The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1902-11-16
THB MORBID IN DRAMATIC ART.
THE QUESTION OF THE NORMAL
~ ART AND LIFE DISCUSSED.
what IL Normal THE Abnormal Justified
In Many Instances-D Annunz,0 ana
His Plays" Francesca da Rimini" and
buses Acting In 1.-THE Perfection
OF the Performance - Other Plays.

OF the Performance - Other Plays.
How many worthy souls there are who
mask their mediocrity with the little word
morbid II is the whipping boy for
branleSs thinkers who shield their stupid
efforts by crying: I'VE are healthy we are
sweetly human! we are normal!" What
vast amount Of rot il written, painted
modelled. and composed that is normal.
We pride ourselves on our normality in an
age when degeneracy stalks the land -
81 the psychologists say; when to read
the patent-medcne advertisements is to
soil the mind no j. normal? What is
the real standard of normality? Ragbag
philoso pliers like Max Nordau whose real
name is Simon Sudfrd declares that all
genius, all talent. is tainted; that the stg-
mdtd of degeneration is always to be found
among men who chiSel. paint, write and
compose. II that be so then your butchers,
bakers and candlestick makers may be-
decadents-they. too. have ears with I'M
detached lobes they, too. display asym-
metrical visages; they, too, indulge AZ
times in emotions: bibulous. erotic and
morbiic, In word even car conductors
have been known Ia read Swinburne and
forget to ring up fares. What is normal'
Swinburne. Neither was Flaubert. who
wasted forty years polishing four prose
masterpieces. But his abnormal labors are
justified. His books live, while the NOR
NAL" rivals Of his day where are they2
We must perforCe consult the literary index
for their names
The moment a play leaves the main
travelled roads, the .p:'het i, is no longer
mild word is hurled AT it's author morbid.
morbid, morbid, In the name of Shake
speare, is not Hamlet. is not Macbeth,
above all. is not Lear" morbid? Aye, but
thousandfold more than ID Annunzo or any
OF the knee-high fellows of this generation.
It's mighty good word-morbi d-but il
often covers multitude of mediocrties.
II is the grand excuse for stupidity. for
timidity. If YOU write play and frankly
avow that il is to pander to the yulgarians,
that ii is tripc-selling, impure and defled,
there is at least the excuse of frankness
Money, not art, is your object. Good!
We know how TO classify you. But if you
come at one with the speciolis and senti-
mental plea that you are serving morals a.
well as art that the peoples purity should
not be tempered with. that the stage and the
pulpit should march in unison --!
Then We reply in the manner Of Mr.
Bronson Howard: Let the youngsters stay
AZ home; the playhouse is not for them
Without being too brutal, We might also
answer that young people read the daily
newspapers after that dsilusioning proc
ess ID Annunzio's plays and novels must
seem a bloodesS transcript of life. The
principal fault he commits is that he
eli inmates vulgarity from his works. He il
frank as frank as the Bible or Walt Whit
man, or Shakespeare; but he ia never vul-
gar. He is sometimes horrible and often
beautiful. His conception Of the drama
and its mission may be mad il sounds like
the echo of a voice across the void of vul-
gari,y and banality which stretches be-
tween the seventeenth and the twentieth
centuries. For the hucksters, hangers-on
and bounders of theatrical life. them that
fancy the stage a combination Of pot
house and brothel-for them D'Annunzio
and his ideals seem morbid
He has his defects. though mediocritv
Is not one of them That he has aimed
at putting new wine in old bottles. as in the
case of Francesca da Rimini;" that he has
contrived o introduce new treatment of a
very trite motif. a. in La Gioconda," that
with la Citta Morta," easily the greatest
OF the three plays presented by Duse, he
has really painted a woman's soul in a
masterful manner-all these things are IA
naught when confronted by the accusation
Of morbdity. Yet great critic has asserted
that we must judge an artist by the sum
total of his excellences.
Can take my daughter to The Dead
City'?' plumbers the earnest father who
love, unmorbid barroom iests. No, but
Ian b,pr a., 81
which is morbid We are Of the honest
conviction that many innocent appearing
plays are infinitely more immoral than
D'Annunzos, not alone because of their
wretched art, but because Of the false views
they present Of life. The theatre il not a
palace of truth; il has its conventions. and
II never was and never will be a mirror
held up to nature. That is pleasing poetic
fiction; yet it should not distort the basic
facts of life. Marion Crawford's play
a Cigarette Makers Romance" is thin,
weak stuff a. weak as most Of the pap he has
doled out since his earliest books With his
gifts he might have written a big playa
play full of the salty sincerties of life and
art. We know his views of his art; the
novel, he has said should be- pocket theatre
And then he manufactures such melo-
drama as A Cigarette Makers Romance
He il an inveterate romancer not an OBJ
server of life. II is so much easier to in
vent than observe. His story is nicely
decorative, but don't compare him to
Gabrielle d'Annunzio even If the Italian is
morbid. Genius, after all. counts for more
than talent. though talent usually gets a
higher price and more acclaim from the
bellboys Of literature.
The Crawford Francesca da Rimini"
j. possibly better acting play because
all that is cxtraneous to the action has
been Topped away 1t is also hopelessly
commonplace. Stephen Phillips's "Paolo
and Francesca il full Of fine lnes--the
lovers would poetize in their own tombs
IL taste did not forbd-but Of the three
plays, despite its lushness. its prodigality,
its IongGors, its metaphors run mad
D'Annunzio's is the greatest; greatest
because presenting in the total mass more
facts of fancy, feeling, cruelty, lust, imagi-
nation, genuinely poetic dict ion and irresis-
tible sweep
Another thing; The distinguished dean
of the critics rightfully asserts that dra-
matte art should be "a delicate exaggera-