REGENERATION OF THE NATIONAL DRAMA.
Tux fallen estate of the drama was never so sadly exposed as it is at present. Exiled from the great houses, the high drama has not reappeared elsewhere. Several questions occur—will it revive of itself, with the lapse of time ? Will it be revived by some kind of fostering, as patronage or protection ? Can it be revived by ex- traneous assistance of any kind ; or must its own professors take the affair into their own hands, and reorganize the system ? The last appears to be the only plan ; and it would be wise in actors to .con- sides the case, and to see what may be done by exertion, by im- provements, and by intelligent combination. Let it be observed, that the recent alteration of the law has effected three remarkable changes in the condition of the drama : it has removed the two overbearing monopolies, made the penalties on irregularity more stringent, and removed all trace of vagabondage from the calling. It is therefore in a better position than ever it was to be made really a " profession " ; but to that end a better system and maturer coun- sels among its professors are needed.
The causes to which the decline of the drama is generally ascribed are three,—the increase of domestic comforts and home amusements among the middle and richer classes, who supply the profitable portions of audiences ; the costliness of theatrical per- formances; and the low state of the art itself. Other causes may cooperate, but if those three were removed, it seems tolerably cer- tain that the drama would revive. Let us see whether actors could find appropriate remedies.
The case of an actor differs from that of all other professors of the fine arts : the poet, the painter, the musician —the musical performer as well as composer, may each pursue his calling by him- self; and often does so : the actor needs the cooperation of his fellows; for performers who have acted alone constitute an anomaly in the art. The jealousy, the general poverty and improvidence of actors, and possibly some remaining influence of their social de- gradation, have been the reasons why the occupants of playhouses have too often been other than actors; and even when actors them- selves have owned a very imperfect influence from the profession. The affairs of theatres have seldom been administered with a view to the interests of the art. Very different interests have been con- sulted, and the theatre has been made ancillary to the bagnio. It is possible that such uses to which various parts of a theatre may be put may bring particular sums into the treasury from the pockets of roues; but assuredly nothing tends more to drive away respect- able and numerous audiences, at the same time that a connexion with such things weakens by degrading the profession. If actors wish to have the scene of their exertions filled by real lovers of the drama, they must make it at least as attractive to the intelligent and rational part of the community as home. If the amusements of home have grown more various and stimulating, the acted drama should maintain its place by becoming more perfect than ever it has been, so that it may still be a crowning recreation. In opera, for example, dramatic music tasted in the family circle around the pianoforte should only give a greater appetite to see the thing in its completest shape at the theatre ; whereas, ten to one, there is some such miserable bash, that the less pretending domestic per- formance is better, because less fruitful in absurdity. In like man- ner, the reading of KNIGHT'S Shokspere, with all the lights, critical and descriptive, of 1843, should make the reader the more desirous to see the poem done in action : but instead of seeing that, he only sees it done into nonsense, or made a vehicle for displaying such feats of scenic illusion as he could enjoy better apart from the drama—at some diorama, for example.
To a great extent, Mr. MACREADY realized what is here de- manded: his theatre was so far purged of improprieties, that re- spectable women began to frequent it without feeling it necessary always to be guarded by male protection ; and a fastidious and dis- criminating taste had effected great improvements on the stage. Yet he failed. In those respects, however, he did not fail—he succeeded. He drew a very large revenue; but then his expenditure was still larger. His failure was caused by expense—the second of the three causes enumerated above. In speaking of that failure and its ostensible cause, Mr. MACREADY made some indirect allusion to the necessity of splendid accessories for the "legitimate drama " ; apparently having in mind remarks which had appeared in this Journal or elsewhere, questioning the absolute necessity of splendour on all occasions. He intimated that without elaborate accessories, the performance of plays would degenerate into mere reading. Probably a predisposition to magnificence may have suggested that assumption ; which, made as it was by the man who had in other respects most successfully attempted the revival of the drama, de- serves some examination. All mimetic art depends for its per- fection on the consistency of the medium chosen : you may portray Helen in the living tints of oil-colour, in marble, in black chalk, in bronze, in plaster of Paris ; and you shall in either case totally forget the nature of the vehicle in the idea of flesh and flowing robes, and even of motion. Introduce " real " gold into the oil- painting, coloured eyes or painted cheeks into the statue, a bit of "` flesh colour" into the chalk drawing, and the truth of the whole is destroyed. Nothing can be more " unnatural " than the ma- tenets chosen to represent flesh and drapery ; but so long as the medium is consistent, the relative truth is preserved, and the ima- gination is satisfied. Let all artists carry this axiom with them— Almost any medium of representation may be selected; but once chosen, it must be consistent. To apply the axiom in the present case. There are two kinds of reading : you may read the plays of SHARSPERE to yourself, and probably enjoy the poetry more in that way than in any other. The perfect familiarity of the act of reading makes the process to be entirely overlooked : the ideas are presented to the mind as totally free from the obstructions as from the aids of embodiment—in a consistent medium, such as it is. The defect is, that the result is apt to be vague. The other kind of reading is that of a second person, aloud. The language of the author may be skilfully uttered; but the position of the reader raises a number of inapt ideas in the listener. The voices of the poet are many ; the voices imagined by the solitary reader, as many ; the voice of the reader aloud, one : the poet's hero draws a sword, leaps a wall, or points to his mistress ; the mind's eye of the solitary reader sees all that done ; the body's eye sees the reader aloud swordless, totally out of condition to leap walls, and he points at vacancy. The reader aloud constitutes a multiplied obstruction to the clear perception of the author's idea. On the other hand, the actor, adopting the poet's words, dressed so far in costume that the sight of him shall raise no unsuitable idea—the idea of Mr. MACREADY, for instance, when the talk is of King John—surrounded by scenery sufficient to illustrate the place and time of the action ; thus endowed, the actor presents you the poet's idea working in living reality, with no obstruction nor dis- tracting object. A very modest amount of accessories will often— not always—suffice to that great end. The real test for the value of accessories lies in this question, Does the mental idea remain predo- minant, the accessories only helping that without being separately recognized—being forgotten ; or do the accessories become the pre- dominant idea ? If so, the "legitimate drama" has ceded to spectacle. Now spectacle is a good thing in its way, but it is not an essential element of dramatic poetry. By reducing accessories to their sub- ordinate position, as mere auxiliary helps, not primary objects of dramatic representation, one great source of expense would be re- moved. Another would be abolished by a classification of theatres ; since each manager now maintains three or four different com- panies, to perform tragedy, comedy, opera, and ballet or spectacle, while he can only employ one set at a time. To put the question simply, would half of the audiences that went to see Mr. M&c- READY's performance of tragedy have gone, although there were only needful instead of" splendid" accessories, and although there were not companies in the same house to perform operas, comedies, or ballets, in posse, but not acted with the tragedy ? If so, he would have had his revenue reduced by one-half, but his expenditure re- duced in a far greater proportion. The low condition of the art itself is the most deplorable cause of the decline. It is really a case of decay, and in former times might have had to await some revolution of the human race to set it right. But if the other causes would be best removed by the vigorous ex- ertion of the actors themselves, eminently is this one for their en- deavour. The drama is the reflex of nature ; but nature no longer being the original, nature is not reflected. In nature, certain pas- sions and emotions are represented by certain tones of voice and actions of the face and limbs : it is the business of the poet to invent situations in which passions are developed, and to supply language; the actor supplies the actions of face and limb, and the tones of voice to illustrate those situations and that language ; but instead of copying those things from the living nature, the actor of our day uses certain actions and tones of voice which are understood to have been used by former actors. In the transmission, the forms of expression have become mechanical and dry, have lost their life and living shape. This is the way with all decaying art : the Greek painters that worked for the Italian churches before CIMARUE and Giorro broke through the system, painted figures after a pattern of their own, descending from one to the other. One reason for the mannerism in our time is, that actors in fact do not often see living passion ; so much has the polish of society subdued and concealed it. We have it best on the Italian stage ; of which the actors come from a land where a freer loose is given to the emotions. Yet they are not extinguished even here: they will be found among the ruder and less educated classes, ia remote country-places, in scenes of suffering; and the studious actor will there seek them out. Such expressions are a kind of rough raw material, the refinement to be added by the actor. One advantage of classified drama would be, that the attention of the artist would be concentrated more on particular classes of feeling ; that he would become more moulded to certain impressions ; and that his set would learn to act better in concert. In short, acting would be made an art comprising something more than elocution and "stage-business." The juncture seems to us one that may be improved. Matters could not be worse ; things could not be in more utter confusion; experiment therefore is less hazardous, and change more easy. I actors indeed believe that success can be legislated for them— that audiences can be made to give " encouragement " from a disinterested love of some abstraction called the Drama, that is, that people can continue to go to the theatre on principle, instead of going for mere amusement—there is no hope. But if some of the number were to investigate and ascertain the extent of the present mischief—to combine for the purpose of studying the laws of dramatic poetry and representation, and to produce as complete specimens in the various departments as they could, at the same time sweeping from the theatre all that clogs its portals against a public daily growing more fastidious—the "profession" might be elevated to a higher social rank than it has yet attained, and yield to its votaries more decent and secure subsistence. The alternative appears to be, ruin or regeneration.
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