GILBERT AND SHAW

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 71, 21 September 1936, Page 7

GILBERT AND SHAW

MEANING TO THEATRE'

SIGNIFICANCE TODAY

la Bernard Shaw Sir William Gilbert may have bad one of bis severest critics, says a writer in the Melbourne "Age." But the two dramatists bad something m common, which, as it reflects upon the present condition of the Australian theatre, is of vital interest. Gilbert, in the words of 'William Archer, "restored the literary sen-respect of'the Kngiisn stage." tie baa succeeded wata "'.trial uy Jury," in collaooration. with Sullivan, and experienced nerve squalls with the run of "The . {sorcerer."' But" he set tp work on the scenario or' "H.M.b^ Pinafore" and. sent U to the composer in .Paris. Then when rehearsals .began Gilbert set about eniorcihg those methods of production \vhich, if they made his name a byword in the profession of that day, gradually revolutionised the art of dramatic .presentation. From T. Vv. Kobertson, the author of "Caste," and his colleagues on the publication •\fc!un,". he' bad learned mat the wboie is greater than the part in drama. Regarding his libretti as a composer regards a symphony, which can b« wrecked by the playing of false notes, he determined from the outset to - achieve perfect. harmony from his orchestra of actors. it is told of the Savoy dramatist that for hour after hour before rehearsals began he would sit at his desk with replicas of the scenes on a scale of half an inch to a. foot, with blocks of wood tHree inches high representing the male characters, twp and a half inches high representing . the female players, and work out every; detail of the production. THAW'S, BEGINNING. iMJCi Shaw entered the; English theatre: as a playwright (Gilbert detested this word) with his "Widowers' Houses, " ambitious to make what was then called fancifully the "New Drama" something of permanent value. Plays o£ the day, he said, had been written for the theatre instead of from their own inner necessity. It was the drama that made the theatre and not the theatre the drama. 1 ' Ibsen was marking a new departure in the theatre. The first really effective blow in the new drama, Shaw has declared, was struck with the production ■of "A Doll's House" by Charles Charrington and Janet Achurch. They, took this play round the world, staging it iii Melbourne and Sydney. Mr. J. T. Grein followed up the campaign in London, ■■■ with his Independent Theatre. This theatre found its feet with a production of Ibsen's "Ghosts," but by 1892 it bad not produced a single original piece of any magnitude by an English author. "In this humiliating national ~ emergency," Shaw recalled, "I wrote to, Mr. Grein that he should boldly announce a play by me. Being an extraordinarily sanguine; and enterprising, man, he took this step without hesitation. I then raked out, from my dustiest pile of discarded and rejected manuscripts, two acts of a play I had begun in 1385.. Shortly after the close of my novelwriting period, in collaboration with. my friend William Archer, and .completed it with a third act Though I took my theme seriously enough, £ did not then take the theatre quite seriously, even in, taking it more seriously than it took itself." PROVOKED UPROAR. "Widowers' Houses,' aisioitea from its original -scheme into, a grotesquely realistic expose of slum landlordism, municipal jobbery, etc., was launched by Mr. Grein at the Royalty, Theatre on' December 9, 1892. It did not achieve success, but the play provoked an uproar. Shaw followed it with "Tbe Philanderer" in .1893; before "Mrs. Warren's Profession" brought him iv to conflict with the censor. He decided that though the stage was barred, the ■ Press was free, and published his plays. This marked a new departure in the drama. It is true the Elizabethan and Restoration dramatists ptibhshed thenplays, usually after than' before, their production, but hardly ever independently of it The printing and reading of plays, quite apart from the theatre, has now become common practice for the first time. There are some dangers in this development, as John Drinkwater has pointed out But let Mr. Shaw state his case. Even if the stage were tree entirely, he has written, it would none the less be necessary to publish plays as well :as perform' them. -If "Widowers' Houses" had run for fifty instead o£ two performances, it would still have remained unknown to those who dwell out of reach of the theatre. Shakespeare holds his own in the theatre, but Garrick's conviction that the manager and actor must adapt his plays to the modern stage has persisted. Happily, some of the younger actor-mana-gers have performed Shakespeare's plays as he wrote them, "instead of using them as a cuckoo uses a sparrow's nest." The living author cans protect himself against this extremity, of misrepresentation. STAGE DIRECTIONS. Of Shakespeare's plays, not even complete prompt copies are available. "What would we not give," asks Shaw, "tori the copy of 'Hamlet' used by Shakespeare in rehearsal, with the Original stage business scrawled by tbe prompter's pencil?" Stage directions and hints as to the characters are, in the view of the author of "Saint Joan" and "Candida," needed more in the staging of modern plays than ever before. There js food for thought in these assertions by dramatists of their place in the theatre. The operas of Gilbert and Sullivan are reviving successfully on the stage in London, New York, and Melbourne. Mr. Shaw is celebrating his 80th birthday at Sir Barry Jackson's Malvern Festival in England. Never at any period in drama and music has the appeal o£ the past been so marked as at present. It would seem that we are recognising, before it is too late, the strength and vitality of a universal continuity iv things of artistic creation. The inherent quality of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera is found in tha fact that the greater your knowledge of the literary script, the more complete is its appeal. In a hundred years' time plays of the modern theatre will be available for reference. Is not this the present generation's method of assuring permanence in the drama of tradition? Nuvolari, the Italian racing driver, recently won the 16th Ciano Cup at Leghorn, driving an Alfa-Romeo car at an average speed of 75.23 m.p.h.