Part 15

Ibsen's early romantic plays had been known in Germany since 1875. In 1878 _Pillars of Society_ and in 1880 _A Doll's House_ achieved wide popularity, and held the German stage side by side with _A Bankruptcy_, by Björnstjerne Björnson. But these plays had little influence on the German drama. Their methods were, indeed, not essentially different from those of the French school of the Second Empire, which were then dominant in Germany as well as everywhere else. It was _Ghosts_ (acted in Augsburg and Meiningen 1886, in Berlin 1887) that gave the impulse which, coalescing with the kindred impulse from the French Théâtre Libre, was destined in the course of a few years to create a new dramatic literature in Germany. During the middle decades of the century Germany had produced some dramatists of solid and even remarkable talent, such as Friedrich Hebbel, Heinrich Laube, Karl Gutzkow and Gustav Freytag. Even the generation which held the stage after 1870, and included Paul Heyse, Paul Lindau and Adolf Wilbrandt, with numerous writers of light comedy and farce, such as E. Wichert, O. Blumenthal, G. von Moser, A. L'Arronge and F. von Schönthan, had produced a good many works of some merit. But, in the main, French artificiality and frivolity predominated on the German stage. In point of native talent and originality, the Austrian popular playwright Ludwig Anzengruber was well ahead of his North German contemporaries. It was in 1889, with the establishment of the Berlin Freie Bühne, that the reaction definitely set in. In Berlin, as afterwards in London, _Ghosts_ was the first play produced on the outpost stage, but it was followed in Berlin by a very rapid development of native talent. Less than a month after the performance of Ibsen's play, Gerhart Hauptmann came to the front with _Vor Sonnenaufgang_, an immature piece of almost unrelieved Zolaism, which he soon followed up, however, with much more important works. In _Das Friedensfest_ (1890) and _Einsame Menschen_ (1891) he transferred his allegiance from Zola to Ibsen. His true originality first manifested itself in _Die Weber_ (1892); and subsequently he produced plays in several different styles, all bearing the stamp of a potent individuality. His most popular productions have been the dramatic poems _Hannele_ and _Die versunkene Glocke_, the low-life comedy _Der Biberpelz_, and the low-life tragedy _Fuhrmann Henschel_. Other remarkable playwrights belonging to the Freie Bühne group are Max Halbe (b. 1865), author of _Jugend_ and _Mutter Erde_, and Otto Erich Hartleben (b. 1864), author of _Hanna Jagert_ and _Rosenmontag_. These young men, however, so quickly gained the ear of the general public, that the need for a special "free stage" was no longer felt, and the Freie Bühne, having done its work, ceased to exist. Unlike the French Théâtre Libre and the English Independent theatre, it had been supported from the outset by the most influential critics, and had won the day almost without a battle. The productions of the new school soon made their way even into some of the subventioned theatres; but it was the unsubventioned Deutsches Theater of Berlin that most vigorously continued the tradition of the Freie Bühne. One or two playwrights of the new generation, however, did not actually belong to the Freie Bühne group. Hermann Sudermann produced his first play, _Die Ehre_, in 1888, and his most famous work, _Heimat_, in 1892. In him the influence of Ibsen is very clearly perceptible; while Arthur Schnitzler of Vienna, author of _Liebelei_, may rather be said to derive his inspiration from the Parisian "new comedy." Originality, verging sometimes on abnormality, distinguishes the work of Frank Wedekind (b. 1864), author of _Erdgeist_ and _Frühlingserwachen_. Hugo von Hofmannsthal (b. 1874), in his _Elektra_ and _Ödipus_, rehandles classic themes in the light of modern anthropology and psychology.

The promoters of the Théâtre Libre had probably never heard of Ibsen when they established that institution, but three years later his fame had reached France, and _Les Revenants_ was produced by the Théâtre Libre (29th May 1890). Within the next two or three years almost all his modern plays were acted in Paris, most of them either by the Théâtre Libre or by L'OEuvre. Close upon the heels of the Ibsen influence followed another, less potent, but by no means negligible. The exquisite tragic symbolism of Maurice Maeterlinck began to find numerous admirers about 1890. In 1891 his one-act play _L'Intruse_ was acted; in 1893, _Pelléas et Mélisande_. By this time, too, the reverberation of the impulse which the Théâtre Libre had given to the Freie Bühne began to be felt in France. In 1893 Hauptmann's _Die Weber_ was acted in Paris, and, being frequently repeated, made a deep and lasting impression.

The English analogue to the Théâtre Libre, the Independent theatre, opened its first season (March 13, 1891) with a performance of _Ghosts_. This was not, however, the first introduction of Ibsen to the English stage. On the 7th of June 1889 (six weeks after the production of _The Profligate_) _A Doll's House_ was acted at the Novelty theatre, and ran for three weeks, amid a storm of critical controversy. In the same year _Pillars of Society_ was presented in London. In 1891 and 1892 _A Doll's House_ was frequently acted; _Rosmersholm_ was produced in 1891, and again in 1893; in May and June 1891 _Hedda Gabler_ had a run of several weeks; and early in 1893 _The Master Builder_ enjoyed a similar passing vogue. During these years, then, Ibsen was very much "in the air" in England, as well as in France and Germany. The Independent theatre, in the meantime, under the management of J. T. Grein, found but scanty material to deal with. It presented translations of Zola's _Thérèse Raquin_, and of _A Visit_, by the Danish dramatist Edward Brandes; but it brought to the front only one English author of any note, in the person of George Bernard Shaw, whose "didactic realistic play," _Widowers' Houses_, it produced in December 1892.

None the less is it true that the ferment of fresh energy, which between 1887 and 1893 had created a new dramatic literature both in France and in Germany, was distinctly felt in England as well. England did not take at all kindly to it. The productions of Ibsen's plays, in particular, were received with an outcry of reprobation. A great part of this clamour was due to sheer misunderstanding; but some of it, no doubt, arose from genuine and deep-seated distaste. As for the dramatists of recognized standing, they one and all, both from policy and from conviction, adopted a hostile attitude towards Ibsen, expressing at most a theoretical respect overborne by practical dislike. Yet his influence permeated the atmosphere. He had revealed possibilities of technical stagecraft and psychological delineation that, once realized, were not to be banished from the mind of the thoughtful playwright. They haunted him in spite of himself. Still subtler was the influence exerted over the critics and the more intelligent public. Deeply and genuinely as many of them disliked Ibsen's works, they found, when they returned to the old-fashioned play, the adapted frivolity or the homegrown sentimentalism, that they disliked this still more. On every side, then, there was an instinctive or deliberate reaching forward towards something new; and once again it was Pinero who ventured the decisive step.

On the 27th of May 1893 _The Second Mrs Tanqueray_ was produced at the St James's theatre. With _The Second Mrs Tanqueray_ the English acted drama ceased to be a merely insular product, and took rank in the literature of Europe. Here was a play which, whatever its faults, was obviously comparable with the plays of Dumas, of Sudermann, of Björnson, of Echegaray. It might be better than some of these plays, worse than others; but it stood on the same artistic level. The fact that such a play could not only be produced, but could brilliantly succeed, on the London stage gave a potent stimulus to progress. It encouraged ambition in authors, enterprise in managers. What _Hernani_ was to the romantic movement of the 'thirties, and _La Dame aux camélias_ to the realistic movement of the 'fifties, _The Second Mrs Tanqueray_ was to the movement of the 'nineties towards the serious stage-portraiture of English social life. All the forces which we have been tracing--Robertsonian realism of externals, the leisure for thought and experiment involved in vastly improved financial conditions, the substitution in France of a simpler, subtler technique for the outworn artifices of the Scribe school, and the electric thrill communicated to the whole theatrical life of Europe by contact with the genius of Ibsen--all these slowly converging forces coalesced to produce, in _The Second Mrs Tanqueray_, an epoch-marking play.

Pinero followed up _Mrs Tanqueray_ with a remarkable series of plays--_The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith_, _The Benefit of the Doubt_, _The Princess and the Butterfly_, _Trelawny of the "Wells_," _The Gay Lord Quex_, _Iris_, _Letty_, _His House in Order_ and _The Thunderbolt_--all of which show marked originality of conception and intellectual force. In January 1893 Charles Wyndham initiated a new policy at the Criterion theatre, and produced an original play, _The Bauble-Shop_, by Henry Arthur Jones. It belonged very distinctly to the pre-Tanqueray order of things; but the same author's _The Case of Rebellious Susan_, in the following year, showed an almost startlingly sudden access of talent, which was well maintained in such later works as _Michael and his Lost Angel_ (1896), that admirable comedy _The Liars_ (1897), and _Mrs Dane's Defence_ (1900). Sydney Grundy produced after 1893 by far his most important original works, _The Greatest of These_ (1896) and _The Debt of Honour_ (1900). R. C. Carton, breaking away from the somewhat laboured sentimentalism of his earlier manner, produced several light comedies of thoroughly original humour and of excellent literary workmanship--_Lord and Lady Algy_, _Wheels within Wheels_, _Lady Huntworth's Experiment_, _Mr Hopkinson_ and _Mr Preedy and the Countess_. Haddon Chambers, in _The Tyranny of Tears_ (1899) and _The Awakening_ (1901), produced two plays of a merit scarcely foreshadowed in his earlier efforts.

What was of more importance, a new generation of playwrights came to the front. Its most notable representatives were J. M. Barrie, who displayed his inexhaustible gift of humorous observation and invention in _Quality Street_ (1902), _The Admirable Crichton_ (1903), _Little Mary_ (1903), _Peter Pan_ (1904), _Alice Sit-by-the-Fire_ (1905) and _What Every Woman Knows_ (1908); Mrs Craigie ("John Oliver Hobbes"), who produced in _The Ambassador_ (1898) a comedy of fine accomplishment; and H. V. Esmond, Alfred Sutro, Hubert Henry Davies, W. S. Maugham, Rudolf Besier, Roy Horniman and J. B. Fagan.

Meanwhile, the efforts to relieve the drama from the pressure of the long-run system had not been confined to the Independent theatre. Several other enterprises of a like nature had proved more or less short-lived; but the Stage Society, founded in 1900, was conducted with more energy and perseverance, and became a real force in the dramatic world. After two seasons devoted mainly to Bernard Shaw, Ibsen, Maeterlinck and Hauptmann, it produced in its third season _The Marrying of Ann Leete_, by Granville Barker (b. 1877), who had developed in its service his remarkable gifts as a producer of plays. A year or two later, Barker staged for another organization, the New Century theatre, Professor Gilbert Murray's rendering of the _Hippolytus_ of Euripides; and it was partly the success of this production that suggested the Vedrenne-Barker partnership at the Court theatre, which, between 1904 and 1907, gave an extraordinary impulse to the intellectual life of the theatre. Adopting the "short-run" system, as a compromise between the long-run and the repertory systems, the Vedrenne-Barker management made the plays of Bernard Shaw (both old and new) for the first time really popular. Of the plays already published _You Never Can Tell_ and _Man and Superman_ were the most successful; of the new plays, _John Bull's Other Island_, _Major Barbara_ and _The Doctor's Dilemma_. But though Shaw was the mainstay of the enterprise, it gave opportunities to several other writers, the most notable being John Galsworthy (b. 1867), author of _The Silver Box_ and _Strife_, St John Hankin (1869-1909), author of _The Return of the Prodigal_ and _The Charity that began at Home_, and Granville Barker himself, whose plays _The Voysey Inheritance_ and _Waste_ (1907) were among the most important products of this movement. It should also be noted that the production of the _Hippolytus_ was followed up by the production of the _Trojan Women_, the _Electra_ and the _Medea_ of Euripides, all translated by Gilbert Murray.

The impulse to which were due the Independent theatre, the Stage Society and the Vedrenne-Barker management, combined with local influences to bring about the foundation in Dublin of the Irish National theatre. Its moving spirit was the poet W. B. Yeats (b. 1865), who wrote for it _Cathleen-ni-Hoolihan_, _The Hour-Glass_, _The King's Threshold_ and one or two other plays. Lady Gregory, Padraic Collum, Boyle and other authors also contributed to the repertory of this admirable little theatre; but its most notable products were the plays of J. M. Synge (1871-1909), whose _Riders to the Sea_, _Well of the Saints_ and _Playboy of the Western World_ showed a fine and original dramatic faculty combined with extraordinary beauty of style.

Both in Manchester and in Glasgow endeavours have been made, with considerable success, to counteract the evils of the touring system, by the establishment of resident companies acting the better class of modern plays on a "short-run" plan, similar to that of the Vedrenne-Barker management. The Manchester enterprise was to some extent subsidized by Miss E. Horniman, and may therefore claim to be the first endowed theatre in England. The need for endowment on a much larger scale was, however, strongly advocated in the early years of the 20th century by the more progressive supporters of English drama, and in 1908 found a place in the scheme for a Shakespeare National theatre, which was then superimposed on the earlier proposal for a memorial commemorating the Shakespeare tercentenary, organized by an influential committee under the chairmanship of the Lord Mayor of London. The scheme involved the raising of £500,000, half to be devoted to the requisite site and building, while the remainder would be invested so as to furnish an annual subvention.

It remains to say a few words of the English literary drama, as opposed to the acted drama. The two classes are not nearly so distinct as they once were; but plays continue to be produced from time to time which are wholly unfitted for the theatre, and others which, though they may be experimentally placed on the stage, make their appeal rather to the reading public. Tennyson had essayed in his old age an art which is scarcely to be mastered after the energy of youth has passed. He continued to the last to occupy himself more or less with drama, and all his plays, except _Harold_, found their way to the stage. _The Cup_ and _Becket_, as we have seen, met with a certain success, but _The Promise of May_ (1882), an essay in contemporary drama, was a disastrous failure, while _The Falcon_ (1879) and _The Foresters_ (acted by an American company in 1893) made little impression. Lord Tennyson was certainly not lacking in dramatic faculty, but he worked in an outworn form which he had no longer the strength to renovate. Swinburne continued now and then to cast his creations in the dramatic mould, but it cannot be said that his dramas attained either the vitality or the popularity of his lyrical poems. _Mary Stuart_ (1881) brought his Marian trilogy to a close. In _Locrine_ he produced a tragedy in heroic couplets--a thing probably unattempted since the age of Dryden. _The Sisters_ is a tragedy of modern date with a medieval drama inserted by way of interlude. _Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards_ (1899), perhaps approached more nearly than any of his former works to the concentration essential to drama. It may be doubted, however, whether his copious and ebullient style could ever really subject itself to the trammels of dramatic form. Of other dramas on the Elizabethan model, the most notable, perhaps, were the works of two ladies who adopt the pseudonym of "Michael Field"; _Callirrhoë_ (1884), _Brutus Ultor_ (1887), and many other dramas, show considerable power of imagination and expression, but are burdened by a deliberate artificiality both of technique and style. Alfred Austin put forth several volumes in dramatic form, such as _Savonarola_ (1881), _Prince Lucifer_ (1887), _England's Darling_ (1896), _Flodden Field_ (1905). They are laudable in intention and fluent in utterance. Notable additions to the purely literary drama were made by Robert Bridges in his _Prometheus_ (1883), _Nero_ (1885), _The Feast of Bacchus_ (1889), and other solid plays in verse, full of science and skill, but less charming than his lyrical poems. Sir Lewis Morris made a dramatic experiment in _Gycia_, but was not encouraged to repeat it.

From the outset of his career, John Davidson (1857-1909) was haunted by the conviction that he was a born dramatist; but his earlier plays, such as _Smith: a Tragedy_ (1886), _Bruce: a Chronicle Play_ (1884) and _Scaramouch in Naxos_ (1888), contained more poetry than drama; and his later pieces, such as _Self's the Man_ (1901), _The Theatrocrat_ (1905) and the _Triumph of Mammon_ (1907), showed a species of turbulent imagination, but became more and more fantastic and impracticable. Stephen Phillips (b. 1867), on the other hand, having had some experience as an actor, wrote always with the stage in view. In his first play, _Paolo and Francesca_ (1899; produced in 1902), he succeeded in combining great beauty of diction with intense dramatic power and vitality. The same may be said of _Herod_ (1900); but in _Ulysses_ (1902) and _Nero_ (1906) a great falling-off in constructive power was only partially redeemed by the fine inspiration of individual passages.

The collaboration of Robert Louis Stevenson with William Ernest Henley produced a short series of interesting experiments in drama, two of which, _Beau Austin_ (1883) and _Admiral Guinea_ (1884), had more than a merely experimental value. The former was an emotional comedy, treating with rare distinction of touch a difficult, almost an impossible, subject; the latter was a nautical melodrama, raised by force of imagination and diction into the region of literature. Incomparably the most important of recent additions to the literary drama is Thomas Hardy's vast panorama of the Napoleonic wars, entitled _The Dynasts_ (1904-1908). It is rather an epic in dialogue than a play; but however we may classify it we cannot but recognize its extraordinary intellectual and imaginative powers.

_United States._--American dramatists have shown on their own account a progressive tendency, quite as marked as that which we have been tracing in England. Down to about 1890 the influence of France had been even more predominant in America than in England. The only American dramatist of eminence, Bronson Howard (1842-1908), was a disciple, though a very able one, of the French school. A certain stirring of native originality manifested itself during the 'eighties, when a series of semi-improvised farces, associated with the names of two actor-managers, Harrigan and Hart, depicted low life in New York with real observation, though in a crude and formless manner. About the same time a native style of popular melodrama began to make its appearance--a play of conventional and negligible plot, which attracted by reason of one or more faithfully observed character-types, generally taken from country life. _The Old Homestead_, written by Denman Thompson, who himself acted in it, was the most popular play of this class. Rude as it was, it distinctly foreshadowed that faithfulness to the external aspects, at any rate, of everyday life, in which lies the strength of the native American drama. It was at a sort of free theatre in Boston that James A. Herne (1840-1901) produced in 1891 his realistic drama of modern life, _Margaret Fleming_, which did a great deal to awaken the interest of literary America in the theatrical movement. Herne, an actor and a most accomplished stage-manager, next produced a drama of rural life in New England, _Shore Acres_ (1892), which made an immense popular success. It was a play of the _Old Homestead_ type, but very much more coherent and artistic. His next play, _Griffith Davenport_ (1898), founded on a novel, was a drama of life in Virginia during the Civil War, admirable in its strength and quiet sincerity; while in his last work, _Sag Harbour_ (1900), Herne returned to the study of rustic character, this time in Long Island. Herne showed human nature in its more obvious and straightforward aspects, making no attempt at psychological subtlety; but within his own limits he was an admirable craftsman. The same preoccupation with local colour is manifest in the plays of Augustus M. Thomas, a writer of genuine humour and originality. His localism announces itself in the very titles of his most popular plays--_Alabama_, _In Mizzoura_, _Arizona_. He also made a striking success in _The Witching Hour_, a play dealing with the phenomena of hypnotism and suggestion. Clyde Fitch (1865-1909), an immensely prolific playwright of indubitable ability, after becoming known by some experiments in quasi-historic drama (notably _Nathan Hale_, 1898; _Barbara Frietchie_, 1899), devoted himself mainly to social drama on the French model, in which his most notable efforts have been _The Climbers_ (1900), _The Truth_ (1906), and _The Girl with the Green Eyes_ (1902). In popular drama, with elaborate scenic illustration, William Gillette (b. 1856), David Belasco (b. 1859) and Charles Klein (b. 1867) have done notable work. William Vaughn Moody (b. 1869) produced in _The Great Divide_ (1907) a play of somewhat higher artistic pretensions; Eugene Walter in _Paid in Full_ (1908) and _The Easiest Way_ (1909) dealt vigorously with characteristic themes of modern life; and Edward Sheldon produced in _Salvation Nell_ a slum drama of very striking realism. The poetic side of drama was mainly represented by Percy Mackaye (b. 1875), whose _Jeanne d'Arc_ (1906) and _Sappho and Phaon_ showed a high ambition and no small literary power. On the whole it may be said that, though the financial conditions of the American stage are even more unfortunate than those which prevail in England, they have failed to check a very strong movement towards nationalism in drama. Season by season, America writes more of her own plays, good or bad, and becomes less dependent on imported work, whether French or English. (W. A.)

(g) _German Drama._

The history of the German drama differs widely from that of the English, though a close contact is observable between them at an early point, and again at relatively recent points, in their annals. The dramatic literature of Germany, though in its beginnings intimately connected with the great national movement of the Reformation, soon devoted its efforts to a sterile imitation of foreign models; while the popular stage, persistently suiting itself to a robust but gross taste, likewise largely due to the influence of foreign examples, seemed destined to a hopeless decay. The literary and the acted drama were thus estranged from one another during a period of extraordinary length; nor was it till the middle of the 18th century that, with the opening of a more hopeful era for the life and literature of the nation, the reunion of dramatic literature and the stage began to accomplish itself. Before the end of the same century the progress of the German drama in its turn began to influence that of other nations, and by the widely comprehensive character of its literature, as well as by the activity of its stage, to invite a steadily increasing interest.

The Latin drama in Germany.

The Jesuit drama.