THE GERMAN DRAMA.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 May 1920, Page 5

THE GERMAN DRAMA.

* . •' 1 "SCRIBES AND PHARISEES- i ACTORS." (The, Observer's Special Correspond I dent.) Berlin, Jan. 14. Germany in 11)20 is full of "drama and ; melodrama—every kind of it. There is passionate love-romance task the Bavarian Princes for the history, the'' (rue history, of the Spanish Dancer): tlu-ro is the drama of the restoration ; (Act I. for the present); there are ) •swords crossed above, the Loving (ftp .■ ("to the King—to the Day")} there are '} Scarlet Pimpernels—who brought the I assassins of Red Rosa safely over the' l frontier, and how?—and there is til* mean melodrama of the Miser and hi* 1 ,■ Gold. Also there is tlie drama once, '1 romance now, and legend presently, of 1 Rahab, the real Woman in White. But • 'ho curious must seek the romance of 1 the Woman in White, chapter by chap- 11 ter, from Paris, through Geneva to the -I Judith-scene in Zurich, and go, belike in 1 tears, to the final curtain in Berlin. This tragedy is not for my pen. Some of it appears to be enshrined (or "en. i coffined"), perhaps by accident, In a 1 book called "Phantom" which I imagine, ' can never be published in the Englhfc language.

, And the staging of the drama? Well, take an illustration- Once, on a bright, spring morning, She that is now ex-Eta-" press drove very 4 early along the Linden, coming from Potsdam to the Palace in Berlin. At the corner of the Fried-rich-strasse from a balcony over the linden an all-too-nierry company of men and women, the men in lull evening dross, the women in more than full even-' ing undress, raised a cheer—and before nightfall a famoug restaurant, an Integral part of the gayest of gay Berlin,, closed its doors. (Act 1., you perceive •—''Germany on the eve of war.*') March, 1019.—The restaurant and all its rooms, scarlet and gold-leaf, are reopened and crowded. For there are no' police hours, no light regulations, no 1 moat tickets. It has become one of the moist famous gambling clubs in a city where, in truth, magnificent gaming saloons were myriad. Round the Bae lioulant are German diplomats, ex-min-isters, officers, profiteers, and such men ! as the once-famous quartermaster, who •'rescued" the army chest, in—oh, well, the man is dead. Queen of this Table Round is the "Brown Princess," by alt account the most successful royalist re-cruiting-sergeant in Northern Germany. (Act 111., "Revolutionary Germany.") And the curtain falls upon the familiar words: "Es-geht-nichts-niehr!* (Rien nn va plus ) I could multiply illustrations; eould show you "domestic interiors" where some of the few men who did recognise defeat after the first Marne battle, and might have made itale-mate of the game, draw out their days hopeless and in poverty (men to whose real knowledge it were no crime to bear witness).

More, L could take you to preposterous republican tea tables, where tho froth of the explosion count "visky-soda oder sherry-brandy," the poor climax of "Fife-o-clock." Shall I introduce you to "The Bonnie Prince" of certain foolish capita* tions? Not without charm for all his decadence. Or take you a long journey by slow train and slower station-cab to a half-forgotten village of Franconia, ivherc the Knights of the Swan passed once, and are never forgotten; thence by Apple Tree Lane, up the long slope to the very "Squat Tower" of Chilcle Roland's pilgrimage, and to the Lut Descendant of Kings who watches thence, a white-haired Lady of Shaloti. the shattering of all her world? It is enough. This land is a stage, and all the men and women merely players—therefore, in some sense, all "hypocrites." Because hypocrites are mere actors. And I pray your courtesy for this conclusion: if the actors be hypocrites, it is, in gome degree, the fault of their audience. Once (I take it) someone told a Pharisee that none could ever hope to excel him: admirers, sycophants, and. the envious took up the legend, and at last the Pharisee effected to believe it. "Master, who is Sole Teacher of the Law, Sole Repository of the oldest traditions of our race, except Thysplf?" So said some student to the Scribe, and the Scribe agreed. And Pharisee and Scribe, cast by wide consent for these their roles, mufit needs play up to them. "A hypocrite is one who knows bettor. 0 \ear upon year, the German was told that lie was the world's greatest soldier, the world's greatest scientist, the most learned critic, the best disciplined citizen. He was cast, by consent of all his audience, for these roles, and played up to them until he forgot that lie was onlv an actor. Deceiving others, he at last deceived himself, and stood condemned. For the Lie-in-the-Soul is the worst lie of them all. Once he knew better, and, for his punishment, must learn and unlearn again. He believes somewhat easily, trusts easily the votes of veerin» crowds, is play actor by nature, and was led (do not forget it} by the greatest play-actor of them all, the ex-Kaiser, who consciously staged triumphs, orations, battle scenes, that he might strut in t.hem. His character was summed up once in a written and official report by Sir Frank Lnseelles, who died the other day,- in quotation thus:—

A man so various that he seemed to be Jsot one, but all mankind's Epitome, .Stiff in opinion; always in the wrong, Wa3 ]omr TythillS bj tU, ' nß and nothi "6 Eiit in the changes of a single moon, , Was Foet, Painter, Actor, and Buffoon. Was ever the "Truth about the Kaiser" so neatly hummed up? The Germans, or most of them, plav up instinctively to the role for which they perceive themselves to be cast. J hey are versatile imitation artists Much of the gross lewdness of "Gay Berlin was due not to a natural talent for decadence, but to a desire to act up' to the reputation of the city as the cavest ot all the gay European capitals. It is another illustration, but brings me to the conclusion of the whole matter, iiif.v will still play up to the role as. signed to them when once they perceive tuat it is by common consent. Their new role is yet to learn just because it is not yet assigned. Tn blunter terns when Europe, and Britain in particular, discovers what part is to be ansigned in the Comity of Nations to sixty millions of people, and when the common voice insists upon that part, the Gcrmnns, taken as a whole, will play to it. Even if they conscious,v play a part, and are therefore truly hypocrites, they will some day forget that it is only play-acting. So it behoves the managers to cast tlie role cautiously. , -