From Théodore de Banville.
My dear friend:
Like all questions, the question of the theater is infinitely more
simple than is imagined. All poetics, all dramatic criticism is
contained in the admirable dictum of Adolphe Dennery: "It is not hard to
succeed in the theater, but it is extremely hard to gain success there
with a fine play."
To see this clearly you must consider two questions which have no
relation to each other:
1. How should one set about composing a dramatic work which shall
succeed and make money?
2. How shall one set about composing a dramatic work which shall be fine
and shall have some hope of survival?
Reply to the first question: Nothing is known about it; for if anything
were known every theater would earn six thousand francs every evening.
Nevertheless, a play has some chance of succeeding and earning money if,
when read to a naïf person, it moves him, amuses him, makes him laugh or
weep; if it falls into the hands of actors who play it in the proper
spirit; and if at the public performance the leader of the _claque_ sees
no hitch in it.
Reply to the second question: To compose a dramatic work which shall be
fine and shall live, have genius! There is no other way. In art talent
is nothing. Genius alone lives. A poet of genius combines in himself all
poets past and future, just as the first person you meet combines in
himself all humanity past and present. A man of genius will create for
his theater a form which has not existed before him and which after him
will suit no one else.
That, my friend, is all that I know, and I believe that anything further
is a delusion. Those who are called "men of the theater" (that is, in
plain words, unlettered men who have not studied anywhere but on the
stage) have decreed that a man knows the theater when he composes
comedies according to the particular formula invented by M. Scribe. You
might as well say that humanity began and ended with M. Scribe, that it
is he who ate the apple with Eve and who wrote the 'Legendes des
Siècles,' Good Luck!
Yours truly,