_By Marcus P. Brimston, the gifted producer of "Shoo, Charlotte!"_
I have been invited to say a few words to readers of _The Sabbath Scoop_ on
the alleged decay of the British drama. There is indeed some apparent truth
in this allegation. On all sides I hear managers sending up the same old
wail of dwindling box-office receipts and houses packed with ghastly rows
of deadheads. No "paper" shortage there, at any rate.
Sometimes these unfortunate people come to me for counsel, and invariably I
give them the same admonition, "Study your public."
There is no doubt that, with a few brilliant exceptions (among which my own
present production is happily enrolled), the playhouses have recently
struck a rather bad patch. Useless to lay the blame either on the
CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER or on the weather. Give the playgoing public
what it wants and no consideration of National Waste or of Daylight Saving
will keep it from the theatre.
And that brings me to my point. Whence comes the playgoing public of
to-day, and what does it want?
From the commercial point of view (and in the long run as in the short all
art must be judged by its monetary value) the drama depends for its support
on what used to be known as the better-dressed parts of the house.
Now-a-days the majority of the paying patrons of these seats come from the
ranks of the new custodians of the nation's wealth. These people, who have
the business instinct very strongly developed, insistently and very rightly
demand value for their money; and the problem is how to give them value as
they understand the meaning of the word. My friend Mr. ARTHUR COLLINS gives
it to them in sand; but that is a shifting foundation on which to build up
a prosperous run.
Those who, like myself, have studied closely the tastes and intelligence of
this new force that is directing the destiny of the modern theatre must
have come to the conclusion that the essential factor in dramatic success
is "punch," or, as our cross-Atlantic cousins would term it, "pep." The day
of anæmic characterisation and subtle dissection of motives is past. The
audience (or the only part that really counts) has no desire to be called
upon to think; it can afford to pay others to do its thinking for it. There
is much to be said for this point of view. The War and its effects
(especially the Excess Profits Duty) have imposed on us all far too many
and too severe mental jerks; in the theatre we may well forget that we
possess such a thing as a mind.
As a charming and gifted little actress said to me only yesterday, "We want
something a bit meatier than the dry old bones of IBSEN'S ghosts." Well, I
am out to provide that something; my present success certainly does not
lack for flesh.
In producing _Shoo, Charlotte!_ I have taken several hints from that
formidable young rival of the articulate stage known as the Silent Drama.
There effects are flung at the spectator's head like balls at a cocoanut;
if they fail to register a hit it is the fault of the shier, not of the
nut. My aim throughout has been to throw hard and true, so that even the
thickest nut is left in no doubt as to the actuality of the impact. _Shoo,
Charlotte!_ makes no high-sounding attempt at improving the public taste.
As the dramatic critic of _The Sabbath Scoop_ pithily remarked, it is just
"one long feast of laughter and _lingerie_," and its nightly triumph is the
only vindication it requires.
The fundamental mistake of the British drama of to-day lies, in my humble
opinion, in its perpetual striving after the unexpected. The public, such
as I have described it, fights shy of novel situations; it isn't sure how
they ought to be taken. But give it a play where it knows exactly what is
going to happen next and you are rewarded with the delighted applause that
comes of prophecy fulfilled. The thrill or chuckle of anticipation is
succeeded by the shudder or guffaw of realisation. Father nudges Mother and
says, "Look, Emma, he's going to fall into the flour-bin." He does fall
into the flour-bin, and Father slaps his own or Mother's knee with a roar
of triumph. After all, the old dramatic formulæ were not drawn up without a
profound knowledge of human nature.
Let managers take a lesson from these few observations and they will no
longer go about seeking an answer to the riddle, "Why did the cocoanut
shy?"
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