V
In consequence of all these causes the possible profits of a lucky playwright are now as abundant as those of the lucky novelist, and on occasion even more so. One play in every score draws a prize; and one in every hundred draws a grand prize of several hundred thousand dollars. In addition to the ordinary business profit there is now the possibility of holding one of these superlatively lucky numbers in the lottery; and two or three of these may come out of the wheel of fortune in the same season. This possibility is encouraging to those possessed by the spirit of speculation and rather discouraging to those who are more inclined to honor the drama as an art. At best the presentation of a play is a gamble, since no one, not even the most expert, can do more than guess at the impression it will make on the public. What every one can see is that the broader and bolder its topic and its treatment the more likely is a drama to prove attractive to the largest body of playgoers, while the comedy of lighter fabric and of more delicate texture will probably please only a smaller group of the more refined and the more intelligent.
Of course, this has always been the case; and the managers of the past have always been tempted to enlarge their audiences by indulging in sensation and in spectacle. But to-day the temptation is greater than ever before; and perhaps it is more often yielded to. And here we feel the unfortunate power of the purely commercial syndicates who are ready always to smooth the path of the overwhelming success by opening all their theaters to it, while they are inhospitable to plays of a less emphatic allurement. This is perhaps the most obvious defect of the present organization of the theater in America—that it puts great power in the hands of a small group of men, most of whom take little or no interest in the drama as an art, regarding a play as a manufactured article out of which they expect to make all that the traffic will bear.
Yet as this present organization is the result of economic and geographic causes it is idle to declaim against it; and it is foolish to indulge in offensive personalities. What is, is; and what will be, will be. We can find comfort in the fact that the best plays of this burgeoning dramatic epoch do get acted and have their chance, here and now. And we can hope that some device will be discovered to make easier the production of plays of the highest class. There are managers now, and not a few of them, who have aspirations and ambitions, and who would be contented with a modest profit on a fair business risk without seeking always for wealth beyond the dreams of avarice through a long-shot gamble.
Perhaps it may be well to remark that the present organization of the theater is not responsible for the fact that the average play presented to-day is often seen to be a pretty poor thing. In this respect the present is no worse than the past. The average play has always been a pretty poor thing; and playhouses of other times and other lands have presented a host of plays below the average. The ‘Titus Andronicus,’ which is more or less Shakspere’s, is a barbarous and brutal piece; and ‘Measure for Measure’ is only a little better in its blatant crudity of motive and method. The contemporaries of Corneille and Molière and Racine are deservedly forgotten. So are the contemporaries of Æschylus and Sophocles and Euripides. Only devoted explorers of the annals of the drama are aware of the ineptness and imbecility to be found in the pieces of the inferior playwrights even in the most glorious epochs of the theater. Certainly the average play of to-day is a better play, it is better acted, and it is better mounted than the average play of fifty or a hundred years ago.