“In youth he learned had a good mistére
He was a well good wright a carpentére.”
_Chaucer._
The play is very nearly extinct. This is an age of dramatists. The
reason is not far to seek. The playwright is merely a craftsman. The
dramatist—so his friends in the press tell him—is a genius. And in these
years genius is plentiful and craftsmanship becomes a rarer thing every
day.
Just at the moment it is certainly not considered important to be a
playwright. It is better to be an aviator. In the eighteenth century
it was better to be a performing bear. But in my view now as in the
eighteenth century the alternatives to the theatre will not destroy the
theatre and a sound entertaining play will always find theatre-goers.
There is room for plays written by a playwright, and as it is open
to anyone who cares to learn the business to become a respectable
craftsman—just as a man can learn to play the fiddle or make an etching
on copper—there will generally be a few writers for the stage of literary
merit who can turn out a stage play capable of weathering the varied
storms of taste and criticism by which it is assailed in its endeavours
to make safe harbour in the Box Office.
A playwright is according to Dr. Johnson “a maker of plays.” The word
“wright” is satisfactorily enough a Saxon word derived from _wyrht_,
the third person indicative of _wyrcan_, meaning “one that worketh.”
The mere derivation of the word is enough to account for the absence of
the thing itself. This is not an age of work. We retain in a degraded
form the Saxon word, but the Saxon idea is foreign to our civilisation.
Still in things that really matter we cling to the old world notion of a
“wright” or person who knows his business, as in our word “ship-wright.”
Unfortunately in the affairs of the theatre which in the present age
do not really matter very much, any clever man may exploit his wares
without learning his business. Money is lost over it, and the theatre as
an institution suffers. But playgoers like voters and ratepayers will
continue the struggle to obtain a well-made article built according to
their tastes, and in course of time workmanship in playwriting will have
its value again. Meanwhile it seems a pity that among so many brilliant
and intelligent writers for and about the stage, hardly one will take the
trouble to master a few essential problems of what is really, compared to
the technicalities of music or painting, a simple business.
If a man were to claim to be a ship-wright for instance, it would be
accounted to him as a matter of blame if, after money and time had
been spent on building his vessel, it were to be found bottom up on
the evening of the launching. Explain it as he might, his career as a
ship-wright would be endangered. With a playwright it is quite otherwise.
If a man hangs out a sign that he is a wheelwright, you go to him in the
expectation that he can make a wheel. It may not be a highly artistic
wheel. It may be roughly painted, there may be no poetical carving in
its wood-work, still you do expect him to turn you out a wheel. You
would be disappointed if the article were oblong or rhomboid in shape.
You would hesitate to trust yourself to it if it had no hub, no spokes,
no tyres—none of the attributes of a wheel, and you would certainly be
utterly disgusted if it did not run. But a playwright who makes his play
without dramatic hubs or spokes or tyres, is often accredited a genius
by those who have never learned how, and how only, a play can be made,
and the fact that his play does not run is set down to the centrifugal
ignorance of the spectators by the side of the road who came there
desiring to see it run.
There are of course many playwrights to-day who are masters of their
craft and audiences who can approve of them, but unfortunately the
men who make it their business to write criticisms of the theatre are
peculiarly and in some cases boastfully ignorant of the business of
the playwright. In this way they mislead the aspirant dramatist into
the idea that his audience is to blame for not appreciating his play,
when his audience is only the mercury in the barometer recording the
general depression that must result in a theatre from a badly made
play. However beautiful the words and the sentiments of a play may be,
and whatever their moral and literary value, they are quite useless
unless they are put in a form to get over the footlights. Quite silly
sentiments and foolish language may be made serviceable by a playwright
who knows his craft, and it would be valuable if some of the writers
about theatrical affairs were to turn their attention from the discovery
of new genius to the interesting business of the making of stage plays.
One does not expect this to happen just yet, for the stage as a craft
is a dull thing from a literary point of view, compared to the politics
of the theatre and the apportioning of praise and blame—especially the
latter—to writers, actors, and theatre-goers. Besides, there is a cult
and creed among these writers, and to be in the movement, you must of
necessity abjure the well-made play. I read a very clever essay the other
day by a modern writer about the theatre, proving that “the well-made
play” was the abomination of desolation. The essay was full of learning
and epigram, and the questions were cleverly begged and answered in an
apparent spirit of generosity, but it did not convince me. Supposing the
title of the essay instead of being “the well-made Play” had been “the
well-made Coat” or “the well-made Porridge” and the author had set out
to prove to you that you were a stodgy Early Victorian duffer, because
you pretended to like well-made coats and well-made porridge, might you
not reasonably have sighed over his perversity. But this would never
happen, for you will find that in the matter of coats and porridge,
your writer is full of learning, and will write on these subjects if at
all, with a sound knowledge of the craft he is criticising. Indeed I
think the playwright and the actor are the only craftsmen whose work is
widely written about by people who deliberately refrain from learning the
grammar of the crafts they are writing about. Even the critic of pictures
has generally failed to paint them, and that in itself is a liberal
education. But many brilliant entertaining writers about the stage seem
to base their right to be read with attention upon the scant attention
they have themselves given to the subject matter of their criticisms.
Thankful as I am, for the amusement contained in their epigrams, I am
still of opinion that for men to set out to judge a play who have no idea
how a play is made, and no desire to learn how a play is made, is bound
to end in amazement.
I remember taking an eminent antiquarian to Old Trafford on the occasion
of a county cricket match. It was in the historic days of A. N. Hornby
and Lancashire were in the field. My friend—who by-the-bye had written
dramatic criticism in his early days—knew little or nothing about cricket
but was not wanting in that kind of courage that goes to the making of
a great critic. Viewing the game solemnly for about a quarter of an
hour, he at length delivered judgment. “If I were Hornby,” he said, “I
should never have chosen those two fellows in the long white coats for
a Lancashire team; they haven’t tried to stop a ball for the last ten
minutes.” I am often reminded of that story when I read a criticism of a
play. Nor do I for a moment harbour any feelings of wrath against average
critics. Like my friend they too have great literary and scholastic
qualities that I can humbly envy and admire, but there is one thing that
they have not taken the trouble to learn because it is too simple and
easy for their really superior intelligence—the rules of the game.
And playwriting is a game like chess or cricket or many another great
game and many a duffer can learn its elementary moves and rules and the
more studious can master its gambits and strategy, but not even the
greatest can succeed at the game, or understand what the game is about if
they will not learn the rules. This is an age in which quackery and slush
and conceit are having a long innings, and it is a common boast that some
new genius has found a new way of saving souls, or painting pictures
or making plays that is to revolutionise the practice of these things.
Originality is a good thing, and who shall say a harsh word to the youth
who dreams in the waking hours of his inexperience of a new way of doing
old things. There are many new things to be done in the world, but not so
very many for the playwright or the wheelwright. The world has long ago
laid down the lines on which a play or a wheel is to be built and whilst
it is open to us to use any material we choose, that will bear the
necessary strain and decorate it with all the artistic ability we possess
the structure must be sound—the work of the _wright_ must be done—or all
is vanity. The most eloquent writer of sermons in the world cannot make a
play of his preachings merely by chopping them into acts and giving them
to different eminent actors and actresses to recite.
There is an A-B-C for the apprentice playwright to learn as there is
for the child at school, and if he never learns it, he will not be a
proficient workman. I acknowledge this simile is a little old-fashioned
for the modern kindergarten child is taught nowadays to grunt strange
sounds instead of mastering his or her A-B-C; the scientific teacher
being I suppose, under a delusion that English is a phonetic language
like my own native Welsh. But when the educational slush has subsided a
little, we shall begin again with the A-B-C in our study of the English
tongue, just as our playwrights will go back to the simple elementary
rules of their interesting craft.
When Shakespeare wrote of the players that “they have their exits and
their entrances,” he wrote what was strictly true of his own plays, for
he took care to provide them with exits and entrances as any honest
playwright should. And to explain briefly what I mean by the simple rules
of the craft, let us consider for a moment the subject of “entrances.”
It does not, nor need it, enter into the head of the playgoer that his
convenience is consulted by the playwright on the matter of the entrances
of the characters. The critic generally misses the best “entrances” if
any, and makes his own exit with the programme as a book of reference
before the players’ exits are completed. He has a soul above these
matters. But Shakespeare knew that an actor wanted—and rightly wanted
both an exit and an entrance and would not be happy unless he got them.
These matters had to be thought out and designed, and in the matter of
entrances, Shakespeare seems to have learned a very simple little truth,
namely, that from a playwright’s point of view, and equally from an
audience’s point of view, it was not the slightest use for a player to
be talking upon the stage unless the audience knew who he was. Open your
Hamlet and see how the play begins:
_ACT I. SCENE I. A Platform before the Castle._
_FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO._
_Ber._ Who’s there?
_Fran._ Nay, answer me; stand, and unfold yourself.
_Ber._ Long live the king!
_Fran._ Bernardo?
_Ber._ He.
_Fran._ You come most carefully upon your hour.
_Ber._ ’Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.
_Fran._ For this relief much thanks; ’tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.
_Ber._ Have you had a quiet guard?
_Fran._ Not a mouse stirring.
_Ber._ Well, good-night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
_Fran._ I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who’s there?
_Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS._
_Hor._ Friends to this ground.
_Mar._ And liegemen to the Dane.
_Fran._ Give you good-night.
_Mar._ O! farewell, honest soldier:
Who hath relieved you?
_Fran._ Bernardo has my place.
Give you good-night. [_Exit._
_Mar._ Holla! Bernardo!
_Ber._ Say,
What! is Horatio there?
_Hor._ A piece of him.
_Ber._ Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.
Notice how naturally and in what a businesslike way Bernardo, Francisco,
Horatio and Marcellus are all introduced to the audience, and the care
taken to stamp their identity upon the mind of the spectators. The
natural easy way in which it is done springs from the good craftsmanship
of Shakespeare, but the doing of it is the business of every playwright.
One would suppose that such a simple matter as that could not be
overlooked, but if one turns to the plays of some modern dramatists
and seeks to understand them without studying the stage directions and
noticing carefully the name of the speaker, one is apt to get into
confusion. The latest craze is to publish a programme with the “order
of going in” like a cricket card and thus you can buy for sixpence
information that the playwright is too slovenly and too ignorant of his
business to provide for you. There were no programmes in Shakespeare’s
time, but there were playwrights.
It may occur to those who have not studied the rules of the game that
there is not the same necessity for careful workmanship in the matter of
entrances in a play of to-day that there was three hundred years ago. The
answer to that is that a play or a wheel of to-day is essentially the
same as a play or a wheel was in the sixteenth or seventeenth century.
The duty of the playwright to make his entrances obvious to his audience
is equally clear, and is equally understood by the man who knows his
business.
Compare as a modern instance Sir Arthur Pinero’s opening of “Sweet
Lavender.” The scene is a sitting-room at 3 Brain Court Temple. Left and
right are two doors leading to the rooms of Richard Phenyl and Clement
Hale. Ruth, the housekeeper, is discovered, and Bulger, the barber,
enters the room and the play begins. Now note the workmanship.
_Bul._ I’ve give Mr. ’Ale a nice shave, Mrs. Rolt, clean and
quick. Water’s ’ot enough for me jist to rub over Mr. Phenyl’s
face if ’e’s visible.
_Ruth._ I’m afraid Mr. Phenyl isn’t well enough for you this
morning, Mr. Bulger.
_Bul._ Not one of ’is mornings, hey?
(_Ruth goes to the right-hand door and knocks sharply_).
_Ruth_ (_calling_). Mr. Phenyl! Mr. Phenyl! The barber.
You see, Sir Arthur Pinero, having been an actor and knowing his
business, informs you in a few lines not only the names of Phenyl, Hale,
their housekeeper, and barber, but where each of the two men sleep and
something of their characters. In a word, Pinero, like Shakespeare, is a
thoroughly experienced playwright.
No doubt the younger writers of to-day have been led into their contempt
for the business they have undertaken by the success that has enriched
Mr. Bernard Shaw. They should remember, however, that he is more of a
preacher and society entertainer than a playwright, winning the game by
his delightful personality or personalities. He is an earnest religious
man, with a great hatred of the theatre, the stage, and entertainment,
to use his own words, “the great dramatist has something better to do
than to amuse either himself or his audience.” But dour Nonconformist as
he is, his dullest moments are interrupted by his deep insight into the
really funny things of this world. Mr. Shaw could make a sound play if he
cared enough about it to try to do so, and in “Arms and the Man” and “You
Never Can Tell” he showed much knowledge of the business. He would never,
I think, have attained the real grip of the matter that Shakespeare and
Pinero have, and knowing this he prefers to exploit his really great
qualities in other ways.
But anyone can see for himself in this one little matter of entrances
how slovenly the modern writer can be. If you turn to Mr. Galsworthy’s
“Joy,” the play is opened without any effort being made to tell you the
names and identities of the people on the stage; so, too, I remember,
in the first act of the “Silver Box,” Mr. and Mrs. Borthwick discourse
amusingly about politics without disclosing who they are. No doubt these
little mysteries are easily solved by the regular up-to-date theatregoer
armed with a programme, but the absence of the information irritates
some of the duller members of the audience, and the play suffers. Mr.
Granville Barker, in “Waste,” opens his piece with a room containing five
ladies and one gentleman. He does not disclose you an identity by name
for twelve lines, and Mr. Walter Kent, one of the characters, is not
introduced by name until some nine pages of very clever dialogue have
been spoken.
No one supposes that Mr. Galsworthy or Mr. Barker could not put these
little matters right somehow, though they could not do it with the
craftsmanship of Pinero or Shakespeare. Unfortunately they seem to have
a very real contempt for the minor details of the playwright’s business,
which prevents the full effect of their literary gifts being appreciable
in a theatre. Mr. Galsworthy, it is very pleasant to notice, is growing
out of these ways somewhat, and will probably, as his knowledge of the
stage increases, come to respect its old world characteristics, and
recognise that they are permanent, fixed, and unalterable. In his love of
pantomime and the exhibition of real things on the stage, he has the true
playwright’s instinct. His real police courts, real prisons, and real
boardrooms are admirable, and he is on the verge of understanding the
true gospel of the playwright according to Vincent Crummles, manager, who
really knew all about it from the Shakespearean standpoint.
Of course, this little matter of opening a play and designing an
entrance for a character is only one of many simple matters that a
good workman or “wright” has to attend to, but it is a very important
one, and sufficiently illustrative of the difference between good and
bad craftsmanship. To extend the theme by citing further instances of
elementary rules broken and followed would be to commence an essay on the
construction of plays. But to anyone who wishes to pursue the matter,
it is curiously entertaining to see how in all essential things the
actor-playwright is invariably the better craftsman than the literary man
who commences dramatist. Mr. McEvoy, one of our most interesting modern
dramatists, who has still perhaps something of the craft to learn, writes
in a spirit of noble optimism: “I, as a dramatist, who knows how to do
things the right way, mainly because I never had to unlearn how to do
them wrong,” in a few words, expresses the attitude of the dramatist of
to-day towards the experience of centuries in the craft of playwriting.
No one doubts that Mr. McEvoy and others may help a little in the
evolution of the stage, but they lessen their chances of success by the
belief so piously held nowadays that there is nothing to be learned from
the playwrights that have gone before. It was reckoned a mad conceit that
prompted Walt Whitman to sing:
“I conn’d old times
I sat studying at the feet of the great masters
Now if eligible O that the great masters might return and study me.”
The modern genius finds nothing to study in the old masters, and if they,
poor fellows, were now eligible to return and study our world of genius,
I fear they would lack even the courtesy of an invitation box.
It is a pity that it should be so, but for my part I think it is only
a temporary matter, and that, like all other things connected with the
stage, it will work itself out under the wholesome discipline of the
Box Office. A man who will not learn some of the elementary rules of
playwriting must ultimately become too expensive for the most patient
patron. Nor should we blame the literary man who turns dramatist very
severely because he has a contempt for the craft of the playwright. He
was born for higher things. His journalist friends proclaim the value of
his ideas, and the literary expression of them in his play, and it is
only the carelessness of the players and the stupidity of the playgoers
that hinder his success. It is all to the good for the stage that men of
education and intellect should be players, and that good artists should
be scene painters, but no one who is a player or a painter expects to
succeed in his stage work without learning the rules of the game. Why
should a literary man despise the craft of the playwright when he seeks
to earn his wages as a craftsman?
There is nothing new in this distaste of a literary man for the baser
duties of playwriting. Bulwer Lytton, who, whatever we may think of his
literary qualities, had undeniable talent as a playwright, discovered
when he wrote “The Duchess de la Vallière” the interesting fact that
playwriting was a special craft and that “dramatic construction and
theatrical effect” were mysteries to be mastered. “I felt,” he writes in
his preface to the _Lady of Lyons_, “that it was in this that a writer
accustomed to the narrative class of composition would have the most
faults to learn and unlearn. Accordingly, it was to the development
of the plot and the arrangement of the incidents I directed my chief
attention, and I sought to throw whatever belongs to poetry less into the
diction and the ‘felicity of words’ than into the construction of the
story, the creation of the characters and the spirit of the pervading
sentiment.”
Genius will shrug his shoulders at the name of Bulwer Lytton, but as
a playwright two things are worth remembering about him—first, that
in modern phrase he “got there,” and, second, that “he remains.” And
if genius desires to write plays with a view to “getting there” and
“remaining,” after the manner of Bulwer Lytton and other greater men
who have stooped to the craft, let genius seriously consider whether, in
his own interests as well as in the interests of the harmless necessary
playgoer, it is not worth while to learn the rules of the game and
commence playwright.