Impressionistic critics of the drama attempt to disparage a comedian by
calling him a "mere clown." They might as well call Mr. Sargent a "mere
painter," or M. Rodin a "mere sculptor." What they mean is that the
comedian of their discontent is not a clown at all. For the grotesquely
clad men, with whitened, expressionless faces, who tumble about the
circus ring, have no right to the exclusive possession of their title.
Indeed, few of them are genuine clowns in the best sense of the word,
for most of them cause laughter by obvious horseplay, not by the true
clown methods of elaborate pantomime and striking facial contortions.
The greatest comedians have been the greatest clowns. Even the most
brilliant lines, spoken most winningly, fail of their effect upon the
audience unless the speaker has a clown's power to act with his
features. And if a clown be great enough he may safely dispense with
words--as John Bunny did.
The English pantomime even in Thackeray's day had fallen from its once
high place. The lovely Columbine remained and the sprightly Harlequin
and the grotesque Pantaloon. But there were songs and dialogue; the
entertainment was simply a sort of vaudeville, not genuine pantomime at
all. It was not until the huge, clicking camera made lasting the
gestures of the actors that the art of pantomime came back to its own.
There is a word used by men and women who have to do with this great
branch of the world's amusement which deserves immortality. It is the
verb "register." An actor registers grief, or amusement, or
astonishment. That is, he assumes an expression which, when recorded by
the camera and exhibited, will convey his emotion to the audience. In
that one word there is a valuable treatise on the dramatic art. The
inferior actor is content with expressing an emotion. The true actor
registers it.
And what a sense of permanence is in that word "register!" Alfred de
Musset and many another sentimental poet lamented the ephemeral nature
of the actor's fame. The painter, it has been said, the writer and the
sculptor, live in their works. But the actor's art perishes with him;
when he dies, the memory of his expressive face and graceful form goes
into the oblivion that keeps the echoes of his golden voice.
Well, we have changed all that. The number of people who lose their
cares under the spell of John Bunny's magic to-day is greater than it
was a year ago. The motion pictures have made the actor's chances for
immortality equal with those of his fellows in the other arts.
Enemies of the motion picture (there really are such people) say that
the humor of such entertainments is not true humor, but vulgar and
barbarous horseplay, requiring no art. Anyone, they say, can get a
laugh, as Charlie Chaplin does, by being knocked down by an automobile
or by being grossly fat, like John Bunny.
The adequate answer to a critic who makes such statements as these is
"Go out in the street and get knocked down by an automobile." This may
be the remark which actors (and sensitive producers) commonly feel like
making to dramatic critics, but in this case it should have no tinge of
bitterness. Go out in the street and get knocked down by an automobile.
See if the people laugh at you as they laugh at Chaplin. They will laugh
at you only if you are artist enough to be knocked down humorously--as
Chaplin is knocked down.
And, as to John Bunny's success being due to his fatness, that criticism
is generally made by people who never saw "Autocrat of Flapjack
Junction" or "Love's Old Dream," or by rival actors. It is true that
your true clown always is quick to utilize his physical peculiarities as
accessories to his acting. The jesters of Marie de Medici made fun of
their own hunched backs or dwarfed forms. John Bunny had as good a right
to turn his fatness into dramatic capital as Sarah Bernhardt has to do
the same thing with her slenderness. It is a principle of subjective
artistic expression--the same principle as that by which Heine made his
little songs out of his great woes.
But the physical peculiarity alone is not enough. John Bunny was gifted
by nature for his roles. But he would have been a great clown even had
he been built like John Drew. He would have made his shapeliness what he
made his unshapeliness--something ridiculously amusing.
If fatness alone was the source of his success, how crowded his
profession would now be! But this is not the case. Thousands, perhaps,
of motion-picture audiences have watched Mr. Taft serenely cross the
screen, or mutely seem to make a speech. Undoubtedly, they have thereby
been edified. But they have not rocked from side to side with
unextinguishable laughter, and thereafter burst into shouts of mirth at
the mention of the ex-President's name.
No, people did not laugh at John Bunny because he was fat, or because he
fell from horses and automobiles and aeroplanes, and submitted to
various picturesque forms of assault and battery for their amusement.
They laughed at him because he was fat humorously, because he fell from
vehicles humorously, because he was a great clown--that is, a master of
a difficult and important branch of dramatic art.
The motion-picture producers may not be aware of the fact, but they have
performed a valuable service to the stage in reviving the art of
pantomime. The actor in the spoken drama will be less likely to be a
mere voice when he sees his brother on the screen act with his whole
body.
Is it possible that the importance of the human voice has been
exaggerated? Certainly the mechanical reproduction of the spoken word
has not captured the world's attention as has the reproduction of
motion. The phonograph, of course, brings the lovely notes of the
singers to ears that otherwise would never thrill with melody. It has
been used as an instrument by which a political speaker might address at
one time twenty audiences scattered across the continent, and it has
delighted with humorous dialogue those who were far from theaters. But
as an interpreter of great literature, the needle revolves impotently
upon its waxen cylinder.
There have been successful attempts to synchronize the phonograph and
the motion-picture machine, to cause the words to accompany the action.
It may be that these devices will one day be widely popular. But I hope
not. For that would destroy the greatest value of motion-picture acting,
the silent but complete expression of thought. The motion picture is the
renascence of pantomime.
When Colley Cibber looked through his jeweled quizzing glass at a
strange dumb-show drama newly brought to England from merry France, a
representation of the legend of Venus and Mars, he said that it was
"form'd into a connected presentation of Dances in Character, wherein
the Passions were so happily expressed, and the whole Story so
intelligibly told, by a mute Narration of Gesture only, that even
thinking Spectators allow'd it both a pleasing and rational
Entertainment." It was this "pleasing and rational Entertainment" which
developed into the great English pantomime, which popular custom (always
fond of tradition and ritual) honored by association with the mighty
festival of Christmas.
And the English pantomime's greater descendant is to be seen on many a
modern film. Still the vivacious lover flees from the comic policemen
and the irate father, still Columbine is fair, although she bears a less
beautiful name and has changed her airy spangled draperies for a modern
garb.
Why has no enterprising producer given us a real old English pantomime
in the films, with all the conventional characters? What a Columbine
Mary Pickford would make! And how excellently would Charles Chaplin's
deft stumble suit Harlequin! There could be transformation scenes that
would delight the genial ghosts of Lamb and Thackeray. But who would be
clown--now that John Bunny is dead?
The written word sometimes loses its power to bring laughter as the
years roll by. Topical allusions, phrases, and sentiments that amuse us
will bring no mirth to the hearts of our grandchildren. But there are
certain things that are elementally funny, that make all people laugh
who have any laughter in their souls. And one of these things is the
face of John Bunny.
THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS
Of course, people still ride on the elevated railways. But not the
people who used to be taken over by their mothers from Jersey City on
the Cortlandt Street Ferry about once every month, and then up Sixth
Avenue by the elevated en route for the shops. These people now know the
swift and monotonous tube train instead of the rakish ferryboat, the
dull subway instead of the stimulating elevated railway. And even if
they knelt upon the seats of the subway car, their rubbers projecting
into the aisles and their faces pressed against the windows, they would
see only blank walls and dismal stations instead of other people's
Christmas trees.
These evanescent bits of glory lent special delight to aerial
journeyings for weeks after Christmas. For, in defiance of the Twelfth
Night convention, certain citizens were wont to keep their Christmas
trees in place until February. And, in the opinion of the tenants of the
third stories of the tenements (apartment houses is the more courteous
word) which bordered the elevated, the place of the Christmas tree was
close up against the front window, where all the world could enjoy its
green and gold and red.
Like nearly all genuine vulgar customs (vulgar is used in its most
honorable sense) this habit of showing the public the home's chief
splendor was (or is, for undoubtedly firs dressed for holiday still
brighten some lower Sixth Avenue windows) based on generous courtesy. It
was not possible for Mr. Tenement to keep open flat, so to speak, at
Christmas time; to summon all Sixth Avenue in to partake of a bowl of
wassail that steamed upon his gas range. But he performed all the
hospitality that his ungentle residence allowed; he placed his bit of
greenwood with its cardboard angel, its red paper bells, and its strings
of tinsel, where it would give to the greatest possible number the same
delight that it gave to its owner.
It is, you observe, in your own psychological way, the Rogers Group
principle. Your grandmother put "Going for the Cows," you remember, on
the marble top of the walnut table by the window in the front parlor.
The Nottingham lace curtains were parted just above the head of the boy
who was urging the dog after the woodchuck. And everybody who went up
or down Maple Avenue got a good view of that masterpiece of realism.
Therein your grandmother showed truer courtesy than did you when you put
Rodin's "Le Baiser" in that niche above the second landing of your
stairway.
The same quality of almost quixotic generosity is suggested by the
composition of the old-fashioned holly wreaths, which, hung in the
windows, showed to passers-by lustrous green leaves and scarlet berries,
and to those who hung them only a circle of pale stems and wire. Even
the lithographers maintain this courteous tradition; they stamp their
cardboard holly wreaths on only one side. And this is the side which is
to face the street.
Well, these fenestral firs and hollies exist, and they are among the
numerous joys of the days that follow Christmas. These post-Christmas
days shine with a light softer, but perhaps more comfortable, than that
of the great feast itself.
Particularly is this true of the first day after Christmas--especially
when that day is Sunday. In England, of course, as in the time of the
late Samuel Pickwick, Esq., who brought about the renascence of
Christmas, this is called Boxing Day, not because it is the occasion of
fistic encounters, but because it is the time appointed for the
distribution of those more or less spontaneous expressions of good will
which are called Christmas boxes. Its more orthodox title is Saint
Stephen's Day; it is, you know, the day on which the illustrious King
Wenceslaus, with the assistance of his page, did his noble almoning.
Says the old carol:
Good King Wenceslaus looked out
On the feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about,
Deep, and crisp, and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night,
Though the frost was cruel;
When a poor man came in sight,
Gathering winter fuel.
"Hither, page, and stand by me,
See thou dost it telling
Yonder peasant, who is he,
Where and what his dwelling?"
"Sire, he lives a good league hence,
Underneath the mountain,
Over by the forest fence,
By Saint Agnes fountain."
"Bring me flesh and bring me wine,
Bring me pine logs hither;
Thou and I will see him dine,
When we bear them thither."
Page and monarch forth they went,
Forth they went together
Through the night wind's wild lament
And the wintry weather.
We are not old English Kings, so instead of having our page bring flesh
and wine to the poor man on Saint Stephen's Day, we give a dollar to the
youth from the still vexed Bermuthes who chaperons the elevator in our
apartment house, and for weeks before Christmas we affix to the flaps of
the envelopes containing our letters little stamps bearing libelous
caricatures of Saint Nicholas of Bari. Theoretically this last process
provides a modicum of Christmas cheer for certain carefully selected and
organized poor people.
However this may be, the fact remains that the day after Christmas is a
very good day, indeed. The excitement of giving and receiving has passed
away; there remains the quieter joy of contemplation. And since this
year the day after Christmas is Sunday, this contemplation will not be
disturbed by the arrival of the postman, who, a relentless bill-bringer,
is, like the Greeks, to be feared even when bearing gifts.
And, in spite of the remarks of every humorist who ever borrowed from
his mother-in-law two cents to put on an envelope which should carry a
joke about her to an editor, this post-Christmas meditation nearly
always is pleasant. It is assisted by the consumption of wife-bestowed
cigars, which (again despite the humorists!) are better than those a man
buys for himself. It is a pleasant meditation, for its subjects are
things given and things received, good deeds done and good deeds
experienced.
It also contains, this day-after-Christmas feeling, a quality of
reconciliation. Not of reconciliation with ancient enemies--this was all
orthodoxly attended to on Christmas Eve--but of reconciliation with
affairs, of readjustment.
On Christmas Day there may have been some slight disappointment, some
fly in the ointment, or, worse still, in the punch. Forgetting for a
moment that you were just now pictured smoking cigars presented to you
by your wife, let us consider you to be, as you probably are, a young
woman of some eighteen Summers and perhaps an equal number of Winters.
It is the day after Christmas; it is (although you are unaware of the
fact) Saint Stephen's Day. Yesterday, although you endeavored to conceal
the fact, only revealing it in the unnecessary viciousness with which
you scrubbed the remains of a red and white striped candy basket from
the countenance of your infant brother--yesterday, I repeat, you were
annoyed. And the cause of your annoyance was that you received from the
amorous Theophilus a paltry dozen, instead of twenty-four or thirty-six,
American Beauties. Now, however, during your post-Christmas meditation,
your annoyance is swept away by the refreshing thought that Theophilus
will now have twelve or twenty-four dollars more to invest in that
extraordinary solitaire diamond ring with which he purposes to decorate
your not too reluctant hand as soon as people begin to see through your
bluff of not being engaged. This thought cheers you considerably, and
you dreamily give the aforesaid infant brother permission to consume a
barley sugar elephant, which makes him very unwell.
Or, let us, on the other hand, suppose that you, who are now reading
this inquiry into the theory of motives and ideas, are that infant
brother himself. Your age, we will say, is three, and you are, we regret
to say, somewhat sticky. Nevertheless, your frame of mind is, on the
whole, more satisfactory than it was yesterday. You had in all
confidence requested Santa Claus to bring you a large live baboon.
Instead, he brought you a small tin monkey on a stick.
This was a genuine disappointment, as poignantly felt as will be any
more obvious tragedy of your adult years. But, like all sorrows of
childhood, it had the blessed quality of brevity. Now, on the day after
Christmas, you contemplate with favor your tin monkey. One of his legs
is broken, but he has come off his stick, and is therefore the more
agreeable companion. Your father's apology for Santa Claus--to the
effect that the baboon of your desire would have walked off with your
stockings if he had been placed in them--seems reasonable. And there is
manna for your soul in the thought that your father will take you to the
Bronx Zoo this afternoon, and that you then can show your tin monkey to
the baboon that lives there.
This peaceful meditation is one of the most delightfully comfortable
features of the day after Christmas. This day has not the concentrated
excitement of Christmas. It is, I think, the most restful day in the
year. It is not marked, like January 2, with the shock of receiving
bills and the strain of keeping new resolutions. It is a delightfully
lazy day, a sort of sublimated Sunday afternoon.
And one conclusion which you should draw from your St. Stephen's Day
meditation is that the nobility of Christmas traditions and customs is
proved by their surviving the most unfavorable, even absurd, conditions
of life. It was not difficult for the Puritans to destroy the Maypole;
its gay garlands never rose from the dust into which their iron heels
trod them. But the Christmas tree--which even more than the Maypole was
an idolatrous abomination to those of our forefathers who turned "the
sword of the Lord and of Gideon" against the primitive red citizens of
New England--the Christmas tree blooms with new splendor every year. It
is set up even in the conventicle and New Salems which the Pilgrims
established, and as its green branches glow with their precious freight
of scarlet and gold, around it dance--tango, in fact--the descendants of
John Alden and Priscilla Mullens.
But the Christmas tree and its attendant glories have survived an
assault sterner than that of the Puritans. They are healthily surviving
modern metropolitan conditions--the deadly foe of many gracious things.
And the mere fact of survival is itself beautiful. It is very fine, of
course, for Santa Claus to clamber down the broad chimney of a great
farmhouse. But it is really noble of him to penetrate the mysterious
smokestacks of a New York building, and, making some subtle use, I
suppose, of the steam radiator, to visit every apartment which has its
complement of childhood. It is admirable for a country child to believe
in Santa Claus; but how much more admirable is the faith of the city
child, the faith which stands the shock of the imitation Santa Clauses
who strut about the department stores and beg at every corner!
These things, I said, are natural fruits of after-Christmas meditations.
And the Christmas tree remains--although the gifts that surrounded it
have been taken away, it is a pleasanter sight than it was yesterday,
because it is already a beautiful old friend, a friend to whom we are
grateful. It does not look ridiculous because its great day is gone, as,
for example, a fire-cracker looks ridiculous on July 5. For Christmas is
more than a day, it is a season, of which December 25 is only the
commencement. And as the Christmas tree seems pleasanter and more
friendly when some of its needles have formed little green aromatic
heaps on the carpet, and when the china angel and two or three of the
red glass balls have been taken down for the baby to play with--so does
the Christmas season seem pleasanter and more friendly when its first
great feast and pageant has come to its joyous close and become a part
of time's rich treasury of golden days.
FUGITIVE PIECES
THE ASHMAN
PEOPLE
AN ASHMAN.
A POLICEMAN.
A LITTLE GIRL IN GREEN.
SCENE: _A city alley. The ASHMAN is fastening a nosebag on his horse,
which is harnessed to a wagon half-filled with ashes. A POLICEMAN is
watching him._
TIME: _Noon._
POLICEMAN
What do you feed him? Ashes?
ASHMAN
No, I don't!
I feed him Harps. Come over here, you boob,
And let him bite your face, he's hungry!
POLICEMAN
Aw!
You're nothing but a Harp yourself, you poor
Old God-forsaken ashman; Or a wop,
Or some fool kind of foreigner.
ASHMAN
O Hell!
You make me sick, you big fat pie-faced mutt!
Get out, you spoil my horse's appetite!
POLICEMAN
I'd hate to be your horse, but then I guess
I'd rather be your horse than you. (_Exit._)
(_A LITTLE GIRL IN GREEN appears from behind the wagon._)
LITTLE GIRL
Hello!
ASHMAN
Hello there, kiddo! Where did _you_ come from?
(_Climbs to his seat on the wagon, takes out a tin pail, and begins to
eat his lunch._)
LITTLE GIRL
I think I'd like some bread and butter, please!
ASHMAN
All right, old girl, just take a bite of that.
(_Tosses his half loaf down to her._)
LITTLE GIRL
There isn't any butter on it.
ASHMAN
No.
I haven't got no butter. But it's good,
It's first-rate bread, all right.
LITTLE GIRL (_tossing back the loaf, from which she
has taken a bite_)
Thanks very much! Thanks, Captain Thunder!
ASHMAN
Huh?
You're a queer kid, all right, and hungry, too,
To eat dry bread. (_Eats some of the bread._) Why damn my eyes!
God's wounds!
Here's scurvy provender. (_Throws the bread down._) And scurvy mirth!
What, Kate! Dear Kate o' the Green, well met, well met.
Slip up and sit beside me, lass! It's not
The first time you have been upon this seat.
LITTLE GIRL (_climbing up beside him_)
No, Captain, I should know the Royal Mail,
But when did you take up the coaching trade?
I had as soon expect to see old Dick
Throw leg across your Monmouth's gleaming back,
Thrust pistols in his belt, and gallop off
To make his fortune in the light o' the moon,
As to find you, the Master of the Heath,
The Devil's Treasurer, the Velvet Mask,
The Silver Pistoleer, the Winged Thief,
Sitting with down-cast Sabbath-keeping eyes,
Sad lips, and nose all fixed for droning psalms,
In old Dick's place upon the Royal Mail.
A proper driver for a coach and four!
ASHMAN
Ha' done! God's mercy on us! Let me speak,
And I will tell you such a waggery
Will make you laugh and split your pretty sides:
I stole the Royal Mail!
LITTLE GIRL
You stole the Mail?
ASHMAN
Aye, prigged it, Kate! Why, here it is, you see,
Box, boot and wheels, four horses and a whip,
And on the door King George's coat of arms.
All mine, good lass, all mine. But for a price,
A bitter price, dear Kate. For Monmouth's dead!
LITTLE GIRL
What, Monmouth, best of horses, is he dead?
O Captain Thunder, never tell me that!
Why, all the world holds not another horse
So glossy black, so fleet, so wise, so kind!
ASHMAN
Yes, Monmouth's dead. Dick shot him through the heart,
And Monmouth dropped without a whinny. But
I paid Dick back. O Monmouth is avenged!
Now, hear me, Kate! I stopped the Royal Mail
Last night at twelve o'clock at Carter's Cross,
Says I, "Stand now! And let me have the bags--
That's all I want to-night! Hand over, there!"
Dick pulls his leaders on their haunches. "Why,"
Says he, "it's Captain Thunder! By my wig!
Just help yourself!" I prigged his pistol belt
And rode around to look inside the coach.
I got the bags. The passengers were three.
My Lord of Bath and Wells--
LITTLE GIRL
A Bishop, what?
ASHMAN