SATIRIST SHAW.

NZ Truth, Issue 108, 13 July 1907, Page 8

SATIRIST SHAW.

SMITES THE- STAGE.

Playgolug Displacing Cfaurdigoingi

"The Church Where You Mustn't Laugh/

George- Bernard Sfiaw, tHe satirist and paradoxist, has published another book. It is a criticism of the stage, whdoh Shaw, as a successful * playwright, is well qualified to criticise. Not only is.it a criticism,, -'but it is a display of wit and humor that is as good as much else that has been written by him m other forms. The title of the book is "Dramatic Opinions and Essays," and it is published m two volumes at 10s 6d. Alex. "M. Thompson has the following to say about the work m a recent issue of tho London "Clarion" : How anyone could ever have imagined that Shaw '-'was only joking- and did not really mean it" is, m the face of these two volumes, inexplicable. There never was a fanatic m more deadly earnest, though there never was a humorist who flashed a MERRIER OR BRIGHTER BDADE-: A most arbitrary and dogmatic critic! Life ami art must be seen through the sternly '■. realistic spectacles of his practical temperament — unblurred and unsentimentalised — or not at all. The Idea must have mastery of the Romance. The Senses must be subjugated'' to the Sense. No meretricious tinted limelight but only the pure white light of Intellect must shine on this "poor, little, angry, miserable world" of the stage. Thds creed he propounded, not m tho nice, gentlemanly manner of the artistic dilettante, but with the savage fervor of a zoalot determined on the establishment of a new religion.. He started from' the point of view that the stage is "as IMPORTANT AS THE CHURCH was m f the Middle Ages." "The apostolic succession from Aeschylus to myself is as serious and' as continue ously inspired as that younger institution, the apostolic succession of the Christian Church, founded gaily with a pun, which bas been so corrupted by rank Satandom that it has become the Church where you must not laugh ; and' so it is .giving way to that older and greater Church to which I belong : the Ohurch where the oftener you laugh the better,, becauso by laughter only can you destroy evil without malice, and affirm good-f ellowsbi p without -, mawkishness . When I wrote, I was well aware v a , that CHURCH-GOING IN LONDON had been largely replaced by playgoing. This would be a very good thing if the theatre took itself seriously as a factory of thought, a prompter of conscience, an elucidator of • social conduct, an armoury against despair and dulness, and a tomple of the Ascent of Man. I took it seriously m that 'way, and pleached about it instead of merely chronicling! .its news and alternately petting and snuftb'ng it as a licentious but privileged form of public entertainaneiit.". Shaw's earnest persistence no doubt broke up a great deal of useless lumber, and revealed many new truths. He has definitely founded m England THE THEATRE OF IDEAS. But incidentally, no doubt, as he confesses, many of his utterances are unjust. " I have never claimed for myself," he says, '-'the divine attribute of justice. But some of them" —Iris utterances— '"arc not reasonably fair." Of the lath-and-plaster Sardou drama^ his pet aversion, he says: What does it matter whether such an entertainment is called Gisinonda, or Theodora, or Venice, or Constantinople, or The Orient, or Captain Boyton's Water-show ? Personally, I prefer the Water-show, because the sixty-foot header interested me, which Madame Bernhard t has long ceased to do ; and the sensation of shooting the chute thrilled me,, which fGismonda."- does not. . •He is equally severe with the MACHINE-MADE DRAMA OF, PINERO, and dismisses "The second Mrs ,Tanqueray"' as a "substitution, of dead macMTuery and lay figures for vital action and real characters.." Then he adds, pleasantly 'j I do not deny that an author may be driven by his own limdta4>ions to ingenuities which Shakes- . peare had no occasion to culvitate, just as a painter without hands or ■ feet learns to surpass Michael jAngelo m the art of drawing with the brush held m the mouth ; but I regard such ingenuity ; as an extremity to be deplored, not an art to be admired.; • "A CHARACTER r ACTOR'i is to him a clever stage performer who cannot act, and therefore makes an elaborate study of the disguises and' trade tricks by which acting can be grotesquely simulated." He hardly likes to call Mr Forbes Robertson aa artist, "because he is notoriously an Englishman with a taste for painting, and the two things are usually incompatible.' ' Reading an announce.'nent on the programme that "Mrs Patrick Campbell's dresses have been carried out by Mrs Mason of New Burlingtonstreet," he can only say that he wishes "they had been carried out and buried." He finds Forbes Robertson's Romeo '•'a gentleman to the last. a He laid out "Paris, AFTER KILLING HIM,-. ■ as 3f he were folding up his ibest suit of clothes." "\ He describes one play as '''surpassingly dreary, although it is happitj relieved four times by very long vra,its between the acts." Of Mr Tree he says that he "only ■. wants one thing to make him an excellent Falstaff, and that is to get born again as unlike himself as possible" ] but he cheerfully concedes that "m the course of a' month or two, when he begins to pick up a few lines of the part, he will improve on his first effort." Miss Dorothea Baird.s -utterance of Ophelia's lines is "like a canary TRYING TO SING HANDEL." : He finds the inspiration for Wilson Barrett's "Daughters of Babylon"

n Isaiah's prophecy tliatf -'He sfyall gather the lambs with his arm, jand carry them m his bosom." Head(|s ; He '"saw himself m the part" and could not rest until lie had gathered a lamib with his arm,; and earned it on to the stage. B f .- - .the fact being that he pla ys,-. noti Lemuel,, but the Messiah disguised as pz~ muel^ .. i Of Barrett's «-'Sign of the CrosV-* be says :i • . If Mr Wilson Barrett writes m the papers to. assure us m the us-^ al terms, that so far from his having taken his play from the Bible* ho has never even read that volume, I aim quite, prepared to believe him. His literary, style is altogether different. ; A' writer so DOGMATIC !AND EMPHATIC^ , ■qualifying . always m superlatives;could not fail to fall into self-contra-dictions. Inconsistency is, therefore, a chief charm of the essays. Thus, m. one place Mr Bouchier is described as "the only first-rate light comedian of his generation," and a few.< pages later we are assured with equal positiveness that "tie only first-rate comedian under 50 on the London' stage" is — Mr Weedooi' Grossmith. In a score of passages the author woefully protests that the stage is the very abomination of stagnation-,, a hopelessly petrified monument of conservatism ; and then again he bobs up (juite cheerfully to declare of ''THE GREATEST OF THESE,*' that "ten years ago this play woulA have ranked as an insanity, fit only for the Independent Theatre. To-day* aftet Ibsen and Ni&tzohe, the otty objection to i|t is, that it is x rather too crude, parochial, and old-fash-ioned." Mr Shaw, though he attacks many, great reputations, has his partial tfes, : too, most prominent among his favorites being Duss, Ellen Terry, Cyril Mauide, and -Irving. He praises the latter for ( his '"finely-cultivated voice and diction," and, though ihe cannot stomach his Corporal Gregory Brewster, he pays a fervent tribute of admiration to such performances as Irving 's lachimo. Finally, though Shaw rails AGAINST SHAKESPEARE'S PLENTIFUL LACK of Shavian Ideas, the careful reader of these volumes will he surprised to discover how deeply Shaw admires the poet, and ho.w jealously he defends him against the ''improvements" of ambitious actors.. "I pity the man who cannot enjoy " Shakespeare,*' he says. "He has outlived thousands of abler thinkers,- and will outlive a thousand more." I venture to add the further prophecy that Mr Shaw's short history of the stage will long outlast most of the plays and players he describesIt is to be hoped thair'an ampTelix--dex -will be included m the inevitable future editions.