San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

14 February 17, 1900 For in his ravings by mistake A solemn truth the madman spake. A few weeks ago I wrote to a friend asking news of Paris dramatically. "Make your information interesting and readable," said I, "for I mean to publish it." Now here is the answer translated exactly: "And I mean that you shall publish nothing of the sort. Paris dramatically is much too onward and spicy for poor little America and the religious Americans. The subject most in vogue as I write is the roue who abandons a mistress to marry a young and unsophistocated girl — and the complications that follow. We find it all vastly amusing." * * * The words "poor little America and the religious Americans," though not so intended are a tribute to our decency and superiority that I am not quite sure we deserve. The word religious is ill chosen, but since they have no morals to speak of in Paris, perhaps it was the only one at hand to express the opposite of impurity — and God help the nation that finds religion in its accepted sense, the one refuge from vice. Hope for it is dead. * * Indeed I am far from sure that we deserve the tribute. Is there any form of French served vice that has been offered us and not found palatable and digestible ? By us, I mean America as a whole, for there are certain communities that have no maw for such flesh as The Turtle. But the fact that, until it reached San Francisco, crowds approved its garnishing and fed upon it hungrily is a blot upon our decency that shall not easily be wiped out. If these imported farces were even clever, one might, while bewailing a debauchery of genius, respect them as works of art. But except to the hedonist, they are deadly dull. We are told they lose in translation. They lose nothing butan overweight of mire we have not yet become crows enough to bathe our wings in and fly away apparently undaubed. And as these things become less strong in emphasis and more suggestive they become the more insidious and degrading in their effects. We are a nation of theatre-goers from six to sixty — the theatre is a big part of our circumstances and much of modern morality consists in going to it right. Many who would admit impurity into their minds in no other way, here surrender themselves to author and player and smile at and with lives they have no mind to imitate. Even what passes through the thought hurridly leaves something and what gets the attention bids for the affection. Mind can run down hill as fast and a bit faster than matter. * * "But see how we bring them to the theatre and make them laugh," said an actress to me in defense of their production. We have had such dull audiences, it is something to be able to rouse them in any way. If the public demands this sort of thing what is one to do ? Don't give it to them. Let them die of dramatic starvation and while you are killing off the last man of them save your own lives by taking in gardens to prune and windows to clean. To be forced to play such things is demoralizing to you, for where you are thinking, there you are living. Consider where these plays are taking you night after night, and whether you care to go there. To be obliged to think the impure is of itself impure and costs a woman a share of her selfrespect. What begins by being as repulsive as the deformed grows by the easy steps of familiarity to be almost agreeable. And this is deterioration. The manager who has in his company talented, clever and highminded young women, how shall he answer to himself for forcing them into such parts ? * * * This class of play has absolutely no excuse for existence. Because such people and vices exist is no reason for their dramatic publication as jokes — as fun. The canker of civilization is not funny, and to treat it so is little short of crime. The whole subject is one we can afford not to think about, ignorance being less a weakness than knowledge. * * * Yes indeed you make them laugh. There is no dodging that. When the curtain falls upon a middle act, the male contingent strides or waddles or lunges out, red in the face, wilted in the collar from howling with joy over what ? Would one of them dare explain for publication over his own signature ? In the abundance of their delight, they but advertise unwittingly their own vulgarity. If aught could make a man appraise himself at a faithing, it would be to drop him still howling in the heart of a forest, there to look himself in the face and then upward from the pine-tops to the stars! And the women who have also howled. What of them ? O, the shame of it. * • * And this is not all. The whole tendancy of playwriting today seems to be to debase the skill and waste the time on unfit topics. These wares are marketable at good figures and money has such a merry jingle. Playwrights with graphic skill and abundant sympathy and wit and humor are tempted to write them as interludes while they make ready for the great after effort. But diving for the low and feeding upon the low disqualifies for exalted thought and in the order of despotic nature they shall never again strike the major key of a noble play! The Farce-Comedy Up-to-Date Scene Just any place, but by the way, Be sure the place is quite risque\ Characters A woman of the demi-monde, A maid quite up to snuff, A roue and a sap-head blonde A husband good at bluff; A black-leg and a guardian, A wife who knows the ropes, Some jokes who masquerade as men, A daughter who elopes. Properties A betting book, champagne frappd, Wine, cocktails and bad debts: Some very, very decollete And Turkish cigarettes. A novel and some lingerie, A compromising note, Some rather noisy hosiery, Perhaps a sealskin coat. Dialogue Suggestion and the choicest slang, Old jokes and all the rest, A lot of blatant cheap biff-bang, With morals for a jest; Had English, commonplace and dull, Most any sort of rot, Profanity, vulgarity. Deliver us. Ach Gott ! The Tendency to Write Down And when plays are clean, there is yet the fatal tendency to write down to the public. It is a great log we are told and cannot otherwise be reached. It is a lie. The man in the street is not the public and those best worthy of consideration are hungry for something not an insult to their intelligence. Witness the crowds who filled the Columbia recently during the all too short season of the classic and the old comedy. The public merely asks to be interested and with the right effort interest can easily be created in something above peanuts. The tendency to be blatant, to be flippant, to be cock-sure, to be vulgar, to write down, is rapidly destroying the ability to write up. Strength and nobility require dignity of language and it does not rise from the heart to the tongue of the flippant. Let a man fill his pasture with mules and they are ever at the bars when a horse is wanted. The chances of a masterpiece from any of our known playwrights is very slim indeed, yet more than one had the strength for such had they but used it aright. If it were not for the few, the very few great stars, there would be no masterpieces at all. They control their own destiny and demand something to fit their ability. And a masterpiece is not of necessity a big expensive production. A simple heart story niay become such in the hands of him who has not lost his faith and hope — who has not shrunk his soul and become a degenerate. And think of the degenerates to day flourishing pens. How much of their stuff, I wonder, is now in the dramatic stocks, ready to be launched upon a tired public at the touch of a button. Would it might be burned. But something too much of this mournfulness. A look into the future is the remedy. And there I believe lie some of the greatest plays that have ever been written — masterpieces hidden in the souls of men who have kept aloof and not been touched by the flippancy and cock-sureness of the times. And truly we are eager for them, and from any distance we are glad to hail them. * * And in the meantime the rank and file of the actor world are teeming