Mr. John Hare's "As You Like It," Mr. Wilson Barrett's "Hamlet" and "Othello," and Mr. George Alexander's "As You Like It" and "Much Ado About Nothing." Again, at the Haymarket, under a recent management, one might have seen produced in this culpable fashion "Hamlet," "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Henry IV." Now, I am not in a position, by means of the brutal and unanswerable logic of figures, to speak of the success which attended the various productions of my brother managers; neither do I pretend to declare that the majority is always right; nor shall I seek to set up commercial success as the standard by which artistic endeavor must be gauged. But I do know that by the public favor many of the managers whom I have mentioned succeeded in keeping for a number of months in the bills their great Shakespearean productions, and I believe that in the aggregate those productions brought them ample and substantial reward. That we should look for that sluttishness of prosperity which attends entertainments of another order is, of course, out of the question; but the privilege of presenting the masterpieces of Shakespeare's genius is surely as great as that derived from paying a dividend of 35 per cent. to a set of shareholders in a limited liability company. But if I am unable to speak with authority as to the success or otherwise, which has attended the productions at other theatres, I can speak with authority in reference to those productions for which I have been myself responsible-if, indeed, it is permissible to call oneself as a witness to prove one's own case. For the moment modesty must give way to the exigencies of the situation.

In three years at Her Majesty's Theatre three Shakespearean productions have been given-viz., "Julius Cæsar," "King John" and "A Midsummer

Night's Dream;" and much, no doubt, as it will shock some people, I am not ashamed to say that for these productions I have tried to borrow from the arts and the sciences all that the arts and the sciences had to lend. And what has been the result? In London alone two hundred and forty-two thousand people witnessed "Julius Cæsar," over one hundred and seventy thousand came to see "King John," and nearly two hundred and twenty thousand were present during the run of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"-in all a grand total of six hundred and thirty-two thousand visitors to these three productions. And no doubt my brother managers who have catered for the public in this manner could, with the great successes that they have had, point to similar figures. I think, therefore, it is not too much to claim that the public taste clearly and undoubtedly-whether that taste be good or bad-lies in the direction of the method in which Shakespeare has been presented of late years by the chief metropolitan managers. My thesis is to prove that that taste is justified, and that the great mass of English theatre-goers are not to be stamped as fools and ignorants because they have shown a decided preference for contemporary methods.

I have endeavored to show what the public taste of to-day is. Before entering upon its defence, I shall put before you the case for the prosecution. Many able pens have been busy of late, and much valuable ink has been expended in assuring us that the modern method is a wrong method, and that Shakespeare can only be rescued from the slough into which he has fallen by a return to that primitive treatment which may be indicated in such stage instructions as "This is a forest," "This is a wall," "This is a youth," "This is a maiden," "This is a moon." The first count in the indictment, according to one distinguished writer, is that it is

the modern manager's "avowed intention to appeal to the spectator mainly through the eye." If that be so, then the manager is clearly at fault-but I am unacquainted with that manager. We are told that the manager nowadays will only produce those plays of Shakespeare which lend themselves to "ostentatious spectacle." If that be so, then the manager is clearly at faultbut I am still unacquainted with him. We are assured on the authority of this same writer, who I am sure would be incapable of deliberately arguing from false premises, that "in the most influential circles of the theatrical profession, it has become a commonplace to assert that Shakespearean drama cannot be successfully produced on the stage cannot be rendered tolerable to any large section of the play-going public-without a plethora of scenic spectacle and gorgeous costumes which the student regards as superfluous and inappropriate." If it be so, the unknown manager is once more at fault. We may, indeed, take him to be a vulgar rogue, who produces Shakespeare for the sole purpose of gain, and who does not hesitate to debauch the public taste in order to compass his sordid ends.

We are told that under the present system it is no longer possible for Shakespeare's plays to be acted constantly and in their variety, owing to the large sums of money which have to be expended, thus necessitating long runs. Of course, if a large number of Shakespeare's plays could follow each other without intermission, a very desirable state of things would be attained; but my contention is that no company of ordinary dimensions could possibly achieve this, either worthily or even satisfactorily. Leaving out of consideration, for the moment, all such questions as rehearsals of scenery and effects, it is impossible for one set of actors properly to prepare one play in the space of a few days, while they are

playing another at night. Those who have had any experience of rehearsing a Shakespearean drama in a serious way will bear me out that a week or a fortnight, or even a month, is insufficient to do the text anything like full justice. And even when attempts of this kind have been made, can it honestly be said that they have left any lasting impression upon the mind or the fancy? I contend that greater service for the true knowing of Shakespeare's works is rendered by the careful production of one of these plays than by the indifferent-or, as I believe it is now fashionably called, the "adequate"-representation of half a dozen of them. By deeply impressing an audience, and making their hearts throb to the beat of the poet's wand, by enthralling an audience by the magic of the actor who has the compelling power, we are enabled to give Shakespeare a wider appeal and a larger franchisesurely no mean achievement. Thousands witness him instead of hundreds; for his works are not only, or primarily, for the literary student; they are for the world at large. Indeed, there should be more joy over ninety-nine Philistines that are gained than over one elect that is preserved. I contend that not only is no service rendered to Shakespeare by an "adequate" representation, but that such performances are a disservice, in so far that a large proportion of the audience will receive from them an impression of dulness. And in all modesty it may be claimed that it is better to draw multitudes by doing Shakespeare in the way the public prefers, than to keep the theatre empty by only presenting him "adequately," as these counsels of imperfection would have us do.

I take it that the proper object of putting Shakespeare upon the stage is not only to provide an evening's amusement at the theatre, but also to give a stimulus to the further study of our

great poet's works. If performances, therefore, make but a fleeting impression during the moments that they are in action, and are forgotten as soon as the playhouse is quitted, the stimulus for diving deeper into other plays than those that we have witnessed must inevitably be wanting. For my own part, I admit that the long run has its disadvantages-that it tends (unless fought against) to automatic acting and to a lessening of enthusiasm, passion and imagination on the part of the actor; but what system is perfect? It is a regrettable fact that in all the affairs of life, whenever we strive for an abstract condition of things, we are apt to come into collision with the concrete wall which is built of human limitations-as many an idealist's battered head will testify. In making a choice, one can only elect that system which has the smallest number of drawbacks to its account. The argument that the liabilities involved nowadays in producing a Shakespearean play on the modern system are so heavy that few managers care to face them, and that, therefore, unless a change in such system takes place, Shakespeare will be banished from the London stage altogether -is, in my opinion, a fallacious one. Again I apologize for intruding the results of my own experience, but I feel bound to state-if only for the purpose of encouraging others to put Shakespeare on the stage as magnificently as they can afford-that no single one of my Shakespearean productions has been unattended by a substantial pecuniary reward.

I now come to deal with two charges which practically come under one head -the impeachment of the actor-manager. He is represented as being capable of every enormity, of every shameless infraction of every rule of dramatic art, provided only that he stands out from his fellows and obtains the giant share of notice and applause.

These two charges are: first, that the text is ruthlessly cut in order to give an unwarranted predominance to certain parts; and secondly, that the parts are not entrusted to actors capable of doing them justice. If these charges be true, the practice is a most reprehensible one. But are they true? Is it not rather the fact that the old star system has of late given way to all-round casts of a high level? I think the public taste and the practice of managers has been in this direction-a welcome change which has taken place during recent years. In regard to this cutting of the text, it is only fair to point out that the process to an extent is necessary in the present day. It would be impossible otherwise to bring most of Shakespeare's plays within the three hours' limit, which he himself has described as the proper traffic of the stage. In times gone by, when there was practically no scenery at all, when the public were satisfied to come to the playhouse and remain in their seats without moving from the beginning to the end of their performance (taking solid and liquid refreshment when it pleased them), a much lengthier play was possible than in these days; but to perform any single one of Shakespeare's plays without excision at all would be to court failure instead of success. To play, for example, the whole of "Hamlet" or "Antony and Cleopatra"-the two longest of Shakespeare's works-without a cut, would mean a stay of about five hours in the theatre. This would never be tolerated now, and the result of such a practice would be to empty the theatre instead of to fill it. Modern conditions of life obviously do not admit of such a system. Moreover, Shakespeare himself did not represent the entire play of "Hamlet," which was subjected to judicious cuts in his own time-and there is nothing to show that his dramas were ever performed in their printed

entirety. Take, for example, "Antony and Cleopatra." We have no evidence that it was ever played in Shakespeare's own time, but if it were, the loose construction of Act III, involving as it does the necessity of no less than eleven changes of scene, could hardly have fulfilled the ideal dramatic requirements of even those days.

Now, as to the constitution of the Shakespearean casts of the present day, it is asserted that the parts are not entrusted to the right exponents. With all respect, I submit that the public has the right to choose its own favorites; and surely the manager has the right to select his own company from the ranks of these favorites, rather than from the ranks of those whose practice -however useful-has been limited to the range of Shakespearean drama, and who have not yet gained their spurs in the wider field of our arduous calling; for the more varied his experience, the better equipped is the actor for the presentation of the essentially human characters of Shakespeare. If we follow the argument to the end, we are led to the conclusion that it is more satisfying to see the young lady who has but three years been emancipated from the high school, playing Ophelia and Lady Macbeth, Beatrice, Viola and Rosalind, than Miss Ellen Terry, Miss Mary Anderson, Miss Julia Neilson and other actresses of their proved talents and experience. I venture to think that the public is once more right. What is this clamor about the modern cast? Not to cite more modern instances, let us take the cast of "Henry VIII" at the Lyceum. Henry Irving as Wolsey, William Terriss as the King, Arthur Stirling as Cranmer, Forbes Robertson as Buckingham, Alfred Bishop as the Chamberlain, Ellen Terry as Queen Katharine, Mrs. Arthur Bourchier as Anne Boleyn and Miss La Thière as the Old Dame. How should we better this? That the chief parts

in

most Shakespearean productions are given to the star artists is not only the fault of the manager-the chief culprit was himself an author-actormanager. He wrote great parts, and great parts require great actors. Shakespeare and Adequacy! What a combination! Adequacy!

The last of the attacks against the modern method of mounting Shakespeare with which I propose to deal is the accusation that under the present system scenic embellishment is not simple and inexpensive or subordinate to the dramatic interest. To this I say, that worthily to represent Shakespeare the scenic embellishment should be as beautiful and costly as the subject of the drama seems to demand; that it should not be subordinate to, but rather harmonious with, the dramatic interest, like every other element of art introduced into the representationwhether those arts be of acting, painting, sculpture, music, or what not. The man who in his dramatic genius has made the nearest approach to Shakespeare is probably Wagner. Did Wagner regard his work as independent of the aids which his time gave him to complete the illusion of the spectator? No; he availed himself of all the effects which modern art could help him, no doubt saying to himself as Molière said, "Je prends mon bien où je le trouve." All these he enslaved in the service of the theatre. Wagner's works are primarily dramas heightened by the aid of music, of scenery, of atmosphere, of costumes, all gorgeous or simple as the situation requires. Stripped of these aids, would Wagner have the deep effect on audiences such as we have witnessed at Bayreuth? No! Every man should avail himself of the aids which his generation affords him. It is only the weakling who harks back to the methods of a by-gone generation. That painter is surely greater who sees nature-human and otherwise

-with the clear eyes of his own time rather than through the blurred spectacles of a by-gone age. Indeed, no man is great in any walk of life unless he is in the best sense of his time. A good workman does not quarrel with the tools his generation has given him, any more than a good general will reject the weapons of modern warfare on the ground that muzzle-loaders were "good enough" for his forefathers.

Having noticed what there is to be said against the modern stage, let us now see what the modern stage has to say for itself. I take it that the entire business of the stage is-Illusion. To gain this end all means are fair. Illusion is the first and last word of the stage; all that aids illusion is good, all that destroys illusion is bad. This simple law governs us-or should govern us. In that compound of all the arts which is the art of the modern theatre the sweet grace, of restraint is, of course, necessary, and the scenic embellishments should not overwhelm the dramatic interest-or the balance is upset-the illusion gone! This nice balance depends upon the tact of the presiding artist, and often the greatest illusion will be attained by the simplest means. For instance,,a race run off the stage and witnessed by an excited and interested crowd of actors will probably be more effective than one devised of cardboard horses jerking to the winning-post in the face of the audience. Is illusion destroyed by getting as near as we can to a picture of the real thing? Supposing that in the course of a play a scene is placed "Before a castle," and a reference is made in the dialogue to the presence of the castle, would it be disturbing to an audience's imagination to see that castle painted on the cloth? If it did so disturb an audience, then the castle would be out of place. That is to say, if the audience turned to one another and whispered, "That is a castle-how extraordinary!" that would

be breaking the illusion. Even more disturbing, however, would it be for the audience to turn to one another and to whisper, "But there ain't no castle!" It is quite conceivable that in former times a finely painted scene would have distracted the attention of the audience because it was unexpected-but now appropriate illustration is the normal condition of the theatre. I repeat that I can understand such writers as Hazlitt, Lamb and Emerson declaring that they preferred that Shakespeare should not be presented on the stage at all, for there is undoubtedly a tendency, in performances other than those of the first order, to destroy the illusion of the highly cultured; and I can conceive that such a one would say to himself, "Why undergo the unnecessary discomfort and expense of a visit to the theatre, when I can read my Shakespeare at ease in my armchair?" I can realize that a satisfactory result may be obtained by a number of ladies and gentlemen in ordinary attire playing before a green baize curtain, and reciting the verse without recourse to stage appointments of any kind, for the imagination would not be offended by inappropriate accessories. But I cannot admit a compromise between this primitive form of dramatic representation and that which obtains to-day. It must be a frank convention or an attempt at complete illusion. To illustrate this, suppose we have a scene which takes place in Athens; it would be better to have no scene at all than a view of the Marylebone Road.

But possibly the best means of justifying the modern method of putting Shakespeare upon the stage, and the public's liking of that method, is to demonstrate that in principle, at least, it departs in no way from the manner in which the dramatist himself indicated that his works should be presented. Let us call Shakespeare himself as a