(A. W. W.)
Recent English Drama.—In England the whole mechanism of theatrical life had undergone a radical change in the middle decades of the 19th century. At the root of this change lay the immense growth of population and the enormously increased facilities of communication between London and the provinces. Similar causes came into operation, of course, in France, Germany and Austria, but were much less distinctly felt, because the numerous and important subventioned theatres of these countries remained more or less unaffected by economic influences. Free trade in theatricals (subject only to certain licensing regulations and to a court censorship of new plays) was established in England by an act of 1843, which abolished the long moribund monopoly of the “legitimate drama” claimed by the “Patent Theatres” of Drury Lane and Covent Garden. The drama was thus formally subjected to the operation of the law of supply and demand, like any other article of commerce, and managers were left, unaided and unhampered by any subvention or privilege, to cater to the tastes of a huge and growing community. Theatres very soon multiplied, competition grew ever keener, and the long run, with its accompaniments of ostentatious decoration and lavish advertisement, became the one object of managerial effort. This process of evolution may be said to have begun in the second quarter of the 19th century and completed itself in the 3rd. The system which obtains to-day, almost unforeseen in 1825, was in full operation in 1875. The repertory theatre, with its constant changes of programme, maintained on the continent partly by subventions, partly by the mere force of artistic tradition, had become in England a faint and far-off memory. There was not a single theatre in London at which plays, old and new, were not selected and mounted solely with a view to their continuous performance for as many nights as possible, anything short of fifty nights constituting an ignominious and probably ruinous failure. It was found, too, that those theatres were most successful which were devoted exclusively to exploiting the talent of an individual actor. Thus when the fourth quarter of the century opened, the long “run” and the actor-manager were in firm possession of the field.
The outlook was in many ways far from encouraging. It was not quite so black, indeed, as it had been in the late ’fifties and early ’sixties, when the “legitimate” enterprises of Phelps at Sadler’s Wells and Charles Kean at the Princess’s had failed to hold their ground, and when modern comedy and drama were represented almost exclusively by adaptations from the French. There had been a slight stirring of originality in the series of comedies produced by T. W. Robertson at the Prince of Wales’s theatre, where, under the management of Bancroft (q.v.) a new school of mounting and acting, minutely faithful (in theory at any rate) to everyday reality, had come into existence. But the hopes of a revival of English comedy seemed to have died with Robertson’s death. One of his followers, James Albery, possessed both imagination and wit, but had not the strength of character to do justice to his talent, and sank into a mere adapter. In the plays of another disciple, H. J. Byron, the Robertsonian or “cup-and-saucer” school declined upon sheer inanity. Of the numerous plays signed by Tom Taylor some were original in substance, but all were cast in the machine-made French mould. Wilkie Collins, in dramatizing some of his novels, produced somewhat crude anticipations of the modern “problem play.” The literary talent of W. S. Gilbert displayed itself in a group of comedies both in verse and prose; but Gilbert saw life from too peculiar an angle to represent it otherwise than fantastically. The Robertsonian impulse seemed to have died utterly away, leaving behind it only five or six very insubstantial comedies and a subdued, unrhetorical method in acting. This method the Bancrofts proceeded to apply, during the ’seventies, to revivals of stage classics, such asThe School for Scandal,MoneyandMasks and Faces, and to adaptations from the French of Sardou.
While the modern drama appeared to have relapsed into a comatose condition, poetic and romantic drama was giving some signs of life. At the Lyceum in 1871 Henry Irving had leapt into fame by means of his performance of Mathias inThe Bells, an adaptation from the French of Erckmann-Chatrian. He followed this up by an admirably picturesque performance of the title-part inCharles I.by W. G. Wills. In the autumn of 1874 the great success of Irving’s Hamlet was hailed as the prelude to a revival of tragic acting. As a matter of fact, it was the prelude to a long series of remarkable achievements in romantic drama and melodrama. Irving’s lack of physical and vocal resources prevented him from scaling the heights of tragedy, and his Othello, Macbeth, and Lear could not be ranked among his successes; but he was admirable in such parts as Richard III., Shylock, Iago and Wolsey, while in melodramatic parts, such as Louis XI. and the hero and villain ofThe Lyons Mail, he was unsurpassed. Mephistopheles in a version ofFaust(1885), perhaps the greatest popular success of his career, added nothing to his reputation for artistic intelligence; but on the other hand his Becket in Tennyson’s play of that name (1893) was one of his most masterly efforts. His management of the Lyceum (1878-1899) did so much to raise the status of the actor and to restore the prestige of poetic drama, that the knighthood conferred upon him in 1895 was felt to be no more than an appropriate recognition of his services. But his managerial career had scarcely any significance for the living English drama. He seldom experimented with a new play,and, of the few which he did produce, onlyThe CupandBecketby Lord Tennyson have the remotest chance of being remembered.
To trace the history of the new English drama, then, we must go back to the Prince of Wales’s theatre. Even while it seemed that French comedy of the school of Scribe was resuming its baneful predominance, the seeds of a new order of things were slowly germinating.Diplomacy, an adaptation of Sardou’sDora, produced in 1878, brought together on the Prince of Wales’s stage Mr and Mrs Bancroft, Mr and Mrs Kendal, John Clayton and Arthur Cecil—in other words, the future managers of the Haymarket, the St James’s and the Court theatres, which were destined to see the first real stirrings of a literary revival. Mr and Mrs Kendal, who, in conjunction with John Hare, managed the St James’s theatre from 1879 to 1888, produced A. W. Pinero’s first play of any consequence,The Money-Spinner(1881), and afterwardsThe Squire(1882) andThe Hobby Horse(1887). The Bancrofts, who, after entirely rebuilding the Haymarket theatre, managed it from 1880 till their retirement in 1885, produced in 1883 Pinero’sLords and Commons; and Messrs Clayton and Cecil produced at the Court theatre between 1885 and 1887 his three brilliant farces,The Magistrate,The SchoolmistressandDandy Dick, which, with the sentimental comedy,Sweet Lavender, produced at Terry’s theatre in 1888, assured his position as an original and fertile dramatic humorist of no small literary power. It is to be noted, however, that Pinero was almost the only original playwright represented under the Bancroft, Hare-Kendal and Clayton-Cecil managements, which relied for the rest upon adaptations and revivals. Adaptations of French vaudevilles were the staple productions of Charles Wyndham’s management at the Criterion from its beginning in 1876 until 1893, when he first produced an original play of any importance. When Herbert Beerbohm Tree went into management at the Haymarket in 1887, he still relied largely on plays of foreign origin. George Alexander’s first managerial ventures (Avenue theatre, 1890) were two adaptations from the French. Until well on in the ’eighties, indeed, adaptation from the French was held the normal occupation of the British playwright, and original composition a mere episode. Robertson, Byron, Albery, Gilbert, Tom Taylor, Charles Reade, Herman Merivale, G. W. Godfrey, all produced numerous adaptations; Sydney Grundy was for twenty years occupied almost exclusively in this class of work; Pinero himself has adapted more than one French play. The ’eighties, then, may on the whole be regarded as showing a very gradual decline in the predominance of France on the English stage, and an equally slow revival of originality, so far as comedy and drama were concerned, manifesting itself mainly in the plays of Pinero.
The reaction against French influence, however, was no less apparent in the domain of melodrama and operetta than in that of comedy and drama. Until well on in the ’seventies, D’Ennery and his disciples, adapted and imitated by Dion Boucicault and others, ruled the melodramatic stage. The reaction asserted itself in two quarters—in the East End at the Grecian theatre, and in the West End at the Princess’s. InThe World, produced at Drury Lane in 1880, Paul Meritt (d. 1895) and Henry Pettitt (d. 1893) brought to the West End the “Grecian” type of popular drama; and at Drury Lane it survived in the elaborately spectacular form imparted to it by Sir Augustus Harris, who managed that theatre from 1879 till his death in 1896. The production of G. R. Sims’sLights o’ Londonat the Princess’s in 1881, under Wilson Barrett’s management, also marked a new departure. This style of melodrama was chiefly cultivated at the Adelphi theatre, from 1882 until the end of the century, when it died out there as a regular institution, apparently because a host of suburban theatres drew away its audiences. Of all these English melodramas, only one,The Silver King, by Henry Arthur Jones (Princess’s, 1882), could for a moment compare in invention or technical skill with the French dramas they supplanted. The fact remains, however, that even on this lowest level of dramatic art the current of the time set decisively towards home-made pictures of English life, however crude and puerile.
For twenty-five years, from 1865 to 1890, the English stage was overrun with French operettas of the school of Offenbach. Hastily adapted by slovenly hacks, their librettos (often witty in the original) became incredible farragos of metreless doggrel and punning ineptitude. The great majority of them are now so utterly forgotten that it is hard to realize how, in their heyday, they swarmed on every hand in London and the provinces. The reaction began in 1875 with the performance at the Royalty theatre ofTrial by Jury, by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. This was the prelude to that brilliant series of witty and melodious extravaganzas which began withThe Sorcererat the Opera Comique theatre in 1877, but was mainly associated with the Savoy theatre, opened by R. D’Oyly Carte (d. 1901) in 1881. Little by little the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas (of which the most famous, perhaps, wereH.M.S. Pinafore, 1878,Patience, 1881, andThe Mikado, 1885) undermined the popularity of the French opera-bouffes, and at the same time that of the indigenous “burlesques” which, graceful enough in the hands of their inventor J. R. Planché, had become mere incoherent jumbles of buffoonery, devoid alike of dramatic ingenuity and of literary form. When, early in the ’nineties, the collaboration between Gilbert and Sullivan became intermittent, and the vogue of the Savoy somewhat declined, a new class of extravaganza arose, under the designation of “musical comedy” or “musical farce.” It first took form in a piece calledIn Town, by Messrs “Adrian Ross” and Osmond Carr (Prince of Wales’s theatre, 1892), and rapidly became very popular. In these plays the scene and costumes are almost always modern though sometimes exotic, and the prose dialogue, setting forth an attenuated and entirely negligible plot, is frequently interrupted by musical numbers. The lyrics are often very clever pieces of rhyming, totally different from the inane doggrel of the old opera-bouffes and burlesques. In other respects there is little to be said for the literary or intellectual quality of “musical farce”; but, being an entirely English (or Anglo-American) product, it falls into line with the other indications we have noted of the general decline—one might almost say extinction—of French influence on the English stage.
To what causes are we to trace this gradual disuse of adaptation? In the domain of modern comedy and drama, to two causes acting simultaneously: the decline in France of the method of Scribe, which produced “well-made,” exportable plays, more or less suited to any climate and environment; and the rise in England of a generation of playwrights more original, thoughtful and able than their predecessors. It is not at all to be taken for granted that the falling off in the supply of exportable plays meant a decline in the absolute merit of French drama. The historian of the future may very possibly regard the movement in France, no less than the movement in England, as a step in advance, and may even see in the two movements co-ordinate manifestations of one tendency. Be this as it may, the fact is certain that as the playwrights of the Second Empire gradually died off, and were succeeded by the authors of the “new comedy,” plays which would bear transplantation became ever fewer and farther between. Of recent years Henri Bernstein, author ofLe VoleurandSamson, has been almost the only French dramatist whose works have found a ready and steady market in England. Attempts to acclimatize French poetical drama—Pour la Couronne,Le Chemineau,Cyrano de Bergerac—were all more or less unsuccessful.
Having noted the decline of adaptation, we may now trace a stage farther the development of the English drama. The first stage, already surveyed, ends with the production ofSweet Lavenderin 1888. Up to this point its author, Pinero (b. 1855), stood practically alone, and had won his chief successes as a humorist. Henry Arthur Jones (b. 1851) was known as little more than an able melodramatist, though in one play,Saints and Sinners(1884), he had made some attempt at a serious study of provincial life. R. C. Carton (b. 1856) had written, in collaboration, one or two plays of slight account. Sydney Grundy (b. 1848) had produced scarcely any original work. The second stage may be taken as extending from 1889 to 1893.On the 24th of April 1889 John Hare opened the new Garrick theatre withThe Profligate, by Pinero—an unripe and superficial piece of work in many ways, but still a great advance, both in ambition and achievement, upon any original work the stage had seen for many a year.
With all its faults, it may be said thatThe Profligatenotably enlarged at one stroke the domain open to the English dramatist. And it did not stand alone. The same year saw the production of two plays by H. A. Jones,WealthandThe Middleman, in which a distinct effort towards a serious criticism of life was observable, and of two plays by Sydney Grundy,A Fool’s ParadiseandA White Lie, which, though very French in method, were at least original in substance. Jones during the next two years made a steady advance withJudah(1890),The Dancing GirlandThe Crusaders(1891). Pinero in these years was putting forth less than his whole strength inThe Cabinet Minister(1890),Lady BountifulandThe Times(1891), andThe Amazons(March 1893). But meanwhile new talents were coming forward. The management of George Alexander, which opened at the Avenue theatre in 1890, but was transferred in the following year to the St James’s, brought prominently to the front R. C. Carton, Haddon Chambers and Oscar Wilde. Carton’s two sentimental comedies,Sunlight and Shadow(1890) andLiberty Hall(1892), showed excellent workmanship, but did not yet reveal his true originality as a humorist. Haddon Chambers’s work (notablyThe Idler, 1891) was as yet sufficiently commonplace; but inLady Windermere’s Fan(1892) Oscar Wilde showed himself at his first attempt a brilliant and accomplished dramatist. Wilde’s subsequent plays,A Woman of No Importance(1893) andAn Ideal HusbandandThe Importance of being Earnest(1895), though marred by mannerism and insincerity, did much to promote the movement we are here tracing.
As the production ofThe Profligatemarked the opening of the second period in the revival of English drama, so the production of the same author’sThe Second Mrs Tanquerayis very clearly the starting-point of the third period. Before attempting to trace its course we may do well to glance at certain conditions which probably influenced it.
In the first place, economic conditions. The Bancroft-Robertson movement at the old Prince of Wales’s, between 1865 and 1870, was of even more importance from an economic than from a literary point of view. By making their little theatre a luxurious place of resort, and faithfully imitating in their productions the accent, costume and furniture of upper and upper-middle class life, the Bancrofts had initiated a reconciliation between society and the stage. Throughout the middle decades of the century it was the constant complaint of the managers that the world of wealth and fashion could not be tempted to the theatre. The Bancroft management changed all that. It was at the Prince of Wales’s that half-guinea stalls were first introduced; and these stalls were always filled. As other theatres adopted the same policy of upholstery, both on and off the stage, fashion extended its complaisance to them as well. In yet another way the reconciliation was promoted—by the ever-increasing tendency of young men and women of good birth and education to seek a career upon the English stage. The theatre, in short, became at this period one of the favourite amusements of fashionable (though scarcely of intellectual) society in London. It is often contended that the influence of the sensual and cynical stall audience is a pernicious one. In some ways, no doubt, it is detrimental; but there is another side to the case. Even the cynicism of society marks an intellectual advance upon the sheer rusticity which prevailed during the middle years of the 19th century and accepted without a murmur plays (original and adapted) which bore no sort of relation to life. In a celebrated essay published in 1879, Matthew Arnold (whose occasional dramatic criticisms were very influential in intellectual circles) dwelt on the sufficiently obvious fact that the result of giving English names and costumes to French characters was to make their sayings and doings utterly unreal and “fantastic.” During the years of French ascendancy, audiences had quite forgotten that it was possible for the stage to be other than “fantastic” in this sense. They no longer thought of comparing the mimic world with the real world, but were content with what may be called abstract humour and pathos, often of the crudest quality. The cultivation of external realism, coinciding with, and in part occasioning, the return of society to the playhouse, gradually led to a demand for some approach to plausibility in character and action as well as in costume and decoration. The stage ceased to be entirely “fantastic,” and began to essay, however imperfectly, the representation, the criticism of life. It cannot be denied that the influence of society tended to narrow the outlook of English dramatists and to trivialize their tone of thought. But this was a passing phase of development; and cleverly trivial representations of reality are, after all, to be preferred to brainless concoctions of sheer emptiness.
Quite as important, from the economic point of view, as the reconciliation of society to the stage, was the reorganization of the mechanism of theatrical life in the provinces which took place between 1865 and 1875. From the Restoration to the middle of the 19th century the system of “stock companies” had been universal. Every great town in the three kingdoms had its established theatre with a resident company, playing the “legitimate” repertory, and competing, often by illegitimate means, for the possession of new London successes. The smaller towns, and even villages, were grouped into local “circuits,” each served by one manager with his troupe of strollers. The “circuits” supplied actors to the resident stock companies, and the stock companies served as nurseries to the patent theatres in London. Metropolitan “stars” travelled from one country theatre to another, generally alone, sometimes with one or two subordinates in their train, and were “supported,” as the phrase went, by the stock company of each theatre. Under this system, scenery, costumes and appointments were often grotesquely inadequate, and performances almost always rough and unfinished. On the other hand, the constant practice in a great number and variety of characters afforded valuable training for actors, and developed many remarkable talents. As a source of revenue to authors, the provinces were practically negligible. Stageright was unprotected by law; and even if it had been protected, it is doubtful whether authors could have got any considerable fees out of country managers, whose precarious ventures usually left them a small enough margin of profit.
The spread of railways throughout the country gradually put an end to this system. The “circuits” disappeared early in the ’fifties, the stock companies survived until about the middle of the ’seventies. As soon as it was found easy to transport whole companies, and even great quantities of scenery, from theatre to theatre throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain, it became apparent that the rough makeshifts of the stock company system were doomed. Here again we can trace to the old Prince of Wales’s theatre the first distinct impulse towards the new order of things. Robertson’s comedies not only encouraged but absolutely required a style of art, in mounting, stage-management and acting, not to be found in the country theatres. To entrust them to the stock companies was well-nigh impossible. On the other hand, to quote Sir Squire Bancroft, “perhaps no play was ever better suited thanCasteto a travelling company; the parts being few, the scenery and dresses quite simple, and consequently the expenses very much reduced.” In 1867, then, a company was organized and rehearsed in London to carry round the provincial theatres as exact a reproduction as possible of the London performance ofCasteand Robertson’s other comedies. The smoothness of the representation, the delicacy of the interplay among the characters, were new to provincial audiences, and the success was remarkable. About the same time the whole Haymarket company, under Buckstone’s management, began to make frequent rounds of the country theatres; and other “touring combinations” were soon organized. It is manifest that the “combination” system and the stock company system cannot long coexist, for a manager cannot afford to keep a stock company idle while a London combination is occupying his theatre. The stock companies, therefore, soon dwindled away, and were probably quite extinct before the endof the ’seventies. Under the present system, no sooner is a play an established success in London than it is reproduced in one, two or three exact copies and sent round the provincial theatres (and the numerous suburban theatres which have sprung up since 1895), Company A serving first-class towns, Company B the second-class towns, and so forth. The process is very like that of taking plaster casts of a statue, and the provincial companies often stand to their London originals very much in the relation of plaster to marble. Even the London scenery is faithfully reproduced in material of extra strength, to stand the wear-and-tear of constant removal. The result is that, instead of the square pegs in round holes of the old stock company system, provincial audiences now see pegs carefully adjusted to the particular holes they occupy, and often incapable of fitting any other. Instead of the rough performances of old, they are now accustomed to performances of a mechanical and soulless smoothness.
In some ways the gain in this respect is undeniable, in other ways the loss is great. The provinces are no longer, in any effective sense, a nursery of fresh talents for the London theatres, for the art acquired in touring combinations is that of mimicry rather than of acting. Moreover, provincial playgoers have lost all personal interest and pride in their local theatres, which have no longer any individuality of their own, but serve as a mere frame for the presentation of a series of ready-made London pictures. Christmas pantomime is the only theatrical product that has any really local flavour in it, and even this is often only a second-hand London production, touched up with a few topical allusions. Again, the railways which bring London productions to the country take country playgoers by the thousand to London. The wealthier classes, in the Lancashire, Yorkshire and Midland towns at any rate, do almost all their theatre-going in London, or during the autumn months when the leading London companies go on tour. Thus the better class of comedy and drama has a hard fight to maintain itself in the provinces, and the companies devoted to melodrama and musical farce enjoy an ominous preponderance of popularity.
On the whole, however—and this is the main point to be observed with regard to the literary development of the drama—the economic movement of the five- and twenty years between 1865 and 1890 was enormously to the advantage of the dramatic author. A London success meant a long series of full houses at high prices, on which he took a handsome percentage. The provinces, in which a popular playwright would often have three or four plays going the rounds simultaneously, became a steady source of income. And, finally, it was found possible, even before international copyright came into force, to protect stageright in the United States, so that about the beginning of the ’eighties large receipts began to pour in from America. Thus successful dramatists, instead of living from hand to mouth, like their predecessors of the previous generation, found themselves in comfortable and even opulent circumstances. They had leisure for reading, thought and careful composition, and they could afford to gratify their ambition with an occasional artistic experiment. Failure might mean a momentary loss of prestige, but it would not spell ruin. A distinctly progressive spirit, then, began to animate the leading English dramatists—a spirit which found intelligent sympathy in such managers as John Hare, George Alexander, Beerbohm Tree and Charles Wyndham. Nor must it be forgotten that, though the laws of literary property, internal and international, remained far from perfect, it was found possible to print and publish plays without incurring loss of stageright either at home or in America. The playwrights of the present generation have accordingly a motive for giving literary form and polish to their work which was quite inoperative with their predecessors, whose productions were either kept jealously in manuscript or printed only in miserable and totally unreadable stage editions. It is no small stimulus to ambition to know that even if a play prove to be in advance of the standards of taste or thought among the public to which it is originally presented, it will not perish utterly, but will, if it have any inherent vitality, continue to live as literature.
Having now summed up the economic conditions which made for progress, let us glance at certain intellectual influences which tended in the same direction. The establishment of the Théâtre Libre in Paris, towards the close of 1887,Influence of foreign drama.unquestionably marked the beginning of a period of restless experiment throughout the theatrical world of Europe. A. Antoine and his supporters were in open rebellion against the artificial methods of Scribe and the Second Empire playwrights. Their effort was to transfer to the stage the realism, the so-called “naturalism,” which had been dominant in French fiction since 1870 or earlier; and this naturalism was doubtless, in its turn, the outcome of the scientific movement of the century. New methods (or ideals) of observation, and new views as to the history and destiny of the race, could not fail to produce a profound effect upon art; and though the modern theatre is a cumbrous contrivance, slow to adjust its orientation to the winds of the spirit, even it at last began to revolve, like a rusty windmill, so as to fill its sails in the main current of the intellectual atmosphere. Within three or four years of its inception, Antoine’s experiment had been imitated in Germany, England and America. The “Freie Bühne” of Berlin came into existence in 1889, the Independent Theatre of London in 1891. Similar enterprises were set on foot in Munich and other cities. In America several less formal experiments of a like nature were attempted, chiefly in Boston and New York. Nor must it be forgotten that in Paris itself the Théâtre Libre did not stand alone. Many otherthéâtres à côtésprang up, under such titles as “Théâtre d’Art,” “Théâtre Moderne,” “Théâtre de l’Avenir Dramatique.” The most important and least ephemeral was the “Théâtre de l’Œuvre,” founded in 1893 by Alex. Lugné-Poë, which represented mainly, though not exclusively, the symbolist reaction against naturalism.
The impulse which led to the establishment of the Théâtre Libre was, in the first instance, entirely French. If any foreign influence helped to shape its course, it was that of the great Russian novelists. Tolstoi’sPuissance des ténèbreswas the only “exotic” play announced in Antoine’s opening manifesto. But the whole movement was soon to receive a potent stimulus from the Norwegian poet Henrik Ibsen.
Ibsen’s early romantic plays had been known in Germany since 1875. In 1878Pillars of Societyand in 1880A Doll’s Houseachieved wide popularity, and held the German stage side by side withA Bankruptcy, by Björnstjerne Björnson. But these plays had little influence on the German drama. Their methods were, indeed, not essentially different from those of the French school of the Second Empire, which were then dominant in Germany as well as everywhere else. It wasGhosts(acted in Augsburg and Meiningen 1886, in Berlin 1887) that gave the impulse which, coalescing with the kindred impulse from the French Théâtre Libre, was destined in the course of a few years to create a new dramatic literature in Germany. During the middle decades of the century Germany had produced some dramatists of solid and even remarkable talent, such as Friedrich Hebbel, Heinrich Laube, Karl Gutzkow and Gustav Freytag. Even the generation which held the stage after 1870, and included Paul Heyse, Paul Lindau and Adolf Wilbrandt, with numerous writers of light comedy and farce, such as E. Wichert, O. Blumenthal, G. von Moser, A. L’Arronge and F. von Schönthan, had produced a good many works of some merit. But, in the main, French artificiality and frivolity predominated on the German stage. In point of native talent and originality, the Austrian popular playwright Ludwig Anzengruber was well ahead of his North German contemporaries. It was in 1889, with the establishment of the Berlin Freie Bühne, that the reaction definitely set in. In Berlin, as afterwards in London,Ghostswas the first play produced on the outpost stage, but it was followed in Berlin by a very rapid development of native talent. Less than a month after the performance of Ibsen’s play, Gerhart Hauptmann came to the front withVor Sonnenaufgang, an immature piece of almost unrelieved Zolaism, which he soon followed up, however, with much more important works. InDas Friedensfest(1890) andEinsame Menschen(1891) he transferred his allegiance from Zola to Ibsen. His true originality first manifested itself inDie Weber(1892); and subsequently he produced plays in several different styles, all bearing the stamp of a potent individuality. His most popular productions have been the dramatic poemsHanneleandDie versunkene Glocke, the low-life comedyDer Biberpelz, and the low-life tragedyFuhrmann Henschel. Other remarkable playwrights belonging to the Freie Bühne group are Max Halbe (b. 1865), author ofJugendandMutter Erde, and Otto Erich Hartleben (b. 1864), author ofHanna JagertandRosenmontag. These young men, however, so quickly gained the ear of the general public, that the need for a special “free stage” was no longer felt, and the Freie Bühne, having done its work, ceased to exist. Unlike the French Théâtre Libre and the English Independent theatre, it had been supported from the outset by the most influential critics, and had won the day almost without a battle. The productions of the new school soon made their way even into some of the subventioned theatres; but it was the unsubventioned Deutsches Theater of Berlin that most vigorously continued the tradition of the Freie Bühne. One or two playwrights of the new generation, however, did not actually belong to the Freie Bühne group. Hermann Sudermann produced his first play,Die Ehre, in 1888, and his most famous work,Heimat, in 1892. In him the influence of Ibsen is very clearly perceptible; while Arthur Schnitzler of Vienna, author ofLiebelei, may rather be said to derive his inspiration from the Parisian “new comedy.” Originality, verging sometimes on abnormality, distinguishes the work of Frank Wedekind (b. 1864), author ofErdgeistandFrühlingserwachen. Hugo von Hofmannsthal (b. 1874), in hisElektraandÖdipus, rehandles classic themes in the light of modern anthropology and psychology.
The promoters of the Théâtre Libre had probably never heard of Ibsen when they established that institution, but three years later his fame had reached France, andLes Revenantswas produced by the Théâtre Libre (29th May 1890). Within the next two or three years almost all his modern plays were acted in Paris, most of them either by the Théâtre Libre or by L’Œuvre. Close upon the heels of the Ibsen influence followed another, less potent, but by no means negligible. The exquisite tragic symbolism of Maurice Maeterlinck began to find numerous admirers about 1890. In 1891 his one-act playL’Intrusewas acted; in 1893,Pelléas et Mélisande. By this time, too, the reverberation of the impulse which the Théâtre Libre had given to the Freie Bühne began to be felt in France. In 1893 Hauptmann’sDie Weberwas acted in Paris, and, being frequently repeated, made a deep and lasting impression.
The English analogue to the Théâtre Libre, the Independent theatre, opened its first season (March 13, 1891) with a performance ofGhosts. This was not, however, the first introduction of Ibsen to the English stage. On the 7th of June 1889 (six weeks after the production ofThe Profligate)A Doll’s Housewas acted at the Novelty theatre, and ran for three weeks, amid a storm of critical controversy. In the same yearPillars of Societywas presented in London. In 1891 and 1892A Doll’s Housewas frequently acted;Rosmersholmwas produced in 1891, and again in 1893; in May and June 1891Hedda Gablerhad a run of several weeks; and early in 1893The Master Builderenjoyed a similar passing vogue. During these years, then, Ibsen was very much “in the air” in England, as well as in France and Germany. The Independent theatre, in the meantime, under the management of J. T. Grein, found but scanty material to deal with. It presented translations of Zola’sThérèse Raquin, and ofA Visit, by the Danish dramatist Edward Brandes; but it brought to the front only one English author of any note, in the person of George Bernard Shaw, whose “didactic realistic play,”Widowers’ Houses, it produced in December 1892.
None the less is it true that the ferment of fresh energy, which between 1887 and 1893 had created a new dramatic literature both in France and in Germany, was distinctly felt in England as well. England did not take at all kindly to it. The productions of Ibsen’s plays, in particular, were received with an outcry of reprobation. A great part of this clamour was due to sheer misunderstanding; but some of it, no doubt, arose from genuine and deep-seated distaste. As for the dramatists of recognized standing, they one and all, both from policy and from conviction, adopted a hostile attitude towards Ibsen, expressing at most a theoretical respect overborne by practical dislike. Yet his influence permeated the atmosphere. He had revealed possibilities of technical stagecraft and psychological delineation that, once realized, were not to be banished from the mind of the thoughtful playwright. They haunted him in spite of himself. Still subtler was the influence exerted over the critics and the more intelligent public. Deeply and genuinely as many of them disliked Ibsen’s works, they found, when they returned to the old-fashioned play, the adapted frivolity or the homegrown sentimentalism, that they disliked this still more. On every side, then, there was an instinctive or deliberate reaching forward towards something new; and once again it was Pinero who ventured the decisive step.
On the 27th of May 1893The Second Mrs Tanqueraywas produced at the St James’s theatre. WithThe Second Mrs Tanqueraythe English acted drama ceased to be a merely insular product, and took rank in the literature of Europe. Here was a play which, whatever its faults, was obviously comparable with the plays of Dumas, of Sudermann, of Björnson, of Echegaray. It might be better than some of these plays, worse than others; but it stood on the same artistic level. The fact that such a play could not only be produced, but could brilliantly succeed, on the London stage gave a potent stimulus to progress. It encouraged ambition in authors, enterprise in managers. WhatHernaniwas to the romantic movement of the ’thirties, andLa Dame aux caméliasto the realistic movement of the ’fifties,The Second Mrs Tanqueraywas to the movement of the ’nineties towards the serious stage-portraiture of English social life. All the forces which we have been tracing—Robertsonian realism of externals, the leisure for thought and experiment involved in vastly improved financial conditions, the substitution in France of a simpler, subtler technique for the outworn artifices of the Scribe school, and the electric thrill communicated to the whole theatrical life of Europe by contact with the genius of Ibsen—all these slowly converging forces coalesced to produce, inThe Second Mrs Tanqueray, an epoch-marking play.
Pinero followed upMrs Tanqueraywith a remarkable series of plays—The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith,The Benefit of the Doubt,The Princess and the Butterfly,Trelawny of the “Wells,”The Gay Lord Quex,Iris,Letty,His House in OrderandThe Thunderbolt—all of which show marked originality of conception and intellectual force. In January 1893 Charles Wyndham initiated a new policy at the Criterion theatre, and produced an original play,The Bauble-Shop, by Henry Arthur Jones. It belonged very distinctly to the pre-Tanqueray order of things; but the same author’sThe Case of Rebellious Susan, in the following year, showed an almost startlingly sudden access of talent, which was well maintained in such later works asMichael and his Lost Angel(1896), that admirable comedyThe Liars(1897), andMrs Dane’s Defence(1900). Sydney Grundy produced after 1893 by far his most important original works,The Greatest of These(1896) andThe Debt of Honour(1900). R. C. Carton, breaking away from the somewhat laboured sentimentalism of his earlier manner, produced several light comedies of thoroughly original humour and of excellent literary workmanship—Lord and Lady Algy,Wheels within Wheels,Lady Huntworth’s Experiment,Mr HopkinsonandMr Preedy and the Countess. Haddon Chambers, inThe Tyranny of Tears(1899) andThe Awakening(1901), produced two plays of a merit scarcely foreshadowed in his earlier efforts.
What was of more importance, a new generation of playwrights came to the front. Its most notable representatives were J. M. Barrie, who displayed his inexhaustible gift of humorous observation and invention inQuality Street(1902),The Admirable Crichton(1903),Little Mary(1903),Peter Pan(1904),Alice Sit-by-the-Fire(1905) andWhat Every Woman Knows(1908); Mrs Craigie (“John Oliver Hobbes”), who produced inThe Ambassador(1898) a comedy of fine accomplishment;and H. V. Esmond, Alfred Sutro, Hubert Henry Davies, W. S. Maugham, Rudolf Besier, Roy Horniman and J. B. Fagan.
Meanwhile, the efforts to relieve the drama from the pressure of the long-run system had not been confined to the Independent theatre. Several other enterprises of a like nature had proved more or less short-lived; but the Stage Society, founded in 1900, was conducted with more energy and perseverance, and became a real force in the dramatic world. After two seasons devoted mainly to Bernard Shaw, Ibsen, Maeterlinck and Hauptmann, it produced in its third seasonThe Marrying of Ann Leete, by Granville Barker (b. 1877), who had developed in its service his remarkable gifts as a producer of plays. A year or two later, Barker staged for another organization, the New Century theatre, Professor Gilbert Murray’s rendering of theHippolytusof Euripides; and it was partly the success of this production that suggested the Vedrenne-Barker partnership at the Court theatre, which, between 1904 and 1907, gave an extraordinary impulse to the intellectual life of the theatre. Adopting the “short-run” system, as a compromise between the long-run and the repertory systems, the Vedrenne-Barker management made the plays of Bernard Shaw (both old and new) for the first time really popular. Of the plays already publishedYou Never Can TellandMan and Supermanwere the most successful; of the new plays,John Bull’s Other Island,Major BarbaraandThe Doctor’s Dilemma. But though Shaw was the mainstay of the enterprise, it gave opportunities to several other writers, the most notable being John Galsworthy (b. 1867), author ofThe Silver BoxandStrife, St John Hankin (1869-1909), author ofThe Return of the ProdigalandThe Charity that began at Home, and Granville Barker himself, whose playsThe Voysey InheritanceandWaste(1907) were among the most important products of this movement. It should also be noted that the production of theHippolytuswas followed up by the production of theTrojan Women, theElectraand theMedeaof Euripides, all translated by Gilbert Murray.
The impulse to which were due the Independent theatre, the Stage Society and the Vedrenne-Barker management, combined with local influences to bring about the foundation in Dublin of the Irish National theatre. Its moving spirit was the poet W. B. Yeats (b. 1865), who wrote for itCathleen-ni-Hoolihan,The Hour-Glass,The King’s Thresholdand one or two other plays. Lady Gregory, Padraic Collum, Boyle and other authors also contributed to the repertory of this admirable little theatre; but its most notable products were the plays of J. M. Synge (1871-1909), whoseRiders to the Sea,Well of the SaintsandPlayboy of the Western Worldshowed a fine and original dramatic faculty combined with extraordinary beauty of style.
Both in Manchester and in Glasgow endeavours have been made, with considerable success, to counteract the evils of the touring system, by the establishment of resident companies acting the better class of modern plays on a “short-run” plan, similar to that of the Vedrenne-Barker management. The Manchester enterprise was to some extent subsidized by Miss E. Horniman, and may therefore claim to be the first endowed theatre in England. The need for endowment on a much larger scale was, however, strongly advocated in the early years of the 20th century by the more progressive supporters of English drama, and in 1908 found a place in the scheme for a Shakespeare National theatre, which was then superimposed on the earlier proposal for a memorial commemorating the Shakespeare tercentenary, organized by an influential committee under the chairmanship of the Lord Mayor of London. The scheme involved the raising of £500,000, half to be devoted to the requisite site and building, while the remainder would be invested so as to furnish an annual subvention.
It remains to say a few words of the English literary drama, as opposed to the acted drama. The two classes are not nearly so distinct as they once were; but plays continue to be produced from time to time which are wholly unfitted for the theatre, and others which, though they may be experimentally placed on the stage, make their appeal rather to the reading public. Tennyson had essayed in his old age an art which is scarcely to be mastered after the energy of youth has passed. He continued to the last to occupy himself more or less with drama, and all his plays, exceptHarold, found their way to the stage.The CupandBecket, as we have seen, met with a certain success, butThe Promise of May(1882), an essay in contemporary drama, was a disastrous failure, whileThe Falcon(1879) andThe Foresters(acted by an American company in 1893) made little impression. Lord Tennyson was certainly not lacking in dramatic faculty, but he worked in an outworn form which he had no longer the strength to renovate. Swinburne continued now and then to cast his creations in the dramatic mould, but it cannot be said that his dramas attained either the vitality or the popularity of his lyrical poems.Mary Stuart(1881) brought his Marian trilogy to a close. InLocrinehe produced a tragedy in heroic couplets—a thing probably unattempted since the age of Dryden.The Sistersis a tragedy of modern date with a medieval drama inserted by way of interlude.Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards(1899), perhaps approached more nearly than any of his former works to the concentration essential to drama. It may be doubted, however, whether his copious and ebullient style could ever really subject itself to the trammels of dramatic form. Of other dramas on the Elizabethan model, the most notable, perhaps, were the works of two ladies who adopt the pseudonym of “Michael Field”;Callirrhoë(1884),Brutus Ultor(1887), and many other dramas, show considerable power of imagination and expression, but are burdened by a deliberate artificiality both of technique and style. Alfred Austin put forth several volumes in dramatic form, such asSavonarola(1881),Prince Lucifer(1887),England’s Darling(1896),Flodden Field(1905). They are laudable in intention and fluent in utterance. Notable additions to the purely literary drama were made by Robert Bridges in hisPrometheus(1883),Nero(1885),The Feast of Bacchus(1889), and other solid plays in verse, full of science and skill, but less charming than his lyrical poems. Sir Lewis Morris made a dramatic experiment inGycia, but was not encouraged to repeat it.
From the outset of his career, John Davidson (1857-1909) was haunted by the conviction that he was a born dramatist; but his earlier plays, such asSmith: a Tragedy(1886),Bruce: a Chronicle Play(1884) andScaramouch in Naxos(1888), contained more poetry than drama; and his later pieces, such asSelf’s the Man(1901),The Theatrocrat(1905) and theTriumph of Mammon(1907), showed a species of turbulent imagination, but became more and more fantastic and impracticable. Stephen Phillips (b. 1867), on the other hand, having had some experience as an actor, wrote always with the stage in view. In his first play,Paolo and Francesca(1899; produced in 1902), he succeeded in combining great beauty of diction with intense dramatic power and vitality. The same may be said ofHerod(1900); but inUlysses(1902) andNero(1906) a great falling-off in constructive power was only partially redeemed by the fine inspiration of individual passages.
The collaboration of Robert Louis Stevenson with William Ernest Henley produced a short series of interesting experiments in drama, two of which,Beau Austin(1883) andAdmiral Guinea(1884), had more than a merely experimental value. The former was an emotional comedy, treating with rare distinction of touch a difficult, almost an impossible, subject; the latter was a nautical melodrama, raised by force of imagination and diction into the region of literature.Incomparablythe most important of recent additions to the literary drama is Thomas Hardy’s vast panorama of the Napoleonic wars, entitledThe Dynasts(1904-1908). It is rather an epic in dialogue than a play; but however we may classify it we cannot but recognize its extraordinary intellectual and imaginative powers.
United States.—American dramatists have shown on their own account a progressive tendency, quite as marked as that which we have been tracing in England. Down to about 1890 the influence of France had been even more predominant in America than in England. The only American dramatist of eminence, Bronson Howard (1842-1908), was a disciple, though a very able one, of the French school. A certain stirring of nativeoriginality manifested itself during the ’eighties, when a series of semi-improvised farces, associated with the names of two actor-managers, Harrigan and Hart, depicted low life in New York with real observation, though in a crude and formless manner. About the same time a native style of popular melodrama began to make its appearance—a play of conventional and negligible plot, which attracted by reason of one or more faithfully observed character-types, generally taken from country life.The Old Homestead, written by Denman Thompson, who himself acted in it, was the most popular play of this class. Rude as it was, it distinctly foreshadowed that faithfulness to the external aspects, at any rate, of everyday life, in which lies the strength of the native American drama. It was at a sort of free theatre in Boston that James A. Herne (1840-1901) produced in 1891 his realistic drama of modern life,Margaret Fleming, which did a great deal to awaken the interest of literary America in the theatrical movement. Herne, an actor and a most accomplished stage-manager, next produced a drama of rural life in New England,Shore Acres(1892), which made an immense popular success. It was a play of theOld Homesteadtype, but very much more coherent and artistic. His next play,Griffith Davenport(1898), founded on a novel, was a drama of life in Virginia during the Civil War, admirable in its strength and quiet sincerity; while in his last work,Sag Harbour(1900), Herne returned to the study of rustic character, this time in Long Island. Herne showed human nature in its more obvious and straightforward aspects, making no attempt at psychological subtlety; but within his own limits he was an admirable craftsman. The same preoccupation with local colour is manifest in the plays of Augustus M. Thomas, a writer of genuine humour and originality. His localism announces itself in the very titles of his most popular plays—Alabama,In Mizzoura,Arizona. He also made a striking success inThe Witching Hour, a play dealing with the phenomena of hypnotism and suggestion. Clyde Fitch (1865-1909), an immensely prolific playwright of indubitable ability, after becoming known by some experiments in quasi-historic drama (notablyNathan Hale, 1898;Barbara Frietchie, 1899), devoted himself mainly to social drama on the French model, in which his most notable efforts have beenThe Climbers(1900),The Truth(1906), andThe Girl with the Green Eyes(1902). In popular drama, with elaborate scenic illustration, William Gillette (b. 1856), David Belasco (b. 1859) and Charles Klein (b. 1867) have done notable work. William Vaughn Moody (b. 1869) produced inThe Great Divide(1907) a play of somewhat higher artistic pretensions; Eugene Walter inPaid in Full(1908) andThe Easiest Way(1909) dealt vigorously with characteristic themes of modern life; and Edward Sheldon produced inSalvation Nella slum drama of very striking realism. The poetic side of drama was mainly represented by Percy Mackaye (b. 1875), whoseJeanne d’Arc(1906) andSappho and Phaonshowed a high ambition and no small literary power. On the whole it may be said that, though the financial conditions of the American stage are even more unfortunate than those which prevail in England, they have failed to check a very strong movement towards nationalism in drama. Season by season, America writes more of her own plays, good or bad, and becomes less dependent on imported work, whether French or English.