"Max" at the Theatre

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 741, 25 September 1953, Page 12

"Max" at the Theatre

AROUND THEATRES, by Max Beerbohm; Rupert Hart-Davies. English price, 30/-. ;

(Reviewed by

A.

M.

ANY years ago two stagestruck New Zealand schoolboys (one a future professor of .English) discovered Bernard Shaw as dramatic critic of the Saturday Review. They were astonished to. find Shaw’s © successor, one Max Beerbohm, introducing himself with the avowal that he was not fond of the theatre. They read no more. Today he is Sir Max Beerbohm, an octogenarian, "the incomiparable Max," whose fame as essayist, cartoonist and broadcaster has for many wbscuted the fact that he was ever a dramatic critic: A selection of his dramatic criticisms, included in a limited. edition of his ‘works published in 1924, has now been issued for the public, and it opens with the I-do-it-though-I-love-it-not warning of 1898. Fortunately, it did not turn out so -badly, so that one suspects a gesture of youthful bravado. The theatre never gripped young. Beerbohm by the -throat as it does the true addict; but he = had some love of it, and an acute understanding of play-writing and " acting. True, there is a touch here and there of the cocksure and superior -young man..Highly enthusiastic. about Cyrano de Bergerac in the original French, he was. scornful of. it in translation, but he’ has ‘fived to see the English-speak-ing world (myself included) get a,great kick out of an American screen version, "Had Mr: Kipling been born a Frenchman" — that is, in a nation of real literary taste — "his talent would ‘have found no recognition at all." | Maybe, but Sir Max must know that | French critics have ranked Kipling as /a great writer. And how delightfully characteristic. of his class was his remark that Americans had "no history worth mentioning." However,-I can see "Max" throwing up his hands in mock horror: "My dear fellow, I was young enough then to know everything!’’ Indeed. he said so in effect in 1924, and the words are here. There is a large essay element in the criticisms. With him, compulsion to tell readers what a play was about was less than with the daily critic, and he was favoured with mote time and space. That being so, it is a pity he gibed at the style of critics who (I have been one myself) had to struggle against these foes. There is plenty of wit and learning and wisdom in these 580 pages, and much hard hitting for z ~

better drama and acting. The period, _1898 to 1910, must be noted, for, if we exclude Robertson. this was roughly the second decade of the British renaissance, after the dreary depths fustian and adaptation. The fight was on, with gloves off, for fidelity to life. Shaw was coming into his own, and

Beerbohm handsomely recanted an opinion that his plays were not suited to the theatre. That Pinero was a leader among reforming writers, did not prevent Beerbohm from analysing his dialogue mercilessly. The Admirable Crichton, The Voysey Inheritance, and Justice illustrated new approaches in subject and technique. Beerbohm expressed himself -with complete candour. If he thought a play deplorable or disgusting, he said -so, His final word on The Passing of the Third Floor Back was that he supposed blasphemy paid. Among the procession of stage figures here are Irving, Bernhardt, Coquelin and Duse, and one of the most sympathetic items is an obituary tribute to Dan Leno. I don’t think this will add to "Max's" very high. reputatidn, but it is a valuable survey of the time. The historian of the theatre will be glad to put it beside the collections of criticisms by Shaw,. Agate and Desmond MacCarthy.