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


Macready. But he brought TO its aid, besides
his own vigorous, picturesque, and intellg9ntt
acting, and excellent stage management, an
| the attraction of a more complete and tastetul
scenery and decoration than had ever I'LL 'uen
been seen ID the theatre. Charles kean car
ried these aids and appliances sull iurtueI,
and by help Of them kept tne sv"se iVL
! Shakespearian management OF nine years, out
only bv dint of immense outlay, ana Win
great help from burlesque spectavie' anu SUM
H'sensa nsational" Delodrama as the CorSicdn
! Brothers and Pauline. Byen tnen, ~ Is uuueI-
! turned 10 him. Il was with little or no profits.
90 lono as the patent theatres survived,
! tbora was a home in them for artificial
! comedy as for formal tragedy, and a body Of
! actors trained to represent both with more or
! less finish and completeness. But the same
influences, call them popular or democratic If
Won will, which were gradually modifying
manners political opinions, and literature,
were at work in the theatre both to sap
theatrical privilege and to new-mould theatri-
cal amusements. The patents were broken
down; all theatres were opened to all
kinds OF entertainments; actors became scat
tered and whatever Of artificial or stately in
stage art had been maintained by the barriers
of privilege, or the influences of tradition,
began to melt away and make room for ways
OF acting and forms of entertainment bearing
more popular impress. In the change much
was lost which those who look back will
always regret. But the change was a natural
one, wrought out in obedience to wide-work-
ing natural laws, on the whole of benefcent
and beneficial kind. And If we lost the school
of artificial acting we turned over those who
would have been pupils in it to the
higher and subtler, if more difficult,
school Of life. The teaching in that school,
though less systematic and less easily en-
forced, is immeasurably better than any which
can be obtained in the school which has now
closed forever. But in the interval between
the two systems, through which our actors
are now passing, there is time of transition,
when we feel the want of the lessons Of the
one, and do not yet see the fruits of the others
teaching. And what is true of actors is true
OF pieces also. We have become impatient of
the highly artificial comedy aud long drawn,
stilted, and remote tragedy of the last genera
tion, but We have not yet hit upon the form of
stage art in which our great natural cravings
that for amusement and that for emotion
can be gratifed, under conditions which satisfy
refined as well as indiscriminating tastes.
TO employ pregnant distinction of Goethe's.
our stage has discontinued the attempt to
"realize the ideal, !" while it has not yet sue
ceeded In the more fruitful effort to 'idealize
the real" The condition which every man
ager prescribes to the dramatist is to paint
real life. As all real life is made up of joy
and sorrow, it follows that what is sought
is neither pure comedy nor unmixed
tragedy, but something which shall move in
turn smiles and tears-which shall alternately
amuse, and thrill, and move. 1t is worth re-
marking that there is hardly one Of the plays
of Shakespeare which does not fulfil this con-
dition. Not one of his comedies but has its
undercurrent of sadness or tenderness, break
ing out in passages of sweetness and beauty
which exquisitely enhance the gayety, wit, and
humor in which they are set; hardly one of
his tragedies but has its note of humor, re-
lieving the pity and terror out of which it
Breaks and the same thing holds good, in the
main, of all the best Elizabethan and Jacobean
drama. Pure comedy and unrelieved tragedy
are alike growths of more corrupt and
feebler time. 1t is so far sign of health in
the contemporary stage that the demand now
is for drama, which admits the blending of
tragic and comic elements. That this demand
has thus far been responded to mainly by
melodrama-by which / understand form
of piece in which the play of emotion and
character is subordinated and sacrificed to
startling incident and scenic Effects not TO
be wondered at. 1t is not easy, out Of the
dulness and decorum, the commonplace,
staidness, and sameness of life about us, to
extract matter of amusement and emotion,
or excitement, without trespassing on the
domains of farce, slang, and vulgarity for the
one, or resorting to the dark regions of crime
Of physical peril for the other. These are the
resources of the sensational drama, which for
the moment all but exclusively occupies
the stage. 1t is the upshot of the demand
for real and contemporary incident and
strong emotion working together, and is
to be displaced not by any revival of the
dramatic masterpieces of another and widely
different age, but by plays in which the same
elements OF dramatic effect are embodied in
more artistic and refined forms. The elements
OF tragedy are always at work among us; and
the selection and presentation of them in
dramatic form, with their due accompaniment
OF the quaint, eccentric, humorous, and
trivial, which, com bined with wit, constitute
the comic woof of life, will be the work Of
any conspicuous dramatic power to be found
among us at this time.
That there are many things working against
the development of such talent think may
be shown. The tide Of the time sets more to
the writing of novels than of plays. Except
in a few conspicuous cases, in which mere
| business talent and long experience Of the
| theatre (befoTe "a we'll as behind the ourtain)
! are combined with marked cleverness in the
| contrivance or adaptation Of dramatic situa-
tions and the clothing them with dialogue,
managers do not pay so we'll as publishers,
and are, as a rule, much less liberal minded,
| intelligent, and pleasant to deal with. Then,
| whatever vividness there may be in having
| your conceptions set forth in action, there are
| the enormous and inevitable disadvantages Of
| imperfect or bluudering presentation. For
one character well embodied on the stage,
| the dramatist is likely to have ten
marred OF manned by his acters II
he trust them with anything beyond
| the most well.worn commonplaoes of the