The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-10-27
PARNASSUS VS.. THE PUBLIC
FROUGHTS ON THE FAILURE or
TIE POETIC DRAMA"
1ns Evolution Os tire stage Away From
Blank Verso Not Inevitably TO he We-
gardel ~ Melancholy Nor Taken
co Mean rhat Poetry Has Perished.

Tns Evolution Os tire stage Away From
blank Verso Not Inevitably TO he RE-
gArdel a. Melancholy Nor Taken
60 Mean That Poetry Has Pcrished.
Il do not $780,. cries Mr.. Arthur Symons.
why people should ever break silence
upon the stage except TO speak poetry
Perhaps his snswer was to he found last
weak at the Iyrlo Theatre. where the players
In Mr.. MacKaye's -Sappho and Phaon'
have been breaking the silence TO no effect
and TO small audiences. Mr.. Symons
adDits. he says. OF nothing on the stage
between pantomime and the poetic drama;
oil the rest is mere photograph. useless,
barren. While there are few people who
will go with him To this extent of fanatic
appreciation, there ore plenty who will
share with him n belief in the vast
superiority OF the poetic drama, II not
Of tho pantomime. over the prose record
OF life on the stage; who will hail any at
tempt to write n drama in verse at any
time as supremacy TO be encouraged.
Is IL supremacy to he encouraged? IL
the poetic drama-that lie. the drama in
verse essentially. inevitably. superior? In
the year 1907. Ia the drama in verse, even
great verse, necessarily more poetic in its
nnal effect than the naturalistic play in
prose wrought by a man OF insight and
Imagination? To be specific. could not
Percy MacKayo better serve himself and
the American etage by writing dramas
Of to-day, in the idiom OF to-day. by desert
ing Pegasus for a motor car?
This tight old world il in very little danger
from revolutionists, iconcclasts, new ideas
In any form. We. every last one of us.
are compact Of an inherited stock OF be-
liefs and ideas. and We adopt as little that
Is new as possible; we hate a change. a
reimbursement. We get along with the old
Just as long as we can. and when a change
10 inevitable we adopt just as little OF the
new as our consciences or our comfort
will allow In no department 81 our ideas
In this more true than in our ideas about
the drama Old traditions flourish just
because they are traditions; old conventions,
mouldy with time, still prevail and are
accepted by audiences long after every
one knows they are false n hollow. The
stage villain. the stage servant, the stag
hero. what are they but conventions we
lack the initiative to give rup7 And one Of
the most deep rooted OF our traditional
beliefs about the theatre is tho belief that
the blank verse drama IL inevitably the
noblest form, by divine right king.
And so each time that a new drama in
blank verse is written we neave a pious
ejaculation Of approval, we fill up our
critical fountain pens to praise, ii possible.
or If we are not critics but just patrons
Of the theatre We hasten TO buy seats.
And then We all go TO the theatre and are
solemnly bored and between acts quote
to each other the familiar bromide The
trouble is there are No actors any longer
who know how TO read blank VERSE" IL
does not occur TO lis 10 admit nor would
We admit IL II IL did that perhaps the poetic
drama fails 10 interest us for quite another
reason, because il is no longer a living form.
because whether We like and approve IL
or not The old order does change. And
sooner or later IL will compei our reluctant
admission.
Now, nobody liz going to deny that the
dear bromide about actors and blank verse
10 true. save in the honorable case Of Julia
Marlowe. Fred Eric alone of the entire
'Sappho aud Phson' company land he was
trained by Miss Marlowe) could get his
lines across the footlights as verse. even
could speak them in excited moments
so that the words were ineligible above
the sound of the property surf. which so
perilously suggested the arrival Of the winter
coal supply. But in the name Of common
sense why can't our actors read blank
verse? Who is 10 blame? We are, the
spirit Of the age is, the evolution OF the
drama ia; and could anything be more
illogical, IL not actually hypocritical. than
our melancholy lamentations over a corpse
Of something which VI ourselves have
killed actually without regret in the
cause OF entertainment? II our actors
cannot speak blank verse il il because
they have not been trained by practice
20 speak IL; and il they have not been
trained to speak IL that is because the
blank verse drama has not been played;
end il the blank verse drama has not been
played, hat In because tho public does
not want IL. What we consciously ap-
prove from motives OF supposed propriety
we unconsciously %disapprove from instinct,
OF course, our instincts carry tie day;
they always do. And we present the melsn-
choly spectacle, so hateful to Ibsen, Of men
and women who dare not come right out
into the open for their instincts. We are in
much the same position as the good deacon
whom Prof. Pratt describes In his book
on The Psychology OF Religious Belief.
"The time is coming said the deacon
sadly, when ! shall have TO believe what
] beiiev e."
Yet il is not such n terrible thing to be-
lieve what you believe. II is like taking
. cold plum GO in the morning. The prelim-
inary fear is awful, the after effect a glow
ing reaction. 10 the man who finally admits
honestly to himself that the modern %atura
istic drama interests him tremendously and
the blank verse drama seems to him archaic.
outvorn false, "A thing now for the closet,
not the stage. clears himself -of past regrets
and future fears" and il filled with "A certain
bounding collaboration and faith in the pres
ent. He j. like the rich man who lost all his
money in the civil var and rolled on the
ground in sheer delight of feeling free again.
What your theutregoer has lost is the load
of tradition. tho burden Of the pact, an
inherited pessimism: what he has gained
IL freedom 20 trust the present and hope for
the future. And bic gain IL 80 great that IL
IL quite worth the chance even Of being
wrong. Credc e4perto.
But there are ants in plenty TO