IN THE PLAYHOUSE
Laughter
Of late years there has been a good deal of censure, most of it
unwritten, upon the stage management of plays. Despite brilliant
exhibitions of the art of stage management by people such as Pinero and
Mr Granville Barker, there have been more bad performances in modern
times than of old.
The matter is one into which it is needless to go at large upon the
present occasion; yet there is one vice that should be mentioned. We
often have much loud laughter upon the stage that hardly causes so much
as a faint echo on the other side of the footlights. Now, when the
characters in a piece laugh heartily, or at least loudly, at something
supposed to divert them, which does not appeal successfully to the sense
of humour of the audience, the effect is disastrous. It is exasperating
to hear laughter--even feigned laughter--in which one cannot join.
There are people who believe that laughter is infectious, and that if
the persons of the play laugh a great deal the audience will catch the
infection. This is not universally or even generally true. A few
individual players no doubt have an infectious laugh. Samary was famous
for it, and her laughter in one of Molière's farces drew all Paris; and
another French actress by her prodigious laughter in a farce at the
Royalty raised the audience to hearty sympathetic outbursts. Most
players, however, though they may mimic laughter very well, are unable
to make the audience laugh sympathetically, unless really amused by what
is supposed to entertain the characters of the play.
If someone were to invent a laughter-recording machine and use it in the
theatre during farces the stage-managers would be amazed to find how
often it happens that the noise of laughter made by two or three persons
on the stage is greater than that made by the whole audience; whenever
this occurs it is certain that a kind of irritation is being bred in the
house for which someone has to suffer.
This is the sort of thing that happens. A character enters and announces
that something very ludicrous has befallen another character, and
proceeds to state what it is to the other persons in the scene, the
statement being interrupted by his outbursts of laughter, and they in
turn roar and hold their sides; yet often enough what is being told does
not seem very amusing to us--even, perhaps, appears puerile--so we are
vexed, and smile coldly at the piece and players. If the laughter on the
stage were more moderate ours would not be the less, and we should feel
more benevolent to the play and laugh with greater freedom if and when
something funny took place.
The whole question of laughter is curious and difficult. There is one
fairly constant first-nighter whose loud laughter upon insufficient
provocation sometimes irritates the house, to the prejudice of the play;
not long ago one of our young actresses laughed so immoderately, as a
spectator, at trifles during a performance that some of the audience
actually uttered inarticulate sounds, intended to suggest to her that
she should be quieter.
Everybody knows the terrible people who laugh in a theatre at the wrong
place, or indulge in the wrong kind of laughter, and are hilarious
during pathetic passages, the pathos of which is heightened by touches
of cruel humour. Some commit this crime from simple stupidity, not
perceiving that the humour is tragic, not comic; others because they
think that dignity of character is shown if they refuse to be moved by
imaginary woes. The person is hateful who cannot shed an honest, if
furtive, tear at a finely conceived and executed pathetic incident in a
play, and the more if he is proud of his insensibility or lack of
imagination; and we love an honest fellow who, like Jules Janin, wept
"_comme un veau_" during _La Dame aux Camellias_. Such insensible
creatures resemble "the man that hath no music in himself." Sometimes
their conduct is so severely resented by audible protest that they are
shamed into restraint.
It seems quite a long time since we have had a genuine debauch of hearty
laughter in the theatre, of "Laughter holding both his sides." There has
been a great deal of laughter, but it must be remembered that there are
several kinds of laughter. So much difference exists between one species
of laughter and another that the close observer can guess from the
nature of the laughter in the theatre what is the sort of piece which
provokes it.
No doubt the subject of laughter is one of great difficulty. On the
point one may quote a passage from Darwin: "Many curious discussions
have been written on the causes of laughter with grown-up persons. The
subject is extremely complex ... laughter seems primarily to be the
expression of mere joy or happiness. The laughter of the gods is
described by Homer as 'the exuberance of their celestial joy after their
daily banquet.'" This, perhaps, hardly agrees with the popular idea of
the term "Homeric laughter."
It may be that in the phrases of Darwin one sees a key to the difference
between the laughter at witty dialogue and the laughter caused by comic
situation, the former being an expression of intellectual amusement, not
necessarily accompanied by "mere joy or happiness," whilst the latter is
to a great extent the outcome of simple, non-intellectual human
pleasure. In the case of a witty comedy one hears ripples of laughter
rather than waves, and they have no cumulative effect, one may even
laugh during a great part of the evening without reaching that agony of
laughter which comes from an intensely funny situation--in fact, each
laugh at dialogue is to some extent independent of the others. In the
case of a funny situation there is a crescendo, and sometimes each
outburst of laughter begins at the highest point reached by the outburst
before it, till an intense pitch is attained; and, in fact, there is
really no complete subsidence at all till the top of the climax is
arrived at, but one is chuckling in between every spasm.
The term "screamingly funny" has a real meaning; one reaches an almost
screaming pitch that leads to something like physical exhaustion, and
certainly causes an aching of the sides, and even tears.
Another quotation from Darwin: "During excessive laughter the whole body
is often thrown backwards and shakes, or is almost convulsed; the
respiration is much disturbed; the head and face become gorged with
blood, with the veins distorted; and the orbicular muscles are
spasmodically contracted in order to protect the eyes. Tears are freely
shed." On this one may refer to a phrase by Sir Joshua Reynolds: "It is
curious to observe, and it is certainly true, that the extremes of
contrary passions are, with very little variation, expressed by the same
action." Yet another passage from Darwin: "With Europeans hardly
anything excites laughter so easily as mimicry, and it is rather curious
to find the same fact with the savages of Australia, who constitute one
of the most distinct races in the world."
Probably the enjoyment of the spectator simply as an animal is higher,
if in a sense lower, when it comes from situations than when it is due
to dialogue. Of course there is no sharp line of demarcation. One
understands, however, why successful farce is more popular than a
successful comedy, even if afterwards the audience suffer a little from
aching sides; the ache itself causes a pleasurable memory.
Some time ago there was a popular comic picture of the awakening of a
young man who had been very drunk the night before, and was suffering
from a headache and a black eye, and clearly had had some exciting
adventures, of which his memory was faint; the simple legend attached
was, "What a ripping time I must have had last night!" One can imagine
the playgoer after the farce, rare, alas! which honestly may be called
side-splitting, saying to himself next morning, "What a ripping time I
must have had last night!" and advising all his friends to go and see
the play.
Smoking in the Auditorium
At last permission has been given, and the statement "You may smoke" can
be printed on the programmes of the theatres licensed by the L.C.C.; and
it is believed that the Lord Chamberlain is willing to follow suit.
Some of our more important managers have already announced that they
will not permit smoking in the auditorium of their playhouses, nor is
this surprising. Some of us would sooner sacrifice our own smoke than
get a headache from that of others; and the reason for the rareness of
our attendance at music-halls is that we have to pay for every visit by
a smarting of the eyes and a feeling in the head somewhat like that
caused by the famous Sicilian torture.
What the ladies suffer goodness and they--the terms are perhaps
synonymous--alone know. If and when the Suffragettes come into power, we
shall have a prodigious counterblast to tobacco that would delight the
Stuart James of unsainted memory or the now illustrious Balzac. For
although the militant sex has many members who rejoice in a cigarette,
the majority are bitterly adverse to an expensive habit, offensive to
those who do not practise it, and exceedingly uncoquettish when indulged
in seriously. Probably if the reign of My Lady Nicotine had never begun,
and if no other enslaving habit of a like nature had taken a similar
place, the theatres would be better off than at present. Permission to
smoke will not deal with the difficulty; yet probably the habit of
smoking keeps a very large number of people away from the theatre.
Without proposing to win any of the colossal prizes offered to people
who guess the quantity of tobacco imported into this country in a
particular month, one may venture to assert that there has been a
tremendous increase in smoking during the last twenty years; and,
indeed, we all know that the man who does not smoke is almost a
curiosity nowadays.
The rules of offices, the customs of certain trades, the etiquette of
some professions, and the like, prevent a great many men from having
more than a trifling flirtation with tobacco till after dinner. The
greedy smoker may get a pipe after breakfast, a whiff during lunch-time,
and a pipe before dinner, which he takes distrustfully, because he has
been told not to smoke on an empty stomach, but he looks to the hours
after dinner for the debauch that turns his lungs from pink to brown.
Moreover, there are many men who do not care to smoke till after dinner.
What a deprivation to all these to be bustled through a shortened
dinner, to be scalded by coffee hastily drunk, and merely get a few
puffs before they find themselves in a playhouse, where, by the way, so
that insult may be added to injury, they often watch the actors smoking
comfortably. A wise manager would not allow smoking _on_ the stage
except in very rare cases. The _entr'actes_ amount to little; there is a
rush of smokers, but many cannot leave their seats without giving
offence to their companions, and some are too timid to fight their way
from the centre of a row; and, after all, the _entr'acte_ smoke, which
takes place in a crowd so thick that you cannot tell the flavour of your
own cigarette from that of other people, is rather irritating than
satisfying. Of course there remains the period after the theatre, but it
is comparatively brief for the man of whom we are speaking, since after
the labours of the day and the fatigue of the evening he is tired enough
to be rather anxious for sleep.
When the British householder is invited to take his womenfolk to the
theatre, the thought that he will have to make such a sacrifice affects
his judgment, a fact of which he is probably unaware. Very often it is
the determining cause of refusal, and when he thinks consciously of it,
of course he is not so foolish as to put it forward, but pleads this and
that and indeed every other cause for keeping away. Many times have men
said, "I don't care to go to the theatre unless there is something
awfully good, because one is not allowed to smoke"; and the question may
well be asked, What is offered to the man in place of his cigar or pipe?
Shakespeare, unless severely adapted, and, in fact, treated as the book
for a picturesque musico-dramatic performance, does not appeal very
movingly to _l'homme moyen sensuel_, nor do the sentimental puppet
stories which form the stock of our theatre fascinate him. A rousing
farce will serve, but then the womenfolk do not want that. They are all
for sentiment and dainty frocks which they may
imitate--unsuccessfully--and for handsome heroes and love-making and
other prettinesses which appeal to the daughters who live a kind of
second-hand life in them, and to the mothers rendered for a while young
by them, whilst paterfamilias looks on, uncomfortable in his seat,
irritated very often by draughts which his _décolletée_ dame does not
notice--till afterwards--a little curious as to the cost of the whole
affair, and after a while, in a state of semi-somnolence, thinking a
good deal of the events of the day and the Alpine attitude of the Bank
rate or the slump in Consols.
The poor dear man would be in a better humour if he were allowed his
pipe. According to the French, the plain housewife looks charming to her
husband when seen through the fumes of a good soup, and so too the plays
of Mr ---- (perhaps it is wise to suppress the name) might appear
entertaining to the British householder if a cloud of tobacco smoke were
to intervene.
One of the victims made a suggestion the other day which may be worth
consideration. "Why not," he said, "add to the theatre a comfortable
kind of club-room, where a fellow might see the papers, and perhaps have
a game of bridge, or even billiards, when the curtain was up, whilst he
could keep his wife in good humour by paying her a call during the
intervals?" There is something rather touching in the idea of a little
crowd trooping in instead of bustling out when the curtain falls.
The innovation might at least have one advantage--it would force the
managers to be intelligent enough to make a really audible noise a few
minutes before the end of each _entr'acte_, so as to give people the
chance of settling down in their places before the curtain rises. Of the
many incomprehensible things connected with the theatre one of the most
puzzling is the fact that quite conscientious playgoers get caught
outside the auditorium after the curtain is up. The management is
anxious that as many people as possible should go to the bars, yet they
render it very difficult to get there; they desire that those who have
gone should return to their seats before the curtain rises, lest
friction should be caused, but all they do as a rule is to ring some
inaudible bell, and cause the attendant to whisper, as if delicately
announcing bad news, "Curtain just going up, gentlemen," and neither
curtain nor whisper gives long enough time to enable people to settle
down comfortably.
It is to be feared that this sort of club idea would not really work,
for reasons some of them quite obvious. The fact remains that
paterfamilias, still a person of some importance, is invited to
patronize the theatre, and not only asked to pay a good deal of money in
order to do so but forced to make a number of physical sacrifices; and
at the end is offered, as a rule, the kind of piece not intended to
please him, but designed for the taste of his womenfolk.
Here we see one of the reasons for the popularity of the musical comedy.
The householder is not required to trouble himself to understand a plot
which hardly exists; he may go to sleep if he pleases, or think over his
affairs in between the tit-bits without losing the thread; there are
simple tunes, which certainly aid his digestion, and broad elementary
humours that appeal to his sense of fun; and, if he is in a sentimental
vein, whatever love-making there may be in the piece has no subtlety to
exasperate him.
Despite these things, let us hope that the West End managers will be
hostile to the smoking; for, after all, far too much of our drama at
present is intended to please the comfortable Philistine and his
appropriate womenfolk; and the people keenly interested in drama as a
branch of art are prepared even to sacrifice a pipe or a cigar in the
pursuit of their peculiar and hardly popular pleasure. Moreover, it is
likely the theatres would exhibit the snobbishness of the fashionable
halls and restaurants and taboo the pipe which every wise man prefers to
the cigar or cigarette for serious smoking.
Conduct of the Audience
When Mr Joseph Holbrooke was conducting the overture to _Pierrot and
Pierrette_ at His Majesty's Theatre he interrupted the orchestra in
order to request some members of the audience to stop talking. These
speakers were people in the stalls, and the composer-conductor could
hear that their conversation was about shopping--not Chopin, which,
alas! is sometimes pronounced as if the name rhymed with "popping."
No one can feel surprised that a composer finds it impossible to do his
work adequately as conductor when there is audible conversation among
members of the audience. Mr Holbrooke drew attention to what happens
very often in our playhouses: people come apparently entertaining the
idea that if they have paid for their seats they owe no duty towards
their neighbours or the author, composer or players. This idea,
unfortunately, is not confined to those who have paid for their seats,
since some of the dramatic critics, and also several of the ordinary
"deadheads," set a bad example.
The most noisome offenders are those who come late on purpose, because
they are anxious to draw public attention to their existence. They, of
course, are snobs of the worst water, whatever their social status or
the cost of their clothes, furs and jewellery; you see them bustling in
a quarter of an hour after the curtain has risen, shoving their way
along past people who rise reluctantly, and hear them chattering whilst
they take off cloaks and wraps before settling down in their seats. Very
little less detestable are those who, arriving late unwillingly, behave
otherwise in the same fashion. One of these brawlers defended herself by
alleging that there ought to be a gangway down the middle of the stalls,
and that her conduct was a protest.
Of course there ought to be a gangway, and some day the County Council
will insist upon the formation of one in every theatre, or else force
the manager to put the rows of stalls so far apart that people can pass
along them in comfort. We know that on the whole managers do not care
much about the comfort of their patrons; they seem to act on the
supposition that plays are of only two classes, those so attractive that
you cannot keep the public away and those so unattractive that you
cannot get it to come.
The London _théâtre de luxe_ is still a dream of the future, though
undoubtedly some playhouses are vastly more comfortable than others. The
authorities are lax in this matter, as in the matter of exits; the crush
in getting out of most of the playhouses is abominable. No doubt there
are extra exits which might be used in case of peril; people ought to be
compelled to use them every night, so that a habit would be established
on the part of audiences and also of the attendants.
The patience with which the audience endures the misconduct of some of
its members is surprising. We hear inarticulate noises of disapproval
when people gossip in the stalls and occasionally somebody goes so far
as to whisper "Don't talk"; the result is that the chatterers chatter
rather more quietly for a little while, and soon are as noisy as before.
Frequently some members laugh scornfully at pathetic passages moving the
heart of most of the house, and this laughter is often due to a snobbish
desire to show superiority to those who weep.
We have heard something lately of a phrase about "collective psychology
and the psychology of crowds." The phenomenon referred to very rarely
has much effect in the London playhouses at the first night: on these
occasions there are too many discordant elements. Most of the critics
form non-conductors to the passage of what has been regarded as
analogous to an electrical current, and their non-conductivity is very
little greater than that of many of the people who receive complimentary
tickets or have the honour of being on the first-night list. Perhaps
the general public is unaware that the more fashionable theatres have a
list of people to whom is accorded a preferential allotment of seats.
Sometimes there is a momentary thrill; one feels distinctly that the
audience is in unison, and that the pitch of feeling of the individual
is heightened by the feelings of the crowd. These moments are generally
caused by pieces of acting or by what is rarely contrived, and can only
happen once in the history of a piece, a successful, effective surprise.
As an instance, there was a unanimous gasp of surprise and pleasure at
the brilliant _coup de théâtre_ with which John Oliver Hobbes ended a
difficult scene in _The Ambassador_, and then came a prodigious outburst
of applause. What a loss to our stage the premature death of that
admirable novelist, who showed an amazing gift for the technique of the
theatre.
One reads not unfrequently accounts of an exhibition of this "collective
psychology" in the playhouse, even in the London theatres. Some of such
accounts are untrustworthy, and due to mere hysterical writing by those
who profess to record them. No doubt the curious shyness of the English
plays its part: a man will laugh, or clap his hands, or hiss, or "boo"
when others are so doing, who from mere _mauvaise honte_--a convenient
untranslatable term--would make no noise if alone. Perhaps one might
safely say that the smaller the crowd the smaller relatively as well as
absolutely the noise due to the exhibition of the emotion of its
component parts. This, however, has little to do with the phenomenon in
question, which very rarely operates in London, because the upper
classes think it ungenteel to express emotion in public.
People read stories of scenes of "tremendous enthusiasm" on a first
night, of Miss or Mrs A or Mr B receiving a dozen calls: as a rule they
are absurdly exaggerated--they mean that the bulk of the pit and gallery
have applauded heartily and persistently, and so, too, a small
proportion of people in the upper boxes, dress circle, and stalls, the
ratio steadily decreasing; that the employees of "the front of the
house" energetically did their duty; in many cases that the unrecognized
claque has earned its fee; that the curtain has been raised and lowered
with frantic energy, and that a large number of people, after some
preliminary clapping, regarded the scene with curiosity and amusement,
their pulses beating at quite a normal pace.
Things may be different in other lands. Perhaps our ancestors were less
"genteel," certainly there were fewer "non-conductors" in the houses;
but still it is doubtful whether belief should be given to some of the
old stories about tremendous exhibitions of emotion in the playhouse.
One has to discount many of the triumphs of great singers because there
is an element of desire for an "encore" in them. Moreover, music is
beside the question, because its appeal is of a different character from
that of drama.
These remarks may seem to have a grudging tone, to sound as if one
desired to belittle the triumphs of the stage: in reality their object
is simply to state what a careful observer regards as facts bearing upon
an interesting, important question. Broadly speaking, it is doubtful
whether in our theatres the phenomenon discussed under the name of "the
psychology of crowds" is manifested to a substantial effect, except on
very rare occasions, partly, no doubt, because a London audience is
intensely heterogeneous--a wave of emotion in a West End playhouse has
to surmount a large number of obstacles, losing force at each, or, to
change the figure, a current of emotion has to pass through a great many
bad conductors.
In respect only of laughter does the crowd exercise its power at all
frequently, and then, as a rule, the subject-matter is not of the finest
quality. Laughter certainly is infectious, curiously infectious, but it
is more catching when caused by farce than by comedy. Few of us could
deny that, as a member of the crowd, he has not sometimes laughed
against his will and judgment at matters possessing a humble standard of
humour. We are not grateful afterwards to the author or the low
comedians--we suffer from an unpleasant loss of self-respect when we
have been coerced by the crowd into laughing at mere buffooneries.
Concerning the Pit
Sometimes the ticket sent for a first night suggests a belief by the
manager in the theory that the further one is from the stage the better
one can see and hear--a theory which is accepted as accurate by none
save the managers themselves. Possibly the seats in question are
allotted in order to keep us at an agreeable distance from the
orchestra, which in many theatres is altogether undesirable, or at least
plays much music of an exasperating character. When such tickets come,
and the seat is in the last row of the stalls, it is worth while to go
to the theatre unpunctually before the appointed time.
By the way, it is noticeable that theatres are divisible into two
classes--those at which the curtain is raised with a military severity
at the very moment when the clock strikes, and others where a quarter
of an hour's grace is given--to the players. In the case of French
companies, old hands never hesitate about playing "another hundred up"
before starting for the playhouse. A wise manager would be guided a
little by the weather and always allow a few minutes' margin when it is
foggy or rainy, for the audiences are necessarily delayed by such
weather.
By getting to one's seat early, even before the time when the band is
indulging in that part of its performance which is said to have been
peculiarly agreeable to the Shah of Persia who visited London in the
seventies, we enjoy certain humours.
Incidentally, it may be asked whether the ordinary playgoer exactly
appreciates the position of the last rows of the stalls. Probably he
believes that there is a gulf fixed between the stalls and the pit, and
does not know that there is merely a barrier. Now a barrier can be
removed easily--a gulf cannot. When paying his half-guinea the simple
visitor imagines that the difference between the price of his seat and
that of a place in the pit is to a great extent based upon an advantage
of nearness--although it appears that some managers do not think that
propinquity involves a gain.
As a matter of fact, a considerable portion of the floor of the house is
occupied by stalls or pit, according to the nature of the business done
in the theatre. If a piece is not attracting fashionable folk the
barrier is moved towards the footlights, the chairs are changed to
benches, and the place which at the _première_ some deadhead proudly
occupied as a stall takes a "back seat," and sinks to the indignity of
becoming pit; and, of course, the converse sometimes happens.
It is amusing to hear the people on the other side discussing the
entrance of the stall first-nighters, many of whom are identified. One
hears comments upon the gowns, and sometimes severe remarks about the
alleged misdeeds of the professional critics, as well as unflattering
observations concerning the personal appearance of some of us. We might
a tale unfold that would freeze a good many young bloods, but for a nice
question of confidence.
The inhabitants of the pit really deserve a study. It may be said that
they are sometimes more interesting than the play itself. There is a
tradition that wisdom lies in the pit as Truth at the bottom of a well.
Many articles have been written pointing out that the judgment of the
pit is sounder than the opinion of other parts of the house, that the
pitites are the real, serious, reflective, critical playgoers whose
views are worth more than those of the playgoers either in the gallery
or the most costly seats.
For a long time some of us believed in this tradition, probably, in
fact, until circumstances caused us to move forward and study plays from
the other side of the ambulatory barrier. One thing is certain--the pit
plays a very great part in determining on a first night the apparent
failure or success of a play, for on most occasions comparatively little
noise is made by way of applause or condemnation save in the pit and
gallery.
The stalls are remarkably frigid, though, on the other hand, they never,
or hardly ever, show any active signs of disapproval. Somewhat false
impressions are produced upon critics nearer to the footlights than the
back seats. One of them the other day stated "the fall of the curtain
was greeted with hearty and long-sustained applause from all parts of
the house." Yet three of us noted--and compared notes--that after a
little clapping, followed by one elevation of the curtain, the stalls
did not contribute at all to the cheers. That evening there was a
peculiarity in the pit's applause. It was "patchy." Here and there
little groups were very noisy, and at the wings were some people from
the "front of the house," quite enthusiastic about a performance of
which they could have seen very little if they had attended to their
duties, whilst there were noiseless areas of considerable size.
There is no need to suggest that the pit lacks judgment merely because
it is composed very largely of those from whose mouths, according to the
Psalmist, cometh forth wisdom; not, indeed, that in our West End houses
there are present those very youthful playgoers who cause a disturbance
by their audible refusal of the attendant's proposal of "ginger-beer,
lemonade, bottled ale, or ... stout," being tired perhaps of the
last-named beverage owing to the quantities they have
taken--vicariously. Nevertheless, the pit on many first nights is
wonderfully young; indeed, we calculated the other night that the
average age of its temporary inhabitants was much less than half that of
the distinguished company representing the play, and considerably less
than that of the people whose late arrival caused murmurs and even words
of disapproval.
It is natural for youth to be more enthusiastic than middle age, so one
may easily explain the fact that the pit is more exuberant in
demonstration than the stalls without the theory of the electrical
effect of contact on crowds, a theory which every journalist at some
stage of his career believes himself to be the first to have discovered.
Not only are they very youthful in the pit, but they have grace as well
as youth. The other night in the front row there were only three members
of the sex which does not know how to get out of a shop without making a
purchase, and in the back rows, although the percentage of "angels" was
not so high, it was quite noteworthy. Probably in all parts of the
house, except at one or two theatres, there is a preponderance of women
in the audience, and this may have some subtle connexion with the
converse proportion of male and female characters in the cast; it may be
observed that there is some change in the proportion of the sexes at
theatres where there is no actor whose photographs sell prodigiously.
A sort of alteration seems quietly taking place in the costume of the
pit, and not a few of the young ladies have come very close to a
solution of a problem baffling to the Englishwomen belonging to what one
may fairly regard as of somewhat higher stratum--the problem of
inventing and wearing a demi-toilette.
It should be added that in some theatres the critics have good seats
allotted to them. Indeed as a rule the courtesy shown to us is in
something like direct ratio to the importance of the management.
Speaking for a moment seriously, one may say that whilst the ordinary
first-night pit is full of enthusiasts, it would be rash to attach very
great value to its manifestations of opinion concerning the value of
really ambitious plays, though in respect of most pieces, and
performances too, its judgment may be regarded as satisfactory, since it
fairly represents those aimed at by authors and players. The higher
class of comedy and the severely intellectual drama demand a more mature
judgment.
Why do we go to the Theatre?
To ask why people go to the theatre seems silly; for the answer appears
to be quite obvious; yet as soon as one answer is offered half-a-dozen
others suggest themselves. Let us put down a few roughly: for
entertainment, for amusement, for distraction, for instruction, to see
the play or players in vogue, to be seen, to have something to talk
about. Also there are cross-divisions and combinations of these; perhaps
none of them is quite exclusive. Another question may be asked: Why do
people stay away though able to go? How is it that some find
insufficient pleasure in them?--for "pleasure" may be used as a term
embracing the first four answers.
A cook, a Frenchwoman, once in the service of a dramatic critic, did not
visit the theatre, and stated as her reason for not caring to do so that
she took no interest in the affairs of other people; and secondly, that
if she went and got moved by the troubles of the _dramatis personae_ the
thought suddenly occurred to her that they were not real persons and
real troubles, and therefore she had wasted her sympathy, wherefore she
was vexed, being an economical creature, so far as sympathy, not butter,
is concerned. On the other hand, she admitted the payment of a number of
visits to Pézon's circus, where they had a lion with a bad reputation,
into whose jaw at every performance a _décolletée_ lady put her painted
head. For the _cordon-bleu_ hoped that the lion would exhibit
disapproval of the paint and powder by chumping off the offending head,
and that would have been frightfully thrilling.
Also she had a grievance because our executions are not public. She
would like to see the murderers _gigoter un peu_; to her that would be
a more sublime spectacle than the most prodigious effects at His
Majesty's.
The papers lately contained accounts of the production at a music-hall
of bioscope pictures of a horrible catastrophe in which many lives were
lost, and stated that they were received with applause from the
spectators, who derived much pleasure from looking at them. The French
wielder of the _bouquet-garni_, in default of more bloodthirsty
entertainment, would be delighted by them. It has often been remarked
that an element of danger in a public performance is an element of
attraction, and that the attraction is in proportion to the danger.
These remarks are not entirely disconnected: they are relevant in
considering the question why people go to the theatre.
For, with all respect to the establishments of the highest class, one
must recognize the fact that there is a family relation between the
noblest theatre and the humblest side-show at a country fair or East End
museum. To be juster, the family relation is not between the things
seen, but between the feelings which prompt people to pay money to see
them.
It is often a mere toss-up whether X, Y or Z goes to a theatre or a
music-hall, or a collection of "side shows" or a boxing-match; and the
only solid wall of demarcation in pleasuredom lies between going to see
something which pretends to be something else, and going to see
something which admits itself to be its painful self. On the one hand,
we have Smith posing as the Prince of Denmark; on the other the fat
woman, whose unpleasant mass of unhealthy flesh is real--the lady giant
hovers between reality and fiction. On the one side art, on the other
artless entertainment; but, after all, it is difficult to say that this
wall is very solid, since sometimes the artless department is abominably
artful, and sometimes, as in the famous story of the mimic with a live
pig in a poke, the real is an impostor.
The interest in the matter lies mainly with the audience, with the human
beings greedy for pleasure and entertainment, with the traveller who,
after a happy evening at the Comédie Française, endeavours to get taken
to the abattoirs of Paris, or risks his life in a visit to the outer
Boulevards in order to visit some pestilential Café de la Mort where he
will see crude horrors contrived by looking-glasses, drink bad beer out
of _papier-maché_ skulls, and receive, in change for his money, base or
demonetised coin from waiters dressed as undertakers. And, again, our
traveller, after getting a headache at the Louvre and vainly trying to
find the Mediaeval improprieties at the Maison Cluny, will refresh
himself by a visit to the Morgue, to say nothing of Le Musée Grévin.
Why, then, do we go to the theatre? Why does the theatre exist? Why do
the enthusiasts rage and profess that it ought to be endowed? Well, upon
reflection, one sees that there are two bodies of playgoers, both, no
doubt, in search of pleasure: and, speaking very broadly, the one is the
little group whose curiosity concerning life is almost entirely
intellectual, and the other is the vast body of sensation-hunters, to
whom the latest showy play, the newest musical comedy, the divorce case
of the moment, the freak in vogue, are the means of real excitement--an
excitement which they want to obtain with the minimum expenditure of
time, trouble or thought.
A remarkable thing to the observer is the hostility of the
sensation-monger to intellectual amusement. If a play has a gloomy
ending it is promptly denounced as painful by the people who welcome an
entertainment consisting of biograph pictures representing some awful
catastrophe, and by persons who revel in a good series of animated
photographs of somebody being guillotined, or tortured in a Russian
gaol, and do not care to waste their tears over the sorrows of people in
a play, though perhaps a really roaring farce would entertain them, if
it included a good deal of knockabout business. The uncivilized people
who consider that practical joking is permissible are as a rule bitterly
hostile to serious drama.
It is hard to discover any clear theory in relation to these facts.
Attempts to establish a proposition are met by the fact that the
sensation-monger who delights in the horrors of real life, who gets joy
from a thrillingly dangerous performance at a music-hall, when he goes
to the theatre sometimes seems pleased by a piece almost in a direct
ratio to its unreality. A finely observed comedy, such as _The Silver
Box_ of Mr Galsworthy, irritates the sensation-monger; it is so absurdly
true that he does not think it clever of the author to have written it.
_Tom Jones_ contains useful matter for thought on the subject. Something
prodigious out of the lumber-room of the theatres impresses him far
more. In England the explanation of this may be a strangely twisted
feeling of utilitarianism, which causes us to object to thinking without
being paid for thinking; wherefore it seems an act almost of impudence
to ask us to pay money to see a play which cannot be understood or
appreciated without serious thought.