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CINEMATIC TELEOLOGY 17
The abuses, among the arts, are not only charged to the commercial exploitation — they are often the result of insidious individuals appealing to the lowest impulses of the popular mind under the hackneyed cry of "giving the people what they want." This moss-grown excuse has been employed to justify the most shocking irregularities. At first these abuses are openly presented and then very cunningly insinuated when attacked by those few who at all times cling to decorum and order, and who have constituted the censorship of all ages. Mr. Sheldon Cheney, in his great history of the drama, shows how Pompey the Great, in answer to that time old censorship, erected over the theatre a temple to invite superstitious awe to aid in veiling the sinister appeal of the theatre. Thus could he dedicate to the Goddess Venus the most shameful immodesties and immoralities, to Bacchus the most disgusting wantonness, while filthy songs, risque dialogue, sensuous music are offered as invocations to their respective patrons, Apollo and the Muses, Minerva and Mercury, etc. In quoting some of those lines from the ancient Tertulian, we can fancy hearing the indignant tones of our own, more modern, Brieglibs, Shulers, and others.
"Finally, no one entering the show thinketh of anything more than to see and to be seen. What manner of thing is it to go from the Church of God into the Church of the Devil?, from the sky (as they say) to stye."*
This narrative illustrates but a brief period in the history of the drama; the workings of man's mind, for ages, has been very similar as regards subterfuge. This incident, then, furnishes a general implication of the practices among the proponents of the arts over periods of hundreds of years, and is a fairly just foreshadowing of what to guard against in the years to come.
Mentally, it is a very short jump to a like example when the church sponsored such gruesome tableaux as the decapitation and torture of heretics. It is no wonder, then, that kings, with their peculiar powers, should have had their orgies of actualities with such clerical suggestions as incentives. We find, also, that the very effective and legitimate means of illustrating to the laity the beautiful characters and dramatic episodes of the Bible, was soon abused by the vulgar members of the church. Cheney has furnished an amazing picture of this chapter in the history of the drama.
"The pageantry of the Catholic service, the stirring sacred music, the impressive architectural background, the sincerity and conviction in delivery — many a later theatre, though more literary and more professional, fail of importance for lack of these."
"Imagine the porch of Rheims Cathedral arranged for a play like Adam. The Paradise is a simple booth built up on the top step within the central recessed portal; it is richly curtained, and stands out as a colorful note against the sculptures and traceries of the monumental facade. The other simple "stations" are placed close by; lowest of all, the yawning Hell-mouth. The costumes make the processionals a lovely interplay of movement and color. The music,
* Cheney's "The Theatre."