In 'Patrie' as in 'Vanderdecken' the real reason for the failure of
these mechanical devices is that the plays were themselves on a superior
level to those stage-tricks; the themes were poetic, and any theatrical
effect which drew attention to itself interrupted the current of
emotional sympathy. It disclosed itself instantly as incongruous, as out
of keeping with the elevation of the legend--in a word, as inartistic. A
similar effect, perhaps even more frankly mechanical, would not be
inartistic in a play of a lower type, and it might possibly be helpful
in a frankly spectacular piece, even if this happened also to be poetic
in intent. In a fairy-play, a _feerie_, as the French term it, we expect
to behold all sorts of startling ingenuities of stage-mechanism, whether
the theme is delightfully imaginative, as in Maeterlinck's beautiful
'Blue Bird,' or crassly prosaic, as in the 'Black Crook' and the 'White
Fawn.'
In picturesque melodrama also, in the dramatization of 'Ben Hur,' for
example, we should be disappointed if we were bereft of the wreck of the
Roman galley, and if we were deprived of the chariot race. These
episodes can be presented in the theater only by the aid of mechanisms
far more elaborate than those needed for the scenes in 'Vanderdecken'
and 'Patrie'; but in 'Ben Hur' these mechanisms are not incongruous and
distracting as were the simpler devices of 'Vanderdecken' and 'Patrie,'
because the dramatization of the romanticist historical novel is less
lofty in its ambition, less imaginative, less ethereally poetic. In
'Vanderdecken' and in 'Patrie' the tricks seemed to obtrude themselves,
whereas in 'Ben Hur' they were almost obligatory. In certain melodramas
with more modern stories--in the amusing piece called the 'Round Up,'
for example--the scenery is the main attraction. The scene-painter is
the real star of the show. And there is no difficulty in understanding
the wail of the performer of the principal part in a piece of this sort,
when he complained that he was engaged to support forty tons of scenery.
"It's only when the stage-carpenters have to rest and get their breath
that I have a chance to come down to the footlights and bark for a
minute or two."
A moment's consideration shows that this plaintive protest is
unreasonable, however natural it may be. In melodramas like the 'Round
Up' and 'Ben Hur,' as in fairy-plays like the 'Blue Bird,' the acting is
properly subordinated to the spectacular splendor of the whole
performance. When we enter a theater to behold a play of either of these
types, we expect the acting to be adequate, no doubt, but we do not
demand the highest type of histrionic excellence. What we do anticipate,
however, is a spectacle pleasing to the eye and stimulating to the
nerves. In plays of these two classes the appeal is sensuous rather than
intellectual; and it is only when the appeal of the play is to the mind
rather than to the senses that merely mechanical effects are likely to
be disconcerting.
Mr. William Archer has pointed out that Ibsen in 'Little Eyolf,' has for
once failed to perceive the strict limitation of the stage when he
introduced a flagstaff, with the flag at first at half-mast, and a
little later run up to the peak. Now, there are no natural breezes in
the theater to flutter the folds of the flag, and every audience is
aware of the fact. This, then, is the dilemma: either the flag hangs
limp and lifeless against the pole, which is a flat spectacle, or else
its folds are made to flutter by some concealed pneumatic blast or
electric fan, which instantly arouses the inquiring curiosity of the
audience. Here we find added evidence in support of Herbert Spencer's
invaluable principle of Economy of Attention, which he himself applied
only to rhetoric, but which is capable of extension to all the other
arts--and to no one of them more usefully than to the drama. At any
given moment a spectator in the theater has only so much attention to
bestow upon the play being presented before his eyes, and if any portion
of his attention is unduly distracted by some detail--like either the
limpness or the fluttering of a flag--then he has just so much less to
give to the play itself.
Very rarely, indeed, can we catch Ibsen at fault in a technical detail
of stage-management; he was extraordinarily meticulous in his artful
adjustment of the action of his social dramas to the picture-frame stage
of our modern cosmopolitan theater. He was marvelously skilful in
endowing each of his acts with a background harmonious for his
characters; and nearly always was he careful to refrain from the
employment of any scenic device which might attract attention to
itself. He eschewed altogether the more violent spectacular effects,
altho he did call upon the stage manager to supply an avalanche in the
final act of 'When the Dead Awaken'; but even this bold convulsion of
nature was less incongruous than might be expected, since it was not
exhibited until the action of the play itself was complete. In fact, the
avalanche might be described as only a pictorial epilog.