Salomé - A Tragedy in One Act. Oscar Wilde
for his finest work in a play he never admired and by a writer he cordially disliked. The motives are, of course, made to his hand, and never was there a more suitable material for that odd tangent art in which there are no tactile values. The amusing caricatures of Wilde which appear in the Frontispiece, "Enter Herodias" and "The Eyes of Herod," are the only pieces of vraisemblance in these exquisite designs. The colophon is a real masterpiece and a witty criticism of the play as well.
On the production of "Salomé" by the New Stage Club in May, 1905,[1] the dramatic critics again expressed themselves vehemently, vociferating their regrets that the play had been dragged from its obscurity. The obscure drama, however, had become for five years past part of the literature of Europe. It is performed regularly or intermittently in Holland, Sweden, Italy, France, and Russia, and it has been translated into every European language, including the Czech. It forms part of the repertoire of the German stage, where it is performed more often than any play by any English writer except Shakespeare. Owing, perhaps, to what I must call its obscure popularity in the continental theatres, Dr. Strauss was preparing his remarkable opera at the very moment when there appeared the criticisms to which I refer, and since the production of the opera in Dresden in December, 1905, English musical journalists and correspondents always refer to the work as founded on Wilde's drama. That is the only way in which they can evade an awkward truth—a palpable contravention to their own wishes and theories. The music, however, has been set to the actual words of "Salomé" in Madame Hedwig Lachmann's admirable translation. The words have not been transfigured into ordinary operatic nonsense to suit the score, or the susceptibilities of the English people. I observe that admirers of Dr. Strauss are a little mortified that the great master should have found an occasion for composition in a play which they long ago consigned to oblivion and the shambles of Aubrey Beardsley. Wilde himself, in a rhetorical period, seems to have contemplated the possibility of his prose drama for a musical theme. In "De Profundis" he says: "The refrains, whose recurring motifs make 'Salomé' so like a piece of music, and bind it together as a ballad."
He was still incarcerated in 1896, when Mons. Luigne Poë produced the play for the first time at the Théâtre Libre in Paris, with Lina Muntz in the title role. A rather pathetic reference to this occasion occurs in a letter Wilde wrote to me from Reading:—
"Please say how gratified I was at the performance of my play, and have my thanks conveyed to Luigne Poë. It is something that at a time of disgrace and shame I should still be regarded as an artist. I wish I could feel more pleasure, but I seem dead to all emotions except those of anguish and despair. However, please let Luigne Poë know that I am sensible of the honour he has done me. He is a poet himself. Write to me in answer to this, and try and see what Lemaitre, Bauer, and Sarcey said of 'Salomé.'"
The bias of personal friendship precludes me from praising or defending "Salomé," even if it were necessary to do so. Nothing I might say would add to the reputation of its detractors. Its sources are obvious; particularly Flaubert and Maeterlinck, in whose peculiar and original style it is an essay. A critic, for whom I have a greater regard than many of his contemporaries, says that "Salomé" is only a catalogue; but a catalogue can be intensely dramatic, as we know when the performance takes place at Christie's; few plays are more exciting than an auction in King Street when the stars are fighting for Sisera.
It has been remarked that Wilde confuses Herod the Great (Mat. xi. 1), Herod Antipas (Mat. xiv. 3), and Herod Agrippa (Acts xiii), but the confusion is intentional, as in mediæval mystery plays Herod is taken for a type, not an historical character, and the criticism is about as valuable as that of people who laboriously point out the anachronisms in Beardsley's designs. With reference to the charge of plagiarism brought against "Salomé" and its author, I venture to mention a personal recollection.
Wilde complained to me one day that someone in a well-known novel had stolen an idea of his. I pleaded in defence of the culprit that Wilde himself was a fearless literary thief. "My dear fellow," he said, with his usual drawling emphasis, "when I see a monstrous tulip with four wonderful petals in someone else's garden, I am impelled to grow a monstrous tulip with five wonderful petals, but that is no reason why someone should grow a tulip with only three petals." THAT WAS OSCAR WILDE.
Robert Ross.
1 A more recent performance of "Salomé" (1906), by the Literary Theatre Club, has again produced an ebullition of rancour and deliberate misrepresentation on the part of the dramatic critics, the majority of whom are anxious to parade their ignorance of the continental stage. The production was remarkable on account of the beautiful dresses and mounting, for which Mr. Charles Ricketts was responsible, and the marvellous impersonation of Herod by Mr. Robert Farquharson. Wilde used to say that "Salomé" was a mirror in which everyone could see himself. The artist, art; the dull, dulness; the vulgar, vulgarity.
NEW STAGE CLUB
Cast of the Performance of "Salomé,"
represented in England for the first time.
May 10th and 13th 1905.
A YOUNG SYRIAN CAPTAIN, Mr. Herbert Alexander.
PAGE OF HERODIAS, Mrs. Gwendolenbishop.
FIRST SOLDIER, Mr. Charles Gee.
SECOND SOLDIER, Mr. Ralph De Rohan.
CAPPADOCIAN, Mr. Charles Dalmon.
JOKANAAN, Mr. Vincent Nello.
NAAMAN, THE EXECUTIONER, Mr. W. Evelyn Osborn.
SALOMÉ, Miss Millicent Murby.
SLAVE, Miss Carrie Keith.
HEROD, Mr. Robert Farquharson.
HERODIAS, Miss Louise Salom.
TIGELLINUS, Mr. C.l. Delph.
SLAVE, Miss Stansfeld.
FIRST JEW, Mr. F. Stanley Smith.
SECOND JEW, Mr. Bernhard Smith.
THIRD JEW, Mr. John Bate.
FOURTH JEW, Stephen Bagehot
FIFTH JEW, Frederick Lawrence.
ACT ONE
SCENE —
The Great Terrace Outside the Palace.
SCENE—A great terrace in the Palace of Herod, set above the banqueting-hall. Some soldiers are leaning over the balcony. To the right there is a gigantic staircase, to the left, at the back, an old cistern surrounded by a wall of green bronze. Moonlight.
THE YOUNG SYRIAN. How beautiful is the Princess Salomé to-night!
THE PAGE OF HERODIAS. Look at the moon! How strange the moon seems! She is like a woman rising from a tomb. She is like a dead woman. You would fancy she was looking for dead things.
THE YOUNG SYRIAN. She has a strange look. She is like a little princess who wears a yellow veil, and whose feet are of silver. She is like a princess who has little white doves for feet. You would fancy she was dancing.
THE PAGE OF HERODIAS. She is like a woman who is dead. She moves very slowly.
[Noise in the banqueting-hall.]
FIRST SOLDIER. What an uproar! Who are those wild beasts howling?
SECOND SOLDIER. The Jews. They are always like that. They are disputing about their religion.
FIRST SOLDIER. Why do they dispute about their religion?
SECOND SOLDIER. I cannot tell. They are always doing it. The Pharisees, for instance, say that there are angels, and the Sadducees declare that angels do not exist.
FIRST SOLDIER. I think it is ridiculous to dispute about such things.
THE