HIGHER DRAMA.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1324, 30 December 1911, Page 9

HIGHER DRAMA.

Jlr Bernard Shaw spoke for an hour on "Tho Novelty of the New Drama" to numbers of tho "Times' Book Club tho other day. He could hove spoken much lon"er; but when His alloted hour was up "he slopped—in the middle of a font' Mice. Or, rather, he shattered what would have, been n sentence at the third word; and I'.vo minutes later lie w.as v.alkiii"' unconcernedly down Oxford Street." It was an enlertauue.e: hour. Mr. Shaw hist talked, and as usual the talk was full of wisdom, with an occasional puir of G.tt.K. because it was expected, anil a periodic extravagance lor the same reason. But one learn.', to look for the most serious Sliawisin on I lie he: Is of flippancy. Mr. Shaw administers jam iiN: and then the pill. . . . He began ivi'h tic genesis of Hie new drama in this country, and was not slow lo give honour to the man lie has ever so warmly championed— n>:»ii. I'nli] IHW). when Jhson firs! touched the English theatre, the nineteenth century had undergone two distinct phasre. Writers had at first regarded the century as the mo«t enlightened of> all centuries, ami talked of all others as the dark e.ges; then, in the second half of it, thev had changed lo the belief that it was the worst century that .had ever disgraced hUlnr.v. "With Hint," nieaniiiK tho latter theory, "I {arscly agree," said Mr. Shaw. \n<l the audHn'e lamrhcd. Whv was it. he asked, that iconic will say of Ibsen, Tolstoy, Granville Darker, or" Shaw that "he changed my whole lii's"? Thej would never say that of

Shakespeare or the earlier Dickens or any of the writers who camo betwecu. He could only suggest that the reason lay in the fact that while others pointed out little plague-spots (he had instanced tho Court of Chancery abuses iu "Bleak House"), they did sot fundamentally quarrel with'them.

"We all at present criticise and challenge modern civilisation," he asserted,

"and do not believo it is a matter of eradicating this or that plague-spot, mopping up the messes which other people have mado by selfishness and idleness, but that you must change the whole thing from baso upwards." There was a scrt of religion and of civilisation and of politics which we had to get rid of. "l'oii may think this is very anarchistic" (many of them probably did think so); "I'have nothing to do with that. I want to point out that this is at the bottom of the new drama and the new literature, aud that it is this which makes it new."

.Mr. Shaw proceeded to the technical novelty, and in so doing let the audience into one of the secrets of the later Shaw craftsmanship. This technical novelty, he said, had been staring people in the face from the beginning—"and yet the critics have not found it out." (Ho explained that he liked going for the critics.) "A Doll's House" was the first play to contain flic novelty. When that play, in the ordinary run of plays, had it been merely a "machine-made play," would have finished, there camo tho "discussion"—"a discussion which stood Europe on its head." So enormous was the success of tho innovation that it had £.inco become almost a standard feature.

Thero had been a teudency at first to imitate Ibsen—to place the discussion at the end of the play because Ibsen had so placed it. "John' Bull's Other Island" and "Major Barbara" were thus designed. But Mr. Shaw camo to the conclusion that it was a. pity to wasto such clever work upon a fatigued audience. '

"For tho first two or threo acts," ho said, "tho audience lauehed a great deal and were immensely delighted; and then, as. tho hours passed, they got so tired of. laughing that they could lau?h no longer, and when the curtain finally fell on the discussion you found a broken audience rising with immense difficulty from its seats and crawling painfully out of the theatre. That was the secret of my success! I had to make them suffer. They went out feeling they had enjoyed some return for their money.

. "But in 'The Doctor's Dilemma' and in 'Getting Married,' I had my discussion at tho beginning—when tho people were fresh. Both ways were equally successful. It then dawned upon us that wo should ■ spread the discussion over tho wholo play, and have the play of thought going along with the play of action, all through." Mr. Shaw claimed that after the theatre-goer had gone through his various stages, there remained no permanent attraction other than the play of thought. The first stage, he said, was that at which the Fairy Queen Was really a fairy queeu, and the policeman a real policeman. AVitli tho second stage, tho theatre-goer knew that a stage tree was not aetually a tree, and the old absolute illusion had gone. The chief fascination left was that exercised by favourite actors.

"What remains as the permanent attraction of the theatre? he asked. "What remains is the play, which will aehievo tho feat of getting hold of adults who have worn out the drama in its general acceptance." And the only solid basis, ho affirmed, was the play of thought,' plays that were not plays to tho critics, "more- discussion and less drama."