punctuation, and everything that he has hitherto connected with the notion of literature. When he sticks fast over the expression of a thought, he must imagine the friend in front of him and himself explaining that thought by word of mouth, and he must write as he would speak. Above all, he must make no attempt to imitate professional authors by the aid of his recollections of newspapers and books. At all cost of dignity, sonority, and convention, he must be simple and unaffected. Doubtless he will think ruefully that this haphazard, school-boyish, unconventional production which he is accomplishing is not in the least literature. He may be satisfied, nevertheless, that it is a nearer approach to literature than he could arrive at by any other procedure.
The Literary Assistant.
When he has finished the first division he may call it a chapter and regard it as part of a book. He should take it to his agent, if he has employed one, and ascertain whether it will “do.” He may rely on the agent’s candid opinion. If he has not employed an agent, he must get the best opinion available. Should the opinion be favourable, the amateur author may of course continue as before. Should the opinion be wholly or mainly adverse, he must call in a literary specialist to his assistance. He may be introduced to such a person by his agent, or the editor of any literary paper would be happy to make a recommendation. This literary assistant is an inexpensive luxury and well worth his cost. He will either work for a share in the profits, or for a fixed remuneration. His function is to keep an eye on the general symmetry of the book, and to turn the actual author’s amateurish sentences into respectable, flowing English. However badly the actual author writes, he should, if he wishes the best ultimate result, write out the whole book himself after discussing the outlines of it with the assistant; the assistant will then re-write it in consultation with him. The preface, if any, &c., should be done last of all. The assistant’s name does not appear on the title-page.
Chapter X
Playwriting
Conditions of the Stage.
It is of course impossible for me, in a book of this scope and these dimensions, to deal adequately with such a complex subject as the art, craft, and business of writing for the stage. I shall pretend to do no more than offer a brief sketch of the conditions of the modern theatre, together with a few hints for the aspiring dramatist. The artistic level of the English stage is at present low. It is much higher than it was twenty years ago, but scarcely so high as it was five or six years ago. There are certainly a few talented playwrights; but there is no living acted playwright whose talent, had it been a talent for fiction, would have raised him beyond the second or third rank as a novelist. Our best plays, as works of art, are strikingly inferior to our best novels. A large section of the educated public ignores the modern English theatre as being unworthy of attention. A really fine serious modern play, dealing honestly with modem life as the best novels deal honestly with modem life, has not the slightest chance of being presented unless it happens to contain a magnificent part for an eminent player, a part such as Magda in Suderman’s Heimath, played by Mrs. Patrick Campbell. And it may be said that no play of which the mise-en-scene is not luxurious and the characters not rich or titled, can get itself produced for a run under any circumstances. The playgoing public does not like artistic and truthful plays; or at any rate the modem dramatist with sufficient creative energy in him to force the public to like artistic and truthful plays has not yet come to the front The most successful modem plays are a mixture of sweet sentimentality and ingenuous farce. The most artistic of successful plays during the last ten years have nearly all been farces. And every successful play of serious pretensions has made glaring concessions of sentimentality to the public taste.
No one in particular is to blame for this state of affairs. The standard of taste rises and falls inexplicably. The nation as a whole must blame the whole nation. The playwrights do the best they can; the managers do the best they can; and the public would be unspeakably foolish to go and see that which it did not enjoy. One of the most successful and enlightened managers in London told me once, in a burst of unwonted confidence, that throughout his management he had only produced one play which gave real satisfaction to himself. In response to my query he named a piece (not a modern one) which was decidedly a work of art. That there is a genuine desire among the best managers to produce good plays I am convinced. But the manager’s first desideratum is, and ought to be, a remunerative box-office. The people who inveigh against the English stage, and suggest measures for its reform, are misguided. Nothing will reform the stage but a general upward movement of dramatic taste. When the theatrical public begins to approach the artistic level of the musical public and of the fiction-reading public, then also the theatre will begin to be reformed.
But the theatre can never offer the same untrammelled opportunities to the creative artist as the novel. Its machinery is too vast, intricate, and subject to breakdown. The dramatist who means to gain the general ear is compelled to adapt himself to so many various conditions that he cannot hope, even under the best circumstances, to attain a free expression of his mind. He is bound to consider the salaries and idiosyncrasies of actors and actresses, the hours of dinner and of suburban trains, the specialities of theatres, the limitations of stages, the etiquette of greenrooms. These and similar founts of anxiety and trouble are eternal.
Divisions of the Theatre.
The London stage may be roughly divided into three parts. First and most opulent, the division of musical comedy. The manufacture of musical comedy is interesting and curious, but I am not aware that it has anything to do with dramatic art A more important point is that the world of musical comedy is a self-contained world, an island cut off from the larger world of the stage. I do not think that there is any room in it for an outsider. Its gates are shut against strange faces; and indeed the capitalists of musical comedy have every reason to be content with the men they have got. The second division is that of melodrama, not on the whole a very flourishing division. The decline of melodrama was clearly shown in the transmogrification of the Adelphi Theatre a few years ago. The few successful melodramas seem now to come principally from the United States. The third (miscellaneous) division is that of comedy —a term of wide significance which includes both farces (usually called “light comedies,” or “farcical comedies”), and comedies proper —and “drama,” costume or otherwise. This third division alone possesses any sort of an artistic ideal. It is mainly under the control of a few actor-managers, men of some education who, while they desire money, desire more than money; and it is beyond question prepared to welcome the absolute outsider.
The Chance of Getting In.
There are eight or ten theatres in London under regular and successful managements who find the supply of suitable plays rather inadequate to the demand, and who are ready to buy suitable plays, no matter who offers them. Many times have I heard managers confess, after the event, that they had been “up a tree” for lack of a suitable play. I am acquainted with a number of instances in which first-class West End managers have bought plays from playwrights of no reputation and no experience. One manager once assured me that he attached no importance whatever to the name of the author of a play, and that, other things being equal, he preferred an unknown author, since an unknown author would be content with smaller royalties. “Your famous playwright,” he added bitterly, “wants all the profits.”
One of the most extraordinary mysteries about the modern stage is that more men are not tempted to make a bid for the splendid rewards which it showers on the successful dramatist. I have been admitted to some of the managerial secrets of a West End theatre second to none in renown, in success, and in the inclusive breadth of its repertoire. I have seen the book containing particulars of every play offered to that
