More Portmanteau Plays. Stuart Walker
run" and to the "star" system is the ultimate solution of a most vexatious and perplexing problem—how to change the modern theater from an industry to an art. The disadvantages of the present mode of procedure are too evident to call for recapitulation; witness the results obtained. On the other hand there can be no question that there is a practicable and simple panacea in repertory; see what has been done by the Abbey company in Dublin, by Miss Horniman's players in Manchester, by the Scottish Repertory Theater, on a smaller scale, in Glasgow, by John Drinkwater's repertory theater in Birmingham, concerning which I have, unfortunately, no exact data, but which I understand is doing remarkable work with distinct success, and by the Portmanteau company in the United States. It would be well also to include Charles Frohman's season at the Duke of York's Repertory Theater in London; in fact the inclusion of this seventeen weeks' season would be inevitable. Where the experiment has failed it has failed for reasons which did not, in any way, shape or manner, invalidate the principle at stake. Thus, to cite the great example on our own side of the water, the New Theater was doomed to failure from the very start in the fact that it was born crippled. It may be restated to advantage, just here, that from the spring of 1916 to the spring of 1919, a period of three years, Mr. Walker has produced forty-eight plays, has given seventy-six weeks of repertory, and has had a nearly unbroken run of one hundred and four weeks with one play which has been commercially successful beyond the others. Of the forty-eight plays produced during this time eighteen had never been seen before on any stage; four were entirely new to America (except for a possible itinerant amateur performance); and twenty-six were revivals, modern, semi-modern, and classical. It is my belief that this record will take a creditable position in the history of American repertory. Abroad, however, its place is less secure, but even here the Portmanteau is by no means snowed under.
In the other great English speaking country there are four outstanding examples of repertory work, as has already been stated. On the Continent the situation is entirely different; there is no "problem" there, for the repertory theater has long been an established fact. France, in the Comedié-Française, and Germany, in several of her theaters before the war, merely provide us with a criterion. In Great Britain, however, and in America, we are in the process of building and adjusting, so that the examples of one will reasonably affect the other. At the risk of being misunderstood we shall pause long enough to call attention to the Irving Place Theatre,1 of New York, a German house supporting German plays, and attended very largely by a German clientele, but notwithstanding all this a repertory theater of standing, and of some distinction, from which we might learn several useful lessons. However, it is with the Anglo-American stage that we have to do at the moment.
Doubtless, first in importance comes the Abbey Theater Company of Dublin. From December, 1905, to December, 1912, there were produced at the Abbey Theater (I am unfortunately unable to include the several important tours made) seventy-four plays, of which seven were translations. Of the rest but few were revivals, as the history of the Irish literary movement will show. They were plays written especially for the theater, for particular audiences, and to achieve definite purpose as propaganda. Moreover, when the Abbey was tottering on the brink of failure, Miss Horniman came to the rescue with a substantial subsidy which enabled the theater not only to proceed, but finally to establish itself on a sound running basis. Mr. Walker's company has had to fight its own way from the very start.
In Manchester, Miss Horniman's own repertory company at the Midland Theater and finally at the Gaiety has been distinctly and brilliantly successful. In a period of a little more than two years there were produced fifty-five plays; twenty-eight new, seventeen revivals of modern English plays, five modern translations, and five classics. This is a repertory as well balanced as it is wide. In 1910, however, there was inaugurated the practise of producing each play for a run of one week, so that from that time on the theater was open to the criticism of being not a repertory in the fullest sense of the term, but a short run theater. But for that matter, I do not think that there is a repertory theater either in England or in America which fulfills the ideal conditions set down by William Archer who had in mind, as he wrote, the repertory theater of the Continent.
"When we speak of a repertory, we mean a number of plays always ready for performance, with nothing more than a 'run through' rehearsal, which, therefore, can be, and are, acted in such alternation that three, four or five different plays may be given in the course of a week. New plays are from time to time added to the repertory, and those of them which succeed may be performed fifty, seventy, a hundred times, or even more, in the course of one season; but no play is ever performed more than two or three times in uninterrupted succession."2
This applies exactly to the Comedié-Française, which, in the year 1909, presented one hundred and fifteen plays, eighteen of which were performed for the first time, the remainder being a part of the regular body of the repertory of that theater. In the first decade of the present century there were no less than two hundred and eighty-two plays added to the repertory of the Comedié. It may be of service to remember, however, that the Comedié-Française was established by royal decree in 1680. If the Globe Theater of Shakespeare's day had lived and prospered up to the present we might have an example to match that of France.
It is probable that if one were to use the phrase "repertory in America" the wise ones of the theater would raise their eye-brows stiffly and remark, "There is none." That would be nearly true, but not altogether so. It is my desire here to sketch in brief the early beginnings of what has been termed the "independent theater" movement,3 from which repertory in this country unquestionably grew, up to the time of the establishment of the "little theaters" which now dot the country, and into which movement that of the "independent theater" eventually merged.
In 1887 there was inaugurated by A. M. Palmer at the Madison Square Theater, of which he was manager at that time, a series of "author's matinées" which appear to have been in some sense try-outs for a possible repertory season. Only three plays were produced, however, before Mr. Palmer decided against the scheme as impracticable. It is interesting to note that these three plays were all by American authors—Howells, Matthews, and Lathrop. The attempt was actually not repertory in the strict sense, but it undoubtedly marks a tendency, slight, but evident, to incline in the right direction.
Some four years later, in the fall of 1891, a Mr. McDowell, son of General McDowell of Civil War fame, started the Theater of Arts and Letters with the idea of bringing literature and the drama into closer relationship. Five plays were produced, and among the names of the authors (again they were all natives) one finds several which have since become famous. Commercially, the venture was a total failure, and the authors did not even collect their full royalties. A short tour was made with several of the more successful plays, one by Clyde Fitch (a one-act which was afterwards expanded into The Moth and the Flame), one by Richard Harding Davis, and one by Brander Matthews. All three of these were one-act. American authors were willing enough to write plays, but they apparently could not succeed, except in isolated instances, in writing good ones. There was evidently an utter dearth of suitable material. Nevertheless, when foreign plays were put on no better fortune ensued, unless they represented the old school of pseudo melodrama, and farce adapted from the French and German, such as Augustin Daly delighted in. Daly too had discovered that to encourage the American playwright was to court disaster.
In 1897 The Criterion, a New York review of rather eccentric merit, endeavored to establish the Criterion Independent Theater modeled on the Théâtre-Libre of Antoine. A company was recruited, headed by E. J. Henley, and performances were given at first the Madison Square Theater, and then the Berkeley Lyceum. It was frankly intended that the appeal should be to a small, select audience, and, in spite of the jeers of the press, five plays were produced—one Norwegian, one Italian, one French, one Spanish, and one American. A glance through the list shows us that the American play, by Augustus Thomas, is the only one which has not since entered into the permanent literature of the stage. Internal differences, and imperfect rehearsals combined to overthrow the venture which, after one season, was abandoned. The success of the last production, however, El Gran Galeoto, inspired Mr. John Blair to produce Ibsen's Ghosts with Miss Mary Shaw at the
Since America's entrance in the War given over to the "movies."
Mr. John Palmer, in his book, "The Future of the Theater," gives the following as the programme for the then, 1913, projected National Theater. The war intervened, however, and the venture has been lost sight of for the moment. This statement is even more reasonable than that of Mr. Archer, for this is intended for practical use in England while his was merely taken from France.
"… it seems desirable to state that a repertory theater should be held to mean a theater able to present at least two different plays of full length at evening performances in each completed week during the annual season, and at least three different plays at evening performances and matinées taken together … and the number of plays presented in a year should not be less than twenty-five. A play of full length means a play occupying at least two-thirds of the whole time of any performance. But two two-act plays, or three one-act plays, composing a single programme, should, for the purposes of this statute, be reckoned as equivalent to a play of full length."
As Mr. Palmer remarks "this statute is both elastic and watertight."
See Appendix for complete repertories.