AMERICAN THEATRES.
Ten years ago the theatres in America were thought immoral places:
and if Niblo’s theatre was frequented by the best class, it was for
no other reason, but because it did pass under Niblo’s garden. Though
every year the american theatre is gaining ground, and, as it seems,
time will bring it to the consideration which it deserves, it is still
in a state of infancy to what it should be: and it is just because it
is in a bad repute, that talented american writers did not yet display
their genius in such a rich branch of literature.
The ancient Greece, the mother of all nations in literature, was the
first to bring on the scene, the actions of man with which to instruct
the people, and inculcate morals, without preaching precepts: and as
the good example is the best instructor, such a moral is felt, and
followed by the people in earnest, and success: and while they laugh,
or weep, the agreeable pastime leaves in their mind strong impression
of virtue. The aim to inculcate morality, was so strict in those
ancient times of Greece, that a law was passed with which they would
not admit any play by any author, who was not twenty-five years of age.
Good theatres are so necessary to a civilized country, and such an
indisputable branch of literature, that, when I met in America persons,
who did object to them, it seemed as if I had come into a barbarous
country, and not into this very country, which can glory to possess
the best government of our present century throughout the world. We
have only to mention names of different nations to shame those, who
call the theatre an immoral place. Œschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
Plautus, Terence, Goldoni, Alfieri, Corneille, Racine, Lope de Vega,
Calderon, Moratin, Shakspeare, Otway, Shiller, Goethe; and here I will
say nothing of chinese or hindoo writers of comedy and tragedy, whose
works stand, and will stand as the best school of morality.
That many of the american theatres are rather on the immoral, than
on the moral side, I cannot deny it. But, if so, it is the fault of
the people, permitting such plays. The best thing may be turned into
an evil. The theatre is the school of all the fine arts; and were it
sustained by the people as a necessary thing, soon authors would write
classical plays. Classical authors, would form classical performers;
and classical performers, giving a good taste to the people; criticism
would improve authors, performers, and auditors: and the nation
becoming refined in the fine arts, the audience would not permit an
actor striking another on the stage. A moral people should not laugh in
seeing an actor degrading another in action, or words: and when such
bad actions are introduced by the author as a historical event, they
should always be represented with an aside, reproving the clownish act.
The laughter worthy of a civilized nation it is when wit, and decent
actions would be exhibited with feeling, and refinement.
Travesties, or parodies should be entirely banished from the stage, not
only because they injure the heroic actions; but, such actors exhibit
nothing else but a company of insanes; and as it is not moral to laugh
at insanes, we should banish from a moral place an immoral laughter. As
the tears shed over the misfortunes of others, enhance the nobility of
our heart, and the angry tears degrade us, so the laughter should not
be excited in a delicate mind, were it even aimed at the last of men:
a generous heart should always give to the most degraded, a chance to
esteem himself. Such a bad laughter has so bad an influence in society,
that ladies would laugh at every reasonable thing, uttered by the
gentleman they dislike, for no other purpose than to make of the honest
individual a stock of their pastime--when they have exhausted all their
kind feeling with their lover. There were fools among the ancient
courts to keep merry the ignorant kings and lords: and, before the
middle ages, human beings were killed, with long torments, for sport!
Perhaps no author did benefit more, and injured more at the same time a
national theatre, than Shakspeare. Such an extraordinary genius wrote
plays, which have not the common sense. Andronichus for instance,
is such an ugly monster, which must astonish every body who judge
by themselves, how Shakspeare could write such an unnatural play.
Andronichus is neither a tragedy, nor a parody. As Shakspeare had
never been crazy, I am inclined to believe he was drunk, when he wrote
Andronichus. That it was written by Shakspeare and by no body else, I
have no doubt, since we find the style, the wit, and the might of his
genius in it; a language which no body, but Shakspeare had ever been
able to coin. The Andronichus of Shakspeare proves, that men judge like
parrots in literature. Down to our days, all the learned say, that all
the works of Shakspeare are the nature itself. They cannot say even,
which is the best of them!
He who would deny a mighty genius in Shakspeare, might say, that the
sun is a dark body. But, he who would approve a Lavinia, acting more
than three acts, after Chiron and Demetrius had chopped off her arms,
and tongue, without going to bed, it shows how ridiculous must be
those, who find beauties in every thing Shakspeare did write.
My purpose here, is not to write a criticism on Shakspeare: but, no
lady in the world could fall in love with Richard the third, the
murderer of her husband, king Edward the fourth; and at the very moment
in which she is going to bury him. Were Elizabeth not a lady, the love
of ambition, might change a woman into a monster, at least, a month
after the crime was committed. But, to love a cruel monkey, in the
street, before the very victim, and this victim her beloved husband,
over whom five minutes ago she shed bitter tears; to love the very
Richard still reeking with her husband’s blood, at the very time in
which he uses violence in stopping the sacred burial, to love him, I
say, because he flatters her, it is the very parody, and the ridiculous
caricature with which he wanted demonstrate the power of flattery in
woman’s breast. Were woman such a selfish, vain, degraded being, the
honest man would shudder at, and feel aversion rather than love the
beauty. And if one of the best ladies has so low a mind, what shall we
think of those less perfect than Elizabeth? But, the hyperbole is such
a big one, for which nature wishes to have nothing to do with it. And
such a satire to woman, instead of striking at the purpose, it becomes
but a ridiculous exaggeration.
I brought here only these two instances to demonstrate, that, if the
english theatre has not yet reached the italian, or french perfection,
it is owing to a national, religious veneration for every thing written
by Shakspeare; and when the english critic will not be awed by the
great Shakspeare, and, really, Shakspeare is great, I do not see why
the english theatre will not be as good as any.
There is, perhaps, no present nation in the world more fitted to
improve the english theatre than America. And why? Sparta, Athens, and
Borne had been great republics, because the theatre instructed the
people in that _alto sentire_, in that patriotic feeling of virtue, and
noble actions, without which all the republics of the world had been
turned into monarchies, despotism, and tyranny. The best historical
facts are sorrowfully abandoned by a patriotic author, who he is
prevented from instructing his country fellows, under a monarchy:
and many, who did write tragedies, or comedies under despotism with
their free genius, suffered the vigilance of the iron rule. Shakspeare
himself, was under the vigilance of the despotic Elizabeth: and
although the present government of England is now the best of Europe,
the english subject does not, and had never understood the republican
feeling of Sparta, Athens, or Rome. England had never had a republic:
and the writer for a theatre must be a republican in his soul, and in
the centre of a happy republic. He who is afraid of being chained in
a dungeon, cannot tell to an unfortunate people all the evils of a
monarchy with which a king sucks the people’s blood; and the theatre
must needs be the palladium of truth, and people’s rights.
It is a fact; America is a republic, and I hope, she will sustain
herself as a republic with the improvements of the age. But, the
greater number of the americans are from english blood, which, though
brave, firm, and constant, has not yet felt that glowing, thrilling
existence which inflamed those hearts of Sparta, Athens, and Rome with
that heavenly flame of Prometheus. And the son cannot feel in his
blood, that which the father did never feel himself. The republics of
those times were nobility, and grandeur of thought; the republics of
ours are but calculation, money, and selfishness.
By degrees, education purifies our blood, and brings the human heart to
feel what our ancestors did not feel themselves. But, before a nation
will be able to reach the true, virtuous enthusiasm of a republic in
which man feels himself as being a part of heaven, it seems, we are
still doomed to pass in obscurity ages, and ages! The republican,
worthy of our race, I mean, of all men throughout the world, must not
think for himself. His country should think for him. His God, body,
and soul is his country: and to die for her, is his greatest reward. A
republic is a beneficient mother, who does not leave in want her best
generous children: and virtue with these is wealth, and prosperity.
A writer of comedies, or tragedies under a monarchial government,
writes only to please his princes; and the people, present in that
theatre, swallow from the mouth of subject actors, nothing but their
shame. It should be better that such a people would not go to such
a theatre. The individuals, there present, lose the dignity of man,
while in the theatres of Sparta, Athens, and Rome, every individual,
there present, felt his own dignity, as a virtuous member of society;
and from that theatre, everyone learned how to be a good, virtuous,
and useful citizen. Could we have in America, theatres like those of
Sparta, Athens, and Rome, this nation would be the glory of our age,
and posterity, as Sparta, Athens, and Rome were, and are the glory of
those, and these ages.