MORALS AND THE DRAMA.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1043, 4 February 1911, Page 4

MORALS AND THE DRAMA.

It is pleasing to think that an increasing number ot people arc concerned about the moral effect of the theatre. When asking whether such and such a production on the local stage is "good," in a great many cases the questioner probably only means, "Is it amusing, entertaining, pleasantly exciting, cleverly acted, interesting as a spectacleßut with an increasing number this question means all that and something more. The questioner also wants to know whether the play is "good" in a moral way. And that part of the question is often by far the most difficult to answer.. People -do not quarrel very violently about dramatic merits, because the disputants usually argue to learn rather than to convince. But when the morality or immorality of a play is in debate, they cannot in most cases even agree to differ. The feeling on one side, at any rate, is that the other side has to be converted. Meanwhile a tolerant listener, amazed at the contradictions which he hears, can but wish for some common standard of judgment, some simple moral test that might be readily applied to all sorts of theatrical productions. We have all. read of the great uplifting power of "The Passing of the Third Floor Back," and many of us, on seeing it actcd, have joined in the praise. .Yet Mr. .Walter Prichard Eaton, writing in the American Magazine, declares that this play is almost as much a travesty as an allegory. He complains that it ignores the practical side of the human struggle and human will in every true and lasting reformation, and that it suggests instead a pleasing notion that a few sweet thoughts and a call to our "better natures" are enough to sot tho world aright. He acknowledges its beauty, but deems it "immoral because it makes spiritual regeneration a matter of external and immediate suggestion, a kind of hypnotic process, instead of an inward education of the will iind -the moral senses; dangerous because it permits an andicnce to go .tway amiably, self-satisfied, to lapse back, fifteen minutes later into exactMathoir former state." nether-Mil. Eaton is right or wrong in his judgment of this particular. play, he has correctly indicated tho special danger of plays which claim to have a good moral influence—they are apt to produce nothing better than "amiable selfsatisfaction. In other words, they flatter the andionce, and that is a very different thing from elevating or instructing it. Mb. Henky Arthur Jones's play, "Tho Hypocrites," which was staged here a few months ago, is an illustration of this fault. The spectator may think he is being edified by the triumph of the young curate's sincerity over the cant and' duplicity of tho alleged specimens of the higher clergy and landed aristocracy. Eeally the' spectator is just being flattered. He is being assured from first to last that he is wiser, more sincere, and more courageous than the generality of people. Thus an insidious moral poison is poured into him. Such plays may make Pharisees. They do aot make honest men and women. It ought not' to be necessary to say this nowadays, for Charles Lamb long ago made the same complaint of the popular plays of his own generation—that playgoers were invited to sit and'be complimented on their goodness,. and to have their moral vanity pampered. It is, of course, _ extremely difficult for the dramatist with an aim and his cooperators in the theatre to avoid this most objectionable and injurious kind of flattery. A play must please, or it will not "draw," and one of the sweet ways of pleasing the average man is to administer indirect congratulations upon his moral superiority. Nevertheless, it is possible, even in this country, to produce' a successful play,! dealing seriously with wrongdoing and having a strong moral tendency, yet not pandering to Pharasaism. Such an one is "The Thief." People who saw the production of this play at tho local Opera House by a company which included that fine and thoughtful actor, Mr. George. Titheradge, we're not only niado to feel "the exceeding sinfulness of sin," but also that they too mignfc err. Happily that particular play escaped the opposite danger of making vice attractive even while condemning it. Theft of course, is not in itself so alluring as some other breaches of the moral code. It is when the dramatist concerns himself with sex that lie is most liable to defeat in this way his ostensible, and, perhaps, quite sincere, aim. Thus, Tolstoy wrote "Tho Kreutzer Sonata" to exalt chastity, and yet exhibited in it a prurient inquisitiveness. • Precisely tho same weakness is often manifested by people unconnected with the stage when they set out to denounce immorality. Concerning plays in general—those which are merely intended to amuse as well as those, which profess higher aims— the fact isthat there is no absolute test of their moral qualities, but if theatregoers and critics would divest their minds of all preconceived or suggested notions as to what they ought to think, and after simply watching a performance, would review their own impressions, there' would be less dissension and a truer understanding of the -nature and possibilities of the drama.