Faksimile

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2. Cuttings
box 37/3
Wi i er 1 un I. Hn te., Gr glehte¬
But it is not on these theatres that
the onus of demoralisation lies. They
play Schiller (“ Die Räuber?'), Goethe
(Faust'). Lessing (“ Nathan der Weise''),
Grillparzer, and other classics in steady
Fregularitv, eked out by occasional Suder¬
mann, Hauptmann and Meyer Förster
(" Alt-Heidelberg*). Their work is sound
and innocnous.
It is the smaller and privatelv-owned
theatres that do all the harm. The cities
mainly responsible are Berlin, Leipzig,
Munich, and Hamburg. In each of these
places there are two or three theatres
which thrive night by night, month by
month, and year by year on the produc¬
tion of lewd, ill-written, unsavoury
pieces, appealing to the lowest intelli¬
gence, and having the same relation to
the real drama that the wretched, tor¬
tured" Art Nouveau“ has to pure design.
Some Examples.
One of the plays which has been per¬
formed with great success in many
theatres is“ Frühling’s Erwachen' (“The
Awakening of Spring'), which is im¬
pudently termed“ Eine Kindertragödie?
("A Children's Tragedy*). Another
play, Musik, treats of prison, a com¬
placent wife, and a blackguard husband,
who is not found out, but is complimented
for his courage and devotion. The samen
author’s Erdgeist ("The Spirit of
Earth') is another example of lubricity¬
and moral dirt. All three plays haven
been most successful.
A comedy, Zimmerherren? (“ Lod¬
gers'’), was forbidden by the police, butt
has been published and largely sold. The
play, Ledige Leute (“ Single Folk*)
has the merit of being a clever picture of
a certain section of Viennese“ fast'' life,
and although the subject would rightly
ensure its prohibition by our Censor, it is
in a certain sense a good play.
Arthur „Schnitzler is another play¬
wright whöse wirk 18 much appreciated,
and some of his plays have their good
points. Anatol,' for instance, is dis¬
tinetly original, but" Der Ruf des
Lebens (" The Call of Life?) lacks all
inspiration and subtlety; it is a bare tale
lof the breaking loose of an ill-regulated
and unrestrained passion, without any
redeeming imagination or poetry.
These plays sell in Germany by the
thousand. They are printed and puh¬
llished almost as soon as act d (som times,
lindeed, before presentation), and when
one sees that“ Frühling’s Erwachen' has
gone into its fifteenth edition, and other
plays are sold in their tenth and twelfth
thousand, one becomes alive to their per¬
nicions influence quite outside the mere
traffic of the boards.
If these plays had any literary merit,
any originality of conception, any evi¬
dence of a deftly-hidden morality therek
might be (andeven this is arguable) some
excuse for their existence. But thef
have one. Thev are impudently nahed,
unabashed, and unashamed.
Domestic Drama.
In a great measure this appallingly
rotten state of what may be termed the
domestic drama' reflects the current
morality of a certain section of German
socicty—a state of which something has
been learned by the foreign public
through the revelations of the Harden
trial. It is in a state of semi-hysteric
flux—a sort of moral neurosis; and the
shockingly wicked part of it is that men,
women, and children seem alike affected
by it, and if these dramatists are to be¬
believed, their Hedonistic depravitv ex¬
ceeds anything recorded in ancient times.
It must not be imagined that this pie¬
ture of the German stage applies to the
smaller provincial towns or the State¬
aided theatres. That is not the case.
But it is, nevertheless, a sign of the
times and further evidence, were such re¬
quired, of the low moral ebb of certaing
sections of the stage in Germany, one of
the worst phases of which is that therei
are not wanting those who aver that these
despicable plays are, in their way, works
of art.
F. S.