"My dear friend, as far as that grotesque realism is
concerned, which considers it its duty to get along
without stage management or prompter, that realism in
which a fifth act frequently fails to be reached because
a tile has fallen upon the hero's head in the second
act--I am not interested. As for myself, I let the
curtain go up when it begins to be amusing, and I let it
go down at the moment which I consider fit."
In these words, touched with a delicate flippancy which is thoroughly
characteristic, Arthur Schnitzler endeavours to summarise that
technique which, though it has lifted him to the summit of the Austrian
drama, is as yet comparatively unknown to the English public, if one
excepts the recent performance by the Stage Society of _The Green
Cockatoo_ and _Countess Mizzi_, and the production of _Anatol_ at the
Palace Music Hall.
It is, in fact, because Schnitzler's plays combining, and on the whole
combining efficiently, the psychological interest of pure "problem"
with the emotional interest of pure "drama," afford specimens of a
type novel to, at any rate, the majority of our theatre-goers, that
they provoke something more than a cursory examination, not only of
themselves, but of the standpoint and method of the man who wrote
them. Above all is this the case in a country like England, where
the problem play is hampered by so many handicaps. The exaggerated
officialdom of our English propriety, beneficial though it may be
from the moral aspect, produces artistically unfortunate results.
Many first-class problem plays are exiled from the stage, but that is
not where the mischief ends. Even when they are produced, it is only
to be looked on with suspicion as eccentric symptoms of dangerous,
not to say anarchistic tendencies. When, however, official and
"respectable" dramatists (_i.e._ dramatists of the stamp of Mr. Pinero
or of Mr. Sutro) produce so-called problem plays before official and
"respectable" audiences (_i.e._ audiences of a calibre other than
that of those who patronise the Little Theatre and Stage Society
performances), it will be usually found (if, indeed, the play is not
an innocuous family drama, or simply a comedy of intrigue, for in many
cases the word "problem" has degenerated into a mere euphemism for some
slight forgetfulness of the Seventh Commandment) that the dramatist
has sacrificed the duty of working out his problems logically and
artistically to the still more paramount duty of appeasing the moral
consciousness of his audience.
Further, it is one of the precepts of our dramatic technique, most
honoured in the observance, that the action should take place among
people of high social position; as, however, it so happens that it is
rather among the more intellectual and introspective of the middle
classes that genuine problems tend to arise, the scope of the dramatist
becomes automatically narrowed. Of course we have our dramatic left
wing, Mr. Shaw, Mr. Galsworthy, Mr. Barker, our ultra-modern exponents
of the drama of ideas and the drama of psychology. But here, again,
our revolutionaries overshoot the mark in their reaction from the
orthodox. Mr. Shaw will bombard us with ideas till we can hardly
stand. When, however, we have recovered our balance, we observe that,
however indisputable may be his pre-eminence as a thaumaturgic apostle
of a successfully dechristianised Christianity, his characters are
marked by comparatively few traits of individual psychology, and
participate in comparatively little dramatic action. It is, indeed,
with profound appreciation of his weakness that "talking" is set by
Mr. Shaw as a final seal on the _Superman_. Mr. Galsworthy and Mr.
Barker, it is true, do give us not only elaborate discussion of social
problems (though not infrequently an airy discussion of things in
general is dragged in forcibly with no, or little, reference to the
action of the play), but also refined and delicate delineations of
individual character. But with the possible exception of the grandiose
and monstrous _Waste_ and the statuesque thesis and antithesis of the
sociological _Strife_, their plays are not dramatic. To express it with
almost childish implicity, their plays are not "exciting." With a few
exceptions, they are charged with no atmosphere and abut at no climax.
Mere ideas, however, will not make the dramatic world go round, and
mere psychology often only makes it go flat. Few words are mouthed with
such fluent irresponsibility as "technique," but it may be said--and
said, we think, truly, and without affectation--that no play can be
a success without a certain minimum of "technique"; that is to say,
either one continuous thread of dramatic interest on which successive
acts are strung, or some particular arch-effect to which (especially if
a one-acter) the whole play abuts, and to the atmosphere of which all
the elements are harmoniously toned.
The vice of the English drama, then, is this: plays of good technical
mechanism possess little or no "problem" interest; plays of "problem"
or psychological interest possess little or no technical mechanism.
Let us, consequently, glancing first at his plays, and perhaps later
at those short stories which stand in the most intimate relation
to his one-acters, ascertain to what extent Schnitzler has solved
successfully the great "problem of the problem."
_Liebelei_, which was produced first in 1895, is an excellent example
both of Schnitzler's powers and of Schnitzler's limitations. The
_motif_ of the play is the problem of the refined middle-class girl,
who stands, if we may borrow the terminology of popular melodrama, at
the cross-roads. Which turning is it better for her to take--the right
turning, or the wrong turning?
Fritz, a sentimental young Viennese student, is discussing in his rooms
the affairs of his heart with the saner and more practical Theodor.
Fritz is melancholy. He has been sustaining a grand passion for a
married woman, but the looming shadow of the husband obsesses him. Are
his nerves playing him tricks, or has the husband ascertained?
Theodor advises him to sail in shallower and less troubled waters. "You
must go for your happiness where I did--and found it, too--where there
are no great scenes, no dangers, and no tragic developments, where
the first steps are not particularly hard and the last, again, are
not painful, where one receives the first kiss with a smile and parts
finally with the softest feeling."
Scruples are out of place on the principle, "Better myself than someone
else, and the someone else is as inevitable as Fate."
Theodor, moreover, has not only prescribed the cure, but has ordered
the medicine. Enter Mizzi, the actual "happiness" of Theodor,
and Christine, the prospective "happiness" of Fritz. Mizzi the
practical prepares supper, while the sweet _naïveté_ of the genuinely
unsophisticated Christine captivates the jaded soul of our _fin de
siècle_ romantic. There ensues a scene of the most delicate gaiety
and camaraderie. All is health and goodwill. Even Mizzi the prosaic
shows her passion for the picturesque on learning that Fritz is in the
Dragoons:
MIZZI. Are you in the yellow or the black?
FRITZ. I'm in the yellow.
MIZZI. (_dreamily_). In the yellow.
Could there be a more subtle probing into the soul of the
novelette-reading shopgirl?
Then, at the zenith of the feast, when glasses are clinking and souls
are flowing, enter the skeleton. The company is packed into the next
room, and Fritz is left to arrange a duel with the man whom he has
wronged. Exit the skeleton, re-enter the revellers; yet the shadow of
the looming death casts a gloom even over the unconscious minds of
the others. The girls bid a gay farewell to the young men, but the
aftermath of the old love is already poisoning the sweets of the new.
The next scene is in the lodgings of Christine on the eve of that duel
of which the love-stricken girl is in blissful ignorance. Christine,
_bien entendu_, in contradistinction to the casual and heart-whole
Mizzi, is taking her love-affair with the maximum of seriousness.
Katherine, a benevolent busybody of a neighbour, puts Weiring, the
musician father of Christine, on his guard. Weiring, however, having
been the uncomplaisant brother of his sister, is determined, on the
strength of his experience, to be the complaisant father of his
daughter.
WEIRING. I became, Heaven knows, proud, and gloried in
my conduct--and then, little by little, the grey hairs
came and the wrinkles, and one day went by another
till her whole youth was gone--and gradually, so that
one could scarcely notice it, the young girl became an
old maid, and then I first began to suspect what I had
really done.
KATHERINE. But, Herr Weiring....
WEIRING. I can see how she often used to sit with me in
the evening by this lamp in this room, with her silent
smile, with a strange kind of devotion, as if she still
wished to thank me for something, and I--the one thing
I wanted most to do was to throw myself on my knees and
ask for her forgiveness for guarding her so well from
all dangers and from all happiness.
The act ends with a love-scene between Christine and Fritz, poignant in
its irony. He is all-in-all to her, she is just something to him; but
he goes off to fight a duel on account of another woman without so much
as bidding her a real farewell.
In the third act the news of Fritz's death is broken to Christine,
and here comes the most subtle and delicate touch of all. Poignant as
is her grief at his death, her grief at the casual flippancy of his
treatment is even more poignant. Our _fin de siècle_ Ophelia rushes
madly out of the house to commit suicide in the nearest brook, or
perhaps more probably under the nearest train, to point the philosophic
moral, "_A bas la grande passion! Vive l'Amourette!_"
The play, however, should be read or seen to obtain an adequate
appreciation of the precision with which each character is drawn, the
spontaneity with which the dialogue flows, and the lyric pathos with
which the whole is invested. The limitations, such as they are, simply
lie in the fact that each act is self-complete in itself. However
good they may be, three consecutive one-acters never made a drama.
To compare great things with low, each act of a drama, like each
instalment of a _feuilleton_, should leave, as it were, the hanging
tag of some vital interrogation. The dramatic banquet should not only
regale the mind of the spectator during, but titillate it with the
aftermath between the acts.
As we shall see later, when he comes to dramatise on the larger
scale, Schnitzler not infrequently exhibits the defects of those very
qualities which make him so supreme in the sphere of the one-acter.
In _Märchen_ (the Fairy Tale), on the other hand, the problem is
brought more officially into the foreground of the play, while each
act is more closely connected with those which follow or precede it.
Fedor Denner, a romantic young journalist (nearly all Schnitzler's
young men are highly romantic), is in love with Fanny, a young actress
on the threshold of theatrical success, and of those dangers which
follow so closely in the wake of theatrical success. Fedor, moreover,
is not only romantic, he is modern--ultra-modern. And so, in the
inspiring atmosphere of Fanny's home circle, where the mother bustles
about with the refreshments and the "good" piano-teacher of a sister
discourses music for the edification of the journalists, painters, and
students who frequent the house, he gives an impassioned little lecture
on the "Fairy Tale of the Fallen Woman" and on the "washed-out views
and dead-beat ideas" of which the fairy tale is composed. The little
lecture, however, goes off just a little too successfully. In a climax,
marvellous in its tacit concentration, Fanny takes an opportunity
of kissing his hand. Fedor is revolted, however, by the revelation
implied in this pathetic gratitude. He had contemplated marriage, but
now----. For the time being he nurses in solitary misery all the pangs
of retrospective jealousy. Then Fanny, unable to bear the separation,
rushes headlong into his arms. Then comes the great act of the play. We
are back once more in the house of Fanny's mother. The young actress,
having scored a brilliant success on the Vienna stage, has been offered
a splendid contract in St. Petersburg by Moritzki, the agent. If,
however, she goes to St. Petersburg, she will have to face the pains
and pleasures of life unsheltered by the respectability of a family.
The problem is acute. Fanny, however, places the Fate of her life on
the knees of--Fedor. And Fedor shuffles and vacillates.
FANNY. Come, and you--what do you say yourself?
FEDOR. After you have received Herr Moritzki at the
house you can scarcely seriously mean to refuse him.
FANNY. Herr Denner, I consider you an exceptionally
shrewd man, I ask you for your advice.
FEDOR. Yes, I think ... I would accept.
Fanny. Good! [_To_ Moritzki.] Herr Moritzki.
Woman-like, however, having signed the contract, she craves time to
reconsider. Fedor looks at it again.
FANNY. Fedor--you gave me the contract back.
FEDOR. Well, yes.
FANNY. You should have torn it up, dear. Why didn't you
do it?
FEDOR. You should not have signed it, Fanny.
FANNY. Fedor! It is unbearable--you're driving me out of
my senses.
FEDOR. But you yourself don't quite know your own mind.
There's something in you which craves for adventures.
FANNY. Fedor--if you would only put me to the test--I
will do anything you want--only tell me.
And then, eventually, Fedor owns up.
FEDOR. Would I not still have to kiss away from your
lips the kisses of other men?
And so Fanny forsakes the life of domesticity for the life of the
actress.
The chief defect, however, in this play is that, in spite of all its
dramatic compound of psychology, pathos, and problem, the problem is
not fairly presented, in that Fanny, being of inferior social status
to Fedor, the question of whether he shall marry her must inevitably
be influenced by purely snobbish considerations. It is only when the
woman is of equal, if not slightly superior, rank to the man that the
real problem of her ante-nuptial chastity can be discussed with real
sociological fairness.
In _Die Vermächtniss_ (produced in Berlin in 1898), the problem which
our dramatist has made the centre of his play is the relation to the
family of the mistress and child of the dead son of the house. The
dashing young cavalry officer is brought home fatally wounded from
a fall from his horse. Realising his approaching death, he informs
his parents of his responsibilities. Death raises the home circle to
a pitch of more than ordinary humanity. In spite of their poignant
jealousy at the existence of other affections and another home life,
they send for their son's household, and accede to his dying request to
incorporate it into the family.
Act II shows the mistress installed in the bosom of her lover's family.
Modernity, however, though satisfying to the heroic pose, has its
penalties. Our ultra-modern family finds itself confronted with social
ostracism. Still, they love their grandchild, and the mother of the
grandchild is the price that they must pay. But the grandchild dies.
The semi-official daughter-in-law consequently becomes a somewhat
unprofitable luxury, and in the final act is given her _congé_. Even
more than in _Liebelei_, however, the claim to merit lies almost
exclusively in the precision with which each successive phase of
the problem is portrayed. As a series of family pictures, the play
succeeds, and succeeds brilliantly; as a drama of continuous interest,
it fails, and fails hopelessly.
The next play of Schnitzler is _The Veil of Beatrice._ This "tragedy
of sensualism" has qualities too arresting to be lightly disregarded.
The dramatist has forsaken his problems to portray how the fatal
temperament of a young girl of the Italian Renaissance works out its
own destruction.
In the first act, we are shown the garden of Filippo, a poet of
Bologna, which is on the eve of being plundered by the enemy. The
heads on Bolognese shoulders are worth little purchase, and who leaves
not the town to-night will never leave the town at all. The Duke
invites Filippo to the palace to recite his poems. Filippo refuses,
so that he may leave the city of doom with his beloved Beatrice,
a daughter of the people. On learning, however, that Beatrice has
dreamt of the Duke, he spurns her in an egoistic paroxysm of refined
jealousy, typical in its subtlety more of the twentieth century than
the Renaissance.
"So much I give thee, more than thou canst dream,
So much that to be worthy of my love,
Loathing should fasten on thee at the thought
This earth is trod by other men than I."