There is a strong lyric tendency also in the dramatic compositions of the day. The true drama has always been more neglected than any other branch of art, and if it is true that the Americans have preserved the temperament and point of view of Elizabethan England, it is high time for some American Shakespeare to step forth. Until now, extremely few plays of real literary worth have been written between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Dramatists there have been always, and the stage is now more than ever supplied by native talent; but literature is too little considered here. The rural dramas having the local colour of Virginia and New England are generally better than the society pieces: and the very popular dramatizations of novels are stirring, but utterly cheap. On the other hand, the American has often applied the lyric gift in dramatic verse, and in dramas of philosophic significance such as Santayana’s admirable “Lucifer” or Moody’s “Masque of Judgment.” The stunted growth of American dramatic writing is closely connected with the history of the American stage, a subject which may lead us from literature to the sister arts.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Art
The history of the theatre leads us once more back to Puritan New England. Every one knows that the Puritan regarded the theatre as the very temple of vice, and the former association of the theatre and the bar-room—a tradition that came from England—naturally failed to make public opinion more favourable. In the year 1750 theatrical productions were entirely forbidden in Boston. One theatre was built in 1794, and a few others later, but the public feeling against demoralizing influences of the stage so grew that one theatre after another was turned from its profane uses and made over into a lecture hall or something of the sort. In 1839 it was publicly declared that Boston should never again have a theatre. Nevertheless by 1870, it had five theatres, and to-day it has fifteen. Other cities have always been more liberal toward the theatre, and in the city of New York, since 1733, ninety-five theatres have been built, of which more than thirty are still standing to-day and in active operation. Thus the Puritan spirit seems long since to have disappeared, and the backwardness of the drama seems not to be connected with the religious past of the country. But this is not the case.
Let us survey the situation. There is certainly no lack of theatres, for almost every town has its “opera house,” and the large cities have really too many. Nor is there any lack of histrionic talent; for, although the great Shakespearian actor, Edwin Booth, has no worthy successor, we have still actors who are greatly applauded and loved—Mansfield, Sothern, Jefferson, Drew, and Gillette; Maude Adams, Mrs. Fiske, Blanche Bates, Henrietta Crosman, Julia Arthur, Julia Marlowe, Ada Rehan, Nance O’Neill, and many others who are certainly sincere artists; and the most brilliant actors of Europe, Irving and Tree, Dusé, Bernhardt, Sorma, and Campbell come almost every year to play in this country. The American’s natural versatility gives him a great advantage for the theatrical career; and so it is no accident that amateur theatricals are nowhere else so popular, especially among student men and women. The equipments of the stage, moreover, leave very little to be desired, and the settings sometimes surpass anything which can be seen in Europe; one often sees marvellous effects and most convincing illusions. And these, with the American good humour, verve, and self-assurance, and the beauty of American women, bring many a graceful comedy and light opera to a really artistic performance. The great public, too, is quite content, and fills the theatres to overflowing. It seems almost unjust to criticise unfavourably the country’s theatres.
But the general public is not the only nor even the most important factor; the discriminating public is not satisfied. Artistic productions of the more serious sort are drowned out by a great tide of worthless entertainments; and however amusing or diverting the comedies, farces, rural pieces, operettas, melodramas, and dramatized novels may be, they are thoroughly unworthy of a people that is so ceaselessly striving for cultivation and self-perfection. Such pieces should not have the assurance to invade the territory of true art. And, although the lack of good plays is less noticeable, if one looks at the announcements of what is to be given in New York on any single evening, it is tremendously borne home on one by the bad practice of repeating the plays night after night for many weeks, so that a person who wants to see real art has soon seen every production which is worth while. In this respect New York is distinctly behind Paris, Berlin, or Vienna, although about on a level with London; and in the other large cities of America the situation is rather worse. Everywhere the stage caters to the vulgar taste, and for one Hamlet there are ten Geishas.
It cannot be otherwise, since the theatre is entirely a business matter with the managers. Sometimes there is an artist like the late Daly, who is ready to conduct a theatre from the truly artistic point of view, and who offers admirable performances; but this is an expensive luxury, and there are few who will afford it. It is a question of making money, and therefore of offering humorous or sentimental pieces which fill the theatre. There is another fact of which the European hardly knows; it is cheaper to engage a company to play a single piece for a whole year with mechanical regularity than to hire actors to give the study necessary to a diversified repertoire. After many repetitions, even mediocre actors can attain a certain skill, while in repertoire only good actors are found at all satisfactory, and the average will not be tolerated by the pampered public. Then, too, the accessories are much cheaper for a single piece.
Now, in a town of moderate size, one piece cannot be repeated many nights, so that the companies have to travel about. The best companies stay not less than a week, and if the town is large enough, they stay from four to six weeks. These companies are known by the name of the piece which they are presenting, or by the name of the leading actor, the “star.” The theatre in itself is a mere tenantless shell. In early fall the whole list of companies which are to people its stage through the next thirty weeks is arranged. In this way, it is true that the small city is able to see the best actors and the newest pieces. Yet one sees how sterile this principle is by considering some of the extreme cases. Jefferson has played his Rip Van Winkle and almost nothing else for thirty years; and the young people of Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston would be very unhappy if he were not to come in this rôle for a couple of weeks every winter. And he has thus become several times a millionaire.
But the business spirit has not stopped with this. The hundreds of companies compete with one another, so that very naturally a theatrical trust has been formed. The syndicate of Klaw, Erlanger & Frohman was organized in 1896 with thirty-seven leading theatres in large cities, all pledged to present none but companies belonging to the syndicate, while, in return, the syndicate agreed to keep the theatres busy every week in the season. The favourite actors and the favourite companies were secured, and the independent actors who resisted the tyranny found that in most of the large cities only second-rate theatres were open to them. One after another had to give in, and now the great trust under the command of Frohman has virtually the whole theatrical business of the country in its hands. The trust operates shrewdly and squarely; it knows its public, offers variety, follows the fashions, gives the great mimes their favourite rôles, pays them and the theatre owners well, relieves the actors from the struggle for promotion, and vastly amuses the public. It is impossible to resist this situation, which is so adverse to art.
All are agreed that there is only one way to better matters. Permanent companies must be organized, in the large cities at first, to play in repertoire. And these must be subsidized, so as not to be dependent for their support on the taste of the general public. Then and then only will the dramatic art be able to thrive, or the theatre become an educational institution, and so slowly cultivate a better demand, which in the end will come to make even the most eclectic theatre self-supporting. So it has always been on the European Continent; princes and municipalities have rivalled with one another to raise the level of dramatic art above what it would have to be if financially dependent solely on the box-office. In the United States there is certainly no lack of means or good will to encourage such an educational institution. Untold millions go to libraries, museums, and universities, and we may well ask why the slightest attempt has not been made to provide, by gift or from the public treasury, for a temple to the drama.
It is just here that the old Puritan prejudice is still felt to-day. The theatre is no longer under the ban of the law, but no step can be taken toward a subvention of the theatre. Most taxpayers in America would look with disfavour on any project to support a theatre from public funds. Why a theatre more than a hotel or restaurant? The theatre remains a place of frivolous amusement, and for that reason no millionaires have so far endowed a theatre. Men like Carnegie know too well that the general mass of people would blame them if they were to give their millions to the theatre, as long as a single town was still wishing for its library or its college.