The Theory of the Theatre | Page 2

particular it must be noted
that a play is not a story that is written to be read. By no means must
the drama be considered primarily as a department of literature,--like
the epic or the novel, for example. Rather, from the standpoint of the
theatre, should literature be considered as only one of a multitude of
means which the dramatist must employ to convey his story effectively
to the audience. The great Greek dramatists needed a sense of sculpture
as well as a sense of poetry; and in the contemporary theatre the
playwright must manifest the imagination of the painter as well as the
imagination of the man of letters. The appeal of a play is primarily
visual rather than auditory. On the contemporary stage, characters
properly costumed must be exhibited within a carefully designed and
painted setting illuminated with appropriate effects of light and shadow;
and the art of music is often called upon to render incidental aid to the
general impression. The dramatist, therefore, must be endowed not only

with the literary sense, but also with a clear eye for the graphic and
plastic elements of pictorial effect, a sense of rhythm and of music, and
a thorough knowledge of the art of acting. Since the dramatist must, at
the same time and in the same work, harness and harmonise the
methods of so many of the arts, it would be uncritical to centre studious
consideration solely on his dialogue and to praise him or condemn him
on the literary ground alone.
It is, of course, true that the very greatest plays have always been great
literature as well as great drama. The purely literary element--the final
touch of style in dialogue--is the only sure antidote against the opium
of time. Now that Aeschylus is no longer performed as a playwright,
we read him as a poet. But, on the other hand, we should remember that
the main reason why he is no longer played is that his dramas do not fit
the modern theatre,--an edifice totally different in size and shape and
physical appointments from that in which his pieces were devised to be
presented. In his own day he was not so much read as a poet as
applauded in the theatre as a playwright; and properly to appreciate his
dramatic, rather than his literary, appeal, we must reconstruct in our
imagination the conditions of the theatre in his day. The point is that his
plays, though planned primarily as drama, have since been shifted over,
by many generations of critics and literary students, into the adjacent
province of poetry; and this shift of the critical point of view, which has
insured the immortality of Aeschylus, has been made possible only by
the literary merit of his dialogue. When a play, owing to altered
physical conditions, is tossed out of the theatre, it will find a haven in
the closet only if it be greatly written. From this fact we may derive the
practical maxim that though a skilful playwright need not write greatly
in order to secure the plaudits of his own generation, he must cultivate
a literary excellence if he wishes to be remembered by posterity.
This much must be admitted concerning the ultimate importance of the
literary element in the drama. But on the other hand it must be granted
that many plays that stand very high as drama do not fall within the
range of literature. A typical example is the famous melodrama by
Dennery entitled The Two Orphans. This play has deservedly held the
stage for nearly a century, and bids fair still to be applauded after the
youngest critic has died. It is undeniably a very good play. It tells a
thrilling story in a series of carefully graded theatric situations. It

presents nearly a dozen acting parts which, though scarcely real as
characters, are yet drawn with sufficient fidelity to fact to allow the
performers to produce a striking illusion of reality during the two hours'
traffic of the stage. It is, to be sure--especially in the standard English
translation--abominably written. One of the two orphans launches
wide-eyed upon a soliloquy beginning, "Am I mad?... Do I dream?";
and such sentences as the following obtrude themselves upon the
astounded ear,--"If you persist in persecuting me in this heartless
manner, I shall inform the police." Nothing, surely, could be further
from literature. Yet thrill after thrill is conveyed, by visual means,
through situations artfully contrived; and in the sheer excitement of the
moment, the audience is made incapable of noticing the pompous
mediocrity of the lines.
In general, it should be frankly understood by students of the theatre
that an audience is not capable of hearing whether the dialogue of a
play is well or badly written. Such a critical discrimination