Our Stage and Its Critics Part 8

For the sake of convenience let us refer to them and works of a similar character as "problem plays" although that useful term got spoilt some years ago by acquiring a secondary meaning, and became applied almost exclusively to pieces concerning fallen women.

In respect of this rather rare branch of drama there is one matter worthy of notice which has not been quite sufficiently discussed. Yet the point is one referred to several times in criticisms contained in these articles. This is the author's duty to write in such a fashion as to seem impartial. It is needless to suggest that he ought to be impartial, since no one ever takes a real interest in any debatable matter without ceasing to be impartial, and n.o.body will ever write a play worth seeing unless he takes a deep interest in his subject.

Now, looking at the four plays already mentioned, one may see to some extent how this impartiality operates. There is a difficulty connected with _An Englishman's Home_, for it was alleged--and also denied--that the author had no intention when writing it of dealing seriously with the question of national defence and invasion, and it must be recollected that some alterations were made without his knowledge, which included the addition of a vulgar clap-trap ending, that may do him real injustice. It has generally been regarded as a problem play, as intended to exhibit to us dramatically the fact that we live fondly in fancied security. As drama, it was seriously injured by the obvious bias, by the want of impartiality; it was taken by some to be a warning that we must not trust to the Territorials; but, although the conscriptionist party has welcomed it as establishing their view, its manifest injustice to the citizen soldier has actually caused it to be used as an argument the other way. Moreover, the feeling of insincerity caused by the bias seriously diminished its acting value in the eyes of the critical. The fact of its use as an argument by people of almost opposite views does not prove its impartiality, but rather that its injustice has bred a reaction.

The next of the four is _The House of Bondage_, which had less success than it deserved. The piece manifestly was intended to prove that a woman ought to be ent.i.tled at law to a dissolution of marriage on the single ground of her husband's infidelity; the proposition was put in the form of a claim to equality of rights in the s.e.xes to divorce. The question has more than one side, and there is a good deal to be said against Mr Obermer's contention; unfortunately, the author did not attempt to put forward the other view, or even to suggest that there is one. The result was that only those who share the opinion of the author were in sympathy with the piece; to others it seemed manifestly unfair; in fact, the author appeared anxious to convince those who favour his own views, and not those opposed to them.

In _The Head of the Firm_ and _Strife_ one had quite a different state of things. The dramatist played the _advocatus diaboli_ very cleverly, and the other side felt that its case had been stated fairly. The best way to convince people of anything is to present their own views to them in a fashion which they deem just, and then offer them reasons for doubting the truth of their opinions. Both works obviously are anti-capitalist in tendency, and yet, in different degrees and different ways, the capitalist view was stated so fairly, whilst the evil consequences of it were shown so vigorously, that many people who were on the side of the capitalist were forced to think, and therefore to doubt.

Mr Galsworthy bravely went so far as to hint, without stating the proposition, that what seems bad in the labour point of view is really an evil consequence of the capitalist att.i.tude. In this respect he has followed, legitimately, the treatment of the greatest "problem play" yet written, _The Doll's House_, a work that in hundreds of thousands of households has caused something like a revolution in the relations between husband and wife. Ibsen used the appearance of impartiality so finely, stated the husband's case so fairly, that there were terrific quarrels as to what was his point of view, and the result of the quarrels and discussions was the serious consideration by people of the question dealt with in the drama. It is this discussion that the reformer desires, being confident that the discussion of things long deemed right without discussion is the surest road to reform.

From the point of view of dramatic art this impartiality is essential, because without it the necessary impersonal element cannot be given to a play. In such a work as the prison drama _It's never too Late to Mend_, by Charles Reade, one seems to see all the time the hand of the perfervid, almost frantic, reformer, and the same remark applies to several of his novels. Of course, one does not ask the playwright to be, but only to seem, impartial. To demand real impartiality would be to ask that reality which is out of place upon the stage, the function of which is, not to present themselves, but, to borrow Hamlet's idea, reflections of them, and, it would be more accurate to say, to give ideas of them by presenting images intentionally distorted.

For that fourth wall, the existence of which Mr Jerome K. Jerome rather quaintly and childishly suggested by the fender and fireirons laid in front of the footlights in _The Pa.s.sing of the Third Floor Back_, really operates as a distorting gla.s.s, although it is not there. This sounds a little paradoxical, yet is clear enough. Things upon the stage have not the same effect if regarded from the farther side of the footlights as when considered from the nearer. This does not apply merely to things seen, but also to things heard. In this respect there is a resemblance to the work of the impressionist painter. Speaking more closely, one may say that the scene-painter's canvas, with what, when seen at a few feet, are coa.r.s.e splashes and daubs of colour, is typical of the whole theatrical production. It is imperative, then, that even the impartiality should not be real impartiality. Moreover, absolute impartiality would involve in many cases the suppression of the criticism of life which is the essence of comedy.

"Problem plays," works endeavouring truly to represent to the audience real life, and involving a criticism of life, are so rare that it is worth drawing attention to a danger to dramatists. There is no need to point it out to Mr Galsworthy, who in _The Silver Box_ and in _Strife_ shows that he fully appreciates the point; nor to Mr Granville Barker, who produced _Strife_, for in _Waste_, which is in most respects the greatest English drama of our times, he exhibited it with extraordinary intensity, and also in _The Voysey Inheritance_, an admirable play, which it is to be hoped we shall soon see again. It is to the beginners that one would like to insist on the proposition that you must not push your views down the throats of the audience, but leave spectators to draw their own conclusions, taking pains to see that the conclusions which they fancy are drawn voluntarily by them in reality are forced upon them. Indeed, you must imitate the skilful professor of legerdemain, and "palm" your views upon the audience as he "palms" a card upon his victim.

Drama and Social Reform

Probably at no time and in no country has there been so much fuss about the stage as nowadays in England, and the annual budget of our theatre involves millions. Moreover, people often talk about it as a great educational force, a great instrument for progress, a great vehicle for the dissemination of ideas and so on. Yet the theatre in England remains almost entirely aloof from real life. To the majority of playgoers, an immense majority, it is merely a place of entertainment, except so far as the plays of Shakespeare are concerned; they are supposed to have some educational value, of what nature goodness knows.

Perhaps this phenomenon is not surprising, if one regards the matter historically. The theatre has never forgotten that the Puritans suppressed it for a time and have always been hostile, and it identifies them with the Whig, the Liberal, the Radical, and the Socialist. It recollects that the Royalists revived it, and have always been friendly, and they are represented by the Tory, the Conservative, the Unionists and the Tariff Reformers. So the stage does not lend itself readily to ideas of reform, or sober study of life, or sober anything--indeed, it has long been a little too closely connected with _the_ trade.

There must be players, managers, and some playgoers belonging to the Liberals or Radicals, but they are much in the minority: rarely, if ever, is a suggestion of Liberalism uttered in a theatre except by way of well-welcomed scorn. We are almost all pro-Bungs, House-of-Lords men, and ardent Tariff Reformers.

There is another important element in the matter--the theatre appears to be peculiarly engrossing to those connected with it. Persons ent.i.tled to speak have often said that to most of the people attached to the stage the theatre is a little world apart, in which they are content to live almost oblivious of the greater world around. It has been a.s.serted that during the last siege of Paris, whilst some of the players went out and fought bravely, the majority were more concerned at the fate of the stage than that of the city, and an actor of some eminence once bitterly declared that the majority of his _confreres_ had no interest outside the "shop" and never talked anything but "shop."

It may be that all cla.s.ses of stage-folk are tarred with the same brush; that these remarks concerning the actors apply to the managers, the dramatists, and the critics. Moreover, there are certainly exceptions; indeed, it is well known that several players of distinction take an active part in civic life. At any rate, the fact remains that the stage seems to concern itself very little with the improvements of social life.

In a nebulous way the theatre plays with certain aspects of the relations between the two s.e.xes, but without seriously considering any question of feasible reform. Upon one aspect which seemed to promise matter for powerful drama we had only one important work--I refer to the Deceased Wife's Sister question, which was handled in an able play by a Mr Gatti, and presented at the Court Theatre. Miss Olga Nethersole acted very powerfully in it. One would have thought that this and other questions of legislation would have attracted the attention of dramatists; they did at one time. The strenuous Charles Reade was prodigious in his stage attacks upon bad laws, and effective as well. At the present moment MM. Brieux and Paul Hervieux are flogging some of the laws of France, and the German stage has seen a good many pieces which before the word became demonetised one would have called Problem plays.

Looking back upon the English drama of the last twenty years one notices as a curiosity that it is the woman rather than the man dramatist who appreciates the utility of the stage as a means for seeking reform.

_Uncle Tom's Cabin_, one of the most tremendous law-changing influences ever exercised by fiction, came from the pen of a woman, though it may be that Mrs Beecher Stowe was not the author of any of the stage versions presented over here. Taking a long jump from the sixties, one finds that in modern times--indeed, within the last few years--four women dramatists have tackled political or politico-social problems.

There was the Hon. Mrs Alfred Lyttleton, and her able, interesting play called _Warp and Woof_, dealing with the question of shopgirls and the Factory Act. Next in order of date came _Votes for Women_, by Miss Elizabeth Robins, a brilliant novelist and admirable actress, a little too much carried away by her subject to do more than write one big living scene in a conventional play. Mrs Alfred Mond (now Lady Alfred Mond) is the author of a short piece dealing with Tariff Reform. Not long ago we had a revival of _Diana of Dobson's_, Miss Cicely Hamilton's valuable comedy, in which the "living-in" system of shopgirls and the question of the cruel fines imposed upon them was vividly exhibited.

Lady Bell gave us a very able drama concerning a social question in _The Way the Money Goes_.

What native plays have we had by men during the period covered by these four ladies dealing with similar questions? Mr Bernard Shaw has been running amok during this time and before in a kind of "down-with-everything" way, but his philosophy of the stage is as terribly destructive as that of Ibsen, and except in _Widowers' Houses_, and perhaps _Mrs Warren's Profession_, few of his works handle directly matters capable of being dealt with by legislation. Years earlier, in _The Middleman_ and _Judah_, Mr Henry Arthur Jones tackled two questions and strikes have been treated more than once--notably in George Moore's clever, interesting, uneven work, _The Strike at Arlingford_. Much further back there was _Man and Wife_, an attack upon the system of irregular marriages still existing in Scotland and some of the States of the Union. Probably there have been some other native works touching more or less directly upon questions of legislative reform within my time, but it is difficult to remember all of them; yet there are many burning matters to-day with ample elements of drama in them.

Probably the Censor is almost blameless in this affair. Since the days of _The Happy Land_ he has not allowed politicians to be presented upon the stage; but this has little bearing upon the question. There has been interference with some scenes concerning "ragging" in the army. The office bearer has always been very fidgety as far as the army is concerned; but, in all likelihood, would not prevent the reasonable treatment upon the stage of any of the matters already referred to, though perhaps an Education Bill play would have difficulties in his hands, owing to the introduction of religious topics. It seems curious that the women are keener in seeking to use the stage, a tremendous weapon for the purposes of reform, than men, and the explanation is by no means obvious or necessarily flattering to men.

Some day those whom one may generally designate as Puritans will become sensible of the vast potentialities of drama, and will see that it is foolish to leave all the good tunes to the devil. As a result, no doubt, we shall suffer for a while from a lot of bad plays with a good purpose.

Yet there will be a useful infusion of new blood and new ideas, and our drama, instead of running round and round after its tail, will get out of its present little vicious circle and become a living force in the country, instead of a mere medium of entertainment, and of entertainment which rarely has any substantial value from an artistic point of view.

In connexion with these remarks the section "Plays with a Purpose"

should be read--if possible. It should be added that Mr Galsworthy's admirable play, _Justice_, has had some effect upon the treatment of prisoners.

CHAPTER VI

THE PHENOMENA OF THE STAGE

The Optics

Thick-and-thin admirers of Duse, an actress of indisputable genius, used to praise her because she dispensed with the "make-up" that other players deem necessary. They saw in this a glorious fidelity to nature.

Their position became a little ridiculous when, somewhat later, the actress--possibly in compliance with the advice of critical worshippers--adopted the ordinary devices of the stage and pressed into service the make-up box and even the aid of the wigmaker.

Presumably the change in policy was due to a more careful consideration of the optics of the stage. For it may be a.s.sumed that she "made up" in order to counteract the privative effects of the stage lights and appear neither more nor less beautiful and expressive to the public in the playhouse than to her friends in her drawing-room. This leads to the important paradox that in the theatre you must be artificial if you wish to appear natural; that on the stage, verisimilitude is greater truth than truth itself; or, to use the popular oxymoron, you must be "falsely true." In this respect the matter of "make-up" is only an instance of a general law prevailing in all matters theatrical.

Let no one think less of the players on account of it, for it is this fact that ent.i.tles the actor to speak of his art and not merely of his craft. It is because the player must select, eliminate, exaggerate, diminish and, in a word, modify his matter but may not be photographic, that he is ent.i.tled to call himself an artist.

The term "photographic" used in this sense is rather unfair, for the photographer has become an artist by recognizing the fact that he too must select, etc. No doubt "make-up" renders other services, and belongs to the artifices as well as the arts of the stage, since it has the advantage in some cases of rendering the plain beautiful--to the discomfiture of stage-door loafers, and, indeed, possesses an abominable democratic effect. Of course, too, it has legitimate value in effecting disguises, in changing young into old--its efforts in the contrary direction, as a rule, are ghastly failures--and in effecting transformations of the exterior of persons. However, "make-up," despite its mysteries, is but a small element in "the optics of the theatre,"

which term is here used largely--and inaccurately--in relation to all the phenomena covered by the paradox already mentioned.

The player, having counterbalanced with "make-up" the robbery effected by the stage illumination and also by the disadvantage of distance, has to turn himself to the adjustment of other matters. One is this--he must recognize that his author labours under similar conditions, and should not be "photographic."

When the dramatist in the dialogue has exaggerated the play of light and shade, bringing, indeed, legitimately for the sake of effect to his speeches, that energy of chiaroscuro which gives us a pleasure, somewhat distrustful in the pictures of Joseph Wright of Derby, the player must attune his manner in order to make it congruous with the highly seasoned conversation so that there being no clash of methods, no jarring will result.

Every change of convention on the part of the author demands a corresponding change in the actor. Clearly, he must speak verse differently from prose, though there are foes to poetry who beg him to break up the lines and defeat the efforts of the poet; and he must adopt a manner in a blank-verse tragedy unsuitable to a play by Mr Barrie.

Moreover, he ought to aim at seeming natural in both. Here is the rub; he must aim at seeming, not being, natural. Obviously, one cannot deliver blank verse naturally; such, however, is the power of make-believe in the audience that if the dramatist and his company can engage the sympathy of the spectators, a fairy tale in rhymed lines, a tragedy in unrhymed verse, a melodrama with flatulent phrases, and a comedy seeking the most exact reproduction of modern life permissible may seem equally plausible, credible, natural.

It is to be noted, too, that the form of artificiality of truth varies not only with the type and quality of the drama but with the nature of the audience. Speaking of our times, one may say that a little greater vigour of contrast is desirable in the provinces than in town, and in the "B" towns than the "A," in the "C" than the "B," and goodness knows what violence is not needed in the "fit-up" shows. There are reasons for believing that our ancestors demanded a more full-blooded style of acting than is relished by their anaemic descendants, and it is possible that such a performance as convinced the eighteenth century of the genius of some of its players might cause laughter nowadays, though neither audience nor actors would deserve censure.

Within the time of even our younger critics there have been at least two tragedians who enjoyed an immense reputation save in town, but failed to win success in the West End of the Metropolis, though outside they held their own against the greatest favourites; and the London critics levelled at them the dreadful charge of "barn-storming"--a charge which some of us no doubt would make against several of the greatest tragedians in our proud records were they to appear to-day and act as in their own times.

It is a feature of the actor's art that its excellence is never absolute. An audience is ent.i.tled to say, "What care I how good he be if he seem not good to me?" A performance that does not move the spectators is not only a failure but to some extent a culpable failure, since the actor's art is more utterly ephemeral than any other--possibly by aid of gramophone, biograph, and the like some fairly effective records will be made in the future--but, this consideration apart, he may not even take heed for the morrow. At the moment his mission is to move the particular collection of people before him, and though they may be culpable for not being moved he will not be wholly blameless.

Possibly this is putting the matter a little too harshly, and the observations should be considered as applicable only to a particular "run" and not to an individual night. Doubtless, even thus restricted, it suggests that the player should make a remarkable series of modifications in his methods which are not within the practical politics of the stage; and, indeed, these remarks are pushed purposely too far in order to draw attention to the fact that the actors are p.r.o.ne to consider their own "reading" of a part without reference to the audience, and even, in some cases, to the author. In other words, they are misled by the delusive term "create," so often applied to acting as well as to millinery. The word is inappropriate to the rapidly evanescent. "Original interpreters" is the highest phrase that can be justified.

These observations would be incomplete without some reference to more material aspects of the "optics." For instance, one may comment on the fact that, regardless of seating arrangements, which in almost every theatre cause a considerable number of people to be unable to see the exits on one side or the other, important business is often transacted in the wings, to the intense annoyance of would-be spectators, who are left out in the cold, and of course imagine that what they miss is the plum of the play; also valuable scenes are sometimes played so far back that people in the higher parts of the house are unable to see them properly. This sounds perilously like an invitation to players to take the centre of the stage close to the footlights, but of course the matter is one of degree.

Yet, at the least, it must be urged that nothing, the exact understanding of which is necessary to the audience, should happen much on one side or very far back; to this may be added the suggestion, hardly novel, that the first few minutes of each act should be confined to immaterial affairs; blame the unpunctual--even if you blame unfairly, since, as a rule, the _entr'acte_ warning bell is inaudible in most parts of the theatre--but do not make the guiltless suffer by presenting important matters during the time when the stage is half hidden by the people struggling (through a pa.s.sage as a rule shamefully narrow) to get to their seats. Sardou's precepts may be pushed too far, and we do not need a whole first act of nothing in particular, but facts should be recognized and simple common-sense considered. There is always some trouble during the first few minutes of each act.

Make-up

The word "make-up" is very ugly, but seems irreplaceable, and therefore is employed in the book called "The Art of Theatrical Make-up," by Mr Cavendish Morton, the object of which is to tell players--amateurs as well as professionals--how to make-up. No doubt it will render useful service to the actor--to the actor, since nothing is said in it about the actress and make-up in relation to her.

Thereby hangs something of importance. The actress has held her own against the actor: even the most unkind critic of the fair s.e.x cannot deny that the achievements of women on the stage are as great as the achievements of men, although they have been a shorter time at the game, and have not had so many splendid parts written for them. Yet make-up has been of little a.s.sistance to actresses.

Eleanora Duse at the present moment is probably accepted as the greatest living player of the world. Of late years she has, to some extent, used make-up, but with great moderation. One can imagine her tossing aside a book such as Mr Morton's, and asking what on earth it has to do with the art of acting, and I fancy that tremendously rapid speech of hers would be used effectively if she were to read such a sentence as this: "Is not half the battle won when one perfectly physically realizes the character to be impersonated?" By which the author clearly means that half the battle is won when, by the aid of nose-paste or "toupee" paste and grease-paint, powder, crepe hair, spirit-gum, wig and the like, one has arrived at looking like the character.

Instead of this being half the battle, it does not amount to a tenth. Of course something must be done to counteract the effect of the lighting on the stage, and no one can complain if the players use the well-known devices to heighten their charms; and wigs and false beards and moustaches and whiskers may be serviceable at times; but to take such matters seriously seems an egregious mistake. Indeed, when looking at the result, one is inclined, unconsciously, to use a criticism by employing the phrase, "What a capital make-up." Mr So-and-so enters as Caliban, or Napoleon Bonaparte, or Charles II., or Falstaff. In a few seconds, or it may be minutes, we can identify him without the aid of the programme; and, of course, we say, "what a capital make-up," but the whole thing is merely a Madame Tussaud aspect of drama.