Our Stage and Its Critics / By "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

by Edward Fordham Spence

Sometimes when watching a work of common quality, a painful idea comes into one's mind, and we wonder how people, compelled to see it night after night perhaps for half-a-year, can endure the strain. What, for instance, must be the sufferings of the conductor or of a member of the orchestra at a successful second-rate musical comedy; of a stage manager compelled for months, one after another, to direct a brainless farce? Of course the people lumped together in the technical term as "the front of the house" have a remedy, and after the first night or two only appear in the auditorium when the curtain is down, or, to be more accurate, just before it descends, when all hands are expected to be on deck.

There are critics that resemble the person who denied that any beer could be bad, and would sooner pass an evening in a theatre watching a mediocre play acted in a style no better than it deserves than at home in a well-stocked library. They resemble the journalist in a story by Balzac who, when blind, haunted a newspaper office and revelled in the smell of printers' ink, and they have been known for their own pleasure to pay a second visit to a piece on which they wrote a condemnatory criticism. In fact, they have the curious mania for the theatre which induces many people with no talent for acting to abandon comfortable careers and starve on the stage—or at the stage door.

That the critic's sufferings in the playhouse are considerable is incontestable, and they are keener at the performance of works of mediocrity than when watching very bad plays. Fortunately there are two sides to every hedge. When the play has any touch of originality, or even novelty, our pleasure is far keener than that of the unsophisticated, and we often perceive originality or novelty where the public notices none. A whole field of enjoyment is open to us in the triumphs of technique which is almost untrodden by the general public. Our poles of pain and pleasure are farther apart than those of the Man in the Street. There have been pieces and performances concerning which the praise of the critics, or some of them, has seemed mere raving to the ordinary playgoer. Several actors and actresses whom we prefer to some of the popular favourites have been banished from London by the indifference of Londoners, and there are "stars" beloved in the theatres who irritate the observant because they have never learnt their art, and nevertheless triumph by mere force of personality.

No doubt the critics, so far as acting is concerned, often—very often—fall into an error and censure acting which does not move them yet impresses the audience, forgetting that it is the advantage and disadvantage of the actor that he need only affect, and must affect, those before him, and that to move only a minority of a normal audience is to act badly. One may write but cannot act for posterity, and therefore the actor, the pianist, the violinist, and the like should not be grudged their noisy, obvious demonstrations of admiration.

Does the critic really get jaded? Is it unfair that the "jaded" critic should deal with the average play? In answering the latter question one should consider whether the notices of the younger critics, too fresh to have become jaded, are more valuable than those of the veterans. Perhaps the two questions should be treated together.

Most critics do get jaded. The critic is jaded when he is saturated with theatrical impressions and cannot take up any more, when new pieces merely recall memories of old pieces or are disliked and distrusted because they do not. After a certain age, varying with the individual, all, or almost all, of us gradually move towards a condition of repugnance to new ideas—a repugnance that becomes hatred when they are inconsistent with the old theories that have grown to be part of ourselves as well as of our stock-in-trade; and when this movement has gone far we are "jaded," are unfit to estimate the value of new ideas; we are still competent to apply the old theories to plays and acting based on them, but of course cumber the ground and retard progress. In youth, having few theories of our own or that have cost us enough labour in acquirement to seem very precious, we tend to be over-hospitable to new ideas and accept dangerous guests.

The notices of the veterans, even of the jaded, upon the average work are sounder, as a rule, than those of the young hands, because the latter very often mistake things merely new to them for things actually new, and they are kinder for the reason that the writers know how great are the difficulties in the way of writing plays from a novel standpoint and of getting them produced when written. There is less violence in their views.

Happy the critic during the years when he is old enough to be cautious about accepting new ideas and young enough to be enthusiastic concerning them after careful consideration, when he is so mature as not to desire to stagger the orthodox by the impudence of his opinions, and sufficiently youthful to be willing to shock the conservative by the audacity of his views. He may then seem jaded because he is not easily moved, but will be quicker to give encouragement to sincere effort, to perceive talent imperfectly manifested, and to appreciate technical triumphs than when he was younger and yet able to welcome novel ideas even if they assail cherished theories.

[His Unpaid Labours ]

Probably many of the craft have wasted a good deal of the last few first-nightless weeks in the trying task of reading plays, not the printed plays by dramatists of reputation, but the manuscripts with which we, or some of us, are flooded. It is hard to guess why strangers should assume that we are willing to spend our time in reading their plays, but they do. Some apparently deem it to be part of our duties, and even believe that there exists a Government fund which pays our expenses of postages and stationery, for many of the amateur authors make no provision for the return of their work. Occasionally there comes a suggestion that we are really conferring no favour because the pleasure of reading the play will pay for our pains. Some imagine us to be agents for the managers. Even the proposal to pay a commission if we place the piece is not rare; now and then it is wrapped up gracefully, but frequently is expressed in the bluntest fashion.