Shenandoah | Page 6

stage, as in life,
from the Wall Street giant of about 1890, as illustrated in one of my
own plays, "The Henrietta." Mr. Klein's character of the financial
magnate has developed in this country since my active days of
playwriting, and the younger dramatist was lying in wait, ready for him,
and ready to seize his peculiarities for stage purposes.
Another thing is the fact that our dramatists are doing what our literary
men have done, namely, availing themselves of the striking local
peculiarities in various parts of the country. A marked illustration of
this now before the public is Edward Milton Royle's "Squawman,"
recently at Wallack's Theatre. The dramatist has caught his picture just
in the nick of time, just before the facts of life in the Indian Territory
are passing away. He has preserved the picture for us as George W.
Cable, the novelist, preserved pictures of Creole life of old New

Orleans, made at the last possible moment.
I could go on mentioning many other plays illustrating phases of life
and society in America, and there could be no better or more positive
proof that a school of American dramatists already exists. This school
will undoubtedly continue to improve in the technical quality of its
work, exactly as it has done in the past, and probably with more
rapidity.
The question has been discussed as to whether we are ever likely to
produce an Ibsen or a Shaw, and under what conditions he would be
received. As far as concerns what may happen in the future in the way
of producing absolutely great dramatists and great plays, using the
word 'great' in the international and historical sense, the opinion of
anyone on that subject is mere guesswork and absolutely valueless.
The greatest drama in history was produced by Greece about four or
five centuries before Christ, and for a few generations afterward. Since
Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Greece has scarcely given us
anything. Aristophanes and Menander are of course remembered, but
the writers who endeavoured to follow in the footsteps of the masters
were of far inferior merit. The Roman Empire existed for nearly two
thousand years without producing any drama of its own worthy of the
name. The Romans were not a dramatic people. The works of the
so-called Latin dramatists, such as those of Plautus and Terence, were
mere imitations of the Greek.
France and England had sudden bursts of greatness followed by general
mediocrity, with occasional great writers whose advent could not
possibly have been predicted by anything in art preceding them. Even
the exception to this in France, in the middle of the nineteenth century,
was apparently a flash of light that disappeared almost as suddenly as it
came. What is the use of posing as a prophet with such a record of the
past? Anyone else is at liberty to do so. I would as soon act as harlequin.
Was there any wise man in England who, twenty-four hours before that
momentous event in April, 1564, could predict that a baby named
William Shakespeare would be born the next day? To say that an
American dramatist is to appear this year or in a thousand years who
will make an epoch is simply ridiculous.
That Ibsen exercised and will exercise great influence on American
dramatists there can be little doubt. His skill was no mere accident. He

was the most finished development of the French school of the
nineteenth century, as well as the most highly artificial individual
dramatist of that school. I call it the strictly logical school of dramatic
construction. I use the word 'artificial' in its more artistic sense, as
opposed to the so-called natural school. His subjects of course were
national, and not French. Whether his pessimism was national or
personal, I have not been able to discover. It seemed to me that he was
a pessimistic man dealing with a nation inclined to pessimism, but that
had nothing to do with the technical qualities of the man any more than
the national peculiarities of Denmark had to do with Thorvaldsen as a
follower of Greek sculpture.
As to the policy of our theatre managers, I confess that they do follow
each other; but it is simply because they think the leader they happen to
be following has discovered a current of temporary popular taste. The
authors have the same interest as the managers, and you will always
find them watching the public taste in the same manner.
Occasionally an individual dramatist, and not always the best from a
technical point of view, will develop such a strong personal bias as to
write on subjects suggested by his own tastes, without any regard to the
current of popular wishes. If he is a strong enough man he will become
a