The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-07
STEPHEN PHILLIPS, HIS CASE.
IS THE RENASCENCE OF POETIC
TRAGEDY STILL-BORNp
vOetixing and Manipulation In 'PaOlO ana
FrAncesca"-CharActer ~ the Basis
Of DrMma-Tho Passing Of ROstand
and Pnnlips-A True Poetic Drama.

FrAnoeoCA"-CharActer a. the BasiG
Of DrAma-Ths Passing Of ROstanc
and Phillips "A True Poetic Drama.
Il Il now almost a decade since Stephen
Phillips was hailed, alike by his fellow
craStsmen and the pro fessional critics,
an a new and true poet who promised 70
keep alive the stream Of national song;
and q good half dozen years have passed
since he attempted the stage with 'Paolo
and Francesca and "Herod, and was 40
cepted, though with less unanimity and
conviction, "a the recreator Of our classical
traditions in the drama Here was a young
man who united with taste and education
the power OF authentic passion and clear
ont poetic speech, and whose apprentice
ahip as an actor in the able Shakespeartan
company OF y. r. Benson gave him n practi-
cal knowledge Of the technique Of the acted
drama. Edmond Rostand had Just given
Franco the hope Of q dramatic renascence
with his 'Cyrano de Bergerao.' England,
ws should all have been glad to believe,
rae similarly fortunate.
Since then Rostand has declined first
into the rhetorical and undramatic
'L;Aigion,' galvanized into life by Sarah
BsrnhArdt, and now into 'Chanteclair,'
which he himself has been forced TO admit
u~nplayable. Phillips has given us ulysses
and Nero which at best are ably written
spectacle plays, and the Sin OF David
which has not been acted. and obviously
does not deserve to be. But what OF the
fnst two playB-the best? -Herod' is still
an unknown theatrio quantity here, but
"Paolo and Francesca has just emerged
before US in the light Of the theatre; and
II Il comes somewhat tardily, there is
c-omp1nsation In the fact that IL has the
advantage OF q young actor, Henry B.
Irving, who deserves and endures com
psxison with his illustnous father, and
Who Il undoubtedly better fitted to play
Tho gloomy, austere and pathetic MdIa-
test0 than any other man now living, except
only Richard Mansfield. And yet the
production fell short Of expectation.
Tho fact is that IN this, as in all his other
plays with a single exception, Mr.. Phillips,
for all his power n a poet and all his skill
I'm collaboration with actor and stage man
aeer, lacks the authentic inspiration Of the
dYamatist. ITO say DRAMA remarked
Andre Glide. lis 20 say character. In
order to be full and accurate the statement
should include, as its foundation, Brunei
there's definition Of the diferentia Of the
drama as the conflict Of wills. But il re-
mains true that to convince us and move
US the opposing wills should be embodied
in men and women who stand firmly on
the two feet of actually and move in
obedience to their own native impulses.
The people Of the play must be what they
are and proceed as they do because they
could not, in the given circumstances, be
or do otherwise. II they are anything less
than autonomous flesh and blood we nave
not drama, but melodrama.
Even in the printed page, however. it is
evident that the persons of Mr.. Phillips's
dramss-aRain / max one honorable
ex~ception-do not talk like human beings.
They have the mania Of talk ing poetry.
And who, you may ask, is permitted to
talk poetry, if not the characters Of poetic
drama? All, but there are diferencesl
By all means let them utter the passion that
is in them, but it must be in their own words.
Mr.. Phillips's people seem versed in the lore
Of elegant extracts.
Marlowe's Fdustus spoke two lines which
have been the admiration and the despair
Of countless subsequent poets.
Is this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burned the topless towers of nrumf
These are demonstrably Mr.. P~hillips's
admiration, but they are quite as demon
strably not his despair. In the classical
colloquy of MGrpessd, Idds and Apollo,
Idds says:
that face that might indeed provoke
Invasion OF old cities.
And in the plays the idea Is again para
phrased.
PdoLa and francesca. wrapped in sinful
embrace. seem already to have read Dante's
account Of their punishment.
What ecstasy
Together TO be blown about the globe.
What rapture IN perpetual IRE to burn
Togetherl
Nor are they content with this anachro-
nism. Henley once wrots:
You we're a king In Babylon
And l a Christian slave.
PdoIo says:
Did I not sing to thee in Babylonr
And Francesca
OR did we set a sail in Carthage Bayt
Il is scarcely less SCATTERING OF illusion
when the flowers OF poetic speech are some
what more acclimated in Mr.. Phillips's
gardsn-though one can never be quite
sure OF the soil in which they sprung.
THE Sin OF David" a minor character, a
Lieutenant who is cited before his Colonel
for brutally assaulting and forcing a peasant
girl, and who in all speaks a bare twelve
lines, astounds us with this brave penta-
Her face was close to me and dimmed the world.
How lear the line was to Mr.. Phillips's
hsart, and how little 1t was characteristic
Of the parsonage who spoke it, is evident
IN the fact that some pages later another
character unoonsciously paraphrases it:
That smile hath made . mist of all the world.
No circumstance is too trivial for the POM
pous lamb. The housekeeper in The Sin OF
David" Is directing a guest to his chamber.
She does not say that It Is in the east wing.
She says, as II directing an army on the
march:
Your room. sir. eastward lies.
More subtly disturbing are the countless
instances in which thee characters, instead Of
striking the inevitable, laoonio words OF
passion at q white heat, pause and poetize
with the elaboration and elaboration OF the
lyric poet. Thus the tempted Lisls in "The
Sin OF David:
When I spurred hItheT, all on hre for God.
Then did 7 g0llop into human fame.
Cola had I lived. pure, narrow. temperate.