Why the book is called ‘Timotheus’ will be evident to those who bear in mind the name of the ‘Mighty Master,’ the Wagner of Alexander the Great’s day, who

“Cou’d swell the Soul to Rage, or kindle soft Desire.”

CONTENTS

PAGE
[PREFATORY NOTICE]vii
I.[THE NATIONAL THEATRE]1
II.[THE DRAMATIC ACADEMY]21
III.[OTHER THEATRES]45

TIMOTHEUS

I
THE NATIONAL THEATRE

Our air-taxi landed us at what I took to be the nineteenth floor, and we walked almost at once into a huge hyperboloid pit, the walls of which consisted of tiers of seats. It would hold, I gathered, some twenty thousand people, and much resembled a Roman theatre, except for the peculiar curve of the walls, and the seats continuing to the very bottom of the funnel. There was no sign of any stage, and on my questioning Fabian,[2] he pointed to the saucer-like dome which formed the roof, or lid of the building. I was afraid that to keep my eyes fixed upon this airy stage would mean ricking my neck, but I was reassured on being shown the shape of our seats. Not only were they well slanted back, but they were also provided with rests for the head, such as we are familiar with at our barbers’ and dentists’; and I was told that with the body in the position proper to the chairs, our emotional apparatus lent itself most readily to suggestion.

[2] The author’s general guide—Vergil to his Dante.

I then asked him if the performance was to be a good one, and he replied that “The clutch was officially ranked as A2 for efficiency, but that he did not know what it was for.” I was much puzzled as to his meaning until I learnt that ‘clutch’ was the name given to a drama of the kind about to take place, where everything was under the control of one man, the ‘fairfusser’ as he is called, who designs the movement, the emotional sequences, the voices, and whatever else is needed. I laid myself open to much banter on the part of Ierne[3] by asking whether it was to be a tragedy or a comedy: such a crude distinction, she said, was typical of the muddle-headedness of our age, on a level with the antitheses classical-romantic, conservative-liberal, matter-mind, and even intellect-emotion we were so fond of making, and which for absurdity were only equalled by our craze for dressing men and women in different sorts of clothes. The object of a drama, Fabian enlightened me, was to summon up a given state of being, pure or complex; and once the fairfusser knew what the clutch was for, it was his business to produce the right emotion. I began to speak of emotion for its own sake, but Ierne hurriedly checked me, saying that I would shock anyone who might overhear, for there was no biological value in emotion for its own sake. This made me think less agreeably of her kindness to me on the last evening.