, - J--. V... 1.. ^L V- THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES The ART THEATRE The ART THEATRE A Discussion of its Ideals, its Organization and its Promise as a Corrective for Present Evils in the Commercial Theatre By SHELDON CHENET With Sixteen Photographs of Productions at The Arts and Crafts Theatre of Detroit New York ALFRED A. KNOPF Mcmxvii COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF Putlithtd Octottr 1911 FEINTED IN THE UNITED STATES Or AMERICA College Library PREFACE This book has grown out of an unusual com- bination of circumstances. The first impulse to- ward its writing came when I was interested, more than a year ago, in a project (lately deceased) for an art theatre in Berkeley. The problems arising then sent me searching through a mass of fugitive material. One result was a determina- tion to prepare "a model plan for an art theatre in a small American city." In the light of later experience I am duly thankful that I did not com- plete the plan with my then purely theoretical knowledge. Instead I went to Detroit, where I saw from the inside the inauguration of activities at the Arts and Crafts Theatre, and had to do, in a subordinate capacity, with all but one of the subsequent productions. Last winter, as partial preparation for editing the newly founded Thea- tre Arts Magazine, I visited most of the progres- sive producing groups and little theatres of the East and Middle West, thus finding opportunity Preface for comparison and study of practically all the important manifestations of the new dramatic spirit in this country. In spite of the indefiniteness of aim in such theatres, and the patent instability of their organ- ization, I became convinced that in their activities lay the only real promise of a better dramatic art in this country. Because their roots were in na- tive soil, I felt that here were beginnings of true community theatres which collectively would be our ultimate national theatre. And because they were in the hands of artists, who, if immature and unsteady, were still sincere and forward-looking, these playhouses seemed clearly the forerunners of an American art theatre. Their greatest fault was to be found in con- fusion of ideals and lack of organization and denned purpose. Each group was working blindly, without profiting by the mistakes of others, and without a definite basis for under- standing the movement in its broader aspects. My first hope in this book is that it may provide accurate data about the most successful little theatres and art theatres; and that in its recon- sideration of the ideals and aims of the move- ment, it may bring artists to a clearer conception of their creative duty and perhaps inspire some with new enthusiasm and determination. Inci- 6 Preface dentally I wish the volume to provide an account and analysis of the achievement of the Arts and Crafts Theatre in Detroit during its first season an achievement important enough in the his- tory of the insurgent movement to warrant a permanent record. My point of view differs from that of some other writers about little theatres, in that I con- sider them important only as steps toward some- thing better. In all the excitement about little theatres we are in danger of losing sight of the higher ideal the art theatre. I have tried to keep that ultimate ideal constantly in mind. I am aware that my arraignment of the busi- ness theatre is too sweeping to be universally just. I know that there are exceptions to the rule of cut-throat business methods and art-blindness in the commercial theatre that there are still actors who retain a dignified conception of their pro- fession, and artists who have not prostituted their talents to commerce. But continued association with the theatre only strengthens my conviction that the arraignment is substantially true and just. While this book is much more the result of independent thought and experience than was an earlier one, in which I tried to sum up modern tendencies in the theatre, I am still indebted to the writings of Huntly Carter, Gordon Craig and 7 Preface H. K. Moderwell. I owe thanks also to Maurice Browne, Sam Hume and other theatre artists with whom I have talked over art theatre problems personally. Mr. Eric T. Clarke has put me un- der obligation for many suggestions in connec- tion with the chapter on Organization and Man- agement ; and to William F. Gable I express cor- dial thanks for personal encouragement and in- spiration. Small portions of the material here presented have appeared in the pages of Theatre Arts Maga- zine; but the book is substantially new written almost entirely during the summer of 1917. S. C. 8 CONTENTS Preface 5 Chapter I Present Conditions in the American Theatre 13 Inside and outside the commercial theatre The business theatre and profits The immature little theatre movement First steps toward an art theatre How the American theatre became commercialized Effects upon playwriting, acting and stage- craft Need for a new theatre The great problem : How to professionalize the insurgent groups while preserving the amateur spirit Chapter II The Coming of the Art Theatre 32 The American problem in the light of Europe's theatres of thirty years ago The Theatre Libre movement Its service in ridding the theatre of artificiality and traditional stupidity Its shortcomings Beginnings of the art theatre movement Gordon Craig Adolphe Appia The Moscow Art Theatre Its lessons for American progressives The Munich Art Theatre Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater The Abbey Theatre Effects of the art theatre movement on the European theatrical situation Why America has no professional art theatre The New Theatre failure America's first steps toward the art theatre type Chapter III Ideals of the Art Theatre 56 The distinguishing mark of art theatre production Its "art value" The synthetic ideal Appia's "inner unity" Craig's synthesis of movement, light, colour and sound Stylization Undiscovered arts of the theatre The experimental ideal The ideal of sound management The ideal of intimacy Its mis- taken aspects America's progress toward art theatre ideals Chapter IV The Artist-Director 74 Enlightened artist-directors our first need Craig's ideal artist of the theatre Huntly Carter's ideal of group- direction The practical figure The artist-director a modern creation The Contents German regisseur Sam Hume as an American example His qualifications and ideals as typical of the artist-director Maurice Browne as example His methods and ideals Chapter V The Question of Acting and Actors 96 Low state of American acting Beauty of speech Rhythm of movement Group action and pictorial composition How art theatre acting may differ from commercial acting The dis- credited star system The curse of personality Must we import actors for our art theatres? The little theatres and amateur acting Advantages in use of amateurs Disadvantages Pro- fessionalizing amateurs The amateurs of Moscow and Dublin The actor's estate under the art theatre Chapter VI The Question of Plays 124 The art theatre play and the journalistic drama of the com- mercial theatre The "advanced" ideal vs. "pleasing the public" Sam Hume's theory of meeting the public half-way Analysis of plays at the Arts and Crafts Theatre Maurice Browne and the no-compromise attitude Relation between Chicago Little Theatre's plays and its financial troubles Catholic choice of plays necessary The classics Poetic and realistic Native and foreign Encouraging native writers The repertory system Chapter VII The Question of Stage Settings 144 Stage decoration and the synthetic ideal Evils of the old stagecraft Belasco and the naturalistic revolt The artists' revolt The improved pictorial setting The plastic setting The decorative setting Stylization Symbolistic settings Light and color Unifying devices Gordon Craig's screens Sam Hume's adaptable setting Chapter VIII The Question of Audiences and the Community 175 Necessary relation between theatre and community Organiz- ing audiences without supplying theatres Where the Drama League fails Denning a community theatre Potential audi- ences in American cities Advantages of the subscription system The Free Folk Stage of Berlin Extension work through the schools Theatres as social centres The Ypsilanti Players The Prairie Playhouse Settlement playhouses The Neigh- borhood Playhouse and the New York situation Chapter IX Organization and Management 188 Lack of business efficiency in little theatres Value of sound management The three-fold system of organization The con- Contents trolling group Questions of ownership The artist-director The business manager His duties System in handling money and book-keeping Budget-making Income and expenditures during an average little theatre season Advertising The venal press as a factor in the degradation of the theatre Endowment Chapter X Buildings and Equipment 217 The synthetic ideal and theatre architecture The architecture of the show business First steps toward the ideal building Design and decoration Stage equipment Size The ideal playhouse of the future Chapter XI Unrealized Ideals 228 S lightness of the insurgent achievement so far The ideal American art theatre The way of its coming Present foun- dations A Discursive Bibliography 233 Appendix: Productions at the Arts and Crafts Theatre, Season of 1916-17, with Casts 241 Index 247 1 Helena's Husband (Frontispiece) 2 The Intruder facing page 20 3 The Constant Lover facing page 30 4 The Chinese Lantern facing page 50 5 The Glittering Gate facing page 64 6 The Romance of the Rose facing page 82 7 The Lost Silk Hat facing page 100 8 Sam Hume as Abraham and Frances Loushton as Isaac facing page 116 9 Lonesomelike facing page 130 10 The Wonder Hat facing page 150 11 The Tents of the Arabs facing page 162 12 Helena's Husband facing page 172 13 Abraham and Isaac facing page 182 14 A Doctor in Spite of Himself facing page 192 15 A Doctor in Spite of Himself facing page 212 16 Suppressed Desires facing page> 224 Note on the illustrations: All the illustrations are from photo- graphs by Frank Scott Clark, and all represent productions at the Arts and Crafts Theatre of Detroit. Eleven of the settings shown are arrangements of the permanent adaptable scene designed for the theatre by Sam Hume. He made most of the adaptations, certain ones being worked out in collaboration with Miss Katherine McEwen. Detailed descriptions and ground plans of the more important scenes will be found in the chapter on stage settings. THE ART THEATRE CHAPTER I PRESENT CONDITIONS IN THE AMERICAN THEATRE THE art theatre has no past in America. Even in the present it is but lightly in- volved in the dramatic situation. But for the future the only direction of time that really counts when an art is young it is the one certain corrective for the evils now existing in the playhouse. In considering the theatre as an art it is pos- sible to overlook almost entirely the recognized playhouses and so-called "artists" of today, and yet lose nothing of substantial worth from an evaluation based on lasting standards. The en- tire organized institution of the theatre in Amer- ica, as it is known to nine out of every ten intel- ligent people, may be safely disregarded by the writer who is concerned with world movements and art values. Thomas H. Dickinson recently said that the 13 The Art Theatre history of the English theatre of the last twenty years had been a history of "outsiders." Insofar as America has had any dramatic history worth recording in the last two or three decades, it too is concerned only with outsiders. The inside in- stitution is important only as a background and contrast: for the illuminating mistakes it has made, for keeping alive a noble tradition (which it failed to live up to), and for setting up an absolute dictatorship which, within the last five years, has irritated and stimulated a few thinking artists into revolt. The forces that count in the theatre today are the forces of revolt. The actual progress toward an ideal theatre has been made in fly-by-night projects, by dissatisfied groups, by outcasts. These outsiders have usually been rich in ambi- tion and artistic impulse but bankrupt in money and business control. The future of the theatre as an art, nevertheless, lies in their hands. It is bound up with qualities and refinements so foreign to the existing institution, and its de- velopment demands abilities so clearly impossible under the present organization, that the only sal- vation lies in further development of the insurgent movement. A survey of present conditions, while leaving no doubt about the immense material strength of the 14 Conditions in the American Theatre regular theatre, and the anaemic weakness of the outsiders, still discloses a general condition of restlessness and a gradual but steady gain on the part of the minority. It shows, moreover, a real fear in the ruling mind on account of the petty encroachments already made by the insurgents, as if the established faction sensed the certain crumbling of the present order. The American commercial theatre, organized as an all-embracing, interlocking system, is con- ducted as a speculative institution, with its first object the making of profits. It would be idle to say that it has nothing to do with art, since that is in one sense the sole commodity in which it deals; but its art is the art of commerce, the art that will please the greatest number of average people, the art that seeks its appeal in sentiment and prettiness and sexual emotion and situa- tions begetting uncontrolled laughter a sort of Hearst' 's-Cosmopolitan-Ladies '-Home-Journal art. Insofar as it touches within the boundaries of the art that is both true to life and spiritual, it does so through chance inspiration and acci- dental co-ordination. Occasionally one sees in a Broadway theatre a production that stirs the soul, that evokes that 15 mood which is a response to art alone. But the next forty or fifty productions are so completely innocent of any suspicion of spiritual values that one is forced to put down the exception as a ran- dom thrust. In the end it always comes back to the same analysis: the American commercial the- atre is organized to earn profits in competition, and its art will always be pulled down to that standard which experience has shown will please the largest group of money-spenders. The art that goes beyond the obvious is discouraged, and the art that reaches down to deeper truths goes unrecognized. If our sculpture were produced under such a handicap we should never have a St. Gaudens or a Jo Davidson, but only a race of manipulators and imitators producing those horrid sweet statu- ettes which our pseudo-art stores now import from Italy by the thousand, for "the art trade." And if a group of businessmen controlled all the studios and galleries as absolutely as they control the the- atre, we should never have a Sargent or a Davies, but only a race of Harrison Fishers and Howard Chandler Christies and similar corrupters of the art morals of the newsstand public. The theatre alone has been so fettered that it has stifled creative effort, discouraged originality, and driven out the true artist. 16 Conditions in the American Theatre Under such conditions it would be useless for the artists to try to compete with the majority theatre on its own ground. The Washington Square Players, for instance, have suffered a dis- tinct loss on the artistic side due to the competition they have had to meet on the business side since they elbowed their way to Broadway. Such a group may be able to stick until it makes its per- manent place in the dramatic business world ; but in the meantime its position both financially and artistically is likely to be precarious. The nor- mal corrective is far more likely to be some- thing distinctive that will grow out of the little theatres, something entirely disconnected from the regular organization, endowed if necessary, but always devoted primarily to art rather than profits, and pursuing its way without regard to competition unless, indeed, the regulars come over into the new fold, and meet the competition of art on its ground. Then everybody will be an outsider and nobody unhappy. n What one has to place beside the discouraging picture of the commercial theatre does not at first beget much comfort. The "little theatre move- ment," distinctly valuable in its small way, is yet hardly more than a promise. The faults of 17 The Art Theatre the little theatre are obvious: an alarming ten- dency to fade away before the first summer comes, a fine scorn of business management, and lack of confidence and stability of purpose. It is some- times timid, frantically disclaiming any intention toward reform, and admitting only a desire to "please ourselves" ; and sometimes boastful, call- ing attention to its littleness as if that in itself were a virtue, instead of simply a sign that it hasn't grown up. It is, nevertheless, the most hopeful thing in the theatre world today, because its roots are in native soil and because it is reach- ing up beyond those realms of commerce and materialism in which the business theatre con- stantly exists. It is rich, moreover, in those things that the other theatre lacks: artistic taste, cultural background, creative energy, and im- agination. As these two, the Goliath and the potential David, stand side by side, we who have a vision of a true art theatre something dedicated to vital plays, inspired acting and creative staging, well- managed, combining the insight of the amateur spirit with the solid core of hard work and fin- ished achievement of the professional stage we sit by, sometimes, to be sure, wringing our hands in despair, at others believing fondly that the 18 Conditions in the American Theatre youngster will grow up into ways that are both beautiful and wise. A year ago the prospect was black enough ; but the season just closed has afforded many reasons for renewed hope. The Chicago Little Theatre emerges from its worst storm with three years of financial security ahead; the Arts and Crafts Theatre of Detroit, with no other endowment than freedom from the rent burden, closes a series of typical art-theatre productions with a clean record both artistically and financially; a score of new groups with artistic possibilities have sprung into being ; and Dunsany, most typical of the new dramatists, has achieved wide popular acceptance solely through the insurgent groups. Even though we see clearly that America has not yet developed one normal, permanent art the- atre, we who care, have seen the time ripen for the establishment of such a theatre : we see its distinc- tive technique taking shape; we see artists worthy of it playwrights, directors, designers, even ac- tors struggling up out of the average little the- atre incompetence; we see other important artists, now dissipating their talents in the commercial theatre, who could be cured of the conventional mannerisms and taints and brought over to a soundly organized progressive institution ; and we 19 The Art Theatre see millionaires curious about the new theatre, and trembling on the verge of endowment. Some day we shall shove two or three of them over the edge, and I am confident that we shall be able to show that beyond lies a field as inspiring for them as for the artists. These millionaires, moreover, live not only in New York but in Detroit, not only in Chicago but in San Francisco ; and they will build not an aristocratic national theatre but native art theatres. (A real millionaire is not necessary. A quarter- or even an eighth-millionaire would do, if he saw the true relative value between art and his business.) If we have seen each new attempt fail so far, it has been sometimes because wealth tried to take the place of artistic taste, instead of endowing the artists, or because artistic enthusiasm refused to link up with the practical budget-making common sense which is the only excuse for ask- ing wealth to co-operate. But no matter how many failures there have been, the spirit of the little theatre and community theatre has persisted, and new perceptions of theatre art have devel- oped; and I for one believe actively in the swift coming of organizations to conserve that spirit and satisfy those perceptions, organizations com- bining high purpose, sound management and will- ingness to work hard through the urge of art 20 Conditions in the American Theatre the only combination that spells good dramatic art. ni Let us for a moment strike back a generation or two and see how the American theatre became so thoroughly commercialized. Thirty years ago America owned excellent repertory and stock play- houses and great actors, and the drama gave prom- ise of developing side by side with the other arts. Through some fault it degenerated instead, and came to a place of actual degradation in the art world. Twenty-two years ago two groups of influential managers combined to control a larger field of production than either could dominate alone. The alliance became so powerful that other managers joined, either in the hope of sharing the larger profits or in self-defence. The "syndicate" adopted the methods common to lawless "big busi- ness" of that day. It started a merciless cam- paign to stamp out competition and kill off rivals. It bribed into its ranks as many big men as it could, and then frightened into line as many more, big and little, as could be bullied. Then it fought the remaining few, managers and actors, by re- lentless warfare, closing theatres to them, and using all the familiar tactics of the lockout. 21 The Art Theatre After a short campaign so few rebels remained that the American theatre lay practically helpless in the hands of a few New York speculators. No cornering of a market was ever more skilfully or completely manipulated. Certain gains under such a monopoly are easily recognized. For owners of theatres outside New York the new system meant a continued succes- sion of companies with tried plays, in place of the previous uncertain bookings. When rightly man- aged it prevented two similar and worthy pro- ductions playing in opposition one week, with an empty week following. The theatre market was in a sense stabilized. And of course the com- bination was a success from the speculators' standpoint. Wasteful experiment was elimi- nated, profits formerly scattered to a hundred in- dependent agencies now flowed regularly to the one headquarters in New York, and price-raising was possible on a cornered commodity. It is necessary to add, before turning to the other side of the case the losses entailed in the commercializing process that about a decade ago there came a revolt against the syndicate. It succeeded to the extent of opening the field to a rival business organization. The burden was partially lifted from the shoulders of the small owner of theatres on the road, and the small pro- 22 Conditions in the American Theatre ducer came back into the field under definite limi- tations. But it was distinctly a business revolt, and it failed to change conditions so far as the artist is concerned. He remained either a servant of the businessmen or an outsider. We now have two co-operating syndicates instead of one. The evil effects of the system in general were: loss of freedom for the artist; destruction of the training-grounds in which both actor and play- wright had formerly gained experience and early success; and ruinous control by New York over all the important theatres in the country. Reper- tory suffered a quick death, since one long run costs less money than frequent change of bill ; and independent experiment soon disappeared. In those individual contributive arts that go to make up the larger art of the theatre playwriting, act- ing, staging, decoration the havoc wrought was so great that we have not today one actor to com- pare with the best of the repertory days in this country, nor one playwright comparable to a score developed in the progressive movement in the Eu- ropean theatre, nor one director or decorator worthy to be placed beside the thirty or forty en- lightened ones in Europe. We have not, indeed, one theatre artist of any sort who is internation- ally important. In the matter of playwriting, centralized control 23 The Art Theatre of all the theatres in the land meant standardiza- tion of types of production, so that the dramatist who brought forward anything new found every trying-out ground closed to him. "Kept" play- wrights became the rule. It was easier and safer to repeat a proven formula, or adapt a foreign success, than to risk money on untried types of play. If a native playwright did get by with an undoubted success, it was easier for the manager to repeat variations on that than to give the next fellow a chance. Such a false standard of lavish, if inartistic, staging developed, moreover, that it cost a manager approximately $5000 to try out a play. Under such a burden of expense even those producers who retained some desire to encourage native art hesitated to touch anything new. The American playwright for two decades thus was left without laboratory or studio. Only with the coming of the little theatres, and especially of such organizations as The Provincetown Players and the Players' Workshop, has his testing- ground been to some extent restored. For the actor the conditions were and are even worse. The breaking up of the repertory and dignified stock companies destroyed the train- ing school where so many of the older artists gained their most fruitful experience and inspira- tion. It made the living of the actor insecure, 24 Conditions in the American Theatre there being no longer any chance of association with the same company in a permanent home for even a season at a time. Even actors of the high- est class are today required to live lives of per- petual uncertainty, because their contracts are de- pendent solely upon the financial success of plays and companies chosen and presented without re- gard to their own preferences and ideals. They have no choice but to seek peripatetic employ- ment under a system that makes permanent in- terest impossible, and one that denies leisure for proper study of their art. But perhaps the most destructive practice in this connection was that of creating and exploiting "stars." The star system implies on its face an unbalanced and undemocratic art, in which the poor is necessarily placed beside the worthy. Of the stars themselves little need be said. Some of them are potentially great actors and would show it if they could cut loose from the system. But it cannot be insisted upon too strongly that star production is pernicious for the minor actor. Not only does it create a false ideal in the com- pany, an ideal that impels the young actor to cultivate and parade every idiosyncrasy of per- sonality and learn every trick which might lead to stardom, but it deadens originality and precludes breadth of training and understanding, by con- 25 The Art Theatre derailing the rising artist to year after year of type parts. The long run and the star system are largely responsible for that dearth of intelligent clean-speaking actors which exists on the Amer- ican stage today. The businessmen who changed the actor's attitude from that of an artist to that of a mere wage-earner are further responsible for the recent wholesale desertion from a great art to a great industry. I refer, of course, to that tide of prom- ising actors who are showing their apathy by go- ing over to the well-salaried but inartistic mov- ing picture business. Had the ideals of the play- house not been lost, monetary advantage would not have decided their choice. The effect of the system in the matter of staging was no less unfortunate than in the fields of play- writing and acting. The lack of artist-directors, which today seems the chief obstacle in the way of developing art theatres, is directly due to the standardization of methods in the regular theatre. The business man took control and delegated the designing of the settings to one helper, the design- ing of costumes to another, the stage management to another. He insisted, moreover, that each one of these helpers do his work in a way that squared with accepted notions of stage art, in this case, of course, business art. Under such a system initia- 26 Conditions in the American Theatre tive in stagecraft was crushed, the ambitious young artist who went into scenic design soon became a machine, and play production in Amer- ica finds itself twenty years behind its German counterpart. Recently the businessmen woke up to find that European theatres had discovered methods of staging infinitely better than the accepted ones, and that in this country certain little theatres and an opera house had imported or developed artists capable of creating some of "the new effects." The commercial managers immediately bribed the best of these artists to come to their rescue. The results were interesting from a purely decorative standpoint, but something was lacking. Broad- way pieces were decked in the clothes of the new stagecraft but remained vulgar. The point that both sides overlooked was this: these artists can do their best work only when they are given full charge of the production (if they are directors as well as designers), or when they work with other artists and not with businessmen. So long as a single business man is allowed to leave his business office and interfere with activities behind the curtain, the sort of staging that creates artistic illusion and unity of impression will be impossi- ble in the theatre. Joseph Urban and Robert Ed- mond Jones take orders from the shopkeepers in 27 The Art Theatre the theatre; and their work is so changed that the spirit of the new staging still finds truer ex- pression in Chicago or Detroit than in New York. In one other direction the theatre system has put us decades behind the best development of the Europeans. In theatre architecture we are still struggling along in a musty, Victorian sort of way. With a few notable exceptions (for the most part products of the little theatre movement) our playhouses are not in any sense temples of art, but only vulgar amusement palaces. At best they are showy and ornate; at worst they are inexcus- ably gilded and varnished and stencilled. They reflect the taste of the businessmen. Again it is business art, designed to attract the average. 1 In the atmosphere created by such architecture, true theatre art is all but impossible. Such are the losses to the contributive arts, which have resulted from the organization of the theatre as a business. To these I may add one other misfortune : the people of this country have lost all respect for the theatre. They visualize it as a business, like insurance, or selling grocer- 1 1 think that I have adopted the phraseology of Max Eastman here. In his book "Journalism vs. Art" he stated very clearly the case of business art as it concerns the American magazine. In writing of the very similar case of the American theatre I have found it difficult to avoid one or two of his phrases for which I hereby acknowledge indebtedness. 28 Conditions in the American Theatre ies. To be implicated in theatre work even in- volves more or less risk of one's reputation and standing in the community. In Europe (exclud- ing England) the theatre is considered with a certain amount of reverence. It is one of the arts. Each leading playhouse is as important to its town as the art museum or the cathedral. In America the gas works and the department store are much more likely to be pointed out with pride to the visitor. IV It took many years for critics to realize the full mischief that was being worked through the manipulation of the theatre as a speculative med- ium. As long ago as 1900 clear-sighted com- mentators like Norman Hapgood threw search- lights on the situation, and Walter Prichard Eaton and others have kept the issue alive. But it has taken us many years more to learn that the theatre cannot be saved from within. Only now are we beginning to understand that revolutionists who secede from the older playhouse and men trained in the other arts must be charged with the creation of a new theatre. If I have indicated a certain lack of confidence in the little theatres as agencies of reform, it is because the fetich of size does not impress me at 29 The Art Theatre all. I am quick to say that what gain we have made in face of the loss through commercializa- tion is to be credited to the little theatre move- ment. At least the playwrights again have lab- oratories for experiment, and a new generation of decorators is in training. But and here is the central constructive thought of my book unless we carry the little theatres beyond the ideals most of them stand for, unless we professionalize them while preserving their amateur spirit, unless we organize them efficiently for art production, we shall be little better off than before they came. For otherwise we shall have only a smug business institution beside an amateur institution revelling in artistic anarchy and bankruptcy. At least three groups, in Chicago, Detroit and New York, have risen above that reproach of amateurishness and crudity which has come to be an implication of the term "little theatre." They are America's first steps toward art thea- tre organization. They have been proving the ground as they developed, and they have shown that an audience exists. They have helped, moreover, to make a clear cleavage between the commercial theatre and a new professional art theatre as yet in its infancy. But they must be stabilized and similar groups must be developed out of little theatres and art societies elsewhere. 30 THE CONSTANT LOVER Conditions in the American Theatre For the real art of the theatre in America de- pends upon the development of fixed local play- houses with resident companies dedicated to repertory production of the best that dramatic art has to offer. Not only is the commercial thea- tre unable to realize the finer ideals, but the very nature of the typical art-theatre play is such that it cannot be transported by travelling companies, and cannot be brought to its finest expression with- out the aid of artists working in the light of the amateur spirit. Until there are independent theatres and organizations in the several parts of the country, directed by artists and not busi- nessmen, and capable of staging and interpreting adequately the best from the Greeks and Shake- speare to Shaw and Dunsany, we shall look in vain for the coming of the art theatre. 31 CHAPTER II THE COMING OF THE ART THEATRE THE title of this chapter is a prophecy and not a description, so far as this coun- try is concerned. But I say the more confidently that it is prophecy rather than mere speculation because one can show that already there exist in Europe a number of playhouses so removed, by ideals and organization, from the commercial theatre as to merit the distinctive group title "the art theatre"; and that in America there exist today the symptoms of discontent, re- volt and amateur enthusiasm which preceded the rise of such institutions in Europe. From the artist's standpoint the established European theatres of twenty and thirty years ago seemed almost as hopeless as does the organized American theatre of today. The protests of An- toine in France, of Fuchs in Germany and of Gordon Craig in England, when re-read sound remarkably like those of the "radicals" of this country. Conditions in Europe were never quite so bad as here in the matter of business getting a 32 The Coming of the Art Theatre strangle-hold on art, and deadening all original- ity and initiative. But dramatic production was quite as stereotyped, quite as one-sided, as on this side of the Atlantic. The conservatives had the whip hand, and the progressives could renounce their better selves or turn to another art. The revolt started with the Theatre Libre move- ment. How far that development differed in ideals from the art theatre movement has not been sufficiently emphasized in the past. Its ultimate aims were quite foreign to anything implied in the later development. But it was negatively very important, for it cleared away a lot of the old superstitions of the stage and opened the play- house to innovators and amateurs. It was in 1887 that the French actor Antoine founded the Theatre Libre in Paris. For nearly a decade he produced there, with the unqualified approval of a small group, and with the bitterest censure of the conservative critics and public, the most radical compositions of naturalistic and real- istic writers. Then he founded the Theatre An- toine, where he continued the naturalistic tradi- tion, but without the worst excesses of the earlier venture. The movement spread to Germany with the foundation of the Freie Biihne at Berlin in 33 The Art Theatre 1889; and in 1891 J. T. Grein established the Independent Theatre in London. All these theatres exhibited earmarks of a defi- nite movement. All were private or subscription ventures merely a way of evading censorship. All announced their object as rebellion against the monopolistic and anti-libertarian commercial theatre. All were definitely dedicated to natural- ism or realism as an art standard. In France the movement was narrower than in Germany and England. Although a very few plays of Ibsen and others of the Northern drama- tists were introduced, French drama was pro- duced almost exclusively. Perhaps because of this provincial limitation there developed no French school or movement to carry on the im- petus created by Antoine's group. In Germany the Freie Biihne was more truly a free theatre in the international sense, and it had the widest effect upon the regular playhouses. Its work, indeed, was so well done that the grip of traditionalism was largely broken in Germany by the end of the century. The original revolu- tionary playhouse went out of existence, but thea- tres throughout Germany had then been opened to the new drama, and the way had been cleared for the coming of new ideas of stage production. In England the movement culminated in the 34 The Coining of the Art Theatre development of an exceedingly important group of realistic dramatists: Shaw, Barker, Gals- worthy, and a half dozen lesser writers. But, as in France, the achievement was not far-reach- ing. The institution of the theatre as a whole was very little changed. The playwright with new ideas still finds himself an outsider, and such contributions as England has made to an art- theatre technique can be summed up in the inde- pendent pioneering of the exiled Gordon Craig, such short-lived experiments as Granville Bar- ker's brief "seasons" as director, and the more permanent but less inspired repertory theatre ven- tures. It is probable that the whole realistic move- ment in the theatre has been vastly over-rated as a positive contribution to dramatic art. Its negative value as paving the way for the next phase is incalculable at this early time; and its social value as restoring a healthy relationship between the theatre and contemporary life is im- mense. But its final achievement when judged by art standards, its contribution to the develop- ment of a distinctive modern art of the theatre, has been slight even as compared with the as-yet- immature "art theatre movement." The natural- ists and more extreme realists, in the desire to limit themselves to showing a segment of life, or 35 The Art Theatre to proving a thesis, missed something of the spirit- ual, the imaginative, the eternal. At worst, their plays are displeasing, vulgar, and even immoral and disgusting; at best they are narrowed down to an unimaginative corner of art-expression. The Theatre Libre movement, then, insofar as it concerns the present study, had only these ef- fects: it demolished superstitions regarding pro- fessionalism, opened the theatre to new types of drama, substituted a natural (if uninspired) sort of acting for the old artificiality and conventional- ity, and proved that a simple style-less setting or no setting at all is better than the old crassly arti- ficial or consciously spectacular background. For the really constructive phase that followed, for the beginnings of the theatre to be built in the clearing thus made, one must go back to an independent impulse to the Craig-Appia-Rein- hardt movement, if one may so name it from the three most notable artists concerned. H The most important figure in the new theatre, because most inspiring and most typical of the artist to come, is Gordon Craig. He was fitted by both heredity and early training to take a place in the accepted theatre. But during his brief ex- perience there he chafed under its limitations and 36 The Coming of the Art Theatre restraints, and finally broke away entirely, to become the ablest and most active crusader for a new art of the theatre the greatest outsider of them all. Craig pointed out first the lack of art in the existing playhouse, charging that the men of the theatre were purveying a sort of play based on a false conception of dramatic ideals. While cas- tigating the bunglers in the commercial theatre, he protested against the playhouse being taken over by either the literary artists or the easel paint- ers. He also turned his guns on another set of reformers, being always an unsparing critic of realism, and never missing an opportunity to call for imaginativeness and poetry to help save the stage. After his destructive criticism came a construc- tive one in the form of a plea for artists of vision in the theatre. The usual production, he right- fully argued, is not a work of art at all, because it lacks that binding spiritual quality, that unity of feeling, which can be achieved only through the creative effort of an artist. The performance is a thing of scattered effect depending upon chance association of playwright, actor, scene- painter, electrician, carpenter, and stage-man- ager. If there is one brain supervising all, it is that of a business man, incapable of visualizing 37 The Art Theatre the production in imaginative form, and neces- sarily delegating bits of control to this and that assistant. Craig therefore called for the training of a new race of theatre artists, of creative pro- ducers who would be able to impart an impres- sionistic unity to every production they brought to the stage. Through all the years since he promulgated the artist-director theory, Gordon Craig has sought passionately the methods by which the artist could obtain unity of mood in the theatre, and he has re-tested every element of stage crafts- manship in relation to a unifying principle. He did more than any other artist to reform stage setting, combating on the one hand the ridicu- lous artificiality and the spectacular vulgarity of the old style scene, and on the other the false per- fection and meticulous appeal of the naturalistic method. He sought to substitute suggestion in place of imitation, simplicity in place of elabora- tion, expressiveness in place of showiness; and always he insisted upon a definite spiritual or emotional relationship between the background and the action. He insisted that current ideals of acting must change: that the actor must subordinate his personality and become a willing part of a larger design, obedient to the will of the artist-director, and that the pernicious star sys- 38 The Coming of the Art Theatre tern must be destroyed. He attached a new value to movement on the stage, pointing out the emo- tional effectiveness of figures moving in design, of shifting light and shadow, of changing pattern of colour. And finally he pointed out that the stage production, which started out to be an art appealing to the eye theatre means "a place for seeing" had become merely a platform for the recitation of words appealing through the ear to the intellect and emotions. He made his plea for a new art of the theatre which would be not merely mentally or emotionally stirring, but visu- ally beautiful and aesthetically satisfying. In these things he laid down foundation principles for the whole art theatre movement. An artist equally original, but more elusive, is Adolphe Appia. He has never wielded the same influence, because he has failed to get his ideas before the world in concrete form; and in Eng- land and America his influence has been slight because there has never been a translation, or even adequate interpretation, of his important books. While applying his experiments exclusively to opera, he arrived at certain conclusions which have come to be basic principles of the new race of theatre artists: that the realistic and painted- perspective modes of stage setting are impossible artistically; that there must be unity of play, 39 The Art Theatre setting and action; that the actor is the fac- tor to be emphasized within this unity that he and not a trick of staging must be the centre of the picture; and finally, that lighting can be largely utilized as the uniting force, binding to- gether all the elements of the production, by pro- viding an all-pervading spiritual atmosphere. The emphasis on the value of light, and the in- sistence that the lighting must be definitely de- signed to further dramatic meaning, is Appia's most distinctive contribution to the new staging. From these two, Craig and Appia, the art thea- tre movement may be considered to start. Of those who helped shape it, of those who added to the mass of theory, or proved or disproved this or that theory in practice, I shall say little ex- cept as they happen to be concerned in four play- houses: the Munich Art Theatre, the Moscow Art Theatre, Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. I am con- scious that this is an arbitrary choice ; but I think that these offer in their beginnings the nearest parallel to our beginnings in America^ and in their achievement the most suggestive of ways in which we should grow. To indicate the breadth of the new spirit, how- ever, it is well to remember that France claimed one of the first experiments in the new field, in 40 The Coming of the Art Theatre the establishment of the Theatre de I'CEuvre in 1893 as a sort of artists' protest against natural- ism; that Jacques Rouche made sincere efforts to realize the synthetic art-theatre ideal at his Theatre des Arts in Paris; and that Jacques Copeau did some of the most important of all pioneering work at his Theatre du Vieux Colom- bier. But these and the English ventures are less important than the four chosen for more ex- tended description. in The famous Moscow Art Theatre was founded under circumstances strikingly like those sur- rounding the beginnings of the most important little theatres in this country. The group orig- inating the venture was more amateur than pro- fessional, and its object was definitely to explore regions untouched by the regular theatres. It was distinctly a reform theatre, and like most of its kind it utilized at first amateur actors and students, and sought its designers in the fields of the other arts. After renouncing the ideals of the commercial theatre, and its methods of playwriting, acting and stage setting, it turned first to the explora- tion and exploitation of realism. It sought to create the illusion of life by detailed imitation. 41 The Art Theatre The experience was valuable in ridding the thea- tre of the old artificiality of acting, and in ex- posing the faultiness of current modes of staging. But naturalism and uninspired realism soon proved unequal to the demands of a typical art theatre organization. When the Moscow Art Theatre started its search for the imaginative, the lyrical, the poetic, and the symbolic, instead of seeking mere truth to life, it began to justify its name. At the same time it began to seek actively that synthesis of forces which is the most distinctive mark of art-theatre production, aiming to bring play, ac- tion, lighting and setting into a spiritual unity. It was not always successful, since one hears re- ports of decorations that outdid the actors, and of Shakespeare plays that had ceased to be Shake- spearean ; but the productions as a group went far to prove that there is such a thing as a distinguish- able art-theatre technique, a method that is at once a simplification and an intensification of the drama, a creative contribution on the part of director, actors and designers, which throws a spiritual atmosphere over the play as presented in the theatre. A third phase brought the Moscow playhouse to a broader basis, where it followed neither the realistic nor the symbolistic or idealistic alone, 42 The Coming of the Art Theatre but sought to harmonize the best it had found in both directions of its early search. It may well be that the drama of the future lies in a com- promise between these two ideals, or rather in a fusing of the intense life-truth of the one with the spiritualizing idealism of the other. It may be, indeed, that the Moscow Art Theatre has made its greatest contribution to modern art through its experiments in search of an enlightened and spiritualized realism. But the points which should most interest Amer- ican progressives are these: A non-star organ- ization was brought into being, in which the ac- tors studied and worked intelligently and har- moniously together, while always obedient to an enlightened artist-director. The theatre is effi- ciently administered as a profitable business ven- ture, but businessmen have nothing to say about types of play or methods of staging, and the pro- ject is not subject to shifting this way or that for the sake of profits. The administration is three-fold : first,, a holding group which includes men of high ideals and artists of broad insight; second, a body of actors who are willing (and can afford) to accept a moderate wage because they love their work and enjoy permanent em- ployment ; and third, an artist-director and a busi- ness secretary who are free from interference by 43 The Art Theatre each other or from above so long as they produce results satisfactory to the enlightened holding group. While preserving an experimental ideal, the theatre has arrived at a type of production which brings play, action and setting into one harmonious whole. It has developed artists who have gone out to help revolutionize theatres for- merly devoted to commercial ideals. And finally it has refused to be satisfied with a building and equipment inadequate to the requirements of a broadly artistic type of production; the architec- ture is restful, and the mechanical features afford the widest opportunity for the subtler effects of staging. The Munich Art Theatre has often been held up as a model architecturally, and I wish to em- phasize here certain relationships between such a building and the development of the new art of the theatre. Our American theatres are no- toriously vulgar, and it is doubtful whether the insurgent movement in this country will not lag until we have a group of playhouses that are in harmony with the spirit of dramatic art at its best. Many visitors to the Munich Art Theatre, accus- tomed to American and English vulgarity, or to French ornateness, have testified to the remark- able sense of restfulness experienced upon enter- ing the Art Theatre. In such an atmosphere the 44 The Coming of the Art Theatre spectator is immediately put into a state of re- ceptivity, and the producer's battle to create a spiritual mood, a single harmonious impression, is already partially won. This sympathetic sort of architecture, no less than equipment of the most modern type, is necessary to a full realiza- tion of the new ideal. Imagine Gordon Craig in the average Broadway playhouse! But the Munich Art Theatre is important for more reasons than appear in its architectural form though that may be taken as symbolic of an all-pervading artistic thoroughness. Its search, to quote Huntly Carter, has been for "simplification, synthesis, rhythm and beauty" and such aims alone set it apart from the great mass of theatres. It seeks to "preserve the unity of the action of the drama in co-operation with sound, colour, motion." One limitation should be noted : the stage was built too shallow, because the directors were concerned in the beginning with a too-narrow conception of the new art of stag- ing that of the "relief-theatre." The pioneer work accomplished there, nevertheless, is on a level with that of the Moscow Art Theatre, in both its practical and its inspirational aspects. First, the impulse for its founding came from without the old theatre, and it has consistently utilized the talents of inspired outsiders. Sec- 45 The Art Theatre ond, it immediately discarded all the old para- phernalia of the stage, and set out to prove that conventionalized settings, aided by simplicity, breadth and suggestion, could create illusion more satisfyingly than the most elaborate imitations in the naturalistic method. Third, it stood for synthesis of forces on the stage, but with the em- phasis on the actors, who, besides carrying the story, supplied that decorative quality which was formerly supposed to reside in the setting alone. Fourth, the efficacy of the production in produc- ing artistic effect, the art value as distinguished from the mere dramatic value or acting value or spectacular value, was discovered to be depend- ent upon style, upon the imparting of an all-per- vading feeling, a reflection of the individual gen- ius of the artists concerned in the staging. And fifth, while it remained typically a theatre of the artists, it was not thereby condemned to business mismanagement. The Deutsches Theater in Berlin has been cited many times as the best example of a "practical art theatre." Broadway managers will tell you (or would have told you before admiration of any German virtue became a crime before the bar of a war-blind public) that the reason we have not such theatres in America is that no such en- lightened audience exists here as that of the Ger- 46 The Coming of the Art Theatre man capital. For my part I believe that the trouble lies in the lack of a director like Max Reinhardt, who combines business genius with a comprehensive knowledge of the art of the theatre. Such a director would immediately find the means to build in New York a theatre embodying the German architectural ideal there is no possi- bility of dodging the fact that it is the best in the world today and in it he would present a series of plays clearly artistic in general tone, and yet commercially successful. He would do this because he would be an opportunist, with an eye to his public. That is, he would vary his ex- periments and his productions of limited appeal with others that leaned toward the tried and ac- cepted formulas; and he would add enough of sensationalism to be sure of sufficient audiences. Of course the resultant theatre would not be so typical an expression of the movement as would a playhouse modelled after the Moscow Art Thea- tre. It would be a compromise; but a compro- mise like the Deutsches Theater would be infi- nitely better than anything now existing in New York. If Max Reinhardt has compromised with the older theatre and with the public, he neverthe- less has made the Deutsches Theater one of the most notable in the world, and in many ways a 47 The Art Theatre model for progressives everywhere. His stage is as completely equipped according to standards of the new stagecraft as any other in Europe, and in staging and choice of plays he has been ready to accept the newest ideas for trial. He has drawn many of the leading German designers and painters to the stage, if not with uniformly satisfying results, still with broadening and grati- fying effect upon both the theatre and the artists concerned. The acting of his company is one more assurance that the star-system belongs to a lower type of production, and that only with intelligent ensemble acting can the best be accom- plished. And if some of his productions over- shoot the mark, there still is evidence in the suc- cess of most of them that the indispensable factor is thoroughness, unity attained through one di- rector's all-seeing genius. The experience and achievement of one other theatre are peculiarly suggestive when examined beside the American problem not so much, per- haps, in relation to the ultimate American art theatre, but as a guide and encouragement in our beginnings. The Abbey Theatre in Dublin, the theatre of the Irish Players, was founded and has continued as an expression of the amateur spirit. Its first phase was "The Irish Literary Theatre," an ephemeral institution brought into being by 48 The Coming of the Art Theatre three literary artists, Edward Martyn, W. B. Yeats and George Moore typical outsiders. After the Literary Theatre's short career closed, its ideals were taken up, broadened and carried on by the Irish National Theatre, to which the chief new contribution was brought by another theorist, in the shape of a simplified, distinguished mode of acting. A group of native amateur ac- tors under the direction of an inspired leader be- gan that career which has carried the name of the Irish Players through all the dramatic world. Native playwrights, stimulated to effort by the opportunity of seeing their plays sympathetically and intelligently produced, wrote dramas of not only local but universal appeal. Other new im- pulses were added, the most important perhaps being that of Gordon Craig's simplified methods of staging for that added reform of scene to re- form of playwriting and acting. And so there came into being an Irish theatre in which the amateur spirit lived under professional organi- zation, a theatre in which beauty and sincerity were guiding principles. The economic history of the Irish players also holds a lesson for the American theatre. The Dublin project struggled along at first in rented halls and without adequate stage facilities; but at a critical time a woman of wealth recognized 49 The Art Theatre the merit of the workers, remodelled a theatre, offered it rent-free for six years, and provided a small subsidy. It reminds us that most of the really fruitful art schemes find outside financial aid in the years of struggle, and that American little theatres must find several wealthy people with Miss Horniman's insight and generous ap- preciation before the impulse toward an art thea- tre can find full expression. The effect of the art theatres on the general theatrical situation in Europe is interesting, al- though it offers no direct parallel to conditions in America. In Germany the whole country has grown with the movement, and it is not unusual to find in court and commercial theatres occa- sional or even frequent productions approaching art-theatre ideals. The Germans had no monop- olistic, utterly commercialized institution to fight against, and they already had many endowed playhouses. Their problem now is merely to in- crease the already large number of experienced and inspired artist-directors, and gradually to re- organize their theatres with these men in charge. France too has its endowed state and municipal theatres, but it has profited little by the achieve- ment of the art-theatre groups. Indeed, one would say that France had resolved to remain ultra-conservative, or even provincial, so far as 50 The Coming of the Art Theatre theatre art is concerned, were it not for two things: the existence in Paris of the Theatre du Vieux Colombier, founded and directed by the inspired amateur Jacques Copeau; and the un- expected and revolutionary appointment in 1914 to the directorship of the Paris Opera of Jacques Rouche, an arch-progressive. In England the continental art theatres have had unmistakable influence on the development of a group of rep- ertory theatres in the provinces the most hope- ful sign in what would otherwise appear a dra- matic waste. These repertory theatres not only are keeping alive the best heritage of the realistic movement, but are making some progress toward the art theatre's synthetic methods of production. They await only the coming of a race of artist- directors. In its possession of such theatres England is one important step ahead of America. IV In Europe the art theatre revolt was largely amateur, but it had its professional side as well. Its leaders were as likely as not to be secessionists from the regular theatre. But a business despotism begets no artistic rebels and so the whole new movement in America has developed from the outside. In the professional American theatres there were no discerning art- 51 The Art Theatre ists, no men big enough to understand the revo- lution in Europe and to strike out on parallel lines in this country. It remained for college groups and mere theatre-lovers to divine the significance of the Craig-Reinhardt phenomenon, and to begin in their inexperienced way the build- ing of a new theatre. There are those who will tell you that the en- dowed professional art theatre has been tried in America and has failed referring, of course, to the New Theatre. In the first place that institu- tion was not endowed. If it had been, the build- ing would still be given up to experimenting with art, instead of being dedicated as it is now to the most pernicious influences in the American theatre, capitalized sex appeal, musical trash and general Ziegfeldism. In the second place the director of the New Theatre venture, Winthrop Ames, although he stands as the most enlightened of the Broadway managers, has never quite grasped the art ideal in its finest form. He was not the typical artist-director. In certain direc- tions he did wonders at the New Theatre, partic- ularly in the building up of a group of actors in- dividually capable but devoted to the ensemble ideal and his example will prove of value later; but he failed to co-ordinate the departments of 52 The Coming of the Art Theatre staging to the extent of obtaining the unity of impression so typical of art-theatre work. But the most important cause of the New Theatre's failure to establish itself as an integral part of American art life lay in the fact that it tried to begin at the top, in imitation of the most preten- tious European repertory theatres. It was never a native theatre, with roots in American life and with native experience behind it. If we ever have in America a successful institution of the aristocratic sort that the New Theatre was in- tended to be, it will come after the democratic, native art theatre has been established as a part of American cultural life. Disregarding also Winthrop Ames' Little Theatre, since it is merely the most artistic of the commercial theatres its littleness is due largely to the desire to evade fire regulations, and it is a typical long-run, non-democratic, non-native business theatre of the best sort one may ask where, specifically, our first steps toward Ameri- can art theatres are to be found. The spirit of the new movement is to be detected in almost every city in the land, and little theatres are mul- tiplying startlingly. But a thorough sifting leaves most of them in the offensively amateurish class, with not more than a half-dozen carrying 53 The Art Theatre the best of amateur ideals up to a union with professional standards of work. Of these I shall concern myself chiefly with three. First, there is the pioneer Chicago Little Theatre, with its permanent organization which has weathered the severest storms, and which in spite of a curiously unstable position in its com- munity has succeeded in making the largest American contribution toward an art-theatre technique. Second, there is the Arts and Crafts Theatre in Detroit, which is less securely or- ganized for the future, but which in its first year has made America's nearest approach to a season of typical art-theatre productions on a self-sup- porting basis. Third, there is the Washington Square Players group, which, while realizing less clearly the ideals of the art theatre, has made many notable productions, and has pioneered by trying out new methods before the most jaded public in the world. In addition to these I shall have something to say about the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, the Portmanteau Players, the Province- town Players, the Prairie Playhouse at Gales- burg, and the Wisconsin Players, all important in certain connections, but none quite so clearly accomplishing significant work as the three first named. 54 The Coming of the Art Theatre My historical work is done. I have tried so far to show how the American theatre came to its present distressing position, and how a somewhat similar condition in Europe led to the establish- ment of art theatres as a natural corrective. I have sketched our small beginnings and have tried to suggest the direction of natural growth toward a similar corrective in this country. Now I wish to explore in detail the changes which have already come and those which are implied in the art theatre movement, trying to shadow forth ideals, describing methods of production, and outlining systems of organization. By bas- ing my deductions on the experience of the Euro- pean art theatres, and by linking this up with what has been learned by the few advanced ex- perimental playhouses in America, I hope to arrive at conclusions which will help to stabilize the whole progressive movement, which will per- haps enable workers in the little theatres to ar- rive at a clearer conception of the goal we all must strive for, and which, finally, may inspire artists and playwrights with renewed determina- tion and renewed desire to do creative work. 55 CHAPTER III IDEALS OF THE ART THEATRE THERE is, I believe, a distinguishing quality by which the typical art theatre production can be marked off as different from the ordinary production in the commercial theatre. Call it spiritual unity, rhythm, style what you will there is unmistakably an ear- mark of higher art upon it : a something that dis- tinguishes a production of Craig or Reinhardt, of Browne or Hume, from that which bears, let us say, a Shubert or K. and E. label. I believe, moreover, that the attainment of this quality, the development of artists who will expend their genius to bring this elusive something into the playhouse, is the most important problem in the theatre world today. I There is in every important drama a latent art value, as distinguished from dramatic value, or acting value, or spectacular value. This "over- value" is to be realized in the theatre not alone 56 Ideals of the Art Theatre by a synthesis of the clearly marked elements of staging by perfect co-ordination of play, acting, setting and lighting but also by the spiritual transformation of the whole through artistic vision. This implies the existence of a director who is artist enough to harmonize the provi- sional or incomplete arts of the playwright, the actor and the scene designer, and at the same time develop, by a creative method of production, an inner rhythm, an impressionistic unity. It is conceivable that a certain play might be presented in a commercial theatre with the dra- matic "punch" stronger, the acting better and the settings more striking than in a presentation of the same play at an art theatre, and that the latter production would still be the more interest- ing and more satisfying. For the art-theatre method would impart a unity, a harmony of ele- ments and a stylistic impression which the other would wholly lack. The true art theatre will, of course, have better acting and stronger plays than any seen in the commercial theatres today; but the existence of a distinctive art-theatre man- ner of production explains why plays put on by amateur or mediocre professional actors, by such organizations as the Washington Square Players or the Chicago Little Theatre, for instance, oc- casionally afford finer pleasure than that usually 57 The Art Theatre experienced in the best commercial playhouses. The first ideal of the art theatre, then, is not merely simplified and suggestive settings, or en- semble acting, or poetic plays; it is the attain- ment of this elusive quality which makes for rounded-out, spiritually unified productions. Perhaps the best name for it is the synthetic ideal. As it concerns the dramatist the synthetic ideal means that the playwright either must be the di- rector of his own productions, or must submit his written work to the creative processes of an artist-interpreter just as in music the composer must leave his work to the interpretation of a violinist, or pianist, or orchestra-director. The artist-director, if he be not the playwright, must in turn be able to grasp the inner rhythm of the dramatist's work, conceive settings, lighting, act- ing, movement, costuming, etc., in harmony with that rhythm, and at the same time stamp the visual result with his own individual genius. As it concerns the actors, the scene-builders, the electricians and the other workers on the stage, it means that they must always be obedient to the will of the director, working sympathetically, "with answering minds," to create the one desired impression. It is true that the actor may enjoy a certain latitude of interpretation, but it must 58 Ideals of the Art Theatre always be within such limitations that it will not disturb the ensemble as visualized by the director. The synthetic ideal is big enough to embrace many creeds of playwriting and many types of play. It has room not only for the imaginative, poetic and symbolic, but for the realistic and romantic. The synthetic method is applied most easily to plays with a clearly denned "atmos- phere" about them the plays, say, of Maeter- linck or Euripides or Dunsany; but it is possible to apply it also to Ibsen, to Hauptmann, to Mase- field; and it is not impossible that even Shaw might be brought by this method more completely into the theatre although as yet the realistic drama leans too far toward life to claim an un- disputed place in art-theatre production. The written play itself confines the producing artist within certain limits. But since the di- rector's work is creative, since he reinforces the poet's conception by bringing to the staging an originality of his own, no two directors will ar- rive at exactly the same result: each will impart his own distinctive touch, or evoke a particular mood. Thus the synthetic result always bears the stamp of the personality of the artist-director ; it reflects his peculiar manner of producing the play as distinguished from the manner of any other producer, and it reveals the quality of his 59 The Art Theatre individual artistic vision. In the spiritual "over- tone" it bears the stamp of his genius, and in the technique of production it is instinct with his "style." This individual, personal element prevents the synthetic ideal from ever becoming merely the concern of an over-specialized group, or the pur- suit of a single theory of production. If any number of our little theatres become art theatres that is, start definitely and intelligently the search for the principles underlying art-theatre technique we shall have as many types of syn- thetic production as there are artists in the move- ment. II The synthetic ideal, although seldom called by that name, lies behind the indeterminate longing, theorizing, and actual work of practically all the important insurgents of both Europe and America. It is what Adolphe Appia sought when he tried to create an "inner unity" for the Wagner music- dramas by binding the setting and action to the music through atmospheric lighting. Taking his pattern of moods from the music, he designed a series of lighting effects in perfect harmony with the emotional and spiritual sequence of the 60 Ideals of the Art Theatre drama; he subordinated the settings through simplification and by throwing over them a veil of light or darkness, really substituting creative atmosphere for the usual painted or plastic scene; and he intensified the action by cunning manipu- lation of light and shade, playing groups of ac- tors against masses of shadows and bursts of light, or half -revealing them in foggy greys. Appia's great contribution to the modern search for an art-theatre technique lies in what he taught later artists about the harmonizing value of lights. The synthesis sought by Gordon Craig is one in which movement largely takes the place of psychological action, but in which scene, colour, lights, voice and music have place. In order to achieve perfect unity of these various elements, he would if possible have the artist-producer be playwright, designer of settings, lighting and cos- tumes, and composer of the music, as well as di- rector. In case he cannot write his own drama he must experience a complete vision of the origi- nal poet's intention. Craig goes farther than any other leader in his insistence upon the absolute necessity of a man of vision in the director's po- sition, and he would give that man the greatest breadth of original invention. He writes: "I let my scene grow out of not merely the play, but from broad sweeps of thought which the play 61 The Art Theatre has conjured up in me. . . . We are concerned with the heart of this thing, and with loving and understanding it. Therefore approach it from all sides, surround it, and do not let yourself be attracted away by the idea of scene as an end in itself, of costume as an end in itself, or of stage management or any of these things, and never lose hold of your determination to win through to the secret the secret which lies in the creation of another beauty, and then all will be well." That is a poet's statement of the art theatre's problem and its ideal: "the creation of another beauty" while "concerned with the heart of" the dramatist's play, "and with loving and un- derstanding it." In solving the problem Gordon Craig came to many radical conclusions, regard- ing subordination of setting, repression of the personality of the actor, designed movement, and the value of colour and light in creating atmos- phere, which have since become commonplaces of the new movement. He arrived at other con- clusions that have been slower of acceptance. Because the average actor was unable to sink his personality entirely in that of the character played, because he could not make himself clay in the director's hand, Gordon Craig was at one time ready to work with puppets only. And 62 Ideals of the Art Theatre when he was pursuing a synthetic art of the theatre based on decorative movement of figures, colours and lights, he was ready to discard the spoken word, since it seemed to be an interruption of the mood. But in all his experiments, through all his changing theories, the chief end has been the creation of mood, the evoking of a single im- pression in place of the scattered appeals of the usual dramatic production. Since this first ideal of the art theatre, this creation of another beauty, is outwardly visible only in the setting, the lighting and the method of acting, it is easy for the shrewd opportunist to pick up the external features and achieve a sort of caricature of the true art-theatre produc- tion, without grasping the secret heart of the thing. The difference between the old sort of production and the new seems to lie entirely in the manner of staging; and so the astute com- mercial manager picks up a few mannerisms, gives out that he is staging in the new method, and draws a crowd. Even so eminent a director as Max Reinhardt cannot be entirely freed from the charge of man- nerism: he has often made the method obtru- sively evident, to the loss of the original author's intended effect. There is no doubt that he has achieved a unifying system; but the unity often 63 The Art Theatre is something superimposed by Reinhardt, and not a synthesis growing out of the heart of the play. m Stylization in its broadest sense means the uni- fying of the play by carrying a definite "style" through all parts of the production. In this broad interpretation the term is a synonym for synthetic treatment. Stylization has recently been narrowed by many writers to mean the ap- plication of individual style to the play's settings. But even when the unifying process is thus con- fined to the mise-en-scene, it is still a powerful factor in imparting continuity and singleness of impression to the production. It happens that the designing of appropriate settings is the direction in which all countries have made greatest progress toward the new ideal. The artists concerned have developed certain in- ventions which are definite aids to the attainment of synthetic effect. New lighting systems make possible the creation of atmospheric effects which are delicately attuned to the most subtle emotional or spiritual values of the play; new mechanical devices make possible rapid change of scene, thus doing away with the long between-acts waits which used to do so much to destroy continuity 64 Ideals of the Art Theatre of interest and mood; and adaptable settings, wherein certain elements remain through several changes of scene, carrying a subconscious sense of oneness through several scenes, bring a new harmony of background. Kenneth Macgowan speaks, for instance, of "a curious unity" achieved when Joseph Urban used a permanent "skeleton" setting through all the scenes of "The Love of the Three Kings." And William Butler Yeats writes enthusiastically of a lingering "tone" of restful- ness and beauty running through a series of ar- rangements of Gordon Craig's screens. It may be that through the search for the ideal, through applying the unifying principle to the best plays we now know, the art theatres will dis- cover new forms of drama more beautiful than any so far developed. Perhaps that decorative, typically theatric, de-humanized art which many of us have visualized fleetingly while we dreamed over the pages of Gordon Craig's essays will be- come a reality when the art-theatre method is studied, played with, and carried to its most characteristic achievement. It may be that Claude Bragdon will realize his dream of an art of moving colour; or that Maurice Browne and Cloyd Head, already pioneers in America's pur- suit of an art-theatre technique, will prove that beyond all the experiments with the story-plays 65 The Art Theatre of the playwright there lies a sort of rhythmic art of the theatre as yet ungrasped and only half-guessed. But until we restore artistic unity to the stage, until we fit the play again to the theatre and learn thereby the secret of unified impression until, in short, we follow up the first ideal of the art theatre, synthetic production we cannot achieve what lies beyond. IV Because it has been sadly neglected by the commercial playhouse, a second ideal of the art theatre stands out clearly a minor one, when measured beside that so far considered, but im- portant. It is the experimental ideal. Recently a group of little theatres has come into existence devoted entirely to the trying out of the work of beginning playwrights and stage decorators. The most important example is the playhouse of the Provincetown Players. Such theatres seldom make any claim to the creation of finished works of art. In the first place they are usually crip- pled by inadequate stage equipment; in the second place they prefer to concern themselves with art in the making rather than with the pol- ished product. There is a legitimate place at present for such theatres; they are, indeed, im- mensely important because they offer almost the 66 Ideals of the Art Theatre only laboratory facilities for the playwright who refuses to play the game in the commercial way. These theatres seem to me to be a sort of be- tween-times expedient. They are a first step toward the establishment of an adequate non- commercial theatre. When the American art theatres are built on their foundations, the ex- perimental ideal must be preserved; but all the present crudities must disappear in the plays presented before a public. The art theatre must be a show place, a gallery rather than a studio. But the point is that it must not become merely a museum. It must keep in touch with the pres- ent and the future as most European endowed theatres do not, to their present dishonour. It seems, then, that the art theatre must have its workshop annex. It must allow the author who is not quite ready for a professional production, facilities for seeing his play acted on a stage; for he will learn more in that way in two hours than in ten years of studying and writing in his library. The Wisconsin Players already have their work- shop stage, whereon members try out their plays before carrying them out to larger audiences ; and the Moscow Art Theatre has its "studio" for the same purpose. Provision for such a feature should be made in every art theatre plan. 67 The Art Theatre A third ideal which every art theatre should keep before it is that of sound business manage- ment. When the little theatre groups righteously and courageously revolted against the business monopoly of the regular theatre, they scorned the good as well as the bad of the commercial system. In the regular theatre the artist had been obscured in the business man; now the business man was lost entirely in the visionary artist. The result has been a notorious series of financial failures among the little theatres. The fault must be corrected before the change to the estate of art theatre can be made. To quote Winthrop Ames, it is necessary "to avoid the artistic disadvantages of purely commercial management, and still to re- main self-supporting" which is to say, self- supporting under the terms of whatever endow- ment the theatre may have. Of this ideal I shall say more in the chapter on Organization and Management. VI Many little theatres have set up what they call an ideal of intimacy, by which they mean that they want to bring the audience into close rapport with the actors on the stage. The truth is that 68 Ideals of the Art Theatre no production in the theatre is good until it does bring a sense of intimacy to the spectator. There are spectacular plays which may be fitted for immense stages and barn-like auditoriums; but any play which has to do with the art theatre demands a representation which will hold the audience in spiritual communion with what tran- spires on the stage. It seems to me that this sort of play can be as intimately produced in a theatre seating six or eight hundred people as in one seat- ing one or two hundred. The ideal of intimacy is really included in what I have called the syn- thetic ideal; for if a mood is created, the sympa- thetic reaction will come as readily in the larger as in the smaller place. The ideal of intimacy has even been destructive in certain little theatres. The crowding of stage and auditorium has destroyed the illusion, the conventional relation of artist and audience by which art is made to live. The spectator, in- stead of looking at the action through a frame and accepting the convention, and so being freed to imagine himself a part of the action, is pushed so close to the stage that he is continually con- scious of the actors as people. I, too, want to bring the spectators into touch with the action in such a way that they will lose themselves completely in the beauties revealed, 69 The Art Theatre and that their souls will be purged by their ex- perience of the dramatic story ; but it seems to me that many of the devices adopted ostensibly for this purpose are likely to do more harm than good. I am not even convinced that the apron stage offers any considerable advantages except in very exceptional cases, and I am totally out of sympathy with the practice of bringing players to the stage through the auditorium. The Port- manteau Players' placing of the figures of Mem- ory, Prologue and You in the audience is nothing more than a bit of childishness, and Reinhardt's and Ziegfeld's processions through the audi- torium are merely "stunts" designed to attract by their novelty. We must distinguish more clearly between an art of the people Percy MacKaye's "civic drama," in which masses of people partici- pate and an art presented by artists for the peo- ple to enjoy by seeing and hearing. The latter sort is likely to be more intimate than the other, and nothing is to be gained by bringing tag-ends of the performance before the curtain-line. It would be equally logical to paint the edges of a picture across the frame with extensions to the wall on either side, in an effort to increase illu- sion. The result is a violation of the law of conventionalization, of the tacit understanding between artist and spectator that the one shall 70 Ideals of the Art Theatre confine his illusion within certain limits, and the other accept and forget the limitation. The ideal of intimacy in the theatre implies not an exten- sion of the action into the auditorium, but pro- jection of the mood of the action to the spectator by means of an all-sufficient artistic expression behind the curtain-line. VII When one realizes all that the synthetic ideal implies, it becomes very clear that its attainment is impossible in the commercial theatres. Not only do the businessmen who monopolize the regular institution lack the necessary vision and artistic insight, but the great majority of business theatres are so bad architecturally that they would be impossible bodies for the soul of the new art. The most enlightened of the commercial pro- ducers, Winthrop Ames, with his finely equipped and wholly charming Little Theatre, might by a mere change of policy take place in the pioneer ranks of art theatre directors. But it is a trans- formation possible to not more than two or three of those now engaged in the gambling game on Broadway. What, then, will be the relation of the success- ful art theatre to the business theatre? So long as the art theatres are crippled financially and 71 The Art Theatre the commercial theatres wealthy, the businessmen will continue to take many of the best actors and decorators developed by the new movement, and they will buy the rights to Dunsany plays even though they cannot stage them adequately. Even after the art theatres are properly endowed the theatre speculators will doubtless continue to take away a certain number of ideas, men, and oc- casionally plays, as they are proved of financial as well as artistic value. But the art theatre as an institution should be so firmly established that it will not have to deal with the commercial theatre except on its own terms. That means that America must have sooner or later a group of local art theatres covering every city of im- portance from coast to coast; 1 so that a play which proves its worth in Chicago can immedi- ately be prepared for presentation by the artist- directors at the local theatres of Boston and San Francisco. There is already the basis for such 1 It is true that many American cities now have stock companies ; but these are in no sense art theatre groups. They are organized to compete with the commercial travelling companies, and their standards in choice of play and staging fall to the business theatre level. They feel that they must be in the high-rent district, and there is the consequent necessity of playing eight times each week and making weekly changes of bill thus mercilessly overworking the actor and leaving ragged ends in staging. The average Amer- ican stock theatre is characterized by haste and compromise of art for profit. 72 Ideals of the Art Theatre an exchange, plays which are first tried out by the Provincetown Players, for instance, being seen later on the stage of the Washington Square Players, and then going by little theatre channels to St. Louis, Detroit and other centres. Nothing will be able to prevent New York from sending its endless stream of revues, musical comedies and plays of the moment's mode, with their "second" companies, to the road towns. But it is likely that on the road there will come a clear separation of the art of the theatre from the amusement business; and the events that have to do with dramatic art will centre at the native playhouse. A typical art-theatre production may occasionally go into the commercial circuit, but it will be the exception. This is true not only on account of the artistic short-sightedness of man- agers and workers in the majority theatre, but because the art-theatre play by its very nature is unsuited to quick transportation, hasty installa- tion and the interpretation of commercially trained actors. The distinguishing mark the sense of unity, the subtlety of mood, the attain- ment of the primary synthetic ideal demands a theatre and a drama of its own. 73 CHAPTER IV THE ARTIST-DIRECTOR THE one figure about which the activity of an art theatre centres is that of the artist- director. He it is who gives the theatre its individuality and its place in the art world. When one thinks of the Moscow Art Theatre the name of Stanislavsky immediately comes to mind, and the Deutsches Theater just as inevitably sug- gests Reinhardt. Similarly, our own nearest ap- proaches to the art theatre type are directly as- sociated with the names of directors : the Chicago Little Theatre is clearly an outgrowth of the ar- tistic vision of Maurice Browne, and the Arts and Crafts Theatre is definitely stamped with the personality of Sam Hume. The whole ideal of the art theatre, indeed, is such that it demands as the first step toward its attainment the training of a race of such artists of the theatre. The man who has led the fight for a new or- ganization of the theatre is Gordon Craig, and 74 The Artist-Director it was he who first insisted that the cure for pres- ent evils could come only with the development of a new type of theatre artist, a creative, all-seeing, omnipotent director. In a frequently quoted passage which has become a classic among ad- vanced thinkers in the theatre he has indicated the need for artist-directors: "I have many times written that there is only one way to obtain unity in the art of the theatre. I suppose it is unnecessary to explain why unity should be there as in other great arts; I sup- pose it offends no one to admit that unless unity reigns 'chaos is come again.' . . . And now I wish to make clear by what process unity is lost. "Let me make a list (an incomplete one, but it will serve) of the different workers in the theatre. When I have made this list I will tell you how many are head-cooks and how they assist in the spoiling of the broth. "First and foremost, there is the proprietor of the theatre. Secondly, there is the business man- ager who rents the theatre. Thirdly, there is the stage-director, sometimes three or four of these. There are also three or four business men. Then we come to the chief actor and the chief actress. Then we have the actor and the actress who are next to the chief; that is to say, who are ready 75 The Art Theatre to step into their places if required. Then there are from twenty to sixty other actors and actresses. Besides this, there is a gentleman who designs scenes. Another who designs costumes. A third who devotes his time to arranging lights. A fourth who attends to the machinery (generally the hardest worker in the theatre). And then we have from twenty to a hundred under-workers, scene-painters, costume makers, limelight manip- ulators, dressers, scene-shifters, under machinists, extra ladies and gentlemen, cleaners, program sellers : and there we have the bunch. "Now look carefully at this list. We see seven heads and two very influential members. Seven directors instead of one, and nine opinions in- stead of one. "Now, then, 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 reason is a sufficient one, though there are plenty more. "Do you wish to know why there are seven masters instead of one ? It is because there is no one man in the theatre who is a master in himself, that is to say, there is no man capable of invent- ing and rehearsing a play: capable of designing and superintending the construction of both scenery and costume: of writing any necessary 76 The Artist-Director music: of inventing such machinery as is needed and the lighting that is to be used. "No manager of a theatre has made these things his study ; and it is a disgrace to the West- ern theatre that this statement can be made." In order to obtain unity, then, in order to stamp a theatre production with the vision char- acteristic of all true works of art, Gordon Craig wants a director who is master at one and the same time of playwriting, staging, costume and setting design, musical composition, and lighting. This super-artist would stage his production with no other helpers than skilled workmen. I wish that I could have faith in the birth of a race of such artists; but I think that one such genius in a century is a generous estimate of the prob- able world output. If we are to go on to any sort of achievement in our generation or the next, it is probable that we shall have to violate Craig's principle to the extent of separating the functions of playwright, director of staging, and composer of the music. These three men must be made to work together in what may be called group-crea- tion ; but there is not in the world today one man combining in himself the talents necessary to dis- charge the triple creative duty satisfactorily. Nor does it seem to me entirely necessary that the artist-director should be able to write his own play 77 The Art Theatre v and compose the incidental music. If he is able to visualize the play in its deeper, spiritual as- pect if he is able to find its secret heart, and love and understand it, if I may so paraphrase Craig's own words; if he is then able to do all the creative work involved in staging and re- hearsing it; and if he finally is able so to inspire a composer with the feeling, the mood, of the in- tended production that the latter will invent inci- dental music in harmony with the other elements : then he comes as close to Craig's ideal as one can expect in a practical world. And that will be close enough to secure the salvation of the theatre as an art. II While thus desiring to soften Craig's dictum, I do not wish to get so far away from it as does that keen critic and stimulating writer, Huntly Carter. In his interesting book about Max Rein- hardt he outlines a theory of co-operative produc- tion, under which the director is to be only a leader in a group of creative artists, including playwright, stage manager, designer of settings, and so on. I wish, nevertheless, to quote Car- ter's words at some length, if only to reinforce Craig's ideas about unity and direction as funda- mental principles: 78 The Artist-Director "Nowhere is the theatre equipped or organized to give the widest expression to the drama of the soul. As it stands it is quite unable to serve as a house of vision. All that it can do is to show artistic intention, give hints, throw out sugges- tions, offer scraps of vision and imaginative in- terpretation, turn out pretty odds and ends of pic- tures, wonderfully pretty bits of imagination, wonderfully ugly bits of so-called realism, won- derfully deft bits of stagecraft. But nothing it has done or can do in its present condition has brought it or brings it within measurable distance of producing the complete vision, the design of the poet rilled in by answering minds, unified and vital in all respects. . . . "The demonstrable fact is that the theatre al- ways has been, and is still, a vastly inferior, im- perfect, and disjointed instrument of dramatic expression. In England especially is this true. There the surroundings of the theatre are gro- tesque and degrading; its construction is bad, its form obsolete, its design and decoration serve neither to preserve the gravity, dignity, nor sim- plicity of beauty. Its auditorium is rudimen- tary; its three-sided stage belongs properly to the Stone Age; and its lighting, scenery, properties, and other mechanical aids, though effective on occasion, never escape the suspicion of being what 79 The Art Theatre they are theatre stuff. And if the temple is im- perfect, its priests, as Mr. Craig rightly main- tains, are imperfect also. If the construction and mechanical contrivances of the theatre are crude and bad, the human directing, controlling, and interpreting force is not much better. It lacks unity. In short, the great number of units en- gaged in the work of the production of a play are not properly organized as a body to give that play the widest and most complete expression. They have not a vision in common, but they in- terpret each in his own way. As a rule they are a spineless and disjointed crew, without the faint- est conception of a possible unity. . . . "The new and significant thing in the theatre is the expression of the Will of the Theatre by co-ordinated minds, each artist taking the keenest interest in promoting the artistic work of the theatre, each artist desiring to attain the best effect, not only for his own sake, but also for that of his fellow artists. This is what may be called the expression of the Will of the Theatre. It is individual and collective striving of the highest degree. Each artist wills to attain his best individual effect, yet wills to attain the same end as the other members of his group, an end which only collective volition can assure. Thus the Will of the Theatre springs from a common 80 The Artist-Director action and a common sentiment, the love of the artist for the theatre, and its function is to give the widest expression to the Will of the author. Thus Max Reinhardt interrogates the alternative which Mr. Craig puts forward. Apparently he has no sympathy with the Napoleonic tyranny, and aims to replace Mr. Craig's seven-headed director by a seven-headed group of sympathetic and efficient artists who will together produce something as great and individual as a Gothic Cathedral, with all its parts so powerfully and perfectly willed that its infinite worth is apparent to the least of men." The trouble with this sort of collective produc- tion is that artists at least those who are original enough to count find it difficult to work together harmoniously. Usually it is a case of one being strong enough to intimidate the rest, and thus able to "spread" his department at the expense of the others; or else the group breaks up in a row. Unless there is the utmost sympathy between the several artists, moreover, there is great danger that the old lack of co-ordination will creep in: the stage-manager will conceive the play in one mood, the chief actor in another, and the scene- designer in a third, and everybody's teeth will be set on edge when the opening night comes. Huntly Carter's ideas about collective produc- 81 The Art Theatre tion were clearly designed to fit Max Reinhardt's system. For Reinhardt is not a creative artist in Craig's sense; he is a very intelligent organizer who leaves the creative processes to others in the group of which he is leader. Each member of the group is supposed to be "a related part of the complete interpretative mind." But the student of Reinhardt's work soon discovers that he is by no means uniformly successful in harmonizing and relating the several elements. The fame of his productions rests more upon the even accom- plishment of his excellent acting-machine, and upon the pictorial splendor of some of the settings designed by "his artists," than upon attainment of an artistic unity within each play. He has brought together the most remarkable group of managers, actors, artist-designers, and workmen ever associated in one theatrical project; but he has yet to prove that the collective creation of such a group, when directed by an organizer rather than an artist, can have the same distinct- ive, all-pervading atmosphere as the productions of a true artist-director. m Gordon Craig wants an artist-ruler who will not yield to his helpers any of the creative processes, and who will rule his workers as an 82 The Artist-Director autocrat; Huntly Carter wants free expression in a group of artists, with merely an organizer to hold the group together. It is probable that the practical ideal lies between the two views. My own idea of the probable working-out of the matter is this: the theatre will accept Craig's figure in his general aspect of artist-ruler, but will free him from the necessity of writing his own play and music. This, it seems to me, is possible because : first, the playwright's work is in a sense a finished product, and there is no danger of a clash over it his script is the starting point, and the director is free to take it or leave it; and second, music is so much an art of mood that the composer, once understanding the require- ment, is extremely unlikely to produce a score out of keeping with the playwright's intention or the director's conception. These two points aside, I believe that Craig's described artist of the theatre must and will be realized before we can have an art theatre worthy of the name. He will combine the creative offices of the following "artists" of the existing theatre: director, stage- manager, designer of settings, designer of cos- tumes, designer of lighting. For the work of these men is such that disarrangement in one di- rection means disarrangement in all the others. He must feel the production in all its parts, 83 The Art Theatre and he must then have power to confirm or veto the contributions brought forward by those in the departments of lighting, acting and setting. But he does not necessarily have to do the work of all these men; indeed, he would be foolish not to simplify his own task by turning over to helpers such tasks as their capabilities fit them to do. The distinction, perhaps, should be one based on imagination. His must be the imaginative con- ception of the effects to be created in each de- partment. This leaves to actor and stage as- sistants freedom for self-expression within cer- tain limits, but never to the extent of violating the mood of the whole as established by the di- rector. The theory concerning the artist-director has come to such general acceptance among thinking people that one very seldom hears argument against it except from those who, for business reasons, do not wish to see the theatre led out of slavery. But occasionally a critic insists that the principle is wrong because it means injecting a second artist between playwright and public. The dramatist's work, the argument goes, should be put on the stage according to his instructions as put down in the stage directions, without change. That is exactly like saying that a musical com- position should be played as it is printed and 84 The Artist-Director not by an artist ; or, in other words, that a school- girl with reasonably good mechanical control can give a truer rendering of the composition than can a Paderewski or a Kreisler. A written play, when considered not as literature but in relation to the theatre, is no more a completed work of art than is a music score. The processes of acting, rehearsing, and designing lighting and settings, are creative; and unless there is a co-ordinating mind, a binding artistic sense, the production will be as expressionless, as incoherent, as the school-girl's playing. IV The theatre of the past has seldom if ever known the artist-director. What he brings, a synthesis of the arts, co-ordination of the depart- ments of the playhouse, is modernity's contribu- tion to the theatre. Certain periods in history have been known as the golden ages of playwrit- ing; others are celebrated as the ages of great acting; in still others spectacle reigned supreme. Today we excel in none of these contributive arts; but we have a new conception, a new ideal of a perfect harmony of them all. The past has been willing to accept an incomplete art of the theatre, for the sake of verbal poetry, or inspired acting, or beautiful stage pictures, or because, 85 The Art Theatre seeing the greater ideal, it despaired of attaining it with the imperfect means at hand. The pres- ent, with vastly improved methods of staging, has the ideal almost in its grasp if it breeds art- ists great enough. Goethe in his old age had at least a dim vision of a new art and of a new type of artist who would be its master; and Wagner had a very definite conception of a union of all the arts but, be it noted, of a union rather than a syn- thesis. Then came Craig and Appia, outlining the new theory clearly and pointing to the meth- ods of practical achievement. After them fol- lowed a few men who approximated the artist- director type Stanislavsky, Fuchs, Starke and a host of more or less competent workers seeking the ideal, some rather successfully and others with half understanding. Most of these men direct theatres in Germany. The German regisseur is, indeed, the world's closest approach to a living embodiment of Craig's super-artist. He seldom has more than a small fraction of Craig's own inventive ability, and he does not do his own playwriting. But he is usually an artist of taste, and his special work is the supervision of the production as a whole; he is charged not with creative work in one depart- ment, but with creation of harmony through his 86 The Artist-Director imaginative contribution to every department. He is a master of lighting, he designs the settings, he sets the tone for the actors and supervises their movements and speaking. But the German regisseur could not save the American theatre to art, even if we could import him at pleasure. Our problems are different, and we must begin farther back, with a pioneer type of our own. Putting aside the few Broad- way producers who are big enough artistically to make the leap from commercial managership to art theatre directorship when the appointed time comes, I wish to write at some length of two American examples of the artist-director type who have developed outside the regular play- houses Maurice Browne and Sam Hume. Perhaps the most important point to be noted about Sam Hume is his wide knowledge of both theatres, commercial and insurgent. He knows the regular game, but he has steadfastly refused to be a part of it ever since he first caught glimpses of the new ideal. He has the cultural back- ground which the average person in the com- mercial theatre, whether manager, actor, or de- signer, lacks. But his academic training was mixed with practical work he did not swallow 87 The Art Theatre a college education whole. After four years at a far Western university he left without a degree but with assets which many a graduate has learned to envy later : experience in the leadership of men, and practical training in the work he in- tended to follow. For he had acted not only with amateur groups, but with visiting professional companies, and he had helped in the production of plays on stages both indoors and out. Then followed his brief experience in the commercial theatre, beginning in America and ending in Eng- land. Travel in Europe helped to convince him of the cheapness of standards existing on the English-speaking stage, but it was not until he talked with Gordon Craig that the vision of a new art of the theatre spread before him. In the months during which he worked side by side with Craig he learned much not only about ideals but about the methods through which the great- est of the progressives hoped to revolutionize stage art. By way of maintaining the balance, of keep- ing his grasp on that which the usual worker in the theatre lacks, Hume returned to an Ameri- can university after his association with Craig, gaining a new historical and theoretical perspec- tive on his work, and incidentally decorating himself with two useless degrees. Then followed 88 The Artist-Director a period of directing amateur and semi-profes- sional groups. But it was in 1915 that he first came to wide public notice through an extensive display of models and drawings illustrating mod- ern stagecraft, which he assembled and exhibited in Cambridge, New York, Chicago and Detroit. By that time Hume had the combination of qualifications which fitted him for the work an artist-director is called on to do. First, through his broad education he had the taste which en- abled him to distinguish real drama from the type of play passing current on Broadway. Second, he had enough practical knowledge of the traditional stage to be able to choose such existing mechanical devices and technical aids as might be of use in a theatre constructed ac- cording to the new ideals. And third, he had become thoroughly imbued with the new spirit, and had studied every department of theatre pro- duction playwriting, acting, lighting, setting, stage management in reference to the Craig- Appia-Reinhardt ideal. When Hume was called to Detroit to take charge of the Arts and Crafts Theatre there, he found the opportunity to test and prove his pow- ers as combined artist and director. The breadth of his work is illuminating as showing what problems the pioneer director of an American art 89 The Art Theatre theatre is likely to meet. In the first place he worked with the architects of the Arts and Crafts building, and effected modifications of the stage plans, which resulted in the creation of one of the best little theatre stages in America. He de- signed the lighting equipment and supervised its installation ; and he designed a permanent adapt- able setting, including a modification of the plaster "sky-dome." In the season's productions he was given full charge of every department of creative work, and while he enjoyed the co-operation of a group of enlightened artists, his word was final in every questioned detail. If he did not choose all the plays, it is at least certain that none was decided upon without his approval. He individually de- signed most of the settings, and he worked per- sonally with the artists whose names appeared as designers of the others. He worked out every lighting effect. He tried out, and helped to de- velop by individual training, every actor. And he rehearsed every play, looking after all those matters of movement, gesture and co-ordination of action which, while not noticeable to the audi- ence, are important aids to synthetic effect. In the historical and romantic productions he left only one creative portion of the work to oth- ers. Because certain of his co-workers were 90 The Artist-Director artists as well as expert workers in costume mak- ing, he left to them the dressing of the figures, making sure only that the types were right, and the colours in keeping with the settings. Hume's services to the Arts and Crafts The- atre did not end with complete responsibility behind the curtain. Much of the preliminary work of organization and management, which should be the concern of others in any mature art theatre project, were necessarily left to him as they probably will be in many another little theatre where a professional director is called to a virgin field. He lectured extensively before schools, clubs and assemblies, and otherwise helped to interest the community in the theatre. And he later arranged other lectures and a teach- ers' class in an effort to carry the results of the theatre's work to a wider circle. If the first season at the Arts and Crafts The- atre had accomplished nothing else it still would have been worth while as proving that America has one artist who can be called in to organize and direct a progressive theatre, designing his own stage, if necessary, and then directing a series of productions approaching the best ideals of the art theatre, with expert attention to every creative detail. For Hume has shown himself to be, first, an imaginative artist and inventive innovator, and 91 The Art Theatre second, a born executive and leader of men. He is an example of that type of theatre artist of which America stands in greatest need. VI Maurice Browne, the other typical artist-direc- tor of America, affords an interesting contrast to Hume ; but it is to be noted that his qualifications include the same combination of capacity for leadership with artistic feeling and broad cul- tural training. But Browne's work has been nar- rower in a sense. He has preferred to devote his whole career in the theatre to one playhouse, and I think that he feels that his future is definitely bound up with the movement in Chicago. And he maintains the balance of artist and manager less successfully than does Hume. He is more clearly the artist-thinker certainly more a dreamer and less a practical director. Just because his aesthetic sense is more acute, his the- atre has been concerned more closely (and more successfully) than any other with the pursuit of a typical art-theatre technique and so has been less related to the community in which it exists. Hume is more of a practical idealist, not only in the sense of combining business sense with artis- tic insight, but because he is willing to compromise with his public in order to get his idealistic pro- 92 The Artist-Director ject securely started. Maurice Browne, with the artist's dislike of compromise, stuck to his con- victions, producing a remarkable array of typical art-theatre plays, but ending in temporary bank- ruptcy and insecurity. It is not within my province here to ask which is the better method of course we want the un- compromising spirit of the one achievement, with the financial success and the community solidarity of the other but it is at least worth while to point out the two types in contrast. And it is im- portant to note that Maurice Browne, like Hume, insists upon the importance of concentrating the creative functions of stage work in one artist's hands. He insists that this artist must be more than a mere theorist and designer; he must be a workman as well. He must have knowledge, too, of the older theatre, in order that while look- ing into the future he may keep in touch with the present and avoid the mistakes of the past. I wish to close the chapter with a quotation from an essay which Maurice Browne wrote as a plea for the establishment of an American art theatre : "The man or woman who would establish an art theatre that is an art theatre and not a pet rabbit fed by hand, must be able to design it, to ventilate it, to decorate it, to equip its stage, to light it (and to handle its lighting himself, or 93 The Art Theatre his electricians will not listen to him), to plan his costumes and scenery, ay, and at a shift to make them with his own hand; otherwise his costumer and scene-painter, if he be fool enough to have one, will do strange things to send him nightmares at dawn and terrify his wife; and in addition to all these things that are essential, he will, if he be a wise man, have the stage-conven- tions of the last generation at his finger-tips not merely because some of them are useful and most of them deader than Lazarus and so avoidable with foresight and a good nose . . . but because he is establishing an art theatre, that is to say, imposing a living convention on a dead one, so that it is as well for him to know what the dead one was, and why, for example, Pinero and Suder- mann are of it, while von Hoffmansthal and Abercrombie are not. And finally he will know not merely the names of Nijinski and Craig and Fortuny and half a hundred more, but what they have done, and, most important of all, how and why they have done it. And the reason he must know these things, which the millionaire and the pauper dilettante who are dabbling today in the art of the American theatre do not know, is that he is establishing an art theatre which shall be the temple of a living art." And so the chapter closes. I hope that the 94 The Artist-Director reader will carry in his recollection of it a pic- ture of the artist-director combining qualities of Craig and Reinhardt, Hume and Browne a new man of the theatre who is at once thinking artist and practical workman, dreamer and executive, machinist and priest of the temple that will be the new theatre. 95 CHAPTER V THE QUESTION OF ACTING AND ACTORS WHEN one surveys the whole field of the American theatre, commercial and progressive, one soon discovers that, next to the problem of artist-directors, the most puzzling question facing the art-theatre group is that of acting and actors. In the de- partments of playwriting and stagecraft we have at least arrived at a basis of intelligent experi- mentation, if not at some sort of substantial achievement; but in the matter of acting we are merely in a muddle. The question is two-fold. First, it is necessary to arrive at some understanding of the distin- guishing qualities of art-theatre acting; that is, it is necessary to discover the lasting ideals of acting as an art, and to note the differences, if any, which may be expected to mark off its prac- tice under the synthetic ideal of theatre produc- tion. And second, it is pertinent to inquire where the actors for the art theatre are to come from: whether a certain number or all can be 96 Acting and Actors redeemed from the ways of the business theatre and whether a small minority or perhaps a ma- jority are to come from what are now amateur rather than professional channels. In the commercial theatre the ideals of acting have been lost; or if any remain, they are those which concern the development (and consequent personal glorification) of the individual actor, and are not such as would contribute to the en- semble effect required in progressive theatres. In the average little theatre, on the other hand, the acting has merely "happened"; and if the in- surgent groups have developed an ideal, it has been only that of unconvention a negatively de- cent but somewhat barren ideal, which overlooks beauty of speech, distinction of manner and de- signed group movement. And in those few cases in which amateur and professional have joined hands the Washington Square Players and the Portmanteau Players are examples lack of in- spired direction has left the companies on a low professional plane: they have exhibited neither the smoothness of action of the first-rate profes- sional company, nor the freshness, the felicitous speech and the team-work which alone can make the amateur superior to the commercial player. Where, then, should one seek to find models? Clearly, not in America. Only by a study of 97 The Art Theatre the best acting in European theatres, and par- ticularly in those theatres in which rounded-out, balanced production has been made the chief aim, can one discover a sound basis for a theory of the acting of the future. Of the attributes of great acting which have been all but lost to the theatre in the last quarter- century, the most sadly neglected is beauty of speech. In this country the actors have forgot- ten almost entirely that there is a legitimate ap- peal to the ear in words musically spoken, and our stage has fallen to a dead level of prosaic and slovenly speech. In voice quality and enuncia- tion the standard set in our theatres is not ap- preciably superior to that heard in our barber shops or college halls which is to say that it approaches an ungodly combination of stridency and mumbling. Speech of the sort natural to nine out of ten of the men and women on the American stage can have no place in the scheme of art theatre production. It is clear how the theatre came to such a de- graded standard of speaking. Some decades ago, as an aftermath of the romantic revival, perhaps, the art of acting became a sad caricature of its once beautiful self, through over-accentuation and 98 Acting and Actors an absurd artificiality. Quiet and restrained im- personation was lost in an excess of ranting speech and heroic attitudes. When the naturalistic movement swept the theatre, the artificiality was destroyed, but nothing was invented to take the place of what had once been a legitimate added beauty of the theatre production. Poetry of speech was allowed, so to speak, to pass down and out entirely. The actor jumped from an exag- gerated conventionalization to a method which was supposed to be "perfectly natural." But one cannot capture the illusion of the natural by unrelieved, unconventionalized imitation of chance aspects of life whether in speech or movement or form and colour. Insofar as the actor imitates without betterment the language of the street and the shop, he loses the only thing that can make speech tolerable, not to say lovely, in the theatre. The first requirement for bringing beauty of speech to the stage is a purely mechanical one: clean enunciation. As a nation we are notorious for our slurring methods of utterance. We do not break our words and phrases cleanly. But that is not a reason for accepting careless speak- ing in a work of art on the stage. Actors should rather set an example to the nation. In an art theatre, or in one that makes pretension even to 99 The Art Theatre near-art standards, this should be a first test of the actor. Walter Prichard Eaton recently put it up to the little theatres neatly when he wrote: "The rankest amateur ought to be able to pro- nounce correctly, and enunciate all the syllables of a polysyllabic word without swallowing the penult. If he cannot, he should be politely in- vited to become a professional and join Mr. Cohan's company. When you enter a little thea- tre you ought at least to be confident of hearing better speech than in any Broadway production." The second requirement is partly a matter of physical endowment and partly a matter of train- ing : a musical voice and flexible register. There may be people with "impossible" voices. If so, they should stay off the stage; they are no more fitted to become actors than a one-handed man is fitted to become a pianist. But most voices, if not naturally musical, can be trained so that they are at least passively pleasing; and most of us possess undeveloped tone-registers of which we never even dream. It is the business of schools of acting and studio theatres to develop this quality. But after all, the potentially musical voice is of small importance if it goes not in company with the third requirement: a feeling for the ex- pressiveness of speech. For otherwise the golden 100 THE LOST SILK HAT Acting and Actors instrument in the throat will return to dust with its harmonies una wakened. This matter of feeling is a variable quantity and an elusive quality; but we may be sure that it is never absent from the true actor's make-up. It enables the herald to speak his one line in a manner worthy of his courtly surroundings; and it enables Sarah Bernhardt to ring every change of feeling through the music of her inflection. It is first of all a feeling for the rhythms of speech, for the cadences of the poet's lines; but more than that, it is a reflection and a suggestion of the subtleties and intensities of the emotions that lie hidden behind the action. For words are at best but symbols, and the impression called up depends upon the way of speaking. An inex- pressive voice affords but a hard dry shell of meaning, whereas the same words from the lips of a master of speech may call up visions of pas- sion or of calmness, of tenderness or love or sorrow may afford overtones of feeling other- wise never captured. These two things, then, we may assuredly de- mand of the new acting: that in the speaking there shall be a sequence of musical notes, a pattern of sound that will bring a physical de- light to the ear; and that the voice modulation 101 The Art Theatre shall reflect a delicate understanding of the emo- tion and thought underlying the surface play of words. Poetry of speech is not properly a requirement of poetic productions alone, but should pertain to realistic drama as well. For its beauty is not such that it detracts from interest in the action, but rather is an added loveliness. It is not ornament superimposed, and covering the struc- tural lines, but rather a part of the structure it- self, a part necessary to the expression of truth. There are, of course, poetic dramas which lend themselves particularly to musical interpretation, which allow the actor greater latitude in delicate musical intonation. There are even plays which, on account of lack of action, may be termed liter- ary rather than dramatic, and which may still be staged satisfyingly through the appeal of the spoken poetry, for the sake of the sensuous beauty afforded to the ear. Such are several of the plays of Yeats and Dunsany. But even the realistic play can legitimately add the appeal of distin- guished speaking. Unbeautiful speech, indeed, has no right place on the stage even of a realistic theatre. An exhibition of commonplaceness there is no more to be condoned than are those so-called naturalistic plays which reveal a photographic segment of sordid life. 102 Acting and Actors ii After the music of speech there is a corre- sponding requirement of rhythm in the actor's movements. Not only must his gestures be quietly expressive, but there must be a certain grace of bodily action, and a measured fluidity or rhythm in changes from posture to posture. Just as in the use of the voice, there must be overtones of feeling: the face, the hands, the body and limbs must interpret the subtler emo- tion which are not expressed in the larger actions. For the face when used as a mask, and the body when directed as an instrument of rhythmic ex- pression, can register shades of feeling which are impossible even to the perfectly modulated voice. In the American theatre there used to be gen- erations of actors who possessed the subtlest pow- ers of expression and distinguished grace of bear- ing. The older generation in the theatre today has a charm of manner, a dignity of presence, which shames the average player. If this some- times amounts to a romantic affectation or arti- ficiality, so that we are apt to say disparagingly, "He has the manner of an old actor," it still is no argument for throwing away the principle of beautiful movement. One has only to choose ten young actors and place them beside a typical 103 The Art Theatre representative of the old school, to know that we have lost a real charm from the making of our players of today. For the American stage is slowly being taken over by a generation of actors untrained to the old distinction of bearing, and one that trusts little to delicacy and shading of expression. We have today a commercial stage peopled by personalities, each trained to parade individual idiosyncrasies or to rely on perfect "naturalness" of movement. For this the little theatre players substitute no training at all. At least they have not spent those years of apprenticeship to ex- perience which are necessary to perfect stage pres- ence. One sometimes wonders whether one- fourth nay, one-tenth of the actors blithely ap- pearing on little theatre stages know that there is such a thing as scientific foot-work, or that the best of the older generation went through years of bodily training to gain ease of movement. Expression on the stage may be partly a mat- ter of natural feeling and intuition, although in- tellectual understanding and tortuous training have distinct place there too. But grace of bear- ing, the poetry of movement, can be developed in any one with even an elementary sense of rhythm. The leading two art theatres of Europe, the Moscow Art Theatre and the Deutsches Thea- 104 Acting and Actors ter at Berlin, in order to train their actors and students in the art of movement, have established courses in the Dalcroze system of rhythmical dancing. This, it is to be noted, is not in order to develop dancers, but to give players poise and action-control. Regarding the ideas of Jaques- Dalcroze, Huntly Carter has written as follows: "The inventor has discovered that we all have musical rhythm in us answering to that of the universe, but very few are trained to express it. So he has provided a simple key which any one can apply. He gives his pupils a quantity of musical notes, and leaves each pupil free to com- pose his or her own musical movements. In this view, every movement we make should and could be equivalent to a note of music, and, given the right note, there will be an harmonious re- sponse. If we are trained to realize these notes with the aid of music, soon we come to realize them automatically without its aid. Thus we may, if we like, learn to move through life in compositions in which spontaneous melody and rhythm, and not mechanical, logical, or meaning- less actions, are the essentials." It is perhaps too much to ask that any great number of Americans shall soon "learn to move through life" with anything approaching "spon- taneous melody and rhythm." But we have the 105 The Art Theatre right at least to ask that our dramatic schools and art theatres, when they come shall train actors in the principles of some such system as Jaques-Dalcroze has invented. Beyond the matter of individual action, which is summed up in expression, gesture, and personal bearing, there is a wider group action, a designed relationship between player and player, which is too seldom practised intelligently in the Ameri- can theatre. This is due partly to the scramble for the centre of the stage, on the part of the "big" actors, and partly to the filling in of minor parts with mere "support," so that certain char- acters are played up continually, while others do their work either perfunctorily or inexpertly; but it is due chiefly to the lack of directors with sufficient artistic knowledge to make the play a concert of movement. The group-playing of the Irish Players comes to mind as an excellent example of unpretentious but intelligent related acting. Without emphasizing personalities, they always managed to throw the speaker into relief, the other actors falling into a background neces- sary to the picture but never interrupting the main motive; and there was about their stage groupings a gratifying smoothness, almost a fluidity of movement. In certain poetic produc- tions, and particularly in those which rely upon 106 Acting and Actors the appeal to the eye as much as the appeal to the ear, it is possible to keep the grouping almost constantly in the realm of pictorial design. Maurice Browne is a genius in the application of the principles of pictorial composition to stage arrangement, and in several of his productions the figures have been so disposed that the eye was enchanted by a continual series of charmingly composed pictures. Such grouping can be over- done, to the harm of the spiritual content of the drama but so far it has been radically un- derdone on the American stage. m Having arrived at some understanding of the elementary ideals of acting, having discovered what things have been lost out of the art through its commercialization, one may ask how the act- ing at a typical art theatre may be expected to differ from that at any commercial theatre which may also raise its standard to include musical speaking, expressive and pleasing action, and in- telligent group-playing. In the first place there will be a quietness of tone pervading the art theatre in the playing as in every other depart- ment of production. For this is to be the temple of the highest art, and high art is always marked by reticence and a reverential rather than a for- 107 The Art Theatre ward spirit. This quieter method of acting, moreover, will be the means of bringing a truer balance, of giving the wider dramatic meaning fuller scope for expression. William Butler Yeats, who has been particularly concerned with methods which would do justice to poetry spoken on the stage, once wrote in praise of the acting of the Irish Players: "It was the first perform- ance I had seen, since I understood these things, in which the actors kept still enough to give poetical writing its full effect upon the stage." From practically all the European theatres in which the art-theatre ideal has been sought, critics report that the acting has been marked by a com- bination of quietness and distinction. Just as, under the synthetic ideal, the setting must be un- obtrusive enough to avoid interference with the action, and the lighting modified to harmonize with the mood of the drama, so the acting must avoid the flamboyant and the noisy, in order that the soul of the play may shine through unob- scured by a too-compelling "bit" on the actor's part. The star system will have no place in art thea- tre organization. In any production which has a purpose more serious than playing up a darling of the managers and the public, it is necessary that a balance of parts be maintained, that the 108 Acting and Actors emphasis be put not on one figure, with mere fillers to complete the picture, but on the en- semble. The implication of the star system is, moreover, that it is the acting, and not the play as produced, that counts most. At least the system has so worked out in America, where the commercial exploitation of stars has had its most deplorable effects on playwriting. But a somewhat para- doxical result is noticeable: while the system be- gan by exalting the art of acting at the expense of the other arts of the theatre, it ended by de- stroying that art with the others. The big fel- lows among the actors, through being raised above the other artists of the playhouse, lost their per- spective and failed to preserve the true relation- ship between the contributive arts, and so failed to grow bigger. And the little fellows tried to imitate the big fellows, and so fell into a mess of trickery, instead of developing their own native talents on a firm foundation. The temptation to create stars, moreover, was so great that cer- tain managers began to push up actors who, through prettiness or some other personal charm, were likely to catch the public eye, but who were lacking in the thorough training and depth of feeling necessary to make them truly great. A false standard was thus created, which has re- 109 The Art Theatre suited in personality becoming the curse of mod- ern acting. This fallacy which lifts personality above pow- ers of impersonation must be combated by the art theatres. It is true that the actor usually lends additional colour to his role through per- sonal distinction, through beauty, or strength or grace of manner. But it is nevertheless true that he must subordinate his own individuality to that of the character played. If he happens to possess the charm of a John Drew he should not substitute the charming John Drew for the character the playwright intended, for that char- acter was probably meant to be charming in a different way; and he should not order plays specially designed to display his charm. It is, indeed, the duty of the actor to sink his own personality, his feelings, the little personal ways that endear him to his friends, even his attractive appearance, in an illusion of some one else. He must forget himself entirely. In so saying, I do not mean that he should substi- tute emotional for intellectual control, for I be- lieve firmly that the best acting arrives by de- sign and is absolutely controlled by the intel- ligence. But he must forget his individuality, he must renounce personal ambition in ambition for the whole play, he must assume the disinterested- UO Acting and Actors ness which marks the great creative figure in any art. But more than this, he must in the art theatre submit to direction. If his conception of a part differs from that of the director (as seldom will happen if he has in mind the higher ideal of the play's success), he must be obedient to the lat- ter's decision. For we have seen that true art- theatre production is premised on a collective ideal, and on complete control by the guiding genius of an artist-director. This submission to authority does not mean surrender of the player's interpretative function; it means only that he must be concerned with the interpretation of the play first, and with his individual work after that. He may be just as great an artist under the director's guidance; indeed, he is likely to appear greater because he will be in perfect harmony with his surroundings. He is usually as free to interpret creatively as he is under the go-as-you-please system now in vogue in the American theatre. He merely promises that he will keep his work within such limits that it will not upset the other elements of the production or clash with the work of the other actors. And these limits are set by an artist instead of a busi- nessman or a businessman's stage-manager. The actor is left free to think out the character- 111 The Art Theatre ization, and there is no limit to the subtlety or intensity which he may display in its playing, so long as he does not arrogate to himself func- tions that properly belong elsewhere. The scope for individual technique is as great as before, but within the limits of harmony with his fellows. IV In European countries it is possible to find actors with such thorough training in speaking and with such grace of bearing that the develop- ment of an art theatre company may be a matter of months rather than years. Even in England, where the actor-manager system has interfered with the development of companies devoted to the ideal of ensemble acting, the standard of speech is gratefully high, and infinitely better than that prevailing on the American stage. But on this side of the Atlantic the question of pro- curing a satisfactory company for a professional art theatre is exceedingly puzzling. It is probable, of course, that we shall not have for several years an art theatre of high profes- sional standing: that is, we shall not have play- houses and companies that will bear the relation- ship to our business theatres which the Deutsches Theater and the Munich Art Theatre, for in- stance, bear to the commercial theatres of Ger- 112 Acting and Actors many. But if the other factors necessary to the establishment of such a theatre in an American city should become immediately available, where should we turn for the actors? By paying an exorbitant price for the very best people in the commercial theatre, it might be possible to form one or even two satisfying American com- panies but the price would probably be so high that immediate bankruptcy would result. Ex- cept for this high-priced, very small minority, there would be practically no native actors equal to the demands of such an institution. The aver- age American player not only lacks the required artistic training and cultural background, but would have absolutely no sympathetic under- standing of the ideals and aims of an art the- atre. The likely alternative, in case of an early es- tablishment of art theatres, would be the selec- tion of a company of British actors. Moderately talented English players, with real distinction of voice and bearing, could be employed for moder- ate prices. 1 And since, unlike our American product, they would probably be educated ladies and gentlemen, they could within a season or two 1 For many years Winthrop Ames, who understands the qualities of good acting better than any other commercial manager, has been importing English actors for his productions. 113 The Art Theatre be trained to the peculiar requirements of the art- theatre play. The full-fledged professional art theatre, how- ever, is not likely to materialize immediately. It is much more probable that each city will have its preliminary experiment in the direction of such an institution. The first step is that which many cities are taking now San Francisco, Denver, Rochester, St. Louis, are examples the establishment of little theatres, amateur in acting and stage setting, under directors who are either amateurs or professionals of the old school. In the result attained these are not often notably bet- ter than the old-time aimless social-dramatic club. But usually they have seen some glimmering of the synthetic ideal; and in choice of plays and in stagecraft they are usually progressive. The second step is that which has been accomplished at Chicago and at Detroit, and by the Washing- ton Square Players in New York: a lifting of the experimental ideal to a definite search for an art-theatre type of play and technique of produc- tion. These theatres have been stabilized to a certain extent, and there has been a definite and intelligent effort to professionalize them while retaining the best of the valuable amateur ideals. 114 Acting and Actors After such theatres we may expect to see various stages in the professionalizing process, until we ultimately arrive at the ideal of the European art theatre. The most important question at the present stage, the question facing every little theatre that looks forward to an achievement such as that at Chicago or Detroit, is this : is it better to use ama- teur or professional actors? The Washington Square Players have chosen to call themselves professionals, and they have gathered into their company many players who have had experience on the commercial stage. The results do not argue eloquently for the system: the acting has been a notably weak link in the Washington Square achievement it has had neither the fresh- ness of good amateur work nor the ease and fin- ish of the best professional playing. The Port- manteau Players, who have tried to attain certain of the art-theatre ideals with a group of young players chosen from the commercial theatre, have been equally unsuccessful in attaining ensemble acting in perfect harmony with the spirit of the play. The argument for the other side I wish to take from Sam Hume, who has had experience in pro- duction under both systems. At the Arts and Crafts Theatre he has had only amateurs in his 115 The Art Theatre company, with results that compare favourably with the work of the Washington Square Play- ers and the Portmanteau Players. Certainly the acting has been no more ragged in general, and in the directions of speaking poetic lines music- ally and creating group-harmony it has been superior. Hume's summary of the situation runs like this : At the present stage of the art theatre movement we are limited, by the small audiences so far developed for the best forms of drama, and by certain exterior circumstances, to a small expenditure each year. If a little theatre pays actors' salaries it cannot do justice to the other demands of art theatre production. The class of actor it can afford to pay, moreover, is not able to do as good work as the best type of ama- teur. It is unwise to pay a few "leading" actors and then fill in with amateurs, because one thereby creates an undemocratic atmosphere and a basis for petty jealousies and disputes. It is better, therefore, to use only amateurs, at least until such time as the theatre can afford the very best professionals. A paid company, moreover, is necessarily small, and one can choose from a much wider field when using amateurs. The advantages of amateur companies have been brought out clearly during Hume's season at the Arts and Crafts Theatre. In the first 116 SAM HUME AS ABRAHAM AND FRANCES LOUGHTON AS ISAAC Acting and Actors place they submit more willingly to direction; they have not the professional actor's obsession that the old method is right, and they conform to the ensemble method more easily. They are free, moreover, from those artificialities and tricks which mark the commercial theatre player, and which the art theatre director must cure be- fore starting serious work. They are working for love of the theatre, and not for pay ; and their acting is therefore less likely to be perfunctory. They are as a class far better educated and bet- ter bred than the usual actor, and so they more easily grasp the essential idea of art theatre pro- duction. It is necessary to add that in most ama- teur companies there is a sprinkling of players with more or less professional experience. At Detroit certain ones had been with travelling and stock companies, others had played bits here and there, and many, of course, had been leaders in amateur dramatic clubs. In other words, the av- erage player in such a company as that at the Arts and Crafts Theatre does not come to the director as raw material. If he needs an actor with the professional trick, to "carry" a scene, one is at hand; and if he wants the sincerity, the fresh charm and the intelligence of amateurs with a stage sense, he is likely to be over-supplied. In every American city there is this two-fold source : 117 The Art Theatre first, a group of intelligent, if untrained, amateurs who at least have a feeling for stage work; and second, a group of men and women with pro- fessional experience, who have left the stage to marry and settle down, or because they found life in the commercial theatre uncongenial. Perhaps the weightiest argument against the use of amateur players is in the lack of directors who combine a knowledge of the art of acting with an understanding of the newer ideals of stag- ing. For unless the actors are trained by some one with ability as an artist and with long experi- ence of the stage, they either remain patently un- trained or else become poor manipulators of the professional's bag of tricks. The other serious argument against unpaid amateur players is that they cannot be depended upon for continuous work throughout the season. Family, business and social obligations may call them from the theatre at critical moments. There is also a rea- sonable limit to the number of performances they can be asked to give in any one month, thus limiting the theatre to peripatetic productions. By casting plays with one group the first month and utilizing a different group the second, and alternating as necessary, a regular schedule of say one week's productions each month can be counted on. But the fact remains that it will be 118 Acting and Actors impossible to take the final step toward the es- tablishment of an art theatre playing a continu- ous season without adopting a system under which actors are paid. On the other hand it is well to remember that practically all the progres- sive theatres in Europe started with scattered per- formances. Just here it is necessary to enquire what dis- tinguishes amateur actors from professionals. The original connotation of the word "amateur," of one who loves his work, must not be overlooked. The true amateur of the theatre is the man or woman who acts for love of the art, and not primarily as a means of support. There can be no hard and fast line drawn, with the amateurs grouped on one side because they do not receive pay, and the professionals on the other because they are financially reimbursed for their appear- ances. It is rather a matter of the spirit in which one approaches the work. To my mind the Chi- cago Little Theatre company is distinctly amateur I say so in praise and not in disparagement. Despite the fact that the players receive a small wage, they are held together primarily by a pas- sion for the art of the theatre. There is no temp- tation for them to become mere time-servers, for them to stoop to the commercial-professional's vice of learning the tricks that will bring the 119 The Art Theatre most money. They have passed the early stages of amateurism, so that their work for a cause is both recognized and stabilized by the payment of a small monetary return; they are on the road to the best sort of professionalism, in which serv- ice to art is rewarded by a reasonable means to living. But they remain amateurs in spirit. In paying his players Maurice Browne has avoided, as no other little theatre director has, the disadvantages implied in Sam Hume's theory that a progressive theatre can obtain better results with the best unpaid amateurs than with the sort of professional it can afford to employ. Browne has accomplished this because, when he was able to pay, he did not turn to the professional market, but continued with his amateurs. While he has not built up a company that is ideal according to art theatre standards, he has made such progress in attaining co-ordination and unity of mood in acting that his opinion concerning amateurs is worth quoting. Four years ago he wrote: "Professional actors and actresses, all of them incidentally once amateurs themselves, are care- fully trained in certain stage-conventions, which after a time become second nature to them; these conventions are different from the new stage con- ventions which the leaders of the Art Theatre movement are inventing, and therefore those 120 Acting and Actors trained in them are not directly helpful to such leaders, just as a man trained in classics is not directly helpful to a bridge builder; their uses are different. And, just as a bridge builder would sooner have for pupil a boy without any training than a boy with a training alien to his own, so the director of an Art Theatre prefers to have players without any training (i.e., amateurs) than players trained in an alien convention. Moreover, the professional, so-called, in any walk of life, usually works primarily for money, while the amateur, so-called, that is to say the volunteer, works primarily for love of the work." It is well to remind ourselves just here that both the theatre of the Irish Players and the Mos- cow Art Theatre had their beginnings in amateur organizations. It seems likely that our American art theatres will grow from the same foundation that Hume and Browne with their amateur players will rear institutions more lasting and more important than those initiated by such well- meaning reformers as the founders of the New Theatre in New York. It is probable, further, that such an early abandonment of the amateur basis as that effected by the Washington Square Players will prove exceedingly unwise. It neces- sarily entails surrender to many stultifying con- ventions of the commercial theatre. The ama- 121 The Art Theatre teur spirit, love of the art, will be the foundation rock of the new edifice; and players steeped in a tradition alien to that spirit can have little part in the building. As the typical art theatre com- pany develops its own sort of professionalism, there will be a certain accretion of players from commercial ranks from that small minority who are dissatisfied with the actor's low estate under the business system. But the spirit of the organization will take rise in the qualities and perceptions of those of its members who preserve the amateur feeling. VI Of the position of the actor under the ultimate art theatre I shall have something to say in a later chapter. But here I wish to point out two facts: the degradation from the position of artist to the position of a shopkeeper with a line of shop-worn goods to sell has resulted from an or- ganization under which the actor was relieved of responsibility and deprived of direct interest in his company's doings; and second, the loss of the best traditions of his art was due to the long- run and circuit systems, under which the player was denied opportunity to play varied roles, and the leisure and incentive necessary to make him a student in the broader sense. These faults will 122 Acting and Actors be corrected in the art theatre, where the actor will again become a co-operative partner, if not in ownership, at least in the artistic administra- tion of the theatre. He will be employed under annual contract, with certain pension rights and proprietary interests accruing with added years of service. The theatre will be his in a very true sense, and it will secure to him those advan- tages of permanency, of breadth of opportunity, and of balance of work and recreation, which are necessary to his finest development. 123 CHAPTER VI THE QUESTION OF PLAYS THE typical art theatre play differs sig- nally from the typical play of the com- mercial theatre. The distinction is the same, perhaps, as that which divides literature from journalism. Broadway is concerned with a journalistic product direct, obviously appeal- ing, sensational, ephemeral. The art theatres are, or will be, devoted primarily to something subtler and more specialized in its appeal. To define this higher type of drama would be to define art which generations of scholars have failed to do clearly and simply. It has to do, of course, with beauty, truth, seriousness. Beyond that I must leave each reader free to form his own exact boundaries between the drama of the art theatre and the merely amusing or shocking or topical play. i Just as the newspapers and cheap magazines occasionally publish poems or stories or essays characterized by real literary value, so the busi- 124 The Question of Plays ness theatres occasionally mount plays which be- long in the art-theatre group. Perhaps it is true that the really great play, beautifully staged, will interest both audiences. But as a rule Broad- way plays run true to the journalistic type. And as a rule the advanced art theatres tend to a type of production that appeals to a comparative few because we are not yet a cultured nation. The question then arises: shall the American embryo art theatres immediately set up an advanced ideal of play which will cut them off from the patron- age of any but a very small audience? Or shall they compromise by mixing the journalistic pro- duct with occasional attempts at the deeply ar- tistic? Or shall they adopt a standard of play that finds its level where the two sorts meet never too "advanced" and never too clearly vul- gar? In short, where, between the art ideal and the amusement ideal, shall the average little theatre that aspires to be an art theatre set its standard ? There are those who refuse to compromise. But for most of us who have been in the fight it has become clear that, if we would exist at all, if we object to going out of existence until such time as an inspired millionaire is willing to stake us to pursue the higher ideal, audience or no audi- ence, we must recognize that there are two goals : 125 The Art Theatre one the immediate establishment of theatres that are progressive enough in choice of plays and methods of staging to be clearly steps beyond the commercial average and toward a higher ideal; and the other an ultimate ideal of absolute art, with no concession to popular demand. n Sam Hume, in explaining the success of the first season at the Arts and Crafts Theatre, lays great stress on the fact that he fitted the series of plays to the demands of the community. His point of view is interesting, particularly in light of several failures that have occurred in the little theatre world during the season. "We were de- pendent," he says, "on a certain group of theatre- goers for our existence. We were careful, there- fore, not to hit over the heads of that group. It happened to be an unusually intelligent class, but it was not interested in the esoteric and precious material which certain little theatres affect. We were able to choose dignified, worth-while plays, and we tried to produce them according to the best ideals of staging. But we avoided plays of very limited appeal. We made good because we did not keep too far ahead of our audiences, be- cause we did not try unduly to force the move- ment for better art in the theatre." 126 The Question of Plays An analysis of the season's bills at the Arts and Crafts Theatre shows that only six of the nineteen plays produced were at all unusual or specialized in appeal. One of these appeared on each of the six programs of the season which indicates that when Hume wished to try some- thing a little "advanced" on his audiences, he sandwiched it between things of more obvious appeal. While trying to educate his community to a taste for something different from the cur- rent fare of the commercial theatre, he stayed close enough to that in general so that the audi- ences would not be driven away by the strange- ness of his offerings. The one long play presented during the season, and the production subjected to the most serious criticism from both within and without the or- ganization, was "The Chinese Lantern," by Law- rence Housman. This poetic work proved not to have enough literary appeal to compensate for the lack of action. Lord Dunsany's "The Tents of the Arabs," on the other hand, with the beauty of the lines fully brought out through Hume's careful training of the actors, proved that poetry can redeem a play lacking in gripping action and appealing story. But even here a cleavage in the audience was immediately apparent. Most of the spectators, be it said in praise, were delighted 127 The Art Theatre with the beauty of the play; but the others, miss- ing the appeal of obvious sentiment, emotion and excitement, and untrained in appreciation of spoken poetry, found the production dull. The theatre's nearest approach to the esoteric came in the productions of Maeterlinck's "The In- truder" and Dunsany's "The Glittering Gate." In the former Hume succeeded, with the aid of an admirable cast, in attaining and sustaining the mood of unnatural calm and brooding mys- tery which is the very spirit of the play; and in the other he achieved the necessary tension and a sense of detachment from the world. These two plays created the widest diversity of feeling and opinion, some adjudging them the high points of the season, and others finding them tedious and senseless. But there can be no doubt that in presenting them the theatre was registering most clearly its advance over the aver- age: it was providing, for those who cared, a type of production never seen in the commercial theatres; and it was presenting to the others a sort of play which, even under protest, was likely to aid ultimately in broadening their field of ap- preciation. The two greatest novelties of the series were the old English religious play "Abraham and Isaac," and "The Romance of the Rose," a ro- 128 The Question of Plays mantic pantomime devised by Sam Hume, with music by Timothy M. Spelman 2nd. For the rest, the season might have been planned almost entirely in reference to an ideal of entertainment untroubled by a desire for art. The only classic revived was a sure-fire farce of Moliere, "A Doctor in Spite of Himself," and the other revival, "The Revesby Sword Play," was hardly more than a divertisement in folk dancing. The poetic trend was continued, in a way, in Kenneth Sawyer Goodman's two slight fantasies, "The Wonder Hat" and "Ephraim and the Winged Bear." Of the plays tending toward serious realism only Susan Glaspell's "Trifles" rose above the ordinary, both "The Bank Ac- count" and "The Last Man In" being effective examples of "the play with a punch," without notable literary value or serious character-study. Of plays of lighter type the choice ranged from such excellent artificial farce-comedy as Dun- sany's "The Lost Silk Hat" and Hankin's "The Constant Lovers," through the more satirical "Suppressed Desires," to such pleasant foolish- ness as "Helena's Husband." As a whole it is not a list that would do credit to a mature art theatre. Plays of a passing vogue or distinctly light in appeal are in the majority. On the other hand, it is a list that bespeaks a 129 The Art Theatre clear advance beyond the standards of the com- mercial theatre. It is a working illustration of Hume's theory: keep ahead of business stand- ards, but never go so far into untried fields or toward the art of particularized appeal, that the audiences of the moment will be antagonized. in Considered by no other standard than the type of play produced, the Chicago Little Theatre is incomparably the closest American approach to an art theatre. Its productions have come meas- urably near the art that appeals to a highly cultivated audience, to the sort of audience that already exists in large numbers in certain parts of Europe, but which has yet to be developed in most American cities. An analysis of its list of plays shows that Maurice Browne has preferred to strike direct to the ultimate goal as he has seen it. He refused to compromise for the sake of conciliating audiences or critics. The list of productions at Chicago is far more impressive than that of the Arts and Crafts Theatre. In the five seasons since its founding the proportion of poetic and fantastic plays has not been considerably greater than at Detroit. But the selection has been more revolutionary, including such names as Euripides (in Gilbert 130 The Question of Plays Murray's remarkable translations), Yeats, and Synge; and original productions of plays by American authors have been made with the par- ticular object of finding a typical art-theatre type of play. In the non-poetic or less poetic groups, moreover, the Chicago Little Theatre list tends far more to the serious, is freer from mere "fill- ers" than is the Detroit list. Ibsen, Shaw, Schnitzler, Hankin, Strindberg, Gibson, Wilde these are names which, although they tend too much to unrelieved realism to suit some of us, nevertheless bespeak a preoccupation with what is too dignified, too thoughtful and too true to form part of the average theatre's repertory. It would be idle to claim that devotion to a theory does not beget certain advantages artisti- cally. One must admire any artist who sets up an ideal, and then, although realizing that it is far beyond the public, pursues it uncompromis- ingly, in the face of public apathy, and in spite of criticism both fair and unfair. And there are definite advantages to the particular theatre and to the art theatre movement in general. Thus the Chicago Little Theatre will always be known as a pioneer in the search for a characteristic art- theatre technique. It aided the whole movement through its pioneering activities and it gained a lasting distinction thereby. 131 The Art Theatre But there are disadvantages, too, and these are such that they make one wonder whether the shortest route to the ideal is not through a more gradual progress whether Hume is not right in the assertion that we must speak at first in a lan- guage which sizable audiences can understand, and then develop the community with the theatre as the artistic standards are raised. The Chi- cago Little Theatre has gained a reputation for a greatly restricted appeal; it is known as a theatre for a specialized audience, if not for a cult, and this has militated against its wider ac- tivity as a community venture; and it would doubtless tend to prevent Maurice Browne from obtaining the directorship of a municipal theatre if the Chicago millionaires or voters were ready to build one although he would be the logical man, if the theatre were designed to be an art institu- tion. Thus does unbending devotion to an ideal tend to estrange an artist or an institution from the public. But there is a more serious practical lesson to be learned from the Chicago Little Theatre's five years' experience. It is that typical art-theatre plays of the advanced type are likely to lead to financial ruin. There has been an unwholesome air of financial insecurity about the Chicago project, which is to be laid partially to the failure 132 The Question of Plays to choose plays which, while not stooping to com- mercial standards, would at least tend to con- ciliate the spectators. To put it rawly, the Chi- cago Little Theatre has been too artistic to suc- ceed financially at our present stage of culture. IV My own opinion is that neither one of these theatres has taken the wisest course. While I have no faith in the usual interpretation of the adage that "the play must please the public," I do believe that the whole art of the theatre is to a certain extent conditioned on public acceptance. But I believe that it is the duty of the art theatre to keep ahead of its audiences. To please any audience, even the most intelligent, all the time, would be narrowing and deadening. And to please continuously even the best audiences to be gathered in the average American city today would mean artistic suicide. It seems to me that the standard at the Arts and Crafts Theatre dur- ing its first season was set too close to what would please the average. The Chicago list, on the other hand, gratifying as it must be to the for- ward-looking artist and to the man who sees progress in experiment, shows too ruthless a dis- regard for public even intelligent preferences. It should be possible to make the majority of pro- 133 The Art Theatre ductions touch the standard set by the best things done at the Arts and Crafts Theatre there were some that pleased the audiences and bore the un- mistakable marks of serious art ; and beyond that majority there should be regular excursions into those regions in which we hope ultimately to make our audiences at home, but which are now caviare to the general. I insist the more strongly on the necessity of keeping somewhat in advance of the audience, with just enough concession to hold the most intelligent audience, because this slight com- promise has not been tried. Always there has been refusal to recede at all from the high-art plane, or else there has been too decided a lower- ing of standards. When one turns away from consideration of the practical ideal of the existing progressive theatres to the question of the types of play to be seen in the ultimate mature art theatre, one finds even more puzzling difficulties. We have never had repertory art theatres, nor any sort of insti- tutions faintly suggesting the dignified subven- tioned theatres of France and Germany, and we must learn entirely by experience just what plays are available. The one outstanding fact about such a theatre, 134 The Question of Plays however, is that it must be catholic in its choice of drama. The stereotyped formulas adopted by Broadway managers in judging plays have been one of the curses of the commercial system. And one recollects that even the Comedie Francaise has been too narrowly national to serve the best interests of French dramatic art. Variety is absolutely necessary to make the activity of an art theatre vital in its reactions on the community and on native art. A repertory should without doubt include classic and modern drama, the work of both foreign and native dramatists, and both poetic and realistic plays. As to the classics, one must remember that in the last decade or two they have practically never been adequately presented in America. They have been produced occasionally as cut to fit a Broadway star, and smothered with spectacular Broadway scenery; and they have been revived more intelligently, but amateurishly and archaeo- logically, at the colleges. But the classics in their best form have been practically unknown in this country. To say that the public will not patron- ize them is the merest speculation. The public has had no chance to judge. Under art-theatre treatment, with the poetry brought out, and with dramatic story, acting and setting properly inter- related, they can be made to live again for modern 135 The Art Theatre audiences. Margaret Anglin's company and the Chicago Little Theatre have made a great ad- vance in their productions of the Greek trage- dies: they have at least shown that when artists take up the plays their tragic splendour and trenchant emotion will register with American audiences as with those of ancient Athens. And when William Poel took one of the least interest- ing of Elizabethan comedies, and made it appeal to American audiences merely by his manner of production which he claimed was the Eliza- bethan manner he convinced many progressives that if the public does not like classics, it is the method of staging that is at fault. Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan drama- tists are as much the classics of the American theatre as Moliere, Corneille and Racine are of the French. And so the American art theatre will most often turn to Shakespeare and his con- temporaries for their revivals. But the best things from the French, German, Spanish and other languages will find place also, if we are wise. And if the audiences are not enthusiastic at first, they will be increasingly so, later. In drama, as in music, one's taste improves with ex- perience of the best. Appreciation follows op- portunity. Of modern plays it is difficult to say that any 136 The Question of Plays type beyond melodrama and farce should be ex- cluded. The sort of farce that brings only idle laughter, without any element of satire or any impulse to thoughtful amusement, is beyond the bounds of art; and so is sheer melodrama. One might add that the play of pure propaganda would also be out of place in the art theatre. But who is to say where the emotionally effective and artistically legitimate drama of thought is to be divided from the propaganda play? And who is to mark the boundary between mere naturalism and inspired realism? Some people think that it is possible to divide drama into two classes, the play of beauty and the play of ideas; and they would have the art theatre concerned only with the play of beauty. They would put the whole realistic school, in- cluding Ibsen, Shaw, Galsworthy, Schnitzler, and many another, outside the pale. The question is not so easy of solution. There is no doubt that a general distinction can be made between a substantially poetic group of dramatists and a typically realistic group; the one relies chiefly on imaginative and literary ap- peal, while the other, through its intensive obser- vation of life, brings a deep emotional reaction coupled with a stimulus to thought. And there can be no doubt that to keep a wholesome balance 137 The Art Theatre we must have a great deal more of poetic drama than the business theatre has offered. American theatre-goers have been starved for imaginative drama for years. But we are already swinging back to the poetic. (I saw seven Dunsany plays produced last winter.) This type of play, more- over, lends itself better to art-theatre technique than any other. Yeats, Synge, Dunsany, Mae- terlinck, Hauptmann, D'Annunzio these are names which are likely to have large place in art theatre repertories, certainly infinitely larger than any Broadway manager would grant pos- sible. Poetry is, indeed, coming to its own on the stage. On the other hand, no art theatre could today afford to cut itself off from all that the realistic movement has brought to the theatre. Even though I believe that the highest forms of art come from the regions of the imaginative, the poetic and the sensuously beautiful, I for one am not ready to say that the realistic dramatists are to be barred by organizations actuated solely by the desire for better theatre art. The aesthetic senses lie so close to the emotions and the intellect that we are likely to re-act to an idea-play of Ibsen or Gals- worthy much as we re-act to Greek tragedy. And for most of us ideas are among the most interest- ing and important things in life. So I would 138 The Question of Plays open the art theatre even to the intellectual drama of Shaw and Barker; 1 and after that would come the more emotional type, where the idea is more leavened with dramatic story the drama, for in- stance, of Galsworthy, of Tolstoy, and of Brieux when he is least pathological and most himself. VI One other important consideration must enter into the choice of plays : the proportion of native to foreign works. Just as in the matter of clas- sics, the list should be open to the widest possible selection from the contemporary drama of other countries. The best should be taken from Euro- pean dramatists, not only because for some years to come their best is likely to be better than our best, but also because we need to study their drama for an understanding of those universal principles which will some day underlie our own. Just here it is well to remind ourselves that the most intensely national drama of modern times, the Irish, found its finest expression in the works of two men of international culture and training. 1 Four years ago I wrote that "Getting Married" was distinctly a play for reading and not for the stage, and that Barker's "The Madras House" was undramatic. My final conversion came last winter when I saw in one week the productions of "Getting Married" and Bahr's "The Master." Now I am so far won over that I want to see "The Madras House" staged. 139 The Art Theatre Yeats began his dramatic career in London, and knew well both the English and the French the- atres before he became interested in the project at Dublin; and Synge had spent many years on the Continent previous to his connection with the Irish National Theatre. An understanding in- ternationalism is the soundest basis for an inspir- ing nationalism, in art as in politics. But while opening our theatres so freely to foreign artists, we must remember that the de- velopment of American drama depends largely upon the encouragement offered native play- wrights. We have seen how the commercializa- tion of the playhouse deprived the aspiring play- wright of all laboratory facilities. While we cannot afford to lower art-theatre standards to those of the new laboratory theatres, such as that of the Provincetown Players, we must recognize that every schedule of productions should make room for a certain number of native pieces. The knowledge that such theatres await plays of merit will spur dramatists to do a serious sort of work, which would never be called forth by the demands of the business playhouse. The Abbey Theatre so inspired a generation of Irish writers that an entire new dramatic literature resulted. It is not probable that we shall have a national drama in the Irish sense, or even in the French 140 The Question of Plays sense. As a federated group-nation, without a single art capital New York is hardly more than a centre of business art we cannot expect to have the intense national feeling which would bring forth a deeply characteristic body of drama. It is more likely that we shall have a sectional drama, of New England, of the Middle West, of the Far West, and this collectively may have a definite note which can be recognized as Ameri- can. If so, it is even more imperative that the sectional art theatres provide the native play- wright with facilities for staging really meritori- ous work. The Arts and Crafts Theatre in its first season staged only one play by a Michigan author, and only eight of its nineteen plays were American. The record shows too little interest in the develop- ment of a local or national drama. The Chi- cago Little Theatre likewise has been concerned a little too exclusively with foreign plays. The average maintained by the Washington Square Players has been much better. In the preface to "Washington Square Plays" Edward Goodman writes: "So far [1916] we have produced thirty-two plays, of one-act and greater length, and of these twenty have been American. The emphasis of our interest has been on the Ameri- can playwright." 141 The Art Theatre I realize fully that the really good drama by an American is rare; and that in the field of the one-act play especially there are many more satis- fying examples to be drawn from English and foreign repertories. But I want just a little prej- udice for the native playwright at this stage of development, a tendency to put his fairly good play on the boards in preference to a foreign work that is just a little better. Through his experience of the stage this time he is likely to equal his European rival next time. I believe that the development of a large body of important American drama is only a matter of time. Already we have material not unworthy of an art theatre's repertory. One might start the list with a few works which no one would challenge, such as "The Yellow Jacket" and "The Poor Little Rich Girl." Then there are many plays which, while doubtless subject to minority objection, are well worthy of revival poetic works like Percy MacKaye's "The Scarecrow" and Mrs. Marks' "The Piper," and more realistic plays like Charles Kenyon's "Kindling" and Augustus Thomas' "As a Man Thinks." Of course one must add "The Great Divide," and if sheer realism is not debarred, there is "The Easiest Way." But I have more faith in the im- portance of dramas to be written by such outsid- 142 The Question of Plays ers as Susan Glaspell, Theodore Dreiser and Cloyd Head. vn The American art theatre will, of course, be a repertory theatre. It will doubtless modify the repertory plan of such institutions as the Comedie Francaise, retaining a certain latitude in the length of run of a successful new play. Its economic position may be such that it will have to keep an occasional success on the boards for several weeks. But it should never offer less than a certain scheduled number of plays in a season; and it must gradually build up a group of plays for revival, covering classic and modern. Only thus can it fulfil its true function as an institution serving a community in relation to theatre art as the art gallery serves it in relation to painting and sculpture. Repertory organiza- tion brings its serious problems, particularly where there is competition with the commercial long-run system. But only through its advan- tages, its method of conserving the best plays out of the theatres of the past and present, can we hope to combat effectively the narrowing influence of the business theatre. 143 CHAPTER VII THE QUESTION OF STAGE SETTINGS BECAUSE the art-theatre ideal demands that every element that goes to make up a production shall contribute to the crea- tion of a single mood, it is necessary that the older methods of stage setting which are still the methods of most commercial theatres be dis- carded. The grossly unnatural, the literal, and the spectacular modes of scene-building must give way before a stagecraft which finds its foundation principles in the synthetic ideal: a stagecraft which is marked by the most typical character- istics of the new art of the theatre suggestion, imaginative invention, atmospheric beauty, sub- ordination of specific interest to creation of mood. It happens that in the one direction of stage decoration the American progressive theatres have made more progress than in any other; they are already in possession of a fair under- standing of the principles of the new staging, and they have developed a considerable amount of 144 The Question of Stage Settings talent of art-theatre calibre. America has no stage artists of the measure of Craig or Appia, nor any whose lustre would not be dimmed beside half a dozen of the Germans and Russians; but six or eight may fairly be termed enlightened ex- ponents of art-theatre methods, and dependable craftsmen in the new field. The older style of stage setting was based on a literal transcription into paint, canvas and properties of certain facts set down in a play- wright's stage directions. If doors were called for, doors were cut in walls, but with little re- gard for scale or for proportion of wall space to openings; and windows, mantels and other ac- cessories were supplied as a builder might supply them without an architect's help. The result usually was architecturally and materially cor- rect. If the designer wished to add something by way of decoration it was entirely in the nature of ornament stuck on. In other words, the designer of stage settings never made his scene spiritually true to the inner mood of the play, but only ma- terially true to its practical demands; he seldom made it structurally decorative, but only built up something spectacular and decorative from his own standpoint, and not at all related to the spirit- 145 The Art Theatre ual content of the drama. The methods used, moreover, were absurdly artificial. Supposedly wooden walls quaked at the slightest touch, broad landscapes wrinkled in the breeze, ships cast gro- tesque shadows on the sky, furniture was even painted on the walls, and the woodwork had painted lights and shadows that never matched the surrounding real light and shade. These and similar crudities were accepted as necessary ac- companiments of the art of stage setting. It was not the artificiality of art the conventionalized symbol taking the place of the real but the ar- tificiality of incompetence, which an amiable public accepted because it could not help itself. The staging of a generation ago was so very bad that even some of the American managers revolted against it. David Belasco, with his passion for thoroughness, was particularly instru- mental in giving a certain substantial illusion to the box-set interior, and eliminating the most grossly artificial features from exteriors. But this revolt was solely in the direction of natural- ism. It did not start with the desire to bring the setting into closer harmony with the spirit of the play, but only with the object of making the scene more natural. It removed the worst absurdities of Nineteenth Century staging; but in its later elaboration it provided distractions quite as for- 146 The Question of Stage Settings eign to the substance of the drama. In the pur- suit of the natural, Belasco and others began to build scenes so finely imitative, so true to the surface appearances of life, that the audience forgot the play in wonder at the photographic perfection of the setting. The revolt of the artists, beginning with Craig and Appia, and coming down through the Ger- man theatres, and now reflected in America in the work of such artists as Robert Edmond Jones, Raymond Johnson and Sam Hume, was against both the artificiality of the older theatre and the naturalism of the Belasco group. The aim of the newly conceived stagecraft was to bring the setting into definite spiritual harmony with the play. Suggestion was substituted for imitation, creation of atmosphere was considered more im- portant than indication of a definite locality, and the appeal of the setting was subordinated to the synthetic appeal of the production as a whole, by simplification and conventionalization. Where visual beauty was the aim of the dramatist and artist-director, the setting became a thing of beauty predicated upon the mood of the play ; and its decorative quality grew out of skilful compo- sition of line and mass, subtle use of colour, and a system of lighting that tended more to artistic expressiveness than to mere naturalness. 147 The Art Theatre t n In order to differentiate art-theatre methods of stage setting from other phases of stage design, which are not less new but still inapplicable to the special problem presented by synthetic produc- tion, it is necessary to outline three tendencies of modern stagecraft: the improved pictorial, the plastic and the decorative. I wish to write of the pictorial phase first be- cause it can quickly be dismissed when one is concerned only with forces that will count in the art theatre. Certain Russian designers have de- veloped a wonderfully brilliant technique in painting scenery. They accept the old theatre convention which said that an exterior setting must be done in painted perspective on canvas. In other words, they still consider the stage scene a glorified easel picture. Some of their settings are among the richest and most interesting of the creations masquerading under the name of the new stagecraft. But they really have nothing to do with the most typical phases of the new move- ment. They mark merely the perfection of a process that will never give absolute satisfaction in the theatre. They are infinitely better than the settings in the same method which used to fill all our theatres, because they are painted by art- 148 The Question of Stage Settings ists instead of sign painters. But two points are to be noted about them: First, they employ painted perspective in the backgrounds, and this will never prove entirely satisfying on the stage; for no matter how cunningly the artist may work to hide all traces of the incongruity, there will al- ways be a disillusioning difference between the real perspective of the foreground and the painted perspective at the back and audiences will be less and less tolerant of this absurdity as they be- come trained in appreciation of the plastic, per- spective-less method. And second, these artists are employing a purely representative method: instead of placing backgrounds and objects on the stage, or suggesting these things by concrete means, they attempt to represent them by the il- lustrator's method, which properly has no place in the theatre. One might quite as rationally paint objects into the background of a statue or sculptured frieze. The painter, indeed, has proven himself inadequate to the tasks of the theatre; and the designer for the stage of the fu- ture will need the training of architect, sculptor and interior decorator rather than that of the present-day painter training in arrangement of line and mass, modelling of form, and harmony of flat colour-tones. For my part, I believe that within not so very 149 The Art Theatre many years the painted-perspective background will be as clearly ridiculous and out-of-date in a stage production as the soliloquy and aside are in modern playwriting. I know that ninety- nine out of every hundred of the so-called artists on Broadway would call me crazy if I repeated that statement to them. But I do not base the contention on mere theorizing although I was convinced of the soundness of the theory of plas- tic setting several years ago. I have seen both sorts in large and small, and the plastic is so far superior by every measurement that its time is sure to come. In at least two of the most pro- gressive theatres in this country, the Arts and Crafts Theatre in Detroit and the Los Angeles Little Theatre, not a single painted-perspective scene was used during the season of 1916-17; and I doubt whether a painted drop has been shown in the Chicago Little Theatre in all the years of its existence. And these are only signs of a widespread development. Practically every member of the small group of deeply-thinking, far-seeing artist- workmen on the American stage has repudiated the painted-perspective theory and method. Certainly Raymond Johnson, Sam Hume, Norman-Bel Geddes and Robert Edmond Jones have and that represents some of the soundest opinion on this side of the Atlantic. I 150 The Question of Stage Settings think that Joseph Urban alone among the im- portant stage decorators in America occasionally reverts to the easel-painter's system. in The plastic method of setting, which has so largely replaced the pictorial method in the pro- gressive theatres of both Europe and America, implies primarily that the artist shall work with things in the round instead of painting their sem- blances on a flat canvas. Such objects and back- grounds as he can bring to the stage in character- istic form, without suggesting a display of virtu- osity, are brought there ; such others as cannot be shown in plastic form are suggested by concrete means, and not by pictorial representation. If a church scene is needed, the artist does not paint a picture of a church for a background, but sets up a single pillar or archway, which in its archi- tecture and its arrangement of aspiring lines suggests the calm dignity and heavy solemnity of a church. If a forest scene is called for, the art- ist no longer paints a canvas with a multitude of trees, each branch and leaf accurately drawn; he is more likely to arrange a series of cloth strips in place of tree trunks, and then light the stage so subtly that the mystery and depth of a forest are atmospherically suggested. If he has a mod- 151 The Art Theatre ern room to show, he discards all painted relief, such as mouldings, doorframes, mantels, etc., and simplifies lines, masses and furnishings con- ventionalizes the room by reducing it to the sim- plest form in which it will evoke the proper at- mosphere. The new stage artist seldom gets away from the use of canvas flats; they are still the lightest and most easily manipulated material for stage building. But he paints no objects on the canvas he paints it instead in flat colour. His canvas flat thus appears on the stage as one side of a solid, and not as a picture representing two or more sides in perspective. The reader who still finds the distinction be- tween the plastic and pictorial methods puzzling will do well to compare the illustrations appear- ing in this book with those to be found in the usual dramatic magazine or book. Not only are all the scenes shown herewith free from painted perspective, but in most, no paint was used except in flat mass as one would paint a house-wall. Of the two noticeable exceptions, the settings for "The Constant Lover" and "The Lost Silk Hat," where a conventionalized tree and vines have been painted, I shall have more to say in a moment. 152 The Question of Stage Settings IV When the reformers got rid of the artificialities of the pictorial stage setting, they at first accepted a plastic stage barren of any sort of decorative intent. The action is what counts, they said; and they proceeded to strip the stage of everything that might prove an interruption to interest in the action. Some advocated a return to the Eliza- bethan stage, others adopted curtain back- grounds ; but all came sooner or later to the real- ization that a merely neutral background only does half its duty to the production. It is in- finitely better than the old setting that interfered with the action by distracting the spectator's at- tention to foreign matters; but it adds nothing to the total appeal. In the plays produced with the new ideal in mind the setting has a definite decorative func- tion. The point to be remembered is that the decorative quality must take its rise in the milieu of the play. It must say to the eye what the poetry of the play says to the ear. The dec- orative note must be there, whether it be in the atmospheric lighting effects of Appia, or in the mysterious masses of light and shade created by Craig's manipulation of screens, or in the gor- geous halls and palaces of Urban. 153 The Art Theatre This decorative tendency is what is implied in the word stylization as applied to stage setting. But when one speaks of stylization it is immed- iately necessary to defend one's position against two sorts of misconception : first that stylization is typified by Reinhardt's ruthless method of trans- forming a Greek play into a Reinhardtian circus performance; and second, that it provides a method of overwhelming a good play, or redeem- ing a poor one, by sets that are a show in them- selves. This danger of overdoing the setting will always be inherent in the decorative method to a certain extent ; and for this reason a number of managers and critics who examined the case hastily and insisted upon judging by extreme ex- amples, have started a definite re-action against the whole new movement. What they failed to see is that this new phase of art, like many an- other, is valid only when practised by artists of the deeper vision in this case, when practised under the control of artist-directors who have the impression of the ensemble of play, acting and staging at heart. Stylization of setting, according to my ideal, is merely a method of bringing the scene into har- mony with the essential spirit of the play, a means of beautifying the background to harmonize with the beauty of the poetry and the action. By his 154 The Question of Stage Settings own particular style of working, by his individual manner of using line, mass, colour, light and shade, the designer may stamp the setting with his own creative genius; but it is not the best sort of stylization unless it tends to reinforce the mood of the play as a whole. In other words, the decorative quality of the setting must be founded on dramatic fitness. The stage setting for art theatre production, then, will be designed by artists who gain decor- ative effect through plastic mediums. But I wish to add that I believe there is a certain type of play in which more latitude may be allowed in the designing where a certain artificiality and exuberance of fancy may be carried into the deco- rative work. In most plays for children, in pure fantasy, in artificial comedy, in any production in which story value, dramatic tension, and tense mood are less important than imaginative turns of thought, surprise and fanciful suggestion, there is possibility of adding to the play's appeal by a compelling symbolism in the settings. A classic example is the Moscow Art Theatre's mounting of Maeterlinck's "The Blue Bird," a play which is at least episodic if not definitely undramatic, and so not in danger of having its continuity of meaning obscured by dynamically interesting settings. The Moscow artists tried to visualize 155 The Art Theatre the symbolism of the various scenes in their back- grounds, with the result that the action progressed through a series of fairyland pictures of a beauti- fully imaginative sort. Perhaps the reader will better understand if I say that the settings had the unreality, the fancy and the decorative qual- ity of Kay Nielsen's illustrations. The settings for such productions may legiti- mately be painted, for here a certain noticeable artificiality is not out of place. But perspective work and purely representative painting are not in keeping with either the general requirements of the stage or the spirit of conventional drama. The only excuse for painted scenery is a rigid conventionalization. So long as it has any real- istic intent it is out of key with the other elements. If we must still have painters in the theatre, they should be not of the old realistic sort, but of the imaginative-decorative type. It is in the spirit of such conventionalization that two of the settings in this book were conceived. The painted vines and the fanciful tree in the sets for "The Lost Silk Hat" and "The Constant Lover" are in perfect keeping with the spirit of these extremely artificial farce-comedies. 1 It seems to me that much is yet 1 These two settings were designed and painted by Katherine McEwen, who worked with Sam Hume in the scene department throughout the season. 156 The Question of Stage Settings to be done in this direction of fanciful staging when we have a Kay Nielsen of the theatre. It is hardly necessary to treat lighting as a separate topic. I have suggested several times the larger place it assumes in the new stagecraft. It is employed not only as a binding force as one more means of reinforcing the spiritual mood of the play but also as a definite means of developing the emotional rhythm. In certain European theatres lighting has all but taken the place of the setting; and in this country Urban and Hume especially have been pointed out as artists who "paint in lights." Just as changes of feeling, thought and emo- tion can be reflected in the lighting of a produc- tion, so can they be suggested in the colour ar- rangement. We are happily rid of the muddy colours of other days, on the stage as in the picture gallery, and a whole new scale of beautiful and expressive shades and tones has been placed at the artist's disposal. While the equipment of the progressive theatres in this country has not been such as to facilitate experiment, the more impor- tant designers are thoroughly alive to the poten- tiality of colour. I have seen several series of sketches by Norman-Bel Geddes in which the pro- 157 The Art Theatre gression of colour impression was definitely de- signed to evoke the changing moods necessary to the drama. And Claude Bragdon is promising a more revolutionary use of imaginative colouring in productions specially designed to affect the emotions through colour-sensibility. VI In the search for new methods which will aid in bringing unity to the production, many devices of value to the art theatre have been invented. Certain ones are purely mechanical the revolv- ing stage and wagon stage are examples and these for the most part are designed to cut down the waits while settings are being changed, thus tending to eliminate from the course of action breaks long enough to have a disillusioning ef- fect. The idea of suggesting an underlying unity of story by letting certain elements of the setting appear in each succeeding scene, has been worked out by diverse methods. Joseph Urban used what he called a permanent skeleton set through all the acts of "The Love of the Three Kings" at the Boston Opera House, and he has staged sev- eral other productions with stationary inner pro- sceniums and portals, achieving all changes in scene by new elements introduced at the back of the stage. Raymond Johnson has used a similar 158 The Question of Stage Settings arrangement of permanent fore-structure and changing inner scene for some of the productions at the Chicago Little Theatre; and Norman-Bel Geddes has used a single set of screens in varying combination for a play in seven scenes, at the Los Angeles Little Theatre. All these experiments have been valuable, showing that simplified and standardized settings can be used not only with a saving of time and expense, but with increased unity of feeling. But none are quite so sugges- tive, or quite so valuable to the American art theatre in its formative years, as two recent in- ventions which can be used not alone for the sev- eral scenes of a single play, but for practically every scene of every play worth producing. One is the screen setting, "the thousand scenes in one scene," invented by Gordon Craig; the other is the permanent adaptable setting designed and built by Sam Hume, who adopted Craig's basic theories and then worked out an independent solution of the interchangeable setting problem with different materials. These two systems of building stage scenes are of such practical value to the would-be art theatre that both demand extended descrip- tion. 159 The Art Theatre vn Gordon Craig, arguing from the fact that hun- dreds of thousands of dollars arc wasted annually for scenery that loses all its value when the play's run is over and this for a type of scenery that is utterly devoid of atmosphere, and usually lack- ing in artistic value of any sort, set out to dis- cover a sort of stage scene that would be adaptable for any poetic production. The system of porta- ble folding screens which resulted from his years of experiment solved the problem beautifully, providing atmospheric backgrounds for a sur- prisingly wide range of play, at exceedingly small cost. But here is a point to be noted : the system is so simple, so devoid of trickery and pretentious- ness and extraneous ornament, that only men of deep artistic perception and delicate vision, only imaginative artists and true poets, can obtain the best results from its use. For this reason the in- vention has not made its way into the commercial theatre, and probably never will, despite the im- mense saving its use would entail. In the Mos- cow Art Theatre's famous production of "Ham- let" all the many and varied changes of a setting were merely re-arrangements of a set of Craig's screens. And at the Abbey Theatre of the Irish 160 The Question of Stage Settings Players the screens were used for poetic plays, with results which mark them as particularly fitted to bring out the spiritual mood and syn- thetic impression which are the implied goal of art theatre production. The invention is described in The Mask, in an unsigned article but presumably by Gordon Craig, as follows: "The scene is made up usually of four, six, eight, ten or twelve screens, and, although some- times of more than twelve, seldom less than four. Each part or leaf of a screen is alike in every particular except breadth, and these parts together form a screen, composed of two, four, six, eight or ten leaves. These leaves fold either way and are monochrome in tint. The height of all these screens is alike. "These screens are self-supporting and are made either of a wooden frame covered with can- vas, or of solid wood. "With screens of narrow dimensions curved forms are produced, for large rectangular spaces broader leaved screens are used, and for varied and broken forms all sizes are employed. . . . "Sometimes certain additions may be made to this scene, such as a flight of steps, a window, a bridge, a balcony, and of course the necessary 161 The Art Theatre furniture, though great care and reserve must be exercised in making these additions so as to avoid the ridiculous. "This scene is a living thing. In the hands of an artist it is capable of all varieties of expres- sion, even as a living voice and a living face are capable of every expression. The scene remains always the same, while incessantly chang- ing. . . . "Through its use we obtain a sense of har- mony and a sense of variety at the same time. We may be said to have recovered one of the unities of the Greek drama without losing any of the variety of the Shakespearean drama. "We pass from one scene to another without a break of any kind, and when the change has come we are not conscious of any disharmony between it and that which has passed." William Butler Yeats, who had to do with the screens at the Abbey Theatre, is quoted in the same issue of The Mask as follows : "The scenery differs entirely from the old style of scenery, and consists chiefly of portable screens, by means of which beautiful decorative effects can be obtained, the working of the screens being based on certain mathematical proportions by which the stage manager can make walls, pillars, etc. ... a palace almost in a moment, a palace 162 The Question of Stage Settings of great cyclopean proportions, and which can be changed again almost in a moment into a room with long corridors, and be changed again into a third and very different scene just as quickly. "The primary value of Mr. Craig's invention is that it enables one to use light in a more natural and more beautiful way than ever before. We get rid of all the top hamper of the stage all the hanging ropes and scenes which prevent the free play of light. It is now possible to substitute in the shading of one scene real light and shadow for painted light and shadow. Continually, in the contemporary theatre, the painted shadow is out of relation to the direction of the light, and, what is more to the point, one loses the extraor- dinary beauty of delicate light and shade. This means, however, an abolition of realism, for it makes scene-painting, which is, of course, a matter of painted light and shade, impossible. One enters into a world of decorative effects which give the actor a renewed importance. There is less to compete against him, for there is less de- tail, though there is more beauty." After the production of "Hamlet" at Moscow the correspondent of the London Times wrote of the screens as follows: "Mr. Craig has the singular power of carry- ing the spiritual significance of words and drama- 163 The Art Theatre tic situations beyond the actor to the scene in which he moves. By the simplest means he is able, in some mysterious way, to evoke almost any sensation of time or space, the scenes even in themselves suggesting variations of human emo- tions. "Take, for example, the Queen's chamber in the Castle of Elsinore. Like all the other scenes, it is simply an arrangement of the screens already mentioned. There is nothing which definitely represents a castle, still less the locality or period; and yet no one would hesitate as to its signifi- cance and why? Because it is the spiritual symbol of such a room. A symbol, moreover, whose form is wholly dependent upon the action which it surrounds; every line, every space of light and shadow going directly to heighten and amplify the significance of that action, and be- coming thereby something more than its mere setting a vital and component part no longer separable from the whole." The last lines are eloquent testimony to the value of this type of setting as an integral part of the production, as a part which, instead of dis- turbing the action as the usual setting does, con- tributes to the mood. In other words, it is an ideal means to art-theatre ends, so far as they concern the background of the play. 164 The Question of Stage Settings Gordon Craig's screens have never been ade- quately tested in this country. But some of the little theatres surely will make adaptations of the system, if, indeed, they do not arrange with Craig (who holds patents) for complete sets according to the original designs. This is the more likely to happen now that Sam Hume has made such a success with his adaptable setting at the Arts and Crafts Theatre. He gained inspiration from Craig, and he adopted Craig's principle of an interchangeable scene and he is always careful to acknowledge this indebtedness. But his suc- cess in working out an independent system sug- gests that other artist-workers in the American theatre may start with the same principle and ar- rive at somewhat different but equally satisfac- tory results. VIII Before describing Hume's setting in detail, I wish to express my belief that no other of the pro- gressive theatres in America has shown a series of scenes so impressive and so well harmonizing with the respective plays, as the eleven variations of the permanent set at the Arts and Crafts Theatre. Putting aside consideration of realistic backgrounds at the Detroit playhouse, and re- membering that several of the permanent setting 165 The Art Theatre arrangements fell considerably short of the ideal, it is still clear that this was the finest group of stage backgrounds yet devised for a series of plays in an American theatre. It is possible to point to single productions of Urban or Jones or others as equalling or surpassing the average attained by Hume at Detroit; but no consecutive series of plays has been so well mounted. I know from direct comparison that the Arts and Crafts group was far superior to the series of settings for poetic plays of the Washington Square Players and the Portmanteau Players. The point to be remem- bered, if one is interested in little theatre and art theatre economics, is this: while gaining superior results artistically, Hume spent for eleven settings not more than the cost of two average settings in these other theatres. It is well to remember, too, that the range covered by the eleven scenes in- cluded such widely differing requirements as the interior of a mediaeval chateau for "The In- truder," the Gates of Thalanna for "The Tents of the Arabs," the wall of Heaven for "The Glit- tering Gate," and a Spartan palace for "Helena's Husband." The permanent setting includes the following units: four pylons, constructed of canvas on wooden frames, each of the three covered faces measuring two and one-half by eighteen feet ; two 166 The Question of Stage Settings PLASTER WALL PIASTER WALL TWtc-FcHHS | 1 1 THE WONDER HAT TENTS OF THE ARABS PLASTER. WALL, n r p r WIKB- f I I i ^JB] t=^p" "^o[ S3 mf-l Si S3 Si j-i [UN a A~ ^\ 3jr' T CH HELENA'S HUSBAND THE INTRUDER EXPl^fifj^f^TION ?LA*TIH WALL AROMJ LlNBOK H A3.C.D = PYLOWS $1,52 = 3' 5TA1R UNITS. 53 = fc 1 M pt[ f J tz MS^ M,M*MASKlN