Dramatic Criticism
The English Dramatic Critics, 1660-1932. Assembled by Tames Agate. (Arthur Barker. 12s. 6d.) "THERE is no human invention so aptly calculated for the forming of a free-born people as that of a theatre," wrote Sir Richard Steele, who in this anthology opens the batting with Addison. Through the pages which follow we are able to trace the reactions of a free-born people to the process of being formed, and their attempts to estimate the nature and value of that process. But it is primarily the critics themselves who are on show, and not the English theatre or the English audience. We are invited to inspect the mirrors, not what they reflect.
Literary criticism to-day stands suspect. An art conducted as a trade, it is like other trades the victim of over-production. But the standard of dramatic criticism is high, and if anyone doubts that its rise has been progressive, they have only to consult this anthology. They will, it is true, find there much repetition.- In two centuries the categories of praise and blame have shrunk and swollen little. Goldsmith's complaint that "we too often see our fine gentlemen do nothing through a whole part, but strut and open their snuff-box" needs only the substitution of " cigarette-case " for the last word to acquire a twentieth-century poignancy ; and the echoes of Addison's reproachful cry, "we are transported with anything that is not English," are reawakened by every fresh invasion from Vienna, Paris or New York.
But some values in the theatre are constant, and to restate them does no harm. Both in what they say and in what they leave unsaid the dramatic critics of the twentieth century are better at their job than their predecessors. There were plod men writing well on the theatre in the first half of the nineteenth century ; but the theatre at that time was un- worthy of their attention. What was wanted was not critics but prophets : men with a technical bias to their interest in the drama, who, instead of accepting as chronic the current imperfections of the stage, could have seen beyond them to forecast the future of temporarily degenerate medium. There was no point in bringing a sensitive appreciation and an exact scholarship to bear on the spectacle of a star barn- storming his way through some ineffable "acting version" of a Shakespearean tragedy. What Lamb really meant when he said that King Lear could never be acted was that he was sick of seeing it travestied. (In this volume we have Forster's account of the memorable occasion in 1888 when Macready dared to restore the Fool and act Lear as Shakespeare wrote it.) Leigh Hunt; Lamb, and Hazlitt failed as dramatic. critics because it never occurred to them that the theatre. would not always be tawdry and inept.
With histrionics alone they were happy and successful.; in analysing the art of Munden or Mathews or Mrs. Siddons they could give of their best. But acting is only one branch Of the drama ; and you cannot help feeling that they were (not -without cause) ill at ease in the theatre of the day.
If, however, circumstances imposed a good many limitations on eighteenth and nineteenth century criticism of drama there was much true and lively appreciation of acting. Parts were few but "fat," and actors were followed through them gesture by gesture. A fine performance had a better chance of immortality in the days when critics reported every detail of an interpretation before they assessed the whole. When we have read G. H. Lewes, Joseph Knight and Henry Morley. on Fechter's Othello, we know more about. how Fechter played the part than, if we had seen him do it. To-day,: writing in haste and briefly for a public among whom a scholar's interest in the plays is no longer general, the critic must deliver terse and pregnant judgement in a phrase. Mr. Gielgud's Antony, which would once have earned eight pages of scene-by-scene analysis, must perforce be recon- structed by Mr. Ivor Brown in one vivid sentence as "a grizzled, bearded Elizabethan who might have sailed with Drake or sonneteered with the Mermaid boys, valiant, melting, melancholy, and yet marching as a Roman to his fall."
But it must not be thought that, even judged by the specimens selected for this volume, the modern dramatic critics are faultless craftsmen. If it would be bard to find a truer and deeper appreciation of a play and a performance than Mr. Charles Morgan brings to Mr. Godfrey Tearle's Hamlet, it would be equally hard to find a sillier gaffe made by a distinguished figure than that which occurs in Mr. St. John Ervine's review of Dryden's All For Lore. "1 do not know," he writes, "who had the bright idea of using Restoration costumes for a play about Romans and Egyptians, but I suggest to the Council of the Phoenix Society that if this genius has any more bright ideas he should be persuaded to keep them to himself." If Mr. Ervine really does not know who had the bright idea, he shows an ignorance of conditions in the theatre for which Dryden wrote which can be equalled by few who profess some knowledge of the English drama. Mr. Allan Monkhouse's contribution was hardly worthy of inclusion in a volume which contains only one piece by Lamb, and Mr. Agate's merits as a critic of the less advanced school are obscured by a style overcharged with archness. The nimblest stylist of them all is Mr. Ivor Brown, who sublimates the base arts of punning, alliteration, and allusion into a jargon so flexible and economic that its ingenuity does not obtrude. If he prefers to turn cartwheels while others walk, it does not matter ; he gets there just the same.
There is a discerning essay by Mr. Ashley Dukes on" Shakes. peare's Clowns," whose weakness, both from the point of view of their creator and of the audience, is that "they lack usefulness, which is the prime test of the strength of a stage character." Mr. Desmond MacCarthy (whose performances as a dramatic critic are uneven, but brilliant at their best) is well represented by reviews of Uncle Vanya and Androcles and the Lion. ("My discovery about Mr. Shaw after seeing Androcles was that his most striking merits sprang from his being extraordinarily free from all forms of spiritual snobbery.") Mr. Agate's " assembling " of these critics is a perfunctory, not to say a slovenly, bit of work. Many of the earlier names, like Francis Gentleman and Thomas Holcroft, will be new to most of his readers, but no attempt has been made to supply the biographical notes, the estimates of their contemporary status, which would have added enormously to the interest of this volume. The only sign of an editorial hand at work is the arbitrary dissemination of some patronizing (sk)'s after some—not all—of the words which have an eighteenth century spelling : like " Spight (sic)" for " spite."
- Mr. Agate, in his capacity of literary critic to a daily news- paper, and with a modesty which perhaps does more credit to his heart than to his head, has seen fit to recommend this compilation to the public without mentioning his part in it: His advice is sound, whatever may be thought of this method of giving it. The book, even as it stands, is full of interest.
PETER FLEMING.
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