Our Common Country/Chapter 7

Whether one contemplates the present-day stage in deference to its part in art or its vast opportunities for educational work or its commercial importance, it is really a very significant factor in the activities, progress and attainment of our common country. I presume many had rather be estimated from the purely professional side as devotees of a very great and appealing art. It is very easy, on the other hand, for the practical mind to be impressed by the fact that the United States of America expends approximately one billion dollars per year for its amusement on the stage. Perhaps ​nothing more significantly reflects the changed condition of living or the ability of our people to indulge in those things which are counted a necessary part of the fuller modern life.

There is another phase, however, which is even more appealing to me. I do not in any way minimize my high regard for the great art involved in the splendid work of the spoken drama or the musical stage, but the coming of the silent drama has revealed to us an agency for education which no human being could have reasonably conceived a quarter of a century ago. We have no single avenue for the dissemination of information equal to that of the moving picture. I do not know that any one now has an approximate measure of the possibilities which may come. Pictures are very convincing things. I confess that sometimes the camera fools us more or less, but, as a general proposition, it is a very dependable agency of the ​truth, and it has the facility for conveying essential educational truths to the remotest parts of the world.

Nothing is more remarkable than the enlarged enjoyment of the drama through picture distribution. It is only a few years ago that the rural community saw very little of the drama and much of what it saw was not to be taken as a very creditable example of the best in dramatic art. Most artists have a very strong aversion to what is properly known as barnstorming, and really worth-while stage entertainment was a very rare thing in the rural communities. Many of us had examples of home production in which we yielded to a very natural inclination to act some part. This manifestation is one which we developed rather unconsciously from the earliest days in the public schools. The recitation or the declamation, so frequently employed by schooling youths and encouraged in every home, is ​only one of the early tendencies of the dramatic art.

I will not venture to recall my recollections of the amateur stage and the home production, or any part I had therein, but I do recall that out of the atmosphere of the small town stage has come many a star to illumine the theatrical world. It has seemed to me that there are two elemental essentials to the inauguration of a dramatic career: one is native talent and the other is opportunity for its development. With these, of course, must be ambition and determination, because there is no eminence attained in human life without these. It is befitting to recall that no actor or actress ever wrought an abiding triumph on any stage, without knowing the soul of the character enacted, and we Americans, to enact our part in the drama of world civilization, must know the soul of America, and play the part of real Americans.

​If it will not seem out of place, I want to convey one message to the associates in the various activities of the stage world. I think we have been making noble progress in the attainment of high quality and the elevation of standards. I would like the American stage to be like American citizenship, the best in all the world. I think the inspiration for success lies in ever lifting the standards higher and higher. It is extremely necessary to continue to elevate the standards of the silent drama, because we send the picture stage to all the people of the United States and it is of common concern that its influence must be the very best. I do not think a people can be fortunate with various standards of censorship. I presume censorship is very essential, but I do not think we require one standard for one locality and another standard for another. We must ever be on guard against debasement for momentary gain, on the ​one hand, and against narrow exaction which destroys the artistic merit of a production and the real lesson intended, on the other. However, there is nothing so essential to the highest art that it need be offensive to becoming public morals.

Without venturing to quote the very familiar reference to all the world as a stage, I have been thinking lately that there is a great likeness between political life under popular government and many of our most successful productions on the stage. Some of the most impressive plays I have ever witnessed have been those where all that interest is not riveted in the lead. For example, in the production of Julius Cæsar, which attracted the attention of much of the foremost talent of the stage, one great actor would choose to portray the character of Cassius, another may have elected to play the part of Brutus, still another thought to assume the rôle of Cæsar himself. The work of the ​lead was not transcendent, but the effectiveness of the play was dependent on the perfection with which every character was presented. To my mind it is the ideal spoken production where each one plays his part with soul and enthusiasm, no matter how insignificant the part may be, so that out of the grouped endeavor comes the perfect offering.

There is an element in every production quite as essential in the modern production as the acting caste, which must work with spirit and devotion and which the public never sees. I refer to the forces behind the scenes, who dress the picture for either spoken or silent drama. I do not assume to mention all elements essential to the modern stage, but I do want to remind the public that on the stage, as in life, are ever the faithful and the tireless without whom we could not accomplish, but who themselves rarely appear on the stage. Their applause must come in the ​soul of their work and the consciousness of things well done.

There are many plays especially written for notable stars and their presentation has depended on the work of one portraying genius. There is, of course, a fascination in the one-lead drama, but it makes the spectator very much dependent upon one individuality, and if the star should be incapacitated for any reason, there is inevitable disappointment. I think it is a very practical thing to suggest that our American popular government ought not to be a one-lead or a one-star drama of modern civilization. I want to commend the policy of each and every one having his part to play, and we all must play with enthusiasm in order to perfect the whole production. For the supreme offering, we need the all-star cast, presenting America to all the world.

Running over in my mind some of my recollections of the stage, I recall two ​plays, the production of which left an impress that I shall never forget, especially in their bearing on the present state of human affairs. In one, Forbes Robertson played the leading rôle—The Passing of the Third Floor Back. The Stranger in the play urged upon a discordant, suspicious boarding-house family, the gospel of simplicity and honesty and understanding. With a rare sympathy and great patience, and with wholesome good sense and a fine example in himself, he transformed the household and planted happiness where discord had flourished, and rended hypocrisy, and put an end to cheating, and drove snobbery out, and set the flowers of fellowship abloom. We need the lesson this Stranger taught, in our American lives and throughout the world. His was no radical teaching, his was not a highly dramatic or sensational example, there really was not a very striking "punch" in a thing that he said, but ​the Stranger was soothing and helpful and encouraging and uplifting, and he left sunshine where the shadows of gloom had darkened, and he did it all through sympathy and understanding. He uncovered reality and put pretense aside.

The other play was one of Mansfield's superb productions—Henry V, if my memory is correct. I particularly recall a camp scene on the night before a crucial battle, and as I recall it now the King put aside his regal garb, and clad as a simple soldier went among his armed forces to learn their feelings, their confidence, and their fears, and ascertained on terms of equality and intimacy, what a monarch might never have learned in any other way. And he found that the heart of his army was right. He asked concerning the morrow and he found the confidence of the rank and file to be the assurance of a King, and together they fought in triumph the next day.

​There is no kingship in this Republic, but thoughtful Americans are wondering about the morrow. Is our civilization secure? It is well to know what is in the hearts of men and women, who are gathered before the camp-fires of human progress. There is a memory of yesterday, the horizon of to-day, and the new hope of to-morrow. Every normal human being wishes for a better morrow than to-day. Every parent in America wishes for his son or daughter all that he inherited, and more. That is why humanity is ever an advancing procession.

But no sane man ever puts aside an assurance of experience for the promise of more experiment. The world can not be stabilized on dreams, but can be steadied by evident truths. It is perfectly normal humanity which delights in a new sensation. One can only pity a people which becomes blasé. It is better to be simple than surfeited. The new thrill is ​sought on the stage and is sought everywhere in human life. Some of our people lately have been wishing to become "citizens of the world." Not so long since I met a fine elderly daughter of Virginia, who would have been justified in boasting her origin in the Old Dominion and uttering her American pride, but I was shocked to hear her say, "I am no longer an American, I am a citizen of the world." Frankly, I am not so universal, I rejoice to be an American and love the name, the land, the people and the flag.