Part 13

The pleasant comedies of T. W. Robertson, ‘Caste’ for one and ‘Ours’ for another, which were hailed on their first appearance as “natural” and even as “realistic,” have revealed themselves at their most recent resuscitations to be almost as mannered and as mechanical as were the Old Comedies. In fact, the more closely we study the English drama between 1860 and 1870 the more clearly we perceive the influence of the English drama between 1770 and 1780. In the century which stretches from 1770 to 1870 we can observe no violent break in the continuity of the development of the drama.

But between 1870 and 1920 there was a startling change; the drama made a new departure; and this is the third reason why the Old Comedies have been cast out of our twentieth century theaters. The new departure was the result of two influences, working simultaneously. One of these influences was internal; it was the rapid advance of the so-called realistic movement, of which Balzac was the pioneer in the novel and of which the younger Dumas was the pioneer in the play. It is easy for us to see now that Balzac and Dumas were both of them on occasion ultra-romanticist; but none the less were they more realistic than their immediate predecessors had been. They tried to present life as they saw it with their own eyes, animated by an unquenchable desire to deal with it frankly and honestly. Balzac spent himself in the effort to be exact and to relate all his myriad characters to the background before which each of them had posed for him; and Dumas was almost as strenuous in his demand for veracity.

The other influence was external; it was the gradual modification of the ground-plan of the playhouse, a modification which resulted at last in the picture-frame stage to which we are now accustomed and to which all the plays of this century are necessarily adjusted. In size and in shape the theater for which Reade and Taylor composed ‘Masks and Faces’ was very like the theater for which Sheridan had composed the ‘School for Scandal,’ three-quarters of a century earlier; and it was very unlike the theater for which Sir Arthur Pinero composed ‘Mid-Channel,’ nearly three-quarters of a century after.

The theater of Reade and Taylor, and of Sheridan also, was a large building with a stage which projected in a curve into the auditorium, so that the proscenium boxes were in the rear of the footlights. This stage was only dimly lighted,—in Sheridan’s time with oil-lamps and in Reade and Taylor’s with gas-jets. The curve into the orchestra, far beyond the curtain, was known as the apron; and the most significant episodes of the play had to be acted out on this apron, remote from the scenery, because it was only when he was close to the footlights that the changing expression on the performer’s face could be seen by the spectators. As the actor on the stage was in intimate association with the audience, the playwrights did not hesitate to give him confidential asides and explanatory soliloquies to be delivered directly at the neighborly spectators; and they also provided him with the lofty rhetoric and the artfully articulated set speeches not inappropriate to a platform orator.

But in the course of the past half-century the scenic investiture of a play has become more elaborate, more precise, more characteristic and more realistic. The electric light has come to illuminate all parts of the scene with equal brilliancy, so that it is no longer necessary for the performer to advance to the front of the apron in order that his expression may be seen; and therefore the apron, being useless, was abolished. The curtain now rises only a foot or two behind the footlights; and the proscenium-arch is now made to serve as a picture-frame, through which the spectator gazes at the performers, who are carefully trained to “keep in the picture.” The playwrights, no less then the players, have been compelled to modify their methods; and they soon discovered that soliloquies and bravura passages were incongruous with the realistic set and with acting carefully restrained until it was afraid to get “outside the picture.”

IV

This change in the conditions of performance was brought about gradually, unintentionally and by the logic of events. None the less is it one of the most momentous in all the long history of the drama; and we may doubt whether its remoter results have even yet made themselves manifest. It is perhaps the chief cause why the Old Comedies have gone out of favor. They were composed for a different theater, to be performed by actors with a different training, before audiences with different expectations. The companies who were accustomed to act the Old Comedies and who were conversant with their traditions have been dispersed; and the actors of to-day would be ill at ease in these robust and florid comic dramas, but perhaps not more ill at ease than would be the spectators of to-day.

It is not that our actors are individually any less gifted than their predecessors of half-a-century ago, or that the art of acting has declined in the past fifty years; and we may venture the suggestion that the old time performers might be almost as awkward and as constrained in our modern problem-plays composed for the picture-frame stage as the contemporary performers would be in the Old Comedies composed for the apron-stage.

It may very well come to pass in the final quarter of this twentieth century, when the conditions of the theater have been still further modified (in ways we cannot foresee), that the best and most representative of the plays popular in the first quarter of this century will reveal themselves as archaic in method as are now the Old Comedies of the eighteenth century. If that should come to pass, some writer of 1970 may be moved to inquire into the reasons why the problem-play of 1920 has been banished from the boards.

(1919)

XIII

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE THEATER

XIII

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE THEATER

I

The drama is now, and always has been, dependent upon the theater. It is only in the playhouse itself that a play reveals its full force. For the complete disclosure of its power, a drama demands not only the theater itself, with the actors and all the accessories, it requires also the presence of the spectators, that we may feel the contagion of communal emotion aroused by its passionate appeal. It has to be born on the stage and to prove thereon its right to live, before it can hope for survival in the study. It must perforce please the playgoers of its own time and of its own country for whom it was specially composed, because only after it has gained their approval is there any chance of its winning the favor of succeeding generations.

The theater can exist without the drama, as it did in imperial Rome when the stage was given over to dancers and acrobats and animal trainers. But the drama can never exist without the theater; and thus it is that those of us who love the drama of our own tongue and who want to see it flourish luxuriantly both to-day and to-morrow, cannot but take a keen interest in the organization of the theater. We would like to see it organized on a sound basis, for we are well aware that any defect in its organization will necessarily react injuriously upon the development of the drama.

It need not surprise us that the organization of the theater in the United States in the opening decades of the twentieth century has been the subject of attacks as violent as they are vociferous. I say that it need not surprise us, because all students of the history of the stage are aware that the organization of the theater has never been satisfactory in any country or at any period—except possibly in Greece in the glorious days when Æschylus and Sophocles and Euripides brought forth their rival masterpieces in the spacious Theater of Dionysus just below the towering Parthenon. And we cannot tell whether or not the organization of the Athenian theater was really as satisfactory as it seems to have been, since there may have been many an adverse criticism which has not come down to us after twenty centuries. We do know that the organization of the theater in Rome in the period of Plautus and Terence was most unsatisfactory, with its actors who were slaves and who might be scourged if they failed to receive the plaudits they begged for piteously at the end of the play and with its audiences made up of a mob of freedmen often imperfectly familiar with the Latin tongue.

The organization of the theater in England under Elizabeth and in France under Louis the Fourteenth was not approved by many of the subjects of these monarchs; and the better we know it, the less it approves itself to us, since it imposed harsh restriction upon actors and authors alike. The organization of the French theater under Louis the Sixteenth was bitterly attacked by Beaumarchais; and every reader of the ‘Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber’ will recall his diatribes against the conditions which obtained in England in his time. So every reader of Joseph Jefferson’s ‘Autobiography’ will recall his account of the squalid life led by the wandering companies of actors here in the United States in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Within the past few years Henry Arthur Jones and William Poel have declaimed against the organization of the theater in England at the present time; and the latter has gone so far as to demand drastic legislation to remedy a situation which he deems intolerable.

This being the state of affairs in other lands and in other centuries, we need not be surprised by the vehement protests against the existing organization of the theater here in America. Nor need we assume that these present protests have as little foundation as had many of those which were raised in the past.

II

The first thing we find when we undertake investigation is that the organization of the theater here and now is unlike any other which has ever existed anywhere else. In Greece the annual performances were in the hands of the state. In Rome performances were given gratuitously, more often than not, the cost being borne by an aspiring politician wishing to win the suffrages of the mob. In the Middle Ages the performances were at first in the churches under the complete control of the priests; and later they were out-of-doors on church festivals, and in charge of the gilds. In Shakspere’s time and in Molière’s a number of the more important actors associated themselves together, arranged for a theater, hired the subordinate performers, and divided the takings at the door, share and share alike. In these companies one of the actors undertook the function of manager, representing his comrades and more or less guiding their fortunes. But these managers had only so much authority as might be delegated to them by their fellow-sharers; they were not autocrats, engaging and discharging the members of the company according to their own caprice; their risk or their profit was not larger than that of their associates.

In the company at the Globe theater, Burbage seems to have been the dominant personality; yet from all we have been able to gather, we may venture a guess that Shakspere, with his gift for friendship, his solidity of character and his shrewdness in business, was probably the second in command, so to speak. In the company at the Palais Royal Molière was the honored chief, to whom his fellow-players were loyally devoted; but the associated actors managed their affairs in town-meeting and as an actor Molière shared equally with the others, altho he received extra allowances from time to time to reward his special service as the stock-playwright of the theater. This type of organization is still seen now and again in the United States, when a company, deserted by its manager, continues its existence as a commonwealth; and it is the type which has been preserved by the Comédie-Française in Paris ever since this company was established by Molière.

The French government provides the theater and also an annual subvention, in return for which it designates a manager, who has a stated salary, and also his equal share of the profits. But this appointed manager is not supreme; he can make no important decision without the advice and consent of the committee chosen by the associated actors. He is in fact an executive only; and his relations with the company depend on his tact, his ability and his powers of persuasion. If he has these qualifications, and if he is successful in rolling up the profits which are annually divided by the associated actors (and which are in addition to their modest salaries) he may be allowed more or less to have his own way. If, on the other hand, he is fussy and feeble, and especially if the receipts fall off, then the associated actors make his life a burden and the last state of that manager is worse than the first.

Altho this type of organization has many evident advantages, and altho it was once almost universal in France, in England, and in Italy, it has been generally abandoned in favor of a simpler type, whereby the power and the profit are concentrated in the hands of a manager who is solely responsible for the recruiting of the company, for the choice of the plays and for the debts of the concern. The change seems to have taken place slowly; and Colley Cibber was one of three actors who directed the destiny of the theater to which he was attached. Yet at that very time the rival theater was most autocratically managed by an illiterate speculator named Rich.

The reason for the change is not far to seek. The management of a theater is, after all, a complicated business enterprize, exceedingly difficult to conduct successfully; and a business enterprize is always one man’s job. A commonwealth is impossible unless there is the cordiality which makes for co-operation; and actors are often super-abundantly endowed with the artistic temperament which makes them kittle cattle to drive. Even in Paris, it would probably be impossible to start a rival company to the Comédie-Française, organized on the same basis. Indeed, the Comédie-Française itself has more than once been on the edge of shipwreck; its most popular actors and actresses have deserted it from time to time, Rachel and Sarah Bernhardt, Coquelin and Lebargy; and its continued existence is due to the cohesive force of its inherited traditions, some of which go back to Molière, while others are codified in the famous decree signed at Moscow by Napoleon.

In the eighteenth century the two rival theaters in London, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, were managed for long periods by George Colman the elder and by David Garrick; they had secured as members of their respective companies almost every actor and actress in Great Britain who had achieved eminence; and the companies they collected remained almost unchanged from year to year, new recruits being drafted from the provinces only as the veterans ceased to lag superfluous on the stage. As the result of this continuity of association the tragedians and the comedians knew each other intimately and they were accustomed to the team-play which is essential to an effective performance.

In the nineteenth century, Montigny made the Gymnase the most attractive playhouse in Paris, excepting only the Théâtre Français. Madame Vestris gave a temporary vogue to Covent Garden; and Buckstone held the reins for a longer period at the Haymarket. In New York there were stock-companies of a similar permanence, altho of a less even excellence, first at the Park Theater, next at Burton’s and finally at Wallack’s and at Daly’s. In Boston, R. M. Field at the Museum was able to keep together, for a term of years, in fact, for more than a quarter of a century, a strong and coherent company of comedians headed by William Warren; and in San Francisco for a briefer period John McCullough and Lawrence Barrett surrounded themselves with actors and actresses of undeniable ability.

It was only in the last third of the nineteenth century that this type of theatrical organization slowly disappeared. When the Bancrofts had firmly established themselves in London in the little Prince of Wales’s Theater, they began to engage actors not for the whole of a single theatrical season, but only for the run of the piece. It is true that half-a-dozen of the more important performers remained with them and were provided with parts in play after play; but there was no longer any permanence in the membership of the company. The example of the Bancrofts was followed by the Kendals, by Wyndham and by Hare, and even by Henry Irving. These managers all engaged special performers to suit the characters of the successive plays that they produced; and they were thus relieved of the increasing expense of maintaining a stock-company capable of presenting any kind of play, comedy or tragedy or melodrama. As England is only a comparatively small island and as the multiplying railroads made it easily accessible from all parts of the kingdom, people from the provinces flocked to the capital and the plays presented in London ran for constantly increasing periods, from a hundred to even a thousand nights. And during these runs the manager was not paying salaries to actors whose names were absent from the program. So it came about that the stock-companies ceased to be and that the leading performers became part-time workers, appearing now in one playhouse and now in another, and yet fairly familiar with the methods of the other performers likely to be engaged with them for any new play or for any revival of an old play.

III

The abandonment of the permanent stock-companies and the practice of engagements only for the run of the piece, was brought about in Great Britain by economic pressure due in part to geographic conditions. And it was brought about in the United States almost simultaneously by a similar economic pressure due to widely different geographic conditions. The organization of the American theater prior to 1870 was very much what the organization of the British theater had been a century earlier. In every town of any importance there was at least one theater, occasionally owned by the manager but more generally leased by him. It was his private enterprize; he engaged the actors and the actresses, who were likely to remain with him season after season; he accumulated his own scenery, his own costumes and his own properties; he stood ready always and at forty-eight hours’ notice to put up ‘Hamlet’ or the ‘School for Scandal,’ the ‘Lady of Lyons’ or ‘Camille,’ ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ or ‘Ten Nights in a Bar-room,’ ‘Mazeppa’ or the ‘Naiad Queen,’ without invoking any outside assistance.

If wandering stars came along, Forrest or Booth, “Jim Crow” Rice or Lotta, they were supported by his company clothed from his wardrobe, with properties from his own storehouse and with the primitive stock-scenery which had been seen in a hundred other plays. The manners and customs of those distant days are preserved for us in the autobiographies of Anna Cora Mowatt, of Joseph Jefferson, and of Clara Morris. More often than not, the manager was himself an actor, Burton or Wallack appearing now and again on his own stage; and his wife was not infrequently the leading lady. Sometimes the manager was a playwright, William Dunlap or Augustin Daly; and then he found his profit in presenting his own pieces. Sometimes he had been recruited from some other calling, R. M. Field or A. M. Palmer; but always was he devoted to the drama, thoroughly familiar with the traditions of the stage, and thoroughly enjoying his association with the theater. He was a local institution; and sometimes, Caldwell in New Orleans or Rice in Chicago, he was one of the leading citizens of the town.

When a popular minstrel-company wanted the theater for a week or two, the manager was sometimes obliging enough to send his company to play in a smaller city if its “opera-house” chanced to be unoccupied. He did this more willingly when a glittering spectacle, the ‘Black Crook’ or the ‘Twelve Temptations’ asked him to turn out; but this complaisance hastened his downfall, since his well-worn scenery had a pallid look after the effulgent splendor of the interloper. Then, after a while, one and another of the more prominent stars (Joseph Jefferson, first of all, as he confesses in his autobiography), dissatisfied with the inadequacy of the mounting of their plays and disgusted by the carelessness and incompetence with which they were only too often supported by the stock-actors, began to engage companies of their own, with all the performers specially chosen for the characters they were to impersonate; they arranged to carry with them the special scenery required by the plays they intended to present that season. Soon there were so many of these, that at least one theater in each of the larger cities gave up its own company and relied exclusively upon these combinations, as the travelling companies were then called.

For a few years the managers of the stock-company houses made a valiant fight; but in the end they had to retire from the field, defeated. It had been a severe blow to them, when they were deprived of the potent attraction of the stars. Without these stars, and in fact in opposition to them, the performances given by the stock-companies were found to be inferior. The local scenery, the local costumes and the local properties were discovered to be mere make-shifts, unworthy at their best, and often worse than unworthy, especially when they were compared with the stricter propriety of the scenic equipment provided for the elaborate productions sent out from New York. The local offerings appeared to be provincial, whereas those which were brought from afar had on them the stamp of metropolitan approval.

So it was that sooner or later the managers of stock-companies had to withdraw from a lost battle. Some of them kept their theaters and sank to the humble position of janitors. Some moved to New York and became producers on their own account and managers of travelling companies. Some retired to obscurity; and some died in time to escape bankruptcy. Whether the vanquishing of the local stock-companies by the travelling companies was advantageous or not, it was inevitable since it was the result of inexorable economic conditions, in conjunction with equally inexorable geographic conditions. It was a swift and startling change in the methods of conducting the business of the theater, a change brought about by forces wholly beyond the control of those engaged in that business.