Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1883-05-20
MR.. GILBERT.

believe the present condition OF the dram ms,
both from a moral and an artistic point OF
view, TO be a subject for regret. A large
number OF our thesters are managed by spec
ulstors who have no love for true srf. and
who, in the production of "attractions" con-
slider only the question of dollars AID cents.
With that class it seems to matter little
whether play has any literary merit; il is
sufficient il it is sensational" and full of
startling situations" Many of the plays
that have been adapted from the French are
open to the severest criticism on the ground
OF immortality. l say, as an actor, without
hesitation, that such plays have a very bad
influence on nearly all people, especially on
the young. Some argue that, even in these
productions, vice is punished in the end; but
when whole play is filed with amorous in
trigue aud fairly bristles with couiugal in
fidelity, when, in short, all the characters are
Infamous, there is no question in nv mind
but that its influence is bad.
One great fault OF the modern drama is
over-decoraiion. Far too much money isex.
pended on the scenery, and too little atten-
lion paid to the acting. do not mean to
say that sctora are undergrad; they were
never rewarded go well as al present. re-
member that thirty years ago a salary of $50
week for man and wife, as leading man and
leading lady, was considered very high, and
its payment in a company with which 1 wss
connected created among some of the menu
bers intense jealousy and ill-feeling. At the
present time such 3 couple would receive five
times as much for the same services. The
trouble is not, therefore, that actors are un.
derpaid, but that managers have been edu-
eating the public so industriously in the
matter OF fine scenery that good acting ia no
longer keenly appreciated. The theater has
become p CURE gallery. The actor is
thrust into the background. The aim of the
manager is to please the eye, not to enchant
the ear. The error find justly censured in
the following terms by an author who wrote
some twenty-five years ago:
That the passion for decoration has been burden.
some il not rutnous, TO managers and injurious to
actors, we admit; with protest. however against
It's being reckoned among the peculiar disadvan-
ages OF either at the present moment This like
the complaint Of the ineficiency of the elder
drama Is Of no recent origin. It dates far back
as the time of Dryden, some of whose plays were
brought upon the stage with extreme gorgeousness;
II Is satlrized BY Pope; IL was made g subject of
reproach TO Garr1ck, and accounted among the
errors of John Kemble. But IL is inconceiyable
that managers should have labored for so long q
period under common delnsion-a delusion, too
which initiated against their own interests Their
mistake appears TO US to have consisted more in
the indiscriminate employment OF the decorative
art than in the art Itself. The necessity for orna-
is OF the piece on WHICH II is extended, even as
the most creative poets stand least in need of the
painters aid Rarely are Homer, Shakespeare, or
Dante successfully illustrated by artists although
the same amount OF graphic skill, would have been
well employed upon the pages Of Rogers, Moore or