Part 6

Mr. Davenport’s plays do not rank with Ibsen’s or even with Galsworthy’s. But thousands of worse plays have been produced and have succeeded—simply because they contained no ideas. Mr. Davenport is master of a technique which would make it easy for him to write a popular success if he did not insist on saying something. One manager has told him that he is ten years ahead of his time, but that if he were only European his work could be produced. A publisher wrote him that his plays could be issued in book form if he were only well-known. Mr. Davenport’s question, “My dear Mr. ——, how am I to become well known?” has not elicited a reply.

This man’s spirit will remain just as eager and strong as when he began; he may get before the public eventually. Even this year hopeful new plans are under way. But whether he ever succeeds or not, he will have found in life a thousand times more than the obtuse millions who are deaf to him. It would be an insult to offer him sympathy.

And it would be stupid to place final blame on the managers or the publishers, or to think that such things as drama leagues can furnish a fundamental remedy for the apathy of the public. The whole structure of society must be altered, and the quality of the individual human spirit must be quickened, before our leaders can find any adequate reaction in the crowds. We have denied ourselves the artistic stimulus of a cohesive aristocracy. How shall we vitalize our democracy?

If they (men) were books, I would not read them.—_Goethe._

Some people term a book poor and unreal because it happens to be outside the reality with which they themselves happen to be acquainted—a reality which is to actual reality what a duck-pond is to the ocean.—_George Brandes._

The Theatre

Forbes-Robertson’s Hamlet

(_Blackstone Theatre_)

One of the noblest things I have ever seen on the stage—or ever expect to see—is the Hamlet of Forbes-Robertson. The poet, the scholar, the philosopher, the great gentleman, the lover, the brilliant talker, the anguished boy—they are all there in the tall man in black with the graven face and the wonderful hands and the voice of surpassing richnesses—the tall, graceful, impetuous, humorous, agonized man in black who reads Shakespeare as if he were improvising and makes a true and charming human being out of a character that has had the misfortune to become a problem. “And please observe,” writes Bernard Shaw, “that this is not a cold Hamlet. He is none of your logicians who reason their way through the world because they cannot feel their way through it; his intellect is the organ of his passion; his eternal self-criticism is as alive and thrilling as it can possibly be.” His moment of expiation, alone at the back of the stage, with his arms raised to the vaulted heavens; and his gallant last moment on the throne with its single silver sentence, “The rest is silence”—these things are too moving to be articulate about. Richard Le Gallienne has expressed it all as well as it can be done: “All my life I seem to have been asking my friends, those I loved best, those who valued the dearest, the kindest, the greatest, and the strongest, in our strange human life, to come with me and see Forbes-Robertson die in _Hamlet_. I asked them because, as that strange young dead king sat upon his throne, there was something, whatever it meant—death, life, immortality, what you will—of a surpassing loneliness, something transfiguring the poor passing moment of trivial, brutal murder into a beauty to which it was quite natural that that stern Northern warrior, with his winged helmet, should bend the knee. I would not exchange anything I have ever read or seen for Forbes-Robertson as he sits there so still and starlit upon the throne of Denmark.”

M. C. A.

“The Yellow Ticket”

(_Powers’ Theatre_)

A bleeding chunk of reality is not art, but it is a bleeding chunk of reality; your aesthetic emotions may sleep at the sight of a tortured animal, but your humane emotions will roll up to your throat when you witness the simple tragedy of a Jewish girl in St. Petersburg, presented in Michael Morton’s play, _The Yellow Ticket_. To me such a realistic play in such a realistic presentation has as little to do with dramatic art as a reporter’s story has to do with literature; but I brushed aside my memories of Rheinhardt and Komissarzhevskaya when I went to see a piece of Russian life at Powers’. And I saw it indeed—real, nude, appalling.

Some of my acquaintances have asked me whether the tragedy could be true, whether a Jewish girl has no right to live in St. Petersburg, unless she has bought her protection from the police by selling her reputation—that is by procuring a yellow ticket, the trade-licence of a prostitute. Yes, it is true. A Jew is forbidden to abide outside the Pale of Settlement, with the exception of certain merchants and persons of a university education, and prostitutes. The latter form the most desirable element in the eyes of government officials, since their occupation does not generally presuppose any predilections for revolutionary ideas or free thought. I have known instances where women involved in the Revolution, gentiles as well as Jewesses, obtained yellow tickets which served them the rôle of a _carte blanche_ from the molestations of the police. There are many anecdotic facts in Russian life that seem incredible to the outsider, and Mr. Morton has produced in his play a mass of such facts with photographic verisimilitude. It must be said to the credit of the actors that they have escaped the slippery path of melodramatic overdoing.

K.

“Jael”

(_The Little Theatre_)

“Hosanna!” I felt like shouting, when the curtains slowly concealed the mysterious stage. I am still under the spell of the oriental atmosphere, not yet cooled off for objective criticism. What Florence Kiper Frank has done with the biblical subject may terrify the orthodox student of the Bible, but I greeted her daring heresy and free manipulation of epochs and styles. She has skilfully blended the bloodthirsty, gloating outcries of Deborah’s Song with the idyllic lyrics of Solomon’s Songs, and has presented in _Jael_ a composite type, a mixture of the savage tent-woman, of the passionate yet gentle Shulamite, and of the eternal jealous female. The result, as far as the creation of an atmosphere goes, is a positive success.

A word about the staging. Maurice Browne, on the privilege of a pioneer, may be congratulated on the progress he has made in leaving behind mouldy conventions and approaching the state where he can produce pure aesthetic emotions. The three one-act plays on the present bill, regardless of their merits or demerits, demonstrate the great possibilities of an artistic stage manager, who can do away with elaborate accessories and produce suggestive illusions with the aid of an ultramarine background and calico apple blossoms. Yet, as in all pioneering, there are signs of hesitation and of half-measures. I am sure that the effect of _Jael_ would not in the least diminish (it would rather be intensified), if we were spared the inevitable storm-pyrotechnics. The verses in themselves imply the idea of battle and tempest, and Miss Kiper in the title rôle has the voice and diction to serve the purpose.

K.

Harold Bauer in Chicago

HERMAN SCHUCHERT

There yet remain certain pianists and other opinionated craftsmen in music who will say, when approached on the subject of Harold Bauer’s piano playing: “Oh, yes; but you know Bauer is—well, shall we say?—a monotonist. His playing is all of one style—beautiful tone, to be sure; but, oh, such a sameness! He shades beautifully—yes, surely, but it’s all too colorless.” And it probably never occurs to these critics that a pianist who uses an entirely beautiful tone, who shades delicately, and who is definitely individual in his playing, might not seem monotonous to the admirers of true piano-artistry. And it is quite certain that these carpers failed to attend Bauer’s last Sunday afternoon recital in Orchestra Hall, when and where the above composite quotation was put to shame.

The program was headed by that most unequal set of little pieces—interesting, dull, graceful, and often clumsy:—Brahm’s Waltzes. The Brahms faddists may sacrifice all the credit to their idol, but he deserves only a part of it; for Bauer made these waltzes float as lightly and pleasantly as the material permitted, and invested them with all possible contrast and pulse. There was no lack of what pianists call “point,” either in this opening number or in the remainder of the program; and it is this quality of “point,” which is the season more in evidence in Bauer’s work than ever before, which makes the carpers appear rather uninformed. “Point” is nothing mysterious; it means definite and crisp rhythm, brightness of tone designed to contrast with richness and warmth of tone, sharp shadings artistically brought out, and a deeply satisfying precision in tempi. This man’s work deserves this inclusive term. Whatever lack there might have been in seasons past (there has been a fragile foundation for the criticism mentioned at the beginning of this appreciation, when, as late as three years ago, his tonal ideals apparently did not include great brilliance), this Sunday recital went far to establish the fact that Bauer has a happy variety of tone-colors at his command, which variety includes no little brilliance. Sheer facility and digital expertness have never seemed to occupy the attention of this master-pianist, except insofar as such facility and expertness would give expression to purely musical content; and now if the carpers continue to shrug their shoulders at the praise of Bauer, it will be because they miss the usual bombast and key-swatting of esteemed mediocrity, and certainly not because of any inadequacy of technic for musical purposes, or lack of pianistic lustre. No mediocrity of a technic-worshipper or piano-eater ever gave a performance of Beethoven’s Opus 3 that could compare with that of Bauer on Sunday afternoon; for he then projected a deeply significant art, particularly in the first movement of the sonata, which must be inexplicable in words. Schumann’s _Scenes from Childhood_ were given a highly imaginative treatment—a treatment which penetrated even the academics. And Schumann’s Toccata—that battered veteran of many an ivory struggle—ceased for once to be an endurance stunt, and hummed forth (as the composer hoped and indicated) as a strangely beautiful bit of music. Bauer’s playing of this will remain long in the awakened music-receptacles. So will his interpretation of his own arrangement of César Franck’s Prelude, Choral, and Fugue—which are three movements vieing with each other for supreme religious solidity—and his nonchalant handling of the tricky D-flat Study of Liszt. The Chopin Scherzo in C-sharp minor closed a program which would surely have been sombre and sleepy under the fingers of any less than a pianistic musician. In certain splendid moments Bauer seems like a high priest performing a tonal miracle, or like a potent magician weaving curious and impossible dream-fabrics. And, with all pleasant fancies put aside, he is an exponent of modern pianism at its best.

In music a light blue is like a flute, a darker blue a ’cello, a still darker a thunderous double bass; and the darkest blue of all—an organ.—_Kandinsky._

Color is a power which directly influences the soul. Color is the key-board, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations of the soul.—_Kandinsky._

A Ferrer School in Chicago

DR. RUDOLF VON LIEBICH

The Havasupai Indian mother says: “I must not beat my boy. If I do, I will break his will.” Unlike her pale-faced friends, she is not obsessed with the mania for governing. We, in our insane subservience to traditions, continue to train our children to obey. Slaves they shall be; that is the slogan. We no longer whip men; we whip children only because they are weaker than we are. So, a child is the slave in successive stages of home, church, school, government, and either boss or “superior officer.” Could Europe be at war unless its men were made molluscous by discipline and their mental paralysis completed through _respectability_?

Children are born materialists, poets, and joy-worshippers. We tame them and they grow up philistines, supernaturalists, and respectable believers in the disinterested love of dullness. Instead of teaching them theories and superstitions, we should tell them that they are parts of the universe; that the carbon, iron, sulphur, phosphorus, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, the zero-gases, and the dozen other elements of which our bodies are made are also the main elements of sun, moon, and stars,—of the whole material universe. The next step might be to show the child, through actual experiments, the known physical and chemical properties of these elements, thus preparing its mind for the greatest of all poetries—the poetry of evolution. These things need but be shown, not laboriously learned by rote; they need only to be told, not to be taught; and if the child’s healthy inquisitiveness has not been ruined by repression, it will delight in feeling the pull of the magnet; in watching the electric spark that unites oxygen and hydrogen into water; in drawing the marvelous beauties of snow flakes and other crystal formations; in watching and aiding the growth of birds, beasts, flowers, or fruits; in the thrill of blended voices or in other forms of voluntary co-operation. All these things, all the realities need but be shown to delight the untainted mind of childhood; while daily free association with other children will soon give to each child a practical working knowledge of ethics (quite impossible to attain under the boss-system of the government schoolmistress) from which, as a basis, the errors of our economic and social systems can be pointed out and discussed. In the minds and hearts of these free children, ideals can then be formulated which will tend toward their development into the free society of the future, whose coming their own efforts will hasten. For it is only through the successive enslavement of each succeeding generation that governments can retain their powers.

Such should be some of the activities of a Ferrer or Modern School, free from the noxious taint of authority, superstition, or respectability. If we cannot do better let us begin, at least, with a Sunday school. However that may be, and whatever the future of such a school, all those interested in establishing it are cordially invited to communicate with the editor of THE LITTLE REVIEW, with William Thurston Brown, 1125 N. Hoyne Ave., with Anthony Udell, 817½ N. Clark St., or with the writer, 1240 Morse Ave.

The Old Spirit and the New Ways in Art

WILLIAM SAPHIER

Full of visions and ideals and eager to express them in their own way, a group of striving young painters and sculptors in this city is working industriously without regard for applause from either the crowd or the few. Just as there are religious and social rebels—people who refuse to accept the old dogmas and habits merely because they were successful at a certain time and fit for a certain period in human history—these young artists refuse to adopt methods and views of the past for the purpose of expressing their views on modern subjects.

In striving to realize the new idea in form and color they are of necessity passing through that period in which the intellect discerns and style is chosen—the period of experiment. And if they do not achieve as great a success as the old masters, they certainly work in the spirit of a Monet or a Rembrandt. We print this month reproductions of work done by four of these artists. They have nothing in common except that they are all trying to express themselves in their own way.

Jerome S. Blum, the oldest and best known of the group, is an extraordinary painter of the usual. He does not rely on a dramatic subject, or on a sensational technic, to arouse interest in his work. It is his unusual way of looking at people and nature, and his vigorous and interesting color schemes, that have made his paintings notable. Mr. Blum is far too imaginative to be natural, far too poetic to be “real.” All his work strikes one as a spontaneous expression of almost childish delight in color.

_The Orator_ is the work of Stanislaw Szukalski, a boy of nineteen, who comes from Russian Poland. He studied at the Krakau Academy, where he received two gold medals and five other prizes. On entering his studio your amazement grows as you wander from one thought or emotion to another in plaster. Each one grips and holds you vigorously. _Impressions of Praying_, _Sleeping_, _Hurling_, and _Bondage_, a few very interesting portraits of Max Krammer and Professor Chiio, and also a full figure of Victor Hugo tell of the spiritual insight of this young sculptor—the unexpected in every one. His works are full of life and imagination. The fact that some of our able nonentities have characterized them as caricatures proves how narrow-minded some of our sculptors are today.

C. Raymond Johnson is only twenty-three years old, and in all the work he has done so far purity, brilliance of color and spaciousness predominate. It is the suggestion in his present work of great possibilities in the near future that makes them interesting. The one in this issue shows the highly decorative effects of his ideas. Besides painting Mr. Johnson finds time to experiment with colored lighting and the making of most original posters for the Chicago Little Theatre.

Christian Abrahamsen, the young and independent portrait painter, has done some very remarkable work. His portraits are the result of penetrating study of his subject and adaptation on the part of the painter to the moods of the sitter. He varies his style with his subject. His portrait of Michael Murphy sparkles with life and vigor and holds your attention as few of the portraits of older painters can. Beside portraits Mr. Abrahamsen paints sunny landscapes in the open air and under clear skies. The large canvas filled with the freshness, strength, and beauty of a clearing in northern Wisconsin, reproduced in this issue of THE LITTLE REVIEW, represents some of the work done last summer.

To name is to destroy. To suggest is to create.—_Stéphane Mallarmé._

Art is a form of exaggeration, and selection, which is the very spirit of art, is nothing more than an intensified ode of over-emphasis.—_Oscar Wilde._

Book Discussion

Vachel Lindsay’s Books

_The Congo and Other Poems_, by Vachel Lindsay. [The Macmillan Company, New York.]

It is not too much to say that many of us are watching Vachel Lindsay with the undisguised hope in our hearts that he may yet prove to be the “Great American Poet.” He has come so fast and far on the road to art and sanity since the early days when he drew minute, and seemingly pathological, maps of the territories of heaven, and grinning grotesques of the Demon Rum! He has carved his own way with so huge and careless a hand! And his work, in spite of its strangeness, is so deeply rooted in the crude but stirring consciousness that is America to-day! Surely there is ground for hope.

Like every artist who creates a new form, Mr. Lindsay has had to educate his public. And the task is not by any means accomplished yet. We have had to overcome an instinctive feeling that poetry should be dignified, and to look the fact in the face that it must first of all be telling, and that in cases where these two elements conflict, dignity is a secondary consideration. We have been rudely jostled out of our academic position that poetry must be condensed, poignant, and literary, and we have been shown that by going back to the primitive conception—which included as the principal element the half-chant of the bard—true poetry may be diffuse, full of endless iterations and strangely impassioned over crude and even external objects. So much we have learned, and after the first shock of surprise, learned gladly. It has opened to us whole new reaches of enjoyment. We hope sincerely that we are not yet done with Mr. Lindsay’s educative process.

_The Congo_ is the title poem of his new volume. To describe the poem adequately would require almost as much space as the nine pages it occupies. So it must suffice to say that it is perilously near great poetry, broad in sweep, imaginative, full of fire and color, psychological—and very strange. Much in the same vein are _The Firemen’s Ball_ and _The Santa Fe Trail_, which appeared originally in _Poetry_.

Several of the poems in this volume, among them _Darling Daughter of Babylon_ and _I Went Down Into the Desert_, are already familiar to readers of THE LITTLE REVIEW, as they were first published in the June number. The volume contains also a delightful section of poems for children, and a group dealing with the present European war.

Both _The Congo_ and Mr. Lindsay’s earlier volume, _General Booth Enters Heaven_, are extraordinarily interesting books. Every mind which is truly alive to-day should know at least one of them.

_Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty_, by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay.

[Mitchell Kennerley, New York.]

Almost simultaneously with _The Congo_ has appeared a prose volume by Mr. Lindsay, _Adventures while Preaching the Gospel of Beauty_. It is an account, in the form of a diary, of a walk through Missouri and Kansas, and into Colorado. Its value is almost purely personal. To anyone who is interested in Mr. Lindsay’s striking personality, this book will serve as a spiritual Baedeker. As literature its value is comparatively slight. It contains, however, one of his most striking poems, _The Kallyope Yell_, which appeared originally in _The Forum_. This alone is worth the price of the volume.

EUNICE TIETJENS.

Pumpernickel Philosophy

_The Man of Genius_, by Herman Tuerck. [The Macmillan Company, New York.]

Professor Tuerck, a very normal German, has been writing critical essays since the end of the eighties, and he has not changed a bit—the same good old idealist of the sissy category. In this book he makes a study of Genius, and comes to the magnificent conclusion that the chief characteristics of a genius must be goodliness, loving kindness, respect, and loyalty to existing institutions, obedience to the law, objectivity, and truth. Naturally, those who do not possess these delicacies are villains. The professor demonstrates two groups of thinkers, one in angelic white, the other in devilish black. Among the first, the real geniuses, we find beside Christ, Buddha, Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron, also Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon. But oh, Mr. Wilson, what German atrocities! Mr. Tuerck mercilessly disfigures his victims and pastes upon them with his saliva accurate, uniform labels. In _Hamlet_, in _Faust_, in _Manfred_, in the mentioned law-givers and warriors, the author manages to discover goody-goody traits of exemplary burghers. In the Black Gallery we face the lugubrious sinners—Stirner, Nietzsche, and Ibsen. “Woe to him who follows these modern antisophers!” cries Mr. Tuerck, for they are enemies of humanity, of the state, of society, of reality, of truth, for they are selfish and subjective. “The Devil, the Father of Lies, is great and Friedrich Nietzsche is his prophet.”