IT is astonishing to me (who am a highly cultured English original dramatist, endowed with a fund of quiet humour of the very truest brand) that people of no originality whatever — mere executants of other people's ideas — should pose, and be permitted to pose, as if they were the people who had brought those ideas into existence. My profession (I am a highly original dramatist) brings, me into perpetual collision with a class of persons — actors and actresses — who, when they are re presenting my pieces, are indebted to me for every word they utter — that is to say, they would be if they did not frequently and most audaciously introduce jokes, sentiments, and even short scenes of their own. You would suppose that these people would look upon me with something like veneration, it not awe, as the Being who brings them into professional existence, who endows them with speech and action, and with out whom they would be as dumb and as helpless as Punch's puppets — unless, indeed, somebody else's piece were produced instead of mine, as no doubt it would be. Well, I am sorry and ashamed to say that the supposition would be an utterly mistaken one: they do not regard me with awe — they do not regard me with veneration, but they do regard me with a withering contempt, to which, as a highly original genius, I find it very difficult (but absolutely necessary) to submit. They systematically treat my work without any reference whatever to my wishes, but I am proud to say that they are unable, with all their efforts, to stamp out the inherent excellence of my conceptions, and my pieces are, as a rule, exceedingly successful.

I am in the habit of consecrating the fullest scope of this original genius of mine to the adaptation (I use the word for want of a better) of French plays. I may state that I have been in the habit of writing original versions of other people's plays from a very early age. At fifteen I had completed (under compulsion) a highly original version of the Eumenides, and I was told by a brutal pedagogue whom my genius had coerced into enthusiasm, that the author of the Greek version (I really forget his name) would never have recognised it. But the Eumenides was by no means my first attempt at original dramatic authorship, for I had already written (also under compulsion), a comedy called Eunuchus, and another called Phormio. It is, perhaps, only fair to mention that the Latin versions of these works, are ascribed to Publius Terentius Afer, a native of Carthage, who flourished about 150 years before the Christian era.

In dealing with a French play, I treat it precisely as Shakespeare treated an Italian novel. A mere translator would, of course, be fettered by the dialogue and incidents of the piece he was translating. This work I leave to hacks — that is to say, when I can afford to do so. It is good enough for them, and they are welcome to it unless, indeed, I am greatly pushed for money. When I am not greatly pushed for money I do exactly as Shakespeare would have done. I run over to Paris. I see a new French play — drama, comedy, or three-act farce. I place myself in communication with the authors (it generally takes three wretched Frenchmen about six months to write a play, which, I am proud to say, one sturdy British author can convert into an original English play in three days). I buy the right of conversion from them (the only respect in which I differ from Shakespeare, who got his subject matter without paying for it). I bring it to England, and in three or four days at the most (one day to an act) I have rendered it into what is, to all intents and purposes, an original play of my own.

In the first place I localise it. Say that the scene of the French play takes place at Trouville — well, I place it at Brighton, for, as I think I have already stated, I am no mere translator. If the hero of the French piece is M. Alphonse de la Croquemitaine, I call him Dick Trimmings, for I decline to be shackled. Then I proceed to deodorise and disinfect the French piece, for anything more disgusting than some of their dialogue and incidents cannot be conceived. In the French piece I probably find a lady of indifferent character. Such a person is, of course, quite out of place in a healthy English drama, and, moreover, my originality must have full play, so I change her into an actress — a standing grievance, by the way, with the. actresses who play in my pieces, who either cannot, or will not, recognise the implied compliment to their calling. Then, if in the French piece a married lady runs away with a gentleman who is not her husband, I reduce the enormity of the action to a minimum by allowing the gentleman to be accompanied by a deaf, dumb, and blind great-aunt, who has nothing to say, but who never leaves him on any consideration. In short, I completely reconstruct, re-write, and immeasurably improve the play; it becomes practically my play (for I have bought it), and I am, of course, justified in so describing it. It is so accepted by the audience, and by a large proportion of a discriminating press, who, if they refer to the French version at all, do so because they cannot otherwise pay a deserved compliment to the skill I have displayed in making it my own.

The piece is duly put into rehearsal. You would suppose that, as the creator of the play, my views upon the subject of its stage-management would be accepted with emphatic gratitude, and acted upon with unswerving fidelity. Not at all! I am lucky if I am even permitted to attend rehearsal. During rehearsal my proper place is upon the stage, instructing this actor and that actress how to speak their lines, how to move their hands, how to express this and that emotion, how to take entrances and exits, and, in short, exercising an intellectual and original control over everybody and everything. But am I there? Not at all. If I am permitted to attend rehearsal at all, I am told to sit quietly in a stall and not to interfere. I am allowed, perhaps, to take notes for future suggestions, which will be acted upon if the manager, the stage manager, and the actors and actresses concerned approve of them — which they are not in the habit of doing. If I venture to correct the light comedian, I (the author, mind you) am politely snubbed. If I attempt to show the leading lady how she should deal with her train, my instructions — the author's instructions — are received (if I am lucky) with a glare of indignant surprise. In short, I, the author of the play, am systematically sat down upon by everybody who can sit down at all. But I contrive to bear this, for my moment of triumph is at hand. When the curtain falls on the occasion of the first performance of my play, I am summoned to the footlights by an enthusiastic and delighted audience, who recognise me as the author of the play which has so enchanted them, and compliment me in unbounded terms upon the intellectual treat that I have provided for them. Shakespeare himself (on whom I have modelled myself) never received such rapturous applause.

We hear a great deal of the decline of the drama and the dearth of good actors and actresses. The former complaint is ridiculously unfounded — the latter is, unhappily, true enough. But if English actors and actresses would condescend to learn their art from original English dramatists, whose knowledge of the French language is, in itself, a guarantee that they are persons of culture whose opinion on any artistic point is well worth having, that reproach, at least, would be quickly wiped away.

DRAMATICUS.

Page modified 30 July 2020