VI
That Shaw will ever become a popular dramatist, in the sense that Sardou and Pinero are popular, seems to be beyond all probability. The vogue that his plays have had of late in the United States is to be ascribed, in the main, to the yearning to appear “advanced” and “intellectual” which afflicts Americans of a certain class. The very fact that they do not understand him makes him seem worthy of admiration to these virtuously ambitious folks. Were his aims and methods obvious, they would probably vote him tiresome. As it is, a performance of “Candida” delights them as much as an entertainment by Henry Kellar, the magician, and for the same reason.
But even among those who approach Shaw more honestly, there is little likelihood that he will ever grow more popular, in the current sense, than he is at present. In the first place, some of his plays are wellnigh impossible of performance in a paying manner without elaborate revision and expurgation. “Man and Superman,” for instance, would require five hours if presented as it was written. And “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” because of its subject-matter, will be unsuitable for a good many years to come. In the second place, Shaw’s extraordinary dexterity as a wit, which got him his first hearing and keeps him before the public almost constantly to-day, is a handicap of crushing weight. As long as he exercises it, the great majority will continue to think of him as a sort of glorified and magnificent buffoon. As soon as he abandons it, he will cease to be Shaw.
The reason of this lies in the fact that the average man clings fondly to two ancient delusions: (a) that wisdom is always solemn, and (b) that he himself is never ridiculous. Shaw outrages both of these ideas, the first by placing his most searching and illuminating observations in the mouths of such persons as Frank Gardner and Sidney Trefusis, and the second by drawing characters such as Finch McComas and Roebuck Ramsden. The average spectator laughs at Frank’s impertinences and at Trefusis’ satire, and by gradual stages, comes to laugh at Frank and Trefusis. Beginning as comedians, they become butts. And so, conversely, McComas and Ramsden, as their opponents fall, rise themselves. In the first act of “Man and Superman,” the battle seems to be all in favor of John Tanner and so the unthinking reader concludes that Tanner is Shaw’s personal spokesman and that the Tanner doctrines constitute the Shavian creed. Later on, when Tanner falls before the forces of inexorable law, this same reader is vastly puzzled and perplexed, and in the end he is left wondering what it is all about.
If he would but remember the reiterated axiom that a dramatist’s purpose is to present a picture of life as he sees it, without reference to any particular moral conclusions, he would better enjoy and appreciate the play as a work of art. Playwrights of Shaw’s calibre do not think it necessary to plainly label every character or to reward their heroes and kill their villains in the last act. It is utterly immaterial whether Tanner is dragged into a marriage with Ann or escapes scot free. The important thing is that the battle between the two be depicted naturally and plausibly and that it afford some tangible material for reflection.
The average citizen’s disinclination to see the ridiculous side of his own pet doctrines and characteristics has been noted by Shaw in his preface to Ibsen’s plays. Ibsen has drawn several characters intended to satirize the typical self-satisfied business man and tax-payer—the type greatly in the majority in the usual theater audience. These characters, very naturally, have failed utterly to impress the said gentlemen. One cannot expect a man, however keen his sense of humor, to laugh at the things he considers eminently proper and honorable. Shaw’s demand that he do so has greatly restricted the size of the Shaw audience. To appreciate “The Devil’s Disciple,” for instance, a religious man would have to lift himself bodily from his accustomed rut of thought and look down upon himself from the same distance that separates him in his meditations from the rest of humanity. This, it is obvious, is possible only to man given to constant self-analysis and introspection—the 999th man in the thousand.
Even when the average spectator does not find himself the counterpart of a definite type in a Shaw play, he is confused by the handling of some of his ideals and ideas. No doubt the men who essayed to stone the Magdalen were infinitely astounded when the Messiah called their attention to the fact that they themselves were not guiltless. But it is precisely this establishment of new view-points that makes Shaw as an author worth the time and toil of study. In “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” the heroine’s picturesque fall from grace is shown in literally a multitude of aspects. We have her own antipodal changes in self-valuation and self-depreciation, we have her daughter’s varying point of view, and we have the more constant judgments of Frank Gardner, his father, Crofts, and the rest. It is kaleidoscopic and puzzling, but it is not sermonizing. You pay your money and you take your choice.