I
It is now no longer in dispute that there has been in the past score or
two of years a striking revival of the drama in the English language,
and that there are to-day British and American playwrights who write
plays which are worth while--plays which are both actable and
readable--plays which often deserve and which sometimes even demand
serious critical consideration. This revival has necessarily resulted in
calling attention to the present condition of dramatic criticism in
Great Britain and in the United States. In a period of dramatic
productivity, dramatic criticism has an indisputable function and is
charged with an undeniable duty, both to the aspiring play-makers and to
the main body of the playgoing public. We cannot help asking ourselves
whether our dramatic critics rightly apprehend their function and
whether they properly discharge their duty; and to these pressing
questions the most conflicting answers are returned.
Some there are who insist that it is hopeless to expect the desired
outflowering of dramatic literature in our language to take place so
long as our dramatic criticism is as inadequate, as incompetent, and as
unsatisfactory as they declare it to be. Others there are who take a
more tolerant view, holding the public itself to be at fault for the
existing state of things, and who, therefore, believe that we are now
getting dramatic criticism quite as good as we deserve. Few there are
who venture to deny that there is room for improvement--altho no two of
these agree in their suggestions for bringing about a bettering of
present conditions. In the multitude of these counsellors there is
darkness and confusion.
Perhaps there is a dim possibility of dissipating a little of this dark
confusion by an analysis of the exact content, which we discover in the
term "dramatic criticism," and then by a further inquiry as to whether
our customary use of the term is not misleading. "Dramatic criticism" to
most of us connotes the newspaper reviewing of the nightly spectacles in
our theaters. Plainly this was the meaning of the term in the mind of
Mr. Howells years ago, when he declared that "our dramatic criticism is
probably the most remarkable apparatus of our civilization" and that it
"surpasses that of other countries as much as our fire-department. A
perfectly equipped engine stands in every newspaper office, with the
steam always up, which can be manned in nine seconds and rushed to the
first theater where there is the slightest danger of drama within five
minutes; and the combined efforts of these tremendous machines can pour
a concentrated deluge of cold water upon a play which will put out
anything of the kind at once."
There is no denying that this use of the term by Mr. Howells is
supported by custom. Yet it is distinctly unfortunate, for if the
newspaper comment upon the novelties of the stage is to be accepted as
"dramatic criticism," then what term have we left to describe the more
piercing and the more comprehensive discussion of the first principles
of the art of play-making which we find in Francisque Sarcey and in
George Henry Lewes, not to go back to Lessing and to Aristotle? It is
equally unfortunate that there is an equivalent inaccuracy in bestowing
the title of "literary criticism" upon the newspaper comments upon the
current books, for if this journalistic summarizing is to be accepted as
"literary criticism," then what are we to call the exquisite evaluation
of favorite authors which we find in Matthew Arnold and Sainte-Beuve?
Of course, it is always idle to protest against the popular use or
misuse of words and terms and phrases. The people as a whole own the
language, and have a right to make it over and to modify the original
meaning of words. If popular usage chooses not to distinguish between
two very different things, and to call both of them "dramatic
criticism," there is no redress, and yet it is impossible to discuss the
problem of dramatic criticism except by trying to separate the two
things thus confounded. Therefore, for the purpose of this inquiry only,
and without any hope of changing the accepted usage, I make bold to
suggest that "play-reviewing" might be employed to describe the notices
written in the office of a newspaper, notices necessarily prepared under
pressure and under strict limitations of time and space.
These newspaper notices are sometimes careless, they are sometimes
perfunctory, and they are sometimes cruel; and occasionally they are
careful, conscientious, and clever, done with a dexterity worthy of high
praise when we consider all the conditions under which it is displayed.
But even at its best, play-reviewing cannot attain to the level of true
dramatic criticism, more leisurely in its composition, larger in its
scope, and more discriminating in its choice of topic. The
play-reviewing of the daily journal is akin in aim to the
book-reviewing, which has for its purpose the swift consideration of the
volume in vogue at the moment. In our morning and evening papers the
book-reviewing and the play-reviewing are both of them necessarily
up-to-date, in fact, up-to-the-last-minute. To be contemporaneous,
instantly and necessarily and inexorably, is their special quality and
their immediate purpose; it is the reason for their existence and the
excuse for their being.