MR. GORDON CRAIG AND THE THEATRE OF TO-DAY.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In opening the International. Theatre Exhibition at Manchester Sir John Martin Harvey, after reviewing the work shown, observed that after all we come back to the words of Shakespeare, " The play's the thing." But Sir John's memory failed him slightly. Let us come back to the words of Shakespeare, which are :— " The play's the thing
Wherein to catch the conscience of the King "- a a sentence which, so far as I can see, has no relevance whatever to the problem of mice-en-scene, though it is so often maimed to confuse the subject. In the theatre the performance of the play is the thing. Under present con- ditions a play and its performance are two entirely different things. The splendour of a fine play is often entirely lost in performance, and, on the other hand, a play of little literary value may be turned into magic in the theatre—as when Irving took Tennyson's " Becket " and " modelled a dramatic substance out of an undramatic cloud." Mr. Gordon Craig, I take it, has been searching for the fundamental conditions which will allow of a play and its performance being one and the same thing—the presentation one with the vision of the dramatist.
The journalistic criticisms of the Theatre Exhibition, referred to by your correspondent in the Spectator of October 14th, certainly demonstrate that the actor must teach the critics the need of having all their senses awake in considering things dramatic, not merely the literary sense which they already exercise, but also their sense of the rhythm of things in motion, in design, in architecture, in voice —a sense of line and colour too. They must be taught that Mr. Craig has not been studying these things as a freak or a fad, but with immense deliberation—in the search for dramatic unity. But it is the actor's business to understand this first, and it is time for them to re-read. On the Art of the Theatre in the light of 1922.—I am, Sir, &e.,
J. ROBSON.
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