The Upbuilding of the Theatre

OF the few great plays seen in the United States most are given in foreign tongues. In New York, last season, but six of the classics were presented in English, and many more in German and Italian. Our theatres are devoted to the play of the year, and, as but one drama out of a thousand is great in any age, our regular “rounder ” may be privileged, after some years of first nights, to behold one work of art, while the frequenter of the subsidized homes of the drama in Germany and France continually sees the selected masterpieces of centuries. Unless theatres can be conducted partly in the love of art, instead of wholly in the worship of mammon, the regeneration of our drama will be slow. Since our traditions are against government subvention, our main hope lies in generous individuals, who freely support institutions of learning and orchestras which could not exist without assistance. The ragged Italians on the Bowery in New York give their mites to a theatre in which Shakespeare is played as often as two evenings a week, and the Jews on that thoroughfare listen to the modern classics in Hebrew. On Irving Place, in the same city, Schiller, Goethe, and Lessing, with their worthiest successors, are interspersed with French and English dramatic literature. Meanwhile, in English, one prominent theatre in this whole nation has a few of the classics in its repertory.

“ Unless,” said George Henry Lewes in 1867, writing of the drift of our plays toward cheap diversion, “ unless a frank recognition of this inevitable tendency cause a decided separation of the drama which aims at art from those theatrical performances which only aim at amusement of a lower kind (just as classic music keeps aloof from all contact and all rivalry with comic songs and sentimental ballads), and unless this separation takes place in a decisive restriction of one or more theatres to the special performance of comedy and the poetic drama, the final disappearance of the art is near at hand.” Aid to the sinking art would not benefit exclusively the scholarly few, for the people would receive not only the indirect advantage which they have in any advance in education, but also a direct influence. In Europe the poor flock to the best plays, especially on Sundays and holidays, and the effect of the theatre is often strong. An elevated drama makes them talk and think. The older Germans in New York go home to discuss the play. Their children, already Americanized, demand farce. To stir up thought is the essence of education. Nothing moves vicious spectators to keener emotion than stage morality, but the melodramatic virtue is a debauch without lasting traces on character, — wherein it differs from sound art, the results of which are substantial.

A few actors would find in a theatre wisely endowed a haven of content. They could not be the majority, — only a handful who care less for display, conspicuousness, and money than they care for good plays, ensemble performances, and critical audiences. Such a company would be small and permanent, housed in a building which should allow rapid speaking and easy hearing. The task of forming the company would require patience, since most desirable actors would be wary until they saw success already accomplished. Once thoroughly organized, the troupe would know few changes except from death, age, and the occasional defection of some players who, like Rachel, Bernhardt, and Coquelin, might prefer to star with bad companies and lower their methods to a coarser audience. In England and America most actors have no training in playing neatly into one another’s parts ; and when they are finished and well proportioned in their art, it is in spite of their environment. To get together a company in which the actors could do “ team ” work in classic drama would require years, even if the comparison were, not with the subsidized theatres of Europe, but with the disciplined playing which may be seen in the German theatre in New York.

Another difficulty is the dearth of playwrights. Although masterpieces of other times would furnish part of the repertory, one blessing of an endowed theatre should be the proper production of contemporary dramas not written wholly for money. No such sudden fortunes could be made as spring up from “runs” in the present system. The Little Minister might have lived longer had it been acted at an endowed theatre, but Mr. Barrie could not possibly in so short a time have earned so much in royalties. Perhaps a theatre conducted for art would for many years have to take mainly those plays which had already spent their first vogue, and those which were somewhat beside the taste of our managers and their audiences. It might receive help from dramatists who shrank from the compromises — the alterations in the text, the uneven casts—of the commercial companies. As soon as the performances were recognized as the most artistic in the country, support from leading playwrights would not be lacking; and, on the other hand, the mere existence of such a theatre, with its traditions and its patrons, would do much to stimulate dramatic production among literary men who now feel alienated from the stage. Some of the foreign plays of the day should be given, bat the best success would not be reached until the theatre became primarily American. “Out on the good-humored notion of procuring for the Germans a national theatre,” cried Lessing, “ when they are not yet a nation ! I speak, not of our political constitution, but of our social character, which might almost be said to consist in not desiring to have any social individuality.” Bad art would not be favored, whatever its birthplace, nor would any American institution have the exclusiveness of the French, but rather the catholicity of the German theatres ; yet certainly the keenest satisfaction to the supporters of such a theatre would come when the work of art which it nourished sprang from our own conditions.

Attempts to maintain a theatre on a proper basis have hitherto failed, but they have been few, feeble, and mistaken. Only last year, an independent theatre company, organized in New York to advertise a cheap periodical, gave two of the best performances of the year, John Gabriel Borkmann and El Gran Galeato, at slight cost. The actor-manager theatres, which flourish in England, have failed here in the hands of Booth and Mansfield, — not the worst misfortune, since in such houses dramas old and new are cut to the measure of the actor, but yet regrettable, for, in spite of this distortion, these theatres are the best in Great Britain, inferior as they are to the subsidized companies of the Continent. There is no road to the best but endowment. Our millionaires are generous. The task is to touch motives in them which shall divert some fortune from hospitals and colleges to the drama. Once established, the theatre would find supporters ; but first must come the man who believes in plays as Mr. Higginson in Boston believes in music. In Chicago it is a distinction to be a guarantor of the Thomas concerts. Honor and fame lie before the founder of our first permanent and independent theatre. But be will need wealth, discretion, and patience. He must not expect everything in a year, and he must not measure success by receipts. To advance serenely, slowly, to be content with a small building, winning every month the confidence of a few more persons, acquiring better actors, losing less money every year than the year before, — this task would require a man of settled conviction. Yet were he the right man his millions might be as fertile in benefits as the millions of any man who has established a university.

It is easier to see that the Englishspeaking stage, especially the American, is degenerate, than to find the reason. Literary talent seldom goes into the drama ; the managers are not artists, and the audience is untutored. Causes have been suggested, from farcical to philosophic. One scientific mind finds the germ in the tendency of people to dine too late, another in the influence of the music halls, a third in the price of seats, and a Frenchman in the excitement on the stage of the world. When streets and newspapers are crowded with gigantic farces and melodramas, why pay to see puny plays by make-believe actors in tiny theatres? Why waste substance on a poor imitation ? asks the frivolous Gaul. “ Shakespeare and Balzac are no longer with us, but reality, as it is to-day, made more clear and more dramatic, tortured and illuminated as it is, would discourage even them, and what they saw would force them to renounce what they were able to imagine.” A merchant of Paris explains the loosening grasp of the theatre by the reflective pessimism of all disinterested persons capable of observation and judgment. In many of our accomplished dramatists there is a tone of sadness and disquiet. “ The expression of this pessimism differs with the temperaments of men, but under the hard logic of one, under the melancholy of another, under the subtle and bitter philosophy of a third, there is always the same disapprobation, either expressed or suggested, of all that they observe. At the theatre, whether the piece be of M. Hervieu, of M. Henri Lavedan, of M. Maurice Donnay, of M. Brieux, it leaves the heart pinched and dry, after having laughed or cried. The droller the piece, the more bitter it is.” It is not merely satire, but " ensemble condemnation, ironical or terrible, of the whole social system. To find a parallel we must revert to the time of Voltaire and of Beaumarchais. But then they demolished with joy, with a wonderful plan for ideal reconstruction before their eyes. Now we swing the destructive axe with a tired hand, with a resigned nihilism, which says, all is bad, and all will be worse.” The Figaro tried to console the discouraged frequenter of the theatre by telling him not to think so much, to dine oftener and to be happy, adding that everybody has not the privilege of dining.

Really he is worthy of notice, because he represents, in one form, the dislike of the middle class, more in this country than in his, to any reflection not obviously cheerful or sentimental, — a taste which guides comedy toward farce, and tragedy into the path of melodrama.

The degeneration of the drama is probably to be sought in the audience even more than the deterioration of the audience can be traced to the drama. The more ignorant spectators, who formerly followed the lead of the educated, now read, have opinions and enforce them. Caliban is in power and sits in judgment at the theatre. Other forms of art can survive for the few, but plays must reach the heart of all, or managers will none of them. A comedy must suit the gentleman who says, in one of our farces, “ I hate to talk about myself, but I know more about art than any man as raises hogs in these United States.” In deferring to this expert the manager argues that he gives the public what it wants, — which is incompletely true. He guesses at what the majority prefer ; but if he misses, far from taking off his play, he uses modern devices to escape loss by foisting Ids goods on his victims. He manufactures long runs by filling up the theatre with ” paper,” or by continuing when the houses are small; and he sends the plays on the road with the record of a “ metropolitan run ” to make up their losses by fooling the public. It would be as fair to say that a clever advertiser who sold bad shoes gave the public what it wanted. In this system of making every play pay what it cost, the managers are helped by the critics, most of whom have written plays. A powerful manager can get a drama produced in London which has already failed in America, because an English manager contemplates an American tour.

Some things which the public wants are good for it, and some are not. Certain books which the public keenly desires are forbidden by law. It is not a reasonable standard of judging character that would expect a man to starve for an ideal, but there are men who prefer an ideal with a moderate income to vulgarity and commonplace for the sake of a few thousand dollars more a year. Our managers are, on the whole, an evil influence, because they make no effort to encourage the finer possibilities of the people. In former times the author was everything, except in the case of great actors, and the manager was anonymous ; but if the present rate of progress continue, the author will soon he anonymous, and the players will be prominent only in proportion to their familiarity in the manager’s shop. If you are a maker of bicycles, you call them by your name, so that finally the public may know that whatever proceeds from your shop is excellent. What does it care who the workmen are that made the saddles and the tires ? The head of the house is responsible. So, in the drama, why should not the manager concentrate attention on himself, assume credit for whatever his servants, the actors and the playwrights, do, and work up an individual fame for his drama-shop ?

The founder of a theatre devoted to art must refrain from competition with these business men whose brilliant talents are expended for popular and financial success. The men who once spent their nights in the playhouse now gather in clubs, remain with their wives and children, or, on their occasional visits to the theatre, demand pieces suitable to those invaluable ornaments of society, so that even the domestic virtues seem arrayed against the reformer. His only hope of victory lies in a sagacious choice of his battleground. Competition in pecuniary gain spells disaster. Recordbreaking runs, sensationally crowded houses, a large theatre and company, fancy prices, would lead him to ruin. It is in art only that he must compete, satisfied with virtuous progress. Mr. Gladstone, dogmatic theologian though he was, said that the menace to spiritual life to-day lay, not in the scientific spirit, but in the love of money. No improvement in any art need be expected while the dollar is the test of worth.

The reasonable economy of such an enterprise would consist almost wholly in this rigid limitation of the objects sought. The play and the acting should be everything. Rivalry in scenery and stage-setting would be unintelligent and wasteful. Dramas to-day are advertised for what they cost. Mr. Charles Frohman’s highest praise of The White Heather is that thirty thousand dollars were needed to produce it, — a sum which went into numberless paper trees, bilious heather, horses, sheep, dogs, and mechanical diving arrangements. Another manager, recently discussing the attitude of the public toward the dramas of our greatest poet, remarked that his plays require the same attention to realism in stage furnishings, the same elegance of appointments, as a modern play, and these things are more difficult and more expensive in a Shakespearean production. Nothing does more to kill drama than extravagance in accessories. Scenery is expensive, plays are judged by the mounting, and it is necessary to run one drama continuously to pay for its dress. We cannot have several plays a week when each must be decked out like a Hebrew belle. The tragic quality of Macbeth is smothered in Sir Henry’s magnificent adornments. High drama is degraded, and tawdry concoctions like A Lady of Quality ride to glory on the richness of their trappings. The worship of stage moonlight, glass dewdrops, revolving forests of Arden, and mahogany doors deepens every year, so that there is now a hope that the evil may die of its own excess. Perhaps the invention of the great American biograph will relieve the pressure, diverting the spectacle-loving audiences to separate houses, limiting the others to mere drama and acting.

The stage depends upon the eye as well as the ear, else it would add nothing to the reading drama, and all great playwrights have written much of which the value is appreciated only in representation. The expression of the actor likewise should be as much in outward motion as in delivery. One famous critic, carrying the words in his memory, used to stop his ears, to judge the pantomime, — the acting, in the strictest sense. A play is something more than dramatic literature, but what we need to remember is that it is something more than spectacle. Twelfth Night is corrupted to enable an actress to wear good clothes, and I was puzzled for some time by the phrase " costume plays ” among stage people, until I discovered that it included all historical drama. The Greeks paid little attention to costume. The acting and the play were the centres of their attention. “ Scenery, indeed,” says Aristotle briefly, “ has an emotional attraction of its own, but of all the parts [of a play] it is the least artistic and connected least with the art of poetry.” “ Some have insinuated,” records Colley Cibber, two centuries ago, “ that fine scenes proved the ruin of acting.”

In the expenses of an endowed theatre, the two greatest savings would be in the small size and moderate salaries of the company, and in frugal setting, hut it would be remembered that acting is far more intimately connected with the drama than are any accessories. Even Lessing, strict as he was from the intellectual point of view, favored, in his experiment with the Hamburg Theatre, the retention of some plays merely because of the opportunities they gave certain actors. On the other hand, no attempt to maintain a theatre for intelligent people is likely to succeed without a sharp rejection of the whole tendency away from simplicity in production. Scenery should be a background, hardly noticed, to take the place of stage directions and explanatory dialogue, not an independent attraction. A fair amount of money is spent on scenery at some of the best theatres in Europe, but it is kept in its place.

Dramatists write with an eye to this drift toward undramatie elements, and study real gondolas and boot-trees, giving pages of directions about the flowers and candelabra in a room or the dresses on a woman. Modjeska speaks of “ these times of encroaching realism, when modern imagination needs material help to transport itself into another sphere.” While a great dramatist says one thing, he sees twenty. What gives his metaphors their illuminating value and great strength is in part their distance from the object. A man of the largest imagination does not stop to say that there are sixteen flowers in a bouquet, or how his hero is dressed from head to foot.

Why has the novel never given us the greatest literature ? Because most of it is paltry and of little relevance. It may be a play with every possible stage direction put in. The play is the novel reduced to its elements. The scene in a novel is described at length ; the motions of the actors are given ; that part of the dialogue is included which ought to be omitted. In two hours the drama gives us the essentials of what the novel dilutes into three volumes. There is a novel in every drama, but not a play in every novel. It is small art that leaves nothing to the imagination. The playwright whose mind is occupied with how high the lamp is turned is adopting the baggage of the novelist, loading himself with fetters for his own imagination and the imagination of readers or actors. “This showing of everything,” says Lamb, “levels all things; it makes bows and courtesies of importance. . . . By actors and judges of acting all these non-essentials are raised into an importance injurious to the play.” Where the interest is not in the irrelevant skill of the actor, which Lamb objected to, but in his shoes and the curtains in his room, the harm is infinitely greater. In this respect our metropolitan theatres are the worst. An audience in New York goes to the theatre and talks, not about the essential elements of Pinero and his art, but about the appearance of a local favorite in his new rôle. It applauds, not when the pauses in the dramatic story invite a relaxation of attention, but when a popular actor makes his entrance or a stage waterfall is revealed. Perhaps no Anglo-Saxon public will ever enter into the drama with such whole-souled reality as the French and Italians do, but in smaller cities in the United States there is much more ingenuousness and direct feeling than in the large centres. A play therefore often has on the road a fairer test of its merits. In New York it is personal flavor, the something that lends a kind of piquancy to the idea of the player, which makes a favorite, and, curious as it may seem, art has a better chance, in proportion to personal idiosyncrasy, in Cincinnati or in Cleveland. The overemphasis of scenery, costumes, and properties is made in New York for the same reasons. If you are self-conscious at the theatre, if you go there neither to lose yourself in the play nor to get the idea of it, but to gossip about persons on the stage, you will desire a setting which is not barely what is needed for background and suggestion, but which gives you a lot of little points to notice and chat about. You like to see a pretty lake in the middle distance or a “ taking " gown on Miss So-and-So. It is a lack of true, vital love of the drama, a jaded palate and a desire to be amused. Any art is in a period of decay when it runs into meaningless elaboration. An ideal theatre should seek to bring back the public to creation, away both from frivolous amusement and from imitation of the insignificant. I believe Goethe called such art pathological reality. At any rate, he reminded us of the ape, at large in a library, who made his dinner from a bound volume of beetles, and of the sparrows who pecked at the cherries of a great master.

“ Does not that show that the cherries were admirably painted ? ”

“ By no means. It convinces me that some of our connoisseurs are true sparrows. Does not the uncultivated amateur, like the ape, desire work to be natural, that he may enjoy it in a natural, which is often a vulgar way ? ” Most of our playwrights to-day are mediocrities, yet we must have so many new dramas a year. The demand makes the supply. What a supply ! Whether it be that nineteenth-century life is not conducive to dramatic expression, or whether the cause be less fundamental, the greater number of plays are manufactured by small persons who know nothing but the market. They are dramatists by effort, without genius, with a painstaking knowledge of what will “ go ” on the stage. Lacking creative genius, illuminating wit, large originality of any kind, they set about to bolster themselves up with something else. They “adapt” very largely, but their adaptations are not re-creations, only patchwork. When they make a new play, it is so rickety that it can run only in one direction ; it is spoiled if a man does not sit down in a particular way on a special kind of sofa. The only things they aim at are little things, and these little things must be done precisely so. The characters tell you nothing, the dialogue nothing, the situations nothing; all must be explained literally by the poor playwright, who therefore becomes the stage manager, as nobody else knows what fine effects he is driving at.

If it were clearly and steadfastly believed that at least one theatre in each great city is to exist for plays of imagination and acting of sustained and even excellence, and not for extravagant competition for effects which are decadent, the endowment required would not be large, compared with American gifts to other institutions. The public and the actors would understand that an intellectual theatre does not mean Browning and Tennyson, but that the greatest literary drama is the greatest acting drama. The smallness of the theatre would be accepted, and a rational scale of salaries— not parsimonious, and yet not an alluring bait — would be the more satisfactory because the employment would be constant. While the practical direction of such a theatre ought to be largely in the hands of a manager, who should combine intimacy with the stage and familiarity with ideal modes of thought, the safest seat of final control would be a committee, in which various points of view should be represented, all agreeing on the fundamentals. Were I forming such a body, I should let the managerial element be represented by the director of the theatre, the actors by two or three of the most scholarly and disinterested, and I should fill out the committee with unprofessional lovers of the theatre. The dream may never become substantial, for few of us care to live quietly and continuously for a distant good, or to seek our happiness in the service of art. But if a millionaire, devoted to the drama and its larger bearings, should come forward, he would be a benefactor at once to the forsaken few and to the misguided many. A playhouse with a repertory of great plays, kept alive by a body of trained actors, would stand as a reproach to the degraded aims of its companion theatres, it would be a refuge for the worthiest actors, and in widespread and profound public service it would be a worthy rival of any university.

Norman Hapgood.