Without posing as the so-called "superior person," without demanding unpopular classics or asking for the performance of serious chamber music or severe symphonies, or expressing a desire for Bach—a holiday might very well be given to the Bach-Gounod "Ave Maria"—we merely pray for greater variety and also for more careful consideration of the congruity between the play and the character of the entr'acte and introductory music.
It should be the duty of somebody to see that an effort is made to confine the music to works harmonious with the emotions which the dramatist intends to excite. We ought not to have the "Teddy Bears' Picnic" just after hearing the heroine weep over the idea that her husband is faithless; whilst the feelings caused by the agonies of Othello are not strengthened by hearing the "Light Cavalry" overture; and the Faust ballad music falls queerly upon the despair of the hero when he learns that he is ruined. It may be admitted that in many instances an effort is made to carry out these entirely unoriginal views, but even in some of our most carefully conducted playhouses there are strange lapses.
There is another point. It very often happens that the list of pieces printed upon the programme, for which in most of the theatres a charge of sixpence is made, is a mere snare. Sometimes none of the pieces mentioned is played, whilst to alter the order is quite a common matter. No doubt this gives some uncharitable amusement to people who overhear the conversation of ignorant playgoers misled by the programme. There was an unfortunate foreigner who said to his neighbour, "Pas un aigle, leur fameux Elgar" when he thought he was listening to "Pomp and Circumstance," whilst the orchestra in fact was playing "Whistling Rufus."
The ideal system, no doubt, was that of Miss Ashwell, who gave a long list of pieces in the programme with numbers to them, and then had the number appropriate to the particular work hoisted before it was played. This is only the ideal in one sense. In reality, the best course is suggested by a famous maxim: "Optima medicina est medicina non uti." The Stage Society is wise in following the custom sanctioned by such an august institution as La Comédie Française. After all, we want to make the theatres less of a gamble and to reduce needless expenses so as not to render the battle a triumph for the long purse. If the orchestras of the theatres were in the habit of giving a real service to music by producing the shorter pieces of talented composers who are struggling for recognition; if, as might well be the case, they offered a hearing to the young musicians of talent of whom we now have plenty, then no doubt they would deserve encouragement. As the matter stands, they perform too small a service to music to warrant the tax imposed by them on drama.
[CHAPTER XI ]
IN THE PLAYHOUSE
[Laughter ]
Of late years there has been a good deal of censure, most of it unwritten, upon the stage management of plays. Despite brilliant exhibitions of the art of stage management by people such as Pinero and Mr Granville Barker, there have been more bad performances in modern times than of old.
The matter is one into which it is needless to go at large upon the present occasion; yet there is one vice that should be mentioned. We often have much loud laughter upon the stage that hardly causes so much as a faint echo on the other side of the footlights. Now, when the characters in a piece laugh heartily, or at least loudly, at something supposed to divert them, which does not appeal successfully to the sense of humour of the audience, the effect is disastrous. It is exasperating to hear laughter—even feigned laughter—in which one cannot join.
There are people who believe that laughter is infectious, and that if the persons of the play laugh a great deal the audience will catch the infection. This is not universally or even generally true. A few individual players no doubt have an infectious laugh. Samary was famous for it, and her laughter in one of Molière's farces drew all Paris; and another French actress by her prodigious laughter in a farce at the Royalty raised the audience to hearty sympathetic outbursts. Most players, however, though they may mimic laughter very well, are unable to make the audience laugh sympathetically, unless really amused by what is supposed to entertain the characters of the play.