Legitimate theatre

“ It is too large a question for one man to handle.
The fault, then, of the constitution of the National Theatre, as it is at present framed, is that all the direction of what is vital to the dignity and permanency of the institution is put under the control of one man, when no single person can possibly have the knowledge and experience to cover so large a variety of work. Discrimination has not been shown between what is required of a Repertory Theatre and a National Theatre. The former is purely an experimental theatre, where courage and freedom is an advantage in a director. ”

“ I think the boys in the trenches are doing fine. I think the nation is doing fine. But, if there's just one thing where they're wrong, it's in the matter of the theatres. I think it would be much better for the Government not to attempt to cut down or regulate theatres in any way. The theatre is the people's recreation. ”

“ There is no subject of human thought that by common [19] consent is deemed ennobling that has not ere now, and from period to period, been illustrated in the bright vesture, and received expression from the glowing language of theatrical representation. And surely it is fit that, remembering what the stage has been and must be, I should acknowledge eagerly and gladly that, with few exceptions, the public no longer debar themselves from the profitable pleasures of the theatre, and no longer brand with any social stigma the professors of the histrionic art. ”

“ Already, in 1885, he had claimed energetically for the drama the right to deal with any subject, even with religious subjects. Elsewhere, he declared that the theatre was one of the organs of the national life, and one of its essential organs; that one could no more imagine England without the theatre, than England without the press and the platform.
He seems to say—and this boldness does not displease in a man of talent—“We want liberty. Free our hands; give us permission to produce [Pg 237] masterpieces, and the masterpieces will not be delayed.” ”

“ While an actor of abilities performs upon the two Stages of Drury-lane and Covent-garden under the patents of the proprietors of those Theatres (as I have before observed) , the courtesy of the world, or their own pretensions, dignifies them with the appellations of Gentlemen and even Esquires; but let the same men only step on the stage of a theatre opened without a patent or licence, and he instantly becomes a rogue and vagabond. ”

“ When it happens that a theatre is about to be demolished, as was the case recently with the Imperial Theatre after it had passed into the hands of the Wesleyan Methodists, unlicensed plays can be performed, technically in private, but really in full publicity, without risk. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When, a few years later, the organised opposition to the original theatre trust grew to such dimensions as to become in fact a second trust, it could carry on its campaign only by building a new chain of theatres to house its productions in those cities whose already existing theatres were in the hands of the original syndicate. ”

“ For the sake of the stage it will exert all its might to support the actors—and for the sake of the stage it will hold them in admonition. If the established principles of literature be violated by the actors, the very ground upon which the critic would support them, is blown up by a mine of their own construction, and not only they must sink, but the critic must, for the maintenance of a just cause, put his hand to their heads and give them a lanch. The theatre is a school for elocution or it is nothing. ”

“ Next the art theatre must correct the evils of the commercialized theatre with its destructive practice of creating and exploiting “stars.” The real art of the theatre, he thinks, must be established thru the development of fixed local playhouses with resident companies dedicated to repertory production of the best that dramatic art has to offer.
“As a man of experience and vision, he does not fall into the error of trying to ‘uplift’ the commercial theater. It can’t be done, and he knows it.” ”

“ It is impossible to imagine a man making anything which might justly be called a play merely to please himself and with no thought whatever of pleasing also an audience of others by presenting it before them with actors on a stage. But the mere existence of a theatre, a company of actors, an audience assembled, necessitates an economic organisation and presupposes a business manager; and this business manager, who sets the play before the public and attracts the public to the play, must necessarily exert a potent influence over the playwright. ”

“ The absurd liberalism of the day has given every corner of London a theatre, and has degraded the character of the stage in all. By scattering the ability which still exists, it has stripped the great theatres of the very means of representing dramatic excellence; while, by adopting popular contrivances to obtain temporary success, they have driven away dramatic genius in contempt or in despair. Our stage is now condemned to be fed like a felon from the dungeons, and, like the felon, to feel a stigma in every morsel which it puts between its lips. ”

“ Yet the capitalised conditions of theatrical enterprise, which are in vogue in London and [Pg 125] New York, seem to render long runs imperative. The system of long runs is peculiar to English-speaking countries, where alone theatrical enterprise is altogether under the sway of capital. It is specifically prohibited in the national or municipal theatre of every great foreign city, where the interests of dramatic art enjoy foremost consideration.
The artistic aspiration of the actor-manager may be set on the opposite side of the account. ”

“ Hence there exists at present in America a false demand for plays,—a demand, that is to say, which is occasioned not by the natural need of the theatre-going population but by the frantic need on the part of warring managers to keep their theatres open. ”

“ Si l'on ne crée pas ce théâtre,—soit sous le régime de la liberté, soit avec le régime du privilège,—on arrivera à une démoralisation successive, à une décadence intellectuelle des masses par le théâtre. En effet, il est bien plus facile d'attirer la foule avec les mauvaises passions qu'avec les bons exemples; de sorte que vous verrez toujours les théâtres dangereux, c'est-à-dire ceux qui out une direction subversive de l'ordre véritable, l'emporter sur les bons, c'est-à-dire sur les théâtres utiles, sur les théâtres où l'on se respecte, et où l'on respecte l'art. ”

“ Such an audience as I have described would be revolted by many of our fashionable plays. They would leave the theatre convinced that the Plymouth Brother who still regards the playhouse as one of the gates of hell is perhaps the safest adviser on the subject of which he knows so little. If I do not draw the same conclusion, it is not because I am one of those who claim that art is exempt from moral obligations, and deny that the writing or performance of a play is a moral act, to be treated on exactly the same footing as theft or murder if it produces equally mischievous consequences. ”

“ We were, and are, a collection of many individuals—actors, authors, artists, and art-lovers—all fired with the sincere desire to give to playgoers something they had not been able previously to find on the American stage. And our desire has been strong enough to face and fight, and to continue to face and fight, the ever-growing, ever-changing problems of finance, art, and human inter-relations, which are the inescapable factors of the theatre. ”

“ London managers, also, impose actors on the public because they have a London reputation, and this creates a monopoly which becomes a tyranny upon art. Whether the artist is suited or not for the part, he must be put into it, for box-office considerations.
To sum up. For the first time in the history of our stage the theatre is put under the management of a literary director, presumably with a view to bringing scholarly intelligence to bear upon the exponents of drama ”

“ The enthusiasm which Elizabeth displayed towards the drama must, in a great measure, account for its continued success and development. Without the Court patronage, the City and Local Authorities, in their blind prejudice against all kinds of entertainment, would certainly have taken drastic measures to drive the actors out of the Metropolis: and in their idiotic rage against the theatre, might have gone so far as to prohibit the actors from following the profession. ”

“ No less humiliating is the argument that the art of acting in this country is at too low an ebb to justify the assumption by a public body of responsibility [Pg 139] for theatrical enterprise. One or two critics assert that to involve public credit in a theatre, until there exist an efficient school of acting, is to put the cart before the horse. This objection seems insubstantial. Competent actors are not altogether absent from the English stage, and the municipal system of theatrical enterprise is calculated to increase their number rapidly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Avec elle, il ne s'élèvera pas de bons théâtres; il s'en élèvera immédiatement beaucoup de mauvais. La raison en est bien simple: les bons théâtres font peu d'argent; les mauvais, beaucoup. Je ne chercherai pas comment on peut restreindre la liberté des entreprises théâtrales. Mon système est franc: je n'admets pas cette liberté. Si l'absolutisme peut être permis quelque part, c'est assurément en fait de théâtre. Je voudrais que l'on fît ce que firent autrefois les décrets impériaux, qu'on limitât d'une manière précise et assez étroite le nombre des théâtres de la capitale. ”

“ But when managers began to consider the whims of their patrons, when the King’s Players petitioned the People’s Parliament for leave to continue their vocation because “they will not entertain any comedian that shall speak his part in a tone as if he did it in derision of some of the pious,” then the theatre ceased to be a looking-glass that could image life truthfully. ”

“ It is best explained by the fact that England is the only country in Europe in which theatrical enterprise is wholly and exclusively organised on a capitalist basis. No theatre in England is worked to-day on any but the capitalist principle. Artistic aspiration may be well alive in the theatrical profession, but the custom and circumstance of capital, the calls of the counting-house, hamper the theatrical artist's freedom of action. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The broad distinction between a ‘private’ and a ‘public’ theatre is familiar, and I need only remind you that at the former, which was smaller, provided seats even in the area, and was nowhere open to the weather, the audience was more select. Accordingly, dramatists who express their contempt for the audience, and their disapproval of those who consult its tastes, often discriminate between the audiences at the private and public theatres, and reserve their unmeasured language for the latter. ”

“ And as for the tenderness of the old French audiences for their actors, I have already given some taste of its quality, and have only to add here, that the French magistrates were once compelled to issue a decree wherein "Every person is prohibited from doing any violence in the Theatre de Bourgogne, in Paris, during the time any piece is performing, as likewise from throwing stones, dust, or anything which may put the audience into an uproar, or create any tumult." ”

“ PLAYGROUNDS It is strange that the theatre should matter in a nation such as ours, which has gained a reputation for liberalism and tolerance, being tolerant because it cared for nothing, and liberal because it understood little. The vogue of the theatre reflects the character of urban England, which is as frivolous as that of urban Italy is dour; because it is the symbol of pleasure, easily attained and still more easily digested, it can always find room in the newspaper, where the affairs of the nation flicker and the claims of art are unmet. ”