DOI Artikel:
Makower, Stanley V.: On the Art of Yvette Guilbert
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26392#0065
By Stanley V. Makower 61
in no sense a type of France, exercised in a department of art
peculiar to one side of Paris, should win unanimous applause from
every class of London society.
The crisis which the drama has reached in England and in
France is in some respects the same, but there is a point at which
the parallel ceases. In both countries the drama is corrupt, but
France with characteristic precocity is the first to teach the lesson.
It has said the last word about the drama of this generation in
providing the glorious impossibility of a Sarah Bernhardt. It is
on the great actress that has fallen the task of showing that drama
written and conceived from outside has reached its culminating
point in the latest manuscript plays from the pen of Victorien
Sardou. No one with a personality less splendid could have
proved that the history of the drama during this century has been
almost exclusively the history of an art entirely alien to that which
made Shakespeare a writer of plays. In England we have no
personality great enough to sum up the whole situation, and the
consequence is that we are still at the mercy of those who line the
pavement of the Haymarket with gold to witness u Trilby,” or
who pour with equal profusion to the doors of the St. James’ theatre
to see Mr. Alexander in “ The Prisoner of Zenda.” And all the
conscientious endeavours of Mr. Pinero and Mr. H. A. Jones fail
to stem the tide, for the very simple reason that they are neither
of them great men.
It is to Norway then that we have to look for the future welfare
of the drama, and whilst Henrik Ibsen has given a fresh impulse
to the literary minds of France and England, an impulse which
has as yet had insufficient time to translate itself to any appreciable
extent into the dramatic literature of these countries, there is a
temporary transference of the popular interest in England from
the Stage to the Music Hall, in France from the Stage to the
Cabaret
in no sense a type of France, exercised in a department of art
peculiar to one side of Paris, should win unanimous applause from
every class of London society.
The crisis which the drama has reached in England and in
France is in some respects the same, but there is a point at which
the parallel ceases. In both countries the drama is corrupt, but
France with characteristic precocity is the first to teach the lesson.
It has said the last word about the drama of this generation in
providing the glorious impossibility of a Sarah Bernhardt. It is
on the great actress that has fallen the task of showing that drama
written and conceived from outside has reached its culminating
point in the latest manuscript plays from the pen of Victorien
Sardou. No one with a personality less splendid could have
proved that the history of the drama during this century has been
almost exclusively the history of an art entirely alien to that which
made Shakespeare a writer of plays. In England we have no
personality great enough to sum up the whole situation, and the
consequence is that we are still at the mercy of those who line the
pavement of the Haymarket with gold to witness u Trilby,” or
who pour with equal profusion to the doors of the St. James’ theatre
to see Mr. Alexander in “ The Prisoner of Zenda.” And all the
conscientious endeavours of Mr. Pinero and Mr. H. A. Jones fail
to stem the tide, for the very simple reason that they are neither
of them great men.
It is to Norway then that we have to look for the future welfare
of the drama, and whilst Henrik Ibsen has given a fresh impulse
to the literary minds of France and England, an impulse which
has as yet had insufficient time to translate itself to any appreciable
extent into the dramatic literature of these countries, there is a
temporary transference of the popular interest in England from
the Stage to the Music Hall, in France from the Stage to the
Cabaret