New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-12-27
THE LONDON STAGE.
WITH REMARKS BY AND ON MIR. HENRY
ARTHUR JONES, ON IBSEN, ON
CRITICISM AND ON DRAMATIC
LITERATURE.

tlinc from dramatic autnor, MI. lfehry Arthur
Jones. Mr.. Irving and Mr.. Beerbohm Tree. to
whom We are indebted for earlier protests. are
actor-managers Mr. Henry Arthur Jones is an
author-manager: writer Of plays who became
possessed by the rotion that. under pG cd ar
yangements the author had not his fair share
OF praise or OF profit. The actor, in his view, got
too much praise and the manager too much
profit To redress this grievance he took a
theatre and produced his own play The theatre
was the Avenne; the play The Crusaders; and
che results are known to all men.
Whether Mr. Jones is satisfied with them is
not known lie did not act his own play, nor
even any one part in it as Mr.. Boucicault and
Mr.. Byron used to do. The failure of it on the
first night was, doubt not, due to this omission.
and perhaps such degree of such success came to
it and 10 him afterward: as to which accounts arc
conflicting Nobody, l think, would doubt that
the public would flock to theatre where they
could see play written, produced, stage managed
and acted by the same person III ne couio supply
The furniture and scenery and be his own carpenter
Rasiitter, box-kecper, Observation-Disclosures ana
call-boy, the public satisfaction would surely be
even more complete; and so would his own. Ii
o. monopoly, OF the spirit of monopoly, be good
thing the more complete the monopoly the better
must it be. In another year or two L rather
bopo to bc shown 10 my stall by Mr.. Henry
Arthur Jones in person, and to have my hanson
called b. him when the play is done
But this multiplication Of functions will not, l
apprchend, content him. The passion for
publicity is common to all persons con-
necied with the stage in any capacity. Their
livelihood is dependent upon ii; no dramatic
talent buried in napkin would ever bring its
p0ssessor that honest income to which MIR. Irving
tln,s every one with good intentions entitled.
I'M fna lam
of the stage is an emblazoned banner or. still
better, poster as big as the side Of big house
and coiored Few men are so much before the
public in the regular way of business as actors
and play writers. The clergyman gets into the
pulpit only once week; the politician even less
frequently; the general does not win battle as
often as once q month. The actor acts every night
and Saturday afternoons well his name is in
the newspapers every morning and evening, and
you cannot turn corner of the street from which
IL does not stare you in the face in the very largest
letters which fine printer is able TO print
This does not suffice him: he has other means
of wooing the attention OF the public. lie pre-
sides at banouets; he makes speeches there; he
writes to the papers; he gives benefits to his
brother actors and they in turn to him i: he almost
always has controversy on hand with some
critic or with critics in general: he is visible in
drawing rooms; attcrly he patronizcs the Church
in extreme cases he gives money TO the Salvation
Army casting his bread on muddy waters. and
doubling that he shall find it after not many
DAYS Last Of all, he takes to the platform III
is not that the stage fails him if the stage failed
him the platform would have none of him. IL Is
only that the platform also is stage. 1t is even
letter than the stage. When he acts, OF "heh
his piece is acted, the most tile papers can DO
ss ,,ciaa i'm
silence advertisements excepted. The daily papers
cal,not reprint the piece, nor do they, IN TINS
country publish portraits of the actors But wheh
the actor mounts the platform he is, or may De,
reported he has the deep private satisfaction oil
perusipg his own words of wisdom IN priht heA'
morning, and Of knowing-he never doubts Uhls
that other people will pernse thehi'
They may even provoke editorial comment
they are. at any rate heralded to the world oil
rewspaper-rcades. which includes considerable
proportion OF the community, as the WORDS oil
The eminent actor Mr.. Smith. OF Of the eminent
euihor Mr. Jones.
This is what happened in the case of Mr. Irving
who's, emiaence is greatest OF all, ana oil Mr.
],eerbolm Tree, who stands quite in the front o.
The second row II was possible 10 know exactly
what they said, and exactly what views they
hid on various coutrovcrted points relating 10
more difficult The papers report him only in
the most condensed and fragmcntary way. re-
get it, because / know he has views which are
not those Of the majority, but peculiar to himself
and whoever is individual. if he be not a mere
crank deserves attention But VIC can hardly 90
wrong in saving that Mr. Jones protested against
1hsenism. | find him quoted as denouncmg
strongly "a school OF modern realism when
founded dramas on disease. ng!inesS and vice
II that does not mean Ibsenism, words have lost
their descriptive force. Here, therefore. is the
third London manager who has held up the Nor
wegian and his new dramatic gospel to odium
All the rest OF them NAV be taken anti-lbsen-
tics, since not one OF them produces Ibeen on his
own stage.
Such hearing as the Scandinavian got was by
lclp Of the irregulars, by much pressure OF
amateurs. and with no very general encourage
mcnt from the public, or from any important
e,cton of IL. The failure Is enough TO shake
ones faith in the doctrine Of publicity Nobody
Is more public than Ibscn; no one has been more
pertinaciously advertised he has band of English
followers who at one moment seemed likely, by
help of him who. thy proudly called the Master
20 attain TO a degree Of no,orety. Ibsen has
been translated into English there has been a
quarrel about him between two competitors fol
the honor Of clothing his ideas In English the
more clothing they have the better. The com
fetitors reviled each other in print each for the
greater glory Of their great Original
Yet with all this and with some social help
notably from one section of The Souls. lbsen Is
not vet established an English classic. whether
on the Stag, or in the Library. He is no longer
acted whether he is read or whether he was ever
read, except by Mr.. Gosse and Mr.. Archer. seems
uncertain. The very advertisements have ceased
10 sing his praises he may be bought cheap or
cheap bookstalls; he is no longer an actually IL
England Honored in his own land he may be
honored possibly in Paris he might be by Tho
new school, the symbosts, if they could reat