The misfortune is that few young actresses—if any—say to themselves deliberately that they will aim at character parts, or old-woman parts. Nearly all the old-woman and grande-dame characters are played by actresses who have been leading ladies and during some period have had the painful experience of failing, on account of their age, to get the engagements they have sought. The Juliet of one season is not the Nurse or the Lady Capulet of the next; a considerable time passes before there is such a shift of characters, and she acts nothing at all during the interregnum, which is spent in vain attempts to get the Juliet parts, met with cruel rebuffs on the score of age.
Now, some of the old-man actors on the stage are quite young; they have chosen a particular line, conscious of the fact that nature has denied them the privilege of playing parts that will cause the stage-door-keeper to be deluged with amorous letters addressed to them, and aware, too, that the triumphs of the broad comedian will never be theirs. These young old-men are often quite as successful in old-man parts as those who have served most of a lifetime upon the stage.
It is not more difficult for a young woman to play the old-woman character or the grande-dame part than for the young man to tackle the Sir Peter Teazle or the ordinary modern old-man; nor is this the only class of work other than that of lovely heroine which lies open to the actress. When one hears discussion concerning the casting of plays there is often talk about the difficulty of finding an actress for a Fanny Brough part, which, of course, is quite distinct from what may be considered specifically a soubrette character. Complaints are uttered about the difficulty of finding a player to represent the comic mother-in-law; indeed, playwrights are sometimes affected in their work by the fear that if they write broad comedy for feminine parts the difficulty of casting them will be insurmountable.
Handsome salaries are paid to the few ladies who have a well-deserved reputation as actresses in the class of character thus indicated, and there is a demand for them—a demand generally supplied by superannuated leading ladies and aged soubrettes. It may be offensive to a girl's vanity deliberately to choose a path in which her personal charms, or those which she believes herself to possess, must be of little service. On the English stage it may be doubted if such a policy will ever be adopted, though on French there are instances which might be cited of actresses who have played dowager characters during the whole of a profitable, long and respected career.
No doubt there is another side of the matter. Many, most actresses, join the stage with other ideas than of merely gaining a reasonably comfortable living wage. Pure ambition in some cases, vanity in others, are the motive-force, to say nothing of the numbers who may be regarded simply as stagestruck; and to such as these nothing seems worth striving for save to represent the triumphant heroine, the fascinating soubrette, or Lady Macbeth.
Upon all, these prudent counsels will be wasted—indeed, those who know a little of what passes behind the scenes are well aware that young actresses, almost starving, refuse to accept character parts that would help them out of poverty because they are afraid of jeopardising their chance—their one-to-a-hundred chance—of obtaining the perilous position of leading lady.
There is, of course, another class. Some, perhaps many, become actresses simply from a pure love of what they deem a beautiful, noble art, and for them it is only natural to think that nothing is worth representing save the greater characters; it is difficult to gratify such a love by representing a middle-aged comic spinster, or one of the elderly duchesses, without whom a modern comedy is deemed ungenteel. Let us hope that Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's Academy, which already is bearing fruit, will affect this deplorable phenomenon. Those responsible may succeed in convincing a fair number of their charming pupils that it is wise not to aim at glittering triumphs which fall to few, but to qualify for work necessary in most plays, and very often done indifferently.
"One of those things no fellah can understand," to quote a phrase of Lord Dundreary, is the way in which players get chosen for their parts. Most cases, no doubt, are not instances of square pegs in round holes; but the number of exceptions is enormous, a fact which has lately been made manifest by one of the short French seasons. An actress of really great talent has appeared as a star in her husband's company, and the obvious judgment upon her first two appearances was that the characters chosen were quite unsuitable to her. The reference is to Madame Suzanne Desprès.
In La Rafale and Le Détour she had to represent a Parisian, a chic Parisienne, a creature of nerves, elegance and, according to Balzac, sound business calculation, Madame Desprès suggested none of these qualities; in physique she seems an agreeable-looking, strong-minded countrywoman with brains; obviously she has no instinct for dress; and, despite remarkable skill and a fine exhibition of acting, she presented a woman quite different from the author's character, one also who would never have behaved like M. Bernstein's heroines.
The play suffered and the player suffered, and probably only the critical could see what an admirable actress she is and guess how perfectly she would represent a higher type of woman. This is no isolated case. We often see the race-horse used in pulling heavy weights and the Suffolk punch employed for speed, and each blamed for the unsatisfactory accomplishment of the absurd task. Many of the disasters in the theatre are due to this.
As a rule the actor-manager or manageress demands the principal character, however unsuitable. Going back a little, one recalls with astonishment the experiment of Irving in representing Romeo, and many have wondered why Ellen Terry in 1888 appeared as Lady Macbeth. Some of the pleasantest memories of the playgoer concern superb performances by Miss Elizabeth Robins, and yet they can recollect two or three appearances in commonplace dramas that were flat failures. Mrs Patrick Campbell has had several checks which would be astounding if one did not recollect that she was constitutionally unsuited for the task she attempted.
The most ardent Bensonian will hardly suggest that his idols are always judicious in their choice of characters. To use the stock stage term, players often "see themselves" in characters in which the public sees only them and not the characters. Are there no kind friends on the stage to give unpalatable advice?
One reason for the extraordinary success of the performances by the Stage Society and the Vedrenne-Barker management and of Pinero plays was the judicious choice of players whose physique and temperament coincided with their parts. Several times we had what seemed brilliant pieces of acting by performers who never did anything before or afterwards worthy of admiration. At almost every fresh production enthusiastic young critics discovered a new actor or actress who, after all, was only an old friend well fitted at last.
The lack of attention by managers to this matter of suitability often leads to very awkward results, chiefly in the case of the ladies. Many times we have listened to ravings about the beauty of the heroine, and when she has appeared there has been a giggle in the house on account of her lack of beauty. We have frequently heard references to the tiny feet of a healthy young woman who would hardly have got three of her toes into the glass slipper, or to the dainty hands of a lady who would split a pair of eights.
The beauty of the men is not so frequently referred to, but we sometimes have an ugly fellow vainly trying to live up to suggestions that he is an Adonis and merely looking ridiculous in consequence. The matter of age, too, enters into the question—at times disastrously. Some actresses are like Cleopatra or Ninon de l'Enclos, but many look twice their reputed age. It is only in the case of Juliet that it is deemed decent to refer to this difficulty, and then merely because Shakespeare has set her so cruelly young that everybody knows nobody can play and look the part.
In this matter a little good sense would work wonders. We critics are much to blame, and blamed, for not trying to force the entry of good sense. Some of our forebrothers never hesitated to talk bluntly about the physical unsuitability of players for their parts, but we have grown so mealy-mouthed that if Miss Florence Haydon were to play Rosalind or Mr Louis Calvert Romeo, we should merely use some obscure phrases about unsuitability of temperament instead of saying something usefully brutal about the folly of these admirable artists. If we go a little further, our editors are pestered with letters to which we have the privilege of replying.
The whole thing is absurd. The public is not deluded, and we hear murmurs in the theatre and outcries in the streets about the fact that Miss So-and-so is far too ugly for her part and Mr So-and-so too old, and the plays fail because the charges are true and the stage illusion has never been created, and the critic's authority—if any—is weakened. There are as many bad performances because the players are physically unsuitable as because they are otherwise incompetent.
If these ideas were acted upon the profession at large would gain, for the players would be put more constantly in circulation; on the other hand it will be suggested that the actors and actresses would grow less skilful, since it may be imagined that their highest achievements are exhibited when overcoming the greatest difficulties, in which proposition there is an obvious fallacy; and also that they would gain less experience, having a smaller variety in parts.
The advocates of the old stock system certainly would howl, because they think it did an actor good to play a great number of vastly different characters. It must, however, be recollected that in the time when the stock system flourished, putting aside the comparatively small classic repertoire, a very large proportion of the pieces were written upon more mechanical lines than the better plays of the present time, and parts tended to become classifiable into distinct well-known categories. To-day popular players are often engaged for long terms at theatres, where they are inevitably given characters for many of which they are unsuited in physique or temperament, to say nothing of age.
Another matter is the question of accent. From time to time we have players on our boards who speak English with a foreign accent in parts where such an accent is an absurdity. No doubt some have grappled with this difficulty very cleverly. Modjeska, for instance, Bandmann, Mlle. Béatrice, Marius, Juliette Nesville and the lady who played here as Madame Simon le Bargy.
The memory of few goes back to Fechter, and it would hardly be tactful to refer on this topic to several American players. The effect, however, necessarily is unfortunate; it is difficult enough on the stage to create illusions, and very important not to multiply difficulties. Opera, with the magic aid of music, may contend successfully against such monstrosities as one singer singing an Italian part in French, whilst the others offer various styles of Italian, Anglo-Italian, German-Italian, Swedish-Italian—almost any Italian save the lingua Toscana. Spoken drama is not so robust in this particular, and the matter in question does not happen often enough to acquire validity by becoming a convention.
The past season has been comparatively disastrous to the theatres, and many pieces have failed; this state of things is coincident with healthy progress in English drama, and the year has seen several productions that would have startled as well as delighted enthusiasts a few years ago. Putting aside musical comedy and comic opera, one asks why it is that a great deal of money has been lost at the playhouses and a very large proportion of pieces have been failures.
There are outcries about a dearth of good plays and competent players, and the supposed deficiency in these elements is generally offered as an explanation. Is it the true one? Certainly not. The development of the star system is the chief cause of the disaster. In former days we used to blame the actor-manager, but since the time when all were throwing stones at him a good deal has happened for which the ordinary actor-manager is not responsible—directly.
To-day several of the managers who are not actors run their theatres on the star system, and we find the announcement frequently made that Mr X. will present Miss So-and-so, or Mr So-and-so, or Mrs So-and-so, in a new play by Mr XXX. In other words, the manager is really offering his star to the public, and not the play. Moreover, a number of players are run as stars by syndicates. In plain English, most of our theatres are managed, or rather mismanaged, upon the supposition that the principal players are more important than what they represent.
It is the opinion of many disinterested observers that only three or four of our actors and actress in legitimate drama draw an appreciable amount of money in London to the theatre, and sacrifices made for those who do not obviously are futile. The unfortunate result of the system is that the playwright is sacrificed to the stars—most of whom are ineffectual. He is required to fit his drama to the personality of one, or it may be two, in the cast.
Let us tell briefly the story of one failure of the year. A play of some merit was shown to a popular actor, who suggested that if certain changes were made in it he would recommend it to his syndicate. The changes were suggested comprehensively under the phrase "If you can strengthen my part."
The part was strengthened—that is to say, other parts were weakened, speeches were taken from them and given to the hero, scenes for minor characters were excised or shortened, and the star was dragged into the finale of the second act at great sacrifice of plausibility. The play was then recommended.
It happened that the star had just separated from the leading lady who generally appeared with him, so the syndicate was free in choice of a heroine. Three names were suggested. It was admitted that two of the actresses were more suitable than the third, who, however, had a "backer" willing to put money into the venture. The money prevailed and the lady was chosen. She promptly insisted upon having her part strengthened, so the play was remutilated till her wishes were complied with. Is it surprising that when it was produced the critics fell foul of it and denounced the faults due to these transactions, or amazing that it did not run long?
This is by no means an isolated case: there has been one comedy given this year, the last act of which was blamed by everybody. Why? Because the star, who was not the chief figure in it as the play was written, insisted upon his prerogatives, therefore the part of the second actor in the cast was cut down to next to nothing and a big irrelevant scene was introduced for the star, in which he uttered some of the speeches taken from the second actor's part. To think of a work of art being submitted to such treatment! It is difficult to emphasize it by a parallel. One might ask what would be the result if a painter were to attempt to convert a purely imaginative picture into a portrait, and, in addition to altering the face and the lines of the figures, were to put in a number of accessories to please the patron's taste, and also to accept suggestions from the sitter as to changes in the colour-scheme.
Now, it may be asserted confidently that a number of the plays produced this year have undergone the process of being altered to please managers, actor-managers, star players and syndicates. In addition a good many have been written from the start with a view of fitting the stars without alteration, and such works, in most cases, are quite out of balance and proportion, and, moreover, put a burden upon the stars that they are quite unable to bear, or we to endure.
It was bad enough when there were only two or three stars, but now the managers have starred a whole shoal of mediocre players and sacrificed plays and dramatist to them. That there seems to be a dearth of good plays is in part because of the fact that some good ones are ruined by changes made in them, whilst others are refused because they do not contain star parts, and the authors cannot or will not convert them into star plays.
The stars, created by the managers and industriously boomed by their press agents, by the newspapers and by the postcard merchants, have become Frankensteins to their creators. They demand and get extravagant salaries. Yet experience shows that few really draw people to the theatre.
When the manager makes his calculation he can only put a limited sum to the salary list, and since he starts with one or two star salaries there is an insufficient amount left for the rest of the company—that is to say, instead of having the other characters represented by players who would be chosen for them if money were no object, they have to be taken by the cheapest performers who can possibly be deemed competent.
The position of the unstarred actor is peculiarly precarious, for he is often passed over, although the salary expected by him is not very large, in favour of somebody cheaper and less competent. Some casts remind one of the women who think themselves well dressed merely because they have a new hat. They begin with one or two good players—when the stars happen to be good players—and immediately drop below mediocrity.
A case lately came on for trial in Paris relating to a quarrel that arose a long time ago. Incidentally, it may be observed that "the law's delay" is even greater in France than over here, where, indeed, until the most august regions of the courts are reached procedure is comparatively rapid, and on the Chancery side cases are tried as hats are ironed, "while you wait." The question in Paris raises one of importance, but in itself is mere matter for merriment.
Mademoiselle Sarcy sued her manager because he tried to make her depart from traditions; and, although she is a prima ballerina, required her to wear flowing petticoats in the ballet of Hérodiade. The matter stirred Paris prodigiously.
With us, of course, the ballet has ceased to be of importance. In Mademoiselle Genée we had a dancer as well entitled to immortality as those about whom our fathers raved, and Russian dancers of brilliance have appeared, but opera and the legitimate theatre pay no attention to ballet except at pantomime season; and whilst probably the average keen playgoer of Paris is acquainted with the names of the orthodox steps, and is aware that in the ballet one begins as petit rat, then becomes a quadrille ballerina, develops into a coryphée, blossoms into a minor subject, grows into a subject, and eventually emerges and reaches the stars as a prima ballerina, few of us know anything about the subject.
The whole fight in Paris raged round the question whether, regardless of period or nation or style of music, the prima ballerina is entitled to wear the scanty parasol skirt and petticoats in which she delights. The ladies of the ballet, with modern tradition on their side, resent any alteration in costume. The matter is not one of propriety in the ordinary sense of the word; the propriety of ballet costumes is out of the range of rational discussion. No one can doubt that if we had never seen anything but ordinary society drama and a ballet were launched at us in customary costume the police courts would take up the matter.
It is even known that there was a time (not Sir Henry's) when the Lord Chamberlain interfered at the Lyceum and was defeated by ridicule. Custom has settled the question of propriety, and it may be confidently asserted that it never occurs to the mind of the prima ballerina that any human being could regard her costume as indelicate. The trouble in Paris was that, despite the wish of the other persons concerned in the ballet, the star insisted upon proving lavishly to the public that she did not resemble the traditional Queen of Spain. She went further: she demanded her pound of flesh—or padding—she wished to exhibit what in technical slang is called le tutu, a term descriptive of the abbreviated costume and possessed also of a secondary meaning, which may be imagined by taking the ordinary tourist's pronunciation of the words and translating it. Trilby's "the altogether" in connexion with tights explains the matter.
The question is one of art, and here lies its humour. It is not physical vanity on the part of the ladies, for they know that sculptors would hardly choose as subjects the lower portion of women whose legs have been over-developed by a training so arduous that it is found almost impossible to get English girls to go through with it. But—and here's the rub—the dancer has a respect for her craft, which, like the actor's devotion to his art, tends to produce erroneous ideas, and this is why the fight has taken place.
At the bottom, it becomes a question of virtuosity. Art has suffered appallingly in every branch from the mania for cultivation of dexterity in accomplishment. To the prima ballerina the dancing is more important than the dance, to the actors the playing than the play, to many painters the facture than the picture, and so on. Music has been the main sufferer, particularly on the vocal side, and certain kinds of opera have been buried under the vocal acrobatics of the singers. One sees occasionally in shop windows, and, it may be, in human habitations, a species of abominable clock that has no kind of casing to conceal the works; it suggests the image of a prima ballerina. With the perfectly modest immodesty of the little boy cited in discussion by Laurence Sterne, she delights in exhibiting the works; more truthfully than a once famous conjuror, she insists upon showing us "how it is done"; and that really is quite the last thing a person of any taste wishes to know, or, rather, desires to have forced upon him.
Obviously, it is the duty of everyone who pretends to be educated to have some acquaintance with the mechanics of the different branches of art, but he does not want to be taught in public. Unfortunately the performer displays a natural desire to show his own cleverness rather than that of the dramatist. He treats himself as the cart when he is only the—horse.
Drama has suffered severely from this; indeed, in our theatres we have reached the topsy-turvydom of having the dramatist write for the players instead of having the players act for the dramatist. Sterile art is the general outcome. A great form of architecture perished with the architect who, forgetful of noble design, indulged in desperate tours de force and offered to the stonemason the opportunity of executing miracles in stone lacework.
Dancing has stood still since the dancers have gyrated frantically in order to prove their mechanical dexterity, and drama is in the doldrums because the players, with the assistance of the press, have induced the public to regard their performance as more important than the work which it is their duty to represent. The last statement is becoming inaccurate. It is hardly extravagant to say that when a play is written at the dictation of an actor the acting will be more important than the piece, for but little good work comes out of drama concocted under such circumstances.
The dancers are really dancing on the ruins of their art. They have lessened their skirts and their popularity at the same time. Old pictures show (and I believe that old measurements are preserved to indicate the fact) that in the days of the famous pas de quatre—not, of course, the one at the Gaiety—skirts were worn far longer than the modern tutu.
The costume of the prima ballerina assoluta in our grandfather's days was something like an umbrella and a pair of braces: the umbrella shrank to the en-tout-cas, and the en-tout-cas to the open parasol; unless the movement is arrested, in the course of time a lampshade will be reached, and ultimately, say, fifty years hence, the Genée of the period will have nothing more of skirt and petticoat than some kind of fringe round the waist, indicating, like our coccygeal vertebrae, or the rudimentary limbs of the whale, a mere useless atrophied apparatus.
It was once possible for the poses and movements of the dancer to be graceful—the phrase "the poetry of motion" had a meaning. With the stiff tutu sticking out almost at right angles, elegance is quite impossible. The present "star" resembles in outline one of the grotesques used by Hogarth to illustrate his theories in his "Analysis of Beauty," and one is inclined to laugh at her awkwardness when she walks; nor is it easy to admire when she whirls round like a dancing dervish, the tutu mounting higher and becoming more and more rectangular the faster she goes.
Mlle. Genée, delicious and graceful, in some flowing character-costume, and then ridiculous in the tutu that she adores, proved this more than any amount of written explanation. She was such a great performer, so perfect in mechanism, so harmonious from little foot to dainty head, so brilliant in her miming, that one was forced to say sorrowfully "Et tu-tu, Genée." Unfortunately the virtuoso mania is irresistible, and, so far as graceful dancing is concerned, there is no hope that we may see such a pas de quatre as won fame in the palmy days of the ballet; we have reached the reign of the pas du tutu, and, almost wish we had arrived at the pas du tout.
During the last few years there has been a great stir in the dancing world. Some time ago Isadora Duncan gave a private exhibition at the New Gallery of certain dances in a style intended to be a revival of old Greek dancing.
A little later Miss Ruth St Denis presented in public some strange, quite beautiful, performances consisting of dancing, miming and posturing supposed to suggest ideas of Indian life, and her finely restrained, truly artistic work deeply impressed both the critics and audiences.
Afterwards came Miss Maud Allan, alleged—no matter with what degree of truth—to be an imitator of Isadora Duncan, and she made a great "hit," her most popular performance being a "Salome" dance, which was considered by some people to be indecent. Certainly of her costume the French phrase "qui commence trop tard et finit trop tôt" might justly be used, for she carried nudity on the stage to a startling degree. In a good many other dances her work was rather pretty and quite unobjectionable, but vastly inferior to the art of Isadora Duncan or Ruth St Denis.
The theatrical season of 1908 ended in a blaze of—dancing. At what is generally deemed about the dullest moment in the year Isadora Duncan appeared at the Duke of York's Theatre, and kept it open and well attended for almost a month. The affair is unique in the history of our theatre. One can imagine a playhouse running on the basis of a big ballet, with a story, popular music, magnificent scenery, gorgeous costumes, huge corps de ballet, half-a-dozen principals and immense advertisement. In this case we have had more or less isolated dances to music generally severe; for scenery only a background of subtle yellow, taking strange tones under the influence of different lights; for costumes only some beautiful, tranquil, simple Greek drapery; for corps de ballet a few children; for principals one woman, with an intelligent face, but certainly no great beauty; and in the way of advertisement very little, except some honestly enthusiastic press notices, and fortunately nothing in the form of photographs of nudities or half-nudities.
There has been a triumph of pure art under austere conditions, such as can hardly be recollected on our stage, unless in the case of Everyman—pure art akin to the theatrical, indeed parent of the drama. The word histrionic is derived through the Latin from an Etruscan word which means "to leap" and was originally applied to dancers.
Historically, the matter is interesting. Drama began in dance and developed from it, dance and drama going hand-in-hand for a long while; then a separation came, and dance has tended more and more to become meaningless and conventional, and, in the chief school of dancing, purely technical. The Spanish school is still alive, reinforced by the North African, and in the main showing some tendency, often perfectly restrained, towards the indecent. Our own step-dancing remains popular, and for a while the hybrid skirt-dancing triumphed, chiefly because of the genius of Kate Vaughan and talent of her successors, one of whom, Katie Seymour, worked out a clever individual compound of styles.
The "Classic" school, classic in quite a secondary sense, which has been represented by what one can conveniently call the ballet, year after year has worked towards its extinction by the over-cultivation of mere technique, of execution rather than imagination.
The greatest artist of this school in our times is Genée; natural grace, a piquant individuality, and a fine power of miming, have lent charm to work the foundation of which is really acrobatic, and consists of remarkable feats made too manifest by an abominably ugly costume.
Isadora Duncan goes back in style to the early Greek; dancing, however, necessarily to more modern music, for the reason that we do not know how to reproduce much of the old, and possibly would not like it if we could. To her work one may apply the phrase of Simonides, that "dancing is silent poetry." Preferable is the term that has been used concerning architecture: Schelling, in his "Philosophie der Kunst," calls it "frozen music," a term ridiculed by Madame de Staël. Peter Legh wrote a book on the topic, published in 1831, with the title "The Music of the Eye." The book is poor, pretentious stuff, but the title seems nicely applicable to the dancing of Isadora Duncan. To a deaf man her work would be entirely musical—to a Beethoven or Robert Franz, deaf after, for a while, full enjoyment of sound, her dances would, I believe, represent complete, delightful, musical impressions.
It may be that sometimes in her work she attempts impossible subtleties, endeavouring to express ideas beyond the range of melody—for it is difficult to imagine that any dancing can be more than expressive of melody, though no doubt to make this true "melody" must be understood in a large sense. How far away this is from dancing which consists in the main of executing more or less complicated steps "in time" with the music, or such appalling vulgarities as a cake-walk. It must be admitted that one of the Tanagra figurines is sadly suggestive of a characteristic pose in the cake-walk—though it may well be that it is a mere pose which led to none of the abominations with which our stage has been deluged!
In the case of Isadora Duncan we have seen poses and movements of extraordinary beauty, exquisitely sympathetic with fine music. No doubt occasionally she has made a concession, as on her first night, when she danced to "The Blue Danube" waltz by way of an encore, putting, however, her own interpretation on the music and her sense of it. Those who are acquainted with Greek sculpture and with some of the classic drawings of the old masters will see that to a very large extent her work is a revival rather than an invention; but this fact—which she acknowledges—in no degree diminishes the merit of her performances, for the execution is of wonderful beauty and the application of the old ideas to music of a different type is very clever.
Her work alone has well repaid the audiences, many members of which have made several visits to the theatre; it has, however, been supplemented by dances in which young children were the performers, dances so pretty in conception and delightful in execution that one has felt the whole house thrilling with pleasure. Nothing like these children dances, nothing of the kind half as charming, has been given on the stage in our day.
The one complaint possible against Isadora Duncan is that she has rendered us immoderately dissatisfied with what had once moderately contented us; and the fear is that we shall promptly have a host of half-baked imitators, who will copy the mere accidentals of her system without understanding the essentials, and will fancy that the whole matter is one of clothes and music, and prance about bare-legged, meaninglessly. It is hard to see how this is to be avoided until there has been time for her pupils to grow up; it is certain, however, that if the new idea, the new-old idea, takes root, there will be a revolution in dancing, which may have far-reaching effects.
Drama of the strictly intellectual type will remain unaffected; possibly there will be a new development of the musico-dramatic. It has been suggested that musical comedy is waning, and the period has been reached when the average piece of this class spells failure. There is, of course, nothing in the work of Isadora Duncan which limits it to one principal, and naught to prevent the combination of singing and dancing. Off-hand it seems rash to suggest that spoken dialogue could be harmonized with these. It is imaginable that the authors of Prunella could see their way to combine with work somewhat on the lines of their charming piece such ideas of dancing as have been suggested by Isadora Duncan. The result should be a novel, delightful form of art, not necessarily hybrid.
After Isadora Duncan's public performances came the deluge and the country was flooded with women indecently unclad, who flapped about on the stage displaying their persons and their incompetence lavishly. The authorities have been very lax as regards such performances, many of which were so obviously crude and clumsy that it was clear that a succès de scandale was sought deliberately. Of course some of the performers may have had merit. Later on (in 1910) there arrived some brilliant Russian dancers whose work is of too great value and importance to be dealt with in a single paragraph.
The number of matinées at Christmas-time has caused the usual outcry against the matinée hat, and wrathful or sarcastic letters on the subject; and it is said that some French managers are taking the strong step of excluding from the front rows those ladies who, to use the queer Gallic term, are not "en cheveux." It seems surprising that an evil denounced so universally should be permitted to exist, and that loud complaints made during many years should have had little or no effect.
The average man regards the matter as quite simple, and wonders why women are so selfish as to keep on their hats, and thinks that there is no reasonable explanation of their conduct or excuse for it. It seemed clear that there must be greater difficulties than are obvious. So questions were put to an ardent playgoer, who spends appalling sums of money on her dress, as to why she makes a fuss about taking off her hat in the theatre.
"My good man," she said to the questioner, "you are talking 'through your hat' as well as about mine. If my hair was as simple a matter as yours—" this hit at his unprotected pate seemed rather a blow below the belt—"there would be no difficulty. Unfortunately, it is a very complex matter." He hid all but the smallest conceivable fraction of a smile. "I am not referring to colour," she continued with some asperity, "but to the fact that, at present, fashion requires me to wear a prodigious number of little curls. My native crop is ample in quantity, but I should hardly be in time for a matinée or even an evening performance if I had it turned into all these little necessary curls. So, like most of my friends, in order to save time and trouble, I have a number which are pinned on. Do you think I care to run the risk of removing my hat without even a looking-glass to guide me? Heaven knows what might happen. The case is a little better, though far from satisfactory, with those who wear nothing but their own crop."
This view of the subject seemed to have something in it, a fact which, of course, could not be admitted. There were, not long before, in The Westminster Gazette some remarks by "Madame Qui Vive" to the effect that even a female Absalom or a Mélisande could not do without what she called the "clever devices of the coiffeur," and claims were made of woman's right to adopt the fashion of the days when both men and women wore wigs, on the ground that the coiffeur's "little devices"—English for sham curls—save time, and also remain "trimmer and neater" than natural curls.
"Do you think," she said, "that it is pleasant to hold an eight or ten guinea hat on your knees, to say nothing of a boa and muff and veil? And what about the damage to a delicate hat caused by people who shove in front of you and brush against it and crush the tulle and break the feathers? A lot of style it possesses after being treated in that fashion!"
"Don't you think you might have special hats for matinées—something undamageable."
"Perhaps you would like to see me in a tam-o'-shanter, or a yachting cap, or one of those nice 'sensible' straw hats you men admire; and suppose I want to go to a lunch en route for the play, or tea afterwards, or to drive in the Park, or to go anywhere except to my cabinet de toilette?"
"They might make you something extra small and low that would serve for all these purposes."
"Indeed; don't you think half-a-guinea is enough to pay for a stall without buying a special hat into the bargain? A nice fuss my husband would make about my extravagance. Besides, people want us to wear no hat at all. What does your wife do?"
The interviewer replied that his wife thought it her duty to take off her hat.
"She behaves better than many ladies of the theatrical world. The other day I could not see a bit because of the enormous hat worn by Miss ——, and Miss ——and Miss —— were just as bad."
It would be pleasant to give the names which would identify popular actresses who are great shiners in this matter.
"Moreover," she continued, "there is the difficulty of putting it on again. You men wear your hats on your heads, and can easily get them straight; we don't, we wear them on our hair, or our scalpettes, or our transformations, or on any postiche that may be fashionable or necessary, and can only tell whether they are straight, or even the right way round, by means of a looking-glass. A pretty thing if I were to sail out of a theatre with my hat really askew, or before behind; people might fail to take a charitable view of the situation, and suspect I had had a glass too much instead of a glass too little."
"All this is irrelevant," said the interviewer, "and the whole difficulty is—you are too mean to go to the ladies' room and pay or give sixpence to the attendant."
She smiled pityingly.
"My dear man, you grumble about our being late at the theatre. What would happen if fifty of us were to take off our hats and touch up our hair in a room too small for fifteen, before taking our seats? I know one ladies' room where there is only one looking-glass, and there are only a few horrid little hooks on which to hang hats and veils. I would gladly patronize the waiting-room if there were ample accommodation, but that would be out of the question in most theatres, and one would have to come much too early and get away needlessly late; and there might be little mistakes about the hats and furs unless half-a-dozen attendants were provided, for it can't be a simple question of handing hats and coats over the counter as it is with you men."
It is undeniable that in some cases the ladies' cloak-rooms have not been designed so as to deal with the question under discussion, because, of course, theatres are primarily built for the evening performances, and matinées are only a little extra as a rule.
"The matter," said the lady thoughtfully, "is more important than you think. I consider that the matinée hat has settled the fate of many new enterprises. If the lady is asked to take off her hat and does not, she is uncomfortable during the afternoon, because she knows the people are hating her, not quite unjustly, and also because they sometimes whisper at her offensively. If she does take it off she is worried lest she has made a guy of herself; she is often upset because her hat has been crushed, and her mind is distracted by wonder if she will get it on right at the end. The result is that she is in a bad mood for the play and judges it unfairly.
"I think something could be done. The seats might be so arranged as to have an open box underneath each stall for the hat and muff of the lady immediately behind. I do not say it would be easy to get at them; but even in the case of the narrowest stalls—and many are an outrage—it would be possible. Something of the sort indeed exists at one or two theatres, such as the Haymarket. Of course the cartwheel hats would not go into them, but ladies don't wear such things, only women who want to advertize themselves. Next," she continued, "comes the question of the looking-glass. I have made efforts to use a small miroir de poche, but it is far from adequate. In cases where the backs of the stalls are of a good height, a fair-sized mirror might be fixed high up on the back, with some little contrivance in the way of a curtain which could be drawn over it; and aided by these we might be able to grapple with our difficulties."
A penny-in-the-slot mirror might pay.
In efforts, certainly justifiable, to discover the reason for the failure of the theatrical season, some people have made quite a ferocious attack upon the "deadhead," who really has nothing to do with the case. He has been spoken of as an incubus. Some people regard the free entry of the caput mortuum with a hostility like that shown by our ancestors (and to some extent ourselves) to the mortmain of the Church.
Let us consider the deadhead for a while. First, it is necessary to point out that there are several species. The genus includes all members of the audience who do not pay for their seats. Of course the species of deadhead critic is not attacked on this particular point; yet indirectly some members of it affect the situation, for it is said that there are critics who demand a good deal of "paper" for their friends from managers, even when the tickets are really saleable.
London critics are not treated like their brethren in Paris—the great city in which drama flourishes—where a reverence is exhibited for our craft not manifested in London. On a first night over here you will find that in many theatres the representatives of first-class papers are in back rows of the stalls or in the dress circle, whilst deadheads of another species are occupying most of the better places. Moreover, there are very, very few journals to which more than one ticket is sent.
The next kind of deadhead is the unprofessional first-night deadhead, a mixture of personal friends of the manager, the author, the principal players and of "the backers," if any. It is said that they are the most troublesome of all to handle, being utterly unreasonable as a body, and refusing contemptuously seats accepted without a murmur by newspapers that have a million or so of readers. Many are only willing to lend the support of their presence on the first night; seats for the second or a later night are scorned. In this class may be reckoned members of the profession, who, with a strange disregard for the convenience of the management, demand a couple of stalls for the première, though they are in the habit of complaining that a first performance does justice neither to the piece nor to the players. Lastly, in the group of first-night deadheads come the members of the unrecognised, ill-organised, generally tactless claque.
The species that lately has been attacked is divisible into two groups. The first consists of the people who will not go to the theatre without an order, but do not expect first-night tickets—one may call them the "cadgers." The second species might be entitled the "window-dressers." Volumes have been written about the "cadgers," and countless stories told. No doubt they cause trouble and some expense in stamps, stationery and clerical work. Probably they do not really affect the fate of a piece, for there seems no reason to doubt the truth of the general assertion, that nearly all of them would stay away if they could not get a ticket for nothing.
Now we come to the really lamentable class, people who have to be brought into a theatre "with a lassoo," to use an American term. Let us look at the position—the melancholy position. The play is not quite a hopeless failure; it is in a Mahomet's coffin position. If it can last a little longer the season may improve and money be made; or it is neither making nor losing on ordinary nights and does paying business on Saturdays. There is a third state of affairs—perhaps the commonest: it is necessary to keep the piece running for a certain number of weeks, even at a loss, in order that it may visit the provinces and the colonies or the States as a big London success that has enjoyed a long run. Yet paying playgoers keep aloof.
What is the manager to do? If his house is but half full the applause will be faint, the players are likely to act without spirit, and, worse still, the audience may be chilled, and the members of it will tell their friends that the house was almost empty, thereby causing them to think that the entertainment is poor. So half full might become quite empty. What method does the manager adopt? He knows that the general public is as uncritical of an audience as of a play or of acting, so he fills his house as well as he can with the very deadest of deadheads; "orders" are distributed lavishly to people whose presence in the theatre is actually a favour to the management.
It is said that these playgoers are peculiarly severe in their judgments and remarkably apathetic! To the truth of part of this we can testify, since we study such deadheads with great curiosity on the occasions, rather rare, when we see them, for sometimes a dramatic critic gets taken to the theatre by a friend. We think ourselves very famous, yet most of us have friends ignorant of the fact that our trade is to criticize plays. The position is a little quaint; one is asked to dine at about the time that is customary to take afternoon tea; the dinner is short though, if at a fashionable restaurant, the waits are long; and there comes an awful moment when the host mentions that he has got six stalls for the ——. Generally there is some friend present who knows the true position, and exhibits a smile of fiendish mirth.
When this happens we examine the professional deadhead with interest. He reminds one of the hired mourner at the Hebrew funeral. Fantastic clothes, strange devices for keeping shirt-fronts clean, queer contrivances for protecting the throat during the bus-ride home, furtive umbrellas, ample reticules (in which perhaps goloshes are hidden), and a genteel reticence in applause or laughter, are marks of the stranger in the stalls—the harmless, necessary deadhead. He may not be ornamental, nor even she, despite her sex; perhaps they give little encouragement to the players; they bring nothing directly to the exchequer, but they fill a place.
Few of us do more; some of us merely fill a column, and wish we did that duty as conscientiously as most of these poor creatures do theirs, for, though obviously determined not to enjoy themselves, they come punctually, do not cause inconvenience by going out between the acts to waste money on high-priced refreshments, and remain in their places to the bitter end—unlike the cash patrons, so many of whom bustle away brutally towards the close of the entertainment for fear lest they should miss the chance of earning a nightmare at a fashionable restaurant. Seeing what service they render to the managers the deadheads are perhaps entitled to the protection of the phrase "de mortuis."
The foregoing article brought several letters, amongst them one that deserves a little consideration. All responsibility is disclaimed for the letter that is published verbatim:
DEAR SIR,—I have lately read an article by you on the subject of the matinée hat, with almost every word of which I have the honour of expressing my entire disagreement. Although your views on the topic may be absurd, they show that you have a mind capable of appreciating more than one side of a case; so I venture to write to you about the great question of the day, the proposed suppression of the deadhead. "Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend," to use the words of the bard; to think that after all our services to them, the managers, too blind to see the obvious causes of their distress, should dream of abolishing the "harmless necessary" deadhead, who often has rendered to them assistance like that of the mouse "i' the fable" to the lion.
Permit me to discuss the matter seriously. Let me begin by employing, with trifling modification, a famous phrase by one of the dramatists of the land from which most of our English drama comes: "There are deadheads and deadheads!" They may be put into two main groups—the first-night deadheads and the other-nights deadheads—and there are subdivisions. Few save those immediately concerned would mourn if the first group were abolished—you can guess that I do not belong to it. Yet I am well acquainted with the group, since a cousin of mine, long time a popular actor, has been of late a too-frequent attendant at these functions.
Of first-night deadheads there are four varieties: Friends of the management, including their brother pros.; friends of the author; friends of principal players in the cast; and the critics. It is a source of great joy to my cousin to see that on these occasion the managers know how to put the critics in their proper places, grouping them, for instance, in rows of stalls bearing the more remote letters of the alphabet, whilst between them and the footlights come the deadheads of the other varieties.
Personally, I wonder whether it is wise to put the gentry of the pen in seats from which they often hear with difficulty, and see without accuracy, in rows of seats normally belonging to the pit, and merely posing, pro hoc vice, as stalls, and situate in the headachy region underneath the dress circle.
According to my cousin, the first-night deadheads, as a body, are unpunctual and unappreciative. They chatter a good deal and seem more interested in the audience than the play, and might well be replaced by the many people who would be glad to plank down their money for a seat. Let them go; and I warrant the managers will be none the worse—I should, indeed, except the gentlemen of the Fourth Estate.
The case of myself and the deadheads of other nights is quite different. The managers will find it difficult to do without us.
We are present as much for their benefit as for our pleasure.
Constatons les faits, if I may borrow another phrase from the French. Under what circumstances are we invited? When a play is doing good business? Certainly not. It is when the company are discussing in whispers whether the notice will go up or not, that the Fiery Cross is sent round to us and we come and fill the house. Without us there would be an aching void, and the few paying people, aghast at the gloom, would spread very bad reports. Managers, like nature, abhor a vacuum. Our presence saves the situation and the face of the management. No doubt our assistance is often vain, but the cases are numerous when, thanks to us, the management has been able to tide over a bad week or two during a run.
"They also serve who only sit and watch" is our motto, taken, you will see, from a line by the "organ-mouthed voice of England." Would not Dorothy have died young but for our intervention? Would not The Lion and the Mouse have enjoyed the success it deserved if we had been called in to dress the house until the public had discovered the piece? Many are the cases where, during weeks of bad weather or sudden gloom we have rallied loyally to the theatre and kept a play going.
Do services such as this count for nothing? Is my occupation to become like that of the Moor of Venice—merely because managers are forgetful? Do we make no sacrifices when we come to their aid? What about the expense of coming to and fro? What about wear and tear of dress clothes, useless to some of us except for such purposes, and, in honesty I should add, so far as the nether portions are concerned, for attending funerals?
Let me discuss what is urged against us. It is said that if we did not get free tickets we should pay to visit the play. There is a little truth in this, but not much. We might take tickets for the pit to see the good plays; our judgment tells us they are but few, whereas a sense of duty compels us in our quasi-professional capacity to attend even the most deplorable rubbish. This aspect of the matter amounts to no more than a trifle. The managers would gain little from our occasional shillings and lose much by our frequent absence.
It is urged that we do not applaud. I maintain that deceitful applause is not in our implied contract; certainly we never hiss or boo, though there is a splendid tradition rendered popular by poor Lal Brough that one of us found a play so utterly bad that he left his seat, went to the box-office, and bought a ticket, in order that he might express his opinion without prejudice to his conscience. As a body we are playgoers of judgment and experience, and, though I protest that we clap generously when there is a reasonable opportunity, the suggestion that we are a claque failing to do its duty because we do not applaud bad pieces is an outrageous insult.
No, sir; I do but humbly voice the opinion of my fellow-deadheads when I say that we would rather be abolished than have to offer sycophantic applause as part of the bargain. I insist a little upon this aspect, because the refusal to applaud rubbish seems to be looked upon as the dead head and front of our offending, if I may take a trifling liberty with the words of the Swan of Avon.
I had forgotten, sir, to mention one of our most important services. It is notorious that many plays are run in London without there being any expectation that they will make money in the Metropolis, but in the belief that if they can be called "a great London success," our simple-minded cousins in the country will accept them with enthusiasm. How, I ask you, are these London successes manufactured? How could they be without our aid? I could name plays that have been run for a hundred nights in town at a heavy loss, and yet have proved gold-mines; and I have visited them at the call of duty and seen with my trained eyes so few of the paying public that a mere sense of decency would have compelled the managers to close the doors if we had not been present.
Our assistance on these occasions is an odious part of our duty. It goes sadly against my conscience to be one of a kind of stage-army audience, playing a part in order to deceive country or colonial managers into the belief that some piece of rubbish has had a genuinely successful London run. Is not service of this character to be counted? Surely, at the least, if we are to be abolished it should be recognized that the old hands amongst us are entitled to some compensation. Why, sir, seeing that serious politicians do not propose to suppress licences for the sale of poisons without giving compensations, surely we, who have done much and suffered much, ought not to be put into limbo without some recognition of our services. I remain, yours sincerely,
CAPUT MORTUUM
Just a line. On careful consideration of this letter, it seems only right to make a suggestion that some doubts exist whether it is entirely genuine, but it certainly appears to contain some grains of truth.
It may be doubted whether the historian will call our period "the age of advertisement," though some have thought so. For there are such rapid and prodigious growths in the base craft of beating the big drum that our most audacious and colossal efforts may, to our grandchildren, seem like a Brown Bess to a modern repeater in comparison with their means of man-allurement. Of all the arts the one relying most upon advertisement is the drama; yet the phrase is half-unjust to real drama.
Perhaps it is fairer to say that there is more advertisement in connexion with the theatrical art than any other, or, indeed, all the others put together. The position is surprising; a large mass of the reading matter of the London papers is filled with copy concerning the theatres and players, though only a small percentage is criticism. More people would recognize each of thirty popular performers than could identify even one of the great in other branches of art or in science. A recent squabble about a couple of actresses has been the subject of greater fuss than would be caused by the discovery of the lost books of Livy, of a picture by Apelles, of the MS. of an unknown opera by Beethoven, of a method of making accumulators out of papier-maché, or a mode of manufacturing radium at a cost of twopence a pound. There have been thousands of columns printed concerning the marriages of (so-called) actresses to young gentlemen of family.
A digression about these marriages is permissible. Each has led to many articles on alliances between the aristocracy and the stage, and lists of the ladies who in our times have honoured (or dishonoured) the nobility with their hands have been given. Yet there has been little comment upon the fact that, with two or three exceptions, the so-called actresses have had no position of importance in the legitimate ranks of the profession. A woman may perform in a theatre, and even draw a big salary, without being an actress, and she may have brains, beauty and popularity, and nevertheless enjoy little chance of marrying anybody with a "handle to his name," if she confines her work to the non-musical stage.
A distinction suggests itself—it might be that in music and the love of it by the nobly born lies the explanation of the phenomenon; it might be that the blue-blooded youths captured these charmers of the musico-dramatic department in order to enjoy a selfish monopoly of lovely voices, but such is not the case. Two or three of the ladies who have won their way to the "hupper succles" possess talent; one of them has a beautiful voice and great gifts as an actress, and one was a brilliant dancer and became an excellent comedienne. The ruck and run of them, however, have triumphed owing to advertisement in subtle and also in crude forms.
Really the actresses of legitimate drama, whom one should call the actresses, have a grievance not merely in the fact that the peerage does not woo them (since in a good many instances the bride has paid dearly for her elevation), nor merely because women of the oldest profession open to the sex miscall themselves actresses when in trouble—the term actress being like the word "charity"—but because their title includes many persons of notoriety who, if forced to rely solely upon their talent, could hardly earn a pound a week in true drama. "True drama," for the common term "musico-dramatic" points to the fact that the fortunate nymphs belong to the lighter (and sometimes degraded) forms of musical work and not of the legitimate drama. Some wag, no doubt, has called their branch the leg-itimate drama.
In the mid-Victorian days the advertisements of drama were trifling. Thirty years ago the photographs of Miss Maud Branscombe, a real beauty, but not an actress of great quality, created quite a stir, and made her name well known throughout the land; and the publication of them was, probably, the beginning of the present deluge. The two illustrated papers of importance published pictures only of actresses who by means of their talent had made a genuine sensation; and therefore but few were presented in the year. Nowadays there are from thirty to forty photographs a week in the illustrated papers of actresses—using the term in its widest sense.
Many young ladies, who twenty years ago could not by any decent means have got their likenesses exhibited to the public except in shop-window photographs, now simper at us fifty-two times a year, or more, and are sometimes described as "the celebrated actress," though a few of them never get beyond the dignity of a single silly line in the book of a musical hodge-podge. Miss XXX smiles at us from her 40-h.p. "bloater car" which has cost a larger sum than eight years of her salary, and the simple-minded think she must be a great star to be able to afford such a luxury, not knowing that she herself is the luxury which someone else is unable to afford. The humble old devices are now stale tricks. The actress in search of notoriety does not lose her jewels: she brings an action which is reported at great length, and during it half-a-dozen members of the profession get a splendid chance of blowing their own trumpets. There was a cruel case a little while ago: one of these "damaged darlings" of the stage did lose her jewels—which had cost about as much as that admirable actress Amy Roselle earned in her honourable career with a tragic ending—but felt bound to keep silent about the loss, since to have mentioned it would have seemed like "out-of-date" advertising. "View jew," she called it.
It would be unfair to suggest that the ladies have a monopoly, for many of the actors also are busy in the art of advertisement—some so busy as to have little time to study the technique of their art. However, they get rather less help from the illustrated papers, for reasons not quite obvious, if it be correct, as some suppose, that the picture journals are bought for the—not by—the ladies of the family.
The puff system is disadvantageous to the managers, since they have to pay fancy prices for the services of players, no better than others who could be engaged at humble rates, because they have acquired a specious importance by advertisement. The result has been a prodigious increase of salaries, without any corresponding gain in revenue, for although the much-"boomed" artist may attract people to a particular theatre, it is not to be assumed that the quantity of playgoers is increased, or that more money is spent on the whole by the public because of all this advertising.
The consequence to the managers, as a rule, is that expenditure is much greater, but the total amount of receipts remains the same. Yet the managers as a body are not to be pitied, since not only do they, unwisely, assist in this artificial glorification of the members of their companies, but some of them also push the advertisement of their theatres beyond delicate limits, and by the cunning strenuous efforts of their "press agents" and others beat the big drum very loudly, sometimes sounding a false note, as when they publish, in advertisements, garbled criticisms upon their wares.
There are some in the theatrical world who dislike and disdain the illegitimate advertisement. Others there are less nicely scrupulous, perhaps, but not sufficiently "smart" or lucky enough to "boom" themselves. These suffer. Advertisement is to the theatrical world like ground bait to anglers. We who, to some extent are behind the scenes, know too well how many admirable actors and actresses have a hard fight for a bare living because their places are taken by people of less knowledge and skill, but more "push" and cunning. Even the general rise in salaries does not help these reticent players, for a salary at the rate of twenty pounds a week is not very useful if you are resting ten months in the year.
It is quite incontestable that we journalists are to be blamed. We help in the "booming"; we are the big drum, the players provide their own trumpets. A conspiracy of silence on our part would do much to mend matters. If for a little while we were to suppress the "personal pars." and keep out the photographs and only write concerning the theatres strictly as critics, a great change would take place. Probably the revenue of the theatres would not diminish sensibly, but the expenses would. Managers and players would be forced to rely for success upon merit and nothing else, and as a result the standard of drama and acting would be raised. This has been so far perceived that even people belonging to the other side of the footlights have expressed publicly the opinion that the unsatisfactory state of the theatres is partly due to their being too much talked and written about.
Rosalind's phrase that a "good wine needs no bush" is but partly true; merit rarely succeeds by its own virtue when it has to meet unfair competition in the shape of advertisement.
A little while ago a man, who had not been to the theatre for some years, was asked his reason. "The last time I went," he replied, "it was to a tragedy, well written and interesting, if hardly inspired, and after the first act the band—nobody would call it an 'orchestra'—played a thing called 'The Washington Post,' which I discovered by the aid of the programme was written by a noise-concocter called Sousa. I sat it out; I had no choice, for I was in the middle of a row, and in order to escape I should have had to trample upon a dozen inoffensive strangers. During the next act the abominable noise kept coming back into my ears and distracting me, so the drama was ruined for me."
It was pointed out to him that Mr Sousa is a very popular composer, that millions of people love his compositions, that it is merely a minority, contemptible in number, which loathes them. Still he caused thoughts. For a long time the musical folk have regarded the entr'acte music simply as one of the unavoidable discomforts of the playhouse; but, really, managers might be more careful. Apparently it is impossible to deal satisfactorily with the question. There is a horrible dilemma; if the music is good you cannot enjoy it, because you can hardly hear it, for the audience talk too loudly, and there is the bustle of people coming in and out, and one catches the voices of young ladies inviting people in the stalls to take tea or coffee or to buy chocolates, and the occupants of the pit to refresh themselves with "ginger-beer, lemonade, bottled ale or stout," a phrase to which they give a species of rhythmical crescendo.
The difficulty is enhanced in some houses by the fact that the orchestra is hidden in a species of box which is almost noise-proof. On the other hand, if the music is bad—generally the case—well, it is bad; worse, still, you can hear it easily. There is a kind of kink in nature which breeds the law that very small interruptions will mar your pleasure in good music, but nothing less than a dynamite explosion can drown the bad; even cotton wool in your ears or the wax employed by the sailors of Ulysses will not keep it out.
Some time ago Miss Lena Ashwell added to the debt of playgoers towards her by installing an admirable string quartet, which rendered real music so well that many people went to her theatre almost as much for the music as for the drama. Alas! the string quartet soon disappeared. Inquiries—of course not of persons officially connected with the theatre—disclosed the fact that there had been many complaints. People found it difficult to hear themselves talk, and when they talked loud enough playgoers who were enjoying the music said "Hush!" and in other ways suggested that they thought it bad form to chatter whilst the quartet was playing; so Miss Ashwell—very reluctantly—was forced to change the system.
The Kingsway Theatre formed an exception—not, indeed, the only exception—to these remarks. The whole question is very difficult. Theoretically, at least, it is deplorable that there should be any interruption from the beginning to the end of a play. Dramas, for full effect, should be in one act, or if they are too long, and if a concession must be made to human physical weakness, if an opportunity must be given to people to stretch themselves or move in their seats, there should be an interval of absolute silence or occupied by music finely indicative of the emotional states intended to be created by the drama.
This no doubt is a theory demanding perfection. Up to a certain point efforts are made to realize it. Under the generous management of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, we often have music composed expressly for the drama by musicians of quality, and sometimes it is well enough written to deserve and afterwards obtain performance in the concert-room. Yet in a sense it is a failure, since it is imperfectly heard in the theatre; the fault lies with the audience, but it is hard to blame the members of it. There is no crime in not being musical, despite Shakespeare's prodigious phrase, "The man that hath no music in himself ... is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils," or Congreve's phrase concerning music and the savage breast. We know that there are many people otherwise finely equipped and alert in matters of art who have no taste in or for music; that there are some of irreproachable judgment in literature or painting who, like the officer in the story, recognize no tune save "God Save the King," and that only because people stand up when it is played. Also we are aware that some musicians are utter Philistines so far as other branches of art are concerned.