Shakespeare and the Modern Stage Part 8

The first question to consider is whether in England the existing theatrical agencies promote for the general good the genuine interests of dramatic art. Do existing theatrical agencies secure for the nation all the beneficial influence that is derivable from the truly competent form of drama? If they do this sufficiently, it is otiose and impertinent to entertain the notion of creating any new theatrical agency.

Theatrical agencies of the existing type have never ignored the literary drama altogether. Among actor-managers of the past generation, Sir Henry Irving devoted his high ability to the interpretation of many species of literary drama--from that by Shakespeare to that by Tennyson. At leading theatres in London there have been produced in the last few years poetic dramas written in blank verse on themes drawn from such supreme examples of the world's literature as Homer's _Odyssey_ and Dante's _Inferno_. Signs have not been wanting of public anxiety to acknowledge with generosity these and other serious endeavours in poetic drama, whatever their precise degree of excellence. But such premisses warrant no very large conclusion. Two or three swallows do not make a summer. The literary drama is only welcomed to the London stage at uncertain intervals; most of its life is pa.s.sed in the wilderness.

The recognition that is given in England to literary or poetic drama, alike of the past and present, is chiefly notable for its irregularity. The circ.u.mstance may be accounted for in various ways.

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 circ.u.mstance of capital, the calls of the counting-house, hamper the theatrical artist's freedom of action. The methods imposed are dictated too exclusively by the mercantile spirit.

Many ill.u.s.trations could be given of the unceasing conflict which capitalist methods wage with artistic methods. One is sufficient. The commercially capitalised theatre is bound hand and foot to the system of long runs. In no theatres of the first cla.s.s outside London and New York is the system known, and even here and in New York it is of comparatively recent origin. But Londoners have grown so accustomed to the system that they overlook the havoc which it works on the theatre as a home of art. Both actor and playgoer suffer signal injury from its effects. It limits the range of drama which is available at our great theatres to the rank and file of mankind. Especially serious is the danger to which the unchangeable programme exposes histrionic capacity and histrionic intelligence. The actor is not encouraged to widen his knowledge of the drama. His faculties are blunted by the narrow monotony of his experience. Yet the capitalised conditions of theatrical enterprise, which are in vogue in London and 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 munic.i.p.al 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. Although the actor-manager belongs to the ranks of the capitalists (whether he be one himself or be dependent on one), yet when he exercises supreme control of his playhouse, and is moved by artistic feeling, he may check many of the evils that spring from capitalist domination. He can partially neutralise the hampering effect on dramatic art of the merely commercial application of capital to theatrical enterprise.

The actor-manager system is liable to impede the progress of dramatic art through defects of its own, but its most characteristic defects are not tarred with the capitalist brush. The actor-manager is p.r.o.ne to over-estimate the range of his histrionic power. He tends to claim of right the first place in the cast of every piece which he produces.

He will consequently at times fill a role for which his powers unsuit him. If he be wise enough to avoid that error, he may imperil the interests of dramatic art in another fas.h.i.+on; he may neglect pieces, despite their artistic value, in which he knows the foremost part to be outside his scope. The actor-manager has sometimes undertaken a secondary role. But then it often happens, not necessarily by his deliberate endeavour, but by the mere force and popularity of his name among the frequenters of his playhouse, that there is focussed on his secondary part an attention that it does not intrinsically merit, with the result that the artistic perspective of the play is injured. A primary law of dramatic art deprecates the constant preponderance of one actor in a company. The highest attainable level of excellence in all the members is the true artistic aim.

The dangers inherent in the "star" principle of the actor-manager system may be frankly admitted, but at the same time one should recognise the system's possible advantages. An actor-manager does not usually arrive at his position until his career is well advanced and he has proved his histrionic capacity. Versatility commonly distinguishes him, and he is able to fill a long series of leading roles without violating artistic propriety. At any rate, the actor-manager who resolutely cherishes respect for art can do much to temper the corrupting influences of commercial capitalism in the theatrical world.

It is probably the less needful to scrutinise closely the theoretic merits or demerits of the actor-manager system, because the dominant principle of current theatrical enterprise in London and America renders most precarious the future existence of that system. The actor-manager seems, at any rate, threatened in London by a new and irresistible tide of capitalist energy. Six or seven leading theatres in London have recently been brought under the control of an American capitalist who does not pretend to any but mercantile inspiration. The American capitalist's first and last aim is naturally to secure the highest possible remuneration for his invested capital. He is catholic-minded, and has no objection to artistic drama, provided he can draw substantial profit from it. Material interests alone have any real meaning for him. If he serve the interests of art by producing an artistic play, he serves art by accident and unconsciously: his object is to benefit his exchequer. His philosophy is unmitigated utilitarianism. "The greatest pleasure for the greatest number" is his motto. The pleasure that carries farthest and brings round him the largest paying audiences is his ideal stock-in-trade. Obviously pleasure either of the frivolous or of the spectacular kind attracts the greatest number of customers to his emporium. It is consequently pleasure of this spectacular or frivolous kind which he habitually endeavours to provide. It is Quixotic to antic.i.p.ate much diminution in the supply and demand of either frivolity or spectacle, both of which may furnish quite innocuous pleasure. But each is the ant.i.thesis of dramatic art; and whatever view one holds of the methods of the American capitalist, it is irrational to look to him for the intelligent promotion of dramatic art.

III

From the artistic point of view the modern system of theatrical enterprise thus seems capable of improvement. If it be incapable of general improvement, it is at least capable of having a better example set it than current modes can be reckoned on to offer. The latter are not likely to be displaced. All that can be attempted is to create a new model at their side. What is sought by the advocates of a munic.i.p.al theatre is an inst.i.tution which 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 inst.i.tution new and steady encouragement.

The interests of dramatic art can only be served whole-heartedly in a theatre organised on two principles which have hitherto been unrecognised in England. In the first place, the management should acknowledge some sort of public obligation to make the interests of dramatic art its first motive of action. In the second place, the management should be relieved of the need of seeking unrestricted commercial profits for the capital that is invested in the venture.

Both principles have been adopted with successful results in Continental cities; but their successful practice implies the acceptance by the State, or by a permanent local authority, of a certain amount of responsibility in both the artistic and the financial directions.

It is foolish to blind oneself to commercial considerations altogether. When the munic.i.p.al theatre is freed of the unimaginative control of private capital seeking unlimited profit, it is still wise to require a moderate return on the expended outlay. The munic.i.p.al theatre can only live healthily in the presence of a public desire or demand for it, and that public desire or demand can only be measured by the playhouse receipts. A munic.i.p.al theatre would not be satisfactorily conducted if money were merely lost in it, or spent on it without any thought of the likelihood of the expenditure proving remunerative. Profits need never be refused; but all above a fixed minimum rate of interest on the invested capital should be applied to the promotion of those purposes which the munic.i.p.al theatre primarily exists to serve--to cheapen, for example, prices of admission, or to improve the general mechanism behind and before the scenes. No surplus profits should reach the pocket of any individual manager or financier.

IV

There is in England a demand and desire on the part of a substantial section of the public for this new form of theatrical enterprise, although its precise dimensions may not be absolutely determinate. The question is thereby adapted for practical discussion. The demand and desire have as yet received inadequate recognition, because they have not been satisfactorily organised or concentrated. The trend of an appreciable section of public opinion in the direction of a limited munic.i.p.alisation of the theatre is visible in many places. Firstly, one must take into account the number of small societies which have been formed of late by enthusiasts for the exclusive promotion of one or other specific branch of the literary drama--the Elizabethan drama, the Norwegian drama, the German drama. Conspicuous success has been denied these societies because their leaders tend to a.s.sert narrow sectional views of the bases of dramatic art, or they lack the preliminary training and the influence which are essential to the efficient conduct of any public enterprise. Many of their experiences offer useful object-lessons as to the defects inherent in all narrow sectional effort, however enthusiastically inspired. But at the same time they testify to a desire to introduce into the current theatrical system more literary and artistic principles than are at present habitual to it. They point to the presence of a zeal--often, it may be, misdirected--for change or reform.

The experiment of Mr Benson points more effectively in the same direction. A public-spirited champion of Shakespeare and the cla.s.sical drama, he has maintained his hold in the chief cities of Ireland, Scotland, and the English provinces for a generation. Although for reasons that are not hard to seek, he has failed to establish his position in London, Mr Benson's methods of work have enabled him to render conspicuous service to the London stage in a manner which is likely to facilitate reform. For many years he has supplied the leading London theatres with a succession of trained actors and actresses. Graduates in Mr Benson's school can hardly fail to co-operate willingly in any reform of theatrical enterprise, which is calculated to develop the artistic capacities of the stage.

Other circ.u.mstances are no less promising. The justice of the cry for the due safeguarding of the country's dramatic art by means of publicly-organised effort has been repeatedly acknowledged of late by men of experience alike in dramatic and public affairs. In 1898 a pet.i.tion was presented to the London County Council requesting that body to found and endow a permanent opera-house "in order to promote the musical interest and refinement of the public and the advancement of the art of music." The pet.i.tion bore the signatures of two hundred leaders of public opinion, including the chief members of the dramatic profession. In this important doc.u.ment, particulars were given of the manner in which the State or the munic.i.p.ality aided theatres in France, Germany, Austria, and other countries of Europe. It was shown, that in France twelve typically efficient theatres received from public bodies an annual subsidy amounting in the aggregate to 130,000. The wording of the pet.i.tion and the arguments employed by the pet.i.tioners were applicable to drama as well as to opera. In fact, the case was put in a way which was more favourable to the pretensions of drama than to those of opera. One argument which always tells against the establishment of a publicly-subsidised opera-house in London does not affect the establishment of a publicly-subsidised theatre. Opera is an exotic in England; drama is a native product, and has exerted in the past a wider influence and has attracted a wider sympathy than Italian or German music.

The London County Council, after careful inquiry, gave the scheme of 1898 benevolent encouragement. Hope was held out that a site for either a theatre or an opera-house might be reserved "in connection with one of the contemplated central improvements of London." Nothing in the recent history of the London County Council gives ground for doubting that it will be prepared to give practical effect to a thoroughly matured scheme.

Within the Council the principle of the munic.i.p.al theatre has found powerful advocacy. Mr John Burns, who is not merely the spokesman of the working cla.s.ses, but is a representative of earnest-minded students of literature, has supported the principle with generous enthusiasm. The intelligent artisans of London applaud his att.i.tude.

The London Trades Council pa.s.sed resolutions in the autumn of 1901 recommending the erection of a theatre by the London County Council, "so that a higher standard of dramatic art might be encouraged and made more accessible to the wage-earning cla.s.ses, as is the case in the State and munic.i.p.al theatres in the princ.i.p.al cities on the Continent." The gist of the argument could hardly be put more pintally. [Transcriber's Note: so in original.]

Of those who have written recently in favour of the scheme of a munic.i.p.al theatre many speak with the authority of exceptional experience. The actor Mr John Coleman, one of the last survivors of Phelps's company at Sadler's Wells Theatre, argued with cogency, shortly before his death in 1903, that the national credit owed it to itself to renew Phelps's experiment of the middle of last century; public intervention was imperative, seeing that no other means were forthcoming. The late Sir Henry Irving in his closing years announced his conviction that a munic.i.p.al theatre could alone keep the cla.s.sical and the poetic drama fully alive in the theatres. The dramatic critic Mr William Archer, has brought his expert knowledge of dramatic organisation at home and abroad to the aid of the agitation. Various proposals--unhappily of too vague and unauthoritative a kind to guarantee a satisfactory reception--have been made from time to time to raise a fund to build a national theatre, and to run it for five years on a public subsidy of 10,000 a year.

The advocates of the munic.i.p.alising principle have worked for the most part in isolation. Such independence tends to dissipate rather than to conserve energy. A consolidating impulse has been sorely needed.

But the variety of the points of views from which the subject has been independently approached renders the less disputable the genuine width of public interest in the question.

The argument that it is contrary to public policy, or that it is opposed to the duty of the State or munic.i.p.ality, to provide for the people's enlightened amus.e.m.e.nt, is not formidable. The State and the munic.i.p.ality have long treated such work as part of their daily functions, whatever the arguments that have been urged against it. The State, in partners.h.i.+p with local authorities, educates the people, whether they like it or no. The munic.i.p.alities of London and other great towns provide the people, outside the theatre, with almost every opportunity of enlightenment and enlightened amus.e.m.e.nt. In London there are 150 free libraries, which are mainly occupied in providing the ratepayers with the opportunities of reading fiction--recreation which is not always very enlightened. The County Council of London furnishes bands of music to play in the parks, at an expenditure of some 6000 a year. Most of our great cities supply, in addition, munic.i.p.al picture galleries, in which the citizens take pride, and to which in their corporate capacity they contribute large sums of money.

The munic.i.p.al theatre is the natural complement of the munic.i.p.al library, the munic.i.p.al musical entertainment, and the munic.i.p.al art gallery.

V

Of the practicability of a munic.i.p.al theatre ample evidence is at hand. Foreign experience convincingly justifies the munic.i.p.al mode of theatrical enterprise. Every great town in France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland has its munic.i.p.al theatre. In Paris there are three, in addition to four theatres which are subsidised by the State. It is estimated that there are seventy munic.i.p.al theatres in the German-speaking countries of Europe, apart from twenty-seven State theatres. At the same time, it should be noted that in the French and German capitals there are, at the side of the State and munic.i.p.al playhouses, numerous theatres which are run on ordinary commercial lines. The prosperity of these houses is in no way checked by the contiguity of theatrical enterprise of State or munic.i.p.ality.

All munic.i.p.al theatres on the continent of Europe pursue the same aims. They strive to supply the citizens with true artistic drama continuously, and to reduce the cost of admission to the playhouse to the lowest possible terms. But the working details of the foreign munic.i.p.al theatres differ widely in individual cases, and a munic.i.p.ality which contemplates a first theatrical experiment is offered a large choice of method. In some places the munic.i.p.ality acts with regal munificence, and directly a.s.sumes the largest possible responsibilities. It provides the site, erects the theatre, and allots a substantial subsidy to its maintenance. The manager is a munic.i.p.al officer, and the munic.i.p.al theatre fills in the social life of the town as imposing a place as the town-hall, cathedral, or university.

Elsewhere the munic.i.p.ality sets narrower limits to its sphere of operations. It merely provides the site and the building, and then lets the playhouse out at a moderate rental to directors of proved efficiency and public spirit, on a.s.sured conditions that they honestly serve the true interests of art, uphold a high standard of production, avoid the frivolity and spectacle of the market, and fix the price of seats on a very low scale. Here no public funds are seriously involved. The munic.i.p.ality pays no subsidy. The rent of the theatre supplies the munic.i.p.ality with normal interest on the capital that is invested in site and building. It is public credit of a moral rather than of a material kind which is pledged to the cause of dramatic art.

In a third cla.s.s of munic.i.p.al theatre the public body confines its material aid to the gratuitous provision of a site. Upon that site private enterprise is invited to erect a theatre under adequate guarantee that it shall exclusively respect the purposes of art, and spare to the utmost the pockets of the playgoer. To render dramatic art accessible to the rank and file of mankind, with the smallest possible pressure on the individual citizen's private resources, is of the essence of every form of munic.i.p.al theatrical enterprise.

The net result of the munic.i.p.al theatre, especially in German-speaking countries, is that the literary drama, both of the past and present, maintains a grip on the playgoing public which is outside English experience. There is in Germany a very flouris.h.i.+ng modern German drama of literary merit. Sudermann and Hauptmann hold the ears of men of letters throughout Europe. Dramas by these authors are constantly presented in munic.i.p.al theatres. At the same time, plays by the cla.s.sical dramatists of all European countries are performed as constantly, and are no less popular. Almost every play of Shakespeare is in the repertory of the chief acting companies on the German munic.i.p.al stage. At the side of Shakespeare stand Schiller and Goethe and Lessing, the cla.s.sical dramatists of Germany; Moliere, the cla.s.sical dramatist of France; and Calderon, the cla.s.sical dramatist of Spain. Public interest is liberally distributed over the whole range of artistic dramatic effort. Indeed, during recent years Shakespeare's plays have been performed in Germany more often than plays of the modern German school. Schiller, the cla.s.sical national dramatist of Germany, lives more conspicuously on the modern German stage than any one modern German contemporary writer, eminent and popular as more than one contemporary German dramatist deservedly is.

Thus signally has the national or munic.i.p.al system of theatrical enterprise in Germany served the cause of cla.s.sical drama. All the beneficial influence and gratification, which are inherent in artistic and literary drama, are, under the national or munic.i.p.al system, enjoyed in permanence and security by the German people.

Vienna probably offers London the most instructive example of the national or munic.i.p.al theatre. The three leading Viennese playhouses--the Burg-Theater, the Stadt-Theater, and the Volks-Theater--ill.u.s.trate the three modes in which public credit may be pledged to theatrical enterprise. The palatial Burg-Theater is wholly an inst.i.tution of the State. The site of the Stadt-Theater, and to a large extent the building, were provided by the munic.i.p.ality, which thereupon leased them out to a private syndicate, under a manager of the syndicate's choosing. The munic.i.p.ality a.s.sumes no more direct responsibility for the due devotion of the Stadt-Theater to dramatic art than is implied in its retention of reversionary rights of owners.h.i.+p. The third theatre, the Volks-Theater, ill.u.s.trates the minimum share that a munic.i.p.ality may take in promoting theatrical enterprise, while guaranteeing the welfare of artistic drama.

The success of the Volks-Theater is due to the co-operation of a public body with a voluntary society of private citizens who regard the maintenance of the literary drama as a civic duty. The site of the Volks-Theater, which was formerly public property and estimated to be worth 80,000, is in the best part of the city of Vienna. It was a free gift from the government to a limited liability company, formed of some four hundred shareholders of moderate means, who formally pledged themselves to erect on the land a theatre with the sole object of serving the purposes of dramatic art. The interest payable to shareholders is strictly limited by the conditions of a.s.sociation. An officially sanctioned const.i.tution renders it obligatory on them and on their officers to produce in the playhouse cla.s.sical and modern drama of a literary character, though not necessarily of the severest type. Merely frivolous or spectacular pieces are prohibited, and at least twice a week purely cla.s.sical plays must be presented. No piece may be played more than two nights in immediate succession. The actors, whose engagements are permanent, are substantially paid, and an admirably devised system of pensions is enforced without making deductions from salaries. The price of seats is fixed at a low rate, the highest price being 4s., the cheapest and most numerous seats costing 10d. each. Both financially and artistically the result has been all that one could wish. There is no public subsidy, but the Emperor pays 500 a year for a box. The house holds 1800 persons, yielding gross receipts of 200 for a nightly expenditure of 125.

There are no advertising expenses, no posters. The newspapers give notice of the daily programme as an attractive item of news.

VI

There is some disinclination among Englishmen deliberately to adopt foreign methods, to follow foreign examples, in any walk of life. But no person of common sense will reject a method merely because it is foreign, if it can be proved to be of utility. It is spurious patriotism to reject wise counsel because it is no native product. On the other hand, it is seriously to asperse the culture and intelligence of the British nation to a.s.sume that no appreciable section of it cherishes that taste for the literary drama which keeps the national or munic.i.p.al theatre alive in France and Germany. At any rate, judgment should be held in suspense until the British playgoers'

mettle has been more thoroughly tested than hitherto.

No less humiliating is the argument that the art of acting in this country is at too low an ebb to justify the a.s.sumption by a public body of responsibility for theatrical enterprise. One or two critics a.s.sert 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 munic.i.p.al system of theatrical enterprise is calculated to increase their number rapidly.

Abroad, the subsidised theatres, with their just schemes of salary, their permanent engagements, their well-devised pension systems, attract the best cla.s.s of the profession. A competent company of actors, which enjoys a permanent home and is governed by high standards of art, forms the best possible school of acting, not merely by force of example, but by the private tuition which it could readily provide. In Vienna the companies at the subsidised theatres are recruited from the pupils of a State-endowed conservatoire of actors.

It is improbable that the British Government will found a like inst.i.tution. But it would be easy to attach a college of acting to the munic.i.p.al theatre, and to make the college pay its way.

Much depends on the choice of manager of the enterprise. The manager of a munic.i.p.al theatre must combine with business apt.i.tude a genuine devotion to dramatic art and dramatic literature. Without a fit manager, who can collect and control a competent company of actors, the scheme of the munic.i.p.al theatre is doomed to failure. Managers of the requisite temper, knowledge, and ability are not lacking in France or Germany. There is no reason to antic.i.p.ate that, when the call is sounded, the right response will not be given here.

Cannot an experiment be made in London on the lines of the Vienna Volks-Theater? In the first place, it is needful to bring together a body of citizens who, under leaders.h.i.+p which commands public confidence, will undertake to build and control for a certain term of years a theatre of suitable design in the interests of dramatic art, on conditions similar to those that have worked with success in Berlin, Paris, and notably Vienna. Then the London County Council, after the professions it has made, might be reasonably expected to undertake so much responsibility for the proper conduct of the new playhouse as would be implied by its provision of a site. If the experiment failed, no one would be much the worse; if it succeeded, as it ought to succeed, the nation would gain in repute for intelligence, culture, and enlightened patriotism; it would rid itself of the reproach that it pays smaller and less intelligent regard to Shakespeare and the literary drama than France, Germany, Austria, or Italy.

Phelps's single-handed effort brought the people of London for eighteen years face to face with the great English drama at his playhouse at Sadler's Wells. "I made that enterprise pay," he said, after he retired; "not making a fortune certainly, but bringing up a large family and paying my way." Private troubles and illness compelled him suddenly to abandon the enterprise at the end of eighteen years, when there happened to be none at hand to take his place of leader. All that was wanting to make his enterprise permanent, he declared, was some public control, some public acknowledgment of responsibility which, without impeding the efficient manager's freedom of action, would cause his post to be filled properly in case of an accidental vacancy. Phelps thought that if he could do so much during eighteen years by his personal, isolated, and independent endeavour, much more could be done in permanence under some public method of safeguard and guarantee. Phelps's services to the literary drama can hardly be over-estimated. His mature judgment is not to be lightly gainsaid. It is just to his memory to put his faith to a practical test.

VII

ASPECTS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PHILOSOPHY[24]

[Footnote 24: This paper, which was originally prepared in 1899 for the purposes of a popular lecture, is here printed for the first time.]

I