Problems of the playwright

Front matter

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PROBLEMS OF THE . PEAYWRIGHT

CLAYTON HAMILTON

Preface

This book is a companion volume to The Theoey op THE Theatre and Studies in Stagecraft, and should, if possible, be read in association with its predecessors in the series.

We are living in the midst of a great period of the history of the drama — perhaps the very greatest that the world has ever seen; but the general theatre-going and play-reading public is only gradually developing a consciousness of this astounding fact. The reason is not difficult to define. In the evolution of any art, creation always precedes criticism, because criticism is merely an analysis of what has been created ; and, since the contemporary drama began to bourgeon only thirty years ago, it is not surprising that contemporary criticism is only now beginning to interpret it. A few books by pioneers have been before the public for half a dozen or a dozen years, to plead, like lone voices in an almost empty auditorium, for adequate appreciation of the modern drama ; but it was not until very recently that a sturdy group of books has been prepared to sally forth, shoulder to shoulder, like an army with banners, to conquer the credence of the public in the new era of great drama that is now contributing a glory to the theatre of the world.

Those of us who were in college from fifteen to twenty years ago will remember that we were taught viii PREFACE

that there were four great periods in the history of the drama — the Greet period of Sophocles, the Spanish period of Calderon, the English period of Shakespeare, and the French period of Moliere. We were led to regard the drama as an art that had been dead for several centuries. Our professors were still diffident of Ibsen ; and they would have considered it a sacrilege against the dignity of scholarship to advise us to study the works of such untested dramatists as Hauptmann and Pinero and Brieux. In half a generation, this attitude toward the contemporary drama has been rendered obsolete. It is no longer considered necessary, as a requirement for a baccalaureate diploma, to read John Ford in preference to Maurice Maeterlinck. The most popular courses in our colleges to-day are courses in the contemporary drama ; and the study has been taken up by every woman's club and literary circle in the land. So swift has been this new development that a large public, crying out for instruction, has outstripped the available supply of teachers; and, for the present, it has become the duty of every one who knows this or that concerning the contemporary drama to write a book about it and pass his knowledge on, at second hand, to the many who are eager to receive it. It is comforting to note that this demand, at last, is being dealt with. So many books about the current drama are, at present, being issued in rapid succession from the press that, in another year or two, the most conservative of readers will no longer be permitted to plead ignorance as an excuse for failing to appreciate the artistic triumphs of the theatre of to-day.

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But this new criticism of a new creation has not as yet attained its classic stage. Sophocles achieved his Aristotle; but our great contemporary drama still awaits a great dramatic critic. The task of criticism is more difficult to-day than it has ever been before. For one thing, the drama has become, for the first time, cosmopolitan. In interpreting the periods of Sophocles, Calderon, Shakespeare, and Moliere, the critic could confine his attention, in each instance, to a single nationality. But worthy contributions to the contemporary drama have been made by nations so diverse as Scandinavia, Russia, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Spain, England, and America. Aristotle could actually see and study at first hand all the plays that were existent in his world; but, on the same terms, no modern critic could possibly evaluate the best dramatic productions of the last thirty years.

For another thing, the creations of the contemporary period have been more diverse in content, in purpose, and in method, than the creations of any of the other great periods that have been enumerated. The Elizabethan period endured for half a century — from 1590 to 1640, let us say; but all the plays presented in this period display a family resemblance to each other. The difference between Shakespeare and Webster and Fletcher " and the rest " [to quote a phrase from the diary of Philip Henslowe] is a difference merely of degree, and not at all of kind. Similarly [to take another period] the art of ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides was the same art, in principle and

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method. Such periods can be summed up easily by a critic who, like Aristotle, is endowed with eyes to see. But it is much more difficult to interpret a brief period of thirty years that discloses such diverse products as The Weavers, Chantecler, The Thunderbolt, The Blue Bird, Hindle Wakes, The Dream Play, The Red Robe, The Cherry Orchard, and Sumurun. All of these are great works; but they show no relation to each other that is immediately recognizable. They differ not merely in degree, but also in kind; and the critic who endeavors to interpret all of them must induce a separate set of principles for each.

For still another thing, a development of the drama in recent years toward naturalism has been accompanied by a simultaneous development of the theatre toward fantastical romance ; so that the contemporary critic is required to deal synchronously with such utterly different undertakings as those of Elizabeth Baker and Gordon Craig — or as those of the Granville Barker who wrote The Madras House and the Granville Barker who produced The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife. Criticism of so chaotic and diverse a period must necessarily appear, for the present at least, chaotic and diverse. The same standard that is used in judging Marlowe may be used in judging Shirley; but it would manifestly be unfair to apply the same standard in judging Hedda Gabler and Cyrano de Bergerac. It should be, I think, apparent to any reasonable mind that the time has not yet come for coherent and complete and final criticism of that superb and varied

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,efflorescence of the drama in the very midst of which we dwell.

The most that can be accomplished by dramatic critics at the present time is to interpret various trends and tendencies in and for themselves. Some future critic, looking back from a distance of a century or more, may be able to include Shaw and Synge and Sudermann and Maeterlinck in a single stroke of the eye; but for the present it seems wiser to approach these masters separately, in different moods and with different standards of appreciation. Brieux and Reinhardt, Stanley Houghton and Gordon Craig, D'Annunzio and Pinero, should be treated as the subjects of different studies in stagecraft. For this reason, a multiplication of critical studies of the contemporary drama is greatly to be desired. Each commentator should contrive to teach us something worthy of remembrance regarding that particular phase of the vast, kaleidoscopic spectacle which has chiefly attracted his attention. But no single critic, under these conditions, can be readily accepted as a final and complete authority on every aspect of so multifarious a phenomenon as the contemporary drama.

The present volume [which is to be regarded as a sort of suiBx to The Theoey of the Theatke and Studies in Stageckaft] is intended merely as a minor contribution to an instant need. In this book, the kaleidoscopic field of the contemporary drama is considered from various points of view, — ^that of the critic, the dramatist, th« stage-director, the scenic artist, the manager, and the theatre-going public.

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Most of the studies included in this volume have appeared, in earlier versions, in various magazines, — The Bookman, Vogue, Good Housekeeping, and The Theatre. To the proprietors of these publications I am indebted for the privilege of quoting from my contributions to their pages. It is scarcely necessary to state that these studies have been revised and rearranged and, in many passages, entirely rewritten.

In the process of preparing the present volume for the press, I have encountered certain passages of repetition which I have decided not to delete, because of the advisability of adding emphasis to an important point by iteration; and I have encountered a few other passages which seem, at first sight, to contradict each other. But, in every instance of apparent contradiction, I have discovered that what I have said on the one side and the other is equally true, according to the point of view. I have decided, therefore, not to strive for that foolish consistency which is the hobgoblin of little minds. What I have desired is, rather, to maintain the free play of an unprejudiced, receptive mind over the entire panorama of the contemporary stage.

C. H.

New Yokk City : 1917.

Contents

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