THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW KENNETH MACGOWAN THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW >-o 3 - S S i> c s .e V3 = bfi U _ c o ~ C Qj Eb o > < THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW KENNETH MACGOWAN BONI AND LIVERIGHT PUBLISHERS NEW YORK THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW Copyright, 1921, By BONI & LlVERIGHT, INC. Printed in the United States of America library . To My Wife CONTENTS PART I. THE NEW STAGECRAFT CHAPTER PAGB I. The Twentieth Century Theatre 13 Twenty-five years of the new stagecraft. Gordon Craig and Adolphe Appia, the pioneer theorists. Other artists and directors. The principles of the new art of design style and atmosphere, through simplification, sugges- tion, and synthesis. II. The Mechanician 27 The place of mechanical reform in the new stagecraft. The stage machinery of the Greeks. Devices for shift- ing scenes swinging stage, sliding stage, shadow stage, revolving stage. Advantages and disadvantages of these devices in relation to the artist. Use of the skeleton setting and forestage. III. The Electrician 46 Light, the heart of the stage picture. American progress in electrical equipment. Belasco, electrical pioneer. Continental devices the Fortuny and Ars Systems, the plaster sky-dome. Broken color. IV. The Painter 64 The easel artist in the new theatre. Bakst, Golovin, Roerich. The older theatre of pretense that came be- fore realism. The Russian artists working within the conventions of the older theatre. Painted perspective on backdrops and wings, sublimated by the painter's genius. The contribution of the Ballet Russe. V. Appia The Light as Dramatist 76 The first theorist of the new theatre. A designer who understood light. The dilemma of the dead setting and the live actor. His analysis of lighting methods antici- pating reforms of 191 5. The three-dimensional stage. The extension of his theory into stage direction. 3 CONTENTS CHAPTER FAGS VI. The Accomplishment of Gordon Craig 86 The man of the theatre. His fundamental conception unity of production. His work as producer. Banish- ing the actor for the "Ubermarionette." For the theatre, a "creative art of its own." His opposition to footlights and perspective. His prescription for staging Macbeth. VII. The Plastic Stage 101 The theories of Craig and Appia produce in fifteen years a plastic stage. The case against perspective. When perspective may succeed. Realism and imagination united against painted pretense. How the plastic stage limits the artist physically. Spiritual escapes. VIII. Expressionism in the Theatre 109 The limitations of the plastic stage avoided through for- mal design. The application of expressionism to the theatre. The first cubist theatre, the Kamerny in Mos- cow. Cubism reaches the American stage in 191 5. Ab- stract treatment of light. German expressionist pro- ductions. Griinewald's and Andree's experiment in Stockholm. Yevreynoff's dynamic scenery. The Color Organ. Jones' Macbeth. Representation vs. Pres- entation. IX. The Formal Stage 126 The limitations of the plastic stage avoided by turning to structural forms upon the stage. Craig's screens. Hume's adaptable setting. The German experiments of Immermann, Perfall and Savitts with the Shakespeare Stage. Skeleton settings. Littmann's adaptable pro- scenium. X. The Actor Re-animated 147 The problem of the actor and the auditorium replaces the problem of the setting. Meyerhold and the "theatre theatrical." Arthur Hopkins' theory of "unconscious projection." Copeau's re-animation of the actor. PART II. THE NEW PLAYHOUSE XI. The Eternal Theatre 161 The religious birth of drama. Its progress through twenty- five centuries. The open-air Greek theatre. The 4 CONTENTS HAPTER PAGE decadent Roman parody. The church as theatre. The mediaeval platform stage. The booths of the guilds. Shakespeare's bear-pit. The street theatre of the corn- media dell' arte. The Itaiian opera house and the Inigo Jones masques produce the Victorian theatre. The peep-show stage of today. XII. The Movies The Curtain Becomes the Stage . .176 Putting realism upon the "fourth wall" by means of light. The possibilities of the movies as the theatre of imagina- tion. Their affinity with realism. They may become drama but never theatre. XIII. The Next Theatre 184 Experiments toward a playhouse opposed to realism. The projects of Schinkel and Goethe, of Semper and Wag- ner. Littmann's influence. Theatres of distinctly new form. The Dalcroze-Appia experiment in Hellerau. Reinhardt's Theatre of the Five Thousand. Projects of the artists. Copeau's Vieux Colombier. PART III. THE NEW PLAY XIV. A Theatre Without Plays 211 The new stagecraft criticised as a movement without plays. Inigo Jones vs. Shakespeare. Why the producers have gone back of the peep-show stage to the classics for dramas of imagination. The Zeitgeist of an imaginative theatre finds its first expression through the most sensi- tive factor in the playhouse, the artist. The actor's part. XV. The Twilight of Realism 221 The rise of realism and its form, the three- and four- act play. The breakdown of this form in the past twenty years. The emergence of freak plays: plays within plays, plays told backward, dream plays. The increase in num- ber of scenes. Back to the costume play. XVI. The Form of the Future 234 The new playwright avoids the distortion of cramming his action into three or four scenes. The influence of the motion picture on playwright and audience. The re- turn of the soliloquy. Rhythmed prose and varying verse. 5 CONTENTS XVII. Thb Content of the Future . . .- . .- y . . 246 Dramatising the unconscious mind. Experiments in mental drama. Yevreynoff's monodrama. The Italian futur- ists' synthetic theatre. The German expressionist play- wrights. Kaiser's From Morn to Midnight. The heroic figure returns. A drama of the deep instinctive forces of life. XVIII. A Drama of Intimacy and of Crowds 265 The conflict of the little theatre and the circus, of the real and the aesthetic. Mass drama introduces the "group being." A beginning in Jones's scheme for The Cenci. The mask, the marionette and the open-air theatre. XIX. The Theatre of Democracy The possibilities of the theatre as a democratic art. Real- ism: its cause and cure. The economic basis of the thesis-play. The possibilities of the future when so- ciety is released from industrialism. Democracy through art. A Bibliographical Appendix 283 Index 289 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR Pelleas and Melisande Design by Jones Frontispiece FACING PACK King Lear Design by Geddes 20 Thamar Design by Bakst 66 Prince Igor Design by Roerich 72 Petrushka Design by Benois 1 10 Pulcinella Design by Picasso 124 Mme. Chrysantheme Design by Rosse 146 The Song of Roland Design by Jones 274 ILLUSTRATIONS IN HALF-TONE FACING PAGB King Lear Reinhardt Production 16 Faust as Set by Reinhardt 18 Everyman Setting by Linnebach 22 The Seven Princesses Design by Jones 24 Twelfth Night Urban's Shakespeare Stage 44 Boris Godunoff Design by Golovin 68 The Blue Bird at the Moscow Art Theatre 70 Die Walkiire Four Designs by Appia 82 and 84 Macbeth Design by Gordon Craig 98 Liliom Setting by Simonson 106 Soldiers from a Cubist Salome 1*4 Expressionist Costumes by Picasso 116 7 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PACK Much Ado About Nothing Expressionist Style 118 Caligari Expressionism on the Screen 120 Macbeth Designs by Robert Edmond Jones 122 Hamlet in Craig's Screens 128 Hume's Adaptable Setting 130 The Faithful Screen Setting by Simonson 132 Richard III Designs by Jones 134 Immermann's Shakespeare Stage 138 The Munich Shakespeare Stage 140 Shakespeare at the Munich Royal Court Theatre .... 142 The Bonds of Interest Design by Peters 144 The Dalcroze Playhouse 190 A Hellerau Production by Appia 192 A Reinhardt Circus Production 194 Reinhardt's New Circus Theatre 196 In the Theatre of the Five Thousand 198 The Divine Comedy Arrangements by Geddes 204 Theatres Designed by Herman Rosse 206 Copeau's Permanent Stage 208 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT PAGE Reinhardt at Rehearsal 17 Dantons Tod Sketch by Stern 22 Section of a Stage 29 The Swinging Stage 32 The Sliding and Sinking Stage 36 and 37 The Japanese Revolving Stage 38 The Revolving Stage Set for Henry IV, Part I 39 8 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGX The Revolving Stage in Action 41 The Cloister A Skeleton Setting 43 Papa Designs by Geddes 45 The Fortuny System 54 A Modern German Theatre 57 Costumes by Bakst 72 Five Settings in One 130 The Munich Kunstler Theater 134 Cross-section of a Littmann Theatre 135 La Nave A Draped Background 137 The English Portals 142 A Greek Theatre 164 A Roman Theatre 165 The Mediaeval Platform Stage 167 The Booth Stage of the Guilds 168 An Elizabethan Theatre 169 The Commedia dell' Arte 171 An Italian Comedy Setting 172 An Italian Court Masque 173 An Inigo Jones Masque 175 Reinhardt's Grosses Schauspielhaus 196 Plan of the Grosses Schauspielhaus 197 Reinhardt's Projected Festspielhaus 199 A Theatre without a Proscenium 203 Plan for The Divine Comedy 205 The Stage for The Divine Comedy 206 Copeau's Stage in New York 209 Part One the new stagecraft THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW CHAPTER I. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY THEATRE. TIE thing that has been called the new move- ment in the theatre is a quarter of a century old. It has swept the playhouses of Germany and Russia, touched lightly the French and British stages, and in the last seven years risen to dominance in the serious theatre of America. It is not a simple thing this stream of theory and effort. Its source is not found in any single mind. Its course is cut cease- lessly by cross-currents, and muddied by alien waters. As with most things so intensely human as the art of the theatre, close definition only confuses. It is com- plex with experiment and compromise. It goes back to the Greeks and on to a new theatre as different from ours of the nineteenth century as ours is different from the Greeks'. At the moment, I feel, it has completed only part of its work the development of a technique of production, which we call the new stagecraft. In 13 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW doing this, it has hinted at a new sort of playhouse and a new (or a very old) relation of play and audience. It seems to me to be going on to the creation of a mod- ern type of drama which will utilize the new technique and express the new relation. No movement in the theatre has ever been simple enough for the purposes of the pigeonhole. Giants like Hugo and Ibsen may serve as expressions of the ro- mantic and the realistic movements of the nineteenth century. But they have acquired stature through the passage of time, and about them in their own day stood playwrights, actors and producers now forgotten from whom and to whom impulse flowed in the web of con- temporary effort. The new stagecraft has its giant Gordon Craig a giant who will grow greater in as- pect as he and his contemporaries fade into the past. Yet it would be a reckless critic who would lay upon Craig alone the origination of a movement which sprang up in imperfect form at half a dozen points in Europe during the years before and after 1900. As far back as 1808 a German critic, August Wil- helm Schlegel, gave an admirable summary of what was to be the theory of the new stagecraft, covering a surprising number of the points raised by Craig, Appia and the theorists and artists who followed them : "Our system of decoration was properly invented for the opera, to which in reality it is also best adapted. It has several unavoidable defects ; others which may be, 14 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY THEATRE but seldom are, avoided. Among the inevitable de- fects, I reckon the breaking of the lines in the side scenes from every point of view except one; the dis- proportion of the player when he appears in the back- ground against objects diminished in perspective; the unfavorable lighting from below and behind ; the con- trast between the painted and the actual lights and shades; the impossibility of narrowing the stage at pleasure, so that the inside of a palace and a hut have the same length and breadth. The errors which may be avoided are want of simplicity and of great and re- poseful masses; the overloading of the scene with super- fluous and distracting objects, either because the painter is desirous of showing off his strength in perspective or because he does not know how otherwise to fill up the space; an architecture full of mannerism, often altogether unconnected, nay, even at variance withj pos- sibility, colored in a motley manner which resembles no species of stone in the world." Similar ideas motivated the attempts of Tieck and Immermann in 1840, and of Perfall and Savitts in 1890 to construct Shakespearean stages freed from all the folderol of scenic convention. In 1875 Godwin was de- signing and theorizing in admirable fashion upon stage settings for Shakespeare. In 1880 Anselm Feuer- bach, the German painter, wrote: "I hate the modern theatre because my sharp eye always sees through the cardboard and the rouge. From the bottom of my soul 15 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW I hate the misdeeds committed in the name of decora- tion and everything that belongs thereto. It spoils the public, frightens away the last remnant of artistic feel- ing, and encourages barbarisms of taste, from which real art turns away and shakes the dust off its feet. The true work of art has enough power within itself to make its situations visible and real without unworthy artificial means, which violate all the canons of art. Unobtrusive suggestion is what is needed, not bewil- dering effects." All these criticisms and efforts were vagrant anti- cipations of an art movement which was to find its first constructive theorist and practitioner in Adolphe Appia. In 1893 Appia published in French a brochure dealing with the setting of Wagner's operas. In the next few years he made sketches to illustrate his theories, and in 1899 ne published, in German transla- tion, his second and now classic volume, Die Musik und die Inscenierung. This book had an unquestioned effect in Germany, though Appia and his ideas are, even today, far less broadly known the world over than Craig's. Gordon Craig whose genius has been the greatest force in the theatre since Ibsen played from 1889 to 1896 in the company of Henry Irving and Craig's moth- er, Ellen Terry. When he left Irving he turned to the study of stage management. With the exception of an experiment with a play by deMusset at Uxbridge, he 16 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY THEATRE attempted no productions until 1900. He gave no ex- hibitions of his designs until 1902. He published no connected account of his theories until 1905. Mean- while William Poel worked ceaselessly upon his recre- ations of the Elizabethan stage and the re-introduction of Shakespeare properly arranged; and Henry Wilson, an instructor in art in London, designed and pre- sented in The Masque of Beauty in 1899 a considerable share of the ideas and effects associated with the new stagecraft. During these same late nineties Max Reinhardt, destined to become the most famous of modern regisseurs, was grad- ually deserting the theatre of Otto Brahm, arch-realist, and the Neue Freie Volksbiihne for a type of vivid dramatic cabaret which he developed definitely between 1900 and 1901 in his Schall und Rauch. In the next few years he brought his more pungent and vigorous realism to a wedding with the newer ideas of Craig and Appia in his Kleines and Neues theatres and later in his Kammerspielhaus. By 1905 he was well launched upon the exploitation of the new methods of staging. With Reinhardt himself an actor, director and manager there developed a group of scenic de- 17 REINHARDT AT REHEARSAL THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW signers. In German theatres producers like Georg Fuchs and Paul Schlenther, artist-directors like Carl Hagemann and Max Martersteig, and designers like Ernst Stern, Julius V. Klein, Alfred Roller, Heinrich Leffler, Willy Wirk, Ludwig von Hofmann, Ludwig Sievert, Ottomar Starke, Karl Walser, Fritz Erler, Czeschka, Emil Orlik and Adolf Linnebach, paral- leled the progress of Reinhardt. In Russia when the Moscow Art Theatre was founded in 1898 by Stanislavsky and Nyemirovich- Dantchenko, the realistic movement fused to a certain extent with the impulse towards unity of production and completeness of emotional expression on the part of the actors, which is a necessary feature of the newer movement. Yet, for all the perfection of ensemble in the Art Theatre and the readiness to experiment with fresh methods, as shown in its production of The Blue Bird in 1908-09 and its invitation to Craig to produce Hamlet with his screen-settings in 191 2, the Art Thea- tre owed its greater allegiance to realism. For that reason there departed from its ranks in 1906 a player and producer who was to contribute signally to the fore- front of theory of the new "theatre theatrical" Mey- erhold. In Paris, the home of Antoine, founder of the first "free theatre", the new stagecraft had only intermittent and hesitating interpreters until Jacques Rouche founded the Theatre des Arts in 1907. Before him 18 1 1 : fc % Em R< Sibf- i K If v ^L4E " ^L*^^^r f MB Ini n'/^ A sketch made hv FAUST Robert E AS SET [ones RE1NHARDT Merlin in as arranged by Ernst Stern, and the grouping of the actor; setting and h^nt Max Reinhardt. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY THEATRE there was Riviere, Fort, Lugne-Poe; after him, the greatest of French regisseurs and a most uncompromis- ing, fecund and creative force Jacques Copeau. These are the men who were creating the theory and the technique of the new stagecraft in the opening dec- ade of the twentieth century and pushing it to com- pletion in the years just before the war. They were working partly unknown to one another, partly in co- operation. What precisely were they working upon? What is the technique they evolved? It is a technique that applies to realistic plays as well as to plays of spiritual emphasis, plays of color, im- agination, exaltation, inner truth. It can create illusion as well as understanding. It can perfect the old thea- tre as well as launch the new. It does in fact range from a beautified realism to absolute, abstract form. Its one definite limit cuts it off from the theatre of photographic realism. It is always and utterly opposed to the copying upon the stage of the confusion and de- tail of actuality. Arthur Hopkins, the producer who has done most for the progress of the new stagecraft in the commercial American theatre, as Maurice Browne has done most for it in the world of the little theatre, effectively disposes of the photographic setting in his odd, lively and suggestive little book, How's Your Second Act? "An attempt at exact reproduction challenges the . . . mind of the audience to comparison. ... If a 19 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW Child's Restaurant in all its detail is offered, it remains for the audience to recall its memory photograph of a Child's Restaurant and check it up with what is shown on the stage. . . . The result of the whole mental com- paring process is to impress upon the auditor that he is in a theatre witnessing a very accurate reproduction, only remarkable because it is not real. So the upshot of the realistic effort is further to emphasize the un- reality of the whole attempt, setting, play, and all. So I submit that realism defeats the very thing to which it aspires. It emphasizes the faithfulness of un- reality." For a positive purpose the new stagecraft sets itself to visualize the atmosphere of a play. Its artists aim to make, in the settings called for by the text, an emo- tional envelope appropriate to the dramatic mood of the author, a visualization in color, line and light of the dominant emotions to be pictured by the actors. Broadly speaking the artist achieves this through style. The playwright has his style, the artist must have his also. There is perhaps this difference: The playwright, choosing his subject, may retain a domi- nant style through all his plays, if only his tempera- ment makes him choose unerringly the subjects suited to his style. The artist has the subject chosen for him by the dramatist. To some extent he must play the chameleon. He must alter his own natural style of work to suit the play. Some artists can achieve the 20 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY THEATRE necessary effect of a fresh and appropriate style while retaining the general characteristics in color, line, or structure that are peculiar to him. Other artists Norman-Bel Geddes is a notable example recreate their own styles, develop an entirely new and distinc- tive technique for each fresh production. But in spite of a common personal style an artist may vary the meth- od of its expression from production to production and even within a single production. Thus Joseph Urban who has probably a more distinctive and fixed style than any other scenic designer in America may prac- tice an enriched and meaningful realism in Le Prophete, a decorative method in Don Giovanni, and abstraction in superficially realistic Nju; or he may run from realism to abstraction and symbolism in a single opera such as St. Elizabeth. Within the limits of atmosphere and style, what are the methods of the new stagecraft? What are the artistic means appropriate to the theatrical problem? They are simplification, suggestion and synthesis. Simplification is the test in almost all great art. Simplification of effect always; simplification of means generally. On the stage simplification of both effect and means are essential, because the scenery is not the only thing to be seen. Stage architecture is not architecture alone, or stage picture merely stage picture. The setting is the background of the actor. And it is essential that he shall be properly set off by his 21 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW background and properly fused in it. He must mean more because of the setting, not less. The case against the old setting is that either its garishness or its de- tail tends to obscure the actor. On the stage we must have simplification for art's sake. But we must have From Reinhardt und Seine Biihne DANTONS TOD SKETCH BY STERN As produced by Reinhardt it even more for the sake of the actor and therefore of the play. The complement to simplification is suggestion. Simplify as much as you please; you only make it the more possible to suggest a wealth of spiritual and aes- 22 SBH^HMHIHi From The Theatre of Today. EVERYMAN SETTING BY MN'N'EBACH Through a simplified use of the Gothic, Adolf Linnebach sug- gests in his production at the Dresden Opera House both the reli- gious atmosphere and the period of the old morality play. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY THEATRE thetic qualities. A single Saracenic arch can do more than a half dozen to summon the passionate back- ground of Spanish Don Juan. One candlestick can carry the whole spirit of the baroque La Tosca; one Gothic pillar build the physical reality and the spirit- ual force of the church that looms above Marguerite. On the basis of simplification, the artist can build up by suggestion a host of effects that crude and elaborate reproduction would only thrust between the audience and the actor and the play. The artist can suggest either the naturalistic or the abstract, either reality or an idea and an emotion. Finally, the dominant quality in modern stage pro- duction is synthesis. For modern stage art, in spite of all the easel artists who may care to practice the paint- ing of backdrops and let it go at that, is a complex and rhythmic fusion of setting, lights, actors and play. There must be consistency in each of these, consistency of a single kind or consistency that has the quality of progression in it. And there must be such consistency among them all. Half the portrait, half the landscape, cannot be in Whistler's style and the other half in Zuloaga's. The creation of a mood expressive of the play is, after all, the final purpose in production. It can no more be a jumble of odds and ends than can the play itself. The achievement of this synthesized suggestion of a play's simple, essential qualities has been sought by 23 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW the great theorists in very different ways. Gordon Craig would get it mainly by design, backed by color. Adolphe Appia fuses his drama in light. Jacques Copeau, whose beliefs and whose work must take a high place in the record of theatrical progress, achieves the play through restriction of means and the re-crea- tion, at each production, of every element from the theatre building to the actor. I think a single scene of a play produced by two Americans and a modern, realistic play, at that can be taken as an example of the working out of the three fundamentals in a fused whole. It is the open- ing scene of a failure produced by Arthur Hopkins a few years ago, The Devil's Garden. The opening of the play showed a postal clerk hauled up for exam- ination on charges, in the room of a member of that .bureaucracy, the British general post office. The set- ting was shallow, perhaps ten feet deep. At each end was a door set in a wall at right angles to the footlights. The rear wall was without opening, and its only deco- ration was a buff-toned map. Three chairs and one desk. And some actors. Simplification. But that simple room fairly breathed bureaucracy, the thing that was about to grip the clerk. Its walls were a dull gray; its door casings, map frame, narrow wainscoting and furniture were black the same gray and black of the morning clothes of the officials. These tones and these people made a well-composed 2,4 From The Theatre Arts Magazint THE SEVEN PRINCESSES DESIGN RY JONES The skeleton of a Gothic apse, with circular steps, shutting in the characters of Maeterlinck's play. Compare this abstract treatment of architectural form with the simplified hut literal representation in I.innehach's Everyman opposite page 22. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY THEATRE harmonious picture, but it was a picture instinct with formality. The colors, the proportions, the map all simple suggestions of the reality that ruled the whole great invisible building behind. For synthesis, there was not only the consistency of this gray and black duotone and its restrained light- ing. There was the handling of furniture and people the stage direction; for while I shall talk a great deal of the artist and the picture because they are new to the stage, it must always be remembered that only through the direction can play, actors, settings and lights be properly fused. The desk and chairs were precisely and formally square with the square walls. The people entered from the end doors, moved squarely and formally up to each other, face to face, precise. It was a machine, the machine of government property. That scene, as designed by Robert E. Jones and directed by Arthur Hopkins, was a perfect piece of realism, and a perfect piece of abstraction besides. It showed the possibilities of the new art for the drama of today as well as for the more significant, spiritual, colorful type of play for which so many of us are hop- ing and of which the new stagecraft and its potentiali- ties seem a portent. Unquestionably the purpose of the immense fresh effort which has thus poured into the theatre in these twenty-five years is not the perfecting of plays like The Devil's Garden. Three signs forbid this: First, 25 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW the new stagecraft always achieves its most moving success in plays of another sort, in The Jest as staged by Robert E. Jones and Arthur Hopkins, in A Mid- summer Night's Dream as staged by Ernst Stern and Max Reinhardt or by Norman Wilkinson and Gran- ville Barker, in The Blue Bird as staged by V. E. Yeg- oroff and Stanislavsky. Second, the greatest of the artists tend steadily toward more abstraction in their settings, toward those distinctive qualities of the modern art movement which fuse in "ex- pressionism;" you may see this in Craig's Hamlet done with screens at the Moscow Art Theatre, in Jones's Macbeth. Third, artists and directors alike turn more and more toward the problem of the phys- ical playhouse, toward reforms in proscenium, fore- stage and setting, which make for a wholly new rela- tion of audience and play, and which demand a type of drama fitted, like the drama of the Greeks, of Shakespeare, of Moliere, for presentation upon a stage where illusion is not so important as emotional inti- macy, directness, clarity. It is the purpose of these pages to set forth the ideas behind the new stagecraft, the reforms in the physical playhouse and the changes in contemporary plays which all point, as I see it, towards a new drama, and to attempt to outline that drama in its broader aspects. 26 CHAPTER II. THE MECHANICIAN. ACROSS some twenty centuries one factor con- nects iEschylus with The Follies of IQl8. It is not the actors, not the music, not the spoken word, not even the chorus. It is one of the humbler partners in theatrical production, the mechanician. When the moment came to shift the scenes of Zieg- feld's miscellaneous (revue,; the stage-hands grasped the edges of six or eight huge, triangular prisms of canvas standing in lines down the sides of the stage, and revolved them a third of a turn, thus pre- senting to the view of the audience, when the front curtain rose, a new side of each with a new decoration upon it. When it was necessary for the drama of The Eumenides to shift from the temple at Delphi to the temple at Athens, certain functionaries of the theatre of Dionysus in Athens turned just such prisms before the birth of Christ. There were two of these curious objects the periaktoi one at each side of what we must call the stage. On their various sides were painted symbolic indications of the settings. A wave- line indicated the sea shore; an appropriate device, the city of Athens. The means was roughly the same as 27 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW in the work of the artists of our own new stagecraft a simplified suggestion of place or atmosphere. Martin Harvey, the English actor who brought a Reinhardtian production of CEdipus Rex to Covent Garden, London, before the war, utilized two such periaktoi in his production of The Taming of the Shrew, each large enough to make all the setting re- quired at the side of the stage, when combined with an appropriate backdrop. When he designed The Fol- lies of IQl8 Joseph Urban used three or four nar- rower periaktoi at each side, in addition to his back- drops. In all three cases the ingenuity of the mecha- nician was at the bottom of the scenic effect, yet it was an ingenuity and a mechanism peculiarly appropriate to an artistic solution of one of the biggest of scenic problems quick changes of scene. This problem has united the stage mechanic very closely with the artist of the new stagecraft. The whole history of the theatre is filled with examples of machines for creating this or that effect the deus ex machina of the Greeks, bearing a confession of the me- chanical in the very name; the Hell Mouth of the mediaeval stage; the devices of Inigo Jones in his Stu- art masques; the traps of the eighteenth century stage; the hydraulic bridges and the "Asphale'ia" jacks that raised sections of the stage in Victorian days but the mechanical reforms of the past twenty-five years in the German theatre have had to do almost altogether 28 THE MECHANICIAN with giving the artist greater freedom in playing upon the emotions of the audiences through rapid changes of scene. In the days when Craig, Appia, Fuchs and Reinhardt were working upon the reform of the set- ting, the mechani- cians of the Ger- man theatre were busy with the in- vention of devices to shift settings me- chanically. The impulse had come primarily from the realistic theatre. Before audiences demanded reality This cut, from The Century Dictionary, is in- nnnn the srao-e the tended to take the P ,ace of a g'ssary and to upun uit aidgc, U1C make clear tec i, n j ca j terms use d j n tn i s ant i suc . Problem Of Shifting ceeding chapters. A is the apron, which may become the forestage; /, /, border lights; g, g, SCenery WaS COm- fly-galleries; h, proscenium arch; i, j, curtains; * I i, asbestos fire-proof curtain. The backdrop is paratlVely Simple. tne | ast p i ece Q f scene ry to the left; in front of Both interiors and '* stand ^ ats * n ^ e w ' n g s - The proscenium in- cludes the pillar by the boxes as well as the exteriors prior to arch. 1850 were made up of backdrops, borders above and light canvas wings 29 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW thrust out from each side parallel to the footlights. Rooms did not have side walls; they had something that might better be described as screens between which the actors made their exits. Back drops, borders and wings could be moved quickly, either "flied" (raised by ropes to the gridiron above), slid back in grooves, or moved aside bodily. With the coming of straight side walls which could neither be flied nor slid in grooves, of ceilings in place of borders, and particularly of real wooden doors, mantelpieces and even wainscoatings, shifting settings required the labor of a large corps of stage hands. The mechanicians then began working on the problem of how to make these changes more quickly by eliminating as much hand labor as possible. They solved the problem in time to serve the ends of the new artist. Their devices are of first-rate importance because they give the artist greater freedom to build solidly and honestly, because through quick changes they permit the director to play more effectively on the emotions of the audience by flinging scene after scene upon them with only one rather long intermis- sion for relaxation, and because many of the devices give the settings themselves a curious and interesting unity. America has contributed very little to the solution of this mechanical problem. The strange and fertile genius of Steele MacKaye, the father of Percy Mac- Kaye, the playwright, worked upon it. His first so- 30 THE MECHANICIAN lution was the "drop stage" or "elevator stage" in- stalled in the old Madison Square Theatre when it was built in 1884 and modeled, it is said, on a device used by Booth ten years before. This consisted of two floors or stages, one above the other. While one stage was at the level of the proscenium opening, the other, either above or below, could be reset for the next scene. Elaborate and powerful machinery raised or lowered this gigantic double-decked elevator. Like most de- vices for making changes of scene without the use of the gridiron, it made little way in America because scenery built to meet its requirements could not be handled comfortably in other theatres; this interfered with road tours. For his projected Spectatorium at the World's Fair in Chicago MacKaye devised a much more intricate stage to produce panoramic changes of scene as well as water spectacles. Along concentric tracks circling out from the centre of the proscenium opening, sections of the stage were to move on trucks. Another device of MacKaye's, adapted from Euro- pean models, provided "chariots" or trucks below the stage floor, which was so slotted that masts fastened to the chariots and carrying pieces of scenery could be slid back and forth at will. America's next contribution was the swinging stage, first introduced, I believe, by Arthur Hopkins and Joseph Wickes for On Trial in 19 16, and used again the same year by Joseph Urban in his production of 3i THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW Twelfth Night for Phyllis Neilson-Terry. In the case of Twelfth Night, the swinging stage was installed to make changes in rather small settings behind an inner proscenium which stood throughout the play. In On Trial the swinging stage rilled the whole normal proscenium opening. The principle is simple, and the device does not interfere with touring, since the two PJatform L Auditorium THE SWINGING STAGE As introduced by Arthur Hopkins in On Trial. While the setting on one platform is in view, the other platform is being re-set in the wings and made ready to take its place. platforms needed may be packed and carried about. These platforms are a little larger than the sets to be used. The left front corner of one is pivoted behind the left base of the proscenium arch; the right front corner of the other behind the right base. While one of these platforms is in place before the curtain, the other is swung into the wings and the scene changed. They move on rollers upon concentric metal tracks laid on the floor. In On Trial their use 32 THE MECHANICIAN was most successful and most necessary, since the play required the scene to shift rapidly from a court room to the spots where the incidents that the witness was de- scribing had occurred. The German theatre is responsible for the perfecting of practically all the other methods of quick scene- shifting now in use, and in Germany they find their fullest employment. One of the most curious, be- cause it alters the position of the settings as we are used to them on the stage, is in use at the Werkbund Theater in Cologne designed by van de Velde. The plan is to divide the stage opening into three sections and to use only one section at a time. The line of the footlights and the edge of the stage, instead of being straight or convex as in practically all theatres, curves inward and away from the audience. A curtain of the general color of the walls is arranged to cover what- ever sections of the stage are not to be visible, and is designed to seem a continuation of the house itself. Thus, as Oliver M. Sayler describes it, for the first scenes in Faust the curtain covers the right two-thirds of the proscenium opening while in the left third Faust's study is visible. For the next scene, the third at the right is used, with the curtain covering the rest of the opening. After another view of the study, the whole stage is utilized for an exterior as it would normally be, with the wall of a building hastily set across the front of the study. The obvious defect of 33 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW this method would seem to be that the audience have to twist about in their seats or at least turn their attention in a new direction at each change of scene. Casual wit- nesses such as Sayler, however, have found this re- adjustment easy to make. Sayler describes in The Russian Theatre Under the Revolution another device which also utilizes only part of the stage at a time. It is in use at the Studio Theatres connected with the Moscow Art Theatre. It consists of a curtain running on a horizontal pole pivoted near the back of the stage. As it is swung to the right or the left it conceals or discloses one side or the other of the stage. While the setting on one side is hidden, it is quietly changed, and the back of the curtain itself ornamented with some applied device. When the cur- tain is swung across to the other side a new scene is disclosed. In the American theatre changes of scene have some- times been made by lighting up one part of the stage while keeping another in darkness. Thus in Crooked Gamblers under the direction of Robert Milton, a di- rector trained in Moscow, rooms on two floors of an office building were shown in rapid succession by erect- ing the whole structure on the stage and switching off the lights on one floor as the lights came on upon another. The German theatre has made extensive use of three mechanical devices described in Hiram K. Moder- 34 THE MECHANICIAN well's Theatre of Today the sliding stage, the revolv- ing stage and the wagon stage. The sliding stage, in- vented by Fritz Brandt of the Royal Opera, Berlin, is practically the elevator stage of MacKaye worked side- wise. The acting floor is on rollers and is drawn out to one side while a similar section, already set, is wheeled into its place. For convenience the stage is sometimes divided into two or three sections parallel to the footlights. Any one or all three may be slid out at pleasure. The disadvantage of the sliding stage is that it requires on each side of the stage proper a section of clear floor as large as that behind the pro- scenium opening. This is hardly available when thea- tres are built in districts of high rent. Adolf Linne- bach, the talented technical director of the new Konig- liches Schauspielhaus of Dresden (as it was called in 1914) obviated part of the difficulty by using hydraulic jacks to raise and lower the floor of the stage upon which the platforms rested. Thus, as Moderwell puts it, the stage "does its sliding in the basement," where there is ample room. An added advantage of this ar- rangement is that the three longitudinal sections of the stage can be raised easily to different heights for ter- races, balconies, etc. Another, a simpler and a cheaper equipment for scene shifting is the wagon stage. This consists of a group of a dozen or more small platforms about six feet by twelve mounted on wheels and sometimes self- 35 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW propelled. The scenery is merely fastened against the edges of these wagons, with the bottom of the "flats" just clearing the floor. Two or more wagons may be lashed together to carry larger sections of the setting 1 THE SLIDING AND SINKING STAGE A section through the former Kdnigliches Schauspielhaus in Dresden. The drawing shows at the top a backdrop suspended from the gridiron in the ordinary fashion. In the basement are three other settings waiting for the stage to be lowered, the used scene slid off, and one of the three moved into its place, and raised to the stage level, occupied in the drawing by an exterior setting. The front edge of the dome is indicated by the curving line. or heavy platforms or staircases. These wagons sim- ply take the place of stage hands in moving the walls of settings into place. In America, when Charles Klein introduced solid wooden settings, the sections of the walls were so arranged that they would tip back 36 THE MECHANICIAN onto casters; and thus they carried with them, so to speak, their own wagons. The German wagons can THE SLIDING AND SINKING STAGE A section through the Kdnigliches Schauspielhaus showing the three lengthwise divisions of the stage raised to different levels to represent terraces. be used upon an ordinary stage, upon the sliding stage in order to facilitate the resetting of the section in the wings, or upon the much more celebrated revolving stage. 37 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW The revolving stage was perfected by Karl Lauten- schlager, and introduced first in 1896 at the Residenz Theater in Munich. Play Production in America, by Arthur Edwin Krows, is authority for the state- ment that it was "known prior to 1880 in a French playhouse." It first came to America at the Liberty From Scribner's Magazine THE JAPANESE REVOLVING STAGE The original from which Lautenschlager adapted this scene-shifting device in 1896. The stage is shown while turning. The curtain does not descend. Theatre, Oakland, Cal., where it was introduced by Harry Bishop. Winthrop Ames, who had made an extensive study of European stages, installed a revolv- ing stage at the New Theatre in 191 1 and at his Little Theatre built later. In the two New York houses the device has been little used of late years, largely because 38 THE MECHANICIAN settings have to be built to tour, not to suit a single peculiar stage-device. To get the most out of a revolv- ing stage, its scenery should be especially designed to utilize its peculiar advantages. From The Theatre of Today THE REVOLVING STAGE SET FOR HENRY IV, PART I The stage of Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater as arranged for the first part of Shakespeare's chronicle play. As the stage is turned, the five Bettings are successively presented to view. The German revolving stage finds its original in Japan where it has been in use for years. As adapted to European conditions it consists of a great circle of 39 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW the stage surface, considerably wider than the prosce- nium opening, cut out and so pivoted or supported as to turn freely. Upon this circle the various scenes are set practically back to back. Two to five or six set- tings can be accommodated, some large, some small. They occupy, as it were, the segments of a pie. First one setting is presented to the proscenium, then the stage is slowly revolved until the next setting comes opposite the opening. While one set is being used, others may be altered or cleared away. The cut on page 39 illustrates how the circle is divided and the cut on page 41 how the settings are built up. The building up of the settings contains both ad- vantages and disadvantages for the revolving stage. Obviously so long as it is used for setting a number of scenes a clear stage for any one of them is impossible. So long as there must be a room waiting on the rear part of the circle there cannot be an exterior scene showing a level view of the horizon. In theatres such as Reinhardt's using the revolving stage, exterior scenes are built up from the line of the footlights over the top of the other settings. Otherwise, for exteriors or very large interiors, the revolving stage must cease to revolve and be treated as an ordinary stage floor. Aside from swift changes of scene, the advantages of the revolving stage lie in the relations of the various settings built upon it. The hilly exteriors, which would be costly to build if they were not supported by 40 m' From Reinhardt und Seine Biihne THE REVOLVING STAGE IN ACTION Six sketches by Ernst Stern showing the process of building up the scenery upon the revolving stage until five or six scenes are ready for presentation upon the turning of the great disk on which they rest. In the last sketch we look through the proscenium frame. 41 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW other settings, are obviously interesting. Moreover, in the dovetailing of the various rooms and houses, which are clamped together on a steel frame, a certain unity is produced. One room may be made to lead out of another, or a court-yard from a street. Indeed Reinhardt occasionally turns his stage in full view of the audience, after the Japanese manner, and permits his actors to walk from one setting into the next, from the street before Capulet's house, for instance, into Juliet's garden. Other devices for eliminating long waits have been developed by the new artists and regisseurs as inherent parts of the design of their productions. These are even more interesting than the inventions of the me- chanics, and frequently point ahead to a new concep- tion of the playhouse as a place not seeking realistic illusion but formal beauty. Perhaps I should say a very old conception, for these devices frequently recall the stage of Shakespeare. The simplest is practically Elizabethan. It is the revival of the forestage. The apron is extended out or down towards the audience. On each side are permanent portals or new prosce- niums with openings. Back of these, perhaps about where our present curtain line comes, is a new picture frame closed by hangings. These hangings with a few properties may present a scene on the forestage. The curtains can be drawn apart disclosing a deeper stage with other furniture, or an exterior. This form 42 THE CLOISTER A SKELETON SFTTINO Sheldon K. Viele's arrangement of scenes for Verhaeren's play, as pro- duced by the New York Theatre Guild. The arches remain in place throughout 43 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW of stage has been used much for Shakespearean pro- ductions in Germany, where theatres have been built or rebuilt for the purpose. The plan has been applied to older theatres and to our own playhouses by install- ing an inner proscenium six to ten feet back of the foot- lights and treating this area as the forestage. Urban's Twelfth Night added its swinging stage to this device. Granville Barker built a forestage into Wallack's Theatre during his season in 1914-15 and used the first boxes for entrances or portals. Somewhat related to such an arrangement are the permanent settings and the skeleton settings so often utilized both here and abroad. The permanent setting is some sort of equipment of columns, pilons, arches and draperies rearranged quickly and easily for va- rious scenes and utilized, over and over again, by Sam Hume at the Arts and Crafts Theatre, for various productions. It is perhaps the slowest of the methods of making changes of settings here described, as well as the cheapest. The skeleton setting implies carrying through all the scenes of any play a general structure that is only altered in minor particulars. Thus in The Cloister, as staged by Sheldon K. Viele for the New York Theatre Guild, a row of Gothic arches stood through the whole play. With a background of mon- astery wall, it served for the first act of Verhaeren's play. For the chapter house, a different backdrop was added, as well as a chair and benches; for the chapel, 44 From The Theatre Arts Magazine. TWELFTH NIGHT URBAN's SHAKFSI'FARF SFTTIN'C Two sketches for Twelfth Night as produced by CJeorge ('. Tyler in 191 5, with side portals and an inner proscenium, within which settings were changed by means of the swinging stage. ^ta. ^ TON pARlOft. IN AM APARTMENT SITT/WC R.OOM l/V A HOTEL PAPA DESIGNS BY NORMAN-BEL GEDDES Permanent side walls and arched ceiling remain throughout the play. The three different settings are secured economically and illusively by changes in the back walls and the furniture. 45 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW an altar, a grating and benches sufficed to make a new scene. The unity of such a treatment is valuable, and the ingenuity of the artist in handling his problem increases the aesthetic pleasure. Hume derived his permanent setting from a more elaborate and imagi- native scheme for the use of folding screens of all widths and heights devised by Gordon Craig and uti- lized by him in his production of Hamlet at the Mos- cow Art Theatre. In these schemes of the artists for simplifying the problem of changes of set and permitting the easy production of plays with many scenes, there is the im- plication of a new physical playhouse and a new way of looking at the problems of production. Realism is at a discount; the convention of the fourth wall is discarded; the picture frame proscenium ignored. The audience is put into a new relation with the play- ers and the play, an intimate and a truly theatrical relation. All this in very obvious transition towards a new playhouse built for a style of production utterly unrealistic, quite apart from representation or illusion. Such methods as Craig's and Hume's imply also a movement towards expressionism, towards a use of ab- stract shapes and non-representative objects and design to express mood and atmosphere. We pass from the problems of the mechanic to the problems of the artist. 4 6 CHAPTER III. THE ELECTRICIAN. LIGHT is the heart of the stage picture. In the hands of the artist it is more important than the brush. Light can make drama in a void. And light has been the last discovery of our theatre. In The Theatre of Today Hiram K. Moderwell has admirably sensed and expressed the importance of light and the reason for its importance. "There is a living principle in lighting," he says, "second only to that of the actor himself." Fundamentally, I feel, it is akin to the power that turned primitive man to sun- worship; light fructifies the stage as the sun fructifies nature. There may be a spiritual quality in the line of a column or the pose of an actor's body; there is always a spiritual quality in light, even when it is only illu- mination. Moderwell got close to the basic appeal of light in the playhouse when he wrote: "Put a man in a dark room and make him fix his gaze for a certain length of time on a bright spot and you centre his attention to a focal point, deadening the merely logical factors of his brain and sensitizing him many times over to sensuous impressions a state of 47 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW partial hypnosis. Now these, within certain limits, are exactly the conditions of the theatre a spectator in a dark room looking at a bright spot. And a state of partial hypnosis, at least to the extent of deadening the logical faculties and heightening the sensuous ones, is precisely that desirable for the complete reception of a work of art." It is also, unfortunately, the state for the reception of a work of specious art at least, until the subject of this hypnosis becomes a little more accustomed to the arts of the stage electrician than he is at present. Actors and plays beautifully lighted can take on an extraor- dinarily deceptive quality. I have been conscious of enjoying performances and plays of most uneven merit when they were dramatized with the sculptural and atmospheric lighting of the new stagecraft. Progress in lighting has been so rapid, even on Broadway, that we are apt to forget how amazingly bad it was once. Praising the beauty of the German stage in 1913, and finding in the lighting the soul of its beauty, Moderwell wrote: "It seems to an Ameri- can imagination impossible that a stage should be other than glaring white." Today it seems to an American imagination impossible that our stage light- ing was ever glaring white. Yet until the season of 191 4- 1 5, when David Belasco eliminated the footlights from his Belasco theatre, and introduced in place of the old border lights the thousand-watt filament lamps, 48 THE ELECTRICIAN with the x-ray reflectors, how flat and bare and taste- less even the best of our lighting was. Picture a production of those days. A backdrop, or at best a rather shallow and wrinkled cyclorama, sharply bright towards its upper edge, where the last row of border lights hung, and glowing in feverish spots at each side where the floods or bunches stood; right and left, wings similarly lighted; above, three parallel rows of flapping canvas borders, simulating the sky or perhaps the branches of a peculiar variety of tree which grows in this well-trained fashion from one side of the stage to the other, and lit more brightly than wings or backdrop by the border lights, those hideous footlights of air; finally the footlights proper glaring up in pitiless, shadowless brilliance upon the under side of tables and the actors' chins. Not a shadow in the whole picture, unless it was the shadow of a table cast upwards by the footlights in some darker room. Here in the province of the electrician we can at least thank American genius for liberation from ugli- ness and stupidity. Certain European devices the Fortuny system of indirect lighting, particularly the domed plaster sky which sprang from it, and the Ars system of cyclorama and lights have peculiar advan- tages which we have only begun to sense. But our own employment of the high-powered incandescent bulb in place of arc lights and of rows of small incan- descents has accomplished much for beauty. 49 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW For a considerable time the battle was all against the footlights. Even as far back as 1785 we may read of the sins of that trough of brilliance which seven- teenth century actors devised as the only possible meth- od of getting their weak candles and oil lamps near enough to light their faces. The footlights must be abolished : that was about the only recipe for bettering the lighting of our stage. Nobody who wrote of the problem remembered the "footlights overhead," the inverted troughs of small lamps that made ceil- ings brighter than floors and joined with the foots in giving the actor's features about the definition and dis- tinction of a well-filled bag of flour. Some were all for putting out the footlights and substituting "baby" spot-lights and arcs projected from the front of the house. A few pleaded that just a little light from the floor might be needed to soften shadows from above and create a touch of the diffusion of sunlight. But, in general, the footlights must go. Rather suddenly it was discovered that the footlights of the air were going instead. David Belasco, who has been the pioneer of electrical progress in our thea- tre, had made a production without footlights in 1879 when he staged Morse's Passion Play in San Francisco. He did without them in several productions at the old Madison Square Theatre, and he did not use them, according to his own statement, in either The Darling of the Gods in 1902-03 or Adrea in 1904-05. When SO THE ELECTRICIAN he decided to eliminate the foots altogether from the Belasco theatre in the fall of 1914, he made a far more important contribution to stage lighting in the devices he installed to replace them. He hung a row of ten or a dozen large incandescent lamps in skilful hoods and reflectors in place of the first or "concert" border just behind the proscenium opening, and also in a special hood which he built out still further for- ward above the apron. These he supplemented with "baby spots" or small movable lights with lenses, which he first used, I think, in Nobody's Widow in 1908-09, to follow the actors about the stage unknown to the audience. The large incandescents instead of small border lights were soon adopted by Arthur Hop- kins and Robert E. Jones and have been used by them and an increasing number of producers ever since. These overhead lamps threw a pool of lovely illu- mination upon the floor of the stage. The light seemed to come from nowhere in particular. It left the ceil- ing only reflected light, and gave the walls of the rooms a chance to retire with becoming modesty in favor of the actors. Upon the faces of the players it wrought something approaching a miracle. It gave their fea- tures definition, it brought out with sculptural sharp- ness the natural contours and lines of the face. And the great importance of this was that the actor uses his features to express emotion, and that the significance of features moving in light and shadow is far more clearly 5i THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW visible than when a blank glare has ironed out every wrinkle of the forehead, every twist of the lip, every depth of the eye-sockets. By such lighting, sculpture replaced the picture on the American stage. The x-ray borders have not entirely solved the problem: not of lighting more naturally than from below, but of light- ing so naturally that there are shadows upon the stage. They are often used recklessly and inartisti- cally. They need supplementing and toning down, and here Belasco has shown an admirable example in the lights which he installed in the front of the balcony in 1917. This is happier than the lights from over- head in the auditorium, with which Winthrop Ames, Maude Adams and Joseph Urban have experimented. It is a great improvement on the six or eight hooded lights which Granville Barker placed along the bal- cony of Wallack's in 19 15 as a substitute for footlights. The Belasco battery is masked battery; hardly one spectator in a hundred can or does see them, for during the intermissions they are hidden by little doors that swing open automatically when the lights are to be used. Light coming from one or two sources, casting soft- ened shadows and emphasizing the actors instead of the background or the ceiling, has transformed American production. When the settings are still old-fashioned and ugly, as in more than half our plays, the light does a great deal to bring dramatic beauty into the 52 THE ELECTRICIAN theatre. There is still much to be done, however, in solving problems of color and particularly of supply- ing a better substitute for the sky. There we may learn something from Europe. A few years ago colored light was generally obtained by dipping the small incandescent bulbs in dye an unsatisfactory method because of the uncertain color and intensity of the dyes and the rapidity with which they faded in use. With the coming of the larger in- candescents, the system of filtering the white light through colored mediums of gelatine or glass, em- ployed with spot lights, came into wider and wider use. With the lights overhead, however, it was manifestly impossible to change these mediums by hand. The substitute was to use three or four times as many light- units as were needed, and to place before each a per- manent medium in one of the three desired colors. By turning off some lamps and turning on others colored lights of various shades could thus be obtained. The difficulties of this are considerable. Only very accu- rate and permanent primary colors will make this sys- tem perfect. Such colors are hard to obtain in Amer- ica, in spite of much research by men like Munroe R. Pevear, of Boston, who has also devised, but not yet commercialized, special lamps and lenses of consid- erable ingenuity. The problem of securing accurate colors and easy changes in hue, linked with the problem of producing 53 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW natural and diffused light from one or two sources, led to the perfection in Germany of some extremely THE FORTUNY SYSTEM The light from the smaller suspended boxes falls upon colored silk bands in the larger boxes to the left and is reflected back upon the plaster sky-dome in a diffused illumination. A stationary unit replaces the foot- lights, and another similar apparatus is located in a pit at the base of the dome. ingenious devices. They may be generally classified under the name of the Fortuny system of lighting, though improvements in the two elements of this sys- 54 THE ELECTRICIAN tern, the lights and the background, have gone beyond and to a considerable extent away from Fortuny's principles. The ideas of this Venetian were worked out through the cooperation of the General Electric Company in Berlin during the first decade of the twentieth cen- tury. They consist of two elements : first, the source of the light, a unit which throws white light upon col- ored silk, from which it is reflected upon the stage; and, second, the surface upon which this light finally falls and from which it is again reflected and diffused, a plaster or concrete dome. The lighting unit is simpler than it sounds. It is a high-powered light encased in a hood with only one opening. This opening is away from the stage and toward a frame in which are held five bands of col- ored silk turning on rollers. These bands are of white, black, and the three primary colors. The edges of the various bands of silk are forked to produce a sort of mixing of colors when one is superimposed on an- other. The bands move freely by means of a motor controlled from a central station. The white light from the lamp may fall upon any of the three pri- maries or all of them. If it falls only on the blue it is reflected out in a diffused stream of blue. If it falls on all three colors, the mixture produces true white light again. Whatever color of light is produced by the primary bands either singly or in combination, 55 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW can be darkened or paled by drawing either the black or the white band partially across. Actual practice has considerably modified this lighting unit. The quality of diffused light is very fine, but it can only be produced by the use of far more current than would be necessary for direct lighting. Also the heat of the light deteriorates the silk unless an elaborate and expensive fan system is also combined with the light which means still more current. At the close of the war such considerations as these led the General Electric Company to experiment with ap- plying the principle of the traveling bands to color filters or mediums. They hav& accordingly produced a modification of the Fortuny system which consists of placing an incandescent lamp behind the bands (which are, of course, of a more transparent material) and per- mitting the light, colored by the bands, to pass directly to the stage. Either style of unit is placed relatively where our border lights ordinarily hang, in batteries of three or more lamps. Reinhardt in adapting the Fortuny system to his Deutsches Theater, substituted a great lantern of many colored panes, all or any of which could be lighted or dimmed at will. Now for the dome, or Kuppelhorizont, as it is called in Germany. With Fortuny this was to be of silk, stretched taut and smooth by exhausting the air from the space between two surfaces. Such a dome was light, of course, and easily carried about from one 56 THE ELECTRICIAN theatre to another, but it could be punctured and it would deteriorate. German ingenuity substituted a A MODERN GERMAN THEATRE Plan of the Volksbuhne in Berlin, designed by Oskar Kaufmann, showing the relation of revolving stage and sky-dome. plaster or concrete dome instead. In some theatres as it is installed in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York's East Side and in the Beechwood Theatre in 57 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW Scarborough, N. Y. it becomes merely a plaster wall, straight up and down and curving very slightly at the ends. In Earl Carroll's Theatre, now building in New York, the rear and side walls of the stage will be plastered and curved into one another. In other theatres the sky is in a semi-circle like a section of a hollow cylinder or like an ordinary canvas cyclorama made of plaster. Properly it is a true dome, or rather half dome, like a quarter of an orange skin, curving round almost from one side of the proscenium to the other, and from the back of the stage up above the top of the proscenium opening. The true dome appears in the theatre of the Provincetown Players and in the Blythelea theatre in Orange, N. J. Fortuny would foreswear any but the true dome, since only such a dome, he claims, is the perfect surface for his diffused light to play upon, only such a sur- face can simulate the depths of the heavens. What- ever Fortuny's feelings may be, a flat plaster sky is bet- ter than a canvas sky. It has no wrinkles. It does not stir if a door is opened on the street. Its granular sur- face catches light and breaks it up into a livelier and more diffused medium. All that may be said for a flat plaster wall or for a wall curving in one direction may be said, of course, with far more vigor for a dome curving in all directions. On such a surface, light, whether direct or reflected, plays marvelously. The small dome at the theatre of the Provincetown Play- 58 THE ELECTRICIAN ers near Washington Square, New York, even the min- iature dome of compot board installed by Urban in Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic on top of the New Amster- dam Theatre, demonstrates the startling qualities of the Kuppelhorizont. It is almost literally impossible for the eye to focus upon the surface of the plaster, to detect the actual depth of the sky. To all intents, the distance is infinite. And it is alive, it is luminous with light. An incidental virtue of the plaster dome is that it does away with borders or devices for hiding the "flies" from the view of the spectators in the front rows. Curving up above the line of vision, it presents the sky to view at every point. The same result can be ob- tained by a much higher cyclorama, or by a lower proscenium opening. Both the high cyclorama and the low opening have been extensively used in America during the past six years to do away with borders. The dome, then, with or without Fortuny's reflected lighting, produces the most perfect semblance of the sky that is possible in the playhouse. Its virtue is not, however, mere realism. It happens that the sky is itself a splendid background for any imaginative or ab- stract setting, while the dome, being white, can be lighted in any color desired. In this structure the mod- ern artist has, therefore, a medium of great responsive- ness and beauty for whatever purpose he may elect. The dome has, of course, its practical disadvantages. 59 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW Its initial cost is large. It cannot be used with a sliding stage, since its ends come practically up to the proscenium. Its top interferes with the gridiron, pre- venting the use of the rear portion in "flying" or hoist- ing drops and back walls; this is hardly so serious as might be supposed, since the dome itself, supplemented by "profiles" or set pieces, does away with ordinary drops. The dome works ideally with a revolving stage, with wagon stages or with a sinking stage. Sev- eral modifications have been introduced to enable ac- tors and scenery to reach the stage without having to come forward around the ends of the dome. Some domes have a pit in front of their lower edge, which also permits of better lighting effects ; some are raised a few feet off the floor; some are pivoted at their front lower corners and tipped up so that scenery may be dragged under the back. The dome is in very wide use throughout Germany and Austria, but it will have difficulty in invading the American commercial thea- tre so long as the touring system continues and scenery has to be built to fit any stage. The gradual but evi- dent decay of the touring system puts the day of many such improvements not far off. A new system of background and lights, destined perhaps to succeed where the Fortuny system either failed or had to be extensively modified, has been per- fected since the armistice and put on the market by a Swedish company, the Aktiebolaget Regi och Scen- 60 THE ELECTRICIAN teknik, working in association with German experts. The devices employed are referred to as the Ars sys- tem and consist of many ingenious lights added to a cyclorama for which even greater virtues are claimed than for the dome. The cyclorama is of cloth, so prepared that it re- fracts the light in the same way as plaster and so weighted that it cannot wrinkle or stir. Furthermore, it is not a permanent obstruction to the use of the full stage. When not employed it remains on a vertical roller at one side of the proscenium. In thirty sec- onds it can be drawn out and around the back of the stage, hanging from a semi-circular track below the gridiron. This track itself folds out of the way when the use of the entire width or depth of the gridiron is desired. To light this surface and the stage floor the Ars com- pany has worked out a complicated battery of lamps all controlled from a single switchboard by the prompter's box. The most interesting of these lights are for projecting designs, shapes or photographs on the cyclorama. One system of lights, composed of sixteen projectors with lamps of 7,000 candlepower each, is arranged in two stories about a circular axis. The eight lamps above and the eight below can turn at different speeds and move their lenses upward and downward at will, while projecting on the cyclorama photographs or drawings of clouds printed on positive 61 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW colored film. This device is, of course, a purely me- chanical trick for producing a realistic sky; it is only in an adaptation to other purposes that it can take on the qualities which reside in the work of the artist. Such an adaptation has been made. Beneath the cloud machine and close to the lamps that throw any desired shade of light upon the cyclorama hang three projectors similar to those in the cloud machine. With these the producer can throw upon the cyclorama any design in color created by the artist; thus he literally paints his scenery with light. The inventors have also been working upon a flexible wall made of strings of pearl-like beads, which can be given any shape of interior or exterior for the projectors to play upon. When this is worked out, the Ars company will have evolved a sceneryless stage. The designs of the artist will be transferred to colored film and thrown upon the permanent background. These devices have been installed in the Royal Opera in Stockholm, the State Opera in Dresden and La Scala in Milan. When and if they are widely installed the film designs of any artist may be duplicated and distributed to a dozen theatres at a comparatively small cost. Without a dome, or an Ars cyclorama, the problem of a sky becomes immensely difficult for the artist. He can certainly not achieve illusion with any dyed drop or any painted canvas. The best he can do is to produce a sane conventionalization by applying his 6z THE ELECTRICIAN color by the method known as pointilage, a method which Urban introduced here during his work at the Boston Opera House and which has since invaded all the scenic studios, even the most old-fashioned, and has been applied to every painted surface on the stage. Pointilage is simply the method of the impressionist painter, broken color. Instead of mixing his blue for the sky and applying it as a flat tint Urban and his followers place directly on the canvas the various shades of blue, green and yellow which may go into the mixture. The canvas is "primed" with the more common color; the others are applied in a sort of stip- ple over the surface. There are two advantages in pointilage when applied either to the sky-drop or to an ordinary surface such as a wall. First, it hides the character of the canvas. The eye is caught by the irregularities of the color small as they are at a dis- tance instead of by the warped, wrinkled, creased or bulging surface of the canvas. Walls seem solid, skies have less suggestion of canvas about them. Sec- ond, the color becomes livelier; the light that strikes these surfaces more intense. Any change in the color of the illuminant registers more directly and more ef- fectively on the various tiny dabs of paint. The im- pressionists adopted broken color in their attempt to produce the living light of day instead of the north light of a studio. Broken color serves the artist of the theatre in the same fashion. 63 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW Such problems and such solutions, whether mechani- cal or electrical, may mean nothing if the stage artist or the director has no sense of beauty or of drama in his design or in the movement of his people. But by their aid the artist and the director are able to achieve effects far beyond the range of the nineteenth century theatre. 64 CHAPTER IV. THE PAINTER. THE mechanician has contributed to the new art of the theatre a more serviceable stage ; the electrician, a more flexible and sculptural light. They gave these things to the older theatre, as well, the theatre of realism. Yet the revolving stage and overhead lighting did not make the realistic the- atre any less realistic; rather, they gave it a more illu- sive realism. It was the artist that turned these gifts to other purposes, to the purposes of spirit and imagi- nation, to the purposes which have dominated the new art of the theatre. There is, however, a type of artist in the newer thea- tre who might have gone with the mechanician and the electrician into the older theatre, who would have brought more beauty there, but who would not have brought more illusion. For he would have worked in the older theatre, as he has worked in the newer, with materials and conventions at heart as much opposed to realism as they are to the spirit of the newer theatre. This type of artist I shall call the painter, because his 65 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW devotion is to the easel, to the flat canvas, whether he works in the theatre or in his studio. The most strike ing figure of this sort is Leon Bakst, but you will find artists using his method through all the Russian theatre where, indeed, the artist thus worked as far back as 1902. This paradox the presence of artists in the new movement whose methods are fundamentally better fitted to the theatre of the past, and yet to realism no more than to imagination can be explained only through an understanding of the dual nature of the theatre of the nineteenth century, and of the power of pure design and color in any theatre, old or new. Such an understanding may make us see a little of the grad- ual, almost unnoticeable process by which one move- ment in the theatre passes over into another. We speak of the realistic theatre as if that were all that we knew between the theatre of Shakespeare and the theatre of the new stagecraft. Yet before the real- istic theatre and several centuries after Shakespeare and his bear pit, there was a third theatre. It was a theatre of pretense and extravagance, of theatricalism in the worse sense. It was the dead-alive theatre of Victorianism, the theatre where the meagre materials of backdrop, side walls, wings and borders were used as canvases for the smearing of bad color and worse perspective in a "play-actory" pretense at an ostenta- tious reality. The thing was never realism. It was 66 5 M g | o E i". : . THE PAINTER never imagination. It was merely a routine, rule-of- thumb fake. Many men, in and out of the "free theatres" of the later nineteenth century, set themselves to destroy this thing. They were typified in Germany by Otto Brahm; in America, by David Belasco. They pro- duced actuality; it was this light that Reinhardt and Stanislavsky first followed, and many workers in the new stagecraft have got little farther than adding beauty to this actuality. These men made actual rooms and plausible exteriors. The great mass of engineer- ing mechanism, new stages, new skies and new lights, which have served the new stagecraft so finely, helped also in getting rid of the old fake and in putting real- ism in its place. The two-dimensional perspective of the easel painter was first banished from the three- dimensional theatre by the realists. Esthetics like life, do not come in water-tight com- rtments. There is evolution. Now it is quite pos- & Je to argue that the old theatricalism was always striving to be real, and that hard, intelligent work pushed it over into naturalism. Certainly realism, as Reinhardt and Stanislavsky practiced it, drifted over into the high expressiveness of the new art. There was a time when Reinhardt produced A Midsummer Night's Dream in a forest of real papier-mache trees. Stanislavsky made a Gorky of utter and gutter reality. But they had only to try to add beauty and meaning 67 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW to their productions in order to be forced, like all the great artists of the world, into a refinement, a selection and an interpretation which is best expressed through the rather awkward term abstraction. The old theatre of theatricalism had tried to reach a vivid and pictur- esque reality through certain rule-of-thumb conven- tions which cabined, cribbed, confined and defeated the purpose. The newer theatre tries to reach beauty and meaning, to win to a vivid expressiveness of the play, through spiritual abstractions. In the old days, stretched canvas, painted with pictures of leaves and branches, tried to look like a forest. In the days of realism, actual, modeled, three-dimensional forms of trees did indeed look not unlike an inferior sort of forest. In the third period, however, that same can- vas of the old days, treated frankly as cloth, and either hung in loose tree-like shapes or painted with symbols of nature and draped like the curtain it actually is, be- comes an abstraction of a forest, full of all the suggestive beauty of which the artist in colors, shapes, and lights is capable. In spite of the natural process of development which may be traced from theatricalism to realism and from realism to the abstract art of the new stagecraft, I think there is an essential break to be detected between the stiff and limited art of the past and the new art which is promising a greater break with the physical theatre itself. 68 From The Theatre Arts Magazine BORIS CODUXOKK DESIGN" BY GOI.OVIN The square before the cathedrals in the first act of the opera as staged at the Metropolitan Opera House and in Russia. The whole gleaming facade of the churches is painted on the backdrop. THE PAINTER The painter of whom I write has allied himself definitely with the new scenic movement, yet by his methods he might better be working in the theatre of the nineteenth century that knew not Brahm nor Belasco. Bakst and the other scenic designers of the Ballets Russes and of the Russian theatre, Golovin, Roerich, Korovin, Yegoroff, Anisfeld, Benois, almost always apply their talents for line, color and inter- pretative atmosphere to what is essentially the theatre of Garrick and Kean so far as technical method goes. They are content with the old mechanics of theatrical- ism. They take the great flat canvas backdrops and the tall side-wings of other days, and they place upon these crude and limited surfaces their brilliant and provocative art. As they paint it, the backdrop car- ries at least two walls of any interior, and whole miles of distant landscape. In Scheherazade, as produced by the Ballets Russes, Bakst paints columns, walls and ceiling draperies upon his backdrop. In Les Syl- phides Benois thus visualizes a whole palace garden. In The Fire Bird Golovin rears a towering castle on flat canvas. This is not alone due to the desire of the ballet-masters of Diagileff to keep clear as large a dancing floor as possible, with free access from the sides. The same handling of the backdrops, the same recourse to perspective is to be found in Golovin's extraordinarily fine production of Boris Godunoff at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. He puts 6 9 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW the front of the Cathedral of the Assumption and of the Archangels on his backdrop; he paints a staircase, both rear walls of a room and a little of the ceiling upon the gigantic canvas of his easel-theatre. Yego- roff is as frankly old-fashioned in the mechanics of his Blue Bird for the Moscow Art Theatre. How then is such work a part of the new stagecraft? Partially, perhaps, because of the way in which the painter uses his perspective taboo as it is among other artists of the new movement but principally because of his fidelity to the inner emotion of the plays and ballets he decorates, and the vigor with which his line and his color express their atmosphere. The painter such as Bakst accepts the old conven- tions of the Victorian theatre against which Gordon Craig and practically all the theorists of the new stage- craft have inveighed most violently; but he sublimates these conventions by his bold handling of them. He still paints perspectives on the backdrop, but he does not try to use them to deceive. He exaggerates to the point where they are at last frank and honest conven- tions, not pretenses at something else. He flings out walls, rafters, columns and stairs with such sweep and verve that they take on a spiritual life which triumphs over technical limitations. These backdrops arrest and fascinate, not because they suggest reality, but be- cause they are instinct with the creative force of a great artist. Their weakness, it seems to me, is that, 70 THE PAINTER by remaining flat backdrops which once pretended at reality, they remain a link with a false past. If these gigantic canvases were treated frankly as mere dec- orations and were hung in curtain-like folds, as Ar- thur Rutherston hung his backgrounds for the forest scene of Androcles and the Lion, and Norman Wil- kinson many of his scenes in A Midsummer Night's Dream, they could keep all their virtues of vig- orous design and yet escape the implications of the old-fashioned theatre. That the designs of these painters are essentially a part of the new movement is not alone because they use perspective unrealistically. Back of this mere technicality are both a purpose and an execution true to the ideals of the newer theatre. They do not merely exaggerate perspective, they exaggerate perspective in such a way as to convey an emotional sense of the play's or the ballet's meaning. In Thamar, for in- stance, that pantomime of the savage mountain queen who lures travellers to their death in her arms, the amazing delta of her towering walls carries an oppres- sive sense of her remote and mountainous power, of her hard and rocklike cruelty, almost a symbol of her passion. Similarly and perhaps more obviously the colors that these painters use dramatize the emotions of the actors. When Bakst first set Scheherazade his design was lively with the yellows of the orient, but to con- 71 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW vey more closely the passions of this story of debauch- ery between the women of the sultan's harem and his negro slaves, Bakst reworked the same design in lustful greens cut by three turgid red pillars. In the smoul- dering browns and dusky reds of the tents and plains of Prince Igor Roerich conveyed the earthy and COSTUMES BY BAKST primal vigor of these fiery people of the steppes. Nicolas Roerich, who like Boris Anisfeld, has now made his home in America and who is designing set- tings for the Chicago Opera Company, is perhaps the most conscious employer of color as an expression of emotion. Each of his scenes has a color-key as defi- nite in its dramatic appropriateness as the musical color of the composer. In his forthcoming produc- tion of Tristan und Isolde for the Chicago Opera Com- 72 THE PAINTER pany you will find both the color of Mark and the color of the lovers upon the stage in the second act. By dividing his proscenium with a thin column into two arched openings Roerich is able to show you in one the sombre purples of the frowning castle, and in the other the amorous moonlit greens of the lands- cape and garden that lie before it. Finally, there is the selection of pictorial objects and their arrangement to convey in another way the at- mosphere of story, music or dance. Recall for a mo- ment the scene of encampment in Prince Igor and the round and hutlike tents of the tribesmen rising out of the soil like the great breasts of some earth mother to nourish the beginnings of the rude race of men. Or, in YegorofTs Land of Memory in The Blue Bird at the Moscow Art Theatre, the overhanging trees above the little cottage, standing in silhouette like the calmly sorrowing figures of past generations. Or, in the scene before the cathedrals in Golovin's production of Boris Godunoff, the towering white grandeur of the churches and the sweep of the red sacramental carpet made by the priestly procession in the square at their feet. Of the painters who have brought their talents al- most unchanged from another field and given them as they stood to the new art, Bakst had been the only name known widely to the theatregoer. He has designed the great bulk of the productions of the Ballets Russes, and his color, his line, and particularly his vigorous 73 THE THEATRE OF TOiMORROW aqd daring costumes have drawn our attention from men who seem to me greater artists, in the theatre or out of it. Golovin I feel to be Bakst's superior; Roerich, too, though he has shown less in our theatre. Roerich's genius lies in a sort of primitive mysticism. He is priest and poet of old, bare and barbarous Rus- sia. Golovin like Korovin, another of the Russian painters, who has worked with Meyerhold, though not with the Diagileff Ballets Russes emphasizes less the primitive, though he draws his strength also from the racial simplicity of the Slavic peoples. From Bakst he stands out sharply, as sharply as Michelangelo from Botticelli. Golovin's color is original, but it is not obviously vivid or flauntingly bright. He does not pile up great heaps of vermillion, against the pea- cock blues and metallic greens that delight Bakst. His superiority lies in vigor, in wholesome power. The pungency of the earth is in his color, the majesty of the earth in his handling of it. Seen in the large the Russians have brought the vir- tues of the painter, the great painter, into the theatre. They have brought great ability to replace the medi- ocre talents of the little men who turn out scenery in our commercial scenic studios. They might have given these things to the theatre of 1880, for they have de- manded nothing of the stage that the stage did not boast in those days. But they have each an individual genius of such power that had their work appeared in 74 THE PAINTER the theatre of those days it would inevitably have upset current conceptions of the possibilities of scenic de- sign; they would have drawn forth the labors of Appia and Craig years earlier. It was only necessary that the painter at work upon the stage should add to his genius such a creative study of the possibilities of the stage as he had made of the possibilities of his canvas. This study would have carried him away from the old mechanism of pointed backdrops. He would have seen and recognized the three-dimensional and plastic nature of this place where human beings walk, run, leap and meet in spiritual as well as physical conflict. It was the distinction of Appia and Craig that they so studied the stage and recognized its possibilities. In one sense the painter pure and simple has always had his place in the playhouse, and has always had something to contribute. Add the painter to any pro- duction, and you add a definite something of beauty and even greater potentialities of expressiveness. Add an entrepreneur such as Sergei DiagilefF, founder of the Ballets Russes and the direction such as Fokin's, Nijinski's, and Massin's, and you have an art of music, story, color, above all rhythm, which need worry little about perspective, revolving stages or old-fashioned foots and borders. The Ballet Russe has ignored the technical possibilities of stage design which the past twenty-five years have developed. But it has always called to its assistance the greatest of artistic talent; it 75 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW has done more in the field of direction, in the climac- teric handling of color and movement in its dancers, than any other institution; and in bringing Matisse, Picasso and Derain into the theatre it has kept more than ahead of the philosophic and spiritual progress of the new stagecraft. Yet in the face of the brilliant achievements of the Russians the fact still remains that the painter alone is not the heart of the new stagecraft. The heart is the creative and directing genius who may and who should be an artist able to express himself in line and color, and able above all to study anew the problem of the theatre and to strike out both technically and spirit- ually towards new solutions. 7 6 CHAPTER V. APPIA THE LIGHT AS DRAMATIST. IF we seek for the conscious and constructive begin- nings of the new art of the theatre we must seek for them in a book about opera. If we wish to find the first printed record of original thought on the stage as a three-dimensional fabric capable of creating ecstatic spiritual illusion we must read Die Musik und die Inscenierung, written by Adolphe Appia, a retir- ing and little-known Italian-Swiss, and published in a German translation in 1899. In the future there may develop much controversy over the positions of Adolphe Appia and Gordon Craig in the history of the new stagecraft. The facts are simple but relatively unimportant: Appia printed his first book of theory in French in 1893. He drew some of his most famous designs for Wagnerian settings in 1895 and 1896. He published his elaborate study of the art of the theatre as related to Wagner's operas in 1899. Craig, who began as an actor, left Irving's company in 1896 to study stage management. He made his first productions in London about 1900. His first exhibition of designs was in 1902. His first pub- lished writings appeared in 1905. 77 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW The important question rather is what impact the ideas of the two men had on the stage. Today, after twenty years, less is known and less has been exactly written about Appia and his ideas than about any other major factor in the regeneration of our theatre. Every- one knows Craig, for Craig's temperament was its own press agent. When he succeeded in making pro- ductions his fame was spread; when he failed to agree with the producers who called him into their theatres he grew perhaps more famous through controversy. There were always his fixed exhibitions and his short, easy and provocative essays; unlike Appia he cared no more than his readers for philosophic dialects. Ex- cept for a few German producers and critics there are not many who know just how much the modern theatre owes to Appia, the pioneer. Because so few now know the exact nature and extent of his theories, it may be justly argued that few knew them in 1900; while within a few years everyone knew Craig. The ques- tion of whether Appia or Craig was the originator of the new theatrical movement is a perplexed and prof- itless question. I believe myself that they were merely two answering parts in a complex of nervous forces which were played upon by a new creative Zeitgeist in the years from 1895 to 1905. Appia answered a little the more quickly, that is all. No one has translated Appia into English; almost no one reads him. He is too solid, too difficult, too 78 APPIA THE LIGHT AS DRAMATIST thorough. Yet his little-known theories strike to the heart of the stage-problem. By the divine accident of which we witness another example in Craig, he hap- pened to be a remarkably fine designer; yet if he had never illustrated his theories in brilliant sketches his position would still be unique. He anticipates, he overshadows. Alone and mysterious, a myth, a Titan, he presaged a revolution in thought about the theatre. And curiously enough he wrote only of the problem of production as it applies to the music-dramas of Rich- ard Wagner. Among the theorists and practitioners of the new art of production Appia is set apart by two things. First, he was not the pure painter; he did not, like Bakst and so many of the Russians, see the stage as an easel await- ing his glorification. Second, he was not, like Craig, impatient with plays, playwrights, and actors, with everything except the artist; he did not like Craig see the stage as something to be made over into a new art of pure design, pure movement. Appia is sharp in his criticism of the pretense and the pretentiousness of the tasteless theatricalism and the uncritical realism in the theatre of the nineties; his diatribes on the stage of his day are devastating, and perhaps the only easily readable portions of his book. He splits off from the pure painters in attack- ing the use of both flat lighting and flat painting. He is with Craig in banishing the footlights and false per- 79 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW spective. But he goes further than Craig and further than all in the basic philosophy of his art the domi- nating place of light in the theatre. Appia sees action as the heart of the theatre. "In the theatre," he says, "we should seek to strengthen the dramatic action." But he is thoroughly orthodox, as well as thoroughly sound, in his search for the source of this action. "It is the presence of the actor upon the stage which causes dramatic action; without actors there would be no action." It is possible," of course, to believe that the actor of whom Appia writes could be the Ubermarionette of Craig, but nowhere does Ap- pia hint at this. He is absorbed with the problem of bringing truth and beauty into the relations of out plays and actors and settings as we know them. Looking at the stage of his day Appia saw the fun- damental error of all production; the conflict of the dead setting and the living actor. In the most extreme cases this took the form not only of painted canvas against human flesh but of painted canvas distorted into false perspective and given the lie by the presence of the actor as a measuring stick beside it. Against the two-dimensional paintings on the backdrops and wings there was set the three-dimensional and moving actor. The intricate mechanisms of the eye detected the fraud. It was necessary to give the setting actual depth. Yet even that would not be enough. Rocks of wood and canvas, trees of papier-mache, could never unite with 80 APPIA THE LIGHT AS DRAMATIST the actuality of the actor. No amount of realism in setting could ever resolve this conflict, could ever con- jure us away from the knowledge that we were in a world of pretense. Appia might have offered abstract design free of any pretense at reality as the solution; he might have put the actor against a background frankly theatrical, frankly a means of expressing in color or shape the emotion of the scene. Instead he chose to make the setting an atmosphere; to let the background of nat- ural objects be refined, simplified and made dramatic, and then beautified, softened and united with the liv- ing actor, through the other live factor in the theatre the light. The abolition of flat perspective, the giving of three dimensions to all stage objects, seems the least re- markable contribution of Appia; but twenty-five years ago all this was almost a revolution. You will see in the photographs of Uncle Vanya at the Moscow Art Theatre a flight of thirty or forty steps ascending the backdrop from the garden, where the actors sit, to the house where some of them are supposed to live. Appia's leap ahead to light as the core of the drama was incomprehensible to his day, and it is not yet ap- preciated in ours, in spite of all the growing experi- ments in pure, arbitrary and abstract light. Quite as remarkable in one respect was the way in which, seek- ing to make light the core of the drama, he anticipated 81 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW the theory, practice and mechanism of modern stage lighting. As Appia analyzed it there were only four sources of light in the nineties: the border lights above, the footlights below, the spot lights or bunch lights at the sides and light thrown from behind through transparen- cies. The border lights and the footlights produced a flat, shadowless light. Illumination through trans- parent or translucent drops offered little usefulness. To fight the picture gallery lighting of the borders and foots there were only the spot lights and bunch lights. These supplied illumination from a single source, and consequently shadows. And in shadows controlled and modified by the diffused light of the foots and borders, Appia recognized the medium for giving both the setting and the actors the same sculp- tural three-dimensional values. The diffused light of the foots and borders served to make the scene visible. The direct light of spots and bunches served to provide dramatic quality. Thus analyzing the crude lighting equipment of the nineties Appia anticipated the ex- tensive use which we make today of rows of high-pow- ered incandescent lights overhead, in the place of the border lights, and the restriction of the footlights to a secondary, practically corrective place in stage lighting. Appia made himself definitely a regisseur of the new stage art, as well as a designer of arresting stage 82 From The Theatre Arts Magazine. DIE W.M.KURE APPIA S DESIGNS On this page and opposite page 84 appear four of the seven sketches by Adolphe Appia, from his Die Mus'tk unit die Inseenierung, indicating light- ing and arrangement of the players at different stages of the third act of Wagner's music-drama. Above is the setting itself; below, the scene as it appears at the rise of the curtain. APPIA THE LIGHT AS DRAMATIST pictures, when he went beyond the quality of light upon the stage to a consideration of how the movement of the light and the shape of the various parts of the settings could be arranged to make the actor still more a living expression of the playwright's action. The designs for Tristan und Isolde, Das Rhein- gold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Gotterdammerung, which are included in Die Musik und Die Inscenier- ung, the designs which he has since made for Parsifal and the settings which he conceived for Claudel's L'Annonce faite a Marie during his work with Jaques- Dalcroze in the remarkable theatre-hall of the latter's school at Hellerau-bei-Dresden, have a majestic beauty, an appropriate and arresting dignity which place them far above a great deal of perfervid and eccentric work of the new stagecraft. They are on a level with Craig's so far as grandeur of conception goes, and ex- ceed them in practicability, though they are inferior as drawings. Invariably these designs are not only arresting in themselves but arresting as an expression of the drama. They never exist for themselves alone. They follow the prescription that Appia set for the forest of Sieg- fried: "We must no longer try to create the illusion of a forest; but instead the illusion of a man in the atmo- sphere of a forest." He particularizes : "When the for- est trees, stirred by the breeze, attract the attention of Siegfried, we, the spectators, should see Siegfried 83 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW bathed in the moving lights and shadows, and not the movement of rags of canvas agitated by stage tricks. The scenic illusion lies in the living presence of the actor." It is obvious that Appia is designing more than mere painted backgrounds, however good. He is creating a whole plastic stage and filling it with a dramatic and dynamic light. He believes that the actor takes on meaning in two ways, is significant by two things with which he comes in contact. His movements have beauty and significance only as they play upon natural objects and shapes, and are outlined and sculptured by light. "The two primary conditions for the artistic display of the human body on the stage are these : a light which gives it plastic value, and a plastic arrangement of the setting which gives value to its attitudes and move- ments. The movement of the human body must have obstacles in order to express itself. All artists know that beauty of movement depends on the variety of points of support offered it by the ground and by natural ob- jects. The movements of the actor can be made artistic only through the appropriate shape and arrangement of the surfaces of the setting." The shape and positions of the rocks in the third act of Die Walkure, as Appia places them, give the actors the proper opportunity for movement and display in relation to the action of the scene. Copeau is one of the few modern directors to appreciate the possibilities of this theory of Appia's. 8 4 From The Theatre Arts Magazine DIE WAI.KURE APPIA S DESIGNS Two later stages of lights and actors; above, the Valkyrs cower before the cloud in which VVotan appears; below, the scene as he goes. APPIA THE LIGHT AS DRAMATIST Similarly "an object or an actor takes on a plastic quality only through the light that strikes it, and the plasticity can only be of artistic value when the light is artistically handled." Light, in other words, can give the actor and the objects of the setting sculptural beauty appropriate to the drama. Furthermore the changes in light, as it plays over the actor as well as the setting, its position and intensity, its movement throughout the scene, are of paramount importance. The drama of the physical and spiritual action can be interpreted by the light. Thus Appia schemes the last act of Tristan in such a way as to make the light and shadow from the sun play its own drama. At the beginning Tristan lies in the shade of the castled nook which Appia has provided for his retreat, with the tree casting a shadow over him and the sunlight touching only his feet. As his strength rallies the sun- light creeps up his body. When Isolde comes it reaches his head and bathes the two lovers. Then the sun slowly passes, leaving only a spot of brightness in the doorway by which Mark and his followers enter. "The light fades little by little, until the scene is enveloped in a dark twilight. The curtain falls on a calm, peaceful picture, of uniform tone, where the eye distinguishes only the last reflection of sunset lighting softly the white robe of Isolde." In Die Musik und die Inscenierung Appia not only described such scenes as these. He illustrated succes- 8i THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW sive stages of the lighting by means of drawings of the setting and people at various moments of the play: four sketches for the second act of Tristan, two for the third act, seven for the third act of the Die Walkure. Appia has worked even less than Craig in actual pro- duction, and his writings are less read. Like Craig, he has long been inactive professionally. Yet his designs are still stimulating his fellow artists after twenty-five years, and reforms for which he argued the abolition of perspective and the creation of a genuine three-di- mensional stage by means of sculpturesque lighting are now commonplaces of the new stagecraft. It was perhaps his chief distinction that he anticipated in the art of the theatre the conception of time as an actual di- mension which science has gone far toward establishing in the work crowned by Einstein. In his Time Ma- chine H. G. Wells wrote of time as the fourth dimen- sion without which length, breadth and thickness could not exist. Appia, who did so much to emphasize the physical setting as a three-dimensional structure, added a fourth when he wrote: "The mise en scene is a pic- ture composed in time." 86 CHAPTER VI. THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF GORDON CRAIG. THE great virtue of Gordon Craig is that he is not a painter but a man of the theatre. He practiced the art of acting before he practiced the art of design, and so he knows the theatre as a crea- tive instrument. To him it is not a place that offers its backdrop as the hugest canvas any artist ever had. To him it is a place where beauty can be made without backdrop, actor or playwright. It is a place of conse- cration that takes all of a man, all of a dozen men, all of a dozen men in one man. At the heart of Craig, deeper than the beauty of his stage designs, lies a great fundamental conception : The theatre is a unity; it needs an artist director who can bend its every craft to achieve that unity. He phrased it in his first book, The Art of the Theatre (1905) : "The art of the theatre is neither acting nor the play, it is not scene nor dance, but it consists of all the elements of which these things are composed : action, which is the very spirit of acting; words, which are the body of the play; line and color, which are the very heart of the scene; rhythm, which is the very essence of 87 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW dance. One is no more important than the other, no more than one color is more important to a painter than another, or one note more important than another to a musician." Three years later he had gone on from the spiritual essential to prescribe the mechanism by which it should be achieved: "It is impossible for a work of art ever to be produced where more than one brain is permitted to direct; and if works of art are not seen in the Theatre this one rea- son is a sufficient one, though there are plenty more." There must be one master in the theatre, "one man capa- ble of inventing and rehearsing a play: of designing and superintending the construction of both scenery and costume : of writing any necessary music : of inventing such machinery as is needed and the lighting that is to be used." You may detect a certain extravagance in this. It is the extravagance of the ideal. It holds the essential truth that there must be in the directing head of a thea- tre the aesthetic knowledge of all that is neded to bring a play to life, and of where these things are to be found. To know this, to understand, prescribe, select, criti- cize and guide, a director must have first-hand creative feeling for the work of playwright, actor and designer. Upon that minimum Craig would fix his demands of the practical theatre. In his faith, in his writings, in his inspiration, he would soar up and beyond to the 88 THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF GORDON CRAIG great, creative all-inclusive artist of the playhouse who may never be born. Craig is, as I have said, a man of the theatre. He is not, however, the master of the theatre that he describes. If he were, he would have had a theatre under his con- trol these twenty years, if not in England, then in Ger- many or Russia. Between 1900 and 1903, when he was fresh from four years of cogitation on the problem, he accomplished seven productions in London, acting as stage manager as well as designing scenery and cos- tumes. They were Dido and /Eneas, The Masque of Love, Handel's opera, Acts and Galatea, Laurence Housman's nativity play, Bethlehem, part of Sword and Song, Ibsen's Vikings, and Much Ado about Nothing. One gathers that the response of neither the British public nor the British patron of art was hearty. One gathers also that in the next few years, during which German managers offered opportunities for cooperation beset with very human misconceptions of his purpose, Craig was not able to develop the patience that under- stands lesser men and slowly and painstakingly bends them to its desires. One gathers that the creative im- pulse could not drive itself through the practical thea- tre to proper expression, and that, retiring to the studio and the writing desk, it let itself go with a vigor that often approached abandon. Only Duse and Stanislav- sky have since succeeded in enlisting Craig's aid. The auto-intoxication of the theorist who is not given 89 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW his opportunity to create is visible in Craig's writing. His brilliant basic theories whirl off into unresolved contradictions, ecstatic over-statements. He cannot hold his gigantic conception of the theatre with the grip of a Michelangelo or a Leonardo. Presently we find this man who has gone through apprenticeship and ac- complishment appearing to the public eye as a man who would eliminate practically everything and everybody of the theatre as we have known it for twenty centuries, except a mask and a marionette. When Craig wrote of action, words, line, color, rhythm as of equal importance, he added : "In one re- spect, perhaps, action is the most valuable part. Action bears the same relation to the Art of the Theatre as drawing does to painting, and melody does to music. The Art of the Theatre has sprung from action move- ment dance." This reservation was to develop a whole new theatre actorless, without playwright, without painter, without musician, without any of the men, except the director, whom Craig saw combined in the master of the Art of the Theatre. In 1907 Craig banished the actor from his theory. The actor was too human, too variable, too emotional a creature for the demands of a theatre directed by a single creative mind. "Acting is not an art. It is there- fore incorrect to speak of the actor as an artist. For accident is an enemy of the artist. . . . Art arrives only by design. Therefore in order to make any work of art 90 THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF GORDON CRAIG it is clear we may only work on those materials with which we can calculate. Man is not one of these ma- terials. . . . The actions of the actor's body, the ex- pression of his face, the sounds of his voice, all are at the mercy of the winds of his emotions : winds that must blow forever round the artist, moving without unbal- ancing him. But with the actor, emotion possesses him ; it seizes upon his limbs, moving them whither it will. As with his movement, so is it with the expression of his face. The mind struggling and succeeding for a moment in moving the eyes, or the muscles of the face whither it will; the mind bringing the face for a few moments into thorough subjection, is suddenly swept aside by the emotion which has grown hot through the action of the mind. Instantly, like lightning, and be- fore the mind has time to cry out and protest, the hot passion has mastered the actor's expression. It is the same with his voice as with his movements. Emotion cracks the voice of the actor. It sways his voice to join in the conspiracy against his mind. Emotion works upon the voice of the actor, and he produces the impres- sion of discordant emotion. It is of no avail to say that emotion is the spirit of the gods, and is precisely what the artist aims to produce; first of all this is not true, and even if it were quite true, every stray emotion, every casual feeling, cannot be of value. . . . Art, as we have said, can admit of no accidents. That, then, which the 9i THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW actor gives us, is not a work of art; it is a series of acci- dental confessions." In the same essay Craig suggests three ways out of the dilemma of an actorless stage that would not be given up wholly to the painter or at any rate the scenic artist. One is to retain the actor but to confine his expression to "symbolic gesture." Another is to revive the mask. The third is his famous project for an "tlber marion- ette" a gloriously facile instrument flexible and grace- ful beyond our conception of puppets today, through which the mind of the artist could create human move- ment in agreement with the "noble artificiality" which Craig seeks in the theatre. In a passage that stamps Craig as a master of words as well as pencil, lights and acting, Craig pictures the origins of drama in the marionette. In 1908 Craig complained of other interlopers in the vineyard of the theatre. One of the earliest was the playwright. As examples he adduced Shakespeare and Moliere, both of whom, he omitted to observe, were actors. The musician had also trod down the vineyard; there was Wagner. "Today we find that the painter is actually making eyes at the little place." It takes the greatest honesty and insight and self- control not to say that indeed he is making eyes at it. And that the eyes belong to a certain actor who would banish playwright, player, and musician and leave the theatre to pure vision. It is only the ecstacy of truth 92 THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF GORDON CRAIG in Craig's words that can make us hold back from a too easy criticism of the greatest creative force barring Ibsen that has entered the theatre of the world since Shakespeare and Moliere. Craig questions all factors in the theatre today. He chastens the actor. He throws out Shakespeare (favorite dramatist of the scenic dec- orators), along with the didactic playwright. He chal- lenges the musician even while he cries that the art of the theatre must take cognizance of rhythm and dance. He goes to the length of tracing the derivation of the word theatre back to the Greek, "a place for seeing shows", derived from the Greek dtaonai I see, and add- ing: "Note: Not a word about it being a place for hearing 30,000 words babbled out in two hours." Craig has the right to respectful attention even when he grows most eccentric, most extreme, most inconsist- ent, because he has a vision of the future theatre, a real vision, filled with beauty and, better than beauty, re- ligious ecstacy. He looks for the coming of a theatric Messiah "who shall contain in him all the qualities which go to make up a master of the theatre," and he looks for "the reform of the theatre as an instrument. When that is accomplished, when the theatre has be- come a masterpiece of mechanism, when it has invented a technique, it will without any effort develop a crea- tive art of its own." In another passage he says : "There shall spring so great an art, and one so universally be- loved, that I prophesy that a new religion will be found 93 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW contained in it. That religion will preach no more, but it will reveal. It will not show us the definite im- ages which the sculptor and the painter show. It will unveil thought to our eyes, silently by movements in visions." Such a vision would probably have done less than nothing for the reform of our current stage had Craig confined his efforts to its explication. Craig has played the major part in making over our methods of produc- tion and altering our notions of the theatre in fact, in forcing us nearer to his own conception of the future art because in theory and execution he has devoted much time and a great genius to the ordinary detail of mounting plays as we find them. The first of his contributions has been a brilliant at- tack upon realism, upon our absorption with the nat- ural. All through his fugitive essays runs this impa- tience with the accidental, this insistence upon the dis- covery, the study, and the presentation of only the es- sential, the necessary. Three volumes of reprinted arti- cles, two of them illustrated with designs of extraordi- nary beauty and originality, carry the burden of this message. They also carry practical detail, prescrip- tions of technique, often as amusingly and intriguingly put as this ban upon the footlights : Playgoer : Well, will you tell me why they put lights all along the floor of the stage footlights they call them, I believe? 94 THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF GORDON CRAIG Stage Director: Yes, footlights. Playgoer: Well, why are they put on the ground? Stage Director: It is one of the questions which has puzzled all the theatre reform gentlemen, and none have been able to find an answer, for the simple reason that there is no answer. There never was an answer, there never will be an answer. The only thing to do is to remove all the footlights out of all the theatres as quickly as possible and say nothing about it. It is one of those queer things which nobody can explain, and at which children are always surprised. Little Nancy Lake, in 1812, went to Drury Lane Theatre, and her father tells us that she also was astonished at the footlights. Said she: "And there's a row of lamps, my eye. How they do blaze I wonder why They keep them on the ground." Rejected Addresses. That was in 18 12 and we are still wondering. For a further practical detail Craig has set himself always, in work and in precept, against false perspec- tive. In spite of the Russians he detects nothing of "noble artificiality" in it. In his Towards a New Thea- tre (1912), he writes of his designs: "I think you will very seldom see things here in perspective: avenues leading up to goodness knows where and which no one could walk on . . . when I came to design scenes for myself I avoided putting any place in my picture which could not be traveled into actually by the actors. Now if in the drama you have mention of a staircase 95 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW which no one was even able to ascend or descend, and if the dramatist wishes to show that nobody ever will be able to ascend that staircase, then there seems some sense in painting it instead of building it. But if steps are to be shown in some scene let us say in Julius Ccesar which not only fantasy but common sense would people with many figures, then it is preposterous to paint those steps they must be built; for if you only paint them, and no one ever passes up or down them, you suggest to the spectator that there was some- thing very eccentric about Rome on that particular afternoon. Is not this true? "So you will see this rule running right through my designs. There is not a spot in them which could not be walked upon and lived in. Where I have intro- duced a pyramid, as in the design for Ccesar and Cleo- patra, I have put it so far off that in nature no one would see the figures upon it. It is at such a distance that our imagination alone could people it and our fancy runs up and down it with ease." Craig has given in one memorable chapter in On the Art of the Theatre a complete and practical account of the technique of the new stagecraft which supplies a vision of the ends to be sought in both setting and direc- tion, as well as the concrete detail of how to design a setting : "Come now, we take Macbeth. We know the play well. In what kind of place is that play laid? How 9 6 THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF GORDON CRAIG does it look, first of all to our mind's eye, secondly to our eye? "I see two things. I see a lofty and steep rock, and I see the moist cloud which envelops the head of this rock. That is to say, a place for fierce and warlike men to inhabit, a place for phantoms to nest in. Ultimately this moisture will destroy the rock; ultimately these spirits will destroy the men. Now then, you are quick in your question as to what actually to create for the eye. I answer as swiftly place there a rock. Let it mount up high. Swiftly I tell you, convey the idea of a mist which hugs the head of this rock. Now, have I de- parted at all for one-eighth of an inch from the vision which I saw in the mind's eye? "But you ask me what form this rock shall take and what colour? What are the lines which are the lofty lines, and which are to be seen in any lofty cliff? Go to them, glance but a moment at them; now quickly set them down on your paper; the lines and their direction, never mind the cliff. Do not be afraid to let them go high; they cannot go high enough; and remember that on a sheet of paper which is but two inches square you can make a line which seems to tower miles in the air, and you can do the same on your stage, for it is all a matter of proportion and nothing to do with actuality. "You ask about the colours? What are the colours that Shakespeare has indicated for us? Do not first look at Nature, but look in the play of the poet. Two ; 97 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW one for the rock, the man; one for the mist, the spirit. Now, quickly, take and accept this statement from me. Touch not a single other colour, but only these two col- ours through your whole progress of designing your scene and your costumes, yet forget not that each colour contains many variations. . . . "But the rock and its cloud of mist is not all that you have to consider. You have to consider that at the base of this rock swarm the clans of strange earthly forces, and that in the mist hover the spirits innumer- able ; to speak more technically, you have to think of the sixty or seventy actors whose movements have to be made at the base of the scene, and of the other figures which obviously may not be suspended on wires, and yet must be seen to be clearly separate from the human and more material beings. "It is obvious that some curious sense of a dividing line must be created somewhere upon the stage so that the beholder, even if he look but with his corporeal eye, shall be convinced that the two things are separate things. I will tell you how to do this. Line and pro- portion having suggested the material rock-like sub- stance, tone and colour (one colour) will have given the ethereal to the mist-like vacuum. Now then, you bring this tone and colour downwards until it reaches nearly to the level of the floor; but you must be careful to bring this colour and this tone down in some place which is removed from the material rock-like substance. 9 8 From Towards a Ne, l AT THE WONDER HAT PLASTER WALL ~M^ PI I ARCH I ri 53 M TENTS OF THE ARABS PLASTER WALL ri rz HELENA'S HUSBAND THE INTRUDER PLASTER WALL EXPLANATION A3.C.D = PYLONS Sl,S2 = 3' STAIR UNITS S3 = G' * m M,MMASKIM& SCREENS Fl,F2 ORIGINAL FLATS F3.F4 ADDED - HANGINGS ROMANCE OF THE ROSE From The Theatre Arts Magazine. FIVE SETTINGS IN ONE Diagram of the arrangement of five scenes from Sam Hume's permanent and adaptable setting at the Arts and Crafts Theatre, Detroit I30 From The Theatre Arts Maaazini HUMES ADAPTABLE SETTINCS Two scenes from one-act plays as produced in Sam Hume at the Arts and Crafts Theatre in Detroit, from the units of his permanent setting. Above, The Tents of the Arabs; below, The W under Hat. THE FORMAL STAGE other smaller units introduced to give a particular and appropriate atmosphere to the various scenes. The device was first used in America, I think, by Joseph Urban in two acts of his production of The Love of the Three Kings at the Boston Opera House in 1913-14. Claude Bragdon designed an elaborate and ingenious, setting of this sort for Walter Hampden's Hamlet in 1 9 19. Robert Bergman, the remarkable craftsman who has painted with such high skill almost all the scenery made from the designs of the younger New York artists, adapted from Gemier a skeleton setting for Spanish Love when Wagenhals & Kemper produced that play in 1920-21. Sheldon K. Viele used a skeleton setting most adroitly in the Theatre Guild's produc- tion of The Cloister in the spring of 1921. It is seldom indeed that a playwright anticipates in his stage direction the possibilities of production along modern lines, especially these of a formal character which I am describing. A notable exception, however, is Masefield in his Japanese tragedy, The Faithful. In his note at the beginning, Masefield writes: "This play is written to be played uninterruptedly, without more break in the action than is necessary to get the actors off the stage and to raise the screen or curtain dividing the scenes. There are only two scenes: one the front part of the stage, left quite bare, without decoration, but with a screen, set, or backcloth at the back, representing a Japanese landscape, with 131 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW hills and water, all wintry and severe; the other, the back of the stage, visible when this screen is lifted, a room in a Japanese palace, very beautiful, but bare save for a few flowers and a picture or two." Lee Simonson's realization of this scheme when The Faithful was produced by the New York Theatre Guild in 1919-20 was not alone beautiful and moving in its design and color, but improved markedly upon the original idea by the use of actual screens (freshly designed, of course), which folded back out of sight during the use of the inner scene, instead of being hoisted like an ordinary curtain. Decidedly the most interesting experiment in struc- tural form made in America has been Robert Edmond Jones's production of Richard III as directed by Ar- thur Hopkins for John Barrymore in 1919-20. Here we had a permanent setting in one sense, yet not a setting that tried to simulate various places rather than itself. It was not a frame for inner scenes but rather an enveloping presence. Covering the back of the stage and circling into the wings was a portion of that dread old Tower of London in which the murders of Richard centred. This moldering gray threat re- mained throughout the play. It stood like the empty skull of Richard with the hideous drama within it. Certain scenes used this wall, its towers and its frown- ing gate frankly as the exterior of the Tower. For other scenes pieces of property were placed within it. 132 THE FORMAL STAGE But the wall remained throughout or should have re- mained, if the artist's original conception had been more closely followed a lowering presence. Thus for the prison of Henry VI there was an iron cage in the centre of the stage. For the prison where the princes were murdered Jones ran a grill from pro- scenium to proscenium, just back of where the curtain should fall. For the palace of York there was a small raised platform backed by an arras; in this scene, against the artist's desires, the walls of the tower were somewhat hidden by low hangings. Similarly dark- ness hid the tower during the scene on Bosworth Field, whereas Jones originally conceived the setting as a great gibbet outlined in fiery silhouette against the flame-lit Tower. As actually produced, this Richard III became in certain scenes merely a trick production a grade below a permanent setting since it sought to disguise the com- mon element rather than to gather strength and unity from it. As conceived and as used in most of its scenes, however, this remarkable setting moved far ahead in the history of production through the use of new struc- tural form. Its prime virtue was that it found its form in the mind of the playwright, that it dramatized through its use of the Tower as a background the dominating mood of the play. It escaped from repre- sentation, it achieved a new and a true theatricalism 133 CWPg-QflKTe* From the Theatre Arts Magazine. THE MUNICH KUNSTLER THEATER Georg Fuchs' playhouse and "relief stage." Note the inner proscenium, below and at the sides of the word "Biihne." At either side of the orchestra pit are portals such as the architect, Max Littmann, introduces into his proscenium in other houses. The seats continue up over the foyers. 134 From The Theatre Arts Maqazine. RICHARD III DESIGNS BY ROBERT E. .JONES For Arthur Hopkins' revival of the play with John Barrymore. In every scene appeared some part of the permanent background shown above, the Tower of London. Standing alone, it served for most street scenes and exteriors. Placed in front of it were simple indications of other settings. The lowec sketch is for the last scene. THE FORMAL STAGE which has become more and more the object of the new stagecraft. The most notable and successful experiment in a new structural form was brought forth in Munich in 1907 by Georg Fuchs, a director who must be placed 0119*36768 to gQ From The Theatre Arts Magazine. CROSS-SECTION OF A LITTMANN THEATRE The Munich Kunstler Theater, showing the sunken orchestra pit, which may be covered over to serve as forestage for the portals in the proscenium. close to Craig and Appia as a theorist of the new thea- tre. Fuchs created the idea of the "relief stage" and em- bodied it in the Munich Kunstler Theater, a remark- able playhouse and stage designed by that master of theatre architecture, Max Littmann. The relief stage is simply a method of emphasizing the actor by plac- ing him close to the audience upon a shallow stage that 135 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW throws up his body in relief against a flat and very simple setting. The method is usually described as two-dimensional. In spite of the fact that Fuchs's artists frequently paint in perspective upon the curtain that makes the back of the shallow stage, this descrip- tion is far from accurate. "Relief" as an artistic prin- ciple involves a third dimension. Whatever two- dimensional painting Fuchs uses is not employed as a pretense at three-dimensions, as it was in the old school of scene design. It is employed as the only easy and free means of handling exteriors, and the design is for- malized as far as possible. For the bulk of his scenes, which are interiors, Fuchs employs very simple walls, with plastic moldings and real doors. The point of the whole thing is fundamentally the emphasizing of the actor as a three-dimensional object moving across simple, formal and more or less abstract settings. There is no representation, no illusion, even in the in- teriors, for side towers, forming an inner proscenium frame, continue through the whole play, patently vis- ible and used as entrances and exits to the scene within. It seems rather curious that Fuchs should never have employed a very simple device that is always available to avoid the appearance of returning to the two-dimen- sional representational stage. This device, utilized elsewhere in Germany and by Barker in his produc- tions of Shakespearean plays both in London and dur- ing his season at Wallack's in New York, in 191 4- 15, 136 THE FORMAL STAGE is simply the hanging of painted backdrops in many folds like curtains. Upon the canvas surface the artist paints freely, more freely in fact than if he were trying to produce a flat backdrop which should simulate real- ity in its perspective. The design may be worked out LA NAVE A DRAPED BACKGROUND Canvas painted in perspective but hung in folds, instead of flat, may make over the old backdrop from pretense into frank decoration. Design by Norman-Bel Geddes; produced by Chicago Opera Co. with a certain distortion in breadth, so that when it is hung in many folds the decoration assumes normal proportions. It remains, however, frankly a decora- tion, a thing summoning an emotion through its line and color, but never for a moment pretending to reality or illusion. Albert Rutherston painted the fantastic 137 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW jungle for Androcles and the Lion in this fashion, and Norman Wilkinson executed draped drops to shut off the forestage from the deeper stage in Barker's pro- duction of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Perhaps the greatest impulse towards formalizing the stage in Germany has come from Shakespeare, from the desire of directors to present his plays as they were written, without cuts, in the natural order of their scenes and without waits for the shifting of scenes. Ludwig Tieck and Karl Immermann, working as long ago as 1840, did much to create the forestage and inner stage now familiar as the essential parts of Shakespeare's playhouse. Immermann's stage, with entrances at the sides and at the ends of the rear wall, as it appears in drawings of the period, is unusually graceful in proportions and considering the lack of knowledge as to the actual mechanism of the Shake- speare stage remarkably serviceable to its pur- pose. In 1889 under the stimulus of Perfall, director of the Royal Court Theatre, Munich be- gan experiments towards a "Shakespeare Buhne," which, after enlisting the aid of Savitts and Lauten- schlager, have ended in the admirable portals and in- ner stage of the new Court (now, I presume, State) Theatre so skilfully utilized by Julius V. Klein. The Shakespearean stages evolved in Germany are not, of course, at all like the open-air bearpits of Elizabethan London. They may best be described 138 The first German IMMERMANN S SHAKESPEARE attempt (1840) to provide modern setting appropriate to Shakespeare's plays and founded on the nature of his own playhouse. The doors lead to various gardens, streets, etc. The small inner stage at the back could be shut off by a curtain and its setting quickly changed, while the action went on upon the forestage. THE FORMAL STAGE as stages like that of the Munich Kunstler Theater, but with greater depth. In the base of the inner or false proscenium at each side there are portals or formal doors, perhaps with windows and balconies above. Between these portals lies a forestage, a por- tion of which would be hidden by the normal curtain of the theatre. Back of this forestage and the inner proscenium is a deeper stage which may be set in any fashion to indicate a room or an exterior. Scenes are played alternately upon the forestage and rear stage, the actors coming as close to the audience as the psy- chology of the scene dictates. While the actors are playing some front scene, the rear stage is being reset behind a curtain dropped within the inner proscenium. This curtain is usually painted in a color or design appropriate to the scene of the action in front. Carl Hagemann's "Ideal Stage" is a famous variant of this scheme. This Shakespeare stage resulted from two desires on the part of its originators. They wished to secure rapid changes of settings in order to keep the short scenes of Shakespeare running swiftly and naturally, as he intended, an object which the forestage and rear stage accomplished even more successfully than a revolving stage or a sliding stage could have done. They also wished to approximate the relations between the au- dience and the actors on the apron of the Elizabethan theatres and between this apron and the recessed al- 139 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW cove behind the curtain which was used for certain scenes in Shakespeare. In working upon these prob- lems they evolved a formal stage as thoroughly re- moved from our realistic or plastic stage as was the Elizabethan. The mechanism of the German Shakespeare stages has been extensively adapted to other plays and other purposes. The portals and inner proscenium were in- troduced to America by Joseph Urban when he was artistic director of the Boston Opera House between 1912 and 1914. For The Tales of Hoffmann for Don Giovanni, even for the pseudo-realistic Louise he set up false prosceniums within the old ones shallow walls at right angles to the footlights and curtain, pierced by doors and windows, and joined at the top by either a flat or a curved arch. The arch, incident- ally, cut down the sight line from the front rows of the parquet, and permitted the abandonment of the can- vas borders which were ordinarily necessary to hide the gridiron from view. The portals, standing throughout the play, formed a unifying link between the various scenes behind them, and also broke the con- trast between the gold proscenium and the setting. They made the audience look at the stage in a new way and with a new feeling. When Urban took up designing for the Ziegfeld Follies he introduced the portals again, this time to simplify changes of scene, as in the Shakespeare stage, and to supply a deeper fore- 140 Q_ 3ackCrop Inner-Stage b le- Cwtain -2L 12/ /V 2 THE FORMAL STAGE tre of the Elizabethans, showed us things that sug- gested emotion, not things that suggested other things that might in turn suggest emotion. In his difficult but keen volume, The Path of the Modern Russian Stage, Alexander Bakshy has supplied an excellent term for the complementary form to representation presentation. This distinction between representation and presentation expresses the distinction between things upon the stage representing other objects than themselves which is realism or illusionism and things merely presenting themselves to the audience for what they actually are objects displaying emotion in themselves. If we are actually embarked upon this transition from a representational to a presentational stage we must find evidence of it in the handling of the actor as well as in the handling of the setting. H7 CHAPTER X. THE ACTOR RE-ANIMATED. THE new stagecraft began with the problem of the setting. It ends in the problem of the actor. Every attempt to formalize scenery, every at- tempt to alter the shape of the building in which the play is given, means a new emphasis upon the actor. For him there must be a new technique as much as for the artist. Such devices as I have described not only bring the audience into a new relation with the stage and the setting but also and this is much more important into a new relation with the actor. They signalize the invasion of the theatre by a theory of production and a type of play which are opposed to realism. They bring the theatre and the actor back to older ideas. They tear away the realistic stage where life is repre- sented as actually taking place before our eyes. They enable the actor to present himself frankly as an artist arousing our emotions by his fresh virtuosity. They bring us to the "theatre theatrical" of Meyerhold. Meyerhold began his work with the Moscow Art Theatre. He parted finally with Stanislavsky because 148 THE ACTOR RE-ANIMATED he came to believe in a different ideal of the theatre and a different technique of production. Alexander Bakshy has summed up the conflict excellently in his Path of the Modern Russian Stage. It was the con- flict between objectivity and subjectivity. "The Art Theatre placed the centre of gravity of the production on the stage, Meyerhold transferred it to the audience. It would have made scarcely an atom of difference to the adequacy and completeness of the Art Theatre's performance if the audience had been entirely re- moved." Meyerhold did not wish to show the au- dience a section of real life. He wanted to evoke a fuller vision of the world. He began by presenting the actors on a relief stage, such as Fuchs created in Munich, standing out against a flat background. Soon, however, he was striving for a more "statuesque" ef- fect. He gave up the depth of an inner stage for the depth of a wide forestage. Ultimately he returned in a measure as the Shakespeare stage had returned to the forms and relationships of the older theatre. From Oliver M. Sayler's translation in his Russian Theatre under the Revolution I quote Meyerhold's own analysis of what the ancient theatre and his own theatre gained from its forestage: "Similar to the arena of a circus, pressed on all sides by a ring of spectators, the forestage is brought near the public, so that not one gesture, not one movement, not one glimpse of the actor should be lost in the dust 149 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW of the back stage. And see how thoughtfully tactful are these gestures, movements, postures and grimaces of the actor on the forestage. Of course. Could an actor with an inflated affectation or with insufficiently flexible bodily movements be tolerated at the prox- imity to the public at which the forestages of the old English, French, Spanish and Japanese theatres placed their actors?" In mounting Don Juan at the Alexandrinsky The- atre in Petrograd in 1910, Meyerhold did away with the curtain, plunged the audience immediately into the atmosphere of this particular theatrical performance, and, to lay the emphasis on the virtuoso make-believe of the whole thing, kept the lights up in the house throughout the evening. Whatever scenic changes his artist, Golovin, desired were arranged on a small inner stage while the actors disported themselves in front. And how extraordinarily they did disport themselves! In Meyerhold's own words : "It is necessary to remind the spectator during the whole course of the play of all the thousands of looms of the Lyonnaise factories preparing the silks for the monstrously numerous courtiers of Louis XIV; of the Gobelin hotel; of the town of painters, sculptors, jew- ellers and turners; of the furniture manufactured un- der the guidance of prominent artists ; of all those mas- ters producing mirrors and laces according to the yenetian models, stockings according to the English 150 THE ACTOR RE-ANIMATED model, cloth according to the Dutch model, and tin and copper according to the German. "Hundreds of wax candles in three chandeliers from above and in two candlesticks on the forestage; little negroes filling the stage with stupefying perfumes, dripping them from a cut-glass flask on heated plati- num plates; little negroes flitting on the stage here to pick up a lace handkerchief from the hands of Don Juan or there to push the chairs before the tired actors; little negroes tying the ribbons on the shoes of Don Juan while he is having a discussion with Sganarelle; little negroes handing the actors lanterns when the stage is submerged in semi-darkness; little negroes clearing away from the stage the mantles and the sabers after the desperate fight between Don Juan and the brigands; little negroes crawling under the table when the statue of the Commander comes on the stage; little negroes calling the public together by ringing a little silver bell and in the absence of the curtain announcing the intermissions, these are not tricks created for the diversion of the snobs ; all this is in the name of the main object of the play; to show the gilded Versailles realm veiled with a perfumed smoke." Obviously the actor who performs upon such a stage is not the actor of our peep-show realism. He is the actor of frank, dominating virtuosity. He presents himself to us as, for the moment, a man possessed, an artist through whom flows an irresistible flood of crea- 151 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW tive energy. When I think of such performers and try to find them among our own players, I think of Al Jolson, demoniac upon the runway of the Winter Gar- den; I think of Fannie Brice in The Follies winning us to a belief in "Second Hand Rose" without a single aid of background, atmosphere or drama. Miss Brice does not impersonate this pitifully comic East Side girl. She sings about her in the first person and imitates her appearance and emotions; but all the time there is the most curious and fascinating undercurrent of in- timacy between the actress as actress and the audience as audience. We see both the player and the played. The player introduces her own work to us, she almost criticises it, she certainly criticises Rose. In the slang of Broadway she "wises up" her audience to this odd little Jewish girl. Chevalier, Guilbert and Lauder are more distinguished players who have used the same presentational method notably. By contrast with such work the actors of our so- called legitimate stages seem to find so little sustenance in realism. Upon Continental stages, very rarely on ours, the performance wins to distinction by ensemble, by the abdication of the individual. The unfettered instinct of our actor is to avoid ensemble and to com- promise with our stage by asserting himself and his art to the point of what we call "personality" and no farther. In the theatre of Meyerhold personality, in a sense, will frankly flourish, but it will be deliberate 152 THE ACTOR RE-ANIMATED and artificial personality personality with a dozen faces, each for its own part. The problem of the ac- tor will still be the problem of direction; but with a theatre that avoids the representative quality of our realism the opportunities of direction and therefore of the actor will be immensely broadened. It is a singular fact, and to some a disquieting fact, how far in such an account as this of the development of the new art of the theatre the director and the actor must be overshadowed by the artist and the architect. This is partly because the movement is still new enough to have developed comparatively few directors; and partly because in the vigor and breadth and inclusive- ness of their ideas the artists are themselves directors. With the exception of such men as Martersteig and Hagemann they cannot execute direction; their tem- perament is not the executive temperament. But they can and they do inspire direction, and finally they dis- cover directors through whom their ideas are given complete theatrical form. In America the artists have worked almost without directors, and have contributed their designs and, through their designs, their direc- torial ideas, to the ordinary producers of the realistic theatre; and yet they have already impressed a style upon our stage and measurably made over our concep- tions of directing. But as yet they have not succeeded in driving our players towards the direct, presenta- tional type of acting which curiously links Meyerhold 153 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW with Fannie Brice. This they cannot do without the active intercession of a director to whom it is a major and dominating conviction. Of America's two directors who fall definitely into the new movement, Maurice Browne is a man of in- domitable energy and utter integrity whose absorp- tions have been the Greek chorus and the repertory theatre, and whose conceptions of direction have been soundly eclectic rather than original. The remaining director, Arthur Hopkins, has given allegiance to a curiously negative faith which has remade realistic production, but which cannot be pushed far in the theatre of tomorrow. In his monograph, How's Your Second Act? Hop- kins sets for the director the task of capturing the un- conscious mind of the audience, the deep, subliminal self whose exploration by Freud and Jung has made over modern psychological science. Like the hypno- tist, Hopkins would "still the conscious mind." This can be accomplished in the theatre through simplifica- tion of background and through confining the actor to the most unobtrusive and natural expression of his emotion, "by giving the audience no reason to think about it, by presenting every phrase so unobtrusively, so free from confusing gesture, movement and empha- sis, that all passing action seems inevitable, so that we are never challenged or consciously asked why. This whole treatment begins first with the manuscript, con- 154 THE ACTOR RE-ANIMATED tinues through the designing of settings, and follows carefully every actor's movement and inflection. If, throughout, this attitude of easy flow can be maintained the complete illusionment of the audience is inevi- table." "Illusionment," you will note. Is Hopkins talking of and for the peep-show? Hardly, for the producer of Macbeth and the associate of Robert E. Jones has too rich a sense of the mystic realities of modern science, a sense which forces him away from the limits of passive hypnosis. Cooperating with Jones, he goes further than any Anglo-Saxon has gone towards mak- ing the stage a place of spiritual interpretation. In- stead of "illusionment," he might speak of "convic- tion," "belief," if his method of approach were more vigorous, more assertive. He achieves his hypnosis through quietude, through lull. He might achieve it or some domination corresponding to it through the frank, compelling virtuosity of the actor presented to us as, for the moment, a man possessed. It is my own belief that no director and no theorist of the theatre has done so much as Jacques Copeau to reanimate the actor and to open up the avenues of his art. He has done this not primarily through the new stage which he has provided for his players, remark- able as it is. That was the immediate consequence of his impulse to cleanse and revivify the Parisian theatre. He did not begin as a theorist, unless it is a theory to 155 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW hold that the Parisian theatre needed to be cleansed, renovated, revivified by integrity and devotion. He sought intelligent and sensitive personalities to make his acting company. He found an economical little hall, and then he tried to present those personalities in the clothing of the dramatists.The limitations of the hall, with its poverty-stricken little stage, and the inner necessities of the new theatrical art that was forcing itself out of realism, gradually dictated modifications of the proscenium, and the construction of a perma- nent, architectural setting until Copeau found him- self working in the first genuinely new theatre in Eu- rope. How he came to his philosophy of produc- tion and how he actually worked may best be under- stood by those who did not see this Theatre du Vieux Colombier during its brief sojourn in New York, through these extracts from Waldo Frank's analysis of the work of Copeau, The Art of the Vieux Colombier. "With his simplicity of means, the actor becomes Copeau's amplest instrument. Copeau believes that in his possibilities of voice, language, gesture, personal and integrated movement, and decoration, the actor should come first, quite irrespective of the producer's material resources. In this fact, already, he parts with many of his confreres. The actors, then, in their indi- vidual movements, create linear designs. In the en- semble of these movements, the design becomes vol- i 5 6 THE ACTOR RE-ANIMATED umnear, or three-dimensioned. In their gestures, the form has its shadings and its emphasis; in the reading of dialogue, it has at once its outline and its atmos- phere. The chief function of the costumes rises from the necessity of an aesthetic marriage between the human and the non-human elements in the design. There must be a background: certain materials in the form of draperies, drops and properties are needed for the elucidation of the play. These also must be organically merged into the desired form. "From this means of creating scenic volume comes a new freedom of choice. The producer is released from the narrow exigencies of paint and canvas; he takes possession of a field whose fertile limits Copeau has not begun to measure. And yet its mechanical advantage is but the secondary value of this method. Its first is its essential fidelity to the spirit of drama, itself. For drama is eternally concerned with the planes, colors, metabolic changes of human action. These qualities are plastic. Drama is a plastic art. Copeau obeyed an infallible instinct when he turned to the most plastic means at his disposal: the dimensions of human bodies, of human movement and of human utterance. "Consider his production of Twelfth Night. This comedy of Shakespeare has little weight as a dramatic action. It has infinite vistas of poetic charm. Its chief virtues are its airiness, its free dimensions, its 57 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW swift succeeding silhouettes of character and colors of mood. It was precisely these qualities that came forth in Copeau's handling. The play moved from four levels: the balcony, the main stage, the proscenium doors on either wing, the dungeon underneath the apron where Malvolio was imprisoned. From these four planes, the characters wove a design of fantastic movement. It lifted and wafted in the foreground of the play. And in the background, from out the shad- ows under the balcony of the Countess, roared the laughter of the tippling clowns Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and their fellows whose antics are the true motivation of the piece. These traceries of human movement, f ragilely freighted with the color of costumes and with the perfume of the Shakespearean speech, moved back and forth upon the scene like some magic fancy. They were a form indeed diaphanous and forever running on of the romantic action. The Shakespearean words were of course not there. But all of their magic, all of their virtue had somehow found a form in the unrolling movement. "Twelfth Night is a nosegay fluttering loosely in an April wind. But such a work as Les Fourberies de Scapin is a solid and incisive mass. Observe how the methods of Copeau contrive to meet its problem. The play is a mass, but not without grace: it has the solidity of the mental acrobat measuring his prowess upon volatile trapezes and flimsy paper rings. The 158 THE ACTOR RE-ANIMATED design of the play is this: Scapin, an irrepressible unit and two pairs of lovers and two fathers as the fragile and flighty accessories to prove him. Copeau does not temporize with his design. He sets a naked platform upon the centre of his stage. And at once in its bold, sharp prominence the part of Scapin has a marvelous symbol. This platform stands for Scapin quite as clearly as Scapin, in his pied garment, stands on it. About it move the victims : shifting, uncertain, forever in the shadows : waves beating against a rock and thrown upon it merely to fall back diminished. Moliere stands forth, created. His farce has never been seen in this form; and yet he has not been belied. He has been simply more faithfully, more completely brought upon the stage. In the bluff blocking of the scene, in the unceasing body movement of the actors, it is his words that live." In the theatre of Jacques Copeau we have a pro- jection of the impulses and the ideas that have grown up through the quarter of a century since Craig and Appia began to labor. 159 Part Two THE NEW PLAYHOUSE CHAPTER XI. THE ETERNAL THEATRE. CONCEIVED in godhead, born beside altars, slain in the brothel and born again in the soul of man endlessly repeating in its own person the story of its immortal and rejuvenate god, Dionysus the theatre has lived the whole history of Europe. No art has spanned such range of time and forms and morals. No art has so changed and so remained the same. The history of the theatre begins for us beside Di- onysiac altars more than twenty-five centuries ago. It begins there as it began in India and China and Peru a religious ritual. It sweeps on to our day, waxing and waning, dying out and being born again. In all these twenty-five centuries it passes through changes so complete and so extraordinary that but for one element the spoken word we could not recognize as the theatre the dozen strange congregations of audiences and actors, of wood and stone, which it has set up in these twenty-five centuries. The first theatre . . . and the greatest . . . the cir- cle about the altar table of Dionysus. Phallic proces- 163 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW sions, dance that is song and prayer. Sun-glare and sun-shadows, the blue Attic sky, the open-air. In the beginning neither audience nor actors; only villagers united in a mystic and demoniac ceremony, praying with their bodies for the passing of winter and rebirth of life in the spring. Later, spectators and ministrants Vc. A GREEK THEATRE united by the actuality of this oldest religion. Finally, the heart of the religion of a great city; a bowl in the hillside of the Acropolis jammed with forty thousand citizens; a rude temple-front across one end; the altar and the dancing floor still in the centre of the people; a chanting, dancing chorus, link between the citizens and the three actors, who, set upon stilts and hidden be- hind masks, tell them over and over, play after play, year after year, the stories of their heroes and their 164 THE ETERNAL THEATRE gods. Perhaps the three actors stand upon a high plat- form of the temple, which is also a dressing-room; per- haps they stand upon the dancing floor, the orchestra, A ROMAN THEATRE and only the gods ascend, by cumbrous machinery, to the roof of the temple. However that may be, in accents swept away ever and again by winds from the bay of Salamis, these maskers upon stilts present in formal narrative with interventions of chorus, messenger and 165 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW god, fabulous and familiar stories to a multitude that swelters under the Mediterranean sun. . . . Rome has its theatre as well as its Coliseum, and sometimes it finds it hard to distinguish between the two. The shape of the theatre is the Greek, debased. There is still the semi-circle of stone benches holding thou- sands upon thousands. But the orchestra at its foot has shrunken to a crescent for the senators to sit in; the altar is gone; the scena, the temple-dressing room, is a tow- ering wall, high as the bank of seats ; at its base the prob- lematic stage where the Greek actor may have trod has been broadened out and lowered, and there alone the action of the play takes place, a remnant of the Greek chorus mingling with the actors. A curtain that drops into a slot in front of the stage; colored wigs instead of masks, unless the producer is a Greek dilettante; mules, six hundred of them, and spectacle. Religion has fled with the altar. Even the sun is gone, for elaborate awnings may be drawn to protect the pleasure-seeking spectators. Rome dies and the theatre with her. . . . Five hundred years later, rebirth, in the nave of the cathedral. Religion calls forth the drama once more. Before the high altar and in stations reproducing bib- lical scenes the choristers act out liturgical dramas of the life of Christ, and the stories of the testaments. Candles, incense, and sunlight stained by the glass of high windows; Latin phrases knocking about among the far arches, only half heard, while the eyes of a 166 THE ETERNAL THEATRE thousand lusty believers delight in the pageant of their faith. . . . Soon the miracle plays are altogether too popular. They must be taken out of the church and set up on the common, where there is room for all to see. In France the guilds of carpenters build a dozen fantastic houses THE MEDIAEVAL PLATFORM STAGE The long stage with several scenes shown at the same time, used in mystery plays at Valenciennes in 1547. At the left is Heaven; then follow various "mansions", the inn, the house of the high priest, etc., until we reach Hellmouth at the right. along the back of a platform more than a hundred feet long, and, from Heaven at one end to Hell's Mouth at the other, past the inn, the temple, the house of the high priest, the action of these miracles, these mysteries of the saints, pass on to rude comedy as the gusty devils receive the damned into the yawning flames of their "mansion." The tongue is the popular tongue. Soon the guilds are furnishing funds, work, and actors, and are animating the whole with the marvelous creative 167 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW spirit of craftsmanship that swept Europe out of the dark ages ready for the Renaissance. The theatre is back in the open air again, religious, ritualistic. It is a thing of festival once more. . . . In England the guilds bring drama from the thea- tre of the church to the theatre of the booth. The bib- THE BOOTH STAGE OF THE GUILDS The mediaeval stage used in England and Germany for the presentation of mystery plays after the guilds had taken them over from the church. In England such stages, with two or three scenes one above another, were placed on wagons and hauled from one part of town to another. lical stories and the lives of the saints are acted out upon dozens of small wheeled platforms that are hauled from place to place about the city. Sometimes the players descend to the street to act; sometimes from their dressing-rooms close to the ground they mount to a platform above, and sometimes to a level still higher. These strange restricted little stages follow each other in procession the whole day through, acting over and over their rude plays as one succeeds another 1 68 THE ETERNAL THEATRE before the expectant townsfolk on Corpus Christi. . . . It is still the theatre when there are neither Greek AN ELIZABETHAN THEATRE Shakespeare's Globe as reconstructed by G. P. Fauconnet in Album du Vieux Colombier. bowls, Gothic naves, French platforms nor the wagons of the guilds, when strollers invade the inn yard, set up a scaffold and play moralities and chronicles to the 169 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW stable boys, apprentices-, guildsmen and thieves who crowd the inn yard and to the travellers who step out from their rooms to watch from the balconies that cir- cle above. And so as Pepys said a century later, "to the play- house," the first in Europe. Not altogether a house this theatre built in 1576 by Burbage in Bankside, oppo- site London. The shell of an inn, the heart of a bear- pit, a tall doughnut of a building with galleries like the inn galleries all round its inner wall, these for the gentry. Out from the farthest side of the hexagon juts a platform some forty feet across. On this the play is acted, later with a "heavens" or wooden canopy over- head to protect the actor a little from sun or English rain. Where the stage joins the back wall there are doors right and left, a central nook or "study," in which properties and indications of scenery may be placed, and above, a balcony for Juliet. This, with the yard about the stage filled by a noisy mob of groundlings, is the theatre Shakespeare wrote for. No ritual, but no curtain and no roof. Plenty of God's elements fighting with the court against the Puritans. Cromwell's parlia- ment bans the theatre. There is some trouble about the sun ; it never really gets into drama again. . . . Meantime in Italy two theatres, one popular, one aristocratic. The commedia dell' arte, first of all a street entertainment, later going indoors as the "comedy 170 THE ETERNAL THEATRE of masks" and carrying the scenery of the street with it. A theatre of virtuosity, in which the players improvise their lines upon scenarios of buffoonery and intrigue. A theatre of stock characters, stock costumes and stock THE COMMEDIA DELL ARTE Between the two portraits by Callot, of typical Italian stage characters of the 16th century, appears one of the stages erected in the streets by the roaming players prior to 1600. masks, with the famous figures Pantaloon, the Vene- tian merchant, Dottore, the doctor from Bologna, Spa- vienta, the Neapolitan braggadocio, Pullicinella, a wag from Apulia, Arlecchino (Harlequin) and Colum- bina and other unmasked waiting maids. A theatre in 171 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW which intimacy counts even more than in the Eliza- bethan ; which is at its best out in the streets and which suffers from the curtain and the proscenium and the artificial light so dear to the other Italian theatre. . . . This theatre, the theatre of Lorenzan magnificence, of masque and pageantry, is the prototype of the opera house and, to a lesser extent, the playhouse of today. Inigo Jones, the great designer of Tudor and Stuart ITALIAN COMEDY SETTING The Commedia dell' arte, when it came in- doors in the 17th century, utilized a street scene of this sort upon its stage. The many houses had practicable doors and windows. Moliere sometimes used a similar setting. masques, went to Italy to observe it, and, bringing back its proscenium and curtain and lights and scenery, laid the model for the English theatre when the Restoration removed the ban of the Puritans. This Italian theatre began perhaps in an imitation of the Roman, like so much in the Renaissance. The Teatro Olympico in 172 AN ITALIAN COURT MASQUE Callous etching of one of the great spectacles presented in 16th cen- tury palaces from which our own form of opera house and theatre is derived. Here the proscenium appeared definitely for the first time. Note the use of runways from the stage to the main floor, and the presence of actors upon this floor at in Reinhardt's Grosses Schauspielhaus. 1 73 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW Vicenza, built four years after Burbage's Theatre, has a Roman auditorium and a Roman stage with its three doors, but behind these arched doorways five elaborate streets run off in violent perspective. Perhaps someone thought of widening the middle door to get at the scen- ery; at any rate, the next theatres present a proscenium filling the whole stage and showing elaborate scenery behind its curtain. Somewhat in the Greek tradition, the action cannot be confined to the stage. The stage is merely a colorful, changing background for the evo- lutions of the actors and supernumeraries that fill the floor of the great halls in which these prosceniums are set up. By a process of slow but natural evolution, the balconies assume the horseshoe shape of the opera house, and seats are placed on the floor, until the action is con- fined once more to the stage, as in Rome. France first with the miracle plays comes to the theatre of literature and of contemporary life later than England. By the time Racine and Corneille are ready, the court is imitating the Italian opera houses. Moliere's strollers come into the covered tennis courts of Paris instead of the inns that housed Burbage, and set up there a miniature version of the raised stage, cur- tain, scenery, and steps down to the forestage, which they are soon to enjoy in the Petit-Bourbon Palace. The Italian playhouse, transferred to England, after the Restoration, reaches by the middle of the eighteenth century a form which is recognizable as late as the 174 1 3? L>k V * ? r -"r~r- |f rr r AN INIGO JONES MASQUE The design for Jones' court masque, Florimine, produced in 1635, and the )lan of the hall in which it was given. The actors passed down onto the loor below the stage. 175 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW nineteenth in the Drury Lane of Sheridan. The or- chestra, reserved for the spectators, and rows of shal- low balconies curving close to the walls above, might belong to our own Metropolitan Opera House. But the proscenium opening reaches the extraordinary width of seventy feet, while before it lies an apron eighteen feet deep, with boxes on either side and per- manent entrances in the proscenium itself. Perform- ances are given at night; candle light gives way to oil and then gas, and finally footlights appear. . . . From such a playhouse to the theatre that houses Ibsen is a matter of refinement and paring away. The towering galleries give way at the sides, and one or at most two balconies jut far out from the back towards the stage. The apron disappears, and, as electric light develops, the scenery recedes into a box. Realism, an exact representation of life, takes the place of the the- atrical conventions that have flourished for twenty-four centuries. The director lets down, firmly but unob- trusively, the famous fourth wall. . . . This is The Theatre, this strange agglomeration of amphitheatres, chancels, platforms, wagons, inn yards, bear-pits, tennis courts, royal ballrooms, picture frames. It has flourished by sunlight and candlelight. It has danced and strutted and sat still. It has worshiped the gods, railed at convention, and fouled its mouth with indecencies. This Dionysus has died a dozen deaths and won a dozen rebirths. If some Martian were to 176 THE ETERNAL THEATRE see a performance in Athens or in Bankside placed be- side a performance in the Belasco Theatre, would he guess for a moment that he had looked upon the same institution, the same instinctive expression of godhead? Should we then have imagined that because we had pulled down the fourth wall and called it a curtain this theatre of ours was set forever? 177 CHAPTER XII. THE MOVIES THE CURTAIN BECOMES THE STAGE THE history of the physical theatre from the Greek amphitheatre to the peep-show of Ibsen is a history of change, the story of a dozen theatres in one. It forbids us to believe that our play- house is the last. It forbids us to believe that, whether good or bad, this perfecting of realism will continue for many years in the shape it has taken. What, then, is to be the next theatre? What will be the relation of its auditorium to its stage, of its audi- ence to its actors, of its drama to godhead? How will it develop from the theatre that we have? Can we note signs of such a new theatre already in the alterations in settings, prosceniums and forestage that have taken place here and abroad under the promptings of the new stagecraft? Or and this is something not to be dismissed too lightly is the new theatre already regnant among us, already a thing of fixed and appropriate structure, as different from our theatre in its physical and spiritual qualities as our theatre is different from the Greek? Is the motion picture, with its silent actors, its silver i 7 8 THE CURTAIN BECOMES THE STAGE screen and its darkened auditorium, the next theatre? We have made the curtain the fourth wall of realism. Are we now to see upon it more of reality than ever the stage could give? Or is it to be the theatre of imagination, of vigorous beauty, which has battled with realism for twenty years? Or something so different from what we have known in the theatre of the past, from what we may know in the future, that it will be the eighth art? Whatever the ultimate place of the motion picture, its relation to the quarrel of the realist and the artist of imagination is full of curious significance. The screen, no less than the stage, has shown both tendencies. It began with romantic melodramas of today. It veered off into spectacular costume productions. In the work of the late George Loane Tucker, a director of very great promise, it developed an aptitude for expressing spiritual ideas, as well as character, in terms of our own life. Lately the contributions of German directors who got their training in drama on Reinhardt's stage, have leavened our general run of humdrum, drearily sentimental realism with sharp and colorful attempts at expressionism such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Golem and with colorful historical films such as Passion (Du Barry) , and Deception, (Anne Boleyn). Five years ago, when the way of the imaginative artist was thorny and barren everywhere but in Germany and Russia, I felt that the future of his work lay on the 179 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW screen. This was, I suspect, an attempt to find some opening for him, however restricted, in the blank walls of managerial ignorance and indifference. The rea- sons I advanced were so cogent that I am rather inclined to think that though it might be a better solution of the old quarrel to leave the screen to realism, and the stage to the newer art, the two will probably reflect both ten- dencies in the future as they have in the past. Any one who has observed modern "art photog- raphy" (how disquieting it is to read of "art photog- raphy" and "art theatres" but never of "art opera" or "art painting") or seen some of the better film work of D. W. Griffith's photographers, Bitzer and Sartov, knows the photographic beauty that can be added to the ancient charms of line, mass and contrast. If he knows the screen, he knows how dramatically if sel- dom, and apparently by accident the interpretative power of design, which the artist of the new stagecraft preaches, has been made to serve random scenes. He knows, too, the almost unlimited powers of trick pho- tography in achieving miraculous and superhuman ef- fects. One of the most interesting and significant develop- ments of Joseph Urban's expedition into film work has been his achievement of remarkably illusive exteriors from settings built either full size or as models, or even painted in two-dimensions and photographed in the studio. To the beauties of nature and of architecture, 1 80 THE CURTAIN BECOMES THE STAGE in which the screen can so obviously outdistance the stage, must be added an exact reproduction of an artist's sketched conception, correct in design and perspective for every patron in the picture theatre. Even though the stage artist gives up two-dimensional painting and falls back on solid plastic reality, the ideal composition that he sees in his mind's eye and sketches upon paper can only be true for a very few spectators seated, as it were at the focal point of his vision. The motion pic- ture camera can be placed at that point, the scene fixed photographically in exactly the composition desired, and this picture reproduced endlessly and at will in any theatre where films are projected. Two other technical considerations are worth at- tention. For one thing, it is obvious that if the sim- plification of the new stagecraft is desirable in the theatre, it is immensely more desirable on the screen, where the only means of holding the attention is visual and any cluttering up of the scene with detail dis- tracts the eye from the actor. In another regard, the facilities of the screen will aid the artist, instead of the artist aiding the screen. The artist of the photoplay has thirty, fifty, eighty scenes of different compositions to create, compared to the three or four of a play. This is important because the purpose of the artist is to suit the atmosphere of a scene to the emotion of its action, and almost no scene of any great length can maintain the same emotion. The imaginative play 181 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW tends to break up into shorter scenes than the realistic, because through this it is enabled to maintain a more perfect mood. The photoplay breaks up because of its very nature. The imaginative drama tends naturally towards action as well as toward beauty. Though poetry of words must always remain the province of the stage, until a super-phonograph of far greater natural- ness than ours makes synchronization of speech and film not only possible but bearable, the poetry of action goes over easily and directly and far more powerfully into the swift-running film. Looking at the nature of the theatre, it seemed to me once and the thesis might still be maintained that the drama is naturally and ideally a parochial art, and that a parochial art must be a realistic art. Made espe- cially for a single community, it must specialize in the things closest to that community. Superficially, these seem to be the realistic details of life. It has only oc- curred to us during the past year or two that our life of today may be seen through other glasses than the realistic. As to realism and its natural accompaniments, in- terpretation, morals, and thesis, the motion picture is international, and morals are notoriously a matter of geography. Considering the breadth and range of the film audience, one must admit that the level of its art, morally speaking, must be the dead level of platitude. The movies, as Shaw said, will tend to express "what 182 THE CURTAIN BECOMES THE STAGE an agricultural laborer thinks right, and what an old- fashioned governess thinks properly sentimental." If I feel now that this analysis was hardly complete, it is because recent events on screen and stage have demonstrated that realism and the thesis have unusual possibilities in the films, and that theatrical history has moved very swiftly in favor of even more radical new methods of production than the first practitioners of the new stagecraft imagined. The power of the screen to be literally exact, both pictorially and humanly, to give us the absolute and in- timate actuality of our life, is more than evident. When we watch the work of a director such as Griffith, we do not see life with the fourth wall removed; we see life, fourth wall and all. We are actually in the midst of life. It follows, therefore, that it is within the power of the director to preach whether or not it is within the disposition of his international audience to accept. He can draw his deductions from actuality and rein- force them by the lettered dialogue of the screen; in fact he can go beyond dialogue, and inject his own re- flections independent of his characters. What the screen cannot do that the stage can do, is to follow the newest and the freshest trend of the artist in the theatre. It cannot escape from representation; it cannot present actor, costumes, properties, draperies and architectural settings frankly for what they are things that speak out of their substance and material, 183 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW and not through something that they try to imitate or suggest. It cannot recover the spirit that animated all theatrical production, Greek or mediaeval, Shakespear- ean or Georgian, before realism introduced photo- graphic representation of life. The screen is inherently representative . . . second-hand. It must photograph something and create the illusion of it in two-dimen- sions on the screen. Even if it photographs the new type of production the "presentational," to borrow Bak- shy's word from his Path of the Modern Russian Stage what we have is a representation of the actual actor and the surrounding materials. They do not speak to us directly. Linked with this consideration is the fact that while the camera can give us every sense of looking through the proscenium frame at a slice of life it cannot give us the stimulant of a presentational theatre of new levels and relations, forestages, portals, actors appearing from among the audience, the immense variety of visual and oral forms which the new theatre is opening up for the playwright of the future. The screen can do every- thing that the realistic theatre can do; it cannot com- pass all the possibilities of the imaginative theatre, though it may go beyond them in certain directions. From which I am drawn to conclude that, though realism may depend more and more upon the films, the screen and the stage will share to a great extent in the exploitation of the two types of drama. The screen and 184 THE CURTAIN BECOMES THE STAGE the stage draw slightly different audiences, and it may be that the more experimental, the more advanced and the more responsive audiences will be found in the theatre; but, however that may be, it seems reasonably likely that the more representational aspects of the new stagecraft and the types of plays it stands for will de- velop on the screen at the same time that they develop on the stage. "Movements," if they amount to any- thing, have their roots in the audience as much as in the artists and producers. They are general and extend from one art to another, even when these arts are further separated than the stage and the screen. Had the photoplay existed in 1830 it would have felt the impact of the romantic movement quite as much as did the stage. 1 8s CHAPTER XIII. THE NEXT THEATRE. FOR fifty years our theatre has been steadily and slowly working over from the bizarre operatic structure set upon the drama of Europe by the bursting luxuriance of the seventeenth century Italian courts towards a reticent auditorium which should dis- play, upon an illusively lighted stage within a frame, a realistic representation of life. At last in the work of American architects like Ingalls and Blackall and Germans like Oskar Kaufmann, in such theatres as Henry Miller's and Maxine Elliott's in New York, and the Hebbel Theater and the Volksbuhne in Berlin, we have reached a form appropriate to the purposes of the nineteenth century drama instead of to the masques, pageants, ballets and operas which absorbed the ener- gies of the Italian courts two centuries before, and which shaped that ornate gilt and plaster shell into which the drama that followed Shakespeare and Mo- liere was thoughtless enough to slip. For a hundred years scattered artists, architects and directors have been fighting both the court opera house and the modern peep-show theatre in an endeavor to 1 86 THE NEXT THEATRE create still another form of playhouse a structure nei- ther as absurd as the opera house nor as limiting as the picture frame stage; that is, a playhouse not narrowly archaeologic, yet instinct with the live and healthy the- atricalism of the Elizabethan stage, the dignity and grandeur of the Greek; a theatre fitted to every exigency of theatrical presentation; a theatre for the future as well as the past; a theatre for the drama that grows tired of the limitations of realism. All this effort towards a new playhouse to succeed the present theatre as the present theatre succeeded the theatre of Garrick, of Shakespeare, of the mystery plays, and of Greek tragedy, has evolved no more than three definitely and completely functioning houses; but it has left a great mass of most interesting and fecund and significant experiment and suggestion. Up to the past ten years most of it was German; and most of it was busy with discreet modifications of the existing features of theatrical architecture. The first indication of a change in the conception of the relations of auditorium and stage reaches back to that great practical force in the theatre, Goethe. At the beginning of the past century he associated himself with a remarkable and innovating architect, Carl Friedrich Schinkel in theories and projects which ulti- mately resulted in the plans for the theatre in Weimar with which Goethe's name is still associated. The ob- ject of Goethe, imbued with sudden enthusiasm over the .87 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW discovery that Shakespeare did not write for a stage of definite scenes, was to bring back the apron and renew the intercourse of spectator and actor. Schin- kel's plans for recreating the forestage had perhaps little effect upon the Italianate playhouses of his day; but in the light of twentieth century effort they are most suggestive. They proved the forerunner of much ex- periment in Germany before Max Littmann, Georg Fuchs and others definitely established the forestage and its portals as essential to imaginative drama. As Schinkel worked with Goethe, so Gottfried Sem- per, the other outstanding theatre architect of nine- teenth century Germany, found association with a great creative dramatist and director, Wagner. With him Semper labored upon the problem of the proscenium, evolving the "mystic abyss" or neutral and empty frame between auditorium and stage, which Wagner desired as a means of heightening the illusion of another world. Since that attempt to remove the actor from the reality of contact with his audience amounts in one way to the perfecting of the picture-frame idea, it seems to me that Semper's greatest contribution lay rather in his work upon the auditorium itself. There he devel- oped Schinkel's idea of seating the audience in a sin- gle, steeply rising bank, somewhat after the manner of the Greeks, and thus bringing the spectators into closer spiritual relation with one another as well as with the stage. 788 THE NEXT THEATRE In Max Littmann, the greatest theorist and builder of the modern German theatre, the "Rang versus Ring" idea of substituting a single, unified and well-graded bank of seats for the aristocratic, anti-social and visu- ally bad arrangement of superimposed galleries, finds its warmest and strongest support. But Littmann's ef- forts have gone into more extensive and original reform in his "adaptable proscenium," which combines the ordinary realistic picture frame and the Wagner "mys- tic abyss" with a forestage and entrances in the pro- scenium frame. More than a dozen theatres in Ger- many now testify to Littmann's fruitful experiments with stage, proscenium and auditorium, notably the Schiller Theater in Charlottenburg, the twin theatres of Stuttgart and the Munich Kunstler Theater. His re- forms have remade both auditorium and stage, combin- ing them in a perfected structure that goes as far towards the new playhouse as you can go without cast- ing aside all resemblance to our familiar theatre. When the catastrophe of the Great War fell upon the theatres of Europe, Germany was manifestly ready for experiments along far more radical lines. The various schemes for Shakespearean stages, forestages, portals, permanent settings and inner prosceniums, which I have described in Chapter IX, all tended to- wards the development of both spectators and direc- tors who were eager for experiment on lines leading away from the realistic theatre and towards a new form 189 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW of playhouse. At least two significant German experi- ments preceded the war. One was in a place and an institution quite apart from the commercial theatre the great hall of the Jaques-Dalcroze School of Eurythmics in Hellerau near Dresden. There in the great hall of the group of handsome buildings where Dalcroze taught his new system of musical and bodily education through move- ment, curious and revolutionary experiments took place. Dalcroze brought to his assistance two remarkable men : one was A. von Salzmann, reputed the greatest author- ity on lighting in the European theatre, whom Maurice Browne calls "the master of us all"; the other, that pioneering giant, Adolphe Appia, who here had his first opportunity to work unhampered on the practical details of production. Rejected in his home, Russia, Salzmann found success in Germany. The hall, which was designed by Heinrich Tessenow, combined both stage and auditorium in a single oblong room. Whatever served as stage and setting was placed at one end. The other end of the room was occupied by the banked seats of the audience. Except for an open space of shining floor, there was no division be- tween the spectators and the stage, not even the division of lighting. Both the audience and the setting were illumined by the same lambent and mysterious glow proceeding from the translucent walls around, behind, and above them. These walls were of something re- 190 THE DAI.CROZE PLAYHOUSE The remarkable hall in the Eurhythmic School at Hellerau, near Dresden, where Adolphe Appia produced Claudel's l.'Annonre faite a Marie in association with Jaques-Dalcroze and Alexander von Salzmann, the lighting expert. In the upper picture is the stage-scene built into one end of the room; in the lower, the seats of the spectators at the other end. Through translucent walls of silk, the light of 10,000 electric bulbs plays upon stage and audience alike. THE NEXT THEATRE sembling balloon silk, covered with cedar oil; behind this surface were batteries of some 10,000 bulbs so ar- ranged and circuited as to permit all manner of shades and gradations of light. Frank E. Washburn Freund in the English Stage Yearbook for 1914 graphically describes this illumination as "a diffused light resem- bling daylight without visible sun." The stage and the scene were identical and consisted merely of a complex of movable platforms and steps, supplemented by sim- ple flats and hangings. These could be rearranged al- most endlessly. With these materials Appia, Dalcroze and Salzmann created the setting for Paul Claudel's L'Annonce faite a Marie illustrated on another page. The other radical experiment towards a new play- house was made by Max Reinhardt in his productions of CEdipus Rex by Sophocles, Orestes, The Miracle, Hauptmann's Festspiel, and Everyman in circuses, and led finally to his remodeling of one of these circus buildings into the Grosses Schauspielhaus in Berlin. The circus in Europe is not the tented carnival we know in America. It is a mixture of variety and athletic show housed in a permanent building rather like Madi- son Square Garden. It frequently utilizes gauze scen- ery around its inner ring, which, when lighted from within, becomes transparent on the side of the ring nearest the spectator and shows opaque on the other side of the house as background or scenery for the perform- ance. Reinhardt discarded the transparent scenery, 191 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW and blotted out his audience in darkness, lighting only the centre of the circus, in which his actors appeared, and one end of the building, where they made their exits and their entrances. The success of these presenta- tions, particularly of (Edipus, was tremendous; for Reinhardt drew from the proximity of his audience to the immense crowd of actors in its midst a new and extraordinary intimacy combined with grandeur and power. CEdipus was first mounted in 1910 and was shown to 3 17,000 people in 93 performances in 26 cities ; at least 50,000 spectators gained admittance at less than a quarter a head. Here, as elsewhere, it can hardly be denied that Rein- hardt drew inspiration from Craig, who dreamed thus of what the German producer created in his Theatre of the Five Thousand: "I see a great building to seat many thousands of people. At one end rises a platform of heroic size on which figures of a heroic mould shall move. The scene shall be such as the world shows us, not as our own particular little street shows us. The movements of these scenes shall be noble and great: all shall be illuminated by a light such as the spheres give us, not such as the footlights give us, but such as we dream of." The philosophy back of the Theatre of the Five Thousand is described by Reinhardt's literary director, Arthur Kahane, in the following passage translated by 192 "si _ 3"= < sx ^ aj rt J3 JS - c >, 5 t" THE NEXT THEATRE Huntley Carter from Die Blatter des Deutschen Thea- ters and printed in his Theatre of Max Reinhardt: "The first law of the new theatre is utmost simplicity. Apart from the consideration that there is no time for complicated changes, the vast space demands the sim- plest of forms and strong, big, severe lines. All acces- sories are superfluous; they cannot possibly be noticed, or, if they are, they are a source of distraction. At the most scenic decoration can only be frame, not func- tion. The elaboration of details, the emphasising of nuances disappear; the actor and the actor's voice are truly essential, while lighting becomes the real source of decoration, its single aim being to bring the impor- tant into the light, and to leave the unimportant in the shadow. "Thus the effects are simplified and heightened ac- cording to the need of monumentality. Under the in- fluence of these mighty spaces, these big, severe lines, all that is small and petty disappears, and it becomes a matter of course to appeal to the hearts of great audi- ences with the strongest and deepest elements. The petty and unimportant elements that are not eternal in us cease to have effect. This theatre can only express the great eternal elemental passions and the problems of humanity. In it, spectators cease to be mere specta- tors; they become the people; their emotions are sim- ple and primitive, but great and powerful, as becomes the eternal human race. *93 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW "Many things that appear to most people to be insep- arable from the theatre are being discarded. No cur- tain separates stage and auditorium. On entering the theatre the spectator feels and is impressed by the possi- bilities of space, and the essential mood is created in him to be preserved after the piece has begun. No small, strongly circumscribed, impassable frame sepa- rates the action of the play from the outer world, and the action flows freely through the whole of the theatre. The peep-show character of the 'scene,' which was known neither to the stage of the ancients, to the Shakes- pearean stage, nor to the Molierean stage, and which to people of a conservative frame of mind is still the highest point of theatrical art, simply because they are not aware that they merely worship a fossilised frag- ment of Italian opera and ballet tradition, has van- ished. The chorus arises and moves in the midst of the audience; the characters meet each other amid the spec- tators; from all sides the hearer is being impressed, so that gradually he becomes part of the whole, and is rapidly absorbed in the action, a member of the chorus, so to speak. The close contact (intimacy) is the chief feature of the new form of the stage. It makes the spectator a part of the action, secures his entire inter- est, and intensifies the effect upon him. "Big spaces compel the unfolding of personality. It is in these that men develop their best and final power. Though separated by great distances, men still face 194 5 > 2 E _ oj S E S E~ - 8w E E THE NEXT THEATRE each other, and inevitably the conflicting feeling arises as to who is the stronger personality. Here strength and passion become the predominating qualities, the quintessence of tragedy, the conflict of personalities, the two dramatic elements contained in and transmitted by space. It is thus possible to rediscover a feeling which has been lost to us, but without losing that process of greater intimacy which seems to me the most useful re- sult of the late naturalistic movement in the theatre. For through the close contact with the spectator, who, metaphorically speaking, can feel the warm breath of dramatic art, the actor will be compelled to draw from the well of his deepest experience. There is no better proof of the genuineness of power and feeling exerted than to come successfully through this ordeal in this ^pace before the said spectator. "Of course it will come easiest to actors who possess a musical temperament, for music is inherent in human beings, and by music we may reach the heart of the vastest crowds. In the midst of the strongest accents of human passions, and the powerful logic of the dramatic struggle, which will always form the most im- portant part of this side of theatrical art, pauses are imperative. It is the function of music to fill them in, either alone or in the form of the rhythmic chorus. By means of music this theatre will retain its dual charac- ter of the festive and the grave." This then is the ideal of the Theatre of the Five i9S THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW Thousand which may be presumed to dominate the Grosses Schauspielhaus, in which Reinhardt's desire for a new playhouse took its completest form. This huge building retains the elements of the circus performances and combines them with many features of the theatre reinhardt's grosses schauspielhaus Showing the seating arrangement above the orchestra, in which the actors appear. of the past. The audience, something over three thou- sand in number, is seated in one bank of seats surround- ing the acting space. This space is first of all the or- chestra, as in the ancient Greek theatre. There, upon the floor of the auditorium, in the midst of the specta- tors, passes much of the most intimate action and there the great mobs move. They gain access to this space 196 u s. - ~ u 5 > u - >- a, ej [J r-~ - PS i* t, C ~: a C. X. OJ u X C ^ ~ X u -5 y. rs M r^ n fl ZJ u u u aj J= ra ra - +- cs r_ 2 = S I ill 1. *-mm PLAN OF THE GROSSES SCHAUSPIELHAUS The stage, the forestages A, B, and C, and the orchestra can be raised or lowered a number of feet at will. Hans Poelzig, architect. 197 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW from runways passing beneath the seats of the audience and from portals near the stage proper. The stage it- self is a huge affair, as large as any in common use in Berlin, and equipped with plaster dome, revolving stage and curtain. From the stage, which itself may be built up into various levels, steps and platforms lead down into the orchestra. Thus the house combines the essential feature of the Greek theatre, the orchestra in the midst of the spectators, with the essential feature of the modern theatre, the mechanically perfect stage. Reinhardt's productions in the Grosses Schauspiel- haus have ranged from (Edipus and Orestes to Hamlet and Goetz von Berlichingen, from Aristophanes to Hauptmann. One of his notable successes was Romain Rolland's Danton, the tremendous excitement of the final scene of the revolutionary tribunal with the mob filling the orchestra and actors scattered even amongst the spectators atoning for the inappropriateness of the two earlier scenes in Robespierre's and Desmoulins's rooms to the great distances of this theatre. It is absurd to take the Grosses Schauspielhaus for a perfected specimen of the theatre of tomorrow. It is, on the face of it, too complete a compromise between the Greek theatre and the modern deep stage. The effects of frank and overpowering theatricalism which Reinhardt achieves in the orchestra tends to make much of his use of the inner stage and its scenery seem tri- fling. In this magnificently new building critics were 198 n "3 Q f. ^ & z. z ~ ~ From The Theatre Arts Magazine reinhardt's projected festspielhaus Plan and section of the theatre to be built in Salzburg after designs by Hanz Poelzig. The orchestra will be used by the actors as in the Grosses Schauspielhaus. The seats continue up over the foyers. 199 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW particularly annoyed by Reinhardt's foolish and trivial attempt to project real clouds upon the plaster dome in his production of Julius C&sar. The final emphasis, however, should be on his tendency to desert the deep stage and play even interior scenes in the orchestra. From this venture Reinhardt has gone on to plan a more perfect structure of the sort in a place where the temptation or the necessity of pandering to an un- trained audience will be less than in Berlin. At Salz- burg, in the Austrian Tyrol, is to be erected, if funds can be found in bankrupt Central Europe, a Festspiel- haus or festival playhouse for the creation of new drama and new music-drama as well as the reinterpre- tation of the old. Reinhardt is to act as director, and with him, in residence in the old town, will be Hugo von Hofmannsthahl, the playwright, and Richard Strauss, the composer. Together these three will at- tempt to create a Bayreuth of the modern theatre. The preliminary sketches which Hanz Poelzig, arch- itect of the Grosses Schauspielhaus has made for the Salzburg project, picture a strange structure handled in the rococo style associated historically with Salzburg and its great artist, Mozart. Its central building, seat- ing 2,000, will be connected with its smaller theatre, the Mozart Spielhaus, and with other portions of the park in which it is set, by winding, tentacle-like colon- nades. The plan of the Festspielhaus calls for a smaller and less conventional stage than at the Grosses Schau- 200 THE NEXT THEATRE spielhaus; orchestra and stage will be brought into closer harmony. Attempts to create the new playhouse have been fewer outside Germany. In only one case, the case of Jacques Copeau and his Theatre du Vieux Colombier, have they been notably successful; but in that case, I feel, in spite of no attempt to range wide or gain the splendid proportions of mass-action, the end has been most notably attained. The bare stage of Copeau has been brought to Berlin in the Tribune Theater. The nearest parallel to Reinhardt for size and gran- deur of conception outside the frankly imitative pro- ductions of CEdipe, roi de Thebes and of spectacles by Gemier in Paris is the masque form and the open- air auditorium created by Percy MacKaye in America. In his Masque of St. Louis and his Caliban, MacKaye has gone far towards charting some of the essentials of the mass-theatre of the future. In these wind-blown and gigantic entertainments, he has reposed an unfor- tunate reliance on the spoken word and neither his verse nor his prose has had the simplicity and vigor that such a form of entertainment demands. But in his imagina- tion he has seen truly the possibility of community drama, of magnificent communal spectacles fused of color and movement, art and humanity. MacKaye is the natural inheritor of grand theatrical conceptions from an extraordinary father, Steele Mac- Kaye. As I noted elsewhere, the elder MacKaye had 201 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW planned and partially built for the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 a gargantuan playhouse called the Spec- tatorium. In it was to be enacted a new form of drama composed of pantomime and music, words spoken and sung, called The World Finder and celebrating Co- lumbus. Dvorak and Victor Herbert were to write the music. The building was to cover a space five hun- dred feet long by four hundred wide and was to be two hundred and seventy feet in height. The proscenium was to be a hundred and fifty feet by seventy, and the sky at the back of the stage four hundred by a hundred and twenty. The auditorium was to seat 10,000. By an unprecedented array of mechanical appliances, movable stages running on miles of tracks, water tanks, etc., all manner of gigantic scenes and "effects" were to be obtained. Financial difficulties prevented the com- pletion of the Spectatorium; but a large model, called the Scenatorium, was completed and successfully ex- hibited before MacKaye's death in 1894. Other minds in America have worked upon new forms for the theatre. Aline Barnsdall, for the new theatre which she planned to build in Los Angeles, called in America's most progressive and originating architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. The preliminary de- signs called for an auditorium like none yet built. The proscenium was to be adjustable and movable; the back of the stage a dome curving out into the lines of the house. Wright designed a permanent architectural 202 MAIN HATURK OF A THtAT PC FOR A MORt WASTIC STYJE OF DRAM ^^ .DESIGNED BY flOftMAN-BIL GCDDES 1914 n Tcket of ice/ foyer>elevc(tow Promiimde284 feet lone MOf\. wide I8jt.hi$b Emulators to Upper bromiwdp wbertrabiti* Invisible below Jtepj which joift aoditorfum and stg>e'tfrf/mM , k penetrorinfthe f em'fopw row fcfrfJbmenH retiring rooms Side ball and circularrtairx tolovwrtfrw CROMCTJM Furthest seat 95 feet from stage elevation angle gives unotxrtrucfa) view over beads of people in front. An outdoor below onupperpromirKKje Ground level- Rehearsal rooms and offices are inthe toweroo eornerof building above the foyer BASEMENT RAM Area 80 feet Square for sniff- ing of xcenery Mechanics sKob5 long>, two siiir of building on f irst level below crourxl reached by elevatorj-orjfdir/ Dock for .second itage where it is set and awaits itr turn to slide into the comer and be raised to the auditorium Scale in feet ~H0~ 3Q^& m\wmm Ground area is 162 feet square yeatinfflcapati^ wMoufbolcony 3604 oerxons* seats* ZO inch* wid e' 16 inches- deeP'Witb 16 InchMfootspuCP Srcwe 80 feet- deep 82f* wide hflsnoproscenrero Pit around rear stae for actors and electrical apparatus Dressing rooms a 1 009 two .sides of tne building Dome formino; back ground for Stage settings en- velops audiforium instilling in tbe audience a more intimatecontact witb tbe stage & when illuminated the color would i "T spread overtbe TW audience mak- ' Hf ng them feel as tho they were in the scene. At the conclusion ofascenefbefihr itaoeisdrobped to inebaf ement on plungers and \s automatically runontracksto this dock-tbe ptherStagebav- inq previously been set,slides intotbecorner position and is nstanftly nuse4 forium Tion of ngsta to audiforium iti jhoulanoTcon- Qperatio cha ' 5ame nwrethoo a minutes time A THEATRE WITHOUT A PROSCENIUM Descriptive plans of Geddes' projected playhouse, with the stage con- tained in one corner of the auditorium. In the upper plan the left-hand lower half represents the promenade level; the right-hand upper half, thi auditorium level immediately above. The stage, in the right-hand lowe/ corner, sinks into the basement for a change of setting. 203 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW background in a wall about twelve feet high running parallel to the dome and a short distance from it. Norman-Bel Geddes, the young and brilliant de- signer, made almost his first contribution to the stage a plan for a great playhouse of even more remarkable design. In his scheme, devised in 19 17, the stage was to become a part of the auditorium. The audience, seated diagonally from corner to corner of the great domed hall, were to look upon simple set-pieces, plas- tic units, architectural details, appearing in the oppo- site corner of the structure. Behind these objects the curving wall which could be illuminated as a sky- dome would reach outward and upward until it dis- appeared in the darkness of the house. During the brief intermissions, while the theatre was plunged in darkness, the section of the floor containing the setting would be lowered into the basement, the setting and its rolling platform shoved aside and another setting, al- ready prepared, wheeled into place and raised imme- diately, with the actors upon it, up into the theatre above. In 192 1, upon the six hundredth anniversary of the death of Dante, Geddes set to work upon almost as ambitious a project, the presentation of The Divine Comedy as a great drama of light and words in Madi- son Square Garden. Here he schemed to build a gi- gantic and adroitly curving pit of many levels, sur- rounded on three sides by the audience, and rising on 204 IHE DIVINE COMEDY ARRANGEMENTS BY GEDDES Two of Norman-Bel Geddes's sketches to show different arrange- ments of lights and people during the progress of a dramatization of Dante. The design of the permanent stage upon which this is accomplished is shown in diagrams on pages 205 and 206 Above, Dante and Virgil on the edge of the pit of Hell. Below, Purgatory. Upon two plinths on either side, actors hold canvas shapes that form the outlines of devilish or of angelic wings. THE NEXT THEATRE the fourth against a gauze background which would finally be brilliantly stained by the light of paradise. PLAN FOR THE DIVINE COMEDY Madison Square Garden as arranged by Norman-Bel Geddes for his proposed production of Dante's Divine Comedy. Upon each side of the pit next to the gauze would stand two gigantic plinths upon which, in mysterious lights and silhouettes, men would pose great demoniacal 205 THE STAGE FOR THE DIVINE COMEDY Plan and section of the curious, doughnut-shaped structure upon which the action of Geddes' projected production would pass. The plinths or towers are to be occupied by actors carrying huge wings and other decora- tions. Note the position of this stage in the plan of Madison Square Garden on page 205. The arrows indicate rising steps. 206 - . ' ! , ' i J.' ill I i 1 i.i i ! :; ! j;j|L] p| i| 1 1 || i i !'l [ 1 T 'jH f H i i ! ill / i ' n Si I J .:.' if !. ' 1 m i 1 1 WIS:! i 1 i Ik 'i 511 i i " -i i ; I . 1 1 1 M i t N .i ! ! ! .r ; !l: ! 1 [I \?\ ' ' : (*.' ! i| fiiM 1 11 ' w 1 j, II llP 1 'i i r w i I 1 lil i 1 ,! Bill 1 ! ,i-,--' a" ml 1 i ! jf|i JfeSiWs^r^ ^fez^ From 77/^ Theatre Arts Magazine. THEATRES DESIGNED BY HERMAN ROSSE Above, an adaptation of the huge Coliseum Building, Chicago, proposed for the production of a nativity play. The audience is seated all round the circular stage, which is encircled by transparent scenery lighted from the inside and therefore only visible on the side opposite the spectator. Below, a novel arrangement of forestage and proscenium with "projected scenery" used as a background. THE NEXT THEATRE wings or angelic pinions appropriate to the progress of Dante through the infernal and celestial regions. Another American artist, the Dutch expatriate, Her- man Rosse, has dreamed of new playhouses. His first approach is architectural. Rosse has spent much time and energy on schemes for uniting the lines of the proscenium opening of a theatre with the lines of the house, for bringing a real artistic unity into the archi- tecture of the auditorium. He has gone beyond this to the designing of stages with new and beautiful ap- proaches doors set in the proscenium itself; "flowery ways," leading along the sides of the auditorium till they merge with a stage flung out in graceful curves be- yond the confines of our footlights ; steps down from the stage to the floor of the auditorium; the stage itself di- vided in ingenious ways by walls, pillars or screens of patterned color to make a background for the play. Rosse conceives "the pure structural beauty of an unadorned building, a beautifully finished platform," as sufficient for the mounting of many of the finest plays now written or to be written. The new playhouse, as Rosse sees it, "will probably lead by way of a slow de- velopment of the purely constructive stage and the ora- tory platform to a new type of churchlike theatre with reflecting domes, beautiful materials, beautiful peo- ple to a revitalizing of art by a complete reversal from the artificial to the living real." To reduce the problem to its simplest terms, one 207 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW can see in such a vaudeville theatre as Proctor's in Mount Vernon, N. Y., the possibility of creating this theatre of the "living real," with the actor presented frankly as the actor with the simplest of detail about him. Forget the stage. Reduce it to a mere wall of fabric running almost where the curtain or the motion picture screen stands today, and broken for fifteen feet in the centre by an opening in which to set properties or through which (for exterior scenes) to catch a glimpse of a plaster dome of rather modest size. Bulge out the apron in a wide curve at the centre and in lesser and lower curves at the ends, where the boxes are now. Open the doors of the boxes upon these demi-aprons by means of steps, and from balcony windows above bend a stairway gracefully along the wall towards the stage. There close knit with the wide and steep auditorium is a fair beginning toward some new stage of intimacy and capacity, reality and imagination. Jacques Copeau began his theatre as directly from something already in existence. He did not expect to make great reforms in stage or auditorium. He merely wanted to utilize fully the miserably tiny hall that his small resources could afford. It had no room for "ef- fects" for all the paraphernalia of the normal stage. That did not matter. Copeau was more intent upon the actor. Accordingly he and his artist-architect com- pletely cleared out the wings and old picture frame. In their stead, they installed a permanent architectural 208 JACQUES COPEAU'S PERMANENT STAGE Two productions at the Theatre du Vieux C'olombier in Paris, each utilizing the same general system of balcony and stairs, which are built permanently into one end of the auditorium with forestage and steps. There is no proscenium. Above, a scene from Twelfth Sight. Below, La Surprise de I' 'Amour. THE NEXT THEATRE setting at the back^ a sort of balcony reached by flights of steps, and fairly convertible into whatever Cppeau needed in background and superstructure. Or if he did not need it, it disappeared behind hangings or sim- ple walls held in ingenious columns. At the sides there was no proscenium, merely doors in the theatre wall with a forestage between. Then, for his lively handling of comedy, he returned to the middle of his stage the treteau or low platform of the old come- COPEAU's STAGE IN NEW YORK dians. All this balcony, back wall, portals, forestage, treteau was frankly and honestly worked in as exten- sions to the rest of the house through design and color. Here was an instrument of natural and definite struc- ture, yet fluid enough to permit of reshapings that gave Les Freres Karamazov from Dostoyevsky and Twelfth Night in the same theatre. This scheme of playhouse Copeau achieved again when the war sent him to New York as the ambassador of French culture ten years ahead of his time. He 209 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW made over the Garrick Theatre in loose imitation of the stage that had come by necessity in Paris, and the re- sults were admirable and right. Back again in Paris the integrity of his theatre has carried Jacques Copeau to a success that even the boulevards may envy. And I am not disinclined to believe that it was the new playhouse that had a very great deal to do with it; for the new playhouse was an expression of his own feeling for the fresh demands of the time, a reaction against antiquated mechanism. Copeau's playhouse is the most complete, studied and yet natural experiment; Reinhardt's the most ambitious. Neither is necessarily conclusive. They are tentative. Their significance is, however, prophetic of a home for the new play. 210 Part Three the new play CHAPTER XIV. A THEATRE WITHOUT PLAYS. IT is a curious and significant fact that almost all the energies of the new movement in the theatre in the past twenty-five years have gone into the study and the development of production methods and not into the writing of plays. We have had a new stage- craft and no new drama; a new dress but no body for it to clothe. The commonest jibe of the critics of the new stagecraft has been that it neglects the heart of the theatre, the play, and concentrates upon gauds that have no intrinsic worth and no enduring quality. Its opponents recall the attacks of the disgruntled play- wright, Ben Jonson, upon the first great English scenic artist, Inigo Jones, for whose court masques he had written librettos: "Painting and carpentry are the soul of Masque." Shakespeare . . . Inigo Jones. Even friends of the new stagecraft have quailed a little before those op- posed names. Are we following the carpenters instead of the poets? Is Gordon Craig the prophet of a god with feet of papier-mache? Shakespeare played his eternal dramas on sunlit hustings. Inigo Jones cre- 213 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW ated his mechanical marvels out of all the resources of a royal court. Shakespeare's productions if you can call them that cost but a few pounds; Jones's cost thousands. Yet Shakespeare lives today, while Craig worries the problem of how to create a "durable theatre." Can the artists make it without playwrights? Can they make it even if they are given poets? The final disquietude of all lovers of the new and imagina- tive art of production has been the thought that when Inigo Jones got hold of a real creator the outcome was the same as when he bossed some tuppenny rhymster. The genius of Ben Jonson was crushed beneath the canvas tomb of The Masque of Blackness. "Shakespeare, 1 554-1616 . . . Inigo Jones, 1573- i6 52 ." Here is hope : Inigo Jones came after the great days ; Robert E. Jones may be coming before them. Decad- ence requires something ripe enough to decay; some- thing great enough to make a descent evident. Decad- ence is a difficult feat for an art that has not known the heights. We have had Ibsen and Strindberg, giants in their way, and lesser men absorbed with lesser lives. I can only believe that the crushing oppression of nine- teenth century industrialism held them all bowed, and that if they could have found release from the desperate and cruel sense of human slavery they would have sought more surely the heights of the spirit. I can only affirm that the new stagecraft, had it come earlier, 214 A THEATRE WITHOUT PLAYS would have aided in their release, and that it is to play a great part in the release of our future playwrights. Or perhaps it is nearer the truth to say that the new stagecraft came as the first indication in the theatre of the lifting of that sense of oppression which debased the nineteenth century literature even while it sought to escape. Undeniably, American, English and French pro- ducers working along the road of imagination and spir- itual truth have had to go back of the peep-show drama of the last fifty years, and back of the drear mediocrity of the two centuries before, to find plays free enough in feeling and movement and large enough in inner sig- nificance to match the art and ideas they wanted to bring to the stage. Even the German producers have faced a similar situation, but one not quite so bad. They, too, have had to flee from realism mainly to the classics. Yet their classics have included not only the Greeks and Shakespeare and Moliere, but also Schiller, Goethe, Grillparzer; and even in the midst of the German's parody of French naturalism, there was na- tive drama that sought large meanings and heroic emo- tions. Hauptmann wrote Hannele two years after Lonely Lives, The Sunken Bell two years before Drayman Henschel, Henry of Au'e almost in the same year as Rosa Berndt and the "cosmic puppet play," Das Festspiel the year after Gabriel Schilling's Flight. Throughout Germany, between 1900 and 1915, there 215 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW were plays like von Hofmannsthahl's Electra, Hardt's Tantris der Narr, Molnar's Liliom, Heyse's Mary of Magdala. And the German public was willing that its producers should go to France for Maeterlinck, to Belgium for Verhaeren, to Italy for D'Annunzio. This tendency to keep alive some measure of imagina- tion did much to stimulate the German artists and pro- ducers; but it is still true that even in Germany the new stagecraft fell back upon the classics for ma- terial worthy of its efforts and capable of developing the best that was in it. Even in the classics the new art of the theatre has found no thorough satisfaction of its urge to creation. Outside Germany, Shakespeare and the Greeks are acted too seldom to supply the artists with much of an opportunity. Everywhere the classics are encrusted with traditions and the public mind bound by pre- conceptions of them. These traditions are hard to demolish, these preconceptions are dangerous things to fight. In commenting on the fact that "the new art of the theatre has so far failed conspicuously in devis- ing new plays to fit more closely its new and peculiar needs," Walter Prichard Eaton wrote truly in The Theatre Arts Magazine: "Falling back on Shakes- peare, it is actually losing as much as it gains, for while it gains a play of imaginative power and ma- jestic poetry, it also has to combat the tremendous dead weight of tradition, the inbred ideas of an au- 216 A THEATRE WITHOUT PLAYS dience about that play running in a totally different channel." So far as the common run of plays goes, the new stagecraft could give much, of course, to the realistic drama, as has been demonstrated even in America in such productions as The Devil's Garden, The Power of Darkness and John Ferguson; but it could draw little or nothing from them. If the enemy of the new stagecraft cares to push his comparison of Inigo Jones and Shakespeare to the point of bal- ancing the work of the stage designers and directors of modern Germany, Russia and America against the work of the realistic playwrights, I for one am pre- pared to maintain that the work of the artists has been healthier art than the work of the playwrights, finer, higher, more inspiriting. The line, mass, and color of Robert Edmond Jones can do more to liberate man from slavery to machines and to their owners than all the social dramas of modern England. Jones's art liberates the soul; the propagandist's labor stimulates only the mind. Yet in spite of this essential health in the new stage- craft, in spite of the classics to draw upon as a substi- tute for the drama of realism and as a supplement to the small body of imaginative drama, the partizans of the new methods of production must see and admit that the new stagecraft has gone only a small part of the way towards reanimating the theatre, and that it 217 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW cannot claim to have done so until playwrights come forward or are driven forward to stand beside it. I might plausibly claim that this will happen be- cause the new stagecraft and the new playhouse which it is evolving happen to be efficient instruments that must attract the playwright and cause him to write in a style suited to their exigencies. This is not so very presumptuous a claim. Before this, playwrights have conformed to physical theatres. In fact, they have done little else. Brander Matthews has demon- strated this completely and convincingly in the third chapter of his Study of the Drama. He cites the conditions of the Greek theatre and shows how they inevitably called for plays written as iEschylus, Sophocles and Euripides wrote them. He does the same for the Elizabethan theatre, showing that the form of Shakespeare's plays depended on the type of playhouse he had to write for. And the same for Moliere, and the rest of the playwrights down to our own day, ending with Edison's incandescent bulb dic- tating to the realists. There is one modification to be made, however. It recalls the old problem of which came first, the hen or the egg. Broadly considered, there were no thea- tres before there were plays, and no plays before there were playwrights. On the other hand, the playwrights of our ten different historical structures called the Theatre did not begin by saying: "Go to, I must have 218 A THEATRE WITHOUT PLAYS a play acted. In each beginning there was a rudi- mentary playhouse and a rudimentary play concealed in the impulse towards dramatic expression which in- fected a little group of men. They began to give this impulse expression in some form that linked a tech- nique of presentation (or rudimentary stage) with a set of verbal and bodily evolutions (or a rudimentary play) . Then came more conscious creators who saw the possibilities of the stage and extended the form of the play to utilize them. It is of the highest significance, however, that the first creative playwrights, in many cases the greatest playwrights, were actor-playwrights. The men who most quickly and most fully saw the possibilities in- herent in their theatre Shakespeare and Moliere are classic examples belonged to that very sensitive type of theatrical worker, the player. I stress this point because it is of importance when we go beyond the business of granting that the new stagecraft and the new playhouse exist, and believing that, by the example of theatrical history, the play- wright will utilize them. If we look for the reason of the coming of the new art of the theatre, and the reason why the new playwright has not developed more quickly, as he did in other theatres, we stumble upon a theory in which the sensitiveness of the various factors in modern production plays a tremendous part. To me, this theory explains the coming of the new art 219 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW of the theatre through the designer first, the producer next, and the playwright last of all. I cannot escape the conviction that there is some- thing inherently and humanly mystical in the coming of a new movement in art. It seems quite literally the product of a Zeitgeist. Perhaps it is better to say that the movement and the Zeitgeist are identical. The moving cause and the creators through whom it moves are members one of another. This alone explains the simultaneity of creation and the lightning-like spread of idea and will. The application to the new art of the theatre is this : Here we have a general movement; it does not first present itself through a single creative and dominant mind and then by its attractiveness conquer other minds. While realism is in the height of its growth we find the ideas of the new stagecraft expressing them- selves in half a dozen places. Of these primary ex- pressions in the nineties there were, among others, Per- fall, director of the Munich Royal Court Theatre. graphic artists like Anselm Feuerbach and Henry Wilson, stage designers and theorists like Adolphe Ap- pia and Gordon Craig. And soon Max Reinhardt, Meyerhold, Fuchs, Martersteig, Hagemann, Rouche, all producers, were laboring with artists like Stern, Roller, Walser, Starke, Wirk, Sievert, Erler, Leffler, Czeschka. Why should this Zeitgeist touch first of all a figure 220 A THEATRE WITHOUT PLAYS of such slight importance hitherto in the theatre, the artist? It was not so in the past. The reason, I be- lieve, is twofold. First this impulse touched the ar- tist as no theatrical impulse towards the theatre had touched him in the past because graphic artists had never been so plentiful in numbers or so free to receive and act upon impulse as at the end of the nineteenth century, and because the new movement, like every other movement in our theatre except the realistic movement, had a place for him. The second and more significant reason for the Zeit- geist's finding its initial expression through the artist is because the artist is the most sensitive directive fac- tor in the theatre. The actor is as sensitive in tempera- ment, perhaps more sensitive. But the actor is not, like the artist, the director, or the playwright, a respon- sible directive factor. The actor alone through all the centuries has never failed the theatre. He does not fail it now; it largely neglects him. When the artist and the director wake up to the necessity of draw- ing the actor more closely and more completely into the picture, of expressing through him the vigors of abstract design and direction, the actor will respond. He is always ready to respond, and to respond to the limit of the human spirit, if he is given the opportunity. But he does not direct effort. He receives direction. When he does begin to direct, he ceases to be an actor; he becomes a director, a producer. To do this, which 221 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW is a very complicated piece of work, requiring great executive ability, he must have a quality in him not so sensitive as the pure actor's nature. It is not so sensi- tive as the artist's either, for the artist does his work to a great extent by himself or in loose cooperation with others. Therefore, for practical purposes of ex- pression, the Zeitgeist may be said to skip the pure actor, and seize first on the artist, and second on the actor-director. If the actor should become play- wright, as he once used to do, or if the playwright could regain the sensitiveness and closeness to the theatre which he enjoyed when he was also an actor, the Zeit- geist would not so long ignore either. The spirit of the new art of the theatre has played for twenty or thirty years upon the artists and directors. It is beginning to play upon that remoter factor, the dramatist. Already we may note, in many directions in the decay of "construction" and the disuse of the three-act and four-act form, in the emergence of older forms, many scenes, the soliloquy, rhythmic prose or verse signs that the playwright is deserting the old technique of realism. He is passing through a transi- tional stage beyond which lies the new play. 222 CHAPTER XV. THE TWILIGHT OF REALISM. THE history of the nineteenth century is the history of the rise of realism. It is also the history of the development of a dramatic form never before known to the theatre, a form fitted with peculiar appropriateness both to the substance of real- ism and to the peep-show playhouse in which realism got its birth the play of three or four acts, each and often all of them passing in a single scene. The sub- stance of nineteenth century drama is realism; its form is the "well constructed play." Both the substance and the form are disappearing under the pressure upon the playwrights of the Zeitgeist of imaginative beauty and spiritual power, which is first to be observed in the insurgence of the ideas of the new stagecraft be- tween 1890 and 1900. It is easy to quarrel with the attack of the new thea- tre upon realism, because realism has become all things to all men. To me realism is just one thing: an ab- sorption with the ephemeral exterior of the time in which we live. There might, perhaps, be a realism of the seventeenth century a surface picture of the 223 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW days of Addison; it would hardly fall within my defi- nition and my damnation because it would not suffer the worst fault of the realism I write of the fault of telling us the trivial things that we know already. There might be, and in fact there is a realism of our own which gives us the ephemeral exterior but which goes so much deeper for the substance of its art that it has values which are, as near as we can measure them, eternal. This is the realism of Ibsen at his best in Rosmersholm or our own O'Neill in portions of Beyond the Horizon. Such playwrights have se- lected their material not to imitate life but to illumine it. Their work has a genuine place in dramatic lit- erature. We are turning away, however, even from their high realism because we are seeking an intense inner vision of spiritual reality which will push the selective process so far that to call the result realism will be an absurdity. We are rushing off to other lands and other times, partly out of a desire to escape the dullness of our inferior realism and partly to begin in unfamiliar surroundings an exploration of the ulti- mate spiritual values which we will later be able to apply to our own life. Realism of the higher type will continue for a long time in our theatre, but with it will come a growing body of plays that foreswear its materials and its dramaturgy. The nineteenth century's glorification of theatrical technique may be traced to its beginnings in the forties 224 THE TWILIGHT OF REALISM with the shallow, intricate plays of Scribe, the ex- ploiter of the piece bien faite. Realism the absorp- tion in the surface effects of life at the expense of spiritual understanding had its start in the fifties with the problem plays of Augier and Dumas fits, and the invention of the raisonneur by Barriere in 1853. "Naturalism" came in the sixties and seventies with the de Goncourts, Zola and Daudet; it was a conscious photography of low-life glorying in the fatuous de- lusion that it was unedited by the hand of its creator. Realism reached full dignity and integrity only in 1879 when Ibsen wrote A Doll's House. The late eighties saw Strindberg beginning his vitalistic contributions with The Father, Comrades, and Miss Julia. The "free theatre" movement of the nineties and its impact on the commercial stage brought realism to its peak of popularity in Porto-Riche, Brieux, Becque, Her- vieu, Donnay, de Curel, Lavedan, Holz, Hauptmann, Halbe, Hartleben and Sudermann. Rather belatedly two English playwrights discovered the French drama and forth came the plays of Arthur Wing Pinero and Henry Arthur Jones. Within the year when the tor- tured soul of Ibsen was trying in When We Dead Awaken to soar beyond the limits of realism which his mind had set up, Pinero was writing The Gay Lord Quex and Jones Mrs. Dane's Defense. With the last stages of the realistic movement, which was, like so much of the nineteenth century literature, 225 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW fundamentally a product of the industrial subjection of this hideous period, went rebellions against both the rule of the machine and the rule of its philosophers and its chasteners. Maeterlinck, imbued with the re- action of the symbolist poets of France in the nineties; Rostand, the absolutist in the theatre, a law unto him- self ; D'Annunzio and Bennelli, true to the fervid ro- mance of their race; Verhaeren, from Belgium, von Hofmannsthahl, from Germany, produced dramas that could only be interpreted fitly by such artists of the theatre as were slowly developing round the ideas of the new stagecraft. In the face of a public still absorbed in peeping at its own face in the mirror, great realists like Strindberg and Hauptmann did not fear to write in a subliminal vein. Tchehoff broke from the plot- technique of realism while he abided by its act-form, and sought spiritual deeps within the proscenium of the Moscow Art Theatre. Shaw, the propagandist, smashed whatever icons of dramaturgy he pleased, and hobnobbed with Napoleon and Cleopatra and Caesar, while Wedekind played the mischief with German naturalism in a fashion that we could only describe as expressionism today. Yet for all this the whole spirit of the modern European stage remained realistic prac- tically up to 1 910; and its form, the stiff set of pigeon- holes into which Ibsen managed to cram so much emotion. The significant thing in the theatre of today is not 226 THE TWILIGHT OF REALISM the advent of new Maeterlincks, new D'Annunzios; they are hardly the playwrights for whom the new the- atre is looking. The significant thing is the break- down of realism in form and content, and the begin- ning of free, faint gropings towards a reality behind life. From 1900 on, the complaint of those enamored with the theatre of Jones and Pinero (until then the only theatre of realism which America had actually known) has been of the decay of what they please to call the dramatic form. Our dramas, they say, have become invertebrate. They are no more than "a dis- array of situations that demand mere attention and defy comprehension." The first act no longer states a situation which the following two or three acts de- velop and solve. Plots are carelessly developed or else cast aside in favor of a loose collection of more or less unrelated scenes. The indictment is true. It is also hopeful. We are suffering now from the faults of any period of tran- sition, but at least we are on the way from a narrow form and a narrow content towards freer expression and the sharper and deeper understanding which this form may win. Giving up structure, we often get merely sensation or topical humor; but often enough we come upon closer characterization and larger mean- ing. In the future we should go further. Of the breakdown in construction there can be no 227 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW doubt. Slow as America is in its pursuit of Europe, it has been no laggard in demolishing the best rules of realism. Perhaps it is the natural impulse of a youthful literature; beginners learn as little of the past as possible, and sense very quickly the things that are to be of small use to them. The decay of the realistic dramatic form is as evident in the popular American stage of the past ten years as it has been in Europe. Perhaps it is more general and more marked. I cannot but believe that the future of the theatre lies in America; and I think that the natural tendency of any man to reserve for his own people the perfecting of an art to which he is ardently devoted is strength- ened in this case by the position of the United States in world politics, which means world industrialism. America is today the burgeoning people. In the face of the industrial and political revolution into which Europe is slipping, America seems likely to lean far towards the reactionary for some years to come, to grow more centralized, more mechanistic, to embark upon the pursuit of empire. Those are the tendencies which one must recognize who looks with a general eye at America today. Those are also the tendencies which have made great drama in every age of the theatre except the realistic; and I am not unwilling to maintain that whatever the realistic age has produced it has not produced great drama in the finest sense. iEschylus, Sophocles and Euripides wrote when Athens 228 THE TWILIGHT OF REALISM was headed for the debacle that followed Sparta's chal- lenge to her imperialism. Shakespeare wrote when Drake was making England the greatest sea power in history, and when her discoverers were founding her empire overseas. Racine, Corneille and Moliere were ornaments of the court of the Grand Monarch. It would even be possible to find some traces of Ger- many's urge towards hegemony in the activity of her theatres and their architects, producers and artists, if not so markedly in her playwrights, during the reign of Wilhelm von Hohenzollern. If wealth and domin- ion in industry are to flow to America in answer to an inner urge and an outward opportunity, dominion in the theatre is quite as likely to be another outlet of its burgeoning spirit. The course of the breakdown of the realistic dra- matic form can be traced with uncommon clearness in the ordinary commercial productions of Broadway between 1912 and 1914. One need hardly begin with Everywoman, the flaccid parody of Everyman, which came to the old Herald Square Theatre in the winter of 191 1 ; in two seasons there is plenty of evidence. Recalling for the moment that Molnar's eight-scened Liliom, which takes its rough-neck hero to heaven and back again, was then hardly off its author's desk; that Dymow had lately written his Nju in thirteen scenes and that it was achieving great success in Russia, and that the death of Tolstoy in 1910 had disclosed 229 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW The Living Corpse, which, cut down from thirteen scenes to ten, was to achieve success in New York two years later, we can list among the noteworthy produc- tions on Broadway in 191 2-13 Schnitzler's Anatol, a series of one-act plays; Shaw's Fanny's First Play, a play-within-a-play; Bennett's Milestones, leaping from generation to generation, and the Benrimo- Hazelton Yellow Jacket, a drama in Chinese form. With the next season American playwrights were lead- ing in experimentation. For foreign oddities there were Bennett's Great Adventure in six symetrically arranged scenes and the Rostand fils Good Little Devil skipping about in fairyland. Arthur Hopkins sig- nalized his entry into theatrical management with Eleanor Gate's odd and ingenious dream-play, The Poor Little Rich Girl, and Edward Sheldon wrote another play-within-a-play in Romance. These con- tradictions of the rules by which Pinero lived shared the season's honors with that excellent trick-melodrama by George M. Cohan and Earl Derr Biggers, Seven Keys to Baldpate. The next year, in Under Cover, a play about a thief who turned out to be a detective, Roi Cooper Megrue broke the strictest rule of all that an author must keep no secrets from his audience and let loose upon the American stage a flood of trick plays and guessing contests that culminated in such so-called "murder mysteries," as The Thirteenth Chair, At 8:45, A Voice in the Dark, The Crimson 230 THE TWILIGHT OF REALISM Alibi and The Bat. The production by Arthur Hop- kins in association with Cohan & Harris of On Trial, by Elmer Rice, signalized the impact of motion picture story-telling methods on our stage. Here was a plot told backward, beginning with the trial of the accused, then showing successively the crime, the events preceding the crime and the cause of the crime buried in incidents ten or fifteen years before. Thereafter the same device, intermittent "flashbacks," simultaneous action, and many other methods for avoiding the orderly unknotting of a plot in three or four tight- packed and progressive acts, appeared again and again in the plays of Broadway. With the development of freak plays has also gone almost as marked a divergence from past procedure in the increase in the number of scenes. For a time realism clung tenaciously to the pleasures to be de- rived from a plot that falls into long, steadily cumu- lative scenes; it even reached on occasion in The Servant in the House and Swords the unity of time, place and action which Aristotle rather erroneously imagined belonged to the Greek dramas, broken as they were by choruses that might have separated their scenes leagues and hours but for the continuous nature of religious ritual. The virtues of three tight, taut acts have now lost some of their attractiveness. The habit of using only three or four settings for the un- folding of a plot was partly a product of the difficulties 231 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW of scene shifting when realism must make the back- grounds as heavy as the dialogue; it also sprang, of course, from the difficulty of drawing much emotional or spiritual sustenance from a literal picture of life without forcing a good deal of action and a good many people into a single long scene. As with any form, there was pleasure to be derived from watching the mastery of it. But such pleasure palls; realism has palled with it, and the conceptions and devices of the new stagecraft have made rapid change of scene a sim- ple matter of either mechanics or design. Accord- ingly, playwrights of the past few years have permitted themselves the freedom of six, seven, a dozen scenes, and more and more the reward has been a closer glimpse of the true inner lives of men and women than the writers could have accomplished in the older form. Europe and America have shared in this tendency towards more scenes. Galsworthy, hardly to be thought of as anything but a realist in spite of his Little Dream, has written few dramas under the old restriction; The Silver Box, A Bit o' Love, Justice and The Mob have six scenes; The Skin Game and The Fugitive have five. Arnold Bennett is fancy-free; his Great Adventure goes to the length of six scenes in its telling. Over on the Continent there is Franz Molnar, who gives Liliom eight scenes and divides his dream play, The Phantom Rival (Das Marchen des Wolfes) into seven episodes. Wedekind began in 232 THE TWILIGHT OF REALISM The Awakening of Spring with eighteen scenes. Tol- stoy's Redemption has thirteen; Ossip Dymow's Nju has as many. I refrain from a long and tedious cata- log of many-scened plays, ending with dozens of Broad- way successes in which curtains fall to break acts in half, and other acts shift three times in a merry chase about New York. I will merely point out that when Eugene O'Neill at first an arch-realist in his one-act plays, though a realist whose art bit deeper than the surface turned to the writing of long plays, his first ran in six scenes; and that he followed the success of this with The Emperor Jones, a remarkable study, in eight scenes, of racial and subconscious fears, and proceeded to drama- tize in ten scenes one of the oldest of race-myths in a play of the Spanish exploration. Beside the breakdown of the Ibsen play-form in America, we must also place a tendency to depart from the surface and the content of realism itself. In the great mass of popular plays there has always been little of true realism except its outward show; that little is growing less. The costume play a recipe for failure ten years ago when the breakdown of the real- istic form began here has forged forward of late years to a surprising extent. We have had the costume play before, notably in the dramas of the type of When Knighthood Was in Flower twenty years ago, but we were then no part of the general world-theatre, and 233 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW our realism had hardly reached the Pinero stage. The rapier melodrama was simply a fashion of the English- speaking stage. This was stock-romance. We did not roam foreign lands and other times, as we do now, "for to admire and for to see." Now, after a thorough dosage of small-town com- edies and crook melodramas and also a little Shaw, Tolstoy and Ibsen, we find that we can voyage any- where with impunity. The cut of costumes and color of scenery make no difference on the income side of the manager's books, whatever they may do to the ex- penses of production. Here again cataloging would be equally tiresome for writer and reader. Let us con- sider merely the plays of other lands or other times, all of them picturesque, which crossed the Broadway stage in 1920-21. Among the successes of the season appear these plays of picturesque setting: Deburau, Paris of 1828; Spanish Love, Spain of today; Little Old New York, Manhattan in 1820; The Tavern, any time, anywhere; The Bad Man, the Mexican border today; The Broken Wing, Mexico, today; Mecca, the Orient, some hundreds of years ago; The Prince and the Pauper, Tudor England; The Emperor Jones, the West Indies, today; The Green Goddess, the Hima- layas today; a revival of Romance, New York of fifty years ago; Liliom, Budapest and Heaven, from 1907 to date. Among the less successful plays, some of them failures, are Clair de Lune, eighteenth cen- 234 THE TWILIGHT OF REALISM tury, France; Mary Stuart, Scotland in 1565; Thy Name is Woman, Spain of today. Of these, two at least were profitable to their managements. The suc- cess of the costume play averaged higher than that of the realistic. The decay of the structure brought to its highest in the plays of Ibsen, and the increase in popular and sound drama of a picturesque nature, do not necessa- rily mean the end of realism, or progress for the drama. The shallowness of realism is still possible, though per- haps more difficult, in plays of many scenes; the shal- lowness of romance may be the first and the only re- sult of voyages away from the life we know. But, taken with the record of twenty years of effort on the part of the artists and directors who have been learning and practicing the new art of imaginative production, all this change in the surface habits of the playwrights seems significant. The mysterious impulse which moved the more sensitive factors in the theatre toward a new kind of effort is playing more and more impe- riously upon the dramatist. The sun of realism sinks. 235 CHAPTER XVI. THE FORM OF THE FUTURE. TODAY the dramatic form degenerates, falls to pieces, lies neglected. Playwrights do not bother to learn the technique of Ibsen; if they know it by some divine instinct, or unconsciously ab- sorb it by reading and observation, they do not bother to practice it. Like the modern painters^ they refuse to load themselves down with a respectable, academic and rather laborious method. Like some of the mod- ernists, they may be doing this because they are too lazy to master the technique of representation, or, like the genuine artists among the new painters, they may be- lieve they are quick with a new life which demands the right to make its own form of expression ; they may feel that spontaneity of inspiration cannot resist the deaden- ing and tedious routine of the older technique. Certainly the great mass of our playwrights who no longer build solid dramatic structures ignore con- struction because they get no pleasure from it and find the public does not demand it. Some take ad- vantage of this freedom from form to give us small visions of humanity, bits of satiric humor, glimpses 236 THE FORM OF THE FUTURE into deep waters, that would be difficult, perhaps im- possible to compass in the old technique. Almost all seem happy to go ahead making money, fame, and sometimes art on the easy and anarchic terms of a period of transition when one technique has died and another has not definitely been born. When the new drama comes, what will be its tech- nique, what form will it take? In the broader sense, of course, its technique will be the technique that has always ruled the theatre, the technique of effective human expression through dialogue. This implies, I have always felt, two vital things: dialogue of which almost every statement is alive with interest either in itself or the situation it helps to develop, and a gen- eral contour which masses the greater bulk of its emo- tional interest well along towards the close of the play. Beyond these simple considerations what will distinguish the form of the future drama? It will be free in form, I think. So free, indeed, that many will find it far more anarchic than the dis- integrating form of today. There will be no form at all in the strict sense of the Ibsen formula for the three- or four-act play. No age has applied strict exterior form without deadening the play. With the Greeks, there were conventions the messenger, the ition or causating and commemorating event, the deus ex ma- china, the chorus but these were all parts of the reli- gious ritual from which drama sprang. When the so- 237 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW called Greek unities were forced upon drama, as they were with Racine and Corneille, they hindered and, I think, killed it. The Shakespearean form had its stock devices like the subplot, and its general charac- ter remains true to the conditions of the theatre from which it grew, but compared with the intricate ar- rangements of the well-built three-act play it seems al- most formless. At the most it runs freely along with the mind of the audience. One element of form in the play of tomorrow will seem fairly definite and fixed by contrast with the real- istic form of the past. This will be a marked increase in the number of scenes. The noticeable tendency in our popular drama to escape from the restrictions of placing its scenes in only three or four places should grow. It is a healthful, natural thing. It frees the playwright for greater expression and it races forward with the imagination of the audience. I had never felt the hampering and artificial quality of our three- and four-act convention until I happened to be connected with the production of the Russian drama, Nju, by Ossip Dymow. It seemed to me at first an odd and perhaps freakish thing, this story of a young wife's unhappiness and death told in a dozen short scenes. But, as I watched it in rehearsal, the significance of what this form permitted the author to accomplish became clearer and clearer to me and also the restrictions of the older form. 238 THE FORM OF THE FUTURE Squeezing the dramatic elements of a human story into three or four places and periods of time has its positive value, of course. It may create a sense of fulness and vigor, of long-breathed excitement, as the action develops, piles up, and crashes down in one continuous scene of forty-five minutes or even an hour in length. When the scene remains the same through- out all the acts, or still more when the story is prac- tically continuous in time throughout the whole play, this effect of a tremendous single action is very fine. There are plots to which such treatment is essential. But such an effect in a single act or a whole play can be natural and inevitable only when the story told is fitted to this form of expression. Few stories are thus fitted. Most of them must be distorted to fit the form. The action must be condensed from its natural shape. It must be telescoped and dovetailed until it fits the three or four divisions of time employed. The logi- cal actions of some of the people of the play must be changed or hastened in order to bring them within the limits of time and place that this form prescribes. Sometimes the characters of the people must be al- tered; sometimes those through which the story could be best told must be ignored for people who happen to fit the scenes selected, or unessential characters must be added and essential ones eliminated. If you are critical of what you see in the playhouse, you must be conscious of the manoeuvring of plot and character 239 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW merely to get them into the room before you. Your mind's eye sees the playwright, in false beard, lurking in passages and alleys to serve the subpoena of the drama on some diffident witness to the truth of life. The virtues of the play of sixteen or even fourteen scenes are obvious by contrast. Here as in Nju, and Tolstoy's Redemption, with their thirteen scenes the playwright is enabled to select out of the life of the story and the people of his imagination, just those inci- dents which will illuminate his conception. He seizes the significant moments. He does not have to distort his original conception. He gives us simply and directly, with as little compromise as possible, the original vi- sion of his creative mind. It is useless to deny that within this form the play- wrights of the future will not be able to achieve those taut and suspensive scenes of elaborately developing interplay of characters and emotions which Ibsen could achieve in his long scenes. But, on the other hand, he will not be obligated to strive dishonestly for such effects when his narrative does not demand them; and when it does there is surely nothing to pre- vent his discarding the freedom of the new form for the special opportunities of the old. Shakespeare wrote Hamlet so that we now divide it in twenty scenes, Macbeth is printed in twenty-nine; yet when the emo- tion of his story demanded a scene of thirty minutes length, as in Othello or Hamlet, he was under no ne- 240 THE FORM OF THE FUTURE cessity of splitting and twisting it into a different shape than it naturally took. As for those who believe that the play of short scenes suffers for lack of necessary preparation for emotion, and sacrifices fullness of character development, here again the answer is Shakespeare. In the increase in the number of scenes the influence of the motion picture on the dramatic form is to be seen, quite as much as in the introducing of tricks like flashbacks, as in On Trial and other plays. The mo- tion picture, freed of the restrictions, both physical and theoretical, which have been imposed on the real- istic stage, is following the natural impulse of the human mind when it speeds from scene to scene. It is dramatizing thought. The motion picture has done a great deal to make us understand the distinctly sim- ilar form which Shakespeare used in the composition of his plays. After years of seeing Shakespeare's scenes cut up, rearranged, condensed and telescoped in an effort to fit them into the form of the current play, we got a sudden sense of the theatrical Tightness of his own method when we studied the screen. The screen is a much brisker medium than the stage; the eye receives more quickly than the ear. For that reason the film scenario employs far more scenes than are possible in a play. Yet the principle of the rapidly succeeding scenes and episodes of a photoplay and of a Shakespearean drama is the same. Both are follow- 241 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW ing a narrative naturally and as the mind moves. Vi- sion moves faster than hearing, that is all. In its use of many scenes, arranged in whatever order seems either natural or dramatically appropri- ate, the drama of the future will be no more imitating the movies, nor hypnotized by them, than was Shake- speare. Yet unquestionably the motion picture has done and will do a great deal to hasten our return to freer and more direct dramatic methods. It will also carry us on to other changes in technique which would have come slowly, if at all, without the influence of the screen and the stimulus that it has given certain of our aesthetic processes. The screen has developed our quickness of perception; the result will be quicker dramatic movement on the stage and less necessity for emphasis and re-emphasis. The screen has come closer than the stage to our unconscious mind, because it has operated through sight, a sense that perceives directly and not, like the ear, through words alone. It has, therefore, often avoided a great deal of the false rationalizing of the conscious mind. I believe that in our future drama this logic of the eye will tend to en- croach upon the logic of the mind, as the new stage- craft makes the qualities and the atmosphere of scenes more visually evident. As on the screen, there will be room for silence; silence sometimes explains more than speech. Dialogue will grow more condensed. It will seek less to imitate the rambling uncertainties 242 THE FORM OF THE FUTURE of natural speech. It will go to the point sharply and briefly. Something of the directness of the motion picture subtitle or printed caption will invade the stage. Playwrights will come closer to the condensa- tion of the advertising writer. And the soliloquy will return again as a natural and proper revelation of the mind of a character. Even the aside may rede- velop as a deliberate piece of theatricalism. It will not be the slovenly device of a playwright for telling us something that he is too lazy or inexpert to impart in any other way, but a frank and open intercourse between the actor and his audience, a reaffirmation that this is a play which is being acted, a remarkable game between these two. I am not one of those who look for a theatre of pure action. But I do feel that other factors than dialogue will play an increasing part in the future drama. The screen has necessarily relegated the word to too insig- nificant a place, yet it has brought to our consciousness the possibilities of other mediums as means for rein- forcing dramatic expression. In particular, its thea- tres have shown what music can do in strengthening our sense of mood and movement. The new art of the theatre is unquestionably to be a closer linking of many other arts. The dramatist of the future will think more in terms of color, design, movement, music, and less in words alone. When he does think in terms of words alone, how 243 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW will he think? Will he still think in prose? Largely, I believe. He will certainly not think for whole hours in blank verse. The fact that Shakespeare managed to do this, that he was able to give variety to the mo- notonous te-tum te-tum te-tum te-tum te-tum of this verse form, is perhaps the greatest tribute to his techni- cal power. There may be verse in the future drama, plenty of it; but it will not be limited to a single meas- ure. It will fit the emotion of the scene, and change as the emotion changes. Sometimes it will be heavy with fate, then bright and light with happy romance, or it will sweep up magnificently with a soaring lift. The measure will suit the moment as completely as the time and the rhythm of the composer fit the various scenes of his opera. Hints of this, but no more, have appeared in two plays by Percy MacKaye, A Thou- sand Years Ago and Sappho and Phaon. Zoe Akins tried free verse in The Magical City; Robert Emmons Rogers made the most successful attempt at a fluid and varied handling of dramatic poetry in Behind a Wat- teau Picture. There is variety of meter in Sidney How- ard's Swords. Only perhaps in Alfred Kreymborg's eccentric and delightful little plays such as Lima Beans is there any attempt on the part of an English- speaking playwright to explore the rich field of brisk and sprightly meters which give a director unusual opportunities as well as require unusual skill on his part. Otherwise little has been written and less acted 244 THE FORM OF THE FUTURE in America or England that is not conventional blank verse; it is one of the eternal puzzles of the thea- tre that playwrights attempting verse have clung so desperately to a single meter throughout and to only one of the many possible meters. The fact that it is the nearest to English prose perhaps accounts for it. For English prose can be a wonderful and a beauti- ful thing. So beautiful, in fact, and so strong, that I am personally of the belief not only that prose will be the dominant form of expression in the future, but that it will meet almost every requirement of emo- tional expression upon the stage for which verse would be essential in the printed book. Rhythmed prose, of course, but simple concrete prose, the English of the King James version of the Bible. In the last decade or two, such English has been written for the stage and written superbly, by Synge, by Masefield in Nan and Pompey, by Drinkwater, by Cannan in Miles Dixon, by Dunsany, and by O'Neill in The Emperor Jones. Though Dunsany is so often hopelessly artificial, precious, and literary, he is just as often the master of the simple and direct speech which is clear with the images of life. One example from The Golden Doom should suffice. The guards are standing in the beating sun outside the gates of Babylon. They are very hot. One says : "I would I were swimming down the Gishon on the cool side under the fruit trees." The word "would" I object to; it is literary archaism. But the 245 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW rest is, within its simple limits, perfect. There is no folderol about it; no talk of being "laved by trans- lucent waters, where the pomegranate spreadeth its blossoms." Every word is the simple, natural word; every word calls up a picture and the right picture; the rhythm is clear and flowing like the water. Synge does the same thing even more admirably. His plays are full of such writing. Recall just one example from In the Shadow of the Glen: "We'll be going now, I'm telling you, and the time you'll be feeling the cold, and the frost, and the great rain, and the sun again, and the south wind blowing in the glens, you'll not be sitting up on a wet ditch, the way you're after sitting in this place, making your- self old with looking on each day, and it passing you by." Masefield, a poet who turns all too rarely to the thea- tre, senses, when he does turn to it, the essential sim- plicity and yet the essential vividness of the spoken word. I might quote the whole closing scene of his Tragedy of Nan as a splendid example of this. In- stead, consider this from Pompey: "The greatest man in the world! And all through being with Sulla in the Civil War. Supposing he were not great, Philip. Only a big clay statue. A statue propped up by sticks. A clay thing, gilded. ,Rats gnawing at it. The wind shaking it. The sun cracking it. {Pause.) And dead men, Philip. Dead 246 THE FORM OF THE FUTURE men underneath it in the dust, fumbling at it to bring it down." Wherever the dramatist of tomorrow may find his form and it may be farther from the movies than I think it will be a form that has room in it not alone for action, music, dance, color, line and movement, but also for the magnificent prose that you find in the speech of the greatest and the simplest of our people. 247 CHAPTER XVII. THE CONTENT OF THE FUTURE. IT is easy to discover in the degeneration of the dramatic form today indications of the shape that the play of tomorrow will take a loose, free shape with many scenes, less talk and more vitality in its production. It is not so easy to grasp its content. Yet even there we have indications already of broad trends which it seems difficult for the future drama to escape. Perhaps the simplest and surest statement that I should risk is this: It will attempt to transfer to dra- matic art the illumination of those deep and vigorous and eternal processes of the human soul which the psychology of Freud and Jung has given us through study of the unconscious, striking to the heart of emo- tion and linking our commonest life today with the emanations of the primitive racial mind. The attempts to get back of realism to reality which is in art nothing but the exploration of the un- conscious mind below the appearance and pretense of man have been few as yet, halting, obvious or extrava- gant, but at least suggestive. In their crudest and most literal form they appear 248 THE CONTENT OF THE FUTURE in attempts to present upon the stage the thoughts or the unconscious motives of characters. In Alice Ger- stenberg's Overtones, for example, while two women go through the formalities of social intercourse their deeper selves, standing veiled behind them, betray to the audience their true attitudes, emotions and desires. Sometimes the whole dialogue of these playlets for they have never dared go beyond the one-act form is merely the unspoken thoughts of the people made au- dible by the free convention of the aside. Thus in They by Herve Lauwick, a man and a woman sitting opposite each other in a railroad carriage speculate upon one another's charms and matrimonial estate, and H. L. Mencken in his amusing skit, The Artist, re- veals the secret thoughts of the famous pianist and his audience during a recital. Such games are enter- taining novelties hardly more than indicating a public curiosity. They do not touch the soul-searing inner revelation of such a bizarrerie as Strindberg's Spook Sonata. On the other hand three schools of playwrights have arisen that nourish more or less complete philosophies of a new drama, and attempt with greatly varying suc- cess to project these theories into dramatic action. The first of these schools is known to those outside its home only by the works of its founder, Yevreynoff, though there must, of course, be followers for so bril- liant and provocative a theorist and creator. Yev- 249 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW reynoff's theory of "mono-drama" that the whole play, its action, its setting and all its people, should be seen by the audience through the eyes of one char- acter only, as the hero sees them, and should take on the quality, color, movement and motives which his mind conceives them to possess may end in nothing more than an entertaining or a rather incomprehensible "stunt." It cannot well escape unless it penetrates not merely what the hero thinks he thinks, but his uncon- scious mind as well, and represents not what he thinks but what he desires. Yevreynoffs best known piece, The Theatre of the Soul, is a playlet suggestive of Overtones, but it goes much deeper into dual mental states. From the name of a playhouse now function- ing in Moscow, the Dramatic Mono-Theatre, it may be guessed that YevreynofFs theory has gone far to- wards practical exploitation since he formulated it more than ten years ago. The second school of what might be called advanced dramaturgy issued its manifesto, The Futurist Syn- thetic Theatre, in 19 15, over the signatures of F. T. Marinetti, Emilion Settimelli and Bruno Corra. From its theories and its plays, as interpreted and trans- lated by Isaac Goldberg, the futurist movement in the theatre seems characteristically violent and freakish. Yet there lies hidden in it evidence of a not unhealthful rebellion against surface-realism. It is "anti-techni- cal"; it despises the elaborate and tedious mechanism 250 THE CONTENT OF THE FUTURE of exposition, preparation, motivation, climax. It is opposed to logical action: "For example, it is stupid to represent upon the stage a struggle between two per- sons, always carried on with order, logic and clarity; while in our experience we find almost exclusively fragments of disputes which our activity as modern men has permitted us to witness for but a moment in the street car, in a cafe, at a station, and which have re- mained filmed (cinematografati) upon our minds as dynamic, fragmentary symphonies of gestures, words, sounds and light." Goldberg thus sums up the theory of the futurists in an article in The Boston Transcript: "These, then, are the conclusions arrived at by the signers of the mani- festo: First, the total abolition of the technique under the burden of which the 'passatist' theatre is dying out. Second, to place upon the 'boards' all the discoveries being made in the realms of the subconscious, in ill- defined forces, in pure abstraction, in pure cerebral- ism, pure fantasy. Third, the invasion of the audi- torium and the spectators by the scenic action. Fourth, to fraternize warmly with the actors, who are among the only thinkers who flee every deforming cultural effort. Fifth, to abolish farce, vaudeville, pochade, drama, tragedy, and create such new forms as the 'battute in liberta' (free blows), 'simultanetta' (simul- taneity), 'compenetration,' the 'animated poem/ the 251 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW 'sceniefied sensation/ the 'dialogued hilarity,' the 'neg- ative act' and so onward." The curious plays which Marinetti has written and published explain some of these mysterious forms. Most of the pieces are very short, some hardly two or three pages long. Through most of them Marinetti betrays a modern and thoroughly unliterary sense of the part that light and setting can play in action. One piece shows only the feet of the performers, while the rest of their bodies are hidden by a black curtain that reaches almost to the floor. Another sets hands mov- ing in a series of symbolic gestures above another black curtain. In others the furniture speaks and the lights are expected to give them a semblance of movement. The most characteristic feature of Marinetti's method is what he calls "simultaneity" and "compen- etration" and from which the "synthesis" of the Fu- turist Synthetic Theatre is derived. It is the presenta- tion of two or three places simultaneously on the stage and the juxtaposition of people and actions whose only relationship is perhaps spiritual. So far as the phys- ical arrangement of this is concerned, Marinetti merely harks back to the platform stage of the French mystery plays, where Heaven occupied one end of the stage, Hell the other, and between them appeared half a dozen other places, just as in his enthusiasm for improvisational and spontaneous acting he touches the commedia dell' arte. While there is no simultaneity of 252 THE CONTENT OF THE FUTURE setting in his playlet, On a Moonlit Night, the presence of an unseen and symbolic gentleman during a love scene carries the quality of "compenetration." To show the nature of futurist drama I quote this "anti- logical compenetration" from Goldberg's translation: Scene: A Garden. A Bench. He What a beautiful night! Let us sit down here. . . . She How fragrant the air is! He We are all alone, we two, in this vast garden. . . . Aren't you afraid? She No. . . . No. ... I am so happy to be here alone with you. A Stout, Heavy-paunched Gentleman (Enters from a side-path, approaches the couple, sits down upon the bench beside them. They do not see him however, as if he were an invisible personage) Hum. Hum. (He stares at the maiden while she speaks.) She Did you feel that breeze? The Stout, Heavy-paunched Gentleman Hum. Hum. (He stares at the young maiden while he speaks.) He It isn't the breeze. She But isn't there really anybody in this garden? He Only the watchman, yonder, in his cottage. He's asleep. Come here closer. . . . Give me your lips. . . . So. The Stout, Heavy-paunched Gentleman Hum. Hum. (Looks at his watch by the light of the moon, rises, walks about pensively in front of the two as they kiss, and then sits down again). She What a beautiful night! He How fragrant the air is! 253 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW The Stout, Heavy-paunched Gentleman Hum. Hum. He Why are you trembling? Did something frighten you? She No. Kiss me again. The Stout, Heavy-paunched Gentleman (Looks again at his watch by the light of the moon, rises, walks behind the bench, unseen, and lightly touches first her shoulder, then his, and disappears slowly into the background). She What a shudder! He It's getting somewhat cold. . . . She Late, too. He Let's go in. What do you say? The remaining school stems from the "expression- ist" movement in German art. Like expressionism it- self, which includes almost any variety of revolt from representative art, this dramatic movement is much more inclusive, and much sounder in theory than Mar- inetti's. Moreover it has produced long plays of arresting merit. Since expressionism itself is an attempt to escape from representing nature in the terms of its effect on the artist, and instead to present the emotion of the artist in terms of either nature or abstract form, its drama is at utter odds with realism. It must use nature or man as the medium of expression but it sub- dues the appearance of the natural world to the inner reality of the emotion which it wishes to make clear to us. The parallelism between painting and drama is 2 54 THE CONTENT OF THE FUTURE not exact except perhaps in the scrapping of slow and tedious old methods of technique which hamper the clear and spontaneous flow of creation but the re- sult is distinctive and often sound. In its extremist form, as fostered by the "Sturm" group, it runs off into the absurdity of Mallarme and his L'Apres-midi d'un faune, the dependence on sound rather than sense of words. Dr. Goldberg, who has done so much to make America acquainted with the byways of European and South American literature, thus translates the avowed purpose of this faction to attempt "the pure, immediate effect of the word, freed from all rational, logical or grammatical bonds." The "Aktion" group and unattached expressionists follow a saner path. They begin with the prime san- ity of abjuring realism. Edsmid, one of the theorists, has admirably expressed in a single epigram the whole quarrel with literal representation: "The world is here; it would be absurd to repeat it." Goldberg thus sums up the philosophy of the movement as it is ex- pressed by Manfred Schneider in Der Expressionis- mus in Drama: "It designs for the stage a musicality of word, a broad sweep, a vast simplicity, a preference for types rather than well-characterized individuality, the whole to be infused with, or suffused in, an at- mosphere of exaltation. The expressionists favor in- tuition rather than artifice, even in the acting. They would fill their pieces with ideas, yet shun the 'thesis 255 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW play.' They would produce the impression of deep feeling, yet without what we are accustomed to term psychology in drama. Most of all they would aban- don the ivory tower and seek social, universal signifi- cance." The expressionists are never seduced by ro- manticism as an escape from this world and from real- ism. The expressionists, like the futurists, deny the contributions of modern psychological study of char- acter. They believe it ends in an absorption with minutiae. It carries us away from "The free man de- livered by the essential and by the spiritual." Among the men who have written thus are Kurt Sternheim, Paul Kornfeld, Walter Hasenclever, Franz Werfel, Friederich Wolf, Fritz von Unruh, the painter Kokoschka and the most effective and the most pop- ular Georg Kaiser. Their work has ranged from a new Antigone to tales as strange as Poe's. Let us examine one of Kaiser's dramas which has been pro- duced by Reinhardt in Berlin, presented experiment- ally in London by the Stage Society, and filmed in Germany. From Morn to Midnight tells in seven scenes the adventures of a man who begins the morning as a bank clerk, steals a fortune because his senses are swept for a moment by a woman whom he imagines to be an adventuress, lives out a number of modern methods of dissipation when he finds she wants nothing to do with him, and ends a suicide in a Salvation Army 256 THE CONTENT OF THE FUTURE Hall. It is amazingly staccato. Even the soliloquies with which it is liberally supplied are crisp and sharp. It is shot with terror and with humor. Both cut close to those strange psychic realities of life which come often with the effect of a hypnotic interlude in logical normal existence. When the clerk is crossing a field of snow in his flight with the money he takes off his wet, soiled cuffs and throws them aside saying: "Soiled. There they lie. Missing in the wash. The mourners will cry through the kitchen : A pair of cuffs is lost. A catas- trophe in the boiler. A world in chaos." Suddenly the wind shakes the branches of a tree, and the snow- flakes, descending lower, cling in the form of a skele- ton. The man pays no heed except to jeer. He re- joices, rather desperately perhaps, that circumstances have made him over from a trusted employee into a criminal who is to taste life at last. "I'll open my breast to Fate; all comers are welcome." He stops at his home for a last look. He leaves without eat- ing his luncheon. Routine upset. His mother "beats the air suddenly with her arms; and falls senseless." "She dies," he reflects, "because a man goes out of the house before a meal." And, a criminal and a free man, he is to go so far. He goes first to a great bicycle race to buy excite- ment. Here occurs one of the remarkable and char- 257 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW acteristic scenes of the play. He offers fabulous prizes to the racers, and then watches the crowd. First Gentleman But you must keep your eye on the track, and watch the varying course of the strug- gle Cashier Childish, this sport. One rider must win because the other loses. . . . Look up, I say. It's there, among the crowd, that the magic works. The wine ferments in this vast barrel of spectators. The frothing is least at the bottom, among the well-bred public in the stalls. There you see nothing but looks . . . but what looks! Round stares. Eyes of cattle. . . . One row higher the bodies sway and vibrate, the limbs begin to dance. A few cries are heard. Your respectable middle class. . . . Higher still all veils are dropped. A wild fanatic shout, a bellowing naked- ness, a gallery of passions. . . . Just look at that group. Five times entwined, five heads dancing on one shoulder, five pairs of arms beating time across one howling breast. At the heart of this monster is a single man. He's being crushed . . . mangled . . . thrust over the parapet. His hat, crumpled, falls through the rising smoke . . . flutters into the middle balcony, lights upon a lady's bosom. She pays no heed. There it rests daintily ... so daintily. She'll never notice the hat; she'll go to bed with it; year in year out, she'll carry this hat upon her breast. (The applause swells.) 258 THE CONTENT OF THE FUTURE First Gentleman The Dutchman is putting on a spurt. Cashier The middle row joins in the shout. An alliance has been made; the hat has done the trick. The lady crushes it against the rails. Pretty lady, your bosom will show the marks of this. There's no help for it. Madness to struggle. The throng presses you against the rails, and you must yield. You must grant all. . . . Second Gentleman Do you know the lady? Cashier See now, the five up there have thrust their one over the balustrade. He swings free, he loosens his hold, he drops he sails down into the stalls. What has become of him? Vanished. Swallowed, stifled, absorbed. A raindrop in a maelstrom. First Gentleman The Hamburger is making up ground. Cashier The stalls are frantic. The falling man has set up contact. Restraint can go to the devil. Dinner-jackets quiver. Shirt fronts begin to split. Studs fly in all directions. Lips are parted, jaws are rattling. Above and below all distinctions are lost. One universal yell from every tier. Pandemonium. Climax. He offers a still larger prize. The crowd is ec- static. Suddenly a hush. Majesty has entered its box. The cashier takes back his offer, withdraws his "sub- scription to the society of hunchbacks." "This glow- 259 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW ing fire extinguished, . . . trodden out by the patent- leather boot of His Highness. You take me for crazy if you think I will throw one single penny under the snouts of these grovelling dogs, these crooked lackeys." Off goes the cashier to sample the disillusionments of a private room in a cabaret. The end is a scene in a Salvation Army hall, with all the fervid concomitants of confessions and penitents. The sin of humdrum domesticity, as much as the sins of crime, of pride, of self-display, is confessed. At last the cashier is swamped by the emotion of it. He rushes to the plat- form, and, beside a Salvation Army lass, confesses his crime. Also the futility of all that he had won until now as a result of it. "What is the goal," he cries, "what is the prize that's worth the whole stake? This hall, humming with crowded benches, ringing with melody. This hall. Here, from stool to stool, the spirit thunders fulfilment. Here glow the twin cru- cibles: confession and repentance. Molten and free from dross, the soul stands like a glittering tower, strong and bright." He cries that money can buy nothing worth while. He throws it to the crowded hall to be torn and trampled under foot. Instead, of course, there is a wild scramble for the notes, and the hall empties its fighting load. Another disillusion. But still there is the Salvation Army girl beside him. He grasps this comradeship as the last good. Wildly drumming, he shouts: "Maiden and man . . . eternal 260 THE CONTENT OF THE FUTURE constancy. Maiden and man . . . fullness in the void . . . the seed and the flower. Maiden and man . . . a sense and aim and goal." While he chants, the girl slips out to bring a policeman and earn the reward for his capture. The policeman turns out the lights. The electric wires glitter in the shape of the skeleton again. The man has run raging in a circle to reach the end. He shoots himself and as the lights go up he falls back against the big cross on the platform. "His husky gasp is like an 'ecce,' his heavy sigh is like a 'homo'! One second later all the lights explode with a loud report." From Morn to Midnight is a bizarre piece that breaks far too many dramaturgic idols for popularity here and now, yet it is unquestionably filled with a very intense sense of the deep emotional background against which life passes. Kaiser has succeeded in getting past the surface of reality. He has penetrated the basic stratum of man's psyche. To do this, I take it, is the purpose of expressionism. It is certainly the task of the drama of tomorrow, if it is going to replace realism with something truer than romance. The problem of the future playwright is to escape from realism without turning his back on the world. He must see with Storm Jameson, as she has ex- pressed it in her Modern Drama in Europe that "The stage of today is crowded by characters whose names we forget, whose features fade away in the indeter- 261 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW minate mass of their herd, and whose deeds, if they ac- complish anything, matter not at all for the action of the play or for the revelation of personality." And, questioning realism, the future playwright may well ask with Miss Jameson: "Whence has arisen this con- ception of drama as the unfolding of small questions of sex, with little of inspiration and with less of beauty, this purposeless effort which seems to be both symptom and warning?" But he must be careful lest aided not a little by the pictorial possibilities of the modern stage he ends merely in a neo-romanticism. The danger is evident, for the first move away from realism in America has been towards the picturesque, the costume play, the drama of alien borders. That is not enough. That is mere narcoticism. Unless as I think, this desire for the exotic is simply a means to bringing imagination into our time and our own place. The romantic play, with modern psychological under- standing of character added, will be a better thing than the romantic play of a hundred years ago. It will give us back a hero or two worth worrying over, but surely no sense of the imminences of our own life. I believe the return of the picturesque play may be hopeful for many reasons. It is to begin with, an evi- dence of the attempt of imagination to gain a foothold in the drama to match the position it has assumed in stagecraft and production. More important, however, this seems to me the first step in bringing fresh spiritual 262 THE CONTENT OF THE FUTURE qualities into the plays that treat of our own humdrum life. We will accept an imaginative treatment of hu- man beings in an unaccustomed locale while we would ban it if the place were Main Street or Harlem. First we must hear of Fate in Krongros. Later we will lis- ten with an open mind if a playwright talks about something besides dollars in Wall Street. Perhaps the German expressionists like Georg Kaiser have been able to write so soon of bank clerks because Germany has long known Shakespeare, von Hofmannsthahl, Maeterlinck, Schiller, Goethe, Hebbel. As imaginative and spiritual values enter the drama of our life, "psychology" will partially go out. One need not go as far as Marinetti and the Italian futur- ists, or even as far as the German expressionists in decrying minute absorption in the conscious mind of characters; and yet one must recognize that the larger issues of the spirit, and the larger sense of life rise above accurate representation of average people. They strive to present some corner of the soul of things as it grasps human beings. Storm Jameson says in her vigorous attack on the pettiness of our dramatic fig- ures : "Tragedy is a matter of great souls." The new playwright will recognize something a little deeper when he sees that drama is a matter of souls caught in great spiritual issues and reflecting them. The gran- deur of the play of the future must lie not in a super- human figure, but in the vast and eternal forces of 263 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW life which we are made to recognize as they play upon him. The expressionist puts it rather rhetorically when he writes: "Let the characters be great in the sense that their existence, their lives, share the great existence of the heavens and the earth that their hearts, united to all that occurs, beat in time with the universe." Yet essentially that is the path of imagination. The drama must seek to make us recognize the thing that, since Greek days, we had forgotten the eternal iden- tity of you and me with the vast and unmanageable forces which have played through every atom of life since the beginning. Psychoanalysis, tracing back our thoughts and actions into fundamental impulses, has done more than any one factor to make us recover the sense of our unity with the dumb, mysterious proc- esses of nature. We know now through science what the Greeks and all primitive peoples knew through in- stinct. The task is to apply it to art and, in our case, to the drama. It may be applied generally; it may give us a drama utterly apart from anything we have now, nearer per- haps to the Greek than to any other in spirit, yet wholly new in mechanism and method, mysteriously beautiful and visionary. The new sense of the sig- nificance of life, which we have won both through science and in spite of science, may take a dramatic form which springs straight from the life about us and requires no more trappings of mysterious beauty than 264 THE CONTENT OF THE FUTURE does Kaiser's From Morn to Midnight. But whatever the form of the play, the content will have a spiritual quality that gives us this subliminal sense of myste- rious age-old processes alive in us today. For this quality there is now no good word. "Mystic" savors of obscurantism; "religious" implies a god to be wor- shiped; "psychic" smacks of Sir Oliver Lodge. The spiritual values of which I write are the spiritual val- ues that invade, willynilly, the work of even such a propagandist-philosopher as Shaw when creative evo- lution seizes him and turns him revelator, as in the vision of the mayoress in Getting Married, which be- gins: "When you loved me I gave you the whole sun and stars to play with. I gave you eternity in a single moment, strength of the mountains in one clasp of your arms, and the volume of all the seas in one impulse of our souls. A moment only, but was it not enough? Were you not paid then for all the rest of your struggle on earth? Must I mend your clothes and sweep your floors as well? Was it not enough? I paid the price without bargaining: I bore the children without flinch- ing: was that a reason for heaping fresh burdens upon me? I carried the child in my arms: must I carry the father, too? When I opened the gates of paradise were you blind? was it nothing to you? When all the stars sang in your ears and all the winds swept you into the heart of heaven, were you deaf? were you 265 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW dull? was I no more to you than a bone to a dog? Was it not enough? We spent eternity together; and you ask me for a little lifetime more. We possessed all the universe together and you ask me to give you my scanty wages as well. I have given you the greatest of all things and you ask me to give you the little things. I gave you your own soul : you ask me for my body as a plaything. Was it not enough? Was it not enough?" 266 CHAPTER XVIII. A DRAMA OF INTIMACY AND OF CROWDS. I AM aware that these are rather rash speculations. They play with the unaccountable fire of crea- tion. At best they are projections from a few facts, examples and tendencies. As with all projec- tions a slight difference in the estimate of the facts at the base may end in a wide divergence of line. And their path is strewn with real or apparent conflicts. It is the purpose of this chapter to examine two of the most glaring conflicts that must be evident in all that I have thus far written. They are conflicts that must become still more evident as we turn from the prov- ince of the playwright as an interpreter of the Zeitgeist of the new theatre and try to see how his work will be affected by the great divergence between the types of new playhouses which are today beginning to take shape. Forgetting for the moment the realistic dramas which will continue to be written, we find the play- wright facing two types of dramatic expression and two theatres in which these types may take their places. There may be the drama of reality lifted to a plane 267 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW of sharp, clear, absolute expression, calling upon the imagination both in creation and appreciation, and there may be the drama of imagination based upon the reality of spiritual truth but lifted to levels of sheer beauty which the interpretation of life today does not permit. For theatres, the playwright will find the intimate playhouse of the Vieux Colombier and all the forms that may lie between it and our own present day theatre, and he will find the gigantic audi- toriums and orchestras of such houses as the Grosses Schauspielhaus in Berlin. The playwright will thus face the conflict of Kaiser vs. Dunsany and the conflict of Copeau vs. Reinhardt. It is a cross-conflict as well, for the plays of Dunsany and Kaiser may be as intimate as The Golden Doom and From Morn to Midnight and as suited to Copeau's playhouse, while Kaiser has written Europa for the Grosses Schauspielhaus, and The Gods of the Mountain would not be impossible there. The fact of the matter is that the course of the new art of the theatre is curiously split upon the rock of the little theatre and the circus only to reunite, I think, later on. It is hard at first to see any relation between the intimacy of Max Reinhardt's Kammer- spielhaus, seating three or four hundred, and the spec- tacular vigor of his Grosses Schauspielhaus with its three thousand. Realism finds nowhere such perfect expression as in a playhouse where everyone is seated 268 A DRAMA OF INTIMACY AND OF CROWDS close in front of its picture frame, while it is funda- mentally impossible in such a playhouse as the Grosses with its forestages and its orchestra floor leading play- ers and playgoers away from the stage above. Yet the affinity of the little theatre for realism is only relative. Realism requires good sight lines, good acoustics and particularly an audience placed directly in the focus of the picture drama; but, with all this, realism de- mands a reticent sort of intimacy. To make the play- goer and player feel themselves too close would ruin the illusion of a separate, complete and actual world existing on the stage. The directors of the newer the- atre first utilized little theatres, not to gain the illusion of realism, but because such houses were economically adapted to the risky experiments they were making; their rentals fitted the smaller audiences that these men expected to be able to attract. After they had begun to use them, they found that these small audi- toriums also enabled them to bring their actors into close touch with the audience a relationship that they soon discovered was essential to the work of escaping from realism and representation. They were next trying to increase even this very close intimacy by bringing the actors down upon forestages and run- ways and even into the aisles. The intimacy that they created in the little theatres was the intimacy almost of physical contact. The step from such intimacy to the huge spaces of 269 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW the circus is not so great as it may seem. For in these circus productions you will never find the audience placed at one side of the building and the actors upon a stage clear across at the other. In every case, whether it is Reinhardt in Berlin, Gemier in Paris, or MacKaye in New York, you will find the actor thrust out into the midst of the spectators. He deserts the stage for the orchestra, as the Greeks did. The audience virtually surrounds him. Not content with that, he invades the seats of the spectators themselves, and in the trial scene in Danton he springs up beside the playgoer and hurls invective at the court until the audience and the mob in the orchestra are wellnigh fused into one. If we consider the matter more on a mathematical basis of distance a comparison of the intimacy of a small theatre with its deep picture-frame stage and of a large theatre with its apron or orchestra for stage, shows this in- teresting result: Keep the farthest spectators just as close to the actor on the centre of the apron as he would be to the actor on the centre of the ordinary stage and you still increase the seating capacity of your auditorium three times without giving up any intimacy as shown in the drawing on the page opposite. Superficially the difference both in intimacy and in kind of emotion between a little theatre and a circus seems great. Actually, when an artist of the new the- atre employs both houses, the intimacy is almost iden- 270 A DRAMA OF INTIMACY AND OF CROWDS tical the intimacy of the actor's actuality while the emotional intensity of the huge audience is bound to compensate for the realistic effects which the small house alone makes possible and which at one point and another will always be necessary to achieve cer- tain ends. The tendency of Fuchs, Littmann, and THE BOX-SETTING VS. THE FORESTAGE At the left is the normal modern theatre, with the actor in the centre of a box-like stage. If the stage were to be thrust forward, as in the Greek orchestra, the Elizabethan playhouse, or the Reinhardt circus, the capacity could be trebled while every spectator would remain as close to the actor as before. Copeau, though they put their forestages into theatres seating no more than a thousand people, is still related to the purpose of Reinhardt in his circus-theatre. They are all striving for theatrical intimacy, even though one of them leaps beyond it to the violence of mob-emotion as well. The theatre of tomorrow may be both the theatre where the mob speaks in great gestures and the theatre where a few draw closer to a spirit. 271 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW In the little theatres, which began with the realistic Theatre Libre and have not ended with Copeau's Vieux Colombier, two conflicts raged which have their importance for the far future. It was at first the conflict of the realistic and the aesthetic, the con- flict of Brieux and Maeterlinck. Now it has become the conflict of the expressionistic and the aesthetic, the conflict of Kaiser and Dunsany. The first reaction against realism took the form of an attempt to escape from actuality into the mysteries and the shelter of never-never-land. And in all the record of the new art of the theatre filled as it is with vigorous belief in the reality of life and the truth of the spirit there has lurked a longing to escape entirely from the prob- lems of the human soul into a sort of aesthetic Nirvana. There is charm in this search for pure beauty, but in the air of small playhouses it is apt to be an oppressive charm. It lacks vigor. In the future I see the smaller theatre turning more to such work as Kaiser's From Morn to Midnight, to attempts to capture larger values among the things of our ordinary life; I see the aes- theticism of Dunsany and the beauty and power of von Hofmannsthahl flung out into the orchestra of the circus-theatre. There it can never remain an arid thing. It must be caught up by the grandeur of space and of the multitude into larger and more eternal val- ues. Only one thing beside beauty can invade the mob- theatre and live. That is the story of the mob itself. 272 A DRAMA OF INTIMACY AND OF CROWDS We may look for Rolland and his Danton at the heart of the theatre of the five thousand. But beauty will always remain the fuel for the flame of this theatre of humanity. The theatre of the circus opens up possibilities for the playwright that seem singularly broad and singu- larly pregnant with the spirit of the age. Such a the- atre enables him to write in terms of movement as well as of words, to dramatize life upon varying levels of consciousness and of actuality, to reach ever closer to the life-giving vigor of vast audiences, to arouse in such mighty gatherings emotions which sweep in one gigantic swell to the players and are thrown back in still more majestic power to the audience again. In such a playhouse is born a sense of drama which trans- cends individual action. The "group-being" that Percy MacKaye and Robert Edmond Jones created in The Will of Song becomes an actuality. This con- ception has found brilliant expression in these words of Jones: "The new poet of the theatre, looking ever deeper and deeper into his own heart, envisaging the outward world of images more and more remotely, may come eventually to a kind of bird's-eye view of life, the view of Thomas Hardy in The Dynasts, a view already made familiar to the public by the aeroplane and the motion picture. He may see in time, not only how people unconsciously reveal their inmost secret selves 273 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW to the world in every attitude and gesture and intona- tion, but how they unconsciously group and regroup themselves into crowds and communities under the guidance of an ever-shifting, invisible plan. He may come to understand at last, in an ecstasy of clear seeing, that the radiant heroic beings of which he has dreamed are not supermen, not men at all, not even Ubermarion- ettes, but groups of men group-beings and that the hero of his drama is in truth the people. He will study the movements of crowds and the formation of crystals, and the shifting patterns in a kaleidoscope, and he will begin to understand also how ideas precipi- tate crystals of men around leaders of thought and emotion. He will perceive that these kaleidoscopic, crystalline group-beings forever shaping and reshap- ing themselves under moving beams of light that shine brightly upon them for an instant and pass live out an organic life of their own that dominates and trans- cends the daily life of men and women (who are in- deed but the corpuscles that flow in their blood), not condescending to human outline or human speech but expressing themselves in a multiple unity of form and utterance which by a miracle he is permitted to com- prehend, to praise, to summon and to command." The conception of groups of actors as replacing in- dividuals is obviously related to the impersonal chorus of Greek tragedy. It was a conception first formu- lated in Jones's scheme of some years ago for a pro- 274 t - < a u a S p at cd <*H E 2 e t M o ft A DRAMA OF INTIMACY AND QF CROWDS duction of Shelley's Cenci upon a platform, like a prize-ring in the midst of an audience, with the central figures of the drama still further centered within a moving and posing chorus which should act as sym- bolic setting for the action confined within its living walls. These are group-beings only half animate. They contribute to the drama but they have not yet become the drama itself. In the mask and the marionette the inanimate given life there lies an almost equal fascination for the worker in the theatre of tomorrow. In the work of the playwright who writes for the circus-theatre there will doubtless be a place for these venerable and not unholy devices. Masks may play their part, and, in a more precious way, the marionettes. Both in- volve a certain strange and enthralling sense of the mystic quality of the theatre, of art commanding life and of life springing from art. They take a more natural place in these theatres where realistic illusion is of necessity banned. One can conceive of a drama of group-beings in which great individuals, around whom these groups coalesce, could be fitly presented only under the impersonal and eternal aspect of the mask; or, again, a drama in which the foil to the mob is the marionette who is thought to give it utter- ance. One can conceive as easily the mask and the marionette finding an inevitable use in intimate sym- bolic drama or in the expression of the unconscious. 275 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW Such conceptions carry us far across tomorrow. For they cannot become facts until such a theatre as the Grosses Schauspielhaus is built in New York, and such a theatre will not be built and should not be built until we have evidence that America has a direc- tor who can rise to its opportunities. Productions of this sort might, of course, take shape in open-air the- atres as festival performances undertaken only on spe- cial occasions. But here enter disadvantages and delays. In spite of much enthusiasm spent on the open-air theatre I cannot see it as our future play- house. By daylight the modern and often ugly hats and gowns and clothes of the audience are unbearably disillusioning. By night except for the distracting beauties of the changing sky I cannot see that the outdoor theatre achieves anything that cannot be better achieved indoors, with lighting under more exact con- trol, and the physical conditions of stage and orchestra so much more flexible and effective. As for the fes- tival is it genuinely and sincerely possible until the day when some fundamental change in our concep- tions of life brings back something approaching the religious devotion that surrounded Greek drama? 276 CHAPTER XIX. THE THEATRE OF DEMOCRACY. IN the main I have tried to write of the coming theatre and its drama as if society were to go on with much the same class divisions, class interests and class cultures as exist today. My conclusions have rested on the implied basis of our leisure-class thea- tre. This seems something less than sound, complete or safe. Revolution, economic and political, is either accomplished or imminent in much of Europe; and though it may be years before the bankruptcy of cap- italism cuts across the imperial path of America, the upsetting of all our present aesthetic and moral values is something to be considered very seriously in any volume that tries to speak of the theatre of tomorrow. We cannot ignore the possibility that the whole aris- tocratic basis may be cut from under our present play- house. To the majority of American theatregoers this will sound rather extravagant. In the days when the So- cialist party foreswears Moscow, while it inveighs against the blackest reaction that America has ever known, revolution seems more chimerical than ever; yet revolution is never so far away, some one has said, 277 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW as the day before it happens. As for the aristocratic basis of our theatre, you do not have to be familiar with the manners and mentality of our most successful theatrical managers to believe the superstition that the theatre is a democratic art. As a matter of fact the theatre is not necessarily any- thing of the sort. Of course it is very far from an exclusive art. It cannot be made or enjoyed by individuals. It is cooperative in production and it requires an audience of some hundreds of thousands. In its greatest periods it has been utterly democratic, and it succeeds only when it is perfect enough to induce a common reaction among its spectators, to forge a common soul. Yet the groups with which the theatre must work may be relatively small groups, groups un- representative of the body of a nation. A play may be a successful play, artistically and financially, and yet reach only fifty thousand or a hundred thousand New Yorkers, while a thousand times this audience, scat- tered across the continent, know nothing of it. The most that the theatre does today is to reach the middle classes. Even if it reached all the people of our na- tion I doubt whether it would yet be a democratic art; for democracy is a thing of the spirit and, for us, still unborn. The democratic method in government is one thing, and a very deceptive thing; Democracy is something else, something of the future. When it comes it will make over the theatre, be sure of that. 278 THE THEATRE OF DEMOCRACY And it will give it that deep spiritual sincerity, that religious content, in which great drama waxes. Suppose we do have revolution. Suppose it is gen- uine spiritual revolution, proletarian and complete, not the abortive and constrained, though glorious, up- heaval of the French Revolution. What will its theatre be? How far will this theatre of the day after tomor- row differ from that which I have tried to foresee and describe? Essentially, I imagine, it will include many of the elements which I have outlined, and elaborate some still further the group-being, for example. Of the technical qualities which I see already in evidence about us, most are to be found in the great democratic theatres of Greece, of the Middle Ages and of Eliza- bethan England. They go back of realism to a theatre that had no earthly conception of being representa- tional, to a theatre where actors, costumes, and what there was of setting, were relatively real things in themselves, presenting emotion directly to their audi- ences, by either naive or conventional devices, and never aiming to represent men and women and things as actually existing apart from the audience. Somewhat similarly the spiritual elements of the new drama go back to the emotional roots of instinctive racial drama even while they build on to conscious study and interpretation of instinct and intuition and in general the whole vast field of the unconscious mind 279 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW of man. The content of the drama of tomorrow, cut off from realism, is clearly united with the content of primitive and democratic drama even while it goes ahead to a range of mental exploration that must be of gathering importance to a broadly democratic culture. Yet before we say that this theatre of tomorrow will also be the theatre of democracy we must face the fact that the largest part of the work toward this theatre during the past twenty-five years has been done in play- houses serving a most limited public. The new stage- craft and the imaginative play have found their first adherents among the aristocracy of intellect and breed- ing, perhaps the most snobbish aristocracy that we have yet developed. The relation of this class to the real- istic play is as clear and as simple as the relation of the future democracy is likely to be to the drama of social photography. When some one writes the dramatic history of the past seventy-five years Realism; Its Cause and Cure he will find, I think, one reason for its coming and two for its going, bound up together in the single com- plex of industrial capitalism. Realism was the nat- ural product of slavery to machines. It was both an evidence of how our minds were cramped by the hid- eous conditions of life and of how desperately they sought for some end to their slavery. We could see no farther than our miseries, but at least we would seek 280 THE THEATRE OF DEMOCRACY a cure. Accordingly we began a photographic study of capitalistic society, mingled with propagandist ef- forts to end its more flaming pieces of injustice. The playgoer tired of realism for two reasons, or rather some tired of it for one reason and some for another. Even before the ghastly and gigantic folly of the war, there were those who were willing to give the whole thing up as a bad job and seek peace or dis- traction in an art divorced as far as possible from the surface of life about them. The desperate disillusion- ment of the war multiplied this audience tenfold and brought to it also men and women seeking new excite- ments and sensations as great as those they had passed through. This made a body of playgoers largely lacking in faith and devotion, but at least freed from the obsessions of realism. In addition to these, who were ready for a message of beauty, imagination, even austerity and truth, there was a more active group who had sought deliberately for something beyond or apart from the literalness of life. These men and women were a product of industrialism. They were members of a leisure class which it had created, a leisure class freed both from the absorption of money-getting and from the greater absorption of the search for the means of escaping the evils of money-getting. It was this class that supplied the sinews of the new art of the theatre. When, and if, revolution comes, I cannot see how 281 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW realism can avoid losing its remaining adherents. Revolution will bring no end to human problems, but the problems are likely to be more spiritual than phys- ical. There will certainly be less room for the propa- gandist, the muckraker, the social healer. We shall still want to study the life of man, for that is the whole source of drama. But this life will be far less a matter of surface relationships than it is today. The future Gorky, for example, will not have to dig in the muck of the lower depths to find the soul of truth in mankind. Yet revolution or no revolution the great theatre should go on. It may, of course, suffer corruption. It may become the Roman Coliseum of an imperialism that debases man even while it nourishes him. In great cities, like New York, the theatre may continue as it promises to develop a beautiful and effective in- stitution permanently and efficiently organized on commercial and quasi-educational lines while at the same time, in St. Louis as well as New York, there will gradually spring up festival theatres in which the fin- est creative spirit of the community, exemplified in playwrights, artists and actors, will labor. Under in- dustrial imperialism or under revolutionary democ- racy such festival theatres, sheltered in exposition buildings or in natural valleys, may achieve as clear an expression of the spirit of democracy as they ever could under revolution. The festival theatre of the group-being, of the people made visible and articulate, 282 THE THEATRE OF DEMOCRACY may come in answer to revolution and as part of it. It may come as the expression of a democracy thwarted in outward form. Or it may come as the expression of a democracy which can never exist under the ma- chinery of government and commerce, but which will flame out through communal art. The business of writing of the theatre of tomorrow seems presumptuous, risky and absurd enough as I look at it in retrospect. To write of the theatre of rev- olution and of life made whole, brings me up sharp against the sense of the dangers of apocalyptic fervors. Yet it is impossible to deny a faith in the City of God. There were once, you know, the Greeks. 283 A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX FOLLOWING the excellent fashion set by Sheldon Cheney in his Art Theatre, I am offer- ing a discursive and selected bibliography rather than as complete a list as possible of all the available material on the subject covered by The Theatre of Tomorrow. An unusually complete bibliography of the art of the theatre up to 1916 the only one of which I have any knowledge will be found in Community Drama and Pageantry ( 1916) by Mary Porter Beegle and Jack Crawford. Here I shall give only the names of volumes which have been of direct service in the writing of this book and from which more can be gained by the interested reader than I could include within its scope. Two special bibliographical works have proved of great aid, both by W. B. Gamble, head of the tech- nology division of the New York Public Library. One, Stage Scenery ( 1917) is an index of 2,125 items dealing with illustrations of stage designs, settings and costumes that have appeared since 1900 in books and magazines on file at the New York Public Library. The other, The Development of Scenic Art and Stage 285 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW Machinery (1920), lists almost as many references to books and articles dealing with many phases of pro- duction. At the head of the general works on the new move- ment in the theatre must be placed Hiram Kelly Mod- erwell's pioneer volume, The Theatre of Today (1914), to which my own book is frankly a sequel. Huntley Carter's New Spirit in Drama and Art (191 2) is more discursive and less well-organized, but contains much information of value. Sheldon Cheney's two volumes, The New Movement in the Theatre (1914) and The Art Theatre (1917), convey much excellent theory as well as fact; the latter contains material on the organization of the sort of repertory theatre which is essential to the complete realization of the ideas on modern production to be found in all these books. Cheney's Open Air Theatre supplies full information on a subject of which I have found it impossible to say much. L'Art theatral moderne (1910), by Jacques Rouche, founder of the Theatre des Arts and now director of the Paris Opera, contains, in addition to studies of the most important figures and theories of the new movement, valuable reproductions in color of the sketches for The Blue Bird at the Moscow Art Theatre, placed in comparison with the English production. The five volumes of The Theatre Arts Magazine (1917-21) are a source-book of more material upon 286 A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX various aspects of the subject in hand than is to be found collected elsewhere. The file of Theatre-Craft, an English periodical, contains many illustrations of English work. Special topics have brought for- ward many books of interest and help. On Max Reinhardt, for example, there are the following: The Theatre of Max Reinhardt (1914), by Huntley Car- ter; Max Reinhardt (1910), by Siegfried Jacobsohn; Max Reinhardt ( 1915) , by Heinz Herald; and Rein- hardt und Seine B'uhne (1920), by Heinz Herald and Ernst Stern, a particularly interesting volume because of its many colored illustrations. The Russian theatre, and particularly the theories of Stanislavsky, Meyer- hold and YevreynofF, may be glimpsed in The Russian Theatre under the Revolution (1920), Oliver M. Say- ler's excellent and suggestive report, and in The Path of the Modern Russian Stage (191 8) by Alexander Bakshy. Of the theorists and artist-critics of the newer thea- tre, the most important for the English reader is, of course, Gordon Craig, whose three books, On the Art of the Theatre (191 1), Towards a New Theatre (1913) and The Theatre Advancing ( 1919) and whose magazine, The Mask, stand out above all other contributions on the subject. Adolphe Appia's Die Musik und die Inscenierung (1899) 1S most difficult reading in the original and has not, unfortunately, been translated. Among other volumes of theory in 287 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW German must be mentioned Georg Fuchs's Die Revo- lution des Theaters (1909) and Carl Hagemann's Moderne Buhnenkunst (1916-18). In the field of historical studies of the physical the- atre, a field poorly covered in English, I have found assistance in Karl Mantzius's History of Theatrical Art in Ancient and Modern Times (1903-09) ; Martin Hammitzsch's Der Moderne Theaterbau (1906) ; Ed- ward Moritz's Das Antike Theater und die Modernen Reformbestrebingen in Theaterbau (1910) a particu- larly useful volume; the monographs on his various theatres written by Max Littmann; the third chapter of Brander Matthews' A Study of the Drama (1910) ; Ashley H. Thorndike's Shakespeare's Theatre ( 1916) ; William John Lawrence's Elizabethan Playhouse and Other Studies (1912-13); Winifred Smith's Corn- media dell' Arte (1912); A. Haigh's Attic Theatre (1907) ; E. R. Fiechter's Die Baugeschichtliche Ent- wicklung des Antiken Theaters (1914); Architekt Ferdinand Fellner und seine Bedeutung fur den mod- ernen Theaterbau (1910) ; Irving Pichel's On Build- ing a Theatre (1920) ; A. Streit's Das Theater (1903) ; E. O. Sachs's Modern Opera Houses and Theatres (1896-98) ; R. C. Flickinger's Greek Theatre and Its Drama (191 8) ; and an unpublished monograph, The Theatre of Tradition, by A. E. Krows, whose Play Production in America ( 1916) furnishes information on the technical progress of our stage. 288 A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX Among books on miscellaneous topics I must list The Art of the Vieux Colombier (1918), by Waldo Frank; issues of Wasmuth's Monatshefte fur Bau- kunst, descriptive of the Grosses Schauspielhaus (Jahrgang V, Heft 1/2) and of the Salzburg Festspiel- haus (Jahrgang V, Heft 9/10) ; Decoration in the Theatre (1919) by Albert Rutherston, which is No. 2 of Vol. I of The Monthly Chapbook; Uber B'uhne und Bildende Kunst (191 2), by Max Kruger; Das Grosse Schauspielhaus (1920); the London Stage Year Book (1908-21), a treasury of many interesting reproductions of scenes from German productions and of sketches; the files of Le Go-madia Illustre, for re- productions in color of work of the Russian and French stage artists. In addition to credit given elsewhere for plates or photographs loaned for reproduction, I wish to ac- knowledge the use of two charming drawings by Fau- connet of an Elizabethan theatre and of the Vieux Colombier's stage in New York, reproduced from Album du Vieux Colombier; the silhouette of Rein- hardt at rehearsal from Das Loch im Vorhang, by Lotti Reiniger; drawings made especially for this book by Robert Edmond Jones, Norman-Bel Geddes, and Sheldon K. Viele; the generous photographic as- sistance of Francis Bruguiere; the loan by Oliver M. Sayler of the photographs of the soldiers in the 289 THE THEATRE OF TOMORROW Kamerny production of Salome and of the Appia set- ting for L'Annonce faite a Marie at Hellerau; and the critical advice and correction of manuscript and proof by Robert E. Jones, Oliver M. Sayler, Sheldon Cheney, Horace Liveright, Irving Pichel and my wife. 290 INDEX Acts and Galatea, 89. Adams, Maude, 52. Adaptable Proscenium, 189. Adelphia Theatre (Liverpool), H3. Adrea (Belasco), 50. j^Eschylus, 27, 218, 228. Akins, Zoe, 244. Alction group, 255. Album du Vieux Colombier, 289. Ames, Winthrop, 38, 52. Anatol, 230. Andree, Harald, 118. Androcles and the Lion (Barker- Rutherston), 71, 138. Anisfeld, Boris, 69, 72. Anne Boleyn, 179. Annonce faite a. Marie, U (Ap- P'a), 83, 191, opp. 192, 290. Antigone, 256. Antike Theater, Das, 288. Antoine, 18. Appia, Adolphe, 14, 16, 24, 29, 75, 77-86, opp. 82 & 84, 102, no, 115, 135, 159, 190, 191, opp. 192, 220, 287. Apres-midi d'un faune, L', 255. Apron, see forestage. Architekt Ferdinand Fellner, 288. Aristophanes, 198. Aristotle, 231. Ars System, 49, 60-62. Art of the Theatre, The, 87. 29 Art of the Vieux Colombier, The, 156, 289. Art thedtral moderne, U , 286. Art Theatre, The, 129, 285, 286. Artist, The, 249. Artists' Masque (Sayen-Young), 117. Arts and Crafts Theatre (De- troit), 44, 129, 130. Asphalei'a System, 28. At 8.45, 230. Attic Theatre, The, 288. Augier, 225. Awakening of Spring, The, 233. Bad Man, The, 234. Bakst, Leon, 66, opp. 66, 69, 70, 7i, 72, 73, 74, 79, no, 118. Bakshy, Alex., 147, 149, 184, 287. Ballets Russes, 69, 73, 75, 114, 118, 121. Barker, Granville, 26, 52, 136. Barnsdall, Aline, 202. Barriere, 225. Barrymore, John, 132. Bat, The, 231. Baugeschicktliche Entivicklung des Antiken Theaters, Die, 288. Beamish, R. J., 117. Becque, 225. Beechwood Theatre (Scarbo- rough, N. Y.), 57. Beegle, Mary Porter, 285. INDEX Behind a Watteau Picture, 244. Belasco, David, 48, 5051, 52, 67, 69, 102. Belasco Theatre (New York), 48, 51, 177. Bennett, Arnold, 230, 232. Benois, Alexander Nikolaievitch, 69, opp. 1 10. Bergman, Robert, 131, Bethlehem (Craig), 89. Beyond the Horizon, 224. Biggers, Earl Derr, 230. Bishop, Harry, 38. Bit 0' Love, A, 232. Bitzer, 180. Blackall, 186. Blatter des Deutschen Theaters, Die, 193. Blue Bird, The (Stanislavsky- Yegoroff), 26, 70, opp. 70, 73, 286. Blythelea Theatre (Orange, N. J.), 58. Bonds of Interest, The (N. Y. Theatre Guild-Peters), 141, opp. 144. _ Booth, Edwin, 31. Booth Stage, 168. Boris Godunoff (Golovin), opp. 68, 69, 73- Boston Opera House, 63, 131, 140. Bragdon, Claude, 131. Brahm, Otto, 17, 67, 69. Brandt, Fritz, 36. Brice, Fanny, 152, 154. Brieux, Eugene, 225, 272. Broken Wing, The, 234. Browne, Maurice, 19, 115, 116, 154, 190. Bruguiere, F., 289. Burbage, 170, 174. Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The, 119, opp. 120. C&sar and Cleopatra (Craig), 96, 105. Caliban ( MacKaye-Urban), 201. Cannan, Gilbert, 245. Carroll's Theatre, Earl (New York), 58. Carter, Huntly, 193, 286, 287. Cenci, The, 2 7 5. Cheney, Sheldon, 129, 285, 286, 290. Chevalier, Albert, 152. Chicago Opera Co., 72, 137. Circus Productions, 191-192, 268-273, 275; see Grosses Schauspielhaus and Theatre of the Five Thousand. Clair de Lune, 234. Claudel, Paul, 83, 191. Claviluse, 122. Cloister, The (N. Y. Theatre Guild-Viele), 43, 44, 131. Cohan, George M., 230. Cohan & Harris, 231. Color Organ, 122. Commedia dell' arte, 1 70- 1 72, 252. Commedia dell' arte, 288. Community Drama and Pag- eantry, 285. Comcedia Illustre, Le, 289. Comrades, 225. Copeau, Jacques, 19, 84, 155-159, 201, 208-210, opp. 208, 268, 271, 272. Corneille, 174, 229, 238. Corra, Bruno, 250. Court Masque (Italian), 173; (Tudor), 172, 175. Covent Garden (London), 28. 292 INDEX Craig, Gordon, 14, 16, 17, 24, 29, 46, 70, 75, 77. 78, 79, 80, 86, 87-101, opp. 98, 102, 105, no, 127, 128, opp. 128, 129, 135. 159, 192, 213, 214, 220, 287. Crawford, Jack, 285. Crimson Alibi, The, 230. Crooked Gamblers (Milton), 36. Cubism, in, 112, 114, 117. Curel, de, 225. Czeschka, 18, 220. Dalcroze, Jaques-, 83, 115, 116, 190, opp. 190. D'Annunzio, Gabrielle, 116, 216, 226, 227. Dante, 204-207. Danton (Reinhardt), 198, opp. 198, 270, 273. Darling of the Gods, The (Be- lasco), 50. Daudet, 225. Deburau, 234. Deception, 179. Decoration in the Theatre, 289. Derain, 76, 118. Devil's Garden, The (Hopkins- Jones), 24, 25, 217. Deutsches Theater (Berlin) 39, 56. Development of Scenic Art and Stage Machinery, 285. Diagilefr", Sergei, 69, 75, 118, 121. Dido and Apneas (Craig), 89. Divine Comedy, The, 204-207 ; (Geddes), opp. 204. Doll's House, A, 225. Dome, 49, 55-60, 198, 202, 203, 204, 208. Don Giovanni (Urban), 21, 140. Don Juan (Meyerhold), 150- 151. Donnay, 225. Dostoyevsky, 209. Dramatic Mono-Theatre (Mos- cow), 250. Drayman Henschel, 215. Drehbiihne, see Revolving Stage. Drinkwater, John, 245. Drop Stage, 31. Dnrry Lane Theatre (London), 176. Du Barry, 179. Dumas fils, 225. Dunsany, Lord, 245, 268, 272. Duse, Eleanor, 89. Dymow, 229, 233, 238. Dynasts, The, 273. Eaton, W. P., 216. Edison, T. A., 218. Edsmid, 255. Einstein, 86. Electra, 216. Elevator Stage, 31, 35. Elizabethan Playhouse, The, 288. Elizabethan theatre, 1 69-1 70, 271, 289. Elliott's Theatre, Maxine (New York), 186. Emperor Jones, The, 233, 234, 245. Erler, Fritz, 18, 220. Eumenides, The, 27. Euripides, 218, 228. Europa, 268. Eurythmics, 190. Everyman, opp. 22, 191, 229. Everywoman, 229. Expressionism, 26, 46, 1 10-126, 127, 146; in drama, 254-261. 293 INDEX Expressionismus in Drama, Der, 255- Exter, opp. 114. Faithful, The (N. Y. Theatre Guild-Simonson), 131-132. Fanny's First Play, 230. Father, The, 225. Fauconnet, 289. Faust (Werkbund Theater), 33; (Reinhardt), opp. 18. Faversham, Wm., 141. F est spiel, Das, 191, 215. Festspielhaus (Salzburg), 199, 200. Feuerbach, Anselm, 15, 220. Fiechter, E. R., 288. Fire Bird, The (Golovin), 69. Flickinger, R. C, 288. Florimene (Inigo Jones), 175. Fokin, Michael, 75. Follies, see Ziegfeld. Follies of 1918, The (Urban), 27, 28. Footlights, Abolition of, 49-51, 79. Forestage, 42, 43, 126, 138, 139, 143, 144, H6, 149, 1511 J 74> 176, 184, 188, 189, 197, 207, 208, 209, 269, 271. Fort, Paul, 19. Fortuny System, 49, 54-56, 58, 59, 60. Fourberies de Scapin, Les (Co- peau), 158-159. Frank, Waldo, 156, 289. Freres Karamazov, Les (Co- peau), 209. Freud, Sigmund, 154, 248. Freund, F. E. W., 191. From Morn to Midnight, 256- 261, 265, 268, 272. Fuchs, Georg, 18, 29, 134, 135, 136, 188, 220, 271, 288. Fugitive, The, 232. Futurism in decoration, in, 112, 114; in drama, 250254, 263. Futurist Synthetic Theatre, 250- 254, 263. Gabriel Schilling's Flight, 215. Galsworthy, John, 232. Gamble, W. B., 285. Garrick, David, 69, 187. Garrick Theatre (New York), 106, 210. Gates, Eleanor, 230. Gay Lord Quex, The, 225. Geddes, Norman-Bel, opp. 20, 21, 108, 137, 204-207, opp. 204, 289. Gemier, 131, 145, 270. General Electric Co. (Berlin), 55, 56. Gerstenberg, Alice, 249. Getting Married, 265. Glittering Gate, The (Hume), 129. Globe Theatre, Shakespeare's (London), 169. Gods of the Mountain, The, 268. Godwin, 15. Goethe, 187-188, 215, 263. Gbtz von Berlichingen (Rein- hardt), 198. Goldberg Isaac, 250, 251, 253, 255- Golden Doom, The, 245, 268. Golem, The, 119, 120, 179. Golovin, Alexander Yakolivitch, opp. 68, 69, 73, 74, 118, 150. Goncourt, de, 225. Gontcharova, Natalia, 114. Good Little Devil, The, 230. 294 INDEX Gorky, Maxim, 67, 282. Gotterdammerung (Appia), 83. Great Adventure, The, 230, 232. Greek theatre, 163-166. Greek Theatre and Its Drama, The, 288. Green Goddess, The, 234. Griffith, D. W., 180, 183. Grillparza, 215. Grosse Schauspielhaus, Das, 289. Grosses Schauspielhaus (Berlin), 119, 173, 191-200, opp. 196, 268, 269, 276. Group-being, 273-275, 279, 282. Grunewald, Isaac, 119. Guilbert, Yvette, 152. Hagemann, Carl, 18, 139, 153, 220, 288. Haigh, A., 288. Halbe, Max, 225. Hamlet (Stanislavsky - Craig), 18, 26, 46, 127-129, opp. 128; (Hampden - Bragdon), 131; (Reinhardt), 198; 240. Hammitzsch, M., 288. Hampden, Walter, 131. Hannele, 215. Hardt, 216. Hardy, Thomas, 273. Hartleben, 225. Harvey, Martin, 28. Hasenclever, Walter, 119, 256. Hauptmann, Karl, 198, 215, 225, 226. Hazelton, George, 230. Hebbel, 263. Hebbel Theater (Berlin), 186. Helena's Husband (Hume), 129, 130. Henry IV, part 1 ( Reinhardt ) , 39. Henry of Au'e, 215. Herald, Heinz, 287. Herald Square Theatre (New York), 229. Hervieu, 225. Hewlett, Munroe, 107. Heyse, Paul, 216. History of Theatrical Art in An- cient and Modern Times, A, 288. Hofmann, Ludwig von, 18. Hofrmansthahl, Hugo von, 200, 216, 226, 263, 272. Hoftheater (Munich), see Royal Court Theatre (Munich). Holz, Arno, 225. Hopkins, Arthur, 19, 24, 25, 31, 32, 51, 115, 123, 132, 154-155, 230, 231. Housman, Laurence, 89. Howard, Sidney, 244. How's Your Second Actf, 19, 154-155. Hugo, Victor, 14. Hume, Sam, 44, 46, 129, 130, opp. 130. Ibsen, Henrik, 14, 16, 89, 93, 174, 214, 224, 225, 234, 235, 236, 237, 240. Immermann, Karl, 15, 138, opp. 138. Ingalls, 186. In the Shadow of the Glenn, 246. Intruder, The (Hume), 129, 130. Irving, Sir Henry, 16, 77. Jacobsohn, S., 287. Jaques-Dalcroze, see Dalcroze. Jameson, Storm, 261, 262, 263. 295 INDEX Jest, The (Hopkins-Jones), 26, 116. John Ferguson, 217. Jolson, Al, 152. Jones, Henry Arthur, 225, 227. Jones, Inigo, 28, 172, 175, 213, 214, 217. Jones, R. E., frontispiece, opp. 24, 25, 26, 51, 115, 116, opp. 122, 123-125, 132-133, opp. 134, 155, 214, 217, 273, 274, opp. 274, 289, 290. Jonson, Ben, 213, 214. Julius Cccsar, 96. Jung, 154, 248. Justice, 232. Kahane, Arthur, 192. Kaiser, Georg, 256-261, 265, 268, 272. Kalmakorf, 114. Kamerny Theatre (Moscow), 114-116. Kammerspielhaus (Berlin), 17, 268. Kaufmann, Orkar, 57, 186. Kean, Edmund, 69. King Harlequin ( Kamerny Theatre), 114. King hear ( Reinhardt-Czesch- ka), opp. 16; (Geddes), opp. 20. Klein, Charles, 37. Klein, Julius V., 18, 138, opp. 142. Kleines Theater (Berlin), 17. Kokoschka, 119, 256. Konigliches Schauspielhaus (Dresden), 35, 36, 37. Koonen, Alice Georgiena, 114. Kornfeld, Paul, 256. Korovin, Constantin Alexievitch, 69, 74- Kreymborg, Alfred, 244. Krows, A. E., 38, 288. Kriiger, Max, 289. Kiinstler Theater (Munich), 134, 135-136, 139, 189. Kuppelhorizont, see Dome. Kuznetsoff, 114. La Scala Theatre (Milan), 62. LarianofT, 118. Lauder, Sir Harry, 152. Lautenschlager, Karl, 38, 138. Lauwick, Herve, 249. Lavedan, 225. Lawrence, W. J., 288. Leffler, Heinrich, 18. Liberty Theatre (Oakland), 38. Liliom (Simonson), 106, opp. 106, 107; the play, 216, 229, 232, 234. Lima Beans, 244. Linnebach, Adolpf, 18, opp. 22, 37- Little Dream, The, 232. Little Old New York, 234. Little Theatre (New York), 38. Little Theatre (Philadelphia), 117. Little Theatre Movement, 268- 272. Littmann, Max, 134, 135, 141, 142, 143-144, 188, 271, 288. Liveright, Horace, 290. Living Corpse, The (Hopkins- Jones), 230; see Redemption. Loch im Vorhang, Das, 289. Lodge, Sir Oliver, 265. London Stage Society, 256. Lonely Lives, 215. Louise (Urban), 140. 296 INDEX Love of the Three Kings, The (Urban), 131. Lugne-Poe, 19. Lyentuloff, 114. Macbeth (Hopkins- Jones), 26, opp. 122, 123-125, 155; (Craig), 96-101, opp. 98, 240. MacKaye, Percy, 30, 201, 244, 270, 273. MacKaye, Steele, 31, 35, 201- 202. Madison Square Garden (New York), 145, 191, 204, 205, 206. Madison Square Theatre (New York), 31, 50. Maeterlinck, Maurice, 102, 116, 216, 226, 227, 263, 272. Magical City, The, 244. Mallarme, 255. Mantzius, Karl, 288. Marc hen des Wolfes, Das, 232. Marinetti, F. T., 250, 252, 263. Marionettes, 275 ; see (Jbermar- ionettes. Martersteig, Max, 18, 153, 220. Mary of Magdala, 2 1 6. Mary Stuart, 235. Masefield, John, 131, 245, 246. Mask, The, 287. Masks, 275. Masque of Beauty, The, 17. Masque of Blackness, The, 214. Masque of Love, The (Craig), 89. Masque of St. Louis, The (Mac- Kaye), 201. Massin, 75. Matisse, Henri, 76, ill, 118. Matthews, Brander, 218, 288. Mecca, 234. Medea (Browne), 1 15, 1 1 6. Mediaeval Platform Stage, 167, 252. Megrue, Roi Cooper, 230. Mencken, H. L., 249. Merry Wives of Windsor, The (Kamerny Theatre), 114. Metropolitan Opera House (New York), 69, 176. Meyerhold, V. E., 18, 74, 148- 151, 152, 153, 220, 287. Midsummer Night's Dream, A (Barker-Wilkinson), 26, 71, 138; (Reinhardt-Stern), 26, Miganadzhian, 114. Miles Dixon, 245. Milestones, 2 30. Miller's Theatre, Henry (New York), 186. Milton, Robert, 34. Miracle, The (Reinhardt), 145, 191. Miss Julia, 225. Mme. Chrysantheme (Rosse), opp. 146. Mob, The, 232. Modern Drama in Europe, 261. Moderne Buhnenkunst , 288. Moderne Theatrebau, Der, 288. Moderwell, H. K., 35, 37, 47, 48, 286. Moliere, 26, 92, 93, 159, 172, 174, 186, 215, 218, 219, 229. Molnar, Franz, 216, 229, 232. Monodrama, 120, 249-250. Moritz, E., 288. Moscow Art Theatre, 18, 34, 46, 73, 127, 148, 226, 286. Motion Picture, see Movies. Movies, 178-185. Moving Pictures, see Movies. 297 INDEX Mozart Spielhaus (Salzburg), 200. Airs. Dane's Defense, 225. Much Ado About Nothing (Craig), 89; (Munich), opp. 118, 119. Musik und die Inscenierung, Die, 16, 77-86, 115, 287. Musset, de, 16, 116. Mystic Abyss, 188. Nan, The Tragedy of, 245, 246. Nave, La (Geddes), 137. Neighborhood Playhouse ( New York), 57- Neilson-Terry, Phyllis, 32. Neue Freie Volksbuhne, 17; its theatre, 57. Neues Theater (Berlin), 17. New Theatre (New York), 38. Nijinski, 75. Nju (Urban), 21, 229, 233, 238, 240. Nobody's Widow (Belasco), 51. Nyemirovich-Dantchenko, 18. CEdipe, roi de Thebes (Gemier), 201. (Edipus Rex (Reinhardt-Har- vey), 28, 145, 191, 192, 198. On a Moonlit Night, 253. On Building a Theatre, 288. O'Neill, Eugene, 224, 233, 245. On the Art of the Theatre, 287. On Trial (Hopkins-Wickes), 32, 231, 241. Open Air Theatre, The, 286. Orestes (Reinhardt), 191, 198. Orlik, Emil, 18. Othello, 240. Overtones, 249, 250. Pageant Wagons, 168. Papa (Geddes), 45. Parade (Picasso), opp. 116, 118. Paris Opera House, 286. Parsifal (Appia), 83. Passion, 179. Passion Play, Morse's (Belasco), 50. Path of the Modern Russian Stage, The, 147, 149, 184, 287. Pelleas and Melisande (Jones), frontispiece. Perfall, 15, 138, 220. Periakoi, 27-28. Permanent Settings, 44, 127-130. Perspective, False, 79, 81, 86, 95, 96, 102-106. Petrushka (Benois), opp. no. Peters, Rollo, 141, opp. 144. Pevear, Munroe R., 53. Phantom Rival, The, 232. Philadelphia Stage Society, 117. Picasso, 76, in, opp. 116, 118, opp. 124. Pichel, Irving, 288, 290. Pierre Patelin (Simonson), 141. Pinero, Sir Arthur Wing, 225, 227, 230. Platform Stage, 167, 252. Play Production in America, 38, 288. Poel, William, 17. Poelzig, Hans, 119, 197, 199, 200. Pointilage, 63. Pompey the Great, 245, 246. Poor Little Rich Girl, The, 230. Portals, 42, 126, 134, 139, 140, 141-144, 158, 184, 188, 189, 198, 207, 208, 209. Portmanteau Theatre, 141. 298 INDEX Porto-Riche, Georges de, 225. Post-Impressionism, 112, 114. Power of Darkness, The (Simon- son), 106, 217. Prampolini, 115. Prince Igor (Roerich), 72, opp. 72, 73- Prince and the Pauper, The (Peters), 141, 234. Proctor's Theatre (Mt. Vernon, N. Y.), 208. Prophet e, Le (Urban), 21. Proscenium Doors, see Portals. Provincetown Players Theatre (New York), 58. Pulcinella (Picasso), opp. 116, opp. 124. Racine, 174, 229, 238. Redemption (Hopkins - Jones), 11 5. 233, 240; see Living Corpse. Reinhardt, Max, opp. 16, 17, opp. 18, 18, 26, 29, 39, 40, 42, 56, 67, 119, 145, 173, 191- 200, opp. 198, 210, 220, 256, 268, 270, 271, 287, 289. Reinhardt, Max (by Jacobsohn), 287; (by Herald), 287. Reinhardt und Seine Buhne, 287. Reiniger, Lotti, 289. Relief Stage (FuchV), 134-136. Residenz Theater (Munich), 38. Revolution des Theaters, Die, 288. Revolving stage (in Germany), 38-41, 57, 60, 139, 198; (in America), 38; (in Japan), 38, 39, 42. Rheingold, Das (Appia), 83. Ricciardi, Archille, 115, 116. Rice, Elmer, 231. Richard III, 119; (Hopkins- Jones), 132-133, opp. 134. Riviere, Henri, 19. Roerich, Nicolas, 69, 72, opp. 72, 74, n8. Rogers, R. E., 244. Rolland, Romain, 198, 273. Roller, Alfred, 18, 220. Roman theatre, 165-166. Romance, 230, 234. Romance of the Rose, The, 130. Rosa Berndt, 215. Rosmersholm, 224. Rosse, Herman, 118, 120, 121, opp. 146, opp. 206, 207. Rostand, Edmond, 226. Rostand fils, 230. Rothenstein, Arthur, see Ruth- erston. Rouche, Jacques, 18, 220, 286. Royal Court Theatre (Munich), 138, opp. 142, 220. Royal Opera (Berlin), 36. Royal Opera House (Stock- holm), 62, 1 1 8. Russian Ballet, see Ballets Russes. Russian Theatre under the Rev- olution, The, 34, 114, 149, 287. Rutherston, Arthur, 71, 137, 289. St. Elizabeth (Urban), 21. Saint-Saens, 118. Salome (Kamerny Theatre), 1 14, opp. 1 14, 289. Salzmann, Alexander von, 116, 190, 191. Samson et Delilah, 118. Sappho and Phaon, 244. Sartov, 180. Savitts, 15, 138. Sayen, Lyman, 117. 299 INDEX Sayler, O. M., 33, 34, 114, 248, 287, 289, 290. Scenatorium (MacKaye), 201- 202. Scene-shifting, 27-46. Schafler, opp. 1 18. Schall und Rauch, 17. Schamberg, M. L., 117. Scheherazade (Bakst), 69, 71. Schiebebiihne, see Sliding stage. Schiller, 215, 263. Schiller Theater (Berlin), 189. Schinkel, Carl Friedrich, 187- 188 Schlegel, W. A., 14. Schlenther, Paul, 18. Schneider, Manfred, 255. Schnitzler, Arthur, 230. Screens (Craig's), 127-128; (Simonson's), 131-132. Scribe, 225. Semper, Gottfried, 188. Servant in the House, The, 231. Settimelli, E., 250. Seven Keys to Baldpate, 230. Seven Princesses, The (Jones), opp. 24. Shakespeare, William, 26, 66, 92, 93, 96, 138, 169, 186, 187, 188, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 229, 241, 242, 244, 263. Shakespeare Buhne, opp. 138, 138, opp. 140. Shakespeare Productions, by Godwin, 15; by Poell, 17; by Craig, 18, 46, 127-128; by Urban, 43; by Bragdon, 131; by Barker, 136-138. Shakespeare Stages, 15, 17, 42, 44, 138, 140, opp. 138 and 140, 144, 189. Shakespeare's Theatre, 288. Shaw, Bernard, no, 182, 226, 230, 234, 265. Sheldon, Edward, 230. Shelley, P. B., 275. Siegfried (Appia), 83. Sievert, Ludwig, 18, 220. Silver Box, The, 232. Simonson, Lee, 106, opp. 106, 107, 132, 141. Sinking Stage, 31, 35, 36, 37, 60. Skeleton Setting, 43, 44, 130-131. Skin Game, The, 232. Sky-dome, see Dome. Sliding Stage, 35, 36, 37. Smith, Winifred, 288. Song of Roland, The (Jones), opp. 274. Sophocles, 218, 228. Spanish Love (Gemier-Berg- man), 131, 145-146, 234. Spectatorium (Chicago), 31, 201-202. Spook Sonata, The, 249. Stage Scenery, 285. Stage Yearbook (London), The, 191, 289. Stanislavsky, 18, 26, 67, 89, 148, 287. Starke, Ottomar, 18, 220. Stern, Ernst, 18, 26, 41, 220, 287. Sternheim, Kurt, 256. Strauss, Richard, 200. Streit, A., 288. Strindberg, August, 214, 225, 226, 249. Studio Theatres of Moscow Art Theatre, 34. Study of the Drama, A, 218, 288. Sturm, Der, 119, 120, 255. Stuttgart theatres, 189. 300 INDEX Sudermann, Hermann, 225. Sudeykin, 114. Sumurun (Heinhardt - Stern), 145. Sunken Bell, The, 215. Swinging Stage, 32, 44. Sword and Song (Craig), 89. Swords, 231, 244. Sylphides, Les (Benois), 69. Synge, J. M., 245. Tairoff, Alexander, 114. Tales of Hoffman, The (Ur- ban), 140. Taming of the Shrew, The (Harvey), 28. Tantris der Narr, 2 1 6. Tavern, The, 234. Tchehoff, 226. Teatro Olympico (Firenza), 172. Tents of the Arabs, The (Hume), 129, 130, opp. 130. Terry, Ellen, 16. Tessenow, Heinrich, 190. Thamar (Bakst), opp. 66, 71. Thamira of the Cithern (Ka- merny Theatre), 114. Theater, Das, 288. Theatre Advancing, The, 287. Theatre Arts Magazine, The 129, 216, 286. Theatre-Craft, 287. Theatre des Arts (Paris), 18, 286. Theatre du Vieux Colombier (Paris), 156, 201, opp. 208, 268, 289. Theatre Guild (New York), 43, 44, 106, 131, 132, 141. Theatre Libre (Pari$), 18, 272. Theatre of Color, 115. Theatre of Max Reinhardt, The, 193, 287. Theatre of the Five Thousand, The, 191-199, 273; see Grosses Schauspielhaus. Theatre of the Soul, The, 250. Theatre of Today, The, 35, 286. Theatre of Tradition, The, 288. They, 249. Thirteenth Chair, The, 230. Thorndike, A. H., 288. Thousand Years Ago, A, 244. Three Women (Schamberg), 117. Thy Name is Woman, 234. Tieck, Ludwig, 15, 138. Time Machine, The, 86. Tolstoy, Leo, 115, 229, 233, 234, 240. Towards a New Theatre, 95, 287. Treasure, The (Simonson), 106. Tribune Theater (Berlin), 201. Tristan and Isolde (Roerich), 72; (Appia), 83, 85, 86. Tucker, George Loane, 179. Twelfth Night (Urban), 32, opp. 44, 44, 141; (Copeau), 157-158, 209. tibermarionette, 80, 92, 274. Vber Buhne und Bildende Kunst, 289. Uncle Vanya (Moscow Art Theatre), 81. Under Cover, 2 30. Unruh, Fritz von, 256. Urban, Joseph, 21, 28, 31, opp. 44, 44. 52, 59, 63, 131, 140, 141, 180. Van de Velde, H. Vanity Fair, 290. 33. 301 INDEX Verhaeren, Emile, 43, 44, 216, 226. Viele, Sheldon K., 43, 44, 131, 289. Vikings (Craig), 89. Voice in the Dark, A, 230. Volksbuhne (Berlin), 57, 186. Vorticism, 112. Wagenhals and Kemper, 131, 145. Wagner, Richard, 77, 79, 92, 144, 188, 189. Wagon stage, 37, 60. Walker, Stuart, 141. Walkiire, Die (Appia), opp. 82, 83, 84, opp. 84, 86. Wallack's Theatre (New York), 52, 136. Walser, Karl, 18. Wasmuth's Monatshefte fur Baukunst, 289. Wedekind, Frank, 226, 232. Wells, H. G., 86. Werfel, Franz, 256. Werkbund Theater (Cologne), 33- When Knighthood Was iri Flower, 233. When We Dead Awaken, 225. Wickes, Joseph, 31. Wiene, Robert, 119. Wilfred, Thomas, 122. Wilkinson, Norman, 26, 71, 138. Will of Song, The, 273. Wilson, Henry, 17, 220. Winter Garden (New York), 145, 152. Wirk, Willy, 17, 220. Wolf, Friederich, 256. Wonder Hat, The, 130, opp. 130. World Finder, The (MacKaye), 202. Wright, Frank Lloyd, 202. Yegoroff, V. Y., 26, 69, 70, opp. 7o, 73- Yellow Jacket, The, 230. Yevreynoff, 120, 249-250, 287. Young, Wm. A., 117. Ziegfeld, Jr., Florenz, 27; his Midnight Frolic (New York) , 59; his Follies, 27, 28, 140, 152. Zola, Emile, 225. 302 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES COLLEGE LIBRARY This book is due on the last date stamped below. wr?u rot. flV_ \N24 1975 IP* JUN 131975 KC VI 279 H DAY 7 0EC79RtCC NOV 2 2 80 REG CI Book Slip Series 4280 UCLA-College Library PN 2085 M17t 1921b L 005 722 398 4 COLLEGE LIB PN 2083 M17t 1921b A 00 10 61"51 1