American drama

“ The American drama, if indeed we have any claim to such a possession, is such as may reasonably be expected, more lean and wretched than the drama of any of the more cultivated nations. But we have no national drama, as yet, although we think the corner-stone of its structure has been laid, and that there is bright promise of a noble edifice, in the aspiring efforts of the many able writers whom a few years have brought to light, as well as in the encouragement which the taste of the American people seems inclined to afford to this branch of literature. ”

“ There is about ‘The American dramatist’ a lack of enthusiasm, an over-critical note that suggests a quite undue pessimism; a scarcity of constructive criticism.”
“It is, all in all, an excellent book, yet it does not give enough attention to individual plays; gives too much attention to conventionalized ideas, and gives too little credit to ‘the movies,’ to the little theater and to those dramatists of excellent ‘moments,’ who by their very failures to construct model plays best exemplify the American drama’s real trend.” ”

“ We have had American drama for one hundred and fifty years, 1 but much of it, like our popular fiction and poetry, has been subliterary, more interesting to the student of social life and national character than to literary criticism in the narrow sense of that term. ”

“ Dear Sir:
I am happy to hear that your work on the American Drama is in press, and trust that you may realize from it that harvest of fame [Pg 633] and money to which your untiring industry and diversified labours give you an eminent claim. You desire me to furnish you a list of my dramatic productions ”

“ But I had a feeling that the American drama should express a more optimistic note, that it was, or ought to be, possible to write of life as truly as plays of that class were trying to write about it, and yet express the fundamental difference between our lives and the lives of the people of Middle Europe, whose dramatists had given birth to the new school of naturalistic play writing. ”

“ Few developments in the last decade have been so startling and important as the wide-reaching improvement that has been made in the standards of the American stage, and there have been numerous indications that the drama—not only the closet, but the acting drama—is again coming into its own as a form of literature to be read. ”

“ If the mere shadow had that penetrative power, what affecting virtue might accordingly not reside in the substances, the place itself, the haunted scene, as one might figure it, of the old, the vast intensity of drama? One thing at least was certain—that, however the sense of actual aspects was to disengage itself, I could not possibly have drawn near with an intelligence more respectfully and liberally prepared for hospitality to it. ”

“ The American drama is not even given a separate division but is included under the English drama, and occupies less than one column! The Irish drama also is without a separate division, and receives only twelve lines of exposition! ”

“ The superficial quality of American emotions, sociological and æsthetic, enjoyed by the great majority of American critics, operates extensively against profundity in American criticism—in that of literature and music no less than that of drama. American emotions, speaking in the mass, where they are not the fixed and obvious emotions ingenerate in most countries—such as love of home, family and country, and so on—are one-syllable emotions, primary-colour emotions. ”

“ The emphasis of our interest has been placed on the American playwright, because we feel that no American theatre can be really successful unless it develops a native drama to present and interpret those emotions, ideas, characters, and conditions with which we, as Americans, are primarily concerned. ”

“ The American dramatist has not been given, as a general rule, to such self-examination; he has contented himself with supplying the fashions of the day in the theatre, and has left to the ubiquitous press-agent the special prerogative of whetting public curiosity as to what manner of man he is and as to the fabric from which his play has been cut. ”

“ In this novel type of drama the individual is entirely submerged and the historical incidents are chosen rather for their symbolical value than for their intrinsic interest. The spirit informing the history of the community is the dominant theme. Out of this idea, it is claimed, there is being developed a new art-form representatively American and interpretative of the American spirit. ”

“ And now we are prepared to advance to the heart of our theme and show the place of the drama in its full development in adult civilized society, where all sorts of acting are not only diffused through the daily life of the community, but also separated in a distinct profession and supplied with a brilliant home. ”

“ The great steamships, dependable almost as the sun—a million factories in civilization—the countless looms and lathes of industry—the legions of labour that weave the riches of the world—all—all move by the mainspring of man’s faith in woman!” It has come to flower today in denouncing what the best European critics have proclaimed to be the finest example of American fantastic comedy on the profound ground that “it is alien to American morality,” and in hailing as one of the most acute studies of a certain typical phase of American life a comedy filched substantially from the French. ”

“ To go to Paris to finish your education in dramatic art, and return to New York and make comments on what you see in the theatre, is not to be an American dramatic critic, nor does it tend in any way to found a school of American dramatic criticism. ”

“ We have arrived at a period of prosperity when we have time, at last, to pay attention to the arts, and especially the last to be developed, the dramatic art. We are uneasy over the conditions in our theaters today.
Vaguely the people as a whole are feeling around for one means or another to correct these conditions, to create a great national art and to restore drama to her proper place among the arts. ”

“ In this enumeration, all too scant to do justice to newer drama in the United States, especially in the field of realistic satire and humorous perception of the large-scaled clashes of our social life, it must be understood that I perforce omit to mention fully two score able and earnest young workers who are showing a most creditable desire to depict American conditions and have learned, or are rapidly learning, the use of their stage tools. ”

“ This, the first volume of "Representative Plays by American Dramatists," contains dramas which measure the tastes and inclinations of Colonial and Revolutionary life. In the proper understanding of their atmosphere, it is necessary to know something of the general spirit of the theatre of the period; to measure the conditions, customs, and social peculiarities of the provincial actors and audiences. ”

“ Omitting—but not ignoring—the rise of the modern school of European dramatists in the 1890’s, we must be content for the moment to note that this decade brought into view in America several men who were more than show-makers, even though they were honestly occupied in making plays that the public would care to spend their money for. The significant facts about these playwrights are that they gave over the imitation and adaptation of French plays, returned to American dramatic material, and achieved results that are readable as well as actable. ”

“ The American dramatist of to-day, without those great and specially prominent American characters who stood, as it were, ready to go on the stage, has come to make a closer study of American society than his predecessors did. They are keen also in seizing strikingly marked new types in American life as they developed before the public from decade to decade. ”

“ From the strutting boldness of the language in the preface, the reader is led to conclude, evidently with the author, that an 'American dramatist' has at last arisen, who is to present the proof that 'America contains within itself material quite adequate for any class of literary productions;' that there is 'no lack of materials for comedy in our country and among ourselves;' and that here we have a dramatic attempt which is to furnish 'countenance to the Cause of true National Literature.' In consonance with Mr. ”

“ Those old plays, such as they were, with their rude, bold attempts to combine religion and mirth, instruction and sport, may almost be described as having been the nerves upon which the whole mental character of the nation formed itself. The spirit which began so early to work in them kept on asserting itself more and more strongly from age to age, till the Drama became emphatically a popular passion; as indeed must always be the case before any thing deserving the name of a National Drama can possibly arise. ”

“ Therefore, America could not so far produce its own social drama. But in proportion as the crystallization progresses, and sectional and national questions become clarified as fundamentally social problems, the drama develops. ”

“ Particular importance attaches to the manner in which the modern drama is treated in the Encyclopædia Britannica, for to-day there exists a deep and intimate interest in this branch of literature — an interest which is greater and more far-reaching than during any other period of modern times. Especially is this true in the United States. During the past fifteen years study in the history, art and technique of the stage has spread into almost every quarter of the country. ”

“ It is not my intention here to criticise the contemporary stage, although the condition of the drama in America is so unique and so different from its situation in other countries that it might well attract the attention of inquiring minds ”

“ While retaining the polish and the easy carriage of good society, these dramas got rid of the smut and the smirch, and added a flavor of hearty English fun and a saner conception of social life; a drama rooted firmly in the fidelities instead of the unfaithfulnesses of human character. ”

“ It fixed the practice and traditions of the national theater. It decided that the drama was to deal with the whole of life, the real and the ideal, tragedy and comedy, prose and verse, in the same play, without limitations of time, place, and action. It decided that the English play was to be an action, and not a dialogue, bringing boldly upon the mimic scene feasts, dances, processions, hangings, riots, plays within plays, drunken revels, beatings, battle, murder, and sudden death. ”

“ Read the modern novelists and read the modern dramatists, and observe the difference of tone. There is in the common run of modern dramas—whether tragedy, comedy, or farce—such an utter absence of noble purpose, that not a whole army of claqueurs could ever succeed in establishing their popularity.
The fact is, the Muse of the British drama seems at this moment inclined to vacate the theatres, and to take up her abode in the halls and concert-rooms. ”

“ The hundred and one springs of local and sectional life must have time to furrow their common channel into the seething sea of life at large, and social questions and problems make themselves felt, if not crystallized, before the throbbing pulse of the big national heart can find its reflex in a great literature—and specifically in the drama—of a social character. ”

“ The Modern Drama, as all modern literature, mirrors the complex struggle of life,—the struggle which, whatever its individual or topical expression, ever has its roots in the depth of human nature and social environment, and hence is, to that extent, universal. ”

“ So long as the dramatists were not hampered by demands from the audience to have its social, political, or æsthetic fancies humoured, and from the actor to have his egotism flattered, the drama flourished as an art as well as a business. ”

“ Instead, therefore, of a vital unity, like that of a tree, the work has but a sort of aggregative unity, like a heap of sand.
Which may in some fair measure explain what I mean by dramatic composition. For a drama, regarded as a work of art, should be in the strictest sense of the term a society; that is, not merely a numerical collection or juxtaposition, but a living contexture, of persons and events. For men's natures do not, neither can they, unfold themselves severally and individually; their development proceeds from, through, and by each other. ”

“ Taken in combination, these three conditions explain the appearance of a drama fitted to express the very life and soul of a puissant nation, with the temper of the times impressed upon it, but with a truth and breadth that renders it the heritage of every race and age. A national drama is the image created for itself in art by a people which has arrived at knowledge of its power, at the enjoyment of its faculties, after a period of successful action. ”

“ Those critics, therefore, have no ground to stand on who belittle the importance of the modern social drama and regard it as an arbitrary phase of art devised, for business reasons merely, by a handful of clever playwrights. ”

“ The drama being that form under which a greater number of modes of expression of poetry are susceptible of being combined than any other, the connexion of poetry and social good is more observable in the drama than in whatever other form. And it is indisputable that the highest perfection of human society has ever corresponded with the highest dramatic excellence; and that the corruption or the extinction of the drama in a nation where it has once flourished, is a mark of a corruption of manners, and an extinction of the energies which sustain the soul of social life. ”