CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PN 1S51.D87 1911 
 
 Modern dramatists. 
 
 924 026 093 314 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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MODERN DRAMATISTS 
 
MODERN 
 DRAMATISTS 
 
 BY 
 
 ASHLEY DUKES 
 
 Chicago 
 CHARLES H. SERGEL 
 AND COMPANY :: 
 
 6.V. 
 
 ® 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. Introductory 
 
 II. Modernity and the Dramatist 
 III. The Influence of Ibsen 
 
 IV. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Scandinavia 
 
 Bjornsterne Bjornson 
 August Strindberg 
 
 Germany . 
 
 Hermann Sudermann 
 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 Frank Wedekind 
 
 England .... 
 Bernard Shaw 
 Granville Barker 
 John Galsworthy . 
 
 Austria .... 
 Arthur Schnitzler 
 Hugo von Hofmannsthal 
 
 Russia 
 
 Tolstoy and Gorky 
 Anton Tchekhov . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 20 
 41 
 
 49 
 
 65 
 68 
 
 78 
 95 
 
 "4 
 120 
 
 135 
 141 
 
 159 
 181 
 181 
 190 
 
VI 
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 XIII. 
 
 France 
 
 Alfred Capus 
 Brieux . 
 
 Belgium and Holland 
 Maurice Maeterlinck 
 Hermann Heijermans 
 
 Italy. 
 
 Gabriele D'Annunzio 
 
 A Summary 
 
 List of Plays 
 
 Index 
 
 211 
 
 219 
 224 
 
 242 
 242 
 
 254 
 264 
 264 
 
 273 
 
 277 
 
 303 
 
MODERN DRAMATISTS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 This l>ook aims at a critical study of 
 the modern European Theatre. It is not 
 intended as a guide to the popular authors 
 of the day, either in England or abroad ; 
 indeed, many successful playwrights are 
 not even mentioned in its pages. It is 
 dogmatic, because it is written from a 
 definite standpoint, and its judgments 
 depend upon an absolute standard of 
 value. To write of any group of authors, 
 dramatic or otherwise, without such a 
 standard, is to debase the coinage of 
 criticism and to insult the artist. I need 
 not define my criterion here, for I have 
 endeavoured to make it clear in the open- 
 ing chapters. It is enough to say that it 
 excludes the vast majority of living 
 dramatic authors, and that in excluding 
 
2 Modern Dramatists 
 
 them it is justified by the verdict even of 
 our own time. In general it may be said 
 that only the pioneer or " modern " 
 dramatists achieve a European reputa- 
 tion, Ibsen, Bjornson, Hauptmann, Wede- 
 kind, Strindberg, Maeterlinck, Gorky, 
 D'Annunzio, Schnitzler, and Hofmanns- 
 thal, for example, are at least well known 
 by name in England, while equally 
 successful authors, like Paul Lindau, 
 Ludwig Fulda, Paul Hervieu, Henri 
 Bernstein and Hermann Bahr either 
 remain unknown or only attain a passing 
 vogue through adaptations of their work 
 for the West End stage. In the ^ame 
 way the German Theatre has recognised 
 Bernard Shaw, but appears almost un- 
 aware of the existence of Mr. Henry 
 Arthur Jones. There are of course 
 exceptions to the rule, and a European 
 reputation is not an infallible guide. 
 Sudermann has in reality no more claim 
 to rank among the moderns than Sir 
 Arthur Pinero, and he has only been 
 included in this book because it is 
 intended in the first instance for English 
 readers, who have been accustomed to 
 
Introductory 3 
 
 place him with Hauptmann and Wedekind 
 as a representative German dramatist. 
 In this instance, as in some others, 
 criticism must ii'ecessarily be intolerant 
 and polemical. Tolerance smoothes the 
 way of life, but it is the most insidious 
 enemy of art. It spells compromise, and 
 compromise and criticism cannot be on 
 speaking terms. 
 
 If these critical studies, however, show 
 little respect for persons, it is because 
 they are written with the greater respect 
 for the Theatre. And at a time like the 
 present, when the English Theatre in 
 particular is endeavouring to grope its 
 way into touch with art and with life, to 
 escape from the contempt in which it has 
 justly been held by the literary artists of 
 many generations, and, although harassed 
 both by its enemies and by some of its 
 friends, to build up a new national drama, it 
 may be of service to compare its achieve- 
 ment with that of other theatres abroad. 
 The conditions are different, but the task of 
 the dramatist remains the same. European 
 drama has just reached the end of an odd 
 and experimental, but stirring, period of 
 
 \ 
 
4 Modern Dramatists 
 
 artistic history — a period of " schools," in 
 which every playwright has been com- 
 pelled to bear a label and to be described 
 as naturalist or symbolist, realist or 
 romantic. These labels are irksome to 
 the artist, and we are learning to distrust 
 them, for the differences that they repre- 
 sent are often only superficial. So much 
 has been gained by these thirty years of 
 discussion. " Naturalism," for example, 
 is dead. It was never naturalistic. The 
 greatest works that it produced were 
 always symmetrical in form, rhythmic, and 
 selective. Symbolism, realism, roman- 
 ticism, each has a hundred meanings. 
 Everything finely imagined is of necessity 
 real, and everything real is a symbol. 
 There is no place for the irrelevantly real 
 in the drama or in any other art. If these 
 descriptive terms are applied to the work 
 of the modern dramatists with whom I 
 have dealt, they are used only as con- 
 venient approximations, and must be taken 
 as such. They have no exact definition. 
 It is possible that an author may be so 
 misguided as to sit down and say : " I will 
 write a realistic masterpiece " or ** I will 
 
Introductory 5 
 
 write a symbolic masterpiece." It is even 
 possible that he and his readers may be 
 convinced of the realism or the symbolism, 
 but actually the work, if it is a work of 
 art, will be individual and indefinable. It 
 will be simply the expression of a person- 
 ality through the medium of a craft. If 
 the craft fails, the personality may be 
 distorted ; but if the personality fails, the 
 craft is useless. The great need of the 
 Theatre, then, is not conformity to this 
 school or to that, but the service of writers 
 who are at once free spirits and good 
 workmen. Freedom is their own 
 possession, but good workmanship can be 
 learned in some measure from the masters. 
 Among the modern dramatists discussed 
 here, some are master craftsmen, and 
 others are first of all poets and thinkers. 
 I have tried, therefore, to give something 
 more than a mere description of their 
 plays, and to make clear in each instance 
 the personality of the author and the 
 meaning of his work. 
 
II 
 
 MODERNITY AND THE 
 DRAMATIST 
 
 No word has been more abused or less 
 understood than the word "modernity." 
 To those who are content with the half- 
 truth that there is nothing new under the 
 sun, the continual controversy aroused by 
 what are called " new," " advanced," or 
 " modern " artistic movements may well 
 appear a waste of breath. In reality, 
 however, modernity has little to do with 
 the calendar. It may be studied in every 
 period. In art, as in religion and state- 
 craft, there must always be a conflict of 
 parties. The names of the parties and 
 their watchwords may be new, but the 
 realities for which they stand are as old as 
 art itself. 
 
 In religion and politics the issues of the 
 struggle are perhaps more clearly defined, 
 because they touch, or appear to touch, 
 
Modernity and the Dramatist 7 
 
 the life of the individual citizen more 
 closely. But the conflict is no less real 
 in art because the parties are so loosejy 
 grouped and so highly individual in their 
 tendency. Indeed, it is more real, for 
 personal conviction is the driving force 
 rather than the party machine. In any 
 case, the broad division is always between 
 old forms and new, between conservatives 
 and revolutionists, classical tradition and 
 new impulse, academism and modernity. 
 The individual patron of art must choose 
 between them as his own temperament 
 dictates. On the one hand, he is offered 
 the work of a certain number of artists, 
 whether painters or musicians, novelists 
 or dramatists or poets, as representing a 
 fixed standard of value and an established 
 tradition ; on the other, that of the moderns 
 who are striving for a hearing. 
 
 The choice is complicated by the 
 apparently paradoxical fact that the 
 advanced artists of one generation tend 
 to be accepted and academised by the 
 next. Among the authors of the nine- 
 teenth century, for example, Carlyle, 
 Shelley, Swinburne and Meredith in 
 
8 Modern Dramatists 
 
 England, Goethe and Schiller in Ger- 
 many, Victor Hugo in France, and even 
 such clearly defined " moderns " as Ibsen 
 and Nietzsche have all moved, or are 
 steadily in process of moving, into their 
 places among the classics. By constant 
 repetition of their names, as much as by 
 real recognition of the value of their work, 
 they join the same established tradition 
 against which they themselves fought. 
 True, there is no coherence in the 
 tradition. It includes born academists 
 and born revolutionaries alike, but they 
 join it none the less, simply by virtue of 
 having lived, having written and achieved 
 fame. University professors look upon 
 them benignantly, and pi^epare lecture 
 courses upon their works ; essayists 
 begin to estimate " the verdict of 
 posterity " ; they pass out of copyright 
 and into cheap reprints of the classics, 
 and their names fortify the academic 
 citadel. The same fate is in store for 
 some authors of the present day. Their 
 modernity is a passing phase, and yet an 
 eternal reality. 
 
 The question then arises, What is pre- 
 
Modernity and the Dramatist 9 
 
 cisely the hall-mark of. modernity ? What! 
 is it that distinguishes modern dramatists, 
 modern novelists, modern poets, from the 
 mob of dramatists, novelists, and poets of 
 their own period? The answer is clear 
 enough. It is simply that they are in 
 touch with, or in advance of, the thought 
 of their own time ; that their work breaks 
 new paths, offers new forms and modes 6f 
 expression ; that the men and women they 
 create do not rnerely reflect the conditions 
 under which they live and the spirit of 
 their age, but are dynamic, developing, 
 continually offering a criticism of those 
 conditions, and so projecting themselves 
 into the future and making histor^j 
 
 Upon the title-page of Hauptmann's 
 " Einsame Menschen " are the words, " I 
 dedicate this drama to those who have 
 lived it," Applied to anything but a work 
 of art, such dedication would be an im- 
 pertinence, even though the play had been 
 lived a thousand times, and every word 
 were taken direct from the lips of its 
 characters. The mere fact of being is no 
 sufficient justification for treatment in 
 literature or upon the stage. A work of 
 
lo Modern Dramatists 
 
 art must stand in a more intimate relation 
 to life. It must be, not imitative, but 
 selective. It must interpret as well as 
 describe. Its aim is the creation of an 
 atmosphere in which tragedy is no longer 
 without meaning, and in which comedy 
 and the comic spirit can fulfil their destiny 
 as critics of the passing show. Above all, 
 the persons of the drama must be engaged 
 not only in being, but becoming. The 
 final curtain must see them changed. 
 Both they and the audience must have 
 learnt something. The Germans have a 
 name for these moderns. They are the 
 Uebergangsmenschen einer Uebergangszeit, 
 the transition men of a transition period, 
 the bridge between yesterday and to- 
 morrow. In one of his prefaces the 
 Swedish dramatist Strindberg writes : — 
 
 As modern men and women, living in a 
 time of transition, a time hastier, more 
 hysterical perhaps, than its immediate 
 predecessor, I have drawn my characters 
 often vacillating, torn between old and 
 new. They are compounded of past and 
 present opinions and standards, scraps of 
 books and newspaper cuttings, fragments 
 
Modernity and the Dramatist 1 1 
 
 of men, torn shreds of holiday attire that 
 now are rags, for this is how the soul 
 itself is patched together. 
 
 Modernity, however, does not neces- 
 sarily depend upon modern subject-matter. 
 Strindberg himself, like many other 
 dramatists, began by outhning a philoso- 
 phical problem in a historical drama 
 (" Meister Olof "). If Bernard Shaw had 
 written no other plays than his " Caesar 
 and Cleopatra," " The Devil's Disciple," 
 and " The Man of Destiny," he would stil 
 be distinctively a modern author as com- 
 pared with, say, Sir Arthur Pinero. Hugo 
 von Hofmannsthal, who has hitherto 
 based most of his plays either upon the 
 tragic legends of Greece or the Italian 
 Renaissance period, is clearly more of a 
 " modern " than Sudermann, who writes 
 of present-day Germany. 
 
 Nor is modernity necessarily connected 
 with realism, any more than classical 
 academism is necessarily connected with 
 romance. It is true that many modern 
 authors, and especially many modern 
 dramatists, belong to the so-called 
 realistic school, but this is due, as will be 
 
12 Modern Dramatists 
 
 seen later, to special circumstances, in 
 particular to the influence of Ibsen on 
 form and to a reaction against the gross 
 romanticism of the existing theatre. That 
 reaction has not yet spent its force, and it 
 is aided by the revolutionary social drama- 
 tists (as opposed to the " society" drama- 
 tists) who use the theatre deliberately to 
 secure the most vivid representation of 
 social injustice, and so fling down their 
 challenge to the present order, conceiving 
 the realistic method as the only means of 
 substituting truth for falsehood. Realism 
 is, indeed, for these authors, their contri- 
 bution to the revolutionary movement on 
 its destructive side and their way of un- 
 masking social shams. For them the cry 
 of " Truth ! " is the tally-ho which sets 
 them in pursuit of the actual, the existing 
 fact. Whether the next phase of moder- 
 nity in the theatre will be a further move- 
 ment towards this actuality or a new 
 romantic renascence it is as yet impossible 
 to say, Ibsen marked not only the begin- 
 ning, but the close, of a period. He was 
 the great destroyer, yet his dramatic form 
 is unsurpassed. Those of his followers 
 
Modernity and the Dramatist 13 
 
 who have set out to portray the actual have 1 / 
 for the most part only echoed his cry of/ ' 
 " Truth ! " in a minor key. Yet he and; 
 they have helped to find a place for realism 
 in the academic tradition, and against 
 that tradition the new movement of the 
 future will have to make its way. 
 
 The word " modern," then, covers a 
 multitude of virtues and at least a fair 
 sprinkling of sins. It is a convenient 
 weapon for the younger generation, often 
 hard pressed for an adjective broad enough 
 to embrace all its vaguer aspirations, a 
 bludgeon wherewith to belabour the out of 
 date, a dagger ever ready to prick the 
 bubble of academism. But if it is a word 
 hard of definition, the word " dramatist " is 
 harder still. For it is not enough that a' 
 dramatist should be an artist with some- 
 thing definite to say in dialogue form : he 
 must be prepared to say it in the theatre. 
 Nor is it enough that he should merely 
 write for the theatre : he must accept a 
 certain highly restricted yet highly effec- 
 tive mode of expression, and must be 
 able to handle his characters properly for 
 stage purposes.j These are no abstract, 
 
14 Modern Dramatists 
 
 academic rules of dramaturgy ;;they are the 
 absolute necessities of his art, as much a 
 part of his stock in trade as the painter's 
 brush and canvas. If he quarrels with 
 these conditions, he must seek another form 
 than drama. For the theatre is a hard 
 taskmaster. It is the most impressionist 
 of all mediums, a place of broad tones 
 and splashes of high colour, of rapid 
 movement and treacherous, pinnacled 
 moments, its audience sensitive and im- 
 patient as only the crowd can be. It is 
 intolerant of rhetoric, and its subtleties are 
 not the subtleties of literature. 
 
 There is no absolute standard of tech- 
 nical form, in spite of the dramaturgists. 
 All academic attempts at defining the 
 dramatist's limitations may be destroyed 
 by a new work of genius. But at the 
 same time absolute freedom of form is 
 unthinkable. )t)ne test only is decisive, 
 ftlie test of success, not in the sense of 
 popularity or box-office returns, but of real 
 effectiveness. If a dramatist discovers or 
 adopts a form which really enables him to 
 convey to his audience just what he wants 
 to convey within the two or three hours 
 
Modernity and the Dramatist 15 
 
 at his disposal, he has justified that form 
 for himself. It may not suit other writers ; 
 it is pretty sure not to suit his academic 
 critics. But it is his form. It has set up 
 a fair means of communication between 
 him and his audience, and it is invulner- 
 ablej Only, the audience must be the, 
 arbiter, not the author. No matter how;' 
 confident he may be that his dialogues are 
 plays, no matter how often he repeats the' 
 assertion, the only final test of its truth 
 can be the fall of the final curtain upon a 
 clear, sustained impression of dramatic^ 
 power. 
 
 The dramatist is distinguished, then, 
 partly by an instinctive understanding of 
 these conditions and partly by a deliberate 
 choice of them. Compare, for example, 
 Shelley's " The Cenci " and " Prometheus 
 Unbound " with Ibsen's " Brand " or 
 " Peer Gynt." They are all in a sense 
 plays ; they are all in verse and in dialogue 
 form. "The Cenci" was written with a 
 view to performance, and it has been 
 produced. " Peer Gynt " and " Brand " 
 are both extremely difficult plays for stage 
 purposes. Yet it is not too much to say 
 
1 6 Modern Dramatists 
 
 that even if Ibsen had never written his 
 prose dramas "PeerGynt" and "Brand" 
 would have marked him distinctively as a 
 dramatist, while if Shelley had never 
 written any verse but that contained in 
 " Prometheus " and " The Cenci " he would 
 still be first and foremost a poet. The 
 difference lies in Ibsen's possession of the 
 special dramatic sense, and in his use of 
 verse as a means to a dramatic end. 
 Poets seldom take the Theatre seriously. 
 This is perhaps hardly to be wondered at, 
 for the Theatre seldom takes them 
 seriously, and it requires either an all- 
 compelling instinct or an heroic effort of 
 will to bring the poet to write for the 
 stage, especially for a stage which has 
 lost its finer traditions. Hence the 
 appalHng state of affairs in the English 
 Theatre during almost the whole of the 
 nineteenth century, and especially during 
 the later Victorian period. The greater 
 artists ignored the Theatre, and it was 
 delivered over to the minor playwright 
 specialists, most of them craftsmen with a 
 good average sense of dramatic effect, but 
 not one of them capable of giving new life 
 
Modernity and the Dramatist 17 
 
 or new form to the drama, or indeed of 
 doing anything but satisfy the existing 
 popular taste. Against Meredith, Swin- 
 burne, and Hardy the Theatre could only 
 offer Robertson, Pinero, Henry Arthur 
 Jones, Captain Marshall, and the rest. 
 Oscar Wilde appeared meteoric among 
 these stars of the tenth magnitu de. 1 
 " Atalanta in Calydon " was not for such 
 a stage as this, and the incomparable 
 scenes of "The Egoist," full of dramatic 
 sense as they were, took shape as " a 
 comedy in narrative." 
 
 This distrust of the limitations of the 
 Theatre still remains, and it accounts for 
 the partial failure of so many modern 
 dramatists. Comparatively few of them 
 combine originality of thought with 
 technical skill. Their scorn of tradition 
 in ideas leads them to a scorn of the 
 medium which they themselves elect to 
 use, and so it is that the second-rate 
 dramatists are often the ablest craftsmen ; 
 that, having least to say, they know how 
 to say it most effectively. The continual 
 struggle between the exuberant flow of 
 ideas and the form into which they are to 
 
 2 
 
1 8 Modern Dramatists 
 
 be cast can be traced, sentence by 
 sentence, in the work of most moderns of 
 the first rank, and the result is the flood 
 of " study plays," written by dramatists 
 so bent upon emancipation that they have 
 emancipated themselves at length from 
 the Theatre. The effect of this disregard 
 of form is in every way disastrous. It 
 strengthens the resistance of the present 
 Theatre to new ideas, it leads the 
 modernity movement on a false scent, 
 and it is of no service either to literature 
 or drama. The unplayable play, bereft of 
 an audience, creates a cult ; and modernity 
 is overrun with cults. At best they can 
 only be tentative ; they have none of the 
 sweeping force of a real renaissance. 
 
 We have two standards, then, by which 
 to judge the work of the modern 
 dramatists. The first is distinction of 
 thought, and the second service to the 
 Theatre. Other considerations, such as 
 service to literature or beauty, must be 
 subordinate, for these qualities develop of 
 themselves in the work of a dramatist who 
 is at once completely the master of his 
 subject and whole-heartedly the servant of 
 
Modernity and the Dramatist ig 
 
 his art. Beauty is least often attained 
 when it is most eagerly striven after. 
 The ancient rule of the craftsman applies 
 to drama, as to the other arts. The 
 maker must first see to it that his work 
 shall be fit for use ; that the cup he 
 fashions shall be a good cup, well made 
 for wine ; that the fabric he weaves shall 
 be strong and supple for the wearer, the 
 house built for a dwelling and the lamp 
 for light. Then, if he is also an artist, all 
 of these will be beautiful. But if he sets 
 out first in pursuit of the abstraction 
 beauty, he is likely to fail in his purpose, 
 so that the vessel he creates is without 
 form and useless. This is true, especially 
 in the Theatre, of all other abstractions, 
 such as intellect or politics or wit. These 
 are only the means of drama, and not the 
 end. 
 
 2 — % 
 
Ill 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF IBSEN 
 
 All attempts at discovering the exact 
 origin of the modern movement in the 
 Theatre must in a measure fail. It cannot 
 be traced to any one author, or to any one 
 current in philosophy or event in history 
 or politics. Being modern, it is neces- 
 sarily a product of all of these together. 
 Ibsen was doubtless the greatest personal 
 influence, but he himself only gave dramatic 
 form and force to already existing ideas, 
 and no one can say how far he was 
 indebted to the conditions of his time. A 
 century before him Jean Jacques Rousseau 
 had set a feudal world talking of " rights " 
 and freedom, and the first French Revolu- 
 tion, although a set-back politically, was 
 no final defeat of democracy. Statecraft 
 became more infused with theory, and the 
 wars of the early nineteenth century 
 took on a new social aspect that dis- 
 
The Influence of Ibsen 21 
 
 tinguished them from the old bellicose 
 escapades. 1848, the year of revolutions 
 abroad and of Chartism in England, 
 showed the progress of Communist ideas 
 among the rebels, and here, as in the case 
 of the later Paris Commune, there was 
 scarcely a poet or thinker in Europe who 
 did not openly take one side or the other. 
 Swinburne's " Songs before Sunrise " 
 belong to this period ; Ibsen himself 
 was strongly influenced by the failure of 
 the Commune, and it was the text of 
 many of his pronouncements on "the rule 
 of the mob." Quite independently of him, 
 Strindberg, who began his work in 1870, 
 formulated his first long play, " Meister 
 Olof," a historical drama, to represent a 
 philosophical struggle, in which one of the 
 characters stands for the revolutionary 
 ideas of the time. It was inevitable that 
 the Theatre should reflect this intellectual 
 unrest. Indeed, it is extraordinary that it 
 %iid not begin to do so earlier, and that 
 amid the stormy realities of 1845 to 1880 
 in France the stage should have been 
 monopolised by the artificial society 
 drama. The stage of other countries 
 
22 Modern Dramatists 
 
 was in much the same condition, and 
 no clearer proof could be given of the 
 decadence of the Theatre. In a time of/ 
 real ^tistic vitality art leads the way 
 through its power of eliminating all that 
 is irrelevant and of giving the most vivid 
 expression possible to real issues. When 
 it lags behind religion and science, and 
 ignores the conflicts of daily life, it isl 
 moribund. Ibsen and his followers, then/ 
 had to make their way against the dullest 
 and most disheartening of all reactionary 
 influences — the contempt of their own 
 nledium of expression and the disrepute in 
 which it was held. The history of that 
 conflict is the history of Ibsen's own life 
 and the motive of his plays, f 
 
 Ibsen's prose dramas would probably 
 have conquered the Theatre almost without 
 an effort if they had only had to contend 
 with romanticism of the type of the Danish 
 dramatist Oehlenschlager, then popular 
 in Scandinavia. But some progress had 
 already been made toward a certain type 
 of realism. The well-made play, such as 
 " La Dame aux Camelias," with all its 
 bad ethics, was at least capable of 
 
The Influence of Ibsen 23 
 
 producing an effective stage illusion. It 
 represented realism for the demi-monde 
 and for the upper classes, and it founded 
 quite a definite school, which soon took 
 possession of the commercial Theatre. 
 The " moderns " like Dumas, had nothing 
 of particular value to offer beside construc- 
 tion, and even that was mechanical, the 
 more apparently mechanical because of 
 their poverty of subject-matter. But 
 Ibsen was not above learning his Craft 
 from the French. The climax of " An 
 Enemy of the People " or "The Pillars of 
 Society" has just the same form as the 
 climax of the brief fourth act of " La Dame 
 aux Camelias." In his earlier plays Ibsen 
 adopted the Dumas form, transfused it, 
 and sent it back to France _ minus 
 the_Sfllilo^tuy and other improbabilities. 
 There, in its newer form, it persists, fOr 
 France is still the chief manufactory of 
 the well-made play. 
 
 The machinery of Ibsen's work, then, 
 was the old machinery, but the drama 
 built upon it was entirely new. There 
 are still famous actresses who play 
 Marguerite Gautier in " La Dame aux 
 
24 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Camelias " one evening and Rebecca 
 West in " Rosmersholm " the next. But 
 the difference between the two women 
 cannot be estimated in the period of 
 thirty years or so between the appearance 
 of the plays. There are centuries between 
 them. They live in different worlds. 
 Ibsen only used the form of the French 
 society drama in order to embody in it a 
 new social drama of his own. In place of 
 the marionettes of the comedy of manners, 
 he used the living figures of the Norwegian 
 bourgeoisie. For this he suffered the 
 penalty of being named " suburban " by 
 a London critic. This egregious com- 
 ment illustrates very well the condition of 
 the Theatre and its standards when Ibsen 
 began to write. The one essential for the 
 dramatist was that he should write of good 
 society, and, as he was generally an ex- 
 actor without any first-hand knowledge 
 of his subject, the picture was ludicrous 
 enough. 
 
 f Gentility is still the popular standard in 
 tne Theatre, but in 1870, except for the 
 classic poets, it was universal. Ibsen 
 substituted for the test of income and 
 
The Influence of Ibsen 25 
 
 good breeding that of distinction and 
 personality. Intellectually the characters 
 of the society drama were not even 
 suburban. They were inhabitants of a 
 well-appointed desert. It is the triumph 
 of Ibsen that by contrast with his ship- 
 owners, doctors, journalists, tradesmen, 
 and master builders, and, above all, beside 
 his group of women, they appear as such. 
 Marguerite Gautier needed every theatrical 
 device of the playwright to make her even 
 momentarily real, but Nora and Rebecca 
 West can bear the light of day. Ibsen 
 did not merely preach an intellectual 
 aristocracy : he created it. 
 
 Yet he achieved all this, like a good 
 craftsman, directly through the medium 
 of the Theatre. He did not despise his 
 tools. His plays make a colossal demand 
 upon the art of the actor and the intelli- 
 gence of the audience, but once those 
 demands are granted — that is to say, 
 under the best conditions conceivable — a 
 perfect communication is set up, and the 
 hearer is never distracted by irrelevancies. 
 He did not write explanatory prefaces, 
 and was slow to discuss his own work. 
 
26 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Whatever his critics or his followers did, 
 he never deduced any coherent philosophy 
 from it. Body-snatching interpretation 
 was no part of his purpose. His descrip- 
 tive notes are the baldest outline. Bernard 
 Shaw has lamented this, but it appears in 
 keeping with Ibsen's contempt for the 
 superfluous sentence. His plays were for 
 the Theatre, and he offered no stage 
 directions for a blush. His characters 
 were for the stage, fresh from the dressing- 
 room, and though he might concede them 
 a beard and frock-coat, he forbore to 
 burden them ' ' ith a page of family history 
 or a guide to the politics or topography of 
 the district. And so it is with the plays] 
 themselves. They have been analysed, 
 searched for philosophies and political 
 creeds, weighed, labelled, and compared, 
 but they survive the ordeal. They stand 
 out complete and final. The critic and 
 the appreciator have done their work as 
 intermediaries, and the issue may be left 
 between Ibsen and his audiencej 
 
 We must pass now from the beginning 
 of Ibsen's work to the end, for it was not 
 until most of his plays were already 
 
The Influence of Ibsen 27 
 
 finjf,hed that his influence began to be felt. 
 This is perhaps not as strange as it seems, 
 for France had established what was 
 virtually a monopoly of drama. Germany 
 followed France at some distance, and 
 most of the English playwrights were 
 engaged in adapting from the French, so 
 that the intrusion of a new dramatist from 
 Norway was not only unexpected, but 
 conflicted with all the established interests 
 of the Theatre. The result, when once 
 the new force was understood, was the 
 " Ibsenite controversy." 
 
 That controversy (if the clash of pre- 
 judice and logical conviction may so be 
 called) is long since dead. No one now 
 cares what the Daily Telegraph^or the 
 Referee thought about " Ghosts " or 
 "Hedda Gabler" in i8gi, and if their 
 criticism survives, it is only because it has 
 been pilloried as a journalistic curiosity 
 in the essays of Bernard Shaw. Of all 
 European countries England is least 
 sensitive to new impressions from without, 
 and the prejudice was perhaps more stupid 
 here than elsewhere. The squabble had' 
 little to do directly with the Theatre, for 
 
2 8 Modern Dramatists 
 
 the controversialists on both sides were 
 altogether obsessed with Ibsen's morals. 
 They were engaged either in piecing 
 together a philosophy from his works, or 
 \in attempting to expose his depravity. 
 \ As far as morality is concerned, Ibsen 
 answered his critics much better than any 
 of his supporters could answer them, and 
 that without adding one word to his plays 
 themselves. He had created fine men 
 and women — above all, honest men and 
 women, seeking for realities — while the 
 pla)7wrights of his day were living in an 
 atmosphere of half-truths and shams, 
 grubbing in the divorce court and living 
 upon the maintenance of social intrigue 
 just as comfortably as any bully upon the 
 earnings of a prostitute. This is indeed 
 the only answer to the cry of" immorality," 
 for if any person prefers the contemporary 
 heroine of popular drama to Nora and 
 Rebecca West, or the contemporary hero 
 to Dr. Stockmann, all the arguments of 
 the Ibsenite apologists will be wasted upon 
 him. Moreover, the supreme test of the) 
 artist is the revelation of himself in his 
 work, not as an obtrusive personality, 
 
The Influence of Ibsen 29 
 
 but as a living, human force behind it alLj 
 Behind the work of all the popular play- 
 wrights of the period, from Dumas fils and 
 Sardou to Paul Lindau, Robertson and 
 Pinero, there is at best only technical 
 skill and intellectual commonplace ; while 
 behind each of the plays of Ibsen there 
 is a great personality. 
 / Josef Hofmiller has said of Ibsen in 
 his volume of essays " Zeitgenossen " 
 (Munich, 1910) : — 
 
 / His individuality was so powerful that it 
 well-nigh shattered the vessel of his art. 
 . . . The fabulous clings about the 
 man and his work like a breath of ancient 
 sagas. At the root of all his plays lies the 
 immeasurable. Their essence remains 
 Protean, beyond expression and beyond 
 our grasp. They slip from beneath oiirl 
 hand, stating problems rather than solving 
 them, pointing this way and that, per- 
 plexing as old, old riddles. . . j] 
 ' Bury him with princely honours, this 
 
 dead poet, and lay three things upon his 
 bier : 
 A crown, a hammer, and a sword ! ^ 
 
 This was the influence, then, under 
 which the advanced Theatre of Europe 
 
30 Modern Dramatists 
 
 came between the years 1885 and i8go. 
 Appropriately enough, France was the 
 first country to respond, although its 
 response has proved hitherto the least 
 sustained. The Theatre Libre was 
 established in Paris by M, Antoine in 
 1887, and its watchword from the first 
 was " naturalism." This word was 
 intended to cover the dramatic method 
 of Zola, Strindberg, Tolstoi, and other 
 writers generally known as " realists," 
 and the theatre was founded originally 
 to pro3xice their work rather than that of 
 Ibsen, who was as yet scarcely known in 
 France. Strindberg, however, in an essay 
 written at the time of the production of 
 his own plays by the Theatre Libre, 
 distinguishes carefully between " natural- 
 ism " and " realism " as follows : — 
 
 Photography includes everything, even 
 the speck of dust upon the lens of the 
 camera. This is the spirit of realism, a 
 method latterly exalted to an art, an art 
 that cannot see the wood for the trees. It 
 is mistaken naturalism, believing that art 
 consists merely in taking a piece of nature 
 and drawing it in a natural way. But this 
 
The Influence of Ibsen 31 
 
 is not true naturalism. 'The true, the 
 great naturalism seeks out those points 
 in life where t he greatest confl icts occur. 
 It loves to see what is not to be seen every 
 day.^ It rejoices in the battle of elemental 
 powers, whether they be called love or 
 hatred, noble or revolting instincts. It 
 cares not whether they be beautiful or 
 ugly, so that they be only great. . . . 
 Xet us have a theatre where we can be~ 
 shocked by what is horrible, where we can 
 laugh at what is laughable, where we can 
 see life without shrinking back in terror 
 if what has hitherto lain veiled behind 
 theological or aesthetic preconceptions be 
 suddenly revealed to us.' Let us have a 
 free theatre, where there is room for 
 everything but incompetence, hypocrisy, 
 and stupidity. 
 
 It w^as in this conception of a free 
 theatre, untrammelled and unconven- 
 tional, that the new^ movement crystallised. 
 The Theatre Libre itself began on a 
 small scale as a subscription stage with 
 semi-private performances, and it thus 
 had the enormous artistic advantage 
 (however doubtful financially) of choosing 
 its own audience, while at the same time 
 it avoided any kind of censorship. 
 
32 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Invitation cards were issued as if for an 
 evening party or salon : — 
 
 THEAtRE LIBRE. 
 
 MM. X and Y (the authors) 
 
 have the honour to invite you to be 
 
 present at the production of on 
 
 Monday evening next, at eight o'clock. 
 
 R. S. V. P. 
 
 In spite of these limitations, its appear- 
 ance made a great stir. The early 
 performances included Tolstoi's " Powers 
 of Darkness " and Strindberg's " The 
 Father," " Miss Julia," and " Creditors." 
 Among the new plays by French authors 
 were " Blanchette," by Brieux, and 
 " L'Argent," by Emile Fabre. Ibsen's 
 "Ghosts" (" Les Revenants") was soon 
 given, and afterwards a number of his 
 other plays meeting the " naturalistic " 
 demand. Innovations in lighting and 
 stage management made the illusion of 
 reality more vivid. A number of one-act 
 plays were produced, some of them 
 incidental tours de force quite unworthy 
 of the Theatre. But upon the whole 
 M. Antoine's management was a valuable 
 
The Influence of Ibsen 33 
 
 as well as a stirring adventure. It lasted 
 eight years, and it leaves a reminiscent 
 trail at least in the name of the Theatre 
 Antoine. 
 
 It was only to be expected that in Paris, 
 the home of artistic " secessions " and 
 cults, other rival advanced theattes should 
 spring up. Among them were the Theatre 
 d'Art and the Theatre de I'CEuvre, and at 
 these again the three Strindberg plays 
 mentioned above were produced. The 
 Theatre de I'CEuvre, founded in 1893 by 
 M. Lugnd Poe, became identified with a 
 new symbolist movement through the 
 early plays of Maeterlinck. As this 
 reaction, however, was only indirectly due 
 to Ibsen's influence, it must be dealt with 
 later. 
 
 Meanwhile Germany, too, had estab- 
 lished its " free theatre " in the Berlin 
 Freie Biihne (1889), under the direction of 
 Dr. Otto Brahm. Its first production was 
 Ibsen's " Ghosts " (" Gespenster "). This 
 created what is known in Germany as a 
 Theaterskandal — a term which covers 
 anything from an actual riot on the first 
 night to a violent newspaper discussion. 
 
 3 
 
34 Modern Dramatists 
 
 In the case of " Ghosts " the performance 
 passed off peacefully enough, but the 
 excitement remained, and it was renewed 
 a month later, when Gerhart Hauptmann's 
 " Vor Sonnenaufgang " (" Before Sunrise") 
 was given. This was not only Haupt- 
 mann's first play, but the first of the 
 naturalistic school in Germany. The 
 time was well chosen for the foundation 
 of the Freie Biihne. Ibsen and naturalism 
 were everywhere discussed ; Darwinism, 
 Comtism and free thought were in their 
 first bloom as popular philosophies ; 1848 
 and Republicanism were still a living 
 memory ; and Social Democracy was 
 beginning to feel its strength. The new 
 theatre was for the drama springing from 
 all of these, and it at once took on the 
 aspect of a revolutionary social force. As 
 for its repertory, it followed much the 
 same lines as the Parisian Theatre Libre. 
 Strindberg's " Fraulein Julie " was given, 
 with other translations from the Swedish 
 and Russian. Beside Hauptmann, Max 
 Halbe and Otto Erich Hartleben came 
 forward with original work of their own. 
 But there soon proved to be little need of 
 
The Influence of Ibsen 35 
 
 the Freie Buhne except for the purpose^f 
 producing exceptional or prohibited plays, 
 and this other societies could do just as 
 well. The Freie Biihne had one great 
 advantage over the Th6atre Libre — the 
 support of the provinces. As far as the 
 Theatre is concerned, Paris is France ; 
 and the audience of the new French 
 dramatists was necessarily limited, so 
 that indeed they could only afford to 
 write for the Theatre Libre at a real 
 sacrifice to themselves. But Germany 
 was, and is, provided with all the 
 machinery of production in the shape of 
 innumerable repertory theatres, subsidised 
 and unsubsidised, scattered through all 
 its great cities. The plays of the new 
 Freie Buhne authors were at once taken 
 up by these theatres and produced. 
 Hauptmann's third play, " Einsame 
 Menschen " ("Lonely Lives"), was accepted 
 by the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. Max 
 Halbe's "Jugend" has had more than 
 two hundred performances at the Munich 
 Schauspielhaus alone, and the number 
 must have reached several thousand in 
 the whole of Germany. After the Freie 
 
 3—3 
 
36 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Buhne had given him his opportunity 
 in "Angele" and " Der Frosch " Otto 
 Erich Hartleben wrote " Rosenmontag," 
 one of the most successful plays of the time. 
 Ibsen and Strindberg, too, passed into the 
 repertory of the provincial theatres. All 
 obstacles vanished, and the pioneer stage 
 of the Freie Biihne became a triumphal 
 progress. Modernity was the fashion. 
 
 The mere vogue passed, but once the 
 moderns had obtained a footing, they could 
 not be ousted. Germany is the paradise 
 of the playwright. If it is not the country 
 of highest dramatic achievement, it is at 
 least that of the greatest opportunities. 
 
 Of the third venture established under 
 the Ibsen influence, the Independent 
 Theatre of London, there is a sadly 
 different tale to tell. I.t began, under the 
 direction of Mr. J. T. Grein, in 1891, and 
 once again " Ghosts " was the first play 
 to be produced. This was followed by 
 Zola's "Therese Raquin," and in 1892 by 
 Bernard Shaw's " Widowers' Houses." 
 Mr. Shaw has described the career of the 
 Independent Theatre inimitably in his 
 preface to the first volume of "Plays 
 
The Influence of Ibsen 37 
 
 Pleasant and Unpleasant," and indeed its 
 only claim to distinction is that it was his 
 discoverei'. The theatre was neither as 
 advanced as the Theatre Libre nor as 
 efficient as the Freie Biihne, It repre- 
 sented a movement which not only had 
 no support in the provinces, but very little 
 in playgoing London. It was a curiosity, 
 and little more. Nevertheless the pro- 
 duction of " Widowers' Houses " made 
 dramatic history, and among the new 
 playwrights born of the " free " theatres 
 of the i8go period Bernard Shaw has 
 proved a greater individual force than 
 either Brieux in France or Hauptmann in 
 Germany. His plays supplied a motive 
 for the foundation of the Stage Society 
 (the lineal descendant of the Independent 
 Theatre) in 1899, and of the Court Theatre, 
 under the Vedrenne-Barker management, 
 (1904—7). Most of the " modern" English 
 dramatists were first played by one or 
 other of these theatres. 
 ~ The Independent Theatre soon dis- 
 appeared, partly because of the dearth of 
 original plays by English authors and 
 partly because it had no monopoly of 
 
38 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Ibsen. " A Doll's House " was first 
 played by Mr. Charles Charrington and 
 Miss Janet Achurch in 1889, and from 
 then until 1897 short runs or isolated 
 performances of " Pillars of Society," 
 " Hedda Gabler," " Rosmersholm," and 
 the other social dramas were occasionally 
 given in London, while " A Doll's House " 
 made a tour of the colonies and the 
 English-speaking world. 
 I In other countries, notably in Russia 
 and Italy, the " free theatre " as a separate 
 institution was either unknown or only, 
 appeared spasmodically, but Ibsen's plays 
 found their way into the ordinary repertory 
 of stock companies, and especially of well- 
 known actresses. Hedda Gabler, Nora 
 and Rebecca West are great acting parts, 
 and Eleanora Duse, Lydia Yavorskaia 
 and others soon made them widely known. 
 Much of Ibsen's influence was no doubt 
 indirect; some advance would certainly 
 have taken place without his aid ; but 
 that he was the chief inspiration of the 
 new movement no one can possibly doubt. 
 So far we have only dealt with the effect 
 of his work upon the pioneer theatres and 
 
The Influence of Ibsen 39 
 
 the dramatists who may properly be called 
 modern. In the ordinary theatre it was 
 almost as instantaneous. Soliloquies and 
 " asides " practically disappeared as parts 
 of constructive machinery, with enor- 
 mous advantage to the stage illusion 
 and indirectly to the playwright. This 
 accounts for the curious ^fact that Ibsen's 
 influence has created or increased the 
 reputation of popular dramatists, semi- 
 moderns like Sudermann and Pinero, 
 Hervieu and Bernstein. These authors, 
 without for the most part any burning 
 ideas of their own, found expression ready 
 to hand in the perfect technique of a 
 master. There is no copyright in form, 
 and plagiarism brings no dishonour. 
 Moreover, the plagiarism was almost 
 unconscious. They did no more than 
 move with the times and adapt them- 
 selves to the needs of the public, as they 
 had always done. They poured their own 
 baser metal into Ibsen's mould, turning it 
 out to appear, in the eyes of the boule- 
 vardian or the West End playgoer, 
 uncommonly like the real article. 
 
 In every period there are such semi- 
 
40 Modern Dramatists 
 
 moderns. They serve, in a measure, to 
 educate the public and to develop an 
 audience. Writing, as one of them has 
 said, with one eye upon art and the other 
 upon the box-office, they manage to gain 
 a comfortable living. They write genuinely 
 effective plays with genuinely fine moments, 
 for it is the first condition of their exist- 
 ence that they should be good craftsmen. 
 Nevertheless there is no place for them 
 among the modern dramatists, for their 
 function in the Theatre sit best is only to 
 drift whither the moderns steer. 
 
IV 
 
 SCANDINAVIA 
 
 BJORNSON AND STRINDBERG 
 
 BjORNSON 
 
 Ibsen compelled a hearing for the 
 dramatic literature of Scandinavia, and 
 Europe, looking thus perforce to Norway, 
 discovered Bjornson. It is possible that 
 Bjornson would have become known even 
 without this especial notice, but his re- 
 putation would certainly have been made 
 as a novelist, a publicist, an orator and 
 politician, a fighter in the cause of peace, 
 a poet and a statesman, rather than as a 
 playwright. For Bjornson was all of 
 these. His life was a race of conflicting 
 enthusiasms, and the Theatre was only 
 one of them. For a few months or years 
 the dramatist in him would rush to the 
 front, only to be overtaken and passed by 
 the poet or the pamphleteer. This head- 
 long life was the essence of the man, but 
 
42 Modern Dramatists 
 
 it offered little enough serenity for the 
 artist. Where Ibsen devoted two years to 
 the writing of a play, Bjornson gave at 
 most a few months. While Ibsen was in 
 his study in Christiania or Munich, Bjorn- 
 son was stumping Norway in the cause of 
 freedom, issuing manifestoes, and arousing 
 remote townships and villages with the 
 tempestuous eagerness of a revivalist. 
 This was a more human occupation than 
 the slow composition of, let us say, " The 
 Wild Duck." It made Bjornson an actor 
 in the world-drama of which Ibsen was 
 first the spectator, and afterwards the 
 playwright. There was, however, a curious 
 parallel between the two men, from the 
 early work of both as scenic managers in 
 the theatres of Bergen and Christiania to 
 their part in the emancipation of Norway 
 and their leonine appearance and person- 
 ality. Bjbrnson's bias towards propagan- 
 dism was temperamental. He was the 
 son of a pastor, and although he soon 
 rejected popular theology he was the most 
 dogmatic of free-thinkers. If he had been 
 born in England, he would have been an 
 intermediary between Puritanism and art 
 
Bjornson 43 
 
 — perhaps between Nonconformity and the 
 Theatre. All who knew him are agreed 
 as to this dominance of the pastor in 
 Bjornson. The platform was his pulpit ; 
 the political campaign his crusade. 
 
 Strindberg gives an account of a meeting 
 with him in Paris which throws light upon 
 Bjornson's nature. Strindberg had re- 
 fused several invitations to visit the poet, 
 preferring, as he was in precarious health 
 and busy with work of his own, not to 
 come under the influence of so powerful a 
 personality. One afternoon, returning 
 from a stroll, he found Bjornson awaiting 
 him in his rooms, and he writes a note 
 upon the interview in his diary : " Bjornson 
 spoke of politics and literature ; of his 
 doings in Norway and abroad. His 
 energy was magnificent ; his flow of words 
 unceasing. But behind all his talk of 
 aff'airs I saw only the priest addressing 
 his flock ; and behind the man himself 
 only a great, good-natured child." 
 
 A curious intermixture of naivete and 
 perception appears in all Bjornson's work. 
 He wrote some twenty plays; as many, 
 that is, in his dramatic interludes as Ibsen 
 
44 Modern Dramatists 
 
 wrote in a whole lifetime. His earlier 
 writings, like Ibsen's, were chiefly his- 
 torical and saga dramas. "Sigurd the 
 Bastard," "Mary Stuart of Scotland," 
 and " Sigurd the Crusader " were all 
 finished before 1865. From 1868 to 1874 
 came a political period, and afterwards the 
 plays of modern life, "The Editor," 
 "Bankruptcy," "The New System," 
 " Geography and Love," " A Gauntlet," 
 and "Beyond Human Power." Several 
 of these are topical comedies and satires, 
 but two, " Bankruptcy " and " Beyond 
 Human Power," stand out clearly as the 
 best of Bjornson's work for the stage. 
 " Bankruptcy " is a half-social, half- 
 domestic drama of the ruin of a great 
 firm. It is in the repertory of most 
 German theatres under the title " Ein 
 Fallissement." 
 
 " Beyond Human Power " is in two 
 parts, but only the first of these (in two 
 acts) is generally played. This first part 
 is a miracle play in a modern setting. 
 
 The scene is laid in a remote village in 
 the North of Norway, where the midnight 
 sun, the mountain storms and avalanches 
 
Bjornson 45 
 
 help to create an atmosphere of other- 
 worldliness and mystery. The pastor of 
 this village is possessed of some strange 
 healing powers which make him, in the 
 eyes of the country people, almost a divine 
 figure. By the laying on of hands he is 
 able to cure cripples, and the sick for 
 many miles round come to him for help. 
 He is a man of simple faith, incapable of 
 argument, and he accepts his powers with- 
 out question as the gift of God. One 
 person only he has never been able to heal : 
 his wife. She is an invalid and a sceptic, 
 and although she is in sympathy with him, 
 knows him through and through, loves 
 him and accepts his miracles, her will 
 resists his influence. She cannot pray 
 with him, and she lies all day upon her 
 bed, unable to sleep and too weak even to 
 move her limbs. When her husband comes 
 to her each morning with the flowers 
 that he has gathered, ready to fall upon 
 his knees by her bedside, there is always a 
 faint resistance in her welcome. All the 
 power of her body has passed into her 
 mind, and she keeps her individuality 
 apart from his. The dramatic^ force of 
 
46 Modern Dramatists 
 
 the play lies in the opposition of these two 
 wills, and in the effect of the miracles upon 
 them. The development is extraordinary. 
 At the end of each of the two acts the 
 audience is shaken by a moment as intense 
 as any in the whole history of drama. 
 
 The first moment is felt almost as a 
 physical catastrophe. The pastor's wife 
 lies sleepless, and her sister watches by 
 her bedside while the pastor himself goes 
 to the church to pray for her recovery. 
 Suddenly a roar is heard, and from the 
 window an avalanche is seen descending 
 upon the church. It is turned aside by 
 unseen power, and crashes harmlessly 
 into the valley below. The watchers 
 within the room rush to the bedside, and 
 find the sick woman sleeping peacefully. 
 
 The second act: The. fame of the 
 pastor's miracles spreads fast, and a meet- 
 ing of the presbyters of the church is 
 summoned to consider them. Their con- 
 ference leads to a striking scene. Among 
 them are the man-of-the-world presbyter 
 who finds miracles an offence against 
 good taste, the bigot who considers them 
 a breach of ecclesiastical discipline, the 
 
Bjornson 47 
 
 sceptic in search of trickery, the theologian 
 with a patent " reconciling " theory, the 
 devout man perturbed by questionings, 
 and the hungry vicar who has had nothing 
 to eat all day, cannot understand what all 
 the fuss is about, and is mainly concerned 
 with the prospects of an early meal. 
 Lastly, the unknown pastor who has come 
 across the mountains, and bears witness 
 of the miracle of the avalanche. The 
 discussion grows violent. All the petty 
 jealousies and uncharity of the sect come 
 to the surface, with the revelation of con- 
 flicting interests and dogmas. Meanwhile 
 the pastor is at his devotions in the church, 
 and a great crowd is waiting, in a frenzy 
 of religious excitement, to see him pass 
 and heal the sick. 
 
 The presbyters in conference have been 
 warned that they must speak in low tones, 
 for there is an invalid asleep in the next 
 room — the pastor's wife. While their 
 debate is at its height the daughter breaks 
 in upon them. Her mother has risen ; 
 but " she is no longer alone." The 
 phrase is repeated. " She is no longer 
 alone." 
 
48 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Then comes the crowning miracle. 
 The pastor enters, and the crowd presses 
 into the room after him in awe. In the 
 light of the evening sun his outstretched 
 arms throw the shadow of a cross above 
 the further door. It opens, and his wife 
 appears, dressed in white. She moves 
 towards him, while he stares bewildered. 
 Reaching him, she stumbles and falls. He 
 looks about him for an instant with the 
 words, " But — but it was not meant 
 so . . . , " then falls dead by her side. 
 
 The secret of his strength is gone. He 
 dies in the first overwhelming moment of 
 enlightenment, in the first defeat of faith. 
 He has attempted what is " beyond human 
 power." 
 
 This is not only the greatest of Bjorn- 
 son's dramas ; it is the one most of all his 
 own. 
 
 In the second part the pastor's children 
 have grown up, and are engaged in 
 schemes of social regeneration for Nor- 
 way; in founding societies and clubs, 
 developing ideas of popular education and 
 so on. Here Bjornson the agitator is 
 uppermost. The first part of " Beyond 
 
Strindberg 49 
 
 Human Power" has the elements (jf 
 eternal drama ; the second belongs essen- 
 tially to a nineteenth century period of 
 " movements " in social thought. The 
 one remains undimmed by lapse of time ; 
 the other fades. 
 
 Strindberg 
 
 It is impossible to conceive a more 
 strikingly contrasted group of personali- 
 ties than the three Scandinavians Ibsen, 
 Bjornson, and August Strindberg. They 
 must be considered contemporaries, for 
 although Strindberg was born in 1849, 
 twenty years later than the other two 
 dramatists, his most important work dates 
 from the same period as theirs — between 
 1875 ^"d 1890. We have seen that 
 Bjornson owed much of his recognition to 
 Ibsen. But Strindberg is an entirely 
 independent influence. So far from being 
 an imitator of Ibsen, in many respects 
 he anticipated him. In the Theatre 
 Libre and the other pioneer ventures 
 of Paris he was the first Scandinavian 
 dramatist in the field. Some scenes in 
 his " Happy Peter," a satire on the 
 
 4 
 
50 Modern Dramatists 
 
 pomposity of the authorities in a little 
 provincial town, are very like Ibsen's 
 later " Enemy of the People." Ibsen 
 treated his theme with greater earnestness, 
 but with far less humour. The parallel 
 between the two plays bears some resem- 
 blance to that between Villiers de I'Isle 
 Adam's "La Revoke" and "A Doll's 
 House." 
 
 Strindberg not only avoided the in- 
 fluence of Ibsen : he was his only consider- 
 able opponent. When " A Doll's House " 
 appeared in 1879 he attacked the play 
 violently, not from the standpoint of the 
 prejudiced Philistine critic who regarded 
 it as an onslaught upon marriage, but 
 from that of the philosopher who saw in 
 it the first signs of the rise of feminism 
 and the degradation of man. He claimed 
 that Ibsen demanded altogether too much 
 of Helmer and too little of Nora ; that 
 she (Nora) was at heart no more than a 
 doll, a puppet for the author's sentimental 
 propaganda. He would "have none of 
 Ibsen's women. Hedda Gabler was for 
 him simply a public nuisance, a candidate 
 for the whipping-post ; Hilda Wangel, an 
 
Strindberg 5 1 
 
 upstart minx, born to drive men mad ; 
 Rebecca West, a petticoated prig. In 
 short, he rejected the whole theory of 
 " emancipation " for women, and ordered 
 them back to the kitchen. This leaning 
 toward the side of the man is shown in 
 all his writings. .' 
 
 It is seen most clearly in such plays as 
 " Creditors," " The Father," " Comrades," 
 and "The Dance of Death," where the man 
 (in Strindberg' s view the creative force and 
 the only force of real value in statesman- 
 ship, science, or art) is in each case 
 hampered by marriage or association with 
 a woman of intellect. If the man's will is 
 weaker than the woman's, she robs him 
 day by day of power, as a weasel sucks 
 the blood of a rabbit, until he is ruined. 
 If his will is the stronger, there comes a 
 moment of conflict in which he forces her 
 to her knees in subjection, and henceforth 
 (since the Strindberg women love power 
 above all else in the world) she is his 
 loyal slave. The former case is the 
 motive of most of Strindberg's tragic 
 dramas, the second of his comedies. 
 
 I cannot illustrate this better than by 
 
 4—2 
 
52 Modern Dramatists 
 
 one or two passages from " Comrades," a 
 four-act comedy written in Paris for the 
 Theatre Libre. Its principal characters, 
 Axel . Alberg and his wife Berta, are 
 Swedish painters living in Paris, and 
 each has submitted a picture t5 the 
 Salon. In the first act they are dis- 
 cussing their respective prospects. 
 
 Berta : You are jealous of me. I know 
 you would hate my picture to be accepted. 
 
 Axel : Believe me, Berta, nothing would 
 delight me more. > 
 
 Berta : Would it delight you if I were 
 accepted and you were not ? 
 
 Axel (laying his hand upon his heart) : I 
 must feel and see. No. It would annoy 
 me. I grant you that. If only because 
 I paint better than you, and because 
 
 Berta : You may as well say it at once. 
 Because I am a woman. 
 
 Axel : Yes. I can't deny it. I have a 
 strange feeling at times as if you women 
 were intruders, forcing your way in and 
 demanding the plunder of the battles we 
 fought while you were sitting still by the 
 fireside. 
 
 The news comes that Berta's picture 
 has been accepted by the jury, while her 
 
Strindberg 53 
 
 husband's has been refused. She at once 
 begins to patronise him, and arranges as 
 a crowning humiliation that his rejected 
 picture shall be returned from the Salon 
 during an evening party they are giving 
 the next day. Meanwhile the following 
 scene passes, towards the close of the 
 third act : — 
 
 Berta : And so you want to be revenged 
 because you have been placed below me ? 
 
 Axel : Nothing could .place me below 
 you. I stood high above you even when I 
 painted your picture. 
 
 Berta : When you painted my picture ! 
 Say that again, and I will strike you ! 
 
 Axel: You, who despise brute force? 
 Well, strike me if you will. 
 
 Berta (aiming a blow at him) : Do you 
 think I cannot ? 
 
 Axel (seizing both her wrists and holding 
 them fast) : No, not that. (A pause.) Are 
 you convinced now that I am physically 
 the stronger, too? Bow down, or I will 
 break you ! 
 
 Berta : Do you dare to strike a woman ? 
 
 Axel : Why not ? I only know one 
 reason why I should forbear. 
 
 Berta : And that is ? 
 
54 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Axel : That you are not responsible 
 for your actions. 
 
 Berta : Ah, let me go ! 
 
 Axel : When you beg my forgiveness ! 
 Down upon your knees ! (He forces her 
 down with one hand.) Now look up to me 
 from below ! That is your place, the place 
 you yourself have chosen. 
 
 Berta : Axel ! I don't know you any 
 longer ! Are you the man who swore to 
 love me, to help me ! 
 
 Axel: Yes. I was strong then, but 
 you clipped the hair of my strength away 
 while my tired head lay in your lap. You 
 stole away my power as I slept, and yet 
 enough remains to crush you. Stand up ! 
 Enough of this squabble ! 
 
 (Berta falls upon the sofa and weeps.) 
 
 Axel : Why are you crying ? 
 
 Berta : I don't know. Perhaps because 
 I am weak. 
 
 Axel : You see ! I was your strength. 
 When I took back what was my own, 
 there was nothing left for you. You were 
 like a rubber ball that I blew out : when I 
 threw you aside, you collapsed. 
 
 In the last act, while the evening party 
 is in full swing, the rejected picture arrives. 
 It is not Axel's picture, however, but 
 
Strindberg 5 5 
 
 Berta's with his number upon it. Axel, 
 as " a good comrade," has changed the 
 numbers in order to give her a better 
 chance. Now Berta is wiUing to end the 
 quarrel, but he has had enough of " com- 
 radeship." They separate, and he pen- 
 sions her off with a month's allowance in 
 advance. Henceforth, as he remarks, he 
 will have " comrades at the caf&, but only 
 a wife at home." 
 
 Plays like this have gained Strindberg 
 the reputation of being a "brutalist." But 
 if they are more carefully considered, it 
 will be seen that there is in them none of 
 the heartlessness of the comique cruel. 
 Strindberg never creates horrors for the 
 sake of horrors. He either loves or hates 
 his characters ; he is incapable of standing 
 aloof from them or of dangling them piti- 
 lessly over the depths to no purpose. He 
 is too great a dramatist for that. There 
 is indeed a strange impression of a sym- 
 pathetic personality even in his most out- 
 wardly repulsive scenes. He is logically 
 uncompromising, yet full of pity. I have 
 quoted Strindberg's note upon Bjornson. 
 Bjornson himself writes : " The Swedes 
 
56 Modern Dramatists 
 
 are usually marked by their curious double 
 nature. They are at once youthful and 
 old, liberally minded and full of prejudice. 
 But Strindberg remains young always and 
 everywhere." Schickele speaks of " that 
 cosmos named Strindberg, breaking out 
 in its course with the eruption of volcanoes, 
 and swung upon its orbit in ever-widening 
 circles," 
 
 The characters of his plays are first of 
 all distinguished. They are not the deter- 
 minist puppets of the modern realist drama, 
 but virile creatures, gods and fighting 
 men, with wills of their own. It is pos- 
 sible to live with them, feel with them, 
 suffer and triumph with them. Their 
 victory is an inspiration, their defeat a 
 tragedy. They are not content merely to 
 live, but must criticise life. Instinct alone 
 will not satisfy' them ; they must have a 
 philosophy. And in the clash of emotion 
 and intellect, the subjective and the objec- 
 tive, personality and purpose, their dramatic 
 force lies. More than the characters of any 
 other modern dramatist, they are "transi- 
 tion men," groping their way out of old 
 forms and prejudices into a newer age. 
 
Strindberg 5 7 
 
 These characters have often been called 
 unnatural and extreme, and so indeed they 
 are, if we accept the commonplace as 
 natural and find truth in moderation. 
 Strindberg possesses none of Ibsen's capa- 
 city for dramatising, and at the same time 
 humanising, the bourgeoisie. He is the 
 most intolerant of artist philosophers, and 
 his method of dealing with stupidity is 
 cavalier enough. He ignores it. A his- 
 torian of two thousand years hence, find- 
 ing no record of this age but Strindberg's 
 plays, might be pardoned for assuming 
 that it was peopled exclusively by painters, 
 poets, sculptors, doctors, journalists, and 
 authors of both sexes, all of them persons 
 with very bad manners and very sharp 
 wits. For that is the impression which his 
 plays make. Strindberg refuses to drama- 
 tise the mere conflict of social intelligence 
 with social stupidity. He makes no direct 
 attack upon conventionality or shams, 
 such as Ibsen, for example, made in "The 
 Pillars of Society." He exposes no social 
 diseases, as Ibsen did in " Ghosts " and 
 Shaw in " Mrs. Warren's Profession." 
 He offers no plea for justice as against 
 
58 Modern Dramatists 
 
 injustice, as Hauptmann and Gorky have 
 done. He stands altogether apart from 
 politics and the immediate questions of the 
 day. To judge from his plays, he might 
 never have read a newspaper. The prob- 
 lems of the dramatist — sex, love and hate, 
 freedom and slavery, truth and falsehood 
 — exist for him solely as eternal issues, 
 worthy only of discussion by the highest 
 intelligences he can create. For him an 
 onslaught upon the existing order of 
 society is flogging a dead horse. He 
 writes of his peers, and for them. He 
 attacks modern civilisation only by creat- 
 ing exceptional types. And so his charac- 
 ters pass out of present conditions into a 
 world where reason strives to rule life, 
 and feeling to depose reason. They are 
 conscious of their age only in so far as it 
 trammels their individuality. 
 
 So far Strindberg ranks with the author 
 of " Hamlet." Of all living dramatists 
 ' he aims highest, and his failings are the 
 failings of the craftsman unable to set so 
 prodigious a scheme convincingly upon 
 the stage. Moreover, Strindberg's cha- 
 racters have not only their own battles to 
 
Strindberg 59 
 
 fight, but their author's. He shifts his 
 ground constantly, developing from play 
 to play, from the early " Meister Olof" 
 and verse drama to modern naturalism, 
 through a period of Swedenborgian mysti- 
 cism back to historical drama, and again 
 through dream plays and legends to 
 modern chamber plays and lyrical phan- 
 tasies. All that he writes of his characters 
 in his polemical prefaces and essays applies 
 equally to his own temperament. " I find 
 the joy of life," he says, " in life's great, 
 fierce battles ; my delight is to live and to j 
 learn." And again. 
 
 The word " character " has acquired a 
 complex meaning. It meant originally the 
 dominating trait or temperament. Then 
 it became the popular term to describe the 
 mere mechanism, the machine that drives 
 the man — so much so, indeed, that the 
 person who remains the same all his life, 
 and holds on a fixed course, is said to have 
 character, while the man who develops, 
 the expert voyager on the stream of life, 
 who does not sail with all sheets furled, 
 but spreads them to catch the breeze, is 
 named characterless. This bourgeois con- 
 ception of the fixity of temperament was 
 
6o Modern Dramatists 
 
 transferred to the stage, where all that is 
 bourgeois has ever reigned supreme. A 
 "character" upon the stage became a 
 creature ready made — unchangeably drunk, 
 or comical, or irate, or sad. I do not 
 believe in these theatrical " characters." 
 No author can pass summary judgment 
 upon the types that he creates. He can- 
 not classify them as stupid, amiable, brutal, 
 jealous, ambitious, and so on. All such 
 verdicts must be challenged by the natural- 
 ists, who know how rich and wonderful 
 the soul of man can be, and who realise 
 that " vice " has an obverse not altogether 
 unlike virtue. 
 
 As Wxih the characters, so w^ith the man. 
 In Strindberg we are dealing not with one 
 person, but with many : poet and logician, 
 realist and idealist, atheist and mystic. 
 From the standpoint of the Theatre his 
 modern " naturalistic plays " axe the most 
 important. These were written during 
 the period 1880 — 1895, ^"d Strindberg 
 describes them as attempts to mould the 
 form of drama in accordance with modern 
 conditions. In the four longer plays, 
 " The Father," "Comrades," "The People 
 of Hemso," and " The Keys of Heaven " 
 
Strindberg 6 1 
 
 there is no especial originality of form. 
 Written in the first instance for the 
 Theatre Libre, they demand only the 
 simplest of scenery, but a high level of 
 acting. Their " naturalism," in fact, has 
 a twofold significance. Strindberg's aim' 
 was not only a natural study of life, but; 
 its most natural reproduction upon the] 
 stage ; and this could only be achieved | 
 by a theatre bent upon essentials, and! 
 intolerant of elaborate decoration, dresses, 
 and scenic effects. " Theatre reform " 
 was in the air at this time, and Strindberg 
 was a theatre reformer as well as a drama- 
 tist. Among other changes, he urged side 
 lighting instead of footlights, a smaller, pro- 
 perly darkened auditorium, less paint and 
 " make-up " for the actors, a return to 
 natural gestures and tones of voice upon 
 the stage, and the shortening, if not the 
 complete abolition, of the intervals between 
 the acts. In " Miss Julia " and " Credi- 
 tors," which followed " The Father," he 
 attempted an altogether new form in order 
 to meet all these demands. Both are very 
 long one-act plays. " Miss Julia" requires 
 nearly two hours for performance, and 
 
62 Modern Dramatists 
 
 the action is represented as passing 
 throughout a midsummer night. The 
 dialogue is interrupted twice : once by a 
 song and again by a dance ; and these 
 represent the intervals of what is in reality 
 a three-act play. The same division into 
 three parts is seen in " Creditors." In 
 Strindberg's view this device maintained 
 the stage illusion undisturbed without 
 straining the attention of the audience too 
 far. Another new development was the 
 lessening of the number of characters. 
 In " Miss JuHa," as in " Creditors," there 
 are only three speaking parts, and two 
 persons carry on a scene sometimes 
 uninterruptedly for forty minutes. 
 
 The theatrical audience is the most 
 impatient and sensitive of all crowds, and 
 it is clear that experiments such as this 
 could only succeed in the hands of a 
 master dramatist. There is nothing more 
 difficult to handle than a long duologue 
 ^^£££J11SJ1S£M2EJA consists solely in the 
 
 ^'l^iSEl^Ol J^3§3 ^^^ " ^iss Jutia," a 
 "naturalistic tragedy," is the most suc- 
 cessful of all Strindberg's plays. It was 
 prohibited by the censor in Sweden, but 
 
Strindberg 63 
 
 has been played frequently in Germany 
 and Austria. 
 
 " Miss Julia " and " Creditors " belong 
 to a group of eleven one-act plays, all 
 more or less following the lines I have 
 described above. Among the others are 
 " The Stronger Woman," " Simoon," 
 " Playing with Fire," " Before Death," 
 and " The First Warning." " The 
 Stronger Woman " is something of a 
 dramatic curiosity, for it has only two 
 characters, one of whom is silent through- 
 out. It was played in London in the 
 autumn of 1909 by Madame Lydia Yavor- 
 skaia (Princess Bariatinsky) and Lady 
 Tree. An English version of " Simoon " 
 has also been played by Lady Tree in the 
 provinces, and a translation of " The 
 Father " has been published. The whole 
 of Strindberg's work for the stage appears 
 in the German collected edition of his 
 writings. There are some forty-six plays 
 in all, together with many novels, critical 
 and historical studies, and several volumes 
 of verse. 
 
 Strindberg is the least popular of the 
 moderns, and he is Hkely to remain so. 
 
64 Modern Dramatists 
 
 The reason for this unpopularity will 
 already have been gathered from the out- 
 line of his dramatic method that I have 
 given. His plays are not for the many, 
 but neither are they for what are often 
 termed " the cultured few." Strindberg 
 loathes "the cultured" with an unutter- 
 able loathing, as long as their culture 
 means no more than good manners, good 
 taste, academic familiarity with literature, 
 i university education, and a respect for 
 I the prevailing standards of religion and 
 i morality. They are ApoUans ; he is a 
 Dionysian. He estranges the revolu- 
 tionists by his contempt for politics, the 
 feminists by his attitude towards women, 
 the romanticists by his naturalism, and 
 the realists by his mysticism. Only the 
 philosophers remain, and he does not 
 speak their language. Moreover, he is 
 bold enough to change his mind. In this 
 age he is an outcast. 
 
 I need only add one fact which sums up 
 the man and his work : Nietzsche admired 
 him greatly. ,^-^"'" 
 
' V 
 
 GERMANY 
 
 SUDERMANN, HAUPTMANN AND 
 WEDEKIND 
 
 The Ibsenite controversy in Germany, 
 as we have seen, was fierce but short- 
 lived. One of the chief advantages of the 
 German repertory theatre system is its 
 catholicity. There is room in it for new 
 and old, classical verse-drama and modern 
 realism. If the provincial Schauspielhaus 
 or Stadttheater devotes three evenings a 
 week to the popular comedy or farce of 
 the day, the moderns have no cause to 
 grumble, for the remaining evenings may 
 be given to Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Haupt- 
 niann, Strindberg, or Shaw. During the 
 last twenty years the German Theatre 
 has become the most cosmopolitan in the 
 world. This is partly due to its strategic 
 position. North Germany has much in 
 common, both in language and in spirit, 
 with Scandinavia ; and Ibsen, Bjornson 
 
 5 
 
66 Modern Dramatists 
 
 and Strindberg are not only well trans- 
 lated, but can be played with as much 
 sympathy and understanding in Berlin as 
 in Christiania or Stockholm. Tolstoy, 
 Gorky and Tchekhov come from Russia 
 through the eastern provinces, and many 
 of their plays have been first produced in 
 Berlin, instead of in St. Petersburg. 
 AuvStria and South Germany have nothing 
 but a nominal frontier to divide them, 
 and the Viennese dramatists Schnitzler, 
 Felix Salten, Hermann Bahr and Hugo 
 von Hofmannsthal, find an audience 
 without need of translation. D'Annunzio 
 comes from Italy, Maeterlinck from France 
 and Belgium, Heijermanns from Holland 
 and Bernard Shaw from England. All 
 their plays are published in book form, 
 and many of them in cheap popular 
 editions. But the Theatre, rather than 
 the library or the bookseller's shop, is the 
 centre of intellectual life. Playgoing is a 
 real habit, and the Theatre is respected 
 accordingly. Many decades of State- 
 endowed verse-drama and opera have 
 formed the habit, and now the moderns 
 are able to profit by it. 
 
Germany 67 
 
 The German mind, too, is extraordi- 
 narily sensitive to " advanced " movements 
 in art or in thought, and especially to 
 " advanced " reputations. The German 
 playgoer accepted Ibsen largely because 
 he was a much-discussed dramatist, and 
 not by any means altogether on his merits. 
 Feminism, for example, is not really 
 popular in Germany ; but the German 
 Helmer will often applaud " A Doll's 
 House " at the Theatre. He will even 
 take his wife to see the play, and discuss 
 it with her afterwards. This susceptibility 
 to European influences and reputations, 
 and the general familiarity with ideas 
 which accompanies it, must be taken into 
 account in any consideration of the 
 German Theatre. There is always a 
 welcome for the problem play, whatever 
 the problem may be. Bernard Shaw has 
 already become almost a popular author. 
 Wedekind's " Fruhlings Erwachen," which 
 in England would probably never have 
 found a publisher, to say nothing of a 
 manager willing to-* produce it, has 
 made a sensational success. Bjornson's 
 ** Beyond Human Power " is consistently 
 
 5— a 
 
68 Modern Dramatists 
 
 played by the smaller repertory theatres. 
 The same is true of Tolstoy's " Powers of 
 Darkness " and Maeterlinck's " Monna 
 Vanna," two plays which have never been 
 publicly performed in England. Wilde's 
 " Salome " and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's 
 " Elektra " have not only been successfully 
 played in the ordinary theatre, but have 
 reached the summit of contemporary fame 
 by serving as librettos for the operas of 
 Richard Strauss. 
 
 SUDERMANN 
 
 Our concern, however, is first of all with 
 German dramatists rather than with the 
 conditions of the German Theatre, The 
 position at the time of the foundation of 
 the Freie Biihne in i88g has already been 
 described. The " modern " German stage 
 was then held by Gustav Freytag, Paul 
 Heyse, Paul Lindau, and adaptations from 
 the French of Dumas and Sardou. 
 Sudermann, hitherto known only as a 
 novelist, had just produced his first play, 
 "Die Ehre" (Honour). Sudermann came, 
 therefore, before Hauptmann, and he had 
 nothing to do directly with the Freie 
 
Sudermann 69 
 
 Buhne group of dramatists. " Die Ehre " 
 was first performed in one of the leading 
 theatres of Berlin, and it was received 
 with an enthusiasm altogether beyond its 
 merits. The early catchwords of Ibsenism 
 and advanced drama had just reached the 
 ears of the general public, and the 
 audience, steeped in the demi-monde 
 sentimentality of Dumas and the theatri- 
 cality of Sardou, welcomed Sudermann as 
 the prophet of a new era. He tempered 
 the Scandinavian winds to these shorn 
 lambs of the Theatre. He nursed 
 them tenderly, adding a cautious teaspoon- 
 ful of modernity to their mother's milk in 
 order to flatter their vanity and assist 
 digestion. " Honour " was his subject — 
 the honour of an officer and a gentleman. 
 He attacked the conception with bourgeois 
 bravado. He ridiculed the duel as a 
 vehicle of personal "satisfaction." But 
 in the place of honour he had nothing to 
 off"er but vague and pretentious sentiment, 
 theatricality and falsehood. There is not 
 one glimmer of reality in the whole play, 
 and his hero, a young merchant, is a man 
 of straw upon whose making no artist 
 
yo Modern Dramatists 
 
 could conceivably have wasted an hour. 
 All this may have appeared highly 
 revolutionary to a Prussian Junker or an 
 officer in a cavalry regiment, but after 
 Ibsen it contributed less than nothing to 
 drama. The production of " Dip Ehre, " 
 in short, vi^as a landmark in theatrical 
 history, but not in the history of the 
 Theatre. 
 
 Sudermann, however, had displeased 
 the military caste, and his next play, 
 " Sodoms Ende," was condemned as 
 immoral, and suspended for a time by 
 order of the Court. This was unfortunate, 
 for there is nothir|g which stamps an 
 author as " advanced " so distinctively 
 as a conflict with the censorship, and 
 nothing (in Germany) so likely to gain 
 him popular respect as an artist. Suder- 
 mann was instantly classed with his 
 betters, Ibsen, Hauptmann and Strind- 
 berg ; although in reality " Sodoms Ende " 
 was as trivial a piece of work as " Die 
 Ehre." It was followed by " Heimat " 
 (Magda), and this, the third play of an 
 already successful author, marked him 
 finally as a pedlar of stale wares. 
 
Sudermann 7 1 
 
 Sudermann's instinct for the theatre and 
 nothing but the theatre led him here to 
 the apotheosis of the commercial play- 
 wright — the creation of a great emotional 
 part for a great actress. " Magda " is a 
 dramatisation of half-truths and common- 
 place. It is sultry, stagey, sentimental to 
 the point of nausea. It has all the surface 
 characteristics of a great play, but the 
 compelling force is lacking. Your true 
 dramatist is driven to write because he 
 has something definite to say. Sudermann 
 is never so driven. With a cold-blooded 
 refinement of theatricality he devises scene 
 after scene, arranges situation after situa- 
 tion, purely for the effect of the moment. 
 His " curtains " are mechanically perfect. 
 He has wit, geniality, real gifts of dialogue, 
 sense of the theatre — everything but the 
 mind that can choose a worthy subject 
 and handle it finely. That word "subject" 
 is all-embracing. It means more than a 
 single dramatic idea. It includes a whole 
 group of personalities with an infinite 
 interplay of thought and feeling. From 
 this vast material the dramatist must 
 choose, and it depends upon the quality of 
 
72 Modern Dramatists 
 
 his choice — ^that is to say, upon his own 
 temperament — whether his play shall be 
 distinguished or commonplace. Suder- 
 mann has always made his choice in the 
 spirit of the theatrical purveyor. Dumas 
 and Sardou did the same, and if Suder- 
 mann were content to rank with them 
 there would be no necessity to deal with 
 him among the modern dramatists. But 
 his plays are pretentious. He claims to 
 solve the problems of the age. In " Die 
 Ehre," as we have seen, he deals with the 
 conception of honour ; in " Magda " with 
 the problem of the artist-woman and her 
 family ; in " Das Gliick im^ Winkel " and 
 " Das Blumenboot " withjthe woman and 
 marriage ; in " Es Lebe das Leben " with 
 Socialism and again with marriage ; in 
 " Morituri" with "the eternal masculine" ; 
 and in "Johannisfeuer " with the instincts 
 of " heathendom " breaking out in the 
 lives of modern men and women. In 
 every case the atmosphere is created with 
 extraordinary skill, and in every case the 
 characters, the presentment of the problem 
 and its solution are false through and 
 through 
 
Sudermann 73 
 
 Take the instance of the protaganists 
 in " Magda." On the one hand is the old 
 officer, the iron head of the patriarchal 
 family, a man devoid of any power save 
 obstinacy. On the other, the actress- 
 daughter, lineal descendant as a stage 
 type of the Lady of the Camelias. The 
 catchwords of feminism are upon her lips, 
 but coming from her they have no 
 meaning. She is a garrulous senti- 
 mentalist, and the only convincing conflict 
 in the play is not the alleged clash of 
 interests between the artist-woman and 
 her surroundings, but the old struggle 
 between parent and child over filial piety 
 and obedience. The modernity of all the 
 other plays I have mentioned is just as 
 superficial. In " Das Blumenboot " the 
 " strong, silent man " (a stupid but honest 
 merchant, that familiar Sudermann type !) 
 dominates the play. His wife, bored to 
 death by him and egged on by her flighty 
 sister, begins an intrigue with a big game 
 hunter home from Africa, and not averse 
 to stalking small deer. The "strong, 
 silent man " shoots the hunter, and enters 
 triumphant at the end of the fourth act. 
 
74 Modern Dramatists 
 
 All the sinners of the play cower before 
 him. Wives return to their husbands with 
 prayers for forgiveness, and amid uni- 
 versal repentance the curtain falls. 
 
 The same type may be seen in Vogel- 
 reuter of " Johannisfeuer," an honest 
 farmer with a violent temper and a con- 
 firmed habit of getting his own way. 
 Vogelreuter's daughter Trude is to be 
 married to a young architect, Georg von 
 Hartwig. But Trude has a foster-sister 
 Marikke, a gipsy child found long ago upon 
 the high-road in a year of famine. As the 
 play develops, Georg finds himself drawn 
 more and more to Marikke and away from 
 Trude, who is at best a doll. The third 
 act passes upon Midsummer Eve (the 
 Johannis night), and opens with a banquet 
 in Vogelreuter's house. Through the 
 open windows there is seen the glow of 
 bonfires, as the peasants keep their 
 yearly festival. The pastor rises to make 
 a speech — a heathen speech to fit the 
 occasion, as Vogelreuter suggests. But 
 he has only one speech, a sermon ; and 
 only one text to offer : " God is Love." 
 He has barely done when Georg springs 
 
Sudermann 75 
 
 to his feet. The spirit of Johannis night 
 is upon him. He will preach another 
 gospel : — 
 
 Georg : . . . Look you, Herr Pastor, a 
 spark of heathendom smoulders in us all. 
 It has lingered through the centuries. 
 Once in every year it bursts into flame, 
 and then it is called Johannis Fire. Once 
 in every year comes a night of freedom. 
 Yes, a night of freedom. Then the 
 witches ride upon the wind with scornful 
 laughter, up to the Brocken in the 
 height ; then the wild army stalks across 
 the forest; then there awaken in our 
 hearts the wild desires that have never 
 been fulfilled by life, and, indeed, should 
 never be fulfilled. No matter what the 
 laws may be that rule the world of every 
 day; for one desire that is gratified, for 
 one fulfilled ambition that comes merci- 
 fully to make glad our hearts, a thou- 
 sand others must perish miserably — some 
 perhaps because they were eternally be- 
 yond our reach, but others — yes, others 
 because we let them slip from our grasp 
 like wild birds upon which our hands 
 closed all too carelessly. . . . However 
 that may be, once in all the year comes 
 our night of freedom. Do you know 
 
76 Modern Dramatists 
 
 what those flames are that are shooting 
 up out there? They are the ghosts of 
 our dead longings, the red plumage of 
 the birds of Paradise that we could 
 perhaps have sheltered for a lifetime, 
 had they not flown away. They are 
 the old chaos — the heathendom in us. 
 And though law and comfort rule our 
 lives at other times, this is Midsummer 
 Eve. To those old pagan fires I raise 
 my glass. May they flame high for ever 
 as they flame to-night ! Hoch ! Hoch ! 
 and once more, Hoch ! . . . Will no one 
 drink with me ? 
 
 (A pause.) 
 Marikke (trembling) : I will. 
 [They touch their glasses, looking one another in 
 the face.) 
 
 The passage is characteristic of Suder- 
 mann's method. Slow^ly, sentence by 
 sentence, through tw^o long acts, the play 
 has climbed to reach this scene. The 
 thrill was predestined. It is the motive 
 of the drama, not the inevitable result. 
 Midsummer Eve — ^the Johannis Feast — 
 young hearts on fire — wild longings — 
 painted rhetoric — " heathendom " and the 
 Church. Here is matter enough and to 
 
Sudermann 77 
 
 spare. A flare of red light in the back- 
 ground ; the family party about the table, 
 ruled by the inexorable Vogelreuter ; Georg 
 and Marikke upon their feet touching 
 glasses ; " ghosts of dead desires," " red 
 plumage of the birds of Paradise." This 
 is the triumph of the playmaker — the 
 pinnacled third act. Later on comes a 
 touch of anti-climax and pathos. The 
 Johannis fires are out. Georg and 
 Marikke are left alone. The house is 
 still. And the ashes are kindled once 
 again. Marikke, daughter of the gipsy- 
 woman, comes to Georg and kisses him. 
 "My mother steals. I will steal too!" 
 The curtain falls. 
 
 In that word " steal " lies Sudermann's 
 confession of impotence. The love of 
 Georg and Marikke is stolen love. Why ? 
 Because they dare not face Vogelreuter 
 and tell him what has happened. He 
 " would strike them both dead." Vogel- 
 reuter is an honest Protestant, with no 
 sympathy for heathendom, and Vogelreuter 
 wins. In the end Georg marries Trude, 
 and Marikke is left watching them set out 
 for the church. 
 
7 8 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Once again it must be said that Suder- 
 mann solves "no problems. He is incap- 
 .able even of presenting them fairly. His 
 only real and living characters are figures 
 like Vogelreuter, who destroy drama by 
 the blind force of unintelligent will. Such 
 a person cannot be moved either by 
 emotion or logic. Both break about him 
 harmlessly in sentimental spray. To 
 make him the arbiter of life is to appeal 
 to a stone wall. Sudermann, like so 
 many dramatists before and after him, has 
 attempted the impossible. He has tried 
 to get great drama from se cond-ra te 
 people, second-rate life, second-rate 
 thought. From all his work two facts 
 emerge. The first, that he is technically 
 the most accomplished of living play- 
 wrights. The second, that he has never 
 drawn a memorable personality nor said a 
 memorable thing. 
 
 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 After Sudermann, Hauptmann. We 
 pass from the pedlar to the poet. For 
 Gerhart Hauptmann is a poet and an 
 
Hauptmann 79 
 
 artist ; so much is certain. His claim to 
 be considered a great dramatist is more 
 doubtful. In Sudermann we see the 
 barrenness of the author who is a play- 
 wright-craftsman and nothing more ; in 
 Hauptmann the extreme of untheatricality, 
 the erratic method of a sensitive genius 
 who is not consciously striving after a 
 new vehicle of expression, but who hurls 
 refinement of observation, minute impres- 
 sions of detail, poetry and beauty of tone, 
 piecemeal upon the stage. 
 
 It has often been said that Hauptmann 
 has created new forms, and that he is the 
 only living dramatist who has passed 
 beyond Ibsen. There is some truth in 
 this. His plays are written in new forms. 
 " The Weavers," with its extraordinary 
 number of characters, its loosely-grouped 
 five acts and its subordination of every- 
 thing — personality, construction, often 
 drama-— to the central idea of a work- 
 men's strike, is certainly a play that Ibsen 
 would not have written. " Rose Bernd," 
 a later play in which all the events of the 
 drama occur between the acts, and the 
 acts themselves are no more than discus- 
 
8o Modern Dramatists 
 
 sions of what has happened, is another 
 innovation. But a new dramatic form 
 can only have lasting value when it is 
 created by a great craftsman. It must be 
 devised deliberately by an author who 
 believes that through it, and through it 
 alone, he can express himself fully in the 
 theatre. Ibsen devised such a form. 
 Anton Tchekhov attempted to devise 
 another. The effort requires concentra- 
 tion upon the theatre, endless thought 
 and careful planning. The dramatist who 
 attempts a revolution must first count the 
 cost, and endeavour to make his new form 
 effectual. Hauptmann's dramatic method 
 shows no such consideration. It is 
 altogether tentative and incoherent. To 
 say that many of his plays stamp him as 
 a novelist who has wandered into the 
 theatre by mistake is not to belittle his 
 power as an imaginative writer. That 
 would be impossible. The only question 
 is one of judgment ; and a real combina- 
 tion of genius and judgment is rare 
 enough. When literary judgment is re- 
 quired to include a sense of the Theatre, 
 it is rarest of all — and there lies the secret 
 
Hauptmann 8 1 
 
 of the rarity of the great dramatist. " Le 
 style c'est I'homme." It is impossible to 
 discuss the plays of any author without 
 taking into account his bent as an artist. 
 Hauptmann is one of the most gifted of 
 living writers, but the style in his case is 
 not adapted first and foremost to the 
 service of drama. No one can witness 
 the performance of a series of his plays 
 without feeling that many of their subtle- 
 ties are being strangled at birth ; and a 
 reading of them confirms the impression. 
 Hauptmann's men and women are real. 
 His method is sincere, but it often fails of 
 its effect. There are dramatic shades of 
 colour which are " fast " in the test of the 
 footlights. There are other shades which 
 are always heightened in effect — and these 
 are found only in the paint-box of the 
 master. Hauptmann's colours are deli- 
 cately chosen, but they are prone to fade. 
 So it is that even "The Weavers" and 
 " The Sunken Bell," although they pass 
 into edition after edition in book form, 
 have almost ceased to hold the German 
 stage. Fifteen years ago they were 
 welcomed as the masterpieces of a new 
 
 6 
 
82 Modern Dramatists 
 
 renaissance. Paul Schlenther, Haupt- 
 mann's biographer, wrote : " At thirty- 
 five years of age he is a famous man. 
 He stands at Hfe's zenith. . . . We wait 
 for what is yet to come." This was 
 in 1897. In 1898 Hauptmann wrote 
 " Fuhrmann Henschel," a return to 
 modern tragedy. " Michael Kramer," 
 "Der Rote Hahn," and "Rose Bernd " 
 followed. " Schluck und Jau" and 
 " Elga " were unfortunate interludes for 
 which even his supporters were compelled 
 to make excuses, but there can be no 
 doubt that all the later plays represent a 
 steady decline, and that they would have 
 been far completer works of art in the 
 form of novels. 
 
 In these critical studies of the modern 
 dramatists textual criticism alone is of no 
 value, and I have endeavoured in each 
 case to give some impression of the 
 author's individuality, the elusive quality 
 and essence of the man as shown in his 
 work. The dramatist, as dramatist, lives 
 in a world of his own creation, peopled 
 by his own characters ; and the critic 
 lives in just such a world of dramatists, 
 
Hauptmann 83 
 
 each with his own especial characteristic 
 or motive force. In Bjornson the motive 
 is the spirit of the pastor-agitator ; in 
 Strindberg, a strange compound of in- 
 tellect and prejudice ; in Sudermann, 
 empty sense of the theatre. Hauptmann 
 is distinguished most clearly by his sensi- 
 tiveness. Every great imaginative writer 
 is sensitive to impression. The quality 
 is not only twin-born with intelligence ; 
 it is a part of the author's stock-in-trade. 
 But Hauptmann is almost hyper-sensi- 
 tive. His creative work is a history of 
 " influences," good and bad. Oi)ly in the 
 rarest flashes does he escape from them. 
 
 ■ First come the imaginative* influences 
 that have moulded his plays. " Vor 
 Sonnenaufgang " was the first naturalistic 
 drama in Germany. With " Das Fried- 
 ensfest " (The Coming of Peace) it sprang 
 from Tolstoy and Zola. " Einsame 
 Menschen" (Lonely Lives) is full of 
 Ibsenite figures, but without Ibsen's 
 power. " Die Weber " (The Weavers) is 
 Hauptmann's first strongly individual 
 work, and here the influence comes, not 
 from imaginative literature, but from the 
 
 6— a 
 
84 Modern Dramatists 
 
 revolutionary thought of the time. The 
 play was prohibited at the Deutsches 
 Theater, and the revolutionists were up 
 in arms. They proclaimed Ha,uptmann 
 as a proletarian leader, and their dis- 
 appointment was the greater when " Die 
 Weber " was followed by the two comedies 
 " KoUege Crampton " and " Der Biber- 
 pelz " (The Thieves' Comedy). In reality 
 Hauptrriann was incapable of being a 
 " leader." In " Die Weber " he had not 
 led, but followed. The influence which 
 made him side with the strikers was as 
 clear as the previous influence of Zola, 
 Tolstoi, and Ibsen. The wrongs of the 
 proletariat were " in the air." Haupt- 
 mann gave them imaginative expression ; 
 as an artist he could do no more. There 
 are scenes in " The Weavers " that can 
 never be forgotten. The hopeless poverty, 
 the hunger, the half-animal, half-childlike 
 docility of the workpeople, and then their 
 blind upheaval of collective revenge — 
 these are faithfully studied. One sees the 
 first rush of the strikers as they break 
 into Dreissiger's drawing-room ; they are 
 like moles in daylight. Then the fury of 
 
Hauptmann 8 5 
 
 destruction catches them, and as they 
 smash at everything within their reach 
 they seem to illustrate the saying of the 
 old weaver at the close of the third act : 
 " Ajeder Mensch hat halt 'ne Sehnsucht" 
 — " every man has his longing." In " The 
 Weavers " Hauptmann expressed this 
 " Sehnsucht " — the reaching, striving im- 
 pulse in men ; the common desire. There 
 is imaginative power in the play. Dramatic 
 power — at moments. But great drama as 
 a whole ? Of Hauptmann, as of the 
 weavers, it can only be said : " A jeder 
 Mensch hat halt 'ne Sehnsucht." The 
 longing is not always fulfilled. 
 
 Turning to the dream-poem " Hannele" 
 we find an altogether new developmep,',. 
 Nothing illustrates Hauptmann's insecure 
 hold upon the Theatre more clearly than 
 his incessant wavering between one 
 dramatic method and another. The course 
 he follows is : Naturalism (" Vor Son- 
 nenaufgang ") — social drama (" Einsame 
 Menschen " and " Die Weber ") — a touch 
 of the comique cruel (" KoUege Crampton " 
 and "Der Biberpelz ") — mysticism and 
 romance (" Hannele " to " Die versunkene 
 
86 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Glocke") — back to modern realism (" Fuhr- 
 mann Henschel ") — Shakespearean farce 
 (" Schluck und Jau ") — ^tragi-comedy (" Der 
 rote Hahn") — saga-drama ("Der arme 
 Heinrich ") — fairy-drama (" Und Pippa 
 tanzt ! ") — comedy (" Die Jungfern von 
 Bischofsberg") — "modernisation" of clas- 
 sical legend (" Griselda"). This may be 
 called versatility, but it has more than a 
 suspicion of the versatility of the weather- 
 cock. Hauptmann is always groping, 
 always uncertain in his method. After 
 the first performances of his " Florian 
 Geyer " and " Schluck und Jau " in Berlin 
 whole acts were cut out, and a stage 
 version continued to be played without 
 them. "Elga" is an unfinished trifle 
 written in three days, and should never 
 have been given in the theatre. The 
 expert craftsman takes care never to drop 
 such shavings. 
 
 To return to " Hannele." The new 
 element in Hauptmann's work was the 
 dream of heaven. The scene of poverty is 
 still there, with the child upon her death- 
 bed in the workhouse. So far the play 
 is linked with "The Weavers." The 
 
Hauptmann 8 7 
 
 exquisite verse of the dream-fantasy fore- 
 shadows " The Sunken Bell." It is chiefly 
 the plays of this period that have made 
 Hauptmann famous, and indeed " Han- 
 nele," " Florian Geyer " and " The 
 Sunken Bell " are all works of poetic, if 
 not of dramatic genius. " The Sunken 
 Bell," " ein deutsches Marchendrama," 
 can never be to any other nation what it 
 is to Germany. Its subject is taken 
 direct from Grimm's mythology, and the 
 spirit of its verse is untranslateable. Into 
 the German forest, peopled with gnomes 
 and elves and creatures of the woods, 
 comes the artist Heinrich. His great 
 work, which ended in disappointment, 
 reflects Hauptmann's failure with " Florian 
 Geyer." The leaving of his wife and 
 children in order to climb the mountain 
 with Rautendelein is an echo of " Einsame 
 Menschen." Heinrich, like Johannes 
 Vockerat, strives after the unattainable. 
 Once more the refrain which runs through 
 all of Hauptmann's plays : " A jeder 
 Mensch hat halt 'ne Sehnsucht." Once 
 more the extraordinary sway of books, 
 legends and personalities. 
 
88 Modern Dramatists 
 
 With the series of plays from " Fuhr- 
 mann Henschel " to " Griselda," we come 
 to the decline and fall of Hauptmann as a 
 dramatist. When he returned from the 
 dream-world of " The Sunken Bell " to his 
 original modern form in " Fuhrmann 
 Henschel," the change was a reaction and 
 not an advance. It was not entirely by 
 chance that this reaction came at the same 
 time as the publication of his biography 
 by Paul Schlenther, with the words I have 
 already quoted : " He stands at life's 
 zenith. . . . We wait for what is yet to 
 come." A biographer at thirty-five may 
 easily prove a false friend. " Fuhrmann 
 Henschel " was said by Hauptmann's 
 admirers to represent a "recuperation" 
 after the colossal effort of " The Sunken 
 Bell." But why should such a " recupera- 
 tion " have appeared upon the stage ? 
 The answer is simple enough. Haupt- 
 mann was, and is, as susceptible to the 
 influence of friends and conditions as to 
 the imaginative work of other writers. 
 The theatres of Berlin pressed him for 
 further work. Any play that bore his 
 name was good enough for them to 
 
Hauptmann 89 
 
 produce. He was the prodigy of the hour, 
 and he suffered from the grossest over- 
 estimation. Pan-Germanic critics, deter- 
 mined at any cost to prove the superiority 
 of the native German drama to all others, 
 praised him extravagantly, and endeavoured 
 to thrust him into a position among the 
 classics. University professors turned 
 from the interminable study of the second 
 part of " Faust " to lecture upon Haupt- 
 mann's message to the world, and to 
 interpret the inner meaning of " Hannele" 
 and " The Sunken Bell." Appreciations, 
 critical studies and monographs appeared 
 by the score, and a swarm of literary 
 parasites contrived to share in the spoils 
 by (to use Swinburne's description of the 
 writer of Shakespearean introductions) 
 " shooting their rubbish-heap " at the door 
 of the dramatist of the day. 
 
 Hauptmann's reputation, however, was 
 always artificially maintained. His first 
 striking success had been in the theatre, 
 with " Vor Sonnenaufgang." He passed 
 from the pioneer stage of the Freie Biihne 
 to the Deutsches Theater. " The Sunken 
 Bell " brought him fame. But with 
 
9© Modern Dramatists 
 
 the plays from " Fuhrmann Henschel " 
 onwards he drifted steadily out of touch with 
 the real theatre-going pubHc, and became 
 the apostle of a literary cult. His followers 
 applauded the growing obscurity of his 
 work. They succeeded in making apparent 
 successes out of actual failures such as 
 " Rose Bernd." And the final result of 
 this continual harrying into the theatre of 
 an undramatic artist is seen in " Griselda " 
 (igog). This play hardly rises to i the 
 commonplace. As a " modern " treat- 
 ment of Boccaccio's Griselda legend it is 
 flat and uninspired ; as the work of a poet 
 of Hauptmann's standing, not yet past 
 middle life, it is a tragic disappointment. 
 There is clearly something fatally wrong 
 with a playwright who, at forty-seven years 
 of age, can produce a drama bearing all 
 the signs of senile decay. 
 
 But " Griselda " does not represent the 
 real Hauptmann, any more than " Misalli- 
 ance " represents the real Bernard Shaw. 
 It is well to turn to the Silesian peasant 
 dramas, for in them lies the Hauptmann 
 atmosphere which is his most real service 
 to the theatre. . All the Silesian plays are 
 
Hauptmann 9 1 
 
 written in dialect, and two of them, the 
 original editions of " The Weavers " (De 
 Waber) and " Fuhrmann Henschel," in a 
 dialect so obscure that Hauptmann was 
 compelled to make a translation into more 
 intelligible German for performance. 
 Others, such as "Vor Sonnenaufgang," 
 remain very difficult to follow throughout. 
 One passage may be quoted : 
 
 LiESE : Du, Guste ! de Marie iis furt. 
 
 AuGOSTE : Joa wull doch ? 
 
 LiESE : Gib nei ! freu' die Kutscha- 
 Franzen, se milkt er an Truppen Milch 
 ei. 
 
 Beibst: Na! doa lusst ok de Spillern 
 nee ernt derzune kumma. 
 
 Auguste: Oh jechtlich! nee ok nee! 
 bei Leibe nich ! 
 
 Liese : a su a oarm Weib miit achta. 
 
 Auguste : Acht kleene Balge ! — die 
 wull'n laba. 
 
 Liese: Ne amool an Truppen Milch 
 thuns' er ginn'n . . • meschant is doas. 
 
 Like most popular German dialects, 
 this bears as much resemblance to English 
 (especially in the spoken form) as to pure 
 German. Whatever may be said of them 
 
92 Modern Dramatists 
 
 as drama, the Hauptmann dialect plays 
 have contributed much to the literature of 
 Germany. They are individual and 
 national, and in the theatre their great 
 service has been to show the way back 
 from the mere cosmopolitanism of the 
 " society drama " to the tragic problems 
 near at hand, among the common people. 
 The weavers groping towards freedom ; 
 Fuhrmann Henschel driving his cart upon 
 the roads, and finding at last that every 
 way is barred but the way to death ; Rose 
 Bernd defending her unborn child against 
 a sneering world ; these are elemental 
 figures gravely set upon the canvas. It is 
 strange to watch them move in the theatre, 
 for Hauptmann's art as dramatist is un- 
 sustained, and only in isolated scenes is 
 he able to carry his men and women out 
 of their actual setting into the real world 
 of drama where one can forget the stage, 
 the curtain and the audience. For the 
 most part the figures are convincing 
 enough, but they seem to have wandered 
 in upon the stage from the fields and 
 hostelries of their own province, to be 
 exhibited like living pictures coloured after 
 
Hauptmann 93 
 
 nature. A hundred instances of Haupt- 
 mann's genius fpr atmosphere and setting 
 could be given. I will quote only one of 
 the most vivid — the opening of the second 
 act of ** Vor Sonnenaufgang " : 
 
 Early morning, towards four o'clock. 
 The windows of the farmhouse are lit from 
 within. A pale grey light through the 
 gateway, changing slowly to dark red and 
 afterwards to the brightness of day. Under 
 the gateway, upon the ground, sits Beibst, 
 whetting his scythe. As the curtain rises 
 his silhouetted figure is seen against the 
 sky, and the regular, monotonous beat of 
 his scythe-hammer is heard upon the anvil. 
 For some moments this remains the only 
 sound, but the grave stillness of the morn- 
 ing is presently disturbed by the clamour of 
 the late departures from the inn. The door 
 of the farmhouse is shut with a bang. The 
 lights in the windows are put out. A 
 distant barking of dogs, with loud, confused 
 crowings from the yard. Upon the path 
 leading from the inn a dark figure is dimly 
 seen, moving unsteadily across the court- 
 yard. 
 
 Here, " before sunrise," the action 
 passes. The setting is typical. The 
 
94 Modern Dramatists 
 
 fates of the Hauptmann peasantry are 
 bound up with their farms and their cattle, 
 their horses and their crops. The tragedy 
 of Fuhrmann Henschel is the tragedy of 
 a farmer. Little troubles and great 
 troubles together overwhelm him. Three 
 of his horses die first ; then his wife and 
 daughter. He drives over his favourite 
 dog. The weather is bad. He has 
 promised his dead wife never to marry 
 again, but he breaks his promise ; and 
 every succeeding blow is to him a punish- 
 ment. So, little by little, he is driven to 
 despair. He cannot explain why. He can- 
 not explain anything. He is only a weak 
 man against the all-powerful gods. 
 
 Such a tragedy falls short of greatness, 
 like Mr. Galsworthy's " Justice," because 
 it is concerned only with the " average 
 man." Henschel, like all of Hauptmann's 
 peasant characters, is far removed from 
 the hero pursued by fate. Great tragedy 
 depends upon the creation of exceptional 
 figures ; of men and women who will not 
 fail, who, indeed, cannot fail, since even 
 if they are overwhelmed by the forces they 
 defy their very defeat inspires us, and their 
 
Wedekind 95 
 
 power remains unbroken. Hauptmann's 
 plays depend solely upon his power of 
 observation, his sympathy and his under- 
 standing. But these are not the whole 
 armour of the dramatist. They are only 
 the breastplate — not the sword. 
 
 Wedekind 
 
 In his " Playboy of the Western 
 World " Mr. J. M. Synge satirised bitterly 
 the effect of even a self-styled giant upon 
 a race of pigmies. His Christopher comes 
 to a remote village in the West of Ireland 
 with the tale that he has killed his father, 
 and the decadent peasants, drained of 
 their best blood by emigration and reduced 
 to a group of women, old men and weak- 
 lings, make a hero of him. The story of 
 his crime fascinates them. He has at 
 least done something notable, something 
 powerful, something that stands for will 
 and firm resolve in this land of dreams 
 and despair. The women worship him 
 and bring him presents ; the loafers of the 
 village inn regard him with awe. Christy 
 finds himself famous. 
 
96 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Even so Frank Wedekind came, a few 
 years ago, to the German Theatre, with 
 the reputation of having slain, not his 
 father, but moraUty. His plays were the 
 last word in unconventionality and daring. 
 Where other dramatists touched deli- 
 cately, for fear of over-boldness, upon the 
 woman with a past or the life of the demi- 
 monde, he dragged pathology, sex perver- 
 sion and insanity relentlessly upon the 
 stage. He thrived upon prohibitions, 
 prosecutions, newspaper outcry and noto- 
 riety in general. He proclaimed openly 
 his contempt for the public, and no critical 
 attacks could penetrate his monstrous 
 egoism. Beside the other playwrights of 
 the period — Sudermann the trimmer and 
 Gerhart Hauptmann the sensitive idealist 
 — he seemed a giant individuality, like a 
 Bismarck or a Nietzsche. A self-styled 
 giant, perhaps ; but that only made him 
 the more attractive to the weaklings. He 
 insulted them, and they rushed to see his 
 plays. His vogue increased when he 
 appeared himself as actor, and swaggered 
 like the Playboy in a leading part. This 
 was, indeed, a phenomenon. The German 
 
Wedekind 97 
 
 playgoers gasped. They had heard of 
 dramatists who ventured to despise the 
 public — indeed, the attitude was con- 
 sidered highly creditable, as indicating 
 lofty ideals and intellectual refinement ; 
 but of an actor audacious enough to claim 
 the same superiority, never. That Wede- 
 kind should dare to defy the critics and 
 exhibit himself night after night in an 
 indifferent display of acting — ^this was 
 inexplicable. So bold a spirit, they 
 reflected, must at least have the attri- 
 butes of Superman. 
 
 Mr. Synge's Christy, of course, had not 
 really killed his father, and neither had 
 Wedekind really killed morality. Like most 
 alleged immoralists, he had a stern gospel 
 of his own to preach. Behind the brutality 
 of his plays there is the force of conviction 
 that no mere sensationalist or commercial 
 pla3nvright can ever show. Wedekind's 
 contempt for "das Publikum " is real. 
 He despises the theatre-going mob so 
 sincerely that he refuses even to make use 
 of it as a speculative investment. He may 
 be a fanatic, but he is never a charlatan. 
 An ingenious aphorist has named him 
 
 7 
 
98 Modern Dramatists 
 
 " Frau Nietzsche " ; and as far as popu- 
 larity-hunting is concerned, Nietzsche's 
 wife should be above suspicion. 
 
 Wedekind as dramatist is something 
 more than an eccentric, but something 
 less than a creative genius. Flashes of 
 genius he has, emerging fitfully from 
 clouds of eccentricity. He is an author 
 who cannot readily be " placed." To the 
 critic bent upon classification, who would 
 label him as naturalist or symbolist, realist 
 or idealist or mystic, he must remain an 
 enigma. He belongs to no school, and 
 hitherto he has had no followers. His 
 plays are the most aggressively individual 
 of our time. Some of them, like " Oaha " 
 and " Hidalla," are not only frankly auto- 
 biographical, but appear to exploit a 
 personal grievance. The individuality 
 behind them is crude and obtrusive. It is 
 almost devoid of taste or sense of form. 
 But it is valuable because of its power. It 
 offers us a rare criticism of modern Hfe by 
 presenting it from a new angle. Wedekind 
 is no hawker of a cheap optimistic philo- 
 sophy, Hke Sudermann. He has none of 
 Hauptmann's sympathy with the common 
 
Wedekind 99 
 
 man. For him the common man is merely 
 a member of the public which he despises ; 
 an animated doll built of cowardly preju- 
 dices ; one of the mob that howls the 
 artist down. Wedekind in the theatre is 
 like Zarathustra in the market place. 
 
 His practice of the playwright's craft is 
 just as individual. In the construction of 
 his plays he obeys no law but his own 
 convenience. He has revived the mono- 
 logue, which was said to have been 
 destroyed by Ibsen twenty years ago. He 
 writes speeches as long as those in the 
 hell scene of " Man and Superman." His 
 " curtains " are no more than chance 
 interruptions of an otherwise interminable 
 dialogue. He never leads up to a. scene ; 
 it simply occurs casually and passes. 
 This scorn of theatrical eifect is strange 
 enough in a dramatist who is also an 
 actor ; but his other variations of form are 
 stranger still. In " Die Buchse der 
 Pandora" the first act is written in 
 German, the second in French, and the 
 third in English.^ In the modern tragedy 
 
 ^ Wedekind is himself half-Swiss and half- 
 Hanoverian. The English of " Die Buchse 
 
 7—2 
 
loo Modern Dramatists 
 
 of " Friihlings Erwachen " he introduces 
 a scene in a graveyard at night, where a 
 boy comes from the grave carrying his 
 own head beneath his arm, to talk with 
 his old schoolfellow. In the same scene 
 " der vermummte Herr " — the Man with 
 the Mask — appears in order to drive the 
 dead boy back into the grave, and to carry 
 the living back with him to life. This 
 passage (to which I shall return later) is 
 beyond a doubt the most beautiful in the 
 play, but it was clearly not designed for 
 the stage. The leap from realism to 
 fantasy is too sudden, and it is a leap 
 which Wedekind is constantly taking. 
 Over and over again, in his modern plays, 
 the characters who begin as real persons 
 become the vaguest shadows, and pass 
 into a dream world of their own. They 
 may not visibly carry their heads beneath 
 their arms, but a veil of mist seems to 
 descend between them and the audience, 
 and they grow unreal without growing 
 ethereal. In Anton Tchekhov's play, 
 " The Seagull," the idealist Constantine 
 
 der Pandora" is calculated to impress Berlin 
 rather than London. 
 
Wedekind 
 
 lOI 
 
 maintains that it is the function of the 
 artist to represent Ufe neither as it is nor 
 as we think it ought to be, but as we see 
 it in our dreams. Of many of Wedekind's 
 plays it may be said that they represent 
 Hfe neither as it is, nor as it ought to be, 
 but as we see it in our nightmares. They 
 create the same effect of vague oppression, 
 of meaningless effort, of vast heights and 
 depths, of tremblings upon the precipice 
 of insanity. 
 
 I turn now to Wedekind's master- 
 piece, " Friihlings Erwachen " (Spring's 
 Awakening). It is necessary first to 
 understand how such a play came to be 
 written. Wedekind names it " a children's 
 tragedy," and the "Fruhlings Erwachen" 
 is the awakening of sex. For some reason ' 
 (to be found probably in the introspective 
 national temperament) Germany has the 
 unfortunate distinction of being the land of 
 child suicides. Many hundreds of these 
 suicides are recorded yearly, and prac- 
 tically without exception they occur at the 
 age of puberty. The subject of" Fruhlings 
 Erwachen" was bound to be touched upon 
 sooner or later in literature, and Wedekind 
 
102 Modern Dramatists 
 
 chose to deal with it in the form of a play. 
 No one can quarrel with this choice, for 
 he has treated it (unlike the themes of his 
 other plays) with rare delicacy and beauty. 
 Wedekind is at his greatest here because 
 he is most in earnest and most courageous. 
 The play is an indictment of the whole 
 present upbringing of children, yet it has 
 the force, not of a pamphlet, but of a work 
 of art. It is in reality what it claims to 
 be — " a children's tragedy." 
 
 In it there is no need of argument, or 
 of patient hearing of both sides. Argu- 
 ment belongs to the grown ups ; here 
 Wedekind presents simply a group of 
 innocents striving after the unknown. 
 
 Moritz and Melchior are two boys at 
 school. Both are at the critical age of 
 puberty. They talk to one another of their 
 first impulses of sex ; now haltingly, now 
 with sudden bursts of confidence. All is 
 speculation ; they have found a new 
 mystery. 
 
 Some girls pass by ; among them 
 Wendla, lately promoted to long frocks 
 because short ones at her age are " not 
 
Wedekind 103 
 
 proper." The girls, too, hover about the 
 mysterious subject in their own fashion. 
 " What does it mean to be married ? " 
 " Are boy babies nicer than girls ? " 
 They pass on. 
 
 Melchior and Wendla meet by chance 
 in the woods. Wendla leads him [on to 
 romp with her, and then, at first half in 
 play, to strike her. He does so, and 
 then rushes shamefully away. 
 
 Wendla's married sister has a new 
 baby. Wendla implores her mother to 
 tell her how it came, but she is put off 
 with empty phrases. 
 
 Melchior and Wendla meet again. 
 This time they have taken refuge in a 
 hayloft from a thunderstorm. The great, 
 unknown instinct drives them to one 
 another. 
 
 The following day Wendla has no 
 feeling of shame. She is triumphantly 
 happy ; she longs to tell someone all 
 about it. Now, at last, she knows. 
 
 Moritz, the duller of the two boys, sits 
 alone in the forest, brooding. He cannot 
 take this new mystery of life light- 
 heartedly. It is all so ugly. No one has 
 
I04 Modern Dramatists 
 
 made it clear to him ; no one has cared. 
 Ilsa, an artist's model, comes by. She 
 speaks to him ; tells him of her life. She 
 is ready to make love to him. He could 
 have her for the asking. But he flings 
 her aside, sends her away, and shoots 
 himself. 
 
 The schoolmasters sit in judgment. 
 Among the dead Moritz's papers his 
 father has found a drawing made by 
 Melchior, representing the physiological 
 facts of sex. This drawing is held to be 
 the cause of suicide. Melchior is silenced 
 in every effort to defend himself. The 
 authorities speak ponderously of " moral 
 insanity." Melchior is sent to a reforma- 
 tory. There he finds no peace, for the 
 other boys are unashamedly corrupt. 
 
 Wendla dies in giving birth to a child. 
 She cries, " Oh, mother, why didn't you 
 tell me everything ? " and the reply is 
 the old one : " My mother told me no 
 more." 
 
 Last comes the graveyard scene. 
 Melchior, escaping from the reformatory, 
 leaps over the wall and discovers a new 
 mound of earth with a tombstone. " Here 
 
Wedekind 105 
 
 lies Wendla Bergmann. Blessed are the 
 pure in heart." Then it is that Moritz 
 appears, carrying his head beneath his 
 arm. A conversation between the dead 
 and the living. Moritz urges Melchior 
 to kill himself. " Hold out your hand to 
 me. The dead are exalted above all." 
 But theJVIan^witk_the^ask— the spirit of "■ 
 Life — is waiting. He curses Moritz as a 
 lying phantom, a stinking breath of the 
 grave. " Who are you ? " asks Melchior, 
 and the spirit of Life replies : " You 
 cannot learn to know me until you trust 
 yourself to me." Melchior follows him 
 back to life, and Moritz returns to his 
 grave with a smile. 
 
 These disconnected scenes, as I have 
 set them down, bear little enough resem- 
 blance to the framework of a play. 
 " Fruhlings Erwachen," indeed, is only 
 a group of such scenes of life and death. 
 But one can forgive Wedekind much for 
 having written it. He has realised the 
 child mind, and made clear the gulf 
 between parents and children where 
 ignorance of sex is left to grope unaided. 
 As a result, he has produced such a drama 
 
io6 Modern Dramatists 
 
 of all-compelling force as can only be 
 written once in a lifetime. 
 
 " Hidalla " shows the other side of 
 Wedekind. Here he is fantastic, bitter, 
 cynical, egoistic, without a touch of the deli- 
 cacy that redeems "Friihlings Erwachen." 
 
 Karl Hetmann is the typical Wedekind 
 hero ; an ingenuous prophet buffeted by a 
 world of the sophisticated. But what a 
 world, and what a hero ! Beside this 
 bear-garden of " Hidalla," Shaw's 
 " Misalhance " is polite and musical. 
 
 Hetmann is the founder and secretary of 
 an "International Society for the Breeding 
 of a New Race." Its watchword is beauty. 
 Through beauty alone can men approach 
 the gods. The members of the Society, 
 then, are chosen solely from among persons 
 of marked physical charm, and they must 
 conform to certain rules. Hetmann sum- 
 marises the conditions as follows : — 
 
 1. The object of the society is the 
 breeding of a new race. 
 
 2. Within the society the bourgeois 
 conventions of marriage and the family 
 are suspended. 
 
Wedekind 107 
 
 3. Every member has an inalienable 
 right to the services of every other. 
 Within the society all women are in sub- 
 jection to men, and all men in subjection 
 to women. 
 
 Complications, of course, follow imme- 
 diately. The Society attracts a mob of 
 promiscuists, free lovers, fools and idlers ; 
 empty-headed women and speculative 
 business men eager to exploit it for their 
 own purposes. Launhart, one of the 
 latter, establishes a weekly journal as the 
 Society's organ, and Hetmann contributes 
 an article entitled " The Family Life of 
 the Bourgeois Classes as compared with 
 that of our Domestic Animals." The 
 number in which the article appears is 
 instantly confiscated by the police. Laun- 
 hart, who as editor is legally responsible, 
 makes a bolt of it; but Hetmann is 
 arrested and sentenced to several months' 
 imprisonment. The International Con- 
 gress, arranged for the following week, is 
 postponed indefinitely, and the Society 
 itself becomes dormant. 
 
 Hetmann is a perfectly sincere fanatic. 
 During his term of imprisonment he writes 
 
io8 Modern Dramatists 
 
 a new book named " Hidalla, or the 
 Gospel of Beauty," and upon his release 
 he sets to work once more. Some illusions 
 are gone, but his ideal remains. " I am 
 not one of those men," he says, "who 
 take leave of their hopes and dreams when 
 they reach thirty. I am forty, and my 
 dreams are more childlike, my expecta- 
 tions higher, my hopes more glorious than 
 ever." His method is no longer agitation, 
 but sacrifice. 
 
 Still he cannot escape notoriety. His 
 views have become known as " the 
 Hetmannite theory," and provide matter 
 for the theses of young University men 
 eager to obtain a doctorate. The journal 
 of the Society has thrived upon confisca- 
 tion, and now has a circulation of eighty 
 thousand. Launhart has returned, and 
 finds the editorship a gold - mine. 
 Morosini, the Grand Master of the Society, 
 has collected a large harem from among 
 the members, and lives " like Mohammed 
 in Paradise." 
 
 Hetmann is dragged into the propa- 
 ganda of these vultures. They need him 
 as an advertisement, and use him to create 
 
Wedekind 109 
 
 a new sensation. Lectures are arranged 
 for him. But he no longer endeavours to 
 convert the members of his audience. He 
 insults them, points out their own physical 
 ugliness, and holds them up to contempt. 
 His first lecture ends in a riot, and he 
 barely escapes the mob. The effect of 
 his appearance at the second is described 
 as that of " a camel who treads upon an 
 ant-heap." He is rescued in a somewhat 
 battered state by the poUce, and placed 
 once more under arrest ; this time in order 
 that inquiry may be made into his mental 
 condition. For three months he remains 
 in a lunatic asylum, and at the end of this 
 time the mental speciaHsts declare him 
 sane. He is accordingly allowed to return 
 home. 
 
 A further change, however, is now seen 
 in his attitude. " In spite of my own con- 
 victions," he remarks " the doctors have 
 declared me a sane man. . . . The more 
 I reflect upon their verdict, the more over- 
 whelming grows my belief that they are 
 mistaken. . . . How can I be a normal 
 man, seeing that from my earliest child- 
 hood I have found myself at every point 
 
no Modern Dramatists 
 
 in antagonism with the normal world ? 
 ... Is it conceivable that any of my 
 views can ever be generally accepted ? 
 Take, for example, my assertion that the 
 preservation of virginity as a marketable 
 commodity is immoral. Can that ever be 
 accepted as the utterance of a sane man ?" 
 Henceforth, he says, he will aim solely at 
 maintaining his own personal freedom. 
 Publicity, recognition, notoriety — these are 
 only forms of tyranny. The world is sane. 
 So be it. He will remain a free madman. 
 There is grim satire in this, but the 
 grimmest of all is yet to come. A circus 
 manager calls, with an offer. He will pay 
 Hetmann five hundred marks a night to 
 appear in his show as " dummer August." 
 " Dummer August " is the clown of the 
 German circus. His characteristics are 
 that he " falls over every obstacle that is 
 put in his way, always arrives just too late, 
 always wants to help people who under- 
 stand things ten times better than he does 
 himself, and, above all, that he never knows 
 why the audience is laughing at him." In 
 Hetmann's case, the manager thinks, no 
 rehearsals will be necessary. 
 
Wedekind 
 
 III 
 
 Hetmann accepts the offer, signs the 
 contract, shows the delighted manager 
 out, and then goes into the next room and 
 hangs himself. So the apostle of beauty 
 comes to an ugly end, and the curtain 
 falls upon Launhart rummaging callously 
 among his manuscripts in search of some- 
 thing to publish. 
 
 And the moral ? Wedekind underlines 
 the moral so heavily that it cannot be 
 passed by. He finds life a hideous desert 
 of advertisement, a noisy triumphal pro- 
 cession of charlatans. Who brays loudest 
 holds the field. Ideas are powerless, 
 because every idea is swamped by the 
 folly or dishonesty of its adherents. This 
 world belongs to the clown and the 
 adventurer, not to the man of genius. 
 
 That is Wedekind's personal conviction. 
 It may be justified. But in " Hidalla " 
 he has not proved his case. Hetmann is 
 not a man of genius. If he were, 
 " Hidalla " would be a great tragedy. It 
 falls short of greatness just in so far as 
 Wedekind has failed to make Hetmann's 
 personality convincing. It falls short of 
 beauty just in so far as he has failed ^o 
 
112 Modern Dramatists 
 
 make Hetmann's aims sublime. The 
 tragic idea is always a symbol. It stands 
 for something accessible to the common 
 experience of mankind. When Lear is 
 flouted by his daughters we are moved to 
 pity, but when Hetmann forms a Society 
 for the Breeding of a New Race, delivers 
 a lecture on the physical drawbacks of his 
 audience, and gets a broken head, we 
 are inclined to laugh. His aim is not 
 inspiring. Wedekind, with all his satire, 
 still takes Hetmann seriously. He tries 
 to make a hero of his monomaniac ; and 
 he succeeds only in making a monomaniac 
 of himself. " Hidalla " is like so many 
 attempts at modern tragedy, from Bernard 
 Shaw's "Doctor's Dilemma" to "The 
 Seagull " of Anton Tchekhov. It would 
 be great — but for its author. 
 
 For the rest, Wedekind's decline since 
 " Friihlings Erwachen " is as clearly 
 marked as Hauptmann's since " The 
 Sunken Bell." The horrors of " Musik " 
 and " Zensur " are not horrible ; the erotic 
 thrills of " Erdgeist " are not thrilling. It 
 is certain that Wedekind aimed at some- 
 thing far above sensationalism in these 
 
Wedekind 113 
 
 plays ; but it is equally certain that the 
 mark is never reached. His skill as a 
 craftsman is not great enough to make 
 them effective. " Oaha " (igog) may be 
 set beside Hauptmann's " Griselda " of 
 the same date, as representing what it is 
 to be hoped will prove the low-water 
 mark of German drama. 
 
 It cannot be said that as yet there are 
 any clear signs of recovery. Among the 
 Freie Buhne authors of i88g-g5 Max 
 Halbe and Otto Erich Hartleben adapted 
 themselves to the popular Theatre, partly 
 from natural inclination and partly from 
 tactics. In the compromise they ceased 
 to break new paths. Georg Hirschfeld 
 wrote several interesting plays, " Agnes 
 Jordan," " Pauline," and " Nebeneinan- 
 der," before abandoning drama for the 
 novel. Ludwig Thoma's comedy " Moral " 
 is an impudent and amusing topical satire. 
 The most hopeful of the newer dramatists 
 is Josef Ruederer, a Bavarian, who has 
 hitherto only produced two plays. One is 
 " Die Fahnenweihe," a comedy of peasant 
 life ; the other " Die Morgeiirote," a drama 
 of the revolution of 1848 in Munich. 
 
 8 
 
VI 
 ENGLAND 
 
 BERNARD SHAW, GRANVILLE 
 BARKER, JOHN GALSWORTHY 
 
 N To all outward appearance the English 
 drama stands lower than any other in 
 Europe. In Germany and Austria the 
 theatre is a centre of thought ; in France 
 it has all the support of an ^tablished 
 tradition, with a national playhouse and 
 the recognition of an Academy of letters ; 
 while in Russia, Holland, Scandinavia 
 and Italy, it exists largely upon the work 
 of native dramatists who have themselves 
 achieved a European reputation. In all 
 of these countries (although least, perhaps, 
 in France) the repertory system enables the 
 " modern " playwright to obtain, not only a 
 hearing, but a living. Published plays are 
 widely read. Playgoing is a normal habit, 
 and the Theatre is respected accordingly. 
 Many playhouses are subsidised by the 
 State or municipality. Others, especially 
 
England 115 
 
 in the capital cities of the German provinces, 
 are aided by the traditional patronage of 
 a Court. Even without such assistance 
 they are able to pay their way by giving 
 an average of from ten to twenty per- 
 formances to every play added to their 
 repertory. A play which attains fifty per- 
 formances is exceptionally successful. 
 Twenty or thirty new pieces are produced 
 in the course of a year by each theatre, 
 and an opening can be found, therefore, 
 for every type of work, from Shakespeare 
 to the latest Parisian farce or Ibsen's 
 "When We Dead Awaken." At the 
 present time the stage of the German- 
 speaking countries is held by more than 
 three hundred playwrights, most of whom 
 live by writing for the theatre alone. 
 Works of especial interest are continually 
 revived. The stock company offers security 
 to the actor without overworking him, and 
 the whole theatrical system is so knit to- 
 gether by the exchange of plays and players 
 that it has all the efficiency of a gigantic 
 trust without any of its disadvantages. 
 
 Contrast this for a moment with the 
 state of affairs in England, The English 
 
 8—2 
 
ii6 Modern Dramatists 
 
 theatre, even on its practical side, is casual, 
 slovenly and ill-balanced. It depends 
 almost entirely upon London for its plays, 
 and the provinces are compelled to put 
 up with touring companies performing 
 what are more or less accurately described 
 as " West End successes." Permanent 
 repertory theatres have only been estab- 
 lished up to the present in Manchester, 
 Glasgow, and Dublin, and they are of 
 recent growth and privately subsidised. As 
 for the ordinary theatre of the West End 
 of London, its condition is nothing short 
 of appalling. Rents and salaries are so 
 high that no manager can afford to pro- 
 duce a play without at least a reasonable 
 prospect of attracting a hundred thousand 
 people during its two or three months' 
 run. The actor may be thrown out of 
 work indefinitely by the failure of a single 
 piece ; and his profession, at all events 
 as far as the rank and file are concerned, 
 is a particularly demoralising form of 
 casual labour. The long-run system, with 
 its necessity for " leading parts," stereo- 
 types author, actor, and audience alike. 
 Theatrical enterprise is notoriously a 
 
England 117 
 
 gamble for all concerned, and the drama- 
 tist is compelled to join in the speculation 
 in public taste. It is unnecessary to deal 
 here with the authors who have dominated 
 the West End stage during the past 
 twenty years, for none of them can con- 
 ceivably rank with the modern dramatists 
 of the rest of Europe, and none (with the 
 possible exception of Wilde) have con- 
 tributed anything either to thought or to 
 literature. At best they have only sus- 
 tained a tradition of empty craftsmanship ; 
 at worst they have set themselves 
 deliberately to debase an art. 
 
 The proof of all this may be found in 
 the plays themselves. The vast majority 
 of them, however successful, are forgotten 
 by the Londoner within a few months, 
 and they disappear even from the pro- 
 vincial touring companies in a year or 
 two. They are no more than opportunist 
 devices for filling a theatre for a certain 
 period. The experimental theatres apart, 
 it is hardly too much to say that the 
 London stage has not produced a single 
 work of distinction within recent years. 
 
 Nevertheless, a modern English drama 
 
ii8 Modern Dramatists 
 
 exists. It is not easily discoverable at the 
 first glance. A visitor from abroad would 
 search the autumn playbills of London 
 for it in vain. It appears spasmodically, 
 with many failures and disappointments. 
 Its achievement is not uniformly high. 
 It is hampered by all the difficulties out- 
 lined above, and it has not yet succeeded 
 in gathering a reliable audience. It is 
 altogether tentative, and tinged with more 
 than a suspicion of a cult. Its most 
 recent outbreak in Mr. Charles Frohman's 
 Repertory Theatre of igio was in many 
 respects a move backward rather than 
 forward. As far as opportunity of expres- 
 sion is concerned, the modern drama in 
 England stands very much in the same 
 position as that of the rest of Europe in 
 i8go. Intellectually it is far in advance. 
 I have touched briefly in an earlier 
 chapter upon the establishment of the 
 Independent Theatre in i8gi, and of the 
 Stage Society in i8gg. Bernard Shaw's 
 " Widowers' Houses " was the only 
 important discovery of the Independent 
 Theatre, and " Arms and the Man " was 
 given at the Avenue Theatre in i8g4. 
 
England 119 
 
 Six of his other plays were produced by 
 the Stage Society in its earlier seasons. 
 In 1904 the Court Theatre was opened 
 under the management of J. E. Vedrenne 
 and Granville Barker, and it existed 
 almost entirely (at least as far as the 
 evening bill was concerned) on Bernard 
 Shaw's plays. Between 1904 and 1907 
 "John Bull's Other Island," " Major 
 Barbara," " The Doctor's Dilemma," and 
 "The Philanderer" were given for the 
 first time, and others were revived. New 
 plays by John Galsworthy, St. John 
 Hankin, Granville Barker and John Mase- 
 field were also produced. In the autumn 
 of 1907 the Vedrenne-Barker management 
 was transferred to the Savoy Theatre, and 
 here, after producing Shaw's " Caesar and 
 Cleopatra " and " The Devil's Disciple," 
 with John Galsworthy's "Joy," it came to 
 an end. From 1907 to igio there was an 
 interregnum, during which London was 
 without a pioneer theatre open to the 
 public, although in 1908 Shaw's " Getting 
 Married " was given at the Haymarket. 
 Meanwhile the Stage Society continued 
 its work, and produced new pieces by 
 
I20 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Charles McEvoy and Arnold Bennett. 
 Miss Horniman established a repertory 
 company at the Gaiety Theatre, Man- 
 chester, and the Scottish Repertory 
 Theatre was formed in Glasgow. Early 
 in I QIC Mr. Frohman opened a new 
 repertory management at the Duke of 
 York's Theatre, and the most important 
 plays produced were John Galsworthy's 
 " Justice," Bernard Shaw's " Misalliance," 
 George Meredith's "The Sentimentalists," 
 Granville Barker's " The Madras House," 
 and Elizabeth Baker's " Chains." 
 
 Here, briefly outlined, is the history of 
 the forward movement which constitutes, 
 in itself, a proof of the existence of a 
 modern English drama. Its value lies 
 chiefly in its promise for the future, and in 
 the stimulus which it gives to the founda- 
 tion of repertory theatres throughout the 
 country, as well as of a national theatre in 
 London. I shall deal only with some of 
 the authors already mentioned above. 
 
 Bernard Shaw. 
 
 Bernard Shaw is, beyond all doubt, the 
 greatest individual force in European 
 
Bernard Shaw 12 1 
 
 drama since Ibsen. This is, I am aware, 
 not the general English view. I believe it 
 is not even Mr. Shaw's own view. With 
 unusual modesty and some lack of judg- 
 ment, he withdraws in favour of M. Brieux, 
 a dramatist distinctly of the second rank. 
 The fact remains, however, that Bernard 
 Shaw is not only the most interesting of 
 living playwrights, but the strongest per- 
 sonality and the clearest thinker. There 
 is no dramatist writing to-day who is great 
 in the sense in which Ibsen was great. 
 There is no one possessed of overwhelm- 
 ing individual power and, at the same time, 
 of supreme mastery of the theatre. Europe 
 has to put up with one-sided authors, and 
 to choose between the artist-philosopher 
 who writes for the stage and the play- 
 wright-specialist who writes for nothing 
 else. Since Sudermann and Pinero 
 represent the latter class, the decision 
 is clear enough. Shaw, Wedekind and 
 Strindberg are triumphant. Better a 
 single play like " Man and Superman " or 
 " Friihlings Erwachen " than a thousand 
 of the type of " Magda " or " The^ 
 Second Mrs. Tanqueray." Better the 
 
122 Modern Dramatists 
 
 \uncut brilliant than the polished scrap 
 
 pf paste. 
 
 """Nevertheless, the choice remains a 
 choice between two imperfections, and 
 Bernard Shaw's outstanding position as 
 
 ■ dramatist is only comparative. His emin- 
 ence is, as Renan said of Mill's, " largely 
 due to the flatness of the surrounding 
 country." 
 
 Let us try to gain a view of this emin- 
 ence from the most convenient standpoint. 
 Just as Shaw is more popular in Germany 
 than in England, so it is only possible to 
 judge of his work completely from the 
 conning-tower of European criticism. His 
 virtues are his own, but his failings are in 
 the main the failings of all the greater 
 dramatists of his period. Shaw's career 
 hitherto has been curiously like that of 
 Hauptmann, with whom, of all authors, he 
 has at first sight least in common. His 
 early play, " Widowers' Houses," like "The 
 Weavers," was clearly the work of a 
 revolutionist. Shaw afterwards turned 
 to bitter social comedy in " The Phil- 
 anderer"; just as Hauptmann did in 
 " Kollege Crampton." Both were dis- 
 
Bernard Shaw 123 
 
 appointing to the Socialists in search of 
 a dramatic leader. It would be straining 
 analogy too far to set the touch of mystery 
 in "Candida" against the dream-poem 
 " Hannele," but Shaw unquestionably 
 reached his height in. " Man and Super- 
 man," just as Hauptmann reached his 
 in the very different " Sunken Bell." 
 Hauptmann's decline was the more rapid. 
 The obscurity of his later plays is greater 
 than that even of the trance scene in 
 "Getting Married " (although this puzzled 
 Berlin not a little). Fragments like 
 " Elga " belong to the same category as 
 " Press Cuttings " and " Blanco Posnet." 
 Finally, in igog, Hauptmann produced 
 the lamentable " Griselda," and in 1910 
 Bernard Shaw brought consternation even 
 to the straitest sect of the Shavians by 
 his " MisalHance." Of the two men, it 
 may be remarked, Shaw is only slightly 
 
 the elder. 
 
 And the explanation,!. -iiJs^surely clear 
 enough. Neither Shaw nor HaufJtflaann 
 is a sufficiently great craftsman to surpass^ 
 or even to equal, the dramatic form which 
 Ibsen's genius imposed upon the modern 
 
124 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Theatre. Both are original artists. Both 
 endeavoured to discover new forms for 
 their work, while lesser authors were con- 
 tent with sterile technique and common- 
 place ; and both have failed in proportion 
 as they have left the beaten path. Shaw 
 ekes out his insufficiency of dramatic craft 
 by the minutest stage directions, which 
 appear at first sight to represent real 
 technical skill ; Hauptmann falls into the 
 same habit. In " Rose Bernd," for ex- 
 ample, he directs his characters to become 
 "involuntarily pale as wax," " alternately 
 suffused and pale," " ashen grey," " still 
 paler," " trembling, and in perspiration," 
 and so on. This type of descriptive writ- 
 ing belongs properly to the novel, not to 
 the theatre. Technique and stage direction 
 have nothing in common. Technique helps 
 to create drama ; stage directions only 
 smooth the way of the actor and the 
 reader. 
 
 Hauptmann.,,however, has no gift of 
 sop>.istf)^and he has not attempted to 
 describe his failure as a success ; while 
 Shaw proclaimed recently that " Misalli- 
 ance " represented a return to the Greek 
 
 4 , 
 
Bernard Shaw 125 
 
 form of drama, on the singularly inadequate 
 ground that it observed the unities of time 
 and place. In point of fact, this play does 
 not represent a return to Greek or any 
 other form of drama. Its form is non- 
 existent, its effect chaotic, and its substance 
 a prolonged intellectual caterwaul. 
 
 I return to the original proposition : 
 that Bernard Shaw, judged by his work 
 as a whole, is the greatest individual force 
 in modern drama. This is enunciated (in 
 spite of the modesty referred to above) in 
 his /Prefaces ; it is proved in the plays 
 themselves. They reveal an extraordin-\ 
 arily complex personality ; a logician and 
 pamphleteer ; a wit keen enough success- 
 fully to break a lance with civilisation, yet 
 deft and light of touch enough to be mis- 
 taken at first glance for a cynic ; and 
 withal first and foremost a sincere mal- 
 content, a fine, passionate hater of things, 
 as they are. Ethically, then,-he is a great 
 crusader. No one can read " Major Bar- 
 bara " without feeling that it is inspired. 
 "True and inspired," Shawhimself claims ; 
 but the truth is another matter. In a work 
 of art truth depends, not upon intention, 
 
126 Modern Dramatists 
 
 but achievement. Intellectually, too, a 
 master. I take three outstanding ex- 
 amples : the Hell scene in " Man and 
 Superman " ; the conception of heroes in 
 Caesar and Napoleon, with the exposure 
 of the futility of mere "will to power"; 
 and the sweeping destruction of pose in 
 " Arms and the Man." Add the close of 
 the preface to " Plays Pleasant," and the 
 series is complete : — 
 
 Idealism, which is only a flattering name 
 for romance in politics and morals, is as 
 obnoxious to me as romance in ethics or 
 religion. In spite of a Liberal Revolution 
 or two, I can no longer be satisfied with 
 fictitious morals and fictitious good conduct, 
 shedding fictitious glory on robbery, starva- 
 tion, disease, crime, drink, war, cruelty, 
 cupidity, and all the other commonplaces of 
 civilisation which drive men to the theatre 
 to make foolish pretences that such things 
 are progress, science, morals, religion, 
 patriotism, imperial supremacy, national 
 greatness and all the other names the 
 newspapers call them. On the other hand, 
 I see plenty of good in the world working 
 itself out as fast as the idealists will allow 
 it ; and if they would only let it alone and 
 learn to respect reality, which would include 
 
Bernard Shaw 127 
 
 the beneficial exercise of respecting them- 
 selves, and incidentally respecting me, we 
 should all get along much better and faster. 
 At all events, I do not see moral chaos and 
 anarchy as the alternative to romantic con- 
 vention ; and I am not going to pretend 
 that I do merely to please the people who 
 are convinced that the world is only held 
 together by the force of unanimous, strenu- 
 ous, eloquent, trumpet-tongued lying. To 
 me the tragedy and comedy of life lie in 
 the consequences, sometimes terrible, some- 
 times ludicrous, of our persistent attempts 
 to found our institutions on the ideals sug- 
 gested to our imaginations by our half-satis- 
 fied passions, instead of on a genuinely 
 scientific natural history. And with that 
 hint as to what I am driving at, I withdraw 
 and ring up the curtain. 
 
 This overture is admirable in its sum- 
 mary of the themes which follow. No 
 other dramatist could have stated them so 
 forcibly, and if the wind instruments tend 
 to drown the strings, that is the penalty of 
 a wild Valkyrie ride against civilisation 
 and all its works. The power is there. 
 Shaw rides the whirlwind and directs the 
 storm. 
 
 So far, then, his is programme music for 
 
128 Modern Dramatists 
 
 the brass band. And the symphony? 
 The rhapsody ? The concerto ? The 
 delicately adjusted score of the artist 
 craftsman ? Here the trouble begins. 
 Shaw understands the aim of drama ; he 
 has defined it, discussed it, analysed it. 
 He has provided criticism with a whole 
 armoury of weapons, and some of them 
 must be turned against himself. In an 
 earlier passage of the preface to " Plays 
 Pleasant," for example, he remarks : — 
 
 When a comedy is performed, it is 
 nothing to me that the spectators laugh. 
 Any fool can make an audience laugh. I 
 want to see how many of them, laughing or 
 grave, are in the melting mood. 
 
 That " melting mood " is the test of 
 all drama. It does not depend upon any 
 one emotion. It may be called into being 
 by the triumphant fanfare of the bugle, or 
 the rhythmic sway of the violins, or the 
 tremulous sweetness of the flute. It is 
 yielding and yet inexorable. It judges the 
 dramatist with the simpHcity of a child, 
 and yet with the sternness of unchanging 
 law. Dialectics and sentimentality leave 
 
Bernard Shaw 129 
 
 it unmoved, but it vibrates to beauty like 
 an echo. 
 
 How often, in all his plays, has Bernard 
 Shaw called forth the melting mbod ? 
 The passages can almost be counted upon 
 the fingers of one hand. At the close of 
 the second and fourth acts of " Mrs. 
 Warren's Profession " ; momentarily in 
 "Candida," " Caesar and Cleopatra," and 
 " The Devil's Disciple " ; oftener in the 
 first two acts of " Major Barbara " and in 
 "John Bull's Other Island"; once in 
 " The Doctor's Dilemma" — not in the 
 deathbed scene, but upon the terrace at 
 Richmond. In the later plays, never. 
 The " conversation in three acts," the 
 " debate in one sitting," and the "sermon 
 in crude melodrama " may titillate the 
 intellect, but they fail to arouse emotion. 
 They stand condemned by their author. 
 
 I take one other sentence from the 
 preface quoted above : — 
 
 To me the tragedy and comedy of life lie 
 in the consequences, sometimes terrible, 
 sometimes ludicrous, of our persistent 
 attempts to found our institutions on the 
 ideals suggested to our imaginations by our 
 
 9 
 
130 Modern Dramatists 
 
 half-satisfied passions, instead of on a 
 genuinely scientific natural history. 
 
 The tragedy of life, let it be noted. 
 Shaw has made one attempt to write a 
 tragedy in " The Doctor's Dilemma," and 
 he has failed utterly. The dying artist 
 Dubedat is not a tragic figure ; there is no 
 greatness in him. He is a more egregious 
 poseur than Sergius in " Arms and the 
 Man," or Napoleon in " The Man of 
 Destiny." His death is a harlequinade. 
 His final speech is a dialectical adventure, 
 a proclamation of belief in " Michael 
 Angelo . . . the majesty of colour and 
 the might of design." Life must first be 
 made real before death can be made tragic. 
 And Dubedat is never real. There is no 
 more life in him than in the ventriloquist's 
 dummy. He sits upon his maker's knee, 
 mouthing phrases as the strings are pulled, 
 grinning pertly at the gods. . . . 
 
 I turn to the question of passion. 
 Drama is a symphony of the passions. 
 The melting mood is their sway of the 
 hearer. [Shaw's plays have one passion, 
 smd one only — that of indignation. 
 Indignation against hypocrisy and lying. 
 
Bernard Shaw 131 
 
 against prostitution and slavery, against 
 poverty, dirt and disorder. John Tanner's 
 whirling arms sweep the field. The 
 bubble of pomposity is neatly pricked ; it 
 bursts in a glittering shower, leaving 
 Roebuck Ramsden annihilated. Mrs. 
 Warren, too, brims over with fine indigna- 
 tion — although some of it rings a little 
 false. [The view of her profession as 
 created solely by poverty and economic 
 stress is only the respectable propagandist 
 view. " It's not work that any woman 
 would do for pleasure, goodness knows ; 
 though to hear the pious people talk you 
 would suppose it was a bed of roses." 
 This passage ought surely to belong to the 
 Plays for Puritan^ Wedekind goes deeper 
 into the same subject ; his "Erdgeist" 
 presents the other side.] 
 
 Keegan's indignation in "John Bull's 
 Other Island " is subtler and finer, but it 
 remains the same passion. And so with 
 Larry Doyle. Who but Shaw could have 
 built the first act of a play out of his con- 
 versation with Broadbent, with no material 
 but stupid English good-nature on the one] 
 hand and faerce Irish indignation on the' 
 
 9—3 
 
132 Modern Dramatists 
 
 other ? Or take Morell and Eugene 
 Marchbanks in " Candida." A conflict oi 
 two wills, of two individualities ? There 
 is no point of contact. The person of 
 Candida is only the apparent issue ; 
 actually she is always a spectator. The 
 conflict is between two indignations ; 
 Morell's directed against the loafer as a 
 part of the world's waste, Eugene's against 
 sermons and scrubbing-brushes. The 
 same struggle arises in " You Never Can 
 Tell." Crampton is indignant with his 
 family ; the family is indignant with him. 
 Gloria is indignant with Valentine, 
 McComas with the twins. The cross- 
 currents make all the drama of the play. 
 The first act of " Major Barbara," again, 
 depends upon Lady Britomart, who is 
 indignation incarnate. In the second we 
 find Shirley indignant with society, Bill 
 Walker with the Salvation Army, Barbara 
 with the munificent Bodger and his 
 whisky. The third act passes in a refine- 
 ment of discussion. Undershaft is never 
 passionate. He translates his indignation 
 first into a creed of life, then into terms of 
 efiiciency. 
 
Bernard Shaw 133 
 
 How does Shaw succeed in making 
 drama of this solitary passion ? The 
 recipe is all his own. He makes the 
 indignation palatable by his wit. The 
 outburst creates a finely effective moment, 
 and the Shavian drama is no more than a 
 series of such moments. Persiflage links 
 them together and weaves illusion. The 
 wealth of criticism of life in the abstract 
 drowns for the instant the hearer's criticism 
 of life in the concrete as presented upon 
 the stage. This effect, however, cannot 
 always be sustained. The conversations 
 and debates which followed " Major 
 Barbara " have added nothing to Shaw's 
 work as a whole. They have only exposed 
 its weaknesses. The much-advertised new 
 form proved to be no more than an anti- 
 climax. It was as if the expert conjurer 
 should appear before the curtain just to 
 show " how it is done," exhibiting the 
 marked cards, the rabbit up his sleeve, the 
 box with a false bottom and the 
 mysterious silken handkerchief. Not that 
 these tools of the trade are necessarily 
 despicable. The dramatist, like any other 
 craftsman, is entitled to use all the exist- 
 
[34 Modern Dramatists 
 
 ng devices and to invent others if he can. 
 intrinsically they are worth precisely their 
 veight in illusion. But illusion without 
 Irama is impossible. Even the Shavian 
 vit cannot make bricks without straw. 
 
 To sum up. Shaw's service to drama 
 iS first and foremost the revelation of a 
 personality engaged in criticism of life. 
 With one passion and much wit he has 
 ^iven this criticism dramatic force. 
 Secondly, he has created more vivid 
 Individual types than any other living 
 author. The Shaw woman and the Shaw 
 boy, the Shaw middle-aged fool and the 
 Shaw revolutionist, the Shaw preacher of 
 efficiency and the Shaw saviour of souls, 
 the Show poseur and the Shaw anti- 
 romanticist, represent phases of common 
 luman experience. Phases only, for they 
 ire types of reality intellectualised. There 
 s no complete portrait that can be called 
 yreat. There is none of that "broad 
 Alpine survey of the Comic Spirit," ex- 
 :olled by Meredith in the preface to " The 
 Egoist," which, while it " watches over 
 sentimentalism with a birch-rod," is never- 
 ;heless " not opposed to romance." 
 
Granville Barker 135 
 
 Ihaw's comic spirit mu$t be writ small ; 
 t has a narrow range. But (to quote 
 iirther from the same prelude) it " pro- 
 poses the correcting of pretentiousness, of 
 nflation, of dulness, and of the vestiges of 
 awnes^ and grossness to be found among 
 s." With that we must perforce be 
 ontent. 
 
 Granville Barker. 
 
 In the Shavian drama there are no "^ 
 eroes. Bluntschli triumphs over Sergius ; 
 larchbanks demoralises Morell ; even 
 ohn Tanner is put out of countenance by 
 traker, and in spite of Keegan Broadbent 
 onquers Ireland. Shaw tore the hero 
 mb from limb, and Mr. Barker is engaged 
 1 piecing him together once again. But 
 'hat a hero ! He has been reconstructed 
 pon strictly Shavian lines, dispassionately 
 nd without romance. At present he 
 ppears something of an invalid ; pallid, 
 arely convalescent, bloodless, hobbling ^/ 
 pon the crutches of intellect into the 
 ansulting-room of wit. ' He suffers from 
 
 superfluity of grey matter. And his 
 ame is Edward Voysey Trebell Philip 
 
136 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Madras. (Note the Edward and the 
 Philip : they are men of open mind.) 
 
 Will the patient recover? That is a 
 vital question for the English drama. The 
 classical Shavian feeding-cup has given 
 out, and of late he has been nourished 
 upon questionable patent medicines, from 
 " Getting Married " to " Press Cuttings." 
 " Misalliance " was a bitter draught, and 
 its only effect seems to have been to 
 make him more loquacious. Recently he 
 entered " The Madras House " at the rise 
 of the curtain, planted himself with his 
 back to the fire and his hands in his coat- 
 tails, and remarked, " Well, Tommy, 
 what are the two most important things 
 in a man's life ? His attitude towards 
 money and his attitude towards women." 
 That is Edward Voysey Trebell Philip 
 Madras all over. He is conscientiously, 
 perseveringly, even laboriously engaged in 
 discovering — an attitude. Not a pose 
 (for Edward-Philip is always sincere) 
 but a point of view, a philosophy. This 
 in itself differentiates him from the 
 characters of Shaw, and acquits Mr. 
 Barker of the charge of mere imitation. 
 
Granville Barker 137 
 
 In " The Voysey Inheritance " Edward- 
 Philip's problem was one of personal and 
 family honour. He attacked it patiently, 
 but it cannot be said that he solved it. 
 The truth is that the hero of " The Voysey 
 Inheritance " never counts for very much. 
 The play is chiefly remarkable for its 
 extraordinarily vivid portrait of an English 
 middle-class family. Its appearance was 
 a landmark in realist drama. 
 
 In "Waste" Edward-Philip had leapt 
 from the solicitor's office to the Cabinet, 
 and was occupied in disestablishing the 
 Anglican Church. The project was 
 destroyed by a passing intimacy with a 
 woman, and Trebell shot himself. If the 
 Disestablishment ideal had been more 
 convincing, " Waste " would have been a 
 great tragedy. As it is, Trebell remains 
 the backbone of Edward Voysey Trebell 
 Philip Madras. 
 
 In his reincarnation in " The Madras 
 House " we find him, appropriately 
 enough, a few rungs lower upon the 
 political ladder. Philip Madras is merely 
 a candidate for the London County 
 Council. His attitude towards the world 
 
138 Modern Dramatists 
 
 in general is vaguer than in " Waste " : 
 his attitude towards women an affair of 
 groping generalities, typically expressed in 
 the phrase " I hate this farmyard world of 
 sex." A reminiscence of the Disestablish- 
 ment catastrophe seems to linger here. 
 Moreover, Philip Madras apparently had 
 the misfortune to marry the heroine of 
 " The Voysey Inheritance ",m the person 
 of Jessica, and the further "hiisfortune of 
 failing to inherit his father Constantine's 
 polygamous instincts. Hence his some- 
 what querulous speeches. Once again he 
 drops back into the position of the hero 
 who doesn't matter. 
 
 He remains the hero, however, Edward- 
 Philip is always intimately personal in his 
 attitudes. He is Mr. Barker's Old Man 
 of the Sea. He must bestride every play] 
 with a politely inquisitive air, merging 
 occasionally into the half-defiant dogma- 
 tism of uncertainty. In the Dumas- 
 Sudermann-Pinero school of comedy the 
 hero says little, but acts heroically. 
 Eloquence is left to the raisonneur. Mr. 
 Barker, by fusing the two, has invented a 
 new stage type, the hero-raisonneur, a 
 
Granville Barker 139 
 
 person who does little, but talks heroically 
 He has not yet shown that the new type 
 is better than the old. The raisonneur as 
 middle-aged moralist and universal pur- 
 veyor of popular philosophy is now happily 
 almost extinct. The length of his speeches 
 was only equalled by the largeness of his 
 heart. It was his function to radiate 
 optimism in thought, sentimentality in 
 feeling. He had one great advantage, 
 however. He recognised the existence of 
 emotion, passion and romance as realities 
 to other people, if not to himself ; and he 
 contemplated them from the standpoint of 
 reasonableness. Mr. Barker's attempt to 
 Shavianise him and to renew his youth 
 must fail. Edward Voysey Trebell Philip 
 Madras regards himself and every one else 
 from the standpoint of pure reason. His 
 passions are confined strictly to the 
 Ethical Church and the London County 
 Council. Sex is merely a physical fact 
 which gets in his way from time to time 
 and threatens to make shipwreck of 
 efficiency. He contemplates emotion in 
 general with cold distaste. Theoretically, 
 as an educated citizen of the late 
 
140 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Edwardian era, he believes in the equality 
 of men and women. Actually nothing 
 would suit him better than that women 
 should be restricted to the harem. His 
 philosophy is at war with expediency, not 
 with feeling. He thrusts at the world 
 with all the brutality of pure intellect, 
 then recoils querulously to make up his 
 mind. The attitude remains undiscovered. 
 That is the history of the hero-raisonneur. 
 Let us glance at the other characters, 
 especially at Mr. Barker's women. They 
 are all passionless. Only rarely do they 
 give way even to Shavian indignation. 
 They seem to say, " We are rational 
 people. We are open to conviction. We 
 have read Bernard Shaw. We belong to 
 a period. We are persons of taste. We 
 dislike this disorderly world and we are 
 endeavouring to create an attitude towards 
 it." There are exceptions. Ann Leete 
 and the gardener, for example. Why did 
 Ann Leete marry the gardener ? Why did 
 the gardener marry Ann Leete ? They 
 cannot quite explain. They have no 
 conscious attitude. That is not neces- 
 sarily their misfortune. Can it be 
 
John Galsworthy 141 
 
 altogether accidental that in the final 
 scene of this first play, where the gardener 
 lights Ann up the cottage stairs upon the 
 marriage night, Mr. Barker gave us a 
 touch of beauty that he has never since 
 attained ? That was before the days of 
 Edward Voysey Trebell Philip Madras. 
 As for the remaining characters, we must 
 agree with them. They are eminently 
 rational. 
 
 John Galsworthy. 
 
 Mr. Galsworthy has reaffirmed the ^ 
 existence of the common man ; an indi- 
 vidual long ignored upon the English 
 stage. The West End society drama had 
 no place for him. The man in the 
 drawing-room is not upon speaking terms 
 with the man in the street. Epigrammatic 
 comedy gave him no part, for the common 
 man does not deal in epigrams. The 
 music halls burlesqued him, figuring him 
 only with a battered silk hat, a red nose 
 and a pair of parti^coloured trousers. 
 Even melodrama^ failed to represent him 
 fairly, for the common man is not addicted 
 
142 Modern Dramatists 
 
 to crime, Bernard Shaw, engaged in 
 bombarding the very civilisation in which 
 the common man believes, burlesqued him 
 as completely as the music hall, stuffed 
 him with persiflage to bursting point, and 
 hurled him at the social order as a new 
 weapon of offence. 
 
 At this point Mr. Galsworthy arrived. 
 To all appearance he might never have 
 read a line of Shaw, but he had just as 
 little in common with Sir Arthur Pinero. 
 The Court Theatre opened its doors and 
 Mr. Galsworthy walked in. He proceeded 
 at once to set up his pair of scales upon 
 the stage and to test the social values. 
 In the one pan a Liberal member of 
 Parliament and his son ; in the other 
 Mrs. Jones, the charwoman, and her 
 husband. As a makeweight the silver 
 box. Here we see at once that inter- 
 penetration of classes which distinguishes 
 Mr. Galsworthy. As in the novel " Fra- 
 ternity," and the plays "Strife" and 
 "Justice," he refuses to accept the class 
 divisions which separate ordinary West 
 End drama from life as a whole. He 
 takes up the floor of the drawing-room 
 
John Galsworthy 143 
 
 and shows us the kitchen. He examines 
 the psychology of the butler as minutely 
 as that of the member of Parliament. 
 He follows the charwoman home to her 
 tenement dwelling. He gives us the 
 history of her husband in search of work. 
 He introduces the solicitor, the detective, 
 the prostitute. He accompanies the 
 police-court missionary upon his rounds. 
 He sits upon the bench with the magis- 
 trate. Each of these persons moves upon 
 a separate daily round, a separate social 
 plane ; but he brings them all together 
 and makes drama of their lives. BrieflyT" 
 his case is this. No one can live his own 
 life merely by virtue of possessing a 
 thousand a year. No class can seal itself J 
 hermetically from others. Mrs. Jones' 
 children will come and cling to the railings 
 of the area, and even through the closed 
 window their crying can be heard. One 
 day there arises a petty complication, a 
 workmen's strike, a moment of folly or 
 crime, and the sky-scraper civilisation 
 collapses. We are all on the ground floor 
 together, scrambling. The graduated 
 coinage of society is in the melting-pot. 
 
144 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Interest fights interest upon common 
 
 \ ground. 
 
 Upon that common ground stands Mr. 
 Galsworthy with his pair of scales. He 
 is scrupulously fair. Even in a drama of 
 the vices no virtue escapes his noticej 
 No individual is altogether a blackguard. 
 
 \ " The Silver Box," in some respects the 
 most one-sided of his plays, shows this 
 discrimination clearly. The Liberal 
 member of Parliament means well. If 
 he does not understand Jones' unemploy- 
 ment, at least he is always prepared to 
 " ask a question in the House." His 
 wife is unscrupulous, but only in defence 
 of her son. The son himself, although 
 a vicious type, is amiable enough. He 
 has a rudimentary notion of playing the 
 game. Jones did not steal the silver box; 
 he " took it " half-contemptuously while 
 he was in liquor. The magistrate is 
 kindly. The police-court trial is as fair 
 as it can humanly be considering the 
 balance of interests. Jones is sent to 
 prison, it is true, in order to prevent a 
 newspaper scandal. But " one law for 
 the rich and another for the poor " is not 
 
John Galsworthy i4f( 
 
 merely a propagandist cry ; it is a platitude. 
 The trial scene is as mechanically inevit- 
 able as all the forces which move Mr. 
 Galsworthy's characters. The limitations 
 of free will are narrow. In a social crisis 
 the common man is helpless. He must 
 accept his fate for good or evil. " The 
 Silver Box " is an indictment of society, 
 although not one of its characters would 
 accept it as such. It is more than an 
 indictment — a complete trial, in which 
 Mr. Galsworthy appears both for the 
 prosecution and the defence. 
 
 In " Joy " he failed because the subject 
 did not suit him. Still the balance of 
 pleading is honourably adjusted. On the 
 one hand the mother of middle age with 
 a lover ; on the other the daughter who 
 cannot comprehend until she, too, dis- 
 covers romance. In " Strife " he returned 
 to social drama on the larger scale. Here 
 class meets class once more. A strike of 
 quarrymen brings them together. The 
 conflict appears at first sight individual, 
 for two figures, the chairman of the 
 employing firm and the leader of the 
 strikers, stand out clearly from the rest. 
 
 ID 
 
146 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Actually neither drives. Both are driven. 
 " Strife," like "Justice " and " The Silver 
 Box," is an interplay of forces rather than 
 of persons. The collective will to resist 
 concentrates upon either hand in the 
 strongest individuality. In the quarry- 
 men's leader it is active ; in the old 
 employer obstinate and passive. The 
 lesser characters propose compromise, 
 offer sympathy, attempt reconciliation ; 
 but the forces are too strong for them. 
 The play ends with a settlement which 
 might have been made at the beginning. 
 The balance remains steady. 
 J In "Justice" the scales are loaded J 
 Mr. Galsworthy is as fair as ever to 
 individuals, but he attacks deliberately a 
 part of the social system that they havg/ 
 created. In the first act we learn that 
 William Falder, a clerk in a lawyer's 
 office, has stolen eighty-one pounds for 
 the purpose of carrying off the woman 
 whom he loves and rescuing her from a 
 brutal husband. He is found out, arrested 
 and sentenced to three years' penal servi- 
 tude at the following assizes. The third 
 act shows him in solitary confinement. 
 
John Galsworthy 147 
 
 and in the fourth, returning to the world 
 after two years on ticket-of-leave, he finds 
 conditions against him, is arrested again 
 for forging testimonials, and commits 
 suicide. That is, baldlj- stated, the history 
 of WiUiam Falder. He is no heroic figure 
 pursued by Fate ; nothing but a pitiful 
 creature who is not wanted, an unsolved 
 problem in a world too busy with its own 
 affairs to study him. It is his life that is 
 pitiful ; his death brings nothing but a 
 feeling of intense relief. 
 
 Mr. Galsworthy has named this play a 
 tragedy. Just as Mr. Barker has created 
 a new type in the hero-raisonneur, so he 
 has created a new form in the tragedy 
 without a hero. There is not a single 
 person in "Justice" whose removal could 
 be a loss to the world in any but a limited 
 personal sense ; no one (with the possible 
 exception of the counsel for the defence) 
 who could conceivably entertain a univer- 
 sally valuable idea ; no one with the 
 individual power and passion which alone 
 can give inspiration to drama. Lawyers 
 and clerks, judge, jury and officers of the 
 court ; governor, warders and chaplain of 
 
 10 — 2 
 
148 Modern Dramatists 
 
 the prison — ^they all exist by the thousand, 
 and they could all be replaced a hundred 
 times a day. They go about their work 
 as slaves of inexorable law. Their human 
 feelings, their kindliness and sympathy, 
 are the emotions of people who, in the 
 midst of a world unknown, and therefore 
 presumably hostile, find two friendly camps 
 of men and women like-minded to them- 
 selves — the family and the office — and 
 cling to both as instinctively as sheep 
 huddle beneath a hedge for shelter from 
 the drifting snow. There is no colour, no 
 mystery, no surprise about them. We 
 can see not only their part in the passing 
 incidents of the play, but the whole round 
 of their lives. They may be interesting or 
 uninteresting personally, but their chief 
 business in life is to be a part of the social 
 machinery. William Falder is one of 
 them. He becomes entangled in the 
 machinery, and it crushes him. The pro- 
 cess is as mechanical as an execution. 
 One feels that it is inhuman, barbaric, 
 detestable ; but never that it is tragic. It 
 arouses anger and pity, not inspiration. 
 And inspiration is the test of tragedy. In 
 
John Galsworthy 149 
 
 the conflict of gods and men the sense of 
 the tragic depends upon the greatness of 
 the protagonists. He who fights well 
 cannot but die nobly. Mr. Galsworthy's 
 Falder does not fight at all, and he dies 
 like a rat in a trap. 
 
 It should be the tritest commonplace to 
 say that no playwright can make great 
 drama out of little people. The naturalistic 
 drama has had opportunities enough in 
 Europe during the past thirty years, and 
 it has justified itself only in proportion 
 as it has created exceptional figures and 
 splashed the grey background of actuality 
 with living colours ; in proportion, that is 
 to say, as it has become unnaturalistic. 
 Its naturalism is then only external. Mr. 
 Galsworthy's is internal. The characters 
 of " Justice " are grey at heart. The play 
 has many extraordinarily moving passages. 
 It is a fine destructive attack upon solitary 
 confinement as a part of the prison system, 
 but it is not a tragedy, and it is not great 
 drama. Mr. Galsworthy has a place of 
 his own upon the modern stage. Every 
 play of his has a strongly marked indi- 
 vidual atmosphere ; his characters are 
 
150 Modern Dramatists 
 
 distinctive without being distinguished. 
 He understands the limitations of the 
 theatre as well as its advantages, and he^ 
 has never sacrificed drama to dialectics^! 
 At the beginning of the newer movement 
 the English theatre was out of touch alike 
 with art, with ideas and with actual life. 
 The latter two are only accessories — but 
 let that pass. Bernard Shaw and Mr. 
 Barker brought the ideas ; in a measure, 
 too, the art. Mr. Galsworthy's preoccu- 
 pation is with actuality. A gulf still 
 remains. 
 
VII 
 
 AUSTRIA 
 
 SCHNITZLER AND HOFMANN- 
 STHAL 
 
 Arthur Schnitzler 
 
 The Austrian and the German drama 
 are often confused. In reality, they have 
 nothing in common but language, and the 
 difference between them maybe measured 
 by the difference between the spirit of 
 Berlin and the spirit of ViennaJ The 
 German playwrights reflect phases of 
 their national temperament clearly enough. 
 Sudermann, for example, is always heavily 
 Prussian. The stucco palaces of " Die 
 Ehre " and " Sodoms Ende " belong 
 essentially to upper middle class Berlin ; 
 the farms and country houses of " Johan- 
 nisfeuer" and "Das Gliick im Winkel" are 
 as distinctively North German as their 
 pastors are Protestant. Hauptmann's 
 legendary plays are built of German 
 mythology, and even his Silesian peasant 
 
152 Modern Dramatists 
 
 dramas gravitate naturally towards the 
 Northern capital. Wedekind's laborious 
 introspection and substantial satire are 
 German to the core. 
 
 Schnitzler is just as distinctively Aus- 
 trian. Dramatically Berlin belongs to" 
 the bourgeoisie; Vienna is a city of the 
 aristocrats] Schnitzler, like most of the 
 modern Viennese playwrights, is content 
 to take as his theme only a few scenes 
 from life, and even in those few scenes he 
 recurs continually to a single passage. 
 No wind instruments for him ; he is a 
 master of the strings. To the Northern 
 playwrights he leaves the wild barbaric 
 march, to the Maeterlinckian symbolists 
 the tone-poem. His dramatic method is 
 the intellectualisation, the refinement of 
 the Viennese waltz. The most famous of 
 his plays is " Liebelei " (in the English 
 version " Light o' Love," literally " Flirta- 
 tion "). But in reality they are all Liebelei, 
 from " Anatol " to the " Komtesse Mizzi." 
 The moralist will find " flirtation " a 
 euphemism, fBut Schnitzler has nothing 
 to do with moralists or morality. \ His 
 subject is always the same — the lover and 
 
Schnitzler 153 
 
 a mistress or two. It is treated gracefully 
 enough, with little passion and much 
 gentle melancholy, little humour and •- 
 much wit. His power lies chiefly in '^ 
 the creation of an atmosphere — a dim 
 twilight atmosphere as of autumn even- 'J 
 ings crowded with reminiscence. It is inde- 
 scribably charming and completely aim- 
 less ; a dream world as magical as that of 
 any symbolist, yet unsymbolic. Tragic 
 problems arise from time to time, as in 
 " Der einsame Weg " or " Der Ruf des 
 Lebens," but for the most part Schnitzler 
 moves upon the plane of comedy. The 
 crisis arrives, the catastrophe occurs ; but 
 it is an intimately personal catastrophe, 
 accepted with ironical resignation by the 
 aristocrat-hero, and added with a sigh to 
 his repertory of experience. That aristo- 
 crat-hero is Schnitzler's most characteristic 
 figure. " New mistresses for old " is his 
 eternal problem, and an imp is ever at his 
 elbow, whispering that the old were better. 
 Still he must obey the law of his own 
 nature, and he accepts the necessity of 
 change as he accepts all else in his life, 
 good-naturedly. The women come and 
 
154 Modern Dramatists 
 
 go. They arrive timidly, half-conscious 
 only of their power. They yield, and for 
 a while some tiny raftered room with 
 latticed windows, discreetly hidden in a 
 narrow by-way of the city, is made the 
 meeting-place. Freshly gathered flowers 
 are arranged upon the table, set for two. 
 The lamp is lit, the curtains are drawn. 
 The old housekeeper, discreeter even than 
 her dwelling, moves noiselessly to serve 
 the dishes and withdraws. The two are 
 left together ; a gentleman of upper-class 
 Vienna, a lady of any class, or none. 
 " We have seen this comedy before," you 
 say at first. " It is sordid, sensuous, 
 contemptible." It is none of these, for 
 Schnitzler is a magician. An honourable 
 magician, moreover. His work is never 
 ugly. He avoids sensuality by his honesty 
 as an artist. There is nothing unnatural, 
 nothing immoral, nothing even furtive for 
 him in the relationship of lover and mis- 
 tress. A certain discretion is preserved 
 — that is all. He traces the psychology 
 of the intimacy. Within the limits he has 
 chosen for himself, he tells everything that 
 can be told, and much that the lesser 
 
Schnitzler 155 
 
 artist is afraid to tell. Efe:tails of circum- 
 stance are nothing to him, moods every- 
 thing. His drama depends upon a crisis 
 in the lives of two people ; the inevitable 
 passing from old relationships to new. 
 No flash of thought escapes him. He 
 records every motive. In the crisis itself 
 there can be no compromise. The break, 
 must come when one of the lovers desires 
 it, however faintly. As long as Romance 
 spreads her wings, the intimacy lasts ; the 
 instant they are folded it must come to an 
 end at whatever cost of suffering. That 
 is the first condition of equality between 
 men and women ; a brutal condition, but 
 one which must be faced. In the moment 
 of parting pity is a dishonourable emotion, 
 chivalry the grossest form of patronage, 
 sentimentality a nauseous drug. Even 
 the most cynical frankness is fairer, and 
 that is Schnitzler's weapon. He analyses 
 the transition moment in scenes such as 
 those of "Anatol." Outwardly, between 
 the lovers, all is just as it was upon the 
 first evening ; inwardly everything is 
 changed. The man must be free. 
 Conversation grows lame. At last the 
 
156 Modern Dramatists 
 
 explanation comes, and the woman 
 departs ; sometimes with frankly out- 
 stretched hand and a glance of under- 
 standing, sometimes helplessly in tears 
 or riotously in a storm of indignation. 
 For these latter types the man has only 
 a shrug of the shoulders as he lights 
 a cigarette. They offend his sense of 
 decorum and compel him to regard them 
 as inferiors. For the others he bears a 
 touch of melancholy as a sign of mourning. 
 He will think of them in future twilight 
 moods. . . . But a few weeks later he 
 will hire a new room in another by-way 
 (not the same room, for that would be 
 unbeautiful) for the reception of another 
 mistress, and the old light o' love will pass 
 to a new lover. There are the Schnitzler 
 hero and the Schnitzler heroine. They 
 have most of the vices of their city and 
 the quintessence of its charm ; frivolity 
 tinged with regret and intrigue with grace. 
 I have touched here especially upon 
 the types and the setting of the one-act 
 cycle " Anatol " because they convey the 
 Schnitzler atmosphere most clearly. The 
 situations are not literally rendered ; they 
 
Schnitzler 157 
 
 change just as moods change, and are 
 woven into different forms. " Anatol " 
 represents the comedy of the lover-mistress 
 motive, " Liebelei " the tragedy. In the 
 former the man is the central figure ; in 
 the latter the woman. In " Liebelei " 
 Christine meets her philanderer, and 
 makes a hero of him. She becomes his 
 mistress, and lives on in a dream-world 
 of her own. Her hero is killed in a duel 
 fought on behalf of another woman — and 
 that is all. Of Christine it can only be 
 said that she is as great a woman as is 
 possible in the Schnitzler world : a world 
 devised for men as surely as that of 
 Strindberg, and in effect, although uncon- 
 sciously, as contemptuous of women. 
 The misogynist, indeed, is a lesser enemy 
 of feminism than the philanderer. He is 
 only the mouthpiece of ideas, not the 
 arbiter of fates. 
 
 " Liebelei " was followed by the longer 
 plays " Freiwild " and " Das Vermachtnis." 
 They represent the nearest approach that! 
 Austrian drama has made to the social 
 problem play and the modernity move- 
 ment of other countries. In social 
 
158 Modern Dramatists 
 
 problems, however, Schnitzler is really 
 out of his element. He has satirised 
 the duel a thousand times more subtly 
 than Sudermann in " Die Ehre" ; he has 
 ridiculed militarism, semitism, and anti- 
 semitism, the government and the revolu- 
 tionary parties. But his interests are not 
 primarily political or social, any more 
 than they are domestic^ In " Reigen " 
 he returns to the drama of personal 
 moods. " Anatol " consists of seven 
 scenes, " Reigen " of ten, a complete 
 cycle of duologues, each between a man 
 and a woman. More than duologues, 
 however : scenes from life. They pass 
 consecutively : A prostitute and a soldier. 
 The soldier and a parlourmaid. The 
 parlourmaid and a young gentleman. 
 The young gentleman and a young lady. 
 The young lady and her husband. The 
 husband and a girl. The girl and a poet. 
 The poet and an actress. The actress 
 and a nobleman. The nobleman and the 
 prostitute. 
 
 There is the chain, stripped of the 
 romance of " Anatol " and reduced to a 
 vivisection of sex instinct, a post-mortem 
 
Hugo von Hofmannsthal 159 
 
 examination of passion. It is the work 
 of an artist weary of many adventures, 
 and disposed to regard life as nothing but 
 a round of stupid intrigue and cynical 
 reaction. 
 
 For the rest, Schnitzler has gone no 
 further dramatically than " Anatol " and 
 " Liebelei." The one-act cycles " Leben- 
 dige Stunden" and " Marionetten " are 
 new versions of the old story. " Kom- 
 tesse Mizzi" (1909) has all the old charm 
 and nothing more. One can have too 
 much of the twilight mood, the Viennese 
 lover and his mistress, the melancholy 
 and the grace. Everything that Schnitz- 
 ler has written or imagined is summed up 
 in the six hundred pages of his novel 
 " Der Weg ins Freie." There is the 
 search for the " path of freedom " that he 
 has never found. He has never made his 
 way out of the half-world into the real 
 world. But among the dramatists of the 
 half-world he is supreme. 
 
 Hugo von Hofmannsthal 
 
 Not long ago a provincial theatre was 
 opened in Germany with the inscription 
 
i6o Modern Dramatists 
 
 upon its proscenium : " Goethe, Haupt- 
 mann, Schiller, von Hofmannsthal." 
 This was something more than a Pan- 
 Germanic fanfare. It meant that in the 
 eyes of a vast number of people Haupt- 
 mann and Hugo von Hofmannsthal are 
 already canonised among the classic poets. 
 Let us examine Hofmannsthal's claim. 
 He published his first work in 1891 — at 
 the period, that is to say, of the Freie 
 Buhne in Berlin and the independent 
 Ibsenite theatres in the rest of Europe, 
 He had nothing to do with Ibsenism or 
 " movements," however, and very little to 
 do with the theatre. He was only seven- 
 teen years of age, and the influence under 
 which he had come was not that of the 
 new bourgeois drama (the term is used in 
 no sense of abuse) of Ibsen and Haupt- 
 mann, but that of Italian art. He was 
 known at this time under the pseudonym 
 of " Loris," and many guesses were made 
 at his identity. Hermann Bahr, the 
 Viennese critic and playwright, set him 
 down at first as a Frenchman writing in 
 the German language. Upon the assur- 
 ance that " Loris " was an Austrian, he 
 
Hugo von Hofmannsthal i6i 
 
 imagined him to be a diplomat-nobleman, 
 occupied, perhaps, in the Austrian Lega- 
 tion in Paris, and at fifty years of age 
 familiar enough with the world and its 
 literature. The illusion was disturbed by 
 "Loris" himself, who introduced himself 
 one day in the cafe, and proved to be a 
 youth of nineteen. In addition to many 
 poems and essays, he had already 
 published two complete verse-dramas, 
 " Gestern," the scene of which is laid " in 
 the time of the great painters," and " Der 
 Tod des Tizian." Hofmannsthal's re-^ 
 action against modern realism, then, 
 although an unconscious reaction, dates 
 from even earlier than the symbolism of 
 Maeterlinck and the Theatre de I'CEuvre. 
 He turned deliberately to a more heroicy^ 
 age in search of beauty. 
 
 The verse is, of course, untranslateable. 
 Without disrespect to Mr. Arthur Symons' 
 version of" Elektra," it must be remarked 
 that only once in a millennium can a 
 Schlegel be found to translate a Shake- 
 speare, and that for the most part poets 
 are better left to their own language. 
 With Hofmannsthal, who is as Viennese 
 
 II 
 
1 62 Modern Dramatists 
 
 as Schnitzler in the delicacy of his moods 
 and atmosphere, translation must always 
 be something of a travesty. I take one 
 passage from " Gestern " : — 
 
 Heut' ist ein Tag Corregios, reif ergluhend, 
 In ganzen Farben lachend, prangend, 
 
 biliihend, 
 Heut' ist ein Tag der iippigen Magnolien, 
 Der schwellenden, der reifen Zentifolien ; 
 Heut' nimm dein gelbes Kleid, das schwere, 
 
 reiche, 
 Und dunkelrote Rosen, heisse,weiche. . . . 
 Verlerntest du am Gestern nur zu halten, 
 Auf dieses Toten hohlen Ruf zu lauschen ; 
 Lass dir des Heute wechselnde Gewalten, 
 Genuss und Qualen durch die Seele 
 
 rauschen, 
 Vergiss das Unverstandliche, das war : 
 Das Gestern liigt, und nur das Heut'ist wahr ! 
 Lass dich von jedera Augenblicke treiben, 
 Das ist der Weg, dir selber treu zu bleiben. 
 Der Stimmung folg, die deiner niemals harrt, 
 Gib dich ihr bin, so wirst du dich bewahren. 
 Vor ausgelebten drohen dir Gefahren : 
 Und Liige wird die Wahrheit, die erstarrt ! 
 
 Two lines here : — 
 
 Heut' nimm dein gelbes Kleid, das schwere, 
 
 reiche, 
 Und dunkelrote Rosen, heisse, weiche. . . . 
 
Hugo von Hofmannsthal 163 
 
 are especially characteristic of the poet, 
 as much in the image they convey as in 
 their strangely haunting melody. The 
 heavy yellow robe, the dark red roses, may 
 appear to recall the Wilde-Beardsley 
 school ; but Hofmannsthal, even in his 
 earlier work, is never a decadent. Like 
 Schnitzler, he throws a veil of melancholy 
 over his characters ; that is all. They 
 are the types of " Anatol," transferred to 
 mediaeval Florence, and grown more 
 passionate and lyrical. Both melody and 
 image show an extraordinarily fastidious 
 choice of words ; and that is the most 
 distinctive gift of this poet-prodigy, who 
 at seventeen could absorb the art of cen- 
 turies and realise the emotions of a life- 
 time. There is little dramatic power in 
 " Gestern," and hardly more in " Der Tod 
 des Tizian." Both are records of the 
 first impressions of an artist — first love, 
 the first creative impulse and the first 
 glimpse of Italy. Even in the very names 
 of their characters — Desiderio, Fortunio, 
 Vespasiano, Fantasio, Tizianello and the 
 rest — they are musical. 
 
 Hofmannsthal's next play was " Der 
 
 11-^2 
 
164 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Tor und der Tod" (1893). The speeches 
 here are measured ; there is no overflow 
 of rhetoric, and the verse, in its form, its 
 substance and even its rhythm of sound, 
 moves into step with drama. The scene 
 is a room looking out upon a balcony and 
 an Italian garden. " Death and the 
 Fool " is the subject. Claudio, the Fool, 
 has lost his personality in egoism, 
 drowned his perceptions in artificiality, 
 and strangled his passions by self-analysis. 
 He is gifted, but from lack of feeling he 
 has never used his gifts. Death comes 
 to claim him ; Death with a violin. 
 Claudio is overwhelmed ; he cannot 
 believe that his hour has come. He 
 awakens to realities ; he wants life, love, 
 pain and pleasure — but, above all, life ! 
 A procession passes through the room — 
 his dead mother, his dead mistress, his 
 dead friend. While they lived they were 
 nothing to him. A Fool in the Scriptural 
 sense, this ; his granary filled with never- 
 tasted corn. In the moment of death he 
 understands, but it is too late : " Within 
 the room all is still. Death is seen to 
 pass the window, playing upon his violin. 
 
Hugo von Hofmannsthal 165 
 
 After him pass the mother and the 
 mistress, and close upon their heels a 
 figure bearing the likeness of Claudio." 
 
 There is the tragedy of the Fool. It is 
 a little play of rare beauty. Written 
 before he was twenty years of age, it 
 marks the close of what for Hofmannsthal 
 must be called his youthful period. The 
 treatment alone distinguishes him very 
 clearly both from Wilde and from the 
 French symbolists. 
 
 A number of short dramatic poems 
 followed between 1895 ^"'i i899> among 
 them " Die Frau im Fenster," " Der 
 Kaiser und die Hexe," " Das Kleine 
 Welttheater " and " Das Bergwerk in 
 Falun." Longer pieces are " Die Hoch- 
 zeit der Sobeide " and " Der Abenteurer 
 und die Sangerin." For the most part 
 these are only exercises in drama, some 
 of them effective, all of them exquisitely 
 written. They are still inspired by Italy, 
 but a gradual change of tone is noticeable 
 which seems to show that Hofmannsthal's 
 later choice of Greek tragedy in "Elektra" 
 and " Oedipus " was no haphazard choice 
 of a poet at a loss for subject-matter. 
 
1 66 Modern Dramatists 
 
 What is most important, however, in 
 these earUer works is not their plot 
 (always of the slightest), nor even the 
 decorative beauty of their language (as 
 well suited, in itself, to a volume of poems 
 as to drama), but their constant striving 
 after new verse-forms for the theatre. 
 All writers of verse-drama have made use 
 of a change of rhyme or metre in order to 
 obtain a certain dramatic effect. Among 
 the most familiar examples are the rhymed 
 couplet of the Shakespearean plays, used 
 to round off a speech or to add an air of 
 finality at the close of a scene, and the 
 change from verse to prose in certain 
 passages. Hofmannsthal uses both de- 
 vices freely, but in other respects he goes 
 much further than any poet before him. 
 His verse changes its form continually. 
 It is like a mountain lake upon an April 
 day, sensitive to the shadow of every 
 passing cloud and rippled afresh by every 
 gust of wind. Perhaps it would be toe 
 much to say that his verse has a new 
 metrical lilt for every emotion, but ir 
 many passages of the later plays ever 
 this is true. The Venetian play " Dei 
 
Hugo von Hofmannsthal 167 
 
 Abenteurer und die Sangerin " shows the 
 adaptation of rhythm to the passing mood 
 of drama. The following passage, for 
 example, is a fragment of pure fantasy, 
 carelessly conceived at first by the speaker, 
 then growing more lyrical as he warms to 
 his subject. Hofmannsthal has conveyed 
 this growth in the metrical form, which is 
 at first, casually irregular, breaks at the 
 third line, and rises again in the penta- 
 meter to a new imaginative climax. I 
 give below an unmetrical rendering which 
 may make clear the change of mood: — 
 
 An den Treppen sollen 
 Drei Gondeln hangen voller Musikanten 
 In meinen Farben. 
 Ich will den Campanile um und um 
 In Rosen und Narzissen wickeln. Droben 
 Auf seiner hochsten Spitze sollen F'lammen 
 Von Sandelholz, genahrt mit Rosenol 
 Den Leib der Nacht mit Riesenarmen 
 
 fassen. 
 Ich mach' aus dem Kanal ein fliessend 
 
 Feuer, 
 Streu' soviel Blumen aus, dass alle Tauben 
 Betaubt am Boden flattern, soviel Fackein 
 Dass sich die Fische angstvoU in den Grund 
 Des Meeres bohren. 
 
1 68 Modern Dramatists 
 
 (At the steps shall ride 
 Three gondolas, laden with musicians 
 In my livery. 
 
 I will wreathe the Campanile about 
 With roses and narcissi. Above, 
 Upon its topmost pinnacle, shall flames 
 Of sandalwood, fed upon attar of roses 
 Embrace the body of Night with giant arms. 
 I will make flowing fire of the canals, 
 Strew flowers so many that all doves 
 Shall flutter drunken to the ground, 
 Scatter so many torches that the fish shall 
 
 dive in fright 
 Into the depths of the sea.) 
 
 The verse here is more than decora- 
 tive. The flowing rhymes of " Gestern " 
 (schv\^ere, reiche . . . heisse, w^eiche) are 
 gone, and a new dramatic rhythm takes 
 their place. Even in " Gestern," how^ever, 
 the method is foreshadowed. The closing 
 scene shows a more clearly dramatic use 
 of the change of metre. The lover parts 
 from the mistress who has deceived him : — 
 
 Wir werden ruhig auseinander geh'n 
 Und ruhig etwa auch uns wiederseh'n. 
 Und dass du mich betrogen und meir 
 
 Lieben, 
 Davon ist kaum ein Schmerz zuriickgeb' 
 
 lieben. . . . 
 
Hugo von Hofmannsthal 169 
 
 Doch eines werd' ich niemals dir verzeih'n : 
 Dass du zerstort den warmen, lichten 
 
 Schein, 
 Der fur mich lag auf der entschwundenen 
 
 Zeit, 
 Und dass du die dem Ekel hast geweiht ! 
 
 (He beckons her to go. She goes out slowly through 
 the doo% on ihe right. He gazes after her. His 
 voice quivers, struggling with rising tears.) 
 
 Ick kann so gut verstehen die ungetreuen 
 
 Frauen. . . . 
 So gut, mir ist, als konnt' ich in ihre Seelen 
 
 schauen. 
 Ich seh' in ihren Augen die Lust, sich 
 
 aufzugeben, 
 Im Niegenossenen, Verbotenen zxx 
 
 beben .... 
 Die Lust am Spiel, die Lust, sich selber 
 
 einzusetzen. 
 Die Lust am Sieg und Rausch, am Triigen 
 
 und Verletzen, 
 Ich seh' ihr Lacheln und — die tOrichten, 
 
 die Tranen, 
 Das ratselhafte Suchen, das ruhelose 
 
 Sehnen, 
 Ich fiihle, wie sie's drangt zu tOrichten 
 
 Entschliissen, 
 Wie sie die Augen schliessen und wie sie 
 
 qualen miissen, 
 
lyo Modern Dramatists 
 
 Wie sie ein jedes Gestern fur jedes Heut 
 
 begraben, 
 Und wie sie nicht verstehen, wenn sie 
 
 getotet haben. 
 
 (Tears choke his voice. The curtain falls.) 
 
 The change of metre here, after the 
 departure of the beloved, marks the 
 dramatic change from reproach to reflec- 
 tion, from resentment to melancholy. 
 Beside such an inspiration of genius 
 the even roll of the iambic pentameter 
 appears flat and unexpressive. Apart 
 altogether from subject-matter,Hofmanns- 
 thal must be credited with having given 
 new life to verse-drama. In " Oedipus 
 und die Sphinx " the method is perfected. 
 The tragedy begins with the ordinary 
 iambic. Musically speaking, this metre 
 is Hofmannsthal's recitative. As the 
 drama develops, the verse breaks into 
 other forms : — 
 
 Voices of the Storm. 
 
 Die wir tote Konige sind, 
 
 Wir thronen im Wind — 
 
 Die wir gewaltig waren, '' 
 
 Uns schleift der Sturm an den Haaren, 
 
 Und dieser ist unser Sohn. 
 
Hugo von Hofmannsthal 171 
 
 Oedipus. 
 (his head bent to the earth, his hands stretched out) 
 
 Erde, du musst nun allein meine Mutter 
 
 sein. 
 Die stillen Wolken, die lauten Winde sind 
 
 meine Geschwister. 
 Ich hab' alles fortgegeben, 
 Nur dass ich dein Kind bin, das ist mein 
 
 Leben. 
 
 Voices of the Storm. 
 
 Unser Ringen und Raffen 
 Hat ihn erschaffen, 
 Herz und Gestalt, 
 Begierden und Qualen — 
 Er muss uns bezahlen, 
 Dass wir mit Gaben 
 Beladen ihn haben. 
 
 Er ist ein Konig und muss es leiden, 
 Und war' ein nackter Stein sein Thron : 
 
 Er ist unsres Blutes Sohn. 
 
 Oedipus. 
 Es redet nicht, es gibt keinen Schein, 
 Doch irgendwie dringt es in mich hinein, 
 Dass ich Vater und Mutter und Glanz und 
 
 Welt 
 Und alles, was das Herz erhellt 
 Nicht ganz vergeblich hingegeben habe. 
 Ich fuhr es um mich weben : ich werde noch 
 
 leben. 
 
172 Modern Dramatists 
 
 The Herald of Laios. 
 
 Boser Sturm, tiickisches Dunkel, kaum seh' 
 
 ich den Weg vor den Fiissen ! 
 Musst du, fremdes Land, so hasslich den 
 
 Herrn mir grussen ? 
 Steil die Strasse — da liegt ein Stein, dort 
 
 sperrt ein Baumstamm den Weg. 
 
 So the play runs on, passing from blank 
 verse to rhyme, from rhyme to irregular 
 metre, or again to prose. 
 
 Drama cannot live, however, by new 
 forms alone; and I turn now to Hofmanns- 
 thal's work as playwright. He has 
 become most widely known through 
 his modernisations of Greek legend 
 in " Elektra " and " Oedipus." The 
 " Elektra " has acquired a certain vogue 
 as the libretto of Strauss's opera, but 
 " Oedipus " is unquestionably the greater 
 play. Both are described as free adapta- 
 tions of Sophocles. The title-page of 
 " Oedipus und die Sphinx " bears the 
 quotation from Holderlin : " The surging 
 waves of the heart would never foam into 
 the heights of the soul, were it not that 
 they break upon the ancient, immovable 
 rock of Fate." There is the spirit of 
 
Hugo von Hofmannsthal 173 
 
 tragedy summed up in a single sentence. 
 The same inscription might have been 
 written upon the plays of Sophocles. 
 Hofmannsthal has followed him ; the only 
 question is whether his newer treatment 
 can be fruitful — ^whether it can have any 
 meaning for our time. 
 
 It must first be admitted that the legends 
 of Elektra and Oedipus, in themselves, are 
 of little consequence. Art made them 
 significant and gave them life. Art gave 
 them form ; in the case of Sophocles, 
 Attic form. It must be repeated that 
 drama can be no more, and no less, than 
 the expression of an individuality through 
 the medium of a craft. The individuality 
 itself inevitably depends upon the period, 
 the morality, the religion, the surround- 
 ings. When we say that " Oedipus Rex " 
 is an immortal tragedy, we mean that it is 
 an immortal work of art written by a man 
 individually great, and not that its super- 
 stition, its morality, its motive and its 
 setting are immortal. If the work of art 
 is great enough, itwill inevitably stereotype 
 and perpetuate the legend or the personages 
 of which it treats in a certain form ; that 
 
174 Modern Dramatists 
 
 is all. The form does not necessarily 
 bear any relation to historical truth or 
 fact ; it becomes a tradition. Sophocles 
 created such a tradition for his characters ; 
 Hofmannsthal seeks to create another. 
 
 But here the difficulty arises. The 
 setting of the Sophoclean tragedies was 
 an Attic setting. Their morality of revenge 
 was an Attic morality. Their Fate was 
 an Attic Fate. The Oracle, the Sphinx, 
 the gods — all of these may be the deter- 
 minant forces of Attic tragedy, but for us 
 they have no literal meaning. They were 
 stereotyped as ideas by Sophocles as 
 inevitably as the legends in which they 
 played a part were stereotyped. A 
 Viennese poet comes, fresh from rhymings 
 of renaissant Italy, and seeks to galvanise 
 them all into life — adulterous kings, inces- 
 tuous queens, seers and oracles and bloody 
 myths. They move as sleep-walkers 
 move, in a black mist. They scream of 
 passion ; they dance " nameless dances " ; 
 but they have no being. Hofmannsthal 
 has attempted the impossible. 
 
 I take the " Elektra " first. The verse 
 is perhaps the most beautiful that he has 
 
Hugo von Hofmannsthal 175 
 
 written. It is worthy of more than recita- 
 tion by these blood-bespattered ghosts, 
 whose pallor is not hidden by all the 
 coloured veils of metaphor. The " moderni- 
 sation " of Elektra herself consists chiefly 
 in endowing her with a certain wild-cat 
 animalism. She " crouches like a beast 
 in its lair." She paces upon a fixed 
 course " like a captive creature in a cage." 
 The change from Sophocles to Hofmanns- 
 thal is the change from a morality of 
 revenge to a thirst for revenge. With the 
 one, the murder of the guilty mother 
 satisfies the honour of a nation ; with the 
 other, it gratifies the sadistic lust of a 
 madwoman. This modern Elektra is 
 pathological to her ^nger-tips. She 
 belongs to the pages of Krafft-Ebing ; 
 never to the Attic landscape. Even the 
 pathology is artificial and "literary" 
 rather than dramatic. Hofmannsthal has 
 never entered into the emotions of his 
 tragedy ; he has only painted them in 
 words. "He proves himself a great — 
 artificer. 
 
 There is no academic question here of 
 the historical form of the legend, nor of 
 
176 Modern Dramatists 
 
 any defence of Sophocles against perver- 
 sion. The characters must be taken upon 
 their merits. They never live. 
 
 " Oedipus und die Sphinx " (1906) is a 
 completer, as well as a more ambitious, 
 work. I have referred already to its 
 originality of form. There is less 
 " modernisation " in the play than in 
 " Elektra," less oppressiveness in its 
 atmosphere ; but the figures have the 
 same inevitable unreality. They are no 
 more than pegs upon which is hung the 
 fabric of verse, and they remain as unreal 
 in the hour of triumph as Elektra in 
 the hour of approaching death. Oedipus 
 returns from the mountain cave, where the 
 Sphinx, instead of dragging him down into 
 the depths, has greeted him by name as 
 the deliverer. Jokaste sinks upon his arm 
 " like a broken flower," crying, " Ah, what 
 is it that we do ? " and he replies " The 
 blind deed of the gods." The people greet 
 him with shouts of "Hail to the King, the 
 unknown King ! '\ Kreon spreads his 
 cloak upon the ground, and Oedipus and 
 Jokaste pass triumphantly toward the 
 city. There is artifice here again, but 
 
Hugo von Hofinannsthal 177 
 
 little drama or conviction. It is all " a 
 blind deed of the gods " ; and already 
 modern Germanyis returningto Sophocles, 
 preferring to study its determinism at first 
 hand. 
 
 One other play by Hofmannsthal must 
 be mentioned ; the prose drama " Chris- 
 tinas Heimreise " (1910). It is altogether 
 uninspired, and must rank with Haupt- 
 mann's " Griselda " as a profoundly 
 disappointing piece which would never 
 have found its wSy on to any stage but 
 for the reputation of its author. It has no 
 more dramatic power than the early 
 dramatic fragments I have already men- 
 tioned ; and without verse it lacks their 
 charm. The failure, in Hofmannsthal's 
 case, need not be taken very seriously, for 
 he is still many years younger than Haupt- 
 mann, and he has proved himself to be a 
 greater artist. So far his completest work 
 lies in a little volume of collected poems 
 (Gesammelte Gedichte, igog), which con- 
 tains the now famous " Ballade des 
 ausseren Lebens " and also " Der Tod des 
 Tizian." His future lies beyond a doubt 
 in the writing of verse-drama. As to the 
 
 12 
 
178 Modern Dramatists 
 
 quality of the verse there can be no fear ; 
 there is every hope for the greatness of 
 the drama. 
 
 It is not easy to form any definite judg- 
 ment of a poet-dramatist of thirty-five, not 
 yet at the height of his powers. A con- 
 temporary Bavarian critic, Josef Hofmiller, 
 has perhaps summed up Hofmannsthal's 
 present achievement most clearly, and I 
 quote one passage from his essay on the 
 collected poems : — " Hofmannsthal's chief 
 danger lies in virtuosity. He is a philolo- 
 gist in the highest sense, and his peril is 
 the peril of the philologist — that of becom- 
 ing stiff and mannered through the beauty 
 of his inheritance of language, and of 
 seeking his own tone of expression in the 
 union of other tones, in themselves noble, 
 but together jarring and incongruous. 
 His works are perhaps the most aristo- 
 cratic of our time. Other literature 
 appears crude and clamorous beside them. 
 Their artistic austerity is such that other 
 literature seems mere babbling, devoid of, 
 style. There are some poems one can no 
 longer read, where one has read his. They 
 have timbre, rhythm, colour, light. . . . 
 
Hugo von Hofinannsthal 179 
 
 The verbal perfection of his youthful 
 dramas gave rise to the fear that he might 
 be a poetic phenomenon, like the pianist- 
 prodigies ; early ripe, early played out ; 
 flashing for a time and then forgotten. 
 Time has proved this fear to be ground- 
 less. ... Of all our German authors 
 to-day, he is the most distinctively 
 European." 
 
 I cannot leave the subject of Hofmanns- 
 thal without quoting the " Ballade des 
 ausseren Lebens " mentioned above : — 
 
 Und Kinder wachsen auf mit tiefen Augen, 
 Die von nichts wissen, wachsen auf und 
 
 sterben, 
 Und alle Menschen gehen ihrer Wege. 
 Und siisse Friichte werden aus den herben 
 Und fallen nachts wie tote Vogel nieder 
 Und liegen wenig Tage und verderben. 
 Und immer weht der Wind, und immer 
 
 wieder 
 Vernehmen wir und reden viele Worte 
 Und spiiren Lust und Mudigkeit der Glieder. 
 Und Strassen laufen durch das Gras, und 
 
 Orte 
 Sind da und dort, voll Fackeln, Baumen, 
 
 Teichen, 
 Und drohende, und totenhaft verdorrte. . . . 
 
 12 — 2 
 
i8o Modern Dramatists 
 
 Wozu sind diese aufgebaut und gleichen 
 Einander nie ? und sind unzahlig viele ? 
 Was wechselt Lachen, Weinen und Erb- 
 
 leichen ? 
 Was froramt das alles uns und diese Spiele, 
 Die wir doch gross und ewig einsam sind 
 Und wandernd nimmer suchen irgendZiele ? 
 Was frommt's, dergleichen viel gesehei^ 
 
 haben ? 
 Und dennoch sagt der viel, der " Abend " 
 
 sagt. 
 Ein Wort, daraus Tiefsinn und Trauer rinnt 
 Wie schwerer Honig aus den hohlen Waben. 
 
 There is immortal tragedy in these lines. 
 Their author remains the chief hope of lae 
 modern Theatre. 
 
VIII 
 RUSSIA 
 
 TOLSTOY, GORKY AND 
 TCHEKHOV 
 
 Tolstoy and Gorky 
 
 One characteristic all Russian play- 
 l^rights possess : a peculiar questioning of 
 life and a criticism of fundamentals. 
 Most of our dramatists are content to 
 accept the fact of life without demur. 
 Accepting it, they proceed to build their 
 drama upon life's institutions ; upon 
 marriage and the family, for example, or 
 upon class differences, politics and soci- 
 ology. Not so the Russians. They set 
 their note of interrogation, for the most 
 part, not against adultery or divorce or 
 oppression, but against life as an existing 
 fact. They question its meaning and 
 seek first its place in their philosophy. 
 
1 82 Modern Dramatists 
 
 This is a characteristic, of course, not 
 only of Russian drama, but of Russian 
 literature as a whole. In the theatre it 
 is responsible for the appearance of 
 incompleteness and incoherence which 
 marks most of the plays. There is little 
 technical accomplishment in Russian 
 drama. But at the same time it exhibits 
 the author's individuality most clearly, for 
 the playright who goes to the roots of life 
 must himself emerge with a philosophy, 
 even if it be one of pessimism. 
 
 Tolstoy and Gorky may be taken 
 together by way of illustration. Here 
 we have one subject visualised by two 
 different temperaments. The subject is 
 the Russian lower class. Tolstoy holds a 
 brief for the peasantry ; his types, there- 
 fore, are peasant types. Gorky is a 
 proletarian of the cities, and he finds 
 drama in the night shelter, the cheap 
 lodging-house, and the streets. Both 
 endeavour to express an attitude toward 
 life through their characters. 
 
 Of all the naturalists, Tolstoy conforms 
 most nearly to the naturalistic ideal in his 
 plays. There can be no doubt that this 
 
Tolstoy and Gorky 183 
 
 ideal was connected in the mind^ of its 
 earlier followers with the decivilisation of 
 art. The revolt against pseudo-romanti- 
 cism drove them to represent the actual, 
 and the revolt against upper-class drama 
 led them to seek inspiration among the 
 common people. Zola headed the move- 
 ment as far as Western Europe was 
 concerned, but Zola's types, although 
 proletarians for the most part, belonged 
 to a civilisation. They were decivilised 
 in their speech and action rather than in 
 their setting. Tolstoy was able, as a 
 Russian, to carry the naturalistic concep- 
 tion to its logical extreme. In his 
 " Power of Darkness," first produced by 
 the Parisian Theatre Libre early in 1888, 
 he portrayed what was to all intents and 
 purposes a state of barbarism ; a group of 
 peasants, remote and primitive, unfamiliar 
 to the rest of Europe, and yet monotonous ; 
 the whole picture relieved only by a 
 certain crude individual power. " The 
 Power of Darkness " has often been 
 quoted as the masterpiece of naturalism. 
 That it may be ; but it is not a master- 
 piece of drama. It has a certain grand 
 
184 Modern Dramatists 
 
 barbaric simplicity, and that is all. With 
 Tolstoy's other play, " The Fruits of 
 Culture," it was submerged by the coming 
 of Ibsen, who gave to realism the note of 
 distinction and differentiation which the 
 drama of the Russian peasantry could 
 never provide. It need hardly be said 
 that the author of "Anna Karenina " 
 proves himself to be a great creator of 
 individual types in both of these plays, 
 but what Europe awaited from drama at 
 the time of the Theatre Libre was not 
 merely character-drawing, but direction. 
 Ibsen showed the way, and Tolstoy was 
 left far behind. With the passing of each 
 year " The Power of Darkness " and 
 " The Fruits of Culture " seem more 
 remote ; and this impression is the 
 stronger when Tolstoy's own change of 
 philosophy in his later years is taken into 
 account. As far as Tolstoy the artist is 
 concerned, the change no doubt represents 
 a natural development rather than a con- 
 version. He always; believed in his 
 peasantry, even though their simplicity of 
 life should spell preference for squalor ; 
 their simplicity of thought, ingrained 
 
Tolstoy and Gorky 185 
 
 stupidity; their passions, primitive 
 savagery and crimes of violence ; their 
 daily round, monotony relieved by super- 
 stition. He believed in their potentiality 
 as a world-force, and in the end he offered 
 them a peasant gospel. His preoccupa- 
 tion with them was always at bottom 
 ethical ; in other words, he cared more 
 for them as a mass of humanity than as a 
 group of possibly unsocial, anarchical 
 individuals. Unfortunately, as one writer 
 has remarked, "it is easier to found an 
 impossible religion than to write an 
 ' Anna Karenina.' " And drama comes 
 from the individual, not from the mass. 
 
 Maxim Gorky's work took, as has 
 already been pointed out, the different 
 direction of a different temperament. 
 Gorky's plea for the outcasts has little in 
 common with Tolstoy's religious belief in 
 the destiny of the peasantry. His most 
 successful play, " A Night Shelter " (per- 
 formed in England by the Stage Society 
 in 1903, under the title of " The Lower 
 Depths ") is a work of great power. The 
 power is personal rather than dramatic ; 
 it is the most vivid expression of Gorky, 
 
1 86 Modern Dramatists 
 
 and the play is Russian through and 
 through. I have seen it performed only 
 in Zurich, before an audience mainly 
 composed of Russian students. It con- 
 sists simply of four " scenes from the 
 depths," loosely knit together, casual and 
 incoherent. The curtain rises upon the 
 night shelter. To the right lies a dying 
 woman, moaning at intervals ; near her is 
 a man dressed only in a shirt, preparing 
 slowly and deliberately to retire for the 
 night. Pulpit-like partitions, odd scraps 
 of furniture and bedsteads stake out the 
 claim of each sleeper along the wall. 
 Around and above the stove other figures 
 are huddled ; a thief, a degenerate aristo- 
 crat, a prostitute, an actor who has come 
 down in the world and an inebriate who 
 insists upon repeating the doctor's verdict 
 upon him : " Your system is poisoned 
 through and through with alcohol" (Ihr 
 Organismus ist mit Alkohol durch und 
 durch vergiftet). But each tells his own 
 story, warming himself as it were at the 
 fire of the past, and ignoring the others 
 in a dream-monologue of egoism. Every- 
 one wants to talk ; no one to listen. The 
 
Tolstoy and Gorky 187 
 
 actor declaims his old parts, the aristocrat 
 describes how the world has passed him 
 by, a beggar plays popular tunes upon a 
 harmonium — and in the midst of it all the 
 woman dies. The drama, then, is the 
 drama of moments. 
 
 The next figure to appear is the old 
 white-bearded Luka, named by the others 
 the "little father." Luka preaches a 
 gospel of cheerfulness. " One must 
 respect everybody," he says. There is a 
 dignity in life, even here in the night 
 shelter. One must never judge by appear- 
 ances. For the despairing he has a jolly 
 " Keep your pecker up," and for the 
 aggressive a gentle, self-depreciatory 
 disarmament. Luka is something of a 
 raisonneur. He believes in the magical 
 power of faith, no matter whether the 
 faith be true or no. A pragmatist 
 philosopher, then, accepting the Tol- 
 stoyan gospel of love and rejection of 
 violence purely as a working hypothesis. 
 But Luka helps nobody. The woman is 
 already dead, the thief is arrested, the 
 actor hangs himself, and all goes on as 
 before. Then one Satin begins to preach 
 
1 88 Modern Dramatists 
 
 another gospel. He sees life to-day, life 
 in the night shelter, only as the soil from 
 which the man of the future will grow. 
 We are all no more than the servants of 
 this future lord. With this touch of 
 Nietzschean morality in the last act the 
 play closes. All that emerges is : " Here 
 are men living like beasts. But they are 
 men and brothers, and they have their 
 personal dignity and their philosophy." 
 There speaks Gorky. 
 
 This " Night Shelter " is strangely 
 impressive. Even a single performance 
 of it can never be forgotten. Its gloom 
 never grows monotonous, and its spirit 
 saves it from being merely an aftermath 
 of the old naturalistic period. It dates 
 from igo3. Since then Gorky has written 
 many plays — among them " Children of 
 the Sun," " Barbarians," and "The Last " 
 — but none of them have realised the 
 hopes for his future to which " A Night 
 Shelter" gave rise. Gorky, like Haupt- 
 mann, seems to have made the mistake 
 of writing his masterpiece at the beginning 
 of his career. He was never an accom- 
 plished craftsman. Most of his stage 
 
Tolstoy and Gorky 189 
 
 devices, even in " A Night Shelter," are 
 borrowed and conventional. These weak- 
 nesses would not have mattered greatly, 
 however, if only he had continued as he 
 began, with some attempt to free the 
 drama of the depths from sterile naturaHsm 
 and from the mere representation of 
 the actual in kinematographic pictures. 
 Instead, he has gone back to monotony 
 and passed out of touch with Western 
 Europe. " A Night Shelter " remains a 
 dramatic phenomenon, like Bjornson's 
 " Beyond Human Power" and Wedekind's 
 " Friihlings Erwachen," and Gorky's later 
 plays, for all their apparent modernity, 
 belong to a dead age. It matters nothing j 
 that twenty years ago this age was alive 
 and strenuous ; for us it can no longer 
 have any meaning. The masterpieces of 
 naturalism, such as they were, have long 
 since been written. They were the master- 
 pieces of revolt — correctives of a certain 
 definite condition in the theatre, Remedies 
 for a certain definite disease of unreality. 
 As far as the modern theatre is concerned, 
 the condition has been changed and the 
 disease cured. Europe awaits a new 
 
I go Modern Dramatists 
 
 synthesis in drama, and the many play- 
 wrights who- refuse to recognise the change 
 and persist in repeating the old realistic 
 creed must be classed with Dumas and 
 Sardou as props of an out-worn tradition. 
 
 Anton Tchekhov 
 
 Tchekhov's plays are the most interest- 
 ing that modern Russia has as yet pro- 
 duced. A certain questioning of life is all 
 that they have in common with the work 
 of Tolstoy and Gorky, Tolstoy sought 
 the meaning of life among the peasantry, 
 Gorky among the city slums and the lower 
 bourgeois class, Tchekhov among " the in- 
 telligence." Russian society is divided into 
 two classes : " the intelligence " and the 
 rest. That " intelligence " includes the 
 entire educated community, and it re- 
 presents as a whole the most advanced 
 civilised nation in Europe. It is largely 
 freethinking and revolutionary, and its 
 capacity for making political revolutions 
 is limited, firstly, by military and police 
 rule and, secondly, by the inertia of the 
 mass of the people. It is perhaps em- 
 
Anton Tchekhov 191 
 
 bittered by national failure, but still full 
 of life. Tolstoy and Gorky set to work, 
 with their different views and tempera- 
 ments, upon the dramatisation of the 
 inertia ; Tchekhov chose to deal with the 
 driving force of modernity, politically 
 impotent for the present, but individually 
 all-powerful. That is why his plays must 
 always be the more interesting. His types 
 belong to an aristocracy of thought, and, 
 further (since intellect alone can be of 
 little service to the dramatist), to an 
 aristocracy of feeling. They possess the 
 capacity for great drama because they 
 are at once highly sensitive and highly 
 differentiated among themselves. . The 
 capacity for great drama, be it noted ; not 
 necessarily its achievement. A play or a 
 novel crammed with " intellectuals " — 
 poets, playwrights, novelists, teachers, 
 journalists, actors, and Bohemians — is 
 not necessarily a great play or a great 
 novel on that account. The class or pro= 
 fession of the characters matters nothing ; 
 their potentiality as individuals is all- 
 iniportant. If the same degree of sensitive- 
 ness and differentiation can be created 
 
192 Modern Dramatists 
 
 among other types, the same material for 
 great drama will result. The achievement 
 depends upon the author, his temperament 
 and his skill as a craftsman. Personality 
 remains the magical word which opens 
 the dull mountain of the actual and shows 
 us the real. 
 
 It must be said at once that Tchekhov 
 can by no stretch of imagination be called 
 a great dramatist. He cried " Open 
 Sesame ! " to actuality, but the reality 
 behind was only vaguely outlined, and he 
 died before he could perfect the new 
 dramatic form which he attempted to 
 create. His plays are a series of original 
 experiments rather than a finished whole. 
 I propose to deal here mainly with the 
 two'^ur-act dramas " The Seagull " and 
 " The Three Sisters." " The Seagull," it 
 may be noted, was given recently by the 
 Scottish Repertory Theatre in Glasgow. 
 This play is full of the atmosphere of 
 the Russian " intelligence." It depends 
 altogether upon eJusive moods, and only 
 by entering very fully into these moods 
 can the spectator find its tragedy even 
 remotely credible. The weakness of 
 
Anton Tchekhov 193 
 
 Tchekhov's strikingly original technique is 
 that his characterisation depends so much 
 more upon what the characters say than 
 upon what they ^o. They seem at first 
 sight the most irrelevant people that any 
 dramatist could devise. They stroll 
 casually upon the stage, talking about 
 the weather, their supper, their ailments, 
 their preferences, their views, their 
 philosophy; and from this fluid mass 
 of conversation there crystallises very 
 gradually the conception of each individual 
 as a separate entity. The conversation 
 is always extraordinarily good, and so 
 the individual conception which emerges, 
 without having the rigidity of the theatrical 
 " type," is always clearly defined. 
 
 Tchekhov retains the form of the four- 
 act play, dealing throughout with the 
 same group of persons. He is concerned 
 with ideas only as the means of drama, 
 and what he lacks is sense of the theatre 
 rather than dramatic sense. As to the 
 ideas themselves, he has clearly used the 
 young poet Constantine in "The Seagull" 
 as his mouthpiece. 
 
 Constantine is the son of an actress, one 
 
 13 
 
194 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Irene Treplewa. Irene has a liaison with 
 Doris Trigorin, a novelist-playwright. 
 These three, with Irene's brother Sorin, 
 and a young girl named Nina, are the chief 
 characters of " The Seagull." Constantine 
 and Nina are lovers. The play passes at 
 Sorin's country house, where Constantine 
 has set up an open-air theatre, with a 
 rough stage, a curtain and a background 
 of lake and sky. He has devised it for 
 the performance of a symbolist play of his 
 own, with Nina as actress, and his mother 
 and the remaining guests have been 
 invited as spectators.^ Early in the 
 first act Constantine explains his purpose 
 to Sorin : — 
 
 Constantine : ... To me the Theatre 
 of to-day is no more than an antiquated 
 prejudice, a dull routine. When the curtain 
 rises, and all these accomplished actors, 
 these priests of a sacred art, endeavour to 
 show, by lamplight, in a room with three 
 
 ^ These passages have been rendered from 
 the German, and they are intended only to 
 illustrate the trend of the play. The translator 
 of " The Seagull " for the Scottish Repertory 
 Theatre is Mr. George Calderon. 
 
Anton Tchekhov 195 
 
 walls, how ordinary people eat, drink, love, 
 move about the world ; when a morality is 
 preached to us in trivial phrases and pic- 
 tures — a wretched, commonplace morality 
 convenient for household use; when the 
 same old story is dished up again and 
 again in a thousand variations ; then I can 
 do no otherwise than fly as Maupassant 
 fled from the Eiffel Tower, whose triviality 
 threatened to shatter his soul ! 
 
 SoRiN : But you must admit that the 
 Theatre is an important factor in civilisa- 
 tion. . . . 
 
 CoNSTANTiNE : New forms are what we 
 need, new forms. Better have nothing at 
 all than cling to the old tradition. 
 
 The nevi^ form is presently forthcoming. 
 The guests arrive, and when they are 
 seated the curtain rises, disclosing Nina 
 seated upon a stone : — 
 
 Nina: Men and lions, eagles and par- 
 tridges, antler-crowned stags, geese and 
 spiders, silent inhabitants of the waters, 
 starfish and all creatures invisible to the 
 eye — in a word, all living beings have 
 completed their dismal course and are 
 extinguished. For many thousands of 
 years no living creature more has found 
 refuge upon the earth, ana the poor moon 
 
 13—2 
 
196 Modern Dramatists 
 
 above lights her candle to no purpose. No 
 longer do the cranes awaken upon the 
 meadow with their merry song, and among 
 the forest limes no cockchafer is heard. 
 It's cold, cold, cold ! It's empty, empty, 
 empty ! I'm afraid, afraid, afraid ! The 
 bodies of the living have fallen into dust, 
 and the eternal Cause has changed them 
 into stones, into water, into clouds. But 
 their souls have been merged into a single 
 soul. That world-soul am I ! In me live 
 the spirits of Alexander, of Caesar, of 
 Napoleon, of Shakespeare, together with 
 the soul of the meanest worm. The reason 
 of mankind and the instinct of the beasts 
 are blended in me. I know all, all, all, 
 and every life that is in me I live through 
 afresh. 
 
 [Will-o'-the wisps hover about her.] 
 
 Irene : That smacks of decadence ! 
 
 CoNSTANTiNE (reproachfully) : Mother ! 
 
 Nina : I am lonely. Once in every 
 hundred years I open my lips to speak. 
 My voice sounds chilly in the emptiness ; 
 no one hears me. Even the will-o'-the- 
 wisps are deaf. Each evening they are 
 born of the foul quagmire, and they flicker 
 till the dawn without thought, without 
 will, without life. From fear lest I should 
 awaken life within them, the father of 
 
Anton Tchekhov 197 
 
 eternal chaos, Satan, completes each instant 
 a change of their particles, as in the water 
 and the stones ; they change unceasingly. 
 In the whole universe my soul alone remains 
 constant and unalterable. Like a prisoner 
 thrown into the depths of a well, I know 
 not where I am nor what awaits me. One 
 thing alone has been revealed to me — that 
 in the grim wrestle with Satan, author of 
 material powers, the victory will be mine ; 
 and that then soul and matter will be 
 blended in noble harmony and the kingdom 
 of the world-purpose will begin. But that 
 can only be when, after a long, long roll of 
 centuries the moon, bright Sirius and the 
 earth have crumbled into dust. Until then 
 
 horror, horror 
 
 [7m the distOMce two red points of light are seenJ] 
 
 Nina : Satan, my enemy, approaches. 
 I see his hideous eyes of fire 
 
 Irene : There's a smell of sulphur. 
 Does that belong to the piece ? 
 
 CONSTANTINE : Yes. 
 
 Irene (laughing) : An original effect ! 
 
 Constantine: Mother. 
 
 [Dorn takes off his hat.] 
 
 Nina: Since there are no longer any 
 men 
 
 Pauline (to Dorn) : Put on your hat. 
 You'll catch cold. 
 
19H Modern Dramatists 
 
 Irene : The doctor took off his hat to 
 Satan, author of material powers. 
 
 CoNSTANTiNE {raging) : The play is over ! 
 Down with the curtain ! 
 
 Irene : Why lose your temper ! 
 
 CoNSTANTiNE : Enough ! Down with 
 the curtain ! {Stamping his foot.) Let it 
 fall, I say ! 
 
 [The curtain falls.] 
 
 CONSTANTINE : I ask your pardon. I 
 had forgotten that only some few chosen 
 pieces may be written and performed. I 
 presumed too much. I — I — 
 
 [He goes off to the left.] 
 
 Constantine, always hyper sensitive, 
 becomes emtotereB ^S^his failure. Wtfti 
 his play he loses Nina. For Nina, it 
 seems, has the soul of the player. She 
 despises failures and worships success. 
 Trigorin, " the famous author, whose 
 name is in all the papers, whose portrait 
 is sold in every picture-shop, whose books 
 are read throughout the world," becomes 
 her hero. Constantine lays a dead seagull 
 at her feet, and threatens suicide, but 
 Nina is unmoved. The pose of symbolism 
 is lost upon her, but she is fascinated by 
 
Anton Tchekhov 199 
 
 the pose of paradox and ennui which 
 Trigorin effects : — 
 
 ITrigorin enters, writing in his notebook.] 
 
 Nina : Good morning, Monsieur Trigorin. 
 
 Trigorik : Ah, good morning ! Things 
 have taken an unexpected turn. We shall 
 probably leave to-day. I may not see you 
 again. A pity ! I seldom meet young and 
 interesting ladies. That is why the girls in 
 my novels are for the most part so falsely 
 drawn. I wish I could change places with 
 you, if only for an hour, just to find out 
 how you think and what you are. 
 
 Nina: Ah, I would change places 
 willingly. Monsieur Trigorin ! 
 
 Trigorin; Why? 
 
 Nina: Just to learn what a famous 
 author feels and thinks. How happy you 
 must be ! 
 
 Trigorin {shrugging his shoulders) : I ? 
 H'm — very kind of you! You speak of 
 happiness and fame. For me these are 
 pretty words — ^forgive the comparison — as 
 pretty as marmalade, a confection that I 
 never eat. You are very young — and very 
 naive. {Taking out his watch) I must get 
 back to work. Time presses. You have 
 touched my sore point — but let that pass. 
 Look at my charming and delightful life a 
 little more closely. Day and night one 
 
200 Modern Dramatists 
 
 thought pursues me : I must write, write, 
 write. Barely is one novel finished, when 
 I am driven to begin a second, then a third, 
 a fourth — post-haste, whether I will or no. 
 Where is the charm and the delight, if I 
 may ask ? It's a mad helter-skelter chase. 
 Here I am chatting with you, but not for a 
 single instant does the thought leave me 
 that upon my writing-table there lies an 
 unfinished manuscript. {Hepoints skyward.) 
 Do you see the cloud there, shaped like a 
 piano ? Immediately I think, " At the first 
 opportunity this piano-like cloud must be 
 mentioned." Or there is a scent of helio- 
 trope. It occurs to me, " This delicate 
 scent suits the mood of a summer evening." 
 Every word, every sentence I hear or utter 
 excites my literary sense, and all these 
 words and sentences are stored in my work- 
 shop until opportunity comes to use them. 
 And when the day's work is over, and I 
 take my seat in the theatre or go fishing, 
 — do you imagine that I find relaxation ? 
 Never ! In my brain I feel the work con- 
 tinue — it rolls about like some heavy iron 
 bullet — new material ! I long for the hour 
 when I can sit down once more at my table 
 and write. So it goes on, year in, year 
 out ; I have no rest from myself. At the 
 beginning of my career I was constantly 
 
Anton Tchekhov 201 
 
 trouMed by other cares. A morbid struggle 
 for recognition; after praise, doubt of its 
 sincerity. I trembled before my public, 
 and each time that I produced a new play 
 it seemed to me that the brunettes were 
 hostile and the blondes indifferent. I was 
 tortured beyond description. 
 
 Nina : Yes, but the inspiration, the act 
 of creation in itself — does that not make 
 you happy? 
 
 Trigorin : As long as I am writing, I 
 am satisfied. Even proof-correcting gives 
 me pleasure ; but the moment my work is 
 published it is loathsome to me. I have 
 one feeling only : it was not what I meant 
 to write; it was a mistake which should 
 never have been published at all. I wrangle 
 with myself. {He laughs.) But the public 
 reads it. " H'm. Yes." And says to 
 itself, " Neat enough, clever enough. But 
 he's not a Tolstoy." Or : " Excellent, but 
 not to be compared with Turgenev's ' Father 
 and Sons.' " So it will be to the end of my 
 life ; all neat and pretty enough, but nothing 
 more. And when I am dead, and my 
 friends pass by my grave, they will say : 
 " Here lies Trigorin. He was a good 
 writer, but Tolstoy was better." 
 
 Nina listens eagerly to this persiflage. 
 She longs for the life of the city, of the 
 
202 Modern Dramatists 
 
 artist, of the theatre. Presently the note- 
 book comes into play again. Trigorin 
 observes the dead seagull — " a fine bird," 
 as he remarks. It provides him with 
 material for a short story : — 
 
 " By the shore of a lake lives a young 
 girl. . . . She loves the water as passion- 
 ately as a seagull, and is herself as free and 
 happy. By chance a man passes by one 
 day. He sees her, and in the boredom of 
 an idle hour he ruins her, just as a hunts- 
 man shoots a bird." 
 
 The fable proves true, and Nina 
 becomes Trigorin's mistress. Meanwhile 
 Constantine attempts suicide, and appears 
 in the third act with a bandaged head, 
 morose as ever, but otherwise little the 
 worse. The guests leave for Moscow, 
 and Nina goes to the same city to seek an 
 engagement in the theatre. 
 
 The fourth act passes two years later, 
 in a tragic atmosphere of reminiscence 
 and disillusionment for all the characters. 
 Constantine is still living upon his uncle's 
 estate. His books and poems, pubUshed 
 under a pseudonym, have brought him 
 recognition, but no peace of mind. The 
 
Anton Tchekhov 203 
 
 theatre by the lake stands empty, its 
 curtain flapping in the wind. Trigorin, 
 as usual, is just finishing a new book. 
 Irene is still playing Magda and the Lady 
 of the Camelias. Sorin still laments the 
 ineffectuglity , .pf . il ' s exisiten r.p,. Life, art, 
 love — ^they all move in the old rut. Nina's 
 history is told. She had a child. The 
 child died, and Trigorin left her. She 
 failed at first as an actress, and moved 
 steadily downward in her profession. 
 But for her, the family party in Sorin's 
 house is as complete as in the first act. 
 Irene, Trigorin, Dorn and Sorin settle 
 down to a game of cards before supper. 
 Sorin falls asleep and spoils the game. 
 Constantine is left alone : — 
 
 CoNSTANTiNE (^MfMS owy the leaves of the 
 manuscript upon his writing-table, and takes 
 up a half-finished sheet) : I have spoken so 
 much of new forms, and now I see that 
 there is no escape from the tyranny of 
 routine. (He reads.) " Upon the table 
 was a radiant bouquet of flowers . . . her 
 pale face, framed in dark tresses" . . . 
 Radiant, framed — those are trivial! {He 
 crosses them out.) I leave them to Trigorin ; 
 he has a pattern ready-made. 
 
204 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Then Nina comes. She, too, is in the 
 grip of routine : — 
 
 Nina : So you are an author, now. You 
 have become a poet, I an actress. The 
 whirlpool has caught us both. How gaily 
 I used to live, as a child ! When I awoke 
 in the morning life sang and danced within 
 me. I loved you then ! I dreamed of 
 fame and happiness. And now ! To- 
 morrow I must set out for my winter 
 engagement in Ufa, cooped up in a third- 
 class carriage with dirty peasants. In 
 Ufa the nouveaux riches will pester me 
 with their clumsy love-making. Oh, life is 
 so vulgar! 
 
 She must go back to the theatre, how- 
 ever, for nothing but work can satisfy 
 her: — 
 
 Nina: Good-bye. When I am a great 
 artist, you must come and see me play. 
 
 Promise! And now {she takes his hand). 
 
 It's late. I'm so tired that I can hardly 
 stand. 
 
 [Constantine prepares to accompany her.'\ 
 
 Nina: No, no. Don't come. I can 
 
 find the way alone. ... If you see 
 
 Trigorin, say nothing. I love him. I love 
 
 him more than ever — material for a short 
 
Anton Tchekhov 205 
 
 story, ha, ha, ha ! Oh, Constantine, how 
 splendid it was in the old days — you 
 remember — my first appearance in the 
 theatre on the shore. (She declaims) : " Men 
 and lions, eagles and partridges, antler- 
 crowned stags, silent inhabitants of the 
 waters, starfish and all creatures invisible 
 to the eye — in a word, all living beings have 
 completed their dismal course and are 
 extinguished. . . ." 
 
 [She embraces him and hurries out. , Con- 
 stantine, alone, gathers all the manuscripts 
 upon the writing-table, tears them up, throws the 
 fragments into the fire, and leaves the room.] 
 
 Irene, Trigorin, Dorn and the others 
 return. I n the midst of their conversation 
 they are startled by a shot : — 
 
 Irene : What was that ? 
 
 DoRN : Oh, nothing. Some chemicals 
 must have exploded in my medicine-chest. 
 Don't trouble to move. {He goes into the 
 room on the right, returning immediately.) 
 Just as I thought. A bottle of ether has 
 burst. You would hardly believe what 
 power a couple of grammes of the stuff can 
 generate. 
 
 Irene : {seating herself at the card-table) : 
 What a start it gave me. It reminded me 
 of the time when . . i 
 
2o6 Modern Dramatists 
 
 DoRN (turning over the leaves of a 
 magazine) : My dear Monsieur Trigorin ! 
 May I trouble you for one moment ? Two 
 months ago I read an article here — some 
 correspondence from America, and I wanted 
 to ask you . . . (He takes Trigorin by the 
 arm and leads him down stage). Thie question 
 interests me greatly. (In a low tone) Make 
 some pretext to get your friends away. 
 Constantine has just shot himself in the 
 next room. 
 
 There the play ends.. Constantine 
 leaves the world to its charlatanism - 
 and routine. His death will hardly cost 
 Trigorin a sleepless night, and may even 
 provide useful material for a new novel. 
 Irene will doubtless mourn for a time, but 
 black probably suits her ; and in any case 
 she will shortly return to the theatre to 
 interpret Dumas and Sudermann with 
 renewed emotional power. Dorn will 
 grieve sincerely, but then Dorn is only 
 a poor country doctor. Literary Russia 
 will not be greatly troubled by the loss of 
 its youngest poet. A poet more or less ; 
 what does it matter ? The routine 
 continues. 
 
Anton Tchekhov 207 
 
 I turn now to " The Three Sisters," 
 another tragedy of disillusionment. 
 
 It passes in a provincial town. The 
 three sisters are Olga, Mascha and Irene. 
 Olga, the eldest, is an unmarried school 
 teacher. Mascha is the wife of a lecturer 
 in the gymnasium. Irene is a telegraph 
 operator in the post office. All three were 
 brought up in Moscow, and their ideal of 
 life is a return to the city. Their father, 
 a brigadier-general, died early and left 
 them with the alternative of marrying or 
 earning their own living. Mascha married 
 at eighteen, and found her husband a bore. 
 Olga and Irene are equally dissatisfied 
 with their work. They have a brother 
 named Andrei Prosorow, a scholar who 
 hopes for a professorship in the Moscow 
 University. Moscow, indeed, appears to 
 all of them the distant paradise. Through- 
 out four acts they talk of it, but in the end 
 they all remain where they are. Andrei 
 marries unwisely and falls into a groove 
 as secretary to the local town council. 
 Olga continues at her school. Mascha 
 falls in love with a married lieutenant 
 whose regiment is transferred elsewhere. 
 
2o8 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Irene seeks a way of escape by betrothing 
 herself to another officer, who is killed in 
 a senseless duel. The removal of the 
 regiment deprives the family even of their 
 acquaintances. Andrei sums up the 
 situation in the last act : — 
 
 Andrei : We have hardly begun to live, 
 when we grow tedious, dull, lazy, useless, 
 wretched and indifferent. This town of 
 ours has existed for two hundred years. It 
 has a hundred thousand inhabitants, and 
 there is not one among them unlike all the 
 rest. It has not given birth to a single 
 hero in the whole course of its history ; it 
 has produced no thinker, no artist, no 
 personality of the smallest importance, no 
 one who could arouse a burning desire to 
 emulate him. The people here do no more 
 than eat, drink, sleep and die. Others are 
 born, who eat, drink and sleep in their turn ; 
 and, lest boredom should destroy them 
 altogether, they seek variety in gossip, 
 brandy, cards, intrigue. . . . Wives are 
 unfaithful to their husbands, and the hus- 
 bands lie and pretend that they have seen 
 nothing. The vulgar tradition descends 
 upon the children, clouding their minds 
 until the spark of divinity within them is 
 extinguished, and they grow up to be just 
 
Anton Tchekhov 209 
 
 such pitiable, trivial, commonplace corpses 
 as their fathers and mothers were before 
 them. Shame upon such a life ! 
 
 If this play were unrelieved, it would be 
 intolerable. It is relieved by its note of 
 revolt, by its distinction of dialogue, and 
 by its plea (more insistent even than in 
 " The Seagull ")that comfort and civilisa- 
 tion alone can give no dignity to existence. 
 To the cry of " Life is vulgar, therefore 
 art is debased," Tchekhov replies with 
 " Art is debased, therefore life is vulgar." 
 His demand is for a standard of living 
 rather than for a standard of life. 
 Individuality, with himp comes first. " 
 
 And so with all his plays. It is as if 
 the author said : " We live in a civilisation 
 accessible only to the few. Here are the 
 few. I show them to you for an hour, 
 with their culture, their books, their plays, 
 their theatres within the theatre, their 
 learning and their wit. Their existence 
 represents the last word in modernity. 
 They are dissatisfied, unhappy, often 
 dulled and broken. What is the meaning 
 of it all ? What is modernity ? An 
 episode. The motive of life ? A mystery 
 
 14 
 
2IO Modern Dramatists 
 
 to which every individual has potentially 
 the key. I give you the picture-puzzle of 
 existence in fragments. Seat yourself 
 here in the prison cell, and piece them 
 together as you please. I write only for 
 those who want to understand. Life and 
 art — those two must be placed side by 
 side. Yes, go on. You have discovered 
 a part of the secret. You are building, 
 creating. More fragments here and there 
 — the scheme grows clearer. Now hold 
 it up to the light . . . See, you have made 
 a window of stained glass." 
 
 That is the drama of Tchekhov. 
 
IX 
 
 FRANCE 
 
 CAPUS AND BRIEUX 
 
 The tradition of centuries has made 
 France the home of the theatre. There 
 is in the veryword "theatre" and in the 
 phrase " thditre fran9ais " a subtle lisp of 
 nativity beside which the solid hearts-of- 
 oak ring of " The British Theatre," or the 
 Teutonic growl of " Das deutsche Drama," 
 appear bastard and incongruous ; a deli- 
 cate atmosphere of artifice, a suggestion 
 of rouge and powder, and, above all, of 
 lightness and finesse. The nineteenth 
 century confirmed the tradition. Dumas 
 and Sardou were purveyors of drama, not 
 only to France, but to the whole world. 
 In plays, as in bonnets, Paris set the 
 fashion. 
 
 It was fitting, therefore, that M. 
 Antoine's Theatre Libre should be the first 
 among the "free theatres" of the i8go 
 
 14 — 2 
 
 V 
 
212 Modern Dramatists 
 
 period. Parisian supremacy in drama 
 was challenged by Ibsen and Tolstoy. 
 Uncouth figures like Strindberg invaded 
 the capital — an invasion as alarming to 
 the well-bred dramatic critic and theatre- 
 goer as that of 1870 to the peaceful 
 bourgeoisie. " Naturalism " was the new 
 cry, and a rude wind from the north 
 swept the soliloquy and the aside into the 
 playwright's waste-paper basket. The 
 word " sociale " was heard. It appeared 
 that the salvation of drama lay in becom- 
 ing " sociale " ; and no doubt the epithet 
 sounded almost as ominous as " socia- 
 liste." At all events, the newer play- 
 wrights appeared to ignore the existence 
 of good society, and persisted in intro- 
 ducing a number of excessively vulgar 
 characters upon the stage. The best that 
 conservative criticism could say of them 
 was that they were undeniably con- 
 vincing. 
 
 So much for the conservative attitude. 
 To the artistic revolutionaries the estab- 
 lishment of the Theatre Libre was a venture 
 of the highest hope. What could be more 
 appropriate than that it should restore the 
 
France 213 
 
 supremacy of France by the discovery of a 
 new dramatist of genius able to meet the 
 Northmen upon their own ground ; per- 
 haps to surpass them and to infuse the 
 drama of Europe with new life ? The 
 plays of Ibsen, Tolstoy and Strindberg 
 offered immediate stimulus, but M. 
 Antoine's aim was, of course, to found a 
 stage for a new French dramatic school. 
 There was more substantial hope for such 
 a school in Paris than in the poineer 
 theatres of Berlin and London, for one 
 modern playwright, Henri Becque, was 
 already well known, and had attracted a 
 certain number of disciples. His " Les 
 Corbeaux " was given at the Com^die Fran- 
 9aise in 1882, and " La Parisienne " at 
 the Theatre de la Renaissance in 1885 ; 
 someyears, therefore, before the appearance 
 of M. Antoine's venture. 
 
 The "discoveries" of the Theatre 
 Libre were Georges Courteline (" Bon- 
 bouroche,") Emile Fabre (" L' Argent "), 
 Georges Ancey (" La Dupe "), Fran9ois 
 de Curel (" Les Fossiles" and " L'Envers 
 d'une Sainte"),and Brieux(" Blanchette"). 
 These authors, with Henri Becque, repre- 
 
214 Modern Dramatists 
 
 sent practically all the work of any value 
 in modern French drama. Their number 
 is very small, and the little group becomes 
 almost insignificant when we eliminate 
 Courteline and Ancey, who practised only 
 the passing vogue of the com&die rosse, or 
 brutal comedy. This phenomenon of the 
 comedie rosse seems to have represented 
 the first effect of naturalism upon the dis- 
 ingenuous, cultivated mind of the Parisian 
 playwright. Naturalism, as seen in Tol- 
 stoy's peasant dramas or in Strindberg's 
 " The Father," was associated with the 
 decivilisation of art. The Parisians of 
 the new school, unfamiliar with peasantries 
 or wild Norsemen, proceeded to decivilise 
 the civilised ; hence the brutal comedy, a 
 form clever enough, but so mannered in 
 its effort to keep up with the times that it 
 is really no more convincing than the old 
 theatrical hotch-potch of Sardou. The 
 vogue soon passed, and neither Ancey nor 
 Courteline remained in the front rank of 
 French dramatists. 
 
 Meanwhile there was a revolt of 
 the symbolists and romantics. In 1893 
 M. Lugn^ Poe founded the Theatre de 
 
France 215 
 
 rCEuvre as a rival establishment to the 
 Theatre Libre, and produced there the 
 plays of Maeterlinck, Shortly afterwards 
 Rostand appeared with " Les Roman- 
 esques " and " La Princesse Lointaine." 
 The choice lay, then, between the realistic 
 Theatre Libre on the one hand, and new 
 symbolism and old romance on the other. 
 Maeterlinck was in accord with the spirit 
 of his age. The one quality which all 
 branches of the newer dramatic movement 
 possessed in common was their concern, 
 first and foremost, with the Lebenskampf ; 
 the battle of existence. The setting of the 
 battlefield varied with the temperament of 
 the playwright. 
 
 With Tolstoy it was the life of the 
 Russian peasantry; with Strindberg the 
 cosmos of a northern civilisation in pro- 
 cess of birth ; with Maeterlinck, an excur- 
 sion out of place and time into castles and 
 dim forests where, remote from life's 
 institutions, the issue lay between soul 
 and soul; with Ibsen, a compound of 
 symbolism and realism infused into the 
 life of the Norwegian bourgeoisie; with 
 the protagonists of the comSdie rosse, 
 
2i6 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Parisian culture tinged with barbarism ; 
 with Brieux, social drama founded upon 
 the abuses of social life. The Lebenskmnpf 
 was always uppermost, and in the battle 
 Rostand took no part. He was content 
 to make sweet music, and to embody much 
 old humanity in the old romance. As a 
 dramatist he was an isolated phenomenon, 
 sailing his paper craft in a backwater, 
 unconcerned with the main stream of his 
 age ; and he has nothing to do with the 
 modern theatre. 
 
 If the dramatists of the Theatre Libre 
 were eclipsed by the symbolists, this was 
 due not to any real opposition between 
 realism and symbolism, but purely to their 
 own deficiencies. M. Antoine's theatre 
 failed to discover a single French drama- 
 tist comparable with the Scandinavians 
 whose plays it originally produced. 
 Brieux's trumped-up social dramas have 
 been vastly overrated. In any case, 
 experience proved that they could readily 
 find a popular audience elsewhere, and 
 Brieux himself became an Academician, 
 fimile Fabre produced no plays of distinc- 
 tion, and Fran9ois de Curel soon ceased 
 
France 217 
 
 to write for the stage. Apart from the 
 abolition of soliloquies and " asides," none 
 of the authors of the Theatre Libre went 
 beyond Henri Becque. 
 
 In order that the bankruptcy of modern 
 French drama may be fully understood, it 
 is only necessary to glance at the authors 
 who hold the stage of present-day Paris. 
 Beside Brieux and Rostand, we find Paul 
 Hervieu (" La D^dale," " Les Tdnailles," 
 " Connais-tpi," " La Course de Flambeau"), 
 Henri Bernstein (" La Griffe," " Samson," 
 " Le Voleur," " La Rafale"), Alfred Capus 
 (" Notre Jeunesse,"" Quiperd, quigagne," 
 " Monsieur Pigdois," " Brignol et sa 
 Fille"), Maurice Donnay (" Amants," " La 
 Douloureuse," "La Bascule"), Georges 
 Porto- Riche(" Le Pps^," "Amoureuse "), 
 Paul Bourget (" La, Barricade"), Henri 
 Bataille (" Ton Sang," " Un Scandale," 
 " La Femme Nue," " La Vierge FoUe "), 
 Pierre Wolff (" Le Ruisseau," " L'Age 
 d'Aimer"), Tristan Bernard, Henri Lave- 
 dan ("Le Nouveau Jeu," " Le Duel," 
 "Viveur"), De Flers and Caillavet 
 ("L' Amour Vieille"), Jules Lemaitre 
 (" L'Ain^e," " Le Pardon "), and Octave 
 
2i8 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Mirbeau (" Les Mauvais Bergers," " Les 
 Affaires sont les Affaires "), It may be 
 added that within recent years this group 
 of authors has given us such EngHsh 
 translations and adaptations as " Dame 
 Nature," " The Crisis," "The Thief," "A 
 Bolt from the Blue," " Inconstant 
 George," "The Whirlwind," "Glass 
 Houses," "Business is Business," and 
 " Samson," most of which are altogether 
 worthless, and were apparently produced 
 only because the supply of similar rubbish 
 written by our own West End dramatists 
 was not equal to the demand. 
 
 Some exceptions must, of course, be 
 made. M. Octave Mirbeau's " Les Affaires 
 sont les Affaires," both in the original and 
 in the English adaptation, is an extremely 
 able piece of work. MM. De Flers and 
 Caillavet have a gift for light and witty 
 dialogue. M. Capus and M. Maurice 
 Donnay preserve a higher level than that 
 of the average boulevardian purveyor of 
 drama. It will suffice here to deal with 
 Capus and Brieux as representatives of a 
 country rich in " interesting " plaj^wrights, 
 but without a dramatist of genius. 
 
Alfred Capus 219 
 
 Alfred Capus. 
 
 The first impression which the art of 
 Capus gives is one of weary superficiality. 
 Later, one perceives that the superficiaUty 
 goes into the depths of his temperament ; 
 that it is the deliberate expression of a 
 personal conviction. The weariness re- 
 mains ; but his characters cease to be 
 merely puppets manipulated upon the sur- 
 face of life for the sake of effect, and 
 become the emblems of a philosophy. | 
 Capus seeks truth, and he finds a civilisa- 
 tion of lies. An enervated, decadent 
 civilisation, moreover, peopled with tired 
 metropolitans. He does not attack it. | 
 Violence is not in his line; Instead, he 
 smiles with ironical good nature, and sits 
 down to portray it to the life. His plays 
 are the last word in sophistication. They 
 are the work of an agreeable weakling. 
 They symbolise the Gallic hands out- 
 stretched in a deprecatory gesture, the 
 Gallic eyebrows raised. In the grim 
 wrestle of the Lebenskampf, the battle of 
 existence, Capus has no part. Why should 
 one perspire in the effort to attain the 
 
220 Modern Dramatists 
 
 unattainable ? That may be left to the 
 Germans. Capus provides a little cur- 
 tained side-show of his own ; an exhibi- 
 tion of graceful sword-play worthy of the 
 traditions of his country. The rapiers are 
 buttoned. If by chance a button should 
 slip, and one of the combatants be 
 wounded, he smiles again with a shrug of 
 the shoulders, as who should say " A pity, 
 but it cannot be helped. These little 
 accidents will happen occasionally. Kindly 
 keep your seats. I detest scenes." 
 
 He ignores politics, class differences and 
 sociology, except as subjects for good- 
 humoured ridicule. He is never " sociale." 
 Why should he be ? His types belong to 
 a society where all institutions are in the 
 melting-pot, all moralities exploded, all 
 religions ignored. They are amiable 
 egoists. At the end of an age of notes of 
 interrogation, they have come to a full 
 stop. Henceforth they will do as they 
 please. They look about them, and dis- 
 cover nothing but a chaos of fatalism, 
 broken idols, discredited codes of honour, 
 new hypocrisies for old. They are bored. 
 They stretch themselves and yawn. Life 
 
Alfred Capus 221 
 
 remains, but where is drama to be found ? 
 They look a Httle more closely. Sex still 
 exists. A dangerous theme, this, to be 
 treated politely and dispassionately; for 
 no other treatment can be adapted to the 
 drama of the fencing-match. Perhaps, 
 after all, the aphorists of the past three 
 centuries have not said the last word upon 
 the subject of woman ? A phrase is added 
 here and there ; a latter-day epigram of 
 this latter-day ph-philosopher (the word 
 comes stammeringly). Then the most 
 piquant find of all ; the re-discovery of the 
 old views of life, the worn-out moralities, / 
 the long-since abandoned faiths. Here is 
 the field where Capus is most subtly effec- 
 tive. If vice bores you, he suggests, try 
 virtue. You will find it quite fresh and 
 charming, like an ice after too much wine 
 at dinner. If mistresses bore you, there 
 is nothing smipler than marriage and 
 respectabilli^'f If you have had enough of 
 free thought, try a dose of religion. If you 
 are tired of lying, why not begin telling the 
 truth ? It will be a new sensation, and new 
 sensations are always worth a slight effort. 
 Not a great effort, of course ; nothing in 
 
222 Modern Dramatists 
 
 the world is worth that. But just the 
 exertion of will, say, that is necessary in 
 order to rise at ten o'clock of a summer 
 morning ; the effort needed to turn over a 
 leaf of a book that lies well within your 
 reach. 
 
 Not that Capus definitely urges this or 
 any other rule of life. He never preaches ; 
 he is much too politely tolerant. (Or too 
 tired ?) But his characters make such 
 experiments — and there lies his comedy. 
 His is an inexhaustible well of shallowness. 
 He has emptiness enough to blow a thou- 
 sand brilliant bubbles. Or again, strength 
 enough to pull the trigger of a popgun. 
 He regards life with the heavy eyes of a 
 sophisticated child allowed to sit up too 
 late. If they ever open wide, it is with a 
 twinkle of mischief at the great joke of 
 universal insincerity. There is no fear 
 that France will put him to bed ; his com- 
 ments on the passing show are so amusing. 
 He will no doubt continue to entertain the 
 boulevards (and Mr. Walkley) for many 
 years to come. Prince of the later Latins, 
 builder of toy castles, master of the cere- 
 monies at a lazy dance of the disillusioned. 
 
Alfred Capus 223 
 
 And yet, a seeker after truth in a world of 
 shams. He has the will to power, and the 
 temperament of inertia. 
 
 Observe, in a dramatist-phenomenon 
 such as this, the natural offspring of an 
 unnatural age. Science, joined perforce 
 to the Chaotic State of rich and poor, 
 civilised and decivilised, free men and 
 slaves, brings forth from time to time such 
 bastard children. The nineteenth century 
 compelled the union. Truth was wedded 
 to a compromise. The old faiths and the 
 old moralities crumbled, but their pretence 
 remained. Property and marriage con- 
 tinued to do service for the children of the 
 apes. Hence the Chaotic State made 
 more chaotic ; the pinnacled civilisation 
 of the few sustained by a conspiracy. 
 
 Capus and his like are the result. He 
 is entertained by the spectacle, and yet 
 himself an entertainer. Truth, for him, 
 no longer bears a flaming sword, but goes 
 in motley with cap and bells to provide a 
 new amusement for bored liars. Capus 
 enters into the joke delightedly. Impo- 
 tent before the drama of the passions or 
 the realities of social war, he has within 
 
2 24 Modern Dramatists 
 
 him the spirit of the eternal jester-ape. In 
 the primeval forest he would be the first 
 to mock at one of our mystical forbears 
 who turned his face to the sun and wor- 
 shipped ; the first to tie a knot in the tails 
 of a pair of monkey-lovers who had found 
 Romance. In a word, the first sceptic. 
 He still mocks at the worshipper ; he still 
 ties the playful knot. This age, above all 
 others, is suited to his humour. There is 
 so much false obeisance ; there are so 
 many ill-assorted tails. The jester-ape 
 fulfils his mission, and the boulevardians 
 laugh. 
 
 I find that I have not discussed any of 
 M. Capus' plays. It is unnecessary. 
 
 Brieux 
 
 One Sunday afternoon some years ago 
 I found my way to a little theatre on the 
 eastern .boulevards of Brussels. The 
 audience was sparse but tearful ; the 
 " melting mood," rightly extolled by Mr. 
 Shaw, taking the unattractive form of a 
 frequent and universal use of the pocket- 
 handkerchief. The play given was 
 
Brieux 225 
 
 " Blanchette," by M, Brieux, member of 
 the French Academy. I did not know 
 then that " Blanchette " was one of the 
 first successes of M. Antoine's Theatre' 
 Libre, nor that M. Brieux had already 
 achieved a limited and eclectic fame in 
 England as the representative French 
 dramatist through Stage So^'ety per- 
 formances of his later social dramas. 
 Still less did I suspect that Mr. Shaw, of 
 all sane men, would one day attempt the 
 miracle of turning water into wine by 
 devoting an entire preface to praise of this 
 author's translated work. Shaw as pro- 
 logue to Brieux is indeed a sight for gods 
 and men. The high priest of unsenti- 
 mentality prostrate before the altar of 
 bathos. The harlequin enamoured of 
 pomposity. Tanner submissive at the ' 
 heels of Roebuck Ramsden ; a revolution- 
 ary Roebuck Ramsden brought strictly 
 up-to-date, with twentieth century views 
 on marriage, justice and depopulation. 
 And all this in order to prove that M. 
 Brieux is the most important event in the 
 European Theatre since Ibsen. (0 
 Strindberg, Hauptmann, Tchekhov, 
 
 15 
 
226 Modern Dramatists 
 
 Hofmannsthal, and, above all, Shaw !) 
 The volume in question has not yet 
 appeared, but its brilliance cast an antici- 
 patory shadow in the recent production 
 of "False Gods" at His Majesty's 
 Theatre. " False Gods " was an adapta- 
 tion of " La Foi." " La Foi " was " a 
 play by Brieux." No initials ; not even 
 the non-committal " Monsieur." Simply, 
 magnificently, — Brieux. A catechism for 
 the critics : " Who is Brieux ? " " Clearly 
 a personage, a playwright of European 
 repute. For further information apply to 
 Shaw." Thus the path of the dramatic 
 reporter is smoothed. He is able to nod 
 with easy familiarity " Ah yes, of course. 
 .... Brieux." 
 
 For further information let us turn to 
 his plays. I take " Blanchette " first. 
 Blanchette is a daughter of an innkeeper 
 in a country town. She has just left 
 school, and her certificates and prizes are 
 displayed about the walls of the cafd. Her 
 parents show them proudly to their 
 customers. But Blanchette does not take 
 kindly to the new work of a barmaid. She 
 sits behind the counter, reading, and when 
 
Brieux 227 
 
 a labourer stumps in, seats himself and 
 calls for a bock, she fails to serve him 
 courteously. The labourer leaves offended. 
 The stern parent appears and compels 
 filial obedience. Blanchette, tearful, con- 
 veys the pot of beer to "m'sieur." Then, 
 being a girl of some spirit, she runs away 
 to Paris. According to the traditions of 
 the theatre, any girl who runs away to 
 Paris must be immoral. The parents 
 accept this view, and duly expunge her 
 from their life. They are disgraced in 
 the eyes of their neighbours, but there is a 
 general agreement not to mention Blan- 
 chette. In due course she returns, 
 encounters the familiar threatening father, 
 melts her mother's heart, and is finally 
 forgiven by both. 
 
 There is the domestic comedy of 
 "Blanchette." The ethics apart, it is 
 quite skilfully and admirably written, for 
 M. Brieux is a good stage craftsman. 
 But consider it as the work of the alleged 
 leading dramatist of France, writing for a 
 revolutionary theatre some years after the 
 appearance of Ibsen, and the dilemma is 
 obvious. If it was sincerely done, then"! 
 
 15—2 
 
22 8 Modern Dramatists 
 
 M. Brieux had nothing in particular to say jj 
 if it was insincerely done, then he was 
 foisting upon the Theatre Libre a piece of 
 rubbishy theatricality which could have 
 found a home in any one often fashionable 
 theatres in Paris. In the light of the 
 later plays, it is impossible to resist the 
 former conclusion. " Blanchette " pointed 
 the way for M. Brieux, and at the same 
 time defined his limitations. Conventionalv 
 domestic comedy was always his trade, 
 /and his social and political views are only 
 window-dressing. There need be no doubt 
 of the sincerity of M. Brieux's opinions, 
 but they are for the most part so trivially 
 expressed that they carry no conviction. 
 In becoming a reformer, he ceased to be 
 an artist/ 
 
 For proof of this, consider the four-act 
 comedy " Les Bienfaiteurs " (The Philan- 
 thropists). The philanthropists are Robert 
 Landrecy, a factory owner, and his wife 
 Pauline. They are not wealthy, but they 
 have acquired a reputation as charitable 
 people, and apparently spend most of their 
 leisure time in uttering vague generalisa- 
 tions upon the subject of benevolence. 
 
Brieux 229 
 
 Unexpectedly a relative from South Africa, 
 one Valentin Salviat, appears upon the 
 scene, Valentin is a millionaire cynic 
 without any great belief in charity, but he 
 places his fortune at the disposal of Land- 
 recy and Pauline for their schemes. 
 Committees and sub-committees are 
 formed. The poor, deserving and un- 
 deserving, are duly classified, and the work 
 of relief begins. The committees quarrel 
 among themselves, and, of course, are 
 swindled right and left by specious appli- 
 cants. An expert organising secretary, 
 called in to save the situation, goes to the 
 other extreme and refuses aid in every 
 case. The newly-formed society collapses. 
 The dismissal of a workman in Landrecy's 
 factory leads to a strike, and the philan- 
 thropists are in despair. The millionaire 
 chuckles over the fulfilment of his prophecy. 
 Landrecy puts an end to the strike by rein- 
 stating his dismissed employee, and the 
 comedy comes to an end with the following 
 philosophic gems : — 
 
 Landrecy : And yet I have been chari- 
 table. 
 Valentin : No. You have only given 
 
230 Modern Dramatists 
 
 alms — a very different matter. In spite of 
 all your efforts, Landrecy, you have so far 
 awakened no response in the hearts of the 
 people, because the heart only understands 
 the language of love, and that language you 
 have never spoken. But with your first 
 impulse of true charity you disarmed 
 hatred. 
 
 Landrecy : One must love those whom 
 one would relieve ! 
 
 Pauline : One must know them and love 
 them. 
 
 Valentin : Alms must pass from one to 
 another with a clasp of the hand. You 
 must give charity with discernment, 
 Pauline. If not, it does harm. You must 
 give with love, Landrecy ; otherwise it is 
 ineffectual. . . . 
 
 The banality of this passage makes 
 comment almost unnecessary. Some such 
 string of platitudes must have served 
 Tchekhov as a text w^hen he wrote : " To 
 me the Theatre of to-day is no more than an 
 antiquated prejudice, a dull routine. When 
 the curtain rises, and all these accomplished 
 actors, these priests of a sacred art, 
 attempt to shovv^, by lamplight, in a room 
 with three walls, how ordinary people eat, 
 
Brieux 231 
 
 drink, love, move about the world ; when 
 a morality is preached to us in trivial 
 phrases and pictures, a vulgar, common- 
 place morality convenient for household 
 use ; when the same old story is dished up 
 again and again in a thousand variations ; 
 then I can do no otherwise than flee as 
 Maupassant fled from the Eiffel Tower, 
 whose triviality threatened to shatter his 
 soul ! " 
 
 Observe, however, the most important 
 European dramatist since Ibsen. 
 
 I turn to "Les Trois Filles de M. 
 Dupont." This is Brieux's most successful •" 
 effort at social drama. M. Dupont's three 
 daughters are Caroline, Julie and Ang&le. 
 Caroline is an old maid, and a pious 
 Catholic. Angele is a prostitute in Paris. 
 Julie, when the play begins, is about to be 
 betrothed to Antonin Mairant, a youth of 
 the town. M. and Mme. Mairant pay 
 their ceremonial call upon M. and Mme. 
 Dupont. The four parents haggle about 
 the marriage portion, and succeed in 
 swindling one another to perfection. But 
 Julie, once married, proves intractable. 
 She wants children and Antonin will give 
 
232 Modern Dramatists 
 
 her none. Moreover, the mutual fraud of 
 the dowry is revealed. Antonin treats the 
 matter cynically, and Julie breaks out 
 fiercely with her claims to motherhood, to 
 equality and respect. She has not married 
 him to be made a slave, and she insists 
 upon her rights as an individual. Much 
 of this outburst is effective enough, but 
 I'l Brieux the feuilletonist is not long kept in 
 the background. He asserts himself in 
 wordy commonplace and platitude. One 
 feels with him, as with Sudermann in 
 "Magda" and " Johannisfeuer," that the 
 subject is too big for its author. Julie is 
 only convincing as a feminist tract. There 
 is nothing in her shadowy personality to 
 compel attention and to make her, views 
 and all, inevitably true. 
 
 This weakness is all the more glaring 
 in the later passages of the pla_^| So far 
 we have been concerned only with one of 
 the daughters of M. Dupont. The case ot 
 the others is just as hard. Caroline wants 
 to be married. She and Ang^le together 
 inherit a small legacy. CaroHne hands 
 over a part of her share to an inventor, 
 hoping that he will come to her rescue ; 
 
Brieux 233 
 
 but he proves to be already living with a 
 mistress. Caroline, then, remains upon 
 her parent's hands. Angele (victim, of 
 course, of an early seduction) arrives from 
 Paris ; but beyond impressing M. and 
 Mme. Dupont vastly by her prosperous 
 appearance, and lamenting her fate senti- 
 mentally, she does nothing in particular. 
 Julie, having left her husband, is persuaded 
 to return to him ; and M. Dupont, who 
 " always kne^iv.that tffingi* would straighten 
 themselves out in the end," contemplates 
 his precious family with resignation. 
 
 One further example : the ineffable 
 " Maternite," dedicated to the Society for 
 the Prevention of Depopulation in France. 
 Here the cloven hoof of the feuilletonist-* 
 reformer not only comes through, but kicks 
 the drama to pieces most unmercifully^ 
 Annette Brignac, daughter of a middle- 
 class family, is seduced by her lover and 
 left with an unborn child. Her father, a 
 pompous politician, has views upon the 
 duty of parentage (legitimate, of course), 
 and is, no doubt, a member of M. Brieux's 
 Society. Two acts are occupied in general 
 discussion of the ethics of social duties 
 
234 Modern Dramatists 
 
 and individual rights in this matter of 
 parentage. In the third and last act it 
 appears that Annette has died as the result 
 of artificially procured abortion, and the 
 woman who performed the operation is 
 put upon her trial for murder. The trial 
 comes to no conclusion, for the counsel for 
 the defence causes a popular outburst by 
 denouncing the seducer, and the judge 
 withdraws from the Court without passing 
 sentence, in order to preserve his dignity. 
 All that emerges is a muddle of flatulent 
 rhetoric and special pleading ; and the 
 cause of feminism was never more vilely 
 urged. 
 
 Brieux is not the only playwright who 
 has seen the possibilities of exploiting 
 modern social views for the sake of thea- 
 trical effect. The case of Sudermann, 
 own brother to him, has already been 
 considered. Both reveal in their work 
 temperaments which make everything that 
 they touch necessarily false. The sincerity 
 or insincerity of their views matters no- 
 thing, for drama depends upon personality 
 and treatment rather than upon subject. 
 Sudermann may have believed that in 
 
Brieux 235 
 
 " Die Ehre " he was revolutionising the 
 conception of honour, and in "Magda" 
 that he was stating a new view of the inde- 
 pendence of women ; he failed in each 
 case because he created no individual 
 figure who was not trivial. Brieux may 
 have believed that in " Maternity " and 
 " Les Avarids " he was exposing the dis- 
 eases of modern society with such force 
 that after the publication of his work they 
 could no longer continue to exist ; in 
 reality he was only exposing his own 
 bourgeois temperament to the public gaze. 
 There is something almost indecent in 
 this self-revelation ; but it is inevitable, 
 and it is the solitary safeguard against the 
 fraud of revolutionary drama which is not 
 revolutionary. One searches in vain 
 through the whole of Brieux's plays for a 
 single memorable figure. Rebecca West 
 and Dr. Stockmann we know ; Hilda 
 Wangel and Relling. But who are Valen- 
 tin Salviat, Julie Dupont and Annette 
 Brignac ? Ill-digested scraps of blue- 
 books, manifestoes, Charity Organisation 
 leaflets, members of the Society for Com- 
 batting Depopulation in France. Infuse 
 
236 Modern Dramatists 
 
 them with sentimentality, set them upon 
 their feet and bid them walk ; and they 
 give you calculated farce, ponderous 
 comedy without the Comic Spirit and 
 pitiful tragedy without a spark of the 
 eternal. 
 
 Let us pursue this question of the sham 
 social drama a little further. Platitudes 
 are infectious, and in criticism of M, 
 Brieux I shall not go out of my way to 
 avoid them. It is a platitude, for example, 
 to say that there is no such thing as 
 an impersonal play (although individual 
 authors may approach the impersonal). 
 There is no such thing, in the abstract, 
 as a realistic or romantic method, although 
 each individual author has his own bias. 
 In the same wajljthere is no such thing as 
 an abstract social drama. There is only 
 an individual author's view of Hfe, and that 
 is the beginning and the end of all his 
 work. An understanding of this is vital, 
 because, as the Theatre becomes more and 
 more concerned with ideas, the contrary 
 view may be encouraged. Mr. Barker, 
 for example, recently called for a play 
 upon the Majority and Minority Reports 
 
Brieux 237 
 
 of the Poor Law Commission, setting forth 
 the dramatic conflict between them ; the 
 inference being that if any individual of 
 the necessary ability sat down to study 
 both Government blue-books (which God 
 forbid !) he could in course of time, by 
 applying them to the facts of life, evolve a 
 social masterpiece. It is conceivable that 
 such a play might be written, but, if so, it 
 would not be because the author conceived 
 of life as one large blue Majority Report 
 opposed to another large blue Minority 
 Report, but because his personal distinc- 
 tion as an artist carried him beyond them 
 both into tragical isolation. (Tragical, 
 whatever his treatment of the theme might 
 be.) Moreover, he would be unable to 
 avoid revealing in his work, not only him- 
 self, but his method. The more the blue- 
 books, the less the conviction his play 
 would carryj 
 
 The case applies very well to M. Brieux. 
 [Before he took to the drama of social 
 problems, he was a harmless sentimentalist. 
 Then he felt called upon to move with the 
 times. He issued, in his own person. 
 Majority and Minority reports upon the 
 
\ 
 
 238 Modern Dramatists 
 
 social condition of his country, and very 
 naturally he became a successful academic 
 personage. The revolutionary bias in his 
 plays (" Maternite " and " Les Avarids," 
 for example) did him no harm, and indeed 
 commended him to those supporters of 
 the advanced theatre who were incapable 
 of distinguishing between an expression 
 of opinion and a work of art. But he 
 could never escape from himself. The 
 mark of the beast was upon him ; the 
 trail of feuilletonism and routine. His 
 writing had the false perfection of common- 
 place, the superficiality of the social 
 sketch-map, the vocabulary of the leader 
 writer and the pamphleteer, the easy 
 achievement of the author with nothing 
 to say. I (I refer the reader once again to 
 the passage from " Les Bienfaiteurs " 
 quoted above.) The whole shallow philo- 
 sophy of life stood revealed. Society, for 
 M. Brieux, consists of convergent " move- 
 ments." At some point they meet. He 
 classifies them neatly. Here one view, 
 there another. Philanthropy and true 
 charity (" Les Bienfaiteurs "), law and 
 justice (" La Robe Rouge "), religion and 
 
Brieux 239 
 
 agnosticism (" La Foi "), marriage and free \ 
 love (" Les Hannetons"), feminism and 
 anti-feminism (" Les Trois Filles de M. 
 Dupont," " Maternite "). But the con- I 
 vergent forces are only movements, not 
 individuals; and so the common ground ' 
 upon vi^hich they meet is strewn with much l 
 rhetoric and little drama. 
 
 M. Brieux, then, may be left to those 
 readers and playgoers who must at all 
 costs have their " morality for household 
 use " ready to hand, like yellow soap in 
 the back kitchen. With them there is no 
 disputing, for the question at issue is the 
 eternal one of taste. It is possible that\ 
 M. Brieux's plays may exercise some 
 ephemeral reforming influence, just as it 
 is possible that a Socialist Daily Mail 
 might bring about a temporary revolution, 
 and even probable that a pious Daily 
 Mail might create a religious revival. 
 But criticism can have no truck with such 
 factitious effects. The critic, like the 
 dramatist, works by artistic instinct. It 
 is not his part to act as town crier for 
 every municipal councillor with advanced 
 opinion, or to peddle cheap reform from 
 
240 Modern Dramatists 
 
 door to doon j There are some playwrights 
 of our time who compel more than the 
 attention of a moment. They stand in 
 that tragical isolation of which I have 
 spoken. They are the night watchmen 
 who cry the hours from age to age. There 
 is mystery in them, because they have 
 always penetrated the darkness a little 
 further than the rest. The black magic 
 of Strindberg in " The Father" or ".In- 
 toxication," the passionate music of Hof- 
 mannsthal, the ceaseless challenge of 
 Tchekhov, like some sentinel demanding 
 the password of entry into the citadel of 
 art, the intellectual greatness of Shaw in 
 " Man and Superman " — these are quali- 
 ties which make their authors immune, 
 not from critical survey, but from the 
 clumsy familiarity bred of instant appre- 
 hension. One must climb to gain even a 
 glimpse of them. The summits of their 
 work are veiled. There are other authors, 
 like Brieux, who inspire no such respect. 
 Their achievement stands out, unsightly 
 and uninspired, like some jerrybuilt 
 " Smith's Folly " set upon a trivial mound 
 for the mockery of after generations. /As 
 
Brieux 241 
 
 their own time and its immediate pro- 
 blems pass, the very reason for their labour 
 is forgotten. It fails to live because in 
 itself it has no beauty and no individual 
 powerj It is only the monument of an 
 unknown dullard. 
 
 And the momentary fame? In M. 
 Brieux's case, it depends mainly upon the 
 censorship. Three of his plays have 
 been refused a licence in England ; one 
 has been prohibited in France. The 
 record of the English censorship, at least, 
 is sufficiently stupid to justify the pre- 
 sumption that he is therefore a dis- 
 tinguished artist. Mr. Shaw appears in 
 defence of this claim. I have dealt faith- 
 fully with it. M. Brieux must be judged 
 upon his merits. 
 
 16 
 
X 
 
 BELGIUM AND HOLLAND 
 MAETERLINCK AND HEIJERMANS 
 
 Maeterlinck 
 
 The guileless have said that Maeterlinck 
 belongs to no period. This is because 
 they have lost themselves so completely in 
 his mystical forests that they can no 
 longer see the wood of modernity for the 
 trees of illusion. To them his magic is 
 witchcraft. In seeking the source of the 
 rainbow, they have found nothing but 
 mist. Nevertheless, the period claims 
 him. The opportunity of realism comes 
 with the age of false romance. And, in 
 the same sequence, there is a time for 
 magic. It is the hour when all the world 
 is matter-of-fact. 
 
 The early eighteen-nineties saw the 
 advanced theatre besieged by social 
 dramatists. They formed a European 
 ring ; Ibsen, Strindberg, Tolstoy, Haupt- 
 mann, Henri Becque and the authors of 
 
. Maeterlinck 243 
 
 the comedie rosse. Their social gospels 
 varied, but they all practised in common 
 the outward technique of realism, with its 
 perfection of modern dialogue and setting. 
 The subject varied, too. Here it was the 
 life of the bourgeoisie, there that of the 
 peasantry or the slums. Social politics 
 were touched upon, as in " The Weavers " 
 or "An Enemy of the People." An atmo- 
 sphere of moral indignation pervaded the 
 stage. Society was " unmasked " ; con- 
 vention was exposed ; new moralities were 
 preached. Each author, mounting the 
 realistic steed, set off at a gallop in pursuit 
 of " Truth." And truth was the actual, 
 the existing fact. 
 
 This was the destined hour of the 
 magician, and Maeterlinck appeared. T'he 
 apparition was startling, and some critics, 
 seeking a pompous imbecility to cover 
 their confusion, named him "the Belgian 
 Shakespeare." In this fashion Tchekhov 
 might be named "the Russian Ibsen," or 
 Hugo von Hofmannsthal " the Austrian 
 Dante." Such is the disintegrating force 
 of the new idea upon the mind of the 
 expert labeller. 
 
 16 — 2 
 
244 Modern Dramatists 
 
 The originality of the earlier Maeter- 
 linck was marked in three respects ; in 
 setting, subject and technique. I take 
 them consecutively. 
 
 The setting was at first sight unfamiliar 
 and (to the social politician) reactionary. 
 The peasant cottages and middle-class 
 parlours of the realist drama gave place to 
 dim halls of feudal castles, gloomy mediae- 
 val forests and battlefields remote from 
 space and time. The atmosphere was 
 that of a dream-world with the surface 
 ethics of a barbaric age. So far, however, 
 Maeterlinck might be said only to have 
 rediscovered the vessel of the old romance 
 which had lain unused so long. 
 
 The subject was more unfamiliar still. 
 Dramatists of all ages had been concerned 
 to lay bare the motive of human action. 
 Even the playwright-manipulator of the 
 market place, endeavouring to conceal the 
 strings he pulled, alleged a motive for his 
 puppets ; and the modern realists, challeng- 
 ing the order of society, sought the true 
 motive of actual men and women. Shaw, 
 hurling the thunderbolts of his prefaces at 
 an astonished Anglo-Saxon world, de- 
 
Maeterlinck 245 
 
 nounced the attempt " to found our 
 institutions upon the ideals suggested to 
 our imaginations by our half-satisfied 
 passions, instead of upon a genuinely 
 scientific natural history." Motive, then, 
 was regarded as a fixed scientific fact, 
 accessible to investigation and exact 
 analysis. It was a definitely adjusted 
 part of the human mechanism. Thus the 
 logical evolutionist, supported by nine- 
 teenth century thought. Maeterlinck 
 modified this conception without attempt- 
 ing a frontal assault upon it. He went 
 deeper than the logicians, and sought the 
 source of all motive, the underlying self. 
 Here he was supported by modern psych- 
 ology, which draws a distinction between 
 the conscious and the sub-conscious ego. 
 He was concerned, however, not with a 
 new scientific form of drama to replace 
 the old, but only with the expression of a 
 temperament. He dramatis ed the sub- 
 .cpnscious, the subteiFranean and tremviTous' 
 in man, called it forth and gave it life. _ It 
 toolc the form of the e-hild-sp4Ht^jj34.its 
 dominant trait was ever-present fear. It 
 was awakened at night after the sleep of 
 
246 Modern Dramatists 
 
 centuries, and found the darkness peopled 
 with the unknown. Fate, a mahgnant 
 horror with lean, clutching hands, hovered 
 in the gloom of the castle hall and 
 crouched behind every tree in the forest, 
 purposing a rape of the soul. Even the 
 blind were conscious of its presence. The 
 children fled before it, seeking to return 
 to their sleep ; but every way was barred, 
 and they beat their hands vainly upon 
 heavy iron doors. Such children as 
 Pelleas and Melisande, Aglavaine and 
 Selysette. 
 
 The technique was newest of all. The 
 sub-conscious mood, hitherto expressed 
 only in music, found words. It became 
 articulate through symbolic speech, repeti- 
 tion, archaism and subtle delicacy of 
 suggestion. Above all, through a perfec- 
 tion of the artless. 
 
 This was the service of the earlier 
 Maeterlinck ; a notable discoverer.^ 
 
 " Monna Vanna " was the turning- 
 point. In setting, the transition was from 
 the mystical to the historical, from the 
 dimly imagined to the known. The place, 
 Pisa ; the period, the close of the fifteenth 
 
Maeterlinck 247 
 
 century. The roaming symbolist, then, 
 was tethered by his own choice; and, 
 feeUng the unfamiUar pull of the imprison- 
 ing rope, at each browsing sweep he 
 narrowed his range of Hberty still further, 
 ending at last with many plaintive bleats 
 in a tangle of impotence. But of that 
 later. 
 
 In subject there was a vaster change. 
 The children had grown up. They were 
 no longer afraid of the dark. They passed 
 from moods to problems, from the mid- 
 night dream-world to the high noon of 
 passion, from an atmosphere to a morality, 'i 
 A dictated morality of unheroism, in 
 accord with the "movements" of the 
 age ; such a gospel as sparkled in lighter 
 form through the pages of " Arms and the 
 Man." Some of their former characteris- 
 tics they retained — the half-blindness of 
 Marco, for example — but for the most 
 part they were older and less ingenuous. 
 Yet in growing up they had grown no 
 stronger. Their problems were too great 
 for them. Spoiled children from the first, 
 they became querulous and unmanageable. 
 The reason for this is not far to seek. 
 
248 Modern Dramatists 
 
 The perfect simplicity of the earlier Maeter^ 
 linck portrayed each individual as a clearly 
 defined, homogeneous figure, troubled by 
 fate, but yet limpid and serene within. 
 The child-spirit was a complete whole, 
 the grown man a conflicting cosmos. 
 Instinct guided the poet in his native 
 drama of the sub-conscious ; it deserted 
 him almost wholly in the drama of action. 
 
 In technique, too, there was a lapse. 
 The artless gave place to the artificial, 
 and the old simplicity of speech and form 
 to a covenant with the theatre. The 
 effective thrill of Vanna, naked beneath 
 her cloak in the tent of Prinzivalle, her 
 great stage lie at the close, her all- 
 important " aside " (" Tais-toi . . . je te 
 delivrerai. . . . nous fuirons ") at the 
 critical moment, the explanatory speeches 
 of Marco as raisonneur ; — these were all 
 commonplaces of the theatrical specialist, 
 but they were foreign to Maeterlinck's 
 genius. Moving in the depths of the child- 
 spirit he had been profound ; returning to 
 the surface of life he was — superficial. 
 
 Let us look more closely at the figures 
 of this drama. Pisa is beleaguered by the 
 
Maeterlinck 249 
 
 Florentines and reduced to famine. Guide, 
 husband of Monna Vanna, commands the 
 garrison. The old philosopher Marco, his 
 father, returns from the besieging camp 
 with terms of peace. Marco has been the 
 guest of the Florentine mercenary, Prinzi- 
 valle, and has found him no barbarian, as 
 was rumoured, but a man of parts, wise, 
 reasonable and humane. " But where," 
 he asks, "is the wise man without his 
 madness, or the good man who has never 
 harboured a monstrous thought ? " Prinzi- 
 valle's terms are that Vanna shall go to 
 him at night, naked beneath her cloak, 
 and shall pass the night in his tent ; earn- 
 ing thereby the safe entry into Pisa of a 
 convoy with provisions and the raising of 
 the siege. Marco urges his son to accept 
 them : "Do what this madman asks, and 
 the deed which seems to you hideous will 
 seem heroic to those who survive. ... It 
 is an error to believe that the pinnacle of 
 heroism is to be found only in death. The 
 most heroic act is the most painful, and 
 death is often easier than life." Here is 
 the new morality of reason, linking 
 Maeterlinck with the tendencies of a 
 
250 Modern Dramatists 
 
 period. Guido refuses ; but Vanna con- 
 sents, and goes to Prinzivalle. 
 
 Prinzivalle, unknown to Vanna, had 
 loved her in his youth. He talks with her 
 now ; they speak frankly as friends. She 
 binds up his wounds, and treats him at 
 moments almost like a mother. The 
 purpose of her coming is barely touched 
 upon. Her speech is half naive, half 
 yielding. Very simply she expresses her 
 astonishment at being able to speak with 
 him at all, for " Je suis tres silencieuse." 
 (What sinuous magic in this word ! ) Still 
 Prinzivalle forbears to take her ; and their 
 conversation is broken by an alarm in the 
 camp. A new detachment of the Floren- 
 tines has arrived, and Prinzivalle is 
 proclaimed a traitor. Vanna implores 
 him to return with her to Pisa, where he 
 will be received honourably as a guest. 
 She kisses him upon the forehead, and he 
 carries her away in his arms. 
 
 Within the city Marco and Guido await 
 them. Here the conventions of the theatre 
 gain the upper hand, and, to borrow a 
 phrase of Prinzivalle, " ce dernier acte 
 est le seul qui ne prouve rien." Vanna 
 
Maeterlinck 251 
 
 declares that she is unharmed ; Guido 
 refuses to believe her. Protestations and 
 incredulity — these are familiar scenes, but 
 they are at least convincing. The unreal 
 triumphs with the recognition of Prinzi- 
 valle. Note the gradual lapse into the 
 theatrical rut. Guido believes at first that 
 Vanna has brought him as a victim, to 
 revenge her wrong. She still protests : 
 " He did not touch me." " Why not ? " 
 " Because he loves me." Guido is tortured 
 by ignorance, craves for certainty. At all 
 costs he must know the whole truth. 
 Prinzivalle is seized and bound for torture. 
 Vanna rushes into the midst of the guards, 
 crying, " No ! I lied ! He took me ! He 
 is mine ! " (Aside to Prinzivalle, " Be 
 silent ! I will free you ! We will fly 
 together ! ") Stage psychology ready- 
 made ; a wild, clap-trap scene. For the 
 sake of form Guido asks " Why is he here ? 
 Why did you lie ? " and for the sake of 
 form she answers, " I lied to spare you. 
 ... I brought him to revenge myself." 
 The play sinks fast, but Vanna's proof 
 touches the depths. She approaches 
 Prinzivalle and embraces him with a 
 
252 Modern Dramatists 
 
 show of hatred. " Thus and thus I kissed 
 him ! . . . He is mine ! . . . I will have 
 him ! . . . He is the trophy of this night 
 of mine 1 " Prinzivalle is led away. 
 " Adieu . . . We shall meet again 1 " 
 Then, taking the key of his prison, she 
 goes out alone to set him free. " Ce 
 dernier acte . . . ne prouve rien." 
 
 And the ethics ? (For " Monna Vanna " 
 has been called an ethical drama.) Accept 
 for the sake of argument the wildly pre- 
 posterous fact of Prinzivalle's demand. 
 Marco urges a morality of unheroism and 
 sacrifice ; but he claims in the same 
 breath that it is based upon the experience 
 of age. He foreshadows a time when sole 
 possession will not be the highest aim of 
 love ; but his immediate instance is the 
 prostitution of the beloved to the caprice 
 of a mercenary. Guido commands the 
 garrison ; but he allows Vanna to go 
 against his will. Having allowed her to 
 go, he stands upon his honour and refuses 
 to forgive her. Prinzivalle is a philosopher, 
 but yet " a madman." He loves Vanna, 
 but he does not take her. As for Vanna 
 herself, she remains a mystery. (Perhaps 
 
Maeterlinck 253 
 
 a mystery even to her author.) She loves 
 Guido and treats him almost with con- 
 tempt ; loves Prinzivalle in an instant, 
 and saves him in the next. The last 
 impression of her is the strongest ; as the 
 steam of the theatrical machinery in the 
 final act. The motive of an ethical drama 
 of weaklings. 
 
 Let us be uncritical for a moment, even 
 towards these spoiled children. It is ill 
 work to be for ever breaking butterflies 
 upon a wheel. And in this " Monna 
 Vanna " there is so much music of speech, 
 so much brave show of colour, so much 
 pure joy of life. There are triumphant 
 moments ; as when Prinzivalle draws 
 aside the curtain of his tent, and the fiery 
 towers of Pisa are seen against the sky. 
 These are in part a legacy of past achieve- 
 ment ; in part the flame of a fate at its 
 zenith. " Monna Vanna " is a landmark, 
 a monument at the parting of the ways. 
 With the earlier dramas, it traces the his- 
 tory of Maeterlinck the poet. He had 
 himself emerged from the gloom of the 
 forest for the first time ; an'd if he blinked 
 overmuch in the glare of noon, and his 
 
254 Modern Dramatists 
 
 mystical second sight deserted him, that 
 may have been Httle for him by comparison 
 with the new sense of Ufe and passion. 
 One should not darken the eyes of the 
 poet, as finches are blinded to make them 
 sing more sweetly. He must choose his 
 own surroundings. Only, it is the song 
 that matters to the world, not the singer ; 
 and there is one of the riddles of art and 
 life. After " Monna Vanna," Maeterlinck 
 was no longer a discoverer. He became 
 a purveyor of water after wine. But the 
 wine must first be tasted, before the water 
 is thrown away. 
 
 Heijermans. 
 
 There are playwrights who follow 
 " movements " as street urchins march in 
 step with a military band. Such a ragged 
 group of imitators was attracted by the 
 cry of " naturalism " in the European 
 theatre of twenty years ago ; and the more 
 squalid and noisome the district traversed, 
 the larger grew the following. The manu- 
 facture of slum drama, indeed, appealed 
 irresistibly to the unemployed mind. The 
 
Heijermans 255 
 
 method was simple. Dirt, poverty and 
 alcohol were the material ingredients. 
 Ever-present dirt supplied the necessary 
 sepia background. Poverty offered the , 
 motive for three hours of clutching specu- 
 lation as to the fortunes of the characters. 
 Alcohol, embracing psychological cause 
 and effect with superb catholicity, assisted 
 the play to stagger forward a few steps 
 when the action threatened to halt ; an 
 immemorial stage device. At the same 
 time, it added local colour. Lastly, an 
 infusion of revolutionary thought, borrowed 
 conveniently from a Social Democratic 
 leaflet, provided the all-important "ten- 
 dency," and enabled the author to flatter 
 himself that he had joined the ranks of 
 the moderns and was delivering a message 
 to his age. Dirt, poverty, alcohol, " ten- 
 dency," — there is the content of the facti- 
 tious slum tragedy, the drama of the street 
 urchin which has cursed the stage of 
 Europe for a generation. 
 
 And the characters ? I had forgotten 
 them. (It is so easy to forget the charac- 
 ters.) Their part in the affair was 
 comparatively unimportant. They were 
 
256 Modern Dramatists 
 
 determinist puppets, unhappy victims of 
 heredity and environment. Their speech 
 was a dialect, and their function to be 
 mouthpieces of the tendency. Thus they 
 were conceived by their authors, and thus 
 they Hved through their brief existence. 
 Their lament completed, they withdrew 
 into a corner and perished modestly in 
 accordance with the programme. This 
 theatrical manoeuvre, devoid of form, 
 beauty or inspiration, became known as 
 " realistic tragedy." At best it was only a 
 kinematog^aphic genre picture, at worst a 
 laboured whine. 
 
 I write, of course, only of the minor 
 followers of the "movement." The 
 leaders — dramatists like Hauptmann and 
 Strindberg — ^were concerned with some- 
 thing more than that " realistic method of 
 a conscientious transcription of all the 
 visible, and a repetition of all the audible," 
 which, as Meredith protested, " is mainly 
 accountable for our present branfulness, 
 and for that prolongation of the vasty and 
 the noisy, out of which, as from an un- 
 drained fen, steams the malady of same- 
 ness, our modern malady." They 
 
Heijermans 257 
 
 perceived more in life than a desert of the 
 actual, and reflected the perception in their 
 work ; removing themselves thereby from 
 the region of schools and definitions. 
 That is the distinction of the pioneer. 
 His part is not first to create the inevitable 
 and then to bewail its inevitability, as 
 thousands before him have done, but by 
 his own individual treatment to show a 
 way of escape. Any morbid person can 
 exhibit suffering men and women upon 
 the stage ; only the poet can make their 
 suffering tragic. 
 
 There remain among the camp followers 
 of modern realist drama some authors 
 whose individuality saves them from 
 becoming lost in the crowd, even though 
 they break no new ground. One of them 
 is the Dutch dramatist Heijermans, a 
 master of the genre picture and (what is 
 rarer among his school) an accomplished 
 stage craftsman. His work has all the 
 familiar characteristics of the older 
 naturalism ; dialect speech and a minutely 
 detailed study of proletarian life ; a certain 
 intentional coarseness here and there, des- 
 tined to startle the over-civilised audience 
 
 17 
 
2^S Modern Dramatists 
 
 of the city, and perhaps to challenge 
 the censorship ; a revolutionary bias, 
 sentimental rather than virile, and much 
 vehement denunciation of society, for the 
 most part ill-expressed ; lack of character 
 in the figures eked out with naive 
 generalisations ; but among all these fake 
 notes the truer ring of that home-bred 
 philosophy which springs, like folk-song, 
 from everyday action and observation of 
 the common things of life, harvest and full 
 nets of fish, wind and sky and sea, rather 
 than from superimposed politics or 
 opinions. The opinions, indeed, matter 
 little. There are some few people to whom 
 a revolutionary conception becomes real 
 by experience, and who are able at the 
 same time to express their feeling clearly ; 
 but from most of the figures of realistic 
 drama such expression comes unconvinc- 
 ingly, in the stilted language of an author 
 who ceases to create in the effort to dictate. 
 Hauptmann understood this dilemma 
 when he wrote "The Weavers"; and 
 although he took the side of the strikers 
 throughout the play, he made the dramatic 
 motive only a blind upheaval, meaningless 
 
Heijermans 259 
 
 to the cold-blooded observer, criminal in 
 the eyes of the " moderate man," foolhardy 
 to the experienced poHtician, but superb 
 and wonderful as a symbol of an upward 
 striving and a momentary realisation of 
 the common desire. 
 
 • Heijermans followed him in " Op Hoop 
 van Zegen " (The Good Hope), and 
 reduced the social conflict to banality, 
 while he increased its theatrical force by 
 a firmer technique of construction. The 
 play is named " a sea-piece in four acts," 
 and passes in a Dutch fishing village. A 
 shipowner sends out a leaky trawler, " The 
 Good Hope," knowing her to be unsea- 
 worthy (and thereby becomes the villain 
 of the piece). The ship is wrecked in a 
 storm, and husbands, lovers and children 
 are lost. That is all. From the social 
 standpoint a fatal skirmish in the guerilla 
 warfare of exploiters and exploited. The 
 weapons are unfairly chosen, however, 
 and here lies a weakness. The author 
 goes out of his way to say that shipowners 
 are unscrupulous scoundrels, and fisher- 
 men their unfortunate victims. The bias 
 contributes nothing to drama, and makes 
 
 17 — 2 
 
26o Modern Dramatists 
 
 the tragedy no more impressive. Good 
 ships, as well as bad, may perish in a 
 storm; and for the fisherman the sea 
 itself is the symbol of fate. As one of the 
 characters (forgetfiil for a moment of 
 denunciation) says: "We take the fish, 
 and God takes us." (The survival of the 
 fittest?) Here is a conception more 
 finitfiil of great drama than a passing 
 advantage upon one side or the other in 
 the conflict of employers and employed ; 
 and the power of " The Good Hope " rests 
 not in that conflict, one-sided as it is, but 
 in the portrayal of the fishermen them- 
 selves at grips with life and death. A 
 boy is draped away to sea against his 
 will, and is heard of no more except as 
 " Barend ^'ermeer, aged 19," in the list of 
 the drowned. His brother sinks in the 
 same ship, and leaves a girl with an 
 unborn child. The women and old men 
 huddle together in a cottage fearful of the 
 storm, and tales of the sea are told in the 
 dark ; of men overboard torn by sharks, 
 of viTecks on the Dogger Bank, of ships 
 long overdue and months of expectation 
 ending in despair. A gale of wind and 
 
Heijermans 261 
 
 rain whistles through the play, sweeping 
 the decks of life, tossing men out into 
 the unknown. That is the power of 
 Heijermans. 
 
 In " Ora et L^bora " he turns to the 
 peasantry, starving upon the banks of a 
 frozen canal in winter — a genre picture 
 again, dull grey as a December evening. 
 " I ask," says Hiddes, the old bargee, 
 " why the Lord made the winter. . . . 
 The birds fly away and the beasts burrow 
 .... they're better off than men. That's 
 queer. How comes it that the worms 
 sleep and the swallows fly south, while we 
 haven't even a warm room above ground ? 
 Why in thunder does the Lord make 
 water and earth as hard as stone ? " So 
 the play runs on. There is no work, no 
 warmth, no food. One figure after 
 another comes from the hut or the frost- 
 bound canal with the same lament. The 
 last cow dies of disease in an outhouse, 
 and its throat is cut so that it can be sold 
 to the butcher. The father of the family 
 sells it for a few shillings, and returns 
 home drunk. His son Eelke enlists in the 
 army as a last resort, and binds himself 
 
262 Modern Dramatists 
 
 to colonial service in the West Indies for 
 six years, leaving Sytske, the girl he was 
 to marry. His first month's pay saves 
 the family from the workhouse. Sytske 
 refuses to forgive him, and the old peasants 
 are left squabbling over the money he has 
 brought. Again — ^that is all. A pitiful 
 story, told as well as may be. 
 
 These two plays, with " Ghetto," a 
 tragedy of the Jewish quarter in a Dutch 
 city, contain the best work that Heijermans 
 has done. They reveal no very powerful 
 personality ; a kindly disposition but a 
 commonplace intellect ; sincere revolu- 
 tionary conviction without enough creative 
 force to translate it into terms of life ; a 
 fine sense of atmosphere, comparable with 
 that of the Dutch masters, but lack of 
 colour ; stagecraft without inevitability. 
 In a word, talent without genius. Such a 
 playwright, straggling in the rear, marks 
 the close of a period. He is the last of 
 the naturalists. The main body of the 
 movement he follows is long since dis- 
 persed. Tolstoy became a preacher, 
 Strindberg a mystic ; Hauptmann and 
 Gorky are lost in byways. Heijermans 
 
Heijermans 263 
 
 still perseveres, but no matter how many 
 leagues he may cover, he can go no 
 further. The world is turning in the 
 opposite direction. 
 
XI 
 ITALY 
 
 D'Annunzio 
 
 Given imaginative power, what are the 
 essential conditions of the theatre ? 
 Psychology suggested rather than de- 
 scribed ; descriptive colour arising spon- 
 taneously in speech rather than plastered 
 on in elaborate stage directions ; impres- 
 sionism together with good draughtsman- 
 ship ; — an ever-watchful austerity far 
 removed from the exuberance of the author 
 with a hundred thousand words to spend 
 and a whole language to choose them 
 from ; in a word, symmetry extended 
 from form to content ; the rhythmic 
 instinct of the lyric poet combined with 
 the verbal economy of the aphorist and 
 the concentration of the painter in minia- 
 ture. 
 
 D'Annunzio is poet, novelist, and play- 
 wright together. He has his place in 
 the European chain, not far removed 
 
D'Annunzio 265 
 
 from Maeterlinck and Hoftnannsthal. 
 Recall for a moment the quality which 
 distinguishes these two dramatists (to- 
 gether, perhaps, with Tchekhoy) from all 
 the other authors of their time. It is their 
 revolt, conscious or unconscious, against 
 the bourgeois theatre, that theatre which 
 is concerned mainly with the social 
 conditions of a period, filled with moral 
 indignation and designed to replace con- 
 vention by an ethical standard. The 
 theatre, typically, of Bjornson, Shaw, 
 Brieux, Heijermans, Hauptmann and 
 Galsworthy. Maeterlinck rehabilitated 
 symbolism. Hofmannsthal, revisiting re- 
 naissant Italy, became the leader of the 
 New Romanticists; and his reconstruc- 
 tion of Greek tragedy was in itself an 
 artistic challenge. Tchekhov rebelled 
 against the " morality for household use," 
 and sought in " The Seagull " and " The 
 Cherry Orchard " to remould modern 
 drama by uniting dignity of conception 
 with beauty of stage setting. All three 
 were pioneers. With the gradual decay 
 of modern realism their originality begins 
 to be understood. 
 
266 Modern Dramatists 
 
 There remains the case of D'Annunzio, 
 no pioneer, but a superbly gifted imitator. 
 " Imitator " may be too harsh. He is a 
 magnificent virtuoso, if no composer of 
 symphonies ; a great artificer of words, a 
 collector of sensational curios, a conjurer 
 who would pass for a magician, a mixer 
 of glorious colours, a swaggerer in the 
 grand style. Superlatives are his vocabu- 
 lary. He flings them prodigally right and 
 left, with the air of one who inherits the 
 Latin culture of a thousand years and 
 exults in the mastery of the sweetest 
 language that the world has known. He 
 has no " tendency," no hatred of conven- 
 tion save in speech. A connoisseur of 
 impressions, he calls every art to his aid : 
 sculpture in " Gioconda " and " The 
 Dead City," where a woman suffers muti- 
 lation to save a statue, and another is 
 likened to "the Victory unlacing her 
 sandals " ; architecture in every pillared 
 setting, in the ruined walls of Mycenae or 
 the glimpse of San Miniato from a bal- 
 cony ; tragic verse, where two women 
 read aloud from Sophocles and weep 
 together over the death of Antigone ; 
 
D'Annunzio 267 
 
 music in the folk-song of Francesca's 
 playmates ; handicraft in the heaped 
 treasures of Greece excavated by Leonardo, 
 and described with the collector's love of 
 old, strange words. (The chords of speech 
 in this passage have the timbre of long- 
 forgotten instruments). Painting, again, 
 in every scene : in the drooping posture 
 of Bianca Maria as she stands upon the 
 loggia steps ; in the crushed, bleeding 
 hands of Silvia, like those of some 
 mediaeval martyr-saint ; in the dead body 
 of Bianca lying by the fountain. All of 
 these are fruits of reminiscence. The 
 achievement of the world is swept for 
 D'Annunzio's writing-table. Then the 
 weaving, the embroidery, the word-paint- 
 ing begin. Most skilfully the impressions 
 are arranged. About the dead city whirls 
 " a tempest of flaming dust." Visions 
 are recalled in flashes. " All the desert of 
 Argos, behind us, was a lake of flame. 
 The mountains were tawny and savage, 
 like lionesses," A " thirsty plain " en- 
 circles the ruins. The atmosphere vibrates 
 with heat. Then, in the cool of evening, 
 a change, A description of Bianca : '* The 
 
268 Modern Dramatists 
 
 quiver of a thousand wings was in her 
 voice." " The quiver of a thousand wings." 
 A great virtuoso. 
 
 There is the first impression of his work. 
 I pause to extricate drama from this 
 tropical profusion of speech. Little can 
 be found. For D'Annunzio, not content 
 with the spoils that he has gathered from 
 the arts, and discovering, naturally enough, 
 that his own gift of word-painting serves 
 only a decorative purpose, has met the 
 demands of the theatre by further borrow- 
 ing in a meaner quarter. He has propped 
 his structure with two unsteady supports, 
 the one a peculiarly gross form of thea- 
 trical sensation, the other a bastard 
 symbolism. Take for example the case of 
 the notorious " Gioconda." A sculptor is 
 dragged this way and that by two women 
 struggling for possession of his soul. 
 Silvia, his wife, is a gentle, saintly creature, 
 who possesses him completely in his calmer 
 moments ; Gioconda, his model, is the 
 famihar " panther- woman " of modern 
 drama, sex incarnate, lithe, passionate, 
 dangerous. (I speak of intention only. 
 D'Annunzio says that Gioconda is so 
 
D'Annunzio 269 
 
 disposed. She herself says so. But she 
 remains unconvincing because she is only 
 a decorative talker with one trapeze act to 
 perform. These are the traps which the 
 theatre lays for the virtuoso.) Gioconda 
 inspires the sculptor's statue ; Silvia nurses 
 him through a long illness. Thus far 
 D'Annunzio offers nothing new in subject 
 or treatment. Many authors before him 
 have dramatised the conflict of saintly 
 devotion and sensual charm. But he has 
 the instinct for sensation — a sensation in 
 superlatives, a monstrous catastrophe — 
 and he arranges a scene between the two 
 women in the studio before the clay 
 symbol of their war. Gioconda the pas- 
 sionate, the revengeful, endeavours to 
 throw the statue to the ground. Silvia 
 rushes to save it, and a struggle takes 
 place behind a curtain. Then a thud, a 
 cry of horror. Gioconda emerges madly 
 and escapes. Silvia comes forward with 
 both her hands crushed into pulp, wrapped 
 in wet cloths that are soaked through and 
 through with blood. The statue has fallen 
 upon them. She staggers, is supported, 
 recovers herself. The inevitable phrase 
 
270 Modern Dramatists 
 
 is spoken: " But — ^the statue is saved ! " 
 Curtain. A sensation for all Europe. 
 D'Annunzio outdoes Pinero. What was 
 Mrs. Ebb smith's rescue of the Bible from 
 the flames compared with this ? 
 
 Needless to say, the scene forms the 
 pinnacle of the third act. The fourth, in 
 accordance with the same base tradition, 
 is steeped in sentimentality. It appears 
 that, for some reason unexplained, 
 Gioconda has carried off the sculptor, 
 Silvia is left alone. A new^ effect is ar- 
 ranged, the convalescent mother without 
 hands embracing her infant child. A double 
 symbolism of martyred love and amutilated 
 life. 
 
 The same symbolic device is used from 
 time to time in " The Dead City," a play 
 of far greater beauty. The blindness of 
 Anna, the " thirsty plain " of Argos, 
 Bianca's hair entangled by chance in 
 Alessandro's ring, the golden pair of scales 
 that lay upon Cassandra's breast — all of 
 these have their part in the tragedy. The 
 atmosphere is more completely rendered. 
 The historian may discover less of Sardou 
 than in " Gioconda," and more of Maeter- 
 
D'Annunzio 271 
 
 linck ; but there is also something of 
 D'Annunzio, something more than words. 
 If all the borrowed plumes can be removed, 
 and all the moods realised with sympathy, 
 it will be found that he is indeed a problem 
 dramatist, not of custom or morality, but 
 of sex itself. He lives, not in the every- 
 day world, but in the exceptional moment. 
 He portrays conditions of high nervous 
 tension without the creative skill to make 
 them develop convincingly. In charac- 
 terisation, as in drama, he leaps directly 
 from the positive to the superlative without 
 a thought of all that lies between. The 
 bourgeois theatre is concerned with prob- 
 lems of conduct and moral conventions ; 
 D'Annunzio passes in a flash beyond them 
 to the last analysis of motive. He is 
 meteoric, productive of much dust and 
 little drama. But there is grace in his 
 flight. Even the word-painting is brought, 
 in ecstatic moments, into harmony with 
 the conception of the play. The windy 
 stage directions of " Gioconda," with their 
 sunlight and clouds and rain, convey very 
 little. They belong to the art of the 
 novelist. One is conscious that they are 
 
272 Modern Dramatists 
 
 easily imagined and lightly set down upon 
 the printed page, but seldom realised in 
 the theatre. Then comes an inspiration 
 of genius. Flowers are brought. Some 
 one says, " There is a bee in the room." 
 In a pause, all present listen for its hum. 
 The sand-paper bee in the wings of the 
 stage is unnecessary. Silence is music 
 enough. There is a bee in the room. 
 There is more, — all the streaming warmth 
 of spring and the scent of flowers. The 
 bald statements of scenic decoration 
 become real ; an atmosphere is created. 
 Such an atmosphere is exhaled by the 
 Dead City and by the gardens of the 
 " Francesca da Rimini." The conjurer 
 is sometimes a magician. He has the 
 will to illusion. Let us be grateful. 
 
XII 
 
 A SUMMARY 
 
 How far does drama depend upon 
 nationality? It is not easy to disen- 
 tangle the question from all the prejudice 
 which surrounds it. But if we reject the 
 facile generalisations that every Norseman 
 is sombre, every German stolid, every 
 Frenchman volatile, every Austrian frivo- 
 lous, every Russian pessimistic, every 
 Italian passionate, every Irishman para- 
 doxically witty, and every Englishman a 
 patch in John Bull's monstrous waistcoat, 
 the foregoing chapters have nevertheless 
 revealed frontier walls which not even 
 the strongest individuality can altogether 
 destroy. The survey of an instant will 
 recall them. Ibsen's men and women 
 belong to the mountains and the fjords. 
 Many of his scenes, from " Brand " to 
 " When we Dead Awaken," are laid upon 
 the heights. Bjornson's miraculous pastor 
 
 i8 
 
274 Modern Dramatists 
 
 lives in a land of miracles. Strindberg, 
 most cosmopolitan of all by choice, is yet 
 most national by temperament. His 
 historical and saga plays should be read 
 together with the autobiography " Die 
 Entwicklung einer Seele " by all who 
 would understand the Northern spirit, 
 The Germans, from Hebbel to Wedekind, 
 are unmistakably defined. England has 
 paid for her political supremacy in Dublin 
 by the paradox of Irish supremacy in 
 London, with the result that Shaw appears 
 to the Continental mind an anti-national 
 enigma, John Bull gone mad. Had 
 Meredith written for the stage, there 
 would have been a vastly different 
 history to record. Schnitzler represents 
 Vienna to perfection, and Hofmannsthal 
 dips into the same magical well of grace. 
 Tchekhov is an intermediary between East 
 and West, following his star like the Wise 
 Men, an artist pilgrim. So one might 
 envisage them all, from the Scandinavians 
 to D'Annunzio, a group of travellers whose 
 tales are the more welcome because each 
 so clearly has his home. Nationality 
 becomes articulate. 
 
A Summary 275 
 
 There remains little to be added. I 
 have considered these authors as indivi- 
 duals, and not as leaders of " movements." 
 or disciples of " schools," for only the 
 individual dramatist can make a movement 
 inevitable. Moreover, criticism is not a 
 science, but an art. Its aim is the illumi- 
 nation of essentials rather than the analysis 
 of detail. Relevance may be a greater 
 virtue than completeness, and in this 
 instance I have made it a virtue of 
 necessity. There are many dramatists, 
 from Mr. Synge and the Irish National 
 Theatre to Spain and Jose Echegaray, 
 who have been passed by with the barest 
 mention, and I shall not attempt to treat 
 them lightly here. 
 
 For the rest, the reader must draw his 
 own moral. There is material enough for 
 all who care for the future of the Theatre. 
 Shaw has said very truly that there can 
 be no new art without a new philosophy ; 
 and it may be that the observant eye will 
 detect a rent or two in the philosophies of 
 modernity which have served the drama 
 for a covering of late. . In ten years' time 
 the deficiency will be clearer, and every 
 
 18—2 
 
276 Modern Dramatists 
 
 dabbler in ideas will be chuckling on his 
 doorstep, arms akimbo, at the ragged 
 spectacle that once fluttered so bravely 
 against the Philistines. But the next 
 forward movement will be no less strenuous 
 than the last. Let the wise playwright 
 forswear imitation and weave himself a 
 new garment. He will need it in the 
 stormy weather. 
 
XIII 
 
 LIST OF PLAYS 
 
 In this list of plays by the foregoing 
 authors, the titles of Norwegian, Swedish, 
 and Russian works have been translated 
 into English. The remainder are given 
 in the original language. Where published 
 translations exist they have been recorded. 
 The dates given refer, except where 
 otherwise stated, to the first publication. 
 
( 278 ) 
 
 Bjornsterne Bjornson 
 
 Between the Battles 
 
 1858 
 
 Limping Hulda 
 
 1858 
 
 King Sverre ... 
 
 1861 
 
 Sigurd Slembe 
 
 1862 
 
 Mary Stuart IN Scotland .. 
 
 1864 
 
 The Newly Married 
 
 1864 
 
 The Editor 
 
 1874 
 
 A Bankruptcy 
 
 1874 
 
 The King 
 
 1877 
 
 Leonarda 
 
 1879 
 
 The New System 
 
 1879 
 
 A Gauntlet 
 
 1883 
 
 Beyond Human Power 
 
 1884 
 
 Geography and Love 
 
 1885 
 
 Paul Lange and Tora Pars 
 
 - 
 
 berg... 
 
 1898 
 
 Laboremus 
 
 1901 
 
 Dagland 
 
 1902 
 
 At Storhove 
 
 . 1904 
 
 When New Wine Glows .. 
 
 1909 
 
 " Beyond Human Power" (" Over ^Evne") has 
 appeared in English under the title of " Pastor 
 Sang." "A Gauntlet," "Geography and Love," 
 "Laboremus," "The Newly Married Couple," 
 " The New System," " Paul Lange and Tora 
 Parsberg," and " Sigurd Slembe " have also been 
 translated and published. 
 
( 279 ) 
 
 August Strindberg 
 
 1870 — 1880. The Wanderer. Meister 
 Olof. 
 
 1880 — i8go. The Secret of the Guild. 
 Lady Margit. Happy 
 Peter. 
 
 1880 — i8go. Naturalistic Plays : The 
 Father. Comrades. 
 
 The People of Hemso. 
 The Keys of Heaven. 
 „ Eleven One-act Plays : Miss 
 
 Julia. Creditors. A 
 Pariah. Simoon. The 
 Stronger Woman. The 
 Bond. Playing with 
 Fire. Before Death. 
 The First Warning. 
 Debit and Credit. 
 Mother Love. 
 
 i8go — igoo. Toward Damascus. (In 
 three parts.) Delirium. 
 The Dance of Death. 
 Advent. Easter. Mid- 
 summer. 
 
( 28o ) 
 
 i8go — I goo. Historical Plays : 
 
 Swedish : Folkunger- 
 
 SAGA. EnGELBRECHT, 
 
 GusTAv Wasa. 
 Erich XIV. Gustav 
 Adolf. 
 German : The Nightin- 
 gale OF Wittenberg. 
 I goo — igio. Dramatic Types and 
 Sketches : Queen Chris- 
 tina. Karl XII. Gus- 
 tav III. 
 ,, Legendary and Dream-plays 
 
 {Buddhist and Early 
 Christian) : The Crown 
 Bride. Swan White. 
 Phantasmagoria. 
 ,, Chamber Plays : Sheet 
 
 Lightning. The Hearth. 
 The Phantom Sonata. 
 The Funeral Pyre. 
 „ Plays in Verse {Lyrical 
 
 Phantasies) : Abu Casem's 
 Slippers. Christmas. 
 
 The Great Highroad. 
 
 All the above plays have been translated into 
 German. A translation of "The Father" has 
 
( 28l ) 
 
 been published in England, and several other 
 plays, among them " Creditors," " Simoon," and 
 " The Stronger Woman," have been performed. 
 A number of the shorter pieces have appeared in 
 American periodicals. 
 
( 282 ) 
 
 Hermann Sudermann 
 
 Die Ehre 
 
 1889 
 
 SoDOMS Ende... 
 
 I89I 
 
 Heimat 
 
 1893 
 
 Die Schmetterlingsschlacht 
 
 1895 
 
 Das Gluck im Winkel 
 
 1896 
 
 MoRiTURi (Fritzchen, Teja, 
 
 
 Das Ewig-mannliche) ... 
 
 1897 
 
 Johannes 
 
 i8g8 
 
 Die Drei Reiherfedern 
 
 1899 
 
 Johannisfeuer 
 
 I goo 
 
 Es Lebe das Leben ... 
 
 1902 
 
 Der Sturmgeselle Sokrates 
 
 1903 
 
 Stein unter Steinen 
 
 1905 
 
 Das Blumenboot 
 
 1905 
 
 Rosen (Die Lichtbander, 
 
 
 Margot, Der Letzte 
 
 
 Besuch, Die Ferne Prin- 
 
 
 zessin). 
 
 1907 
 
 Strandkinder 
 
 1910 
 
 " Es Lebe das Leben " (" The Joy of Living "), 
 "Heimat " ("Magda"), and"Johannes" ("John the 
 Baptist ") have been pubHshed in English transla- 
 tion. " Das Gluck im Winkel " (" The Vale of 
 Content ") and " Johannisfeuer " (" Midsummer 
 Fires ") have been performed by Miss Horniman's 
 theatre in Manchester. Several of the remaining 
 plays have been given in England and America. 
 
( 283 ) 
 
 Gerhart Hauptmann 
 
 vor sonnenaufoang . . . 
 Das Friedensfest ... 
 
 EiNSAME MeNSCHEN ... 
 
 De Waber (original edition) 
 Die Weber ... 
 Kollege Crampton ... 
 Der Biberpelz 
 Hanneles Himmelfahrt 
 Florian Geyer 
 Die Versunkene Glocke 
 
 FUHRMANN HeNSCHEL 
 SCHLUCK UND JaU 
 
 Michael Kramer 
 Der Rote Hahn 
 Der Arme Heinrich... 
 
 Rose Bernd 
 
 Elga 
 
 Und Pippa tanzt ! ... 
 
 Die Jungfern von Bischofs 
 
 berg... 
 Kaiser Karls Geisel 
 Griselda 
 Die Ratten ... 
 
 " Das Friedensfest " (" The Coming of 
 " Einsame Menschen " (" Lonely Lives 
 
 1889 
 1890 
 i8gi 
 1892 
 1892 
 1892 
 1893 
 
 1895 
 1896 
 1897 
 i8g8 
 1899 
 1900 
 igoi 
 1902 
 1903 
 1905 
 1906 
 
 1907 
 igo8 
 1909 
 igii 
 
 Peace "), 
 "), "Die 
 
( 284 ) 
 
 Weber " (" The Weavers "), " Hanneles Himmel- 
 fahrt " (" Hannele"), and " Die Versunkene Glocke " 
 (" The Sunken Bell ") have been translated into 
 English and published. The first three have also 
 been performed by the Stage Society. " Der 
 Biberpelz " ("The Thieves' Comedy "), " Hannele," 
 and " The Sunken Bell " have frequently been 
 given in England and America. 
 
( 285 ) 
 
 Frank Wedekind 
 
 Der Kammersanger ... 
 
 .. igoo 
 
 Marquis von Keith ... 
 
 .. igoi 
 
 So 1ST DAS Leben 
 
 . 1902 
 
 Die BtJcHSE der Pandora .. 
 
 . 1904 
 
 Fruhlings Erwachen 
 
 • 1905 
 
 ToTENTANZ ... 
 
 . 1906 
 
 Der Liebestrank 
 
 • 1907 
 
 Die JuNGE Welt 
 
 • 1907 
 
 Erdgeist 
 
 • 1907 
 
 MusiK 
 
 , 1908 
 
 Oaha 
 
 . 1908 
 
 Die Zensur 
 
 . igo8 
 
 HiDALLA 
 
 . 1908 
 
 Der Stein der Weisen 
 
 . 1909 
 
 A translation of " Der Kammersanger " was 
 produced by the Stage Society in 1907, and an 
 English version of " Fruhlings Erwachen " (" The 
 Awakening of Spring") has been published in 
 America. 
 
( 286 ) 
 
 Bernard Shaw 
 
 Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant : 
 Widowers' Houses ... 
 The Philanderer ... 
 Mrs. Warren's Profession 
 Arms and the Man 
 Candida 
 
 The Man of Destiny 
 You Never Can Tell 
 
 Three Plays for Puritans : 
 The Devil's Disciple 
 -C^sAR AND Cleopatra 
 Captain Brassbound's Con- 
 version 
 
 Man AND Superman ... 
 John Bull's Other Island 
 How He Lied to her Hus- 
 
 ^ 1898 
 
 igoi 
 
 1903 
 
 1907 
 
 BAND 
 
 Major Barbara 
 
 The Admirable Bashville 
 
 (first performed 1903) 
 The Doctor's Dilemma 
 
 (first performed igo6) 
 Getting Married 
 
 (first performed 1908) 
 
( 287 ) 
 
 The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet 
 {first performed 1909) 
 
 Press Cuttings 1909 
 
 Misalliance 
 
 {first performed lyio) 
 
 The Dark Lady of the 
 
 Sonnets 1910 
 
( 288 ) 
 
 Granville Barker 
 
 The Weather Hen (with 
 
 Berie Thomas, unpublished) i8gg 
 Prunella {with Laurence 
 
 Housman) igo6 
 Three Plays: ... ... ... igog 
 
 The Marrying of Ann 
 
 Leete (igo2) 
 The Voysey Inheritance 
 
 (1905) 
 Waste (1907) 
 
 The Madras House 
 
 {produced in igio) i g 11 
 
( ^89 ) 
 
 John Galsworthy 
 
 Three Plays igog 
 
 The Silver Box (1906) 
 
 Joy (1907) 
 
 Strife (igog) 
 Justice igio 
 
 19 
 
( 290 ) 
 
 Arthur Schnitzler 
 
 Das Marchen 1895 
 
 Anatol ... 1895 
 
 LlEBELEI ... ... ... i8g6 
 
 Freiwild ... ... ... 1897 
 
 Das Vermachtnis ... ... 1899 
 
 Drei Einakter : 
 
 (Der Grune Kakadu, Para- 
 celsus, Die Gefahrtin) ... 1899 
 Der Schleier der Beatrice 1900 
 Lebendige Stunden : 
 
 (Lebendige Stunden, Die 
 
 FrAU MIT DEM DOLCHE, DiE 
 
 LetztenMasken, Literatur) 1902 
 Reigen 
 
 Der Einsame Weg ... 
 zwischenspiel 
 Der Ruf des Lebens 
 Marionetten : 
 
 (Der Puppenspieler, 
 
 Tapferer Cassian, 
 
 Grossen Wurstel) 
 
 KOMTESSE MiZZI 
 
 Der Junge Medardus 
 
 " Liebelei " (« Light o' Love "), « Literatur," and 
 " The Farewell Supper " have Deen performed in 
 Enghsh translation. Other short pieces have 
 appeared in English and American journals. 
 
 • « • 
 
 1903 
 
 ... 
 
 1904 
 
 ... 
 
 1905 
 
 ... 
 
 1906 
 
 Der 
 
 
 ZVM 
 
 
 ... 
 
 1906 
 
 • « • 
 
 1909 
 
 • •• 
 
 I9I0 
 
( 291 ) 
 Hugo von Hofmannsthal 
 
 Gestern 
 
 . 1891 
 
 Der Tod des Tizian 
 
 . 1892 
 
 Der Tor und der Tod 
 
 • 1893 
 
 Der Kaiser und die Hexe .. 
 
 1895 
 
 Das Kleine Welttheater .. 
 
 1897 
 
 Das Bergwerk IN Falun .. 
 
 1897 
 
 Die Frau im Fenster 
 
 1899 
 
 Die Hochzeit der SoBEifDE... 
 
 1902 
 
 Der Abenteurer und dii 
 
 
 Sangerin 
 
 1902 
 
 Elektra 
 
 1904 
 
 Das Gerettete Venedig .. 
 
 1905 
 
 Odipus und die Sphinx 
 
 1906 
 
 Konig Odipus (translation oj 
 
 f 
 
 Sophocles) ... 
 
 1910 
 
 Christinas Heimreise {prose] 
 
 1910 
 
 The " Elektra " forms the libretto of Richard 
 Strauss's opera, and it has also been performed in 
 an English translation by Mr. Arthur Symons. 
 No translations of the other plays have as yet been 
 published. 
 
 19—2 
 
( 292 ) 
 
 Leo Tolstoy 
 
 The Power of Darkness {first performed 
 1888). 
 
 Fruits of Culture {first performed 
 1889). 
 
 The First Distiller {only performed 
 privately). 
 
 The Corpse {unpublished). 
 
 The first three plays are published in an English 
 translation by Mr. and Mrs. Aylmer Maude. 
 " The Power of Darkness " was given by the Stage 
 Society in 1904, and " Fruits of Culture " by the 
 students of Birmingham University in 1909. " The 
 Corpse " has not yet been translated. 
 
( 293 ) 
 
 Maxim Gorky 
 
 The Middle Class ... 
 
 . igoi 
 
 A Night Shelter ... 
 
 igo2 
 
 A Country House ... 
 
 .. igo3 
 
 Children of the Sun 
 
 • 1905 
 
 Barbarians 
 
 .. 1905 
 
 Fiends 
 
 . igo6 
 
 The Last 
 
 igo8 
 
 Odd People ... 
 
 .. igio 
 
 Society in 1903 under the title of "The Lower 
 Depths." None of these plays have been published 
 in England, but all of them have appeared in 
 Germany, and, with the exception of "Odd 
 People " and " The Last," also in France. 
 
( 294 ) 
 
 Anton Tchekhov 
 
 IVANOV... ... ... ... 1892 
 
 The Three Sisters ... ... i8gg 
 
 The Seagull ... ... igoo 
 
 The Cherry Orchard ... igo4 
 
 Shorter Pieces (in collected edition) : 
 
 The Bear. 
 
 A Proposal, OF Marriage. 
 
 Uncle John. 
 
 Lebedin's Song (Calchas). 
 
 Against his Will. 
 
 None of the above plays have been published in 
 English. A translation of "The Seagull" has 
 been performed by the Scottish Repertory Theatre 
 in Glasgow. 
 
( 295 ) 
 
 Henri Becque 
 
 Michel Pauper 
 
 La Navette 
 
 LeS HoNNElTES FeMMES 
 
 Les Corbeaux 
 La Parisienne 
 In the Thedtre Complet {three volumes) 
 Sardanapale, Le Depart, L'Enfant 
 
 PrODIGUE, L'ENLiiVEMENT, 
 
 Les Polichinelles {unfinished). 
 
 1871 
 1878 
 1880 
 1882 
 1885 
 
( 296 ) 
 
 Alfred 
 
 Capus 
 
 
 Brignol et sa Fille 
 
 ... 1895 
 
 ROSINE 
 
 ... 
 
 .. 1898 
 
 La Bourse ou la Vie 
 
 .. igoi 
 
 LaVeine 
 
 . . . 
 
 .. igo2 
 
 Les Deux Ecoles 
 
 ... 
 
 .. 1903 
 
 Les Maris de L^ontine 
 
 .. 1903 
 
 La ChJltelaine 
 
 ... 
 
 .. 1904 
 
 La Petite Fonctionnaire 
 
 .. 1904 
 
 L'Adversaire... 
 
 
 .. 1904 
 
 Notre Jeunesse 
 
 
 .. 1904 
 
 Petites Folles 
 
 
 .. 1905 
 
 M. PlEGOIS 
 
 
 .. 1905 
 
 Les Passageres 
 
 
 .. igo6 
 
 Les Deux Hommes 
 
 
 .. 1908 
 
 Qui Perd Gagne 
 
 
 .. igo8 
 
 L'Oiseau Bless^ 
 
 
 .. igog 
 
 Un Ange 
 
 
 ... 1910 
 
( 297 ) 
 
 Francois de Curel 
 
 L' Amour Erode 
 
 ... 1893 
 
 L'Invit^e 
 
 ... 1893 
 
 Le Repas du Lion ... 
 
 ... i8g8 
 
 La Nouvelle Idole ... 
 
 ... i8gg 
 
 Les Fossiles 
 
 ... 1900 
 
 La Fille Sauvage ... 
 
 ... 1902 
 
 Le Coup d'Aile 
 
 ... igo6 
 
 " La Nouvelle Idole " (" The New Idol ") was 
 given by the Stage Society in 1902. 
 
( 298 ) 
 
 Eugene Brieux 
 
 MANAGES D' Artistes 
 
 1893 
 
 Blanchette ... 
 
 1894 
 
 La Couvfe 
 
 1895 
 
 L'Engrenage... 
 
 1895 
 
 La Rose Bleue 
 
 1896 
 
 Les Bienfaiteurs 
 
 1897 
 
 L'EvASION 
 
 1897 
 
 L'Ecole des Belles-M^res 
 
 1898 
 
 Le Berceau 
 
 1898 
 
 Resultat des Courses 
 
 1898 
 
 Les Trois Filles de M. 
 
 
 DUPONT 
 
 1899 
 
 Les Remplacantes 
 
 1900 
 
 La Robe Rouge 
 
 I90I 
 
 La Petite Amie 
 
 igo2 
 
 Les Avaribs 
 
 1902 
 
 Maternit:^ 
 
 1904 
 
 L' Armature ... 
 
 1905 
 
 Les Hannetons 
 
 1906 
 
 La Francaise... 
 
 1907 
 
 SiMONE 
 
 1908 
 
 M. DE R^boval 
 
 1908 
 
( 299 ) 
 La Foi ... ... ... igog 
 
 SUZETTE ... ... ... igio 
 
 In collaboration : La D^serteuse, 
 Bernard Palissy. 
 
 " Maternit6 " has been published in English. 
 " Les Bienfaiteurs " (« The Philanthropists "), " Les 
 Trois Filles de M. Dupont," " Mateniit6," and 
 " Les Hannetons " have also been performed by 
 the Stage Society. A version of the last-named 
 play, under the title of " The Incubus," has been 
 given by Mr. Laurence Irving. " False Gods," an 
 adaptation of " La Foi," was produced in 1909 at 
 His Majesty's Theatre. "La Robe Rouge" has 
 also been adapted. Several of the remaining plays 
 have been performed in America. 
 
( 300 ) 
 
 Maurice Maeterlinck 
 
 La Princesse Maleine 
 
 . 1890 
 
 L'Intruse 
 
 i8go 
 
 Les Aveugles 
 
 1890 
 
 Les Sept Princesses 
 
 1891 
 
 PbLLEAS ET MfiLISANDE 
 
 1892 
 
 Alladine ET Palomides 
 
 1894 
 
 La Mort de Tintagiles 
 
 1894 
 
 Int^rieur 
 
 1894 
 
 Aglavaine et S:^lysette 
 
 1896 
 
 MONNA VaNNA 
 
 1902 
 
 Joyzelle 
 
 1903 
 
 Sceur Beatrice 
 
 1907 
 
 Ardiane ET Barbe-Bleue .. 
 
 1907 
 
 L'OiSEAu Bleu 
 
 1909 
 
 Maria Magdalene ... 
 
 1910 
 
 All the above plays have been published in 
 English. " Int6rieur," " The Death of Tintagiles," 
 and " Monna Vanna " have been performed by the 
 Stage Society. " P611eas and M^lisande," " Agla- 
 vaine and S61ysette," and " The Blue Bird " have 
 also been given in England. 
 
( 30I ) 
 
 Hermann Heijermans 
 
 DoraKremer 
 
 ... 1893 
 
 Fleo 
 
 ... 1894 
 
 'n JODENSTREEK ? 
 
 ... 1894 
 
 Ahasueru.s 
 
 .. 1894 
 
 Ghetto 
 
 .. 1899 
 
 Het Zevende Gebod 
 
 .. 1900 
 
 Op Hoop van Zegen... 
 
 .. 1901 
 
 Het Pantser 
 
 .. 1902 
 
 Ora et Labora 
 
 .. 1903 
 
 Shakels 
 
 .. 1904 
 
 Allerseelen {in German) 
 
 .. 1906 
 
 Wat niet Kon 
 
 .. 1908 
 
 " The Ghetto " has been published in English. 
 " Op Hoop van Zegen " (" The Good Hope") and 
 " Shakels " (" Links ") have been played by the Stage 
 Society. 
 
304 
 
 Index 
 
 Bonbouroche, 213 
 
 Bourget, Paul, 217 
 
 Brand, 15, 16, 273 
 
 Brieux, EugJne, 32, 37, 213. 
 
 216, 217, 224 — 241, 265, 299 
 Brignol et sa Fille, 217 
 Buchse der Pandora, Die, gg 
 Business is Business, see Affaires 
 
 Sont Us Affaires, Les. 
 
 Casar and Cleopatra, 11, 119, 
 
 126, 129 
 Caillavet, see De Flers. 
 Calderon, George, ig4 (foot- 
 note) 
 Candida, 123, i2g, 135 
 Capns, Alfred, 217, 218, 219 — 
 
 224 ' 
 Cend, The, 15, 16 
 Chains, 120 
 
 Charrington, Charles, 38 
 Cherry Orchard, The, 263 
 Children of the Sun, 188 
 Christinas Heimreise, 177 
 Citta Maria, La, 266, 267, 270, 
 
 302 
 Com^die Fran^aise, 213 
 Com^die Rosse, 214, 215, 243 
 Comiftg of Peace, The, see 
 
 Friedenfest, Das. 
 Comrades, 51, 55, 60 
 Connais Toi, 217 
 Corbeaux, Les, 213 
 Corpse, The, 292 
 Course de Flambeau, Le, 217 
 Court Theatre, see Vedrenne- 
 
 Barker. 
 Courteline, Georges, 213, 214 
 Creditors, 32, 33. 51, 61—63, 
 
 281 
 Crisis, The, 218 
 Curel, Francois de, 213, 216, 
 
 297 
 
 Dame aux Camtlias, La, 22, 23, 
 25. 73. 303 
 
 Dame Nature {La Femme Nue), 
 
 217, 218 
 Dance of Death, The, 51 
 D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 2, 66, 
 
 264 — 272, 274, 302 
 Dead City, The, see Citta Morttt, 
 
 La. 
 Death of Tintagiles, The, see 
 
 Mart de Tintagiles, La. 
 Dedael, La, 217 
 De Flers and Caillavet, 217, 
 
 218 
 Deutsches Theater, 8g 
 Devil's Disciple, The, 11, iig, 
 
 129 
 De Waber, see Weavers, The. 
 Doctor's Dilemma, The, 112, iig, 
 
 I2g, 130 
 Doll's House, A (and " Nora "), 
 
 23. 28. 38, 50, 67 
 Doloureuse, La, 217 
 Donnay, Maurice, 217, 218 
 Duel, Le, 217 
 Duke of York's Theatre, see 
 
 Frohman. 
 Dumas Fils and La Dame aux 
 
 Camilias, 22, 23, 29, 68, 69, 
 
 72, 73. 138, 190. 203, 205, 
 
 211 
 Dupe, La, 213 
 Duse, Eleanora, 38 
 Dutch Theatre, (see also 
 
 Heijermans), 114 
 
 Ebbsmith, The Notorious Mrs., 
 
 270 
 Echegaray, Jos^, 273 
 Editor, The, 44 
 Ehre, Die, 68—70, 72, 151, 138, 
 
 235 
 Einsame Menschen, 9, 83, 85, 87, 
 
 283 
 Einsame Weg, Der, 153 
 Elektra, 68, 161, 163, 172 — 176, 
 
 2gi 
 Elga, 82, 86, 123 
 
Index 
 
 305 
 
 Enemy of the People, An, 23, 50, 
 
 243 
 English Theatre, 114 — 130 
 VEnvers d'une Saiiite, 213 
 Erdgeist, 112, 131 
 Es Lebe das Lehen, 72, 282 
 
 Fabre, Emile, 32, 213, 216 
 
 Fahnenweihe, Die, 113 
 
 False Gods, 226, 239, 299 
 
 Father, The, 32, 33, 51, 60, 61, 
 63, 214, 240, 280, 281 
 
 Faust, 89 
 
 Femme Nue, La, 217 
 
 First Warning, The, 63 
 
 Florian Geyer, 86, 87 
 
 Foi, La, 226, 239, 299 
 
 Footlights, Abolition of, 61 
 
 Fossiles, Les, 213 
 
 France (theatre and drama- 
 tists), 21, 27, 30—33, 114, 211 
 — 2l8 
 
 Francesca da Rimini, 267, 272, 
 302 
 
 Frau im Fenster, Die, 163 
 
 Frdulein Julie, 32 — 34, 61 — 63 
 
 Freie Biihne, see Berlin Free 
 Theatre. 
 
 Freiwild, 137 
 
 French plays, English transla- 
 tions of, 218 
 
 Freytag, Gustar, 68 
 
 Frieden/est, Das, 83, 283 
 
 Frohman, Charles, 118, 120 
 
 Friihlings Erwachen, 67, 100 — 
 106, 112, 121, 132, 189, 283 
 
 Fruits 0/ Culture, The, 184 
 
 Fuhrmann Henschel, 82, 86, 88, 
 90-92, 94 
 
 Fulda, Ludwig, 2 
 
 Galsworthy, John, 94, 119, 120, 
 
 141—130, 265 
 Gauntlet, A, 44, 27S 
 Geography and Love, 44, 278 
 
 i 
 
 German Theatre, 27, 33 — 36, 
 
 114. "3 
 German Theatre, Catholicity 
 
 of the, 65 
 Germany, Sudermann, Haupt- 
 
 mann, and Wedekind, 65 — 
 
 "3 
 Gestern, 161 — 163, 168 — 170 
 Getting Married, 119, 123, 136 
 Ghetto, 261, 301 
 Ghosts, 27, 32, 33, 36 
 Gioconda, 266, 268 — 271, 302 
 Glasgow Repertory Theatre, 
 
 116, 120, 192, 194 (footnote), 
 
 294 
 Glass Houses, 218 
 Glitch im Winhel, Das, 72, 131, 
 
 282 
 Goethe (see also Faust), 8, 
 
 160 
 Good Hope, The, see Op Hoop 
 
 van Zegen. 
 Gorky, Maxim, 2, 38, 66, 182, 
 
 183 — 191, 262, 293 
 Greek Theatre, Ancient, 124, 
 
 125, 163, 173, 265 
 Grein, J. T., 36 
 Griffe, La, 217 
 Griselda, 86, 88, 90, 113, 123, 
 
 177 
 
 Halbe, Max, 34, 113 
 Hankin, St. John, 119 
 Hannele, 83—87, 89, 123, 284 
 Hanneles Himmelfahrt, see 
 
 Hannele. 
 Hannetons, Les, 239, 299 
 Happy Peter, 49 
 Hardy, Thomas, 17 
 Hartleben, Otto Erich, 34— 
 
 113 
 Hanptmann, Gerhart, 2, 9, 34, 
 
 37. 58. 65, 68, 70, 78-93. 98. 
 112, 113, 122—124, 131, 160, 
 177, 188, 223, 242, 243, 236, 
 258, 239, 262, 26s, 283, 284 
 
 20 
 
3o6 
 
 Index 
 
 Hebbel, 274 
 
 Hedda Gabler, 27, 38, 50 
 
 Heijermans, Hermann, 66, 
 254—263, 265, 301 
 
 Heimat, 70 — 73, 121, 203, 232, 
 235, 282 
 
 Hervieu, Paul, 2, 39, 217 
 
 Heyse, Paul, 68 
 
 Hidalla, 98, 106-^112 
 
 Hirscbfeld, Georg, 113 
 
 Hochzeit der Sobeide, Die, 165 
 
 Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 2, 
 II, 66, 68, 159—180, 225, 
 240, 265, 274, 291 
 
 Hofmiller, Josef, on Ibsen, 29 
 
 Hofmiller, Josef, on Hof- 
 mannsthal, 178, 179 
 
 Holland, see Dutch Theatre. 
 
 Honour, see Die Ehre. 
 
 Hoop van Zegen, Op, 259 — 261, 
 301 
 
 Horniman, Miss, 120 
 
 Hugo, Victor, 8 
 
 Ibsen, Henrik, 2, 8, 12, 15, 16, 
 20—40, 50, 57, 65, 67, 70, 
 83. 84, 99, 115, 121, 123, 
 r6o, 184, 212, 213, 215, 223, 
 227, 231, 242, 243, 273 
 
 Inconstant George, 218 
 
 Incubus, The, see Hannetons, 
 Les. 
 
 Independent Theatre, The, 36, 
 
 37. "8 
 
 Influence of Ibsen, The, 20 — 
 40 
 
 Int/rieur, 300 
 
 Interval, Diminution or aboli- 
 tion of the, 61 
 
 Intoxication, 240 
 
 Introductory, i — 5 
 
 Irving, Mr. Laurence, 299 
 
 Italy and the Italian Theatre 
 {see also D'Annunzio), 114, 
 160, 165, 263 
 
 Johannes, 282 
 
 Johannisfeuer, 72, 74 — 78, 151, 
 
 232, 282 
 John Bull's Other Island, 119, 
 
 129, 131, 133 
 Jones, Henry Arthur, 2, 17 
 Joy, 119, 14s 
 Joy of Living, The, see Es Lehe 
 
 das Leben. 
 Jungfem von Bischofsberg, Die, 
 
 86 - 
 Justice, 94, 120, 142, 146 — 150 
 
 Kammersanger, Der, 283 
 Keys of Heaven, The, 60 
 Kleine Welttheater, Das, 165 
 Kollege Crampton, 84, 85, 122 
 Komtesse Mizzi, 152, 159 
 
 Lahoremus, 278 
 
 Last, The, 188 
 
 Lavedan, Henri, 217 
 
 Lear, 112 
 
 Lebe das Leben, Es, 72, 282 
 
 Lebendige Stunden, 139 
 
 Leete, The Marrying of Ann, 
 
 140, 141 
 LemaJtre, Jules, 217 
 Liebelei, 132, 137, 159, 290 
 Light 0' Love, see Liebelei, 
 Lindau, Paul, 2, 29, 88 
 Links, 301 
 Literatur, 290 
 Lonely Lives, see Einsame Men- 
 
 schen. 
 " Loris " (Hofmannsthal), 160, 
 
 161 
 Lower Depths, The, 183—188, 
 
 189, 293 
 
 McEvoy, Charles, 120 
 Madras House, The, 120, 136, 
 
 137 
 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 2, 33, 
 65, 66, 68, 161, 213, 242 — 
 254, 263, 270, 300 
 
Index 
 
 307 
 
 Magda, see Heimai. 
 
 Major Barbara, 119, 125, 129, 
 
 132, 133 
 Man and Superman, 99, 121, 123, 
 
 126, 135, 22s, 240 
 Man of Destiny, The, 11, 126, 
 
 130 
 Manchester RepertoryTheatre, 
 
 116, 120, 282 
 Marionetten, 159 
 Marrying of Ann Leete, The, 140, 
 
 141 
 Marshall, Captain Robert, 17 
 Mary Stuart in Scotland, 44 
 Masefield, John, 119 
 Maternitt, 233 — 235, 238, 299 
 Mauvais Bergers, Les, 218 
 Meister Olof, 11, 21, 59 
 Meredith, George, 7, 17, 120, 
 
 134. 135, 256, 274 
 Michael Kramer, 82 
 Midsummer Fires, see Johannis- 
 
 feuer. 
 Mirbeau, Octave, 218 
 Misalliance, 90, 120, 123 — 125, 
 
 136 
 Miss Julia, see Fraulein Julie. 
 Modernity and the dramatist, 
 
 6 — rg 
 Monna Vanna, 68, 246 — 254, 
 
 300 
 Monsieur Pigiois, 217 
 Moral, 113 
 Morgenrote, Die, 113 
 Morituri, 72 
 
 Mort de Tintagiles, La, 300 
 Mrs. Warren's Profession, 57, 
 
 129, 131 
 Musik, 112 
 
 Napoleon, see Man of Destiny, 
 
 The. 
 Nationality in drama, 273' 
 Naturalism, 4, 30, 31, 59 — 61, 
 
 83, 149, 182, 183, 189, 212, 
 
 214, 254, 257, 262 
 
 Nebeneinander, 113 
 
 New Idol, The, see Nouvelle 
 
 Idole, La, 297 
 New System, The, 44, 278 
 Newly Married Couple, The, 278 
 Nietzsche, 8, 64, 96, 98, 99 
 Night, Shelter, A, see Lower 
 
 Depths, The. 
 Nora, see Doll's House, A. 
 Norway, see Scandinavia and 
 
 Ibsen. 
 Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, The, 
 
 270 
 Notre Jeunesse, 217 
 Nouveau Jeu, i«, 217 
 Nouvelle Idole, La, 297 
 
 Oaha, 98, 113 
 
 Oedipus Rex, 173 
 
 Oedipus und die Sphinx, 165, 170 
 
 —173, 176, 177 
 Oehlenschlager, 22 
 Op Hoop van Zegen, 259 — 261, 
 
 301 
 Ora et Labora, 261, 262 
 Over Aevne, see Beyond Human 
 
 Power. 
 
 Pardon, Le, 217 
 
 Paris Commune, 2i 
 
 Parisian stage, see French 
 
 Theatre. 
 Parisienne, La, 213 
 Passd, Le, 217 
 Pastor Sang, see Beyond Human 
 
 Power. 
 Paul Lange and Tora Parsberg, 
 
 278 
 Pauline, 113 
 Peer Gynt, 15, 16 
 Pell'eas and Melisande, 246, 300 
 People of Hemso, The, 60 
 Philanderer, The, 119 
 Philanthropists, The, see Bien- 
 
 faiteurs, Les. 
 Pigiois, Monsieur, 217 
 
3o8 
 
 Index 
 
 Pillars of Society, The, 23, 38, 57 
 Pinero, 2, 11, 17, 29, 39, 121, 
 
 138, 142, 270 
 Pifpa Tanzt ! Und, 86 
 Playboy of the Western World, 
 
 95.97 
 Playgoing habit in Germany, 
 
 65 
 Playing with Fire, 63 
 Foe, Lugn^, 33, 214 
 Poets and the Theatre, 16 
 Porto-Riche, Georges, 217 
 Power of Darkness, The, 32, 68, 
 
 183, 184 
 Press Cuttings, 123, 136 
 Princesse Lointaine, La, 215 
 Prometheus Unbound, 15, 16 
 
 Quiperd, qui gagne, 217 
 
 Rafale, La, 217 
 
 Realism, 4, 30, 86, 137, 242, 
 
 256, 265 
 Realistic tragedy, 256 
 Reigen, 158 
 Repertory system, 114, 116, 
 
 118 
 R4volte, La, 50 
 Rohe Rouge, La, 238, 299 
 Robertson, 17, 29 
 Romanesques, Les, 215 
 Romanticism, 4, 214 
 Rose Bernd, 79, 82, 90, 92, 
 
 124 
 Rosmersholm, 24, 25, 28, 38, 51, 
 
 235 
 Rostand, Edmond, 215 — ^217 
 Rote Hahn, Der, 82, 86 
 Rousseau, 20 
 Ruederer, Josef, 113 
 Rufdes Lebens, Der, 133 
 Ruisseau, Le, 217 
 Russian Theatre (see also 
 
 Tolstoy, Gorky, Tchekhov), 
 
 114, 181 — 210 
 
 Salome, 68 
 
 Saltan, Felix, 66 
 
 Samson, 217, 218 
 
 Sang, Ton, 217 
 
 Sardou, Victorien, 29, 68, 69, 
 
 72, 190, 211, 214, 270 
 Savoy Theatre, 119 
 Scandale, Une, Z17 
 Scandinavia {with Bjornson 
 
 a>Mi Strindberg), 41 — 64, 114, 
 
 274 
 Schiller, 8, 160 
 Schlegel, 161 
 Schlenther, Paul, 82 
 Schluck und Jau, 82, 86 
 Schnitzler, Arthur, 2, 66, 131 — 
 
 159. 163, 274> 290 
 
 Scottish Repertory Theatre, 
 see Glasgow. 
 
 Seagull, The, 100, loi, 112, 192, 
 193 — 206, 209, 265, 294 
 
 Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The, 121 
 
 Sentimentalists, The, 120 
 
 Skakels, 301 
 
 Shakespeare in the modern 
 Theatre, 115 
 
 Shakespeare and Strindberg, 
 58 
 „ See also Schlegel. 
 
 Shaw, George Bernard, 2, 11, 
 26, 27, 36, 37, 57, 63—67, 
 90, 99, 112, 118—136, 141, 
 142, 150, 224 — 226, 240, 
 241, 244, 245, 247, 265, 274, 
 
 275 
 Shelley, 7, 13, 16 
 Shewing up of Blanco Posnet 
 
 The, 123 
 Sigurd Slembe, 278 
 Silesian dialect in Haupt- 
 
 mann's plays, 91, 92 
 Silver Box, The, 142, 144 — 146 
 Simoon, 63, 281 
 Sodoms Ende, 70, 151 
 Sophocles, 173,^ 174, 177, 265 
 Spain, 273 
 
Index 
 
 309 
 
 stage Society, 37, 119, 120, 
 185, 223, 284, 283, 292, 293, 
 297, 299, 300, 301 
 
 Strauss, Richard, 68, 291 
 
 Strife, 142, 143, 146 
 
 Strindberg, August, 2, 10, 11, 
 21, 30—34. 43. 49-66, 70, 
 83, 121, 212—213, 225, 240, 
 242, 236, 262, 274, 280, 281 
 
 Stronger Woman, The, 63 — 
 281 
 
 Sudermann, Hermann, ^, 11, 
 39, 68—78, 83, 98, 121, 138, 
 151, 158, 203, 206, 232, 234, 
 235, 282 
 
 Summary, 273 — 276 
 
 Sunken Bell, The, see Versunkene 
 Glocke, Die. 
 
 Swinburne, 7, 17, 21, 8g 
 
 Symbolism, 4, 132, 165, 198, 
 214, 216, 268, 270 
 
 Symons, Arthur, 161, 291 
 
 Synge, J. M., 93, 97, 273 
 
 Tchekhov, Anton, 66, 80, 100, 
 loi, 112, 190 — 210, 223, 230, 
 240, 263, 274, 294 
 
 TinaUles, Les, 217 
 
 Theatre Antoine, 33 
 
 Theatre d'Art, 33 
 
 Theatre de I'CEuvre, 33, 161, 
 
 214, 215 
 
 Theatre Libre and Anto. 
 30 — 33, 61. 184, 211 — '"®> 
 
 215, 216, 225, 228 ^'■3> 
 Theatre reform, 61 
 
 Ther'ese Raqmn, 36 
 
 Thief, The, 218 
 
 Thieves' Comedy, The, see 
 
 Biberpelz, Der. 
 Thoma, Ludwig, 113 
 Three Sisters, The, 192, 207— 
 
 2og 
 Tizian, Der Tod des, 161, 163, 
 
 177 
 
 Tolstoy, Leo, 30, 32, 65, 68, 
 
 83, 84, 182—185, 190, 191. 
 
 201, 212 — 213, 242, 262, 
 
 292 
 Ton Sang, 217 
 Tor und der Tod, Der, 164 
 Tree, Lady, 63 
 Trois Filles de M. Dupont, Les, 
 
 231—233, 239, 299 
 Turgenev, 201 
 
 Und Pippa Tanzt ! 86 
 Une Soandale, 217 
 
 Vale of Content, The, see Gliick 
 
 im Winkel, Das. 
 Vedrenne-Barker management, 
 
 Court and Savoy Theatres, 
 
 119, 142 
 VermSchtnis, Das, 137 
 Versunkene Glocke, Die, 81, 85, 
 
 17—89, 112, 123, 284 
 Victorian Theatre, later, 16 
 Viennese Theatre {see also 
 
 Schnitzler, Salten, Bahr, 
 
 Hofmannsthal, and Austria), 
 
 114 
 Vierge Folle, La, 217 
 Vivmr, 217 
 Voleur, Le, 2.\'] 
 Vor Sonnenaufgang, 34, 83, 83, 
 
 89, 91, 93 
 Voysey Inheritance, The, 137, 
 138 
 
 Waste, 137 
 
 Weavers, The {De Waher and 
 
 Die Weber), 79, 81, 83—86, 
 
 91, 92, 122, 243, 238, 239, 
 
 284 
 Wedekind, Frank, 2, 67, 93 — 
 
 113, I2t, 131, 152, 189,274, 
 
 285 
 When We Dead Awaken, 113, 
 
 273. 
 
3IO 
 
 Index 
 
 Whirlwind, The, 218 
 Widowers' Houses, 36, 37, 122 
 Wilde, Oscar, 17, 68, 117, 163, 
 
 165 
 Wolff, Pierre, 217 
 
 Yavorskaia, Lydia, 38, 63 
 You Never Can Tell, 132 
 
 Zensur, Die, 112 
 
 Zola, Emile, 30, 36, 83, 84, 183 
 
 BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., FKIMTERS, LONDON AHD TONBKIDGE.