Shakespeare and the Modern Stage | Page 9

pretty
permanent factor in human society--but to the superior imaginative
faculty of adult Elizabethan or Jacobean playgoers, in whom, as in
Garrick's time, the needful dramatic illusion was far more easily
evoked than it is nowadays.
This is no exhilarating conclusion. But less exhilarating is the
endeavour that is sometimes made by advocates of the system of
spectacle to prove that Shakespeare himself would have appreciated the
modern developments of the scenic art--nay, more, that he himself has
justified them. This line of argument serves to confirm the suggested
defect of imagination in the present generation. The well-known chorus
before the first act of Henry V. is the evidence which is relied upon to
show that Shakespeare wished his plays to be, in journalistic dialect,
"magnificently staged," and that he deplored the inability of his
uncouth age to realise that wish. The lines are familiar; but it is
necessary to quote them at length, in fairness to those who judge them
to be a defence of the spectacular principle in the presentation of
Shakespearean drama. They run:--
O for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of

invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to
behold the swelling scene! Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels, Leash'd in like hounds,
should famine, sword and fire Crouch for employment. But pardon,
gentles all, The flat unraised spirits that have dar'd On this unworthy
scaffold to bring forth So great an object: can this cockpit hold The
vasty fields of France? or may we cram Within this wooden O the very
casques That did affright the air at Agincourt? O, pardon! since a
crooked figure may Attest in little place a million; And let us, ciphers
to this great accompt, On your imaginary forces work. Suppose within
the girdle of these walls Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts, The perilous narrow ocean
parts asunder; Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts; Into a
thousand parts divide one man, And make imaginary puissance: Think,
when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i'
the receiving earth. For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times, Turning the
accomplishment of many years Into an hour glass.
There is, in my opinion, no strict relevance in these lines to the enquiry
whether Shakespeare's work should be treated on the stage as drama or
spectacle. Nay, I go further, and assert that, as far as the speech touches
the question at issue at all, it tells against the pretensions of spectacle.
Shortly stated, Shakespeare's splendid prelude to his play of Henry V.,
is a spirited appeal to his audience not to waste regrets on defects of
stage machinery, but to bring to the observation of his piece their
highest powers of imagination, whereby alone can full justice be done
to a majestic theme. The central topic of the choric speech is the
essential limitations of all scenic appliances. The dramatist reminds us
that the literal presentation of life itself, in all its movement and action,
lies outside the range of the stage, especially the movement and action
of life in its most glorious manifestations. Obvious conditions of space
do not allow "two mighty monarchies" literally to be confined within
the walls of a theatre. Obvious conditions of time cannot turn "the
accomplishments of many years into an hour glass." Shakespeare is
airing no private grievance. He is not complaining that his plays were

in his own day inadequately upholstered in the theatre, or that the
"scaffold" on which they were produced was "unworthy" of them. The
words have no concern with the contention that modern upholstery and
spectacular machinery render Shakespeare's play a justice which was
denied them in his lifetime. As reasonably one might affirm that the
modern theatre has now conquered the ordinary conditions of time and
space; that a modern playhouse can, if the manager so will it, actually
hold within its walls the "vasty fields of France," or confine "two
mighty monarchies."
A wider and quite impersonal trend of thought is offered for
consideration by Shakespeare's majestic eloquence. The dramatist bids
us bear in mind that his lines do no more than suggest the things he
would have the audience see and understand; the actors aid the
suggestion according to their ability. But the crucial point of the
utterance is the warning that the illusion of the drama can only be
rendered complete in the theatre by the working of the "imaginary
forces" of the spectators. It is needful for them to "make imaginary
puissance," if the play is to triumph. It is their "thoughts" that "must
deck"