That is to say, poetry would vanish, and as for drama, the only drama we could have would be by taking a proscenium into the park and putting it up in front of two lovers kissing on a seat; but the moment the lovers saw us the "drama" would cease, and we could not pay them to go on with it for our amusement, for that would be deception, that would be make-believe.
Those of us who are not by infirmity of constitution natural victims to every new fad that is advertised will take pleasure in anticipating a great growth in the supply of and demand for children's plays. They offer great scope for development, and will increasingly appeal to authors who have no desire to write the conventional stage play—a thing without imagination or beauty, a mere artificial contrivance to enable actors to exhibit their charm and skill. There is no possibility of getting literary men of the highest class to write the plays we see succeeding in our London theatres during the greater part of the year. They could not possibly have any interest in work of that kind, and they could not do it well, but the children's play is a much more elastic and adaptable dramatic form. To-day, for instance, even verse is used in successful children's plays, and managers do not demand for this purpose work so conventional and stereotyped as they require ordinarily. This Christmas there were three children's plays produced in the West End: Peter Pan, Once Upon a Time, and Where the Rainbow Ends. Of these only Once Upon a Time was new, and it was rather a series of fairy-tales—connected by the device of an elf telling the stories to a goblin who captured her—than an original work; but it was cleverly done by the author, Miss Wildig, and delightfully produced by Miss Edith Craig. I must confess to having enjoyed Once Upon a Time far more than most of the plays I had seen during the preceding year, but it was a pastiche not a homogeneous invention, and it contained an absurd and very irritating pseudo-patriotic melodrama called The Woman of the Black Mountain, as well as an extremely amusing and rather savage burlesque of certain marriage customs which are not yet quite extinct entitled The Bone of Contention. This latter would make an excellent sketch for a Revue, or possibly Mr. Oscar Asche will introduce it into Chu Chin Chow.
Demand and Supply
It is a great pity that the Pantomime has so degenerated now when it had got rid of much of the knock-about farcical element, of a great deal of the tyranny of the spectacular, and of the "transformation scene," because it is a form that offers great possibilities to the author, and if a genius came along he could do something wonderful with it. Even without a genius or without waiting for him a great deal could be done. If only those responsible for the annual Pantomimes at Drury Lane and the Lyceum would leave the beaten track for once and get into touch with the younger generation of writers and commission them to produce a Pantomime we might get a valuable addition to our dramatic literature. It involves very little commercial risk, and holds the possibility of an immense financial success, apart from other considerations. It may be asked why do not these young men write a Pantomime on their own initiative? But the answer is simple. Our young writers have no time to spend on work which has no prospect of ever being looked at, much less produced; besides, a Pantomime is essentially a thing for collaboration between two or three of them, and they are nearly all as busy as they can be with bread-and-butter journalism and with individual projects in those few spare hours that remain to them. There is, however, little doubt that they could produce a Pantomime which would draw all London for months, just as there is little doubt that the Pantomime and the children's play are the most promising and flexible of the dramatic forms which confront our young writers. The Revue may be thought to offer almost equal opportunities, and to be capable of development out of its present chaotic state, but it is rather more restricted by the fact that it has such a large public. To have the largest public is to have the least hope of commanding the attention of your audience sufficiently for them to appreciate what is not obvious. Besides, the Revue supplies a definite demand which does not change from year to year. It is a demand for pretty girls, pretty dresses, dancing and humour, and if there suddenly appeared among us a greater dramatic genius than any that has ever lived he would not be able to satisfy that demand as well as Mr. C. B. Cochran, Mr. André Charlot, or Sir Alfred Butt do. It is the minority that is not catered for in drama as it is catered for in literature. Where are the thirty-five thousand readers of the Times Literary Supplement in the land of theatres? They are scattered in twos and threes here and there, always dissatisfied and disgruntled. Whether at a Pantomime, at a Revue, at a Comedy, or at a Drama they find the entertainment a hundred per cent. below the standard they demand, and their only pleasure is an occasional Shakespearean production or a children's play. But they could be mobilised and brought together to support solidly and without the fickleness of the large public a theatre that gave them what they wanted. If the experiment were made with children's plays they would be reinforced by the thousands of parents who will not submit their children to the vulgarities of the latter-day Pantomime.
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The next performance of the Phœnix Society will take place on February 8th and 9th, when Dryden's Marriage à la Mode will be given.
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It is rumoured that Mr. Henry Ainley's next production at the St. James's will be Stephen Phillip's Paolo and Francesca, in which Mr. Ainley made his first success.