Part 2 (1/2)

But if the four choruses in ”Henry V.” were intended by Shakespeare to denote act divisions, they are not so marked in the first folio; while ”The Tempest,” which may have been divided into acts by Shakespeare, has stage-directions which suggest that it was not written originally for representation in the public theatre, but for the Court.

It must also be remembered that of the plays wholly written by Shakespeare, with the one exception of ”The Tempest,” all are so constructed that characters who leave the stage at the end of an episode are never the first to reappear, a reappearance which would involve a short pause and an empty stage; nor, even, does a character who ends one of the acts marked in the folio ever begin the one that follows, as Ben Jonson directs shall be done in his tragedy of ”Seja.n.u.s” (1616). Can we reasonably suppose, then, that a method so consistently carried out by Shakespeare throughout all his plays respecting the exit and the re-entrance of characters was due to mere accident, and not to deliberate intention on the part of the dramatist? And in acted drama the exact position where a pause comes in the movement of the story is a matter of importance to the proper understanding of the play. Yet, in the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays the divisions made are so irrelevant to the story that Heminge and Condell may have considered them as merely ornamental. It may never have occurred to them that the divisions would some day be used as an authority for actors as well as for readers. The result has been disastrous to both. A slavish adherence by the actor to these unfortunate divisions for over two hundred years, has caused the representation of Shakespeare's plays on the stage to be in most cases unintelligent, if not almost unintelligible; while, on the other hand, it has for an equally long period been the means of misleading scholars as to Shakespeare's method of dramatic construction. Until editors ignore the acts and scenes in the folio edition of 1623 and take the form of the play as it appears in the quartos--that is, without divisions--no progress can be made with the study of Shakespeare's dramatic art. It is now more generally recognized, especially by American scholars, that the folio divisions are a real stumbling-block and must go overboard. In some of the early comedies, perhaps, pauses can be made where the acts are marked, in the folio, without serious injury to the representation, but the comedies were written to be acted without break, and gain immensely when so given. Besides, the lengths of the present divisions are absurdly unequal. The last act of ”Love's Labour's Lost” is more than twice the length of the first act, and nearly four times the length of the second and third acts. In a theatre, it should be the shortest act. Then, the ”Comedy of Errors” was acted as an after-supper interlude at Gray's Inn. Time there would not allow of its having four intervals. Throughout Shakespeare's early and middle periods his plays in their dramatic form of construction provide no opportunity for regular intervals, nor should they ever have been divided into five acts. To put more than one break into ”Romeo and Juliet,” ”The Merchant of Venice,”

”Macbeth,” ”King Lear,” ”Hamlet” (acting version) injures the drama.

Shakespeare rarely cares to draw breath until he has reached the crisis, nor should the reader be expected to do so. And to halt for talk and refreshments on the eve of a crisis is to play havoc with the story. The crisis comes in the ”Merchant of Venice” at that part of the play marked in the folio, Act III., Scene i. But it is almost impossible for an actor to be animated in a scene following an _entr'acte_. The story of Macready and the ladder is a well known instance. The pause, if any, should come after the scene and not before it.

It cannot be urged too often that Shakespeare invented his dramatic construction to suit his own particular stage. And but for the special conditions of his playhouse, Shakespearian drama could never have come into being; for Shakespeare's genius was not adapted to writing plays with intervals for music, as was done at Court. Unity of design was his aim.

”Scene individable” is his motto. The internal evidence of the plays themselves proves this.

Dr. Johnson, then, was right to contend that Shakespeare wrote his plays as they were first printed ”in one unbroken continuity,” but to infer that ”they ought now to be exhibited with short pauses interposed as often as the scene is changed, or any considerable time is required to pa.s.s,” shows that he failed to grasp the real object for which Shakespeare adopted the continuous movement. An Elizabethan audience was absorbed by the story of the play, and thought little about lapse of time or change of place. There was only one locality recognized, and that one was the platform, which projected to the centre of the auditorium, where the story was recited.

There was, besides, only one period, and that was ”now,” meaning the moment at which the events were being talked about or acted. All inconsistencies, then, that are apparent in the text, arising from change of place or break in the time, should be ignored in representing the play.

It is no advantage to rearrange the order of the scenes, or to lower the curtain, or to make a pause in the progress of the story in order to call attention to change of place or interval of time. Whatever information Shakespeare wished the audience to have on these matters, he put into the mouths of his characters, and he expected the audience to accept it without any questioning or further ill.u.s.tration by actual presentation.

Elizabethan folk-songs are sung without pausing between the verses; in this way attention is fixed on the story, and Shakespeare obtains the same result by dispensing with the empty stage.

Capell long ago pointed out the real difficulty, when he wrote in his preface: ”Neither can the representation be managed nor the order and thread of the fable be properly conceived by the reader till the question of acts and scenes be adjusted.” Unfortunately, Capell could prescribe no remedy. To this day these irregular divisions continue, and all our modern editions need reprinting and re-editing. One of the debts we owe to Shakespeare is to present his plays in their authentic form. This is due to him for what he was and for what he has done for us, as our greatest national poet and dramatist.

SOME MISTAKES OF THE ACTORS.

In Shakespeare's time the relations existing between the author and his actors were often strained. Those who interpreted the characters were blamed for more faults than their own, while the author, who was out of sight, had his reputation depending upon the skill of his interpreters.

The actors, besides, were the author's paymasters, and often gave less for a new play than they paid for a silk doublet, while at the same time they were the absolute owners of all the dramas they produced. It was natural, then, for authors to taunt the actors with being men who thrived by speaking words which ”better wits had framed.”

The hired player, however, fared no better than the authors, and it was only those actors who had the right to pool the theatre takings who became rich. Before Shakespeare was forty years of age, he was earning a competent income out of his shares in two playhouses. No other dramatist of his time occupied so fortunate a position, nor probably one more isolated. As a tradesman's son, brought up at a grammar school only, he would have no standing among scholars, and as a writer of plays he was the ”upstart crow,” taking the bread out of the mouths of those who had paid for a college education. Then the historical dramas which brought the Globe fame and fortune were not calculated to please at Court, because neither the Queen nor the n.o.bility cared to see their ancestors walking the public stages, unmasked, showing authority robbed of its sincerity and of its sanct.i.ty. Across the Thames stood the Blackfriars, where the children of the Chapel Royal, backed by royal favour, were rapidly becoming the attraction among the leaders of fas.h.i.+on and culture. These patrons upheld a cla.s.s of entertainment with which Shakespeare had no sympathy. So the master spirit of the Elizabethan drama, like Beethoven, withdrew from the crowd to work out his own destiny, and to perfect himself in an art that fascinated him, and for which his practical life in the theatre, and his independence, gave him exceptional opportunity for experiment. During his last ten years in London he wrote some dozen or more plays, all of them of supreme merit. That they were dramas far in advance of the requirements of the day is probable, since few of them were printed during the poet's lifetime. Some of them, perhaps, were acted ”not above once.” He had outgrown, indeed, the theatrical taste of the day, and now only cared for plays which were ”well digested in the scenes,” meaning well constructed. But this was an achievement which no dramatist of his time attempted, unless it was Ben Jonson, who wrote artificial comedy after the cla.s.sical models. Shakespeare, however, wanted the art of the theatre to imitate Nature, and he contrived to make speech and story appear natural; and, indeed, his contemporaries mistook this art for Nature, and thought it the work of an untutored mind and an unskilled hand. Even to-day many actors are under the impression that Shakespeare would have sanctioned as improvements the liberties now taken on the stage with his plays. Perhaps, also, his own fellow-actors failed to interpret his dramas entirely in accordance with his wishes; and yet his art is so vital and so vividly impressed on the printed page of the ”authentic copies” that there is little justification for misrepresenting it. There is an anecdote about Mrs. Siddons, to the effect that when again reading over the part of Lady Macbeth, after her retirement from the stage, she was amazed to find some new points in the character ”which had never struck her before”! A confession which would seem incredible were it not known how apt English actors are to base the study of their parts not on the text, but on stage traditions, which often are valueless, because unauthorized. Yet no actor should defend a conception of character which is shown to be at variance with the author's words.

The only copies of Shakespeare's plays which can with any authority be called acting-versions are the quartos, published during the poet's lifetime, and these are not acting-versions in the modern sense of the term, because, with the exception of textual errors, or abbreviations of dialogue, there is no shortening of the play by the omission of entire scenes or characters. The early quartos, with the notable exceptions of the 1599 ”Romeo and Juliet,” the 1604 ”Hamlet,” and the 1609 ”Troilus and Cressida,” have the appearance of being made up from actors' parts, or taken down by shorthand writers during performances. In consequence, they are less esteemed by the literary expert than are the plays as they appear printed in the first folio; yet to the actors they provide information which cannot be found elsewhere. That in some of these quartos the text is corrupt may be explained by the difficulty of taking down dialogue spoken rapidly from the stage, but at the same time it is unlikely that the note-takers went out of their way to describe any movement which they did not actually see carried out by the actors. From the t.i.tle-page of ”The Merchant of Venice” it is evident that the copyist saw the play acted differently from the way it is now acted. Take, for instance, the headline which is worded: ”The comicall Historie of the Merchant of Venice”; and the t.i.tle-page, which sets forth the ”extreme crueltie of Shylocke the Jewe towards the sayd Merchant, in cutting a just pound of his flesh, and the obtayning of Portia by the choyse of three chests.” These two stories, which are continued in alternate scenes throughout most of the play, were to the Elizabethans regarded as of equal importance. To-day the t.i.tle-page would have to be rewritten, and might run thus: ”The tragicall Historie of the Jewe of Venice, with the extreme injustice of Portia towards the sayd Jewe in denying him the right to cut a just pound of the Merchant's flesh, together with the obtayning of the rich heiress by the prodigal Ba.s.sanio.”

Over the Shylock controversy enough ink has been wasted without adding more, but the shortening of all the Portia scenes, and the omission of the Prince of Aragon, one of the three suitors, and one who provides excellent comedy, are indefensible mutilations.

The t.i.tle-page of the 1600 quarto of ”Henry V.” mentions Henry's ”battell fought at Agin Court, in France, togither with Auntient Pistoll.”

”Swaggering Pistoll,” like Falstaff, had become a delight to the town. The play is, in fact, not a ”chronicle history,” but a slice out of history, and not of well-made history either, since the evils of Henry's unjust wars are not touched upon. Then Shakespeare's King is an endless talker, while in reality he was the most silent of men. It was ostensibly a ”Jingo” play, written to open the Globe playhouse with a patriotic flourish of trumpets. Its object, besides, was to please those Londoners who had not forgotten 1588, when Englishmen faced a similar ordeal to that at Agincourt, and came out victorious, not because they had the means but the men. The interest of this drama, to the Elizabethan playgoer, depended on the knowledge that a handful of starved and ragged soldiers had won a decisive battle over an army which was its superior in numbers and equipment, and contained all the pride and chivalry of the French nation. And the stage-direction in the folio indicates the contrast thus: ”_Enter the King and his poore Souldiers_.” On the modern stage, however, this direction is ignored, though perhaps it has never been noticed. The whole evening is taken up by the evolutions of a handsome young prince, gorgeously dressed, and spotlessly clean, newly come from his military tailor, together with a large number of equally well-dressed and well-fed soldiers, who tramp after him on and off the stage, not a penny the worse for all the hards.h.i.+ps they are supposed to have encountered! Of the French episodes two are omitted and the rest mutilated, while no prominence is given to them, nor is the numerical superiority of the French indicated.

Nothing is seen of its army beyond the leaders and their one or two attendants, who are thrust into the contracted s.p.a.ce of a front scene.

This seems rather an upside down way to act the play!

Among the early quartos, the two most interesting to the actor are the first and second editions of ”Romeo and Juliet,” because they show how Shakespeare adapted his art to the stage of his time. From them it may be inferred that characters on the stage did not always retire from view when they had finished speaking their lines. This, perhaps, was a necessity due to the presence of spectators on the platform, who made, as it were, an outer ring round the forefront or acting part of the stage. Romeo therefore did not leave the stage in the balcony episode, where Juliet is made to call him back again. He merely retired to the side of the platform, among the gallants. When Romeo hears of his banishment, the direction to the Nurse is ”_Enter and Knocke_,” which means that she comes in at the door of the tiring-house and remains at one side of the stage, probably knocking the floor with her crutch. After three knocks there is again the direction ”_Enter_,” when, on hearing her cue, she moves from the side into the centre of the stage to join in the dialogue. In this same quarto she and not the Friar is directed to s.n.a.t.c.h the dagger from Romeo, an evidence that this so-called ”traditional-business,” still in use, is not of Shakespeare's time. Another stage-direction shows how characters denoted change of locality merely by walking round the inner stage. No doubt this ”business” was done to keep the spectators on the stage from chattering, which might easily happen whenever the actors left the forefront of the platform.

With regard to the first quarto of ”Hamlet,” and its probable history, something will be said later on. But it might be well here to call attention to the three stage-directions in this quarto, which have dropped out of all the subsequent editions, and which elucidate the context.

Ophelia, in her ”mad” scene, did not bring in flowers, but had a lute in her hands. There would be no need for the Queen so minutely to describe Ophelia's flowers at the time of her death if she had been previously seen with the garlands. The ghost, when in the Queen's chamber, wore a dressing-gown, not armour, probably the same gown he wore at the time of his death; Hamlet is overwhelmed with horror at this pitiful sight of his father. And Ophelia's body was followed to the grave by villagers and a solitary priest, who took no further part in the ceremony.

Elizabethan players had an advantage over modern actors in that they could more readily appreciate the construction of Shakespeare's plays. They knew that the dramatist's characters mutually supported each other within a definite dramatic structure, and that it was the business of the actor to preserve the author's framework. This att.i.tude towards the play grew naturally out of the conditions belonging to their theatre, for unless the plot were adhered to, confusion would have arisen in the matter of entrances and exits, causing the continuity of the movement to be interrupted.

After the Restoration, when the public theatres were reopened, the ”fable”

ceased to have the same importance attached to it by the actors, and attention became more and more centred on those characters which were good acting parts. In 1773 appeared a collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, ”As they are now performed at the Theatres Royal, Regulated from the Prompt Books of each House.” The volumes were dedicated to Garrick, whom Bell, the compiler, p.r.o.nounced to be ”the best ill.u.s.trator of, and the best living comment on, Shakespeare that ever has appeared or possibly ever will grace the British stage”; a statement which is qualified by the remark of Capell that ”Garrick spoke many speeches of Shakespeare as if he did not understand them.” Garrick, however, expresses his fear lest--

”the prunings, transpositions, or other alterations which in his province as a manager he had often found necessary to make or adopt with regard to the text, for the convenience of representation or accommodation to the powers and capacities of his performers, might be misconstrued into a critical presumption of offering to the _literati_ a reformed and more correct edition of our author's works; this being by no means his intention.”

The reader need only examine one of the plays in Bell's ”Companion to the Theatre” to understand Garrick's modesty as to his ”prunings.” Take the actor's stage-version of ”Macbeth”--one of Bell's notes states, ”This play, even amidst the fine sentiments it contains, would shrink before criticism did not Macbeth and his lady afford such uncommon scope for acting merit. Upon the whole, it is a fine drama with some gross blemishes.” Apparently the ”blemishes” are only found in those scenes where Macbeth or his wife do not appear, for Bell continues:

”The part of the porter is properly omitted....”

”The flat, uninteresting scene, between Lenox and another useless Lord, is properly omitted....”