Letter the First. From Mr. Reader to Mr. Author.
My dear Sir,—I am sufficiently well-educated, and sufficiently refined in my tastes and habits, to be a member of the large class of persons usually honoured by literary courtesy with the title of the Intelligent Public. In the interests of the order to which I belong, I have a little complaint to make against the managers of our theatres, and a question to put afterwards, which you, as a literary man, will, I have no doubt, be both able and willing to answer.
Like many thousands of other people, I am fond of reading and fond of going to the theatre. In regard to my reading, I have no complaint to make—for the press supplies me abundantly with English poems, histories, biographies, novels, essays, travels, criticisms, all of modern production. But, in regard to going to the theatre, I write with something like a sense of injury—for nobody supplies me with a good play. There is living literature of a genuine sort in the English libraries of the present time. Why (I beg to inquire) is there no living literature of a genuine sort in the English theatre of the present time, also?
Say, I am a Frenchman, fond of the imaginative literature of my country, well-read in all the best specimens of it,—I mean, best in a literary point of view, for I am not touching moral questions now. When I shut up Balzac, Victor Hugo, Dumas, and Soulié, and go to the theatre—what do I find? Balzac, Victor Hugo, Dumas, and Soulié again. The men who have been interesting me in my arm-chair, interesting me once more in my stall. The men who can really invent and observe for the reader, inventing and observing for the spectator also. What is the necessary consequence? The literary standard of the stage is raised; and the dramatist by profession must be as clever a man, in his way, as good an inventor, as correct a writer, as the novelist. And what, in my case, follows that consequence? Clearly this: the managers of theatres get my money at night, as the publishers of books get it in the day.
Do the managers get my money from me in England? By no manner of means. For they hardly ever condescend to address me.
I get up from reading the best works of our best living writers, and go to the theatre, here. What do I see? The play that I have seen before in Paris. This may do very well for my servant, who does not understand French, or for my tradesman, who has never had time to go to Paris,—but it is only showing me an old figure in a foreign dress, which does not become it like its native costume. But, perhaps, our dramatic entertainment is not a play adapted from the French Drama. Perhaps, it is something English—a Burlesque. Delightful, I have no doubt, to a fast young farmer from the country, or to a convivial lawyer's clerk, who has never read anything but a newspaper in his life. But is it satisfactory to me? It is, if I want to go and see the Drama satirised. But I go to enjoy a new play—and I am rewarded by seeing all my favourite ideas and characters in some old play, ridiculed. This, like the adapted drama, is the sort of entertainment I do not want.
I read at home many original stories, by many original authors, that delight me. I go to the theatre, and naturally want original stories by original authors, which will also delight me there. Do I get what I ask for? Yes, if I want to see an old play over again. But, if I want a new play? Why, then I must have the French adaptation, or the Burlesque. The publisher can understand that there are people among his customers who possess cultivated tastes, and can cater for them accordingly, when they ask for something new. The manager, in the same case, recognises no difference between me and my servant. My footman goes to see the play-actors, and cares very little what they perform in. If my taste is not his taste, we may part at the theatre door,—he goes in, and I go home. It may be said, Why is my footman's taste not to be provided for? By way of answering that question, I will ask another:—Why is my footman not to have the chance of improving his taste, and making it as good as mine?
The case between the two countries seems to stand thus, then:—In France, the most eminent imaginative writers work, as a matter of course, for the stage, as well as for the library table. In England, the most eminent imaginative writers work for the library table alone. What is the reason of this? To what do you attribute the present shameful dearth of stage literature? To the dearth of good actors?—or, if not to that, to what other cause?
Of one thing I am certain, that there is no want of a large and a ready audience for original English plays, possessing genuine dramatic merit, and appealing, as forcibly as our best novels do, to the tastes, the interests, and the sympathies of our own time. You, who have had some experience of society, know as well as I do, that there is in this country a very large class of persons whose minds are stiffened by no Puritanical scruples, whose circumstances in the world are easy, whose time is at their own disposal, who are the very people to make a good audience and a paying audience at a theatre, and who yet, hardly ever darken theatrical doors more than two or three times in a year. You know this; and you know also that the systematic neglect of the theatre in these people, has been forced on them, in the first instance, by the shock inflicted on their good sense by nine-tenths of the so-called new entertainments which are offered to them. I am not speaking now of gorgeous scenic revivals of old plays—for which I have a great respect, because they offer to sensible people the only decent substitute for genuine dramatic novelty to be met with at the present time. I am referring to the "new entertainments" which are, in the vast majority of cases, second-hand entertainments to every man in the theatre who is familiar with the French writers—or insufferably coarse entertainments to every man who has elevated his taste by making himself acquainted with the best modern literature of his own land. Let my servant, let my small tradesman, let the fast young farmers and lawyers' clerks, be all catered for! But surely, if they have their theatre, I, and my large class, ought to have our theatre too? The fast young farmer has his dramatists, just as he has his novelists in the penny journals. We, on our side, have got our great novelists (whose works the fast young farmer does not read)—why, I ask again, are we not to have our great dramatists as well?
With high esteem, yours, my dear Sir,
A. Reader.