Madame Réjane, it was stated in the papers, has expressed herself shocked by A Wife without a Smile, and alleged that she would never act in such a piece; but it may well be that her horror lay in the fact that the parties concerned in the farce had been through a ceremony of marriage, and that she would have accepted it as permissible if it were correctly entitled A Cocotte without a Leer. The point is, not that those who understand these plays or those who do not are affected in their moral ideas by them, but that they give a deplorable picture of French life and in such a guise as to suggest that it is a picture of normal French life; unfortunately L'Age d'Aimer is only one of many.
It is a great pity to use such a powerful vehicle as the stage for slandering a nation. That there is a certain amount of truth in works of the Zaza, Sapho, Les Demi-Vierges and L'Age d'Aimer type is incontestable; yet so far as they are true to general life one can find their parallel in this holy island. Unfortunately, whilst the fast society of Paris is no bigger than that of London, and whilst Paris is infinitely less in relation to France than London in relation to England, the great French nation is generally judged over here by flashy pictures of the fast section of Paris society, drawn, very often, if not always, from the outside, by clever people too indolent to know that the psychology of decent people is quite as interesting and dramatic as that of the gutter-creatures of mere passion who dignify their cynical desires with noble names, and, so far as the latest school is concerned, fail even to reach the humblest concept of free love.
[Scripture Plays ]
There have been some complaints about the attitude of several of the dramatic critics concerning Mr Jerome's drama The Passing of the Third Floor Back. It has been suggested that they have not welcomed with sufficient warmth a sincere attempt "to broaden the basis," a phrase apparently borrowed from the Tariff Reformers, to enlarge the boundaries of the British drama, but have treated the production of the piece as an everyday affair, confining their remarks to criticism concerning the workmanship.
In The Third Floor Back a character is introduced who is called "The Stranger," but known by everybody in the theatre to represent Jesus Christ; and "The Stranger" visits a somewhat remarkable boarding-house in which all the boarders and the landlady are vile, and after his visit all of them are fit for immediate translation to heaven.
Certainly, many of us are anxious to broaden the basis of our drama. A little while ago an important foreign paper contained a article saying that the object of the London stage is "to introduce living pictures to say pretty things for young girls," and that "of the social, religious, economic or intellectual struggles which agitate our time no trace is observable in the English stage literature of the day," and that English stage literature "has become nothing more than an insipid and dying study of the doings of the aristocratic and the rich." How sickening to know that in the main the charges are true, and that our drama, with, fortunately some exceptions, is merely a kind of Pap and Puppet affair.
On the other hand, the broadening effect of a play such as Mr Jerome's is not obvious. The Censor has been dodged, just as he was dodged many years ago, when Verdi's opera Nebuchadonozor was called Ninus or when Ben Hur was presented or The Daughters of Babylon. That official has already permitted the performance of Everyman and Hannele. Consequently, it is not easy to see that the suggested broadening of the basis has taken place.
Moreover, there are many who doubt whether broadening, so as to admit a free trade in what could be called religious or Scripture drama, is desirable. We do not pretend that the office of Censor ought to be maintained merely to keep back a flood of plays introducing Scriptural characters. The office, no doubt, does good as well as harm, but the harm far outweighs the good. Would it be beneficial if this particular restriction—this working rule that characters bearing the names of personages of the Old and New Testament are not to be presented on the stage—were relaxed. There are enthusiastic persons who desire a closer union between Church and the Stage, and wish to have the theatre employed as a kind of pulpit, who believe that Scripture plays would be beneficial. It is conceivable that under certain circumstances the attitude of these persons would be sound, but not under the present circumstances.
Most of our theatres are run as a mere commercial speculation by people who care little enough about art, and probably nothing about religion. We have had one instance of the sort of thing that might be expected, The Sign of the Cross, in which a commonplace melodrama was mixed up with hymns and pseudo-religious talk and miracles, and a ballet as immodest, as pulse-disturbing, as any given in the theatres or the halls. Many visited the play who had never been to a theatre before, since they believed that it was really a religious drama outside their ban. Some were horrified, and from being potential playgoers became rapidly adverse to the stage and all its works; others were shocked and disturbed and delighted by the exhibition of female flesh in the ballet, with a result which can easily be guessed. No doubt a number of persons believed that the piece did good to them and other folk—some people will believe anything.
The people of taste and sensibility, who, whatever their state of religious belief, would regard with abhorrence the exhibition on the ordinary commercial stage of the Christ whom they were brought up to regard as Divine, have a title to consideration. The traffic in blasphemy that would immediately follow the suggested enlargement of the boundary of the theatre is horrible to contemplate. Such abominations as a combination of Christ and semi-naked women doing more or less mitigated danses du ventre, would be justified as giving an Oriental colour.