Shakespeare and the Modern Stage | Page 5

when Shylock enters to
ponder Antonio's request for a loan. An interpolated tableau is
indefensible, and "though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make
the judicious grieve." In Antony and Cleopatra the pageant of
Cleopatra's voyage up the river Cydnus to meet her lover Antony
should have no existence outside the gorgeous description given of it
by Enobarbus.
III
What would be the practical effects of a stern resolve on the part of
theatrical managers to simplify the scenic appliances and to reduce the
supernumerary staff when they are producing Shakespearean drama?
The replies will be in various keys. One result of simplification is
obvious. There would be so much more money in the manager's pocket
after he had paid the expenses of production. If his outlay were smaller,
the sum that he expended in the production of one play of Shakespeare
on the current over-elaborate scale would cover the production of two
or three pieces mounted with simplicity and with a strict adherence to
the requirements of the text. In such an event, the manager would be
satisfied with a shorter run for each play.
On the other hand, supporters of the existing system allege that no
public, which is worth the counting, would interest itself in

Shakespeare's plays, if they were robbed of scenic upholstery and
spectacular display. This estimate rests on insecure foundations. That
section of the London public which is genuinely interested in
Shakespearean drama for its own sake, is prone to distrust the modern
theatrical manager, and as things are, for the most part avoids the
theatre altogether. The student stays at home to read Shakespeare at his
fireside.
It may be admitted that the public to which Shakespeare in his purity
makes appeal is not very large. It is clearly not large enough to
command continuous runs of plays for months, or even weeks. But
therein lies no cause for depression. Long runs of a single play of
Shakespeare bring more evil than good in their train. They develop in
even the most efficient acting a soulless mechanism. The literary
beauty of the text is obliterated by repetition from the actors' minds.
Unostentatious mounting of the Shakespearean plays, however efficient
be the acting with which it is associated, may always fail to "please the
million"; it may be "caviare to the general." Nevertheless, the sagacious
manager, who, by virtue of comparatively inexpensive settings and in
alliance with a well-chosen company of efficient actors and actresses, is
able at short intervals to produce a succession of Shakespeare's plays,
may reasonably expect to attract a small but steady and sufficient
support from the intelligent section of London playgoers, and from the
home-reading students of Shakespeare, who are not at present
playgoers at all.
IV
The practical manager, who naturally seeks pecuniary profit from his
ventures, insists that these suggestions are counsels of perfection and
these anticipations wild and fantastic dreams. His last word is that by
spectacular method Shakespeare can alone be made to "pay" in the
theatre. But are we here on perfectly secure ground? Has the
commercial success attending the spectacular production of
Shakespeare been invariably so conspicuous as to put summarily out of
court, on the purely commercial ground, the method of simplicity? The
pecuniary results are public knowledge in the case of the two most

strenuous and prolonged endeavours to give Shakespeare the
splendours of spectacle which have yet been completed on the London
stage. What is the message of these two efforts in mere pecuniary
terms?
Charles Kean may be regarded as the founder of the modern
spectacular system, though it had some precedents, and has been
developed since his day. Charles Kean, between 1851 and 1859,
persistently endeavoured by prodigal and brilliant display to make the
production of Shakespeare an enterprise of profit at the Princess's
Theatre, London. The scheme proved pecuniarily disastrous.
Subsequently Kean's mantle was assumed by the late Sir Henry Irving,
the greatest of recent actors and stage-managers, who in many regards
conferred incalculable benefits on the theatre-going public and on the
theatrical profession. Throughout the last quarter of the last century,
Irving gave the spectacular and scenic system in the production of
Shakespeare every advantage that it could derive from munificent
expenditure and the co-operation of highly endowed artists. He could
justly claim a finer artistic sentiment and a higher histrionic capacity
than Charles Kean possessed. Yet Irving announced, not long before
his death, that he lost on his Shakespearean productions a hundred
thousand pounds. Sir Henry added:
The enormous cost of a Shakespearean production on the liberal and
elaborate scale which the public is now accustomed to expect makes it
almost impossible for any manager--I don't care who it is--to pursue a
continuous policy of Shakespeare for many years with any hope of
profit in the