The Theory of the Theatre | Page 6

only by seeing the two pieces performed equally well in the theatre
that we can appreciate by what a wide margin Othello is the better play.
This practical point has been felt emphatically by the very greatest
dramatists; and this fact offers, of course, an explanation of the
otherwise inexplicable negligence of such authors as Shakespeare and
Molière in the matter of publishing their plays. These supreme
playwrights wanted people to see their pieces in the theatre rather than
to read them in the closet. In his own lifetime, Shakespeare, who was
very scrupulous about the publication of his sonnets and his narrative
poems, printed a carefully edited text of his plays only when he was
forced, in self-defense, to do so, by the prior appearance of corrupt and
pirated editions; and we owe our present knowledge of several of his
dramas merely to the business acumen of two actors who, seven years
after his death, conceived the practical idea that they might turn an easy
penny by printing and offering for sale the text of several popular plays
which the public had already seen performed. Sardou, who, like most
French dramatists, began by publishing his plays, carefully withheld
from print the master-efforts of his prime; and even such dramatists as
habitually print their plays prefer nearly always to have them seen first
and read only afterwards.
In elucidation of what might otherwise seem perversity on the part of
great dramatic authors like Shakespeare, we must remember that the
master-dramatists have nearly always been men of the theatre rather
than men of letters, and therefore naturally more avid of immediate
success with a contemporary audience than of posthumous success with
a posterity of readers. Shakespeare and Molière were actors and
theatre-managers, and devised their plays primarily for the patrons of
the Globe and the Palais Royal. Ibsen, who is often taken as a type of
the literary dramatist, derived his early training mainly from the
profession of the theatre and hardly at all from the profession of letters.
For half a dozen years, during the formative period of his twenties, he
acted as producing manager of the National Theatre in Bergen, and
learned the tricks of his trade from studying the masterpieces of
contemporary drama, mainly of the French school. In his own work, he
began, in such pieces as _Lady Inger of Ostråt_, by imitating and
applying the formulas of Scribe and the earlier Sardou; and it was only
after many years that he marched forward to a technique entirely his

own. Both Sir Arthur Wing Pinero and Mr. Stephen Phillips began their
theatrical career as actors. On the other hand, men of letters who have
written works primarily to be read have almost never succeeded as
dramatists. In England, during the nineteenth century, the following
great poets all tried their hands at plays--Scott, Southey, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Browning, Mrs. Browning, Matthew
Arnold, Swinburne, and Tennyson--and not one of them produced a
work of any considerable value from the standpoint of dramatic
criticism. Tennyson, in Becket, came nearer to the mark than any of the
others; and it is noteworthy that, in this work, he had the advantage of
the advice and, in a sense, collaboration of Sir Henry Irving.
The familiar phrase "closet-drama" is a contradiction of terms. The
species of literary composition in dialogue that is ordinarily so
designated occupies a thoroughly legitimate position in the realm of
literature, but no position whatsoever in the realm of dramaturgy.
Atalanta in Calydon is a great poem; but from the standpoint of the
theory of the theatre, it cannot be considered as a play. Like the lyric
poems of the same author, it was written to be read; and it was not
devised to be presented by actors on a stage before an audience.
We may now consider the significance of the three concluding phrases
of the definition of a play which was offered at the outset of the present
chapter. These phrases indicate the immanence of three influences by
which the work of the playwright is constantly conditioned.
In the first place, by the fact that the dramatist is devising his story for
the use of actors, he is definitely limited both in respect to the kind of
characters he may create and in respect to the means he may employ in
order to delineate them. In actual life we meet characters of two
different classes, which (borrowing a pair of adjectives from the
terminology of physics) we may denominate dynamic characters and
static characters. But when an actor appears upon the stage, he wants to
act; and the dramatist is therefore obliged to confine his attention to
dynamic characters, and to exclude static characters almost entirely
from the range of his creation. The essential trait of