THE SILENT DRAMA.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 206, 28 August 1920, Page 17

THE SILENT DRAMA.

DUBIOUS OUTLOOK FOR THE SPOKEN WORD.-

(By "CYRANO."'

The best story about "the pictures" that I ever read or heard has the merit of being true, and the local interest ot having occurred in Auckland. A friend of mine was discussing the relative merits of screen and spoken drama with an Aucklander, who had seen "Hamlet" in pictures. "Of course," he said, "you miss the words —but what else do you miss?" It is as if a deaf man enjoyed Verbrugghen's orchestra. "Of course I miss the sounds—but what else do I miss?'' When a man talks like this, it is time to sit up and take notice. "Hamlet" without the Prince would be an interesting thing compared with "Hamlet" without the words. Yet all over the world millions of men, women and children are being educated in.a silent drama. From Sophocles to Rostand and Barrie the chief glory of the drama has been the spoken word, and now plays from which it is banished command an audience such as the world's masterpieces have never known. Words are the very life-blood of drama. Without them "Hamlet" is an Adelphi melodrama, and "Macbeth" sinks to the level of "The Face at the Window." You may say you get some of the words on the screen. So you dosome of them, but. unspoken, they arc bloodless things. "I have seen elaborate, costly ~'n- pictures of 'Macbeth' and Tlamlev, "th Tree in the one, Forbes Robertson fn the other." says one of the 'ending London dramatic critics, "and I ••an assert that of the qualities which •have made Shakespeare pre-eminent there was not so much as 1 per cen:." The ohlv Shakespearean play that 1 can remember having seen screened is "Romeo and Juliet."' and I should not put the amount of real Shakespeare in it at more than this percentage. "It is a i crreat sin to slay a fair thought'"—so this critic quotes from Ibsen. "VMicn I saw these two great Shakespearean films it seemed to mc that there was an attempt, unconscious, -no doubt, to slay fair thoughts."

Every p!av that is worth a copper as j a work of art must suffer on the screen. Drama depends for its art mainly on character building, and how can character be depicted without words? Vanished are the poetry of the lines, the subtlety of expression conveyed by word and voice, the wit and the humour. Where! is the golden voice of Bernhardt, and the marvellous elocution of Ellen Terry i which could charm you with the recital of a market report? The intellectual, moral, and emotional less is immense.; Tlie effect on taste as the years go by t may be deplorable. Personally, I think i it is so already. Is it stretching- a point • to connect the growing popularity of pie- j tures with the marked falling-off in the; number of good London plays that come' to Australasia? The change was notice-j able before the war, but our present outlook for English productions other than] the froth and dregs of musical comedy i seems darker than ever. Better things: would be brought out if producers thought they would pay, but would there not be a better chance of acceptance if public taste had not been swamped with picture plays? Put on a subtle modern comedy or drama in any] centre of New Zealand to-morrow, and | the probability is that the audience not' only will not be able to appreciate it. but will not know how to behave through it. I You will get laughter in the wrong places, and vulgar interruptions from the, gallery. People are not bein.g educated to sit in front of flesh and blood actors j and listen to dialogue, and in time the ! ,6ense of appreciation may wither away] from disuse. The trend of the times is shown by.the title under which one of the finest of modern Engl'sh complies is masquerading. When I saw the announcement of 'Male and Female," I passed it by as a vampire play—or, as' they say in the advertisementr. one ufi those strong elemental plays in which | the clash of the sexes is powerfully pour- • trayed—and great wag the shock "on dis- j covering that it was Barries "Admirable : Crichton." What other reason "could there be for the change than to appeal , to a class that likes this "elemental"! stuff, hot and strong? j

The picture theatre provides the world with a vast amount of entertainment, a great deal of which is. in itself. either innocent, instructive, or harmless. In the right hands it would be a great power for good. But its limitations are as potent as its power for.evil, and should be emphasised. When film kings (babble, as one of the great American producers did the other day. about the screen being "an overwhelming factor in the direction and- development of the thought of the world,"' When Jhey appeal, as he did. to "preat authors" not to "restrict the distribution of their works to the comparatively select circle of book lovers," really it is time to get up and try to break something. As entertainers these film men are bad endugh sometimes, but as patrons of art and guide's of taste ! Tlie screened play, says our London critic, "is of little use for the dissemination, less for the direction, and none for the development of thought." As for its influence for art, "if, on a give/i synopsis, the five writers named by Mr. Lasky, or any other five of similar standing, were to write a play or novel, there would be five works differing enormously, however faithful the authors were to the synopsis, "but the film producer would get the same film play out of each of the five works, and in the process eliminate the personality and the individual ideas of each of the Authors."