A PLEA FOR A NEW TYPE OF PLAY

Romance and Poetry May Be Called Back to the Modern Thea tre from their Temporary Exile

CLAYTON HAMILTON

THE mind of the artist has often been defined as a magic glass through which we look at nature — a sort of lens which brings a chosen phase of life clearly to a focus within a definitely bounded field of vision. With this definition in mind, 1 should like to ask the reader, at the outset of the present article, to lay the magazine aside in order to perform a simple experiment in optics. Let him step to the nearest window and look for a moment steadily at the house across the street. He will see this house at a certain distance and in a certain degree of detail; and, without turning his head, he will also see, though less distinctly, the three or four houses on either side of the one which he is looking at directly. His field of vision is not definitely bounded but fades off on all sides into a gradually growingdimness; and the aspect of the one house on which his eyes are fixed is entirely natural and not particularly interesting.

LET the reader now procure an ordinary pair of opera glasses and bring them to a focus on a single window of the house across the street. This window will look much nearer and much larger than before; it will beseen with greater intimacy of detail; and it will appear within a definitely bounded field of vision — composed, as painters say, within a circle, that stops the eye from wandering. These three advantages have been derived from looking through a pair of lenses, but it should be noted also that the observer has suffered an attendant disadvantage — namely that he can no longer look at the entire house, but can merely imagine its total aspect by inference from the appearance of that single little circle which has been so marvellously magnified.

LASTLY, let the reader turn the opera glasses about and look at the house through what we are accustomed to call the wrong end of the instrument. Again he will observe a field of vision that is definitely bounded by a circle; but this field of vision will embrace immeasurably more than that which was disclosed by the previous experiment. Instead of seeing only a single window, he will now see the entire house and a segment of each of the adjacent houses; and, because of the clearness of the picture, he will seem to see even more than he noticed with the naked eye. These points must be counted as advantages; but, on the other hand, the house will look much farther away and will be seen with less distinctness of detail.

THIS experiment may help us to an understanding of the processes of art. Looking at the house with the naked eye was like observing life without any intermediary aid; but looking at the house through either end of the opera glasses was like observing life through the medium of the artist's mind. In both cases the artificial, or artistic, vision was more interesting than the natural, or actual; and in either case the reason was the same — namely, that the picture was composed and framed within limits that required the absolute attention of the eye, by forbidding it, for the moment, to glance at anything excluded from the field of vision.

BUT a very different sort of interest was added to the aspect of the house, according as the observer looked through one end or the other of the opera glasses; and this difference offers us a basis for distinguishing the two great processes of art. Employed in the more ordinary way, the glasses afforded a nearer view of a smaller field of vision; and turned about in the less ordinary way, they afforded a more distant view of a larger field of vision. Similarly, there is a sort of art that brings us more intimately into touch with life but shows us less of it at a time; and there is another sort of art that removes life to a greater remoteness but shows us more of it at a time. The first type we may call intensive and the second extensive. Intensive art proceeds by amplifying the little, and extensive art proceeds by imagining the large. The one magnifies details, theother minifies them.

NEITHER of these process es is absolutely more efficient than the other. Intensive art achieves a finer intimacy of representation, but extensive art achieves a greater range and sweep of treatment. In Venetian painting, for example, the two types may be distinguished in the very different aims and methods of Carpaccio and Tintoretto. Carpaccio is forever asking us to look at some detail of life through a magnifying glass. He is one of the most insinuatingly intimate of artists. He obtrudes a pretty flower or a funny little animal or some wistful fleeting vision of a face to be taken to the heart and loved as, for the moment, the most poignantly interesting object in the world. But Tintoretto has no patience for details. In his great picture of the Last Judgment, in the Madonna dell' Orto, he swirls us headlong through the roaring and illimitable vastitudes of space. Appalled amid immensity, we have no use for any magnifying glass: we cry out, rather, for a minifying glass, to render more remote that awful whirring of eternal wings. Carpaccio paints with camel's hair and Tintoretto with a comet's tail. Which is, finally, the better art? • . • The answer depends on what it is that you are looking for.

IN THE light of this distinction, let us consider the present status of the great art of the drama. We shall observe at once that the theatre, in this present period, is given over almost utterly to the practice of intensive art; although, in all preceeding periods, it had been assumed without question that the proper province of the theatre was the exhibition of extensive art. The discovery of this essential difference leads us at once to a central point of view, from which we may reasonably investigate the special merits and defects of the drama of to-day, in comparison with the dramatic art of other ages.

To make this comparison concrete, let us set one of the best plays of this microscopic modern age beside a couple of the best plays of the spacious age of great Elizabeth. Let us compare the structural method pursued by Sir Arthur Pinero in "The Thunderbolt" with that pursued by Shakespeare in "Hamlet" and "Antony and Cleopatra." The whole story of "The Thunderbolt" is set forth in three rooms; and, except for the lapse of one month between the first act and the second, the action is entirely continuous. In other words, the narrative is arranged in three distinct pigeon-holes of place and two distinct pigeon-holes of time. But, in setting forth the narrative of "Hamlet," Shakespeare employed twenty different pigeon-holes of time and place; and, to produce the panoramic effect of "Antony and Cleopatra," he allowed himself no less than forty-two narrative units, or, as we call them, scenes. The effect of the modern instance is to magnify details; the effect of the Elizabethan is to minify and merge them into a general sense of the drums and tramplings of a worldengirdling empire. The modern work diminishes the natural distance between life and the observer, but constricts the limits of the field of vision; whereas the work of Shakespeare enlarges the limits of the field of vision, but removes life to a more than natural remoteness from the eye of the observer. The merit of either method is the defect of theother. Both Shakespeare and Pinero were asked to cover, in the two hours' traffic of the stage, the same extent of canvas; but the latter filled the picture by amplifying the little and the near, and the former by imagining the large and the remote.

Continued on page 108

Continued from page 31

II

T IS difficult to estimate the ultimate importance of any big historical development so long as one is living in the midst of it; but it seems safe to assert that, by the historians of future ages, the last thirty years of the development of the drama will be pointed out as especially important because of the unprecedented triumph, in so brief a period, of the methods of intensive art. This epoch-making evolution was occasioned by the combination of two causes, of which the less important was artistic in its origin and the more important was mainly scientific.

The first, or artistic, cause of the recent revolution in the drama was the unprecedented rise of realism in the nineteenth century. This inductive method of setting forth the fruits of observation had conquered all the other arts in turn (while romance retired into temporary exile, meditating on the morrow), until at last it pounded clamorously at the gates of the theatre. In accordance with the high designs of destiny, it happened that, precisely at that moment, the theatre had become equipped, for the first time in its history, with the mechanical means necessary to an adequate answer to the new demands of realism; for the second, and more important, cause of the recent revolution in the theatre was not artistic in its origin but scientific. The desired change was brought about by the great wave of scientific invention which made the nineteenth century memorable. The box-set was invented, and was soon developed to its present minute and actual particularity. The revolutionary device of electrical illumination was introduced a little later; and from this device resulted, in a sudden hurrying of years, the modern scenic stage with its pictureframe proscenium, the modern intimate and quiet art of acting, the modern small and cosy auditorium, the modern concreteness and particularity of stage-direction — the entire modern directness and intimate minuteness of dramaturgy .

AS A result of these inventions — since art must always take advantage of a granted opportunity — we have

developed, during the last thirty years, a new and interesting type of drama. This development has been defined very clearly by Mr. Henry Arthur Jones in the illuminative preface to his lately published play entitled "The Divine Gift." This essay is so valuable that I shall take the liberty of quoting the following sentences at length: "For a long generation our realistic drama of modern life has practised an ever-increasing and more severe economy of scene, and action, and dialogue. It tends to deny itself all trappings and effects but those of ordinary everyday life. It has become an eavesdropping and photographic reporter, taking snapshots and shorthand notes. We may, without intending to depreciate it, call our present convention the eavesdropping convention — the convention which charges playgoers half-a-crown or half-a-guinea for pretending to remove the fourth wall, and pretending to give them an opportunity of spying upon actual life, and seeing everything just as it happens."

UNDER what Mr. Jones has happily defined as the "eavesdropping convention," we have brought nature nearer to the eye than ever before and have vastly magnified the observation of details of daily life; but, at the same time, we should not neglect to notice that, in doing so, we have narrowed the field of vision and have sacrificed that feeling of remoteness which is inseparable from any contemplation of the vast. To offset the gain that is derivable from intimate particularity of observation, we have lost, as Mr. Jones remarks in another passage of the same essay, "the crowded and varied bustle of Shakespeare, the busy hum that comes from his universal workshop, the drums and tramplings of his hundred legions, the long resounding march of assembled humanity as it troops across his boards."

THOUGH we may feel that the welfare of the human race requires that some people should be thin and others should be stout, it would be unreasonable for us to ask an individual to grow both thin and stout at the same time. Similarly, it would be unreasonable for us to expect, within a single period, an equally remarkable development of intensive and extensive artistry. It has taken thirty years for the drama to develop its present high efficiency of intensive art. It would be unwise to undervalue this development, which has resulted in the production of many plays which exhibit an extremely high order of intelligence; and we should not be surprised to note the inevitable corollary, that during the same period the excluded method of extensive art has shown no development of any great importance.

But the drama is a democratic art, whose destinies are guided by an almost universal suffrage; and we learn from the history of all democracies that, after a single party has long remained in power, the public is certain, sooner or later, to elect the opposition party into office, in order to give it a chance to show what it can do. The drama cannot remain forever in the hands of the great intensive artists of the present age. Sooner or later the public will demand, if only for the sake of change, a return to the methods of extensive art.

THE moment for such a revolution is the moment when the party in power has finally achieved the utmost of which it is capable. When one method has attained its climax, the only hope of progress lies in changing to another method. There are many indications that the intensive drama of the present period has already reached its zenith and has thereby destroyed its possibilities of future service. For thirty years, as the eavesdropping convention has been more and more improved. the drama has brought us nearer and nearer to actuality, with a constantly increasing magnifying of details and consequent limitation of the field of vision. This development can go no further. Such plays as "The Madras House'' and "Hindle Wakes" and "Rutherford and Son" have brought the observer so close to actuality that any further development along the same lines would result in an annihilation of the difference that separates art from life. But this annihilation would be a reductio ad absurdum. The drama would retain no reason for existence if it should sacrifice its license of being different from life. In the face of such a danger, there is only one thing to be done. We must at once increase the field of vision by removing the drama to a greater remoteness from actuality.

When the realists threaten to cut their own throats, it is time for us to turn the government over to the romantics. When prose has done its best, it is time for us to call for poetry. And when the intensive drama can proceed no further with its programme without destroying its own excuse for being, the time has come to use the theatre once again for the expression of extensive art.

Ill

BUT romance and poetry have been so long excluded from the drama that it will be necessary to invent a new type of play in order to domesticate them in the theatre once again. If Shakespeare were alive to-day, he would find the intensive formula of Pinero unsuited to the exhibition of his own extensive art. The eavesdropping convention has admirably served the purpose of our realistic and prosaic writers; but we cannot impose this convention forever on the writers of a newer age.

What must be the formula for the drama of to-morrow? What I bsen called "the law of change" indicates that this new drama will be extensive in method, romantic in mood, and poetic in tone; but in what particulars must we revise the technique of the present in order to prepare the theatre for this inevitable change?

FIRST of all, it is obvious that the next generation of dramatic artists will require a freer handling of the categories of time and place than is possible in the contemporary drama. To the intensive playwright it is clearly, an advantage to crowd his narrative into no more than two or three or four distinct pigeon-holes of place and time; but, even in a period when intensive art is dominant, it is manifestly unfair to impose the same formula upon playwrights whose natural tendency is toward a more extensive exercise of art.

IF SHAKESPEARE could arrange his narrative in twenty, or even forty scenes (instead of two or three), why is it impossible for us to do so at the present day? The answer is not theoretical but practical. The Elizabethans used no scenery, in the modern sense; and they could therefore change their time and place by the simple expedient of emptying the stage and repeopling it with other actors. This expedient is denied us by the incubus of modern scenery. We must never for a moment allow ourselves to forget that the development of modern scenery is the one scientific factor which has made possible the recent wonderful development and impressive triumph of intensive drama; but we must notice, on the other hand, that this same remarkable invention is the sole factor that impedes us from employing the more extensive narrative convention of the Elizabethan stage and exhibiting "the long resounding march of assembled humanity as it troops across the boards." Our public has grown so used to the trappings and the suits of scenery that we could not now expect it to accept the sceneless stage of Shakespeare, even for the purpose of allowing to a poet a less impeded flow of narrative. But the use of such scenery as is commonly employed at present entirely prevents the playwright from adopting the remote and easy attitude toward time and place which was accorded to Elizabethan authors.

THIS attitude is prevented by two practical considerations. In the first place, it takes so long to set and change a modern scene that a narrative n twenty units would require at least four hours for its presentation, with lapses between the units so protracted that the audience would wander away from the mood of the story; and in the second place the expense of twenty modern stage-sets would ruin the manager of any play. The two inventions that are needed, in order that the way may be cleared for a new development of extensive drama, are, first, a means of shifting scenery in a few seconds and, second, a means of manufacturing scenery at a very small expense. Until these two inventions are perfected, romance and poetry must continue to endure a fruitless exile from the modern stage.

BUT, although most of our American managers seem as yet unaware of the revolutions that have silently been taking place in Europe, both of these inventions have been already made and are being rapidly perfected in the futuristic theatres of the world.

THE first problem has been solved in Germany by the simple and practical invention of the revolving stage. By this invention, a revolving circle is inscribed within the square platform that is disclosed by the proscenium. This circle will accommodate three settings at the same time. After the first set has been used, the stage may be revolved in a few seconds, to disclose the second set; and while this is being employed by the actors, a new scene may be erected in place of the one that has been discarded.

This invention has supplanted the earlier type of movable stage which is still in use at the Hofburgtheater in Vienna. The method of this mechanism was to build the stage in a series of platforms, which could be raised or lowered on elevators. A stage of this type was erected many years ago in the old Madison Square Theatre in New York; but it is an evidence of the backwardness of the theatre in America to-day that only two stages of the new revolving type have been installed as yet in the theatres of this country, and that both of these (namely, the stage of the Century Theatre and that of the Little Theatre) have been erected by a single forward looking manager, Mr. Winthrop Ames. But in time this new invention is sure to be adopted in our other theatres; and, thereafter, it will be possible for us to change the scene of any play without even lowering the curtain. After a few seconds of darkness, the lights may be turned up, to disclose a new vista of the panoramic world.

THE second problem — the problem of expense — has also been successfully attacked by such inventors as Mr. Gordon Craig and Professor Max Reinhardt. It is necessary to build solid and expensive scenery for the exhibition of realistic and intensive plays; but this necessity need no longer be imposed upon the authors of extensive and poetic dramas. For the purpose of impressionistic art, impressionistic scenery is adequate. If the scene be imagined in some forest of Arden, an artistic hanging of green curtains will mean more to the imagination than any rotund and heavy forestry of canvas trees; and a subtler atmosphere may be suggested by the deft manipulation of electric lights than by the definite delineation of a myriad details. In Moscow, Mr. Craig has recently produced "Hamlet" with a series of simple screens which are differently arranged and differently lighted to suggest the changing moods of its variable drift of narrative; and, in his decorative pantomime of "Sumurun," Professor Reinhardt has shown us how simply it is possible to spare expense, in setting forth a story in a dozen scenes, by the employment of flat backgrounds washed in with primary colors and the abolition of the superfluous element of linear perspective.

IV

IN VIEW of such inventions as these, the critic cannot be accused of a lack of scientific basis in asking for a new type of play to relieve the monotony of the contemporary theatre. It is no longer unpractical to plead with our poetic and romantic authors to construct their narratives in twenty scenes, instead of two or three, in the endeavor to recapture "the busy hum of Shakespeare's universal workshop." Our public has been trained so long to look at life only through the small end of its opera glasses that it has grown to neglect the interest that is derivable for looking through the other and the larger end. In thirty years, the new intensive artistry has been developed to such perfection in the theatre that the public has almost forgotten the foregone delights of the extensive drama. But a younger and a freer generation is now knocking at the door. The intensive drama has already done its best, and the time has come for a return to the methods of extensive art.

THE drama of the present is so excellent, according to its method, that the drama of the future must be different. The new type of play for which the critic is pleading in the present paper will be not analytic but synthetic. It will not narrow the field of vision to set life apparently under the nose, but will remove life to an enchantment of remoteness in order to enlarge the field of vision. It will not content itself with the analysis of character within constricted bounds of time and place, but will attempt to represent the logical development of character in many places and through many times. It will not be realistic but impressionistic, not prosaic but poetic. It will exhibit more the martial march of Marlowe than the minute and mincing gait of Stanley Houghton.

THIS new type of play will assuredly be written by the poets of the rising generation. How long — one wonders — will the public have to wait until it achieves a conquest of the theatre.