Part 6

The great dramatists, whose works we analyze reverently in the study, were all of them, in their own time, successful playwrights, stimulated now and again by association with the most gifted and the most accomplished of contemporary actors. If they had not made their profit out of the histrionic ability of the foremost performers of their own time and country, they would have been neglecting golden opportunities.

Those who best know the conditions of playwriting will be the least likely to deny that not a few of the great characters in the drama came into being originally as parts for great actors. Of course, these characters are more than parts; they transcend the endowment of any one performer; they have complexity and variety; they are vital and accusable human beings; but they were parts first of all more or less made-to-order. In many cases we know the name of the actor for whose performance the character was conceived, Burbage for one, Mlle. de Champsmeslé for a second, Coquelin for a third. And in many another case we lack definite knowledge and are left to conjecture. There are peculiarities in the ‘Medea’ of Euripides, for instance, which seem to me to point to the probability that it also was a made-to-order garment.

To say that Sophocles and Euripides possibly did this cutting-to-fit, that Shakspere and Racine and Rostand indisputably did it, is not to imply that they did it always or even that they did it often. Perhaps they did it more often than we shall ever know; perhaps they had special actors in mind when they created characters which are not star-parts. And this suggests a broadening of the inquiry.

II

After asserting that Shakspere’s were “far from being one-man plays,” Professor Thaler reminded us that Shakspere’s dramas were written “for a great company of actors”; and what is true of Shakspere

holds good also of the Elizabethan drama in general. Its breadth and variety may be ascribed in no slight degree to the fact that the organization of the dramatic companies provided the great poets of a great age with ample facilities for the interpretation of many characters and many phases of life.

This prompts a question as to whether Shakspere may not have fitted other actors who were his associates at the Globe Theater besides Burbage. That he did deliberately and repeatedly take the measure of the foremost performer in the company and that his dramatic genius was stimulated by the histrionic talent of Burbage, I do not doubt. We cannot help seeing that Shakspere’s heroes become older as Burbage himself advanced in years. Romeo being intended for a fiery young fellow and Lear being composed for a maturer man, who had become a more consummate artist. I have suggested elsewhere the possibility—to my own mind a probability—that Shakspere inserted the part of Jaques into ‘As You Like It’ specially for Burbage. Shakspere took his sequence of incidents from Lodge’s ‘Rosalynd,’ in which there is no character which resembles Jaques; and Jaques has nothing to do with the plot; he remains totally outside the story; he exists for his own sake; and he may very well have been thrust into ‘As You Like It’ because Burbage was too important an actor to be left out of the cast and because Orlando was not the kind of part in which Burbage at that period of his artistic development would appear to best advantage.

If Shakspere made parts thus adjusted to the chief performer at the Globe Theater, may he not also have proportioned other and less important characters to the capabilities of one or another of the actors whose histrionic endowment he was in the best possible position to appreciate aptly, since he was acting every day by their side? Is this something to which the greatest of dramatists would scorn to descend? Has this ever been done by any other playwright in all the long history of the stage?

When we turn the pages of that history in search of support for this suggestion, we find it abundantly and super-abundantly. The succession of comic operas which Gilbert devised to be set to music by Sullivan reveal at once that they were contrived with reference to the capacity and to the characteristics of the chief members of the company at the Savoy Theater. The sequence of broadly humorous pieces, farces which almost rose to be comedies and comedies which almost relaxed into farces, written by Labiche, and by Meilhac and Halévy for the Palais Royal theater were all of them so put together as to provide appropriate parts for the quartet of comedians who made that little house the home of perennial laughter in the third quarter of the nineteenth century.

At the same time Meilhac and Halévy were contriving for the Variétés the librettos of ‘Barbe-Bleue’ and the ‘Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein,’ ‘Belle Hélène’ and ‘La Périchole,’ a series of opera-bouffes enhanced by the scintillating rhythms of Offenbach and adroitly adapted to the special talents of Schneider, of Dupuis and of several of the other more or less permanent members of the company. Almost simultaneously Augier and the younger Dumas were giving to the Comédie-Française their social dramas, always carefully made-to-order to suit the half-dozen leading members of the brilliant company Perrin was then guiding. The ‘Fourchambault’ of Augier and the ‘Étrangère’ of Dumas are masterpieces of this profitable utilization of the pronounced personalities of the performers. The ‘Étrangère,’ in particular, would have been a very different play if it had not contained characters made-to-order for Sarah Bernhardt and Croizette, Got and Coquelin.

A little earlier the series of blank verse plays written by Gilbert for the Haymarket Theater, of which ‘Pygmalion and Galatea’ won the most protracted popularity, had their leading characters plainly made-to-order for Mr. and Mrs. Kendal and for Buckstone himself. And just as ‘Richard III’ and ‘King Lear’ are none the worse because the central character was conceived also as an acting part for Burbage, so Gilbert’s blank verse pieces, Augier’s social dramas, Meilhac and Halévy’s farcical comedies lost nothing by their owing some portion of their inspiration to the necessity of fitting the accomplished comedians by whom the outstanding characters were to be impersonated. I venture to express the opinion that this desire to bring out the best the several actors had to give was helpful rather than not, stimulatingly suggestive to the author when he was setting his invention to work.

When we turn back the pages of stage-history from the nineteenth century to the eighteenth we find perhaps the most striking of all instances of made-to-order parts,—an instance which shows us not one or two or three characters in a play, but almost every one of them, composed and elaborated with an eye single to the original performers. The ‘School for Scandal’ has been seen by hundreds and read by thousands, who have enjoyed its effective situations, its sparkling dialog and its contrasted characters, without any suspicion that the persons of the play were made-to-order parts. Yet this undisputed masterpiece of English comedy is what it is because its clever author had succeeded to the management of Drury Lane, where Garrick had gathered an incomparable company of comedians; and in writing the ‘School for Scandal’ Sheridan peopled his play with the characters which the members of this company could personate most effectively.

King was Sir Peter, Mrs. Abington was Lady Teazle, Palmer was Joseph Surface, Smith was Charles Surface; and they were so perfectly fitted that they played with effortless ease. So closely did Sheridan identify the parts with the performers that when a friend asked him why he had written a five-act comedy ending in the marriage of Charles and Maria without any love-scene for this couple, he is reported to have responded: “But I couldn’t do it. Smith can’t make love—and nobody would want to make love to Priscilla Hopkins!”

III

It may be objected that Sheridan and Augier and Dumas were after all dextrous playwrights and that they are no one of them to be ranked with the truly great dramatists. While they might very well be willing once in a way to turn themselves into dramaturgic tailors, this is a servile complaisance of which the mighty masters of the drama would never be guilty, from which indeed they would shrink with abhorrence. But if we turn the pages of stage-history still further back, from the eighteenth century to the seventeenth, we discover that Molière did this very thing, the adjustment of a whole play to the actors who were to perform it, not once as Sheridan did, but repeatedly and regularly and in all his pieces, in his loftiest comedies no less than his broadest and most boisterous farces. And there will be found few competent critics to deny that Molière is one of the supreme leaders of the drama, with an indisputable right to a place by the side of Sophocles and Shakspere, even if he does not climb to the austere and lofty heights of tragedy.

The more we know about the art of the theater and the more we study the plays of Molière the more clearly do we perceive that he was compelled to do persistently what Sheridan did only once. The company at the Palais Royal was loyal to Molière; nearly all its leading members came to Paris with him and remained with him until his death fifteen years later. This company was strictly limited in number; and as it had a permanent repertory and stood ready to appear in any of its more successful plays at a moment’s notice, outside actors could not be engaged for any special part,—even if there had then been in Paris any available performers at liberty. Molière could not have more parts in any of his pieces than there were members of the company; and he could not put into any of his pieces any character for which there was not a competent performer in the company. No doubt, he must at times have felt this to be a grievous limitation. That he never deals with maternal love may be accounted for by the fact that he had no woman to play agreeable “old women,”—the disagreeable elderly females being still played by men, in accord with the medieval tradition. We know the name of the male actor who appeared as Madame Pernelle in ‘Tartuffe,’ as the wife in the ‘Bourgeois Gentilhomme’ and as the Comtesse d’Escarbagnas.

Molière wrote many parts for his own acting; and as he was troubled with a frequent cough, he sometimes makes coughing a characteristic of the person he was to act. His brother-in-law, Béjart, was lame; and so Molière describes a character written for this actor as having a limp. His sister-in-law, Madeleine Béjart, was an actress of authority; and so the serving maids he wrote for her are domineering and provocative. But when she died and her place was taken by a younger actress with an infectious laugh, the serving maids in all the plays that Molière wrote thereafter are not authoritative, and they are given occasion for repeated cachinnation. And as this recruit, Mlle. Beauval, had a clever little daughter, Molière did not hesitate to compose a part for a child in his ‘Malade Imaginaire.’ When we have familiarized ourselves with the record of the leading man, La Grange, of Madeleine Béjart, of Catherine de Brie, and of Armande Béjart (Molière’s wife), we find it difficult to study the swift succession of comedies without constantly feeling the presence of the actors inside the characters written for them. We recognize that it was not a matter of choice this fitting of the parts to the performers; it was a matter of necessity; and even if it may have irked him at times, Molière made the best of it and probably found his profit in it.

Now Shakspere was subject to the same limitations as Molière. He composed all his plays for one company, the membership of which was fairly constant during a score of years and more. It was also a repertory company with frequent changes of bill. It could never be strengthened by the special engagement of an unattached performer; it had to suffice, such as it was. So far as we can judge by the scant external evidence and by the abundant internal evidence of the plays written for them by Shakspere, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and the rest, the company was composed of unusually competent performers. It is unthinkable that Shakspere should have plotted his superb series of tragedies, making more and more exacting demands on the impersonators of his tragic heroes, unless he had a confident assurance that Burbage would be equal to them. And this confidence could not fail to be a stimulus to him, encouraging him to seek out stories for the ample display of his friend’s great gifts.

From all we have learnt of late about Shakspere we are justified in believing that he was a shrewd man of affairs with a keen eye to the main chance. He was a sharer in the takings at the door; and he could not but know that those plays are most attractive to the public which contain the most parts demanding and rewarding good acting. So we must infer that he put into his plays the characters in which he judged that his comrades could appear to best advantage. He not only wrote good parts for good actors, he wrote special parts for special actors, shaping his characters to the performers who were to impersonate them. In other words he provided, and he had to provide, made-to-order garments.

That he did this repeatedly and regularly, just as Molière was to do it three-quarters of a century later on the other side of the channel, is plainly evident, altho we do not now know the special qualifications of his actors as well as we do those of Molière’s. But we cannot doubt that the company contained one actor of villains, of “heavies” as they are termed in the theater. I hazard a guess that this was Condell, afterwards the associate of Heming in getting out the First Folio; but whoever he was, Condell or another, he was entrusted with Iago, with Edmund in ‘King Lear,’ with the King in ‘Hamlet,’ and with the rest of Shakspere’s bold, bad men.

We know that there were two low comedians in the company, who appeared as the two Dromios, as the two Gobbos, as Launce and Speed; and we know also that one of these was Will Kempe and that when he left the Globe Theater his place was taken by Arnim. Now, we can see that the Dromios, the Gobbos, Launce and Speed are merely “clowns” as the Elizabethans called the funny men,—“Let not your clowns speak more than is set down for them.” The Dromios and the Gobbos and the corresponding parts in Shakspere’s earlier plays, including Peter in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ are only funny men, with little individuality, almost characterless; and we may surmise that this was due to Shakspere’s own inexperience in the delineation of humorous character. But we may, if we choose, credit it also to the fact that Kempe was only a funny man, and not a character-actor. And we can find support for this in the superior richness and stricter veracity of the low comedy characters composed by Shakspere after Arnim took Kempe’s place,—Dogberry, the porter in ‘Macbeth,’ the gravedigger in ‘Hamlet,’ comic parts which are also characters, equipt with more or less philosophy. And again this may be ascribed either to Shakspere’s own ripening as a humorist or to the richer capacity of Arnim. But why may not these two causes have coöperated?

Then there is the brilliant series of parts composed for a dashing young comedian,—Mercutio, Gratiano, Cassio, Laertes. That these successive characters were all entrusted to the same performer seems to me beyond question; and it seems to me equally indisputable that Shakspere knew what he was doing when he composed these characters. He was assured in advance that they would be well played; and there is no reason to doubt that in composing them he profited by his intimate knowledge of the histrionic endowment of the unidentified member of the company for whom they were written, giving him nothing to do which he was not capable of doing well, and giving him again and again the kind of thing that he had already exhibited the ability to do well.

Another group of parts is equally obviously intended for an actor who had shown himself to be an expert in the impersonation of comic old women, boldly characterized, broadly painted, highly colored in humor,—Mrs. Quickly (who appears in four plays), the nurse in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and Mrs. Overdone in ‘Measure for Measure.’ Here again I venture the guess that this low comedian may have earlier been cast for the Dromio and the Gobbo which was not given to Kempe. And I wish to record my regret that we cannot pick out from the list of the company at the Globe the name of the “creator” of Mrs. Quickly and her sisters, any more than we can identify the “creator” of Mercutio and his brothers.

In my biographies of Shakspere and of Molière I have dwelt in ampler detail with this dependence of the two greatest dramatists of the modern world upon the actors who were their comrades in art and their friends in life; and I have here adduced only a part of the testimony which goes to show that both the English dramatist and the French were visited by the same muse,—whether of the “sorry sort” or not must be left for each of us to decide for himself.

IV

“It is not more difficult to write a good play,” so the Spanish dramatist Benavente has declared, “than it is to write a good sonnet; only one must know how to write it—just as one must know how to write a sonnet. This is the principal resemblance between the drama and the other forms of literature.”

The writing of a sonnet imposes rigorous restrictions on a poet; he must utter his thought completely in fourteen lines, no more and no less, and these lines must conform to a prescribed sequence of rimes. But the masters of the sonnet have proved that this enforced compression and this arbitrary arrangement may be a help rather than a hindrance,—not a stumbling block, but a stepping stone to higher achievement. May not the limitations under which Shakspere had to work, may not the necessity of cutting his cloth to fit his comrades, may not these enforced conditions have also been helpful and not harmful? And if this is possible (and even probable) what warrant have we for thinking scorn of the great dramatist because he was a good work-man, making the best of the only tools he had? In disposing important characters to the acting of Burbage, Shakspere was probably no more conscious of being cribbed, cabined, and confined than was Milton when he shut himself up in the narrow cell of the sonnet.

The artist must be free to express himself, but he attains the loftiest freedom when he accepts the principle of liberty within the law. Many of the masterpieces of the several arts have been produced under restrictions as sharply defined as those of the sonnet, and have been all the finer because of these restrictions. The architect, for one, does not choose what he shall build, he has perforce to design an edifice for a special purpose on a special area. The mural painter has a given wall-space assigned to him, where his work is to be seen under special conditions of light; and often his subject is also prescribed for him. The sculptor is sometimes subordinate to the architect, who decides upon the size and the subject of the group of statuary needed to enhance the beauty of the building. The artist who modelled the figures in the frieze of the Parthenon had little freedom and yet he wrought a mighty masterpiece. Michael Angelo’s David is what it is because the sculptor was asked to utilize a block of marble of unusual size and shape; and his Last Judgment is what it is because he accepted the commission to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In fact, Michael Angelo’s muse was “of that sorry sort which produces made-to-order garments to fit the tastes and idiosyncrasies of a single” patron.

If Shakspere fitted his characters to the actors who were to play them, he was doing what Molière was to do; and this companionship is honorable. He was doing what the sculptor of the Parthenon did and the painter of the Sistine, no more and no less; and he stands in no need of apology.

(1920)

VII

STRANGE SHAKSPERIAN PERFORMANCES

VII

STRANGE SHAKSPERIAN PERFORMANCES

I

If Shakspere could return to earth he would find many things to astonish him, not the least of which would be his own world-wide reputation. He seems to have been, so far as we can judge from his works and from the sparse records that remain, a modest man, with no sense of his own importance and with no pretension of superiority over his fellow-poets. In his lifetime there was scant appreciation for his plays, since the drama was then held to be little better than journalism, scarcely worthy to be criticized as literature. That he was popular, or in other words that his plays pleased the people, and that he was liked personally by his associates,—this seems to be clearly established. But there was no recognition of his supremacy as a poet, as a creator of character or even as a playwright. As Shakspere was a singularly healthy person, we can confidently assume that he did not look upon himself as an unappreciated genius.

Therefore, if he came back to us we cannot doubt that he would stand aghast before the constantly increasing library of books that have been written about him in the past two centuries. Nor can we doubt that this would appeal to his sense of humor. He would probably be interested to look into a few of the commentaries which seek to elucidate him; but he would not long pursue this perusal; and he would shut the books with a laugh or at least with a smile at the obstinate perversity of the critics who have wearied themselves (and not infrequently their readers also) in the vain attempt to explain what originally needed no explanation, since it had been plain enough to the unlettered crowds which flocked into the Globe Theater and stood entranced while his stories enrolled themselves on the stage.

If he were permitted to wander from the library where the immense mass of Shaksperiana fills shelf after shelf, and to enter any of our comfortable playhouses to witness a performance of one of his own plays, as set on the stage by an enterprizing and artistic producer, such as Sir Henry Irving, he would again be astonished. The theater itself would be strange to him, for it would be roofed and lighted, whereas the playhouse he knew was open to the sky and dependent on the uncertain sun for its illumination. The stage would be equally novel, for it would have sumptuous scenery, whereas the platform of his day had had no scenery and only a few properties, a throne or a pulpit, a bed or a wellhead. The actors would be unlike his fellow-players at the Globe since they would be attired with a strenuous effort for historical accuracy, whereas Burbage and Kempe, Condell and Heming were accustomed to costume themselves in the elaborate and sumptuous garb of the Elizabethan gallants, glad when they could don the discarded attire of a wealthy courtier. And perhaps what would surprize him as much as anything would be to behold his very feminine heroines impersonated by women instead of being undertaken by shaven lads, as was the habit in his day.