The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-02-10

GnhThCttI. nv IDS nedO OF Lnebe IL tht
quick and delicate intelligence OF the French
people, their mobility, their ease and grace Of
manners, their aptness to understand a deml.
mot, their volubility OF discourse-all tending
to make OF them good actors and good judges
of acting. French audience is critical, from
pdrterre to pGrddiS; IL sits in judgment on the
play and the performers, and SO helps both
authors and actors incalculably, encouraging
the one to write and the other to act deli
oately, and, as it were, allusively, in reliance
on the ready intelligence which will
appreciate the subtle point in a phrase,
the shade of meaning in a look, shrug,
scarcely perc ceptible movement or gesture.
This sort of audience puts premium, so to
speak, on point and fneSSe in stage art. Con-
trsst our dear British public in these respects
The critics, it is said, used last century to
occupy the two front rows of the pit. fear
that they might now be compressed into even
less compass. | am sure less than two rows
would accommodate them now. The presence
Of the critical element in our theatres is not
sensibly felt by any outward sign drawn from
the reception given by the audience to any
thing in play or actors. On the contrary, If
there is q burst OF applause, hundred to one it
is for some passage of bombast or olaptrap in
the play, or some egregious piece of rant or
vulgarity in an actor. | need hardly point out
how this recognition by applause OF the wrong
thing tends to deteriorate and vulgarze both
play writers and actors, leading both to look
to cOarser and ooarser tricks of effect, and
more and more rankly splced bats of ap-
plause. The very word "claptrap" is exclu-
sively English. The French have no equiva-
lent for 1t. The sparingness in noisy applause
of French audiences led TO the introduction of
the eldque into Paris theatres-the organized
olappers, Entr'preneurS de success drdmatique, as
their founders styled them-and the presence
Of the cldque has now completely destroyed,
in all haaiHau fha habit nf apf1landiny with
the hands. In England we want no ctaque,
Heaven knows. The public applauds but too
loudly what is noisy, coarse, and overdone,
without any misguidanoe but that of its own
bad taste. No doubt there is body Of sounder
opinion and more refined judgment in the
house, bat it does not manifest itself audibly.
The habit of kissing is all but extinct, and,
indeed, much of what is applauded would not
deserve kissing but by way of protest against
the applause. And yet it has often seemed to
me as il appreciation and stupidity were
strangely blended in our British public. They
have certainly quick and keen sympathy,
especially with anything that appeals to them
as virtue, nobleness, or disinterestedness.
think have rarely seen real excellence, even
of the Bubtler and more refined kind, fail, in
the long run, of appreciation at their hands;
and yet | am certain that any given audience
in any English theatre is unable to distin-
guish between gold and pinchbeck, in what
is set before them on the stage, either in
the way of writing or of acting Only
one thing they are intolerant of-anything
that to them is dulness. Unluckily, much
is dull to blunt, coarse slow taste that is
not SO to a more refined, subtler, and
quicker one. Make an English public laugh or
cry, and you are safe. They ask only to be
moved-whether to tears or laughter matters
little; indeed, they like nothing so much as
to be stirred to both alternately. But do not
ask them to follow the development of an in
tricste character, to note the cross currents of
conflicting emotions, or the subtle underworld
ings of human nature in action, unless the
character, emotion, and action have, besides
their deeper and more metaphysical interest,
a very palpable, strongly marked outer side
to them. And yet Shakespeare's work is
here to show us that the same British public
may be fitted with a dramatic aliment which
shall satisfy its coarsest appetite, and shall yet
satisfy the cravings of the finest fancy and the
loftiest imagination. 1t is a striking act that
Hamlet is the play oftenest acted on the
English stage. Nor does Hamlet stand alone
though it stands highest among Shakespeare's
plays, as a proof how that mighty master
could provide in the same dish food for the
humblest and highest intelligences, could
reconcile all the exigencies of a stage which,
in his time as now, was anything but nice in
its feeling, with the deepest and highest con-
ditions of imaginative creation, could write at
once for British playgoers, down to the sinful
sixpenpy mechanic (Ben. Jonson), and for the
loftiest and most far-reaching wits of the
civilized world.
1t must be admitted, with Shakespeare
before us, that no dramatist has a right to say
the British public are swine before which he
will not fling his pearls. / must, however,
still maintain that it is not a critical public.
II knows what amuses or interests it, but
cares not to know or consider how it is amused
or interested. 1t will not, like the French
public, trouble itself to discover the authors
aim, and then set itself to judge how far he
has succeeded in carrying it out. 1t sits down,
solidly, if not stolidly, before the green cur
tain, as II it said, "Here l am. Move me-
make me laugh-make me cry" The French
public asks gayly and eagerly, as it takes its
place in the pdrterre, "VoyonS, what have you
to show me tonight What is the mot de
P6nigme you ask me to set my wits tor De-
Velop me yOur plot-prepound me your
social problem--work me out your clever and
interesting situation"
say, again, that the contrast OF moods in
the two audiences involves, and in many re-
spects accounts for, the differences of English
and French stage art. 1t lies at the bottom
of the greater delicacy, fnesse, and subtlety OF
the latter; of the tendency in our own thea
tire, on the authors part, to fly to violent emo
tiOps and situations, and on the aotor's to ex.
aggerated delineati0ns: tempts both, in fact, to
the strongest dramatic stimulants - those
which, according to the cunning with which
they are used, may be the motives of play OF
a Shakespeare or the subject matter OF a
Surrey melodrama. The want of qulokness
in an English audience is also felt as a him
drance both by dramatist and actor in the ne