Bernard Shaw Writes on Himself

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 110, 30 July 1927, Page 22

Bernard Shaw Writes on Himself

Interesting Reply to American Critic PLAYS CONSTRUCT THEMSELVES

In the following personal letter, published with his permission, in an American paper, B&mard Shaw discusses his theories of play craftsmanship, as illustrated in his own works. The letter is a reply to Alexander Bakshy's analysis of Shansi plays in a book entitled "The Theatre Unbound,** published in London by Cecil Palmer.

“Dear Mr. B'akshy,— “It is impossible for me to do more than send you a .hasty note or two on your chapter concerning- myself in your interesting and in some ways very acute book, ‘The Theatre Unbound.* “You will understand that my plays are not constructed plays; they grow naturally. If you ‘construct* a play —that is, if you plan your play beforehand, and then carry out your plan, you will find yourself in the position of a person putting together a jigsaw puzzle, absorbed and intensely interested in an operation which, to a spectator, is unbearably dull. The scenes must be born alive* If they are not new to you, as you write, and sometimes quite contrary to the expectations with which you have begun them, they are dead wood. “A live play constructs itself with a subtlety, and often with a mechanical ingenuity that often deludes critics into holding the author up as the most crafty of artificers, when he has

never, in writing- his play, known what one of his characters would say until another character gave the cue. “I am not a Rationalist. I began, as everybody did in the nineteenth century, by writing novels. I wrote two (1879 and 1880), within Rationalist limits, and the hero of the second was a thorough Rationalist. I then discovered that Rationalism was an impasse, and that I could not get a step further with it. BEETHOVEN THE HERO “In my third novel I threw it over completely; my hero was a sort of Beethoven. By the time I began writing plays I had left Rationalism far behind me; what was mistaken for it in my plays was a very vigorous exercise of a power of reasoning which I had cultivated as a sociologist and economist. I could therefore reason on problems from which most writers of Action took refuge in mushy emotionalism. I did not take refuge with Allah as long as 1 could help myself; hut not for a moment will yoti And in my plays any assumption that reason Is more than an instrument. “What you will And, however, is the belief that intellect is essentially a passion, and that the search for enlightenment of any sort is far more interesting and enduring than, say, the sexual pursuit of a woman by a man, which was the only interest the plays of my early days regarded as proper to the theatre—a play without it was ‘not a play.’ “Neither have I ever been what you call a representationist or realist. I was always in the classic tradition, recognising that stage characters must be endowed by the author with a conscious self-knowledge and power of expression, and, as you observe with genuine penetration, a freedom from inhibitions, which in real life would make them monsters of genius. It is the power to do this that differentiates me (or Shakespeare) from a gramophone and a camera. The representational part of the business is mere costume and scenery, and I would not give tuppence for any play that could not be acted in curtain's and togas as effectively as in elaborately built stage drawing rooms and Arst-rate modern tailoring. Even Blanco Posnet and Feemv should be a.ble to hold their own as Ishmael and Rahab. SPECIAL TECHNIQUE “You are right in saying that my Plays require a special technique of acting, and in particular great virtuosity In sudden transitions of mood that seem to the ordinary actor to be transitions from one ‘line’ of character to another. But, after all, this Is only fully accomplished acting, for there is no other sort of acting except bad acting, acting that is the indulgence of imagination instead of the exercise of skill. “Again, you are right when you say that my technique is classic and Molieresque (the Commedia de l’Arte was improvised Moliere). Your word ‘kinship,’ too, to express the relation between me and Congreve and Sheridan is precisely correct. We are all three Irishmen—that is all. They had no part whatever in forming my habits. On the other hand, the fact that I was brought up on Italian and German opera must have inAuenced me a good deal. There is much more of 'll Trovatore’ and ‘Don Giovanni’ in my style than of ‘The Mourning Bride’ and ‘The School for Scandal. 1 but it would take me too far to pursue this. “Faithfully, “U. BERNARD SHAW."