are fatal alike to the enunciation of Shakespearean language and to
the interpretation of Shakespearean character. The system of short
runs, of the nightly alterations of the play, such as Mr Benson has
revived, is the only sure preservative against maladies so fatal.
Hardly less important is Mr Benson's new-old principle of "casting" a
play of Shakespeare. Not only in the leading rôles of Shakespeare's
masterpieces, but in subordinate parts throughout the range of his
work, the highest abilities of the actor can find some scope for
employment. A competent knowledge of the poet's complete work is
needed to bring this saving truth home to those who are engaged in
presenting Shakespearean drama on the stage. An actor hardly realises
the real force of the doctrine until he has had experience of the
potentialities of a series of the smaller characters by making
practical endeavours to interpret them. Adequate opportunities of the
kind are only accessible to members of a permanent company, whose
energies are absorbed in the production of the Shakespearean drama
constantly and in its variety, and whose programme is untrammelled by
the poisonous system of "long runs." Shakespearean actors should drink
deep of the Pierian spring. They should be graduates in Shakespeare's
university; and, unlike graduates of other universities, they should
master not merely formal knowledge, but a flexible power of using it.
Mr Benson's company is, I believe, the only one at present in
existence in England which confines almost all its efforts to the
acting of Shakespeare. In the course of its twenty-four years'
existence its members have interpreted in the theatre no less than
thirty of Shakespeare's plays.[21] The natural result is that Mr
Benson and his colleagues have learned in practice the varied calls
that Shakespearean drama makes upon actors' capacities.
[Footnote 21: Mr Benson, writing to me on 13th January 1906, gives the
following list of plays by Shakespeare which he has produced:--_Antony
and Cleopatra_, _As You Like It_, _The Comedy of Errors_,
_Coriolanus_, _Hamlet_, _Henry IV. (Parts 1 and 2)_, _Henry V._,
_Henry VI. (Parts 1, 2, and 3)_, _Henry VIII._, _Julius Cæsar_, _King
John_, _King Lear_, _Macbeth_, _The Merchant of Venice_, _The Merry
Wives of Windsor_, _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, _Much Ado About
Nothing_, _Othello_, _Pericles_, _Richard II._, _Richard III._, _Romeo
and Juliet_, _The Taming of the Shrew_, _The Tempest_, _Timon of
Athens_, _Twelfth Night_, and _A Winter's Tale_. Phelps's record only
exceeded Mr Benson's by one. He produced thirty-one of Shakespeare's
plays in all, but he omitted _Richard II._, and the three parts of
_Henry VI._, which Mr Benson has acted, while he included _Love's
Labour's Lost_, _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, _All's Well that Ends
Well_, _Cymbeline_, and _Measure for Measure_, which Mr Benson, so
far, has eschewed. Mr Phelps and Mr Benson are at one in avoiding
_Titus Andronicus_ and _Troilus and Cressida_.]
Members of Mr Benson's company have made excellent use of their
opportunities. An actor, like the late Frank Rodney, who could on one
night competently portray Bolingbroke in _Richard II._ and on the
following night the clown Feste in _Twelfth Night_ with equal effect,
clearly realised something of the virtue of Shakespearean versatility.
Mr Benson's leading comedian, Mr Weir, whose power of presenting
Shakespeare's humorists shows, besides native gifts, the advantages
that come of experienced study of the dramatist, not only interprets,
in the genuine spirit, great rôles like Falstaff and Touchstone, but
gives the truest possible significance to the comparatively
unimportant rôles of the First Gardener in _Richard II._ and Grumio in
_The Taming of the Shrew_.
Nothing could be more grateful to a student of Shakespeare than the
manner in which the small part of John of Gaunt was played by Mr
Warburton in Mr Benson's production of _Richard II._ The part includes
the glorious panegyric of England which comes from the lips of the
dying man, and must challenge the best efforts of every actor of
ambition and self-respect. But in the mouth of an actor who lacks
knowledge of the true temper of Shakespearean drama, this speech is
certain to be mistaken for a detached declamation of patriotism--an
error which ruins its dramatic significance. As Mr Warburton delivered
it, one listened to the despairing cry of a feeble old man roused for
a moment from the lethargy of sickness by despair at the thought that
the great country he loved was in peril of decay through the selfish
and frivolous temper of its ruler. Instead of a Chauvinist manifesto
defiantly declaimed under the limelight, there was offered us the
quiet pathos of a dying patriot's lament over his beloved country's
misfortunes--an oracular warning from a death-stricken tongue,
foreshadowing with rare solemnity and dramatic irony the violent doom
of the reckless worker of the mischief. Any other conception of the
passage, any conscious endeavour to win a round of applause by
elocutionary display, would disable the actor from doing justice to
the great and sadly stirring utterance. The right note could only be
sounded by one who was acclimatised to Shakespearean drama, and had
recognised the wealth of significance to be discovered and to be
disclosed (with due artistic restraint) in Shakespeare's minor
characters.
III
The benefits to be derived from the control of a trained school of
Shakespearean actors were displayed very conspicuously when Mr Benson
undertook six years ago the heroic task of performing the play of
_Hamlet_, as Shakespeare wrote it, without any abbreviation. _Hamlet_
is the longest of Shakespeare's plays; it reaches a total of over 3900
lines. It is thus some 900 lines longer than _Antony and Cleopatra_,
which of all Shakespeare's plays most nearly approaches its length.
Consequently it is a tradition of the stage to cut the play of
_Hamlet_ by the omission of more than a third. Hamlet's part is
usually retained almost in its entirety, but the speeches of every
other character are seriously curtailed. Mr Benson ventured on the
bold innovation of giving the play in full.[22]
[Footnote 22: The performance occupied nearly six hours. One half was
given in the afternoon, and the other half in the evening of the same
day, with an interval of an hour and a half between the two sections.
Should the performance be repeated, I would recommend, in the
interests of busy men and women, that the whole play be rendered at a
single sitting, which might be timed to open at a somewhat earlier
hour in the evening than is now customary, and might, if need be,
close a little later. There should be no difficulty in restricting the
hours occupied by the performance to four and a half.]
Only he who has witnessed the whole play on the stage can fully
appreciate its dramatic capabilities. It is obvious that, in whatever
shape the play of _Hamlet_ is produced in the theatre, its success
must always be primarily due to the overpowering fascination exerted
on the audience by the character of the hero. In every conceivable
circumstance the young prince must be the centre of attraction.
Nevertheless, no graver injury can be done the play as an acting drama
than by treating it as a one-part piece. The accepted method of
shortening the tragedy by reducing every part, except that of Hamlet,
is to distort Shakespeare's whole scheme, to dislocate or obscure the
whole action. The predominance of Hamlet is exaggerated at the expense
of the dramatist's artistic purpose.
To realise completely the motives of Hamlet's conduct, and the process
of his fortunes, not a single utterance from the lips of the King,
Polonius, or Laertes can be spared. In ordinary acting versions these
three parts sink into insignificance. It is only in the full text that
they assume their just and illuminating rank as Hamlet's foils.
The King rises into a character almost of the first class. He is a
villain of unfathomable infamy, but his cowardly fear of the discovery
of his crimes, his desperate pursuit of the consolations of religion,
the quick ingenuity with which he plots escape from the inevitable
retribution that dogs his misdeeds, excite--in the full text of the
play--an interest hardly less intense than those wistful musings of
the storm-tossed soul which stay his nephew's avenging hand.
Similarly, Hamlet's incisive wit and honesty are brought into the
highest possible relief by the restoration to the feebly guileful
Polonius of the speeches of which he has long been deprived. Among the
reinstated scenes is that in which the meddlesome dotard teaches his
servant Reynaldo modes of espionage that shall detect the moral lapses
of his son Laertes in Paris. The recovered episode is not only
admirable comedy, but it gives new vividness to Polonius's maudlin
egotism which is responsible for many windings of the tragic plot.
The story is simplified at all points by such amplifications of the
contracted version which holds the stage. The events are evolved with
unsuspected naturalness. The hero's character gains by the expansion
of its setting. One downright error which infects the standard
abridgement is wholly avoided. Ophelia is dethroned. It is recognised
that she is not entitled to share with Hamlet the triumphal honours of
the action. Weak, insipid, destitute of all force of character, she
deserves an insignificant place in Shakespeare's gallery of heroines.
Hamlet's mother merits as much or more attention. At any rate, there
is no justification for reducing the Queen's part in order to increase
Ophelia's prominence. Such distortions are impossible in the
production of the piece in its entirety. Throughout _Hamlet_, in the
full authorised text, the artistic balance hangs true. Mr Benson
recognised that dominant fact, and contrived to illustrate it on the
stage. No higher commendation could be allowed a theatrical manager or
actor.
IV
Much else could be said of Mr Benson's principles, and of his
praiseworthy energy in seeking to familiarise the playgoer with
Shakespearean drama in all its fulness and variety, but only one other
specific feature of his method needs mention here. Perhaps the most
convincing proof that he has given of the value of his principles to
the country's dramatic art is his success in the training of actors
and actresses. Of late it is his company that has supplied the great
London actor-managers with their ablest recruits. Nearly all the best
performers of secondary rôles and a few of the best performers of
primary rôles in the leading London theatres are Mr Benson's pupils.
Their admission to the great London companies is raising the standard
of acting in the metropolis. The marked efficiency of these newcomers
is due to a system which is inconsistent with any of the accepted
principles of current theatrical enterprise in London. Mr Benson's
disciples mainly owe their efficiency to long association with a
permanent company controlled by a manager who seeks, single-mindedly,
what he holds to be the interests of dramatic art. The many-headed
public learns its lessons very slowly, and sometimes neglects them
altogether. It has been reluctant to recognise the true significance
of Mr Benson's work. But the intelligent onlooker knows that he is
marching along the right road, in intelligent conformity with the best
teaching of the past.
Thirty years ago a meeting took place at the Mansion House to discuss
the feasibility of founding a State theatre in London, a project which
was not realised. The most memorable incident which was associated
with the Mansion House meeting was a speech of the theatrical manager
Phelps, who argued, amid the enthusiastic plaudits of his hearers,
that it was in the highest interests of the nation that the
Shakespearean drama should continuously occupy the stage. "I
maintain," Phelps said, "from the experience of eighteen years, that
the perpetual iteration of Shakespeare's words, if nothing more, going
on daily for so many months of the year, must and would produce a
great effect upon the public mind." No man or woman of sense will
to-day gainsay the wisdom of this utterance; but it is needful for the
public to make greater exertion than they have made of late if "the
perpetual iteration of Shakespeare's words" in the theatre is to be
permanently secured.
Mr Benson's efforts constitute the best organised endeavour to realise
Phelps's ambition since Phelps withdrew from management. Mr Benson's
scheme is imperfect in some of its details; in other particulars it
may need revision. But he and his associates have planted their feet
firmly on sure ground in their endeavours to interpret Shakespearean
drama constantly and in its variety, after a wise and well-considered
system and with a disinterested zeal. When every allowance has been
made for the Benson Company's shortcomings, its achievement cannot be
denied "a relish of salvation." Mr Benson deserves well of those who
have faith in the power of Shakespeare's words to widen the horizon of
men's intellects and emotions. The seed he has sown should not be
suffered to decay.
VI
THE MUNICIPAL THEATRE[23]
[Footnote 23: This paper was first printed in the _New Liberal
Review_, May 1902.]
I
Many actors, dramatic critics, and men in public life advocate the
municipal manner of theatrical enterprise. Their aim, as I understand
it, is to procure the erection, and the due working, of a playhouse
that shall serve in permanence the best interests of the literary or
artistic drama. The municipal theatre is not worth fighting for,
unless there is a reasonable probability that its establishment will
benefit dramatic art, promote the knowledge of dramatic literature,
and draw from the literary drama and confer on the public the largest
beneficial influence which the literary drama is capable of
distributing.
None of Shakespeare's countrymen or countrywomen can deny with a good
grace the importance of the drama as a branch of art. None will
seriously dispute that our dramatic literature, at any rate in its
loftiest manifestation, has contributed as much as our armies or our
navies or our mechanical inventions to our reputation through the
world.
There is substantial agreement among enlightened leaders of public
opinion in all civilised countries that great drama, when fitly
represented in the theatre, offers the rank and file of a nation
recreation which brings with it moral, intellectual, and spiritual
advantage.
II
The first question to consider is whether in England the existing
theatrical agencies promote for the general good the genuine interests
of dramatic art. Do existing theatrical agencies secure for the nation
all the beneficial influence that is derivable from the truly
competent form of drama? If they do this sufficiently, it is otiose
and impertinent to entertain the notion of creating any new theatrical
agency.
Theatrical agencies of the existing type have never ignored the
literary drama altogether. Among actor-managers of the past
generation, Sir Henry Irving devoted his high ability to the
interpretation of many species of literary drama--from that by
Shakespeare to that by Tennyson. At leading theatres in London there
have been produced in the last few years poetic dramas written in
blank verse on themes drawn from such supreme examples of the world's
literature as Homer's _Odyssey_ and Dante's _Inferno_. Signs have not
been wanting of public anxiety to acknowledge with generosity these
and other serious endeavours in poetic drama, whatever their precise
degree of excellence. But such premisses warrant no very large
conclusion. Two or three swallows do not make a summer. The literary
drama is only welcomed to the London stage at uncertain intervals;
most of its life is passed in the wilderness.
The recognition that is given in England to literary or poetic drama,
alike of the past and present, is chiefly notable for its
irregularity. The circumstance may be accounted for in various ways.
It is best explained by the fact that England is the only country in
Europe in which theatrical enterprise is wholly and exclusively
organised on a capitalist basis. No theatre in England is worked
to-day on any but the capitalist principle. Artistic aspiration may be
well alive in the theatrical profession, but the custom and
circumstance of capital, the calls of the counting-house, hamper the
theatrical artist's freedom of action. The methods imposed are
dictated too exclusively by the mercantile spirit.
Many illustrations could be given of the unceasing conflict which
capitalist methods wage with artistic methods. One is sufficient. The
commercially capitalised theatre is bound hand and foot to the system
of long runs. In no theatres of the first class outside London and New
York is the system known, and even here and in New York it is of
comparatively recent origin. But Londoners have grown so accustomed to
the system that they overlook the havoc which it works on the theatre
as a home of art. Both actor and playgoer suffer signal injury from
its effects. It limits the range of drama which is available at our
great theatres to the rank and file of mankind. Especially serious is
the danger to which the unchangeable programme exposes histrionic
capacity and histrionic intelligence. The actor is not encouraged to
widen his knowledge of the drama. His faculties are blunted by the
narrow monotony of his experience. Yet the capitalised conditions of
theatrical enterprise, which are in vogue in London and New York,
seem to render long runs imperative. The system of long runs is
peculiar to English-speaking countries, where alone theatrical
enterprise is altogether under the sway of capital. It is specifically
prohibited in the national or municipal theatre of every great foreign
city, where the interests of dramatic art enjoy foremost
consideration.
The artistic aspiration of the actor-manager may be set on the
opposite side of the account. Although the actor-manager belongs to
the ranks of the capitalists (whether he be one himself or be
dependent on one), yet when he exercises supreme control of his
playhouse, and is moved by artistic feeling, he may check many of the
evils that spring from capitalist domination. He can partially
neutralise the hampering effect on dramatic art of the merely
commercial application of capital to theatrical enterprise.
The actor-manager system is liable to impede the progress of dramatic
art through defects of its own, but its most characteristic defects
are not tarred with the capitalist brush. The actor-manager is prone
to over-estimate the range of his histrionic power. He tends to claim
of right the first place in the cast of every piece which he produces.
He will consequently at times fill a rôle for which his powers unsuit
him. If he be wise enough to avoid that error, he may imperil the
interests of dramatic art in another fashion; he may neglect pieces,
despite their artistic value, in which he knows the foremost part to
be outside his scope. The actor-manager has sometimes undertaken a
secondary rôle. But then it often happens, not necessarily by his
deliberate endeavour, but by the mere force and popularity of his name
among the frequenters of his playhouse, that there is focussed on his
secondary part an attention that it does not intrinsically merit, with
the result that the artistic perspective of the play is injured. A
primary law of dramatic art deprecates the constant preponderance of
one actor in a company. The highest attainable level of excellence in
all the members is the true artistic aim.
The dangers inherent in the "star" principle of the actor-manager
system may be frankly admitted, but at the same time one should
recognise the system's possible advantages. An actor-manager does not
usually arrive at his position until his career is well advanced and
he has proved his histrionic capacity. Versatility commonly
distinguishes him, and he is able to fill a long series of leading
rôles without violating artistic propriety. At any rate, the
actor-manager who resolutely cherishes respect for art can do much to
temper the corrupting influences of commercial capitalism in the
theatrical world.
It is probably the less needful to scrutinise closely the theoretic
merits or demerits of the actor-manager system, because the dominant
principle of current theatrical enterprise in London and America
renders most precarious the future existence of that system. The
actor-manager seems, at any rate, threatened in London by a new and
irresistible tide of capitalist energy. Six or seven leading theatres
in London have recently been brought under the control of an American
capitalist who does not pretend to any but mercantile inspiration. The
American capitalist's first and last aim is naturally to secure the
highest possible remuneration for his invested capital. He is
catholic-minded, and has no objection to artistic drama, provided he
can draw substantial profit from it. Material interests alone have any
real meaning for him. If he serve the interests of art by producing an
artistic play, he serves art by accident and unconsciously: his object
is to benefit his exchequer. His philosophy is unmitigated
utilitarianism. "The greatest pleasure for the greatest number" is his
motto. The pleasure that carries farthest and brings round him the
largest paying audiences is his ideal stock-in-trade. Obviously
pleasure either of the frivolous or of the spectacular kind attracts
the greatest number of customers to his emporium. It is consequently
pleasure of this spectacular or frivolous kind which he habitually
endeavours to provide. It is Quixotic to anticipate much diminution in
the supply and demand of either frivolity or spectacle, both of which
may furnish quite innocuous pleasure. But each is the antithesis of
dramatic art; and whatever view one holds of the methods of the
American capitalist, it is irrational to look to him for the
intelligent promotion of dramatic art.
III
From the artistic point of view the modern system of theatrical
enterprise thus seems capable of improvement. If it be incapable of
general improvement, it is at least capable of having a better example
set it than current modes can be reckoned on to offer. The latter are
not likely to be displaced. All that can be attempted is to create a
new model at their side. What is sought by the advocates of a
municipal theatre is an institution which shall maintain in
permanence a high artistic ideal of drama, and shall give the public
the opportunity of permanently honouring that ideal. Existing theatres
whose programmes ignore art would be unaffected by such a new
neighbour. But existing enterprises, which, as far as present
conditions permit, reflect artistic aspiration, would derive from such
an institution new and steady encouragement.
The interests of dramatic art can only be served whole-heartedly in a
theatre organised on two principles which have hitherto been
unrecognised in England. In the first place, the management should
acknowledge some sort of public obligation to make the interests of
dramatic art its first motive of action. In the second place, the
management should be relieved of the need of seeking unrestricted
commercial profits for the capital that is invested in the venture.
Both principles have been adopted with successful results in
Continental cities; but their successful practice implies the
acceptance by the State, or by a permanent local authority, of a
certain amount of responsibility in both the artistic and the
financial directions.