New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-03-13

giddy Beauclerk and Langton. and crying.
What is it you, you dogs: I'll have a
frisk with YOU? At the invitation of Mr..
Granville Barker and his other 'jeunes'
Mr. Frohman is out for a frisk.
And now you come to his choicest
morsel. He wants what Is good of any
kind. lone sometimes hears it said. A
good thing. but not a play This is one
of the kinds I want" Yes, one sometimes
hears ii said about Mr.. Shaw. One is
hearing it said at this moment about
"Chantecler,'' And the very fact that one
hears it said about two such different men
for you could not find two more violently
contTasted talents than NJ. Rostand's and
Mr.. ShaW's-shows how variously good
things may be yet with the common char
acteristic of not being plays. But from
whom does one hear it? Why, from the
critics, whose business it is, in Mr.. Froh-
mans own phrase about the people for
whom he is catering, Ito delight in the
drama as an art'-not as an art Of
rhetoric nor an art of poetry nor an art of
ratiocinatiOn, but as an art Of drama.
What the critics mean is that the stage
Is primarily intended for the exhibition
of certain kind of art. and that what
ever is represented on it, however good"
! II may otherwise be-good as poetry like
NJ Rostands work, good, like Mr. S5haws,
| as propagandism-has primarily to be
good" drama. Why, asked Leasing, be
at the pains TO build a theatre and train
actors TO perform in it If the work per
formed might have produced its effect in
some other Way-aS a book picture?
Every representative art has its peculiar
virtue and function. If you want TO rep
resent the color of an apple you must
T ,.ai,, e
resent its form you must model it. So
the peculiar virtue Of the stage is TO rep
resent an action, a conflict of wills. No
repertory theatre in the world can upset
this elementary fact. Because the stage,
being a raised platform in front of an
assembled crowd, can be used for the
various purposes for which any other
platform can be used-for disquisition, for
! a lecture, for sermon, for "A speech OF
any kind-the stage will of course tend to
be used for these various purposes by the
people who are more interested In them
than in the pure art of drama. And so
you will often get "a good thing. but not
! a pIay"-WEich will lie entirely satisfactory
10 many quIts worthy people who do not
really ''del@h. in the drama as an art
I 1t Will. nevertheless, be the duty of Crtti-
cism to go OF steadily pointing out that
J
that the proper function OF the theatre
is TO deal IL the drama as an art
The real trouble take to be this Your
! true dramatist, the with the genuine
! faculty for representing things in terms of
. the stage, is too often without the faculty
| of observing things worth representing, is
too often without knowledge Of the i'm
/ portant facts of life, is too often without
any intelligence save intelligent craftsman
/ ship. Hence you get many technically
! good plays. displaying perfect artistic mas
| terry. but expressing only trivial ideas COM
! monplaces, or what the public wants"
/ The born dramatist' is so often the re-
verse of the born thinker, observer or man
! Of practical affairs! on the other hand
! you have people who observe life for them
| selves, VINO are trimming over with ideas
who have real knowledge of actual af-
fairs, who are perhaps burning with indg-
milton at some social injustice and anxious
/ to awaken the conscience of their fellow
men about it through the platform which
J the theatre offers them. The drawback is
that they are not artists, or are imperfect
artists in drama. These are the people who
! give YOU "a good thing hut not a play
/ AN EngIishmans Home" or Warp and
] Wool or THE Way the Money Goes"
Sometimes OF course, the man with genuine
I dramatic faculty gives you the same kind
/ OF thlns because he happens 70 be more
/ interested IN other aspects Of his subject
! than the purely dramatic aspect. This is
/ often me case With Mr.. Shaw and Is the
/ case with NJ. Rostand in "Chantecler"
( There Is this compensation however.
about good things but not plays" ~hat IS
lost IN art may be gained IN life Life Is
! more important than AT. and #, for in