;<«. 'e^ A^ -'^^^ ^<^. .^'^ .!r(\%^Ao "^^ • <^^ O^ *o«o .^ .V. ^^/^rr;-^ .^^' ^ *«> '^vP. !Pv\ lS^T^c V . • . ^ ,/._ «""> • A^' "^. " » ' "• )^ .''*i'- ■^*' ^'S-- '*''^*'' -ii'-^ **-** ' -M-- """-^ 'j"=." ^" % ^^■ V- .^l^^'.^-^Ci V .6 t ^^^^ ^ »'^©%'. >. /i* .V\%^A<- «,. A« - '^^c.'i' .■ %^^^ • c°^^^;^^% //^^X oo^c^.> ^, I .\ <" lOv^^ 3^ ..^'•. '^C o^ 'o . » »» A ,<^* o«»"«« "^ ' ""*i ^D^ *o . « « A ',♦ -i^ -% • :^°^ >\,'-^' "j^r <> ^vTTs* <0^" '^^ ''f.?»^ 0^ V BARRETT H. CLARK THE CONTINENTAL DRAMA OF TO-DAY Outlines for Its Studjy By Barrett H. Clark Suggestions, questions, biographies, and bibliograpliies with outlines, of half a dozen pages or less each, of the more important plays of twenty-four Continental dram- atists. While intended to be used in connection with a reading of the plays themselves, the book has an inde- pendent interest. 12mo. $1.50 net. Prof. William Lyon Phelps, of Yale: "... One of the most useful works on the contemporary drama. . . . Extremely practical, full of valuable hints and sugges- tions. ..." THREE MODERN PLAYS FROM THE FRENCH Lemaitre's The Pardon, and Lavedan's Prince D'Aurec, translated by Barrett H. Clark, with Donnay's The Other Danger, translated by Charlotte Tenney David, with an Introduction to each author by Barrett H. Clark and a Preface by Clayton Hamilton. One volume. 12mo. $1.50 net. Springfield Republican: " ' The Prince d'Aurec ' is one of his best and most representative plays. It is a fine character creation. . . . ' The Pardon ' must draw ad- miration for its remarkable technical efficiency. . . . ' The Other Danger ' is a work of remarkable craftsman- ship." (Published by Henry Holt and Company, New York.) FOUR PLAYS Authorized Translation. With an Intj-oduction by Bar- rett H. Clark, and Preface by Eugene Brieux of the French Academy. The Fossils, a Play in 4 Acts ; Frangois de Curel. — The Serenade, a Bourgeois Study in 3 Acts ; Jean .Tullien. — Frangoise' Luck, a Comedy in 1 Act ; Georges de Porto- Riche. — The Dupe, a Comedy in 5 Acts ; Georges Ancey. Net $1.50. (Published by Stewart and Kidd, Cincinnati.) THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN DRAMA OF TO-DAY OUTLINES FOR THEIR STUDY SUGGESTIONS, QUESTIONS, BIOGRAPHIES, AND BIBLIOGRA- PHIES FOR USE IN CONNECTION WITH THE STUDY OF THE MORE IMPORTANT PLAYS By BARRETT H; CLARK Author of "The Continental Drama of To-day,' "Contemporary French Dramatists," etc. NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1915 COPTEIGHT, 1915, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY Published July, 1915 THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS RAMWAY, N. J. ■fi/' AUG I2iyi5 ©'GI.A410053 'k^ ./ , To BRANDER MATTHEWS This Booh Is Gratefully Dedicated PREFACE " The British and American Drama of To-day " aims to complete the series of suggestive study outlines of representative modern plays begun in " The Continental Drama of To-day." The same general form and method have been followed as were employed in the first volume, with the ex- ception of two or three shght modifications. First, owing either to the persistent refusal of certain dramatists to publish their plays, because of practical considerations or because they have no wish to make known their works through the medium of the printed page, dramatists like Eu- gene Walter, David Belasco, and George M. Cohan are but briefly referred to. In rarer in- stances, that of Sir James Barrie for example, the best and most typical plays are either not printed or, if such was the case, in editions de luxe, the price of which is prohibitive. The selection of plays has been a rather diffi- cult task. It has, of course, been impossible to consider all plays of importance -or to include the best of each dramatist. Some authors have not even been touched upon. Israel Zangwill, Rudolf Besier, Charles Rann Kennedy, Alfred Sutro, and vii Vlll PREFACE Somerset Maugham are not truly representative: the first three are rather exceptional than typical, the last two are typical, but their work is already represented by that of such men as Pinero, Jones, and Davies. It has been my aim only to include typical plays of typical dramatists, thereby afford- ing the student a general view of the dramatic movement in English-speaking countries since its inception something over a quarter of a century ago. The recent dramatic movement in Ireland has very little to do with that in England, but my in- clusion of outlines on Irish plays under the gen- eral title of " British " may be excused as a mat- ter of expediency and geography, " British " being understood to embrace the British Isles. The mention of first American performances of English plays is, I hope, an aid, but I am fully aware of the deficiency in this branch of my work. There are no complete and authentic records con- taining the necessary information. It would b^ impossible to express here my thanks to all those who have helped me in the compilation of this volume. I may, however, men- tion that among the authors who have tendered personal aid are : Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, Mr. St. John G. Ervine, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, Mr. George Moore, Mr. Granville Barker, Mr. John Gals- PREFACE ix worthy, and Mr. George Middleton. To Mr. T. C. Murray, Mr. Hubert Henry Davies, Miss Githa Sowerby, Miss Elizabeth Baker, Mr. Stephen Phil- lips, and Mr. J. O. Francis, I am indebted for courteous co-operation by letter. Mr. William Archer, Mr. J. T. Grein, and Mr. Clayton Hamil- ton have also given valuable advice. Mr. Mont- rose J. Moses and Mr. T. R. Edwards have been unsparing in their efforts to make the bibliog- raphies as complete and free from error as P°"'"" B. H. C. CONTENTS THE ENGLISH DRAMA Arthur Pinero .... Sweet Lavender ~~The Second Mrs. Tanqueray . Iris Mid-Channel .... Henry Arthur Jones The Silver King -Michael and His Lost Angel . The Liars .... Oscar Wilde .... Salome ..... -^Lady Windermere's Fan The Importance of Being Earnest Bernard Shaw , . . • Candida ..... Man and Superman Getting Married The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet Granville Barker The Voysey Inheritance . Stephen Phillips Paolo and Francesca St. John Hankin The Cassilis Engagement C. Haddon Chambers The Tyranny of Tears . Hubert Henry Davies The Mollusc .... John Galsworthy Strife The Pigeon .... PAGE 3 10 14 19 24 99 36 40 44 47 51 55 59 63 71 76 81 86 90 93 97 99 107 110 114 116 121 124 128 131 135 xu CONTENTS JoHK Masefield The Tragedy of Nan Stanley Houghton . Hindle Wakes GiTHA SOWEBBY . Rutherford and Son Elizabeth Baker Chains James Barrie Pantaloon The Twelve-pound Look John Oswald Francis Change . THE IRISH DRAMA William Butler Yeats The Countess Cathleen . John Millington Synge . V^ Riders to the Sea . The Playboy of the Western Augusta Gregory Hyacinth Halvey The Rising of the Moon . T. C. Murray . Birthright St. John G. Ervine . Mixed Marriage World THE AMERICAN DRAMA Bronson Howard Young Mrs. Winthrop James A. Herne Shore Acres . Augustus Thomas The Witching Hour CONTENTS xiii PAGE William Gillette •••... 243 Held by the Enemy . 245 Clyde Fitch . 248 The Truth . 253 William Vaughx Moody . 258 The Great Divide . . 260 Percy Mackaye . 263 The Scarecrow . 266 Edward Sheldon . 269 Romance . 271 Eugene Walter . 276 The Easiest Way . . 278 Notes . 281 George Middleton . . 281 Josephine Preston Peabody . 283 Olive Tilford Dargan . 284 Harry Benrimo and George C. I iazelton . 284 Percy Mackaye . . 284 David Belasco . 285 George Ade . 286 George M. Cohan . 287 George H. Broadhurst . 288 William C. De Mille . . 288 Joseph Medill Patterson . 289 Langdon Mitchell . 289 Charles Klein . 289 Rachd Crothers .... . 290 Bibliography . 293 Index .... . , . 303 THE ENGLISH DRAMA ARTHUR PINERO Arthur Wing Pinero — since 1909, Sir Arthur Pinero — was born in London in 1855. Like many another dramatist, he was forced to study law. Pinero's father, himself a lawyer, put his young son into his office, where the youth, much against his will, remained until the age of nineteen. In 1874, he was engaged by Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham, and acted small parts for a year in Edinburgh. After a year's acting the theater burned down, but he secured employment in Liverpool, and in 1876 came to London, acting at the Globe Theater. Not long after, he entered Irving's company and remained at the Lyceum for five years. During this time the young actor, not a very good one from all accounts, was writing plays, and in 1877 his first, " £200 a Year," was produced at the Globe. " Daisy's Escape" and " Bygones " were soon after performed at the Lyceum. It was probably the success of " Daisy's Escape," together with the assurance that he would never make a great actor, which led Pinero to abandon the stage. His earlier efforts are practically negligible; they are imitative, stiff, and conventional. " The Money- Spinner " is sometimes regarded as indicative of the dramatist's later skill, but not until the production of " The Squire " (1881) did some promise of better things emerge. The following year, William Archer 3 4 ARTHUR PINERO spoke of the author as " a thoughtful and conscien- tious writer with artistic aims, if not yet with full command of his artistic means." With " The Magis- trate," " The Schoolmistress/' and " Dandy Dick " — all farces — Pinero attracted considerable attention, while "Sweet Lavender" (1888), with its sentiment and tears, brought him fame. Beginning with " The Profligate" (1889)^ Pinero opened a period of great fecundity: farces, dramas, and comedies succeeded one another for many years, and established stand- ards which were to obtain for over a decade. " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray " (1893) was rightly con- sidered the finest English play of the time. Of late. Sir Arthur has turned to the depiction of sections of middle-class life (in " The Thunderbolt " especially) ; this play, together with " Mid-Channel " (1909), has met with little success, though the later manner of the dramatist is undoubtedly more mature, more skil- ful and artistic than that even of " Mrs. Tanqueray " and " Iris." Still more recently have come genre pictures like " The ' Mind-the-Paint ' Girl " and " Preserving Mr. Panmure," but on the whole these are less satisfactory than such works as " The Gay Lord Quex." Pinero is a technician par excellence. His mastery of plot-construction, his ability to create and main- tain suspense, are indisputably admirable. His crea- tion of character, especially in " The Benefit of the Doubt," " Lady Bountiful," " The Gay Lord Quex," and " The Thunderbolt," is masterly and convincing. Yet on the whole Pinero's plays, by reason of their ARTHUR PINERO 5 occasional falsity to life, their too conventional struc- ture, their dialogue, which is in places exceedingly stilted, fall short of true greatness. PLAYS £200 A Year (1877). The Comet (1878). Daisy's Escape (1879). Hester's Mystery (1880). Bygones (1880). The Money-Spinner (1880). Performed at Wallack's Theater, New York 1882. Imprudence (1881). Performed at the Boston Museum 1882. The Squire (1881). Performed at Daly's Theater, IJJew York 1882. Girls and Boys (1882). Performed at Daly's Theater, New York 1883. The Rector (1883). Performed at the Boston Museum 1883. Lords and Commons (1883). Performed at Daly's Theater, New York 1885. The Rocket (1883). Low Water (1884). In Chancery (1884). Performed at the Madison Square Theater, New York 1885. The Magistrate (1885). Performed at Daly's Theater, New York 1885. The Schoolmistress (1886). Performed at the Standard Theater, New York 1887. 6 ARTHUR PINERO The Hobby-Horse (1886). Performed at the Knickerbocker Theater, New York 1887. Dandy Dick (1887). Performed at Daly's Theater, New York 1887. Sweet Lavender (1888). Performed at Daly's Theater, New York 1888. The Weaker Sex (1888). Performed by the Kendals on their American tour, 1890. The Profligate (1889). Performed at Wallack's Theater, New York 1900. The Cabinet Minister (1890). Performed at Daly's Theater, New York 1892. Lady Bountiful (1891). Performed at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1891 and at the Boston Museum. The Times (1891). The Amazons (1893). Performed at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1894^. The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893). Performed by the Kendals, Star Theater, New York 1893, and later by Mrs. Patrick Campbell. The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith (1895). Performed by Sir John Hare, Abbey's Theater, New York 1895. The Benefit of the Doubt (1895). Performed at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1 896. The Princess and the Butterfly (1897). Performed at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1897. ARTHUR PINERO 7 Trelawney of the 'Wells' (1898). Performed at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1898. The Gay Lord Quex (1899). Performed by Sir John Hare at the Criterion The- ater, New York 19OO. Iris (1901). Performed at the Criterion Theater, New York 1902. Letty (1903). Performed at the Hudson Theater, New York 1904. A Wife Without a Smile (1904). Performed at the Empire Theater, New York 1904. His House in Order (1906). Performed at the Empire Theater, New York, 19O6. The Thunderbolt (19O8). Performed at the New Theater, New York 1910, and by the Drama Players on tour 1912-3. Mid-Channel (1909). Performed, with Ethel Barrymore, at the Empire Theater, New York I91O. Preserving Mr. Panmure (19II). Performed, with Gertrude Elliott, New York, and on tour 1911-2. The " Mind-the-Paint " Girl (1912). Performed, with Billie Burke, at the Lyceum Theater, New York, and on tour 1912-3. The Widow of Wasdale Head (1912). Playgoers (1913). 8 ARTHUR PINERO (Three or four adaptations and a libretto are not included in the above list.) Walter H. Baker of Boston publishes the follow- ing: " The Magistrate/' " The Schoolmistress," " The Hobby-Horse/' " Sweet Lavender/' " The Weaker Sex/' " The Profligate/' " The Cabinet Minister/' " Lady Bountiful/' " The Times/' " The Amazons/' " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray/' " The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith/' " The Gay Lord Quex/' " Iris/' " Letty/' " A Wife Without a Smile/' " His House in Order/' "The Thunderbolt/' "Mid-Channel/' and " Preserving Mr. Panmure." The Dramatic Publish- ing Company (Sergei) publishes: "The Benefit of the Doubt " and "Trelawney of the ' Wells.' " Samuel French publishes: "The Money-Spinner/' "The Squire/' " The Rocket/' " In Chancery/' " Hester's Mystery/' and " The Princess and the Butterfly." The rest of the early plays are unobtainable. " The ' Mind-the-Paint ' Girl " is published by William Heinemann, London; "Playgoers" by Samuel French. " The Widow of Wasdale Head " is not yet published. " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray " is in- cluded in " Chief Contemporary Dramatists " (Houghton Mifflin). References: Hamilton Fyfe, "Arthur Wing Pinero " (Greening & Co., London) ; William Archer, " Real Conversations " (Heinemann, London), "About the Theater" (Unwin, London), "English Dramatists of To-day " (Sampson Low, London), "The Theatrical World" (Walter Scott, London), " Playmaking " (Small, Maynard) ; Mario Borsa, ARTHUR PINERO 9 " The English Stage of To-day " (Lane) ; Augustin Filon, " The English Stage " (Dodd, Mead) ; Oscar Heermann^ " Living Dramatists " (Brentano) ; E. E. Hale, Jr., " Dramatists of To-day " (Holt) ; George Moore, " Impressions and Opinions " (Brentano) ; Ashley Dukes, "Modern Dramatists" (Dramatic Publishing Co.) ; P. P. Howe, " Dramatic Portraits " (Kennerley) ; Bernard Shaw, " Dramatic Opinions and Essays " (Brentano) ; A. B. Walkley, " Drama and Life" (Brentano), "Playhouse Impressions" (Unwin, London) ; Frank Wadleigh Chandler, " As- pects of Modern Drama " (Macmillan) ; H. M. Wal- brook, " Nights at the Play " (Ham-Smith, London) ; Cecil F. Armstrong, " From Shakespere to Shaw " (Mills and Boon, London) ; Clayton Hamilton, "Studies in Stagecraft" (Holt), "The Theory of the Theater " (Holt) ; Brander Matthews, " Inquiries and Opinions " (Scribner), " A Study of the Drama " (Houghton Mifflin) ; Arthur Pinero, " Robert Louis Stevenson, the Dramatist" (Columbia University); Ludwig Lewisohn, " The Modern Drama " (Huebsch). — Magazines: Munsey, vol. x (p. 247); Book-buyer, vol. xvii (p. SOI); Forum, vol. xxvi (p. 119), vol. xlvii (p. 494); Blackwood's, vol. clxvii (p. 837); The Theatre, vol. xxxiv (p. 3); Nation, vol. Ixxxiii (p. 211); North American Review, voL clxxxviii (p. 38); Critic, vol. xxxvii (p. 117); The- atre, vol. xxxvii (p. 346) ; Collier's, vol. xlviii (p. 34) ; Living Age, vol. cclxxviii (p. 265). SWEET LAVENDER A domestic drama in three acts. First performed in 1888. ** Sweet Lavender " is one of the most popular of Pinero's plays. In London it achieved the phenom- enal record, for those days, of a run of 683 nights, and on its revival not long after, of 737 nights. Since that time it has been seen in America, Canada, Russia, South Africa, Australia, Germany, and Italy. Its success is attributable to its genial, if mawkish, senti- ment, its optimism, and its kindly humor. In the light of the dramatist's later works, it appears old- fashioned and conventional in the extreme. 1. Probably no fitter play could be named to typify the comedy of sentiment than " Sweet Lavender." Pinero calls it a " domestic drama." It is not that, at least in the sense that Giacosa's " As the Leaves " or Ibsen's " John Gabriel Bork- man " are domestic dramas. Pinero's play touches merely the externals of life, deftly it is true, and with an occasional semblance of reality, but the dramatist's sympathy led him far astray both from human nature and from the truth that lies at the bottom of all things. This play should be 10 ARTHUR PINERO n studied first for its occasional touches of char- acterization, then for the skill with which the author has constructed his story. 2. Pinero's chief contribution to the theater of his time will be doubtless found to consist of a series of plays in which the stories are, as a whole, well thought out, interesting, ingenious, and economical in the technical sense of the term. He will be considered a consummate craftsman, but his comments on life and human character must take second place. He is not, however, negligible in this capacity: there are far too convincing proofs to the contrary. In the present play Dick Phenyl is a case in question. The part is an especially rich one for a good actor, and can be made even more sympathetic on the stage than it is in print. Although he shares with the other characters in the play the annoying mannerism of speaking much too often in figurative language, he is still an affable fellow. Bulger, too, and Mrs. Gilfillian, are good minor sketches. The latter is a faint approximation to the Lady Bracknell and Duchess of Berwick types of Oscar Wilde. Her speech (p. 48) in the first act is distinctly Wildesque : " Innocent-looking ! Do you think I will have my plans — my plans and my brother's — frustrated by a girl with ulterior motives and eyes like saucers.'^ " 12 ARTHUR PINERO 3. The various works * on the technic of the drama practically agree on the division of a play into five parts : exposition, development, climax, denouement, and catastrophe. Aristotle more succinctly said that a play must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Most plays can be satisfac- torily so analyzed. " Sweet Lavender " presents an interesting clinical subject in its denouement. Trace, in the third act, the numerous threads in- troduced in the first and second: Wedderburn's relations with Mrs. Rolt, Minnie's with Bream, Clement's with Lavender. Notice how the sup- posed failure of Wedderburn is smoothed over, how the coincidences are made to appear a little less improbable than they would be without the dramatic preparation. Mr. Delaney's " Come, I'll tell ye how I put the pieces of the puzzle to- gether " is a good text for this analysis. 4. The end is " happy," that is, lovers are united, obstacles overcome, even at the expense of verisimilitude and the canons of ordinary moral- ity. Undoubtedly the English public of the day * Freytag, " The Technique of the Drama " ; Elizabeth Woodbridge, "The Drama, Its Law and Technique"; W. T. Price, "The Analysis of Play Construction and Dra- matic Principle," and "The Technique of the Drama"; Brander Matthews, "A Study of the Drama"; Clayton Hamilton, "The Theory of the Theater"; William Archer, " Playmaking " ; Barrett H. Clark, "The Continental Drama of To-day"; George P. Baker, "The Technique of the Drama" (Houghton Mifflin). ARTHUR PINERO 13 demanded this and few dramatists dared face the logical outcome of a situation of the sort. Five years later, however, Pinero did carry out an unpleasant theme, fearlessly: the success of ""^he Second Mrs. Tanqueray " is but another proof of the steady intellectual advance of the British the- ater public. But a curious instance of the dram- atist's wavering between personal conviction and his fear of the public is to be found in " The Profligate" (1889). Read this play, comparing the two endings : that of the acted version, which ends in reconciliation, and the original, terminat- ing in suicide. THE SECOND MRS. TANQUERAY A play in four acts. First performed in 1893. " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray " marked a decided step in advance of the drama of its day. To realize just how far in advance one must read some of its predecessors. One critic spoke of it as epoch-making, and William Archer, always reserved and careful in his judgments, disagreed with him only so far as to state that no single play could make that pretension, but that this one was a work " which Dumas might sign without a blush." The admirable construction, deep insight, and philosophical import of the theme, if not the characters, make of " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray " one of the finest dramatic achievements of the past two decades. 1. The exposition has often been admired. Each step is prepared with the utmost skill, and the story of Aubrey's venture is unfolded before our eyes in a manner that is interesting and amusing. The first point to notice is that there is none of the obvious mannered conversation which is to be found in " Sweet Lavender." Pinero has left behind him those threadbare devices which introduced the history of his characters in a few lines: ". . .1, Edmund Bulger, widower, have 14 ARTHUR PINERO 15 loved you, Mrs. Ruth Rolt, widow, ever since you fust set foot in the Temple, fifteen years ago, a-bearing your two-year-old baby in your arms, ma'am." But, in " The Second Mrs. Tan- queray," by means of an apparently casual con- versation, taking place at a natural meeting of Aubrey's friends, his past, his intentions, the re- lationship among the men and their wives, — all is made unmistakably clear. If this exposition is in many ways admirable, and if " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray " was an im- portant milestone technically, it is necessary to compare but one play of the past five years — Gals- worthy's " Justice " — to realize the advance made since 1893. Or, turning to Pinero's own later work: "The Thunderbolt," or "Mid-Channel." In " The Thunderbolt," the exposition is the more remarkable in that it not only seems casual, but inevitable. " Mid-Channel," on the other hand, is conventional in its opening, but the exposition is briefer and more to the point than in the play now under discussion. Compare the expositions in these three plays with that of "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray." Galsworthy's play has scarcely any, but is one re- quired.? Could that of "The Second Mrs. Tan- queray " be summarily disposed of as is that of "Mid-Channel".? 2. Pinero has always kept well abreast of the 16 ARTHUR PINERO times in theatrical wares. A severe but usually just critic* said of him: "No other hand . . . could supply so efficiently the actual demand. When in the fullness of time and honors, Sir Arthur Pinero has need of an epitaph, it may well be this : He kept the theaters open." Certain it is that his early plays were influenced by Robertson and Gilbert, that " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray " and the half-dozen plays of its sort that fol- lowed, were more or less influenced by Ibsen, and the critic above quoted adds that " perhaps it would not have been possible ... to have achieved the first act of ' The Thunderbolt ' if the third act of ' The Voysey Inheritance ' had not shown him the way." Nevertheless Pinero, like Augustus Thomas, has been quick to detect the trend of public thought and feeling, and no less alert to take advantage of it and write a " play of the hour." This timeliness is perhaps one of the most im- portant elements of successful plays. In 1893, Ibsen was a new name in England; his plays were beginning to be translated, discussed, produced. The Independent Theater, under J. T. Grein, had produced " Ghosts " in 1891, and invoked a storm of invective from the press ; Bernard Shaw was hurling thunderbolts at the British public in the columns of the Saturday Review; Henry Arthur *P. P. Howe in "Dramatic Portraits" (Kennerley). ARTHUR PINERO 17 Jones was lecturing on the " Renascence of the Drama." It was the day of the New Woman. And Pinero wrote a powerful play around a woman with a past ; five years previously, it is safe to say that the play would not have been successful. As it was, the time was ripe. There is nothing reprehensible in the practice: the theater must attempt to treat of people, cus- toms, and ideas of the day. In America it is un- deniable that timeliness is carried to an extreme. After some sensational trial we may expect a welter of plays dealing with the subject, just as after the production of Brieux's " Damaged Goods," a number of plays, concerned more or less directly with the same theme, made their appear- ance. Let a play like " The Yellow Jacket " or " Alias Jimmy Valentine " enjoy a long run, and it is but a question of a few months before the mar- ket is likely to be glutted with Chinese and crook plays. 3. In his lecture on " R. L. Stevenson : the Dram- atist," Pinero said : " What is dramatic talent ? Is it not the power to project characters, and to cause them to tell an interesting story through the medium of dialogue ? This is dramatic talent ; and dramatic talent, if I may so express it, is the raw material of theatrical talent. Dramatic, like poetic, talent is born, not made ; if it is to achieve success on the stage, it must be developed into 18 ARTHUR PINERO theatrical talent by hard study, and generally by long practice. For theatrical talent consists in the power of making your characters not only tell a story by means of dialogue, but to tell it in such skilfully devised form and order as shall, within the limits of an ordinary theatrical representation, give rise to the greatest possible amount of that peculiar kind of emotional effect the production of which is the one great function of the theater." Pinero is precisely the dramatist who has devel- oped his dramatic into a thoroughly theatrical talent, by " hard study " and by " long practice." The transition may be best observed by comparing the " dramatic " " Sweet Lavender " with the " theatrical " " Second Mrs. Tanqueray." IRIS A drama in five acts. First performed in 1901. In " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray " Pinero is con- tent witli placing before his audience a situation, and selecting a certain group of personages to work it out. In " Iris/' although there is a situation, we are in- clined to believe that the author wished to draw the picture of a woman, struggling with a situation, rather than a situation in which people struggle to extri- cate themselves. The earlier play was more of a story, the later, a painting. No such painting, it is true, as " Hedda Gabler," still it is as near to it as this dramatist ever came. " Iris " is justly ac- claimed as one of the besrt technical feats of Pinero, for the story is simply and interestingly told, the character of the heroine carefully limned, the logical needs of the theme rigidly supplied. 1. In the case of " Iris," the exposition is of especial importance. Every step she takes in her downward course throughout the play is dependent upon (1) the conditions of the will, and (2) her character. These two points must be indelibly im- pressed upon the mind of the audience, or what follows will be unconvincing. Take careful note of the innumerable references to Iris's tempera- 19 20 ARTHUR PINERO ment ; the opening scene, between Miss Pinsent and Kane, is full of them, and when Iris herself enters (p. 8) she adds to our store of knowledge. Kane's ". . . it is only fair to assume that your hus- band, knowing how greatly your happiness de- pends upon personal comfort^ was actuated by a desire to safeguard you " (the italics are mine) is peculiarly significant. Iris even goes so far as to quote some of the terms of the will. Does Pinero succeed in convincing you of the probability of the conditions? Does he prepare a sufficiently solid foundation upon which to build the rest of the structure? Is the exposition of " Iris " more economical or less so than that of " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray "? In what way is it superior to that of " Sweet Lavender "? Com- pare it with the exposition of " Mid-Channel." 2. Pinero has selected a character more subtle and more difficult to portray than Mrs. Tan- queray: Iris, a weak woman, taxes the dramatist's powers far more than Paula, whose very strength forms, as it were, a point of resistance against which to build situations. Positive wills, active agents, are the stuff of which drama is made, while passive and negative ones present numerous ob- stacles for the maker of plays. In " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray " the conflict of wills furnishes ready-made material, in " Iris " the lack of will, the drifting of the heroine, forces the dramatist ARTHUR PINERO 21 at every turn to invent situations; it calls upon him to exert all his ingenuity to keep the story moving. Compare the two plays from this standpoint. Notice how carefully Pinero has built up his situa- tions, and how each one reveals some side of the character of Iris. S. The curtain falls nine times during this play. Nowadays it is the usual custom not to divide an act into scenes. What were Pinero's reasons .^^ Does this division in any way detract from the dramatic effectiveness or the unity of the play.^* Is it a confession of weakness? Could the drama- tist have managed as well without this frequent division ? Does the process add to the interest and suspense ? 4. Pinero is a master of dramaturgic devices. One example will here suffice: shortly after the opening of the fourth act occurs the following stage-direction : (After some hesitation, he produces a bunch of keys and removes from it a latch-key. Weighing the key in his hand meditatively, he walks towards the settee; then he turns and tosses the key upon the table. . . . She picks up the key and, rising, drops it into a vase which stands upon the mantelpiece. The key strikes the bottom of the vase with a sharp sound. Having done this, she resumes her seat and sips her tea.) 22 ARTHUR PINERO The significance of the act is doubly impressed upon the audience ; first Maldonado's detaching the key and throwing it upon the table, and second Iris's dropping it, " with a sharp sound," into the vase. This is a stroke of dramaturgic genius: it advances the plot and reveals character in a most masterly fashion. Find other instances of this in " Iris." 5. In the last act Pinero has the courage which he lacked in " Sweet Lavender," and which some critics declare he lacked when he made Paula Tan- queray commit suicide in order to escape : the cour- age to show the logical consequences of his story. Trenwith's return is bitter, as it should be. Iris's confession is wrung from the depths of her being. There is at least an element of true tragedy in Iris's final effort to retain Trenwith, and in her query, " Would the home have been ready for me? " and his answer, " Yes." Then comes Mal- donado's denunciation of his mistress ; she must leave. This, too, savors of tragedy, but after she leaves, and " Maldonado utters a fierce cry and, "With one movement of his arm, sweeps the china and bric-a-brac from the mantelpiece . . . over- turns the table with a savage kick; then, raising a chair high in the air, he dashes it to the floor and breaks it into splinters . . . " — is this in keeping with the spirit of the last scene .^^ Of the whole play.? ARTHUR PINERO 23 6. Eugene Walter's " The Easiest Way " * is in many respects similar to " Iris." Compare the two plays. * " The Easiest Way " has been printed only in a private edition, but it is often produced by stock companies. MID-CHANNEL A play in four acts. First performed in 1909. As an example of the highest technical skill, of s'ound characterization, of a story well and interest- ingly unfolded, " Mid-Channel " must assume a posi- tion in the front rank of this dramatist's many works. It is one of the truest specimens of domestic drama produced in England. 1. Plnero once said * that after toiling at the superb exposition of " The Thunderbolt," he was determined not to go to the trouble of avoiding every possible incongruity and short-cut usually employed in conventional expositions, so that when he came to the opening of " Mid-Channel " he de- cided to convey the necessary information to his audience in a straightforward and more or less conventional manner. It was scarcely worth his while to conceal what must be obvious to nearly all his auditors: the effort to lay before them as quickly as possible that part of the character and past history of his personages which must be known before the play proper can begin. Conse- * To Mr. Clayton Hamilton, who has courteously given me permission to nrint the above. 24 ARTHUR PINERO 25 quently, almost the same ground is covered in a dozen pages which it took over sixty to cover in the preceding play. If the exposition of " Mid-Channel " is rather conventional, compact, obvious, would the play have gained by the insertion of a long and possibly more skilful exposition? In other words, what is gained by the method here adopted? And what is lost? 2. The question. What is a tragedy? is consid- ered in " The Continental Drama of To-day " (p. 152). Paul Hervieu says: "It is a play every part of which aims to create suspense, deep think- ing, and pity. It is accompanied no longer, as of old, with magnificent draperies ; it is a thing of the day, logical, prosaic, no longer bloody . . . the ways of fate are no longer manifested, as with the Greeks, in dreams, visions, or presentiments. Nowadays we try to show how the struggle for ex- istence bears down inexorably upon those who are imprudent, too weak to defend themselves, those whose passions are stronger than their will power." This of course is peculiarly applicable to the plays of M. Hervieu himself, who has written tragedies according to his own formula. The French drama- tist, as a rule, makes plays out of the human pas- sions; with him the passions are usually sufficient in themselves to explain failure and tragedy. With the Anglo-Saxon this is not enough : if pas- 26 ARTHUR PINERO sions do work havoc with human lives, he is un- willing to offer that as the sole reason for failure ; he must add external circumstances. Pinero in " Iris," however, accounts for the woman's ruin by her passion and her weakness, chiefly the latter, but he is careful to furnish a convenient Maldonado, who is an external force. The French dramatist can make his character declare, " C'est plus fort que moi ! " and proceed with the happy assurance that he has sufficient motivation. Pinero is not an emotional dramatist, in the sense that Donnay and D'Annunzio are emotional; he must account for failure in some other way. In " Mid-Channel," Zoe gives us the reason for her failure and her husband's. She says : " It was doomed from the moment we agreed that we'd never be encumbered in our career with any — brats of children." Nearly all Pinero's " dramas " are tearless : they are dramatic, effective, terrible at times, and possi- bly horrible, but only in the rarest instances, lachrymose. Perhaps this is the result of his Eng- lish environment, and perhaps out of the fear that the British public dislikes any display of the deeper emotions, but Pinero prefers to be intellec- tual, in contradistinction to emotional, and wishes his plays to rest upon logic rather than upon pas- sion. But it must be remembered that his charac- ters are nearly all English. 3. The " Raisonneur " is a stock figure in many ARTHUR PINERO 27 of the plays of the nineteenth century, and in the plays of Dumas fils assumes an importance at times greatly out of keeping with the piece. In England, especially in the plays of Pinero and Henry Arthur Jones, he reappears as the middle- aged, kindly man-of-the-world, the adviser who in- variably sets matters straight and administers stiff doses of good advice to the characters of the play, as well as to the audience. He is at once a dra- matic expedient, a foil, and a relief-figure. In the hands of the actor for whom the part is written, he becomes a congenial link, as it were, between the audience and the characters. Some of the more striking instances are to be found in " The Liars," " Mrs. Dane's Defence," " The Case of RebelKous Susan," and " Dolly Reforming Herself," of Jones. In " Mid-Channel " it is Peter Mottram. Here, besides bringing about the temporary recon- ciliation between man and wife, he gives out the theme of the play (pp. 50-1), and offers a wel- come relief to the sordidness of the rest of the piece. Is there a character corresponding to Peter in "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray "? In "Sweet Lavender " ? 4. The suicide in " Mid-Channel " is as inevi- table as that of " Hedda Gabler " or " Justice." The dramatist has left no possible escape for the unfortunate woman. Trace the steps leading up 28 ARTHUR PINERO to the catastrophe. Is there a point in the play where matters could have been satisfactorily ar- ranged? Could a logical change of heart have taken place in Theodore? Zoe being as she was, and Theodore remaining obdurate — in strict ac- cordance with the character as we know him — could a reconciliation be made plausible? HENRY ARTHUR JONES Henry Arthur Jones was born at Grandborough, Bucks^ in 1851. His early life was spent, and his primary education received in his native district. He went into business at Bradford and for some years was a commercial traveler. In 1878, at Exeter, he produced his first play, " Only 'Round the Corner." During the next few years he wrote a number of un- important little plays, of which " A Clerical Error " (1879) was produced in London. In 1882, he wrote, in collaboration with Henry Herman, his first great success, the famous melodrama, " The Silver King," which has held the stage for thirty-three years, and shows no signs of aging. " Saints and Sinners " (1884) called forth the unstinted praise of Matthew Arnold. From that day to this Jones has, through his essays, lectures, and many plays, carried on a work which is of incalculable benefit for the English stage. To Henry Arthur Jones, more than to any other single force, is due that Renascence and " uplift " — let the term be accepted in its best sense — of the contemporary English drama. Jones carries on the tradition of Congreve and Sheridan in high comedy. His best work, with the exception of " Michael and His Lost Angel," consists of comedies of manners. " The Liars," " The Case of Rebellious Susan," and " Dolly Reforming Herself," satires on contemporary 30 HENRY ARTHUR JONES society^ are among the finest character plays of the day. Jones's work is characterized by close observa- tion of the foibles of the upper classes and the aris- tocracy of England; a keen sense of humor — as op- posed to the cleverness and wit of Wilde and Pinero — which brings him much closer to the English Res- toration dramatists than any other of his day; and a keen sense of dramatic construction. Jones' has writ- ten many comedies, but his melodramas — especially " The Silver King " and " The Middleman " — and his tragic play, " Michael and His Lost Angel " — must be taken into account in any estimate of the drama- tist's total output. PLAYS Only 'Round the Corner (1878). Hearts of Oak (1879)- Harmony (1879). Elopement (1879)- A Clerical Error (1879). Performed at the Star Theater, New York 1886. An Old Master (1881). His Wife (1881). Home Again (1881). A Bed of Roses (1881). The Silver King (in collaboration with Henry Her- man, 1882). Performed at Wallack's Theater, New York 1883. Chatterton (with Henry Herman, 1884). Performed, with Wilson Barrett, at the Grand Opera House, New York 1886. HENRY ARTHUR JONES 31 Saints and Sinners (1884). Performed at the Madison Square Theater, New York 1885. HooDMAN Blind (in collaboration with Wilson Bar- rett, 1885). Performed at Wallack's Theater, New York 1885. The Lord Harry (with Wilson Barrett, 1886). The Noble Vagabond (1886). Hard Hit (1887). Heart of Hearts (1887). Performed at the Madison Square Theater, New York 1888. Wealth (1889). Performed at Palmer's Theater, New York 1891. The Middleman (1889). Performed, with E. S. Willard, at Palmer's The- ater, New York 1890, and on tour. JUDAH (1890). Performed, with E. S. Willard, at Palmer's The- ater, New York 1891. Sweet Will (ISQO). Performed at the Standard Theater, New York 1893. The Deacon (1890). Performed at Hoyt's Madison Square Theater, New York 1892. The Dancing Girl (1891). Performed, with E. H. Sothern, " at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1891. The Crusaders (1891). 32 HENRY ARTHUR JONES The Bauble Shop (1893). Performed, with John Drew, at the Empire The- ater, New York 1895. The Tempter (1893). The Masqueraders (1894j). Performed at the Empire Theater, New York 1895. The Case of Rebellious Susan (1894). Performed at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1895. The Triumph of the Philistines (1895). Michael and His Lost Angel (1896). Performed at the Empire Theater, New York 1896, with Henry Miller and Viola Allen. The Rogue's Comedy (1896). Performed, with E. S. Willard, at Wallack's The- ater, New York 1897. The Physician (1897). Performed, with E. S. Willard, at Wallack's The- ater, New York 1897. The Liars (1897). Performed, with John Drew, at the Empire The- ater, New York 1898. ""The Man(euvres of Jane (1898). Performed at Daly's Theater, New York I9OO. Carnac Sahib (1899). The Lackey's Carnival (I9OO). -Mrs. Dane's Defence (I9OO). Performed, with Margaret Anglin, at the Empire Theater, New York 19OI. The Princess's Nose (1902). Chance the Idol (1902). HENRY ARTHUR JONES S3 Whitewashing Julia (IQOS). Joseph Entangled (1904). Performed at the Columbia Theater, San Francisco 1904-. The Chevaleer (1904) The Heroic Stubbs (1906). The Hypocrites (1906). Performed at the Hudson Theater, New York I906. The Goal (1907). Performed at the Princess Theater, New York 1914. The Evangelist (1907). Performed at the Knickerbocker Theater, New York 1907. Dolly Reforming Herself (19O8). Performed at the Fine Arts Theater, Chicago 1913. We Can't Be as Bad as All That (1910). Performed at Nazimova's 39th Street Theater, New York 1910. The Ogre (1911). Lydia Gilmore (1912). Performed at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1912. The Divine Gift (1912). Mary Goes First (1913). Performed, with Marie Tempest, at the Comedy, New York 1914. The Lie (1914). Performed, with Margaret Illington, at the Hudson Theater, New York 1914. Two or three one-act trifles, together with Jones's and Herman's adaptation of " A Doll's House " — 34 HENRY ARTHUR JONES entitled " Breaking a Butterfly " — are omitted from the above list. In French's " International Copyrighted Edition " the following plays are published : " Harmony/' " Elopement/' " Hearts of Oak," " A Clerical Error/' "An Old Master/' "A Bed of Roses/' "The Deacon," and " Sweet Will." In French's special series of Jones's plays are: "Joseph Entangled/' " The Silver King/' " The Dancing Girl/' " The Mid- dleman/' " The Hypocrites/' " Mrs. Dane's De- fence/' " The Case of Rebellious Susan/' " The Liars/' " The Masqueraders/' " Dolly Reforming Herself/' " The Manoeuvres of Jane/' " Judah/' " The Physician/' " The Rogue's Comedy/' " The Triumph of the Philistines/' " The Crusaders'/' " Whitewashing Julia/' and " The Tempter." Mac- millans publish: " Carnac Sahib/' "Michael and His Lost Angel/' and " Saints and Sinners." " The Di- vine Gift " and " The Lie " are published by Doran, and " Mary Goes First/' by Doubleday, Page (Drama League Series). In " The Theater of Ideas " (Doran) are: "The Goal/' "Her Tongue/' and " Grace Mary." The other plays are either not pub- lished, or else are only privately printed. " Michael and His Lost Angel " is included in " Chief Con- temporary Dramatists" (Houghton Mifflin). References: William Archer, " The Theatrical World" (Walter Scott, London), "About the The- ater" (Unwin, London), "English Dramatists of To-day" (Sampson Low, London), " Playmaking " (Small, Maynard) ; Mario Borsa, " The English HENRY ARTHUR JONES 35 Stage of To-day " (Lane) ; Augustin Filon, " The English Stage " (Dodd, Mead) ; George Moore, " Im- pressions and Opinions' " (Brentano) ; Bernard Shaw, " Dramatic Opinions and Essays " (Brentano) ; P. P. Howe, " Dramatic Portraits " (Kennerley) ; A. B. Walkley, " Drama and Life " (Brentano) ; J. T. Grein, " Dramatic Criticism " (Evelyn Nash, Lon- don) ; Frank Wadleigh Chandler, " Aspects of Mod- ern Drama " (Macmillan) ; Clayton Hamilton, " The Theory of the Theater " and " Studies in Stagecraft " (Holt) ; Ludwig Lewisohn, " The Modern Drama " (Huebsch) ; Brander Matthews, " A Study of the Drama " (Houghton Mifflin) ; introductions to Mac- millan (early) editions of " Michael and His Lost Angel," " The Crusaders," " Saints and Sinners," and " Judah." By Henry Arthur Jones: "The Renas- cence of the English Drama" (Macmillan), "The Foundations of a National Drama " (Doran) ; intro- ductions to " The Divine Gift," " The Case of Re- bellious Susan," and " The Theater of Ideas." — Magazines: North American, vol. clxxxvi (p. 205); Reader, vol. ix (p. 105) ; Blackwood's, vol. xciv (p. 283). THE SILVER KING A drama in five acts by Henry Arthur Jones and Henry Herman. First performed in 1882. " The Silver King " was declared by William Archer to be " quite the best of modern English melo- dramas." Mr. Archer's words have been borne out, if popularity for a period well over a quarter-century be a criterion. Many thousands of performances all over the Continent, in America, South Africa, and Australia, have rendered the play celebrated. This universal appeal rests in the simplicity, sincerity, in- terest in the plot, and to a certain extent in the sym- pathetic characters, and above all, in the authors' grasp of the story, and their skill in conducting it from first to last without hesitation. 1. Melodrama as distinguished from tragedy is that form of drama in which the story is of more importance than the personages who are in it: the audience will remember the plot, the incidents, the big scenes in " The Silver King " longer than it will the characteristics of Denver. In " Hamlet," on the other hand, it will discuss and ponder over Hamlet's character long after it has forgotten the story and incidents of the Prince of Denmark. 36 HENRY ARTHUR JONES 37 The writer of melodrama invents a frame for his characters, the writer of tragedy will conceive a human being and allow a framework to form itself about him, imposing only such situations as will reveal the inmost soul of that character, and hold the interest of an audience at the same time. Briefly, the hero in tragedy, because he is as he is, brings down the tragedy upon himself, the hero in melodrama merely moves hither and thither until at last the author wills that he fall into the heroine's arms at the final curtain, and the villain be foiled, by fair means or foul. Distinguish the elements of melodrama in " The Silver King." In exactly what way does the author dictate the actions of the various person- ages? Are there any elements of true tragedy in the play.^ Of serious drama — ^drama in the sense that Pinero's " Iris " is drama? 2. It will be observed that " The Silver King " is divided into seventeen scenes. Why is this? Does it tend to destroy the unity of the acts which are thus divided, or of the entire play? Or is it a confession of weakness on the part of the drama- tists? 3. The essential difference between melodrama and tragedy — or a serious play of any kind — is exemplified in the last scene of the first act. Since in the former the dramatist directs the course of events, and the hero follows in their wake, chance 38 HENRY ARTHUR JONES plays an important part ; but in the latter, in order that the audience may believe and eventually see that the hero's weakness or, it may be, strength, combined often with external circumstances, causes his downfall, nothing must be left to chance. His downfall must seem inevitable. In the third scene of the first act of " The Silver King " Denver hap- pens to arrive at Ware's home, at the precise moment when it is being robbed; Ware enters, the burglar shoots him, after applying the chloroform pad to Denver, across whose prostrate form he has stumbled, and the burglars leave. As Denver awakes to consciousness, he speaks the following soliloquy : . . . Where's my hat? (Gets up, takes candle, staggers, steadies himself, comes round table, sees Ware.) What's that? It's Geoffrey Ware! What's he doing here? Get up, will you? (Kneels down.) Ah, what's this? Blood! He's shot! My God, I've murdered him! No! No! Let me think. What happened? Ah yes, I remember now — I came in at the door, he sprang at me and then we struggled. (LooJcing at revolver) My revolver. — One barrel fired — I've murdered him. No, he's not dead. Geof- frey Ware! Is he dead? (Eagerly feeling Ware's pulse) No, it doesn't beat. (Tears down Ware's waistcoat and shirt, puts his ear over Ware's heart.) No, no, quite still, quite still. He's dead! Dead! Dead ! Oh^ I've killed him — I've killed him. . . . HENRY ARTHUR JONES 39 Although there is a certain poetic justice in the fact that Denver, the drunkard, believes himself to be the murderer of Ware, the various coincidences leading up to this scene, and the fact that Denver's tragedy hinges on a mistake, is too improbable for a serious play — i.e., for any play not a melo- drama or a farce. Tragedy demands that there be no accident, no coincidence, to hasten the end of the hero: each event in his downward path must be brought about either through his own fault, or through the implacable laws of fate. Hamlet is the victim of his own weakness, Romeo and Juliet are the victims of fate and circumstances over which they have no control. Denver is the victim of circumstances controlled by the dramatist. 4. Melodrama is a flexible form, yet in its numerous manifestations there are constantly re- curring character-types ; among these are the vil- lain, hero, and heroine. The villain may be thought of as the force at variance with the hero and the heroine. Before the play reaches the end, the villain must be overpowered through the agency of the hero, who must be united with the heroine. In "The Silver King," who is the hero? The heroine.? The villain.? What is the struggle be- tween the opposing forces ? At what precise point does the decisive struggle take place.? How does the hero overcome the villain.? Does the heroine help to precipitate the catastrophe.? MICHAEL AND HIS LOST ANGEL A play in five acts. First performed in 1896. " Michael and His Lost Angel " is Jones's most ambitious play. Into it he put his deepest convic- tions, and succeeded in producing a tragic drama of passion which may well hold its own with the finest plays of the time. Bernard Shaw, most catholic of critics, said of the play: " It seems ... to me to be a genuinely sincere and moving play, feelingly imagined, written with knowledge as to the man and insight as to the woman by an author equipped not only with the experience of an adept playwright, and a kindly and humorous observer's sense of contempo- rary manners, but with that knowledge of spiritual history in which Mr. Jones's nearest competitors seem so stupendously deficient." The play was not a suc- cess, owing to difficulties in the original casting, it was said, but the truth of the matter is expressed in Shaw's words: "The melancholy truth of the matter is that the English stage got a good play, and was completely and ignominiously beaten by it." 1. Measuring " Michael and His Lost Angel " according to the definitions of tragedy set forth by Hervieu, and those considered in connection with "The Silver King" and Pinero's " Iris,'^ into what category would this play go? 40 HENRY ARTHUR JONES 41 2. In his " Dramatic Opinions and Essays " (Vol. I, pp. 309-10) Bernard Shaw remarks: "As to the first two acts, I ask nothing better; but at the beginning of the third comes the parting of our ways ; and I can point out the exact place where the roads fork. In the first act, Michael, a clergyman, compels a girl who has committed what he believes to be a deadly sin, to confess it publicly in church. In the second act he commits that sin himself. At the beginning of the third act he meets the lady who has been his accomplice ; and the following words pass between them : — Audrie. — You're sorry? Michael. — No. And you.^ Audrie. — No. Now, after this, what does the clergyman do.^^ Without giving another thought to the all-signifi- cant fact that he is not sorry — ^that at the very point where, if his code and creed were valid, his conscience would be aching with remorse, he is not only impenitent, but positively glad, he proceeds to act as if he really were penitent, and not only puts on a hair shirt, but actually makes a confession to his congregation in the false character of a con- trite sinner, and goes out from among them with bowed head to exile and disgrace, only waiting in the neighborhood until the church is empty to steal back and privily contradict his pious impos- 42 HENRY ARTHUR JONES ture by picking up and hiding a flower which the woman has thrown on the steps of the altar." Shaw condemns Michael for not being true to his own conviction : he should either have been sorry, and told Audrie so — in which case there would have been no play — or else not have con- fessed himself wrong. In the latter case, the play would have been tragic in every sense of the word, for society (external circumstances) would have prevented the couple from living as they thought it right to live, but as it is, we have nothing but a weakling, who is at most a pathetic and not a tragic figure. How far is Shaw's criticism valid? Does Jones intend Michael to be contrite? Is he really "not sorry," as he declares to Audrie? Is the play a true tragedy? 3. Jones has repeatedly asserted that literature and the drama should be inseparable ; a play must stand the test of time, and to do this, it must stand the test of print. In his essay on " Litera- ture and the Modern Drama " * he says : " If your drama is truly alive, it will necessarily be litera- ture." He continues : " If you have faithfully and searchingly studied your fellow-citizens ; if you have selected from amongst them those characters that are interesting in themselves, and that also possess an enduring human interest; if in study- * In "The Foundations of a National Drama" (Doran). HENRY ARTHUR JONES 4S ing these interesting personalities, you have se- verely selected from the mass of their sayings and doings and impulses, those words and deeds and tendencies which mark them at once as individuals and types ; if you have then recast and re-imagined all the materials ; if you have cunningly shaped them into a story of progressive and cumulative action ; if you have done all this, though you may not have used a single word but what is spoken in ordinary American intercourse to-day, I will venture to say that you have written a piece of live American literature — that is, you have writ- ten something that will not only be interesting on the boards of the theater, but can be read with pleasure in your library, can be discussed, argued about, tasted, and digested as literature." Literature, then, in the drama, is not altogether a matter of style, it concerns itself with arrange- ment, selection, appropriateness to the characters in the mouths of which words are put, and plot. A play may be written with no pretense to style, and yet be good literature. Certain it is that in the plays of Stephen PhiHips the language is finer, the style nearer to perfection than is that of Sardou, yet the Frenchman was a far greater mas- ter of dramatic literature than the English poet. In what respects is " Michael and His Lost Angel" Hterature? Can its style in itself take rank as literature.? THE LIARS A comedy in four acts. First performed in 1897. " The Liars " is as fine an example of the comedy of manners in England as any written during the past quarter of a century. The skilful plot-construction, clever dialogue, and genial good-natured satire com- bine to make it a masterpiece. Behind all the amuse- ment is the eternal "lesson": that society in order to exist must adhere to a set of regulations, and that any infringement of its laws invariably brings social ruin. Needless to say, the idea is not forced upon us; it is allowed, as it should be, to evolve out of the story. 1. In Francis's "Change" (see p. 176), the dramatist eliminates in the third act all the char- acters except the mother and Lizzie Ann, and con- centrates his attention on these two. He does this in order to make of his climax, which occurs at the end of the third act, a unified and striking scene. More than this, he must select from among his characters those to whom the sympathy of the audience is most naturally attracted. An audi- ence must always have its attention directed, as the play approaches its climax, to one person or one small group of persons ; or else to one situa- 44 HENRY ARTHUR JONES 45 tion or crisis : when the plot becomes tense there must be no scattering of attention. In Henry Arthur Jones's " Mrs. Dane's Defence " there is a similar narrowing down of the interest, until the climax begins, in the cross-examination scene, where Mrs. Dane and her interlocutor occupy, fig- uratively as well as actually, the center of the stage. If the action were to be diagrammed it would be represented by a pyramid, the apex of which is the climax. In " The Liars," the dramatist appears to adopt the reverse method: instead of eliminating charac- ters, he adds to the number from moment to moment. From the very beginning of the third act, he begins building up for the climax. First, the letter from George, which Lady Jessica reads to Lady Rosamund; then Freddie's entrance, add- ing a further complication ; then Sir Christopher's, which seems to promise a way out of the disagree- able predicament; then Mrs. Crispen and Mrs. Coke, and finally George. Most inopportune of all, comes Archibald Coke, who precipitates the final downfall, and not long after, Gilbert, followed by Falkner. Study in detail the methods by which the cumu- lative effect is made. If, in " Change " and " Mrs. Dane's Defence," the rise in tension and the elim- ination of characters can be represented by a pyramid, would not that of " The Liars " be 46 HENRY ARTHUR JONES represented by an inverted pyramid? What is the unity of the act? 2. The play is virtually over at the fall of the curtain on the third act. What function does the last fulfil? To what means does the dramatist re- sort to make the last act interesting? Is it really superfluous ? OSCAR WILDE Born in Dublin in 1854^ of cultured and well-to-do Irish parentS;, Oscar Wilde spent Ills' early youth in his native country. For three years he attended Trin- ity College in Dublin^ but completed his university education at Oxford^ where he devoted himself to classical studies. After traveling in Italy and Greece he came to London. His first book was a volume of poems (1881); these were followed by his first play^ " Vera, or the Nihilists," which was performed in the United States in 1883. " The Duchess of Padua," a verse tragedy, was performed in the United States in 1891. Meantime Wilde had been in Paris, there mak- ing the acquaintance of many prominent literary men of the period. In 1884 he married, and was enabled thereby, as his wife was a woman of means, to de- vote his time to lecturing, writing poetry, essays, stories, and plays. The important plays — " Lady Windermere's Fan," " A Woman of No Importance," " An Ideal Husband," and " The Importance of Be- ing Earnest" — were produced between 1892 and 1895. In 1895, Wilde was sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labor as the result of a trial instigated by him against the Marquess of Queensberry. (For details of the trial, which are be- yond the scope of the present work, see Arthur Ran- some's " Oscar Wilde," original edition, and Oscar 47 48 OSCAR WILDE Wilde's " De Profundis.") On leaving prison he adopted the name of Sebastian Melmoth and went to France; there, and at Naples, where he later went and wrote " The Ballad of Reading Gaol," he dragged out the few remaining years of his life. He died at Paris in 1900. In "De Profundis" Wilde said: "I took the drama, the most objective form known to art, and made of it as personal a mode of expression as the lyric or the sonnet; at the same time I widened its range and enriched its characterization." He refers to his *' social " plays, and speaks rather of what he intended to do than of actual accomplishment. In his poetic plays and fragments — " The Duchess of Padua/' " A Florentine Tragedy," and " Salome " — he wrote fairly effective pieces and some good pseudo- Elizabethan poetry; in his other plays, with the ex- ception of " Vera," comedies which for their clever- ness, their ingenuity, and above all, their wit, are un- surpassed in modern times. Wilde, more than any other man of his day, recog- nized the " necessity of style." Although his plays occasionally contain specimens of very artificial and stilted language, still a farce like " The Importance of Being Earnest " is a triumph of literary yet lifelike literature. Wilde was assuredly a man of the theater: he could invent plots and develop an intrigue with extraordinary skill. Henry Arthur Jones, Sir James Barrie, Bernard Shaw, and Granville Barker owe much to their brilliant predecessor. OSCAR WILDE 49 PLAYS Vera, or the Nihilists (1883). Performed at the Union Square Theater, New York 1883. The Duchess of Padua (1891). Performed at the Broadway Theater, New York 1891. Lady Windermere's Fan (1892). Performed at the Columbia Theater, Boston 1893. A Woman of No Importance (1893). Performed at Miner's Fifth Avenue Theater, New York 1893. An Ideal Husband (1895). Performed at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1895. The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Performed at the Empire Theater, New York 1895. Salome (1896). Performed at the Berkeley Lyceum, New York 1905. " La Sainte Courtisane " and " A Florentine Trag- edy " are poetic fragments. Methuen of London publishes the " Chief Works " of Wilde in twelve volumes. In the United States, John W. Luce publishes, in four volumes, the " Plays of Oscar Wilde." Walter H. Baker publishes paper editions of the " social " plays. In " The Plays of Oscar Wilde " (Cosmopolitan Edition) published by H. S. Nichols, all the plays, except the two fragments above mentioned, are gathered together in a single volume. " Lady Windermere's Fan " is included in 50 OSCAR WILDE " Chief Contemporary Dramatists " (Houghton Mifflin). References: Leonard Cresswell Ingleby, "Oscar Wilde " (Werner Laurie, London) ; Arthur Ran- some, " Oscar Wilde " (Kennerley) ; Lord Alfred Douglas, " Oscar Wilde and Myself " (Lane) ; Anna, Comtesse de Bremont, " Oscar Wilde and His Mother " (Everett, London) ; W. W. Kenil worth, " A Study of Oscar Wilde " (Fenno) ; Holbrook Jackson, " The Eighteen-nineties " (Kennerley) ; Archibald Henderson, " European Dramatists " (Stewart and Kidd) ; William Archer, " Playmaking " (Small, Maynard); "The Theatrical World" (Scott, Lon- don) ; Bernard Shaw, " Dramatic Opinions and Es- says " (Brentano) ; Mario Borsa, " The English Stage of To-day " (Lane) ; Augustin Filon, " The English Stage " (Chapman and Hall, London) ; C. E. Montague, " Dramatic Values " (Macmillan) ; F. W. Chandler, " Aspects of Modern Drama " (Macmil- lan) ; Ludwig Lewisohn, " The Modern Drama " (Huebsch). — Magazines: Current Literature, vol. xxxix (p. 156), vol. xli (p. 518), vol. xliv (p. 287); Westminster, vol. clxvi (p. 201); Arena, vol. xxxviii (p. 134); Dial, vol. xlviii (p. 261); Bookman, vol. xxxiv (p. 389) ; Nation, vol. xcviii (pp. 5QQ and 598), vol. xcix (p. 374). SALOMfi A play in one act. Written in 1892, prohibited in Paris the same year. First produced in that city in 1896. Originally written in French, translated by Lord Alfred Douglas. " Salome/' like most of Wilde's plays, is a rich and ornate picture: it was written for the purpose of displaying its neat and well-balanced plot, for the sheer pleasure to be derived from its esthetic appeal.* The stage-directions offer the reader something of what is put into the production. The gorgeous and figured style of the dialogue is the work of a poet who plays with words. In the original the style is some- thing of a patch-work: there are many speeches reminiscent of Maeterlinck's early manner, and oc- casional snatches of Baudelaire and Flaubert. The play is, however, remarkable for its well-handled plot: it is thoroughly dramatic and holds the atten- tion of the audience to the end.f *The poetic drama in England is discussed in connec- tion with Stephen Phillips's "Paolo and Francesca" (p. 97), as "Salome" is scarcely a typical example, and is written in a foreign tongue. f " ' In 1901, within a year of the author's death, it was produced in Berlin; from that moment it has held the European stage. It has run for a longer consecutive period in Germany than any play by any Englishman, not excluding Shakespeare. Its popularity has extended 51 52 OSCAR WILDE 1. As the dramatist in a one-act play cannot afford much space for lengthy and careful exposi- tion, he often sums it up within a few pages or even a few lines. He is forced to concern himself with the play proper. The exposition of " Sa- lome " is not in the usual form : it is largely the revelation of facts at second-hand, and is done in a more or less summary fashion. The first eight or ten pages are devoted to conversation carried on by the Nubian, the Cappadocian, Herodias's Page, First and Second Soldiers, and the Young Syrian. This is once interrupted by the Voice of Jokanaan. Nowadays we should perhaps regard this sort of exposition as " talky " ; it would " re- tard the action," yet in a poetic play a certain leeway may be allowed for the decorative side of the piece, the inherent beauty of the words, and we are willing to have the atmosphere created, and wait for the entrance of Salome herself before the story is appreciably advanced. Compare the opening scene of " Salome " with the corresponding scenes of Galsworthy's " Strife " and Augustus Thomas's " Arizona." 2. As in most tragedies and in many plays of various kinds, there is a continual insistence of what may be termed the " fate motif." The to all countries where it is not prohibited. It is per- formed throughout Europe, Asia, and America. It is played even in Yiddish.' " Quotation from Robert Ross, in Ransome's " Oscar Wilde." OSCAR WILDE 53 Witches' scenes in " Macbeth " are the classic ex- ample. How does Wilde make use of it in this play? 3. Contrast is a basic principle of all art. In Richard Strauss's music for the opera of " Sa- lome," he makes use musically of the interruptions by Jokanaan, in order to afford a striking con- trast to the scene. In the play itself the first in- terruption — " After me will come another greater than I," etc. — is a good example of Wilde's use of contrast. The First Soldier and the Cappa- docian have been conversing in short sentences: First Soldier. — The Jews worship a God they cannot see. The Cappadocian. — I cannot understand that. First Soldier. — Indeed they believe only in those things they cannot see. The Cappadocian. — That seems absolutely ridicu- lous to me. Then comes the Voice of Jokanaan. — Again: Salome speaks of the moon: Salome. — How good it is to see the moon! She resembles a small coin. One might say she was a little flower of silver. She is cold and chaste, the moon — I am sure she is a virgin. She has a virgin's beauty — yes, she is a virgin. She has never soiled herself. She has never given herself to men, as the other goddesses have. 54> OSCAR WILDE The Voice of Johanaan. — He is come, the Lord! iHe is come, the Son of Man. The centaurs have hid themselves, and the sirens have quitted the streams and lie under the leaves in the forests. Notice other examples of dramatic contrast such as the two above quoted. Is contrast sought by any other method.'' 4. Although " Salome " was not written pri- marily to be played, it is one of the most effective of its author's dramatic works. Its success can- not be attributed to the accessory qualities — ^the literary style in particular — but rather to its in- herent theatrical appeal. Few other one-act plays move so swiftly, so surely, so rhythmically, straight up to a climax so well-devised and thrill- ing as this. Simplicity is the keynote to the action: from Salome's first inquiries about Jokanaan — " Is he an old man, the prophet.? " there is a steady pro- cession of climaxes, or crises, each leading to an- other and a greater. Salome's curiosity, then her strange abnormal love for the uncouth prophet, Herod's entrance, the momentary pause in the tension, then the upward flight of the action, Herod's demand for Salome to dance, then an- other moment of suspense, and the rapid climax — here, in brief, are the qualities, here the unity, the effectiveness of " Salome." LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN A comedy in four acts. First performed in 1892. As the form of the play, its wit, its decoration, its pattern " were of more importance to Wilde than the theme or the characters," we may expect that this " play about a good woman " is more a clever excuse for an effective piece of drama and a good deal of verbal pyrotechnics than a sympathetic study of the protagonist. The play has stood the test of time, because it is a good story — in spite of its flagrant shortcomings — so that there is no need of discussing its sincerity of purpose. 1. The first act — in the earlier version — ends with the following speech of Lord Windermere : (Calling after her.) Margaret! Margaret! (A pause) My God! What shall I do.^ I dare not tell her who this woman really is. The shame would kill her. {Sinks down into a chair and buries his face in his hands.) In later editions the speech is altered to: My God! What shall I do? I dare not teU her that this woman is her mother! Why was the change made.? How does it affect 55 56 OSCAR WILDE the attitude of the audience in the succeeding acts ? 2. It is perhaps unjust to criticise this play as a serious comment on life, one in which we must believe and feel for the characters, yet some of the more important weak points must not be left unnoticed. Some pages from the end of the first act, Lady Windermere speaks the following lines : How horrible! I understand now what Lord Darlington meant by the imaginary instance of the couple not two years married. Oh! It can't be true — she spoke of enormous sums of money paid to this woman. I know where Arthur keeps hisr bank book — in one of the drawers of that desk. I might find out by that. I will find out. (Opens drawer.) No, it is some hideous mistake. {Rises and goes C.) Some silly scandal! He loves me! He loves me! But why should I not look? I am his wife, I have a right to look! (Returns to bureau, takes out book and examines it, page by page, smiles and gives a sigh of relief.) I knew it, there is not a word of truth in this stupid srtory. (Puts booh back in drawer. As she does so, starts and takes out another book.) A second book — private — locked! (Tries to open it, but fails. Sees paper knife on bureau, and with it cuts cover from book. Begins to start at the first page.) Mrs. Erlynne— 600— Mrs. Erlynne — 700 — Mrs. Erlynne — 400. Oh! it is true! it is true! How horrible! (Throws book on floor.) (Enter Lord Windermere, C.) OSCAR WILDE 57 The dramatic effect is too easily achieved, it is too obvious, and in consequence a little discrimina- tion will prevent our believing what we see. The improbability of the situation is too apparent. Further, Lord Windermere's giving Mrs. Erlynne the money, his poor excuse that " the shame would kill her " (Lady Windermere) are insufficient motives. Had Wilde really cared to make his audience believe, he would not have made as the basis of the rest of the play so insecure a founda- tion. But he was concerned chiefly with externals ; he knew that he was telling an interesting, if im- probable story, he had numerous choice epigrams and some effective dramatic material for the en- suing acts — and besides, had Lord Windermere told Lady Windermere the truth, there would have been no play ! The fundamental mistake just pointed out in the first act weakens the ensuing action, and Lord Windermere's secret results in his wife's at- tempted elopement with Lord Darlington. There is no need multiplying instances of the like, for as the plot proceeds, the weak motivation becomes more and more apparent. By the time the " big " scene comes, with its heavy tirade, we doubt the sincerity of the characters. The " Believe what you choose about me " speech in the third act fails to ring true. S. Wilde's skill in preparing for an effective 58 OSCAR WILDE scene has been already observed in " Salome." In " The Importance of Being Earnest " there is an even better example. What instances are there in the present play.'' THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST A " Trivial Comedy for Serious People " ; a farce in three acts. First performed in 1895. A farce is a comic play in which the audience is asked to accept impossible or highly improbable situa- tions for the time being. It differs radically from comedy, in that the audience must believe, for if the personages are to appear real — and they must, as character is of prime importance in comedy — they must move about in real situations, or at least such as we can give credence to. In a farce, then, what the characters do is of more importance than what they are. " The Importance of Being Earnest " is a farce, one of the best ever written, cleverly con- structed and delightfully amusing. There is only the slightest attempt at the sketching of character, while most of the personages are at best but caricatures ; the author's skill is brought to bear chiefly upon the situa- tions and the lines. It so happens that this farce contains more clever lines, puns, epigrams, and deft repartees than any other of modern times, but these are after all accessory. A farce may be written with- out these additions— it might well be pure pantomime. Wilde has thrown them in for full measure. 1. The first act should be carefully studied after a reading of the entire play. Notice especially 60 OSCAR WILDE how the very comic scene in the second act — where Jack enters " in the deepest mourning " — is pre- pared for and led up to. In order that this scene shall be a surprise, and that the appearance of Jack, without a spoken word, shall evoke a series of recognitions in the mind of the audience, and a correlation of hitherto-unknown facts, the prep- aration in the first act must be skilfully done. The very casualness and apparent triviality of the dialogue tend to throw us off our guard. This is in a manner comparable with the art of the magi- cian who, while calling attention to a dexterous feat of legerdemain with his right hand, prepares the next trick with his left. So, in the first act, we are scarcely aware of the importance of Algernon's disquisition on " Bunburying," or of Algernon's writing the address which Jack gives to Gwendolyn " on his shirt-cufF," so nonchalantly are these points introduced. Yet, when the scene in question — in Act II — comes, we are perfectly acquainted with the necessary facts. 2. That farce can be independent of clever dialogue is, as we have said, true, but when this can be added and made to fit into the action and further it, so much the better for farce. Oscar Wilde could not resist the temptation to be witty, though this practice was often detrimental to the rest of the work. In " Lady Windermere's Fan," indeed, the wit covers occasional bungling in the OSCAR WILDE 61 plot. But in " The Importance of Being Earnest," Wilde found a form which he could make " personal," and plot and wit go hand in hand. Take, for instance, the following dialogue from the first act: Algernon. — Well, my dear fellow, you need not eat as if you were going to eat it all. You behave as if you were married to her already. You are not married to her already, and I don't think you ever will be. Jack. — Why on earth do you say that? Algernon. — Well, in the first place, girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right. Jack. — Oh, that is nonsense. Algernon. — It isn't. It is a great truth. It ac- counts for the extraordinary number of bachelors that one sees all over the place. In the second place, I don't give my consent. The epigram is not forced, as many epigrams are forced in the first act of " A Woman of No Impor- tance " ; it is in keeping with the characters and situation. At the same time it serves the ends of drama, by advancing the story and affording some insight into the character of the personages. Find other examples of this in the present play. 3. The third act of a farce — and it is extremely dangerous to extend a farce to more than three 62 OSCAR WILDE acts — is unusually difficult. The effort to maintain interest for two acts often leaves a dramatist ex- hausted by the time he comes to conclude. How well has Wilde succeeded in accumulating his interest in the third act of this play? Has he relied upon the wit of the lines, or has he care- fully brought together the threads of action and given sufficient raison d'etre to his summing up? Compare the third act of " The Importance of Being Earnest " with the fourth of " Lady Win- dermere's Fan." Which is the better, and why? BERNARD SHAW George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856. From the son's own account, the father must have been a rather shiftless and unimaginative man, but his mother — who was to exert great influence over the boy — was a woman of culture. The family, when George Bernard was a youth, found itself in reduced circumstances, and the son was forced to enter a land-agent's office in his native city. He was always interested in music (this taste he received from his mother) and science, and in the confinement of office life he gave early signs of his restless and revolution- ary character. In 1876 he went to London. For nine years he did literary hack-work, living in a shabby room on next to nothing. His efforts were long unrecognized, and he had to accept a small pit- tance for some years from his mother. Four novels — " The Irrational Knot," " Love Among the Artisrts," " The Unsocial Socialist," and " Cashel Byron's Pro- fession " — were written between 1880 and 1883, but they brought their author neither fame nor prosperity. He was not, however, wasting his time, for his asso- ciation with small clubs and societies — atheistical and socialistic in tendency — brought him into contact with a number of influential men. Among these was Sid- ney Webb, the economist. Waxing enthusiastic over the ideas of Henry George, he began to take active interest in the problems of poverty, and joined the 63 64 BERNARD SHAW Land Reform Union. For some years Shaw attended lectures, studied Socialism, Trade Unionism, and kindred subjects, and made friends with Edward Car- penter and William Morris. He made the acquaint- ance, too, of William Archer, in 1885, and was induced to enter the field of newspaper criticism. Before long, he fulfilled the functions, in turn, of musical, art, and dramatic critic. As dramatic critic of the Saturday Revierv, he exercised widespread in- fluence, as champion of Ibsen and the new ideas of dramatic writing, and enemy of the out- worn conven- tions so long accepted by the theater-world. Mean- time he had been busy with propaganda work in con- nection with the Fabian Society, and delivered numer- ous lectures on economic and political questions. In 1892 his first play, "Widowers' Houses," was pro- duced at J. T. Grein's then recently-established Inde- pendent Theater. Then followed " The Philanderer " (1893), and "Mrs. Warren's Profession," which was censored and not produced until 1902. By this time Shaw had come to be considered a new force in the theater, but success, in the usual sense of the term, did not come to him for many years. Such organiza- tions as the Stage Society and the Court Theater — where Granville Barker produced play after play of Shaw — did most to bring him to the knowledge of the public at large, a knowledge acquired in Germany some years before. Shaw has been engaged in many branches of work, but his activity has not been lim- ited to books and plays. He is at the same time an eloquent speaker, economist, and great-spirited citizen. BERNARD SHAW 65 In his first volume of the " Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant/' Bernard Shaw said that, having had his eyesight tested by a specialist, he was informed that he was " an exceptional and highly fortunate being, optically, normal sight conferring the power of seeing things accurately, and being enjoyed by only about ten per cent, of the population, the remaining ninety per cent, being abnormal." Coming as he did, when Pinero and Jones were endeavoring to produce new and original works, albeit in the old forms, Shaw with his normal eyesight began looking about him and dis- covered that there were new things to say in new ways, and he said them in a manner which at first startled the " ninety per cent." In other words, his early attempts — like " Widowers' Houses " and " Mrs. Warren's Profession " — were advance-guard works, aimed primarily at those dramatists who still clung to the drawing-room type of play and the ideas that more often than not accompanied it. In the preface to the volume above referred to he says: " Finally, a word as to why I have labeled the three plays in this first volume Unpleasant. The reason is pretty obvious: their dramatic power is used to force the spectator to face unpleasant facts. No doubt all plays which deal sincerely with humanity must wound the monstrous conceit which it is the business of romance to flatter." All of Shaw's, early plays and most of his later ones were protests against the conventions, the lifelessness, the timidity of the play of the day. This he did as a dramatist; as a commentator on life, it is more difficult to determine just what he has done. 66 BERNARD SHAW Shaw considers himself a Socialist and intellectual leader who chooses to employ the stage as the best means of promulgating his ideas. Until recently, at least, he has proclaimed himself not a dramatist but a preacher. Yet, in the final analysis, Shaw will be remembered as a remarkably clever and gifted drama- tist with an unusual endowment of wit and consider- able ability to tell a good story. His best plays — " Candida," " Arms and the Man," " Man and Super- man " — are occasionally marred as dramas by too much irrelevant " talk." Yet that talk is so amusing, so interesting, so witty, and so pregnant with ideas, that it is difficult to criticise the work as a whole. Shaw has at least proved that a good play can contain a vast amount of conversation and very little action. Shaw, in company with Jones and Pinero and Wilde, is one of the founders of modern English drama. As dramatic critic, lecturer, and dramatist, his influence has been probably the deepest and most widespread of any of his contemporaries. PLAYS Widowers' Houses (1892). The Philanderer (1893). Performed at the Little Theater, Chicago 1914. Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893).* Performed at the Hyperion Theater, New Haven 1905; Garrick Theater, New York, same year. Arms and the Man (1894). Performed, with Ric^hard Mansfield, Herald Square Theater, New York 1894. * Produced in 1902. BERNARD SHAW 67 Candida (1897). Performed at the Princess Theater, New York 1903. The Man of Destiny (1897). Performed at the American Academy, New York 1899. You Never Can Tell (1900). Performed at the Garrick Theater, New York 1905. The Devil's Disciple (1899). Performed at Bleeker Hall, Albany 1897. C^SAR AND Cleopatra (1899)- Performed at the New Amsterdam Theater, New York 1906. Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900). Performed, with Ellen Terry, Empire Theater, New York 1907. Man and Superman (1905). Performed, with Robert Lorraine, Hudson Theater, New York 1905. John Bull's Other Island (1904). Performed at the Garrick Theater, New York 1905. How He Lied to Her Husband (1905). Performed at the Berkeley Lyceum, New York 1904. Major Barbara (1905). The Doctor's Dilemma (1906). Performed at Wallack's Theater, New York 1915. Getting Married (1908). The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet (1909). Performed by the Irish Players in several cities of the United States 1911-2. 68 BERNARD SHAW Misalliance (ipiO). The Dark Lady of the Sonnets (19IO). Fanny's First Play (191 1). Performed at Collier's Comedy Theater, New York 1912. Androcles and the Lion (1913). Performed at Wallack's Theater, New York 1915. Pygmalion (1913). Performed, with Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Park The- ater, New York 1914. Great Catherine (1914). (This list follows the order of publication. Owing to difficulties with the cens'orship and of obtaining suitable companies for production, some of the plays were performed in England some time after they had appeared in the United States.) Besides the above-mentioned plays a few topical sketches and occasional pieces should be mentioned: "Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction" (1905); "The Interlude at the Playhouse" (1907); "The Admi- rable Bashville" (1903); "Press Cuttings" (1909); "Overruled" (1912); and "The Music Cure" (1914). The first three and the next four plays are published in " Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant " (Brentano) ; the next three in " Three Plays for Puritans " (Bren- tano) ; " Man and Superman " separately (Bren- tano) ; the next three under their own titles (Brentano) ; likewise with the next two groups of three ; ** Androcles and the Lion," " Pygmalion/' and ** Great Catherine " appeared in Everybody's Maga- BERNARD SHAW 69 zine (September and November, 1914, and February, 1915). "The Admirable Basliville " and "Press Cuttings " are published separately (Brentano) ; "Overruled" in The English Review (May, 1913). The others, with the exception of " The Music Cure," appeared respectively in magazines and newspapers which to-day are unobtainable. Brentano's publish in separate paper editions most of the plays above listed. References: G. K. Chesterton, "George Bernard Shaw " (Lane) ; Archibald Henderson, " George Bernard Shaw, His Life and Works " (Stewart and Kidd) ; Holbrook Jackson, " Bernard Shaw, A Study and an Appreciation" (Richards); Henry L. Mencken, " George Bernard Shaw, His Plays " (Luce) ; Joseph McCabe, " George Bernard Shaw " (Kennerley) ; Renee M. Deacon, " Bernard Shaw as Artist-Philosopher " (Lane) ; William Archer, " The Theatrical World " (Walter Scott, London), " Play- making " (Small, Maynard) ; Mario Borsa, " The English Stage of To-day " (Lane) ; Augustin Filon, " The English Stage " (Dodd, Mead) ; Ashley Dukes, "Modern Dramatists" (Sergei); E. E. Hale, Jr., " Dramatists of To-day " (Holt) ; Archibald Hen- derson, " European Dramatists " (Stewart and Kidd), "The Changing Drama" (Holt); P. P. Howe, " Dramatic Portraits " (Kennerley) ; James Huneker, " Iconoclasts " (Scribner) ; J. M. Kennedy, " Eng- lish Literature, 1880-1905 " (Stephen Swift, Lon- don) ; C. E. Montague, "Dramatic Values" (Mac- millan) ; D. E. Oliver, " The English Stage " (Ousley, 70 BERNARD SHAW London) ; John Jay Chapman, " Memories and Mile- stones " (Moffat, Yard) ; Gilbert Norwood, " Eurip- ides and Mr. Bernard Shaw " (St. Catherine Press, London) ; H. M. Walbrook, " Nights at the Play '* (Ham-Smith, London) ; A. B. Walkley, " Drama and Life " (Brentano), " Frames of Mind " (Richards, London) ; John Palmer, " The Future of the Theater " (Bell, London), "The Censor and the Theaters" (Kennerley), "George Bernard Shaw: Harlequin or Patriot .f* " (Century Co.) ; W. L. George, " Dramatic Actualities " (Sidgwick and Jackson, London) ; Cecil F. Armstrong, " From Shakespeare to Shaw " (Mills and Boon, London) ; Frank Wadleigh Chandler, " Aspects of Modern Drama " (Macmillan) ; Ludwig Lewisohn, "The Modern Drama" (Huebsch). — Magazines: Independent, vol. lix (p. IO6O) ; Fort- nightly, vol. Ixxxv (p. 516); North American, vol. clxxx (p. 746) ; Bookman, vol. xxi (p. 428), vol. xxvii (p. 474); Poet-Lore, Sept.-Oct., 1909; Arena, vol. xxxii (p. 489); Atlantic, vol. ciii (p. 227); Current Literature, vol. xxxix (p. 551); Cosmopolitan, vol. xl (p. 339) ; Contemporary, vol. cxiii (p. 422) ; Academy, vol. Ix (p. 192) ; Edinburgh Revierv, vol. cci (p. 498) ; Hihbert Journal, vol. viii (p. 818) ; Outlook, vol. Ixxxi (p. 701); Drama, No. 12. CANDIDA A mystery in three acts. First performed in 1897. " Candida " is a shaft aimed against current con- ceptions of what is moral, right, and fitting. It has always been accepted as a commonplace that the father is the respected head of the family, yet Cramp- ton in " You Never Can Tell " shows that all fathers are not and should not be such ; " Man and Super- man " attempts to prove that in the eternal quesrtion of sex-mating, it is the woman and not the man who gives chase and brings down her prey. In " Candida " Shaw shatters ideals about the " sanctity of the family," and shows a weak man and a strong man — each at first appearing to be the reverse — with a woman between them. The woman finally clings to the weaker, as he needs her most; not, Shaw implies, because she happens to be his wife. " Candida " is among its author's best plays. As an acting piece it is certainly his best. Not radically different from the " well-made play " it takes the old conventions and turns them into new channels, and promulgates ideas which are for the most part strictly germane to the story, sets forth characters with vivid- ness, in a highly entertaining way. Shaw had not as yet freed himself from those elements of " Sar- doodledom " against which he had so vigorously pro- tested in his early days as a critic. As will be seen, 71 72 BERNARD SHAW " Man and Superman " was a great advance stride toward technical freedom, while " Getting Married " and " Misalliance " at length bridged the gap. 1. The plays of the past fifty years differ strikingly from those of earlier times as regards the matter of stage-directions. The Greeks, the Latins, and the Elizabethans wrote primarily for the simplest of stages, so that the merest sugges- tion (Entrances, Exits, and so on) sufficed for the manager. There are few indications of " busi- ness." Since it has become the custom to issue plays in book form, many dramatists feel the need of amplifying and expounding. Ibsen was among the first to do this, and Shaw has followed in his steps. With the development of the drama, which has been extraordinarily rapid since Ibsen's day, has come the need of commenting upon the more complex settings and subtler characters, which are comparatively new. In general, the earlier plays were simpler, they treated characters more as types, than nowadays. With the advent of Ibsen, stock actors found that " First Lead," " Villain," and " Ingenue " were not sufficient. Therefore Ib- sen told something about his characters in stage- directions. Not satisfied with this, Shaw told a great deal.* He carried the practice almost to an * ct It is astonishing to me," says Shaw in his preface to " Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant," Vol. I, that Ibsen, who devotes two years to the production of a three-act play. BERNARD SHAW 73 extreme, but he was practically forced to do so, be- cause his early plays were either censored or badly cast, or were for other reasons not successful on the stage. Determine, after a careful reading of the stage- directions in this play, which among them can be utilized by the actor, manager, and stage-carpen- ter, and which are for the reader alone. Compare the stage-directions of Granville Barker in a play like " The Voysey Inheritance " or " The Madras House," and of Barrie in " The Twelve-pound Look," with those of " Can- dida." 2. Among the most persistent of the many criti- cisms urged against Shaw is that the characters in his plays are for the most part merely puppets, without life and emotions, set in action by a very clever thinker and craftsman. In his " Dramatic Portraits," P. P. Howe states of the characters in " Mrs. Warren's Profession," and makes the the extraordinary quality of which depends on a mastery of characterization and situation which can only be achieved by working out a good deal of the family and personal history of the individuals represented, should nevertheless give the reading public very little more than the technical memorandum required by the carpenter, the gasman, and the prompter. Who will deny that the resultant occasional mysteriousness of effect, enchanting though it may be, is produced at the cost of intellectual obscurity? Ibsen, interrogated as to his meaning, replies, *What I have said I have said.' Precisely, but the point is that what he hasn't said he hasn't said." 74. BERNARD SHAW remark applicable to Shaw's characters in general : "... They are puppets at the end of wires, and the wires are attached to a battery, and Mr. Shaw is in charge of the current." Usually, Shaw is so much in earnest, so " full of his message," that he cannot adopt the aloof attitude as, for instance, Galsworthy does — and allow his personages to speak and act in accordance with their own thoughts, passions, and beliefs. Still, how far does Mr. Howe's criticism apply to "Candida".? To Lady Cecily Waynfleete in " Captain Brass- bound's Conversion"? Dick Dudgeon in "The Devil's Disciple"? Are these people human be- ings, or are they only puppets? S. Shaw spoke of the occasional mysteriousness in Ibsen's plays resulting from a lack of proper stage-directions. What is the value of Shaw's own stage-directions in "Candida"? Especially in the latter part of the first act? Would that scene between Marchbanks and Morrell be quite intelligible without them? Could the dramatist have made it so without them? Has he failed, using the novelist's method in default of dramatic dialogue.'^ — What, at the end of the final act, was "The secret in the poet's heart"? 4. During his early and confessedly propagan- dist days Bernard Shaw fulminated against the conventions of the " well-made " play ; and yet he not infrequently made use of those same conven- BERNARD SHAW 75 tions in his own plays. As one critic put it, he fell in love with his own medium, and it finally mas- tered him. In ** Candida " determine in what respects the play is " well-made." Are the " curtains " effec- tive? What of the exposition.? Is it clever? Obvious? And the development? Compare this play, as to its structure, with Sudermann's " Magda " and Bjornson's " Leonarda." (A still more " old-fashioned " play of Shaw's is his first, " Widowers' Houses." Notice the " asides," the soliloquy, and the numerous stilted speeches in that play.) MAN AND SUPERMAN A comedy and a philosophy; a play in four acts. First performed in 1905. We have seen how in the best of Shaw's work up to the production of " Man and Superman " the thinker and preacher^, while eternally trying to assert himself, was somehow subordinated to the dramatist. In this comedy — and a philosophy — however, the play itself is used only as a framework for a thesis. In the preface to the popular edition the author wrote: " As I have not been sparing of such lighter qualities as I could endow the book with for the sake of those who ask nothing from a play but agreeable pastime, I think it well to affirm plainly that the third act, however fantastic its legendary framework may ap- pear, is a careful attempt to write a new Book of Genesis for the Bible of the Evolutionists. . . ." Not content with a long prefatory letter, he added a seventy-five-page " Revolutionist's Handbook " to hisf 1 90-page play, in order to expound what of his philosophy he was unable to crowd into the incidental comedy. As a brilliant achievement, an amusing collection of pamphlets, as a piece of sustained clear thinking, the volume is a noteworthy achievement, yet " Man and Superman," as a play in the ordinary sense of the word, comes near to being spoiled: there is so much 76 BERNARD SHAW 77 dissertation and so vast a sermon^ that the play — what there is of action and character — occasionally appears as an impertinent intrusion. Still, there is enough left when it is presented — minus the third act, which has never been played with the rest — to allow one to see how good it might have been. 1. In his everlasting protest against the " In- corribly romantic " Englishman, Shaw has written good plays according to the old dramatic formulas, and equally good ones after he threw them aside. In his splendid revolt against all that he considers false in art and life he has been consistent. Still, his contribution has been for the most part a nega- tive one. In " Arms and the Man " his message was the destruction of the conventional and " heroic " soldier ; in " Widowers' Houses " he made of Blanche a cold and unsympathetic girl, largely because he felt that Pinero and G. R. Sims would have made her a little friend of the poor. And so, in " Man and Superman " the love- scenes are reversed, as it were : the aggressive Ann Whitefield pursues the unwilling Jack Tanner. The conventional dramatists of all times have pic- tured the lover at the feet of his mistress, who is usually haughty and distant. Not content with telling the mere truth, and unwilling to utter half- truths about poverty and war and sex, Shaw has stated what appears to his normal eyes as the rule, from what seems to the average reader and play- 78 BERNARD SHAW goer a decidedly oblique angle. This he has done for the sake of emphasis. Shaw's " love-scenes " are highly characteristic of his dramatic methods. Take the lovers in " Widowers' Houses," those in " Mrs. Warren's Profession," " Arms and the Man," " You Never Can Tell," " The Doctor's Dilemma," and " Pyg- malion " ; compare them with the lovers in Pinero's "Iris," Jones's "Michael and His Lost Angel," and Edward Sheldon's " Romance." As a rule, Shaw is mortally afraid of anything touching upon the romantic — yet in " Candida," " The Doctor's Dilemma," and " The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet," he indulges in his own peculiar way in the universal failing. He never approaches the Latin method, where lovers express in words and gestures every breath in the whirlwind of pas- sion. It should not be too hastily concluded that Shaw is averse from the depiction of true passion — Mrs. Dubedat in " The Doctor's Dilemma " is intended as a deep-feeling woman — ^but rather that he was dissatisfied with the conventional treatment which too often masqueraded as such, and not that he was, in the words of Vaughn in his own " Fanny's First Play," " psychologically incapable of the note of passion." Shaw is too much an artist not at least to try to make use of such powers as he possesses. S. The first act is as good a first act as Shaw BERNARD SHAW 79 ever wrote: there is little discursiveness, the plot is carefully, amusingly, and interestingly, begun. But is it quite clear? Is, for instance, the mistake as to Violet's position — the scene occupying the last few pages of the act — made unmistakably plain? The act closes on this scene, and great im- portance is assumed as belonging to the episode. Technique or no technique, the end of an act is a conspicuous place, and what is put there is bound to attract attention. 3. The second act is on the whole good drama, concerned for the most part with the Ann-Tanner story ; it progresses straight up to the little climax. The starting of the motor, visible to the audience, is a clever device for thrusting the plot forward. Straker is possibly a little puzzling, but he is so amusing that we may excuse his dramatic " super- fluity." So far, then, so good. 4. The third act is never played — except inde- pendently, as " Don Juan in Hell " — the reason given being that the entire play would prove too long for a single representation. But Bernard Shaw is always so scrupulous and uncompromising in the matter of the presentation of his plays, that this excuse must be taken as tantamount to a con- fession of failure: the act is practically negligible so far as the play itself is concerned. Fortunately, there was scarcely any preparation in the two pre- ceding acts for this act, nor does the third contain 80 BERNARD SHAW much that concerns the fourth. Only a very few minor changes are made for the stage version. Read the third act, and try to determine what relation it has with the rest of the play. 5. The last act is good and bad, dramatically. In nearly every play of Shaw the dramatic qualities should be carefully differentiated from the intellec- tual, the didactic, the intrinsically amusing. The earlier pages of this fourth act are interesting and amusing, but Malone's talk about Ireland properly belongs to " John Bull's Other Island." " Man and Superman " is only resumed when Tanner and Ann take the stage again, and Ann, summoning up all her power in order to fulfil her mission in regard to the " Life Force," finally captures Tanner. Some of the more striking difficulties under which the dramatist labored in trying to weld to- gether many utterly foreign elements in this play have been touched upon in this outline. Can you discover others? There is little need to indicate the redeeming features of " Man and Superman " : the intellectual agility, the wit, the good humor, the essential truth of the ideas set forth. These are evident, but only because Shaw is so nearly a great dramatist is it worth the student's while to observe his shortcomings. GETTING MARRIED A comedy in one scene. First performed in 1908. If Bernard Shaw's plays are considered in chrono- logical order, from " Widowers' Houses " to " Mis- alliance," it will be observed that they evolve, as re- gards their technical form, from what is a more or less close approximation to the old-fasrhioned well-made play to the loosest sort of conversation play. In studying the two plays already outlined, we have seen how " Candida " was in many respects " well-made," and how " Man and Superman " departed to a great extent from formulas. In " Getting Married " a radical departure will be observed ; a complete neglect of technical canons. The author claims to have re- turned to the Greek Unities, but this must be consid- ered rather the result of coincidence than of conscious effort. 1. Nowadays it is more difficult to classify plays than formerly: there are comedies which end with the death of the principal character (Rostand's " Cyrano de Bergerac " and Jules Lemaitre's " Bertrade "), nondescript pieces in which the hero dies and his wife remarries (Shaw's " The Doctor's Dilemma"), and others which defy classification (AndreyefF's " Anathema " and Wedekind's " Such 81 82 BERNARD SHAW is Life "). For example, the term " play of ideas " may be applied to many of Ibsen's later works, yet "The Wild Duck" and " Rosmersholm " are much more than this. TchekofF's " The Sea- gull " is certainly a play of ideas, but it is at the same time a comedy of conversation and a tragedy. Yet, if we attempt to narrow the term, we may in general call most of Brieux's plays, most of Hervieu's, all of Paul-Hyacinthe Loyson's,* many of Shaw's, and some of Galsworthy's, plays of ideas. t It has already been pointed out that every good play must be based upon some idea, but the particular kind of play to which we now refer is that in which the dramatist's prime pur- pose is to furnish, discuss, and evolve ideas. In this sense, then, " Getting Married " is a play of ideas. The form is not fixed, yet one of its charac- teristics is a good deal of conversation : the easiest and, in many cases, most direct method of convey- ing ideas on the stage is through the medium of dialogue. Yet the moment an audience is re- quired to listen to talk, the talk must be super- latively interesting or otherwise attractive, for ac- * " Les Ames ennemies," " L'Evangile du sang," and " L'Apotre." (The last-named is translated by Barrett H. Clark as "The Apostle," in Tlie Drama League Series.) t Brieux's "Damaged Goods" ("Les Avaries"), Her- vieu's "La Loi de I'homme," and Galsworthy's "Justice," are plays of ideas. BERNARD SHAW 83 tion is necessarily lacking. But Shaw is a con- summate dialectician and a master of speech. Were it not for this extraordinary cleverness and the sheer interest aroused by the discussion, " Get- ting Married " would be a very dull pamphlet. Nothing occurs ; a group of interesting characters sit around and talk. 2. In the introductory note to the printed edi- tion of the play, the author says : " N.B. There is a point of some technical interest to be noted in this play. The customary division into acts and scenes has been disused, and a return made to unity of time and place as observed in the ancient Greek drama. In ' The Doctor's Dilemma,' there are five acts ; the place is altered five times ; and the time is spread over an undetermined period of more than a year. No doubt the strain on the attention of the audience and on the ingenuity of the play- wright is much less ; but I find in practice that the Greek form is inevitable when drama reaches a certain point in poetic and intellectual evolution. Its adoption was not, on my part, a deliberate display of virtuosity in form, but simply the spontaneous falling of a play of ideas into the form most suitable to it, which turned out to be the classical form. ' Getting Married,' in several acts and scenes, with the time spread over a long period, would be impossible." Notice, however, that Shaw does not claim unity 84 BERNARD SHAW of action, the third of Aristotle's Unities, for the very good reason that there is no action to unify. 3. With the above explanation as a basis, and with what of the long preface the reader cares to peruse, let him see how the dramatist has managed to present his characters and his ideas so as to interest his audience. First, the theme is of interest to the greater part of the audience; second, a large number and variety of characters is introduced; third, the details, the odds and ends of what would be action in an ordinary play, are allowed especial promi- nence. In what other ways does Shaw attract and hold the attention? What are his methods for supply- ing an equivalent of action, story, suspense, etc.? 4. Once again, is it pertinent to inquire. What is a Play? (See Introduction to " The Continental Drama of To-day.") Critics find it needful to modify their definitions, if they are sufficiently courageous to make them, so that it might not be a great exaggeration to declare that anything that " goes " on the stage is a play. After all, is there any basis for the assertion that because " Getting Married " has no action, it is therefore merely a series of dialogues on mar- riage? Has not Shaw rather helped to broaden the field of drama? 5. In what respects, if any, is this " comedy " BERNARD SHAW 85 a play, in the accepted conventional sense of the term? Are there any resemblances here to a work like "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," or "Magda"? 6. Do you see any reason why Shaw, after writ- ing "Getting Married" and "Misalliance," re- turned to the more conventional forms in " The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet," "Fanny's First Play," and "Pygmalion"? THE SHEWING-UP OF BLANCO POSNET A play in one act. First produced in 1909. (Cen- sored in England.) This " crude sermon in melodrama " is one of the most pointedly didactic of all Shaw's plays. As there is scarcely enough material to warrant its' development into two or three acts, the author rightly puts it into one. Yet as it now stands it is not a highly successful one-act play. Sudermann's " Fritzchen " contains but a single incident, which is treated in one breath, as it were: the audience is present while the tragedy is enacted. In Shaw's play, however, the audience sees only sections of the play, rather disjointed sections. Sudermann was interested primarily in the artistic effect, Shaw in the demonstration of a psychological and religious phenomenon. When it is possible to set forth an idea and do it artistically, Shaw is willing to be an artist, but when the idea must suffer, Shaw pre- fers to be Ice's an artist and more a preacher. 1. As the audience for which the dramatist originally wrote was unacquainted with the milieu — as w^as Shaw himself — ^he was forced to create it: notice the rather pointed conversation among the women which occupies the first four pages. These speeches acquaint us with the situation, and BERNARD SHAW 87 prepare us for Blanco's entrance (p. 411). Again, the stage-directions accomplish much more than Blanco's words, because Shaw could more easily describe a. character of whom he had no first- hand knowledge than make him real by means of speech and action. Possibly the occasional stilted and foreign at- mosphere throughout is due to the fact that the entire setting and characters are drawn from the dramatist's knowledge of Bret Harte and Jack London, rather than Blanco Posnet himself and Elder Daniels. 2. On the bottom of page 414 begins a long conversation between Blanco and his brother. This dialogue is introduced for the purpose of making clear something of the lives of the two men: the six pages advance the theme while the play, as drama, stands still. The artistic unity of the piece suffers, while Shaw accomplished his end. The action is resumed the moment (p. 4S1) Strapper says, " I've got my witness ; and I'll trou- ble you not to make a move towards her when she comes in to identify you." The woman Blanco ex- pects does not come in ; this time it is only Feemy, but the audience, seeing Blanco's fear, is curious to know the exact reason. He is not afraid of Feemy, that is certain. Who, then, is the mysterious woman of whom the horse-thief said : " A woman ? She ain't real: neither is the child." The trial 88 BERNARD SHAW then proceeds. This is a good scene, full of amusing and character-revealing incidents. Then (p. 433) the action stops, and The Woman enters. Up to this point the dramatist has been preparing the scene for the statement of his thesis. Blanco, having undergone his one great " religious experi- ence," now begins to show the results of it. The Sheriff.— Where's the child .^ Strapper. — On Pug Johnson's bench in his shed. He's making a coffin for it. Blanco. — {with a horrible convulsion of the throat, frantically) Dead! The little Judas kid! The child I gave my life for! {He breaks into hideous laughter.) It is dangerous to stop the action of a play, especially a one-act play, within a few minutes of the end, but in this case the thesis is so interesting and the action so relatively unimportant, that the audience is likely to forget the play for the idea. 3. The thesis of this play is so abstract, so subtle, that the dramatist must resort to extremes, to " get it over." It is more than likely that such a man as the hardened horse-thief would have said nothing of the revolution which had taken place in his soul, had it not been for the entrance of The Woman. This was Shaw's method of showing, not the experience itself — which would have been im- possible — but the result of the experience. But in BERNARD SHAW 89 order to drive home his idea, he felt it was neces- sary to show Blanco actually trying, if not to reform at least to convince, his companions of the genuineness of his temporary conversion. No one will deny that to the worst of " bad men " there come experiences of this sort, but they are rarely external in their manifestation. It is not the place of the present volume to criticise the ideas of dramatists, except in so far as they influ- ence the form of the drama. Still, it may be asked, is this play convincing? It is not intended as a comedy, although it is amusing, nor is it primarily a character study : it is a sermon in play form. GRANVILLE BARKER H. Granville Barker was born at London in 1877. At an early age he became an actor in a provincial com- pany. He first appeared on the London stage in 1892. Playing under Lewis Waller and Ben Greet, then with the Elizabethan Stage Society, and finally with Mrs. Campbell, he slowly rose in the theatrical world. During many years he produced plays and acted for the Stage Society, where he mounted many of Shaw's plays for the first time. In 1904, together with J. E. Vedrenne, he managed the Court Theater, where he made known to theater-goers many new plays by Shaw, Hankin, Barrie, Galsworthy, and himself. He has continued his managerial activities at the Duke of York's Theater, the Savoy — where he has suc- ceeded signally in some Shaksperian revivals — ^the St. James's, and the Kingsway. Granville Barker is a keen observer of life, pos- sessing a remarkable talent for putting his ideas into dramatic shape. His best plays are faithful pictures of character: "The Voysey Inheritance" is one of the best portrayals of middle-class English family life of modern times ; " Waste " is a tragedy with an essentially timely and interesting theme; "The Madras House " is an acute and penetrating comedy of character. Barker is not a devotee of the well- made play, for he carefully avoids the well-trodden 90 GRANVILLE BARKER 91 paths of Pinero; in certain plays, "The Madras House " especially, his work at first view appears amorphous and ineffective. Yet this comedy, formless in the conventional sense as it undoubtedly is, could not have been forced into the mould of such a play as " The Thunderbolt." In " Prunella " and " The Harlequinade," both collaborations, and in " At the Mitre," Barker has essayed the poetic drama with remarkable success. PLAYS The Weather Hen (in collaboration with Berte Thomas, 1899). Performed at the Manhattan Theater, New York 1900. The Marrying of Ann Leete (1902). Prunella (in collaboration with Laurence Housman, 1904). Performed at the Little Theater, New York 1913. The Voysey Inheritance (1905). Waste (1909). The Madras House (I9IO). Rococo (1911). Besides the above. Barker has adapted Schnitzler*s " Anatol " (Kennerley) and, in collaboration with W. C. E. Wheeler, the same author's " Das Marchen." (Not published.) He has also written a dialogue, " At the Mitre," which was produced at the Fine Arts Theater, Chicago 1913. (Not pubhshed.) •* The Marrying of Ann Leete," " The Voysey In- heritance/' and " Waste " are published by Kenner- 92 GRANVILLE BARKER ley as " Three Plays by Granville Barker " ; " Pru- nella " is published by Duffield ; " The Madras House " by Kennerley. " The Weather Hen " and " Rococo " and " The Harlequinade " are not pub- lished. " The Madras House " is included in " Chief Contemporary Dramatists " (Houghton Mifflin). References: Ashley Dukes, "Modern Drama- tists " (Sergei) ; Archibald Henderson, " European Dramatists " (Stewart and Kidd) ; John Palmer/' The Future of the Theater " (Bell, London) ; Ludwig Lew- isohn, ** The Modern Drama " (Huebsch) ; William Archer, " Playmaking " (Small, Maynard) ; P. P. Howe, " The Repertory Theater," and " Dramatic Portraits " (Kennerly) ; William Archer and Gran- ville Barker, " Schemes and Estimates for a National Theater" (Duffield); Frank Wadleigh Chandler, " Aspects of Modern Drama " (Macmillan) ; Mario Borsa, " The English Stage of To-day " (Lane) ; Desmond McCarthy, " The Court Theater " (A. H. Bullen) ; Granville Barker, Introductions to " Three Plays of Maeterlinck" (Gowans and Grey), and his own editions of " A Midsummer Night's Dream," " Twelfth Night," and " A Winter's Tale " (Sidgwick and Jackson). — Magazines: Bookman (London), July, 1914* ; Forum, vol. xliv (p. 159) ; Bookman (New York), vol. XXXV (p. 195) ; Fortnightly, vol. xcv (p. 60) and vol. c (p. 100) ; Nation, vol. xci (p. 19)^ vol. xciv (p. 445); Harper's Weekly, vol. Ivi (p. 6); North American, vol. cxcv (p. 5720) ; Drama, No. 2. THE VOYSEY INHERITANCE A play in five acts. First performed in 1905. This young dramatist's work is undoubtedly among the ablest achievements in the realm of recent British drama; its freshness, its cleverness, its deft handling of middle-class types, its theme, strike a new note in drama. Unlike the didactic plays of Shaw, unlike the fantasies of Barrie, or the rigid pieces of Gals- worthy, " The Voysey Inheritance " is pure character writing, literature in the true dramatic sense. It has been only moderately successful, but this is due largely to the fact that the audiences were behind the dramatist: the play is European, in the larger sense of the term. 1. In the Shaw outlines (pp. 72-4) some at- tention was given to the matter of stage-direc- tions. In the English theater of to-day there are three dramatists who use this method of affording their readers a greater insight into the characters than could be afforded in actual stage presentation : Shaw, Barrie, and Granville Barker. Shaw refused to rely upon the actors; Barrie, who has until re- cently refused to allow his plays to be printed, felt that without the actors the reader could not possibly re-create the necessary atmosphere; 93 94 GRANVILLE BARKER Barker probably felt that owing to the failure (from a practical viewpoint) of most of his plays, it was his right to reconstruct the milieu by means of words. Such directions as the following must be very annoying to the average manager: . . . Relieved of his coat, Mi'. Voysey carries to his table the bunch of beautiful roses he is accustomed to bring to the office three times a week, and places them for a moment only, near the borvl of water there ready to receive them, while he takes up his letters. A play intended only for the manager would, of course, have no reference to the fact that Voysey " is accustomed to bring " the flowers " to the office three times a zoeek/* as this cannot be shown on the stage. Such directions are obviously for the reader, or for such managers as are willing to study the manuscript and endeavor to reproduce the atmosphere which the dramatist has striven to create. The printed play often resembles the novel or story in its narrative directions. Turn to the opening of the second act of this play. Speaking of the dining-room at Chislehurst, the author says : " It has the usual red-papered walls (like a reflec- tion, they are, of the underdone beef so much con- sumed within them),^^ etc. While this is distinctly outside the province of what can be done by the GRANVILLE BARKER gs stage carpenter, it should be advantageous to an imaginative director. Compare the stage-directions of " Man and Superman," " The Voysey Inheritance," and " The Twelve-pound Look." 2. This play is a character-comedy, a play of ideas, and a conversation piece. There are long scenes which, strictly speaking, have little or nothing to do with the play itself, but are they necessarily superfluous? What has been the dramatist's purpose.? Has the same author's " Waste " any superflu- ous scenes.'^ S. One of the signs and results of the " com- mercialization " of the present-day English and American stages is the reduction of the number of characters in a play. Each character means an- other actor, and another twenty-five to five hun- dred dollars a week increase in the pay-roll. This is of course not invariably the reason for the existence of small casts in many modern plays : often the dramatist needs but three, four, five, or six characters, and takes pride in the fact that he can construct a full-length piece without having recourse to the rather facile Shaksperian method of bringing in a character every time he thinks he needs one. Jules Lemaitre in " The Pardon," Hubert Henry Davies in " The Mollusc," and H. S. Sheldon in " The Havoc," have written skilful 96 GRANVILLE BARKER and artistic plays with — in the case of the first — three, and in the latter, four characters only. However, a manager will try his best to cut down the cast as much as possible. Can this be done to " The Voysey Inheritance"? Take the character you consider the least impor- tant from the play. How would the play suffer .^ Take two, then three. Do you think that Barker required all the char- acters he put into this play? If so, in what way? That is, did he prefer to paint a picture of life, regardless of the artistic arrangement of its com- ponent elements, or did he imagine that the more characters he introduced the more interesting would the play be? Briefly, did he adopt the dramatist's viewpoint, or the novelist's? STEPHEN PHILLIPS Stephen Phillips was born at Somertown, England, in 1867. After receiving his primary education at Peterborough, he joined F. R. Benson's company, in which he acted for some years. For a while he adopted the profession of army tutor, then devoted himself entirely to the writing of plays and poetry. At present he is editor of the Poetry Review. Phillips is a phenomenon in the English theater of to-day: a poet who has partially succeeded on the stage. In a day when the theater public will not listen to poetry, he has dared to be poetic, but he has likewise had the good sense to mix with his poetry a generous infusion of truly dramatic qualities. In the words of E. E. Hale, Jr., he " may srucceed on the stage, but it will be in spite of his poetry and not by reason of it." PLAYS Paolo and Francesca (1899). Performed at the New Amsterdam Theater, New York 1906. Herod (1900). Performed at the Lyric Theater, New York 1909. Ulysses (1902). Performed at the Garden Theater, New York 1902. 97 98 STEPHEN PHILLIPS The Sin of David (1904). Nero (1906). Faust (in collaboration with J. Comyns Carr, 1908). PiETRo OF Siena (1909). The King (1910). Nero's Mother (1913). The Adversary (1913). Harold (1915). Besides the above are: "The Last Heir/' "The Bride of Lammermoor/' " No. 6," and " Arma- geddon." The first of these has not been published, while the other two have not yet been produced. All the published plays are issued by Lane. References: E. E. Hale, Jr., " Dramatists of To- day " (Holt) ; William Archer, " Real Conversations " (Heinemann, London) ; Arthur Symons, " Studies in Prose and Verse " (Dutton) ; Clayton Hamilton, "The Theory of the Theater" (Holt); Brander Matthews, " The Historical Novel " (Scribner's) ; F. W. Chandler, " Aspects of Modern Drama " (Mac- millan) ; Ludwig Lewisohn, " The Modern Drama " (Heubsch). — Magazines: Atlantic, vol. xcii (p. 120) and vol. cii (p. 809) ; Fortnightly, vol. xci (p. 337) ; Arena, vol. xxxiii (p. 474) ; North American, vol. clxxii (p. 794) ; Bookman, vol. xiii (p. 24) ; Quarterly Review, vol. cxev (p. 486) ; Poet-Lore, vol. xii (p. 126); Nation, vol. Ixx (p. 36l); Westminster, vol. clvi (p. 187). PAOLO AND FRANCESCA A tragedy in four acts. First performed in 1902. It is a remarkable fact that although_, since the very beginnings of drama, plays have been vrritten in verse, the legitimacy of the " poetic drama " is still called into question. There is, however, some ground for such a discussion, yet it is undeniable that if a play be good drama and good poetry it is " legiti- mate." Perhaps because of the naturalistic tendency of the past twenty-five or thirty years, during which the English poetic drama has been at its lowest ebb, more " closet drama " than acting pieces have been written than would otherwise have been the case, merely because the form had fallen into disfavor with theater-goers. When the great Victorian poets — Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, and Matthew Arnold — wrote plays, they had only the vaguest no- tion of the exigencies of the stage: "Queen Mary," *' A Blot in the 'Scutcheon," " Atalanta in Calydon," and " Empedocles " are written to appeal rather to the ear and the intellect than to the eye and the more elemental emotions. These poets were either unaware that the dramatic form was totally different from the lyric or epic, or they did not care to write plays for the stage, preferring the " dramatic poem." For the most part they failed to distinguish dramatic dialogue from lyric and epic verse. Browning's lines 99 100 STEPHEN PHILLIPS in " A Blot in the 'Scutcheon " reveal character, but they fail to indicate " spiritual action." The re- sultant play gives one the impression of reading a number of the poet's " Dramatic Monologues/' strung together upon a thread of story: in other words, he gains nothing through casting his thoughts in what appears to be play form. Shakspere affords us the finest example of dramatic dialogue: in the lines he reveals character, creates atmosphere, indicates spiritual action, and advances the story. The following random quotation from " Macbeth " will serve as illustration of the point: . . . The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here. And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood. Stop up the access and passage to remorse. That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake mj^ fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts. And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief ! Come, thick night. And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes. Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, "Hold, hold!" Enter Macbeth. Great Glamis ! worthy Cawdor 1 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 101 Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant. Stephen Phillips, in *' Ulysses," " Herod," and " Paolo and Francesca," has shown some gift for dramatic dialogue; and as a dramatist, many particu- lar scenes from these plays give evidence of a sense of the theater and considerable skill in developing a plot. Still '■ Paolo and Francesca," in many ways this poet's finest eifort, is far from a good play — in any sense of the term — chiefly because Phillips the poet Sftands out above Phillips the dramatist. 1. Most poetic plays are modeled, with certain modifications, upon the plays of ancient Greece or those of the age of Elizabeth, and Stephen Phillips, being an Englishman, follows — even in " Ulysses " — Elizabethan models. As the story of Paolo and Francesca is well known — it appears in Dante's " Divine Comedy " — we are prepared for such mystic forebodings (technically speaking, "preparation") as occupy the greater part of the brief first act. First, Paolo's desire to leave, his brother's anxiety, then the scene (pp. 22-6) with Lucrezia, and that im- mediately following, with the blind Angela. There is no need to leave the audience in doubt as to what the story is to be: Angela's words supply the necessary warning: 102 STEPHEN PHILLIPS His face was dim: a twilight struggles back. I see two lying dead upon a bier — Slain suddenly, and in each other's arms. . . . . . . He shall be Not far to seek: yet perilous to find. Unwillingly he comes a wooing: she Unwillingly is wooed: yet shall they woo. His kiss was on her lips ere she was born. And Stephen Phillips, the dramatist, adds the stage-direction : " Francesca, in passing, pauses and offers trinket to Angela, who shudders, letting it fall. Exeunt all hut Angela, who remains star- ing before her.'^ If there was the least shadow of doubt in the mind of the audience as to the truth of Angela's words, her action would dispel it. 2. So far, the story is compact and moving. The second act is well developed up to the second scene (p. 51), which takes up the plot as it was left in the first act. Giovanni is made aware of the identity of Francesca's fated lover. Then the scene changes — Shakspere's method again — to a more or less " comic relief " scene, written in prose. This interlude is followed by Paolo's soliloquy (pp. 59-61). The soliloquy in modern plays is considered to be a confession of weakness on the part of the dramatist. It had hitherto been used largely as a makeshift by the dramatist who was unwilling or unable to reveal character or advance his plot STEPHEN PHILLIPS 103 by other and more natural means. Yet in the poetic drama it is permissible — that is, if it re- veals character, creates atmosphere, or advances the story. Obviously, Paolo's speech reveals some character, but as a dramatic expedient its inser- tion at this critical point must be considered a blemish on the play. The point for the dramatist was, how to get Paolo to return to Francesca? The struggle goes on in Paolo's mind, and the poet has only to give words to the lover's thoughts and emotions. But in a play that is not sufficient. Just how this end was to be accomplished is not our business or intention to determine ; yet the fact remains that a monologue is not sufficiently con- vincing, especially as the monologue leaves us in doubt as to the character's immediate intentions. Here is the end of the speech : I cannot go ; thrilling from Rimini, A tender voice makes all the trumpets mute. I cannot go from her: may not return. O God ! what is thy will upon me ? Ah ! One path there is, a straight path to the dark. There, in the ground, I can betray no more. And there forever am I pure and cold. The means ! No dagger blow, nor violence shown Upon my body to distress her eyes. Under some potion gently will I die; And they that find me dead shall lay me down Beautiful as a sleeper at her feet. 104 STEPHEN PHILLIPS S, The break in the middle of Act II was justi- fiable because of the contrast it afforded. The third act, however, should intensify the plot, draw the attention to the central idea, not because of a certain law of dramatic technic, but because the human mind demands this sort of synthesis. To start a story, develop it a little, then stop it, then play around it, is not only bad art but bad psy- chology: we demand a logical continuation of the story when it is once started. In place of this we have another contrast scene, which opens the act, then Giovanni's entrance (p. 70), and his rather unconvincing errand ; the coincidence of his over- hearing Paolo, then Paolo's soliloquy (p. 78), and finally Giovanni's scene with the messenger (pp. 80-1). This is all very ragged. Then — Scene 3 — there is a good dramatic scene. Note the " atmosphere " lines : Francesca. — I cannot sleep, Nita; I will read here. Is it dawn yet? (Nita sets lamp down.) Nita. — No, lady: yet I see A flushing in the east. Francesca. — How still it is! Nita. — This is the stillest time of night or day! Toward the end of the act, the poet's mistake in crowding too many incidents into a small space becomes only too apparent ; not only does the STEPHEN PHILLIPS 105 crowding confuse, but it occupies space which should be given, we feel, to the love scene. We are told, it is true, that the two " have to each other moved all night," but how much more telling and convincing would have been a longer scene between the lovers, such as D'Annunzio gave in his " Fran- cesca da Rimini " ! 4. That admirable love scene which should have supported the third act is placed instead in the otherwise admirable fourth. 5. There are lyrical passages throughout, not many it is true, which do not contribute to the story. Can you pick these out.? On the other hand, there are dramatic lines and passages which are peculiarly apt and effective. Among these latter are: Henceforward let no woman have two sons, (p. 51) So still it is that we might almost hear The sigh of all the sleepers in the world, (p. 85) . . . You then that huddle all together Like cattle against thunder— what hath chanced.? (p. 92) Paolo.— Why did you shiver and turn sudden cold ? Francesca.—l felt a wind pass over me. (p. HI) 106 STEPHEN PHILLIPS I did not know the dead could have such hair. Hide them. They look like children fast asleep. (p. 120) These are lines that could not be so effective were the}^ not spoken by the right person under the right circumstances. Find further examples. ST. JOHN HANKIN St. John Emile Clavering Hankin was born in I860 at Southampton. His early education was received in his native city, but he later attended Malvern Col- lege, and then Merton College at Oxford. After his graduation in 1890, he went to London, and entered the field of journalism. Four years later, he went to Calcutta, there pursuing his journalistic career. The following year he returned and began writing for The Times and Punch. In 1909, as a result of his neurasthenic condition, and in a fit of depression, he drowned himself. Hankin is among the number of recent English dramatists whose aim it was to give to the stage plays of charm and individuality and containing a valuable comment on life. He allied himself with the pioneers of the Court Theater and the Stage Society, where innovations and attempts to break loose from the con- ventionalities of the day were freely accepted. Prob- ably because of his premature death in 1909, Hankin has been a little too highly praised. John Drinkwater (in his introduction to the " Dramatic Works ") says: " St. John Hankin lived and wrote at the beginning of a new movement, and his permanent distinction in drama will be rather that of right endeavor and the recapture of just instincts than of full-bodied achievement . . . that he was one of the few who 107 108 ST. JOHN HANKIN first sought to bring back sincerity and a fit dignity of form to the great art is a distinction of which he will not easily be deprived." Hankin was more a symptom than a finished product; yet his efforts to produce life in an artistic and pleasing framework, and his quaint wit, entitle him to a place among the less important members of the advance guard. PLAYS The Two Mr. Wetherbys (1903). Performed at the Madison Square Theater, New York 1904. The Return of the Prodigal (1905). The Charity That Began at Home (1906). The Cassilis Engagement (1907). The Constant Lover (1912). The Last of the De Mullins (I9O8). The Burglar Who Failed (1908). Thompson (finished by George Calderon). Not performed. The definitive edition of the " Dramatic Works of St. John Hankin, with an Introdiiction by John Drinkwater " is published in three volumes by Kenner- ley. " Thompson " is published separately by the same publisher. Samuel French publishes cheap paper editions of " The Return of the Prodigal/' " The Cassilis Engagement/' " The Charity That Began at Home/' and " The Two Mr. Wetherbys." References: Introduction to the "Dramatic Works"; P. P. Howe, "Dramatic Portraits/' "The ST. JOHN HANKIN 109 Repertory Theater " (Kennerley) ; J. M. Kennedy, "English Literature, 1880-1905" (Stephen Swift, London) ; Charlton Andrews, " The Drama To-day " (Lippincott) ; Mario Borsa, " The English Stage of To-day " (Lane) ; Desmond McCarthy, " The Court Theater " (Sidgwick and Jackson, London) ; Archi- bald Henderson, "The Changing Drama" (Holt). — Magazines: Fortnightly, vol. Ixxxvi (p. 1055), vol. xc (p. 10S8) ; Living Age, vol. cclxii (p. 36), vol. cclxxx (p. 781) ; Nation, vol. xcvi (p. 315) ; North American, vol. cxcvii (p. 78); Forum, vol. xlviii (p. 713). THE CASSILIS ENGAGEMENT A comedy in four acts. First performed in 1907- The influence of Oscar Wilde is evident. Lady Remenham's " Engagements are such troublesome things. They sometimes even lead to marriage. But we'll hope it won't be as bad as that in this case," is decidedly reminiscent. The characters are mostly types; still, in most of Hankin's plays there is an effort to break away from the mere lay-figures of Wilde and infuse into them the breath of life. The prodigal in " The Return of the Prodigal," Ethel and Mrs. Cassilis in the comedy under discussion, are human beings, even if Lady Remenham, Mrs. Bor- ridge, and Geoffrey are time-worn types. 1. Hankin has theorized on the writing of plays, and his words possess added interest and value in connection with the study of " The Cassilis En- gagement." He once said : " I select an episode in the life of one of my characters or a group of characters, when something of importance to their future has to be decided, and I ring up my cur- tain. Having shown how it was decided, and why it was so decided, I ring it down again." This comedy is clear and unified — quite In accordance with the dramatist's theory — but it will be well to 110 ST. JOHN HANKIN 111 inquire into the exact methods whereby he at- tained the desired end. What is the " episode " round which this play was built .f^ Where is it first referred to — that is, where is the theme announced.'^ Is it made clear through a " raisonneur," or is it evolved in action or in apparently casual conversation .^^ Are we asked to interest ourselves in a " character," or a " group of characters " ? Which character, and which group of characters.'^ Could the author have advantageously begun his play at an earlier or later time than he did? That is, was his curtain " rung up " at the most interesting and opportune moment of the epi- sode .^^ How was the " something of importance to their future " decided .f' By what means has the drama- tist worked out his stated central idea.? 2. The " curtains " in this play deserve especial attention: a crisp and pregnant phrase, an in- cident, a mysterious word — each causes the audi- ence to await impatiently the opening of the next act. Notice with what care, apparently artless, the first act is terminated. Mrs. Cassilis's " Marry her! — Nonsense, my dear Margaret," instantly attracts our attention and directs our interest to the speaker. We wish to know precisely how Geoffrey and Ethel are to be " cured," and want to see how the (evidently) clever Mrs. Cassilis is 112 ST. JOHN HANKIN to effect the cure. Plot interest, as distinguished from character interest, is here introduced. In what way is the second act remarkable.'^ The third.? It is as important to close a play without arous- ing further interest as to close each of the pre- ceding acts in the reverse manner. There should be an air of finality which precludes further curi- osity ; we should have no definite wish to inquire into the future. To lead an audience to expect more, after the play is over, is as fatal as to deprive it of sufficient curiosity after the first act. The dramatist must know where to end his play. In a tragedy this particular point is not difficult to determine, for a tragedy usually ends in the death or failure of the protagonist. For centuries comedies have ended with the union of lover and sweetheart, who had, during one, two, three, four, or five acts, been kept apart more or less skilfully by the hand of the dramatist. Of recent years, writers, even of comedy, have begun to discard the conventional notion that the united lovers mar- ried and lived happy ever after, and have sought a closer approximation to life. They have come to realize that, as Emile Faguet once remarked, the marriage is not the end but the beginning of trouble. To mention two random instances, Maurice Donnay's "Lovers" (" Amants ") and Henry Bataille's " Poliche " end with a scene where ST. JOHN HANKIN 118 the lovers separate; they do this because only by an amicable breaking-ofF can they be assured of true and lasting happiness. Here the dramatists have repudiated marriage as the balm for wounded hearts. Hankin disliked "happy endings." (See his article on this subject in the third volume of the "Dramatic Works.") Is the ending of "The Cassilis Engagement " satisfactory, psychologi- cally and artistically.? 3. Analyze the third act, and determine, so far as possible, the following questions : How much of the story is carried on in pantomime through the stage-directions.? Could, for example, the " Bye-play for EtheVs song,'' etc. (p. 78, French's edition, p. 193, Vol. II, " Dramatic Works ") have been worked out in dialogue.? Is the dumb-show more effective than ordinary dialogue would be.? Is Ethel's change of attitude likely and con- vincing.? Compare " The CassiHs Engagement " as a study in character and technic with the same author's " The Return of the Prodigal." C. HADDON CHAMBERS Charles Haddon Chambers was born at Stanmore, New South Wales, in I860. He was educated pri- vately and at Sydney. In 1875 he entered the Civil Service. Five years later he visited England. In 1882 he definitely settled there and became a journal- ist, writer of stories, and dramatist. Chambers is one of the popular playwrights who have added little to the theater save a number of amus- ing and sentimental comedies. His technic differs little from that of Pinero, except that it is not so highly developed. Besides writing three or four plays of some value as contemporary pictures of manners, he has adapted a number of French plays, taking from them the flavor of the original and substituting a British atmosphere in order to render them acceptable to a public, in America as well as in England, which is not as yet ready to judge works of art according to European standards. PLAYS One of Them (1886). The Open Gate (1887). Performed at the Broadway Theater, New York 1890. Captain Swift (1888). Performed at the Madison Square Theater, New York 1888. The Idler (1890). Performed at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1890. 114 C. HADDON CHAMBERS 115 The Honourable Herbert (1891). The Old Lady (1892). The Pipe of Peace (1892). Performed at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1892. John-a-Dreams (189^). Performed at the Empire Theater, New York 1895. The Tyranny of Tears (1899). Performed at the Empire Theater, New York 1899- The Awakening (1901). The Golden Silence (1903). Sir Anthony (I906). Passers-By (1911). Performed at the Criterion Theater, New York 1911. Collaborated in the following: Devil Caresfoot (1887). The Queen of Manoa (1892). The Fatal Card (1894). Performed at the Academy of Music, New York 1 895. Boys Together (1896). The Days of the Duke (1897). Chambers has adapted a number of French plays and dramatized a few novels. " The Idler," " Captain Swift," " The Open Gate," and " Sir Anthony," are published by Samuel French; " The Tyranny of Tears " and " The Awakening " by Walter H. Baker; "Passers-By" by Brentano's. Reference: Introduction to the Baker edition of "The Tyranny of Tears."— Magazines: Bookman, vol. xxxiv (p. 242), vol. xxxviii (p. 264); McClure's, vol. xlii (p. 51). THE TYRANNY OF TEARS The play is technically of the Pinero- Jones school; still, it has a freshness which is sometimes lacking in cleverer and more brilliant plays. There are no sur- prises, there is little to astound or arouse to deep reflection. Based upon one of those inherent human qualities easily recognized by an average audience, it pursues its agreeable way through four pleasing acts. 1. In dealing with a conventional comedy of this sort it is fitting that conventional standards be applied to it. It will be seen that such plays as Elizabeth Baker's " Chains " and certain pieces of Granville Barker cannot so easily be measured according to older standards, but practically all the works of Jones, Pinero, Chambers, Davies, and Somerset Maugham, are easy to classify. Nor need this imply any detraction from their merits ; originality in itself is little enough. While there is nothing new under the sun there may be new angles of vision, but a dramatist who chooses to view life from his new-found angle may be able to lay no better claim upon our admiration than that he has discovered a new manner. It is in- finitely better to write a good play founded upon old and accepted formulas than a poor play 116 C. HADDON CHAMBERS 117 upon new and untried ones. The dramatist who writes conventional plays has the form ready at hand, and may proceed at once to attack the matter. A play by Pinero or Jones may almost invariabl}^ be counted upon to be masterly in form, and we may, as Bernard Shaw once said of the latter's plays, attack the matter without troubling about the manner. " The Tyranny of Tears " is a conventional comedy of character and sentiment. Determine whether the dramatist has wished his audience to be more interested in the story, or the characters. What foundation is there for your opinion? Does Chambers intend to write a play showing how a m.an ma}^ be tyrannized over by a loving wife, or is he rather concerned with a story, into which he has allowed an idea, as it were, to wander? 2. Few more striking instances of the basic difference between French and English tempera- ment and ideas can be found than by compar- ing the treatment of a similar theme in this play and in Porto-Riche's " Amoureuse." The Frenchman is concerned chiefly with the sexual side of the marriage, and insists that Etienne is forced to remain with his wife because she is still physically attractive to him. Chambers calls this attraction " tears " and makes of the story a pleas- ant and innocuous comedy. Porto-Riche goes straight to the heart of the question. In Anglo- 118 C. HADDON CHAMBERS Saxon countries the problem would appear much as Chambers has related it, while in Latin lands it would more closely resemble Porto-Riche's treat- ment. Chambers could not have written " Amou- reuse " because he doubtless lacked the insight, and would not have written it, even had the censor passed it. On the other hand, Porto-Riche would not have wasted his time on what he would doubt- less consider a prudish and trivial piece of work like " The Tyranny of Tears." 3. In Professor Brander Matthews' " A Study of the Drama," the author divides certain parts of dialogue, after the manner of the French crit- ics, into three kinds: Mots de caractere. Mots de situation, and Mots d' esprit. He says (p. 126) : " The French, among whom the critical faculty is more acutely developed than among other peo- ples, have a larger vocabulary of critical terms than there is in any other language; and they have devised a classification of certain of the ef- fects of dialogue which are common to every type of comic play. They call a jest which evokes laughter a mot, and they make a distinction which is not easy to render in English between mots d'esprit, mots de situation, and mots de caractere. The mot d^esprit is the witticism pure and simple, existing for its own sake, and detachable from its context — like the remark of one of the characters in ' Lady Windermere's Fan ' : ' I can resist every- C. HADDON CHAMBERS II9 thing — except temptation.' The mot de situation is the phrase which is funny solely because it is spoken at that particular moment in the setting forth of the story, like the ' What the devil was he doing in that galley? ' which is not laughter- provoking in itself and apart from the incident calling it forth, but which arouses peals of merri- ment in its proper place in Moliere's ' Scapin.' And the mot de caractere is the phrase which makes us laugh because it is the intense expression, at the moment, of the individuality of the person who speaks it — like the retort of the wife to her sister in the ' Comedy of Errors,' when she has been roundly abusing her husband. Luciana satirically comments that a man no better than this is no great loss to be bewailed. Whereupon Adriana, smiling through her tears, returns : ' Ah, but I think him better than I say — ' a line which gets its laugh, of course, but which lingers in the memory as a sudden revelation of the underlying character of the speaker." There are very few comic pieces which do not contain many examples of these three sorts of moty and few other types of drama which fail to include mots de situation. These are necessary; while mots de caractere are, though they may be inter- esting and amusing, and mots d'esprit laughter- provoking, more or less in the nature of acces- sories. The least necessary of all are the mots 120 C. HADDON CHAMBERS d'esprit: it is a regrettable fact that Oscar Wilde occasionally marred scenes in his best comedies by introducing too many. The second act of " Lady Windermere's Fan," the first part of the third act of the same play, together with the first act of " A Woman of No Importance," are exam- ples of this. In the present play find examples of the three kinds of mots and determine which are the more necessary to the unity of the plot. Are there any superfluous mots: phrases, repartees, or epigrams which, if omitted, would in no manner mar the total effect? 4. Study the " curtains " throughout. Is the rise of the action, the tension in plot, increased, crisis by crisis, as it is in Sudermann's " Magda " and Pinero's " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," or is it apparently disjointed and sudden as in Becque's "The Crows" and Wedekind's "The Awakening of Spring " ? HUBERT HENRY DAVIES Hubert Henry Davies was born in 1869. He first entered the field of journalism, and pursued his pro- fession in the United States for a number of years. Since 1899, when his first play, " A Dream of Love," was produced, until the present, he has enjoyed numerous successes. Davies possesses a fastidious sense of form and literary style in his comparatively few comedies. He is not an innovator, he is content to accept the con- ventions as applied to comedies of manners as he finds them, and not venture abroad in quest of new methods or new ideas. He is always pleasantly con- ventional, although in his best plays — " The Mollusc," " Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace," " Doormats," and " Captain Drew on Leave " — there is ever some orig- inal treatment of character, some interesting under- lying idea. " Doormats " sets forth the idea expressed by one of its personages: "... Some people have a genius for giving. Others a talent for taking. You can't not be whichever kind you are, any more than you can change your sex. You and I are amongst those who must give. . . . Doormats I always call them to myself." " Captain Drew on Leave " is more ambitious and conventional; it is the story of a good- hearted adventurer who falls in love with a married woman: he learns to value true affection, she to return 121 122 HUBERT HENRY DAVIES to her husband^ a stronger and nobler woman. Davies comes as something of a relief from the rather stiff, if broader, plays of Pinero, and from the occa- sionally tiresome efforts to evolve a new style of drama. PLAYS A Dream of Love (1899). Fifty Years Ago (1901). Cousin Kate (1903). Performed, with Ethel Barrymore, at Daly's The- ater, New York 1903. Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace (1903). Performed at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1904. Cynthia (1903). Performed at the Madison Square Theater, New York 1903. Captain Drew on Leave (1905). The Mollusc (1907). Performed at the Garrick Theater, New York 1908. Lady Epping's Lawsuit (1908). Bevis (1909). A Single Man (1910). Performed, with John Drew, at the Empire Thea- ter, New York 19II. Doormats (1912). Outcast (1914). Performed, with Elsie Ferguson, at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1914. "Cousin Kate," " Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace," " Cap- tain Drew on Leave," " The Mollusc," " Lady HUBERT HENRY DAVIES 123 Epping's Lawsuit/' and " A Single Man " are pub- lished separately by Walter H. Baker, Boston. Reference: P. P. Howe, "Dramatic Portraits" (Kennerley). — Magazines: North American, vol. cci (p. 85) ; New Republic, vol. i (p. 23) ; Bookman, vol. xxxiv (p. 243). THE MOLLUSC A comedy in three acts. First performed in 1907. As a technical feat there are few plays in the realm of recent English drama so neatly balanced, so economical, as? " The Mollusc." It is unquestionably, by reason of its dramatic reticence, its charming style and its delicately handled theme, Davies's mas- terpiece. 1. The Aristotelian Unities — Time, Place, and Action — are here as closely adhered to as in Charles Rann Kennedy's " The Servant in the House," and a good deal more so than in Shaw's " Getting Married." True, the time of the last act is one week later, but this is really a minor detail. The Place is " Mrs. Baxter's sitting- room," the Action, Tom's " education of a mol- lusc." The first act shows us the mollusc, the sec- ond the struggle between Tom and the mollusc and Tom's temporary defeat, the third, his ulti- mate victory. Nothing could be clearer or more succinctly stated. Compare the first act of this play with that of "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray." Could Pinero have learned anything about constructing a first act from Davies? What.? . 124 HUBERT HENRY DAVIES 125 2. For the past twenty-five years or so, as has been said (p. 95), there is a tendency to lessen the number of characters in plays. The point has already been discussed, but it may be further re- marked that a true artist loves his limitations : that Davies took pleasure in restricting himself to the use of but four personages, that Lemaitre in " The Pardon " enjoyed the game of making only three carry the plot of a full-length play. This is vastly more difficult than it used to be. Many classical plays, from ^schylus to Sheridan, show a striking disregard for the time-scheme ; Shakspere was often notoriously neglectful in this respect : a character might enter a room or a street from nowhere and go nowhere, and might return in an impossibly short time. While it is of course necessary to ac- cept the convention of the foreshortening of time on the stage, we are unwilling — nowadays at least — to accept unmotivated and otherwise impossible entrances and exits. Now we require to know whence comes a character, how he happens to be where he is ; if he leaves, his errand must be clear ; if we are given to understand that he will return in half an hour, he must not come in two minutes later. (This, by the way, is the reason that on the stage very few clocks ever run. ) In " The Mol- lusc," the comings and goings of each person are satisfactorily accounted for. 126 HUBERT HENRY DAVIES Work out the time-scheme of " Macbeth " or " Hamlet." 3. Closely allied with the subject of time is the general consideration of character-motivation. Why do people behave as they do.? In life and on the stage.'* The difference between a conventional dramatist and one who has something novel to say, is that in the first instance his characters act according to set ideas, or according as they have acted in other plays. A good dramatist will inform us exactly why A behaved as he did under the circumstances ; a psychologist, like Fran9ois de Curel or Ibsen, will delve still deeper and reveal hidden corners of human character from the intui- tion which is genius, or from first-hand knowledge. Dramatists like Shakspere will merely draw a syn- thetic picture of life: the characters are, they be- have as they do because they are what they are. In " Hamlet," the Prince reveals his thoughts and feelings in his speeches and his actions: he merely speaks his mind. If Hamlet were a conventional sort of man he would have killed his uncle; if " Hamlet " the play were a conventional play, the Prince would kill the murderer because the facts known to Hamlet would be sufficient to motivate the revenge. But Shakspere knew Hamlet's mind and revealed it to us through the character. If we are made to feel that Zoe Blundell's sui- cide is natural — that is, if the events which led up HUBERT HENRY DAVIES 127 to it allowed her to do nothing else, she being what she was — then " Mid-Channel " is well-motivated ; if Cyrano's compliance with Roxane's request that he protect her lover is in accordance with Cyrano's character, then that act on his part is well mo- tivated. Study the motivation in "The Mollusc," in Shaw's " Man and Superman," and in Jones's " The Liars." JOHN GALSWORTHY John Galsworthy was born at Coombe, Surrey^ in 1867. He received his education first at Harrow, then at Oxford, from which he was graduated in 1889- His first intention was to practise law, and in 1890 he was called to the bar. He says : " I read in various chambers, practised almost not at all, and disliked my profession thoroughl3^" Being in a position to do so, he began to travel, and visited a number of countries in all parts of the world. Some time later he began to turn his attention to writing, and in 1899 printed his first work, the novel " Jocelyn." This was followed by a short novel and a volume of short stories. Before the production of his first play he wrote four other novels ; some of them — " The Country House " and " The Man of Property," for instance — must surely take rank among the finest literary achieve- ments of the age. Since 1906, the date of " The Silver Box," Galsworthy has produced in turn collections of essays, stories, novels, plays, and poems. Galsworthy is one of the sincerest and most straight- forward of writers; literary, in the best sense of the word, clear, simple, and direct, he never fails to im- press his readers and his audience with the meaning and importance of the play or novel under considera- tion. He is humanitarian in the broadest sense of the word: he is more than a socialist or a reformer, he is a sympathetic artist. In his plays he assumes so fair 128 JOHN GALSWORTHY 129 an attitude toward his characters and his audience that he at times' almost fails to convince; in his dramatic style his reticence is occasionally so great that he incurs the danger of under-emphasis. Gals- worthy is so sensitive that he perhaps over-estimates the sensitiveness of his audience. He is altogether one of the finest intellects and dramatic forces of the English stage. PLAYS The Silver Box (1906). Performed, with Ethel Barrymore, at the Empire Theater, New York 1907. Joy (1907). Performed by the University of Chicago Dramatic Club 1911. Strife (1909). Performed at the New Theater, New York I9IO. Justice (1910). Performed by the Hull House Players, Chicago 1911. The Pigeon (1912). Performed at the Little Theater, New York 1912. The Eldest Son (1912). The Fugitive (1913). The Mob (1914). A one-act play, " The Little Dream " (1911), com- pletes the list. " The Silver Box," " Joy," and " Strife " are pub- lished in a single volume by Putnam ; " Justice," " The Little Dream," and " The Eldest Son " in " Plays, ISO JOHN GALSWORTHY Second Series " by Scribner's ; " The Pigeon/' " The Fugitive/' and " The Mob/' in " Plays, Third Series " by Scribner's. " Strife " is tncluded in " Chief Con- temporary Dramatists " (Houghton Mifflin). References: Anonymous, "John Galsworthy, a Sketch of His Life and His Works " (Scribner's) ; Ashley Dukes, " Modern Dramatis-ts " (Sergei) ; P. P. Howe, " The Repertory Theater " (Kennerley) and " Dramatic Portraits (Kennerley) ; Sheila Kaye- Smith, " John Galsworthy " (Holt) ; John Palmer, " The Future of the Theater " (Bell, London) ; Edwin Bjorkman, " Is There Anything New Under the Sun.'^" (Kennerley); Charlton Andrews, "The Drama To-day " (Lippincott) ; William Archer, " Playmaking " (Small, Maynard) ; Emma Goldman, " The Social Significance of the Modern Drama " (Badger) ; C. H. Herford, in " Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association " (Oxford University Press) ; Frank Wadleigh Chandler, " As- pects of Modern Drama " (Macmillan) ; Clayton Hamilton, " Studies in Stagecraft " (Holt) ; Archi- bald Henderson, " The Changing Drama " (Holt) ; Ludwig Lewisohn, " The Modern Drama " (Huebsch). — Magazines: Fortnightly, vol. xci (p. 971), vol. Ixxxix (p. 627) ; Current Literature, vol. xlviii (p. 81) ; Harper's Weeldy, vol. Ivi (p. 6) ; Outlook, vol. c (p. 608); Literary Digest, vol. xliv (p. 59^); Booh Nervs Monthly, vol. xxx (p. 771) ; The World To-day, vol. xxi (p. 995) ; Review of Reviervs, vol. Iviii (p. 634) ; Bookman, vol. xxxv (p. 203) ; Living Age, vol. cclxiv (p. 607) ; Survey, vol. xxiii (p. 705). STRIFE A drama in three acts. First performed in 1909. In his essay, " Some Platitudes Concerning Drama " (in " The Inn of Tranquillity "), Galsworthy says : " A Drama must be shaped so as to have a spire of meaning. Every grouping of life and character has its inherent moral ; and the business of the dramatist is so to pose the group as to bring that moral poignantly to the light of day. Such is the moral that exhales from plays' like ' Lear/ ' Hamlet/ and ' Macbeth.' " As " Strife " is a peculiarly apt illustration of its author's theories as set forth in this essay, let us in- quire into its structure, its development, and its moral. 1. " Strife " is an eminently fair and just ar- rangement of acts, facts, motives, and opinions, focusing up to " a spire of meaning," bearing upon the struggle between capital and labor. Gals- worthy's first care was to set before his audience a clear statement, without taking sides with one party or the other. He mentions in the essay above quoted three courses which are open to the dramatist : ( 1 ) to give the public what it wants ; (2) to give it what he thinks it ought to have, and (3) "to set before the public no cut-and-dried 131 132 JOHN GALSWORTHY codes, but the phenomena of life and character, selected and combined, but not distorted, by the dramatist's outlook, set down without fear, favor, or prejudice, leaving the public to draw such poor moral as nature may afford. This third method requires a certain detachment ; it requires a sym- pathy with, a love of, and a curiosity as to, things for their own sake ; it requires a far view, together with patient industry, for no immediately prac- tical result." 2. That " certain detachment " is to be seen throughout " Strife." The dramatist's " sympathy with . . . things for their own sake " is observed in the balance of the scenes. For example, we are first made to see the representatives of capital, then Harness is introduced, and, a moment later, " the men." First the capitalists' side is heard, then the workingmen's. Within a few pages of the end of the act there is a deadlock between the con- tending parties ; then Enid is brought in. Enid presents another aspect of the question ; she, the daughter of Anthony, the head of the capitalists, may be termed the " human element." " We see all the distress," she says. " You remember my maid Annie, who married Roberts? It's so wretched, her heart's weak ; since the strike began, she hasn't even been getting proper food." In the second act Enid is in the Roberts' cottage. Again the au- thor's detachment is evident: he does not senti- JOHN GALSWORTHY 133 mentalize upon the workingmen, any more than he over-emphasizes the obduracy of the Board. If he feels that some human element is necessary, for the sake of truth and dramatic contrast, he allows the gentle and very human Enid (even the name is in- dicative of her character) to do the sentimentaliz- ing. And again Galsworthy the practical drama- tist follows the rules of Galsworthy the theorist: " The art of writing true dramatic dialogue is an austere art, denying itself all license, grudging every sentence devoted to the mere machinery of the play, suppressing all jokes and epigrams sev- ered from character, relying for fun and pathos on the fun and tears of life. From start to finish good dialogue is hand-made, like good lace ; clear, of fine texture, furthering with each thread the harmony and strength of a design to which all must be subordinated." Throughout the first scene of the second act the characters of the people are laid bare with admirable clear-sightedness and detachment of vision. If the poor are in a bad condition, it is somewhat the fault of their pride and dogged tenacity. Madge Thomas's reply, "What suf- ferino"? . . . Who said there was suffering?" reveals a person much nearer to actual life than would that of a whining and humble woman. In brief, then, Galsworthy shows that if the rich are hard, they have a modicum of the milk 134 JOHN GALSWORTHY of human kindness, and that if the poor are miser- able, they are at times stubborn and haughty. 3. Further on in the same essay the author re- marks : " Now, true dramatic action is what char- acters do, at once contrary, as it were, to expecta- tion and yet because they have already done other things." Galsworthy means here that the drama- tist should not invent situations and adhere to a fixed plan when he is dealing with units which are intended to represent human beings. When, there- fore, a character acts " contrary, as it were, to ex- pectation," it is because we, the audience, do not know their true character. It is by means of unex- pected turns and the revelation of motives hitherto unknown to the audience, that a dramatist paints character: he unrolls it, and the personages de- velop. Again this author's wide sympathy with life urges him to state that it is pretty difficult to determine just what a human being will do next. Follow carefully the scenes in which Roberts, or any other of the principal characters, appears, bearing in mind the remarks above quoted. 4. In " Strife," what is the " spire of mean- ing".'' What is the "inherent moral".? Was Galsworthy more interested in the moral than the characters? Or did he wish merely to exhibit a certain " grouping of life and characters ".? THE PIGEON A fantasy in three acts. First performed in 1912. In a little poem (" A Prayer ") Galsworthy, the poet, asks that he may be given " to understand." All of Galsworthy's plays are evidently written by a man who wishes to dig beneath the surface, to learn to understand and help others to do so. Together with this view of life, the author's dramatic technic is in- timately bound up. We have already seen how a dramatist should hold himself somewhat aloof from life in order to see it fairly: " Strife " is the best of this dramatist's plays to exemplify his attitude and his workmanship. " The Pigeon," " a fantasy in con- ception and a realistic play in execution," in Gals- worthy's own words, is much less a cold expression of facts than "Strife." Its very theme is human charity. If one seeks some definite preachment of philanthropy— such as Brieux gave in " Les Bien- faiteurs "— the play will puzzle: the author shows only a " grouping of life and character," and allows us to seek out the " inherent moral." At the end, Wellwyn is as hopeless as he was at first, the flower- girl and her miserable companions are no nearer to a solution of the problem than before the curtain rose. Had Brieux or Hervieu written the play they would undoubtedly have offered some sort of moral, sug- gested some remedy; Galsworthy is content with 135 136 JOHN GALSWORTHY affording us some insight into the thoughts and feel- ings of three hopeless waifs. 1. The first act is a work of art: Galsworthy never wrote a better act. The tag-end of a scene supposed to have passed just before the curtain rose, opens it ; then Wellwyn and his daughter are briefly introduced in a page or two. There is no " exposition " in the conventional sense of the word: the characters evolve through the medium of dialogue that is " spiritual action." There is no superfluous word: each syllable counts. This is truly " austere art." Take another passage from the author's theory : " The aim of the dramatist in employing it [nat- uralistic technic] is obviously to create such an il- lusion of actual life passing on the stage as to compel the spectator to pass through an experience of his own, to think, and talk, and move with the people he sees, thinking, talking, and moving in front of him. A false phrase, a single word out of tune or time, will destroy that illusion and spoil the surface as surely as a stone heaved into a still pond shatters the image seen there. . . . It is easy enough to reproduce the exact conversation and movements of persons in a room ; it is desper- ately hard to produce the perfectly natural con- versation and movements of those persons, when each natural phrase spoken and each natural move- ment made has not only to contribute toward the JOHN GALSWORTHY 137 growth and perfection of a drama's soul, but also to be a revelation, phrase by phrase, movement by movement, of essential traits of character. To put it another way, naturalistic art, when alive, indeed to be alive at all, is simply the art of manipulating a procession of most delicate symbols." 2. If the writer of "Strife" and "The Pigeon " has succeeded — ^and he has — in abiding by his professed principles, it might be well to look into the validity of these principles. One final quotation : " We want no more bastard drama ; no more attempts to dress out the simple dignity of everyday life in the peacock's feathers of false lyricism ; no more straw-stuffed heroes or hero- ines ; no more rabbits and goldfish from the con- jurer's pockets, nor any limelight. Let us have starlight, moonlight, sunlight, and the light of our own self-respects." Galsworthy, in a word, is the enemy of all that is false in the theater of " theatri- cality." In his plays, there is ever a conscious ef- fort to avoid effects, " big scenes," conventional dialogue and situations. Galsworthy seems afraid of a " curtain " ; it has been aptly said of him that the " * curtains ' seemed to hesitate to come down on anything that could possibly be mistaken for a climax." Yet it should be remembered that Gals- worthy, disgusted with the falsity and triviality of a vast amount of present-day drama, was forced into his austere and reticent attitude. He has at 138 JOHN GALSWORTHY least shown that plays do not of necessity have to be built according to time-worn formulas ; he has also proved that one of the surest methods of ob- taining emphasis is — up to a certain point — to under-emphasize. Mrs. Jones's " Oh ! Sir ! " which closes " The Silver Box " is an admirable example. If Galsworthy is an advocate of reticence he has been forced partly by circumstances to be so. In " The Pigeon " notice how the " curtains " are managed. What elements of the usual " well- made play" are observable in these? Compare the second act of this play — ^as to its plot develop- ment — with the second act of " Candida." 3. In his book on " The Future of the Theater " John Palmer states: "Their [the characters in Galsworthy's plays] merit consists in all the com- monplaces they do not utter, in all the obvious things they do not do, in all the fine speeches they do not make. In ' The Eldest Son ' Freda says ' Oh, Bill ! ' and Bill makes the three follow- ing speeches: (1) 'Freda!'; (2) 'Good God!'; (3) ' By Jove! This is — — ' Whereupon the cur- tain saves him from committing his author any further. These are tactics of masterly inactivity. The scene is suggested by the players ; and the audience supplies the emotion. Mr. Galsworthy has done nothing, except to suggest very clearly that he has avoided doing anything wrong." The last sentence here is an evident exaggeration, but JOHN GALSWORTHY 139 how much of the entire criticism apphes to " Strife " and " The Pigeon "? Has Galsworthy in detaching himself, in his attempt to be scrupu- lously exact and fair in his presentation of the grouping of life he chose to exhibit, gone too far, stood too far aloof, and lost that personal element, that touch of humanity, without which no art can exist ? 4. The following letter to the writer touching upon the play now under consideration, may throw some light on the "fantastic" element: ". . . About those dates in 'The Pigeon.' Christmas Eve because of Ferrand's remark: ' HE is come. Monsieur!' and the general tenor of Wellwyn's acceptance of every kind of outcast. New Year's Day because of Ferrand's remark: ' 'Appy New Y'^ear ! ' which marks the disappear- ance of casual charity in favor of Institutionalism, of the era of outcasts in favor of the era of re- formers. April 1st because of the joke at the end on the Humblemen which symbolizes the fact, or rather the essence, of the play, that, while Well- wyn (representing sympathy and understanding) is being ' plucked ' all through the play, he comes out and knows he does, on top at the end, as the only possible helper of the unhelpable." The author maliciously adds : " I hope this is sufficiently obscure I " JOHN MASEFIELD John Masefield was born at Ledbury, England. At the age of fourteen he ran away from home and went to sea. For a number of years he wandered from land to land, spending part of the time in the United States. Returning to England, he devoted his time to the writing of poems, novels, stories, and a few plays. In 1912 he won the Edmond de Polignac prize for his " Everlasting Mercy." Since that time, he has enjoyed the success and popularity which has so long been denied him. Masefield's principal contribution to modern litera- ture are his vigorous and original narrative poems — " The Everlasting Mercy," " The Widow in the Bye- Street," and " Dauber "— ^in which his sense of the tragic and the beautiful find their expression. Some- thing of this is observable in his shorter poems, and in his novels, especially " The Street of To-day " and " Multitude and Solitude," and in his play, " The Tragedy of Nan." " Nan " comes as near to true tragedy as any English play of recent years. It is a play of remarkable power and beauty as regards con- ception and style ; it is the work of a true poet. The author's belief that tragedy should be a vision of the heart of life is borne out in " Nan " with pitiless cruelty. Masefield's originality precludes to a cer- 140 JOHN MASEFIELD 141 tain extent the question of influences, but it m'"ght be well to suggest that his friend Synge had something to do with his style, and to draw a parallel between the lov^-scene in the second act of " Nan " and that in the last act of " The Playboy of the Western World." Masefield's other plays, " ]VJ[rs. Harrison " and " The Campden Wonder," more or less in the style of " Nan," and his historical poems, " Philip the King " and " The Tragedy of Pompey the Great," have only a relative stage value, although they are full of striking lines, good scenes, and vigorous poetic passages. PLAYS The Campden Wonder (1907). The Tragedy of Nan (1908). Performed by the Gaiety Theater Company in Boston 1911. Mrs. Harrison (1909). The Tragedy of Pompey the Great (1910). Philip the King (1914). There is besides an adaptation of " The Witch," un- published, from the Norwegian of Wiers Jennssen, 1910. References : John Galsworthy, " The Inn of Tran- quillity " (Scribner); C. E. Montague, "Dramatic Values " (Macmillan) ; John Masefield, Preface to (new edition of) " Nan."^ — Magazines: Athenwum, Nov. 13, 1909; Dial, Dec. 16, 1910; Bookman, vol. xxxiii (p. 584); Current Literature, vol. lii (p. 710), 142 JOHN MASEFIELD vol. liii (p. 457) ; Survey, vol. xxxi (p. 707) ; Inde- pendent, vol. Ixxii (p. 1158), vol. Ixxiii (p. 533); Living Age, vol. cclxxiv (p. 778), vol. cclxxx (p. 410) ; Atlantic, vol. cxi (p. 489) ; North American, vol. cxcviii (p. 375); Yale Review vol. ii (p. 560). THE TRAGEDY OF NAN A play in three acts. First performed in 1908. " Tragedy/' says Masefield in a note prefixed to a late edition of this play, " at its best is a vision of the heart of life. The heart of life can only be laid bare in the agony and exaltation of dreadful acts. The vision of agony, or spiritual contest, pushed beyond the limits of dying personality, is exalting and cleansing. It is only by such vision that a multitude can be brought to the passionate knowledge of things exalting and eternal." " The Tragedy of Nan " is an attempt " towards the achieving of that power " which " helps the genius of a race to obtain it, though the obtaining may be fifty years after the strivers are dead." 1. The above quotation indicates a different conception of tragedy from the one usually set forth. The exalting and cleansing element is Greek ; the " passionate knowledge of things exalt- ing and eternal " with the insistence on " dreadful acts " as a necessary premise to the laying bare of the heart of life is in a manner Masefield's own twist to a well-known theory. The story of " (Edipus " is a series of " dreadful acts," but the difference lies in Masefield's belief that the audi- 143 144 JOHN MASEFIELD ence should see these acts. In " Hamlet " and " Macbeth " they are usually relegated to the background. Possibly this new idea is a conces- sion to the lack of imagination of modern audi- ences, who have become too well accustomed to realistic plays? In any event, this poet insists upon showing us the horrible scene where Nan forces Jenny to eat the tainted mutton pie. What is gained through this procedure? How far has the dramatist adhered to his principles in this play? S. As art is a synthesizing of life, all that is unessential must be omitted in order that the typical, the characteristic, may be brought into emphatic relief. In a play, where the incidents are supposed to cover a space of many hours, many days, or many years, the incidents which the dramatist chooses must be condensed into some- thing less than two hours : he cannot waste a word or a gesture. This necessitates an acceptance on the part of the audience of the convention of foreshortening: that is, incidents, psychological changes, development of character, occupy much less time on the stage than they would in life. An hour may be easily assumed to pass in ten min- utes ; in a moment a character reaches a decision which in life might take him days or months to reach ; young men and women fall in love at first sight with little or no regard to verisimilitude. JOHN MASEFIELD 145 Needless to say, there must be sufficient motivation to account for these sudden changes, or the audi- ence will refuse to enter into the dramatist's pact. In Shakspere's " Richard III," the Queen, who is accompanying her husband's bier to the church, is met by Richard, her husband's known murderer, is wooed in less than ten minutes — successfully wooed. This is too great a strain upon the credu- lity of the audience, in spite of the fact that the play is obviously melodrama. In Ibsen's " Doll's House," Nora's change of mind covers less than a week, but Ibsen takes good care to support her final act with credible motivation. In " Nan " is Dick's change of heart sufficiently motivated? Notice what reasons the dramatist sets forth ; that is his defense, as it were. Still, is his change acceptable? 3. The last act in a play is usually the shortest. The reason for this is that the climax, which is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred at the end of the penultimate act, brings the play to its highest pitch of interest and suspense, and there remains little to be accomplished in the last. Denouement is not so interesting as a rule as development. Many plays fail because of an uninteresting or anti-climactic final act. It is the business of the dramatist to hold over some absorbing revelation, or some long-awaited turn of affairs, in order that his audience may await with impatience the 146 JOHN MASEFIELD last rise of the curtain. In W. C. De Mille's " The Woman," this has been very skilfully accomplished. How has Masefield succeeded? His last act is the longest in the play. What does he do to make it interesting? It is well to ask one's self, as the curtain is falling on the penultimate act of a play, whether there is much more worth waiting for ? STANLEY HOUGHTON Stanley Houghton was born at Ashton-upon-Mersey, in 1881. In 1897 he entered his father's office in Manchester, where he worked until 1912, as a sales- man. The success of the production of " Hindle Wakes " that year led him to fors-ake the security of business for the uncertainties of a dramatist's exist- ence. In 1913 he went to Paris, fell ill, recovered, returned to London in June. On his return to Paris, on the way to Venice, he fell ill again. After an attack of influenza and appendicitis, in Italy, he was brought to Manchester, where, in December, he died. At the time of his death Houghton was one of the most promising of the younger generation of British dramatists. While it is true that " Hindle Wakes is his finest achievement, his other plays — " Inde- pendent Means " and " The Younger Generation " especially — are by no means negligible. Houghton was seeking for liberty of thought, rather than liberty of dramatic form, but he never distorted that form for the sake of the idea. He had a distinct sense of the theater, a remarkable gift for dialogue, and keen insight into human character. PLAYS The Dear Departed (1908). Independent Means (1909). 147 148 STANLEY HOUGHTON The Master of the House (IQIO). The Younger Generation (1910). Performed in New York 1913. Fancy Free (1911). Hindle Wakes (1912). Performed in New York 1912, and on tour 1913. Phipps (1912). Performed at the Princess Theater, New York 1914. The Perfect Cure (1913). The Fifth Commandment (1913). Performed at the Little Theater, Chicago 1913. Trust the People (1913). Not published. A number of short and slight plays, unpublished, were produced by amateurs. " Marriages in the Making " was never produced. " Hindle Wakes " is published by Luce, Boston. Houghton's collected works, in three volumes, are published by Constable, London. " Independent Means " and " The Younger Generation " and " Five One-act Plays " are published by Samuel French. References: Introduction to the collected works; John Palmer, " The Future of the Theater " (Bell, London). — Magazines: Bookman, vol. xxxvi (p. 641) ; Manchester Playgoer, vol. ii. No. 1 ; Manchester Quar- terly, vol. xxxiii (p. 213) ; Living Age, vol. cclxxx (p. 413) ; McClure's, vol. xl (p. 69). HINDLE WAKES A play in three acts. First performed in 1912. " Hindle Wakes " is one of the few plays of con- spicuous merit which have come from the younger group of British dramatists. This play is original by reason of its theme (the same, by the way, as that treated in St. John Ervine's " The Magnanimous Lover " and Galsworthy's " The Eldest Son "), its telling dialogue, and its construction. The characters are well drawn, lifelike, thoroughly human. 1. It is only by comparison with such plays as " Sweet Lavender " that one can appreciate the immense advance made in dialogue in this play. The early Pinero play was considerably influenced by the very stilted style of Robertson and H. J. Byron ; still, it purported to be realistic in treat- ment. Read the first five pages of " Sweet Lav- ender," then the first five of "Hindle Wakes." Then read the first five of "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," which is intended to be still closer to "real life," and then read five more of the Houghton play. Again, read a scene from " The Thunderbolt" (Pinero), one of the few frankly realistic pictures of English middle-class society which Pinero has attempted, and read another 149 150 STANLEY HOUGHTON scene from " Kindle Wakes." Pinero cannot escape from the shackles of his predecessors; Houghton came to the theater with a fresh out- look on life, and few ideas about the " literary " style of dialogue. Bearing in mind Henry Arthur Jones's remarks (pp. 42-3) on literature and the stage, determine in what respects this play is literature. 2. " Hindle Wakes," besides being a " slice of life " and an interesting story, is a " thesis play." This does not mean that the author wrote it solely to exploit an idea, or that he was so interested in the moral that he neglected any means to make the play an interesting spectacle : the idea serves only to increase the interest. Up to the very last of the play (p. 97, Luce edition) the author's solution is not made clear. This was Ibsen's method in the " Doll's Llouse," where, up to the middle of the last act, Nora's sudden resolution was not hinted at. It is likely that if these dramatists had been more interested in the propagandist side of their work they would doubtless have foreshadowed the end earlier in the play: their enthusiasm would have led them into argument and discussion far before the end. But both Ibsen and Houghton allowed their plays to develop naturally up to w^hat in a conventional play would have been the beginning of the usual end, and then — ^by a sudden turn — ^changed the whole denouement. STANLEY HOUGHTON 151 What indications are there that Houghton was less concerned than Ibsen with the idea, as distinct from the play as a dramatic entertainment? Does Houghton adopt a moral attitude? An immoral attitude? 3. What is the advantasce of dividing the first act into three scenes? Is there any necessity for combining these three parts into one act? Why could the author not have made each of these into a separate act? Why did he not divide the second and third acts into scenes? 4. In any thesis play there is a danger that characters speak a good deal more logically and with much more penetration than they would in life: the dramatist puts his own arguments into their mouths, and consequently distorts them as characters. What would ordinarily be the logic of their actions he often makes them reason out in a way which would be out of the question in any other place. The logical explanation of Fanny's conduct occurs in the last scene of this play (pp. 97-104). Notice the following dialogue. Alan. — . . . you'd damage my prospects, and all that sort of thing. You can see that, can't you? Fanny. — Ay! I can see it now you point it out. I hadn't thought of it before. Alan. — Then, that isn't why you refused me? Fanny. — Sorry to disappoint you, but it's not. Alan. — I didn't see what else it could be. 152 STANLEY HOUGHTON Fanny. — Don't kid yourself^ my lad! It isn't be- cause I'm afraid of spoiling your life that I'm refusing you, but because I'm afraid of spoiling mine! That didn't occur to you? Alan. — It didn't. Fanny. — You never thought that anybody else could be as selfish as yourself. Alan. — I may be very conceited, but I don't see how you can hurt yourself by wedding me. You'd come in for plenty of brass, anyhow. Fanny. — I don't know as money's much to go by when it comes to a job of this sort. It's more impor- tant to get the right chap. Alan. — You like me well enough.^ Fanny. — Suppose it didn't last } Weddings brought about this road have a knack of turning out badly. Would you ever forget it was your father bade you marry me ? No fear ! You'd bear me a grudge all my life for that. And again, Alan. — But you didn't ever really love me? Fanny. — Love you? Good Heavens, of course not! Why on earth should I love you? You were just some one to have a bit of fun with. You were an amusement — a lark. Alan {shocked). — Fanny! Is that all you cared for me? Fanny. — How much more did you care for me? Alan. — But it's not the same. I'm a man. Fanny. — You're a man, and I was your little fancy. STANLEY HOUGHTON 15S Well, I'm a woman, and you were my little fancy. You wouldn't prevent a woman enjoying herself as well as a man, if she takes it into her head? Alan. — But do you mean to say that you didn't care any more for me than a fellow cares for any girl he happens to pick up? Fanny. — Yes. Are you shocked? Alan. — It's a bit thick; it is really! Faww^.-^You're a beauty to talk! Alan. — It sounds so jolly immoral. I never thought of a girl looking on a chap just like that! I made sure you wanted to marry me if you got the chance. . . . Is the dramatist forcing his characters (Fanny especially) to give utterance to ideas which they would scarcely be able to formulate, merely in order that the theme may be clear.? How far has an author the right to do this ^ GITHA SOWERBY Katherine Githa Sowerby (Mrs. John Kendall), daughter of John Sowerby, the artist, was born in Newcastle in Northumberland. In this vicinity she spent the early years of her life. Her first literary ven- tures were short stories for magazines and a number of books for children. Her first play, " Rutherford and Son," was produced at the Court Theater, in 1912, and was followed by a curtain-raiser, " Before Break- fast." Githa Sowerby's one important play is among the most powerful works of the younger generation. It is representative of that group of plays which treats of the relation of parents and children — like " The Voysey Inheritance," " Hindle Wakes," " The Younger Generation," and " Milestones." This first attempt ^ of a young author is the more remarkable *In a letter to the author (Sept. 22, 1914) she writes: " ' Rutherford and Son ' was originally produced at the Court Theater in London for four matinees. It was then put up for a run at the Little Theater and moved on to the Vaudeville. In December of the same year Mr. Ames produced it at the Little Theater, New York, and it has since been on at Stockholm and Munich. It has been translated into nearly all European languages and should have been produced in Paris, St. Petersburg, and various other foreign towns about this time, but the war prevented or postponed this. . . . My first efforts were short stories for magazines and a number of books for children, prin- 154 GITHA SOWERBY 155 when it is learned that the \vriter had practically no experience or knowledge of dramatic technic, and en- tered the field of drama from that of fiction. PLAYS Rutherford and Son (1912). Performed at the Little Theater, New York 1912. Before Breakfast (1912). Reference: Clayton Hamilton, "Studies in Stage- craft" (Holt). — Magazine: Bookman, vol. xxxvi (p. 642). cipally in verse. ... I don't know what made me think of writing a play. I had no experience of the stage and no knowledge of plays or players beyond what can be gained by seeing plays. But writing both prose and verse was diffi- cult and irksome to me, so I began ' Rutherford and Son.' I wrote it over a period of two years in my spare time as an experiment, with no hope whatever of its being produced. I wrote two acts, thought it was no good, and threw it aside — then a friend happened to read it, and urged me to finish it, which I did. . . ." RUTHERFORD AND SON A play in three acts. First performed in 1912. It is only of late years that the " family drama ** has received full and adequate treatment in England. For many years Pinero and Jones' and Wilde were content, to limit themselves almost exclusively to the " drawing-room " play, which they brought to a point whence further development seemed impossible. The younger dramatists, Galsworthy, Barker, Miss Baker, Miss Sowerby, Stanley Houghton, and others, model- ing perhaps upon the plays of Ibsen, and cer- tainly striving for greater freedom in subject-matter, went to the middle and lower classes for their inspira- tion, and produced works which differ radically from the " Mrs. Tanquerays " and " Mrs. Danes " of the former generation. " Rutherford and Son " is one of the most striking examples of the new school. It is, perhaps", a little too extreme, possibly over-emphasized, but its dramatic power is incontestable. 1. The " pathetic fallacy " in drama is un- usually common. It is an easy and very obvious dramatic expedient. First acts of tragedies or serious plays of any kind often contain forebod- ings of the coming crisis. Random examples of this are "Macbeth," "Riders to the Sea," and 156 GITHA SOWERBY 157 " Brand." In each of these plays the weather out- side serves as a striking background for the action. In " Rutherford and Son " the stage-directions and the dialogue make us aware of the season : " On this particular evening in December ^^^ etc. (p. 8), and, in the course of the opening scene, such lines as " I wonder what it's like here when the sun shines ! " and " It doesn't look as if the summer ever came here," go far to create an atmosphere of gloom. In this first act is the creation of atmosphere and local color too obvious? How far may a dramatist legitimately call in the aid of natural phenomena, in order to help the action of his play? 2. The struggle, the clash of character upon character which is one of the essentials of drama, is introduced in the first act in an unusual fashion. As a rule, the struggle is " exposed," or talked about, early in the first act, then, later in that act, or in the second, the clash actually begins. As a matter of fact, the struggle in " Rutherford and Son " is so vividly laid before the audience in the first few pages, and especially in the scene between Mary and young Rutherford, that it may be said actually to have begun before the entrance of old John Rutherford. So domineering and strong is the old man's will, so plain are the results of its exercise, that it stands before us, needing for 158 GITHA SOWERBY the time being, no further illustration. Then Richard enters (p. 25): Ann. — . . . If he hadn't gone to the bank how would Rutherfords' ha' gone on? John. — . . . Why should it go on? Ann (sharply). — What's that? John. — Why didn't he sell the place when he could have made a decent profit? Ann (scandalized). — Sell Rutherfords'? Just let your father hear you. John. — I don't care if he does. I never can imagine why he hangs on — working his soul out year after year. Ann (conclusively). — It's his duty. . . . John. — Duty — rot! He likes it. He's gone on too long. He couldn't stop and rest if he tried. When I make a few thousands out of this little idea of mine I'm going to have everything I want, and forget all about the dirt and the ugliness, the clatter and bang of the machinery, the sickening hot smell of the fur- naces — all the things I've hated from my soul. Already, and before old John Rutherford appears, the struggle has begun. Compare the beginning of this parents-and- children struggle with that in Sudermann's " Magda " and Granville Barker's " The Voysey Inheritance." 3. A strike in the background serves to bring out the character of the various personages in the GITHA SOWERBY 159 play. Compare the treatment and relative impor- tance of the strike in this play and in Galsworthy's " Strife." Was Galsworthy interested in the strike more as a social phenomenon or only as a means of drawing characters, who are set in motion hy the strike? What use has Miss Sowerby made of the strike? 4. Study the construction of the second act. In what way is the action brought to a climax? Is this act in accordance with the formula of the well- made play? Is the incident of Martin and Janet pertinent to the main idea? What is its dramatic reason for being? Could it have been omitted without harm- ing the play as a whole ? 5. Does young John's speech (p. 30) about Moloch seem out of place? That is, does the old- fashioned " raisonneur " method of exposing ideas harmonize with the decidedly realistic tone? ELIZABETH BAKER Elizabeth Baker was born in London. Starting her life as a cashier^ she learned shorthand and typewrit- ing and before long became a stenographer. At pres- ent she is a private secretary, and writes plays in her leisure hours. Her first play — "Beastly Pride/' a short trifle, was produced at the Croyden Repertory Theater, and was so well received that Miss Baker was encouraged to write a full-length play. This was " Chains," produced first by the Play Actors, then at Charles Frohman's Repertory Theater (Duke of York's), and has since been seen at most of the reper- tory theaters of Great Britain. An adaptation was played in New York. " The Price of Thomas Scott '* was produced by Miss Horniman's Company in Lon- don and Manchester in 1913. Like Miss Sowerby, Miss Baker was an amateur — in the true sense: she wrote plays because she liked to write them, with little or no hope of their being professionally produced. Both these women have gone to everyday life for their material, both have cared and dared to write about dull, ordinary people. In Miss Baker's case this is especially true. " Chains " is the simple picture of the clerk class, pathetic and dispassionate. Her sincerity, her simplicity, her power of analysis, her penetration, entitle her to a 160 ELIZABETH BAKER l6l place among the very few writers in England to-day whose work is sincere and significant. PLAYS Beastly Pride (1907). Chains (1909). Performed, in adapted form, at the Criterion The- ater, New York 1913. Miss Tassey (1910). Cupid in Clapham (1910). Edith (1912). The Price of Thomas Scott (1913). " Chains " is published by Luce; " Miss Tassey " by Sidgwick and Jackson (London) ; " The Price of Thomas Scott " by the same. Reference : William Archer, " Playmaking " (Small, Maynard). — Magazine: Bookman, vol. xxxvi (p. 640), vol. xxxii (p. 136). CHAINS A play in four acts. First performed in ipop. Nothing can make clearer the great gulf between the drama of to-day and the drama of yesterday than a comparison of a Pinero play with " Chains." Miss Baker's quiet unpretentious picture is the direct an- tithesis to the color, movement, and intrigue of " The Gay Lord Quex." If Pinero was limited, as to technic as well as to idea, so is Miss Baker, but each has fulfilled an important function: Pinero brought the artificial comedy of his predecessors to its height, while Miss Baker has broadened the field of dramatic endeavor. 1. In William Archer's " Playmaking " (pp. 48-9) the author, in speaking of what is dramatic and what undramatic, refers to the present play: " We have already seen, indeed, that in a cer- tain type of play — ^the broad picture of a social phenomenon or environment — it is preferable that no attempt should be made to depict a marked crisis. There should be just enough story to afford a plausible excuse for raising and for lower- ing the curtain. . . . As a specimen, and a suc- cessful specimen, of this new technic, I may cite Miss Elizabeth Baker's very interesting play, 162 ELIZABETH BAKER 163 ' Chains.' There is absolutely no ' story ' in it, no complication of incidents, not even any emotional tension worth speaking of. . . .A city clerk, oppressed by the deadly monotony and narrowness of his life, thinks of going to Australia — and doesn't go: that is the sum and substance of the action. Also, by way of underplot, a shopgirl, oppressed by the deadly monotony and narrowness of her life, thinks of escaping it by marrying a middle-aged widower — and doesn't do it. If any one had told the late Francisque Sarcey or the late Clement Scott, that a play could be made out of this slender material, which should hold an audi- ence absorbed through four acts, and stir them to real enthusiasm, these eminent critics would have thought him a madman. Yet Miss Baker has achieved this feat, by the simple process of sup- plementing competent observation with a fair share of dramatic instinct." Exactly what does the dramatist supply in place of the usual dramatic clash ? Does the strug- gle take place entirely within the minds of the characters ? Is " Chains " in any way a " well- made " play? How? 2. The Russian dramatist AndreyefF is another who believes that external incidents — " action " — are not necessary for a play. In his " Letter on the Theater " (quoted in the introduction to the Scribner volume of translations) he asks the ques- 164 ELIZABETH BAKER tion : " Is action, in the accepted sense of move- ments and visible achievements on the stage, neces- sary to the theater? " Andreyeff's plays for the greater part depict mental and spiritual struggles, but Andreyeff makes use of soliloquy and even has recourse to the Deus ex machina device of the an- cients, by using such characters as " The Being in Grey" (in "The Life of Man") to explain the thoughts of his characters. Miss Baker, who doubtless has no definite theories, however, allows her simple and eminently human characters to work out their own destiny, without the aid of outside explanation. Compare the " static " plays, " The Intruder " of Maeterlinck and "The Life of Man" of Andreyeff, with " Chains." JAMES BARRIE Sir James Barrie was born at Kirriemuir in I860. Receiving his education at Dumfries and Edinburgh University, he turned to journalism, pursuing his work first at Nottingham and later in London. Although he began the writing of novels and sketches at an early- age, his plays were written contemporaneously, the first appearing in 1891. Barrie is a novelist whose best plays show nothing of the methods of the novelist; he is more successful in this respect than his nearest competitor, Gals- worthy. He is a born novelist and a born dramatist, the rarest of combinations. That same charm which emanates from " Sentimental Tommy " and " The Little Minister " has been carried over into " Peter Pan " and " What Every Woman Knows." With an unerring sense of true and fitting dramatic style, a charming sensibility, a knowledge of the devices of dramatic technic, Barrie writes plays which are sure to outlast the great mass of plays of the day. PLAYS Becky Sharp (1891). Ibsen's Ghost (1891). Richard Savage (1891)- Walker, London (1892). Performed at the Herald Square Theater, New York 1894. 165 166 JAMES BARRIE Jane Annie (1893). The Professor's Love Story (1894). Performed at the Star Theater, New York 1894. The Little Minister (1897). Performed by Maude Adams on tour 1897 and later. The Wedding Guest (1900). Quality Street (1902). Performed by Maude Adams on tour 1903. Re- vived at Empire Theater, New York 1913. The Admirable Crichton (1902). Performed, with William Gillette, at the Lyceum Theater, New York 1904. Little Mary (1903). Performed at the Empire Theater, New York 1904. Peter Pan (1904). Performed by Maude Adams on tour 1906 and in revival 1913. Pantaloon (1905). Performed at the Criterion Theater, New York 1905-6. Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire (1905). Performed by Ethel Barrymore on tour 1905-6. Josephine (1906). Punch (1906). What Every Woman Knows (1908). Performed by Maude Adams at the Empire Theater, New York 1908 and on tour. Old Friends (1910). The Twelve-pound Look (1910). Performed by Ethel Barrymore on tour 1911-2. JAMES BARRIE 167 A Slice of Life (1910). Performed by Ethel Barrymore at the Empire The- ater, New York 1912. Rosalind (1912). The Legend of Leonora (1913). Performed by Maude Adams on tour 1913-4. The Will (1913). Performed in New York 1913. "Der Tag," or The Tragic Man (1914). " Walker, London " is published by Samuel French ; " Quality Street " and " The Admirable Crichton " by Doran; " The Twelve-pound Look/' " Pantaloon/* " Rosalind/' and " The Will " in a volume called "Half-Hours/' by Scribner; " Der Tag" by same publisher. (As " The Admirable Crichton/' Barrie's best pub- lished play, is obtainable only in a $5.00 edition de luxe, two of the short plays are here selected for study.) References: P. P. Howe, "Dramatic Portraits" (Kennerley) and " The Repertory Theater " (Ken- nerley) ; William Archer, " Playmaking " (Small, Maynard) ; Brander Matthews, " A Study of the Drama" (Houghton Mifflin); A. B. Walkley, "Drama and Life" (Brentano). — Magazines: Har- per's Weehly, vol. 1 (p. 272); Fortnightly, vol. Ixxxv (p. 920) ; Critic, vol. xlviii (p. 334) ; Current Litera- ture, vol. xl (p. 409), vol. xl (p. 524) ; Forum, vol. xli (p. 137); Bookman, vol. xxxii (p. 308), vol. xxxviii (p. 263) ; Literary Digest, vol. xlix (p. 643) ; Century y vol. Ixxxviii (p. 801). PANTALOON A play in one act. First performed in 1905. This fantasy is very different in spirit from " The Twelve-pound Look/' although the technie, the charm- ing stage-directions, the ever-present Barrie charm, bring the two into close relation. 1. The stage-directions are much fuller than those in " The Twelve-pound Look." This little fairy-tale must have a more elaborate setting, and the author spares no pains to make us well ac- quainted with all the facts. So full are these direc- tions, that the play is practically a story, yet, in spite of this, the piece is more charming and effective as a stage piece than it would be as a short story. There are no irrelevancies. Barrie feels so kindly toward his audience that he wishes to establish an intimate rapport with them. In " Peter Pan," Peter at one place comes forward to the public and begs them to applaud. (In principle this is the vaudeville method of establishing relations between the stage and " the house "). In " Pantaloon " Barrie repeats the trick. On page 16 Pantaloon says: " But you do think me funny, don't you. Fairy.? Neither of you 168 JAMES BARRIE 169 can look at me without laughing, can you? Try, Boy; try, Fairy. {They try, hut fail. He is moved.) Thank you both, thank you kindly. If the public only knew how anxiously we listen for the laugh they would be less grudging of it." These words are, of course, put into the mouth of an old actor, but the device is none the less a per- sonal touch of the dramatist's, introduced for the purpose above referred to. 2. In the same volume with " Pantaloon " and " The Twelve-pound Look " is another one-act play, "The Will." This is divided into three scenes. Does the technic of this last play differ widely from that of the other two — the present and the one about to be considered.'* THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK A play in one act. First performed in I9IO. Perhaps the best way to test the ability of the novel- ist who is at the same time a dramatist is to ask whether a certain play is better as a drama than it would be as a novel or a story. " The Twelve-pound Look " might have been a story, but it is assuredly better as a play, because the dramatist has by means of externals, as a result of his own process of visual- ization, made points which could not have been so effectively made had the story been cast into narra- tive form. This is his justification. This little piece is not a novelized story: it is a play. 1. The question of stage-directions in modern plays is an interesting and a curious one. Bernard Shaw went far to incorporate long and detailed descriptions not only of settings but of states of mind ; he added irrelevant suggestions and ex- planations, occasionally, it must be admitted, quite outside the province of the mere dramatist. Until very recently, Barrie has refused to print his plays ; one reason for this was that, since they were written to be produced, much of the charm and atmosphere would be lost if the dialogue were reduced to cold type. Finally, however, he has 170 JAMES BARRIE 171 found a way of creating this necessary atmos- phere : the stage-directions in his few printed plays supply the much-feared deficiency, and it is to be doubted whether the imaginative reader loses much by not seeing the plays on the stage. Because of their whimsical charm, their personal intimacy, and literary merit, the stage-directions of Barrie sur- pass those of Shaw and Barker. Take, for ex- ample, the opening of " The Admirable Crichton " : A moment before the curtain rises the Hon. Ernest Woolley drives up to the door of Loam House in Mayfair. There is a happy smile on his pleasant, insignificant face, which presumably means that he is thinking of himself. He is too busy over nothing, this man about town, to be always thinking of himself, but, on the other hand, he almost never thinks of any other person. Probably Ernest's great moment is when he wakes of a morning and realizes that he really is Ernest, for we must all wish to be that which is our ideal. We can conceive him springing out of bed light-heartedly and waiting for his man to do the rest. He is dressed in excellent taste, with just the little bit more which shows that he is not without a sense of humor: the dandiacal are often saved by carrying a smile at the whole thing in their spats, let us say. . . . Throughout the play now under discussion there is a great deal of such intimate detail, but it will be noticed that, even if the dramatist describes 172 JAMES BARRIE something which cannot actually be seen on the stage, there is no irrelevancy. Every word makes for unity — in the reader's mind, if not for the spectator's physical eye. Can as much be said, for instance, of Shaw's " Getting Married "? 2. Barrie is a master of the one-act play-form. Does his technic differ radically from that of Sudermann in "Fritzchen"? Compare these two, then the present play with Shaw's " The Shewing- up of Blanco Posnet." 3. How far is " The Twelve-pound Look " in- tended to be realistic? JOHN OSWALD FRANCIS John Oswald Francis was born in 1882 at Merthyr Tydfil, in South Wales. His early education was re- ceived in the neighborhood of his native town; after- ward he attended the University College of Wales. He then taught school: in Paris, in Wales, and, since 1907, in London. Francis began his literary career a few years ago with contributions to The College Magazine, and has since " dabbled in journalism " in London. "Change" was his first full-length play; it brought its author considerable renown, as it won the Welsh Drama Competition in 1912, instituted by Lord Howard de Walden. Francis is here included first because of the intrinsic value of his play, then because he is a true representa- tive of the new Welsh movement in drama. In 1914? Lord Howard de Walden subsidized the Welsh Na- tional Drama Company, a repertory theater for plays both in Welsh and English. As yet, " Change " is the only play that has attracted widespread attention, but the movement is, according to all indications, thriving.* * In a letter to the writer, Francis says : " . . . I be- lieve in the music-hall and have no sympathy with the 'high-browed' condemnation of the people's joys. It is one of my ambitions to write short plays, which, while maintaining as high a literary merit as possible, will yet 173 174 JOHN OSWALD FRANCIS PLAYS Change (1912). Performed at the Booth Theater, New York 1914. The Bake-House (1913). The Poacher. For France (1914). " Change " is published, with an introduction by Montrose J. Moses, in the " Drama League Series '* (Doubleday, Page) ; " The Poacher " is published by Sidgwick and Jackson (London). Reference: Introduction to "Change." — Maga- zines: Bookman, vol. xxxix (p. 62); Review of Re- views, vol. li (p. 119). appeal to the man in the street. ... I was annoyed by some critic who, after ' Change,' called me ' this sad and somber realist.' By disposition, I am neither sad nor somber, and, on the strength of one play, whose sadness was dictated by the theme, it was not fair to envelop me in a mantle of perpetual black. When ' Change ' went into the repertory for Wales, I wrote ' The Poacher ' in order, amongst other things, to correct the notion that I did not like a bit of fun as much as anybody else." CHANGE A play in four acts. First performed in 1913. " Change " was first produced in London by the Incorporated Stage Society in 1913, but when, a few months later, it was performed at Cardiff by the Welsh National Drama Company, it was, in the author's words, the first " performance in Wales of a Welsh play by a professional repertory company in the history of the country." As Mr. Moses remarks in his preface to the American edition of the play, " Change " shows " a realization of all that is signifi- cant in the modern spirit settling over Wales." As a play it is intrinsically significant as regards technic and idea. 1. The very title of this play puts it in the same class with " Magda," " Milestones," " Ruth- erford and Son," " The Younger Generation," and the other plays which are based upon the struggle between generation and generation, between what is new and what is old and estab- lished. What is the " change " referred to in the title, and in what way has the dramatist made use of his material.'* 175 176 JOHN OSWALD FRANCIS S. This play serves as an excellent illustration of the fact that time-worn stage conventions can be used in such a way as not to seem out of place or insincere. It is only when insincere construc- tion and insincere characters are placed in a thor- oughly conventional framework that conventional tricks and devices are offensive. Attention is called in the introduction (p. xv) to the mob scene outside, toward the end of the third act. This is unquestionably a trick, but so well is it handled, and so earnest is the author, that the scene somehow is not immediately reminis- cent. 3. Many — it is safe to say, most — plays nar- row down in the penultimate act to one, two, or three characters : one by one the subordinate char- acters are eliminated, so that when the climax comes, it can be all the more dramatic, because it rests on that " spire of meaning " of which Gals- worthy speaks (p. 131). The reason for this is psychological: the law of attention demands that we fix our interest and sympathy on one object, for the presence of any more than one tends to scatter the attention. It is impossible to sym- pathize unless we can see individuals, or better still one individual, struggling with opponents. For two acts, " Change " has interested because of the theme, because of the numerous and varied char- acters, but rarely has our sympathy been aroused JOHN OSWALD FRANCIS 177 for persons; in order to introduce the human ele- ment, Francis drove home his theme by showing us the mother and Lizzie Ann. No amount of mere talk could so move us as this last scene of the third act: Given. — He's climbing the wall by Roberts's house. He's shouting to them. Lewis ! Lewis" ! Go down ! {She bends forward, and gives a frightened shriek.) There's our Gwilym. Look ! He's on the wall, trying to pull Lewis away Lizzie Ann. — There's four soldiers. O Dduw! Don't look! Don't look! They're going to shoot! {She drags Grven away from the window. There is a sound of firing without, followed by deep silence. In a whisper.) They've done it! Owen {pointing to the window). — Look! Lizzie Ann {shuddering). — I can't. Owen. — You must. Lizzie Ann. — I can't. {Gwen wavers a moment, and then forces herself toward the window and looks out.) Gwen. — They're carrying some one into Roberts's house. It's Lewis. No, there's Lewis ! {She bends forward; then in a harsh voice) Lizzie Ann, come here! {Lizzie Ann goes quickly to her, and looks out. She starts and turns away, sobbing out, " Oh, machgen bach-i! ") Gwen. — Is it Gwilym? 178 JOHN OSWALD FRANCIS Lizzie Ann. — Yes. Gwilym! {For a moment Gwen stands swaying to and fro. Then, with a cry of anguish, she falls prostrate on the floor.) Another proof that dramatists must show human emotions in order to make their audiences feel. Without this human element, it is doubtful whether " Change " would be in any way a successful stage play. 4. Compare the treatment of strikes in " Change," " Strife," and " Rutherford and Son." THE IRISH DRAJSIA WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin in 1865. He is the son of John B. Yeats, the artist. His early education was received in his native city and in Lon- don. Early in his career he identified himself with numerous attempts to revive the legends and litera- ture of ancient Ireland; in this connection his most important activity was the foundation, together with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and George Moore, of The Irish Literary Theater. Yeats has spent many years in collecting folk-lore ; this he has utilized in many of his plays and collected into volumes of prose essays. Outside his dramatic work, essays and collections of legendary material, are his poems, un- doubtedly that part of his total output by which he will be longest remembered: " Poems," first and sec- ond series, " The Wanderings of Oisin," " The Secret Rose," and " The Wind Among the Reeds." " The future will look back to Mr. Yeats as to a landmark in the literary history of Ireland, both be- cause of his artistic achievenrent and because he has been a leader in a remarkable movement. Through his poetry the Celtic spirit moves like a fresh wind," says H. S. Krans, in his " William Butler Yeats." Yeats brought to the theater great poetic gifts, he went far to arouse interest in the past glory of his country; as propagandist, as manager, as lecturer, he 181 182 WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS has done more than any other, with the possible ex- ception of Lady Gregory, to create a new and living art for Ireland, but he cannot be accounted a great dramatist. His vision is too limited, his genius too delicate, his temperament too subjective, to allow him to stand aloof and let his characters work out their destiny as human beings. PLAYS The Land of Heart's Desire (1894). Performed at Wallack's Theater, New York 1901. The Countess Cathleen (1899). Performed at Madison Square Garden, New York 1905. DiARMUiD AND Grania (in Collaboration with George Moore, 1901). Kathleen ni Houlihan (1902). Performed at the Hudson Theater, New York 1905. A Pot of Broth (1902). The Hour-Glass (1903). Performed at the Hudson Theater, New York 1904* The King's Threshold (1903). The Shadowy Waters (1904). On Bailees Strand (1904). Performed at the Little Theater, Chicago 1911. Deirdre (1906). The Unicorn from the Stars (in collaboration with Lady Gregory, 1907). The Golden Helmet (1908). There are a great many editions of Yeats's plays, owing to the fact that the poet has in some cases WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 183 revised and rewritten certain of them six or seven times. The largest collected edition is that published by A. H. Bullen, at Stratf ord-on-Avon : "The Col- lected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats " (in eight volumes. Macmillans publish a volume of his poetic plays in " Poetical Works/' Vol. II). " The Land of Heart's Desire " is also published separately by Mosher (Portland, Maine). " Kathleen ni Houlihan/' " The Hour-Glass/' and " A Pot of Broth" are published in a single volume by Mac- millan; " Kathleen ni Houlihan/' " The Hour-Glass/' and " The Unicorn from the Stars " are also published in a volume by the same; also " The Golden Helmet/'^ in a volume with poems. " Diarmuid and Grania " has not been published. " The Unicorn from the Stars " is a rewritten ver- sion of an earlier play, " Where There is Nothing/' which is now out of print. " The Hour-Glass " is in " Chief Contemporary Dramatists " (Houghton Mifflin). References: Horatio Sheaf e Krans, "William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary Re- vival" (Doubleday, Page); Lady Gregory, "Our Irish Theater" (Putnam); Maurice Bourgeois, "John Millington Synge and the Irish Dramatic Movement" (MacmiUan) ; Cornelius Weygandt, "Irish Plays and Playwrights" (Houghton Mifflin); Frank Wadleigh Chandler, "Aspects of Modern Drama" (Macmillan) ; B. Russell Herts, " Deprecia- tions " (Boni, New York); Clayton Hamilton, "Studies in Stagecraft" (Holt); Ludwig Lewisohn, 184 WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS " The Modern Drama " (Huebsch) ; George Moore, " Hail and Farewell " (Appleton) ; James Huneker, " The Pathos of Distance " (Scribner) ; W. B. Yeats, " Ideas of Good and Evil " (Macmillan) ; Alan Wade, " Bibliography of Yeats " (" Collected Works/' Bullen, Vol. VIII) ; L. Paul-Dubois, " Contemporary Ireland " (Maunsel) ; anonymous, " The New Irish Drama," a reading list (Drama League of America). — Magazines: Poet-Lore, vol. xv (p. 83); Critic, vol. xliv (p. 26) ; Collier's, vol. xlviii (p. 15) ; Living Age, vol. cclxix (p. Q55); Fortnightly, vol. xci (p. 34-2); Harper's Weekly, vol. xlviii (p. 291); Booh News Monthly, vol. xxii (p. 1024) ; Westminster Review, vol. clxxvi (p. 1); North American, vol. clxxv (p. 473); Quarterly, vol. ccxv (p. 219). THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN A play in five scenes. First performed in 1899- It has already been stated that Yeats's greatest con- tribution to the movement he went so far. to establish was not the plays he wrote for it, but his unfailing encouragement, his managerial ability, his propagand- ist endeavors. Yet his plays deserve consideration, as they are attempts at a new style of drama, not as to form but as to treatment of subject-matter, and lit- erary style. This, of course, has very little to do with dramatic technic, but the study of these accessories is well worth while. In his preface to the second vol- ume of the " Poetical Works " he says: " I have chosen all of my themes from Irish legend or Irish history, and my friends? have made joyous, extravagant, and, as I am certain, distinguished comedy out of the com- mon life of the villages, or out of a fantasy trained by the contemplation of that life and of the tales told by its firesides. This theater cannot but be more interesting to people of other races because it is Irish, and, therefore, to some extent, stirred by emotions and thoughts not hitherto expressed in dramatic form. ..." 1. There is a mystical atmosphere in "The Countess Cathlcen " which is comparable with the earlier plays of Maeterlinck. In what respects is 185 186 WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS this play similar in technic to " The Intruder " or " Pelleas and Melisande "? Are there any in- dications that Yeats was influenced by the Belgian? 2. In a note to his " Deirdre " (in the " Col- lected Works ") Yeats says: " The principal diffi- culty with the form of dramatic literature I have adopted is that, unlike the loose Elizabethan form, it continually forces one by its rigor of logic away from one's capacities, experiences, and desires, until, if one have not patience to wait till it comes, there is rhetoric and logic and dry circumstance where there should be life." In this play are there evidences of this struggle of which the poet speaks? Where and of what sort are they? Does Yeats fall into conventional grooves? Is there any special reason why the play should be divided into five scenes? Are there well-defined divisions in the play: exposition, development, climax, etc.? 3. As in Stephen Philhps's " Paolo and Fran- cesca," there are many lyrical passages and short speeches which are of independent value and strik- ing beauty, apart from the dramatic context. Is " You shall at last dry like dry leaves, and hang Nailed like dead vermin to the doors of God," more eff*ective because it is spoken by Maire in a certain place in this play, than it would be if it WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 187 stood alone or as part of an epic? Are the superb lines, " The years like great black oxen tread the world. And God the herdsman goads them on behind. And I am broken by their passing feet." epic or dramatic ? 4. Read Yeats's "Kathleen ni Houlihan," a prose play which is eminently effective on the stage. Compare it carefully with " The Countess Cathleen." In what respects do the two plays differ? Why is the prose piece more " theatrical "? In " Kathleen ni Houlihan " are there any pas- sages, as there are in "The Countess Cathleen," which might stand alone by reason of their in- trinsic beauty? 5. Notice the stage-directions. They are sim- ple, but they indicate the poet's sense of action and dramatic effect. The play closes with: " A sound of far-off horns seems to come from the heart of the Light. The vision melts away, and the forms of the kneeling PEASANTS appear faintly in the darkness,'' Often a dramatist throws out a hint, which the stage-manager is intended to act upon, filling in the necessary "business." How much leeway has the manager in the present play? JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE Edmund John Millington Synge was born at New- town Little^ in the vicinity of Dublin, in 1871. Not much is known of his early life, except that he lived at home until he was nearly twenty, that he entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1888, and was graduated four years later. His predilection was for languages and music, although he was ever an ardent nature- lover. For many years he wandered about the Conti- nent, writing a little and allowing impressions of men and nature to gather in his receptive mind. He went first to Germany, with the intention of pursuing his musical studies; after a year, he abandoned the idea and went to Paris, in order to do literary criticism. Still uncertain of his true calling, he made various though unsuccessful attempts to write poetry and essays. He did not " find himself " until he was dis- covered by another young enthusiast from Ireland, W. B. Yeats, who, in 1898, induced him to leave Paris and return to Ireland and devote himself to a study of the people, and write real Irish plays for the recently- founded Irish Theater. In the Aran Islands, in Wicklow and Kerry and Connemara, Synge found the necessary material and inspiration for his plays. He died of cancer at Dublin in 1909- Synge was quiet, introspective, reticent, yet he al- lowed his true temperament — with all its wild vagari- 188 JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE 189 ous longings, its furious exultations — to find expression in his plays. " He loves/' says Yeats, " all that has edge, all that is salt in the mouth, all that is rough to the hand, all that heightens the emotions by contest, all that stings into life the sense of tragedy. . . . The food of the spiritual-minded is' sweet, an Indian scripture says, but passionate minds love bitter food." His interest was in humanity, in everyday life, espe- cially in those manifestations of primitive life which he knew so well how to seek out and use to advantage. PLAYS The Shadow of the Glen (1903). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1912-3. Riders to the Sea (1904). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1912-3. The Well of the Saints (1905). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1912-3. The Playboy of the Western World (1907). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1912-3. The Tinker's Wedding (1909). Deirdre of the Sorrows (1910). Performed by the Chicago Musical College 1913. " The Works of John M. Synge," a collected edi- tion in four volumes, is published by Luce. Cheap editions of all the plays are published separately by the same publisher. " Riders to the Sea " is included in " Chief Contemporary Dramatists " (Houghton Mifflin). Maunsel publishes the complete plays in one volume. References: Francis Bickley, "J. M. Synge and 190 JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE the Irish Dramatic Movement" (Houghton Mifflin); Maurice Bourgeois,, " John Millington Synge and the Irish Theater " (Macmillan) ; C. E. Montague, " Dramatic Values " (Macmillan) ; P. P. Howe, " J. M. Synge " (Kennerley) ; Cornelius Weygandt, " Irish Plays and Playwrights " (Houghton Mif- flin) ; George Moore, " Hail and Farewell " (Ap- pleton) ; Lady Gregory, " Our Irish Theater " (Put- nam) ; W. B. Yeats, " The Cutting of an Agate " (Macmillan) ; L. Paul-Dubois, " Contemporary Ireland " (Maunsel) ; Ludwig Lewisohn, " The Modern Drama " (Huebsch) ; Clayton Hamilton, " Studies' in Stagecraft " (Holt) ; Darrell Figgis, " Studies and Appreciations " (Dutton) ; William Archer, " Playmaking " (Small, Maynard) ; John Masefield, " Dictionary of National Biography " ; Mario Borsa, " The English Stage of To-day " (Lane) ; Frank Wadleigh Chandler, " Aspects of Modern Drama " (Macmillan) ; James Huneker, " The Pathos of Distance " (Scribner) ; John M. Synge, prefaces to " The Plaj^boy of the Western World " and " The Tinker's Wedding "; " The Aran Islands" and "In Kerry and Wicklow " (Luce). — Magazines : Contemporary Review, vol. xcix (p. 470) Dial, vol. 1 (p. 37), vol. liv (p. 233) ; Living Age, vol cclxix (p. 163), vol. cclxxx (p. 777); Nation, vol xciii (p. 376), vol. xcv (p. 608) ; Yale Review, vol. (p. 192), vol. ii (p. 767) ; Forum, vol. xlvii (p. 55) Current Literature, vol. liii (p. 695), RIDERS TO THE SEA A play in one act. First performed in 1904. This little drama, while it has none of the uproari- ous " romping " of " The Playboy/' is still an unmis- takable indication of Synge's keen enthusiasm for all that concerns human life. If he can take pleasure in the vitality and animal spirits of a Christy Mahon, he can likewise savor the dumb tragedy of a Maurya. The play is a picture, compressed and synthesized, of the helplessness of a mother in her hopeless strug- gle with the sea. 1. Synge's perfect mastery of words is one of his greatest assets. Like Shakspere, he can at once supply environment, create atmosphere, paint word-pictures. That sharp contrast between the homely and everyday in life and the gruesomeness of death is clearly drawn in " Riders to the Sea." Bartley says: "Where is the bit of new rope, Cathleen, was bought in Connemara ? " and Cath- leen replies : " Give it to him, Nora, it's on a nail by the white boards. I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it." This is what Yeats means when he speaks of Synge's loving all that has edge. 191 192 JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE 2. In " Vale," the second volume of his " Hail and Farewell," George Moore wrote of " Riders to the Sea " : " . . . when I heard this one-act play, it seemed very little more than the contents of Synge's notebook, an experiment in language rather than a work of art, a preparatory essay; he seemed to me to have contented himself with re- lating a painful rather than a dramatic story, his preoccupation being to discover a style, a vehicle of expression. ..." And the incident is pain- ful rather than dramatic, for the struggle must be felt in the background, it cannot be seen and participated in by the audience. Consequently, we might almost feel that the struggle here de- picted was so hopeless as to leave no room for anything but dumb submission. A true tragedy ought to give the hero a chance to fight ; here the dice are loaded. The play is, however, a powerful and beautiful picture. " Riders to the Sea " serves to illustrate the es- sential difference between the one-act play and the play in two or more acts : since the former is al- most always concerned with but a single incident, it is capable of very little development. Now a tragedy is not a fact nor an event ; it must show great and strong characters — or at least charac- ters in which there is potential greatness or strength — struggling with forces which are finally too great to be overcome. And me must see the JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE 193 struggle. A tragic figure must have the oppor- tunity to fail honorably, and we wish to see him trying to evade his fate. " Hamlet " would be ordinary melodrama if we were deprived of his soul-revealing soliloquies ; " (Edipus," too, if we could not follow the King's efforts to escape what was decreed. A one-act play can scarcely more than indicate the result of a struggle. The last act of " Hamlet " is not a tragedy in itself, and " Riders to the Sea," like that last act, is but the result of what has gone on for a long time before. At the end we feel something of the great sorrow and eventual peace of the old woman in her last words : " Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of the Almighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that.? No man at all can be living forever, and we must be satisfied." Still, the struggle was wanting. Is a one-act tragedy possible.? THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD A comedy in three acts. First performed in 1907. In the preface to " The Playboy " Synge wrote : ". . . in countries where the imagination of the peo- ple, and the language they use, is rich and living, it is possible for a writer to be rich and copious in his words, and at the same time give the reality, which is the root of all poetry, in a comprehensive and natural form." This play is the living embodiment of Synge's ideas on the combination of reality and poetry in the drama. " The Playboy " — indeed, all of Synge's plays — is outside the realm of literary " movements " and coteries ; his plays are not plays of ideas. Theses and problems die. Ideas are for a generation, or for a few generations. Again the dramatist expounds (in the preface to " The Tinker's Wedding ") : " The drama is made serious — in the French sense of the word — not by the degree in which it is taken up with problems that are serious in themselves, but by the degree in which it gives the nourishment, not very easy to define, on which our imaginations live. . . . The drama, like the symphony, does not teach or prove anything. ..." 1. In his travel-book, " The Aran Islands,'^ we find the following passage: ". . « He often tells 194 JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE 195 me about a Connaught man who killed his father with the blow of a spade when he was in a passion, and then fled to this island and threw himself on the mercy of some of the natives. . . . They hid him in a hole . . . and kept him safe for weeks, though the police came and searched for him, and he could hear their boots grinding on the stones over his head. In spite of a reward which was offered, the island was incorruptible, and after much trouble the man was safely shipped to America. " This impulse to protect the criminal is univer-, sal in the west. It seems partly due to the associa- tion between justice and the hated English juris- diction, but more directly to the primitive feeling of these people, who are never criminals yet always capable of crime, that a man will not do wrong unless he is under the influence of a passion which is as irresistible as a storm on the sea. If a man has killed his father, and is already sick and broken with remorse, they can see no reason why he should be dragged away and killed by the law. " Such a man, they say, will be quiet all the rest of his life, and if you suggest that punishment is needed as an example, they ask, ' Would any one kill his father if he was able to help it? ' " Out of his sympathy and enthusiasm for life, its humor, its bite, its contradictions, its exhilaration, Synge wrote this play. The dramatist's end was 196 JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE "reality" and "joy." He was little concerned with technic, he had no purpose but that of allow- ing his living creatures to revel in life, to revel in rich idioms. Still, this apparently spontaneous comedy was the result of arduous labor: George Moore relates that the last act was rewritten thir- teen times. 2. Many plays, of all ages and periods, have contained first acts with very little in them but the exposition of a few facts and the creation of the environment or milieu. The opening of " The Playboy " is full of atmosphere, and strikes the keynote of the action which is to follow ; but there is no such conscious preparation as there is in the expository act of Pinero's " Thunderbolt." Peg- een Mike, in Synge's play, opens the act with: " Six yards of stuff for to make a yellow gown. A pair of lace boots with lengthy heels on them and brassy eyes. A hat is suited for a wedding-day. A fine tooth comb. To be sent with three barrels of porter in Jimmy Farrell's creel cart on the even- ing of the coming Fair to Mister Michael James Flaherty. With the best compliments of this sea- son. Margaret Flaherty." Compare this simple paragraph with the elaborate preparatory open- ings of " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray " and " Iris." S. Throughout the play the development of the plot, such as it is, goes hand in hand with the JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE 197 development of Christy's character. Beginning with Christy's " I had it in my mind it was a differ- ent word and a bigger " (just after his entrance in the first act), trace, by reference to his speeches, how, in his own estimation and in that of his audi- ence, he grows from " a shght young man . . . very tired and frightened and dirty " to a " likely gaffer in the end of all." There is a certain simi- larity between the growth of Hamlet's character and Christy's. 4. " The Playboy " is literary in the dramatic sense of the word. Can the same be said of Stephen Phillips's " Paolo and Francesca " .? AUGUSTA GREGORY Lady Augusta Gregory was born at Roxborough, County Galway, Ireland, in 1859- For many years she has participated, like Yeats, in various revivals^f./ Irish lore and literature, and in the creation of a national theater and drama. Together with Yeats and other collaborators, she helped found the Irish Na- tional Theater Society^ and is now manager of the Abbey Theater in Dublin. Lady Gregory is one of the raosrt important figures in the modern Irish movement: her rewriting of the ancient Irish legends — in " Cuchulain of Muir- themne," " Gods and Fighting Men," and " The Book of Saints and Wonders " — her plays, her lecturing, her co-operation in innumerable societies for the social and political betterment of her country, entitle her to a place of honor by the side of Yeats. Her best plays, her comedies that is, were written in order to furnish relief to the historical plays, the folk and fairy-plays which were at one period threatening to make the Abbey Theater a one-sided institution. In the note appended to " Spreading the News," she says: " The idea of this play first came to me as a tragedy. . . . But comedy and not tragedy was wanted at our the- ater to put beside the high poetic work, * The King's Threshold,' ' The Shadowy Waters,' ' On Baile's Strand,' ' The Well of the Saints ' ; and I let laughter 198 AUGUSTA GREGORY 199 have its way with the little play." Five of the com- edies in her volume called " Seven Short Plays," and one or two others, are surely as quaint and humorous and truly comic as any of our time. They may well be compared with the lighter pieces of Moliere : kindly yet satirical, gay yet at times bitter, but always in- tensely human. Lady Gregory excels in the one-act form ; in her longer plays, like " The Image," she lacks the necessary skill in the construction of a mov- ing and interesting story. Of mystic and tragic beauty Lady Gregory is more sparing, but " The Traveling Man " and " The Gaol Gate," the latter in particular, are noble bits of pathos, well written in stately and rhythmical prose. Were it not for the haunting echoes of Synge's language, there would be no ground for hesitating to place Mary Cahel's speeches in " The Gaol Gate " as the finest prose produced in the Irish Theater. PLAYS Spreading the News (1904). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1911-2. KiNCORA (1905). The White Cockade (1905). Hyacinth Halvey (1906). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1911-2. The Gaol Gate (1906). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1911-2. The Canavans (1906). The Jackdaw (1907). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1911-2. 200 AUGUSTA GREGORY The Rising of the Moon (1907). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1911-2. The Poorhouse (in collaboration with Douglas Hyde, 1907). Dervorgilla (1907). The Unicorn from the Stars (in collaboration with W. B. Yeats, 1907). The Workhouse Ward (1908). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1911-2. The Image (1909). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1911-2. The Traveling Man (191O). The Full Moon (191O). Coats (191O). Performed by the Irish Players 1913. The Deliverer (19II). MacDarragh's Wife (1912). The Bogie Men (1912). Damer's Gold (1912). Performed by the Irish Players 1913. Lady Gregory has translated plays' by Moliere, Sudermann, and Goldoni. " Spreading the News/' " Hyacinth Halvey/' " The Gaol Gate/' " The Jackdaw/' " The Rising of the Moon/' " The Workhouse Ward/' and " The Travel- ing Man " are published in " Seven Short Plays " by Maunsel (Putnam is the American agent) ; " Grania/' " Kincora/' " Dervorgilla/' " The Canavans/' " The White Cockade/' and " The Deliverer " are published by Putnam in two volumes as " Folk-History Plays " ; "The Image" is published separately by Maunsel; AUGUSTA GREGORY 201 " The Full Moon," " Coats/' " MacDarragh's Wife/' " The Bogie Men/' and " Darner's Gold " are pub- lished by Putnam in " New Comedies "; " The Rising of the Moon " is included in " Chief Contemporary- Dramatists " (Houghton Mifflin). The translations from Moliere are published by Maunsel in " The Kil- tartan Moliere." The other translations are not pub- lished. For " The Unicorn from the Stars/' see under William Butler Yeats'. " The Poorhouse " is not obtainable. References: See under William Butler Yeats^ gen- eral reference books on the Irish movement by Corne- lius Weygandt, Mario Borsa^ L. Paul-Dubois, Maurice Bourgeois, Lady Gregory, W. B. Yeats, George Moore, Clayton Hamilton, and Ludwig Lewisohn. — Magazines: Quarterly Review, vol. ccxv (p. 234); Collier's, vol. xlvii (p. 15); Outlook, vol. xcix (p. 916) ; Forum, vol. xlviii (p. 465) ; Contemporary Re~ vierv, vol. cii (p. 602) ; Independent, vol. Ixxiv (p. 857) ; Living Age, vol. cclxxxi (p. 332). HYACINTH HALVEY A comedy in one act. First performed in 1906. The note (p. 205, " Seven Short Plays ") tells of the origin of this little play: " I was pointed out one evening a well-brushed, well-dressed man in the stalls, and was told gossip about him, perhaps not all true, which made me wonder if that appearance and be- havior as of extreme respectability might not now and again be felt a burden. After a while he translated himself in my mind into Hyacinth; and as one must set one's original a little way off to get a translation rather than a tracing, he found himself in Cloon, where, as in other parts of our country, ' character ' is built up or destroyed by a password or an emotion, rather than by experience or deliberation. The idea was more of a universal one than I knew at the first, and I have had but uneasy appreciation from some apparently blameless friends." Like most of Lady Gregory's comedies, " Hyacinth Halvey " contains a universal idea or basis: reputa- tion is in a great measure a matter of " a password or an emotion." Hyacinth, having a good reputation thrust upon him, may do as he likes: his good name will cling to him. In this play we laugh at humanity : here is the essence of comedy. 202 AUGUSTA GREGORY 203 1. In the realm of what is termed the modern drama, we have seen that classification is becoming more and more difficult. " Hyacinth Halvey " can safely be termed comedy, but comedy with a con- tinual tendency toward farce. The characters are undoubtedly " possible," and the situation likewise, yet somehow Hyacinth's unbroken series of fail- ures to lose his good reputation, and Fardy Far- relPs unparalleled failures to lose his bad one, lead us to assume that the dramatist is bordering upon farce. Possibly the Irish setting and the good sim- ple people render the episodes sufficiently foreign to enable us to accept the facts, yet these charac- ters are so delightfully human that they must be taken as universal types. 2. This play, together with " Spreading the News," "The Jackdaw," and "The Workhouse Ward," raises again the question of comedy and tragedy. At the risk of being paradoxical, one might say that a tragedy is a play the closing of which is its goal, the spire of its meaning; a comedy is one the whole of which stands in and by itself, for the sake of its characters, and which has no end. Tragedy shows the struggles of strong individuals against fate (" GEdipus ") or circum- stances ("Romeo and Juliet"); against them- selves ("Hamlet") or against others ("Julius Caesar " and " Othello "), and must end in defeat. Comedy is not concerned with the outcome; it 204 AUGUSTA GREGORY amuses us from minute to minute: the outcome never seriously matters. Usually the end is the union of lovers, which is the merest convention. Had " Hamlet " ended in any other way than as it does, the play would have been spoiled or rad- ically changed, had " As You Like It " not ended with the series of unions, the play would still have had meaning in itself, intrinsic dramatic value. Tragedy points forward to the catastrophe — it is not a tragedy until the tragic outcome occurs — comedy is sufficient unto itself. Lady Gregory has recognized this fact, and has left three or four of her comedies with " hanging " ends. The best examples of this are " Hyacinth Halvey " and " The Jackdaw." In the former, we are shown Hyacinth tr3''ing in vain to undeceive the people as to his " character " ; a series of in- cidents demonstrates the utter futility of the at- tempt. There is no denouement; " Let us there- fore ring down the curtain," says Lady Gregory. Similarly, in " The Jackdaw," there is no solu- tion: the police are coming, there will doubtless be an explanation, but that will not interest us. Therefore the dramatist says : " Sounds of feet and talking and knock at the door. Cooney hides under counter. Nestor lies down on top of bench, spreads his newspaper over him. Mrs. Broderiek goes behind counter.^' Then Nestor says: '^(rais- ing paper from his face and looking out) Tommy AUGUSTA GREGORY 205 Nally, I will give you five shillings if you will draw ' Tit-Bits ' over my feet." — That is the end. 3. Notice by way of comparison the elaborate denouements of " Sweet Lavender " and " The Liars." THE RISING OF THE MOON A play in one act. First performed in 1907. The origin of this little patriotic play was of the slightest sort^ according to the author (see p. 205, "Seven Short Plays"). Its simplicity, its direct emotional appeal, its quiet humor, leave scarcely any ground for criticism or analysis. 1. With all its simplicity, " The Rising of the Moon " is a carefully prepared little play. Ob- serve the methods used to create atmosphere. An effective bit of " living stage-direction " is the speech : " There's a flight of steps here that leads to the water. This is a place that should be minded well. If he got down here, his friends might have a boat to meet him ; they might send it in here from outside." Without more ado, the action is begun : two and a half pages supply what preparation is needful, then the Ballad-singer comes in. The quick, short dialogue, the quaint idioms, the amusing manner in which the slight plot winds about, but ever pursues its way upward to the climax (pp. 94-5) — all this reveals careful workmanship. The denouement is brief, and the close very effective. Could Lady Gregory have left the end of this 206 AUGUSTA GREGORY 207 play " hanging," as she did in " Hyacinth Hal- vey " and " The Jackdaw "? 2. During the past few years certain critics and dramatists — Synge, Jones,* Bennett, and Knob- lauch are among the latter — have either openly or in practice advocated a return to the play for the play's sake, and have consistently avoided thesis plays, plays with " ideas." Ideas, they feel, are usurping the place of joy and life in the the- ater. They object in general to Brieux and Bernard Shaw, not primarily because such drama- tists write plays for the purpose of furthering a reform or combating a social abuse or setting forth problems, but because in so doing they are abusing the dramatic form, which is intended to represent all of life, and not to expose ideas which have to do, in a greater or less degree, with life. Lady Gregory, in particular, depicts life as she sees it, and allows ideas to grow out of her por- trayal of it. She is always more interested in people than in things and abstract ideas, so that her plays are likely to outlive those of Hervieu and Brieux in which abstractions preponderate. She is not devoid of ideas— far from it— only her ideas are always inseparable from her characters. She has not " lost sight of the individual." 8. In what respects is "The Rising of the Moon " a theatrical play ? *See Henry Arthur Jones, "The Theater of Ideas" (Doran). T. C. MURRAY T. C. Murray was born in a small town in the County Cork^ in 1873. Educated at local schools^ he entered St. Patrick's College in Dublin, and studied to become a teacher. At the end of two years, he was qualified to teach as a National schoolmaster, and has taught in various schools in his native county. At an early age he wrote verse, and in 1909 his first play, " The Wheel o' Fortune," was produced at a little theater in Cork. Extracts from a letter to the writer will explain some of Mr. Murray's activities: " I think I may at the outset safely describe myself as a playwright by accident. Five or six years ago a knot of Cork people of literary tastes formed a society for the production of original plays by Corkmen. The secre- tary buttonholed me on the street one Saturday even- ing, desiring to know if I had ever essayed anything in drama. I had not. . . . He urged me to try something in dramatic literature for the society and in a few weeks the MS. of ' The Wheel o' Fortune,' a little one-act comedy of matchmaking, was in his hands. . . . The comedy, despite its many crudities, proved a surprising success. Something over a year ago I reconstructed the ending . . . and rewrote most of the dialogue, and it was produced by the Abbey Company . . . under the title of ' Sovereign 208 T. C. MURRAY 209 Love.' 'Birthright' (October, 191O) followed 'The Wheel o' Fortune.' Whatever craft there is in it comes from pure instinct. After ' Birthright ' came ' Maurice Harte ' (June, 1912), and in the meantime I had devoured all that was significant in modern dramatic literature, making a study of the Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, and German schools of drama ... I am told that the technic of * Maurice Harte ' is inferior to that of ' Birthright.' Instinct itself proved the surer guide in shaping and working out my theme ! " PLAYS The Wheel o^ Fortune (1909). Birthright (1910). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1911-2. Maurice Harte (1912). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1912-S. Sovereign Love (1914). " Birthright " and " Maurice Harte " are published by Luce. The other plays have not yet appeared in print. References: Books already referred to by Corne- lius Weygandt, Frank Wadleigh Chandler, Clayton Hamilton. BIRTHRIGHT A play in two acts. First performed in IQIO. " Birthright " is unquestionably the best of the realistic plays of the younger generation of Irish play- wrights. It is masterly in construction^ full of good characterization, and contains the spirit of true tragedy. No other Irish play of its kind is so relent- lessly direct, so moving, so stirring and powerful. Like the same author's " Maurice Harte," it is con- cerned with a family struggle: the conflict between man and wife, between brother and brother. 1. The dialogue of the first fifteen pages ap- pears casual and yet inevitable. While this is all exposition, at the same time it starts an emotional rise. The antagonism of Bat and his wife Maura is clearly set forth in words and action, while that between the brothers, neither of whom has yet ap- peared, is introduced in the course of the con- versation. Then Shane, the younger son, comes in (p. 15). There is a momentary release of dramatic tension, then a foreboding note in the remarks about the weather (see paragraph on the "pathetic fallacy," p. 156, present volume), then the elder son, Hugh, makes his appearance (p. 19). Here is a striking contrast, for Hugh is a 210 T. C. MURRAY 211 splendid, athletic, whole-hearted fellow. The scene with his mother affords contrast as well as neces- sary information for the audience. Hugh must go out for the evening; he leaves just before his father and brother re-enter. Again the fate-motif is sounded : " Well, 'tis the long lane that have no turning, and my brave Hugh have come to the turning at last." For Bat has determined to send Hugh to America in place of Shane (p. 27). There is a climax at the end of this act, as Shane's name on the trunk tag is changed to Hugh's. The curtain leaves the audience just sufficiently sure of what is to happen to avoid confusion, and curious enough to feel further interest. 2. The first act has been analyzed in some detail as to the progress of the story. One of the most striking and admirable qualities of this play is what may be termed sweep: compressed into two short acts is a complete tragedy, the basis of which is as old and as universal as the world. Given the means and the background, the author could scarcely have allowed more space to the de- velopment of the plot, and, judged according to the criterion of theatrical effectiveness — or even reading — it would have been superfluous and there- fore fatal, to add more. With very little preparation, the climax and tragedy of the second act is reached : the first part of the act is the simplest sort of development. 212 T. C. MURRAY From the moment Shane enters (p. 38) the action rises swiftly, naturally, fatally, until Hugh is *' felled to the ground," and the play closes. Probably the extreme simplicity and directness of the play were the result of the author's instinct- ive feeling for what is dramatic. His words (p. 209) serve but to show that dramatists are for the most part born, not made. 3. St. John G. Ervine's " Mixed Marriage " is in four acts, yet its story is essentially as unified as that of " Birthright," In what way does Ervine justify the division into four, rather than three or two acts ? Would " Mixed Marriage " have been a better play if it had been condensed into three acts, or two.? Could it have been? ST. JOHN G. ERVINE St. John G. Ervine was born at Belfast, in 1883. He first entered the insurance business, then was dramatic critic of the Daily Citizen. Since his resi- dence in London he has written a number of miscel- laneous essays, a few plays, and the novel: "Mrs. Martin's Man." Ervine is one of the younger group in the Irish movement, who, together with T. C. Murray and Lennox Robinson, have turned their attention to the realistic depiction of life in the cities and small towns. Ervine has with one exception laid the scene of his principal plays in and around Belfast: " Mixed Marriage," " The Orangeman," and " The Magnani- mous Lover " are plays of town life, and stand in dis- tinct contrast with the wild, half-imaginary fantasies of Synge, the quaint comedies of Lady Gregory, and the fairy twilight plays of Yeats. Ervine concerns himself with the struggle of character with character: Prote^ant and Catholic, youth and age, prejudice and freedom. His power lies in the creation of human characters. The father and mother in " Mixed Mar- riage," the father and mother again in " The Orange- man," and Jane Clegg in the play of that name, are distinct contributions. " Jane Clegg," his latest play, is laid in England, and marks a departure in subject- matter. 213 214 ST. JOHN G. ERVINE PLAYS Mixed Marriage (1911). Performed by the Irish Players on tour 1911-2. The Magnanimous Lover (1912). The Orangeman (1913). The Critics (1913). Jane Clegg (1914). IsA Blackwood (1914). The first four of these plays are published in a single volume, " Four Irish Plays/' by Maunsel (Dublin); "Mixed Marriage" and "The Magnani- mous Lover " are issued separately by the same pub- lisher (Luce in America) ; " Jane Clegg " is published by Sidgwick and Jackson (London). ^References: Books already referred to under William Butler Yeats, by Cornelius Weygandt and Clayton Hamilton. — Magazine: Everybody's, vol. xxviii (p. 678). MIXED MARRIAGE A play in four acts. First performed in 1911- This is primarily a play of character, the &ort in which this dramatist excels. The men and women, and the environment in which they exist, are what interest him. 1. In order the better to set off his characters he has introduced a thesis, which is clearly stated (p. 7 of the "Four Irish Plays") in the first act. Rainey says: "A wudden have a son o' mine marry a Cathlik fur all the wurl. A've nathin' agin the girl, but A believe in stickin' t'yer religion. A Cathlik's a Cathlik, and a Prodesan's a Prodesan. Ye can't get over that." Tom replies : " Och, sure, they're all the same. Ye cudden tell the differs atween a Cath- lik an' a Prodesan if ye met them in the street an' didden know what their religion wus. A'm not one fur marryin' out o' my religion meself, but A'm no bigot. Nora Murray's a fine wumman." With this plain statement of theme we might be prone to expect at first a thesis play, pure and simple, but the next speech affords at least a cue as to the trend the play will take. When Rainey declares, " Fine or no fine, she's a Cathlik an' A'll 215 216 ST. JOHN G. ERVINE niver consent til a son o' mine marryin' her," it is reasonable to assume that the play will be one of " conflicting wills." This is in fact what it is, and the wills conflict over a question which is after all of only secondary artistic importance. Rainey and Mrs. Rainey, Nora Murray and Hugh, must have something to struggle about, something which will develop and expose their characters. This first act, like the succeeding ones, is well balanced: character against character, with suffi- cient plot and sufficient background to form an harmonious whole. 2. The struggle, it has been frequently observed, is one of the basic principles, though not unalter- able laws, of the drama from time immemorial. A play in which there is a sharply indicated clash of interests, like Echegaray's " Madman or Saint " and the present work, begins with a more or less general statement : in the case of " Mixed Marriage " it consists in Rainey 's objection to the intermarriage of Protestants and Catholics. First we are shown that his son Hugh is in love with Nora Murray, a Catholic. But the dramatist does not consider it sufficient to confine the struggle to these few people: he introduces external forces. Michael's words (p. 18) are ominous: "It mightn't be again you on'y though ? " Notice how the struggle develops from the particular to the general. THE AMERICAN DRAMA BRONSON HOWARD Bronson Croker Howard was born at Detroit, in 1842. Receiving his primary education in Detroit, he prepared himself for Yale at an eastern prepara- tory school, but was prevented from entering college because of an affection of the eyes. He then returned to Detroit, and joined the staff of the Free Press, to which he made numerous contributions. At the same time he was experimenting with the play-form. Most of his early attempts were never produced. His first play was a dramatization of an episode from " Les Miserables," called " Fantine " ; this was produced in Detroit in 1864. The following year Howard came to New York, wrote for the Tribune and the Post, carried plays from manager to manager during a period of five years, until in 1870 Augustin Daly accepted and produced "Saratoga," which was im- mensely successful. From then on Howard's success was assured; "The Banker's Daughter," "Young Mrs. Winthrop," "The Henrietta," "Shenandoah," and " Aristocracy " were among the best-known and best-liked of American plays. Howard died at Avon- by-the-Sea, New Jersey, in 1908. Brander Matthews (in "An Appreciation") says: " Bronson Howard's career as a dramatist covered the transition period of the modern drama when it was changing from the platform-stage to the picture-frame- 219 220 BRONSON HOWARD stage. His immediate predecessor^ Dion Boucieault, worked in accordance with the conditions of the plat- form-stage, with its rhetorical emphasis, its confiden- tial soliloquies to the audience, and its frequent changes of scene in the course of the act. . . . When Bronson Howard began to write for the stage he ac- cepted the convenient traditions of the time, although he followed T. W. Robertson in giving only a single scene to each act. As a result of this utilization of conventions soon to seem outworn, certain of his earlier plays appeared to him late in life incapable of being brought down to date, as they had been com- posed in accordance with a method now discarded. . . . He moved with his time; and his latest plays, ' Aristocracy' for one, and ' Kate ' for another, are in perfect accord with the most modern formula. Yet he did not go as far as some other playwrights of to-day. He knew that the art of the theater, like every other art, can live only by the conventions which allow it to depart from the mere facts of life." How- ard deserves the title of " Dean of American Drama " because he was the first to awaken to the fact that in the America of his day there was material for an indigenous drama, and he did his best, in spite of French influences, to throw off the conventions of the pasrt and point a way to the future. PLAYS Fantine (adapted from " Les Miserables," 1864). Saratoga (1870). Diamonds (1872). BRONSON HOWARD 221 MOORCROFT (1874). Lilian's Last Love (1877). The Banker's Daughter (revised version of " Lili- an's Last Love," 1878). Old Love Letters (1878). Hurricanes (1878). Wives (adapted from Moliere, 1879). Fun in a Green-Room (1882). Young Mrs. Winthrop (1882). One of Our Girls (1885). Met by Chance (1887). The Henrietta (1887). Baron Rudolph (1887). Shenandoah (1889)- Aristocracy (1892). Peter Stuyvesant (in collaboration with Brander Matthews, 1899). Knave and Queen (never acted). Kate (never acted). "Young Mrs. Winthrop" and "Saratoga" are published by French; " Kate " by Harper's; the other plays have not been published. References: "In Memoriam: Bronson Howard" (New York, 1910) ; " The Autobiography of a Play " by Bronson Howard, with an introduction by Augustus Thomas (Dramatic Museum of Columbia University) ; Montrose J. Moses, " The American Dramatist " (Little, Brown) ; Brander Matthews, " A Study of the Drama " (Houghton Mifflin) ; Richard Burton, " The New American Drama " (Crowell) ; Charlton An- drews, "The Drama To-day" (Lippincott).— Magra- 222 BRONSON HOWARD zines: Bookman, vol. x (p. 195), vol. xxviii (p. 55^ Century, vol. Ixi (p. 28), vol. iii (p. ^Q5) ; Munsey, vol xxxiv (p. 122, p. 199) ; Theatre (London), Aug., 1879 Book Buyer, vol. xvi (p. 113); Independent, vol. Ixi (p. 735), and vol. Ixv (p. 391) ; North American, vol clxxxviii (p. 504). YOUNG MRS. WINTHROP A play in four acts. First performed in 1882. Of the three plays of Howard which have been pub- lished, " Young Mrs. Winthrop " is probably the best and most typical. The dramatist's best and worst qualities are easily discernible. Like some of his contemporaries and many of his followers, Howard possessed a great deal of that essential kindliness, sympathy with the weaknesses of human nature, and sentiment which permeate the American theater. " Young Mrs. Winthrop " is a kindly sermon on the dangers and blessings of matrimony, besides being an ingratiating and human, perhaps too " human," comedy. 1. Any play written in 1882 is likely to bristle with " asides," soliloquies, and other conventions which have since fallen into disfavor with drama- tists. This play opens with a soliloquy: Mrs. Ruth. (L.)— There, Misrs Dolly! (tying rib- bon on the doll and holding it up) you will have a beautiful mother to-morrow, and I shall be your grand- grandmother. Your name is to be ' Ruth ' — after me — how do you like it? Your little mother has a very large family already, but I am sure she will love you 223 224 BRONSON HOWARD more than any of the rest (crosses to R. by fire, kisses the doll). Lie here, my pet {holding the doll to her breast). You must go to sleep at once, for mother Rosie will be up very early in the morning. {Enter Douglas), etc. A great deal of labor is spared the dramatist by allowing his audience to know (1) who the char- acter present is, (2) what she is like, (3) a little of the situation. The first " aside " occurs on the next page (p. 4) : Doug, {stopping. Aside) — I asked Constance not to go to-night. Again, an easy device. Then, on page 25, there is another soliloquy: Enter Constance, up L. Cons. — Back again! {with a weary air, throwing aside her cloak. Pause). How quiet the house is! It's no us-e going to bed; I cannot sleep. I wish these ** social gaieties " as they call them, could go on for- ever. No matter how much I go out, or how bright the company is, it always ends in this; I am alone again, and I — I can't stop thinking. Oh! — I wish I could! I wish I could ! Mr. Chetwyn was at the re- ception this evening. Douglas sent him word he could not meet him at the club. He sent the message after receiving that note from Mrs. Dunbar — she was not there to-night! Oh! — why must I keep thinking — BRONSON HOWARD 225 thinking? {starting to her feet and moving C. Pauses). Perhaps I am wronging him. Yes. No — no — I will not believe it — I have not lost his love! There is something I do not understand? I will speak to Douglas about it in the morning. (Smiling.) It will all come right. I must get to sleep as soon as I can, to be up bright and early with Rosie. I will peep in at my little darling before I go to sleep. {Going toward door, R. 2 E.) It has often been said in defense of the " aside " and the soliloquy that since the drama is a series of conventions, why not accept these as well as that most necessary of conventions : the foreshort- ening of time? For over two thousand years these conventions have been accepted, why then should we cast them aside at this late date? The drama has changed radically during the past century, and is still developing at a rapid rate. With the change in subject-matter has come a correspond- ing change in manner of treatment: realistic sub- jects demanded realistic treatment. The " aside " is not natural, because it does not seem natural: people seldom or never turn their heads aside and utter words not intended to be heard by any one else; and when these words are spoken loudly enough to be overheard by a large audience, while the characters who must not hear them are within whispering distance of the speaker, the convention is too apparent. The uselessness of this particular 226 BRONSON HOWARD convention is proved by the fact that almost every aside in a play can be deleted, and the audience be none the less well informed as to what is going on. Test this in the present play. On the other hand, the soliloquy * is legiti- mate. Ibsen in " A Doll's House " has made gen- erous use of it. People do soliloquize, often aloud ; even if they did not, it is not unnatural to hear a character give voice to thoughts, which must be near the surface, when he is alone on the stage. Do Hamlet's soliloquies seem unnatural? Do Nora's in the Ibsen play just mentioned .^^ 2. Howard's modernity of spirit, his vision of the path to be taken by the play of the future was incontestably greater than his actual achievement: he pointed out the w^ay for those who were to be technically more efficient than he, for those who were, living in a later generation, to treat of questions of the day. Augustus Thomas says of him (in "The Autobiography of a Play"): " Some philosopher tells us that a factor of great- ness in any field is the power to generalize, the ability to discover the principle underlying appar- * " He [Bronson Howard] once said, half jokingly, to his collaborator in ' Peter Stuyvesant,' that, if he happened to write a play without a single soliloquy, he would be tempted to insert one, simply to retain the right to employ it when it was required. It may be noted, however, that he did not carry this out, since his last comedy, ' Kate,' is free from any soliloquy." — Brander Matthews in " An Appreciation" ("In Memoriam: Bronson Howard"). BRONSON HOWARD 227 ently discordant facts. Bronson Howard's plays are notable for their evidence of this power. He saw causes, tendencies, results. His plays are ex- positions of this chemistry. ' Shenandoah ' dealt broadly with the forces and feelings behind the Civil War ; ' The Henrietta ' with the American passion for speculation — the money-madness that was dividing families. * Aristocracy ' was a very accurate, although satirical, seizure of the disposi- tion, then in its strongest manifestation, of a newly-rich and Western family of native force to break into the exclusive social set of New York and to do so through a preparatory European alliance." What is the generalization in " Young Mrs. Winthrop "? Wherein lies its modernity? 3. Often — too often in the American drama — the child is brought into the action of a play in order to attract the sympathy of the audience. David Belasco has done this in " The Return of Peter Grimm " with notable effect. How has Howard utilized the child-motif in this play.? JAMES A. HERNE James A. Heme was born in 1839 at Cohoes, New York. After receiving a very rudimentary education he left home at the age of twenty and joined a the- atrical company in Troy, and began his actor's career in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Soon after, he joined an- other company, played in Albany, then Baltimore, and at the age of thirty he became manager of the New York Grand Opera House. Leaving this situation, he became an actor again, and toured the country. His second marriage, in 1878, was a decisive point in his career: his wife. Miss Katherine Corcoran, helped and encouraged him to devote his time to the writing, rather than the acting of plays. His first play, " Hearts of Oak," was produced the year after his marriage. " Shore Acres," " Drifting Apart," " The Minute Men," " Sag Harbor," written during the next twenty years, brought their author fame and a good s^hare of success. Heme continued to act for many years. He died in IQOl. Heme is a very important figure in American drama : in his melodramas there is a note of simplicity, of sympathy, of reality, which lifts them into the realm of true drama. In his most ambitious achieve- ments, " The Rev. Griffith Davenport " and " Mar- garet Fleming," there was said to be " tragic senti- ment," " forcefulness," and " serious simplicity." 228 JAMES A. HERNE 229 Heme delighted and excelled in drawing rural types, and though he occasionally placed his characters in conventional settings and melodramatic situations, they were nearly always faithful and kindly por- trayals of life. His technic was " old-fashioned," his ideas possibly antiquated, according to modern stand- ards, but he was a force, an influence, an ideal. PLAYS Hearts of Oak (1879). The Minute Men (1886). Drifting Apart (1888). Margaret Fleming (1890). Shore Acres (1892). The Rev. Griffith Davenport (1899). Sag Harbor (1899). None of Heme's plays has been published. In a fire that destroyed the Heme home in 1909, the MSS. of " The Rev. Griffith Davenport " and " Margaret Fleming " were lost. References: Montrose J. Moses, "The American Dramatist" (Little, Brown); Richard Burton, "The New American Drama" (Crowell) ; Norman Hap- good, " The Stage in America " (Macmillan) ; Charl- ton Andrews, "The Drama To-day" (Lippincott) ; Lewis C. Strang, "Famous Actors of To-day in America" (Page). — Magazines: Arena, vol. vi (p. 401), vol. viii (p. S04), vol. xvii (p. 36l), vol. xxvi (p. 282) ; Harper's Weekly, vol. xliii (pp. 139, 213) Literature, vol. iv (p. 265); Harper's Magazine, vol Ixxxiii (p. 478) ; National Magazine, vol. xi (p. 393) 230 JAMES A. HERNE Pall Mall Magazine, vol. xx (p. 23) ; Outlook, Dec. 28, 1912; Century, vol. Ixxxviii (p. 574). Note. — Since there is no printed copy of any Heme play, it is inadvisable to include a study out- line. For completeness' sake, however, and in case the play is ever published, there follow a few brief remarks on " Shore Acres." SHORE ACRES A play in three acts. First performed in 1892. This play was, according to all accounts, an intensely " human," amusing, and, in places, ex- citing drama. The following quotations are illuminating ; the first is from Montrose J. Moses's " The American Dramatist," the second from a letter by Henry George: " Even in ' Shore Acres,' during the scene in which Uncle Nat struggles with Martin in his effort to light the signal lamp, the sensational is very much in evidence; but the unerring art of Mr. Heme saved him from the accusation of in- tense, glaring melodrama. He understood thor- oughly the balance between tension and quietude, and there is no bit of stage writing more natural, more cheerful, and more real than the act which succeeded this violent one in ' Shore Acres,' Uncle Nat preparing the Christmas stockings. Those who are fortunate enough to recollect the wonder- ful naturalness of Mr. Heme's acting, will always point to the final curtain of this play, where Uncle Nat, left alone on the stage, by the very flexibility of his facial expression, depicted the full beauty of his character, as he closed up the room for the 231 232 JAMES A. HERNE night, put out the lamps, and, lighted only by the glow from the fire in the stove, slowly left the room as the cuckoo clock struck twelve. Such work, of which Mr. Heme as an actor was capable, is to a certain extent the realization of Maeter- linck's idea of static drama." " I cannot too much congratulate you upon your success. You have done what you sought to do — made a play pure and noble that people will come to hear. You have taken the strength of realism and added to it the strength that comes from the wider truth that realism fails to see ; and in the simple portrayal of homely life, touched a universal chord. . . . Who, save you, can bring out the character you have created — a character which to others, as to me, must have recalled the tender memory of some sweet saint of God? " AUGUSTUS THOMAS Augustus Thomas was born at St. Louis, in 1859- He says (quoted in The Outlook, December 28, 1912) : " After Farragut ran the New Orleans blockade my father took direction of the St. Charles Theater in New Orleans, then owned by Ben DeBar. When he returned to St. Louis in 1865, I was in my seventh year, and my earliest recollections are tinged with his stories of Matilda Herron, John Wilkes Booth, and others who played in that theater. Father was an orator of considerable ability, and I remember him reciting long speeches from Kotzebue, Schiller, and Shakspere. In his associations with the theater he took me very early to plays, and I have always been an attendant; consequently dialogue seemed the most natural literary vehicle. I found later that this im- pression was justified when I discovered that the most telling things in Homer and later Greek poets and philosophers were in dialogue— that this was true of Confucius and Christ. I began writing plays when I was about fourteen years of age. When I was six- teen and seventeen, an amateur company that I or- ganized played in certain railway centers on the old North Missouri Railway for the benefit of local unions of the workingmen. In 1882 I made a dramatization of Mrs. Burnett's ' Editha's Burglar.' With this as a curtain-raiser and a rather slap-stick farce called 233 234 AUGUSTUS THOMAS * Combustion,' I made a tour of the country with a company that I organized, and with which I ran in debt sreveral thousand dollars. In 1889 a four-act version of ' The Burglar/ arranged by me, was played in New York and was successful, and since that time my royalties have enabled me to give my attention on the business side exclusively to play-writing." Thomas is the most successful, skilful, and inter- esting of American dramatists of a former generation. Although he still writes plays, many of which have met with public approval, he belongs to the immediate past. " Arizona," a melodrama of the West, is one of his typical works ; even " The Witching Hour," a later play, is notable for the very qualities which went to the making of the earlier melodrama. Thomas is ingenious, he knows well the art of contriving moving stories, he knows the taste of the public and the re- quirements of the actor; but his ideas, while they are occasionally very interesting, are not significant. He has little to do with characterization. He is important by reason of his cleverness, his zest in the externals of life. PLAYS Editha's Burglar (dramatization from a story by Mrs. Burnett, 1887). A Man of the World (1889). Reckless Temple (1890). Afterthoughts (1890). Alabama (1891). In Mizzoura (1893). AUGUSTUS THOMAS 285 The Capitol (1894). New Blood (1891). The Man Upstairs (1895). The Overcoat (1898). The Hoosier Doctor (1898). The Meddler (1898). Oliver Goldsmith (I9OO). Arizona (1900). On the Quiet (19OI). Colorado (1901). Soldiers of Fortune (1902). The Earl of Pawtucket (1903). The Other Girl (1903). Mrs. Leffingwell^s Boots (1905). De Lancey (1905). The Embassy Ball (1905). The Ranger (1907). The Witching Hour (1907). The Harvest Moon (1909). The Member from Ozark (I9IO). As A Man Thinks (1911). The Model (1912). Mere Man (1912). Indian Summer (1912). " Alabama " and " Arizona " are published by Ser- gei, Chicago; "The Witching Hour" by Houghton Mifflin in " Chief Contemporary Dramatists/' and " As a Man Thinks " by Duffield. References: Montrose J. Moses, "The American Dramatist" (Little, Brown); Richard Burton, "The New American Drama " (Crowell) ; Charlton An- 236 AUGUSTUS THOMAS drews, " The Drama To-day " (Lippincott) ; Arthur Ruhl^ " Second Nights " (Scribner) ; William Winter, "The Wallet of Time," Vol. II (Moffat, Yard).— Magazines: Collier's, vol. Ixiv (p. 23); Outlook, vol. xciv (p. 212); North American, vol. clxxxvii (p. 801); Delineator, vol. Ixxiii (p. 221); World's Work, vol. xviii; Harper's Weekly, vol. v (p. 13); vol. xliv (p. 947); Munsey, vol. xxiv (p. 413); vol. xxvii (p. 522) ; Bookman, vol. xiv (p. 449)^ vol. xxxiii (p. 352) ; Critic, vol. xliv (p. 205) ; Servanee Review, April, 1907. THE WITCHING HOUR A play in four acts. First performed in 1907- In common with Clyde Fitch, Alfred Capus, and Sir Arthur Pinero, Augustus Thomas has always kept abreast of the times in the matter of modes, customs, and ideas. Probably his early journalistic career taught him the value of being " alive," and he has ever recognized the advantage of producing a play the basic idea of which is in the public mind. It is said that " The Witching Hour " was kept for ten years " until the time was opportune." Montrose J. Moses in his " American Dramatist " quotes Thomas as saying: " ' The Witching Hour ' is a seizure of the general attention that is given to telepathy and allied topics. And under all that, lies my own theory, ex- pressed on more than one occasion, that the theater is a place for the visualizing of ideas— that the the- ater is vital only when it is visualizing some idea then and at the time in the public mind. The theater is a vital part of everyday life; it is an institution, and as an institution it has a claim upon the popular attention principally in that fact. When it becomes a thing preservative, a museum for certain literary forms, or a laboratory for galvanizing archaic ideas, it is almost useless, and seldom successful as a busi- ness enterprise." 237 238 AUGUSTUS THOMAS 1. For a number of years Thomas has refused to allow the present play to appear in print ; apart from certain practical reasons, he justly feared that a vehicle intended for production on the stage by actors, supported by scenery and " props " and lights, in which there was no at- tempt at " galvanizing archaic ideas," would not well survive the ordeal of being read. Very often good dialogue will suffer when perused in the library — dialogue that is interesting and effective on the boards ; it is very doubtful whether George Cohan?s " Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford " or " Broadway Jones " would be half so amusing in a book as they are in the theater Howev-er, " The Witching Hour " may now be judged independ- ently of the footlights.* Few of the plays considered in the present vol- * In an interview Augustus Thomas once said: "On the choice of words will depend very much the effective- ness of a play. The tone of them must change to suit the scene, the emotion. One way of creating humor is to use pompous or grandiloquent words. Emotion, on the other hand, keeps the words simple, very near the ground. Part of an audience might, perhaps, get deep feeling from unusual and very precise words, but the audience is made up for the greater part of people who are not thus trained. And when you write for the audience you must write for the great average. You will then use the simple, pas- sionate words such as fire, stars, hand, heart, root, rock, grave. In the same way you may simplify your words by omitting many. For instance, note the increase in emphasis and force between, ' I wish you to go,' ' You must go,' ' Go !' and finally the simple opening of the door." AUGUSTUS THOMAS 2S9 ume sound so natural, so " everyday " as this. Note the very opening: Jo. — Massar Brookfield. Jack (outside, left). — Well, Jo? Jo. — Mr. Denning, sail. Jack. — Ask Mr. Denning to come up. Jo. — Yes, sah. (Exit center. More talk and laughter, left.) (Jack enters left. . . . ) Jack (at door, left). — Lew! I say — Lew — you ladies excuse Mr. Ellinger a moment.'* Helen, Alice, Viola (outside). — Oh — yes. Cer- tainly. Nothing could be more casual, yet there is an underlying art — skilfully concealing itself — which is typical of much of Thomas's best work. Rarely does he attempt to be " literary," often he tries to be the reverse, apparently through fear of be- ing thought " literary." Compare this dialogue with that of "Young Mrs. Winthrop " and of " The Liars." 2. Thomas wished to write a play about tele- pathic phenomena and superstition ; and the exact form into which he was to cast his play must have suggested itself to him when he was thinking of the incidents which would illustrate his ideas. Since these situations would necessarily be of a startling and novel nature, it seemed inevitable that the play should fall into the category of melo- 240 AUGUSTUS THOMAS drama. Telepathy is too new, the data are too scarce, to allow us to accept as matters of course Justice Prentice's " guessing " the price of the Corot (p. 330), or Clay's superstition about Tom's scarf-pin and the resultant murder (pp. 332-33). The melodramatic form was inevitable. At what exact point in this first act are you aware that the play is to be a melodrama .? What incident or incidents prove this.^^ 3. " The Witching Hour " is thoroughly American in spirit: the good and bad qualities of American drama are easily distinguished from page to page. Generalizations in matters theatrical nowadays are especially fallible, yet it will not be amiss to say that the drama in the United States is as a rule conventional, over-sentimental, puri- tanical in that it rarely dares go to the root of life and comments on it with fearless and out- spoken sincerity ; it is, on the other hand, " live," moving, interesting as a transcript of the every- day externals of life. The dialogue is usually good, idiomatic, and clever, although it rarely re- veals character. It is nearly always violent, ex- treme: melodrama and farce seem to be the favor- ite forms, and happy endings are practically indispensable. The American dramatist is a sentimentalist, although he seldom sentimentalizes over the deepest things in life — as a Frenchman does — love-scenes are usually short and " snappy " AUGUSTUS THOMAS 241 —an American dislikes showing his feelings — while little children, old mothers, and " pals " in " crooked deals," supply more sentimental mate- rial than half a dozen love-affairs to a Frenchman or a deserted mistress to Schnitzler. Notice the first love-scene in " The Witching Hour " : the actual proposal and its casual an- nouncement (p. 323): Clay. — Always you when I think about a real house, you bet — a house for me — and you'll be there^ won't you? {Takes her in his arms.) Viola.— Will I? Clay. — Yes — say, " I will." Viola. — I will. (Re-enter Alice and Helen.) A lice {astonished) . — Viola ! {Alice goes left.) Clay. — I've asked her — mother. Alice. — Helen, you knew.'* Helen. — Yes. Clay {to Alice). — And I asked Jack, too. Alice. — You mean Clay. — We're engaged — if you say it's all right. Alice. — And you — Viola.'* Viola { nodding ) . — Yes-^ Here are the barest outlines; not a trace of passion, and what feeHng there is must be ex- pressed by the actors. How different from the long pages of Donnay's " Lovers " or Schnitzler's 242 AUGUSTUS THOMAS " Liebelei " ! If the love-making of the average American on the stage is strange, the other sort of sentimentalizing is none the less unaccountable. On page 329, where there should be none of the poetry and passion of youth, we find another pro- posal — twenty years after the first — where the lover appears to be retrospectively sentimental: Jack. — Wouldn't it be a pretty finish if you took my hand and I could walk right up to the camera and say, "I told you so" — ? You know I always felt that you were coming back. Helen. — Oh, did you? Jack (playfully, and going right center). — Had a candle burning in the window every night. Helen. — You're sure it wasn't a red light? Jack (remonstrating). — Dear Helen! have some poetry in your composition. Literally " red light," of course — but the real flame was here — (hand on breast) — a flickering hope that somewhere — somehow — somewhen I should be at rest — with the proud Helen that loved and — rode away. Helen (almost accusingly). — I — believe — you. Jack. — Of course you believe me. 4. There are many episodes, incidents, and plots begun in -the first act. Study this act carefully and trace each of the important references to superstition and telepathy, each of the " love- scenes," the murder, etc., and notice how each is further developed in the play. Is the first act too crowded.? What is its unity.? Who is the villain.? WILLIAM GILLETTE William Gillette was born at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1855. He was carefully educated, attended college at Yale and Harvard and the Massachusetts Fine Arts Institute. " It seems that as far back as nursery days the boy owned his miniature theater, and was quick in his mechanical inventions." His first appearance as an actor was made in 1875, and he still acts, for the most part in his own plays. His first play, " The Professor," was written in 1881. Like many other American dramatists, Gillette is clever, amusing, technically efficient, and interesting, but not significant or illuminating. A polished and intelligent actor, he knows well the requirements of the stage, and for over thirty years he has given the public what it wanted. His Civil War plays — espe- cially " Secret Service " and " Held by the Enemy " — are among the best American plays yet written, while " Too Much Johnson " and " Sherlock Holmes," the one a farce, the other a detective play, are justly estimated as among the best of their type this coun- try has seen. PLAYS The Professor (1881). Esmeralda (in collaboration with Mrs. Burnett, 1881). 243 244 WILLIAM GILLETTE Held by the Enemy (1886). A Legal Wreck (1888). Mr. Wilkinson's Widows (1891). Ninety Days (1893). Too Much Johnson (1894). Secret Service (1896). Sherlock Holmes (1899). Clarice (1905). That Little Affair at Boyd's (1908). The Robber (1909). Among Thieves (1909). Electricity (1910). There are, besides the above, six or eight adapta- tions, translations, and dramatizations, and one vaude- ville sketch. " Esmeralda," " Held by the Enemy," " Too Much Johnson," and " Secret Service " are published by Samuel French ; " Electricity " in The Drama, Nov., 1913. References: Montrose J. Moses, "The American Dramatist " (Little, Brown) ; Richard Burton, " The New American Drama " (Crowell) ; Charlton An- drews, " The Drama of To-day " (Lippincott) ; Brander Matthews, " Study of the Drama " (Hough- ton Mifflin). — Magazines: Drama, Nov., 1913; Book- man, vol. xxxii (p. 594) ; Everybody's, vol. xxxil (p. 257) ; Outlook, voL cii (p. 947). HELD BY THE ENEMY A war drama in five acts. First performed in 1886. " Held by the Enemy " is pure amusement. There is no " idea/' as in " The Witching Hour/' no thesis or problem; it is merely a vehicle for the telling of an exciting story of arms and a love-affair. 1. There are very few war plays which concern themselves solely with the war : nearly always there is some personal plot, usually a love-story, running through it. One of the most famous of war plays, Sardou's " Patrie ! " (published in the "Drama League Series," Doubleday, Page and Co.), makes use of the war element as a dramatic background to a personal drama of love and honor; Clyde Fitch's " Nathan Hale " is treated in somewhat the same manner ; likewise Gillette's " Secret Ser- vice." Is " Held by the Enemy " a war play with an element of love interest, or a love-story with a war background.^ Why does Gillette start this play with a per- sonal episode.? Why not begin with the military part ? 2. The influence of the actor on the drama has ever been an important consideration to the drama- 245 246 WILLIAM GILLETTE tist. In his " Study of the Drama " Professor Matthews mentions numerous plays which either came into existence or were modified to their pres- ent form as a result of the dramatist's collabora- tion with his actors. He quotes Legouve to the effect that " dramatists did well to study the quali- ties of the contemporary actors, but . . . there was a more constant advantage in availing one's self also of the defects of these performers — ' since their merits might abandon them, whereas their faults would never leave them.' " In Montrose J. Moses's " The American Dramatist " the author in speaking of Gillette says, " But he is distinctively unemotional. Even in simple love scenes ... he makes appeal through the sentiment of situation, through the exquisite sensitiveness of outward de- tail, rather than through romantic attitude and heart fervor." This may well account for the lack of passion in the present play. Gillette has acted in nearly all his own plays, and the principal parts must of course be in accord with his own qualities. Possibly when Thomas wrote " The Witching Hour " he was well aware of the ability and short- comings of his actors. "Held by the Enemy" and "The Witching Hour " must be read rather as skeletons or scena- rios upon which the actors must elaborate, than rounded wholes, like the plays of Shaw and Barrie. American dramatists write with no other WILLIAM GILLETTE 247 idea than that of stage presentation, the English write both for the stage and the library. 3. Gillette is a disciple in the " well-made plays " school. His melodramas have sometimes been criticised for their geometrical symmetry. In what way are they symmetrical? Are they too nicely balanced? Compare them with Brieux's " The Three Daughters of M. Dupont " and Her- vieu's "The Labyrinth." 4. Is there any attempt at individual character- ization, or are the personages all types? Is the actor given much leeway? 5. It is interesting to compare the utterances of practising dramatists on the subject of their art. Augustus Thomas expressed himself (p. 238) as a playwright of and for the masses, and Gillette's statement differs little in essence : " We find that public honest and straightforward with us always, ever ready to be moved by what is true and lifelike and human, provided it be made interesting ; ever ready to reject the false and artificial, even though it be festooned with literary gems." CLYDE FITCH Clyde Fitch was born at Elmira^ New York, in 1865. He went to college at Amherst; immediately after his graduation he began writing: at first, light poems, then short stories and sketches. In 1890 he began his career as a dramatist with the romantic " Beau Brummel," written for Richard Mans'field. He continued his successful career for nearly twenty years, dying in 1909, at Chalons-sur-Marne, in France. Fitch was a clever and ingenious writer of com- edies, picturing for the most part the life of the " upper classes " in New York. His facility, his power of observation of externals, his constant appli- cation to what was curious and amusing in life rather than what was significant, added to an inherent lack of concentration, prevented his being a man of genius. His ideas on the drama have been best expressed by himself: " I feel myself very strongly the particular value — a value which, rightly or wrongly, I can't help feeling inestimable — in a modern play, of reflecting absolutely and truthfully the life and environment about us ; every class, every kind, every emotion, every motive, every occupation, every business, every idle- ness ! Never was life so varied, so complex. . . . Take what strikes you most, in the hope it will inter- est others ; take what suits you most to do — what per- haps you can do best, and then do it better. Be 248 CLYDE FITCH 249 truthful^ and then nothing can be too big, nothing should be too small, so long as it is here and there. ... If you inculcate an idea into your play, so much the better for your play and for you and for your audience. In fact, there is small hope for your play as a play, if you have not some idea in it, some- where and somehow, even if it is hidden. It is some- times better for you if it is hidden, but it must of course be integral. . . . One should write what one sees, but observe under the surface. It is a mis- take to look at the reflection of the sky in the water of theatrical convention; instead, look up and into the sky of real life itself." PLAYS Beau Brummel (1890). Betty's Finish (1890). Frederic Lemaitre (1890). A Modern Match (Marriage) (1891). Pamela's Prodigy (1891)- The Social Swim (1893). His Grace de Grammont (1894). April Weather (1894). Gossip (in collaboration with Leo Dietrichstein, 1895). A Superfluous Husband (in collaboration with the same, 1897). Nathan Hale (1898). The Moth and the Flame (1898). Ths Cowboy and the Lady (1899)- Barbara Frietchie (1899). 250 CLYDE FITCH The Climbers (1900). Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines (1901). Lovers' Lane (1901). The Last of the Dandies (1901). The Way of the World (1901). The Girl and the Judge (1901). The Stubbornness of Geraldine (1902). The Girl with the Green Eyes (1902). The Bird in the Cage (1903). Her Own Way (1903). Glad of It (1903). Major Andre (1903). The Coronet of a Duchess (1904). Granny (1904). Cousin Billy (1904). The Woman in the Case (1904). Her Great Match (1905). WOLFVILLE (1905). The Girl Who Has Everything (1906). The Truth (1906). The Straight Road (1906). Her Sister (1907). Girls (1908). A Happy Marriage (1909). The Bachelor (1909). The City (1910). There are, besides these, a number of adaptations and dramatizations. " Pamela's Prodigy " is published by Allen, New York (out of print) ; " Nathan Hale " is publis'hed by Baker, Boston. " Barbara Frietchie," " Beau CLYDE FITCH 251 Brummel/' " The Climbers," " Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines," " The Stubbornness of Geraldine," " The Girl with the Green Eyes," " Her Own Way," "The Truth" are published by Samuel French; " The Truth " is also included in " Chief Contem- porary Dramatists" (Houghton Mifflin). References: Montrose J. Moses, "The American Dramatist" (Little, Brown), "Clyde Fitch: A Trib- ute," in Fitch's " A Wave of Life " (Kennerley) ; Richard Burton, " The New American Drama " (Crowell) ; L. W. Strang, " Plays and Players of the Last Quarter Century " ; Charlton Andrews, " The Drama To-day " (Lippincott) ; William Archer, " Playmaking " (Small, Maynard) ; Brander Mat- thews, " A Study of the Drama " (Houghton Mifflin) ; Archibald Henders-on, " The Changing Drama " (Holt); Archie Bell, "The Clyde Fitch I Knew" (Broadway Pub. Co.) ; Walter Prichard Eaton, " At the New Theater, and Others " (Small, Maynard) ; Arthur Ruhl, "Second Nights" (Scribner). — Maga- zines: Nation, vol. Ixxxiv (p. 526); Independent, vol. Ixvii (p. 123) ; Scribner' s, vol. Ixvii (p. 490) ; Theatre, vol. vii (p. 14) ; Putnam's, vol. vii (p. 244) ; Harper's Weekly, vol. xlvi (p. 20); Booh Buyer, vol. xvii (p. 118), vol. xvi (p. 323); Current Literature, vol. xlvii (p. 552), vol. xlvii (p. 362) ; Bookman, vol. xxx (p. 135), vol. xxiii (p. QS)', Literary Digest, vol. xxxix (p. 171), vol. xxxiv (p. 437) ; Dramatic Mirror, Sept. 18, 1909; Forum, vol. xlv (p. 221) ; Critic, vol. xxxviii (p. 225). (During the present year, 1915, Little, Brown and 252 CLYDE FITCH Co. are to publish a Memorial Edition of Fitch's plays. Three plays, hitherto unpublished, will be added: "The City/' "Lovers' Lane," and "The Woman in the Case." There will be critical and his- torical material by Montrose J. Moses and by Fitch himself.) THE TRUTH A play in four acts. First performed in 1906. " The Truth " is probably Clyde Fitch's most con- sistent and best-sustained play. There is in it less of the amusingly irrelevant, and more study and observa- tion of character than in even " The Girl with the Green Eyes " or " The Climbers." The universality of theme, unity, and sincerity, is evidenced by the fact that the play has been successfully produced in Eng- land and in many countries of the Continent. Usually, Fitch was wont to rely on his instinct and upon some novel device independent of the integral action of the play — like the scene in the Vatican in " The Girl with the Green Eyes " or on the deck of the steamer in " The Stubbornness of Geraldine " — but in " The Truth " there is a conscious discarding of the non- essential. 1. Fitch's sense for externals is manifested on page 4: Mrs. Lindon. — . . . Becky! One of my oldest friends ! One of my bridesmaids ! Maura. — What ! Mrs. Lindon. — No, she wasn't, but she might have been; she was my next choice if any one had backed out. 253 254 CLYDE FITCH This is amusing, and it tells something of one character — the speaker. It is a mot de caractere. Still, it tells nothing very deep or very significant. Later on, Mrs. Lindon's character is developed, but there is nothing very startling or new that we learn of her. In the first act is there any distinct or notable bit of information given as to any of the characters? What of Becky herself? As the play progresses, notice by what means the character of Becky is built up. Is it through situations, by dialogue, or through the conversa- tion of others? 2. The lie has ever been a fruitful source of dramatic material : Ibsen has dramatized it in most of his social dramas ; Henry Arthur Jones — in " The Liars " and " The Lie," and Maurice Don- nay in " The Free Woman " — have written effect- ive pieces around men and women who lie to attain certain ends, and fail. Has this play of Fitch's points in common as to treatment with any of the plays here referred to? What is the dramatic, the "theatrical," essence of "The Truth"? How has the author extracted what is most interesting and appealing from his theme? Fitch's words (quoted on pp. 248-49 of the pres- ent volume) regarding underlying ideas in plays are peculiarly apt : " If you inculcate an idea into your play so much the better for your play and for you and for your audience. . . . It is some- CLYDE FITCH 255 times better for you if it is hidden, but it must of course be integral ..." Is Fitch's idea hid- den.'* Is it integral .f* 3. The American habit of bringing a play to a happy ending is a result of the intellectual youth of the country. The average audience has not yet come to the point where it will unflinchingly ac- cept the logical consequences of a situation. Eugene Walter in " The Easiest Way " has dared to draw his tragic play to its ruthless and only possible close, but he succeeded only in spite of this fact, by reason of deft craftsmanship. No one objects to the happy ending of a happy play; the fault lies with the dramatist who begins with a sit- uation and characters from which only evil or tragedy can come. Bernard Veiller's " Within the Law," George Broadhurst's " Bought and Paid For," both began with interesting and serious prob- lems, but each dramatist, either because he was in- capable of sustained thinking and reasoning power — which is unlikely — escaped from his main theme, and allowed his play to drift on the current of amusing but utterly inconsequential circumstances. If a dramatist introduces a certain character early in the play with the idea of changing the mind and spirit of that character, he must motivate each action and account for the character at the end of the play. If Ibsen wished to show Nora as a doll in the first, act of " A Doll's House," and 256 CLYDE FITCH a mature and thinking woman in the last, he must adduce convincing proofs of the metamorphosis. Henry Arthur Jones, in " The Crusaders " and " Dolly Reforming Herself," ridicules the attempts of would-be reformers to accomplish their ends over-night, as it were : the " crusaders," in the one, and Dolly and her friends in the other, are sadder and wiser at last, but they are no nearer to refor- mation than when the curtain first rose. In Her- mann Bahr's " Das Konzert " the philandering artist will, we are positive, continue to give " con- certs " as long as he is so inclined ; in Leo Diet- richstein's American version, called " The Con- cert," the amiable pianist assures his wife that he will " give no more concerts." Very often a drama- tist will throw a sop to his exigent audience, but at the same time add a " tag " showing that the " lived happily ever after " is but the merest con- vention. Hubert Henry Davies' " The Mollusc " is a case in question : Tom's words, which close the play, are : " Were those miracles permanent cures ? {Shakes his head.) We're never told! We're never told ! " This is legitimate, like the happy ending to a fairy-story, but when the inexorable logic of life demands truth, and the dramatist de- liberately distorts the truth, the play is false. Study carefully the last act of " The Truth," determining exactly how genuine is Becky's " con- version," whether the author intended his audience CLYDE FITCH 257 to accept the denouement, or whether he intended the closing lines to put the audience in a good humor. Notice, however, the extreme cleverness of the end: Becky. — You can't forgive me! Warder. — We don't love people because they are perfect. {He takes her two trembling hands in his, and she rises.) Becky. — Tom ! Warder. — We love them because they are them- selves. WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY William Vaughn Moody was born at Spencer, Indiana, in 1869- He was educated at Harvard. For some years lie wrote poems and poetic dramas, while he filled the position of professor of English at the University of Chicago. " The Great Divide " — originally " A Sabine Woman " — was produced in 1906. " The Faith Healer," a failure, was produced three years later. Moody died in 1910. Moody is a man of one play, yet so full of promise was " The Great Divide," so American in the best sense, that his early death cannot but be the source of the deepest regret. He had within him the instinct of the dramatist, together with the cons^cience and taste of an artist. The poet in him felt the romance and beauty of the East and West in America, and he combined felicity of language with stirring incidents and an interesting if questionable problem. In " The Faith Healer " he was led astray by an idea ; still, the play was an advance in so far as it showed greater unity and a firmer grasp of his idea than did " The Great Divide." Moody took American drama where Thomas left it, and pointed a way at least to what possibilities lay beyond. PLAYS The Great Divide (1906). The Faith Healer (1909). 258 WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 259 Both these are published in " Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody/' Vol. II (Houghton Mifflin). " The Great Divide " is included in " Chief Contem- porary Dramatists " (Houghton Mifflin). References: Montrose J. Moses, "The American Dramatist " (Little, Brown) ; Richard Burton, " The New American Drama " (Crowell) ; Charlton An- drews, " The Drama To-day " (Lippincott) ; William Archer, " Playmaking " (Small, Maynard) ; Archi- bald Henderson, " The Changing Drama " (Holt) ; Arthur Ruhl, " Second Nights " (Scribner) ; Frank Wadleigh Chandler, " Aspects of Modern Drama " (Macmillan) ; " Some Letters of William Vaughn Moody " (Houghton Mifflin) ; Edwin Herbert Lewis, " William Vaughn Moody " (Chicago Literary Club) ; J. M. Manly, Introduction to collected Houghton Mif- flin edition. — Magazines: Drama, May, 1911; Dial, vol. xlvii (p. S30), vol. liii (p. 484) ; Nation, vol. xci (p. 352); Independent, vol. Ixxiv (p. 314); Univer- sity of Chicago Magazine, vol. v (p. 152); Yale Re- view, vol. ii (p. 688) ; Bookman, vol. xxxii (p. 249). THE GREAT DIVIDE A play in three acts. First performed in 1906. " The Great Divide " is a psychological character- study with a Western background during part of the action^ and its very antithesis — New England — for the rest. Its value as an acting play is attested by the fact that for at least two years it enjoyed great sruc- cess in the large cities and on the road, and is still a stock favorite. 1. As in " King Lear," the first act of this play contains a climactic scene, after which there is a decided fall, a relaxing of dramatic tension, and an explanation. The case comes first, then the discussion and the problem. In Shakspere's play the action rises again to a still higher pitch of ten- sion; is this so in " The Great Divide ".? William Archer, in " Playmaking," criticises the play be- cause, " after the stirring first act," it " is weak- ened by our sense that the happy ending is only being postponed by a violent effort. We have been assured from the very first — even before Ruth Jor- dan has set eyes on Stephen Ghent — that just such a rough diamond is the ideal of her dreams . . . the author has taken such pains to emphasize the fact that these two people are really made for each 260 WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 26l other, that the answer to the question is not for a moment in doubt, and we become rather impatient of the obstinate sulkiness of Ruth's attitude." The criticism is just enough, but there is a graver one: not only is the audience impatient as to the psychological development, but the action drags. How could the dramatist have remedied the defect? 2. It is natural that the prose work of a poet should bear some impress of his feeling for the beauty of language. The style of this play is on the whole literary in the dramatic sense: that is, it is in accordance with the character of the speak- ers. Into the mouth of the refined Ruth the drama- tist has legitimately put many beautiful speeches, but as these are revelatory of her mind and tem- perament they are not out of place. This sense of literary effect has been admirably combined with the purely theatrical in the first act (pp. 290-91, " Chief Contemporary Dramatists ") : What a lovely night! Who would ever think to call this a desert, this moonlit ocean of flowers } What millions of cactus blooms have opened since yesterday ! And later on ; after she sings the three verses of the song: Be still, you beauties! You'll drive me to distrac- tion with your color and your odor. I'll take a host- age for your good behavior. 262 WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY (^She selects a red flower, puts it in the dark mass of her hair, and looks out at the open door.) What a scandal the moon is making, out there in that great crazy world ! Who but me could think of sleeping on such a night? {She sits down, folds the flowers in her arms, and buries her face in them.) Add to this the effective contrast of the follow- ing scene, and there can remain no doubt that this is the work of a man of the theater. 3. After such an act there could come only an anti-climax; the explanation and development fol- lowing the big scene would probably have been much more interesting had it not been for the graphic and exciting first act. How does the author seek to arouse interest and create suspense again .'^ Is the end of the second act sufficiently tense to force the audience to await impatiently the rise of the curtain on the final act? What of the last act itself .^^ Is the happy ending logical? Compare it with the endings of " Young Mrs. Winthrop " and " The Witching Hour." PERCY MACKAYE Percy Mackaye was born at New York City, in 1875. He is the son of Steele Mackaye, author of " Hazel Kirke." He graduated from Harvard, where he was a student under Professor Baker. A poet of taste and feeling, he has written a number of poetic dramas, a few prose comedies and fantasies, most of which have been produced, though none with any con- siderable degree of commercial success. Mackaye possesses what most American dramatists lack: a definite ideal. He lacks what Thomas and Fitch and Gillette have to a marked degree: a sense of the theater. He writes well, too well in places, for his dialogue is often "literary"; his sense of construction is occasionally faulty, and many of his plays tend to drag. Still, his influence is beneficial, his ideals are sure to bear fruit, and he may yet write what he has twice come near to writing: a true Amer- ican comedy. " Jeanne D'Arc " and " Sapho and Phaon " are good closet dramas, " Mater " is a de- lightful prose satire, "Anti-Matrimony" delicate high-farce, and " The Scarecrow " nearly a master- piece of imaginative writing, while "A Thousand Years Ago "—an Oriental fantasy— is as delightful as anything of its kind written in recent years. Mackaye is also a lecturer and writer on matters pertaining to the stage. 263 264 PERCY MACKAYE PLAYS The Canterbury Pilgrims (1903). Jeanne D'Arc (1906). Fenris the Wolf (1905). Sapho and Phaon (1908). Mater (1910). The Scarecrow (1910). Anti-Matrimony (1910). Yankee Fantasies (one-act plays) (I9II). To-morrow (19IS). A Thousand Years Ago (1914). (" The Canterbury Pilgrims " was not produced until 1909; "Fenris the Wolf" and "To-morrow" have not yet been professionally produced ; some of the " Yankee Fantasies " have been privately produced. The dates of these plays refer to publication.) "Jeanne D'Arc," "Fenris the Wolf/' "Sapho and Phaon," " Mater," " The Canterbury Pilgrims/' and "The Scarecrow" are published by Macmillan; " Yankee Fantasies " by Duffield ; " Anti-Matrimony " and " To-morrow " by Stokes ; and " A Thousand Years Ago " in the " Drama League Series " by Doubleday, Page. " The Scarecrow " is included in " Chief Contemporary Dramatists " (Houghton Mif- flin). References: Montrose J. Moses", "The American Dramatist " (Little, Brown) ; Richard Burton, " The New American Drama " (Crowell) ; Brander Matthews, "A Study of the Drama" (Houghton Mifflin) ; Charles Wadleigh Chandler, " Aspects of PERCY MACKAYE 265 Modern Drama " (Macmillan) ; Charlton Andrews, " The Drama To-day " (Lippincott) ; Percy Mackaye, " The Playhouse and the Play " (Macmillan), and "The Civic Theater" (Kennerley). — Magazines: Outlook, vol. Ixxxv (p. 302), vol. cii (p. 953) ; North American, vol. clxxxviii (p. 404) ; Current Literature, vol. xlv (p. 554) ; Scrihner's, vol. xlvi (p. 28) ; Book- man, vol. xxxii (p. 249), vol. xxxvi (p. 12). THE SCARECROW ** A tragedy of the ludicrous." A play in four acts. First performed in I9IO. " The Scarecrow " is' founded upon Hawthorne's story of " Feathertop." The play is by no means a dramatization, but an independent work of which only the skeleton was taken from Hawthorne. Percy Mac- kaye's ideas, his literary sense, his dramatic feeling, are nowhere so much in evidence as in " The Scare- crow " : here is effective drama — no one who saw the production in 1910 can doubt it — an interesting theme, well worked out, and skilful handling of such exter- nals as will attract and hold. 1. Mackaye was wise in making as direct and visible an appeal as possible in his first act: the mysterious blacksmith shop, the " horned and tailed " devil, the suggestion of witchcraft, all tend to create an atmosphere proper for the unfolding of the plot and exposition of ideas. The poet does not actually begin his play until the external ap- peal has been definitely made. What dramatic, as distinct from literary, ex- pedients are used in this first act to accomplish the ends just mentioned? 266 PERCY MACKAYE 267 2. The idea of the play is not at first easy to define : there is first the " mirror of truth " epi- sode, then tlie Justice Merton and Goody Rickby story, and so on. These finally mould themselves into an harmonious whole, which eventually yields the theme of the play. But each individual thread of action is developed in a leisurely manner. In the second act, for example, there is none of the usual American haste — no " punch," no purely theatrical situations : the poet has found a suit- able vehicle for drama as well as for poetic prose. Does he ever allow his theme or his lik- ing for the purely literary to interfere with the dramatic development of the story .^^ If so, where ? 3. The climax at the end of the third act is ac- cording to the formulas of the well-made play : in its proper place. From the somewhat loose begin- ning of the second act, trace the process whereby the dramatist has brought his unusual play to a usual climactic point. Does he eliminate or relegate to the background threads of interest which are not so important as the main one — as Jones does in " The Liars " — or does he temporarily thrust the important ones into the foreground, asking the audience to accept it for the time being? 4. Consider the last act in the light of its ef- fectiveness as a stage play; is there too much theme, and insufficient action.'' 268 PERCY MACKAYE Why does Eavensbane die at the end? The last two speeches are: Richard (bending over him). — Dead! Rachel (with an exalted look). — But a man! ' Is this the " Tragedy of the Ludicrous " ? EDWARD SHELDON Edward Sheldon was born at Chicago in 1886. He attended college at Harvard, where he was a member of Professor Baker's class in dramatic technic, and was graduated in 1907- After the production of his first play, " Salvation Nell," by Mrs. Fiske, his success was assured. Sheldon is a brilliant and talented young man with true dramatic instinct. His first play, " Salvation Nell," is notable by reason of its minute observation of externals ; " The Nigger," because of its theme, came near to being a significant play; "The Boss" and " The High Road " are less interesting pictures of various phases of contemporaneous American life; while " Romance," as a story pure and simple, is one of the best-made plays of the day. Sheldon is enter- prising, and in each of his plays he experiments with form. He has a constant tendency toward the melo- dramatic, the conventional and the sentimental, but his solider gifts afford promise of something truly large and typically American. PLAYS Salvation Nell (1908). The Nigger (1909). The Boss (1911)- Princess Zim-Zam (1911). 269 270 EDWARD SHELDON Egypt (1912). The High Road (1912). Romance (1913). The Song of Songs (based upon the novel of Her- mann Sudermann^ 1914). The Garden of Paradise (1915). " The Nigger," " Romance/' and " The Garden of Paradise " are published separately by Macmillan. References: Montrose J. Moses, "The American Dramatist" (Little, Brown); Richard Burton, "The New American Drama " (Crowell) ; Frank Wadleigh Chandler, " Aspects of Modern Drama " (Macmillan) ; William Archer, " Playmaking " (Small, Maynard) ; Clayton Hamilton, "Studies in Stagecraft" (Holt); Walter Prichard Eaton, " At the New Theater, and Others " (Small, Maynard) ; Charlton Andrews, " The Drama To-day" (Lippincott). — Magazines: Current Opinion, vol. liv (p. 379) ; Outlook, vol. cii (p. 9^7) ; Boohman, vol. xxx (p. 463), vol. xxxvii (p. 306), vol. xl (p. 637) ; New Republic, vol. i (p. 23). ROMANCE A play in three acts^, a prologue, and an epilogue. First performed in 1913. " Romance " is the most close-knit and logical of this dramatist's plays. While the subject-matter is not distinctively American, the details', the development, and the point of view are indubitably so. 1. From time to time, and of recent years espe- cially, a dramatist has set a play within a play, or in some other manner arranged the time-scheme of his play, in order to achieve some novelty of effect. " Milestones " by Bennett and Knoblauch has three acts, the first of which takes place in the sixties, the second in the eighties, and the last in the year 1912. Sheldon's " The High Road " is in five acts, which cover a period of about twenty- five years ; George Cohan's dramatization of " The Seven Keys to Baldpate " is a play within a play ; " The Big Idea," by A. E. Thomas and Clayton Hamilton, is still another novelty in stagecraft; while " On Trial," by Elmer Reizenstein, tells a story in reverse chronological order. The value of this transposition of the time- scheme usually lies in the novelty, but— and this 271 272 EDWARD SHELDON is especially true in the case of " On Trial " — the novelty soon wears off. There a commonplace melodramatic incident is made interesting only be- cause it is told in the reverse order; the pleasure is felt only in seeing how it is done. Like a clever acrobatic feat, once it is over there is no desire to see it repeated. Where the device is not so novel and involved, as in " Milestones," or where it is more legitimately used, as in the plays of Cohan, A. E. Thomas, and Clayton Hamilton, more attention can be paid to the play itself. But as a matter of fact the unfolding of the past has been much more skilfully and naturally accomplished in many of the plays of Ibsen, and especially in Hjal- mar Bergstrom's powerful play, " Karen Borne- man." " Ghosts " and " Rosmersholm " accom- plish practically the same ends as does " On Trial," only there is no visible return to the past : it is un- folded by means of dialogue and its results are made manifest in the present. " On Trial " interests us only when the past is visibly returned to, with the result that it is made too vivid, and the proper perspective lost. The past cannot be so vivid as the present. In " Karen Borneman " the past rises up gradually; in fact, there is a great deal of exposition in the last act, but as the facts are made known as they would be in life itself, as a result of certain other facts, the audience keeps pace with the characters, and is never " ahead of EDWARD SHELDON 273 the game." The only criticism to be made against such plays as " On Trial " is that their very nov- elty is soon outworn, and that it is above all useless. " Romance " is the visualization of a story of the past. But as that story is the play, the pro- logue may be taken as incidental: as a frame for the principal action. However, had the story in the prologue been made more important, the intru- sion of the old man's story would have thrown into exaggerated relief what should have been only a detail. 2. It has already been remarked that one of the vices of American drama is its sentimentality, and Edward Sheldon has not yet been able to escape it. Needless to say the very title of the play implies sentiment, and its theme demands vigorous treatment. Yet, on the stage or off, sen- timent is sentiment, and any exaggeration is false. In the third act we find the following speech of Tom: . . Don't you hear the midnight cry: "Behold The Bridegroom cometh. Go ye out to meet Him ! " Don't you see Him coming from the wilderness like a pillar of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankin- cense? His eyes are as a flame of fire, and on His head are many crowns. He wears a garment dipped in blood and on it a name is written, Lord of Lords and King of Kings! Hark! He is outside knocking at 274 EDWARD SHELDON your door ! Rose of Sharon, Lily of the Valley, cease your slumber, for the hour has come ! These words, to be sure, are put into the mouth of the passionate young rector, but it is a question whether the author was not striving to attain an effect independent of what the logic of the situa- tion required. In " The High Road " he at- tempted this, to the detriment of the truth of the situation. Sheldon has always been lavish in the use of crowds, brass bands, and the like. These are of course always effective, but their constant use tends to weaken the effect of the play. At the end of "The Nigger," in the big act of "The Boss," and at the end of "The High Road," there are " mobs outside " ; what of these devices in "Romance"? The touch of melodrama which often nearly spoils an otherwise dramatic scene is painfully evident in the last act of the present play: {Pause. They are both breathing deeply. Tom, biting his underlip and never taking his eyes off her face, is crarvling softly up on her other side, crouched like a beast prepared to spring upon her unaware. Then, in the silence, just as he is ready to leap, is heard the first note of the midnight bell. The full, deep tones strike solemnly and slorvly up to twelve. Then, as it continues, the sound of a choir of men's EDWARD SHELDON 275 voices, sturdy and sweet, is heard from far away, gradually growing nearer. They are playing and sing- ing the old Lutheran hymn " Ein feste Burg." As Tom hears them, he gradually straightens and his old look and manner come back to him. He goes rather unsteadily. He stands for a moment looking out; then turns to Rita, passing his hand over his forehead as one recovering from a dream.) Add to this the phonograph playing Caval- lini's song ! 3. Sheldon is rarely mistaken as to the effect he wishes to produce, and his plays are full of minor points which are admirably done : the quaint incident in " The Boss " where the principal char- acter buys the brooch and examines it; the scene in the Governor's office in " The High Road " ; most of the first act of " Salvation Nell," are peculiarly Sheldonian. These touches go far to create charm and build up character. What ex- amples are there in " Romance " ? How far is the dramatist dependent upon them for the crea- tion of his larger effects? EUGENE WALTER Eugene Walter was born in 1876. He did re- porting on a Cleveland newspaper, then joined the New York Sun, and served in the army. For some years he was advance agent for a number of theatrical companies. For the past eight or nine years he has devoted himself exclusively to the writ- ing of plays'. Walter is a born man of the theater. His plays are for the most part melodramatic situations a la Bernstein, well developed, skilfully constructed, em- ploying an American background as a matter of course. He is little concerned with ideas or charac- terization. He is' journalistic, violent, and nearly always interesting. His violence leads him at times to excesses, but it sometimes drives him relentlessly into powerful and gripping situations. " Paid in Full " and " The Easiest Way," in particular, are fearless in their logic, and the author has fortunately not given in to the temptation to do violence to the logic of situation and character by making happy endings. " Fine Feathers " is uneven, but contains in the last two acts many scenes of high merit. Walter makes no pretension to " uplifting " the drama, he possesses no literary sense, his ideal is s^olely that of supply- ing the stage with dramatic stories. 276 EUGENE WALTER 277 PLAYS The Undertow (1907). Sergeant James (1907). Paid in Full (1907). The Wolf (1908). The Easiest Way (1908). Just a Wife (1910). Boots and Saddles (from "Sergeant James/' 1910). The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1911). Fine Feathers (1912). None of the above has been published in play form, although " The Easiest Way " has been " novel- ized " (by A. Hornblow; G. W. Dillingham, pub- lisher). (Note: Walter is another dramatist, like Heme and Cohan and Klein, whose plays, not being obtainable, cannot be studied in connection with the present out- line. The novelization, however, contains practically all the dialogue, and the play itself is in some of the larger public libraries.) References: Montrose J. Moses, "The American Dramatist " (Little, Brown) ; Richard Burton, " The New American Drama " (Crowell) ; Charlton An- drews, " The Drama To-day " (Lippincott) ; Archi- bald Henderson, "The Changing Drama" (Holt). — Magazines: Harper*s Weekly, vol. lii (p. 28); Cur- rent Literature, vol. liii (p. 413) ; Bookman, vol. xxxii (p. 294). THE EASIEST WAY A play in four acts. First performed in I9O8. A comparison of " The Easiest Way " with Pinero's " Iris " immediately suggests itself, and a good deal might be said on the subj ect. However, whether Wal- ter was acquainted with the English play or not, he has treated a similar theme in a rather dissimilar man- ner. Pinero's story is occasionally subtle, always in- genious ; Walter's is direct, brutal, though undoubtedly stronger. Pinero's woman is' universal and possibly lacking therefore in recognizably familiar touches. Walter's is definitely " human," particular, American. The style of dialogue in " Iris " is rarely collo- quial ; that in " The Easiest Way " is almost too much so. On page 9 (of the private edition of the play) Will says: Yes, it's been a mighty good two years for me. I was always proud to take you around, because I think you one of the prettiest things in New York {Laura crosses R., and girlishly jumps into armchair) ^ and that helps some, and you're always jolly, and you never complained. You always spent a lot of money, but it was a pleasure to see you spend it; and then you never offended me. Most women offend men S78 EUGENE WALTER 279 by coming around untidy and sort of unkempt, but somehow you always knew the value of your beauty, and you always dressed up. I always thought that maybe some day the fellow would come along, grab you, and make you happy in a nice way, but I thought that he'd have to have a lot of money. You know you've lived a rather extravagant life for five years, Laura. It won't be an easy job to come down to cases and suffer for the little dainty necessities you've been used to. An interesting contrast is afforded in a com- parison of the endings of the two plays (see p. 22, present volume). Walter ends his play as follows: Laura (^suddenly arousing herself, and with a de- fiant voice). — No, I'm not. I'm going to stay right here. {Annie crosses and opens trunk L., takes out handsome dress, crosses, hangs it over back of arm- chair R. C, crosses up to hat trunk, takes out hat. Laura takes it from her, crosses to trunk L., starts to unpack it.) Open these trunks, take out those clothes, get me my prettiest dress. Hurry up. {She goes he- fore the mirror.) Get my new hat, dress up my body, and paint up my face. It 's all they've left of me. {To herself.) They've taken my soul away with them. Annie {in a happy voice). — Yassum, yassum. Laura {rvho is arranging her hair). — Doll me up, Annie. Annie. — Yuh goin' out. Miss Laura .^ 280 EUGENE WALTER Laura. — Yes. I'm going to Rector's to make a hit, and to hell with the rest. {^At this moment the hurdy-gurdy in the street, presumably immediately under her rvindow, begins to play the tune of " Bon-Bon Buddie, My Chocolate Drop," There is something in this rag-time melody rvhich is particularly and peculiarly suggestive of the low life, the criminality and prostitution that consti- tute the night excitement of that section of New York City known as the Tenderloin, The tune, its associa- tion, is like spreading before Laura's eyes a pano- rama of the inevitable depravity that awaits her. She is torn from every ideal that she so weakly endeavored to grasp, and is thrown into the mire and slime at the very moment when her emancipation seems to be as- sured. The woman with her flashy dress in one arm and her equally exaggerated type of picture hat in the other, is nearly prostrated by the tune and the realisa- tion of the future as it is terrifically conveyed to her. The negress, in the happiness of serving Laura in her questionable career, picks up the melody and hums it as she unpacks the finery that has been put away in the trunk.) Laura {with infinite grief, resignation, and hopeless- ness). — O God — O my God. {She turns and totters toward the bedroom. The hurdy-gurdy continues, with the negress accompanying it.) A slow curtain. NOTES •- The theatrical situation in America is a peculiar one: many of the most successful dramatists re- fuse to publish their plays in book form, and a number of those who under a less rigid system of managerial policy would have ample opportunity of seeing their plays produced have been forced to resort to pubHcation of plays which are by reason of their subject-matter, or because of some external and practical reason, kept from the pro- fessional stage. While the author has consistently held to the belief that the play which cannot be acted is not a play, and that the " closet-drama " is a form apart, he still believes that owing to local conditions certain plays which have not received the sanction of stage-presentation are legitimate examples of American tendencies. The following pages contain a few suggestions for the study of certain plays of the sort referred to, as well as further brief outlines for three or four dramatists of the other kind: those who will not allow their plays to be published. GEORGE MIDDLETON George Middleton is an earnest idealist, who has published three volumes of one-act plays and 281 282 NOTES one three-act comedy.* In his introduction to " Possession," his latest volume, he says : " The dramatist . . . who prefers to follow the im- pulse within him, irrespective of whether or not his play may have a wide popular appeal, has had little encouragement. This is obviously so where his subjects are quietly intimate and where the clash of character is subtly mental or emotional ; espe- cially when one compares such plays with those others, no more dramatic in essence, which natu- rally command a greater audience because the action is physical, external, and more readily com- prehended." Middleton, whose technical skill is seen in his dramatizations — " The House of a Thousand Candles " and " Barriers Burned Away " — as well as in his own plays, has tried to make the one-act play a vehicle for the ideas which underlie the great movements of the da3^ For the most part he has chosen to depict various aspects of the feminist question, and his outspoken thoughts always de- mand thoughtful consideration. Middleton may be criticised on the score of occasional convention- ality in the matter of dialogue and perhaps a too earnest attitude toward his " message." " I am using," Middleton once said in an interview, " my little one-act pla3^s to suggest the larger drama in * " Embers," " Tradition," " Possession," and " Nowa- days " are all published by Holt. NOTES 283 the background. I want each play to picture either some vital past experience or some inevitable possibility which may arise. I seldom deal in final- ities, since no situation in life is without its further potentialities." Here is Middleton the idealist. In two of his short plays his method may be studied: "Tradition " (in the volume under that name) and "The Groove" (in "Possession"); the first is the depiction of one aspect of a world- old struggle between radicalism and conservatism ; the second is one of this dramatist's truest bits of characterization. Here is one of his best plays: it shows distinct possibilities, which should be developed and incorporated into a long play. " Nowadays," a comedy in three acts, suffers as most thesis plays do, from an overdose of thesis, but again the author's sincerity, his idealism, his sense of dramatic construction, redeem it from the realm of the purely didactic. JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY Josephine Preston Peabody (Mrs. Marks) has achieved success with her poetic play, " The Piper," * which was produced by Winthrop Ames at the New Theater in New York. Miss Peabody * Author also of "Marlowe" (1901), "The Wings" (1905), and "The Wolf of Gubbio" (1914), all published by Houghton Mifflin. 284 NOTES is a poetess of charm and strength, but her plays, with the single exception of " The Piper," are more effective when read than seen. If the theater and the audience had given more encouragement to writers of poetic drama, it is likely that Miss Pea- body would have written more plays and less lyrics. OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN Olive Tilford Dargan possesses poetic gifts and some knowledge of stage requirements. " The Shepherd " and " The Mortal Gods " might, with skilful and sympathetic stage-management, prove dramatic on the stage. HARRY BENRIMO AND GEORGE C. HAZELTON " The Yellow Jacket " * is one of the most charming and original of modern American plays. Its charm and originality, however, militated against it as a popular success, although it called forth unstinted praise from nearly all the critics of the country. PERCY MACKAYE Percy Mackaye has written closet dramas as well as acting plays : " Saint Louis, a Masque," " Sanctuary, a Bird Masque," " A Garland for * Published by Bobbs-Merrill. NOTES 285 Sylvia," "Fenris the Wolf," and " Sapho and Phaon " are written rather to be read than to be acted. Some of the following dramatists would have separate chapters devoted to them, were their plays available, but so long as they are withheld, a brief summary must for the present suffice: DAVID BELASCO .^ Probably the most prominent figure in the the- atrical world of the past quarter-century, both as a dramatist and producer, is David Belasco.* As a dramatist, he should be considered rather as a skilful and occasionally inspired collaborator ; as a producer, a careful, painstaking, and yet illumi- nating artist. He was the first in this country who studied stage-effects down to the minutest detail; so closely has he applied himself to this end that he has outstripped himself and become so engrossed in external effects that he has lost sight of general values. A " Belasco set " is ordinarily praised for its marvelous arrangement of minutice — the first act of "The Return of Peter Grimm" is the classic example — and credit should be given where it is due: this producer is a master of illu- sion. However, illusion is often substituted in his * " May Blossom " (Samuel French) is his only published play. 286 NOTES productions to the detriment of the play. Often this is fortunate, for many of the plays Belasco has produced have little else to recommend them but the setting. One of the sensations of " The Governor's Lady " was the exact reproduction of a " Childs' " restaurant ! One might as well go to see " The Garden of Allah " because of the real sand and the real camels ! The genius of the man is seen in one act from " The Darling of the Gods," where the suggestion of unseen action in the thick of a bamboo jungle is legitimately thrilling. Be- lasco's plays — or rather those in which he has worked over the ideas of others — are on the whole melodramatic and sentimental : he is a past master in the art of creating a thrill. The long-lost child, death-bed scenes, the deserted sweetheart, the mys- terious drop of blood, soft music, are a few among the many effects which he has on tap, so to speak. "Zaza," "The Heart of Maryland," "Madame Butterfly," " Du Barry," " The Girl of the Golden West," collaborations and adaptations, at once call up images of effective mounting, and com- pelling if at times exaggerated dramatic stories. GEORGE ADE George Ade, who suddenly sprang into fame in the early years of this century with his comic operas and his plays, is now seldom heard of. It NOTES 287 appears that this brilliant and amusing young dramatist has either decided to abandon the stage and apply himself to work of another nature, as he once declared he would, or that he has written himself out. "The College Widow," "The County Chairman," and " Father and the Boys " are genuine if eccentric and exaggerated comedies of American life in which types are created, in the author's words, " in such a manner as to increase our self-respect and to give us a new insight into our characteristics as a people." GEORGE M. COHAN ^George M. Cohan, actor, manager, composer, and playwright, is essentially typical of Broadway and the Broadway spirit in America. His musical comedies, his farces, and his own acting belong to what Walter Prichard Eaton termed the " comedy of bad manners"; they are ingenious, always amusing, often exaggerated, pictures of American city life. Cohan can draw types, invent capital situations, but he has yet to prove that he can construct a full-length play which shall interest and amuse from beginning to end. He is a drama- tist of externals. Yet withal, he is a figure of prominence, for he reflects an important side of the American nature. 288 NOTES GEORGE H. BROADHURST George H. Broadhurst is a popular playwright who has utilized the business and political elements in our daily life. Like Charles Klein, he uses the great political and business motifs only for back- ground, as if he were afraid or unable to cope with problems of so momentous a nature. " The Man of the Hour " is an amusing melodrama ; " Why Smith Left Home " * and " What Happened to Jones " * are amusing farces. " Bought and Paid For " had immense dramatic possibilities, but again the playwright avoided the issue. WILLIAM C. DE MILLE William C. De Mille, with "The Warrens of Virginia," " Strongheart," * and " The Woman," shows himself a follower of Belasco. He has an innate sense of the theater, he can write effective and moving melodrama, but like most of his fellow- workers, he makes use of business, politics — true American subjects — only as background. " The Woman," however, deserves especial notice as a well-constructed drama, consistently thought out and well written. * Published by Samuel French.— DeMille's " Food " and " In 1999 " are also published by French. NOTES 289 JOSEPH MEDILL PATTERSON " Rebellion " comes as near to being an Ameri- can play of ideas as any of the day, but either through lack of experience or, what is more prob- able, judgment, the play somehow missed fire. Like the same author's " The Fourth Estate," it is earnest and sincere, though there is in it a regrettable tendency toward the melodramatic. LANGDON MITCHELL " The New York Idea " * is a conventional but witty and clever comedy of manners, one of the few which this country has produced. Mitchell is practically the only dramatist (with the exception of Fitch) who is able and willing to satirize " high society " in America. " The New Marriage " (written for Mrs. Fiske, as were " The New York Idea " and " Becky Sharp ") was good as to idea, but fell far short of being a unified and interesting comedy. CHARLES KLEIN " The Lion and the Mouse " is among the first of the more recent American plays to utilize the theme of "high finance," the investigations into which were at the time causing widespread unrest. * Published by Walter Baker (Boston). 290 NOTES While the play is marred by a distortion of facts and ideas, it is, none the less, an earnest attempt. It is to be regretted that in his other plays Charles Klein used such pertinent and interesting themes as police-court justice and the evils of metropoli- tan life and that in the department store, only as background. "The Third Degree," "The Gam- blers," and " Maggie Pepper " fall far short of their infinite possibilities. Lately Charles Klein went to live in England ; when he left he said that the American dramatist must get away from his own country in order to gain a better perspective. It is hoped that Klein will, as he can do, take his art a little more seriously, and make use of his un- doubted gifts in a play which shall be workman- like and significantly American. RACHEL CROTHERS " A Man's World " * is an attractive and touch- ing picture of New York life. Miss Crothers has done notable work in this play and in " The Three of Us," " The Herfords," and " Myself, Bettina." Like other woman dramatists in America (Mar- garet Mayo, Eleanor Gates, Mary Roberts Rine- hart, and Alice Brown), there is a certain conven- tionality both in the treatment of the theme and in * Published by Badger, in the " American Dramatists* Series." NOTES 291 the development of human character, but a note of sincerity and a certain fideHty to external de- tails allow one to hope that this dramatist will make further use of her talents. BIBLIOGRAPHY General Reference Works on the Drama, its Theory, Technic, and History: Andrews, Charlton. The Drama To-day. Lippincott. ($1.50.) Archer, William. Playmaking, a Manual of Craftsmanship. Small, Maynard. ($2.00.) Baker, George P. The Technique of the Drama. Houghton Mif- flin, ($2.00.) Bourgeois, Maurice. John Millington Synge and the Irish Theater. Macmillan. ($2.50.) Burton, Richard. How to See a Play. Macmillan. ($1.25.) Caffin, Charles H. The Appreciation of the Drama. Doubleday, Page. ($1.50.) Cannan, Gilbert. The Joy of the Theater. Dutton. ($0.50.) Carter, Huntly. The New Spirit in Drama and Art. Kennerley. ($5.00.) Chandler, Frank Wadleigh. Aspects of Modern Drama. Macmillan. ($2.00.) 294 BIBLIOGRAPHY Cheney, Sheldon. The New Movement in the Theater. Kennerley. ($2.00.) Clark, Barrett H. The Continental Drama of To-day. Holt. ($1.35.) Courtney, W. L. The Idea of Tragedy. Brentano. ($1.00.) Craig, Gordon. On the Art of the Theater. Sergei, Chicago. ($2.00.) Towards a New Theater. Button. ($6.00.) L. Paul-Dubois. Contemporary Ireland. Maunsel, Dublin. Freytag, Gustav. The Technique of the Drama. Griggs, Chicago. ($1.50.) Fyles, Franklin. The Theater and its People. Doubleday, Page. ($1.25.) Hale, Edward Everett, Jr. Dramatists of To-day. Holt. ($1.50.) Hamilton, Clayton. The Theory of the Theater. Holt. ($1.50.) Studies in Stagecraft. Holt. ($1.50.) Henderson, Archibald. The Changing Drama. Holt. ($1.50.) Hennequin, Alfred. The Art of Playwriting. Houghton Mifflin. ($1.00.) Hunt, Elizabeth R. The Play of To-day. Lane. ($1.50.) BIBLIOGRAPHY 295 Irving, Henry. The Drama. Tait, New York. (Out of print.) Irving, H. B. The Drama. Page. ($1.50.) Lewisohn, Ludwig. The Modern Drama. Huebsch. ($1.50.) Matthews, Brander. The Development of the Drama. Scribner. ($1.50.) A Study of the Drama. Houghton Mifflin. ($1.50.) On Acting. Scribner. ($0.75.) Meredith, George. An Essay on Comedy. Scribner. ($1.00.) Moderwell, Hiram Kelly. The Theater of To-day. Lane. ($1.50.) Monkhouse, Allan. Books and Plays. Lane. ($1.50.) Palmer, John. Comedy. Doran. ($0.50.) The Censor and the Theaters. Kennerley. ($1.50.) The Future of the Theater. Bell. ($1.00.) Price, William T. The Technique of the Drama. Brentano. ($1.50.) The Analysris of Play Construction and Dra- matic Principles. W. T. Price. ($5.00.) Shipman, Louis Evan. The True Adventures of a Play. Kennerley. ($1.50.) 296 BIBLIOGRAPHY Strang, Lewis C. Plays and Players of the Last Quarter Century. Page. Famous Actors of the Day in America. Page. Sturgis, Granville Forbes. The Influence of the Drama. Shakespeare Press, New York. ($1.00.) Thorndike, Ashley H. Tragedy. Houghton, Mifflin. ($1.50.) Vaughan, C. E. Types of Tragic Drama. Macmillan. ($1.60.) WOODBRIDGE, ELIZABETH. The Drama, Its Law and Technique. Allyn and Bacon. ($0.80.) English and Irish Drama: Archer, William. About the Theater. Unwin. English Dramatists of To-day. Sampson Low. Study and Stage. Wessels. Masks or Faces .^ Longmans. Real Conversations. Heinemann. BoRSA, Mario. The English Stage of To-day. Lane. ($2.50.) Dukes, Ashley. Modern Dramatists. Sergei, Chicago. ($1.50.) FiLON, AUGUSTIN. The Englisrh Stage. Dodd, Mead. ($2.50.) George, W. L. Dramatic Actualities. Sidgwick and Jackson. Gregory, Lady Augusta. Our Irish Theater. Putnam. ($1.50). BIBLIOGRAPHY 297 Howe, P. P. Dramatic Portraits. Kennerley. ($1.50.) The Repertory Theater. Kennerley. ($1.25.) JoNEs_, Henry Arthur. Renascence of the English Drama. Macmillan. ($1.50.) The Foundations of a National Drama. Doran. ($2.00.) The Theater of Ideas. Doran. ($1.00.) Kennedy, J. M. Modern English Literature. Stephen Swift, London. Krans, Horatio Sheafe. William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary Revival. Doubleday, Page. ($1.00.) 'McCarthy, Desmond. The Court Theater. A. H. Bullen, Stratford-on- Avon. Moore, George. Hail and Farewell. Appleton. (3 vols., each $1.75.) Impressions and Opinions. Brentano. ($1.35.) Oliver, D. E. The English Stage. John Ouseley, London. Weygandt, Cornelius. Irish Plays and Playwrights. Houghton Mifflin. ($2.00.) Yeats, William Butler. Ideas of Good and Evil. Macmillan. ($1.50.) The Cutting of an Agate. Macmillan. ($1.50.) 298 BIBLIOGRAPHY Collected Dramatic Criticism: Archer^ William. The Theatrical World. (5 vols.) Walter Scott, London. Grein, J. T. Dramatic Criticism. John Long, London, 1899- Premieres of the Year. Macqueen, London, 1900. Dramatic Criticism. Greening, London, 1901. Dramatic Criticism. Evelyn Nash, London, 1904. Montague, C. E. Dramatic Values. Macmillan. ($1.25.) Scott, Clement. Drama of Yesterday and To-day. (2 vols.) Macmillan. ($8.00.) Shaw, Bernard. Dramatic Opinions and Essays. (2 vols.) Bren- tano. ($2.50.) E. F. S[pence]. Our Stage and Its Critics. Methuen, London, Symons, Arthur. Plays, Acting, and Music. Dutton. ($2.00.) TiTTERTON, W. R. From Theater to Music Hall. Stephen Swift, London. Walbrook. Nights at the Play. Ham-Smith, London. Walkley, a. B. Frames of Mind. Richards, London. The Drama and Life. Brentano. ($2.00.) Playhouse Impressions. Unwin, London. Dramatic Criticism. Murray, London. BIBLIOGRAPHY 299 Dictionaries, Y ear-Books, etc.: Adams, William D. A Dictionary of the Drama, A to G, (English and American). Lippincott. ($3.50.) Boston Book Co. (Publishers). Bulletin of Bibliography. Modern Drama and Opera, a reading list. ($1.00.) Brown, Frank C. A Selective List of Essays and Books about the Drama and the Theatre. Drama League of America. (25 cents.) Brown, T. Allston. Hi^ory of the New York Stage (1732-1901). Dodd, Mead. (3 vols.— Out of print.) Carson, Lionel. The Stage Year Book. (Appears annually.) London. Clarence, Reginald. The Stage Cyclopedia. London. Dickinson, Thomas H., Editor. Chief Contemporary Dramatists. Houghton Mifflin. ($2.75.) (Contains twenty modern plays and brief reading lists on Wilde, Pinero, Jones, Galsworthy, Barker, Yeats, Synge, Lady Gregory, Fitch, Moody, Thomas, and Mac- kaye.) HiNES, Dixie; and Hanaford, Harry Prescott (Editors). Who's Who in Music and Drama. Hanaford, New York (191'i). SOO BIBLIOGRAPHY Parker^ John. Who's Who in the Theater. Isaac Pitman, Lon- don. Pence, James Harry (compiler). The Magazine and the Drama, an index. The Dunlap Society (out of print.) RoDEN, Robert F. Later American Plays (1831-1900). The Dun- lap Society (1900). American Drama: Andrews, Charlton. The Drama To-day. Lippincott. ($1.50.) Burton, Richard. The New American Drama. Crowell. ($1.50.) Chandler, Frank Wadleigh. Aspects of Modern Drama. Macmillan. ($2.00.) Cheney, Sheldon. The New Movement in the Theater. Kennerley. ($2.00.) Crawford, Mary Caroline. The Romance of the American Theater. Little, Brown. ($2.50.) Frohman, Daniel. Memories of a Manager. Doubleday, Page. ($1.00.) Goldman, Emma. The Social Significance of the Modern Drama. Badger. ($1.00.) Hamilton, Clayton. The Theory of the Theater. Holt. ($1.50.) BIBLIOGRAPHY 801 Hapgood^ Norman. The Stage in America (1897-1900). Macmillan. ($1.75.) Mackaye, Percy. The Playhouse and the Play. Macmillan. ($1.25.) The Civic Theater. Kennerley. ($1.50.) Matthews^ Brander. A Study of the Drama. Houghton Mifflin. ($1.50.) Inquiries and Opinions. Scribner. ($1.50.) The Historical Novel and Other Essays. Scrib- ner. ($1.50.) Moderwell^ Hiram Kelly. The Theater of To-day. Lane. ($1.50.) Moses, Montrose J. The American Dramatist. Little, Brown. ($2.50.) Sturgis, Granville Forbes. The Influence of the Drama. Shakespeare Press, New York. ($1.00.) Collected Criticism : Eaton, Walter Prichard. The New Theater, and Others. Small, Maynard. ($1.50.) The American Stage of To-day. Small, Maynard. ($1.50.) Hamilton, Clayton. Studies in Stagecraft. Holt. ($1.50.) Matthews, Brander. Books and Plays. Scribner. 302 BIBLIOGRAPHY NiRDLINGERj ChARLES F. Masques and Mummers. De Witt, New York. ($1.50.) RuHL, Arthur. Second Nights. Scribner's. ($1.50.) Winter^ William. The Wallet of Time. (2 vols.) Moffat, Yard. Other Days. Moffat, Yard. Shadows of the Stage. (3 vols.) The Life and Art of Richard Mansfield. (2 vols.) Moffat, Yard. American plays, produced and unproduced, are be- ing published regularly in the " American Dramatists' Series " (Badger, Boston), and in Poet-Lore (same publisher) ; in the " Drama League Series " (Doubleday, Page) ; in the " Modern Drama Series " (Kennerley), and in The Drama. Among the magazines which print periodical criti- cism on the British and American theater are: The Drama, Poet-Lore, The American Playwright, The Dramatist, The Bookman, and The American Maga- INDEX Abbey Theater, The, 198, 208 Ade, George, 286 "Admirable Crichton, The," Barrie, 171 ^schylus, 125 " Alias Jimmy Valentine," Armstrong, 17 "Amants" ("Lovers"), Donnay, 112, 241 American Drama, 219-291. " American Dramatist, The," Moses, 231, 237, 246 " Ames ennemies, Les," Loy- son, 82 Ames, Winthrop, 283 " Amoureuse," Porto-Riche, 117, 118 " Analysis of Play Con- struction and Dramatic Principle," Price, 12 " Anathema," Andreyeff, 81 AndreyeflF, Leonid, quoted, 163-164 " Anti-Matrimony," Mac- kaye, 263 "Apotre, L'," Loyson, 82 " Aran Islands, The," Synge, 194-195 Archer, William, vii, 3, 12, 14, 36, 64; quoted on "Chains," 162-163; quoted on "Great Divide, The," 260-261 " Aristocracy," Howard, 219, 220, 227 Aristotle, 12, 84 " Arizona," Thomas, 52, 234 " Arms and the Man," Shaw, 66, 77, 78 Arnold, Matthew, 29, 99 Asides, 75, 223-225 "As the Leaves," Giacosa, 10 "As You Like It," Shake- speare, 204 " Atalanta in Calydon," Swinburne, 99 Atmosphere, 157-158, 196 " At the Mitre," Barker, 91. " Autobiography of a Play," Howard, 226 " Awakening of Spring, The," Wedekind, 120 Baker, Elizabeth, Biogra- phy, 160; Criticism, 160- 161; Literature on, 161; Plays, list, 161; Play dis- cussed: "Chains," 162- 164; Referred to, vii, 156 Baker, G. P., 263, 269. " Banker's Daughter, The," Howard, 219 Barker, Granville, Biogra- phy, 90; Criticism, 90-91; Literature on, 92; Plays, list, 91; Play discussed: " Voysey Inheritance, The," 93-96; Referred to, vi, 48, 64, 73, 116, 156, 171. Barrie, Sir James, Biogra- phy, 165; Criticism, 165; Literature on, 167; Plays, list, 165-167; Plays dis- cussed: "Pantaloon," 168- 169, " Twelve-pound Look, The," 170-172; Referred to, V, 48, 73, 90, 93, 246 Baudelaire, Charles, 51 303 304 INDEX " Beastly Pride," Baker, 160 " Beau Brummel," Fitch, 248 " Becky Sharp," Mitchell, 289 " Before Breakfast," Sow- erby, 154 Belasco, David, v, 227, 285- 286 "Benefit of the Doubt, The," Pinero, 4 Bennett, Arnold, 207 Benrimo, Harry, 284 Benson, F. R., 97 " Bertrade," Lemaitre, 81 Besier, Rudolf, v *' Bienfaiteurs, Les," Brieux, 135 "Big Idea, The," Thomas and Hamilton, 271 "Birthright," Murray, 209, 210-212 Bjornson, Bjornstierne, 75 " Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A," Browning, 99, 100 "Boss, The," Sheldon, 269, 274, 275 Boucicault, Dion, 220 "Bought and Paid For," Broadhurst, 255, 288 " Brand," Ibsen, 257 Brieux, Eugene, 17, 82, 207 Broadhurst, George H., 288 " Broadway Jones," Cohan, 238 Brown, Alice, 290 Browning, Robert, 99 " Bygones," Pinero, 3 Byron, H. J., 149 Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, 90 " Campden Wonder, The," Masefield, 141 "Candida," Shaw, 66, 71-75, 78, 81, 138 Capital and labor as a sub- ject for drama, 131-133, 158-159. 178 " Captain Brassbound's Con- version," Shaw, 74 " Captain Drew on Leave," Davies, 121 Capus, Alfred, 137 Carpenter, Edward, 64 " Case of Rebellious Susan, The," Jones, 27, 29 " Cassilis Engagement, The," Hankin, 110-113 Catastrophe, 12, 28 "Chains," Baker, 116, 160, 162-164 Chambers, C. Haddon, Bi- ography, 114; Criticism, 114; Literature on, 115; Plays, list, 114-115; Play discussed: "Tyranny of Tears, The," 116-120 " Change," Francis, 44, 45, 173, 175-178 Characterization, 20, 215, 254 " Chief Contemporary Dra- matists," Ed. Dickinson, 261 Child-motif, 227 Clark, Barrett H., 12, 62 " Clerical Error, A," Jones, 29 Climax, 12, 44-46, 176, 211, 262, 267 "Climbers, The," Fitch, 253 "Closet Drama," 99 Cohan, George M., v, 287 " College Widow, The," Ade, 287 "Combustion," Thomas, 234 "Comedy of Errors, A," Shakespeare, 119 Commercialization of the theater, 95 " Concert, The." See " Kon- zert, Das "' Congreve, William, 29 " Continental Drama of To- day, The," Clark, v, 12, 25,' 84 INDEX 805 " Countess Cathleen, The," Yeats, 185-187 " County Chairman, The," Ade, 287 Court Theater, The, Lon- don, 64, 90, 107, 154 Crothers, Rachel M., 290- 291 "Crows, The," Becque, 121 Croydon Repertory Theater, 160 " Crusaders, The," Jones, 256 Curel, Francois de, 126 "Curtains," 75, 111, 137-138 " Cyrano de Bergerac," Ro- stand, 81 " Daisy's Escape," Pinero, 3 " Damaged Goods," Brieux, 17, 82 "Dandy Dick," Pinero, 4 D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 26 Dante, 101 Dargan, Olive Til ford, 284 " Darling of the Gods, The," Belasco, 286 Davies, Hubert Henry, Bi- ography, 121; Criticism, 121-122; Literature on, 123; Plays, list, 122; Play discussed: "Mollusc, The," 124-127; Referred to, vi, vii, 116 De Bar, Ben, 233 "Deirdre," Yeats, 186 De Mille, W. C, 288 " Denouement," 12, 145, 150, 204-205 Development, 12, 75, 262 " Devil's Disciple, The," Shaw, 74 Dialogue, 60-61, 100, 136, 151-153, 210, 238-239, 278- 280 Division of acts and scenes, 151, 186, 212 " Doctor's Dilemma, The," Shaw, 78, 81, 83 "Doll's House, A," Ibsen, 145, 150, 226, 255 " Dolly Reforming Herself," Jones, 27, 30, 256 "Don Juan in Hell," Shaw, 79 Donnay, Maurice, 26 " Doormats," Davies, 121 Douglas, Lord Alfred, 51 " Drama, Its Law and Tech- nique, The," Woodbridge, 12 " Dramatic Opinions and Essays," Shaw, quoted, 41- 42 " Dramatic Portraits," Howe, 16; quoted, 73 Dramatic talent, Pinero quoted on, 17 Drawing-room play, 156 " Dream of Love, A," Da- vies, 121 " Drifting Apart," Heme, 228 Drinkwater, John, quoted on Hankin, 107-108 " Du Barry," Belasco, 286 "Duchess of Padua, The," Wilde, 47, 48 Duke of York's Theater, London, 90 Dumas fils, Alexandre, 14, 27 "Easiest Way, The," Wal- ter, 24, 255, 276, 278- 280 Eaton, W. P., 287 " Editha's Burglar," Tho- mas, 233, 234 Edwards, T. R., vii "Eldest Son, The," Gals- worthy, 149 " Elizabethan Stage Society," 90 "Embers," Middleton, 282 306 INDEX " Empedocles," Arnold, 99 English Drama, 3-178 Ervlne, St. John G., Biog- raphy, 213; Criticism, 913; Literature, 214; Plays, list, 214; Play discussed: " Mixed Marriage," 215- 216; Referred to, vi *' Evangile du sang, L','' Loyson, 82 Exposition, 12, 15, 19, 75, 136 Fabian Society, The, 64 Faguet, Emile, quoted, 112 " Faith Healer, The," Moody, 258 Family drama, 156 *' Fanny's First Play," Shaw, 78, 85 "Fantine," Howard, 219 Farce, 60 Fate-motif, 52 "Father and the Boys," Ade, 287 " Feathertop," Hawthorne, 266 "Fenris the Wolf," Mac- kaye, 285 " Fine Feathers," Walter, 276 "First Lead," 72 Fiske, Mrs., 269, 289 Fitch, Clyde, Biography, 248; Criticism, 248-249; Literature on, 251-252; Plays, list, 249-250; Play discussed: "Truth, The," 253-257; Referred to, 237, 263 Flaubert, Gustave, 51 " Florentine Tragedy, A," Wilde, 48 "Food," De Mille, 288 Foreshortening of time, 144- 145 " Foundations of a National Drama," Jones, 42 " Fourberies de Scapin, Les," Molifere, 119 " Four Irish Plays," Ervlne, 216 "Fourth Estate, The," Pat- terson, 289 " Francesca da Rimini," D'Annunzio, 105 Francis, John Oswald, Biog- raphy, 173; Criticism, 173; Literature on, 174; Plays, list, 174; Play dis- cussed: "Change," 175- 178; Referred to, vii, 44 "Free Woman, The," Don- nay, 254 Freytag, Gustav. See " Technique of the Drama, The" " Fritzchen," Sudermann, 86, 172 "Future of the Theater, The," Palmer, 138 Galsworthy, John, Biogra- phy, 128; Criticism, 128- 129; Literature on, 130; Plays, list, 129; Plays dis- cussed: "Strife," 131-134; "Pigeon, The," 135-139; Referred to, vi, 15, 74, 82, 90, 93, 156, 159, 165 " Gamblers, The," Klein, 290 "Gaol Gate, The," Gregory, 199 "Garland for Sylvia, A," Mackaye, 284 Gates, Eleanor, 290 " Gay Lord Quex, The," Pi- nero, 4, 162 George, Henry, 63; quoted on "Heme, 231 " Get-Rich-Quick Walling- ford," Cohan, 238 " Getting Married," Shaw, 72, 81-85, 124, 172 Giacosa, Giuseppe, 10 INDEX 307 Gilbert, Sir William S., 16 Gillette, William, Biogra- phy, 243; Criticism, 243; Literature on, 244; Plays, list, 243-244; Play dis- cussed: " Held by the En- emy," 245-247; Referred to, 263 "Girl of the Golden West, The," Belasco, 286 "Ghosts," Ibsen, 16, 272 " Girl With the Green Eyes, The," Fitch, 253 " Governor's Lady, The," Belasco, 286 Grand Opera House, New York, 228 " Great Divide, The," Moody, 258, 260-262 Greet, Ben, 90 Gregory, Lady Augusta, Bi- ography, 198 ; Criticism, 198-199; Literature on, 201; Plays, list, 199-200; Plays discussed : " Hya- cinth Halvey," 202-205 ; " Rising of the Moon, The," 206-207; Referred to, vi, 181, 182, 213 Grein, J. T., vii, 16, 64 " Hail and Farewell," Moore, 192 Hale, E. E., Jr., 97 Hamilton, Clayton, vii, 12, 24 "Hamlet," Shakespeare, 37, 126, 131, 144, 193, 203, 204 Hankin, St. John, Biogra- phv, 107; Criticism, 107- 108; Literature on, 108- 109; Plays, list, 108; Play discussed: " Cassilis En- gagement, The," 110-113; Referred to, 90 Happy endings, 113, 255, " Harlequinade, The," Bar- ker, 91 Harte, Bret, 87 "Havoc, The," H. S. Shel- don, 95 Hazelton, George C, Jr., 284 "Heart of Maryland, The," Belasco, 286 "Hearts of Oak," Heme, 228 "Hedda Gabler," Ibsen, 19, 27 " Held by the Enemy," Gil- lette, 243, 243-247 " Henrietta, The," How- ard, 219, 227 Herman, Henry, 29, 36 Heme, James A., Biogra- phy, 228; Criticism, 228- 229; Literature on, 229- 230; Plays, list, 229; Play discussed: "Shore Acres," 231-232 Hero, 39 "Herod," Phillips, 101 Heroine, 39 Hervieu, Paul, 29, 40, 82, 135, 207 "High Road, The," Shel- don, 269, 271, 274-275 " Hindle Wakes," Hough- ton, 147, 149-153, 154 Hnrniman, Miss A, E. F., 160 Houghton, Stanley, Biogra- phy, 147; Criticism, 147; Literature on, 148; Plays, list, 147-148; Play dis- cussed : " Hindle Wakes," 149-153; Referred to, 156 Howard, Bronson, Biogra- phy, 219; Criticism, 219- 220; Literature on, 221- 222; Plays, list, 220-221; Play discussed : " Young Mrs. Winthrop," 223-227 Howe, P. P., quoted on Pi- 308 INDEX nero, 16; quoted on Shaw, 74 "Hyacinth Halvev," Greg- ory, 202-205, 207 Ibsen, Henrik, 16, 64, 72, 74, 82, 126, 150, 151, 156, 226, 272 " Ideal Husband, An," Wilde, 47 "Image, The," Gregory, 199 " Importance of Being Earnest, The," Wilde, 47, 48, 58, 59-62 " Independent Means," Houghton, 147 Independent Theater, The, 16, 64 Ingenue, 72 " In Memoriam: Bronson Howard," Matthews, 226 "Inn of Tranquillity, The," Galsworthy, 131 " Intruder, The," Maeter- linck, 164, 186 Irish Drama, 181-216 " Irish Literary Theatre, The," 181, 188 "Iris," Pinero, 4, 19-23, 26, 37, 40, 196, 278 Irving, Sir Henry, 3 " Jackdaw, The," Gregory, 203, 204, 207 " Jane Clegg," Ervine, 213 " Jeanne d'Arc," Mackaye, 263 " John Bull's Other Island," Shaw, 80 " John Gabriel Borkman," Ibsen, 10 Jones, Henry Arthur, Biog- raphy, 29; Criticism, 29- 30; Literature on, 34-35; Plays, list, 30-34; Plays discussed : " Silver King, The," 36-39, "Michael and "Liars, The," 44-46; Re- ferred to, vi, 16, 27, 48, 65, 66^ 78, 116, 117, 150, 156, 207 " Julius Caesar," Shake- speare, 203 " Justice," Galsworthy, 15, 27, 82 " Karen Bornemann," Berg- strom, 272 " Kate," Howard, 220 " Kathleen ni Houlihan," Yeats, 18f Kennedy, Charles Rann, v " King Lear," Shakespeare, 131, 260 Kingsway Theater, London, 90 Klein, Charles, 288, 289-290 Knoblauch, Edward, 207 " Konzert, Das," Bahr, 256 Krans, H. S., quoted on Yeats, 181 "Labyrinth, The," Hervieu, 247 " Lady Bountiful," Pinero, 4 " Lady Windermere's Fan," Wilde, 47, 55-58, 62, 119, 120 Legouve, Ernest, 246 Lemaitre, Jules, 125 " Leonarda," Bjornson, 75 "Liars, The," Jones, 27, 29, 44-46, 127, 205, 239, 254, 267 Lie, the, as dramatic mate- rial, 254 "Lie, The," Jones, 254 " Liebelei," Schnitzler, 242 "Life of Man, The," An- dreyeff, 164 " Lion and the Mouse, The," Klein, 289 Literature and drama, 43, 261 "Literature and the Mod- INDEX S09 ern Drama," Jones, quot- ed, 42 Little Theater, London, 154 Little Theater, New York, 154 Logic, dramatic, 22, 151-153 " Loi de I'homme, La," Her- vieu, 82 London, Jack, 87 "Lovers." See " Amants " Loyson, Paul Hyacinthe, 82 " £200 a Year," Pinero, 3 "Macbeth," Shakespeare, 53; quoted, 99-100, 126, 131, 144, 156 Mackaye, Percy, Biogra- phy, 263; Criticism, 263; Literature on, 264-265 ; Plays, list, 264; Play dis- cussed: "Scarecrow, The," 266-268; Referred to, 284- 285 Mackaye, Steele, 263 " Madame Butterfly," Be- lasco, 286 "Madman or Saint," Eche- garay, 216 "Madras House, The/' Bar- ker, 73, 90, 91 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 51, 185, 232 " Magda," Sudermann, 75, 85, 120, 158, 175 " Maggie Pepper," Klein, 290 " Magistrate, The," Pi- nero, 4 " Magnanimous Lover, The," Ervine, 149, 213 " Man and Superman," Shaw, 66, 71, 72, 76-80, 81, 95, 127 "Man of the Hour, The," Broadhurst, 288 Mansfield, Richard, 248 "Man's World, A," Croth- ers, 290 " Margaret Fleming," Heme, 228 "Marlowe," Peabody, 283 Martyn, Edward, 181 Masefield, John, Biography, 140; Criticism, 140-141; Literature on, 141-142; Plays, list, 141; Play dis- cussed: "Tragedy of Nan, The," 143-146 "Mater," Mackaye, 263 Matthews, Brander, 12; quoted on mots, 118-119; quoted on Howard, 219- 220, 226; quoted, 246 Maugham, W. Somerset, vi, 116 " Maurice Harte," Murray, 209-210 Mayo, Margaret, 290 " May Blossom," Belasco, 285 Melodrama, 36 - 39, 239- 240 " Michael and His Lost Angel," Jones, 29, 30, 40- 43, 78 " Mid-Channel," Pinero, 4, 15, 20, 24-28, 197 " Middleman, The," Jones, 30 Middleton, George, vii, 281- 283 " Milestones," Bennett and Knoblauch, 154, 175, 271, 272 "Milieu," 86, 94, 196 " ' Mind - the - Paint ' Girl, The," Pinero, 4 " Minute Men, The," Heme, 228 " Misalliance," Shaw, 72, 81, 85 Mitchell, Langdon, 289 "Mixed Marriage," Ervine, 212, 215-216 Mobs, 176 Moliere, 119, 199 310 INDEX "Mollusc, The," Davies, 95, 121, 124-127, 256 '* Money-Spinner, The," Pi- nero, 3 Moody, William Vaughn, Biography, 258; Criticism, 258; Literature on, 259; Plays, list, 258; Play dis- cussed : " Great Divide, The," 260-262 Moore, George, vi, 181; quoted on Synge, 191, 196 Morris, William, 64 "Mortal Gods, The," Dar- gan, 284 Moses, Montrose J., vii, 175; quoted on Heme, 231; quoted on Thomas, 237; quoted on Gillette, 246 Motivation, 56-58, 126-127, 144-145 "Mots" ("caractere," "sit- uation," "d'esprit"), 118- 119, 254 " Mrs. Dane's Defence," Jones, 27, 45 " Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace," Davies, 121 '* Mrs. Harrison," Mase- field, 141 " Mrs. Warren's Profes- sion," Shaw, 64-65, 73, 78 Murray, T. C., Biography, 208; Criticism, 208-209; Literature on, 209; Plays, list, 209; Play discussed: " Birthright," 210-212; Re- ferred to, vii, 213 " Myself, Bettina," Crothers, 290 " Nathan Hale," Fitch, 245 " New Marriage, The," Mitchell, 289 New Theater, New York, 283 New Woman, The, 17 "New York Idea, The," Mitchell, 289 " Nigger, The," Sheldon, 269, 274 " Nowadays," Middleton, 282, 283 Number of characters in plays, 125 " GEdipus," Sophocles, 143, 193, 203 " On Baile's Strand," Yeats, 198 One-act play, 52, 168-172, 192, 193; Middleton on, 282, 283 "Only 'Round the Cor- ner," Jones, 29 " On Trial," Reizenstein, 271, 272, 273 " Orangeman, The," Ervine, 213 " Oscar Wilde," Arthur Ransome, 47; quoted, 51- 52 "Othello," Shakespeare, 203 "Paid in Full," Walter, 276 Palmer, John, quoted on Galsworthy, 138 " Pantaloon," Barrie, 168- 169 " Paolo and Francesca," Phillips, 51, 99-106, 186, 197 " Pardon, The," Lemaitre, 95 125 "Pathe'tic Fallacy," The, in drama, 156-158 " Patrie ! " Sardou, 245 Patterson, Joseph Medill, 289 Peabody, Josephine Preston (Mrs. Marks), 283-284 " Pelleas and Melisande," Maeterlinck, 186 INDEX 311 " Peter Pan," Barrie, 165, 168 " Peter Stuyvesant," How- ard and Matthews, 236 "Philanderer, The," Shaw, 64 " Philip the King," Mase- field, 141 Phillips, Stephen, Biogra- phy, 97; Criticism, 97; Literature on, 98; Plays, list, 97-98; Play dis- cussed: "Paolo and Fran- cesca," 99-106; Referred to, vii, 43, 51 "Pigeon, The," Galsworthy, 135-139 Pinero, Sir Arthur, Biog- raphy, 3-4; Criticism, 4- 5; Literature on, 8-9; Plays discussed: "Sweet Lavender," 10-13, " Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The," 14- 18, "Iris," 19-23; "Mid- Channel," 34-28; Referred to, vi, 30, 37, 40, 65, 66, 77, 78, 91, 114, 116, 117, 132, 124, 149, 156, 162, 237, 278 " Piper, The," Peabody, 283-284 " Play Actors, The," 160 "Playboy of the Western World, The," Synge, 141, 191, 194-197 " Playmakina:," Archer, 12, 162-163, 260 Play of ideas, 82 " Piays Pleasant and Un- pleasant," Shaw, 65 ; quoted on Ibsen, 72-73 Poetic drama, 51, 99-101 "Poetry Review, The," 97 "Poliche," Bataille, 112 Porto-Riche, Georges de, 117-118 " Possession," Middleton, 282-283 Preparation, 59-60, 101 " Preserving Mr. Panmure," Pinero, 4 "Price of Thomas Scott, The," Baker, 160 "Professor, The," Gillette, 243 " Profligate, The," Pinero, 4, 13 " Prunella," Barker and Housman, 91 " Pygmalion," Shaw, 78, 85 " Queen Mary," Tennyson, 99 Queensberry, Marquess of 47 " Raisonneur," 26 Ransome, Arthur, 47 " Rebellion," Patterson, 289 Repertory Theater, Charles Frohman's, 160 " Return of Peter Grimm, The," Belasco, 227, 285 Restoration Dramatists, 30 " Return of the Prodigal, Tlie," Hankin, 110, 113 " Rev. Griffith Davenport, The," Heme, 228 " Revolutionist's Handbook, The " (In " Man and Su- perman"), 76 " Richard HI.," Shake- speare, 145 " Riders to the Sea," Synge, 156, 191-193 Rinehart, Mary Roberts, 290 "Rising of the Moon, The," Gregory, 206-207 Robertson, T. W., 16, 149, 220 Robinson, Lennox, 213 " Romance," Sheldon, 78, 269, 271-275 " Romeo and Juliet," Shake- speare, 203 312 INDEX " Rosmersholm," Ibsen, 82, 272 Ross, Robert, quoted in Ransome's " Oscar Wilde," 51-52 « Rutherford and Son," Sowerby, 154-159, 175, 178 "Sabine Woman, A." See "Great Divide, The" « Sag Harbor," Heme, 228 " Saints and Sinners," Jones, 29 " Saint Louis," Mackaye, 284 « Salome," Wilde, 48, 51-54, 58 " Sanctuary," Mackaye, 284 "Sapho and Phaon," Mac- kaye, 263, 285 "Saratoga," Howard, 219 Sarcev, Francisque, 163 " Sardoodledom," 71 Sardou, Victorien, 43 " Saturday Review, The," 16, 64 Savoy Theater, 90 " Scarecrow, The," Mac- kaye, 263, 266-268 "Schoolmistress, The," Pi- nero, 4 Scott, Clement, 163 " Seagull, The," Tchekoff, 82 " Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The," Pinero, 4, 13, 14-18, 19, 20, 85, 120, 124, 149, 196 " Secret Service," Gillette, 243, 245 " Servant in the House, The," Kennedy, 124 "Seven Keys to Baldpate," Cohan, 271 "Seven Short Plays," Greg- ory, 199, 202, 206 " Shadowy Waters, The," Yeats, *198 Shakespeare, 51, 100, 125- 126, 191 Shaw, Bernard, Biography, 63-64 ; Criticism, 65-66 ; Literature on, 69-70 ; Plays, list, 66-68; Plays discussed: "Candida," 71- 75, " Man and Superman," 76-80; "Getting Married," 81-85, " Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet, The," 86- 89; Referred to, vi, 16, 40, 42, 48, 90, 93, 117, 170, 171, 207, 246 Sheldon, Edward, Biogra- phy, 269; Criticism, 269; Literature on, 270; Plays, list, 269-270; Play dis- cussed: "Romance," 271- 275; Referred to, 78 " Shenandoah," Howard, 219, 227 Sheridan, 29, 125 " Sherlock Holmes," Gil- lette, 243 " Shewing-up of Blanco Pos- net, The," Shaw, 78, 85, 86-89, 172 "Shore Acres," Heme, 228, 231-232 "Silver Box, The," Gals- worthy, 128, 138, 139 " Silver King, The," Jones and Herman, 29, 30, 36-39, 40 Sims, G. R., 77 Soliloquy, 75, 102-103, 223- 225 " Sovereign Love," Murray, 208 Sowerby, Githa (Mrs. John Kendall), Biography, 154; Criticism, 154-155; Liter- ature on, 155; Plays, list, 155; Play discussed: " Rutherford and Son," 156-159; Referred to, vii, 160 INDEX 31: " Spreading the News," Gregory, 198, 203 " Squire, The," Pinero, 3 St. Charles Theater, New Orleans, 233 St. James's Theater, Lon- don, 90 Stage-directions, 72-74, 94, 168-169, 170-172, 187, 207 Stage Society, London, 64, 90, 107 "Stevenson, R. L., The Dramatist," Pinero, quot- ed, 17 Strauss, Richard, 53 " Strife," Galsworthy, 52, 131-134, 135, 137, 159, 178 " Strongheart," De Mille, 288 Struggle in the drama, 157, 163, 216 " Stubbornness of Gerald- ine, Tlie," Fitch, 253 "Study of the Drama, A," Matthews, 12 ; quoted, 118-119, 246 "Such is Life," Wedekind, 81 Sudermann, Hermann, 75, 86 Sutro, Alfred, v " Sweet Lavender," Pinero, 4, 10-13, 14, 18, 20, 22, 27, 149, 205 Swinburne, 99 Synge, John Millington, Bi- ography, 188; Criticism, 188-199; Literature on, 189-190; Plays, list, 189; Plays discussed : " Riders to the Sea," 191-193, " Plavboy of the Western World, The," 194-197; Referred to, 199, 207, 213 " Technique of the Drama, The," Baker, 12 "Technique of the Drama," Freytag, 12 "Technique of the Drama," Price, 12 Tennyson, Alfred, 99 "Theater of Ideas, The," Jones, 207 Theatrical talent, Pinero quoted on, 17 Themes of the plays, 117, 118 "Theory of the Theater, The," Hamilton, 12 Thesis, 88 Thesis plays, 150 - 151, 215 " Third Degree, The," Klein, 290 Thomas, Augustus, Biogra- phy, 233-234; Criticism, 234; Literature on, 235- 236; Plays, list, 234-235; Play discussed: "Witch- ing Hour, The," 237-242; Referred to, 16, 226, 246, 247, 263 "Three Daughters of M. Dupont, The," Brieux, 247 "Thousand Years Ago, A," Mackaye, 263 *' Tliunderbolt, The," Pi- nero, 4, 15, 16, 24, 91, 149, 196 "Tinker's Wedding, The," Synge, 194 "Too Much Johnson," GU- lette, 243 " Tradition," Middleton, 282, 283 Tragedy, Hervieu quoted on, 25; difference between melodrama, and, 37-39, 112-113, 140; Masefield quoted on, 143, 192, 193; compared with comedy, 203-204 "Tragedy of Nan, The," 314 INDEX Masefield, 140, 141, 143- 146 " Tragedy of Pompey the Great, The," Masefield, 141 " Traveling Man, The," Gregory, 199 "Truth, The," Fitch, 253- 257 "Tyranny of Tears, The," Chambers, 116-120 "Twelve-pound Look, The," Barrie, 73, 95, 168-169, 170-172 "Ulysses," Phillips, 101 Unity, 87 Unities, Greek, 81, 84, 124 Vaudeville Theater, London, 154 Vedrenne, J. E., 90 "Vera, or The Nihilists," Wilde, 47, 48 Villain, 39, 72 " Voysey Inheritance, The," Barker, 16, 73, 90, 93-96, 154, 158 1 Walden, Lord Howard de, 173 Waller, Lewis, 90 Walter, Eugene, Biography, 276; Criticism, 276; Liter- ature on, 277; Plays, list, 277; Play discussed: " Easiest Way, The," 278- 280; Referred to, v. 23 War plays, 245 " Warrens of Virginia, The," De Mille, 288 "Waste," Barker, 90, 95 Webb, Sidney, 63 " Well of the Saints," Synge, 198 Well-made play. The, 71, 75, 81, 159, 163 Welsh National Drama Company, 173, 175 " What Every Woman Knows," Barrie, 165 What is a play? 84, 247 "Wheel o' Fortune, The," Murray, 208-209 " What Happened to Jones," Broadhurst, 288 "Why Smith Left Home," Broadhurst, 288 "Widowers' Houses," Shaw, 64, 65, 75, 77, 78, 81 "Wild Duck, The," Ibsen, 82 Wilde, Oscar, Biography, 47-48; Criticism, 48; Lit- erature on, 50; Plays, list, 49; Plays discussed: "Sa- lome," 51-54, "Lady Win- dermere's Fan," 55-58, " Importance of Being Earnest, The," 59-62; Re- ferred to, 10, 30, 66, 110 "Will, The," Barrie, 169 " Wings, The," Peabody, 283 " Witching Hour, The," Thomas, 234, 237-242, 245, 246, 262 "Within the Law," Veiller, 255 "Wolf of Gubbio, The," Peabody, 283 "Woman of No Impor- tance, A," Wilde, 47, 61, 120 "Woman, The," De Mille, 146, 288 Woodbridge, Elizabeth. See " Drama, Its Law and Technique, The" " Workhouse Ward, The," Gregory, 203 Wyndham, Mr. and Mrs., 3 Yeats, John B., 181 INDEX 815 Yeats, William Butler, Bi- ography, 181 ; Criticism, 181-182; Literature on, 183-184; Plays, list, 182; Play discussed: "Countess Cathleen, The," 185-187; Referred to, vi, 188, 189, 191 213 "Yellow Jacket, The," Ben- rimo and Hazelton, 17, 284 "You Never Can TeU," Shaw, 71, 78 " Younger Generation, The," Houghton, 147, 154, 175 " Young Mrs. Winthrop," Howard, 219, 223-227, 239, 262 Zangwill, Israel, v "Zaza," Belasco, 286 ARCHIBALD HENDERSON'S THE CHANGING DRAMA Its Contribtrtions and Tendencies. By the Author of "George Bernard Shaw : His Life and Works," "European Drama- tists," etc. 12mo. $1.50 net. The pioneer book in English in its field. While a number of good books, taking up important dramatists and discussing them one after another, are available, this is probably the first that describes the significant changes and movements in the drama of the last half century, illustrating them by the work of leading dramatists and by apt citations of and quotations from their plays. The author, publicist as well as dramatic critic, aims to show the expression of the larger realities of con- temporary life in the drama, the widening of social influence of the stage, the new technic, form, and content of the play, the substitution of the theme for the hero, the conflict of wills for that of arms, etc. In short, to give a brief but authorita- tive general survey with a more detailed appraisal of some of the chief creative contributions. The chapter headings indicate the content and scope of the work: Drama in the New Age; The New Criticism and New Ethics; Science and the New Drama; The New Forms — Realism and the Pulpit Stage; The New Forms — Naturalism and the Free Theatre ; The Battle with Illusions ; The Ancient Bondage and the New Freedom; The New Technic; The Play and the Reader; The New Content; The Newer Tendencies. The author, though an American, has also studied the drama in the theatres of Great Britain and the Continent, and has before this demonstrated that he is a dramatic scholar and a keen, clear-eyed, entertaining critic. His articles have appeared in La Societe NouveUe, Mercure de France, Deutsche Revue, Illustreret Tidende, Finsk Tidskrift, T. Pfs Maga- zine, etc., etc. Maurice Maeterlinck said of his "Interpreters ^^of Life" (now incorporated in his "European Dramatists") : "You have written one of the most sagacious, most acute, and most penetrating essays in the whole modern literary movement." "It is a really great work." said Professor William Lyon Phelps of "George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works." Of his "European Dramatists," The Dial said: "The criti- cisms of their work are keen and lucid, and have the advan- tage of coming from one who has studied the plays exhaustively." HENRY HOLT AND COM PAN Y PUBLISHERS vii'14 NEW YORK A FEW RECENT PLAYS BY AMERICANS Beulah M. Dix's ACROSS THE BORDER A play against war, showing in four scenes, two "beyond the border" of life, the adventures of a highly likable young Lieutenant. He goes on a desperate mission, finds The Place of Quiet and The Dream Girl, as well as The Place of Winds, where he learns the real nature of War, and finally in a field hospital tries to deliver his message. With 2 illustrations. 80 cents net. New York Tribune: "One of the few pleas for peace that touch both the heart and the intelligence. ... Its remarkable blending of stark realism with extravagant fancjr strikes home. . . . 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(Just pub- lished.) $1.35 net. These plays respectively concern (1) A divorced couple and their little girl; (2) A girl's wish to escape village monotony; (3) a woman's reputation and a man's public usefulness; (4) The quiet tragedy of a mulatto maid; (5) A mother's sacrifice to keep a home for her daughter, and (6) How an unknown woman brought a message to a young couple. EMBERS With The Failures, The Gargoyle, In His House, Ma- donna and The Man Masterful. One-act American Plays. $1.35. Richard Burton, in The Bellman: "Embers is a volume of sketches which show the trained hand of the expert and are, moreover, decidedly interesting for their psychological value." Prof. William Lyon Phelps of Yale: "The plays are admirable; the conversations have the true style of human speech, and show first-rate economy of words, every syllable advancing the plot. The little dramas are full of cerebration, and I shall recommend them in my public lectures." 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HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK • By Clayton Hamilton STUDIES IN STAGECRAFT Contents: The New Art of Making Plays, The Pictorial Stage, The Drama of Illusion, The Modern Art of Stage Direction, A Plea for a New Type of Play, The Undramatic Drama, The Value of Stage Conventions, The Supernatural Drama, The Irish National Theatre, The Personality of the Playwright, Where to Begin a Play, Continuity of Structure, Rhythm and Tempo, The Plays of Yesteryear, A New De- fense of Melodrama, The Art of the Moving-Picture Play, The One-Act Play in America, Organizing an Audience, The Function of Dramatic Criticism, etc., etc. $L50 net Nation: "Information, alertness, coolness, sanity and the command of a forceful and pointed English. ... A good book, in spite of all deductions." Prof. Archibald Henderson, in The Drama: "Uniformly excellent in quality. . . . Continuously interesting in presentation . . . uniform for high excellence and elevated standards. . . ." 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THE GERMAN DRAMA OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY By Georg Witkowski. Translated by Prof. L. E. Horning. Kleist, Grillparzer, Hebbel, Ludwig, Wildenbruch, Sudermann, Haupt- mann and minor dramatists receive attention. 12mo. $1.00. New York Times Review: "The translation of this brief, clear and logical account was an extremely happy idea. Nothing at the same time so comprehensive and terse has appeared on the subject." HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK BOOKS ON AND OF SCHOOL PLAYS By Constance D'Arcy Mackay HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN'S PLAYS The author is a recognized authority on the production of plays and pageants in the pubHc schools, and combines en- thusiastic sympathy with sound, practical instructions. She tells both how to inspire and care for the young actor, how to make costumes, properties, scenery, where to find de- signs for them, what music to use, etc., etc. She prefaces it all with an interesting historical sketch of the plays-for-chil- dren movement, includes elaborate detailed analyses of per- formances of Browning's Pied Piper and Rosetti's Pageant of the Months, and concludes with numerous valuable an- alytical lists of plays for various grades and occasions. ■^ $1.20 net (Feb., 1914). PATRIOTIC PLAYS AND PAGEANTS Pageant of Patriotism (Outdoor and Indoor Versions) :— ^Princess Pocahontas, Pilgrim Interlude, Ferry Farm Epi- sode, *George Washington's Fortune, *Daniel Boone: Patriot, Benjamin Franklin Episode, Lincoln Episode, Final Tableau. Hawthorne Pageant (for Outdoor or Indoor Produc- tion) :— Chorus of Spirits of the Old Manse, Prologue by the Muse of Hawthorne, In Witchcraft Days, Dance Interlude, Merryraount, etc. The portions marked with a star (*) are one-act plays suitable for separate performance. There are full directions for simple costumes, scenes, and staging. 12mo. $1.35 net. THE HOUSE OF THE HEART Short plays in verse for children of fourteen or younger :— "The House of the Heart (Morality Play)— "The Enchanted Garden" (Flower Play)— 'A Little Pilgrim's Progress (Mor- ality Play)— "A Pageant of Hours" (To be given Out of Doors)— "On Christmas Eve." "The Princess and the Pix- ies." "The Christmas Guest" (Miracle Play.), etc. $1.10 net. "An addition to child drama which has been sorely needed. —Boston Transcript. THE SILVER THREAD And Other Folk Plays. "The Silver Thread" (Cornish) ; "The Forest Spring" (Italian) ; "The Foam Maiden (CeUic) ; "Troll Magic" (Norwegian) ; "The Three Wishes (French) ; "A Brewing of Brains" (EngHsh) ; "Siegfried (German); "The Snow Witch" (Russian). $1.10 net. HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK SIXTH EDITION, ENLARGED AND WITH PORTRAITS HALE'S DRAMATISTS OF TO-DAY Rostand, Hauptmann, Sudermann, PiNERO, Shaw, Phillips, Maeterlinck By Prof. Edward Everett Hale, Jr., of Union College. With gilt top, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.60. Since this work first appeared in 1905, Maeterlinck's Sister Beatrice, The Blue Bird and Mary Magdalene, Rostand's Chantecler and Pinero's Mid-Channel and The Thunder- bolt — among the notable plays by some of Dr. Hale's drama- tists—have been acted here. Discussions of them are added to this new edition, as are considerations of Bernard Shaw's and Stephen Phillips* latest plays. The author's papers on Hauptmann and Sudermann, with slight additions, with his "Note on Standards of Criticism," "Our Idea of Tragedy," and an appendix of all the plays of each author, with dates of their first performance or publication, complete the volume. Bookman : " He writes in a pleasant, free-and-easy way. . . . He accepts things chiefly at their face value, but he describes them so ac- curately and agreeably that he recalls vividly to mind the plays we have seen and the pleasure we have found in them." New York Evening Post : " It is not often nowadays that a theatrical b' 'Ok can be met with so free from gush and mere eulogy, or so weighted by common sense ... an excellent chronological appendix and full index . . . uncommonly useful for reference." Dial: " Noteworthy example of literary criticism in one of the most interesting of literary fields Provides a varied menu of the most interesting character. . . . Prof. Hale establishes confidential relations with the reader from the start. . . . Very definite opinions, clearly reasoned and amply fortified by example. . . . Well worth reading a second time." New York Tribune: " Both instructive and entertaining." Brooklyn Eagle: "A dramatic critic who is not just 'busting' him- self with Titanic intellectualities, but who is a readable dramatic critic. . . . Mr. Hale is a modest and sensible, as well as an acute and sound critic. . . . Most people will be surprised and delighted with Mr. Hale's simplicity, perspicuity and ingenuousness." The Theatre: "A pleasing lightness of touch. . . . Very read- able book." HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Al u ? '^^ ^^ %^^a^.* ^"-. - ^, ^-^^ ^'^^. -.VJ'^NF'.* A^ ^ . "oK BOOKBINDING ff ^^ • "^ ^C** .^ < ♦ A^ <*^ ".^