The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1865-05-16
The Modern Theatre.

10 the Editor Of the Press:
Many OF your readers were not little sur
prised to read in the Press, recently, defence
of the Theatre, by doctor of divinity. 1t is
singular that Minister of the Gospel should
feel it his duty to eulogize the modern theatre,
and that he should argue in its favor from the
excellency of the Greek Dramatists, evinces a
degree OF simplicity, not to say verdancy,
worthy of DR.. Primrose, or of Parson Adams.
The plays most frequently produced at pop
ular play houses, to-day, resemble the Great
Tragedies about as much as the snowy saloons
around them resemble the Great Parthenon.-
Proof Of this is furnished by the theatrical
critics of the English and American journals
as witness the following from an English
source, and endorsed by leading New York
Daily, both secular papers, and not at all op.
posed in principle to theatrical amusements al
such. The testimony is decisive as to the
character aud influence, not of an ideal The.
atre, such as does not exist, but of the actua
Theatre, tie Theatre as it Is: d.
That the theatre no longer fills the place il
the lives of the educated and refined which il
filled century or hall century ago In
England, would seem to be indisputable. The
best wits of highlands Augustan age made
the theatre their nightly resort; most of them
wrote for it, all of them wrote of and upon it
La times nearer our own, johnson, Goldsmith
and Burke, Sheridan, Coleridge and Byron
found both occupation and amusement fol-
their highest faculties in this mimic world
They honOred and reveled in it as cordially as
Gethe himself. Charles Lamb loved plays
and play actors with his whole heart; Hazlitt
found themes Tor the subtlest and incest criti'
cism in the acting Of his time. Now men Of
culture and of genius-the poets, the noveltsts
the statesmen, of Great Britain-desert the
| theatre for the opera: the British public Is
| supplied with plays from the stage of Paris as
| regularly as with eggs from the hen-roosts o.
Normandy; and educated Englishmen nc
more think of seriously discussing the merits
of a leading actor than of getting into con.
troversy over the pretentions OF rival sign.
painters.
Grant that this picture is somewhat over.
charged; yet there is much truth in it; and il
is not one whit less true of America than
of England.
There is not theatre in America to-day
which man who really loves the dramatic
art can attend without the positive certainty
that his taste will be offended and his temper
damaged by an overwhelming preponderance
Of common place and vulgarity in the perform.
auce he goes to witness. If the play is q
standard drama, familiar to him as a work oil
literature, he will be shocked by the mutila-
ton of noble passages, by the caricature Of
well-coneeiyed characters, by the tawdriness
and bombast of the prevailing elocution. II
the play is new play, purporting to paint the
world in which we live. he will be exaspera-
ted by incessant solecisms of dress and de-
meanor; he will behold ladies of fashion max
ing morning visits in full evening toilette
gentlemen patroling drawing. rooms with
their hats stuck fast on their heads and their
hands buried elbow deep in their pockets
he will hear yahoo laughter in polite saloons,
aud see the dullness of decorus dialogue re-
vivedby the practical Jokes of the sailors fore
castle, or the boarding-school dormitory.