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SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERN STAGE
With Other Essays
by
SIDNEY LEE
Author of "A Life of William Shakespeare"
London
Archibald Constable and Company Limited
1907
PREFACE
The eleven papers which are collected here were written between 1899
and 1905. With the exception of one, entitled "Aspects of
Shakespeare's Philosophy," which is now printed for the first time,
they were published in periodicals in the course of those six years.
The articles treat of varied aspects of Shakespearean drama, its
influences and traditions, but I think that all may be credited with
sufficient unity of intention to warrant their combination in a single
volume. Their main endeavour is to survey Shakespearean drama in
relation to modern life, and to illustrate its living force in current
affairs. Even in the papers which embody researches in sixteenth- or
seventeenth-century dramatic history, I have sought to keep in view
the bearings of the past on the present. A large portion of the book
discusses, as its title indicates, methods of representing Shakespeare
on the modern stage. The attempt is there made to define, in the light
of experience, the conditions which are best calculated to conserve or
increase Shakespeare's genuine vitality in the theatre of our own day.
In revising the work for the press, I have deemed it advisable to
submit the papers to a somewhat rigorous verbal revision. Errors have
been corrected, chronological ambiguities due to lapse of time have
been removed, passages have been excised in order to avoid repetition,
and reference to ephemeral events which deserve no permanent chronicle
have been omitted. But, substantially, the articles retain the shape
in which they were originally penned. The point of view has undergone
no modification. In the essays dealing with the theatres of our own
time, I have purposely refrained from expanding or altering argument
or illustration by citing Shakespearean performances or other
theatrical enterprises which have come to birth since the papers were
first written. In the last year or two there have been several
Shakespearean revivals of notable interest, and some new histrionic
triumphs have been won. Within the same period, too, at least half a
dozen new plays of serious literary aim have gained the approval of
contemporary critics. These features of current dramatic history are
welcome to playgoers of literary tastes; but I have attempted no
survey of them, because signs are lacking that any essential change
has been wrought by them in the general theatrical situation. My aim
is to deal with dominant principles which underlie the past and
present situation, rather than with particular episodes or
personalities, the real value of which the future has yet to
determine.
My best thanks are due to my friend Sir James Knowles, the proprietor
and editor of _The Nineteenth Century and After_, for permission to
reproduce the four articles, entitled respectively, "Shakespeare and
the Modern Stage," "Shakespeare in Oral Tradition," "Shakespeare in
France," and "The Commemoration of Shakespeare in London." To Messrs
Smith, Elder, & Co., I am indebted for permission to print here the
articles on "Mr Benson and Shakespearean Drama," and "Shakespeare and
Patriotism," both of which originally appeared in _The Cornhill
Magazine_. The paper on "Pepys and Shakespeare" was first printed in
the _Fortnightly Review_; that on "Shakespeare and the Elizabethan
Playgoer" in "An English Miscellany, presented to Dr Furnivall in
honour of his seventy-fifth birthday" (1901); that on "The Municipal
Theatre" in the _New Liberal Review_; and that on "A Peril of
Shakespearean Research" in _The Author_. The proprietors of these
publications have courteously given me permission to include the
articles in this volume. The essay on "Aspects of Shakespeare's
Philosophy" was prepared for the purposes of a popular lecture, and
has not been in type before.
In a note at the foot of the opening page of each essay, I mention the
date when it was originally published. An analytical list of contents
and an index will, I hope, increase any utility which may attach to
the volume.
SIDNEY LEE.
_1st October 1906._
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
I
SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERN STAGE
I. The Perils of the Spectacular Method of Production 1
II. The Need for Simplifying Scenic Appliances 4
III. Consequences of Simplification. The Attitude of the
Shakespearean Student 7
IV. The Pecuniary Experiences of Charles Kean and Sir
Henry Irving 9
V. The Experiment of Samuel Phelps 11
VI. The Rightful Supremacy of the Actor 12
VII. The Example of the French and German Stage 16
VIII. Shakespeare's Reliance on the "Imaginary Forces"
of the Audience 18
IX. The Patriotic Argument for the Production of
Shakespeare's Plays constantly and in their
variety on the English Stage 23
II
SHAKESPEARE AND THE ELIZABETHAN PLAYGOER
I. An Imaginary Discovery of Shakespeare's Journal 25
II. Shakespeare in the rôle of the Ghost on the First
Production of _Hamlet_ in 1602 27
III. Shakespeare's Popularity in the Elizabethan Theatre 29
IV. At Court in 1594 31
V. The Theatre an Innovation in Elizabethan England 36
VI. Elizabethan Methods of Production 38
VII. The Contrast between the Elizabethan and the
Modern Methods 43
VIII. The Fitness of the Audience an Essential Element
in the Success of Shakespeare on the Stage 46
III
SHAKESPEARE IN ORAL TRADITION
I. The Reception of the News of Shakespeare's Death 49
II. The Evolution in England of Formal Biography 51
III. Oral Tradition concerning Shakespeare in Theatrical
Circles 57
IV. The Testimonies of Seventeenth-century Actors 61
V. Sir William D'Avenant's Devotion to Shakespeare's
Memory 69
VI. Early Oral Tradition at Stratford-on-Avon 73
VII. Shakespeare's Fame among Seventeenth-century
Scholars and Statesmen 78
VIII. Nicholas Rowe's Place among Shakespeare's
Biographers. The Present State of Knowledge
respecting Shakespeare's Life 79
IV
PEPYS AND SHAKESPEARE
I. Pepys the Microcosm of the Average Playgoer 82
II. The London Theatres of Pepys's _Diary_ 85
III. Pepys's Enthusiasm for the Later Elizabethan Drama 90
IV. Pepys's Criticism of Shakespeare. His Admiration
of Betterton in Shakespearean rôles 93
V. The Garbled Versions of Shakespeare on the Stage
of the Restoration 102
VI. The Saving Grace of the Restoration Theatre.
Betterton's Masterly Interpretation of Shakespeare 109
V
MR BENSON AND SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA
I. A Return to the Ancient Ways 111
II. The Advantages of a Constant Change of
Programme. The Opportunities offered Actors by
Shakespeare's Minor Characters. John of Gaunt 113
III. The Benefit of Performing the Play of _Hamlet_
without Abbreviation 116
IV. Mr Benson as a Trainer of Actors. The Succession
to Phelps 119
VI
THE MUNICIPAL THEATRE
I. The True Aim of the Municipal Theatre 122
II. Private Theatrical Enterprise and Literary Drama.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of the Actor-Manager
System. The Control of the Capitalist 123
III. Possibilities of the Artistic Improvement of
Theatrical Organisation in England 127
IV. Indications of a Demand for a Municipal Theatre 129
V. The Teaching of Foreign Experience. The
Example of Vienna 134
VI. The Conditions of Success in England 138
VII
ASPECTS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PHILOSOPHY
I. The Conflicting Attitudes of Bacon and Shakespeare
to Formal Philosophy 142
II. Shakespeare's "Natural" Philosophy. Concealment
of his Personality in his Plays 148
III. His Lofty Conception of Public Virtue. Frequency
of his Denunciation of Royal "Ceremony" 152
IV. The Duty of Obedience to Authority 161
V. The Moral Atmosphere of Shakespearean Drama 164
VI. Shakespeare's Insistence on the Freedom of the
Will 166
VII. His Humour and Optimism 169
VIII
SHAKESPEARE AND PATRIOTISM
I. The Natural Instinct of Patriotism. Dangers of
Excess and Defect 170
II. An Attempt to Co-ordinate Shakespeare's Detached
Illustrations of the Working of Patriotic
Sentiment. His Ridicule of Bellicose Ecstasy.
Coriolanus illustrates the Danger of Disavowing
Patriotism 172
III. Criticism of One's Fellow-countrymen Consistent
with Patriotism. Shakespeare on the Political
History of England. The Country's Dependence
on the Command of the Sea. The Respect Due
to a Nation's Traditions and Experience 179
IV. Shakespeare's Exposure of Social Foibles and Errors 184
V. Relevance of Shakespeare's Doctrine of Patriotism
to Current Affairs 187
IX
A PERIL OF SHAKESPEAREAN RESEARCH
I. An Alleged Meeting of Peele, Ben Jonson,
Alleyn, and Shakespeare at "The Globe" in
1600 188
II. The Fabrication by George Steevens in 1763 of a
Letter signed "G. Peel" 190
III. Popular Acceptance of the Forgery. Its
Unchallenged Circulation through the Eighteenth,
Nineteenth, and Twentieth Centuries 194
X
SHAKESPEARE IN FRANCE
I. Amicable Literary Relations between France and
England from the Fourteenth to the Present Century 198
II. M. Jusserand on Shakespeare in France. French
Knowledge of English Literature in Shakespeare's
day. Shakespeare in Eighteenth-century France.
Eulogies of Victor Hugo and Dumas _père_ 201
III. French Misapprehensions of Shakespeare's Tragic
Conceptions. Causes of the Misunderstanding 206
IV. Charles Nodier's Sympathetic Tribute. The Rarity
of his _Pensées de Shakespeare_, 1801 211
XI
THE COMMEMORATION OF SHAKESPEARE IN LONDON
I. Early Proposals for a National Memorial of
Shakespeare in London 214
II. The Cenotaph in Westminster Abbey 215
III. The Failure of the Nineteenth-century Schemes 217
IV. The National Memorial at Stratford-on-Avon 219
V. Shakespeare's Association with London 226
VI. The Value of a London Memorial as a Symbol of his
Universal Influence 228
VII. The Real Significance of Milton's Warning against
a Monumental Commemoration of Shakespeare 230
VIII. The Undesirability of making the Memorial serve
Utilitarian Purposes 235
IX. The Present State of the Plastic Art. The
Imperative Need of securing a Supreme Work of
Sculpture 236
INDEX 245
SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERN STAGE
I
SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERN STAGE[1]
[Footnote 1: This paper was first printed in _The Nineteenth Century_,
January 1900.]
I
Without "the living comment and interpretation of the theatre,"
Shakespeare's work is, for the rank and file of mankind, "a deep well
without a wheel or a windlass." It is true that the whole of the
spiritual treasures which Shakespeare's dramas hoard will never be
disclosed to the mere playgoer, but "a large, a very large, proportion
of that indefinite all" may be revealed to him on the stage, and, if
he be no patient reader, will be revealed to him nowhere else.
There are earnest students of Shakespeare who scorn the theatre and
arrogate to themselves in the library, often with some justification,
a greater capacity for apprehending and appreciating Shakespeare than
is at the command of the ordinary playgoer or actor. But let Sir
Oracle of the study, however full and deep be his knowledge, "use all
gently." Let him bear in mind that his vision also has its
limitations, and that student, actor, and spectator of Shakespeare's
plays are all alike exploring a measureless region of philosophy and
poetry, "round which no comprehension has yet drawn the line of
circumspection, so as to say to itself 'I have seen the whole.'" Actor
and student may look at Shakespeare's text from different points of
view: but there is always as reasonable a chance that the efficient
actor may disclose the full significance of some speech or scene which
escapes the efficient student, as that the student may supply the
actor's lack of insight.
It is, indeed, comparatively easy for a student of literature to
support the proposition that Shakespeare can be, and ought to be,
represented on the stage. But it is difficult to define the ways and
means of securing practical observance of the precept. For some years
there has been a widening divergence of view respecting methods of
Shakespearean production. Those who defend in theory the adaptability
of Shakespeare to the stage are at variance with the leading managers,
who alone possess the power of conferring on the Shakespearean drama
theatrical interpretation. In the most influential circles of the
theatrical profession it has become a commonplace to assert that
Shakespearean drama cannot be successfully produced, cannot be
rendered tolerable to any substantial section of the playgoing public,
without a plethora of scenic spectacle and gorgeous costume, much of
which the student regards as superfluous and inappropriate. An
accepted tradition of the modern stage ordains that every revival of a
Shakespearean play at a leading theatre shall base some part of its
claim to public favour on its spectacular magnificence.
The dramatic interest of Shakespearean drama is, in fact, deemed by
the manager to be inadequate to satisfy the necessary commercial
purposes of the theatre. The average purveyor of public entertainment
reckons Shakespeare's plays among tasteless and colourless
commodities, which only become marketable when they are reinforced by
the independent arts of music and painting. Shakespeare's words must
be spoken to musical accompaniments specially prepared for the
occasion. Pictorial tableaux, even though they suggest topics without
relevance to the development of the plot, have at times to be
interpolated in order to keep the attention of the audience
sufficiently alive.
One deduction to be drawn from this position of affairs is
irrefutable. Spectacular embellishments are so costly that, according
to the system now in vogue, the performance of a play of Shakespeare
involves heavy financial risks. It is equally plain that, unless the
views of theatrical managers undergo revolution, these risks are
likely to become greater rather than smaller. The natural result is
that in London, the city which sets the example to most
English-speaking communities, Shakespearean revivals are comparatively
rare; they take place at uncertain intervals, and only those plays are
viewed with favour by the London manager which lend themselves in his
opinion to more or less ostentatious spectacle, and to the
interpolation of music and dancing.
It is ungrateful to criticise adversely any work the production of
which entails the expenditure of much thought and money. More
especially is it distasteful when the immediate outcome is, as in the
case of many Shakespearean revivals at the great West-end theatres of
London, the giving of pleasure to large sections of the community.
That is in itself a worthy object. But it is open to doubt whether,
from the sensible literary point of view, the managerial activity be
well conceived or to the public advantage. It is hard to ignore a
fundamental flaw in the manager's central position. The pleasure which
recent Shakespearean revivals offer the spectator reaches him mainly
through the eye. That is the manager's avowed intention. Yet no one
would seriously deny that the Shakespearean drama appeals, both
primarily and ultimately, to the head and to the heart. Whoever seeks,
therefore, by the production of Shakespearean drama chiefly to please
the spectator's eye shows scant respect both for the dramatist and for
the spectator. However unwittingly, he tends to misrepresent the one,
and to mislead the other, in a particular of first-rate importance.
Indeed, excess in scenic display does worse than restrict
opportunities of witnessing Shakespeare's plays on the stage in London
and other large cities of England and America. It is to be feared that
such excess either weakens or distorts the just and proper influence
of Shakespeare's work. If these imputations can be sustained, then it
follows that the increased and increasing expense which is involved in
the production of Shakespeare's plays ought on grounds of public
policy to be diminished.
II
Every stage representation of a play requires sufficient scenery and
costume to produce in the audience that illusion of environment which
the text invites. Without so much scenery or costume the words fail to
get home to the audience. In comedies dealing with concrete conditions
of modern society, the stage presentation necessarily relies to a very
large extent for its success on the realism of the scenic appliances.
In plays which, dealing with the universal and less familiar
conditions of life, appeal to the highest faculties of thought and
imagination, the pursuit of realism in the scenery tends to destroy
the full significance of the illusion which it ought to enforce. In
the case of plays straightforwardly treating of contemporary affairs,
the environment which it is sought to reproduce is familiar and easy
of imitation. In the case of drama, which involves larger spheres of
fancy and feeling, the environment is unfamiliar and admits of no
realistic imitation. The wall-paper and furniture of Mrs So-and-so's
drawing-room in Belgravia or Derbyshire can be transferred bodily to
the stage. Prospero's deserted island does not admit of the like
translation.
Effective suggestion of the scene of _The Tempest_ is all that can be
reasonably attempted or desired. Plays which are wrought of purest
imaginative texture call solely for a scenic setting which should
convey effective suggestion. The machinery to be employed for the
purpose of effective suggestion should be simple and unobtrusive. If
it be complex and obtrusive, it defeats "the purpose of playing" by
exaggerating for the spectator the inevitable interval between the
visionary and indeterminate limits of the scene which the poet
imagines, and the cramped and narrow bounds, which the stage renders
practicable. That perilous interval can only be effectually bridged
by scenic art, which is applied with an apt judgment and a light hand.
Anything that aims at doing more than satisfy the condition essential
to the effective suggestion of the scenic environment of Shakespearean
drama is, from the literary and logical points of view, "wasteful and
ridiculous excess."[2]
[Footnote 2: A minor practical objection, from the dramatic point of
view, to realistic scenery is the long pause its setting on the stage
often renders inevitable between the scenes. Intervals of the kind,
which always tends to blunt the dramatic point of the play, especially
in the case of tragic masterpieces, should obviously be as brief as
possible.]
But it is not only a simplification of scenic appliances that is
needed. Other external incidents of production require revision.
Spectacular methods of production entail the employment of armies of
silent supernumeraries to whom are allotted functions wholly
ornamental and mostly impertinent. Here, too, reduction is desirable
in the interest of the true significance of drama. No valid reason can
be adduced why persons should appear on the stage who are not
precisely indicated by the text of the play or by the authentic stage
directions. When Cæsar is buried, it is essential to produce in the
audience the illusion that a crowd of Roman citizens is taking part in
the ceremony. But quality comes here before quantity. The fewer the
number of supernumeraries by whom the needful illusion is effected,
the greater the merit of the performance, the more convincing the
testimony borne to the skill of the stage-manager. Again, no
processions of psalm-singing priests and monks contribute to the
essential illusion in the historical plays. Nor does the text of _The
Merchant of Venice_ demand any assembly of Venetian townsfolk,
however picturesquely attired, sporting or chaffering with one another
on the Rialto, when Shylock enters to ponder Antonio's request for a
loan. An interpolated tableau is indefensible, and "though it make the
unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve." In _Antony and
Cleopatra_ the pageant of Cleopatra's voyage up the river Cydnus to
meet her lover Antony should have no existence outside the gorgeous
description given of it by Enobarbus.
III
What would be the practical effects of a stern resolve on the part of
theatrical managers to simplify the scenic appliances and to reduce
the supernumerary staff when they are producing Shakespearean drama?
The replies will be in various keys. One result of simplification is
obvious. There would be so much more money in the manager's pocket
after he had paid the expenses of production. If his outlay were
smaller, the sum that he expended in the production of one play of
Shakespeare on the current over-elaborate scale would cover the
production of two or three pieces mounted with simplicity and with a
strict adherence to the requirements of the text. In such an event,
the manager would be satisfied with a shorter run for each play.
On the other hand, supporters of the existing system allege that no
public, which is worth the counting, would interest itself in
Shakespeare's plays, if they were robbed of scenic upholstery and
spectacular display. This estimate rests on insecure foundations. That
section of the London public which is genuinely interested in
Shakespearean drama for its own sake, is prone to distrust the modern
theatrical manager, and as things are, for the most part avoids the
theatre altogether. The student stays at home to read Shakespeare at
his fireside.
It may be admitted that the public to which Shakespeare in his purity
makes appeal is not very large. It is clearly not large enough to
command continuous runs of plays for months, or even weeks. But
therein lies no cause for depression. Long runs of a single play of
Shakespeare bring more evil than good in their train. They develop in
even the most efficient acting a soulless mechanism. The literary
beauty of the text is obliterated by repetition from the actors'
minds. Unostentatious mounting of the Shakespearean plays, however
efficient be the acting with which it is associated, may always fail
to "please the million"; it may be "caviare to the general."
Nevertheless, the sagacious manager, who, by virtue of comparatively
inexpensive settings and in alliance with a well-chosen company of
efficient actors and actresses, is able at short intervals to produce
a succession of Shakespeare's plays, may reasonably expect to attract
a small but steady and sufficient support from the intelligent section
of London playgoers, and from the home-reading students of
Shakespeare, who are not at present playgoers at all.
IV
The practical manager, who naturally seeks pecuniary profit from his
ventures, insists that these suggestions are counsels of perfection
and these anticipations wild and fantastic dreams. His last word is
that by spectacular method Shakespeare can alone be made to "pay" in
the theatre. But are we here on perfectly secure ground? Has the
commercial success attending the spectacular production of Shakespeare
been invariably so conspicuous as to put summarily out of court, on
the purely commercial ground, the method of simplicity? The pecuniary
results are public knowledge in the case of the two most strenuous and
prolonged endeavours to give Shakespeare the splendours of spectacle
which have yet been completed on the London stage. What is the message
of these two efforts in mere pecuniary terms?
Charles Kean may be regarded as the founder of the modern spectacular
system, though it had some precedents, and has been developed since
his day. Charles Kean, between 1851 and 1859, persistently endeavoured
by prodigal and brilliant display to make the production of
Shakespeare an enterprise of profit at the Princess's Theatre, London.
The scheme proved pecuniarily disastrous.
Subsequently Kean's mantle was assumed by the late Sir Henry Irving,
the greatest of recent actors and stage-managers, who in many regards
conferred incalculable benefits on the theatre-going public and on the
theatrical profession. Throughout the last quarter of the last
century, Irving gave the spectacular and scenic system in the
production of Shakespeare every advantage that it could derive from
munificent expenditure and the co-operation of highly endowed artists.
He could justly claim a finer artistic sentiment and a higher
histrionic capacity than Charles Kean possessed. Yet Irving announced,
not long before his death, that he lost on his Shakespearean
productions a hundred thousand pounds. Sir Henry added:
The enormous cost of a Shakespearean production on the
liberal and elaborate scale which the public is now
accustomed to expect makes it almost impossible for any
manager--I don't care who it is--to pursue a continuous
policy of Shakespeare for many years with any hope of profit
in the long run.
In face of this authoritative pronouncement, it must be conceded that
the spectacular system has been given, within recent memory, every
chance of succeeding, and, as far as recorded testimony is available,
has been, from the commercial point of view, a failure.
Meanwhile, during and since the period when Sir Henry Irving filled
the supreme place among producers of Shakespeare on the stage, the
simple method of Shakespearean production has been given no serious
chance. The anticipation of its pecuniary failure has not been put in
satisfactory conditions to any practical test. The last time that it
was put to a sound practical test it did not fail. While Irving was a
boy, Phelps at Sadler's Wells Theatre gave, in well-considered
conditions, the simple method a trial. Phelps's playhouse was situated
in the unfashionable neighbourhood of Islington. But the prophets of
evil, who were no greater strangers to Phelps's generation than they
are to our own, were themselves confuted by his experience.
V
On the 27th of May 1844 Phelps, a most intelligent actor and a serious
student of Shakespeare, opened the long-disused Sadler's Wells Theatre
in partnership with Mrs Warner, a capable actress, whose rendering of
Imogen went near perfection. Their design was inspired by "the hope,"
they wrote in an unassuming address, "of eventually rendering Sadler's
Wells what a theatre ought to be--a place for justly representing the
works of our great dramatic poets." This hope they went far to
realise. The first play that they produced was _Macbeth_.
Phelps continued to control Sadler's Wells Theatre for more than
eighteen years. During that period he produced, together with many
other English plays of classical repute, no fewer than thirty-one of
the thirty-seven great dramas which came from Shakespeare's pen. In
his first season, besides _Macbeth_ he set forth _Hamlet_, _King
John_, _Henry VIII._, _The Merchant of Venice_, _Othello_, and
_Richard III._ To these he added in the course of his second season,
_Julius Cæsar_, _King Lear_, and _The Winter's Tale_. _Henry IV._,
part I., _Measure for Measure_, _Romeo and Juliet_, and _The Tempest_
followed in his third season; _As You Like It_, _Cymbeline_, _The
Merry Wives of Windsor_, and _Twelfth Night_, in his fourth. Each
succeeding season saw further additions to the Shakespearean
repertory, until only six Shakespearean dramas were left
unrepresented, viz.--_Richard II._, the three parts of _Henry VI._,
_Troilus and Cressida_, and _Titus Andronicus_. Of these, one alone,
_Richard II._, is really actable.
The leading principles, to which Phelps strictly adhered throughout
his career of management, call for most careful consideration. He
gathered round him a company of actors and actresses, whom he
zealously trained to interpret Shakespeare's language. He accustomed
his colleagues to act harmoniously together, and to sacrifice to the
welfare of the whole enterprise individual pretensions to prominence.
No long continuous run of any one piece was permitted by the rules of
the playhouse. The programme was constantly changed. The scenic
appliances were simple, adequate, and inexpensive. The supernumerary
staff was restricted to the smallest practicable number. The general
expenses were consequently kept within narrow limits. For every
thousand pounds that Charles Kean laid out at the Princess's Theatre
on scenery and other expenses of production, Phelps in his most ornate
revivals spent less than a fourth of that sum. For the pounds spent by
managers on more recent revivals, Phelps would have spent only as many
shillings. In the result, Phelps reaped from the profits of his
a handsome unencumbered income. During the same period Charles
Kean grew more and more deeply involved in oppressive debt, and at a
later date Sir Henry Irving made over to the public a hundred thousand
pounds above his receipts.
VI
Why, then, should not Phelps's encouraging experiment be made
again?[3]
[Footnote 3: It is just to notice, among endeavours of the late years
of the past century, to which I confine my remarks here, the efforts
to produce Shakespearean drama worthily which were made by Charles
Alexander Calvert at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester, between 1864
and 1874. Calvert, who was a warm admirer of Phelps, attempted to
blend Phelps's method with Charles Kean's, and bestowed great scenic
elaboration on the production of at least eight plays of Shakespeare.
Financially the speculation saw every vicissitude, and Calvert's
experience may be quoted in support of the view that a return to
Phelps's method is financially safer than a return to Charles Kean's.
More recently the Elizabethan Stage Society endeavoured to produce,
with a simplicity which erred on the side of severity, many plays of
Shakespeare and other literary dramas. No scenery was employed, and
the performers were dressed in Elizabethan costume. The Society's work
was done privately, and did not invite any genuine test of publicity.
The representation by the Society on November 11, 1899, in the Lecture
Theatre at Burlington House, of _Richard II._, in which Mr Granville
Barker played the King with great charm and judgment, showed the
fascination that a competent rendering of Shakespeare's text exerts,
even in the total absence of scenery, over a large audience of
suitable temper.]
Before anyone may commit himself to an affirmative reply, it is
needful for him to realise fully the precise demands which a system
like that of Phelps makes, when rightly interpreted, on the character,
ability, and energy of the actors and actresses. If scenery in
Shakespearean productions be relegated to its proper place in the
background of the stage, it is necessary that the acting, from top to
bottom of the cast, shall be more efficient and better harmonised than
that which is commonly associated with spectacular representations.
The simple method of producing Shakespeare focusses the interest of
the audience on the actor and actress; it gives them a dignity and
importance which are unknown to the complex method. Under the latter
system, the attention of the spectator is largely absorbed by the
triumphs of the scene-painter and machinist, of the costumier and the
musicians. The actor and actress often elude notice altogether.
Macready, whose theatrical career was anterior to the modern
spectacular period of Shakespearean representation, has left on record
a deliberate opinion of Charles Kean's elaborate methods at the
Princess's Theatre in their relation to drama and the histrionic art.
Macready's verdict has an universal application. "The production of
the Shakespearean plays at the Princess's Theatre," the great actor
wrote to Lady Pollock on the 1st of May 1859, rendered the spoken text
"more like a running commentary on the spectacles exhibited than the
scenic arrangements an illustration of the text." No criticism could
define more convincingly the humiliation to which the author's words
are exposed by spectacle, or, what is more pertinent to the immediate
argument, the evil which is worked by spectacle on the actor.
Acting can be, and commonly tends to be, the most mechanical of
physical exercises. The actor is often a mere automaton who repeats
night after night the same unimpressive trick of voice, eye, and
gesture. His defects of understanding may be comparatively unobtrusive
in a spectacular display, where he is liable to escape censure by
escaping observation, or at best to be regarded as a showman.
Furthermore, the long runs which scenic excess brings in its train
accentuate the mechanical actor's imperfections and diminish his
opportunities of remedying them. On the other hand, acting can rise in
opposite conditions into the noblest of the arts. The great actor
relies for genuine success on no mere gesticulatory mechanism.
Imaginative insight, passion, the gift of oratory, grace and dignity
of movement and bearing, perfect command of the voice in the whole
gamut of its inflections are the constituent qualities of true
histrionic capacity.
In no drama are these qualities more necessary, or are ampler
opportunities offered for their use, than in the plays of Shakespeare.
Not only in the leading rôles of his masterpieces, but in the
subordinate parts throughout the range of his work, the highest
abilities of the actor or actress can find some scope for employment.
It is therefore indispensable that the standard of Shakespearean
acting should always be maintained at the highest level, if
Shakespearean drama is to be fitly rendered in the theatre. The worst
of the evils, which are inherent in scenic excess, with its
accompaniment of long runs, is its tendency to sanction the
maintenance of the level of acting at something below the highest.
Phelps was keenly alive to this peril, and his best energies were
devoted to training his actors and actresses for all the rôles in the
cast, great and small. Actors and actresses of the first rank on
occasion filled minor parts, in order to heighten the efficiency of
the presentation. Actors and actresses who have the dignity of their
profession at heart might be expected to welcome the revival of a
system which alone guarantees their talent and the work of the
dramatist due recognition, even if it leave histrionic incompetence no
hope of escape from the scorn that befits it. It is on the aspiration
and sentiment of the acting profession that must largely depend the
final answer to the question whether Phelps's experiment can be made
again with likelihood of success.
VII
Foreign experience tells in favour of the contention that, if
Shakespeare's plays are to be honoured on the modern stage as they
deserve, they must be freed of the existing incubus of scenic
machinery. French acting has always won and deserved admiration. There
is no doubt that one cause of its permanently high repute is the
absolute divorce in the French theatre of drama from spectacle.
Molière stands to French literature in much the same relation as
Shakespeare stands to English literature. Molière's plays are
constantly acted in French theatres with a scenic austerity which is
unknown to the humblest of our theatres. A French audience would
regard it as sacrilege to convert a comedy of Molière into a
spectacle. The French people are commonly credited with a love of
ornament and display to which the English people are assumed to be
strangers, but their treatment of Molière is convincing proof that
their artistic sense is ultimately truer than our own.
The mode of producing Shakespeare on the stage in Germany supplies an
argument to the same effect. In Berlin and Vienna, and in all the
chief towns of German-speaking Europe, Shakespeare's plays are
produced constantly and in all their variety, for the most part, in
conditions which are directly antithetical to those prevailing in the
West-end theatres of London. Twenty-eight of Shakespeare's
thirty-seven plays figure in the répertoires of the leading companies
of German-speaking actors.
The currently accepted method of presentation can be judged from the
following personal experience. A few years ago I was in the
Burg-Theater in Vienna on a Sunday night--the night on which the great
working population of Vienna chiefly take their recreation, as in this
country it is chiefly taken by the great working population on
Saturday night. The Burg-Theater in Vienna is one of the largest
theatres in the world. It is of similar dimensions to Drury Lane
Theatre or Covent Garden Opera-house. On the occasion of my visit the
play produced was Shakespeare's _Antony and Cleopatra_. The house was
crowded in every part. The scenic arrangements were simple and
unobtrusive, but were well calculated to suggest the Oriental
atmosphere of the plot. There was no music before the performance, or
during the intervals between the acts, or as an accompaniment to great
speeches in the progress of the play. There was no making love, nor
any dying to slow music, although the stage directions were followed
scrupulously; the song "Come, thou Monarch of the Vine," was sung to
music in the drinking scene on board Pompey's galley, and there were
the appointed flourishes of trumpets and drums. The acting was
competent, though not of the highest calibre, but a satisfactory level
was evenly maintained throughout the cast. There were no conspicuous
deflections from the adequate standard. The character of whom I have
the most distinct recollection was Enobarbus, the level-headed and
straight-hitting critic of the action--a comparatively subordinate
part, which was filled by one of the most distinguished actors of the
Viennese stage. He fitted his part with telling accuracy.
The whole piece was listened to with breathless interest. It was acted
practically without curtailment, and, although the performance lasted
nearly five hours, no sign of impatience manifested itself at any
point. This was no exceptional experience at the Burg-Theater. Plays
of Shakespeare are acted there repeatedly--on an average twice a
week--and, I am credibly informed, with identical results to those of
which I was an eye-witness.
VIII
It cannot be flattering to our self-esteem that the Austrian people
should show a greater and a wiser appreciation of the theatrical
capacities of Shakespeare's masterpieces than we who are Shakespeare's
countrymen and the most direct and rightful heirs of his glorious
achievements. How is the disturbing fact to be accounted for? Is it
possible that it is attributable to some decay in us of the
imagination--to a growing slowness on our part to appreciate works of
imagination? When one reflects on the simple mechanical contrivances
which satisfied the theatrical audiences, not only of Shakespeare's
own day, but of the eighteenth century, during which Shakespeare was
repeatedly performed; when one compares the simplicity of scenic
mechanism in the past with its complexity in our own time, one can
hardly resist the conclusion that the imagination of the theatre-going
public is no longer what it was of old. The play alone was then "the
thing." Now "the thing," it seems, is something outside the
play--namely, the painted scene or the costume, the music or the
dance.
Garrick played Macbeth in an ordinary Court suit of his own era. The
habiliments proper to Celtic monarchs of the eleventh century were
left to be supplied by the imagination of the spectators or not at
all. No realistic "effects" helped the play forward in Garrick's time,
yet the attention of his audience, the critics tell us, was never
known to stray when he produced a great play by Shakespeare. In
Shakespeare's day boys or men took the part of women, and how
characters like Lady Macbeth and Desdemona were adequately rendered by
youths beggars belief. But renderings in such conditions proved
popular and satisfactory. Such a fact seems convincing testimony, not
to the ability of Elizabethan or Jacobean boys--the nature of boys is
a pretty permanent factor in human society--but to the superior
imaginative faculty of adult Elizabethan or Jacobean playgoers, in
whom, as in Garrick's time, the needful dramatic illusion was far more
easily evoked than it is nowadays.
This is no exhilarating conclusion. But less exhilarating is the
endeavour that is sometimes made by advocates of the system of
spectacle to prove that Shakespeare himself would have appreciated the
modern developments of the scenic art--nay, more, that he himself has
justified them. This line of argument serves to confirm the suggested
defect of imagination in the present generation. The well-known chorus
before the first act of _Henry V._ is the evidence which is relied
upon to show that Shakespeare wished his plays to be, in journalistic
dialect, "magnificently staged," and that he deplored the inability of
his uncouth age to realise that wish. The lines are familiar; but it
is necessary to quote them at length, in fairness to those who judge
them to be a defence of the spectacular principle in the presentation
of Shakespearean drama. They run:--
O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dar'd
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts,
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder;
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance:
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth.
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour glass.
There is, in my opinion, no strict relevance in these lines to the
enquiry whether Shakespeare's work should be treated on the stage as
drama or spectacle. Nay, I go further, and assert that, as far as the
speech touches the question at issue at all, it tells against the
pretensions of spectacle.
Shortly stated, Shakespeare's splendid prelude to his play of _Henry
V._, is a spirited appeal to his audience not to waste regrets on
defects of stage machinery, but to bring to the observation of his
piece their highest powers of imagination, whereby alone can full
justice be done to a majestic theme. The central topic of the choric
speech is the essential limitations of all scenic appliances. The
dramatist reminds us that the literal presentation of life itself, in
all its movement and action, lies outside the range of the stage,
especially the movement and action of life in its most glorious
manifestations. Obvious conditions of space do not allow "two mighty
monarchies" literally to be confined within the walls of a theatre.
Obvious conditions of time cannot turn "the accomplishments of many
years into an hour glass." Shakespeare is airing no private grievance.
He is not complaining that his plays were in his own day inadequately
upholstered in the theatre, or that the "scaffold" on which they were
produced was "unworthy" of them. The words have no concern with the
contention that modern upholstery and spectacular machinery render
Shakespeare's play a justice which was denied them in his lifetime. As
reasonably one might affirm that the modern theatre has now conquered
the ordinary conditions of time and space; that a modern playhouse
can, if the manager so will it, actually hold within its walls the
"vasty fields of France," or confine "two mighty monarchies."
A wider and quite impersonal trend of thought is offered for
consideration by Shakespeare's majestic eloquence. The dramatist bids
us bear in mind that his lines do no more than suggest the things he
would have the audience see and understand; the actors aid the
suggestion according to their ability. But the crucial point of the
utterance is the warning that the illusion of the drama can only be
rendered complete in the theatre by the working of the "imaginary
forces" of the spectators. It is needful for them to "make imaginary
puissance," if the play is to triumph. It is their "thoughts" that
"must deck" the kings of the stage, if the dramatist's meaning is to
get home. The poet modestly underestimated the supreme force of his
own imaginative genius when giving these admonitions to his hearers.
But they are warnings of universal application, and can never be
safely ignored.
Such an exordium as the chorus before _Henry V._ would indeed be
pertinent to every stage performance of great drama in any age or
country. It matters not whether the spectacular machinery be of royal
magnificence or of poverty-stricken squalor. Let us make the
extravagant assumption that all the artistic genius in the world and
all the treasure in the Bank of England were placed at the command of
a theatrical manager in order to enable him to produce a great play on
his stage supremely well from his own scenic point of view. Even then
it would be neither superfluous nor impertinent for the manager to
adjure the audience to piece out the "imperfections" of the scenery
with their "thoughts" or imagination. The spectator's "imaginary
puissance" is, practically in every circumstance, the key-stone of the
dramatic illusion.
The only conditions in which Shakespeare's adjuration would be
superfluous or impertinent would accompany the presentment in the
theatre of some circumscribed incident of life which is capable of so
literal a rendering as to leave no room for any make-believe or
illusion at all. The unintellectual playgoer, to whom Shakespeare will
never really prove attractive in any guise, has little or no
imagination to exercise, and he only tolerates a performance in the
theatre when little or no demand is made on the exercise of the
imaginative faculty. "The groundlings," said Shakespeare for all time,
"are capable of [appreciating] nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and
noise." They would be hugely delighted nowadays with a scene in which
two real motor cars, with genuine chauffeurs and passengers, raced
uproariously across the stage. That is realism in its nakedness. That
is realism reduced to its first principles. Realistic "effects,"
however speciously beautiful they may be, invariably tend to realism
of that primal type, which satisfies the predilections of the
groundling, and reduces drama to the level of the cinematograph.
IX
The deliberate pursuit of scenic realism is antagonistic to the
ultimate law of dramatic art. In the case of great plays, the dramatic
representation is most successful from the genuinely artistic point of
view--which is the only point of view worthy of discussion--when the
just dramatic illusion is produced by simple and unpretending scenic
appliances, in which the inevitable "imperfections" are frankly left
to be supplied by the "thoughts" or imagination of the spectators.