The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-03-10
CRITICISM OF STAGE PLAYS.
The Folly of Considering an Enter
tainment on the Basis of an Ed
ucationai Work.

tninment on the Basis Of an Ed
ucationai Work.
I have only one test of the value of a
play, and that is the effect produced
upon myself. If feel the story losing
| its grip / care nothing for the demon
STATIONS of the unofficial claque in the
house. There is great. deal of mis-
apprehension about first night notices
amongst authors and people who
ought to know better 1t has been
suggested to me, for instance, by Mr..
Henry Petit that it is unfair to the
author TO be so sunlsnarily judged.
PettltS notion is, or was, that a bare
account of the play should be given
the next morning, leaving the ''appre-
| citation OF 1T to come later when the
critic might be supposed to have all
his faculties about him. But the per-
son who has to be consulted in this
matter is the newspaper reader What
the reader wants is clear notion of
the piece. Now that in my expert
ence, You can only convey by giving
him your personal Impressions of the
! performance. Anything like a bald
account of the incidents would be I'M
readable. The authors story is often.
be it remembered, not too interesting,
with all the advantage of scenery and
acting, and the bald narrative would
be worse still. If you doubt this, try
reading a trade notice in a theatrical
paper, or in some country journal
whose critic has nothing of his own to
say. The interesting feature Of a thea
! trical notice, it seems to me, must be
the writer's manner of conveying the
impression made upon him, with The
reflections arising from that in his
mind. Among managers, there is still
too prevalent an idea that the notice
ought to be written for the benefit of
the theatre, that important third
party, he reader, being again over
looked. ! need not say that the view
is mistaken one survival, prob
ably, of the old times when the editor
of a news paper or the dramatic critic,
used to write out orders for his friends
and when the theatrical notice-that
was the rule, believe. thirty or forty
years ago, and still is. / am told 10
some extent on the country press. SO
absolutely Independent do ! consider
the interests of the theatre and the
newspaper to be, that l would have all
newspapers pay for their seats on first
nights, though, of course. of the man
ayers won't take the money-and they
will not-you are powerless, seeing
that they have the disposal of every
reserved seat in the house. In describ-
ing all new plays, the critic, [ take it,
is merely supplying a, public want on
commercial principles, though he is apt
to flatter himself that he has a mis-
SION of some sort. | look upon him
as a specialized reporter, whose best
qualifications are common sense and a
fluent pen.
You will understand from this that
do not see any necessity for the
critic to fight and bleed for any,
thing. The gentleman who thinks he
reforms the drama in one sense or
another is the fly on the wheel He
finds himself in a movement and i'm
AGNES he is the cause of it. In reality
he is only carried forward on the crest
of the wave. The reforming critic in
other words-like the reformer gen
erally-is always an effect rather than
cause.c If the circumstances which
produce him are strong, enough he
triumphs: if not, he goes down. With
out the favoring circumstances, he is
as one crying in the wilderness, which
thing is the position of the Ibsenites.
I see no change for the pessimistic
drama, however congenial it may be
to c2rtain minds.
The conventional story is conven-
tional solely because it is most agree
able to the masses. Have you ever
noticed the avidity with which child
listens to a story every detail of
which it knows by heart? If you hap
pen to omit detail in the telling, or
if you give the story an unexpected
turn, your little listener promptly cor
reefs you. Well, the public are like
that child, anything strange or uneX-
pected on the stage puts them out.
l have no sympathy at all with the
view that the drama is educational.
don't thing taking a course Of plays
say Mr.. Henry Arthur Jones plays
as one would take a course Of lectures
would ever give you a better equip
ment for the battle of life than you
had before. / have sat out all plays
Of Importance in London since l took
over the dramatic criticism of he
Times twelve years ago, and | am
CONSCIOUS of having benefited a
ha'porth, Intellectually, by what
have seen on the stage, or heard from
it. In fact, my belief is this-the more
the dramatist or the actor tells us
what we already know, the cleverer
we think he is. The best things said
on the stage are those we think we
could have said ourselves. The mo-
ment the dramatist or the actor goes
beyond the intellectual range Of his
audience he is wrong; he disconcerts
them. In my opinion, the educational
theory is mere foolishness. A play
never has been, and never will be, any
thing but an entertainment. That is
what the public put down their money
for, that is why they applaud if they
are pleased, and hiss if they are dis
appointed. Have you ever known q
teacher Kissed by his pupils because
he was not instructive enough? If
you take the educational test, no play
by Sims or Buchanan could be in it
with a lecture by Huxley in his own
place, | do not believe he could ill the
Adelphi nightly for six months at
stretch Arthur Roberts does not pro-
fess to be a profound thinker-at all
events I hopes he does not--but l have
no doubt he would stand the box-ofiice
test better than the most learned pro-
fessor of Oxford or Cambridge. f.
Nisbet Critic, London Times.