The evening times., 1900-09-26

the adapter How could one Of Shake
speares plays be put into the form of
novel?
OF course, the reason why the drama
tized novel has been SO popular in this
country in the last five years is the pc
culiar character of our theatregoing popu-
lation and also of our reading public There
are thousands and thousands of people IN
America, who. after seeing play based
on a novel, Will Immediately go and buy
the novel; and conversely, there are thou
sands who will flock to the theatre to see
a dramatized version of a popular book
which they have enjoyed. This is partly
due to lack of imagination People who
cannot reproduce for themselves in fancy,
the scenes and characters of a fayorite
book are very apt to enjoy seeing actors
and stage managers do ii for them mat
is intellectual Incidence. The true book
lover is very apt To prefer his own notion
of his favorite hero or heroine TO some
actors conception of that parsonage, be-
cause the actors idea of the character
must necessarily be eolored more or less
by theatrical traditions and the require
ments of stage work. This objection does
not hold in the case of a play, because
stage traditions i'll tlat case are in line
with the conception of both author and
reader, and when one reads a play one in
stinctiveIy sees the characters as they
would appear on the stage. They are in
tended TO conform, in behavior and appear
ance, to the laws of dramatic effectiveness.
T,, 4 la "
story is told in such a novel as The Mill
On the Floss" or Tess of the DUreer-
villes' are not types but persons The
stage deals with types, not with indlvid-
ualities. Hence two actresses of essen
TALLY different temperaments can play
RosaIind equally well, because the type ad-
mts of two different interpretations. This
/ would not be true of such q character as
| Maggie Tulliver There is only one kind
of woman who could possibly impersonate
| Maggie. II any other actress tried the ex-
| pertinent she could only make it a success
| by wrenching the play out of ali sem
| blaLce to the book; and when she had fin
ished with it the character would be hers,
not George Eliot's at all
| In short, a novel may be dramatic, or q
/ play may be psychological, in interest, but
not beyond certain point If an attempt
| is made TO shift the story from one class
into the other it becomes evident where
the line is drawn Adam Bede" is dra-
matte story in certain ways; there are cpl
sodes in it which are intensely dramatic
which impress themselves upon the mind
as DO the striking scenes of great play
but if that book were put into the form o.
a play il would lose most CT its force II
would have half 4 dozen fine points and the
rest of it would be dull, unless great dea
of extraneous comedy business were intro
duced to save it, That Lass O Lowrie's'
is dramatic in the same way; but when il
was dramatizeG it proved weak and inef
fective, simply because the story was nol
constructed on dramatic. lines and couIt
not be made over tc suit the exigencies O
The stage. The Scarlet Letter failed
even with an actor so great and so vel
suited TO psychological Interpretation a:
| Mansfield. II is time for the public TO see
that there is an essential difference be
tween these two branches Of art TheI
there will be some chance for American
playwrights to develop their powers.