When Hamlet warned the strolling players against making the judicious
grieve, and when he lamented that a certain play had proved caviare to the
general, he fixed for the dramatic critic the lower and the upper bound for
catholicity of approbation. But between these outer boundaries lie many
different precincts of appeal. _The Two Orphans_ of Dennery and _The
Misanthrope_ of Molière aim to interest two different types of audience. To
say that _The Two Orphans_ is a bad play because its appeal is not so
intellectual as that of _The Misanthrope_ would be no less a solecism than
to say that _The Misanthrope_ is a bad play because its appeal is not so
emotional as that of _The Two Orphans_. The truth is that both stand within
the boundaries of approbation. The one makes a primitive appeal to the
emotions, without, however, grieving the judicious; and the other makes a
refined appeal to the intelligence, without, however, subtly bewildering
the mind of the general spectator.
Since success is to a play the breath of life, it is necessary that the
dramatist should please his public; but in admitting this, we must remember
that in a city so vast and varied as New York there are many different
publics, which are willing to be pleased in many different ways. The
dramatist with a new theme in his head may, before he sets about the task
of building and writing his play, determine imaginatively the degree of
emotional and intellectual equipment necessary to the sort of audience best
fitted to appreciate that theme. Thereafter, if he build and write for that
audience and that alone, and if he do his work sufficiently well, he may be
almost certain that his play will attract the sort of audience he has
demanded; for any good play can create its own public by the natural
process of selecting from the whole vast theatre-going population the kind
of auditors it needs. That problem of the dramatist to please his public
reduces itself, therefore, to two very simple phases: first, to choose the
sort of public that he wants to please, and second, to direct his appeal to
the mental make-up of the audience which he himself has chosen. This task,
instead of hampering the dramatist, should serve really to assist him,
because it requires a certain concentration of purpose and consistency of
mood throughout his work.
This concentration and consistency of purpose and of mood may be symbolised
by the figure of aiming straight at a predetermined target. In the years
when firearms were less perfected than they are at present, it was
necessary, in shooting with a rifle, to aim lower than the mark, in order
to allow for an upward kick at the discharge; and, on the other hand, it
was necessary, in shooting with heavy ordnance, to aim higher than the
mark, in order to allow for a parabolic droop of the cannon-ball in
transit. Many dramatists, in their endeavor to score a hit, still employ
these compromising tricks of marksmanship: some aim lower than the judgment
of their auditors, others aim higher than their taste. But, in view of the
fact that under present metropolitan conditions the dramatist may pick his
own auditors, this aiming below them or above them seems (to quote Sir
Thomas Browne) "a vanity out of date and superannuated piece of folly."
While granting the dramatist entire liberty to select the level of his
mark, the critic may justly demand that he shall aim directly at it,
without allowing his hand ever to droop down or flutter upward. That he
should not aim below it is self-evident: there can be no possible excuse
for making the judicious grieve. But that he should not aim above it is a
proposition less likely to be accepted off-hand by the fastidious: Hamlet
spoke with a regretful fondness of that particular play which had proved
caviare to the general. It is, of course, nobler to shoot over the mark
than to shoot under it; but it is nobler still to shoot directly at it.
Surely there lies a simple truth beneath this paradox of words:--it is a
higher aim to aim straight than to aim too high.
If a play be so constituted as to please its consciously selected auditors,
neither grieving their judgment by striking lower than their level of
appreciation, nor leaving them unsatisfied by snobbishly feeding them
caviare when they have asked for bread, it must be judged a good play for
its purpose. The one thing needful is that it shall neither insult their
intelligence nor trifle with their taste. In view of the many different
theatre-going publics and their various demands, the critic, in order to be
just, must be endowed with a sympathetic versatility of approbation. He
should take as his motto those judicious sentences with which the Autocrat
of the Breakfast-Table prefaced his remarks upon the seashore and the
mountains:--"No, I am not going to say which is best. The one where your
place is is the best for you."
V