Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 by Various
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Various >> Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912
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The commission administering the public library and employing experts
to operate it in all its departments and fields of activity has for many
years accomplished and continued its civic work not merely adequately
and thoroughly, but with superiority and distinction. This originally
self-appointed group of citizens was fired with the desire not to do
an exclusive or sectional work but to put upon its feet for the whole
municipality a civic institution. It proceeded toward this goal by
so shaping the undertaking that the city should ultimately accept and
assume charge of it as its own.
All the facts of experience we have go to prove that this public library
method of providing the shortest cut efficiently to give the public
proper free access to the world of books, is the method providing the
shortest cut efficiently to give the public proper cheap access to the
world of drama. By this method financial support for a theater may be
attained that shall be pledged to the civic good and adapted to local
dramatic requirements and development. This method of administration
by a special commission is not alone a proven feasible and simple civic
method, but also the only effective way yet broached to secure the
dramatic life and growth of a community.
Political corruption is no more to be accepted as a good argument to put
us off from the most feasible approach to the end needed than for the
public library itself. There may or might be some political corruption
in the administration of a public library. Are we, therefore, to give
up the library in our cities? There may be political corruption in the
administration of our public schools. Was it, therefore, a mistake
to establish them? Are we, therefore, to give up the public school?
Clearly, no! We are to strengthen and safe-guard them to the utmost.
One thing besides has been sufficiently exemplified by recent facts. It
is that the easy substitute for a civic theater commonly called in the
newspapers 'A Rich Man's Theater' will not represent nor attract the
community.
Under phenomenally affluent conditions for commanding good results, that
substitute has proved its futility with brilliant conspicuousness. Any
one may now see that it was fore-doomed to fail. Why? Because it was out
of touch with the people, fated to be sectional and temporary, in its
attempts and achievements.
Such failure shows what historic life confirms, that more efficient than
money support is the support of a unified civic life and of such genius
and talent as require to be fed by that life, and do not flourish on
cash alone any more than they do on no cash at all. In order to secure
good conditions for artistic fertility in place of artistic futility,
all these encouraging factors, in their just degree, require to be taken
into the account.
An academic theater would, I believe, prove equally futile. All such
substitutes for a civic theater are doomed to barrenness because of
their segregation from the life of the community. Historic facts bear
witness alike to the bloodlessness of the exclusive and the sensualizing
of the commercial elements, when either gain the upper hand in control
of the dramatic output. Under the auspices of neither will the great
leavening middle mass of our people be put in touch with the stage to
the mutual advantage of the community and the drama.
* * * * *
THE PLAY READER
BY HELEN A. CLARKE
I
We are told by many critics that Euripides is not so great as AEschylus
or Sophocles, yet he seems to be on the whole the most beloved of the
Greek dramatists. As Porson said of him, 'We approve Sophocles more than
Euripides, but we love Euripides more than Sophocles.'
There are two reasons why he has been loved. First, among his countrymen
and the rest of the world, because, as a master of pathos, he has no
equal among the dramatists of his nation, and, as some declare, no
superior in the literature of the world. Second, by the moderns,
especially the English, because they see in him the promise of the
future. He is now regarded as anticipating in many ways the Elizabethan
drama. Churton Collins has well said, 'But in nothing does he come so
nearly home to the modern world as in his studies and presentation of
women. In Shakespeare and in Shakespeare alone have we a gallery of
female portraits comparable in range and elaboration to what he has left
us. He has painted them under almost all conditions which can elicit and
develop the expression of natural character: under the infatuation of
illicit and consuming passion at war with the better self, as in Phaedra;
under the provocation of such wrongs and outrages as transform Medea
into a tigress and Hecuba into a fiend; under all the appeals to
their proper heroism, the spirit of self-sacrifice and self-abnegating
devotion, as in Macaria, Polyxena, Iphigenia, and Alcestis.'
He was, however, not popular in Athens. Why? Because he was ahead of
the phase of civilization and culture represented at that time in a city
which was on the verge of its ruin. He denounced cruelty and oppression,
he disliked war, he dwelt upon the virtues of slaves and menials, he was
sympathetic with the innocence and helplessness of young children, and
with all that the gentler affections can inspire or achieve.
In reading the 'Alcestis' several important points should be borne in
mind in regard to the play:
1. Its production. It is the earliest of the extant plays of Euripides
and was brought out B.C. 439 in the Archonship of Glaucinus. It was,
according to the custom of the Greeks, entered for competition in the
public prizes and performed in the great theater of Dionysius, supported
by the state. The competitor was obliged to send in three tragedies
called a trilogy, together with what was called a satyric play. This
last might be related to the tragedies or be quite independent, as they
usually were in Sophocles and Euripides. The satyric play was named
from the satyrs or attendants upon Bacchus, and was a farce or burlesque
intended to relieve the feelings of the spectators after the tragedies.
The 'Alcestis' was entered by Euripides as a satyric play, but it only
in parts approaches the characteristics of such a play. In other parts
it has the dignity and beauty of a tragedy. In fact it is more nearly
like a comedy in the modern sense of the word.
2. The structure of the play. This is like that of a typical Greek
tragedy with one exception. It opens, as is customary with Euripides,
with a monologue, which explains the plot and the position of affairs,
spoken by one of the characters, Apollo. Otherwise, it is like a regular
tragedy, presenting two sorts of action, that of a chorus consisting of
men or women whose functions were to comment on the action, draw morals
from it, express sympathy with the actors, and that of the regular
dialogue.
3. Its content. This is a Greek mythological story, in which gods and
mortals are the actors. The plot brings out two social ideals which were
peculiar to Greek civilization. The ideal that it was the duty, approved
of by the gods, that old people should die for their children, and that
wives should die for their husbands, and that such sacrifice should be
accepted as a matter of course; and the ideal of hospitality, which was
incumbent, no matter what pain it might cause to exercise it.
With regard to the first ideal, many critics of this drama take the view
that to the Greeks there would be nothing contemptible or unnatural
in the conduct of Admetus. To quote Mr. Collins again on this point,
'Alcestis would be considered fortunate for having had an opportunity of
displaying so conspicuously the fidelity to a wife's first and capital
duty. Had Admetus prevented such a sacrifice he would have robbed
Alcestis of an honor which every nobly ambitious woman in Hellas would
have coveted. This is so much taken for granted by the poet that all
that he lays stress on in the drama is the virtue rewarded by the return
of Alcestis to life, the virtue characteristic of Admetus, the virtue
of hospitality, to this duty in all the agony of his sorrow Admetus had
been nobly true, and as a reward for what he had thus earned, the
wife who had been equally true to woman's obligations was restored
all-glorified to home and children and mutual love.'
The unbiased reader, however, cannot help suspecting that Euripides saw
ahead of the ideals of his time and intended deliberately to show up
the cowardice and selfishness of Admetus, by what the critics call the
'painful scene' between Pheres and Admetus.
In the second place, if he did not share to some extent the feelings of
the chorus that the virtue of hospitality might be carried too far, how
could he have made it say:
'Many a guest from many a land ere now
I've known arriving at Admetus' halls,
And set before them viands; but ne'er yet
Any more reckless have I entertained
Than this, who first, although he saw my lord,
Bowed down with sorrow, dared to pass our gates,
And next immoderately took his fill
Of what was offered--though he knew our grief--
And what we did not offer bade us fetch.'
The unbiased reader will find a few critics on his side, and he will
find also the poet Browning, who, in his Balaustion's 'Adventure,' has
put into the mouth of his beautiful young Greek woman an interpretation
which will chime in fully with his own untutored perceptions.
* * * * *
THE CALDRON
'_Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble_'
OPERA VERSUS DRAMA
Why opera, which is a less old and less vital form of entertainment than
drama (in America), should spring into such prominence is difficult
to understand. San Francisco has raised one hundred thousand dollars
towards a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar opera house, which will be owned
and managed by the municipality. The Metropolitan and the Chicago
and the Philadelphia and the New Orleans Opera maintain themselves
as centers of real artistic work, though they are not municipal
enterprises. Opera in Boston is assured for another three years, and
this has been accomplished through the efforts of citizens.
But America has no endowed nor municipal theater.
I would in no way decry opera, but it is very clear that some of the
energy which is now being used for opera might far better be put into
the wider field of drama. Because of its very nature, opera is bound to
appeal to and to reach fewer people than drama. As a force and a power
for education and general uplift, it can never compare with drama. There
is a considerable number of people who attend the opera because they
love it, but a much larger number attend because it is fashionable.
All the drama leagues and numberless organizations which are trying to
cultivate taste for good plays and to better the drama are on the wrong
track. It is not a cultivated, appreciative public that is needed. Let
those interested in drama learn a lesson from opera. Let them employ
their energies to make drama fashionable. When it becomes incumbent upon
society leaders to occupy stalls in the theater for a season, we shall
have an endowed theater and not until then.
THE DEUTSCHES KUENSTLERTHEATER
Readers of THE NEW DRAMA may be interested to hear that the enterprise
of the actors of the Brahm Company, which in the winter seemed
uncertain, is now secure. The Deutsches Kuenstlertheater was incorporated
on April 20, with a capital of 790,000 marks. Willy Grumwald is
really to be manager, Ernst Friedmann, business manager, and among the
associates are Tilla Durieux, Carl Forest, Gerhart Hauptmann, Hilde
Herterich, Else Lehmann, Emil Lessing (Brahm's stage manager), Theodor
Loos, Hans Marr, Emanuel Reicher, Rudolf Rittner (who declares, however,
that he is to return to the theater only as associate, artistic adviser,
and stage manager, and that he still has no intention of ever
acting again; since his blending of blazing passion with austere
self-discipline is all too rare, let us hope he will change his mind),
Oscar Sauer, Mathilde Sussin (whose sublime Deaconess in 'When We
Dead Awake' so fully meets Ibsen's requirement of the actor of this
character: complete self-effacement until the close, and then tragic
acting of the highest order; Alfred Kerr, whose words--don't you
think?--no other living critic can equal, has called her 'eine der
Schattengestalten dieses groessten Theaters der Unscheinbarkeit, der
Seele'), and Paul Wegener. The Deutsches Kuenstlertheater is still
undecided whether to build a theater or to lease one; it will enter into
active being in July, 1914, when Otto Brahm will pass, alas, from the
active service of the theater, which he has served as has no other man.
JAMES PLATT WHITE.
THE 'SLAM'
A characteristic feature of modern newspaper criticism is the 'slam.'
The fundamental principles upon which 'slams' are based are as follows:
The writer of a 'slam' ought to be quite young, not long out of college.
That is the only sort of person who knows enough to construct a really
effective 'slam.' After one has been out of college for a few years the
dividing lines between what is good art and what is bad art become more
vague. The would-be critic starts out in life with a sort of Procrustean
ideal of measurement, to which everything has to be cut down. He is
blissfully sure of his standards, and does not need to bother his mind
over any possibilities in the way of new artistic developments. Only
after he begins to delve into the history of criticism upon his own
account does he wake up to the fact that 'the genius is the thing,' and
that the slings and arrows of outrageous critics have been powerless to
crush him out.
What is true of the great genius is also true of the genuinely talented
person. 'Slams' do not crush him out, they only call attention to him,
which is fortunate because the majority of people engaged in creative
work to-day possess talent rather than genius.
But a still more important fundamental principle to be observed by
the writer of 'slams' is that he must resolutely shut his eyes to any
qualities which appeal, even to him, as good qualities, while dwelling
with ferocious zest upon every point that he can possibly magnify into a
flaw. Or he may even fly at one bound to a pinnacle of wisdom by basing
his criticism entirely upon the first chapter or the last chapter of
a book, or the first act or the last act of a play. Or he may win his
spurs for smartness by deliberate misstatements, born, perhaps, of
carelessness, perhaps of the genuine desire to be downright disagreeable
and funny. The one thing which he must carefully avoid is the slightest
touch of genuine appreciation. This is not difficult, for appreciation
means the power to enter into the point of view of the writer or the
artist, and this the slinger of 'slams' is incapable of doing, even if
he had the desire of so doing.
Blessed be the writer of 'slams.' He is as debonair and inconsequential
as a young Hermes to whom only the serious lessons of life can teach
sympathy and true insight, if he will let them.
Transcriber's note: Nyarsnottin--the y has an acute accent.
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