MISCELLANEOUS PAMPHLET SERIES 
 
 Number Three 
 
 January, 1908 
 
 THE LEADERSHIP 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 BY 
 
 ALLEN DAVENPORT 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 STAGE AFFAIRS IN AMERICA TODAY' 
 
 (The Theatre at the beginning of the Twentieth Century) 
 
 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 P. O. BOX 134I 
 
 TEN CENTS PER COPY 
 
|U6RARY«f 
 
 ■ Two Copies 
 
 cuss4 'XXc H 
 
 Contents of 
 "Stage Affairs in America Today.'' 
 
 I. The Playwright: the vital importance of his com- 
 mission. 
 II. The Business Manager: his true mission. 
 
 III. The Actor: the quality of his .importance. 
 
 IV. The Stage Manager: his decaying power. 
 
 V. The Theatre Orchestra: its enforced protrusive obed- 
 ience. 
 VI. The Dramatic Critic: the rightful censor; but not 
 
 merely "by the courtesy of the theatre." 
 VII. The Vaudeville System: the morally illegal abuse of 
 its true meant significance. 
 VIII. The Prevailing Stock System; its practises a detri- 
 ment to art aim. 
 - IX. The Star System: its manifest condition generally 
 irrelevant to the consequences of its true meaning. 
 X. The Repertoire System : many compensations for its 
 marked decadency. 
 XI. The One Play Combination System: its advantages 
 for art accomplishment if wisely pursued. 
 XII. The Dramatic School: its futile results. 
 
 XIII. Acting: its tangibility as an art to be studied.' 
 
 XIV. Shakespeare: the future highest value of his plays to 
 
 the stage. , 
 
 XV. The New Theatre : a suggestion regarding the per- 
 manent exaltedness'of the stage. 
 
 "The Miscellaneous Pamphlet Series." 
 
 I. The Theatrical Independent Movements. 
 "•II. The Organized Theatre. 
 III. The Leadership of Shakespeare. 
 
 (Later numbers in preparation for publication.) 
 
 Copyright, 1908, by" Allen B. Davenport. 
 
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THE LEADERSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 In all great purposes we find a firmly settled, funda- 
 mental, basic principle; a simple formula for pro- 
 cedure. An unshaken law; the solicitation to some 
 stern belief. 
 
 The day is at hand, when in the theatre, personality, 
 talent, genius (or what you will), must become sub- 
 servient and amenable to the predominant virtues of 
 education and decorum. There can be no great theatre 
 otherwise. Even so, the former will find their own, 
 and be bettered a thousand fold by the test. 
 
 The theatres' enemies, its desecraters, mostly live 
 inside its walls. They possess therein no faith ; unless 
 it be a conceit of themselves. The theatre as an in- 
 stitution, bears no proper significance to them in their 
 wanton waste and abuse of its highest possibilities. 
 It is only a means to superficial existence and vanity. 
 When extravagance and presumptuous egotism de- 
 stroy the structure that they had hoped might satiate 
 their greed, there is nothing left. They think only to 
 build a new structure, not knowing nor caring what 
 it may contain. They pretend to adjust the theatre 
 to the vulgar understanding of what the public wants. 
 That is the shield to mask their purposed appeal to 
 the sensuous craving for careless entertainment. Shall 
 the theatre ever stand for anything higher, more dig- 
 
-2- 
 
 nified and potent ? Is it worth while ? Or shall it sink 
 lower into this blind understanding of what the public 
 wants ? 
 
 The theatre is capable of fulfilling a high mission; 
 of bestowing positive beneficence on communities 
 by imparting definite truths in the universal adoption 
 by its incumbents of a single belief; such an one as 
 the unshaken, superior law of its immortal leader, — 
 "to hold, as't were, the mirror up to nature; to show 
 virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the 
 very age and body of the time its form and pressure." 
 
 Any argument on the comparative beneficence to 
 mankind of the Church and the theatre in America 
 today, is hardly worth the discussion; to assert as 
 much would be to dangerously approach blasphemy. 
 The latter . is of like relation to the former as any 
 other industrial condition; the Church, through its 
 intellectual liberalism, having ever the same purposed 
 care in common regarding all kinds and conditions 
 existing in daily life. But this is not to gainsay that 
 the theatre, if it were loosed from the sordid hands 
 of irregular commercialism, illiteracy, and charlatanry, 
 might not fulfill a mission greater than does any in- 
 stitution save that of the' Church. 
 
 Maintaining for the moment this fact — that there 
 could exist a comparative beneficence to mankind in 
 the missions of these institutions, the Church and the 
 theatre — in thinking so, we will reason briefly on some 
 argument relative to the fact. It is necessary first to 
 impartially consider these vital two questions: — the 
 manifest designs of each institution, and — the evi- 
 denced honest and devoted endeavors of its separate 
 individuals to truly live up to the best understanding 
 of the highest development of such designs. 
 
The individual should have consummate belief in 
 the sincereness of the task undertaken. He must have 
 character, ability, and integrity, of course ; but without 
 belief in the honesty and worthiness of his work he 
 cannot truly apply to that labor his highest character, 
 greatest ability, and staunchest integrity. The play- 
 wright, the manager, and the actor must have belief 
 in the worthiness of the institution of which he is- a 
 vital part. Otherwise, he cannot apply his highest 
 character, ability and integrity towards properly 
 amusing, persuading, and uplifting the people to a 
 just acceptance of his intentions. 
 
 In which of these two walks of life, the pulpit and 
 the stage, consists, among its individuals generally, 
 the deepest knowledge of the true exactions and the 
 highest understanding of his vocation, — which posses- 
 ses the greatest belief? Every impulse, prejudice 
 even, and sense of loyalty presses me to answer — the 
 stage ! But I cannot with honesty so answer. 
 
 The clergyman may grow to some misgivings con- 
 cerning the special creed he has adopted, but never 
 in his belief of the church as a means to helpfulness 
 in our daily lives towards walking honestly, piously, 
 and morally in the midst of our fellow men; to offer 
 us the opportunity at least to embrace some sort of 
 religion. If there is often an insincereness, a hol- 
 lo wness perhaps in the ceremony that masks the sim- 
 plicity of its primal design, even so, such cannot of 
 necessity decry the individual in his unswerving belief 
 in the essential and predominant benedictions of the 
 Church. All clergymen believe in the Church. When 
 they cannot, they no longer remain in it. 
 
 It is not so with the playwright, the manager, the 
 actor. Few of them believe in the theatre regarding 
 its manifest high designs; but still they remain in it, 
 
even while scoffing. More than that many of them 
 ignorantly boast of an equality of service with the 
 Church that the theatre pays to mankind. 
 
 The Church is real ; the theatre must ever simulate. 
 In the pulpit sits sincerity ; on the stage, the dissembler. 
 Widely considered, mankind is more or less insincere, 
 hypocritical, and dissembling; it possesses much un- 
 reality. I am writing in a high sense; in the same 
 degree as we find the unscrupulous attorney, intel- 
 lectually, through cunning argument and seeming 
 honesty, overcoming the truths and facts of his oppo- 
 nent's reasoning, seeking to evade the laws rather 
 than secure submission to their authority. So with the 
 politician, the tradesman, and many others. That is 
 of. the actors' art. To that extent that such dissem- 
 blance becomes most highly educated and cultured, 
 even to that extent do its best exponents plan most 
 ably to artfully conceal such unreality, making it seem 
 real. ' • 
 
 It has always been, to a great extent, the predomi- 
 nant oratorical and dramatic gifts of the pulpiteer 
 which have most persuaded, convinced, entertained, 
 and — to speak plainly — filled the Church pews. And 
 this is irrespective of dogma, ceremonials, and differing 
 forms. It is often irrespective of the importance of 
 the subject matter of the sermon. In all these cases 
 the real trust is impressed through unreality. So 
 conducted from the pulpit it becomes illegitimate. It is 
 "often only the semblance of sincerity, sometimes seem- 
 ing to be the role of hypocrisy, and again, the voice 
 of the' dissembler. It is superior intellect balancing 
 unreality till it weighs even with reality. From the 
 stage this is legitimate; it is the honest practice of 
 the actor. 
 
-5- 
 
 The theatre must invite the mental cunning and dis- 
 semblance of these various great individuals, who, till 
 now, have sought an outlet for their superior intelli- 
 gence by means of other channels, — it is time now 
 to attract them to a reputable, dignified, and truly 
 respectable profession of the theatre where their prac- 
 tice, by the very honesty of its unreality, becomes un- 
 questionably the essence of legitimacy. But the in- 
 dividuals so practising must have sincere belief in the 
 high motive of their vocation. 
 
 We have come to the age of written sermons. The 
 pulpit is too limitable for the preacher today; he can- 
 not reach far enough from thereon. The theatre shall 
 hold him. That institution must deservedly transcend 
 to such necessity; its mission now lies there. A 
 greater purpose rests in this dawning universal Church, 
 this far reaching religion; and it shall be held alone 
 by the indestructible oneness of the Christ idea; in 
 the grand simplicity of his everlasting leadership. 
 
 But we cannot ever gainsay the necessity, the abso- 
 lute usefulness since the beginning, of all varying 
 creeds, dogmas, and mystical speculation to the steady 
 advancement of the Church. It was vitally essential 
 that all these great questions and problems should 
 be asked and solved, in order to bring us nearer to 
 the one common understanding. Then, what has ever 
 been the all-powerful factor pervading and determin- 
 ing these necessary, momentous contemplations? 
 Learning, the power of education. Its steadfastness 
 is all-needful now in the ultimate fixedness of the 
 universal Church. And so shall it be with the theatre ! 
 
 THE SHAKESPEARE IDEA. 
 
 In significantly securing the perpetuity of the theatre 
 through the leadership and fundamental teaching of 
 Shakespeare, it must not be thought that in the adop- 
 
-6- 
 
 tion of such an essential settlement, it would be to 
 the exclusion of a liberal and wise affiliation of the 
 worthy dramatic literature of all times. Quite the 
 reverse. We see in Shakespeare principally the form- 
 ula, the procedure, and the consummation of some 
 rational, tangible and catholic policy in the establish- 
 ment of a qualification for the profession of the theatre, 
 be that qualification whatsoever the wisdom of its 
 generators might provide. There would be a text- 
 book of sensible revision, and possible of continual 
 additions to meet, and make adaptable, the progres- 
 siveness of the hour. Our religion should not be the 
 worship of useless and cumbersome traditions. Shake- 
 speare's plays should be methodically instituted, and 
 made to ever remain a study in literature, dramatic 
 expression, and research. And, .overtowering all, 
 there should ever remain their spirit quality, the 
 Shakespeare idea, preserved in his immortal leadership. 
 The inspiration that transcends all others; but not to 
 their own special value. The established theatre of 
 Shakespeare ! 
 
 At the beginning, in the anticipation of the una- 
 voidable contentions which must arise when con- 
 fronted with a too literal interpretation of the Shake- 
 speare law, — "to hold, as't were, the mirror up to 
 nature," — let us bring at once to bear on the question, 
 the significant, all-important understanding of an 
 immortal leadership; then, we who would otherwise 
 lightly weigh in a common scale of understanding this 
 fundamental truth, must now correspondingly tran- 
 scend our translation to a much finer measure; one 
 truly commensurate with the loftiness and ideality with 
 which we should look upon and reverence such inspira- 
 tional immortality in leadership. In the theatre today, 
 many of its incumbents who are writing, producing, and 
 
-7- 
 
 exhibiting, think that they are truly "holding the mir- 
 ror up to nature," in that they ever seek in "realistic 
 effects," to mirror the ordinary commonplaceness in 
 life, through the exposition of incidents and persons 
 transplaced from the original sources from which such 
 ideas and characters were drawn. In this unstudied 
 understanding of Shakespeare's mission to the men 
 and women of the theatre, we see only a compromising 
 apology. 
 
 We cannot, with reason, believe that this great 
 leader, imbued with the highest knowledge of nature — 
 truth — meant nor taught that the mere commonplace- 
 ness of life should be photographically transplaced 
 to the environments of the theatre, regardless of the 
 conventions and licenses of art, and the unavoidable 
 unreality of setting in which must be artfully shown 
 the form and pressure of the very age and body of the 
 time, justly featuring and imaging their virtues and 
 scorns in the representation of the great truths of life. 
 
 Who can gainsay the interior existence and enforced 
 intention of these truths, whether they come garbed in 
 the exterior form of harsh reality, of sublime poetry, 
 of enchanting fantasy, or the ridiculousness of bur- 
 lesque? Throughout all of these we find the means 
 to the art of representing life. And throughout the 
 expanse of human life and thought, we find its consum- 
 mation in Shakespeare — the immortal leader. He has 
 delineated it in every variety of phase. It is seen 
 through the simplest diction, and in the sublimest 
 poetry; throughout are reflected the simple and great 
 truths of life. The quality of the mirror only may 
 change ; for it is now vulgar reality, now poetry, now 
 fantasy, and now farce. And as the moving char- 
 acters of daily life, in the mere external reflection of 
 themselves, that is, — in the exact and truthful copy 
 
-8- 
 
 of their forms, whether in beauty or in ugliness, — are 
 most clearly and pointedly seen in mirrors most art- 
 fully and consummately designed, and ever most de- 
 fectively and untruthfully revealed in the crude reality 
 of nature's offering, so shall the innermost great truths 
 of their lives, in their softest beauty and in their great- 
 est ugliness, find a more exact and truthful copy in 
 the most highly consummated mirror that shall hold 
 them up to nature. 
 
 It is an ungainsaying fact that the dramas that have 
 enforced with greatest effectualness the truths of life, 
 have ever been set in the unrealistic plan of poetry. 
 
 If we accord to Shakespeare an unmeasured tran- 
 scendency, we can find no contradiction in his works 
 to gainsay this fundamental law. A mind so supreme 
 would not be content with such inconsistency. We are 
 ever prone to theorize and speculate as to the thought 
 intention of some sublime stanza. Should we be too 
 hasty to preserve a literal exactness in our under- 
 standing of "to hold, as't were, the mirror up to 
 nature?' 1 As elsewhere, we should also here tran- 
 scend to the undeniable loftiness of the immortal 
 leadership. 
 
 The clergyman could not be who was unpossessed 
 of a fundamental knowledge of his work; if he were 
 ignorant and unlearned,— in truth, if he were not edu- 
 cated. How can the men and women of the theatre 
 claim any just relation regarding the equality of the . 
 -earnestness, devotion, and character of the mission 
 -they would fulfill, when the vast majority of their num- 
 bers — unrightfully professing and practicing an art, 
 and still clamoring for an equal recognition with the 
 Church as a beneficiary to mankind— when such I say, 
 have known no drudgery of preparation, and neither 
 respect nor recognize the necessity of academic train- 
 
-9- 
 
 ing and discipline in the preparation of an intellectual 
 pursuit — the vocation of acting ? 
 
 And finally what can so well exalt this intellectual 
 vocation, this dignified and potent profession of the 
 theatre, as an unshaken, genuine condition of belief 
 in the superior existence of an immortal leadership? 
 
 "I see all human wits 
 
 Are measured but a few ; 
 
 Unmeasured still my Shakespeare sits, 
 
 Lone as the blessed Jew." 
 We shall ever accept in this quatrain of Emerson's, 
 a substantial reasoning. Why should we not conse- 
 crate such immortal leadership to its rightful authority 
 in the theatre, that we may indeed, in simple truth, 
 ever be able "to hold, as't were, the mirror up to 
 nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her 
 own image, and the very age and body of the time 
 his form and pressure?" 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 
 
 Following this number of the Miscellaneous 
 Series, (but at no certain date), will appear in order 
 pamphlets concerning: — The Society of Actor, The 
 Order of Manager, and The Office of Playwright. 
 
 In the plan for an Organized Theatre, these essen- 
 tial elements should become in themselves individual 
 bodies, electing their own officers, and instituting their 
 own special rules and by-laws for the purposes of high 
 social development and self-improvement amongst their 
 individual incumbents.