The Sinews of Drama
Watching a Play. By C. K. Munro. (Howe. 7s. ad.)
IN concluding what he modestly calls "these singularly scrappy remarks on the art of the theatre," Mr. Munro goes on to hope "that I have said some definite things—some tangible things, wrong or right, for that is what, it seems to me, is sadly lacking in this sphere. If I could think I had said—had distinctly been heard to say—some wrong but quite definite things, I believe I should be satisfied." He may rest satisfied ; he has been distinctly heard to say several very definite things, and—I will imitate his modesty and refrain from saying that like the nine and thirty ways of con- structing tribal laws, every single one of them is right—it will be difficult to prove any of them wrong. But what is so peculiar, no refreshing about this book, is that, unlike the dozens of books on dramatic technique that one has read, this one really seems to deal with essentials, not with contraptions. It is the book that I for one have been looking for for years.
Mr. Munro is not cursed with erudition : it does not stand between him and his subject, and instead of apologizing for his lack of it as he dues, he may well give thanks for it. There is no talk here of katiaarsis, of scenes a faire, of the hundred metaphysical points, and the hundred and one Scriberies and Sardoodledoms of which we are all so respectfully weary. Mr. Munro has knowledge, not erudition. He has read n few playwrights attentively, he hail written the most interesting though not indeed the most popular plays of his generation, and he has thought profoundly about his art, and equallv profoundly, about his 'audience, approaching 'both from a fresh standpoint arrived at through the actual handling of the material. It is curious and exciting to read about the old problems looked at from a new point of view and discussed with a quite new set of words, ordinary words that We use in talking about other things, and not in the special jargon which usually acts as a shield between us and the object.
The book's title to some extent reveals the approach. What happens when we watch a play ? How is that state of
seeing," as opposed to looking at or learning from, pro. duced ? What is value, and what is all this talk about sus. pense ? What is the relation between author and public? . . . and so on ; subjects such as sympathy and distance are discussed, the indirectness of art, besides a dozen other considerations which Mr. Munro comments on shrewdly but always modestly, and, apparently, lightly. But this lightness is only apparent ; that is to say, there is nothing superficial about anything Mr. Munro says. The philosophy of art which runs through the book is well considered, well felt, but it is never expressed pedantically. That is because Mr. Munro is really at grips with his subject ; and because it matters to him intensely.
The volume is made up of lectures delivered at Liverpool University, and delightful they must have been to listen to; not only because Mr. Munro writes in an ordinary voice, so to speak, but because there is no waste matter in them. Mr. Munro paid his audience the compliment of supposing that they were as interested in the subject as he was ; and no doubt they became so whether or no they began in that con. dition, though as lectures they must have called for unusual concentration on the part of the listeners. And Mr. Munro is always lucid. His analyses of The Wild Duck and Le Bour- geois Gentilhomme are delightful, and reveal the mechanism, the emotional mechanism (which is the only one that counts) in a most convincing way. They are the only two plays he treats in detail, though he touches on Shakespeare and Tehekhov, and there also says some illuminating things. But this is not a book for dramatists alone, though all would do well to study it ; nor does it limit its sphere of utility to students of the drama, actors, and producers : it is a book that one wishes all playgoers would read (it would offer no difficulty to them) and all critics. The former would the better enjoy the plays they see ; they might even improve their taste, to the ruin of most of our present playwrights and managers. The latter would spare us some of the obvious misunderstandings which all except the very best so guile- lessly offer us nearly every day. It is not to he pretended that Mr. Munro covers all the ground, but he covers as much as it is possible for anyone to traverse in six lectures. Some of the issues he raises in his last lecture require more discus- sion, but what he does say about them is dictated by common sense, the common sense, that is, of a sensitive and thinking
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