Part 7

But there is one thing for which I envy the general playgoer above all. I mean his freedom and pungency of criticism. Anonymity gives him irresponsibility, and, his resentment at being bored not being subject to the cooling process of literary composition, his language is apt to be really terrible. Talk of printed criticism! Actors and authors do talk of it often enough, and on the whole don’t seem to like it; but let them mingle with the general playgoer and keep their ears open! Who was the man in Balzac who said that it was absurd to speak of the danger of certain books when we all had the corrupt book of the world open before us, and beyond that another book a thousand times more dangerous—all that is whispered by one man to another or discussed behind ladies’ fans at balls? So the general playgoer is the great purveyor of secret criticism. Disraeli, or another, said that the secret history of the world, which never got into the history books, was the only true history. Let us hope that secret criticism is not the only true sort, but it is certainly the most live. It is free from the literary bias, the cant of criticism, the smell of the lamp. And it is the most potent of persuasives. Published criticism is powerless against it. The fate of a play is not decided by newspaper criticisms (thank goodness! I should be miserable if it were), but by what the general playgoers say to one another and pass on to their friends. How many plays with “record” runs have been dismissed by the newspapers on the morrow of the first night with faint praise or positive dispraise? The general playgoer has said his say, and what he says “goes.” I know he is giving many worthy people just now much uneasiness. They form little theatrical societies _à côté_ to keep him out. They deplore his taste and organize leagues for his education and improvement. I rather fancy he is like the young lady in the play who “didn’t want to have her mind improved.” But that is another story. What I have been envying him for is not his taste but the heartiness with which he “abounds in his own sense” and his freedom in expressing it. After all, perhaps criticism that is so free and so pervasive and so potent is not exactly to be called “secret.” I seek the _mot juste_. Or I would if that were not a back-number. Has not Mr. Beerbohm finally put it in its place as the Holy Grail of the nineties?

FIRST NIGHTS

There is a movement, I am told, in certain critical circles in favour of the system which obtains in Parisian theatres of the _répétition générale_. This, as most playgoers know, is a final “dress rehearsal” held on the evening (at the Français, where evening performances must be continuous, on the afternoon) of the day before the actual “first night” production, or _première_, of the play. The seats, including the exceptionally large number allotted in Paris to the Press, are filled by invitation. It is the real “first night”; only there is no “money” in the house. Notoriously, there is a formidable cohort of Parisians who regard their seat at a _répétition générale_ as a kind of vested interest, and who would be affronted by having to put up with the _première_. A very remarkable public this is, the public of the _répétition générale_, with its members virtually all known to one another, filling the _foyer_ with chatter and much scent, and patiently sitting through a performance which is apt to begin a good half-hour after the advertised time, and to end in the small hours of the morning. The inter-acts are of inordinate length, perhaps in the interests of the buffet, more likely because of the inveterate leisureliness of the Parisians. The whole thing, at any rate as I have found it, is a weariness to English flesh. But then the gentlemen (and ladies) of the Press have the advantage of being able to go home straight to bed, and of having all next day to think over their “notices.”

That is the reason, I suppose, why some critics would like to see the system introduced in London. They want more time. They want to sleep on it. They would write, they think, better in the morning. Let me leave that point, however, for the moment to turn to what an incorrigibly commercial world will probably think a more important one, the question of finance. To the theatrical manager the introduction of this system would mean the loss of a whole night’s receipts. With theatre rents and expenses at their present height, could they possibly contemplate so heavy a sacrifice? They are already complaining that theatre seats at their present prices do not pay—and here they would be giving away, for one night, the whole house. Further, however they might gratify the friends whom they invited, nothing could save them from the wrath of those who were left over. Some of these, perhaps, might be mollified by a subsequent invitation—for the “deadhead” habit becomes an insidious disease, and, I am told, the Paris theatres groan under the hordes of playgoers who consider themselves entitled to gratuitous admission. On the whole, I think our managers would be ill-advised to countenance the suggested change.

Another thing. The _répétition générale_ is a trial performance. Effects which don’t “tell,” incidents which shock or provoke ridicule, are often cut out next morning, so that the play actually presented at the _première_ differs, sometimes vitally, from that presented to the critics, so that the “notice” not seldom describes and criticizes various matters which the public are never shown. If the English manager imitated this example—and as a practical man of business he would be sure to imitate it—the unhappy critic after writing his notice would have to go to the play again, before printing it, in order to assure himself that it still represented the facts. It would have to be two bites at a cherry. Now, new plays are often produced on two nights running, in which case two bites at the same cherry would be impossible. In the most favourable case, two successive visits to a play would be a heavy addition to the burden of life.

But would criticism benefit in quality? I venture to doubt that, too. I think that theatrical “notices” are all the better for being piping hot. One’s impressions of the play are stronger, more definite in outline, richer in colour, when one leaves the theatre than next morning, when they have had time to cool and to fade into “second thoughts,” which in criticism are far from being always the best. When Jules Lemaître went from the _Débats_ to the _Deux Mondes_ he found that his thoughts about the play, instead of maturing with the longer interval for writing, were apt to become simply vague and general. If the play happened to be one “of ideas,” not so much harm was done, because ideas stick in the mind, and are revolved there. But a play of emotion or a play dependent on fine shades of acting is bound to suffer by the gradual waning of the first impression. And my own experience is that in writing about a play of which one has lost the first hot impression, and which one has to recall by an effort of memory, the proportions get altered, so that the criticism is thrown out of gear. Some point, a mere minor point, perhaps, that attracted one’s attention, remains in the mind and assumes an undue importance in relation to other details that have faded. I went to see _Grierson’s Way_ revived the other night after a quarter of a century. When I asked myself beforehand what I remembered of it, I could only answer that I had been originally much struck by its merits, but that the only one of these merits that remained in my mind was a conversation wherein, under a surface of small talk, two people were revealing depths of tragic emotion. I had forgotten the characters, the _motif_, the very story. And when my conversation turned up (in Act III.), though I was as delighted as ever, I saw, of course, that it was only an item, not the sole memorable thing in the play.

An interval of a quarter of a century is rather different from one of four-and-twenty hours? Undoubtedly; but my point is that one’s impressions begin to wane and to alter in “values” from the very outset. After all it is the business of critics not merely to criticize, analyse, and judge a play, to try and “place” it in the realm of art; they have also the perhaps minor but still important duty of acting as public “tasters.” They have to represent facts, to give the public a reasonably accurate notion of what they are likely to see. And they are in a much better position for doing this if they set down their facts and their views of the facts at once, while they are still quivering with the excitement (or yawning with the boredom) of them.

PLAYS WITHIN PLAYS

Representative arts will represent everything they can, including themselves. The theatre likes to show an image of its own life, life behind the scenes, actors acting on the stage, audiences listening, applauding, or interrupting in front. Hence the plays within plays which Shakespeare found so alluring. It was a comparatively simple problem of technique in his time because of the simplicity of the “platform” stage and of the Elizabethan playhouse.

A standing audience, as his for the most part was, is obviously easier to represent than a seated audience; it is just a crowd of “citizens” like any other stage crowd. The only important question for the stage-manager was the relative position of the mimic players and the mimic public. Clearly your mimic players must be seen by the real public, or what becomes of your play within a play? The position of your mimic public must have been more or less dependent on their importance in the action. But, I take it, the Elizabethan arrangement, in any case, must have been of a pre-Raphaelite symmetry. I presume the play scene in _Hamlet_ must have taken place in the lower part of the permanent erection at the back of the stage and that the mimic public was ranged down each side of the stage. The old arrangement has remained essentially unaltered. The mimic players are generally shown in some raised, arcaded terrace at the back of the stage; the King and Queen face Hamlet and Ophelia (in profile with respect to the real public) in front. It would obviously never do to let Hamlet and the King face the performers in the rear and so turn their backs on the real public, for the whole point of the scene is the effect of the mimic play on the King and on Hamlet watching the King. But I do not, for my part, see why more might not be made out of this “psychologic” effect by an arrangement which placed the mimic players nearer the front of the actual stage, on one side, so that the King might be turned full-face towards us as he watched them. If the King were played by an actor of the first importance (which he seldom or never is), with a gift of facial play, we may be sure that this would be done.

There is a somewhat similar scene in the first act of _Cyrano de Bergerac_. The chief centre of attraction here is not the mimic play itself, but the behaviour of the audience, disturbed by Cyrano’s interruption of the players. That is why I think that Coquelin’s arrangement with the players on one side and the audience in profile was better than Mr. Loraine’s, with the players in the rear and the mimic audience turning its back to the real one. But it is a point of comparative insignificance. As it was the old playhouse and the old standing audience that was being represented, the stage-management was essentially as simple as that of the play-scene in _Hamlet_.

So soon, however, as you come to represent the very different modern “picture” stage and the modern seated audience you see at once that the problem becomes immensely more difficult. Accordingly you find a revolution in the method of treating a play within a play. I do not know whether the Guitrys invented it or Reinhardt or whoever, but certainly the most conspicuous illustration we have had of it has been presented by the Guitrys. It is something much more than a mechanical change; it is psychological as well. The mimic stage, the stage of the play within the play, now occupies the whole of the actual stage, and the mimic audience is identified with the real audience.

We saw this startling innovation first in _Pasteur_. Pasteur is supposed to be addressing a meeting of the French Academy of Medicine. His rostrum is at the footlights, and he addresses _us_, the real audience. _We_ have to suppose ourselves the Academy of Medicine. To help us to this illusion one or two actors are scattered about the house, who interrupt, argue with Pasteur, and are personally answered by him. We find ourselves, in fact, at once listening to a debate, as real audience, and, in the thick of it, taking part in it, as supposed audience. There is a French proverb which says you cannot both join in a procession and look out of the window; but this experience upsets it. The result is a curious blend of sensations; you feel yourself both spectator and actor, _at_ a play and _in_ a play. But there is no doubt that the effect is much more vivid and exciting than that which would have attended the mere spectacle of Pasteur addressing a crowd upon the stage itself. You have, by the way, exactly the same effect in Mr. Galsworthy’s _Skin Game_, where an auctioneer addresses us, the public, who are supposed to represent the competing purchasers.

A still more striking instance has been seen in _L’Illusioniste_. Here the first act shows the stage of a music-hall and presents three actual “turns.” We, the actual audience, become the music-hall audience, and again there are actors scattered among us to help the illusion. They are addressed by the conjurer and answer him; a lady in a box throws him ardent glances which are returned with interest. But one of the “turns,” an act by acrobatic clowns, has absolutely nothing to do with the play; it is there purely for its own interest, a substantive performance. This shows, what we knew before, that revolutions run to excess. We are so engrossed by the clowns that we are tempted to forget what we are there for, to see a play. Anyhow, it is a most amusing innovation, this conversion of the actual stage into an imaginary stage within the play, and of the actual public into an imaginary public taking part in the play. It is a real enrichment of stage resources.

But there are obvious dangers. One I have just pointed out, the danger of introducing irrelevancies for their own intrinsic interest, which tend to impair the artistic unity of the play. Another is the danger of applying this method to cases (as in _Hamlet_ and _Cyrano_) where the real centre of interest is not the mimic play but the mimic audience. Imagine the whole stage given up to the _Mouse Trap_, with the front row of stalls occupied by the courtiers, and Hamlet and Ophelia in one box watching the King and Gertrude in the opposite box! That is an extreme instance, which traditional respect for Shakespeare will probably save us from; but some ambitious producer will probably try this game with some modern play, and then I predict disaster.

PLAYS OF TALK

The production on two successive nights of two plays so violently contrasted in method as Mr. Harwood’s _Grain of Mustard Seed_ and Mr. Galsworthy’s _Skin Game_—the first a play mainly of talk, the second a play entirely of action—sets one thinking. According to the orthodox canons, the second is the right, nay, the only method. Drama, we are told, is a conflict of wills and all the interest is in the action, the external manifestation of the conflict. There should be just enough talk to carry that on and not an idle word should be spoken. Diderot, indeed, professed to think that words were almost superfluous, and went to the play with cotton-wool in his ears in order to judge its merits on the dumb show; yet he wrote the most wordy and tedious plays. And there is, or was, a certain school of theatrical criticism which forever quotes the old Astley maxim, “Cut the cackle and come to the ’osses”—which was no doubt a most appropriate maxim, for quadrupeds. Others have mistaken action for physical, preferably violent action—Maldonado sweeping the crockery off the chimney-piece or Lady Audley pushing her husband down the well—and have ignored the fact that talk also may be action, “and much the noblest,” as Dryden says. “Every alteration or crossing of a design, every new-sprung passion, and turn of it, is a part of the action, and much the noblest, except we perceive nothing to be action, till they come to blows; as if the painting of the hero’s mind were not more properly the poet’s work than the strength of his body.” How often we were told in the old days that Dumas _fils_ and Ibsen were too “talky,” when their talk was mainly psychological action.

But this demand for action and nothing but action, so persistently uttered of late years, would deprive the world of much of its best entertainment. Apply it to Congreve, “cut the cackle” of his plays, and you come to the ’osses, spavined hacks, of plots childishly complicated and perfunctorily wound up. Would any one of taste suppress the “cackle” of Sheridan’s scandalous college? Is not, in short, much of the pleasure of comedy in resting from the action, in getting away from it, in the relief of good talk? Yes, and often enough the pleasure of tragedy, too. There is a bustling, melodramatic action in _Hamlet_. But with what relief Hamlet gets away from his revenge “mission” at every moment, puts it out of sight, forgets it! His interview with the players and advice to them on histrionics, his chat with the gravedigger, what else are these but the sheer delight of good talk? For him the joy of living is the joy of talking, and with the chance of these before him his revenge-mission may go hang!

Obviously we never get so near Shakespeare and Shakespeare’s natural temperament, as in these moments of talk for its own sake, talk unfettered by the exigencies of the plot. For that talk wells up spontaneously and is not turned on to order; the poet has something interesting in his mind which he is bursting to say, and if to say it will keep the plot waiting, why, so much the worse for the plot. And here is a reason, I think, in favour of plays of talk. We get nearer the author in them; in good talk the author is expressing a pleasure so strong as to override the objection of irrelevance, and in sharing that pleasure we get the best of him, the spontaneous element in him, the man himself. On the other hand, mere yarn-spinning, mere plot-weaving, may be an almost mechanical exercise. Not necessarily, of course. I should be sorry to call Mr. Galsworthy’s _Skin Game_ a mechanical bit of work. The will-conflict there has an intense reality and is fought tooth and nail. Irrelevant talk in such a white-hot play would obviously be fatal. Everybody speaks briefly, plainly, and to the point. Artistic work of any kind gives pleasure, and it is possible to be as delighted with Mr. Galsworthy’s kind as with Mr. Harwood’s. I am not comparing two artists of two different kinds, which would be absurd. I am only pleading for a kind which is not what a vain people supposeth, and which is apt to be stupidly condemned.

Not that it would be fair, either, to call Mr. Harwood’s brilliant task irrelevant. It helps to paint character. Thus, parents expect their son to have returned from the war a compound of Sir Galahad and Mr. Bottomley, and instead of that he is only a good bridge-player, after four hours’ bridge a day for four years. These witticisms help to tell you something about the young man whose family reputation gives rise to them in the family circle. When the old Parliamentary hand compares government to ’bus-driving, seeking to get through the traffic with the minimum of accident, or remarks on the reputation Canute would have made had he only waited for high tide, he is telling us something about himself and his political principles. But primarily these things are enjoyable for their wit and not for their relevance. In a play of fierce will-conflict they would have been impossible. These plays of brilliant talk belong to the quiet _genre_, and quiet in the theatre, as in art generally, is perhaps an acquired taste. “Punch,” we are constantly being told by the natural unsophisticated man, is what is wanted—the word itself is the invention of an unquiet people. Well, give me wit, and let who will have the “punch.”

The occasional tendency in the theatre to revolt against the restraint of the action and to play lightly round it has its counterpart in criticism. What is it gives so peculiar a charm to the criticism of Dryden? Is it not his discursiveness, his little descriptive embellishments—as, for example, in the “Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” the river trip, the listening for the distant thunder of the Dutch guns “on that memorable day,” the moonlight on the water, the landing at Somerset Stairs among the crowd of French dancers? I have elsewhere said how Hazlitt’s theatrical criticisms lose in readableness by their strict attention to business, compared with his miscellaneous essays, where he permits himself to wander “all over the place.” George Henry Lewes’s theatrical criticisms can still be read with pleasure for the very reason that they were diversified with deliberate, almost frivolous irrelevancies. And then there was Jules Lemaître with his perpetual “moi,” which provoked the austere Brunetière to quote Pascal’s “_le moi est haïssable_.” Yet where will you find more enjoyable criticism than Lemaître’s? But I must keep off Lemaître and the charm of him, or I shall become, what he never was, tiresome. Even as it is, I may resemble the parson who said he had aimed at brevity in order to avoid tediousness, and was answered, “You _were_ brief, and you _were_ tedious.”

“THE BEGGAR’S OPERA”

One of Boswell’s projected works was a history of the controversy over _The Beggar’s Opera_. The best known of the works he actually did write contains several references to this controversy. Reynolds said it afforded a proof how strangely people will differ in opinion about a literary performance. Burke thought it had no merit. Johnson thought very much the opposite, but said characteristically, “There is in it such a labefactation of all principles as may be injurious to morality.” Gibbon suggested that it might refine the manners of highwaymen, “making them less ferocious, more polite—in short, more like gentlemen.” It is noteworthy that the work was half a century old when these observations were made about it. It had become a classic. And later generations treated it as a classic—that is to say, kept on refashioning it to the taste of their own time. The version, for instance, that Hazlitt was so fond of writing about (in the second decade of the last century) was a sad mangling of the original. Even so, it represented for Hazlitt the high-water mark of theatrical enjoyment, just as the original did for Boswell, who said, “No performance which the theatre exhibits delights me more.” You cannot take up a volume of Swift’s correspondence, or Horace Walpole’s or Arbuthnot’s, without mention of _The Beggar’s Opera_. It even got into Grimm. It was the _H.M.S. Pinafore_ of the time.