I
To some of the more ardent advocates of the theory that women are
capable of rivaling men in every one of the arts it is a little
surprising, not to say disconcerting, that there are so few female
playwrights. The drama is closely akin to the novel, since it is another
form of story-telling; and in the telling of stories women have been
abundantly productive from a time whereof the memory of man runneth not
to the contrary. And as performers on the stage women have achieved
indisputable eminence; in fact, acting is probably the earliest of the
arts (as possibly it is still the only one) in which women have won
their way to the very front rank; and in the nineteenth century there
were two tragic actresses, Mrs. Siddons and Rachel, certainly not
inferior in power and in elevation to the most distinguished of tragic
actors. Why is it, then, that women story-tellers have not thrust
themselves thru the open stage door to become more effective competitors
of the men playwrights?
Before considering this question, it may be well to record that women
playwrights have appeared sporadically both in French literature and in
English. In France Madeleine Bejart, whose sister Moliere married, was
credited with the authorship of more than one play; and in the last
hundred years George Sand and Mme. de Girardin brought out comedies and
dramas, several of which succeeded in establishing themselves in the
repertory of the Comedie-Francaise. In England at one time or another
plays of an immediate popularity were produced by Mrs. Aphra Behn, Mrs.
Centlivre, and Mrs. Inchbald; and in America Mrs. Bateman's 'Self,' and
Mrs. Mowatt's 'Fashion' held the stage for several seasons, while few of
recent successes in the New York theaters had a more delightful
freshness or a more alluring fantasy than Mrs. Gates's 'Poor Little Rich
Girl,' and few of them have dealt more boldly with a burning question
than Miss Ford's 'Polygamy.' These examples of woman's competence to
compose plays with vitality enough to withstand the ordeal by fire
before the footlights are evidence that if there exists any prejudice
against the female dramatist it can be overcome. They are evidence,
also, that women are not debarred from the competition; and fairness
requires the record here that, when Mr. Winthrop Ames proffered a prize
for an American play, this was awarded to a woman.
But to grant equality of opportunity is not to confer equality of
ability, and when we call the roll of the dramatists who have given
luster to French literature and to English, we discover that this list
is not enriched by the name of any woman. The fame of George Sand is not
derived from her contributions to dramatic literature, and the
contributions of Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Centlivre, and Mrs. Inchbald, of Mrs.
Bateman and Mrs. Mowatt, entitle them to take rank only among the minor
playwrights of their own generations; and to say this is to say that
their plays are now familiar only to devoted specialists in the annals
of the stage, and that the general reader could not give the name of a
single piece from the pen of any one of these enterprising ladies. In
other words, the female playwrights are so few and so unimportant that a
conscientious historian of either French or English dramatic literature
might almost neglect them altogether without seriously invalidating his
survey. Perhaps the only English titles that are more than mere items in
a barren catalog are Mrs. Centlivre's 'Wonder' and Mrs. Cowley's
'Belle's Stratagem'; and the French pieces of female authorship which
might protest against exclusion are almost as few--Mme. de Girardin's
'La Joie fait Peur,' and George Sand's 'Marquis de Villemer' and
'Mariage de Victorine.'
Indeed, the women playwrights of the past and of the present might be
two or three times more numerous than they are, and two or three times
more important without even treading upon the heels of the male
play-makers. This is an incontrovertible fact; yet it is equally
indisputable that as performers in the theater women are competitors
whom men respect and with whom they have to reckon, and that as
story-tellers women are as popular and as prolific as men. And here we
are brought back again to the question with which this inquiry began:
Why is it then that women have not been as popular and as prolific in
telling stories on the stage? Why cannot they write a play as well as
they can act in it?
One answer to this question has been volunteered by a woman who
succeeded as an actress, and who did not altogether fail as a dramatic
poetess, altho she came in later life to have little esteem for her
earlier attempts at play-writing. It is in her 'Records of a Girlhood'
that Fanny Kemble expressed the conviction that it was absolutely
impossible for a woman ever to be a great dramatist, because "her
physical organization" was against it. "After all, it is great nonsense
saying that intellect is of no sex. The brain is, of course, of the same
sex as the rest of the creature; beside the original female nature, the
whole of our training and education, our inevitable ignorance of common
life and general human nature, and the various experiences of existence
from which we are debarred with the most sedulous care, is insuperably
against it"--that is, against the possibility of a really searching
tragedy, or of a really liberal comedy ever being composed by a woman.
To this rather sweeping denial of the dramaturgic gift to women Fanny
Kemble added an apt suggestion, that "perhaps some of the manly, wicked
queens, Semiramis, Cleopatra, could have written plays--but they lived
their tragedies instead of writing of them."