ECHOES OF THE PLAYHOUSE

I

CHAPTER I.

BY WAY OF PROLOGUE.

T seems startling, not to say amusingly paradoxical, to think that the English and American drama of to-day, upon which a well-meaning clergyman occasionally pours forth a torrent of righteous indignation, and not always without reason, is the logical development of that most religious of dramatic institutions, the Miracle Play. The far-away period when pious compositions were acted in England under the patronage of the church authorities, with the object of pointing a moral by illustrating the virtues, temptations, and martyrdom of the saints, was simply the forerunner of an age when playwrights would concern themselves very little as to the holy men and women of old, but a great deal about heroes and heroines who, in some instances, would prove as unsaintlike as the most exacting admirer of fin de siècle realism could desire. From the

ecclesiastical, mediæval atmosphere of the Miracles, and thence through a variety of transitions typified by the Morals, Allegories, Masks, and Interludes of Plantagenet times, the wonderful efforts of the Elizabethan authors, the brilliant but bad-tasting comedies of the Stuart Restoration, and the more or less sententious, artificial, yet occasionally delightful pieces of the Georgian era, is evolved what has been proudly spoken of as the nineteenth century drama. A strange compound, certainly, to come down to us from the days of cowled monk and princely bishop-a compound of good and bad, of fine plays and trash, of innocent "rural" productions, and unhealthy studies in crime, of thoughtful, sombre works, and of "farce-comedies" more appropriate to the circus ring than the footlights. These are the lineal descendants of so spiritual an

ancestor.

Without attempting to follow the researches of antiquarians as to the first appearance of Miracle Plays in England, it may be noted that they were given in London in the twelfth century, according to the testimony of William Fitzstephen, who refers, in his Life of Thomas à Becket, to the performance in the metropolis of "holy playes, representations of miracles, which holy confessors have wrought, or representations of torments." The subjects were not cheerful, from the standpoint of the modern theatre-goer, who has even been known to fall asleep over Shakespeare, but that they were popular in different parts of the kingdom is

BY WAY Of prologue. N

3

a matter of record. In Dunstable, for instance, a monk named Geoffrey superintended the presentation of a drama dealing with the life of St. Katherine, and evidently took upon himself the exacting duties of a stage manager. As a rule, however, such management was undertaken by laymen, the various trade guilds of important towns often being responsible for the proper introduction of the plays.

The performers generally appeared on movable scaffolds or stages placed in the open streets, or in the courtyard of an inn. Some of these scaffolds consisted of two compartments, one above the other, in the lower of which the dramatis persona were obliged to dress, and while the arrangement must have had its inconveniences, more particularly for the audience, the actors possibly fared as comfortably as they would have done in the average dressing-room of the American theatre. Our auditoriums are fitted up like palaces, but alas! how much more like hovels oftentimes seem the quarters on the other side of the proscenium.

The Miracles were seldom acted in England after the middle of the sixteenth century, although they were not absolutely unknown during the reign of James I. Their place had gradually been taken by Moralities, plays that mark a distinct advance in dramatic construction, and a purpose on the part of the authors to get away from the purely sacred nature of the preceeding works. The characters of the Moralities. were allegorical or symbolical, just as are those of

some pantomimic piece where Good and Evil, Avarice, Generosity, and other abstract personages are represented, although it need hardly be added that the comparison goes no further. The Devil figured importantly in these outgrowths of the old Miracles, and entertainingly as well, as he has continued to do, in different guises, through a variety of stage literature. Whether posing as an out-and-out Mephistopheles, with cloven foot and horns, or hiding under the stylish clothes of the elegantly-gloved, polished villain of melodrama, Satan has always rejoiced the heart of the playwriter, and hundreds of years from now, no doubt, his crushing defeat in the last act, through the instrumentality of the hero, will be received with every manifestation of delight. In the Moralities the Devil was so represented that he might create amusement, and probably actual merriment, among the spectators, so that he may have been a comedian rather than the cynical, but gentlemanly, Evil One of the Goethe type, or the majestic personage pictured by Milton. There was one writer of the time of Henry VI. who these plays as a work of this self-same Devil, for he cried out against the frequency of their performances, and set the pace for a host of agitators who have come after him, and to whom the existence of the stage seems one of the greatest evils of a world wherein they can at best see but little good.

evidently looked upon

Companies of strolling players had now become numerous, and as this "barnstorming " element increased