Modern Tendencies of the Drama

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1008, 24 December 1910, Page 12

Modern Tendencies of the Drama

11 By Lord Durisany.

lord Dims.my delivered a lecture on "Modern tsniloncies and their influence oil the drama" to tho Manchester Players' Club a little time ago. Lord Dunsauy said it was bis contention that, thero was reason to suppose that the present age could not produce great drama. His reason for expecting this, which more experience might prove or falsify, was that the age was out of touch with life. When he said the age he meant the age in England, and he thought lie meant the ago in America, too, for there were twists and eddies and backwaters in tho river of time, and if wo wero ill the twentieth century hero it was the'twenty-first in America, and in Ireland and- in many English villages it was further up the stream and nearer the peaceful hills.

We. had had ages of faith and ages of unbelief, ages of peace and ages of war; we were now in the age of matter. For wlio would 'find in England, unless ho went into tho fen country or down south-west into the oldest counties, or northwards towards the hills till he came to* heather, or into Kentish downlands away from tho motor-tracks—who would find in England, unless he looked for it carefully, a place where man was not seen bowing down, to' the machinery that he had made to : the greater glory of commerce.?. Moloch had mado -man very rich; that in tho end was the only argument that anyone ultimately had ever said in his favour. And either his worshippers dare not say or else they did not know that anything else besides being rich mattered. ,

The ago was out of touch with life—, tho bricks, trowel, and mortar of- tlio drama—and the ago worshipped Commerce and his idol, the machine. .There was 110 reason why a man who made old furniture should,net be as much in touch with life while' riding a bicycle as a shepherd sitting upon the slopes of Aready—such a man might some day como in touch with life and great dramas might be mado out of his aspirations. But experience did not come to a man profoundly in three years, nor to a people in three generations, and there were •as yet no legends of our altered state, lio traditions to guide us. The how knowledge would in time, no doubt, como up to the old. But, beloro. the time that he was hopeful of arrived this movement that was callcd by the word "progress" must stop to give panting generations time. to see where they were. "Progress," as newspapers used , the word to-day, meant the rapid increase of matter, of new machines quickly abolishing and taking the place of the old machines; it was in fact Moloch horribly eating himself that lis might grow fat somewhere in the darkness of the smoke of his house amidst tho applause of his victims.

When this thing that jnen called "Progress" stopped, then they would begin to get traditions again, and would come by wise sayings perhaps, and be natural once more and sincere. That all was r,ot well at present might be shown by.the daily papers, whether they were tho cause or the effect. "Not only do you seo there no thought of the old times from which legend conies and tradition," said •lord Dnnsany, "but even yesterday.seems to bo forgotten—poor- yesterday, that was so_ flattered by -all till he thought 'his fashions -.wore wise, even yesterday, 'With liis : silly little sayings and his. mascots and his motors and his rumours, yes-' terday has to go and hide his head as though he .were no better than the days of Athens or Sparta. To see tlio veneration that is-paid to tlio 'latest thing,' to use a phraso that is holy before Moloch, you would say that a new. dynasty, had been founded every morning, a new religion.almost.- .' ... :- . ... -in

. "Consider .it! . A woman recently rw'as allowed to speak witli her husband the : evening before he was. hung; hs.she left the gaol she was interviewed by d representative of the press. The same thing happened 'to. .■ another woman-who had 1 Just seen, her sister, then being tried for her life. . A woman was murdered with a revolver by her lover; her.picture was therefore put in an illustrated paper, it seemed to the editor that to draw a v,-renth of revolvers intertwined. by the trigger-guards all round her head would be an appropriate thing—so he did it. I do not say that , things so cold-blooded, so meaningless and empty, would, not have been done 111 other ages, but they would not have been given to the, people .for their daily supply, of thought as they, are to-day.. And here we come to the' very, root., of. the evil, awl tho soil .in 'which' it grows—we have-not only oak; but machine-made thought. 1 do hot wish.to criticise unduly any body of men... I am not forgetful that you nave here in Manchester a paper, the 'Manchester Guardian,' which is known, I will not say wherever English is spoken, but at least wherever English is cared for. But it must often happen that some journalist wishing • to write carefully and wisely upon some passing event finds the machine all ready to print his words ut once, finds Moloch in .fact impatient to spit in the faces of .his worshippers,. and liko older:and holier things, waiting for no man. The age has chosen its schoolmaster— and its. schoolmaster is the press. The press is industrious, kind-hearted, and well-informed, but it has its favourite pupils, it cares for its rich class only, which is the poor,' localise there are more of them and they possess moro ' halfpennies. It. does not dare to educate .them; it fears that if it did it': might scare away the royal'.favour of Demos, in whose, hand is the halfpenny." ; He did not see . how any great achievement could be separated from those things, that its workman held sacred, and when an age bowed down to passing event's those vain, processional gods would < walk through all that it did. As for our language, which had . brought down to us like a galloon filled with spjees the wisdom of Shakespeare, the magnificence of Milton, out of far ages, how fast it..was breaking up. It was like some illustrious broken wreck upon the shore of this age, with little, boys clambering and shouting about it, ignoring all its, glories. Almost every day the stress of. modem times seemed to carry away some of it and how uncouth in such a stately thing seemed the little bits of slang with which men daily tried to patch it up.. But , with all flies® tilings the Drama was not' dead yet and was free and unhumbled still, even though Musical Comedy bowed before the feet of Commerce, "saying accept the homage of the drama," even though Demos applauded her; for Melpomene was not bought and was. not sold and had no overlords; hers was a strange, romantic country of many gates and was always new; the poets kept the keys of it. So wide and wise, an outlook upon the ages and tlie great elemental . forces. and their terrible .drifting over the head of man, as was given us. say, in Yeats's plays, showed us that poetry was not yet. beaten out nor commerce yet supreme. And the great rush for money might sweep on, and our. superb and treasure-laden language might be mangled, yet the cause of the Drama would not be lost, and noble things would be. unconcpiered still, so long as poets lived to hand down to one another by word of mouth the traditions that the older ■ poets had from . tho ancients and :tlie ancients had from the gods.