difficult to 
 do without us. 
 
 We are present as much for their benefit as for our 
 pleasure. 
 
 Constatons les faits, if I may borrow another phrase 
 from the French. Under what circumstances are we 
 invited ? When a play is doing good business ? Cer- 
 tainly not. It is when the company are discussing in 
 whispers whether the notice will go up or not, that the 
 Fiery Cross is sent round to us and we come and fill the 
 house. Without us there would be an aching void, 
 and the few paying people, aghast at the gloom, would 
 spread very bad reports. Managers, like nature, abhor 
 a vacuum. Our presence saves the situation and the 
 face of the management. No doubt our assistance is 
 often vain, but the cases are numerous when, thanks to 
 us, the management has been able to tide over a bad 
 week or two during a run. 
 
 " They also serve who only sit and watch " is our 
 motto, taken, you will see, from a line by the " organ- 
 mouthed voice of England." Would not Dorothy have 
 died young but for our intervention ? Would not The 
 Lion and the Mouse have enjoyed the success it deserved 
 if we had been called in to dress the house until the 
 public had discovered the piece ? Many are the cases 
 where, during weeks of bad weather or sudden gloom
 
 2i6 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 we have rallied loyally to the theatre and kept a play 
 going. 
 
 Do services such as this count for nothing ? Is my 
 occupation to become like that of the Moor of Venice 
 — merely because managers are forgetful ? Do we make 
 no sacrifices when we come to their aid ? What about 
 the expense of coming to and fro ? What about wear 
 and tear of dress clothes, useless to some of us except 
 for such purposes, and, in honesty I should add, so far 
 as the nether portions are concerned, for attending 
 funerals ? 
 
 Let me discuss what is urged against us. It is said 
 that if we did not get free tickets we should pay to visit 
 the play. There is a little truth in this, but not much. 
 We might take tickets for the pit to see the good plays ; 
 our judgment tells us they are but few, whereas a sense 
 of duty compels us in our quasi-professional capacity 
 to attend even the most deplorable rubbish. This 
 aspect of the matter amounts to no more than a trifle. 
 The managers would gain little from our occasional 
 shillings and lose much by our frequent absence. 
 
 It is urged that we do not applaud. I maintain 
 that deceitful applause is not in our implied con- 
 tract ; certainly we never hiss or boo, though there 
 is a splendid tradition rendered popular by poor 
 Lai Brough that one of us found a play so utterly bad 
 that he left his seat, went to the box-office, and bought 
 a ticket, in order that he might express his opinion with- 
 out prejudice to his conscience. As a body we are 
 playgoers of judgment and experience, and, though I 
 protest that we clap generously when there is a 
 reasonable opportunity, the suggestion that we are a 
 claque failing to do its duty because we do not applaud 
 bad pieces is an outrageous insult.
 
 DEADHEADS 217 
 
 No, sir ; I do but humbly voice the opinion of my 
 fellow-deadheads when I say that we would rather be 
 abolished than have to offer sycophantic applause as 
 part of the bargain. I insist a little upon this aspect, 
 because the refusal to applaud rubbish seems to be 
 looked upon as the dead head and front of our offending, 
 if I may take a trifling Hberty with the words of the 
 Swan of Avon. 
 
 I had forgotten, sir, to mention one of our most 
 important services. It is notorious that many plays 
 are run in London without there being any expectation 
 that they will make money in the Metropolis, but in 
 the behef that if they can be called " a great London 
 success," our simple-minded cousins in the country will 
 accept them with enthusiasm. How, I ask you, are 
 these London successes manufactured ? How could 
 they be without our aid ? I could name plays that 
 have been run for a hundred nights in town at a heavy 
 loss, and yet have proved gold-mines ; and I have 
 visited them at the call of duty and seen with my 
 trained eyes so few of the paying public that a mere 
 sense of decency would have compelled the managers 
 to close the doors if we had not been present. 
 
 Our assistance on these occasions is an odious part 
 of our duty. It goes sadly against my conscience to 
 be one of a kind of stage-army audience, playing a part 
 in order to deceive country or colonial managers into 
 the behef that some piece of rubbish has had a genuinely 
 successful London run. Is not service of this character 
 to be counted ? Surely, at the least, if we are to be 
 abohshed it should be recognized that the old hands 
 amongst us are entitled to some compensation. Why, 
 sir, seeing that serious politicians do not propose to 
 suppress licences for the sale of poisons without giving
 
 2i8 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 compensations, surely we, who have done much and 
 suffered much, ought not to be put into Umbo without 
 some recognition of our services. I remain, yours 
 sincerely, Caput Mortuum 
 
 Just a line. On careful consideration of this letter, it 
 seems only right to make a suggestion that some doubts 
 exist whether it is entirely genuine, but it certainly 
 appears to contain some grains of truth. 
 
 Theatrical Advertisements 
 
 It may be doubted whether the historian will call 
 our period " the age of advertisement," though some 
 have thought so. For there are such rapid and pro- 
 digious growths in the base craft of beating the big 
 drum that our most audacious and colossal efforts 
 may, to our grandchildren, seem like a Brown Bess to 
 a modern repeater in comparison with their means of 
 man-allurement. Of all the arts the one relying most 
 upon advertisement is the drama ; yet the phrase is 
 half-unjust to real drama. 
 
 Perhaps it is fairer to say that there is more advertise- 
 ment in connexion with the theatrical art than any 
 other, or, indeed, all the others put together. The 
 position is surprising ; a large mass of the reading 
 matter of the London papers is filled with copy con- 
 cerning the theatres and players, though only a small 
 percentage is criticism. More people would recognize 
 each of thirty popular performers than could identify 
 even one of the great in other branches of art or in 
 science. A recent squabble about a couple of actresses 
 has been the subject of greater fuss than would be 
 caused by the discovery of the lost books of Livy, of a 
 picture by Apelles, of the MS. of an unknown opera by
 
 THEATRICAL ADVERTISEMENTS 219 
 
 Beethoven, of a method of making accumulators out 
 of papier-mache, or a mode of manufacturing radium 
 at a cost of twopence a pound. There have been 
 thousands of columns printed concerning the marriages 
 of (so-called) actresses to young gentlemen of family. 
 
 A digression about these marriages is permissible. 
 Each has led to many articles on alliances between the 
 aristocracy and the stage, and lists of the ladies who in 
 our times have honoured (or dishonoured) the nobility 
 with their hands have been given. Yet there has been 
 little comment upon the fact that, with two or three 
 exceptions, the so-called actresses have had no position 
 of importance in the legitimate ranks of the profession. 
 A woman may perform in a theatre, and even draw a 
 big salary, without being an actress, and she may have 
 brains, beauty and popularity, and nevertheless enjoy 
 little chance of marrying anybody with a " handle to 
 his name," if she confines her work to the non-musical 
 stage. 
 
 A distinction suggests itself — it might be that in 
 music and the love of it by the nobly born lies the 
 explanation of the phenomenon ; it might be that the 
 blue-blooded youths captured these charmers of the 
 musico-dramatic department in order to enjoy a selfish 
 monopoly of lovely voices, but such is not the case. 
 Two or three of the ladies who have won their way to 
 the " hupper succles " possess talent ; one of them has 
 a beautiful voice and great gifts as an actress, and one 
 was a brilliant dancer and became an excellent comedi- 
 enne. The ruck and run of them, however, have 
 triumphed owing to advertisement in subtle and also 
 in crude forms. 
 
 Really the actresses of legitimate drama, whom one 
 should call the actresses, have a grievance not merely
 
 220 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 in the fact that the peerage does not woo them (since in 
 a good many instances the bride has paid dearly for her 
 elevation), nor merely because women of the oldest 
 profession open to the sex miscall themselves actresses 
 when in trouble — the term actress being like the word 
 " charity " — but because their title includes many 
 persons of notoriety who, if forced to rely solely upon 
 their talent, could hardly earn a pound a week in true 
 drama. *'True drama," for the common term " musico- 
 dramatic " points to the fact that the fortunate nymphs 
 belong to the lighter (and sometimes degraded) forms 
 of musical work and not of the legitimate drama. 
 Some wag, no doubt, has called their branch the 
 leg-itima-te drama. 
 
 In the mid- Victorian days the advertisements of 
 drama were trifling. Thirty years ago the photo- 
 graphs of Miss Maud Branscombe, a real beauty, but 
 not an actress of great quality, created quite a stir, and 
 made her name well known throughout the land ; and 
 the publication of them was, probably, the beginning 
 of the present deluge. The two illustrated papers of 
 importance published pictures only of actresses who by 
 means of their talent had made a genuine sensation ; 
 and therefore but few were presented in the year. 
 Nowadays there are from thirty to forty photographs 
 a week in the illustrated papers of actresses — using 
 the term in its widest sense. 
 
 Many young ladies, who twenty 3^ears ago could not 
 by any decent means have got their likenesses ex- 
 hibited to the public except in shop-window photo- 
 graphs, now simper at us fifty-two times a 3^ear, or 
 more, and are sometimes described as " the celebrated 
 actress," though a few of them never get beyond the 
 dignity of a single silly line in the book of a musical
 
 THEATRICAL ADVERTISEMENTS 221 
 
 hodge-podge. Miss XXX smiles at us from her 40-h.p. 
 " bloater car '' which has cost a larger sum than eight 
 years of her salary, and the simple-minded think she 
 must be a great star to be able to afford such a luxury, 
 not knowing that she herself is the luxury which someone 
 else is unable to afford. The humble old devices are 
 now stale tricks, The actress in search of notoriety 
 does not lose her jewels : she brings an action which 
 is reported at great length, and during it half-a-dozen 
 members of the profession get a splendid chance of 
 blowing their own trumpets. There was a cruel case a 
 little while ago : one of these " damaged darlings " of 
 the stage did lose her jewels — which had cost about as 
 much as that admirable actress Amy Roselle earned in 
 her honourable career with a tragic ending — but felt 
 bound to keep silent about the loss, since to have 
 mentioned it would have seemed like " out-of-date " 
 advertising. " View jew," she called it. 
 
 It would be unfair to suggest that the ladies have a 
 monopoly, for many of the actors also are busy in the 
 art of advertisement — some so busy as to have little 
 time to study the technique of their art. However, 
 they get rather less help from the illustrated papers, 
 for reasons not quite obvious, if it be correct, as some 
 suppose, that the picture journals are bought for the 
 — not by — the ladies of the family. 
 
 The puff system is disadvantageous to the managers, 
 since they have to pay fancy prices for the services of 
 players, no better than others who could be engaged 
 at humble rates, because they have acquired a specious 
 importance by advertisement. The result has been 
 a prodigious increase of salaries, without any corre- 
 sponding gain in revenue, for although the much- 
 " boomed " artist may attract people to a particular
 
 222 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 theatre, it is not to be assumed that the quantity of 
 playgoers is increased, or that more money is spent on 
 the whole by the public because of all this advertising. 
 
 The consequence to the managers, as a rule, is that 
 expenditure is much greater, but the total amount of 
 receipts remains the same. Yet the managers as a 
 body are not to be pitied, since not only do they, un- 
 wisely, assist in this artificial glorification of the mem- 
 bers of their companies, but some of them also push 
 the advertisement of their theatres beyond delicate 
 limits, and by the cunning strenuous efforts of their 
 *' press agents " and others beat the big drum very 
 loudly, sometimes sounding a false note, as when they 
 publish, in advertisements, garbled criticisms upon 
 their wares. 
 
 There are some in the theatrical world who dislike and 
 disdain the illegitimate advertisement. Others there 
 are less nicely scrupulous, perhaps, but not sufficiently 
 " smart " or lucky enough to " boom " themselves. 
 These suffer. Advertisement is to the theatrical world 
 like ground bait to anglers. We who, to some extent are 
 behind the scenes, know too well how many admirable 
 actors and actresses have a hard fight for a bare living 
 because their places are taken by people of less know- 
 ledge and skill, but more " push " and cunning. Even 
 the general rise in salaries does not help these reticent 
 players, for a salary at the rate of twenty pounds a week is 
 not very useful if you are resting ten months in the year. 
 
 It is quite incontestable that we journalists are to be 
 blamed. We help in the " booming " ; we are the big 
 drum, the players provide their own trumpets. A 
 conspiracy of silence on our part would do much to 
 mend matters. If for a little while we were to suppress 
 the " personal pars." and keep out the photographs and
 
 MUSIC 223 
 
 only write concerning the theatres strictly as critics, a 
 great change would take place. Probably the revenue 
 of the theatres would not diminish sensibly, but the 
 expenses would. Managers and players would be 
 forced to rely for success upon merit and nothing else, 
 and as a result the standard of drama and acting would 
 be raised. This has been so far perceived that even 
 people belonging to the other side of the footlights have 
 expressed publicly the opinion that the unsatisfactory 
 state of the theatres is partly due to their being too 
 much talked and written about 
 
 Rosalind's phrase that a " good wine needs no bush " 
 is but partly true ; merit rarely succeeds by its own 
 virtue when it has to meet unfair competition in the 
 shape of advertisement. 
 
 Music 
 
 A little while ago a man, who had not been to the 
 theatre for some years, was asked his reason. " The last 
 time I went," he replied, " it was to a tragedy, well 
 written and interesting, if hardly inspired, and after the 
 first act the band — nobody would call it an ' orchestra ' 
 — played a thing called * The Washington Post,' which 
 I discovered by the aid of the programme was written 
 by a noise-concocter called Sousa. I sat it out ; I had 
 no choice, for I was in the middle of a row, and in order 
 to escape I should have had to trample upon a dozen 
 inoffensive strangers. During the next act the abomin- 
 able noise kept coming back into my ears and distract- 
 ing me, so the drama was ruined for me." 
 
 It was pointed out to him that Mr Sousa is a very 
 popular composer, that millions of people love his com- 
 positions, that it is merely a minority, contemptible in 
 number, which loathes them. Still he caused thoughts.
 
 224 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 For a long time the musical folk have regarded the 
 entr'acte music simply as one of the unavoidable dis- 
 comforts of the playhouse ; but, really, managers might 
 be more careful. Apparently it is impossible to deal 
 satisfactorily with the question. There is a horrible 
 dilemma ; if the music is good you cannot enjoy it, 
 because you can hardly hear it, for the audience talk 
 too loudly, and there is the bustle of people coming in 
 and out, and one catches the voices of young ladies 
 inviting people in the stalls to take tea or coffee or to 
 buy chocolates, and the occupants of the pit to refresh 
 themselves with " ginger-beer, lemonade, bottled ale 
 or stout," a phrase to which they give a species of 
 rhythmical crescendo. 
 
 The difficulty is enhanced in some houses by the fact 
 that the orchestra is hidden in a species of box which is 
 almost noise-proof. On the other hand, if the music is 
 bad — generally the case — well, it is bad ; worse, still, 
 you can hear it easily. There is a kind of kink in nature 
 which breeds the law that very small interruptions will 
 mar your pleasure in good music, but nothing less than 
 a dynamite explosion can drown the bad ; even cotton 
 wool in your ears or the wax employed by the sailors 
 of Ulysses will not keep it out. 
 
 Some time ago Miss Lena Ashwell added to the debt 
 of playgoers towards her by installing an admirable 
 string quartet, which rendered real music so well that 
 many people went to her theatre almost as much for 
 the music as for the drama. Alas ! the string quartet 
 soon disappeared. Inquiries — of course not of persons 
 officially connected with the theatre — disclosed the fact 
 that there had been many complaints. People found it 
 difficult to hear themselves talk, and when they talked 
 loud enough playgoers who were enjoying the music
 
 MUSIC 225 
 
 said " Hush ! " and in other ways suggested that they 
 thought it bad form to chatter whilst the quartet was 
 playing ; so Miss Ash well — very reluctantly — was 
 forced to change the system. 
 
 The Kingsway Theatre formed an exception — not, 
 indeed, the only exception — to these remarks. The 
 whole question is very difficult. Theoretically, at 
 least, it is deplorable that there should be any interrup- 
 tion from the beginning to the end of a play. Dramas, 
 for full effect, should be in one act, or if they are too 
 long, and if a concession must be made to human 
 physical weakness, if an opportunity must be given to 
 people to stretch themselves or move in their seats, there 
 should be an interval of absolute silence or occupied by 
 music finely indicative of the emotional states intended 
 to be created by the drama. 
 
 This no doubt is a theory demanding perfection. Up 
 to a certain point efforts are made to realize it. Under 
 the generous management of Sir Herbert BeerbohmTree, 
 we often have music composed expressly for the drama 
 by musicians of quality, and sometimes it is well enough 
 written to deserve and afterwards obtain performance 
 in the concert-room. Yet in a sense it is a failure, 
 since it is imperfectly heard in the theatre ; the fault 
 lies with the audience, but it is hard to blame the 
 members of it. There is no crime in not being musical, 
 despite Shakespeare's prodigious phrase, " The man 
 that hath no music in himself ... is fit for treasons, 
 stratagems, and spoils," or Congreve's phrase concerning 
 music and the savage breast. We know that there are 
 many people otherwise finely equipped and alert in 
 matters of art who have no taste in or for music ; that 
 there are some of irreproachable judgment in literature 
 or painting who, like the officer in the story, recognize
 
 226 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 no tune save " God Save the King," and that only 
 because people stand up when it is played. Also we are 
 aware that some musicians are utter Philistines so far 
 as other branches of art are concerned. 
 
 It is difficult enough to get people to patronize the 
 theatres, and it would be madness to keep any away 
 by requiring them to make great sacrifices on the altar 
 of music. 
 
 The fact remains that the selection of music is often 
 very carelessly or foolishly made. To begin with, there 
 is an appalling lack of variety. At one period " Pomp 
 and Circumstance " was played in almost every theatre, 
 sometimes well, often badly, till we got sick of it. 
 Pieces such as " Apres le Bal " and "Simple Aveu" were 
 hurled at us every night. A statement of the number 
 of times that Nicolai's overture to The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor has been played in the theatres would stagger 
 people ; Gounod's Faust music and Edward German's 
 charming dances from Henry VII I., and one or two 
 overtures by Suppe and the Stradella music, have be- 
 come intolerable. 
 
 Without posing as the so-called " superior person," 
 without demanding unpopular classsics or asking for 
 the performance of serious chamber music or severe 
 symphonies, or expressing a desire for Bach — a holiday 
 might very well be given to the Bach-Gounod " Ave 
 Maria " — we merely pray for greater variety and also 
 for more careful consideration of the congruity between 
 the play and the character of the entr'acte and 
 introductory music. 
 
 It should be the duty of somebody to see that an 
 effort is made to confine the music to works harmonious 
 with the emotions which the dramatist intends to 
 excite. We ought not to have the " Teddy Bears'
 
 MUSIC 227 
 
 Picnic " just after hearing the heroine weep over the 
 idea that her husband is faithless ; whilst the feelings 
 caused by the agonies of Othello are not strengthened 
 by hearing the " Light Cavalry " overture ; and the 
 Faust ballad music falls queerly upon the despair of the 
 hero when he learns that he is ruined. It may be ad- 
 mitted that in many instances an effort is made to carry 
 out these entirely unoriginal views, but even in some 
 of our most carefully conducted playhouses there are 
 strange lapses. 
 
 There is another point. It very often happens that 
 the list of pieces printed upon the programme, for which 
 in most of the theatres a charge of sixpence is made, is 
 a mere snare. Sometimes none of the pieces mentioned 
 is played, whilst to alter the order is quite a common 
 matter. No doubt this gives some uncharitable amuse- 
 ment to people who overhear the conversation of 
 ignorant playgoers misled by the programme. There 
 was an unfortunate foreigner who said to his neighbour, 
 " Pas un aigle, leur fameux Elgar " when he thought he 
 was listening to " Pomp and Circumstance," whilst the 
 orchestra in fact was playing " Whistling Rufus." 
 
 The ideal system, no doubt, was that of Miss Ashwell, 
 who gave a long list of pieces in the programme with 
 numbers to them, and then had the number appropriate 
 to the particular work hoisted before it was played. 
 This is only the ideal in one sense. In reality, the best 
 course is suggested by a famous maxim : " Optima 
 medicina est medicina non uti." The Stage Society is 
 wise in following the custom sanctioned by such an 
 august institution as La Comedie Fran(;:aise. After all, 
 we want to make the theatres less of a gamble and to 
 reduce needless expenses so as not to render the battle 
 a triumph for the long purse. If the orchestras of the
 
 228 THINGS IN THE THEATRE 
 
 theatres were in the habit of giving a real service to 
 music by producing the shorter pieces of talented com- 
 posers who are struggling for recognition ; if, as might 
 well be the case, they offered a hearing to the young 
 musicians of talent of whom we now have plenty, then 
 no doubt they would deserve encouragement. As the 
 matter stands, they perform too small a service to music 
 to warrant the tax imposed by them on drama.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 Laughter 
 
 OF late years there has been a good deal of censure, 
 most of it unwritten, upon the stage management 
 of plays. Despite brilliant exhibitions of the art of 
 stage management by people such as Pinero and Mr 
 Granville Barker, there have been more bad perform- 
 ances in modern times than of old. 
 
 The matter is one into which it is needless to go at 
 large upon the present occasion ; yet there is one vice 
 that should be mentioned. We often have much loud 
 laughter upon the stage that hardly causes so much 
 as a faint echo on the other side of the footlights. 
 Now, when the characters in a piece laugh heartily, 
 or at least loudly, at something supposed to divert 
 them, which does not appeal successfully to the sense 
 of humour of the audience, the effect is disastrous. It 
 is exasperating to hear laughter — even feigned laughter 
 — in which one cannot join. 
 
 There are people who believe that laughter is in- 
 fectious, and that if the persons of the play laugh a 
 great deal the audience will catch the infection. This 
 is not universally or even generally true. A few 
 individual players no doubt have an infectious laugh. 
 Samary was famous for it, and her laughter in one of 
 Moliere's farces drew all Paris ; and another French 
 229
 
 230 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 actress by her prodigious laughter in a farce at the 
 Royalty raised the audience to hearty sympathetic 
 outbursts. Most players, however, though they may 
 mimic laughter very well, are unable to make the 
 audience laugh sympathetically, unless really amused by 
 what is supposed to entertain the characters of the play. 
 
 If someone were to invent a laughter-recording 
 machine and use it in the theatre during farces the 
 stage-managers would be amazed to find how often it 
 happens that the noise of laughter made by two or 
 three persons on the stage is greater than that made by 
 the whole audience ; whenever this occurs it is certain 
 that a kind of irritation is being bred in the house for 
 which someone has to suffer. 
 
 This is the sort of thing that happens. A character 
 enters and announces that something very ludicrous 
 has befallen another character, and proceeds to state 
 what it is to the other persons in the scene, the statement 
 being interrupted by his outbursts of laughter, and they 
 in turn roar and hold their sides ; yet often enough 
 what is being told does not seem very amusing to us — 
 even, perhaps, appears puerile — so we are vexed, and 
 smile coldly at the piece and players. If the laughter 
 on the stage were more moderate ours would not be the 
 less, and we should feel more benevolent to the play and 
 laugh with greater freedom if and when something 
 funny took place. 
 
 The whole question of laughter is curious and diffi- 
 cult. There is one fairly constant first-nighter whose 
 loud laughter upon insufficient provocation sometimes 
 irritates the house, to the prejudice of the play ; not 
 long ago one of our young actresses laughed so immoder- 
 ately, as a spectator, at trifles during a performance 
 that some of the audience actually uttered inarticulate
 
 LAUGHTER 231 
 
 sounds, intended to suggest to her that she should be 
 quieter. 
 
 Everybody knows the terrible people who laugh in 
 a theatre at the wrong place, or indulge in the wrong 
 kind of laughter, and are hilarious during pathetic 
 passages, the pathos of which is heightened by touches 
 of cruel humour. Some commit this crime from simple 
 stupidity, not perceiving that the humour is tragic, not 
 comic ; others because they think that dignity of 
 character is shown if they refuse to be moved by 
 imaginary woes. The person is hateful who cannot 
 shed an honest, if furtive, tear at a finely conceived and 
 executed pathetic incident in a play, and the more 
 if he is proud of his insensibility or lack of imagination ; 
 and we love an honest fellow who, like Jules Janin, 
 wept *' comme un veau " during La Dame aux Camellias. 
 Such insensible creatures resemble " the man that hath 
 no music in himself." Sometimes their conduct is so 
 severely resented by audible protest that they are 
 shamed into restraint. 
 
 It seems quite a long time since we have had a genuine 
 debauch of hearty laughter in the theatre, of "Laughter 
 holding both his sides." There has been a great deal 
 of laughter, but it must be remembered that there are 
 several kinds of laughter. So much difference exists 
 between one species of laughter and another that the 
 close observer can guess from the nature of the laughter in 
 the theatre what is the sort of piece which provokes it. 
 
 No doubt the subject of laughter is one of great diffi- 
 culty. On the point one may quote a passage from 
 Darwin : " Many curious discussions have been written 
 on the causes of laughter with grown-up persons. The 
 subject is extremely complex . . . laughter seems 
 primarily to be the expression of mere joy or happiness.
 
 232 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 The laughter of the gods is described by Homer as 
 ' the exuberance of their celestial joy after their daily 
 banquet.' " This, perhaps, hardly agrees with the 
 popular idea of the term " Homeric laughter." 
 
 It ma}^ be that in the phrases of Darwin one sees a 
 key to the difference between the laughter at witty 
 dialogue and the laughter caused by comic situation, the 
 former being an expression of intellectual amusement, 
 not necessarily accompanied by " mere joy or happi- 
 ness," whilst the latter is to a great extent the outcome 
 of simple, non-intellectual human pleasure. In the 
 case of a witty comedy one hears ripples of laughter 
 rather than waves, and they have no cumulative effect, 
 one may even laugh during a great part of the evening 
 without reaching that agony of laughter which comes 
 from an intensely funny situation — in fact, each laugh 
 at dialogue is to some extent independent of the others. 
 In the case of a funny situation there is a crescendo, and 
 sometimes each outburst of laughter begins at the 
 highest point reached by the outburst before it, till an 
 intense pitch is attained ; and, in fact, there is really no 
 complete subsidence at all till the top of the climax is 
 arrived at, but one is chuckling in between every spasm. 
 
 The term " screamingly funny " has a real meaning ; 
 one reaches an almost screaming pitch that leads to 
 something like physical exhaustion, and certainly 
 causes an aching of the sides, and even tears. 
 
 Another quotation from Darwin : " During exces- 
 sive laughter the whole body is often thrown backwards 
 and shakes, or is almost convulsed ; the respiration is 
 much disturbed ; the head and face become gorged 
 with blood, with the veins distorted ; and the orbicular 
 muscles are spasmodically contracted in order to pro- 
 tect the eyes. Tears are freely shed." On this one
 
 SMOKING 233 
 
 may refer to a phrase by Sir Joshua Reynolds : "It 
 is curious to observe, and it is certainly true, that the 
 extremes of contrary passions are, with very little 
 variation, expressed by the same action." Yet another 
 passage from Darwin : " With Europeans hardly any- 
 thing excites laughter so easily as mimicry, and it is 
 rather curious to find the same fact with the savages of 
 Australia, who constitute one of the most distinct races 
 in the world/' 
 
 Probably the enjoyment of the spectator simply as an 
 animal is higher, if in a sense lower, when it comes 
 from situations than when it is due to dialogue. Of 
 course there is no sharp line of demarcation. One 
 understands, however, why successful farce is more 
 popular than a successful comedy, even if afterwards 
 the audience suffer a little from aching sides ; the ache 
 itself causes a pleasurable memory. 
 
 Some time ago there was a popular comic picture of 
 the awakening of a young man who had been very 
 drunk the night before, and was suffering from a head- 
 ache and a black eye, and clearly had had some exciting 
 adventures, of which his memor}^ was faint ; the simple 
 legend attached was, " What a ripping time I must 
 have had last night ! " One can imagine the playgoer 
 after the farce, rare, alas ! which honestly may be 
 called side-splitting, saying to himself next morning, 
 " What a ripping time I must have had last night ! " 
 and advising all his friends to go and see the play. 
 
 Smoking In the Auditorium 
 
 At last permission has been given, and the statement 
 " You may smoke " can be printed on the programmes 
 of the theatres hcensed by the L.C.C. ; and it is be-
 
 234 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 lieved that the Lord Chamberlain is wilhng to follow 
 suit. Some of our more important managers have 
 already announced that they will not permit smoking 
 in the auditorium of their playhouses, nor is this sur- 
 prising. Some of us would sooner sacrifice our own 
 smoke than get a headache from that of others ; and 
 the reason for the rareness of our attendance at music- 
 halls is that we have to pay for every visit by a smarting 
 of the eyes and a feeling in the head somewhat like that 
 caused by the famous Sicilian torture. 
 
 What the ladies suffer goodness and they — the terms 
 are perhaps sjmonymous — alone know. If and when 
 the Suffragettes come into power, we shall have a 
 prodigious counterblast to tobacco that would delight 
 the Stuart James of unsainted memory or the now 
 illustrious Balzac. For although the militant sex has 
 many members who rejoice in a cigarette, the majority 
 are bitterly adverse to an expensive habit, offensive 
 to those who do not practise it, and exceedingly un- 
 coquettish when indulged in seriously. Probably if 
 the reign of My Lad}^ Nicotine had never begun, and if 
 no other enslaving habit of a like nature had taken a 
 similar place, the theatres would be better off than at 
 present. Permission to smoke will not deal with the 
 difficulty ; yet probably the habit of smoking keeps 
 a very large number of people away from the theatre. 
 
 Without proposing to win any of the colossal prizes 
 offered to people who guess the quantity of tobacco 
 imported into this country in a particular month, one 
 may venture to assert that there has been a tremendous 
 increase in smoking during the last twenty years ; and, 
 indeed, we all know that the man who does not smoke 
 is almost a curiosity nowadays. 
 
 The rules of offices, the customs of certain trades, the
 
 SMOKING 235 
 
 etiquette of some professions, and the like, prevent a 
 great many men from having more than a trifling 
 flirtation with tobacco till after dinner. The greedy 
 smoker may get a pipe after breakfast, a whiff during 
 lunch-time, and a pipe before dinner, which he takes 
 distrustfully, because he has been told not to smoke 
 on an empty stomach, but he looks to the hours after 
 dinner for the debauch that turns his lungs from pink 
 to brown. Moreover, there are many men who do not 
 care to smoke till after dinner. 
 
 What a deprivation to all these to be bustled through 
 a shortened dinner, to be scalded by coffee hastily 
 drunk, and merely get a few puffs before they find them- 
 selves in a playhouse, where, by the way, so that insult 
 may be added to injury, they often watch the actors 
 smoking comfortably. A wise manager would not allow 
 smoking on the stage except in very rare cases. The 
 entr'actes amount to little ; there is a rush of smokers, 
 but many cannot leave their seats without giving offence 
 to their companions, and some are too timid to fight 
 their way from the centre of a row ; and, after all, the 
 entr'acte smoke, which takes place in a crowd so thick 
 that you cannot tell the flavour of your own cigarette 
 from that of other people, is rather irritating than 
 satisfying. Of course there remains the period after 
 the theatre, but it is comparatively brief for the man 
 of whom we are speaking, since after the labours of the 
 day and the fatigue of the evening he is tired enough 
 to be rather anxious for sleep. 
 
 When the British householder is invited to take his 
 womenfolk to the theatre, the thought that he will have 
 to make such a sacrifice affects his judgment, a fact of 
 which he is probably unaware. Very often it is the 
 determining cause of refusal, and when he thinks con-
 
 236 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 sciously of it, of course he is not so foolish as to put it 
 forward, but pleads this and that and indeed every 
 other cause for keeping away. Many times have men 
 said, " I don't care to go to the theatre unless there is 
 something awfully good, because one is not allowed 
 to smoke " ; and the question may well be asked, 
 What is offered to the man in place of his cigar or 
 pipe ? Shakespeare, unless severely adapted, and, in 
 fact, treated as the book for a picturesque musico- 
 dramatic performance, does not appeal very movingly 
 to rhomme moyen sensuel, nor do the sentimental 
 puppet stories which form the stock of our theatre 
 fascinate him. A rousing farce will serve, but then the 
 womenfolk do not want that. They are all for sentiment 
 and dainty frocks which they may imitate — unsuccess- 
 fully — and for handsome heroes and love-making and 
 other prettinesses which appeal to the daughters who 
 live a kind of second-hand life in them, and to the 
 mothers rendered for a while 3^oung by them, wliilst 
 paterfamilias looks on, uncomfortable in his seat, 
 irritated very often by draughts which his decolletee 
 dame does not notice — till afterwards — a little curious 
 as to the cost of the whole affair, and after a while, 
 in a state of semi-somnolence, thinking a good deal 
 of the events of the day and the Alpine attitude of the 
 Bank rate or the slump in Consols. 
 
 The poor dear man would be in a better humour if 
 he were allowed his pipe. According to the French, 
 the plain housewife looks charming to her husband 
 when seen through the fumes of a good soup, and so 
 
 too the plays of Mr (perhaps it is wise to 
 
 suppress the name) might appear entertaining to the 
 British householder if a cloud of tobacco smoke were to 
 intervene.
 
 SMOKING 237 
 
 One of the victims made a suggestion the other day 
 which may be worth consideration. " Why not," he 
 said, " add to the theatre a comfortable kind of club- 
 room, where a fellow might see the papers, and perhaps 
 have a game of bridge, or even billiards, when the 
 curtain was up, whilst he could keep his wife in good 
 humour by paying her a call during the intervals ?" 
 There is something rather touching in the idea of a 
 little crowd trooping in instead of bustling out when 
 the curtain falls. 
 
 The innovation might at least have one advantage — 
 it would force the managers to be intelligent enough 
 to make a really audible noise a few minutes before 
 the end of each entr'acte, so as to give people the 
 chance of settling down in their places before the curtain 
 rises. Of the many incomprehensible things con- 
 nected with the theatre one of the most puzzling is 
 the fact that quite conscientious playgoers get caught 
 outside the auditorium after the curtain is up. The 
 management is anxious that as many people as possible 
 should go to the bars, yet they render it very difficult 
 to get there ; they desire that those who have gone 
 should return to their seats before the curtain rises, 
 lest friction should be caused, but all they do as a rule 
 is to ring some inaudible bell, and cause the attendant 
 to whisper, as if delicately announcing bad news, 
 *' Curtain just going up, gentlemen," and neither 
 curtain nor whisper gives long enough time to enable 
 people to settle down comfortably. 
 
 It is to be feared that this sort of club idea would not 
 really work, for reasons some of them quite obvious. 
 The fact remains that paterfamilias, still a person of 
 some importance, is invited to patronize the theatre, 
 and not only asked to pay a good deal of money in
 
 238 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 order to do so but forced to make a number of physical 
 sacrifices ; and at the end is offered, as a rule, the kind 
 of piece not intended to please him, but designed for 
 the taste of his womenfolk. 
 
 Here we see one of the reasons for the popularity of 
 the musical comedy. The householder is not required 
 to trouble himself to understand a plot which hardly 
 exists ; he may go to sleep if he pleases, or think over 
 his affairs in between the tit-bits without losing the 
 thread ; there are simple tunes, which certainly aid 
 his digestion, and broad elementary humours that 
 appeal to his sense of fun ; and, if he is in a sentimental 
 vein, whatever love-making there may be in the piece 
 has no subtlety to exasperate him. 
 
 Despite these things, let us hope that the West End 
 managers will be hostile to the smoking ; for, after all, 
 far too much of our drama at present is intended to 
 please the comfortable Philistine and his appropriate 
 womenfolk ; and the people keenly interested in drama 
 as a branch of art are prepared even to sacrifice a pipe 
 or a cigar in the pursuit of their peculiar and hardly 
 popular pleasure. Moreover, it is likely the theatres 
 would exhibit the snobbishness of the fashionable halls 
 and restaurants and taboo the pipe which every wise 
 man prefers to the cigar or cigarette for serious smoking. 
 
 Conduct of the Audience 
 
 When Mr Joseph Holbrooke was conducting the over- 
 ture to Pierrot and Pierrette at His Majesty's Theatre 
 he interrupted the orchestra in order to request some 
 members of the audience to stop talking. These 
 speakers were people in the stalls, and the composer- 
 conductor could hear that their conversation was
 
 CONDUCT OF THE AUDIENCE 239 
 
 about shopping — not Chopin, which, alas ! is sometimes 
 pronounced as if the name rhymed with " popping." 
 
 No one can feel surprised that a composer finds it 
 impossible to do his work adequately as conductor 
 when there is audible conversation among members of 
 the audience. Mr Holbrooke drew attention to what 
 happens very often in our playhouses : people come 
 apparently entertaining the idea that if they have paid 
 for their seats they owe no duty towards their neigh- 
 bours or the author, composer or players. This idea, 
 unfortunately, is not confined to those who have paid 
 for their seats, since some of the dramatic critics, and 
 also several of the ordinary *' deadheads," set a bad 
 example. 
 
 The most noisome offenders are those who come late 
 on purpose, because they are anxious to draw public 
 attention to their existence. They, of course, are 
 snobs of the worst water, whatever their social status 
 or the cost of their clothes, furs and jewellery ; you 
 see them bustling in a quarter of an hour after the 
 curtain has risen, shoving their way along past people 
 who rise reluctantly, and hear them chattering whilst 
 they take off cloaks and wraps before settling down in 
 their seats. Very little less detestable are those who, 
 arriving late unwillingly, behave otherwise in the same 
 fashion. One of these brawlers defended herself by 
 alleging that there ought to be a gangway down the 
 middle of the stalls, and that her conduct was a protest. 
 
 Of course there ought to be a gangway, and some day 
 the County Council will insist upon the formation of 
 one in every theatre, or else force the manager to put 
 the rows of stalls so far apart that people can pass 
 along them in comfort. We know that on the whole 
 managers do not care much about the comfort of their
 
 240 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 patrons ; they seem to act on the supposition that plays 
 are of only two classes, those so attractive that 3'ou 
 cannot keep the public away and those so unattractive 
 that you cannot get it to come. 
 
 The London theatre de luxe is still a dream of the 
 future, though undoubtedly some playhouses are vastly 
 more comfortable than others. The authorities are 
 lax in this matter, as in the matter of exits ; the crush 
 in getting out of most of the playhouses is abominable. 
 No doubt there are extra exits which might be used in 
 case of peril ; people ought to be compelled to use them 
 every night, so that a habit would be established on 
 the part of audiences and also of the attendants. 
 
 The patience with which the audience endures the 
 misconduct of some of its members is surprising. We 
 hear inarticulate noises of disapproval when people 
 gossip in the stalls and occasionally somebody goes so 
 far as to whisper " Don't talk " ; the result is that the 
 chatterers chatter rather more quietly for a little while, 
 and soon are as noisy as before. Frequently some 
 members laugh scornfully at pathetic passages moving 
 the heart of most of the house, and this laughter is 
 often due to a snobbish desire to show superiority 
 to those who weep. 
 
 We have heard something lately of a phrase about 
 " collective psychology and the psychology of crowds." 
 The phenomenon referred to very rarely has much effect 
 in the London playhouses at the first night : on these 
 occasions there are too many discordant elements. 
 Most of the critics form non-conductors to the passage 
 of what has been regarded as analogous to an electrical 
 current, and their non-conductivity is very little 
 greater than that of many of the people who receive 
 complimentary tickets or have the honour of being on
 
 CONDUCT OF THE AUDIENCE 241 
 
 the first-night Hst. Perhaps the general pubHc is un- 
 aware that the more fashionable theatres have a list 
 of people to whom is accorded a preferential allotment 
 of seats. 
 
 Sometimes there is a momentary thrill ; one feels 
 distinctl}^ that the audience is in unison, and that the 
 pitch of feeling of the individual is heightened by the 
 feelings of the crowd. These moments are generally 
 caused by pieces of acting or by what is rarely contrived, 
 and can only happen once in the history of a piece, a 
 successful, effective surprise. As an instance, there 
 was a unanimous gasp of surprise and pleasure at the 
 brilliant coup de theatre with which John Oliver Hobbes 
 ended a difficult scene in The Ambassador, and then 
 came a prodigious outburst of applause. What a loss 
 to our stage the premature death of that admirable 
 novelist, who showed an amazing gift for the technique 
 of the theatre. 
 
 One reads not unfrequently accounts of an ex- 
 hibition of this " collective psychology '' in the play- 
 house, even in the London theatres. Some of such 
 accounts are untrustworthy, and due to mere hysterical 
 writing by those who profess to record them. No 
 doubt the curious shyness of the English plan's its part : 
 a man will laugh, or clap his hands, or hiss, or " boo " 
 when others are so doing, who from mere mauvaise honte 
 — a convenient untranslatable term — would make 
 no noise if alone. Perhaps one might safely say that 
 the smaller the crowd the smaller relatively as well as 
 absolutely the noise due to the exhibition of the emotion 
 of its component parts. This, however, has little to 
 do with the phenomenon in question, which very rarely 
 operates in London, because the upper classes think it 
 ungenteel to express emotion in public.
 
 242 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 People read stories of scenes of " tremendous en- 
 thusiasm " on a first night, of Miss or Mrs A or Mr B 
 receiving a dozen calls : as a rule they are absurdly 
 exaggerated — they mean that the bulk of the pit and 
 gallery have applauded heartily and persistently, and 
 so, too, a small proportion of people in the upper boxes, 
 dress circle, and stalls, the ratio steadily decreasing ; 
 that the employees of '' the front of the house " ener- 
 getically did their duty; in many cases that the unrecog- 
 nized claque has earned its fee ; that the curtain has 
 been raised and lowered with frantic energy, and that 
 a large number of people, after some preliminary clap- 
 ping, regarded the scene with curiosity and amusement, 
 their pulses beating at quite a normal pace. 
 
 Things may be different in other lands. Perhaps 
 our ancestors were less " genteel," certainly there were 
 fewer " non-conductors " in the houses ; but still 
 it is doubtful whether belief should be given to 
 some of the old stories about tremendous exhibitions 
 of emotion in the playhouse. One has to discount 
 many of the triumphs of great singers because there is 
 an element of desire for an " encore " in them. More- 
 over, music is beside the question, because its appeal is 
 of a different character from that of drama. 
 
 These remarks may seem to have a grudging tone, to 
 sound as if one desired to belittle the triumphs of the 
 stage: in reality their object is simply to state what 
 a careful observer regards as facts bearing upon an 
 interesting, important question. Broadly speaking, it is 
 doubtful whether in our theatres the phenomenon dis- 
 cussed under the name of " the psychology of crowds " 
 is manifested to a substantial effect, except on very rare 
 occasions, partly, no doubt, because a London audience 
 is intensely heterogeneous — a wave of emotion in a
 
 THE PIT 243 
 
 West End playhouse has to surmount a large number 
 of obstacles, losing force at each, or, to change the figure, 
 a current of emotion has to pass through a great many 
 bad conductors. 
 
 In respect only of laughter does the crowd exercise 
 its power at all frequently, and then, as a rule, the 
 subject-matter is not of the finest quality. Laughter 
 certainly is infectious, curiously infectious, but it is 
 more catching when caused by farce than by comedy. 
 Few of us could deny that, as a member of the crowd, 
 he has not sometimes laughed against his will and 
 judgment at matters possessing a humble standard of 
 humour. We are not grateful afterwards to the author 
 or the low comedians — we suffer from an unpleasant 
 loss of self-respect when we have been coerced by the 
 crowd into laughing at mere buffooneries. 
 
 Concerning the Pit 
 
 Sometimes the ticket sent for a first night suggests a 
 belief by the manager in the theory that the further 
 one is from the stage the better one can see and hear — 
 a theory which is accepted as accurate by none save the 
 managers themselves. Possibly the seats in question are 
 allotted in order to keep us at an agreeable distance from 
 the orchestra, which in many theatres is altogether un- 
 desirable, or at least plays much music of an exasper- 
 ating character. When such tickets come, and the 
 seat is in the last row of the stalls, it is worth while to 
 go to the theatre unpunctually before the appointed 
 time. 
 
 By the way, it is noticeable that theatres are divisible 
 into two classes — those at which the curtain is raised 
 with a military severity at the very moment when the
 
 244 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 clock strikes, and others where a quarter of an hour's 
 grace is given — to the players. In the case of French 
 companies, old hands never hesitate about playing 
 " another hundred up " before starting for the play- 
 house. A wise manager would be guided a little by 
 the weather and always allow a few minutes' margin 
 when it is foggy or rainy, for the audiences are neces- 
 sarily delayed by such weather. 
 
 By getting to one's seat early, even before the time 
 when the band is indulging in that part of its perform- 
 ance which is said to have been peculiarly agreeable to 
 the Shah of Persia who visited London in the seventies, 
 we enjoy certain humours. 
 
 Incidentally, it may be asked whether the ordinary 
 playgoer exactly appreciates the position of the last 
 rows of the stalls. Probably he beheves that there 
 is a gulf fixed between the stalls and the pit, and 
 does not know that there is merely a barrier. Now a 
 barrier can be removed easily — a gulf cannot. When 
 paying his half-guinea the simple visitor imagines that 
 the difference between the price of his seat and that of 
 a place in the pit is to a great extent based upon an 
 advantage of nearness — although it appears that some 
 managers do not think that propinquity involves a 
 gain. 
 
 As a matter of fact, a considerable portion of the 
 floor of the house is occupied by stalls or pit, according 
 to the nature of the business done in the theatre. If a 
 piece is not attracting fashionable folk the barrier is 
 moved towards the footlights, the chairs are changed 
 to benches, and the place which at the premiere some 
 deadhead proudly occupied as a stall takes a " back 
 seat," and sinks to the indignity of becoming pit ; and, 
 of course, the converse sometimes happens.
 
 THE PIT 245 
 
 It is amusing to hear the people on the other side 
 discussing the entrance of the stall first-nighters, many 
 of whom are identified. One hears comments upon 
 the gowns, and sometimes severe remarks about the 
 alleged misdeeds of the professional critics, as well as 
 unflattering observations concerning the personal ap- 
 pearance of some of us. We might a tale unfold that 
 would freeze a good many young bloods, but for a nice 
 question of confidence. 
 
 The inhabitants of the pit really deserve a study. 
 It may be said that they are sometimes more interesting 
 than the play itself. There is a tradition that wisdom 
 lies in the pit as Truth at the bottom of a well. Many 
 articles have been written pointing out that the judg- 
 ment of the pit is sounder than the opinion of other 
 parts of the house, that the pitites are the real, serious, 
 reflective, critical playgoers whose views are worth 
 more than those of the playgoers either in the gallery 
 or the most costly seats. 
 
 For a long time some of us believed in this tradition, 
 probably, in fact, until circumstances caused us to 
 move forward and study plays from the other side of 
 the ambulatory barrier. One thing is certain — the pit 
 plays a very great part in determining on a first night 
 the apparent failure or success of a play, for on most 
 occasions comparatively little noise is made b}^ way of 
 applause or condemnation save in the pit and gallery. 
 
 The stalls are remarkably frigid, though, on the other 
 hand, they never, or hardly ever, show any active 
 signs of disapproval. Somewhat false impressions are 
 produced upon critics nearer to the footlights than the 
 back seats. One of them the other day stated " the 
 fall of the curtain was greeted with hearty and long- 
 sustained applause from all parts of the house." Yet
 
 246 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 three of us noted — and compared notes — that after a 
 little clapping, followed b}^ one elevation of the curtain, 
 the stalls did not contribute at all to the cheers. That 
 evening there was a peculiarity in the pit's applause. 
 It was " patchy." Here and there little groups were 
 very noisy, and at the wings were some people from the 
 " front of the house," quite enthusiastic about a per- 
 formance of which they could have seen very little if 
 they had attended to their duties, whilst there were 
 noiseless areas of considerable size. 
 
 There is no need to suggest that the pit lacks judg- 
 ment merely because it is composed very largely of 
 those from whose mouths, according to the Psalmist, 
 cometh forth wisdom; not, indeed, that in our West End 
 houses there are present those very youthful playgoers 
 who cause a disturbance by their audible refusal of the 
 attendant's proposal of " ginger-beer, lemonade, bottled 
 ale, or . . . stout," being tired perhaps of the last- 
 named beverage owing to the quantities they have 
 taken — vicariously. Nevertheless, the pit on many 
 first nights is wonderfully young ; indeed, we calculated 
 the other night that the average age of its temporary 
 inhabitants was much less than half that of the dis- 
 tinguished company representing the pla}^ and con- 
 siderably less than that of the people whose late arrival 
 caused murmurs and even words of disapproval. 
 
 It is natural for youth to be more enthusiastic than 
 middle age, so one may easily explain the fact that the 
 pit is more exuberant in demonstration than the stalls 
 without the theory of the electrical effect of contact on 
 crowds, a theory which ever}^ journalist at some stage 
 of his career believes himself to be the first to have dis- 
 covered. 
 
 Not only are they very youthful in the pit, but they
 
 THE PIT 247 
 
 have grace as well as youth. The other night in the front 
 row there were only three members of the sex which 
 does not know how to get out of a shop without making 
 a purchase, and in the back rows, although the per- 
 centage of " angels " was not so high, it was quite 
 noteworthy. Probably in all parts of the house, 
 except at one or two theatres, there is a preponderance 
 of women in the audience, and this may have some 
 subtle connexion with the converse proportion of male 
 and female characters in the cast ; it may be observed 
 that there is some change in the proportion of the sexes 
 at theatres where there is no actor whose photographs 
 sell prodigiously. 
 
 A sort of alteration seems quietly taking place in 
 the costume of the pit, and not a few of the young ladies 
 have come very close to a solution of a problem baffling 
 to the Englishwomen belonging to what one may fairly 
 regard as of somewhat higher stratum — the problem 
 of inventing and wearing a demi-toilette. 
 
 It should be added that in some theatres the critics 
 have good seats allotted to them. Indeed as a 
 rule the courtesy shown to us is in something 
 like direct ratio to the importance of the manage- 
 ment. 
 
 Speaking for a moment seriously, one may say that 
 whilst the ordinary first-night pit is full of enthusiasts, 
 it would be rash to attach very great value to its mani- 
 festations of opinion concerning the value of really 
 ambitious plays, though in respect of most pieces, and 
 performances too, its judgment may be regarded as 
 satisfactory, since it fairly represents those aimed at by 
 authors and players. The higher class of comedy and 
 the severely intellectual drama demand a more mature 
 judgment.
 
 248 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 Why do we go to the Theatre ? 
 
 To ask why people go to the theatre seems silly ; for 
 the answer appears to be quite obvious ; yet as soon 
 as one answer is offered half-a-dozen others suggest 
 themselves. Let us put do^\^l a few roughly : for 
 entertainment, for amusement, for distraction, for 
 instruction, to see the play or players in vogue, to be 
 seen, to have something to talk about. Also there are 
 cross-divisions and combinations of these ; perhaps 
 none of them is quite exclusive. Another question may 
 be asked : Why do people stay away though able to 
 go ? How is it that some find insufficient pleasure in 
 them ? — for " pleasure " may be used as a term em- 
 bracing the first four answers. 
 
 A cook, a Frenchwoman, once in the service of a 
 dramatic critic, did not visit the theatre, and stated as 
 her reason for not caring to do so that she took no 
 interest in the affairs of other people ; and secondly, 
 that if she went and got moved by the troubles 
 of the dramatis personcB the thought suddenly occurred 
 to her that they were not real persons and real troubles, 
 and therefore she had wasted her sjnnpathy, wherefore 
 she was vexed, being an economical creature, so far as 
 sympathy, not butter, is concerned. On the other hand, 
 she admitted the payment of a number of visits to 
 Pezon's circus, where they had a lion with a bad repu- 
 tation, into whose jaw at every performance a decolletee 
 lady put her painted head. For the cordon-bleu hoped 
 that the hon would exhibit disapproval of the paint 
 and powder by chumping off the offending head, and 
 that would have been frightfully thrilling. 
 
 Also she had a grievance because our executions are 
 not public. She would like to see the^ murderers
 
 WHY PEOPLE GO TO THE THEATRE 249 
 
 gigoter tm peu ; to her that would be a more subhme 
 spectacle than the most prodigious effects at His 
 Majesty's. 
 
 The papers lately contained accounts of the produc- 
 tion at a music-hall of bioscope pictures of a horrible 
 catastrophe in which many lives were lost, and 
 stated that they were received with applause from the 
 spectators, who derived much pleasure from looking at 
 them. The French wi elder of the houqtiet garni, in 
 default of more bloodthirsty entertainment, would be de- 
 lighted by them. It has often been remarked that an 
 element of danger in a public performance is an element 
 of attraction, and that the attraction is in proportion to 
 the danger. These remarks are not entirel}^ discon- 
 nected ; they are relevant in considering the question 
 why people go to the theatre. 
 
 For, with all respect to the establishments of the 
 highest class, one must recognize the fact that there is a 
 family relation between the noblest theatre and the 
 humblest side-show at a country fair or East End 
 museum. To be juster, the family relation is not 
 between the things seen, but between the feelings 
 which prompt people to pay money to see them. 
 
 It is often a mere toss-up whether X, Y or Z goes to 
 a theatre or a music-hall, or a collection of " side shows" 
 or a boxing-match ; and the only solid wall of demarca- 
 tion in pleasuredom lies between going to see something 
 which pretends to be something else, and going to see 
 something which admits itself to be its painful self. 
 On the one hand, we have Smith posing as the Prince 
 of Denmark ; on the other the fat woman, whose 
 unpleasant mass of unhealthy flesh is real — the lady 
 giant hovers between reality and fiction. On the 
 one side art, on the other artless entertainment : but,
 
 250 IN THE PLAYHOUSE 
 
 after all, it is difficult to say that this wall is very 
 solid, since sometimes the artless department is 
 abominably artful, and sometimes, as in the famous 
 story of the mimic with a live pig in a poke, the real is 
 an impostor. 
 
 The interest in the matter lies mainly with the 
 audience, with the human beings greedy for pleasure 
 and entertainment, with the traveller who, after a 
 happy evening at the Comedie Frangaise, endeavours 
 to get taken to the abattoirs of Paris, or risks his life 
 in a visit to the outer Boulevards in order to visit some 
 pestilential Cafe de la Mort where he will see crude 
 horrors contrived by looking-glasses, drink bad beer 
 out of papier-mache skulls, and receive, in change for his 
 money, base or demonetised coin from waiters dressed 
 as undertakers. And, again, our traveller, after getting 
 a headache at the Louvre and vainly trying to find the 
 Mediaeval improprieties at the Maison Cluny, will 
 refresh himself by a visit to the Morgue, to say nothing 
 of Le Musee Grevin. 
 
 Why, then, do we go to the theatre ? Why does 
 the theatre exist ? Why do the enthusiasts rage and 
 profess that it ought to be endowed ? Well, upon 
 reflection, one sees that there are two bodies of play- 
 goers, both, no doubt, in search of pleasure : and, 
 speaking very broadly, the one is the little group whose 
 curiosity concerning life is almost entirely intellectual, 
 and the other is the vast body of sensation-hunters, to 
 whom the latest showy play, the newest musical comedy, 
 the divorce case of the moment, the freak in vogue, 
 are the means of real excitement — an excitement which 
 they want to obtain with the minimum expenditure of 
 time, trouble or thought. 
 
 A remarkable thing to the observer is the hostility
 
 WHY PEOPLE GO TO THE THEATRE 251 
 
 of the sensation-monger to intellectual amusement. 
 If a play has a gloomy ending it is promptly denounced 
 as painful by the people who welcome an entertainment 
 consisting of biograph pictures representing some 
 awful catastrophe, and by persons who revel in a good 
 series of animated photographs of somebody being 
 guillotined, or tortured in a Russian gaol, and do not care 
 to waste their tears over the sorrows of people in a 
 play, though perhaps a really roaring farce would enter- 
 tain them, if it included a good deal of knockabout 
 business. The uncivilized people who consider that 
 practical joking is permissible are as a rule bitterly 
 hostile to serious drama. 
 
 It is hard to discover any clear theory in relation to 
 these facts. Attempts to establish a proposition are 
 met by the fact that the sensation-monger who delights 
 in the horrors of real life, who gets joy from a thrillingly 
 dangerous performance at a music-hall, when he goes 
 to the theatre sometimes seems pleased by a piece 
 almost in a direct ratio to its unreality. A finely 
 observed comedy, such as The Silver Box of Mr Gals- 
 worthy, irritates the sensation-monger ; it is so absurdly 
 true that he does not think it clever of the author to 
 have written it. Tom Jo7ies contains useful matter for 
 thought on the subject. Something prodigious out of 
 the lumber-room of the theatres impresses him far 
 more. In England the explanation of this may be 
 a strangely twisted feeling of utilitarianism, which 
 causes us to object to thinking without being paid 
 for thinking ; wherefore it seems an act almost of 
 impudence to ask us to pay money to see a play which 
 cannot be understood or appreciated without serious 
 thought.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 Signer Borsa on the English Theatres 
 
 THOSE mere casual pla}' goers who may think that 
 the articles on drama in The Westminster Gazette 
 have been needlessly pessimistic ought to read " The 
 English Stage of To-Day/' by Mario Borsa, translated 
 by Mr Selwyn Brinton, and published by Mr John Lane; 
 a lively, interesting book, in which are expressed vigour- 
 ously the ideas of a very acute, intelligent writer upon 
 our modern theatre. *' Hence it is no wonder that all 
 that is artificial, absurd, commonplace, spectacular, and 
 puerile is rampant upon the English stage ; that 
 theatrical wares are standardized, like all other articles 
 of trade. ..." '' Still, in spite of all this booming 
 and histriomania, one of the greatest intellectual 
 privations from which the foreigner suffers in London 
 is, I repeat, the lack of good comedy and good prose 
 drama." Such sentences are specimens of his views 
 about the current drama of London, and he endorses 
 the sad phrase of Auguste Filon, " Le drame A?iglais, 
 a peine ne, se meurt." 
 
 In some respects the book is surprising. The author 
 exhibits an intimacy of knowledge that appears almost 
 impossible in one who, for a long time after his arrival 
 in London, was " ignorant of the very language of the 
 country." He has learnt our tongue well enough to 
 
 252
 
 SIGNOR BORSA ON ENGLISH THEATRES 253 
 
 give us some literary criticisms of value, notably upon 
 the Irish theatre and the poetry of Mr W. B. Yeats, 
 and he has made himself acquainted in a remarkable 
 way with the plays of the last fifteen years or so, with 
 the theatrical clubs and the various movements of 
 revolt against our puppet theatre. There are slips, no 
 doubt, such as the suggestion that the Independent 
 Theatre introduced Ibsen to London, it being the fact 
 that several of his plays had been presented before this 
 Society was born. 
 
 Signor Borsa has something to say on most of the 
 topics of the times. For instance, he deals with the 
 Censor ! " And here we touch the root of the evil — 
 — the Censor ! It is the Censor who is the real enemy — 
 the ruthless, insatiable Cerberus." He writes upon 
 the question of speeches in the theatres. " In Italy a 
 new play is sometimes so heartily hissed after one or 
 two acts that the manager is forced to cut short the 
 performance and proceed forthwith to the farce. 
 This never happens in England, partly because every 
 * first night ' is attended by a claque, judiciously posted 
 and naturally well disposed. Not that these * first- 
 nighters ' are paid to applaud, as in Paris or Vienna. 
 Neither are they labelled as claqueurs. T\\ey are simply 
 enthusiasts, and their name is Legion. ... It is they 
 who salute the actor-manager after the curtain has 
 fallen with persistent demands of ' Speech ! Speech ! ' 
 And it is to the request of these good and faithful 
 friends that he accedes at last, in a voice broken by 
 emotion, due to their spontaneous and generous recep- 
 tion." 
 
 Of late some people have been suggesting gleefully 
 that the vogue of " G. B. S." is on the wane. His 
 popularity has been the cause of great annoyance to
 
 254 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 the mass of the pubHc and those critics who stand up 
 for a theatre of " old scenic tricks which were long 
 familiar to me — sensational intrigues, impossible situa- 
 tions, men and women who could have been neither 
 English nor French nor Itailan." They will be glad to 
 learn that Signor Borsa says : " Shaw's dramatic work 
 is pure journalism, destined to enjoy a certain vogue, 
 and then to be swallowed up in the deep pit of oblivion. 
 Nor should I be surprised if this vogue of his were 
 already on the decline. . . . Shaw, with all his wit and 
 all his go, already shows signs of becoming terribly 
 monotonous." According to him, in " Shaw there 
 were the makings of a writer of talent." 
 
 Let us add that no evidence exists to show the 
 decline of the author's popularity ; it may also be said 
 that much of '' G. B. S. " is quite incomprehensible to a 
 foreigner. What Signor Borsa calls the " restaurateurs- 
 proprietors," and also the actor-managers — with a few 
 exceptions — may hold aloof, but Mr Shaw has brought to 
 the theatres a new public, and taken a good many of the 
 old as well. Apparently Signor Borsa's hostility to 
 " G. B. S." is founded on the fact that the dramatist is a 
 revolutionary and refuses to accept the theatrical formulae 
 which satisfy the Italian. One must, however, point out 
 that whilst Signor Borsa's general conclusions concerning 
 the most remarkable person of the English theatre are 
 unsound, his remarks in detail are acute and luminous, 
 and some of them well deserve the consideration of the 
 victim. 
 
 The curiosit}^ of the book is the treatment of the 
 acting. According to Signor Borsa, " the acting has 
 little to boast of. A century, or even half-a-century, 
 ago the case was different. But the glories of Kean, 
 Macready, Kemble, and Siddons now belong to history
 
 SIGNOR BORSA ON ENGLISH THEATRES 255 
 
 and but yesterday Sir Henry Irving stood alone — the 
 unique representative in England of the great tragic 
 art. ... In conveying irony, the English actor is in 
 his element ; in comic parts, he is simply grotesque. 
 The buffoon may occasionally be found upon the 
 English stage — the brilliant comedian never. In tragic 
 parts he easily assumes an exaggerated gravity and 
 solemnity ; in sentimental roles he is frankly ridicu- 
 lous. 
 
 Frankly is a mistranslation, or else the adjective is 
 ridiculous, if not " frankly " ridiculous. Signor Borsa 
 falls into a very common error. He thinks that because 
 English actors do not gesticulate a great deal they act 
 badly. This might be true if they represented on the 
 stage a gesticulative race. The author points out 
 carefully that we are not a gesticulative race, and fails 
 to see that it would be bad acting for the player to 
 represent an Englishman as being naturally gesticula- 
 tive. The English Jew is more gesticulative than the 
 ordinary Englishman ; the Anglo-Jewish players — and 
 there are many — curb themselves when they are play- 
 ing British characters, and of course they act artistic- 
 ally in so doing. 
 
 The function of the actor is to impress the audience 
 before him, nine-tenths of which consist of people 
 who would regard him as ridiculous and unnatural if, 
 when acting an ordinary English part, he were to 
 gesticulate very much. We have seen Italian players 
 of ability representing English characters, and, 
 putting aside Duse, the obvious and correct criticism 
 was that they were very funny and quite incorrect 
 in their exuberance of gesture. 
 
 Irving is the only actor whom he discusses ; Ellen 
 Terry the one English actress. This, of course, is
 
 256 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 absurd. It indicates, however, very usefully the 
 attitude of the foreign critic towards our stage. 
 Also, perhaps, it is a little chastening to our players. 
 The foreigner is able to understand and appreciate 
 to some extent the best of our plays ; the acting 
 says nothing to him, or at least nothing flatter- 
 ing. Our comedians are " buffoons," our lovers are 
 " frankly ridiculous," and the Italian actors are superior 
 in " temperament " — whatever that may mean. Ours, 
 it appears, are better than the Italians in some 
 humble ways : " They dress their parts better and 
 wear their clothes better," and they even know their 
 parts — a vulgar quality which apparently is rare on 
 the Itahan stage — also they are more cultured, and 
 " possess to a greater degree the dramatic literary 
 sense." 
 
 One may accept, sadly, Signer Borsa's view, which is 
 shared by most Continental and many British critics, 
 that the ordinary English drama is utterly unworthy of 
 the English people ; but we certainly have abundance of 
 competent players, and a fair number of dramatists 
 anxious and able to give the public far better di'ama 
 than they get, as soon as managers are willing to pro- 
 duce it ; the great trouble is that the managers are 
 afraid of the public, and although they might wisely be 
 more venturesome, they have, in the present mass of 
 pla3^goers, a terrible public to cater for. The facts and 
 figures offered by Signor Borsa show too eloquently 
 that the managers attempt to deal with the difficulty 
 by a very shortsighted policy. Still, the position is 
 less desperate than the Italian critic supposes, and 
 much of what has happened since Auguste Filon wrote 
 the line already quoted shows that he was too hasty in 
 his judgment.
 
 " G. B. S. '^ AND THE AMATEURS 257 
 
 **G. B. S." and the Amateurs 
 
 There is a story — its untruth is indisputable — to the 
 effect that on a death of a man of unconventional 
 character his mournful family, after much trouble, hit 
 upon the happy thought of satisfying their desire to 
 leave an amiable and incontestable record concerning 
 him by having inscribed upon his tombstone the follow- 
 ing epitaph : — " He never acted in private theatricals." 
 
 A touch of acrimony seems discernible in certain 
 utterances of Mr George Bernard Shaw about amateur 
 theatricals which makes one doubt whether such a 
 statement in his case would contain even the trifling 
 percentage of truth that is customary in epitaphs. 
 Indeed, he causes an impression that he has really done 
 something worse than play in amateur theatricals, and 
 even, although an amateur, has appeared in a profes- 
 sional performance. There has been a rather needless 
 fury in his remarks ; it is a case doubtless of more 
 sound than sentiment. This, however, is pretty 
 George's way ; where some would use a whip he 
 " fillips " people with " a three-man beetle.'' 
 
 They say that all the amateur Thespians' clubs in the 
 kingdom have passed fierce resolutions about him, and 
 a monster petition is being prepared praying for his 
 outlawry or excommunication. The cause was a letter 
 concerning the question whether dramatists ought to 
 reduce their fees for performance by amateur clubs of 
 cop^Tight works, and the trump card of the opponents 
 was the fact that many of the entertainments are given 
 for the benefit of charities. Mr Zangwill it was who 
 observed that " charity uncovers a multitude of 
 shins " ; perhaps one may add, clumsily, that charity 
 suffereth long and applauds.
 
 258 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 Certainly, amateur performances rarely contain any- 
 thing intentionally so humorous as the idea of suggesting 
 to '* G. B. S." that he should reduce his fees by way of 
 an indirect contribution to the fund for the restoration 
 of some village church or the like. Apparently the 
 common answer to the author of Mrs Warren's Pro- 
 fession is a sort of paraphrase of the line " Nobody 
 axt you, sir, she said." 
 
 [. It would be interesting to" know how many perform- 
 ances, if any, have been given by the great unpaid 
 of pieces by the now successful theatrical iconoclast. 
 Who knows whether his wrath has not a touch of the 
 spretcB injuria formcB ? Perhaps he is longing to have 
 CcBsar and Cleopatra represented by some amiable 
 association that has hitherto confined itself to the 
 comedies of Bulwer Lytton and farces by Maddison 
 Morton. It may be the dream of his life to see what 
 people untrammelled by considerations of filthy lucre, 
 except so far as the benefit of the charity is concerned, 
 can make of The Philanderers. 
 
 Judging by the public press and the circulars, Mr 
 Shaw is not inaccurate in his view that the army of 
 amateurs does comparatively little service for drama. 
 Its taste seems to be for showy, artificial plays, and its 
 tendency to seek out works that do not act themselves 
 because of their truth of characterisation but afford 
 unlimited scope for originality on the part of per- 
 formers — generally half-baked performers. 
 
 This does not apply to all amateur societies ; at least 
 we know that there are a number of associations not for 
 the purposes of gain, such as the Elizabethan Stage 
 Society, now, alas ! dead, which showed a very stern 
 enthusiasm for the higher forms of art. They appear 
 to be the exception* There was a time when it was
 
 " G. B. S." AND THE AMATEURS 259 
 
 difficult to find a man in the street who had not acted 
 in Ici on Parle Franqais or played in Money or ap- 
 peared in Our Boys, and nowadays it seems that though 
 there has been some progress, the austere drama is still 
 unpopular, and that when funds are sufficient artificial 
 costume plays are in vogue. 
 
 Mr Shaw apparently believes that vanity is the funda- 
 mental motive of amateur performances. It may be 
 that this is not wholly true, and that the real impulse 
 is the elementary instinct for dressing-up. Savages, 
 we know, have a craving for strange costumes which 
 enable them to disguise and even disfigure their persons. 
 Children delight in dressing up. Possibly one of the 
 great joys of the amateur lies in the fact that he has an 
 opportunity of wearing clothes pertinent to somebody 
 else, and, if he be a male, is curious to see how he looks 
 and is looked upon with the whiskers of the mid- 
 Victorian beau or the imperial of the Third Empire, 
 and so on. 
 
 The amiable philosopher would find a pleasanter ex- 
 planation, would suggest that the desire to " dress up '* 
 is based upon a modest doubt concerning the charms 
 of one's own individuality — how agreeable to believe 
 this ! At the bottom of the matter lies this ugly con- 
 tention on the part of the C3aiic — he alleges that the 
 amateur wants to act not for the benefit of the charity, 
 the name of which is invoked hypocritically, but for 
 the gratification of his vanity, and the authors are un- 
 able to see why the clubs should gratify the conceit of 
 their members at the expense of those who write the 
 plays. 
 
 After all, the matter is one of domestic economy, and 
 the wisest thing seems to be to leave people to make 
 their own bargains ; and if the result is that the best
 
 26o MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 plays are the dearest and the least performed, the result 
 may be somewhat advantageous. It is always un- 
 certain whether the individual spectator who has wit- 
 nessed an amateur performance of a piece will be 
 anxious to see how it really acts or determine never to 
 suffer from it again. Perhaps it is rather cheap to 
 scoff at the amateur performances, some of which, no 
 doubt, are excellent. 
 
 Moreover, it cannot be doubted that in a good many 
 cases the amateur stage provides recruits for the pro- 
 fession, and some of our most popular players — like Mr 
 Shrubb and other famous runners — have begun their 
 careers by merely striving for " the fun of the thing." 
 Probably many who now stroll the Strand or haunt 
 " Poverty Corner " fruitlessly^ were induced to embark 
 upon their vain career by the polite plaudits of amiable 
 friends whose judgments were worthless even when 
 honest. Perhaps some of them, or of their friends, 
 begin to believe that Mr Zangwill was not quite un- 
 truthful in his phrase that " players are only men and 
 women — spoilt," which, of course, he did not intend 
 to be of universal application. 
 
 Still, it can hardly be denied that *' G. B. S." was 
 needlessly severe. The amateur actors do very little 
 harm and cause a great deal of innocent amusement 
 which outweighs the harm. It may be that, except in 
 dealing with serious plays, there is an unfair proportion 
 of amusement on the farther side of the footlights, but 
 it must be recollected that the performers have many 
 trials and annoyances, and often make severe sacrifices 
 — of friendships. 
 
 If the authors of established reputation seem too 
 greedy the clubs have an easy remed}^ At the present 
 moment the cry of the unacted is unusually bitter and
 
 CANT ABOUT SHAKESPEARE 261 
 
 loud. Why, then, should not these associations, able 
 as some are to give performances that are at least 
 adequate if not exactly brilliant, save as regards a few 
 individual players, assist the drama by giving a chance 
 to the unacted of seeing their works on the stage ? 
 In many cases plays now rejected by managers 
 because they have an instinctive feeling that there is 
 some flaw which defies precise indication might, after 
 such a production, be corrected and rendered acceptable 
 and valuable. 
 
 Cant about Shakespeare 
 
 In a criticism upon the new Lyceum revival of 
 Hamlet there was a sentence which impressed me 
 greatly. It appeared in a morning paper of prodigious 
 circulation, and was in these words : "Mr Matheson 
 Lang's Hamlet ... is what may be called a popular 
 one, and likely to be extremely popular. And this is 
 well, for 'tis better to see Shakespeare in any form than 
 not to see him at all, so that these performances deserve 
 every support, being in some ways not unlike the pro- 
 ductions . . . which serve to keep alive the classics 
 and old traditions of art." This criticism, or rather 
 statement, is popular — " extremely popular." People 
 seem to think that there is virtue in producing Shake- 
 speare and in acting Shakespeare and in reading 
 Shakespeare. It would be pleasant to feel confident that 
 there is virtue in writing about him — I have written so 
 much — but probably nobody takes this extreme view. 
 Now, some have a different opinion. 
 
 A strenuous dramatist, namesake of a contemporary 
 of the national dramatist, ventures to call the " Swan 
 of Avon " a " blackleg " instead of a black swan, and
 
 262 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 ascribes his popularity with managers to the fact that 
 his name no longer spells bankruptcy, and that no 
 royalties have to be paid on performances of his plays, 
 in consequence of which they are often, or sometimes, 
 produced where, otherwise, modern works would be 
 presented. 
 
 It is not necessary to go so far as this to reach a sane 
 view on the subject — a view which probably lies 
 between the extremes. Certainly we may well wonder 
 whether and why it is a good thing to produce Shake- 
 speare plays unless the production is of fine quality. 
 Everybody is acquainted with Lamb's essay, with 
 what one may call '* Elia's " paradox, on Shakespeare, 
 the vigorous truth of which is partly counterbalanced 
 by the fact that few play readers have anything like 
 his powers of imagination, and that he probably under- 
 rated the knowledge of Shakespeare possessed by play- 
 goers, or at least by West End first-nighters. 
 
 Indeed, one may go further and say that during any 
 run of a Shakespearean play it will be visited by some 
 thousands of people well acquainted with it and some 
 hundreds who immediately detect any alteration of the 
 text. The enjoyment of these expert or semi-expert 
 playgoers of a performance of a Shakespeare play, when 
 compared with their pleasure in reading it, is probably 
 much higher than Lamb imagined. It is, however, 
 hardly for them that these dramas are revived, and 
 clearly for quite a different audience that the Lyceum 
 production is given. 
 
 Is it a really good thing that Hamlet should be offered 
 to those who have little or no acquaintance \^dth the 
 tragedy ? A study of the audience on the first night 
 of Hamlet at the Lyceum gave the idea that the majority 
 were far from appreciating the work, and did not, at
 
 CANT ABOUT SHAKESPEARE 263 
 
 any rate, get a greater or different pleasure from it 
 than they would have had if instead of the Shake- 
 spearean dialogue they had been offered the blank verse 
 of any ordinary respectable writer. 
 
 Why should it be otherwise ? Why should the 
 hundreds of people in the sixpenny gallery understand 
 the conduct of Hamlet, which has puzzled the most 
 learned and acute critics of all countries for centuries ? 
 A person hearing the play on the stage, and otherwise 
 unacquainted with it, must be bewildered. How is he to 
 understand why Hamlet is so rude to Ophelia, yet later 
 on declares that he loved her prodigiously ? What is he 
 to think of a Hamlet who takes so much trouble to find 
 out whether his uncle is guilty, and then tamely submits 
 to be sent out of the country by him, leaving his father 
 unavenged ? What opinion is he to form of the per- 
 fectly idiotic, complex conspiracy between the King and 
 Laertes to get rid of Hamlet ? Why should Hamlet 
 appeal to him, except as a melodrama with a flabby 
 hero, a feeble heroine, a very small amount of comic 
 relief, and far too much dialogue, much of which is 
 almost unintelligible ? What can he make of the great 
 soliloquies, of the purple patches, written in involved 
 sentences, embellished by curious archaic terms of 
 speech, elaborate figures, and puzzling inversions, 
 which at the best can only give him a vague idea of 
 what is supposed to be said ? 
 
 If you were to send a highly educated man, ignorant 
 of the play — perhaps an apparent contradiction — he 
 would at first be bored or irritated. No doubt his ear 
 might catch and his mind retain some profound phrases, 
 and he would promptly' recognize the grandeur of the 
 verse in many passages, so that his curiosity would be 
 awakened, and cause him either to read the play or
 
 264 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 see it time after time. What about the man in the 
 street, the railway guard, the 'bus conductor, the 
 " shover," the humbler clerks, and their womenfolk, 
 who are patrons of the gallery ; will they get beyond 
 one visit ? Can they recognize profound thoughts at 
 first hearing, or at all ? Are they able to distinguish 
 beautiful blank verse from bombast ? Are the 
 soliloquies of Hamlet likely to lure them to the 
 severe intellectual task of reading the play scrupu- 
 lously ? 
 
 Of course these questions do not concern members 
 of the " Gallery First-Nighters' " Club. They may or 
 may not patronize the sixpenny gallery or shilling pit of 
 the Lyceum. No doubt the members of the club 
 are fully competent to appreciate the play, but they 
 certainly formed the minority last Saturday week, and 
 will be rare during the later performances. It was not 
 they who laughed in the wrong places, or laughed with 
 the wrong laughter, or coughed, during the uneventful 
 scenes. 
 
 It will be said that thousands have gone and will go 
 to this revival and enjoy it, and, therefore, these views 
 must be wrong. These remarks are not in disparage- 
 ment at all of this particular revival,. It is, however, 
 certain that the pleasure of the majority of those who 
 visit this revival would be none the less if the work had 
 been written by a second-rate playwright ; indeed, Mr 
 Cecil Raleigh who, compared with Shakespeare, may, 
 perhaps, be called second-rate, could write them a new 
 Hamlet on the old plot which would give them far 
 greater pleasure than they get at present. 
 
 Critics ought to speak with perfect sincerity about 
 the drama ; great harm is done by people who, with 
 excellent motives, write insincerely. The average
 
 CANT ABOUT SHAKESPEARE 265 
 
 schoolboy is prevented from enjoying the classics by 
 being bored with them when he is too young to under- 
 stand them. The average man never reads the Bible 
 for pleasure, because he has been brought up to regard 
 it as a kind of religious medicine ; and it is unlikely that 
 the great half-educated will be brought to a taste for 
 Shakespeare by a stage performance of his works. This 
 is no plea against the performance of his plays, but 
 against writing carelessly and conventionally about 
 them. Nobody will deny Lamb's love of the dramatist. 
 He would say that if Shakespeare is to be played to the 
 masses there should be some preliminary training of 
 them. At least they might be broken in gently. To 
 present Hamlet as successor to the pantomime and not 
 long after some of the simple melodramas acted at 
 this theatre seems rather irrational. 
 
 A better service is done to the public and to drama 
 by presenting modern English plays, written sincerely 
 and on a reasonably high standard of truth, than by 
 reviving works that can only appeal to most of the half- 
 educated despite, and not because of, their finer qualities. 
 Shakespeare, indeed, might ask the gallery in the phrase 
 of Benedick, " For which of my bad parts didst thou 
 first fall in love with me ? " The important matter is 
 to get rid of humbug, to try to see things truly. Drama 
 is worthy of serious consideration as a great branch of 
 art and a great force, but will never fulfil its mission 
 if it is to lie in a mortmain to dead dramatists, and if it 
 is to be regarded as more meritorious to try to make 
 money by producing the non-copyright dramas of the 
 past than by presenting the works of living men who 
 need a royalty. 
 
 This is not a plea against revivals of the English 
 classics, the production of which under certain circum-
 
 266 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 stances may be praiseworthy and valuable, but against 
 such propositions as " 'tis better to see Shakespeare in 
 any form than not at all," which cause people to form 
 false judgments and push them to enterprises of little 
 value. 
 
 Yvette Guilbert on Dramatists 
 
 Lately Yvette Guilbert has been making some strange 
 remarks concerning drama and dramatists. Her words 
 demand attention since they come from the lips of a 
 woman of genius. In our time the domain between the 
 theatre and the concert-room has produced no artist 
 of her rank. One recollects her different styles. First, 
 in the amazing delivery of almost frankly indecent songs 
 — a delivery so extraordinarily fine as to convert them 
 for the moment into works of art — the image of 
 beautiful iridescent scum on foul water suggests itself. 
 Secondly, in the presentation by short song and very 
 sober gesture and facial expression of grim tragedies, a 
 presentation more vivid and poignant than the ordinary 
 theatre can give, despite its numerous aids to art. 
 Then came the charming utterance of quaint old songs 
 — ^who can forget Ber anger's '' La Grandmere " as it 
 came from her ? 
 
 Paris, insatiable in craving for novelty, is said to 
 have grown tired of her, but her place as the greatest 
 of singers in the variety theatres cannot be gainsaid. 
 It is alleged that she intends to go upon the stage, and 
 imaginable that her search for suitable plays has caused 
 her outburst against playwrights. Whether she will 
 be successful as actress or not is a question of interest 
 concerning which a priori reasoning is futile. Certainly 
 she must be a difficult person for whom to write a play. 
 
 Apparently she has gone to some fashionable drama-
 
 YVETTE GUILBERT ON DRAMATISTS 267 
 
 tist and given him a commission to write a drama as a 
 vehicle for the exhibition of her histrionic gifts, and is 
 dissatisfied by the result. One is justified in making 
 the guess by her theories concerning the future of drama 
 when the " arenas " are again opened, and '* histrionic " 
 art is rejuvenated. " Let the actors enter," she says, 
 " with their ideas boiling over, their nerves strung to 
 the highest pitch, and let the public suggest to each the 
 action or character to be mamicked. Let a dozen 
 different ideals be impersonated, then real, true and 
 original talent will be revealed, new ideas will be dis- 
 covered which will no longer be guided by the author 
 and stage manager and theatrical director, but which 
 will be free, untrammelled, and no longer ready-made 
 emotions." 
 
 This sounds rather daring, and the lady, before kick- 
 ing the dramatists out of the theatre, might consider 
 carefully what is to become of the players who have not 
 sufficient brains in their skulls for there to be any 
 " boiling over." Some actors, no doubt, are intellectual 
 men, but not a few of the best possess no ideas 
 of their own. This quotation and others that follow 
 come from a translation which appeared in The Daily 
 Telegraph of a letter written by Yvette Guilbert to The 
 Figaro. 
 
 It is noteworthy that this idea of dispensing with 
 dramatists is not new. Efforts were made in the days of 
 Le Chat Noir to evolve a new kind of drama, in which the 
 playwright had little concern. Moreover, Mr Gordon 
 Craig, one of the forces of the future — and of the present 
 — has revolutionary ideas on the subject. 
 
 Let us now see what the great diseuse thinks of 
 dramas and dramatists. Here is a strong sentence by 
 her : " The author ignores, or will not admit, that,
 
 268 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 despite all his efforts, he never produces anything but 
 a half-dead child. The talented actor animates, 
 nurses, consolidates, fortifies and clothes it, suggests 
 the proper gestures and attitudes, infuses his own 
 health and strength into this weakling, gives it blood 
 and, so to speak, makes it live. The plaj^wright con- 
 tributes the soul, it is true ; but, the soul being in- 
 tangible, it is only a pitiable gift so far as the dramatic 
 art is concerned." 
 
 To anticipate an obvious objection she says, " Of 
 course I know there were a Shakespeare, a Racine, a 
 Moliere, and some others. . . . What a pity they had 
 no descendants ! " It is permissible to wonder whether 
 the lady has read much drama. Possibly she would 
 ask why she should spend time in reading mere " souls," 
 and admit that her acquaintance with plays is almost 
 confined to works witnessed by her ; and, indeed, 
 seeing that, according to her, " the role of the comedian 
 is superior to that of the author," she may believe that a 
 play only exists when it is acted, and be quite unaware 
 that an imaginative, intelligent person can get a high 
 degree of pleasure from reading a play. 
 
 The dramatist may well rest content with the sug- 
 gestion that his work is the soul, the immortal, noble 
 part of drama, and that the players form only the gross, 
 corporeal element. 
 
 There may be some truth in Guilbert's remarks : 
 " The dramatic is the most inferior of all arts. The 
 play passes through too many channels, and comes 
 before the public as a cramped, crushed and faded 
 form. The writer . . . sees his play in one light, the 
 theatrical manager receives it and sees it in another, 
 the stage-manager adds his own way of understanding 
 it, the actor takes it up according to his own tempera-
 
 YVETTE GUILBERT ON DRAMATISTS 269 
 
 ment and talents, and the public sees it from a fifth 
 point of view. Add to this ten or twelve subsidiary 
 characters. How can an author claim, under such 
 circumstances, to remain the absolute master of his 
 work ? " 
 
 The term " subsidiary characters " to some extent ex- 
 plains the attitude of the actress. It is a suggestion 
 of the famous ** moi-meme et quelques poupees " which 
 exhibits the clash of ideas that forms the basis of the 
 ineradicable antagonism between the original author and 
 the actor. Each naturally thinks himself the master. 
 
 To the true dramatist the players are as the colours 
 on the palette, the instruments in the orchestra — or, 
 perhaps, the players of them — the stone of the sculptor ; 
 their task is to give bodily form to his ideas, clothes and 
 flesh to the " soul " of his drama, and, as far as possible, 
 to efface themselves in doing their dury. 
 
 The player, on the other hand, regards the dramatist 
 as someone intended to write splendid parts for him — 
 parts in which, to use the stock phrase, he " sees him- 
 self " — sees himself. Unfortunately the dramatists 
 have, on the whole, been the sufferers, the slaves. 
 
 Sardou enslaved himself to Bernhardt ; there are 
 grounds for thinking that but for this slavery he might 
 have been a great dramatist and not merely a rich, 
 supremely skilful play fabricator. For a long time 
 the players have had the upper hand, mainly because 
 of the servility of the dramatists, but there are signs 
 of a change. Already the " ten or twelve subsidiary 
 actors " phrase is becoming out of date. We have seen 
 play after play at the Court with parts of different 
 degrees of importance, but hardly any " subsidiary " 
 characters in the sense in which Yvette Guilbert uses 
 the term.
 
 270 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 There are moments when the letter of Guilbert seems 
 a joke or a hoax. One does not hke to think that she 
 said, " The true comedian finds his success in himself, 
 and can do without the dramatic author. He easily 
 utilizes his own comic or tragic gifts, as is witnessed in 
 Shakespeare, Moliere, and a hundred others." To 
 think that we do not know whether Shakespeare was 
 " a true comedian," and that it is not unlikely that he 
 was a poor actor ! The lady is wise not to attempt to 
 name the " hundred others " presumably ejusdem 
 generis with Shakespeare and Moliere. " There have 
 always been, since the beginning of the ages, mimics 
 and improvisators who did without the text of others." 
 Possibly this is true but it does not follow that there 
 are many players who could hold an audience by their 
 mimicry or improvisations ; not a few of the greatest 
 actors and actresses might starve if they had to rely 
 upon their o^\^l ideas. It is even notorious that some of 
 our most illustrious actors have had their brilliant after- 
 dinner impromptu speeches wTitten for them. 
 
 After reading the whole letter one may hint that 
 Guilbert 's own ideas might not serve her very well if 
 she tried to appear as improvisator.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 Finance in Plays 
 
 IT is to be hoped that the title will not be misunder- 
 stood. The finance of plays is quite another story, 
 often an ugly story, sometimes with a comic aspect, 
 and frequently disclosed in a bankruptcy or a v^dnding- 
 up. Occasionally in pieces supposed to be quite modern 
 we are told, incorrectly, a good deal about the way in 
 which plays are financed, which does not mean the 
 mode of spending money on the production and per- 
 formance of dramas and in keeping theatres open — or 
 closed — but the method of raising money for theatrical 
 enterprises. Certainly, the subject is worthy of con- 
 sideration, and some day we hope to handle it almost 
 adequately. The remarks, however, concern the ideas of 
 general finance exhibited by authors. Mr Sutro's 
 drama The Perfect Lover set us thinking. No doubt 
 the title does not suggest m.oney, nor, indeed, does it 
 give an idea of the real subject of the drama. In his 
 new work the author preaches a sermon about the 
 corrupting influence of wealth and the desire for it. 
 As business men, in a sort of second-hand way, most 
 of us were interested in the talk concerning money. 
 
 Everything turns upon the fact that Willie, the 
 wicked sohcitor, wishes to buy the Cardew estates, 
 which (though the property of a noble family) happen 
 271
 
 272 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 to be unsettled, because he has discovered that there is 
 coal under them, and therefore scents a fortune in the 
 purchase. The moment that the word " coal " is 
 mentioned to the persons in the play everything is 
 understood — by them. All assume that the property 
 is multiplied in value by its existence. Joe is to be 
 offered £5000 to bring about the sale. A simple practical 
 person, such as a dramatic critic, is inclined to ask 
 whether Willie is not buying a pig in a poke. He can 
 hardly have had shafts sunk surreptitiously on the 
 Cardew estates in order to ascertain whether the coal- 
 mines would be a curse or a blessing to the owner ; and if 
 the property adjoined valuable collieries, the Cardews 
 would have made some investigation. 
 
 For it by no means follows that a coal-mine is a source 
 of wealth, since the " black diamonds,'' concerning our 
 available quantity of which Professor Jevons scared 
 our fathers when some of us were agreeably younger, 
 may be indifferent in quality or lie with such faults and 
 in a manner so inconvenient that it can only be 
 worked at a ruinous cost. Nevertheless, whenever the 
 magic word " coal " is whispered the characters are 
 thrilled, like housewives reminded by their husband 
 that they have forgotten to order it at the ** lowest 
 summer prices." No doubt the author will say that 
 after all coal is coal, and may be reminded of the 
 plaintive retort by the little girl in Punch that '* mother 
 said the last lot was nearly all slates." Willie talks of 
 making a million out of the purchase ; he is fortified 
 in his views by the fact that the Great Central Railway 
 is going to run through part of the property. Writers 
 of fiction are apt to believe that in these times land- 
 owners receive on compulsory purchase the extravagant 
 sums that used to be awarded in past days and by their
 
 FINANCE IN PLAYS 273 
 
 magnitude have hampered the railway companies and 
 the general public ever since ; juries or arbitrators have 
 come to their senses, and compensation no longer spells 
 unmerited fortune, except by the reaping of a large 
 crop of " unearned increment." And now there are the 
 new taxes. 
 
 It may be suggested that we do not demand exact 
 finance or correct law in our fiction nowadays. 
 A few, indeed, are meticulous in the matter, but it is 
 generally assumed that the public would be bored by 
 correct details. No one has ventured to dramatize 
 Laurence Oliphant's brilliantly humorous " Auto- 
 biography of a Joint Stock Company " — apologies if 
 by slip of memory the title is given at all incorrectly. 
 Occasionally, it is true, our plays treat financial matters 
 with some particularity; one may cite Mammon and 
 A Bunch of Violets, both versions of Feuillet's drama 
 Montjoie, and Mr Arthur Jones's clever piece A Rogue s 
 Comedy, and Business is Business, the adaptation 
 of Les Affaires sont les Affaires. Moreover, there 
 was a melodrama given at the Opera Comique 
 which, despite the care of the Censor, contained cari- 
 catures of several notorious living financiers. They were 
 financiers touching whom one may record the story, 
 perhaps unpublished, of an American who asserted vain- 
 gloriously that we have no great financiers in England 
 such as are to be found in the United States, and on 
 being answered that we have, and thereupon inquiring 
 scornfully where they could be found, received the curt 
 reply, " In gaol." Unfortunately, the finances of the 
 Opera Comique production were almost as unsubstantial 
 as the finance in the other plays, and it did not last long. 
 
 Mr Cecil Raleigh also, in some of the Drury Lane 
 dramas which used to give us vast entertainment.
 
 274 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 handled company matters in a broad, generous, comic 
 fashion which baffled criticism. 
 
 Would a public so abominably engrossed as ours in 
 money, a people that is exchanging the ascendenc}^ of 
 an aristocracy for the despotism of a plutocracy, a 
 nation a large proportion of which gambles on the 
 Stock Exchange whilst another plays bridge for shock- 
 ing stakes, really reject a drama turning on financial 
 matters and containing a moderate amount of accurate 
 detail ? If there is little poetry in Throgmorton Street, 
 at least there is plent}^ of romance, and more imagina- 
 tion is exhibited in the average prospectus than in the 
 ordinary play. It would not be impossible to introduce 
 a touch of sentiment, assuming, sadly, that the play- 
 goers cannot be happy without a little bit of sugar ; 
 whilst the fierce clash of men in the mad pursuit for 
 wealth — a pursuit, after all, more engrossing than 
 that of love — is often terribly dramatic. There 
 was a piece called The Wheat King, an adaptation 
 of one of the few books by the powerful American 
 novelist Norris, who died too young. The version, 
 made by two ladies, very nearly fulfilled the conditions 
 suggested, and it almost achieved success. 
 
 Doubtless everybody connected with theatres 
 believes that love in some form or another is the 
 only possible basis for a successful drama, although 
 we are well aware that romantic love such as the 
 dramatists trade in is only an episode in the lives 
 of a minority of the nation, and does not come at 
 all to the rest. Apparently it is presumed that those 
 who have never felt it wish to hear about it, and that 
 those who have, desire to revive their memories. 
 Indeed, many experts imagine there are very few 
 topics which will lure the public to the box-office.
 
 SOME UNSUCCESSFUL DRAMATISTS 275 
 
 There is before us at the moment a letter from Henry 
 Irving, in answer to a suggestion that Ibsen's great 
 drama The Pretenders was worthy of production by 
 him, and he says, " Of the power of Ibsen's Pretenders I 
 am quite sensible, but unfortunately there are con- 
 siderations which prevent me from accepting the 
 suggestion. In the first place, I believe the theme of 
 ambition has no great dramatic hold, or a very slender 
 one, on the playgoing public of to-day. ... I am com- 
 pelled as a manager to take these things into account. 
 Were I conducting an endowed theatre, the case would 
 be different." Many things have happened in Stage- 
 land since April 1897, when this letter was written by 
 Irving, and it is by no means improbable that the scope 
 of the theatre has been somewhat extended. After all, 
 it is fantastic that money, the element which plays the 
 greatest part in the lives of most of us, should generally 
 be treated superficially if at aU, and, as a rule, when 
 not neglected, should be handled without accuracy or 
 even verisimilitude of detail. 
 
 One might refer to Macbeth as a successful play with 
 ambition as its theme. Since Irving's letter was 
 written a fair number of unsentimental plays have been 
 produced and well received, such, for instance, as Strife 
 and The Silver Box and The Voysey Inheritance, all 
 works of great quality. 
 
 Some Unsuccessful Dramatists 
 
 When considering some of the criticisms upon 
 Becket, and accepting them as accurate, one is inclined 
 to ask why Tennyson failed as a dramatist. That he 
 did, judged by the ordinary standard, can hardly be 
 denied, nor could any degree of success with Becket
 
 276 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 disprove the statement, since the acted work is a bold, 
 free adaptation of the printed play. He was anxious 
 for success as a playwright, and in fact no fewer than 
 five of his plays have been presented on the stage — 
 all of them published after he was sixty-six years old. 
 Now, Tennyson, undoubtedly, from every point of 
 view that one can classify exactly, was far better 
 equipped for play-writing than hundreds of successful 
 dramatists — yet he failed. Why ? 
 
 The puzzle does not end nor begin with him. One 
 can name a number of literary men of great rank who 
 have written vainly for the stage, to say nothing of 
 others who are authors of works in the form of drama, 
 but nevertheless, like a Shelley, Swinburne or Long- 
 fellow, may not have been stagestruck. 
 
 As conspicuous modern instances Balzac, Byron and 
 Browning may be selected, and a writer who, if hardly 
 of the same class, has written at least one masterpiece. 
 This is Charles Reade, whose delightful book " The 
 Cloister and the Hearth " seems likely to attain im- 
 mortality. Reade, we know, was absolutely stage- 
 struck, and wrote dozens of plays and spent a great deal 
 of money over them ; indeed, it is not too much to 
 say that his mania for the theatre seriously injured his 
 work as a novelist. Yet who will pretend that any of 
 the pieces that he concocted alone or in conjunction 
 with others is worth the least valuable of his novels ? 
 
 Balzac, though not stage-struck in the same degree 
 as Charles Reade, had a great desire for success as a 
 playwright ; part of the desire may have been due to 
 eagerness to make money with which to pay off those 
 terrible debts. Yet in one biography of him no mention 
 is made of his dramas. Nevertheless, he sweated hard 
 over Vautrin, La Mardtre, Les Ressources de Quinola
 
 SOME UNSUCCESSFUL DRAMATISTS 277 
 
 and Mercadet ; none of them helped substantially to 
 pay off the debts, nor can any be rated equally with the 
 poorest of his novels. Mercadet, certainly, has one 
 brilliant scene of comedy in it, and under the name of 
 A Game of Speculation proved a trump-card with 
 Charles Mathews. G. H. Lewes was author of the 
 version which, according to a popular story, was 
 written and rehearsed between Saturday and 
 Monday. The original, with the full title of Mercadet 
 ou Le Faiseur was not acted till after the death of 
 Balzac, when it was reduced to three acts by D'Ennery 
 and given with success at Le Gymnases 
 
 Everybody knows that Browning wrote a number 
 of plays. A Soul's Tragedy was lately presented by 
 the Stage Society, an interesting hardly successful 
 experiment. A Blot on the 'Scutcheon was produced at 
 Drury Lane in 1842 and revived by Phelps at Sadler's 
 Wells, and also in 1893 by the Independent Theatre, 
 when Miss May Harvey gave an admirable performance 
 as Mildred ; whilst Strafford, Colombe's Birthday and In 
 a Balcony have all seen the footlights and achieved at 
 the most a succes d'estime. Few, however, even putting 
 aside the vulgar, fallacious test of the box-ofhce, 
 would say that these works are really valuable stage 
 dramas, despite the superb qualities obvious in them. 
 
 Some of Lord Byron's plays have been given upon the 
 boards ; but the real Byron of the stage is the author 
 of Our Boys and goodness knows how many more 
 successful works, all as dead to-day as the dramas of 
 Sheridan Knowles. It has been said that The Cenci, 
 when produced privately by Sir Percy Bysshe Shelley, 
 with Miss Alma Murray as heroine, acted very well. 
 Has the Stage Society ever considered the question of 
 a revival ?
 
 278 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 How, then, did it happen that Balzac, Byron, 
 Browning and Reade failed as dramatists, despite the 
 eager desire of three of them, at least, to win success on 
 the boards ? It is undeniable that the three — one may 
 put aside Byron — are intensely " dramatic " writers. 
 Les Chouans reads almost as if it were a play converted 
 into a novel, and has been adapted successfully, and 
 like Le Pere Goriot, which someone has called the French 
 King Lear, has been used for the stage after the time 
 when the long-desired marriage with Madame Hanska 
 was ended by the premature death of the author of the 
 fine phrase, ** Vierges de corps nous etions hardis en 
 paroles." Indeed, in half the works composing the 
 prodigious Comedie Humaine are passages of immense 
 dramatic force. Clearly, too, the author of " The 
 Cloister and the Hearth " could paint character and 
 was a splendid storyteller into the bargain. It would 
 be impossible to say this without certain qualifications 
 in the case of Browning ; yet who that has been 
 fascinated by that colossal work " The Ring and the 
 Book " can deny it ? Why, then, should Balzac and 
 Browning have failed where Shakespeare and Sardou 
 have succeeded ? 
 
 The question brings forward another, and it is this : 
 whether Shakespeare, if he were writing nowadays, 
 would be a successful dramatist. At first sight it 
 seems an absurd question, but it is permissible because 
 one must recognize the fact that what perhaps pre- 
 vented Balzac and Browning from being successful has 
 not proved an impediment to the triumph of Shakes- 
 peare. The dramas of our national dramatist are the 
 most heavily thought-burdened plays that have had 
 popular success in modern times, and in the works of 
 Browning there are so many ideas that it is often diffi-
 
 SOME UNSUCCESSFUL DRAMATISTS 279 
 
 cult to see the idea. To the modern writer of anything 
 like Shakespeare's calibre, or Browning's, the simple 
 joy in the story is no longer possible, and probably 
 Shakespeare, if born forty years ago, and if content to 
 work for such a medium as the stage, would, like an 
 Ibsen, have chosen themes that do not appeal to our 
 people. But was Shakespeare, "Shakespeare " ? 
 
 It is not merely a want of the knack of playwriting 
 — a vulgar, useful term — that kept Browning or Tenny- 
 son from success on the stage. No one ever had such 
 a prodigious '' knack " as Ibsen, and Rosmersholm is 
 the most amazing tour de force of craftmanship. Yet 
 despite his influence upon modern drama, Ibsen — a 
 great poet, a great thinker, a great observer, and the 
 greatest of craftsmen — has been unpopular as a drama- 
 tist in England. 
 
 One begins to see that an element in the answer to 
 be given to the question is the fact that some of the 
 great writers who have failed upon the stage owe their 
 want of success in part to their over-estimation of the 
 power of the acting play to convey ideas, and conse- 
 quently to their putting so much more into their work 
 than the average audience can get out that the public 
 shirks the task of grappling with them at all. Shake- 
 speare, under peculiar circumstances, was grappled with 
 before our time, and has been predigested for us ; but 
 the others have had no such fortune. Moreover, much 
 of the national dramatist's finest work is cut when his 
 works are produced and some are rarely given, others 
 never. 
 
 Several able writers, such as Robert Buchanan, have 
 rushed to the opposite extreme and obtained ephemeral 
 success by empty plays injurious to their reputation 
 as men of letters, and a few of us think that one of our
 
 28o MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 most successful and brilliant novelist-playwrights has 
 a dangerous tendency in this direction. It is, of course, 
 given to few to judge so perfectly as Pinero what is the 
 extreme quantity of thought that can be put into a 
 play without frightening the public, and he has had 
 more than one splendid failure from taking too hopeful 
 a view of the intelligence of playgoers. 
 
 The Ending of the Play 
 
 A large number of readers begin a novel at the wrong 
 end, particularly those of the sex many members of 
 which are threatened with moustaches, according to 
 the latest hysterical shriek of certain medicine-men, 
 because of their weakness for putting cigarettes between 
 their dainty lips. They look at the last chapter before 
 reading the first ; the practice is indefensible, criminal. 
 Authors take an immense amount of trouble in working 
 up logically to a conclusion and preparing the minds of 
 their readers for it, and most of this trouble goes by the 
 board if you begin by reading the last chapter. In the 
 case of the humbler classes of fiction the injury to the 
 writer is even greater : he has endeavoured by man- 
 oeuvres, limited in character by certain laws of the game, 
 to spring a surprise upon the reader by puzzling her as 
 to the ending of the story and she, instead of " playing 
 the game " and trying to unravel it, " cuts the Gordian 
 knot," the most hackneyed cliche in the repertoire of the 
 journalist. This grossly unfair treatment of novelists 
 ought to be punished, or at least be subject to procedure 
 in the Chancery Division for breach of confidence. 
 
 The really honest reader shrinks from such an 
 offence as if it were eavesdropping. It is well known 
 that many novels actually begin with the last chapter.
 
 THE ENDING OF THE PLAY 281 
 
 The Irishism represents the fact that the author starts 
 by exhibiting people in a dramatic position and then 
 proceeds to show how they came to be there. 
 
 There is always something of this method in a play. 
 One cannot conveniently begin, like Sterne, with the 
 birth of the hero — and even a little before — and work 
 steadily forward. " Tristram Shandy," it may be, is 
 a poor example, since " steadily " is perhaps the worst 
 adjective in the dictionary to describe the progress of 
 that novel. Of course there are plays in which a pro- 
 logue is employed, but the device is clumsy ; and in 
 these instances, when the real drama is reached, an 
 explanation of what has happened during the gap 
 between the prologue and the first act is necessary. 
 
 In other words, part of the author's work and a great 
 part of his difficulty lie in telling the audience a number 
 of antecedent facts. The task has grown very difficult 
 since soliloquies have gone out of vogue and audiences 
 become so sophisticated as to smile at the old-fashioned 
 conversations in which information is given to the house 
 by causing the hero to tell to his friend — '* his friend 
 Charles " — a number of matters with which, to the 
 knowledge of everybody, Charles is already well 
 acquainted. 
 
 It is a misfortune that in the case of cleverly con- 
 structed dramas the uncritical members of the play- 
 going world, whilst half-conscious of the fact that the 
 preliminary circumstances are not being told to them 
 in the clumsy method now out of date, fail to get the 
 full amount of pleasure from the technical skill ex- 
 hibited. Take, for instance, what in this respect is 
 perhaps the masterpiece, Rosmersholm. Few spectators 
 consider it closely, enough to appreciate the wonderful 
 skill shown in conveying to the audience the vast
 
 282 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 number of facts and ideas necessary to explain the exact 
 relations between Rosmer and Rebecca West when the 
 play begins. However, it is hardly worth the while of 
 the casual playgoer to study the structure of dramas 
 sufficiently to appreciate fully such marvels of technique 
 — the marvels are very rare. 
 
 Something might be said in favour of plays — and it 
 was said by Prosper Merimee — in which no knowledge 
 of the previous histories of the parties is necessary. It 
 is doubtful, however, w^hether there exists any specimen 
 of this class of drama, and perhaps it is impossible 
 completely to comply with such conditions. 
 
 Whether much or little is told to the audience of the 
 things that have happened and the characters before 
 the play begins, the last act in the ordinary drama is of 
 an extravagant importance in relation to the whole. 
 It has been said, with a fair amount of truth, that any- 
 body can write a good first act, and that most plays fail 
 towards the end. Instead of putting his confidence in 
 the maxim " Well begun is half done," the author must 
 rely on another which may be expressed as " Well 
 ended is much mended." 
 
 The question how to bring a play to a close has been 
 terribly difficult on very many occasions to the drama- 
 tist. There are various kinds of conclusion, most of 
 them more or less formal or conventional. For in- 
 stance, everyone knows what wiU happen towards the 
 last fall of the curtain in the peculiarly exasperating 
 species of drama founded upon a misunderstanding 
 which in real life would be cleared up in five minutes, 
 but on the stage remains unsolved for three hours or so. 
 Countless plays end with a definite engagement of 
 young sweethearts the course of whose love became 
 rough at the close of the first act, or with the reconcilia-
 
 THE ENDING OF THE PLAY 283 
 
 tion of youthful spouses who quarrelled in the earlier 
 part of the piece. 
 
 This, of course, is the so-called " happy-ever-after " 
 ending : in most cases the comedies of this type are so 
 artificial that few of the audience take sufficient interest 
 in the characters to think of them as people who live 
 after the play, and to notice the fact that the sweet- 
 hearts are from their nature unlikely to live happily 
 together, or that the young husband and wife, on 
 account of their dispositions, are certain to quarrel 
 within a week of the reconciliation. Plays of these 
 kinds are essentially unimportant. Nobody cares very 
 much how they end provided that the curtain falls not 
 later than at a quarter-past eleven. 
 
 Real tragedies, whether of the classic, modern or 
 romantic type, end in death or deaths. Obviously 
 there is no other solution in most cases. Perhaps in 
 real life Hamlet would have remained letting I dare not 
 wait upon I would until his mother and stepfather died 
 in the ordinary course of nature ; without any amazing 
 interposition of Providence, Romeo and Juilet might 
 have healed the quarrel between their hostile houses 
 and established a large family of little Montague- 
 Capulets, and so on ; but one accepts the proposition 
 that such outcomes would be contrary to the essential 
 laws of the existence of such plays. 
 
 Difficulties grow when we come to comedy that seeks 
 to represent, however timidly, the life of real human 
 beings. The bold dramatists who endeavour to repre- 
 sent a slice of life — Jean Jullien invented the phrase — 
 find more difficulty in the beginning of their plays than 
 the conventional writer : to bring them to anything 
 like a full stop is a very rare achievement. A great 
 many end at a comma, a semi-colon is noteworthy, a
 
 284 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 colon superb, and very often one has a mere mark of 
 interrogation at the last fall of the curtain. Of course 
 a full stop sometimes is achieved, for instance in the 
 case of The Second Mrs Tanqueray ; but Iris ends with 
 something very much like a comma, and The Notorious 
 Mrs Ebbsmith can scarcely boast of more than a colon. 
 
 Ibsen has not always been successful in coming to 
 his conclusions. In a sense A Doll's House might be 
 called a failure : the case is one of the note of interroga- 
 tion, and the audience is left in a mood of dissatisfac- 
 tion, since, being deeply interested in the character of 
 Nora, it is intensely curious to know what she will do 
 next. Homes have been broken up and friendships 
 wrecked by discussion upon the question, though it 
 must be admitted that most of the quarrels concerning 
 the play have been upon the irrelevant question 
 whether the child-wife ought to have left her husband 
 and children. One half of the disputants fail to see 
 that the fact that she does abandon them is the catas- 
 trophe and not the conclusion of the comedy. In An 
 Enemy of Society and A Lady from the Sea the author 
 has been remarkably adroit in getting to a definite 
 conclusion. 
 
 On the other hand, one sees that even such a master 
 of his craft was forced to call death to his aid in many 
 cases ; for instance, Hedda Gabler, The M aster-Builder, 
 Rosmersholm, John Gabriel Borkmann, and When we 
 Dead awaken. In nearly all of these the death is 
 not accidental but inevitable. The Wild Duck has a 
 tragic death in it which is by no means conclusive ; 
 indeed, it is a horrible humour of the work that the 
 last idea of all is the suggestion of a continuing tragic 
 comedy. 
 
 The inconclusive conclusion is unpopular. There is
 
 THE ENDING OF THE PLAY 285 
 
 a strong craving in the public to have plays nicely 
 rounded off, and this is a serious obstacle to writers 
 who seek to represent real life, which seems to have a 
 sort of prejudice against rounding-off human affairs 
 neatly. In a vast number of cases the great crises in 
 human life are followed by a tedious kind of dragging 
 anti-climax. 
 
 Great monarchs still live after their fall. The 
 Napoleon of the stage would have died at Waterloo 
 instead of crawling out of life at St Helena. One need 
 not multiply instances after such a prodigious example. 
 Managers naturally respect — some will say " pander 
 to " — the public taste ; wherefore our real life plays 
 rarely see the footlights, and when they do sometimes 
 are cruelly forced into an artificial ending. 
 
 From time to time one even sees quaint announce- 
 ments that, owing to the wishes of the public, the con- 
 clusion of a particular play has been twisted from the 
 author's original idea into some termination that 
 gratifies the audience's desire to leave the theatre in a 
 mood to enjoy a supper afterwards. The question of 
 art involved in the matter hardly needs discussion. 
 No one will deny that, in comedy at least, the greatest 
 suggestion of truth is the greatest art, even whilst 
 admitting that the inevitable circumstances of the pro- 
 duction of a play demand certain modifications and 
 adjustment of truth. The dramatist can never hold 
 the mirror up to Nature ; he can only reflect her in a 
 distorting glass. 
 
 A few years ago in a play that made a sensation came 
 the worst example of the forced conventional " happy- 
 ever-after " ending on record. The case was that of 
 An Englishman s Home, where there was foisted upon 
 the author, who was abroad, a quite imbecile happy
 
 286 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 ending which caused much discussion : it is not un- 
 likely that this crime against drama and the dramatist 
 prevented the piece from enjoying the immense success 
 confidently prophesied for it. 
 
 Nowadays authors are in a greater difficulty, because 
 people — particularly the so-called " smart " folk — are 
 eager to get away early for supper, whilst many are 
 compelled to steal off to catch trains to Brighton and 
 other suburbs, and leave the theatre before the ending 
 of a play. The result threatens to be curious. The 
 dramatists will be induced to make their big effort in 
 the penultimate act, leaving nothing for the last but 
 some tranquil rounding off which you may miss without 
 serious loss. Instead of the notice, often, alas ! un- 
 true : " The audience is requested to be seated punc- 
 tually at eight o'clock, since the interest in the play 
 begins at the rise of the curtain," we shaU have : " Mem- 
 bers of the audience anxious for supper or to catch 
 suburban trains are requested to leave before the curtain 
 rises on the last act," which is only a kind of needless 
 epilogue." 
 
 We had some trace of this new epilogue method in 
 Leah Kleschna, as well as in Letty. How the critics of 
 the morning papers would bless such a system ! At the 
 same time, it is imaginable that the authors will raise 
 a difficulty — they are such an exacting race ! 
 
 However, a brilliant suggestion has been made of a 
 way of dealing with the difficulty. " Why not," asks a 
 fair correspondent, whose letter has incited this article 
 — " why not begin with the last act ? " The scornful 
 may answer with the question, " Whj^ begin at all if 
 you've nothing better than our ordinary drama ? " but 
 they must be kept out of court. There really is some- 
 thing in the idea. Public interest flags somewhat in the
 
 PREPOSTEROUS STAGE TYPES 287 
 
 case of ordinary plays because the house knows too well 
 the things that are going to happen ; it might be 
 stimulated by seeing them happen and then watching 
 the development of the facts leading up to them. This 
 suggestion is not protected in an^^ way, either in Eng- 
 land or the United States. 
 
 Preposterous Stage Types 
 
 The title may sound a little misleading, Ruskinian, 
 Horne-Tookian : probably the word " preposterous " 
 would not have been used but for an accidental remem- 
 brance of De Quincey, who was so fond of using and 
 explaining it, of pointing out that it signified the behind- 
 before, the cart before the horse, the hysteron-proteron. 
 By-the-by, why has De Quincey gone out of fashion ? 
 There are charming reprints of almost ever3^body who 
 is somebody, and of somebodies who really are no- 
 bodies ; even Alexander Smith is being talked of ; yet, 
 if you want a full feast of De Quincey you must go to 
 ill-printed pages bound horribly. However, except so 
 far as Shakespeare is concerned, the author of a famous 
 essa}^ on Wilhelm Meister has left us little on the topic 
 of the stage. A casual question brought forward the 
 subject : it was whether Sothern's Dundreary really 
 represented an English type. To answer this is a 
 matter of some difficulty. - 
 
 The fact remains that if Dundreary did not re- 
 present a type, at least it created one. Dundrearys 
 became quite numerous after Sothern's success ; and 
 the observant have remarked that not infrequently a 
 stage character has verified itself by a species of ratifi- 
 cation — a remark that has a flavour of Ireland, or, if a
 
 288 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 famous essay by Miss Edgeworth is to be accepted, a 
 flavour of France. — this is a reference to her essay on 
 Irish bulls, a title itself which happens to be uncon- 
 sciously a bull. 
 
 The " mashers " and " crutch and toothpick brigade " 
 of the stage were rather the progenitors than imitators 
 of the type, and the Gibson girls were more numerous 
 after the appearance of Miss Camille Clifford than 
 before she came to London. It might be indiscreet to 
 go further into details and cite more modern instances 
 on the topic. 
 
 One can hardly call this, holding the mirror up to 
 Nature, yet, in a curious roimdabout way, the stage seems 
 to justify itself and become true after the event. There 
 was a rather bitter discussion some time ago between an 
 author and a critic ; the latter had remarked that the 
 language of the dramatist's people did not sound true, 
 that it seemed composed of scraps from the stage, that 
 he generally could guess from the cue the words of the 
 answering speech. 
 
 This, of course, is very often the case ; probably to 
 the simple-minded playgoer when it happens there 
 seems to be evidence that the dialogue is true. The 
 characters say what he expects them to say — therefore, 
 that which to him it seems natural for them to say. 
 Perhaps the judgment of the simple-minded playgoer 
 is sounder on this point than that of the critic, who is 
 hoping that the characters will utter something that 
 he does not expect them to say. Probabty a large 
 number of the stereotyped phrases of our actual 
 speech come from the novel or stage, and although 
 when they were first spoken the truth was not in 
 them, they have come to be truly representative of the 
 characters.
 
 PREPOSTEROUS STAGE TYPES 289 
 
 Novelists of standing are more nicely squeamish on 
 the subject than dramatists of similar rank ; they 
 endeavour to avoid — in dialogue — the ready-made 
 article ; at the same time one notes that the important 
 dramatist is very anxious to keep clear of the stage- 
 worn phrases. 
 
 We know that to some extent people do accept the 
 judgments in plays as judgments on life, and mould 
 their conduct on that of the characters. Even the 
 daughter in Alice Sit-hy-the-Fire, with her views based 
 on melodrama concerning her mother, was not wholly 
 extravagant. Of course this puts a rather heavy 
 responsibility upon dramatists. The Jack Sheppard 
 and Dick Turpin plays are said to have fired many 
 youths with a desire to become romantic criminals, and 
 even caused them to make efforts to carry out their 
 desires. Nowadays — at least in the theatres within our 
 province — such pieces are not presented ; nor would 
 one quarrel with the Censor if he were to prohibit 
 one of them. There is little peril in a work like Raffles ; 
 for though it would not be difficult to exhibit skill in 
 crime as great as that of the hero, a capacity for being 
 a first-class cricketer and an education at Eton seem to 
 be essential elements of the character, and these serve 
 as insurmountable stumbling-blocks to many. Yet a 
 Raffles may set a fashion and have humble imitators, so 
 far as personal style is concerned, among the professors 
 of the fine art of crib-cracking. 
 
 The Professor Moriarty of Sherlock Holmes really 
 employed too much machinery to be copied by the 
 crowd. 
 
 That the stage sometimes takes the lead in the matter 
 of costume cannot be disputed — possibly the day will 
 arrive when the emancipation of man from the thrall of 
 
 T
 
 290 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 the " topper," the frock-coat and stiff collar is brought 
 about through the energies of the theatre — though it 
 will require a London actor of the Le Bargy type to 
 achieve such a triumph, and he is not yet in sight, and 
 may not appear until after the motorist has accom- 
 plished the miracle. At present, even in the matter of 
 ladies' frocks, the London stage has less influence than 
 one might have expected. 
 
 At the moment one seeks vainly for any stage type 
 likely to create a character which afterwards it will 
 seem to reflect. Perhaps Mr G. P. Huntley has had 
 some success in this respect ; certainly it is imaginable 
 that if he were to represent a well-written part in 
 comedy as a kind of twentieth-century Dundreary 
 w^e should meet imitators of him in shoals ; but this 
 has yet to come, and if it does a good man}^ people 
 will fail to rejoice — a phrase without prejudice to 
 admiration for a player concerning the hmits of 
 whose power as a comedian one may well have real 
 curiosity. 
 
 Turning back for a moment to the dialogue, one can 
 hardly feel surprised that playwrights are easily satis- 
 fied with ready-made phrases ; we journalists cannot 
 " throw stones " at them — a figure the almost uninten- 
 tional use of which illustrates the difficulty. It is a 
 very hard task to invent new phrases for your characters 
 that will seem congruous, and there is alwaj^s the 
 peril of appearing affected in style. Yet success is 
 possible, as may be seen in the works of a few, such as 
 Pinero ; even he shows a tendency, noteworthy in 
 Letty and, to a less degree, in His House in 
 Order, towards causing some characters to talk 
 " bookily," which, after all, is better than making 
 them speak journalisticall}^ Still, in dealing with
 
 THE DRAMATIS PERSONS 291 
 
 this point the dramatist must remember that many 
 people in real life use habitually a large number of 
 ready-made phrases, even when they are in a serious 
 mood. 
 
 The Professions of the Dramatis Personse 
 
 If the historian of the future, in the endeavour to 
 get a clear idea of the social life of our times, turns to 
 the contemporary drama in search for information, 
 he will find very little matter of value. Yet the 
 mere fact of the success of some of the plays will give 
 himi an idea of the taste, or lack of taste, of the 
 public, and the failure of others will speak eloquently, 
 but sadly, to him about the audiences of to-day. 
 
 The first phenomenon to impress him must be the 
 fact that in a large proportion of the dramas professing 
 to deal with current social life the chief persons are the 
 drones of society and the rich people of leisure or 
 labour, most of them with handles or tails to their 
 names. Half of our comedies are supposed to pass 
 among the " nobs," and the middle-class characters 
 are merely introduced as a necessary part of the 
 machinery. It has been said that the British people 
 dearly loves a lord, and a behef in this may be one 
 reason why the upper ten thousand furnish so many 
 of the heroes and heroines. 
 
 A further fact is that certain managers are alleged to 
 think that their theatres gain in dignity by presenting 
 Mayfair plays, and perhaps there are players who take 
 a great joy in appearing as Lord this, or Lady that, or 
 the Honourable somebody. Indeed, there was a case 
 where an actor-manager usurped a king's prerogative 
 and transferred the chief characters in a play by a young
 
 292 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 dramatist to the celestial regions of Burke, notwith- 
 standing the protest of the author, who admitted his 
 absolute ignorance of the manners, ways of thought, 
 and style in conversation of the inhabitants of Bel- 
 gravia : no changes were made except in the names, 
 and yet nobody suggested that the play was parti- 
 cularly rich in solecisms. 
 
 This form of snobbery has at least one advantage, it 
 saves the playwright from the trouble of considering 
 the questions of money in the play. If there is to be 
 an elopement in it there is no difficulty on the score 
 of expense — a difficulty that, in vulgar real life, has 
 caused some intrigues to become sordid hole-and-corner 
 divorce dramas instead of idylls of passionate irregular 
 love. 
 
 One notices that certain professions are under a 
 kind of ban upon the stage. The country contains 
 thousands of solicitors, most of them well educated and 
 drawn from the class that feeds the Bar, the Church, 
 the Army, Navy, Medicine, Science and the Arts. This 
 body of solicitors has an enormous influence upon the 
 conscience of the country — more influence than any 
 other class, except, perhaps, that of the parsons. 
 How is the solicitor treated on the stage ? Almost 
 alwa3^s with contempt, at the best as a humble 
 adviser. He is the comic character or the villain ; 
 generally, as a further insult, the secondary villain. 
 The attorney is sometimes the hero of a farce, as in 
 The Headless Man — never in comedy, or to be more 
 correct, hardly ever, for Mr Granville Barker in The 
 Voysey Inheritance gave a ver}^ fine and sj^mpathetic 
 study of a young solicitor. The dramatist may say 
 in defence that he is truthful, that he merely reflects 
 the vulgar prejudice against the profession, founded
 
 THE DRAMATIS PERSON.E 293 
 
 upon the misdeeds of a very small proportion of its 
 members. 
 
 The barrister receives better treatment, but, of course, 
 he is generally deemed to be a more " genteel " person ; 
 yet, in considering stage barristers, one notices that they 
 are drawn very superficially, that their profession is 
 accidental to the play, and little or nothing turns on 
 the influence of the career upon the man. Judges, like 
 solicitors, are usually regarded as comic. 
 
 Our stage has hardly inherited Moliere traditions 
 concerning the doctors ; there were two important 
 plays. The Medicine Man and The Physician, in which 
 members of the healing art are treated seriously — 
 though Dr Tregenna in the former was rather a cari- 
 cature, and in The Doctor's Dilemma we had a brilliantly 
 painted group of medical men. The Christian Scientist 
 may complain of neglect, even if there was some anti- 
 cipation of him in Judah, and a humble branch of the 
 craft was handled ably by Mrs Merrick in Jimmy's 
 Mother. The real quack has remained almost unscathed. 
 
 The army, of course, has not been neglected. Half 
 the Lotharios of modern drama belong to the destruc- 
 tive profession, and the peppery or tedious colonel is 
 an old stock friend ; whilst the *' Dobbin " type is 
 handled very frequently, and the V.C. has been be- 
 stowed more often by dramatists than by royalty. The 
 modern officer of the good type, the man with an 
 honest, energetic interest in his profession, is rarely 
 presented. 
 
 What about the navy ? There was The Flag- 
 Lieutenant and also Captain Drew on Leave, the 
 latter a somewhat unpleasant picture, fortunately 
 exhibiting no trace of the sailor's spirit or style of 
 thought. One cannot complain nowadays of a lack
 
 294 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 of parsons or Nonconformist ministers, though it is 
 irksome to see that the latter, as a rule, are presented 
 in an odious light, by way, probably, of a mean little 
 revenge for the hostility of the Nonconformist to the 
 theatre — a hostility which could hardly surprise any 
 dispassionate person who considers the present state 
 of the stage. 
 
 The architect, save in The Master Builder, is almost 
 unknown ; the engineer, unspecialised as a rule, figures 
 vaguely sometimes. 
 
 Perhaps one ought to write guardedly concerning the 
 journalist. Still, at least, facts may be stated. As a 
 rule he appears as reporter or interviewer, and is treated 
 comically. In The Perfect Lover Mr Sutro handles him 
 seriously, and that play contains an elaborate picture 
 of a weak-minded journalist as well as a wicked solicitor. 
 Of the existence of thousands of men, highly educated 
 and many of them possessing brilliant degrees, con- 
 nected with the enormous newspaper interest of this 
 country, the stage takes no cognizance. A dramatic 
 critic occasionally is exhibited — as a rule in connexion 
 with the champagne-and-chicken theory. 
 
 The vast army devoted to science is almost ignored, 
 though sometimes the inventor has a kind of '* innings": 
 in The Middleman Mr Henry Arthur Jones made a 
 striking figure of him. Financiers, business men, 
 merchants and the like have little justice done to them. 
 To the dramatist the fraudulent is the only interesting 
 financier. He certainly is very fond of working on 
 the Mercadet basis. He commonly confounds the 
 stockbroker with the bucket-shop keeper, and invari- 
 ably assumes that the company promoter is a thief. 
 The merchant or manufacturer tends to replace the 
 French uncle from America, and his wealth rather than
 
 THE DRAMATIS PERSON.E 295 
 
 himself is employed by the playwright to get his 
 characters out of a mess. 
 
 The novelist or poet is a difficult person for stage 
 treatment ; the pictures of the dramatist in the theatre 
 are curiously unlifelike — as unlifelike as the theatrical 
 managers on the stage. There are reasons for this that 
 need not be discussed. 
 
 It seems a pity that the playwrights, when dealing 
 with life in the strata above shopkeeping, should not 
 apply themselves more fully to the study of the enor- 
 mous class which is the backbone of the country, instead 
 of choosing so often merely the idle classes, members 
 of which as a rule are less highly individualized. One 
 may apply to the characters in many of our comedies 
 certain phrases used by Theophile Gautier : " The 
 personages belong to no particular time or country. 
 They come and go without our knowing why or how ; 
 they neither eat nor drink, they do not live in any 
 particular place, and have no metier." 
 
 The " neither eat nor drink," of course, is quite in- 
 applicable ; we have far too much eating and drinking 
 on the stage. The low, comic meals of the Adelphi 
 are replaced by similar or slightly more " genteel " 
 humours of comic eating in comedies. It may be 
 that this phenomenon is due to a belief that playgoers 
 want to see something in the theatres far divorced 
 from its ordinary life, but this belief seems hardly 
 consistent with certain notable tendencies towards 
 realism. Undoubtedly the public has not grown 
 tired of plays dealing seriously with current human 
 life ; it has had no opportunity of growing tired of 
 them. 
 
 Since this was written the " Yellow Journalism " 
 editor has tv^dce appeared, once in the brilliant comedy
 
 296 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 called What the Public Wants, b}^ Mr Arnold Bennett, 
 where Mr James Hearn represented him superbly, and 
 on the other occasion in Mr Fagan's clever work called 
 The Earth, when Mr M'Kinnel acted ably. Also we 
 have had an engineer in The Building of Bridges and a 
 doctor in Fires of Fate. 
 
 THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH.
 
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 Fiction 
 
 THE HOLE IN 
 
 31 
 
 Moppison (Apthup). 
 THE WALL. 
 
 Nesbit (E.). THE RED HOUSE, 
 
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 GILES INGILBY. 
 
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 LORD LEONARD THE LUCKLESS. 
 
 MATTHEW AUSTEN. 
 
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 I CROWN THEE KING. 
 
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 THE RIVER. 
 
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 LOST PROPERTY, 
 
 GEORGE and THE GENERAL. 
 
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 Russell (W. Clark). ABANDONED. 
 A MARRIAGE AT SEA. 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 HIS ISLAND PRINCESS. 
 
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 BALBARA'S MONEY. 
 THE YELLOW DIAMOND. 
 THE LOVE THAT OVERCAME. 
 
 Sldgwick (MPS. Alfred). 
 
 MAN. 
 
 'HE KINS- 
 
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 ASK MAMMA. 
 
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 COUSINS. 
 
 THE BABY'S GRANDMOTHER. 
 
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 THE FAIR GOD. 
 
 BEN-HUR. 
 
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 TURERS. 
 •CAPTAIN FORTUNE. 
 
 Weekes (A. B.). PRISONERS OF WAR. 
 
 Wells (H. G.). THE SEA LADY. 
 
 White (Pepcy). A PASSIONATE PIL- 
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