HELP FOR THE YOUNG PLAYWRIGHT.
THERE is one cruel maxim which every young playwright must face unflinchingly. Good plays, well written, well acted and well produced, frequently fail, bad pays, badly acted and, from any recognisable standard, badly produced, fairly often succeed.
Is it to be wondered at then that anyone, even if supposedly expert, asked to give advice as to their conduct of affairs to young people anxious to adopt a dangerous and disheartening profession, feels that he is stepping on the treadmill of a vicious circle ?
In the items of reference kindly given to me as a sugges- tion of what I am to say on the subject, it is questioned whether some machinery could not be devised by means of which in the practical experience of rehearsal and performance such would-be writers could gain 'a greater insight into the mysteries of their craft.
Such means, however, exist, though it is true that their availability may not be free enough. Even as it is, the results must seem to any but the very confirmed optimist hardly encouraging. I have attended, Sunday after Sunday, as in duty hound, the productions of the many play-producing societies. Alas ! they seem to confine their efforts to plays which are not only without achievement, but also entirely without promise. It may be that their reading com- mittees are at fault, it may be that only people with nothing to say are • prepared to put down a sum of money for the privilege of saying it. For in some of these play-producing societies I understand that the willing- ness to do this is an essential preliminary condition. As a consequence their playwrights are only too often the lineal descendants of the dear old ladies and gentlemen who, in my youth, used to publish their poetical effusions in the advertisement columns of the daily papers, finding thus their only outlet for unnecessary expression.
There are honourable exceptions to the rule : Mr. Somerset Maugham would acknowledge gladly his debt to the Stage Society, though whether he learned much or had indeed much to learn 'when they produced his first play, or how much the delay in the public recog- nition of his talents was shortened by that production, it is impossible for me to say.
Ideally, of course, no play-producing society should be influenced in the smallest degree by the question as to whether the production of a new play would be to their financial advantage ; but ideals are unfortunately expensive luxuries, and so is the production of any play, under whatever simple conditions. And I do not know that the multiplication of productions would really be of great assistance. In America, where every town has its little theatre, where there is such an enthusiasm for every experiment in " production," is the general standard of playwriting higher than it is in this country ? We have seen, I think, very little evidence of it.
The truth of the matter is that the " mysteries of stage- craft," as far as they affect the author of the play, are largely bogies set up by the jealous to warn the younger generation from the sacred circle. A man who has really got something to say can pretty readily find out how to say it. There are not many of them, that's the trouble. There never have been and there never will be.
Is a would-be playwright after all much more difEcultly situated than a would-be painter, poet, musician ? He has his models before him, his examples to be followed, his examples to be avoided. A wholesale contempt for the medium in which he proposes to work is not to be recommended, and was, of course, a commonplace attitude in the clever young " literary men " of the last generation.
As a manager, I am accustomed to receive a great deal of abuse, which I do not in the least resent, from. the unacted playwright, as to my own particular failure to help him. Whether it is entirely deserved or not 'I do not wish to say, but the individual opportunities of anyone in, my position are smaller, unfortunately, than many people suppose. " If only you were intelligent enough to realize it, mine is the sort of play that the public are hungry for," is an example. I prefer, of course, the lady who writes from a perfectly charming address in the Cotswolds—" I don't say that my play would b e a popular success, but from its nature it demands a rath er elusive audience." I have found no satisfactory way of dealing with either correspondent.
It seems to me that except in the way of giving advice as best they can, to help the budding author on his way is rather the duty of the educational authorities than the theatrical managers, -whose benefit from . any such philanthropic scheme is, to say the best of it. a trifle remote. Something in this direction is being done in Liverpool; may it not be hoped that Oxford and Cam- bridge will follow its example, now that traffic with the theatre is no longer considered an unutterable thought ?
There will always be much to dishearten in the position Df• the theatre in this country : we are not, and I don't think we are likely to become, essentially a theatre- loving nation. But there is encouragement also after all.
The success of Basil Dean's production of Hassan has sent a thrill of joy through everybody who believes in the theatre. We can say of the theatre what a younger poet than Hecker can write of his own country :- "'Tis not too late to build our young land right, Cleaner than Holland, courtlier than Japan, Devout like early Rome with Hearths like hers, Hearths that will recreate the breed called Man."
NIGEL PLAYFAIR.
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