Many critics seem to be of the opinion that the work of a new and unknown
author deserves and requires less serious consideration than the work of an
author of established reputation. There is, however, an important sense in
which the very contrary is true. The function of the critic is to help the
public to discern and to appreciate what is worthy. The fact of an
established reputation affords evidence that the author who enjoys it has
already achieved the appreciation of the public and no longer stands in
need of the intermediary service of the critic. But every new author
advances as an applicant for admission into the ranks of the recognised;
and the critic must, whenever possible, assist the public to determine
whether the newcomer seems destined by inherent right to enter among the
good and faithful servants, or whether he is essentially an outsider
seeking to creep or intrude or climb into the fold.
Since everybody knows already who Sir Arthur Wing Pinero is and what may be
expected of him, the only question for the critic, in considering a new
play from his practiced pen, is whether or not the author has succeeded in
advancing or maintaining the standard of his earlier and remembered
efforts. If, as in _The Wife Without a Smile_, he falls far below that
standard, the critic may condemn the play, and let the matter go at that.
Although the new piece may be discredited, the author's reputation will
suffer no abiding injury from the deep damnation of its taking off; for the
public will continue to remember the third act of _The Gay Lord Quex_, and
will remain assured that Sir Arthur Pinero is worth while. But when a play
by a new author comes up for consideration, the public needs to be told not
only whether the work itself has been well or badly done, but also whether
or not the unknown author seems to be inherently a person of importance,
from whom more worthy works may be expected in the future. The critic must
not only make clear the playwright's present actual accomplishment, but
must also estimate his promise. An author's first or second play is
important mainly--to use Whitman's phrase--as "an encloser of things to
be." The question is not so much what the author has already done as what
he is likely to do if he is given further hearings. It is in this sense
that the work of an unknown playwright requires and deserves more serious
consideration than the work of an acknowledged master. Accomplishment is
comparatively easy to appraise, but to appreciate promise requires
forward-looking and far-seeing eyes.
In the real sense, it matters very little whether an author's early plays
succeed or fail. The one point that does matter is whether, in either case,
the merits and defects are of such a nature as to indicate that the man
behind the work is inherently a man worth while. In either failure or
success, the sole significant thing is the quality of the endeavor. A young
author may fail for the shallow reason that he is insincere; but he may
fail even more decisively for the sublime reason that as yet his reach
exceeds his grasp. He may succeed because through earnest effort he has
done almost well something eminently worth the doing; or he may succeed
merely because he has essayed an unimportant and an easy task. Often more
hope for an author's future may be founded upon an initial failure than
upon an initial success. It is better for a young man to fail in a large
and noble effort than to succeed in an effort insignificant and mean. For
in labor, as in life, Stevenson's maxim is very often pertinent:--to travel
hopefully is frequently a better thing than to arrive.
And in estimating the work of new and unknown authors, it is not nearly so
important for the critic to consider their present technical accomplishment
as it is for him to consider the sincerity with which they have endeavored
to tell the truth about some important phase of human life. Dramatic
criticism of an academic cast is of little value either to those who write
plays or to those who see them. The man who buys his ticket to the theatre
knows little and cares less about the technique of play-making; and for the
dramatist himself there are no ten commandments. I have been gradually
growing to believe that there is only one commandment for the
dramatist,--that he shall tell the truth; and only one fault of which a
play is capable,--that, as a whole or in details, it tells a lie. A play is
irretrievably bad only when the average theatre-goer--a man, I mean, with
no special knowledge of dramatic art--viewing what is done upon the stage
and hearing what is said, revolts instinctively against it with a feeling
that I may best express in that famous sentence of Assessor Brack's,
"People don't do such things." A play that is truthful at all points will
never evoke this instinctive disapproval; a play that tells lies at certain
points will lose attention by jangling those who know.
The test of truthfulness is the final test of excellence in drama. In
saying this, of course, I do not mean that the best plays are realistic in
method, naturalistic in setting, or close to actuality in subject-matter.
_The Tempest_ is just as true as _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, and _Peter
Pan_ is just as true as _Ghosts_. I mean merely that the people whom the
dramatist has conceived must act and speak at all points consistently with
the laws of their imagined existence, and that these laws must be in
harmony with the laws of actual life. Whenever people on the stage fail of
this consistency with law, a normal theatre-goer will feel instinctively,
"Oh, no, he did _not_ do that," or, "Those are _not_ the words she said."
It may safely be predicated that a play is really bad only when the
audience does not believe it; for a dramatist is not capable of a single
fault, either technical or otherwise, that may not be viewed as one phase
or another of untruthfulness.