The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary

by Stephen Graham

The grandeur of the West, Gorky’s “magnificent chaos of cities buzzing with automobiles and humming with factories” only prevent, tolko meshait, as Russians say so constantly. Man’s voice is loud because he has to overcry noisy machines; it is loud also because, like a child, he is wildly excited over his toys. It is unjustifiably loud.

But Gorky, like a fond savage, would give up broad lands and a fair birthright for coloured beads and toys.

Round about Besi rages also the question of the future of the theatre. Moscow is likely to become the literary capital of Europe; it is already the theatrical capital. Whatever it is working out is likely in time to affect the whole stage of Europe.

Almost every one in Russian literature has contributed something towards the question of the new development of the theatre. Strange to say, it is a question of the theatre and the producer, not a question of the dramatist. That is a starting-point.

The two fundamental ideas which are in contrast are again that of East versus West, Materialism versus Mysticism. One party derives the theatre from the puppet-show and the elaborated Punch and Judy show, suggests a theatre of dolls or types, and above all things heralds “the glorious cinema” as the womb of the theatre-to-be—that is the Western notion of the theatre, a show to arrest passers-by, divert them and coax coppers from them. The other party derives the theatre from the ancient mystery, and requires that in the theatre of the future the audience shall collaborate with those on the stage, the foot-lights shall be disenchanted, there shall be mystical dancing and singing and horror and exaltation—this is the Eastern notion.

The latter seems at first glance far removed from possible realisation in the present, a dream of the impractical even romantic and absurd. But when we remember that church and theatre were once one and the same, all plays being holy, and that our Mass or Communion Service was in a sense a survival of the Holy Mystery wherein not only the actors, i.e. the priests and those who serve at the altar, took part but also the people themselves, then it is seen to be not quite so remote.

The Shaw plays are remarkable examples of the developed Punch and Judy show, where various bizarre dolls with funny faces reel off amusing speeches, all of which are just audibly prompted by the man who holds the strings. He tries to create the illusion that the dolls are flesh and blood—for that reason he sometimes will have even a doll-representation of himself on the stage, as in the case of Mr. Tanner in Man and Superman. And if we are deceived for a moment or an hour and the illusion succeeds and we discuss the acts of Punch and Judy, and Judy’s mother, and the Counsel for the Prosecution, and Toby, and the Judge, as if they were real people, yet when we get home we reflect after all it was all Shaw—“awfully clever, very funny, but it was the man behind the red curtain talking all the while; we must tell so-and-so they ought to go.”

The Ibsen play is more or less a game of chess; again observe the skilful moving of puppets on a board. His drama is specialised intellectually. It is interesting to keen minds, but not diverting, not so elementary as Shaw. Peer Gynt, however, is a mystery play, or could be taken as such; there are parts in it not only for the prime actors but for everybody in the theatre. The sad fact is that the theatre audiences are heavy. They are not quite so heavy in Russia as in England, for no one here considers his dinner as of any importance beside being at the theatre; and indeed if you are not punctual at the Theatre of Art you find the doors are closed and you cannot get in. But all the same the people are heavy, clinging to their seats as if in them they had found refuge. The moderns are not the Greeks. The minds and souls of the modern Russians are at the disposal of the Hierophant of the Mystery, but the bodies are more enslaved by gravity than lead. So, in the near future at least, there can be no active collaboration between audience and actors, no real disenchantment of that line of lamps separating the stage from the world. Perhaps in time choruses will be devised for audiences—even now in English music-halls where the people sing the choruses of the popular songs there is a witness of the possibility of the realisation of such an idea. Perhaps in time a part of the public may take part in dances or may march with banners and emblems, or opportunity may be given to public characters of the day to make their exits and their entrances, and make speeches not to be found in the books of words. But all this belongs to the thrice-interesting future, not to the tantalising present moment.

All that the theatre is doing now is to put the dramatist in his place and give scope to the producer and the Master of Ceremonies. The Theatre of Art, the Moscow Free Theatre, and in London, as a beginning, Granville Barker’s theatre, are all working for a new, large, vital stage. In a sense it is futuristic work, for it takes no inspiration from the past, unless from ancient Greece. It regards all the work of the last few thousand years as makeshift. It will work out something worthy of Man, something noble and enduring. Then again Man will have a voice, and not that gay, confident, business cry to which Gorky has fondly given his ear. And that brings me back to Besi (The Possessed), at which I was sitting with Gorky in front of me and the genial secretary at my side.

Besi, or, as it is entitled in the programme, Nikolai Stavrogin, is an example of the present work of the Theatre of Art. The theatre that will produce Pickwick Papers as a play and can set one of its own staff to work out the libretto is not in need of dramatists at present. Nikolai Stavrogin was arranged by Namirovitch Danchenko, and it is a presentment in some fifteen or twenty scenes of the vital portions of Dostoieffsky’s novel. It assumes that the public has read the book and knows it well, and so, subtly, makes the person sitting in his seat collaborate, by supplying in his mind the missing links. The performance commences at 8 P.M. and finishes about 12.30. All the while you are considering failure—death to all Americans.