Chapter V: Plays of Particular Types

Unsentimental Drama

It was suggested long ago that all the conceivable tunes would soon have been written, and possibly, if for "conceivable" one substitutes the word "obvious," there was truth in the suggestion. On the other hand experience breeds in us the belief that composers of genius could go on inventing novel melodies for centuries to come. Things have been happening lately, and threaten soon to occur again, which appear to show that our popular dramatists imagine that there are no new plots or subjects open to them. It is said that one playwright is busily engaged upon a novel version of _La Dame aux Camellias_ which is to be distinguished from Dumas' novel and drama by the fact that the heroine is chaste and does nothing worse than "a bit of flirting." It is to be hoped that Dumas will never hear of this astounding impudent perversion of his play. Perhaps ere now he has become hardened by the fact that the Duse has represented Marguerite as a creature of exquisite purity.

Moreover, it is alleged that somebody is going to write another version of _Faust_--presumably the pantomime edition by Wills is copyright. In addition, it appears that Mr Stephen Phillips has concocted an adaptation of _The Bride of Lammermoor_ in which the story and characters are vastly improved. Alas, poor Scott! On top of all this we hear of countless adaptations on the market, so that the ignorant wonder whether our dramatists are played out.

Perhaps the secret is to be discovered in some passages that occurred during the trial of an action a little while ago, between two publishers, in which there was evidence to the effect that a book could not be a novel unless it had a love-story.

Of course, if upon our playwrights is imposed the limitation that all their plays must contain a love-story, the difficulty of the position is very great, and the greater still because they are not allowed to tell naughty love-stories unless they force upon them a moral ending, and they are very rarely permitted to indulge in a love-story which does not end in a wedding or the reconciliation of respectably wedded citizens. No wonder that as a body they seem to be getting bankrupt in imagination; they appear to be in the position of a cook who is never allowed to handle anything but sweets.

The state of things is rather curious. It may be often asserted truthfully of the West End theatres that there are as many love-stories as playhouses. Of late years, notwithstanding the evidence referred to, some of our novelists have shown a tendency to break away from the tradition; also some of the unfashionable playwrights exhibit signs of revolt; but the managers are timid, very timid, in the matter, and this is curious, because one has only to turn to Shakespeare to see that we have had modern successes with plays in which the love-story is trifling when it exists at all--_Hamlet_, for instance, and _Macbeth_, _Julius Caesar_, _King Lear_, _Henry VIII._, and other historical pieces. Indeed, as soon as one begins to enumerate it appears that in most of the Shakespearean plays presented of late years the love interest, if any, has been a minor matter. Our managers might learn something from this.

There is mighty little sentimental love in the plays of "G.B.S." that have, or have had, a perilously disturbing vogue. And, indeed, when that ferocious dramatist does handle love it is in an intensely unsentimental fashion.

Moreover, love in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas is treated with cruel levity. Turn, by the way, to another great social satirist, Molière; one finds again that love sometimes is ignored, and when handled at all often treated dryly, or as a matter of little moment. Our most popular comedy, _The School for Scandal_, though it has a reconciliation business, is quite independent of any sentimental matter of importance. In several of the works of Mr Barrie, our most original popular dramatist, the sentimental interest is slight where it exists at all.

It seems needless to multiply instances; enough has been said to show that it is quite possible to make money with plays that are not at all sentimental. What a pity, then, that the dramatists who aim at general popularity should feel themselves constrained to be more or less sentimental, and also that managers should fight shy of the works of those dramatists, other than Mr Barrie, who have the courage to write unsentimental plays! For it is to be noticed that in the last ten years a great many unsentimental English plays have been written and produced by non-commercial managements. It does not from this follow that all of them ignore love and the relation of the sexes, or even avoid actual love-stories; but as a class they eschew the sentimental treatment which is and for a long time has been the distinguishing feature of British Drama.

A particular instance of the effect of the modern tradition may be mentioned. _The Beloved Vagabond_ had a great success as a novel; it enjoyed a London run as a play of about two months only. In the book the love-story is a minor matter, treated mainly with a sub-acid humour, and the author wisely avoids an absurd happy-ever-after conclusion. The play was supersaturated with sentiment, with a sentiment which drove out nearly all the humour and, roughly speaking, all the plausibility. Is it easy to doubt that it is the sentimental treatment which has caused the history of the play to be so different from that of the novel?

There are signs that the public is growing rather tired of molasses, which in fact is ceasing to be "golden" syrup. The main effect, apart from purely technical matters, of the new drama, that practically speaking began with the production of _The Doll's House_ at the Great Queen Street Theatre, has been destructive; the outcome has included some brilliant plays, the drawing power of which has never been fairly and fully tested; but the most important result has been the discontentment of the ordinary playgoer with the fare which once would have delighted him. Many bubbles have been pricked; many conventions killed; many plays ridiculed by houses that once would have accepted them eagerly.

Numerous causes have contributed to the fact that during the last few years the total sum lost in the London playhouses has been enormous, despite some big successes, several of which have been of unsentimental plays--such as _Little Mary_--and it seems to be time for the managers and playwrights to begin to consider the question whether they cannot go farther afield and handle themes from which they have held aloof hitherto. Gorgeousness of mounting has ceased to help managers; even the maidens in their teens have grown sophisticated, and jeer at the bread-and-butter love-stories; and successful modern French drama offers a much smaller proportion of adaptable plays than used to be the case. There must be a bottom to the deepest purse, and things can hardly go on in the legitimate playhouses as they have during the last few years; so it seems to be almost time for the managers to try to get out of a groove and look about for the unsentimental drama.

Since this was written the Phillips-Comyns Carr version of _Faust_ was produced and not accepted by the critical, whilst the Phillips version of _The Bride of Lammermoor_, called _The Lost Heir_, was a failure and deserved its fate. Also it may be added Mr Frohman has produced _Strife_, _Justice_, _Misalliance_ and _The Madras House_.

The Second-hand Drama

For some time past people have been seeking an explanation of the weakness of our modern drama, of the fact that except in the byways of the theatre, and with rare instances on the highways, it is sadly unoriginal. Numerous causes have been suggested, and probably many have played their part. There is one element in the matter the importance of which has been overlooked--it is the mania for making adaptations. No one will deny that most of the adaptations make bad plays, and that a large proportion prove unsuccessful; and the making of them has an evil effect upon the makers. The matter under discussion is not adaptations for the English stage of foreign plays--a topic of great importance, for the lack of protection to the foreign dramatists during a long period was a great cause of the sterility of British drama; and the habit of importing has not ceased merely because the foreigner acquired the right to payment. Many a playwright who might have become an original dramatist had all his power of imagination and invention atrophied through disuse.

Nowadays we import less than formerly, but our playwrights still produce the second-hand drama, getting their material ready-made from novels, and they suffer in the same way as their predecessors, and injure their natural gifts. This is not an entirely new thing. It may be suggested that Shakespeare was one of the most persistent of adapters. He may very well be left out of the question. Such genius as his has its own laws and privileges, and cannot very well be brought in as an element when discussing the procedure of much lesser men, and yet few critics will deny that in some instances his plays were injured by his following too closely the course of his original. Perhaps in his case the gifts of imagination and invention were sometimes dulled because he was to such a great extent an adapter.

The idea of the novelist may inspire a dramatist with an idea for a play, but the novelist's treatment of his idea hardly ever supplies the dramatist with useful materials. We have had scores of radically bad plays adapted by clever men from good novels. At first sight it looks as if the playwright would gain an advantage from using ready-made materials, but careful consideration and experience show that this is not the case; he is overwhelmed by excess of material, and his task of selection is appallingly difficult.

Moreover, his material is all in the wrong form, and has to be transformed--and the process of transformation requires great skill.

For it must be remembered that the methods of the dramatist and the novelist as a broad proposition are entirely different; and when the playwright is dealing with a long, finely-written, complex novel he can hardly expect his adaptation to bear a greater resemblance to the original than that of an easy pianoforte transcription to one of the later operas of Wagner.

One need only consider any of the novels of Dickens and the stage version that impudently bears its name to see how entirely crushed the dramatist has been by excess of material--like a Tarpeia by the gifts of the enemy--by difficulty in selection, and in transformation, and recollect that the product has almost always been an inconsecutive story, unintelligible to those unacquainted with the book, destitute of the peculiar atmosphere of Dickens, irritating to lovers of the novel because pet characters have been entirely suppressed or cut down nearly to nothing, and only recognisable in many cases as a version of the original on account of costumes, names, make-up, scraps of eccentric dialogue, and general trend of the mutilated story.

Now, seeing that there are upon record a vast number of adaptations that have failed, a number that bears a proportion to the successful far higher than the proportion of failures in original works, it seems worth while to consider for a little what is at the bottom of the matter, since to do so may prevent some playwrights from wasting their time and other people's money.

First, one may ask why so many dramatists indulge in the rather inglorious work of adaptation. No doubt there is one great advantage in producing an adaptation of a successful novel. A large mass of ready-made advertisement exists: of the thousands or tens or hundreds of thousands who read a popular novel, a very large proportion feel curious to see it upon the stage. Consequently the adaptation starts with the enormous aid of having been advertised very effectively on a big scale. This element alone is not sufficient to command success; for if the piece is indifferent, if the critics condemn it, if the reception is unfavourable and the unofficial opinion of playgoers is hostile, it can do little to save the work, since the readers of the book get the idea that the dramatist has made a mess of it and they keep away, and so of course does the general public.

It is, however, commonly believed that it is easier to manufacture a play from a book than to write an original drama. People imagine that the playwright, finding characters, plot and incidents ready-made in the novel, can produce the piece with less trouble and difficulty than if he has to look for them at large. This is a delusion founded upon the failure to perceive the radical difference between the technique of the novelist and the dramatist. It is true that in some cases adaptations have had enormous success: one might take two modern instances, _The Little Minister_ and _Sherlock Holmes_. The latter really confirms these remarks. The general public would fancy that in the stories of "Sherlock Holmes" there are plenty of effective plots. The ingenious authors of the play were shrewd enough to perceive this was not the case; consequently they merely used certain characters from the tales and invented an entirely new story. Later on Sir Arthur did find one story suitable, and _The Speckled Band_ has been successful as a lurid melodrama at the Adelphi and the Globe.

In _The Little Minister_ success was achieved by entirely vulgarising a charming book, by throwing away all that distinguished it, and converting what might be called a delicately sentimental comedy into a farce. We are not, however, dealing with the question from the point of view of the novelist's credit; incidentally it must be observed that there are few modern cases on record where the play has not borne to the novel the relation of a crude black-and-white copy to a picture.

The difficulties are two: objective and subjective. The second is the subtler, therefore the more dangerous. The adapter, being well acquainted with the novel, rarely succeeds in forgetting that the general public is not, and he almost invariably assumes that the audience will supply from memory matters that he has left out. In the case of most adapted plays events that appear utterly improbable to those ignorant of the novel seem quite likely to the people who have read it and can supply the missing facts which explain the improbable matters. To the adapter, particularly when he is also the novelist, the characters and events have a real existence, and his task, unlike that of the original playwright, does not seem to be that of bringing them into existence but merely of exhibiting them. Naturally, then, he takes comparatively little pains to prove what to him is axiomatic.

The main objective difficulty is due to the fact that a play is a very short thing--though, alas! this does not always seem to be the case--and a novel is relatively long and often has many characters. In some cases, the playwright attempts to deal with this difficulty by ignoring the existence of half the people who figure in the original. Even then, a mass of explanations has to be jettisoned. There is worse trouble than this: the characters built up in the novel by hundreds of fine touches have to be presented in the play by a few bold strokes. An extraordinary art is necessary in what is not a work of mere transcription, but almost a work of reconception.

There is the further vast difficulty that whilst in most cases the novelist's procedure is to work on a system of exciting curiosity, it is an unwritten law of drama, almost universally true, that there must be no surprises for the audience, except, it may be, in farcical plays that do not pretend to represent life truly and in matters of detail. No doubt, unconscientious readers often commit an act of treason to the author, and cheat him by beginning at the end. One may urge that no one expects a play to do full justice to the novel, and that it is permissible to leave out much. The important fact, however, is that the much necessarily left out in the case of good novels as a rule is exactly that which distinguishes them from the bad. The atmosphere vanishes; secondary characters, often the most pleasing, have to be eliminated or rendered shadowy; thrilling incidents must be cut for want of space, and the remainder is almost inevitably the bare bones of the book, which never, however, really constitute anything like a complete skeleton.

Plays with a Purpose

During one season we had a comparatively large number of plays with a purpose--for instance, _An Englishman's Home_, _The Head of the Finn_, _Strife_, and _The House of Bondage_.

For the sake of convenience let us refer to them and works of a similar character as "problem plays" although that useful term got spoilt some years ago by acquiring a secondary meaning, and became applied almost exclusively to pieces concerning fallen women.

In respect of this rather rare branch of drama there is one matter worthy of notice which has not been quite sufficiently discussed. Yet the point is one referred to several times in criticisms contained in these articles. This is the author's duty to write in such a fashion as to seem impartial. It is needless to suggest that he ought to be impartial, since no one ever takes a real interest in any debatable matter without ceasing to be impartial, and nobody will ever write a play worth seeing unless he takes a deep interest in his subject.

Now, looking at the four plays already mentioned, one may see to some extent how this impartiality operates. There is a difficulty connected with _An Englishman's Home_, for it was alleged--and also denied--that the author had no intention when writing it of dealing seriously with the question of national defence and invasion, and it must be recollected that some alterations were made without his knowledge, which included the addition of a vulgar clap-trap ending, that may do him real injustice. It has generally been regarded as a problem play, as intended to exhibit to us dramatically the fact that we live fondly in fancied security. As drama, it was seriously injured by the obvious bias, by the want of impartiality; it was taken by some to be a warning that we must not trust to the Territorials; but, although the conscriptionist party has welcomed it as establishing their view, its manifest injustice to the citizen soldier has actually caused it to be used as an argument the other way. Moreover, the feeling of insincerity caused by the bias seriously diminished its acting value in the eyes of the critical. The fact of its use as an argument by people of almost opposite views does not prove its impartiality, but rather that its injustice has bred a reaction.

The next of the four is _The House of Bondage_, which had less success than it deserved. The piece manifestly was intended to prove that a woman ought to be entitled at law to a dissolution of marriage on the single ground of her husband's infidelity; the proposition was put in the form of a claim to equality of rights in the sexes to divorce. The question has more than one side, and there is a good deal to be said against Mr Obermer's contention; unfortunately, the author did not attempt to put forward the other view, or even to suggest that there is one. The result was that only those who share the opinion of the author were in sympathy with the piece; to others it seemed manifestly unfair; in fact, the author appeared anxious to convince those who favour his own views, and not those opposed to them.

In _The Head of the Firm_ and _Strife_ one had quite a different state of things. The dramatist played the _advocatus diaboli_ very cleverly, and the other side felt that its case had been stated fairly. The best way to convince people of anything is to present their own views to them in a fashion which they deem just, and then offer them reasons for doubting the truth of their opinions. Both works obviously are anti-capitalist in tendency, and yet, in different degrees and different ways, the capitalist view was stated so fairly, whilst the evil consequences of it were shown so vigorously, that many people who were on the side of the capitalist were forced to think, and therefore to doubt.

Mr Galsworthy bravely went so far as to hint, without stating the proposition, that what seems bad in the labour point of view is really an evil consequence of the capitalist attitude. In this respect he has followed, legitimately, the treatment of the greatest "problem play" yet written, _The Doll's House_, a work that in hundreds of thousands of households has caused something like a revolution in the relations between husband and wife. Ibsen used the appearance of impartiality so finely, stated the husband's case so fairly, that there were terrific quarrels as to what was his point of view, and the result of the quarrels and discussions was the serious consideration by people of the question dealt with in the drama. It is this discussion that the reformer desires, being confident that the discussion of things long deemed right without discussion is the surest road to reform.

From the point of view of dramatic art this impartiality is essential, because without it the necessary impersonal element cannot be given to a play. In such a work as the prison drama _It's never too Late to Mend_, by Charles Reade, one seems to see all the time the hand of the perfervid, almost frantic, reformer, and the same remark applies to several of his novels. Of course, one does not ask the playwright to be, but only to seem, impartial. To demand real impartiality would be to ask that reality which is out of place upon the stage, the function of which is, not to present themselves, but, to borrow Hamlet's idea, reflections of them, and, it would be more accurate to say, to give ideas of them by presenting images intentionally distorted.

For that fourth wall, the existence of which Mr Jerome K. Jerome rather quaintly and childishly suggested by the fender and fireirons laid in front of the footlights in _The Passing of the Third Floor Back_, really operates as a distorting glass, although it is not there. This sounds a little paradoxical, yet is clear enough. Things upon the stage have not the same effect if regarded from the farther side of the footlights as when considered from the nearer. This does not apply merely to things seen, but also to things heard. In this respect there is a resemblance to the work of the impressionist painter. Speaking more closely, one may say that the scene-painter's canvas, with what, when seen at a few feet, are coarse splashes and daubs of colour, is typical of the whole theatrical production. It is imperative, then, that even the impartiality should not be real impartiality. Moreover, absolute impartiality would involve in many cases the suppression of the criticism of life which is the essence of comedy.

"Problem plays," works endeavouring truly to represent to the audience real life, and involving a criticism of life, are so rare that it is worth drawing attention to a danger to dramatists. There is no need to point it out to Mr Galsworthy, who in _The Silver Box_ and in _Strife_ shows that he fully appreciates the point; nor to Mr Granville Barker, who produced _Strife_, for in _Waste_, which is in most respects the greatest English drama of our times, he exhibited it with extraordinary intensity, and also in _The Voysey Inheritance_, an admirable play, which it is to be hoped we shall soon see again. It is to the beginners that one would like to insist on the proposition that you must not push your views down the throats of the audience, but leave spectators to draw their own conclusions, taking pains to see that the conclusions which they fancy are drawn voluntarily by them in reality are forced upon them. Indeed, you must imitate the skilful professor of legerdemain, and "palm" your views upon the audience as he "palms" a card upon his victim.

Drama and Social Reform

Probably at no time and in no country has there been so much fuss about the stage as nowadays in England, and the annual budget of our theatre involves millions. Moreover, people often talk about it as a great educational force, a great instrument for progress, a great vehicle for the dissemination of ideas and so on. Yet the theatre in England remains almost entirely aloof from real life. To the majority of playgoers, an immense majority, it is merely a place of entertainment, except so far as the plays of Shakespeare are concerned; they are supposed to have some educational value, of what nature goodness knows.

Perhaps this phenomenon is not surprising, if one regards the matter historically. The theatre has never forgotten that the Puritans suppressed it for a time and have always been hostile, and it identifies them with the Whig, the Liberal, the Radical, and the Socialist. It recollects that the Royalists revived it, and have always been friendly, and they are represented by the Tory, the Conservative, the Unionists and the Tariff Reformers. So the stage does not lend itself readily to ideas of reform, or sober study of life, or sober anything--indeed, it has long been a little too closely connected with _the_ trade.

There must be players, managers, and some playgoers belonging to the Liberals or Radicals, but they are much in the minority: rarely, if ever, is a suggestion of Liberalism uttered in a theatre except by way of well-welcomed scorn. We are almost all pro-Bungs, House-of-Lords men, and ardent Tariff Reformers.

There is another important element in the matter--the theatre appears to be peculiarly engrossing to those connected with it. Persons entitled to speak have often said that to most of the people attached to the stage the theatre is a little world apart, in which they are content to live almost oblivious of the greater world around. It has been asserted that during the last siege of Paris, whilst some of the players went out and fought bravely, the majority were more concerned at the fate of the stage than that of the city, and an actor of some eminence once bitterly declared that the majority of his _confrères_ had no interest outside the "shop" and never talked anything but "shop."

It may be that all classes of stage-folk are tarred with the same brush; that these remarks concerning the actors apply to the managers, the dramatists, and the critics. Moreover, there are certainly exceptions; indeed, it is well known that several players of distinction take an active part in civic life. At any rate, the fact remains that the stage seems to concern itself very little with the improvements of social life.

In a nebulous way the theatre plays with certain aspects of the relations between the two sexes, but without seriously considering any question of feasible reform. Upon one aspect which seemed to promise matter for powerful drama we had only one important work--I refer to the Deceased Wife's Sister question, which was handled in an able play by a Mr Gatti, and presented at the Court Theatre. Miss Olga Nethersole acted very powerfully in it. One would have thought that this and other questions of legislation would have attracted the attention of dramatists; they did at one time. The strenuous Charles Reade was prodigious in his stage attacks upon bad laws, and effective as well. At the present moment MM. Brieux and Paul Hervieux are flogging some of the laws of France, and the German stage has seen a good many pieces which before the word became demonetised one would have called Problem plays.

Looking back upon the English drama of the last twenty years one notices as a curiosity that it is the woman rather than the man dramatist who appreciates the utility of the stage as a means for seeking reform. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, one of the most tremendous law-changing influences ever exercised by fiction, came from the pen of a woman, though it may be that Mrs Beecher Stowe was not the author of any of the stage versions presented over here. Taking a long jump from the sixties, one finds that in modern times--indeed, within the last few years--four women dramatists have tackled political or politico-social problems. There was the Hon. Mrs Alfred Lyttleton, and her able, interesting play called _Warp and Woof_, dealing with the question of shopgirls and the Factory Act. Next in order of date came _Votes for Women_, by Miss Elizabeth Robins, a brilliant novelist and admirable actress, a little too much carried away by her subject to do more than write one big living scene in a conventional play. Mrs Alfred Mond (now Lady Alfred Mond) is the author of a short piece dealing with Tariff Reform. Not long ago we had a revival of _Diana of Dobson's_, Miss Cicely Hamilton's valuable comedy, in which the "living-in" system of shopgirls and the question of the cruel fines imposed upon them was vividly exhibited. Lady Bell gave us a very able drama concerning a social question in _The Way the Money Goes_.

What native plays have we had by men during the period covered by these four ladies dealing with similar questions? Mr Bernard Shaw has been running amok during this time and before in a kind of "down-with-everything" way, but his philosophy of the stage is as terribly destructive as that of Ibsen, and except in _Widowers' Houses_, and perhaps _Mrs Warren's Profession_, few of his works handle directly matters capable of being dealt with by legislation. Years earlier, in _The Middleman_ and _Judah_, Mr Henry Arthur Jones tackled two questions and strikes have been treated more than once--notably in George Moore's clever, interesting, uneven work, _The Strike at Arlingford_. Much further back there was _Man and Wife_, an attack upon the system of irregular marriages still existing in Scotland and some of the States of the Union. Probably there have been some other native works touching more or less directly upon questions of legislative reform within my time, but it is difficult to remember all of them; yet there are many burning matters to-day with ample elements of drama in them.

Probably the Censor is almost blameless in this affair. Since the days of _The Happy Land_ he has not allowed politicians to be presented upon the stage; but this has little bearing upon the question. There has been interference with some scenes concerning "ragging" in the army. The office bearer has always been very fidgety as far as the army is concerned; but, in all likelihood, would not prevent the reasonable treatment upon the stage of any of the matters already referred to, though perhaps an Education Bill play would have difficulties in his hands, owing to the introduction of religious topics. It seems curious that the women are keener in seeking to use the stage, a tremendous weapon for the purposes of reform, than men, and the explanation is by no means obvious or necessarily flattering to men.

Some day those whom one may generally designate as Puritans will become sensible of the vast potentialities of drama, and will see that it is foolish to leave all the good tunes to the devil. As a result, no doubt, we shall suffer for a while from a lot of bad plays with a good purpose. Yet there will be a useful infusion of new blood and new ideas, and our drama, instead of running round and round after its tail, will get out of its present little vicious circle and become a living force in the country, instead of a mere medium of entertainment, and of entertainment which rarely has any substantial value from an artistic point of view.

In connexion with these remarks the section "Plays with a Purpose" should be read--if possible. It should be added that Mr Galsworthy's admirable play, _Justice_, has had some effect upon the treatment of prisoners.