THE RECOGNITION OF THE DRAMA

BY THE STATE

It is always a critical and dangerous moment for any business when the stress of events frightens everybody into the easy exclamation that something must be done!' For so often it happens in the panic that the wrong thing is done, and done so thoroughly and effectually, that the whole business is henceforth maimed and disjointed, and falls to the ground.

We have reached such a critical and dangerous moment in the affairs of the English drama; or rather in the affairs of that curious hotchpotch which, being collectively exhibited in some twenty-five fashionable, expensive West-end theatres, is supposed to be our national English drama.

A fearless and admirable letter from Mr. John Hare in the Times, briefly sketching and bewailing our present sorry plight, has been endorsed by an imposing array of notable names-a bishop to head the list; a few august literary persons; our leading actor-managers, with three English playwrights piously and respectfully following in their train; two or three leading lights in science; two or three eminent artists; a sprinkling of social celebrities; and various other personages all of credit and renown in their different ways-altogether a very weighty and representative assembly, furnishing abundant evidence that amongst all classes of cultivated Englishmen a benevolent, if vague, conviction is spreading that something must be done!' But what? I cannot help regretting that the alarm has been sounded to help and save the English stage, rather than to help and save the English drama. For this way of putting the matter implies that the English drama is in itself so inconsiderable and negligible a thing that for all practical purposes it may be said to be summed up and contained in the English stage, as the greater contains the less. If this absorption of the English drama in the English stage be affirmed as a presentday indisputable fact, it must be asked, 'Is not the virtual subserviency of our drama to our stage the great indirect cause of all our ills?' If it be affirmed as an eternal predestined necessity that the English drama shall always be absorbed in, and confused with, the English stage, then we must challenge the statement in the plainest and

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strongest way; and we must point to France, where, the drama being recognised and honoured as a distinct literary art, its intellectual and artistic level is thereby immeasurably raised; while the intellectual and artistic level of the French theatre is necessarily raised in association with the drama. In England, having no national drama, what can be the real value of our theatre ?

But it may be that in sounding this rallying cry, the mistake of considering the English drama as the mere creature and instrument of the English stage has been made unconsciously, through mere inattention. But is not that just the mistake that the great body of English playgoers make, and is not that just the way they make it? It is all lightly taken, and swallowed, and dismissed as a mere entertainment. And hence we have no English drama.

I hope I shall not be misunderstood or misrepresented in this matter. I am not decrying the great and noble art of acting. I have benefited too much, and suffered too much, not to be aware how great an artist a great actor is, and that without him the dramatist is a helpless, gibbering shade. Surely none can sufficiently value and praise the actor, except the author. And for myself, words cannot convey the deep gratitude I have for some of my interpreters.

But gratitude and courtesy cannot away with the fact that if we are to make any advance, either in the art of acting or the art of the drama, they must be generally recognised as distinct arts, and their relations to each other must be clearly perceived. At present the great majority of playgoers do not at all distinguish between the art of acting and the art of the drama; nor do they ever think of a play as a separate organism, as something quite distinct from any one of its many thousand possible varying interpretations. Now, though we cannot have a great national drama without a body of highly trained and intellectual actors, yet still less can we have any great or intellectually effective acting without the material to work upon. And granted that we have much to seek both in the matter of plays and of acting, yet as the play must be written, before actors, scene-painters, and carpenters can get to work at all, surely the English stage can only be helped and saved when, and after, and inasmuch as the English drama is first helped and saved. That is to say, the whole question of having a living English national drama depends upon first catching your dramatists, upon giving them the best and most highly trained acting talent, and then allowing them free scope. And any helping or saving the English stage upon the condition that it is a corporate entity containing that negligible and inconsiderable thing, the English drama, can only give us a few more exploits in acting, of no more permanent value or influence than the exploits of an acrobat.

I have touched this point at starting, and I have pressed it home with some vehemence, because it is really the key of the whole situation. And there is no issue out of our present difficulties except by

the way it opens to us. I am writing in no carping spirit, and surely with no desire except to further a most apt and timely movement, a movement most generously conceived and launched, a movement that if rightly pursued promises to be of the greatest advantage both to the English drama and the English stage. But if it is to be effective, it must be pursued on a clear understanding of the whole matter.

For a generation or so the impression has prevailed, and still prevails amongst the great body of playgoers, that the English drama is the instrument, and creature, and tributary, and appurtenance of the English stage. This assumption governs all matters relating mutually to the drama and the stage: it is apparent in the form and wording of the paper I am now discussing; it is the darling axiom of many of our leading actors; it is the sheet-anchor of our whole present system; it is the fetish of a very considerable portion of the press; it is ingrained in the public opinion of the country. Then why be so foolhardy as to combat it? Because, until it is combated and overthrown, there can be no sure standing-ground for any English drama, let alone any advance for the English stage or the English drama.

Now I do not say that this impression, the impression, namely, that the English drama is the instrument, and creature, and tributary, and appurtenance of the English stage-I do not say that this impression has been altogether unreasonable or even untrue during the past generation. There have surely been sufficient reasons for it. And so far as it has been a witness to great aims, great ambitions, and in some cases to great impersonations, one can very cordially sympathise with it.

And, for love of sweet peace, one would be only too glad to subscribe to it, and to march at its festivals, dutifully cheering and shouting with the crowd, if only it led to our desired goal, the establishment of a great, living, English acted drama. But where has this root idea led us? What has been the issue of it? That it has failed to create or foster a satisfactory English stage, or a satisfactory English drama, is sufficiently evident from a single glance at the present state of things.

It has failed. There can be no doubt of that. But has it failed victoriously? There is no quickener like the spilt blood of a lost cause. Has this lost cause sown mandrakes anywhere to spring up and shake and fertilise these clods, this dry, dead stubble of modern English life? Has the idea of the domination of the English drama by the English stage left any sign, or monument, or result, except one or two deservedly great personal reputations? What has it done even for the English stage as distinct from the English drama? Has any school of acting been founded? Have not the remains of the old school dwindled and vanished under its influence? Have any great traditions been established, except the traditions of careful and beautiful mounting and mise en scène? Is the acting in the London

revivals of our classic and poetic drama on a level with the average performances of municipal theatres on the Continent? Do we Londoners get a chance of seeing as much Shakespeare, and that as well acted, as many German towns? With the greatest number and the most expensive theatres in the world, has the public taste been really raised at all, or raised to anything except to universal musical comedy? Has it not become increasingly difficult for an English playwright to cast adequately any serious work? (I class modern comedy as serious work.) Have not our leading actors become more and more dissociated from our leading playwrights, to the great disadvantage of our employer, the public? Does not this dissociation tend to become more marked, as the idea that the English drama is part and parcel of the English stage becomes more deeply fixed in the public mind? Has it not become almost vain to hope that any play containing great emotions or wide views of life will be written at all; or if written, will be produced; or if produced, will be played in such a great and convincing manner as to be successful, or even to escape a perhaps derisive failure? And is not this state of things the direct and inevitable result of our present system, based as it is on the prevalent idea that the English drama is the creature, and instrument, and tributary, and appurtenance of the English stage-an idea that for the most part allows the great playgoing public to rest perfectly satisfied when its favourite actor has scored a personal success, irrespective of the permanent value and meaning and intellectual quality of the play?

It will be noticed that I have gone behind the course of events and the apparent facts, and that I have searched for the governing idea that has shaped the recent history of the English stage and the English drama. I think it will be difficult for anyone to dispute that the present situation has been largely shaped by this main idea in the public mind, the idea everywhere carefully fostered, that the English drama is the instrument of the English stage.

Is that idea to be perpetuated? Is it to be tacitly adopted and made the basis of our future action? Is it to underlie our proposed reforms? Is it to be the accepted principle that is to govern the future relations of the English drama and the English stage?

Because, if that be so, I take the liberty of telling my illustrious cosignatories that we may spare ourselves any further trouble either of signing or of doing, for the end of our reforms will find us pretty much where we are; the cart, stuck persistently in front of the horse, will only have pushed the horse a little further down the hill into a little deeper mire.

I think I see a little cherub sitting up aloft and mocking at my illustrious cosignatories, bishops, eminent literary personages, actormanagers and all.

Now, granted that the situation is as it has been sketched for us, and as it has been accepted by my illustrious cosignatories, we are

much like the lepers outside Samaria; things can scarcely come to a worse pass with us whatever we do, or wherever we go.

Perhaps a suggestion may be welcome. Seeing that it is ideas that prompt action and shape history, perhaps it will be wise if we begin with an idea, and base our reforms on that. And seeing that the present governing idea in the English playgoing mind, namely, the idea that the English drama is the creature, and instrument, and tributary, and appurtenance of the English stage, has been found not to work, and is, indeed, largely responsible for the present impasse, suppose we try to foster the alternative idea, namely, that the English stage is, or should be, the instrument of the English drama. Suppose we put the horse in front of the cart. I know it is a violent, nay, a revolutionary proceeding, but I think it will be found to be fruitful. At any rate, let us try how it works.

Again I will beg not to be misunderstood. I am not trying to depreciate the actor's art. I am not trying to belittle the men who, in a time of great difficulty and transition, and of low artistic ideals, have done very hard and valuable work, and have helped to save the English drama from utter extinction. And I have met with many instances of unselfish willingness to play a small part for the good of the play: let me amongst others gratefully acknowledge a recent one on the part of Mr. Cyril Maude, who offered to play a small comedy character, and took the leading part only upon my persuasion that the interests of the play would best be served in that way.

No, it is our system that is to blame, and not the men who work it in many cases with conspicuous devotion, and certainly with as much self-sacrifice as can be expected from average human nature.

But that the system is a bad one is proved by the situation it has created. It is a bad one because it places the responsibility for the English drama upon the actor. Why should a leading actor encourage the English drama? It is surely not to his interest to produce English plays if ready-made French ones, that will provide him with a leading part, can be bought outright and adapted for a small sum. Nor is it to his interest to train and school a large body of capable actors, who would, indeed, be of immense value to the dramatist and to the drama, but who can only work with the idea and the ambition of competing with him, the leading actor, for one of the four or five leading positions ou the English stage. Nor is it really in furtherance of the actor's legitimate ambition that great English plays should be produced at all, otherwise than as they may happen to provide a strong or suitable leading part for himself. Very often, perhaps most frequently, the greatest acting successes are made in plays that, outside their acting opportunities, are quite worthless. Can anything be more contemptible and absurd than the pieces in which some of our favourite actors have scored their greatest personal successes? And the first question for a leading actor must always be, nay, rightly and naturally