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

by Edward Fordham Spence

The first phenomenon to impress him must be the fact that in a large proportion of the dramas professing to deal with current social life the chief persons are the drones of society and the rich people of leisure or labour, most of them with handles or tails to their names. Half of our comedies are supposed to pass among the "nobs," and the middle-class characters are merely introduced as a necessary part of the machinery. It has been said that the British people dearly loves a lord, and a belief in this may be one reason why the upper ten thousand furnish so many of the heroes and heroines.

A further fact is that certain managers are alleged to think that their theatres gain in dignity by presenting Mayfair plays, and perhaps there are players who take a great joy in appearing as Lord this, or Lady that, or the Honourable somebody. Indeed, there was a case where an actor-manager usurped a king's prerogative and transferred the chief characters in a play by a young dramatist to the celestial regions of Burke, notwithstanding the protest of the author, who admitted his absolute ignorance of the manners, ways of thought, and style in conversation of the inhabitants of Belgravia: no changes were made except in the names, and yet nobody suggested that the play was particularly rich in solecisms.

This form of snobbery has at least one advantage, it saves the playwright from the trouble of considering the questions of money in the play. If there is to be an elopement in it there is no difficulty on the score of expense—a difficulty that, in vulgar real life, has caused some intrigues to become sordid hole-and-corner divorce dramas instead of idylls of passionate irregular love.

One notices that certain professions are under a kind of ban upon the stage. The country contains thousands of solicitors, most of them well educated and drawn from the class that feeds the Bar, the Church, the Army, Navy, Medicine, Science and the Arts. This body of solicitors has an enormous influence upon the conscience of the country—more influence than any other class, except, perhaps, that of the parsons. How is the solicitor treated on the stage? Almost always with contempt, at the best as a humble adviser. He is the comic character or the villain; generally, as a further insult, the secondary villain. The attorney is sometimes the hero of a farce, as in The Headless Man—never in comedy, or to be more correct, hardly ever, for Mr Granville Barker in The Voysey Inheritance gave a very fine and sympathetic study of a young solicitor. The dramatist may say in defence that he is truthful, that he merely reflects the vulgar prejudice against the profession, founded upon the misdeeds of a very small proportion of its members.

The barrister receives better treatment, but, of course, he is generally deemed to be a more "genteel" person; yet, in considering stage barristers, one notices that they are drawn very superficially, that their profession is accidental to the play, and little or nothing turns on the influence of the career upon the man. Judges, like solicitors, are usually regarded as comic.

Our stage has hardly inherited Molière traditions concerning the doctors; there were two important plays, The Medicine Man and The Physician, in which members of the healing art are treated seriously—though Dr Tregenna in the former was rather a caricature, and in The Doctor's Dilemma we had a brilliantly painted group of medical men. The Christian Scientist may complain of neglect, even if there was some anticipation of him in Judah, and a humble branch of the craft was handled ably by Mrs Merrick in Jimmy's Mother. The real quack has remained almost unscathed.

The army, of course, has not been neglected. Half the Lotharios of modern drama belong to the destructive profession, and the peppery or tedious colonel is an old stock friend; whilst the "Dobbin" type is handled very frequently, and the V.C. has been bestowed more often by dramatists than by royalty. The modern officer of the good type, the man with an honest, energetic interest in his profession, is rarely presented.

What about the navy? There was The Flag-Lieutenant and also Captain Drew on Leave, the latter a somewhat unpleasant picture, fortunately exhibiting no trace of the sailor's spirit or style of thought. One cannot complain nowadays of a lack of parsons or Nonconformist ministers, though it is irksome to see that the latter, as a rule, are presented in an odious light, by way, probably, of a mean little revenge for the hostility of the Nonconformist to the theatre—a hostility which could hardly surprise any dispassionate person who considers the present state of the stage.

The architect, save in The Master Builder, is almost unknown; the engineer, unspecialised as a rule, figures vaguely sometimes.

Perhaps one ought to write guardedly concerning the journalist. Still, at least, facts may be stated. As a rule he appears as reporter or interviewer, and is treated comically. In The Perfect Lover Mr Sutro handles him seriously, and that play contains an elaborate picture of a weak-minded journalist as well as a wicked solicitor. Of the existence of thousands of men, highly educated and many of them possessing brilliant degrees, connected with the enormous newspaper interest of this country, the stage takes no cognizance. A dramatic critic occasionally is exhibited—as a rule in connexion with the champagne-and-chicken theory.