Shakespeare and the Modern Stage | Page 4

worthy object. But it is open to doubt whether, from the sensible
literary point of view, the managerial activity be well conceived or to
the public advantage. It is hard to ignore a fundamental flaw in the
manager's central position. The pleasure which recent Shakespearean
revivals offer the spectator reaches him mainly through the eye. That is
the manager's avowed intention. Yet no one would seriously deny that
the Shakespearean drama appeals, both primarily and ultimately, to the
head and to the heart. Whoever seeks, therefore, by the production of
Shakespearean drama chiefly to please the spectator's eye shows scant
respect both for the dramatist and for the spectator. However
unwittingly, he tends to misrepresent the one, and to mislead the other,
in a particular of first-rate importance. Indeed, excess in scenic display
does worse than restrict opportunities of witnessing Shakespeare's plays
on the stage in London and other large cities of England and America.
It is to be feared that such excess either weakens or distorts the just and
proper influence of Shakespeare's work. If these imputations can be
sustained, then it follows that the increased and increasing expense
which is involved in the production of Shakespeare's plays ought on
grounds of public policy to be diminished.
II
Every stage representation of a play requires sufficient scenery and
costume to produce in the audience that illusion of environment which
the text invites. Without so much scenery or costume the words fail to
get home to the audience. In comedies dealing with concrete conditions
of modern society, the stage presentation necessarily relies to a very
large extent for its success on the realism of the scenic appliances. In
plays which, dealing with the universal and less familiar conditions of

life, appeal to the highest faculties of thought and imagination, the
pursuit of realism in the scenery tends to destroy the full significance of
the illusion which it ought to enforce. In the case of plays
straightforwardly treating of contemporary affairs, the environment
which it is sought to reproduce is familiar and easy of imitation. In the
case of drama, which involves larger spheres of fancy and feeling, the
environment is unfamiliar and admits of no realistic imitation. The
wall-paper and furniture of Mrs So-and-so's drawing-room in Belgravia
or Derbyshire can be transferred bodily to the stage. Prospero's deserted
island does not admit of the like translation.
Effective suggestion of the scene of The Tempest is all that can be
reasonably attempted or desired. Plays which are wrought of purest
imaginative texture call solely for a scenic setting which should convey
effective suggestion. The machinery to be employed for the purpose of
effective suggestion should be simple and unobtrusive. If it be complex
and obtrusive, it defeats "the purpose of playing" by exaggerating for
the spectator the inevitable interval between the visionary and
indeterminate limits of the scene which the poet imagines, and the
cramped and narrow bounds, which the stage renders practicable. That
perilous interval can only be effectually bridged by scenic art, which is
applied with an apt judgment and a light hand. Anything that aims at
doing more than satisfy the condition essential to the effective
suggestion of the scenic environment of Shakespearean drama is, from
the literary and logical points of view, "wasteful and ridiculous
excess."[2]
[Footnote 2: A minor practical objection, from the dramatic point of
view, to realistic scenery is the long pause its setting on the stage often
renders inevitable between the scenes. Intervals of the kind, which
always tends to blunt the dramatic point of the play, especially in the
case of tragic masterpieces, should obviously be as brief as possible.]
But it is not only a simplification of scenic appliances that is needed.
Other external incidents of production require revision. Spectacular
methods of production entail the employment of armies of silent
supernumeraries to whom are allotted functions wholly ornamental and

mostly impertinent. Here, too, reduction is desirable in the interest of
the true significance of drama. No valid reason can be adduced why
persons should appear on the stage who are not precisely indicated by
the text of the play or by the authentic stage directions. When Cæsar is
buried, it is essential to produce in the audience the illusion that a
crowd of Roman citizens is taking part in the ceremony. But quality
comes here before quantity. The fewer the number of supernumeraries
by whom the needful illusion is effected, the greater the merit of the
performance, the more convincing the testimony borne to the skill of
the stage-manager. Again, no processions of psalm-singing priests and
monks contribute to the essential illusion in the historical plays. Nor
does the text of The Merchant of Venice demand any assembly of
Venetian townsfolk, however picturesquely attired, sporting or
chaffering with one another on the Rialto,