New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-06-12
dBOUT THE STAGE.

ABOUT THE STAGE.
The dramatic season just closed has been
impressive chiefly on the score of dull
ness. 1t has, of course, offered here and
there brilliant feature Several of Shake
speares plays, for example, have been brought
forward, in a sumptuous scenic dress, and
have been illustrated by considerable good
acting; there has been squirt or two of old
comedy; and the gallery of eccentric charac-
ter parts, existent in every old play-gOers
memory has been enriched by few adj
dtional figures. But altogether the period
of nine months, since the theatrical openings
last September, has been, with the New-York
stage, period of ambling mediocrity. Not
for ten years, indeed, has there been season
so nearly devoid of the active spirit
of high enterprise and of pronounced
successes in the art of acting. Yet the theatrl-
cal business, in most quarters, has been toler-
ably remunerative. The two or three new
pieces brought out have had prosperous runs
the two or three old features resuscitated have
attracted share of the public attention and
the public dollars crowds have come to
the playhouse, and crowds have gone;
and everything theatrical has been suffused
with an air of ease if not of good fortune.
1t would not be amiss, indeed, to describe our
stage as having been, for many weeks, like
gilded old beau, no longer saying or doing
anything fresh, but gallant as ever in garb,
sprightly as ever with reminiscent mirth, and
popular as ever for the sake of old times.
This is a singular condition for the stage to
arrive at, in a capital so large, so populOus,
and so active and inspiriting as New-YOrk.
That which is singular, however. is not
necessarily unnatural. The state of facts thus
indicated has resulted from an obvious
cause. This, we hasten to say, is not the de-
cline of the DRAMA Whatever else the almost
unbroken flow of mediocrity may happen to
mean, it certainly does not mean that. The
theater of to-day-taking broad view of its
general condition, its standing with the people,
and its prospects for the future-is better than
the theater of yesterday. There have been
periods, it is true, when frst-class actors, IT
not more numerous as class, have been more
numerously cOngregated in stock companies;
when the stress has been laid rather upon the
total effect of combination of fine perform
ances than upon the towering excellence of
single PRESERVATION. But these periods-ot
which our own epoch is not destitute, and
which, at intervals, are certain to recur-haye
been infrequent and of brief continuance.
They were the exceptional phases of theatre
cal experience they should never have been
expected to constitute its chronic condition.
The golden hour-in all things-is posi-
bility: the golden age is not. Dismal philos-
ophers. never tired of lifting \the voice of
lamentation over the assumed decline of the
drama, forget this, or never knew 1t. BE-
cause a fresh crop of Bettertons, Garrcks,
Keans and Booths is not grown every ten
wears, it does not follow that the stage is
going to the dogs. English Poetry did not
decline because the eighteenth century was
comparativey barren of it. After the wits of
the age of Queen Anne came. in due time,
the wits of the Regency of George the
Fourth. Advancement, whether of an art or
an institution, is not marked by the perpetmty
of a single specific attribute; but by general
increase of scope, widening of influence, growth
in stability, acquisition of the comforts and
Injuries of life, and the ever-grOwing conquest
of the respect and affection of mankind. To
see no progress IN an institution because its
history IS not made and marked by continu
ally recurring genius, or because the observer
remembers-or has read about-a year or two
when its aspect happened to be little brighter
than it is at the passing moment, is to be
worse than blind. The fact is that the drama
keeps pace and harmony with the civilization
around it. We do not lodge it so well as 1t
was lodged by some of the nations of antiquity;
but we build better houses for it than were
built for it in the time of Shakespeare we
pay far higher prices for it than were paid
in the reign of Charles the First; we
hold it in more sincere respect than it en-
joyed in the days of Dryden and we take it
much nearer to our hearths and hearts than
ever it got in the most exalted estate of Old
Drury or the old Park.
Effect detective nevertheless comes by
"causer The recent drowsy tameness of the
local stage is not an accident Its explanation,
we think, will be found in the fact that the
spirit of business has temporarily acquired
almost a complete ascendency over the spirit
of art. These two forces, which ought, of
course, to make common interest and work
together. have generally been in collision in
the theater. Their point of contact is evident.
The former contemplate the making of money,
and enjoins the doing of anything and every
thing that NAV appear to be Mcratiye-as-