South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1882.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2868, 3 June 1882, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1882.

The business of all those who cater for public amusement is full of fluctuation and uncertainty. For the taste of the public is as variable as the temperature. If that taste is with the manager, he may be sure of a “ good house,” no matter what is being presented. An obscure or unpopular manager and company may play the best pieces in the best possible style, without receiving more than a miserable share of public patronage. And a performance may be thoroughly good, but, lacking some one element of popularity, it may, perhaps, fail to arouse public interest, and so be played to empty benches. The stage, disguise the fact as we may, is undoubtedly doomed. At least, it has seen its best days, and its existence is now a precarious one. Those who took the highest view of stage performances, were wont to base the claims of the stage on popular support, upon its power and efficacy as an educating medium. They declared that it enforced lessons of morality, heroism, and virtue upon the public mind. Others, and these comprised the most numerous class, regarded the stage as merely a means of recreation and diversion ; and thought the most its scenes could bo expected to do would be to pleasingly arouse the fancy, kindle the emotions, and win away thought from the engrossing topics of working life. There is no doubt the latter is the correct estimate of its functions—that the stage is not an instructor but a means of amusement and diversion, merely. Living representations of good and evil are not needed save in a very primitive undeveloped state of society. Life is full of lessons of virtue and warnings against vice. We need no stage representations to place them prominently before us. Certainly, no one can date bis conversion to goodness from witnessing a play, though it is more than doubtful whether a seductive picture of vice on the stage has not led many astray. It is as the vehicle of amusement and diversion that we contend for the preservation of the stage. But the effort to preserve it appears almost futile. It seems impossible to make anything like a calculation of what sort of “ business ” will please the public. Its old delights, it now spurns. The grand plays of the Great Dramatist please no longer ;in theatrical parlance, “ Shakespeare does not pay.” Melodrama, comedy, burlesque —these all take. Many people regard this as indicative of a dreadful decline in popular taste. We are inclined to dispute that. The fact is, in the days when Shakespeare’s plays were so immensely popular, scarcely anybody thought of reading them. Shakespeare was looked upon as a mere playwright ; his works considered the legitimate property of the actor. His alone it was to interpret its beauties. But, bye and bye, people began to read for themselves, and to see that Sbakespear’s works were a rich legacy to humanity ; that his wonderful word painting, his deep insight, his intuition, his magical power, could be better appreciated on careful perusal, that they needed not the concomitants of “ sock and buskin” to enhance their beauty and attractiveness. The poet of all time thus became known and read of all men and as the popular knowledge of his works increased, the popular rage for a stage exposition of them diminished. Now, people go to see a play of Shakespeare performed,more to admire the skill of the actor than to enjoy the literary beautv of the play. Acting is an art in which only a few shine. He who can most portray the various phases o£ human life, the comedian ; he who can present us with the most extravagant and laughable travesty of scenes of real life, whose voice is most pleasing, whose gestures are most graceful, these please our taste and engage our attention. We are no longer bound by a mysterious spell. The actor is not to us an enchanter or a magician. This generation does not hang upon his lips as did the audiences that gathered before John Phillip Kemble. The plaudits that greet a successful actor now are plaudits that come of genuine appreciation of bis talent; they are not evoked by awe and wonder. Our appreciation is an intelligent appreciation. We criticise while we admire. Wc may as well at once admit the stage has the same claim to our attention as the art of painting or music or statuary, that for the great world outside it must ever be a means of diversion, not a serious business. On this ground we chefish it. We drop the old idea as untenable, that it can be considered or ought to be preserved as an educating medium.