MISCELLANEOUS
[Signor Borsa on the English Theatres ]
Those mere casual playgoers who may think that the articles on drama in The Westminster Gazette have been needlessly pessimistic ought to read "The English Stage of To-Day," by Mario Borsa, translated by Mr Selwyn Brinton, and published by Mr John Lane; a lively, interesting book, in which are expressed vigourously the ideas of a very acute, intelligent writer upon our modern theatre. "Hence it is no wonder that all that is artificial, absurd, commonplace, spectacular, and puerile is rampant upon the English stage; that theatrical wares are standardized, like all other articles of trade...." "Still, in spite of all this booming and histriomania, one of the greatest intellectual privations from which the foreigner suffers in London is, I repeat, the lack of good comedy and good prose drama." Such sentences are specimens of his views about the current drama of London, and he endorses the sad phrase of Auguste Filon, "Le drame Anglais, à peine né, se meurt."
In some respects the book is surprising. The author exhibits an intimacy of knowledge that appears almost impossible in one who, for a long time after his arrival in London, was "ignorant of the very language of the country." He has learnt our tongue well enough to give us some literary criticisms of value, notably upon the Irish theatre and the poetry of Mr W.B. Yeats, and he has made himself acquainted in a remarkable way with the plays of the last fifteen years or so, with the theatrical clubs and the various movements of revolt against our puppet theatre. There are slips, no doubt, such as the suggestion that the Independent Theatre introduced Ibsen to London, it being the fact that several of his plays had been presented before this Society was born.
Signor Borsa has something to say on most of the topics of the times. For instance, he deals with the Censor! "And here we touch the root of the evil—the Censor! It is the Censor who is the real enemy—the ruthless, insatiable Cerberus." He writes upon the question of speeches in the theatres. "In Italy a new play is sometimes so heartily hissed after one or two acts that the manager is forced to cut short the performance and proceed forthwith to the farce. This never happens in England, partly because every 'first night' is attended by a claque, judiciously posted and naturally well disposed. Not that these 'first-nighters' are paid to applaud, as in Paris or Vienna. Neither are they labelled as claqueurs. They are simply enthusiasts, and their name is Legion.... It is they who salute the actor-manager after the curtain has fallen with persistent demands of 'Speech! Speech!' And it is to the request of these good and faithful friends that he accedes at last, in a voice broken by emotion, due to their spontaneous and generous reception."
Of late some people have been suggesting gleefully that the vogue of "G.B.S." is on the wane. His popularity has been the cause of great annoyance to the mass of the public and those critics who stand up for a theatre of "old scenic tricks which were long familiar to me—sensational intrigues, impossible situations, men and women who could have been neither English nor French nor Italian." They will be glad to learn that Signor Borsa says: "Shaw's dramatic work is pure journalism, destined to enjoy a certain vogue, and then to be swallowed up in the deep pit of oblivion. Nor should I be surprised if this vogue of his were already on the decline.... Shaw, with all his wit and all his go, already shows signs of becoming terribly monotonous." According to him, in "Shaw there were the makings of a writer of talent."
Let us add that no evidence exists to show the decline of the author's popularity; it may also be said that much of "G.B.S." is quite incomprehensible to a foreigner. What Signor Borsa calls the "restaurateurs-proprietors," and also the actor-managers—with a few exceptions—may hold aloof, but Mr Shaw has brought to the theatres a new public, and taken a good many of the old as well. Apparently Signor Borsa's hostility to "G.B.S." is founded on the fact that the dramatist is a revolutionary and refuses to accept the theatrical formulae which satisfy the Italian. One must, however, point out that whilst Signor Borsa's general conclusions concerning the most remarkable person of the English theatre are unsound, his remarks in detail are acute and luminous, and some of them well deserve the consideration of the victim.
The curiosity of the book is the treatment of the acting. According to Signor Borsa, "the acting has little to boast of. A century, or even half-a-century, ago the case was different. But the glories of Kean, Macready, Kemble, and Siddons now belong to history and but yesterday Sir Henry Irving stood alone—the unique representative in England of the great tragic art.... In conveying irony, the English actor is in his element; in comic parts, he is simply grotesque. The buffoon may occasionally be found upon the English stage—the brilliant comedian never. In tragic parts he easily assumes an exaggerated gravity and solemnity; in sentimental rôles he is frankly ridiculous."
Frankly is a mistranslation, or else the adjective is ridiculous, if not "frankly" ridiculous. Signor Borsa falls into a very common error. He thinks that because English actors do not gesticulate a great deal they act badly. This might be true if they represented on the stage a gesticulative race. The author points out carefully that we are not a gesticulative race, and fails to see that it would be bad acting for the player to represent an Englishman as being naturally gesticulative. The English Jew is more gesticulative than the ordinary Englishman; the Anglo-Jewish players—and there are many—curb themselves when they are playing British characters, and of course they act artistically in so doing.
The function of the actor is to impress the audience before him, nine-tenths of which consist of people who would regard him as ridiculous and unnatural if, when acting an ordinary English part, he were to gesticulate very much. We have seen Italian players of ability representing English characters, and, putting aside Duse, the obvious and correct criticism was that they were very funny and quite incorrect in their exuberance of gesture.
Irving is the only actor whom he discusses; Ellen Terry the one English actress. This, of course, is absurd. It indicates, however, very usefully the attitude of the foreign critic towards our stage. Also, perhaps, it is a little chastening to our players. The foreigner is able to understand and appreciate to some extent the best of our plays; the acting says nothing to him, or at least nothing flattering. Our comedians are "buffoons," our lovers are "frankly ridiculous," and the Italian actors are superior in "temperament"—whatever that may mean. Ours, it appears, are better than the Italians in some humble ways: "They dress their parts better and wear their clothes better," and they even know their parts—a vulgar quality which apparently is rare on the Italian stage—also they are more cultured, and "possess to a greater degree the dramatic literary sense."
One may accept, sadly, Signor Borsa's view, which is shared by most Continental and many British critics, that the ordinary English drama is utterly unworthy of the English people; but we certainly have abundance of competent players, and a fair number of dramatists anxious and able to give the public far better drama than they get, as soon as managers are willing to produce it; the great trouble is that the managers are afraid of the public, and although they might wisely be more venturesome, they have, in the present mass of playgoers, a terrible public to cater for. The facts and figures offered by Signor Borsa show too eloquently that the managers attempt to deal with the difficulty by a very short-sighted policy. Still, the position is less desperate than the Italian critic supposes, and much of what has happened since Auguste Filon wrote the line already quoted shows that he was too hasty in his judgment.
["G.B.S." and the Amateurs ]
There is a story—its untruth is indisputable—to the effect that on a death of a man of unconventional character his mournful family, after much trouble, hit upon the happy thought of satisfying their desire to leave an amiable and incontestable record concerning him by having inscribed upon his tombstone the following epitaph:—"He never acted in private theatricals."
A touch of acrimony seems discernible in certain utterances of Mr George Bernard Shaw about amateur theatricals which makes one doubt whether such a statement in his case would contain even the trifling percentage of truth that is customary in epitaphs. Indeed, he causes an impression that he has really done something worse than play in amateur theatricals, and even, although an amateur, has appeared in a professional performance. There has been a rather needless fury in his remarks; it is a case doubtless of more sound than sentiment. This, however, is pretty George's way; where some would use a whip he "fillips" people with "a three-man beetle."
They say that all the amateur Thespians' clubs in the kingdom have passed fierce resolutions about him, and a monster petition is being prepared praying for his outlawry or excommunication. The cause was a letter concerning the question whether dramatists ought to reduce their fees for performance by amateur clubs of copyright works, and the trump card of the opponents was the fact that many of the entertainments are given for the benefit of charities. Mr Zangwill it was who observed that "charity uncovers a multitude of shins"; perhaps one may add, clumsily, that charity suffereth long and applauds.
Certainly, amateur performances rarely contain anything intentionally so humorous as the idea of suggesting to "G.B.S." that he should reduce his fees by way of an indirect contribution to the fund for the restoration of some village church or the like. Apparently the common answer to the author of Mrs Warren's Profession is a sort of paraphrase of the line "Nobody axt you, sir, she said."
It would be interesting to know how many performances, if any, have been given by the great unpaid of pieces by the now successful theatrical iconoclast. Who knows whether his wrath has not a touch of the spretae injuria formae? Perhaps he is longing to have Caesar and Cleopatra represented by some amiable association that has hitherto confined itself to the comedies of Bulwer Lytton and farces by Maddison Morton. It may be the dream of his life to see what people untrammelled by considerations of filthy lucre, except so far as the benefit of the charity is concerned, can make of The Philanderers.
Judging by the public press and the circulars, Mr Shaw is not inaccurate in his view that the army of amateurs does comparatively little service for drama. Its taste seems to be for showy, artificial plays, and its tendency to seek out works that do not act themselves because of their truth of characterisation but afford unlimited scope for originality on the part of performers—generally half-baked performers.
This does not apply to all amateur societies; at least we know that there are a number of associations not for the purposes of gain, such as the Elizabethan Stage Society, now, alas! dead, which showed a very stern enthusiasm for the higher forms of art. They appear to be the exception. There was a time when it was difficult to find a man in the street who had not acted in Ici on Parle Français or played in Money or appeared in Our Boys, and nowadays it seems that though there has been some progress, the austere drama is still unpopular, and that when funds are sufficient artificial costume plays are in vogue.
Mr Shaw apparently believes that vanity is the fundamental motive of amateur performances. It may be that this is not wholly true, and that the real impulse is the elementary instinct for dressing-up. Savages, we know, have a craving for strange costumes which enable them to disguise and even disfigure their persons. Children delight in dressing up. Possibly one of the great joys of the amateur lies in the fact that he has an opportunity of wearing clothes pertinent to somebody else, and, if he be a male, is curious to see how he looks and is looked upon with the whiskers of the mid-Victorian beau or the imperial of the Third Empire, and so on.
The amiable philosopher would find a pleasanter explanation, would suggest that the desire to "dress up" is based upon a modest doubt concerning the charms of one's own individuality—how agreeable to believe this! At the bottom of the matter lies this ugly contention on the part of the cynic—he alleges that the amateur wants to act not for the benefit of the charity, the name of which is invoked hypocritically, but for the gratification of his vanity, and the authors are unable to see why the clubs should gratify the conceit of their members at the expense of those who write the plays.
After all, the matter is one of domestic economy, and the wisest thing seems to be to leave people to make their own bargains; and if the result is that the best plays are the dearest and the least performed, the result may be somewhat advantageous. It is always uncertain whether the individual spectator who has witnessed an amateur performance of a piece will be anxious to see how it really acts or determine never to suffer from it again. Perhaps it is rather cheap to scoff at the amateur performances, some of which, no doubt, are excellent.
Moreover, it cannot be doubted that in a good many cases the amateur stage provides recruits for the profession, and some of our most popular players—like Mr Shrubb and other famous runners—have begun their careers by merely striving for "the fun of the thing." Probably many who now stroll the Strand or haunt "Poverty Corner" fruitlessly, were induced to embark upon their vain career by the polite plaudits of amiable friends whose judgments were worthless even when honest. Perhaps some of them, or of their friends, begin to believe that Mr Zangwill was not quite untruthful in his phrase that "players are only men and women—spoilt," which, of course, he did not intend to be of universal application.
Still, it can hardly be denied that "G.B.S." was needlessly severe. The amateur actors do very little harm and cause a great deal of innocent amusement which outweighs the harm. It may be that, except in dealing with serious plays, there is an unfair proportion of amusement on the farther side of the footlights, but it must be recollected that the performers have many trials and annoyances, and often make severe sacrifices—of friendships.
If the authors of established reputation seem too greedy the clubs have an easy remedy. At the present moment the cry of the unacted is unusually bitter and loud. Why, then, should not these associations, able as some are to give performances that are at least adequate if not exactly brilliant, save as regards a few individual players, assist the drama by giving a chance to the unacted of seeing their works on the stage? In many cases plays now rejected by managers because they have an instinctive feeling that there is some flaw which defies precise indication might, after such a production, be corrected and rendered acceptable and valuable.
[Cant about Shakespeare ]
In a criticism upon the new Lyceum revival of Hamlet there was a sentence which impressed me greatly. It appeared in a morning paper of prodigious circulation, and was in these words: "Mr Matheson Lang's Hamlet ... is what may be called a popular one, and likely to be extremely popular. And this is well, for 'tis better to see Shakespeare in any form than not to see him at all, so that these performances deserve every support, being in some ways not unlike the productions ... which serve to keep alive the classics and old traditions of art." This criticism, or rather statement, is popular—"extremely popular." People seem to think that there is virtue in producing Shakespeare and in acting Shakespeare and in reading Shakespeare. It would be pleasant to feel confident that there is virtue in writing about him—I have written so much—but probably nobody takes this extreme view. Now, some have a different opinion.
A strenuous dramatist, namesake of a contemporary of the national dramatist, ventures to call the "Swan of Avon" a "blackleg" instead of a black swan, and ascribes his popularity with managers to the fact that his name no longer spells bankruptcy, and that no royalties have to be paid on performances of his plays, in consequence of which they are often, or sometimes, produced where, otherwise, modern works would be presented.
It is not necessary to go so far as this to reach a sane view on the subject—a view which probably lies between the extremes. Certainly we may well wonder whether and why it is a good thing to produce Shakespeare plays unless the production is of fine quality. Everybody is acquainted with Lamb's essay, with what one may call "Elia's" paradox, on Shakespeare, the vigorous truth of which is partly counterbalanced by the fact that few play readers have anything like his powers of imagination, and that he probably underrated the knowledge of Shakespeare possessed by playgoers, or at least by West End first-nighters.
Indeed, one may go further and say that during any run of a Shakespearean play it will be visited by some thousands of people well acquainted with it and some hundreds who immediately detect any alteration of the text. The enjoyment of these expert or semi-expert playgoers of a performance of a Shakespeare play, when compared with their pleasure in reading it, is probably much higher than Lamb imagined. It is, however, hardly for them that these dramas are revived, and clearly for quite a different audience that the Lyceum production is given.
Is it a really good thing that Hamlet should be offered to those who have little or no acquaintance with the tragedy? A study of the audience on the first night of Hamlet at the Lyceum gave the idea that the majority were far from appreciating the work, and did not, at any rate, get a greater or different pleasure from it than they would have had if instead of the Shakespearean dialogue they had been offered the blank verse of any ordinary respectable writer.
Why should it be otherwise? Why should the hundreds of people in the sixpenny gallery understand the conduct of Hamlet, which has puzzled the most learned and acute critics of all countries for centuries? A person hearing the play on the stage, and otherwise unacquainted with it, must be bewildered. How is he to understand why Hamlet is so rude to Ophelia, yet later on declares that he loved her prodigiously? What is he to think of a Hamlet who takes so much trouble to find out whether his uncle is guilty, and then tamely submits to be sent out of the country by him, leaving his father unavenged? What opinion is he to form of the perfectly idiotic, complex conspiracy between the King and Laertes to get rid of Hamlet? Why should Hamlet appeal to him, except as a melodrama with a flabby hero, a feeble heroine, a very small amount of comic relief, and far too much dialogue, much of which is almost unintelligible? What can he make of the great soliloquies, of the purple patches, written in involved sentences, embellished by curious archaic terms of speech, elaborate figures, and puzzling inversions, which at the best can only give him a vague idea of what is supposed to be said?
If you were to send a highly educated man, ignorant of the play—perhaps an apparent contradiction—he would at first be bored or irritated. No doubt his ear might catch and his mind retain some profound phrases, and he would promptly recognize the grandeur of the verse in many passages, so that his curiosity would be awakened, and cause him either to read the play or see it time after time. What about the man in the street, the railway guard, the 'bus conductor, the "shover," the humbler clerks, and their womenfolk, who are patrons of the gallery; will they get beyond one visit? Can they recognize profound thoughts at first hearing, or at all? Are they able to distinguish beautiful blank verse from bombast? Are the soliloquies of Hamlet likely to lure them to the severe intellectual task of reading the play scrupulously?
Of course these questions do not concern members of the "Gallery First-Nighters'" Club. They may or may not patronize the sixpenny gallery or shilling pit of the Lyceum. No doubt the members of the club are fully competent to appreciate the play, but they certainly formed the minority last Saturday week, and will be rare during the later performances. It was not they who laughed in the wrong places, or laughed with the wrong laughter, or coughed, during the uneventful scenes.
It will be said that thousands have gone and will go to this revival and enjoy it, and, therefore, these views must be wrong. These remarks are not in disparagement at all of this particular revival. It is, however, certain that the pleasure of the majority of those who visit this revival would be none the less if the work had been written by a second-rate playwright; indeed, Mr Cecil Raleigh who, compared with Shakespeare, may, perhaps, be called second-rate, could write them a new Hamlet on the old plot which would give them far greater pleasure than they get at present.
Critics ought to speak with perfect sincerity about the drama; great harm is done by people who, with excellent motives, write insincerely. The average schoolboy is prevented from enjoying the classics by being bored with them when he is too young to understand them. The average man never reads the Bible for pleasure, because he has been brought up to regard it as a kind of religious medicine; and it is unlikely that the great half-educated will be brought to a taste for Shakespeare by a stage performance of his works. This is no plea against the performance of his plays, but against writing carelessly and conventionally about them. Nobody will deny Lamb's love of the dramatist. He would say that if Shakespeare is to be played to the masses there should be some preliminary training of them. At least they might be broken in gently. To present Hamlet as successor to the pantomime and not long after some of the simple melodramas acted at this theatre seems rather irrational.
A better service is done to the public and to drama by presenting modern English plays, written sincerely and on a reasonably high standard of truth, than by reviving works that can only appeal to most of the half-educated despite, and not because of, their finer qualities. Shakespeare, indeed, might ask the gallery in the phrase of Benedick, "For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?" The important matter is to get rid of humbug, to try to see things truly. Drama is worthy of serious consideration as a great branch of art and a great force, but will never fulfil its mission if it is to lie in a mortmain to dead dramatists, and if it is to be regarded as more meritorious to try to make money by producing the non-copyright dramas of the past than by presenting the works of living men who need a royalty.
This is not a plea against revivals of the English classics, the production of which under certain circumstances may be praiseworthy and valuable, but against such propositions as "'tis better to see Shakespeare in any form than not at all," which cause people to form false judgments and push them to enterprises of little value.
[Yvette Guilbert on Dramatists ]
Lately Yvette Guilbert has been making some strange remarks concerning drama and dramatists. Her words demand attention since they come from the lips of a woman of genius. In our time the domain between the theatre and the concert-room has produced no artist of her rank. One recollects her different styles. First, in the amazing delivery of almost frankly indecent songs—a delivery so extraordinarily fine as to convert them for the moment into works of art—the image of beautiful iridescent scum on foul water suggests itself. Secondly, in the presentation by short song and very sober gesture and facial expression of grim tragedies, a presentation more vivid and poignant than the ordinary theatre can give, despite its numerous aids to art. Then came the charming utterance of quaint old songs—who can forget Béranger's "La Grandmère" as it came from her?
Paris, insatiable in craving for novelty, is said to have grown tired of her, but her place as the greatest of singers in the variety theatres cannot be gainsaid. It is alleged that she intends to go upon the stage, and imaginable that her search for suitable plays has caused her outburst against playwrights. Whether she will be successful as actress or not is a question of interest concerning which a priori reasoning is futile. Certainly she must be a difficult person for whom to write a play.
Apparently she has gone to some fashionable dramatist and given him a commission to write a drama as a vehicle for the exhibition of her histrionic gifts, and is dissatisfied by the result. One is justified in making the guess by her theories concerning the future of drama when the "arenas" are again opened, and "histrionic" art is rejuvenated. "Let the actors enter," she says, "with their ideas boiling over, their nerves strung to the highest pitch, and let the public suggest to each the action or character to be mimicked. Let a dozen different ideals be impersonated, then real, true and original talent will be revealed, new ideas will be discovered which will no longer be guided by the author and stage manager and theatrical director, but which will be free, untrammelled, and no longer ready-made emotions."
This sounds rather daring, and the lady, before kicking the dramatists out of the theatre, might consider carefully what is to become of the players who have not sufficient brains in their skulls for there to be any "boiling over." Some actors, no doubt, are intellectual men, but not a few of the best possess no ideas of their own. This quotation and others that follow come from a translation which appeared in The Daily Telegraph of a letter written by Yvette Guilbert to The Figaro.
It is noteworthy that this idea of dispensing with dramatists is not new. Efforts were made in the days of Le Chat Noir to evolve a new kind of drama, in which the playwright had little concern. Moreover, Mr Gordon Craig, one of the forces of the future—and of the present—has revolutionary ideas on the subject.
Let us now see what the great diseuse thinks of dramas and dramatists. Here is a strong sentence by her: "The author ignores, or will not admit, that, despite all his efforts, he never produces anything but a half-dead child. The talented actor animates, nurses, consolidates, fortifies and clothes it, suggests the proper gestures and attitudes, infuses his own health and strength into this weakling, gives it blood and, so to speak, makes it live. The playwright contributes the soul, it is true; but, the soul being intangible, it is only a pitiable gift so far as the dramatic art is concerned."
To anticipate an obvious objection she says, "Of course I know there were a Shakespeare, a Racine, a Molière, and some others.... What a pity they had no descendants!" It is permissible to wonder whether the lady has read much drama. Possibly she would ask why she should spend time in reading mere "souls," and admit that her acquaintance with plays is almost confined to works witnessed by her; and, indeed, seeing that, according to her, "the rôle of the comedian is superior to that of the author," she may believe that a play only exists when it is acted, and be quite unaware that an imaginative, intelligent person can get a high degree of pleasure from reading a play.
The dramatist may well rest content with the suggestion that his work is the soul, the immortal, noble part of drama, and that the players form only the gross, corporeal element.
There may be some truth in Guilbert's remarks: "The dramatic is the most inferior of all arts. The play passes through too many channels, and comes before the public as a cramped, crushed and faded form. The writer ... sees his play in one light, the theatrical manager receives it and sees it in another, the stage-manager adds his own way of understanding it, the actor takes it up according to his own temperament and talents, and the public sees it from a fifth point of view. Add to this ten or twelve subsidiary characters. How can an author claim, under such circumstances, to remain the absolute master of his work?"
The term "subsidiary characters" to some extent explains the attitude of the actress. It is a suggestion of the famous "moi-même et quelques poupées" which exhibits the clash of ideas that forms the basis of the ineradicable antagonism between the original author and the actor. Each naturally thinks himself the master.
To the true dramatist the players are as the colours on the palette, the instruments in the orchestra—or, perhaps, the players of them—the stone of the sculptor; their task is to give bodily form to his ideas, clothes and flesh to the "soul" of his drama, and, as far as possible, to efface themselves in doing their duty.
The player, on the other hand, regards the dramatist as someone intended to write splendid parts for him—parts in which, to use the stock phrase, he "sees himself"—sees himself. Unfortunately the dramatists have, on the whole, been the sufferers, the slaves.
Sardou enslaved himself to Bernhardt; there are grounds for thinking that but for this slavery he might have been a great dramatist and not merely a rich, supremely skilful play fabricator. For a long time the players have had the upper hand, mainly because of the servility of the dramatists, but there are signs of a change. Already the "ten or twelve subsidiary actors" phrase is becoming out of date. We have seen play after play at the Court with parts of different degrees of importance, but hardly any "subsidiary" characters in the sense in which Yvette Guilbert uses the term.
There are moments when the letter of Guilbert seems a joke or a hoax. One does not like to think that she said, "The true comedian finds his success in himself, and can do without the dramatic author. He easily utilizes his own comic or tragic gifts, as is witnessed in Shakespeare, Molière, and a hundred others." To think that we do not know whether Shakespeare was "a true comedian," and that it is not unlikely that he was a poor actor! The lady is wise not to attempt to name the "hundred others" presumably ejusdem generis with Shakespeare and Molière. "There have always been, since the beginning of the ages, mimics and improvisators who did without the text of others." Possibly this is true but it does not follow that there are many players who could hold an audience by their mimicry or improvisations; not a few of the greatest actors and actresses might starve if they had to rely upon their own ideas. It is even notorious that some of our most illustrious actors have had their brilliant after-dinner impromptu speeches written for them.
After reading the whole letter one may hint that Guilbert's own ideas might not serve her very well if she tried to appear as improvisator.