Chapter IX: An Appeal to the People

"The old era is finished; the new era is beginning." Rolland, writing in the "Revue dramatique" in 1900, opened his appeal with these words by Schiller. The summons was twofold, to the writers and to the people, that they should constitute a new unity, should form a people's theater. The stage and the plays were to belong to the people. Since the forces of the people are eternal and unalterable, art must accommodate itself to the people, not the people to art. This union must be perfected in the creative depths. It must not be a casual intimacy, but a permeation, a genetic wedding of souls. The people requires its own art, its own drama. As Tolstoi phrased it, the people must be the ultimate touchstone of all values. Its powerful, mystical, eternally religious energy of inspiration, must become more affirmative and stronger, so that art, which in its bourgeois associations has grown morbid and wan, can draw new vigor from the vigor of the people.

To this end it is essential that the people should no longer be a chance audience, transiently patronized by friendly managers and actors. The popular performances of the great theaters, such as have been customary in Paris since the issue of Napoleon's decree on the subject, do not suffice. Valueless also, in Rolland's view, are the attempts made from time to time by the Comédie Française to present to the workers the plays of such court poets as Corneille and Racine. The people do not want caviare, but wholesome fare. For the nourishment of their indestructible idealism they need an art of their own, a theater of their own, and, above all, works adapted to their sensibilities and to their intellectual tastes. When they come to the theater, they must not be made to feel that they are tolerated guests in a world of unfamiliar ideas. In the art that is presented to them they must be able to recognize the mainspring of their own energies.

More appropriate, in Rolland's opinion, are the attempts which have been made by isolated individuals like Maurice Pottecher in Bussang (Vosges) to provide a "théâtre du peuple," presenting to restricted audiences pieces easily understood. But such endeavors touch small circles only. The chasm in the gigantic metropolis between the stage and the real population remains unbridged. With the best will in the world, the twenty or thirty special representations are witnessed by no more than an infinitesimal proportion of the population. They do not signify a spiritual union, or promote a new moral impetus. Dramatic art has no permanent influence on the masses; and the masses, in their turn, have no influence on dramatic art. Though, in another literary sphere, Zola, Charles Louis Philippe, and Maupassant, began long ago to draw fertile inspiration from proletarian idealism, the drama has remained sterile and antipopular.

The people, therefore, must have its own theater. When this has been achieved, what shall we offer to the popular audiences? Rolland makes a brief survey of world literature. The result is appalling. What can the workers care for the classical pieces of the French drama? Corneille and Racine, with their decorous emotion, are alien to him; the subtleties of Molière are barely comprehensible. The tragedies of classical antiquity, the writings of the Greek dramatists, would bore the workers; Hugo's romanticism would repel, despite the author's healthy instinct for reality. Shakespeare, the universally human, is more akin to the folk-mind, but his plays must be adapted to fit them for popular presentation, and thereby they are falsified. Schiller, with _Die Räuber_ and _Wilhelm Tell_, might be expected to arouse enthusiasm; but Schiller, like Kleist with _Der Prinz von Homburg_, is, for nationalist reasons, somewhat uncongenial to the Parisians. Tolstoi's _The Dominion of Darkness_ and Hauptmann's _Die Weber_ would be comprehensible enough, but their matter would prove somewhat depressing. While well calculated to stir the consciences of the guilty, among the people they would arouse feelings of despair rather than of hope. Anzengruber, a genuine folk-poet, is too distinctively Viennese in his topics. Wagner, whose _Die Meistersinger_ Rolland regards as the climax of universally comprehensible and elevating art, cannot be presented without the aid of music.

However far he looks back into the past, Rolland can find no answer to his question. But he is not easily discouraged. To him disappointment is but a spur to fresh effort. If there are as yet no plays for the people's theater, it is the sacred duty of the new generation to provide what is lacking. The manifesto ends with a jubilant appeal: "Tout est à dire! Tout est à faire! A l'oeuvre!" In the beginning was the deed.