Dramatic Opinions and Essays with an Apology by Bernard Shaw

DRAMATIC OPINIONS AND ESSAYS WITH AN APOLOGY BY BERNARD SHAW CONTAINING AS WELL A WORD ON THE DRAMATIC OPINIONS AND ESSAYS OF BERNARD SHAW BY JAMES HUNEKER VOLUME ONE NEW YORK: BRENTANO‟S, MCMXXII CONTENTS A Word on the Dramatic Opinions and Essays of Bernard Shaw by James Huneker The Author‟s Apology by Bernard Shaw Slaves of the Ring Two New Plays King Arthur Poor Shakespeare! An Old New Play and a New Old One Mr. Pinero‟s New Play The Independent Theatre Repents L‟Œuvre At the Theatres Two Bad Plays Spanish Tragedy and English Farce Mr. Irving Takes Paregoric The Two Latest Comedies A New Lady Macbeth and a News Mrs. Ebbsmith Sardoodledom Two Plays Duse and Bernhardt La Princesse Lointaine Mr. Daly Fossilizes Poor Shakespeare! Toujours Daly The Season‟s Moral 2 Romeo and Juliet Pinero As He Is Acted The Chili Widow More Masterpieces The New Magdalen and the Old Trilby and “L‟Ami des Femmes” The Case for the Critic-Dramatist Manxsome and Traditional The Divided Way Told You So The Old Acting and the New Mr. John Hare One of the Worst New Year Dramas Plays of the Week Michael and His Lost Angel Church and the Stage Dear Harp of My Country! The Tailor and the Stage Two Plays Pinero and Grundy on G.B.S. The Return of Mrs. Pat Boiled Heroine Mary Anderson 3 Nietzsche in English Two Easter Pieces Punch and Judy Again The Immortal William The Farcical Comedy Outbreak Henry IV Resurrection Pie G.B.S. on Clement Stone 4 A WORD ON THE DRAMATIC OPINIONS AND ESSAYS OF BERNARD SHAW BY JAMES HUNEKER THIS book is composed of selections from the dramatic criticisms of Bernard Shaw, which ap- peared in the London Saturday Review, begin- ning January 5th, 1895, and ending May 21st, 1898— a notable period in the history of that journal, for it inaugurated the regime of Frank Harris, and the ad- vent of such brilliant writers as Shaw, Harris, MacColl, Runciman, Cunninghame Graham, and other distinguished spirits. Bernard Shaw did not burst like a meteor upon the British metropolis; he was known and admired in certain circles before he took to the cart and trumpet. He was a bold man in the ranks of Socialists; he wrote novels and plays; he criticized music and pic- tures and, as he confesses, he lived through it all; in- deed, he waxed strong therefrom. But he admits that the theatre nearly killed him. For over three years he sat in the seat of the critical mighty and filled his eyes and ears with bad, mad, and mediocre plays. His fa- mous hob-nailed Alpine shoes worn for the purpose of tramping London picture galleries, failed him in the theatre. His soul grew soggy, his bones softened; and after an accident he threw over his self-imposed task with a gasp of relief and the stalls knew him no more. He now produces plays instead of rowing in the galleys with the critical chain-gang; why cannonade cock- shafers when you can demonstrate that the possession of the critical faculty does not oust the creative! But his criticisms still live. They are as alive to-day as a decade ago, a sure test of their value; theatrical chronicling is seldom of an enduring character. It is the man ambushed behind the paragraph, the Shaw in the woodpile, with his stark individuality, that makes these criticisms delightful, and irritating and sugges- tive. I pretend to hear the clattering of those hob- nailed Alpine shoes in his criticisms as they unroll before us, some violent, many ironic, all interesting and erudite. We decry impressionistic criticism, and lift reverent eyes before them that pace academic groves. But the difference is largely a fanciful one—not as real as 5 Stendhal‟s wicked definition of Classic and Romantic. Dr. William Barry wisely says that “the whole art of Judgment is faithful impression.” All criticism is per- sonal, and neither academic nor impressionistic criticism should be taken too seriously. Anatole France has proved that one may be both wise and witty while sailing his soul in quest of masterpieces. A man‟s ponderous learning is of no more value than the superficial skating of some merry emotional blade over the dramatic ice. The main point is—particularly in dramatic criticism — whether the writer holds our attention. Otherwise his work has no excuse for existence. Be as profound as you please—but be pleasing. Nature abhors an absolute; and there is no absolute in dramatic criticism. It is an exotic growth and as inutile as politics. Now Shaw always holds one‟s attention, nay, grips it, and at times rudely chokes it into submission. His utterances are male, forceful and modern. The chief need now is for some responsible person to swear that he has seen Bernard Shaw in the flesh and thus give the lie to the circulated report that there is no such man. Don‟t smile. Not so long ago his identity was seriously questioned in a well-known London daily newspaper. Shaw was said to be a syndicate; the fabri- cation of some clever charlatan; a pen, not a human. I am exceedingly happy to assure you that Bernard Shaw, like the great god Pan, is alive. I have viewed him and he acted like a modest man. I met him but twice. If I knew him better I would not be able to write with such facility of him and his ideas. Doubt- less my Shaw is not the real Shaw—but what is the real Shaw? Can Shaw answer that question himself? In his preface to “The Quintessence of Ibsenism,” he challenged Ibsen on the same score. “The existence of a discoverable and perfectly defi- nite thesis in a poet‟s work by no means depends on the completeness of his own intellectual consciousness of it.” Thus Mr. Shaw. Nor, by the same token, does his personality. My Shaw may be not your Shaw, or Shaw‟s Shaw, yet he is a perfectly viable person, a man of wrath and humors, a fellow of infinite wit, learned with- out pedantry, and of a charm—if one finds caviar and paprika charming. Perhaps that autobiography of his —to be published he says fifty years after his death— 6 will clear up all our cloudy conceptions of this Boojum who may turn out, after all, to be a Snark. Like the late poet, Paul Verlaine, there are days when Shaw wears his demon mask to frighten bores away. In reality he is excessively angelic. All the rest is grimace. II By this time the world is acquainted with the Shaw opinions, the Shaw plays, novels, prefaces and the Shavian philosophy. If not, then it is no fault of the illustrious G.B.S. He has toiled for publicity. He acknowledges the fact. And there is no denying that such muscularity in behalf of one‟s personality must have proved mortifying to a man of Shaw‟s retiring nature; he remarks somewhere that he is “congenitally shy.” Yet when popularity came he fought against it. He metaphorically twiddled the fingers of scorn in the face of a credulous and eager public. Like Richard Wagner Bernard Shaw insulted the English world only to capture, in the end, its suffrage, its sympathy, its admiration. Little wonder, then, there are moments when he doubts himself, his mission, even his originality. Success during one‟s lifetime is not always the reward of genius. If you wish the entire solution of that puzzle which once kept London up late o‟ nights trying to solve it, read with care the judgment passed by Mr. Shaw‟s phy- sician upon the eyes of his distinguished patient. This eminent authority on optics found the Shaw vision normal. Therefore like the world at large? Not at all— I quote from memory—replied, in effect, the medical man. Normal eyesight is possessed by about ten per cent of humanity. The remainder, presumably, being abnormal. By a swift transposition of vision to intellectual judgment Mr. Shaw claimed the gift of seeing things differently and better—Ah, the canny Irishman. Let us succumb to this assertion, for upon it depends the validity of my argument—and also explains Shaw to the universe at large and to Shaw in particular. The Shaw eye and brain being perfectly normal, it is safe, therefore, to assume that the Shaw verdicts upon life are equally so. Ibsen swears the minority is always 7 right; but here is a minority with a vengeance; it is a more aristocratic court of supremacy than M. Huys- mans‟ “dozen superior persons scattered throughout the universe.” However, let us agree to accept the Shavian self-valuation. The world is in the wrong as a consequence of this logic; wrong in its material liv- ing, wrong in its spiritual beliefs; wrong in its intellectual assents. From Shakespeare to the musical glasses we have been, all of us, on the wrong track about the drama; our religious faiths are modified ancestor worship; our social life a sham; our glories—civic and military, poetic and practical, artistic and me- chanical, have been a huge mistake. But this wholesale accusation of error, this brief of Shaw vs. the Cosmos, has a suspiciously familiar ring. We have heard it before. Other men‟s voices from Koheleth to Jonathan Swift‟s, from Diogenes to Schopenhauer‟s, have been lifted up against life as lived on our unimportant planet.

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