Restoration theatre

“ He wished the theatre to have an ideal; not a retrospective, and, so to speak, reactionary ideal, as so often happens in a country where tradition retains its force, and where it is held that there is no reform like that of restoration ”

“ Like that of the Restoration—and like that of the present day—it was necessarily influenced in its method and spirit of treatment by the conditions and restrictions which governed the place and circumstances of the performance of plays, including the construction of theatre and stage, as well as by the social composition of its audiences, which the local accommodation, not less than the entertainment, provided for them had to take into account. ”

“ The theatre apparently can still be as filthy in suggestion as it was at the Restoration, and not shock its audiences. There were all sorts of people there that night: young girls who had come with young men for an evening's polite amusement; families; middle-aged husbands and wives; respectable-looking single women ”

“ What a charm invests the place where we made our first acquaintance with the drama! It becomes an enchanted spot for us, and I doubt if the greatest possible familiarity in after life can ever breed contempt for it in our hearts. For my own part, I regarded the destruction of the old theatre in Federal Street, and the erection of warehouses on its hallowed site, as a positive sacrilege. ”

“ The Committee of Public Safety realized that the transformation of the old Théâtre-Français for the purpose of giving popular performances was only temporary. The founders of the People's Theater were right in thinking that there were obstacles, probably unsurmountable, to the establishment of a new form of dramatic art in an old building, whose material form, audiences, and traditions would always stand in the way of the development of a new art. ”

“ Vast, built of wood, dishevelled, with broken statues and blurred coats of arms, with its empty scene, its uncurling frescoes, its hangings all in rags, its cobwebs of two centuries, its dust and mildew and discoloured gold—this theatre, a sham in its best days, and now that ugliest of things, a sham unmasked and naked to the light of day, is yet sublime, because of its proportioned harmony, because of its grand Roman manner. ”

“ Not the least striking effect of the restoration of the King was the revival of the English theatres. They had been closed and the players silenced for three-and-twenty years, and in that space a new generation had arisen, to whom the entertainments of the stage were known but by name. The theatres were now re-opened, and with every advantage which stage properties, new and improved scenery, and the costliest dresses, could lend to help them forward. ”

“ One enthusiast, eager to convert me, quoted to me the words of some foreign actress of our time: [9] “To save the Theatre, the Theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible,” which is cruel and absurd, and in any case should not have come from an actress. For these semblances of mankind by their remoteness banished all the accidental things which make a play realistic and warmly human, and all the personal emotion which makes us feel for an actor, and applaud him for the pain he has gone through. ”

“ The theatre of Art, when it comes to exist, must therefore discover grave and decorative gestures, such as delighted Rossetti and Madox Brown, and grave and decorative scenery, that will be forgotten the moment an actor has said ‘It is dawn,’ or ‘It is raining,’ or ‘The wind is shaking the trees’; and dresses of so little irrelevant magnificence that the mortal actors and actresses may change without much labour [207] into the immortal people of romance. The theatre began in ritual, and it cannot come to its greatness again without recalling words to their ancient sovereignty. ”

“ Of course, the worst theatres are those which are known as the ‘good old’ ones. There is no such thing as good old. There is nothing but bad old, and the theatre is an example. It must have been that heathen god, Good Old, invented Covent Garden. ”

“ For two movements that are bound to affect the theatre of the future are bringing the lay public clambering over the footlights and crowding in at the stage door. One, the Little Theatre Movement, is almost altogether a lay insurgency. In scores of communities, it has made its way; tradesmen, students, clerks, mechanics, people of leisure and working people with a little leisure, have come together and in a short time have plumbed the silly little mysteries of back-stage, and have brought into their theatres a little bit of the real Mystery of life and art that belongs there. ”

“ There are limits beyond which mechanical skill or inventive genius cannot alter the obdurate confines of the physical stage. But there are no heights to which a human spirit, set in public upon a platform, however narrow and close-walled, cannot rise. In view of this great spiritual fact, I would solemnly warn any little theatre or community house that has money to spend for modernity, not to spend it on the kind of advance stage machinery discussed in this chapter, but to spend it on artists. ”

“ It was a dreary job, for surely one can find no more desolate and melancholy place in a great city than a theatre seen by daylight. From the front of the house one receives an impression of loss. The sight of an empty chair is saddening—here are a thousand of them. This dimness and vastness, this gilding and crystal and metal that does not glisten nor glitter. The depressing silence of checked music, of vanished laughter—even an actor shivers at sight of the auditorium of a closed theatre; it is like looking on the face of a dead pleasure. ”

“ Men, women, and children thought and talked of little else than the Brooklyn Theatre and the burned dead beneath its ruins. On the sidewalks, in the street-cars, on the ferry-boats, there was one and the same subject of interest. In the neighborhood of the theatre itself the excitement was at its height. ”

“ To make a pretty picture at the expense of drama is merely to pander to the voracity of the costumier and scene-painter.
What was then to be done? Added to all these objections was the important fact that I had designed scenes that would have seriously hampered the resources at Hammersmith. The theatre would have required more space for storage than could possibly have been given and, in addition, an army of stage hands would be wanted for whom there was not in this little theatre the accommodation. ”

“ The advice that should be given to every young man starting life is—if you happen to be behind the scenes at a theatre, never spring forward. The whole architecture of the place is designed to undo those who so spring. Hours before, the stage-carpenters have laid their traps, and in the semi-darkness you cannot but fall into them.
The trap into which Henry fell was a raised board. ”

“ From our situations in the Theatres Royal of Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden we have had opportunities of observing many circumstances relative to our general property, which must have escaped those who do not materially interfere in the management of that property. One point in particular has lately weighed extremely in our opinions, which is, an apprehension of a new Theatre being erected for some species or other of dramatic entertainment. ”

“ As our experimental theatres increase in number—and they are increasing—it will probably play its part, and perhaps no insignificant a part, in the development of a national drama through the development of a local drama and the cultivation of a taste for self-expression in various communities. It is only when these experimental theatres are sufficient in number, and the amateur spirit has been sufficiently aroused in various communities, that the commercial theatre of tradition will be seriously influenced. ”

“ Every encouragement, then, should have been given to our leading municipalities to interest themselves in raising money to endow local Repertory Theatres, and the executive of the London Memorial would be doing more good to the cause of drama by spending the interest of its capital in helping these local theatres to come into existence than by wasting their money in the way they are doing at the present time. ”

“ The actor’s art is transient to-day: it will be permanent, it will be classical, in the next century. By this fact not only will the pleasures of the theatre be made cheap, convenient and varied, but the art of the theatre will be vastly improved. ”

“ But, none the less, I look upon a National Theatre as an imperative need if the drama is to flourish, and I believe, if Shakespeare were living to-day, he would say so too. The executive of the present Memorial, to my mind, made a false start by concentrating public attention on the building as the primary object, instead of on the institution, and then by ignoring the claims of the dramatic profession to recognition. The labour, the anxiety, the expense of providing the public with plays in this country has been hitherto, and is still, borne by our actor-managers. ”

“ Dramatic productions, at that time, were less the property of the author who had conceived them than of the actors who had received them. This is always the case when theatres begin to be established; the construction of a building and the expenses of a performance are far greater risks to run than the composition of a drama. To the founder of the theatre alone is dramatic art indebted, at its origin, for that popular concourse which establishes its existence, and which the talent of the poet could never have drawn together without his assistance. ”

“ When we consider the few new theatres that have been built, such as the Scala, the Little Theatre, the Ambassadors, we are sure that the old cannot be brought up to date. Like most old institutions, the English theatre can be reformed only by dynamite.
As in many human things, architecture is at fault. The playhouse is evolved from the Roman circus. But the circus offered a performance without scenery, which could be seen from all sides. When scenery came, it grew impossible to show the play except from one side, so as not to give away the mystery ”

“ When that time comes—if it does come—one of the results will undoubtedly be a more flexible theatre, the growth of repertoire companies, the expansion of the activities of popular players. In a more flexible theatre, where repertoire is a rule rather than a strange and dreaded experiment, and where actors pride themselves on versatility and the public honors them for it, the one-act play will again have its place, but not then as a curtain raiser or afterpiece, to pad out an evening or "send the suburbs home happy," but as a serious branch of dramatic art. ”

“ Two or three undertakers’ wagons with the ugly coffins from the dead-house, were in attendance, but the uninterrupted procession of corpses, which was so horrible a feature of the scene on Wednesday, ended late at night, and on this morning there was nothing to see save the smouldering ruins of the theatre. There was only the great void where the theatre had stood, a mere rim of crumbling walls, scarcely breast high, enclosing immense heaps of brick and rubbish, from which columns of steam arose in the air. ”

“ Long will that mournful event be remembered by those who survived or witnessed its horrors!—Either from the deep impressions which it produced or from other causes,—the taste for theatrical exhibitions has not kept pace with the increase of wealth and population. The commodious Theatre which succeeded the old one,—which is placed in a far more eligible situation, and is of much safer construction, is only occasionally patronized, when the appearance of some attractive star, or celebrated performer, is announced. ”

“ To the dramatic profession the loss is irreparable. In the condition of the contemporary theatre there are not many hopeful signs. No doubt there will be bright days in the future, as there have been in the past. They go and they return. The stage declines and the stage advances. At present its estate is low. Few men like Lawrence Barrett remain for it to lose. Its main hope is in the abiding influence of such examples as he has left. The old theatrical period is fast passing away. The new age rushes on the scene, with youthful vigour and impetuous tumult. ”

“ All that can be attempted is to create a new model at their side. What is sought by the advocates of a municipal theatre is an institution which [Pg 128] shall maintain in permanence a high artistic ideal of drama, and shall give the public the opportunity of permanently honouring that ideal. Existing theatres whose programmes ignore art would be unaffected by such a new neighbour. But existing enterprises, which, as far as present conditions permit, reflect artistic aspiration, would derive from such an institution new and steady encouragement. ”

“ My theatre will put an end to those disheartening revivals (or resurrections) of popular musical shows because the shows will be kept alive, just as “grand” operas are kept alive by appearing in a repertory. Into the repertory I shall incorporate—as soon as their independent existence is at an end—such successes as The Night Boat and such failures as The Land of Joy. There will never be a chance for fashion to destroy things essentially good. ”

“ It is surprising that everyone writing about the stage in the seventeenth century should be so densely ignorant concerning the history of one of the chief playhouses during the Shakesperean era.
1599. This year is an important one in the theatrical history of Shakespeare’s company as during this time the dispute of granting a further licence to the lessees of the Theatre occurred, which ended in the demolition of the Theatre and the erection of the Globe Theatre in Shoreditch. ”