Los Angeles herald., 1909-11-07
LONDON CRITIC ON
THE COMEDY SPIRIT

(The following words on the fundamental
| idea OF comedy in the drama are from the
essay on Edmund Rostand by Gilbert X.
| Chesterton In his volume entitled Twelve
| Types" published by Arthur l.. Humphreys
London They derive added current interest
! from the approaching production in America
under Frohman management OF the French
playwrights latest comedy, "Chantlcleer"
in which all tho characters are anmals).
The French genius has an instinct for
remedying its own evil work, and
France gives always the best cure for
"Frenchiness." The idea OF comedy
which is held in England by the school
which pays most attention to the tech
nical niceties of art is a view which
renders such an idea as that of heroic
comedy quite impossible. The funda-
mental conception In the minds of the
majority of our younger writer's is that
comedy is, par excellence" a fragile
thing. 1t is conceived to be a conven-
tional world OF the most absolutely del
icate and gimcrack description. Such
stories as Max Beerbohm's Happy
Hypocrite" are conceptions which would
vanish or fall into utter nonsense If
viewed by one single degree too seri-
ously. But great comedy, the comedy
OF Shakespeare or Sterne, not only can
be, but must be, taken seriously. There
Is nothing to which a man must give
himself up with more faith and self
abandonment than to genuine laughter.
In such comedies one laughs with tho
heroes and not at them.
The modern writer of comedies may
be said to boast of the bTjttleness OF
his characters. He seems always on
4 l. nF fu n
pieces. When John Oliver Hobbies
wrote for the first time comedy of
serious emotions she named II, with
thinly disguised contempt for her work.
"a Sentimental Comedy" The grounI
of this conception of the artificiality OF
comedy is profound pessimism. Lie
in the eyes of these mournful buffoons
is itself an utterly tragic thing; comedy
must be as hollow as grinning mask.
II is a refuge from the world and not
even, properly speaking, a part OF II.
Their wit is a thin sheet OF shining Ice
over the eternal waters OF bitterness.
"Cyrano de Bergerac" came TO us as
the new declaration OF an old truth,
that merriment was one of the worlds
natural flowers and not one OF its
exotics
Monsieur Rostand showed even more
than his usual insight when he called
"Cyrano de Bergerac" a comedy, de-
spite the fact that. strictly speaking,
II ends with disappointment and death.
The essence of tragedy is spiritual
or decline, and in the great
French play the spiritual sentiment
mounts increasingly until the last line.
II is not the facts themselves but our
feeling about them that makes tragedy
and comedy, and death is more Joyful
IN Rostand than life in Maeterlinck.
The same apparent contradiction
holds good in the case Of the drama oe
IL L'Aiglon." Although the nero is
veakling, the subject a fiaseo, the end
premature death and a personal disil-
yet in spite of this theme,
which might have been chosen for its
depressing qualities, the unconquerable
1aean of the praise of things, the un-
,overnable gayety of the poets song
Iwells so high that at the end 1t seems
% drown all the weak voices of tho
characters in one crashing chorus OF
great things and great men.
A multitude of notices might be =,
aiken from the play to indicate and IL
ustrate, not only it's own spirit but
much of the spirit of modern life..
When an eX-general OF Napoleon Is
.sked his reason for having betrayed
he emperor he replies, La fatigue"
nd at that a veteran private of the
.reat army rushes forward, and cry
ng passionately "Et nous?" pours out
terrible description of the life lived
essimism is almost as much a symbol
( wealth and fashion as jewels or
igars, when the pampered heirs of the
ges can sum up life in. few other
lords but LA fatigue" there might
urely come cry from the vast mass
f common humanity from the begin
ing, "Et nous?' 1t is this potentiality
Or enthusiasm among the mass of men
hat makes the function of comedy at
nee common and sublime.
Monsieur Rostand, in his description
( the battle of Wagram, does not
ars the frightful voices of actual bat
e, of men torn by crows and suffo-
ated with blood, but when the duke,
srrified at these dreadful appeals, asks
lem for their final word they all cry
,gether "Vive. Pempereur!" Monsieur
ostand, perhaps, did not know that he
as writing an allegory. To me Ahat
eld of Wagram is the field of the
othing but the voices of pain; the
hole is one phonograph of horror. 1t
right that we should hear these
lings, it is right that not one of them
lould be silenced; but these cries OF
odern art the only voices, they are
an. When questioned finally and seri-
lsly as to their conception of their
,stiny, men have from the beginning
time answered in a thousand phil
ophies and religions with a single
ice and in a sense most sacred and
emendous, 'Vive rempereur."