Is the Theatre Worth While?

WE are a busy people. Most of us are busy making a living, but in this blessed country that is not yet the grinding process of older civilizations, so to most of us comes a surplus over our actual necessities,— a surplus which oftentimes is spent with the unwise, unreckoning extravagance that has come to be looked upon as a national characteristic. Many of us are busy getting rich or trying to get rich, an occupation which narrows the soul and dwarfs the mind to the belittling of every other thought, and to the virtual starvation of the appreciation of what is beautiful in nature and art. Some of us are busy in the pursuit of social position for ourselves or our offspring, a pursuit which presupposes that those who are engaged in it have little capacity for anything greater or better. Others of us are busy governing our fellow citizens or misgoverning them; busy making history or thinking we are making history, — also occupations that leave little of energy for the enjoyment of more æsthetic pleasures. We are trying to supply the food, or the machinery, or the textiles, for the whole world, and the more ambitious of us are beginning to believe that it is our province also to enter into problems of world-government and to participate in the solving of questions which do not legitimately concern us in either our national or our individual life. All of us are more or less self-satisfied with the prominence we are assuming as a people, and patting ourselves on the back as we contemplate our growing national superiority.

There is much in all this to make us forget and become indifferent to things in which, as a nation, we are woefully deficient, and to some extent objects of pity, ridicule, and even contempt, with the very peoples we assume to patronize. In material things, in the things that we can dig from the earth or fashion with our hands or machines, and the things that money can buy, there is no doubt that we are well to do; nor is there greater doubt that we can dominate other nations in matters where trade and treaty and even brute force prevail. There is, therefore, valid reason for our natural conceit and bumptiousness, so long as we confine ourselves to things material and put aside the neglect in our lives and thoughts of the things ideal. When we look only on the utilitarian side of our national life and our utilitarian accomplishments, we may, if we like, go about the world with a fine contempt for less prosperous peoples. With a bargain to offer, or with money in our pockets to spend, no one shall say nay to our assumption of superiority. When we turn aside from these material things, when those of us who are not too busy to think look in the other direction, we may find ground for suspicion that there are some flaws in our national greatness, here and there a neglected spot on the brilliancy of the national escutcheon.

Considering the magnitude of the undertaking, and the questions which it involves, our primary education as a people is making satisfactory progress. In science and invention, in the wholly useful pursuits and discoveries, we are marching shoulder to shoulder with, and even in advance of, our national contemporaries. When we think of our beginnings and of the comparative youth of our nation, it is no wonder we grow self-assertive and look with belittling eves on other, older peoples, not so rich nor powerful as ourselves.

Busy as we may be, it might be well for us to take a little while from our absorbing occupations, and desist long enough from vaunting our superiority to consider whether we have not, also, a few national defects which it might be well for us to repair. Recent revelations might lead us to suspect that our standards of business integrity are not all that they should be. Not a year goes by but we receive some example or examples showing that our public life is not on the highest plane and that our political system has grave defects. We might also notice that our national life is one of extremes, with no mean of the happiness that comes with leisure and contentment. These and other undesirable faults, we may well and for the most part truthfully say, are natural to our youth as a people, and will correct themselves with age and experience.

Carrying our deliberations and selfexamination a little farther, we may find defects which arise from the same cause, but the speedy remedy for which lies largely in the hands of each one of us, to apply without waiting for the slow process of national evolution. And to our credit be it said that to a saving minority of us this consciousness of deficiency has come, and we are groping, sometimes blindly, sometimes intelligently, to redeem ourselves from the reproach of being an uncultured people.

These more or less trite and obvious observations on our national characteristics may seem remote and irrelevant to an inquiryasto the value of ihe theatre. But it is because things are as they are that any such inquiry arises. Were we less or more busy, less or more self-satisfied less or more concerned with purely material interests, the place of the theatre in our national life would settle itself, and would not need to be a matter of individual or concerted action. The theatre would find its own place as a mere toy or as a useful institution, depending on whether we had fallen to the point where we had thrown over all consideration of culture, or attained the level where æsthetic questions ranked with the material ones. But inasmuch as we are still in that formative state as a people, where every influence at work among us is having its effect, it may be well to turn our thoughts toward the possible value of an institution which has never received from us, as a nation, any formal recognition.

The theatric art, to which all other arts contribute, and which in its turn should be a spur and a stimulant to all other arts, has been left by us to depend for its support on its ability to survive as a commercial undertaking. To the other arts we have given, in a public way, recognition, aid, and assistance, — none too generously, it is true, because we are not an artistic people. Public money has gone into painting, sculpture, and decoration, and private generosity has housed them and patronized them for the public benefit. Music, in a different way, has levied its tribute. We make a present and increasing provision for students in these arts. But for the drama we have no gifts. We exact from her a quid pro quo, and drive an exacting bargain with the man at the door. We have debauched the drama to the point, where, to live at all, it must please, and the result is natural and logical.— the theatre lives only to please, not to elevate or to educate, not to cultivate any virtues. It has become a courtesan among the arts, whose trade is not to please the best people, but the most; not to cultivate lofty ideals and high standards, hut to spread the lure and appeal to the fancy of the crass multitude.

The theatre having become a commercial institution, it follows that the artistic side is subordinated to the commercial, and that the matter of survival is determined more by business methods than by artistic merit. The shrewdest business man is the most successful manager, and becomes the arbiter to decide between the opposing interests of art, of a vitiated or ignorant public taste, and of his own purse. With the very pick of American business genius in control of the destinies of the theatre, this would not be easy, nor even then would it be an altogether ideal state of affairs for the drama and the improvement of the public’s appreciation of tilings dramatic. Unfortunately the men to-day in charge of the business interests of the theatre are far from being representative of the best, even in American business life. The question is often raised concerning the abandonment of this important and lucrative branch of trade to men who are almost without standing in the business community. The answer is not far to seek. From the early days of the theatre a stigma has attached to it, especially among persons whose religion was of the Puritanic kind, which has left its impress so strongly on American life. This is a curious fact, when one remembers that the drama of all peoples found its birth under religious auspices. The men who find their occupation on the business side of the theatre have been recruited, with few exceptions, from those who have no education, no association with the finer things of life, and no social standing to lose. Success means to them the money return, a position of authority over others, and a place in the public eye, —all attractive to a certain class of persons who hold these as the most desirable things in life. Few American fathers starting their sons on a career, few men of education or refinement, ever consider the theatrical business as furnishing a reputable means of livelihood. For that reason the theatre is to-day in the hands of men unfitted to direct its destinies upward instead of downward.

Before attempting to estimate the present and possible value of the theatre as a national institution, let us once more resume the process of introspection, and with respect of some minor, national faults on which the theatre in its best estate might reasonably be expected to exert an improving influence. In our intercourse with the outside world we are constantly met with the reproach that we are a parvenu people. We compel a recognition of our power, of our elementary virtues, of our prosperity; but most of us fail to meet that recognition which is not compelled, or bought, but won. In every capital of Europe, we arc marked for our absurdities, our bad manners, and our gaucherie.

Presumably those Americans who go abroad are drawn largely from the class who have means and some leisure for self-cultivation. If these stand out distinguished as uncultured, how about the great masses who remain at home? It is a safe conclusion that they are even more deficient in the niceties of life than those who travel. The candid American is bound to admit that we are not a polite people. Our public servants the employees of corporations, the salesman and the saleswoman in the great shops, even our domestic servants, seem to think that the use of ordinary civility is an acknowledgment of social inferiority; not an altogether wrong conclusion when they are led to it by a similar lack of consideration and ordinary politeness on the part of those with whom they come in contact, whether of high or low degree in American life.

The unpleasingness of our speech is even a more marked characteristic than our bad manners. Since we are all strident or nasal of voice, we naturally do not notice the defect, but Ave quickly find an unusual charm in the vocal modulations of the foreigner, even though he or she be drawn from the humbler classes. The American with any sensitiveness of ear, who returns from abroad, quickly notes this defect of his people, particularly if he numbers among his early experiences attendance on an assembly made up largely of American women, unless perchance the Babel be modified by the presence of Southerners with their over-sweet drawl.

A more serious national defect, for it threatens the purity of our language, is our slovenliness of pronunciation. It is an evil which permeates all classes and all circles of American society. It is not alone the incorrectness which comes from carelessness or ignorance, and which might be corrected in most cases by an appeal to a good dictionary. This incorrectness is general, even in the pulpit, in the forum, and on the stage, and it is not strange that the people at large are afflicted with it. Add to it local variants in the way of accent, elision, and intonation, and pure English is in a fair way to become an unknown tongue, its place being taken by as many dialects as there are states in the Union and races which go to make up our cosmopolitan population.

For the great task of national education in the essentials, we are doing our full duty. It is the rightful concern of the nation, the state, and the community, that the new generations and the newcomers to our shores shall be given the elementary instruction which shall make them at least intelligent citizens. By donation and bequest individuals have generously aided and are aiding in this function of national preservation. But the very magnitude of the task makes it impossible that these efforts shall be carried far in the direction of finer cultivation. Great as are our resources, the education of the whole people can be carried only a little way, and that in the direction of utilities. Training in the graces and in the refinements of life must be, and is, left almost entirely to chance circumstances and to the influences which happen to surround the individual. He will without trouble find churches provided for the care of his soul, boards of health, hospitals, and doctors for his body, and educational facilities and libraries for bis mind, but the finer things, which distinguish the cultured being from the boor, he must seek for himself. Under our form of government, it is well that this should be so.

The ambition to acquire culture is a well-known trait of the better class of Americans; even those of us who have been deprived of it for ourselves seek it for our children. We may not know just wherein we are ourselves lacking, —and, as said before, that ignorance of graciousness is widely spread, — but we appreciate that there is a lack, and in a vague way we seek to supply the mysterious something. The tremendous vogue of certain journals which profess to supply information and instruction in the niceties of life, the inquiries that overwhelm writers on these topics, even the mistaken affectations of some social climbers, go to prove the existence of a national desire for the mysterious hall-mark which identifies the person of refinement.

To claim that the stage, no matter how improved, could work an immediate revolution in the manners and taste of our people, would be manifestly absurd; but it is entirely safe to say that the theatre could, in the matters which are apparently so unimportant in life, yet which mean so much, be an important factor in moulding at least the externals of our national character. This means, however, that, busy as we are, we should give the theatre a more important place in our thoughts and in our scheme of popular education than that at present allotted to it. Nor is the claim that the theatre might be made a teacher of improvement in the minor things of life the only one that can be made for it; it might be made the medium for the elevation of the popular taste in all the arts and in literature, and even for the inculcation of the principles of lofty thought and right living. It may seem strange that a people so clever as we are have neglected this potent influence for good, and have regarded it only as a toy for our amusement, to be shaped and fashioned by the toy-merchant solely with a view to making it catch the fancy, and therefore become a salable and profitable article of merchandise. But, as we are a busy and, on the whole, a self-satisfied people, beyond our pursuits and ambitions we look oidy for the amusements which shall be the least a burden to us.

A recent reliable estimate places the amount of capital invested in theatres in the United States as something over three hundred millions of dollars, and the amount the public pays each year for its theatrical amusements at fifty millions of dollars. The support that we give, and the interest we evince in the theatre is certainly not niggardly in a money way. It cannot be said that we do not provide the theatre in America with the means to rival the dramatic accomplishments of any other nation. The secret of its nonrealization of its possibilities is not there. If we conclude that the theatre, as it is, is not worth while, we shall have also to conclude that the reason is not a lack of patronage, but that our patronage is not properly bestowed.

Here we come against the old discussion of the proper function of the theatre, — for what purpose we make this vast investment and annual expenditure. There can be no doubt as to what its function is considered by the great mass of people and by those who are catering to the masses, — that the theatre is simply a means of amusement to which the flippant or the fatigued shall turn for an easy occupation of their thoughts or the gratification of their senses. There can be no denial that in our day this is the primary and essential use of the theatre, and that, even so viewed, it is well worth while, if the occupation and relaxation are made good of their kind, even regarded solely as amusement. It may quite well be that even from this point of view we give the theatre a support and an attention out of proportion to its real value as a recreation and a means of mental recuperation. And by demanding only that it shall amuse, we give it also dangerous possibilities of teaching things that are injurious or degrading. If we insist that it shall make us laugh, or bring us excitement, or arouse our emotions, we are likely to reach the jaded point where we are not critical of the means employed, so long as the object is attained, and in the amusement world there will always be found those ready to pander to any desire for which payment is forthcoming.

Iiut to put aside the idea of amusement and regard the theatre solely as an instrument of education would certainly make it not worth while in a broad way. Instead of the general support now accorded to it voluntarily by the people, we should need government subsidies, and attendance would have to be made compulsory. Human nature has a way of not taking kindly to what it is told is good for it. The very earliest doctors learned to sugar-coat their pills; in the theatre the sugar-coating, the amusement, is bound always to be an absolute essential and the leading ingredient. If we keep the theatre mostly a place of amusement, and yet educational, in teaching by example some of the things in which, as a people, we are deficient, we must answer our question by saying that, even so, the theatre is very well worth while.

To make the theatre truly valuable, to give it its highest value, we must admit that its first function is to amuse, and then to that function, where we can, add such educational influence as is possible. Some voluminous reader has said that no book ever written was so trivial or bad that he could not extract from it at least one idea of value. And there probably never was any stage production so bad intrinsically that, if done in the best way it could be done, it would not teach something to some of its spectators. In its best estate, the theatre might be made an educational influence, especially in the graces of speech, manners, and intercourse, second to none at our command.

The temples of the drama are scattered everywhere, in the small towns as well as in the great cities. Their doors are open not Sundays only, but every day of the week. The congregations gather gladly, and not from a sense of duty, or at the prickings of conscience. They are in a receptive mood. The thing seen and heard comes directly to all classes, to both sexes, to every age. A greater or less quantity of what they see or hear is taken into their inner consciousness, and, unknown to themselves, is reflected faintly or strongly in their own lives and their own persons; and yet we, who think ourselves a wise people, let this potent influence for good or bad find its guidance in whatever hands it may chance to fall.

An unfortunate obstacle to bringing the theatre to its highest value is found in the preponderance of the estimation of New York audiences in determining what shall and shall not be seen by the rest of the country. The theatres of New York derive their support largely from a floating population which, on the one hand, is in holiday mood and too ready to be pleased, and, on the other, puts an exaggerated value on anything that is metropolitan. The local clientele of the theatres is in the main made up of a thoughtless multitude, whose standard is based solely on the idea of amusement, without reference to taste or refinement The importance of the New York verdict is so great from a business point of view that every sacrifice is made to win the approval of this capricious and frivolous public, which is governed in its likes and dislikes by no fixed laws, and whose judgment isguided by little knowledge. There exists in New York, of course, a theatregoing public whose verdict, is valuable, and, once secured, brings sure success, but the thoughtful and cultured element in the community has, from disappointing experiences, learned to be wary. Only in exceptional circumstances, and with unusual guarantees in advance, can it be brought to give that endorsement of its presence, whose counterfeit is so often used to lure the unsuspecting in other places. The consequence is that we have the theatrical standards of the whole country based largely on the verdict of New York’s frivolity and ignorance, which often leads those who trust themselves to it to complain that the theatre certainly is not worth the time and money the public gives to it.

The condition does not exist, but let us imagine the theatre being what it should be to be worth while. We shall have to presuppose the existence of writers who could supply to the stage works which should at least be free from technical defects. Working with them should be artists and artisans to give surroundings and settings, which should at least not be tasteless and inaccurate; and to these essentials must be added actors and actresses who should al least know how, or could be made, to speak correctly, wear their attire correctly, and carry themselves correctly. These are not great exactions, but they are far above what we now demand from the theatre. Grant these not unreasonable requirements, and there will be no question of the value of the theatre as a public educator in the very things in which the American people makes least provision for education. Even if we made no advance in the dramatic material which forms the staple of our theatrical entertainment at present, it would, in a minor educational way, be an influence for the better,instead of what it now very often is, an example of vulgarity and illiteracy.

It is far easier to point out an evil and to picture an ideal, than it is to change the evil to the ideal, or even to tinge the evil with the ideal. Granting that the theatre, as it is, is not worth while, how are we going to make it worth while, and give it the value it deserves as a national institution ?

We must first abandon a little of our national self-conceit and self-satisfaction; we must gain a suspicion that we are not the great people we are so fond of picturing ourselves and having others tell us we are. We must realize that national greatness does not consist alone in the expanse of territory governed, in material wealth, in the ability to fight, not even in the high average of the physical comfort of a people. The big fellow with lands and possessions, comfortably clad and well-fed, shrewd at bargains and strong enough to have his way, is not therefore a great man. Without culture,— with his senses refined to no higher degree than those of the beasts on whose ownership he prides himself, — he still remains a boor. Practical education, even if raised to the point of scholarship or science, leaves him yet lacking of things beautiful; and he, as well as the nation composed of units like him and the women and children of his kind, falls short of the high plane which men and nations must reach before they shall be called entirely great.

And if we are to have a theatre that shall be worth while, we must not be so busy that we cannot spare a little thought to what we are going to see and hear in the theatre. If our highest idea of humor is the clown tickling his nose with a straw, and we do not stop to think that perhaps there may be other and higher forms of amusement, and if we do not demand something more and better, the clown and the straw in different phases will be all that we shall ever get. The yokel goes to see him year after year, and always with the same delight. Most of us have advanced beyond that stage, but there is something of the yokel left in us yet, and many of us have little ambition to raise the standard by caring for or making the demand for better things. And, allowing that we have the incentive, to make the demand in a practical and effective way involves too much trouble or sacrifice to be bestowed on a mere matter of amusement. For ourselves, and certainly for those who are to come after us, we should be wiser. We should use a little discrimination in our patronage of the theatre, and a little substitution of other amusements for our heedless rushing to entertainments simply because they are put before us in alluring advertisements and through the dubious theatrical news of the newspapers. To bring this suggestion down to easy terms means that, in the case of the individual, he should avail himself of every means at his command to scrutinize in advance more closely the quality of the entertainments to which he is invited to give his patronage and support. The condition of the theatre is bad because, on account of the thoughtlessness and heedless extravagance of our people, bad entertainments are supported almost as well as good ones. There is slight incentive to improve when a thoughtless or ignorant public bestows its favors so indiscriminately as ours does. We busy people have no time to note and no memories to treasure the identity of those who have cheated us in our amusements. The old proverb, “once bit, twice shy,”is almost obsolete, and is completely so in the relations of the American public with their purveyors of theatrical amusement.

In this suggestion of the lack of critical acumen, and of a too great carelessness in the bestowal of time and money on unworthy entertainments, no quarrel is intended with those who prefer any particular form of amusement. The gentleman who regards negro minstrelsy as the highest form of the art Thespian is quite entitled to that preference, but we beseech him not to go to the minstrels unless he has some reasons, other than those portrayed in the posters, for believing that they are good minstrels. Let him put the burden of proof on the person who has the goods for sale and wants his money. Then he, in common with the rest of us who patronize theatres, would less often leave the performance with the feeling that he had been swindled; nor would he so often be compelled to indulge in that good-natured philosophy, common to Americans, which makes us complacent when we are cheated, and quick to forget. If our resentments in matters like this were deeper, and our memories better, it would not be so easy for mountebank managers to thrive and repeatedly swindle the public. This remedy for theatrical ills seems impractical, in view of the untrustworthiness of the press in the matter of theatrical information, and in view of our national craze for amusements, good, if convenient, but bad, if we cannot get what is good. Yet it is the only one that rests in the hands of the individual.

A national endowed theatre has been proposed as a means of bringing the theatre, the country over, to a plane of artistic excellence which would remove all doubt as to its value. This institution, as pictured by its proponents, would have a guaranteed income derived from invested funds supplied by public or private gift. This sure income would insure its permanency without the necessity on its part of catering to any but cultivated tastes. It would have its school of acting, the besteducated producers of plays, a thoroughly equipped stage and theatre, a company, which, through care in its selection and its permanency, would give performances perfect in every detail, and its repertory would be drawn from the best in dramatic literature, classic and contemporary. Not the least valuable of its functions would be to give an assurance to American dramatists that, if they could produce worthy work, it would have adequate presentation, — an assurance entirely lacking with the commercial theatre under the control of those who are not fitted by education to recognize good material when it. is brought to them.

No doubt can exist that such an institution would be of tremendous value to the theatre in America, and therefore to the cause of American popular education. Its cost in the way of an endowment, carefully estimated at from six to seven millions of dollars, seems an almost insuperable obstacle to its establishment, but it cannot be doubted that some day there will be found among our very rich men and women one or more who will be clear-sighted enough to see the patriotic value of such a foundation, and provide the means to make it a reality.

Its influence, of course, would not be confined to its immediate locality, but would spread to every theatre, and would tinge every theatrical performance in the country. Its school would turn out actors trained in the niceties of their art, to take the places of the unqualified and uninstructed persons who make up a large part of the acting forces of to-day. It would give us what we do not possess, — a standard of theatric excellence, which should uplift the standard of every theatre and every production on the American stage. It would be a preserver of pure speech and a criterion of good manners; it would raise the quality of dramatic literature; directly and indirectly, it would educate the eyes, the ears, and the artistic understanding of the whole people. It might go further than this by inculcating an inner as well as an outer refinement, but it would be quite worth its cost, if by example it should do no more than improve the externals.

The final answer to the question as to the value of the theatre must be a qualified one. As the theatre now is, it is doubtful whether, even as an amusement, and as a relief from our other occupations, it is worth what we bestow upon it in time and money. There are other, saner objects, wliich, with equal support, might bring us greater and more beneficent relaxation. But if we grant to the present situation a more careful consideration of the theatre, and a greater discrimination in our theatre-going, — in other words, if we use a certain moderation in our American extravagance where the theatre is concerned,—we can do much, and all that is within our power as individuals, to make the theatre really worth while as an American institution. As it exists, it is a creature of haphazard growth, kicked and petted by turns, in whose present formation there have been at work so many ill-advised influences, that it is like an over-indulged and spoiled child, with too many relatives who do not care for its future, if only they can get from it the moment’s pleasure. It needs discipline before it can become at once our joy and pride. A judicious denial to it of the favors which have pampered it into an exaggerated idea of its importance in our lives would be the best thing that could happen to the theatre to-day. Such a deprivation of popular favor is a deprivation easy to be brought about when we realize that we are none of us really too busy to give a little thought to what should be an important national institution, and that as a people we should be a little ashamed of our indiscriminate encouragement of the theatre as it is in America. Once we make it a discredit for the individual to lend his or her support to what is cheap or tawdry or inartistic on the stage, we shall bring about a speedy and affirmative answer to any question as to the theatre’s value as an asset in American culture.