HERR HAUPTMANN.* THE works of Herr Hauptanann are scarcely known
at all in England. The only notice taken of them in any English journal, as far as we have seen, has been that The Weavers was acted once in Berlin and forbidden by the Police, and that the author is called the "Socialist Goethe." We can hardly see the propriety of either of these names. In two of his plays he has introduced Socialism, but we do not infer from the manner of its introduction that he is a Socialist; and he seems to us to have little in common with Goethe. We suppose him to be a young man, because we infer from the date of the publication of his works, that he produced nothing before 1885. He has written five plays, a tale, and a poem. He calls himself essentially a dramatist ; perhaps because he thinks that he excels in that department, and has therefore written more of it. He certainly shows more vigour in the plays than in his other work ; for in them his realism is very powerful ; but his talent, or possibly genius, is by no means inferior in his poem and novel ; indeed, the peculiar charac- teristic of his works is the contrast between his realism and ideality.
In the forties, when the scene of The Weavers is de- scribed, there was much misery in the German manufacturing districts, especially in Silesia, in the dialect of which province the play is chiefly written, though it is also published in High- German and in the Rhenish-Prussian dialect. Very probably, on the stage the dialect of the miserable workmen and women increase the terrible effect of the scenes. In the first act, a wretched horde are congregated together, of both sexes, de- livering up their work to, and receiving their pay from, the manager, evidently a low-bred, bullying, and cowardly indivi- dual. As long as he dares he insults ; but when insulted in turn, he sends for the master, a vulgar, rich, over-fed capitalist, who makes a speech to them showing how much they are to be envied and himself to be pitied, as he has all the anxiety to bear and all the capital to provide. The private life of these work- people proves how much they are to be envied, and is most * Bieber, and other Worke of Gerhart Hauptmann. Berlin: S. Fischer,
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graphically and touchingly described in two scenes.. In a miserable, low-pitched room, a dirty and hungry family are huddled together, working and eating, and doing everything they have to do,—except, we suppose, sleeping. A gay, fine young fellow, a soldier, enters the room, on his return home from the Army, and after contrasting their wretchedness with the plenty and happiness he has seen elsewhere, he looks round for the dog, which he used always to find there, and is informed that it was roasted one day for dinner, as they had no other food. In his indignation he teaches them a revolu- tionary song, and recommends them to take the matter into their own hands. Another scene is bright and lively. It is in a public-hoase filled with weavers, where all goes on very quietly until a discussion arises about the poverty and sufferings of the district, which is with difficulty prevented by the host from becoming a rather serious affray. The lights, the clean tables covered with glasses of beer, the beaming faces of the host and hostess, the flirtation between the pretty daughter and a gay, married Lothario, who is brought to order by her parents, make this scene a pleasant interlude in the play. But outside, things are coming to a crisis ; a large crowd has collected, and makes its way to the house of the capitalist, bursts in, and finding to its disgust that he and his family have just escaped, they begin to avenge themselves by jumping on the sofas to gaze at the badly painted pictures, the women preferring their own portraits as reflected in the numerous mirrors round the gaudily furnished room. Everything smacks of vulgarity. The family had been saved by the coachman, who, knowing what was going on outside, had brought the carriage round to the back-gate. The wife of the capitalist, on thus being relieved from her fright, threw her arms round the coachman's neck and kissed him to show her gratitude. In the last scene, a poor weaver's family is assembled at family prayer, in which he thanks God for the night's rest and for his goodness. They then sit down to breakfast ; but as the mother announces that there is no food, they begin their day's work fasting. The news arrives that the house of the capitalist had been destroyed by the mob, and a volley is heard net far off, for the military had been called out. A. stray shot through the window strikes the old weaver, who starts up and falls dead over his work. Through- out the play the causes of Socialism are faithfully described, but we do not find any opinions upon the doctrine itself, either directly stated or indirectly suggested. We wonder whether this drama could be produced on a London stage with success. Not that it would be forbidden by the Government, as it would only arouse the sympathy of an English audience, whatever effect it might have had in the days of Protection and bread- riots. In Paris, it was stopped after one representation. Its defect is that there is scarcely any light and shade in it, but all is of sombre hue. Would not a short love-story have redeemed it, or an act in which a merciful, prosperous, and educated capitalist and his family throw some bright light on the dark scene P The same may be said of the " Friedensfest," a family-quarrel, where all is heart-rending from beginning to end, with only one page enlivened by the reconciliation brought about by the charming fiancée of one of the sons; which is shortly afterwards all destroyed by a Christmas-tree, which the other brother finds too childish, and therefore sulks; this sets his father wrong, and the quarrel goes on to the end of the play. We pass over "College Crampton," a drunkard anda gambler, who shows no humour, as so many drunkards i do, in ridiculous acts and words, but remains dull and colour- less himself, and seems to throw a wet-blanket over all the scenes and actors in them.
Lonely Beings is lively, and might perhaps make a good acting play, even in England. A student of Darwin and Ha.eckel marries a girl half-educated. She feels that she is not good enough for him, and that he remains a lonely being. He feels the same. Consequently, they are both unhappy. Anna, a kind of high-school teacher, knowing everything under the sun, comes to stay with them, and completely changes their position, rendering the husband no longer lonely and the wife completely so, separated from her husband for hours together. At first Anna's com- pany seems to do all much good, for the husband is taken out of himself by her conversation, and the wife and mother are encouraged to hope for further improvement. But their eyes are son opened to see that things are worse instead of better. The mother tries to console the wife with her baby, just born ; but to no purpose. The husband and the omniscient lass take long walks and have long talks together, and a Platonic love springs up between them. The wife will not regard it as Platonic, and she and her mother are indignant at the intruder, especially as she prolongs her visit continually. The mother attributes it all to the husband's want of religion, and of faith in God. "I believe in God, but not in a God who has a son. God is Nature, and not a God who only works from the outside, as Goethe says." He is a hypochondriacal and do-nothing kind of man, and is not to be convinced about God or his own purposeless life by a woman. The parson gives him some hints which are equally useless. He even raises objections to the baptism of his child ; at least, "from a Christian point of view." The intruder airs her peculiar views on the rights of women to the wife and the mother, who partially agree with her, and are also somewhat consoled by learning from her that the son has different ways from less learned men, and is therefore likely to be misjudged. Still, the mother prefers the old ideas about women, and does not even object to the right of the man to give his wife a whipping now and then. "The new ideas confuse one so much. But I will go and get some coffee." The coffee, however, does not set all right, so she takes refuge in her " dear Lavater." Platonic love runs its course till it flows into the ocean of a rather less imaginative one. At the request of the husband, the charmer puts off her departure again and again. On one occasion she had started from the house to the railway. station, but he follows her, and brings her back. At last she is really going. "Good-bye, dear sister ! " says the husband, in tears.—" Good-bye, dear brother!" says the intruder, in tears.—The husband : "May not a brother kiss his sister when they are going to part for ever P "—" No."—Husband : "Yes, yes, Anna ;"—and he does not ask her any more, but proceeds to kiss and embrace her, and then runs out of the room and drowns himself in the lake, while she is going com- fortably off in the train.
Sunrise is by far the best of the plays. It shows most graphically the miserable and immoral condition of the mining population, and the odious vices of their employers. The description of the latter reminds us of Zola ; but, unlike him, our author puts it before us in a few words now and then, thus preventing the play from being continually offensive. He is not a mere photographer as M. Zola is, according to the opinion of the celebrated critic, M. Brunetiere, the present editor of the Revue des Deux Mondes. One of the personages is a Socialist, a flabby, Utopian young man, who has come to the neighbourhood to make observations, but confines them chiefly to the charms of a pretty girl, whom he, in his love for mankind in general, has made up his mind to marry, and release from her wretchedness and misery ; but on learning from the doctor of the village, a former fellow-student of his, what she had gone through, though without any taint on her character, he, in his cowardice, runs away, leaving her to her overwhelming disappointment, to escape himself from nothing.
The story, "The Apostle," exceedingly well told, is fall of pathos, and ends in a fearful tragedy. The poem, " Pro- methidenloos," has three obvious merits. The versification is highly musical ; the descriptive passages are excellent, fresh, concise, and forcible ; and the passion of a true poet is evi- dent throughout. It is alive with genius ; reminds us of no other poem, except that in form and scope it resembles some- what the " Ohilde Harold; " and in a few descriptions of Nature, especially of the setting sun, it is not unlike Shelley, some of whose vague mysticism it also possesses in the latter half of it.
We have only had space to compose an overture to the opera of this promising writer, in which we have introduced some of his leading ideas. If our readers lift the curtain and become acquainted with the whole, we think they will agree with us that there are signs of true genius in it ; that Herr Homptmann cannot do better than continue to sit at the feet of Goethe, with the hope of eventually taking a place beside him ; that he is not a Goethe as yet ; and that "To be or not to be, that is the question."
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