Already it has precipitated the discussion of an independent American theatre, where plays of advanced thought and native atmosphere can be produced. It has given courage to many who (being in the minority) had given up the idea of ever having a play after their ideal. It has cleared the air and showed the way out of the cul de sac into which monopoly seemed to have driven plays and players. It demonstrated that a small theatre makes the production of literary plays possible, and the whole field is opening to the American dramatist. The fact that the lovers of truth and art are in the minority, no longer cuts a figure. The small theatre makes a theatre for the minority not only possible, but inevitable.
In the immediate advance in truth, both in acting and play-writing, Mr. and Mrs. Herne are likely to have large part. The work which they have already done entitles them not only to respect, but to gratitude. They have been working for many years to discredit effectism in acting, and to bring truth into the American drama. They have set a high mark, as all will testify who saw the work in Chickering Hall. Now let who can, go higher.
SOME WEAK SPOTS IN THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.
BY THEODORE STANTON.
Last autumn the third French republic completed the second decade of its checkered existence, and has thus proved itself to be the most long-lived government which France has known since the advent of the great Revolution a century ago. No previous government has been able to stand eighteen years, so that the present republic has outstripped all its predecessors, whether republican, imperial, or monarchical, leaving even the most fortunate of them two or three years behind, and bidding fair to increase the distance indefinitely. Its longevity has been greater than the first and second republics taken together, which covered a period of a little over sixteen years; while if we combine the existence of all three republics, equal to about thirty-six years, we again find that no other regime has shown such prolonged vitality,—the two empires having lived for only twenty-eight years, and the two monarchies for about thirty-three and a half years.
But the early years of the third republic—from 1870 to 1879—like the declining period of the first and second republics, were more monarchical than republican. And again, there are so many weakening influences in the present institutions of France, that the decisive conclusions which might otherwise be drawn from the foregoing considerations need, I regret to say, to be considerably qualified. Previous to the election to the presidency of M. Grévy, in 1879, the government was happily styled “a republic without republicans.” But since that date the same party—the republican—has had supreme control. Practically, therefore, the third republic has been in operation about twelve years, and has, therefore, still to pass that dangerous turning-point in the history of French governments, the twentieth year.