The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-04-07

rection, and who, because OF this. ox-
hibit a tendency TO lose their individ
ual consciousness in the general
self consciousness Of the multitude. Any
gathering Of people for . specific pur
pose-whether Of action or of worship
or of amusement-tends to become, be
cause Of this purpose, crowd. IN the
scientific sense. Now. a crowd has 8
mind Of its own. apart from that of any
of its individual members.
The dramatist. therefore. because he
writes for a crowd, writcs for "A com.
paratively unciviIized and uncutivated
mind, mind richly human, vehement
in appreciation. emphatic in disapprov-
al, easily credulous, eagerly enthusias-
tie. boyishly heroic and somewhat care
lessly unthinking. Now, il has bcen
fonnd in practice that the only thing
that viii kcenly interest crowd is
n struggle of some sort or other. But
so far AS ] know, no one has yet re-
allied tho main reason for tins, which
is, simply, that characters are interest
ing TO crowd only in those crises Of
emotion that bring them 10 a grapplc.
4 single individual, like the reader Of
an ESSAY or novel. may be interested
intellectually in those gentle influences
beneath which a character uufolds it
self rs mildly as q water bly,; but to
what Thackeray called 'tbat savage
child, the crowd, a character docs not
appeal except in moments Of conten'
tion There mover yet has been time
when the tbeater could compete success
fully against the amphitheater. Plu'
tus and Terence complained that the
Roman public preferred gladiatorial
combat TO their plays; bear-baltlng,
or "A cock fight used to empty Shakes
peare's theater on the Banksido; and
there is NOT "a matinee in Salt Lake
today that can hold Its own against n
football game Forty thousand people
gather annually from all quarters of
the east TO see Yale and Harvard meet
upon the field, while such crowd could
not ne aggregated from New York alone
To see the greatest play the world has
vet produced For the crowd demands
n fight; and where the actual exists,
il will scarcely be contentcd with the
semblance.
Hence, tho drama, to interest at all,
must cater to this longing for conten.
ton, which is one of the primordlal
instincts of the crowd 1t must pre-.
sent its characters in some struggle OF
the wills. whether 1t be nIppant, as
in the case OF Beuedick and Beatrice;
or delicate, as in that of Viola and Or
sno; or terrible. with Macbeth; or
Diteous, with King Lear. The crowd
Is more partisan than the individual;
and therefore, in following this strug-
Gle Of the drama, il desires always 70
take sides There is no fun in seeing
a football game unless You care ABOUT
who wins; and there is very little fun
in seeing a play unless the drainatlst
allows Won 10 throw your sympathies on
one side or the other, of tho struggle,
Hence, although in actual life both
particS To n conflict are often partly
right and partly wrong, and IT is hard
In choose between them, the dramatlst
usually simplifes tho struggle IN his
PLAYS by throwing the balance OF rleht
strongly on one side Hence, from the
ethical standpoint, the simplicity OF
tbeater characters. Desdemona is all
Innocence. Iagu all deviltry- Hence also
the conventional heroes and villains OF
mnlodrama.-those to he hisscd and those
70 ba applauded Since the crowd Is
comnaratiyelv lacking in the Judicial
faculty and can not look upon play
from a disiutcrcsted point or View' III
ia either all for or all against ehhr
actor; and in either case its Juognehs
ia frequently in defiance OF the rules OF
r.,son IL will hear no word agalnst
Camille. though hn individual would
ndge her to be wrong, and II mas no
sympathv with Armand, Duval rather
IL idoliZes Ratfles. who is a har and a
thief: II shuts its ears 70 Marion AZ
isrdvce. the defender Of virtue IN Let
-. II wants it's sympathetic charac-
ters. to love; its antipathetic rharae.
tiers. TO hnte; and 1T hates ana ion CO
! them as uureasonably rs savage or
hid The trouble with Hcdda CAB
1er'' "a play. is that II contains not
single personage that the audience
".n lave The crowd demands those
s".called sympathetic parts that ev-
cTv actor, for this reason, longs TO rep
| resent. And since the crowd Is Paril'
san. il wants its favored characters 10