THE THEATRE.
THREE NEW PLAYS.
DRAMATIC critics are a little too apt to think that they have given a sufficient account of a play when they have described its plot. They hasten to relate to their readers the whole story, carefully summarising it from the opening situation to the final denament, and having done this they assume that there is nothing more to do. But it is clear that in many cases this narrative method gives to the reader none of the information which he really wishes to learn. Often enough the outline of the plot tells us no more about a play than the descriptions in picture-catalogues tell us of the pictures them- selves; it is as if one were to try to give the impression of a man's face by detailing the measurements of his features. Perhaps the best example of the dangers of this mode of criticism is to -be found in Voltaire's well-known account of Hamlet, where the development of the drama is narrated with great detail, and the total effect produced is wildly dissimilar to that of Shakespeare's play. The true business of the critic is to discuss, not the story of the play, but its subject,—which is an entirely different matter. He must ask himself the question : "What is the central interest of this piece ? " And, though the answer is often enough a difficult and a complex one, when it is once made the way towards a correct appreciation will be opened out. Let us look, for instance, at Mr. Pinero's new drama, The Thunderbolt, which is now being produced under Mr. George Alexander's management at the St. James's Theatre. The plot is concerned with a question of inheritance, ultimately turning upon the destruction of a will, and the legal, financial, and moral complications which such a circumstance involves. But it is clear enough that the play must not be regarded merely as the story of a will. Mr. Pinero himself guards against this by describing his work as "an episode in the history of a provincial family"; and throughout the piece stress is laid upon the meanness and selfishness which, we are asked to believe, permeate the life—and particularly the family life—of those provincial towns of the second magni- tude of which " Singlehampton " is intended to be a repre- sentative example. From this point of view, The Thunderbolt might be *looked upon as a social satire, as a comedy the end of which was primarily a moral one,—the exposure and the correction of certain definite evils in the life of the time. But, in spite of some clever and amusing touches, giving evidence of no mean power of observation, Mr. Pinero's treatment of his characters is too superficial and too exaggerated to arouse more than a very fluctuating interest in this side of the play. An attack on manners cannot be successful unless it is firmly based upon actual fact. Nothing is easier than to set up cardboard images of stupidity and vice, and then to overturn them; but nothing is more ineffectual. This, however, is what Mr. Pinero has done. His fools and his knaves have none of the solidity of life in them ; he has been so anxious to make them foolish and wicked that he has forgotten to make them exist; and the same weakness vitiates his treatment of the " sympathetic " characters. The youngest brother of the Mortimore family —poor, despised, noble, and self-sacrificing—is presented to us as a creature preposterously virtuous, and no less conscious of his own magnanimity than of the faults of his relations. Who can really sympathise with such a character ? And Mr. Alexander's unctuous style of acting only serves to intensify the inherent distastefulness of the part. Mr. Calvert, on the other hand, who, as the eldest brother of the family, has the difficult task of representing a sudden and unexplained conversion from selfishness to generosity, manages to produce the impression of reality, and thus achieves a notable success. But one fine piece of acting is not enough to conceal the fact that Mr. Pinero's heart has not been in the creation of his characters, and that the true sig- nificance of the play is to be found neither in its satire nor its plot, but simply in the ingenuity of its construc- tion. The development of the situation, the arrangement of the climaxes, the careful elaboration and suspension of every dramatic effect,—these things are really the gist of the drama, and it is upon them that our interest is fixed from beginning to end. It is as if we were watching a finely contrived piece of machinery, the function of which is, for us, of small importance compared with the delicate interaction of the parts. What delights us and absorbs us in Mr. Pinero's play is the way in which its wheels go round. We do not care for what purpose they go round, or of what they are made. Whether this kind of art is a very high kind is certainly open to doubt. It lacks humanity, it lacks breadth, and the appeal which it makes is not a lasting one. When the main effort of the dramatist is concentrated upon the production of a series of momentary effects, it is only natural, however successfully and ingeniously they may be brought about, that the impression produced upon the mind of the spectator will be hardly less momentary than the effects themselves.
A very different method has been adopted by Mr. Bernard Shaw at the Haymarket in his ‘• conversation"—for so he describes it—on Getting Married. Here there can be no doubt at all about the central interest of the piece,— it is Mr. Shaw. Construction, plot, all the conventional features of ordinary drama, have been thrown to the winds, and the audience is presented with a running fire of comments and criticisms on marriage with all the variety of outlook and the irresponsible gaiety of tone to which Mr. Shaw's admirers have long been accustomed. The conversational framework is, on the whole, well kept up, and the fact that during the first two of the three acts the interest is never relaxed seems to show that there is a good deal to be said in favour of the mere dialogue as an occasional form of stage entertainment. Even Mr. Shaw, however, begins to flag in time, and his last
act falls considerably below the level of the other two. Perhaps this is partly owing to the curiously discursive style of Mr.
Shaw's refiexions. Le secret d'ennuyer c'est de tout dire ;
and Mr. Shaw insists upon saying everything. He is like a brilliant talker who seizes one by the button-bole, and who, in spite of the brilliance, makes one at last begin to wish that he would go and talk to some one else. Nor is the subject of marriage altogether fitted to the kind of discussion with which he presents us. The question is so complex, so difficult, and so serious that it can hardly be treated profit- ably in the light and fantastic manner which Mr. Shaw has made his own, and which, while it is admirably calculated to keep an audience from yawning, cannot, by its very nature, give expression to any very profound truth.
What Mr. Shaw could do, he has done; be has raised a multi- tude of interesting points in a vivid and acute way ; but his work is by no means an important contribution to modern thought. It is suggestive and amusing ; and that is all.
Mr. Maurice Baring's comedy, The Grey Stocking, which was performed last week at a special matinee at the New Royalty Theatre, was also remarkable for its constructive looseness, and for its experimental style. But here the resemblance to Mr. Shaw's play ceases. - Getting Married might be described as a conversation carried on by a single person,—the author; The Grey Stocking was a series of con- versations carried on by a charming group of refined and intelligent men and women. The real subject of the play was talk,—talk often witty, sometimes illuminating, always in perfect taste. To this some gentle love-making and some mild satire formed an appropriate background. The play, clearly enough, was the work of an amateur. It never gripped the audience; it merely pleased them. But this is no small merit in a play. It is safe to prophesy that when Mr. Baring has learnt to combine strength with his sweetness, he will give us something which will be well worth having.
IGNOTUS.
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